#her question mark is also tied with her death like she ended up as a missing person so like

[aria0fgold]

my shinigami cant be this cute

i got lazy... i was supposed to draw uni, meido, and abbi beside him but laziness striked so text it is.

also a lil more info about the shinigamis cuz i got attached to the shinigami part of the au and now have information that wont be known in the story so have at thee!

Black and white shinigami! Although they have a human form which also changes the colour of their outfits too. Though it doesn't change Omori's outfit much. (aside from the paw pads and inner ears of the cat hood turning pink + red ribbon)

All shinigamis have pitch black eyes. A shinigami can choose any pattern they want that can look like their pupils, much like with the diamond pattern on Omori's eyes. (Meido has heart patterns for her.)

Shinigamis won't have any memories of when they were alive.

Shinigamis have death marks! It'll usually appear as a black patch on their body.

Omori's death mark is at the center of his stomach.

Meido's death mark are lines on her neck that she hides using a choker.

Uni's death mark is practically his entire head.

Abbi's death mark isn't visible on her body in the same way. Her hair is always dripping wet. (She still has the question mark here as well.)

When a shinigami has departed, (which usually means they got "fired" in a sense) the number they have is passed on to an unassigned shinigami to keep consistency of the numbering.

The number of times a codename has been passed on is the letter before the number. In Omori's case, it'll be 3 times. (A codename that hasn't been passed on will just have the number with no letter.)

Abbi was A-104, Meido is D-130, Uni is 109 (Uni is the oldest of them with Meido being the 2nd oldest although Abbi took on the caretaker role when she was around.)

[usetheeauthor]

I’d Stop The World… (+18 MDNI)

Sub!Arisu Ryohei x Plus!Touch-Starved!Reader

Summary: After nearly losing your friend, Arisu, during the witch hunt game and experiencing the King of Spades, you realize the fragility of life and just how important he is to you.

NO READ MORE LINE BREAK ADDED DUE TO GLITCH

A/N: Wrote this because there just isn’t enough Arisu fics and my boy deserves some lovin’

Word Count: 3.8k words

Warnings: spit kink, dirty talk, doggystyle, scratching, biting, crying during and after sex, squirting, creampie, using underwear as gag, cum eating, if you squint ass worship/body worship, body hair kink, multiple orgasms, existentialism, mentions of violence, graphic language, talks of death and impending sense of doom, depression, markings/hickies, hair pulling, oral (m & f recieving), fingering, choking, hand kink/finger sucking, size kink (reader likes how small Arisu is despite him being really tall)

You wondered how it got to this point. How did you end up in a place where you constantly had to fight for your life? A place far from home. Not even existing in your normal universe.

You remember wanting to get away from all of your problems back in America, a year ago. You ended up moving to Japan. Being a city girl, you didn’t think much of the difference in perspective aside from the language. Luckily for you, your mother was a teacher who’d taught English in Japan so you were pretty familiar here.

You mostly kept to yourself, no friends in question. Just how you intended it. All you wished was for a peaceful life. Something you felt hadn’t been granted to you ever since your father lost his battle with depression and your mother developed early dementia. Believing she was too far gone, you’d left. Leaving only a phone number on file to the nurse back home only in the case of emergency. You never visited your mother since.

Now…all you wanted was to visit her. To hold her. To tell her you were sorry for leaving. Her nurse is probably calling you now. Maybe even your friends and family have called you as well. But you’ve pushed them away and you have no way of letting them know that you’re lost in the borderlands with no idea whether you’d be able to get back home.

Along the way, you met countless others who’ve been forced to play the games, too. Countless lives lost. It was enough to wear you down.

But then you met the courageous, intelligent, and inspiring Arisu Ryohei. When you wished to die on the “distance” biking challenge, he encouraged you to love in hopes you’d one day see your mother again. That was your motivation.

However, the closer you got, you realized just how much he meant to you as well. You wanted nothing more than to leave the games with him and start a fresh life together. Maybe even introduce him to your mother.

Then, the night of the Witch Hunt came around. People frantically trying to win the game to proceed and retrieve the Ten of Hearts card. You learned that Arisu’s visa would soon expire at midnight but he’d been tied up somewhere around the hotel. With the help of some players, you were able to save him. Only for Aguni and his goons to continue to attack Arisu nearly beating him to a pulp. Now present day comes around and you’ve made it to the King of Spades level in which he’s mindlessly killing people. An absolute massacre.

The fragility of your mortality comes into question. You’ve met so many great people who you’ve come to know as friends. Usagi, Kuina, Chishiya, Ann…Arisu. People who’ve taught you how to let people in again after building walls for so long. Now you’re at risk of losing them all and never seeing your mother again.

You needed to confess your feelings for Arisu if tomorrow’s your last day. This meant regardless of whether those feelings are returned. Obviously, you sensed that Arisu had feelings for Usagi as he also has a close friendship with her.

“Are you okay?” Arisu asks, snapping you from your panicking thoughts.

The group has separated in pairs, currently searching for supplies to bring to a safe house (abandoned hotel) far from any of the hot zones.

“Mhm.” You simply say, nodding.

“You seem tense…which is fair. We are being chased by a madman with sub machine guns,” He says with a small smile. You give no reaction, continuing to search through the ruins of the convienence store.“Seriously, what’s wrong?”

You sigh. “If I tell you, it’ll make things different between us.”

“I thought we were friends. Nothing could possibly change between us.”

But that’s exactly what I want!

“Okay, I will tell you,” You began. “But I have some rules.”

“And they are…”

“Number one: don’t interrupt.”

“But—”

“Shhh, I said ‘don’t interrupt’. Number two: When I say what I have to say, you don’t have to answer me. At least not yet. You can tell me some other time later just not now.”

“O…kay.”

You inhaled and exhaled deeply, eyes squeezed shit before opening them once again. “Arisu…I…I like you. Like a lot. I long to touch you and hold you. To kiss you. I feel like I’m alive when I see that you’re okay. I’ve been thinking of my motivations for keeping alive. I wish to see my mother again but also I wish for a life where I can be with you and things would be normal. I wish for all our friends to be alive and well. I wanted to let you all of this before it’s too late. When I thought I nearly lost you at the Beach, I felt so sick and lost. I realized that I just couldn’t bear the thought of not having you. You make me feel less alone. I don’t want to go out with so many regrets when I could’ve said something while I can. I release this truth for a lighter conscience. So in case I die tomorrow…Ryohei, I love you.“

He’s stunned by your confession. Rendered speechless. You awkwardly give him a small smile before packing up some food in your backpacks. The rest of the trip back to the safehouse was quiet aside from the one time you wept having to go through a street littered with bodies of players not much older than you.

The group sat in a circle in the middle of a fire outside of the safehouse, talking about their fears and dreams in life. Every now and then, you noticed Arisu glancing at you before quickly averting his gaze.

Deciding to call it a night for wnough rest and energy, the group had gone to their designated rooms. Before you enter your room, you spotted Usagi and Arisu speaking together in the hallway. You knew his feelings for her were stronger but it didn’t hurt any less knowing.

Climbing in bed, you curled the sheets around you. Silently crying to yourself, you here a knock at your door. You wipe your eyes, grabbing a nearby t-shirt to cover your body half-naked body. Trudging over, you opened the door. Arisu stood in the doorway, hair disheveled and eyes needy. He quickly pulls your body to his, planting a passionate kiss on your lips.

The two of you stumble into your room, him kicking the door shut. You pull away for a moment, him pecking your lips with each word you spoke.

“I dont (kiss) understand (kiss). I thought you (kiss) liked Usagi.”

“Usagi’s a friend. A good friend. She encouraged me to not be afraid to say how I feel about you. I was worried that you only felt like you had to say those things because you were scared. I thought a girl like you could never want someone like me. But now I know you mean it because I feel it, too. I love you.”

“I wanna feel you tonight. All of you. No holding back.”

“I’m not very experienced. But if you teach me how to touch you, I will do my best to please you,” He whispers against your lips, cock hardening against your stomach. “I want this to be perfect for you.”

“I don’t want perfect,” You grip him through his shorts, biting down on his bottom lip at the same time. “I wanna fuck. I want sloppy, messy, dirty love making. The kind that will make everyone blush in the morning. I want it to where I could feel you between my legs even when your not there.”

“I want you so bad. I ache. Do you feel me throbbing in your hands?”

“How could I not? All I ever wanted was to feel you. I can’t believe I get to do that now,” You sink down to your knees before him. “But I need more. Need to suck your cock and taste you.”

He caresses the top of your head. “I might cum in your mouth.”

“That’s what I hope for.” Untying the strings of his shorts, you tug them off to reveal his boxers. The head of his growingly hard cock peaking through the hole. Too impatient to pull down his underwear, you suckle on the pink head through the hole; tasting the salty and addicting taste of his precum. Increasingly lowering your mouth around the base, you jerk and bobbed until his cock was fully through the hole.

He groans, biting his lip and watching you through the dark strands of his hair. Once in a while, he’d run his fingers through your hair keeping it out of your way as you gagged around. He was fairly thick in size, dick surprisingly tanned and pretty. Although, he wasn’t extremely huge, he was fucking perfect.

Hands free, you continued to move your mouth up and down his cock. Your hands busied themselves, pulling up at the hems of his shirt. He takes the hint, pulling the shirt over his head. He reveals his toned stomach and faint happy trail of which you happily crawled angry lines down his abs while he fucked you mouth.

His hand rests on the back of your skull, thrusting sing into the back of your throat while saliva dripping down to the cleavage of your breasts, soaking your shirt and forming a puddle on the floor.

You pull away, stroking his cock. “You taste so good, baby. Love it when you fuck my throat.”

“You need to be naked.” Arisu whimpers.

You remove your shirt, breasts exposed to the cold air and your nipples immediately get hard. Only in your lace panties, you shove your hand down to play with your swollen bud while resuming to suck on his deliciously veiny cock.

“Oh, fuckkkk,” Arisu whines head thrown back and knees nearly buckling. “I can’t…It’s too much. Too good.”

You slurp the thick saliva off his cock, jerk him a few times before spitting it right back on the base. You deepthroat his cock, fingers playing with his balls. Never again would he question your desire for him. The sight before him right now is proof enough that you wanted him bad enough to devour him.

“Mmm.” You hummed your enjoyment, sucking hard on the tip for more of his essence while folding his testicles. Your only given his high-pitched cry as a warning before his shooting his warm cum down your throat.

You greedily swallow him down, sucking and moaning until he has to physically pull you off. By the time you look up at him, he’s trembling. His hair even messier from his head trashing around.

“You were amazing,” He breathes out a chuckle. “I’ve never had a girl do that for me.”

“I’d do anything for you, Arisu.” You say, doe eyes and kiss-swollen lips glistening in the moonlight.

“Could I taste you, too? I’ve always wanted to try. I’m not sure how to begin.”

“I can teach you,” You rise up to your feet, eye contact not breaking as you played with the band of your panties. “Off or on?”

“O-off.” He says.

You lower the blue lace material down your legs, keeping them close for later use. “I’d like yours off, too.”

Arisu obeys, finally peeling off the boxers. He’s freed of his restraints and it’s as if he’d gotten even more beautiful somehow. The underwear held back from just how perfect his cock appeared, still drilling wet with your spit.

You lie on your back on the plush mattress, sitting close enough to edge. You prop your up by your elbows, gesturing him with a beckoning finger to come closer to you. When he does, you then gesture him with that finger to get on his knees. His blown pupils assured you that he was more than eager to do this.

He looks down at your glistening core before him as if staring at a 5-course meal. You were, in fact, his meal.

You tug his hair, bringing him forward. His face hovers over your puffy pussy. “You have such a pretty mouth, Arisu. So pink and full. Even when facing death, my eyes can’t tear away from them. I bet they’d feel like heaven on me.”

“Please let me taste you,” Arisu begs. “I promise I’ll do anything to make you cum.”

“How can I deny my good boy?” You cooed. “Go on and taste me.”

Tugging on his hair once again, you bring his face down. He sticks out his long, thick tongue licking a long stripe up your cunt. Flicking the tip of his tongue rapidly against your clit, he sucks it into his mouth causing you to whine out.

You pull at his hair again to pull him away for a bit, looking into his eyes. He was far gone. His eyes trained on your perfect cunt. You decide to let him take the lead releasing his hair. He kisses your inner thighs, enamored by the thickness in them. God, he’s dreamt countless nights of you squeezing his head between them. Tonight, he plans on getting that wish.

He dives back in, kissing and sucking on your lips like he would with the ones on your gorgeous face. Your eyes roll into the back of your head. He’s already doing so good.

With his lips clamped around sensitive nub, he takes a large hand and kneads your thighs before slipping his longest finger into you. You groan out loud, rolling your hips and shoving mouthfuls of your pussy at him.

“Ohhhh, Arisu. You’re so fucking incredible. Ooo, baby.” You groan, removing the hair falling over his face. as stared at you with intense lust-filled eyes. You bite your lip to keep from screaming when he adds another finger in proceeding to do the ‘come hither’ motion and triggering your impending orgasm.

“Oh my god, I’m gonna cum.” You squeak. Arisu works his fingers faster into you alternating between pumping them into your tight core and playing with spongy trigger. He hears the sound of your wetness before he see it. The squelching noises sounding off and then you’re squirting around his fingers. He continues to pump until your eruption practically shoots them out if you. He eagerly licks at your arousal from his finger and the source itself. You take his fingers, sucking them into your mouth.

He can’t take it anymore. He needs to be inside you. Now. You’re turned over on your stomach, hands stretched behind you for him to pin them behind your back. Cuffing a hand over your wrists, he slips his hardened cock into your sopping pussy. The two of you moaning out your bliss.

“Feel so good inside me, my good boy. You’re so tiny compared to me. You really think you can handle all of this body.” You tease, you voice sultry and fucked out.

He bottoms out, biting his lip to keep himself from whimpering. “I can handle all of you. Your curves, your beautiful ass.” He lets a hand collide on your ass cheek causing it to ripple.

“Fuck me, Arisu. Fuck. Me.”

He picks a pace. A pace that—although felt incredibly pleasant—would make you cum soon. You wanted to stretch the moment for as long as you could.

With your cheek pressed to the mattress and your eyes rolled, you beg him to change pace. “Slower. Please. Need to feel every inch.”

He listens, hitting into you with long, deep thrusts timed like the swinging of a pendulum.

“Oh shit,” You whimper, hearing the sounds of your sticky release squelching with the churn of his cock. “Arisu, please, don’t leave me.”

“So good, hanii. I’ll never leave. Never. I’m going to make this pussy my home.” He growls.

Arisu picks up the pace a little, hitting deeper and deeper. You involuntarily began to fuck back against him, your plump bottom smacking against his pelvis.

“Oh god, I’m not gonna last long at this pace. You feel sooooo good and wet,” He punctuates with one thrust against your cervix. “I’ll have to pull out.”

“Just cum in me.” You whine, sounding desperate.

“I don’t want this to end so soon,” Arisu pulls out, letting out a shaky breath. He looks down at his length coated in your creamy arousal. “You’re making it so hard.”

You turn around to face him on all fours. “Want me on top?”

“I need a few minutes to calm down. If I’m inside you again, I’ll blow my load.”

“Do it,” You beg. “Let me be filled by you.”

“Please, hanii…I’ve waited for this moment and I won’t blow it so soon.”

“You can fuck me as many times as you want, Arisu. If I die, I don’t want to live with regret. I don’t want to die without ever having the chance to have you in as many ways possible. The next game we go into, I’ll look at the marks you leave on my body and I’ll remember exactly how I got them. I’ll remember them each fondly. You’re my motivation to live. To come back into your arms and hold you.”

A corner of Arisu’s lips twitches as if he’s attempting to keep himself from smiling, too shy to let you know how much your words made him feel like he was on top of the world.

He nods his approval. “Okay. You can get on top now.”

You push at his chest, making him lie back. Slowly crawling over him as a predator to a prey, starting from licking at the creamy release on his dick, up his chiseled stomach, then finally to his lips. You plant a soft kiss on his lips, gentle enough to leave him wanting more but present enough to run your tongue over his chapped bottom lip.

Taking your lace underwear, you shove it into his mouth and straddle him. You line him up with your entrance than sink down, sobbing out at the feeling of him stretching you. His big, round eyes watched you in awe, mouthful of your panties wet with your arousal. He savors the taste of you on his tongue.

You grind slowly on his cock, biting your lip and watching his lips part. He looks up at your face then your breasts then back at you. But your primal emotions had gotten the best of you and your back to setting a dam-breaking lace, grinding down hard on his cock to bouncing on it.

“Ahh.” Arisu muffles out a whimper at your newfound energy, squeezing his eyes shut.

You wanted slow but did he have to feel so goddamn good?

“Look at me when I’m fucking you.” You growl, grabbing him by the chin. He opens his eyes. You pull the gag from his mouth, parting his lips. Sticking your tongue out, you let a trail of spit fall onto his tongue and he immediately swallows.

After a few bounces, you notice Arisu breathing has gone ragged along with the tightening of his balls from under you which indicated he would be coming very soon. You squeeze around his neck bouncing harder and faster, not giving him any room to breathe.

“That’s it, little one,” You hiss. “Just stay there and take it.”

You loved how fragile he looked under you as if you could easily break him. You can tell he’s never been with a curvier girl. You were going to make sure you’d be his first and his last.

You pull off him causing him to groan and protest. “Why’d you stop?”

“Because I want you on top of me. I want to feel your chest against mine and kiss your neck while you drive into me.”

“I really won’t be lasting long this time. Even if you pull out for the last time, I’ll cum.”

“It’s okay, baby. I won’t pull back this time. Just fuck me slow.”

You lie on your back once more and waited for him to get into your arms. The moment he does, you grip his butt forcing him to quit beating around the bush and fuck you properly.

The gooey, squishy noises were music to your ears. You moan and sob, tears running down from how incredible he felt. You intertwine your fingers in his hair, pulling hard. The other hand clawing angry lines down his back. Your mouth occupies itself biting into his shoulder hard enough to draw blood.

He sucks a bruise on the top of your right breast. He sounded so pretty and desperate. Shaky moans and high-pitched whines whenever you’d clench around him. He pulls his length out for only the tip to stay in, playing with your entrance by shallowly pushing in before going in deep again.

You circle your fingers over your clit, gasping at the feeling of him. He was just so special. “Arisu…I gonna cum so hard. I want you to know that I love you so much. If this kills me, I’ll die happily.”

Taking one hand and pinning it above your head, he tangles his fingers in yours. His eyes still boring into your soul while the heavyness of his breath tickles your skin. He’s panting louder and louder the closer he gets to cumming as well.

“I love you, too.” He reciprocates, placing his beautiful pink lips against yours and it’s enough to awaken a rapture within you.

You cry out, the tension snapping and a splash of wetness shooting out of you and coating his pelvic area and pubic hair.

“Arisu.” You chant his name over and over, the tears continuing to flow as you felt every sensation on every part of your body that contained nerve endings.

Arisu releases his thick, hot essence into your tightening pussy and milk him passed the point of sensitivity. He’s just as loud when he cums, whimpering and begging you to take all of him.

You pull him in for another kiss, your tongue swirling around in his mouth to stifle his cries. By the time you pull away, a line of saliva tracks before you flicks a tongue out to lap it up.

He flops down on the space beside you, letting out a sigh of relief. “That was…”

“Otherworldly? Heavenly? God-tier? Because that pretty much sums it up for me.”

“R-really,” Arisu says dwindling with his thumbs.

“Uh-huh, I’ve never cried this much during sex. You’re one of a kind, Arisu.” Tears still flowing from your face.

“You’re still crying.” Arisu says with concern.

“So are you.” You say, wiping away a tear from his eyes.

“I just don’t want to lose you.” He whispers, taking your hand to kiss it.

“Me neither. I want us all to live.” You sniffle.

“Then, we’ve gotta do whatever we can to survive. I’ll do everything I can to protect you.”

You and Arisu share a passionate kiss, staring into each other’s eyes until you fell asleep for another day…and another game to come.

Japanese Translation: Hanii means “Honey”

[kirbybecomesastarwarrior]

💋: what motifs/symbols do you associate with your ship?

I would love nothing more than to explain all of them.

Motifs/Symbols

When I say that they're the heart & soul of KBASW I mean it! Arthur & Celestine are the moral compass of the story/KBASW AU.

Tropes/Themes/Dynamics

@kirbyoctournament

As you can see once again I had too much fun. Sorry, it took a while for these inbox questions. I ended up putting them together because they went so "hand & in hand". (link to questions)

Once again I will say this again... "writing romance is a different type of beast I kid you not!" Shoutout to all the romance writers. I've been a single pringle my entire life so... that's why these posts (Celarthur/Merther) post take so long!

I hope my portals of romance aren't... I don't know how to put this "don't seem too romanticized" or that cringe (LOL).

Keep reading for my long in-depth explanation of the content. (and honestly I still don't think it's enough lol)

I hope you guys enjoyed the post.~

Please continue reading if want a full explanation of the following...

Motifs & Symbols explained~

Creatures:

Celestine: Owls are the symbol of wisdom, power, and spirituality; the birds of Athena. But they're also the symbol of bad luck and are also known as an omen of death.

I've worked this into her character, she's all known just like the animal she represents. But also worked the "bad omens" in her future sight... she mostly (if not always) sees horrific futures. Despite this, she's used that to her arsenal, after all, you learn more from your mistakes, or in this case horrible futures.

And of course, her "cracked warpstar" is her omen of death.

Arthur: Dragon (of course) can either be a force of good or evil. Bravery, ambition, and strength a symbols of adversity, and wickedness.

This paired so beautifully with Arthur's character, (since he is a redeemed good bean). All the best qualities can be used for good and evil... Also, I made his dragon green & red as a reference to the Welsh flag and well...

Alright truth be told the only reason I had Arthur go to "Yomi" is so I can justify why he as dragon monster form (I've been working on it)...hopefully you'll be seeing it soon

Flowers:

Celestine: Lotus represents overcoming adversity, the cycle of rebirth, and enlightenment. Not only that but spiritual growth.

Just like the flower itself, she was able to bloom in the murkiest water and despite all made the most of her life. The (sad) truth of it all is had she not had that hardship... she would have been just as egotistical & selfish as Icarus & Uther.

It was her "future vision" & her struggles that made her into such an empathic person.

Arthur: Marigolds represent family ties divinity and the connections between life and death.

And as I have recently revealed Sir Arthur is why Morpho Knight can go in & out of the living world. Also without spoiling anything refers to when he becomes King of Avalon. (and those of you who have seen Coco... there is indeed going to be a Marigold bridge that Arthur can create with his powers :3)

Elementals (symbols):

(Water power) Celestine (like her elemental) is a very go-with-the-flow person. She understands that the unexpected can happen at any moment and will change the course.

With Arthur when he's particularly stuck in a rut, Celty will give him options, or mentally stuck she goes to her "Rolodex of knowledge." Adaptive and flexible with he thinking, she's very willing to think outside the box.

This is also throwing Arthur's burn mark: I changed Arthur's burn mark (caused by Uther's fire magic) to just be the right shoulder. To represent the burning of the " angel on your right shoulder."

Celestine (who's a water element) is healing his right shoulder, or basically, the goodness he lost. Of course, the mark is still but in the sense he no longer bears the burden alone. "Literally taking the weight off his shoulders. " That he doesn't have to be this perfect soldier... that he can just be a "wart".

(Earth powers) Arthur, he can be stubborn (as a rock) and stuck in his ways, (which is why it takes him a while to get him out of Uther's thumb). But this also applies to his determination. Someone who doesn't give up and makes him incredibly ambitious.

When she's thinking "what I could've done" or "what I should've done", ruminating on it. (trapped in her own current) Using his "very a matter of facts" to remind her of what she's done, and that things are better because she did act.

Out of the many vast futures she sees, Celestine can rely on one constant... who was there for her was Arthur... he's her constant her rock. And was the thing that ultimately made her choose Arthur to be the one to help her fulfill Kirby's prophecy. Because she knew he'd still complete it even after she was gone/.

~

(I'd love to explain Arthur & Excalibur but if I'd go into detail with it that'd be going into spoiler. But for those of you who aren't familiar with Arthuriana lore... the true value of Excalibur is in the Scabbard...

But here it's for another reason... because the Scabbard & Excalibur are two separate relics. The scabbard belongs to Arthur... the sword however was never his.~)

The Yin & Yang to each other & when the sun and moon are brought together they form the dusk & dawn~ Taking on and bringing out the best in each other.

Tropes/Themes/Dynamics

Enemies to Lovers troupe & cop vs. vigilante.

As a result, they have such a fun back & forth and witty banter... but despite it they.

In short, the cop working for the corrupt system is first at odds with our lovable rogue. And believe they are the villainous one (because society says so), only to realize through their many interactions that they are fighting for good despite operating outside of the law.

Then eventually (the cop) realizes "Oh, crabs" I'm working on the wrong side. For Arthur, his hesitation/ignorance of this doesn't come from the idea of a "holier than thou mindset" (like Uther). Rather it comes from "I want to be accepted" & "I want to be worth something..." Arthur started as the weakest of the three (students of Uther) which is why he was burned by Uther (to be used as an example to the other two)

When he finally beat the odds it was his proudest moment. The desire to be seen by Uther was what blinded him and made him see his mentor as the pinnacle of what he should be. (but in reality, it was actually just a want for affection and praise.) And believed in these ideals (that Uther spits out), making the ends justify the means & ignoring the damage they cause. (For the greater good)

The fact that accepting this means that the suffering & all the hard work he went through were for nothing.

But it's through Celestine's influence as Merlyn who actively tried to expand his worldview. That there was so much more to life than war, and showing "Might is not always right" him there are other ways than (Uther's) brute force.

A more fulfilling & smarter way, where he can still do his duties without having to sell his soul for it. Having his first taste of unconditional love.

Leading him to be able him to befriend Gaius, and Kit Cosmo (who is Sir Kay in this) later become his sworn brothers, emotionally adopted by Sir Ector (Kit's father ), and tame/ befriend Fritz Stahlbaum (Ribbon's Grandfather).

The Double life /Secret Identity

Are very much an important aspect of Celestine's character. While she is confident in herself and who she is... it's not as herself it's as her alter-ego Merlyn.

Basically, being Merlyn it's not just her "redemption for Shiver Star" but this is also her escape as well.

She's seen as this hero, someone great and fantastical when she dawns on the the cloak and the mustache. She's the great mage Merlyn she can be herself... But when she's Celestine her true self she's seen as the broken... the useless Hero of Yore something to be hidden away and ashamed of.

(I'd know you from anywhere & any form)

Celestine only ever told her friends (Minerva Mimi- great grandmother, Dairus Drosslemeyr- Daroach's great uncle, and Velvet Stahlbaum- fairy Queen, Ripple's stepmother) about her Merlyn persona.

That's why it's such important that the only person to ever figure it out (without Celestine telling them... ) was Arthur. You see, Arthur Celestine as Merlyn, but as she became more popular in the diplomatic world, she. had to be seen more. (Much to Icarus & Uther's dismay~)

Arthur started to see the similarities between her and Merlyn... it was through her quirks & character that she was indeed Merlyn. And does not mind at all she's still the same person. Respectfully Arthur pretends that he does not know..

It was also through these interactions realization... that she does not value herself (true self) as Celestine.

And this hurts Arthur deeply, the person who he always saw as this amazing mage, who was the smartest person he knew.. doesn't see that in herself at all. Arthur has always asked her (as Merlyn) "what he could do to pay them for everything they've done for him..." But all they'd ever say was... "the fact that we're able to be finally partners in crime is enough for this old man" (basically they were saying, the fact we were finally friends & your company is enough).

Uses this as a chance (of knowing her identity and Celestine not being aware of it) to repay her for everything she's given him.

Not only that but he actively does things that make her more comfortable and appreciate herself more (as Celestine.) Buy subtly reminds her that she is Merlyn. And performing these small acts of kindness for her gives her chances to be herself around him and encourages it.

Scene Example of this/ & more of their Dynamic :

C: You know you don't have to do this for me, you merely have to just guard me have to-

A: Oh but I do...It seems your diplomatic work was overlooked... Unfairly I may add especially.

C: Thank you so much... War-ta (had to stop herself from calling him Wart) The war on the battlefield must be so physically taxing on everyone... people tend to forget it's a political one as well... this means a lot but in reality, it's not that much as you do.

A: I don't see it like that... if anything your battles are one of tongues

Y' know an old friend of mine told when people forget to appreciate you... you forget the importance of yourself, so they told me to perform small acts of kindness to myself... to remind myself.

I hope I'm overstepping or making you feel uncomfortable *sees her blushing & getting embraced*

C: No, it's nothing I just wasn't expecting someone to give me flowers today (Oh, hoot he's talking about me *as Merlyn*)... Your friend sounds wise~

A: Oh my friend? *smiles sweetly at her* I wish they could tell you this themselves... they have such a fantastic way with words... I don't know how convincing I sounded compared to them, after all... *looks at her directly* They're the smartest person I know~

C: Oh is that so * gets more embarrassed* that's so sweet of you to say... I should take his advice... I tend to forget this myself.

A: Oh no need to be so hard on yourself... Actually...* grins wickedly* the friend I speak of is actually a very old man... with very old bones... at first I thought he was making up old bones since he seemed so energetic for an old man~

C: Oh hoo hoo, hoot really? *nervously laughter

A: Ah, but alas I haven't seen him for awhile... perhaps its old bones have caught up to him... he just seemed so lively... but who are we to determine the vitality of the elderly after all... We're not old men!

C: Yes we most certainly are hoo hoo hoot *still nervously laughing*

Oh look dear we're already at the temple!

Good night dear have a wonderful evening *hilarious sprints inside*

A: Go-od night, My- la-lady *tries to stifle his laughter then-* AH BwaHAHAHAHAHAH!~

Alright, admittingly he does have a little slice of revenge for Celestine hiding her identity as Merlyn. With little fun jabs like that. (LMAO)

~

They do have this "More than the mask moment..." Arthur admits the only reason he ever found out that she was "Merlyn," was because they were the same person with or without the cloak.

Oh I have so many ideas for this but that'll be for another day~

Forbidden Love

And of course, it's forbidden!~

Since astral are born from wishes (made by the positive energy of the Fountain of Dream) there was no need for "relations". Not only that because of status, or (mainly Uther ), but a tragedy involving Sir Orpheus & his lover.

Uther took this as a chance to further his agenda "Look & at the tragedy of Sir Orpheus... look what happened to him and his lover! It's clearly a sign from Void... THIS LEADS TO WEAKNESS AND WEAKNESS LEADS TO DEATH! WE ARE SOLDIERS NOTHING MORE THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS WHEN WE DIVERGE FROM THE PATH! THIS IS OUR LOT IN LIFE DO NOT BELIEVE YOU CAN BE ANYTHING ELSE!"

And yes that is indeed Papi. (Sir Orpheus )

Nobody Gets Me Like You ~

They are the two sides of the same coin. Both of them are trapped in the positions they were given...

Arthur is trapped in the position of being Sir Uther's (bloody) right-hand man, his Perfect Killing Mach- I mean soldier- his golden boy.

Celestine is trapped in the position of being the Oracle... the broken one, the one cast aside, the overlooked and underestimated.

The key to breaking these chains that they've been cursed with is finding self-love within themselves. And they find that within each other. "A Steven Universe Love like you" moment.~

It's this deep understanding and trust they have for one another that allows love to develop feelings for one another. Emotionally they're both dealing with the same issue.

Being able to be there for one another and not having to explain it allows the other to put their guard down. And truly fall apart in front of another knowing that the other will hold them together.

I really love these two so much... if you've read this long thank you so much I hope you guys enjoyed the post!

[sunflowerhazel]

If someone ever tried to make tv show out of The Arcana I think the best solution would be playing with time line paradox thingy. Like Spiderverse or Everything Everywhere At Once style . Just my opinion because I can't choose it in the poll.

Ok I've been thinking about this a lot so thank you for giving me an excuse to speak on it lol.

Before we start, I have only read through Nadia, Asra, Julian, and half of Muriel's routes, but I still think that's enough to make a timeline.

I agree: Although there is still the same throughline in each of the routes, they all work as their own universe. For example, in Muriel's route, Lucio makes deals with the courtiers, gaining a physical (albeit goat-shaped) body that way. In Asra's route, you successfully take back your body from Lucio and the courtiers eat what remains of his spirit. In Nadia's ending, both you and Lucio regain your bodies, but Lucio is banished from the lands.

I guess one of the first questions we should ask ourselves, as theoretical showrunners, is what ending do we want to give Lucio? Is he alive? dead? Does he end the show still swimming in the in-between, with no way of returning to the physical world?

Secondly, we need to establish what kind of story we want to tell. In the prologue, we are told by Nadia that Julian killed Lucio, and she needs our help to track him down and bring him to justice. Because of this, it makes the most sense to me if we bring a large focus to Julian; through his route, we learn about the Red Plague, the MC's death and resurrection, and all of the atrocities committed by Valdemar. This is also where his plan to be hung to talk to the Hanged Man gets explained the most. However, if we only follow Julian, we never learn of Asra's past with their missing parents, or his childhood growing up orphaned with Muriel. We won't learn of Nadia's rocky relationship with her parents, or much of anyone else's backstory, for that matter.

Therefore, I propose to you this mish-mash:

The A plot mostly follows Julian and Asra's routes. That first night, you talk to Asra through the fountain and confide in them about the investigation. The next day, you talk to Portia at her cottage, and she admits that Julian is her brother. You tell her you'll keep her secret, and Portia is happy. As you leave her cottage, you see a red stream and follow it, where you find Julian. He tells you the stream is no longer contagious, and he wistfully tells you there's no need for a plague doctor without a plague. You hear Malak scream, and as you try to run away you slip and fall into the stream, being bitten by an eel. Julian pulls you to safety, and once you're away from the guards he tends to your wounds. He shows you his mark, claiming it's a curse from Asra. You go back to the palace, where Asra is meeting with Nadia for the first time. He hugs you and asks if they can take you out for the day. You agree and they take you to their personal oasis and talk about the realms of the Arcana.

As the A plot unfolds, I think the B plot should be roughly Nadia's route, with Portia taking the place of the MC. Portia admits to knowing how to read and write after Nadia's sister shows up at Vlastomil's mansion.

Finally, the C plot should be Muriel and Morga hunting Lucio's ghost together. Here we learn about Muriel's past and his ties to Morga. They reconcile after one last fight against Lucio.

Everyone reconvenes in time for the hearing. During Muriel's route, Nadia tells you that they found Valdemar's secret lab. This should be where Julian regains his memories of his past, and where you, Asra, and Julian go to the Lazaret to learn once and for all about your death. Asra and Julian fight once more, Asra telling Julian he should have done more to protect you from the Plague. Julian runs away, turning himself in to Nadia. You talk to him behind bars, and he reveals his plan to talk to the Hanged Man. I also think that Valerius should accuse Nadia of conspiring with Julian here.

Nadia and Julian both take a stand. Julian gets pronounced guilty, with Nadia successfully proving her innocence and embarrassing Valerius. After the hanging, you, Portia, and Asra go to stay with Julian's body while Nadia gets the palace ready for the masquerade. Julian jolts alive, telling you of his meeting with the Hanged Man, and of Lucio's return with the plague.

Eventually, the Devil tracks you down and steals your body. You and Asra meet in the realms of the Arcana as Muriel and Nadia try to find out where the ritual took place. Asra finds his parent's prison, and you free Aisha and Salim as well as their familiars. As you let them leave, you are approached by the different courtiers. You unbind them from the Devil. Lucio shows up and begs to be unbound. You do so, regaining your body. You go back to the physical world where Nadia has imprisoned Lucio. You go to the Devil's feast where Faust and Asra secretly put your blood in the wine. Everyone drinks, but the merging of worlds does not happen. The Devil goes back to his domain where you follow with all your friends, binding him once and for all.

At the end, Nadia and Portia get together (obviously), maybe Asra and Julian reconcile, or the MC gets with one of them depending on the specifics of the story lol. Morga takes Lucio away, presumably to punish him on her own terms, or maybe to reconcile. Muriel, no longer bound by his chains, is happy :) maybe he and Asra kiss idk

Ok this was really long and I am fully aware it's a jumbled mess, but it's really hard to put something cohesive together when each of the different routes have such good storylines. At the end of the day, I really like the end of Julian's route where everyone comes together to help you bind the Devil. I think it's quite cinematic, albeit cliche. I also like the part of Nadia's story where you unbind the courtiers one by one (the little Volta creature has my whole heart). And of course, we can't forget about Asra saving their parents. I'm not too sure about an ending where Lucio is unbound-- I think the way Asra's route deals with Lucio is really cool. At the end of the day, I think the easiest way to do this is to figure out what you want from Lucio and work backwards from there.

Ok this is the end I promise thank you for listening to me talk about my new hyperfixation :)

[sixpillarsofgenesis]

A Thought on Lies of P

So, I have recently - kicking and screaming, mind - gotten into Lies of P, and there's some things that bother me about the primary driver of conflict. I'm going to put this under a spoiler, so... sorry anyone who isn't expecting what's underneath.

Spoilers under the cut for the reading material, gameplay, and mini cutscenes in Lies of P.

How did Carlo die?

This entire plot point is the driving force behind how the plot in Lies of P starts, narratively, and it's also the core reason for the Real Boy ending. The reason I ask this is because common fandom concensus is that Carlo died during the Rose Estate Incident, where an outbreak of Petrification Disease killed a good chunk of the staff, including Carlo, Romeo, (allegedly) and Sophia's father.

But when you explicitly come across the memory of Carlo's death near the end of the game, it looks like he was cut in half given the Famed Stalker was apologising to him - which is further supported by the Nameless Puppet's body being entirely puppet material from about hips down.

But it also begs the question - what killed him? We never really get an answer on what, who, or even why he was killed. Carlo's death wouldn't have been a boon for anyone involved - Geppetto cut ties with the Alchemists to some degree about this in particular, and Geppetto's assistance would have been well worth keeping Carlo alive.

Given that the famous Stalker apparently rejected Carlo from training, we could infer that perhaps he wasn't up to the regular skill level she was famous for. But Romeo's message - and all of the remaining details in the game - paint Carlo as a much more competent potential Stalker than what would have been anticipated. While our Player Character is also apparently very much his own person, the fight with the Black Rabbit Brotherhood implies that Carlo learned enough of the Famed Stalker's combat by observation alone to have had it affect his combat style and capability significantly. Romeo also specifically makes note that Carlo was relentlessly stubborn and that him demolishing the puppets he sent out as an envoy to try and tell the Player Character the truth was pretty much what Romeo expected of him.

All of that marks him as very competent and capable indeed, to say nothing of the Nameless Puppet, if the puppet itself had anything of Carlo left in it, or whatever pressures Carlo might have faced as the famous Union Workshop President's son.

It's also implied that there was at least a year or two since Carlo's death. If we assume Carlo was old enough to read the original La Storia di un Burattino (The Story of a Marionette) in 1881 aka what would be the published novel of Pinnochio in 1883, then Carlo could be enrolled in the French Education as young as three years old and likely old enough to read La Storia di un Burattino as an actual book around five.

(Yes, I am aware Carlo Geppetto is Italian. For the best accuracy to match both the Belle Epoque and the Italian history, I have placed Krat near the seaside a few kilometres from the Italian Border to account for the culture blending we see in Lies of P. So sue me don't.)

Given Pinnochio is canonically Carlo's favourite childhood story, we need to look at the next landmark in the games - The Wizard of Oz. (Did you know that The Wizard of Oz was officially released in 1900?) Carlo could then have been born in 1878, placing him at 22 (or would have been) at the time of Lies of P. Around this time, it was more common to have apprenticeships around age 14-18, which would have likely been when Carlo approached the Famous Stalker to apprentice under her. As we don't know when the Rose Estate Incident took place, Carlo could have been there to complete his lycée (French secondary Education akin to high school) or baccalauréat, colloquially known as le bac.

(The reason I place Krat in France is for this reason, as Italy had a much more difficult time encouraging parents and children to attend formal education - elementary, middle, and high school, more specifically - than France, and the baccalauréat is actually pretty similar to the Stalkers, Alchemists, and Workshop Union as it is presented in canon. The entire premise of the original Pinnochio was quite literally C.Collodi's attempt to convince children to learn their basic education.)

Now, the game does not say how long either the Petrification Disease or the Puppet Frenzy lasted - but I'm still playing the game, though I did watch a walkthrough to try and get all the juicy bits - but given how fresh the bodies are, I would think that the Frenzy was definitely more recent. I would think that - for the purpose of this attempt to make sense of the Lies of P canon - in this case, the Puppet Frenzy was the most recent part, with Simon Manus causing the Rose Estate Incident when Carlo was somewhere between 16-17. Old enough that he could have graduated to become an Apprentice Stalker, but still young enough to not have anywhere to go (as he certainly didn't want to spend any time with his Father, and it was unlikely that Geppetto would have allowed Carlo to live with him anyways.)

All of these things allow for a few specific, unanswered plot points to be addressed - the apparent transformation of Gemini from Stalker to Sophia's Monad Lamp, The time Geppetto would have needed to create at least three P-Organ Prototypes and do whatever tf he did to his hand if that wasn't there already, and for him to additionally steal the Arm of God - as the only transport the Alchemists had would not have accepted Geppetto.

(This would also allow Geppetto to hold Carlo's funeral, attempt Nameless Puppet one, fail, and attempt making the Player Character/Pinocchio/P however you call him, fail again, and then kick the Puppet Frenzy into high gear.)

Outside of how Gemini was put into the Player Character's care, this timeline accounts for everything up until the reveal of Dorothy, who, if she is the person based on the 1900 novel, could have travelled to Krat to escape the fame the novel The Wizard of Oz and the subsequent sequels would have cast on her, as the original novel was so popular as to spawn around 13+ sequels.

Of course, since I am posting this here, I'd love to hear your thoughts on it. If there's a better, more comprehensive timeline, I'd love to get a chance to look at it.

Some additional thoughts:

Why three P-Organs? Three because the one Romeo uses in the play is pretty close to what we see on the menu screen - I could see it being perhaps his conceptual design or prototype copy that, once the first real P-Organ was made, was left for future reference.

Why make a big deal out of Dorothy? Because Dorothy and subsequently, The Wizard of Oz would be released during the Belle Epoque (1890-1914) timeframe which this setting takes place. Given the Endgame Credits Scene, this makes considering Dorothy's appearance in Krat at the very least somewhat relevant.

A fun thought I had was the idea of Dorothy being the Famed Stalker, but that person in particular is implied to have been so much beyond the Stalkers that she superseded their hierarchy and had her own place at the top without belonging to any particular faction.

Another interesting thought was the idea of Carlo having been a Listener - as Listeners were often hunted down and experimented on, it seemed like a fun idea to play around with, but in this case, it's not certain one way or another.

[danwhobrowses]

One Piece Chapter 1105 - Initial Thoughts

So we are back again, after a big impactful chapter last week we're looking to reach full incident territory now

Buster Call No. 3 here we go...

Spoilers for the Chapter, Support the Official Release

Carrot cover page is welcome but also reminds me how I wish she was Nakama

With the buster call summoned everyone is fleeing the scene, most of whom unaware of the situation

Doll suggests that Saturn and Kizaru leave too, but Saturn states they're staying

It seems that Doll is unaware of the regen, but she doesn't question Kizaru's reaffirming to do as ordered

Vegapunk confronts Saturn again, imploring him to call off the Buster Call due to how it will hamper the world's technology by a century

Saturn notes though they don't need more advancement, and can't trust that Vegapunk's hiding something else...which he kinda is but still

Apparently a ship also left Egghead, guessing it was the former inhabitants during the Labophase Among Us situation we didn't see

But Saturn had it hunted down, on the threat that they may know something about the Void Century, Akainu tactics there

Vegapunk once more is appalled but Saturn rebukes that he dug their graves by seeking forbidden knowledge

Everyone's in movement though, except the Mark IIIs who are the perimeter for the island

Sanji directs Kuma, Bonney, Franky and Atlas to the vacuum rocket, assuring Bonney that Vegapunk will be safe

He also briefs Nami on what's going on above, surprising the group that there's yet ANOTHER buster call to go through

After several months we finally see Robin alive and well...mostly, she's on a hoverbed and in clear discomfort, probably from wounds and trauma

Jinbe has been sent to get Zoro so he doesn't get lost, but apparently he's still fighting Lucci

Lilith meanwhile didn't even make it to ground, she was still with the ship and got assistance from Brook

And he's found a clever way to get the ship to the rendez-vous, using his ice powers to freeze the clouds and skate on them

There is however the matter of braking, which Lilith quickly rescinded her praise for Brook after he had no ideas, plus the Vega Force 01 is still not an option for flying out

They make a point in saying that the Labostratum still has its barrier, meaning that the place will have some safety from bombardment, but the first barrage begins even with soldiers still evacuating

As Vegapunk laments the loss of another island, the Vacuum Rocket shoots off

But once again, Kizaru's here for the intercept

Sanji sees the intercept and goes to rescue Bonney, while Saturn orders the Pacifista to fire at Bonney and Kuma

Internally he sickly enjoys the irony that Kuma gave away his life to protect his daughter, only for his clones to be the cause of her death

Vegapunk meanwhile looks on in horror, remembering his worry that even though Bonney's Kuma's daughter, a pacifista won't hesitate to kill her if ordered

And Oda makes it clear there'll be no Luffy save, the navy have found him again stuffed and unable to move right now as he lays next to the vending machine thing we saw earlier in the arc

Aren't these soldiers supposed to be running from the Buster Call though?

HOWEVER, we also flash back to the alleged sunken ship Vegapunk sent out yesterday, except it's not!

The destroyed ship is in fact the warship Saturn sent, and they have no idea how they're gonna report their failure to Kizaru

But another player is about to enter the game, they are on their way to Egghead

Until the very end there it seemed like a simpler albeit dire chapter to follow the heights of the Kuma punch, the Buster Call is here and most of our heroes are tied up in some shape or form; Zoro is still uncharacteristically dealing with Lucci, Robin our queen who I'm glad to see alive but sad to see still hurt is forced to rest, Luffy overate and is once again surrounded by marines, Sanji is running towards the line of fire even though Kuma is literally shielding Bonney anyway, Vegapunk is alone to the mercy of Saturn, Franky's falling, Brook is skating the Sunny without a brake, Kizaru's still being a government cog, it's all meant to feel like it's gonna go wrong.

But there are still the outside factors to play; the giant mecha will still have to help in some way, and there is still the slight possibility that the Mark IIIs do in fact hold an echo of humanity that resided in Kuma - which'd call back to the weaponized sea beasts still having their animal instincts - to not fire at Bonney. And now we have this other player that's coming, unless it's the Blackbeard ship from before. I do wanna hope it's Smoker but chances are low on that, why would you want to contact an admiral directly about that? Another Yonko ship on the move or the Revolutionaries seems like the Fleet Admiral would be warned so I'm still wondering if it's someone else we've not seen much of; Law & Bepo or maybe Perona & Moria.

The goose is not cooked yet of course, but our Straw Hats could do with a bit of gritting their teeth and stepping up, escaping a buster call doesn't quite have the same impact it did in Enies Lobby, stopping a Buster Call is yonko-level.

[batsplat]

hello, love your blog! it’s so fucking funny how you’re a lesbian motogp blogger who is into buffy, bc hey that’s me too but actually I first encountered your blog bc of your smallville posts. not to mention tennis (which I was only a very casual fan of thankfully afdhjkk)…….cool to know that there are several ppl like this apparently sgfhhjhjk.

anyways, buffy s6 is my beloved season and I like it for how dysfunctional it is. the only season I might like more is maybe s5. I am a spike fucker unforch

and as for motogp? sachsenring 2003 made me giggle. very embarrassing for you valentino. by 0.06 seconds??? and commentators made it worse by crowning him a winner before they even crossed the line. you just know if positions were reversed vale would capitalize so hard off this win, more ppl would be talking about it still. and well he did actually use that loss to reinvigorate himself. like valentino’s ability to make his wins (and losses too) narratively important is unparalleled. but regardless sete/vale rivalry is insane,

sadly only hot girls get it:(((

anon?? marry me??

such an incredibly funny overlap of interests sdfhjkdf well always nice to learn this is a Type Of Person who Exists. I love buffy season five!! I am very much a spike fucker!! undoubtedly one of THE great characters, him and buffy is one of those ships where I don't really seek out fics because it's like?? I'm actually thrilled with what canon gave me!! I love the slapstick, spike as a lovesick freak, the dark and toxic stuff where buffy used him as a way to punish herself, and all the more melancholic season 7 stuff where they found refuge in each other. spike is like. such a great Device to explore all kinds of emotions and themes and all that... so many of my all time fave eps are very much spike eps. love s2's school hard and halloween, s3's lovers walk, s4's something blue (also just like, so much of his s4 scenes, when they chain him up in the bathtub and against the chair and all that), s5's fool for love (!!!!!!!!!!!!! one of THE episodes, his 'death wish' monologue to buffy and then showing up wanting to kill her and ending up comforting her oh GOD), s6's life serial and doublemeat palace AND when buffy confesses to spike she was in heaven AND all their scenes in once more, with feeling, s7 the buffy/spike church scene.... spike's "all these years and there's only one thing I've ever been sure of" speech likeeeeee.... I get all the issues people have with that relationship and how it was written, I know it's not for everyone, and I don't even 'ship' them in the sense of thinking they belong together or whatever... but I just love it!! it compels me so much, did so when I first saw it and still does now!! and spike is such a FUN character, like they let him be pathetic, they let him be cool, and he's #gender enough that yeah he's very hot to me too. all those scenes where buffy's throwing him around,,,,, yes character of all time. just has a real place in my heart too idk like the emotional landscape really GETS me

sharp pivot to sachsenring 2003, which takes place a mere few months after the buffy finale......... that's as smooth a transition as I can manage yeah. thematic overlap between btvs and motogp question mark. the buffy x dawn dynamic is either a bit marc x alex or to a lesser extent vale x luca when u think about it? not just in the 'congrats you've spotted they're siblings' way, but well the siblings' respective statuses in the worlds of motogp & vampire slaying, and the older sibling often being 'prioritised' because they have a lot on their plates, younger siblings as a kind of way to keep them grounded and feeling human, also unconditional devotion to your younger sibling... plus actually all the death wish stuff, surely? the fool for love speech...

btvs and motogp both very much about the ties you need to the world, I reckon... also sports is inherently adjacent to chosen one narratives

ANYWAY sachsenring 2003, I think every detail about it is perfect!! whatever valentino says, I still reckon there's just no way he couldn't have made a move before that - and implicitly he acknowledges that by saying he will never leave it that late again. idk there's just something so deeply charming about that specific flavour of valentino to me, where he's so obnoxiously good he can get away a little bit with basically scripting his races BUT obviously that's only okay when he still ends up being the one who wins. and he gets so much shit for it!! it's so funny listening to the brno commentary like they are on his ASS and they're saying the italian press has been on his ASS and calling him washed and finished and even the commentary is going 'yeah he's been having a rough season' and it's very??

oh no! the horror!! what a flop!!

obviously in retrospect we remember it as a great season because after that he only lost one more race, but back then they didn't know that!! and at like. the perfect time of the season too, because obviously that's when you have to go off and Sit On It for the whole summer break and can't immediately redeem yourself.... but as you say, he used that!! it's part of his story now, it became such good fuel for motivation. like, the mistake itself is kinda.... I mean it's not great, but it's one of those things that also wouldn't be a massive issue if you did it five laps earlier? he basically just picks too defensive a line that ends up killing his drive out of the corner, allowing sete to beat him to the line. which - the bit that I imagine really got to him is how dumb it was. like it wasn't a riding mistake as much as it was a decision making mistake, it wasn't his race craft it was just a literal dumbass moment. it's silly!! it's both a moment that shows valentino was maybe a bit too cocky, but also kinda rattled by sete? that man got to him! he did it! he flapped the unflappable valentino rossi!

and it IS incredible how it's now not really Discussed any more, and in his autobiography it's so neatly integrated into his own narrative. like!! it's always the laguna 2008 and catalunya 2009 performances that get me - he knew those were going to be memorable victories IMMEDIATELY and he played to that!! kissing the corkscrew drives me insane because it's literally... he's doing this on the cooldown lap for something that happened LAP FOUR and wasn't technically the race winning move, or definitely not the only one!! but he immediately zeroed in on that element and his post-race narrative is unquestionably ONE of the reasons why that's something we all remember now. he gets it!!

the commentators did fuck him over though lmaoooo... I mean at least you have to say he learned from his mistakes. imagine losing a race by .06 and doing this in the very next race against the same guy

bringing back this too

sicko

it IS only the hot girls who get it but that's for the best....... only the select few can see the vision I fear

[baylardo]

voyager novel lore that lives in my mind rent free good and bad:::::::::::::::

kathryn gets Basically Killed(?) in String Theory by a nacene thats been posing as her sister phoebe and her final moments before death have her envisioning Chakotays face and she has this internal hmmmm moment of questioning why she's seeing him as a comforting face as opposed to like her father or mark (((((its really awesome please read String Theory ive never felt so fulfilled reading these hegging books lmao)))))))

harry kim's romance life makes me sad and he third wheels b'elanna and tom for a time and eventually he proposes to libby and she declines and also libby breaks up with him and eventualy he gets a new gf nancy and eventually she is revealed to have a terminal illness and also is pregnant and also doesnt want to keep baby and also goes into a coma and also they take the baby out of her and incubate it and also nancy gets healed and chooses to leave harry and their unborn baby lol so harry's left a single dad with barely any ties to earth and thats awesome CHEERS!!!!!

also author oc character alien biology bonds herself to harry's unborn daughter and i feel so normal about that momcore hahahahahahaha rubbing sweat off of my brow shes so not maternal as a character shes a cocky pilot girl i have normal thoughts about her and harry kim together (not canon U___U)

kathryn and phoebe fight a lot during kathryns brief time on earth in Protectors and it sours their relationship and kathryn leaves earth for 3+ years without either one attempting to amend things/apologize and this is all awesome because kathryns already died and come back to life at this point lmao GROW UP

after tom and b'elanna go through this bombastic scheme to lie to their friends and family involving belanna and miral "dying" in order to protect miral from prophecy this is the last straw for julia paris defending/forgiving her son for lying so much so she decides she needs to get custody of their children bc theyre unsafe in their care and b'elanna ends up hating her mother in law for it and tom goes to family law court and tom ends up winning and keeping his kids and its "kids" bc belanna's pregnant with their son at this time anyway they end up naming him MICHAEL which i guess is julia's father's name??? if i remember correctly lmao,,,,,, anyway i thought that was poor taste for the ordeal she put them through for no reason haha

the emh realizes he loves seven but through some long chain of events he has to erase his memories of her and him together (sad) she tries to rebuild their friendship afterwords ;___;

belanna asks kathryn if her and chakotay are ever going to have children and kathryns like "no lmao" and chakotay gets visually sad about it and then its never brought up again *PUNCHES WALL*

theres a scene where kathryn and chakotay skinny dip in an alien planet lake together at night like they slip out to go swim naked together IM FINE IM FINE IM FINE. that book also has chakotay admiring natty kathryn in her element on a planet doing scientific research and yknow just yearning looking at her and thats sooooooo cute

threshold gets mentioned by harry kim in the LAST voyager novel thank you amen

the doctor gets to meet again/interact with/say goodbye to kes in String Theory in a WAAAAAAAAAAY more poignant way. that trilogy is awesome i cant hype it enough LOL. kes also has a baby in that one,,,,,,,,,, and it also goes on to explain Fury,,,,,, and janeway in Night for that matter but thats really my only neg on those books is it gives explanation behind kathryn's melancholy and i thought it was unnecessary and also the books end with kathryn being unable to remember anything from the trilogy and thats cringe to me lmao bc u get a pretty epic JC nugget in the second book (((first bullet lol)))

i love infinity's prism - Places of Exile id recommend reading it if you are me and you love exploration of "JANEWAY GIVES UP" as a plot. :) one of my faves. its short and sweet, you get a JC (unborn) baby with a name and everything please clap. this book got me to actually like neelix/kes lmao A FEAT. i also get to indulge harry/b'elanna, even if its a little Toxic in this one U____U;;;;; kes and neelix have triplets named after characters who die/are dead in the book lol

ONE mirrorverse story for voyager has chakotay as captain and janeway as engineer, they are lovers, janeway ends up being evil and works for belanna (has some very wlw vibes lol) and hates humans. they (JC) end up killing each other. <3 janeway calls chakotay "chuckles" in it. the idea of engineer mean grouchy janeway is so BIOYIOYIOYIONG AWOOOOGA to me.

[araneitela]

Notes on Kafka's trailer, "A Dramatic Irony", this'll include the obvious and the less so noticeable details. I'll be elaborating on and making use of these in the future, but for now— a little list for myself (and you?) on things I want to talk about. Oof, my dear girl, there is a lot to unpack about you and I still won't be done in a year from now: Edit: It ended up being long, but who's surprised, really?

— Background music. Entirely based on Vivaldi's Four Seasons. Most very accurately pick out 'Winter' as that's what it starts with and it's also immediately recognizable, but it actually transitions into 'Summer' just after about halfway through and beautifully ends in it. The inclusion of them both is one of HoYoverse's finest decisions musically.

— The usage of rose petals instead of blood. This one thrills me, because they add such an inherent romanticism to the concept of death, which is an ages old tale and concept (hey, do we want to tie in the beauty of how Blade craves its peace so desperately yet cannot obtain it and she cannot grant him it? I do), and it plays in beautifully to the concept of what 'fear' is usually most tied to, and how she doesn't feel it. Now what exactly are these petals of? If it's your regular red rose, then yes— it is likely referencing the intrinsic romanticism of death. I initially wondered if it could be the China rose, which would indicate longevity which could be hugely interesting but no. However, with the impending goal of 'seeking fear' and tying it directly into 'the value of life', I find the more traditional take of the red rose, a sign of intense passion/love, or a potential for the hope of passionate love, incredibly intriguing (my stance on the potentially implied ship with the MC is still where I stand, but another is creeping in through a lot of rationality and logic; because I do think that's how they plan on doing it— it's what makes most sense with implications made in her dialogue).

— Inspiration: Rorschach inkblot test. "What do you see?" It says at 0:15, and it threw me for a moment, until I looked around the text. The ink blot. Leave it paused for a second. What do you see? It's the Rorschach inkblot test. It hit me with the ferocity of a ton of bricks. For those not sure what I'm talking about, do a little search and you might have seen it used in television by some psychologists, it is a test to examine a person's personality characteristics and their emotional functioning, everyone may see something different in specific ink blots. When you leave it paused at 0:15 seconds in, that's the first card and it's called The Fear Card; intrinsically fitting, considering: "Elio said that I'm good at creating "fear", even though I don't know what it is." I didn't actually recognize the ink blot until I started typing this up and analyzed it again for the umpteenth time. I'm losing my mind, no, I've actually already lost it, because on further analyzing, I think the spider on the back of her coat also looks like it's been designed after the ink blot/card in question because it grows into a similar shape, though more so when it grows into the lines/threads of her Spirit Whisper that you see around the 1:13 mark. The entire sequence of ink blots at that timestamp give us an insight into what the guard sees that she's talking to, he sees his own death. /breathes very casually. God, I'm losing my mind, this might actually play so much more into her character. What do you see, she asks— Kafka, what do you see?

— She's so incredibly cultured. There are a lot of very classical but also archaic elements that play into the design of her character across the board. Classical music is so rarely used anymore, but it adds such a different level of sophistication to her character. Kafka stands out amidst most of the other characters, not because she's classier in general, but because they tie very old-fashioned and less used concepts into a very modern design and mold them into a perfect whole. The classical music and how she never foregoes this intense connection she has to it, the insane archaic katana versus the very modern uzis (ode to Devil May Cry, anyone? A pair of guns, one black and one white, and a katana? Along with having once worked as a 'demon hunter'? Capcom deserves the nods) and grenades, her attire especially between the coat, the high waist, the glasses and the dress shirt— but it's all beautifully put together in an incredibly modern outfit. She's so cultured, there's an intense class to her and I will not stop falling more in love with it with each passing day.

— Storytelling. 'Intermission', 'oneiric structure', 'MacGuffin', 'non- linear structure', 'fin', these are all firmly tied into the art of storytelling in film (and literature as well). Intermission is a pause in the midst of a performance. Oneiric structure refers to a structure of a tale that replicates something non-linear, so something relating to the dreamlike (oneiric comes from the Greek 'oeneiros', which means 'a dream'), think of... something surreal or distorted in reality, something that simply can't be real. MGuffin in a plot device that takes form of an a goal (an object, for instance) that is an important element in a story due to it being firmly tied to the story's characters, a driving force if you will (so for Kafka, you could see her pursuit of feeling fear). Non-lineaur simply means that a story does not follow an order of events that's necessarily chronological in terms of timeline. And 'fin' marks the end of a performance. I cannot stop being feral as to how consistent HoYoverse is with this. It isn't just referencing her trailer, or the overarching narrative of the game of Honkai: Star Rail, but also her character directly, terminology commonly used in film are in her trailer, she herself seems to be rather passionate about film (you receive a text from her regarding being alone in a movie theatre during the play of one, and she laments that there aren't more people there to watch), her eidolons being after musical terms tied to music that she thoroughly enjoys and is used time and time again to represent her. God. God.

— What some may note as being a clock counting down, is not a clock at all, but an elevator that represents a life counter. With each kill, the elevator descended one more level until it reached the ground floor. I've seen some make references to Inception and upon further glance, the reference can be intended. The 'floors' can be seen as being representative of the different levels or layers of a person's subconsciousness as she delves deeper and deeper, as she is inherently able to control and manipulate minds. God, Kafka, surely this isn't a power all from New Babylon have.

— Threads of silk; a Moirai reference tied in with the arachnid? "The silk is too fragile to be a threat, unless you're more fragile than the silk." We know she isn't fate itself, but we know, in essence, a puppeteer that ensures all sort of unfolds as Elio has foreseen, particularly with the Trailblazer, even if she trusts him/her to make the right decision. We know arachnids are far and wide associated with manipulation, which we know she's abundantly capable of and responsible for, but it goes infinitely further than that. Spiders spin webs of silk, threads of silk, threads of fate, destiny, this is an incredibly thorough and intricate character design that they settled on. Everything is so perfectly interconnected, it's absolutely unreal.

[orthodoxydaily]

Saints&Reading: Thursday, May 18, 2023

may 18_may 5

THE HOLY GREAT-MARTYTR IRENE OF THESSALONICA (1st-2nd c.)

The holy Great Martyr Irene was born in Magedon in Persia during the fourth century. She was the daughter of Licinius, the pagan ruler of a particular small kingdom, and his wife Licinia, and at birth, her parents named her Penelope.

Penelope was very beautiful, and her father kept her isolated in a high tower from when she was six so she would not be exposed to Christianity. He also placed thirteen young maidens in the tower with her. An old tutor named Apellian was appointed to give her the best possible education. Apellian was a Christian, and during her lessons, he told the girl about Christ the Savior and taught her about the Christian Faith and virtues.

When Penelope reached adolescence, her parents began to think about her marriage. One night Penelope beheld the following vision: a dove entered the tower with an olive branch in its beak, depositing it on the table. An eagle also flew in carrying a wreath of flowers and left it on the table. Then a raven flew in through another window and dropped a snake on the table. In the morning, Penelope woke up and wondered about the meaning of what she had seen. She related them to her tutor Apellian, and he explained that the dove symbolized her superior education and that the olive branch represented the grace of God which is received in Baptism. The eagle and the olive branch indicated success in her future life. The snake signified that she would experience suffering and sorrow.

At the end of the conversation, Apellian said that the Lord wished to betroth her to Himself and that Penelope would suffer much for her heavenly Bridegroom. After this Penelope refused marriage, was baptized by the priest Timothy, and he named her Irene (peace). She even urged her own parents to become Christians. Shortly after being baptized, she smashed all her father’s idols.

Since Saint Irene had dedicated herself to Christ, she refused to marry any of the suitors her father had chosen for her. When Licinius learned that his daughter refused to worship the pagan gods, he was furious. He attempted to turn her from Christ by having her tortured. She was tied up and thrown beneath the hooves of wild horses so that they might trample her to death, but the horses remained motionless. Instead of harming the saint, one of the horses charged Licinius, seized his right hand and tore it from his arm. Then it knocked Licinius down and began to trample him to death. This caused a great deal of confusion among the people there but Irene consoled them with the words of Christ: “All things are possible to the one who believes” (Mark 9: 23). And indeed, with wondrous faith, she prayed, and through her prayers, Licinius rose unharmed in the presence of many eyewitnesses with his hand intact. Then, Licinius and his wife were baptized as Christians, along with almost 3000 others who turned away from the worship of inanimate idols. Licinius abandoned his domain and lived in the tower he had built for his daughter. There he spent the rest of his life in repentance.

Saint Irene lived in the house of her teacher Apellian, and she began to preach Christ among the pagans, leading them to the path of salvation.

When Sedekias (Yesdegerd), the new prefect of the city, heard of the miracles performed by the saint, he summoned Apellian and questioned him about Irene’s manner of life. Apellian replied that Irene, like other Christians, lived in strict temperance, devoting herself to constant prayer and reading holy books. Sedekias summoned the saint and urged her to stop preaching about Christ. He also attempted to force her to sacrifice to the idols. Saint Irene staunchly confessed her faith before the prefect, not fearing his wrath, and prepared to undergo suffering for Christ. By order of Sedekias she was thrown into a pit filled with vipers and serpents. The saint spent ten days in the pit and remained unharmed, for an angel of the Lord protected her and brought her food. Sedekias ascribed this miracle to sorcery, and he subjected Saint Irene to many other tortures, but she remained unharmed. Under the influence of her preaching and miracles even more people were converted to Christ, and turned away from the worship of inanimate idols.

Sedekias was deposed by his son Sapor, who persecuted Christians with even greater zeal than his father had done. Saint Irene went to her home town of Magedon in Persia to meet Sapor and his army and ask him to end the persecution. When he refused, Saint Irene prayed and his entire army was blinded. She prayed again, and they received their sight once more. Despite this, Sapor refused to recognize the power of God. Because of his insolence, he was struck and killed by a bolt of lightning.

After this, Saint Irene walked into the city and performed many miracles. She returned to the tower built by her father, accompanied by the priest Timothy. Through her teaching, she converted five thousand people to Christ.

Next, the saint went to Callinicus, or Callinicum (possibly on the Euphrates River in Syria). The ruler of that place was King Numerian, the son of Sebastian. When she began to teach about Christ, she was arrested and tortured by the pagan authorities. They enclosed her inside three bronze oxen, one after another, which were heated until they were red-hot. When the Great Martyr was placed within the third ox, it began to walk about and split asunder. Saint Irene emerged from it as if from the fires of hell. This resulted in thousands of souls converting to the faith of Christ.

Sensing the approach of death, Numerian instructed his eparch Babdonus to continue torturing the saint to force her to sacrifice to idols. Once again, the tortures were ineffective, and many people turned to Christ.

Christ’s holy martyr then traveled to Constantina, forty miles northeast of Edessa. By 330, the Persian king Sapor II (309-379) had heard of Saint Irene’s great miracles. She was arrested, beheaded, and then buried to prevent her from winning more people to Christ. However, God sent an angel to raise her again, and she went into Mesembria. After seeing her alive and hearing her preach, the local king was baptized with many of his subjects.

Wishing to convert even more pagans to Christianity, Saint Irene went to Ephesus, where she taught the people and performed many miracles. The Lord revealed to her that the end of her life was approaching. Then Saint Irene left the city accompanied by six people, including her former teacher Apellian. On the outskirts of the town, she found a new tomb in which no one had ever been buried. After making the Sign of the Cross, she went inside, directing her companions to seal the entrance to the cave with a large stone, which they did. She also told them that that no one should move the stone until four days had passed.

Apellian returned after only two days and found that the stone had been rolled away and the tomb was empty. There are conflicting accounts about her holy relics being taken to Constantinople and other places, including Patras, Samos, and Patmos. According to the Western Martyrologies, Saint Irene was martyred in Thessaloniki after being thrown into the fire. At the same time, according to the Menologion of Emperor Basil II, Saint Irene completed her martyric contest by being beheaded.

Saint Irene led thousands of people to Christ through her preaching and by her example. The Church continues to honor her memory and to seek her heavenly intercession. She is invoked by those wishing to effect a swift and happy marriage. In Greece, she is also the patron saint of policemen. Saint Irene is also one of the twelve Virgin Martyrs who appeared to Saint Seraphim of Sarov (January 2) and the Diveyevo nun Eupraxia on the Feast of the Annunciation in 1831. By her holy prayers, may the Lord be merciful and save us. Amen.

Fragments of Saint Irene's Holy Relics are located at Kykkos Monastery in Cyprus and in the Greek church of Saint George in Venice.

Source: Orthodox Church in America

St HILARY BISHOP OF ARLES (449)

“On this day, we celebrate the feast of St. Hilary of Arles. He was born about 403, and, at an early age, he joined Lérins, the monastery founded by his relative, St. Honoratus. Hilary succeeded Honoratus as abbot, and, in 429, as bishop of Arles. Bishop Hilary's famous clash with Pope Leo the Great came in 445 after Hilary deposed Celedonius, bishop of Besançon, for marrying a widow and, before his ordination, for having presided over a trial that ended with capital punishment. Celedonius appealed to Rome. Even though Pope Leo knew that Pope Zosimus's predecessor had granted primacy over Besançon to Arles, he quashed Hilary's ruling. "Archbishop Hilary, a person of austere and uncourtly address, took up his staff and traveled on foot to Rome amid winter. Leo received him with good humor, but Hilary abruptly declared that he had not traveled so far, and in such weather, to bandy words with the pope but simply to state the case of Celedonius as it really stood upon the facts proved and to warn the pontiff against flying in the face of all ecclesiastical law." Things went from bad to worse. Hilary "appears to have lost his temper and committed some contempt of the pontiff and his court that consigned him to ecclesiastical custody." But Hilary escaped his jailers and went home to Arles. Leo cut him off from communion with Rome. There were more sanctions, including an edict from the emperor, Valentinian III. St. Hilary was no match for St. Leo, who later would stand up to Atilla the Hun. "When we come to the reign of Pope Leo I (440-61) we reach one of the momentous turning points in the history of the papacy. By common consent of historians, Leo was one of the greatest ecclesiastical statesmen and deservedly surnamed 'the Great.' At a time when the world was cracking at the seams, Leo stood forth as a Pope of commanding character and genius who dramatically and successfully asserted the supreme authority of the papacy. . . . he formulated a doctrine of papal primacy that was to weather all storms and guide the policy of all subsequent Popes. According to Leo, Peter was 'the Rock' on which the Lord built his Church; his successors, the Popes, were merely his temporary mystical personifications. . . . Leo not only enunciated this grandiose theory of papal primacy but also . . . made its claims good. . . . he frustrated the attempt to create an independent Gallic see in Arles--even going so far as to strip the saintly Hilary of his metropolitan authority there." St. Hilary died in 449.”

Source: National Catholic Reporter

ACTS 14:20-27

20 However, when the disciples gathered around him, he rose up and entered the city. And the next day, he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. 21 And when they had preached the gospel to that city and made many disciples, they returned to Lystra, Iconium, and Antioch, 22 strengthening the souls of the disciples, exhorting them to continue in the faith, and saying, "We must through many tribulations enter the kingdom of God." 23 So when they had appointed elders in every church and prayed with fasting, they commended them to the Lord in whom they had believed. 24 And after they had passed through Pisidia, they came to Pamphylia. 25 When they preached the word in Perga, they went down to Attalia. 26 From there, they sailed to Antioch, where they were commended to God's grace for the work they had completed. 27 When they gathered the church together, they reported all that God had done with them and that He had opened the door of faith to the Gentiles.

JOHN 9:39-10:9

39 And Jesus said, "For judgment, I have come into this world, that those who do not see may see, and that those who see may be made blind." 40 Then some of the Pharisees with Him heard these words and said to Him, "Are we blind also?" 41 Jesus told them, "If you were blind, you would have no sin; but now you say, 'We see.' Therefore your sin remains.

1 Most assuredly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door, but climbs up some other way, the same is a thief and a robber. 2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. 3 To him, the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. 4 And when he brings out his sheep, he goes before them; the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. 5 Yet they will not follow a stranger but flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers. 6 Jesus used this illustration, but they needed help understanding what He spoke to them. 7 Then Jesus said to them again, "Most assuredly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by Me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.

[tigger8900]

Some Desperate Glory, by Emily Tesh

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Kyr has trained all her life to serve Gaea Station in its sole mission: to avenge the destruction of Earth, whatever it takes. But upon reaching adulthood, her twin brother gets assigned a mission guaranteed to bring both death and glory while she's assigned to bear children in the nursery wing. In defiance of her orders, Kyr leaves to join her brother's mission, but what she finds when she gets there are the answers to questions she never thought to ask.

This book was fantastic. I can't even say too much about why I loved it, because most of the things that were so great are massive spoilers! I'll settle for saying that it takes several familiar sci-fi tropes — some of which you'll spot immediately, and others which take some time to reveal themselves — and remixes them into something that felt both fresh and timely.

The most impressive non-spoilery thing the book accomplished was managing to keep the reader just slightly more clued-in than the main character is. It's tricky to keep that balance with the reveals, between the reader knowing everything too early and the main character essentially narrating every logical step. I also enjoyed the setting, particularly the aliens and their sufficiently-advanced-technology, and the way the characters were developed as the plot went on.

I will warn you that you're not going to like the main character. She's a real piece of work when we first meet her. I promise, she gets better. Much better. Ordinarily such massive transformations over the course of one book ring hollow, but due to the spoilers I actually believed it this time. I also want to say that, if you're anything like me, you're probably going to be wondering around the 15-20% mark if you can trust the author with what this book seems to be taking on. The answer is yes. Again avoiding spoilers, but the things that are making you raise your eyebrows are intentional and serve the plot.

My biggest point of contention with the book was with the ending. It was foreshadowed pretty early on, so it wasn't deus ex machina. It's fair enough, I guess. It just felt a little too convenient for my tastes. Like, the bow shouldn't have tied up so neatly, if that makes sense? But I'm not really mad at it.

Does the tiger die? Mild spoilers ahead! There is, in one scene, a tiger. I'm not kidding. The tiger is presented from its introduction as an adversary, and is killed(in a somewhat graphic manner) in the course of a character defending themself.

[anchanted-one]

Eternal War Chapter 60. Surrender

https://archiveofourown.org/works/43208574/chapters/114100513

Trigger warning: This chapter talks about a suicide attempt.

Vajra tried his sword practice for a little while, but stopped within a minute. His heart just wasn’t in it anymore. His mind automatically began travelling down its favorite spiral of self-blame and -loathing.

He recalled the destruction of Uphrades, the raw feeling of seventeen million souls being snuffed out. He remembered the dirge of the damned; all those millions shrieking at him in his dream. There were also waking nightmares plaguing his beleaguered mind. He stood on a mountain of those he had personally vanquished, with the broken Darth Angral weeping just below the summit. He saw generations of Khrayii praying to their gods to protect them from the three-eyed devil who had killed large numbers of their kin. Soldiers more machine than people walked on long after their minds had fallen. They stood in two rows like the statues on the Senate plaza, their unseeing, mechanical gaze bore into his skull like drills.

He could see his demons lurking behind every tree, and under every blade of grass, and within the ripples of the river’s surface.

He could see the faces of his friend in the shapes of clouds or the negative space between trees and foliage. Fallen rocks and logs became his dead tribe. He still did not recall any of his feelings for them, but felt guilty at not being able to do so. Whether Oteg did something or not, he felt like he should have recalled some of his feelings by now. Surely he must be a bad son to feel so nothing.

He tried to shake it off. He picked up his backpack and went on a run, but stopped after climbing the first tree.

There, he saw his life for what it was. An affront. To the Jedi, to the Raudra, to his Masters, to his friends, to his family… and to the ideals he only held in his heart. He was bringer of death and misfortune, no matter how hard he fought to deny it.

“Why me?” he breathed. “Why can’t I have been… stronger? Why can’t I be someone who doesn’t care, or at least isn’t fazed by this? Why am I so weak? Better if I were dead. No one would miss me. No one should.”

The thought caught on, and grew in power with every rustle of the leaves in the wind. He began to cry as he thought about it, and soon the tears were pouring down his face. His chest ached from the heaving.

He wasn’t going to get out of this, he realized. He was always going to be weak and soft. He hated it, and himself. He’d had enough.

His hand sought out the rope in his pack. He pulled it out with trembling fingers, then let the bag fall to the forest floor. He feverishly tied it into a noose around his neck. Tied the free end to the branch he stood on.

With one final sob, he took a step off his perch. The rope ended his fall early, and violently. It dug into his throat, its rough fibres tearing into his skin as it choked the breath out of his lungs. Something burst in his eyes, and an unholy gurgle emerged from his mouth. His hands instinctively mover to the cord, but his fingers were unable to free him from the noose. His legs kicked about wildly, smashing hard against the tree trunk.

He heard a sharp retort echo through the woods, and something tore a hole into the tree beside him. The last thing he heard before the world ended was a second retort, and the sensation of falling.

*

Mercei Tanniels struggled to catch her breath as she skidded to a halt beside the Jedi’s unmoving body. She ripped off the rope tied to his neck before checking his pulse. She groaned. He was close to death. It had taken her too long to act, and when she had, her first shot had missed its mark, her first miss in years. At least she’d hit on the second try. The real question now was, what to do? Her ship had a fully equipped medbay, but she didn’t have the knowledge to treat someone after an injury like this. Especially given that he was an exotic.

There was no helping it. She’d have to call the Jedi. It was such a waste; those fools would undoubtedly send him back into the fire once he was back on his feet. But she had no choice; there was no one else she could turn him over to.

*

Something was wrong. Jasme could feel it. A foreboding chime that rang through her soul every few minutes, and resonated with every fiber of her being. Last time she’d had a feeling like this, it was the night before Uphrades was destroyed. She’d also felt it on the day of the crop poisoning, and the Khrayii attacked the Gnarls, leaving Tomas crippled.

She knew without a doubt now, that something was wrong out there.

But what could she do? She was no warrior. She couldn’t face the dangers head-on, even if she did know precisely what was wrong! She sat at her desk and continued her study of the Najveni star peoples. It was nearly the crack of dawn when her datapad began to beep insistently, signalling an emergency message.

She approached it with trepidation, certain that she was about to find out what had gotten her on edge. Her jaw dropped when she read the first line.

‘Your friend, Vajra Devarath, has just attempted to hang himself.’

She began hyperventilating at the image of the young Jedi hanging off a branch somewhere. She doggedly read the rest of the message.

‘I’ve cut him down, but he’s unconscious. He needs treatment which I cannot provide at the moment. Please come and collect him. He’s at these coordinates.’

The second Jasme finished reading, she ran out her door, making straight for the shuttle landing pads without bothering to throw some proper clothes on.

*

[dkehoe]

Every five years eligible Fae are gathered for the Selection and are required to serve one of the six Kingdoms. To be chosen to serve as the Source for a chosen Heir of one of those kingdoms is seen as a huge honor and at this year’s Selection there are six heirs looking for a source. Tessalyn Asura is at the Selection and has not interest in being one of the chosen but finds herself serving as the source for the heir of the mysterious Arius Kingdom. Theon is the heir of death and Tessa is going to do everything possible to escape his control. I came across this series by chance and am so glad to have discovered a new and really talented author. Rain of Shadows and Beginnings reminds me quite a bit of ACOTAR but unfortunately I don’t think Tessa is going to be able to escape her fate as easily as Feyre did in her series. Tessa is tied to Theon magically and each time she is marked they grow closer needing that physical closeness of touch in order to calm their magic. What is the purpose of being someone’s source you ask? Well, good question! In this magical world of Devram, the Legacy (Theon and his pals) are descendents of gods and the Fae who serve them have elemental powers that are revealed. As a Source, the Legacy would have access to Tessa’s powers, making his own so much stronger. So the heir’s search for the strongest Fae available and Tessa seems to be one of the strongest. As with a lot of romantic fantasy novels, Rain of Shadows and Beginnings is pretty darn dark. Theon is not the kindest Legacy Tessa could’ve found herself tied to. He has been taught from a very young age a lack of trust and because he doesn’t trust easily he handles Tessa, who is described as uncontrollable, in a manner that is abusive. I would be bothered by this a lot more if Tessa wasn’t such a strong character and fought back as hard as she does. Theon never knows what is coming next. This Fae that he’s chosen is not malleable as he’s seen other Sources be, she argues every point and doesn’t want anything to do with this life that she now lives. Who could blame her! As I found out more about each of their backgrounds I could understand better why they were both reactionary and dark. It didn’t excuse the abuse but it did explain it. It also gave me a reason to root for Tessa, who was a hard character to like. There were some great side characters in this book as well. I loved Tristyn, Luka, and Axel. Without their involvement this book would’ve just been one dark, hot mess. These guys lightened up the mood and created reasons to see both of our main characters in a different way other than snarky and off putting. Gosh, reading all of the above you might think I disliked this book but I actually liked it a lot! I’m looking forward to book #2! ❤️❤️❤️❤️ Click this link to purchase this book!* Rain of Shadows and Endings Copyright 2024 The Reading Chick All Rights Reserved *Amazon Associate- if you purchased this book through the above link I’ll receive a small stipend.

[cathygeha]

REVIEW

Close Her Eyes by Lisa Regan

Josie Quinn #17

 Dark, grim, complex murder mystery that grabbed me on page one and didn’t let me go till the very end.

 What I liked:

* Josie: homicide detective, married, had a difficult childhood discussed in previous books, happily married to Noah, competent, professional, good at her job, someone I would like to call friend * Noah: police lieutenant working with Josie and also her husband, loving, kind, supportive, bright, protective, patient, perfect for Josie

* The plot, pacing, setting, and writing

* That it make me think, drew me in, and made me care

* The police procedural aspects of the story and how Josie’s team worked with the team from Bly

* The complexity of this mystery with all the threads that were found, followed, and how they were all tied up in the end

* Getting to see the supporting characters and finding out how they are doing

* The psychological elements and their impact on more than one

* Knowing that there will be another book in the series

* All of it really except…

 What I didn’t like:

* Who and what I was meant not to like

* Thinking about all of the mental and physical pain and suffering that more than one experienced

* Thinking about how evil some people are

 Did I enjoy this book? Yes

Would I read more in this series? Definitely

 Thank you to NetGalley and Bookouture for the ARC – This is my honest review.

 5 Stars

    BLURB

 The young woman lay among the rocks next to the creek like a broken doll, strands of her long dark hair covering her face. Her body was the kind of cold that only the dead can be… A body lies beside Kettlewell Creek, the waters rushing and churning next to her broken form. When Detective Josie Quinn arrives at the scene, she finds few clues and a victim with no enemies. Nineteen-year-old Sharon Eddy was cherished by her beloved grandmother, who raised her, and her death shocks the Denton community where she worked at the local animal hospital. When Josie is called to the morgue to hear the results of Sharon’s autopsy, the case takes a sinister turn. She is horrified to see that a mark has been burned on to Sharon’s left hip with a cattle brand: a horseshoe shot through with an arrow. Shaken and terrified, the usually cool and collected Medical Examiner Anya Feist lifts her own top to show Josie an identical mark. Ten years ago, Anya fled her hometown after her marriage to her high school sweetheart ended in terror. But Josie can find nothing to connect Anya’s ex-husband Vance Hadlee to the murder. Her search of his family farm leads to more questions than answers. Then another body is found. A young woman in a red coat, lying in her final resting place, her hip bearing the same tell-tale horseshoe mark. As Josie gets closer to finding the truth, the killer creeps ever closer to home, threatening the lives of those Josie loves the most. Can she put together the pieces of this terrifying puzzle before it’s too late? A completely unputdownable crime thriller from an Amazon, USA Today and Wall Street Journal bestselling author. Gripping, page-turning and guaranteed to keep you up all night, it’s perfect for fans of Angela Marsons, Robert Dugoni and Rachel Caine.

[stillness-in-green]

Chapter Thoughts: 363, Those Who Defend, Those Who Violate

O  I love the detail that Monoma is on his feet on the first page.  I went back a few chapters to see if it happened when Bakugou’s big power move rocked the arena, but no, Monoma was still seated after that.  But here, just like Aizawa has one hand on his capture weapon, poised like he wants nothing more than to leap into the fray, Monoma—who can’t stand Bakugou!—jumped to his feet so violently he tipped the chair over behind him.  I love Monoma, you guys.

(Continued below the cut.)

O  I’m amused at the idea that some of ShigAFO’s newfound disdain for Eraserhead is tied to Eraser sending students to the field instead of coming himself.  I feel like it’s one of those things that echoes threads of both Shigaraki and AFO.  Dabi expresses it most clearly, the idea that adult heroes roping students into these big anti-villain pushes is in questionable taste (“tacky,” as he puts it), but it’s easy to imagine Shigaraki having similar sentiments.(1)  All For One, meanwhile, has had strong opinions about the nature of the student/teacher relationship from the beginning of the series!  So of course he thinks Aizawa sending his student into a fight that is only going to get said student killed is a mark against Aizawa as a teacher.

O  Shigaraki’s hair is especially gorgeous this week.  My god, he could have walked out of a shampoo commercial.  (If the shampoo commercial was cross-marketing with Mad Max, anyway.)

O  As others have noted, I’m interested to see what Best Jeanist thinks he’s doing here.  Eyes down, not even looking at the oncoming opponent, shirt sleeves unraveling downwards…  I saw a lot of supposition about him trying to sew up Bakugou, maybe even do something about the kid’s mangled heart, if we’re going to get real wack with what kinds of “fibers” Fiber Master is able to control.  (I would like to note that if we find out Best Jeanist can control muscle fibers, I will be needing the Best Jeanist+Muscular fic yesterday, please and thanks.)(2)

O  I want to comment, “Nice to see Mirko confirming once more that murdering an unconscious guy in a science lab tube was her explicit intent at Jakku,” but she’s enough like Bakugou that I wouldn’t want to take her at her literal word too unthinkingly, especially when her word in the Japanese is exactly that kind of “slaughter/beat to death” threat that Bakugou uses all the time.  (Indeed, give or take some regional differences in her word usage, I think it’s the exact same.)

O  Egregious boob shot is egregious.  At least her snarl is intense enough that it’s showing forehead veins.

O  I have no idea how exactly Dabi is mimicking a move that Shouto uses ice for, but I am indescribably glad that it’s not Phoenix Quirk Nonsense.  I wonder if any of Endeavor’s sidekicks are actually going to bite it here?  On the one hand, Fire Is The Worst Super Power because it scales damage relative to the opponent’s determination, as has been proven by this very series time and time again, so I have my reservations that Dabi is going to suddenly get better at K.O.ing named characters than he ever has been.  On the other hand, the art of Onima and Kido being consumed by the blaze is a lot more convincing than usual.

Also, I’m not going to say they deserve it, certainly, but given how lethal the story is always insisting Dabi is, he’s long overdue for something that his opponents can’t just bounce back from after a day or two in the hospital.  And the sidekicks, with their defensive rationalizations about why they’re still on the field doing Endeavor’s work after the revelations about Endeavor’s abuse of his family, are just about as narratively perfect a target as Dabi could get.

Otherwise, I’m extremely amused at how all this makes Deika look in retrospect.  So Dabi is capable of just snapping out copied movies in a matter of seconds?  He doesn’t even need any time to practice or work it out?  And we know Dabi taught himself the flying trick after seeing Endeavor use it against High End.  He would have had just about two weeks to practice it before the League showed up to pick him up for the Deika fight, wherein he had to fight a flying ice user.  So if Dabi is really that good at picking up his family’s special moves, why on Earth did he let Geten keep the high ground for their entire fight?

Did he just not think of it?  Forgot all about it just like he had to be reminded about the chainsaw Noumu at the training camp or that sand hero he killed?  Or was he not confident in the move yet and didn’t want to risk falling on his ass and looking lame in front of the League and/or that insufferably smug ice user?  Inquiring minds need to know.

O  Looking forward to Iida getting to do something (anything) at this point.  Or horse sidekick guy, who we know came to this field of battle but who hasn’t been seen here once.  Or Stain, in an ironic reversal in who’s watching who in a sea of flames and Noumu.

O  I’m always amused at how consistent Dabi is with using epithets or derogatory nicknames for people younger than him—crazy girl, lizard, Boss—while people older than him get to be called by their actual names/titles—Twice, Ujiko-san, and now Skeptic.  Dabi being polite 

And speaking of Skeptic.

O  I am in mourning for a more colorful translation of Skeptic’s fazacon insult to Dabi. 

I'm going to be pretty frank about this, so if you don't want to read several paragraphs about fetish terminology in Japan, or if the discussion of fictional incest upsets you, please do skip down to the next bullet point.

"Daddy issues" is, at least in my experience, entirely sexless in the English idiom, but it is not a sexless insult in Japanese. It’s a clear Dad-themed equivalent of siscon or brocon, lolicon or shotacon, and all of those -con words are much more loaded with connotations of obsession, possessiveness, and inappropriate affection or attachment in Japanese.  They don’t have to indicate that the person being hit with the label is literally having (or wanting) incestuous sex, but there is, even in the most clinical uses, a meaning of, “You are too hung up on [X taboo target], to extremes that other people consider weird or uncomfortable.”

But that’s only the milder end of the implication!  On the more explicit end, those words are also in common slang parlance as fetish terms, especially when they're shorthanded like that instead of fully written out! If you do a google image search for ファーザー・コンプレックス, "Father complex," you will get both academic or journalistic-looking results, as well as a number of what appear to be BL manga covers. But if you do the same for ファザコン, fazacon, the ratio shifts sharply towards manga covers/art, and even those start skewing dramatically more towards scantily clad anime women making bedroom eyes at the viewer.

"Daddy issues," to me, is about male characters brooding and stewing over their controlling or abusive or idolized fathers; it's reflective of angst and resentment, not the excessive and unseemly attachment Skeptic is implying with fazacon.

Now, Skeptic is hardly the final authority on Dabi’s feelings about his dad, of course. Still, he did spend a month living in a cave with Dabi harping on at every second of the goddamn day about how much he wanted to be out there making Endeavor cry more.  Hard to blame the man for calling it like he sees it!

O  Skeptic's!  Pin-stripes!!!  Watch me spin out a whole headcanon about how he’s adopted Re-Destro’s mode of dress as a parallel to also taking up Re-Destro’s dream.  Skeptic always was the most proactive in RD’s inner circle about preserving Re-Destro for the cause, no matter what kinds of off-the-wall and/or psychologically abusive methods are required.  Love seeing him appealing to Re-Destro’s desires here, including advancing Shigaraki Tomura’s interests, because of course that was Re-Destro’s desire as well.

This kind of begs the question of to what degree Skeptic knows or is even thinking about the real Shigaraki’s current situation—but on the other hand, it’s not like he was ever a real Shigaraki loyalist—he wasn’t even at the crater, after all.  So it wouldn’t be a big surprise if he doesn’t particularly care what’s going on inside Shigaraki’s head right now, so long as it’s not obstructing Skeptic’s own goals.

O  I’m delighted to get the nod that FGI did try to eject Skeptic from his position.  Given how little the heroes have talked about him as an issue—he mostly seems to get lumped in with the rest of the PLF escapees, as if he didn’t hack into every TV screen in the country!—I wonder if the Feel Good Inc. corporate head honchos assured the federal investigators that Chikazoku had been ejected, locked out, no way he can do that a second time!  (panic sweating)

It’s also interesting that the FGI head honchos were even able to flee the country.  I tend to think the arrest nets had to be cast pretty wide, and you’d think a company one of the highest officers of the MLA was a boardmember of would fall under a lot of suspicion.  I wonder if that implies, then, that it’s actually relatively clean?

I have had the thought before that someone like e.g. Curious might find it useful to have a dupe above her on the chain of command, someone that attracts all the attention for her magazine’s radical politics while she gets on with business in a less dangerous position.  Easy to imagine Skeptic could be much the same, especially since FGI’s main use as an MLA asset is the infrastructure access, which doesn’t require an ideological bent in the same way that a magazine and a political party would, or that Re-Destro ran Detnerat with.

O  Interestingly, it’s in this chapter that we finally see a hint of quirk supremacist leanings from Skeptic.  He and Curious were always the two that talked least about it, which I’d always assumed was because their quirks had the least to do with what they actually brought to the table as warriors for Liberation.  Of course, as mentioned above, Skeptic’s been living in a cave for a month, and had all his friends and comrades imprisoned or worse on top of that, so it’s easy to imagine he’s feeling a few notches more radical than he was, say, 6-8 weeks ago!

Still, I can't help but feel that his phrasing here is milder than the way Geten described the same idea, and I like that Skeptic’s wording leaves room for skillful or intelligent wielding of one's meta-ability—that, contra Geten, it doesn't have to be about the brute power of the meta.  

It also stands out that Skeptic here is yelling about using one's quirk to get ahead in the world, as he....hacks into a computer system with no use of his quirk at all.  Further, in a true anarchy that brings down the old order, exactly how intact and reliable does he think things like the power grid and the internet are even going to be?  Is he thinking at all about how much less useful he’d be if no one was maintaining cell towers?  The fact that he glosses over that completely is probably partly the cave life talking, but it’s also a good example of the kind of cult-based double-think lots of the MLA are likely prone to. 

Anyway, like Skeptic and the Liberationists, I too would very much like to see the social categories of Hero and Villain abolished, so I remain highly curious(3) about whether Horikoshi’s going to actually do anything about all these radical binaries he has characters talking about, and the way those binaries encourage the dehumanization of members on both sides.

O  Finally, I’ve touched on this before, but while La Brava is the heroes’ obvious solution to a villain hacker, I don’t think she really works in this situation.  There’s nothing heroes can offer her that I can see them being willing to offer, so why would she accept any of their help requests?  Yes, clemency for Gentle Criminal would be an incredibly easy thing to enact in their position, but that would be like *extremely American voice* making deals with terrorists, and the series has never given me the impression that heroes are willing to be less than Maximally Harsh with villains.

Also, even if heroes/police were willing to bargain with LB, they don’t seem to have done so in advance, judging by Mandalay and the rest’s blindsided response to someone trying to hack into the system.  Exactly how fast would we be meant to believe that heroes could retrieve her, bargain, and get her appropriate equipment and access, all while Skeptic continues to make a nuisance of himself?

O  I have a lot of questions about the circumstances that are seeing the Todoroki family just wandering around through a crowd when Endeavor is as unpopular as he is right now.  Though Natsuo’s arm around Rei’s shoulder and Fuyumi’s touch to Natsuo’s hand do feel telling.

O  I never had the chance to talk about this before, as I wasn’t doing chapter posts at the time, but do you guys know what’s really dumb?  People in the tags back in Chapter 342 saying cruel or hateful and insulting things about this AFO spy dude:

(And his lady friend, too, of course, but he was a bit more prominent, so he seemed to get more vitriol.)

Guys.  Guys.  This man was introduced literally five chapters after we saw the Aoyama family weeping in despair about how helpless they felt under All For One’s thumb.  People use AFO’s grooming as a handwave to excuse every negative thought Shigaraki Tomura has ever had.  Yoichi openly accuses his brother of manipulating and using people.  AFO comes into peoples’ lives when they’re at their most vulnerable and collects them for his nefarious purposes.  He gives poisoned gifts and then never lets people go.  We have seen all of this, multiple times, extremely explicitly.

And yet, somehow, people just forgot about all that the instant they saw someone new working for the guy.  Yeah, Bowl Cut here seemed pretty cynical in 342, much less tearful and sad than the Aoyamas were, but gloppy tears and distraught wailing are not the only way to respond to a life like the one the Aoyamas were living.  Every time this guy’s phone rings, he presumably has to worry about who’s going to be on the other end, whether his life is about to descend once more into intimidation, manipulation and the danger of being discovered and subsequently abandoned to the fury of a justice system that has no mercy for people who associate with villains.

It’s possible he’s just working for AFO in hopes of some kind of reward?  His final line back in 342, delivered with his standing very close indeed to his fellow spy gal, was, “Our future is guaranteed,” which leaves some ambiguity about what sort of future he’s expecting.  But living under AFO’s thumb is no kind of life at all, and it was absurd how quickly fandom forgot about that the red hot second they saw a new face following AFO’s orders, just because Horikoshi didn’t write in 60 pt. Font, “THIS MAN IS A VICTIM.”

I’m rooting for you, Bowl Cut!  You and hat girl and the leopard guy and the older lady with the ponytail, all of you do your best for your future!

O  I love AFO’s sense of camaraderie and identification with villains as a collective and I wish it was more genuine, or at least that we got to see more of it that isn’t openly and blatantly aimed at advancing his own ends.  What I wouldn’t give to know more about how he and Skeptic interacted, such that Skeptic expresses, “I’m going to do as I please!” sentiments more in line with Shigaraki’s words to the united PLF than anything Late Series AFO has ever indicated he’s going to permit when he becomes Demon Lord of the World or whatever.

And that's a wrap on this week. Thanks for reading!  More ask replies soonish.

–

1:  Not that someone who accepted a high schooler and a middle schooler into the League has the moral high ground there or anything, but, as ever, villains don’t claim to hold the moral high ground like heroes do, so I consider them under less obligation to live up to it.

2:  In light of 263’s spoilers, I would like to say that handing this task to Edgeshot is a waste and a crime.  More thoughts on that next week.

3:  Read as: concerned.

[nastybuckybarnes]

Hoist the Colours  -  2/3

Pairing: Pirate!Bucky X SeaGoddess!Reader

Summary: An encounter with the man you used to love lands you and your new crew in peril, stuck on a ship with the people responsible for binding you. And what they have planned for you is far worse than what you’d first imagined.

Warnings: Language, Angst, Fluff, Kinda slow burn

Word Count: 4.3K

A/n: Second part of this mini series! inspired by Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End 

~*~

“Alright lads, you know the drill. I expect you back on the ship by dusk tomorrow.” The men of the king are more than eager to head to the longboats, wanting nothing more than to satiate their hunger for ale and whores.

The door to the quarters that you and Wanda share gets slowly pushed open, and Tony smiles brightly at you.

“Are you going to be coming ashore with us?” He asks, eyes hopeful. You don’t have it in you to say no, and you also can’t fight the nagging feeling that there’s something waiting for you here.

“Yes, we will. We’re ready now,” You say, smiling at him. He leads you out to the longboat and helps you in. There are a few other cremates already in the boat, waiting to be lowered to the shallow waters below.

You and Wanda sit beside each other, across from the men as they row you to shore.

Wanda looks at you, her eyes asking a question. You incline your head the slightest and she leans forward.

“You’re looking for something,” she whispers. You sigh and shrug weakly. “Something is coming to find me. And I must meet it.” She nods thoughtfully, eyes flashing from you to the docks up ahead.

As soon as the longboat is tied off, men on the shore are hurrying over to you and Wanda to help you both.

You accept the outstretched hand and climb up onto the dock, turning and waiting for Wanda to join you. As she comes up, a man’s hand strays too far south, and she hisses.

You grab him by the wrist, thunder clapping above you as you glare at him.

“You lay another finger on a woman without permission, and you’ll lose your entire hand. That is a promise.” He opens his mouth to make some sort of snarky remark but snaps it closed when he sees the tip of his fingers starting to turn black with the mark of death. He nods quickly and you drop his hand, watching with a stone-cold look on your face as his fingers return to normal.

The group of men who were so willing to help you quickly disperse as they realize that they aren’t going to get what they want from you or from Wanda.

“You ladies feel free to roam. I have no doubt that you can take care of yourselves. If you want to rejoin us, we’ll be leaving at dusk tomorrow.” You’re surprised at the offer, having thought that you and Wanda would have been forced to rejoin them.

“Thank you, Tony. For all you’ve done and for your kindness.” He smiles warmly at you and nods. “It’s nowhere near what you deserve, but it’s the best I could manage.” He offers you a small bow then heads off to drink himself into a coma for the night.

“Well. Shall we explore all that Tortuga has to offer?” You ask, extending your arm to Wanda. She grins and takes your outstretched arm. “We shall.”

~*~

Bucky sits in the pub, eyes roaming around the place for the millionth time as he tries to pinpoint your face amongst those of the strangers in the crowd.

A man plops down beside him, a cup of ale held loosely in his fist and a poisonous grin on his face.

“Barnes, good to see you again.” Bucky hardly glances at him. “Rumlow,” he says with a nod.

“What are the odds of me seeing you here, huh?” Bucky shrugs, sighing heavily. “What is it you want, Rumlow?” “Where’s your captain? I’ve got a proposition for you.”

“Over by the bar chattin’ up a dame. Go interrupt him, I dare ya.” Rumlow purses his lips and chuckles lightly. “A man of business, as usual.” Rumlow gets up from the table and heads over to the bar, giving the woman talking to Steve a smile before stepping between them, far too close for Steve’s comfort.

Bucky watches them, watches as Rumlow speaks and as Steve’s eyes widen. The eyes in question are suddenly on him, a chin raised up towards the ceiling, beckoning the dark-haired man to join the conversation.

Bucky gets up with a groan and heads over to the bar. Crossing his arms over his chest and looking at the two other men expectantly.

“There’s a ship of the King’s men here tonight, they leave tomorrow at dusk,” Steve starts, waiting for his friend to catch on. When he simply stares back at the blond, Steve sighs.

“We split the bounty down the middle if we help take the ship. Think about it, Buck. They’ve always got gold on those ships.” He shakes his head. Right as he’s about to open his mouth he hears a familiar note being played on the piano. It’s being played softly, so softly he has to strain to hear it, but he hears it no less.

Whipping around, his eyes search for the piano, and, more importantly, the person playing it.

“Buck?” Steve asks, concern lacing his voice. Bucky ignores him, pushing his way through the pub until he gets to the back corner.

His breath catches in his throat, heart racing in his chest as he sees the woman seated at the piano, playing the song that lulls him to sleep every night. His fingers instinctively find the locket around his neck, the one that plays that very same song, and he finds himself blinking back tears.

You can feel him behind you before he says anything, but when he whispers your name you can’t help the shiver that rolls down your spine. Your fingers continue playing but your posture stiffens slightly, the only indication that you heard him.

“Where have you been? We’ve been searching for you for so long.” This has your fingers freezing, and you slowly stand up.

You turn to him and he’s beyond confused and concerned at the betrayal and sadness in your eyes. Without speaking a word, you brush past him, ready to walk straight out of the pub and meet up with Wanda.

He grabs your wrist, urging you to stop, and you do, only to yank your arm out of his grip as if he scalded you. “Don’t you dare touch me,” you hiss, your eyes filled with rage.

His brows pull together in confusion, having absolutely no idea why you’re treating him this way. You turn away from him again and he runs after you, fighting the urge to grab you again.

“(Y/n) wait! Stop!” As soon as you’re out of the pub you feel better, the cool air doing wonders to clear your head.

“Where are you going?” You continue walking, grinding your teeth together as he follows you. His fingers just barely graze your shoulder and you whip around to face him, thunder crackling above you.

Clouds roll in, your emotions getting the better of you as a storm forms quickly overhead.

“You have no right to touch me. I should kill you for even looking at me after what you did!” He looks genuinely confused. “What I did? (Y/n) what are you talking about?” You chuckle once without humour, your eyes stinging with unshed tears.

“Don’t play dumb, James. It doesn’t suit you.” With that you turn and walk away just as the rain starts to fall around you, droplets splattering on your face as tears claw their way down your cheeks.

He stands there in the pouring rain, staring dumbfounded at your retreating figure while wondering what the Hell happened that you’re blaming him for.

“Buck? You okay?” He doesn’t look away from where you last were, his eyes having lost you in the downpour.

“She... I...” He looks over at his friend, eyes rimmed red. “What happened?” Rumlow asks, squinting against the harsh rainfall.

“I don’t know. She just... she hates me. I don’t even know what I did.” Steve pats the man on the shoulder. “After we lost you she went ballistic. Maybe she heard a rumour of something untrue and believes it? I’m sure she’ll come around.” Bucky shakes his head. The way you stared at him, utter betrayal in your eyes... he knows you far too well to believe that you’ll simply change your mind.

“Enough of that. Do we have a deal, Rogers?” Bucky looks over at the two men, confused about whatever deal is going down.

“The King’s ship is here. And they never travel without gold. The colours on this one lead me to believe that there’s an important man travelling for his Majesty. And you know what that means,” Rumlow explains, grinning at the metal-armed sailor. “Leverage,” he murmurs, mind still on you while he ponders the deal.

“The amount of Gold on a king’s ship, even if we split it halfway, would set us over for months,” Steve whispers. Bucky sighs then nods.

“Alright fine. Now which ship are you wanting?”

~*~

“Ladies! It’s good to see you. I’ll be honest, I was unsure if you’d be joining us again. But I’m glad you did.” You smile warmly at Tony then look back out across the open water, eyes flittering towards Tortuga in the distance.

“What did you expect to happen if not that?” Wanda asks softly, stepping beside you and keeping her eyes focused on the horizon.

“I thought he would be surprised to see me. And he was. But he acted as if he didn’t know it was he who caused this in the first place,” you whisper. She frowns but says nothing more, giving you the silence to think over your interaction with the man you used to love.

“Captain! We.. we’ve got some trouble it looks like,” Peter says hurriedly. Tony steps away from where he was listening to your conversation and glances to where the young man is pointing. Sure enough, coming up on the stern are two ships, each with dark flags waving.

Clouds roll in overhead quickly and Wanda’s eyes glow red.

“Pirates,” she whispers. The wind comes in strong, sending a few crew-mates stumbling as they run across the deck.

“They aim to plunder, they want nothing to do with us, unless they deem us of value,” you inform, gathering your skirts in your hands and marching over to Tony.

“We have no chance of outrunning them. And outgunning them... not even a hope.” He looks at you then up to the skies. “Can you not conjure something?” You shake your head. “Nothing more than a storm. But what aids us will aid them. We’ve lost.” He sighs heavily then nods, looking over at his men.

“What will they do?” Your eyes travel to the two pirate ships that are quickly gaining, trying to focus on the flags and determine which ships they are.

You incline your head slightly to the right and a gust of wind comes in, pushing their flags to the side. With wide eyes, you stumble back, the sight of the flags making your heart roar in your ears.

“What is it?”

You shake your head, the wind picking up as the rain starts to fall harder.

“We’ve got no chance,” you whisper, chest rising and falling rapidly as the ships grow nearer.

Wanda is by your side in an instant. “It’s them, isn’t it?” She asks, staring at the ships. You nod, grinding your teeth together.

“There is nothing we can do now,” she says firmly, taking hold of your arm to grab your attention. “Do not let them think they’ve won. They have not.” You take a few deep breaths, reigning in your emotions and clearing the rain. The skies stay grey, but the winds die down and the rain ceases.

“We’re going to be boarded, men. And when that happens we are to remain calm. They are pirates. They will take our gold, they may take our lives, but they will not ever take our pride! They will not strip us of the very thing that makes us men! We are strong and we stand for the King!” The men on the ship all shout their agreements, readying themselves for whatever fate awaits with the coming of the pirates.

Quickly, far quicker than you would’ve expected, you’re being flanked on either side by massive ships. One of them far too familiar. A home long forgotten.

You can see the pirates on either side, shouting profanities and grinning wickedly.

“Prepare to be boarded!” A man shouts at you. You look around at the men surrounding you and take a step closer to the back, burying yourself in the crowd as much as you can.

Pirates swing onto the ship, swords and pistols drawn and prepared for a fight. When they receive none they seem far too happy.

“Imagine my surprise when I see a ship of the King floating idly in the waters of Tortuga. Seemed too good an opportunity to be missed, right boys?” That voice... it sends a shudder ripping down your spine and darkness taints the sky.

You look up, eyes burning with anger, and you stare directly at the man who’s speaking. His murky eyes meet yours and he smiles a sickly grin, stepping down onto the main deck and pushing his way through the crowd.

“Ah, but you are not all men of the King, are you? No, some of you are much more valuable.” He stops when he’s in front of you, eyes raking over your figure.

“Yes. Some of you are far more valuable than mere men of the King.” He raises his fingers up to stroke your cheek and a clap of thunder shatters the silence. You glare at him in warning but he only chuckles, grubby fingers tracing dirty paths down your cheek.

“What are you going to do, witch?” He asks softly, stepping even closer to you. You say nothing, glaring up into his eyes with pure hate. He chuckles and right as he leans down to say something more you spit in his face. He flinches back then glares at you. He raises his hand to strike you but before it can come down, long fingers are wrapped around his wrist.

“No harm is to come to her.” You look over at the man, clenching your jaw shut so tightly you fear you may break it.

“Fine,” Rumlow spits, yanking his hand free from the blond man’s grip. “But we’re going to be changing course,” he shouts, pushing through the crowd to the poop deck.

“Tow the ship! And bring the prisoners aboard and shove ‘em in the brig. We set sail for Nassau.” Rumlow’s men are more than happy to start grabbing at people and chaining their wrists, stopping them from fighting and forcing them towards the edge of the ship where a plank is being laid down.

As men start crossing the gangplank to Rumlow’s ship, the man himself walks over to you and Wanda. Two men come behind him, each with thin metal cuffs in their hands.

“Hope you don’t mind, darling. Just a little precaution. Can’t have you using what little you have left to disturb my ocean.” The way he says it, with such smugness and certainty makes you want to pull his tongue right out of his mouth.

The cuffs are snapped into place and you nearly collapse. The remainder of your powers are stripped from you entirely, leaving you a mere mortal. Wanda inhales sharply at the sensation and you know she’s feeling just as terrible as you.

As the two of you are being pushed towards the plank, a hand lands on your shoulder.

“The witch will have my quarters. She has no place with the men of the king.” You wrench your shoulder out of his grasp and stumble away from him.

Rumlow watches in amusement as Bucky pleads with you with his eyes.

“As generous as an offer that is, I’d rather remain with the only crew who hasn’t betrayed or abandoned me,” you whisper harshly, glaring daggers at them. You cross the plank and are promptly shoved below decks, Wanda close behind.

You’re then locked in the brig with the rest of the crew, chest heaving at both the emotional strain and the physical one of having your powers drained.

Tony looks at you in complete and utter confusion, trying to piece together what he can, but he has little success.

You stay absolutely silent, back pressed against the damp wood of the ship.

Trapped and bound yet again by the hands of the same men.

~*~

“Once they reach Nassau they will look for the other ship of the King, try and find any leverage that they can. They are gathering far too many hostages, and we will be killed soon,” you whisper to Tony, a frown on your face as you peer through a crack in the wood. The ocean is rough, not by your doing, but you cannot help but feel as though the gods are on your side.

“Those men know you. Who are they?” Your bottom lip trembles and you take a few deep breaths. “One of the ships... used to be my home. The other is the reason why I am bound. Why I cannot access my powers fully. And there is only one man alive who knows how to strip me of my powers.”

He’s quiet for a very long moment.

“Why not just kill you? Why bind you?” He asks. You shrug, having asked yourself the same question. Because this, this fate that is now yours, is one worse than death.

“They mean to use you as a weapon,” Wanda says softly, her eyes closed as she tries to get used to not having her powers.

You and Tony both look over at her, waiting for her to continue.

She opens her eyes and looks between the two of you for a moment.

“By keeping you alive, your power remains on this earth. If they were to kill you, then your power would be lost, and that power is of great use to them. I anticipate that it will only be a matter of hours before you’re brought to the captain’s cabin and your purpose is discussed.”

Wanda is correct.

It’s only after the sun has set and night has taken hold that anyone descends the stairs.

“Cap’n wants you in his cabin, Witch,” a man sneers, yanking the door open and grabbing you by the wrists.

He’s awfully rough with you, but you pay it little to no mind, trying instead to focus on figuring out Rumlow’s game plan.

You’re forced into his cabin, nearly tripping over yourself in the process, but you regain your footing just in time and your eyes find those of your captor.

“I thought you would put up more of a fight if I’m honest,” he says, arms crossed over his chest as he looks you up and down.

You say nothing, mouth shut tightly and eyes focused on a scratch in the wall.

“Nothing to say? Really? I thought you would have some choice words considering your current predicament. Or are those words reserved for someone else?” A muscle in your jaw ticks and he grins, realizing he struck a nerve.

“It was he who told me how to bind you, how to strip you of your powers. He was there when we did it too. And yet he acts so innocent.” He stands up and walks over to you, circling you slowly, like a vulture.

“How does that make you feel? Does that... anger you? Does it make you hungry for revenge?” He stops when he’s in front of you, two fingers brushing gently across your jaw.

“Your wrath is something I’ve only ever dreamed of harnessing. And I can bring it back. You only need swear alliance to me, and you’ll be free from your bonds. You need only tie yourself to me, and your power will return.”

You look at him, face stoic and cold.

“I will not trade one set of bonds for another. Find someone else to do your bidding.” With that you turn on your heel, only to be yanked back to his chest.

“You will watch your tongue, woman, or I will cut it out. Do you understand?” You say nothing, but for the first time in a long time, you feel truly helpless.

“I am your captain now, and you will listen to me. Unless you would like to join all those that you have sent to the depths. And this time, you won’t have your powers to save you.”

You clench your jaw and tug out of his grip, glaring at him for a moment longer before turning and leaving his cabin.

“You will do my bidding one way or another, Wench! It is only a matter of time before you realize it!”

You’re ushered back below decks and shoved into a separate cell than before, successfully isolating you from the rest of the crew.

“That was brief,” Tony says cautiously, eyes on the retreating crew-mate before returning to your figure.

You say nothing, only close your eyes and pray for something as sweet as death to take you.

~*~

It’s hours later that you’re woken from your sleep, metal clanking together and hushed voices speaking quickly.

“Hurry now, before they wake up.” You push yourself into a seated position, watching in curious confusion as Steve and Bucky hold the cell door open, helping the prisoners out and up the stairs.

Only after they have the permission of Tony do they leave, and even then, the Captain and Wanda stay behind, each of them looking at you.

Upon realizing where you are, Bucky yanks your cell door open, holding his hand out to you.

“We must hasten, it won’t be long before they realize what we’ve done.” You shake your head, crossing your arms over your chest. Tony and Wanda leave their cell, lingering on the stairs and watching as you refuse help.

“Why would I exchange one traitorous pirate for another?” You ask rhetorically, your words like a slap across Bucky’s face.

“Buck, we need to leave. We don’t have time for this,” Steve whispers, gently pushing Wanda and Tony up the stairs.

You stare at the brunet in front of you, daring him to make a move.

When he doesn’t, you take matters into your own hands.

“What are you waiting for? Leave. It’s what you’re good at.” He doesn’t have time to argue, but your words cut him deep.

Against his better judgement, he turns and runs up the stairs, hating himself for abandoning you, but knowing that there are far more lives at stake.

The ship branches away from Rumlow's, heading West to escape him.

“We’ll drop you off at the nearest trade stop, but that is all we can do,” Steve says, looking across the table to where Wanda and Tony sit, each eyeing the goblets of rum in front of them.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” Tony asks, looking at Bucky. The pirate furrows his brows in confusion.

“You’re the one who got her trapped.” He’s beyond confused now.

“What the hell are you talking about?” He demands, metal hand clenching into a fist.

“Don’t act so innocent. You’re the only person alive with the knowledge of how to bind her to her human form, how to cut her off from the sea. And you act as though you’ve done nothing.” Wanda’s eyes glow red with her anger but Bucky is still confused.

“I-I never told anyone... She trusted me and I kept it to myself. Why...” He trails off, horror colouring his features.

“Steve, when Rumlow found me after I fell overboard, what did he say happened?” Steve ponders this for a moment then shakes his head.

“Just that they found you in the water. Nothing else.” The red slowly fades from Wanda’s eyes as she realizes what must’ve happened.

“Rumlow’s the one who wanted power all along. And he’s stopped at nothing to get it. He means to use her as a weapon to control and conquer the seas. He’s the one who bound her. He must’ve used your knowledge to bind her without you knowing.” The three men in the room are confused by her suggestion.

“Consider it. He has no recollection of the time spent away from the ship, and he is also the only one with the knowledge.” She rises slowly to her feet, red glowing from her fingertips.

“If you let me, I could bring forth the memories, show you what your mind is trying to forget.” He looks at her hesitantly for a moment.

“(Y/n) is a dear friend of mine. If what you are saying is the truth then I promise I will not harm you.” His gaze travels from her to Steve then back to her, a new determination in them. He nods once and then her fingers are hovering right by his temple, a red hue flowing from them.

His eyes slowly take on the same colour before rolling back into his head, his hidden memories finally being brought to the surface, the truth being revealed.

It takes a few minutes, but he finally reopens his eyes, anguish written on his face.

“She... Steve, we must free her.” Steve sighs, not knowing what to say.

“Buck, how are we supposed to do that? We need to free the crew before we do anything. We cannot risk all of their lives.”

“Rumlow’s knowledge may be enough to bind her powers to his ship, his command. The only way to keep the seas safe is to release her, and soon,” Wanda pipes in.

“My crew can wait. And any man who wishes to leave may take a longboat and find their own way.” The Pirates look at the King’s man for a moment before nodding.

“Very well,” Steve says, turning back to his friend. “How do we free her from her bonds?”

“The same way they trapped her in the first place. And to do that we must go to the island where she was born.”