#honestly this is just the Iron Hands at baseline

[bidonica]

Couple of questions: If house Frey had came from prestigious background like a cadet branch of of an old house who married another prestigious house. Would they then be a very powerful house and political influence in the kingdom? As they’re married to do many and have loads of allies and connections? Also: if Frey men were known for being jaime level knights and the women Cersei level beauty, would that make a big impact on how high they marriages could be?

Well. If you look at what has happened so far in asoiaf and f&b being an ancient and prestigious house matters until it doesn't. I.e. as of now, you have more political weight as a Tyrell than as a Lannister of Lannisport even though the latter are the cadet branch of one of the older Great Houses. Or think of the Hightowers: very powerful, super ancient and prestigious, their hands deep into the Faith and the Citadel, went as far as putting their bloodline on the Iron Throne but then ended up on the wrong side of history and are back to mostly having local influence despite remaining insanely rich. But now they are the ones who marry into the Tyrells and not the other way around.

George is very careful to write the rise and fall of the various noble houses as dependent on circumstances and on how politically skilled their members are at a given point in time. House Lannister under Tytos' rule was very different than House Lannister with Tywin as the patriarch. Rickard Stark's "southern ambitions" probably influenced the current trajectory of his House just as much, if not more strongly, as the choices of the previous generations. And at the other end of the spectrum, I'm pretty convinced that George is using Bronn, who started out as a sellsword without a family name, not even a bastard one, as an example of how many of the older Houses have probably started their rise to power and prestige. My money is that in a few generations the founder of House Blackwater will be remembered as a valiant knight and not as, well... the kind of person Bronn is.

This is to say, there isn't a formula where if you switch some factors you get a definite result. It's very much a theme in the novels that it doesn't work this way! In asoiaf there is a lot of "might makes right" that gets legitimized retroactively.

That works for the second part of the question too. Beauty and strength are valued in marriage matches but they are hardly the first factor being considered. Think of how Roose Bolton chose Walda Frey specifically as a wife mainly so he could get a bigger dowry (I also think he likes his women thicc but that's just headcanon). An attractive spouse might sweeten the deal for the people involved but it isn't a baseline requirement for an advantageous political match. Of course Westeros is also incredibly ableist so things change when someone like Tyrion enters the equation, and Brienne's experience with failed matches also tells us a woman who is ugly, awkward, and gnc might have a harder time finding a husband. But honestly I don't think the Freys being kind of weaselly looking and weak chinned makes them repulsive or anything, it's Walder's antagonistic, penny pinching ways that make his peers think twice about having him as an in-law imo.

[thebibliosphere]

if you have the time and capacity I would greatly appreciate some chronic health advice! I'm also someone who deals with the clusterfuck of problems that is MCAS (and POTS and EDS and immune deficiency...) and I'm wondering what drew you to an organic diet to treat MCAS? its really hard for me to find reliable information on if and why it works, but I've seen several mentions within the MCAS community about it.

I've been Struggling to keep my MCAS symptoms in check, and they keep escalating (severe asthma flares, burning in my mouth while consuming things, and bleeding sores suddenly appearing in my mouth and taking forever to heal, along with all the typical MCAS symptoms just short of anaphylaxis) so at this point I'm willing to try anything that might help 😭 I do have an allergy/immunology doctor, but a lot of their focus lately has been trying to treat my immune deficiency, so I haven't gotten much info on how to handle this. any advice or info you can point me towards would be greatly appreciated.

So, I was prescribed an all organic diet by my allergist before we new I had MCAS because during a bout of testing to try and figure out what the hell was going on, I had two different skin reactions to corn. One was organic corn, and my body was completely fine. The other was regular corn and my body broke out in hives. I wasn’t told which was which, or even what they were testing, in order to prevent any possible psycho symptomatic reactions. My then allergist, who I honestly miss cause he was way more competent and 💯% less of an ass than the one I have now, looked at that, looked at all my other problems and went “well that’s weird”, and summarily prescribed me an all organic diet to see if it would help.

It did, and it was concluded that my body was reacting to the minute trace amounts of synthetic pesticide (probably glysophate) found in non-organic foods. I emphasize synthetic, because organic foods still use organic pesticides, which are also not that great for the environment or people due to lack of FDA regulation, but when your choices are death now or potential cancer in 40 years, you take what you can get. He also hypothesized that because I grew up in the UK/Europe where pesticide use in general is more heavily regulated, as are preservatives, that that was also what was making me ill.

Some five years later and we fast forward to now, and we do indeed know that pesticides and preservatives can be mast cell disorder triggers. Even more natural ways of preserving foods (like fermenting) can be a mast cell dysfunction trigger due to histamine intolerance. The more you know 🌈 ⭐️

Which is also something to consider. Not everyone with MCAS has histamine intolerance, just like how not everyone with HIT has MCAS, but the two often go hand in hand. If you haven’t tried a low histamine elimination diet, it might be worthwhile to see if it helps. I do urge caution though, as a low histamine diet is extremely dangerous long term due to lack of nutrients, and it should ideally be done under the guidance of a doctor for no more than 4 weeks. I was left on a low histamine diet for almost two years by a negligent doctor, and almost starved to death. Also with things like MCAS and HIT the goal is to gradually build your list of tolerated foods back up, not to keep eliminating them, as that is the only way to heal. You need to get your body to a good baseline for healing, then try to get as much nutrients back into your diet as possible. And before anyone jumps in to recommend feeding tubes as they’ve done in the past: feeding tubes should be an absolute last resort when all other options have been exhausted. They are also no guarantee against anaphylaxis and have other complications that can be fatal, so it is imperative to try and avoid them at all costs.

With an HIT diet and competent medical supervision, I’ve gone from being able to eat 2 things to 21 in the last year. Still not a huge amount, but it’s huge progress for me, considering my body was reacting to tap water at one point. Still does sometimes, so I recommend looking into filters that remove trace amounts of chlorine from the water, for both drinking and bathing. You can get shower filters that attach to the head for like $30 and it can help with skin reactions/eczema like symptoms. I do not recommend full house systems that filter via the pipes, as the treatments used in water are actually essential for preventing things like pipe corosion or mold build up, but filtering from the faucets/shower heads is a good idea.

Which brings me onto things like skin products and household items. With MCAS, there can be any number of things that trigger us that in turn make our bodies primed to react to everything and anything we put into it. A lot of household cleaners, especially scented things, are mast cell dysfunction triggers. Tide washing detergent, for example, absolutely murders my throat if I breathe the scent in. We had friends come to stay recently to help with our basement demolition, and the smell of their laundry detergent made my throat swell and my eyes burn. It also helped me realize that yeah, actually, switching to all free and clear products for all of our household needs has Substantially reduced my overall reactions, including to foods. I now avoid anything scented, yes including essential oils, because essential oils can be triggers for anyone, not just folks with mast cell issues. Natural doesn’t mean safe. Nor does it mean shit to MCAS where some people can eat potato chips just fine, but can’t eat healthier things like fruit or veg because our mast cells have gone wonky and mistake certain proteins for allergies, whether we have a true IgE allergy or not.

Unfortunately, this does mean we end up incredibly deficient in many vitamins and nutrients, and supplements are necessary for our survival and recovery. Re: the mouth sores and bleeding, if no one has tested your b12 levels along with a homocysteine test, get that done asap. I had mouth sores for up to six months before we found out I had severe pernicious anemia and was on the verge of death. Low folate and low iron can also cause tongue/mouth burning, and those things go hand in hand with b12 deficiency. (And most foods that are high in b12 are often off-limits to people with HIT/MCAS. EDS also means we don’t absorb them as well from the gut, so it’s a good thing to check regardless) if it's not that, try looking at things like your toothpaste/mouthwash. Try avoiding toothpaste with SLS in them; see if that helps. Sensodyne is a good brand that makes an effort to avoid SLS but double-check the ingredients. I can't use any mouthwashes, so I make a point of doing salt water rinses when I remember. Some people also use oil pulling as an alternative to conventional mouthwash.

Unfortunately, MCAS is one size fits no one disorder, so the only way to get a handle on it is to find out what works for you. It makes things very overwhelming, but I hope some of the above is helpful and proves useful to you. Best of luck, and if you've got any more questions hmu, I'll try to help where I can 💖

[spc4eva]

Morning Wind: Hooked on a Feeling

Say hello to our awkward Jakonan bounty hunter! I really wanted to give insight into her brain and the fact that her 'reservation' and 'mysteriousness' is because she's lowkey panicking in silence beneath her mask. Ironically, people just assume she's stoic like Mando, when in truth she's a bundle of anxiety.

Also yes, Hooked on a Feeling by Blue Swede is now canon and she was totally singing it in her ship.

Just a few fun tidbits about her: Asa is a middle child, she's 30, and I imagined her faceclaim being Adeline Rudolph.

Word Count: 5,173

Rating: T (violence/cursing)

Crossposted on AO3 & Fanfic.net

Docking on Nevarro was always a process. Not because there was a tower to report to or it was exceptionally difficult to find a spot on the 'tarmac', which consisted of a flat sandy dune, windswept and dotted with the sulfuric ash of the juxtaposed lava plains. Rather, mentally Asakaze found her lashes fluttering in irritation as she came back to this dry, arid, shitty planet. After a decade of making her rounds, she'd grown rather cynical and bored with her tactic for survival. Groaning, she rubbed her face in the cockpit, glowering through the tinted observation shield as she knew leaving her starship entitled getting in all of her armor and putting the kriffing mempo on. Had she not been wanted by the Empire for years, she might've taken it off, but there were still loyalists who would be able to pick her apart from other Jakonans.

Asakaze Shand was a traitor to the Empire, supplying them with bodies for years before renouncing her alliance and allegiance to the emperor. Originally, she had done it for her people, convinced that they could weather through the onslaught since the Empire was at war with the Rebel Alliance. Her anticipation was slapped right off her face and her entire clan was massacred, her escape nothing short of a miracle and only due to her abilities with her Chi. Despite the loss, House Shand was well known across the galaxy for less savory reasons and she took full advantage of their notorious reputation.

Exhaustion was the best way to explain how Asa felt, a deep bone weary existence that was the same day in and day out. Find the quarry, bring them in, get paid in credits, fuel up the ship, begin the rounds once again. What else was she to do? Even if the Empire was officially defeated, Asakaze was disgraced, no one was waiting for the Shand Shogun to return after she'd led their clan to ruin.

I was a girl. Why did they expect me to know what to do? I was barely 20.

Rattling around her, the Ryu had seen better days and without constant maintenance, routine checkups, and a mechanic's knowledgeable hand Asa was on a countdown from when the starship would kick the bucket. Pinching between her brows she didn't bother stifling her sigh as she slapped the radio on the dash, beginning her Nevarro routine. To the Guild, Ronin was an enigma beside the Mandalorian. Honestly, she didn't know how the fuck she'd managed that. Beneath her mempo, Asa was the epitome was anxiety and awkwardness. What others perceived as calm, poised reservation was actually Asa not having any idea what to say, quietly simmering behind her mask as she wanted to do nothing more than shrink into nothingness.

Voices chanting began to filter through the radio, repeating the word simultaneously before a voice broke through with a wry wistfulness. Asa rose from her seat, robes fluttering around her as she darted to the side, throwing her arms out in a futile attempt to pump herself up.

"I can't stop this feeling

Deep inside of me-"

Dropping from the cockpit, down to the hull of the ship, Asa belted the song, all but screaming it as she grabbed her armor and began forcing it on. Her eyes leered at the cryo chamber during the guitar rift, pointing toward the ceiling as the horns blared between the lyrics, almost as if she were conducting it herself. Spinning around to a nonexistent audience, Asa cocked a smile and winked - at the wall, but in her head it was a fan. In her dreamscape, Asa had been a performer and singer - reality wasn't quite as fun. Asa dressed whilst the song continued, the final lines corresponding with the mempo being set in place, her own mellow voice replaced with the oni-setting on her modulator, intentionally deep and scathing.

Frowning when the song actually ended, Asa's shoulders sagged in her kimono, and she grumbled to herself, trotting to the controls beside the dock of her ship. Despite the attempt to put a little pep in her step, this hellish repetition was all that was keeping her clinging to sanity as she spun around on a carousel that never ended, constantly having her leer out at the same faces, despite the years that had passed. Asa didn't even know when she would be ready to finally step off the carousel, but supposed her Chi would eventually guide her in the right direction, just as her father had claimed. Thus far, her Chi had done nothing but fail her. This resulted in a deep-seated cynicism in the woman. For all her abilities, they hadn't once saved her.

Asa had the worst fucking luck.

Currently, her life was testament to that - a Shogun turned bounty hunter who had to hide her face despite the fall of the Empire. Any solace she had was on the Ryu in the brief lulls between planets.

Opening the port, hands cocked on her hips, Asa let out a long sigh which did not properly register through the modulator on her mask. Although it filtered the atmosphere, she could feel the heat radiating off her skin beneath the loose kimono sleeves, the sulfur was infectious like a plague. Her entire ship reeked of it, the rotten egg stench permeating from all her attire, even the hilt of her katana. Yet another of the listless charms of Nevarro. Sauntering her way to the cantina, humming the song to herself, she untucked her arm from her kimono sleeve and levied it on the inside of the fold as she lazily trotted back into town.

Eyes traced her crimson form, wary and skittish. The irony. Beneath the folds of fabric was a lean woman, but a woman nonetheless. Her sandals gave her another few inches, giving her the appearance of being close to 5'10", a seemingly average height. In tandem with her armor hidden beneath her robes, she appeared much broader than she actually was. Sure, Asa had muscle and was a honed mercenary, but she wasn't thick or imposing. The walk was a big part of it and Asa moved with a lazy nonchalance. By this point, most people strayed clear of her path. Even when she'd first come to Nevarro, anyone who glimpsed her mempo was eager to flee before her. Originally, she'd found this amusing, but now she was growing rather sick of it. After years of it, watching people scatter like leaves in the wind was harrowing and lonely.

The cantina was a dusty hovel, filled to the brim with untrustworthy scum that Asa had come to consider acquaintances. Despite the fact they'd trade her in for a good sum of credits, they all had stories which she collected and transcribed to kanji. Poetry could be found in even the worst settings and as a Jakonan, songs and lore had never fled her heart. Her fingers itched to play her flute for an audience, but she didn't trust anyone enough to remove her mempo. Given that it had been a decade, Asa had resigned herself to accepting her fate alone. In hyperspace, only the stars listened to the song of the shakuhachi.

Grimacing beneath her mask, she noticed that Karga was exceptionally thrilled that afternoon. Usually, the only thing that made him excited was money and prospects that earned him better commission. His dark eyes brightened at the sight of her - or Ronin. Given the number of years they'd known one another, she'd established a baseline for quarries she would and wouldn't take. Imperial remnants were a no-go as were bounties that he'd doled to the Mandalorian. Given that she still owed Mando a debt, she was not keen on digging the hole further. Additionally, Asa had declined many high paying bounties when her Chi screamed in opposition. Karga poked at her, stating that 'Mando will take them' as if there was a deeper rivalry between them when there wasn't. Asa respected the Mandalorian and wanted nothing to do with him. Honestly, Mandalorians were bad news and she regretted owing a debt, but that was the way of the Bushido.

"Ronin!" Karga greeted animatedly, slapping the table that he habited since their original meeting. Asa wished it was raining now, she loved the petrichor and humidity in comparison to the heat that leeched all moisture from her, despite the folds of her kimono making an attempt to covet it. "How was your hunt?"

He didn't actually care as long as it was successful. "Ready for offload," she retorted, glancing around the sparsely populated common house. Honestly, this was one of the few rare times she'd noticed that it was this empty.

"Are you staying around for some sabacc?" Karga chatted idly, thumbing the breast pocket on his robes, eliciting her attention. Eyes tracing, she noticed the outline of a rectangle, perhaps metal, but she couldn't say.

"Depends. What do you have available?"

Her heart was humming with a caustic rhythm, searing with each thrum as she stood, unable to hear the meaningless words the Guild Master was gracing her with. Instead, the hairs on her arms raised and she drew a shuddering breath, an invisible force laying against her shoulder blades and chest, stealing the air from her chest and threatening to strangle her. Something was coming. Given the disconcerting method in which her Chi screamed, she was not willing to stick around to see what it was.

Karga had pushed a few fobs in front of him, mentioning something about the Guild lolling into an even pace and the pucks would only pace decently rather than the typical rate. Given how uncomfortable Asa was with her Chi smothering her, she swiped them up without listening to where she might have to go. "Deliver my credits to my ship. I'll wait for the offload," she instructed sternly, interrupting yet another of the man's infamous tangents as he brimmed with excitement.

"Happy hunting, Ronin!"

Now that was strange. Pausing halfway through the cantina, Asa craned her neck to glance back at the humming man. Karga had his moods, but very rarely had he ever been so earnest in his wish for 'happy hunting'. He was practical, not fanciful. Today must have been a spectacular day for him to be wishing her a successful hunt. Such chimerical encouragement was never needed for someone like Asa. She turned in her fobs within the allotted time frame and had never required 'luck' in order to do this. Given how foul her luck was, Asa was glad she was capable of acquiring her quarries. Most weren't talented in fighting and her upbringing had been in both academia and warfare. Jakon prized itself on being a civilization prepared for any challenge, be that battle in scholarly, artistic, or war pursuits.

Rather than thank him, Asa ducked her head and ignored him. Not because she was partial to being rude, but between the disquiet of her Chi and the oddity of Karga trying to imbibe luck in her favor, Asa was frowning beneath her mempo.

Usually, she might wait until the cryo slabs were unloaded, but the trembling cacophony of Chi propelled her legs out. No way in the galaxy she was sticking around while her body screeched in dismay. Rather, she carved the familiar path across Nevarro City, the only settlement on this awful planet, and her cursed prison stuck in a distorted ground hog's day rendition of hell, constantly on repeat. A headache seared in the back of her head, which she couldn't abate by touching her brow with the mempo on. Growling, her strides lengthened and she made haste back toward the Ryu.

"Ronin!" A vaguely familiar modulated voice entreated her, a rich baritone tainted by the metallic ring of the mechanics in his helmet. She had only heard it a few rare times and never in length, as the pair barely had reason to exchange conversation. Truthfully, Asa was somewhat terrified of the Mandalorian. He was a mountain of steel, only a few inches taller than her when she was in full regal, but he wasn't playing at what she had for nigh on a decade. He was the ruthless bounty hunter who'd take any quarry in, whereas she had restrictions. He was an absolute murder machine. And he was standing just a few paces behind her.

Thanking the God-beasts for her mempo, she swallowed hard and craned her neck to glance back at him, skin paling. The glare of the sunlight caught on his new armor, entirely of beskar, imbibing the unpainted silver steel with a bright reflective glow. Had her mempo not been translating the light through a filter, she might have been momentarily dazzled by the man, who was now a stunning suit of Mandalorian pride.

"Your debt."

Asa's heart skipped a beat as she gazed out from beneath the rim of her rice-hat. Even if she was disgraced, she still upheld the values of a samurai, just as her father had raised her to do. A life without any guidance was not a life at all, but simply an existence as a ghost. Despite the lucrative business that Asa now found herself in, she'd always followed her tenets. Repaying debts was one of those, recalling the snarling visage of the Wampa as it threatened to bear down on her with massive, clawed paws - to rip her limb from limb, crack her bones to drink the marrow, and feed on her flesh. Asa was about to commit seppuku to escape the pain of that demise when the Mandalorian's pulse rifle boomed so loud that she thought the entire cavern was going to collapse.

Asa had been about to die, but the only tell from that day was the ragged scar down her right armor where the Wampa's claws had snatched at her.

"I require payment."

Of all the fucking times.

Her Chi had relaxed, the eye of the storm giving her a momentary reprieve from the mystery that had upset her originally. The war drumming of her heart quieted and she stared toward the abysmal T visor of her counterpart. Two years had passed since she offered the life debt and now he was coming to collect. There was no way that Asa could refuse, even if that meant going against what her Chi was urging. A debt was a debt and could be collected when and wherever. Asa could not set the terms.

"Very well," she finally offered, her voice quiet, her vocoder transitioning her own mellow voice and making it grit like sand beneath a boot. "What do you require of me?"

"Assistance," he retorted curtly, but betrayed nothing farther. "You are not fond of the Empire?"

Not fond? The Empire that had taken her father, her people, and subsequently ravaged her home? "That's a good way to phrase it," she snorted, modulator crackling at the edges of her wry laugh, the shrugging of her shoulders more indicative of the chuckle than the noise.

"There are remnants here. They have something I want."

An arched brow was poised at no one, as her mask didn't move with the expressions her own haggard face made. Rather, she let the laziness slip into her posture as she leaned back and tapped her thumb on the pommel of her sword, tinkling the charms. "A debt may be paid in any way you see fit," she started, eyes raking over the line of the man's shoulders trying to glean more intention. "However, this seems to fall short of a life for a life." Alternatively, she would still owe him if it were as simple as killing a few Imperials. Hell, she would have done that for free.

"The Guild might have a few words with us after."

Ah. Well, now that made more sense. This mission, even for any of the other hunters who greatly disliked the Empire, would not stake their livelihood on helping Mando. Especially since many of them loathed him. Asa still had enough wits to be afraid of him and what he was capable of, but exhaled deeply enough that he caught her sigh this time. "A debt must be paid," she relinquished, wondering if her life would always chance chapter by chapter, decade by decade. Somehow, as she just passed 30, she had a feeling her body was going to begin rejecting change. Maybe it was time to get out of the bounty hunting business.

He nodded, swiftly spinning on his heel to do an about face, leaving for Asa to follow. Daylight still shining down on the city, locals milled about and stayed clear of the leery pair. A throng of distance was set between them, an invisible buffer of at least six feet maintained more by Asa than Mando. Cutting a corner into a narrow, shadowed alleyway, she was forced to close some of the space, half wondering if Mando was going to just kill her here and dump his last bit of competition out of Nevarro into one of the neighboring waste bins.

He could have done that on Hoth and he didn't, Asa reminded herself, grip still tight on her katana as she followed me into the belly of Nevarro City. With the sun dipping on the horizon, the light couldn't claw its way in between the tightly packed walls and doors. A cloak of shadows played between the walls, dancing mutely on the back of the Mandalorian's grey bucket. His cloak obscured the rest of his shiny retinue, dashed by the pulse rifle that was most certainly taller than her.

The Mandalorian was not a huge man, not in height. Being just a few paces behind him, Asa spent more time observing him than she had cared in the past, worried that he would notice her staring despite the anonymity of her mempo. He was seemingly average, his boots and helmet adding an additional inch or two, shoulders broadened by his armor just as her own made her look impressive. This was no illusion, as hers was, for the Mandalorian's armor accentuated his vitals and protected them, the beskar layers thin in comparison to hers. Despite the added padding, the Mandalorian was broad, lean as a whip, and didn't require another head of height to strike fear into any who glanced over at the impassive, nebulous T visor.

Coming to the end of the alley, Mando paused and glance both ways like a child about to cross a busy street. Warily, he continued after taking a right. Asa had never bothered coming into the city, not this deep, and she expected if her mempo wasn't filtering the air she would be able to smell the metallic reek around her. From parts to trash, inner Nevarro City was a rotting cesspool and they didn't pass so much as a soul on their secretive mission - which aside from killing Imps and acquiring something, she had no idea what it entailed.

He bent over a dumpster of scrap and Asa dared to move within a pace of him, glancing down to where his visor was set. Within was an eggshaped container, the white paint chipped and flaked, lid open. If she had to guess, she'd say it was a repulsor lift of a sort, but it was tiny and akin to a bassinet. A soft song played from the dumpster, eliciting enough of her attention that she bent down past him to touch it. Gloved fingers met durasteel and the music hitched, a gentle clarinet weeping in her ears. Chi. She knew it, as anyone with Chi had a song of their own. Otherwise, the only time she heard Chi in the form of music was during great strife or occasion, like the day that the Empire had attacked her people, the maddening roar of their death march vibrating in her brain.

"Come," Mando ordered, snapping away from the discarded pram and for a fleeting moment, she thought she noticed his shoulders sag as he released a belly deep sigh.

They scaled a building in the dull sunset light, the blue sky being chased by cotton candy pink and coral orange, turning the puffs of cloud into candy. Despite all that Nevarro lacked, there were redeeming moments - probably because she couldn't smell the sulfur, but the sky had always been a fixation amidst the obsidian and ozone.

Mando had his rifle propped against his shoulder, laying prone as she daydreamed and got away with it since he couldn't see the misty expression on her face. A solemn tap to the side of his helmet and he was listening to a conversation she couldn't hear, glaring down the infrared scope as Asa wondered what the cottony candy clouds tasted like. It had been absolutely forever since she'd had sweets like back on Jakon. She missed the red bean paste fillings and the true taste of green matcha instead of the cheap imitations she usually got her hands on.

He drew the rifle back, his thumb having been subconsciously tracing circles against the barrel as he listened on. A strange quirk that Asa noted; an odd little bit of comfort the man tried to instill in himself as they worked on recon.

With their feet back on the ashen soil of the street, they approached a dark teal door which was streaked with lines of grimy rust. The roads were never truly quiet, the din of the busier sectors a dull hum like a hive of busy worker bees who just weren't occupying this sector of the combs.

"Wait here," he directed, gesturing to the alley flanking the door.

Asa leaned against the wall, hearing the sharp rap of his fist plunking against the door, before a click and whizzing was accented by the crunch and crackle of frayed mechanical equipment. Stomping back in her direction, Mando tossed the droid's retinue on the ground and grabbed his weapon, tilting his helmet in an unimpressed manner at her candor. With the gust of an invisible wind, her muscles let out a wistful bellow and she stood up straight, reaching down toward her obi as the premonition of battle whispered delicately in her ears.

"Check the perimeter," icy fingers raked down her back like the claws of the Wampa, the poorly modulated voices of stormtroopers causing a seething rage that laid dormant for so long to come bubbling to the surface, chasing away the unpleasant chill with searing wrath. Asa did not wait for Mando to make the first move, her body moving on its own accord as the curve of her blade left the ornate sheathe.

Mando was more interested in placing a detonator than dealing with the pair of stormtroopers that had come out to scout the source of the original noise. Her approach was covered by the boom of the bomb, the browned armor of the Imps akin to weathered parchment as they turned tail and sprinted back into the building.

She was the wind through the mountains and trees, flowing as gently as a brook but could possess the ferocity of a raging river, and she was swift like flame, crackling down to embers until she was stoked with fuel. Now, she had plenty of fuel, sliding up behind the troopers who were distracted by the flashing lights, electricity guttering to just the dull winking of the emergency lighting, as many synapses and circuits had been fried in the explosion. None noticed the flap of a crimson kimono, nor the nonexistent click of her sandals as Amagumo arched, the bolts of lightning rippling gold in the flashes of sputtering light.

Katanas were made for slashing, not puncturing. Wielding one correctly took years of practice, being keenly aware of the perfect manner to arch the curve of the steel in order to achieve maximum rending capacity. Asa had always been more inclined toward the blade versus her siblings. Haku had preferred blasters. Kit with a sniper rifle. The ancient blade of their people was a symbol and tradition and rarely utilized in battle except for those who were blessed with strong Chi, like the Jedi. Otherwise, the piece of metal was useless unless utilized in close quarters.

The first figure slumped, plastoid parting like butter beneath a heated blade. Unlike a lightsaber, Tamahagane did not cauterize, and blood spurted in a macabre fountain as the neck and head slowly slid off as the body finally crumpled to its knees. Rounding on her, the second trooper raised his rifle in defense, gasping as Amagumo savagely bit into his blaster and severed it in half. With a crescent flourish, the tip of the curved blade slipped up and drove into the gorget of the trooper, Amagumo drinking its fill as the Imperial soldier gurgled and choked on his own blood, crimson basking the blade in a hellish curtain as it slowly dripped down toward the hilt.

Mando was in the hole that he had blasted, watching her fight as she withdrew her sword and wiped the blood of her enemies off on the bottom of her robes. Wearing red meant that her foes could not see the blood, be that her own or that of her enemies. By this point, Asa was so accustomed to the gore laden displays and paintings she created that the garnet pools that she stepped through had little effect on her.

A flanking door opened and Mando's helmet whipped, an arm snapping out with such precision and swiftness that Asa barely had the time to blink before the room grew hot with the light of his blaster and the trooper flopped to the floor in a plastic heap. Of course, she had known that the Mandalorian was good, but aside from their encounter on Hoth she had never seen him in action. Just the speed such a broad man moved in set her teeth on end, wondering if she would have been able to dodge or parry the hipfire had he rounded on her. Kriff, just thinking about it made her skin pallid and a cold sweat break out on the back of her neck.

Listing through the dull grey, medicinal halls of the building, Mando took the lead, as she was here as support and had no true idea what the 'thing' he wanted was. A haunting song played in her ears, which she tried to swat away like annoying gnats, but the clarinet's vibrato grew louder, but not in a good way. Instead, the melody quavered as if the musician was taking constant, trembling breaths with the inability to fill their diaphragm properly. Cool dissonant melodies, minor thirds and tritones, there was no musicality - just noise. Something was very wrong with the person who the song belonged to.

Mando knelt just on the other side of a doorway, lifting his vambrace, and shooting his whipcord launcher. Jetting out like a javelin, the forked tongue on the end hooked into the edge of a trooper's rear chestplate, the Mandalorian utilizing the leverage of his kneeling position to jerk the soldier down, retracting the grappling hook as the trooper slid back, disoriented and right into the vibro-blade waiting in the Mandalorian's other hand.

Without even glancing in her direction, Mando dropped the body and continued prowling forward. Asa paused just to glance down, grimacing at the precision of the kill. Despite being freaked out by it, she found herself highly impressed with how streamline the man's kills were. He didn't dally or take solace in what he did, rather he just pummeled through with honed experience.

She was a few paces behind him when he shot open a door, fire returned and actually finding purchase as his shoulder jerked back after his pauldron caught the brunt of the attack. While the trooper had been reacting in self-defense and in light of a Mandalorian being inside his station of duty, she knew Mando was pissed. He shot the soldier square in the chest before glaring at the spectacled doctor who tittered nervously in the corner.

If seeing a Mandalorian breaking into his lab wasn't intimidating enough, the hellish lowlight glare on her own mask made him even fainter, gripping the side of the gurney he flanked as she stared. What was this? She raked her eyes over the uniform the doctor was wearing, clearly of an Imperial officer, his hand flying out as Mando turned the barrel of his handgun toward him.

Asa couldn't hear the conversation between them, her head slowly turning as the clarinet's pitiful solo warbled in her ears. Her legs carried her on their own accord, hat tilting downward as she gazed at the source of the song. Not an adult, but a tiny green child that was unconscious and strapped into a whizzing medical machine. "Ā ko-" oh, child - she whispered, reaching to smooth over the fronds of fuzzy white hair on top of a wrinkled brow. Despite the youth, she knew that this being was much older than appearances betrayed.

"Don't touch it," Mando snapped at her, forcing her hand back as he pried the machine off the baby.

"It's a baby," Asa retorted defensively, whipping her mask up toward him to challenge the Mandalorian for the first time. "You do not know what it is."

"And you have a better idea?" he growled, leveling his blaster toward her abdomen, daring her to do any more than what had been agreed upon.

"Hai, I do, Mandalorian," Asa hissed back, but there was no time for them to argue, her Chi kicked her heart rate, plunging what had been a steady pace to a shockingly dormant state. Pupils blowing beneath her mempo she cocked her head. "We don't have time for this. More are coming."

Mando grunted his agreement and turned his blaster away from her.

"Protect the ko, I will take the lead," Asa knew that the only place they'd be able to go next was the space-port where their paths would diverge and they'd leave Nevarro for good. Still, when she glanced at the little bundle of canvas, she knew deep in her heart that she could not leave the baby with the Mandalorian in good conscious. Her father had once told her that her Chi would guide her and now she stood beside a child with such strong abilities that she'd heard his song from across the city.

Thumb tracing the ribbons on Amagumo, her free hand brushed her obi where a few other weapons were stashed. A metallic cylinder was inconspicuously tucked beside her shoto, a weapon that she'd not touched since she had acquired the title of Shogun. This was not the weapon of a samurai, but as her Chi bellowed in her chest, she knew it might be time to wield it finally. Amagumo had served her well, but her time as a samurai was coming to an end.

The child needed her.

[mshermia]

No. 03 - Nothing Left To Lose - Part I

Whumptober Prompt No 3. MY WAY OR THE HIGHWAY

Manhandled | Forced to their Knees | Held at Gunpoint

The reversal of the Snap added 3.5 billion people back to Earth’s population. 3.5 billion more people to house somewhere, 3.5 billion mouths to be fed, 3.5 billion people who return to a world that was not expecting them to ever come back.

In the aftermath of the victory over Thanos, Peter Parker finds himself in a bit of a situation. Instead of helping the "little guy", what is he supposed to do when the "little guys" start helping themselves to the property of others. Tony finds out that his billionaire status doesn't really help that particular situation.

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I'm using my own Fix-it to Endgame "Like You'd Know How It Works" as a basis for the timeline, though the prompt will work fine without having read that story. The important part is, that Tony's not dead.

Baseline: 2 weeks after Tony is brought back from the multiverse.

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AO3 Link

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People never did tell you what it would feel like to come back from the dead. Possibly because people had very little experience with things like that. The odd person being found after they had gone missing for a long time, maybe even been presumed dead, that was one thing. Something like that might happen from time to time. But full-on coming-back-from-the-dead? Well, Tony had always been a pioneer when it came to living through the weirdest shit.

To be fair, to him it wasn't a resurrection per se. He hadn't been dead after all, just his other-dimensional self. Well, just... And the other version of him remained quite dead still, thank you very much, and in all honesty, he wasn't anywhere close to being cool with all that yet. Possibly ever. So there was no way he'd let that big brain of his even start to muse over what was basically his corpse that lay buried not too far off their house. Chances were, he'd never be cool with thinking about that part. So, he didn't. Didn't think about it. Didn't talk about it. Just waiting for it to go away. Which it would. In a few years. 50, give or take.

He rubbed both hands across his face, an active effort for his brain to change the channel. He was supposed to be paying attention to the furry beasts in front of him.

"Seriously, Gerald, you're acting as if it wasn't in your best interest to keep your neck un-wrung. Fluffy, Tiny, let's go."

Gerald didn't like the barn. He was used to grazing wherever and whenever he wanted, nobody's schedule to follow. A free spirit after Tony's own taste. But there was a reason why their stock had grown from one fairly independent alpaca to a flock of three. Damn poachers. Or rogue hunters. Something along those lines, he hadn't inquired in that much detail. They had decimated the two herds in the near-by village, only Gerald's new barn-mates had been able to flee.

And apparently, the Stark's had expanded their life-saving services to the community's life stock now. Well, Pepper had decided they would and Tony wasn't going to question whatever it was that made Pepper happy, not any time soon. His family was the only thing that mattered now. Not the village's life-stock-politics, not any kind of politics. He had retired from everything that didn't directly involve making the people he loved forget about that little death-mishap.

Tony grimaced to himself. Semi-officially retired at least. Yes, in the long run, he was likely to consult for the team and there was always Peter's neighborhood-avenging to support. He'd never leave the Spiderling hanging, no pun intended. But right now, there was some healing he had to supervise. Emotional healing that could only be done with lots of hugs and kisses. With hot chocolate by the fire and glasses of cold wine by the lake. With breakfast in bed and comfy afternoon board game sessions. With nights spent sitting next to his kids' beds, for their benefit of course, not just his own. That was why he had come back with his little protegee after all. For them. And Tony would do whatever it would take, even if it involved wangling three alpacas at once.

Those very alpacas who were very reluctant to move into the barn. Even with how remote the cabin lay, they weren't safe outside anymore, not with the sun slowly setting in the west. But all the pulling on Gerald's head-collar just didn't get him moving, not until Pepper took pity on her dear husband and lent a hand. While she was pulling on the leash, Tony was pushing against the stubborn buck's backside. Alpacas didn't usually tend to kick with their hind legs. That was horses... right?

He groaned, rolling his stiff neck from one side to the other as the gate clicked shut behind Pepper. "Remind me again... Why did we agree to this?"

Pepper didn't bother to send him a scolding look as she wrapped the security seal around the gate's locking mechanism. "Because we're good neighbors?"

"We are?" He smelled like damp fur. When did wet fur and barn animals become his life? "Since when exactly? Was there a house meeting? Did I miss it?"

"Mh... do you need a reminder of the process of negotiation?" She took a step towards him, one hand in his shirt pulling him close against her, their lips almost close enough to touch. "You smell like wet alpaca."

He pulled in an affronted gasp. The hand that was still holding his shirt pushed him away from her, her lips stretched wide in amusement. "Come on, Cesar. Maybe I'll remind you after a hot shower."

"Hey!" He followed after her. "Cesar? Really? First of all, Gerald is not a dog, second... how about during the hot shower?" He had caught up with her, his eyebrows wiggling suggestively. "I could think of a couple of other things that—"

"Boss." Tony froze as FRIDAY's voice rang in his earpiece. "Captain Rogers is on the line."

"Oh, but whyyy?" He cringed, not just because it was evident from Pepper's face that whatever road that moment had been leading them down on, was gone. Replaced by the kind of dread he was supposed to shield her from.

"He is asking to speak to you. Immediately."

As Tony groaned again, Pepper blew out a shaky breath. "Everything okay?"

He only pulled a frown as he told FRIDAY to put the man through and didn't bother with any niceties. "What's going on?"

"We need you." Rogers' voice was low and solemn.

"Excuse me? I'm retired." The nonchalant quip was second nature to him but he couldn't deny that the Captain's voice gave him the creeps.

Pepper stepped a little closer and whispered a pained "No!", worry radiating off her like someone had flipped a switch.

"Yeah, we don't really have time for that right now, Tony." Rogers seemed even less inclined to take Tony's demeanor in stride than he usually was. "It's your pet project."

Deep down, Tony had suspected something like this. They knew not to call him for anything but this. "What happened?"

"He's in the middle of a bit of a situation. You need to get here. Now."

"Tony, what's going on?" The way Pepper's hand curled painfully tight around his wrist, she seemed to instinctively know what was up.

There should be a process, how he made those decisions. There should be but in all honestly, it was likely redundant since there was no question as to what he would do if the kid was in trouble. Whenever the kid was in trouble. He didn't hesitate, not even for a second thought. "I'm sorry, honey." He pressed a kiss on Pepper's cheek - any light-hearted banter about alpaca-smell forgotten - as he tapped the nano housing unit hidden underneath his shirt.

"Gotta make sure the kid's safe." He pried Pepper's fingers off his arm. "I'm sorry, honey."

The thrusters engaged before Pepper could draw a breath to argue. He was so retired. He was so retired and they all knew that. It could only mean one thing: the kid was in deep shit.

His heart was racing. This shouldn't even be happening. The kid... he had given the kid the best protection anyone could imagine. The Iron Spider had held up against the ugly purple Grape. Nothing on Earth could... he swallowed hard. He had just been back for a couple of weeks. He was just getting some normalcy back. His family.

Time seemed to crawl by as he shot across the New York sky. The route took him straight to the coordinates that FRIDAY had extracted from Peter's suit. Tony had sent out a call to the kid. When Peter didn't answer he sent out another. This one Peter rejected outright. Still too far out to access the team's comms, Tony and his thoughts had another couple of minutes to imagine the worst until they finally arrived in Queens.

The location was a rather unremarkable looking warehouse, some windows smashed, a couple of doors off its hinges. A little more prominent was the number of police cars parked around the property. There were at least 12 of them, more sirens approaching from the distance. None of them attempted to intervene or even talk to him after the suit had touched ground within the police's perimeter and he made to walk into the building. The picture that presented itself in front of him didn't match what Tony had been expecting. Not in a good way. In fact, it came very close to giving him a heart attack that was going to get in the way of all the supervised healing he still had to do.

Rogers and Barnes in full Super-Soldier outfits stood opposite his boy. His boy had his back turned toward his teammates and stood smack in the middle between them and a whole group of people, their faces mostly covered with scarfs or other contraptions. Some of them were frozen, eyes wide as they were staring at the Avengers in front of them. Others behind them were quietly emptying the shelves of the warehouse. Boxes upon boxes were ripped open and their content vanished in backpacks and large carrier bags. One of the looters however had a very tight grip on a middle-aged dude, a handgun pressed against the man's temple.

Tony froze where he stood, still hidden in the shadows of the entryway.

"...and I get that." Peter's arms were stretched wide. One in front of him at the crowd of people, the other towards Rogers and Barnes like he was urging them to stay back. "This is just not the way to do it, okay?"

With a pressing need for more information, Tony's eyes roamed across the warehouse. Besides the guy on his knees with the gun to his head, a few more people - he counted 10 of them - had been cuffed to three of the large storage shelves. Only a couple of people were standing guard over them. Most of the other intruders were busy stuffing their bags with everything they could— Food. It had just dawned on Tony what was stored within this facility. Canned goods and boxes of what looked like pasta, beans, or rice. These people were stealing food.

"You get it? You don't get anything!" It wasn't the guy screaming those words, just someone else in the crowd, a young woman. "When's the last time you had a warm meal, huh? We came back to nothing!"

"You have every right to be angry." The kid had turned a little away from the hostage, his arm still signaling for calmness. "Coming back to this was a shock. For me too, okay? But this... you don't want to do this. Just... just take the food and you can let him go, okay? This isn't you!" Tony's eyes shot back towards his Spiderling, frowning. "This is— hey... stop! Don't!"

The guy with the gun was pulling on the hostage's shirt, forcing him to balance himself a little more upright on his knees, squirming in his hold.

Rogers had shuffled a little closer. "You don't want to do anything rash now, son."

"Fuck off, traitor," the man spat back at the Captain.

"Stop, just..." Peter's eyes were still on the hostage and his abductor. "I told you to leave, Captain! You're not helping!"

"Spider-Man—" Rogers was interrupted, Peter's voice echoing off the warehouse walls.

"I said, leave!" The boy almost seemed to be panting.

"FRI," Tony whispered inaudible to anyone else because of his suit. "Vitals on the kid."

His heart rate was high, unnaturally high for Peter even during a mission. A close-up provided by FRIDAY confirmed that the boy's hands were positively shaking.

"I can help you, okay?" The kid swallowed hard. "I know that you wouldn't do this if you didn't have to. I can help you and I will, but you have to let this man go. Please."

The group's leader turned from Rogers back to the boy. "You don't know shit about what we want! People are dying because of this jackass! Because of people like him!"

The guy's eyes had found Tony and that seemed to be his cue to advance out of the shadows.

"What the fuck is this, Robin Hood?" Eyes still studying the scene in front of him, a murmur went through the crowd.

Peter spun around, his spider-eyes wide as he looked straight at Tony. "No, no, no, no, no!" He mumbled, his voice echoing in Tony's earpiece.

"You know I can still hear you on the comms, right?" Tony shook his head, sticking to the team-only communication himself now. "Kid... what the fuck is going on?"

"It's... it's fine." Peter's head spun back and forth between Tony and the looters. "Just go home. I got it all under control!"

Tony kept his eyes on the kid, fighting the urge to step any closer. "The dude over there has a gun pointed at this other dude's head. Nothing about this looks like anything's under control. Can we just..." Tony dipped his head to the corner of the room.

"How about I drop, erm..." Peter swallowed hard, still looking back and forth between Tony and the ongoing hostage situation. "I can just drop by when I'm done with all this, okay?"

"How about no?" Tony made a face even though behind the face-plate, it was only for his own benefit. "How about you web this dude up and get some actual control of the situation instead?"

"I got this!" Peter's voice walked a tight rope between urgency and badly suppressed panic. "Just go home, Tony! Please, please just leave!"

There wasn't much that could stun Tony Stark at this point, but an outright dismissal by his intern slash mentee would do it. "Excuse me, did you just—"

"Get the fuck away from us!" Tony's eyes shifted to the looters behind the kid, the guy with the gun was getting antsy. "This is none of your business!"

To Tony's right still a little ahead of him, Rogers inched a step closer to the scene. "Let's just stay calm and figure this thing out, hm?"

"S-stay back!" Another guy from the crowd of looters stepped a little closer toward the main action. He, too, was holding a gun though his arm was dangling loosely next to his body. At a closer look, Tony could spot quite a few weapons, shotguns, knives, and bats in the hands of everyone not currently ransacking those shelves. The group was made up out of a variety of different people, young and old, he could even see some children stuffing tote bags in the back. It was starting to dawn on him, why neither Peter nor the two Super-Soldier's to Tony's right had jumped in guns blazing, not yet.

A whole group of seemingly normal people brought their children to loot this warehouse for all the food they could carry. All of a sudden, the decimated numbers of his neighbor’s alpaca flock left him with a different kind of headache. There seemed to be more to this than he was presently privy to.

Tony cleared his throat, speaking to the whole room. "Unless you want to eat this dude, too, how about we talk about some of your demands, hm? Find a compromise everyone is happy with and nobody gets hurt over?"

For a second, the man's gun twitched towards Tony before he pressed it back against the temple of the man kneeling in front of him. "Shut the fuck up, you murderer."

Ouch. Tony pursed his lips. He hadn't heard that one in a long time.

"Hey!" Peter stepped closer to the crowd, clearly an attempt to shield Tony from their view. "Watch your fucking mouth, asshole."

His jaw popped open and Tony was quick to make an abortive motion towards Rogers and Barnes to stop them from advancing like the kid had done. This was escalating quickly.

"Of course, you're protecting your sugar daddy, you insect. You stopped being a hero when you started wearing this guy's fancy suits. You don't give a shit about us! You haven't in a long time!"

The Spiderling flinched back from the open hatred spewed at him. "I... that's not..." He shook his head, pulling in deep breaths. "I don't want to hurt you, okay? I want to help. We can still all walk away from this."

"Hurt us?" The young woman's voice from before was shaking but still rang harshly through the otherwise quiet building. "We haven't eaten in 2 weeks! We have no place to stay, nowhere safe to sleep!" She pointed a hand at the man on his knees in front of her accomplice. "People like him are selling the little food that is left in the city for 10 times the regular price. We have no money! Nobody helps us!"

"We're here to help now, young lady." Rogers' deep voice always rang with such sincerity, they could only hope it would convince at least some of them. "What you're doing right now is not going to help you!"

"You're not helping us, you want to help him." She pointed at the man on his knees in front of them. "You care more about his property than about the fact that we're starving!"

"Right now," Barnes' low growl surprised Tony more than most of the things happening around them. "We care more about the gun that your buddy there is pointing at the man's head, darling."

"I'm not your darling, jackass!" She spat at Barnes.

"Stop. Stop this." Peter sounded almost scared. "Please."

"He doesn't deserve this kind of money." She barked out before her eyes landed on Tony. "Nobody does."

Tony's eyes stuck with the young woman, his mind racing. Money... was that what they wanted the guy for? His money or plain revenge... maybe a little bit of both. Time to find out what their priorities were.

"You want to take all this out on someone, huh? Alright, Let's do that. How about you let the civilian go and take this up with a bigger fish, hm?"

"No." Peter spun around. "What are you doing? Don’t!"

Tony got a step closer, his focus shifting back to the man that was the group's apparent leader.

To Tony's undeniable satisfaction, the guy's feet shuffled back a couple of inches though his eyes never strayed from Tony. "While you're hiding behind your tin can?"

He had expected as much and his hand was ready to fly up and tap the nano-housing unit. Jaw set, his PR mask in place, the nanites retract just enough for Tony to exit the suit, leaving his armor behind him but still perfectly ready to engage if necessary.

"Stop!" Peter's voice was far from strong now, only a panicky high-pitched squeak. "Mr. Stark, don't!"

Rogers was next to Tony with a couple of long strides, his voice low. "What do you think you're doing?"

Tony cleared his throat before he dragged his gaze away from the looters towards the Captain. "Hostage negotiations?"

"Put that suit back on!" Rogers growled next to him. "That's not why I asked you here."

"You asked me to help." Tony was holding his hands up just below his shoulders, fingers spread wide. "So, I'm helping."

Roger's chest was heaving with deep long breaths. "Getting yourself killed is not helping, Tony."

"I'm not getting myself killed." He had his eyes still steeled on the group leader, careful not to be caught off guard by a trigger-happy hippie. "I'm taking a calculated risk."

"No, you're not." The Captain's hand shot out, holding Tony back with a strong grasp on his arm. "If anyone will be offered up to trade places it—"

"I don't think your bank account will be as attractive to them as mine," Tony hissed. "No offense, Capsicle." He pulled his arm free from Rogers' hold and advanced a few more steps before the kid could get a hold of him. "So, here I am. Let this dude go."

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Thank you guys for reading!

Hope you enjoyed the first chapter! I'm always happy to hear everyone's predictions and theories, so let me know how you think Peter and Tony might get out of this one in the comments. Likes and Reblogs are really appreciated!

Hope you liked it! More whump and more for this timeline will come soon! You can find more from this timeline on my WIP Page.

The Fix-it this is based on: Like You'd Know How This Works

[canyouhearthelight]

The Miys, Ch. 62

Thank you, everyone, for bearing with me on the delays for this chapter.  There was a benefit: @satan-parisienne got to beta the chapter, AND our other sister got caught up all the way in the meantime.

Right now, I’m at 463 followers.  As soon as I hit 500, do we want to do another character contest, or Name the Colony??  I am honestly dying to have all of you name the Colony... I feel like it would make you ALL crew-members of the Ark!

Same warning as always: this is a plague arc, so there are several references to medical procedures.

“There has to be a correlation.”

It was the first thing I heard as I woke up from yet another episode of passing out.  Once again, I had been wandering a dream version of the Ark, complete with ever changing levels of dereliction.  No matter how hard I tried, I was unable to speak with the Else again, however, and if the Council asked anyone else to even try, no one had informed me.

Blearily, I glanced toward the voice that I had heard.  Grey’s hair was ruffled in every direction, as though they had run their hands through it repeatedly.  Antoine was asleep, a tube trailing away from a bandage on his arm – I wasn’t the only one in the room needing transfusions anymore.  Maverick and Conor were berthed on either side of me, blotches taunting me from the skin around their eyes.  Tears pricked at my eyes as I tried to steady my breath before speaking. “How long have you been at it, Grey?”

With a sigh they turned toward me, forcing a kind smile on their face. “Sophia. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’m living in a horror movie. Again,” I groaned. “But seriously. Are the shadows because you’ve been working too much, or are you sick, too?”

“Medical scans only show slightly decreased iron levels from my baseline,” Grey admitted. “But that could also be related to standing and running tests for the last twelve hours.”

I tapped the space beside me in my berth. “Sit down for a minute. Take a break. You know as well as I do that wearing yourself out is counterproductive.” With great reluctance, they folded themselves to sit beside me. “You’re stressed out, aren’t you?” I asked, tapping their fingers gently.

The smile this time was reluctant but genuine. “People are falling ill all over the ship.  I have been trying to find a connection – some common activity that they all may have come into contact with each other during.”

“There’s the Food Festival,” I pointed out.

“Very few Terran viruses have such a long gestation period,” Grey explained. “And those that do, have a much different set of symptoms.  Additionally, in a setting this small, there are precious the majority of the ship do not share.”

“And you have the problem with the platforms,” I realized ruefully before glancing at my partners.

Cool fingers tapped my cheek. “That issue can wait,” Grey admonished gently. “It is not as important as the health of the people on this ship.”

“Speaking of…” I tried to prop myself up on my elbows, but a pointed look from my friend – as effective as any of Tyche’s glares – had me surrendering to leaning back on the pillows again. “Is there anyone on the ship who isn’t sick so far?”

Grey nodded with a grimace. “The number of those not affected numbers in the low double digits, unfortunately.”

“What do they have in common?”

“Hermits, every last one,” a voice announced quietly as the door hissed open. “And that’s saying something, coming from me.”  A tantalizing smell wafted over, setting my mouth and eyes watering as Tyche grinned like the cat who got the cream.  She shoved a forkful of something deep reddish brown into her mouth and moaned. “Phaal curry with scotch bonnets. Why didn’t you tell me about this stuff, Soph?”

“Noah is going to kill you if he comes in here,” I warned. “They have officially deemed that a biohazard.”

Grey winced. “I feel I should deem that a biohazard.  How are you eating that? Where did you even find it?”

“Four menus deep in my sister’s food console when I stopped in to water the plants,” she explained around yet another mouthful. “I warned Noah I have it, and they promised to wait for the scrubbers to clear the room before they come in here.”

“Give me a bite and I won’t complain,” I wheedled.  Noah never let me take that stuff out of my quarters.  “And tell me what you mean by hermits?”

Obligingly, she sauntered over and held out a forkful of nuclear-spicy lamb as she clarified. “The few people who aren’t sick are the ones who haven’t left their quarters since arriving.  They make me and Derek look downright outgoing.”

“Wait,” I sputtered as sweat beaded and started to drip from my quickly-numbing face. “They haven’t left their quarters in over a year?”

“Nope,” she confirmed. “They contribute, but all of it is remotely.  Programming, online tutoring, that sort of thing.”

“Well, that tells us a great deal of nothing,” I sighed. “We can’t even narrow down what activities they haven’t participated in, because they haven’t participated in any.”

“So go the other route,” she shrugged. “Who is the most sick?”

“Nixe,” Grey and I answered in unison.  Our resident mermaid was still holding on, but she hadn’t regained consciousness yet.

“Wait,” I interjected as I realized something. I squinted at my sister. “Your symptoms showed up before Antoine’s. How come you’re up, bouncing around?”

“You kidding?” she cocked an eyebrow at me. “Soph. I’ve lived most of my life with sever anemia. Even now I probably have more in my body than I ever did back on Earth. I feel amazing, by comparison.”

“She also has a habitually high-iron diet,” Grey added, tilting their head and glancing at me. “Current comestibles notwithstanding.”

“That makes sense,” I conceded. “So we can’t even build a timeline around onset of symptoms, can we?”

“Negative.  Several people on the ship have high-iron diets for various reasons. Particularly your sister and Maverick.”

I rolled my head to left and squinted. “Really?  He’s one of the pickiest eaters I know.”

“Spinach, tofu, red meat,” they started ticking off on their fingers. “Lentils and other legumes, pumpkin seeds, broccoli, and organ meats are among the foods with the highest iron content.”

My eyes widened. “You practically listed Maverick’s entire diet, Grey.”

“I am well aware.  I do monitor his nutrition closely, as he still has to prove he has consumed sufficient healthy calories in order to start his daily shift.”

“Huh,” I grunted. “So, he could have been sick the longest and we are just now seeing it?”

“While I highly doubt it, your theory is somewhat correct.”

“Weh di’ oo geh ‘im oo ee ohgah mee?” Tyche asked delicately around the last of her curry.

“Conor likes kidney pie, black pudding, and liver with onions,” I explained, trying not to wince at my sister’s breathtaking lack of manners and reminding myself that she just found out she can eat food she only dreamed of trying in the past.

She gulped, a look of revulsion on her face. “Liver and onions? That’s disgusting.”

As Grey completely lost their composure and gaped openly at the statement, I shrugged and soldiered on. “Not my idea of a good time, either, but they like it, so it’s their bonding time.”

“Surely not all three at once?”

“Christ, no. I would kill them if they ate kidney pie without me.”

“Okay, just checking.”  Tyche made her way to a disposal and made Noah aware that the curry had vacated the premises.

By this point, Grey was absentmindedly scratching at the rash that appeared from simply being near the dish.  “Can one of you explain to me how someone even eats something like that?  My eyes are burning just from being near food that spicy?”

“Ask her,” Tyche gestured. “I’m still figuring this out.”

I scowled at being put on the spot before turning to our friend. “I’ve always loved spicy food,” I admitted. “And I’ve never had any digestive issues with it. As I got older, I tried spicier and spicier food. It’s all so – vibrant. So full of flavor. Sure, you have some stuff that is just spicy for the sake of being painful, and I hate that kind of food. It’s just hate and spite made into food. No one should do that.” I sighed, struggling with my words. “Most spicy foods are ethnic foods, and I always liked being able to enjoy the ‘full’ version, for lack of a better term.  Being able to go to any country and say ‘I want to eat this the way you eat it,’ and mean that.  It just opens so many doors.”

“And it isn’t just spicy food,” Tyche pitched in. “She found this old show once, where this guy went around the world and tried weird native foods, and that was always her dream.  Every chance she got to travel like that, she tried the weirdest, most disgusting foods she could, just because she knew she wouldn’t get sick.”

“What was the worst?” Grey asked.  When we looked at each other in doubt, they laughed quietly. “It helps me get my mind off of all this.” They waved vaguely at the lab equipment. “So, tell me.  I never got to travel much before this.  I would like to hear.”

“Well,” I started hesitantly. “I only managed to choke down one bite of balut, but that may be more squeamish heart than squeamish stomach. Anything involving hard fat or cartilage is just right out, sorry.  I can’t get past the texture.  Once I got past the smell, durian was actually pretty good.  Most bugs are really nutty and delicious, surprisingly.  Balut was probably the one I liked the least. But – “ I held up my hands in a defensive posture. “I literally don’t remember what it tasted like, I couldn’t get my mind past the thought of what I was eating, so take that for what you will.”

Grey paled slightly as they looked the dish up on their datapad. “People eat that?”

Tyche nodded. “Yep.  I don’t get it either, but it’s a delicacy.”

They paled further as they looked up other dishes and confirmed I had tried them. “How did you not get ill?”

“Cast iron stomach,” Tyche and I explained, laughing at ourselves for responding in synch.

“Cast iron stomach, indeed,” they murmured.  Suddenly, their head snapped up.  They stared intently at the wall behind me before squinting slightly. “Cast iron…”

Without explanation, Grey jumped up from my berth, brushing past my sister on their way to the lab equipment. “Iron.  Whatever we are looking for is impacting iron absorption and red blood cell function. – “ Tyche and I looked at each other in confusion as Grey continued their impression of a rambling mad-scientist. “But nutritive iron does have elemental iron as part of the molecule…” Images flickered around the researcher as they scanned through notes and images; expanding this one, discarding that one, squinting at a few. “What if we are segregating the two for no reason… bacteria are bacteria, and the tail failed, too.”

The tail failed? Tyche mouthed at me. I shrugged, lost as she was.  We stared on in concern as Grey muttered, only half-audibly, into the night.

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[snexy-the-snail]

Invasion

Sorry pred loki anon! this took way to long!!))

Eating people had always been normalized on Asgard, you were either pred, prey, or a baseline. Despite being a pred Loki had always found himself in Thor’s stomach at the slightest hint of danger. It was annoying as hell and always put him in the shadows of his brother, the weak pred that should’ve been prey. 

He ended up invading earth. He never really wanted to hurt anyone but the fear of Thanos torturing him again, well it was enough to continue the invasion. 

Loki honestly was surprised at how many humans were baselines, there were hardly any preds. Worse yet none of them seemed interested in gulping their weaker counterparts down. No protection whatsoever for the preys or bases. 

The man made of iron confused him. He couldn’t tell what he was under all the metal so he assumed he was a pred or baseline like his other annoying teammates. 

Loki wasn’t expecting to see the man out of his armor looking so alone and so…small. He wasn’t very small in stature of course, physically he was a decent height but something about him screamed ‘small' 

It hit him like one of those large midguardian metal  horses. The man was prey. Not even a baseline, full on prey. He had been fighting someone so fragile all this time? That wouldn’t do not at all.

“Want a drink?”

That stirred him from his horror. Loki frowns looking over the man as he approached, the slight twitch of fear making his heart clench. The poor thing probably hadn’t felt secure in a long time. Considering how few preds there were he didn’t blame the adorable little thing.

“I’d prefer not to, alcohol is quite unpleasant to sit in.” He responds slowly, looking over Tony carefully. He didn’t miss that look of confusion on the man’s face. 

“You..um..drink it- do you have bars at Asgard or wherever you came from?” Tony responds slowly. His heart thumped wildly as Loki came closer. He expected a fight not…whatever the hell this was. 

“We do.” Loki responded with a small smile. Yep nope he did not like seeing that. Whatever the trickster was doing it was strange and he didn’t like where it was going. 

“Okay, great so..um..liquor?” He tries weakly backing up as Loki came closer, staff held loosely in his grip. The glowing blue he had seen in the God’s eyes was now a solid green. 

“I’d prefer not.” Loki practically purred. He shudders when a hand ended up on his shoulder. Tony looks at the trickster not sure on what the hell was happening or if he should be fighting. So far he was just supposed to cause a distraction and no one had said anything else on the coms which was slightly concerning. 

“How about something else this? Maybe some lemonade?” Tony suggests weakly. He jolts when the tip of the staff clinks with his reactor, obviously not having any effect on him. What the hell? Was Loki seriously trying to mind control him? 

“Curious, you have a star in your chest.” He hears Loki murrur. He shudders and tries to pull away, his stomach dropping when he couldn’t thanks to Loki’s grip on his shoulder. Would Loki try pulling it out to follow through with his plans or would he try something else?

“Y-yeah? Guess you can’t mind control me, what a shame.” He says keeping his voice steady even if he didn’t  feel an ounce of calm at the moment.

“It simple just means I need a different approach.” Loki says not seeming to bothered by his set back. Tony was going to ask what the god meant but he felt the staff touch more to his right a cold feeling washing over him. He couldn’t move and everything felt cloudy like he wasn’t in control of his body.

“There, now you won’t hurt yourself.” Loki says with a small smile. The genius’s soft brown eyes now a piercing blue, signalling that the mind controlling was working. Perfect, now his little prey wouldn’t hurt himself when he tucked the small thing away. He hums softly to himself as he snaps, pleased to see the man of iron’s size shrink to a manageable swallowing size. 

“Relax, you’re safe now.” He purrs softly as he scoops Tony off of the ground. The order went through and he felt the little body in his hand relax, wide blue eyes staring up at him expectantly for the next set of instructions. So small and sweet.

“Get comfortable and relax.” 

That was simple enough. His little prey would be comfortable during the rest of the invasion. Hopefully he’d be able to take the control of soon, he would miss his prey’s bold snappish comments. Surely Tony would see how safe he was and not mind being tucked away in the future.

“Okay.” Tony says quietly, the cutest little smile on his prey’s face.

“How adorable.” He says mostly to himself. He didn’t waste any time opening his mouth, bringing his hand up to his face as he did so. 

He slowly tilts Tony in tiny hands squishing into his tongue as the little man tried to right himself. How adorable. He couldn’t help but to let a small chuckle out as he closed his mouth, slurping the the man’s legs into his mouth. 

Midgaudian’s had such a unique flavor, he never had anyone of Asgard taste as sweet as this. Tony tasted sweet such as strawberries with a slight bitter tang which he suspected to be the mind stone affecting him. He looked forward to their future sessions of course.

He grins widely when he felt the small hands trying to find somewhat purchase to adjust his position. He wasted no time in pushing Tony around in his mouth, pushing him against the roof of his mouth as he swallowed the excess saliva. The small shudder from his little prey made his stomach growl  impatiently, awaiting its meal eagerly.

Loki smirks slightly and tilts his head back feeling Tony slide more towards his throat, no struggling coming from the man whatsoever. He lets a small sigh out through his nose as he swallows.

He quickly brought a hand up to his throat, tracing his little prey’s movement down. He lets a delighted shudder out as he felt Tony slip beneath his collar bone, a light pressure as the man slipped into his stomach.

It felt so right to have someone tucked snuggly away in his core, even more so when he felt the small body moving around to get comfortable. Good the orders were being followed even now. He’d check up on his little prey later, he had world to finish conquering at the moment.

((I’ll do two parts to this, the ‘good’ ending and a bad one. Maybe a third with a pov of mind controlled Tony idk yet)))

[tarithenurse]

Agent of Hope - 7

Your world falls into ruin together with the Strategic Homeland Intervention Enforcements Logistics Division when you find out that your boyfriend isn’t one of the good guys. Pairing: Brock Rumlow x fem!reader, Natasha Romanoff x fem!reader Contents: Description of injuries, swearing, angst, threats, distrust, pain, doubt, hate. The usual. A/N: Please reblog if you liked. I try to update the taglist according to requests and frequent rebloggers. Probably won’t get a lot of writing done the next week as I’ll be busy getting used to new job, but check out my masterlist for other stuff.

7 - The Captain

…   Romanoff’s PoV   …

Steve arrives just an hour before Natasha has to leave for hearings on a grey Monday morning. At no point has the former spy attempted to sweeten the impressions of what will be happening after dumping all the files from SHIELD online, so she knows that this is only going to be the first of many sessions with men in suits thinking they know better.

That’s not the reason she doesn���t want to go.

“Whatever you guys do,” the redhead hisses at Sam Wilson and the Captain, “do not question what she’s been through.” Sam looks like he’s about to crack a joke, but a glare silences him. “And don’t question her sanity, or I’ll carve out your kidneys and sell‘em on the black market.”

“We’ll behave, Nat, don’t worry.” Solemn, blue eyes underline Steve’s promise.

Turning on her heel, Natasha stalk out of the kitchen where she’d cornered the two guys, heading towards the garage. [Y/N]’s parting words still echo in her head: “They’ll need you, all of you.” It’s comforting to know that the strange woman who knows more than she should is adamant when it comes to the future of the Avengers.

Avengers. Not too long ago, there was no official name for the odd group of people who ended up saving New York, but the name was on everybody’s lips before the dust had settled and the shawarma had been eaten. Heroes. That’s how they’d been seen by a lot of people even if it didn’t seem entirely true to the image they’d had of themselves (not counting Stark, who’s always more than happy to bask in the spotlight). A good team, sure, they’d coincidentally worked very well together and even in the midst of battle, Romanoff had dared hope that this would clear her of some of the sins. It’d worked out for a while. Kind of.

 …   Reader’s PoV   …

The arrival of the men surprises you in more ways than one. First, there are two. You’d not expected anyone to accompany the Steven Grant Rogers, but you’re honestly happy for it because the second guy has an aura of relaxation and trust about him. The Captain himself? Not so much.

Watching Captain America is in many ways similar to watching Brock, even though they are like night and day, the few similarities are striking and make your guts tighten and feet twitch from wanting to run away. Brock and Rogers are both unbending, disciplined and meticulous to the point where they shape the people around them rather than vice versa. Tall and broad, they fill the room with their presences, preventing any competition of the alpha-male title. Icy eyes push you off the couch and to your feet and set your hairs on end all over your body, and as the man steps closer, it’s like moving back in time to the few times you’ve seen Brock advance on someone who displeased him. Automatically, you retreat.

“Sorry.” At least Rogers sounds like he means it. “I didn’t mean to erm…to make you uncomfortable.”

The moment you take his hand in greeting is the moment invisible “lightning” strikes you out of nowhere, carving through the crown of your skull all the way to your toes. Skull with octopus. Sunglasses. Colosseum. A big, dark hand reaches up towards iron bars. Laughter as sunglasses shatters on stone, revealing a milky eye in a serious face. Someone calling out for a [Y/N]. The man’s  name is Fury and Captain America is charging into the cell where he’s kept. [Y/N].

[Y/N]. It sounds closer. “[Y/N]!”

Strong arms are supporting you as the world revolves on its own and you have to close your eyes in order not to puke. It’s a relief when you feel a steadier surface beneath you.

“Shit, Steve,” another voice comments with horror, “Romanoff’s gonna kill us, man!”

Steve. Captain America! Waves of adrenalin help the eyelashes to flutter open briefly, enough to spot the veteran’s face near yours.

“She’ll be fine.” Regardless, he still asks Jarvis to fetch Stark. “Hey, [Y/N], can you hear me?”

“Mmmhmmm.”

Oh yeah, you can hear him more than plenty, the voice is sending new stabs of pain through your brain. The skin of your face folds and cracks like drying sand when you fight against the urge to keep your eyes closed, and you’re relieved at how tears and eyelashes block most of the view to the blue eyes, because they aren’t the ones you really want to see and neither is the face that’s peeping at you from behind Roger’s shoulder.

The words are clumsy in your mouth. “They got…him...Fury?” Looking to the men for confirmation is useless, but what else can you do? “I saw…in Rome…”

The explanation is rambling and you have to try several times before especially Wilson gets past the point where you know who Fury is and that he’s alive, but eventually they accept the baseline of what you saw and that it requires action. Now.

…

“Don’t throw any toga parties!” Tony Stark grins jovially, hiding a worry behind the sunglasses. “We’ll be back before you know it.”

“I don’t like it.” The words aren’t yours even though they could have been. They’re coming from Sam who’s biting his lip as he looks back at you from the ramp of the jet. The statement has been repeated several times already. “Natasha’s gonna kills us, guys.”

Roger’s heavy hand is warm and reassuring on your shoulder, the little squeeze a gentle comfort that you aren’t actually all alone in this mess of a life. “I know, but we owe it to Fury –“

“Besides,” Stark butts in like a cat wanting attention for the mouse it brought home, “I’ve designed the security here and both Jarvis and Happy is just a call away to help take care of our little prophet!” Pausing a moment at Sam’s side, the glasses are lifted momentarily. “And I’m not gonna tell Romanoff we left, are you?”

The worried man sees the opportunity and takes it. “Uhm err no?”

It would be nice if you could be as easily swayed as Sam Wilson is in this matter, but as you watch the quinjet taking off, the apprehension of being left alone at the so-called Compound is settling in as a deadweight on your chest.

…   Rumlow’s PoV   …

It hurts to move. It hurts to look in the mirror and see the crust-covered wounds that crack and ooze from the tiniest of movements. It hurts more, however, to know that [Y/N] is getting cozy with Captain Fucking America and his buddies…that she didn’t even let him try to explain things to her so they could recover what they had and move on together.

Freak. The term applies more to [Y/N] than to himself even with the view as he stands here by the sink. All this time, and he didn’t even know he was sharing a bed with a genetic miscreation – a monster that has decided to throw everything aside and flee with the tail between its legs, taking the one useful aspect along with it and out of grasp from Brock. Mine. No one takes anything away from him.

Straightening, the upper body protests as joints move and muscles tense under the torn skin, and Brock hisses at the pain.

“Ya shouldna be up ye’.”

The wise-ass nurse is silenced with a curse.

I need to be up.

There’s revenge to be had and a monster to catch, and Brock will be damned if he’s going to miss out on any of it.

[tigerkirby215]

Battle Master Sett and others (League of Legends build errata)

(Artwork still by @victorli_ran on Twitter.)

I’m going to be honest: like 80% of the reason I made the Sett build was an excuse for me to make JoJokes. The other 20% of the reason is because I constantly see this motherfucker on the Rift. Whenever I don’t ban him he gets instapicked because Rito can’t balance for shit and made such a brain-dead champ OP as hell. But my complaints about Sett aside the few people I’ve met who played Sett because they genuinely enjoyed him (and weren’t spamming him because he’s Rito’s latest opee opee champ) were super nice and friendly, and Sett as a whole is a cool character who seems fun to play. I’d buy him myself but I’m waiting for the balance team to stop reading Jojolion and do their goddamn job.

With that out of the way Sett is one of the few times I honestly feel like 2 levels is more than enough to capture a character. With 1 level in Fighter for Unarmed Fighting (because Barbarians don’t get a Fighting Style lol) and 1 level in Barbarian (for Unarmored Defense) you have pretty much everything I’d want to play Sett except for False Life from the Aberrant Dragonmark Feat. (Which is nice but more of an afterthought for more Temp HP.) The 18 levels in Fighter were done entirely for the Survivor trait from Champion, which is strong yes but it involves you getting to level 18 first. What’s more is that 2 levels in Barbarian means that you’re missing out on the 4th attack from Fighter, and if you’re going to go to level 18 in a class you may as well get the level 20 capstone feature as well. I make these builds for roleplay first and practicality better since I doubt anyone is coming to this Tumblr for OP builds.

With that being said I did promise to provide a build for Battle Master, and I’d like to offer some other potential multiclass dips and the strengths and weaknesses of each. I’m not going to go too deep into the levels of each class myself (to be honest just read them yourself) but I will give the reason why you’d want each class and subclass in the notes.

BATTLE MASTER MANEUVERS

Full disclosure I know very little about Battle Master so most of my advice is going off a guide as well as my roleplaying recommendations.

OFFICIAL

Commander’s Strike - The boss bossing around his teammates is highly in flavor, but unless you have a Rogue (who can sneak attack) or someone with a similar damage boosting ability this ability is fairly redundant. 3/5 ROLEPLAY - 3/5 PRACTICALITY

Disarming Attack - Very in-flavor for Sett to try to get the upper hand by punching a weapon out of his opponent’s hand. Also very useful in combat, especially if you either take their weapon or kick it away. 4/5 ROLEPLAY - 3/5 PRACTICALITY

Distracting Strike - You can give yourself Advantage with Reckless Attack, and can afford to do so since you have so much health. That being said helping your allies get hits is very useful, especially if you have a Rogue or something similar. You can also argue that this would be Sett getting a good Facebreaker in to set up for his allies. 5/5 ROLEPLAY - 4/5 PRACTICALITY

Evasive Footwork - Knuckle Down lets Sett zoom at his enemies but not away from them. More importantly you have more than enough health and AC to take some opportunity attacks. This can make you a little sturdier but it’ll eat up your maneuver dice; it’s just not worth it. 2/5 ROLEPLAY - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Feinting Attack - Very in flavor, but you already have a way to generate Advantage. Good if you don’t take a second level in Barbarian. 4/5 ROLEPLAY - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Goading Attack - INSANELY useful as you’re the tank, so this will stop the enemies from targeting your allies. Also definetly in-flavor for Sett to taunt his enemies into going for him instead of his fight partners. 5/5 ROLEPLAY - 5/5 PRACTICALITY

Lunging Attack - Literally Haymaker, but in the wise words of rpgbot.net: “Just move closer to your target.” You can afford to take an Attack of Opportunity by moving away after attacking. 5/5 ROLEPLAY - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Maneuvering Attack - See my points on Commander’s Strike. Only difference is that this ability is even less useful since movement isn’t that special in 5e. 3/5 ROLEPLAY - 2/5 PRACTICALITY

Menacing Attack - In flavor for Sett to growl and snarl, but you don’t care about taking hits and if there’s one thing you don’t want its for enemies to stay back. 3/5 ROLEPLAY - 2/5 PRACTICALITY

Parry - Very in flavor but sadly your DEX mod isn’t that high. 5/5 FLAVOR - 4/5 PRACTICALITY

Precision Attack - Since you already have Advantage this can be great to break through some tough ACs. It’s not as impressive but it gets the job done, and considering that your fists are your only option hitting hard enough to get through Braum’s shield would be very useful. 4/5 FLAVOR - 5/5 PRACTICALITY

Pushing Attack - Could be ruled that this is you using your ultimate but it’s very impractical. 3/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Rally - Much like the other “commander” maneuvers it’s decently in-flavor for Sett, but you don’t have the biggest investment in Charisma. You’re no support and you’re far better off leaving the healing to the Cleric. 3/5 FLAVOR - 2/5 PRACTICALITY

Riposte - The more in-flavor and more useful version of Parry for a tank build. Screw defense; more damage! 5/5 FLAVOR - 5/5 PRACTICALITY

Sweeping Attack - Titanic Hydra? But while this is rather in-flavor the damage is just extraordinarily low. 3/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Trip Attack - In-flavor for Sett to fight dirty, and rather useful, but not the most useful overall. 3/5 FLAVOR - 4/5 PRACTICALITY

CLASS FEATURES UA

Ambush - What are you? A Rogue? 1/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Bait and Switch - Very cute if you’re playing bodyguard, but you probably won’t be. It’s just far too conditional to be used. 2/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Brace - This is essentially Riposte but slightly different. Much like Riposte it’s very in-flavor, but I’d probably stick to Riposte. 5/5 FLAVOR - 4/5 PRACTICALITY

Restraining Strike - Was used in the Champion build but Grapples are garbage. 5/5 FLAVOR - 2/5 PRACTICALITY

Silver Tongue - Lets you keep some of Sett’s charm but you’re hardly the face of the party, unfortunately. 3/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Snipe - These fists ain’t thrown love, though I guess you could pull out a knife and scream MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA MUDA before throwing it. 1/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Studious Eye - What are you? An Inquisitive Rogue? 1/5 FLAVOR - 1/5 PRACTICALITY

Here’s a theoretical list of maneuvers I’d take:

LEVEL 3

Distracting Strike

Goading Attack

Riposte

LEVEL 7

Disarming Attack

Precision Attack

LEVEL 10

Lunging Attack

Trip Attack

LEVEL 15

Pushing Attack

(Choice)

P.S. Leatherworker’s Tools are probably the most in-character tool for you to have proficiency with as Sett.

(Artwork by Riot Games)

OTHER CLASSES TO TRY

BARBARIAN 20

The only reason we went full Fighter in the original build was for Survivor, but the only reason we even took a level in Fighter was for the Unarmed Fighting fighting style. (Because Barbarians don’t get a Fighting Style lol.) If you have a cool DM who’ll let you either reflavor your weapon as unarmed strikes or flat out let you attack with hands as strong as weapons (or if you have an Artificer who can make you an Arcane Propulsion Arm [removal of a hand required], or can find a similar magic item that gives you an Unarmed Strike) then Barbarian 20 is more than viable.

The main strength of going full 20 in Barb (other than the vast majority of your hit die being larger, meaning that on average you’ll roll a lot higher) is their level 20 ability Primal Champion, giving you 24 in both Constitution and Strength for the hardest punches and the toughest grit. Most of the other general Barbarian abilities are admittedly somewhat subpar however. Fast Movement and Feral Instinct are nice and all but other than that you only get Rage features and more damage on your crits. The Rage improvements are nice (as are more rages and more damage on those rages) but at best you’re probably going to get a d8 out of your fists, meaning the brutal crits won’t do that much more. Also without value levels in Champion you only have a 5% chance to crit baseline, or a 10% chance with Advantage.

PROS: Much tankier, even stronger.

CONS: Weak features on the way, only worth it for level 20.

With that being said: subclasses. Ironically Path of the Battlerager (IE “the worst one”) probably fits Sett the best, with Reckless Abandon recreating Pit Grit and Battlerager Charge recreating Knuckle Down. With that being said Battlerager is absolute garbage, primarily because the Spiked Armor and the class features based on it suck. You certainly won’t be wearing Spiked Armor as Sett (what are you? Mordekaiser?) which means that the features are completely wasted on you. If you can find a good Homebrew variant for Battlerager or can make one on your own it can be a good pick but while it is in-flavor it’s far too weak to be reasonably played.

PROS: Highly in flavor, more mobile and sustainable.

CONS: Weaksauce, useless armor.

Path of the Totem Warrior is the obvious one to mention as its the typical opee opee Barb. The Bear Totem Spirit is forever a powerful choice but truthfully the Tiger Totem Spirit is far more in-character. The thing is that Tiger is probably the most impractical, so Elk or Eagle are also good picks.

Much like with my Frank West build the Bear Aspect of the Beast would be extremely in-character for Sett (and would be the only way I could justify Sett grabbing a dragon and slamming that shit down on Teemo’s fucking face.) Elk, Tiger, and Wolf would also be in flavor.

For your Totemic Attunement the spirit of the Elk, Tiger, or Wolf would all be in-flavor. Bear could make sense but you don’t need that level of tankiness this late into a build.

PROS: Opee opee, tons of options, tons of utility.

CONS: Going to be accused of powergaming, going to get yelled at for not picking Bearbarian.

Other interesting subclasses to mention:

Path of the Beast (UA) gives you punching claws but almost all the other features play on the werewolf motif. More of Warwick’s thing... or maybe Rengar’s.

Path of the Beserker is extremely powerful but is a little too wild for Sett.

Path of the Zealot is great if you want to infuses your punches with the wrath of the gods - perfect if they ever make a God Fist Sett skin, or if you find a stone mask lying around.

MONK

Monk gives you an unarmed strike, and while mixing Barbarian and Monk is weird it is quite doable if you want to play a STRonk. (Strength Monk) For subclasses Way of the Open Hand recreates some of your movement effects with Open Hand Technique and Pit Grit with Wholeness of Body. Your level 11 and 17 abilities aren’t as impressive so I’d probably invest between 7 to 8 levels in Open Hand Monk for Evasion.

PROS: Movement imparing effects, more pit grit, Evasion, movement speed.

CONS: d6 attack dice, not a lot of Ki, stacking Unarmored Defense, Wisdom requirement

Way of the Drunken Master could also work but that’s much more Jackie Chan than pit fighter.

PROS: Mobility, great in crowds.

CONS: Out-of-character, somewhat weak.

PALADIN

Okay hear me out here: Conquest Paladin 20.

PROS: Hit very hard, counter attacks, innate Pit Grit that can be shared with allies, anime transformation.

CONS: Fear based, need armor, spellcasting isn’t in flavor, Charisma requirement

ARMORER ARTIFICER (UA)

Like I said when Armorer Artificer came out the class would be very good for Mecha Kingdom Sett. The thing is I think the build would be so different from default Sett (with an Intelligence focus among many other things) I’m not going to talk about it.

[incarnateirony]

Hi. So, since you seem to know what you're talking about, I wanted to ask if you could give like ... a short list tips ... of things to always be aware of/think about/question when analyzing something or getting into writing? Have a nice day.

well I had typed something but X’ed out like a dumbass without sending it because my RP group is crack and consumes my focus so lemme try this again.

A few things to track, but I’ll expand on:

Author intent

Cinematographer intent

Production intent

These are in no way mutually exclusive and are very collaborative. However, recognizing that they are not all the same can help you figure out who’s putting in what level.

Realistically, anyone involved in the visual part of the art – directing, camera operation, set design, lighting – could be considered about on par with authors in regards to the validity of their storytelling, as they generate elements to the screen that if this were a book, the author would be etching out themselves. On the other hand, it’s important to recognize the limitations of screenplay format. Pull up some screenplays – SPN, or anything – and recognize it’s almost comedically barren on details. And that’s not to undermine the amount of thought that goes into screenwriting, either.

Screenwriting is an art of packing as much of your intent as you can into as few words as possible, leaving it to the director that takes on your work. Certain directors have made statements (it’s escaping me who it was–Sgriccia?) about understanding how the writing room works and what they’re aspiring after. And that’s good. 

But even after you get a collaborative writers room working with a collaborative cinematography team, you also get editors that run full circle back to the showrunners and other office end team that polish, rearrange, pin together, and trim.

So we have multiple phases of a process that’s really difficult for most people to casually eye, and I get that.

Generally speaking, if you’re looking at seeing primary plot arc direction as the authors at the start of this process intend, you need to look at what’s in the script. And we don’t get access to all scripts, but on reviewing a plethora of scripts both SPN and non-SPN, you can at least have a fairly clean shot at what kinds of things likely are or aren’t.

The directors collaborate off of work started by the writers, so the writers are the cornerstone in direction, characterization, etc; these are the primary things that propel our story, the rest just fulfills it. Knowing where to divorce these things from each other can be a huge step.

That’s not to say you completely ignore visuals either. There’s a vast wash of art in the crafting of set, the framing of shots, the choices in lighting and so on.

One of the problems I find, however, is that people will just get hell bent on an idea that X color will always mean X thing in X situation. Taking a few days to research color theory in film is something I very loudly suggest as a start. There is, most definitely, color theory but it’s not so clear cut as like “the drapes were blue here and the chair three episodes again was blue and Dean sat in it while talking about Cas so clearly the drapes are his window to thinking about Cas” because that’s… That’s not… I promise you that’s not how creators think. I literally just promise you that.

Hue, Saturation, Brightness, scale of color, there’s all kinds of psychology attached to the use of these in film, or different color coding. It’s the same logic on why most trashy high volume fast food places make their logos red and yellow or red and orange, because that evokes a feral side that induces hunger (or, depending on HUE, SATURATION, BRIGHTNESS AND TONE, anything from fear to rage to passion). Basically, lighting and elements like this are your Big Mood. Big Mood matters. But a random prop happening to be a random color is very unlikely to have major significance unless it is a focal point object. Objects that are chosen as focal points often have meticulous consideration put into them.

Ambient set design is huge. It can be everything from light to shape of a room, to a consistent theme in the background. For example, if Sam and Dean are reading a lot about exorcisms, the books we see littered around and most disturbed are all about exorcisms or demons. Sometimes it’s less front-facing than that, like perpetually taunting the background with themes related even if they aren’t textually searching for this. Modernly, that’s hermetic books and emblems, for example. These are all very relevant to the overall story arch. But if you’re looking to find that one Red or Blue or Green book binder to compare to a lamp shade from several episodes ago, you’re probably gonna have a bad time and sort of wander off into an area that ends up completely unfulfilled later.

Just like the writers all have their own style – and they do, and recognizing these styles can help with a lot – the directors do too, and how they choose to work and frame sets with the lighting team are not identical. You wouldn’t try to directly conflate the art of Munch with Gauguin, I hope, and that’s something we have to recognize here. The writing is the subject and they are the painters. And there is a strong stylistic theme, wherein the later production ends like editors mostly tie it into a product that doesn’t look like a wild disaster, but each of their styles bleed through. 

Sgriccia’s directing is not Wright’s directing and never will be. They’re both great. They both visualize the elements and empower things being lifted from the script masterminded from the authors to render it to us, but where they choose to put That Orangish Lamp is going to be in the microcosm of their episode/painting/works, not the macrocosm of the season, as given by the writers, who still will drive our direction.

The directors know and deeply understand what the writers are after, but there’s a bit of a hazard in conflating everybody like they’re one singular artist, rather than dozens of collaborative artists manifesting this on different tiers. 

Directors can, to some extent, know the story arena in the future too and choose to frame shots in it with strong visual storytelling. Knowing keys to visual storytelling is also really important, rather than getting lost chasing the story behind a black pipe that set designers just put in there because the building needed a damn pipe. Because part of building a set is also making it coherent and a lot of elements simply exist. Understanding if the director is dynamically framing it to call attention to it, however, is something else. 

One of the boldest examples I can think in recent history was when I had random directing drabbles about 14.7 (x) I simply observed very pointed plot (re)construction that changed depending on angle in a conscious decision. Dean being “boxed in” was a statement I wouldn’t even understand the full ironic dickslap of for a while, but it was right there, in visual storytelling, in something I couldn’t ignore. Or another one about the difference of focal point objects, such as the keys to the comic legacy (x) which finalized my faith that John was, in fact, returning.

Or in text, the literal dialogue of Michael (and, before that, Lucifer), over daddy issues, that had me swearing Chuck literally was going to come back this season, non-negotiable, in echo to resolving John-Sam-Dean issues as well. 

The thing is, many of these do boil down to the script - focal point items (mix tapes, literal keys by the ghost, dialogue). And the directing drabbles picked out a specific set of frames that literally required purposeful (re)construction which caused a visual storytelling element.

Personally, I am very, very picky about what I meta over or point out. And that’s not popular around here. Somebody’s always gonna crow “how do you know better”, and any time they get that answer they get offended like “well now you’re just rubbing it in my face!” – in the end, anyone CAN analyze anything, the point is whether people are wrapping their brains up in an idea that’s sort of sending them off to never-neverland and won’t pay out.

Key focal point objects versus ambiance; text versus cinematography; they’re all important, but all don’t drive our forward motion with the same thrumming baseline as the writers churning out content beneath it all. The others bring it to life and yes, collaborate with them, but there needs to be a certain level of judgment applied before diving off chasing dogs in picture frames if you actually expect it to lead anywhere.

And again, I point out to scene ambiance, which can be great to discuss! But those need to be held as microcosms unto themselves or at least that director’s hand. It can be interesting to study little things painted in the layers. My Red, Yellow, and Blue studies for Optimism are an example of that. I do enjoy color theory, but I often restrain myself from engaging in it because people tend to get ahead of themselves and not apply the other… stuff. *gestures vaguely above*.

Honestly, read about things like color theory, dynamic cinematography methods and more for that front, and read through some scripts to recognize the levels before trying to study and pitch into them entirely. 

[b4kuch1n]

As you are, a kettle of blue

ya boye had an idea, sat down, and got it out. in 11k words. I need a forced shut down

QCed by @cosbeans - thank you so much for sitting through this shit with me, and for jumping in the hole in the first place when I extended my hand to you. honestly wouldnt know what to do without you there with me.\

Todd snapped on day three.

Dirk should elaborate.

Okay, here's Todd's thing: his surface tolerance for anomalies in his life is low. Like, below-Farah-level low. And he likes to make it known! he very much does. Anyone who lingers in his vicinity for over five minutes will immediately learn, because he will tell them. Mostly by complaining. Todd likes to complain, and it's part of his charm, in Dirk's and no one else's opinion. Farah sure doesn't care for that as much as she just endures it.

That is not to say that Todd is a rigid man in his routines - he is adaptable, crafty, and his mind for puzzles is a beautiful thing. The man just requires a healthy, regular, quite sizeable side of complaining to go with whatever it is that he does at any point. And it’s not that it hasn’t had its use before; Todd was most acquainted with normalcy (or, well, dullness) pre-things, and he still has an eye for the baseline of where things should be even now, and he doesn’t hesitate to call people out on being ridiculous when he feels it justified. And that usually stuns a supervillain like nothing else.

So: Todd has a complaint specially made for every occasion, which means he isn’t quiet too often. His happiness ranges anywhere from a warm, fuzzy buzz with smiles and light elbow jabs to downright mania full of breathless laughters and clinginess, and his annoyance is aimed outward most of the time. Which Dirk is very okay with, by the way; he isn’t good at reading social cues or body language, if that hasn’t made itself clear yet. He likes when people just say what they’re feeling. And, well, Todd sure does that.

The almost constant slight buzz of Todd also serves to signify when something is seriously wrong, more wrong than usual, which is when it goes quiet.

And that was half a day ago.

...Dirk isn’t elaborating much, is he now.

Okay, so, there was this case. Which was three days before this point. A case, very intriguing, very exciting, with all these little details scattered all over the city, leading them into two days of leg work and snooping and one unfortunate swim involving a very vicious goldfish, and finally landing them in a crypt under a hipster coffee shop. A case that started with Dirk being hit on the head with a medium-sized, hardcover book, a fact he had generously tolerated but which came back to bite him in the bum by the end of their second investigative day, in the form of another whap nailing his head right where it had been assaulted before.

Generally Dirk just took these attacks with grace and serenity - things happen to him - but their current client (whose actual identity they had not even come very close to finding out yet) was sliding ever so slightly to his bad side on account of that.

So! The book was locked with a small iron lock, which in hindsight Farah could definitely get through in twenty seconds flat, but Dirk had just immediately fixated on the idea of a key. It was logical, but not very open-minded of him, he will admit; but in his defense, that lead had just been so attractive. Either it was a nudge from the universe, or he had some serious soul searching to do.

Fortunately the latter was not the case, given that the chase for the key lead them to an antique shop, whose owner asked for a favour, which lead them to a CD store, which had seen some shenanigans before their arrival, and they were then sent to an old lady, and then to a park, where the swim happened, and by the end they didn’t get the right key for the book, but that key worked on the barista in the hipster coffee shop. Yes, the barista.

That was awkward for every party involved.

But anyway, they got inside the crypt (the barista was glowing, but not in a miraculous way. It felt more like turning on an agonized head lamp that followed you around), someone snuck in after them, Farah was shut in the inner chamber, Dirk was hit upside the head, and the next time he opened his eyes it was to the roof of a van, Todd unconscious beside him.

Well, not unconscious. Todd was sleeping - he didn’t have that scary stillness to someone unconscious. That, however, wasn’t that comforting a knowledge, given that Todd was still working on his insomnia problem, and only fell asleep in stressful environments when he was absolutely, one hundred percent exhausted. Which was why Dirk let him sleep while he sat down for an amicable, gun-laden talk with their captors.

That talk went something like this: I’m looking for someone from a prophecy, and you also appear in that prophecy, so I’ve kidnapped you so I can have all the pieces in one place. First of all, flattering of the prophet, second, why didn’t you guys come to our office. We have a business built around these kinds of mysteries, and I feel like it’s being disrespected right now. Because we’re gonna kill the man the prophecy sends us to, and the world is blind to our mission.

Cool, very cool. I definitely do not have problems with any of this at all.

Also why is my friend grabbed?

He was there, the captor who had been speaking up until that point waved the gun around for emphasis, while the other one eyed that action with annoyance and wariness.

It wasn’t a very exciting exchange of words.

They covered up the windows in the cabin, so Dirk didn’t have much of an idea of where they were going, and they stripped him and Todd both of their phones, so no chance of calling for help. Todd woke up extra groggy, which signaled something Not Fun, and Dirk spent the first evening in captive assessing Todd’s situation while hanging onto Todd’s arm so he knew he wasn’t alone in his predicaments. Well, some of them.

Todd, of course, started his actual wakefulness with, “Where are we.”

“I would say this is a van,” Dirk offered his input, “but. Well. I have seen this interior in many places, an elevator included.”

Todd made to stand up. “Those assholes hit you in the head?” He grimaced. “That’s not— I just want to know. It’s not a jab. Fuck, my fucking head.”

“It’s okay to sit down,” Dirk’s voice wobbled a bit dangerously there. “And, my head is. Very whole. They did hit it, in the same spot the book hit it, which I didn’t appreciate by the way, but it is in one piece, or you would have noticed I think. And so would I. I would very probably be talking much less than I am right now, and just, do less in general. I would be very still, and oh, that’s very morbid Dirk. Dirk should stop.”

“Dirk should stop,” Todd echoed with a hint of fondness amidst a sea of annoyance. He rose to his feet with a grunt.

“More importantly,” Dirk pressed forward while quickly arranging his limbs into pre-standing up position, “I wasn’t there when what happened to you… happened. I was there physically, but I was. Out. Is what I meant. So I am asking whether you have been…”

“Hit. Yes— yeah. I was hit.” Todd said, and walked over to the bench bolted onto the side wall. It was wobbling a bit with the lurch of the van. He dropped to his knees and snuck his hand underneath it. “Okay, so. If we’re in a van right now then there should be a panel here somewhere that— opens into… a… thing. And we can jam the axle.”

Dirk stared at him, while his head registered none of that other than the vague impression of huh Todd knows these things very cool . His brain was, in fact, rather busy chasing around the fact that Todd didn’t look like he had a concussion like a particularly excitable puppy. So Todd didn’t fall asleep after a concussion. It wasn’t the hit that took him out.

“You had an attack, didn’t you,” Dirk said lamely, and Todd’s shoulders tensed.

“I— yeah.”

Dirk stared at him some more.

“Don’t let me start on it, because I won’t stop. I won’t be able to, and I won’t want to, and in no time I’m gonna be on the other side of that window strangling someone, who’s probably driving this thing, and I will yell a lot, and we will die in an incredibly shitty way.”

“I won’t let you start on it,” Dirk swore, drawing a cross on his heart with his finger. “But it might be wise to sit down for another minute first.”

Todd shrugged. “I slept it off. Got it,” he said, and crouched down even further to look at whatever it was that he got. “It’s screwed shut, so, hm. Dirk?” He turned his head to the side to look at Dirk. “You still have the key on you?”

Dirk held up his hands. “It was still in the barista, per my last memory pre-whap.”

“Pre-wha—” Todd’s face scrunched up slightly. “Nevermind. Never-goddamn-mind. Do I—” He groped around for his wallet, a search that came up empty. “Of all times for some dumbass kidnappers to be thorough. Of course. Alright.”

Dirk was still staring at him, and, well. He wasn’t going to stop, if one asked. He was just acknowledging the action.

Todd turned to him again, and the indignance in his face really shouldn’t be this endearing. “What is the deal of those dudes, anyway?”

“I do have an answer for that, actually,” Dirk informed him, delightfully, and he told Todd about the prophecy. By the end of the explanation Todd has sat down onto the wobbly bench, hands on his face, the arch of his back telling of a soul-deep weariness.

“Why.” He groaned through his hands. “Can’t they have normal motives for once. They have a fucking gun each, sure, but not enough common sense to split between their fucking heads.”

Common sense is a rarity, and yet very much overrated, Dirk thought cheerfully. What he said out loud though, was “They are very whimsical.”

Todd sighed. He tipped his head back until it collided with the window with a hitch in his breath. The window was still stubbornly covered in dark film. “I hate it when people like this kidnap us,” he grumbled. “I mean— it’s nice of them to not tie us up, or drug us, or give a shit what we say or plan between us, but.” His left arm flailed up in a defeated motion. “They sure got us here in this van. While being stupefyingly incompetent. And I hate that.”

“I get what you mean,” Dirk nodded.

Todd looked at him, and then at the back door, and then at the wall separating them from the driver’s seat, and then he sighed and walked up to try the back door. It was locked. Todd didn’t look less annoyed. He returned to the bench to start peeling the film from the window.

“Is this a part of the case?” He asked while scraping at a corner that did come off with his nail.

Dirk pursed his lips. “Ab-solutely no idea.”

“I.” The sound of nail-on-edge-of-film started fading into the background. “Have been thinking about the old woman.”

“Have you now.”

“Have— you know what the hell I mean. And also she’s just weird as hell, like. Not just old-lady weird. Like weird weird. You get what I mean?”

“It’s not nice to judge, Todd.”

“She sent a goldfish after us! And the smell of— God I hope that was fish pellets…”

They talked about the case well into the night, Dirk waving his hands and moving around the space, Todd giving up on the window after clearing three fingers worth of the film. Dirk knew it was about four in the morning when his eyes started to droop and his thoughts lapsed into circles, and when he yawned Todd moved from the bench to sit next to him on the floor. It was pitch black outside, from what they could see through the newly transparent patch of window.

The van lurched to a stop all of a sudden, and a few muffled footsteps later the back door opened to reveal two guns trailing on them. Todd sat up straighter, hands in the air. Dirk, after a few moments, did the same.

“Okay, okay.” Todd said, calm in that exact way someone was obviously freaking out on the inside would be, but Dirk had heard him use this voice enough to recognize it as an act. That, and the fact that Todd was complaining about these individuals’ kidnapping competence mere hours before. “Dirk, he. He told me about the prophecy you guys heard. Whatever it is, we have nothing to do with it, okay? We’re just two dudes, we didn’t know where we were or what the hell that place was, if that’s where you guys do your- your business, we will just. Forget all of it. Not a single word out of our mouth, ever. I promise. Please, please let us go.”

His voice even broke a little at the end. Dirk was… impressed, sure, but there was just a lot to unpack in this situation. He opted to say nothing, open his eyes wide, and nod as frantically as possible. He was nowhere as good at acting as Todd. Todd, with all of his observance and puzzle solving and bluffing, was well on his way to become a real spy.

Their kidnappers, however, were not of the mind to appreciate that. “That’s not happening,” the talkative of the two said, while the other one shrugged. “Dirk Gently’s in the prophecy, and you know our plan now. We just need to be sure you’re not telling on us. Anyway, we forgot to restrain you.”

He trained his gun on Todd as the other lowered his gun to the ground, below the floor of the van, and climbed inside. Todd swallowed heavily and blinked a bit frantically as a zip tie tightened around his wrists. The man grabbed for Dirk next and he went through the same treatment.

They captors were done and gone just as quickly and suddenly as they appeared. After the door had locked on them again and the engine started with an agonizing cough, Todd dropped his shoulders and leaned back against the side with a thunk.

“This is—” He pressed his hands on his face and said with a groan, “the most bullshit. God.”

It had been okay up until that point. Well, as okay as a kidnapping could have gone, as in nobody had shot at them yet, they were still not drugged, Dirk could kind of stand up to stretch his legs, and they were given food at one point. The van didn’t stop, the kidnappers didn’t talk to them, and Dirk was definitely bored.

Todd was… frustrated. He checked the panel under the bench again, looked through the clear patch on the window every hour or so (they didn’t recognize the surrounding, or however much of it they could gleam through the patch), and the rest of the time he practically buzzed with restless annoyance and anxiety. He hadn’t calmed down at all since they got zip tied.

They kept going like that for about another half a day (if Todd’s inner clock was right. Dirk just had to trust him, because Dirk’s sense of time was screwed to hell), and then the van stopped, and the back door opened again to reveal the kidnappers.

“I have a small, irrelevant question,” Dirk said immediately. “What is your name? And your friend’s name, of course. I have been addressing you as ‘the kidnappers’ in my head for too long now, and it’s becoming very distracting.”

Todd stared at him, and he could feel the incredulity in that stare.

The kidnappers looked at each other, and then the talkative one shrugged again. “Adrian,” he said. He talked a lot, but he didn’t emote much. Even his voice was even, like a mirror. “And here’s Jon.”

“Cool! Great! We know each other now, we are getting acquainted,” Todd chimed in, nervousness worked into his voice. “Are you guys letting us go? Or— does, does knowing your names mean we aren’t going? Jesus, god, I. Please. I’m, oh God,” he trailed off, swallowed visibly, and glanced over to Dirk with round, very blue eyes.

“I’m here to talk,” Adrian said, “please calm down.”

Todd stared at the guns, and then at Adrian.

“I don’t shoot if you don’t make me,” Adrian said. He then tried to keep his gun aimed at Todd as he climbed into the van, Jon following suit after he’d sat down on the bench. The gun were very close now. Dirk stared at them, and then at Adrian. And Jon.

There was a very long moment of silence. Again, Dirk had never been proud of his sense of time.

Adrian sat up a bit straighter when Dirk did the exaggerated shrugging motion with an mm-hm in place of a well go ahead then. He was wearing suit, but not good suit. It was a bit large and crumpled and the tie was just noncommittal in a sad way. Jon looked more sporty and organized, if black tank top and black slack could be considered that.

“So,” Adrian said, still as even as ever, “I have taken another look at the prophecy, and—”

“We aren’t really required?” Todd piped up.

“—it seems to point to you,” Adrian again ignored him in favour of gesturing with his gun at Dirk, a motion he really didn’t appreciate, “being a compass of sort.”

Dirk felt Todd tense up a bit at that. It was understandable, given that they had, by that point in time, run into weird people with weird expectations for Dirk seventeen times in total. A worrying majority of those seventeen were very aggressive and… murdery, and exactly only two ever reconsidered their view on his thing. There had definitely been some kidnapping attempts, and a lot of threatening at gun points (well, some threatening at gun points, but in Dirk’s humble opinion, any amount of threatening at gun points is a lot), and, really, the amount of injuries and bleeding resulting from those encounters was just ridiculous. And Todd was there the whole time, got shot at a not-zero amount of time, buzzing with worry and guilt all the way through, complaining extra grumpily, because the seventeen people on the list were just the exact brand of people Todd could not tolerate.

This time around their kidnappers - Adrian and Jon - were shaping up to be another entry on the Stupid Fucking People I Can’t Believe We Have To Deal With list (Todd was usually more precise in his naming, which only serve to highlight how much he really did not like the people on the list); they kidnapped Dirk and Todd, they hit them over the head not in an affectionate manner, they had guns, they followed a prophecy, and just then they were weird with Dirk’s thing. But they also weren’t entirely within the range yet: they hadn’t been incredibly aggressive, and. Well. They were mostly chill, actually. Just two calm, business-as-usual, extremely normal individuals, aiming guns at Dirk and Todd after they hit them over the head.

Dirk reserved his rights to be a bit spiteful about that detail, thank you very much.

Their captors’ precarious position on the cliff above the SFPICBWHTDW list didn’t win them any favour from Todd, however. So far he hadn’t lost any blood, sure, but he didn’t like people that are hard to read. Todd had his neat categories of how to interact with the outside world, as any other adult did, and his sorting system relied a lot on how the other person or people read to him, so he of course didn’t like people who were antagonistic and also hard to read. He couldn’t yet explode the way he would at someone like Suzie Boreton, because these people were just not there in the reaction zone yet, so he had to settle with just being tense and uncomfortable and annoyed and having an all around below average time.

He, of course, carried on with his act no matter his own comfort. Dirk very much wished he wouldn’t, but they were in a van with their wrists zip tied and guns aimed in their general direction, and. Well. Todd’s act was still his actual feelings filtered through a reaction scheme afterall. “Wait, wait wait wait wait— what. What does that mean? A c- a compass?”

Adrian shrugged without even glancing at Todd. “It’s how the prophecy reads. For a man whose gaze points westward is always true to his treasure. West is the prophet’s name, and I got your name from the first letter of every verse.”

Todd definitely did a small, almost unreadable grimace at that. Dirk’s curiosity was piqued, but he told himself firmly do not start with your questioning at gun points and sat still.

“Dude, that sounds like a coincidence,” Todd said with a lot of blinking. Dirk could hear how much Todd didn’t believe in that, but these people didn’t know Todd. “I saw— I saw my name in the first letters of paragraphs in the newspaper all the time! I don’t—” He jumped a bit in genuine surprise at Jon aiming the gun squarely on him, a hint of true animosity actually flickering in the man’s eye. “Hey! I— I just think! I just think that’s a bit of a reach…?”

Adrian shrugged again. He was a video game NPC, and shrugging was his dialogue animation, and it was boring in the most grating way. “Most people are blind to my mission.”

Oh, Todd had so many things to say to that. Dirk could feel how much Todd had to say to that. It was a miraculous feat, one that Dirk knew must have done some kind of damage to Todd’s soul, for Todd to sit still and act like he was dumbfounded and defeated.

“So,” Adrian carried on, “we’ll sit you in the front from now on.”

Hands grabbed Dirk’s arm, and before words could leave his mouth to express how he didn’t like sitting in the front, thank you for the invite but allow him to courteously decline, he could feel the muzzle of one of the gun against his ribs. It was as noncommittal as everything else Adrian did, and oh wow he was starting to resend that with real fervour now.

They of course left Todd in the back by himself, locked in with nothing but empty space and artificial, unnerving, unblinking light for company, and Dirk was seated between Adrian and Jon, and his urge to fidget immediately started to overwhelm him. The view of the road, unobscured by dark film, bright and deserted and cold despite the color of burnt grass and sunlight on the ground, did nothing to calm him down. His attention was divided between all the details his eyes caught, and he retained none of them.

Jon was annoyed with how Dirk shifted between tensing up and squirming. His grip on the gun, still aiming at Dirk from the side, tightened, and Dirk felt both petty triumph and a vague fear over that.

“Where to, Dirk Gently?” Adrian was looking at him. Eyes on the road, Dirk thought, and felt guilty for being a hypocrite.

“Left on the next turn,” he said. “And, um, if I may? On the subject of the prophecy…”

“Shut up,” Jon mumbled. Adrian didn’t seem to hear that, but Dirk jumped slightly at the nudge of the gun against his side anyway.

Adrian tapped his finger on the steering wheel. “I found it in a spam mail. Hidden beneath all the graphics, just plain blocks of words. I was clearing out my late wife’s mail.”

“Very sorry for your lost,” Dirk said politely, and Adrian nodded, as if he was acknowledging and appreciating the proper way a conversation should go when one party mentions a lost loved one. His wife must have passed away for a long time ago, if the smooth evenness of how he brought her up meant something. They sat in silence for a minute, and then Dirk just mentally said screw it and blurted out, “May I hear the prophecy? If you don’t mind, of course,” he added very quickly when he heard Jon huffed.

Adrian used his gun-holding hand (right, he was still holding his gun while driving, of course), to gesture to a crumpled flyer on the dashboard. Dirk looked at him, and then at Jon, who was rolling his eyes, and then he reached over to pick it up.

It was a garishly technicolored flyer for a new convenience store franchise, one that Dirk had never seen or heard of, which might be a bit weird given that Dirk had been back to the States for a few years now, had traveled for cases a lot, and the flyer seemed old but not ancient. In fact, the date on the flyer was three years ago, which meant Dirk could have been there for the grand opening. He did love grand openings. Even though Launda-7 wasn’t the smoothest name on the tongue.

True to Adrian’s words, the verses were printed below the blurry pink-and-ultramarine-blue frame, in small black prints that really wasn’t doing it for Dirk’s eyes right now. He desperately wished for it to be because he was in a van that didn’t feel the most stable, and not because his eyesight was getting worse. All he had to rely on was his perfect eyesight and his incredible friends and his witty charm that didn’t quit.

He gave up reading after four lines. It read like a bad love song. If he could rate the overall experience of reading it on a scale of ten, he would have to take away at least some points.

Adrian finally took the left Dirk told him to, and while watching the road, the clock on the dashboard screen finally caught his eyes. “It’s Thursday,” he mumbled. “Oh God, it’s Thursday.”

He turned around to face the wall separating his seat and the back, persistent despite Jon’s menacing shove of the gun in his side. Adrian spared him a glance.

“Did you get a pill bottle out of any of our pockets?” He asked, turning forward again, knocking into Jon’s gun. Jon was very peeved at that. “Small, orange with white cap, green-and-white pill—”

“Oh, those,” Adrian said. “I don’t remember hanging onto them? Jon probably threw them away along with your phones.”

Jon reacted in some way at that, but Dirk didn’t register it. “Stop the van. I need to see my friend.”

Now Adrian looked at him.

“My friend needs those pills,” Dirk was getting impatient. Or, well, desperate. He felt his own breathing speeding up. “He needs a dose every three days.”

The silence answering him was suffocating.

Dirk pushed over to Jon’s side to grab at the door handle. He could feel the gun on the back of his head, and he could hear the Hey! Both Jon and Adrian let out, but he really couldn’t spare attention for those things right now. He did register the van stopping with a screech and a lurch.

“Mister Adrian, if I may address you as such,” he said, with a calm he didn’t feel, “my friend may very possibly be in the middle of an attack right now, and I would have no way to know, and if you want a single word of direction out of my mouth, you need to let me see him right. This. Moment.”

Adrian and Jon looked at each other, and then Jon groaned and Adrian opened the door on his side. Muffled footsteps again, then the door in front of Dirk’s face opened as well, then he had to sit up so Jon could step out first, and this was taking too much bloody time, and Dirk practically tumbled into the back when the door was unlocked.

Todd was sitting up against the side. He looked at Dirk with the expression that indicated he had just done some snooping around yet again. “Adrian!” was, however, the first word out of his mouth. “Hey, guys! Does this mean—”

“Your friend’s fine,” Adrian interrupted, and he made to grab at Dirk’s arm again. Dirk yanked it out of his reach with a huff.

“No, see, I’m going to stay right here with Todd. You know,” he glared at Adrian, “that if you bring me to the front seat again, I will do what I just did there every few hours. Or every few minutes. Truthfully, I will just immediately kick the door open to run out again the moment you close it behind me. You have my word on the matter.”

Adrian seemed to believe him, because he took a long look at him, then sighed, shrugged, and turned to Jon to say, “Get in the back with them.”

Jon didn’t like that, but screw Jon.

Three people in the back closed the space up to a slightly claustrophobic size, and Jon’s attitude and gun didn’t help the matter. Todd was tense all the time now, which made Dirk hover in a kind of embarrassing manner, but, well. At least he had Todd in his sight again. He always appreciated that, but he appreciated that doubly now because of the many things that had happened and were happening around them.

“So,” Todd said, just the right amount of awkward, and Dirk had the impression only the lack of annoyance in his voice was manufactured, “what were you guys doing at the front?”

“Well, I was being a compass,” Dirk said. Jon didn’t like that they were just talking freely in front of him, but again, screw Jon. “A very dashing, very proper, only slightly unethical one.”

“So you just. Tell them where to go?”

“I work on a sophisticated left-right basis, Todd. I am very accurate within my range.”

Todd’s huff of laughter was true amusement, and Dirk felt his heart (which was beating very violently and relentlessly until now, huh, he hadn’t even noticed) calm down a little bit. He wouldn’t yet bring up the pills. He would probably not bring up the pills. Todd wouldn’t like that he didn’t bring up the pills, but then again, Todd also wouldn’t like being stressed over not having his pills on him, which could trigger a premature attack.

Adrian and Jon’s plus points over other kidnappers they had experienced were rapidly depleting by this point.

Todd also seemed to have something he needed to tell Dirk, which he signaled by huddling a bit closer to Dirk, but Jon’s presence opposite them tied their hands. Metaphorically said, since their hands were still zip tied.

Stars above, Dirk just didn’t like Jon at all.

They stayed like that, Dirk and Todd against the side, Jon on the bench, as day tumbled into night and Dirk felt like his legs would just collapse in on itself like those extendable sticks teachers used to point at the board. Every once in a while Jon’s phone would buzz, then he would ask Dirk for the direction in a tight voice, and Dirk would just choose left or right at random, and he would text that back to Adrian. Todd didn’t say anything, though his act melted into real annoyance in a quite organic way, if Dirk could say so himself. He slumped down to rest his back against the wall again at one point.

Jon’s look on Dirk steeled up more and more the further into the night day they go, and when the van stopped again and Adrian called Jon outside, probably for a rest stop, the disdain with which he threw the sandwiches at Dirk and Todd was palpable. The air seemed ten times lighter after he left.

“I found a— I found Farah’s chip in my jacket,” Todd said hastily the moment the footsteps faded. He held the edge of his windbreaker up to show Dirk something that Dirk didn’t quite catch. “It— ugh, just— your hand!” He pushed the edge into Dirk’s hands, and… Oh. There was a small lump there where the rest of the fabric was smooth. “Those tracker we got from— the Wisecracker case. Farah is probably on the way to get us now.”

Dirk broke into a wide, wide grin. “Brilliant! Great assisting, Todd!”

“That is. Well. Unless she’s still…”

“No way.”

“Yeah,” Todd nodded, amiably, and picked up his sandwich, “you’re right. No way.”

They ate and talked, about the case, about Farah, about the weird creepy old lady with the murderous goldfish (“That tank in her living room really should have tipped us off,” Todd said, but Dirk didn’t find that a fault. Sometimes things just are outside of their imagination, and that is fine). Todd still resolutely didn’t mention their kidnappers, staying true to his promise to not let himself start on the tirade he had been holding back. Dirk felt compelled to honor his promise to not let him start as well.

Too soon the back door opened again - it was light out now - and Jon climbed back in, and Dirk could feel Todd shift into his sullen mode. Which was warranted, because Jon looked spoiling for a fight.

Now that Dirk knew Farah could very possibly be on the way to rescue them at this very moment, the hope and tension competed inside him to make up a giddy mood that perched precariously on the verge of hysteria. Todd’s fuse was burning away in front of his eyes, however, and Dirk grasped onto his own buzzing to clamp it down desperately in order to not add fuel to Todd’s fire. Farah must be close, they had been gone for… three days now. She must be.

When Jon’s phone buzzed, his grip on the thing made Dirk wince. “Left,” he said hastily, just so Jon would stop with that. But, well.

Jon thumped on the separating wall, just a bit violently. Just a bit. “Y’hear that, Addie? He says left!”

Todd and Dirk shared a look.

The phone buzzed again, and whatever text Adrian sent was definitely scathing, because Jon threw the thing at Todd, who had to drop to a side to avoid it. It clattered on the floor between Dirk and Todd, mostly intact, and that blew Jon’s sentiments into double size. He bolted upright only to knock his head on the roof and swear. His gun was lowered, away from Dirk and Todd.

Todd jumped onto the chance with a spite-powered vigor. Dirk yelped and pressed himself into the corner as Todd lunged for Jon’s gun arm, yanking it towards him. They toppled to the floor, gun splayed out in front of them, and the unmistakable flash-and-bang of it going off startled Dirk again. He hazily considered jumping for it as well, but then Jon pushed Todd off just far enough to punch him square across the jaw, and then Todd was on the floor and Jon was sitting up and the gun was on Todd again.

Dirk moved in just as the van halted, the lurch sent Jon into the separating wall, and the bullet grazed Todd’s calf on its way through the floor.

Todd shouted. And again. And again. He curled up on himself, almost kneeing himself in the face while he reached for the wound.

He didn’t stop screaming when Dirk crashed beside him, didn’t recognize Dirk’s arms behind him holding him up until they shook him. “Todd! Todd, look at me!” The pair of blue eyes that met Dirk’s was wide, wide open.

“It’s falling off,” Todd choked on a grunt, “my leg— it’s- it’s cut through—”

“Todd, look at me,” Dirk repeated, and oh, oh no, fear was seeping into his voice as well, this would not do, calm down, calm down— “Don’t look at your leg! Look at me! It’s still there, there’s no hole on it, it’s the attack telling you it’s cut through, listen to me instead.”

Todd swallowed, and his eyes were wet, and Dirk grabbed at the hands he clapped around his calf (his wrists were red and raw, scrubbed by the zip tie) and just held then as tightly as possible. Their forehead knocked together, and Todd’s eyes were screwed shut, and he was hiccuping now. “My—” he gasped, “give me my— my pills—”

Dirk’s heart sank, possibly to where that bloody bullet had gone, deep, deep into the dark earth. “I don’t—” He felt his throat closing up, refusing to deliver the news, stubbornly defying even the facts of the situation, and he opted to push Todd into his chest instead, to just hold him and feel the way he trembled. “I’m sorry, Todd, when they—”

Todd was crying now, and oh God, Dirk really wished he could just tear himself into a million threads and weave himself back into whatever it was that could comfort Todd, wished he could rearrange his atoms into the pills Todd needed. He wished to be Mona instead of himself, just sitting there clinging onto this friend, useless, utterly useless.

This kidnapping officially became the worst one yet.

Jon swore up a storm at it all, and Adrian was standing right outside, and Dirk never wanted to be somewhere less than he wanted to be here right now. “And what’s their deal, these- bunch of freaks !” He only registered that from Jon’s tirade.

Todd was finally winding down, the pain leaving him like droplets of mist, and underneath there was a foreign emptiness. That definitely scared Dirk a bit, so he just pulled Todd in even closer, and waited for Todd to fall asleep as usually the case after unmedicated attacks.

Jon was still seated with them in the back when the van moved again, and he stared at them the whole way.

Todd didn’t fall asleep. He sat slumped in the corner, eyes almost blank, and he was silent. Still as a rock, save for the lurches along with the van. Dirk vaguely picked up the change in background noises - the sounds of other vehicles on the road, and the sounds of people, they were somewhere with actual occupants now - but all fell off his focus save for Todd’s statue-like stillness.

He hadn’t liked many things that happened during the last three days, but this was a new level of dread.

They sat there for Dirk didn’t knew how long, the clear patch of glass on the window brightening then dimming, and finally the van stopped. The back door opened, Jon stood up to usher Dirk out with his gun hand. He then dragged Todd out by his arm, and Dirk almost hit his face on the floor of the van trying to climb in to stop him from doing that.

“He just had an attack!” He said at Adrian’s gun in his face. “Can you people at least act like learned, civilized men?”

Adrian stared at him, and then said to Jon, “Go easy on him.” And then he stared at him some more.

“Are you waiting for me to thank you,” Dirk asked flatly. Adrian had the heart to look slightly ashamed, but he rolled his eyes, just to bring that not-entirely-terribleness to sea level again. Dirk huffed, stood up straight, and turned around to grab at Todd’s shoulder as he dropped down to the ground.

Todd looked at him, and - there was something now where the emptiness was before.

That cleared Dirk’s head just a bit.

They were at a dingy little apartment complex, dimly lit, damp and dank against the red sunset. The stair up to the gate was slippery in a concerning way, and three of the four doors immediately in Dirk’s sight were busted.

They climbed the stairs to the fourth floor. The fourth floor was drastically messier than the ground floor. Paper stuck to almost every surface, practically lining their every steps. The air smelled of mold and rusted steel pipes and wet concrete. Dirk caught the sight of a magazine cover next to his foot, and from there it wasn’t hard to realize that the paper was all magazine pages.

Adrian’s pace quickened, leading them to the innermost apartment. The door wasn’t locked. The inside was covered in the same magazine pages in the hallway, and smelled even worse, a fact that could be explained by the universe’s worst fish tank ever on a counter under the living room’s window. Yes, Dirk had biases against rotting water plants and murky water and a big, uncomfortably human mouth lurking amidst the muddy green hue, but in his defense, he was pretty sure so did fishes and any other living creatures.

Except for Adrian, apparently. He walked up to the tank, checked through it, mumbled ‘okay, this is here’ possibly while cross-referencing in his head the prophecy which Dirk remembered none of, and then just ignored it the same way he ignored Todd. Jon just looked like he didn’t want to be here, and Dirk resent that he shared that sentiment with him.

They waited for something in the living room, Adrian’s gaze moving from the door to Dirk back to the door in regular intervals, while the sun went down outside the window, plunging the apartment into darkness except for the dull glow from the fish tank.

Boredom dulled Dirk’s simmering emotions, and he had started to feel the toll of the last three days on his everything while standing there in a dark, wet, magazine-lined, suspiciously-mouth-like-creature-infested apartment in some city. He looked at Todd, who didn’t look back at him and just continued to be frighteningly silent.

The apartment door opened when Dirk was mulling over breaking his promise to not let Todd start, and they all swung their bodies a bit forward in anticipation. A light shone in from the threshold, then a head popped in, looking from one side of the apartment to the other. It froze when catching Adrian’s eyes.

The gunshot rang clear through wet air before the newcomer could retreat. They fell backward as Adrian walked over, Dirk and Todd following him per Jon’s gun-accentuated nudge.

“Oh my God, oh my God.” The person was half-sobbing on their side on the floor, hand on their shoulder, which - oof, Dirk definitely recalled how a wound like that felt. They were wearing a hoodie, the percentage of their face not obscured by the hood was scrunched up into a Bad Feeling. “I’m so sorry, oh my God— I should’ve, I should have fed the, oh my God—”

Adrian didn’t seem to feel any particular way about the person he just shot in the shoulder (and about that - he was a better shot than Dirk anticipated, an information that raised something akin to molten sugar lava up in his stomach). He stood over them, voice still as even as ever when he asked, “Are you Jorji? Or do you, well, go by Jorji.”

The person clamped their mouth shut, which was a very wise course of action that warranted commendation. Their watery eyes shone under the light of the torch they dropped on the floor.

Adrian sighed. “Bring him inside, Jon.”

Dirk felt compelled to pipe up when the person was in upright position again. “I’m very sorry this is happening to you.” He didn’t really expect a reaction to that, really, the day mustn’t have been kind to them, but their eyes became even rounder when they finally looked at him properly.

“D- Dirk Gently!”

“That is my name,” Dirk said, and then dread fell over him at Adrian’s shift of attention on them. “Oh golly.”

They both duck, Dirk dragging supposedly-Jorji over to a side, as the shot again rang through the hallway. Jorji hit their wounded shoulder against the wall, which knocked the breath out of them, but they regained it fast enough to clamber up the wall when met with Adrian’s unfun end of the gun. Their eyes flashed with terror and hope intertwined as they looked between Adrian and Dirk, and they spilled when Adrian pressed in closer.

“I— I don’t know who you are! I’m not Jorji, I’m not whoever the hell you’re looking for, but Dirk G-Gently is here, so I did things right! I only forgot to feed the fish this morning! Please, it was one time, please!”

They were full on sobbing now, but, well, Dirk just solved the case, so one must forgive him for not feeling the full onset of sympathy at that moment. And also Jorji was the one dropping the book on his head, probably intentionally, so he needed to sort that small amount of spite out first.

Right now he yanked Jorji to a side again to avoid yet another gunshot, his ears full on ringing now, as he called over to Todd. “Todd! Todd! Solved it!”

Todd didn’t react. He was busy with something else. The something else being Adrian’s prophetic flyer.

“Hey, asshole,” Todd said, and for some reason it almost outrang the gunshot itself. “This is fucking Red Hearse.”

Adrian stopped aiming his gun to look at Todd, probably for the first time since he whapped him upside the head in order to be able to drag him into the van with Dirk.

“Excuse me,” he said, blinking in a bewildered manner.

“It’s fucking Red Hearse,” Todd said, his voice trembling with freezing fury now, and the flyer crumpled up even more in his fist. “Third song in their first album, Launda-7. Lead singer Syel West.”

Dirk looked at him, and yet another piece of the case slid in place. “Oh,” he said.

“This is viral marketing,” Todd said, and the temperature in the hallway ought to have dropped at least a few degree Celsius by now. His eyes were bright with something directly opposite of a fever. “You kidnapped, hit, and shot at us, over a fucking viral marketing campaign.”

Adrian seemed surprised, but not that interested, which was becoming more and more irritating by the second now. “Huh.”

Jon, on the other hand, was fuming. “You motherfucker,” he growled. His gun pointed from Todd to Adrian in a wild arc. “Is that fucking it? Is he right? Is he saying the truth, Addie?”

“His truth doesn’t mean much,” Adrian said. “People are blind.”

“People are blind!” Jon barked, at the same time as Todd’s cold, cold “ You’re a piece of shit. ”

Dirk watched, just a tad bit stunned, as Todd walked over until he was only an arm’s length away from Adrian.

“I know your fucking prophet, Addie.” His stance wasn’t steady, but he didn’t look like he was grazed in the leg with a bullet. He looked like he was going to tear the throat out of the first person to touch him right now. “Syel West was my old bandmate. Every morning he opened the door, walked into the living room, said to me ‘we are all dying slowly’, then went and clogged both the sink and the toilet. He was a cesspool of a living thing. The fucking hangers in the closet were out of his reach from how far he’d sunk into the ground. He was a fucking burden on a human being’s soul, and so was his music. And- and from the look of it, no fucking wonder you take his lyrics as a prophecy.”

He inhaled, and Dirk could see him shake, just slightly.

“Anyone with actual human feelings would never entertain the idea of putting themself through listening to a Red Hearse song. But you don’t have actual human feelings, do you, Addie ?” The sneer on Todd’s face was starting to scare Dirk just a little. “Human feelings go out. You just ferment them inside, like fucking surströmming, except not even edible, because now you’re just a walking tower of toxic waste. That’s not a success, no, you’ve— you’ve failed at living from day one, but you’re gonna cope by twisting the truth instead of facing it, right? Your view on the world is unique, your input is unique, yeah, half of Twitter is the same. You aren’t fucking right.”

“I am,” Adrian’s answer was a bit weak, but, well, he was comparing to Todd right now.

“No you’re not !” Dirk and Jorji jumped at the volume. “What you are is a fucking flour sack baby wearing tinfoil hat! You’re delusional, and narcissistic, and beneath us. There is a reason you’re left behind by the word, there’s a rea— there’s a reason why your wife left you, and it does have to do with you looking through her mails by the way! There’s a reason the only person you’ve persuaded into doing this with you thus far is your own brother, and that’s because you act like a cult leader with the charisma of a molding piece of cheese!”

“What—” Jon breathed out a syllable, before Todd whipped around to look at him.

“And you ! No one’s gonna fucking baby you, you overgrown manchild. Normal people don’t feel comfort over being coddled like a toddler and being petulant, as if you— as if you’re in the middle of rebellious teen phase! Normal people don’t swing around a fucking gun while they throw a temper tantrum! You think you’re tough, but you’re spineless, and he got you, he got you good, and— and that’s fucking pathetic because he fucking sucks at getting people! You’re evenly matched. You’re evenly a waste—”

“Shut up!” Jon shouted, and he shot Todd again, under the kneecap this time, and Todd screamed and fell. Dirk could hear himself yell Todd’s name, and suddenly he was between the guns just like Todd, sitting Todd upright again, covering the wound with his hands, saying it’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay over and over again, and Todd had his eyes screwed shut but he didn’t stop screaming, and before Dirk realized it the screams had morphed into actual words.

“That’s not how you win a fight, you jerk ass piece of microwave pizza dough! You think you shut your opponents up, but nobody ’s your fucking opponents! No one’s out to ruin you! You made your life into this, the two of you on your own, and you’ll shoot everybody before you know to point your damn guns at each other—”

Todd’s fury was burning hot, and it contrasted with the cold Dirk felt on his back enough to turn his head around and meet Adrian’s eyes, finally wide, finally cold, and Jon was shouting but Todd’s voice still drowned his out, and there were footsteps from the stairs, and Adrian pulled the trigger but Dirk pushed Todd and himself off the bullet’s trajectory, and Jorji was practically crying, and—

—it was hard to tell another gun even went off, but when Dirk had sat up straight again, Adrian and Jon were both already on the floor, Adrian facing up on a pool of his own blood and Jon on his knees, an arm holding his own bleeding shoulder.

“Addie,” he mumbled, half-staring at his brother’s body (they were brothers. Dirk never even guessed that. They were brothers) through shallow huffs of breath.

Farah stood at the last step of the staircase still, breathing heavily, her eyes wide. Her gun had shifted from the corpse to Jorji. “Dirk, Todd,” she said, “oh my God.”

“Farah!” Dirk exclaimed, shaking Todd at the same time. “Oh, thank the stars you’re here… Todd was shot, and he needs his meds, and we all need sleep, but I did solve the case, and now we need to return to the old lady’s place, but first—”

“Let’s stop the bleeding first,” Farah said - she was right in front of them now, kneeling down next to Todd, and she had one hand on Todd’s knees already. Their in-car first aid kit laid open on her other side.

“Excellent plan of action Farah, just what I was about to suggest,” Dirk said, clapping his hands together. Both Farah and Jorji jumped a bit at the sudden noise, but Todd was deathly still again, eyes going from Dirk to Farah back to Dirk without his face ever moving. Dirk chewed on his lower lips.

A pair of scissors was thrusted into Dirk’s hands. “Cut Todd’s zip tie,” Farah said absentmindedly.

Todd’s hands were clasped together, tighter than must be comfortable. Dirk fumbled a bit, but got the blades to line up properly, and with a snip the plastic tie came off.

Todd’s hands didn’t move at all. They stayed clasped together, even as Todd stared at them with a single spare glance to Dirk in the middle. Dirk could tell he was clenching his teeth.

“It’s okay, Todd,” he reminded him, trying to not use the voice that could be easily misheard as talking-to-a-spooked-animal, “It’s alright, we’re not kidnapped anymore.”

Todd fixed his blue eyes on Dirk, and Dirk jumped at the anger still in it.

“If you don’t—” His expression shifted into a grimace, and Dirk was pretty sure he was biting on his own tongue, oh gosh, and for a long moment Dirk feared something coming. The 'nevermind' after, breathless, churned the tension into something else equally heavy. Todd looked down at his hands again, then unclasped them, let them fall onto his lap. He clenched and unclenched them, like he was not sure how they worked anymore. Or maybe he wasn’t sure how the rest of him worked.

“The scissors,” he mumbled, holding up a hand. Dirk brushed aside his nervousness to give him the scissors.

There was the sound of scuffle behind them, and Dirk looked back just in time to see Jorji throw Jon off them. They were dragging Adrian towards the apartment by his legs.

“I need to, I need.” They hiccupped. “I need to feed the fish.”

Jon was fumbling for his gun, but a shot from Farah skirting his hand deterred him. Farah looked over at Dirk, and it took him a few moments to realize she was asking for his input. He swallowed - his mouth was dry. He hadn’t noticed. The discomfort of it couldn’t compete with most things that had happened thus far, both to him and… well.

“Let’s not interfere with that,” he said, cocking his head towards Jorji.

Farah opened her mouth to say something, then closed it, then opened it again to say presumably something else. “Okay. Can you get Todd up?” She stood up after Dirk nodded. “Thanks, Dirk.”

She went to collect Adrian’s and Jon’s guns, while the man looked on in what seemed to be shell shock. Dirk looked at Todd just in time to see Todd’s weary exhale. His expression was still tense.

“Let’s go home, Todd,” Dirk said, gently (ha), to which Todd didn’t reply. He didn’t protest - or react much really - when Dirk draped his arm over the shoulder to pull him into a standing position. The way he gritted his teeth and hissed made Dirk grimace, but he never looked at Dirk.

He didn’t look at Dirk, or Farah when she came back to support his other side, and he didn’t look at them the rest of the way to Farah’s know-someone-who-knows-someone clinic.

“Drive me back to my apartment,” he said the moment they left the clinic.

Farah took a deep breath, while Dirk leaned forward with his hands on his thighs and said, “Actually, I am in a rare post-kidnapping mood that’s just perfect for a sleepover at the office! We still have ice cream in the mini fridge, and we can watch something while doing a review on this case— oh, I never even mentioned the solution to this case! We could start with that—”

The stare Todd was fixing on him effectively shut him up. Todd was still gritting his teeth, and he looked like he was seething now, but there was desperation mixed into the blue of his eyes.

Dirk swallowed.

They didn’t speak for the rest of the way.

When they arrived back at Dirk’s and Todd’s block, Farah followed them up to Todd’s floor. Dirk catched his eyes before the door was slammed on them.

“He had never looked like that before,” Dirk said. His stomach felt both heavy with anxiety and strangely empty. “This kidnapping went very badly, and I am not thrilled about many parts of it, but if there were one thing I’ve had enough of now…” He looked at Farah.

Farah definitely had a headache to worry about, if the way she pinched the bridge of her nose spoke of something. “There’s nothing I can tell you, Dirk. He usually just says what’s bothering him. What happened before I arrived?”

“He,” Dirk worried his lip, “ah, exploded.” He took a breath at Farah’s confused stare. “I think that is the appropriate way to word it. He ‘laid it on’ our kidnappers so viciously they kind of forgot they wanted to murder Jorji. The I-have-to-feed-the-fish person, if you recall.”

“Okay, okay,” Farah palmed her face, “we’re gonna review the case tomorrow. But if he… Okay, I only remember one moment during the two runaway months when he’s… exploded… on someone. But he was done with it then and there. He wasn’t like this,” she gestured towards the closed door, “after.”

Dirk just stood there, fidgeting with his hands. He opened his mouth, but then remembered the way Todd’s words cut off when he told him it’s okay in the hallway. He had an idea of what Todd was going to say. He couldn’t entertain it, not coupled with the way fury lit Todd’s eyes in an all-consuming fire, not when it was already choking him up as a mere suspicion.

Farah sighed. “I don’t want to leave him like this.”

That gave Dirk a direction to go in, and he grasped at it with desperation. “I’ll come in to check on him,” he said, clapping his hands together. “I still have spare keys to his apartment. Once I’ve made it inside, I will keep you updated.”

Farah looked at him, long and hard, and in the end she huffed. “I wish I’m better at this,” she said, softly. Shifting her stance, she took a deep breath, a hand on her hip. “I’ll count on you, Dirk. Send me an update before you go to sleep, okay? If there’s a problem, call.”

Dirk maintain eye contact as he nodded, and only remembered that Todd’s spare keys that he was entrusted with had been confiscated and thrown away along with his phone after she was already driving away.

“I’m climbing the window, Todd,” he knocked on the door and said.

The door opened when he was at the stairs. Todd popped his head out to look for him, and when he saw him walking back to the door again, made an aborted attempt to close it.

When Dirk was there again, hands behind his back, the most genuine smile he could muster on his lips, Todd forced a sigh out of himself. “I’m fine, Dirk,” he said. “Go home.”

“I very much do still want a sleepover,” Dirk said.

Todd brought a hand to his face. “Just— fuck.” That syllable was very heartfelt. “Just tell me what the fuck to say so you’ll go away.” He grimaced at his own words, which was fair, because they were mean. They were vicious, comparable to the words Todd shouted at Adrian and Jon, and they made tears well up in Dirk’s eyes. He blinked them away furiously, pushing the tightness in his lungs and the drop of his stomach away. He was in the middle of something here.

“I’m sorry,” Todd said, a moment later. “But you shouldn’t be here right now.”

“Todd,” Dirk said.

Todd just stared at him, lips pursed and eyes heavy with desperation and dread and anger still boiling, and Dirk couldn’t imagine it felt good to hold onto all that. “Why are you so ready to sit through all of this shit,” Todd mumbled. “What is— what the fuck is wrong with— why.”

“What is the ‘this shit’ you’re talking about, Todd,” Dirk said.

“All of this!” Todd raised his volume again, but he clamped it down immediately when Dirk flinched. “All of— the moment I open my mouth I’m gonna hurt you, Dirk! I didn’t start and it was all swell but then Adrian— and I started and you didn’t, you didn’t, you let me start, and now it’s not stopping ! Even when I look at Farah, even when you’re— right here ! Where I can fucking hurt you and destroy our friendship and never be able to stop myself, because it has boiled over. The fucking filth inside my head has boiled over. It’s— it’s just. Out.”

Dirk stood there, bewildered, as Todd’s breathing slowed even if it didn’t become less heavy. “I need to sit down,” he mumbled, and slid down the door onto the ground.

Dirk also sat down, because he was worried, and also he was still holding back tears. “Todd,” he said.

“Go home,” Todd mumbled.

“Whatever it is inside your head, it’s not filth.”

There was pain, both physically and soul-deep, mixed into the concoction of emotions in Todd’s eyes when he looked at Dirk again. “It’s not good. When you lie, you—” He choked on an inhale. “You learn to see people’s bad sides first. That’s what you work with. And then that’s what you remember of them. And then that’s what threatens to come out of your mouth, at all times. You have t— you have to try to not be an asshole.”

He palmed his face, and his next breath sounded like a sob.

“And now the lid is off, and without it I— you saw. And you—”

“—am still here,” Dirk finished that sentence for him.

Todd didn’t look up at him, but his hands clenched into fists on his thighs.

Dirk scooted in closer. “Here’s my reasoning,” he said, softly, and put a hand on Todd’s arm. “You were kidnapped, you were hit over the head, you went through two attacks, one without aid and one when you’ve missed a dose of medication, you were holed up in a van for three days, you were shot in the leg, and you went through all of that while confronting the people whose company you would never willingly be in. That pushed you over the line, and you ‘boiled over’ as you said. And yet,” he resolutely wiped his eyes with the back of his free hand and finished the speech, “you bit your tongue instead of saying something that’d hurt me. You’d rather close yourself up than risk being mean to me and Farah. This feeling, the anger, seems to take winding down, maybe an outlet, to leave, and I can see it doesn’t feel good to hold onto, but you turn it inward to protect us from it.”

Dirk squeezed Todd’s arm. Todd was looking at him now.

“Before the agency and Farah and you,” Dirk said, and well, he was crying. Slightly. He could still talk. “Nobody has ever been this considerate to me.”

“Your standards are too low,” Todd said.

“Maybe so, but! My point is, to say something is an action, Todd. The content of your thoughts is your business unless you make it mine as well, but your actions affect me visibly. And the result is good, positive, because you are my best friend! I’m your friend, and I want to be, and I appreciate the things you do, and I want to help and check on you, and,” Dirk swallowed. “I’m not leaving.”

Todd looked at him for a long time. He held the gaze, despite his eyes stinging a bit with tears. Todd’s eyes were wet too, but they had grown clearer.

“You’re incorrigible,” Todd said, small and a bit broken up, but fond. “And also sound like a daytime TV psychiatrist.”

Dirk grinned. “I went to a lot of therapy sessions,” he said. “Or, well, I listened in on a lot of therapy sessions. Was in the proximity of. Walked by. May I use your landline? I promised to text Farah, but we did both lose our phone.”

“She’s gonna drive over the moment the phone rings, and she’ll see us sitting here, and she’ll be so disappointed.”

“Then,” Dirk said, his hand still on Todd’s arm, warm, and he felt his heart lighten when the same warm reflected in Todd’s blue, blue eyes, “it’ll be the perfect opportunity for a sleepover.”

“Truth be told,” Dirk told Todd when he settled down next to him on the mattress, Farah already dozing off on the other side, the sound on the laptop they were watching Netflix on lowered to mostly whispers, “I was very impressed by some of the insults you used on Adrian and Jon. They were mean… but inspired.”

Todd snickered. “Thank yourself for it.”

“I, hum, don’t insult people? And definitely not in that fashion...” Dirk stared up at the ceiling.

“It’s not word for word, Jesus. It’s the method. You’re- you’re rubbing off on me.”

Dirk mulled the idea over, and decided that he liked it. “Sounds fantastic,” he said.

Todd’s huff was muffled through the blanket, but the light jab of elbow on his arm was affectionate. It made Dirk smile absently.

“Of course.”

[bi-bladesmith]

Forging, Fantasy and Fumbles

So, I’ve been reading a lot of fantasy and or medieval AU fanfiction this past month and honestly? Taking a cursory glance at a Wikipedia page on blacksmithing is not nearly enough for some of the things I’ve read in fics so here’s a bit of a guide on how to incorporate blacksmithing into a universe from an apprentice (with a footnote on a common debate about swords because I’m nitpicky);

Blacksmiths and bladesmiths are not the same thing despite the overlap - Bladesmiths solely specialise in making bladed weapons which doesn’t just include daggers and swords, but can also extend to axe-heads and spear tips. If your character is a blacksmith then unless contracted, they’ll mostly make horseshoes, nails, latches, gates, hooks, stirrups, plough teeth, basically anything you’d find in a medieval world that’s made out of metal.

Don’t have other characters stand directly beside them while they hammer metal, they will get forgescale on areas of exposed skin and it’ll hurt, especially if it’s a large piece and they don’t know to brush it off.

Speaking of hammering, blacksmiths don’t hammer in a traditional way. You really wouldn’t see someone just lifting a hammer and using the force of their arm to slam it down on the metal. Metal is moved by pivoting the hammer back and forth between the thumb and fingers and letting the momentum and weight of the hammer determine how hard it’s hitting the metal.

So basically don’t gimme that “[they] slammed the hammer down into the white-hot metal before bringing their arm up high again to prepare for another swing” bullshit.

Also, hammers are not all just huge, heavy things. As a baseline, a blacksmith will have at least 3 hammers, one light, one medium (or a swedish hammer, as they’re known nowadays) and one heavy. There is no wrong hammer and no right hammer, it all depends on the character’s style of forging and how long they can work with that much weight in their hands.

Which leads me to my next point, blacksmiths are not super stacked, hella ripped, or anything like that all the time - they amass muscle by working the forge, not so they can, the only time a blacksmith would need tons of upper body strength is if they were physically building a forge or carrying materials to the shop.

Your bladesmith isn’t gonna be able to just pick up a weapon and immediately use it, knowing how to make something doesn’t automatically give them the extensive training required to use the weapon - they might know the principles of how the weapon should work but don’t have them just take down like 7 dudes with a sword if they haven’t had previous weapons training

Not everything quenches at the same temperature (see next point for fantasy materials) - quenches are judged based on a colour scale that ranges from cold steel (when it’s grey or dark brown) to the commonly described “white hot” which is the hottest point before the metal overcooks and breaks which you really don’t want. The colour also depends on what your character is forging in, coal or wood will burn differently and produce different heat thresholds. Coal is the hardest fucker to forge with because you have to essentially bury the metal in the coal which makes it so hard to tell when it’s hot enough so if your character is using a coal bed forge, expect some crumbling metal and a lot of frustration, even if they’re a master smith.

As for metals and ores that can’t be found in the real world, try use real world materials to form a guideline. For example, orichalcum in the elder scrolls universe is usually melded with fresh iron to keep it from cracking, so I’d put it at the same carbon content and forging process as wrought iron which is known to become very brittle very easily.

So obviously if there’s some substance in your fantasy world that is used to make weapons or anything, think about its properties - can it be hardened fully, does it only need an edge quench, how easy is it to shape, does it need to be heated slowly to prevent deformations, can it be part of a damascus billet?

Now if you’ve read this far and have no idea what quenching or cooking the metal is, I’ll cut you a break.

Quenching is the process of cooling the metal either in oil or water to harden the metal although if your smith is smart, they might go for thermocycling before they quench the metal. Thermocycling is the process of heating the metal to just below quench or at quench temperature and letting the air cool it down. This normalises the metal and will reduce instances of cracking or snapping when the metal is finally quenched.

Very important to note - when steel is hot enough to quench, it loses it’s magnetism and as soon as it’s quenched, it’ll gravitate towards magnetic north which results in warps and bends in the metal, so a compass wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world for your blacksmith to keep around the shop.

Once the metal is quenched, it can be cooked in the flames emanating from a forge to change its colour. For a reference point, on 8mm steel stock, it’ll turn yellow, then gold, blue and finally purple the longer it’s kept in the flames (not the forge itself, that much heat would remove any temper). If it gets too hot, it’ll turn a really ugly green colour then revert right back to yellow.

Not all damascus is the same - some are made from low carbon and high carbon metal in alternating layers, but most of the time damascus is reserved for very high-quality materials when considering a medieval time period.

Also, they have different pattern names! There’s ladder, raindrop, vines and roses, sharktooth, herringbone, etc.

Nowadays, damascus is used for so many things but a lot of the time, modern smiths won’t say what metals they used, which can make or break a blade’s functionality so think about it, is your main character’s hand-forged weapon made from a combination of high carbon steel and low carbon steel? Does it have any materials in it from your fantasy world and if so, what does that metal add to the characteristics of the blade?

Also for the love of God, a fuller is not a “blood groove” they’re put in to reduce the weight of a weapon, allowing it to swing faster, it has nothing to do with allowing blood to run from a wound.

Fullers are extremely finicky, as if a smith grinds too far into the metal, they could just punch through to the other side and then they’ve just got a big hole in their metal

As far as any smiths are concerned, think about their protective gear - smiths with a bit of experience under their belt typically only wear gloves on one hand (the one holding the tongs or tail end of the metal) and keep their hammer hand free to make it easier to work metal.

Similarly is there a material in your fantasy world that’s fire resistant? If your first thought was dragonhide then you’re on the right track but also think about if you have different breeds of dragon in your universe - are the ones with resistant hides rare? Are they common but their hide is so strong it’s difficult to harvest and tan properly? 

Does your blacksmith make their own gear? Do they have to save up a year’s wages just for a new apron? Are they contracted by the monarchy or army and they supply materials and equipment?

And finally, the footnote I promised:

a rapier and a smallsword are not the same thing!

Rapier hilts tend to be more complex, interlocking strands of metal with rings maybe surrounding the top of the hilt, making them harder and more laborious to forge whereas smallswords are given a shell or cup hilt, and would only incorporate traditional rapier features if it was purely a decorative piece

Speaking of decorative - a smallsword wouldn’t necessarily have a cutting edge, despite tapering to a sharp point so theoretically, during a fight scene, someone could grab the blade or push it with their hand without having to worry about their hand being sliced open.

Of course, if it was a military officer’s smallsword or a guard’s, it would likely have a sharpened edge to it.

Rapiers are heavy, and fairly large, used mainly for thrusting, slashing and stabbing and could be used with a buckler (small, rounded shield that was lighter than usual so could be brought up to defend with quicker), another sword or a dagger. Your warrior character is more likely to carry this around than a mage or thief.

Smallswords or “dress swords” are the more commonly attributed “nobleman’s duelling sword” though it was mostly worn for decoration and as a sign of status for anyone considered a gentleman, and would be used as a standard sidearm for any military presence in your AU, provided it was based off the Renaissance era.

[animorphsfanfic]

The thing that bothers me is how did the Yeerks get the infrastructure so fast. Like how did they get that fleet so fast?

In Ax’s first book, he mentions the first species to fall to the Yeerks, the Nahara, a race is never mentioned again. And in the HBC, Aldrea mentions that after the Yeerks escape their home planet, they vanish. The Yeerks find a race with a decentralized nervous system (that they kill,) and then apparently steal an Ongachic ship, another race not described in detail. There’s a long calm before the storm, as it were, before Yeerks come to the Hork-Bajir planet. So I came to a few conclusions/assumptions.

This is my head canon, and it’s the history I’m using for my reboot.

The Andalites didn’t go to the Yeerk planet for research purposes. It’s mentioned that they were already on the planet for [reason] and then discovered the Yeerk-Geed symbiosis later. That implies to me the Andalites came to strip mine the planet. A galactic armada, even with z-space power cells, or whatever fuel it uses, has to be resource intensive. Iron and titanium and neodymium, plutonium and uranium.

We know the Yeerks absorb Kandrona rays, so that implies their planet is radioactive. So I’m thinking the Andalites came for heavy metals and valuable isotopes and stumbled on the Gedd-Yeerk symbiotes.

They then spent x amount of time on the Yeerk planet, educating slugs about everything.

This is a point of contention for me, though.

They imply Yeerks and Gedd were a pre-industrial society. I don’t think even with Andalite tutors, you could teach a caveman how to build a rocket ship. The sciences involved are too much. Physics, chemistry, metallurgy, et cetera.

I personally took it that they had to have a baseline society. Maybe a Gedd version of a Mayan society. Large scale, but comparatively primitive. They know how to make medicines, have wheels, cities, the Gedd are farmed the way ants farm aphids, and the Yeerks are way more symbiotic in nature than they are parasites.

They learn so much from the Andalites, and there has to be a period of peaceful cooperation (Seerow’s Kindness), but then the Andalites change that relationship somehow. That uprising couldn’t have come out of nowhere. It took too much planning and coordination, and it was risky as hell, so there had to be an impetus, and neither Aldrea or Esplin get into that.

Here’s where I go. If this planet is important to the Andalites, does it truly belong to the native species at that point? Like Columbus discovering the Taino population in the Caribbean, did the islands still “belong” to the natives once discovered by Europeans with the technological and military capacity to take what they wanted?

So, either the Yeerks figure out that they’re being annexed as an Andalite colonial mining outpost or they find out the Andalites have harvested all there is to harvest and they’re taking all their fancy toys with them. Either way, Andalites being there has already fundamentally altered their society, and the Yeerks rebel.

And the Andalites sell it as an unprovoked attack, rather than an insurrection. Being the arrogant superiorists that Andalites are, I’m not sure that they would ever actually see that they’re at fault. From their perspective, they were benevolent and shared tech and science and information. That they destabilized a society - or the argument that they didn’t have the right to mine a planet just because they found it - might honestly be lost on them.

Or it could be simple imperialism. Both options fit.

They write correctionist history, or at least a biased history that renders Andalites blameless. The idea permeates that Yeerks were primitive parasitic slugs rather than symbiotes, and that they lacked any society or culture.

This line of reasoning brought me to the almost inescapable conclusion that Andalites are not well liked by other highly-evolved species. The Andalites are arguably the most technologically advanced species, but the other races that have the technology to be more or less equal to the Andalites obviously don’t like them. Andalites meddle in everyone’s business, and just assume they have the right. The way most of the world sees the United States.

So if I assume the Andalites are the USA, and the Yeerks are say… I don’t know, like Vietnam or Iraq or something.The US is coming, so what do you do? You ask Russia and China for help, maybe Pakistan or Libya.

Hence in my thinking, the whole Andalite-Yeerk has to be a proxy war for some other race or races.

The Yeerks take a handful of Andalite ships and go somewhere they know the Andalites can’t follow. I’m inclined to believe the Kelbrid are the most likely candidates, maybe just because that’s where the series goes at the end, but the Kelbrid are described as warriors and they’re obviously militaristic enough for the Andalites to leave them alone, which seems no small feat.

Then the Kelbrid (or Nahara, or Ongachic) would be very interested in Andalite technology, and let’s be real, those stolen ships are the only currency the Yeerks had. They could help outfit the Yeerks with resources.

Of course what the Yeerks don’t realize (or maybe they do and it doesn’t matter) is that the Kelbrid are just using them to spread the Andalite armada thinner and thinner across the galaxy.

But wherever the Yeerks go after Seerow’s Kindness, by the time they arrive on the Hork-Bajir planet, they’re capable of building their own ships.

It would explain the never-elaborated Rakkam-Garoo conflict and the stuff with the Anati. And also like I said, the Nahara and the Ongachic are never addressed in detail either. The Animorphs never encounter a Nahara-Controller that I recall. This could mean any number of things. They could all be dead by the time the Yeerks get to Earth, or just that all Naraha-Controllers are in other parts of the galaxy. But it’s just as possible that the Nahara were allies to the Yeerks, not victims.

#Animorphs

Edited after re-checking HBC

[jeremy-ken-anderson]

She-Hulk

In the card game Marvel Champions this character can put out some properly apocalyptic damage.

If she’s buffed with Combat Training and starts the turn as Jennifer and has all three copies of One-Two Punch in hand, she’ll do One-Two-THREE-FOUR Punch and counting the fact that flipping from her alter-ego deals damage she’ll hit for a total of 18 damage, and she can split it up a bit (one 2-point hit and then four 4-point hits).

In a solo game 18 damage is most villains’ entire phase hp pool. She can drop phase-II Rhino from full to flatline in one turn. Yes that’s an idealized hand, but that’s half the game won all at once.

So why is she considered C-tier by most board gamers who judge such things?

For me the two things are resource economy, and a pair of Basic cards (Emergency and Haymaker) that stand as a baseline she doesn’t meet.

What does Tony Stark have for resources in his hero cards? Stark Tower and Pepper Potts. Stark Tower lets him get back a tech card from his discard (technically other players too, though not all other players run Tech cards) which often just means he can use Stark Tower as +1 Resource. Discard the Tech Upgrade as 1 resource to play the other card, then use Stark Tower to get it back. Pepper is flat-out one resource all the time, unless you just used a double-resource card, at which point she duplicates that double value. Tony also has a scrying card-draw (look at 3, draw one and discard the others) and since any card can be used as resources to play others that’s functionally another resource.

How about Spider-Man? Well, in Parker form he gets a bonus resource a turn, flat. Also Web-Shooters produce 3 wild resources total (one a turn) and also a lot of his base cards are just not expensive in the first place. Because he’ll be attacked at least once if he’s on his hero side, the card-draw reaction to being attacked basically gives him a 6-card hand size on both forms.

T’Challa? He has Wakanda’s supply of Vibranium, represented as multiple copies of a 2-point resource card worth [Wild] resource. And The Golden City gives him +2 cards when he’s on the throne, which means at least +2 purchasing power.

Captain Marvel has a three-point resource card, which is coincidentally of a type of resource she can turn into massive damage. Alpha Flight Station can give her card advantage, in addition to mulling for better cards. Photonic Blast may draw a card, functionally refunding part of its cost. And both sides of her character have card draw of some kind.

She-Hulk has...two copies of Focused Rage, which lets her take one damage to draw a card once a turn. And costs 3 to get into play in the first place. If she gets exactly the right setup, she can use a card or two, swap to hero form, play Split Personality with her last few cards, swap back to her alter-ego Jennifer, and refill to 6 cards, which might let her play a few more cards. So with good setup, she can get good card draw from Split Personality. But the point of resources is usually to be good setup, not to need it. Also that’s a total of 3 cards in her deck for resources. Any more resource boost has to come from Basic cards and Archetype cards. Also, Peter, T’challa and Carol all have a hero-side hand size of 5. Iron Man is weird, with his “Hand Size 1 Plus Tech Upgrades Played.” She-Hulk has a hand size of 4 on hero side, flat.

And then a couple of her cards are just a wee bit overpriced/underpowered. I mean that honestly; Legal Practice costs 0 and lets you discard any number of cards to remove that much threat. If you look at Emergency, which also costs 0, that prevents 1 threat from getting placed by a scheming villain. With that as a baseline we see that Justice archetype cards are usually better than basic. Interrogation Room costs 1 and prevents 1 threat when its condition is met, once a turn for the rest of the game. 

Legal Practice is worse than a 1:1 ratio of cards:threat, while Emergency - a basic card anyone can use - sets the bar there at 1:1. If you dump your whole hand it’s only slightly worse than 1:1, at 6:5, but it is worse and also then you’ve used up your whole hand (and if any of those were resource cards the ratio is a lot worse). So if Legal Practice let you discard any number of cards to remove that much threat plus one, it’d be a fine card. Not OP, just fine. Just “not always discarded as a resource,” which is its current place in the deck.

Similarly have a look at Haymaker. This is a 2-cost card from the Basic cards that deals 3 damage to an enemy. Simple. Clean. Baseline.

Ground Stomp is a 2-cost card in She-Hulk’s required cards that deals 1 damage to every enemy. In the base game, where She-Hulk appears, you often are facing the Villain by himself. Even in most 4-player turns he’ll only bring in one minion on average. You’ll want to swat down that minion as quickly as possible, to keep it from granting extra attack/scheme value per turn to the villain.

Ground Stomp only breaks even with Haymaker when there are at least 2 minions in play at once. And Haymaker is kind of a low bar, and “2 minions at once” surprisingly rare.

You see what I mean by a wee bit? It’s really not bad. The cards are just a point low, or a point too expensive. Ground Stomp could probably get away with costing 1, honestly. Or maybe deal 2 to a primary target and 1 to everything else.

The trouble is that this gets paired with the fact that She-Hulk’s deck is low on resource generation. She’s just not good at getting cards into play, compared to everyone else. So having cards cost just a tad too much for their value is especially rough for her.

[cornerstonc]

3: Which parent(or guardian) does your muse prefer? 17: How does your muse deal with their anger? (For both of them.)

Headcanons | Accepting

when they were both still around, the cat king definitely had a lean toward his mother. both parents were sort of distant and eccentric, but she tended to annoy him less, and truthfully he respected her a little more than he did his father, if only bc she didn't give off quite the same ‘artsy dingbat’ vibes lmao

they were also a little more alike-- being more naturally indolent and unambitious, concerned mostly with practical things that brought them pleasure and laughs, and more mean-spirited and unfriendly laughs

queen zhenya could play the part of a gracious host, but she had her time limit. king aelius on the other hand was much more easygoing and sociable, but also. markedly ditzy fjifeoa he often liked to think of himself as a great, avant-garde artist, but. lacked the Skills and was too coddled to ever truly feel the need to work to better it, and it drove the young cat king up a wall that no one would tell him the truth

natori doesn't. remember his parents that vividly. he certainly remembers much more than either manami or especially sachiko, but his time with them was quite short, and he was only five when manami was born, after which they obviously would have been preoccupied with her, ha

bc of that, also, i haven't honestly fleshed out his parents quite as much as i have the king's, especially since the vast majority of natori's interactions with a parental figure would have been with his grandmother (and briefly her husband)

given that he then only has The One, and this relationship was not troubled or too demanding, it's probably safe to say she's his favorite lmao i have mentioned before that when compared with his sisters, natori did end up having a certain rapport with his grandmother, being the eldest and the one to remember her son the most out of her three grandkids. i think sometimes natori would have been made to feel as if he was just ‘one of the adults’ and on equal ground with the other overworked guardians, etc. despite still being a child

they’re opposites! ...which is probably not at all surprising and also can be very easily traced back to their respective positions in the castle

i imagine the cat king as someone who has long had like. little to no tolerance for frustration and other negative emotions. once something starts annoying him, That’s It, he’s going to do whatever he can to get rid of it (and the fact he is literally the king with All That Power means ‘whatever he can’ is irresponsibly expansive rip). however, once he is rid of it, or once he burns off that frustrated energy, he tends to come back down to his sorta laid-back baseline, where he happily stays until something inevitably sets him off again

if he can be effectively distracted or talked through those feelings of frustration or exasperation, then it’s a much different story, but. perhaps ironically considering his feelings toward his father being sort of pampered and given constant platitudes, most of those around him are content instead with just letting him Act Out and then picking up the pieces afterward rip

but also, generally, the king is at the top of the food chain, and he always has been, and that’s reflected in his cavalier attitude toward letting his temper just Go. he’s never really had a reason to fear reprisals from anyone bc they’re all Under Him, and, that in mind, it means he’s also never really contemplated serious consequences for his impulsivity

on the other hand, natori has an extremely high tolerance for frustration and mistreatment and failure and what else have you, and he will take a lot of cold wind without a complaint for a very long time before finally snapping

and even then it generally will almost always be in a verbal form, not a physical one

natori has been surrounded by people with. well. as i keep saying it, much stronger personalities almost all his life, and bc of that, he’s much more aware and apprehensive over those possible reprisals and consequences the king doesn’t give two shits about lmao he has very often been put into the position where he not only must be aware of them, but also overthink them, and it’s led him to be much more restrained and fearful of retaliation

and so, generally speaking, natori tends to repress legitimate anger (and bc of that i imagine it most likely manifests in somatic physical symptoms, tho i wouldn’t be surprised if no one’s made the connection yet, least of all natori himself jfieao). however, it isn’t all that rare for him to express frustration or disappointment. but it is still always in a very discreet, inhibited way

[imaginetonyandbucky]

Imagine a soulmate AU where Tony's always secretly wanted a soul-mate but never thought he deserved one, but then he meets Bucky, and Bucky just dotes on him and calls him a lot of Russian pet names and compliments him a lot. Also it would be great if Bucky was really impressed by the Iron Man armor, and if Tony makes Bucky a new arm.

A/N: So, I could have probably made this one post, but honestly, cliffhangers are great. *rubs hands together deviously* Tony is, depending on your point of view, kind of an ass, but he has lots of issues to work through. (Cool motive, still an asshole?)

Fairytales 

Part 1 of 2

“This is Tony,” Steve was saying, chivvying his ex-brainwashed occasionally frozen best friend from the forties towards him. “He’s our resident genius, and owns the tower.”

“Tony,” Bucky said quietly. “It's nice to meet you.”

Tony’s arm itched, but he ignored it. He had probably splashed some caustic substance on it. He could clean it after this little meet and greet. He did, despite all evidence to the contrary, have some manners.

Besides, it was hardly the first time he had unidentified, dangerous substances on his person.

“Welcome to the castle!” Tony exclaimed, spreading his arms in welcome.

He watched Bucky stiffen, and clasp his right forearm.

His right forearm.

No, it couldn't possibly be. He covered his right forearm, realized what that itch had been.

When Bucky opened his mouth, Tony hurried on. “I'm sure you have plenty more people to meet, things to do. I've got a- thing-” he fumbled for words, gesturing half-heartedly over his shoulder at the elevator. “Very important thing. Gotta run.”

As the elevator door shut, he could see Bucky’s sheet-white face, and hear Steve telling Bucky that “Tony isn't normally that scatter-brained but he probably hasn't slept in a while.”

He slumped against the wall of the elevator, trying to calm his racing heart. He pushed up his sleeve, and undid the cuff that covered his words. Sure enough, they were edged in silver. Bucky was his soulmate.

The scientist in him was fascinated - Bucky should have lived and been nearly dead before he was even born, and yet, he was his soulmate.

But mostly he was just horrified. No one deserved to have Tony Stark inflicted on them.

When he was younger, and had first gotten his words, he had been so excited. All kids were. Jarvis - the real Jarvis - had told him wonderful stories about meeting his soulmate, Ana. And Aunt Peggy told him stories about her soulmate, Angie. He had been fascinated. It all seemed like a fairytale.

But Howard had happened. He had gotten older, and older, and remained alone.He had heard his words hundreds of times, and none of them were his soulmate. And after Afghanistan? Well.

No one should be stuck with him.

It didn’t seem like a fairytale anymore, more like a horror story where he was the monster.

Even though that little kid still dreamed about finding his soulmate, one day.

(Watch out for the break!)

--

He took the coward's way out, and hid in his workshop. Enlisting JARVIS, he snuck upstairs to eat and caffeinate when Bucky was asleep or out of the tower. He slept on the couch in the corner of the workshop.

He was lucky to get thirty-six hours before Natasha was knocking at the door.

“Yeah?” He said absently, not even paying attention to the fact that someone was at the door.

“What are you doing?”

Startled, he looked accusingly at one of JARVIS’ cameras.

“You stated that Mr. Barnes was not allowed in, not that Ms. Romanov wasn’t allowed to knock,” JARVIS said smugly.

“I'm uploading you to the nearest McDonald’s!” Tony shook his finger at JARVIS.

“My servers are shaking in their housings, Sir,” JARVIS replied drily.

Rolling his eyes, Tony turned to Natasha. “I'm fixing a fuck-up that R&D wanted to slide by me,” he said, trying to avoid the very obvious.

Natasha simply raised one eyebrow, not saying anything.

“Well I am!” He defended, lifting the guts of a phone up as if to prove it.

Crossing the room, she sat next to him and laid her hand on top of his. “He thinks you don't want him because he was the Winter Soldier. That he’s too broken and was a weapon for too long to ever be wanted by anyone.”

Tony felt guilt settle into his stomach, an uncomfortable weight. “It's not him.”

“It's you?” She completed the saying, a wry smile on her face.

He looked away from her. “I don't care about any of that. You were the one who said that you're trying to wipe out the red in your ledger. Well, I've got oceans of red.”

“Tony.”

He pulled away from her, agitated. “Soulmates aren't for people like me, Nat.”

“Soulmates are for everyone,” she said softly.

Tony smiled bitterly. “That's a fairytale.”

--

He assumed that Natasha reported back to Bucky, but he never appeared in the workshop. Pushing the conversation and the guilt out of his mind, he focused on various projects.

Tony was honestly surprised when Bruce showed up next to plead the case.

“Did you know that the Other Guy and I have two different soulmates?” Bruce asked idly, as he wrote out a complicated formula on the whiteboard Tony kept in there just for him.

Tony shifted part of his attention to that conversation while continuing to work on the problem.

“No.”

“The Other Guy, he hasn't met his soulmate. He's too busy smashing things, thankfully. Me, though?” Bruce paused to do a particularly complicated calculation. “I met her a long time ago.”

Focusing more of his attention on the conversation, Tony felt like this was not going to be a happy story. “Who is it?”

“Betty Ross.” Bruce’s tone was wistful, sad, and a little bit angry. At himself, Tony guessed.

“Ross? That Ross?”

Bruce nodded, not elaborating. Then: “Tony-”

Tony cut him off. “The Other Guy is not a monster, but I-”

“Tony!” Bruce rarely raised his voice, and never snapped at anyone. To have him do both was startling.

Raising his hands in concession, he waited for Bruce to continue.

Bruce looked deeply sad. “Just because we think ourselves monsters doesn't mean we don't deserve love.”

“Then where’s your Betty Ross?”

If anything, Bruce looked sadder. “That was a lesson I learned after.”

After what, Bruce didn't say, but he also didn't push anymore, which Tony appreciated. After they finished their calculations and Bruce went up for dinner, Tony sat. Bruce’s words echoed in his head. He knew the Other Guy wasn't a monster.

Just because we think ourselves monsters doesn't mean we don't deserve love.

--

He didn't expect Clint, either.

Well, he had, since he had told the archer to come down to collect some arrow prototypes, but what he didn't expect what for Clint to set two shot glasses on the table between them.

“I don't drink anymore,” Tony said warily, eyeing the shot glasses like they would jump at him and bite.

Clint rolled his eyes, and set a jug of juice out. “I know.”

Tony frowned. “We can drink juice out of glasses?”

“Drinking out of shot glasses is one, cooler, two, funner, and three,” he poured two shots of apple juice. “Makes your mind think you're drinking, loosens you up a little.”

Skeptical, Tony picked up one of the shot glasses. “Uh-huh.”

Clint shrugged. “I mostly thought it would look cool.”

Tony rolled his eyes and downed his shot. Oddly, it did make him feel like he was taking a shot of alcohol, and his body relaxed a little. Placebo effect, hard at work.

“Are you here to lecture me too?” He asked, setting the glass back down.

“Nope,” Clint said cheerfully, refilling both shots. “I just really like apple juice.”

“Katniss, you can drink apple juice upstairs.”

“Out of a shot glass?”

“Like that's the weirdest thing you've done,” Tony shot back.

“Point.” Clint lazily saluted Tony with the shot and drank again. “I'm not here to lecture, but I am here to listen.”

Tony groaned. “First Nat, then Bruce, now you?”

Clint raised his hands. “Look. I've got a happy little family with kids and a dog and it was pretty much all just like the movies and I don't personally know shit about this soulmate angst you've got going on, but I've been told I make a good listener, okay? So if you wanna talk, I'm here. If you just wanna shoot apple juice, that's fine too.”

Giving Clint a flinty glare, Tony drank down another shot of apple juice. And another.

Then he broke. “I'm just-- old. And I have a piece of metal shoved into my chest that means I can't take a full breath half the time. I'm baseline human, I've slept with a ton of people, to the point where the nicest thing people call me is a slut, and I've killed a ton of people. Millions.”

Clint waited patiently for the flood of words to end. It sounded like he was trying very hard to keep his tone even. “You’re older than us, yes, but you’re not old, Tony. I don't know anything about having metal in my body, but I know someone who does. You saved millions of people, and do so routinely. And Tony?” Now he grinned. “Haven't you heard? Calling people sluts is reinforcing the patriarchy and its puritanical double-standards.”

Tony rolled his eyes, but felt a little lighter. Clint had no reason to lie to him. Hearing that said so bluntly filled a hole that had been left by years of issues. “Only you, Robin Hood.”

“Hey, I am hip with the times!”

“Just drink your juice.”

--

He really should have been expecting Steve. It was logical. Everyone else had tried, and Steve was Bucky’s best friend.

But he was honestly surprised when JARVIS said that Steve was at the door.

He hesitated. This could go either kind of badly, or very badly. He was leaning towards the latter. He shoved away from table he was working at, deciding to be mature and to face the music. “Let him in, J.”

The door opened.

“Tony, are you okay?”

Surprised, Tony looked at Steve. “Yes.” He lied slowly, not sure where this conversation was going.

Steve gave him a half smile. “You're lying, Shellhead. You've got a tell.”

Insulted, Tony puffed up. “I do not!”

Steve just winked. “Sure you do. Now let's try this again. Are you okay?”

Tony just looked at Steve. He had expected yelling. Orders to come out and see Bucky. Not whatever this was.

“Maybe.”

Steve seemed to accept this. “For someone who’s been living in their workshop for five days straight, you don't look like death warmed over,” he finally said.

“I do know how to shower,” Tony said drily. “I learned how to do that when I was three.”

Steve didn't say anything for a long while. The silence was making Tony fidgety. Finally, right before Tony word-vomited, Steve spoke again.

“Are you going to come out of here eventually?”

No pressure. No questions about him and Bucky. No anything but that simple question.

“Yes.”

“Soon?”

“Soon,” Tony agreed.

“Okay.” Steve started to leave but Tony couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“He knows it’s not about him, right?”

Steve looked steadily back at him. “People have told him that, but it’s hard for him to believe. You probably know how that is.”

Tony winced. He did know how that was. “Soon,” he promised again. “I’m sorry for being an ass,” he added. “I’m trying to... not.”

Steve nodded, and left.

--

He had expected Rhodey. He had expected Pepper. He expected JARVIS, in that roundabout sneaky way of his. He weathered their conversations, their hugs, Rhodey getting drunk and telling him how much he loved him, no homo. (His honeybear was tragically straight.) He kissed Pepper on the cheek and listened to her tell him that he was worth it. That their break up wasn't his fault. He didn't mute JARVIS, and occasionally ate when prodded. He believed with them, or rather, he was working on believing them, and told them that. He cuddled up with his platypus, and watched mindless action movies when the conversation got too emotional for sober Rhodey.

What he sincerely didn't expect was Bucky.

See you tomorrow~Marie

[erlenmeyertrash]

Doorways, Part Three

yikes get prepared to do some reading y’all i’m surprised at myself lmao

hope you like it!!

tagged: @countessmissyshort​

(word count: 2714 | pairings: none | cw: self-deprecation)

PART ONE | PART TWO | PART THREE | PART FOUR

Virgil slowly shut his door until it latched- don’t slam it, don’t upset Patton any more than you just did, you idiot- and sighed deeply, leaning against it for a moment before heading over to his bed and tiredly clambering in. Thomas’ emotional state was significantly better- dark mood beaten out for now- but Virgil’s was spiraling downward pretty quickly. The realization that he had a bad mood- that he was the one of the four that harbored most bad moods- only made it worse.

He rolled onto his back and stared at the ceiling, eyes glassing over. In his own mind, he felt like he was digging through a treacherous landscape, batting away at the thickening fog he could feel rather than see and ripping his feet from the sticky swamp below. Icy tendrils tried to wrap around his wrists and ankles, but he sluggishly worked his way through the dreary dampness, feebly trying to evade his-

-...evade his purpose.

Virgil had told Thomas he hated working hard, and he meant it. Dealing with all that negativity all the time was exhausting. He had to do it whether he wanted to or not- whether he could or not. It wasn’t like any of the others could ever do it, though- Patton could handle some of the emotion, but would eventually revert back to his much better happy-go-lucky self. Roman could, maybe, but he’d tire out too quickly and race back to his own realm of wonder and adventure. Virgil wouldn’t have blamed them, either. Who wouldn’t leave this mess if they had the change? Who would possibly want to-

Stop that. He shook his head quickly, attempting to dispel those thoughts, internally ripping himself away and stumbling backward. He just needed to calm down and not let Thomas feel any of this. He just needed to beat this down and hope it would eventually grow tired and leave on its own accord, successfully suppressed.

It wouldn’t happen, though- he knew that. It was pervasive, and insistent, and exhausting, and-

A knock at the door shook him from his thoughts and he peered at it, puzzled. A glance at the clock (the one on his desk that told him the actual time- not the one spinning wildly on the wall) told him quite a bit of time had passed since breakfast.

“...Come in?” he called, sitting up slightly. The handle turned and in came Logan, peering around momentarily before stepping in. Virgil frowned.

“Logan?” It wasn’t like the logical side to come to his room- or, well, anybody’s.

“Hello, Virgil. I wanted to talk with you.”

Virgil swallowed. “Listen, if this is about breakfast, I’m sorry- I just-”

Logan shook his head and moved to sit in the desk chair. “It is about breakfast, but I’m not necessarily here requesting an apology.”

Virgil leaned against his pillows, glancing away. “...Oh.” And then- “...So what are you here for?”

“I’m mainly here to ask about you. Are you alright?”

Virgil sighed. “I’m fine, Logan. I just- a bad mood was settling in. It was kind of a lot to handle. I’m getting the hang of it now.”

“That is good to hear.”

Virgil stared blankly across his room as it was quiet for a moment. He found himself staring at his other door. Plain. White. No decoration to speak of.

“...but not good to hear if it’s not actually the whole truth,” Logan added quietly. Virgil turned to him for a moment before looking away, unable to hold his gaze.

“...It’s just-” Virgil scrambled for the words- “-just- why me?”

“Why you what?”

“Why am I anxiety?” Virgil asked, misery evident in his voice. “I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t ask to be created. Thomas just wanted an antagonist, but people liked me, so I stick around. I never wanted-”

He broke off, forcing the lump in his throat back down, and gestured helplessly to his dark, cobweb-covered room.

“...We never asked to be ourselves either, Virgil.”

“Well, yeah, but-” Virgil shook his head. “It’s not the same. It’s fun to be you. I’m- I’m a burden.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean- look at you guys! You wear a necktie and glasses and- you’re so brilliant and witty and sassy. Roman is- is dressed as a Disney prince, for crying out loud, he’s the ultimate hero. And Patton’s so- just so- cheery and bubbly and happy and wears the silly adorable polo and- and the cardigan, and just- and here I am, with black eyeshadow and an oversized hoodie and sloppy hair, and if I could ever conjure up anything it would- probably be storm clouds and embarrassing photos and exam papers with failing grades on the top. My point is- why would any of you three ever not want to be yourselves and want to be somebody else?... What could ever be wrong with being one of you?”

Logan was silent. Virgil glanced back over at his closet door, falling onto his pillows in defeat. A heavy, dejected silence hung in the air. The shadows on the ceiling above Virgil’s head slowly began to spin.

“...Roman is dangerous.”

“...Huh?” Virgil whipped his head around to stare at Logan, who was looking at his hands in his lap. The shadows even seemed confused- those over the bed slowly dissipated. What?

“Thomas has said it himself,” Logan continued. “If he only listened to his most wonderful, romantic, fanciful thoughts, he would be setting himself up for heartbreak. Imagine if Roman had more unbridled influence- if he were left unchecked by you, or me, or even Patton. Thomas would have these huge, mountainous, ridiculous dreams dashed all the time by reality. …Do you remember the phone call?”

Virgil shuddered. How could he forget? The phone ringing, Thomas’ face of horror, Roman wailing for him to pick it up, his own terrifying voice- Get rid of it, get rid of the phone now!

“...Yeah. I remember.”

“Roman doesn’t know when to hold back. You helped Thomas through that one.”

“That was a moment of sheer desperation. And you were gone. Well- not gone gone, like you said, whatever,” he corrected as Logan opened his mouth to interrupt. “You weren’t there to stop the first call from happening in the first place. And besides- Roman was just doing what Thomas wanted.”

“Which is rewarding, yes. But sometimes, what Thomas might want isn’t what he needs… which brings me to Patton.”

“Patton?”

“Yes, Patton. Where Roman can be dangerous, Patton is- unpredictable. If Thomas only listened to Patton all the time, or even listened to him much more, he would exhaust himself being happy to everyone all the time and doing what everybody else wanted from him. His own necessary productivity and ambition would come to a screeching halt. Patton is actually constantly being suppressed or morphed or has to watch Thomas lie about his feelings while he’s struggling through them. And when he does take the time to work them out- well. Filming those Moving On videos hurt Patton deeply, as you saw. That took a lot out of him because Patton kind of- well-” Logan took a breath. “He prefers to cherry-pick his way through Thomas’ life, bounding from one positive emotion to another, no matter how fleeting. You know how he is conversationally- always saying whatever comes to his mind, interjecting randomly with things that don’t always make logical sense- it shows Patton is subject to whims and fancy. He is totally ungrounded. You and I convince Thomas he needs to work through more difficult feelings in order to better understand himself. You and I- rather ironically- both know repressing emotions isn’t good for him.”

Virgil mulled over this a second, taken back by Logan’s brutal criticism of the fatherly side. “...But Patton just tries to keep Thomas happy.”

“Exactly. He tries to keep him happy all the time. As wonderful as happiness is, it shouldn’t be a constant. It is unwise to make joy your baseline. But I-” Logan stopped.

Virgil glanced over at him again. The logical side seemed to sag slightly in the desk chair.

“...you…?”

“I…” Logan sighed, glancing at Virgil’s desk. “I used to, but- if Thomas listened to me all the time now… he would most likely almost never be happy.”

Virgil blinked. “Woah. What?”

“The other two bring the sunshine- not just a whole lot of it. Sure, I helped Thomas through his education quite a bit in the past- guided him towards his ambitions and goals, but- his goals are changed now. They certainly aren’t as academic as they once were. Which is fine! Absolutely fine. But.” Logan gave a short laugh. “Imagine if Thomas had never tried making videos, stuck to a chemical engineering career, and watched his Broadway dreams fade away. We all know how miserable that would make him… and because of that, I… well, at times I feel as though I am not much use anymore.” He exhaled slowly, a defeated smile on his face. Virgil frowned deeply.

“I used to be much more in control, as you know. I had to learn to give the reins over to Roman- to ignore Thomas’ education, everything he worked towards for so long, as Thomas shifted his chemical engineering career to the backburner and went full-throttle on the extracurricular I used to quite honestly hope was fanciful and fleeting. And that transition… As unemotional as I may be, Virgil, that was- that was terrifying. That was heartbreaking. But it made Thomas so happy.”

Virgil froze. What is going on?

“...Didn’t that make you wonder?” He blurted out suddenly. “If Roman being in charge- if you weren’t there- if that would have made Thomas happier all that time?”

Logan shook his head. “I used to. But I was wrong.” He glanced up at Virgil, smiling as he did.

“...But- but how? You just said-”

“I said the transition was difficult. I said it made Thomas happy. And sure, Thomas had hard times growing up. But did I keep him from being happy back then? No, of course not. Quite the contrary. I realized, then, that Thomas utilizing my strengths had made him happy- capitalizing on that love for the rainforest and transforming it into a potential lifelong career. Using Roman’s interest and guiding it into this plan helped Thomas in the long run. His discipline in his education helped him in other areas- and Virgil, that’s how you help him, too. You’re not always at the forefront- you rarely ever are. You do your best work helping Thomas quietly in the background.”

Virgil’s brain was spinning. He was quiet for a long moment.

“...how do I help him?”

“When you shoot down one of Roman’s wild ideas, it’s because you’re thinking long-term. To use a very Roman-esque metaphor, you see the chinks in the armor before he rides into battle. Roman only complains when you do so because his ego prevents him from seeing the issues himself. You’re there to protect him and Thomas both.

“And when you make Thomas practice his lines over and over, when you give him the butterflies in his stomach backstage, when you fear failure- it’s not because you want him to mess up. It’s because you want things to go perfectly, for Thomas to do his very best, for his fears not to come to fruition. And that is important to note.

“Virgil, when you’re afraid of a breakup, of losing friends and family- it’s because you don’t want Thomas to get too attached to something that might not always be there. You are attempting to be a cautionary tale before it’s ever written. You work against Patton and Roman simultaneously- you carry that weight- because you don’t want them to get hurt by their own ambitions.”

“Jesus, you’ve put a lot of thought into this, Logan.”

Logan grinned broadly. “That is what I do best. Just- think of us all like- say, a bike. Roman and Patton are the handlebars- they can pull Thomas in certain directions and guide him where he wants to go. You and I are the training wheels- making sure the turns aren’t too tight, that he doesn’t lose his balance. When Thomas is aware of us, when he also takes us into consideration, he makes sure he doesn’t take a road too bumpy or uneven.”

“But if we’re training wheels, doesn’t that mean Thomas- at some point- won’t need us anymore?” He winced once he realized what he had said. “...Sorry. That was probably a bit too close to what you mentioned earlier.”

But Logan simply shook his head again. “You’re forgetting a few things- first, that some people can ride bikes without using the handlebars, too. Second, Thomas is a child at heart- a toddler using training wheels isn’t too far of a metaphor stretch. Third- Thomas still doesn’t know how to ride a bike. The man made a vine about parkour and nearly shattered his wrist falling on purpose. Do you really think he’s going to ever hop on a bike without a little extra support?”

Virgil couldn’t help the loud laugh that burst out of his mouth before covering it quickly. Logan looked immensely proud of himself.

“And I thought you said the other two brought the sunshine,” Virgil teased. Logan blinked, caught off-guard by Virgil’s statement, before smiling softly- then his face turned more serious.

“...There is another thing I wanted to discuss.”

Virgil swallowed. Patton’s dad lectures were one thing. But a Logan lecture? He’d never heard of one, and it scared him a little bit.

“Roman tells us those stories because he knows we can’t experience them.”

“...Yeah. I know.” A bitter taste was back in Virgil’s mouth. He looked down again.

“No- you misunderstand. He is not boasting. He is sharing.”

Virgil glanced up sharply. “...What? What’s the difference?”

“None of us could truly follow on one of his adventures, and Roman knows that. He has the imagination and the bravery, the ego, the voice of narration, the knowledge of how to follow a plot steadily. We would either fail the quest, create plot holes, or never write the story because we wouldn’t know which direction to take it. Roman tells us these stories of grandeur so we can also experience them. Just like how Patton loves us all so much because he knows how hard it can be for us to love ourselves, fundamentally. Just as I am here for you, right now, being the voice of logic and reason. Just how you question our decisions for us, point out faults before they bring about our demise, and worry so we don’t have to. Personifying worry and anxiety- and to a degree, self-preservation- is not an easy task, Virgil. It is a steep order. It takes a lot out of you- but you are strong enough to handle it. You were made to handle it. Just as I was made to handle challenges of intellect. Just as Roman was made to handle creative block and self-doubt. Just as Patton was made to handle heartbreak. Thomas made you because he couldn’t function without you- and you have a two-video story arc to prove that, Virgil. Remember that.”

Virgil blinked hard to clear the fog from his eyes. He silently fiddled with his jacket zipper, Logan’s words bearing down on him in the quiet. He glanced up at the other side.

“...Thank you, Logan.”

Logan straightened his tie and glasses, sitting up in the chair. He nodded at Virgil.

“No, really. I- I had never thought about it... that way. You did, though- and you didn’t have to share that with me, but you did, and I… I… I really appreciate it.”

“You have helped me before, Virgil. I was simply returning a long-overdue favor.” He stood up from the chair and moved to exit, but not before turning back.

“...Oh. And Patton told me to tell you that you should apologize to Roman. I believe he said something akin to, ‘You can’t really wound Roman’s ego, but if you could, that would have.’”

Virgil smiled. “Of course Patton would say that… and he’s right. I’ll go. Thanks again, Logan.”

Logan smiled back. “Glad to be of assistance.”

A/N: ...in my defense, Logan's a bit of a chatterbox... goodness i love him for it tho 

(this was partially my own ridiculous mind-dump headcanon on how Virgil is seen as so necessary- it’s not just that he’s also good, it’s that too much of the other’s isn’t the best, either. sorry if the train of thought derails quite a bit in there. writing logan’s dialogue is a major brain stretch in that I have to take my own words i want him to say, make the sentences long and rambling, and spice them up intellectually, which is so fun!- but can get messy)

comments and critiques are always appreciated :) and if you want me to tag you let me know!