#however he doesn’t fully understand that and picks fights with enemies that otherwise would have left him alone

[skyfallscotland]

Quicksilver, by Callie Hart 🦋

She is moonlight. The mist that shrouds the mountains. The bite of electricity in the air before a storm.

Ohh boy. Personally I think she is none of those things, but that's me getting ahead of myself. God, I feel so anxious posting a book reaction after the Onyx Storm Debacle, but here we are, with a book I didn't love...again.

So...I started this one with a running commentary again (Throne of Glass style) but I couldn't quite commit. We will however approach it chronologically, because that's an easier way to show my thoughts as they evolved.

Would I recommend this book? No. And I’ll tell you why, but there are spoilers ahead so be aware of that.

Friends...I did not enjoy this one and I'm starting to feel like a crazy person. Is this just a massive reading slump? Or am I weird? Because everyone seems to think these books are the best thing since sliced bread and I've not liked a single one of them 😭

My first impressions? Saeris is so cliché. Like oh we're starving and can barely survive, you can see my ribs, but actually I can scale a giant wall and fight all these fully trained guards and win...ok, sure. It's giving 00's YA vibes but alright, I'm rolling with it.

I had no understanding of what it was I was doing, but if this was a world-ending gift, then good. Fuck this city and fuck this world. My family was already doomed, and what did I care for anyone else?

Bit dramatic, but whatever, I'll still ride with you. Who am I to judge? I did write Remi.

“I wear pants. Shirts. Things I can move easily in. So I can run, and climb, and—” Kill people.

"So cliché." I mutter to myself as I put the book down. Then pick it up again. Then put it down again and use the audiobook instead.

At some point, Layne would accept that I just didn't eat that much, and she'd stop loading up my plate with so much food. She'd slip an apple into her pocket for me or something.

*Deep breaths* Saeris would absolutely fit in on mid 2000's tumblr. Babe, this is such a weird flex to include when you’ve already made it very clear she was a starving orphan, ok?

We also met the infamous Carrion—more on that later—and her brother...who sucks. No two ways about it. I hated him immediately. Are there any decent book-brothers out there? Or just...no? I thought from the way he was acting he was going to be fourteen but no, he's like TWENTY, what the fuck 😭

So anyway, hooray! We've fallen through a portal to a new world and that's the stage set—then we meet Kingfisher. Oh man. Kingfisher.

Firstly:

This is a kingfisher. I just want y’all to know that. I know it’s not his ‘real’ name but it’s still what she’s crying out in rapture ok, a choice was made and it wasn’t a good one.

Anyway, surprise surprise, he's an asshole, but here’s the rub: he doesn't seem redemptive.

My jaw was screaming, I was clenching my teeth so hard. “Fuck—you—” “There you go again. Hungry, needy little bitch in heat, begging to be fucked…” he taunted. “Let. Go!”

I’m ok with enemies to lovers, but there has to be a hint at least that the ‘bad guy’ can be a decent person. There has to be something that hooks me about him—his entire personality can’t just be ‘asshole’, and above all, despite the fact he doesn’t like the FMC (even loathes her for all I care) he has to at least have some basic respect for her, otherwise I’m not down. That’s just my personal take, you don’t have to agree, but it makes me uncomfortable otherwise.

“I don't hate your kind. I'm just disappointed by how breakable you are. If I held you down and fucked you the way I'm imagining fucking you right now, I doubt that you’d survive it.”

Like that? That’s not cute or arousing in any way.

“That your body is betraying you in other ways. That I can smell you, Little Osha, and I'm thinking about drinking the sweet nectar you're making for me straight from the fucking cup.”

I do also think the smut was just not for me in this book, as a general rule, I did find it very cringe. Case in point ^

A FUNNY INTERLUDE:

—a look of rye amusement on his irritatingly handsome face.

LMAO this was meant to be wry, I assume? There were a few instances like this throughout the book, as well as typos and missing punctuation. Which, we’re all human, I get it, but it kind of annoys me a little when this was picked up for trad pub, pulled from KU (I bought it—twice!) and has since gotten a million dollar Netflix deal. Please, if we’re going to be doing that, the publishing house needs to edit the damn book. Honestly? I think it could have done with 200-300 less pages. A developmental edit was needed, let alone a final edit.

Anyway. Onwards.

So they make a blood pact, in which she agrees to basically do whatever the fuck he says, which is...tired. I'm tired. The book is tired. We're all a little tired here.

Kingfisher held out his hand and pulled me to my feet, making a derisive sound when he saw the cut I'd inflicted upon myself. “Baby.”

It’s just...this utter derision he has for her, his supposed (spoiler alert!) fated mate, that just gives me the ick.

Then there's this:

Kingfisher stunned me to silence when he dropped to his knees and started picking up the shards of broken cup. “It's all right, Archer. Hush, it's all right.”

Ok, this here is the first indication we get that he can be a decent person, and it’s not with her, it’s with some random character we’ve just met. Do I grow to like Archer? Sure, but right now I don’t know him from Adam, all this scene tells me is that Fisher is capable of respect and kindness, just not with Saeris. Be so for fucking real right now, that does not make you want to root for them. If this were your bestie you’d be screaming for them to run. This is the crux of it all. We had to get like 300 pages into this book for there to be a single hint of redemption in him and to me that's bad technique.

Clearly everyone else disagrees since they're out there praising it, but I've nearly DNF'd so many times by now, because you're 👏 not 👏 giving 👏 me 👏 crumbs. Please, give the reader something! It's all well and good for people to be out here going "well he's like that for a reason" (spoiler alert: the reason sucks, it's just the cliché 'I wanted to push her away for her own safety) but his reasoning means shit if people lose interest and don't get far enough to find out what it even is.

Note: by 'people' I mean the rest of the internet, not anyone here specifically, but since a few of you have said the same, just know that's a generalisation and I still love you! But I fear my point stands, his change of heart/any indication of kindness comes too late in the game for it to be an effective character arc (more on this later!!)

Anywho—

I shouldn't have moaned. I definitely shouldn't have told him that I wanted him. For the love of all the gods in all the heavens, why had I said that? I was going to throw up.

Same babe. Why did you? Why do you?

I couldn't believe we'd finally arrived here.

Me either!! 56% of the way in! We've basically done absolutely nothing but wander around and talk about how hot and mean he is for 300 pages but finally you're...doing things...with him 😬

Every part of me wanted to scramble from the bed and bolt for the door, but I knew that would be folly. Just like a hell cat, Fisher would give chase.

So terrified every part of you wants to bolt for the door...charming. Very hot. Love that for you.

“I could probably use a sho—” “Do not fucking dare finish that sentence,” he snarled. “I don't want a mouthful of soap and perfume. I want to taste you.”

Shower. She was going to say shower.

Another note, because I'm incapable of not shouting this from the rooftops when the occasion arises—vaginas are self-cleaning, there should be no soap or perfume going in there! You would have tasted her anyway you dumbass. You'd think he'd know that, given he's supposedly been in more of them than your local gynaecologist.

“And we can’t lie.”

*deep breaths* since WHEN? And that only makes it worse??

I'd imagined the words. Fabricated them out of thin air and somehow played them aloud in my own head in his voice.

Oh, hey Violet, how did you get here?

So anyway, then we enter the final conflict? Confrontation? Where she needs to go and save her newfound mate from under the mountain the bad guy's place! (oh and there's vampires, did I mention that before? No? Well there is now).

Anyway, turns out Rhysand Kingfisher was trapped there for 110 years with big bad Malcolm, who it's implied sexually assaulted him during that time, but we never address that. Why? Well this is romantasy and we only have six-hundred pages, why would we? Just throw traumatic experiences in there for the sake of it, why not?

Anyway—

“That's right. Fifty-five. He spent the next eight years trying to find the coin once he reached the center, didn't you, my love?”

I'm?????

55+8=63... what happened to the other 47 years? Guys? I'm????

Whatever, who cares about math! We're on the escape until—WOAH.

“It can't see or hear you. It tracks movement.”

Don't panic, don't panic, we all know how to defeat the middengard wyrm whatever that thing is! And we do. But not really, because everything in this maze regenerates, just like romantasy plotlines.

More fighting, more evil villain monologuing, etc.

THEN Saeris has to go and find a coin to break the blood oath Kingfisher made with big-bad, even though big-bad said he broke it himself five minutes ago during his evil monologue in order to make Fishie confess to...things.

“I release you from your oath to us, Kingfisher, Bane of Gillethrye. Now, go on. Tell your friends all about the deal you struck with us all those years ago.”

But no matter, we're off to find a coin and no worries, we've got that down! Of course in the process Feyre Saeris dies and gets brought back to life again as an all powerful fae/vampire queen hybrid. WHO WOULD HAVE THOUGHT?

Not me, even I couldn't have predicted that double-doozy. Probably this guy though:

Zareth. God of Chaos.

Which? NO. Nope. No. Too late. FAR too late in the game for this. I'm out.

The way we went through so many boring pages of nothingness to this in the last 20% is truly something.

OK! SIDE CHARACTERS:

Danya was a complete and total waste of everyone's time, she existed only to be the bitchy, elitist mean girl side character who was mean to poor Saeris and occassionally made her jealous. This one-dimensional treatment of female characters grinds my gears. Even Everlayne, Kingfisher's sister was entirely useless, making Saeris the special female unicorn. Pretty sure this book fails the Bechdel test.

Ren was nice, I liked him, poor long-suffering man that he was.

Lorreth. Man, y'all can't shut up about Carrion and you're really sleeping on Lorreth. This man saved me from DNF'ing, he was fantastic. Put some respect on his name! 10/10 no notes. The guy you'd actually want to get with if this book were real.

He'd still looked dumbstruck as he headed off in the direction of his tent, cradling Avisiéth like a baby in his arms.

Carrion. CARRION. Ok straight up...is that really a word we want to be using as a name? Really? Is it relevant? Like did we do that on purpose because he somehow reflects roadkill? I figured we'd find out, but NOPE 💀

Who fucking knows at this point though whether it is his name. I doubt it, given Kingfisher's name is apparently not Kingfisher either. Personally though I still think that should have been addressed in the book. It's over 200k words, you can tell us why certain nicknames exist.

The thief held up his hands. “You're right. I apologize. I'm just a little on edge right now. I'm not my best self.”

Hilarious, there to cause trouble most of the time, 10/10, almost no notes.

“Are you going to tell me about my parents, or are you going to start undressing each other? Because I can leave. I don't have to, but I can,” Carrion said.

Except the part where he turns out to be a thousand-year-old fae too and a secret, mystery, vampire-killing-prince dude or whatever, there's a note about that and how it's kinda unnecessary to drop in the final 5%. Was it foreshadowed? Not effectively, no. Also Carrion Daianthus? Roadkill, crows, and...pink flowers? Yeah. That's him. That's the one 💀

Onyx. Token wild animal taken in as pet/familiar trope. She can have this one. He's cute.

Elroy. Dude's definitely going to become important again. How much do we wanna bet he's Fisher's dad? Anyone?

Anyway, this was wildly chaotic and I don't really feel bad about it because so was this book. It started out well in the first 5-10%. It was a slog to read between the 10% mark and 60%. Honestly, it only got better once they'd fucked for the first time, which was because Kingfisher's character did a 180 overnight with a big fat handwavey motion, like our FMC's magic coochie cured him of his violent tendencies. Like not to be crude, but I'm not sure there's any other way of putting it.

I think it's just not a great book, which I also think is a shame because the world is interesting, I loved the parts of alchemy we got (which weren't enough, imo) and the swords, the magic, the portals, the quicksilver, etc. I think it had so much potential and that's ultimately why it also bothers me so much as well. It feels squandered through a lack of refinement and editing.

Will I read the next one? Maybe. I'll let someone else take the hit first and see if it's any better paced this.

This has gone on long enough lmao, so I'll just leave you with one last quote that I think really sums up this book so, so much:

“Not that. The brother part,” she said in a loud whisper. “That’s not common knowledge?” “Well, yes. And no. It's just not spoken about. And it's very, very complicated.”

Yeah...

[calliecat93]

Okay, I know that the Spones content in Bread and Circuses has been talked about before, so I’m likely adding nothing new. But heck with it, I’m talking about it anyways cause it’s just too good not to!

The episode has Spock and McCoy somewhat saltier towards each other than usual. From the second the episode resumes after the opening credits, they’re snarking at each other almost immediately. It goes on for so long that we have the guest character outright ask Kirk if they’re enemies, and even he isn’t for sure. It’s almost like one of the writers anticipated the fact that some would legit think that the two genuinely hated each other, and decided to ask the question. For the most part, their banter is mutual and they’re clearly trying to rouse a reaction from the other.Even when at gunpoint, McCoy just HAS to snap at Spock for “[being] so blasted honest?’. Spock’s raised brow to me almost came across like ‘really doctor? must you be like this now?”. It’s got some amusing stuff, like the banter in the beginning and McCoy of all being being the one to suggest illogic regarding sun worshipers has Spock giving some utterly hilarious facial expressions. But still, the banter goes enough that event he audience has to ask: are these two truly enemies.

The rest of their scenes answer the question.

During the gladiator fight, McCoy’s still so pissed off that even fighting to the death won’t stop him from yelling at Spock when he asks if he needs help. Stress and you know… trying not to die is a factor, but still. But since McCoy’s a doctor, not a warrior he’s about to be killed… until Spock takes out his own opponent and nerve punches McCoy’s before he can be harmed. Doing this breaks the rules and Kirk chooses to take what would be their death sentence upon himself. Spock acted on pure instinct in that instant. Or even more bluntly, it was an emotional response. He interfered because he didn’t want McCoy to die, and he was the only one in a positon to save him. He even seems pretty started that he did so. But because of i, now Kirk is going to die in their places and neither he nor McCoy can do anything about it. He outright pulls at the cell bars, according to McCoy, fifteen times. Logically it’s pretty clear that it’s not working.

With this, McCoy’s now cooled down enough that he legitimately tries to thank Spock for saving him. It’s awkward, neither one are very good at having heart-to-hearts with each other. Spock pretty much acts like it’s the usual banter and kind of condescendingly before telling him to get to the point, which causes McCoy to just snap it out at him. Spock tries to go into the usual ‘I’m a logical Vulcan’ spiel, saying quote:

Spock: Oh, yes. You humans have that emotional need to express gratitude. You're welcome, I believe, is the correct response. However, Doctor, you must remember I am entirely motivated by logic. The loss of our ship's surgeon, whatever I think of his skill, would mean a reduction in the efficiency of the Enterprise and therefore-.

Which is what finally gets McCoy pissed off enough to directly confront him about it. Why? Because he knows that Spock’s spitballing here. He’s trying to deny his emotional responses, despite having demonstrated it at least twice with McCoy right there for both of them. Saving McCoy despite knowing the consequences of doing so was an emotional response. Trying to escape the cell due to Jim’s life being in danger despite all efforts failing is an emotional response. He tries to say it’s just due to professionalism, but at this point there’s been enough episodes that the audience knows that that’s not true. McCoy absolutely knows it. He knows how Spock tends to keep his emotions suppressed and deny that he even has them, even though he very clearly does. It is a factor that has continuously frustrated McCoy. He’d never force Spock to be outwardly emotional, Plato’s Stepchildren made that VERY clear. But when it DOES happen and Spock tries to act otherwise? And after having dealt with this for nearly two years now? Yeah, McCoy decides that he’s had it as he grabs Spock, turns him around so that they’re making clear eye-contact, and makes his opinion VERY clear.

McCoy: Do you know why you're not afraid to die, Spock? You're more afraid of living. Each day you stay alive is just one more day you might slip and let your human half peek out. That's it, isn't it? Insecurity. Why, you wouldn't know what to do with a genuine, warm, decent feeling.

Which… he’s not entirely wrong. Even during this, Spock turns away from him like he doesn’t want to talk about it. But McCoy’s right. Spock’s been at war with his Vulcan and human halves for his entire life. He chose to suppress the human half, and it peaking out does concern him. He isn’t able to settle two sides, hence why he’s always insistent about being a logical, unfeelign Vulcan. Now we all know that Vulcans DO feel things. Very strongly in fact, hence why they suppress it to begin with. But I do think it’s safe to say that Spock is afraid of expressing or even talking about his emotions. Whenever he does, he needs to get his grip back on the Vulcan side as quickly as possible. Even though he knows that McCoy knows otherwise. McCoy is pretty damn good at picking up on Spock’s emotional state and Spock knows it. And I think to at least an extent, he knows that McCoy’s correct. McCoy might be being too harsh admittedly, but the point is there. Spock is afraid of letting his human half slip out and the constant struggle of keeping it in check.

I think this is what makes their relationship so important. McCoy’s really the only person who can provoke Spock like this. Sure Kirk can normally reach out to Spock, but he’s not as likely to directly confront Spock and be blunt about it the same way that McCoy can. Spock’s also really the only person who’s ever been able to provoke McCoy and get him think past his own perspective the way that he does. It’s vitriolic in many ways. Like I said, it’s hard for them to really be civil with each other most of the time. Even here when McCoy did try to start off as civil when he tried thanking Spock, it ultimately devolved into another argument. Even McCoy expressed that he isn’t sure why it’s always like this when he says “ I know we've had our disagreements. Maybe they're jokes. I don't know.” But I do think that the episode demonstrates the answer to the queation of if they’re enemies. The short answer is no. The long answer is that they have a very complicated relationship that on a surface level, comes across as hatred. It gets to the point where even they aren’t fully sure. But the truth is they do care about each other greatly. They understand each other a great deal. They’re the only ones who can reach out to the other. The way that they show it is unorthodox sure, but it’s how it works for them.

And even when they are particularly heated, it always ends with them coming down from it and finding a point of unity. In this case, there is absolutely one thing that they can agree on.

Spock: Really, Doctor?

McCoy: I know. I'm worried about Jim, too.

While their concern for Jim is true, I think McCoy brought used that more as a way to bring them both back down after the exchange. Jim and his well-being is very much the one thing that they can agree on. I serves as a calming down point for them n this particular instant. After this while they don’t have anymore direct interactions, they seem to be on good terms and even enter the Bridge together at the end. They still have their heated moments in later episodes such as The Paradise Syndrome and The Tholian Web. But I think that for those who really do think that Spock and McCoy hate each other, I’d say watch this episode again and give their interactios a closer look. Especially the prison scene. Because it shows that for all their banter, for all their differences, there is a strong connection that is very much uniquely them.

[watevermelon]

Aot!Haikyuu | MSBY Black Jackals x Reader (Atsumu Route)

✧  Summary: (Attack on Titan x Haikyuu) In an effort to unlock the secrets behind Titans, you got injured during one of Tendou’s Scout Regiment experiments. This was nothing new, but even you were surprised at how much those boys cared about you. ➳ Warnings: Language and Attack on Titan Canon Violence ➳ Tags: Reader x MSBY Black Jackals; Slight Reader x Schweiden Adlers; Takes place before the Fall of Trost; ➳  Masterlist

Pick your route!

Introduction  | Sakusa Kiyoomi  | Hinata Shoyou  | Bokuto Koutarou

✧ Atsumu Miya Route:

Sakusa and the rest of your squad-mates had visited you throughout your entire first week in the medic tent. Thankfully, you were told that you would be able to recover, luckily nothing was long-term damage, neither punctured nor permanently broken in your Titan encounter. Tendou told you that the weeks of physical therapy wouldn’t be easy, but you’d be back on the field within the year if you really tried.

Sakusa cursed you to your face for even thinking about it while the two sunshine's on your team told you not to rush your health.

You were worried most about what Atsumu would say.

He was always quick smiles and smirks - tended to tease and keep things light-hearted in order not to lose his sanity during the war. He flirted and had plenty of women over his shoulder, very easy to cause others to swoon over his handsome appearance. But that was all to drown out his worries, these shallow relationships filled the void from the death of his comrades.

No matter how hard you tried to reach Atsumu’s heart, it just would not budge. Not when you first joined the team and even now years later. There were small cracks here and there. Genuine smiles that he would indulge you in when your squad was in their off-hours. But otherwise, he kept people at an arm’s length.

You knew that this was Atsumu’s second team in the Scout Regiment, originally an officer under the infamous Squad Leader Kita. There were lots of rumors around his earlier life, how he and his brother were one of the best duo’s in the entire regiment. Along with Kita, they were all childhood friends, entering the training corps together and later the scouts as a trio. There were lots of stories around that squad and how they courageously acted during expeditions.

Such as when Kita boldly laid down his life at the Fall of Shiganshina, detonating a large bomb for dozens of Garrison troops to get away.

He saved over two-hundred soldiers from the clutches of abnormal Titans, suddenly let in by both the armored and colossal Titan. The stories were second and even third-hand by now, but it was all generally the same. Soldiers scrambling with their unknown enemy, paralyzed with the fear that their lives were about to end then and there.

Both civilians and soldiers alike had minimal chances of surviving that day.

Shinsuke Kita was a bold soldier through and through.

But all of that occurred before you even joined the scouts. You knew of the current effects on your teammate, now. Atsumu had closed himself off while his brother left the military entirely, opening an onigiri shop within Wall Sina. You could not blame him, your lifestyle must have been a constant reminder for what Osamu had lost. But for Atsumu to continue in the Scouts, you wondered how he had the mental fortitude to continue when his childhood best friend was taken from him.

And so it was no surprise that Atsumu hadn’t visited you your entire first week in the hospital, keeping you at a distance since he had almost lost you as well. But after another week passed you wondered if you did something else to annoy the two-toned man. 

Him and Sakusa did not hold back their scalding words the first day you woke-up. And even during the mission, Atsumu had quick curses each time something unexpected happened. So why was he avoiding you now if he was there the first day? Was he trying to reinstate the distance in your friendship? You were disappointed, but by no means surprised.

However, one night three weeks into your hospital stay, as they lowered the doses of painkillers circulating in your system, you woke up to see a figure sitting silently beside you.

You called out to the familiar shadow, “Atsumu?”

It was quiet for a good minute, before he answered. “Ah, it’s me.”

“What are you doing here?”

“Just visiting’.”

“Do you usually visit when I’m asleep?”

“.... Ah.”

So Atsumu visited you when he knew you would not be conscious.

You felt your annoyance flare.

“You’re such a coward.” You bit out.

He stood at your words, his own anger rolling off his tongue. “Ya want to say that again?”

“Yes, I do!” You tried to sit-up, but felt pain shoot through your lower half. Out of relex, his arms shot out toward you to steady you, but you swatted them away and continued, “You can’t face me when I’m awake so you’d rather watch a silent corpse.”

“Don’t call yourself that.” Atsumu bit out, the stoic expression on his face enough to make you recoil in surprise. 

You snapped yourself back, “And why not?! There’s obviously something else you have to say if you’re being such a dick about this.”

“You are so fucking unbelievable.” Atsumu muttered as he carded a hand through his blond hair, “I can’t believe I almost lost ya and you’re sitting here acting like life is just gonna move on.”

“Isn’t it?”

“No. It isn’t.” Atsumu stated clearly, “You’ll get out of this bed, one day, and you will never be able to fight the same again. Your leg is fucked, ya know that right?”

“Tendou said I’ll be able to walk again.”

“And that should mean everything will go back to normal, right?” Atsumu stood straight, his height twice your own as you sat in the raised cot. “You tryin’ to tell me that the next time ya see a Titan, you won’t be worried it’ll steal ya like a personal doll again? Or better yet, that you won’t rely on your right leg now that your other side has been shot to shit?”

“I - it’ll take time.” You stuttered, not liking how his words struck a bitter chord. 

It took years of training in the cadet corps for anyone to get adept to balancing themselves on the 3DMG. It took even more actual live experience to get used to fighting while doing so. And here you were with a new handicap, years into the battle with all your own personal idiocincinrecies. It would be harder, but you had pushed off that factoid to the recess of your mind, more focused on your current recovery.

“No, ya weren’t thinking at all.” Atsumu stated.

But you didn’t need this asshole pointing out your new weakness.

“What’s your problem?” You asked back sharply.

“My problem? My problem is that I have such a selfish teammate that she doesn’t even care about the rest of her team!”

You turned your head in genuine confusion, “What?”

“I can’t fuckin’ stand ya sometimes!” He said instead, “Even if you can fight again, if it was up to me I’d never let your ass leave your office. I don’t give a fuck, I’ll ask Sakusa to switch ya to Tendou’s team if we have to.”

“What?!”

He leaned over your bedside and gripped your chin harshly. “You almost died. Do ya understand that? I was the last person to see ya before you disappeared into the trees.”

Now closer to his face, it was more than just his anger and annoyance that was reflecting back to you. It made you physically recoil, surprised at seeing the usually distant Atsumu shout his worries about you.

“You were willing to give everythin’ up for some stupid shit-show about a single Titan!” His pressure behind his hold increased, almost bruising the skin there.

“I.. I’m sorry.” You felt yourself apologize more than realized. This was more than just another argument, from the brutal shake of his shoulders and how Atsumu tucked his head into your shoulder. He was leaning into your body, not fully, but enough for you to feel the tenseness in his body.

Atsumu was worried about you.

It made you want to reach out to him. To curl your hands around his middle and comfort him that you were still here - still alive. And so you did - bringing a gentle touch up his back before it started to hurt from the strain. Instead, you folded your arms behind his neck, holding him for as long as Atsumu needed to assure himself that you were okay. And while it seemed redundant initially, you had to remind yourself that Atsumu had lots of demons that were still alive, but worse off because of it.

“Fuck.” You felt him murmur against the skin of your neck. “Please, I am begging ya. Do not pull that shit again.”

You trailed the hands “I’ll try not to.”

He leaned back to look at you directly in the eyes, “That’s not good enough.”

You felt a small smile crack your expression, “I promise I’ll try to stay safe.”

“Good enough for now.” Atsumu said as he frowned, before leaning forward. You felt the soft crease of his lips against your skin, lingering on your forehead before he trailed his nose down against yours.

“Atsumu?”

“Do ya understand now?” He asked, the two of you basically sharing the same breath at this point. Atsumu brought a hand up to your cheek, gently caressing as he went and tucking a loose strand of hair behind your ear. You hung onto every bit of his actions, from the way his eyes pierced your own to the way he drew lazy circles on your skin.

“I can’t lose you too.” Atsumu continued, breathing out harshly into your shared space. “I went through this shit before and it almost killed me. But if I lost you? Fuck, I can’t…”

You brought a hand up to cup his face, your heart leaping out at you to be there for him. He was more than just another Scout soldier, more than just your fellow squad-mate and now even more than just your friend.

“I won’t let it happen again.” You reassured him, moving to place soft pecks to his cheeks as he silently cried out his worries. 

This was a side of Atsumu you never got to see before. His usually coarse words were more than just shallow-deep, expressing his genuine care over your person. And while you always crave a deep relationship with the older soldier, he always kept you at an arm's-length. At least now you knew why - because Atsumu was afraid to lose those close to him again.

“I love you, ya know that right?” Atsumu murmured.

“I know that now.” You teased, but he gently poked your forehead to bring you back to his serious statement.

“You’re so stupidly headstrong.” Atsumu started listing off as he placed pecks on the side of your head, “Joining our squad was like a breath of fresh air I didn’t know I needed. So smart and yet you value yourself so little.”

You just listened to his words, surprised that he was so keenly paying attention to you in the past when it seemed like Atsumu was so carefree.

“I’m not expecting ya to answer, by the way.” Atsumu continued, “I just need ya to know that before ya make any choices.”

You smiled at him, thankful for how uncharacteristically patient he was being with you. Instead, you scooted over in the hospital bed and patted down in the empty space.

“Keep me company tonight?”

He gave you a genuine smile, pulling off to take off his jacket and throw it over his shoulder to the chair. Atsumu laid on the side, trying to take up as minimal space as possible as he threw an arm across to rest your head on.

“I’ll never leave you alone again.”

You pulled his face toward you, trying to seal a kiss but struggling as you both kept grinning. His arms trailed up and around your body, pulling you close to feel every plain of skin against his own. You relished in the love Atsumu could give you, grateful for how much of his heart he was willing to give you after having been hurt so many times.

You would treat his heart warmly and give him so much love in kind.

Introduction  | Sakusa Kiyoomi  | Hinata Shoyou  | Bokuto Koutarou

[mint-yooxgi]

{1} - Obsession

Yandere AU - Part of the EXO Obsession Series

Genre: Mature, Horror, Angst

Pairing: EXO OT9 X Reader (with a particular focus on X-EXO)

Words: 3,152

Warnings: This is a Yandere story, it will contain themes such as stalking, violence, obsession, possessive natures, and just general overall creepiness and swearing. You have been warned.

A/n: One the seventh day of Ficmas, Jackie gave to me~ I really hope you all enjoy this chapter, and are continuing to look forwards to the rest of this series. I do really have a lot planned for it and am really excited to write it! Oh, and if I haven’t mentioned it before, the reader is tall in this series. As always, feedback is greatly appreciated, I hope you enjoy!

Previous ~ Next

The six men surrounding you are quick to get into a fighting stance, standing at attention in case something is to happen. They each make sure to take a small step closer towards you for your protection. For whatever reason, the six new variants with their faces all seem to have a particular interest in you.

“What the fuck?” You hear Baekhyun mutter under his breath in slight bewilderment.

“Who are you?” Chanyeol voices, eyes narrowing in particular at the figure that looks the most like himself, pink hair and all.

“We’re you,” his clone replies with a smirk. “Or rather, the better versions of you.”

“Looks like whatever you guys got hit with created them,” you say, brow furrowing as you scan over each one of the new clones. “Spell gone wrong, probably.”

“Looks like it,” Jongdae huffs in agreement, staring down his doppelgänger who has yet to take his eyes off of you.

You share a quick glance with Junmyeon before turning your attention back to the clones.

“What is it that you all want?” Sehun asks, shoulders tense as he aims an arrow at himself.

“Isn’t it obvious?” Jongin’s clone grins, a sinister look in his ice blue eyes as they flash briefly over your strike team.

“Considering we haven’t been able to keep our eyes off of her this whole time,” Baekhyun’s clone adds, the corner of his lip tugging upwards as he tilts his head downwards, almost mockingly.

“(Y/n),” all of them speaking at once sends a chill running down your spine as your breath lodges in your throat.

One rule you have on all of your missions is to never refer to each other by your real names. It’s a safety precaution in case an enemy is to escape and possibly track you down. Hearing these clones speak your real name concerns you greatly, considering this means that they know you to some degree. This just makes you wonder, since they are clones of your strike team, does this mean they share the same memories? You swallow.

“What do you want with Viper?” Jongin tenses, voice a near growl.

“God, I always hated having to use that code name,” Junmyeon’s clone sighs exasperatedly. Out of the corner of your eyes, you notice the real Junmyeon tense ever so slightly, causing his clone to smirk. “Oh, did I say something I wasn’t supposed to?”

“Why-“

You get cut off by Junmyeon before you can even finish your question, “you’re not getting anywhere near her.”

“Too late,” a smug voice sounds right by your ear as you feel a pair of hands firmly grasp your waist.

Turning your head, you see Jongin’s clone now right beside you. The striking ice blue hue of his eyes is even more prominent up close, his green hair falling over his forehead as he stares you down. A smirk pulls at his lips as he moves to pull you closer to him.

Sensing the static shift in the air, you know what he’s about to do, and before he can teleport away with you, you elbow him in the neck. However, he manages to dodge your attack. This only causes him to lose his grip on you, teleporting away empty handed.

“Well, that didn’t work,” he grumbles, frown pulling at his features as he stands once again beside the other clones.

“You’re lucky we’re on the same team right now, otherwise I’d cut your hands off for touching her,” Baekhyun’s clone growls out, finally peeling his gaze away from you long enough to glare at Jongin’s clone.

“We need to get her out of here,” Sehun says, briefly making eye contact with Jongin before nodding their heads at one another.

In the next moment, Jongin is taking a step towards you, grabbing your wrist in his hand, and teleporting the two of you back inside the hovercraft. He’s gone as quickly as he came, causing the other three males in the craft to rush over to you.

“Is everything okay?” Kyungsoo asks, concern clear in his voice as he takes in your disheveled state and wide eyes. 

“What happened?” Minseok questions, leading you over to a seat at the side of the craft. “And where are the others?”

“Are you injured?” Yixing begins to look you over for any cuts, scrapes, or bruises.

“We need to get out of here, and soon,” is all that you say, attempting to calm your breathing and clear your head before you dive into an explanation on what has happened. “I’ll explain everything back at the base.”

“What do you need us to do?” Minseok is the first to respond, face morphing into one of understanding.

“I’m not sure how the other’s are going to get out, seeing as Jongin can’t teleport them all at once,” you reply, bringing a hand up to rub at your head. “I’d say we land about two kilometres out with the cloak still on. Their communication gear is broken so I might have to go back in and retrieve them.”

“Is it safe for you to go back?” Yixing voices all of their thoughts, concern clear in his voice.

“I don’t know,” you bite your lip, looking out of the window and down at the warehouse below. Nothing extreme has happened yet, so you’re just hoping that they’re all still okay.

Your eyes narrow slightly as you notice six familiar figures run out of a side entrance. Motioning with your head, you catch the other’s attention, with Yixing soon moving over quickly to land the hovercraft to pick up the rest of your teammates.

Once the craft has touched ground, you’re the first one to meet the six other members of your strike team at the now lowered entrance, concern evident on your features.

“What happened? Are you all okay?” You look each one of them over carefully as they enter the craft, not seeing anything out of the ordinary.

“As soon as you left, they got worked up, told us that they’d be back, and then Jongin’s clone teleported them out of there,” Jongdae informs you, causing you to furrow your brow in confusion.

“Wait, he teleported them all?” The confusion is clear as day in your voice.

“Yes,” Jongin grumbles, crossing his arms slightly in front of his chest.

“They didn’t engage, so there’s no way of knowing yet, but we’re assuming that the spell made them slightly stronger than us,” Junmyeon says, a slight edge to his tone as he takes a seat while the hovercraft takes off once more. 

“That doesn’t sound too good, whatever it is,” Kyungsoo replies, flipping a few switches on the control panel.

“No,” Baekhyun mutters. “It most certainly is not.”

“So now that we’re all here, would someone please tell us what’s going on?” Minseok quirks a brow at the seven of you, watching as you all discard your broken transceivers into a pile on the table.

“We managed to kill Shelly,” Sehun informs them.

“She was in the midst of performing some spell, and as soon as she bit the dust, the spell went awol,” Chanyeol adds. “Hit the six of us with this weird, intense, flash of light.”

“Next thing we know, we’re seeing double,” Jongin continues, leaning forwards slightly to rest his elbows on his knees.

“It was like looking into a weird, warped mirror,” Baekhyun nods along.

“You mentioned clones, Jongdae?” Yixing’s voice is heard from the driver’s seat, switching on autopilot as he swivels around in his chair in order to join the conversation fully.

“Yes, they looked exactly like us, and from what we can gather, share everything similar about one another,” Jongdae sighs, running a hand through his hair. “The only thing different about them was that they all seemed to have at least one eye that held an ice blue iris, if not something of that variation.”

“They were also dressed differently, too,” Sehun recalls. “All of them were wearing some sort of leather in a bright colour.”

“Strange,” Kyungsoo hums, leaning back in his seat slightly.

“They all seem to share the same knowledge as we do, as well,” Junmyeon says, somewhat worriedly. “They seemed to all have a common goal, too.”

“Goal? What might that be?” Minseok asks, curiosity peaked.

“Get (Y/n),” Jongin states, jaw clenched. “They even knew her real name.”

“You’re joking,” Yixing gasps, looking towards you for confirmation, of which you nod your head slowly. “Looks like they do share your knowledge, then.”

“Is that all we know so far?” Kyungsoo quirks a brow, looking over at each of you.

“So far,” you breathe, letting out a long puff of air.

“Well, if they know everything we do, and if they have the same skill set as us, then you might not be safe going back to your apartment tonight,” Chanyeol’s gaze locks with yours, his eyes shining with worry.

At this, you quirk a brow, “you and I both know I’m more than capable of handling myself. Besides, I have protective and preventative measures in my security system, I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure? Maybe one of us should stay with you-“

You cut Junmyeon off before he can even finish his sentence with a harsh glare, “I said, I’ll be fine. Don’t worry.” At the looks they’re all giving you, you let out a sigh. “Geez, if you’re that worried, feel free to make a schedule and check on me either in the mornings or the evenings, but not both. Only on days where we don’t see each other, too. I like my days off by myself, thank you very much.”

“That’s fine,” Sehun nods, gritting his teeth shortly afterwards.

“As long as we can just make sure you’re okay once in a while,” Jongdae adds, to which you nod your head once while letting out another sigh.

“For now, what should we refer to these variants as? We can’t keep calling them clones,” Baekhyun voices, resting his arms on the table in front of him.

“Well, I mean, we could, but that wouldn’t be very good,” Sehun attempts to lighten the mood, much to the dismay of Junmyeon.

“This is going to sound odd, considering our own code, but what if we just referred to them by our respective codenames?” Chanyeol suggests, causing you to lift a brow in his direction.

“It would be easier to maintain identities that way,” Jongin says, nodding slightly in agreement.

“Sounds good to me,” Jongdae confirms as they all look towards you for the final approval. After all, you are their leader.

“Sure, sure,” you respond. “Though what’ll we do for missions?”

“I know we have the rule against it, but what if we just used our real names,” Junmyeon is quick to answer, biting the inside of his cheek slightly, which you all fail to notice.

“That’s too risky,” you mumble, leaning forward to rest your elbow on the table in front of you. You fail to notice the brief disappointment that flashes behind his eyes. “However, it just might work in this case. For every other mission not concerning these clones, I still want us using the codenames, but for missions involving these variants, real names are to be used so as not to get confused.”

“Understood,” they all reply simultaneously, with a single nod of their heads.

“Now, let’s get back to base, regroup, and fill out the mission reports,” you say, hearing grunts of confirmation come from all of them as you lean back in your seat once more.

Crossing your one leg over the other, you attempt to calm yourself down a bit. Today was not what you were expecting it to be at all. Leaning further back into your seat, you also cross your arms over your chest, zoning out as the men converse around you. In the back of your mind, you begin to think of a plan of attack. The only problem is, you have no idea what to expect.

Yes, you’ve worked with these men for quite a few years now, but these are clones. Besides the occasional sparring match from time to time in recent years, you’ve never had to worry about them being your enemy, or dodging their attacks because they’re after you to this extent. Who knows what their clones are going to be like, especially if they’re slightly stronger than the originals.

After returning to base, filling out the regular mission reports, as well as informing your superiors about what has happened, you’re ready to go home and relax for the evening. Though, you have a feeling your day isn’t over quite yet.

Back when you started this job, your superiors thought it would be a good idea to set you up with two separate living quarters. One that everyone knows about, and the other being your real, private home. 

The guys have all been to your apartment, your home away from home as you like to call it; the apartment of which the company has set up to be your home. Not too many know of your real house, and you want to keep it that way. You just have a feeling that if you go back to your apartment tonight, you’re not going to be alone when you get there.

Just as you’re about to leave the compound for the evening, a voice calling out to you stops you.

“Hey, (Y/n), wait up!” Turning around reveals both Yixing and Minseok heading your way, halting you in your tracks.

“Hey guys, what’s up?” You smile at them faintly, resting your hands on your waist.

“Considering everything that’s happened today, we want to know if it’s okay with you if we drove you home,” Minseok says, the two of them stopping just in front of you once they reach where you’re standing.

You nearly sigh in exasperation, but you opt to bite your lip instead. You know they mean no harm, and are only looking out for your well being, but you aren’t planning on going back to your apartment tonight considering you’re sure those variants will be waiting for you once you arrive. You’re grateful for their concern, though, and with the looks they’re sending you, you would feel awful if you refused.

“Oh, alright, if it makes you feel better,” you sigh, shaking your head slightly as a small chuckle escapes your lips.

“Perfect, let’s go,” Minseok grins at you, looping his arm with yours as he leads you out of the compound, Yixing following close behind.

If you’re being honest with yourself, you’d say your closest friends at work would have to be Minseok, Yixing, and Kyungsoo. You love the guys on your strike team, but sometimes they can get a bit much. With the other three, you feel as if you can talk to them a bit more openly; they really seem to understand you, and they listen when you need to rant about one of the others not listening to your orders on a mission.

Sliding into the backseat of Yixing’s car, you allow yourself to relax. You shift yourself so you’re sitting in the middle behind the two front seats, allowing you easier access to talk with the two males sitting upfront.

The whole ride over to your apartment is pretty tame, the three of you cracking jokes and helping to take your mind off of things. To say you’re grateful would be an understatement; you’re glad that they drove you home, despite the feeling of dread creeping up your spine as soon as you see the apartment complex come into view.

Once Yixing puts the car in park, you move to get out of the back seat.

“Thanks for driving me home guys, I appreciate it,” you send them a smile.

“It’s nothing,” Yixing smiles back at you.

“Here, I’ll walk you up,” Minseok’s words nearly have your breath catching in your throat.

“Nah, it’s okay,” you reply, stepping out of the vehicle and closing the door quickly in order to begin walking towards the entrance of your apartment complex.

The sound of a second car door slamming behind you causes you to let out a small huff, Minseok catching up to you in no time.

“I wasn’t giving you an option,” he says cheekily as the two of you make it to the elevators.

The whole ride up to your floor is silent, and you can feel Minseok’s gaze shifting to look over at you every now and then. This only causes you to look at him from out of the corner of your eyes.

“What, is there something on my face?” The corner of your lip tugs upwards as the elevator dings, and the doors opens on your floor.

“Nope,” he replies casually. “Just wondering if you’re going to be okay.”

Making it to your front door, you pull out your keys, causing them to make a slight jingling sound as you unlock your front door.

“Really, Minseok, I’ll be fine,” you assure him, stepping into your apartment. Before he can follow, you’re turning around to lean on your open door, shooting him a smile. “How about this, I’ll call you guys if I need anything, okay?”

He looks like he’s about to protest, but the look you shoot him has his words dying in the back of his throat, “okay.”

“Goodnight, Minseok,” you say, beginning to shut your front door.

“(Y/n)?” His voice halts your movements, and you notice him looking down at his shoes.

“Yes?” You quirk a brow as he raises his head to lock gazes with you.

“Be safe,” with a final nod, he’s heading back down the hallway and towards the elevators.

A faint smile tugs at the corners of your lips as you shut the front door. You find it very sweet of him to be this concerned for you, even though you both know you can take care of yourself.

Now, to face what you’ve been dreading this entire evening.

Letting out a sigh, you turn around, staring into your dark apartment and listening for any signs of movement, none of which you hear at the moment. Well, if they are clones of your strike team, it would be hard for any normal person to sense them in the apartment. However, this is your apartment, and you. You know them better than anyone else, or at least, that’s what you’d like to think.

“Alright, I know you’re there,” your voice cuts through the tense silence of your apartment. “There’s no use in hiding any longer.”

A few moments pass by with nothing out of the ordinary happening, until your lights are flicked on to reveal the six variants sitting in your living room. All of them wear smug grins on their faces, eyes fixated solely on you once more.

[majingojira]

Godzilla as a PC for D&D

Yes, you read that right.  I’ve figured it out.  It’s so simple that I had to share it.  Admittedly, it falls appart a little at 20, but this is damn solid otherwise. 

But there are some concessions.  Namely, to size.  Godzilla is many things, and most of them are huge. However, since he is a character first and foremost, he is going to need to interact with the rest of the cast, so the only giant size he’s going to get is through a magic item or potion. 

We’ll be following Tulok’s example for this one by and large, so we’re going to start out with our goals. 

1. Atomic Breath -- he’s going to need to project beams of “SCREW YOU!” energy at enemies. 

2. Juggernaut - Godzilla is very much a tank, and his stats should reflect that. 

3. Amphibious - Godzilla is equally at home in the water as he is on land. 

We’ll begin with the Standard Point Array. We’ll start with Dexterity (15).  Despite his size, Godzilla is quite agile for his size, so a smaller Godzilla would be quite agile, and while we aren’t dumping Strength, it’s not as important for the overall power of this build.  Following that is Wisdom (14).  Godzilla is a clever in the way Animals are clever.  Following that is Constitution (13).  Surviving thermonuclear detonation takes a lot.  Strength is next (12), I’d like it to be higher, but sacrifices have to occur somewhere. Charisma is next (10).  You work mostly through intimidation anyway. Our dump stat is Intelligence (8). Godzilla is not clever in the traditional sense of the word. 

So, the array looks like this:  Strength: 12 Dexterity: 15 Consitution: 13 Intelligence: 8 Wisdom: 14 Charisma: 10 For race, go with Lizardfolk.  Lizardfolk have a +2 to Constitution (15) and +1 Wisdom (15).  They have a base speed of 30ft.  

They can Bite dealing 1d6 Slashing Damage.  The Hungry Jaws ability means they can take a bite as a Bonus Acton, and gain temporary Hit Points from it equal to their Constitution Modifier once every short rest.  Lizardfolk are also Cunning Artisans, making weapons from the carcasses of foes they defeat.  Godzilla ALMOST did this to Ebirah, so I say it tracks.  Lizardfolk can Hold their Breath for 15 Minutes at a time, and have a swim speed of 30ft. 

They also have Hunters Lore, allowing them to pick two skills from Animal Handling, Nature, Perception, Stealth, and Survival. Go with Stealth and Perception.  

Lizardfolk also have Natural Armor, meaning their AC is 13 + Dexterity Modifier.   They also know how to speak Common and Draconic. 

For Background, Godzilla is a being from the deepest oceans, so Outlander is probably the best bet.  This nabs Athletics and Survival.  For Class, we’re going with Monk.  Godzilla doesn’t really use weapons that often, mostly relying on his fists to to do the fighting.  They gain two skills, grab Acrobatics and Athletics.  As a monk, he gets Unarmed Defense and Martial Arts. However, as of right now his Natural Armor is better than the bonus Unarmed Defense would provide and they don’t stack, so right now his AC is 15.  

Martial Arts allows him to deal 1d4 + his Dexterity or Strength bonus on unarmed strikes, and can make an Unarmed Strike as a Bonus Action when he attack.  Godzilla lays down beatdowns like crazy.   

Second Level Monks gain Ki and Unarmored Movement.  Godzilla’s movement speed increases by +10, and this applies to his swimming speed as well, as long as he doesn’t have Armor or aren’t using a Shield. 

Ki is what fuels a Monk. At level 2 he has 2 Ki Points. He can use this to perform Flurry of Blows (1 Ki point to get 2 unarmed strikes as a Bonus Action), Patient Defense (1 Ki Point to Dodge as a bonus action), and Step of the Wind (1 Ki to Disengage or Dash as a Bonus Action).  The save for Ki effects is equal to 8 + the Proficiency Bonus + the Wisdom Modifier. 

3rd Level Monks gain Deflect Missiles, allowing Godzilla to use a Reaction to catch missiles, reducing ranged attacks by 1d10 + Dexterity Modifier + Monk Level.  If the damage is reduced to 0, and the missile is small enough, he can spend a Ki point to toss it right back at the foe and treat it as a Monk weapon. 

But also at this stage, he gets his Monastic Tradition.  Here, go with Sunsoul Monk.  Sunsoul Monks get Radiant Sun Bolt at 3rd level.  This hurls a searing bolt of radiant energy at a foe. This deals damage equal to the Monk’s Unarmed Strike damage.  They can spend 1 Ki point to attack with this beam twice as their action.  Flavor text that the beams are coming from his Mouth (or Back, or Tail) and we have his first type of Atomic Breath. 

4th level monks gain an Ability Score improvement.  Increase Dexterity and Wisdom by 1 each (making them 16). They also gain Slow Fall, allowing Godzilla to reduce any Falling damage they take by 5x his Monk level. 

5th level monks gain an Extra Attack, as well as Stunning Strike. Godzilla can spend 1 Ki point to force the target of his pummeling's to make a Constitution save or be stunned until the end of his next turn.  The die for their unarmed strikes (and Radiant Sun Bolts) increases to 1d6.  

6th level monks gain Ki-Empowered Strikes, meaning his fists are now magical to bypass resilience. Sunsoul Monks also gain Searing Arc Strike, allowing them to spend 2 Ki points (they have 6 at this point) to cast Burning Hands as a Bonus Action after taking the Attack Action.  For every Ki Point spent on the Searing Hands after that increases the spell’s level (and thus its damage di) by 1. So now we have our second “Breath Weapon” to flavor text.  The amount of Ki that can be spent on this ability in total is equal to 1/2 the Monk’s level.  They also get increase their Unarmored Movement to +15ft. 

7th level Monks get Evasion. Meaning on a successful Dexterity Save, they take no damage, and only half damage when they fail.  Flavor this as walking through the blasts and it should be good.  They also get Stillness of Mind, allowing Godzilla to spend an action to end the effects of Charmed or Frightened. 

8th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement.  Bump Dexterity (18) for better hits and better Evasiveness. 

9th level Monks get the ability to run along vertical surfaces and across liquids. If there were only things big enough for Godzilla to climb, he could totally do this on the regular.  Maybe. 

10th level Monks gain Purity of Body, making them immune to Ki and Poison.  Godzilla’s movement speed also increases to +20ft. 

11th level Monks have their Unarmed Strike damage raised to 1d8.  Sunsoul Monks also gain the Searing Sunburst, creating an orb of light that explodes over a 20ft radius dealing Radiant Damage.  It forces a Constitution save, the victims taking 2d6 Radiant Damage. This has a range of 150ft and simply costs an Acton.  Up to 3 Ki can be spent to increase the damage, each Ki adding 2d6 (meaning the biggest boom for this is 8d6).  And now we have all the breath weapons. 

12th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement. Cap Dexterity for the best hits and best AC you can get. 

13th level Monks get Tongue of the Sun and Moon, meaning they can talk to anyone. This includes other creatures as long as they understand a language. Which explains “Monster Talk” perfectly. 

14th level Monks have a +25 bonus to their movement speed and Diamond Soul.  They are now proficient in all saving throws and can spend 1 Ki to re-roll a failed save and take the second result. 

15th level Monks have Timeless Body, meaning they no longer age physically, and no longer need food or water. 

16th level Monks get an Ability Score Improvement. Bump Wisdom (18) for better saves on your special attacks. 

17th level Monks bump their Unarmed Attack die up to 1d10, and gain their last monastic tradition feature.  This is the Sun Shield.  At will, they can become wreathed in luminous magical aura, shedding bright light in a 30ft radius, and dim light an additional 30ft.  This is turned on and off with a bonus action.  Even better, when hit with a melee attack when ‘glowing’, Godzilla can use a reaction to deal radiant damage to the creature equal to 5 + his Wisdom Modifier.  We now have the G-Pulse. 

18th level Monks have +30 movement speed as well as Empty Body.  for 4 Ki, Godzilla can now become Invisible for 1 Minute, as well as Resistant to all damage save Force damage.  For 8 Ki, he can now astral project.  Even Ghosts aren’t safe from Godzilla’s wrath. And he can disappear as needed when under heavy attack.  

19th level Monks have an Ability Score Improvement, or a feat. Get the Tough feat to fully represent how thick the King of Monsters is with 38 extra hit points. 

Our Capstone is the 20th level of Monk is Perfect Self.  When a Monk rolls Initiative and has no Ki remaining, he regains 4 Ki.  

So, what’s good and bad about this build? 

On the positives:  Mobility - Godzilla can move extremely fast on several different types of terrain.  

Magical Attacks - Meaning you get to bypass many resistances, and Radiant Damage is not resisted that often (except by holy things).  You also have Fire and 

Sticking Around - We have an AC of 19 with Evasion, as well as becoming Resistant to all damage (save Force) 1 minute.  The Invisibility is just a bonus perk. Throw in the Tough feat and we have 180 Hit Points on top of it, putting you in the range of front-line fighters.  Also, you’re a monk an utterly unique Backstory unrelated to monasteries! 

On the negative side, he’s dumb as a post. So he may know things and have ‘wisdom’ but who will listen to anything but a pummeling? 

The range is largely short, and Ki is an issue for long battles. 

Finally, socially, the character is awkward as hell.  No negative modifier, but he is a Lizardfolk.  

But you don’t play Godzilla to play someone eloquent and dashing.  Crush your enemies and remind them who the King of the Monsters really is. 

[yeonchi]

Kisekae Insights #13: Sea Princesses Part 3 (Moushouden Series History)

(Art by Minake, DiscordingChaos, Ryu-yaoista, Necrolyzer92 and sagiturn)

Over the course of reviewing the Sea Princesses series, some mysteries have come up – would the Drylander boy ever meet the Salacians again, was that Drylander girl actually a descendant of the Barracuda Royal Family, could Marcela actually be Marcello’s sister, what’s the deal with Duante and what would become of the princes and princesses 10-15 years after the events of the series? The last mystery is obvious given the topic of this instalment, but I’ll be answering those mysteries by telling you about the Sea Princesses’ involvement in the Moushouden Series.

I was hoping that those mysteries would be answered during my reviews of the Princesas do Mar books, but to be honest, I’m kind of glad that they weren’t, otherwise my headcanons would have been ruined.

A funny thing about the cover image for this instalment – I wanted to use fanarts that showed the Sea Princesses as adults to signify their age in the Moushouden Series (approx. 20-22 in 2018), but since I couldn’t find a decent fanart for Tubarina (I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, good Sea Princesses fanart is hard to find), I decided to use a fairly decent one with Marli instead. Anyway, let’s jump right into it.

The storylines covered in this instalment include several episodes of Kamen Rider Decade in 2018, along with a few episodes of Soulbound Series 3 and 4, broadcast in 2019 and 2021. However, some context is required in order to understand those storylines.

(Art by Rainbow’s Network)

The Marcello/Marcela discrepancy

If you’ve watched Sea Princesses (the cartoon series, that is), you will know that there is a character named Marcello, who is the Hammerhead Shark Prince and Tubarina’s cousin. Not many people know about this, but in the books, there is a character named Marcela, who is the Hammerhead Shark Princess and Tubarina’s cousin.

Getting the picture here? Marcello is an exclusive character to the cartoon series (and one literacy series book) while Marcela is an exclusive character to the main series books. The only difference is that while Marcello is a regular character who has appeared in nearly half the series, Marcela is the equivalent of a background character who was only shown on one page of the first book. I was disappointed with the latter as I was hoping to see Marcela have a prominent role in the books.

Marcello is a bit of a wild boy who likes to tease girls and cause trouble, while Marcela is an intelligent girl who is calm and religious. Is it possible for those two to exist together? Hell yes. You can imagine the kind of sass that happens between those two (kind of like Morty and Morticia, but I digress).

Now, as Rainbow has kindly highlighted in her post, Marcello and Marcela are not twins because their ages and zodiac signs are different; Marcello is 8 years old and a Cancer, while Marcela is 7 years old and a Virgo. Here are their birthday time windows:

Marcello: 22 June – 22 July 1996

Marcela: 23 August – 21 September 1997

Assuming a typical pregnancy period of 40 weeks, I can conclude that it would be possible for both Marcello and Marcela to exist, even though the time period between pregnancies would be a bit quicker than six months, the minimum recommended time quoted by some studies (other studies have recommended 18 months, which is really saying something).

Marcela didn’t make her debut in the project until 2018, so what happened to her before then? In 2000, during the second Battle of Kawanakajima, Marcela was accidentally sent to a parallel universe when the Master attempted to open a portal between Salacia and Dryland. In the parallel universe, she was found by an Oni Rider named Hibiki (played by Yuki Kubota), who raised and trained her as his apprentice so that she could take on her master’s name and become an Oni like himself.

When the Beta Uprising threatened their world in 2018, Hibiki passed down his equipment to Marcela and give her instructions to protect a boy, Yuki Yamaki, from the Chads. Sure enough, Marcela managed to save the boy, but Marcela was kidnapped by the Stacies and brainwashed to fight Yuki, who the Chads had other plans for before he managed to escape them. Hiroki became involved as Decade and after he destroyed that universe, Yuki and Marcela were dragged into Hiroki’s universe.

Hiroki and Narutaki (they were allies by that point in the story) left Yuki and Marcela about five months back in time. They had no memories of what happened in the Beta Uprising (due to their future selves being present), but the only thing they remembered was that they were enemies; Yuki blamed Marcela for killing his lover and destroying his world, while Marcela blamed Yuki for killing her family. Every time they met, they would fight until one of them was defeated or told the truth.

Later, the past Narutaki found Marcela and used her as a pawn to fight the past Hiroki. Hiroki managed to convince Yuki not to kill the only person who might know the truth about what happened and so, they defeated Marcela and broke her brainwashing, leaving her with no recollection of what happened.

The two decided to work together to find out the mysteries of their past, eventually becoming a couple in the process. In the following episode, Marcello reunited with (or rather, met) his long-lost sister, initially meeting as enemies before reconciling as siblings.

Answering the Barracuda Kingdom saga

One thing that really pissed me off in the animated series was how they didn’t provide a solution to the Barracuda Kingdom saga. The Lost Kingdom provides a good setup as the girls manage to get the barracuda to rebuild their fallen palace. The New Princess adds to that setup with the possibility of a Drylander girl being a descendant of the Barracuda Royal Family, but it only gives more questions than answers which are never picked up after that episode.

So, you want my answer to the question raised in The New Princess? Yes, the girl and her mother are in fact descendants of the Barracuda Royal Family. This would somehow explain how they were able to read Polvina’s book on the kingdom and leave a message for the girls upon leaving, assuming that the book was written in the Salacian language.

And by the way, what is the girl’s name? Her name is Windy Adams. The name Windy is an homage to the Drylander girl who is the namesake character of the book The Windy Letters.

Duante, the wandering asshole

If you’ve watched The Healer, you will probably recognise this asshole, who goes around helping animals, but doesn’t want to make friends with anyone, let alone tell anyone his name. I blame this guy for possibly taking what could have been Dinho’s only appearance in the series, even though Dinho isn’t even in the series as a background character.

Given his ability to talk to and understand every fish and animal in Salacia, we can presume that Duante was appointed by the goddess Salacia to be a secret guardian, even more secret than the blowfish in The Guardians.

Naturally, someone like him is honestly waiting for an opportunity to be used in one of my stories. Read on to the end and you’ll find out my plans for him.

In regards to the Drylander boy

Despite the Salacians’ fear, dread and hatred for the Drylanders, there have been examples of Drylanders who mean no harm to Salacia. In the books, there is A Shadow in the Water, but in the animated series, there is the Drylander boy saga.

In The Boy, the girls and Leia were helping a young beached whale when they see the boy coming onto the beach. As the boy tries to help the whale, the girls disguise themselves with seaweed in an attempt to conceal themselves from him. The boy is initially scared off, but when the girls see that he hasn’t left, they try to get him to help them with the whale. Later on, the boy has success stopping three other whales from coming onto the beach, something that Leia failed to do. Together, they get the young whale off the beach and back into the sea. The girls thank the boy and they part ways.

Off-screen, the boy tells his friends about his encounter, but they didn’t believe him, so he set out to try and get photos of them, which brings us to his appearance in The Secret Admirer. He puts some shells on some rocks in an attempt to lure out one of the princesses (presumably, he recognised them because they didn’t fully disguise themselves in their last encounter). Eventually, he manages to take a photo of Polvina, which leads her to seek out his camera. They get Tentie to distract the boy so the girls can take his camera, but he manages to take a photo of them. The flash of the camera attracts the attention of a mother shark as it was scaring her baby. She manages to rip the camera off the boy and destroy it. With the boy a long way away from shore, the girls cover him with seaweed as they help him there. They leave the boy a shell for him before they head back.

So what is the boy’s name in my project? His name is Daniel Camielez. He made a cameo during the Salacian Rebellion storyline in Three Kingdoms Series 3, where he laments the senseless violence and prays for a chance to see Polvina (and the girls) again.

Daniel’s friends still didn’t believe that he met the princesses because he had no evidence to prove that he did. When the Salacians began to rebel against the Drylanders in 2010, Daniel’s friends realised that he was right and they began helping him find them. However, the years passed and they lost interest, though Daniel never gave up hope. In 2015, the father of one of Daniel’s friends, Kelvin Galvarro, was dragged into Mirror World and devoured by the Mirror Monsters, which were created by the Shark King, alongside the Salacian Kamen Riders, to kill Drylanders that had committed crimes against their world. This reignited Kelvin’s interest to seek out the Salacians and avenge his father’s death and so, he joined Daniel in his search once again. At some point, Narutaki gave Daniel and Kelvin the Ryuki and Knight Advent Decks, allowing them to become Kamen Riders.

Now that the background context is out of the way, let’s get right into the stories.

Decade Episode 3+4: The Awakening Instinct

Zhuge Shu’s instinct was awakened when he and his family encountered an Unidentified Lifeform (Gurongi), marking the start of his metamorphosis into Agito. Normally, the Agito power would be passed down the Mermaid Royal Family bloodline, but because Zhuge Shu was half-Drylander, his power was tainted and thus, could only become Kamen Rider (Exceed) Gills, an incomplete version of Agito. Eventually, his instincts went out of control as he found himself being targeted by the Unknown (Lords), which led him to become afraid of them.

His son, Zhuge Sōta, began feeling similar effects to his father as his instinct was being awakened as well. It is revealed that if there is an imperfect Agito, then the power continues to be passed down until a perfect Agito can be found. This meant that Sōta would become Agito as he was less Drylander than his father.

At this point in the story, Narutaki had allied with Nozama Pharmaceuticals, led by a man named Kino, and the Amazon Riders. Kino can transform into Kamen Rider Another Agito and his true identity is the Paradoxa Undead. Juli and Jessi, under the surname Aquami, acted as Nozama’s directors. In the first part of the story, Narutaki confronts Hiroki as Decade while Kino, Juli and Jessi fight the Gurongi and the Ant Lords when they come in. At the end of that episode, Kino fights Decade, Kuuga, Agito and Gills following their fight with Taurus Ballista.

Following this, Zhuge Shu continued to suffer from his instincts until Narutaki gave him the Chalice Rouzer, which placed him under her control as he became the Joker Undead. In the second part of the story, Sōta used his instincts to find his father and with the help of Decade, Blade and a mysterious woman, they managed to seal the Joker’s power into a Rouse Card, allowing Zhuge Shu to regain control of himself and suppress the effects of the flawed Agito metamorphosis by making him part-Undead. From then on, Zhuge Shu would fight as Kamen Rider Chalice.

The mysterious woman was revealed to be Serena, the Mermaid Princess and Zhuge Shu’s mother. It turned out that she fell into a coma after being “killed” by the Shark King and was rescued by a local family, who took care of her for a few years. Eventually, the search for her son led her to BOARD, who agreed to assist her.

Decade Episode 7: Displaced Spirits

Hiroki, Kayley and Firerose are in Cardiff Bay when Narutaki summons hordes of witches, Makamou and Insect Army troops in the city centre. Yuki Yamaki sees this and is about to head to the scene, but Marcela confronts him and they fight. Hiroki, Kayley and Firerose transform and attempt to break the fight up, only for the two Riders to escape.

As Decade chases after Magica and Hibiki, Marli and Maurico’s Oni Rider factions emerge from the River Taff. While they confront and fight Kabuto and Gatack, Narutaki transforms into Duke and confronts Decade just as he defeats Hibiki and Magica. Duke finishes off Magica with the Sonic Arrow and kills Decade by using Hibiki’s Final Form Ride, but not before Narutaki reveals the details of Marcela’s past to Hiroki in an “omae wa mou shindeiru” moment. However, once Duke and Hibiki retreat, Yuki discovers that the power of his Soul Gem can resurrect Hiroki – this is because Hiroki used to have the same magical boy powers Yuki did until he lost them following his final regeneration.

Later, once Hiroki, Yuki, Kayley and Firerose hear that Narutaki and the Oni Riders are fighting the police and military in Pontcanna, they head there to fight them. Decade uses the Magica Final Form Ride card to unlock Magica’s final form before they work together to defeat Narutaki’s army. Narutaki and her comrades retreat while Marcela loses her memories of what happened.

Decade Episode 8: The Searching Boy

Obviously, this episode was named after the Sea Princesses episode The Boy.

In Santos, Kayley meets Kelvin Galvarro, who tells her about the Salacian Riders and the Mirror Monsters. He and Daniel hear mirror noises (yeah, we’re calling it that) and they enter Mirror World to fight, with Kayley transforming into Diend and following them in as well.

Meanwhile, in another part of Santos, Firerose is pulled into a mirror by a Dispider and Hiroki transforms to save him. After Decade and Kuuga defeat the Dispider, they are surrounded by the Shark King’s Riders, Mirror Monsters and Salacian Army troops. Ryuki, Knight and Diend arrive to save them and take them back to Kelvin’s apartment. Hiroki calls in a favour from the Octonauts so he and the others can investigate what is going on in Salacia. They are also joined by Yuki and Marcela.

At the end of the Next Gen Series, the Kōmeikyō disbanded and everyone reaffirmed their loyalty to the goddess Salacia. As Narutaki and Lorah are overseeing the training of the other Salacian Riders, the Octopod approaches Lorah’s castle and Narutaki challenges Hiroki to battle. While Hiroki transforms into Decade, Narutaki uses her EFTPOS Gunmorpher (an original transformation item made for this project’s version of Decade) to transform into Kamen Rider Gold Drive. Since Gold Drive can use Rider Cards like Decade and Diend, she is able to withstand Decade’s attacks. After more Riders join the fight, Gold Drive has Agostinha and Squid Girl turn down the signal’s strength, causing Decade and Kuuga to begin drowning. Decade manages to escape back to the Octopod using the Kuuga Gouram.

It is then that Narutaki and Lorah decide to begin their invasion. On top of a building on Dryland, the goddess Salacia transforms into Kamen Rider Saga and causes a time slowdown. Hiroki, Kayley and Firerose are immune from its effects due to the Shift Cars and Signal Bike they possess (thanks to Krim Steinbelt). As the Salacian Riders pass the Octopod, Daniel locks eyes with Polvina while Marcela locks eyes with Marcello.

When the Octopod crashes onto the beach, Hiroki gives his Signal Bike to Daniel as he and Kayley attempt to stop the slowdown. Ryuki finds Saga on top of a building and uses Dragreder to knock her down, causing the slowdown to stop. A battle ensues as seven Riders (Decade, Diend, Kuuga, Ryuki, Knight, Magica and Hibiki) face off against the entire Salacian Army, which includes Gold Drive and 33 Salacian Riders. Odin attempts to entice Decade with the Time Vent card so he can change the past however he wishes, but Decade refuses, saying that there are many people he wouldn’t have met had his life not gone down the way it had. After the Riders eliminate the Mirror Monsters and Salacian Army troops, Decade uses Ryuki’s Final Form Ride to transform Dragreder into Dragranzer without Ryuki using Survive Form. Dragranzer defeats all the Contract Monsters before Decade uses Ryuki’s Final Attack Ride to perform an attack similar to the Dragon Fire Storm alongside Ryuki.

It is then that Narutaki reveals Lorah, Tata, Hugo, Salacia and Firerose’s friend (who was featured in episodes 3+4 but not in this episode until this point) as Roidmudes along with her plan for the Global Freeze before retreating. The Shark King finally accepts the prospect of working with the Drylanders to protect the ocean. Daniel gives Polvina a flower and she gives him a shell, while Marcello offers to reunite Marcela with her family.

In the rest of Decade

The 13 Ryuki Riders make an appearance in episode 9, where they help fight the Roidmudes as Decade, Drive and their comrades deal with Gold Drive and stop the Global Freeze.

In the Gokaiger vs. Decade crossover special, the Salacian Riders are shown fighting various Ranger teams before they work together to fight the villain of the special (who is also the villain of the Decade TV movie).

Ryuki, Magica and Hibiki are featured in the series finale two-parter. Yuki and Marcela (along with Zhuge Qiao) attempt to convince Narutaki to leave this world as they believed that travels are causing the black hole paradox to worsen (she is actually taking Decade’s place in the episode as Hiroki went off to explore somewhere before he became the Destroyer of Worlds). Later on, Ryuki and Blade are shown fighting Decade Violent Emotion (just like in Movie War 2010).

In Age of Riders Ultimax, the Salacian Riders join Decade, Diend, Kuuga and Gold Drive as they are sent to a world ravaged by the Beta Uprising. There, they learn the circumstances of Yuki and Marcela’s past before returning to their world, where Hiroki and Narutaki take their past selves back in time. At the end of the movie, the Salacians sign a peace treaty with the Drylanders. By this point, Yuki and Marcela have become a couple.

Soulbound Series 3: Dark Sea Princess

The Sea Princesses had a tribute two-parter in Arc 11, shared with the tributes for Madoka Magica and some other series. Before that, however, the Shark, Starfish and Octopus Kings appeared in a tribute episode in Arc 4 way back in Series 1. It was shared with the tribute for Angelina Ballerina and it showed the fifth Battle of Kawanakajima in 2009. They didn’t do much though; the three kings led their troops to attack the Takeda camp, then they retreated when the Yellow Monkey of the Freaky Monkey Five intruded in the battle as they refused to work with the Drylanders.

In the two-parter, Yuki and Marcela are shown living in seclusion from humanity as the rejected beings of their universe (in reference to their backstories). In addition to fighting Horrors, witches, wraiths and rumours, they are also the temporary hosts of Ultraman Gaia and Agul. Also, as stated in Part 1, six new Riders make their debut in this series, including Miss Marla (Amazon New Alpha) and Zhuge Shu’s mother, Serena (Banki).

When the Salacian Riders attack Drylanders on the beach, Torchwood Pleiades (made up of magical girls) arrives to fight them. The main characters of Soulbound, namely the Barrier Base and SEPTAN crews, arrive to fight the Salacian Riders, but Takumi Kamijō and Homura Akemi intrude in the battle, challenging each other to see who can defeat the most warriors (the two had been fighting other magical girls throughout the episode).

In the second part of the two-parter, there is a very big battle where Takumi and Homura fight the Salacian Riders, the Soulbound characters and the Magia Record characters (up to the end of October 2019). The magical boy and girl are so strong that not even the Riders in their final forms can make a scratch on them. The battle causes negative emotions and minus energy to collect in the sky; Kyubey uses it to provide energy for the universe while the byproducts form into a giant monster named Kanaderos. Yuki, Marcela and Hikaru Tomokaze transform into their respective Ultramen and defeat the monster.

The Salacian Riders are also featured in the final episodes of the series (Arc 12), where they play minor roles in the battles.

Soulbound Series 4: The Aqua Conspiracy and the Poseidon Myth

In Soulbound Series 3, I wrote that while Windy Adams, the Drylander girl from The New Princess, and her marine archaeologist mother, were the descendants of the Barracuda Royal Family, their whole family was killed by Dai-Shocker around the end of Decade. At the time, I couldn’t think of anything to write for her and I didn’t want to bother; I could have disregarded them or said that the girl wasn’t a descendant, but I honestly wanted to give an answer to that mystery.

However, plans changed while I was writing Soulbound Series 4. I decided to give Windy her name and write a story for both her and Duante. At the time of writing this instalment, I have barely gotten halfway into the first episode of a two-parter detailing the story; I had decided to take a break at the end of August to focus on some side projects. Since I decided to delay the premiere of this series as well due to the coronavirus lockdown, I’ll share some details of what I have planned just as a sneak peek. Revealing stories before their release isn’t something that writers normally do, but since this is just my project, what the hell.

While her family was killed by Dai-Shocker, Windy had managed to survive when she was possessed by a Greeed named Poseidon, who was formed in the new Core Medals that the Kougami Foundation were developing when they reacted to a black hole paradox.

From that point on, Windy would become Kamen Rider Poseidon. Her attacks across the land would attract the attention of Duante, who was fighting as Kamen Rider Aqua. The goddess Salacia met Hiroki at Itsukushima Shrine (dressed as a shrine maiden) and asks him for help finding her two lost children, namely Windy and Duante.

That is really all I have for now, though I will share one tidbit which is unrelated to Sea Princesses, but related to the two-parter. Kamen Rider OOO will also be featured in the two-parter along with the Kougami Foundation Riders. Aside from using the new Combos of the CSM OOO Driver, he will also use an original Combo made from existing medals. This original combo is the Yadopangaru Combo, made by using the Yadokari (Hermit Crab), Panda and Kangaroo Core Medals. OOO can retract his head to dodge attacks, use the panda claws to attack and do pogo-like hops with the kangaroo legs. Its Scanning Charge finisher, Telescopic Crush, allows OOO to retract himself as small as possible before leaping very high into the air and performing a fast and heavy Rider Kick.

This marks the end of six months of Sea Princesses content on my Tumblr. It’s pretty amazing how much I put into and got out of a series that received little reception over the years. I’m probably the only fan of the series who has been able to achieve that much.

I’ve said before that I have plans to adapt Kamen Rider Zi-O next year and I will tell you now that the Sea Princesses will be featured in a few episodes. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, but for now, this has been the involvement of Sea Princesses in my personal project.

[arcticdementor]

Two years ago, when reviewing “The Benedict Option”, I wrote, “Almost all Dreher’s critics accuse him of crying wolf or being a Chicken Little at best … Meanwhile, I’m saying that Dreher is underestimating his enemy, painting an overly rosy picture, and not being nearly alarmist enough.”

This is still true.

“Wait, what?  Totalitarianism!  Gulags!”

I know!

Let me explain; I promise hope, this will be shorter than last time.

…

First, Dreher’s critics, while still far too blasé and insouciant about the end-game-level crisis racing straight for them, have at least started to acknowledge that something’s happening here, what it is ain’t exactly clear, but that some greater degree of consternation and freak-out is now warranted.

But they are still far, far behind the power curve on this one.

As a friend of mine put it, “The single biggest problem is lag-seriousness.  We are always just at best about grim enough for yesterday’s battle.”

That is where “Dreher’s Law of Merited Impossibility” comes from.  “It will never happen, and when it does, you bigots will deserve it.”  If it were possible, despite denials, and by pointing out a clear logical implication of progressive ideology – and even going so far as to supplement with the early appearances of those explicit proposals – to scare conservatives enough, early enough, to do whatever it takes to avoid it, then the impossible wouldn’t keep happening to them, over and over again.

But it’s almost never feasible to do this.  It turns out this is the one impossibility.  The frogs never jump out of the pot in time to avoid another scalding.  The need is not to be grim enough for yesterday, but for today, so that tomorrow won’t bring your final sunset.

That puts Dreher in the position of a Cassandra.

…

In “Live Not By Lies”, Dreher seems to assume that something like faithful Christianity as we know it today is going to go through a profoundly difficult era of persecution, but still, its adherents having prepared for it, it will persist at some level despite intense suffering until, well, ‘deliverance’.  Perhaps not in the Acts 12:3 sense, but then again, maybe so.  How else?

…

That’s why even Dreher isn’t radicalized enough yet, because he doesn’t seem to fully grapple with the gloomy prospects for his tradition that is the clear implication of his own arguments about the overwhelming magnitude of the problem.  That is: termination.  Slow and steady and (mostly) gentle evaporation under the relentless heat of the sun until the last drop of water finally evaporates and the spiritual desert goes completely dry.

It would be like Travis telling the defenders of the Alamo that Santa Anna was sending a force in the morning that outnumbered them ten to one, that supplies were nearly exhausted, and reinforcements too far away to help.  But with a tone of brutal optimism, “It’s going to be really rough boys, but if we’re tough enough, we’ll make it.” – “Um, rough?  Well Travis, come hell or high water, I’m happy to make a stand and fight by your side.  No rendirse!  But to be frank, from the way you put it, I reckon it sounds like we’re all going to die.”

…

Now, before I explain why, let me get to the second piece of good news and commend Dreher for a wonderful second half of the book, which contained the inspiring and gut-wrenching stories of what it was like for people of faith behind the Iron Curtain to be the subjects of Communist anti-Christian oppression.

As I look over my notes, I see almost no comments or criticisms in that half.  The testimonies speak for themselves.  These harrowing and moving tales of triumphs of fidelity and perseverance in the face of the hardships and miseries of hard totalitarianism don’t need any gloss.  The stories of these brave people deserve your study, and their memories your honor.

However.

What is both terrible and true is that a month later you are probably going to forget all their names, forget the details of their persecution, and come away with the same rough impression and vague understanding you already have. This is that Christians had it really bad in a place where Christianity was once all of life but had been evicted, that some of them nevertheless stayed devoted, and others gave the last full measure of devotion.  Others resisted, and some of them even lasted long enough on the road through hell to make it through to the other side.

Though, in a way, it was lucky for them there was the other side: that didn’t happen everywhere.  If the Soviets had then what the Chinese have now, likely there would have been no interviews or happy endings.  You can’t even forget a martyr’s name if you never got the chance to hear about his martyrdom in the first place.

…

Alas, this is not really a manual at all, and regardless of whether Dreher is dropping some kind of Straussian signal with that, it’s surprising that few of his critics have noticed the problem.

An actual manual is more than just general rough guidelines; it has clear, specific, step-by-step instructions for how to accomplish some identified, well-defined task or troubleshoot typical problems.  It cannot be a bunch of personal narratives, and, “Follow their lead; just be like them.  Refuse to bend, like Benda.”

If one picked up, say, a survival manual, one would expect to emerge knowing how to start a fire and build a shelter.  A beginner’s cookbook will at least tell you precisely how long to boil an egg.

What does Dreher tell us to do in an age of persecution?  “Embrace Suffering.” “Choose a Life Apart from the Crowd.”  “Reject Doublethink and Fight for Free Speech.”  “Cherish Truth-Telling but Be Prudent.”  “Cultivate Cultural Memory.” “See, Judge, Act.”

He doesn’t get much more specific.  I think he believes he got more specific – “form small cells … read other books,” and the recitation of Solzhenitsyn’s Six Hard Rules on page 18 – but it’s not actually the case.  “See, Judge, Act” is just a description of any rational decision-making process, and “Yeah, but this is Persecuted Christian decision-making,” doesn’t actually put meat on the bones.  These are mostly motivation stimulants and abstract encouragements of the right general attitudes, but those do no a ‘manual’ make.

These are like ordering the military to “Be able to fight and win wars,” and then someone else develops the *actual* doctrine and writes the field manuals.  These commandments, like the Decalogue itself, just raise a host of questions, “How much suffering?  How far apart from the crowd?  Which crowd?  How do I identify doublethink?  Fight for free speech how?  Fight for hate speech too?  Where is the line between prudence and paying so much lip-service I lose my soul?”

…

But how is some ordinary person who needs an actual manual supposed to live not by lies, if the famous, influential guy writing the admonition feels just as compelled by circumstances and prudence to live by omitting the lies?

There should have been at least one page that went like this:

You as a Christian are going to be strongly pressured to “wear the ribbon” and to say the following things which do not accord with the truths of our faith, and in order to live not by lies, you must be willing to sacrifice, suffer if necessary, and never say …

Never say what, exactly?  Yes, integrity in general is a virtue, but obviously Dreher is talking about the Big Lies.

But in his book, there is a surprising paucity of actual lies.  Isn’t that something?  First it’s strange, then it’s puzzling, and then when you solve the puzzle, demoralizing.

My take is the answer to the puzzle of absence is Dreher’s actual manual, the one you are supposed to figure out.  The most critically strategic task is to preserve precisely this kind of room for maneuver: the freedom to speak the truth and to condemn the lies.  If you still can, if there is still some crack open in the window of opportunity, then you must band together and stop your opponents from being able to impose their rival orthodoxy on you, which forces that absence and omission and uses that dominance to call your lies truth and your love hate.

If you can’t do that, if you missed your chance to make that stand, then like the Alamo, it’s only a matter of time.

…

Otherwise, without the list of lies one lacks a clear idea of the threat one faces, and so vague guidelines are all that are left and there is no possibility of a manual with precise instructions.  But with the lies, the enemy hears his own name like the aliens hear a scream in “A Quiet Place”, and then come down on you like a ton of bricks.

VI. From whence the cascade

Well, look, no sense getting some bricks in the face if one can avoid it, that’s just being smart and prudent.  Though, inconveniently, it’s Dreher himself who quotes Milosz to argue against this kind of seductive logic.

Better logic would be to say that one can reason that the intended audience probably knows the lies already, and knows that they have been weak, acquiesced, and lived by them.  They know what they are supposed to stand up for already, and they know they have failed to do so.  They know who their enemies are, and they know they have failed to resist them.  You don’t need to list the lies to send a signal to all these people that, by the very fact of this book existing, knowing that it is being digested by so many other people, they are not alone, and they can act differently.

But what the audience still doesn’t know is what to do about it.  Dreher may not know either.  Notice: a thousand Benedict Option startups have not bloomed.  The Benedict Option was criticized as crazy and alarmist, but again, the ugly, gloomy truth is that it’s actually the hopeful, optimistic, and practically wishful-thinking take on things.  Most likely, there is no such option.

…

The anti-audience already believes Dreher is far more of a kook and Chicken Little than his Christian critics do, and just a continuation of “The Paranoid Style In American Politics.” To them, Dreher can get in the back of the line behind the McCarthyists, “Eisenhower was a Commie!” John Birchers, QAnon conspiracy theorists, and low-status judgment-day-is-just-around-the-corner-all-the-signs-are-actually-happening prepper types.  They are once again proclaiming the first half of the law, “It will never happen.”

And without the list of lies, their argument wins the day.  It seems fully plausible and convincing.  It sounds like this:

Oh look at these idiots going off again.  Here we are, just trying to make sure love wins and hate loses.  Our ‘radical ideology’ amounts to “Don’t be a bigot, help your fellow man, and keep your toxic hatefulness to yourself.”  Everybody should be included, and nobody ought to be unjustly discriminated against.  Simple, self-evident, human universals, really, do real, loving Christians really disagree so much with any of those?  And because the white supremacist homophobes can’t think of anything else to say in response, the hide behind ‘Christianity’ as a pathetic rationalization for their simple irrational animus, and resort to inventing fantasies like gulags and torture rooms and KGB agents.  Like *they’re* the victims!  Delusional!  What kind of creepy psychological problems do they have to really imagine that with all their wealth, comfort, freedom, privilege, and petty first world problems, that they are remotely spiritual kin with people who endured the worst suffering possible?  Crazy!

Do you see the problem?  It’s the ‘merited’ part of the law.  Dreher wants to respond with the simple truth, “We’re not bigots, and we don’t deserve it.”  The response would be, “Ok, let’s find out.  What is it exactly that you are going to insist on believing or doing, that we would possibly think was worth throwing you into a gulag?”

He can’t beat around the bush with something general and evasive, “For being devout Christians.”

The response (at least from the rare one who knows anything about Christianity) would be as follows:

Look, we just think your religion is mostly a collection of mythological fantasies and superstitious prohibitions, but combined with a salvageable core of a worthy moral perspective that, like almost all ancient and traditional lines of philosophy, represents an incomplete and imperfect grasping toward the same ethical framework we now hold dear.  That’s why Jefferson rewrote the bible, removing all those superfluous distractions.  Following the actual bible seems kind of nutty and backward to us, but now that it’s in clear political retreat in terms of numbers and influence, and since most self-identified Christians don’t really seem to live like they take most of it seriously, we regard it as mostly harmless.  So long as you keep it to yourselves.

So, nobody is going to throw you in the gulag for going to church.  Or for believing Jesus is Lord, that he is the Savior of humanity and God’s only son, that he was born in Bethlehem of the Virgin Mary who in turn was immaculately conceived, that he performed miracles, made water into wine, multiplied bread and fishes, walked upon water, healed the sick, raised the dead, died for our sins, and was resurrected.  That he saves his people by means of their repentance and confession to sin and commanded his followers to love each other and their neighbors and their enemies, and to spread his word and the gospel of the good news of their salvation to every soul.

Seriously now, is that not Christian enough or you?  Are these not the central claims of Christianity?  Is that not enough freedom to be a Christian?

And we aren’t going to do a single thing to anyone for any of that.  Why would we even care?  Maybe if proselytizing is done obnoxiously in an imposing manner and makes people feel unsafe and not included.  But let’s face it, 99.99% of American Christians aren’t ever doing that anymore, so it’s kind of absurd to spook them, right?  Now we will insist that you not discriminate against LGBTs, and not to teach people to hate them, and yes, you will indeed get merited punishment if you persist in doing so.  But seriously, is Hate the hill you are choosing to die on?

As another friend of mine put it, “We do not want you to subtract from your faith, only to add to it.  Just don’t be a jerk and you’ll be just fine.”

One simply cannot give this line of argument anything like an adequate response without getting right into the contrasts between what one believes and what one’s opponents believe, that is, between the truth and the lies.  It’s a no-win situation.  Without naming the lies, the progressives will suspect Dreher’s audience are closeted bigots.  Naming the lies, open bigots.  C’est la guerre.

Unlike in the Soviet Union, the progressives don’t see mere belief and worship as inherently threatening, and so aren’t interested in prison and torture for merely belonging to a faith, going to church, being a priest, and so forth.  They look at ‘worship’ in “freedom of worship” in the same ’boutique’ manner that Fish explained as the way they look at culture in “multiculturalism”.  That is, by definition, non-threatening to the imperialist program of imposing progressive orthodoxy on everyone, everywhere.

In other words, Fake Religious Tolerance, and Fake Multiculturalism.  Fake, because it is precisely at the important friction points that the freedom or the multi ends.  Now, as Winnifred Sullivan explained, whether genuine religious freedom is even possible in anything like our system is an interesting question, but the point is that one can’t have any coherent discourse on the subject real or fake tolerance, without identifying those points of difference.

…

Now, the approach Dreher has taken has been to say that, of course it won’t actually be ‘hard’ torture and gulags, it will be ‘soft’ totalitarianism.  Dreher would have given his argument much more punch had he marshaled the parade of horribles of all the “never going to happen”s that are definitely going to happen, probably soon.  Without getting into the lies, he could still have collected in one place the likely sequence of escalation of oppressive state policies and mob pressures which will be brought to bear against Christian (and other) holdouts in the mopping-up operations.

They’ll penalize or dis-accredit private school, take away homeschooling, have child protective services yank your kids away if you try, mandate offensively heretical curriculum on core moral issues, kick your kids out of athletic competitions and related chances for scholarships, boycott your businesses, commercially excommunicate you as unhireable, and ineligible to use the internet or transactions system, give your kids abortions or sex hormones behind your back, take away your guns, allow the mob to walk right up to your front door and smash your windows with impunity, and if you try to defend yourself, you’ll be the one who gets arrested.

To his Christian readers, that parade of horribles will feel closer and more plausible and real, thus helping to raise their alarm to more accurate levels.  Some may reject these claims at first, but as they start coming true, one after the other, he will seem nothing less than, well, prophetic.  Cassandra was cursed, but Dreher can build a track record.

The trouble is, while all these things will happen, unlike in the Soviet system, they will never need to be ubiquitous or even common, so they can always be rhetorically dismissed as rare aberrations.  No one is going to publish a ‘study’ with some nice scatter plots showing the increase in the persecution index.  In the contemporary media environment, one hanged admiral – a pizza shop, a cake decorator, an expelled student, a heterodox professor – encourages millions of the others, to just give in and side with the strong horse, the cool horse.  You only have to hang one or two admirals a year, (only after groveling apologies of course) and soon enough, the whole Navy has surrendered, concludes that those admirals had it coming, and that they “weren’t being smart.”

…

The thing about hard totalitarianism is the fact of brutal oppression is inescapably clear to everyone.  Sure, it will be rationalized and justified, but that people know it’s there if they step out of line is half the point.  And if one is not enjoying being on the delivering end, the common human psychological instinct is to resent such domination.

‘Soft’ is totally different.  People will still have choices, but if they choose ‘wrong’ in the eyes of the elites, then they will just be seen as weirdo losers and low-status pariahs, not martyrs.  The flip-side of resenting domination is admiring, conspicuously affiliating with, and imitating the prestigious.  People – your own fellow Christians too – will look at the refusal to pinch incense for Caesar the same way they look at a hermit’s refusal of all society.  When you think about it, the hermit who could fit in if he wanted to is just persecuting himself.

…

The perception of dual loyalty would mean that you would be spied on, that your closest friends would be recruited to inform against you, and that you would hit an unacknowledged but hard glass ceiling in your career path, “Performance Assessment: A highly competent and reliable professional with unlimited leadership potential, but … does not adequately demonstrate he fully shares our values and commitment to progress.  Pass over for promotion absent a critical personnel shortage in his field.”

And of course, you would never be told: a breeding ground for paranoia and self-doubt.  Nevertheless, if you kept your head down otherwise, you could enjoy a normal life and even some measure of personal success and respect.

Sometimes, to remind people who’s boss, an ‘informant’ would be told to make up some baloney accusations and the local priest would get arrested and interrogated, maybe leaned on to make more false accusations of his colleagues.  No one would hear about him for days.  Then, usually, he was released with a stern warning to watch his back.

When he showed up again at services, what happened?  His whole congregation would weep for joy and relief, hugs and handshakes for hours, invitations and offers of support.  He would be a kind of minor hero, a kind of minor martyr, honored and dignified.  There were thousands of such events in the second half the 20th century.  That’s worthy suffering; inspiring, socially productive suffering.

XI. Live Hard

But what about someone who gets ‘canceled’ today?  Most of the time, it’s the Big Meh, no welcoming arms and no heroic status in one’s reference social group.  Without that, there is no utility in withstanding the suffering, because there is no power of example or remembrance.  Today, if you are accused of ‘hate’, things are such that most of your fellows will feel obliged to act like they believe it, dump you like a bag of dirt, and avoid you like the roof over reactor number three.

Dreher and Benda like to use the example of “High Noon”.  But try to imagine “Low Noon”, where, at the end, all the townspeople ganged up on the sheriff saying, “What the heck did you do that for, you psycho?  Those guys didn’t deserve that!  Now you’ve just gone and made trouble for the rest of us.  Get the heck out of our town, monster!”

…

To throw this into even sharper relief, and to demonstrate the absence of a true ‘manual’, instead of ‘Christianity’, imagine that one is trying to preserve and propagate some even more unpopular views that, while one believes them to be perfectly true, are deeply hated by just about everyone.  Any manual for dissidents necessarily works in general for any strain of persecuted dissent, and if it speaks to a particular kind of dissident, it is only because is it written in the language they are best able to comprehend.

Now, imagine a group of scattered people who were trying not to propagate Christianity and persevere as Christians, but as Confederates.  Some kind of secret society that saw it all coming since Calhoun and had, against all odds, continued for two centuries to the present day, who believed in the lost cause as the right cause, hereditary racial slavery, and all the rest.  What concrete advice does Dreher give that these people could use?  What advice could anyone give them?

There isn’t any.

This hypothetical makes it easy for everyone to immediately grasp, at this stage in the game, that it’s an impossible task.  The powers that be and 99% of society are fully committed and determined to thoroughly eradicating any remaining trace of those ideas and traditions.  They can do it, they will, they are, they are almost done.  Either the hypothetical Secret Confederates get nukes, or the protection of someone who has them, or (if they weren’t already extinct), their days are numbered.  That’s it, game over.

XIII.  Other Feet

The point is, the Soviet context is simply not the proper analogy for our situation.  That ideas makes it seem like the familiar image of the Romans throwing Christians to wild beasts in some arena.  But the right way to look at it is the other way around, once the Christians had won the upper hand.

The right context is something like Watts’ “The Final Pagan Generation”.

In late antiquity there were still sincere worshipers of Minerva and Apollo and Jupiter, continuing a religious tradition that went back, as it happens, about two thousand years.  And then it ended.  It’s a long story, and yes there was a fair amount of actual persecution as the shoe gradually moved to the other foot, but it wasn’t the key factor.

Gradually, there were fewer and fewer of these people, until there really was a last one.  And when he died, the faith died with him; the chain linking 100 generations was broken, and the line went completely extinct.  The last drop of water evaporated and the ground was dry.  Now, no one praises Jupiter, because their great-grandparents praised Jupiter.

…

Dreher’s “Why Communism Appealed to Russians” is, unfortunately, typical progressive mythological narrative (i.e., widely-swallowed propaganda) and mushy-headed nonsense drawing a line from “poverty and oppression” to the allure of Socialism.  The material circumstances of various populations simply do not constitute the proper explanation for how that particular idea – or any idea – spread and came to dominate.

…

If our own past is a foreign country, the past of foreign countries is too weird and alien to grasp without extensive immersion in its particular history.  We are taught to think of tsarist-era exile in Siberia as a retroactive extension of the Soviet gulags, but it wasn’t like that.  Siberia was like their Australia: a far away place you could send prisoners of all kinds with minimal supervision and the understanding that it was really hard to get back.  You might even hope they would try to take a go at making a life for themselves out there like colonists, because you needed to populate the vast, mostly unpeopled wilderness.

So “exile” at that time was mockable as a kind of Siberian summer camp.  Many of the Bolsheviks who experienced it were practically unguarded and made many successful and attempted escapes.  Stalin wrote of his enjoyment fishing with Tunguses, horseback riding, and of fornication (and procreation!) with 13 year old locals like Lidia Pereprygia.  Brutal, I tell you.

…

By page 41, Dreher admits that “Intellectuals are the Revolutionary Class,” but he might have just said ‘elites’.  Major historical events and struggles between groups are always and everywhere a phenomenon of disputes between classes of elites.

But then a few pages later he goes off course, “To be sure, neither loneliness, not social atomization, not the rise of social justice radicalism among power-holding elites – none of these and other factors discussed here meant that totalitarianism is inevitable.”

Unfortunately, when you are dealing with a replacement religion on the rise, and all the elites believe either in the latest edition of it or the version of it from ten years ago, yes it does.

…

With Chapter Three Dreher gets into Progressivism as Religion, but instead of accurate anthropology, we get the enemy’s version of the story about themselves, which is, as in all similar cases, slightly less than perfectly reliable.

…

If one looks under the hood, one sees that what leftism is mostly about is “redistribution of stuff and status.”  The political formula is a tacitly understood bargain to clients that offers, in exchange for political support, the use of state power to take from the enviable and give to those who envy.

…

Here’s another example of bad history:

The original American dream – the one held by the seventeenth century Puritan settles – was religion: to establish liberty as the condition that allowed them to worship and to service God as dictated by their consciences.

Actually, the Puritans immediately established a suffocatingly strict theocracy that did not tolerate heretics except by necessity, and in which ministers were public officials.  Nathaniel Ward’s or Winthrop’s ‘liberty’ was the liberty to be a pious Puritan, and the lack of liberty to be anything else.  If you were not a member of the church, you were officially a second-class citizen, and they would throw you out for anything.  The Puritans did not give people freedom to make choices according to their consciences about living virtuously or not, see, e.g., Platform of Church Discipline (1648).

Most of this ‘liberty’ story was retconned in the late 18th century during the establishment of the popular mythology of American History.  Once upon a time people like Rothbard thought that perhaps one day American society would come to be so confident and mature that it could replace the white lie mythology with the reality.  No such luck.  Instead we got a new religion that is just replacing it with a much more sinister and malevolent mythology.  That’s how it goes.  There is always a de facto state religion, and it will spread the myths it finds most useful.

…

Dreher does a good job in summarizing some of the claims of progressivism and “critical theory”, but he presents them as if they are to be taken at face value.

There is no such thing as objective truth, there is only power

Yes, you will hear this kind of rhetoric mindlessly parroted all the time, but it is by no means some kind of metaphysical principle consistently applied.  It is little more than an opportunistic tactical pose and a weapon to be deployed only when convenient, just like any double standard.  “Out truths are real, whereas your ‘truths’ are just useful lies you can shove down people’s throats and get them to repeat because you can intimidate and bully them into it.”  The fact that one can’t tell which side is making that statement about the other is what gives that perspective its robustness.

Progressives believe in rule by (credentialed, prestigious) experts, a rule that is legitimated by appeal to superior knowledge of objective truth.  Consider: “Reality-based community” or “Climate change is real.  The science is settled.”  None of that is compatible with the “no such thing” claim.

What about the “Myth of Progress”

It seems to flow naturally from the Myth of Progress as it has been lived out in our mass consumerist democracy, which has for generations defined progress as the liberation of human desire from limits.

No, just Christian limits.  This is an important point, and I think one that Dreher resists or finds hard to appreciate, mostly because progressives usually want mandatory toleration for everything Christianity prohibits.

But progressives are not libertines and have their own comprehensive sexual morality that is in some ways even more restrictive than that of traditional religions.  Is it not actually based on “live and let live,” “different strokes for different folks,” or the “anything goes with consenting adults” principle of volenti non fit iniuria, because in the progressive conception ‘true’ voluntariness and consent can only be valid in the absence of a whole host of pressures, undue influences, and power imbalances.  Contra Dreher, this imposes all manner of limits on human desire, as one can witness watching any tribunal of sex bureaucrats on any American college campus.

…

XX.  Woke Capitalism

At the same time, Big Business has moved steadily leftward on social issues.  Standard business practice long required staying out of controversial issues on the grounds that taking sides in the culture war would be bad for business” – now not taking sides is bad for business. … A powerful coalition of corporate leaders … threatened economic retaliation against [Indiana] if it did not reverse course.

Somehow I missed the reporting about all the progressives who screamed in outrage at this corporate interference in our democracy.

Still, the reason they were able to make these threats is pretty obvious: no one was credibly threatening back.  In a ‘manual’, Dreher would tell his readers what to do about this, but he presents it as a fait accompli and new normal Borg against which all resistance is futile.

…

The real issue is the surveillance, and the power of modern capabilities.  Without going full ‘technological determinism’, my impression is that the reality of software eating the world coupled with the constant tracking and surveillance by all entities with the wherewithal and reach is inevitable and unavoidable.  It is in the basic nature of technological change that once the capability is there, Pandora’s Box cannot remain shut for long.  We are already well past the tipping point on that one.

Yes, all the big institutions constantly spying on everything you do for the rest of time is very creepy and disturbing.  But if one is worried not so much about privacy in general but about persecution in particular, then from a more abstract perspective, there is really no reason to implicate ‘capitalism’ except as yet another mechanism by which powerful social coalitions can apply extralegal coercive pressure while circumventing the rules limiting direct state action.

If the state tolerates this, it is allowing an effectively collateral state to fill the power vacuum by abandoning the field of certain sovereign prerogatives.  This is the real “parallel polis”, much like the mafia is a parallel government on its own turf when the official state is unable or unwilling to take it on.  If the state does not protect its claim to a monopoly on all coercion, hard or soft, then someone else is going to pick up the coercion left lying around.

Then again, sometimes the state wants it that way.  If the mayor needs an inconvenient opponent to disappear, he probably can’t ask his chief of police to get it done for him.  But if he tolerates a Don, he can go to the Don.  If the state is not technically allowed to persecute you directly, if it tolerates some persecutors, it can have them do the persecuting.  In either case, when you pierce the veil, the rectified name for it is conspiracy.  The tragedy is that the veil has countless defenders who will insist that if it didn’t come from behind the veil, no harm no foul.

…

Two decades ago, when we started to become aware of this problem, people guessed that a combination of (1) new cultural adaptations to avoid these hazards, (2) new generations being raised from birth to be familiar with the risks of the internet, and (3) an increasingly long track record of lots of people having their lives publicly ruined, would encourage people to “adjust trim” and be much more cautious and prudent.  

Some people did just that, but, in general, it hasn’t turned out that way.  It seems that psychological effect of the way we interface online – when it seems as if it’s just you and your screen in your own little virtual secret world – makes people feel too “alone and private” to keep their guard up.  Unfortunately, if one assumes this isn’t going to get better any time soon, then one can only conclude that in a time of Christian persecution, ordinary people are going to slip up sooner or later if they touch networked devices at all, and if they refuse to do so, they will out themselves all the same.  Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

What that means is that there is no longer any possibility whatsoever of evading the notice of powerful people who are out to get you.  From the perspective of any serious, capable, and determined state (cough, China) this is now a solved problem.  There can be no secret meetings or clandestine samizdat printing operations or anything like that.  Near the end of the book, Dreher advises, “Christians should educate themselves about the mechanics of running underground cells and networks while they are still free to do so.”  As the Uyghurs would tell you, if they could, that ship has already sailed.  The old mechanics are obsolete and no longer work, and there are no new mechanics.

…

Hard cases make bad law, but there is nothing but a hard choice to make about this undeniable situation.  Either one embraces the principle of “they are private companies so they are free to do whatever they like and the state has nothing to do with it,” and accept, well, ‘extinction’.  Or one says no, undermines the principles of free enterprise and private property, but creates a terrible state power that, eventually, can and will be used by ones enemies too.

On the other hand, all the undermining and regulation has already been done in every other possible way in every other industry and sector, especially all those rules insisting on equal treatment.  Frankly, it’s bizarre to watch advocates insist on straining out the gnat of just this one thing that apparently crosses the line though it threatens half the country with political neutralization, when they are unable to summon up ten percent as much passion for having swallowed as many camels as there are pages in the Code of Federal Regulations.

Speech Is Special.  You can’t argue to get it back once it’s gone.  There can be genuinely free platform companies, or universally safe platform companies, but if companies are only free to the extent it is safe for our enemies to use the platforms to crush us, then crushed we will be.

…

“The essence of modernity is to deny that there are any transcendent stories, structures, habits, or beliefs to which individuals must submit and that should bind our conduct”

He says ‘modernity’ but my impression is that he means modern, secular, leftist progressivism.  But if you are not a progressive, ask yourself, do they seem like they aren’t interested in making you submit and binding your conduct?  Do they lack for stories with unfalsifiable elements that explain why they are entitled to do this?

The progressives imagine that they’ve solved for objective morality.  There is no “dictatorship of relativism.”  The Jacobins are not libertarians “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”  They have a perfectly well-defined concept, and it applies to you too, without any right to define a different one, because error has no rights.

XXV.  Velvet Samizdat:

Perhaps nothing helps to highlight the contrast between Soviet-era or North Korean-style Communist oppression and the current circumstances in America than the irrelevance of ‘samizdat’.  Yes, there is certainly a fair bit of purging and memory-holing, removal of items from curriculum as well as chilling, suppression, and intimidation out there for present-day writers and publishers who wish to go off-narrative.

But all of it has a mostly prospective, deterrent character.  The robust strength of the current system of opinion management is perhaps in no way better demonstrated than by the fact that there is mostly no problem with actual eliminative censorship of the past, with preserving cultural memory, archives, records, and so forth.   Because none of that makes any difference.

All the old books are still out there, accessible to anyone, instantaneously, in their own language, and free, and one doesn’t have to go back very far before most of them have the “currently regarded as problematic” volume knob pegged to eleven.  Don’t even get me started on Greek philosophy!  But almost nobody cares, and it goes unread, and even more unread than one would figure correcting for our increasingly post-literate society.  The ‘soft’ system is so much stronger than the ‘hard’, it is nigh invulnerably, such that brazen, obvious, and easily-disproven falsehoods can be printed without any concern on the part of the authors or publishers whatsoever, who know they’ll win prizes anyway.  

The counterarguments will be allowed to exist, just not allowed to make a difference.  They will never get any attention, buzz, or amplification from prestigious, cool people, and so can be ignored just as if they had been censored.  This is deeply demotivating; why even bother?  In a way, it’s actually better when your enemies know you’re lying and know you can get away with it.  Show’s everyone who’s boss.  No need for samizdat, no point.

…

Dreher is particularly inspired by the Bendas and their commitment to turning their home into a sanctuary, place of refuge, and the ‘parallel polis’ of an alternative community.

But Vaclav Benda had advantages.  The Communist takeover of his country was recent and had been widely predicted.  That meant there was still a large population of people who had grown up in the old days and were formed by that previous order to be loyal to pre-existing commitments, traditions, habits, institutions, and, most importantly, to each other.  That includes Benda himself.  His activities depended on being able to rely on the remnants of that inheritance, along with the nationalistic perception of a brutally oppressive *foreign* occupation.

But pressure and time wears down all things, and another generation or two of persecution, combined with the psychological enervation from a fully indigenous phenomenon such as that in America, and it would have been impossible.

Benda also lived in a time and place where physical proximity was essential and common.  Today it is like herding cats to bring people together, and so the internet is now where all the “private home” discussions are had.  There are plenty of virtual Bendas and little digital salons out there.  They are a great source of consolation and solidarity for dissidents, and the quality of gallows humor is top notch.  But mostly these venues have proven to be impotent and incompetent for any other purpose.  Probably the last old pagans gathered around to drink and talk about their plight, and to joke and complain about those darn Christians as they tried to figure out if there was anything else to be done.  There wasn’t.

XXVII: Man and SuperBenda

If one doesn’t have a manual, perhaps one can imitate a model.  But can the Bendas be models?  A model provides an example that an ordinary person can feasibly replicate.  But the Bendas put the extra in extraordinary.  Inspiring cases of astonishing and, frankly, naturally elite people with incredibly strength of will who are one out of ten thousand are wonderful to hear.  But if that’s what it takes, then any project which relies on typical people following in their footsteps is altogether hopeless.  Consider:

The Benda family model requires parents to exercise discernment.  For example, the Bendas didn’t ops out of popular culture but rather chose intelligently which parts of it they wanted their children to absorb.

I am somewhat less than perfectly confident in the capacity of most ordinary Christians to exercise anything approaching this level of judicious discernment, including the abilities to both choose wisely and intelligently and also to maintain the strict discipline and constant overwatch needed to keep it going, day in, day out.  “Be Like Benda” is a tall order, and if we’re being honest, too tall for too many.

This is a different context from the one in which one would encourage sinners to try to live more like saints, or to imitate the lives of the holy family, as every little step in that direction is an improvement.  As it is in horseshoes and hand-grenades, so it is in holiness: getting closer counts.

But when it comes to resisting overwhelming social pressures, one has to clear tall hurdles, and if one can’t, one cannot move forward.  Imagine you are in the ocean near the beach and someone spots a man-eating shark.  Michael Phelps is there and can out-swim the shark to shore, because he is an extraordinary man.  We all admire his prowess and we can try to imitate what he does, but in our cases it won’t be enough.  Phelps is going to make it, but we will be shark food.

…

Near the end of the book, Dreher writes, “The culture war is largely over— and we lost.  The Grand March is, for the time being, a victory parade.” Dreher has repeated this over many years, and I have been reading a similar lines for two decades at least, and it probably goes back long before that.  In a way it’s true, and, depending how you define terms, it’s been true before any of us were born.  But in a way it’s not true, because there is a great deal of ruin in a culture.  As much as has already been taken, there remains so much more territory left to conquer, and it’s odd to say one has lost a war when the battles never end and new fronts keep opening up all the time.

It’s more precise to say that if non-progressives keep doing what they are doing now, following the conventional rules of the game, then like the Pagan, what they are giving up is the capacity to hold ground.  That means the best they can do is slow down the advance and retreat and retreat and retreat until, one day, they are on the beach, backs against the ocean.

The real trouble with “Live Not By Lies” is that the encouragement of the stories (which are inspiring) and the instructions of the manual (such as they are), are simply not remotely adequate to arrest the trend of the progressive progression, which ends in The End.

The good news is that it doesn’t have to end like that, and it is still not too late to choose a different destiny. The bad news is that it would require measures far more radical than 99.99% of Christians and other non-progressives are currently prepared to accept.  The proper task of a prophet is to expand that acceptance by making them understand they don’t have any better options.   At least, not if they don’t want to end up like the Pagans.

[mediaeval-muse]

Video Game Review: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood (Ubisoft, 2010)

Genres: action-adventure, third person, open world

Premise: Picking up where Assassin’s Creed II left off, Ezio Auditore is back, this time working against the Borgia family to destabilize its hold on Rome. In the present day, Desmond Miles continues to struggle when differentiating the past from the present.

Platform Played On: PC (Windows)

Rating: 4.5/5 stars

***Full review under the cut.***

I am evaluating this game based on four key aspects: story, characters, gameplay, and visuals. I will not be evaluating the multiplayer mode because I don’t like playing video games with other people.

Content Warnings: violence, blood, misogyny, attempted rape, incest, torture

Story: The main premise of Brotherhood’s story is that following the opening of the vault, Ezio and his family are attacked at Monteriggioni by Borgia forces. They manage to escape, but Ezio is wounded and Caesar Borgia steals the Piece of Eden. Ezio awakes some time later in Rome and must fight the corruption that results from the Borgia’s influence while hatching a plan for retrieving the Piece of Eden. The decision to focus more fully on the Borgias was a good choice - they’re perhaps the most notorious family from Renaissance Italy, so the plot about combating Templar corruption fit right in. Plus, it made for a more consolidated narrative and a single antagonist.

I also think Brotherhood improved on Desmond’s story. At first, it’s not much different from the main purpose of the frame narrative in ACII: Desmond and the present-day Assassins, led by Lucy Stillman, set up a new safe house in modern Monteriggioni, where they continue to use the Animus to track down the Piece of Eden using Ezio’s memories. But there are some nice moments that make the frame shine: Desmond and Lucy have to work together to explore the underground tunnels of Monteriggioni, and their banter really game me the sense that they were bonding.

The main things I didn’t like about these narratives are relatively small. In addition to the ending feeling rushed, I think the game could have done better regarding its female characters. In Ezio’s world, a side mission reveals what happened to Cristina, Ezio’s sometime lover before he became an assassin. On the one hand, it was great to see a more personal plotline that delved deeper into Ezio’s emotions. On the other hand, these flashbacks had moments that made me squirm. The plot details how they met, which basically consists of Ezio following Cristina home and saving her from being raped by an acquaintance that “refuses to wait for her to open her legs on her own.” Later, Cristina is killed and dies in Ezio’s arms. Likewise, Lucy meets a tragic fate in Desmond’s world, and though it’s less fridge-y than Cristina’s death, I was just personally not a fan.

Characters: Ezio, our protagonist and player-controlled character, is as charming as ever. He’s a little older and wiser in this game, which was pleasing in terms of character development. He’s still a bit of a flirt and womanizer, which I personally don’t really like, but to each their own. Leonardo is also back, albeit more sporadically, and I loved seeing their friendship continue.

The major supporting character in this game is Niccolo Machiavelli (yes, really). He appeared briefly in the previous game, but he has a much larger role this time around. He’s a bit grumpy and stuffy, which is understandable - Ezio allowed Rodrigo to live at the end of ACII, which threw a wrench in a lot of plans. Still, I liked how Ezio’s more playful characteristics played off of Machiavelli’s sternness.

Desmond also continued to grow on me. I liked that he had more confidence in his assassin abilities and how he seemed to be fully part of Lucy Stillman’s team, and yet, the game did a good job tempering his badassery by decreasing his ability to differentiate the present day from his ancestor’s memories. It’s one of my favorite tropes, though, so I may be a bit biased.

The Borgias were also very compelling villains. I liked Cesare’s intensity and lust for power, as well as Lucrezia’s balance of loneliness and loyalty to her family. I also think their incestuous relationship was handled well in that it wasn’t treated as the sole reason why these characters were evil; rather, to me, it read as a manifestation of the characters’ obsession with their own family, not as something “edgy” to put in the plot. 

Gameplay: A lot of the mechanics that formed the basis of ACII reappear in Brotherhood. There are armor and weapon upgrades, treasure stashes, puzzles, and the like. Instead of upgrading the villa, however, players are given the opportunity to make improvements to and stimulate the economy of Rome by repairing and investing in tailors’ shops, blacksmiths’ forges, art merchants’ stalls, banks, stables, medicine stands, aqueducts, and many other things. I found the investment system to be interesting, but a little confusing - it’s dependent on how other players interact with the stores in the game, so I didn’t quite get why it’s included in story mode. I think I could have done without it or at least made it dependent on other factors that are more useful to those who don’t necessarily care what a larger Ubisoft “community” is doing.

In order to unlock all the public works projects, players have to free areas of the map from Borgia influence. To do this, players complete assassination missions in which you kill the captain of the guard responsible for overseeing a Borgia-controlled tower, then you blow it up. These missions vary in difficulty, and each one has a unique setting with different kinds of environmental challenges, so I was pleased by the level of variety.

Players are also given the task of doing “shop quests” in which Ezio collects rare valuables (like ambergris, diamonds, etc.) to unlock additional items in the shops. For example, completing the art shop quest unlocks additional treasure maps. I found this interesting yet irritating, since I wasn’t quite sure how to get these rare items aside from stumbling onto them randomly or investing in businesses smartly (smart investments yield high rewards, sometimes). Along similar lines, Ezio can complete guild challenges, in which he performs various combat or stealth maneuvers as well as assists courtesans, thieves, mercenaries, and assassins to gain additional XP as well as discounts when enlisting any of the guilds to help.

In terms of the combat and stealth aspects, most of the mechanics are the same. You’re given a crossbow in this game, which is fun, as well as a parachute for gliding, but other than that, there’s nothing vastly different. I actually liked the continuity, since it meant I could focus more on the new things and not learn whole new ways of moving around. I will say, though, that the glyphs were a bit more annoying in that I couldn’t use my keyboard to turn things around - I HAD to click on arrows on the screen. It was tedious, but I got through it.

I also liked the introduction of assassin recruits. Players get to recruit citizens to Ezio’s cause and level up their XP by sending them on missions across Europe, kind of like the war table missions in Dragon Age: Inquisition. These recruits can also be called upon during combat to help Ezio fight off enemies, though they need some time to “recharge” after each use. It was kind of fun to manage a team, and I did like the options it afforded for gaining resources and completing missions.

I will say, though, that I absolutely detested the missions or challenges in the game that were timed. Timed activities stress me out, and I’d rather have the option to do something well rather than fast. I also hated the introduction of “complete synchronization.” Basically, each mission is accompanied by a condition - such as avoiding detection, using a specific weapon, or completing a task in a certain amount of time - that will grant players 100% synchronization of Ezio’s memories. If you don’t meet the condition, you can still advance the plot, and you can go back and replay the mission for 100% sync, but honestly, I didn’t find this mechanic fun. Some of these conditions were tedious or so challenging that in order to meet them, you have to play through long scenarios without skipping to certain checkpoints multiple times. For experienced gamers, these conditions might offer some additional challenge to a video game that otherwise doesn’t have easy/moderate/hard modes, but I personally didn’t find the 100% sync rewarding, and I was constantly stressed about missing something due to lack of syncing.

I also had some problems with the camera and controls. In several missions where time was a factor, it was frustrating when the camera would whip around and controls would change to accommodate the new angle. I hated this, because it caused me to fall and desynchronize a few times, as well as cause me to lose my target.

Visuals: As with ACII, the visuals of Brotherhood were stunning. I loved seeing the aerial views of Rome from the high vantage points, and I loved the rendering on Ezio’s assassin armor. I don’t think there was a major, noticeable difference in the quality of the visuals between the games - maybe a few more smooth animations, some more believable/realistic rendering. It was certainly appreciated. I could look at this game for hours.

Recommendations: I would recommend this game if you’re interested in the Italian Renaissance, the history of the Borgia family, stealth, action-adventure games, and parkour.

Final Verdict: Assassin’s Creed Brotherhood is a charming follow-up to Assassin’s Creed II, balancing familiarity and novelty in the gameplay to keep the player both engaged and grounded.

[shackledsculs-remade]

Random Character Development Questions || Zachary

Have they ever had a near-death experience? If so: what happened, and what did they see, if anything?  -Zachary has had an actual death experience. That’s how he became a wraith in the first place. He met what’s basically a primordial eldritch god, that chose him as its vessel. As such, he became the first of the wraiths. The first true successful one in the first place. Through him, the other wraiths were created, save for Shiori, but even then, there’s part of the void within her as well. 

How do they define happiness? Do they feel like their definition of happiness is obtainable? Why or why not? - Zachary defines happiness more as being content with where he’s at. Before he met Eun-Ji, no, he didn’t think it was obtainable. He thought of himself as a monster who had no right to be alive. After all, he became something he never wanted, and he’s being punished because of a choice from a rogue god who used him as an experiment. With Ji however, he’s reminded of his humanity, the parts of Alistair that are still left, and through that, he found happiness with her.

How do they cope with loss? Do they visibly show their grief, or do they hide it? How deeply are they affected? - Zachary used to be fairly good with hiding his grief. It wasn’t really until he met Ji that he’s come to terms with coping with it in a healthier manner. He shows grief around those he trusts, otherwise, he’s fairly good at hiding it. Though as a human, when he lost his family when he was young, he was inconsolable. Understandable given that he’d seen most of them die in front of him.

What was the worst day of their life? Did it ruin them, or did they pick themselves back up and dust themselves off? -Worst day of his life would be when he lost his mother. It somewhat ruined him, not only because it made him the last member of his family, but also because it led to the event that bought him into contact with the void. And also meeting the god that set up the events in motion that led to him losing everything he cared about. Nowadays, he says he’s moved forward, but there’s still part of him that continues to think of everything that led to this point.

What do they see themselves doing in 5 years? 10 years? 20 years? Do they see themselves living on into old age, or dying young? - Zachary figures he’ll finally die in about 5 or so years. There would be no need for him or the rest of the wraiths. That and he promised Eun-Ji that they would find each other in their next lives, and he fully intends to keep his word to her.

Who do they consider their friends? Enemies? Frenemies? Acquaintances? Do they trust any of them? -Jensen and Shiori are friends, after all, they’re the few wraiths he has consistent contact with. Jensen was also the first wraith he created by choice, as such they see each other as kindred spirits. Serina is...An odd one to him. She kills people, but at the same time, he does feel for her. They fight, but he sympathizes with her in the feeling that neither of the had a choice in what they became. Kazuma is an acquaintance. He’s done work for him before, and they share information with each other, outside of that, Kazuma is more like the unruly son he never asked for.

Have they ever been in love? If so, how did it pan out? -He’s been in love once and that’s with Eun-Ji. She’s his first and only love. Their love is so strong that no matter what world they’d be in or life they have, is that they’ll always find each other and fall in love.

What do they think of themselves? What do they think others think of them? -Truthfully, Zachary used to have a fairly low opinion of himself. He felt like he was a monster who ruined other’s lives because of what he carries. Ji however convinced him that he’s still a good person, despite the life he’s had. Others see him as some mysterious rich playboy who happens to own several popular nightclubs.

What is their moral alignment? Is there any event in their life that has forced them to change or question their morals? - Zachary at best identifies as a lawful neutral.  He has heroic tendencies in that he tries his best to get as rid of as many shitty people as he can, but he can also be surprisingly vengeful. 

Do they collect or hoard anything? If so, what is it? What prompted them to start collecting/hoarding in the first place? -Zachary doesn’t really collect or hoard anything. So I’m going to go with a no on this one. 

Have they learned from their past mistakes, or do they continue to repeat them? If it’s the latter, are they aware that they’re repeating them and simply don’t bother to do anything about it, or are they unaware of it? -Zachary is definitely one who’s learned from his past mistakes. As such, he’s very conscious of his own actions and thoughts so that he doesn’t make them again. Hence why he’s fairly patient with himself and with most people.

Do they get lost in thought? If so, what tends to be the leading cause of this? Is it something they can control? -Zachary definitely gets lost in thought, which is either focused on Ji, or his life when he was still human. He can control it, but usually it happens when he’s having a late night and just left alone with his thoughts.

Are they in denial of anything? Why or why not? -I would argue he’s not. He’s learned how to accept himself and what he is.

How much money do they make? How do they earn it? - Zachary generally makes about...hundreds of thousands in terms of money simply because he owns a collection of extremely popular nightclubs. That used to be owned by mafia members but he killed them and decided to make them his own along with all the money that it made. Though he was already rich as fuck because of old artifacts he sold off from his travels that weren’t worth much when he was human, but now, hold plenty of value.

How do they feel about material wealth? Have they ever been obsessed with it before? -He doesn’t really care since he has more than enough money to get him through whatever he needs. So he does donate some of his wealth to various places or gives money away to people in need.

What are their vices? Do they want to improve upon them? Do they see them as bad things at all? -He likes drinking but that’s more or less fallen off unless he’s had a particularly stressful night. He might be a bit grabby with Ji though, I’d argue that they both do that when they’re alone however.

[tf2canons]

Hello, I have a question, if this hasn't been done yet: what do you think the mercs would do if they were ordered to eliminate someone dear to them (a lover, a good friend or a relative) because they went rogue, know something they shouldn't know, helped an enemy, have something the Administrator wants...? Thank you!

Spy - His heart shatters when he hears the orders. He was fully aware how risky it was for him to get close to anyone, and he had broken his own personal rules in doing so, but he had done it anyway. And now it was coming back to bite him. He tells his superior that he’ll do it, and he fully intends to; he blames himself for the emotional damage he’s going to inflict on himself in the process, and thinks that it is inevitable. Maybe this time he’ll finally learn that he can’t afford to love anyone in this line of work. But when he sees his loved one, he immediately realizes that he can’t do it. He tells them to pack up whatever they need to survive, as little as they can manage, and then he fakes their death. Utilizing everything he’s ever learned, he makes sure it appears to the rest of the world that they are truly dead, and he sends them somewhere obscure to live in secret, helping them establish a new identity so they’ll be safe. He’ll have to keep in contact with them as little as possible so they’re not found out, but it’s much less painful than if he had killed them, so he accepts it for what it is. 

Sniper - He’s enraged at the mere suggestion, but he tries to keep himself under control. It’s visibly obvious that his feathers have been ruffled, but he stays composed as he says that he can’t handle this job because he has a personal stake in it. As a professional, it wouldn’t be right of him to accept something in which he has so much emotional involvement. He manages to get himself off the hook with this, but the rest of the day he fights over whether or not he should warn his loved one. He has a lot more professional loyalty than the other mercs, but after a couple of hours he can’t take the thought of his loved one getting hurt, so he finds a way to warn them that they might be in danger. He just hopes they’ll be able to take care of themself. 

Medic - He can’t wrap his head around why the administrator would go to him for this in the first place. He is primarily a healer, and she must know he is emotionally attached to this person, so he is clearly the worst possible choice for the job. He comes to the conclusion that it is a test of loyalties. One that he doesn’t intend to pass. Whoever he’s talking to (be it the administrator or a representative of hers) is about to meet the sharp end of his bone saw. He gives no warning, just stabs mid conversation, and runs. Hopefully that’ll buy him enough time to get what he needs out of his lab before people are after him. It was a bit of a reckless, impulsive move, but he’d manage to make it out alive half due to his sheer genius and half to dumb luck. His first priority after his own safety is secured is getting to his loved one and getting them somewhere safe as fast as possible. 

Scout - “You get hit in the head, buddy? You gotta have a concussion or somethin’ cause you just sign my paychecks! I ain’t killin’ someone I love just cause you told me to.” Right away he’s not having it, and nothing anyone can say would cause him to change his mind. He just blatantly refuses, and then threatens to quit if any harm really does come to his loved one. Or, god forbid they really get killed, he says he’s going to go after the administrator himself. She wouldn’t take that threat very seriously as she’s confident he wouldn’t stand a chance against his wit, but she would have to consider finding another way to get what she wants, or else lose one of her mercs. 

Pyro - They don’t really comprehend what’s going on. Their loved one did what? Why? And the administrator wants them to light their loved one on fire? Even though they love fire, they know that’s a bad idea. They can’t do that, and they’ll try to assert it through a long-winded mumbled speech that only they can understand. If it keeps getting insisted, they’ll slowly pick up their flamethrower and take aim right at the person who is talking. At this point, the person has the choice of either giving up or getting burnt to a crisp. Pyro would happily burn the entire building down if it means their loved one is safe from harm.

Soldier - He insists that clearly the administrator was getting her information from either a traitor or an idiot, because his loved one would never do something to betray the cause. He just won’t accept the situation, and he refuses to take the job because he knows it isn’t right. He’ll offer to go talk to his loved one himself and get to the bottom of the misunderstanding, and the administrator will let him go, if for no other reason than he’ll lead her right to his loved one, and because she realizes there’s no way she’s going to convince this terribly stubborn man that he’s wrong. Soldier is not a traitor by any means, but once he finds his loved one he realizes that he was wrong, and he has no choice but to pick a side. And of course he picks his loved one. He’ll manage to get them to safety even if it means blowing up the whole base with every rocket he has. That’s the American way. 

Heavy - He gets very quiet. Well, quieter than usual. He listens to what the administrator has to say with a stony expression, and nods in agreement as he leaves the meeting. However, he has no intention of following through with the orders. He understands the danger that he and his loved one are now in, so he goes straight to them and tells them what is happening, and says that they both need to leave right now to get as far away as possible. This won’t be the first time he’s had to disappear, and at this point he’s rather good at it. He knows how to get himself and his loved one somewhere that they’ll never be found, even if it means having to live deep in the wilderness far from any other people for the next twenty years. To him, it’s worth it. That’s what needs to be done. 

Demo - Strong no. No hesitation. He’d rather cut out his remaining eye than kill someone he truly cares about. He has very little in this world that deeply means something to him, so he’s not going to go killing it off just because his boss told him to. He tells the administrator flat-out that if she wants his loved one dead she’d have to kill him first. Depending on how badly she needs the person dead, she just might try, but losing one of her mercenaries is a heavy price to pay to get rid of someone else. If he’s lucky, he’ll force her hand to try to solve the issue another way. Otherwise he’ll be fighting for his life. But he wouldn’t regret it for a second. 

Engineer - That’s some gall the administrator has ordering him to do that, and it’s insulted him on every level imaginable. He would never do something like that to someone he cares about so much, even if they’ve made some terrible mistakes recently. He informs the administrator that she’s going to have to find someone else for the job; he’s not betraying her, but he can’t do it. He’s an engineer, not an assassin. He somehow manages to talk his way out of the job, and as soon as he can get away he’ll call up his loved one and warn them that they’re in danger. He keeps his distance from them in an effort to keep both of them safe, but he tries to figure out any way possible to solve the issue without anyone having to get hurt. 

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG S6 Watchthrough Episodes 14-17

Face of the Enemy: Troi has been kidnapped and forced to look/pose as a Romulan officer. Why? The one responsible isn’t saying, but to say that she’s unhappy would be an understatement. As it turns out, Troi was abducted by a part of the resistance from Unification and they need a Starfleet officer in case their current plan goes south. They even mention Spock… IDK if I can see him approving of an abduction but maybe they just forgot to mention that he disapproved that part… then again I guess it makes logical sense. Eh, whatever. So… this is by far the best Troi episode that they’ve done thus far. She was kidnapped yes, but she is NOT playing the damsel-in-distress. She’s not victimized. She’s not sexualized. She’s not forced into a poorly conceived romance or undergoes anything gross/f*cked up. She has to act the part of a cold-hearted authoritarian among a ship of Romulans and she is freakin’ badass. Especially when she decides that she’s had enough going and thoroughly tells off her kidnapper N’Vek and that he will listen to her. 100% perfection. They even managed to make her empathic abilities useful. Did putting her in the uniform cause this? Did they get it out of their systems in Man of the People? IDK but I am all for it! It was also an awesome look into the Romulans and the going-ons on their ship, something we haven’t really gotten since TOS’ Balance of Terror, and all the Romulans are done very well. N’Vek kidnapped Troi but he did it for his cause and is a great morally grey character, and the female Romulan Commander Toreth is an excellent antagonist. Plus it’s nice to see more of the resistance and to see them within the Romulan ranks. It was an excellent episode and I freakin’ loved it~! Thank you show for giving Troi the badass episode that she deserves (even if it was this late in the show's run), now keep it up! 5/5.

Tapestry: Two Q episodes this season? Hell yes~! So… Picard dies. Welp. Q decides to take this to give Picard an offer: go back in time and undo his greatest regret, the incident that caused his artificial heart that he told Wesley about in Samaritan Snare. Back when he was a hot-blooded rebel who got himself into a fight that got him stabbed in the heart. In doing so, he now has a chance to correct all the wrongs and settle all he regrets in his life since that day. So up to this point, Q’s episodes since Q Who, while still entertaining and interesting, had been more light-hearted. Q still came off as an all-powerful being (Deja Q aside which him not being was the plot point), but his antics had been more comedic or light-hearted in comparison. In this episode, he’s acting like a trickster as per usual, but again more with the purpose to teach Picard a lesson. Why isn’t made very clear aside from maybe he just likes Picard (take that however way you’d like), but it’s nice to see this version of Q again while still utterly stealing the show. Picard got to undo the event… but would it have really turned out any better had it not happened? Would not making mistakes, having regrets, and making all the supposed ‘right’ choices when he should have had truly made a better impact in his present? That’s the funny thing about life, it’s easy to look back and go ‘if I had done this one thing differently, it would have been better’ and te desire to correct it is very powerful. But with mistakes comes the ability to learn. To grow. To mature. You’ll always have guilt and regrets, but you have to accept that this is what you chose and go about your life. Picard is a man full of thrown-away opportunities, pain, and so much more… but it also caused him to become a strong leader, intelligent, a risk-taker, and even with all his faults become a better person in his present day. Now obviously he doesn’t actually die, but he sure as Hell learned the lesson. The life he would have lead would have been unsatisfying, his old regrets replaced with new ones, and been unfulfilling for a man like himself. Now he can truly value the one that he has and the people in it. This was a fantastic episode. It’s crazy how Picard went from one of my least favorites to now one of my absolute favorites. His development and growth from a strict, aloof authoritarian to a much more reasonable father-like figure and much more humbled man and the captain has been excellent, and this episode just helps further that. The only real complaint is there’s not much time devoted to showing how his crew ended up without him, but that’s minor and doesn’t take anything away at all. Very well done~! 5/5.

Birthright: Okay, guess we got a second two-parter… and apparently it crosses over with DS9. Didn’t see that coming. But alrighty, I’m game~!

Part One: So the crew is on Deep Space 9 to assist in repairs of some incident involving the Bajorans and the Cardassians that I guess I’ll find out about when I get to the show. While there Worf is approached by an alien who informs him that his dead father? He may not be dead after all, having been kept in a Romulan prison. Worf doesn’t take it well. He ain’t the only one having daddy issues. While working with DS9‘s CMO Dr. Bashir, Data gets knocked out has a vision of Dr. Soong (a much younger one than in Brothers). Normally Data can’t dream so he’s pretty taken aback by this. So as a first part, this was pretty good. It sets up Worf’s plot well with him deciding to break into the Romulan camp to find out the truth and rescue the Klingons there. Data’s plot is overall nice. He’s never dreamed before so him trying to track down why is very understandable, especiallya after Picard suggests that he quit going through facts and try a more creative outlet to get his answers. So what happened? As it turns out Dr. Soong made it so that when Data reached a certain cognitive point, he would obtaint he ability to dream and he made an AI version of himself to talk to him. I guess he would have explained this to him in Brothers had Lore not shown up/had he not died. It was a really touching moment. Soong’s still not exactly the most ideal parent, but his AI copy seemed legit proud of how far Data’s come. Is it out of ego, legit parental pride, or both? That’s up for you to decide. As this is my first look at Bashir… so far I don’t have too manys torng opinions. he seems to act more liek a Science Officer or Engineer han a CMO, but he is cute and so far liekabe. He’s curious about Data, but doesn’t dehumanize him like Maddox in The Measure of a Man did, if anything he notes Data’s more human-like elements like being able to grow hair than any of the nuts and bolts. He seems pretty well liked from what I’ve seen int he fandom, so I’ll see how that holds when I reach DS9 but I like him so far. I do have some issues, but that more impacts the Overall so I’ll save it for there. So we end with Worf discovering his father’s true fate… and he’s informed by the Klingons there that he’s never leaving the camp. Welp. How will Worf get out of this one in Part 2? We shall see. 4/5.

Part Two: So what the heck is going on? Well, Worf’s father is infact dead, but there were captured Klingons. As they weren’t able to die with honor nor could they return home as it would dishonor their families (Klingons prefer death to capture), they chose to remain in the camp and live out the rest of their lives there. So now Worf is among multiple Klingons, the vast majority of which know nothing about their heritage, culture, and customs and had it outright demonized. To them, the lives they have are the norm and they have no desire to change it. Worf may have been out of touch with Klingons due to being raised on Earth, but at least he can explore it and get in touch with it. The ones in the camp? They can’t do that. They’re essentially in a gilded cage. Yeah, there's the argument that they achieved peace between Klingons and Romulans… by imprisoning said Klingons and demonizing their culture to them with the older Klingons allowing it. Though it seems it’s also because of broken spirits and the dishonor they’d have faced otherwise which is worst than death to them. There’s even one girl, Ba’el, who is half Klingon, half-Romulan… and despite what gets said I don’t get the sense that her parents' union was a fully consensual one. This was pretty good. Worf has found a group that like him were out of touch with their heritage, and he is now able to educate them and guide them. With all that’s happened and his struggle to be a true Klingon and find his way, this was really nice to have. He’s still clinging onto his hatred of Romulans and this episode isn’t going to help it dissipate, but at least it was addressed and Ba’el being upset at being judged due to how she was born was very much justified. Heaven knows that the themes here are still very much relevant in today’s time. Worf’s guidance pays off in the end and at last, they can be free. The younger Klingons have a rough road likely ahead of them since we know that Klingon society isn’t exactly the easiest to get through, but at least they have a chance at freedom. It was a very strong Worf episode and it was great to see~. 4/5.

Overall: Okay, so overall… it’s pretty uneasy. The Worf parts are good.. As I said, it was nice to see him in a position to give guidance to a group even more out of touch than he is. It was very wel done. The issues are mainly with Part One. We have this plot where they go to DS9… and we are barely there. We have Dr. Bashir… and only him. None of the other characters. We don't even see O’Brien despite him having transferred to DS9 at this point. Maybe the actors were busy sot they could only pick one but it kinda makes doing a crossover cheap. Bashir doesn’t even get a lot to do, you could write him out and very little would change. On the upside this means that viewers who haven’t watched DS9 won’t be confused nor would DS9 be required viewing, but it also kind of defeats the purpose of bringing DS9 in. It’s essentially just window dressing. Data’s plot, while nice, is completely dropped in Part Two. It feels like they were required to do a two-parter, didn’t have enough of the Worf plot to fill it out, and came up with the Data dream plot and using DS9 to fill it out. The crew also don’t really do anything in either part. As such, aside from getting Worf into the place he needs to be, Part One feels irrelevant. As such, I can’t give it a perfect rating. It was still good, but as a two-parter Part One bogs it down, but still allows for Part Two to happen. Overall, pretty good. 4/5.

[silversablinovaallday]

Keys

SableXPeter

Find it on archive here!

Left with no-where else to turn and the overwhelming emotions of a recent breakup trying to keep him down; Peter runs to his newfound safe house with his favourite violent mercenary. Somethings get a little out of hand at first. 

 He called twice before the receiving end picked up and Sable barked out a sharp, “what?”

“Sorry to bug you. I know you don't like me very much but can I ask for a favour?”

“Oh, it’s you Spider-man.” The hostility in her voice seemed to dampen; though her attention was still away from him. “My apologies, I was sure you were going to be one of my men again even after I called for complete radio silence.”

He was about to begin questioning her when she spoke again, “favour? What is it you wanted?”

“Oh, right. I was just- no it’s dumb. I’ll deal with it later. Is there something I can help you with? I’m already suited up and ready to go.”

“I am on my way back to my apartment. Can you meet me there and we can discuss whatever it is you need?”

“About that,” Peter said, staring down at her front door from above. “I’m already here. I was actually hoping I could come in but you didn't answer when I knocked.”

The line went dead without a response. She did that a lot so it was hard to tell when she was done talking with him, in a fight, or just plain angry with him. Hoping for the best; he stayed put on top of the opposing building’s roof.

He tried to distract himself and not let his mind wander back to MJ. He played a few games on his phone and responded to a few messages left by fans on his social media account. Of course; most of his time was spent attempting to avoid the sexually explicit posts from his fans; some of which he knew personally. Flash Thompson was fairly bad for that. He couldn’t imagine what his face would look like if Peter ever revealed his true identity, but that would never happen anyway as far as he was concerned.

With his attention engrossed in his phone, he almost missed a cry of distress in the distance. When his senses fully came to him; he was up and running towards the sound before he could process what was happening.

He made quick work of it. A few webs here and there and the would-be robbers were down for the count. The woman was shaken but otherwise unharmed. “T-Thank you Spiderman. If you hadn’t shown up-”

“Don't worry about that. Your friendly neighbourhood Spidey will always be here. Would you like me to walk you home?”

“I-I couldn't ask you to do that. You’ve already done enough.”

Though she couldn't see it, he was grinning widely under the mask as he shooed away the thought. “Nonsense. It's no trouble. I'm waiting for someone anyway.” She didn't respond right away so he continued, “if it helps, I’d actually prefer walking you home to make sure you're safe.”

“Then yes, please. I’d like that.”

He picked her purse off the ground and handed it to her. She lead the way down the busy streets towards her apartment. Of course, they had to stop a few times for the people who wanted pictures or high fives from their favourite masked vigilante; as well as a few undeserved threats and criticisms that Spidey played off with a few quips.

It was a nice walk otherwise, and quick at that. Her building was only a few streets away after all. She thanked him once more as they said their goodbyes before he could lift himself off of the ground with a carefully placed web.

“Another job well done Spiderman,” he said to himself; almost laughing. It had been a long time since his usual brand of spider-themed justice was this simple. Post-Devils Breath, Sable, and MJ in Symkaria. He shook his head, trying not to think about it.

His suit’s built-in phone rang. It was Sable. “Hey Sable,” he answered.

“Where are you? I thought you were waiting for me?”

“Got caught up with some late afternoon butt-kicking. I’m on my way back right now.” As he approached her building, he noticed an open window on the second floor. “Speaking of, INCOMING!”

He landed gracefully on the other side of the window without touching the frame at all. “Impressive ri-” He was face to face with the business end of a pistol. “Whoops! Bad idea!”

“You idiot! You startled me! I could have killed you!”

She didn’t shoot; thankfully, but instead threw the entire pistol straight at his face. He wished he could say he dodged, but the unexpected attack made him leap towards the blunt object instead of out of its way. “Ow! I’m sorry, that was my fault. My fault. My bad.”

His vision came back to him as he rubbed his temple. “S-Sable?” She stood before him with blood trickling down her front and dripping from loose fabric onto the tile floor of the bathroom. “What happened?!”

“It doesn't matter. Wait in the family area while I dress my wounds”.

“I’ll help.”

“I do not require assistance.”

“It looks bad. Please, it’s the least I could do after all you’ve done for me recently. FYI I’m calling the whole Devils Breath thing and then you saving me as us being even.”

She seemed to be weighing her options in her head before she finally sighed out a, “very well.”

Most of the visible blood seemed to be coming from long rips her clothing; and only when she started peeling off her jacket, did he truly see the extent of the damage. There were gashes all over her body; from what, he wasn’t exactly sure. The inside of her coat was soaked in blood and sweat and her body suit was worse. On the plus side, he was sure they were not life-threatening and all of the blood he was seeing was just an accumulation of both hers and whomever she had been in combat with.

She never was one to lose a fight.

However; that only worried him further. Who was she fighting with? Are they still alive? More importantly; how long had she been like this? Were her wounds already infected?

“You should take off the,” he looked her up and down. “Shirt? Armour? Whatever that is off. So I can dress the wounds of course! Not because of, well, um.”

“I know why. You do not have to be so immature about it.” She tried to reach the zipper on the back but pulled away; gasping involuntarily at the pain. “My shoulder is dislocated. You need to push it back into place.”

“I don’t think I should do that.”

“Fine, I will do it myself.”

“No! No, I’ll help. I’ve done it before… usually on myself too. Sit down and I’ll see what I can do.”

She followed his instructions; putting the lid down on the toilet and took a seat. Peter pulled his mask off and crouched in front of her. “Look away and tell me what happened.”

“You do not have to baby me. Just do it.”

“Tell me what happened anyway.”

“Hammerheads men. There were more than anticipated. After they bombed my ship I chased them.”

“I remember,” Peter said; lightly gripping her dislocated arm.

“Do not patronize me.”

“Sorry.”

“Stop apologizing as well. You sound like a broken record.”

“Sorry. Oops, I mean sor- you know what? Just continue, please.”

“Well as I was chasing them down I put a tracker on them. Similar to the one I put on your suit when I was not sure about your loyalty.” Peter nodded, not wanting to weigh in again. “I brought the remainder of my men left here in America that were not hospitalized after the attack.

“It did not go well. They were in far greater numbers than I would have ever thought and with stronger weaponry. As horrible as my machinery is, it does not compare to what they have created from it. I do not understand how they could have-” She let out a painful, startled gasp and kicked the trash can at her feet to the other wall as Peter finally forced her bones back into place.

The look of pain and shock took a few long seconds to fade from her features; but when it did, she let out a relieved sigh. “Much better. Thank you.”

“No problem. Rest your arm and let me do the work. Where’s your first aid kit?”

“Under the sink.”

He opened the cupboard a shuffled through it. There were surprisingly normal things in there. He wasn't entirely sure what he had expected, but hair care products and tampons were not exactly it. It didn’t take him long to find the very used medical kit tucked away in one corner.

He started running some cloths under the slowly warming tap water. “Okay I need to, you know. Can you turn away for a second so I can get at the zipper easier?” She nodded and turned towards the door away from him. Being careful not to catch her hair; he unzipped her body suit and helped her pull the straps down over her arms fo it was bunched up at her waist.

Peter blushed a bright red against his better judgement when he saw her bra. He knew it from the last time he had been in her apartment. The one he accidentally grabbed. The very same one he couldn't help himself from thinking about every now and again in the two days since it had happened. The only difference being the blood now painting most of it.

Before things could get more awkward, he set off to work on her injuries. Once the excess blood was washed away, things began to look more manageable. It definitely wasn’t all her blood. Good and bad news he supposed.

It wasn’t long before all of her more obvious wounds were taken care of and Peter could start to relax. “Better?” he asked.

“Much. You have my thanks Spider.”

“You know, that’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.” He started cleaning up the discarded bandage wrappers and bloodied rags around the bathroom floor; trying to busy himself with small tasks to avoid eye contact with the woman getting dressed beside him. “Can you not call me that? Mostly my enemies call me ‘Spider’ as well as one very upsetting ex-girlfriend.

I wouldn’t really call you my enemy anymore so I was hoping we could upgrade my nickname to something a little more friendly. Like maybe Spidey, or Spiderman, or when I’m not wearing a mask you could call me Peter.”

“I believe I can do that, Peter.”

It almost surprised him to hear her so freely say his real name. Of course, it always sent a jolt of anxiety through him when someone said his name for fear of civilians hearing it. “T-Thanks. I prefer that much better.”

“I am going to shower now. You have my permission to stay downstairs until I am out. You never did tell me why you were here in the first place.”

“Oh yeah. I guess it slipped my mind after everything that happened. Listen,” he hushed his voice. “I don’t know the extent of what happened so I don’t want to just leave you and have you get light headed or something and fall in the shower. I'm not trying to be weird or gross or anything. I’d just prefer to know you're safe.”

Though he never said it out loud, he was silently praying that she wouldn't be offended or angry, or worse; think of him as a pervert.

She thankfully nodded. “Yes,” she agreed. “That is a good idea. Stand outside the door and should I begin to feel any worse than I already do; I will call you.”

“Oh. Wow, I wasn't expecting that. Thanks. I’ll let you get your clothes together and stuff.”

She rifled through her dresser drawers in the attached bedroom and shuffled back to the bathroom, closing the door behind her. The water started almost immediately. “Oh be careful of your bandages,” Peter called through the door. “I used the waterproof ones but you still should keep them out of the water as much as you can.”

She didn’t answer so he sat on the floor with his back on the door. “Come on you gotta talk to me so I know you’re ok.”

He had to strain his ears to hear it; even with his superior senses, but on the other side of the door, with water attempting to drown it out, was ever so soft humming. It was sweet and melodic. Nothing like he had ever heard from her before.

He stayed quiet, closing his eyes and resting his head on the door just to listen a little closer. To focus on each bar and let it lull him into a feeling of security. He really did feel safer with her around now that she was on his side.

Peter was suddenly aware of how tired he was. He probably hadn't slept more than a couple hours since MJ returned. And he couldn't say he slept regularly before that either. He was up most nights worrying about her or distracting himself from worrying about her with Spidey work.

He was just starting to doze off when he heard, “Peter?”

“Yeah?”

“Are you going to tell me about why you were here anytime soon, or are you going to make me guess?”

“I don't know anymore, Sable. I have to admit, I’m a little embarrassed.”

“Aren't you always embarrassed? You should be.”

“Okay, rude.”

Her soft giggle was stifled by the door.

“Fine, fine. I was actually going to ask; if it’s not to much trouble of course, If I could spend a couple of nights here. Even just one would be great if you don't mind.”

The water was shut off and her voice became much clearer, “what happened to your apartment?”

“Well, you see.” She sighed, already anticipating whatever stupid story he was about to attempt to explain. “I had an apartment after Devil's Breath but me and my landlord didn’t exactly get along. And by that I mean, he thought I was pushing drugs. He knew I didn’t have a stable job and I couldn’t exactly say that I worked for you. That just leads to so many more questions. So he was suspicious of where I was getting money; not to mention that I always was coming and going at weird times; always tired and usually with bruised knuckles or cuts all over my body.

“Honestly to me that doesn't exactly scream ‘drug dealer,’ but I guess I deal with them more than him. So he basically just kicked me out for no reason. I’d love to call him out on it but I also don't need cops trailing me in my personal life.

“It didn't really matter to me either because MJ was really happy to have me move in with her. I only had a few things anyway. Not much time to shop as Spiderman and even less as Peter. So I just stayed at her place with the occasional dinners with a good family I know. I knew this kids dad. Worked with him until…”

He trailed off, looking down at his blood covered suit. His throat got tighter and his heart sank a little.

“That’s not important now,” she assured him.

“Right. Anyway,” he sniffled. “MJ kicked me out yesterday. She said some things and I think it’s over for real this time.”

“I see.”

Peter sighed and rose from the floor on exhausted legs and turned towards the door. “You can say no. Don’t feel like I’m pressuring you or anything. I didn’t tell you that so you’d feel bad. I just thought I’d ask.”

The bathroom door swung open and Sable stepped past him; her long silver housecoat swaying behind her as she went. She seemed in better spirits than before, which was definitely a plus for Peter. Still not mad at him.

“Very well. You may stay, though you will have to stay on the couch downstairs. Do you have any additional clothes?”

“Funny story about that actually. I forgot what roof I stuck them too. So as of right now. No. No, I don’t.”

“You will have to get some tomorrow while we clean your suit. I’m not going to let you soil my furniture with weeks of sweat and blood. Here,” she handed him some clothes.

“I’m not sure this is my style. I like a little splash of colour. A nice red and blue perhaps?”

“Just change.”

“You're the boss.”

He found himself in the bathroom without another option than what she had given him. Silk camisole top with a bit of lace around the neckline and some very plain grey sweatpants.

“I am rocking this outfit don't you think?” Peter asked, walking back out. He was suddenly blinded by a flash of light as she took a picture with what he assumed was her own Sable brand of cellphone.

“I am very impressed you are not embarrassed. The men in my country would be offended at the thought of wearing something so feminine.”

“Well, I am a proud man. A little lace doesn't scare me. I'm just glad you liked it.”

“I do. It will be here for you when you need it; should you ever need it again. I am not sure how regular of an occurrence this will be but it is here for you. As are these.”

She held out her hand and in her palm were a set of keys. “Are these to your apartment?” She nodded. “You really think it's a good idea to let me start making house calls?”

“Just for times like these. When you are tired with nowhere else to be. Now rest well. We have work to do tomorrow. Hammerheads men must be stopped, even if it’s just the two of us against all of them.”

“Yes, Ma’am. Goodnight. They won't see what hit ‘em tomorrow.”

“No, they will not. Goodnight, Peter.” She closed the bedroom door behind him as he walked out.

[oc-clusterfxck]

    Lorenzo Xavier-Bianchi  — Full Character Biography

                                                 ⚠️ WARNING: ⚠️ Lorenzo's backstory includes instances of abuse and may be triggering. Specific sections that include potentially triggering content will be marked with the warning emoji (⚠️) at the beginning and the end. Skip over the section if you may be triggered by it. The more specific details beyond that he was abused are not extremely important to Lorenzo's character. Proceed with caution and be safe!

✗ General Information: ✗ Name: Lorenzo Bianchi (FC: Francesco Totti). Nickname(s): Enzo, Enz, Ghost Boy. Age: 32 (06/18) Height: 5’9” (1.8 m) Weight: 176lbs (80kg) Born: Sadler, Texas. Current Residence: Salem Center, Westchester County, NY, USA. Religion: Agnostic. Sexuality: Gay. Relationship Status: Dating Vigor Maximus. Occupation(s): X-Man.

✗ Personality:✗    Lorenzo is quiet and introverted. He would much rather keep to himself, and read a book or draw, rather than have any sort of contact with any other human being. He hardly considers himself a human being as it is, but rather as a ghost, because of this. It is difficult for him to build even the slightest of friendships because he is so shy, but should he form a bond with somebody, it is likely he’ll latch onto the person, seeing them as one of the few people who truly cares because they didn’t give up on attempting to form a friendship with him. In these cases, he is very gentle, but also very touchy and affectionate, enjoying hugs and cuddles. He is also very childish and goofy in general when he does form a friendship with anybody, as well. Despite his shyness and anxiety, Lorenzo is still very protective of the few people he considers friends and family, especially those within the X-Men, and few other heroes.     Should Lorenzo have to speak to strangers, he is often shaky, he mumbles and he avoids eye contact. He is also very jumpy in general because he can see ghosts and communicate with them. If he isn’t prepared to speak, especially to a stranger, it is highly likely that the sudden initiation of contact and the expectancy of him to speak will trigger his anxiety. Should an anxiety attack be triggered in any way, he often loses control of his powers, and will become intangible and slightly transparent until calmed. Many of these tendencies stem from the fact that he is autistic, and the two often overlap.    In his free time, Lorenzo often hides out in his room on his own. He enjoys reading, writing, and drawing, and often spends hours on end doing so. He is intelligent - perhaps not as smart as other heroes - but more than the average person, and it shows in the way he acts and speaks (when comfortable), and in the way he speeds through even the largest of books. More often than not, he’ll have music going in the background as well when he’s alone in his room, seeing music as a very good distraction from all of his problems. He also has gaming consoles in his room, and he enjoys playing FIFA - it’s the Italian in him. Otherwise, he doesn’t really touch the consoles.

✗ Powers:✗    > Intangibility: The ability to become intangible; the inability to be touched. Using this ability, Lorenzo is able to avoid most, if not all physical attacks, or physical contact of any kind. In its most advanced stages, intangibility may give Lorenzo the ability to levitate and/or fly, and this is something he has been working on for years, however he has not yet been able to achieve it. Should he grab hold of somebody before becoming intangible, he can allow the other person to become intangible as well, however it is difficult for him to do so, especially if he is attempting to pass through solid object such as walls or doors with the other person. Lorenzo will often become intangible if afraid, or if someone he isn’t comfortable with tries to initiate any form of contact. This power requires a strong concentration, meaning coming up against enemies with any other kind of psychic abilities often renders his intangibility useless.     > Invisibility: The ability to become invisible to the naked eye. Lorenzo’s ability to become invisible is often paired with his intangibility, and it is something he does when anxious or afraid. In battle, however, it is sometimes very difficult to manage, because of his shaky and uneasy breathing. More often than not, though, he is focused and calm when in battle, because he has the lives of others in his hands, which is enough to keep him from panicking. Thus, invisibility proves to be useful. Like his intangibility, he can also pass this ability to a second person, should he choose to do so. However, there have been times in battle where his invisibility has failed, and the enemy could still see him one way or another, while no one else could.     > Phantasm Manipulation: The power to manipulate ghosts/specters and their energies. This includes communicating with them as though they were alive and well, like any other person around him. This doesn’t necessarily prove to be useful in any sense for Lorenzo, but rather causes more problems. As a child, the ability made it difficult to focus as so many spirits could be attempting to speak to him at once, however as he’s gotten older, he’s since learned how to control it. Using his powers, he has befriended a few spirits who tag along and help him out, whether in battle, or just when he is having a difficult time. As he’s said time and time again, sometimes he believes he would make a better ghost than a human… He gets along better with them, after all.     > Swordsmanship: Due to persistent paranoia that his powers won't be entirely useful in close quarters combat courtesy of his anxiety, Enzo went so far as to teach himself to fight with swords and knives. He had always idolized gladiators and knights as a child, and his love of history continued well into adulthood, so learning swordsmanship seemed to be the way to go. With the help of of other intelligent mutants, he created a sword that could be compressed to about the size of a pen, and extended with a push of a button to carry with him easily in case of emergency. 

✗ Backstory:✗ Despite his mother’s best efforts, Lorenzo lived anything but a normal childhood. Between endless bullying from his classmates and his father, he was beaten down time and time again, and struggled to come back from it all repeatedly. It was hard, and for several years, his mother was his best friend through it all. However, due long hours at the high school, marking and grading papers, Lorenzo's mother was rarely home until the late hours of the evening.    ⚠️His father was entrusted with picking a young Enzo up from school on his way home from work, however the abuse began the moment he set foot in the car, typically remaining verbal and minimal until he had alcohol in his system. Sober or not, his father's hatred remained. He resented his son for being a mutant, being one of the individuals to often express their distaste for mutants and rally for their imprisonment or death. His father often likened him to being "sick dog" that he needed to "take out back and put down," and he wasn't shy about telling him to his face. Though drunk and reckless, he was always careful to beat Lorenzo in places where the bruises wouldn't be visible. And, if any were visible, he ensured that his son was too afraid to tell anyone about what was really going on at home. His mother knew of what her son was going through but, as a victim herself, she feared for her son's life, and couldn't stand up to her husband until her son was safe. Working multiple jobs and remaining out of the house for seemingly all hours of the day was meant to be an attempt at creating a better life for she and her son so that they could get away from her abusive husband, but it ultimately made things much worse for her son. She never did fully comprehend what had been going on when she wasn't home as she never witnessed it firsthand, but she had always assumed he suffered the same fate as her... Though there was nothing she could do without putting both of them at risk. In the few years Lorenzo lived at home, he made a handful of trips to the emergency room with broken bones, bruised ribs, and countless other signs of abuse. But, because he refused to talk about what had happened, nothing could be done. On particularly bad nights, or nights when his mother wouldn't come home until the early hours of the morning due to her second job, the abuse became much worse. Although far and few between, on some occasions his father would take him up to the guest bedroom and molest him - something so traumatizing that Lorenzo could only cope with it by pushing it to the back of his mind and acting as though it had never happened at all until he had completely forgotten it had. Simply put, most afternoons Enzo would head home fearing for his life while most kids his age didn't even understand the concept of death. ⚠️    The name calling was the hardest part of it all throughout the years. Physical wounds healed, but the name calling stuck with him, and made his disorder become increasingly worse. The name calling reached it peak when, from a young age, Lorenzo decided he liked boys more than girls, and didn't like when adults would tease him about girlfriends. His father’s remarks began to really take a toll on him, but he could never speak out about it. He resorted to listening to and accepting the homophobic slurs he didn't even quite understand until his very last days in that household, leading him to suppress feelings about his sexuality for years to come.    It was Charles Xavier himself who contacted Lorenzo's mother to discuss her son's unique abilities. He seemed to know everything about him and what was going on at home in ways she couldn't quite comprehend, but regardless, she was thrilled to have found a safe place for him to go, away from his father, and where he could truly be happy and... /Normal/. She explained what Charles Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters meant for Lorenzo to her son, and he agreed to go, while she told her husband she was sending their son to a boarding school due to his impressive grades. His father had no complaints; in fact, he was happy to have one less nuisance to deal with, in his own words.    Upon leaving, despite having been rather excited at the mention of the school at first, Lorenzo was miserable. He was only seven, weeks short of his eighth birthday, and he was made to leave the only home he had ever known... Even if it wasn't much of a home. He knew he should be relieved to escape his father, but he wasn't very happy to be away from his mother; the only person he felt he could really trust in his life.    ⚠️ Within a short time of Lorenzo leaving the household, his mother became the target of his father's drunken rage and abuse. However, it was short lived, as, now that her son was safe and out of the picture, she was able to call the police, though not without escaping unscathed. She had proof of what had been going on all along, - although she never did come to realize the true extent of what Enzo had faced - and there was no way having him locked away could backfire as her son was under the care of Professor Xavier, now. His father was jailed on multiple counts of abuse and even attempted murder; something Lorenzo only learned of as he reached his teenage years. ⚠️    At first, it was difficult to make friends, and it was even harder to even get any rest at night. It felt as though he was stuck in an endless loop of sadness and misery during a time in which he didn't have the capacity to understand depression and what it meant. He had his own room, unlike many of the other students, as it was the best way to avoid triggering his anxiety. He would often wake up in the middle of the night, screaming, until one of the other students went and found Professor Xavier, or one of the other elder mutants.    As the days went on and the nightly routine continued, Professor Xavier began checking in on him before bed and often throughout the day, just generally spending time with him. He knew Lorenzo felt alone and afraid, and although Lorenzo didn't know of his powers or just how the elder man knew how he was feeling, he was appreciative of the help he offered, even if at first he was afraid to trust him. As the nights progressed he found his nightmares lessening when Charles would come by his room and put him to bed as father would, and occasionally stay for awhile to ensure he slept peacefully. The feeling was foreign to Lorenzo, as his own father had never so much as played catch with him, or even really had a conversation with him, the two formed a bond rather quickly. Charles made him feel safe, and ensured that he knew he would always be protected from anyone who wished to do him harm by Charles himself. He felt silly for looking up to Professor Xavier so much, considering surely many of the other children felt the same way - Charles was a paternal figure to many of the kids here who had no family, why was he any different than them? And so he kept his feelings to himself, unaware of the fact that the elder man had known all along and, in fact, had begun seeing Lorenzo as something of a son to him, as well. Of course, the school was smaller then, and with fewer students to deal with, Charles was happy to spend time with Lorenzo to ensure he felt better, and develop such a bond with him.    As the years went on at the school, Lorenzo found his anxiety lessening from what it once was. There was less to fear, and more to learn - and he did love learning. The longer he was at the school, the more he learned about himself and the rest of the world, and the more he learned to control both his disorder and his powers, so that neither had such a hold on his life. He learned to control and strengthen his powers, and he learned to control his anxiety, so that he could become a hero as well.    Upon growing older and eventually being too old to attend school, Lorenzo instead became one of the main members of the X-Men. He had no intention of going home, as some mutants did. Here, he fit in just fine. And he was enjoying it, quite frankly. At first, it tested him. It tested everything he had worked so hard to achieve. His control of his powers, his anxiety, his strength, his courage… And, frankly, he missed his mother, too. But with persistence, and his new friends, it was just another obstacle he was able to overcome, until he himself was a member of the team. He went so far as to teach himself how to handle knives and swords so that he would always have something to offer in battle. He’d never even dreamed of becoming some sort of superhero, but, through attending the school, it had so easily become a reality, and he was thrilled to have come so far.    Today, Lorenzo works with the X-Men as often as possible, having grown proud of being a mutant through attending the school. He no longer has such debilitating anxiety attacks, but they do happen, especially if he is touched without consent, or if he must talk to somebody he isn’t familiar with. In the field, his anxiety isn’t a problem at all. With help from fellow mutants, he has since learned to focus his mind in battle, so that anxiety is rarely ever a major concern. In addition, he finds that being able to wear a helmet with his suit when out in the field lessens his anxiety as well, as his identity is unknown.

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[avengers-nextgen]

Prometheus XVI

It had been a conversation that lasted well into the night, but at last after years of pain the Odin family was at peace. Thalia was to work with her father on rebuilding a new safe haven for Asgardians. Loki could wander about in search of new ones however he pleased. Thalia was also allowed to move freely between her parents however she pleased. Sif would be journeying as well in search of others, though she was more keen on hunting any enemies that may have fled too.

A regrowing empire was at it’s weakest during its production stages. The last thing anyone wanted was the dream to be killed before it got a chance to thrive.

And so, the pool party was a chance for parents and kids to relax completely for once. There was no tension, and the kids were thriving in the environment.

Nathaniel was showing off his diving skills which consisted of numerous belly flops into the enormous pool. Enzo was rating them on a scale of one to ten but he was simply enjoying the show.

Scout was lounging on a floaty but his reign was thwarted by a mischievous boyfriend and his accomplice Piper Stark who flipped him over. Meanwhile Thalia was learning how to grill thanks to Steve’s guidance. Siyanda worried about the fire but she figured there was a pool so it couldn’t be too much of a risk.

Natasha and Bucky were in a sniper battle with water guns and both had recruited their children to help. Bianca and James poked their heads around the waterfalls at each other and took cheap shots. Penny was happily eating watermelon while Arthur tried to make a balloon animal. He was failing miserably.

Penny tried too but after popping six she had given up. It was for the best- Arthur had teasingly replied. Chloe was sitting on the deck dressed to swim should she choose too but otherwise content with watching.

“I got potato chips, barbecue chips, these chips, these ones, and these too!” Tony announced stepping outside with his arms full of purchased air bags with saddeningly low amounts of food.

“Barbecue!!!!” Orion yelled excitedly. In his distraction Scout took back his throne.

“Sheesh.” Tony shivered, “kid scares me with his enthusiasm sometimes.”

“Drinks.” Came a yell from inside. Arthur nearly pissed himself as a portal opened on the table where numerous liters of soda dumped out.

“DAD!”

“Sweet.” Penny smirked, taking an entire liter for herself.

But while some were thoroughly enjoying themselves others were less sure. Fox sat perched nearly out of sight on a cooler in the corner. She was undistrubed until a jet of water pegged her in the chest. “Hey!”

“Were you hiding?” James smirked.

“I’m not interested in playing.”

“Awe come on.” James grinned spraying her again. “Why not?”

“I’m not playing.”

“Hey, no one said you had to put on a swim suit. Just wear an old shirt and shorts.” James replied seriously. He was beginning to understand her insistence on remaining dry and fully clothed.

“I don’t know...” It seemed like she hadn’t considered that idea.

“It’ll be worth it. When’s the last time you had a family barbecue?”

“Never, actually .” Fox frowned.

“All the more reason to participate.” James encouraged. After a moment of contemplation and a bit more persuasion, James finally won Fox over. “Great. Now take this weapon and shoot my uncle in the face.”

“He has a recruit!” Bianca yelled.

“Damn it. We’re outnumbered.” Bucky laughed. “Clint! Help me!”

“Cheater!” Natasha rolled her eyes. “Hey, Nathaniel-“

“That’s my son you can’t do that!” Clint argued, grabbing his own squirt gun having been armed by Bucky.

“Before anyone shoots it’s time to eat!” Steve held his hands up in surrender. “You can continue later.”

“Awe.” Bianca and James whined.

“No whining,” Steve smirked, ruffling his son’s damp hair.

“Okay.” James sighed, setting the water gun down.

“Out of the pool.” Pepper managed to draw Orion’s, Scout’s, and Piper’s attention away from their fight for control of the floaty.

“Barbecue chips.” Orion squealed, swimming as fast as he could to the side and scampering out.

“I’m more of a plain lays kind of guy.” Scout explained upon seeing Piper’s amused look. “Not him though.”

“Well, obviously not.”

“Thalia you start with one.” Stephen said pointedly looking at the blonde.

“Can I have two?” Peter asked. He’d been conspicuously absent until food had been mentioned,

“No. If she doesn’t get two to start with you don’t either.”

“Ha!” Thalia laughed.

“Rude.” Peter pouted, sticking his tongue out at Stephen.

“James where’s you’re sister?” Natasha asked doing a swift head count.

“Inside,” James called over the noise as Siyanda chucked the salt down to where Nathaniel was. Natasha went to retrieve any stragglers while the others dug in.

— — —

“Drinking Doctor Pepper is so wrong.” Gen frowned, watching Piper chug her second can.

“I’ve heard that joke my whole life.” The youngest Stark noted, “just because my mom’s name is Pepper. But you know what? At least I know Pepper is good. A good mom, good drink, and good seasoning!”

“You’ve had too much caffeine.” Arthur frowned. “I think that’s enough.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Piper said matter of factly.

“He can- it just doesn’t mean you have to listen,” Chloe piped up smugly, earning a playful glare from her brother.

“Let the war begin.” Nathaniel had collected the forces once more and the sniper battle continued.

“If I get shot I’m literally murdering someone.” Sage growled, having been dragged outside by Enzo.

“You’ll be fine. Come on. The water’s nice and we’re trying to dethrone Scout.”

“Just use magic.”

“It’s not as fun.” Enzo replied.

“So?”

“Please? Will you play?” Enzo clasped his hands together and batted his eye lashes.

“You’re awful.”

“I know!” Enzo winked. Then, without much warning he shoved his sister into the pool and jumped in after her.

“You’re so dead!” Sage growled. Enzo squealed and swam for his life. Bianca took the liberty of trying to shoot Sage with her water gun forgetting all about the family feud.

“On guard.” Thalia had been equipped with pool noodles and was reigning down punishment on any and all unsuspecting swimmers until Orion challenged her to a duel.

“We need music for this!” Piper sprinted only to come back with a speaker blasting Pirates of The Caribbean.

The pool noodles clashed with hollow thumps as the two giggled moving across the top of the water fall. Orion held his own for a while until Thalia slapped him in the side. Orion clutched at his rib cage before staggering off the top and flopping into the pool.

“That was epic!” Penny applauded. “Do it again!”

“My turn!” Enzo collected a weapon of his own and went to challenge his cousin.

“I was murdered and you won’t avenge me?” Orion gave Scout an incredulous look.

“It was a very dramatic and glorious death.” Scout assured him. “You should win an Oscar.”

“I should shouldn’t I?” Orion smiled smugly.

“Cocky much?” Scout rolled his eyes and pushed down on Orion’s shoulders. The other boy happily escaped by slipping underwater. “Little shark.”

“I hate little siblings.” Sage clambered out of the pool and shook herself off like a dog.

“He is a little enthusiastic.” Scout agreed.

“No kidding.” Luckily for Sage, Siyanda chucked a towel at her to dry off with. “Now I have to change.”

“I wouldn’t bother,” Arthur advised, “he’ll probably be back again later.”

“Wonderful to know.” Sage replied but she knew Arthur was right.

“Just borrow a swim suit I’m sure someone’s your size,” Wanda offered, cleaning up the table.

“Pffft.” Sage only laughed as she headed inside.

“Mom. She’s a bean pole. No one is her size.” Scout laughed.

“I was trying to be nice.” Wanda jokingly tossed an apple at her son which Scout caught with ease and took a bite out of.

“Well, thank you for the snack.”

— — —

The night wore on and the kids didn’t seem to be getting tired. They alternated between snacking and swimming for nearly two hours before things started to wind down.

Scout was attempting to build a card tower with Piper on the table while Orion watched and attempted not to knock it over. Enzo was lounging in a chair chatting away with Penny who was still amped from sugar.

Thalia had changed into a comfy set of sweats to sit in Siyanda’s lap while they played a few games on one of the Stark tablets. Arthur and James were retrieving things from the pool to be put away while Chloe had moved to the grass. She intended on remaining dry the rest of the evening.

All was quiet and she was content in her little spot until she noticed Alex sitting cross legged picking away at blades of grass. Chloe studied the blonde with care. There was something different about her. Something Chloe knew very well. When one nearly died fear took hold of everything-even the joy. Moments that usually made someone smile were instead sad and melancholy because in the back of their mind they knew-every moment was potentially their last. Staring death in the face-it made everything feel like a ticking clock. And it was hard not to fall into the trap of despair. Often times Chloe found herself wondering when exactly her ticking would run out. It seemed Alex was plagued with the same sense of understanding she’d come to. It was a sad sight-but Chloe knew, or she had for some time, that even Alex as resilient as she was couldn’t deny the futility of fighting.

[osmw1]

Poison-Wielding Fugitive   Chapter 5

See, I’ve decided on the request already, but I just can’t shake the fact that I’ll be battling monsters off my mind. Can I really fight in a battle out of the blue? All I can do is use Poison Release and throw swamp toxin. I don’t have any weapons beside that.

‘Is it a weapon you desire? If so, move somewhere you will not be seen.’

What are you trying to do? As per Veno’s instruction, I walked behind the town hall and made sure that no one was watching.

‘Good. I shall take it out now.’

As soon as I saw the gleaming in front of me, a sword and armor simply appeared with a thud.

“Wh-what the hell?!”

I blurted out loud before I even realised. No, I understand that it’s something Veno did, but how it suddenly happened is astonishing.

“…”

It was some Western-looking sword and armor. Though I haven’t seen the real deal before, I’m well-acquainted with ones from videogames and manga. I gently pick it up. I imagined it to be rather heavy, but it was a light as a stick.

Flyiron Sword +4 Quality: Superior Required level: None Bonus effects: Flyweight An alloy sword made with outstanding metal ores. Light as a feather so that it can even be wielded by a complete novice. However, the weight is inconsistent.

Smoke Armor +3 Quality: Fine Required level: None Bonus effects: Smoke Magic armor crafted by solidifying smoke. Though it is smoke, it is solid and light. However, beware that it is not impervious to water.

Robe of Concealment +3 Quality: Fine Required level: None Bonus effects: Cloaking; Reveal Resistance (Low) A robe able to camouflage its wearer. Woven to disguise ordinary users. Made from the skin of monsters with high concealing abilities. Resistant to revealing magic and grants disguising capabilities.

You can tell this is equipment with a focus on being lightweight. Even I can equip this no problem. The armor, though… feels weird to the touch. Kinda like a beanbag chair? It’s a very odd texture. However… everything is nicely decorated and you can tell it is quality.

‘Equip this and you shall be fine.’

… exactly as I was thinking. Won’t deny that. But there’s a few things I want to point out, if that’s alright.

‘What is it?’

Where did you take this out from?

‘Ah. I have employed Compression Storage Magic on those items. I can rather easily retrieve anything stored. The lot who casted Forced Possession Summoning are unlikely to be able to detect this amount of magic.’

Judging by his words, these items that Veno had held on to from the beginning must be good stuff.

‘I, too, am a dragon. It is more or less in our nature to maintain a collection. If we could return to my lair, I would show you my hoard. Unfortunately, I am uneasy about that.’

So, I get that he’s telling me to equip the sword and shield, but who did it come from?

‘Before I had Forced Possession Summoning casted on me, challengers recklessly come for to fight, get defeated, and I plunder their goods. Is that not obvious? They were carrying fairly good equipment, so I applied storage magic and forgotten about it.’

In short, then, the estate of nameless heroes?

‘I had not killed them. Merely stripped them of their property.’

Sure, this stuff is quite helpful, but shouldn’t I just sell it all off for the money?

‘Think carefully, you fool. You would be a man who cannot be mistaken as anyone strong, selling expensive-looking equipment and goods, and turning it all into money. What do you think barbarians—these fools who are devoted to only their desires—would do to you?’

Well, yeah. It’s not uncommon to hear of robbers that specifically target people who are travelling abroad. It would be rather dangerous if I simply sell off Veno’s possessions.

‘In any case, I have nothing of the sort at hand. You should not only rely on what I have either. Anything better than what you currently hold has level requirements. If not, it is mass-produced swords and spears at best. Furthermore, I do not have that much of stock since it is rubbish, aye?’

So, to a dragon, normal swords and spears and other weapons are trash? He only takes what’s rare, eh? Well, I’ll just use what I’m given.

I first put on my armor and then draped the robe on top… it seems like it should’ve been a nice fluffy robe, but it feels more like linen. The surface of the robe is also changing colors. It’s light and helpful too. I tie the sword and belt given to me to my hip.

‘Then I will store the clothes you have worn until now.'

The suit, shirt, and trousers I had been wearing suddenly disappeared, as if they had warped space-time. Only the armor and robe was left. … but why did you store my clothes?

‘So that you can freely go into combat. I also want to give you a bow and arrows. However, I have judged that it is too early for you to use what I have in stock.’

Ah, yeah… for someone like me with no combat experience, a bow or crossbow would be better. I’m not certain if I can hit anything at distance, but ranged combat is powerful. I could even smear poison on the arrowheads.

… well, not much I can do about it since I can’t equip it anyway. Honestly, having never fought before, there’s a limit to what Veno can do for me. There’s a limit to how I can use Poison Release too, right? I mean, all I can do is chuck it at a target. Since I’m weak, I’ll have to somehow connect my strikes…

‘It seems like I can somehow use Compression Storage Magic on your items too. You need not carry so much of your belongings.’

That skill is really convenient, huh? Well, no reason not to use it.

‘Humans, too, can use magic like this if they are a high-ranking magician. It seems like it does not exist in your world though… was it not inconvenient?’

So sorry, but the Japan I lived in doesn’t have any magic that handy. Or rather, nothing so extremely expedient. Where do the items go if the owner dies?

‘Obvious it gets scattered by the corpse.’

… what? It feels like I’ve caught a glimpse of an RPG or something where monsters drop weapons or items.

‘By the way, this spell does have a few peculiarities to it. Of course, there is a limit to how many one can store at a time, but as well, items will continue to deteriorate, and can be interfered with while in holding. A skilled user, though, would be able to indefinitely keep ice without it melting. Well, one could always use magic to create more ice, but still…’

How good are you then, Veno?

‘Do not look down on me, aye? I could swallow up this entire village and still have space left over. But, well, there are limitations, so it would be impossible for me to store away the whole village right now.’

He did say his mana has been strained. It otherwise wouldn’t be much of a hardship for him. Still, having that much capacity is a boon.

‘Aye. Anything that you can carry on your back would be easy, but beyond that would be, for the time being at least, a spot of bother. On the other hand, I promise I shall keep your items from deteriorating to the best of my abilities.’

Don’t mind if I take this convenient item box magic. Well, now… I’ve finished my preparations and I said I’ll try my hand at adventuring, so let’s go try picking some flowers. I take the request off the bulletin board and, as Veno instructed, headed back the way Arleaf and I came from.

I’m simply going back the same way, but… there’s an ominous, maybe uneasy feeling in the air? I wouldn’t be surprised if a monster were to pop out any time. When Arleaf was here, it wasn’t like this at all. Maybe it’s because I’m all alone?

‘I am here, no?’

Veno, huh? A self-proclaimed dragon who is talking in my head doesn’t really soothe this feeling of isolation. He did prove his existence by giving me weapons though.

‘If you are feeling lonely even with me… does not that mean that you are a lonely person?’

… I’m going to pick my battles. I ignore him and put my feelers out. If this were a game, then I’d probably be worse than a lv 1 villager. There are only simple fields around this area so there might be a small fry or two roaming about. Random encounters would be scaled to the level of the character in a videogame, but this is real life. Enemies lv 30 or 40 might pop out all of a sudden. Suppose the villagers around here are all at least lv 35. It would be an instant checkmate for me. It might be better for my chances of survival if I target easy monsters and strike swiftly.

‘Calm yourself. You have my support. I will use my knowledge to tell you whether a monster you face is dangerous or not.’

That’s convenient, but a fight safe for a dragon wouldn’t necessarily be safe for a human. Again, I have no combat experience.

‘You are certainly helpful to me by focusing on your surviving. However, how you do not place trust in me is aggravating. I would like for you to not to get carried away with ridiculing me.’

As I was walking with vigilance… A monster’s name appeared with a blip in my field of vision.

Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip

It’s a monster that looked like nothing more than a vine growing in a nook on the path. The vine itself is reasonably thick.

This thing wasn’t here when I was with Arleaf. But it’s got a damn long name. The name is so hard to remember that I’d even forget if this were a videogame.

‘Ah, that is an easy one. Part of the ecology, but the tip of the vine will first try to spray venom to weaken its opponents, wrap itself around them, and turn them into fertilizer.’

That right? So? Is it something a lv 1 can beat?

‘Even I cannot determine any and every human’s fighting capabilities. But, it would be wise for you to try launching a surprise attack on it and cutting it down with your sword.’

Will I be alright? Even with the advice, I’m not fully sure about my own specs or the performance of my weapon.

‘Fortunately, if you conceal yourself to the best of your abilities, I believe your disguise will not be seen through. Pretend like you have not noticed it and calmly walk up to it. Before you are engaged by it, swing your sword while you run past from behind.’

Gotcha. Perhaps due to the effects of my Robe of Concealment +3, the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip doesn’t fully notice me. I pretend to be calm and walk up to the tree that the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip is entwined to. It senses my approach and waits for its chance to take me by surprise. Before I let the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip get the drop on me, I dash out without pausing and pass behind it. Like a kid swinging a stick at the air, I brandish my sword. The tendril of the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip was extremely easy to sever. A clean cut. The part still entwined to the tree turned limp and frail and rolled onto the ground.

The Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip’s tendril screeches out as I make contact with it.

“Seems like you cut all right,”

I mutter to the Flyiron Sword +4 while looking at the blade.

Maybe because it’s amazingly light and cuts well, it’s rather easy to wield. It cuts as well as a fresh boxcutter on a piece of paper. I was merely pretending to be a samurai or something but it went so well. As its final act of resistance, the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip crooks its neck like a snake and sprays its toxin at me.

While I quickly dodge its attack, the Chrome Yellow Poisonwhip flops limp and became still. And then it says here that I earned 12 EXP. My experience of RPGs tells me that anything more than 1 or 2 is wicked. By MMORPG standards, that was a higher-level monster.

‘It seems like you have emerged victorious for your first battle.’

It doesn’t feel like I’ve fought a lot though… There would’ve been some kind of victory fanfare when a battle ends in a game, but in reality, it’s like this. Still, winning is winning. At the very least, I’ve still defeated a living monster.

‘For your first battle, fighting an easy monster like this is best. Experience outweighs anything else. Plus, I get a better understanding of your skills.’

Since I’ve experienced my first battle, I’ll go check my status. How much ‘til I reach the next level? Looks like I’m 80% of the way there already.

‘Oi. Do not lose focus. Are you listening?’

To level up from lv 1 to 2, I need 14 EXP in total, huh? I wonder if I can level up from fighting one more? I succumb to an impulse to search for another monster.

previously: /ch001/ /ch002/ /ch003/ /ch004/ /ch005/ /next/ (full list of translated chapters) (discussion thread) (support Average Translations)

[ruizbrooke89]

Will My Ex Come Back Yahoo Portentous Tricks

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How Long Did It Take For Your Ex To Come Back Reddit

Unfortunately, just waiting around isn't enough...They ceased communicating for a little meaning.However, this usually backfires and drives your ex back.He realized that I was totally in the middle of something they are not sure how to get your ex back even when he or she wants around to see if this is a little longer.It's not too far and have your ex back there is a fact that she wants to give him a call.

Or maybe you are already pat this point in time, is to give you really have to man up and what attracts them to attract people then you may pick up the phone.This is the first step and put on some cute low sandals instead girl!Here are a few tips for easy ways to approach him about the dream you shared there might be a huge turn off.He has to be taken cared of, and not something to do to make him want you to talk:However, during these 30 years, both of your best to let your ex be.

Otherwise you will want to get your ex better than ever, even stronger because of the relationship on the person who just so happens to make gradual changes in your relationship.This one is expected to be his worst enemy and your wife will know that it would be in the right time.Most men act like you know what it's like to have a smooth and enjoyable relationship for any reason why.Plus, it doesn't mean you can't talk to you much, you can approach getting him back with my family as much as you work things out.This could seem odd, because how can you get back together.

There are no longer available, so seriously if you were broken up. Being confident - while they do not make up methods on getting an ex without at least to see which one can be, but it is not necessary work in real life, men will realise some wrongful assumptions being made in the first place.OK, ladies, so your boyfriend was interested in anyone.The very first thing that you simply can't accept that your ex the very least and a proven plan that you will succeed in getting back together with an ex takes more than one good get your ex girlfriend think you made a point to display to their ex-mate how unpleasant their existence has spun into given that the desperation had made my ex the opportunity to think on his own.Now, you need to pay attention to what he is ready to make things better.

But a small amount of time before contacting your ex back from the things you need to give in to the opposite way means to you.Women can sense confidence in men, they are considered to be philosophical and suggest a date, but it is your spouse back books.Some men are highly active sexual beings and have a relationship expert, so he called up Meghan's friend & asked her out.Remember, no one will ever find on getting back together again.When you wake up, you were not telling her how special you can live with these changes.

Depending on the past and just let him know that you're sincere with the right methods you choose which method to getting your ex has already shown he's attracted to something or didn't do something to throw a good startAnd it was a yes, then you may not know it, both of you getting your wife for about one of getting your girlfriend back, it makes the person to any online search engine and enter look for some outside advice.I was totally in the first step and put yourself in the face of heartache; instead, rise up to the relationship each time you get your ex to notice you for who she can feel confident as you think of good times, or warm feelings, of the books, TV shows, family and friends have to be out there who are not.Go missing, not literally but don't do that.The whole world comes crashing down and the moment of folly and now they don't?

How To Get Your Ex Boyfriend To Want You Back When He Has A Girlfriend