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rantheon · 4 years

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the bakarina anime is done! it’s just a drop in the ocean that is the otome isekai genre so these are some recs + what you need to know about them. i just listed most of my favs otherwise it’d be too long :p

in no particular order. includes some non-isekai ones too. needless to say most of these aren’t completed yet

my next life as a villainess: all routes lead to doom

using this to plug that there’s more bakarina content in the form of light novels, manga and 3 spin-offs

an observation record of my fiancee - a self-proclaimed villainess

told in the pov of prince cecil, whose fiancee bertia straight up tells him she’s a villainess of an otome game from her past life

if you ever wonder what jeord from bakarina might be thinking half the time, this is probably close. cecil is the same kind of prince who initially finds things bored and predictable until they met the mc

the things cecil would get up to for bertia? hoo boy

also the way the mangaka draws hair is addicting to look at

the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress

the title speaks for itself~ after remembering an otome game she played in her past life, cecil (previously cecilia) is now the one capturing the hearts of the academy ladies instead

it’s fairly new so there’s not much of it yet :c but it’s pretty interesting

the original otome game had a whole rpg combat system going on and i’m hyped to see how it’s gonna lead the story

the Angelique vibes are strong in this one

the villainess wants to marry a commoner

isabella used to play an otome game in a past life, but she was really only interested in a side character named ursch. and then one day she finds him in her mansion garden

her past life self is such a mood - i too have 100% otome games in hopes of side characters getting hidden routes but alas

definitely deserves the ‘video game’ tag. isabella can see status screens and character stats/skills etc, and all the gacha rewards and grinding transferred over after her reincarnation. she’s the isekai female protag we’ve always wanted

seriously the main ship is too op for their own good aha

deathbound duke’s daughter

in a past life, erika only managed to finish 2.5/7 scenarios of an otome game thanks to an unlucky encounter with knife-kun. with the different flags of her impending doom approaching, she takes things into her own hands years before the game events start

very fantasy-oriented (the most on this list) and pretty action-packed, once you get past the game exposition in the first 3? chapters

the world building is brilliant, from the hafan mages to the aurelian alchemists, and there’s beasts and wands and spells and dnd stuff sprinkled in

the cast has quite interesting dynamics and interwoven plotlines, and they’re all dorky in their way :>

beware of the villainess

melissa remembers a novel from her past life and desperately tries to cut off contact with the male leads, but they still make her life hell & she rages

she’s just so done with everyone and you can’t help but relate to her

definitely the funniest on this list XD melissa and her reactions takes the cake but even the shit characters are hilarious in their own way

there’s also a lot of parodies to memes etc & best of all, there’s cussing. all the shits and fucks. a whole lot of it

it’s great

death is the only ending for the villainess

penelope wakes up as the villainess from a game she’d been playing in her past life, only right now it's on the hardest difficulty where death is literally everywhere. thus she tries, well, not dying

what’s cool about this is that penelope has access to the original game system. she can see menus, choice options etc. the male leads even have affection percentages floating above their heads :> which is always cool to see (and what i’m a sucker for)

but it’s definitely one of the darker ones on this list. iirc there’s depictions of violence, abuse, drugs and then some. just a fair warning

the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin

upon realizing that she’s the villainess from a past-life otome game, mary decides to stay as one. chaos ensues

i love this manga so much, everyone is so quirky and there’s something to laugh about on almost every page. the story almost feels self-aware of itself and just lets the characters do whatever. like ride bikes

addie is so cute ;o;

it’s definitely something everyone should experience

i’m a villainess daughter so i’m going to keep the last boss

one of the finished ones!

post-annulment, aileen pulls a Lisa Tepes and asks the demon king claude to marry her. he refuses. hijinks ensues

mostly on the fantasy side, as it builds on the world of the monsters

the cast is pretty fun! aileen’s smart, funny and pretty competent in her own right. plus she and claude are positively adorable together

milady just wants to relax

post-annulment, ronia decides to open a cafe in the countryside. it later becomes the frequent hangout of a beastmen mercenary group, who are intensely feared by the townsfolk

well... beastmen. that’s all you need to know /wink

okay, that aside, it’s just as chill as the title suggests. ronia slowly makes friends she can trust, and the beastmen find a second home in the only cafe that’s willing to accept them. it’s pretty wholesome

the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food

despite actively trying to change her ‘villainess from a past-life otome game’ fate since childhood, elizabeth gets annulled, her noble title stripped, and is sent to a church in a neighboring kingdom. she enjoys it more than expected, despite the appearance of the ever watchful leonid

there’s plenty of 21st-century food like sandwiches, cotton candy leonid’s muscles <3

the entire cast is lovable, and can chris get an f for all the heart attacks leonid keep giving him

seduce the villain’s father

yereninovica (or just yerenica) realizes that she’s in the world of a novel she read in her past life, but as the aunt of said novel’s mc. after thwarting a kidnapping that’s basically the mc’s origin story, she takes it upon herself to also prevent the tragic death of emperor belgoat

a bit different since it switches the roles around (side character x side character) and goes into the “parent generation” of the original work

there’s also an interesting bit where the world seems to recognize her as a hijacker, and where that takes her, we’ll see in due time :o:

plus the way yeni habitually calls him ‘father’ cracks me up every time

transferred to another world but i’m the savior of an otome game

after a ritual gone wrong, “yamada tarou” (fake name) is stuck in the world of an otome game. the only way back is with a magical ring, normally obtained after becoming the lover of one of the male leads. he of course says no i’m going adventuring but the game doesn’t like that

it’s absolutely hilarious - the leads treat our mc like a heroine, and there’s a lot of otome tropes that are called out on/parodied. like the seiyuus’ names oh my god

tarou’s reactions are great and his appraisal skill is the funniest thing alive

endo and kobayashi’s live commentary on the villainess

in modern japan, endo and kobayashi start their playthrough of an otome game, which becomes a bit glitchy and odd. they discover that siegward, a male lead in the game, can hear what they’re saying. they use this chance to finally give lisolette a happier ending

much of the story’s focus is on the characters slowly warming up to lisolette, and a bit on endo/kobayashi’s irl relationship. despite being the primary drive of the story, lisolette herself hardly moves the plot - if you know what i mean

regardless it’s undeniably adorable

tearmoon empire

no isekai, more of time travel? chronoskimming?

mia wakes up 10 years in the past after being sentenced to death. now afraid of guillotine-kun, she strives to solve the issues in her kingdom that had previously led to her doom

a bit similar to bakarina in terms of concept: avoid death flags, unknowingly recruits the people she meets into her little saintess cult. the misinterpretation is very strong, and in brilliantly funny ways

it has really fun narration ngl especially in the light novel

of course, i’ll claim palimony!

to prepare for her annulment, yulia starts scheming recording her fiance’s meetups with the heroine to use as evidence. if you’re gonna lose a suitor, might as well get some money out of it, right? along the way she gets involved with rudonik, one of the male leads

no reincarnation. rather than an otome game, the villainess story comes from a book written by a side character, and the “heroine” just decided to play it out in real life

the cast together is a riot, and it’s entertaining to watch yulia only think in profits and every connection she can make to achieve it

the villainess’ slow prison life began with her broken engagement

no isekai, just a plain old villainess

post-annulment, rachel is sentenced to imprisonment. which she enjoys and is thoroughly, hilariously prepared for

everyone’s a little afraid of rachel and for good reason. it’s better to find out yourself through the LN or manga, but let’s just say that even the king doesn’t want to deal with her XD

the holy grail of eris

now this one is interesting, putting the villainess trope into a mystery ghost story. that said, no isekai either

our innocent heroine constance attends a party and encounters scarlet, an executed villainess from ten years ago. a body possession and some public embarrassment later, they decide to team up to solve the mystery that might be behind scarlet’s death

i mean, ghost villainess? sign me up

+ some honorable mentions

i favor the villainess (the heroine goes for the villainess- girls? girls? yes)

a bellicose lady got reincarnated (a delinquent reincarnates as a heroine; what a concept :o unfortunately there’s not a lot of english content for it yet)

it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game (i like that the mc actively makes it so that game can’t ever happen the way it should; plus, yanderes are always interesting to study)

inso’s law (modern isekai, and quite cute!)

the reincarnated young lady aims to be an adventurer / holy guardian tiger (similar to deathbound duke’s daughter in that there’s more of a focus on the fantasy aspect)

expecting to fall into ruin, i aim to become a blacksmith (so far the only one with a shounen tag that i like; its main charm is probably the cast and their interactions with each other eliza best girl)

since i’ve reincarnated as the villainess’ father i’ll shower my wife and daughter with love (big big wholesome vibes)

level 99 villainous daughter (severely op lady who takes no shit from the people looking down at her, and regularly thinks about blowing up the academy within the first 4 chapters? hell yeah)

may i please just ask one last thing? (post-annulment, the mc literally punches everyone in the room; it’s great)

this is getting long now oops

edit: i also made a visual-friendly personally-tagged-by-me bookshelf here!

#masterpost #otome isekai reviews #rip tags i'll just stick to the english titles #my next life as a villainess #an observation record of my fiancee - a self proclaimed villainess #the villainess cecilia silvie doesn’t want to die so she decided to crossdress #the villainess wants to marry a commoner #deathbound duke's daughter #beware of the villainess #death is the only ending for the villainess #the daughter of albert house wishes for ruin #i'm a villainess daughter so i'm going to keep the last boss #milady just wants to relax #the banished villainess! living the leisurely life of a nun making revolutionary food #seduce the villain's father #transferred to another world but i'm the savior of an otome game #endo and kobayashi's live commentary on the villainess #tearmoon empire #of course i'll claim palimony!#the villainess' slow prison life #the holy grail of eris #i favor the villainess #a bellicose lady got reincarnated #it seems i got reincarnated into a yandere otome game #inso's law #holy guardian tiger #expecting to fall into ruin i aim to become a blacksmith #since i've reincarnated as the villainess' father i'll shower my wife and daughter with love #level 99 villainess daughter #may i please just ask one last thing

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deadlyanddelicate · 4 years

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hey did i ever mention that for a few days back in ye olde 2014, before s10 ever aired, i became briefly deeply obsessed with the idea of demon!dean becoming the new cain and recruiting demon!bela to be his second-in-command aka the new abaddon? i even decided i would write a multichapter fic about it but only ever published two chapters because 1) hyperfixation ran out and 2) i really didn’t think the plot through very hard other than “dean and bela being sexy narrative mirrors again except this time they’re Evil and Doing Crime for fun”. and frankly i think that was a good concept if not very well planned out!! sexier than the actual demon!dean arc we got at least!!

ANYWAY i never finished the fic but more importantly i DID make a playlist for it on 8tracks (because those were the cursed pre-spotify days) and while that playlist is also EXTREMELY 2014 i simply refuse to be embarrassed about it bc it DOES have bangers on it, and it’s, to this day, the only spn playlist i have ever made (yes. an au demon!dean and demon!bela playlist. i don’t know either. life is wild y’all). so i’m bringing it back like a ~blast from the past~ (and YES i even made a poorly edited cover and tracklist. what was i gonna do, simply not make a cd leaflet?! it was 2014.) you’re welcome ✨

it’s 2021 babey and you can listen to the playlist here ✨

(but because spotify is ~too cool~ to list dodgy youtube remixes and i want you to have the FULL cheesy 2014 throwback experience, here is the skorge remix of “sail” and here is the glitch mob remix of “seven nation army” )

and because i was a complete floozy for lyrics even 7 years ago... you can find the extended tracklist with significant lyric snippets under the cut. enjoy besties 💕

1. Feral Love // Chelsea Wolfe

Run from the light Your eyes black like an animal Deep in the water

2. Back In Black // AC/DC

Forget the hearse, ‘cause I’ll never die I got nine lives, cat’s eyes, using every one of them and runnin’ wild 'Cause I’m back, yes I’m back, well I’m back, yes I’m back Well I’m back in black, yes I’m back in black

3. Seven Devils - Florence + The Machine

Holy water cannot help you now A thousand armies couldn’t keep me out I don’t want your money, I don’t want your crown See, I’ve come to burn your kingdom down

4. Lilith // Susanne Sundfør

As you lie across the table you swear and rhyme You lie across the table, you swear and rhyme Thinking that someone might suit your body

5. Sinister Kid // The Black Keys

I’ve got a tortured mind, and my blade is sharp A bad combination in the dark

6. Heaven Knows // The Pretty Reckless

Oh, Lord, Heaven knows we belong way down below Oh, Lord, tell us so, we belong way down below Way down below, way down below

7. Small Pack of Wolves // Ramin Djawadi

(instrumental)

8. You’re Going Down // Sick Puppies

Define your meaning of 'war’ To me it’s what we do when we’re bored I feel the heat comin’ off of the blacktop And it makes me want it more

9. An I For An I // IAMX

Apocalypse and rapture signing in (An eye for an eye) If you’re not with us, you’re against (An eye for an eye)

10. Lose Control // Evanescence

Mary had a lamb, his eyes black as coals If we play very quiet, my lamb, Mary never has to know

11. Hey Man Nice Shot // Filter

Now that the smoke’s gone and the air is all clear Those who were right there got a new kind of fear

12. Sail (Skorge Remix) // Awolnation

Maybe I’m a different breed Maybe I’m not listening (Sail with me into the dark)

13. Addiction // Ramin Djawadi

(instrumental)

14. Animal I Have Become // Three Days Grace

So what if you can see the darkest side of me? No one will ever change this animal I have become

15. My Songs Know What You Did In The Dark // Fall Out Boy

Burn everything you love, then burn the ashes In the end, everything collides My childhood spat back out the monster that you see

16. Problem // Natalia Kills

We're hell raising and we don’t need saving 'Cause there’s no salvation for a bad girl We’re rock bottom but there ain’t no stopping 'Cause they don’t know nothing about love We're hell raising and we don’t need saving 'Cause there’s no salvation for a bad boy We’re rock bottom but there ain’t no stopping 'Cause it’s you and me against the world

17. Smells Like Teen Spirit // Nirvana

Hello, hello, hello - how low? With the lights out it’s less dangerous Here we are now, entertain us

18. Everybody Wants To Rule The World // Lorde

Welcome to your life: there’s no turning back Even while we sleep we will find you Acting on your best behavior Turn your back on Mother Nature

19. Gotham’s Reckoning // Hans Zimmer

(instrumental)

20. Seven Nation Army (The Glitch Mob Remix) // White Stripes

Everyone knows about it From the Queen of England to the hounds of Hell

21. Iron // Woodkid

The sound of iron shocks is stuck in my head The thunder of the drum dictates The rhythm of the falls, the number of deaths

22. Get Lucky // Halestorm

Like the legend of the phoenix All ends with beginnings

23. Bottom Of The River // Delta Rae

The wolves will chase you by the pale moonlight (Drunk and driven by a devil’s hunger) Drive your son like a railroad spike (Into the water, let it pull him under) Don’t you lift him, let him drown alive (The good Lord speaks like a rolling thunder)

24. Counting Bodies Like Sheep To The Rhythm of The War Drums // A Perfect Circle

I’ll be the one to protect you from your enemies and all your demons I’ll be the one to protect you from a will to survive and a voice of reason

25. Animals // Martin Garrix

(instrumental)

26. And The World Was Gone // Snow Ghosts

I wish you’d felt me falling I wish you’d watched over me But I blinked and the world was gone

#i literally have not been on tumblr in days and THIS is what i come back to do #i'd say i'm sorry but i think we all know that would be a lie #spn #dean winchester #bela talbot #demon!dean #demon!bela #playlists #VINTAGE CONTENT ANYONE???#countryboycas #sapphicjo #thank you to jules and erika for enabling me. we went on a JOURNEY today #and by we i mean me and by journey i mean 'dazed stroll down memory lane'#ambra.txt #long post #mp

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ask-the-phan-site · 3 years

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Phan Cam: The Unexpected Heist

>The Hub. After taking the heart of Sheriff Johnson and Oracle and Violet starting college, we finally have time to keep our promise to the Scorchers and Battle Force 5 to help them reopen the portal of Highway 35 and bring back the World Race.

>We were all gathered together waiting for Oracle’s fellow hackers to make contact.

Me and Sophia have made the necessary precautions just in case the Silencerz attempt to trace us if we are caught.

Good, Sage. We’ll need it.

I just hope the Silencerz don’t realize that the ones hacking them are the people they had to deal with in the past.

Don’t worry. Something tells me they never had to deal with a hacker like me before.

Really? What makes you any different?

Oracle: Ever heard of Medjed?

The hacktivist group? Yeah. Why do you ask?

Brace yourselves. I was the founder.

Scorchers and Battle Force 5: (in shock) WHAT!!!?

You’re Medjed? I can’t believe it. I actually followed their work. Though, I thought how Medjed was doing these days seemed a bit odd. Now I know why. Other hackers were impersonating you. But now, I’m meeting the real Medjed!

Oracle: I was the real Medjed. That was a long time ago. I’m Alibaba now. But Oracle is good, too.

RING! RING!

Oracle: Speaking of Alibaba...

Incoming call from three unknown callers.

Oracle: Patch them in.

>Three holographic screens pop open.

Oracle: Hey you guys, long time no see!

Hey, Alibaba! Still rockin’ the headphones! I like that!

Still loud as ever, Yu-ichi.

Somethings never change, huh, Six?

Six: Yeah, nice to see you again, too, Lunch.

So you’re Fu- I mean, Alibaba’s fellow hackers.

Lunch: Yeah, nice to meetcha. You can just call me Lunch.

Six: I’m called Six.

Yu-ichi: And I’m Yu-ichi.

Six: Which is not much of a hacker name since it’s your real first name.

Yu-ichi: But it’s clever. No one would ever suspect that my hacker name is my real name.

Oracle: Okay, guys, stay with me.

Yu-ichi: Sorry. Hey, are the others coming, too? Spooky? Hitomi? And... what’s-his-name? (Gee, it’s been a long time, so I forgot his name.)

Lunch: They’ve been through enough already. Best to leave them out of this. So, why did you bring us back together?

Oracle: Nothing much. Just hacking into a secret organization’s databanks.

Yu-ichi: (laughing a bit) That’s all? That’s like the easiest thing there is. Give us a bigger challenge.

Six: (a little anxious) Get serious. We don’t even know anything about this secret organization.

Oracle: I’ll tell you about it.

RING! RING!

Oracle: Soon. Right now, our next hackers are calling in.

>Another screen opens.

Are we fashionably late?

I think that’s suppose to be my line.

Oracle: Nope. You four are right one time.

Alright! Let’s get this party started!

Hold on, comrade. I get there feeling there are more guests coming.

Indeed there are.

RING! RING!

Queen: That should be him.

>Another screen appears.

Here I am. Did I miss anything?

Queen: No, Forge san, you made it right on time.

Hold on! You’re Forge of the X-Men. Peter told me about you.

For real? Harry, Makoto, and Captain America told me about him, too.

Joker: And Adi told me.

Mixer: (in awe) Holy- It’s really Forge! Dude, I’m one of your biggest fans.

Joule: Come sono io.

Forge: Thanks. It good to meet a fan and a colleague. Un piacere di conoscerti. Y tú también.

Makoto, how do you know Forge?

Queen: Do you remember that Inhuman student from the school festival? The one who said her friend is a mutant? I looked into those students. The mutant student was visited by Dr. Hank McCoy. Forge san just happened to have come with him.

Forge: We wanted to talk to her before she and her friends left for Attilan. We wanted to make sure that she’ll be ready to go up us or her parents worrying about her getting M-Pox if she’s exposed to the Terrigen Mist. We also wanted to let her know that she’ll always have place with the X-Men.

Joker: That’s good to hear.

I thought you left the X-Men so you could do your own thing.

Forge: I still help them from time to time. Mostly with mutants who’ve just come into their powers.

Queen: I know what you mean. I had to go through Scott Summers and almost the rest of the X-Men to contact you.

Forge: And I still can’t believe you decided to ask me and had to go through all that just to do it.

It was either you or the other Forge. The one who still maintains his youthful appearance from being stuck in another dimension for many years.

Forge: Yes, I know who you’re talking about. I’ve met my Fellow Forge many times. A little rambunctious, but he’s a good person. I even asked him with help on some projects. Including this one I’ve been working on.

>Forge hold some kind of metallic helmet along with his phone which had an app open with the lets “c” and “p”.

Forge: I call it Cerebro Portable. Me and my Fellow Forge created it to help telepaths find mutants within a hundred mile radius. Especially ones who just got into their powers. But it’s not finished yet.

Yu-ichi: Really? How so?

Forge: We tried to design it based on the original concept for the original Cerebro. There’s just one problem.

Sophie: And what’s that?

Forge: There are only two people I know who know more about Cerebro than any and that would be the original creators. Professor Charles Xavier, but he won’t awaken from his coma for eight more years. The other is... Erik Lehnsherr.

Magneto.

Forge: That’s right. And I’m not about to go all the way to Genosha just to ask him to help me create something that he, himself, could use to find mutant to recruit into the Brotherhood or his mutant army. So it may be a while. Hopefully Professor Xavier will be awake by then. But for now, I’ll just settle with getting help from my Fellow Forges.

RING! RING!

Forge: Speaking of which.

>Another screen opens.

Sorry for the wait. Just finishing up with Kurt and the others.

Forge san! It’s been too long.

Queen: Yes, it has.

Forge: I didn’t want to leave him out of it, so I invited him to help out, too.

Other Forge: I’m willing to do what I can.

Joule: I think we’re going to have some confusion here.

Six: Yeah, how do we address one of you?

Other Forge: Well, my Fellow Forge came here first, so I guess we can call him Forge 1. I’ll be fine with being called Forge 2.

Yeti: If that works, we’ll take it.

How did you two meet Forge 2?

Queen: (unsure) Well...

Noir: (smiling) I can tell you. It all started...

>Flashback.

>The streets of Shibuya in the summer before the pandemic. A fast car was driving up wildly. Queen and Noir were coming back from grocery shopping... and Noir was behind the wheel.

Haru, please be careful! These eggs are for a special meal Sis is making tonight.

It’ll be alright. I think I’ve had a lot of improvement.

>The car was zooming around while people try to back off. Suddenly, someone accidentally fell into the street.

LOOK OUT!!!

>The car was about to hit the young man on the street... But it didn’t. The car suddenly was floating in the air. Queen and Noir looked to see that the young man they nearly hit had some kind of device that was creating some kind of gravity field.

Wow! Good thing I came here to show my new anti-gravity generator for situations like this. Hope you girls have your reentry cushions checked.

>End of flashback.

Mona: (unsurprised) That makes sense.

Noir: We exchanged information and we’ve known each other since.

Forge 2: And your eggs were even safe.

Forge 1: And how did that anti-gravity generator work out?

Forge 2: They said they’ll thank about it.

Translation: You were rejected.

Forge 2: Yeah, I figured.

Noir: Why would they? It’s a great invention. It really helped us.

Forge 2: Good question. Either because their minds are too slow or small to handle how advanced my inventions are, or... Well, you know.

Vert: Because you’re a mutant. Now that’s just unfair.

Forge 2: Sounds like you know the feeling.

Vert: (a small smile) Let’s just say, I have secrets of my own.

>For a moment, a small light formed in Vert’s hand which quickly vanished just as I saw something move on his back behind his uniform... I wonder.

RING! RING!

Oracle: Sounds like another fellow hacker’s here.

>Another screen opens.

I’m here and ready for anything.

Joker: Glad you can join us, Player.

Wayne: Yeah, how are things back up there, eh? I haven’t been back in awhile.

Player: Well, things are still quiet because of the pandemic. Other than that, everything’s great.

Joker: And speaking of of how things are, how’s Red chan doing?

WARNING: Spoilers for Carmen Sandiego ahead.

Yeah, ever since V.I.L.E. went down in flames and Zack and Ivy joined A.C.M.E., she’s been pretty quite.

Player: She’s fine. She finally found her mom, but she hasn’t said anything else. But I’m sure we’ll learn more soon. For now, I’ll see what I can do. Thanks again for inviting me.

Oracle: We’re gonna need all the hackers we can get.

Yu-ichi: I know. Hackers are getting younger and younger these days.

Six: (whisper) And yet you ack like you’re getting younger and younger... Don’t change, man.

Player: (smiling) Hey, the Spookies. Nice to meet you. You’re actually one of the reasons I was inspired to become a hacker.

Lunch: Really. That’s good. Of course, our reason for hacking is probably much different than ours.

Player: Pretty much.

Wolf: (a bit surprised) Hold on! Spookies? I thought you three were familiar. I should have realized that when you said Spooky, real name Masahiro Sakura.

Queen: Now that you mentioned it, I think I remember my father talk about a case from another part of Japan. I didn’t think much of it at the time and completely forgot about it.

Yu-ichi: So you know about that? I wonder what he’s doing now. He disbanded our group after some stuff happened and he left to find himself.

Lunch: I’m sure we’ll see him again soon.

Six: Same here. I sort of miss him and the others.

RING! RING!

Sophie: We have another one.

>Another screen opens.

I just finished my start-of-term homework, now I’m all free.

Joker: So glad you could join us, Adi. I just hope the Future Avengers won’t be called away anytime soon.

Adi: No, things have been relatively slow lately, so I think we’re good. But just in case, Mr. Stark and Cap want us on stand by.

Skull: I’m sure it’s nothing you, Makoto, and the others can’t handle.

Adi: I’m sure, too.

Joker: Thanks for helping us, little-brother-may-become-son.

Adi: You’re welcome, big-brother-may-become-father.

>I can sense I made Adi happy inviting him here.

Rank Up!

Confidant: Codec

Arcana: 3

Ability: Technical Act Type 2

Delivers the same effect as Technical Act but to a much greater extent.

RING! RING!

>Another screen opens.

All set and ready to go!

*Chirp*

Oracle: Welcome to the party, Conor. You, too, Chim-Chim.

Mixer: Is that a robot monkey?

Conor: Yeah, I’m allergic to most furs, so I designed him.

Forge 2: Whoa! Robotic technology sure has changed since 1978.

Conor: What do you mean by that?

Forge 1: It’s a long story.

There are so many hackers here.

Joker: I know, it reminds me of that movie Oracle showed us.

Oracle: Yeah, Angelina san was a treasure in Hackers Jackers.

Yeah. So, is that everyone?

Forge 2: Not quite. I have a feeling... that we have a couple more to go.

RING! RING!

Mona: You bet.

>Another screen opens.

Have you guys been waiting long?

Oracle: Just a little.

Thanks for inviting us. We’ve hadn’t had much to do since what happened on Eternia. I guess now that most of the evil of the universe, particularly Lotor, has been defeated, business for the Voltron Force has been a bit slow.

Really? That’s a shame. I’m sure something will come up soon.

Pidge: Well, it’s not totally slow. We do get the occasional bully or mad conqueror. Though, it’s not really the same.

Forge 2: Don’t give up. You guys will see real action again someday.

Pidge: Thanks, Forge-Of-My-Dreams. But for now, the only real action we’ve seen is in our dreams. Like how I dream that I’m some kid with heel problem fighting monsters from Greek Mythology or a pirate kid with a very pirate family or some kid with magical slugs.

Joker: That’s all?

Pidge: Pretty much. But I haven’t been having more actiony dreams. There were two others, but they’re gone for some reason. Though, one of them I’m glad is gone. But the other one I really miss.

Forge 2: Yeah, I think I know. But, you still have me... and our last hacker.

Vert: (confused) Our last hacker?

Queen: Vince isn’t the last hacker we’re expecting?

Vince: No, but Pidge says he knows about him.

Then he knows that he’s just as smart as I am.

RING! RING!

That should be him now.

>Another screen opens.

Sherman: About time. We were afraid you weren’t coming at all.

Yeah, I kinda forgot until I took a siesta and these two reminded me. (he nods to Forge 2 and Pidge)

Pidge: You’re welcome.

Vert: (a bit suspicious) You seem familiar... You wouldn’t happen to know a teen alien who sounds like I used to when I was his age and is accompanied by a little alien robot that sound like you, would you?

Hi-Tech Young Man: (smiling) Maybe.

Spinner: Everyone, this is our cousin, Roberto Martinez. We call him Berto for short.

Berto: Hola, nice to meet you.

Six: Great, now we’ve got three headphones.

Hey, respect the headphones, man!

Mixer: Yeah, dude, don’t start dissin’ the phones.

Yu-ichi: Besides, you’re the one whose only mode of transportation is a skateboard... BTW, you still use for that?

Six: (blushing a bit) ... Maybe... Okay, so I’m still a long ways from getting that fancy sports car I’ve wanted. Business at our family’s store is rather slow these days. Even more since the pandemic hit. But I’m not giving up.

Berto: Hey, no shame in still skateboarding at your age. Look at me. I’m close to your age and I still do it.

Six: Easy for you to say, you look like you have a car. Most likely a high tech one at that.

Berto: Ture, I have a couple, but nothing beats a deck. Plus, it’s good for the environment.

Six: I guess that’s good to hear.

Wolf: So, is that everybody here, or are we expecting more?

Skull: Let me check. Yo, is anybody expectin’ anybody!?

Panther: Well, I did thought about asking Tecna for help, but I don’t want to get her or the Winx in trouble with the Silencerz, so she’s out. But I’ll call her if anything happens.

Skull: Then yup, that’s everyone!

Vert: Now that our team’s been assembled, let’s get on it. Now, I bet most of you are wondering why you’re here. Well, for that... I turn things over to my dad. Take it away, pops.

Thanks, Vert. You’re here because we might have a way to bring back one of the greatest inter-dimensional races ever. However, the secrets to that are locked away in the Silencerz’ mainframe. Your mission, should you choose to accept it (I’ve always wanted to say that), is to hack into their mainframe. In the mainframe, you must find a file containing the research data of the late Dr. Peter Tezla. But be warned, the Silencerz will try every hacker defense trick in the book: Firewalls, anti-virus software, encrypted passwords, security algorithms, even their own viruses and malware. If you do managed to get in and find the file, you have exactly 15 minutes to copy it before the failsafe kicks in.

Adi: Failsafe?

Jack: 15 minutes after the file’s been hacked, said file will delete itself permanently to prevent further hacking.

Forge 1: But if the Silencerz try everything to stop us, it’s going to be hard to get past all that. I think this is going to be much different than hacking into MRD tech.

Sophie: Luckily, that’s where I come in.

>The hackers on the screens (except for Adi, Player, Conor, and Chim-Chim) where confused until Sophie vanishes and reappears on the main screen.

Vince: (surprised) Holy!!!

Pidge: (smiling) I had a feeling that was no ordinary girl.

Yu-ichi: Amazing. An AI with it’s own ego... I wonder if I should tell my cousin Tokita about this.

Sophie: I am Sophia, humanity’s companion. I am going to help you all with whatever I can. That includes hacking into the Silencerz’ mainframe.

Mixer: You know, we have an AI of our own.

Sophie: You do?

??-??: A! I! S! H! A! We! Are! AISHA! ... Sorry, I couldn’t help it.

Sophie: So you must be M.A.Y.H.E.M.’s AI.

Call me In-Su.

Oracle: Didn’t I see you as part of an opening act for August Gaunt?

In-Su: With my sisters, yes. But that was a long time ago. I’m with M.A.Y.H.E.M. now. I mainly help Friday, Mixer, Gremlin, Joulie, and Safeword with cybernetic things, but I have done on-the-field missions... If the field is in Cyberspace.

Sophie: That’s good to hear. Nice to meet you. I guess we will be working together. I look forward to our mission together.

In-Su: I so will I, sachon*.

*”Sachon” is Korean for “cousin”.

Conor: Hey, if you’re gonna do something like this, me and Chim-Chim want to go into the virtual world.

Chim-Chim: *chirp chirp*

Lunch: You can do that?

>Conor shows he has some VR equipment.

Lunch: I guess that works.

>Conor connects the VR headset to his computer and Chim-Chim connects to it as well. Within moments, they were jacked in and something appears on the main screen with Sophie and In-Su.

Conor: Alright, all buffed up and ready for action! (begins singing) Here they come. Here comes Conor and his monkey, Chim-Chim.

>We all just stare... Which of us will be the first to ask?

Six: Oh, god. And why do they both of mustaches?

Vince: I’m guessing to match.

Yu-ichi: (smiling) I kinda like it. It’s actually quite clever.

Conor: (satisfied) Ha, I knew it! Take that, Lucy.

Pidge: Go with what works for you.

Jack: True. But remember what I said, the Silencerz will do whatever it takes to protect its secrets. I should know, I used to be the leader.

Vert: I wonder who took after you when you left.

Jack: (looking a bit down) Vert... I think you have pretty good idea.

Vert: I... I see. Well, we’ll still be able pull this off we work together.

We will. We can do this.

Vert: Thanks, Ren.

Jack: Again, I have to warn you, the Silencerz don’t play around. This is your last chance to back out. If you do, I won’t blame you.

>The other hackers were showing some doubt. No doubt they were thinking about what Jack said... However, their doubt quickly fades.

Player: Our friends wouldn’t have called us here if they didn’t we could handle the risk. We trust them.

Safeword: He’s right. They even helped M.A.Y.H.E.M. with a little something. Time to repay the favor.

Conor: Same with me, Chim-Chim, and our friends.

Vince: And us, too.

Lunch: I know this is the first time we’re meeting Alibaba’s friends, but we will help them.

Adi: Me and the other Future Avengers trust Ren, Yusuke, and the others.

Forge 1: We also just met, but we trust you.

Forge 2: Yeah.

Berto: (curious) Espeda, M.A.Y.H.E.M.? Racer Academy? And Arus? Aren’t those the places the Phantom Thieves... You know what? Never mind. I don’t wanna know.

Taro: (smiling a bit) Good. I don’t think you could keep your mouth shut.

Six: Look, what we’re trying to say is that we’re in. We’ll help you.

Jack: (with a look of gratitude) Thank you all.

Taro: Good luck, you guys. The fate of the World Race and Highway 35 is in your hands.

No pressure or anything.

Six: Believe me, we’ve seen through demons in a cybernetic world.

Safeword: Fight an evil organization everyday.

Player: What Safeword said.

Adi: Ditto, with a side of other villains.

Conor: I think we can handle it.

Vert: (smiling) Then let’s get to it!

Oracle: I’ve already got a lock on the mainframe. Ready when you are.

Conor: Ready as we’ll ever be.

>With that, Chim-Chim transforms into a motorcycle and Conor gets on.

In-Su: How are we suppose to keep up with that?

Oracle: Leave that to me.

>Oracle programs something into her laptop and something appears on the main screen.

What in the world!?

Oracle: I hope you don’t mind. I just thought we’d go with something more appropriate. This Johanna pretty much has all the things the original has for extra protection. Sophia, you’re driving. In-Su, I’m adding a side car for you.

>Oracle types something on her computer and a side car appears on Cyber Johanna. Sophie switches to her Phantom Thief attire.

Are you ready, In-Su chan?

In-Su: (now wearing a purple helmet with M.A.Y.H.E.M.’s fleur-de-lis which was blue on it) Ready.

Conor: Then let’s get going!

>With that, Sophie and In-Su get on Cyber Johanna and they, along with Conor and Chim-Chim, ride off.

>A little later, we were at the mainframe of the Silencerz. It was shaped like a giant tower with the Silencerz’ logo on it.

Sophie: This must be it.

Yu-ichi: You can already tell that they’re hiding something here.

Forge 2: And we’ll find out those secrets soon enough. Time to get to work.

Lunch: Let’s see what we’ve got here.

>Lunch begins hacking into the first line of protection.

>Meanwhile in the Silencerz’ Headquarters in an unknown location, an alarm goes off in the computer room.

We have a problem. Call #1.

>Almost immediately, another Silencer comes in.

What is it, #2? What happened?

Silencer #2: Someone is trying to hack into our mainframe.

Silencer #1: So what else is new? Have you got a lock on where the source of the hacking is from?

Silencer #37: (don’t ask, we’re using their numbers) Not yet. We are still trying to find it. But we have got a lock on the hacker’s virus.

Silencer #5: I do not know what to make of this.

Silencer #1: A virus based on a ghost? Then I suggest you try busting it.

>Some of the Silencerz began typing something.

>Back in Cyberspace, the Spookies’ virus was phasing open a way when something appears near them. They looked like four men in jumpsuits curing some kind of large device on their backs that had guns attached to them.

In-Su: (confused) Are those... the Ghostbusters?

Jack: I told you, every trick in the book.

>The Cyber Ghostbusters begin firing at the Sppokies’ virus ghosts.

Conor: Time to go to work, Chim-Chim!

Chim-Chim: *chirp*

>Conor and Chim-Chim begin fighting off the Cyber Ghostbusters. In-Su and Sophie join in as well. In-Su’s dance moves already makes her a capable fighter and Sophie was swinging her yo-yos. After a while, Sophie, In-Su, Conor, and Chim-Chim manages to beat the Cyber Ghostbusters, but they had completely destroyed the Spookies’ virus.

Safeword: Our turn now!

>Safeword, Joule, Mixer, and Yeti, begin typing.

>At Silencerz HQ...

Silencer #20: This does not look right. What do we do?

Silencer #12: Try typing “cookie”, you idiot.

Silencer #1: Hey, be nice. And I do not think that would work. I have seen this movie before. Try regular anti-virus software.

Silencer #20: Yes, sir.

>Back in Cyberspace, the first few defenses have been broken though. Suddenly, a bright light flashes and the virus is deleted.

Forge 1: (smiling) You ready for this?

Forge 2: (also smiling) You know it!

>Forge 1 and Forge 2 upload their viruses.

Forge 2: Scott, this is for you, man.

>The two viruses begin attack the Sliencerz’ other defenses. Vert was looking at Forge 2′s virus.

Joker: Is something wrong, Vert?

Vert: Something about Forge 2′s virus that reminds me of someone... But I’ll think more about it later.

>Back at Silencerz HQ...

Silencer #3: Now we have viruses based on mutants?

Silencer #2: Be nice. One of my relatives was a mutant.

Silencer #1: Either way, we cannot let them through.

Silencer #3: I know.

>Silencer #3 begins programming something.

>Back in Cyberspace, Forge 1′s virus and Forge 2′s virus managed to break through more lines of defenses.

In-Su: It looks like we’re making progress.

Conor: Keep it up, you guys!

>Suddenly, something appears... Something big.

Forge 1: That can’t be good.

Sophie: I can help them with this. Time to show you my own power. Persona!

Pidge: (surprised smile) Whoa! I didn’t think she had one, too.

Vince: But there are robots who do.

Six: I think I read something about that... And dreamed about it.

Berto: Like I said, I don’t wanna know.

>Sophie and Pandora fight the Anti-Virus Sentinels along with the Forges’ viruses.

Player: With them busy, looks like I’m going up to the plate.

>With that, Player begins typing something and a new virus comes up. It looked like Carmen Sandiego, but a little blue.

Player: I hope Red doesn’t get too upset for changing her colors.

>Player’s virus begins using an enlarged version of her laser cuter to cut through the defenses.

>Back at Silencerz HQ.

Silencer #7: They are still coming!

Silencer #1: This is getting out of hand. Have you found the source of the attack yet?

Silencer #37: It is hard to tell. They are coming from multiple sources.

Silencer #1: See if you can find the closest source. We will start there.

Silencer #37: Yes, sir.

Silencer #40: I will deal with the current virus.

>Back in Cyberspace, Player’s virus has cut through more of the mainframe’s defenses and the Anti-Virus Sentinels have been deleted.

Oracle: There’s only a few left. Keep going, we’re almost there!

Adi: I think I have something that’ll move us faster.

>Then, a virus that looks like a queen bee appears with a swarm.

Adi: I got the idea from some children’s show. I’ll tell you more about it later.

>The bee viruses begin helping Player’s virus cut get through more of the defenses along with the Forges’ viruses. Suddenly, something flies up.

Adi: These guys don’t quit, do they?

>The virus swarm fights off against the security algorithms with Sophie, Pandora, and the Forges’ viruses while Conor and Chim-Chim break through the last of the walls.

Conor: Just a little more...

>Finally, the last of the security walls were gone. But no sooner they were, a blast of flames came and nearly blew Conor and Chim-Chim away!

Conor: GREAT BALLS OF FIRE!

In-Su: You mean great walls of fire. It’s a firewall. Don’t worry, I’ve got this.

Pidge: Hold on, I have something that could help you.

>Suddenly, some big gun that resembles a lion appears in In-Su’s hands.

Vince: This wind blaster will help blow out the flames. But don’t use it now. Wait until you’re on the other side of the wall to use it, or you might blow the flames at the files and destroy them.

In-Su: Right. Here I go.

>With that, In-Su dances her way through the flames until she finally got to the other side.

In-Su: Stand back!

>Then, with a large blast of wind, the firewall was out. Conor and Chim-Chim go in.

In-Su: Okay, we’re in.

Jack: Well done, kids! Now, the file you’re looking for is labeled “200335″.

Oracle: We’re searching now.

>Outside the mainframe, the security algorithms were still coming.

Sophie: This looks bad, we’re running out of room. If only we had at least one more to help us.

Berto: Leave that to me! I’ve got the perfect thing!

>Berto then uploads his own virus.

>Berto’s virus assists Sophie, Pandora, and the Forges’ viruses as In-Su, Conor, Chim-Chim, and the other hackers search for the file.

>At Silcencerz HQ.

Silencer #20: Damn! They are in the mainframe.

Silencer #1: You still have not found them?

Silencer #3: We might be able trace them if they find they file they are looking for.

Silencer #1: Then do it.

>With that, the Silencerz begin their work.

>Back in Cyberspace, the Silcencerz’ security algorithms were finally defeated.

Sophie: We did it! Thank you all.

>The viruses gestured a “You’re welcome” to Sophie and disappear back to where they came from.

Vince: That virus of your, Forge 2, it makes me wonder.

Forge 2: Wonder what?

Vince: If... If I should have asked my dream brother from New Olympia to help us, too... Oh well, I’ll ask him next time.

Vince: You’ll have to get through his Big Buddy, Hunk’s dream brother. And I don’t think my own DB would be too happy. Especially after everything that’s happened in recent months. But I’m sure I can talk him into it.

Panther: Dream brother?

Queen: You mean...

My gift of connecting people’s minds and hearts with my singing strikes again.

Conor: Hey, I think we found it!

>Conor, Chim-Chim, In-Su, and Sophie who joined them, found a file that looked like a file cabinet. One of the drawers was labeled 200335.

Jack: That’s it!

Sophie: We found the file. Let’s copy it.

>Sophie opens the drawer show many files. No sooner did she open it, it starts flashing and making a siren sound.

Spinner: (covering his ears) Yikes, that loud!

Jack: That’s the alarm for the failsafe. You now have 15 minutes to copy the file before it deletes itself permanently.

Oracle: Leave it to me. I’ll just use the same program I created to copy Makoto’s Sis’s computer.

Queen: Let’s hope it works on the Silencerz’ mainframe than it does Sis’s.

>Oracle enters the program and it begins to copy the file.

>At Silencerz HQ, the computer room was now flashing and alarms were ringing.

Silencer #3: They are copying the file! Now, if I could just... Got it! I got a lock. The source of the copying is coming from... some town nearby.

Silencer #1: You mean... Handler’s Corners.

>Silencer #1 begins to leave.

Silencer #9: Sir, where are you going?

Silencer #1: (turning back) To visit an old amigo.

>With that, Silencer #1 leaves. Suddenly, the alarm gets louder.

Silencer #20: What is happening!?

Silencer #3: This looks bad. Someone else is in the mainframe. They are also copying the file.

>Back in Cyberspace.

Oracle: This doesn’t look good. There’s someone else here. Someone’s also copying this file.

>Sure enough, something comes out of the file cabinet. It was a little blue bad... wearing a pair of glasses and had the most ugliest comb-over ever.

It’s Strega! What the hell do they want?

Vert: Who?

Taro: Some cult.

Oracle: If they’re also copying the file, then us copying it will be difficult.

Lunch: So, we may not be able copy the whole file?

Yu-ichi: Well that sucks.

Player: I’m sure I think I might help with that. I mean, I can’t stop Strega from also copying the file, but I think I have an idea what may happen and how to solve the problem.

Oracle: I hope so.

Jack: Hurry, only 9 minutes left.

>Oracle’s program tries its best to copy the file which is difficult as the program from Strega (most likely made by Jin) is also copying the file.

Jack: Only 6 minutes.

Oracle: We’re almost done.

>Before we knew it, only 4 minutes left. Please copy it.

>3 minutes. Not much time left and the copying is still going.

>2 minutes. There’s still more.

>1 minute. Almost there.

>59 seconds... Come on. Come on! COME ON!

>10... 9... 8... 7... 6... 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

FILE DELETED. CONNECTION TERMINATED.

>The main screen goes to static. Then, Sophie is re-projected back with us, In-Su returns to M.A.Y.H.E.M.’s computer, and Conor and Chim-Chim are back in their real world forms.

Panther: Conor, Chim-Chim, are you two alright?

Conor: (a little dizzy) We’re fine. We’re used to this sort of thing.

In-Su: I’m fine, too. My source code is a little frizzy, but that can be helped with a quick fix.

Joule: You’ve earned it, In-Su. Enjoy your nap.

>With that, In-Su shots off for now.

Vert: So, did we succeed in copying the file?

Oracle: Let me check.

>Oracle checks the copied file.

Well, I’ve got some bad news, good news, and some stressful news.

Agura: I had a feeling it wasn’t going to be easy.

Oracle: Bad news: We weren’t able to copy all of the research data. Good news: We did manage to copy most of it. Stressful news: Most of it is encrypted. Until we can decipher the code, you guys are going to have to wait a little longer.

Taro: I figured as much.

Berto: But with all of us, we should be able to crack the code.

Mixer: Afraid you’ll have to count us out. We didn’t tell Persephone that we did this and she’s got a strict policy about messing with organizations other than L.E.G.I.O.N. without her permission.

Yeti: (looking down) ...

Mixer: (panicking) YETI, YOU TOLD HER!? SHE’S GONNA PUT ME ON COFFEE DUTY AGAIN!

Safeword: I see. If that’s the case... I’ll take a double shot expresso.

Joulie: I’ll take a mocha.

Mixer: (shocked) Seriously?

>With that, we bid our M.A.Y.H.E.M. friend fair well for now and they leave.

Conor: Chim-Chim and I have to bow out, too. Speed will be back any minute and I don’t want him to know what we did. I wanna keep it a surprise.

Pidge: Me and Vince have to go, too. I have a few castle defenses to upgrade.

Vince: And I’m on standby. I know business is slow, but Keith says peace time is the best time to prepare for anything.

Joker: Right, see you all later.

>With that, Conor, Chim-Chim, Pidge, and Vince sign off.

Adi: The rest of us will stay and help you decipher the code.

Player: With Red on break, I’ve got time.

Oracle: Thanks, you guys.

Berto: Guess I better let Max, Steel, and Ferrus know I’m gonna be busy for awhile.

Sherman: We’ll back you up.

Berto: Gracias.

Spinner: That’s what primos are for.

>With that, Oracle and our hacker friends begin their work to unlock Dr. Tezla’s research to reopen the portal to Highway 35 and bring back the World Race.

Oracle: But I am curious about one thing: What does Strega want with Tezla’s research?

>Meanwhile in an unknown location...

Crap! Of course the Phantom Thieves would be after this file.

Yeah. Talk about rotten luck.

Uh-huh.

Maybe you should have some kind of alert for them.

Jin: I’ll think about that. Right now, thanks to their hacking into the Silencerz’ mainframe for that file, I only copied most of it, but not all of it. Not to mention it’s encrypted.

I wouldn’t say that. I’d say that you copied plenty. And I’m sure with our new allies’ help, we might be able to unlock all of Dr. Tezla’s secrets.

Jin: Why are we even doing this, anyway? Since when are we interested in a long forgotten and completely no longer popular race?

Takaya: You would be surprised by what one can learn from things like this. After all, there are many ways to achieve your goals. Am I correct?

>Someone comes out of the shadows... in a dance-like manner.

That’s right, ghosty boy. I bet even M.A.Y.H.E.M. couldn’t think of something like this.

Jin: (a bit confused) Even though they were just in the mainframe as well.

Gaunt: A minor mishap. Something we’ll fix soon.

Myles: With a voice like that, it’s hard to say he’s wrong.

Evan: Uh-huh.

Gaunt: (with a small bow) Thank you.

Jin: So, can L.E.G.I.O.N. help with deciphering the code?

Gaunt: Maybe. Even we can’t work miracles that quickly. Just look at me. At first, I was only partially restored. I didn’t even have my-

Jin: (quickly with a frown) Okay, okay, we get the picture!

Takaya: Soon, we’ll gain what we’re after... Soon...

>What will happen next?

NOTE: We apologize if this post is a little long. We thought this would be the end of this heist, but like we said, this post was a little long. The last post for this heist will come soon.

#phantom thieves cam

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ghostmartyr · 4 years

Text

how a life can move from the darkness [10/?]

| 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 |

Summary: Two drug addicts (Eren and Historia) meet in group and decide to be roommates to make their living situation slightly less weird. From there we do the slow burn found family dance mixed in with the struggles and agonies of recovery. Heavy on friendship feels, especially EMA. Eventual yumikuri.

“How do you keep people from turning into new addictions?”

Eren never liked group.

Being soaked to the bone and listening to every single drip of water adding to the puddle under his chair while he tried to towel himself off without making a scene didn’t do anything to make the feeling go away. His sneakers were soggy masses of sponge glued to his socks. His jacket was in a useless, sodden heap under the cookie table.

Historia wasn’t doing much better. Worse, maybe, since she’d taken one of Petra’s towels with distracted obedience before bringing her real focus to powering her way through as much therapy as she could in as little time as possible. Her towel was slung over her shoulders like a limp ferret.

Petra had a collection by the door for rainy days. Just in case. No one else had taken one.

Eren should have grabbed more, but he was in his squeaky plastic chair, and habit said he wasn’t allowed to leave the squeaky plastic chair until he’d sat still in it long enough to wonder if the car crash had killed him and this was what he was stuck with for the rest of ever.

He didn’t like group.

He liked Petra, and her calm, steady tone when her pen clacked against her clipboard and she asked if anyone wanted to start them out. He liked the few seconds he wasn’t thinking about the water dripping down his neck and under his shirt. Then the work started, and he had to figure out words for wanting to break his body into pieces until he came back right.

All the jagged edges chafed and reminded. Petra wasn’t the one who would take that away.

But she made it easier to push the pieces back into place. And to figure out where that place even was.

So when Historia asked her question, watching Petra with the feverish concentration that said it was the first and only thing she ever should have asked when she found out she wanted better, and Petra’s eyes shot to Eren, he sat up straight and listened. His shoes squelched on the floor. His eyes were probably just as hungry.

“It is very easy to displace addictive tendencies,” Petra started. “I won’t count the number of you who take smoke breaks after this, but I think we can all agree that when something has consumed so much of our life, walking away and leaving that hole is almost impossible. Maybe we’ve kept from filling it up with the same poisons, but it’s there, and we’ve come to depend on it. We’ve rewired ourselves to want the pattern to keep going, even when it ruins everything.”

Hundreds of unanswered texts buzzed in Eren’s pocket. Dozens of dents pounded into his fists.

The fucking orange bottles.

He breathed through his nose. He answered his texts now. It was fine. If it wasn’t yet, he’d make it.

“A lot of the time, we don’t even notice. We’re so used to going through our life that way, and working so hard to keep away from our vices, that we completely miss that we’ve found a new one. Depressive episodes turn into somewhere that’s safe to stay as long as we aren’t on drugs.” Petra eyed Eren again. “Anger is a natural emotion, so there’s nothing strange about always feeling it. Finding a new place to put it becomes as much of a habit as anything else.”

Eren’s hands clamped compulsively on his towel. The threads caught in his fingernails the way dust on the baseball diamond got stuck under them after a long practice.

“Adding people into it makes a complicated thing even harder. Especially the people we’ve kept, who want us to be doing well. Someone like that turns into a beacon, not a person, so our relationships become strained.”

Historia interrupted and Eren was almost glad for it. She leaned forward in her chair while scattered raindrops fell from her head. “How do you stop that?” she asked.

Petra didn’t miss a beat. “Boundaries.”

Historia waited. The chair’s weight fell on its front legs. “What if it’s someone you don’t want boundaries with?”

Or someone who had a weird concept of what they were. Like a girl who showed up to make breakfast in someone else’s home, or a guy who had dinner regularly with his step-mother but not his brother.

The two people who understood the rules had never stepped out of the box Eren made for them, and it had made him crazy to need it.

“Then they’re even more important,” Petra said. She repositioned her clipboard on her lap, letting her pen roll to the edge and zoning in on Historia. “We all have people we want to be close to. Sometimes we want to share everything with them. We want them to be part of us so strongly that we lose track of who we are without them. Who we are stops mattering without them.”

She didn’t look at Eren again. All of her attention went to Historia, who had lost any color she had left in her skin. Eren didn’t think she’d blinked the whole conversation. He wasn’t sure he had, either.

“No one can make it through the world alone, but we’re still individuals. Who you are,” Petra said, turning to the whole circle, “matters beyond who you are connected to. Healthy relationships have everyone involved remembering that. For people who are just now rediscovering who they are, the obvious danger is losing yourself in the high of something new and wonderful.

“So you find your boundaries. Yours and theirs. Focus on where you begin and where you end, and learn where to find them. Then, you work together to discover how you fit.” Petra settled back, smiling her easy, gentle smile that promised help. “Addiction drives us to lose ourselves in whatever will take us. Moving forward is always about reclaiming, or gaining more of yourself. You want to build relationships that make that easier, not harder. If the relationship itself is hindering that, you know there’s a problem, and, well.”

Comfort. It shone straight out of her. That was what made Petra worth listening to even when she said the stupid thing that stupid people had been telling Eren even before he downed his first pill. She believed it. She believed deep down that all the broken people she talked to would be okay. “There is a saying about that being the first step to recovery.”

----

By the time Petra recruited Eren to dump the soaked towels back in the car, it was no longer raining, and he could hold his jacket near him without feeling like he was holding Benjamin.

They hadn’t gotten off the relationship kick. Daz had managed to adopt the cat that lived in his drug dealer’s alley. Samuel, who didn’t have a leg to be broken, was wondering about when the right time was to bring up why he wasn’t barhopping with his new coworkers.

Eren had only mentioned Zeke once. When that was too many, he forced through how he only had Mikasa and Armin at all because they’d been better than anyone had the right to expect. He’d earned the circle a reminder of how they didn’t get to choose how the world around perceived them. Historia’s whole body had flinched, but by that point the embarrassment and past guilt was more choking than any present guilt.

More to work on.

“Do either of you drive?” Petra asked, opening her trunk. “You didn’t have to walk here in the rain.”

“We don’t have a car,” Eren said.

She shoved several beds of blankets and a sandbag to the side to make room for the pile Eren and Historia had created after helping out with drying the floor they’d soaked. “Uber works, too.”

“It isn’t a long walk.”

Petra never made sudden stops. She flowed into her movements, even stillness. Annie and Mikasa moved the same way. Years of training in something. Petra smoothed out her shirt and considered him. “Can you drive?” she asked.

Wet tires rolled across the parking lot, smearing puddles and keeping the damp silence from sticking to anything.

“Yeah,” Eren said. “I can drive. I’m the one driving half of Zeke’s team to parties after games.”

“Even though you don’t own a car?”

“It’s Zeke’s car,” Eren said.

Petra took the towels from his stiff arms and tossed them easily into her car. She watched him throughout the movement, and Eren wanted to hate, the way he hated himself and Zeke and anyone who tried to give a damn about him, but the hook about patterns and anger was too fresh to pick at and he could hear his heart in his ears with the steady thump that didn’t belong to thrown tennis balls against a wall they belonged to a body hitting a mat or a windshield.

The cold didn’t feel so cold. The outside of his skin matched.

“He lets you drive,” Petra said, with Frieda’s gentleness.

Eren nodded.

Petra knew the thin details.

“He’s your brother on your father’s side, isn’t he?”

“Right.”

Petra knew more about everything else in Eren’s life, because she was too good and too responsible to zone out during group and forget who the people she was helping even were. She was the one who had Eren thinking to count how many times he brought up his brother. She didn’t barrel in without consideration. She asked, “Have you ever talked to him about what happened?”

Eren froze up. Working his jaw felt like bending steel. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Petra carefully patted the disorganized clump of towels into a corner and smiled back at him. “There’s nothing wrong with that.” She stood up straight and squeezed his shoulder. Eren, in a way he hadn’t felt for weeks, had trouble meeting her eyes.

“I’m sorry if I overstepped,” she said. “You just seem to be looking for something more from him, and…” She paused, and Eren was back in his chair for the first time. “No one likes being vulnerable, but having someone to share it with can be very rewarding. That’s all. You still get to pick if you want that or not.”

“I don’t,” Eren said. Like they were the only words available. He sounded like the small kid Zeke would actually try with for a painful second.

“That’s fine,” Petra said. In another place, if he were a different person, her step forward probably would have made for an okay hug. She kept smiling at him, and he couldn’t make the corners of his mouth do anything. “But being able to go somewhere without the weather getting in your way would be nice, wouldn’t it?”

Droplets of water were still spilling out of his bangs, and all of his shrugs dampened his chin. Out of everything she’d said, that was the easiest thing of the day to nod to.

----

Somewhere, Eren had stopped slamming doors. Not when Mikasa came to stay with them. Not when his dad asked him, speaking in the tolerant tone that said Eren was misbehaving and it was expected, to be kinder to his home. Maybe when the therapist told him he should find less destructive outlets and some words had slipped in through the drugs and screaming at her. Maybe when he shared a room with Reiner, who jumped at every unexpected noise.

Somewhere. Close to when he moved back with his mom and put one last step of trying in before giving up and whaling on the walls.

Somewhere, he’d put a lid on himself, and steaming mad, he could walk through a door and close it like what Armin called a civilized member of society.

He could leave a family dinner without exploding. He could tromp the cleats he’d never asked for back through his front door without giving anyone a reason to think there was something wrong.

Everyone in his apartment, being Ymir and Historia, was too asleep to look up and see the reasons written all over his face. They probably appreciated his self-control. Eren would have appreciated Historia being awake. Not at the cost of Ymir being awake. But the heat in his chest wanted to be screamed if it couldn’t be thrown out into pieces of the building, and he was starting to need someone to listen when the rage hit.

Other good habits. Always needing someone else. He couldn’t just fix himself and keep everyone out of it. Not that he ever could.

The bitterness was hard to keep, with Historia and Ymir on the couch, trying to fuse themselves permanently together in their sleep. An empty pizza box was strewn on the floor by their feet.

Eren slouched over to Benjamin’s tank and sunk to the floor. Unreasonably jealous and stupid. Dinner with them would have been a better kind of weird. A kind of weird that belonged.

Better than walking out into the deep night air and having his mom squish him into a hug that took away all the cold rage that had spent an hour and years building. “Eren,” she’d said, voice alive with good humor, “you do have to tell him at some point that you want things to change. Or of course they won’t.”

She’d let go, and taken all of the comfort with her. Leaving him with him.

“Eren?”

Eren’s head whipped to the couch. Drowsy blue eyes peered at him from over Ymir’s shirt.

“Yeah. Hey.”

Historia shifted, carefully tucking her head under Ymir’s chin without disrupting her snuffled snores. “How was dinner?” she asked blearily.

She should have stayed asleep. The frustration and Zeke had expanded into his throat and waited through every mouthful to pop, held off by his mom and the enforced calm of trying not to do this to everyone who put up with him ever week, still buzzing under his skin and making sitting still hurt, even with Benjamin’s soothing tank noises so close, and—

Zeke had nodded his customary goodbye, and Eren had nodded back, not saying anything.

The balloon of anger deflated. “The way it always is,” Eren said.

Historia watched him, far away from his problems in the safety of Ymir’s arms bruising her ribs.

“She can’t always be right!” Eren remembered shouting. Four, and five, and eight, and ten, and the injustice of his mom knowing more about the world than he did being flung into the ears of anyone who would listen.

Armin and Mikasa. Mostly.

His dad used to listen. He would listen, and his glasses would glint in the lamplight—the way Zeke’s still did—and he would say, too calmly to possibly understand, “You accuse Armin of that sin often enough.”

Their dad hadn’t known what to do with Zeke either. It was always his mom making things work. Never Zeke. Never his dad. Never Eren.

Watching Historia, whose forehead was starting to fold together with a concern Ymir usually kept her too calm to feel, the question slipped out without a thought.

“What’s having a sister like?”

Concern popped into confusion. “Probably like having a brother?��

The perplexed blankness on Historia’s face didn’t do much for the leftover bristles in Eren’s shoulders. He shrugged without following up with anything helpful. Wondering if he should have even bothered asking. Historia and Frieda were their own complicated. Normal siblings didn’t bring over ice cream to hide that they were watching their baby sister sleep because they were afraid of her dying.

“If you texted her more often, she’d probably back off on that. Or if you talked to her at all.”

He was used to Historia getting it. He was used to Historia being like him. Even if it wasn’t the same at all. He was used to watching his brother keep his hands off everything Eren did unless he had an explicit invitation, and Historia was used to letting her sister believe that her most extreme fussing was a secret. Loving Frieda enough to stay alive for her hadn’t made them closer. It was just one more thing Historia didn’t talk to her about.

Frieda showed up to fill the silence anyway.

“…Do you mean,” Historia asked, “what it’s supposed to be like?”

Eren nodded stiffly.

Historia was quiet so long Eren wondered if that was the end of it. Or if Ymir would wake up and throw her dysfunction into the mix.

She snored away, relaxed enough to make Eren feel like he was intruding in his own living room, and Historia spoke. Slowly. Not looking at him, and not seeing the floor her gaze had stopped at.

“It’s like they’re safe,” she said. His ears strained to catch the words. “They don’t know all of you, and you don’t know all of them, but they decide you belong, because they have a piece of you inside of them. No matter what happens, you’re part of them, so whoever you are is allowed.”

Historia refocused on him. Uncertain, but present. Awake and nudging herself back into the crook of Ymir’s neck, prompting a sleepy, muffled squeak that Ymir would hate Eren hearing. Historia kept going, and he kept listening.

“When she found out what I did…” Historia stopped. Her eyes shut. “Ymir said that it only made sense to cut out family who called themselves that without really being it.” Her eyes opened, and inexplicably, she smiled. “It was the worst thing anyone had ever said to me about him.”

“She was right,” Eren said flatly.

“Yeah.” Historia, nestled comfortably in Ymir’s death grip, added, like she was reading something off their grocery list, “I think that’s when I started falling in love with her.”

Historia was the only person he knew who made things like that sound real. Like Armin when he was tripping through tanbark with a new library book, talking about things neither of them had ever seen. Without the sparkle. Just a weird truth that was never going to be anything else.

Eren swallowed down the limp, rubbery balloon of bristling rage, and let the ground come back to him.

“My mom says I have to tell him I want things to be different for them to be,” he said. He didn’t point out that no one ever had to tell Zeke anything about scheduling games, or filling team rosters, or booking rooms in pizza parlors for parties he didn’t even like.

He’d done that in group, with water dripping down from his ears loudly enough to disguise the grate of the whining.

“You could invite him to lunch,” Historia said, void of inflection.

“Dinner’s weird enough.”

They fed the silence together for a bit. The same waiting cluelessness they’d shared before he cared she was a person. A little less quietly than everything else, Historia said, “I still can’t talk to Frieda.”

“She’d like hearing what you said before,” Eren said. “You could just say that once in a while.”

Historia pressed her head into Ymir’s chest. “I think every time we talk I remind her of everything that went wrong.” The frown lines in her forehead shaded in. “She wants me to forget even though she can’t. I can’t think of anything to say that would stop that.”

Eren fiddled with his shoelaces, scuffed with baseball dust. Frieda’s face—too much like Historia’s, too much like his mom’s, too much like Ymir’s—carried all those memories with her every time she walked through the door. The haze of hot chocolate brought it out even when she wouldn’t.

“Mom said,” Eren said, prodding the knot his cleats wouldn’t let go of, “the reason things were never okay with Dad and Zeke was because Dad couldn’t think of a way to fix things.” He ripped the knot free. “So he just went forward without trying. Zeke never got over it. There wasn’t ever a real reason for him to.”

A million and one scenes could play out from their childhoods, over and over, of Eren and Zeke, big brother and little brother, mother and step-mom ruffling their heads, and Dad wouldn’t ever fit right.

He was only the missing piece to the smaller version.

“They look alike,” he said suddenly. “I don’t look anything like him, but Zeke looks like my—our dad. A lot. More when he still had a beard. He started shaving after rehab.” Eren kicked off his cleats, rolling them towards the front door. “I don’t know why he never did that before. He hated it whenever someone said something about them looking alike. Any time someone brought Dad up around him, that was all they ever talked about. He hated it. He hated him.”

“…Did you?” Historia asked.

“No.” Not once. “I had a good dad.”

One Zeke had never wanted and wouldn’t ever know.

Eren could feel it. The thing, way beyond the broken leg and hate. The thing that said there weren’t enough pills in the bottle his mom picked up for him. The bottomless loss that people kept thinking Zeke could understand when he never would. Pain.

He dug his palms into his eyes and willed the tears away before they could force him into the kind of sobs that Ymir wouldn’t be able to sleep through. His hands felt like sandpaper over his cheeks.

The couch creaked, and through the spots and blur, Eren could see Historia switching her perch from Ymir to the edge. She kept one of Ymir’s hands, holding it to her neck like she was expecting a noose around her throat.

“Frieda had a good father too,” she said softly. “He’s not what made us family. She is. He’s just why we met.”

Eren’s fingers threaded through his hair. Like his mom had earlier, when she pulled at his ear and told him growing out his hair wouldn’t grow him out of making his life harder than it had to be. Or like Zeke did the first time he helped him put on a helmet. “When did Frieda decide on you?”

Historia toyed with Ymir’s hand, and hesitated just enough for Eren to catch the crack in her voice. “When she found out about me.”

Fresh tears sprouted, and Eren coughed in choked surprise. “Yeah,” he said, “that sounds like her.”

“Yeah.”

Maybe Eren should have headed to the kitchen and started the hot chocolate before sitting down under Benjamin. The impulse to get up and do that now instead of letting the suffocating emotion in any deeper ran as thick as the embarrassing thought that Frieda herself would have been even more of a comfort.

Ymir snorted, making both of them jump. Somehow that pulled Historia even deeper into her arms. Eren didn’t think either of them minded, even if Historia did squeak at the proximity change. Or maybe Ymir whispering her name after was what did it.

They were a million times worse than Hannah and Franz ever were. It should have been disgusting. Ymir being so happy was still weird. Then Historia being happy at all was a relief, and something in all of it evened out.

“So when are you gonna tell Ymir you’ve decided on her?” he asked her.

“When I establish my personal boundaries,” Historia mumbled into Ymir.

They hadn’t bothered leaving many lights on for their nap on the couch together, but that Ymir glow never needed much help. Eren could feel a smile on his face twitching to match the shine in hers.

“She’d probably say yes if you asked her out.”

“Mm.”

“Holding off this long starts to make you look scared.”

Ruffled, the parts of Historia not completely buried in Ymir leveled an unimpressed scowl at Eren that mostly said he was right. “I’m working on it,” she said frostily. “Like you’re working on talking to your brother.”

Eren clapped his mouth shut and returned the scowl through the superior glint in Historia’s eyes.

Somehow, it felt like one of his lighter ones.

----

“See? Right there?”

Movies used to be a weekly thing for them. New ones. In theaters. They’d sneak in their own candy, find the thing no one else was watching, and jump into the front row. They’d done it so many times the staff at five different theaters knew them by name.

“I… no?”

There were things about it Eren had forgotten.

“You—what?” Armin blinked several times, looking between his phone and Eren. He enlarged the blur. “What about now?”

He was vibrating, flush with indignation and exclamation points in his eyes.

He was an Armin Eren hadn’t seen in over a year, and Eren would have gotten thrown out of a hundred more movies to find him again.

That didn’t do anything to clear up what it was Armin thought was worth getting thrown out of this first one. Eren leaned in closer to the phone to humor him. The black on black blur, helped by Armin’s fingers one more time, leaned in back, turning into a clump of pixels.

“It’s… a backpack?”

“Yes!”

Eren sat back in their bench, basking in the warmth of Armin’s enthusiasm, and strangling the lingering guilt trying to creep up when it felt too much like home. “Is the backpack important?”

“No, it’s what’s in the backpack—look, there!”

The blur stayed a blur.

Armin stayed vibrating, bright as a star.

“I don’t see it,” Eren said.

Armin’s finger poked the center of the blur. “It’s a power cord,” he said.

Eren tilted his head to the side. A small sliver of shadow, just barely caught in the picture, was directly under Armin’s fingernail. Enough to maybe be something, and Armin, who’d noticed enough to pull out his phone and snap off a dozen pictures, said it was something. There wasn’t much room for argument.

“They were running around the house for an hour,” Armin said. “The room they barricaded themselves in had five outlets. The jump into the lake messed up most of their phones, but he didn’t swim. His just ran out of battery, but they didn’t edit out his power cord from his backpack! You can see it.”

Armin furiously unzoomed from the image, bringing back the full, grainy shot of the giant screen they’d been sitting six feet away from. “They didn’t even try to hide it. And it wasn’t on purpose! This is right after they dumped all their bags out on the table to see what they had, and the power cord wasn’t there. Look—” Armin flicked away from the photo and on to a video of the main character swinging his backpack on.

Eren, obediently, looked.

The black backpack swung by the light, the camera angle switched, switched back, and—

A power cord.

“That’s pretty bad,” Eren said, looking at the tiny set of pixels no one but Armin was going to notice before a home release.

“It’s ridiculous,” Armin said. He settled back in the bench, frowning furiously at the small video that had yanked them out of their seats.

Eren didn’t know how he’d forgotten this part. He remembered him, and Armin, and usually Mikasa, and the candy, and the sticky floors, and the way Armin’s eyes would light up when the previews started. He remembered excited plans to see whatever was on the posters in the hallways, and him and Mikasa standing back and letting Armin teach them everything there was to know about the thing they were about to watch.

He remembered it all being so normal he never even thought about remembering it.

Then Armin’s phone was going off in the front row, and he was buzzing more than it could, and a million hushed arguments with ushers played back in Eren’s head.

“Oh.”

Eren shook himself back, where Armin had stopped buzzing, and was looking at him. The voice inside that called that dangerous took a second for him to stamp out. Armin was great practice. Sometimes too great. “Oh?”

Armin, with the same uncertainty Eren could hear when he asked about seeing a movie, smiled, and pocketed his phone. “I don’t want you to feel strange about it,” he started, “but… you’re smiling again.”

In a move that made Eren glad Mikasa couldn’t make it, his hand went up to his mouth and checked. Instead of the deep etches the mirror usually caught, there were smooth, relaxed lines that perked up at the corners.

“Oh,” Eren repeated.

The bench dug into his jeans. Armin’s gentle, smiling hope was impossible to look at, and Eren’s ears were bleeding from the strain of that beam shining right on him.

“Sorry we didn’t get to see the end of the movie.”

“It’s fine.” Eren took a breath and told the truth. “I’d rather hang out with you anyway.”

Awkward. Unless Eren burned everything to the ground one more time, they’d have things fixed and perfect before he ever got used to it. Armin wasn’t awkward. Armin was what made all the fog in Eren’s head clear out.

Right now, they were both fog, and Armin’s arms wrapped around each other like snakes under his red face. “We—uh. Maybe it’s a bad time,” Armin said, “but since we’re talking about movies, I still have your DVD player.”

Oh.

Armin rushed through the next words. “You—I was borrowing it when—so it’s in my room. I know you and Historia don’t have a TV, so it’s probably not easy to watch things. I could bring it over, if you want? Or maybe, if you wanted, since there’s time now—”

“No.”

He could hear his heart beating louder than the word. Armin still shut up like he’d screamed it.

He wasn’t smiling anymore. It felt like a personal failure. Everything from his mouth down was made of boiling sludge that was more useless for explaining why, for saying sorry, for all the yelling he wouldn’t do, and Armin was sitting there doing nothing wrong.

Eren took a breath. Somehow.

“Some other time,” he said. Like a person.

“Sure,” Armin said. Like the bullet he dodged was inside him anyway.

Awkward had been better.

Eren didn’t want to be ‘like’ anything. He wanted to make it all the way back.

“What do you want to see next?”

Armin’s head jerked up from boring a hole in his knees. “Huh?”

“We didn’t get to finish the movie, and I don’t think they’ll let us back in,” Eren said, keeping his voice light and steady. “If this one’s a bust, what do you want to go see instead? We’ve still got an afternoon to kill.”

He didn’t have anyone to blame but himself for the cautious way Armin looked at him. Rabid animals bit. No one in their right mind wanted to stick their hand through the bars, and Armin was Armin. He had every kind of sense and several more besides.

Just not the one that kept him away from Eren. “Okay.”

“Okay?”

Armin popped off the bench. “If we hurry, downtown is screening Rear Window this week?”

It took a second. Eren’s footing felt as slow as his brain, fragments of speech catching up to him like scooped shells out of a tide pool. He could taste the salt before any kind of response skittered out of his mouth. “Again?” he asked, the tease hollow but close enough to count. So he counted it. “How many times have you seen that?”

The sun came out on Armin’s face, too open to hide the relief backing his smile. “It’s a classic, Eren.”

“It’s why Mom took our telescope away.” Easier. Less hollow.

More like how things were meant to be. In that moment, watching Armin’s eyes glitter and his pace pick up until he was practically skipping, it was like they’d never been anything else at all.

The goal wasn’t supposed to be to run back to exactly how things were. Eren wasn’t an idiot. He knew that wouldn’t happen. Even when Historia figured her stuff out and didn’t want him interrupting couch time anymore, things weren’t going to bounce back to him and Armin lying upside down on their cramped balcony while they argued over which movies got to stay on their list.

But running down the sidewalk at Armin’s heels, chasing down the rest of their afternoon, Eren felt like some limb he’d been missing had snapped back into place.

[next]

#drug au #fic #mine #long post

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7deadlycinderellas · 4 years

Text

No more math and history, ch6

Ao3 link

BIG TW in this chapter for discussion of an incident of religiously motivated child abuse. Please read responsibly.

Halfway through second session, Sansa’s halfway through reading a letter when she suddenly starts slapping the side of Arya’s arm, making her drop her sandwich.

“You’re never going to believe this!” she gushes, pushing the folded letter at Arya. She takes it and scans the words quickly.

Gendry has paused eating his soup.

“What is it?”

Arya can barely believe her eyes. There’s a polaroid photo included and Arya runs her finger over it.

“Robb wrote that Nymeria came home. Gods, it’s been six years, I figured…”

She doesn’t say. There are still wolves in the north. She stares at the photo, at Nym’s blue eyes, at her gray markings. She wonders if she will even remember her.

It’s nice for a letter to bring good news this time.

She’s sick of Ygritte being so distant, so between her and Sansa, they decide to ambush her during the next rest period.

They both approach her on her cot with arms crossed.

“OK, Ygritte, we’re not leaving until you tell us what’s wrong.”

She tries to stare them down, but Arya and Sansa are better at it than her. With a deep sigh, she reaches into her trunk at the end of her bunk and pulls out a folded, battered letter.

Arya scans the back before turning it over. Sansa hunches over her shoulder so they both can read at the same time.

“You didn’t tell us you heard from Jon,” she says, miffed, “He hasn’t written any of us yet.”

Sansa’s still reading while Arya talks and gets to the middle of the letter first. She clamps her hands over her mouth to stifle a squeal.

Ygritte looks at them both, and mutters, helpfully, as though they hadn’t just read the letter.

“He asked me to marry him.”

Sansa squeals and her hands fly to her mouth. After she’s calmed down, she asks.

“Don’t you want to be part of our family?”

Arya rolls her eyes.

“Don’t mind her, she’s as big a romantic moron as Jon has always been. Also-”

Arya runs her finger along one line in the letter.

“He asked you, ‘how you would feel about getting married’, pretty sure that’s as indirect as Jon can get. He’s probably terrified of what you’ll say.”

Ygritte looks at Arya dubiously.

“So what should I tell him?”

Arya shrugs.

“Tell him how you do feel about getting married. Which, I might ask, is what?”

Ygritte sighs and pulls her knees up to her chest.

“It’s not that I never want to get married, but seven hells, I’m only twenty. I see half the girls who leave school up north at sixteen and get married immediately. They’re my age and half of them already have kids and the other half work shit waitressing jobs while their husband’s run sheep and drink, and it’s just- Forever is such a long, long time to think about...”

Arya rolls her eyes.

“Then tell him that.”

“Isn’t that a little-”

Arya rolls them again, and sits at the end of Ygritte’s bunk.

“Ygritte, you’re the only serious girlfriend Jon’s ever had. You’ve been together for like, five years, and he never even looks at other girls. I’m pretty sure telling him you’re scared to get married so young won’t be a deal breaker.”

“It’s also sort of a cliche for young soldiers to marry immediately upon enlistment, then come home and discover their wives were unfaithful, might want to remind Jon of that,” Sansa comments. Arya snorts. Sansa watches far too many sappy made for TV movies. She’s heard Robb’s friend Theon make a couple of cracks at Jon to make sure he doesn’t get himself tied to a “dependapotamus” too. Arya had lashed out at Theon for being insensitive as usual, but on his rare phone calls, Jon hadn’t seemed to think the other recruits were bastions of rational decision making.

“Just,” Arya adds before she leaves with Sansa, “Don’t panic and make a decision you’ll regret later.” She should write Jon and remind him to keep that in mind too. She’ll go get some stationary at the tuck shop later. “Take your time. That’s one of the benefits of only being able to get snail mail out here.”

Marriage, Arya can barely believe it. It’s such a grown up concern, out here in the woods. She thinks of Jon, off with the Air Force, standing and marching, and wonders if he wishes he were here, even when he is also thinking of marriage.

Later that week, Gendry comes to breakfast whistling. When Arya eyes him, he rolls up his shirt sleeve.

“Made it twenty-four hours without a patch. I now declare myself free of nicotine’s power over my mind and my wallet.”

Arya gives him a high-five and Shireen follows up.

“Shireen was the one who really pushed me to quit,” Gendry confides in Arya. “She really doesn’t like fire, and is apparently invested in me living to old age.”

Gendry’s so pleased with himself that Arya hates reminding him that the canoe races start today. He slumps over when she does. Gendry’s really not suited to a counselor role, he’s far too anti-social, but he’s quite good at enforcing rules and enforcing them fairly. But the races bring out the most rambunctious and the most competitive among the campers and there are frequently tears and occasionally blood. He spends the days of the races even more sullen than normal.

The day of the semi-final races, Tommen Baratheon flips out of his canoe and doesn’t come back up. A blow of the whistle, and it’s the first actual rescue Arya’s seen happen at camp in years. The air is thick with anticipation, as everyone stays still, buddy arms up, watching the water.

The canoes are still sitting idle when Gendry jumps in and pulls Tommen from the water. He’s limp and pale, and Gendry lays him on the shore, and checks his airway. He hasn’t even had a chance to check his pulse when Tommen coughs and the air thins and everyone can breathe again.

“That was fucking terrifying,” he admits to Arya, “but...sort of exhilarating too.”

“It was exhilarating to watch,” Arya tells him. It’s true, she rarely gets to see him so confident and self-assured. It’s like watching a great athlete play, but Gendry’s never really been able to give half a hoot about competition when they played anything. It’s such a huge change, to see him so... sure of himself. It’s nice, really.

But even afterwards, he’s tense through the end of the races, a tiny bit shaken up by the save.

The night the races end, he looks incredibly relieved. That’s the same night that Shireen whispers to Arya.

“My cabin’s doing a snack raid tonight. You should bring Gendry and help him cheer up.”

That Arya can definitely handle, she’d been so disappointed at the end of first session when Hot Pie hadn’t managed to tell them when any of these were planned.

After campfire, Arya grabs his hand.

“Snack orgy tonight with Shireen’s cabin, give me five minutes to change into my stretchy trousers.”

Snack raids were always an exciting event as a camper. Despite this, Arya is still a bit disappointed in herself that she never realized how carefully they were planned. They not only never got caught, but they always seemed to happen right when there were two or three of the big ten gallon ice cream drums close to their expiration dates. And somehow, the kitchen staff never locked up or put the toppings away.

Not that any of this knowledge stops Arya from loading up her sundae with crushed pineapple and whipped cream.

Shireen’s cabin is young enough that snack raids are an entirely new concept, so thankfully they are too excited by the ice cream to truly cause any real mischief, and keeping an eye on them in the kitchen is easy.

“Y’know, the first time we did this, Sansa was completely convinced we were going to get kicked out if we were caught,” Arya whispers to Shireen while Gendry squirts the can of whipped cream into a camper’s open mouth.

“She always was the rule abiding type,” Gendry adds.

Shireen slumps a bit, her cheeks red.

“I’ve always been like that too.”

The whole group is quiet for a bit, when one of the younger girls approaches with her spoon.

“Will the cold make your face stop hurting?”

Shireen smiles.

“Thank you for thinking of me, Lily, but it’s just scar tissue, it doesn’t hurt.”

Shireen’s eyes drift downward as the girl pads away, and Arya forces her mouth to stay closed but the words start tumbling from Shireen’s mouth regardless.

“Arya, you said you thought the Lord of Light was from Essos, did you ever hear about his followers affinity for fire?”

Arya is frozen, her eyes trailing towards Gendry, who is nearly as still as she is.

“No, no I can’t say I have.”

Shireen’s tilting forward, her bowl of strawberry ice cream sitting at her chin, untouched.

“That’s his follower’s favorite topic, cleansing and blessing by fire. When I was young and my father first started making me go to services with mum, it was all they talked about. Then a new priestess came to Dragonstone, all the way from Asshai. She was different. She didn’t just like talking about it. No matter how short a sermon was, there was always a fire on the altar.”

Next to her, Arya watches Gendry stiffen.

“After that, we had to go to chapel every night, not just on Sundays. We weren’t supposed to do anything else at all it seemed. And her sermons were longer, and bigger. She made people stand up and profess things...and they burned things. At first it was just books and things she insisted were wrong, but then…”

Arya’s mind is racing. She knows the sort of thing Shireen was describing. In history class a few years they’d learned the word. A cult. Arya darts her eyes around trying to see if anyone else is listening, but thankfully the younger girls are chattering away.

Shireen reaches up and touches the side of her face.

“I had chicken pox bad as a kid, it left some nasty scars. My mum used to try and cover it up, but it always stuck out.”

Arya nods.

“I was so upset they got the vaccination like, a year, after I had it.”

She’s desperately trying to lighten the mood. She knows sometimes when people ask about her parents and her past, her words could get sort of heavy. It went with the territory, but Arya’s actually almost frightened of where this goes.

“This priestess, her name was Melisandre. I don’t know if that was her first or last name. She sort of fixated on my scars. Kept saying she would purify me of them.”

Arya’s beginning to shake as she thinks of what could be coming.

“I’d seen her...the chapel had a fire of hot coals. Standing over them was said to purify your breath. She would sometimes call people to the front of the congregation and have them lay their hands on the coals, for what she said was ‘spiritual healing’”.

Shireen’s hugging her middle with both arms now.

“She used to take my father aside and talk to him, and he always came away angry, until one day he didn’t. One day, Melisandre spoke to him, and he led me to the front. I don’t remember thinking anything was strange, until she held the coal to my face.”

Arya’s stomach churns. It’s taking near all her power to keep her sundae down.

“I don’t really remember it that well. I think I must have screamed, but all the rest I remember is the smell. Like cooked meat.”

“That must have been when Mr Davos called emergency services,” Gendry interrupts. Arya frowns slightly, somehow still being able to express further confusion at his response.

Shireen nods.

“I was in hospital for a while, then I went straight into care. The nurses kept going on about how lucky I was not to lose my eye…”

“They like to do that,” Arya interrupts. She has to interrupt. Shireen’s eyes are shining like she’s going to cry and if she cries, Arya won’t be able to stop herself and they’ll have a mess hall full of curious pre-pubescent girls who have magically managed to not hear this terrible story. “When Bran was in hospital after his accident, he said they wouldn’t stop talking about how much worse it could have been.”

Shireen chuckles grimly, but otherwise stays quiet, her eyes squeezed shut. Arya and Gendry both lean forward at about the same time and each hug about half of her. It feels so strange that Arya already knows how to do this with so much grace.

When they walk back, Arya asks Gendry quietly,

“You knew all of this?”

He nods.

“Mr Davos took us in at the same time, he used to be close to her father. He hardly spoke at all when he brought her home from hospital. We had to take her in for appointments regularly after that, for nearly a year. She had to have skin grafts and all that jazz.”

Arya stays silent for a bit.

“How is she dealing with it?”

Gendry pinches his nose and squeezes his eyes shut.

“I don’t think she is. She doesn’t say a word, and last time her parents had supervised visitation, she went completely stony faced for a week, and for another week after the visit. I used to think it was just to deal with the media- there was a fair amount for about a week on TV down in the Crownlands about the ‘mad rich people cult’ down in Dragonstone before something else took over. That’s why I let her keep going, because she never talks at all about it.”

Arya sighs. She knows that too well, sucking all your feelings in and keeping them inside until they threaten to explode.

“I should tell her to talk to Bran,” Arya says, thinking, “He was always the only one of us who was good at feelings, I think his cabin’s up for archery rankings in a few days, I’ll have to ask him while we’re at that.”

Arya chuckles. And if talking doesn’t help, shooting things might, even if it involves sacrificing one of her precious days off.

Arya has hardly seen Meera this past week because she’s been setting things up. The Mormont girl who’s her junior this year looks the same as every other Mormont. Arya has missed archery a lot, it’s not something she can exactly practice at home.

For added fun, it turns out Bran can still draw and shoot even without dropping the arm of his chair.

Bran tells her he’s spoken with Shireen a bit at meals and when their cabins share activities. Arya asks him if Shireen has talked to him at all about her past.

“Just little bits here and there, I never wanted to pry.”

“I’m not telling you to pry but...Gendry says he thinks she really needs to talk to someone.”

“Y’know of all the things I thought would be different after the accident, I never thought that it would make people talk to me about everything. At this point they should just give me a therapist’s license.”

Arya feels a smile quirk at the corners of her mouth.

“It’s because they know you can’t run away.”

There’s a brief lull when Meera pauses to announce the current rankings. Arya watches Bran’s eyes linger a bit on her and can’t resist the urge to tease.

“Still?” she asks.

Bran sighs.

“Still.”

The summer before the Starks had first come to Camp Durrandon, Meera and her brother Jojen had both spent the summer up north with them, their father having been an old friend of Ned’s.

“At least we don’t have to fight over her attention anymore.” Arya comments. Not that they’d ever really wanted the same sort of attention from Meera. Being twelve to Arya’s ten and Bran’s nine, she hadn’t paid either of them any mind that year, choosing instead to spend the summer trying to climb every tree on the grounds of Winterfell, and very nearly succeeding.

Something pricks at the back of Arya’s mind and she asks.

“Has she been being kind of distant lately or is it just me?”

Bran turns and cocks his head in Arya’s direction, his face disbelieving.

“Well it is her last summer here, I think it would be pretty normal to be a little sad.”

Arya’s eyebrows fly up into her hairline. Her mind had somehow skipped over that fact.

“I don’t think I even processed that. Her not being here with us will be so strange.”

Bran shrugs.

“Well it’s not like the conservation corps have summer holidays. It’ll be three years until she returns to civilization full time.”

Bran’s ears are a little pink, and it suddenly hits Arya that he and Meera are only one year further apart than her and Gendry.

“You ever think of telling her?”

“I don’t know what good it would do, especially now. Maybe I’ll tell when she gets back.”

“Do you think you’ll still feel that way after three whole years?”

Bran’s eyes get the strange, old look they get sometimes when he’s thinking hard. Mum had once laughed and said Bran seemingly had a soul a thousand years older than him.

“I mean, I didn’t think I would still feel this way now. I thought I would grow up and my feelings would fade. That’s the way it always goes in films. But I haven’t.”

Arya smiles, and pats Bran on the shoulder.

“You see? Things like this are why I say you’re better at feelings than me.”

It doesn’t take much prodding for Bran to agree to talk to Shireen more when their cabins do activities together, and by the end of the rankings, Arya places rather well considering she hasn’t shot in years.

That night, in their cabin, Arya ambushes Meera with a hug. Ygritte’s gone to the tuck shop to buy some more paper, but she hasn’t mentioned if she’d written Jon back yet. Regardless, it leaves Arya and Meera alone.

“M’sorry, I didn’t even realize you might not be coming back next summer.”

Meera still, but laughs.

“It’s okay. I’ve not tried to think about it too much either. It’s all so big...no more summer holidays, no more exams, no more uniforms with skirts and ties.”

Arya chuckles and tries not to be glad that the system in Winterfell didn’t require uniforms after junior school.

“I think that’s part of the reason I always liked coming here so much. It’s like all the rest of the world disappears for three months.”

And Arya realizes that’s so much of the reason why she loves it here too.

And she realizes the next day at the kickball tournament that second session is one day away from ending.

She’s in the stands with most of the camp, watching Shireen’s cabin going against Myrcella Baratheon’s, and only half paying attention when she realizes Ygritte and Sansa to her side are spiritedly debating as to the baseball euphemisms.

“I’m just saying,” Sansa starts, “Doesn’t it basically imply that lesbians can never hit a home run?”

Arya snorts.

“Well I didn’t come up with the thing,” Ygritte responds, “You like girls, make your own metaphor.”

“Maybe that means that you can still go to Mum’s church on Maiden’s Day with a clear conscience,” Arya teases Sansa, “Since according to this bit of common knowledge you have no way of not being a virgin.”

Sansa huffs.

“The bases are sort of vague,” Arya continues, “especially since I’ve only ever heard them described as second being above the waist and third being below.”

“True,” Ygritte agrees, “I mean, a fella touching your chest through your sweater isn’t quite the same as being stripped to the waist and him sucking your chest full of love bites.”

The back of Arya’s neck goes pink, and later that night when her and Gendry are on the ground behind the equipment shed again.

A few nights ago, he’d snaked one hand up her shirt and gently begun to tug on her nipples. Tonight it only takes a little convincing to make him duck his head and experimentally take one between his lips.

Second base, head first, Arya thinks with a giggle. Looking up at her, Gendry’s eyes have a mischievous twinkle, one she hasn’t seen on him a lot.

“Something gotten into you tonight?”

Arya reaches out and runs her hand along the side of his face, fingers catching on the slight hint of a beard he doesn’t bother shaving out here.

“Just thinking about some things.”

“Good things?”

Arya tugs on his ear to pull him up into a kiss before responding.

“Mostly.”

She’s thinking about how good this feels, how nice Gendry looks in the moonlight. She’s thinking of sports euphemisms and the hide and seek game tomorrow. She is pointedly not thinking of Ygritte’s letter and Meera’s job. And she is definitely not thinking about summer being almost over.

#game of thrones #A Song of Ice and Fire #gendrya #summer camp au #fic

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kim-lexie · 5 years

Text

week-by-week playback: crash landing on you.

just to preface, pardon that some of this may not be cohesive. i made this a separate post because otherwise the collective review would be insanely long. and i wanted to keep a space where i just let my thoughts from each episode exist, so here it it.

if you want to see my semi cohesive thoughts from the themes and characters here is my actual review. crash landing on you.

*spoiler alert*

ep 1-2 my goodness this man, hyun bin (aka ri jung hyuk in this drama) is dreamy as ever. *like swoons*. son ye-jin is perfect, i loved her in "something in the rain” and this character is completely different and i am loving it. this free easy going aide of this actress. she is adorable and i love how in a crazy situation the first thing she thinks is ‘you’re totally my type’ bc seriously a girl after my own heart.

now the concept is completely ridiculous but i’ll jump on the band wagon and live my best life bc i think this is going to be a unique concept that i fall for. the fact that she doesn’t listen to him and goes directly into north korea i’m like girl you’re crazy.

i love how they added the clips at the end of the episode and how he was laughing at her. precious how he’s already falling for her quirky side. i am intrigued to see where their relationship first started like how did they meet before how did he leave north korea and enter back in as a general captain?!? so many questions and i’m so excited.

ep 3-4. kim ju-meok (captain ri’s company of 5) saying i haven’t seen any drama characters that don’t fall in love in that situation. hahaha same dude same. when the guy was spying, jung man-bok, and trying to keep up with the drama plot. hahaha

i loved when the ladies tried to see her and she made him act all sweet walking him out the door.

he said all nice things to the plant!!!

ep 5-6. his relationship with his fiancé is soooo weird. and her family must be super high up in north korea. same to his family though. his mom has an ostrich in her yard!!! i love how they got stuck on the train on their journey to pyeongyang. i love how he jumps to his feet to get her anything she wants. they’re precious together. i’m excited to see where it takes us bc now that the man on the run knows that she is there, there is leverage. he was the first guy she waited for TT. i’m really enjoying the little tidbit scenes at the ending.

he’s gonna keep a photo of her even though he said it was silly to get a momento. the clarification between destiny and coincidence.

ri jeong-hyeok do you want to be my destiny. ‘as long as you stay in my sight you’ll be safe, as long as she is in my sight i will protect her.’

ep 7-8. her character growth since meeting him is extensive and i love to see this side of her not as callused and closed off but rather vulnerable.

‘so happens that you’ve become a special person to me

for once i had to protect you too.’

the heart on his uniform she stitched up.

it’s his brothers song. TT

him going to find her bc she might have been waiting in him. he’s not wrong. and her being concerned with him not being in the hospital bc of his injuries.

your life here might be shattered bc of me.

and i don’t like that.

she’s gets kidnapped. after all this. she even decorated a christmas tree and got him a gift.

held my breath for a solid minute after that gunshot.

ep 9-10. yes his freaking dad in these moments where i’m crying just provides the perfect comedic relief bc he can’t freaking believe what’s happening in front of him. “you make my heart flutter. the other dude.” even when you didn’t know it you saved my life. when he played the song for the first and last time for his brother.

how would i forget about a woman who feel from the sky? -jeong-hyeok

i didnt fall. i descended. -se ri

she freaking wrote i love you with the books.

his brother was such a good person and got the medicine for his friends baby.

when they had to say goodbye to each other. and when their eyes met once again.

ep 11-12. this episode. i loved seeing how the comrades reacted to the daily living of those in seoul. they were too precious. absolutely terrifying that cheol-gang made his way into a security. like what kind of background check did they get?!? like. come on.

cannot believe that jeong-hyeok found her in an echoing parking garage. it’s destiny.

seo dan got the term ‘sweetmeat’ from seri stop it!!

all of the almost encounters had me dying, while the boys were trying to track down captain ri. the gaming to ignoring the call for chicken.

they wanted to recruit kwang-beom for an agency. they’re like your cover was blown bro.

talking about a future when he didn’t go back. married with twins. and he’ll play piano again.

them dresses as south koreans got me like. my goodness. they’re too much. them all hugging was beautiful. he missed them all so much.

her mother left her at the beach. like what the even. her sister in law gave him her address what the even, this side of her family is wack.

they surprised her for her birthday. my goodness. this moment i’m weeping then it’s like dang that would have been cute.

i’ll be thankful the person i love is still breathing.

and it will be a good year.

-ri jeong hyeok

ep 13-14. the couple rings.

our boys. slaying it. my gosh. when they’re all surrounding her after she was shot. and crying my heart broke.

i never played the piano. and i’ve never told anyone. until you crash landed into my word one day. that’s how i lived. but now i’ved changed. even if i have to worry about losing you, i want to have you in my life. even if it breaks my heart bc it’s a dream that can’t come true, i’d like to sincerely dream of a future. so please live. and listen to my words i still have stories that i haven’t told you yet. -ri jeong-hyeok

when she finally woke up and he ran in. the fact that the mole wire tapped the room while she was unconscious. and then the tape of her mom telling her and wanting to thank seri and ask for forgiveness, and also the fact that her oppa and sister in law wanted her gone...wack.

when he was showing her his scars and the boys walked in and thought something scandalous was up, i died laughing.

i love them together. “they’re curious about your face. i understand bc you look great from the back.” -seri with regards to the paparazzi posting a photo of him online.

the split second after cheol-gang died and ri jeong-hyeok contemplated ending his life, because he didnt know what would happen when he went back to north korea.

while seung-jung was hiding in the market after he ran away from his captors, and the orphans collectively sang that sad song to distract the officers and protect him.

when seung-jung gave seo dan the ring that she picked up from the store so he could give it to seri who gave it to the pawn shop, and he picked it back up and proposed to seo dan. i weeped, because why does this have to be so hard.

when the NIS was collecting data on the ‘spies’: purchases at internet cafe, downloading videos of his favorite drama star, chicken restaurant, etc. i can’t.

him deciding to go protect her even though he missed his chance of leaving the north with his life. and that she would be the one crying for him once he died made him sad and happy.

seri would make the same decision again. to meet the people and keep the experiences she had. “the wind blows to move in, not to stay.”

the exchange at the boarder was all too much. they all had to say goodbye so quickly.

ep 15-16. her family is wack. thank goodness seodan was able to get her revenge and get all the information from the chinese gang to turn over her older brother.

he wrote her back in the bookshelf. and is sending her notes after he’s gone. her breakdown in the kitchen when she saw all that he left for her. and receipts.

them going for walks at the same time of day to have a shared moment.

all of captain ri’s men reminiscing of the good things seoul had. internet. electricity.

i love that seri made a limited edition product to pay tribute to the ladies that helped her in the north.

he got her a freaking plant. i can’t. she is carrying for the plant like a baby and taking it around with her. got to say nice things to it. i knew it the last thing she said was rihoseok. (honestly wanted it to be a tomato plant)

“season changed but messages kept coming.” i really love this.

“it was eldewiss let’s meet in the country where these flowers bloom.” tell me they meet. please. oh please.

when ri jeong-hyeok broke the news that he was moving on to become a pianist and that the new captain is not a handsome man. the ladies of the village faces just dropped. i can’t.

“he found me every time. and i’m sure he’ll find me again someday.” -seri

“edelweiss symbolizes precious memories. what should i do jeonghyeok? it’s impossible for me to herons your just as a memory. so even if we don’t meet this year, maybe next year. if that doesn’t work too, i’ll anticipate the year after that. until the day you find me i’ll be waiting and praying.” -seri

stop it she is going to go paragliding and meet him again. come on.

eun-dong saying he misses his sister. i love them.

most wonderful two weeks of the year. stop it they have a house together in switzerland. and they are living happily ever after.

i really don’t want it to end...

#crash landing on you #week by week #playback #k drama #ri jong hyeok #hyun bin #yoon se ri #son ye jin

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apprenticenerd · 4 years

Note

"Anyone can send me an ask with one of the titles and I’ll post a snippet or talk about that WIP!" The Acropolis, Tacet, Checklist, A Tiny Galaxy, Hearsay, Going Back, Ella Disenchanted, Making Peace, The Slashed Circle, Wake Up, Tenno, Midnight, Heliotropism, Arrhythmia, the one about Among Us, the one about Library of Ruina, the one that’s a D&D world concept. Yes, all of them. I know you wanna talk about all of them. So go, go forth and do it!

Hoooo boy, this is gonna be a long post. Lots and lots of writing snippets under the cut to avoid dash stretch!

The Acropolis - original - length uncertain - 1.4k and counting

im not ready for this im not i thought it would be yrs i thought id at least get an english degree first

omg sal whats goin on

fuckin hell whyd it have to be now i have a chem lab tomorrow

sally-tate macpherson. u never swear. ever. wtf is goin on.

ok. jess. i need u to listen really really carefully. understand?

answer the goddamn question ur scarin me

shut up and listen and this will go a lot better

fine but u need to tell me wtf is happnenig

ok. im going to tell you a bunch of stuff. not giving u advice, thats not allowed, but im gonna tell u stuff it seems like itd be impossible for me to know.

?????????????

i said shut up this is really important dont question how i know it. just go with it and figure out what to do. and dont die. bc no matter how crazy stuff seems, if u die, ur dead. here and everywhere. ok?

This is an original story coming straight from a @/writing-prompt-s prompt about a crack in a kid’s hardwood floor that they fantasized was a portal actually being one. I originally intended to write the entire thing like this, as a conversation over text, but that may not be feasible given a certain world-building detail at the other end of the portal (and the limits of my creativity lmao).

---

Tacet - The Blackout Club - one-shot - 3.2k and counting

She closed her eyes again, and there it was. Hallucination? Some new science trick with electromagnetic radiation off the visible spectrum? Evidence that she was actually going insane? Whatever it was, it burned behind her eyelids in bright, incontrovertible red - and was completely invisible when she opened her eyes again. There was just the usual mess of club posters and one big one about someone’s exceedingly dumb-looking lost cat.

Eyes open, there was only Sargent Snuggles. Eyes closed, there was the normal darkness and then three lines of text where the poster had been, wavering like scarlet fire:

JOIN TBC JOIN TBC JOIN TBC

TBC? What the fuck was that? She’d never heard of any group with that acronym before. Hardly aware of the flurry of weird looks from half the other people in the hallway, she crossed the hall to examine the lost cat poster more closely. It felt like perfectly normal paper when she touched it, and there wasn’t even a hint of red with her eyes open, unless you counted the cat’s tacky pink sweater. How the hell was this even possible?

“You’re finally cracking, Bri,” she groaned under her breath, then headed for her locker. She did have to get home. Add another big fat entry to the weird shit list.

A backstory one-shot for my Blackout Club OC Briar, telling the story of how she got into the club in the first place. I’ve been stuck in the same spot for a while now, after Briar’s friend Dani explains the club to her, and I’ve come to the conclusion that the scene’s over as is. Of course, writing the next one is the tough part.

---

Checklist - The Blackout Club - one-shot - 1.7k and counting

8. You still have a headache. Shouldn’t you go back to sleep and try to do this in the morning?

9. (wake up)

10. Nah, you’ve always been a night owl, and school starts criminally early, too early to get much done beforehand. It’s quiet, except for Dad snoring. Your parents are asleep already. You can stay up until this is done, and they’ll be none the wiser.

11. Your head hurts worse. It’s getting harder to think. At only 9 pm? 9:30? Whatever. You should sleep.

12. (wake UP)

13. What are you thinking? You have to read at least a little of this chapter, or there’s no way you’ll be able to bullshit your way through class tomorrow. Besides, all of a sudden, the silence feels...strange. Heavier? You can’t describe it.

14. You need to sleep. You need a drink of water or something. You need to finish this damn homework. You need to sleep. You need to sleep.

15. Stare at The Great Gatsby. It doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense.

16. Realize what’s up with the silence. Dad’s not snoring anymore. You aren’t feeling like yourself. You need to sleep.

17. Something’s weird.

18. (WAKE UP)

19. ...No. Something’s wrong.

Another Blackout Club story and another Interface Screw, as it were, this time in the form of a (very long) checklist. None of the characters have names (yet). It describes another way a kid could find themself running around at night with the Blackout Club, this time by fighting off the Song just enough to run into a club member who could wake them up the rest of the way. As with Tacet, I still need to write the suspenseful part.

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A Tiny Galaxy - Warframe - 4 chapters planned, 1 complete, 1 in progress - 7.8k and counting

Try it if you don’t believe me, the kid in the vent had said.

It was impossible. It was physically impossible. All of this was impossible. Had the Void...? Could the Void...?

The ship was at a standstill. Her mother had tried to kill her, and something had happened. She’d made something happen. There had been no holoprojector in that kid’s hand. Nothing was impossible anymore.

Jhia took a deep breath. How the heck was she supposed to do this? Was she supposed to feel something, some internal guide? Blue Hair hadn’t said. Feeling incredibly stupid, she did a quick mental checkup on herself. Nothing felt wrong, or different - but now that she thought about it…

Afterward, she would try many times to explain it, and fail every time. The best she could come up with was that once she found the Void, calling on it was as easy and as natural as breathing. She opened her hands in front of her, concentrated on that force like an extension of herself, reopened her eyes, and there it was: a riotous little ball of energy, wisps and motes of light and not-quite-light like a tiny galaxy, the Tau system in the palm of her hand, raging.

More OC backstory time! This one’s for my Tenno, a nerdy fourteen-year-old (at the time of this story, anyway) by the name of Jhia, going through the hell that is the Zariman Ten-Zero and what happened on it. This is possibly the first part of the story I actually wrote: the roll-credits moment when Jhia realizes the Void’s changed her more already than she thought.

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Hearsay - Lobotomy Corporation/Library of Ruina - one-shot - 1k and counting

"Oh? Did they investigate further?"

"They tried. Found a few fingerprints, but they didn't match anyone in the database."

"What's the update, then?"

"Reports from elsewhere in the district of someone not in uniform carrying a Zwei sword. They're slippery, good at avoiding us, which would suggest Syndicate operative to me and HQ. Except that in every one of the descriptions we managed to get, our sword thief is a child."

"What? How?!"

"You tell me, Iona. You're the one who went to the crime scene."

"Right... Jeez, if it's a kid, I guess that'd explain why Petrov thought they weren't a threat..."

"My thoughts exactly. HQ has a fair amount of hearsay to go on, but nobody can quite agree on how old the child is, or whether or not she's with a Syndicate. Most agree that she appears to be a girl, tall for a child, auburn hair, clothes and demeanor typical of a Backstreets native."

"We got a name?"

"They've heard Yeri, Kali, Redbird, Suma, Aelfin... No one knows which is her real one, or if it's even any of them at all."

"Damn. ...Say, are you going to drink that entire pot of coffee?"

"Help yourself."

This is one of those stories that turned into an accidental AU when more of canon came out. The idea behind it is that it’s Kali’s backstory told entirely in conversations in which she did not participate, showcasing the fact that a Fixer’s fame is their livelihood and Kali was about as famous as they come, before the whole L Corp thing happened. Of course, the vast majority of the headcanons here got invalidated with a certain Ruina update, so my motivation’s kinda down on this one.

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Going Back has already been talked about here!

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Ella Disenchanted - The Blackout Club - one-shot (maybe two-shot??) - 1.4k and counting

She woke. Her stomach went through a series of panicked flip-flops as she thought something strange had done it, Dad or a little-kid-nightmares shadow beast had made noise, but no - why had she fallen asleep in the first place? Her butt and shoulder were sore where they’d been leaning on the bottom and side of the windowsill, presumably all night, since the sun was full up over the trees on Old Growth Hill.

All night. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t fall asleep, but she did anyway. God dammit.

As she unfolded herself from her cramped ball, though, she froze. Under the comforter she’d pulled around her shoulders for warmth, she was wearing her gray jacket, a T-shirt, jeans, sneakers getting dried mud all over the carpet.

Last she remembered, she’d been in her pajamas.

In which a Blackout Club kid’s little sister wonders where he’s gone when he runs away to the boxcar, and tries to get to the bottom of the mystery herself. Usually she’d be too young for the club to recruit, but her investigations and an incident involving SAO are more than enough extenuating circumstance. Unlike most of my other WIPs, there’s a whole outline at the end of my doc for this one.

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Making Peace - Warframe - multi-chapter - 1.5k and counting

“I…” Iksoh finally said. “Sorna, I hope you realize. I’m not into this. I never - I’m not doing this. Whatever you’re doing, I can’t.”

“I know,” Sorna said softly. The decision tore at her heart again and she almost backed out of the vent, but no. She had to go. She wouldn’t see another innocent crumple in her rifle sights. “I hope you realize. I’m not coming back.”

Behind her, Iksoh let out a long, shaky breath. “It’s taking all I’ve got not to report you right now. Sorna… the Queens’ll have my head for this. Please, please, let it be worth it. Go. Don’t let them take yours.”

“I won’t,” Sorna promised, and meant it.

Later, after her last fight for her freedom was done, on the Steel Meridian ship headed for Kronia Relay, Sorna looked out at the planet retreating behind her and thought of Iksoh. She’d just learned a new word from a Meridian soldier: vaykor tal, the defector’s spirit. Iksoh had let her go, at risk of their own life. They’d had a bit of the vaykor tal themself, even if they hadn’t known it, even if they’d thought it was just some weakness that was bound to get them killed.

“Ranre treri, duf krun,” she whispered into space, a Grineer well-wishing passed down from sergeant to tube-fresh lancer since time immemorial. May your hands be steady, and may life be kind.

This is an AU born of me and some friends wondering why in the heck Perrin and the Meridian hate each other so much in game. It’s about a group of Kavor - Grineer defectors distinguished from other Meridian members by their pacifism - who get to a Relay and start wondering the same thing. Besides Sorna (and, later in the story, Iksoh as well), there would have been Chakh, Beket, and Sydon, plus at least four of the syndicate leaders and a bunch of side-character OCs, all caught up somehow in what turns out to be a surprisingly far-reaching web of intrigue.

The Slashed Circle - Warframe - one-shot, probably - 429 and counting

In addition to their written and spoken language, the Grineer have a full language of hand signs. It has its quirks, as all languages do - be careful of confusing it with the Corpus sign language, in which the sign for “to pay” roughly approximates the Grineer sign for...a certain portion of the male anatomy. Among these is the common Grineer sentiment against those who defect from their ranks, baked into the sign just as much as their spoken words.

The sign of the slashed circle, the sedashkur - a finger drawn in a circle on the chest, followed by a diagonal line - is the highest of taboos to any loyal Grineer. It shows support for such scum as the Kavor and Steel Meridian, enough so that it forms the basis for the Meridian’s battle standard. To sign the sedashkur is to betray your siblings, commit a grave insult to your superiors, paint a near-indelible target on your back. It is an object of hatred and fear throughout the ranks.

She fears it, yes, but she does not hate it, for all her life and into her death as well. It shouldn’t trouble her now, though. It is easy to hide a language, and she burned her journals before she was called to the fortress.

This is a fic about Jhia and her one (1) converted Kuva Lich, namely about the process of said Lich’s defeat and defection, that kinda never got off the ground. Contrary to this snippet, I think most of it would have been written in what are essentially space emails back and forth between Lich and Tenno? I definitely got as far as Jhia sending an audio recording of a bass-boosted dog fart, anyhow.

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Wake Up, Tenno - Warframe - one-shot - 950 and counting

“Wake up, Tenno.”

She wakes. She is - she is Tenno, right? She is a Tenno? Her mind is confused, so full of fog and dead ends - how long was she asleep?

The voice that woke her seems familiar. She might have loved the speaker, in her scrambled past life, the woman in the purple helmet, the one called Lotus in her HUD vision. Her surroundings are a ruin of some sort. Her body is—

...what?

She can move just fine. Her fingers and arms and legs respond with suspicious ease, given how long she must have slept to be this scattered upon waking up, and yet there’s some fundamental disconnect. This is her Warframe, her body, but it’s not her body somehow.

...wait, where did the term “Warframe” come from?

A Tenno, unnamed but intended to be Jhia on my end, wakes up on Earth at the very beginning of the in-game storyline. Since the tutorial has gotten an overhaul in recent months, I may have to modify even what little I have on this a lot.

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Midnight - Iconoclasts - poem - 280 and counting

been anything smaller than been anything

never been anything smaller than

“good morning, how’s miss grump doing today? i heard about that last mission...if you didn’t sleep well i can call you in sick, it’s alright-” “oh, shut up, grey”

there has never been anything

“oh, shut up, grey” “love you too”

smaller

“love you too”

than

A very fragmented, stream-of-consciousness-y poem meant to represent Agent Black’s failing sanity near the end of the game. The words of her famous one-liner (“there has never been anything smaller than me”) are interspersed, out of order until the end, with poetic descriptions of other characters and bits and pieces of a flashback involving Agent Grey.

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Heliotropism - Iconoclasts - one-shot - 1.1k and counting

Lily, though she’s superstitious, will have none of these self-important truths, none of these semblances of certainty when really all it is is wishing on Ivory and hoping for the best. She calls for Miss Andress instead.

A stout but severe woman with ten grandchildren and a great-grandchild on the way, Miss Andress is perhaps the quintessential matriarch: nurturing, selfless, brutally honest. She is the one the people of 17 trust when they feel they can trust no one else. Lily needs the kind of reassurance only she can give, with the authority of ninety-one years and the wisdom of two sons, one daughter, and some five dogs raised under her care.

When Miss Andress visits House 4, she asks Polro and Lily to each bring an object they cherish the most. For Polro it’s his largest wrench, pitted with use but still polished to a brassy shine; Lily surprises everyone by pulling out a tiny, unloaded stun-gun, and surprises them more by not explaining it at all. Miss Andress doesn’t question it. She just turns the two tools over and over in her hands, head bowed, squinting at them as if trying to read the secrets of the universe in the scratches carved into them by time.

Finally she straightens up and sighs, pushing a strand of silver hair behind her ear. Her forehead is slick with sweat, though the night is cool outside. “I don’t know what she’ll do,” the wise woman says, heavily, as if delivering bad news. “I just know she’ll change the world.”

Can you tell I like backstory fic? This one is for Robin, with one short anecdote for each year of her life, up to age 17 and the events of the game. It’s also an excuse to world-build a bunch, lol.

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Arrhythmia - Crypt of the NecroDancer - one-shot(?) - 4k and counting

The creature didn’t say anything, just beckoned to the shadows. Before I could move, two other creatures came for me, sending the other humans - former humans? - scrambling away in panic. One landed a hard blow on the back of my head that sent me to my hands and knees, seeing sparks; the other said “Freeze!” and I could only watch as ice sprouted from the leaf litter, cementing me to the ground.

The one who’d hit me produced a dagger from the inside of its cloak. I tried to pull myself up, to do anything at all to keep myself from getting shanked, but it was no good. There must have been a secondary effect on that spell; my limbs wouldn’t respond. I felt the dagger tear cloth in the region of my back, and prepared for the pain.

It didn’t come. The creature cut a slit in the back of my tunic, then another. Neither one touched the skin at all. I can’t really describe what happened next - my brain was having trouble computing how my arms were in front of me, visible, unable to move, but it felt like the creature was pulling them through the gashes in my tunic, but that was wrong, they didn’t feel like arms at all.

“Holy fuck,” I heard someone say.

The ice holding me down melted into nothing as the spell wore off. I jumped back up, head spinning a little, ready for another fight, only to spot two flicks of scarlet in my peripheral vision. I spun around, but they moved with me.

I think I already knew what they were. I just couldn’t admit it to myself.

You’ve already seen this one, Nick, though I’m pretty sure it was well over two years ago. It’s a pile of old headcanons, some of them now outdated I’m pretty sure, about how Nocturna ended up a vampire in the first place and a little bit about how vampire society works. According to Google Docs, I’ve been stuck on this one since March 2018. Whoops.

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untitled (working title “adult citra meets an impostor bc what is self-control”) - Among Us - one-shot - 572 and counting

“I know. You’re stuck, aren’t you?” Having well and truly gotten their full attention, Citra continues, “God, I can barely imagine. Having to take a weird-ass host whose biology might even be toxic to you, I don’t know. Needing to get to a whole other galaxy, feeling like the only way to do that is by deception and death.” “How…?”

She sighs. “I told you, this isn’t my first rodeo. One of your kind saved my life when I was a kid. Since he’d killed Mom and Dad had been out of the picture long before, he stayed here and helped raise me afterward. It’s how I learned to pronounce...a few of your words, at least.”

“You missed the ‘H’ sound.”

“Isn’t that the one that’s literally impossible to do right with Terran anatomy?”

“Maybe. You think I know Terran anatomy all that well?”

Citra chuckles. “Fair point. You let us find your buddy and fix the ship, I’ll raise Xai when we get comms back and he can try and help you get home. Deal?”

I found an Among Us comic on Tumblr, absolutely ran into left field with it to make a couple of OCs, and then made AUs of those OCs because of course I did. This one is from a future scenario in which Citra (typically orange) meets someone rather familiar on a mission with the crew of the Skeld.

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untitled (working title “library of ruina but they adopt half the guests”) - Library of Ruina - length uncertain - 1k and counting

“And what happened to not caring about others because it’s a waste of time and heartache?”

Now it’s Roland’s turn to sigh. “I don’t care about him. I just don’t want the guilt of killing - look at him, he can’t be older than eighteen or nineteen!”

Raised eyebrow. “Finn will be twenty years old in fifteen days’ time. He is a legal adult. I fail to see why this should matter to either of us.”

“He’s fresh off his first Fixer license! I have years of experience! He had no idea what he was getting into when he signed that invitation and you know it!”

Angela fixes him with a glare that turns his stomach, his freshly remade body reacting to the memory of its sudden, and extremely painful, dismemberment. “I could quite literally hold your soul in my hands if I wanted,” she reminds him in an undertone of steel. “I must do the same for him, following the invitation’s guidance, or my entire plan will be lost, my coworkers’ sacrifices all for naught. Do not disappoint me or ask any more impertinent questions. You know what to do, and what will happen if you do not.”

Look, some of the people you fight in this game deserved so much better, okay? I came up with an AU concept where if a guest willingly concedes the fight and agrees to stick around, you can get their book without killing them. Finn doesn’t die; neither do Tomerry or Shi Association; all the former employees realize exactly what’s going on with Philip after the Wedge Office fight and manage to calm him down, avoiding the whole Crying Children situation. (And then Gebura makes him collect his jaw off the floor by revealing herself as the Red Mist.)

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The one that’s a D&D world concept doesn’t have anything concrete written for it yet. (Don’t read this bit if you might want to play in my campaign at some point!) Instead of your typical Forgotten Realms planar setup, the world at large would be called the Seven Spheres, each of them different in terms of climate, geography, native species and magic, etc. The First Sphere would be the most “generic” one (to our way of thinking) and the main setting of the campaign; it would also be the smallest of the Seven, its primary continent home to a former empire of dragons that spanned most of the Sphere until its mysterious fall a thousand years ago.

Now, since the empire fell, the dragons and their children have slowly been dying out. Best estimates are that there’s only a thousand or two left in the entire First Sphere, with fewer eggs hatched every decade. The player characters enter a world with pretty typical low-level quests to start with, but every so often, especially if they engage with optional story stuff (this would be a more roleplay-focused than combat-focused campaign), they get wind of changes in the air - a failed harvest here, an unusually hot and stormy summer there, a trade war once they start hitting mid-levels.

It mimics real-world climate change in all but cause. As coastal cities struggle to contend with rising seas and, more alarmingly, wizards all over the Sphere start to notice their magic falter and wane, the PCs’ goal becomes getting to the bottom of this. And what’s at the bottom is...your typical Nerd fusion of science with fantasy settings.

The Seven Spheres are not planes of existence in the normal D&D sense, but seven planets in the same solar system, each with its own ancient god far more powerful than any god in any mortal pantheon; the First Sphere is so named because it’s closest to the sun. These planetary gods are incredibly large and incredibly alien, thinking in geologic time and concepts far too broad and slow for most sapient beings to comprehend. A thousand years ago, the fall of the dragon empire was caused by an ill-advised ritual meddling with the god of the First Sphere’s natural process of rebirth, causing said god to die without a replacement.

It’s taken this long for the First Sphere to feel the effects because, again, geologic time - a thousand years is a blink of an eye in this kind of time scale. But now the ancient earth-magic that had kept the Sphere’s climate temperate and its magicians in business is failing. The dragons, as beings of magic intrinsically, have been failing all along. And now it’s up to the PCs, up at level 17-20 if not higher by that point, to figure out how to fix the situation and find a new planetary god for the First Sphere before the whole Sphere burns to death.

#bulletnick #wow this got long #you're right i did want to talk about all of them though

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gore-hovnd · 5 years

Text

So a few days I posted that I’d outlined my headcanon for Jack’s life up until the events of TWS and I got some good advice to post it. So I prettied it up and fleshed out a few concepts and now I’m throwing it at tumblr

Now, these are just my headcanons, and yes I’m forcing HH into it bc I love the ship and even though it’d never happen in canon, it was fun to kinda toy with the whole “how they met” idea. So yeah, here’s this and I’m gonna go lay down lol

I’ll see about doing one for Brock too? Just depends on how long it takes for me to think of stuff up for him.

Jack’s Timeline

• Jack Rollins was born in 1974 to John and Leanne Rollins in the mountains of Colorado, right outside of a major city

• At the time of his birth he was their fifth son but would end up being the middle sibling of nine

◦ The reason Jack’s parents had so many children was because Leanne had grown up an only child and recalled how lonely it was. She never wanted her kids to be lonely so she decided she wanted a lot of them. Originally, she’d planned to stop at five but Leanne and John decided they wanted to keep trying until they had a girl.

• Jack’s siblings consist of:

‣ Matthias - 1964

‣ Titus and T.J. - 1966

‣ Lawson - 1970

‣ Cooper - 1980

‣ Benjamin - 1982

‣ Samuel - 1983

‣ Annalise - 1985

• Jack was born premature and doctors didn’t think he would survive

◦ Because of this, Leanne favored him and always kept a close eye on him

• During Jack’s early life, his parents thought he may have had a learning disability due to the fact that he rarely, if ever spoke.

◦ It turned out that Jack was selectively mute

• John didn’t take well to this diagnosis and wanted to try to force Jack to speak

◦ He suggested doing this by forcing Jack to verbally ask for things like food, water, bathroom breaks, etc.

‣ Leanne rejected this and instead decided that Jack would be treated by a therapist

• Jack began to speak more in middle school

◦ It started out with asking / answering questions in class, asking to borrow a pencil from classmates, etc.

• By the time Jack was in 8th grade, while still shy, was able to speak with relative ease

• In 1987, when Jack was 13, his mother passed away due to an ongoing heart condition

◦ Because of this, Jack’s family feared he would stop talking again

• While Jack didn’t stop talking, he also didn’t seem to mourn the loss of his mother either

• Concerned with this, John had sent Jack to a new therapist

◦ The new therapist claimed Jack was going through a period of dissociative shock

‣ It took years of therapy and counseling for Jack to open up and properly grieve

• Jack ended up going to a different high school than most of his peers from middle school and had to basically start over.

• For a little while he would keep to himself and didn’t really take the steps to make any new friends

◦ Until three months into the semester when he was paired up to work on an assignment with a boy named Dalton

• Dalton took a liking to Jack and introduced him to the rest of his friend group; consisting of Cole, Braxton, Lucan, and Matt

• The boys grew close together; they would hang out after school together and Jack would go to their drama club performances even though he was too shy to be in one himself.

• During spring break of his freshman year, Jack found out and met Braxton’s two dads, Arthur and Christopher

◦ Before this, Jack had never met a gay couple before

‣ Meeting them sprung questions of Jack’s own sexuality

• When Jack’s dad found out about Braxton’s parents, he reacted very negatively and this scared Jack back into his shell

◦ He rarely spoke to his father about anything after that

• For the entirety of his sophomore year and the majority of his junior year, Jack tried to ignore his sexuality

• Until finally, nearing the end of his junior year, he came out to Arthur and Christopher and asked them for advice

◦ The two of them told Jack he could always confide in them

• At 18, Jack developed a crush on a new student who’d moved to Colorado from Los Angeles

• This boy’s name was Christian and the two of them began to date soon after meeting

• Jack told Christian that he didn’t want to go public about their relationship, basically stating he liked to keep his personal life private

◦ Christian agreed not to say anything

• The two of them dated for a few months but that all came to a screaming halt during winter break

• Christian had gone over to the Rollins’ home asking for him and responded with “Jack’s boyfriend” when John asked Christian who he was.

• John was absolutely livid and kicked Jack out without a second thought.

◦ Jack and Christian got into a huge argument over this and broke up due to it

• Jack’s uncle, Mike, had offered a place for Jack to stay

◦ He slept on Mike’s couch for the final semester of his senior year

• Once Jack graduated, he enlisted in the Marines and disappeared without telling his family anything.

• Six weeks into boot camp, he’d given into the guilt and wrote letters to T.J., who was the only one of his siblings who still spoke to him, as well as his uncle

• While in the Marines, Jack pretty much shed his childhood shyness entirely and grew to be more self confident.

◦ He also became a trained sniper and demolitions expert

• In late 2000, Jack was in an unfortunate accident while on deployment that left him blind in his left eye

◦ Because of this, Jack was discharged

• After being discharged, with pretty much nowhere to go, Jack spent 9 months on the streets.

◦ But in August of 2001, when Jack was 27, an agent got in contact with him and told Jack he worked for a government funded agency that recruited and rehabilitated veterans for reenlistment.

• Jack agreed to sign a contract and go with this agent

• During training, which was long and grueling, he met a man named Ellison Lomack and the two of them quickly became friends.

• Jack spent five years going on missions for this agency, assuming that he was once again an active duty Marine

• In 2006 he was given the opportunity to be brought onto an elite STRIKE team that could earn him up to $95,000 a year.

◦ Jack was chosen to be the Second in Command of STRIKE Team Alpha

• His orientation to this team was when he’d found out he was part of HYDRA

• Being told, essentially, that he would either continue working or be killed, Jack chose the former

• Being the chosen SIC, Jack had to go through extra training and bonding with the STRIKE team’s commander, Brock Rumlow

◦ Brock told Jack when they first met; “I trust you with my life, you gotta learn to trust me with yours.”

• In the first few months, Brock was almost glued to Jack’s hip any time they were at work or in the field

◦ Including times when Jack was diffusing bombs, which freaked Jack out

• Over time, Brock and Jack began to work together like a well oiled machine, Jack’s calm and calculating personality working well with Brock’s brazen and abrasive one.

• And in 2009, while drinking after a highly successful mission, Brock and Jack had drunk sex in the hotel room of the British Prime Minister, hardly slipping away before they got caught

• Jack began to recognize his feelings for Brock after this night but refused to pursue anything, feeling as though it would be safer to preserve their established relationship

◦ Everything pretty much went back to normal

• Two years passed and their relationship grew stronger, but never took a romantic turn. Until one night on a particularly difficult mission where everything had gone tits up and they only had 24 hours to fix it.

◦ Brock is stressed out about it and laments that he isn’t afraid to die, but admits he wished he could’ve spent more time with Jack before he did

• Brock and Jack share a kiss under the stars in a desert and fuck on the hood of their military issued Jeep while their team sleeps in a safe house 20 feet away.

• After this mission, that they were able to pull off by the skin of their teeth, Brock and Jack make things official.

◦ Both of them lead relatively private lives and don’t make it known to the rest of the team that they’re seeing each other

• Three years pass and six months before Project Insight, Brock brings up the idea of getting married for the sake of spousal immunity just in case things don’t go as planned.

◦ So they get married, something simple at the court house and neither of them change their names.

• Afterward, Brock and Jack are living happily as a married couple and they fantasize about what kind of life they hope to share when Insight goes through and they’re finally free from HYDRA’s demanding grip

• Project Insight comes along and Brock and Jack meet the infamous Winter Soldier

• Project Insight launches and things go horribly wrong

• Brock splits up with Jack at the Trisk, telling Jack to head back out and that he’d meet him outside.

◦ Initially, Jack follows the instructions given. But a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach has him turning around to go and get Brock

• The helicarriers crash into the building and Jack gets caught beneath the rubble

• He’s stuck there for two days before he finally succumbs and the entire time, all he could do was fiddle with his ring and think about Brock.

#mcu #marvel #marvel cinematic universe #headcanons #hydra husbands #rumrollins #jack rollins #brock rumlow #crossbones #jack doesn't get a happy ending #idk why i just guess i wanted to suffer #i like to think that he got out of insight alive and lead a happy life in hiding #but that probably didn't happen #doin myself a sad

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teen-comics · 5 years

Text

How I think the Xavier school should be run/x school headcannons

So here it is, the master post you've been waiting for on my head cannons on the incredibly interesting inner workings of the xavier/jean grey school for gifted youngsters. Or whatever they're calling it now.

I'm probably adding to this overtime so sorry if things seam strange, it also kind of fits into my bigger imaginary concept of how x men life is (because lets be honest the comics are hardly consistent) Basically marvel can't decide how the hell this schools run so heres how I imagine things

I’m also English so sorry if some thing aren’t common in American schools, I tried my best.

Anyway without further ado heres what going to xavier's would entail:

- I imagine a system for x men recruits somewhat like in academy x, where students train together as a group however I expect this would be voluntary after ‘certain events’ where students complained about just wanting to live their lives and not be the x mens puppets.

- this group of x recruits would have costumes (think New Mutants, Generation x ect) and would be trained to eventually join the x men. This would start as gym activity and eventually move up to the danger room. (never understood the whole school danger room in WATXM, seams dangerous and wouldn't be good for students who don't want to be part of the x-men!)

- self defence would be mandatory (because being a mutant is dangerous) and obviously everyone would train to use their abilities to their fullest extent but the actual training with the goal of fighting in the x-men’s conflicts would be separate (no more schism)

- Basically emphasis on ‘child soldiers are bad’

- costumes for this group! ok maybe I miss the GenX and New Mutants days of costumes, but seriously, no one has a coherent costume! most Academy X kids are stuck in those old costumes, pixie seams to be wearing a old New Mutants costume and the poor WATXM kids have nothing since they dropped the blazers. I expect older kids such as academy x and I guess glob and quire (are they adults now?) would just wear the same stuff they've always worn. But kids who never really got a costume such as anole or the WATXM kids could defiantly get a definitive costume (would they even join the x men recruitment? idk) plus everyone would customise it (think surge with her baggy trousers, god I love that look!)

- i’ll probably make a bigger post on everything costumes would need but yeah, they need something thats bullet proof, or at least somewhat protective. plus I'm pretty sure its cannon that x-men costumes keep you at a good temperature and stuff like that so it should be implemented. I mean lets be honest these kids get in fights, might as well give them some armour.

- Talking of armour (great segway) If we’re saying she's still a teen she’d be in the top year along with quentin and glob herman (tho maybe globs been held down idk was that confirmed?) because grant morrisons new x men came out right before joss wedons run so I'm thinking their around the same ages? so 17-18 is my guess for them

-the year below that I think would be the New X men and the hellions. So 16-17 (I know the age brackets seam weird but I'm willing to guess xavier's can't be to picky about keeping this strictly a high school situation as they can't really turn anyone away, I think its more like a british high school + six form which would be 11-18) So that Surge, Mercury, Hellion, Prodigy, Rockslide ect. Seeing as Pixie has kind of been aged up recently id also put her here. However I think she was probably originally meant to be in the year below.

- The year below this would be the younger academy x kids such as Anole, Blindfold, that purple guy I forgot the name of. As well as the WATXM kids like nature girl, eye boy, shark girl, Idie and Broo. Yeah I know nature girl got super aged up in age of x-man but we’re ignoring that event. So this would be 15-16.

-The years bellow that I'm not really sure about because I don’t read most current stuff but I think Xaviers would accept kids above 11 yrs old so there plenty more years in the school! they'd basically have to accept anyone who's a mutant and seeing as that happens at puberty there could be students as young as 8

- I imagine parts of the school are named after dead x men, as we've seen with Proudstar hall, however would they name parts of the school after dead students? it would seam pretty morbid but they do have an onsite grave yard so.... if so, id expect Cypher and Synch to be commemorated and probably those who died in the bus massacre (tho thats probably too many dead kids, god thats depressing)

- the schools had a lot of teachers over the years, but it think the core teachers would be

Emma Frost - headmistress (honestly the only person I trust to do the job) teaching telepathy mutant politics

Husk - math teacher (since 90′s generation X we've never seen her as a smart character)

Jubilee (as seen in generation x 2017)

Chamber - we've seen him come in on occasion so he might not be full time, though to be honest I don't imagine anyones full time

Northstar - (as seen in new x men: academy x) teaching flight and french

Dani Moonstar - counselling and teaching mutant cultural studies

Karma

Beast - science teacher

wolverine - gym and mutant history

Toad - janitor

Kitty pryde - computing (do americans call it computer science?)

- Ive always loved the idea of the x men base bellow the school but that is hella dangerous so to compromise id say theres a medical wing, danger room, hanks lab and at least one x-jet.

- the danger room would be used sparingly till students proved they could use it, they would then be able to book sessions but the controls would be locked on non lethal and non harmful for younger years.

-the school would also have some sort of bunker (seeing as it gets blown up every other week) and there would be evacuation drills all the time.

Ive been working on this post for months so I hope you like it, yeah this ignores cannon quite a bit and its mostly just me saying how id run the school. I’m also imagining Westchester which again probably isn't the case anymore because I stay away from current continuity. but based on my early 2000′s knowledge, this is what I came up with :)

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duhragonball · 5 years

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[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (111/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation. This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

Previous chapters conveniently available here.

[2 March 233 Before Age. Despye.]

The Federation was an alliance of star systems united under Luffa's protection. She had forced its foundation by threatening to conquer the first four member planets unless they agreed to her idea. That idea was simply to create a bigger target. Luffa had grown bored fighting wars over individual worlds, and she believed that a large and prosperous galactic power would invite more challenging enemies. Despite her self-serving motives, Luffa's Federation actually worked very well for its citizens. Within a year, dozens of other star systems joined the Federation, hoping to enjoy the benefits of cooperation, free trade, and the protection of an interstellar military fleet backed by an invincible Super Saiyan.

But now, the Federation was under threat by an enemy powerful enough to upset the entire premise. A cult of Saiyans, empowered by something called "Jindan", had launched an invasion. Individually, these Saiyans were no match for Luffa, but they had numbers on their side. By attacking numerous planets simultaneously, they could push through the Federation's defenses. Luffa could only stop them in one place at a time, and the Jindan Saiyan were strong enough that they could hold their own against her by working in groups. It seemed that the cult's strategy was to wear Luffa and the Federation down in a war of attrition.

And then a new faction entered the conflict. To Luffa's great consternation, the Federation's new ally was a group of even more Saiyans. She had invited their leader to discuss things with her over dinner on her ship. What they sent her was a teenage girl with pink hair, who introduced herself as Princess Seltiss, Daughter of King Rehval III.

Irreverently, Seltiss held out her hand, inviting Luffa to shake it.

Luffa simply slapped it aside.

"I'm supposed to believe that you're turning against your old man, is that it?" Luffa scoffed.

"Ow. More like he turned against me," Seltiss explained. She wiggled her right hand, then cradled it in her left as she spoke. "I hear you've got plenty of problems with the way my father ran his regime. Is it so hard to believe that there's other Saiyans who agree with you?"

"It's a little too good to be true, that's all," Luffa said. "Nearly every Saiyan I've met has rejected me as a monster. Now suddenly you show up with an army of Saiyans willing to fight for my cause?"

Nearby, Zatte took Ryba Booth by the arm and led him further inside the ship. "Come on," she said. "We should really go to the dining room."

"You want the truth?" Seltiss asked after they were gone. "My followers still don't care for you very much. I'm not entirely sold on the idea of a 'Super Saiyan' myself. I was hoping that if I got to know you better, maybe I'd, like, come around. But so far it looks like my dad was right about you. You carry yourself like some berserker from the old stories. I helped drive off those Jindan creeps before they could kill Marshall Booth. I saved his fleet, not to mention a couple of your planets, but you look like you'd rather kill me than thank me. Hmph, and people tell me I'm stuck up."

"I didn't ask for your help," Luffa grumbled.

"Um, no? That's what makes it a surprise rescue? You may not want my help, but you're going to get it," Seltiss said. "We're allies, whether you like it or not. My father's gone mad. Maybe he always was, but now he's abandoned our race and doomed us all."

"Where is he?" Luffa asked.

"In hiding," Seltiss said. "He might be dead, for all I know. Either way, he's not going to help us stop Trismegistus."

"The leader of the cult," Luffa said. "What do you know about him?"

"Not much, but those Saiyans working for him are feeding his power. The more of them he recruits to his side, the stronger he gets. If we don't stop him soon, there won't be a Saiyan race. It'll just be Trismegistus, surrounded by a bunch of livestock he breeds to sustain his powers."

"I've seen this routine before," Luffa said. "Your sound just like your old man when he asked me to help him stop a serial killer who was preying on Saiyans. The whole 'we're in this together' speech. Next thing I know he tells me he created the murderer just so I'd walk into his trap."

"Pozet," Seltiss said. She rolled her eyes as she said the name, as if recalling an embarrassing relative.

"Oh, good, then you know his twisted little windup toy," Luffa said. "Did you know he created that abomination using tissue samples he stole from my wife?"

"No, I didn't," Seltiss said with a wince of disgust. "You mean that lady who was here a minute ago? Pozet was...? Oh, that's gross... I'm... I'm sorry. I can't say I'm surprised to hear it, but I'm sorry."

"For all I know, princess, you're nothing but another homunculus he created, or a sleeper agent with altered memories to make you tell me whatever lies would suit his purpose!" Luffa crossed her arms over her chest and set her jaw.

"That's not true," Seltiss said.

"And why should I believe you, little girl?" Luffa shouted. "Give me one good reason not to dropkick you back out of that entrance hatch."

"Katem is alive," Seltiss said.

Luffa's eyes widened when she heard this. "How do you know that name?" she asked.

"Xibuyas told me you called him that when you fought him," Seltiss said. "My father left him for dead on Planet Pflaume, but I rescued him. No offense, I still call him Xibuyas, but mostly because I don't want to make the big lug mad. But you call him Katem, because you're his mother, or at least you say you are, and that's the name you chose for him."

"That doesn't prove..." Luffa stammered. "Rehval could have found that out somehow, or.... Well, it doesn't mean you're on my side!"

"My father wanted to marry me off with Xibuyas," Seltiss said. "He never dared to tamper with our minds or genes, because he needs us to make a bunch of royal heirs with Super Saiyan blood in their veins. My mother was never anything but a eugenics experiment to him. So I know what it's like to be used by the Saiyan king. I might know about it a little better than anyone else. Maybe that's not enough to hammer out an alliance, but I'd say it's a start, you know?"

There was a long pause while Luffa weighed the girl's words. At last, she turned, and gestured for Seltiss to follow her. "Dinner's almost ready," she said. "I still don't buy any of this, but you might as well eat with us. My wife doesn't have much of an appetite, so it'll save me from having to store a bunch of leftovers."

"Uh, sure," she said. "Maybe I can raise Xibuyas on the subspace radio. He was leading our forces at Despye, but he's probably got that wrapped up by now."

"You do that," Luffa said. "If I like what you two have to say, maybe I won't break your neck at the dinner table."

*******

The dining room on Luffa's star-yacht was a luxurious cabin with a panoramic window. Normally, it provided a breathtaking view of the stars, but the ship was currently docked at a spaceport, and so the window only showed the dark grey hull of the freighter currently docked beside it. Marshall Booth was far more interested in the scene transpiring at the table, as Seltiss tried to get on Luffa's good side. Zatte's attention was mostly focused on the video screen on the wall opposite the window. It was meant for entertainment purposes, but it was currently patched into the ship's communication system, and now displayed an image of Xibuyas, Luffa's estranged son.

"So, chronologically, Xibuyas is only four years old," Seltiss began. "I'm not much older myself, but biologically, we're both like sixteen, thanks to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber."

"The Hyperborean what?" Zatte asked.

"It's another dimension," Seltiss explained. "Or maybe it's some kind of temporal anomaly, like the time dilation as you approach a black hole, only in reverse. See, for every minute you stay in the Chamber, about six hours pass in the outside world. Great way to train people on a deadline, but a pretty lousy parenting style, if you asked me. I spent a few years inside the chamber studying before I went off to private schools, and Xibuyas spent his time in the chamber getting stronger. Not quite Luffa-level strong, but I heard he gave you a little trouble."

Luffa rubbed her fingers over her chin, as though recalling fondly the last time Xibuyas had hit her there. "He got in a few good shots," she said, never taking her eyes off the video screen that displayed Xibuyas' image.

Xibuyas, joining them remotely from the Despye system, sat up a little straighter in his chair, and looked away from Luffa's gaze.

"I don't want to get too far off track," Seltiss said, "but you two really do have a resemblance."

"I was just about to say that," Zatte added. "I can see a lot of his father in him, too."

"Really?" Seltiss said. "What was his dad like?"

There was a low rumbling noise, which turned out to be coming from both Luffa and Xibuyas simultaneously. "Maybe we should save that for some other time," Zatte suggested.

"Why didn't you just return to King Rehval, boy?" Luffa asked Xibuyas. "You seemed awfully devoted to him the last time we met."

"I wasn't strong enough to kill you, Luffa," Xibuyas replied. "Her Highness convinced me that I should have a escape plan in case things went poorly. There was an access to the Hyperbolic Time Chamber in Pflaume City, and I retreated into it, leaving you to die when the city imploded. The city was completely pulverized by the pressures of the lower atmosphere, but the entrance to the chamber survived. All I had to do was pilot a small craft out of the Chamber and wait in the Pflaumian atmosphere for My Lady to come pick me up."

"For what it's worth, Katem," Luffa said, "I'm glad to see you made it out of there in one piece."

"We both are," Zatte added. She leaned towards the table, hoping to give Xibuyas a better view of her as she held up her index finger. "I'm, uh, I'm your stepmother, by the way."

Booth raised an eyebrow at this, as he knew very little about Zatte, but he had already gathered that she and Luffa were a couple, and so the revelation was mostly trivial to him. The Saiyans ignored Zatte altogether.

"After I saved Xibuyas," Seltiss continued, "We went into hiding, basically to wait and see what would happen next. If Luffa had really kicked the bucket on Pflaume, then we could have gone back to my dad and all would be forgiven. But since you survived, I decided I should lay low, and let my father think Xibuyas was dead. We set ourselves up on a nice, out-of-the-way planet, and waited to see what my dad's next move would be."

"But you're not laying low anymore," Luffa said. "The Jindan Cult. What do you know about it, girl?"

"I only know what others have told me," Seltiss said. "We started establishing contacts with Saiyans who weren't aligned with the Kingdom. Expats, anti-monarchists, anyone opposed to the Rehval Dynasty but willing to consider me as an alternative. Through them, we found out that Planet Saiya was evacuated, and not long after that, we found out the you were still alive. At first, I just assumed dad had evacuated because he was afraid you would go back to Saiya and destroy it. A lot of Saiyans we talked to had fled the planet because they didn't want to follow Rehval. He didn't lift a finger to stop you from demolishing the citadel and beating up most of the population, so they didn't trust his plan to evacuate."

"Sounds like they're the smart ones," Luffa said with a derisive snort. "They never should have followed him to begin with. That faithless bastard was never going to protect them, because he was using them as a diversion. At least they've learned their lesson. Besides, the evacuation won't stop me. I'll hunt Rehval and his flock to the end of the universe if I have to, and then I'll rip out his heart and eat it while he watches! Here, let me top off that stew for you."

"Uh, thank you," Seltiss said, allowing Luffa to refill her bowl. "It's very good, by the way."

"Damn right, it is," Luffa said with laugh. "Rehval's offworlder chefs probably couldn't season a proper stew if their lives depended on it. It's probably why you're so skinny. But go on."

"Right, well, like I said, we thought it was just my father trying to hide from you," Seltiss said. "Then we started hearing from Saiyans who had gone with him, only to leave afterward. They couldn't tell me where the new homeworld was. I guess the only way to get there was some sort of teleportation system, so no one but dad knew the coordinates. Anyway, they told me he went mad. My father always dreamed of a more cosmopolitan Saiyan nation, with diplomatic ties to galactic powers, and all the features of a modern state. He had this backup planet ready to go in case of emergency, but he didn't consider how isolated he'd have to be when he finally had to use it. He was obsessed with destroying you and reclaiming his power, but he just didn't have the means. They had supplies and natural resources, but without steady trade with the rest of the galaxy, the kingdom collapsed. I got multiple versions of that. It's tough to tell which broke down first, his sanity, or the social stucture. But things got pretty bad. That's when the cult showed up."

"Are you telling me the cult killed him?" Luffa asked.

"No one knows if my father survived or not," Seltiss said. "But they did invade, and he couldn't stop them."

"How did they find the planet when no one else could?" Luffa demanded. It rankled her to know that her enemies were fighting each other without her involvement.

"Trismegistus knew where it was," Seltiss said. "You seem to know that my father's an alchemist. Trismegistus is the guy who taught him. Dad used to tell me that he killed his teacher after he learned everything he needed to know, just like he killed my grandfather and uncle, and anyone else who might become a liability or a threat to his rule. When I was little, he would show me his trophy room on Pflaume City, where he kept some of Trismegistus' organs in a jar of preservative. But somehow, he's back."

"Who's to say this guy isn't an impostor using the name?" Luffa asked. "Your father told me identity theft is a tradition with these alchemy types."

"You may be right, but I'm not so sure," Seltiss said. "Dad told me that Trismegistus claimed to know the secret of immortality. Lots of alchemists do that. That's why dad kept his heart in the first place, just to make sure he stayed dead. But maybe he found a way to come back without one. All I know for sure is that he found and defeated my father, which makes him a better alchemist than dad. And he has plans for the Saiyans. When he conquered the kingdom, he offered dad's subjects a chance to join his cult."

"Then maybe your father signed up too," Luffa suggested. "If you can't beat him, join him, right?"

"You wouldn't say that if you've heard what I have," Seltiss said. "Trismegistus isn't looking for allies or soldiers. He's using our people for something much worse. You've seen what the Jindan power does. It amplifies a Saiyan's natural abilities, but if Trismegistus decides you're not worthy of it, he can remove that power, and somehow that process leaves you weaker than you were before you joined."

"The former cultists we've met describe a system that demands total supplication," Xibuyas added. "Trismegistus controls every aspect of his follower's lives. What they eat, who they fight, and how they... breed."

"Sounds right up Rehval's alley," Luffa said. "I can see why he got along with this guy back in the day."

"You don't understand!" Seltiss said. "I'm not going to try to defend my father. He created this mess by dabbling in alchemy, but at least he was trying to build up the Saiyan race. All my life, he taught me that he was going to unite the Saiyans into a powerful nation, and it was up to me and my descendants to carry on that work. But Trismegistus doesn't care about any of that. He's not even a Saiyan. If he gets his way, he'll turn us into a slave species, totally dependent on his power. And if he ever dies, what then? No one else knows the secret of the Jindan power. His followers will weaken and whatever society they build will come apart at the seams. This has to stop while there are still Saiyans like us around who haven't been tainted by his power!"

"Then give me your father," Luffa said with an eager grin.

"I already told you," Seltiss said, "I don't know where he is."

"Yes, but it's a safe bet that Trismegistus is operating on that secret planet where your father was last seen. We find it, and we can take the fight to the enemy. And while I'm there, I can check to see if Rehval really is dead. But let's get this straight: there's no scenario where Rehval lives through this. The only way you beat Trismegistus is by working with me, and the only way that happens is by betraying your father. Are you prepared for that, little princess?"

"I've been preparing for it my whole life," Seltiss said defiantly. "My father was wrong about a lot of things, but he was right about the Saiyan people needing strong leadership. I knew one day I might have to pick up the pieces after his bad decisions. If he is still alive, then he's failed us all, so I'll just have to start sooner than I planned. All I know for sure is that the Saiyan kingdom has no future until your conflict with him is settled."

Luffa looked at Zatte, and then to the image of Xibuyas. "What about you, Katem? I offered to help you before, and you rejected me. Are you suddenly going to tolerate me just because your girlfriend tells you to?"

"I speak for myself, Luffa!" Xibuyas growled. "My allegiance was to the King Rehval I knew, not the disgrace he's become. If his rightful heir bids me to join forces with you, I shall."

"Well, she's going to have to bid a little more than that," Luffa said. "I'll work with you, Seltiss, but your army is going to have to take orders from me and the Federation military. We tell them where to deploy, and they do it. Think they can handle that?"

"They will," Seltiss said. "Keeping them united has been a full time job by itself. It'll be a relief to have someone else leading them into battle. I think they might prefer taking orders from outsiders for a change."

"Good. I want Katem with me," Luffa said. "At least for a while."

"With you?" Seltiss asked. "I thought it would be best to have you defending different planets, to cover as much territory as possible."

"And that's smart thinking, kid," Luffa said, "but we won't win this war by staying on the defensive. If he's as strong as he was the last time we fought--"

"Stronger," Xibuyas said with more than a hint of irritation.

Luffa glanced at him and smiled wickedly. "Then the two of us working together can deal some serious damage to the enemy before they have the chance to retreat. The more Jindan Saiyans we kill, the harder things get for Trismegistus, right? Eventually, he'll be forced to concentrate his attacks to a smaller area, and that's when we'll take the advantage."

Seltiss exchanged a worried look with Xibuyas. "I... I mean, I guess that makes sense," she said.

"Then it's settled," Luffa said. "Booth here has probably already been planning how to organize our forces, but I'd like to go over a few things with him. In the meantime, I want you to keep trying to find out where Rehval was hiding. The sooner I settle things with him, the better."

*******

[2 March, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

"Is the meal to your satisfaction, Treekul?"

Treekul had no idea where she was, though her surroundings reminded her of a stage in a video game she had played once. "Volcanic Fortress," she thought it was called, or possibly "Fire Caverns." The room she was in wasn't actually hot, but the red torchlight on the stone walls created a menacing atmosphere which belied the Bigreenese pasta salad and Camelian pheasant she had been served.

"The bird's a little gamey, but it beats the rations from the ship I've been riding for the last few weeks." Truthfully, it was the best meal she'd ever eaten, but she didn't like who she had to thank for it.

"And the dress?"

The "dress" in question was more like a very wide belt, with lengths of red fabric draped over her legs and wrapped around her shoulders and neck. When Treekul was a child, she remembered dressing up her dolls in outfits she had constructed from ribbons, strips of paper, and other items that amused her. She was reasonably sure that those dolls had ended up looking more dignified than she felt right now.

"If I told you I hated it," Treekul replied, "would you give me back the outfit I had on before?"

"No, I wouldn't," he said. "I had your old clothes burned during the initiation ritual.

"Ritual?" Treekul asked.

"For your companions," he explained. "The three Saiyans who brought you to Mundokuul."

"Then you're part of the Jindan cult," Treekul said. She had suspected as much. Her partners had fallen unconscious on Mundokuul, and before Treekul could find out what had happened to them, she had been stunned by some energy weapon, only to wake up here--wherever "here" was--- in the company of a man in a hooded robe. It didn't make sense for anyone else to go to such lengths to capture them. The Jindan cult was the only thing they were searching for, and so the cult was the only force that would seek to move against them... or for them.

"I am," he replied. "And now, so are your companions. Guwar and Endive and Lesseri. They have received the gift of Jindan, and now they serve me."

"You're Trismegistus?" Treekul said.

"I am," he replied. He approached the stone pew where Treekul ate, and sat down beside her. He did not look at her, but instead stared straight ahead, offering her only the shadow of his cloak instead of a glimpse of his face. "They've told me all about you. Your background in alchemical history. Your use of geomantic triangulation to trace the rumors of my power. I'm quite impressed, Treekul."

"Yeah, well, you didn't make it easy for me," she said. "The big break came when we found one of your lost sheep. A Saiyan named Salziff tipped us off to Mundokuul."

"Yes, but it was your genius that allowed the others to discover Salziff," Trismegistus said. "He wouldn't have attracted much attention on his own. Not after what I took from him."

"He warned us not to look for you," Treekul said. "Begged us, really."

"You should have listened," Trismegistus said honestly. "I cannot allow you to leave this planet. You know too many secrets, Treekul. Men like Salziff are useful for spreading rumors, inspiring others to seek my wisdom, but you--! Well, you know too much. Left unchecked, you might share your secrets with my enemies, or the unworthy. I can't allow that."

"For what it's worth, I didn't want to come here," Treekul sulked. "The others didn't give me much of a choice. For them, it was a chance to get all those super powers you promised, but there was nothing in it for me but trouble."

"True, but if you had resisted then, you would have only had to deal with three Saiyans," Trismegistus said. "Now, you have no hope of escape."

"Then why haven't you killed me?" Treekul asked.

"Because, like you, I am also a student of alchemy," he said. "The Saiyans who worship me benefit from my teachings, but they can never truly understand it. In you, I hope to find a kindred spirit."

"I'm not an alchemist," Treekul said. "I just study the people who do. Mainly the dead ones. Whatever you want from me, I don't think--"

He reached up with his right hand and placed it on the back of her neck. A chill ran down her spine as she wondered if he was about to crush her vertebrae or inject her with some arcane toxin on his fingernails. Instead, he simply moved his hand up to the back of her head, caressing the green stubble that adorned her scalp.

"You're a very beautiful woman, did you know that?" he asked.

Treekul was beginning to wish that he had killed her. The alternative wasn't looking very pleasant.

"Most... most people don't like the hair," she said, referring to the thin layer of stubble on her scalp. "I cut it short because it bugs me when it grows out too much. I... I took a page from Servocelsus the Red."

"Of course," he said with a genuine thrill in his voice. "A favorite of mine. Did you know that he used his own trimmings in his experiments?"

"Really?" she asked, feigning surprise. Of course she knew that. The Servocelsan Parchment was part of the freshman curriculum at her university.

But that wasn't the point. The point was that she had dropped the name of one of the most amoral, megolamaniacal spagyrists in the history of galactic civilization, and now her host was talking about him like a revered hero. He wanted someone to listen to his mad dreams and plans. He longed for a sympathetic ear, and Treekul was pretty sure he wanted more than just her ear, if the dress was any indication. And so, she would humor him for however long it took to find a way out. For now, that was her only option. She had been talking her way out of dangerous situations for much of her adult life, so this wasn't necessarily anything she couldn't handle.

She just wasn't looking forward to it, was all.

NEXT: The Transmutation of Lesseri

#dragon ball #fanfiction #lssjluffafic #super saiyan #luffa #zatte #xibuyas #seltiss #ryba booth #trismegistus #treekul #despye #nagaoka

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ofdicnysus · 5 years

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( chae hyungwon, cismale, he/him, 25. ) — LEE HANEUL, better known to the authorities as DIONYSUS, has been working for the kumiho for around THREE YEARS as an ADVISER. rumor has it, they can be DECISIVE & CHARISMATIC but also CAUSTIC & VOLATILE which is why gucci cologne, silk ties, glasses of wine, and bodies tangled in sheets makes me think of them.

hello there, it’s your favorite korean … ness, and i’m so excited to interact with y’all ! i use the pronouns she/her and i also live in the eastern standard timezone. i really like chemistry but have a few things in mind for connections so if you’d like to plot something then don’t hesitate to send me an IM or add me on discord @ 𝐫𝐮𝐧 𝐦𝐞 𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐫, 𝐣𝐚𝐞𝐡𝐲𝐮𝐧#0666

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄. ／ HISTORY

alright, this is going to be a little all over the place since he’s a new muse but expect this to be updated later to look a little nicer

let’s buckle up, yeehaw 🤠

he’s somewhat inspired by lelouch vi britannia from code geass

haneul was born and raised in seoul, south korea with a silver spoon in his mouth and everything he could have ever wanted at the tips of his fingers. his father is a wealthy chaebol executive, and his mother a socialite whom were arranged to be married to solidify an heir to the lee family hotel chain

he’s got a little sister, hana, who is now seventeen and haneul’s favorite person in the entire world. when she was diagnosed with blindness and paraplegia, their father saw these medical conditions as imperfections and sent her away to jindo island to be raised by a staff of people. the girl’s as gentle as a flower and watching their own father throw her aside like she was nothing made him incredibly bitter towards his family, especially when their parents refused to visit and simply acted as if she never existed

growing up, he was allowed once a year on her birthday to visit her and spend the day but those visits stopped when he reached the age of sixteen. their father believed it was time for him to start learning about the family business and visiting hana was a distraction that he felt was holding haneul back when really it was one of his biggest motivations

i haven’t thought up how exactly he was recruited and maybe i’ll leave it that way since haneul is a private man. if you asked him how he joined, he’ll probably give some kind of story that sounds like it could be true but will change it when you ask again because he’s a smartass. the important thing is that he dropped out of business school in his last year due to some health complications of his little sister and despite coming from money, his parents definitely would not pay for any kind of medical assistance, so he joined the kumiho at first to pay the expenses but has since stuck with it

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎. ／ PERSONALITY

haneul got the code name dionysus so y’know this man is hedonistic as the god himself

he’s v flirty but at the same time he’s picky when it comes to those he actually gets into bed with???? like don’t think anything of it if he makes a pass at you tbh

he usually has a poker faced expression and keeps his actual feelings quite hidden

lowkey views everyone as somewhat of a pawn

a manipulative little fucker who knows how to get what he wants

shameless af but classy

he cares about the crew members ( as much as someone like him can or will admit ) and tries to look out for them even when it doesn’t involve a heist. i’d think of him as that person you go to for any kind of advice ? he’s more of a listener than anything else but when he does call shit out he won’t sugarcoat anything, he’ll be straight up and won’t hesitate to tell you when you’re being a dumbass ... unless you not knowing you're being a dumbass benefits him in some way

tough love ? nope, it’s just tough with him bc love is a romantic concept which he hasn’t quite grasped

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄. ／ STATISTICS

NAME: lee haneul

AGE: 25 years old

ZODIAC: leo

GENDER: cismale

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

ORIENTATION: pansexual/romantic

HAIR COLOR: black

EYE COLOR: dark brown

HEIGHT: 181 cm. ( 5′ 11″ )

WEIGHT: 63 kg. ( 138 lbs. )

PIERCINGS: earlobes, double helix ( right )

#kumiho.intro

11 notes · View notes

keyofjetwolf · 6 years

Text

The Chosen: All the notes and answers to shit you wondered about for years

Hey. Hi there. How are you? I’m good, thanks for asking.

So, you remember when, at the beginning of the year, I said I was officially retiring my Buffy the Vampire Slayer continuation, The Chosen? If this is the first you’re hearing of it, a) SORRY TO DROP THAT ON YOU, and b) you may want to read this post first.

All caught up? Awesome.

I told you guys I’d share my stuff. This right here is that. I’ve searched through countless backups, terabytes of data, the remnants of three computers, AND MY SOUL (not really my soul; it doesn’t have a convenient find option), and I think this is everything. If there’s anything left of The Chosen that isn’t contained here, then it’s almost certainly lost to time and I wave it a fond farewell.

But don’t worry. There’s a lot here.

What I have for you are all the notes, plans, and ideas that I had written during the time when The Chosen was pretty much my entire world. From late 2003 to mid 2005, I was on my Buffy creative shit, and OH THE PLACES I WANTED TO GO. I’m not sure I’ll ever not be sad that, in the end, I couldn’t do it the way I wanted. Still, I’m glad to finally be showing you where we were heading.

I’ll try to give this as much order as I can, but my notes were strewn across a mass of files, and in some cases, I straight up can’t remember what the fuck I even meant any more. Feel free to ask if you have questions! Just be prepared that the answer may have to be an apologetic shrug.

I’m not sure what to wish for you all in the reading here. Closure, of some kind, I suppose is what we’re really all after. So closure it is! Happy closing, friends.

Thank you so much for allowing me to have captured your interest and attention, and for accompanying me and these characters I loved on the journey toward the ending I hoped for them.

** Any comments from present-me will be marked in this format. Otherwise, everything is untouched from how I wrote it whenever-the-fuck ago. Section headers are either as I named them at the time, or taken from the file name.

S8 Ideas

General Ideas

Rogue Slayer girl ' 'Full Circle'; Faith-centric.

Possessing demons ' personification of control ' W&K breakup episode.

Xander gets powers, but in exchange for his humanity. Comes to realize that his humanity is what his friends need, and he gives up the power.

Dawn's key powers are reawakened ' ability to unlock and enter doorways to parallel dimensions/realities and back again. Episode where this happens and she visits a parallel world (where she is the Slayer?). Possibly triggered by Doc, seeking to reawaken Glory?

Monster that eats body parts to rejuvenate them.

Emotion sucker.

Incubus that tries to seduce Buffy in her dreams.

Siren/rock group ' playing in club.

Faith/Buffy/other Slayers hunted for sport.

Super Slayer, enhanced by the DC. Big Bad? Guinea pig.

Legion of Super Slayers, created from life force of girls who reject the offer to join the DC.

Things to Name and Figure Out

The name of the new town.

New town is in center of three-Hellmouth triangle, consisting of Cleveland, Ohio, Syracuse, NY, and Washington DC. The gang is settled in a fictitious town in Pennsylvania, not far from Williamsport.

Name derived from three? Trinity, Trillium, etc.

The name of the Bronze replacement. (The Vortex?)

The name (and personality) of Kennedy's new Watcher.

The name (and personality) of the turncoat (the girl Giles talks to in Ep #1)

The name (and personality) of the girl Faith recruits (future cannon fodder)

Better name for the Dark Council.

Better name for the Dark Coven.

Assorted Ideas and Quotes

Scene: Someone shopping at a local bulk warehouse place. How much to Slayers eat? A LOT.

Possible use for the drug from "Helpless" that neutralizes Slayer powers?

Scene: Junior Slayers fighting monster. One says "You ARE the weakest link... Goodbye!" The others make fun of her for using such an outdated pop culture reference. She pouts that they should add a class about banter to the Slayer curriculum.

QUOTE: "D'you ever think sometime we should, you know, run AWAY from the blood curdling screams?"

QUOTE: Buffy doubts Tara's return. Willow: "What, you hold exclusive resurrection rights?"

QUOTE: Tara and Dark Coven guy. Tara: "She'll kill me. After I do this...Buffy will kill me." DC: "After you do this, will you care?"

QUOTE: "Excessive? I think you and excessive have already met in a head-on collision and exchanged insurance information."

QUOTE: Tara talking about doing stuff with Dawn: "You know, shopping, getting our hair done ... girl things." Willow: "I like your girl things."

QUOTE: Someone's sick, but denying it. They cough, get an accusing glance. "I just have something stuck in my throat." "Yeah, it's called ILLNESS."

QUOTE: Faith to somebody, possibly a young Slayer, who goes on at length about what they're going to do to a bad guy or deal with some serious challenge or something similar. "You're full of crap, you've got no idea what you're talking about. (beat) But you mean what you say, so that's gotta count for something."

Notes

1st ep

fate of SS's

Dawn's powers

X taking Watcher's courses

G distancing

W going to grad school

B/T going back to school

prophecy bits

G gets ring

Buffy bit - blood

Ante released

Season 9 Ideas

based on 7 samurai - group of people want to come in and hire the seven to clean something out

something happens where buffy or dawn disappears and the other goes to find them

core four have notoriety as evil forces (four horsemen) with some other community

sdhs reunion episode

"Demon that draws strength from guilt, hate, love, etc. Especially bad if it gets hold of Faith..."

---

I had a really cool thought about Buffy and relationships while I was in there though, which I think I'll have to work into The Chosen.

A common thread in each of her big relationships (Angel, Riley, Spike) is that when she tells them she loves them, they don't believe her.

Well Angel does, but he doesn't think she loves him enough. When he leaves, it's despite her telling him over and over that she loves him enough that him being a vampire and them not being able to do "normal" things doesn't matter. He doesn't believe her, and so leaves.

Riley tells Buffy during their big pre-him-leaving fight, that when she says she loves him, he "doesn't feel it". His disbelief in her and her words causes him to leave.

Then there's Spike. Final episode, Buffy finally tells him that she loves him. "No you don't. But thanks for saying it." And then he dies.

At this point in Buffy's life, there are a lot of reasons why Buffy wouldn't want a relationship in my opinion. But not the least of which is the fact that she MUST be able to answer the question of why none of these guys she loves ever believe her? (Even if you don't think she did love Spike, to Buffy I doubt that would matter -- HE didn't believe her EITHER [and how dare he not believe me, by the way!]).

It's a concept I just managed to sort out (in the shower, of course), and I don't think it's an "obvious" connection, but I do think it's an extremely valid one. I think before I'm done, I'll have to work this into the story somehow. And not resolve it, because I don't think it's easily resolved, and I think it's an issue outside the scope of what I'm trying to do, but I think the issue should be raised.

Season 9 Episode Ideas

Episode where everybody speaks in rhymes. Possible reintroduction for Faerie character?

De-aging episode, Giles' 50th birthday. Courtesy of Ethan Rayne. ("Many Happy Returns"?) Zaps Giles, Willow, Buffy and Xander back to four or five or so, leaving Tara, Faith and Dawn to look after them.

Episode dealing with the murderers in the group: Faith, Willow and Giles. Finch's son/daughter hunts down Faith to (confront? get revenge?) for his death. Sub-plots for Willow/Warren and Giles/Ben. Interesting to note that Faith is the only one who has ever shown any regret for her murder.

Herculean labors parallel. Xander? ("Labor Day"?)

Seven deadly sins with each main character embodying one of the sins? The one least like themselves?

Buffy: Greed

Willow: Sloth

Xander: Pride

Giles: Envy

Tara: Wrath

Dawn: Lust

Faith: Gluttony

Some other Slayer in the past, fighting an enemy that arises today. The gang have to read through the old Watcher's diaries to learn about him and how she defeated it. Shows this old Slayer and her Watcher via flashback. Maybe our Big Bads?

The characters get sent into Faerie Tales where they're forced to sort of act out the tales they're in.

Inanimate creation of some sort (puppet like) who makes other inanimate objects come to life. Specifically mannequins, by switching them out for real people. Some Scoobies, of course, fall victim to this.

Xander getting set up on blind dates. Amusing segment where Xander explains to date after date about what happened to his eye, each reason becoming more and more outlandish. Finally he just gives up and tells the truth - "It was gouged out by a crazy preacher man." The date laughs: "You're so funny!" Could end with Xander getting fixed up with the girl we introduced in S8 and possibly have seen a few times since then - Xander's love interest.

Revisit ideas: nameless, faceless army for the good guys, what are we doing with our army?

Tara dealing with family issues. Why am I back? Madrigan as new father.

Banan the collector

Alt world where Core4 seen like 4 horsemen (Title: "The Four"?)

Conversation where some characters are guessing who would've been the next successor to the Slayer line.

"Other side" episode with dead characters

Buffy/Dawn ep about Buffy's role in Dawn's life. Seeing the others intreract with her, wondering what her place is in Dawn's life. Parallel with flashbacks about VS and her sister. Starts with Buffy finding Grip and Dawn making out, leads to Buffy giving Dawn "the talk" and failing miserably. ("Sometimes, after you and a guy ...... they CHANGE.") Dawn learns nothing, goes to Tara from there, who knows nothing about having sex with a guy, but is supportive and encouraging. Buffy overhears and then begins to try to find how she fits into Dawn's life. We learn at the end that although B/D are vastly different from the VS and her sis, the bond is still just as strong.

Willow (and Tara) meeting up with Willow's parents again.

Big Bads

Vampires, return to the simpler times a bit. Not apocalyptic, but personal. Female vamp with a real mad-on for Buffy. Pissed because Buffy failed to save her? Also possibly some sort of vampire army. Fem is a modern-day Sun Tzu, right hand to this guy in charge of everything.

Addition (3Jul04): After some discussion, we're leaning toward making the femvamp a Slayer who was turned waaaay the heck back when. Possibly held or captured by some other vampire later on in life, and she was released by the head of the army, thus earning her allegiance. Maybe she's Japanese and thus very honourable? If we take her from 1600 or 1700's Japan, that might work out well. Might also give added weight to why her soul has no bearing on halting her quest for vengeance - honor demands that her sister's death be avenged. Possible imagery: maybe she was tortured by whoever held her? The mental image of big ol' cross scar over her eye is intriguing.

Season 9 Episode Chart

Notes

Need to work out (soon!) everybody's hell stuff so it can be incorporated into earlier episodes.

Willow versus hacker vamp idea. Why? What's at stake? Possible fill for humour ep at 9x16?

Corollary: Replot Willow's arc through S9 and possibly into S10.

Get new prophecy for Giles.

Work in at least one other prophecy stanza this season. Important to figure out soon. Who, when, how?

** This was a chart which doesn’t translate well to Tumblr, so I’ll break the cells apart and show column separation with ||

Updated - 22 June 2005

Ep # || Monster/Conflict || Plot Developments || Focus

9x01 || Vamps || Buffy kills Hitakno || Group

9x02 || Dante || Faith comes home || Faith

9x03 || Slone || Sunnydale HS reunion in LA || Group

9x04 || Vamps/Demons || Yuugana arrives in Trillium, Xander quits the Council || Xander

9x05 || Belastung || Tara goes home. || Tara

9x06 || Ethan || Giles birthday, Scoobies regressed || Giles

----------------- NOT YET AIRED -----------------

9x07 || Slayer || Demon girl on run from Slayer. Buffy and Slayer at moral odds. Dawn key powers awaken fully. || Buffy/Dawn

9x08 || Amy || Amy cashes in on Willow's debt. (Fake) Buffy accompanies. || Willow

9x09 || D'Hoffryn || Xander makes a wish that Anya hadn't died. || Xander

9x10 || The Furies || The Furies drive Finch's child to revenge. While they're here, they decide to spread the love. || Faith/Giles

9x11 || ??? || Funny episode - Camping trip? || Group(??)

9x12 || Yuugana || Faith visits Hazel's parents (Xander accompanies). Upon return to Trillium, is attacked and nearly killed by Yuugana. || Faith/Xander

9x13 || Yuugana/General || Sister's parallel. Buffy and Dawn, Yuugana and Hitanko. Yuu's backstory. General arrives, drains Willow and Dawn. || Yuugana/Buffy

9x14 || Yuugana/General || Buffy insists that the gang re-ensoul Yuugana. They do so; it makes no difference. Buffy attacked, put in coma. || Buffy/Group

9x15 || Antediluvian || In an effort to save Buffy, Tara, Xander, Dawn and Kennedy go in search of Ruth, and the Antediluvian. || Tara/Group

9x16 || ??? || Funny episode - ??? || Willow(??)

9x17 || The General || The General's plans come to fruition. || Group

9x18 || Giles' Demon || A demon Giles thought defeated years ago comes back to continue their arrangement. || Giles

9x19 || 7 Sins || The Seven Sins are unleashed on the Scoobies. || Group

9x20 || The General/Yuugana || The General releases Yuugana and they formulate a new plan involving Dawn. Yuugana kills the General and takes Dawn as bait. || Group(?)

9x21 || Yuugana || Part 1. Yuugana takes Dawn into the Private Hell place where she was recently kept. The Scoobies must follow. || Group

9x22 || Yuugana || Part 2. The Scoobies fight their way through their personal hell. Buffy vs Yuugana. || Group

Original Chart

** “VS” stands for “vampiric slayer”, so Yuugana before she had a name.

Ep # || Monster/Conflict || Plot Developments || Focus

9x01 || Vamps || Buffy kills the VS's sister || Group

9x02 || Serial killer || Faith comes home??

9x03 || ?? || Sunnydale HS reunion in LA || ??/Group(?)

9x04 || ?? (vamps?) || VS arrives in Trillium || ??/Group(?)

9x05 || ?? || Tara goes home. VS denied immediate revenge. || Tara

9x06 || Amy || Amy collects on debt. Wants Will to help her get a book. || Willow/Buffy

9x07 || Ethan Rayne || Giles birthday/regression || Giles

9x08 || Doc || Dawn & Doc - Key powers fully awoken || Dawn

9x09 || Finch's child (furies?) || Murderers haunted by past || Faith (lesser: W, G)

9x10 || D'Hoffryn || Xander's wish (Anya) || Xander

9x11 || VS/?? || Sister's parallel episode || Buffy/Dawn

9x12 || Monster in woods || Camping trip (Tara and blade of grass) || Group

9x13 || VS || Buffy vs. VS -- VS ensouled, Buffy drained || Buffy

9x14 || VS minions(?) || Buffy injured. Group goes after Antediluvian || Tara/Group

9x15 || ?? || "Labor Day" (Kenn still around) || Xander

9x16 || artifact || 7 Deadly Sins || Group

9x17 || Computer Program || Willow and the computer program || Willow

9x18 || ?? || Faith visits Hazel's parents || Faith/Xander

9x19 || Demon || Demon that's possessed Giles. Comes every 10(?) years. || Giles

9x20 || General || Fight with General - General loses || Group

9x21 || Demon Dimension || Four Horsemen ("Four"?) [Abortive attempt by VS to separate Buffy from her strongest allies?] || B/W/X/G

9x22 || VS || Big battle -- Buffy vs. VS || Buffy/Group

Yuugana

need: how does Buffy come to believe what she does about Yuu? Conversation beforehand? Difficult. Why doesn't Yuu just kill her? Could make threat, but then Buffy is gambling with everyone, and makes no sense why Yuu nearly kills Buffy later. (Especially as threat will come when Buffy falls unconscious.)

Buffy must be able to draw conclusions ahead of time. Paint picture of Yuu that Buffy will be privvy to. Draw parallels b/w Buffy's life and Yuugana's life. Buffy will internalize.

NEED: When/How will gang find out that she is Yuugana? When will this name be dropped? How? May be good if we can draw General as being very, very powerful. They're afraid of him. Getting Yuu on their side would be huge in fighting him.

Idea: General nearly kills Dawn, draining key powers. Yuu saves her. Buffy thinks it is because Yuu knows what it's like to lose a sister. In truth, Yuu isn't ready for Dawn to die yet - that will be the most painful blow of all.

buffy believes -- utterly believes -- that Yuugana will be good if given her soul. Spike was good, Angel was good ... maybe all vampires can do good if given the chance? Who is she to be judge, jury and executioner?

Internalized: this could be me. What would I do if someone killed Dawn?

** I found two sets of Season 9 character arc notes. The first set are what I think what I was mainly working from, but I’m not 100%.

Character Emotional/Plot Arcs – Season 9

Season Theme: Consequences

Buffy

Will be target of the Big Bad’s wrath as a consequence of killing the BB’s sister early in the season. Buffy’s primary emotional arc will be in the realization that every action, even the most seemingly natural or inconsequential, has far-reaching repercussions, that affect not just Buffy but those she loves.

Willow

Willow’s emotional arc returns to one that was never resolved or given enough attention (or mangled thanks to magic=crack) – control issues. Throughout Willow’s history on BtVS, she’s exhibited time and again a deep NEED to control the things around her. Her need for this never changed, save for her becoming so paranoid she was afraid to breath for fear of killing everyone in S7. Her catalyst for these deep-seeded emotional problems re-emerging stem from a few basic changes. 1) Tara’s back, and Willow doesn’t think she can take losing her again. 2) The Big Bad has made things very, very personal. And Willow remembers only too well what happened last time a Big Bad vampire took things personal. 3) This Big Bad is smart. Really smart. In some ways, even smarter than Willow. And for all the enemies they’ve faced, Will’s never had to go against someone who’s been able to out think her before. And she freaks.

We’re going to have to be careful with this one, though, because we don’t want a return to “Willow Uses Way Too Much Magick” again. We’re therefore going to have to find others ways in which Willow exercises that control trigger finger. Her computer skills could certainly help out to a degree, as well as her smarts, but we’re going to have to be careful. We definitely don’t want a rehash of S6’s problems. Willow is – or very much should be – wiser than that now. And while Will has sort of always had a bad case of “the ends justify the means”, we don’t want a rehash. So care is needed.

We could help to show this by maybe having Willow do something like casting a really powerful protection spell that somehow backfires. What will be vitally important here is taking care to make it very clear that Willow isn’t relying on magick for every little thing (no spells for decoration or closing curtains) … the magick is simply her most powerful tool for keeping everyone safe. This should NOT be about black magick, but about a need for control.

NOTE (4Jul04): After discussions, will probably meld Will's character arc with the fact that Buffy and others (Tara and Giles probably excepted) don't fully appreciate or realize the pressures they put on Willow to come up with the answers and be the big gun, while simultaneously not wanting her to go too far. Magick is bad, except when they need it. They don't accept their own consequences for the actions they push her toward. This still feeds into Willow's character flaws above - her need to protect everyone, to be the best, to keep the nasty stuff at bay.

Xander

Xander, being the human element, will have the root of his emotional arc derive from one of the most basic of human desires: to live forever. Not in the biologically immortal sense, but by wanting to live on long after he’s died. Xander realizes that of all his friends, he is the one that history is least likely to remember. The odds on him being studied in school centuries from now are next to nothing. Buffy will be recalled as the world’s most successful Slayer. Willow as the witch whose spell changed the world. Giles as the founder of the new Watcher’s Council (and new world order?) Any history mentioning Willow is almost guaranteed to include Tara as well. Dawn and her Key potential is fascinating and going to be mentioned … but Xander? There’s nothing so remarkable about Xander, he feels, and thus begins his quest to somehow ensure his own immortality to history.

This might somehow be triggered by the emergence of a new sort of threat. With Slayers all over the world, there’s absolutely no way that NOBODY is going to notice them. Even if people in the Buffyverse have shown time and again that they’ll simply ignore what they either can’t or are unwilling to understand (gang related, PCP), not everybody is so willing to pull down the veil. Thus begins the emergence of a conspiracy theorist, someone who somehow has managed to trace his story to Slayer Central. In doing so, he somehow manages to put a level of importance on each of the Scoobies … except Xander. Which stings.

Xander would eventually come to realize that while history may not remember him, those he loves certainly will, and when all’s said and done, that’s enough for him.

Giles

Giles’ arc will come out of an inevitability – his age. One of the earliest episodes will be reflecting on the fact that Giles is now 50. He’s done such a good job with the Council that much of the bureaucracy continues without his direct involvement. He’s not really keen on that side of things anyway, so he’s not sorry to see it go. But what he does want to do instead is get into the thick of things physically. But, unfortunately, he simply can’t anymore, and it’s a lesson he very much doesn’t want to learn. Giles will ultimately come to realize, however, that while he can’t swing a sword to match the Slayer, what he DOES have is his incredible mind, which will certainly be put to great use in the confrontations with the Sun Tzu-like Big Bad. The fight could not be won without Giles’ intellectual input.

Tara

Tara will spend much of her arc wondering about her place. When she was alive, she had some difficulty in fitting in. And it wasn’t until just before her death that she really started to come into her own. A year and a half has passed now, however, and things and people have changed. Tara aspires to be more than just an extension of Willow, and as voiced in “Family”, she wants very much to feel useful to the Scoobies.

But Tara’s need to find where she fits extends beyond simply within the Scoobs. Tara has a very definite sense of nature and balance, and her being brought back from the dead is something of an abhorrence to her. She can’t quite shake the feeling that in order for her to have been brought back, something had to go out in her place to keep the balance. What that may have been disturbs her beyond words.

How exactly these issues become resolved is currently unclear. Tara should certainly remain the moral and emotional center of the Scoobies. She has more power now, but power was always Willow’s contribution, not Tara’s. On the death thing, perhaps something mystical helps her? Maybe the big Wicca chick we bring in at the end of S8 can help somehow? Show that Tara’s coming back was, in its own way, as natural as her passing was UNnatural. Her return is, in and of itself, a righting of the scales.

Dawn

This is a big year for Dawn. She’s a senior in high school. She’s turning 18. She’s becoming an adult. Oh, yeah, and she’ll finally figure out that she’s got all those Key powers still. Dawn’s story will be about transitions. From childhood to adulthood, from being just a normal (as normal as she could be) girl to having all those powers as the Key and whatever that implies for her. We will also need to decide this year where Dawn’s going to college (her awakening Key powers could be a good excuse to keep her local).

Faith

Faith’s story is going to be about guilt. Hazel’s death at the end of the previous season happened right before we ended the whole thing, so at that point we will have gotten to see precious little carryover. This is the time to dwell on that. Faith would feel tremendous guilt over Hazel’s death – Faith is the one who recruited Hazel, who brought her there. She was Hazel’s mentor, and Hazel sacrificed herself for Faith. We don’t want to retread over the “do I belong here?” line, since we’re dealing with that in S8, but Faith should certainly be questioning whether or not she should be leading little girls into dangerous battles. It’s one thing for Faith to risk her life night after night, but another entirely to be responsible for the lives and deaths of others. Unsure how this will resolve, but it seems the logical arc for Faith given the closing of the previous season.

Big Bad

NOTE: We’re going to have to come up with a really good reason why Willow just doesn’t ensoul the vamp chick … or she does and it makes no difference at all. Could be an interesting commentary about vampires and souls. Hm.

The more we’re discussing this, the more we’re liking this idea. The notion of souls in the Buffyverse has always been sort of hazy at best. Loosely, they seemed to be of the opinion that getting a soul somehow made you good … but there are countless number of humans in the world (and the Buffyverse – look at Warren) who are human and, one therefore assumes, have a soul. Yet they are still capable of great evil. Even more so than some demons that they encounter. So despite however neat and pat Buffy likes to make it sometimes, a soul does NOT automatically mean that someone is going to be good. And maybe that throws her for a hell of a loop. Willow ensouls the BB, but it doesn’t make one bit of difference. Vengeance is, after all, as much a human emotion as anything else, and the BB still wants Buffy to suffer horribly for what she’s done. At most, the BB may feel some measure of guilt for the people that she’s had to kill over the past 300 or 400 years (however long she’s been vamped), but as it turns out, she doesn’t. She looks at it with the detached, cold impracticality possessed by Slayers – she did what she had to in order to survive. Maybe she wasn’t a fan of torture (we’re painting her very logical and such, so this should work okay), and simply did what she needed to. The Slayer in and of itself is very predatorial and most definitely a survivor – there’s not necessarily much difference between them, and this will further demonstrate that fact.

This could also further add to Willow’s continued feeling of being out of control. This SHOULD have worked and didn’t.

Season 9 Character Arcs

Buffy:

Buffy's arc will deal with a continuing gray area between what is good and what is evil. What is a soul really? Does having a soul make you good by default? The vampiric Slayer will prove that's not necessarily the case. Additionally, Buffy will be trying to sort out a few things about her life. What does she ultimately want to do? She could very well be the first Slayer in history to die of old age. Does she want to be involved with that all her life, or does she want more? Would Buffy maybe like to return to school? (Might be fun to have her and Tara going back to school together.) Around midway point, Buffy is nearly drained to death by vamp Slayer, she must rely on others to take care of her - doesn't always have to be the strong one.

Willow:

Willow will come to the realization that her magick is of no use against the Big Bad this year. What is Willow without her magick? What else can she contribute? Progressively, other things may fail as well, so that Willow is systematically deconstructed and having to find her true purpose and how she can contribute outside of her raw power.

Xander:

Xander will explore his roles this season. He's said that he won't be forgotten or shoved aside, so then the question becomes, how will he contribute? It's up to Xander to answer this question. He tries his hand at a variety of roles - maybe a Watcher, maybe a husband (though he's already "failed" at that one). Come the end, he realizes that his role is support, and it's the role he's always fallen into naturally.

Giles:

Giles is pulling away from the others. He's beginning to see the Slayers as nameless, faceless people. He realizes that he'll have to sacrifice them - and some part of himself - again at some point in the future, so he's subconsciously distancing himself from the pain. He's slowly becoming the Old Council. Comes to realize that while he may have to distance himself from the body as a whole, it doesn't mean he shouldn't have any attachments at all. And that he can be those two people - the one that can love them, but still sacrifice them for the greater good if necessary (which will work, as Giles will ultimately sacrifice himself, NOT for the greater good but because he doesn't want them to die). ** Which may be a good time to point out that I was going to kill Giles next season, kisses.

Tara:

Tara's quest this year will be for her place. She's died and come back, but this isn't "right". There is a balance in things, and she feels she's upset that balance. She'll explore her past and her family to find out why, in a grander sense, she's back and how she fits in now.

Tara and Willow:

Tara discovers that Willow has somewhat enshrined her as a result of her death and return. Willow caves to Tara almost constantly, and it's beginning to affect them both, but Willow can't bring herself to fight with Tara as a result of what happens every time they fight. She doesn't want Tara to go away again. They must fight, they have to learn that it's okay. Tara pushes it with Willow and makes it happen. Maybe when Tara goes to visit her family, that's the catalyst.

Dawn:

Dawn becomes victim of the time-old adage, "be careful what you wish for". She's always wanted to be a Scooby, but now that's beginning to conflict with her other desire to be a regular teenaged girl and her other big desire: to be an adult. All these worlds are colliding and Dawn's not sure which is more important. Blows off Scooby things for friend-things sometimes. Blows off friend-things for Scooby-things.

Re Grip: They're getting closer, but she keeps having to put off things with him due to Scooby situations. Grip notices and (kindly) confronts her, wondering if she really just doesn't want to see him anymore but doesn't know how to tell him. When he finds out about the baddies, he'll back away, needing time to process. Poor Dawnie.

Faith:

Faith will spend the season getting back onto the redemptive path she's been on for years. She doesn't feel bad that she killed Judith and is wondering what the means (somewhat like when her mother died). She'll learn that just because she's stumbled doesn't mean she's fallen. She begins in England, hiding out from Trillium. Thinking she should go solo, it was easier when she didn't have anyone else to worry about. Doesn't want to go back, but Kennedy pushes her. Once back, Faith avoids everyone. Should Giles maybe get Faith into therapy?

Buffy agitated that Faith isn't really being punished. Faith points out that a lot of people around Buffy are killers and they've never been punished either. Buffy needs things black and white, Faith is another shade of grey and it's getting harder and harder for her to do her job.

Xander gets to the heart of things too much, and Faith doesn't want to deal with that. Finally it's Willow who lets Faith know that there's someone who DOES understand. It's the first step in getting Faith back into things, but she still doesn't want to teach.

Maybe at some point in the season, Faith takes off? If so, Xander should probably pursue. (Might tie in nicely to Xander's "what's my role?" arc. Perhaps he has a job interview or something that he can't miss out on that will further define him, but he misses it because he has to help Faith, and that's the choice he makes) Could be where Hazel's death gets resolved. Goes to Hazel's house and parents for that?

Faith's murder issue will probably come to a head when she's face-to-face with Finch's child. Kid wants revenge, and Faith understands that. States how it won't make anything better, but gives up and says that if s/he wants it so bad, just take it. S/he doesn't, of course, which would probably disappoint Faith to a degree.

Maybe show Faith just starting to teach again at the end of the season, rather than some big culmination. Maybe she's forced into it when the VS keeps the other Slayers occupied? Buffy would be elsewhere at the time.

The Big Bad

** These are some of my earliest notes, as reflected in how I’m using my placeholder names like “Dark Coven”. A lot of it deals with what happened in S8, but it outlines the larger arc, which would have come to a head in S10.

What the Bad Guys Want

The Dark Coven is seeking to reawaken The Old Ones. As per Giles in “Welcome to the Hellmouth", the Old Ones were driven out when the lost their "purchase" on this reality. The last vestiges of the Old Ones fed on a human, mixed their blood, and created the first vampire. This proves that humans were around during the time of the Old Ones. He also states that vamps, demons and some magicks are leftovers from the time of the Old Ones.

The Dark Coven is a group that has been around since the time of the Old Ones. They are in allegiance with them, and are currently seeking to free them. In their current incarnation, they are very, very close (comparatively speaking). The Old Ones are sealed away somewhere by a series of extremely intricate locks, well nigh impenetrable. But they actually are already well on their way to opening them.

More than anything else, the DC is a master of manipulation with OODLES of patience. They've been working on freeing the Old Ones since their imprisonment. As is eventually revealed, they have been twisting events with the Scoobies for years, bringing them to the point where the Old Ones are ready to be freed.

When the Old Ones Roamed

They were, quite simply, lords of their domain. They are few in number, but unfathomably powerful. As with many nigh-omnipotent beings, however, they became bored and complacent. They began to tinker with things and began creating demons, unleashing them on the world. The demons, however, were little more than slaves, and no matter how evil, nothing much likes being enslaved. The demons, together with humans (quite possibly including the Shadow Men from "Get it Done") were able to ensnare the Old Ones -- you can't kill them, but they were imprisoned. Once the Old Ones were gone, their power slowly vanished, diminishing their partners/lackies/etc. (like the DC), and leaving the created demons and humans to fight over the rest of the land.

Season 6 Manipulation

The DC, although powerful, are themselves, collectively, unable to open the remaining locks (if they could ever open any at all). However they soon discovered one girl, Willow Rosenberg, who had the innate ability to channel the energies necessary to set things into motion. She just needed the right motivation to get the power.

Exactly how far their manipulation into these events goes, we don't know. What is for certain is that they fixed it so that Tara would be shot and killed by Warren's stray bullet. (The reasoning for this idea: there's absolutely no way the bullet could have possibly killed Tara in the way it did. Warren was in the backyard, running away and shooting upwards. Tara was standing by the bedroom window on the second story. The bullet shot through the glass, and through her, at no angle at all. Obviously in-show this was done for dramatic purposes, but they left a door open for outside creative interpretation and I’m going through it.)

As they knew it would, this prompts Willow to become hell-bent on revenge and absorb enough power to destroy the world. She goes to Kingman's Bluff, raises the effigy of Proserpexa, and begins to funnel her energies into it. Had she done this enough, she would have raised one of the Old Ones herself (or Proserpexa could have take the next step in unlocking one of the doors), however Xander interceded and saved Willow before this could happen.

NOTE: Perhaps Xander's interception is what was actually needed here? I always found it interesting that he completely blocked and seemingly absorbed all that power Willow was throwing at the effigy without even blinking. Was this maybe super-charging him for something? Could this maybe be key to what they will need to save him from later on? (S10 stuff.)

The Proserpexa angle maybe have been removed, but the DC didn't mind -- Willow had now unlocked enough of the power within herself to open another lock.

Season 7 Manipulation

This stems from a whole lot of S7 never really standing up to much scrutiny. Take, for example, the scythe. Caleb and the First spend SO much time and energy in uncovering the scythe, claiming to know how very important it was to NOT allow Buffy & Co. to get it -- when if they hadn't even been trying to get it, Buffy wouldn't have ever known it was there. This in and of itself seems to make ZERO sense, particularly since it never seemed to be that the First could use the scythe himself -- it was all about keeping it from the Slayer. So, very stupid to not only sit on the darned thing, but to ACTIVELY BRING YOUR ENEMIES TO IT (the "trap" in "Dirty Girls" leads Buffy and the Slayers to the vineyard, They never would have bothered going there otherwise).

My reasoning: The First is also an Old One. And he set his plan up specifically to fail. He himself is immortal, he cannot die. And he doesn't really give a crap about ubervamps and Bringers. Their plan all along was to make the Scoobies unleash the scythe to awaken all the Slayers.

Why? As mentioned in "Get it Done", there is a well of Slayer power. That well is usually filled nearly to capacity. It was, after all, only being used by Buffy, and then Faith. The fact that the emergence of a second Slayer did nothing to diminish either's power indicates that it's not shared on that kind of level. In addition, the awakening of all the Slayers at the end of "Chosen" didn't seem to cause any sort of power drain. Instead, we theorize that the well is deep, but has a finite capacity. When Willow did the spell, she in essence pulled the stopper on the well and drained it dry. This well, however, happens to be one of the keys to freeing the Old Ones, and once it drops to a certain level, the "door" that it locks is open.

Moving on -- The Chosen

When Slayers die now, one is not called in their place. There is a finite number of Slayers in the world now. When they die, their Slayerness returns to the well. Only once it reaches a certain level (presumably it's "default" state, pre-spell) will the "natural" process resume. The DC obviously don't want this to happen, as once it "refills" to a certain point, the door will close again. Hence their working with the Assemblage of Merodoch (previously, "Dark Council"); by harnessing and funneling the Slayerness into an already existing Slayer, it does not return to the well, hence no refill.

But that isn't the only reason the DC are working with the Assemblage. The AoM also has another key: an angel that they're keeping chained up in the deepest sublevel of their headquarters. This angel has, perhaps, been around as long as the Old Ones themselves. Perhaps he even aided in imprisoning them. He was captured shortly thereafter, however, and has remained that way ever since (we're talking pretty close to pre-recorded history here, as long as the Slayer line has been in existence, possibly longer).

Idea: The angel can only be freed by a descendant of one who imprisoned him in the first place. Maybe a Giles?

He is a key -- maybe something he says? His true name, perhaps? The DC want him, but the AoM have him and won't give him up. They have said, however, that once Order is restored to the world, they will provide the DC with the means to do whatever they need to do with him. The DC is okay with this -- they're currently getting something from the Council (someone to alert them to the need to funnel Slayer energy and someone to keep all that tiresome business together while they focus on the really important stuff).

Like good ol' Willow Rosenberg.

They call Willow "The Sangerand" ("the bloody"), and they should absolutely not be done with her yet. Willow's independent further role, we don't yet know, but she commands their greatest amount of attention. Her, and Tara. ("The Curat", or "the pure"?)

When they resurrect Tara, it is ostensibly under the guise of killing Willow. However the true reason is to fulfill Tara's part of this prophecy (which includes her death, resurrection and making the choice to not kill Willow), possibly including the sharing of power that Willow will need to do to save them.

Thinking on it, it would be cool to have each Scooby play an important role somehow in all of this. Sort of like their being together in this way was a fated thing. "The Chosen" indeed.

**ADDENDUM** I really like this idea of each Scooby playing a particular role. This could still lead up to the eventual death of Giles, which in and of itself will provide the beginnings of the Coven's downfall. They do whatever they're doing to Xander, which will kill him - but that won't matter because his role in unlocking the door will be done. Will is going to be doing the spell to save him, which will kill her in turn, but that's okay too because her part is also played in releasing the Old Ones. Giles, however, has NOT yet done his part, and he completely surprises everyone when he takes Willow's place, thereby saving both Will and Xander. This totally throws the Coven for a loop, though obviously they must still be able to do what they need to without Giles, else their plans are over with right then and there. It's crucial that his sacrifice NOT be part of the DC's plans, else it takes away from its poignancy.

Will need some sort of prophecy-type thing detailing what is needed to be done to release the Old Ones. Should be nice and vague, but with meaning once you figure it out.

Scooby Designations

Willow: The Sangerand ("the bloody")

Tara: The Curat ("the pure")

Xander: The Vedere ("the sight"), The Asar ("all-seeing eye") -- "The Baani" ("The Architect" - Urdu)

Buffy: The Kusari ("the chain"), The Revenire ("the returned"), The Gula or The Bau ("Lady Who the Dead Bring Back to Life")

Giles: The Verhaal ("the history"), The Shoukin/The Infria, ("redemption"), The Shin'ar ("Land of the Watchers")

Faith: ("the dark"), ("the restrained"), ("the wild")

Dawn: ("the cherished"), ("the gateway"), ("the portal"), ("the key")

The Prophecy

Opening Quatrain

Buffy :: The Trimarga :: Three Path A heartbeat thrice begun A death mark thrice given All roads lead to the town of three When her spilled blood shall spill again

Willow :: The Sangerand :: The Bloody Blood flowing, blood taken Forces awoken, decline and ascent Blood given, life exchanged Freely, she will fall

Xander :: The Baani :: The Builder Grief and rage, life's destruction Mind and body, life's cohesion Heart and spirit, life's devotion Melding, merging; essence anew

Giles :: The Tezan :: The Way Forger of paths, the first and his kin The demon wields the plague of black Summoner, banisher Pierce the barrier, paths renewed

Tara :: The Curat :: The Pure Birth and rebirth, the cycle complete Connected to evil, untainted Power innate and power borrowed Through the light she will free the ancient one

Dawn :: The Amelatu :: The Gatekeeper Living energy made flesh and form Younger in life, older than death Truth altered, life shed And the walls will fall

The Slayer Well Solitary hunter, night's enemy She alone will stand When the well is drained and strength is shared One becomes Many

Closing Quatrain And so it is written Seven locks hold fast The masters expelled, the world cleansed Until the Chosen play their part

Seven keys for seven locks From the first to fall, five score and one If all locks turn, the door lay open And the Old Ones shall reclaim the Earth

Buffy: The Trimarga ("three path" :: the triple path of Knowledge [jnanayoga], Devotion [bhaktiyoga] and Action [karmayoga]). Three times her heart has started beating, three times she's been marked by a vampire (Angel, Dracula and the Vamp Slayer [yet to happen) and in town of threes(??). Something to do with blood - some of it needed to open the lock. Blood of a Slayer is already potent, and Buffy's was obviously enough to close the portal in place of Dawn.

Willow: The Sangerand ("the bloody"). Willow will cast a blood-sacrifice spell, that will enable her to willingly exchange her life for another. It has to be this spell based upon how Mads and the others are killing Xander. Very, very powerful, only she can do it. The flow of the energies will open the lock.

Xander: The Baani ('the builder"). Xander is the "incuabator" for two very powerful magicks. They don't impact him directly, but it is his nature - his very self - that will enable them to merge within him to create something new. The first blast came from Willow on Kingman's Bluff. The second, from the orb destroyed in "Win, Lose or Draw". Madrigan will take Xander around the mid-point of S10 to extract the magicks from him. It will kill him in the process, but that's of little concern.

Giles: The Tezan ("the way"). Giles' role is to obtain a ring that has been in his family for generations upon generations. Unknown to those recently, the jewel of the ring actually contains a demon - a demon that was the original cause of the Black Plague in the 1330's. Giles' ancestor, a powerful warlock for the Council, was the first human to pierce the barrier between this dimension and a demon dimension where he summoned a demon and bound it to his service. The demon was sent to China, where it was supposed to take out a group of other demonic creatures trying to open a Hellmouth there. It did indeed do that, but not before starting the plague. The Council, rather than destroy the ring and banish the creature, said "We'll control it better next time." The ring's purpose was eventually lost,. Giles is supposed to release and then banish the demon, again piercing the dimensional barrier and opening that lock. ** He dies instead, sacrificing himself to save both Willow and Xander. Oops.

Tara: The Curat ("the pure"). Tara's lock will open upon her freeing the Antediluvian. The Antediluvian is an angelic creature that was captured by Robespierre's ancestors. Its imprisonment means the lock is sealed - its freedom opens it. Tara is able to free it due to her lineage as a witch, her purity of spirit, her completed cycle of birth and rebirth, and (by binding with Willow) her immense white magick power creating the necessary conditions. Ruth, Tara's grandmother or great-grandmother, was also thought at one time to have been the Curat, but was not. However she does recognize the qualities within Tara. (Perhaps the Antediluvian, despite its imprisonment being a good thing, can do great good if it's released?) ** Later in S9, Tara and Co. would have freed the Antediluvian to save Buffy after Yuugana’s attack.

Dawn: The Amelatu ("the gatekeeper"). Dawn herself is able to open the lock. Not a lot of detail here. We'll need to sort out somehow or another that Dawn will do this ... or perhaps she already has? There seems to be little better time for Dawn to have opened the necessary lock than when all the dimensional walls were coming down.

Additional Lock: The well of Slayer power being drained. This was done by Willow in S7, but is not Willow's specific key.

Additional Info: Once any lock falls, there is a "timer" of 100 years for the rest to fall, or they all lock again.

** It may not escape notice that Faith is not part of this prophecy. That became by design, not oversight. I loved how this idea of “The Chosen” worked into the larger series theme, but I also hate the ideas of fate and destiny being controlling factors. Faith was going to be my argument against all that. When all the prophecy pieces were revealed, Faith would (rather defeatedly in her Faith way) note that she had no part to play. But she is the embodiment of being Chosen, as the characters choose to have Faith by their side and fuck prophecy anyway. Their unreserved acceptance of Faith, and Faith’s acceptance of THAT, would have been the culmination of her character arc in S10 (and my series).

S10 Ideas

Something to do with tarot cards, with each member maybe being a particular card?

Several characters get thrown back in time to an earlier season. Dawn especially should go, as she wasn't around then.

stained glass idea. couples. Buffy left free. Valentine's day ep.

"The Impossible Dream" - Man of La Mancha lyrics

Faith having conversation with Kendra -- result of illness, injury, or prophetic dream

** An episode I was definitely going to do, but frustratingly can’t find any notes for (making me feel there must be SOMETHING else out there somewhere but fuck me if I know where) had Willow and Tara going to Los Angels and visiting Lorne’s bar, Caritas.

S10 Ending

Everyone ends on a thematic note, their actions in the final battle bringing together 10 years of development:

Giles's sacrifice makes victory possible - by finally following his heart rather than his duty he saves the world.

Xander, by virtue (and surprise) of simply being Xander, strikes the final blow.

Willow succeeds only by keeping herself in check, refusing to break and believing that she can win.

Buffy's victories come from not only sharing herself (mentally to Willow and physically to Faith and Kennedy) but truly, finally, accepting that she's not in this alone.

Dawn makes the sacrifice she was destined to make from the moment she was created.

Tara is the touchstone, giving the strength and support to everyone else and the lifeline that ultimately saves Dawn.

Faith has no greater role handed to her by fate -- but she's here and kicking ass so screw you, fate.

(work on Kennedy, she ends up fighting w/ Buff and Faith, but does she start there? maybe she and Faith start with Tara and Dawn?)

IDEAS

Seneca final battle. He's winning. Standing over Buffy, gloating smile. Then he finally speaks. Something like, "I've waited a long time to--" Then he gets skewered (Faith or Kennedy, maybe both.) He can't say anything else, just gurgle. He dies, and the Slayers stand over him.

Buffy: "Blah blah blah. You know, just once I'd like to meet a bad guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut."

Kennedy: "No lie. Still, I wonder what he was going to say?"

Faith: "Who the hell cares?"

Buffy HAS to be part of final Madrigan fight. She goes initially with Xander and Willow. Xander gets struck down by Mads, seemingly dead. Buffy gets nailed too. Willow needs Buffy to get through this though, and Buff gives Will her strength (flashback to "Same Time Same Place" as well as early Chosen w/ Willow and Buffy being so attuned -- see, not a throw-away plot point! Planned all along!) Leads to good "final" conversation/bonding with them as they search for Madrigan in the mental plane.

Earlier in the season, Madrigan extracting the magick from Xander. Very painful for Xander. Madrigan talking to him though, very chatty, very casual. Xander trying to dig for info, Madrigan clearly seeing through it. He likes the cliche though (exposition while acknowledging how clunky and stupid it is to have exposition here). Mads being real bastard (passively though) to Xander this whole time, noting how Xander isn't even really important in and of himself, it's only what others do with him that counts (maybe include little side wink-nudge point, it's what's inside Xander that matters). Mads ends the conversation by apologizing. "Sorry dude, this has gotta suck for you. Hey, you know what I like to do when I'm down? TV! You like 'Murphy Brown'? I've been Netflixing it." He and Seneca proceed to sit down and watch while Xander is essentially tortured behind them. Mads just turns up the volume.

Season 10 Final Fight

Buffy, Kennedy and Faith will go after Seneca.

Willow and Tara will be walking along in the facility when they're attacked. Tara is thrown away from Willow, who is then going to be caught behind an impenetrable shield with Madrigan. He wants to face her alone on an astral plane of sorts. Tara can't join her. Willow is depowered somewhat as a result of the spell she was casting to save Xander. Madrigan wants to fight her, however. Will surprises him - she thought like him and figured he would do this. As a result, Xander is piggy-backing with her, and she's not alone. Madrigan says that he knows Xander, and Xander won't kill him. He's wrong. X: "He don't know me very well, do he?"

Meanwhile, the door to release the Old Ones is opening and they can't stop it. Or they think they can't. Dawn realizes that she, being the Key, can. She begins to do so, but it's taking so much power, it's essentially killing her. Dawn is reverting to pure energy form. Buffy screams at her, tells her not to, but Dawn says she's spent the past five years wondering - feeling, even - that she should've died on that tower. Now she knows that she wasn't supposed to die, she was supposed to live to do this. "This is the job that I have to do." Buffy can't stop her. Tara fights though, won't let Dawn go. Tara eventually passes out and Dawn disappears. The energy is gone and so is Dawn, but the door is closed and locked again.

Not long after, Buffy goes home. Willow and Xander are with Tara at the hospital (she’s drained but okay). Buffy seems to be alone. She's completely dispirited - Dawn is dead. She enters her room, only to find Dawn there. B: "What are you doing here?" Shades of Dawn's first appearance. Turns out (as we'll learn in the final episode) that Dawn has given up all of her Key powers - for real this time. She is now, completely and utterly, a very real, very normal girl.

** And finally, I give you all with this. It’s a rough sketch of the scene after Giles has died, so would have come about 2/3rd of the way through Season 10. I wrote this in 2004, about a week after the death of my grandfather. I like to think that, if I’d gotten that far, this would have been one of those moments that would have stuck with you. I certainly would’ve tried.

Giles Death Reactions

These are a sequence of silent scenes.

We first see Faith in a darkened training room. She's punching a punching bag.

We're in Giles loft, the lights all dark. The door opens, and Hannah's standing there, on the threshold. She doesn’t enter.

We're in a hospital, private room. There are two beds. The one on the far left contains Xander. He looks gaunt, pale, near death. But breathing. His heart monitor gives a steady readout. Dawn sits next to him, inbetween the two beds. Tears are streaming down her cheeks – simply falling, she's not sobbing. She watches Xander with a fearful, worried expression, then turns to the next bed. There's Willow, also pale and drawn. She doesn't look well either, though not quite as bad as Xander. Tara sits on the other side of the bed, as close to it as she can possibly get. One of Willow's hands is held up in both of hers, Willow's fingers resting on Tara's lips. Tara's eyes are red – she's obviously been crying too. She meets Dawn's gaze. Neither smile.

We're in Giles' office. Buffy is standing in the doorway. Her face is blank.

We're back in the loft, Hannah's position mirroring Buffy's. She walks inside and finds herself drawn toward Giles' stereo system. She runs her hands over the CD collection, full of albums and songs from their past.

Faith's punching of the bag increases. She's venting, her jabs more vicious, more focused. Over her shoulder, we see Kennedy watching.

The hospital. Dawn runs a hand through her hair and wipes her eyes after watching Xander intently. She turns to Willow and watches as Willow opens her eyes and blinks. Dawn watches in surprise, and Willow seems to sense the scrutiny. She turns to Dawn and smiles – just a small smile, a pained one, but it's something. Dawn's face breaks into an expression of pure joy and relief, and she says something. Tara has either been locked in thought or asleep, Willow's hand clutched to her forehead, but her head jerks up at Dawn's words. She focuses on Dawn for the briefest of moments before her eyes go back to Willow. Willow is already looking at her, and she smiles again, a bit stronger this time. Willow says something too, and it causes Tara to laugh. The laugh turns into a sob of relief though, and Tara kisses Willow's hand several times then leans over and kisses her forehead. Will is weak, but is able to give Tara a one-armed hug, kissing her on the cheek, then turning to Dawn and extending her other arm. Dawn is there in a heartbeat, also crying in relief.

Giles' office. Almost trancelike, Buffy moves further into the darkened office, which is lit only by the lamp on the desk. As she walks, her eyes are drawn to things. The rows and rows of books that Giles surrounded himself with. The bookcases that Xander built, not only filled with books but also decorated with knickknacks – various small statues and effigies and an Owl plushie. She looks to the opposite wall, where hangs a variety of pictures, but dominating them all, easily the biggest and with the proudest placement, is a picture of Giles, snapped at a moment none of them were expecting. He was obviously the victim of a random group hug attack – Buffy, Willow, Xander, Tara and Dawn, all hugging him fiercely. Giles has that look on his face where he's trying hard to be annoyed with them, but is secretly loving every moment. Buffy's movement into the office hasn't halted, hasn't slowed from its already snail's pace. She's at the desk now. Bathed in the warm glow of the lamp, she sees a cup of tea, only half-drunk, as though Giles will be returning any moment to finish it. Most prominent, however, are the sealed envelopes on the desk, several of them, each bearing a name. We see Buffy's name on the top one, and can see hints of other's beneath: Willow, Xander, etc. Giles' glasses rest nearby.

Faith is almost in a frenzy of kicks and punches now. Her teeth are clenched and she looks like she wants nothing more than to have the bag turn into the Grim Reaper himself so she can pound the crap out of him. A hand rests on her shoulder, and Faith whirls around to see Kennedy there. Faith looks like she might just start beating the shit out of Kennedy as well, but then Kennedy takes Faith's hand and puts a stake in it. Faith looks down at it questioningly, then looks to Kennedy. Kennedy holds up her own stake. Faith's eyes narrow and she nods, just slightly.

Hannah's by the window in Giles' loft, simply looking out, looking at nothing in particular. She hugs herself and her head drops as she starts to softly cry.

In the hospital room, Willow casts an anxious look at Xander still motionless in his bed. She looks first to Dawn, then Tara, who says something that causes Willow to relax considerably. She smiles, but soon realizes her smiles aren't being returned. She again looks questioningly from one to the other, but neither speak. She's getting really worked up now, scared, and Dawn starts to say something. She doesn't get far, though, before she can't speak any more. Willow turns immediately to Tara, who picks up where Dawn left off. Willow watches, still afraid. Then the fear turns to disbelief. She's starting to cry now and she shakes her head in denial. She looks to Dawn, looking for someone to tell her that what she's heard isn't true, but Dawn can only cry. Willow looks back to Tara again and says something, begging for it not to be true. Tara can only look at her with sympathy and matching pain as Willow dissolves into tears.

Giles office. Buffy is sitting in the corner, her back against the wall, curled in on herself. We can't see her face, but her shaking shoulders tell us all we need to know. She's hugging the Owl plushie for dear life.

CUT TO BLACK

** And that, my friends, is that.

#jw writes stuff #btvs: the chosen #IT TOOK ME LONGER THAN I THOUGHT #and now i'm officially drained and exhausted goodnight

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ofhaneuls-blog · 5 years

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hello there, it’s your favorite korean �� ness, and i’m so excited to interact with y’all ! i use the pronouns she/her and i also live in the eastern standard timezone. i really like chemistry but have a few things in mind for connections so if you’d like to plot something then don’t hesitate to send me an IM or add me on discord @ 𝐌𝐈𝐒𝐒 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐍𝐀𝐍𝐃𝐋𝐄𝐑 𝐁𝐎𝐍𝐆#5752 because i’m too scared to approach first.

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐎𝐍𝐄. ／ HISTORY

alright, this is going to be a little all over the place since he’s a new muse but expect this to be updated later to look a little nicer

let’s buckle up, yeehaw 🤠

he’s somewhat inspired by lelouch vi britannia from code geass

it was then that haneul began truly living and following in his father’s footsteps quite literally, spending most of his time outside of school sitting in on company meetings and watching his father work. ( tw: abuse ) he’d often talk back and refuse to cooperate but that’d only end in bumps and bruises at the hands of his dad. haneul soon learned that there was no point in fighting his inevitable destiny that’d been set in stone before he was born.

i haven’t thought up how exactly he was recruited and maybe i’ll leave it that way since haneul is a private man. if you asked him how he joined, he’ll probably give some kind of story that sounds like it could be true but will change it when you ask again because he’s a smartass. the important thing is that he dropped out of business school before graduating due to some health complications that suddenly popped up for his sister and despite coming from money, his parents definitely would not pay for any kind of medical assistance, so he joined the kumiho at first to pay the expenses but has since stuck with it

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐖𝐎. ／ PERSONALITY

haneul got the code name dionysus so y’know this man is hedonistic as the god himself

he’s v flirty but at the same time he’s picky when it comes to those he actually gets into bed with???? like don’t think anything of it if he makes a pass at you tbh

he usually has a poker faced expression and keeps his actual feelings quite hidden

lowkey views everyone as somewhat of a pawn

a manipulative little fucker who knows how to get what he wants

shameless af but classy

tough love ? nope, it’s just tough with him bc love is a romantic concept which he hasn’t quite grasped

𝐏𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄. ／ STATISTICS

NAME: lee haneul

AGE: 25 years old

ZODIAC: leo

GENDER: cismale

PRONOUNS: he/him/his

ORIENTATION: bisexual/romantic

HAIR COLOR: black

EYE COLOR: dark brown

HEIGHT: 181 cm. ( 5′ 11″ )

WEIGHT: 63 kg. ( 138 lbs. )

PIERCINGS: earlobes, double helix ( right )

#kumiho.intro

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xb-squaredx · 5 years

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B-Squared’s Top 10 Games of 2019!

2019 was a year full to the brim of GREAT games, and as is the custom at the end of the year, people love to rank their favorites, so…I’d like to do the same! Of course my own tastes might be different from yours so if you don’t see a thing on here that you liked, chances are I didn’t like it…or more likely, there’s just too many great games out this year, and I couldn’t get to everything. I’d like to stress to that the rankings don’t really matter all that much, especially the farther down we go. Everything on here is an easy recommendation. Without any further ado…let’s take a look at my Top 10 Games of 2019~

#10 - River City Girls

I love action games, but 2D beat-em-ups never really clicked for me. They were largely before my time and I was thinking that it’d be impossible to get me into one in the current era of gaming. And then I saw Marian’s redesign for River City Girls and bought the game. What can I say? Abs are a great sales pitch. But seriously, getting Wayforward on the helm of a beloved classic franchise is already a great way to pique my interest, and while there’s SOME aspects of this game that I don’t quite gel with, it’s a fun, colorful romp through a ridiculous universe that I’d LOVE to see more of down the line. Featuring a role-reversal, with the girlfriends saving the boyfriends this time, River City Girls has gorgeous pixel art, an AMAZING pop-synth soundtrack that’s worth the price alone, and it’s a game that clearly had fun with the concept and that fun rubs off on you. From the stylish animated boss intros, to the co-op fun that can be had with a friend, everything in this game is brimming with charm. Basic NPCs have great designs in their own right, being able to recruit enemies as assists is a neat idea, and it all adds up to a fun, bite-sized adventure with a bit of depth under the hood if you’re willing to give it a look. Can the character designers get a raise for this game, please? And let Megan McDuffie just do all the songs from now on. ALL OF THEM.

#9 - Astral Chain

Most people assumed if we were going to get a Switch exclusive game by Platinum this year, it’d be Bayonetta 3 but instead Nintendo surprised us with Astral Chain, the anime cop action game we didn’t know we wanted. The game boasts great visuals and is probably the most content-rich Platinum game ever made for starters, but for me the true draw is in the combat. Playing as your police officer in tandem with an alien creature known as a Legion, this tag-team action game is unlike pretty much anything else on the market. While the game starts off very simplistic, the Legion itself moving and attacking with no input from the player, over time more and more options unlock and things get considerably more complicated. By game’s end, you’re drowning in options, and once things clicked, combat was always a treat. With plenty of enemies to practice with, Legions to master and a gigantic post-game filled with challenging encounters, I had more fun with the combat in this game than I did with a lot of other games this year. That said, I do feel that Astral Chain could have benefitted from trimming some fat or rethinking its overall structure. For being a new IP with some bold ideas, I’m willing to accept these as kinks that can hopefully be ironed out in a sequel. Oh, and add Lappy to Smash already. You know you want to, Sakurai.

#8 - BABA IS YOU

Puzzle games are hard sells for me, since I don’t like the frustration that often comes from being stuck. You feel dumb, you get embarrassed and turn the game off in shame, or at least that’s my experience. But then sometimes you get a game so clever, so…weird, that you can’t help but be sucked into it. BABA IS YOU is a block-pushing puzzle game, with the twist being that the “rules” of a particular stage are often physically present in levels and are in fact blocks that can be pushed and manipulated by the player. ROCK is PUSH, WALL is STOP, FLAG is WIN and BABA is YOU. But what if you can’t touch the flag because the wall is in the way? Well, make it so WALL is PUSH to move it aside, or maybe make it so that BABA is WIN and you become the win condition itself. As the game goes on, more modifiers and rules are slowly introduced and absorbed into your own internal logic of the game, logic that increasingly has to be broken and remade to suit your needs. It’s a very empowering experience when the solution clicks and the results can often be hilarious and surprising. This game also GOES PLACES the further you go in, and I’d rather not ruin that surprise for anyone who might be looking into the game. Definitely one of the most innovated titles I’ve played in a LONG time. BABA is GOOD.

#7 - Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid

OK, so…hear me out. Power Rangers was a franchise I was obsessed with as a kid, and while I don’t follow it anymore, there’s still some love for it flowing in my veins. So when a small, no-name studio puts out a Power Ranger fighting game that takes the simplified controls of Smash Bros. and the tag-team craziness of Marvel vs. Capcom and slaps it all together for a cool twenty bucks or so? Well you got yourself a purchase and it ended up being WAY more fun than I expected. Power Rangers: Battle for the Grid is far from the best looking fighter on the market, it’s single-player content is lacking, and it’s roster, while interesting, isn’t as big as a lot of the competition, but damn if it isn’t fun to play. With characters taken from across the franchise’s long history, from the live-action movie reboot to the comic books, each choice has been inspired and resulted in an incredibly varied cast. With no crazy inputs for special moves, combined with a tagging system that lets you cycle through your three-Ranger team quickly, the game is the best kind of chaotic fun, but true masters can command that chaos and channel it into cool combos that make you want to say “Morphinominal!” Considering it’s a budget title, it’s also received a fair amount of updates throughout the year to pad out the roster with both free and paid DLC fighters, a full story mode and improvements to the netcode and overall presentation., so if you passed on it at launch, it’s much improved now. It’s not gonna be a fighting game on everyone’s radar, but I’d rather support it than the grind-heavy slog Mortal Kombat has become…Now just hurry up and add that monster that baked the Rangers into a pizza!

#6 - New Super Lucky’s Tale

If your name isn’t Mario or Sonic, 3D platformers are effectively dead. That said, there’s been a few up-and-comers in recent years that are trying to revive the genre. Hat Kid from A Hat in Time, the duo of Yooka-Laylee, and now Lucky from the folks at Playful Studios. The cute fox has quite the history, starting from the Oculus Rift title, Lucky’s Tale, to a full-fledged platformer on the Xbox One X, Super Lucky’s Tale and now the enhanced port/reimagining New Super Lucky’s Tale on Switch. Halfway between a full-blown sequel, and enhanced edition, the game takes assets from the Xbox original game, tweaking and refining everything from visuals to controls to level layouts. The result is a game that is incredibly well-polished. It looks great, Lucky is a treat to control as he moves from jumping, burrowing and sliding around fluidly, and the variety on display keeps things interesting. We’ve got full 3D levels, 2D levels, auto-runners, and even some marble maze levels and puzzles thrown in for good measure. It’s not a hard game, but it IS incredibly fun, and well made. We don’t get many 3D platformers these days, so cherish what little comes of the genre. I hope Playful and Nintendo continue to collaborate, as they really seem more at home here. Just…maybe don’t add more words to the title of the next game, guys.

#5 - Katana Zero

There’s no nice way to say it: there’s too many pixel-based, side-scrolling indie games out there, so the ones that DO stand out deserve to be celebrated. Katana Zero has a real ‘80s flair for starters, using bright neon, TV and VCR visual effects, and a synth soundtrack to give it some real style. When a game kicks off with you slowing down time and reflecting a bullet back at an enemy with your katana, you make a good first impression! Add in the trial-and-error that is planning the perfect route through a stage, the satisfying slicing and dicing of enemies, the unique, challenging boss encounters, and you have a game that was on my radar for a while, before I finally got into it at the end of the year. Its storyline is pretty interesting too, with some slight variances in how events unfold depending on your words and actions, though it ending on a bit of a cliffhanger is a bummer. That said, when a game leaves you wanting more, there’s worse problems to have. At the very least, there’s some DLC hinted at that might be interesting, as well as the implications that this is the merely the first in a trilogy, and at this point I’m game for whatever developer Askiisoft has in store.

#4 - Luigi’s Mansion 3

The GameCube was an odd era for Nintendo, as they attempted to innovate and try new ideas rather than rely purely on their old standbys. Case-in-point, rather than launch the console with a new Mario platformer, his second-banana brother Luigi got his first starring role in what would become the Luigi’s Mansion series. While not making QUITE as big of a splash as maybe Nintendo hoped, it’s garnered a decent fanbase, and when a sequel was announced for 3DS, people ate it up. Considering the gap between the first and second games, I think many people were surprised at the relatively quick turn-around for the third installment. I was also surprised at the overall quality and how much I enjoyed digging into it. For starters, Luigi’s Mansion 3 is easily one of the better-looking Switch titles, boasting some great lighting and particle effects, with some fun physics implemented for just about everything in the massive mansion. Luigi and company are animated with a lot of expressiveness that never gets old, and the music sets the tone perfectly too. From a gameplay standpoint, the toolset Luigi gains gives him ample options to poke at every nook and cranny, with the slimy doppelganger Gooigi being the clear stand-out. Some of the floors of the Last Resort hotel that Luigi must ascend are particularly massive and intricate too, some floors feeling like Legend of Zelda-style dungeons. While not a particularly challenging game, it’s still really satisfying to poke and prod at everything in sight, sucking in all the coins, gold bars and stacks of paper bills you can handle, not to mention slamming the ghosts around like the Hulk does to Loki. There’s also multiplayer! That I…haven’t really touched but…hey! More bang for your buck, surely!

#3 – Dragon Quest XI S

I don’t consider myself a huge fan of JRPGs. Or at least that’s what I thought before I tried out the Dragon Quest XI demo on Switch. I ended up falling for the game hard and bought the full release, carrying my demo data over and not stopping until I hit credits. Despite having never touched a Dragon Quest game before, outside of an hour or so of VIII, I was overcome with this feeling of nostalgia when it came to this game. That’s because Dragon Quest is THE quintessential JRPG game, the originator of all that we take for granted today. It was nice to feel right at home with a simple, effective combat system, rather than having to watch games re-invent the wheel in an attempt to stand out from the pack (sorry Xenoblade), and the story itself, while predictable and a little basic at times, was told well and told earnestly. It really nailed the feeling of going on a grand adventure, with enough twists on the formula to keep things interesting. The turn-based combat was elementary, but always presented me with fair challenges and lots of ways to solve the encounters laid before me, with enough quality-of-life features added in to minimize grind and make things more convenient. The Switch version of Dragon Quest XI featured a bunch of new content on top of a game that had more than enough going for it, and it’s clear a lot of work was done to make this port as faithful as could be, and it stands out not just as a great port on a system known for some shoddy ones, but as a title that’s brimming with as much polish and quality to rival first-party Switch titles. Don’t ban Hero in Smash and don’t miss out on this game if you haven’t taken the plunge already!

#2 – Devil May Cry 5

The Devil May Cry franchise has had its share of ups and downs over the years. For every game that’s considered a success, you have another game that doesn’t quite measure up. For years many thought the franchise was dead in the water after the attempted reboot, DMC: Devil May Cry failed to grow its audience, but when Microsoft’s E3 2018 show revealed to us a new installment, fans were ecstatic. Devil May Cry 5 boasts crisp visuals, deep combat and trims the fat, removing the wonky platforming and puzzles of earlier games to create a high-octane action experience that ultimately exceeded fan expectations. Its storyline firmly plants Devil May Cry 4’s Nero as a main character in his own right, wraps up the story of the Sparda brothers neatly, and if this ended up being the last title in the series, I think it’s that rare ending that ends up being totally satisfying. Combat is the real draw here though, the game giving players three distinct characters to learn and master. Nero’s robotic Devil Breaker arms allow him a decent amount of variety, while having a balanced, beginner-friendly combat style for new players. Dante remains the king of variety, having more weapons than ever before combined with his signature style switching, though the game is actually designed with all these options in mind so he doesn’t end up breaking the game like he did in 4. Newcomer V ends up being a breath of fresh air, controlling up to three demonic summons at once, forcing players to really think more strategically. The music is incredible too; Nero’s own theme, Devil Trigger, has been stuck in my head since last year and I don’t see it leaving any time soon. All things considered, Devil May Cry 5 might be the best game in the franchise, and a worthy contender for game of the year personally. Now if only we had a special edition with Vergil and the ladies playable…

#1 - Fire Emblem: Three Houses

I got into the Fire Emblem series with Awakening and really liked it a lot, however Fates, the next installment, left a bad taste in my mouth. I couldn’t really get into Echoes, itself a remake of the second game in the series, and I began to wonder if this franchise was really for me. I was willing to give Three Houses a shot, but I was not prepared for the game to blow past all my expectations. Fire Emblem: Three Houses isn’t just a good game, it’s a game that’s redeemed a franchise that’s stumbled a bit in recent years, and it likely cements Fire Emblem as a core Nintendo franchise for years to come. It has class, depth and real heart...with only minor creepy or pervy elements! Making a grand return to home consoles after more than a decade on handhelds, it goes big and it ultimately paid off, on track to become the best-selling entry in the series. The school setting might seem weird at first, and I wondered how well I’d adjust to it, but being able to instruct your units and influence their growth in battle was worth the learning curve. Things are introduced slowly enough that the flow of the game becomes relatively easy to manage, if a bit time-consuming overall. With four distinct storylines you can explore, TONS of character interactions and some interesting tweaks to the strategic gameplay the series is known for, I’m confident in saying that Three Houses is well-worth a purchase for newcomers to the franchise. Divine Pulse is a great quality-of-life addition that lets you undo mistakes, rather than force you to start over from scratch, and overall the UI and layout of the game gives you enough information to make informed decisions without overwhelming you. Makes me wonder how we survived before the games showed us who enemies would target on their turns before now. Admittedly, some aspects of the progression have some issues, especially at endgame, and visually the game really is not up to par most of the time, but these end up being tiny blemishes in the long run for me. They certainly weren’t bad enough to prevent me from starting a new path the instant I finished my first route. If I have one request…just make Claude a gay option. Give the people what they want, Nintendo!

Honorable Mentions

I’d like to add on some honorable mentions here before we close things out, though most of these are things I didn’t even get a chance to play, but they certainly might have made this list. For one, Resident Evil 2 Remake seems like a high-quality reinterpretation of the survival-horror classic, but I can’t do horror so I’ll likely pass it up. It’s also for that reason that I might not get to Control but I might try jumping out of my comfort zone for that one. The confusion surrounding both The Other Worlds AND The Outer Wilds is funny, but they’re both space-based games I’d be keen on getting to at some point down the line; the former is a great Western RPG by the folks who made the GOOD Fallout games, while the latter is an interesting space-faring puzzler with some interesting mechanics I’d rather not spoil for those not more in-the-know. Indie titles Sayonara Wild Hearts and GRIS definitely caught my attention with their great visuals, and in the case of the former, its soundtrack, even if the gameplay wasn’t quite there for me, and the weird fighting-game-but-kinda-RPG that is Indivisible demands my attention sooner or later. Bloodstained is the Castlevania follow-up I keep forgetting is out, and I hear great things about Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair. The team behind the Yakuza series recently made a spin-off of sorts, Judgment that hit the West this year and while I like the Yakuza series for its quirky tone and fun combat, there’s still six other games I’d have to sift through, so going with Judgment, which is set to possibly begin a new franchise, seems like a good alternative. And how could I forget the likes of Shovel Knight as we finally receive the last expansion that’s been years in the making? I haven’t touched the King of Cards expansion yet, but I have the upmost faith in anything Yacht Club makes, so that’s surely a game of the year contender. 2019 was crazy good! Glad to close the year out with so much quality, and tons of great stuff to add to the ever-growing backlog.

Hope you had some good gaming memories made this year!

-B

#gameoftheyear #GOTY #GOTY2019 #astral chain #lucky's tale #baba is you #river city girls #devil may cry #luigi's mansion 3 #katana zero #power rangers #fire emblem three house #dragon quest 11 #xb-squaredx

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