#just guys being dudes in AE with magic

[sehetep-shenwer]

There's writer's block and then there's "hey I know you're almost done with your novel but can you write a bunch of short stories set in a fantasy version of ancient Egypt where random young adults are connected to the Netjeru and basically have elemental powers. Anyway kthxbai.

Also the covers need to be in the style of The Five Ancestors novels but AE"

[hazelcephalopod]

The Eye of the World Ch 8-11

Disclaimer: this is my first read thru but I’ve watched the first 4 episodes of the show and been spoiled on some things. So… I’m going to lean into that. Enjoy figuring out what I know and what I think in know and what I don’t. Also s/x I add commentary when I edit.

Spoilers for the first book under the cut.

Previews:

Ch 9, “the real beginning”.

ch 10, Have I been spelling Moiraine wrong? Don’t worry about it. It’s fine now.

Immediate impression: This was a tense section! Really gets across that yes they need to go and go quickly and they take it very seriously. Aka “yes we have to run. No, we are not stopping.”

Ch 8

Dude I know you’re going thru it. But he raised you for your entire however many years of life. He’s your dad.

Damn Rand does not like magic. Honestly… I’m interpreting it it as an even greater foreboding than the average person in his case

Jordan: did you notice this thing? Are you sure? Just to be clear you got that right?

… and I’m not even mad honestly I’m still having fun with it. Like, it’s kinda endearing

Oh so Ravens are literally kinda on the side of evil here. Ok. (Or at least even Moiraine thinks so)

Also. Moraine just being the best. She does want to help!

Yup. Doesn’t matter if you walk in the Light. Or not. That tracks. (Certainly helps to not walk directly into the darkness, I imagine.)

Cool. Magic items!

Oh shit. Eyeless! I mean I knew but now I know. And even Lan is afraid of them.

Oof. ‘Well I healed you dad now… uh you’re going to have to leave the only home you’ve ever known and never planned on leaving forever’

Ah yes that Two River stubbornness. Argue and deny until there’s no room left to do so at all

Lol. ‘Yea uh come to the city of the magic women you and everyone else don’t really trust’

Also Moraine is for sure being a bit sly here.

Really? Well you are young

“He had to trust the Aes Sedai” -eotw (Rand). Mmm bad vibes

Yes I’m sure she doesn’t notice any of those looks Mayor

Yes! Get more confirmation.

I trust Moraine. That does not meant Rand should

Yup. Sleep. Glad we finally got there

Yes! What did I say? Hmm? We got there too! He’s your dad!

Ch 9

What? Fast forward? Dream? My moneys on dream

Oh no, this is a nightmare

I’d make a pithy comment about Shai’tan but I know enough of the lore of this world. Like… yup like the real world. Hint hint.

Oh… uh a better dream?

Nope. Not that much better after all!

Ok so… “He could not remember the face, except as terror.” Rand’s dream, I have thoughts. I’ll place them here and elsewhere. I’m the show… I don’t hate the design of scary dream guy but… like I don’t think I’d have shown his face at all? Instead focus on the dreamers face in horror and fear whenever anyone looks at it, lean into the inability of the human mind to look upon it. That’s it. Could be worse but there’s my 2 cents.

And the dream shifts again.

Trap. It’s trying to keep him. So, trap

Ok maybe not the trap I thought but still a trap. Destiny is a cage

Oh no I was right the first time. Trap trap. Always trust your instincts!

Destiny is still a cage tho

And he’s actually awake. No not inception jokes. Eff that

Night falls. Time to go!

“Apparently he had slept with the sword hilt jabbing him in the ribs.” Oww. I know it’s the blunt end but still (&…)

Food!

He actually gets to talk to his dad!? Yes! I’m so happy for them!

“We’re luckier than some…” -Rand to Tam about the farm. And it’s genuinely optimistic too. Which is nice

Right? Remember exact words? No. Absolutely not

Tam always with the good advice honestly. Dude be careful around everyone tho

Yes! Tam also nails that one. Be careful.

Maybe just a friend. Ya know. That’s all some people want. A friend, with a sword.

Oh no. Mat…

But yay May?! At least he’s here. Where’s Perrin?

Ah. Scared people trouble.

Mayor Bran continues to be the best

‘Al’ does mean either ‘son of’ then!

If you wanted the deep lore look no further. (I do want the deep lore!)

“This was the real beginning…” it’s chapter nine I remind you

Ch 10

Have I been spelling Moiraine wrong? Don’t worry about it. It’s fine now.

I’m told it’s the real beginning. Once again.

Btw. Im really curious to see how Egwene and Nynaeve get in on this trip. I’m guessing to go after them and bring them back

Perrin!

Ohhh! I’m wrong -on one account. Of course Egwene knows. She listens in! I’m proud of her

Thoms coming too! Oh yesss. I did like him, despite his flaws

And I’m continuing to like him by the minute

Oh right Bela!

“We will look after each other.” -Egwene. It’s what people need to do

Just a militia

Oh scary bird thing.

No immediate explanation on whatever a Draghkar is? That’s honestly one of the scarier things that has happened! Like… it’s that bad and things are that dangerous? No three page explaination of it’s entire history (for the record I am a bit disappointed. I like the lore)

Ch 11

Egwene not important?!

Also he seems nearly as worried about Bela (a horse) as Egwene lol

Food! Also a village. No not to stop at!

Idk seems like Tar Valon is a long way. Probably gonna have to rest somewhere at some point

Creepy fog becomes friendly mist!

Oh Taren Ferry is like a whole town here! Cool

Oh that ferry is going tonight

Fear and money go a long way

Oh lol. He has to get everyone up. Idk if everyone is people or horses but all the same.

Also all the horrifying screams throughout the chapter and barking dogs.

[cosmermaid]

So I finished watching the available episodes of Wheel of TIme today and hooboy, the scene where an Aes Sedai woman is being burned at the stake unnerved me more than other similar scenes have.

We get a fantasy series where all the powerful magic users are predominantly women so of course there are going to be bad guys (probably mostly men) that mark them as evil and want to brutally murder them.

But they also had to add in her hands being cut off and the dude just being way to into what was going on at the time and it made my stomach turn.

[ink-fireplace-coffee]

Marble and Magic Monday: Mafia AU Part 1

A/N: we start the AUs with a Mafia one because y e s

TW: death, blood, guns and knifes. I think that's all.

If there's one thing you need to know about magic, is that it turned into a luxury.

And when people start fighting for something, only the most powerful survive.

Unknown to the Starless people, the city is constantly on the edge for those with magic. Having to choose between three sides - affiliating to the Eterna Realeza, ruled by the Asya family; work for the Striker Gang, a mismatch of powerful outcasts; or going solo… With all the implications of that.

There were little things that could make both empires crumble to the ground, and yet, Jasper Cheasya just happened to be one.

It took him exactly two days to notice he was being observed and followed by no less than six different people: he came from a rich family, and there was no trace of a doubt his status preceded him.

After all, his mom was no other than the Witch.

Since his arrival three weeks ago now, this was the first time Jasper had tried to outrun his followers. And not knowing the layout of the city clearly became a problem. Anxiety growing in his chest with every heartbeat he had ended in a street full of closed businesses.

"I wouldn't turn there," a voice at his back said, right before he was about to go to the right. "That's a dead end, right there. Although," the man kept rambling, "you are gonna end up dead either way."

Jasper finally turned around to face him: a man in his thirties, his broad shoulders and the gun he was carrying were indicative of his job.

"Why did you tell me that?" Jasper tried not to stand small, knowing damn well he was just buying time. The man would not have time to chit chat.

With a simple shrug and a sharp smile he answered: "Because I like to give my preys time to run."

He then swung forward towards Jasper who took off running as fast as he could.

'He needs me alive,' he thought trying to find somewhere to hide in between the alleys and streets. When he heard the first gunshot, the statement vanished.

To his dismay, in between the gunshots and laughs of his hunter, another voice joined the chaos.

"Hey!" It was a girl's, and stood in between Crazy-Man-With-a-Gun and him.

Panting heavily and wanting to roll over and vomit, Jasper sent a last prayer to the Stars and wished his death was as quick as possible.

But Death did not come looking for him. Instead, he just heard more shots… Not aimed at him!

The boy spotted some trash cans and quickly kneeled behind them, trying his best not to make any sound.

The girl and the man were too busy with each other to even think of him anyway…

Agatha hated patrol days. Waving off drunk men and waking up homeless people who were in their territory was by far the most thrilling things that could happen in one of those days.

But try telling that to Kathan.

"Direct others," she mimicked his voice while rolling her eyes. She was worth more than just walking around their territory for the Stars' sake!

She jolted when she heard the first gunshot. What the Hell?

A guy passed running down the street, and in no time she stood in between him and another man.

"Hey!" Her gun was already in her hand, pointing at the man. "Realeza trash, I thought your kind knew this is our territory-" she cocked the gun- "And that we have permission to eliminate all of you if you so much but step on it."

"I'd love to see you try Flower Girl."

A few shots later, the blood right from the man's head dyed the ground red. Agatha scowled and looked at him with disgust one more time before remembering about the other boy.

When he took off running she wasted no more time.

"Stop running," she called, but that weird kid wouldn't listen, and she had to make sure whose side he was on.

'Desperate times…' Agatha launched forward, making the stranger fall to the ground beneath her.

When he tried to escape and grunt, she carefully pushed a little knife to his throat.

Jasper's scream died in his mouth when he felt the pressure of the blade against him.

"Now, now, Pretty Boy, are you sure you want to move again?" her voice was the soft caress of a lover, and that only increased Jasper's fear.

"I will only ask once, and to give you a hint, there's only one correct option." Her mouth was as red as the blood of his hunter. "Whose side are you on, Pretty Boy?"

"Side? I have no idea what you are-Please don't kill me!" he begged when the pressure of the little knife increased. "I truly have no idea what you are talking about, I swear for the Stars."

Only then she pushed the knife away. “If you are lying I promise you-”

“I’m not! I arrived in the city three weeks ago. I have no idea who that dude was or why was he following me!”

Agatha stood up, towering over the boy. “In that case, let me give you a friendly welcome: You got yourself in Striker’s territory, and what happens to people who come here and should not be here…” She looked back at the corpse. “Understood?”

Jasper nodded a few times, popping carefully onto his elbows.

“Now if you aren’t a part of Realeza, but they wanted you…” she muttered to herself. “You are coming with me, Pretty Boy.”

“I haven’t done anything wrong!”

“Oh well, that’s your word, but the most powerful mafia sending a guy to track you and hunt you down says otherwise. Besides,” she added, “I think you would not turn down protection from us, now would you?”

“Protection?” Jasper’s head felt foggy.

“Yes, protection,” the girl sighed like talking to him was unbearable. “You are important for them, which makes you a valuable piece for us. So come on, I’m bringing you to the Boss.”

And with that, Jasper, the son of the Witch, was taken under the wing of the Striker Gang.

“My name is Jasper, by the way,” he added when the silence in between them was too uncomfortable.

“Agatha. Let me give you a free tip, Jasper: watch your back. I don’t have a clue why you are so important for some people, but if I were you, I would always carry a loaded gun with me.”

Maybe he would have to get one.

------

[Taglist under the cut]

@fuyugomori|| @enchanted-lightning-aes|| @alexwritesfiction|| @dontcrywrite|| @indecentpause|| @writing-is-a-martial-art|| @47crayons|| @the-writing-moon|| @shamblingthing|| @kingsinking|| @fiercely-raging-writer|| @euphoniouspandemonium

[flameraven]

Wheel of Time Liveblog - Ep 4

Reminder: I have read a summary of Book 1 (mostly) but not the book itself, Roommate read through Book 5 or 6, but doesn't remember much.

We are in Ghealdan! Which... doesn't mean anything because we still have no idea where anything in this world is. Our dude from the first episode is leading an attack/attempted coup? You can tell his magic is corrupted/evil because it's all shot through with black. He's also got creepy shadow figures talking to him. I do really like that he fights off the voices and heals the guy instead of killing him. The corruption can be resisted. Points for diversity in our man hating Red Squad, even if I'm not entirely sure how I feel about hijabi in a world that doesn't have Islam. If you're Muslim: Do you appreciate the representation? Or does it feel weird since it's not your actual religion? I'd honestly be curious to hear. Green Lady to Moiraine: you know that wound woulda healed faster if you'd washed it. Me: that's what I've been saying!!

Honestly I would assume you'd get a LOT of false Dragons. How many petty cult leaders say they're Jesus reborn? If the Dragon only shows up every 3000 years... honestly the false Dragons seem likely to be more useful. I just want to point out that magic aside, Logaine can't lay down in that cage, and I don't think he can stand. That's inhumane. I guess their magic keeps him in like, stasis so he doesn't have to eat or pee or anything? But still. I like this conversation between Morgaine and her friend. Makes them feel like real people. I do love how Nynaeve is just done with everybody's shit and absolutely does not trust the Aes Sedai as far as she can throw them. Hey, Rand actually did something. Nice Diplomacy roll. Eh. I'm never a fan of fantasy pacifism where you're not allowed to defend yourself. Force is often the only language assholes understand. Otherwise I really like Traveler Grandma. Uh oh, Mat has Evil Dagger sickness. Oh no, now the gleeman's told us his tragic backstory. He's definitely gonna die, huh. Oh nooooo Mat was possessed/sleepwalking and everybody was murdered D: Did Mat do it, or the Nazgul? And they left the gleeman behind to fight it. :( Yeah he's totes dead. I really like the rapport they're building between Lan and Nynaeve! Makes sense that the army would come to rescue their cult leader. The Aes Sedai's camp seems.... not as well defended as it should be, tbh. Nynaeve you need a better knife if you're gonna be stabbing people. Logain's escape is legitimately badass, well done. He's very charismatic, too. I see why people follow him. No! Green Lady!! You were so cool! Ooooh Nynaeve goes full Avatar State to save everybody. Nice. Overall: Okay, this episode won me over, I am legitimately impressed. This episode gave us some great character moments and fleshed out the Aes Sedai as a group, including giving us some internal tensions. My hope for this series was that I would get the story while cutting out all of Jordan's long-winded, pointless rambling, and it really seems like they've succeeded at that. (We've also moved away from the blatant LotR ripoffs, which helps.) The ending was properly dramatic, comparing Logaine's magic to Nynaeve's "radiance like the sun" and really gives us a good demonstration of what kind of power the Dragon can hold. That is good worldbuilding, and way more effective than any infodump about history. It's just a shame Nynave isn't actually the Dragon and we're going to have to watch Rand be the hero instead. Who, despite his small moments, is still pretty bland and boring. Does he have goals? Or feelings about this potential destiny? Or the adventure so far? We haven't really seen it. The whole thing about the male Power being corrupted, though... ech. I mean, the gender essentialism is not great to start with, but also... it feels very ableist. The "corruption" of the magic feels a lot like OCD or other mental illness with intrusive thoughts, and the idea that anyone who has it will inevitably go crazy and become violent and dangerous is just.... Big Yikes all around. Especially because we see Logaine fight off the impulse to violence. And then... "Gentling." That's a very nasty sounding euphemism. It's unclear exactly what the magic is doing to cut off his connection, but if you're gonna make your magic a metaphor about weaving, it sure sounds like you're just slashing a big ol' hole in the fabric. And their excuse is "well we didn't kill him so it's fine." I would really like to see the Aes Sedai face some consequences for the harm they're causing with misuse of their powers-- but I doubt Jordan thought that far into it. I am excited to see how things progress!

[humanmoodring-retired]

POTW: Mima Bam Boum || Alain, Felix, Kaden, Luce, & Nadia

Or: Nadia and crew do The Thing, and it does not go according to plan (as if they had one in the first place)

With: @carbrakes-and-stakes @streetharmacist @chasseurdeloup @divineluce

Sitting in her truck, parked not too far from that fucking mime restaurant, Nadia couldn’t help but wonder, on a scale from one to ten, how bad this idea was. Probably an eleven. Probably higher. She didn’t even know how she’d gotten here. Well, other than driving. At least she remembered the drive. But between the internet and talking with Luce, she’d managed to put together a rather decent explosive, though the fireworks had been relatively useless. Maybe she could throw that barbecue, invite Erin as a thank you, should this thing not kill her. Because what the hell was she doing, anyway? Taking on a mime demon that really hadn’t done anything to her. Except she’d let that thing loose in the sewer, and, no matter what Kaden said, that was still on her as much as it was on him. This whole mime business was fucking cursed, and people were getting hurt because of it. Nadia figured that getting rid of the thing in the alley and the restaurant would be a step in the right direction. Hopefully. She got out of the truck and decided to wait against the back for Alain, Kaden, Felix, and Luce. Fuck, she hoped she didn’t get anyone killed with this thing.

Alain had parked his car far enough from the mime restaurant. The last thing he wanted was to damage his car because of mimes. Sure, this would not be directly their fault, but when did this stop him from blaming them ? The handle of the sword was peaking out of the dufflebag as he stepped out of the car, although considering the hour and the current darkness, he would not have to worry about it at all. He took a moment to take a deep breath. Things would soon get stressful, and heated, and he wanted to appreciate the calm and quiet before it all began. He was a bit early anyway, so why not enjoy that ? Approaching the restaurant, his gaze was drawn toward a truck parked on the sidewalk. He had already seen it at the garage, although back then, it was his employee who had taken care of it. Still, he knew who it belonged to, and he raised his hand to greet Nadia.

Kaden wasn’t sure blowing up a mime restaurant was the best laid plan after that disaster with the cardboard cut out but fuck if he couldn’t use a pick me up after the last few weeks. If that restaurant was going to be destroyed, he was going to be there with front row fucking tickets. He still wasn’t sure what help he’d be to Nadia in this endeavor but that didn’t mean he didn’t come prepared. Guns, knives, holy water. Look, if something like that fucking smoke demon happened again, he was ready. He saw her and Alain around back and headed over, watching his back to make sure no one was following him. He knew damn well he couldn’t trust his hearing with this brand of monster. Kaden was a little surprised to see Alain there but he didn’t mind. And again, the smoke demon shit came to mind. If that was only a small taste of the kind of fuckery that could go down here, they’d want at least two hunters. “So what’s the plan?” he asked. “Are we waiting on anyone else?”

Few things in the world could compare to the smell of dynamite and gunpowder. The only one that might come close would be the ruins of what once was a mime restaurant. Felix sure as heck hoped so as he made his way downtown through the shadows. Maybe a license would be worth looking into but that could come later. The potential for crime had him skipping by fast, more than eager to see a mime place vanish off the face of the earth. He pulled himself out of the dark a block away from where Nadia suggested they meet. Her first crime! That he knew about! Exciting, thrilling. A real adventure hour! He adjusted his tie and straightened out the sleeves of his jacket before he waved to the crew she had assembled. Kaden, the other guy with the face. “Looks like this might be part two to that birthday gig of yours, huh?” He grinned at Kaden before he shifted to look at Nadia. “You excited? Because I sure am.”

When Nadia had brought up the idea of blowing up the mime restaurant, Luce had mostly been joking about doing something like that. And about her pyrotechnic ability-- sure, she knew how to make a molotov, knew how to throw together a pretty basic napalm with acetone and styrofoam. Which, she’d packed up in the backpack that was slung over her shoulder. She’d parked her large 4x4 in an alley a quick run from the mime restaurant. Close enough to be easy to get to, far enough to probably keep people from thinking she had anything to do with the upcoming act of arson. As she neared Yours, Mime, and Ours, Luce’s expression turned to a slight scowl as she took in the small gathering. It was a fucking sausage fest of dudes who she really didn’t care to know about her magical predisposition. “I’m guess we’re gathered here today to fuck some shit up?” She asked, with a wry grin before tilting her head at Kaden. “Birthday Boy out for some revenge? I thought you were a cop, dude.”

Grinning nervously as the last of them showed up, Nadia looked at the group of people around her. Emotions practically radiated off of Kaden, Alain, and Luce, and she could still feel Felix’s excitement, muted as it was. She decided to focus on him, remembering the advice she’d been given that nonhumans were just a bit easier to deal with than humans. She opened up her trunk, first grabbing a pack of bullets for a .50 ae pistol. She tossed them to Kaden. “Happy birthday, though it’s late.” Then she grabbed the explosive she’d managed to put together following a couple of tutorials online. This was the second attempt; the first hadn’t failed catastrophically when she took it out of town to test, but she definitely put a dent in a small field and had to run from an angry farmer with a shotgun yelling about hooligans playing with firecrackers. She’d also figured out that she fucking hated electrical work. But it should work. “I’m, uh, nervous. But this is definitely going to blow something up.” Hopefully none of them. “So, I was thinking we trap that fucker in the alley? Block off one of the entrances, force it to the other end, and boom. Blow it and the building up.”

Alain's eyes went from Felix to Kaden. Raising his eyebrows, the hunter breathed out heavily and took a few steps back to look at the restaurant's menu. Well this was even worse than he thought. Selling crème brulée like it was a luxurious dessert was a crime in itself. When he glanced back at the group, he noticed something in Nadia's hands. Since he had never used explosives, he was not fond of being anywhere near them, although if it had not exploded yet, it was safe, right ? "Are you sure you don't want us to shorten the ends of the fella before we blow things up ?" Yes, he should have been clearer and said that he wanted to cut the hands, feet and head of the fucker to be sure, but that wouldn't have sounded right. "Anyone have an idea on how to block one entrance ?" He looked at the other hunter and shrugged. "We could prevent that thing from going anywhere, I guess?"

“Let’s hope this isn’t part two. No one needs that. And yeah, I am. Kind of. I can’t make arrests, it’s fine.” Kaden hoped that was true. Maybe he should have worn a hat. Or some kind of disguise. Just in case. Too late now. Still, of course both Felix and Luce had to remind him of the single worst birthday party that may have ever existed. He shot them both a glance, but took the bullets from Nadia and shoved them in his back pocket. “Thanks, I’ll be sure to put them to good use.” He took one look at the explosive and knew he wanted nothing to do with that. He was much more comfortable with the task of blocking off that fucking mime moster and hopefully shooting it in the face. That said, he was pretty sure any bullets would bounce off or its head would grow back; it seemed like the type. The satisfaction would be nice, though. Kaden took a look around down the alley and saw a few shipping boxes, a dumpster, there was enough random crap. “That. Come on,” he said to Alain, pointing at the big dumpsters. They worked together to move them down the end of the alleyway, then grabbing whatever boxes and trash he could find. The boxes were a little odd, who left their shipping outside in the alley? And they were.. Moving? Nah, he was imagining it. When they were done, it wasn’t a beautiful barricade but it should make just about anything pause. “We’ll keep post at the other end. Try not to blow us all up,” he told the demolition crew as he and the other hunter waited at the alley for this shit to go down.

“I just want you all to know that this might just make my entire year. What a gift!” The fae’s eyes practically lit up at the sight of homemade dynamite. The plan was all well and good. Just a simple trapping and a couple of boom-booms. Heck, did that take Felix back and he steepled his hands together. If a streetlight glinted off his glasses at an opportune moment, he didn’t notice. He had brought his own supplies. Slow-burning wicks, his own brand of explosives, lighter, a small snub-nosed source of firepower and a knife up every sleeve in case the mime thought about getting handsy with the merchandise again. He sure as hell hoped the mime did. Stealing a fella’s green was a capital offense. As he waited for the barricade to be built up, he could barely contain his anticipation and grinned as he looked over to Luce and Nadia. He glanced down to the explosives in Nadia’s hands and nodded. “How you wanting to smoke ‘em out? Throw a little something-something in the front and they gotta come out here,” he said, gesturing to the alley and the barricade before he leaned back to glance at the front. Glass looked weak enough. “Won’t have anywhere else to go, y’know? Give em the ol’ badabing badaboom.”

“Just as long as you don’t arrest me, I’m good.” Luce nodded at Kaden before watching as he and the other man headed down the alleyway, like some kinda sniper elite shit. She was pretty sure she recognized the old guy from the mechanic’s shop in town. Color her surprised to see him there. Which left her, Nadia, and Felix. A much more reasonable bunch that she’d be fine showing her true colors to. Opening her backpack, Luce held up one of the two molotov’s she had, the pouch of homemade napalm, and her handy dandy zippo lighter. “I’ve got supplies for day, plus a little secret weapon, if we need it.” She said with a grin. She was the secret weapon, of course. “You’ve kinda got a big old explosive there. Let’s not waste it-- we could draw them out with molotovs and then launch yours.” She said, gesturing to the stuff in Nadia’s hands. She’d have to ask her how she managed to rig up that crazy device. Holding one of the bottle aloft, Luce looked at the two. “You guys good with this?”

“I’m ready if you two are,” Nadia said. “We lure it to us and then bye-bye, fucker.” The three of them headed into the mouth of the alley. From there, Nadia could see Kaden and Alain blocking the other end. There was no sign of their friend the mime demon. Good. “I’m going to rig this to a wall,” Nadia murmured. “It’s timed, so when the thing gets close to us, we’ve got, like, fifteen seconds to get the hell out. We just need to make sure it doesn’t follow us.” She set it down, then took a molotov. “We need to get it here. And keep it here. It might try to escape with so many people around. But we need to get it here first.” Not wanting to waste time, she took a molotov, lit it, and threw it against one of the walls. Glass shattered, fire rained, and light filled the alley. She saw it, the creature, lurking in a corner, the light hitting its ghastly, expressionless face. Looking at it filled her with awful dread, and it only got worse as it scuttled towards the three of them slowly, on all fours.

"Feels like Mai 1968 all over again," he glanced over his shoulder at the barricade then back at the fire that was starting inside the restaurant. His hand clenched on his sword as he saw the creature approaching the three others, although something crawling up his back and on his head changed his priorities. Reaching for it with his free hand, his first instinct was to toss this thing away from here, but the thing was clinging to his hand. Okay, this is fine, he thought to himself, putting this thing as far as possible from his face to give it a look. 8 hairy legs, a dark abdomen and a striped thorax. Well he sure hoped that getting bitten by this thing wouldn't have the effect it did on spiderman because this Mime spider (because let's be honest, putain de bordel de merde, this was a fucking mime spider, wasn't it?) had just sank its mandibles into his hand and forced him into crushing the thing against the wall with his hand. And since good things never appeared alone, as Alain turned to warn Kaden about these, an army of more mime spiders appeared from the boxes. “Oh, putain,” he muttered to himself, crushing the next one underneath his boot.

So it wouldn’t just be a simple boom and leave kinda job, would it? Fine by Felix, his schedule for the day was fairly open. Plenty of time in the world to ruin a few mimes. When he laid eyes on the creature Nadia was talking to, he grinned with sharp teeth. The fucker had stolen his weed. Watching it burn alive would be a pleasure unknown before that very moment. “Oh fella, am I glad to see you,” he said to himself as he reached into his suit to grab a small piece of dynamite. He lit the wick and tossed it straight at the creature, who caught it with a swiftness that mildly alarmed. “Got something else for you to smoke, motherfucker.” The wick burned down to nothing and boom. The light from the flame licked against the fae’s triumphant expression. “Well huh, that was--” He stopped. The smoke fell and behind it, an expressionless, untouched face. An intact hand. Momentarily stunned, the only thing that brought Felix out of it was the feeling of something crawling on his leg. One of the spiders had made it down the alley. Outraged, he grabbed it and slid the knife out of his sleeve to stab it in the abdomen and twist. The small creature died with a whisper of oui. The fae brandished the knife as he backed up toward Nadia and Luce. “Well hot fucking dog.”

Kaden ducked a little and shielded his face with his arm as the explosion went off, just in case. Looking up to see that fucking place on fire was a beautiful sight. The sight of a fucking mime spider crawling on Alain’s face was less so. “Shit!” He fumbled and instinctively raised his gun at the thing (and the other hunter’s face). Right. Bad idea. He lowered it and realized he felt something crawling on his arm. His eyes shot down and saw one of those fuckers on him and even more by their feet. Putain. Were they wearing little berets? His brow furrowed a moment, then the thing jumped up towards him. Kaden yelped and flung it away. Fucking shit. He started stomping furiously, trying to squash as many of them as possible. He could have sworn small cries of “non” escaped with every crushed creepy stripey crawly. Cursed. A quick glance at Nadia and crew and saw they had a guest to this party. Fuck. He raised his gun to the beast waiting til it was in view and his colleagues were out of the way. Let out a breath. Aim. Fir— Fuck! A sharp pain hit his ankle, (and a whisper of “oui”). Fucking spider. The shot went wide. He didn’t take time to see where it hit, just slammed his heel down on the fucking spider and took another shot at the monster across the way. Hit. It had to have. But it looked like the bullet was… absorbed more than anything. The creature twitched and catorted it’s head, looking for its aggressor. It seemingly decided on the trio in front of it. Putain.

What a fucking mess. Nadia, not really knowing what to do and running out of options, reached in her jacket pocket and pulled out a handful of salt, throwing it at the creature that Kaden just shot. It was strange. The salt didn’t do a damn thing to the creature, but it did seem… stunned? Like it wasn’t expecting that. Just like she wasn’t expecting the mime spiders that were rapidly pouring out of the boxes. She crushed one under her boot, and then another. A softly whispered, “nooooon” filled her ear, and she shrieked and brushed at her shoulder, one of the fuckers falling to the ground for her to stomp on it. All the while, the mime monster was headed for her, Luce, and Felix. “Shit shit shit shit motherfucking shit,” Nadia said eloquently, wishing she’d packed her gun but, after seeing the fuck-all effect Kaden’s had, knowing it’d be useless. She needed to set up the big explosive, and they all needed to get out. While they could. “Cover me! Or get out! Or something! Shit!” Moving as quickly as she could to the restaurant wall, stepping on mime spiders (one cried out “baguette!” viciously as it’s final cry of revenge) and hoping the big one didn’t follow, she took the explosive and began rigging it to the side of the already burning restaurant. On fire was good. Destroyed was better. And maybe it’d take out that demon fucker and his spider fuck friends as well. At least, that’s what she fucking hoped.

Caught off guard by the horrific fucking mime spiders that were plaintifly saying random French words as they died, Luce hesitated at the shit show unfolding before her. What in the fucking shit was going on? But, before she could really process any of this, the large demonic mime thing whirled around and made its way towards her, Nadia, and Felix. Nose still smarting from her fight against the Fext, Luce knew she had to play smart this time. Grabbing the bottle of homegrown napalm she’d made, she chucked it at the horrible monster. Glass shattered, sending the sticky, clinging flammable fluid all over the thing’s body. With a quiet snap of her left hand, she summoned a small spark, igniting the giant mime monster. The monster roiled and she watched as it seemed to unbend, the black of where it’s stomach should be opening up to display a terrifying maw of jagged teeth. It snarled and stumbled around, smearing ignited napalm against the walls of the alleyway. It definitely wasn’t dead. “Ah fuck. How the fuck are you not dead?!” She said, backing away from the now flaming mime monster.

It was starting to become real apparent real fast that they were in something of a French pickle. A nervous energy compelled Felix to smile broadly in the face of black-and-white striped danger. In all his years, he had never seen mime spiders or whatever the heck the thing with the gaping maw was. White Crest really was the most cursed place on the planet. He couldn’t imagine being anywhere else! The creature contorted in a mass of limbs and a wide, gaping maw where a face shouldn’t be. Might as well have been a layer of hell the humans talked about sometimes. But it was a face of some kind and that meant that it had eyes most likely. Even if the dang thing defied most everything. He wasn’t keen on bringing out the lights in front of mostly strangers, but with all the fire and chaos, maybe it’d go unnoticed. “Well hell. Come on snake, let’s rattle.” As Luce stepped back, he gripped his glasses and slipped them down just enough to expose the bright, blinding beams of his eyes. Looked the striped, French devil in the eyes. The alleyway shifted underneath him and he stumbled back, barely getting his glasses back on. There was light all around him. There was too much fucking light. Was it daytime? When did it become daytime? He needed to go but the alley seemed to be turning, a colorless carnival tunnel that he couldn’t get footing on and he stumbled back. The knife fell out of his hand. The oui in his ears grew louder. He was in too much light and he felt too warm, like he was sitting in the sun. Nervous, what the fuck laughter bubbled out of him. Holy crepes, he might just die there.

The spider mimes kept coming, crying out "non" and whispering "hon, hon, hon," as they crawled up. "Oh no, absolutely not,” the hunter cried out ,throwing another one of these monsters into the flames that were starting to eat the restaurant. The spider squealed “omelette DU fromage,” but now may have not been the time to correct a spider’s poor knowledge of French grammar, especially after seeing Mr.MimeParties performing his best impression of fog headlights and falling right into the burning restaurant. “Putain de merde,” it was clear by now that the mime monster wouldn’t die, but that did not mean that Felix had to die instead. His sword dropped to the floor and shielding his face with his forearm, the hunter walked laboriously between flames and rubble. Even if that guy was definitely not human, he was helping them, and that meant something. Ripping away the spider, that had oui on repeat, clinging to Felix’s head, he put a hand under the man’s armpits and pulled him up against his chest. “Alright, let’s get you out of here, old sport.” Yeah, no, that was not going to do, Alain figured, as he decided to lift the man on his shoulder to carry him out of here. The smoke emanating from the building looking far from reassuring, and the threat of a roof collapsing on the both of them had Alain hurry out. “Any chance with our mime friend?” He called out as he put Felix down on his feet.

How in the fuck? Kaden watched as Luce lit the fucking mime demon on fire and it just. kept. Going. Like it was the energizer mime or some shit. That thought sent a chill down his spine. No, wait, that was another spider in a beret. He reached back and threw it off him. Alain had drug boy who seemed to be hypnotized, it was pretty clear Luce was ready to get the hell out of dodge, and so  was he. But Nadia was still there, rigging shit. And the monster was crawling towards her. Fuck. He rand over, shooting useless fucking rounds at the thing’s head in rapid succession. It did fuck all, as he suspected, but he hoped it bought Naida a few extra seconds. It reared back once more, exposing its teeth jutting out from its stomach. Shit, any moment it was going to come for him. He looked behind her towards the barricade. Another flood of spiders hissing “hon hon hon” were coming. They couldn’t stay there. “Nadia! Come on, let’s go!” he shouted as he looked back at her, hoping she was ready so they could get the hell out of there. Hell, in three seconds if she wasn’t ready he didn’t care, he was going to drag her out of there his damn self. He wasn’t letting anyone die by mime. Not today.

Luce was too busy running away from the shitty napalmed-assed mime fuck to really notice what the fuck was going on with Felix. But, when she saw the alleyway illuminated in strange light, the man fall backwards, and his glasses fall back in place, she frowned. What in the-- A tiny “Pomme de terre,” rang out near her ear and she felt something skittering across her back. Shuddering, she reached behind her and grabbed the awful little mime spider off her and stared at it as it tried to bite and claw at her face. What in the fucking shit. Curling her hand around the mime spider, she let the flames burn through her hand, igniting the mime spider. The spider shrieked in French pain and she hucked it across the alley at the giant mouth-stomach shit. “Fuck you and your shitty kids!” She yelled at the creature before turning around and bolting. She sprinted out of the alleyway, past Nadia, past Kaden, past all of them. She wasn’t about to be stuck here while this place went up in smoke. And she sure as shit wasn’t going to be dying here.

Stressed and interchangeably cursing in English and Spanish, Nadia finally got the piece of shit bomb she’d created hooked up and turned on. “Thirty seconds!” she said, and she grabbed Kaden so that the two of them could get the hell out of Dodge. Mime spiders trailed after them, crunching and ouiing under their feet, but the big one, with its horrible abdominal maw, stayed behind, despite the tick-tick-tick coming from right next to it. As she looked back, she stumbled, positive that the damn thing was smiling, before she righted herself and kept going. Everyone had just made it out of the alley when the restaurant exploded. See, here’s the thing about homemade bombs: you never knew what kind of outcome you were going to get. But Nadia had fucking stuffed that thing with black powder and just about any other explosive material she could get her hands on in a small number of days, and apparently the wall she’d placed the thing on was near the kitchen because when everything went boom, everything went boom. Stripes flew through the air, a baguette rocketed through the sky, and mime spiders rained like confetti. Nadia felt like screaming. Instead, eyes widely and shellshocked, she whispered, “Holy fucking shit.”

[laughingpinecone]

Yuletide letter

I am laughingpineapple on AO3  

Hello dear author! I hope you’ll have fun with our match. Feel free to draw from general or fandom-specific likes, past letters, and/or follow your heart.

Likes: worldbuilding, slice of life (especially if the event the fic focuses on is made up but canon-specific), missing moments, 5+1 and similar formats, bonding and emotional support/intimacy, physical intimacy, lingering touches, loyalty, casefic, surrealism, magical realism, established relationships, future fic (when in doubt, tell me what’s happening to them five, ten, twenty years in the future!), hurt/comfort, throwing characters into non-canon environments, banter, functional relationships between dysfunctional individuals, unexplained mysteries, bittersweet moods, journal/epistolary fic, dreams and memories and identities, tropey plots that are already close enough to characters/canon, outsider POV, UST, resolved UST, exploring the ~deep lore, leaning on the uniqueness of the canon setting/mood, found families, characters reuniting after a long and/or harrowing time, friends-to-lovers, road trips, maps, mutual pining, cuddling, wintry moods, the feeling of flannel and other fabrics, ridiculous concepts played entirely straight, sensory details, places being haunted, people being haunted, the mystery of the woods, small hopes in bleak worlds, electricity, places that don’t quite add up, mismatched memories, caves and deep places, distant city lights at night, emphasis on non-human traits of non-human characters (gen-wise, but also a hearty yes xeno for applicable ships), emphasis on inhuman traits of characters who were human once and have sort of shed it all behind

Cool with: any tense, any pov, any rating, plotty, not plotty, IF, unrequested characters popping up.

DNW: non-canonical rape, non-canonical children, focus on children, unrequested ships (background established canon couples are okay, mentions of parents are okay!), canon retellings, consent issues, actual covid (fantasy plagues are okay)

Les Cités Obscures: any

This is a very general “please, anything in the style of canon, just maybe with less thoughtless sexism” request. I want to lose myself in these cities again, and in the strange lands that connect them. I’d be happy to follow any of the known characters and/or OCs, or eschew characters altogether and write about the cities themselves. What caught your imagination in Brüsel, Xhystos, Taxandria, Alaxis...? The history of some cool building that was only marginally featured in one of the stories? Or an OC city! If you’ve got a favourite European city that doesn’t already have its obscure counterpart, please tell me all about it! Go big, go wild! What strange and classically surrealist happenings take place within its walls? Or even... outside Europe... Nerding out about architecture is of course very welcome. I would also love to read a story based on any Schuiten illustration, contextualizing it as if it were part of this ‘verse. Here’s a bunch of them, for example!

Ghost Trick: Cabanela

You know.. him. Dazzlingly OTT, untiring, rock-solid self-esteem, loyal to a fault, following a rhythm of his own, flawless intuition until it fails and it all burns down… him. I just want to see more of him doing stuff! The way he’s chill and open toward new people (like Sissel and Missile in ch15) makes him perfect to throw at most other characters and see how they react to the sparkles… I’d love some focus on how ridiculous his aesthetic is, half Saturday Night Fever half hardboiled detective half bubbly preteen (for a total of 150%) and yet he makes it work. Or how ruthless he can be, possibly for the sake of the people he cares for. The quote “The intimacy of big parties”. Him and Alma in the new timeline bonding over knowing (once Jowd has spilled the beans) but not remembering that terrible timeline. Some tropey scenario on the job. Snark-offs with Pigeon Man, by which I mean PM snarks and it bounces off him like water off a spotless white goose’s back.

Ship-wise it’s only Cabanela/Jowd whenever it’s not infidelity, Cabanela/Alma in what-ifs also if it’s not infidelity and Cabanela/Alma/Jowd for me (and Lynne/Memry and Yomiel/fianSissel on the side). There are a bunch of shippy prompts in all my past letters - I would however reiterate here that Jowd. is. the worst tease. always. Like, just saying, but assume he’s pining big time and Jowd and Alma figure it out - they’d make a national sport out of excruciatingly protracted teasing.

Conversely, Cabanela/Lynne and Cabanela/Yomiel are NOTPs especially from Cabanela’s side. So while I appreciate the thick tension of a good Yomiel VS Cabanela confrontation like everyone and their cat, and also really appreciate a roughed-up Cabanela, and I do love Yomiel in his own right… I don’t want Cabanela being into it. Adrenaline junkie he may be but this hurts and his coat’s a mess and there’s no perfect winning scenario so he hates every second of it. (JOWD being super into Cabanela being roughed up is another matter altogether and he should probably mind his own business. ...incompatible kinks, truly tragic. they’ll have to find some other common ground. they’re smart, resourceful, playful fellows, I’m sure they’ll manage)

Kentucky Route Zero: Donald kentuckyroutezero

I love everyone in the cast, all acts and interludes, and I am extremely into all the themes this incredible work of art ended up exploring. Agreeing with the overall doom and gloom up to Act IV, I was blown away by Act V’s strong affirmation of the importance of the arts and of the bonds we make and of carving up spaces for ourselves in capitalism’s wake. Donald was, indeed, not a part of any of that. Even the final interlude updates us on Lula and mentions Joseph, but the big guy is nowhere to be seen. So, you know, there’s fanfiction! He’s so static, defeated. I am fascinated by the chain of metaphysical spaces that goes surface -> Zero -> Echo -> Dogwood and even within that framework, the hall of the mountain king is like a hopeless dead end. Dude’s terminally stuck. So - once again, in the spirit of transformative works, how could he get... you know... unstuck? Did Lula’s momentous appearance in Act III shake him? Having a functioning Xanadu again, perhaps? How could he interrogate that oracle, what recursive wonders would it show him? If he decides to leave, what does it feel to be on the surface again after so long, or on the river perhaps? Maybe he is forced to leave by the flood, if not this one, the next... Having him meet any other character would be amazing. Past or future time spent with Weaver... seeing Conway again, changed... programmer guy chatting up musician androids... did he know Carrington from his college days or was Carrington only a friend of Lula’s?

As for Lula herself and Joseph too: “Flipping through the pages, Conway is able to gather that it’s a story about three characters: Joseph, Donald, and Lula. It’s something like a tragic love triangle, but much more complex. Some kind of tangled, painfully concave love polygon.” 😔 I ship them as a full triad, if you can nudge them in that direction, good. But I’m very open to non-romantic resolutions as well, going past their messy feelings to find each other as friends after so many years maybe. Or... a start. idk.

I’d be interested in fic that leans on the game’s adjacent genres: wanna go full-on American Gothic? Dip into surrealism? Take a leaf from Twin Peaks with tulpa / split narratives to explore the characters’ issues? I’m also open to AUs, real or through Xanadu. This also feels like a good place to stress that I really, really like caves.

And now for something completely different: FAQ:  The “Snake Fight” Portion of Your Thesis Defense is in the tagset this year. I’d say that the crossover with the snake portion of Here and there along the Echo writes itself, but it would not be correct, as in fact I would like you to write it for me. Feel free to not feature Donald if you focus on this crossover instead!

Uru would be a fun crossover too, for Donald specifically. He’s very DRC-shaped in how he tilts at doomed projects which just so happen to be deep underground.

Pyre: Volfred Sandalwood

This is a Volfred solo, Volfred&literally anyone or Volfred/Tariq, /Oralech or /Tariq/Oralech request. I adore everyone in that Blackwagon+Dalbert+Celeste, so if you want to add a Nightwing or two to any prompt, please do! I also love all the Scribes and find Erisa a compelling tragic figure, while out of the other triumvirates, I’m “love to hate them” for Manley, Brighton, Udmildhe and Deluge and would not like to see them featured in sympathetic roles. fwiw I also enjoy Jodi/Celeste and Bertrude/Pamitha a lot!

I feel deeply for all of Pyre’s main themes - literacy, degrees of freedom, the fragile time that is the end of a historical cycle, nobodies rising up to the occasion, building a better society, and of course found family, “distance cannot separate our spirits” and all that jazz, and Volfred is squarely rooted at the center of all of them. I really really love everything he stands for, even if he’s overbearingly smug in standing for it. Just please tell me things about my fave. His relationship to the Scribes (as a historian, a some kind of vision, via *ae or once he’s a star himself)? A ‘forced vacay’ Downside ending where he looks at the Union from afar and keeps living in this strange transformational place? Life in a cramped Blackwagon that was meant for like 5 people tops and is currently eight Nightwings, a herald and an orb? Since he picked him for the job to begin with, does he respect and cherish Hedwyn as he dang well should? What does it feel like to try and Read a herald? Was he ever in danger, in the Commonwealth or in the Downside? What daring act of resistance did he and Bertrude pull off at some point in their past? It’d be cool if one of his old pamphlets came up at some point. Does he puff up as prime minister because he’s nervous, and who can see past his hyper-professionalism and lend a hand? Please roast him big time about the votes he assigns to the various Nightwings in his planner? What’s his attitude toward the flame’s purification (what with being a tree but mostly like, as a general concept. He did nothing wrong!) (well he definitely said some things wrong and sometimes oftentimes the ego jumps out, but his intentions did nothing wrong)? When did his calculating approach fail him? Something with Pamitha along the lines of that edit that goes “Can we talk, one ten to another?“/"I am an eleven, my girl, but continue”? Dude could easily be voted sexiest voice in the Downside - how much is he aware of it? Does he sing? I love how he bears his ‘reader’ brand proudly. And speaking of scars, I have to wonder, looking at Manley for comparison, if the shape of his head, with that massive crack, isn’t also due to injuries.

As a refrain from my general likes: emphatically yes xeno to both shippy interactions at all ratings and to gen explorations of what a Sap is like… I’d love to read all your headcanons.

Ship-wise, I enjoy him with Tariq as this kind of esoteric connection of minds, guarded words full of secret meanings, long contemplative walks together (is any external pov watching...?), Volfred’s Reader powers brushing against Tariq’s mind and getting weak in the knees at the starlit expanse he finds there, so unlike mortal thoughts. Tariq finds his individuality learning from him; Volfred presumably gets a transcendent glimpse of the Scribes. And I enjoy him with Oralech as pretty much the opposite of that, Oralech is so very mortal compared to him, such a precious, fleeting, burning life especially after his fall. Oralech’s idealism is very dear to me, it was their plan, their shared revolutionary spirit, I find it deeply moving. And I am very interested in seeing them rebuild their connection now that Oralech is back, changed, and in some ways he can learn to let go of his misconceptions and slowly open himself to Volfred’s love again, but in other ways that’s who he is now, with this deep-set anger, and what does it even feel to realize that you’re the symbol of the end of an era (the end of the Rites, the fading of the Scribes). I’m interested in both topside and downside endings for all of them, as long as they end up on the same side, the revolution was peaceful and they don’t angst too much about the side they ended in. Tariq can ‘find his way home’ in the near post-canon somehow or even be summoned again, as a different aspect of the same ‘moonlit vision’ that once inspired Soliam Murr.

Strandbeest: any

https://www.strandbeest.com/

I would just like words to go with these, please and thank you so very much. Worldbuild to your heart’s content! Specifically: I’m fascinated by the premise that the strandbeest are living creatures that evolve and adapt to their ecosystem. A world where life is just wind stomachs and sandy joints, and the tide that can catch you unaware. I would like a story that feels distinctly inorganic. The wonder that is the existence of these creatures. Their unique struggles. Weird and experimental if you like. With a mechanical focus, maybe?

I nominated four critters as a selection of the different cool things they can do - Percipiere Excelsus is huge and has the hammer mechanism, Suspendisse’s tail senses the hardness of the sand, Uminami is my fave caterpillar and the caterpillars overall feel like a new paradigm after a mass extinction event, Ader straight-up flies... but they’re all wonderful. If you want to focus on different strandbeest, please do!

Twin Peaks: Lucy Moran

Case fic but they don’t find out jack shit, someone disappears, David Bowie was there, it’s complicated. Fragmented, shifted, mirrored identities. New Lodge spaces. The risks of staring into the void for too long. Gentle illusions. Transcendence. The moon. Static buzzing. Any title from the s3 ethereal whooshing compilation used as a prompt, actually. Whatever goes on on Blue Pine mountain or the even more mysterious things that go on on White Tail mountain where exactly zero canon locations are found. Twin Peaks is all about the mystery to me, the awe of mystery and unknowability and the human drive to look beyond and the risks of getting a peek, and about shared consciousness and trauma taking physical form in an uncaring world. Go wild with the ethereal whooshing! But I also love the human warmth at the heart of it all, and sometimes it’s enough to anchor these characters and let them have a nice day. A fic entirely focused on some instance of coziness against the cold chaotic background of canon would be great too.

For Lucy specifically, a big draw for me is how canon (...s2 need not apply) empathizes with her way of processing the world. Not just Peaks, but On the Air’s protag who is basically a Lucy expy also gets the narrative completely on her side and that’s great. And I love how in s3, her focus on the small things around her is always echoed by bigger, climactic events beyond her horizon (bunnies / Jack Rabbit’s palace, chair order / Garland’s chair, her first scene talking about the two sheriffs / doubles everywhere...). It feels to me like some kind of off-kilter mindfulness and I love it. She’s also got a loving husband and an amazing son, which, in this economy and also this canon? Damn. The one functional family, imagine that. I am not interested in focus on family dynamics, but singularly, either Lucy/Andy or Lucy&Wally are great - in particular, I’m interested in how strange they are and yet they make it work. With the ruthless critique of traditional family structure that’s all over canon, maybe they make it work specifically because they’re not doing any of that. A bit like the Addams family... but... not goth...? Anyway. I’d love to see Lucy interact with and maybe strike a friendship with any character she’s never shared a scene with in canon! In the tagset, there’s Diane for some secretaries bonding, Audrey because??? why not?, Albert because it’d be an epic enemies to friends slowburn, some version of Laura in the future, if we’re feeling really daring maybe even some version of Coop in the future, still fragmented... or anyone you want! Outside the tagset I’d be curious about Hawk, Margaret and maybe Doris in particular, I think, and Phil, and Nadine and the Invitation to Love fandom in general (Frost says it still airs - did it get as weird as TP s3 did?), but if you have an idea with someone else, absolutely go for it!

Canon-specific DNWs: any singular Dreamer being the ‘source’ of canon, BOB (let alone Judy) being forever defeated in the finale, Judy being an active malevolent presence in the characters’ lives, clear explanations for canonical ambiguities, ‘Odessaverse’ being the reality layer, the Fireman’s House by the Sea being the White Lodge, whatever Twin Perfect’s on about, Cooper/Audrey, Cooper/Laura

[emptymanuscript]

One way to REname a character with internal story logic

I want to talk a moment about Zephyr.

Not the wind.

My character. 

(He wishes he was this tough) Not even really the person but his NAME itself, Zephyr, and how it changed.

One of the things I don’t mention too much just to avoid trouble is how extremely different Knights of Day is now compared to how it was originally. At its early height, Knights of Day peaked at 4 authors. The goal was in no way to publish or publicize any of it. It wasn’t even really meant to be any sort of cohesive story. Or even to consist of cohesive stories rather than “adventures” for fun. I’m not even sure I can tell you WHAT it was. It wasn’t quite a piece of fiction, it wasn’t quite a table top rpg, it wasn’t quite rp’ing. It was just its own behemoth of a thing that included all of those. Compared to 1 book and 1 book in progress now.

Case in point: Fun Adventure #3 was ~

Kinda John Edward but real & real evil

Set up: Most Mediums are terrible people who fake their powers to rip victims off when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable. Because when you’ve just irrevocably lost one of the most important people in your life you’ll pay anything or do anything for the even the illusion of getting them back.

What if: Imagine someone who can really do everything they say they can do… but they’re still a terrible predator trying to take advantage of people when they’re at their most emotionally vulnerable - they just have more power to make it even worse.

Mission: Save young suddenly widowed mega-rich heiress Helena Lawson from real Medium but still conniving con-man Kenton Dean. Because the greedy, racist, no goo Ted Lawson doesn’t want Kenton Dean to get the money instead of himself. And Ted is willing to pay exorbitantly to make sure it doesn’t. So James and Zeferrello are tasked with finding any reason to separate Helena and Kenton.

Twist: Yeah, Kenton Dean CAN summon and control the dead but it’s so much worse than that. He can summon and control the GOD of the dead. Assuming, of course, that all of this isn’t the god of the dead actually controlling Kenton Dean for its own purposes.

Which Became The Hidden and the Maiden. But instead of a climactic conflict between James, Zephyr, Kenton Dean, and Kherty-Aken decided by force, force of will, and clever use of all magic available inside the seat of Kenton Dean’s power, his theater, “Kinda John Edward but real & real evil” ended with a mildly tense chat between James and Zefferello versus Kherty Aken just kinda hanging out, tensely, next to an ambulance. James points out that Kenton Dean has reprogrammed Kherty Aken like a computer to just believe all this BS. Kherty Aken realizes, Oh Shi-! he’s right, and flys away. Next day, paper says Kenton Dean is dead. So the general idea is there but just not at all the same when you look close.

As an aside, this is by the way why most writing teachers dismiss ‘ideas’ as the least important element of story telling. One version of this ‘idea’ I stuff under a rug and pretend doesn’t exist. The other I sell in paperback for $10 a pop. If the fundamental idea hasn’t changed really, why the vast difference in price? Because of the execution. And if execution is more than infinitely greater in effect 0 -> 10 why bother putting that much effort into the idea when, even if you only go to 5 through execution, that will have more effect than any idea will. I am not 100% convinced by this line of reasoning but it’s not meritless either. A bad idea well written will just get more in the marketplace of ideas than a good idea poorly written. A bad idea badly written is doomed. A good idea well written may or may not do as well as the mediocrity. So, I disagree that it is of zero importance but I do think it is certainly not the most important element for 3/4’s of all story types. Ok, that’s another post, enough asides.

The real thing I’m actually thinking about is the Zefferello to Zephyr change. Zefferello was Zephyr’s original name. The author who created the original character said specifically her thoughts were that she had never had any character under any situation whose name started with Z. So she wanted a Z character and she plucked the rest out of thin air because. And because it didn’t matter, that was cool enough. So he was Zefferello for the first few years of life. No particular reason why. Never mind that nothing in any back round of anything anywhere would give Zefferello as a name.

It was only as I was moving from the first to the second draft of The Hidden and the Maiden that it was really bothering me about this Korean-American dude with the abusive Super Whitey Mega Rich father, the utterly absent and possibly dead Korean Trophy Wife mother, and the abusive DID having ghost but still white mother. Why would any of them give him that name?

Well, the father might do it just to torture his son throughout life. He’s that kind of asshole. As little as he is in it, I actually think of Zephyr’s father as the Antagonist for Knights of Day because he is just pure dagnasty evil because he likes it. He may not appear most on the page or wield the most power - partially because he’s just not my favorite kind of villain, at all, his side-kicks is way more my speed - but there’s no denying he does the most damage. BUT, the father is also very image conscious. Part of what he likes is doing terrible things while other people praise him for it. For making people suffer but having no one believe them because he is such a paragon of virtue. One of his side kicks actually got James to just start punching him toward the end because he kept talking about what a saint Zephyr’s father was and all the haters just didn’t understand what a wonderful person he was and how hard he worked when he never had to to improve the life of others. If I recall correctly James literally held a knife on the guy and pointing to Zephyr: ‘you had to fucking know what that motherfucker was doing to him! You evil lying sack of fucking shit!’ So… torture wasn’t going to work for a reason.

So I’m looking for any great people in history with the name Zefferello. Nope. Nada. Is it by some miracle a Korean name that Eun Ae Gwon might have given him? Nope. No dice. And slowly all eyes  turn to JJ. JJ is nuts. There’s no getting around it. But I’m rarely happy with that as an explanation. Especially with JJ because most of what she does that SEEMS nuts, isn’t. The fundamental rule I made for JJ fairly early on is that she is ALWAYS up to something. She is playing every angle. She is working every leverage. She is a survivor in a way that most people will never be. She’s dead and she is still playing to win. So she will do things that appear unreasonable at point A in time in order to increase her odds of getting what she wants in point B in time.

And I’m looking at that name. That ello. That’s sounds latinate to me. And masculine. I already knew Zefferello’s real name at this point, and it had a Jr. at the end and I started wondering if maybe, just maybe, JJ gave Zefferello a different Jr. name. A name for the father that she wished Zefferello had. Instead of the one he did. He’s hers, and what better to claim a baby she would never hold than to rename him into a family that she wanted to exist but never did. That’s very JJ.

At which point I’m reviewing JJ’s history. It’s sparse-ish at that time. But I know when she got pregnant and I know more or less what happened to her from that point until she died. And there’s nothing in there to hint at a Zefferello Sr. But… there were already some hints about there maybe being a Zefferella. And of course that’s not a name either. But fiddle with the spelling and drop the “el” sound and you do get a Greek female name: Zephyra \

And that was the lightning bolt of inspiration and change. That JJ’s second and last love of her life was a fellow prostitute named Zephyra, and IF JJ could rewrite reality to be anything she wanted then her son would also be Zephyra’s - that they would be the family unit and the other would be the ghostly illusion. And with Zephyra as a real name, I also had a male equivalent: Zephyr. Sounds similar but much more plausible that he might somehow obtain it. Plus, with the idea of Zephyra, his name also becomes a key to unlocking tons of emotion and backstory.

And you’ll know it’s important the second that this repressed little guy walking around giving out the name of Zephyr Wayne, shamefully cringe-admits that his legal name is Peter Bailey Jr. That that exists at all says that there is a story to find down in there and that it isn’t a simple one.

So that’s one to rewrite a name based on the internal logic of a story. Zephyr’s name was researched and found but never picked out of a name directory. It was back-engineered to tell the story I wanted to tell and avoid the random story I didn’t. By following the logic that might lead to a name like his, I was able to find the one I thought was right for him.

And, since the original Cup Bearer was one of the winds, that also worked to my advantage… though it is generally considered the wrong wind. Oy. Which I’ll probably just end up deleting because Zephyr’s name is better for a story hook than anything I made with Thulebelore being the General of the Western Winds.

If you actually got here. Wow. Thank you. If you ever want to solicit writing advice, dropping a question in my ask prompts me better than whatever happens to occur randomly to my head. So, you know, that’s there.

[jasntodds]

Boxer vs Artist [t.h.]

Request: oh ok well the concept was boxer!Tom just being soft for his artist!gf and he thinks she's so precious and pure and he brags about her talent to his boxing buddies and they're like yeah you're a lucky dude lol. I was kinda hoping u could write something about it but u don't have to:)

A/N: Idk I feel like this would be a cool series tbh but I didn’t know how I’d do a one-shot so here’s a headcanon!

masterlist

OKAY so boxer!Tom

he’s not exactly “soft” usually

like normally he’s kind of all about the gym

and wants to keep more to himself and boxing buddies

doesn’t really show much affection

his head is just with the sport, ya know?

BUT

then he met you

and the boy was suddenly softer than a puppy

but only around you

you’d met somewhere like a Subway when he was on his way home from the gym

he’d seen you the second he walked in and just became totally infatuated with how concentrated you were on your art

you were bored while you waited on a friend

so he asked you on a date

which was a little bit of mess

he was nervous which doesn’t happen much but it’s you

anyway

y’all had gone on a few dates

and even though you guys are pretty different

you clicked

he told you about his boxing

partially because he liked talking about it

and because you wanted to know why his knuckles looked roughed up all the time

and he asked about your art

like

when i say asked

i mean just wanted to see EVERYTHING

and never let you stop talking about it

so that was the start of a beautiful relationship

he’d asked to make it official

after you picked him up from the gym one day

he had been wanting to

but there was something with the way you had graphite on your nose

and ink smeared on your hands

that made him just blurt out of the question

to which you agreed without hesitation

now your dates

your dates were literally anything between staying inside cuddled on the couch

and going on fancy night outs

tom was more of a fan of just cuddling

especially if that meant you were going to draw

but that’s not all

which totally lead you trying to teach him to draw a few things

it was mostly laughing and tom giving you the sweetest smile

needless to say

he can’t draw and should stick to boxing

anyway because he’s so into your art

you wanted to be into his favorite thing

so you end up going to the gym with him sometimes

and he teaches you some boxing

which you’d think he’d be a little “”harsh”” on 

ya know since he knows it and he wants you to do well

but nah

this boy is SOFT

like encouraging words and

“That was really great, love.”

“Can you try this, darlin?”

“This rate, you’ll be kicking my ass.”

and his boxing buddies happen to overhear

and see the way he looks at you

because it’s basically the definition of heart eyes

so ya know they’re all like ??? because wow he’s actually affectionate??

and when you’re not around

all tom does is BRAG about you

a few times you made him a lunch/snack

and you always draw on his napkins

it started as a joke from your first date

you said something about always doodling in class when you were in school

and he asked you to doodle something

but all you guys had were napkins and a pen you kept in your purse

so you made it work and drew a quick doodle for him

so instead of being embarrassed he literally just BEAMS

and shows his friends

“Look! My girlfriend drew this!”

“She’s so talented.”

“Isn’t this amazing?”

And it’s just little two minute doodles

spoiler: tom keep ALL of them

his friends kind of laugh about it

but not to make fun of him but more in the “wow someone is head over heels” way

and a few times, his friends have actually told him how lucky he is

and asked if you had any friends

because like you keep tom mellow

and just make him better

he just loves you and your art

with all his heart

he melts

Tag list: @thumper-darling // @peter-i-got-homework-parker // @spiderlingss // @negative-love // @sleepyboyholland // @carrotsunshine // @hasozterfield // @pickachurose // @pookiepookie8 // @catnolannn // @finn-the-pigeon // @findawaytoglow // @Malecordie // @brookssbabe // @mysteriouslyluckymoon // @hopelessdestielromantic // @zenzedana // @mikalaka // @deanslittlebitch // @jxvnv // @shelteredheart // @50shadesoflaurmani // @Lisamnieto  // @writingforbucky // @dangerousluv1 // @chayceschultz // @bellagrayson-wayne // @satan-chicken // @mysticsthinking // @aussie-holland // @wtfholland // @distressedhollandfield // @TWD1DSNFREAK // @tiny-friggin-human // @batfam04 // @spiderboytotherescue // @loserparker // @miajane601 // @cancerous-lizard666 // @shawnsassymendes // @acciorinn // @yeahbutmarvel // @draqcnheartstrinq // @avengersgirllorianna // @and-everythings-not-lost // @spidermanswifi // @tomsfireheart // @aw-spidey // @notthepersonyouwerelookingfor  // @spidey-pal // 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// @Clementiins // @pandas1923 // @hamiltrin // @httpmcrvel // @cryo-bucky17 // @jenlou2309 // @rumoured-whispers // @assumeimapenguin // @bitterbagel // @curlyboyholland // @hither-to-undreamt-of // @Baileyxrudesalx // @negasonicteenageangst // @sensitivegoat // @light-the-buh // @owlsparks // @heartlessfeelings24 // @stareome // @ninni880 // @insanecurlieeeefriessss // @kaliforniacoastalteens // @ninjamcfluffly // @crescentstarknight // @tommylovestrains // @cosmetologynerd // @transspideyman // @inspiredbynewt // @im-on-something-different // @peterparkers-waffles // @petermyspiderson // @slickerbeans // @marvels-hoe-duh // @5-secs-of-4-idiots // @Risabeee // @wombatholland // @peterparklr // @golden-guide // @rock-n-roll-queens // @underoossss // @mishchiefmanaged49 // @desir-ae // @tomhollanderp // @hvllanders // @tomblrholland // @chels-writes // @ewolfwitchwisegirl // @marvelspidey-tomholland // @cannibal-ivy // @beesarebettertahnpigeons // @dixonsbugaboo // @we-are-marvel-fans // @mazewitch // @sarcasticallystydia // @my-babies-are-ash // @cali // @im-emotional-nice-to-meet-you // @happysynonym // @wubbawubwub04 // @sighspidey // @headsup-itsmostlypeter // @Spideyluke // @hannahjoy2139 // @smexylemony // @dude-whatawave // @1enchantedfantasy1 // @flashcal // @Petersmask // @hoodash98xx // @spiderdudeparker // @spiderbliss // @iaiabear // @me-a-hopeless-romantic // @Whitieclappingwhentheplanelands // @whoopsitsme // @artclutteredhowell // @spxderbarnes // @darlingxtom // @amazonianbitch098 // @quicksoldier // @ninjamcfluffly // @mishchiefmanaged49 // @lafayettes-baguettes-1 // @calmdownyall // @beckyblender // @killmemonger // @corvus-of-moonlight // @thellamalord // @beansparker // @tooturntashbash // @stormbornbarnes // @teebae7 // @deadlyaffairs // @lemirabitur // @softpetcrparker // @lntensified // @shay-grace18 // @lltrashll // @popluckbih // @fandoms-stuff // @PetersGalaxy // @acourtofsinsandtragedies // @nichu // @lostnliterature // @hareliketherabbit // @ladylogolepsy // @sincerelymlg // @plethoraofpuppies // @dabbingangels // @webfluidbih // @itsemmyb // @afterglowparker // @larbingmarvel // @spiderwoman-on-the-run // @babynora83 // @milaakilla // @damnhisfaceisliketheskyatnight // @sholla4-314 // @thollandstuff // @super-fire-breathing-girl // @evanstns // @spideyziam // @anoffensiveintrovert // @indecisivearia // @calumhoodcakes // @lonelylittlebi // @sylviestars // @stop-wonder-think // @sabinatheteenage // @brokenuntilmay3rd2019 // @winterridinghood // @lizzie-143 // @deadlyaffairs // @tinyspiderling // @vendylewin // @southsideprincessx // @brianasyouth // @http-natiii // @Laciedsl // @built4broadway // @just-saying-26 // @ironspideyboy // @haha-lmao-blog // @bbypeter // @miraculouspaladins // @alltoowhalee13 // @blackawsum // @dabbingangels // @holyhollland // @abucketfullofweird // @we-flower-fan // @supernatural-girl97 // @ilovepizzaandimhot // @unearthemotions // @runningcirclesroundmymind // @Xoitsjustmexo // @lizcrist50 // @sireennotsiren // @melmelmel21 // @tommyhoe // @crystalevansc306 // @stop-wonder-think // @rae-gar-targaryen91 // @c-ly-g // @Flowerchild8341 // @fucking-reddie

[tallangrycockatiel]

WoT B1C8: Rand is Tired.

Lady Rain heals Rand’s dad, who was indeed suffering a kind of dark magic poison. Or at least she seems to heal him. She and Lan explain that the Trollocs were targeting Rand and his two friends, Mat and Perrin, who are almost exactly the same age. To keep the village safe and find out why they’re being hunted, she proposes that they travel to Tar Valon, the Aes Sedai city. Rand is very tired, hungry, worried and disbelieving about what his father told him about not being his father, deeply uncomfortable about trusting an Aes Sedai, and overall having a very unhappy time.

Worldbuilding infodumps coming from Lady Rain and Lan this time, and I was satisfyingly right about some things! The herons on Rand’s dad’s sword are the mark of a master swordsman, so did his dad earn that, or buy it as a curio, or did he even know that was what it meant? The Trollocs are indeed made, or at least, they were made at one point and have since bred, by the Dark One.

The shadowy rider is actually a Fade, also known as a Halfman, which is what Lan calls them. Interestingly, the stories completely lied about what they look like. They’re basically Trollocs but slightly more human, and act as the low-level officers to the footsoldiers of evil. The raven a few chapters back was indeed a Dark One spy.

On the theme of stories lying, this chapter makes much of Rand’s discomfort at discovering that the fabled Aes Sedai are… just people, who can do magic. He’s constantly on edge worried about offending Lady Rain, or being around her powerful magic, and the idea of going to their city is not pleasant for him. But she’s just a person, very tired, in a bad situation, dealing with it as best she can and clearly used to being in charge. She hasn’t mentioned payment for healing his dad – who hasn’t regained consciousness yet – so either that’s going to be Bad or the stories lied again and she really did do it out of kindness.

Best bit of this is that we also see Mrs Mayor’s reaction to Lady Rain, and she is much more comfy around her than any of the men. The mayor says “She’s an Aes Sedai. Half the women in the village act as if she sits in the Women’s Circle, and the rest as if she were a Trolloc.” So I quite like the idea that the women in this world, who are currently the only magic users apart from Dragon dude in the prologue thousands of years ago, have group access to stuff the men don’t. We’ve been getting hints of this about the position of Wisdom for a while. Are Wisdoms connected to Aes Sedai? Is this kind of two branches of understanding of witchcraft, which split off from each other a long time ago? Whatever this is, it’s fun and I like the possible implication that the Aes Sedai spread all the scary stories about themselves so they could be sure of being respected.

Lan is a Warder, which is also a scary thing, and Tar Valon is apparently full of them too. No mention of them doing magic, though, so not male equivalent of Aes Sedai. He actually says stuff this chapter, and seems like an okay guy. Attempts to talk to Rand rather than encouraging awkward silence.

Chapter highlight: Rand’s increasing delirium from stress and lack of sleep. Probably the best device for getting the simple farm boy to agree to go off on a ridiculous quest I’ve come across.

[hyperbolicpurple]

Wheel of Time read: The Eye of the World

a recap/reactions post for @veliseraptor, whose love for these gigantic doorstoppers convinced me to read them, and @innermostplanet, whose reaction to hearing I am completely unspoiled for this series was, I believe, “dis gun be good”

(anyone feel free to comment or reply, but please don’t spoil me for what I haven’t yet read, please!)

Well, it’s pretty obvious why this is considered such a prime example of Western epic fantasy. Boy + mysterious lineage/sword/destiny + quest = a pretty straightforward formula, lol. Fortunately I’m down.

It’s sooooooo verboooooooose, like, even just at the sentence level I wanted to take a pen to it and hack away at it, but were all of those chapters really necessary, couldn’t they be recapped??? A pretty mild complaint though. I breezed through it so obviously it wasn’t so bad.

My other complaint: WHY ARE WE CALLING ANYTHING A “MYRDDRAAL” WHEN WE CAN JUST CALL IT A “FADE” AND WE ALREADY DO? Robert. Robert. My buddy. My pal. This is unnecessary.

(They’re also apparently called Halfmen, like come on, just give them one name, it’s OK.)

ONTO THE POSITIVE:

Characters I liked most: Min, whom we saw for like two seconds (and who just likes to word vomit her visions to total randos in convenient prophetic infodumps, I guess, lol); Nynaeve, who is delightfully prickly; and Lan and Perrin. I can resist neither guys described as wolfish nor guys who commune with wolves. Apparently.

(I feel like there’s an Aes Sedai/Warder AU out there waiting to be written about Daenerys/Jon, yeah? Would that not be a perfect fit?)

I can’t believe no one was dead by the end of this book? Like, for sure, I was expecting Mat to kick it and maybe Perrin too (since they seemed like such “extras,” Rand being Ba’alzamon’s obvious “real” target). BUT NO, THEY’RE ALL SPECIAL DUDES WITH SPECIAL POWERS AND DESTINIES, lmao. (Mat really did seem destined for the chopping block, though. You don’t steal magical artifacts from demons and lie about it, kid! The paranoia and antisocialness was some serious One Ring shit.) Even Thom apparently isn’t dead??? Or Rand’s dad??? Can no one actually die??? AND OBVIOUSLY Nynaeve and Egwene are both potentially powerful Aes Sedai too.

I really did not understand the Rand/Egwene relationship? At the beginning I got the impression they’d been ~maybe something~ in the past but Rand was backing away/wanting to call it off, and now they’re totally in love but doomed to be apart? I don’t know?

Did like Nynaeve/Lan, and CALLED IT, her weirdness around him was 100% “I am subconsciously attracted to this guy and aggravated by it,” haha. Also he thinks she deserves better than him and his inevitable death, and he said, I quote, “I will hate the man you choose because he is not me, and love him if he makes you smile,” and fuck you dude, now I love you, so naturally I’m all aboard that angst train. Toot toot!

SUCH a tonal difference from ASOIAF. Like, I was hit over the head by how many over-friendly over-generous innkeepers just love to give our heroes a helping hand and how many people like to stand up and give beautiful heartfelt speeches in defense of whoever the mob is attacking, etc. Also that was such a rosy picture of small town life. Sure, they’re all fond of each other and so good-hearted and who doesn’t love a wholesome country boy but omg I feel like I need to read a Stephen King book to cancel it out??? I don’t need everything to be as cynically crapsack as Westeros, but it did strain credulity juuuuuuust a little, lol.

And obviously Rand is an Aes Sedai too. Also successfully called! Not that it was hard, given the fainting and shaking spell after obviously performing some kind of magic not long after we were told that was a thing. And an “Aielman,” whatever that is. And the actual Dragon Reborn, whoever that is, as opposed to all the fake ones hanging around. (I wonder if we’ll see Logain again?) Since I doubt Rand will actually go insane (though that would be an interesting road for a protagonist to take) I assume they’re going to figure some way out of it. Either fix the “male” side of the power or be cut off from the power without the shitty side effects, or, I guess, access the “female” side of the power instead?

And there was a big tree dude who was all connected to the earth and some traveling pacifists (whom I liked very much) and some royal progeny in a garden. It really seems like we’ll see the royal progeny again, although again, I’m laughing about how apparently GOOD AND WHOLESOME those kids are.

(again, please don’t spoil me)

Next Posts: The Great Hunt

[salty-dracon]

ace hang plays noctis umbra part 2

CHRIS HEMSWORTH, IS THAT YOU? | Noctis Umbra Part 2 | Ace Hang Plays Otome

Lily: *pointing to Rana and sobbing* You’re the only son of a bitch I respect in this goddamn game... you’re the only person I trust... 

----------

Brid: Hey guys, welcome back to Ace Hang! I’m Brid! 

Lily: And I’m Lily! Last time, we finished the prologue of Noctis Umbra, where we learned we were half succubus, we ate a dude, and we, uh... joined the goth club? 

Brid: And choked out a guy! 

Lily: And now we’re going to choke him out again if he doesn’t give us answers. Which he won’t. Because he’s a bitch. 

Brid: How fun! 

Lily: Also, since you guys informed us that the game wouldn’t really continue if we didn’t select at least someone to romance, we went with Valerius, because people seem to ship him with the MC. It didn’t really change anything, so it’s fine, probably.

Brid: Also we didn’t really see any options for Rana, who we both like. 

Lily: This story’s ramping up, and I can’t wait to romance a fucker, so let’s go! 

---------

Brid: OHHHHH, GRIZZLED THIRTY SOMETHING HOT KOREAN ALCOHOLIC-

Lily: Please clap, it took us five minutes to come up with that. 

Brid: This is the first time we’re seeing Tae. 

Lily: I like him. I like his design. Actually, yeah, I really like him. 

Brid: He seems like a pretty cool dude. 

Lily: Oh, and Ae-ri! Nice to see you again, girl! Lookin’ good! 

Brid: Oh my god, don’t tell me it’s like, sibling culture between these two. 

Lily: Eyyyy, Rana! You’re cool too! Didn’t, you, like, fucking deck a dude at the end of the last episode?

Brid: Oh yeah, Luka. That fuckin’ hippie ass. 

Lily: And now Bitch Lasagna wants us off duty. 

Brid: Looks like we’re going demon hunting elsewhere. 

Lily: And we were at an orphanage. That’s nice. That’s not edgy at all. 

Brid: “Be careful!”

Lily: “What, no be careful to me?”

Brid: “You ate my cheesecake.”

(they both start laughing)

Lily: Now I need fanart of them both T-posing at each other across a room. 

----------

Brid: Do you know what a Bul-Gae is? 

Lily: I kinda thought you’d know. 

Brid: You’re Vietnamese. 

Lily: You’re Chinese. 

Brid: ... Whatever. Yay, Nocturnal jokes. Whee, Nocturnal jokes. 

Lily: “Valerius must be having one hell of a hard time.” “He’s not Nocturnal, actually.” ... 

Brid: ... 

Lily: ... 

Brid: Oh my god, not again... 

Lily: MyDude is already pulling out her gun. 

Brid: I’m about to sock a bitch!

Lily: We just get out of the car, walk all the way back... throw our high heel through his window... 

----------

Lily: HOLY SHIT WAS THAT A BABY SCREAMING

Brid: RUN RUN RUN

Lily: WE’RE EDGELORDS BUT WE’RE GOOD PEOPLE

Brid: ... 

Lily: ... 

Brid: ... IS THAT THOR? 

Lily: THOR?! WHAT IS THOR DOING HERE?!

Brid: I COULD ASK THOR THE SAME QUESTION! 

Lily: Wait, who the fuck played Thor? 

Brid: Chris Hemsworth. 

Lily: Got it. HOLY FUCK GUYS IT’S CHRIS HEMSWORTH

Brid: *valerius voice* “God damn it, My Dude, we do not fuck with preps-”

Lily: She’s just verbally keysmashing while just being like “HOLY FUCKING SHIT GUYS IT’S CHRIS HEMSWORTH”

Brid: Meanwhile Tora over there’s like... *sound clip of Tora from Xenoblade Chronicles 2 shouting “Meh meh meh!”* before just using her little hands to punch Thor. 

Lily: I swear, if Thor has magic powers... 

Brid: Okay, so she’s an ala? What’s an ala? 

Lily: Hell if I know! 

Brid: “The Ascendency?” So... there’s another organization out there? 

Lily: OH THIS KID’S ANGRY

Brid: ... Did we just get blasted with lightning? 

Lily: The real Thor... was the girl.

----------

Lily: Finally, Ae-ri’s getting the rest she needs. 

Brid: Ey, Rana! “I’ll make sure she rests.”

*Luka appears*

Lily: Oh my god. 

Brid: Don’t tell me she’s using him as house labor. 

Lily: Call the IRS.

Brid: “MAKE HER SLEEP” “GOD YOU DON’T HAVE TO TELL ME TWICE” “JUST DO IT”

Lily: Looks like Thor- the bad one- is part of a human organization fighting against demons. 

Brid: Oh no, we succed Tae!

Lily: Sorry!

----------

(six minutes of frustration because Valerius won’t tell MC anything)

---------

Lily: RANA ON THE ROOF! 

Brid: WELCOME TO THE ROOF! 

Lily: You’re the only person I respect in this game and I love you! 

Brid: Ohhhh, three wishes! 

Lily: But they’re costly. 

Brid: Not in DND, they’re not. 

Lily: “Have you ever murdered a child?”

Brid: “Nope. Do you think the others have?”

Lily: “Maybe...”

Brid: “Nope. They haven’t.”

Lily: “Anyway Valerius treats me like a child.”

Brid: “No one can treat you like a child.”

Lily: Thanks, Rana. OH MY GOD WE CAN ROMANCE HER

Brid: ... I’m tempted. 

Lily: GO FOR IT!

Brid: Ooooh, spicy!

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

Brid: I love how we walk in on Ae-ri about to kick Luka’s ass. Again. “Pwease help, they’re using me as a reusable sleeping pill”

Lily: Then pewish, punk. 

Brid: “You wanna go back in the bottle?” “Halp”

Lily: oh my god

Brid: He tortured my baby, and I will end his life for it. 

Lily: Oh, you’re damn right you will! 

Brid: KICK HIS ASS!

Lily: Okay, now a new character. Leo. And the Legion’s about to take Tora. 

Brid: We’ll beat his ass too! 

Lily: So much ass beating... 

Brid: And now we’re going to kick everyone else’s asses for making us babysit Luka

--------

Brid: “Wanna play Monopoly?”

Lily: “Shut up.”

Brid: “Come on, it’s fun capitalism!”

Lily: “I will kill you”

Brid: I like Luka. He’s funny. 

Lily: Nah, he’s difficult, actually. Look, he’s trying to tell MyDude some more secrets. Fake news. 

Brid: “Do you know what Valerius actually is?”

Lily: Oh my god. 

Brid: “He was always a hunter... “ Was he an angel or something? 

Lily: Huh. 

Brid: Oh, he is an angel! 

Lily: “Find them.”

Brid: “Yay, adventure!” See, this is why I like him. 

Lily: You do you. 

----------

Lily: Welcome to the fucking woods! We’re all fucking feral here, folks! 

Brid: Oooooh, I do not like his beard! 

Lily: It’s the old man fuzz. Damien wasn’t actually Chris Hemsworth, it’s this guy. Leo. 

Brid: I love how literally the whole Noctis Umbra team is ganging up on him. 

Lily: “What do you want?” 

Brid: “A peaceful retirement.” Don’t we all. 

Lily: Oh, they’re arguing. 

Brid: Even he knows the angel secret, huh?

Lily: And here comes our girl! 

Brid: Our girl! 

Lily: And Leo is pissed. “That-” No. NO WAY. “That’s my daughter you’ve got there.”

Brid: DAUGHTER??

Lily: Daughter. I mean, I do see the whole racially ambiguous thing going, but other than that... 

Brid: Oh, we killed someone. That’s cool. 

Lily: And Valerius isn’t an angel anymore? Is he a fallen angel?

Brid: Fun. 

Lily: Oh great. Are we going to spend a night with this fucker? 

Brid: Right, and he’s pulling out the royalty line again. 

Lily: “Are you king of demons?”

Brid: “No, I’m dad.”

Lily: ... 

Brid: ...

Lily: DID WE JUST GET DAD JOKED

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

Brid: “She’s asleep, but in shock.”

Lily: I think anyone would be, if that happened. Oh, wait, they’re referring to Tora.

Brid: Oh no, Luca escaped! I liked voicing him!

Lily: “We’re gonna need a new place if we keep taking in people.”

Brid: “That’s a great idea!”

Lily: Oh, there we go. “Fallen angel”.

Brid: So does that make him a demon?

Lily: Who knows.

----------

Brid: Okay, he’s actually gonna tell us a secret now?

Lily: He’d best be tellin’.

Brid: Wow, and his secrets are “it’s complicated” and nothing more.

Lily: Asshole.

Brid: But he’s right, we need someplace to rest for a bit.

Lily: Yup.

Brid: So are we leaving or not?

Lily: Oh, a choice. Since we romanced Valerius this time around, I think we’ll stay.

Brid: Good answer!

Lily: And he says so. Former angel. Ooooh, show me your wings, bitch!

Brid: He just strips immediately.

Lily: “Show me.”

Brid: Oh my god.

Lily: HE’S ACTUALLY GOT WINGS LOL

Brid: We just start screaming that from the sky.

Lily: He’s not gonna drop us, is he?

----------

Lily: Oh, and now Luca’s in trouble. Great.

Brid: I’m about to deck him again. 

---------

Lily: And the chapter concludes. Okay guys, looks like this is going to be it for this episode of Noctis Umbra! 

Brid: Our boy’s being a little more honest with us, though perhaps less honest than we’d like. Also, we met our dad. And that’s not good at all. 

Lily: He ugly. 

Brid: He ugly. 

Lily: What are your thoughts? 

Brid: Everyone here except Rana, Ae-ri, and Tae, and also Keelan... basically, a lot of people need to be punched in the face, and I will facilitate that. 

Lily: Same. Mood. Worm. 

Brid: Anyway, that’s all for this episode! Tune in next time for more weird otome!