#mainly around how would an ending to the vessel au look like?

[grismavessel]

Vessel AU: Origin Form Arceus?

So I had hashed out this comic of Giratina and Arceus beefing for the vessel au and I decided to finally finish it, but as I was drawing the last panel I went 'Wait, this doesn't look scary enough'

So I made an origin form Arceus. Because if Dialga, Palkia, and Giratina get alternate forms, why can't Arceus? Because it would make sense in like a mythos type way for Arceus to have like a land/normal form for walking around the regions and interacting with pokemon

But this form only comes out when Arceus is really heated and wants to make a point is truly does mean business aka when it's arguing with Giratina

Because I still stick by the idea of Arceus never wants to directly fix/solve problems one on one. It has to have some third party or someone else do it for them since it cannot interfere with the flow of existence or something cosmic like that. So even if it changes into it's origin form it doesn't use it. It's just to make a point that it will not allow something to happen or let something slip. The problem will be fixed no matter what and if that problem is Giratina, Giratina WILL listen.

It doesn't mean Giratina will take it to heart and obey though.

[mintywolf]

So okay here are the notes on my overly-intricate, still-unwritten CR Daemon AU

The catalyst was mainly me thinking about how absolutely unsettling Pâté would be in a universe where everyone has talking animal companions that are an extension of their soul. Matilda lost hers (a rat named Patter), so the major part of everyone’s fear and distrust of her is not that she looks off, but an instinctive, soul-deep dread and disgust because she has no daemon.* So, to blend in better and to alleviate her own crushing loneliness, Laudna (who has renamed herself because she doesn’t feel like the same person anymore without him) started carrying around a dead rat and pretending he talks. :(

(*apparently.)

And Imogen is the first person in a very long time to regard her with compassion rather than horror. She’s still weirded out by her lack of daemon but once she finds out how she lost him she’s very upset and angry on her behalf. Her daemon (a tressym) is more sympathetic than she is at first and wants to approach and comfort her because she’s so distressed that Laudna doesn’t have a daemon, about which Imogen is initially a little jealous, but once it sinks in for her how absolutely lonely she’s been and for how long (and maybe after they’ve gotten to know each other a little better unless this is like, how they came to understand each other’s soul so well) Imogen’s daemon voluntarily breaks the taboo by letting Laudna touch her. (Out of politeness she also gives Pâté a little nose boop but he kind of freaks her out.)

Now originally this was just going to be a sweet little oneshot about Imogen and her daemon finding a daemon-less weirdo in her garden shed and showing her the first kindness she’s seen in 30 years but I am just incapable of NOT getting overly involved in the Briarwoods backstory, haha.

Sooo back in Vox Machina era Ripley, under the Briarwoods, was doing experiments on Dust and daemons and discovered that the burst of energy released by severing someone from their daemon could be used to open a temporary gate into another world. They pointed her research in that direction, intending to use that power to draw the Whispered One into Exandria. Meanwhile Delilah, intrigued by the severing, started doing experiments of her own on unsuspecting castle staff and citizens of Whitestone. The subjects that didn’t die immediately without their daemons became obedient, soulless thralls that were easy to command, if short-lived (so this is this universe’s equivalent of necromancy) but it wasn’t quite what she was looking for. She wanted to become immortal by separating her daemon (a wolf* ) from herself so that it could travel far distances from her and persist after her death to attach itself to a new vessel. (*originally I had Delilah’s daemon as a pine marten because despite having read the books numerous times I always forget that Pan doesn’t settle as an ermine, he ends up a pine marten too. I chose it because they are elegant and auburn and devious and apparently have a pleasant scent. But it’s kind of a rare animal in fiction so I didn’t want to copy the book that closely even in an au based on it. A wolf is kind of a too-generic animal for her but there’s a reason it’s a wolf.) So poor Matilda and the others were invited to the castle “for study,” which led her to believe that Delilah had taken an interest in her magical abilities and was going to become her tutor but alas. :( The other six and their daemons in the study died outright and though Matilda survived the severing, Patter died shortly afterwards, so Delilah, getting impatient because of the approach of VM, considered her a failed attempt and abandoned her, not realizing that Matilda’s own magic had caused her Dust to cling to her and retained some scraps of her personality and agency so she was more than an empty husk like the other thralls.

Making some final adjustments, she tried it again on Cassandra de Rolo, and this time it worked. Cass was severed from her daemon, which survived, leaving Cass under Delilah’s control while she had her daemon imprisoned. Finally she performed the severing on herself, but her magic and its resentment at being parted from her caused her own daemon to become corrupted by the ritual. (So idk maybe it even started out as a pine marten but ended up . . . that. Vax’s daemon started out as a snake but changed into a raven when he became the Matron’s champion and Percy’s daemon was mutated by Orthax so settled daemons being forced into a new shape under extreme duress is possible in this au. I kind of like the wolf —> Hound of Ill Omen foreshadowing though.) Meanwhile VM were on their way. Percy knew that Ripley was doing some kind of nefarious Science under the Briarwoods but they didn’t know exactly what yet. Then they were suddenly attacked by an extremely messed up looking wolf, which took back Delilah’s stolen grimoire and escaped and they were all like wtfffff because they’d never seen a daemon without a person nearby before and it’s extremely unsettling. Especially one that looks like THAT. So they knew something bad was going on in Whitestone even before they got there and saw all the daemon-less people shambling around pathetically. So even though the plan to open a gate for the Whispered One was foiled (temporarily) by VM, her other experiment worked — she was able to send her daemon far away from herself before she was killed and it moved on to her clones, prolonging her life for another year. After Vox Machina finally burned through all of those as well it went off in search of a new vessel and eventually found Laudna but, unable to bond with her like a regular daemon, it forced its way in. So her Hound of Ill Omen is Delilah’s old daemon, gnawing at her ribs, resentful of Delilah for separating them but resentful of her for not being Delilah, whispering promises of power if she will just accept it as her own.

[cvbullshit]

Headcanons for the Player Chara thing I thought of. Decided to name the concept/AU Player Character bc why not. And I'll be including both concepts of it.

Player & Chara Concept:

Chara is disturbed and disgusted with The Player, mainly if they do a Genocide route at least two times.

I can see them getting some information from some sort of source to help them understand their own role better. Like probably knowing of other timelines(if they didn't know at first), other AUs and worlds(not by name and not all of them, just some that count as other games, like Dusttale and Deltarune), and maybe that there is something more to the game itself apart from themselves and The Player.

If Gaster ended up involved in this situation, like for example he's what helped Chara be a stable "player" even with some drawbacks, I view his role as more of a Guardian Angel/Devil for Chara. They wouldn't know who he is, where he is, what he looks like exactly, but they know he's there and they know he can be a helpful force... In his own way. I can imagine Chara nicknaming him either "Mr. Man"/"The Man"/"Manny", "Mr. Voice", "Mr. Guide Guy"/"Guide Guy", or "Mr. Angel"/"The True Angel" depending on how he helps them and how much he helps them.

I can imagine Chara to not disliking Frisk but not liking Frisk either, feeling bad for them at times when they're being controlled, not caring a lot of the time, but also being jealous and spiteful of Frisk. I mean come on, not only do they have to fight for control over Frisk for their own reasons but Frisk is basically replacing them in their family!!

"Player" Chara(No outside anomaly) concept:

They'd probably start breaking themselves from the inside out due to their constant need to reset and try again.

Depending on how far they go with the resets, they'd probably start losing themselves, slowly but surely.

I can see them trying to control other people to change things up to see if they can work around the same old thing. Though, the only things they'd possibly be able to control are other humans or things injected with determination (Flowey, The Amalgams, Undyne the Undying(?), ect.).

I feel like at some point they'd grow spiteful of Flowey/Asriel, for not only implying he liked their vessel more but for not understanding. Even after all this time, they really don't truly understand each other, do they? They may think alike to an extent, but down to their core, they still have differences. And Chara hates that.

They'd grow spiteful of everyone to be honest, at least a little bit. They did all of this and they can't even join them in the surface? They can't be with them after all they've done for them?? After they got themselves killed and revived for them?!

Unlike canon Chara or the Chara in the first concept, they'd probably have a god complex. They'd probably grow to forget that there's such things to consequences as well, as normally they'd be the one reminding the player of consequences but there is no player, they ARE the "player", so with no one to truly remind them, they'd probably forget.

The only ones who would be able to emotionally reach out to Chara, without them being completely spiteful, would have to be any version of Papyrus. Normally a Frisk could possibly do it but with Chara viewing them as just a vessel, and being spiteful, they couldn't take anything a Frisk says to heart. Another Chara couldn't either, because Chara does have at least a bit of self hatred and is already pretty different from most normal Charas, so they'd be too stubborn to fully listen. But Papyrus is one everyone loves, even Chara can't be too spiteful toward him. So any Papyrus could talk to them calmly.

[noperopesaredope]

Jacob & Coco Across the Universe (Post-Canon Collector AU): Collector Lore (Pt. 1)

A messy and disorganized post explaining some of my Collector lore for Jacob & Coco.

A Collector is born from a star. Specifically, a Collector is born every time a micronova occurs (look up micronovas. They’re interesting, but little is known about them currently. Sorry if I bs some of the science). Within the stream of energy the smaller star is absorbing from the larger star, a tiny miracle will occur, and a being will be created from a portion of the energy being transferred between the two. This being is often known as Collector, though they are occasionally referred to as a Starlight. The two stars which the Collector was born from are considered their “parents”, and Collectors born from the same stars are considered “siblings.” A group of siblings (who always live together) is called a family.

As babies, Collectors don’t have any particular rank or responsibilities like older Collectors. They just do all the stuff that babies do and are cared for by their siblings (unless they are currently an only child. In that case, they will be raised by an older Collector until they can live independently). However, they don’t go through all the same stages as human babies. Baby Collectors tend to start out like the average 9 month old human, able to crawl around and such, but not yet able to walk. They can float slightly whilst in space, but are always curled up when floating, and not very high or for very long.

Once they are no longer toddlers, Collectors will gain new responsibilities. They will still be treated as children, but they do have certain “chores” and such. Once they reach the right age, they will begin learning how to actually collect things. They will start accompanying their older siblings on less dangerous missions

When a Collector reaches maturity and has collected a certain amount of items, they often end up ascending to the rank of Archivist. Archivists hold the responsibility of actually storing and taking care of the many things they and other Collectors may have gathered. 

There are other ranks, but these are the most important ones right now.

An important thing that we learn early on in the AU is actually quite important to the function of the story, a bit of the lore, and might even make the Collector’s exit a most satisfying conclusion. During the MLP crossover, at some point, Coco will mention that they won’t be staying for too long, about a few weeks to a few months at most. They will definitely come back in a few years at most, but they can’t really deal with sticking around for more than a year, at least, not at that point in time.

He explains that not only did he promise to take Jacob all around the universe, but that his species is actually nomadic, and rarely stays in one place for too long. They mainly stay long enough to collect things and bring them back to their ship, something common for a group of Collectors to have. They all feel most comfortable moving around and discovering new places, collecting new things. So traveling around the universe is actually a very happy fate for Coco, as they were forced to stay in one place for so long without even getting to collect anything new. Even if they were perfectly happy with the idea of staying with King and friends, Coco would have felt the urge to leave at one point or another.

Collector families tend to spend most of their time exploring the universe in a family traveling vessel the size of a small moon. This moon-like ship is made out of materials orbiting their stars, and the older siblings make said ships together as a group. The ship is mostly hollow and maze-like, a vast temple for archiving, sometimes even structured like a museum. On the surface of the ship, they will often have a small palace made for the family to live in. The palaces are typically shaped like crowns and have intricate decorations.

The reason they have these ships is not just for storing, but for traveling around quickly, as Collectors are a very nomadic species. They strongly prefer to travel in close groups, but can travel separately from their family, as long as they find other traveling companions.

Collectors are very diverse in their definition of collecting, and they will often use different methods to collect, or will collect different types of things. Each has preferences for how they choose to preserve, and some are very different from others. At some point in the story, our Collector will have a realization about themselves and their personal method of collecting, one that is a bit different from the traditional methods. I’m pretty excited about that, but I won’t spoil it right now.

~~~~~

That’s all for this post. I’ll make more later, specifically how Collector society and culture works.

[modgirlyreposts-revamped]

Wait you ship glitchtrap and dawko? Why? No hate genuinely just curious

UM-

I knew this day would come, but I still wasn't prepared-

Ok, so yes I do, but I have an actual reason, which is mainly the Darkest Desire music video, and the lore of his insert. I think I started shipping it when I first watched the Darkest Desire music video, purely because of the one scene with Glitchtrap watching Lewis while he's looking for the tapes, because he was in such a cliche "character spying on their crush" position, which most definitely wasn't the intention, but I thought it was funny. The end of the music video also kinda strengthened the ship for me since at the very end of the video when Vanny replaces the Glitchtrap plush she leaves a Dawktrap plush in its place which you can hear Lewis' muffled screams from. Lore-wise I thought of it as Glitchtrap for some reason liking Lewis more than any previous hosts he had, in his own twisted way, and gave him a vessel of his own instead of just leaving his consciousness in the Glitchtrap plush (I know I'm reaching here, but just let me have this ok-?!)

Plus in the music video for "It's Spreading" the way Glitchtrap is so insistent on working with Lewis specifically when he could've chosen just about any other way more popular let's-player, with way more connections which would've made his goal of taking over the world much easier, but he still went with Lewis, and instead of just completely taking him over it seems he did leave a bit of Lewis' consciousness be in his body, which he probably could've done just because he's a sadistic fuck and wants him to witness his friends fall victim to his corruption, but I like to think that it's because unlike any possible previous hosts he's had Glitchtrap actually enjoys Lewis' company, and wants to keep him around for his own entertainment if nothing more at least.

Plus Lewis has said in the past that Glitchtrap is his fav character, so that definitely didn't help-

And finally because of my version of Glitchtrap in my AU. Just like with Springtrap or any other animatronic closely associated with or taking on the form of William, I've completely removed just about any affiliation with William from them cuz 1. fuck him and 2. William's soul is being tortured in his own personal hell in UCN in my AU, so it wouldn't make a whole lot of sense to have him be Glitchtrap in my AU, at least entirely. I've included Lewis and his channel's lore in my main AU as well, so I thought it'd be interesting and cute to see how my depiction of Glitchtrap would interact with someone like Lewis.

Basically I ship the funny British man with the killer anthro bunny man because I like to read too much into fictional channel lore, and because I thought it would be funny.

[kujakumai]

cleaned up old WIP, 2800 words, AU where Yami Bakura succeeds in switching hosts in DK and Mokuba makes friends with an evil ghost. Not going to be continued but it literally would not leave my brain alone until I finished it.

Things were not going according to plan.

The plan was to take control of a soulless puppet, an easy vessel incapable of interfering with his ends. He had the vessel, had accomplished that much, but he was not expecting the pharaoh and his little friends to succeed and convince Pegasus to give everyone their souls back. So now not only was there a second person in this body he had to keep suppressed, but now he was stuck impersonating a child, smiling through an awkward reunion and then placed onto a helicopter next to a gangly high school student who was watching him like a hawk.

The spirit-that-was-no-longer-Yami-Bakura knew that he was supposed to be Mokuba, but he did not remember the tall one's name. K-something. He had a stupid jacket and hardly took his eyes off him the entire ride, as if he thought his little brother was going to disappear in a puff of smoke when he wasn't looking. Annoying. Infuriating. Luckily it did not seem he wanted to talk, or at least accepted silence. No one expects recent kidnapping victims to say much, which was a boon. A little dazed, a little quiet, a little off, and no one really found it unusual.

They dropped off the pharaoh and his friends, and finally landed at a gaudy and ostentatious house so large it took him a second to realize it was a home at all, an absurd monument to decadence with grounds full of ugly topiaries. Wealth, then. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. He could work with this. The rich kid in the stupid coat quietly held his hand the entire walk up the driveway, until they entered a foyer just as gilded and obscene as the outside had been.

No, things were not going to plan, and playing grade-schooler was awkward and an insult to his dignity, and he was farther away from the other millennium items as he ever had been. He would have to grit his teeth through it until he could figure out the next step. In the meantime, perhaps, enjoy some amenities.

Richie rich sighed, relaxed his shoulders the moment they got inside. He looked at who he thought was his little brother and gave him a small, exhausted but genuine smile. He struggled with what to say next.

"Mokuba," he said, "I have to check on a few things in my office. See what kind of damage they did. Do you want to come with me?"

"No." Finally, a chance to be out of this idiot's sight.

This answer seemed to surprise him, a twitch of skepticism. "Will you be okay by yourself?"

He nodded. Keep answers short, when you're impersonating.

His face betrayed more skepticism, concern, and the tiniest hint of disappointment. As if rich kid himself was the one who was scared to be alone in his own house. He accepted the answer, though, to the spirit's relief.

Rich kid bent down and pulled him into a tight hug and ruffled his hair. "We'll get something special for dinner, okay? And ice cream."

"I do like ice cream." This was true. Ryou Bakura almost never bought ice cream, and when he did it was the stupid healthy kind that everyone knew shouldn't even really qualify as ice cream, which was another reason he was a terrible host. That and the fact that he was startlingly pale and had the upper body strength of a limp noodle and the personality of skim milk. This would be better, even if he had to deal with the abrupt drop in height.

Rich kid headed off towards the staircase with another tired but trying-to-be-reassuring smile, and it was then that the spirit of the ring felt an annoyance in the back of his brain. A presence. A scratching, biting, flailing presence, screeching mad, which he had been suppressing for a while now but finally broke through.

get out get out get out get out give it back its MINE get out

The host, awake. What a bother. More rambunctious than Bakura, then? No matter. He could handle a child.

that was MY hug and MY headpat and MY big brother and you can't have them he's been gone for ages and they're mine not yours get out get out get out

The spirit pushed back, ignored him. Shush. He had planned to hold this body alone, and he did not intend to go back to sharing. If you're good, I might let you have it back for a little while later.

shut up go away go away go away go AWAY

And then Mokuba Kaiba did something, something the spirit was not accustomed to or expecting at all, something which Ryou Bakura had never been willing or able to do. He shoved, violently, and the spirit of the ring was ripped out of control with some amount of panic.

"SETOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!"

Why you insolent little--

Seto Kaiba was not aware of the mental turf war happening over his little brothers body. What he did see was his brother scream his name and fall down, and the whole room echoed with a metal clatter as his briefcase fell on the floor and he ran towards him.

--

The ring had been discarded unceremoniously to a side table, and not-Bakura-and-not-Mokuba-either had no choice but to wait and observe, as a pediatrician on a sudden housecall shined lights in the boy's eyes and rich kid, who the spirit had since gleaned was named Seto Kaiba, looked on in worry.

"You said you heard a voice?" The doctor asked.

"Uh-huh. I think it lives in the necklace."

"You got that thing at Pegasus's house?" Kaiba asked, in disbelief.

"I don't remember. I was just wearing it when I woke up."

"What did the voice say?" the doctor continued, professionally ignoring any talk about magic necklaces.

"Not a lot. It was kind of mean."

"I see." She turned to Kaiba. "He's fine, physically. You might want a psychologist." and Seto Kaiba made what could politely be referred to as A Face. This was not what he wanted to hear, this was news that worried and annoyed him in equal measure, and to some degree was news he had half-expected.

"He's had a rough few months. I'll look into it." and she was dismissed, and Mokuba hopped down from the counter.

"Can we order pizza?" he asked, with big pleading eyes.

Kaiba watched him with dry amusement. "Mokuba, you can have anything you want from any restaurant in a forty mile radius."

"And I want pizza. Real pizza, from somewhere that doesn't also serve caviar."

"Cheap pizza?"

He nodded very seriously. "The grossest greasiest cheapest."

"I can do that. Anything else you want?"

Mokuba's eyes lit up, and soon he was dragging Kaiba by the hand towards somewhere else in the house. "I got to this really hard level in my game I can't get past and I wanted to see if you could beat it, and I found this really cool video I wanted to show you, and I got a really good report card you never saw, and--" and months worth of pent up requests were tumbling out rapid fire, and Kaiba was smiling with affection and some amount of relief.

Loud and clingy, then, was the normal and expected behavior. The spirit of the ring made note of this, as he lie abandoned.

--

The ring was still sitting on a side table, in Mokuba's bedroom, apparently because no one knew what to with it or thought it mattered much. This was a problem. The spirit couldn't do anything without a host, and now everyone was suspicious, these stupid rich people worried too much and paid too much attention.

He was forced to sit there all night, pondering about how he was going to get out of this mess, when at one or two in the morning he observed Mokuba wake up, and rub his eyes, and hop out of bed. He did not turn the light on, but he did check the time, and reach under his bed to retrieve what appeared to be a small backpack. He took it with him as he moved quietly towards the door, and the spirit saw his chance.

Hey, kid. He was near enough to speak into his head. Maybe this wasn't a dead end.

"You!" Mokuba stopped in his tracks and looked right at the ring.

Yes, me. This could be salvaged, he thought, concocting a plan. This was a child. Play friendly ghost and imaginary friend. Surely it would not be hard to weasel himself into the good graces of a sixth grader.

Mokuba glared at the ring with suspicion. "I don't think Seto believed me when I said you could talk, but I knew it." He picked it up delicately by the string to examine.

Where on earth are you going at this time of night?

Mokuba was the current host, technically, so there was a connection, and 11 year olds are not particularly used to or adept at hiding their own thoughts, especially inside their own heads. The answer, if not in words but in abstract concept, was provided instantly as it bubbled to mind. He was going to the kitchen, as he did once or twice a week, not their personal kitchen but the house staff kitchen, where he would move a chair to stand on the counter to reach the very back of the highest shelf of the third cupboard to the left, which was where one of the cleaning staff kept a pile of chocolate so he could cheat on his diet without his wife knowing, a fact Mokuba knew through surreptitious eavesdropping. Mokuba's end was to steal just enough of it that he wouldn't be noticed, and add it to a stash of snacks and other shiny trinkets currently hidden in the bottom of a pile of legos in his closet.

...You steal food to hide in your closet? Why would a child who lived in a three-story mansion need to steal?

Mokuba was only mildly perturbed by the fact that someone had just read his mind. He was mainly curious, now. "Our dad didn't like junk food, so I always took stuff to keep around." he explained, "I guess I don't really have to anymore, 'cuz Seto will let me have whatever I want, but--" he faltered, unable to finish or give a reason.

There wasn't a reason, and Mokuba knew that. There was no need to sneak or stash or steal anymore, but he kept doing it, irrationally, for reasons that confused him, a complicated swirl of things a child could not name or understand but were very easy for the spirit to read. Fear; compulsion; habit; the illusion of safety; the sense that your life was precarious, unstable; a need to exert control over your surroundings. It was not the food or the stealing that mattered, but of the hiding, of having something they could not take away from him.

Mokuba didn't understand any of that, because he was 11 and 11 year olds don't understand why they do anything. He just knew he liked sweets and hated people telling him what to do and that having bags of chips and other people’s lost jewelry at the bottom of an old toybox made him feel better.

Can I come with you?

"No! You tried to take control of me!"

Yes, but you kicked me out, and you'd probably be able to do it again, so I would be stupid to try. I also like chocolate, you see, and it's very boring to be stuck here on your desk.

"Can you even eat? You're a necklace."

I can when I borrow a body.

"You tried to take over me so you could eat chocolate? I'm not stupid enough to believe that."

That and other things. I can't do very much at all, while stuck in the ring. No food, no sunshine, no running around. It's no fun to be without a body, which is why I am occasionally driven to steal one. Terribly sorry about that. he added, in his most pathetic-sounding tone, Please? I don't have anyone else to talk to.

Mokuba was hesitant, but clearly found the fact of his existence too interesting to ignore. "Fine." He picked up the ring and dropped it unceremoniously into his backpack, which had a dragon on it.

Not trust yet, but tolerance and curiosity. One step at a time.

You shouldn't go barefoot, you know. Socks will be quieter if you're trying not to get caught.

"I didn't ask you."

So Mokuba descended down the stairwell, in the dead quiet and dark of the Kaiba Mansion, with no flashlight because he knew it well enough to navigate blindfolded. The place was decadent in the ugly way rich people's houses were, luxury but without taste, soft carpets and gilded banisters.

Mokuba had not quite realized yet how to think at the ring, so he spoke in a low whisper. "What are you, anyway?"

A ghost. So much more complicated than that, but simple words were suitable for children.

"How'd you end up a ghost in a necklace?"

I died, and then someone put me in a necklace.

"That's not an answer." he followed up, "Do all dead people become ghosts?"

No. Just sometimes, maybe, if the way they died was especially violent or gruesome or terrible.

Mokuba frowned. He had caught on remarkably quickly to guarding his own head, but the spirit could tell he didn't like this answer.

This was delicate, but he risked a push. Was there someone you had in mind?

Mokuba said nothing. He reached the staff kitchen on the lowest floor, and opened the door, slow and careful. He was deciding whether to say anything, as he climbed up as quietly as he could and reached far into the back of the cupboard, scrabbling.

"Our dad killed himself last year. Jumped out a window." He finally said, hopping down with his spoils. He said this the same way one might dolefully report the milk had gone bad. Unfortunate but boring.

You don't sound very sad.

"Nah, he sucked. And he never liked me." he said, "Seto was really really upset though. He was pretending not to be, but I could tell." Now there were feelings there, big and weird and sad and clinging ones. For reasons the spirit could not discern, the simple phrase ‘Seto was upset’ carried with it more weight, a thousand million times more weight, than news of a father's tragic death by defenestration. "I hope he's not a ghost. I don't wanna see him again."

Probably not.

Mokuba sat down cross-legged on the kitchen floor, unwrapped candy in silver foil. "You really can't do anything from in the necklace? Like, ghost stuff? Make things float or anything?"

No. It is a bit like being trapped in a very small box.

Mokuba mulled this over for a little while. "If you wanted to borrow a body to do fun stuff, you could have just asked."

Really?

He nodded. "Not being able to eat chocolate sounds lame. It'd be mean to just leave you like that." He put one chocolate into his mouth and dumped the rest in the backpack, where they covered the ring unceremoniously. More indignities. "Not in front of my brother, though. And you have to give it back whenever I say so."

...I could agree to such a compromise. Your candy haul is impressive, by the way.

"Thanks!" He grinned, emanating genuine pride. No one had ever complimented him for stealing before.

Tragic, the work of great thieves. How the very best of it can never be bragged about, the most impressive of skills gone unnoticed by nature, how the very success of a perfect crime relies on keeping your mouth shut about it. An unappreciated art, where even mastery gains you no respect.

You don't care that this poor man has to go out and buy twice as much food to make up for what you steal?

"No, he's a jerk. One time when I was six they confiscated my gameboy, so I went to steal it back and he caught me and told my dad and I got in huge trouble. So every day for a week I snuck down here and moved his keys to a different place so he couldn't find them. They were all so mad at him for losing them all the time, and he thought he was crazy."

Why was your gameboy confiscated?

"Don't remember. I think I bit someone at school." he shrugged, "They probably deserved it, though."

Mokuba Kaiba. he said, I think you and I are going to be excellent friends.

"Okay. Do ghosts watch cartoons?"

[autisticandroids]

anyway ok so lets talk about ruby SPECIFICALLY in my good s6 au. this ruby concept is almost the same as @lesbiansamwinchester‘s ruby lives au but has some key differences, mainly ruby doesn’t redeem herself in s5. lucifer raises her in sympathy for the devil because she really was the best of those sons of bitches and she deserves it but she spends all of s5 conflicted in her loyalties because while she really DOES want lucifer to win she is also In Love With Sam, Unfortunately, and gets more and more uncomfortable with sam being lucifer’s vessel and shit. and then she finally betrays lucifer in like, two minutes to midnight or swan song and he IMMEDIATELY kills her (very important: lucifer must already be possessing sam when this happens). then she’s brought back like. face down in a ditch 300 miles away. that’s how ruby ends season five.

anyway watch this video to set the mood. ruby stuff in season six:

- so at FIRST she is actually running around with a ragtag group of lucifer loyalist demons led by meg. meg kind of hates her for betraying lucifer for sam but also you know sam’s dead and ruby won’t do it again and most importantly they need EVERY pair of hands on board for this. so ruby is kissing huge amounts of ass mostly meg’s, like, meg is making her wait on her hand and foot in an apron. it’s comically villain homoerotic. you know. like ruby serves meg tea in a maid outfit for no other reason then as like. ridiculous humiliation that’s also intensely, weirdly horny. like the lucifer crowley dog stuff in s11. actually meg literally makes ruby wear a dog collar with a little tag that says like, “ruby. if found, please call 666 and return to owner (meg).” i cannot stress enough that this is just STUPID horny for NO reason. you guys know what i mean. it’s basically sorority hazing but up to eleven because demons, and also forever. also meg makes ruby kiss her hand at least once. or like no she makes her kiss her boot. i am having too much fun i’ve gotten distracted.

- ruby finds out sam is alive and immediately ditches. like she just fucks off to nowhere and they can’t figure out where she went. anyway this samruby reunion takes place like, before the first episode definitely, maybe a few months.

- i do like @lesbiansamwinchester‘s thing where ruby tries very hard to be sam’s moral compass but also imo she fucks up, very bad, and a lot. and soulless sam can’t really catch her at it so they end up doing a lot of very fucked shit actually. but she tries very hard because she cares about sam and she wants him to think well of himself y’know. and she wants to be someone who sam would think was worth following.

- re: that last point. many thoughts. head full.

- when sam and dean finally see each other again ruby is there and dean is like what the FUCK. like he did see that she betrayed lucifer for sam at the last minute but also he hates her and doesn’t trust her, and he actually kind of suspects that whatever’s wrong with sam might actually be HER fault. 

- this post is relevant.

- okay but i’ve decided that the cas/meg kiss DOES in fact happen in this au because i do kind of love it and also more importantly, with the addition of the insane meg being ruby’s shitty ex vibe that i am jamming into this au with both hands, it is just. chefkiss. ruby and dean look at each other in horror while sam is just like huh? i’m sorry but imagine being ruby and being forced to watch your horrible ex get kissed dommily by castiel. god this is funny i love this. again this is all in subtext because we are imagining cw censors and i’ve used up my one allotted gay kiss for the season by having anna make out with a random woman at an orgy to prove that all angels are degenerate pansexual hedonists, you know. (is this homophobic enough for the cw? i hope so!) also: an orgy which balthazar organized and cas refused to attend, to be clear. 

- dean is actually garbage enough about the whole ruby thing that sam and ruby fuck off by themselves for a good while like, maybe three or four episodes, leaving dean alone or sometimes with cas. during this time dean gets a little bit involved with the angel revolutionaries.

- anyway when sam gets his soul back he’s like, torn, between dean and ruby. he feels guilty for how he behaved towards and thought about dean but he would ALSO feel guilty just kicking ruby to the curb.

- HOWEVER when he gets his soulless memories back he does kick her to the curb because she has done some REALLY fucked up shit while trying to be his moral compass like she is BAD at it.

- once ruby is left all alone in the world, guess who shows up in a flutter of wings and ambiguity! it’s anna! 

- she is here to ask ruby if she wants to spy on hell for the angel revolution. ruby accepts because everyone else hates her right now. if anna wants to take her in under cas’ banner (and not tell the winchesters because they’re technically on the same side but what’s a little subterfuge between friends) ruby will take it.

- ruby and anna DO get to have some fun agent runner/agent lesbian subtext, as a treat! at least when anna isn’t busy eating food out of lisa braeden’s fridge like villanelle and other nuts things. 

- like i do wanna be clear anna just. appears in lisa braeden’s kitchen, slowly, wordlessly eats her leftovers while staring her down, and then flies away. this contributes to lisa’s impending mental breakdown. MY season six is about the madness of the suburban housewife, among many other various things.

- also i want to be clear that raphael’s side is actually like, funneling weapons to the lucifer loyalist demons to try and get them to defeat crowley but it’s all very hush hush, like, raphael would NOT want his underlings to know that he has organized this, like, they can barely stand to work with naomi. the fact that raphael had naomi organize help for DEMONS is unthinkable. anyway it’s basically celestial iran-contra.

- ruby is actually one of the last people to stick by cas even when like, anna and balthazar are betraying him, because like. whomst among us has never wanted to become god a little. and also, ruby is weak to authority figures we KNOW this she might be down to accept cas as her heavenly father a little, she’s NOT a rebel. but most importantly she sticks by him because, you know, i love sam and he’s mad at me for kinda betraying him and you [REDACTED] dean and he’s mad at you for kinda betraying him like we’re all winchester derangement syndrome patients here, and also like. i get it. sometimes they don’t know what’s good for them. sometimes in order to love you have to betray a little bit.

- ruby doesn’t turn on cas until he breaks sam’s wall. but by then it’s too late and there’s nothing she can do really.

- the parallel where it was dean who stabbed ruby in lucifer rising and it’s sam who stabs cas in the man who knew too much is actually intentional this time and WAY more aggressive. actually there are tons of cas-ruby parallels. i think meg should call ruby a whore like one episode before crowley calls cas a whore just to hammer it home. i think the thing where soulless sam runs away from dean’s judgement and is running around with ruby while dean is sulking about it but also running around with cas is super aggressively obvious. god i love that ruby’s existence makes it super obvious that cas is dean’s [REDACTED]. that’s so fun. 

- this has been an intensely hypertextual romp and it’s apparently nearly fifteen hundred words, good god. anyway, special thanks to @lesbiansamwinchester, @pietacastiel, and @seragamble, all of whom brainstormed with me

[bluwails]

Ive been real inspired by @chipper-smol 's au. I find myself snickering at Ghost/feral's antic mainly because I have young siblings and in my home there is never a dull moment. Child antics are literally my life rn and I cant help but relate.

So while on a nostalgic trip i was struck with this poorly written fic. And I hope you enjoy.

No edits because we die like men!

The time for rest had asserted its hold over Hallownest again as bugs wound down from the days toils. The servants and knights had quietly excused themselves to their personal quarters and the kingsmoulds that marched dutifully down each hall had slowed to a silent pace.

The white Lady had taken in the idea to walk the palace before retiring to her personal quarters for the evening. Dryya, her most respected and loyal guard, walked quietly behind her as she stiffled a yawn much to the white lady's amusement. She had dismissed her hours ago to rest but she stubbornly stuck to her and insisted on being around to protect her on her leisurely stroll.

" Your majesty, you need not worry for me. I will-" Dryya gaped stiffling another sign of encroaching sleepiness," -be with you until you retire to your bedroom."

She still felt fascination bubble under the surface as she observed her; a warm aura seeping off of her.

As a higher being they will never need these things like rest or daily meals. But they merely adopted the actions to blend more with the society around them. Just like her dear wyrm, Things like sleep were never on the forefront of their mind. They could spend decades awake and unbothered by the need. But they made resting a habit to demonstrate that one should rest after work.

Shuffling down the halls toward her favorite veranda befor she heard an unfamiliar scuffling. It was hurried but small. Most likely a small bug.

"Behind me your majesty." Dryya hissed pulling her nail from her side her alert instantly raised. As late as it was not many would be awake, much less in the halls working so fervently.

As they turned the corner they spotted two familiar horns working quickly with a brush and bottles of ink.

It was the feral vessel.

" You cheeky Sqwib! " she screamed shocking the little vessel. Their small hand dropping the brush they'd use to vandalize the walls. "You are at it again!" Dryya huffed indignant at the vessel as she marched over, sheathing her nail, and quickly bonking them between the horns.

" Do you know how you terrified the Queen?" She growled seizing their ink colored hands. " and to top that, you dare vandalize the white palace yet again!"

"Dear knight, there is no reason to be so harsh. " the white Lady softly appealed. "The walls can be cleaned and the ink replaced but the trust from a child cannot." She calmly lectured using a branch to pet the vessel.

"You are to lenient with them my lady." She huffed releasing them. Dryya was no fan of the feral vessel. Time and time again they'd watch and suffer their pranks. Many a time her nail was stolen only for it to be returned muddy or, miraculously, bent at the tip.

She was not the only one of the five knights to have their belongings weaseled from them and returned in less then favorable conditions.

"They are just being a child Dryya." WL cooed as she slowly squatted in front of them. "Soften your heart towards them. If only for me."

The knight reluctantly huffed again as she faced away. "Praise the Queen's endless patience, you little tyrant, you are saved for now. "

The white Lady smiled warmly as she looked the small vessel over. At this time they were meant to be tucked away in bed. The schedule their father made, though strict was optimize for their healthy growth. She suspected in full that the pure vessel had curled themselves into bed without a second thought, while their sibling ran through the halls causing their daily commotion.

In all honesty, she found their outbursts charming. Each trick, prank and shenanigan they pulled continuously showed her how lively they truly were. When they'd arrived from the abyss with their sibling, she lamented at their sight. Seeing them as nothing more than walking corpses until she heard of what would honestly sound like a farce. They'd barely stepped foot into the white palace before they entered a meeting between the dreamers, with no command or reason, and unleashed the most ungodly revolting smell. Shocking and disgusting the entire gathering forcing them to vacate the room entirely.

When her wyrm ranted about them that evening on how they indignantly, stomping their tiny grub feet and blantly ignoring him, forced them to clean the entire room alongside the retainers as punishment she could not help but laugh in an odd mix of relief and joy releasing a knot in her chest she did not know she held.

Looking again to the picture on the wall it was of clearly her dear wyrm. Her giggle chimming like bells as she observed it further. It was simple and childish as but it was an accurate representation of her wyrm. His elegant crown like horns now simple zigzags, their fangs drawn large and silly, with their tongue poked out in a not very gentlemen manner. (She suspects this is how they saw their father when they ranted at them.) It was crude, hurriedly painted, and was encompassed by tiny hand marks and had all the makings of a goofy Caricature and she wished she could save it.

"I see the throws of art beckoned you from your deep sleep small one." knowing full well they did it to mess with the king again. "maybe we should have Lurien tutor you to bring out your talents?" She questioned aloud watching the vessel furiously shake their head from the corner of their eye.

"Then what brings you from bed?"

The child twisted at their fingers looking down as they snuck peeks at her face.

They signed quickly keeping their ink covered hands slightly in sight. But It obvious it was something else. It was no news to her that they held many things back from them. And the curiosity of what it could be danced in the back of her mind, but she refused to force them anymore than they'd allow.

"You know you require rest in order to grow." She purred gently as she angled her small one's mask toward her.

Their mask tilted in a way that mimicked a pouty huff. Her heart swelling at how cute they were. She could not help but poke a small amount of fun.

"So you do not wish to grow anymore?" She questioned exaggeratedly tilting her head and placing a branch to her cheek.

They seemed to freeze at the and mull the thought around in their head. To her, this was the sweetest gesture. She'd remembered when the two vessels first molted and got their bearings. Though they thought no one was watching, she caught them do a small jig in celebration of their new body. Wiggling their newly formed fingers, touching their more angled faces and observing their budding wings.

" I'd say you'd want to." She whispered calmly retrieving her handkerchief to clean them.

"How can one so small hold such large secrets?" She hummed wiping the pink ink from them.

The vessel signed, a cheeky air to them as they flexed their arms nearly rupturing her heart from cuteness alone.

"Dryya please get someone to assist in cleaning up. " with a bow Dryya reluctantly left grumbling to herself.

"Now as much as I would love for you and to stay up and get into all kinds of mischief. I would say its time for bed. " She cooed admiring their clean face.

The vessel gestured again with more emphasis.

"I see." She hmmed making a show of thinking of what to do. In reality she had an idea of what to do. Somewhere deep in her memory was a song that. She could not remember the face that sang it to her but she remembers it working nearly every time. Ushering her to sleep. "Then would you care to accompany me on the veranda?" She asked pointing to the large glass door not far behind them.

Nodding they streched their arms up towards her. Obligating the gesture she swept them up in her branches as she walked slowly to the door.

she allowed small blooms to bloom on her creating a pleasant perfume before sitting on her stool already set up outside.

The vessel signed again gesturing at themselves.

Chuckling she squeezed them close to her. "Not essentially. You are of two pale beings and void." She murred quietly; her light warming them as they sunk into her lap. "You don't really need sleep. But its good because it helps you grow." She hummed wrapping her branches around them.

They gestured wildly again wiggling their fingers above their head causing her to erupted in laughter.

"Yes." She snickered "maybe if my wyrm slept and rested more they would grow as well I will be sure to suggest it to them later." Feeling the small ones shoulders shake in signs of laughter she hugged them.

" you remind me much of him in his younger years." She thought aloud as the vessel shook their head furiously. " well the both of you refuse to sleep on time so I imagine you two are similar in that sense." She mused as the small threw a small tantrum.

"Very well, shall I sing you something to assist you to sleep?" They nodded sinking back into her lap, placing their head on her chest.

As they sat, staring out into the lush garden and flickering lumaflies below she hummed a quiet tone shutting her eyes calling upon the memory.

Her branch rubbing small circles into their child's back as her voice trilled lyrics long thought lost to her:

Lay down your head and I'll sing you a lullaby

Back to the years of loo-li lai-lay

And I'll sing you to sleep and I'll sing you tomorrow

Bless you with love for the road that you go

May you sail far to the far fields of fortune

With diamonds and pearls at your head and your feet

And may you need never to banish misfortune

May you find kindness in all that you meet

May there always be angels to watch over you

To guide you each step of the way

To guard you and keep you safe from all harm

Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

May you bring love and may you bring happiness

Be loved in return to the end of your days

Now fall off to sleep, I'm not meaning to keep you

I'll just sit for a while and sing loo-li, lai-lay

May there always be angels to watch over you

To guide you each step of the way

To guard you and keep you safe from all harm

Loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li, lai-lay

Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay

Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay

Loo-li, loo-li, loo-li lai-lay

Loo-li, lai-lay

Only the soft breathing and the feeling their body relax and their shoulders ease indicated they drifted off.

"Sweet dreams my small one."

Thanks so much for reading. In all honesty i have only played hollowknight for about a month and half and im already so invested in the fandom. (I'm still getting my butt handed to me by ogrim. Please dungy boi stop throwing sh!t at me long enough so i can hit you. You broke all my fragile charms alreday!-🥺😢) You guys are so creative and fluffy and have no problem hurting my tender sensibilities.

For those curious the song is called sleepsong by secret garden. I used to listen to it ages ago before bed.

[foxjevilwild]

Thought on the game some more and I'm building a bit of a theory:

-Kris, when they rip their SOUL out, is not being controlled by anyone else. That's Kris, the actual character, taking those actions and creating the DARK fountains.

-They're trying to find a way to remove the SOUL, and free themself from our control.

-They freak out when Spamton[Neo] dies on Pacifist, because they realize that beings in this world die when their STRINGS are cut and they're trying to do the same to the SOUL that's controlling them. Kris wants to be free of it, but if they completely untether - they'll end up a dead husk like Spamton. (this is one of the few times their emotion is expressed and we get no choice over their reaction, this is real Kris screaming out)

-This world has crashed and looped multiple times because of what is interfering in it so Kris is unafraid of the Roaring, and prepared for the SOUL (the cage is already there in chapter 1)

-The same being responsible for the DARK is responsible for implanting the Player SOUL in Kris, and has turned Kris's world into a sort of beacon to draw in SOULs (This is probably Gaster)

-I think everything in the game is some form of acronym - DARK is probably something like "Data-Array Restructuring Kernel" and SOUL is something like "System Operator Unicode Language"

I think the world of Deltarune (and Undertale, really) is a world that knows it is a Game, that it exists as Code in some form, and that it is a constructed reality. I think Gaster (and their followers) are able to see behind the curtain and make this realization, and Gaster has dedicated his existence into first escaping his own STRINGS or script, hiding in the unused files, and then in recoding the world into the image he wants.

I think when Players arrive and start making choices in the original program, it disrupts the process he is using, and so he has created the world of Deltarune by rearranging Undertale and creating a sort of 'trap' for us, the Player, by rigging the SOUL's intended vessel.

I think the Vessel we created in Survey_Program was the original game's 'main character' for the player to control, and Gaster hijacked the process to force the SOUL into Kris.

I think it's called Survey_Program because Gaster was surveying for a suitable Player again, someone to enter their world of code and power the engine he's building there. If the player is too aware, the program crashes - because they are unsuitable for the purpose. If we're able to look too deep into the code, or know who Gaster is - it's dangerous for him and his continued existence. He doesn't care if you name it after Sans or another character (it's amusing to him) - but if you name it after him...he panics and aborts.

Basically I think Real Kris is *also* throwing a wrench in the plans of the unseen villain - they're trying to break free of this forced control and go back to a normal life. To some extent Gaster has anticipated this (he picked Kris for a reason, shaped them in the bunker) - but I think depending on the Player it can go one of a few ways:

1) Our choices align with the best interests of Real Kris, and there is formed a bond between the SOUL and Kris that allows the world to resolve in a healing way, possibly even letting go of our control over them (Similar to the True Pacifist Ending in UT)

2) The neutral ending - where we stop the Roaring but Real Kris steps in to make it happen by ripping their own SOUL out and cutting the strings ( They choose Death or Reset instead of slavery), because we are still controlling them (the neutral ending)

3) The Proceeding, where we force Kris over and over to do what we want them to do. Where we use our knowledge of the game, of the code, to break them and everyone around them to have our fun. Where our voice as the 'Player' gets to take dominance over what the game is supposed to be. (This will be like the Genocide Run)

Toby is making a commentary with each of these choices - mainly about what we expect of a sequel, how we as a fandom can both adore and reinterpret characters, and about the limitations of a sequel as opposed to an original work.

The world is a meta-text on Storytelling *and* Game Creation - it is a story told through a Game because it can only be told through a game - or it wouldn't have any of the thematic punch that it does.

The Dark is reinterpretation, rearrangement - pieces taken from their original setting and reshaped or re-contextualized into something new - still recognizable, but new. This is how a sequel is created, but it's also how we as Players interacted with the original creation. (How many Undertale AU's are there again? Hundreds?)

Anagrams are a major theme - everything in this world is a mish-mash of constituent parts. Two things combined into a new thing. Everything is repurposed and reshaped from an Original. Gaster can manipulate the code, but he can't actually write an original world...not yet. He has to work with the parts that exist. -- The same is true when creating a sequel, or continuing a story. This is both textual, and meta-textual on Toby's part. The literal act of creating a sequel to Undertale, and the game's metaphorical 'Undertale 2' rearrangement, are this amazing little interplay going on between the Audience and Author and Creation.

Our SOUL or our control over the world is how we interact with that creation - there is a sort of undercurrent of power-struggle. The artist wants to tell a story, the characters want to be true to themselves and who they are, the world wants to resolve in a natural way - but in order for us to have choices, the world has to adapt to us, change according to our whims as players of the game.

Sometimes what we want aligns with what the characters want - sometimes what we want is better for them than what they'd choose for themselves - but ultimately we are tyrannical. These little monsters are trapped in a looping prison, chained to our whims by lines of Code they can't see - living in loops bound to our Determination and our absolute mastery over them.

We get to play the game when we want, we get to choose what they do, who they love --- we get to choose how they die. We get to choose if they kill... and we get to do it again and again, changing the outcomes as we please. For Fun.

This process has been hijacked, and our usual choices that would have been coded in are ineffectual. Our 'choices' don't matter, but we still force them on the game. Some characters can ignore us, others don't or can't - sometimes we choose what the character was going to do anyway. Someone cut the string, and we have no control here...

But there are other ways...other routes...to bring our voice back into power over the game. Ways we can break the script, the same as the one who rearranged it.

I think the narrative within Deltarune is that someone is fighting back against us, against that Player and against that control. That someone is Real Kris.

Gaster created the engine beneath the world, the DARK that allows it to rearrange - and the world has been looping through, the Door-Portals into the DARK created and recreated and Player after Player has passed through with Roaring after Roaring fueling the engine he's buried somewhere beneath, hidden in the code.

Most of the denizens aware of this truth go mad, or Gaster uses them and they go mad, or they follow him in a cult like state. Gaster is the only hope for their freedom - the only one able to manipulate the CODE besides the player. Gaster is ultimately selfish, trying to break himself free of the Code - but to these beings he is the only chance at any sort of self-Determination.

Kris is intended to be a puppet, just like Spamton, just like Jevil was going to be (and failed, quarantined). Kris is the end result of Gaster's research - a false vessel for the SOUL that can be scripted along the world's pathing, a character with a pre-existing story to keep the SOUL trapped within a specified loop.

Gaster wants the Roaring, wants the world to loop. Wants us to play the game he's re-scripted for us to power whatever he's using to break things and escape his 'prison of universes' within the Games' code.

We'll have our fun, find our ending - and maybe even get the happy one. Ultimately though, we're not the only ones playing this game...we're not the only Player. Someone will come along again, or we'll reopen the save...and we feed into the engine beneath. The heart of Darkness...

Will it be enough to give them a happy save file? Or are we going to have to force the program into a total crash, expose the being manipulating the strings... will we have to create terrible circumstances for these creatures in order to free them of Gaster? Are we any better, stepping in and shaping their lives? Are they truly free to Hope...to Dream?

Kris is trying to be free of both of us. Kris is trying to save their mom and their friends. I think Kris is the true hero.

We, the player, are just another antagonist.

[hermitcraftheadcanons]

Pirate AU Masterpost

Different ships captained and crewed by different hermits, maybe some could be normal sailors too? Or maybe even some could be sirens? There could be a pirate ship, a pirate hunting ship/law-keeping ship, some random shipping vessels, some sirens or sea monsters, or whatever else! I envision Doc as a pirate captain and Xisuma as the law enforcement captain, but it's open to whatever changes! (@-shadeswiftdraws.)

Headcanons to start us off:

-Bdubs is a fruity sailor.

-Cub and Scar sell things to both pirates and the law enforcement. They only take the aide of profit.

-DocM threatened Bdubs into joining him. Whether it worked is up to the 'what gets popular' Gods. If not, he probably just holds Bdubs hostage or something.

-Hypnotizd's bandana has a skull and crossbones on it, as does Etho's headband.

-False is feared by Doc.

-Grian has a parrot that always sits on his shoulder. Doc keeps telling him to get rid of it but Grian refuses.

-Iskall wears an eyepatch.

-Hypnotizd has scurvy.

-iJevin makes maps and sells em to pirates to keep them off his back. Did he bury the treasure? I dunno.

-All of ZIT collectively own a boat. They like to pretend its a yacht and have fun. Sometimes they just use it to relax, sometimes they just go fishing. Sometimes they scare each other with stories of pirates and massive storms.

-Joe Hills is scared of the water because he nearly drowned as a child. But when he ends up accidentally stowing away on the ZIT boat, his worst fears happen.

-Keralis is Xisuma's second in command.

-TFC is a retired sailor that knows too much.

-VintageBeef and basically all of the NHO are with Doc.

-XbCrafted grew up by the beach and likes to collect shells. One time he found a fossil of a dinosaur. What will he do? I don't know. His childhood friend, Hypnotizd, left to be a pirate. Xb hasn't heard from him since (he promised he'd write letters,) and fears the worst.

-ZombieCleo is a dead zombie captain. Her and her crew (the gals, and maybe some co,) are out to get their revenge on Doc. Her second in command is Stress but her main muscle in False.

-Mumbo is usually the one who works maintenance on the ship. (He's with Xisuma.)

-Rendog got stuck on an island he's called 'Loser Island' and has been there for at least a year. He's found by Doc.

-Stressmonster makes people fear her through her name, but they usually laugh when they see her because she's really unintimidating.

-Welsknight hoardes cool swords.

-Everyone underestimates Stress when they see her but those who have faced her in battle have realized their mistake. She is slowly but surely gaining the reputation as one of the most feared pirates of the seven seas. She’s still very sweet if you get to know her tho - 🌙

-At some point while attempting to leave the ZIT crew's yacht, Joe somehow ends up with Cleo and the gals in the middle of the ocean, who take pity on him. Because they help him with his fear and take care of him on the way back to land, he decides to stick with them for good. The Navy and a lot of other pirates don't believe that Cleo can be the captain of such a feared vessel or that False can be that deadly and decide that Joe must be doing it all. He takes joy in deferring to Cleo whenever he can, and the whole crew gets a laugh out of his combat attempts. He mainly handles navigation and stuff, though he does record their adventures and anonymously submit them to newspapers and/or publish his accounts. (Don't want to skip the Joe+ZIT stuff, just love him and Cleo and need that dynamic :-) )

-Half siren/merman grian? - Frost Anon

-Different anon adding to the Merman Wels idea, he's a siren but instead of stealing your life he steals your swords and shinies. Some pirates may be on good terms with him and gives him swords occasionally and ask for directions or just hang out with him and be nice (I'd think Ren would sing with him and Jevin would hang out and steal shinies with him landing both their crews on good terms with him. He may even follow them around as it can be lonely in the ocean)

-Mumbo never meant to be a pirate. There was just a mutiny of the last captain he was under and everyone liked him enough to keep him around.

-Some loser thinks that joe is the muscle of the group and asks for a duel. cleo decides fuck it and just pushes joe into a fight with them because thats how she be sometimes. (False is on standby so joe doesn't get creamed)

-https://hermitcraftheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/619926302710956032/another-take-on-the-pirate-au-concept

- At some point, Cleo's ship begins picking up stray orphaned children. They are kept safe below deck during battle and are taught by the crew how to run a ship and fight, but Cleo also teaches them stuff like how to read and do math. The crew is very protective of the young'uns and the ship eventually becomes known for the fact that they take care of kids. Most other ships, upon learning this, respect that and don't attack them. If a ship does, they will find that the Rotten Corpse is viscous, and has many powerful friends who will back them up. If Doc or X come across Cleo's ship, they will give the kids gifts and stay close for a bit to provide protection. As the kids grow up some go back to shore and build legitimate/legal lives (including opening an orphanage) but a group of them go off and become their own pirate crew! Their ship's name? I don't know, I'm not clever.

-In a tavern someone's just like "im gonna sail to this island." Tfc, sitting nearby "you wont find anything" a little while later that ship goes missing. No one actually knows what tfc found in his sailing days. But my god does he know where to avoid

(All above in red are from our community's lovely Anons!)

-The ZIT boat is a bit of a disaster because each person always thinks it's the other people's turn to maintain it. Joe probably saw it on an evening beach walk and thought it was abandoned, decided to explore it, and accidentally fell asleep in the hold. He wakes up to the ZIT boys arguing about what to do with him.

-Xisuma has a reputation for being strict and disciplined and running a very tight ship, but if you're actually on his crew you'll know that's a front for intimidation purposes. In reality he is organised but extremely forgiving, and he will often sit down with crew who are new or going through something stressful and talk it out with them.

-Iskall is with Cleo's crew, he appears just as driven as the rest of them but he's mostly just there to make sure Cleo and co don't go too overboard with the revenge thing. He just doesn't want them to do something they'll regret....

-Wels can be a merman! He hoards cool swords as souvenirs of the surface world and dreams of two-legged adventurers and explorers.

-The "incident" that put Cleo on the path of undead revenge was partially accidental. Doc's goal was to raid the ship and get away with no casualties, but things escalated way too quickly. He is haunted by what happened, but Cleo doesn't know that and is determined to hunt him and his crew down.

-Pirate singalong nights! Doc's ship definitely has a singalong under the stars every night, where everyone can gather together and relax and let loose. It's fun to think about who would be good at it, and who would be bad at it but sing anyway ☺️

-Grian starts off on Doc's ship (with his parrot), but he gets washed overboard in a storm. Siren!Wels rescues him and gives him siren magic.

-I got tired of referring to "Xisuma's ship" and "Doc's ship", so: X's ship is called the Voidrunner, and Doc's vessel is the Black Goat. (Cleo's is The Rotting Corpse -Anon.)

-(I did a submission mentioning ConPost earlier, so look at that for context) The ConPost boys don't sail, but they're very knowledgable about sailing supplies and even ship repair. Cub does bookkeeping and negotiates big deals. Scar likes to wander the docks checking stock levels, with Jellie napping in piles of rope or following close behind.

-https://hermitcraftheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/619819577428279296/for-the-pirate-au-cub-and-scar-own-a-supply

-Xisuma is feared and respected by pirates because his ship is one of the first/only steam powered vessels at the time. Mumbo is his engineer; he maintains the mechanics and is constantly testing ways to make the ship faster and more efficient.

-If you ask Iskall why he wears an eye patch, you will get a wild tale of adventure and heroic battle that may take an hour to relate. However, the story is different every time. He actually lost his eye in a completely non-pirate related accident as a child. It just sounds cooler the way he tells it 😂

- About Joe moving from the ZIT crew to Cleo's ship: Joe really wants to be taken back to shore, and the ZIT lads understand his fear of water and try to take him back as soon as possible. However, they get caught in a storm, and the boat isn't in great shape to weather it. The boat is not quite wrecked, but badly damaged, and Joe is washed overboard. Cleo's crew finds him and pulls him aboard to save him (maybe siren!Wels helped bring him to her!)

-As a pirate Etho is known for his skill in boarding enemy ships. It doesn't matter how many ropes you cut, how many pirate grappling hooks you throw into the sea in an effort to keep them from your decks. Even if there's no possible way across, Etho will just sort of.. . End Up on your ship, and you will end up in Davy Jones' locker. (Based on the creepy teleport thing with Grian, and just Etho's general cryptid-ness)

-The sea spray and the general ocean humidity is horrible for Doc's arm. Ren helps him keep it as clean and rust-proof as possible, but it still probably squeaks a lot and stiffens up sometimes.

(-@shadeswiftdraws.)

-ZombieCleo's gal (& co.) crew includes Iskall. [More info pending for when I finally get around to watching s6 and see the infamous Iskall & Stress duo in action] (-@basaltdragon.)

-Inspired by shade: Cub is an ex-sailor, and Scar grew up in a family of fishers. Cub was really good at ship maintainence (he just got sick of the politics), and Scar loved keeping stock of the fishing nets and what sort of fish were caught, how much they might sell for, though he's not as good at repairs.

-For the Pirate AU, Mumbo telling Siren/MerGrian stories of the surface world and (secretly?) making a way for Grian to see it for himself. (-@shiniestumbreon.)

-Pirate au: one day there is a really bad storm that destroys all of the hermits boats except for one of them. So now all the hermits are all on one boat that’s really far away from land. (Angst part) some of them went over board (I’m thinking the captains maybe) so the remaining hermits are either grieving them or looking desperately hoping that their crew mates are still alive and clinging to wreckage. Who they find, if they do find any of them is up to the reader for now. (-@lookitsspacekween.)

- Mumbo, being the spoon he is always forgets where he buries his treasure. (-@xxpzmistxx.)

-Mumbo, as the Voidrunner's engineer, has so much to work on that Xisuma will sometimes take over the maintenance so poor Mumbo can get some sleep. This leads to the hunt for a secondary engineer and maybe that's how Mumbo and Iskal end up meeting. (-@my-cat-is-a-bastard.)

-A cat scratched out Iskall's eye as a kid, and he's too embarrassed to tell anyone. He's still a bit afraid of cats, so you'll always see him keeping a close eye on Jellie when he's at the dock. (-@12u3ie.)

- i dont really know much about pirates but ima try!! ok so, cleo is human, but she gets the nickname "zombie cleo" because she faked her own death. people thought she drowned, and her old crew along with her. most of them went to live normal lives under different names, but cleo missed the sea and eventually returned to being a pirate, eventually becoming the capitain of a new ship. (i hope this makes sense lol) (-@bakubakunyanyaa.)

-Pirate headcanons! As someone said before Ren and Wels are friends and like to sign together. I can imagine Wels telling the Black Goat that there is a treasure burried in Loser Island to get Ren rescued. Also! People think Ren is halve siren/has siren magic as he is really good at singing and the melodies he hums are similar to the ones sirens are said to sing, turns out just a bit of siren magic and Wels singing style rubbed on Ren during all the time they spent together singing.

-More pirate hc cause i have no self control and they are not a lot of them: Doc gives shiny stuff to Wels in exchange of him warning them when X’s crew is on a port. Iskall is also a great engineer and is working to make the Rotten Corpse Steam powered too. He insist Cleo to let him take a peek on the Voidrunner to see if he can copy Mumbo’s work, the gals agree this is the most dangerous idea Iskall has.

(-@ivi-prism.)

-Ship AU! Hypno originally joined the ship's crew with his friend, Jessassin. They became a swashbuckling duo, and still sometimes work together, despite Jessassin's inactivity from pirate duties. (-@calmshejaguar.)

[bexterbex]

A Soul to Mend His Own | Ch. 34

Warning, if you haven’t heeded the other warnings on the other chapters then you have played yourself. 

A Kylo Ren x Modern! Reader in a soulmate au with some canon divergence. —————————————SLOWBURN————————————–

He is already the Supreme leader, searching the universe to find you, his Empress. Your name on his wrist has been the only constant in his life, while you have doubts about his existence and his acceptance of you. He isn’t in the database and why did the name Kylo Ren cover Ben Solo?

MASTERLIST

Chapter 34: Leaving without Notice

Once onboard the Steadfast you and Kylo headed to the conference room with the general and your lieutenant. Kylo released you once you got to the room and were safely inside, he left the room in a rush. You were left to your lesson with the general.

“You did well today again Lady Ren, I know this morning was a bit stressful after yesterday’s events so we shall keep this lesson in a lighter tone,” said Hux. “We will be going over the ship a tour of sorts if you will, one that is much more in-depth than your initial tour, to show you what the  Resurgent- class Star Destroyers have to offer.”

You followed the general down the hall. “While the size is reminiscent of Empire ships, the design of the  Resurgent -class recalls a similar design from the Republic-era capital ships. The  Steadfast’s dorsal flight deck, side hangars, and prominent keel; are similar to elements of  Venator -class Star Destroyers, reflecting a renewed appreciation among our tacticians for capital ships’ role as carriers. Like the  Finalizer, the Steadfast can launch her full complement of starfighters and assault ships much more quickly than their predecessors of the Imperial Navy. Other Imperial-era design flaws have also been rectified -- the need for a better-protected command bridge was a lesson we learned from the loss of the Executor,”  said Hux.

You were making your way to the back of the ship, you following next to the general and your lieutenant following behind you. You made your way to some sort of large mechanical room.

“All the way to the far right is the access to the Hyperdrive generator and the access to the Starboard main engines. This room mirrors another on the other side of the ship. Over here are the reactant silo and subsidiary reactor. Behind us is the isotope containment wells. Just above us is the starboard primary turbolaser battery. We shall now move back to the main reactor.”

You were glad because the room you were in was hot, you had no idea how the technicians that seemed to be moving about the room seemed to stand it. The room felt as if it was an oven, and you were not cupcakes so it was no place for you. When you got back out the main hall you never thought you would be more thankful for the star ship’s recycled air, the hallway felt airconditioned compared to the room you were just in. It was also a fair bit brighter out in the hallway. You made it to a large room with a metal curved ball, but you could only see a small portion of the large sphere.

“This is the reactor containment vessel unless you would like serious health issues unfortunately I can not take you to see the reactor itself. This is an SJFS III-a1a primary hypermatter-annihilation reactor. It is top of the line and allows us to stay in Hyperspace for days. This reactor could power two planets of your sizes for 100 years without stopping. We are currently standing in the reactor engineering control deck, up there are he atmospheric processing complect and the reactant ducts.”

You then left the area you were in to go to a different hangar than the one you normally use. This one was much much smaller. There seemed to be a lot more boxes and other items scattered neatly around.

“This is our port hanger, it mainly handles shipments from planets and all non-personnel ships. Although this is the smaller of the two hangars it is the one we use the most. Ah, yes here is a ship now.”

You saw a large ship pull in, it was rather a shoebox like in shape, you guessed that since it was meant to carry cargo it did not have to look spectacular. You did not stick around for it to be unloaded seeing as the general was instant that you carry on the in-depth tour. You were then hauled off to many other places on the ship. No offense to the general but his voice seemed to drone on, and you were rather tired. Just when you realized you were tired the lieutenant made a cup of stimcaf appear, you briefly wondered if he could read your mind as Kylo could but you could care less at the moment. You had caffeine.

The ship itself has 3000 turbolasers, point-defense laser cannons, and ion cannons. Point-defense quad concussion missile emplacements and tractor beam projectors. There are 19,000 officers, 55,000 enlisted and 13,000 stormtroopers on board at the moment. But because she is a sistership with any of the Resurgent-class ships they are all armed the same. Kuat-Entralla Engineering has done a superb job making these galaxy-class destroyers.”

The general then turned to look at you, he then glanced at the time and declared your lesson over. You were thankful, and you wondered just how tired you looked. You also glanced at the time seeing that you had at least an hour before dinner. You hoped you could sneak a nap in, you made your way back to your chambers and thanked the lieutenant and told him that you would send for him if you needed him.

When you entered your chambers Kylo was already there, shirtless and speaking to someone you couldn’t see. The last words you heard from him were, “you will return it to me.” His voice was low and predatory. He was a beast holding back from striking, but you could not see his prey. You broke his concentration when you entered the room.

He looked at you, you could see the bloodthirsty look vanishing from his face the longer he looked at you. His eyes were softening, but still held a hunter’s forewarning in them. He cleared his throat and looked at the time, “It’s later than I thought.”

You just nodded and made your way to your room, he caught your arm and pulled you to him. You flushed at the motion, you were now against his bare chest, your head was in a tissy.

“How much of that did you hear,” he asked staring you down.

“I didn’t hear anything other than, you will return it to me,” you replied. Your face was scrunched up with confusion but your heart was racing with excitement.

“Forget what you heard,” his voice was firm and harsh. His grip on you was harsher than it has ever been.

But your body was giving different signals than your brain. You couldn’t even form a coherent sentence to respond. Kylo released you and you stumbled back almost in shock. You eventually braced yourself against the wall, you could feel the anger radiating off of him. You were too tired to deal with him at the moment so you practically ran to your room.

The moment your head hit the pillow you passed out, for the first time in a while your dreams were nothing but nightmares.

After you woke up you felt more tired than when you went to sleep, but you needed to get up anyway. You were dazed when you left your room and you stumbled into the living room where you were greeted by the lieutenant.

“I regret to inform you, ma’am, that the Supreme Leader will not be joining you tonight as he has been called to the other end of the galaxy for the next few days,” said Mitaka. “But he has informed me that I am to make sure you are not to eat your dinners alone.”

So he was gone. You wondered if this had anything to do with the voice he seemed to be talking to, or if it was something that you had done. You were thankful that he had the intuition to have the lieutenant here instead of just messaging you or leaving a note. You also felt bad for the lieutenant as he should not have been forced to change his plans to eat with you just because Kylo thought you shouldn’t be eating alone. You had done it many times before, why did you need company now?

“Thank you, lieutenant but I am more than capable of eating alone if you would rather go eat with your friends.”

The lieutenant flashed a worried and confused face. “It is no problem ma’am, I think I would actually enjoy eating with you tonight.”

You gave him a small smile, you were very happy that the young lieutenant felt that way. He was rather sweet and you were thankful that Kylo made him your assistant of sorts. You nodded to him and made your way to the dining room and both ordered your dinner. You felt slightly awkward because usually during breakfast you two sat in a comfortable silence until he gave you your daily debriefing, but now you were actually going to eat a proper meal together and you had no idea what to talk about.

“Tell me about yourself lieutenant.”

He looked at you partially startled at the inquiry. You could tell that he was not used to higher-ups taking an interest, you supposed it would only be his friends that would even care, but you wanted to be friends with the partially timid man.

“There isn’t much to tell ma’am I am a lieutenant in the First Order. I graduated top of my Academy class and was placed on board the Finalizer and I worked directly under the allegiant general when he was still in command of her. This was all when the former Supreme Leader was in power. After Supreme Leader Ren came into power the general promoted me not in rank but in position to be with him. And when you were found the Supreme Leader reassigned me to you,” said Mitaka.

“But what about before the Academy? Or what do you like to do when you are given leave or free time? Surely there is more to you than meets the eye,” you asked.

“Before the academy, I lived with my parents on Coruscant. I am an older brother to my little brother. My father works in business and my mother works in medical. When I have free time I like to relax or reading up on galactic history. Although like most officers when on leave I enjoy going to any beaches on the planet we are on and I tend to enjoy the food. Unlike the food that has been served to you m’lady when we haven’t been to port for a while the food can get rather bland and unappealing.”

You chuckled at his last statement. You supposed that this was a military and so the need for really tasty food was outweighed by the need for nutritious food. You were glad that he was at least enjoying the food at the moment.

When you both had finished eating you thanked him before sending him away for the night. He told you he would see you in the morning. You were left alone for the evening. You wondered if you should sleep in his bed again or not, unfortunately, your body made that decision for you as it barely got you up the stairs. His bed was closer so you collapsed into it, this time you dreamed of nothing but blackness.

[that-winged-rat]

Redemption

Redemption ~ Part 4

*not my gif*

Summary: Y/N manages to get Michael out of Dean’s head. But it wouldn’t be a proper solution for the Winchesters if it went to plan, now would it?

Pairing: None

Characters: Y/N Y/L/N, Dean Winchester, Sam Winchester, Castiel, Jack, AU!Michael.

Warnings: Angst, some fluff, slight language.

Word Count: 3.2k

A/N: Okay folks! Here is what I think may well be the final part of the Redemption Series (A.K.A the first series that I’ve ever finished and not just forgotten about! Woohoo!) But... knowing me I will probably end up doing more parts. Thank you for reading this series! Feedback is always welcomed and encouraged! Enjoy :)

Masterlist Redemption Masterlist

After sorting out Sam, Y/N went out for a walk, clearing her mind so she could come up with a plan to get Michael out of Dean’s head and – hopefully – get rid of him for good. 

She could always expel him from Dean’s mind and destroy him in his raw angelic form. But there was always the risk that he would escape and posses someone who had no idea what they were agreeing to, which would still end up with the world torched. 

She couldn’t kill him while he was in Dean’s head because she might as well be a human. And even if she did find a way to access her abilities that way, Dean would be in the cross-fire, and that would against the whole objective – protecting and saving Dean.

Y/N sighed and threw her head back to look at the sky, her tongue running along the inside of her lips. There was one way that it could work, it wouldn’t be easy for anyone. Especially her.

But it was a necessary risk.

Having made up her mind on the method, she now had to decide if she would tell the others on exactly what the plan was. She knew that they – mainly Castiel – would disapprove and try to talk her into finding another way. But there was no other way. And at least this way, she might get what she wanted most. And if there was that slight possibility of that, she wouldn’t let anyone get in her way, so she decided to keep it to herself and headed back to the bunker.

When she got back, she spotted Sam, Cas and Jack sitting at the map-table, halting their conversation when Y/N walked through the door. She walked down the stairs and took a seat at the table.

Sam looked at her expectantly. “So, you got a plan?” He asked, leaning forward in his seat and intertwining his fingers in front of him.

She sighed. “No. I was just gonna wing it,” she said with a straight face, shrugging while looking Sam dead in the eyes.

Cas frowned and looked around in confusion and frustration. “Y/N, what do you mean you don’t have a plan? This is Dean, you can’t just w–”

“Jesus Christ, Cas,” Y/N cut him off. “You’ve known Sam and Dean for how many years? I would’ve thought you would be able to know when someone’s being sarcastic.” He sighed and gave her a bitch-face. “Of course I have a plan.”

“Which is...” Sam trailed off, prompting Y/N to continue.

She sighed again. “I’m gonna find Michael in Dean’s head and get rid of him in there. Simple enough,” she said, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms behind her head.

Jack frowned. “How are you going to do that though? Wouldn’t you just be a mental projection? That’s what happened last time,” Jack said, looking to Sam and Cas for confirmation, and they both nodded at him.

Y/N tapped the side of her nose a couple of times. “A magician never reveals their tricks,” she said, sighing when she saw that wasn’t enough of an answer for any of them. “Relax. I’ve got it covered.”

“Are you sure you’re able to do this?” Cas asked.

Y/N rolled her eyes. “Yes, I’m sure,” she said, frustrated with how many times she’s had to answer that question. “I’m just looking forward to killing this asshole. Even if he’s not from this world.”

“Why?” Jack asked, picking up on the venom and hatred that seeped out with her words.

“Isn’t the fact that he's a bratty douche just trying to get daddy’s attention reason enough?”

“Right. Well, I’ll go get Dean,” Sam said, pushing himself up from the table and walking through to the kitchen where Dean was having a sandwich. Not long later, the two of them returned and joined Y/N, Jack and Cas, who had migrated into the library.

Dean sat in a seat and Y/N moved to stand behind him, leaning on the back of his chair. He rolled his shoulders back and clenched then unclenched his fists a few times, bracing for impact.

“Let’s do this,” Dean said, as if psyching himself up.

“Y/N, are you sure you’re up for this?” Castiel asked, mirroring Y/N’s stance on the opposite side of the table. Sam stood next to him, arms crossed, while Jack stood at the end of the table.

She just winked, traces of a smile on her face, as she placed her fingers firmly on Dean’s temples. Her eyes glowed the same red that Jack had been threatened with, but this time it seemed less scary and intimidating. Scarlet red veins crawled along Dean’s face as Sam shifted on his feet uncomfortably at the sight of his brother – Dean had his hands in tight fists and his jaw clenched through the pain. 

And then it stopped. 

Dean’s face went slack and his posture relaxed, as Y/N’s eyes gently fluttered shut, and the other three knew that it had worked.

---

Y/N calmly looked around, taking the absolute nothingness that surrounded her. There was no light at all, but somehow she could see Dean clear as day, as he stood a few feet in front of her.

“I feel like there should be tumbleweed,” she remarked. Dean spun around and his eyes landed on her. “And maybe some crickets.”

Dean sighed. “Okay, what’s the plan?”

“You take me to where Michael’s locked away, and I save the day. Simple as that,” she said, smiling widely at the end.

“Alright. It’s a bar,” he said. Y/N sighed and motioned her hands, asking him to continue. “Rocky’s bar.”

She clapped her hands together. “Well, thank you for your cooperation, Mr Winchester. I’ll see you on the other side.” She shrugged. “Hopefully.”

Dean frowned. “What the Hell are you–” he said, not getting to finish before he jolted awake in the library, surrounded by worried faces. He turned in his seat to look behind him for Y/N, but frowned again when he saw her unconscious body on the floor.

“Dean? W–What happened? Did it work?” Sam asked rushing round the table to meet his brother. 

“I don’t–I don’t know.”

Cas’ eyebrows stitched together. “What do you mean ‘you don’t know’?” He asked.

“I mean, I told her where Michael was and she said that she’ll see me on the other side, hopefully,” Dean said, looking up to his brother and best friend. “I’m think she’s gonna try take him on herself.”

---

Y/N stalked through the deserted bar, her eyes scouring every crevice as she did. 

“Oh, Mikey,” she taunted in a sing-song voice. “Where are you, pretty boy?” She took a few more steps before her eyes fell on a metal door that looked like it had been bashed on the inside. “Something tells me there,” she muttered to herself.

Y/N walked towards the door with confidence. She took out the pin that was the only thing from keeping Michael from escaping, and opened the door. Michael stood, a smirk on his face, in the middle of the once tidy supply cupboard.

“I’ve killed every cambion I’ve come across. I don’t see why you’ll be any different, filth,” Michael spat out, sauntering out of the cupboard and into the bar.

“Hey, no need to be nasty,” Y/N said, raising her hands in fake surrender. She turned around and walked over to the bar, taking a seat at the stool, and swivelled around to face Michael, who stood behind her. “Especially someone who wants to help you.”

Michael tilted his head to the side, curious. “What could you possibly help me with?”

“I have an offer for you,” Y/N said, leaning back and resting her elbows on the bar. “I become your vessel, you get out of this”– she looked at her surroundings–” place and get to go on your little tantrum.”

Michael laughed. “And give up my true vessel. Now why would I do that?”

“Think about it, Mike,” Y/N started. “Dean has people who love him, people who would do anything for him. And we both know that they wouldn’t stop until you’re either locked away for good, or dead. I have no one like that. If you take me, you would have a strong vessel and nobody to stop you.”

Michael was silent for a moment. “So, let me get this straight, you say yes to me and you’ll give me free range, to do whatever I want?” Michael asked. Y/N shrugged, a smirk on her face, which was enough of an answer for Michael. “You do realise that I’m stronger than you. You won’t be able be double cross me on your best day.”

“Why would I try to double cross you?”

Michael brushed down his jacket. “Even though I’m trapped in this rat-hole, I’m still in Dean’s head, I can still see his thoughts. And I know that you’ve helped the Winchesters before. So how do I know that it’s not the case here?”

Y/N scoffed, and jumped off the stool, sighing. “They tricked me, made my life even more miserable than it already was. Why would I wanna help them?”

“You’re offering an alliance?”

“I’m offering an alliance,” Y/N repeated.

Michael ran his tongue over his lips in thought, smiling after a moment of silence. “You got yourself a deal. Just say the word and we’ll get this show on the road.”

“Yes.”

---

Sam looked away from his book and to Y/N’s limp body, which was now sitting on one of the armchairs in the library. Looking at her, no one would suspect that she was a sarcastic woman who did everything in her power to push away people who tried to help her. She was peaceful.

Shaking the thought from his head, he turned back to the book he was reading. But his mind was too occupied with the current happenings to register any of the words. Why would Y/N chose to face Michael alone? She seemed to know how powerful he is, if she just told them then they could’ve helped. Or maybe this whole thing was a double cross.

A soft groan pulled him from his thoughts. He looked over to where Y/N was lying and saw that she was stirring, her eyes fluttering open.

“Dean! Cas!” He called out and made his way over to Y/N. She squeezed her eyes shut briefly when they opened too fast. “Hey. What happened?” Sam asked her once she was fully awake.

“Sam,” Dean said urgently as him and Cas marched into the room. Sam looked up to them. “Michael’s gone.”

Sam whipped his head to look back to Y/N, a smile made it’s way on her face that made his stomach churn. None of them knew her that well, but all of them knew that that wasn’t Y/N.

“Michael,” Sam whispered.

“Bet you didn’t see this coming,” Y/N – or rather Michael – said.

Both the Winchesters and Castiel now stood in defensive stances, ready for when things got messy. Not if, when. 

“How’d you get her to say yes?” Dean asked, taking a cautious step forward.

Michael laughed. “You think this was my idea?” The three men frowned in confusion. “This was all her idea. She really–” he stopped abruptly and doubled over as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He let out a grunt but it turned into a laugh. “Oh, she’s a feisty one, isn’t she? She’s putting up a fight. Stronger than she looks. Too bad she won’t break free in time. The first thing she’s gonna see is all of your bodies, lying on the floor because of a stupid decision she made.”

“You really love the sound of your own voice, don’t you?”

Michael grimaced again and stumbled back, slamming Y/N’s fist on the table in frustration. Cas glanced over at one of the doorways, seeing Jack peek through. He caught Jack’s gaze in his and gently shook his head, telling the young Nephilim to stay put.

The archangel clenched his fist, Sam, Dean and Cas all falling to the floor, clutching their throats and gasping for air. Jack went to step forward but stopped when Cas shook his head again, this time with more warning. 

Jack frowned when Michael started coughing, a mixture of blood and grace spilling out of Y/N’s mouth and flowing onto the floor. The hold he had on Sam, Dean and Cas releasing and the three of them swallowed the air like their was no tomorrow. Michael fell to the floor, clutching his chest. His grace snaked out of Y/N’s mouth until it all hovered in front of them, as a steady flow of blood trickled down her chin and out of her ears, her body falling limp against the bookshelves.

Jack stepped forward and walked over to the floating cloud of archangel grace, ignoring the voices of the three men on the floor, begging him not to risk his soul. The golden glow coming from his eyes reflected on his cheeks as he raised his hands. The mass of light blue started swirling in front of the four of them.

“You won’t hurt anyone ever again!” Jack shouted before the grace shrunk in size and turned into orange dust... then nothing, only leaving a slither which made it’s way into Jack’s mouth.

“Jack?” Dean asked, pushing himself up from the floor.

“Michael,” Jack said in a monotone voice. “He’s gone.”

Sam stepped forward. “Jack, are–are you, uh...”

Jack turned around to face the three of them. “I’m me again,” he said, his eyes flashing yellow and his wings projecting on the wall behind him. 

They all turned their attention to Y/N’s form when she started spluttering up more blood. Jack crouched down to her level, reaching up to the sides of her face when Sam stopped him.

“Jack, don’t. You can’t risk burning any more of your soul.”

“But... I can help her!”

“She’ll be fine. She’ll heal by herself,” Cas reasoned. 

Jack hesitated, looking at her for a moment before nodding and standing up. “Okay.”

---

Jack was sat in one of the spare rooms next to the bed that occupied it. His ears listening to the steady breathing coming from Y/N and his eyes focused on the strand of hair that had fallen across her forehead, gently brushing against her skin. He didn’t bother looking up when the door creaked open behind him.

“Jack?” It was Sam. “You alright?”

“I could’ve helped her,” he said, finally turning around to look at Sam.

“Jack... we don’t know how much of your soul burned off when you killed Michael. And we can’t take any more risks like that. You need to be careful.”

Jack sighed. “I know. I just... I hate feeling so useless. What’s the point in having these powers if I can’t even use them?”

“Yeah, I–I get it Jack. Listen, all I’m asking is that you just be more careful, okay?” Jack nodded and Sam patted his shoulder before leaving the room.

Jack turned back to look at the strand of hair on Y/N’s face. He wanted to brush it away, but he knew if she caught him, he’d be a dead man. She’d stayed asleep so far, though, so she wouldn’t wake up with that. Right?

He leaned forward and reached his arm out painfully slow, though he didn’t get to reach his target.

“Touch me and you lose the arm,” Y/N said, her voice hoarse. Jack froze like a deer in headlights, too afraid to move in case it made things worse for him. Her eyes fluttered open and landed on him instantly.

“Uh, I... Sorry. You had a piece of hair on your face... it looked annoying,” he said awkwardly. Y/N groaned as she pushed herself to sit up against the headboard, the piece of hair falling back into place. “I’ll go get Cas.”

Jack got up quickly and left the room, leaving Y/N to stare blankly at the wall, alone with her thoughts. Thoughts about her short time with Michael. How he taunted her, bringing up unwanted memories and mistakes, people she’d let down. She blinked the thoughts away when the door opened. Cas walked though, Jack not far behind.

“How are you feeling?” He asked, taking a seat in the chair Jack sat in earlier.

“I’ve been better.” She shrugged. “I’ve been worse.”

Cas looked down to his hands. “Jack, would you give us a minute?” 

Jack didn’t say anything as he left the room again. Cas tilted his head to look back up to Y/N, and she could tell that a lecture was coming.

“What you did was stupid, and reckless,” he started. “You could’ve died. You nearly did die. You know that we would’ve helped, right? You don’t have to do everything on your own.”

A smirk broke out on Y/N’s face. “Careful, Cas, you’re starting to sound like you actually care.”

Castiel frowned. “Because I do care.” 

Y/N scoffed and looked away. “No, you don’t. The only time we’ve met before last year, was when you tried to kill me, how many years ago? You can’t care for someone you don’t even know.”

“If you said that to me a few years ago, I would’ve agreed with you. But since then, I’ve seen life from... call it a different point of view. And I’ve learnt that everybody deserves a chance, even if they think that they don’t. That includes you, Y/N.”

Y/N stared at him for a while before speaking up. “What are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say that you can stay here, with us. For at least a little while,” Cas said. “I know you have your reasons for staying away from people, but you can’t stay that way forever. And for people like us, forever is literally forever.”

She visibly swallowed. “Trust me when I say this, people around me – people I let myself care for – always die. Whether I lose control and they die by my hands, or there’s a pissed off whackjob after me. Either way, it never ends well. For anyone.”

Cas furrowed his eyebrows; this is the first time that he’s seen Y/N’s tough façade waver for even a second. If he hadn’t been watching her intently, he would’ve thought that he imagined the way her eyes glistened with unshed tears and her voice cracked. 

He pushed the thought aside and instead, he smiled. “Join the club,” he said, then took on a serious demeanour. “Y/N, you’re gonna have to start letting people in sooner or later.”

Y/N hesitated, tapping a finger nervously on her thigh. She shook her head. “I don’t know how.”

“Then let us show you. Let us show you that you’re allowed to have good things.”

She was silent for another minute. “I’ll think about it.”

“That’s good enough for me.” Cas smiled.

“Alright, I gotta go pee,” Y/N said, groaning as she stood from the bed. She stopped just before the door and turned around to face Cas, who was still smiling slightly. “Tell anyone about this and I’ll break your dick.”

She’s back, Cas thought to himself, the threat only making his smile grow wider. He turned to fully face her. “You’re secrets safe with me.”

---

Tagged: @supernaturalenchanted​ @vicmc624​ @deanwanddamons​

[princesssarcastia]

aos!star trek sense8 au

okay so. i had a thought as I was watching star trek 2009.  mainly, i was pissed that we got jim being a fucked up troublemaker and spock being an ostracized genius, but we didn’t get:

uhura growing up with her huge family devouring information about alien cultures, or bby!sulu learning how to fence or bby!checkov doing spiraling math equations on the wall of his bedroom or little scotty running around with an outrageous brogue and a penchant for taking apart the replicator, or bones being adorably, earnestly caring

fuck that noise.  I want baby-faced versions of the whole bridge crew.

thus, the sense8 AU. I’ve never watched sense8 but I’m 90% sure they’re all supposed to be the same age, which is alright.  i can do that.  it just means that they know each other a little differently; some things happen earlier or different, but that’s fine.

oh my god this is going to be ridiculous.  okay. again, never seen sense8, never will, so i’m pulling this out of thin air

                                                          —

clusters are so rare no one knows about them at this point; there are myths and legends from the eugenics wars—the very wars which essentially wiped them out, actually—but for the most part, everyone has forgotten.

very rarely will someone from a cluster speak about their experiences, but whenever they do, it’s written off as part and parcel of mingling with telepathic alien races.

(little do they know it’s the one form of telepathy completely indigenous to Earth)

—

Spock is the most powerful telepath of his generation because of his uniquely human experience fielding the emotions of six other people.

—

nyota is five when she decides she wants to learn to speak all the other languages, because then she can talk to pavel and spock with their words.  she learns to speak swahili with her mother and father and aunts and uncles and cousins and grandparents at home, and standard at school.  having to translate things in her mind because people don’t know her language, her words, is hard.  and if she can keep pavel and spock from having to do that, she will.

—

nyota is the reason they all join starfleet, in the end.  she meets a recruiter at school when they’re seven years old.  when the woman starts to talk about experiencing alien cultures and first contacts and languages she excitedly pulls everyone to her.  they all sit bunched up at this woman’s feet and learn about starfleet for the first time, together.  maybe they don’t all know what they want to do yet, or even that this is what they want.

but nyota wins out, in the end.  she always does.

—

when Jim breaks the security on Frank’s car, ribs still aching from the night before, Hikaru slips into the passenger seat.  they don’t—none of them really know how to respond when things like this happen to jim, when jim pulls these stunts

(sometimes, Spock can get through to him, speak to his anger.  but spock is...having his own problems today)

but when Jim frantically pulls out of their driveway and down the dusty half-road, only thinking awayawayaway Hikaru grins at him and whoops as they push sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety

then the cop pulls up alongside them and he gets nervous.  jim throws him a wild grin and yanks the wheel to the side, crashing through the gates and heading straight for a ravine.

“Jim,” Hikaru says in a panic.  “Jim, jim ,jim stop the car!  Stop the car!  JIM!”

they’re 20 feet away from the edge when sulu makes a desperate, useless grab for the wheel and Jim finally gives in.  everyone steps onto the edge of the cliff as he frantically grabs at sand and dust, living only because his friends family cluster are screaming at him.

they huddle around him in shock as he pushes to his feet and mouths off to the police officer; scotty giggles at his nonchalance and nyota thwaps him on the back of his head and leo wraps him in a hug, careful of his ribs.

—

everyone piles into pavel’s room the nights his uncle tells stories.  exciting adventures with spies and snipers and assassins.

—

nyota spends quiet afternoons with spock on his balcony under the hot vulcan sun, pouring over whatever data has drawn Spock’s attention this week.  he helps her with her pronunciation and lets her practice golic scripture on his pads.  vulcan is her third language she ever learns.

—

Hikaru goes on hikes with Scotty through the still-preserved highlands, stopping every five minutes to pester him for the names of the plants.  when they first start out, there are a lot of “i don’t knows,” or asking of scotty’s mother, but eventually Scotty starts learning them ahead of time, just to see Hikaru’s grin as they discuss foliage patterns and pollination.

—

Jim, Spock and Pavel will spend hours debating mathematical theories, wearing out the wrist of whoever’s room they’re in.  every once in a while pavel will say something that gets and eyebrow raise out of spock and a look of utter shock from Jim, because he proven them completely wrong in an effortless manner

—

Tarsus—

when Jim understands what’s happening, what Governor Kodos means, it’s—fuck.  he just.  he just shuts down, starts grabbing as many people as he can, other kids, mainly.

and everyone else freezes right where they are.  in the middle of class and fencing practice and church and after bolting upright in the middle of the night.

Spock initiates an emergency shutdown of his pod and rushes up the stairs, politely requesting (demanding) that the instructor contact his father immediately.

Pavel jumps out of bed and bangs on his Uncle’s door, begging him to open up, please open up, you still have friends on the federation council, yes?

Nyota pulls the...enhanced radio transmitter Scotty helped her build out and immediately breaks into contacts starfleet command’s private frequency to begin relaying everything she has so far, as Jim gets it, and Scotty sits right next to her, helping find new ways to break in every time starfleet shuts them out until they have to listen, please listen, this is not a joke!

Leo and Hikaru...they stay with Jim, as he scrambles through the facility where Kodos penned them in to be slaughtered; grabbing a phaser off of a corpse and shooting the guards who chase after them; kicking the legs out from under one who gets too close; keeping track of little Kevin who’s screaming and crying for his mother.

(instead of waiting six months until their scheduled check-in to find the remains of the Tarsus IV colony, Starfleet finds out about the massacre of 4,000 federation citizens almost as it’s happening; finds out from, oddly enough, the Vulcan ambassador to Earth, a former incredibly classified russian special ops agent for the United Earth, and one very persistent child in the African Confederacy with a souped-up radio communicator.

it still take three weeks for the nearest ship to warp to Tarsus, near the edge of uncharted space, and rescue the remaining colonists)

Hikaru advises Jim on whether they can eat what few plants they find; Leo uses his rudimentary medical knowledge to help patch up the injured children.  Nyota and Spock take turns helping Jim translate for the young Vulcan among them, young enough that her Standard is not yet perfected.

Spock demands that his father demand information on the rescue mission, so that he may coordinate with Jim on how long they have and where to meet the survivors that Jim is slowly, carefully, gathering.

—

the minute Jim is settled in the med-bay of the starfleet vessel carrying him and the other 73 survivors of Kodos’ condemned colonists, he breaks.  break in half, breaks down sobbing, curls up into a ball and just lets himself feel, again.

all six of the others pile around him on the biobed, surrounding him, until all he can see are other parts of himself.

—

Jim is fourteen years old.  There are six other people living in his head.  He has survived a massacre and a genocide and his mother is—

His mother is—

Not coming.  She’s not coming.  She’s sending him back to Frank, who chased Sam away and let Jim go to Tarsus.  She barely even looks at him when she sentences him to another six years of terror.

Before, he might have panicked.  Now he just...shuts down again, steals a datapad, and hacks into starfleet’s communications with his mother and frank.  Jim-as-Frank says he’s beaming to Risa to pick Jim up as soon as possible, and Jim-as-Winona signs off on it.

With Leo yelling at him and Nyota reminding him he can just come stay with her family and Pavel saying my uncle would be happy to—, Jim steps onto the transporter pad and beams down to Risa, hastily making his way out of the starfleet outpost and into the crushing crowds of the pleasure planet, and disappears.

—

They all worry about Jim, and keep tabs on him, but they have their own lives to live, too.  Even if they never give up on pulling him to one of them before he gets himself killed.

—

Pavel gets admitted to starfleet academy when they’re fifteen and Nyota is not jealous!  No, no, she’s not jealous, shut up, Hikaru.  And it’s fine, anyway, because they all know the reason half of them are planning on joining starfleet (at least, right then) is because of her. So there.

And when he gets homesick his second week there, Nyota plops herself down on his bed and babbles with him in Russian (her fourth language) until the ache in his chest recedes.

—

Hikaru and Pavel are the first of them to meet in person, because Hikaru lives in San Francisco.  Whenever Pavel is granted leave from the Academy, Hikaru shows up to drag him surfing, or to his favorite restaurant, or to meet his parents.

—

Six months after Pavel starts at Starfleet, Leo is needling Spock about the Kohlinar so much that he actually seeks out his mother to ensure Leo is wrong, that he is not needlessly repressing his “humanity” at the expense of a real part of himself.

Leo stands there in shock, glee and utter disbelief as Spock tells the old racist bastards at the Vulcan Science Academy where to put it; just claps him on the shoulder on his way out.

(Jim quietly grins to himself as he listens in)

(Nyota high-fives Pavel, Hikaru and Scotty; five down, two to go)

—

Given the nature of Vulcan secondary education and Spock’s desire to be a science officer, he tests out of basically the first two years of classes.  Then he does such an exemplary job that he earns an officer’s commission right after graduation under fucking Pike, are you kidding me?? Nyota screeches and jumps up and down and generally makes an emotional scene while Spock suffers. 

—

When they are seventeen, Leo gets his girlfriend Jocelyn pregnant. 

What.

—

After Tarsus, the times that they all get together are few and far between; but when Joanna is born they all stop what they’re doing to gather around Jocelyn’s biobed and coo, or congratulate, or tease Leo for being the one to have a kid, come on, I really had money on Jim.

He smiles at Jocelyn and stares in awe at Joanna and feels how much they all love him, how much they already love his daughter (not their daughter; not yet).

—

When they’re eighteen, Scotty and Hikaru and Nyota are finally (!!!! Nyota is so excited) going to Starfleet Academy, to join Pavel in his third year and catch Spock in passing whenever he’s on leave.

Before they leave, Nyota stands in the center of her sisters and cousins and aunts and nieces and sobs, happy to be one step closer to starfleet but unashamedly grieving for the stage of her life that she’s leaving behind.  And she decides then that she’s going to start going by Uhura, her family name, so that she can take them with her into the stars.

—

Jim is, oddly enough, the one to sit up with Leo on those long nights when Joanna just. won’t. sleep.  He quietly chats him up and stares in awe at this baby girl who came into the world peacefully and wanted, if not fully expected.  This baby girl whose parents will never raise a hand to her and has a dozen people willing to lay down their lives for her and, more importantly, take her in if god forbid it becomes necessary.

He whispers sweet nothings she can’t hear to her and Leo throws an arm over his shoulders, grateful and missing him even though he right there.

—

His feet hit the ground on Earth for the first time in four years two weeks later, after doing a few things he shut the others out for (he and spock are the only ones who bothered to learn how to do that) to get onto a shuttle headed straight back...home.

Not home because he lived there Before, but home because that’s where all the other pieces of him are living.

Because he a masochist (shut up, Leo) he acquires a hover bike and zips over to Iowa, and starts haunting Riverside, Iowa.  He lets the corn and small-town bullshit crawl under his skin and takes it out on anyone stupid enough to provoke him when he’s drunk.

He’s completely smashed when Leo finally admits he’s going to be a doctor and tries to call him sawbones; only, the first part doesn’t quite make it out of his mouth.

Leo—Bones—groans because the others are never gonna let this go.

(he is correct on that front)

—

The others are trying to give him space, he knows, but they’re also not at all subtle about their excitement at his being so close for the first time.

Hikaru, Scotty, Pavel, and Uhura orbit each other in San Fran, with Spock the occasional comet passing through their system, together in person, for real, and so eager to share that with the last two of them who’ve never met any of them in person.

They descend on they newly-christened Bones for winter break that first semester (well, actually, it’s Pavel’s seventh semester—i swear to god Chekov i’m gonna knock that smirk off your face) to meet Jocelyn and Joanna. 

And god, they spoil that girl.  Almost a year old, toddling around and bumping into everything and so curious about everything.

Spock couldn’t quite swing leave time to go with them, but they video comm him a few times so Joanna can see him, too.

Jocelyn is quietly unnerved by these people her partner is so close with, who he talks about all the time but has apparently never...met in person before?  Who call him Bones, of all things. And they all take the time to talk to her, get to know her and try and connect, but it’s overwhelming.

And then Uhura sits Bones down in person and lays out all the reasons he should transfer to the Starfleet Academy to finish out his med degree; they have a track laid out to get your doctorate and become an officer, you’re majoring in xenobiology anyway and there’s no better place for that, the opportunities for residencies will be so much better, the trauma surgeons at the academy are unmatched, and—

and we’ll be there.  Joanna can grow up with all of us around to help.

Six down, one to go.

—

The first time Hikaru sits at the helm of a shuttle, he doesn’t stop grinning the rest of the day.  Botany is his first and best love, but by god he’s going to qualify to be a pilot, too.  Maybe someday he’ll get to fly something like the Enterprise.

—

Scotty has taken engineering by storm.  All his professors have an opinion on him, and it’s always love ‘em or hate ‘em.  He’s absolutely brilliant or completely mad, should be given the flagship at the earliest opportunity or marooned somewhere he can’t do any real damage.

—

Uhura comes in knowing eight languages: Swahili, Standard, Vulcan, Russian, French, one of the Rhiannsu (Romulan) dialects, Tellaran, and rudimentary Andoran.  She knows exactly what she’s going to do and has been preparing for it her whole life.

The rest of them grin to each other when they start hearing about Uhura’s exploits in astounding the communications track time and time again.

—

Spock lets them know before anyone else that Captain Pike has been re-assigned to Starfleet Academy for a round of teaching...and that Spock himself will also finally be accepting the Science track’s increasingly desperate demands that he teach.

He’ll also be offering courses in communications; ones Uhura will have to take before graduation.  A clear conflict of interest.

(Uhura is ecstatic; Spock is concerned, but will only volunteer the incredibly personal information when it becomes relevant)

—

When Uhura sees the sign-up for a summer tour of the shipyards in Riverside, she smirks to herself and signs the fuck up, then goes directly to Jim to needle him about it.

Jim sighs and orders another drink, but...finally getting to see one of them in person after all these years...something settles in his chest that hasn’t sat right since he was just a kid.

—

Uhura is practically vibrating as she bursts into the club.  Practically half their class is stuffed around chair and in booths, and she makes a brief stop by some of her friends, but she’s on a mission now.

She can feel a subtle itch under her skin that means Jim is so close.  So close, after so long. After being so alone for so long.

He doesn’t quite understand how unwilling she’s going to be to let him go, once she has him in her clutches.

They practically run into each other next to the stools by the bar and she fights the urge to throw her arms around him.  He looks breathless and a little disbelieving, even though he knew this was coming for months, until a bright and easy smile breaks out on his face.  The one she hasn’t seen since they were still kids.

“Jim,” she laughs, giddy, and he laughs back at her, leaning onto the bar.  She sidles up next to him, as close as his current general aura of “don’t touch me” will allow, and just...breathes, for a second. 

He’s definitely drunk (although, when isn’t he, these days) but still lucid.  “I’m glad you’re here,” he says softly, so low she almost can’t hear it over the throbbing music.

“I’m glad you’re here,” she shoots back, still unable to let go of her smile.

They’re still just basking in each other’s physical presence (after all these years, she still sometimes has no idea what to do with Jim Kirk, except be there with him), when asshole security track cadet Hendorff and his pals make their way up to the bar behind the pair of them.

She can feel the way Jim perks up at the tension in their figures and sighs internally.

“This townie isn’t bothering you, right?” He asks with a smirk, like, what, he has the authority to protect her?

“Oh, beyond belief, but it’s nothing I can’t handle,”  Uhura turns toward Jim and tries to make it clear that he has no business interrupting their conversation, but Jim...

“You can handle me, that’s an invitation,” He smirks at her and knows exactly what he’s doing.

And she has half a mind to let him do it; if he wants to get his ass beat that’s his business.

“Hey, farmboy,” but then Hendorff lays his hands on Jim.  “Maybe you can’t count, but there are four of us and one of you.”

He lays his hands on Jim.  He’s interrupted their first meeting in person after nineteen years living in each other’s minds, and laid his hands on her cluster-mate.

Jim lets his gaze flit to her for half a second and then steps into Hendorff’s space, clapping him on the cheek.  “So go get some more guys and then it’ll be an even fight.”

Uhura rolls her eyes and her shoulders and knows from Jim’s experience the exact moment the tension will spill over into violence.

Hendorff draws back and decks Jim, who falls into the bar; as he makes his next move, before Jim can fully turn around, Uhura draws her heeled boot up and buries it in Hendorff’s stomach, flinging him back into the crowd.

The other three look at her in shock before Jim draws their attention again and they start—god, brawling is the only word for it.  Flinging wild punches and bottles and chairs.

When one of them gets Jim in a lock Uhura swings behind him and pinches the nerve on his shoulder, just like Spock taught them, and he goes down like a light.

But the other two still get four good hits in while she’s doing it, and between the alcohol and the concussion one of them manages to fling him onto a table while Uhura goes for the other one.

Unfortunately a whistle pierces the din before she can kick his ass.

Captain Pike is standing at the entrance to the club, staring in disbelief at the mess they’ve made of the place, and of Jim.  “Outside, all of you,” he orders.

Uhura seethes at the lost time; she didn’t even have the chance to make her annual pitch for him to join starfleet.  But she also doesn’t make her way out with the others, instead grabbing some napkins from a nearby table and hurrying over to Jim, who’s in that fun in-between state between conscious and unconscious he’s so very familiar with.

“I can feel you judging me from over here,” he mumbles, then lolls his head back to say something about whistling to Captain Pike.

She dunks one of the napkins in a glass of water and starts wiping at his face automatically, until Captain Pike clears his throat.

“Cadet, you know this man?”  He asks pointedly.  God, she’s going to get court-martialed for this, but she looks down at Jim before she answers.  He’s been off Starfleet’s radar since he was fourteen, and has never been keen to get back on it.

But he sort of shrugs at her, so she looks back up.  Pike is giving her a bemused eyebrow raise she’s pretty sure he got from Spock as she says, “Yes, sir.  This is Jim Kirk, my...” she doesn’t even know the word for it.  Cluster-mate?  Bonded?  There’s no true word for it in Standard, or even Vulcan.

“Boyfriend?” Captain Pike finishes dryly, but then watches as they both gag.  Uh, no.

“No, sir, Jim is one of my...bond-mates.”  She grimaces.  “I don’t know the exact term for it, but that’s close enough, sir.”

“Well, Cadet Uhura, if you don’t know the word than it the word must not exist,” Captain Pike says, and she fights the urge to flush. 

Decides to raise her chin instead.  “Thank you, sir.”  Deeming his face clean enough for now, she hauls Jim off the table and hands him the rest of the napkins.  She draws the line at stuffing things up his nose for him. 

“Why don’t we all sit down for a minute and discuss what the hell just happened here,” he suggest-orders.

—

Spock has a very interesting comm message from Captain Pike the next morning, and fights the very human urge to rub his temples in exasperation.  Uhura is supposed to be his partner in sensibility, not Jim's back-up in bar fights.

Perhaps they all bring out different sides of one another.

—

Uhura screeches at Jim when he shows up at the shipyard the next morning.

“Are you kidding me?  All I had to do, all this time, was dare you to join Starfleet?  Are you six fucking years old?!?”

Jim grins at her, and is incredibly lucky they’re lifting off so she can’t get up and strangle him.

—

Of course Jim joined for Them.  But it’s funnier to let Uhura think Pike could just dare him into it.

[marvelsdarling]

Daisies and Sunflowers - Loki flower shop au

Pairing: Loki x (female) reader

Summary: One of the costumers who frequents your flower shop continues to try and set you up with her son, and you continue to explain that you’re not looking for a relationship - that is, until you meet him…

Warnings: FLUFF

Word count: 2.5k

-

It was a late Sunday afternoon, the sun was pouring in through the front window of your shop. Decorative coloured bottles you had hung from the ceiling sent a kaleidoscope of colour across the front room. You sold flowers- Roses, Lavender, Wildflowers, and everything in between. You had a few regular customers but mainly did private events or drop-ins. Husbands picking up flowers on anniversaries or young boys looking for bouquets or corsages for a date. Groups of girls would walk in from time to time and buy each other small or singular flowers, but you never really got close to many customers. You also sold a few dried herbs and floral jewelry aside from the flowers but that was more of a passion project for close friends or family.

You checked the clock that hung on the far left wall; five minutes to four. Frigga would be coming in soon. Every Sunday she would come in and pick up a bouquet of flowers along with some dried herbs. Every Sunday she would come in, and the two of you would strike up a conversation. She was really nice- one of the nicest people who frequented the shop, which made you look forward to Sunday afternoons. That is, until just before she leaves, when she mentions that her son is about your age and that the two of you should meet. You weren’t looking for a relationship, not that you would turn one down if the offer arose, but you just weren’t actively looking for some prince charming to sweep you off your feet.

At around ten past four Frigga walked in. Her sundress was a bright shade of yellow and her cheerful but familiar smirk was unmistakable.

“Hello (y/n), anything new today?” she asked, looking around past the hanging plants that surrounded the doorway. She looked beautiful as ever, joyful and bright, almost no makeup at all either - you don’t know how she was so naturally beautiful.

“Tulips are in season, and I dried some sage if you want some,” you offered. She smiled and nodded her head slightly.

“That would be grand my dear.”

You rushed to the back and gathered her order, before ringing her up and once again striking up a conversation. Weather, friends, her family, anything that could have been discussed, was. Before you could walk her out to the door- as usual, she mentioned her son.

“You know my dear, one day I should bring my son to meet you, I think the two of you would really hit it off,” she said casually.

“I’m not really interested miss Frigga but if you want to you could bring him over,” you replied politely, opening the door.

“You have a kind soul darling, those are very hard to come by. Any man would be lucky to have an opportunity to meet you,” she said, gathering her flowers in her right arm.

“No thank you miss Frigga,” you said firmly. If the opportunity arose then maybe, but now… it was just easier to leave life how it is.

“Have a nice day,” you called out the door, and then same as always, she disappeared down the sidewalk.

-

It was raining. No- raining is an understatement. It was pouring. Raindrops felt like small rocks shooting from the sky, and the wind blew them sideways against the front windows. If raining cats and dogs was a natural occurrence, a whole barn would be flying around at this point. When you showed up at work it was just windy, however at this point leaving your establishment safely was not an option.

You looked at the clock on the wall; half-past four. On a Sunday. You guessed that Frigga was not going to make it today. Maybe you would spend the next few hours reading a book or trying to figure out how to make coffee in your new machine.

You walked to the back of the store where the rain wasn’t hitting against the window and opened one slightly. The air smelled like hose water and fresh flowers, but the grass was green and the flowers were sprouting so what did the rain matter anyway in the end? Deciding to leave the window open, you picked up your old Uni sweatshirt and long knit socks from the back closet before picking up your book.

A romance novel, of a handsome young prince and a noblewoman. A forbidden love to the highest extent, especially in the medieval times of which it takes place. You were pulled into the pages of the young prince's love for this woman, who captivated him with her intelligence and independence. An outlandish idea really, a man falling in love with a girl's brains rather than her beauty. It seemed that men from this planet really don’t care much for independence or intelligence.

Your concentration was only broken when the bell above the door jingled, and slow steps trailed into the shop. You slammed down your book and ran over to the counter. By this point in your reading session, your hair was up in a messy bun of sorts, your shoes were gone and the sweatshirt that you were wearing covered your decent looking shirt.

The man in front of you had never been in the shop before, but his blue eyes scanned over everything around him. He was well dressed in a full black suit, and his raven black hair was down neatly. Looking at him made you realize that your whole get-up was even more embarrassing than before.

“He-Hello, did you find your way here alright?” you asked hesitantly.

He turned quite suddenly, but his poise was phenomenal. There was something about him, maybe you’d seen him somewhere, like a store, but you know him somehow.

He hesitated with his words at first and looked at you questioningly.

“Yes hello, my mother has sent me to pick up some flowers. She has fallen ill but insisted someone come and check on you,” he said politely, eyeing you up and down.

Hahaha hello very attractive man, I know I look like a sack of potatoes today but please don’t judge me… You thought to yourself, trying to tuck stray pieces of hair behind your ear.

“Yes, of course, could I get a name please?” you said, rushing over to your computer and pulling up a client file.

“I believe it would be under Frigga,” he said politely.

Your stomach flipped down into your body. If only a black hole could open up in the floor and swallow this whole encounter away.

“Uh - yes, yes right away,” you laughed.

No need for a client file though. You just walked into the back and pulled out a bouquet of daisies and sunflowers. Those were the freshest flowers that were at the shop today and it would probably be best if you send those to her as a vessel to possibly save this conversation.

You rang him up as per-usual and thanked him for coming in on a day like today, but a nagging feeling in the back of your head turned your attention back to him just as he started to leave.

“A-are you sure you want to go out in that storm?” you asked quickly.

He turned back to you with a small, but familiar smirk on his face. Your face flushed various shades of pink as your fumbled with your words. A knot was beginning to form in the pit of your stomach.

“I-if you want you can stay until the storm passes, I just, um, made coffee…” you finished.

His smirk turned into a small smile and he nodded his head a few times before replying.

“Coffee would be lovely thank you.”  

-

When the two of you settled in the back of the shop you got a chance to look at all the details about Frigga’s son. He was lean but still muscular from what you could see. Very tall. His hands were quite large and slightly calloused but not too rough compared to some men you knew. His eyes were blue as the sea on a cold day and his hair contrasted them as a dark, gloomy colour.

He sat for a while observing your posture and poise while sipping occasionally on his coffee. The pit in your stomach began to deepen with doubt. Why today of all days was a very attractive possibly single man coming into your store?

“You must be (y/n),” he said, cutting off your train of thought. Clearly, the shocked expression on your face said enough. “My mother has told me about you,” he explained.

Chuckling, you gathered a bit of confidence. “Am I all that I have been cracked up to be?”

He smiled and looked down at his hands. “I must say she did not do justice to your beauty. I have yet to see the ferocity she has become fond of though. Though I do look forward to that my dear.”

Did he really just call you beautiful? This god of a man called you beautiful? This day was turning out to be more than just a quiet rainy day after all.

“You know my name, and a bit of my apparent personality, but I do not know yours? Hardly seems fair at all!” you shot back.

His laugh was warm to you, and his smile was similar to that of his mother. “I suppose you are right. I am Loki.”

An odd name. Maybe something Scandinavian or Dutch? Nothing you had heard before.

“Loki,” you repeated back to him. You liked the way it sounded, kind of rolled off your tongue naturally.

He nodded his head and sipped at his coffee. You could tell he was thinking about something, his eyebrows slightly furrowed. You liked him- not in a weird way of course. He was charming and kind from what you could tell. Maybe Frigga was right after all.

“May I ask what you do Loki?” you said, placing your mug onto the table with a gentle thud.

He hesitated for a moment, opening his mouth slightly, and then closing it again. Your brain imidietlely went to a far off land of romance and dirty thoughts before being thrown back to reality by the sound of his voice. “Some would say I am a member of a government, but I am more of a consultant than a politician at this point in time.” He quirked his brow at you apologetically. “Does that make sense?”

“Kinda - I’ll figure it out later,” you said quickly.

-

Both your and Loki’s laughter filled the back room of your shop. The rain was still pouring heavily and by now your coffee was long gone. You were bent over from laughing, and Loki had his hand on the small of your back, laughing hysterically himself. Your stomach ached, and you couldn’t control your so-called “ugly laugh” (according to your best friend). Your breathing was ragged and you had to hold onto Loki’s arm just to keep upright.

“I cannot believe you did that to your brother!” you said, between small giggles and heavy breathing. Loki’s smile beamed across his face, and his eyes were bright with joy. His eyes lit up when he talked about his brother. You could tell he idolized him but also enjoyed playing small harmless tricks on him, like pretending to be a snake and scaring him, whatever that means.

“Okay, Loki… what should we do now?” you asked. You stood up off your chair and ran your hands over the folds that formed in your sweatshirt. “We could watch a movie if you want?”

Loki’s eyebrows furrowed a little bit and he once again hesitated before speaking. “I haven’t seen many of those.”

Once again an odd response, not that you minded spending more time with him. Walking over to the small worn down couch in the corner you grabbed a blanket off the back cushions and sat down on the far side. “Come, sit,” you instructed. Loki sat down next to you gracefully, but even then the cushions collapsed inwards with the springs the two of you were squished together.  

You looked for a movie for quite some time before deciding on Lady and the Tramp, a movie that Loki had not seen before. You had gotten to the scene where the baby shower was being thrown when you noticed Loki’s hand tracing patterns on your arm. His fingers glided across your skin, leaving patterns of obscure figures up and down your skin. Soon after you tested the waters by leaning your head on his shoulder, which quickly turned to him putting his arm around your waist.

Gradually the two of you lay further and further down onto the couch until you were both facing the laptop from your sides. Loki was laying behind you, propped up on his arm, running his fingers through your hair and down your collarbones and arms. You were tucked under the blanket, huddled close to him for heat. You could almost sense his smirk that was oh so similar to his mothers even if you couldn’t see it. By the time the last credits had rolled, you finally realized that the rain had begun to die down, and you could barely hear it through your still slightly open window.

“Unfortunately love I must be going soon,” he said, tucking hair that had fallen near your face behind your ear. You groaned at the idea of him leaving. Next time Frigga gives you romance advice you will be sure to take it. Loki was the most amazing man you had ever met. He was smart and witty and kind, much like his mother, his looks added an extra bonus as well. Begrudgingly, you stood up off the couch and offered your hand to him. “I’ll walk you out then.”

You padded through from behind the counter to the front door of the shop, with Loki following closely behind. Turning to face him, you opened the door and listened to the familiar sound of the bell ringing above.

Hesitantly, Loki stepped towards you and slowly tilted your head up with his hand. “May I kiss you?” he asked quietly. Without even answering the question you brought your face upwards to his in a searing but gentle kiss. His lips were soft but he held you close and his tongue was dominant in your mouth. He held you against him, one hand against your jawline and the other on the small of your back. When he finally did let you go you were completely out of breath.

“I’d like to see you again miss (y/n),” he said, resting his forehead against yours.

Smirking, you put a hand on his chest and gently pushed him out the door. “You know where to find me.”

Taglist: @drakesfiance

Hey my darlings! I know that this look forever to get out but I am back now and I hope you enjoyed this piece! I had been working on it for a few months but writer's block is nasty so yeah. It's not perfect but it is something. 

[nefarioussdotcom-blog]

Kai-yacking!

Author:  Roojin Hooblal

“And so we beat on, boats against the current.”

This is one of the most iconic quotes in English literature. I realized very early on that nearly all the classic books I was drawn to had something to do with water. Moby Dick, The Heart of Darkness and of course, The Old Man and The Sea by Ernest Hemingway.

My first water-induced adrenaline rush was when I first did my first whitewater kayaking down the Batoka gorge in Zambia. When anyone mentions the Victoria Fall, locally known as the Mosi Oa Tunya (‘The smoke that thunders’), my mind immediately remembers my first time on the water. Sure, if anyone has taken on the Zambezi rapids they will tell you that you may be some kind of crazy to start off on such a beast of a river, they will also tell you about the Stairway to Heaven, the Three Ugly Sister, The Devil’s Toilet Bowl, Gulliver’s Travels, and of course the granddaddy of all 24 rapids; rapid number 9, Commercial Suicide!

It started innocently like all great ideas do, among a group of mates, screaming fables over shots of Snake Baijiu in the middle of China. BAD IDEA!! Two months later, there we were, standing at the start point, the gravity of the situation quickly dawning on us as we watched the river crash violently against the rapid number one aptly called Against the Wall. During the expedition I made two vows. The first which I’m certain was going through the mind of a marooned crocodile we came across was that if I made it to the end of the gorge, I would never touch even a cup of water ever again. When We got to the end I made a second vow; that I would have to come back and do it again! Boom!!!! I was hooked. The water had claimed me.

Getting into kayaking could be the most rewarding activity or sport you can get to. Many people may think the kayak is a new way for kids high off energy drinks to do stuff for their YouTube channels. The kayak actually goes back hundreds of years. Man and his affair with the water has a long and fascinating history. The kayak was first used by the indigenous Aleut, Inuit, Yupik and Ainu hunters in the subarctic regions of the world to hunt on inland rivers and lakes. In fact, the word kayak originated from the word qajaq meaning ‘hunter’s boat’. Early qajaqs were made from the stitched hides of animals stretched over a wooden frame and ranged up to approximately 9 meters.

Due to its use in hunting, the kayak was built for optimal maneuverability. The paddler was intended to be able to change direction easily and in the event of an accident, the paddler would be able to rescue a fellow paddler. The kayak’s design focuses on directional stability or tracking Vs maneuverability. The paddler’s body also plays an integral roll in how the kayak will perform and respond. For example, if the paddler is too heavy, the kayak may sin due to excess weight. If the paddler is too light, the paddler may not be able to get the most control of the kayak’s mobility. Ensuring that a kayak is the right size and fit is one of the more crucial steps to an enjoyable experience that can lead to a life-long hobby.

Benefits of KayakingThough there are various styles of kayaking, one thing is for sure; Kayaking is a healthy way of living. What is it about kayaking that becomes an addiction to anyone who decides to pick up the paddle?It is SocialIn water sports, like kayaking, I have had the chance to meet so many interesting people from all walks of life and from all over the world. Each with their own stories of how they got into the sport, the challenges they face and how they overcome them. Personally, through kayaking, I have learned to challenge myself and overcome fear and indecision better. It is always stimulating to hear stories from other paddlers after a long expedition around a campfire looking up at the starry sky.FitnessNothing will get your muscles jumping into action faster than behind a paddle. Kayaking is sure to demand you develop a level of fitness. It is also sure to give you a proper aerobic exercise. But best of all, it gives you concentration. You start to pay attention to things like rhythm and cadence. You start to adjust and understand your body better. You learn how to economize your energy output. You start to learn how the paddle is an extension of you. It definitely will keep you healthy.A Chance at NatureVery few activities will bring you this close to nature. You become mentally aware of currents and undercurrents. You feel winds and even the slightest breeze makes you make tiny adjustments. This is very meditative and calming. And if you love recreational kayaking or for fishing, very few modes of transport will take you closer to schools of fish without agitating them the way a kayak would. Depending on your location, you could even get very close to seals or dolphins that you can touch them. They may curiously swim to you in ways they may not if you were on a motor powered vessel. These encounters can be very rewarding.Whitewater KayaksThese kayaks are roto-molded in a semi-rigid, high impact plastic, usually polyethylene. This type of kayak is ideal for fast-moving water. The plastic hull allows the whitewater kayak to take contact from rocks without breaking or leaking. They range from 1.2 to 3.0m long. Whitewater racing combines a fast, unstable lower hull with a flared upper hull to combine flat water racing speed with added stability in open water. These require the paddler to have substantial skill to achieve stability, due to their extremely narrow hulls. Like all racing kayaks, white-water racing kayaks are made to regulation lengths.

Play boat

Whitewater Kayak

This type of whitewater kayak is short, with a scooped bow and a rounded stern. This ensures high maneuverability over speed and stability because they are already in faster-moving waters. These are pretty much the closest thing to a BMX kayak. They are built for performing tricks. They are the primary kayak used in playboating or freestyle competitions which are also known as rodeo boating. You are more likely to see paddles doing airborne tricks with one of these. Pretty Dope, eh?

Creekboat Whitewater Kayak

These are significantly longer than and more voluminous than play boats, making them more stable, faster and higher floating. They are primarily used for speed on narrow, low volume waterways and rivers because of their stability and speed, which enables them to hit rapids at higher speeds.Sea and Touring KayaksIn 1932, a German man called Oskar Speck, disenfranchised by the economy, hopped into his kayak and only paddled for seven-and-a-half years and over 30,000 miles to Australia. Only to Australia. Unfortunately, after weathering monsoons, mosquito bites, limited fresh water, and crocodile infested water, upon reaching Australia, he was immediately arrested as a war criminal. Oskar eventually was released and wedded an Australian gal. His mode of transport was a Sea kayak. Embarking on such an epic journey definitely requires fortitude and a lot more planning and substance. Of course this challenge was successfully  taken on recently by Sandy Robson and she had to use a kayak built to handle such an expedition.

Sea and Touring KayaksSea kayaks, also known as Touring kayaks are built for journeys of hours to weeks long expedition. Their volume above the waterline gives them increased security in rougher conditions and even more room for gear.  Yet, the sea kayak offers a low profile to the wind, with a forward-raked design and unique mini-transom, sure to appeal to the sophisticated paddler. Sea kayaks in most cases trade maneuverability for seaworthiness, stability and cargo capacity. They typically have a longer waterline, and provisions for below-deck storage. They can accommodate one to sometimes three paddlers.Sit-on-topsThese are sealed-hull crafts, developed for leisure use and are mainly constructed using polyethylene to ensure strength and affordability. These have scupper holes which are tubes that run from the cockpit to the bottom of the hull so that water that enters the cockpit can be drained out. Sit-on-top kayaks range from one to four paddlers. They are popular for fishing and scuba diving. A disadvantage with this kayak is that its hull may develop perforations that may fill with water over time without the paddler knowing.

A sit-on-top tandem kayakFishing has become a fast growing activity in kayaking. Where a Sit-on-top kayak is not the go-to kayak for paddling for paddling and maneuverability’s sake, it outperforms other kayaks as the best platform for angling/fishing. Its ability to sit shallow allows it to approach schools of fish without scaring them off the way a motor-powered boat wouldn’t. Its very stable and can allow paddlers to spend hours out on the water easy!Inflatable KayaksInflatable kayaks don’t have to mean boring! Au contraire!!! Inflatables have an advantage when it comes to portability. The paddler is able to carry them to their favourite scenic spots with the help of  a large enough bag.

Choosing Your KayakBefore you decide on getting a kayak, it is important for you to identify the one that suits the activity you want to be doing, because kayak performance is determined by a varying number of factors. It is important to be practical about how often you think you may need to actually go out kayaking. Is it a hobby you are committing to? Is it an activity you plan to do a few times only? It may be more practical for you to rent rather than hastily purchase one if so. This will allow you to test a wide range of kayaks to find which one appeals to you the most before splurging. However if you are committed to a journey into the world of kayaking, you had better select one that matches the kind of activity you will spend your time doing.Another important feature for the ideal kayak is comfort. You will most likely be spending hours on end in the kayak and the last thing you want is to have your legs go dead on you. You have to ensure it is the right size for your body and that all adjustments are correctly done according to your particular needs. Most importantly, always be safe and have fun!Top Kayaking DestinationsIn an article for Red-Bull, ten-time world champion Claire O’Hara listed some of these kayaking heavens. I have kayaked on only two of these listed, and based on my own experience I am inclined to trust her judgement and also consider this as my Wish list kayak destinations:

1.  Slovenia

2.  Ottawa River, Canada

3.  Zambezi River, Zambia

4.  Lake Rotoiti Rotorua, New Zealand

5.  Norway

6.  White Nile, Uganda

7.  The Grand Canyon, USA

[post-office-inbox]

Undertale & delta rune Sequel/Prequel/Post-Genocide/AU Theory

There seems to be a disagreement about what delta rune is in regards to Undertale. According to Toby’s Q&A that this is an alternate universe where choice does not matter. He also stated that Undertale and its characters had a happy ending and that nothing we do here can affect them.  But there is still some discourse in weather the game is a sequel/prequel/post-genocide/au/some unholy combination of that. Strap in, I think it’s the last one.

To clarify, there will be four characters I will be mainly focusing on that the games seem to revolve around. I’ll be clarifying each one and how that character makes each of the “quells” possible.

Sequel: OK, this is the one that goes right into Meta territory. I think it is safe to say that in Undertale you were part of the story. Not Frisk, not Chara, you: the player. You are controlling the vessel in the game. This is backed up by how if you boot up Undertale Flowey calls YOU by the name you entered. Delta rune confirmed this by asking for YOUR name. You the player, and when you save low and behold, that is the name that gets put on the save file. Not Kris, your name.

So, we are controlling Kris for this adventure. That is why he ‘knows’ things that he couldn’t possibly know about characters that we know from Undertale. Like Alphs and Undine being together or knowing San’s even though both characters don’t know what we are talking about. Interesting enough Kris has information that we the player don’t have. When you go to inspect the card for the reindeer and he asks you why it looks like we (the player) have never seen it before. Also cute reindeer from class seems to be weirded out by the way Kris has been acting, so we the player are controlling Kris’s actions, not Kris himself/herself. Also, both in Undertale and in this game, right after cut scenes Frisk/Chara/Kris will turn to face the camera, right at you. This being an RPG maker game where you have control over what happens to the character sprites, Toby did this deliberately.

And of course where Chara directly interacts with you at the end of a Genocide run. AND Kris looking at you with a knife in his hands, throwing out his soul, the culmination of his being, the thing that we controlled him; is now locked away. And we can’t do a damn thing about it. My point is that for us (the player) this IS a sequel. The game that comes next. “Undertale 2”. The next point of reference that we can see and can control. Or rather NOT control as the narrative says: our choices don’t matter. That brings us too:

Prequel: Flowy tells us over and over again that “In this world it’s kill or be killed!” If we substitute the word ‘world’ with ‘game’ we (the player) can infure that in this game our choices matter. That depending on how we act we could kill or save anyone or everyone depending on our choice. Deltarune tells us up front that “in this world, your choice does not matter” that is telling us that in this game, evens will play out no matter what we do. One of the most frustrating parts about a prequel is that it is just telling you stuff that happened before the main event.

For example: in a story about Alfred, batman’s butler (I cannot frikking believe they are making that a movie) it does not matter what he does or who he met along the way, by the end of the film, he will become the character we know. We end up with a bit of predestination. Who will be our Pennyworth in this situation?

Sans. And possibly Papyrus.

In Undertale it is established that the two skeleton brothers just showed up one day. No other explanation was given and it was just sort of hand waved away. Later we got all the connections to Gaster and that lead to some speculation about this vague origin. Now, here comes delta rune. We see Sans outside of what is clearly a building representing Grilbies. And if you listen carefully HE SOUNDS DIFFERENT! His little ‘he he he’s are speed up from what we heard in Undertale. I think the Sans we hear here is younger, more fast talking. A bit more inexperienced, not seeming to know as much as he did in the old game.

There is this lovely theory going around that Sans is actually a Darkner. That does answer an obvious question I didn’t think about until then. Where is Sans moving from??  Answer: The Dark Word you just spent so much time getting out of, duh. (Papyrus not so much but?)

So we have his origin and possible timeline:

Born in the dark world ->

came to Hometown (possibly through the same door you and Susie got through...) ->

Something terrible involving Gaster AND Kris gets him sent to the underground in an alternate timeline/world ->

Undertale happens.

That’s how he knows that ‘kids like you, should be burning in hell’. He has already seen one world be shattered by one kid in a striped shirt go crazy and kill everyone. And that leads us to:

Alternate Universe: The tale of two Asriel’s. Or three possibly. Everyone is trying to figure out where the heck the beginning bits and the end bits ‘fit’ into the timeline. They kind of skip over the part where you are in a completely different game for the entire time, you know hello? Ralsei is one of the three party members for most of the game and is reveled to be a sort of espy for Asriel. Susie (and possibly Kris) seemed to understand this due the vast amount of “??????????????????????????????” she gives after he takes off his hat. We know that Kris has a brother named Asriel matching up with the one from Undertale (honestly I thought for sure that meant the ending of Hunger tale was cannon). With the bizarre way everyone in Hometown has a counterpart in Undertale why would there need to be a second Asriel?

Let me introduce what I think Toby is going to do here: enter the multiverse. Now it could be that delta rune and Undertale are alternate timelines instead of straight up different universe. For now though I will be treating them as different universes. We have three ‘worlds’ that we know of: Undertale, the light world, and the dark world. If I had to guess the dark world is somehow a reflection of the light world so they also have characters that are similar to Undertale counterparts, see The Legend of Zelda: A Link between Worlds. The Light and Dark worlds also mirror of how the humans and monsters were on against one another.  We should be on the look out for characters in the dark world that matches with the ones in the og game.

I had a thought that maybe Sans is the Dark world counterpart of Papyrus so that instead of treating themselves as they same person they decided to be brothers instead.

I do wonder who the ‘Knight’ is that Lancers dad was talking about though.

Most of the rest of my thoughts are me just trying to project without much evidence. Until we know how Gaster and his followers fit into all of this I don’t think we can get much more out of it. Buy this being bizaro world the last one is:

Post-Genocide: Chara you poor creepy child. As everyone knows, in a genocide run, you kill everyone. Chara eventually takes over and kills you the player. Even though Flowey thinks you are the sibling from his childhood. You are not. You are the player controlling the character. The evil came from you. The vessel might become Frisk once you decide NOT to kill anybody but then Chara comes back and kills everyone anyway.

Now, we are in an alternate universe. Where our choices (the players not Kris’s) do. Not. Matter. And there is no Frisk, only a child who is this universes version of Chara. He did not die like in Undertale so now we live in a universe where that less than happy kid grows up into a less then talkative teenager. Where is Frisk then? Did Frisk’s own reasons for climbing the mountain (as hinted at by Asreil at the end of the game) never come to pass? Did just straight up die? We don’t know.

And having us act like a kid that may not exist in this universe really doesn’t sit well with Kris and he throws his will (US!) is in the cage. We told him about stuff. We knew about the other Universe and how things were different. And how little Kris was actually a guy called Frisk and he was a happy person that made friends and talked to people and didn’t kill anyone. If you didn’t do the Genocide ending anyway. Then you were…Chara.

Yeah, that’s the ending of delta rune ch1 guys. We see Kris throw us into a cage and since we were controlling him, he knows about the genocide ending. Since we told him how, he knows exactly what to do. A normal (if creepy) kid got possessed by some beings from some weird dimensions and knows exactly what to do with them. Pulls out a knife from nowhere and smiles (the kids smile, not one we made ) and his eyes glow red like in a photo he has seen through our eyes. The ones he is looking into as the view goes black. He has seen the ending and he has seen us and he knows he can kill us. All he has to do now is to kill everyone else. And he’ll do it too, because we can’t do anything to help BECAUSE OUR CHOICE DOES NOT MATTER!

TLDR: All four theories are true. If we look at them from four different characters.

The player – It’s a sequel because it is what you play after the 1st game.

Sans – Prequel because this is the world/timeline he comes from: see quicker voice

Asriel/Ralsei * – Are both au Asriel because of light/dark world and might have further indications that we should look out for  * and a bunch of other people

Kris – Post Genocide because we controlled him and now he knows that’s an option.