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paytato435 · 8 months

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Chapter 14 - Off Beat

Mama Knows Best

“Why did you do that?” Sunshine growled after Casey had left the office. Completely dejected, shaken, and broken, Sunshine wasn't even sure he'd noticed she was there.

She should have said something, but she'd never seen Big Mama so scary before. She was strange for sure, and she knew the woman was keeping things from her, but this was too much.

He had been trying to help his brothers, and she destroyed his cloaking brooch for that?

It was wrong.

She also wondered why he had been disguised in the first place, but it was clear that what Mama did was just another way to torment him.

Mama drummed her fingers on her desk thoughtfully. “You don't really know someone until you hurt them,” she sighed. She turned to look at Sunshine. “It's my job to make sure everyone here knows their place, too. Love is ugly and hard.”

“You love him?” Sunshine asked, confused and concerned.

Mama rolled her eyes. “I'm saying this for you, foozle. I see how you get on.”

Sunshine felt her cheeks warm. “What?! That's not…” she didn't know what to say, honestly, but it didn't matter because Mama interupted her with her laughter.

“So sweet! I love it,” the woman sighed, resting her head in her hands. “I wish I could feel so young and reckless again.”

“Please stop being so mean to him,” Sunshine pressed again. “He was trying to help his family-”

“At the expense of this one!” Mama snapped. “We deserve better than that. You deserve better than that,” she emphasized. “Loyalty is everything. I can't afford to have anyone's attention divided.”

Sunshine wasn't sure what to say to that, so she nodded nervously.

Mama gave the musk a thoughtful look. “He's a little misguided, if you hadn't noticed. Thinking he can play around with humans.”

“What do you mean?” Sunshine asked, confused.

“They're dangerous!” Mama explained. “They've hunted yokai for thousands of years! There is a reason we stay hidden from them. Do you not remember?”

Sunshine shook her head.

“They're dangerous, murderous creatures. His brothers and their… father too. They want to become friends with humans. It's a foolish sympathy. They're ungrateful creatures, all of them!”

“Then why keep Casey around? He's not happy here anyway.”

Mama winked. “He's not like the others. I know you probably don't remember, but I have to ask, do you remember the Krang attack a few weeks ago?”

Sunshine shook her head. Mama smiled wickedly.

“That boy's from a future where everything died because of what his brothers did, and they were hunted mercilessly by the Krang. Another species of hateful, murderous people. They're not so different from humans.”

“His family was killed by them?”

Mama nodded. “Obliterated. I saw it the first moment I laid eyes on him. He's a survivor. But his family is holding him back.”

“How?”

“It's confusing,” Mana admitted, tilting her head to one side and back. “And what I'd like to ask him about when he's better. For now though, he needs discipline.”

“I think he needs more than that,” Sunshine noticed. “He needs…”

“A friend?” Mama winked. “Family? Something more?”

“Stop it!” Sunshine flustered. “I meant he needs to be left alone!”

The yokai cackled again. “You're probably right, foozle. But what about you? What do you need?”

Sunshine bit her lip. It seemed Mama wanted her to say something, but she was unsure what.

“You can't carry the sword Synth gave you,” Mana reminded her.

“Oh! Yeah, that…”

“It's not a problem, musky moodle. It's been on my mind for a while, and I've come to the same conclusion: it doesn't suit you.”

Sunshine shook her head.

“You've been watching those Lou Jitsu movies I sent to your room right? And the training videos?”

Sunshine nodded.

“Good girl! I have one in mind I want you to watch this evening. The Rhythm of 10 Strings. Can you do that?”

“Yes Mama,” Sunshine answered with a small smile. She loved watching Lou Jitsu movies.

“I think it’s one rather underappreciated, but it’s what got me to fall in love with that man in the first place.”

“With Lou Jitsu?” Sunshine asked.

Big Mama nodded wistfully. “Don't be deceived, moodle; this life is not like the movies.”

Off Beat

The first thing Casey thought when he woke up was how much everything fucking sucked.

The room, despite being more dark and intimidating than any bedroom ever should be, was losing the battle against the bright shining lights from the arena outside.

And that shit kept Casey rolled over and hidden under his covers for far longer than he should have. You know when you sleep in for too long and then you just feel sluggish for what feels like the rest of the day? Yeah, that was him.

But let's not forget the excruciating pain from his concussion, right? That light had sent daggers right through his eyes when he first woke up, and now, even though he was turned away, he could hear the splintering cry of steel on steel in the arena below him, nevermind the deafening cheers of Mama's numerous patrons. It was like they were all screaming at him to get up, only to wail even louder if he dared move. When he moved the world sloshed around him like water in a fish bowl. Closing his eyes wasn't much better, it was as if he were constantly spinning.

But the worst part was he had no idea what the fuck he was doing here. Sure he figured this was a hotel room in the Nexus, but he had no idea how he got here. What day was it? What time was it? Had he fallen asleep after that girl had bandaged him up?

He knew he had to get up at some point. He kinda hoped that one girl would find him so he wouldn’t have to do it himself. Another part of him didn't want her to see him so fucked up. Why was he in so much pain by the way? What was her name?

He curled himself up as tightly as possible, and let his mind wander. He wished he was home. Hell, he wished he was at school. In his mind’s eye, he could see Angel scowling at him and calling him out for showing up late to practice. He’d certainly rather be yelled at by her than his fucking head. Or maybe things could just be quiet?

Somebody would get him eventually, surely.

…

….

Finally, eventually came.

And it wasn't who he thought it would be.

He didn't even knock when he entered. Just the sound of the door squeaking open made Casey want to pass out. Well, he wanted that anyway; he'd been lying on his side for ages hoping he'd fall asleep.

The yokai grumbled something but Casey didn't know what it was. It didn't make any sense. The voice and demeanor was familiar, but guess what? Casey wasn't going to try and figure that out. He just wanted everything to stop.

“Hey!” the yokai snarled to get his attention. The voice boomed through Casey's head like a gunshot.

Casey screamed into the sheets. The sound fucking hurt. It fucking hurt it fucking hurt why why please stop stop fuck fuck fuck-

And then there was pressure against his head. It was completely involuntary but he screamed again, and then he was screaming because he was screaming. The hand didn't let go- it stayed there, despite his thrashing.

Let me go let me go let me go “LET ME FUCKING GO.”

He was sitting upright, and for a dazzling moment, the room was heaven bright- and then softened. He had pushed himself up, his weight anchored by his hands clenched tightly around loose sheets. Had he pulled them off?

He looked around the room and found the source of his torment; Leatherhead was standing a foot away from the edge of the bed, his arms crossed and his snout looking down at Casey with measured frustration.

“What the hell was that?” Casey sputtered.

“You're fixed. Go downstairs.”

“I'm what?”

“Your concussion is gone.”

“I have a concussion?” he sputtered dumbly.

The alligator made an irritated grumble.

“Stinkpot's waiting for you.”

“Oh, shit.”

“If I have to hear her complain about you anymore I'm killing you both,” the alligator sneered before moving toward the door.

“Gee, thanks.”

The yokai answered by slamming the door so hard it shattered and he took the door handle with him.

Yikes.

But at least the sound of the slamming didn't hurt as bad. What the actual fuck, how was he suddenly just… ok again?

His brain was still a broken record; what the fuck was going on?!?!?

Figuring the only way to find out was to actually meet up with that girl that he couldn't believe he'd forgotten was Sunshine, he pushed himself up and onto his feet.

The world still kinda swayed when he stood upright; probably because he had overslept, but also because he had once again forgotten he was a turtle. He needed to stop doing that. He was sick of the back and forth.

His chest clenched as he remembered his cloaking brooch. Big Mama had destroyed it. Shit, how had that happened?

He stumbled to the door but paused when he realized he probably looked like shit. Glancing down, he wondered how long he'd been in his… wait, he was wearing his patrol gear. His knee pads were slid down to his ankles, his shorts were wrinkled and so was his jersey. He looked back at the bed and saw he'd torn off his hoodie sometime while he was out. His hair was a fucking mess.

What was he doing before?

Fuck it, he needed a shower. Surely Sunshine could wait a few minutes more.

That turned out to be the best decision ever. God, just when he thought he was getting used to nice things like hot water, they turned around and made him cry again. Ok, just a little bit. He wasn't actually sure he was crying because he was already wet but you get the idea.

Fuck he was a mess.

When he pulled back the shower curtain, a flash of movement caught his eye from the wall across from him. Partial, incomplete.

Half of his face looked back through a shattered window. When had that broken?

Shards of broken glass glittered along the wall and in the sink. Looking down, he noticed it was a marvel he hadn't sliced his feet on any of the pieces scattered on the floor.

He must have been in a really bad mood to have done that. At least he knew why. He pulled the rest of the glass off at his eye level and threw it in the trash; the problem was fixed.

Onto the next.

The bad news was that Big Mama didn't seem to care for his preferred style of dress, as the wardrobe by his bed was full of jeans. How was he supposed to move in those, huh?

Whatever, it was better than putting on dirty clothes. He threw on a sleeveless hoodie too and called it good enough.

Casey pulled away what was left of his door and stepped out into the hallway. To his surprise, Sunshine was already outside waiting for him, leaning against a door opposite him. It was the door to her room; they shared the same floor.

“Hey!” she smiled warmly.

“Hi. How… how long have you been there?”

She pursed her lips in thought. “Not sure. Twenty minutes? Since Leatherhead came up.” her eyes darted away. “I'm sorry; I asked for his help. That uh, sounded pretty bad in there.”

She had called him?

“Why?”

Her eyes snapped back to meet his. “Because when I tried to get you up you couldn't stop screaming.”

What?

“I didn't do that-”

“You almost attacked me. So I let you sleep a while longer.”

He didn't remember any of that.

“What… what time is it?” He asked, running his hands through his hair, embarrassed.

“It's almost 2pm.”

Casey bit his tongue. “What day?” he mumbled.

“Tuesday.”

Tuesday?!

“You've been in and out of it since Saturday night,” she explained. “Do you… not remember?”

He shook his head.

Casey felt his cheeks burn as she looked him over, as if she could decipher everything wrong with him with her eyes alone.

“Well, let's get breakfast first, I guess,” she decided instead, shrugging. “We can talk about it then.”

He nodded lamely. ‘I'm sorry.’

“Don't worry about it,” she smiled again, before turning and waving at him to follow. “It's been a lot, take your time.”

—

Sunshine seemed to be doing her best to keep herself from skipping down the hall as she chirped about her favorite places to eat in the Nexus. If you could believe it, Big Mama had four different restaurants, and, depending on how well her little playthings behaved, they could wander around and eat wherever. In the elevator, she decided they were going to the diner with an all day breakfast. When they stepped into the dining area, the first thing Casey noticed was the polished white floor that perfectly reflected his face back at him. Sunshine dragged him to a table, and he slowly took in the rest of the bright environment. Everything worth noticing was retro-pink or so glossy or chrome it made Casey want to poke his eyes out. Thankfully, Sunshine passed him a menu to pretend to care about instead.

Casey had a sneaking suspicion that Sunshine was having breakfast for the second time today not for his sake, but for hers. He really didn't care what he ate, but Sunshine jumped at the opportunity to order waffles again, this time with four different flavors of syrup to pour over top.

“Do you eat anything else?” Casey asked her curiously as she spread whipped topping between every little square she could manage.

Sunshine squinted her eyes at him as if it were a challenge. “No,” she answered with a straight face before stuffing an oversized bit into her mouth. She immediately choked, and Casey wondered why she even bothered to lie to him in the first place. When she recovered, she mumbled “got a problem?”

“I guess not,” he shrugged as he looked down at his own plate. He had the plainest looking cheese omelet and hash browns. Sugar was the last thing he wanted right now. “Sorry.”

She didn’t say anything, and when he glanced up, she didn’t seem to have given his question or apology any thought at all. Her head bobbed from side to side as she seemed to be humming something to herself. When she caught him watching her, she just winked and stabbed another waffle.

“How are you so… happy?” he asked, dumbfounded.

“Uh… vecause you’re here?” she asked through a mouthful of fried dough.

“What?”

Sunshine rolled her eyes. She tried to say something else but caught herself talking with her mouth full again, and cut herself off. “You’ve been completely out of it, I guess I’m just happy you’re back again.”

“What happened?” he wondered.

Sunshine tapped her plate nervously. “You got in big trouble with Mama,” she said quietly.

She set her fork down and told him everything that had happened since he left her Friday night. She didn’t have all the details, but some things came back as she described them.

Donnie strapped to the operating table, Aderman chasing after him and Leo, he vaguely remembered trying to get away, the feeling of dirt and grass dragging against his skin as she pulled him back to her.

On the ground. Over and over again.

“You came into Big Mama’s office with Synth afterwards,” Sunshine sighed, her cheek pinned to her palm. “I don’t think you saw me there. Mama was really upset with you.”

Casey nodded. He remembered staring at the polished desk, and how she wanted him to look at her instead. He caught movement in his periphery, and noticed Sunshine had reached her hand across the table, palm up.

“I’m fine.”

“Bullshit.” She closed and opened her fingers. It wasn’t really an ask, was it?

He took her hand, and she squeezed his.

“You can go home Casey, you don’t have to put up with all this.”

He shook his head. He vaguely remembered his last conversation with Leo. How had he managed all that? He could feel tears threatening to emerge again, and he took a deep breath.

“I’m not leaving here without you,” he said finally. And he meant it. Fuck the cloaking brooch and his drama for the moment- he couldn’t let Sunshine stay here with Big Mama. It was convenient that he could hide here, sure, but as he thought about that evening more, he imagined Sunshine on his side of that desk. What would happen to her if she stayed here? There was no way she could be happy here.

He looked back up at her, and she gave him another reassuring smile. She said something else, but he wasn’t really listening. He just nodded in agreement.

He wanted a reason to smile like that.

—

“We're meeting up with the guys after this, I hope you're ready for that,” Sunshine smiled cheekily as she finished her food. Casey had finally started to make his way through his omelet, albeit much more slowly.

“The…” Casey hoped she wasn't telling him what he thought she was.

“Bebop and Rocksteady!” she confirmed to his chagrin.

“Are you guys like, friends now or something?” he grumbled. “They'll probably put me back in the hospital. Or more likely, in some dumpster to be eaten by rats.”

“Don't you live with a rat?” Sunshine raised her brow.

“My grandad would eat me if he had to…” Casey figured. “Provided I was already dead of course.” he figured. “Rats are survivors. It's an admirable quality.” He smiled darkly.

Sunshine nodded approvingly like that wasn't a terrible thing to hear while licking her plate clean.

“Okay but really, they're actually pretty nice guys. When we're not training we go up onto the terrace and Rocksteady wrestles Bebop until he lets him freestyle.”

“He asks permission to rap?”

Sunshine gave Casey a pained smile. “It's insufferable! He couldn't rhyme fat with cat if they were magnets on a fridge. He loses the beat all the time too. Bebop's a lot better at it, but Rocksteady can't keep time and it drives the other mad.” She rolled her eyes. “It usually ends up in them fighting again.”

“And you're looking forward to this?”

“Well yeah!” she nearly jumped out of her seat. “It’s funny! It passes the time, anyway.”

“It sounds like it's going to be pretty one-sided if you said Bebop's better,” Casey pointed out.

“That's honestly part of the fun,” Sunshine smirked, folding her napkin on the table. “Rocksteady never gives up, and you know what they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day.”

“So is that where we're going after this?” Casey asked.

“No, we have weights first,” Sunshine groaned. “Want to join us?”

“What else am I going to do?” Casey shrugged.

If Casey knew what he was getting into, he probably would have tried harder to find something else to do.

–

“Shoot Sunnyside, I didn't think he'd actually come!” Bebop snorted as soon as Casey stepped into the weight room. The large mutant was spotting his partner on an oversized bench press. Casey immediately tensed, and not being able to see the warthog's eyes behind his glasses didn't help either. He wasn't mad right? Sunshine assured him they weren't…

Sunshine rolled her eyes. “I told you he would!”

Bebop snorted again. “An’ he ain’t gonna spaz out on us again?”

Casey frowned. He didn’t like where this was going. “Spaz out? What got you there in the first place?” Casey snarled. Sunshine nudged him in warning.

“Hey, hey, guys, that’s… uh, not why we're here,” Sunshine reminded them, stepping between the two parties. Sunshine gave Casey a no-nonsense look. “Rocksteady already apologized. We’re good.”

Casey’s eyes slid over to the rhinoceros, who was now racking his bar. The giant pulled himself upright, and his beady eyes settled on Casey’s face.

“You look like shit.”

“Thanks.”

“I mean you look smaller than you should be. The other one’s taking much better care of himself.”

“The other one?” What was he on about?

“The red one,” Bebop snorted. “What’d you say his name was, Sunshine?”

“Raphael,” she answered nervously, giving Casey a quick look before darting her eyes away.

“You’ve seen him?” Casey asked, feeling a lump rise in his throat. “And you told them about him?” Casey turned to Sunshine.

“He came looking for us, actually!” Bebop smiled. “He’s a real one. Wanted to make sure we were doin’ okay.”

“Blue one was annoying tho,” Rocksteady mumbled. “Kept askin’ about you.”

“Did they see you?” Casey asked Sunshine nervously.

“No! I wasn’t there,” Sunshine assured him. “I was uh, out.”

Casey wanted to know what that meant, but he was more concerned about his brothers. “What… what did you tell them?” Casey asked Bebop.

“We didn’t tell them shit!” Bebop guffawed. “They were so pissed. But Sunshine said we shouldn’t say nothin’ so we just act like we never heard of ya.”

“There’s no way they’d believe that, they know I’m here,” Casey reasoned. “But they left?”

“They were here yesterday,” Sunshine explained. “They had a lot of questions for Bebop, but when you got brought up Steady chased them away.”

“It was a load of nonsense,” the rhinoceros grunted, standing up to lower the weights for Bebop. “Some human world stuff, I didn’t know what they were on about.”

They were trying to get them to remember who they were before they were captured, Casey realized. How had they found Bebop and Rocksteady on their own? Casey couldn’t find a way to connect the dots.

Casey looked over to Bebop, who suddenly didn’t look so sure of himself. “What did they ask you?”

“Doesn’ matter,” the warthog grumbled, sitting at the bench. “It was dumb.”

Sunshine nodded in agreement. “Your brothers are nuts. Wanna warm up with me?” she pointed over to a more open space in the weight room. Casey nodded and followed her over. He wondered again why the hell Big Mama had only left him jeans to wear. He stretched uncomfortably, and noticed that at least Sunshine was appropriately dressed. Sneakers, joggers, and a tank top with loose, open sides. The way she moved, Casey noticed she looked very comfortable with the way she carried herself now. No longer thrown off by the balance of her shell, she’d come a long way in the days he’d been gone.

“You need to stop showin’ up late, snoozefest!” Rocksteady taunted her.

“It wasn’t me this time!” Sunshine defended. “Leatherhead didn’t come through until after lunch.”

“What an asshole,” Bebop grunted through his set. Rocksteady gave him the stink eye. “Mother… trucker can’t even look after his normal patients!”

“At least it worked,” Sunshine shrugged, stretching her arms. “Mama said concussions are so common here she had a team of spellcasters figure them out years ago. It’s one of her most profitable investments, or something.”

“Probably slowed down her turnover rate exponentially,” Bebop agreed.

“If she could have fixed my head sooner, why didn’t she?” Casey asked. “It’s been what, three days?”

Sunshine looked down at the floor. “She was going to, but uh, decided against it.”

“But she wants me to help you.”

Sunshine nodded. “I think she wanted to punish you more.”

“What changed?” he asked, confused.

Sunshine shook her head. “I don’t know, I just finally got Leatherhead to agree with me today.”

What a vindictive bitch.

They finished warming up, and Sunshine spun over to a more reasonably sized bench.

“Are you pressing too?” Casey asked as they lowered the bar together.

“Mhm!” She looked around the room for a moment. “Oh, our trainer's not in today. Bebop, how many sets are we doing today?”

“Six. He left a page on the mirror.”

Sunshine groaned and moved across the room to the sheet taped to the mirror he indicated. While she looked it over, Casey couldn't help but voice a question to Bebop that had been on his mind.

“You said it was Raph that approached you guys, not Leo?”

“Yeah, he was the one who saw us. We were at a… uh…”

“A what?”

The warthog was suddenly nervous. “It ain't nothin',” he grumbled. “He found us, is all.”

“You were at that magic show again weren't you?” Sunshine smiled as she returned with the paper and began picking up weights to load onto the bar.

“Really?” Bebop growled.

“Oh please, like he cares,” Sunshine figured. “He's just worried about his brothers.”

“You know, I see it in the red one, but I don't in the other,” Rocksteady piped up. “Is he like… the black sheep or somethin’?”

“See what?” Casey asked, confused.

“The family resemblance. Well, you're the same as the red one right? The spines and all…”

“Oh, that,” Casey realized, feeling a little silly for not catching on sooner. “Yeah, Raph and I are snapping turtles. Leo's a slider.”

“Slider? That describes him pretty well,” Sunshine smiled. “He looks shifty.”

Casey nodded in agreement.

“But you got the good genes, huh,” Rocksteady chuckled. “Wish I had half the hair Bebop's got.”

“A blessing and a curse,” Bebop grumbled. “What do you brush a boar's hair with, huh? Not a boar bristle brush, that's for sure!”

Rocksteady laughed at that, and they continued on with their work out as Sunshine started on her first set.

“You saw Leo?” Casey asked Sunshine when she finished her set.

‘I did,’ she signed unexpectedly. ‘I snuck out to see where those two were going,’ she gestured to Bebop and Rocksteady.

‘You snuck out? And she didn’t say anything?’

Sunshine shrugged. ‘Stir crazy I guess. But don’t worry, your brothers didn’t see me.’

‘I’m sure Leo was way more interested in the magic show,’ Casey smiled. ‘He loves that shit.’

‘I don’t get it, it’s not even real magic,’ Sunshine signed, frowning. ‘That’s why Bebop’s self conscious about it. Everyone else here makes fun of him for going.’

Because yokai don’t need to see a magic show. Poor guy.

“Who’s doing a magic show in the Hidden City anyway?” he wondered out loud.

“Hypno!” Rocksteady announced excitedly. “He’s amazin’!”

Casey rolled his eyes. Why did he even ask?

“It can’t be the right audience for him though, right? He’d be better off performing for humans.”

“He’s got a promotion goin’ on with his husband, I think,” Sunshine explained. “He’s been everywhere… What was his name again?” The others shrugged. “Some new book coming out about mutants in the human world or something. I think it was called… Mutant Me!?” she threw up air quotes.

“That’s it!” Bebop snapped and pointed. “Yeah, Hypno wouldn’t stop talking about it. Come to think of it…” he whipped out a phone. “Yeah, I preordered it. I don’t even remember doing that,” he scratched his head in confusion. “I’m sure it’s gotta be interestin’ though.”

“You can barely read instructions on a soup can,” Rocksteady grumbled.

“You can’t read at all!” Bebop guffawed.

“Hey, that’s not my fault,” the larger mutant grumbled. “I have dysflexia.”

“Dyslexia,” Sunshine corrected.

“Yeah, that,” Rocksteady nodded.

“Sounds like Hypno was putting on more than a show,” Casey figured, smiling to himself.

“What do you mean?” Bebop asked sincerely, but Casey just shook his head. He hoped the poor guy hadn’t been scammed into buying anything else.

—

Rats Like Us

“...I’m back at the show

The only place I visit

Now I wish I’d share it sitting next to her

Eyes are on them

Wish they were on my face

But that’s not how it goes i don’t think you’d glance at me

A world beyond your flowers

I’m taller than this hotel

My heart’s breaking… yeah.”

Rocksteady rapped in front of his small captive audience on the terrace. The swishing of a huge willow tree big enough for all three of them to sit against came back into focus as Sunshine paused her rhythmic knocking against its wide roots.

Casey leaned back and admired the shuffling leaves above him. He hadn't expected something so heavy from the mutant. Awful and out of time, but still very sad.

“Jeez sandbag, you're opening with that?” Bebop asked, tipping his head. “I'm starting to think maybe this just ain't your thing. Maybe you should write a love song instead.”

“What? I can't do a love song, that's too squishy,” the rhinoceros deflated. “I'm just throwin’ it out there, it's not finished yet.”

“Do you really think that though, Rocksteady?” Sunshine piped up.

“Of course! I just gotta write it down-”

“No no, I meant about what you were saying; you don't think anyone can love you?”

Rocksteady sat down on the ground across from them.

“Dunno. A lot of the time it feels that way.”

“The Hidden City is so big though! There's so many different kinds of people, too. You'll find someone.”

“There's not a lotta gals my size, Sunshine,” he grumbled.

Casey suppressed a chuckle, but Bebop turned a sharp eye in his direction.

“What's so funny huh?”

“Ah! Nothing, nothing,” Casey tried to wave it away, but Bebop refused to let up the protective act.

“I'm sorry,” Casey apologized. “I was just reminded of something my mom said once.”

Seeing he suddenly had an audience, he instinctively went to reach for his hair, but caught himself and squeezed his fingers instead.

“She used to joke that if she ever got married it would be to a volcano.”

“That’s silly, you can’t marry a volcano,” Rocksteady huffed.

“I think it’s a metaphor, Steady,” Sunshine explained.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t though,” Casey smiled. “She was crazy. In a good way.”

“Sounds like trouble,” Bebop sniffed. “Think I got enough crazy in my life.”

“Thanks Bebop, I’m glad to hear you aren’t interested in my mom.”

“That’s not what I meant!” the warthog snapped, but Rocksteady burst out laughing.

“Then what did you mean?” Sunshine asked with a stupid grin on her face.

“I meant what I said,” Bebop huffed. “Think I’d date someone quiet.”

“To be seen and not heard?” Steady teased.

“Stop putting words in my mouth!” Bebop roared. “No,” he sank back against the tree. “They need to like, invite the quiet, ya know? There’s enough noise in my head for the both of us.”

“Aww,” Sunshine cooed. “And I thought Rocksteady was the romantic.”

“He is, have you seen him?” Bebop chuckled. “Last two nights we’d been out he kept starin’ at that flower stand down on 39th. ‘Hey Bebop, do you know flowers mean different things?’” Bebop rolled his eyes. “You think I know what different flowers mean?” He scoffed.

“They do! That’s what she said to me!” Rocksteady huffed. “And the colors of the flowers matter too. The lady at the shop was showin’ me them. There were some cute yellow ones, but she told me they symbolized disappointment.”

“That’s silly. Yellow flowers are cute!” Sunshine argued.

“I know right? She said the white and pink ones were more romantic, but really? Who ever looked at Sunshine and was disappointed?” Rocksteady smiled as the musk turtle giggled.

“I’m sure there are other yellow flowers you could give someone,” Casey suggested.

Rocksteady shrugged. “Sure, but they’re not as bright as those whaddaya-call-ums?” He looked over at Bebop.

“Carnations,” the warthog gave up.

“Yeah, those,” Rocksteady smiled dreamily.

Casey had never heard that flowers had meanings before, but then again, flowers weren’t something he had ever really paid attention to. He couldn’t see himself buying flowers for anyone. Not anyone who would appreciate them, anyway.

His heart sank. He could imagine quite a few people sending him yellow carnations. Most notably from Sunshine beside him. If she found out what he was keeping from her…

“What about you, Sunshine?” Bebop chuckled. “Do you believe in love?”

“Of course I do!” she answered immediately. Casey smiled again; there was no hesitation at all in her voice. “How could I not? My life is a musical; my true love will find me for sure.”

“You haven't even seen a musical!” Bebop roared with laughter.

“I must have!” Sunshine pouted. “If I didn't, how would I know what they are?”

“You can know a lot about things without really knowing them,” Rocksteady guessed.

“Yeah, go ahead and name one,” Bebop teased.

Sunshine looked absolutely flustered. “That’s not fair, you wouldn’t even recognize them anyway!”

“I would too!” Bebop challenged her.

“Liar! You couldn’t even name an artist but you go around telling Rocksteady what is and isn’t hip hop.”

“Brockhampton. And I’m not gatekeeping; Rocksteady can do whatever he wants.”

“Whatever,” Sunshine raised her hands, frustrated. “I'm not wrong though. Just because I can't remember it doesn't mean it didn't happen.”

Bebop shrugged. “Didn't say you were wrong, I just think you're naive.”

“Naive?” Sunshine's muscles tensed like she might jump up and fight him. “You… ugh!” she sank back into the trunk between them, defeated. “I don't even care anymore.”

“Hey now, I didn't mean to upset ya,” Bebop told her, sitting upright. “I'm sorry, I thought it was cute. You'va… you have a good heart.”

Sunshine rolled her eyes. “Thanks.”

There was a quiet pause, and then she pushed herself up onto her feet.

“I'm gonna go back to my room. I'm tired.” She stretched. “You guys won't fight while I'm gone will you?”

“What's that supposed to mean? We're decent people!” Rocksteady protested.

“I just wouldn't want you getting hurt again is all,” she giggled.

Casey flinched, and Sunshine's eyes darted over to him.

“Sorry. Too soon?”

‘A bit,’ he signed back, frowning.

‘Be nice,’ she winked, and then left.

What did she think he was going to do? He had just gotten over a concussion!

“You guys have your own little language there?” Rocksteady asked when Sunshine had gone back inside. “That's cute.”

“It's sign language dummy,” Bebop told him. “I'm kinda startin’ to think Mama wiped a few more than just your memories dude. I swear you weren't this stupid when we met.”

Casey looked over to Bebop, surprised. “You met Rocksteady before this? And you remember that?”

Bebop shook his hand uncommitted. “It's come an’ go,” he grumbled. “But yeah, I'm pretty sure we were friends before this. Been here longer than Sunshine, too. I think it's been what, two months, Steady?”

Rocksteady shrugged. “I leave the days up to you, guy.”

“He don't remember anythin',” Bebop pointed out. “I swear if I was like… his reluctant mom-partner before all this, I'm gonna throw up.”

“I don't think we were datin’, Bebop,” Rocksteady grumbled.

“Your evidence?”

“Your face,” Rocksteady guffawed.

Bebop frowned and looked back over to Casey. “I walked into that one.”

“You did,” Casey smiled. “Sounds like you guys have been friends a long time.”

Bebop nodded. “And we been thinkin’ a long time too…” he glanced over at Rocksteady for a moment. “-with varying degrees of success.”

“Hey!” Rocksteady snapped, but Bebop ignored him. “We wanna know what your deal is. Not gonna come after ya, but you smell different from the other mutants around here.”

“I smell?”

“Sure do!” Rocksteady chuckled. “That's not what he means though.”

“I didn't think so,” Casey snorted. “But yeah, I get you. You wanna know why Mama has me hanging out with Sunshine.”

“Not exactly,” Bebop narrowed his eyes. “I wanna know why you wanna spend time with her.”

Casey shrugged, wondering how much he should say. “It’s as easy as blackmail,” he answered cryptically.

Bebop frowned. “That seems to be a common theme around here. The other mutants stuck here are the same way, except us and Sunshine, of course.”

“She wants you to like her,” Casey pointed out. He bit his tongue. He probably shouldn't talk too much about Big Mama's intentions where she could easily overhear them.

“But Sunshine, do you like her?”

“Of course, she's cool,” Casey smiled. “It's hard not to.”

Rocksteady nodded sagely.

“But like, you aren't doin’ this for her,” Bebop figured.

“It's a bit of both. After your debut I'm hoping Big Mama lets me go.”

Bebop looked at Casey as if the snapper expected Jesus to come down and save him.

“You know that ain't gonna happen,” Bebop looked at him from over his shades. “I been around here a bit, I know who to talk to and what to put out there, ya hear me?”

“I'm not sure you do,” Casey frowned.

“I do,” the warthog huffed, and leaned down to be eye level with Casey.

“We aren't all friends here, kid. There's a weasel here, and they've got their own ideas about the debut. I need to know you're a rat like us.”

Casey blinked. What the hell was this guy on about?

“No one gets your riddles, Bebop,” Rocksteady grumbled, shaking his head. “He just wants to know if you're gonna help us out.”

“With what?”

Bebop sighed and raised his hand. Casey thought he looked like he was trying to find a boil on his hand or something, but to his surprise he started finger-spelling.

‘G-E-T-U-S-O-U-T.’

“Is Sunshine teaching you guys?”

“I didn't know you could do that too, Bebop!” Rocksteady beamed.

“I can't. Don't get too excited,” Bebop huffed.

Casey frowned. “I promised Sunshine I'd do that for her.”

Bebop gestured to himself and Rocksteady. They both wanted out too.

“I can only do so much. I think you're talking to the wrong guy.”

“You mean the weasel.”

Casey fingerspelled Synth's name, and Bebop nodded.

“I think you're mistaken. He's cool,” Casey explained.

‘W-E-A-S-E-L.’

“You don't know him like I do,” Casey shook his head. “I trust him.”

“Then he's eating well,” Bebop grunted. “You'll see.”

“See what?” But Bebop was getting to his feet.

“I see why Sunshine's worried about you,” he said as he moved to go back inside. “You should talk to her more. Wouldn't want to scare her away, right?”

“Excuse me?”

“He means you-”

“I heard him just fine!” Casey snapped, standing up, bristled. “You've got a lot of nerve,” he told Bebop.

Bebop opened the door to the interior and paused.

“More than most,” he smiled wickedly.

—

The Rhythm of 10 Strings

“Are humans dangerous, Synth?”

The bobcat's nose twitched at the question, but he was otherwise focused on his book keeping.

“Mama says they are, but Casey's the only other person who talks about them, and they don't sound so bad.”

Synth looked up and blinked slowly. “It's all perspective, probably. It's a very controversial topic.”

“What's your perspective, then?” Sunshine crossed her arms and leaned against his counter. She might have lied about going back to her bedroom.

“They’re not exceptionally dangerous, but there are too many of ‘em. Like most people, they’re prejudiced, and like to hurt others that are different from ‘em. And since they're up there and we're down here, you can imagine who's winnin’ here.”

“Winning? Are we fighting them?”

Synth made a note in his book and closed it. “Always have been. In our own ways. It's been quiet in recent years, but since mutants have gone public in New York, tensions are rising. Things could continue as they are… or we could face extinction.”

“Oh.”

“Mutants are in a unique situation, Sunshine. Most of them were humans once. If a war were to happen, who mutants decide to stand with could very well decide whether or not we continue to exist.”

“But mutants… aren't humans afraid of them too?”

“They are. But some of them, like Lou Jitsu, are also public heroes. He is especially dangerous. Influential, connections, and a sympathetic figure. Humans might let him fight for them now, but later? They'll turn on the mutants. They always do. Hell, they turn on each other. But for now, they'll use them against us. The mutant turtles are playing with fire by trying to be accepted by humans.”

“So you think Mama's right,” Sunshine surmised.

Synth shrugged. “She has an understanding.”

Sunshine frowned. It was not something she had expected him to say. Didn't he want her position? She thought he would be opposed to whatever she said.

But what he said sounded sensible, at least. There weren't any humans in the Hidden City for a reason. Casey used a disguise around humans for a reason.

But if he was scared of them, why did he and his brothers spend so much time around them?

The bobcat yokai stretched and yowled, blinking his bug eyes again and looking across the room.

“Your knife is ready by the way.”

“It is?!” Sunshine jumped, pulled from her thoughts.

The creature turned and picked up a black box from behind him that she hadn't noticed sitting there before.

“The weight will be much different from what you've seen with the kunai,” he explained, gently removing the lid.

Nestled inside was a sheathed black trench knife with a leather grip. But the handle…

“It's wrong,” Sunshine pointed out, gesturing to the rings on the grip.

“Pardon?”

“Ah! Sorry, I mean, it's beautiful!” Sunshine apologized, snapping her hand back and scratching her head. “But…”

“How many fingers do you have, Sunshine?” Synth blinked at her.

There were two rings on the handle grip. She looked down at her hands. Two and a thumb on each, as they'd always been. Yeah, that made sense.

“Sorry, I… I was confused,” she mumbled, pinching her fingers the way she'd seen Casey do several times before.

Synth picked up the knife and unsheathed it. The reflection of Sunshine's brown eyes watched her from the dark blade.

They were more familiar than her own face.

“Pretty?” Synth asked, turning the knife over.

“Yeah!” Sunshine agreed a little too loudly, but she took the blade when he offered it to her.

It fit her hand perfectly. And for some reason, that bothered her.

“You don't like it,” Synth accused.

“No, that's… that's not it at all!” Sunshine shook her head. “It's just, not what I expected.”

Synth narrowed his eyes. “If you don't love it we should try somethin’ else.”

Oh, now he was listening to her? After how many times she told him she didn't want a sword?

She gripped it tighter. “It's mine.”

“Then I'll not hear anymore complaints about it,” Synth sniffed. “Get out.”

“Ok. Sorry,” she apologized, sheathing the knife and replacing it into the box.

He chased her out the door, and she shuffled quietly back down the maintenance hall toward the elevators.

It was a really nice blade, Synth had worked very hard on it.

So why did she feel like she was about to cry?

She faced the corner of the small carriage as the elevator ascended, her forehead pressed against the wall in an effort to hide her face from the other staff stepping on with her.

When she got to her room, she locked the door and set the box onto her bed. She immediately flipped on the tv. The Rhythm of 10 Strings was already on and rewinded as she'd done the night before.

She started the movie and pulled her comforter around her shoulders. She forwarded past the ads and title screen, skipping to where Lou Jitsu made his first appearance.

He leapt out onto the screen and challenged the small-time baddies that would show off his character's strength.

But then she appears; the villainess of the movie. She is the daughter of the last movie's big baddie and she catches Lou Jitsu entirely off guard and captures him.

Tang Shen, she's too beautiful for this world. Sunshine could understand why Big Mama liked this movie so much. She starts out as the villain, but then she falls in love with Lou Jitsu and they work together to stop evil father's evil spirit from returning to the world of the living. Lou Jitsu becomes possessed, and it's Tang Shen who has to fight and defeat him to save the world.

A lot of people were upset that Tang Shen technically beat Lou Jitsu in a fight. The eighties were rough.

But Sunshine wasn't focused on the relationship between the action heroes, she was watching Tang Shen's weapons.

Tang Shen was small, fast, and dexterous. She flew across the screen like an acrobat, and she kept larger enemies at bay with her kunai. Her secret weapon though? She had an invisible wire she strung to the rings on the handles so she could manipulate the knives after she threw them. She'd also use it to trip or ensnare her opponents. Tang Shen of the Ten Strings. Ten knives. Sunshine wasn't sure if it made much sense, but she had one for each finger.

Ten fingers.

Sunshine clenched her hands again, and remembered the dream she had the morning after Casey came back; after she'd watched this movie for the first time. The first dream she'd remembered since she got here.

“Dad, are you okay?” This wasn't the first time she'd found him in his room, staring at his desk.

“It's gone,” he told her without looking up. “Someone must have taken it.”

“Taken what? What's gone?”

He pointed at the glass case behind him. It was empty. “Grandpa's knife. It's supposed to protect us.”

She took a step closer. “I'm sure we can find it,” she assured him. “I can help you look.”

He turned to face her, and Sunshine screamed. The trench knife was embedded in his right eye. Four rings on the handle.

Her dream self moved on its own. She reached out and gripped the knife in her left hand, her fingers curling around the handle perfectly. All five of them.

When she pulled the knife from his face, the last thing she remembered was him asking her:

“When are you coming home?”

Sunshine wiped the tears from her eyes. She didn't know. She didn't know anything anymore.

Prev. Masterpost Next

Notes: So sorry for the delay on the tumblr version y’all, the drawing for Sunshine took over 12 hours and I lost my pencil over the weekend so I couldn’t finish it. Love that it’s finally done. No more updates for a while tho. Need to figure out where we are going again, haha!

#rottmnt #snapper and stinkpot #rottmnt casey jr #casey jones #rottmnt fanfiction #casey sas au #turtle oc #rottmnt bebop #rottmnt rocksteady #rottmnt big mama

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space-blue · 2 years

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Hi, I love your posts and meta. I'd like to hear your thoughts on this.

Why was Vi so disturbed at Jinx's violence during fights? It's shown that Vi herself uses extreme violence in fight scenes and even has no problem killing (the factory scene comes to mind - obliterating ribs and internal organs, throwing people off the bridge, had no problem with Jayce blasting people with a Hextech gun).

Both Jinx and Vi have callously used lethal force while fighting their opponents and rivals. Jinx laughs as she shoots Firelights, Vi also grins and winks at Jayce after destroying a Shimmer soldier. Another scene is when Vi is horrified by Jinx bombing Enforcers on the bridge but didn't Vi used to encourage her to perfect her bombs to use on their enemies?

I thought maybe young Vi simply didn't realize the gravity of what she was encouraging Jinx to do in her passionate rage as a young girl, and only once she grows up and actually witnesses the aftermath of such violence that she's horrified and regrets teaching Jinx those things.

But this explanation doesn't really mesh with how Vi was acting during the factory fight, brutal and hyped about it. Maybe she was specifically shocked at Jinx's carelessness as she was shooting (since she almost hit Vi) and clocked it as mental instability, instead of being shocked at the violence itself? But then her disapproval of Jinx's attack on Enforcers is confusing...

What are your thoughts on this? Is there something I'm missing here?

Heya Anon!

You honour me with your praises... I'll try my best to make it clear. Disclaimer that it's just my perception of things.

Let's get a visual :

Vi's violence is her own, and is a positive thing to her. It's how she earned respect. Her father figure used the same sort of violence and respect. Probably taught her boxing. It's part of her identity and I don't think she could imagine herself not using her fists. Her morality is obviously tied to herself. If Vi thinks someone needs their ass beat, it's not a negative thing to her.

Powder's bombs aren't a negative either because they are for their "team". Vi can only conceive of Powder's bomb as being in their service, to use against their enemies. She doesn't grasp yet how such things can backfire (right until they finally work, and cost them everything).

Vi is in prison for over 5 years and shows the entire laundry list of arrested development. When she leaves Stillwater she is looking for Powder, not Jinx. Powder is her baby sister who is weak, pathetic and cute. She draws silly faces on toy bombs that don't work. Vi has never updated her vision of her sister. I think that her accepting Jinx as an adult who can protect herself would be tentamount to admitting she missed all of that, missed being a sister who could protect and raise her. This is inextricably tied to Silco raising Jinx with love and care, another reality Vi refuses flat out, several times. All of this contributes to her not really computing when she sees Jinx acting like Jinx.

That being said, I don't think Vi looks at Jinx all shocked just because she uses violence... I mean, Jinx looks like she's ENJOYING herself trying to shoot people, and Vi's look comes right after Jinx nearly killed her out of sloppiness. I think it's fair to say we would all be disturbed if our long lost sibling made that sort of face while trying to kill people.

When Vi teams up with Jayce, she's not killing the way Jinx kills, and she's not seeing her opponents in the same way either. The people she's targeting are 1/Silco's goons and 2/in shimmer suits. They're monsters to her eyes, monsters in the Big Monster's employ. Killing them is probably meaningless to her (and the show makes sub zero efforts to humanise them, unlike the addicts Silco uses later). Vi immediately breaks off with Jayce after he kills Reni's son, and shows real sorrow over his death. She doesn't want to hurt Zaunites, but I bet that in her mind people who work for Silco are either victims (factory kids, Jinx) or trash (Sevika, goons)... The later she clearly doesn't mind maiming and killing. Vi has a very black and white vision of the world. Doesn't help to spend your formative years in a prison cell.

There's an edge of protectiveness too. Big sister instincts. Vi voices how she wants "better" for Powder. Violence isn't something she wants for her sister. When she says she wants a better world for her, it implies she wants a world in which she doesn't have to suffer physical pain and kill people. Until the bombing on the bridge that kills Marcus and enforcers, Vi has never seen Jinx/Powder willingly kill anyone. The shootout against the Firelights would be a shock even if Jinx weren't clearly enjoying herself. She's already showing extreme proficiency for violence, meaning there's been a lot of it in her life.

Vi and Jinx have polar opposite ways of fighting. Vi always attacks head on, punch now talk later. She's got a virtuous side to herself (I'm right, my enemies are wrong, I punch my enemies to punching is good). Meanwhile Jinx is a spider. She plans ahead, uses traps and contraptions, and displays vicious cruelty to her victims — the BOOM swing, the fake little girl explosion, the pretty toys turned bombs, the humiliation of hanging Sevika and painting on her, repaying the barman with a fake bomb placed with a hug... Jinx isn't showing particular cruelty when she enjoys shooting Firelights, but Vi would never gel well with her way of going about fighting anyway. I don't think that walking into the carnage of the bridge and then getting directly shot at because of Cait would really help either.

In conclusion, Vi is brutal because it's how she is. She doesn't see it as a bad thing, and being brutal to bad people = being good. She was taught this by the literal "Hound of the Underground", the man she met when he was caving enforcers' skulls in with his metal fists. To her the factory attack was retaliation and a form of justice. A backlash against the monster who "stole" and "corrupted" her baby-sister who is so cute-useless-weak and needs to be protected.

She's struggling to see things differently because prison has completely halted her emotional and mental growth.

It's pretty glaring in the Dinner Scene, when she tells Jinx still in tears over Silco's death that "everything will be all right now," like, gurl... The level of emotional disconnect for her to say that at that time...

I still think that if Jinx took Vi's side and used her bombs to kill Silco's goons and/or enforcers, Vi would see it as a net positive. She'd probably be disturbed by Jinx's enjoyment, and be dismayed her sister had to use violence as a way of life, but I doubt she'd mind the bombs for the bombs' sake.

That's my take on it at least.

#Vi is a zaunite #she doesn't have a problem with violence #she's always surrounded by it #she just doesn't want it for her sis #or happy to see her sis take pleasure from it #Jinx wasn't punching someone into submission #she was trying to shoot them dead #with a gun #Jinx #Vi #Jayce #arcane #meta #arcane meta #anon ask #thanks for the ask

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gameguides · 2 years

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Sexy Mystic Survivors Tier List, Builds & General Tips

Welcome to our Sexy Mystic Survivors Tier List, Builds & General Tips guide. General info for builds and playstyles. Character Tier list with explanation. This guide is mainly for new players, who are having hard time with this game. #SexyMysticSurvivors

Sexy Mystic Survivors Tier List, Builds & General Tips

This guide is mainly for new players, who are having hard time with this game. In reality, this game is pretty easy, so if you are hardstuck somewhere, this means you are clearly doing something wrong. In this "mini-guide" i'l offer some info about characters and weapons. Keep in mind that everything in this guide is biased opinion of it's author. Sexy Mystic Survivors Tier List

1. Bellatrix - The Lady Knight - S tier Passive - as one of the two starter characters Bellatrix is clearly much more powerful. First, her passive is just an amazing amount of free damage and close combat requirement is not a problem, you'l be forced into that after the enemy transform into a zerg. Ultimate - solid ultimate that can be used as a burst damage ability or escape tool if you are surrounded. You'l also collect the experience (and items) from all killed enemies along the path.

2. Camyla - The Stereotypical Elf - C tier Passive - as a 2nd available character Camyla's passive is kinda meh, even in her "buffed" state. Without numbers it's hard to judge, but from the on-hand experience it's rather negligible. Ultimate - her ultimate provides a nice chuck of damage, which is also useful for the boss fight or create a path, however, you can't use her ultimate when you are surrounded, since there's a high risk of getting a hit from fast moving enemies.

3. Melisandre - The Gold Mine - SSS for Extreme difficulty Passive - Melisandre is a character for endgame gold farming. When you stack a max account Gold/Luck buffs with Gold/Luck items you can gain up to 80000-140000 gold easily in one run (Stage 2) and a lot of free % damage. Ultimate - her ultimate spawn a few Tornadoes, which moves randomly, but got decent AoE. This ultimate is pretty good for high difficulties, since your screen will be overrun with enemies. Clear it up a bit with ult.

4. Sophia - Run her own Atelier - S tier Passive - Sophia gameplay may not be to everyone liking. In order to use her potential, you'l need to move constantly and destroy all chest in sight for potions + spam her skill. The buffs are applied randomly, but there's a lot of them and you can gain powerful stuff like +Projectiles, +% Damage or Revival. Ultimate - spam a healing potion(quality is random), that will stay for like 10 seconds and then disappear. Don't forget to pick it up.

5. Ayane - What Does The Fox Say - SS tier Passive - the first goddess of this game has arrived. Ayane gets a random strong buff every 5 levels and after level 50 her ultimate get's an upgrade. Ultimate - Before level 50 this skill acts only as the indestructuble barrier, but after you reach level 50, it will also spawn a big amount of lazers around your character in random directions. This skill has relatively low cooldown and also absolutely obliterates Elites and Bosses. Just literally walk into them with this skill active and erase them from existence. Be mindful of the barrier duration though. It's basically impossible to die/lose with Ayane if you reach level 50.

6. Rosaline - Bazelgeuse in disguise - SS tier Passive - in order to maximize her passive effects you'l need to remove all points from your Magnet and don't pick Magnet item at all. Gather a big chuck of EXP with her dash and also correctly time it's usage with the green sphere (which collects all gold/exp on the map). With this you can reach like level 120 by the end of the map. Ultimate - her ultimate is simply awesome, it's a damage/utility/defense/exploration tool all-in-one. You can rush into hordes of enemies, you can dash at high speed to reach certain items or you can just escape from a bad situation. However, be mindful on your end up location, you don't want to end your dash completely surrounded.

7. Cassandra - Seems she likes Goblin Slayers - SS tier Passive - A simple and powerful tool to increase the damage of her awesome ultimate. Maximize the potential (damage/cooldown) around level 60. Ultimate - A single hit attack that deletes everything on screen. Nuff said.

8. Ciara - What is "Plot"? - SS tier Passive - Ciara passive allows you to pick up 7 passive items, making your build be less dependant on map spawns, but it's best part that it allow you to gain additional level for passives. 50+% cooldown reduction and so on. Ultimate - this ultimate is relatively strong screen cleaning tool, keep in mind that this attack is using diagonal patterns.

9. Isaya - The Succubus Queen - S tierPassive - Isaya can wield 7 weapons, which means 7 evolutions, but you'l need to get at least one item as a map drop, so pay attention what spawns at the start of your run. Ultimate - summons 3 lesser Succubus sisters, which deal an amazing amount of AOE dps. Early game tips for new players - Sexy Mystic Survivors Tier List, Builds & General Tips - When you start the game, your first priority is to collect 6 random weapons and 6 random passive items to do new unlocks, which are important. - In general, always aim to unlock new achievements, since those are also unlock new characters and items. - For character unlocks & scenes check the specific part in this guide. - Get 2000 Gold in one game to unlock map(ESC button) and then clear 3 Shrines (Star-shaped symbols on map) to unlock Banish feature, so you can erase useless weapons from the list. - COMPLETELY IGNORE & AVOID RELICS IF YOU DIDN'T UNLOCK REROLL FEATURE FOR THEM. You may be forced into a choice that you will strongly regret. Just do the 3 Relics for achievements unlock first. 15-minute mark mini-boss also drop a Relic, so be aware. - Evolved Lamp will be your first important Boss Killer / Elite Killer weapon, so don't pass on it. - Your main priority is always rush to the evolutions, so make always a priority to level up those. - For weapon evolution you only need Level 8 weapon and Level 1 corresponding passive item. Then just pick a chest. - You can't evolve multiple weapons at once, so even if you open up a chest with 5 items, only one will evolve. - Bosses are stupid, use energy shield weapon for survivability and run in circles/dodge projectiles. How to unlock new characters & scenes Let's start with how to unlock the characters. Melisandre - rescue her on Stage 1 via reaching the "?" mark on the map and killing mobs around her, then interact with her. Sophia - kill the mini-boss of Stage 1 (The Horse), which appear on 15-minute mark. Ayane - kill the final boss of Stage 1 (The Plant). Rosalina - kill the mini-boss of Stage 2 aka Rimuru (Red Slime), which appear on 15-minute mark. Cassandra - kill the final boss of Stage 2 (The Dragon). Ciara - rescue her on Stage 2 via reaching the "?" mark on the map and killing mobs around her, then interact with her. However, the mobs around her now will move towards(aggro) you, instead of just idling. Isaya - clear any stage with any character 5 times. For H-scenes you'l need to complete a level with the heroine 2 times, each one will unlock a new scene. Right now the game only got scenes for Bellatrix, Camyla, Melisandre, Sophia and Ayane. How to farm Gold $$$ (including Extreme difficulty) - For character you'l need to pick Melisandre. - In order to farm gold efficiently, you better max Luck and Gold gain passives and get +Luck and +Gold items in the game. - Start Stage 2 and proceed to farm your main weapons first and pay attention to passives spawned on map, in general you'l need to passives for weapon evolution to spawn. This is an example of successful build. Weapon priority(updated): - Fire Boots Evo 1 - Rapier Evo 2/Chain Amulet/Sun Stone Evo 1 - Scythe (default weapon) Evo 2 or Evo 1 - Bow Evo 1 - Energy Shield Evo 2 - Holy Cross Evo 1 Example:

You can also do this with lesser talents, etc, so it's not a hard requirement, just to help you understand the general idea behind this. Gold farming runs are usualle between 50k to 130k, with a possible max 150k+-, but that one depends on how much chest you will drop from normal mobs, which will bring the last part - The Relics. - In general you'l only need a mandatory one - 0.1% chance to spawn chest from Normal mobs. In order to maximize this you'l need max possible Luck, since chests with 3 and 5 items give much more gold. - If you are feeling strong enough, also pick two additional Relics, one which gives Gold from kills and another one which converts EXP into Gold, this relic just decrease your EXP gains and will not erase it completely. - Walk constantly and your Rapier Evo 2 will shred all chest on screen nonstop, also pay attention to green spheres, you'l need to save at least one for around 29.30 minute mark, to collect all remaining Gold/Exp on map. List of Relics /w commentary - Sexy Mystic Survivors Tier List, Builds & General Tips Relics can be gained from two altars (blue and red symbols on the map) as well as from 15-minute mark Boss, so in total you can get 3 Relics in one run. 1. Relic of Treasure Description: regular enemies can drop a Chest with a 0.1% chance, but their health and damage is increased by 25%. This is a pretty great relic to use for anyone. It's still RNG, but you'l have a great chance to get golden (3 items) and black (5 items) chests, chance based on your Luck stat. 2. Relic of Despair Description: Increase damage done by 25% when your health drops to 20% or lower. This one is rather meh, however, it's currently one of two "safe" relics to pick. 3. Relic of Healing Description: restore 20% of your HP every time you level up. The second available relic without any debuffs. This one is pretty useful. 4. Relic of Greed Description: enemies will drop coins instead of EXP. This relic does not completely erase your EXP gains, so you can still use it in the gold farming runs. 5. Relic of Gold Description: enemies have 20% more health, but also got 10% chance to drop gold. Self-explanatory, a small gold gain for farming builds. 6. Relic of Berserker Description: increase damage received by 100% and damage dealt by 15% Pretty safe relic to pick if you run Energy Shield (preferably Evo 2). Free damage is free damage. 7. Relic of Doom Description: Fix your HP at 1, but increase damage done by 100% For those who love risks. Sexy Mystic Survivors Builds Rosaline - The Explosion Queen

My favorite character in this game. This build focused on extreme high mobility and crazy AoE melee potential, which is possible thanks to her dash. Weapons: 1. Shield (default weapon). Shield is decent enough for early stages to start your farming. But follow the usual rules and don't put any points in it unless you are forced to do it aka can't choose anything better. 2. Holy Cross (Core item) - Evolution 1 Holy Cross has absolutely crap single target potential, however, it's also crazy in terms of AoE damage when you damage big hordes or are surrounded. 3. Energy Shield (Core item) - Evolution 2 - Lightning This is a mandatory item for most builds in this game. Provides decent damage and survivability. As a downside, the basic weapon does not offer any damage. 4. Fire Boots (Core item) - Evolution 1 - Bombs Creates a barrage of explosions together with the Holy Cross. 5. Rapier (Flex item) - Evolution 2 More AoE damage and knockback always welcome. 6. Bow (Flex item) - Evolution 1 Even more AoE damage. Bellatrix - Friendly build for new players

This build is focused on weapons and items available early and is, technically, a generalist build for any character for a comfortable Stage 1 clear. I don't mention advanced weapons, since if you have those unlocked, then you don't need this guide in the first place. Weapons: 1. Rapier (Default) - Evolution 2. 2. Evolved Magic Lamp - this weapon will be your bread and butter at boss killing, make sure to evolve it before 15-minute mark. 3. Sun Stone - Evolution 1. 4. Bow - Evolution 1. 5. Energy Shield - Evolution 2 (or 1, if 2 is not unlocked) 6. Last slot is flexible, you can use Chain Amulet or another weapon with evolve potential available to you, like Fire Boots (Evo 1). Just don't choose Blessed Hammer. Melisandre - The Gold Mine

Weapon priority: - Fire Boots Evo 1 - Rapier Evo 2 - Scythe (default weapon) Evo 2 or Evo 1 - Bow Evo 1 - Energy Shield Evo 2 - Holy Cross Evo 1 For more information, refer to "How to farm Gold" tab in the guide. Read the full article

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greyssk · 2 years

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Igor pro student

I hope that maybe this will be a chance to finally build a modern country with modern technology, it is a pity that it is coming at this price."įollow Tereza Pultarova on Twitter Follow us on Twitter and on Facebook. Therefore, various specialists in technical fields will again be needed. "Ukraine will again have to get up from its knees and rebuild its infrastructure. "The longer the war lasts, the better the chance that I will not finish my studies," he said. Although he is one year away from finishing his Ph.D., he admits that when the war ends, his studies might not be a priority. Ukraine's proud space industry faces obliteration, but country's former space chief has hope for the futureīut while he has no doubts about the future of his country, he is less certain about the direction his own future will take. Russia's devastation of Mariupol, Ukraine visible from space in satellite photos 'Stalin-esque' attitudes hold back engineering powerhouse Ukraine, says American aerospace student in Kyiv "Every civilian does his best to help his army and his country." "All Ukrainians are in high spirits of victory, our spirit can no longer be broken," he said. "Very often when we do not have the opportunity to get to some places, the military themselves or through volunteers bring us equipment, which greatly simplifies our work," he said.ĭespite the endless grind of air raids, early mornings, long hours on the road, and the destruction and suffering he witnesses day in and day out, Ihor remains upbeat. The word spread quickly among the Ukraine's defense forces, and soon Ihor found himself in high demand. Ihor's tech skills come less from his studies, which he describes as "mostly theoretical," and more from seven years working part-time with a company building and fixing autonomous power stations for border guards, banks and hospitals. So they recommended me and some of my colleagues to do such repairs." "But some of my acquaintances were taken to the army and said that they had big problems with various types of equipment and that there were no people that could fix it. "When martial law came into force last month, I was not drafted in the army since I have no military experience," Ihor wrote. The fighting there had killed over 14,000 people before the beginning of the full-scale invasion in February, according to International Crisis Group. Ever since, Ukraine's larger neigbor had been stirring conflict in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Luhansk and Doneck, calling for their separation from Ukraine and accusing Ukraine of discriminatory behavior against Russian minorities. For the Ukrainians, the war started in 2014, the year Russia annexed Crimea, a peninsula in the Black Sea. The invasion didn't come as a surprise for Ihor. But his car was in for repairs when the war started and with most public transport disrupted, he decided to stay in the capital. Ihor's own family comes from Irshansk, a titanium-mining town about a two-hour drive from Kyiv. "The new terminal was destroyed, and so was a museum and a high-rise housing block, where the head of my department lived. "My flat is just 7 kilometers from the airport, which was heavily shelled," he said.

#Igor pro student

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violet-dragongirl · 2 years

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I do want more stories where like...a character just goes fucking berserk without remorse or consequence and just ends the Big Problem the world has to face.

I want to see the consequences of that and hear about the beginnings of the after effects of that towards something better even though the main character created so much destruction and collateral damage in their wake

I also want stories where a character goes fucking berserk but is precise, calculative, and cautious and careful but will still end the Big Fucking Problem that plagues everyone.

I want to, again, see the consequences of that and hear about the beginnings of the after effects of that towards something better even though the main character created so much destruction and collateral damage even though they were meaningful, precise, compassionate, and thoughtful, and killed and destroyed exactly what needed to be killed and destroyed by any fucking means necessary after their cautionary strategy

I'm so fucking tired of having the Big Problem being named again and again and again and again and again, and WE DON'T GET TO THE POINT WHERE THAT PROBLEM FACES ITS FUCKING CONSEQUENCES THEY JUST CONTINUE TO EXIST I FUCKING HATE THAT GIVE ME FUCKING CLOSURE ALREADY

#It might be escapism talking and basic story functionality taking over my goddamn brain #but really I would like to see more conclusive stories that still show the consequential aftershock #of when a Big Problem gets destroyed/killed/obliterated #I'm tired of distracting the characters so much to the degree that the big problem doesn't get considered #even in a fucking cliffhanger ending #where that Big Problem/entity/evil/corporation/government institution doesn't face a single bit of backlash of the hell #that that entity brought upon the world the character is in #I feel like there's less and less stories where we see an alternative #even at the cost of what it takes to get rid of that big problem #and it's just more about 'LOL THE PROBLEM IS STILL THERE SO DEAL WITH IT BITCHES' and like...#that can make for a good story but for me it's seriously overfuckingdone #throw caution to the fucking wind and make the godlike characters you placed to face these problems actually solve them #and still have both compelling answers and questions afterward #while still having the big problem GONE #OPEN MORE FUCKING PANDORA BOXES FFS #BECAUSE MAYBE JUST MAYBE THAT GLIMMER OF HOPE IN THE BOX AFTER ALL CALAMITY IS OUT OF THE BOX #IS THE ALTERNATIVE PEOPLE NEED TO FUCKIING SEE #THAT THE BIG EVILS THAT WE CREATE AREN'T FOREVER #*sigh*...

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justalads · 3 years

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c!niki and c!wilbur enjoyers. pspspspspspsps

alright guys so last night i rewatched pretty much all of the pogtopia arc. and this isn’t meant to be a big, important analysis post (it’s kind of incomprehensible), because my brain is fried from, you know. rewatching pretty much all of pogtopia. but i do have some stuff i’d like to say.

(this also just became a niki meta sorry i love her. i really just got emo about her during the second half of this and it got long. i have a lot of feelings about her and wilbur’s friendship.)

it’s a pretty general conclusion that wilbur’s real “downfall” began on october 8th, during the stream “who are you go away”. of course, his spiral and the process of him losing faith had begun much earlier, more around the end of the first war or during the election. but the big switch, so to say, was definitely here, when as wilbur walks back from schlatt’s announcement, he asks tommy if they’re the bad guys.

this entire scene was so interesting to me. wilbur here is a man who has lost hope, someone who is backed into a corner morally and has nothing left. he points out that they can never really reclaim l’manburg without forever tainting it, and that schlatt knows this. the entire half an hour or so before, schlatt has been taunting wilbur about losing that power. the emphasis of the festival on “democracy” is so clearly a barb thrown at wilbur, and it works.

wilbur’s “nothing left to lose” in this vod is a mirror to niki’s “you know what they say about a woman who has nothing left to lose”. this will not be the first time they mirror each other.

basically, wilbur’s angry. when schlatt announced the festival, wilbur realized that maybe it wasn’t a terrible thing. so once he worked around into the mindset of “we’re the bad guys”, he was able to justify saying he was going to blow up the nation with no remorse. he wants chaos! he wants no survivors!

does he do it? god no.

during the streams leading up to november 16th, wilbur is consistently scared. he goes back and forth on it, and makes multiple “conditions” that determine whether he’s going to do it or not, almost begging someone to stop him. he whispers to himself that he’s scared, that his hands are shaking, that he’s not sure if it’s the right thing to do. because despite what he says about “not caring about any of them”, the instant niki is threatened after tubbo’s death, wilbur walks up to schlatt and tells him that if he’s going to kill anyone it should be him. later, when quackity and tommy talk him down from pressing the button, he can’t press it because they’re there and he can’t bring himself to kill them as well.

but he has no problems with putting his own life at risk. he refuses to wear armor half the time, and actively places himself in harm’s way to save others. he still cares about everyone else, as much as he says he doesn’t. even when he does cause harm to others, during november 16th, he immediately begs phil to kill him. “look, they all want you to.” he can’t live with what he’s done, and how he’s hurt people, but he couldn’t allow manburg to continue.

the man is terrified and angry and he can’t win. and even as he tries to stuff himself into the mind of someone who doesn’t care, he cannot. when he finally does, he cannot live with being that person.

but the reason i rewatched this arc was to see niki’s point of view, especially after her statements during her last stream. i genuinely think that wilbur’s only betrayal of her was pressing the button, because he betrayed everyone. they might have known he was going to do it, but they had faith he wouldn’t.

wilbur cared a lot about niki. her life under schlatt was awful, wilbur hated that she was suffering, and the scene where wilbur plants himself directly in the center of the festival and tells schlatt to kill him instead hits pretty hard. he has the argument with schlatt, and then turns to niki and tells her to run. he then hits people and sprints away, trying to give her time to escape.

this is also when he asks her to join pogtopia, because now that schlatt has said he’d kill her, it’s a safer place for her.

so the man did care about her. niki is angry at the memory of him that she has. it’s been twisted by time and her own grief and paranoia.

in rewatching pogtopia, i realized that a lot of people hate the memory of wilbur. not him, and what he did. they think he didn’t care. and to quote hamilton (apologies):

“history obliteratesit paints me in all my mistakes”

does niki have a right to be mad at him? absolutely. he caused direct harm to her by blowing up l’manburg, once it was reclaimed. but she’s wrong that he never cared.

(an interesting note: wilbur only blows it up after techno starts fighting people outside. he hears it, and says “look, they’re fighting”. he didn’t re-initiate the conflict of the country. the fact that even after peace was won people were fighting just gave evidence to his belief that the entire country was corrupted.)

niki has been hurt a lot, and wilbur has things to answer for. but we as the audience know that her statements are just her perception. she is a character who acts on perceptions. the entire stream was in black and white. during doomsday, upon seeing wilbur log on (as ghostbur), niki has a panic attack and destroys her bakery, trying to rid herself of the pain of the memories. her lines during this stream are chilling, whispered repetitions that are a mirror of wilbur’s end.

(paraphrased, it was long and confusing but there are a few bits and this was the essence of it)

“wilbur is gone. this isn’t happening. he is dead. l’manburg is gone.”“it is real, i am real, he is real and he is dead.”“l’manburg is gone, i am real, i am l’manburg”.

(god. dude i could spend Months analyzing this one stream alone. there’s so much here.)

doesn’t that sound a bit like “my unfinished symphony”? wilbur and niki both attach their own self to the nation they fought for, and can see it as an extension of themself. they both destroy parts of it in acts of fear, attempting to save everyone else from what they’ve made.

what i pulled away from niki’s stream is that she’s not healing. i remember the chamber she locks herself in at night. i remember her refusal to eat. i remember how she was so angry at tommy, and she later realized that anger was misguided. niki genuinely believes that wilbur did not care about her, and that’s not surprising: when he died, she denied the fact that he was gone. she represses the things that she can’t handle, same as lots of other people. it is easier for her to pin her hurt on wilbur, because she needs somewhere to pin it. people feel more in control if they’re angry, not sad.

the song cc!niki said was for her character really emphasizes this. it’s a coping mechanism.

but even condemning wilbur won’t help, because she will still never get closure. niki cares about what others think of her, and so she can’t move on from someone hurting her. she can’t move on because she thinks he hated her. she is angry that he is back, but it is an opportunity for her to heal. she couldn’t heal when he was gone. she’s not the only one with a negative perception of wilbur, after all. he has one too. the two of them really need to talk.

i want niki to be healthy and safe. i want to see her heal so badly, and i do think it will happen. after wilbur died, his betrayal of her stayed with her, and it eventually became her memory of the betrayal that she hated, not the thing itself. it’s been months since it happened. niki wants to find an outlet for her hurt, because she wants to feel better. there’s a pattern i noticed: she only gets mad at people once she hasn’t seen the person themself for a while. and once she sees them and talks to them, and realizes that they care about her and don’t want to hurt her, she stops blaming them for it. she only hates her perception of them. example one? tommy.

man was in exile for a long time, and when he came back he “brought” fighting. that’s how niki saw it. but the fact that after she spent time with tommy (trying to kill him but. details, details) she forgave him because she saw it wasn’t his fault is a really good sign.

i genuinely think that speaking to wilbur will help niki, and it will also help wilbur. after all, they both hate wilbur. the entire perception of wilbur as some heartless, crazy manipulator needs to be shattered for both of their sakes. they both buy into it.

i want niki to know that others care about her, and that she has places she can feel safe. she hates that wilbur is invading the syndicate, because she’s scared of his memory hurting her. i don’t think wilbur will hurt her on purpose, because even though he sees himself as awful, he doesn’t hate her. he never did. usually, with people who have hurt someone else, i want them as far away from the person they hurt as possible. if wilbur does hurt niki i’ll probably cry. but again, it’s not him that hated her, or really him that hurt her in the way she thinks he did. when wilbur was dead, niki didn’t get any better. her memory of him festered and made her feel worse. that’s also why niki killing wilbur or hurting him somehow wouldn’t help her heal. i want wilbur to explain that he didn’t hate her. is wilbur even close to self aware enough to help niki? nah. this is going to take a Long time, and it’s going to hurt.

last thing i swear lol

during niki’s stream, she says that wilbur manipulated her. again, i watched pogtopia last night, and i’ve watched the rest of season one recently as well. i genuinely don’t see it. but i do think i know why she said it.

during season one, wilbur doesn’t manipulate niki. he doesn’t have a chance to later, he’s dead. so then, what is she talking about? of course it’s a perception, same as a lot of her other claims. i think she’s talking about how she cared for l’manburg.

niki joined the server as wilbur’s friend, to join his nation. she grew to care for l’manburg. she devoted herself to it, same as he did. but doomsday showed us that she hates that. in niki’s eyes, l’manburg only brought pain for people, and because she ties herself to it, she hates that she ever cared about it. she can’t allow herself to care for it, because it was used to hurt. so how does she cope with knowing that she once did? she pretends she didn’t.

if she can convince herself that it was wilbur who convinced her to care about l’manburg, she can avoid blaming herself for her own pain. and yeah, she shouldn’t blame herself for it. it’s not her fault. the entire situation is tragic and a little hopeless and once again really makes me hope that she recovers. l’manburg was ruined for her by others. schlatt, techno, dream, wilbur. again another place where she and wilbur are similar: they convince themselves they never cared about l’manburg because of the hurt it caused.

to summarize: wilbur’s going to get a shock soon. don’t know when, but probably the prison visit. something is going to shake his perception, the story is hurtling towards that. once he is able to take responsibility for what he did, and feel safe (because a lot of what he does now is out of fear of being alone or useless), then he and niki need to talk. niki needs something to get her out of her own head. she’s spiraling too. they are essential to each other’s recovery because of how much they meant (and mean) to each other.

anyways i miss early season one niki i liked it when she was happy :(

~ Lad 2

#wilbur #c!wilbur #niki #c!niki #dreamsmp #dsmp #mcyt #rp #long post #dreamsmp analysis #dsmp analysis #revivedbur #pogtopia #lad speaks

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jangofctts · 5 years

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Madness (Poe Dameron x Reader)

Rated: Explicit

Word Count: 5k

Warnings: Smut, handjobs, language, sex, creampies, Poe Dameron is a warning in its self, slight description of blood/injury

A/N: sorry that this is a day late y’all. I'm v sick and high on nyquill yehaww brothers

This is not your fault.

Oh, Stars, but it is.

You bury your fingers, blackened with motor oil, into your hair and fold into yourself. You wish you could disappear. Wouldn't that be a fucking miracle and a half? You spare another glance at the destroyed droid and with a despaired wail, you bury your face into your knees again.

What the fuck were you thinking?

See, it started out fine, like most things do. But of course, like always, it turned out to be a real garbage fire. No, not even that. It was worse than a garbage fire. All you wanted to do was help out, and with the slowly dwindling amount of pilots available, you are pushed to the side. No pilots, no mechanics.

Droid maintenance is not your forte, but Kaydel Ko had specifically asked for your help and of course being the blubbering mess you are, you couldn't say no. All it took was a sweet, helpless smile and then boom! Here you are, stuck with a First Order droid with a processing chip all but fucking obliterated.

You thought it'd be easy to rewire the little BB unit, but the spunky little thing had its very own arsenal of weapons. Your legs and hands are a mess of electrical burns and tiny slashes that sting much worse than a papercut and steadily ooze blood. It would absolutely not stay still, so you resorted to a makeshift prison made out of duct tape and bungee chords until you could sort of pry into the droid's mainframe. You toyed with one wire at most and the droid spun its little head around, knocked the tweezers clean out of your hand, tore three more wires and with a disheartening woop; exploded in your face.

You aren't really thinking straight the moment you decide that hiding the blasted thing would be a grand idea. So, with your face covered in black soot and your hands bordering being numb, you scoop the destroyed droid up and sprint out of the base. You do have some luck, you figure. You run into nobody in the hallways leading outside; no one to see your absolute disaster that you plan on chucking into the dense forest.

You beeline towards the X-Wings and just as you think that you'd finally, finally be done with this whole mess, your worst nightmare appears.

Poe Dameron in all his neon orange jumpsuited glory steps out behind the body of his X-Wing. Right in your path of destruction. It's inevitable, really. The first syllable of watch out is barely out of your mouth before he even comprehends you're there and then you're crashing into him, faster than fucking lightspeed.

The resounding 'oof' as you barrel into him will no doubt haunt your dreams, and you have just enough time to watch as the droid bounces on the ground, spraying sparks everywhere, then disappear into the underbrush, before Poe collapses on you. At least one of your problems is solved.

"What the hell?"

You would ask the same thing, but the entirety of Poe's weight focused on your back is doing a splendid job of crushing your lungs. Your hand shoots back and slaps at whatever it can. "P-poe! Can't breath!"

"Aw, shit. Sorry, kid."

You heave in precious air once he unravels himself out of the pickle you've put yourself in and before you know it, he hooks an arm underneath your armpit and hauls you up. He takes one good look at you, up and down, and has to bite his lip to keep his smile away. Not like it does much good.

"You—uh—ok, kid?" He coughs, trying real hard.

You throw your hands up. "Oh! Go ahead and laugh! That's all I'm good for anyway!"

What little pride you have left rapidly dwindles but as his shoulders shake in uncontrollable laughter that morphs into one of those laughs where you can't breathe, you can't help but smile yourself. Poe's glee is contagious (even if you are the butt of it) and you're glad you can give him some comedic relief. The days are getting darker, more friends are dying, and it's harder to put on a smile, even for Poe. It's a rare and special moment to provide some momentary happiness.

Eventually his chuckles taper off. He's folded over, clutching his stomach as tears shine at the corners of his eyes. "You—you!"

Another fit of giggles consume him after taking another peek at your face. "Wha—what ha-happened?"

You huff and cross you arms over your chest. Try as you might to appear irked, a lopsided grin still lines your face. "That is none of your business."

Poe wipes at his eyes and stands, his chest still heaving. "You're the one who tackled me. The least you could do is tell me."

"I did not tackle you," you scoff. "You were in the way!"

He's still smiling as he shakes his head. "Yeah, whatever. Kaydel Ko asked you to rewire that FO droid, right?"

You grimace. "No."

He raises a brow and ruffles your unruly hair. "Sure, kid."

Poe takes a glance at where the droid launched into the trees and points. "C'mon, I think it went over there."

To your horror he seizes your upper arm and drags you forward. Oh. nonononono. You dig your heels in but Poe is persistent and you're quickly coming to terms with your impeding doom and ridicule, so you let him take you.

It's easy to find. The droid is still smoking and sparking, looking oh so sad nestled between a tree and a large fern. Poe starts laughing again.

"The hell d'you do to the poor thing? Run it over with a pod-racer?"

"Something like that," you mumble.

Poe scoops it up and the damage looks even more devastating when he's holding it. You chew your lip and sigh as he hands it back. "Thanks, I guess."

With an amused 'mhm' he once again places a hand on your shoulder and wheels you out of the forest. You don't mean to tense up (a force of habit really) as his thumb whispers over your shoulder blade, but the damage is done and his hand drops. You want to wack yourself with a stick.

You pause by his X-Wing. "Hey, I'm sorry for, y'know tackling you. Also, th-thank you..."

He flashes you a smile and shrugs. "No biggie, Sparky."

You scowl. "Don't call me that."

That pulls out another laugh and then he's staring at you. Those big brown eyes, so warm and deep like the richness of the soil, capture yours as if they have their own gravitational pull. All grasp on words slip your mind and you're left to wrestle with your tongue into saying something. Why is he looking at you like that?

"I can help."

You blink. "What?"

"With the droid, I mean," he offers. You swear you can see the skin underneath his collar flush red. Poe Dameron blushing. Hm.

You have absolutely no clue why you agree, but his bright smile is enough to launch your heart against your ribcage.

"Great. I'll let Kaydel know we'll have it done by tomorrow."

"Tomorrow?" You squeak. Fat chance.

Before you can argue, he ruffles your hair again and shoots off. "Meet you at 1900 in maintenance!"

You glance down at the droid. The hole in its head sparks. "Oh, Stars."

=-=-=-=

You're pacing by the time 1850 rolls around, your stomach a mess of knots and twists. You don't want Poe Dameron to help you. In fact, you don't want him here at all!

You're clean at least. The black soot covering your face was a bitch to scrub off and there's still some of it hiding in the lines of your skin, but it's the best you can do. Not that you care. Well, you shouldn't care what Poe thinks. You know each other—scratch that. You know him from the years spent in the Resistance, because, well, he's Poe Dameron. As for yourself, you're 99.9 percent positive the only reason he happens to know your name is because there's only fifteen of you still alive following the aftermath of Crait. Kinda hard not to know your fellow survivors.

You never minded it. You're used to being alone, pushed to the side where you could blend in like a shadow. Really, it's the only reason why you managed to escape the First Order. No one paid you half a mind when you slipped inside that ship and piloted away. Well...you were shot at shortly after, but that's not important.

You're not paying attention--lost inside your head again when the blast doors swoosh open. You don't even fucking see him until you collide head on for the second time today. With a strangled yelp, you both stumble and trip over a flailing limb here and a hidden wire there. The whole debacle ends up with you smacking the back of your head devastatingly hard on the duracrete floor and with Poe's entire weight once again crushing down on your chest cavity.

"Holy shit, Sparky," he groans. His head is nestled in the crook of your neck and if you weren't seeing stars spinning in your fucking orbit, you'd have the decency to be embarrassed. "You trying to kill me?"

"Un-Unsuc-successfully," you wheeze. "How-how m'I doing?"

He pulls away just a fraction, hovering so close that you feel his nose brush against yours. "A for effort. Though, I don't think you're really cut out to be an assassin. Might wanna reconsider that career path."

"Agreed."

Fuck. Your head is pounding. You don't even get to enjoy the way Poe feels pressed against you, or how good he smells. Maker, he smells good, something warm and woodsy, but fuck, you are in so much pain. Are you bleeding? You're pretty sure you're bleeding.

"Did you hit your head?" He asks, his plush lips twitching into a frown. He still hasn't moved from the current position of lying between your legs and it makes everything worse.

"I'm fine."

"You're not fine," he huffs. "I heard your head smack the ground, Sparky. Lemme see it."

Poe peels himself off of you and tugs you into a sitting position. You reel and squeeze your eyes shut as nausea punches through your gut and the edges of your vision go a bit fuzzy. Damn, you really did not plan on getting a concussion today, nor have Poe Dameron be the one to patch you up.

He sits behind you and as his calloused fingers sweep across the back of your neck, you tense up. Poe hesitates then, his fingertips ghost above the skin, barely there and you try to relax. Years spent in an organization where corporal punishment is encouraged will surely make one hesitant of touch and try as you might, it's a hard habit to curve.

"I'm just checking to see if you're bleeding," Poe says softly noting your tension. "Is that ok?"

You nod and wave his concerns away. "Yeah, s'fine."

He cradles the back of your neck in one calloused palm while the other gently cards through your hair. He sucks in an audible wince and icy panic floods your veins. He must sense your apprehension because his thumb unconsciously begins to rub tiny circles onto your skin.

"Don't freak out... But you have a teeny, tiny cut," he tells you. "Microscopic, really."

You're gonna die. Maker, you're gonna die because of that stupid fucking droid. You're going to smash that fucker into smithereens even if it's the last thing you do. You try and move, eyes locked on the piece of junk across the room, but Poe is hurriedly pushing you back down.

"Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa!" His hands are like metal clamps on your shoulders and you grunt in irritation. "Just sit. I'll go get a medkit. Nothing a little bacta won't fix."

He's right. You're overreacting, but that droid's beady little eye seems to sparkle with smug satisfaction at your demise. You glare and swear revenge.

Behind you, Poe runs to the wall where the kit hangs and hurries back with the spray on bacta canister. You barely feel it coat the back of your skull and then he's done. "See, I told you. It's already healing."

"Wow, thank the Maker that the joke of the Resistance is saved," you sigh. You reach up to touch the dully throbbing area but Poe smacks your hand away. "Ow!"

"Don't touch it." He chides.

You roll your eyes and turn your head to face him and jut a thumb over your shoulder, "How long do I have to wait until we get to fixing that piece of shit over there."

Poe blinks, glances at the droid then back to you. "I dunno, half an hour?"

"Half—Poe! Are you serious?" You hiss. "We're going to be here all night!"

The pilot has the audacity to shrug. You want to throttle him. "It's not like we have anywhere to be."

You open your mouth to protest, but once again he's right. You scowl and glare at the frayed laces of your boot. This is officially, the worst day you've ever had.

A prolonged silence, a bit awkward and filled with your obvious irritation, blankets the room. Poe has enough sense not to prod at your buttons and settles down to your right. Your head is starting to feel much better at least.

It continues like this. Neither of you speak for the better part of ten minutes and then, quietly, almost to too quiet, he says;

"You're not a joke, y'know."

Your brows furrow together and you pause. You look up and he's got that warm, familiar look again and it only brings a dull ache that eats away inside your chest. Part of you wants to agree, but that dark and nasty other part that lurks deep in your chest lashes it's claws out at the thought. He doesn't know you—doesn't know the pain you've been through. You don't want his pity.

You look away. "I...I don't think you know who I am, Poe."

Your teeth bite the inside of your cheek as you pick at the skin along your fingernails. You can feel his eyes crawl over your face and you do everything in your power not to catch his eye because tears are starting to prick at your eyes. Maker, why are you crying? This situation, in its entirety, is beyond stupid.

He says your name, your full name and the air in your lungs seizes. "I know you. You were a Lieutenant in the First Order before you came to us. I remember the day you arrived too."

You spare him a glance and he smiles.

"I remember 'cause that janky Xi-class you were piloting was blasted to hell and you somehow managed to park it without killing anyone. And then—this is my favorite part—you walk out, still in your uniform and you go 'I do hope I don't have to pay for parking'. And then you collapse face first onto the ground." Poe's chuckling as a blush flushes up to your ears. You recall. Vividly.

You snort and rub at your chin. "It wasn't all that amazing."

"Sparky, you stole a First Order ship and flew to a Rebel base. That's pretty ballsy."

You shrug.

"I also remember that time you tricked out Jess's rig with those mods. Me and Snap were jealous for weeks. And that time you spilled caf all over Leia's datapac. Remember that?" Poe says. His hand inches closer your knee. "And when you gave her that replacement one, all those ads about male enhancement pills and 'hot Twi'leks near YOU' kept popping up?"

"Arhg!" You cry, burying your face into your hands. You're pretty sure at this point you could fry an egg on your face from how hot your skin feels. "That was so fucking embarrassing. I-I can't—why would—ahg!"

"Kid, that was the funniest thing I've ever seen."

"That still makes me the butt of every joke! And I still can't even fix a droid properly!" You wail. "Or how about that time I dropped a crate of explosives? I might as well throw myself in a trash compactor."

Before you can even fucking blink, Poe's hands snatch up yours and hold them so firmly you have no choice but to look at him. "Sparky, listen to me."

You quite like the color of his eyes you come to find. A honeyed caramel, so rich that it'd take years to explore the countless layers. There's no malice, no hidden motives you can detect. Just pure, unrefined kindness and hope and—Stars, he's gorgeous.

His thumbs run across the slopes of your knuckles and it's electrifying. "You are one of the only people keeping the Resistance together."

"Bu-"

"Shut up. I'm not done."

You mouth zips shut

"You focus so much on the bad that you don't realize how much you contribute," he says with a gentle smile. "You maybe aren't the best with droids, but people? Sparky, so many of us look to you for hope. I know it's cheesy, but you really do brighten a room with your smile."

A tear trails down the curve of your cheek and he's quick to cradle your jaw and swipe it away with the pad of his thumb. "I don't know what we would—what I would do without you."

"Poe," his name comes out shaky and soft and you know he can feel your blush under his palm, "I—I...thank you."

His eyes flicker down to your parted mouth and then he brushes his thumb across the seam of your bottom lip. He leans in close enough that you can feel his lips just graze yours, warm breath fanning over your chin, and your eyes flutter shut.

"Can I kiss you?" He whispers against your lips. Fuck, he is so infuriatingly perfect, isn't he?

"Yes." Maker, yes, yes, yes. That shouldn't even be a question.

The first kiss is fleeting. An innocent peck that flings open the gaping maw of your desire. Your hand shoots up, tangles in the thick curls atop his head and you drag him closer. He groans into your mouth, grabs at your neck and tilts your head, deepening the kiss. His tongue, hot and wet sweeps over your bottom lip and you readily open your mouth and let your tongue glide over his.

He's playful; breaking away to catch your bottom lip between his teeth, then releasing to hook the tip of his tongue into your top lip then swoop in for a lingering kiss. It's impossible to keep up—he dances to his own tune while you stumble along. There's no lack of enthusiasm on your part however and he isn't bothered in the slightest by the occasional bump of your nose or when the hard enamel of your teeth click together. Your whole juxtaposition changes, and you suddenly want to thank that dumb droid. You'd break a thousand of them if it meant you could continue forever on like this.

Poe eventually leans away, the hand tangled in your hair firm so that you're still only a hairsbreadth apart, carefully lowering himself down until you hover above him. His warm hand that leaves a burning trail down your waist, hooks around your thigh and helps tug your leg over his hips. You pull back to suck in air that's suddenly so difficult to inhale and Stars—he's a sight to see. Those lovely black curls are wild and untamed, his plush lips swollen and pouty because you won't give him another taste of your mouth. His chest heaves and your breath stutters as he plants his hands on the swell of your hips, thumb pressing lightly against the outcrop of bone there.

"Maker, you're gorgeous..." You murmur. You lean down and nestle your head in the crook of his neck, lips seeking out the soft skin above his collar. You trail your lips across the curve of his throat and as your teeth catch his earlobe then lick at the small divot behind his ear, a soft groan leaves his mouth.

"Are-aren't I the one—fuck," his hips twitch as you mouth beneath his stubbled jaw, "s'posed to say that?"

You grin and pull him into an opened mouth kiss. His tongue pulls yours into the wet heat of his mouth and sucks lightly. With a whine, your hips stutter forward as fiery heat trickles into your belly. You can feel the growing bulge in his pants, pressing against your inner thigh and shit—you need him.

Your hips rock forward on their own volition and Poe is quickly there to support as his hands grip you tighter and drag you down harder. He props his knees up and with a sharp moan and digs his clothed cock into the apex of your thighs. The fabric of your pants catches on your clit and it's good. Dry fucking Poe Dameron is a wish come fucking true, but it's not enough.

Poe's smirking as his fingers toy with the buckle of his belt. "You wanna take a ride, Sparky?"

You punch him in the arm.

"Ow!" he pouts. "What was that for?"

"Don't say that shit to me ever again."

His warm chuckle echoes through the room and sends a pleasant shiver down your spine. "What if I ask if you wanna ride my cock reeeal nice and slow? Feel how hot and tight your cunt is when you sink down onto me. You wan't me to say that?"

Paired with his voice, his strong hands grab your ass and roll his hips up into you and you're done for. You melt into his chest, whining out your affirmations and you don't care how he's already got you wrapped so tightly around his fucking finger.

"Take these off." He purrs, skimming his fingertips over the waistband of your trousers.

Somehow you manage to escape your boots and shuck your pants off through the haze of your arousal. When you return, he's got his pants halfway over his knees, pristine white shirt haphazardly torn open revealing the beautiful expanse of tan skin peppered with dark hair. You straddle his thighs, eyeing the tent in his boxers that leaves little to the imagination and the heat in the pit of your stomach swells.

Poe shoots you a coy grin and sweeps a hand down. He grips his cock, still hidden beneath the confines of his boxers, and gives it a teasing stroke. "You want me?"

"Poe," You whine. Stars, he's making this difficult.

He's smug as he slowly, to the point of teasing, tugs down his boxers with his other hand and eases out his cock. It's gorgeous like the rest of him, deliciously thick and curving towards his navel. Precum shines at the head that's flushed a deep maroon, darker than the rest of his sunkissed skin. You're mesmerized with the way he strokes himself; lazy and gentle, focusing on the head then dipping down to squeeze at the base.

His cock bounces as he lets go and snatches your hand that's lying limp over his hip. He guides it over the searing flesh and it feels like velvet covering reinforced durasteel. He swears as your thumb rubs over the head of his cock, wiping away the bead of liquid that pools there. You circle your fingers around his length and stroke down to cup his balls and he juts his hips into your hand.

Fuck. You want to suck him off. Feel him shake and twitch under your tongue and cum down your throat. Yet, as his fingers trail up your inner thigh and pass through the slick folds of your cunt, you are vividly reminded where else you want him.

"Shit," he breaths, circling your clit with the tip of his forefinger. "You're dripping."

Poe probes further, curling his fingers into your cunt, juuust pushing into your entrance until his fingers are shiny and slick with your arousal. He pulls back and you groan at the loss.

He sucks his fingers into his mouth and moans. Fuck, why is that so hot? It shouldn't be. "Can I eat you out, Sparky?"

He's digging his fingers into the flesh of your ass, tempting you closer and Maker it sounds good, but—"Later. Fuck me instead."

Poe's lips curl into a wicked smile. "Are you sure?"

His fingers return to your the soaking flesh between your legs and thumb at your swollen clit. You shudder, quickly catching his wrist. "Please."

"Fine," he grumbles. "Later."

Finally, you think as you hold his cock loosely and grind your slick folds against it. He makes a punched out sound when you raise your hips and move the blunt tip to your entrance. You slowly let him sink in, a long stuttered groan falling past his lips at the feel of your hot, tight walls stretching around his cock. Your own breath catches in your chest and you dig your nails into chest, leaving behind tiny crescent shaped dents.

—oh—shit—holy fucking shit.

His cock is catching every ridge and curve until the back of your thighs are seated on his. His eyes are squeezed shut and little gasps, as if he were in pain, are tumbling out every time you twitch around him. He's thick—deliciously so, and when you raise your hips and slide back down, his cock drags against your walls and presses in deep. You grind your hips down, catching your clit on his pubic bone and wildfire spreads throughout your whole frame.

"Ah, fuck," he moans. He gives your hips a squeeze and pulls you against him harder, guiding you into a slow, steady pace. "You fe-feel good. Knew-knew you would."

At this point you're hardly doing any work despite being on top; he has his knees propped up behind you and thrusts up into you then drags you back down by your hips. You're loosing your fucking mind like this. One of his hands drifts down and reaches for your clit, his middle finger stroking against the slick bundle of nerves and the fire in your belly quickly spreads down all the way to your toes. You're shaking, panting sharply, and Poe continues to toy with your clit paired with the even rolling of his hips.

"You gonna cum on my cock, Sparky?" Poe huffs out, grabbing a handful of your asscheek. "Yeah, just...just like that. Cum for me."

Your back arches and everything seizes up tighter than a fucking clamp, and with another pass along your aching clit, you burst hot and wet around his cock. With a hoarse cry, your core clenches and spasms through each one of his thrusts, stretching out your pleasure.

In one smooth, fluid move, Poe sits up and pushes you forward until your back hits the ground and he's towering over you. His hand is buried in your hair, cradling the sensitive area but you're still riding your high to notice the pain. With his free hand he hooks the back of your knee and folds it over his shoulder. Stars, you didn't even know your leg went up this far and when he roughly thrusts into you, the air in your lungs is sucked out and replaced with a strangled wheeze.

"You like that?"

You claw at his bicep as he kneels up and pounds down into you, hitting that heavenly spot within you. Your eyes roll back and Poe curls over you to nuzzle into your damp skin, teeth digging into the exposed skin above the collar of your shirt you never bothered taking off. His thrusts are slowly reaching the pace you need him to go and you bury your fingers in his hair and pull. His moan vibrates over your skin.

"Harder." You order. "P-Poe. I-I n-need—"

Poe digs his teeth in between the junction of your shoulder, slips his cock nearly all the way out of your cunt, then slams it back in deep. It's fast and brutal, and you can hear your flesh slap together, hear the obscene squelching noice your cunt makes from how wet you are. Your face burns in embarrassment, but he's hitting something so devastatingly wonderful that you don't really give a shit.

He's grunting in your ear, whispering praise—how wet you are and how perfect you whine and beg for him. He's plowing into you and you're close. So close to the edge again.

"Fuck," he growls, "m'gonna cum. Where—where do—"

"Anywhere," you gasp, arching into him. "In-in me. Cum inside."

Poe's hips stutter. The fist in your hair tightens and he rocks his hips into three—maybe four times before the muscles in your back stiffen and everything blurs and goes out of focus. White hot pleasure rips you apart, floods each cell with razor sharp heat as your body convulses in ecstasy.

He's hissing out swears between his clenched teeth, as his hips jolt and grinds himself balls deep inside you. Poe captures your lips and feel him pulse and throb, chest heaving, as his load, thick and hot, spurts into you and coats your walls.

Poe keeps you pinned there as his hips shallowly rock into you, savoring the last dregs of his orgasm as you catch your breath. He stills and you two lay there, filling the room with your gentle pants. Your knee slips off his shoulder and he moves to plant a lazy kiss on the corner of your mouth and pulls out. His cum trickles out after and drips down your slit but you're too spent to care right now.

He lifts his head that's resting on your sternum. "How's your head, Sparky?"

"Wha—oh." Truth is you hardly feel it now. The bacta truly does work wonders. "S'fine. Never better."

He shoots you a dashing smile, the gap in his teeth and his boyish air makes your head spin. "Wanna take me out for another spin, then?"

"Poe!"

And the droid never did get fixed...Oh well...

#poe dameron #poe dameron x reader #poe dameron x you #star wars #the rise of skywalker #fanfic #itsspacecowboys #this is disgusTANG beware #probably doesn't make sense cuz I'm sick af but eh #smut

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magnetothehedgehog · 4 years

Text

Shadow IDW:Another Maria.

By now, its pretty much agreed a lot of people dislike Shadow's characterization in the Idw comics, even more so with the big need for him to be Sonic's "Bitter Rival." Character mandate.

But let's take a moment and just appreciate?

Despite this restriction, the Idw Team has not only made him have relevant goal making his appearances in the comics have PURPOSE, despite Shadow's lack of telling anyone what that seemingly random puprose is. But also they have, Evan in particular from what i can tell, have painted this beautiful picture of the inner person shadow is despite his outward exterior.

Let me explain a bit. And Imma cry a little with this.

Shadows Goal: to protect the planet from threats, but specifically, to protect the planet to keep a promise to the one person he loved the most.

That's right.

Maria. Thats why he showed up to fight mettalix. What other reason would he have to? To prove he was the strongest? No, that wouldn't be true even if he told you that was what it was. He's shown he doesn't "seem" to care about others, so whats the matter if mettalix destroys some stuff here or there.

Yet how come shadow shows up whenever there is a major threat or seemingly new rising up danger similar to eggman? Why did he try to take out Mr.Tinker?

Shadow was tasked with protecting the planet, but thats a big ask, and something he doesn't quite know how to do. He himself was created for more than being a weapon, but since his release in sa2 it was all he came to know.

In shadow the hedgehog he had to annihilate the whole black arms species because they wanted to consume the planet. And while they where trying to eat the planet and the people in it, having to obliterate them, especially knowing one them is technically your dad, probably lingers in his mind a bit. He probably thinks about it. Maybe it bothers him.

To Shadow, the only way to deal with a threat is to take it out- merely avoiding thee problem leads to nothing but more trouble, and more heartache.

Which leads me to number 2 😢😢😢😭:

He doesn't want another Maria. For him, letting a threat go on to threaten someone else or something he holds dear is the worst crime. Think back. He tried running away from the Gun soldiers with Maria. In all the sequences he was running away with her, not fighting. In the hero story of Shadow the hedgehog on the ark, Maria asks you to save the scientists, which leads me to believe that canonically, shadow didn't actually fight on the ark, just evaded. But look what happened. His best friend got shot and died, because he ran away. Because he let the threat live. He probably wonders if its because he didn't fight.

Take the latest issue. He goes straight for Starline instead of outright releasing tails or rouge (who has already practically released herself mind you). This previous experience comes back into play, maybe even doubling because of how tinker turning back to eggman unleashed the virus which shadow couldn't stop. If you look closely, hes almost losing himself when Starline gets away.

Only Rouge's words of wisdom pull him out of his rage filled trance. Perhaps she knows that all that killing would weigh on him even more. Yeah, even if he did take out one person, to take out another? And another? All that guilt piling up on his conscience.

But yeah I think they did a nice job on how he's constantly battling with whta he thinks his promise means and what he should do so he can still sleep at night and have a healthy life going forward.

Obviously this could be different from how they may see it or be writing it towards, but this is kinda how I perceive it/like to think they are keeping in mind.

(Edit: I made this a little while back and forgot to post it/work on it so I kinda forgot anything else I was gonna write)

Anyways, these are my thoughts :)

#Sonic Idw #Sonic Theory #Shadow Characterization #Shadow Idw #Sonic Idw Issue 36 Spoilers #Sonic Spoilers #Sonic Comic #Sonic Comic Spoilers #My thoughts #Sonic Idw Issue 36

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laceymorganwrites · 4 years

Text

The Story of the sad chapter 15

Word Count: 2,367

Pairing: Ban x reader

Warnings: cursing

Summary: The Rescue Mission continues

Taglist; @lysawayne

“Okay, lovely reunions aside, we gotta go save the princess now” you hated to be the one who destroyed this precious moment, but someone had to do it.

It wouldn´t be good if you stayed here any longer than you needed to.

“You should´ve said that at the beginning, dear” Merlin smirked and forced Elizabeth´s location out of Vivian.

As soon as she uttered the words, Merlin teleported you in front of the king´s room, something was holding her back though, it was the perfect cube, a demonic barrier.

Not that that was a problem for Merlin, who immediately canceled the magic, making you able to enter the room.

Elizabeth headed straight for Meliodas to hug him, it was bittersweet. She didn´t remember him yet and still her feelings were prevalent.

You wondered if you would ever be able to harbor such a strong love for another person and if they would for you.

Before you could sink into your thoughts any more, Dreyfus entered the room and had all of you on guard.

However instead of fighting you, he broke down on the floor in shame, admitting to the crime of killing his own brother, the very reason you had to flee in the first place. Before you wasn´t a holy knight, he was merely a broken man eaten alive by his guilt now.

He also informed you that Hendrickson´s plan was to bring forth another holy war.

After hearing that his son was alive, he obliged and obediently walked himself into the dungeon to await his trial.

Merlin took a look at the king´s health and stated that he needed to be treated immediately, however this would only be possible in Camelot where she had all of her supplies.

“I´m coming with you!” you said.

Merlin only raised an eyebrow but then chuckled.

“I suppose you would, after all it´s where your weapon lies… however it got there, I cannot remember” she smirked.

She teleported you, Arthur and the king to Camelot´s castle where she treated him.

“Arthur, show (Y/N) where her sword is” she smiled mischievously.

“You mean the one you told me to guard?” he asked and you cocked an eyebrow, why would he have to guard your sword? It´s not like it would wither and nobody was able to steal it.

He showed you around the castle and then stepped through a secret hallway leading into a big room plastered with all kinds of weapons and armor of the goddess clan.

It felt like a twisted version of home.

“What the hell...where did she get all of this? Well, I suppose if anyone would be able to, it´d be Merlin. But still...” you looked around the room in wonder, subconsciously remembering your old days as a soldier, as the head of the holy army.

It was sick but it filled you with pride, you were good at it, very much so and even better at strategy.

But still, there had to be a reason why you remembered so much of your past recently.

“Merlin said you could take anything you want, she also told me to tell you to view this room as your personal closet” he awkwardly smiled at you.

You had to chuckle, that was so typical of her.

“Well, thanks a bunch for all of this, but I have to go back now” you said as you went back to say goodbye to Merlin, sword in hand.

“If you ever need anything else, just give me a call” Merlin smiled at you before she teleported you back to the capital.

You landed right amidst the action, it seemed.

“Holy shit, what the fuck is going on?” you asked, looking around you saw only ruins of the castle, two holy knights wincing in pain and your friends, boyfriend and another holy knight.

“Hell if I know, whatever it is we have to make it stop” Diane said.

“Babe!” Ban came up to you and hugged you tight, kissing your cheek.

“I missed you...” he nuzzled your neck.

Warmth spread through your body as you let yourself fall into his touch for an instance, this, whatever this was, whether it was true or not, it felt right.

Yes, Gowther did spread some doubt in your mind about the reason you got into this relationship, but you wouldn´t let that hinder you.

You were always better at fighting when you had something to protect, even if that something was immortal and handsome.

“(Y/N)! You got your sword back!” Elaine exclaimed, clapping her hands and cheering for you.

“Finally joined the party, eh?” Meliodas joined you, teasing you.

But before any more casual conversation could be held, Jericho transformed into the same monster that Meliodas, Ban and King fought a while ago.

Apparently it was a malfunction on holy knights who have been given demon blood.

The thought that Hendrickson did that still made you sick to your stomach.

He suddenly appeared in front of you, clad in a demonic aura as the new generation of holy knights all transformed into beasts.

“Okay so, how the fuck do we go about this? Mel, you told me that those beasts could only be defeated once you killed the person inside, right? There has to be another way!” you called out to him.

There was too much chaos to get a clear head or overview, everything happened too quickly.

Meliodas and Gilthunder tried to take on Hendrickson, however he ordered Vivian to take Margaret and Elizabeth as hostages, making the men startle for a second.

A second he used to slice them down.

Elizabeth did something very brave and stupid at that moment, she offered to go with Hendrickson in return for Meliodas´ and Gilthunder´s life.

She always thought about others before herself, which made her so strong.

“Mel, I know what you´re thinking, but we need to think this through. We need a rescue Elizabeth team and one that deals with those fuckers” you pointed at the beasts that were once holy knights.

All he gave you was a pained expression.

“I´ll heal your wounds, give me a sec” you knelt down at his side and applied your magic.

“Okay, we need to contain those monsters before we know what to do with them that doesn´t kill the person inside. I can´t afford them to wreak any more havoc. Somebody needs to get the citizens into a safe space. So that´ll be two teams. And then the last one is the rescue team. King, Diane, Gil and Howzer, you go defeat the beasts. Gowther, Hawk and Elaine, get the people to safety. Ban, Mel and I will rescue the princess.” you knew it wasn´t your place but someone had to put order and clear instructions into the heads of the scared, otherwise nothing could be done.

Nothing could be achieved by being frozen in fear.

Meliodas nodded, getting back up on his feet.

You ran into the direction where Hendrickson´s magic was coming from, apparently Dreyfus fought him as of right now.

Dreyfus was on your side, but even if you arrived in time to save the princess you doubted that the four of you could take Hendrickson on.

You might have been able to if you had had the opportunity to train with your sword longer, it should come to you easily, but maybe ten years was just too long. Not to mention Meliodas was exhausted, even though you healed his wounds.

And while Ban couldn´t take any longterm damage from Hendrickson, you doubted he could deliver any to him.

It was hopeless. And yet you couldn´t just stand around and continued moving forward.

When you arrived you saw only the remains of Dreyfus´ armor and a bleeding Elizabeth.

You hoped Ban and Meliodas would be able to distract Hendrickson long enough for you to heal her and get her to safety.

Without thinking you flew past him, grabbed Elizabeth and healed her in the process of leaving her in the care of Elaine and Hawk who alongside Diane and the others came into your direction to help.

You told Elaine and Hawk to get to safety before you joined the fight again.

“Mel, if we´re lucky he won´t be able to take the demonic magic any longer, so let´s hit him with everything we got. Make it count” you husked, a determined look in your eyes as you swung your sword as the first attack against Hendrickson.

Ban watched in awe as your blade stroke his skin, making him wince in pain. It´s been while since he´s seen you go all out on someone and damn were you a sight to behold.

So graceful, so elegant, so utterly beautiful. He had to watch out not to get distracted too much by you.

“Yes babe! Get him!” he cheered for you and the others followed your example, fiercefully attacking Hendrickson.

As the battle commenced it was revealed that Hendrickson hid a red demon corpse in a hidden cave which he claimed to be the source of it all.

It enraged you beyond belief, how he said that without any remorse, without any tone change in his voice, he even sounded proud of it, of himself.

“You disgust me...” you balled your fists, shaking as tears streamed down your face.

“How the fuck could you make them drink that?! Aren´t you ashamed of yourself, you piece of shit? I´m gonna fucking obliterate you and you bet your ass I´m gonna make it hurt” you lashed out at him, your wings subconsciously raised you higher as you started an attack from above, slashing at his shoulder with all force.

“Ashamed? Why should I? Just look at all the success I´ve had with this… I´m invincible” he sardonically smirked.

“If only Mael didn´t steal my place as one of the four archangels and I had his sword, I would´ve killed you back when we first found out about you, but now this´ll have to do!” you kicked him in the guts and held him down, about to give him the final stab when he grabbed onto your wings and broke them.

You saw red as the pain emitted into your body like hot lava, almost making it burst. Your wings hung loosely down your back and you couldn´t move them, they were now a mere burden to you.

“You fucking bastard!” Ban rushed to your side and got you out of harm´s way, only refusing to hit Hendrickson when Meliodas actively held him back.

“Ban.” Elaine stated coldly, there was so much anger inside of her small body she couldn´t contain it, she would have her revenge.

“Let´s end this. Once and for all, we did it once, we can do it again. It´s time for vengeance, for the forest, for (Y/N), for all the misery this thing caused” she grit her teeth, collecting all of her magic in the palm of her hands and pointing it at Hendrickson, making him fall down the hole that was created when the demon was revealed.

“Fucking hell, this hurts like a bitch...” you twisted your arms behind your back to reach your wings to heal them, but it seemed like you had exhausted your healing magic for the day.

“Don´t force yourself, (Y/N). We´re gonna take him down, no matter what” Meliodas told you, carrying you to the side of the battlefield with a dark look in his eyes.

“Diane, you stay back with (Y/N). Watch that nothing happens” Meliodas ordered as the rest went down the hole into the cave.

“We´ll be right back, darling...” Ban held your face in his hands, caressing your cheek. “Just stay put, okay? Diane, make sure she´s not into too much pain. Please watch out for her for me” he pleaded with a worried look on his face before he kissed your forehead one last time and joined the others.

“You can count on me!” Diane nodded determined and sat down beside you.

“Poor (Y/N)...is there anything I can do to help?” she hated being tall, especially in moments like this she felt useless. A dear friend was hurting and she couldn´t do anything but sit by and watch.

“No...I´ll have to wait until my magic is restored, I think with enough stretching I can heal myself. But it hurts like a bitch...” you forced a smile.

“Maybe we can talk to distract you from the pain? Hey, let´s talk about Ban! That´s sure to brighten up your mood” she smiled at you.

“Yeah, it sure is...” you returned the smile.

“I don´t know what I did to deserve him, but I feel like if I question it too much all the happiness will just go away and I don´t want that. But if I don´t question it then I´ll never be sure...” you rested your chin on your legs.

“Sure of what?” Diane tilted her head.

“Whether I truly love him...whether I´d be able to recognize the feeling even if it hit me in the face or if I´m even capable of such a wonderful thing...” you shared your thoughts with her, watching her frown.

“Well, with your past it´s only natural that you´d feel this way. I can´t tell you how to feel but I can tell you the things I noticed that changed about you when you and Ban got together. You´re happier, it shows, you´re so free and light all the time, it´s contagious, it´s like your smile and happiness washes over to the rest of us. And you´re much more relaxed too, it´s like a burden has been lifted off you. I like seeing you happy like this, I never liked it when you were so depressed over things long past and unchangeable… and (Y/N)? I can see the same changes in him too. He´s so soft and gentle around you, I´m envious of what you have, it´s just so beautiful” she played with her fingers.

“You think so? I didn´t notice any of that...” you felt silly, how could you not even recognize your own happiness let alone the one of others anymore? It was pathetic.

“It´s because you´re always in your head” Diane giggled.

#seven deadly sins #seven deadly sins imagine #seven deadly sins fanfiction #seven deadly sins fanfic #ban x reader #sds #sds imagine #sds fanfiction #sds fanfic #nanatsu no taizai #nanatsu no taizai imagine #nanatsu no taizai fanfiction #nanatsu no taizai fanfic #nnt #nnt imagine #nnt fanfiction #nnt fanfic

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deanirae · 4 years

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Can you get it inside your head I’m tired of dancing?

post 8.07 pre 8.08] crack/angst past turned unrequited deancas, implied deanbenny 2,4k [x]

The sun, also currently known as bitch, has got some serious nerve to sit where it always does, not upside down and nine miles to the left as it frankly should on this memorable fuckhat day. Where is the End of Days when it's really called for? When it should be really nigh?

Dean flips the front mirror panel down not to have to deal with at least that one disappointment. He can still see Cas's half-constipated, half-abandoned and kicked in its fluffy ass puppy face in the mercilessly annoying reflection. The obvious choice would be to not grace it with anything right now, but A – he's the one driving so his eyes can't wander off pretty far, especially in the barely sunlit grayness – and B – on his left, Sam is currently roleplaying a twelve year old girl that has her big emotional introspection accompanied by listening to Sarah McLahlan because her mean parents wouldn't let her buy ebola from the internet. Or something.

Point is, he's three hours into ostentatiously moping, trying to quietly terrorize Dean into making peace with Cas on the fly so it won't be awkward and problematique for him anymore. To Sam, Dean is just too inconvenient anytime he's inconvenient. And that, by order of nature herself, demands immediate and final stopping and ballot recounting also.

And Dean's point is, that it's not gonna happen anytime soon.

And Cas's point – assuming he’s still remotely capable of making those – seems to be dead-set on that 50:50 face thing. And Dean regrets briefly glancing; with more or less the same intensity he regrets his whole life on the crap weather days his bones hurt harder than it should be legal.

Sam, in his hemhorroidal disturbance, reaches out to the tape deck and attempts to put anything on, but Dean feels like exactly zero of his tapes right now, so he swats Sam's hand off with a loud smack. Judging from the faces he gets for that, it's gotta be resonating in their heads a lot.

It's gonna be a long ride to Lousiana, way longer and more exhausting than the freshly puked from Purgatory one. In fact, the closer they get to Lafayette, the more tired he is and they won't start working the vetalas case until tomorrow night because apparently hanging around clubs on fridays is the new hanging downside of trees or whatever cool thing it was vetalas were doing before the rise of the all you can eat buffet of horny dicks certain they're gonna get reverse cowgirls for a two dollar drink. Or reverse cowboys. Fucking cheapskates. Some of them do have it coming. But in severe STDs, not in this.

In itself, waiting for the actual hunt really doesn't need to be a problem. It's just that Sam and Cas are fucked-bent on having it be one because—

“I said I'm going to stay with you and join you on hunts,” Cas finally snaps. „There's no need for this 'backup' as you call it, Dean.”

—Because that.

“Don't air quote it, man,” Dean mutters wearily, because of course Cas air quoted it.

“And there is absolutely no need for you to sleep in a vampire's camping truck when we have plenty of motels to pick from,” Cas rants on, zero deterred and plus ten determined, clearly not tuning into Dean's I don't wanna discuss that vibe.

Annnd because that too, yeah.

“Well I donno, I sure didn't want us to look like some sort of a hookup site for salvation army fashionistas threesome. You'll thank me later. Or you can do it now and shut up when you're done, how's that.”

“A vampire,” Sam interrupts his polished bitchface just to whine it out, which has to be peak brotherly care by his modern standards.

“You two asshats had no problem leaving me in vamp-vegas for a goddamn year,” Dean growls. “I am an adult adult and I need some me-time that isn't you time. And I'm gonna have awesome time while I'm at it. Sue me if that's a crime. Bother my lawyer.”

“You don’t have a lawyer”, says Sam.

“Aren’t you kind of a lawyer?” Dean remembers suddenly. “Or at least close enough for you two to bother each other and not me?”

“No, didn’t get to get there yet, thanks to you,” Sam mutters, also suddenly remembering the past life of his that was never meant to be.

“Oh, I’m sorry”, Dean whines. “Did I set your girlfriend on fire?”

“Fuck off.”

“I thought you missed me,” as if triggered by the word fuck, Cas drops the bomb with an evenness in his voice which hints at many things but Dean's brain is too stop-record screech to dissect them right now.

“What?” he blurts out, confused and affronted both.

“I thought you missed me,” Cas repeats, lower and harder like Dean's a stupid cat that won't spit out what it's chewing.

“Cas, I really don't wanna do this.”

“You kept praying to me to come back, Dean. After you were out of Purgatory. I heard you. Those were quite some prayers. Now you're putting yourself in real danger just to stay away from me. I don’t understand.”

Sam just stares at Dean, the always most helpful thing on the planet that he is. Thanks, Sam. Dean stares at the road. Cas stares daggers through the back of Dean's head. Poor Baby can't just leave this situation so she just keeps on rollin’. Nobody wins that day.

“That was before you told me you were lying your ass off just to kick me out last minute. Your subscription for my prayers and personal Jesus license have now expired, by the way. Like, the fuck does talking to you even do?”

“Fine!” Castiel snaps, so close to throwing his hands in the air for a grand effect but luckily thinking better of it since he's in a car that has a roof among other things. “I understand that you're angry—” he tries to start over, calmer, after a self-collecting breath.

“No, you don't,” Dean mutters.

“But you can't risk your life in the stupidest available way just to get back at me, Dean. Not after everything I've done to make sure you come back safe.”

Well at least he didn't include Sam in that „saving” part.

“You were there, man. You know Benny never double crossed me or you. What the exact fuck is your problem with him?”

A very angry squint-frown precedes the actual answer.

“You were his ticket to Earth. Now your life doesn't hold the same value.”

“Thanks, Cas. That's really swee—”

“You know that's not what I meant, Dean,” Cas growls in a tone that's clearly a final warning.

So final even Sam and his high horse must have heard since he steps in to defuse Cas.

“Cas, I'm not a fan of saying it, but Benny isn't a threat to Dean. I think the guy is kinda trying to settle,” he offers.

Dean smiles a little bit.

“See, Cas?”

“But I'm worried he might have more vamps trying to take him down because he pissed off every fang that ever knew him and then some. This is actual danger, Dean.”

“What?!” Castiel explodes in unbridled rage.

“Sam, have you ever wondered where do snitches go after they die?”

“Dean, you know I'm serious.”

“Ditches,” Dean concludes.

“When exactly were you going to tell me this?” Castiel asks coldly. “After you get killed by vampire avengers?”

“They're all taken care of, Cas. No mean jokes this time. Relax.”

“With your Winchester luck? I doubt it.”

“Oh, come on. It's not like you wouldn't bring me back even if something did happen.”

“Yes, even twice because first I would have personally destroyed you for being so reckless.”

“I know you would.”

“Guys,” Sam tries to placate, “we should all calm down and rethink how to handle it safely. It's not a good time for some jilted lovers tiff”, he begs.

Dean frowns then makes mocking faces at him to communicate that he's being a fucking douche.

“You're a fucking jilted lovers tiff,” he decides.

“We had sex, Dean,” Castiel states accusatorily.

Little does he know, he just broke Sam beyond repair. Now that the cat is out of the bag, the only thing Dean can do is to straighten some things out.

“Once,” he says, raising a finger to accentuate his point. “Cas was sure we were gonna die in the morning. We didn't, but there never was a follow up on that, so,” Dean shrugs.

“You weren't interested.”

“Says you,” Dean huffs. “I’m sorry, do you know me? Being interested in sex is in my top five pasttimes. You behaved like a brick on the other hand and I don’t know how to read concrete.”

“I don’t want to be here, good fucking God,” Sam finally yelps after a successful reboot of his brain.

Dean’s pretty sure nobody wants to be in this car right now and the only goddamn thing that could potentially make him ‘special’ right now is the fact currently Sam’s probably the only person in the Impala who has not lain his mouth on Cas’s dick. Hopefully.

Funnily enough, Cas could easily poof out without lethal injuries, but he’s dead set on staying, judging from the frown on his face that looks like a stock market crash diagram.

“I didn’t exactly see you giving me any signs.”

And set on having this conversation.

“I’m not a cat, I don’t go into heats, Cas. Can we talk about it somewhere more private? Later? Cuz everybody here wants to fucking die right now.”

“Private?” Cas asks. “If you want privacy to talk then why do you refuse to book a room with me?”

“We don’t need to share a room to have a conversation. Unless what you want it to end with is getting back on track with that last night on Earth thing we had that one time.”

“Jesus Christ,” Sam cries.

“Grow up and stow your crap, Sam,” Cas says unexpectedly before Dean could even bother to serve anything in a similar note.

Dean is so thrown off his equilibrium by that he puts the car to an abrupt halt. Only because he’s too deeply wired to not crash the Impala into the first available so he won’t accidentally kill Sam.

That is, if Cas’s words haven’t obliterated him already. He glances at him, just in case. Speechless as holily commanded by the celestial – potentially horny – wrath from the back seat, but at least he’s still breathing.

“Um,” he says, because someone’s gotta, because he’s still the big brother in this demented equation. “Cas, what the fuck was that?”

“Should you, of all people, really need me to be this blunt – now that the worst affairs have been settled, we could pick up where we left off, and hopefully reach a mutual understanding regarding the nature of our relationship so that doubt no longer hinders you. If it’s still something that interests you, of course. Would that be clear and direct enough, Dean?”

Well, that was… long? Long enough citations are probably needed, but, uh, yeah. S’ gotta be addressed immediately or else.

“Cas, that was 2010 and we have 2012 now.”

“It was 2012 when you prayed to me in Purgatory and it was 2012 four days ago. Granted, your feelings towards me might be very complicated, but I still can sense and read your longing,” Cas says with a weary sigh.

“Stop smelling my longing,” Dean responds with a wearier one. “And I don’t have to explain myself to you.”

“But I should explain myself to you.”

“I’m real fed up with your explanations, you know that? And we don’t got time for that, either. We need to get to Lafayette because we got a case waiting to get solved.”

“It’s because he’s waiting there for you, isn’t it,” Cas says sadly; not a question. A statement.

Dean doesn’t need to respond. Doesn’t feel like it, too.

Yeah. It’s good to actually have someone waiting for you; someone there.

Maybe it’s not that complicated, after all. Maybe it doesn’t have to be.

Dean starts the car. He’s got a place to go to.

The sound apparently wakes Sam from his stupor. His bright idea of the day, he turns the radio on before the awkward silence can make the universe inside of the Impala collapse on itself and on all three of them. Too late for Dean to react now; might as well get a load of the weather report.

In the back seat, Cas flicks his wrist subtly and the monotone voice sharply cuts off into static for a moment and the frequency bar moves elsewhere on its’ – or rather, Cas’s – own. Some solitary synthesiser-made sounds drop one after another like tiny steps and Dean realizes he definitely has heard this song before at some point in his life as eighties one hit wonders ain’t no strangers to him. Oh well. Might as well not get any of the wea—

Looking from a window above, it’s like a story of love… Can you hear me?

Is he fucking kidding?!

Came back only yesterday, I’m moving farther away.... Want you near me…

“Are you fucking kidding?” Dean cries out, incredulous.

Tries to turn the radio off but it just won’t die.

All I needed was the love you gave— “You want melodramatic? I’ll give you melodramatic.” —All I needed for another day — Dean reaches out for his phone and starts typing angrily — and all I ever knew, only you.

He puts on good ol’ Fish and hopes it’s gonna be louder than Cas’s synth-pop loving. And starts driving towards where he wants to be cause he’s tired of dancing.

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zaph1337 · 3 years

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Monster Hunter Rating 28: Lao-Shan Lung, the Old Mountain Dragon

Welp. I knew I’d get here eventually, but I spent almost the entirety of this project thinking that I would talk about a different monster of this caliber. If you’re unfamiliar with Monster Hunter, you might be confused as to why I seem so trepidatious about this. I mean, I’ve already covered Rathalos--the big cheese of Monster Hunter! What could be a bigger deal than that? Well, back when I was talking about Diablos, I mentioned that the only monsters it wouldn’t attack were things called Elder Dragons, which, by the way, are some of the only monsters that have a good chance of killing a Rath(ian/alos) in a 1-on-1 brawl (though I didn’t mention that during the last two reviews). It’s finally time I talk about why.

Elder Dragons aren’t just “dragons that are really old”; in fact, they don’t have to be dragons at all. Elder Dragons can look like they belong in a different group, but there’s one reason they aren’t: power. Now, saying that something shouldn’t be in a biological taxa just because it’s stronger than what’s currently in that taxa may seem stupid, but let me put it this way: saying that an Elder Dragon should be in a mundane category is like saying that the Greek gods should be classified as hominids because most of them look exactly like humans. It doesn’t work like that. They’re in a completely different league than we are, and the same goes for Elder Dragons and mundane monsters.

Elder Dragons are like forces of nature made flesh; some have been compared to gods, while others have been viewed as living natural disasters due to the destruction they can bring, if they so choose. And the scary part is, some of them do. Behold the Old Mountain Dragon, Lao-Shan Lung!

(How it appears in Monster Hunter 1)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate)

(How it appears in Monster Hunter Online)

Appearance: Lao-Shan Lung is fairly simple, design-wise: it’s a brown, quadrupedal, wingless dragon. It’s certainly prickly, though, having sets of sharp scutes on its back, as you can see in the MH1 render. Its head also has a lot of pointy implements, with a serrated nose horn and eight normal horns (at least the wiki says there’s eight, I don’t think I can accurately count them on the renders); it also has some weird-looking teeth-like spikes on its jaws that look like black fangs which erupted out of its face, and I hope for its sake that that’s not what actually happened.

However, what’s easily the most noticeable thing about Lao-Shan Lung is its size. Of all the monsters I previously talked about, Plesioth was the biggest at 127 feet long at its largest. But Lao-Shan Lung isn’t called the “Old Mountain Dragon” for nothing; it’s never been seen at any size smaller than 6960 centimeters...which converts to 228.3 feet long, and the wiki says that they can potentially be 7000 cm or bigger. The wiki also says that they’re 1294 cm (42.5 feet) tall, and considering how long they are, I’m guessing that the height measurement is for when they’re on all fours. In other words, thassa chungy boi. And when you’re looking at something that big, you’re not going to think about how basic its aesthetic is, you’re going to be in awe of the sheer presence it exudes just by existing. Of course, that wouldn’t make up for it looking difficult to take seriously, but it’s a freaking dragon, so of course it makes it work just on concept alone. 7/10.

Behavior: Hoo boy, this is gonna be a long one. The Ecology page for Lao-Shan Lung is longer than those of the previous monsters I’ve reviewed. Pretty weird for something that people don’t know a lot about. We don’t know its main habitat due to the fact that it wanders around a lot, we think that it feeds on ores and other minerals, and it’s believed that the stone-like shell its scutes make up are made from airborne mineral particulates which stuck to and accumulated on its body, a process that would likely have taken about a thousand years. They like to wander, and if anything’s in their way, even if it’s a mountain, they’ll bust it down and keep on moving.

Lao-Shan Lung has been nicknamed “The Walking Natural Disaster” because of the damage it causes just by existing. Its footsteps can cause landslides and shake buildings to the point of causing them to crumble, and like I said, they’ll bulldoze their way through anything in their path, regardless of what it is or who gets hurt. Why go around an obstacle when you can go through it? This is a big reason why Lao-Shan Lung is compared to a natural disaster; it doesn’t try to kill anything, but just like a disaster, it doesn’t care if it does, and even if it did, the very nature of its existence makes it dangerous. It doesn’t even care about people attacking it; it’ll keep on moving and never even try to defend itself. And even when it gets to a fortress in its way, it won’t make an immediate attempt to break it down (at least in Generations Ultimate, based off of the one video I watched on the subject). My guess is that when it does make an attack, it immediately destroys the fort, so the devs made it take so long to actually try to do that to make killing or repelling it before then possible, and they didn’t make it have to constantly attack the fort to break it down to preserve its sense of power; how can you expect it to destroy entire mountains when it can’t destroy one dinky little fortress in one hit?

I believe that the force of nature Lao-Shan Lung embodies is an avalanche, due to its title of “Old Mountain Dragon” and the fact that the threat it poses comes from the fact that once it starts moving, it won’t stop for anything. It crushes and destroys everything in its path not because it wants to, but because that’s just how avalanches work. The only way to stop it is to kill it, or to repel it by making its death an inevitability if it doesn’t go the other way. Obviously you can’t kill a real avalanche, nor can you scare it off, but in terms of Lao-Shan Lung’s attitude towards everything, they’re scarily similar.

But there’s one more lore aspect to Lao-Shan Lung that I want to bring up here: The Five Incident. See, Monster Hunter actually has a reason why there’s a 4-person-limit on Quest parties; according to in-game lore, the chief of a place called Kokoto Village went on a Quest to slay a Lao-Shan Lung with four other hunters--one of them being his fiancée, who wanted the Quest to be her greatest triumph, as well as her last one before she retired. And as any trope-savvy person will tell you, if a part of your story is that you’re one job away from retirement, you’re almost certainly going to die. And she did. The end But after her death, the story of the tragedy spread, and with it, what seemed like a jinx. A disproportionate number of five-person-hunts resulted in at least one person dying. Obviously this is a coincidence, but the Hunter’s Guild was not going to take any chances; they set a limit of four for hunting parties to (hopefully) lower the death toll and out of respect for Kokoto’s chief, who was presumably less than pleased that the death of his beloved was being viewed as the start of a curse. In times of crisis, larger groups can be allowed, but only if there are more than five people involved. And all of this happened because a Lao-Shan Lung couldn’t be bothered to just go around whatever the hunters were keeping it from.

Lao-Shan Lung is interesting because of its impassive nature. It’s not even slightly aggressive, but it’s dangerous to everything around it because it just doesn’t take any notice of the consequences of its actions. It seems like it lives its life ignoring everything that doesn’t present an immediate problem to it, and even when it’s close to death, it doesn’t fight back against the hunters that are killing it, which makes me believe that the Kokoto chief’s fiancée was killed as a consequence of the damage Lao-Shan Lung dealt to the environment around it, not because the monster actively attacked her. In that sense, it really is a natural disaster; it’s never going to make an attempt on your life, but if you’re around it in the first place, then it doesn’t need to. Its presence alone is a weapon of mass destruction. 8/10.

Abilities: Lao-Shan Lung lacks any form of supernatural ability aside from immense strength, and that’s the weakest aspect of it. It only ever relies on its bulk to destroy things, and even then, it only ever tries to deal damage to things that are in its way. Now, normally I’d say that the fact that it doesn’t need to do anything else in order to be one of the most dangerous monsters makes up for that, but like I said before, when it reaches the fortress that you spend the whole hunt trying to prevent it from breaking, it doesn’t break the fortress down right away. It just stands there like an idiot letting you attack it. Again, I know that this was probably a decision the devs made in order to preserve the notion that Lao-Shan Lung can obliterate the fort in a single attack, but in-universe, it’s ridiculous. I know that this is a section on rating abilities and not the fight with the monster itself, but the way the monster uses those abilities is important to informing my opinion on it, and my opinion is that Lao-Shan Lung is a bit of a letdown in this department. 3/10.

Equipment: Despite being a Dragon-element monster with an earthy look, most of Lao-Shan Lung’s weapons are fire themed, even if they’re Dragon-element. An easy example is the Long Sword called the Fire Dragonsword:

This looks sick. I don’t think the tongues of fire make sheathing that thing easy, but they still add a lot to the sword. Something else I noticed is that the tip of the blade looks like someone just took a normal sword and put an orange filter over it, which seems really sloppy until you notice that the sword starts becoming a more vibrant orange starting from the first flame, giving the impression that the sword really was on fire, but it’s been frozen in time, and the sword’s tip still bears the light of the flame’s glow. Of course, that’s just my interpretation. Next up is a Hammer that doesn’t look like they stuck the monster’s head on a stick, the Dragon Destroyer:

This is cool, but as I’m sure you’ve noticed by now, neither of the weapons I’ve shown really look like they were made from Lao-Shan Lung parts. My guess is that that’s because the devs wanted Elder Dragon weapons to look fancy and powerful, and Lao-Shan Lung’s color scheme and design elements would make such weapons just look bland. If that’s true, then they figured out how to make cool looking Lao-Shan Lung weapons that look like Lao-Shan Lung weapons in Generations Ultimate, such as this Switch Axe called Dragon Ripper:

They kept the fiery glow on the blade, but the body of the axe has Lao-Shan Lung’s scales and spines. Don’t know what the rope tie is for, but the weapon still looks cool. As for the armor, there are unfortunately no images for the normal sets on the wiki aside from the ones from MHO, so I hope you don’t mind that I’m using those here. Here’s the Blademaster armor:

...I’m sorry, what does any of this have to do with Lao-Shan Lung? They don’t even look like they’re differently gendered versions of each other! And this isn’t a case of MHO screwing things up; the wiki has an image from Monster Hunter Freedom Unite of a special version of the Lao-Shan Lung armor that appears in that game, and while I didn’t want to show it here because being a different version means it has different colors, both the male and female sets have almost the exact same designs you see above! The dude looks like a samurai wearing a historically-inaccurate Viking helmet, and I don’t even know how to describe the woman. Neither of these look very appealing, either. Is the Gunner armor any better?

No. No, it does not. Looking at this is and thinking about how it’s supposed to be based off of Lao-Shan Lung just makes me angry and confused, so I’m wrapping things up here.

Okay, so obviously the armor sets were real stinkers, but the weapons really helped this section out. I still can’t give it a very high score, but at the very least, I can say it’s above average. 6/10.

Final Thoughts and Tally: I’m...disappointingly lukewarm towards this monster. From a conceptual and lore standpoint, it nails the concept of a sentient disaster, but the fact that it barely does anything in its fight and the sucky armor that really doesn’t say “I killed a dragon bigger than a house to make this” hold it back. Still, the MH design team did a good job at making a monster that introduces you to the power Elder Dragons can possess. Hopefully, it only goes up from here. 6/10.

#monster hunter #monster hunter rating #zaph1337

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noragami-ru-manga · 4 years

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Calamity bears human face

These are my thoughts on the first half of 87-2. Spoilers ahead!

I really, really liked the second part of chapter 87. Adachitoka still refuse us Yukine’s entire past, but maybe that’s for the best. If what we’ve been shown so far causes this many emotions in the fandom, I’m scared to think what would have been if they revealed everything at once. But… this post isn’t about Yuknie. Not because I don’t like his character, but because I really want to discuss the first 10 pages of the new chapter.

As I expected, we got some of Father’s flashbacks this time. Except they were about the part of his life that had Yato in it, probably several years (?) after Sakura’s death.

Yato not wanting to kill people isn’t that strange, since he started “slacking off” because of Sakura’s influence, and we know that by this point Hiiro would take initiative whenever Yato wouldn’t put his heart in performing Father’s jobs, as shown in chapter 47. Interestingly enough, when Yato suggested that Father should kill people himself, the former answered that he “was killing gods, at least” – implying that he didn’t kill humans with his own hands. Father’s words about killing gods do sound sinister but as we’ve already seen and will see later in the chapter, not all gods are warriors like Bishamon, Takemikazuchi and Yato himself, so I wouldn’t be too intimidated by this phrase.

His line about the uselessness of killing gods without killing people though … The idea is obvious and logical, so I don’t see the point in developing it further, but even now I think that Father did not choose the most efficient way to do it. Even if Yato stayed under Father’s total control, one god of calamity doesn’t seem to be that big of a threat on a global scale, contrary to whatever Nora has to say later in the chapter.

The thing that caught my attention on these pages is Father’s words about shrines. Yato already revealed before that someone would always tell him he didn’t need a shrine, that someone being Father. Up to this point I simply thought that this was needed to cultivate Yato’s fear of being forgotten – if he doesn’t have a shrine, it’s all the more easier for him to disappear without any chances to reincarnate. The idea that Father actually thinks that shrines are useless somehow never crossed my mind, although now that I see it on paper it makes total sense.

And since Yato raised the question, I’ll take it from here. He said he didn’t understand why did needed to destroy humans if life would be boring without them. I’ve always asked this question in regard to any character whose end goal is total annihilation – what’s the point? Sure, Father isn’t aspiring to be an evil overlord as to ask him a question “who are you going to rule over if there’s no one left”. But his goal, apparently, is killing all gods and also all humans so that old gods can’t reincarnate while new ones can’t appear. But what exactly is he going to do if he succeeds? Die while feeling the satisfaction of revenge accomplished? It’s just so hard to understand someone whose views are so different than your own.

I wish I could say that the small local kami that attacked Yato proves that Father’s words about shrines are wrong, but what happens next actually corroborates his statement. Partially.

One the one hand, the villagers’ prayer was heard, and the local kami attacked Yato for destroying the village. But Father just crushed her. So in the end, the kami wasn’t able to so anything about these humans’ problem, so yeah, their wish wasn’t granted.

This scene also demonstrates that yes, Father can actually kill gods. The more important thing about it though is that Yato sees it. We have already seen just how much Yato used to fear death for the majority of the series. However, knowing that Father has the ability to kill Yato by forgetting him is one thing; but witnessing him kill a kami just like Yato really drives it home. And it’s all the scarier how Father simply intercepted Yato’s weapon – he just summoned Chiki, who moments earlier was in the boy’s hands. Just look at Yato’s face, you can see the terror.

And Father didn’t really have the need to kill that kami. What could they have done with a chopstick anyway? Maybe he god mad at this kami actually answering people’s prayer, disproving his point. Or maybe he just hates the gods so much he couldn’t stand even seeing one of them, so he just had to kill them.

(BTW, does anyone know what’s with the blindfold? I’ve tried looking it up but never found anything).

Nora and Hiyori’s dialogue is my favorite part the chapter, there are just so many things to unpack here. First, “Father would praise the god called Yato”. Is it just me, or is Nora jealous? We saw in Yato’s memories that Father actually praised both his children. Then again, we also saw that he punished Nora when he wanted Yato to behave. Considering that Yato grew increasingly reluctant to kill humans, and Nora had to take the lead and finish Yato’s work, this kind of jealousy is unsurprising. Nora was Father’s right hand girl and supported him all the way, but between the two of them Yato would receive more attention.

“But at some point, Yato started mourning the deaths of other people”. Yeah, we know at what point – Nora must be referring to the time when Sakura was still alive. I’ll just throw in a couple of pics from chapter 47 to remind you why Yato started mourning people.

“When calamity strikes, people always become more devout”. This must be one of the most powerful quotes in the entire manga, because it encapsulates one of the foundations of the Noragami universe. Gods exist to grant human wishes, but who would have more reasons to pray – someone who has it all, or someone who’s in trouble? Remember the main reason why people start seeing the Far shore and things that relate to it.

Of course humans would turn to gods if they can’t solve their problems themselves; that’s the reason they exist. I’ve already mentioned it in the post about memory and memories – the idea of a being that isn’t bound by human constraints, is immortal and can help out when there’s nothing else left takes shape of a person, and that’s how a god is born. Although there’s another reason, too – people hope that if calamity is sentient, you can bargain with it. That’s how people started worshiping Tenjin – not to ask for something they don’t have, but to beg him not to take something they already possess.

It may be that, by sending Yato to obliterate villages, Father was hoping not just for thinning out people, but for a somewhat different reaction from them.

“That boy loved people”. This line is just so heartwarming. And Hiyori already said it before. She saw Yato’s past and how even back then he tried to help humans – like making snow shoes for people in need. She understood him and accepted him.

I don’t really have anything to add to Father wanting “to do something” though. I’ve already said before that Father is done with being the game master and wants to be an actual player. Apparently, he is waiting for Yukine to discover GGS completely before summoning him as a weapon.

The line about natural disasters having human faces caught my attention before the chapter was even translated. When people die because of natural disasters, it’s horrible, but there’s nothing you can do about it. We can say that “we need to build sturdier houses/dams/etc.”, “we need to take better precaution measures”, and we try, but you can’t possibly predict everything. But in a world where the sun, the moon, the lightning, etc. are personified as gods, a.k.a “have faces”, not only there’s a way for someone to direct their wrath at those faces, but there’s the question of why these sentient elements of nature do these things that hurt humans.

Let’s look at some of the examples of gods harming Nakatsukuni, the world of humans.

Chapter 7 – Bishamon cuts down a grove to get to Yato

Chapter 8 – Kofuku’s vent releases a horde of ayakashi, which results in rising crime rates in Tokyo

Chapter 60 – Bishamon causes a local hurricane to locate Father

Chapter 66 – Takemikazuchi transforms into lightning to fight Yato

The gods harmed the world of humans, but it wasn’t for fun. Bishamon was guided by her thirst for revenge both times. Kofuku was helping her friend. Takemikazuchi became angry because his guide was hurt. All of them felt very human emotions. Except, since they are gods and their power surpasses that of an average human, the result of their outburst is a dead grove, rising crime rates, a damaged school. They aren’t actually trying to purposefully hurt humans but for those who suffer from these actions that’s hardly a consolation. And like I said, it’s one thing when you don’t really have anyone to blame, because the wind that destroyed your house doesn’t hear you, and another, when that wind has a face.

I think that when Father sent Yato to destroy villages, he hoped that the calamities would make people turn away from the gods. After all, people don’t always become more devout during trying times, sometimes they turn away from religion, which is what happened with Father himself. There’s a phrase going around the Internet – it was allegedly written on the wall of a Nazi concentration camp by a Jewish inmate: “If there is a God, He will have to beg for my forgiveness”. I don’t know how true this story is, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s real.

And even with all this in mind, I still don’t understand Father’s logic. Suppose he doesn’t destroy all of humanity, but does manage to kill all gods. I don’t think it would change that much. Amaterasu, for example, is depicted as the sun incarnate, but… if she’s killed forever, will the Sun go out, too? I understand that I’m going off the rails and into the cosmogenic myth territory here, but I can’t help it. If there are no gods left, but the forces of nature continue to destroy human lives, then Father’s actions hardly change anything. (Look at me, trying to find a reasonable explanation for an unhealthily long revenge plan). Also, don’t forget that gods of other religions canonically exist in Noragami – what is Father going to do about them, I wonder?

As for “someone” being killed by the Heavens, I’ve recently made an assumption that the pock-marked girl’s death could have been a payment of sorts to bring Father back from the dead. I made this assumption knowing that Father’s words in chapter 60 imply that gods were more involved than that. What Nora said here about Father hating attributing gods’ actions to natural disasters makes it obvious that the girl died because of one of such catastrophes. I’ve looked some more at that page from chapter 60, and I still don’t see any visible damage on the girl. However, Adachitoka emphasize a skeleton lying in a field near a dead tree. Also, I’ve turned the page upside down to get a better look, and now this skull haunts me.

Was it a drought, a famine that killed her? Or the smallpox? If these are her remains, why didn’t Father bury them? Who then helped him return from Yomi? We know it was a soul summoning, after all. So many questions that are yet to be answered.

However, even if we didn’t get all the answers yet, these ten pages did reveal a lot.

- Nora knows Father’s backstory, but not all of it. Apparently, it’s a thing so painful that Father can’t tell everything even to his most devoted supporter.

- Sakura’s influence on Yato was even stronger than I thought. It’s possible that Father changed his course of actions and started giving Yato jobs that involved punishing criminals soon after the scene we saw in this chapter.

- Father, apparently, thinks of himself as some kind warrior of justice while ignoring the fact that he does as much harm as the gods, and that he is a calamity with a human face.

P.S. that page with the human faces of nature absolutely rocks.

#noragami #noragami manga #noragami spoilers #noragami meta #father #Yato #nora

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kristenbeeapples · 4 years

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@apple-scrumper‘s tags on this post about Zuko and Azula having the same vibes as Adaine and Aelwyn got me thinking about an a:tla au for fantasy high, and it spiralled out of control into this super long post. Enjoy!!

Adaine’s family are Fire Nation and are Important Advisors to the Fire Lord Kalvaxus. Adaine and Aelwyn have that sibling rivalry going HARD – Aelwyn has already mastered lightning-bending and Will Not Shut Up About It. Really, Adaine, it’s not that difficult, I don’t understand why you can’t do it? (Adaine punches her)

Adaine is invited to sit in on a war meeting and has a panic attack when she realises the evil things they’re all up to, embarrassing her parents. They send her on what they think is a futile quest to find the Avatar to regain her Honour. She is accompanied by Arthur Aguefort, another advisor to the Fire Lord but one who is... a problem, to say the least. Two birds with one stone for the Fire Nation!

Kristen is from the Northern Water Tribe and is a pretty powerful waterbender, with a focus on healing. Her parents are super involved in this weird bloodbending cult but she’s pretty sure it’s normal, right???

She also has some kind of connection to the Spirit World, which makes her extremely vulnerable to the weird end of days sacrifice Daybreak is doing to try and reopen the spirit world.

Fig lives in the Earth Kingdom in a town that’s been conquered by the Fire Nation and joins some other rebels pretty much as soon as she can walk. She’s sure she’s going to be an earthbender like her mom and kick some serious Fire Nation butt, but then it turns out she can firebend? Gilear’s not her dad? Her mom slept with someone from the Fire Nation??? How could she???

(It’s only when they visit the Fire Nation several shenanigans later and meet Ayda that she’s like.............okay I get it now.)

The Thistlesprings are metalbenders, and live in the same town as the Faeths. They adopted Gorgug from a village that was destroyed in a fire nation attack and aren’t super sure where his parents were from. Gorgug can’t bend, but he’s happy to be just a Guy with an axe helping out Fig and the other rebels.

UNTIL one time in the heat of battle his axe is knocked away from him and there’s a Fire Nation soldier going for an injured Fig and he doesn’t think, just reacts on instinct and his axe flies through the air and knocks the guy tf out. So seems like he is a metalbender after all? Cool!

He’s not super great at it yet, so he sticks with his axe while he’s learning, and mostly uses it to enhance his attacks by bending the axe head to hit a target more accurately.

Fabian is technically Water Tribe through his dad and Air Nomad through his mom but Bill and Hallerial have spent the past twenty years being a scourge of the seas to all the nations indiscriminately so they might have disowned him. He thinks he’s a non-bender like his dad and gets by with his sword and athletic ability.

It’s not until later in their adventures, after his dad dies and he has a brutal encounter with some of his ex-crewmates, that he visits one of the Air Nomad temples (which aren’t as destroyed in this au I guess lol) where his grandfather is an airbending monk teacher (for teens, ofc). Telemine teaches him to dance and helps him figure out he can airbend like his mom!

Like Gorgug, he mostly uses it to enhance his swordfighting ability rather than being a primary bender, but starts using his sheet to glide and do other airbending stuff while fighting!

Riz and Sklonda live in the lower ring of Ba Sing Se, and both of them are earthbenders. Sklonda works for the earthbender guards but on the side she’s trying to work out what’s going on with the Dai Li, which Pok was investigating before he died. (Riz thinks his dad was killed by the Fire Nation.)

Riz begins investigating the same thing without his mom knowing when his best friend/babysitter Penny Luckstone goes missing, presumed captured by the Fire Nation. His bending is this very precise form where he uses little rocks to go at high speeds like bullets and just fucking obliterate people, since in the middle of a crowded city there aren’t a tonne of places to practise with big rocks.

The story begins properly when the rebels get word that very important people from the Fire Nation are visiting a nearby town. Fig and Gorgug lie in wait to ambush them and capture them for leverage.

Before they can attack, however, a pirate ship swings into the harbour, led by Bill and Fabian Seacaster, and opens fire. They don’t care about politics, they just want that fancy Fire Nation shit.

The rebels (read: Fig) decide, fuck it, we’ll attack with the pirates, and then the Fire Nation crew waiting on the shore go to fight them and it’s all extremely chaotic.

Adaine is having a Very Bad Time. She hasn’t found the Avatar, she’s no better at firebending, Arthur Aguefort is So Much All The Time, and now she’s being attacked by pirates??? Her life sucks.

Fig, Gorgug and Fabian all end up in a standoff against her in the lower decks of the ship. Because it’s Adaine, she’s not going down without a fight, and she goes to blast the pirate-y looking dude with fire.

Except it’s not fire that comes rushing out. It’s air.

Oh shit.

She’s the Avatar.

Whilst she’s panicking about that, the rebel crew and Fabian agree that they need to get her away from the Fire Nation, and take her to Gorgug’s parent’s boat. Arthur Aguefort blows up the Fire Nation ship to let them get away and everyone thinks he died (spoiler: he didn’t)

Cue a series of insane shenanigans as Fig and Gorgug decide to adopt Adaine and take her around the world to learn other types of bending so she can restore balance to the world and kill her piece-of-shit abusive father (the Fire Lord, too, but the Abernants Are A Priority once Adaine warms up enough to them to talk about her parents).

Fabian helps them escape but doesn’t join them straight away. They keep running into each other in weird places until eventually they’re like do you... just want to come with us?? Fabian: No. (Yes.)

They save Kristen from this weird sacrifice thing whilst visiting the Northern Water Tribe, and she agrees to teach Adaine waterbending. She also helps her out with the spiritual side of being the Avatar.

Riz becomes Adaine’s earthbending teacher when they meet him in Ba Sing Se and help him figure out what the fuck is up the Dai Li.

Once the Abernants and the Fire Lord hear what happened, they send Aelwyn after Adaine and the gang to finish what her sister started, not realising she’s the avatar. An epic sister/sister rivalry and eventually redemption on the levels of Azula and Zuko begins.

Stray thoughts

The entire point of this long-ass post was for me to say that Jawbone is Uncle Iroh in this au. He Just Is.

Tracker is a Kyoshi warrior. Kristen still has some weird internalised sexism going on from being raised in this cult and is like, women shouldn't fight!! They’re too soft and pretty!! Tracker helps her learn to let go of that, and then also kisses her and sends her into a gay panic.

Kalina is a bloodbender working with the Dai Li and is DEFINITELY involved in Pok’s death.

The Hangman as a Sky Bison! Boggy as Momo! (Adaine picks him up in the Swamp)

This au is inherently funny to me bc Aang is a pacificist and struggles so much with whether or not to kill the Fire Lord, but if Adaine was the Avatar she would have absolutely no such qualms. Murder? Sign me up!

The idea of Adaine, the avatar, with command over all four elements, bridge to the spirit world, still just decking someone when she gets mad is also really fucking funny.

So she learns waterbending from Kristen, earthbending from Riz, airbending from Telemine, and firebending from Ayda. I think she learns firebending properly last - it turns out the reason she struggled with it so much is because her parents taught her it comes from anger and hatred, and she needed to find and learn love before she could use it properly.

Fabian gets the Zuko eye scar from being attacked by a firebender (Dayne) instead of it getting cut out.

Gorthalax is a Fire Nation commander who rebelled and fled to the Earth Kingdom where he met Sandralynn. He got recaptured which is why he wasn’t around in Fig’s life, but they eventually find him in prison and set him free.

Gilear is the ‘my cabbages!’ guy, but he sells yoghurt.

#fantasy high #the bad kids #a:tla!au #this got..........very long lol #whoops!! i just think it's neat!!#fair warning i haven't watched atla in a while so i may be misremembering some key details #i should rewatch it tho......#i think probs the vibes of fantasy high would fit better with korra actually bc of technology #but the story fits better w the original series imo #my posts #also..................should i write this yay or nay #adaine #gorgug #riz #kristen #fabian #fig

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bambamramfan · 4 years

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Cognitive Hazards of Existential Risk

Amid the world-changing catastrophe and lockdown we are all experiencing now, people are wasting no time arguing about “who saw this coming and who took it seriously first.” Just today I read TUOC’s back and forth https://theunitofcaring.tumblr.com/post/614319297954709504/shlevy-theunitofcaring-slatestarscratchpad and Scott’s post about existential risk more broadly https://slatestarcodex.com/2020/04/01/book-review-the-precipice/ and those are among people I respect.

We could get lost in the weeds on the object level. My impression is that everyone “took this seriously” before some people they know/read, and after other people they know/read, and so your own impression of your success there is more about which group of people you choose to focus on. Myself, I was arguing to my boss that our office needs to act on this faster on March 3rd, which is well after some people, and well before many government officials. I don’t think it says much about me. Rationalist blogs took it seriously before Vox took it seriously before CNN took it seriously before the President, and every group’s villains take the opportunity to dunk on those later in the chain while their heroes lament.

So let’s talk about the meta level instead. Or why I think all the slamming on people for not seeing this coming is pointless and won’t benefit us in the long run anyway.

Rationalism, and many of its adjacent groups, prize very highly the trait of “taking ideas seriously.” This means talking about principles or threats not just in some “this may happen some day to other people” sense and a symbol to chatter about, but changing their own life based on the conclusions these ideas lead to. And in some ways, especially regarding your core ethical principles, I think this is very useful.

But there seems very little discussion of the very good reason that most people don’t do this. Picture yourself as a politician, a leader of the country or at least your community. In the past few years you have been told by highly intelligent people that you respect about the following major problems that will explode any moment: global warming, AI expansion, EU breakdown and financial interdependence, terrorist attacks with nuclear or biological weapons, resource crisis, white nationalism, ebola, the breakdown of the middle class and/or nuclear family, social unrest and police brutality, and the end of late stage capitalism. All of these are very serious problems that very serious people tell you you need to act on NOW or society will end, and as far as you can tell, are equally convincing.

You could expend all your credibility on the first one to cross your desk, and be forgotten in a week. And actually, many politicians do. We forget them. (Or they are like Marco Rubio, chasing forever after the latest big thing https://twitter.com/mattyglesias/status/1244683450742947842 )

Successful politicians, ones who stick around, offer a Very Serious and Wide-Ranging Plan Addressing the Roots of this Crisis and Calling for Urgent Action, which often involves expert task forces and grants to some organizations, and then forget about it because nothing will happen on their plan and they know it. (In fact you can credit Joe Biden for doing this exact thing on January 27 https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2020/01/27/coronavirus-donald-trump-made-us-less-prepared-joe-biden-column/4581710002/ ). This is the opposite of “taking ideas seriously.” This is showing attention to a problem for the sake of others’ judgment, without having to change your life or direct action much at all.

Economists have a pithy version of this attitude, as applied to people who try to short a company that they just KNOW is over-valued: “The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent.” (And indeed, many investors who saw the 2008 financial crisis coming and tried to bet against it… bet in 2006 and 2007 and lost all their money first.)

You can’t just take every world-changing threat seriously at face-value and adjust your portfolio likewise. You will lose all your money, all your credibility, and have a broken shell of a life.

And most people, on a “meta-rational level”, actually know this? That you have to have some dissonance between your stated beliefs and how you guide your day to day existence, and that letting every change in the former affect your latter will throw you wildly off course. So they nod soberly at the new articles, maybe post online about it and use it as a reason to contribute $100 to their already favorite politician, maybe spend an equivalent amount on some consumer good that makes them feel prepared (gold against a financial crisis, prepping supplies, etc) and move on with their lives. And in most cases *this is very good for them.*

The problem being of course, that most cases are not all cases, and the one risk that proves out destroys all your hard work too.

The sort of competition-as-a-virtue ideology that the leading edge of our culture has now (from Wall St. to Silicon Valley) actually makes this worse. Even if you have an entirely accurate picture of future risk, if you have a competitor that just *ignores* or undervalues future risk, and doesn’t budget and plan for it, they can just beat you by price (or whatever.) Only entities that don’t have to worry about the short term can really prepare for future existential risk, and until now, our cultural ethos was very much against those sorts of entities, deriding them as traditional, monopolistic, and unaccountable (which they often were.)

The answer isn’t to just “ignore all future risks.” But it’s also really not to take a prideful stance of insisting *all* long-tail risks need to be treated with immediate seriousness. If you do this, you will find yourself very disappointed: as all your followers either ignore you, or lose all their money and sanity on the many other claims on their attention.

Unfortunately we actually need to analyze upcoming risks honestly. Most will never affect us. Some actually will. This is, well, incredibly hard. In particular a sense of proportion is very valuable here. (Rationalists like the linked SSC post will go on about the vital difference between .00001 and .01 chance, but frankly I think most people don’t react differently to .5 and .1 chance currently.)

So let’s be honest about how people are actually coming to take this crisis seriously: it’s not because an expert presented them with a scary chart. People, especially top decision makers, are used to seeing scary charts. It is when the Real of the experience actually starts to hit them in the face. Almost every state put off any action until sick people were already in their state and multiplying by (if small) quickly increasing numbers.

You can’t even decide “well I will trust the experts in the field or this one particular expert I respect”, since well, the most common failure mode of experts is to vastly overstate the importance of their field.

There is an interesting side-tangent here of the difference between people who are “very online” and those not. For the past year the political internet had pondered this distinction, as twitter/etc discourse failed to resemble American voting outcomes so starkly, even among the Democratic primary voters. The implication was that by being “too online” we were stewing in so much self-referential memetic influences that we had lost touch with what “real people” thought, and so being very online was bad for your mental hygiene. In the past couple months, the lines of these categories persisted, but now it was the “very online” who were dramatically right about something relative to people just listening to talk radio and reading local papers.

(*Yes, this post uses the term “existential risk” for things that will just kill dozens of millions of people and raise unemployment to 20%, and not the technical meaning which would require the obliteration of all human life. Existential risk more commonly refers to “that would coerce drastic changes on you”, such as a neighboring army that can topple your government, without needing the whole complete extermination of humanity thing.)

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yankeeclapdoctor · 4 years

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Once again it is time for some 2011-2014 era Loki discourse because I have been confronted with.....um...a certain Hot Take, and I must respond publicly because I have been blocked from responding in DMs and I cannot just let this go because my brain is screaming. So here we go...uh...proceed at your own risk

cw for mentions of (fictional) g*nocide

First message: “For the record, Loki going insane actually does excuse him trying to destroy Jotunheim. It doesn’t JUSTIFY it, but it does EXCUSE it. Being unable to control/understand your actions excuses them, no matter how horrible they are. In the court of law, Loki would have been rehabilitated, not punished.”

Second message: “For the record, Loki going insane actually does excuse him trying to destroy Jotunheim. It doesn’t justify it, but it does excuse it (big difference). Being unable to control/understand your actions absolves you from blame, no matter how horrible they are or the consequences. Loki needed to be rehabilitated, not punished. Nothing can justify g*nocide. It is inherently wrong in and of itself. But he is excused by virtue of not having known any better at the time.”

For the record, I do not know this person who has messaged me and, as I say above the read more, I cannot respond to them privately both because they have restricted their message settings to only blogs they follow and also they seem to have blocked me after sending these messages.

let’s Get Into It, shall we!

Okay……so……….I might conditionally agree with you, if you were talking about Loki attacking Earth—when he does that, he is under the influence/control of Thanos and of the Mind Gem, and therefore he is not fully in control of his actions when he attacks New York, so I wouldn’t say he should be penalized as though he were.

What I’m getting from you saying there’s a “big difference” between an “excuse” and a ‘justification’ for someone’s actions is that there’s a difference between being able to point to a reason for someone’s actions versus saying that someone’s actions are correct. And yeah, of course there is. But also, again, just because there is a reason for someone’s actions, mental health related or otherwise, does not mean that the effect of their actions can/should be ignored, or that the person can be entirely absolved from blame unless they are under complete duress. If you’re referring to the difference between justification and excuse in law…..well if Loki were to be tried in a court of law on Earth for his crimes in Avengers, I guess he would have grounds for an automatism or duress defense because of the mind control, which would hopefully get him sent to a psych facility for rehabilitation instead of a straight up prison…but I don’t know how exactly the judicial system would factor in magic or how they could prove Thanos’ involvement when they didn’t know about him at the time and the only one who knew of him was Loki and he probably wouldn’t be considered a credible witness…and also he wasn’t tried on Earth and again I don’t know if they have psych facilities on Asgard and based on his hearing in Thor 2 I really don’t think their criminal law system is the same as it is on Earth. I certainly didn’t see a jury of his peers, just Odin being a dick.

But since you’re talking about Jotunheim, that’s a whole different situation/mental state he was in. Yes, his messed up emotional state is a reason for his actions, but I believe that he does know better, and even if he didn’t, “not knowing any better” Does Not erase the harm that someone’s actions cause (especially when they are as bad as g*nocide!). It may explain why the actions occurred, but the existence of an explanation really does not always justify complete absolution, and in Loki’s case with Jotunheim, I don’t think it does, because I don’t think there’s any evidence that he was ‘insane’ in a way that prevented him from understanding the gravity of or controlling his decisions, and the movie (through Thor) ultimately condemns the hateful ideology upon which his decision was based (that Frost Giants are monsters and deserve to die). I can call his behavior ‘insane’ or ‘unhinged’ or ‘mad’ (to borrow Thor’s term for it), but that doesn’t mean that I think he was truly mentally incapacitated. He’s a dramatic bitch and (in my interpretation) he had years of weird resentment and insecurities building up before Thor’s banishment and the adoption revelation happened to catalyze his wacky behavior in Thor 1.

In terms of real life human legal terms and systems (if those are even valid to apply here, which, for the record, I don’t think they are because this is a fantasy world with an entirely different and unknown legal system), I don’t think he falls under the requirements for an “excuse” defense. I don’t think he’s shown as ‘going insane’ to the point where he wasn’t able to control or understand his actions. There isn’t ever a moment in the movie like in Avengers when Thor is like “look around you. do you think this madness will end with your rule” and he looks genuinely startled and upset by his actions for a second—that moment in Avengers makes it clear to me that he’s being influenced/controlled, and also that he’s capable of recognizing the harm he causes when confronted with it. But in Thor 1, he stands by his choices until the end, and even after that, he doesn’t express remorse or a sense of newfound understanding that what he has done is wrong or was out of his control, even when he is told by Thor and Odin (and Frigga, in Thor 2) that what he has done is wrong. His anger is driving him, not ‘insanity.’ He knew the meaning of his choice to destroy Jotunheim with the Bifrost: it would “destroy that race of monsters” (his words) that he wants nothing to do with, and it would “prove to [Odin] that [he] is a worthy son.” When Thor says to him, “you can’t kill an entire race,” Loki responds, “why not?” and reminds Thor that he was ready to kill them all earlier, and that they have been taught their entire lives that they are monsters and not deserving of mercy or respect. He knows that it is g*nocide, and he chooses to do it because he sees it as the justifiable and correct solution to his own and to Asgard’s problems, and because it is a way to express his anger—here, he is working based on hateful ideology he was taught in conjunction with his own grief and anger. His feelings of betrayal and self-hatred and anger lead him to make this decision, not any demonstrable mental disorder; in desperately trying to retake control of his life and show to himself and to his family that he belongs and is “worthy,” he makes a choice, does not express remorse for it afterwards, and at no point is shown to be acting out of character/not in control of himself and his actions. Thus, he should be blamed and take responsibility for the damage he caused. A dramatic anger and grief response would not qualify as an excuse or justification for a crime, nor does it necessarily indicate mental illness…definitely not on Earth, and I highly doubt on Asgard (I don’t think that it would make sense to apply any diagnosis based on human psychological science to his mental state, seeing as he’s not human. Or Asgardian. I don’t know the state of psychological science on Jotunheim, but if you do know, feel free to enlighten me).

I can see and understand his reasoning/explanation/the “excuse” behind the action, but that doesn’t mean that I can (and the movie doesn’t) endorse it or say that it can be entirely “excused,” because as you say, “nothing can justify g*nocide.” Again, since he’s a fictional alien, I don’t think it’s relevant or productive to actually apply our labels or frameworks of thinking about mental illness to him. In the real human world, his emotional meltdown in Thor 1 might be grounds to say that he is mentally ill, but because he never expresses remorse for trying to destroy Jotunheim afterwards, that to me emphasizes that the choice was not entirely a result of his messed up mental/emotional state, but a combination of that and a logical (albeit morally terrible) line of thinking. The moment at the beginning of Thor 2 when he has his hearing about attacking Earth solidifies this interpretation even more to me, because he makes it clear that his actions (which in this case were influenced by Thanos/the Mind Gem) were a result of what he’s been told his entire life: “that [he] was born to be a king.” While he isn’t referring to his attempt to destroy Jotunheim there, it does indicate that he holds the belief on his own, even when not mind controlled, that atrocious actions can be excused because of his interpretation of his socialization. I agree that if he were not in control or didn’t fully grasp the meaning and magnitude of his actions that he could be ‘excused’ a bit, but I disagree that it would ‘absolve’ him entirely. It doesn’t change the fact that the realm was almost obliterated. Nothing he ever says/does/emotes communicates that he didn’t know or didn’t realize what he was doing when he tried to destroy Jotunheim, he is only upset over having failed (“I could have done it, Father. I could have done it. For you. For all of us” he says); he never expresses remorse for his attempt to destroy it, and this does not seem to be because he is prevented from seeing that what he did is morally wrong—again, instead, he seems to think that his morally reprehensible actions can be justified by his motivations. His judgement was determined by anger, but being emotionally driven doesn’t mean one is ‘insane.’ Again, I agree that he “needed to be rehabilitated,” because he is a very very unstable person who needs to learn how to process his feelings better, but we can also see throughout all of the movies that he has trouble accepting and admitting the consequences of his bad choices, even though he tends to know when his actions are bad (either because he just knows and is being a bastard and/or because Thor tells him). That’s one of his major personality flaws. His first instinct is usually to get defensive and angry and try to explain away his actions because of his trauma, rather than empathize and try to acknowledge and apologize for what he has done. He needs to understand that he can’t just make horrific choices and then “excuse” them afterwards, no matter how distressed or traumatized he was at the time—especially when the choice is g*nocide that he was not mind controlled into attempting. Therapy could absolutely do this for him, and probably would be most effective even without a formal diagnosis of anything, because it could help him understand how his personality affects and is responsible for a lot of bad behaviors. But a dickish and highly emotional personality does not equal ‘insanity.’

In summation: he’s not insane in Thor 1. He’s acting based on discernible emotionally and ideologically informed logic, even though that logic is morally reprehensible. Also I think it is dangerous to say that if he were insane something like g*nocide could be excused just because it can be explained by supposed insanity—it does not erase that it happened, and that it is terrible, and should be atoned for. Maybe in the real life human American legal system he could go for some sort of excuse defense, but I don’t think it would hold up in court. Just because he would very much benefit from therapy does not mean that he went ‘insane’ and that such ‘insanity’ drove him to attempt g*nocide; his distressed mental/emotional state does mean that he should receive rehabilitating treatment, but a need for rehabilitation does not mean that he is also not deserving of blame for the consequences of his actions, and for making the decision to commit an atrocity in the first place.

In conclusion: I love Loki very very much. I do not blame him for his space meth-fueled actions in Avengers (2012). I DO blame him for choosing to try to commit g*nocide when he could have chosen not to do so in Thor (2011). And yet I still love him, because I am capable of both loving a fictional character AND recognizing that he is a bit of a war criminal.

#loki #original post #i have these movies memorized please do not come at me as if that is not the case #before anyone asks no im not a lawyer but i do have a brain and critical thinking skills #PSA: please don't start discourse with people in DMs and then block them that's very weird and fucked up behavior #like. what the fuck bro. let me respond to you #marvel

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