#same spelling and everything

[soft-girl-musings]

just scrolled past a tiktok user with the same first and last name as me suddenly i'm cured of Being On My Phone

[forrest-onfire]

You know, I don’t ever feel bad for not picking a favorite/main. Like monogamy is something I only participate in irl, and it’s mostly because that’s the relationship dynamic that suits me and my partner best, rather than a testament to my more general preferences. That being said, when I think about the LADS lads (and yes, I will continue calling them this, I can’t believe I haven’t heard anyone else do it) I often think about how they’d be forced to share me and just be half-way okay with me divvying up my time for them based off the things we’d do together (desert tasting with Zayne, making art with Raf, shopping with Sylus, cuddling with Xavi, cooking dinner with Caleb). I say half-way because we all know Xavier and Caleb would never be FULLY okay, just begrudgingly resigned like “well it’s better than nothing”. And no, that’s not a healthy model for a poly group, but it’s my comfort delusion so it doesn’t need to be realistic. On the other hand… I DO feel a crippling guilt for having very clear preferences. Like I know I shouldn’t, but something about the way I forget Zayne exists like half the time makes me genuinely so sad for him. Like when you realize that you neglect a plushie in comparison to the rest and you’re like 🥺💔 like why is it that he’s my least favorite but because of that I like him even more 🤦🏻 poor baby ��

[keferon]

Just want to say, love your mimick au. I only found it like, an hour ago and I've devoured everything in the tag and I'm planning to do the same to the spellbound and monster hunter aus.

That said, in one of the mimick fanfics, Orion tells Prowl to leave him alone and to find a hobby, but a comic that (presumably) happens after this conversation when Orion meets Jazz, Orion seems to be back to working with Prowl. I thought the whole "leave me alone" order would go on infinitely because Orion didn't seem to have his goal locked down and he also never specified when to come back. So how did they return to working together? Did Orion find Prowl post-meltdown, or was it Prowl who just set an arbitrary amount of time before going back to Orion and going "so, how do you feel about defying god?" I just find Orion and Prowl's relationship so interesting in this au, simply because of how Orion doesn't seem to apply his morals about freedom and coexistence to Prowl despite the fact he's the one who points out that Prowl didn't include himself in his calculations, but at the same time, if he doesn't recognize Prowl's autonomy and only sees him as a tool (chatGPT style), he would have to accept that he's the one responsible for Prowl's actions because he's the one using him. But also also, Prowl encourages him to not take responsibility for all the immoral actions (like killing monsters to keep the Council's favor), which I think Orion does take up, but that would indirectly be accepting Prowl as a individual capable of making his own decisions, you know? It also the fact that Orion and Prowl both have different (and somewhat incompatible) ways of communicating. I was thinking when Orion asked Prowl to what he'd do to make the most amount of mechs happy, Prowl understood it literally: the majority of the population are non-monsters, so statistically, he'd focus on making non-monsters happy. But Orion doesn't want to make most mechs happy; he wants a diverse and equitable society, and that doesn't necessarily lead to happiness, especially in transition phases. Even in the academy, monsters are learning to compromise to live in a non-monster society; compromises are about restriction, which often aren't a source of happiness. But Orion equates that vision to happiness, and probably gets a bad impression of Prowl given "free reign" from his answer. It's great, it's so juicy.

And contrasts so well with how Prowl and Jazz interact and communicate with each other. Like how Prowl makes an attempt to learn hand language for Jazz in the same way he attempts to comfort Orion post-Shockwave demonification. But unlike Orion who has "Prowl is not alive" at the core of their dynamic, Jazz doesn't know and sees Prowl's attempt to learn as a genuine attempt to understand/communicate. You can argue that Prowl is just "programmed" to try and get more information and it's just efficient to ensure Jazz doesn't get carpal tunnel while working together, but you can also argue that we're all programmed to do that as well; small talk or bids for attention are behaviors/actions to build connection through information exchange that we are trained to do from formative years and general society. Which is to say, even if Prowl learns and tries to accommodate Jazz for mission purposes, it doesn't negate the fact that he is investing effort into communicating and building the foundation for a meaningful connection in the same way other people do. It's great, I'm having a blast with the whole AU.

Orion despite being afraid to continue his mission still has responsibilities in his Order so him and Prowl. Yeah hahah they just keep working together but purely on their usual legal tasks. I didn’t talk about the whole situation enough yet but basically Prowl never informed Orion about his new quest of suing God. Primarily because he knows that Orion definitely will try to stop him.

It’s kind of like. “What isn’t forbidden can automatically be considered allowed” mentality.

Also MY GOD YES. My favourite part of this au is reading asks like yours:0 Prowl exists in that thin line between being and not being a person capable of his own choices. Orion exists on the thin line between considering him being one of those options. He can’t see Prowl as a “real mech” because he knows for a fact it’s not true. But then seeing him as a tool means accepting that all questionable things he does are Orion’s responsibility.

At the end of the day Prowl is a metaphorical piece of fabric Orion uses to clean his consciousness. In his eyes Prowl isn’t alive enough to be fully blamed for all the bad things he does but he is also alive just enough for Orion to say “it was your fault. Not mine.”

Jazz doesn’t have that dilemma. Uh. Yet haha he will discover the truth eventually of course~. He thinks Prowl is obviously a real mech because in his world magic isn’t alive. It can create an illusion of a mech, sure, this is what all usual golems are, but it’s not smart or believable enough. It’s like one of those tests where all people think they can tell if they’re talking to an AI chat bot because “duh I would obviously know” and then fail to distinguish AI from a real person. Jazz is perceptive but he doesn’t know what to look for. All he knows is that Prowl is somehow doesn’t love anyone but seems to care about of things that aren’t people.

Also it’s a bit unrelated but I find it soooo interesting playing with the usual concepts of magic and technology. Because usually magic is perceived as something more “coming from your heart” and “connected with emotions” while technology tends to be more “soulless” and “emotionless”. And then we have the entire world of robots who think they are alive and magic isn’t :)

[wyrmwright]

bro he does NOT want to hear you practice your villain monologue

[nightmarearian]

Done (heavy quotation marks) with monster Ody @evergreen292 ;)

tbh I couldn’t for the life of me pick a color palette I liked And Render it so I gave up on color. Enjoy the half assery.

Tbh I’ve just been call it Ithacan Naga, but it’s objectively it’s a mix of snake, owl/bird, and human. So 🤷.

Tbh the wings are supposed to be white/gray-brown, cause owls & Hermes, while his scales are supposed to be an oscillating scale from sea green-blue to purple-tinted gray. Uhm. Evidently that sorta didn’t happen but also did. So.

The purple/grayer scales are gonna be more around with the feathers and wings.

Those fin colors are. Too blue and too bright but I love the colors themselves so they’re staying for now.

Uhm. That’s it for now, ig. I’m sorta on a timer rn and I’m tired so <3

The writing bit with this is still in the works (😭)

[shanklin]

It’s the most honest job Stan’s ever had.

Sure, the company he’s working for is downright diabolical, scamming their customers in all aspects of life, but that’s not Stan’s problem.

As Le Ville Corp’s most successful customer service agent in the Oregon area his only job is to follow the company guidelines, sell as many bad deals as possible and never ever let anyone back out of a contract. 

Morality aside, nothing the company does is actually illegal, so at the end of the day Stan gets to collect his almost-minimum-wage-sized paycheck and go home in the knowledge, that no pigs will come knocking on his door anytime soon.

Life is good. Or at least as good as it gets where Stan is concerned. Last month he even got a raise for selling every bad product the company had to offer to one poor kind sucker. 

From household appliances to car insurance, magazine subscriptions and even their extremely shitty telephone and electricity contracts - the McGucket guy brought it all.

Thanks to him, Stan could upgrade from his car to an almost black mold free one room appartment with a community bathroom one block over.

Stan was finally moving up in the world and then his phone rings. He recognises the number. It’s his good friend Fiddle-not-gonna-say-the-rest McGucket.

Stan grins and cracks his knuckles. It’s about time McGucket figured out he’s gotten scammed. Time to make the poor guy’s life a living hell. No one is getting out of a contract on his watch.

“Thank you for calling Le Ville Corp. For us you are more than just a customer. You are family! This is Piers. How can I help you today?”

The moment Stan starts his greeting, he is bombarded with noise disturbances from the other side.

Ah, the good old Le Ville Corp telephone network working as intended. Maybe Stan can convince the guy to upgrade to a slightly less egregious version. 

Wait, what did he say?

His name is Dr. Stammered Lynes? Weird, but okay. Still better than Fiddle-nope-not-saying-it Hardon McGucket.

As it turns out, Stan finally met the mysterious roommate whose money McGucket has been using to pay for all of their products. Stan didn’t think the guy had it in him to ditch his roommate after the scam got discovered. Good for him!

Now, how to best screw Dr. Lynes here over.

***

An hour and a half of data security safety questions and a new phone contract later the doc hangs up to Stan’s cheery and corporate mandated farewell:

“And don’t forget we here at Le Ville Corp consider you our forever family, because you will stay with us forever!”

***

Stanford Pines just had the worst month of his life [not counting the weeks after the science fair that he refuses to think about].

The portal test was a disaster, his partner left, his muse refuses to explain himself and on top of all of that his new fridge won’t open, because this week’s subscription fee hasn’t been paid yet.

What the f-FIDDLEFORD!

[darkcrowprincess]

I just realize Callum used the same spell that was used to hurt his beloved Rayla(basically his wife, it's a forgone conclusion that they are going to get married) on Claudia. That's how desperate he was to stop her. The amount of zero fucks Callum had left to give. Because they he was that desperate to stop the literal end of the world. If was able to, callum probably would have killed Claudia and not felt bad about it.

[problematicsashawaybright]

Saw a new psychiatrist today. First, she had never heard of my antipsychotic before and tried to change the dosage while simultaneously removing another medication and I had to explain to her that the dosage she was trying to prescribe literally was not possible in the form the medication comes in. And then she accused me of being addicted to stimulants and buying them off of classmates at college because I told her I take Adderall but she couldn't find record of it in the pharmacy database. It turns out she misspelled both my first and last name which is why it didn't come up and just said "oh sorry haha" when I corrected her on how to spell my name and the prescription did in fact come up with the right spelling. She told me she "didn't know what to do with my case" and then proceeded anyway. She told me to go off of the medication that keeps me from going unconscious while standing. She tried to prescribe me a medication that sent me to the hospital last time I was on it (after I had told her about my history with it). Ummmm I don't think I'm going back.

[askkaimei]

I personally think Miku in BMATTOA is a bit Mary Sue, no ofense

bro, if she charged to the tower by herself, overcame all the trials alone, somehow alive, ran to the top, jumped so high she punched the gods herself & saved THE ENTIRE WORLD FROM ANY MORE TRIALS IN THE FUTURE,

i would say she is mary sue

BUT BRO, she did nothing but CRYING AND ACCEPTING HER MISERABLE FATE while LOSING HER FRIENDS

probably never gonna step down from that tower ever again because u saw neru was there, probably she is going to be there just like her until the next messiah that went through JUST the same kind of despair come hundred years later

[taraxippos]

I never touched it but I feel like i only ever hear positive things said about song of achilles.. in (rough strokes at least) what makes it dogshit to you?

Okay it's been a while since I actually read it so some of this might not be spot on accurate. Sorry if at any point I say 'the book never does xyz' and it actually does once or twice but I think my underlying criticisms are accurate

-Patroclus is made into like this soft gentle tender quivering little yaoi boy. In the source text, he's shown as compassionate and moved by the suffering of his own men (and apparently having some medical skill, tending to the wounded in the camp), but very much invested n combat and very, very good at it (pages worth of descriptions of the guys he's killing left and right). In this, the arguably more complex character from this 8th century BC text is flattened into Being A Healer, he doesn't want to go to war he just wants to help people, he only goes because Achilles has to but he doesn't want to fight he's a HEALER he's a gentle lover NOT A FIGHTER who just wants to help he just wants to help everyone around him he HEALS while Achilles is a doomed warrior who is so good at fighting and KILLING its a DICHOTOMY GUYS!!!LIKE THE BEAUTIFUL SUN AND MOON DOOMED LOVERS SO SAD patocluse HEALER . (I Think he's specifically characterized as being BAD at fighting but might be misremembering)

-I don't remember much about Achilles' characterization I think it just makes him less of a jackass while not adding anything of interest and levels out into being mad boring.

-Not getting into the literal millenias old debate whether the mythological characters Achilles and Patroclus were being characterized as some type of lover by the original oral sources of the Iliad or its Homeric writers. We will never know. We don't even know what (if any) culturally accepted conventions of male homosexuality existed in bronze age Greece (we know much more about their descendants). But there are some interesting elements of their characterization in this direction, with how unconventional their relationship is WITHIN the text itself- Patroclus is described as cooking for Achilles and his guests (very specifically a woman/wife's job), Achilles chides Patroclus like a father, but there's also scene where Achilles' mourning of him directly echoes a passage of Hector's wife mourning her husband, Patroclus is explicitly stated to Achilles' elder, and is overall treated as his equal or near-equal, closest confidant and most beloved friend (to the point that pederastic classical Greeks would debate over who was erastes (older authority figure lover) and who was eromenos (adolescent 'beloved')- many took it as a given that this text depicted their present-day cultural norms of homosexual behavior but it existed so Outside of these norms that it had to be debated who was who). Their relationship is non-standard both within the text and to the descendants of the civilization that wrote them.

Basically what I'm saying is this book had opportunities to like, explore the unconventionality of the relationship (being presented here as explicitly lovers), explore the dynamics of why Patroclus wants to do 'women's work' (besides being a tenderhearted softboy), the weird dynamics where they take on paternal roles to each other but also roles of wives, how they feel about being this way, and just kind of Doesn't. Which I guess isn't an intrinsic fault (because it omits much of what I just talked about to begin with). it's just like.... Lame. This book takes jsut abandons everything interesting about the source text in favor of flattening it into bland Doomed Yaoi.

-The conflict that sets off the core story of the Iliad is Achilles and Agamemnon fighting over Briseis, an enslaved Trojan woman taken by Achilles as a war-trophy, Achilles spends most of the story moping because he was dishonored by his 'trophy' being taken. Achilles and Patroclus and everyone else are raping their captives, all the women in the story are either captured Trojans (or in the case of the free women within the walls of Troy, soon to be enslaved, and are slave owners themselves). Slavery as an institution and extreme patriarchal conventions are innate to the text and reflective of the context in which it was developed. You cannot avoid it.

But obviously you can't have your soft yaoi boys doing this, so the author has them capturing women to Protect Them from the other men. Their slaves are UNDER THEIR PROTECTION and VERY SAFE (and they might even Like And Befriend Them but I might be misremembering that. Briseis does though). Our heroes have apparently absorbed none of the ideals of the culture they exist in and the author seems to think "they're gay and aren't sexually attracted to their captives" would translate to them being outright benevolent (also as if wartime sexual violence is just about attraction and not part of a wider spectrum of violent acts to dehumanize and brutalize an accepted 'enemy')

In the source text, Briseis mourns Patroclus as being the kindest to her of her captors, who tried to get her a slightly better outcome by getting her married to Achilles (which probably would be the Least Bad of all possible outcomes for a woman in that situation, becoming a legal wife instead of a slave), and wonders what will happen to her now that he's gone. This is a really really sad, horrible, and compelling dynamic which could be fleshed out in very interesting ways but is instead is tossed entirely aside in favor of them being Besties. Like brother and sister.

All of the above pisses me off so much. If you don't want to engage in the icky parts of ancient/bronze age Greece then don't write a retelling of a story taking place in bronze age Greece. I'm not gonna get mad at children's adaptations of Greek myths or silly fun stories loosely based on them for omitting the rape and slavery but it is SO fundamental to the Iliad. If you're not willing to handle it, either fully omit it or better yet set your Iliad inspired yaoi in an invented swords-and-sandals setting where you can have all your heartbreaking tragic doomed lovers plot beats and not have to clumsily write around the women they're brutalizing.

-The author didn't seem to know what to do with Thetis and she made her just like, Achilles bitch mother who spends most of the story trying to separate our Yaoi Boys (iirc her disguising Achilles as a girl and hiding him on Scyros is made to be more about getting him away from Patroclus than trying to save her son from his prophesied doom in the Trojan War) until she sees how much they loooove each other and I think helps Patroclus' spirit get to the afterlife or something in the end?

-This is more of a personal taste gripe but it has that writing style I loathe where the prose feels less like a story and more like an attempt to string together Deep Beautiful Hard Hitting Poetic Lines that will look great as excerpts on booktok (might predate booktok but same vibe). It's all very Pretty and Haunting and Deep but feels devoid of real substance.

I really like The Iliad and The Odyssey in of themselves. They're fascinating historical texts that give a window into how 8th century BC Greeks told their stories, saw their world, interpreted their ancestors, etc. And genuinely I think these texts have 'good' characters, there's a lot of complexity and humanity to it.

WRT the Iliad- all of the main Achaeans are pretty fascinating, the one singular part where Briseis Gets To Talk and laments her situation is great, Achilles fantasizing that all of the Trojans AND the Achaeans die so he and Patroclus alone can have the glory of conquering Troy (wild), Achilles asking to embrace Patroclus' shade and reaching out for him but it's immaterial (and the shade being sucked back underground with a 'squeak' (the squeak kinda gets me it's disturbing and sad)), Hecuba talking about wanting to tear out Achilles' liver and eat it in a (taboo, exceptioally pointed) expression of rage and grief for his mutilation of her son's corpse, just one tiny line where the enslaved women performing ritual wailing for their dead captors are described as using it as an outlet to 'grieve for their own troubles' is heartrending, etc. A lot of grappling with anger and grief and the inevitability of death, a lot of groundwork laid for characters that could be very interesting when expanded upon in the framework of a conventional novel.

And Song Of Achilles really doesn't do much with all that. I know a lot of my gripes here are kind of just "It's different from the Iliad", I would have thought of it as mostly mediocre and forgettable rather than infuriating if it wasn't a retelling (and I DEFINITELY have strong biases here). But I think the ways in which it is different are less just a product of a retelling (of course there's going to be omissions and differences) and more a complete and utter disinterest in vast majority of its own subject matter, to the book's detriment. I think a retelling has a point when it EXPANDS on the source, or provides a NEW ANGLE to the source. This book doesn't Really do either, it just shaves off the complexity of its source material, renders the characters into a really boring archetype of a gay relationship, and gives very little else. Its content boils down to a middling tragic romance that has been inserted into the hollowed out defleshed skeleton of the Iliad.

Bottom line: I definitely would not be as mad about it if I wasn't familiar with the source material but I think it's fair to expect a retelling to Engage with/expand on its source, and I also think it's weak purely on its own merits. This book was set up to disappoint Me specifically.

[laughhardrunfastbekindsblog]

Given all the ribbing Echo was giving Tech about his plans and sharing information...

... I can only imagine that Tech was just WAITING for his chance to say the same to Echo:

[random-scribbles-of-poor-quality]

me: im fine

me internally: men mock the gods until they need them, kaz brekker

[lelianaslefthand]

while i am having fun there are So many parts of veilguard that are for lack of a better term, cringe, to listen to. like the devs kept saying how they wanted it to be enjoyable for new players but sometimes its like they're catering to people that dont know what a video game is. why are the characters in game repeatedly saying that everyone needs to work through their personal issues before main questlines. every character therapy speaks it feels so out of place. maybe i just miss everyone being unhinged like in da2 (and being aware of their flaws but dealing with them in, my opinion, more realistic ways) idk. everyone is too self aware its very weird to me

[killer-blowmybrain]

LOOK WHAT I GOTTT !!!!!!!! YAAAYAYYYAYAYY

IT WAS SO FUN TO PUT ALL THE STICKERS:P

AND I GOT A GOLD BINGO :D

YAY! 🕊🕊🕊🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉

[3456boidone]

I don't like the fact that Lily O and I prefer the same shit. But then I'm reminded her reasonings for liking some the same stuff as I do. Like we both prefer dub over sub, her reasoning is for "quality control" (aka her racism towards japan), but mine is because I'm dyslexic, and I can't read that fast. We both don't really like action or fantasy. Her reasons don't make any sense, and she tries to act like those same geners are bad, but I'm just not a big fan of those. They're not bad, just not for me, but it doesn't mean I don't watch any at all, like I love demon slayer and madoka magica. But action and fantasy aren't bad. They're just something I'm not really going to go look for. (Btw when I think of action, I think Marvel movies)

[lemonduckisnowawake]

Dragon!Angelique AU word dump that I wrote on a whim just to see how many words I could write in 20 minutes on my phone (it was 569. 1327 total in about 40 to 50 minutes total). So don't expect anything shiny.

_

They were all supposed to be dead.

What they didn't know was that when the goblins ransacked the little village of Joie in Loire, the creatures had been drawn to a lurking power.

"He was a soldier," Angelique had told Clovicus about her father, nothing but an old grief tugging at her heart.

She hadn't said anything about her mother.

But it wasn't like it was a secret, anyway.

There wasn't much to hide when you found a child, eyes blazing a cold and unnatural silver, something hard and scaly and glowing on the sides of her face, teeth bared and sharper than a child's teeth should be.

Mama was supposed to be invincible.

But in a world where an ogre can be felled by nothing more than a youth and her cat, where a man-turned-beast can be tamed by a snarky ranger, where a demonic mirror can be contained by a mortal with her human power and love - even goblins can fell an ancient monster.

"You should practice using that power..."

And what right do you have to say that? Angelique had thought, eyeing the irritating teenager training under Clovicus. He didn't understand the pain that the lurking beast inside her had caused. He didn't understand that without it, she might have a family, not be someone taken out of pity by a man who didn't even like children.

And yet, six years later after being discovered, when Evariste had invited her to stay in his home as she tried to figure out what she wanted to do with her life, she'd accepted. When the Council protested, he simply had bared his very human teeth and claimed he'd teach her magic.

(A mage?, they'd whispered, voices horrified. Why would Lord Enchanter Evariste teach a monster to be a mage??)

Just to spite them, Angelique - planning to stay quiet, subdued, discover a way to run - decided to learn.

Even if Evariste kept insisting she use her horrible, heinous power, even if he kept insisting that it was beautiful, she stayed and thrived.

Of course, she refused his asinine insistence for her to train that other side of her.

The memory of her mother, in the process of transforming, cut down by one of those creatures, still burned in her mind. The whispers surrounding her, the people who barged into Clovicus' home to see her, make sure she was controlled, that she wasn't dangerous. And even now, people sent by the Council harassed Evariste - all these memories kept her tranquilized.

"Is your little beast tamed?" the visitors wouldn't say, but imply with all their words.

Evariste would shield her, and Angelique longed to sink her teeth into these people, show them what an untamed, wild, and free beast really looked like. But for Clovicus and now for Evariste, who was protecting her on some strange basis of loyalty from growing up together, she'd stay tame.

And now...he was gone.

He'd been gone for nearly six years, taken from under her nose, right in his own home.

Shielding her.

Just like her parents.

Everyone was always left or taken, and maybe now Angelique understood those stories where the dragons kidnapped royals or young people or entire villages. Creatures like her must have been fated by the gods or some deity to forever be alone, so they took and hoarded and kept whenever the opportunity rose. Because it would be taken anyway, in the end.

You have all the power to take back what is yours, young one, the stars had told her once.

They had called themselves Pegasus, a swirl of stars knit together into a constellation she could ride.

We had an agreement with your human mage, Pegasus told her. But the stars will only bow to those who can reach them.

So Angelique did not have to unfold her own wings, transform into something that would make children quake in terror. Instead, she became the beautiful enchantress who rode the stars, in search of a friend who had taught her the beauty of human magic and abyss-deep love. She was the one to tame men turned into beasts, who transformed a destitute duchess into a queen, who fostered a mage of creation, who destroyed only to protect and save.

That was how it was supposed to be.

Angelique, at 18 and about to leave the world behind before Evariste invited her into hers, would have been happy to withdraw into the shadows and fade as another bad memory of the world. But then she'd risen to become a hero, to become someone who was great enough that she didn't need to unleash the beast shaking in the cage of her soul.

"You can't hide it forever. You can't hide from it forever," Emerys warned her once, something gleaming - something that looked like hope and joy - in his eyes.

And now, he repeated the words to her again, cradling the form of his wounded human lover. It made Angelique's heart squeeze painfully. An elf of the forest from a land far away and a mortal woman who accepted who he was, loved it even.

"Please, Angelique?" Emerys begged her, himself bloodied and bruised.

So how had it come to this?

It had started with her father, loving Angelique for who she was, calling her and Mama his "little fire stars." And then it was Clovicus (Angelique now knew how unfair she'd been to the man, who may have not liked children all that much but had loved her and Evariste), giving her a home when the Council had called for her to be killed. And then...Evariste, who had given her a home and an alternate solution to survival in his beautiful, human magic. Then Emerys and Alastryn, Roland and Gabrielle, Elle (who had discovered it because of course the former spy would), and now....

"It always comes to this," Angelique muttered to herself, not even aware that she was speaking.

Something hot - and she didn't know if it was rage or love - burned in her chest. The fire of it all spread from her core into her veins, forcibly squeezing through her muscle onto the organ of her skin, hardening it.

"No matter how much I give, I always have to give more," she said, almost a sob and yet so full of resigned desperation. "You had all my humanity. And this, finally, is the rest of me."

Because she would have burned long ago if it could have bought her parents to life. Or if it would have saved Evariste.

Trained to hide it all her life and told by those she loved to set it free.

Fine. Here I am.

And the fire burst out in full, encasing her in a cocoon of silver flames. She felt herself rise with the fire, the unsteady floating stabilizing when scaly wings were wrenched out, the flying coming to her instinctually.

It wasn't a full transformation, no. She wouldn't give them that.

But the scales were on her face again, as they had been long ago when they'd found her. Her back had grown wings as large as the wonder from the soldiers below, and they propelled her as she raided the sky and became the wind of this windless day. There was no fire out of her mouth - her humanoid body was not made to contain it - but it didn't matter.

An ancient, deep, powerful magic danced in her blood, merging with her human spells and setting the horde of the evil beasts alight. In seconds, the encroaching armies became ash and dust, scattered in the winds of her flight path.

Inside of Angelique, there was a contended rumble, as if from a creature long-chained set free.

Welcome home, it whispered, startling her.

Home?

As she landed back to where Emerys and Quinn, both gazing at her with...with awe, of all things, staying put as Angelique willed the searing burn of her magic into a healing warmth to flow over them - as she looked into their eyes and smiles, something within her shattered and mended and sang.

It sounded like the voice of her mother, opening her arms wide to an Angelique shrieking in delight as her father tossed her up and down.

"Welcome home."