#so i somehow figured out a way to use overlays without

[genericpuff]

Mystery solved.

Okay. Okay I gotta figure out where to begin with this- breathes

A fellow ULO community member was going through old S1 panels and pointing out typos that we had all somehow missed (LO typos have a tendency to sneak by like that) and one thing they pointed out that I had never noticed was this one panel from Episode 102:

Particularly pointing out how the font overlays Hades' fingers which is just hilarious. That was where it was supposed to end.

But have you ever actually read the letter?

Because I did. And it took me on a ride I wasn't expecting to go on at 2:30 in the morning.

This shot of the letter is from the second instance it appears, when Hades scratches out part of it and writes, "I love the way you treat me, and I want to feel that way all the time."

But the first time this letter appears, when he's actively writing it, it's delivered to us through narration, in Episode 47. I actually love this episode, it does a great job at visual storytelling without overuse of active dialogue, and the content of the letter itself shows a great amount of self-awareness from Hades in the moment, even though the dark implications of what he's feeling is falling on his own deaf ears and the scene itself is quickly dashed by the obligatory quip-for-comedy-so-people-don't-get-too-sad of Hades' dismissing his therapist's advice, with the irony of him not realizing his own issues as he's writing this letter mere hours before overstepping his boundaries and having a guy whacked for taking photos of the Goddess of Spring.

But there was one line in particular that's always stood out to me.

The line "it ends up hurting you" felt random and out-of-context. In the beginning on my first read through back in early-mid 2019, I thought maybe it was just being poetic and I "didn't get it", until I became a critic of the series and had a reality check and realized it was likely just a typo, perhaps it was meant to be "It would end up hurting you" or something of that nature.

But it was looking at that panel of the letter and actually reading the text that was there that I realized - the line feels random and out-of-context, because it is random and out-of-context.

Look back at the letter. Paragraph eight. Rachel didn't write the full line despite it being necessary to the line 'it ends up hurting you'.

The full excerpt reads:

"I WISH I COULD EMPTY A DRAWER IN MY DRESSER FOR YOU, OR BUY YOU A TOOTHBRUSH TO KEEP IN MY BATHROOM. THE TRUTH IS, EVERY TIME WE HAVE SOMETHING TO DO WITH EACH OTHER... IT ENDS UP HURTING YOU."

I can't believe it's not just a typo. I can't believe it took me this long to find this. I don't know how this got missed by Rachel, I'm assuming she wrote the letter out first and then copy and pasted the words into a larger font size which she placed throughout the episode, but how could that one part have been missed when the line "it ends up hurting you" is a dependent clause that can't stand on its own without the line that precedes it?

At the very least, I do finally feel like I've found closure over this one scene, now that I know the full context to the line. And I wouldn't have found it if it weren't for people joking about the letter panel being drawn like shit.

But it's definitely discouraging because it begs the question, what else is being haphazardly left out of the dialogue? What other clunky sentences with next to no context or build-up or reasoning could be better if they were actually finished or if Rachel and her team had spent the extra time to double check the script and ensure that no sentence is being left half-finished?

The irony in this scene as well is that Hades acknowledges he's too old for Persephone, he acknowledges that they aren't good for each other and that he'll only wind up hurting her, he acknowledges that he barely knows her and he shouldn't call what he feels for her 'love', but infatuation, a very accurate and self-aware statement that I feel like the current Hades lacks. It makes it feel all the more distressing when the letter makes a return in Episode 102, and he makes one simple change:

As impactful as this statement was back in the day, looking back, knowing fully well how far his character has now fallen, this now feels less like a triumphant statement accepting his feelings and more like one of giving in to his selfish desires. This is even more accentuated by the use of the red ink, which splatters across the page alongside messy handwriting, contrary to the meticulous typewriting above.

He's pushing off his baggage as a mere bridge to cross later.

He's making hopeful assumptions about her feelings and putting her on a pedestal without communicating his actual baggage outside of his own head and with her directly. In fact, he doesn't get around to talking about this baggage until she's in a position to depend on him in Season 2.

He's fantasizing about their future with next to no foundation yet, and while he's recognizing that she might not be happy with him in the long term, he still tosses all those legitimate concerns aside to "I love the way she treats me", as if all that matters is what she can do for him - and what he can and can't do for her isn't important until it will inevitably rear its ugly head after she's already become his.

This is the turning point where Hades has become the villain. Where he's shifted from being the responsible adult and leader to an obsessive fanatic whose only goal is to have Persephone. To the point that, despite him saying in the letter that it would be best to limit his presence around her-

-seems to be upset over the notion of doing that exact thing as soon as she's the one to suggest it. Acting as if he's being rejected when he was the one to originally conceive the idea to limit their presence around one another for her own good.

Hades being a responsible King and adult went out the window years ago and I feel like this was the moment where it happened, and that red pen was the gavel. Apparently all it took was her admitting she has a crush on him - undoubtedly as shallow as his crush on her, based solely on infatuation but not written on paper as Hades' confession was - for him to toss aside all that work to unpack his feelings and all that responsibility he was willing to take. Never mind the fact that her feelings could undoubtedly use unpacking of their own. Never mind the fact that her liking him back still doesn't change the reality of their situation - that they're fundamentally different people, from different worlds, with vastly different experiences and outlooks and values and goals, living in massively different life stages. Try as it might to be presented as romantic, that "opposites attract", it's more appropriately and commonly known as being incompatible.

If this were any other story, this would be a precautionary tale in so many ways, made especially significant for an audience that's largely coming of age and experiencing feelings of infatuation and attraction for the first time.

But this isn't that story. It's Lore Olympus.

Hades is, through and through, the villain of this story, no matter what the narrative tries to convince us of otherwise. I stood by that statement before and I stand by it even more so now. Unfortunately we're now at the point where Persephone herself has become a villain, corrupt by the same system she used to criticize.

And just like the letter and all its raw text admitting to Hades' faults and baggage and showing he's willing to take accountability, so too does the narrative itself slyly tell the ugly truth in between its lines: that love is not enough, that love is not the same as obsession, that power can corrupt even the purest of hearts - that love is enough, that you should pursue the one you desire until they're yours and only yours, that you should climb higher towards those in power above you until you have that same power in your hands.

Because you love the way it makes you feel and you want to feel that way all the time.

[zelenbug]

GUESS WHAT!!! a tutorial for rayman origins texture mods like how i made uglette

this is for origins only for now, ill make a separate post for legends later (but itd follow most of the same steps)

first of all. use rayman control panel, if you dont have it somehow then what are you waiting for?? make sure its updated to the latest update too (14.0.0.9 as of writing this) for improved modding support

updated on january 10 2024 for the dds portion

-

step 1: getting the textures

in control panel, click origins and then open the archive explorer

youll get a whole directory of a bunch of folders, what you need for the textures is just the itf_cooked folder. if you want all the textures just right click the folder, click export & convert, and convert them to png or something for convenience

if you converted all the images and dont need any things that arent images, just use windows search on the extracted folder to prune all the remaining .ckd files to save on space, but this isnt as necessary

you can also extract just the sprites you want to work with, or heck get them from spriters resource if you want, but still keep control panel in mind as you need the original directory of the files

if you want to replace the playable characters, their textures are are in the following folders

rayman sprites: itf_cooked/pc/actor/playablecharacter/rayman/animation globox sprites (you will also need mosquito sprites for him): itf_cooked/pc/actor/playablecharacter/globox/animation itf_cooked/pc/world/common/shooter/playablecharacter/shootermoskitoglob/animation teensy sprites: itf_cooked/pc/world/1_jungleworld/friendly/teensy/animation ui icons for everyone: itf_cooked/pc/world/common/ui/ui_bar

-

step 2: the art itself

once you have the original textures all you need to do is to edit them, or redraw them. this may be a tedious process though! what i did is painstakingly edit each original spritesheet to be 2x size, then aliased to put it into a format that i can easily work with and edit, i mostly did so with a whole bunch of magic wand usage and tweaks

i did finish all the templates for all playable characters, i will see if i can release them somehow eventually? but yeah for now figure out your own way to edit them for now

either way you can figure out some way to draw new art for them. save it in a folder separate from all the other assets obviously. here for example i made a more rayman 3-like grand mimimus. i also frankensteined an icon together

-

step 3: dds things

now that youve done the textures for the mod, duplicate them and save them as .dds files

this isnt necessary, as larger resolutions will also work (probably as long as the dimensions are still a power of 2), but you can resize the textures to the original resolution as well. i will be doing that personally

if you dont have a program that supports dds files, i just use paint.net. i provide a save configuration for it specifically, you can get it here if you need

this is updated!!! after much experimenting this one looks the best to me. the most important settings are outlined in orange, but try to match the rest too

make sure you have generate mipmaps on specifically or else the sprite will end up pixelly

however some additional, more jpeg-y crust will be applied onto the sprite from the mipmaps themselves. so heres the technical part thats probably complicated... if you dont wanna bother with this try to copy the rest of my save configuration, i think it works the best here

i experimented a bit with what looked best and picked fant with no gamma correction, but you can try saving multiple dds files with different settings, viewing them with whatever lets you view the mipmaps themselves (windows image viewer does) and just picking which looks better at a smaller scale

(to see the differences look closely at the eyes specifically, its probably hard without overlaying these one over another and directly comparing though)

one thing i can say is bicubic and fant are definitely the best for matching the original sprites' mipmaps, as theyre not too blurry (like bicubic smooth or bilinear) while remaining fairly good looking

these are the original dds files' settings as viewed in dxt viewer. most of this doesnt seem to be applicable for the save settings but the compressed format is specifically dxt3 (which is also present in its header if you view it in hxd), so for the first save setting you probably have to pick BC2 (Linear, DXT3) as i have

TLDR: i know this is complicated, try to just copy the dds save configuration from the start of this step i guess???

-

step 4: renaming things

once you have done that, the weird thing you need to do is to rename the .dds into files that the game can actually read (even though theyre still dds files, and can be renamed back to .dds for them to function). for convenience you can just duplicate the files again

pay attention to the original file formats which you can see in control panel! as you can see, you should rename the majority of the extensions from .dds to .tga.ckd

windows will stop recognizing them, likely the same for the programs you use, but that shouldnt be a big deal. if you want, you can rename them back to .dds to make them usable

the important part here, dont miss it!!! is that all the ui icons are not tga.ckd, but png.ckd!!! even though theyre actually still dds files under the surface. just rename them correctly and pay attention to the right extension, or else the icon wont work

obviously make sure they have the same filename in general ALONGSIDE the extension

-

step 5: actually making the mod

now that you have the relevant files, click create mod in control panel

select the files module, and then make and select a folder to use as the mod folder, which should give you this result

the files folder should have these two

you should create a GameData folder in added_files, after which the entire regular filepath follows, starting from bundle_PC.ipk, then itf_cooked, then so on. for example, these are (nearly) the full directories of my files

\mod\files\added_files\GameData\bundle_PC.ipk\itf_cooked\pc\world\1_jungleworld\friendly\teensy\animation\teensy_a1.tga.ckd \mod\files\added_files\GameData\bundle_PC.ipk\itf_cooked\pc\world\1_jungleworld\friendly\teensy\animation\teensy_e1.tga.ckd \mod\files\added_files\GameData\bundle_PC.ipk\itf_cooked\pc\world\common\ui\ui_bar\ui_bar_teensy_a3.png.ckd

obviously all the textures should have the same filename and the same file path as the textures theyre replacing

then go back to the base mod folder and edit the metadata.jsonc file in something like notepad++. the file itself has commented-in extensive instructions so just follow them

as the mod creator thingy says you can also optionally create a thumbnail

anyway once youve done all of that, select all the files in your mod folder and zip them. you cant just select the folder WITH the mod things and then zip that, as then control panel wont read it because the base of the zip directory doesnt have the metadata file

-

step 6: finally implementing the mod!!!

now that you have the zip ready, click the mod loader and select this in the lower left corner

navigate to your zip and select it. it should appear here under installed mods

make sure you press the checkmark to the left of it and then press the apply button in the lower right

after a short wait for the mods to apply you can go turn on the game and test it

and it should hopefully work !

also yeah ill release the minimus soon enough on gamebanana

if you want to make any further edits to the textures, youd have to resave them as .dds files again, and rename them to tga.ckd/png.ckd and such, then just replace them in the mod's directory (or add new files to it) and just zip it again. its fairly easy to work with i hope

this is overall kind of a complicated tutorial but its not too bad once you get the hang of it

[bearsinpotatosacks]

Rewards and Acknowledgement - a Klave fic

Contains major spoilers for TUA season 3 as this is a post-season 3 fic.

After events of season 3, the crew congregate in Klaus' apartment where he gets a pleasant surprise.

Somehow they found their way to Klaus' apartment. That had been a shock for most of them, that this Klaus had an apartment. It wasn't for him, though. He'd had a house back in Dallas. And without being terrified of ghosts as a kid, he had little reason to turn to drugs. But he hoped that didn't make him a square in this universe, though.

Klaus has settled Luther down enough to convince him to continue his search for Sloane in his apartment. He'd hunched over a copy of the yellow pages and hogged the phone. So far, nothing. He didn't have the heart to tell him that because she hadn't existed in the original timeline as the Sloane he knew, she probably wouldn't be here as his wife.

Surprisingly, Ben came next. He swallowed his pride and came to him, after finding nothing about his own place and settling for the only other place he could go.

Five ran in with a strange mixture of anger and wonder. There was no apocalypse, as far as he could tell. He'd checked as much of the city as he could without his powers. Apparently, his search had been hindered by continuous questions by anxious mothers about if his parents knew he was here. The curses of having the body of a thirteen year old.

Viktor arrived as the sun started to rise with waffles and coffee. He'd tried to find Allison but to no avail. Luckily, his life hadn't changed much from before the first apocalypse. He taught violin, played the first chair in the city's orchestra, yet, so far, hadn't produced a tell all book on the awful ways of his family. 

Finally, Diego and Lila clambered in and appeared the most pleased. They had a normal life, and for some reason they didn't know, were almost eager to join the complacent world of normality, in their own weird way, of course. Diego was still a boxer, Lila the drummer of a band.

Klaus didn't know what he did yet. Nor Luther, or Five, or Ben. But this felt special. Sure, he had a natural tendency to chaos, but everyone wanted a home base. He'd checked and he had a bath, a decent stash of tapes and records and a sufficiently eclectic decor style in his apartment.

Although he hadn't been here long, not even twelve hours, this felt like home. It was him and safe and for once, it was where his family congregated, rather than him following and getting lost. 

It was getting to mid morning, everyone was in various states of unconsciousness. Diego and Lila were asleep against each other. Luther clutched the phone book against himself like a cuddly toy and Viktor pulled the blanket closer over himself. Ben sat bolt upright against the sofa in light slumber

Five had given up on sleep and sipped his fourth consecutive cup of coffee. Klaus had joined him after a fitful five hours of sleep. Apparently figuring out he was immortal, learning to control his powers and being stripped of them in a week could mess up your subconscious.

He settled to looking out the window. Cars zoomed past, people lived. A severe lack of ghosts that he would usually be okay with, actually unsettled him more. 

It almost made him angry. After so many years of dying and taking drugs to block them out, finally being able to harness his powers, even if it was all for Reggie's use, it stung when they were taken away. 

The door clicked and swung open. Everyone shot up. So many years of being forced to go on midnight missions made for light sleepers, at least after another crisis. 

"Hey Klaus-" 

He knew that voice. He hadn't heard it in three years, not counting his failure at preventing his death in Dallas, but could recognise it instantly. That was Dave, his Dave, and he had to stop himself from dropping his mug on the brown wooden floor. 

"Oh. I didn't know your family was going to be over," he said.

He wore glasses, they suited him, framed his face. A simple white tee overlayed with a light blue shirt, sixties style, with brown khakis. He had a bag slung over his shoulder and that small smile he gave that still made his knees weak.

"Anyway, you would not believe the day I had yesterday, I had three, three, parents come to me complaining that I marked their kids' assignments wrong for giving them good grades all because they said that it was wrong to say thay Nick and Gatsby could be gay for each other, said it as if I'm not an English teacher, " he laughed to himself, not looking at Klaus directly.

In the background he heard Lila whisper to Diego, "Who's that?"

"Remember when I said that Klaus went to Vietnam?" 

She nodded.

"That's the guy he fell in love with, died there too."

Dave didn't hear them and continued his story, "They said it goes against the Bible, and I was like 'Do you know me?' I mean, for one, I'm Jewish, and two have they seen the pictures of us on my desk-"

Klaus couldn't take it anymore. He gave in to the rush of emotions, the urge to cry and jump for joy and scream, and practically lept into Dave's arms to kiss him.

Dave didn't respond at first. He stayed frozen as Klaus took in his scent through the kiss. Different aftershave, same musk. His skin was the same under his hands, his curls tickled against his fingers.

He heard the bag drop on the floor. Dave's hands embraced Klaus, his hands holding him close by pressing him on his back. His mouth opened, Klaus sighed into the kiss and pulled away. Moisture in his eyes told him he was close to tears.

"What did I do to deserve that?" Dave asked.

"Nothing, just haven't seen you in while,"

Dave chuckled and stroked his face. He lent into it, his mind flashing back to that first night in the club back in 'Nam. But they could kiss in public now, could actually be together now. There was hope now.

"You saw me yesterday morning," he said, humour still in his voice.

"Just been a long day, that's all."

Five cleared his throat and he was forced to break his moment and return to his family. Some were laughing, Lila, some shocked, Luther, and some had a vaguely validated look, Viktor and Diego. 

"Guys, can you find somewhere else to go," he grumbled. "I have plans."

"Where are we supposed to go?" Luther asked.

"I don't know, anywhere, just don't be here,"

He shooed them away, even as Luther and Ben complained, and took Dave by both his hands. He knew the way to the bedroom and felt sparks in the air.

Everything was electric. Molten and exciting. New yet familiar. He was getting rewarded for something.

"Good, now we're alone," he said.

Dave closed the gap between them and kissed him. It was gentle and sweet. He could taste the smile in it. 

"And boy have I got a story for you?"

"Story?"

"Well, not really so much of a story than the tale of my past,"

Dave laughed again, "I already know a lot about your past, Klaus, we’ve been in a relationship for two years now."

Two years? He'd had two years with Dave? 

"But something's happened, or not, well, not directly happened to here but somewhere else, that's changed a few things."

Dave pulled back slightly, "Changed things?"

"Wait, wait, wait, not about you, never about you."

The brief peak in tension subsided and the gooey warmth returned. Dave rubbed his arm, held him closer and pulled him in to lay light kisses on his scalp.

"It will sound a little crazy, though, but I swear it's all true," he then added. "Scout's honour."

"You've never been a scout, Klaus," Dave laughed.

"At least that’s stayed true."

"What?"

Klaus pulled Dave toward him, "Nothing,"

He nosed his way over his face, lay small kisses on his cheek, his nose and chin before capturing his mouth again.

He never thought he'd get to do this again. Maybe if the first apocalypse had been averted and he'd harnessed his power to resurrect him. Maybe if he'd been better to convince the younger Dave in Dallas not to go to war. But now he could. Could relish in the way he tasted and the little whine he made when they had to separate for air but he desperately didn't want to.

When they did pull away, his glasses were fogged up. He took them off and stood, catching his breath back as he gazed at Klaus.

"You know what? It can wait."

Dave raised an eyebrow, "Oh yeah? Why?"

Klaus put his arms around Dave's neck and smiled at him. He knew it was that lovesick smile only he could unlock. This all seemed too good to be true, maybe this was his afterlife and he hadn't saved things after all. 

But even if it was, it was a good afterlife, one he'd be willing to stay in. 

Yet there was something so real about this. The way Dave's shirt felt against his fingers or the smell of the air around them, it convinced him that this was real.

"I've got a few more things to do that are of utmost importance,"

"Like what?"

Dave smiled and chased him for a kiss. Klaus pulled back, averting it, turned them and reversed towards the bedroom.

"How about I show you?" Klaus said.

He met Dave in the middle for a kiss as they fell onto the bed. It had been a long time, and he was going to make the most of seeing him again.

I know that the only way Allison has Claire and Raymond is because she made a deal with Reggie but maybe there's a chance this could also be a thing for Klaus, albeit without the deal.

Also I don't know if Diego actually does know about Dave but considering that Allison mentions Klaus going to Vietnam at the start of season 3 and Klaus mentions him to Allison and Viktor in the season 2 hair salom scene, I think it's safe to say people must know?

I hope you enjoyed this!

[angelofrainfrogs]

We Can Save Them, Superstar: Ch. 1

Fandoms: Five Nights At Freddy’s: Security Breach

Description: Gregory’s on a mission to save everyone he can in the Pizzaplex—even those that have already left this mortal plane. With the sudden return of Vanessa, it seems some lingering questions may finally be answered. But of course, nothing is easy when it comes to William Afton and his convoluted plots. To accomplish his mission, Gregory will need to work with his new friends and family… and some old, startlingly familiar faces, too.

Chapter Summary: Vanessa’s sudden reappearance is a shock to everyone. Thankfully, thanks to the help of the night guards she’s quickly apprehended and taken in for questioning. With Freddy in tow, hopefully they can start getting some much-needed answers.  

Rating: T

Read on Ao3: https://archiveofourown.org/works/45578011/chapters/114686545

Gregory's eyes widened with terror as he clung to Freddy. Vanessa still wore her security uniform, although what was left of the tattered fabric seemed to be covered in dirt and soot. Dozens of gashes in her shirt and pants revealed her now-scarred skin, healed over as a reminder of the blaze down below she’d somehow managed to crawl out of using the last of her willpower.

Freddy simply blinked at the figure for a few seconds.

Vanessa?

There was no way the former night guard could be here, standing in front of them. He must be malfunctioning somehow, seeing past images overlaying the reality before his eyes. He’d have to ask maintenance to check his visual processors—

But… as he and Gregory were both aware, they hadn’t seen her perish. They’d simply left her in the chaos, never truly knowing whether she survived after they’d escaped from William Afton. Apparently she’d made it out somehow, although she looked to be in a sorry state.

“Vanessa…?” Freddy asked quietly, keeping his eyes trained on her as he shifted into a defensive stance. Honestly, she didn’t look like she posed much of threat anymore. Her pale, gaunt face spoke of weeks hiding underground, surviving on discarded pizza and remnants of half-empty soda cans.

Still, they didn’t know why she was here, let alone how much of a threat she still posed… especially when Freddy recalled everything she’d done to not only the terrified child in his arms, but the nine others beneath their feet as well.

Vanessa let out a small sigh, lowering her gaze momentarily. “Freddy… I'm not here to hurt you.”

Gregory shuddered at the sound of her voice, hugging Freddy tighter.

“Let's just leave before she gets us!” he insisted, tugging on the bear’s arm repeatedly.

Vanessa didn’t react to Gregory’s cry. Without that dark voice glitching out her mind, she wasn’t able to see the ghost on anything but the first layer, and Gregory had instinctively moved to the second out of pure habit when they’d left the basement moments before. Even so, the former guard grimaced as her gaze raked over the awkward position of Freddy’s arms—clearly he was holding someone, and Vanessa knew exactly who it was.

���Look, I—I lost a lot of memories, but… I know I've done something I shouldn't have,” she whispered, brushing her hair back with a shaky hand. What used to be a bouncy, high ponytail was now a low gathering of stringy pieces covered in the same dirt as the rest of her. Swallowing thickly, she looked to Freddy again. “I've been watching you and everyone else since I managed to get out from that building under the Pizzaplex... I know you have Gregory, and I know what you've been planning.”

Freddy’s grip on his son tightened. “You… have been here this whole time?!”

He didn’t know what to feel right now… He was certainly amazed that she’d not only managed to survive this long, but somehow hide out while keeping tabs on everyone. However, as he felt Gregory desperately clinging to him Freddy’s eyes narrowed and he realized that the biggest emotion filling his head right now was anger.

“You will forgive me if I do not fully believe you,” the bear said, his tone ice cold. Vanessa wasn’t an animatronic, so her memory didn’t work the same; how could she claim to not remember murdering ten children?!

Although, Freddy had to remind himself that she was also under William’s influence during that time. This didn’t excuse what she’d done, of course, but her claim of memory loss might not be as farfetched as it sounded.

“Why did you return, Vanessa?” Freddy went on, staring her down. “You could have snuck out of the Pizzaplex and we would have been none the wiser, yet you remained. What do you want?”

“Come on, Freddy, let's go!” Gregory insisted worriedly, shutting his eyes tightly as he trembled like a leaf in his protector’s arms.

“You're trying to set the kids free, and I think I can help...,” Vanessa replied slowly, keeping her gaze off of him as she rubbed her arm nervously. She could only piece so many things together in this crazy puzzle. “You'll have to tell me everything, because I honestly don't remember most of what happened… Things have been coming to me in small bits, but I’m still missing a lot.”

Freddy was conflicted. He wanted to do as Gregory said and run, to take the boy out of danger and hide him away safely until Vanessa disappeared again. But that was the problem—he did not want to risk the woman escaping.

“I have to tell you everything?!” Freddy echoed, wanting to keep her talking until he figured out a solution. “You must remember more than you are implying. Do you truly not know what you have done to those poor—”

“Hey!”

Suddenly, there was a shout from the other end of the room. Freddy looked over Vanessa’s head to see Thomas and Leon running towards them at top speed. They stopped a few feet away from the group, and Thomas looked from this strange woman to Freddy worriedly.

“W-We saw someone on the cameras that we didn’t recognize, and they were tailing you!” the guard explained. His gaze finally settled on Vanessa, taking in her dirty appearance and burned skin. “Who the hell are you?!”

Vanessa looked over her shoulder as she heard the shout, soon turning completely around to face the two.

“The night guard,” she answered truthfully. That response alone was enough for Leon to suddenly lurch forward and roughly push her against the nearest wall.

“Thomas, the handcuffs!” he instructed, using one hand against the back of her head to press her face against the brightly colored plaster.

Thomas was quick to rush to Leon’s side, pulling out a pair of cuffs and swiftly attaching them around Vanessa’s wrists. His fingers trembled as he did so, but this time it was more from adrenaline than fear.

“No way…,” he murmured as Leon whirled her around, keeping a tight grip on her arm. Thomas immediately latched onto her other side, sandwiching Vanessa in between them so she couldn’t wriggle free. To his surprise she didn’t necessarily seem to be resisting…

“It is alright, Gregory,” Freddy soothed, finally acknowledging the boy now that Vanessa couldn’t easily try to come at them. “Thomas and Leon have her; she cannot hurt you.”

“Look, I'm not here to hurt any of you…,” she tried explaining, although she figured none of them would listen. She lowered her head, wincing from her injuries and feeling the pull on her heartstrings as Freddy comforted the ghost in his arms.

Gregory shook his head quickly. “No! Make her go away!”

Freddy grimaced at the shrill yell right in his ear. The boy hadn’t been this distressed since, well… since the night everything happened. Freddy didn’t fault him for being upset. Personally he wanted to figure out what Vanessa was here for, but he knew his son needed him more at that moment.

“Can you take her somewhere secure?” Freddy asked Thomas and Leon, pressing a comforting hand to Gregory’s back as he spoke. “I will join you as soon as I can, but I must give Gregory some space from the situation right now.”

“Yeah, u-understandable,” Thomas said with a nod. He couldn’t imagine what it must feel like to come face to face with your own murderer, let alone doing so at ten years old. He griped Vanessa’s arm a little tighter, not noticing her flinch at the pain. “We’ve got this, don’t worry; we’ll be in the closest security office, so come find us when you’re ready.”

Leon nodded his head, keeping his grip on Vanessa tight as he led her away with Thomas. He didn't have to see Gregory to know how upset he was. If anything, the sudden heavy feeling surrounding them was enough for him to sense the ghost’s distress.

“I wanna go back to the room!” Gregory insisted, keeping his face buried in Freddy's shoulder.

Freddy nodded, whisking the boy away from the scene without another word. He remained quiet as they returned to their safe space, though he kept a reassuring hand on Gregory’s back the entire time. Once they made it inside, Freddy pulled the curtains firmly shut and sat on the couch, shifting Gregory to sit on his lap as he continued holding him close.

“It is okay,” Freddy soothed again, his voice soft and calm. “I am here with you and will not let anything happen to you—I promise. None of us will.”

Gregory kept his eyes shut, taking a few deep breaths. Nonetheless, he couldn't stop his body from trembling. Eventually lifted his head, blinking a few times to chase away some tears.

“I know…,” he mumbled quietly, resting his chin against Freddy's shoulder. Of course he had no doubts about his dad’s ability to protect him, but his ten year old mind refused to believe that Vanessa was anything besides a monster.

Freddy simply held him close, letting Gregory calm down on his own time. Once the boy was able to respond, Freddy gave him a small smile and told him: “I will stay with you as long as you wish, alright? I… I must go and check on Thomas and Leon at some point, but you do not have to come with me; I can leave you with another animatronic, if you would prefer…”

He’d have to let the others know what was going on, though he figured it might be best to wait until he got a handle of the situation himself before sending the likes of Monty and Roxy after Vanessa.

“I don't wanna see her…,” Gregory murmured, quickly shaking his head.

“I understand; we will stay right here,” Freddy reassured, holding Gregory close again in hopes that he'd stop trembling soon.

Even though Vanessa somehow made it out, she clearly hadn't done it unscathed—Freddy had seen the way she flinched when grabbed, looking to be in pain rather than just startled. Plus, there were the obvious scars... She must've gone through that fire trying to get free. He wondered how long she'd been lurking around, watching them.

It was a very unsettling thought.

After a few minutes, Gregory had finally stopped shaking. He managed to calm down, but the lingering fear remained. Vanessa was still here and a lot closer than they all expected.

“…Can I go with Roxy while you check things out?” he finally asked, rubbing at his eyes.

“Certainly,” Freddy replied. He gently ran a hand over Gregory's hair, giving him a reassuring smile before sending a message to Roxy to come to their room. Because of the urgency in Freddy's tone, it took less than a minute before the wolf was knocking on the door.

“Hey... what's up?” she asked, feeling the dark atmosphere in the room. Gregory looked very distressed, and it worried her—she'd never seen that expression on his face. At least, as far as she could remember. “Is Gregory okay?! What happened?!”

“He will be alright,” Freddy replied, then paused a moment before answering her other questions. He wasn't sure how much to reveal right now, let alone how much Gregory wanted to say. “There is currently a... situation that I must take care of. Can you watch Gregory for a little bit?”

“Yeah, of course!” Roxy agreed with a nod, turning her attention to the boy.

Gregory figured that since Roxy didn't know what was going on, Freddy chose to keep the information to himself for now. Smartly, he decided to stay quiet about the situation as well. After giving Freddy a tight hug, he was quick to hold his arms out for Roxy to lift him up.

“Can we draw and color?” Gregory asked. There was a reason he picked the high-energy wolf to look after him right now: no matter what they were doing, she could always distract him from any problems at hand.

“Heck yeah we can!” Roxy agreed with her usual grin, quickly pulling Gregory into her arms. Once he was settled on her hip she let out a loud laugh. “HA! Finally—Monty's been carrying you around waaaaay too much, kid! Now I can have a turn without worrying about him bothering us...”

“Thank you, Roxy,” Freddy said, leaning forward to ruffle Gregory's hair. As he did so, he connected to Roxy through their internal radio, advising: “I will inform you what is happening when I know more; for now, please keep Gregory safely in here and let me know immediately if you see anything suspicious.”

“No problem at all, Fredbear,” Roxy replied in response to both messages. His words concerned her, but her mission was clear: keep Gregory safe.

“I will be back as soon as I can, Gregory,” Freddy said, leaning forward to give the boy a final hug. “I love you.”

“Okay... love you.” Gregory clung tight, murmuring in Freddy’s ear. “Be careful, dad.”

“I will,” Freddy reassured, then walked out of his room and headed for the security office, determination etched across his face.

***

Meanwhile, Thomas and Leon had gotten Vanessa situated. Her wrists were still handcuffed, and they’d tied her to a chair with thick rope around her torso for good measure. It was most definitely against Fazbear security protocol, but this situation went far beyond some silly company-mandated rules.

“...So, are you good cop or bad cop?” Leon finally asked after a moment of silence, looking over at Thomas.

“Wha—Um, I...” Thomas shrugged and waved his hands vaguely as he tried to figure out what the heck they were going to do about this whole situation. “I-I'll be good cop, I guess...”

Leon nodded. “Suits you.”

Vanessa obviously seemed unimpressed by the two, slouching back in the chair with a heavy sigh.

“Is this really necessary?” she questioned, before Leon snapped his wild gaze towards her.

“Yeah, actually it is, child murderer!” He jabbed a finger at her threateningly. “So shut the hell up.”

“Yeah! Child murderer!” Thomas echoed, then glanced at Leon with a grimace. “...How I am I supposed to be nice to her?!” He paused, taking a deep breath. “Okay, I got this. So... you've been missing for weeks, Vanessa—where the hell have you been?!”

It wasn't a perfect “good cop” routine, but Thomas was doing the best he could given who they were talking to.

Vanessa huffed. “In the basement, like I said... I was stuck there for a few days until I actually got out. I've kinda been wandering around here since then—y’know, to eat and whatnot. Figure out what the hell is going on.”

She winced, feeling the rope digging into a wound in her side. “Ow… any chance you could loosen these things like a millimeter?”

Thomas saw her wince, though it took a moment to register that some of the blood on her shirt looked a little fresh.

“Oh, shit—are you bleeding?!” he asked, taking a step towards her before stopping. Clearly she'd been through a lot based on her physical state, probably with something involving a fire based... but if she was actively bleeding, Thomas didn't want it to cause further issue while they were interrogating her.

“Old wound,” Vanessa answered with a shake of her head, figuring it could've opened up due to the ropes. It didn't seem all too important right now, in the grand scheme of things.

Leon rolled his eyes. “Who cares?! Let her suffer.” He folded his arms over his chest. “I say we give her to Moon first. Let him have at her.”

“That’s… pretty tempting, I’ve gotta say,” Thomas admitted. He looked at Vanessa, his eyes narrowed. “You’ve caused so many horrible things around here, you know that?! Honestly, we should—”

His threat was cut off as there was a sudden banging on the security office door. Thomas whirled around to see Freddy peering through the window and quickly moved to let him in, locking the door behind him. He noted that Gregory didn’t seem to be with him, and also—

“Oh, he’s pissed…,” Thomas murmured, instinctively backing towards a wall once he caught the expression on Freddy’s face. He still wasn’t scared of the animatronic, but it was at this moment that Thomas realized just how much damage those sharp teeth could probably do.

“Hello, Vanessa,” Freddy said, coming to a stop in front of the tired-looking woman. He stood at full height and peered down at the comparatively tiny human, fists clenched at his sides. “This is Vanessa we are speaking with, correct? Not Vanny without your costume?”

Vanessa stared up at the animatronic with wide eyes, before glancing away with a wince.

“Vanny? Yeah, it's Vanessa—I don't know what else you're referring to, Freddy,” she answered quietly, crossing her ankles as she sat up in the seat. “Look, I just need to know what’s going on here. I don't know how long I've been underground... I'm just confused, okay?!” She out a frustrated sigh.

Freddy stared at her, then released an annoyed sigh of his own. Either she was really good at faking it, or she legitimately had no memory of her Vanny persona.

“You have been ‘missing’ for nearly three weeks,” Freddy told her. Even if she was experiencing amnesia like the animatronics did, she should still remember certain things—Freddy just needed to find out what those things were, and if any of them had to do with William’s potential return.

“There was a virus that infected the Pizzaplex which led to the events that got you trapped down below. It caused most of the animatronics to become aggressive, and you were the one that released it. However, that is the least of your crimes…” He left that thought hanging for now. She likely needed to process things in pieces, and overwhelming her would only frustrate everyone in the long run.

Vanessa's eyes widened.

“It's been three weeks?!” she questioned, looking between Freddy and the guards. She slowly leaned back, huffing quietly. “That... Makes a lot more sense. I don't remember everything, but from what I've overheard, there are children trapped in endoskeletons... well, their souls, I guess. Did I…?” She slowly mumbled, glancing back and forth between everyone. Upon only receiving silence, she quickly shook her head.

“Wait... No, I didn't... You have to believe me, I didn't do that.” Vanessa laughed nervously, letting her gaze drop to the floor. “Whatever happened to them was not something I did!”

Against his urge to completely fault Vanessa for everything, Freddy knew that she’d been controlled just like the rest of them. Maybe it had been more of a distinct personality split than he’d initially thought, just based on how she was talking now.

“You… were not yourself at all times,” Freddy admitted, glancing between her and the guards as he explained. He’d mentioned Vanny to Thomas and Leon in a roundabout way, but hadn’t given them many details. “You were also being manipulated by another entity, and that manipulated part went by the name Vanny.”

Freddy met her gaze again icily. “Regardless—while you may have been controlled at the time, you did do some horrendous things… and the worst of them was murdering ten innocent children in cold blood.”

Thomas’s knuckles were white, hands clenched into fists at his side. He was well aware of what happened, but hearing it spelled out like that to the person who did it because they supposedly forgot was just… horrific.

Vanessa's pale face had somehow become even paler upon hearing the truth. She surmised what’d happened, but the confirmation made her stomach turn.

“I-I don't remember it at all, honestly... All I remember was a man talking to me, and then at one point Gregory was there, but… but I don't remember killing anyone! I wouldn't do that!” she insisted, taking a few deep breaths. “I'm telling you the truth; all I can recall was running and the man telling me to ‘take him.’ That's it…”

“Well, Gregory certainly remembers you!” Freddy snapped, not liking the sound of his son’s name coming from his murderer’s lips at all. He shifted forward slightly and Thomas jumped into action.

“W-Whoa, Freddy, hold on!” the guard exclaimed, walking forward with palms held up placatingly. He didn’t think Freddy would actually do anything to physically harm Vanessa, but he’d also never seen the animatronic angry. The sharp-toothed bear turned his glare on Thomas, who yelped before adding. “Hey, I-I’m not saying s-she’s innocent, okay?! I’m just saying m-maybe don’t, like… do anything to her until we get more info?”

Leon looked over at Freddy, rubbing at the back of his neck and adding on: “But hell, Freddy—she’s free game after you get the answers you need.”

This made the bear pause, gaze softening slightly. He took a step back from the tired woman, murmuring: “No, I am not going to hurt her…”

He paused again, eyes fixated on Vanessa as he commanded: “Tell me everything you remember about the children, besides what you just said—and about the man who spoke to you. Give us any details you can think of.”

“Well, I... I remember the man wanted Gregory specifically. But each time he said his name, it was very sarcastic. As if it wasn't his name?” Vanessa started, furrowing her brows. “Every time we talked, it'd be somewhere dark... I think by a charging pod? I don't remember his face, only his voice. It's still very blurry, but... Ah, yeah—Gregory. I remember following him and seeing him in different areas of the building. I don't know, the man seemed very fixated on him for some reason...

“When I first came to, I couldn’t figure out what the hell was going on. I didn’t know where I was or why, just that the room was on fire. When I eventually escaped and made it topside, I overheard you and Bonnie talking with Gregory in the basement. Suddenly, that's when some of my memory came back, and—oh, yes, Bonnie!” Vanessa blinked rapidly as another detail popped into her mind. “The man wanted parts from Bonnie to… to revive himself? Somehow?”

Hmm. So the former guard did remember bits and pieces. However, from her wide, scared eyes Freddy could tell she really didn’t understand what was happening.

At least, Vanessa didn’t.

“We do not know all the details either,” Freddy admitted with a harsh sigh. “However, the man you were speaking to was William Afton, one of the founders of Fazbear Entertainment who went missing long ago. We do not know why he wanted to be revived, but he has apparently been trapped inside a Bonnie-style suit, which he needed Bonnie’s parts specifically.” Freddy clenched his teeth for a moment before adding: “The virus that you—Vanny—whoever sent out caused Monty to decommission Bonnie so his parts could be taken.”

Vanessa lowered her head as she felt an ache in her temple. It seemed the name William Afton was enough to trigger something.

“Ugh… The—The rabbit, he… introduced himself as William Afton, and he wanted… Evan? I-I think he thought Gregory was his… son?” she said slowly, frowning at the shaky memories of their conversations. “I was told to save him for later; not bind his soul to a robot like I did with the others.”

“Why the hell were you working for him though?!” Thomas piped up, looking dumbfounded. “A-And… is he back, too?! Because if so, we’ve got a lot more problems right now…”

Vanessa slowly looked over at Thomas, huffing quietly. “I don't know! If I did, it certainly wasn't willingly; I wouldn't do something like this!”

She let out a frustrated sigh. Vanessa understood their concerns, but she was telling the truth. “I didn't see him anywhere when I was walking around. I don't know what happened to him.”

Freddy, Leon, and Thomas all looked at each other for a moment.

“Well, if you have been in the lower levels and have not seen William, I am hesitantly inclined to believe that he is still trapped…,” Freddy eventually said, feeling this was the more important topic to address first. “None of the animatronics have felt anything off since that night, so at least the virus was eradicated.” He grimaced, not liking what he was about to say. “At some point we should confirm that William is still confined, but… I cannot go down there right now.”

Speaking with Vanessa alone was a lot, but Freddy also had to take care of Gregory and inform the others at some point… He couldn’t bring himself to go back down to the basement on top of all that just yet unless absolutely necessary.

After a moment of silence, Thomas spoke. “Okay, so assuming William is still trapped and you’re not following his orders anymore… what do you want, Vanessa?”

She’d mentioned wanting to help the kids before, but she didn’t even know what she’d done to them so the guard was skeptical of her motives.

The blonde lowered her head in shame, sighing quietly. “I've seen the endoskeletons. Each time I've been in that basement, I feel like I've recalled bits and pieces of how the kids got trapped. I… I couldn’t show myself until I remembered enough to try and undo it. But now, after seeing you all down there tonight—I think I can finally give you some answers.” She paused, swallowing thickly. “We used a sort of ritual to bind them. It took me so long to remember the name…”

Leon was quick to roll his chair closer to the desk and switch onto a browser, preparing his fingers to type. If anything Vanessa said didn't match with the search, then they knew she was lying.

“Tenetur ad Objectum. I-It’s a ritual where they use someone's blood and something on their person to bind them to a specific object. I never knew how to do it, but William... He did. He wanted to keep the kids’ souls out of the way while he…” Vanessa’s brow pinched. “I’m sorry, I can’t—I still don’t know exactly why he needed their bodies and souls, let alone separated. A-Anyway, somehow he passed the knowledge onto me. I'm not exactly sure what happened once I completed it—my mind’s still blank on that. But I remember the steps I did... Nine times.”

Vanessa’s tone turned bitter as she lowered her head. As she spoke Leon was typing frantically, his eyes locked onto the screen as the keyboard clicked away.

“My god… This is some fucked up shit—she's telling the truth,” he muttered, pulling back from the screen to show Thomas and Freddy.

“Oh, holy—” Thomas stopped mid-sentence with a gagging noise, turning away from the computer. Leon was right: this was fucked up, and even more so because it had been done so many times.

Freddy’s eyes simply widened as he read what was on the monitor. These weren’t the ideal answers they’d been hoping for, but they were answers nonetheless.

“So… their souls are bound to the endoskeletons through this horrific ritual,” Freddy said slowly, backing away from the monitor to stare at Vanessa again. “The knowledge of ‘rituals’ in my database is lackluster to say the least, but from what I understand it is sometimes possible to reverse this process, correct?” He glanced at Leon, who was the most likely to have an answer and was poised to look it up if not.

Vanessa remained silent. She truly had no recollection of murdering any children, although the memory of the ritual performed after each act was engrained in her mind, breaking through the barrier between her consciousnesses. The thought made her sick to her stomach.

Leon continued reading, soon nodding his head with a crease in his brow. “Yeah; seems like we can reverse it, and set their souls free. We just need a few things—most importantly, the belongings that were used to bind them in the first place.”

“…You can probably guess my answer. Unfortunately, I don't know where they are,” Vanessa mumbled quietly, staring hard at the ground.

“It seems we at least have some direction as to what we must do next,” Freddy announced, offering Leon a grateful smile despite the grave circumstances. “We must find the objects used to tie the children’s souls to the endoskeletons. Then, we can reverse the ritual.”

He looked down at Vanessa again, eyes cold.

“Your memories seem to be triggered by objects or scenery… Perhaps, in a controlled way, we can take you around the Pizzaplex in hopes of jogging your memory as to where the objects are hidden? Not right now, of course.” Freddy quickly shook his head, not wanting anyone to think he was getting ahead of himself. “It is not safe for anyone if you were to wander openly at the current time.”

Thomas grimaced at this true statement. Not only were they unsure of whether Vanessa was still a threat in some capacity, but he didn’t want to imagine what the other animatronics would do if they caught sight of her now that they knew what she’d done...

Leon thought to himself before letting out a sharp gasp, his eyes widening at an idea. Opening a new tab, he typed something into the search bar before clicking a link.

Vanessa lifted her head in mild curiosity as Leon turned the monitor to face her. On it was Ben's photo, blown up to fill the screen. Vanessa immediately pushed herself further back into her seat and grimaced in pain as a shooting headache stabbed through her mind. “Ugh—W-What…?”

“Leon that is a brilliant idea!” Freddy praised. If places didn’t trigger her memory, then maybe the sight of the kids she’s done away with would bring up some clues. Freddy angled himself so he could watch Vanessa’s reaction intently.

“It looks like it’s working!” Thomas commented, glancing between Vanessa and the photo. “Do you remember anything?!”

“Ugh—no! I-I didn't do that!” Vanessa spoke to herself, squirming in her seat. She felt her eyes water, breath catching sharply before she all of a sudden went limp in the chair.

“O-Oh god… oh god, I... I did kill him…” she mumbled quietly, an overwhelming amount of guilt filling her foggy mind. “I s-stabbed him in the basement after hours... And I took his bracelet.”

Vanessa hung her head and squeezed her eyes shut tightly as the images now began to seep into her memory clear as day. “I left it in the basement in a box, and I… I-I left him in there by himself... Holy shit, how could I…?”

The room was completely silent as she spoke, and for a good while afterwards. Freddy could feel the anger building again, actual hatred towards this woman for doing such horrible things… but the genuine regret in her voice gave him pause.

“So… Ben’s object is a bracelet,” Freddy stated slowly. “And it should be in the basement.” He nodded resolutely. “I will look for it. If I can locate it in the area Vanessa claims she left it, we can confirm that she is telling the truth and that this tactic of showing her pictures definitely works.”

“Y-You sure you’ll be okay?” Thomas asked hesitantly. “Do you want one of us to—”

“No; please stay here and keep watch over Vanessa.” Freddy narrowed his eyes at the woman yet again. “I may inform some of the others if I feel it necessary, but I will try to keep this under wraps until we can finalize our plan.” He spared a quick glance at Thomas and Leon. “I would hate for you both to get caught in the crossfire of the others’ anger if they charge up here to find her.”

“When you get out of the elevator, take that long hallway and veer, um… veer left when you get to the end—it’s near the very back of a storage room,” Vanessa added quietly, watching Leon pull the screen away and minimize the browser.

“You should put it somewhere safe, when you find it,” Leon mentioned, folding his arms as he turned to face Freddy. “So if she does decide to cross us, only you'll know where it is.”

He really didn't want to be stuck with a child murderer, but he agreed that his and Thomas’s talents as security guards were best spent here right now. Honestly, he was surprised everyone had kept their cool as much as they did—especially Freddy.

“Alright,” the bear agreed with a nod. “Thank you both; please contact me immediately if anything happens.”

He then focused on Vanessa again, leaning over her imposingly. He was technically smiling, but it was a vicious, threatening grin that hinted at just how easily an animatronic like Freddy could take out a tiny, frail human like the former night guard.

“Do. Not. Try. Anything,” he said, voice low and serious. “If I receive notice that you have attempted to escape or laid a finger on either of these two, I will not be so nice the next time I see you. Do you understand?”

“I won't do anything, Freddy, I swear,” she answered, quickly lowering her gaze to avoid Freddy's death glare. Had he always been this scary?

Leon rubbed the back of his neck nervously, clearing his throat and ignoring the chills racing up his spine. “Well, hell…”

“Good,” Freddy said, staring at her for a moment longer. Then he perked up again, glancing at Thomas and Leon with a smile that was a bit closer to his usual, friendly demeanor. “I will return shortly.”

He then exited the office, waiting until he heard Thomas lock the door behind him before heading off. Though his goal was the basement, he was going to stop by his room first—he needed to check on his son.

When Freddy was gone, Leon slowly turned to face Thomas with a quiet huff. “Alright, good cop, get ready—we need to ask this psycho a lot of questions.”

***

Masterlist of chapters on Tumblr here!

Please check out The Superstar Series on ao3 for all fics in this series: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2726401

[cloud-9ine]

Through a Golden Lens (pt 1)

⤷ pairing - hawks x (fem) reader

⤷ fandom - bnha 

⤷ warnings - some language, hawks flirting, reader’s cynicism 

⤷ summary - reader is a bitter, overworked photographer at a hero press agency with little patience for her newly assigned muse- hawks

⤷ word count - 4.5k+

⤷ notes - i have lots of ideas so this is probably going to be a multi-part series. also new to tumblr so this might not be the best

⤷ pt 1, pt 2, pt 3, pt 4, pt 5, pt 6

“Mr. Hawks! Please look this way!” his heavy lidded eyes rolled to the side as another blinding flash burned through his vision. 

“You look perfect, thank you!” it was hard to smile for their benefit, but he managed. Hawks had attended countless of these events for the press. It had been exhilarating at first, with the rush of adrenaline from the cameras and the lights and the endless stream of compliments solidifying his place in the public eye.

Nowadays, it was less thrilling. After a while, they all seemed the same- each one blurring into a senseless flare of cameras and hollow accolades.

He was bored, to say the least.

“Mr Hawks, would you like to come and see? I’d love to hear your opinion on this set!” with a practiced, easy smirk he nodded. It was easier to pander to the artist than to criticise their work. 

He looked good, but when did he not? The shoots were easy to glide through. All he had to do was pull a boyish grin, ‘make love to the camera’ as the photographers always liked to spout. It didn’t really matter what he did: the public would eat up anything with his face slapped on to the front. They all looked the same to him, anyway.

“Looks good,” he wondered why people were so easily satiated by shallow praises, but as he stared at the younger lady’s blush, he couldn’t help but realise that maybe it was him who had something to do with it.

Hawks couldn’t help his gaze from drifting to the door. His skin prickled in the humidity of all the moving bodies in one enclosed space and he longed to take a step outside and stretch his wings in a way that wasn’t to pose for a magazine. 

For a moment, he felt like his prayers had been answered when the door opened, letting in a stream of natural light to breach the artificiality of the modelling room. 

”(L/N)! You were supposed to be here over three hours ago!” the woman in front of him exclaimed, ripping the camera away from his view and marching to the figure that appeared in the light. He blinked in surprise: this entire shoot he hadn’t heard her raise her voice above anything but a low mumble when conversing with him, and now she was positively fuming.

You stared down at your co-worker through honey-tinted shades, expression unamused.

“Yeah, and I was also supposed to be out of this job three years ago. We don’t all do what we’re supposed to, cupcake.”

For a moment, Hawks thought you were a model. Tasteful cream turtleneck tucked into heavily creased mocha skirt, caramel beret perched on your head. There were a few metal, classy looking rings wrapped around your fingers, but as far as he could see, no wedding ring. It was pretty standard style for those who worked in the arts, but somehow you wore it so well. 

Your hair was a little dishevelled, and the dark circles under your eyes combined with the coffee cup in your hand were obvious signs of a rough night. His eyes locked on to the loopy black handwriting on the brown band around the cup.

(L/N) (Y/N)

You were no model, but Hawks couldn’t see the difference.

His wings beat lightly behind his back as he glided over, weaving through the other photographers and models scattered around the area. 

“Hey there, I’m Hawks,” he said smoothly, voice saccharine as he spoke to you. Your attention turned to him as you glanced at him from above the frames of your sunglasses, seemingly unimpressed.

“This the new boytoy, Mizuki?” you asked, eyes raking up and down his figure. Hawks was never one to shy away from the gaze of others, but the way you were inspecting him made him feel so exposed.

“Show some respect,” Mizuki muttered, voice lowered at Hawks’ presence but glare still piercing. You sighed, sparing one last glance at Hawks before snatching the camera out of Mizuki’s hands, leaving her scrambling for the device as you walked away.

“Lemme see what you’ve got already,” Mizuki’s face grew red, half from anger towards you, and half because of the embarrassment of being diminished in front of Hawks.

“(L/N) y-you can’t just come in three hours late and take over! I’ve already done the shoot and Hawks has already expressed that he is pleased with the outcome,” you scoffed, rolling your eyes and shooting the shorter woman a glare over your shoulder.

“There’s no way you’re gonna force me to come into work and make me sit here doing nothing,” you sneered, waving the camera around almost teasingly, “you wanted someone actually skilled to do this shoot, and here I am. Let me do my thing,” without waiting for a response, you left, thumb fumbling with the dial that allowed you to scroll through the photos.

Hawks was impressed. You hadn’t bat an eye when you saw him, and while you were very clearly very late, you were confident in your skills and obviously took your job seriously.

“Who was that?” he questioned, wings spreading slightly as his eyes chased after you. Mizuki bowed her head, remorse filling her expression.

“I apologise for her impertinence. That’s (L/N), she was who your original photographer was supposed to be today, but when she didn’t show up I had to take over,” she huffed, “she’s been like this for about a year now, and the boss is prepared to fire her if she keeps it up. So you’d think she’d be able to pull her at together for you, Mr. Hawks...”

After a while, Hawks tuned out her whining, eyes curiously trained on you, surveying your furrowed brows and expression pinched with annoyance as you studied the photos. Although they looked good enough to him, it appeared that you didn’t share the same sentiment. 

Hawks didn’t have time to avert his eyes when you turned your head, gaze locking on to his. You raised a slightly suspicious brow, but otherwise didn’t entertain his actions. 

“Mizuki, why would you use cool lighting?” you called over your shoulder, not even sparing the decency to turn around and face the person you were addressing. Mizuki frowned, moving to your side. Like a magnet, Hawks did the same, peering over your other shoulder. You eyed him from the corner of your vision for a second before tapping the screen. 

“What do you mean?” you sighed at your co-workers words, evidently frustrated.

“Considering you have bird boy over here in dark academia, accented in warmer yellows, using cool lights will bring out too much of a contrast. We need to match the accent colours with warmer lighting, or use a overlay,” you muttered, seemingly addressing yourself more than the two of them. Mizuki just shook her head.

“That would just oversaturate the image,” you snorted, giving her the same patronising look an adult would give a child if they tried to outsmart them.

“Not necessarily. I could spot-reduce saturation in highlight areas during editing. Or, if you really want your contrast, I could neutralise the warmer shades by using a blue, or compliment them using a red,” Hawks didn’t miss the way you said ‘I’ instead of ‘we’. Mizuki looked agitated, her frown growing deeper.

“Even so, we only have white backdrops. That would be a jarring contrast. You’d need something darker or more clustered to make it work. If you wanted a backdrop change you probably should’ve come earlier,” she spoke with a formality that obviously stemmed from Hawks next to her, but you paid no mind. You were silent for a moment, and Hawks could see your eyes narrowing as you were thinking.

“I need a natural background, huh?” you mumbled, thumbing the buttons on the camera. With a shrug, “alright, bird boy, come on, we’re leaving,” Hawks blinked in surprise as you spun on your heel, a grin breaking onto his face. Finally, he got to leave.

“Whatever you say, boss,” you shot him an irritated look.

“Don’t call me that. I’m 22, not 40,” his feathers ruffled up. “Hey, I’m also 22! What a coincidence, right?” he grinned, winking at you. You just responded by rolling your eyes.

Mizuki spluttered, trying in vain to get either one of you to stop as Hawks trailed after you.

“L-Look, you can’t just leave-” you turned, shoving the camera back into her hands, a mirthless smile on your face.

“Watch me,” your voice was cold, goading her to try and stop you, “bird boy, out, now.” Hawks didn’t have to be told twice. Some of the others whispered and muttered as they realised what was going on, but they all fell quiet when you shot them a sharp glare.

He breathed in the fresh air with a content sigh, his chest feeling lighter now he was out the cramped room. The amber glow from the late afternoon sun kissed his tanned skin as he stretched his arms above his head, his forearms flexing slightly under his dark blazer. His eyes shut in bliss and head tilted back, exposing his sharp jawline.

You eyed him slightly, eyes trailing across his features. Now that you had actually left, you were a little lost on what your plan was. You didn’t regret storming out of there, though, nor did you even consider turning back to apologise.

You took your own camera out of the dark camera bag slung across your body, careful not to scratch it on the tripod, and focused the lens on Hawks. It was smaller, a little more compact than the ones Mizuki and the others were using, but you found that it was much better suited for portrait work. 

The click of the camera shutter brought Hawks out of his stupor, eyes snapping open and immediately landing on you. Your attention had already been diverted to the screen, studying your work. 

“The modelling room is stuffy, I’ll give you that,” you mumbled, zooming in on his face, “but you can stretch while we walk,” Hawks leaned over you, eyes sparkling at the shot.

“Aw, you make me look so good, I’m flattered!” you rolled your eyes.

“Don’t be,” you took a large sip of your coffee, moving down the pathway as you thought. Hawks scrambled after you, his wings puffing out when he reached your side. You couldn’t help but gaze at the bright red feathers as he unfurled his wings, a small, happy chirping noise rumbling at the back of his throat once they were fully spread behind your back. They were warm, you noticed, feeling the heat through your turtleneck. 

Your vision was filled with a cheeky smirk painted on full lips, Hawks’ face appearing in front of your eyes. Your eyes narrowed as you sized him up.

“See something you like?” you rolled your eyes as he purred. 

“Not in the slightest, bird brain,” his wings beat behind his back, hand clutching the fabric on his chest.

“Oh, how you wound me!” Hawks cried, and you couldn’t help but smile slightly, which you quickly covered with your coffee cup. 

“I’m sure you’ll face a villain that will do greater damage than I could,” he hummed, angling his face towards the sun. 

“So, where are we headed?” you chewed on your bottom lip, slinging your camera over your shoulder. 

“It can’t be anywhere with lots of traffic, you attract a lot of attention, you know?” it was a rhetorical question, but Hawks’ chest still puffed out in pride at your words.

“Thanks, it’s because of my raging-”

“Shut up,” you cut him off, “either way, I have a pounding headache and I do not have enough shits to give to put up with your fan girls today,” with a sigh, you rubbed your temples. Hawks stared at your clenched teeth.

“Hey, why do you-” “I think I know where we can go,” he frowned.

“You know it’s not polite to interrupt people like that-”

“Sunflowers.” your tone dripped finality as you faced Hawks, a brazen determination in your eyes he hadn’t seen until now. It made his breath hitch in his throat.

Breathy chuckle escaping his lips, and eyebrows furrowed when you sped your pace, gulping down more of your coffee.

“Uh, what?” you waved a hand dismissively.

“There’s a sunflower field in Fukuroi City, I think it’s west from here,” the tiniest of grins etched onto your features, “it’s gonna be a lot more interesting than the rest of those blank background. Plus, the yellow will compliment your clothes, and with the sun low in the sky I’ll get my perfect warm lighting,” you explained. Hawks wasn’t sure exactly how much of a difference it would make, but the idea seemed charming, and it was more exciting than being perpetually flanked by a white screen.

“Sounds good,” he chirped, “although, to be honest, you could take me out anywhere and I wouldn’t mind,” you rolled your eyes. 

“That’s a shame, because I don’t intend to hang around any more than I have to,” Hawks pouted, crossing his arms.

“Come on, I wanna know more about you!” you bristled.

“Good for you.” the two of you fell into a beat of silence before Hawks smiled, undaunted.

“I’m sure I can win you over somehow,” shaking your head in disbelief, you lifted the cup to your lips, before looking down disappointedly when you realised it was empty.

“I don’t have enough coffee for this,” you muttered. Hawks’ expression brightened. 

“That’s an easy fix: your agency is around here so you must know there area pretty well,” he spoke nonchalantly, as if he was on a casual lunch date and not in the most expensive outfit you’d seen in your entire life, “what’s the best place to grab a coffee?” for a moment, you looked taken aback, before shaking your head.

“Best café in these parts is the Sunset Hour,” you said, rubbing the back of your neck, “but as much as I have no inhibitions regarding bunking off work, that’s a little too far away. I need to take this pictures before the end of the day or Mizuki’ll submit those crappy ones she took in the studio,” Hawks nodded in understanding, smile never faltering for a second.

“Well I gotta get you your caffeine fix somewhere, so what’s the second best?” your expression scrunched in thought for a moment, before you jutted a thumb over your shoulder.

“There’s a Starbucks across the road,” he snickered seeing your blank expression.

“Not exactly where I would want our first date, but I suppose it’ll do,” rolling your eyes, you shoved the empty cup to his chest, which he gripped almost instinctively. 

“Good thing this isn’t a date, then,” Hawks grinned, sending your empty cup on a feather to the nearest bin before chasing after you as you crossed the road. You didn’t spare him a single glance when he appeared at your shoulder, nor when he reached over above your head to open the Starbucks door from behind you.

“So you’re saying we can have our first date somewhere else?” with a shallow sigh, you shook your head.

“What I’m saying is that there’s not gonna be a first date. Not between us,” his chest tightened. God, you were so mean. He’d be into that.

The inside of the Starbucks was a mix between modern, western architecture and traditional Japanese woodwork. The equipment was all cutting edge, and the tables and chairs were made with a sleek mahogany, but the windows were framed with bamboo shutters, and the backroom was separated with shoji sliding doors. It was an curious blend, one that you studied with an interest. The deep, earthy scent of roasted coffee beans heavily imbued the air, filling your nose with the aroma of something far more familiar. 

Given it was the late afternoon, and most people tended not to drink caffeine after 2pm, the patrons were few and far in between. Good for you, at least. It meant you wouldn’t get- “Hawks? Sorry to bother you but can we get a picture?” your head turned at the voice that rung out.

Two high school girls stood to your left, hands clutched together in front of their chests and a dark pink coating their cheeks. With a small sigh, you took a step forward in the small queue. Hawks smiled with all the faux charm in the world, an obvious change in his demeanour as his pride spiked.

“Of course! And just as it happens, I have my personal photographer here who can make sure your photos look amazing as you two do!” it took you a moment to register what he had said through the excited squeals of the girls before he clutched your shoulders and pulled you forward, causing you to stumble slightly. 

“Your what?” he sent you an audacious smirk, willing you to play along as one of the girls handed you her phone. Your first instinct was to decline, but as you met the eyes of the girls, so eager and bright, you couldn’t find it in you to disappoint them. 

Taking a couple steps back, you lifted the phone, slightly angling it so the picture looked more natural, and not that of a celebrity and their fans (even if it was). You squinted angrily at the poor lighting, but tried to rectify it the best you could. The girls looked a little tense, but Hawks was a natural. A liberal smirk played on his lips and shoulders rolled back, relaxed. Even with the low lighting, the highlights on his cheekbone and jawline were indescribably perfect, and you weren’t sure if the credit should go to you or his god-like genes.

“Wow, that’s perfect!” one of the girls cried, her body appearing by your side. You hadn’t even noticed her moving, “thank you so much!” you just nodded, handing her back her phone and crossing your arms, eyes narrowing at Hawks.

“If that’s all, ladies, we best be ordering,” they nodded frantically at Hawks’ words, sharply bowing and spouting their thanks to the two of you countless times. They left the Starbucks, but even outside you could still hear them fawning over the picture. He faced you with a grin, but you couldn’t muster up a smile.

“Don’t go around telling people I’m your personal photographer,” you sneered. He pouted, looking genuinely disappointed for a second. “What, you don’t wanna be mine?” “Not in the slightest.” 

“What will be your order, Miss?” the barista had directed the question at you, but it was clear his attention was elsewhere. You weren’t surprised, but a small swell of annoyance grew in your mind.

“Can I have a mocha with a double shot of expresso?” Hawks chuckled.

“Might as well have an expresso, you know. You’re basically just taking a shot of caffeine,” you shrugged.

“It’s my favourite drink. I like the chocolate taste,” he looked at you with round eyes, a small squeeze in his chest.

“And you, sir?”

“Oh, I’ll have the same, then,” he didn’t miss the way your eyes darted to him. The barista nodded, tapping for a couple seconds before turning back.

“That’ll be 660 yen,” “I’m paying,” Hawks blurted, even before you could offer. You were silent, a small nod in the affirmative rocking your head. As he handed over the bills, he chuckled. “You know, not that I mind, but usually couples would argue over who’s paying,” you rolled your eyes.

“We’re not a couple,” you watched the barista prepare your drinks, more of a way to occupy yourself rather than a genuine interest, “besides, you’re a lot richer than I am. I don’t mean to be impolite, but I’m sure you can lose 600 yen and still be good,” he hummed happily.

“No disagreements there.” “Are you two eating in or taking out?” the barista asked, in the midst of securing the plastic lids to the top of the cups. Hawks’ eyes sparkled as he turned to you with an excitement you assumed only appeared in children.

“Hey, we can-” “Take out,” you responded, giving a now deflated Hawks a challenging look, “I will leave you here if I have to.” the blonde grinned. “You wouldn’t. You need me for the pictures,” he sang, voice jovial.

“I don’t care about you that much. The sunflowers are probably less annoying subjects anyway,” oh. With no warning, his heart beat sped up, his wings puffing out slightly. Sure, he wouldn’t mind if you were a little nicer to him, but your insults were like a breath of fresh air. There was no doubt that Hawks loved the limelight, loved the popularity he got, but the relentless ass-kissing got old after a while. You kept him on his toes. Even if he was just constantly chasing after you every time you brushed him off, he didn’t care. 

“Put those away, bird brain,” it was then he realised his wings had spread further than he intended, stretched out on either side of him. One was curled right around his face, and he almost felt himself blushing as he pulled them in. It was just animal instincts, he assured himself. 

The rest of the journey was filled with a one-sided conversation of him talking and commenting on what was around you, with no response from you except the occasional witty retort or light-hearted jab at his expense, each one making his heart flutter. It wasn’t too long before you had arrived, the chain link fence around the plot stretching high above your head and corroded with orange rust. 

Rows and rows of bright yellow sunflowers stretched to the horizon, an immense display of summer vitality. The fragrance was potent, a sort of cloying sweetness that you didn’t hate. And just as you were about to enter, you knew you had made a mistake. 

“Oh.” Hawks stared at you incredulously, attention switching from your taken aback expression to the sign posted on the gate.

“You didn’t check to see it was open?” you looked up at him, allowing him to survey a tinge of remorse he hadn’t recognised until this point. 

“Look, how was I supposed to know? This place has always been open at this time since I was a little kid,” you rubbed your arm, brows furrowed. Hawks sighed, rolling his shoulders back.

“Well, the sun’s too low to go anywhere else outside,” he shrugged, “it’s no biggie, I guess. Those other photos weren’t too bad. Hey, now that we’re free, do you want to- what are you doing?” your foot was halfway in the gaps in the gate, the wedges on your heels making it hard to climb.

“I’m not wasting my day for nothing,” you growled, fingers curling around the metal, “get climbing, bird boy,” with a soft sigh, smile gracing his lips and a warm feeling in his chest, Hawks spread his wings.

“I think you’re forgetting something that’ll make this a lot easier,” you felt a cool draft on your back as Hawks flapped his wings, the feeling being quickly replaced by the warmth of his chest as he pulled you in. A foreign emotion coiled in your stomach, but you convinced yourself that it was just the flight.

One arm wrapped around your shoulders, the other supporting your knees, and all Hawks was thinking that such a gentle flight never felt so calming. 

Your feet tapped against the soft soil, sinking in to it slightly when the hero placed you down. You nodded your thanks.

“Let’s go over there, I want the sun coming in from the right,” Hawks nodded, content to just follow your orders. You pulled the tripod from your bag and set it up, adjusting it to your liking as Hawks looked around, trying to think of a pose. 

Once everything was ready, you turned your attention to Hawks.

“I want to humanise you,” he grinned curiously as you walked over.

“What do you mean by that?” he nearly gasped when you grabbed his chin, angling his face to the side and slightly up, towards the sun. You took a step closer, reaching up and running a hand through his hair. He bit his lip, hands trembling as you tugged slightly, trying to mess it up a little.

“All the photos I’ve seen on you always put a huge emphasis on either your wings or your hero status, and I don’t really see why,” you mumbled, placing one hand on his jawline while the other fixed his hair to your liking, letting a few strands fall in front of his eyes, “I think that just creates a divide. If they wanted you to seem angelic they should play that up, not just have it the norm,” you huffed, “anyway, I wanna put the emphasis on you and not your wings. So ideally if you could tuck them behind your back that would be wonderful,” 

Hawks nodded, disappointment filling him as you stepped away. He made sure not to move as he awkwardly folded his wings over each other and pulled them in, glancing at you with a look of apprehension. You just nodded in approval, leaning down to your camera. 

You took plenty of shots, allowing him plenty more opportunities to feel your hands on him (and he would be lying if he said he didn’t enjoy it). 

“Hey, why were you so late today?” Hawks dared to question while you were analysing your photos. You were perched on a bench, appreciating your work. The late sun cast a golden sheen on his skin, the spattering of glimmering rays highlighting his face in all the right places. 

“I was sleeping,” you responded, deleting an out of focus shot. His eyes narrowed.

“What?” “Just as it sounds. Figured if they were gonna make me work so I could only have three hours of sleep a night it was gonna be on their time, not mine,” he frowned, taking a seat next to you.

“They shouldn’t work you that hard,” you shrugged with a hollow laugh, blank gaze in your eyes. 

“What am I gonna do? Have them fire me? As much as I hate this job it’s the only thing that pays for my coffee in the morning,” he was silent as you stood up, stretching your arms behind your bag before tucking everything back in your bag. 

“Did you want to be a photographer?” he questioned, only to be met with a forlorn smile.

“Maybe at one point.” the two of you lapsed into silence before you sighed.

“Well, I’ve gotta submit these to Mizuki, and I’m sure you need-” Hawks caught your wrist, spinning you back around.

In the glow of the sunset, you looked almost ethereal. Your eyes gleamed, and cheeks warmed in the orange flare. Sunflowers framed your form, and the words caught in his throat, nearly stopping him from saying anything at all.

“Come work for me.” he blurted. You snorted.

“No.” all he could do was smile as you hopped back over the fence, not waiting up for him.

“Yeah. That’s what I thought you’d say.”

[itsmariejanel]

Hi maria, I hope ur well! I was wondering if u could do a tutorial on how u edited this (post/674665374976000000/and-i-never-dreamed-that-id-knew-somebody-like) ur editing is to die for! Thank u in advance and thank u for taking the time to read/answer this!

HIII! i am well and i hope you are too :) and thank you so much! 💖

cracks knuckes, let's go anon! hope you are ready for this ride

under the cut tho, its loooonggggg

1 - i took my screenie with SRWE btw, so that's why it looks high quality! it would be fine without too tho :) also i edit with a drawing tablet

but then i went into "adjustments" and made the shot a bit warmer, personal preference really

2 - i always add my shadows first thing, at least the main shadows, so i can figure out the vibe and where i wanna put light and all of that jazz! so, new laywer, and you change the layer type to "multiply" and i did the shadows that you with my brush (normally with the color black or really dark brown). i used various layers for the shadows so if i needed to delete a detail, i wouldn't mess with the others that were already good. but i always put some gaussian blur on my shadows layer - again, personal preference, i just like it like that. you find the gaussian blur on - filter - blur - gaussian blur

4 - i added the light. on the face and on the body, where i wanted really. new layer, and changed layer type to "overlay". took a brush again, some white color, and started to lighten where i wanted. then on the body layers i used gaussian blur again, for the face i went in with the "smudge tool" and smudge the highlighters

5 - next i did the eyes, and the eyes omg... it's just a trial and error situation honestly. im going to link you to the best eye tut and it's where i learned how to do them - here

6 - i made the jewels sparkle :) how? new layer again, and then the overlay layer option and i just painted over the jewerly with white color and it lights up

7 - i did some hair strands. look, i can't tell you the best way to do them, i'm learning how to do them still! what i did on this one was open a new normal layer and i just went with the flow strand by strand.. i know, kill me kill me now 💀

8 - after that, i looked at the scene and just lit up the background behind them to appear that the sun was really shining on them! so, new layer, changed that new layer for "soft light", this time with a yellow ish undertone, and started to lit it up, and then i also opened a new layer in "overlay" and made it even more pop basically

9 - the last thing i did, was go into topaz stars, added a lil star on jace's earring and on kiara's necklace, then went filter - camera raw - and added a little bit of a vignette on the corners. then because i like a blurry effect on the corners, i went into filter - blur gallery - iris blur

ethis is what you get, and you just mess with it into your liking. i normally chose between 7 to 15, depends on the edit.

after that, i added noise that you find on filter - noise - add noise and i don't rememeber how much i added for this edit, but i think i added aroung 4 or 5, but it depends on the quality of the screenie or even if you like the noise effect, you might not even like it, but im a big fan :)

AND VOILÁ! there's the final version

hope this helped you in a way, im not very good in explaining stuff, but hopefully showing you my process will help you somehow 💀💖

[chaseatinydream]

pirate king (18) || atz

You and Wooyoung are sitting in the rigging, staring out to sea.

The Treasure has left Tortuga for a few days now, sailing in the open sea for the town of Nassau. From what Wooyoung has told you, Nassau, Seonghwa’s hometown, used to be a port thriving with pirate activity… until one day, the Royal Navy decided retake the town from the pirates. Pirate ships were burnt to the ground, the crews hung at the gallows and anyone associated with them brought in for questioning.

It is during that purge that Seonghwa’s parents were killed.

Seonghwa has finally left the confines of the galley, escorted to the sickbay to sleep and rest. Yunho is keeping a vigil beside Seonghwa, while you’ve taken over his cooking duties and Yunho’s lookout role. You may not be as well suited to the job as the two of them are, but it’s the most you can do for being to blame for Seonghwa’s condition.

If only you had known what to do.

You shake your head, squeezing your eyes shut.

If only you hadn’t let the herbs be stolen.

You know it’s stupid, but the thoughts won’t stop echoing in your head.

If only you hadn’t gone out to celebrate your name.

You chew your lips.

If only you hadn’t come to this ship.

Guilt tears at you from the inside like the teeth of a piranha. The pain is all too acute, all to real.

“Hey.”

You’re jerked back from your thoughts by Wooyoung, who’s grinning at you. Somehow, the head gunner has pushed past the air of gloom surrounding the ship, managing to keep a broad smile on his face despite the weight on everyone’s shoulders. How he’s doing it, you don’t know, but part of you resents how easily he can seem to forget that Seonghwa is still in the sickbay, struggling to block out the voices of his dead family from his ears while all of you are absolutely powerless to help.

Even now, Seonghwa’s still refusing the sleeping incense, but Yeosang has given given him back the steak plushie, which he hugs to sleep every night. Jongho helps by singing his hyung to sleep. San mixes relaxing teas for him. Captain and Mingi studying the overlay of Nassau, trying to find the most inconspicuous way they can enter the town without garnering the attention of the authorities.

It’s only you and Wooyoung who can do nothing. And the guilt you feel is swallowing you whole.

Wooyoung suddenly leans forward, shackles clanging as he uses his fingers to turn your mouth up in smile. “I’m sure captain and Mingi will think of something. We’ll help Seonghwa-hyung and everything will be fine soon. Don’t be sad.”

Anger rushes forth.

“Don’t be sad?” You snap, smacking his hand away. Wooyoung looks visibly wounded, pain flashing across his face as his hand falls to his side, but you’re too caught up in your fury to notice. “Seonghwa-hyung is in this state and you have the gall to smile and act happy?”

Something in Wooyoung’s normally bright viridescent eyes darkens suddenly as he silently watches you rant.

“I hate how you’re still so happy go lucky! It’s like you don’t understand what it’s like to lose someone even though you’ve had family like Jongho-hyung and Yunho-hyung!” You continue raving, not seeing the way Wooyoung’s fingers clench so tight around the ropes his knuckles turn bloodless. “ I’m the only one who has no family, alright? I’m not like all of you, I don’t know what it’s like, but you’ve had family before, so shouldn’t you try to be more understanding?”

Silence falls between the two of you as you finish. Then you realise that you’ve just literally just thrown everything, your hurt, your pain, your guilt onto Wooyoung, who must be suffering too somewhere deep down inside. To your horror, his head hangs low so that you can’t see his expression, but from the way his shoulders are curled in on themselves, you must have wounded him deeply. Regret and guilt fills you.

You can’t seem to do anything right.

“Wooyoung-hyung, I’m sorry-”

“What else am I supposed to do, then?” Wooyoung breathes, turning to meet your eyes head on. You desperately want to look away, but his gaze is unbreakable as steel. There’s something utterly frigid about them, almost terrifying, like a dragon rearing its head. “Cry? Complain? Feel pity for myself? Curl up in a ball and hide until all the problems disappear?”

That’s exactly what you want to do right now under the weight of his of his intense stare, pinning you down.

“Hyung, I didn’t mean it-”

“You did.” Wooyoung cuts you off fiercely, his green eyes burning. “You meant every word of it and I don’t blame you. But I want you to know that I don’t intend on moping around because that’s not going to help anything. So get those stupid thoughts about it being your fault out of your head because none of them are true and smile because you need to believe things can get better.”

The resolve in his voice is unshakable, and you curl in on yourself to avoid Wooyoung’s stare, shame burning on your cheeks. All this while, you’ve only been thinking about yourself and your guilt, forgetting that you also affect the members of the crew and that moping around hasn’t helped at all.

“I’m sorry.” You whisper quietly under your breath, but Wooyoung hears you anyway and his smile returns once more.

“I forgive you.” He beams at you gently, wrapping an arm around your shoulders. Your head rests against his shoulder, seeking comfort. “I understand.”

You wipe the tears from your eyes as you swallow down your emotions. Right. Smile. Be positive. Staying negative isn’t going to help anything.

Then Wooyoung frowns as he looks down onto the main deck. “Yeosang is coming over. I wonder what he needs.”

“Wooyoungie! Is Chin Hae up there with you?” The navigator stops in front of the main mast, hand shielding his eyes from the sun as he looks up. Wooyoung nods. “Yeah! Do you need him?”

“Can you tell him to come down? I have something to discuss with him.”

You frown, a little confused as Wooyoung glances at you in surprise. Then he leans forward to pinch your cheeks into a smile again, mirroring his own. “Go on. Don’t forget to smile.”

You manage a real smile for the first time in days.

“Thanks, Wooyoung-hyung.” You say as you climb over the side of the crow’s nest, making your way down and dropping lightly to the main deck. Yunho would be so proud if he saw you doing that. “What do you need, Yeosang-hyung?”

“San spoke to me earlier about your encounter with a fortune teller.” Yeosang explains to you as the two of you make your way across the main deck. Your eyes widen as you realise what he’s talking about. “Since Hongjoong-hyung is steering and Mingi is sleeping in the main hold, the captain’s quarters are empty and I thought that I could take this time to research on what the fortune teller said with you.”

Your heart leaps into your chest with ecstasy at what this could mean, but then you pause a little.

“Should we be doing this now? With everything that’s going on?”

Yeosang stops in the middle of pushing open the door to the captain’s cabin to look at you seriously. You’ve never realised how big and clear his eyes are, completely genuine and free of any trace of ill will. “It’s not like we can do anything now. What we can do is keep our spirits up and be strong for Seonghwa-hyung until we reach Nassau. And you’ve been looking down lately, so I thought I could try to cheer you up by clearing some of your questions.”

Warmth blooms in you at his thoughtfulness. “Thank you, Yeosang-hyung.”

The navigator smiles happily at you, almost radiant. “No problem. It’s my honour you’d trust me with such an important piece of information.” He opens the door and ushers you in.

You’ve never been in the captain’s cabin without the captain being present, so the room is unnaturally quiet and still. Yeosang, however, seems to know the room like it’s the back of his own hand, moving towards one of the shelves at the far end of the room while you hover awkwardly at the door.

“Please sit.” He indicates to the bed as he pulls out a scrap of parchment. You recognise it as the one Seonghwa had written your prophecy on the other time when you were discussing your visit to the fortune teller. Yeosang brings the paper over to you.

“So, what part haven’t you figured out?” He asks seriously, as he reaches in his pocket for a small wooden case, producing a pair of thin, gold rimmed eyeglasses and placing them on his nose delicately. You look over the words.

“The sea witch and the jar of clay.” You answer honestly.

Yeosang nods and moves over to his array of books. The walls are covered in them, from texts to maps to travel rutters to books of varying languages. There are even some tied up in stacks and placed neatly on the floor, all of them well kept and not a speck of dust on them.

He pulls out a few books, putting them in his arms as he mumbles to himself, eyes flitting among the shelves. Then he returns to you, setting the books on the table with a huff. “Let me look through these for a moment.”

You study him intently as he flips through the books faster than you can blink, fingers flying along the pages. The title on some of the books read ‘Legends of the Sea’, ‘Mythical Folk’ and such.

“The sea witch is a powerful entity who was once human with a bond to both the land and sea. She holds immense power, drawing upon the sea to cast spells. In return for a high price, she grants both magical and non magical folk alike what they desire.” Yeosang reads aloud, meticulously focusing on every detail. “Only people in great desperation can find the sea witch, as her lair lies hidden in a magical realm of the sea in which mortals cannot find. The entrance is rumoured to be off the coast of several uninhabited islands in the Atlantic, guarded by the sirens and fierce tidal straits rip through the waters, smashing any ship that dares pass through.”

“That’s… good to know.” You swallow uncomfortably. The only one who probably knows exactly who you are, and she’s probably out of reach. You’re unwilling to put the crew in danger because of your own problems.

“Those who have made a deal with the sea witch tend to have a token on which the deal was sealed.” Yeosang continues, glancing at the necklace hanging from your neck. “The price is often exorbitantly high, and is rarely something of material worth. It often is something of immense value to the person making the deal.”

Your memories.

You had given up your memories.

“In popular folk stories, she was responsible for taking the voice of a mermaid who’d fallen in love with a prince of the land in return for her legs. She also gives out pieces of ropes with three knots. Pulling the first knot could yield a gentle, southeasterly wind, while pulling two could generate a strong northerly wind, but the third knot would unleash a hurricane.” Yeosang looks slightly interested. “Hongjoong-hyung has one of these, but he’s used the first knot already.”

“Really?” You gape. This sea witch can’t be mere legend now.

The navigator nods as he picks up another book. “We were being chased by the Royal Navy, but he used the wind to blow the ships away. That’s when hyung really started to believe in myths a little.”

He opens a book called ‘Symbolism Through Ages’. “Jars of clay, jars of clay… Jars of clay refer to humans. In many books such as the Holy Bible, humans were described to be jars of clay, having mortal bodies while holding precious souls of great value in them.”

A jewel resting in a jar of clay.

Yeosang’s eyebrows pinch together as he continues reading. “This is a interesting explanation, but not rather helpful as it’s quite metaphorical. You said that the fortune teller asked you who’d made you?”

“Yeah…” You shiver a little at the words. “Then she told me the sea witch was my mistress.”

Yeosang frowns thoughtfully, and you can literally hear the gears in his mind turning. He picks up another book, flipping through it absentmindedly as he glances through it. “Made… Clay… Vessel… Humans… Sea Witch… Bargain...”

Then he stops.

All at once, his eyes fly wide open, pupils dilating in realization, mouth going slack, face ashen. The expression on his face can only be described in pure, unadulterated shock, and he stops breathing for a second as if air has trapped itself in his lungs.

Your heart skips a beat in excitement.

“Did you find something?” You begin to ask excitedly, but Yeosang barely seems to hear you, staring in horror at the page, then at you.

Unease begins to crawl up your skin, but you force it to the side and ask. “Yeosang-hyung… what is it?”

That seems to snap Yeosang out of his daze and he desperately tries to smooth his face in a neutral expression, but he can’t quite hide the terror in his eyes. “It’s nothing. I just thought of something, but it’s no big deal.”

The way his voice is trembling tells you it is anything but.

Your eyes narrow in suspicion and barely restrained anger. “Yeosang-hyung, what are you hiding from me?”

“It’s nothing.” The navigator insists, slamming the book shut. You get a mere glimpse of the cover. Prome-, but then Yeosang’s hand slides over the title and you can’t see it any longer. “It’s nothing at all, so just let it go, please.”

Usually, you’d let anything he says go, but this is different.

“Then let me see it.” You hold your hand out to take the book, but Yeosang wrenches it from your grasp before you can even hold it, eyes flaring in panic.

“Don’t touch it!” Yeosang shouts furiously, clutching the book to his chest. Rage fills you, what may be an answer to your identity is right there, but Yeosang won’t give it to you. You storm over to him, ready to rip the book from his hands if you need to.

“What are you doing?” You snarl at him, almost animalistic as you reach to tear your only clue from him, but Yeosang shakes his head, arms folding around the book.

“You can’t see it!” He screams at you, tears streaming down his cheeks and you feel red hot anger thrumming in your veins, purring to life like an awakening monster. Icy calm washes over you, in complete contrast to the fury burning in your heart. How dare he cry as if he’s the one losing anything from this?

Yeosang must see the shift in your eyes as your expression settles into one of dark determination, because his knees start knocking uncontrollably and his eyes dilate with pure, undiluted and primal fear.

“Give the book to me, Yeosang.”

In this moment, Yeosang makes a decision.

His fingers fumble with the latch behind him. Before you can realise what he’s doing, he’s opened the pothole, turned away from you and tossed the book into the ocean.

You feel like your last hope has been crushed into shards and scattered to the wind. Broken fury and grief screams within you like two clashing hurricanes, tearing you apart and ripping through you. Your eyes land on Yeosang, who looks stunned by what he’s just done.

You finally manage to find words in your rage to convey to him what exactly you’re feeling now.

“I hate you.” You spit with every bit of loathing you can muster, and with that, you whirl around and dash out of the cabin, the door slamming shut behind you.

Yeosang doesn’t say anything. Instead, he merely slides to the ground on his knees, body curled into a ball, wishing he could beg for your forgiveness.

And his fist pressed against his mouth to stifle the sobs pouring from his chest.

[cyanide-mustard]

Distraction (Part 1)(Reggie Peters X Reader Fanfic)(JATP)

This is my first time writing/posting a fanfic so please go easy on me but also constructive criticism is appreciated. There will be a part 2, so If anyone would like to be on a tag list for this specific fic or general fics in the future, just send me a message. Anyways, on with the fic! 

Description: Reggie wears a new outfit and the reader gets a little flustered and carried away.

Tags: F/M, Bisexual female reader 

I’m going to kill Julie. 

I came to this decision while we were finishing our last song of the night. Now don’t get me wrong, I love Julie with all my heart. She's an amazing friend, but all I can think about now is how I’m going to kill her. I know she didn’t do it on purpose or have any ill intent, but I’m about to have a stroke, and it’s her fault.

She and Reggie had disappeared earlier in the afternoon, and I hadn't seen either of them until we got on stage, but as soon as I saw them, my heart stopped beating. Julie and Reggie must have decided he needed an outfit change, I’d never tell him, but I thought he looked amazing in what he wore, whatever he wore, though this might have been too extreme of a change for my poor little heart. 

When I first appeared on stage, everything was normal. My guitar was in my hands, and I was ready to play. I was stopped dead in my tracks at the sight of Reggie. He was wearing a red and black plaid skirt that cut off mid-thigh and his signature leather jacket. I even missed the first couple notes of the song, making the boys look over at me with concern on their faces. I shrugged it off and tried to keep my eyes on the left side of the audience but it was a struggle not to look at him. I was finally beginning to cool down and loosen up when, oh no, Reggie started to make his over to my side of the stage. We stood back to back as we played together; my heart was doing backflips, and my pulse was racing with no signs of slowing down. 

Reggie went to his side of the stage once the song eventually ended. I let out a sigh of relief, only to immediately regret it. When he made it back to his side, he took off his leather jacket to reveal a black, sleeveless muscle tee. I pried my eyes from the current target of my spiralling thoughts, knowing that if I let myself stare any longer, I wouldn’t be able to hold my tongue, or my lips for that matter. “Get it together,” I said to myself a little too loudly. Alex looked over at me with confusion until he moved his gaze over to Reggie and back to me when the smuggest smirk appeared. I had a feeling that we would be talking about that later. I don’t know what supernatural force decided that I deserve to be punished like this. I never did anything too bad while I was alive. Sure I told my fair share of lies and maybe I did some less than angel-like behaviour, but nothing bad enough that would ever make me deserving of this toture. I'm pretty sure that when I died, I went to hell. I went to Hell, and watching Reggie in his current outfit was to be my punishment for eternity. And as torturous as this was, the worst part is that I can’t touch him and that I never would be able to. He’s too involved in my life for me to risk telling him about my feelings and them being unreciprocated. He’s helped me through thick and thin and has always been there to help me in my time of need. I would never be able to live with myself (while I guess I didn’t since I was dead) if I ever ruined the relationship I had with him and the band. 

We played the rest of the set with minimal errors from me. Thankfully the knowledge of my feelings towards Reggie was kept just to Alex, though Julie gave me a look every so often that made me feel like she knew exactly what was happening. ‘We’re almost done’ was the mantra I had been repeating to myself the whole night, then we finally were almost done. I grabbed a drink of water in passing as we moved onto our last song of the night, ‘Edge of Great’.

As we played through the song, Reggie made his way to me again, but instead of going back to back like he normally did, he brought his face close to my mic to sing with me. He was close enough that I could practically taste his cologne on my tongue, thick and suffocating, but sweet all the same. The smell of cinnamon burned my nose, but I liked it. As one of the stage lights fell on us his pupils dilated, and I tried to take in every detail of his face that I could. It reminded me that this moment was real and that I’d always have this memory. I marvelled at the fact that I was still able to stand up straight because of how intensely my legs shook beneath me. I felt light-headed, almost to the point that I thought I would pass out. I chalked it all up to adrenaline and the two red bulls I drank before the show. I started to get lost in my reckless thoughts. I thought of how good his lips might feel on mine. Would he bury his fingers in my hair or keep them on my waist? On that note, how would his hands feel? Would they still feel soft despite the calluses he definitely had from years of playing bass? Would he mark my neck with hickies, or would he just leave my lips bruised and swollen? Would his moan sound just as sweet as his singing, or would it be dark and heavy? I cursed myself for being so reckless with my imagination.

Can ghosts pass out? I didn’t get time to think about that cause he somehow moved even closer to the mic, subsequently closer to my face. I didn’t think it was possible for him to be any closer to me without touching me; he was so close that I could see all the little freckles splattered across his face. I would never tell him this but I loved the freckles on his nose; they somehow made him look cute and hot at the same time. One day, I would love to trace all of them with my finger, count and memorize the placements of each freckle. I could also see all the little flecks of colour in his eyes, cascading out into a kaleidoscope of blue and green that made me weak in the knees. I, for the life of me, could never figure out what exact colour his eyes were. I’d contemplate if they were blue with a green overlay or vice versa, or maybe one flat colour with an undertone, but his eyes would always shift with the light, so I could never be sure. I would be content if the rest of my life (or afterlife I guess) was just dedicated to figuring out what colour his eyes were. We were on the last couple lines of the song, and I was still just staring at him, anchored to his eyes, eye contact unbreaking as if my life depended on it, which it kind of felt like my life did depend on it. I finished the last note of the song, and my eyes stayed glued to his for a minute before leaving to look at that crowd. I think the reason I stopped looking at him was because deep down I knew that I wouldn’t be able to stop myself from kissing him if we kept staring at each other with this intensity .

We all quickly bowed to the crowd before we disappeared, earning a gasp of shock from the audience before they resumed clapping. We poofed into the side alley on the side of the building. 

“We were amazing, guys!'' Reggie exclaimed and we all laughed at his excitement.

“How should we celebrate?” Alex questioned. 

“We could go to that club a few blocks down, I heard it’s pretty cool,” Luke suggested, causing me to pale at that idea, don’t get me wrong I loved clubs and dancing but the last thing I wanted to do was watch Reggie drool over other girls. 

“I think I’m going to head home guys. I’m tired and I don’t think I could do any more walking or even standing up,” I said. 

“Are you sure? That’ll mean you don’t get to dance with me, the master of dance.” Alex jokingly nudged me in the ribs, but I could pick out a concerned lilt to his voice.

“Yeah, I’m exhausted. I’ll miss dancing with you so I’ll make an IOU.” I responded. The boys began to walk down the street as Alex told them that he’d catch up to them in a second. He turned to me and accusingly said “I know”. 

“Know what?” I tried to play dumb but he saw right through it. 

“Your crush on Reggie, obviously.” Alex placed a firm hand on his hip, tilting his head in a manner that told me he’d known long enough to have grown exasperated.

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah, I’m surprised I didn’t notice it earlier. I’m more surprised that only Julie seemed to catch on, Luke and Reggie really are oblivious.” We shared a giggle at that, and then I took a breath to collect myself before responding.

“You can’t tell anyone, Alex. I don’t want to ruin my friendship with him.”

“I won’t, but they can only be so oblivious for so long,” Alex said, and deep down, I knew there was truth to his words. “Especially if you keep looking at him like that.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to come with us? It’ll be fun, plus I’ll miss your company,” he reiterated for the third time, and I decided that this time I would tell him the truth.

“Yeah no, I’d rather not be forced to watch Reggie flirt and dance with all those other girls, even if they can’t see him it still hurts to watch.”

Alex's face contorted to one of pity before he gave me a hug, lingering as he spoke softly. “Ok, I’ll see you when we get home.” Alex then turned, jogging to catch up with the boys.

Ughh, what was I going to do.

Tag list:

@unihedgehog22

[red-talisman]

More random unbetaed “human guardian lion!!Jiang Cheng working on rebuilding Lotus Pier’s wards with his siblings while everyone has PTSD and they don’t know what’s coming in the plot.” Please don’t take my description of energy work here as any kind of accurate representation of any Chinese tradition. (  ´･ω･` )

[Portrayal of PTSD symptoms and allusion to past child abuse.]

_______

“You ready to head out to the lake?” Jiang Cheng asks when he clears the last bite from breakfast.

Wei Wuxian blinks at him. “What?”

“The lake, you idiot. We need to figure out where the flows of energy are so we can map out the new construction, remember?”

“Oh. Right.”

His tone is strange. Jiang Cheng frowns, and even Jiang Yanli looks concerned. “What’s wrong? Are you getting sick?”

“No, no, I’m not sick. But, uh. Today’s not good for me?”

Jiang Cheng sets down his teacup harder than he intends to and kindly pretends he doesn’t see Wei Wuxian’s reflexive twitch for a sword he doesn’t even bother to wear anymore. “What are you talking about? What could possibly be more important than this right now?”

“Look, I’m sorry,” says Wei Wuxian, getting to his feet with a smile that makes Jiang Cheng want to punch him because it’s so obviously fake, “but I’ll make it up to you! I promise! I have to go, but good luck!”

“What the fuck, Wei Wuxian!” Jiang Cheng yells at his back. “Wei Wuxian!”

“Let him go,” Jiang Yanli says quietly, putting a hand over one of Jiang Cheng’s.

“A-Jie, what the hell is going on with him? Why wouldn’t he - does he not care?”

The thought sounds so ludicrous out loud - Wei Wuxian has never been anything but loyal in word and deed to the sect, especially his siblings, especially their sister - but with the gods-forsaken war finally over and all the sects agreeing to an unspoken pause in politics while they lick their respective wounds, what could possibly be more important than this?

"You know that’s not true,” Jiang Yanli murmurs, very gently disapproving, and Jiang Cheng flushes, because he does know that perfectly well. “I believe that it might...be a shadow he carries.”

“A shadow?”

“The kind that causes people to wake up at night.” Her glance at Jiang Cheng reminds him that she’s one of only two people who can calm those nights when he wakes with a swinging fist or a scream in his throat, or those days when a memory is particularly loud and he has no idea how much time will pass before the memory lets him go again. “I think he carries more from his time in the Burial Mounds than he’s ever admitted to us, and then he went straight into the campaign...”

“Then why won’t he tell us?” Jiang Cheng demands, confused and, yes, a little hurt, because if they can’t rely on each other, who else can they rely on? The sect is rebuilding but they only have each other. (Right? What does it mean if their brother doesn’t trust...?)

“Breathe, a-Cheng,” says Jiang Yanli, and he gasps out a sudden breath, unaware that he’d been holding it. “Our brother is still here with us. He just needs time. Things will get better.”

“Right,” he says, more to himself. “Right.” A few minutes in silence pass as he waits for his traitorous heart to stop racing so fast for no fucking reason. “I’m going to the secondary eastern dock. Where will you be?”

“I’ll be speaking with the weavers in the main courtyard about cloth supplies, and then I’ll be speaking with the doctors about the plans for the infirmary here in the hall,” she replies calmly, not at all perturbed by his need to know.

“Right,” he says again. “I’ll be back before lunch.”

Jiang Yanli smiles at him and pets his hand before letting it go. “I look forward to it.”

__

The eastern docks are a short distance from the center of Lotus Pier, located just far enough around a curve of the lake’s shore that the noise of hammers and saws and loud conversation is dimmed but not silenced. (He doesn’t like being near the Pier but hearing only silence. It makes his mind start racing, and that fucks up his sword forms.) Only a few people are around, too busy to bother their sect leader with more than a passing nod. He approves. Clearly they have their priorities in the proper order.

Jiang Cheng sits cross-legged at the end of a dock, still sturdy despite the charred edges, and closes his eyes, lets his palms lay relaxed over his knees, allows his breathing to slow. It’s easy to find the warm glow of his golden core turning around itself deep in his chest, and although it’s felt odd in ways that Jiang Cheng can’t quite put into words since Baoshan Sanren somehow miraculously recreated it, he’s never been able to find anything actually wrong with it. 

He follows the flow of qi from his core and through his meridians, and soon he feels the whispers of qi which aren’t his own like small tributaries coming together to share waters. It starts with the wooden planks beneath him and their lingering memory of living as a tree. Then it’s the gentle ebb and flow of the water beneath that, a cool murmur that hints at the larger, heavier pool that permeates Yunmeng’s larger system of lakes and rivers. Below that, the earth sits heavy and cool, endlessly patient as the years pass it by.

It takes a golden core to feel so deeply into the world’s flows of qi, and even cultivators struggle with it. Jiang Cheng himself has never been able to do it outside of Yunmeng: the farther he is from Lotus Pier, the harder it is, and the few times he snuck away in Gusu Lan during indoctrination to test himself, he didn’t feel anything at all. He always figured it’s some weird quirk about having grown up running half-feral around these lakes along with the bone-deep certainty that he would one day become their human lord, as his father and his father before that had done. For whatever reason, since the war ended, it’s been easier than ever to sink into Lotus Pier’s invisible network.

Wei Wuxian, of course, almost never had any trouble tracking the flows of qi outside of himself, regardless of location. But Jiang Cheng breathes through that thought, ruthlessly reminding himself that the only people who would dare measure them against each other anymore are dead and that a skill carried by his brother is a skill that will strengthen the Yunmeng Jiang Sect as a whole.

He still has his brother and his sister. They are the Yunmeng Jiang Sect and the Yunmeng Jiang Sect is them, and they will be strong, they will be, and their waters will drown any fire that dares turn its heat towards them again.

He repeats this to himself over and over until the words turn into nonsensical sounds, and he keeps repeating them anyway.

__

“This is all you got?” Wei Wuxian asks during lunch, tilting his head at Jiang Cheng’s rough brushstrokes of green ink overlaying the darker lines of the geographical map.

“Yes, asshole, and you wouldn’t be complaining if you’d actually helped me,” Jiang Cheng grumbles over his rice.

Instead of whining like a child or wailing like Jiang Cheng had threatened his virtue, Wei Wuxian’s eyes narrow with uncharacteristic darkness. “Fuck you,” he snaps, and it feels so much like one of his mother’s unexpected slaps to the face that Jiang Cheng is shocked right out of his irritation.

“A-Xian,” Jiang Yanli gasps.

They watch silently as their brother jerks back, stares between them, and finally lets out a long, shaky breath.

“...Sorry.”

There’s an awkward silence before Wei Wuxian clears his throat and pastes on a smile. “Well, what’re we waiting for? Let’s see how far we can get with the feng shui before we realize we have to find someone who actually knows what they’re doing with it, ha!”

“No, no one else,” Jiang Cheng says decisively. “If one of the architects says we have to move something out of physical necessity, fine, but I don’t want anyone else knowing how the arrays work.”

“A-Cheng, it wasn’t a traitor who brought the Wens,” Jiang Yanli reminds him, but Jiang Cheng is shaking his head before she finishes her sentence. He’s not sure how to explain that even the thought of someone who isn’t one of his siblings seeing into the soul of Lotus Pier’s rebirth makes Zidian grow warm on his finger.

Wei Wuxian puts his hands in the air in a conciliatory gesture and says, very seriously, “That’s fine, but then we’ll have to figure something out in case there’s a situation that requires someone who isn’t one of us.”

If all three of them are incapacitated, then they’re probably fucked anyway, Jiang Cheng doesn’t say. But then again, there is no sect without disciples, and if he expects his disciples to be loyal, then the sect must be loyal to them in turn. “Fine. Yes, fine, you’re right. But not now. Maybe...maybe some of the senior disciples. But not now.”

“Not now, then,” Wei Wuxian agrees without a fight, and reaches out to run long fingers over a curl of green ink. “Let’s talk arrays that could blow an army up into the Jade Emperor’s throne room instead.”

[things-we-used-tc-share]

The Town That Never Was

[Image Description: a long road with decaying plants on either side, with text overlayed that reads ‘the town that never was’ in white. A white icon of a clock is placed underneath the text /end ID]

I’m re-releasing the first four chapters as I’ve edited them!

Ships: DLAMP/CALMD, Remile.

Warnings: Cheating is mentioned at some point during this fic in the past, some slight horror themes but in a comedic sort of way, kidnapping is mentioned but again this is like a comedy-horror so there’s not a lot of suspense.

Plot: In Hell, a town of roughly 1,000 people, nothing that is supposed to happen ever happens and everything that physically should happen, does. Logan, a scientist, goes there in hopes of studying the world’s most unfortunate, and miraculous, town. But no one who ever enters ever finds the will to leave again.

Chapter One | Chapter Two | 

Chapter Three: The Forest And Its Voice

"Good evening listeners." The radio crackles in the reception of the bed and breakfast owned and ran by Remy Picani and his husband with benefits (benefits include being loved devoutly and also evening cups of coffee being made for him), Emile. The owner, whose black combat boots are resting on the desk whilst the glow of the computer illuminated his peaceful expression, has his eyes closed and is paying little to no attention to anything except the voice coming in through the radio; as is most of Hell at this time (both in this dimension and the sixth). Sitting across the room on a couch that had mysteriously appeared one day, is Logan, tapping furiously on a laptop as he listens to the news. "As some of you may have noticed, a forest has appeared outside of our little town." 

Logan's tapping ceases and Remy opens his eyes, both looking at each other and then rolling their eyes in sync. Logan gestures loosely for Remy to turn up the radio and the other man does. Remy is enjoying the quiet company enough to do as he's told, given that Logan is the only resident here except for Emile (and Emile is currently busy typing up his notes from his clients), also the wi-fi is faster in the reception which is why Logan is downstairs in the first place. "I would recommend, listeners, that you do not go into the forest, in fact, try to ignore it's existence all together because I am getting some uncomfortable vibes from it." 'He's seen inside it,' Logan thinks to himself, but the urge to wander inside the mysterious forest is almost primal.

'Maybe in the morning,' he considers to himself.

"You're going to go in the forest aren't you?" Remy asks, feet up, leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed again "...I thought you were going to be the only sane one in this town." The cat-like man continues, not waiting for Logan's response because he already knows the answer "I'm glad you're not because you would have gone truly insane." Logan chuckles softly in response, before nodding in agreement. Yes, he truly would have. 

Logan goes to the forest in the morning just after sunrise. Currently, he's stood at the edge of it and listening to it...talk, it whispers to him and the sound feels like the feeling you get when your best friend hugs you so tight that you struggle to breathe for a second. Suffocating, but in a beautiful sort of way. He stares up at the tall trees that hadn't been there this time yesterday, holding his hand-held energy detector and a life monitoring device in the other and right now...this forest is full of life. Not Human energy signals but ones just as strong, as powerful. This entire forest is alive with its own beating heart and that terrifies Logan.

And, of course, entices him.

The trees reach into the sky and silhouette the pink morning, the sun almost blocked from the scientist's view as he takes his first step into the somehow darker forest. The ground feels real and feels firm. The soil is soft but not wet or muddy, it even seems fitting for the climate as it's a little dry. The soil looks and feels fresh as though it were not housing a forest but someone's small cacti; so little makes sense and Logan is thrilled to try and figure out how to make it make sense.

His plan is just to collect a few samples and run a few tests on the rocks and soil, that's his plan. The forest's plan may not have the same lines, not that he knows this yet, but he will. Oh, he will.

"Have any of you heard from Logan?" Remy asks at almost nine at night "He didn't come back." There's a small pause before the feline man continues. "Also why are you still open when the sun is setting?" The rest of the coffee shop, which was just Roman, Patton and Virgil, exchange looks and then shrug because they also don't know why they're still open bar the strange need to remain open. Sometimes life is just like that, things happen when they're not meant too and people feel things without any reason to do so. 

"We haven't seen him today," Roman fills in the silence that had descended amongst them, filled only by awkward shuffling as they all look at each other as a prompt to speak. "Do you want a coffee?" He adds, still unsure why they hadn't closed shop and even more unsure why they were the only four there but then decides not to think too hard about it. He doesn't wait for Remy to respond as he makes him a to-go cup full, because Remy always wants coffee and none of them is sure he actually ever sleeps (Even Remy himself is unsure he sleeps more than once a month, he thinks that maybe he slept a few nights ago). 

The coffee is handed over and the sleepless man sighs "I should probably go look for him, he went into the forest." 

"Oh he is not coming back," Virgil, their wonderful resident demon snorts lightly. "Have you seen that thing? There are more demons in it than there are in Hell, the proper one...not this one." Roman elbows him in the side gently, and in response, he gets bared needle-sharp teeth and narrowed eyes. Roman quirks an eyebrow and reaches to scratch the other behind the ears which have its usual effects (which is that Virgil melts against him with a purring-like sound escaping from deep in his belly), Remy rolls his eyes at them whilst swearing to himself that he and Emile are not that cute (they are).

"We'll help you look for him!" Patton beams, his heart too big for his body as usual. 

"We will?" Virgil and Roman reply in unison, before saying more firmly: "We will!" now without the question and still in unison. Another silence before Patton clears his throat and grabs the keys off the counter and twirling it around his fingers as he herds the other men out of the shop like a shepherd, waving his hands in a universal sign of "shoo" which really says all anyone needs to know about Patton's relationships. 

That is to say that one does not disagree with Patton, not out of fear although he can be terrifyingly kind and sweet, but because there's unending respect for the man. And if he says to do something, then you do it without question. Especially Roman and Virgil, who are so devotedly in love with him and trust him to no end, that he could say: "Let's go in the terrifying forest," And they will respond with "Yes, sure!" 

Remy is just bored. Nothing spells "Time to get in life-threatening situations," like boredom does, especially for a man who does not, who cannot sleep.

"Have any of you got the radio station?" Patton asks, Virgil lifts his phone in a response that says he's already on it; this isn't out of a hobby but because when you're in danger the one person to listen to is Dee. He sees all and knows all and is probably not very happy with them right now. As the noise crackles through his headphones, the demon snorts lightly and waves the dimly lit screen to them. 

"He's not very happy with us right now," The sound of music follows a moment later, so Dee has gone to the weather and Roman's phone rings. 

"You're going into the forest?" They all hear Dee's voice, which is four or five pitches higher than usual and heavy with fear "Don't go in the forest Roman it's not safe!" They all exchange glances with each other and they standstill as the exorcist rubs his temple with some distress. "Yeah I know I shouldn't be spying on you but in my defence, I was spying on the forest and you're stood right at the edge of it," They look up, they are, but they don't remember walking to the other side of town. Remy sips his coffee as Patton shifts in discomfort whilst Virgil shivers. 

Either Humans or...Human-ish Human's, have taken their toll on his ability to be a fearful person, or it's a bad sign when the Demon is scared.

"Logan's in there," Roman mutters gently "he helped me get to Patton when he'd been kidnapped I can't just leave him in there," his voice is sincere though shaking, he's scared but that's nothing new, Roman is ninety per cent being afraid and his bravery comes not from an absence of such emotions, but doing the things that need to be done despite them. "We need to help him, Dee." There's a low pause, the phone goes quiet but Roman can hear talking between him and someone else.

"Stay there, I'm coming with you," And then the line goes dead. 

When the radio comes back online, an intern announces their name and that they're taking over the radio for a little while whilst Dee does some fieldwork. Fifteen minutes later the snake-eyed man is by their side, hair ginger today and a little curly, but it matches his gold shirt well. Roman knows that Dee's hair just...does that and that he doesn't dye it but sometimes he has to wonder if people ask the snakelike man if he does go through the trouble of dying his hair each day. And giving it an entirely new texture.

"He's really far in," Dee announces the moment they're all together. "We've got to stay together and do not separate under any circumstance," Patton grabs both Virgil and Roman's hands, whilst Remy gives a mildly affronted look and a "thanks Patton," before his coffee cup hits the ground and he transforms fluidly into a cat, hopping up onto Patton's shoulder. It's entirely possible that his claws dig in a little and it's entirely possible this is on purpose as repayment for the obvious hierarchy that has been established. Roman looks at Dee hesitantly before holding out his hand.

Deceit definitely does not blush when he takes it.

"No matter what the forest tells you we find Logan and we get him out, understood?" Dee stares into the mists of the now pitch-black forest, at its branches that look like fingers trying to grasp any livings creatures, at the cracked shadows that almost breathe. He stares like he's seeing something the others are not and they know that he is, but they most certainly do not want to know what. And what will the forest tell them?

They're unsure why before they've even entered there's an eternal dread that seems everlasting; as though it had been there their entire lives and would be there for the rest of it, the dread feels like cold breath on the back of their necks or a cold hand running down their spines, but when they turn to look behind them there is nothing there at all. Roman swallows nervously as he presses forward and Remy makes a low hiss at the trees. Virgil is a quiet sort of anxious, but a small cloud is hovering above his head that dictates he is very, very afraid of this forest for reasons that are best left unsaid until they're out of it. 

"This way," Dee mutters, his eyes glow calmly as he's led by his parallel gaze, a gaze into the more and the everything and the nothing. Mostly everything, but right now he wishes it was nothing. His face turns to stone as he walks, his pace quickening and the other's know without asking that something is very wrong. If there had been daylight they may have noticed the way the branches move like hands waving, or the way the roots snaked towards them as they pass. 

"Your eyes, your eyes," the trees hiss to Deceit "Leave, leave now, you are not welcome here, you are not!" But he doesn't listen, mutely in his own head, he tells them if they hadn't wanted him here they should not have taken his friend. The others are hearing different words, tailored to themselves and suddenly, Patton stops and freezes. He looks around, hands parting from theirs with a panicked look on his face. Like he can't see them.

"Guys?" He whispers "Where...where'd you go?" 

"We're right here Patton," Roman says clearly, waving a hand in front of Patton's face...but his eyes, now glassy, remain unseeing and terrified. "Pat?" He takes his lover's hand but it's jolted away as the baker screams in fear, shaking his head as he whirls around. He's shaking and tears are trailing over his freckled cheeks, curls sticking to his face as his breathing becomes laboured.

"I don't know where I am, it's so bright, please don't hurt me." The forest shivers a little, unused to un-greedy souls in its presence. The branches whisper to each other in a tongue no one understands.

"Is he pure?"

"He is!" 

"It's been so long," they whisper to each other, in their conversation and Deceit looks up at the leaves and tunes his sight to his ears to look through every language that ever has existed and ever will. He knows what this forest is so once he hears the conversation he also understands what they're discussing.

"He's not what you want, he's not what you need," the DJ announces, the hushes whispers ceased as they listen "And you can't have me because I can quite literally see right through you, and you can't have Virgil because he's already one of yours." The trees seem to recoil a little "Give us back our friend and I'll leave you in peace but I'll burn every single one of you to the ground before I let you hurt him, any of them," Roman's jaw tenses a little as he looks over at the man he used to love and for once sees that man, not the one who hurt him although of course, they are one and the same. But before that, the smile and the bravery and the eccentricities, that...that man he'd fallen in love with. But if he ever forgives Deceit it will be because of the man who hurt him first and foremost, not a glimmer of hope in a desperate time.

The trees move.

Their roots push out of the dirt and they move away from them like they are walking, forming a pathway in their wake. Deceit's eyes close. There is no deceiving a man who epitomises lying with a name that he chose. Finally, he nods and looks back at Patton whose eyes are zoning back into the present. Once he sees Roman and Virgil he flings himself back into their arms. Remy, who is still seated on Patton's shoulders, gives a near-human look of disbelief that once again he'd been forgotten about. "Thank you," Deceit utters. There's no thanks in his tone.

They start along the pathway again, Roman's grip on Deceit and Patton more intense than before and finally...they find him. 

Logan looks tired. He looks exhausted and weary and every other lonesome and terrified adjective that sums up 'sleepy' but in a more foreboding sense. His hair is ruffled and dirt is clinging to his skin and clothes; he's lying on the ground with the roots of a tree unfurling from around his frail body. But when he sees the other's his tiredness seeps away and he smiles in his own little grin, scared maybe...but ecstatic? Definitely. Deceit feels something right at the core of his chest thud at that smile and relief like a tsunami crash over him; he cannot help but drag Logan into a hug, in which the scientist lets out a soft 'oof' and then smiles more against his skin. "This place is insane," he whispers. 

"I did warn you," Deceit replies. "Now let's get out of here,"

"So...what was the forest?" Logan had gone upstairs to have a shower whilst Patton, Virgil and Remy start making dinner for them all as they crammed into Deceit's apartment. Roman stares up at his ex-boyfriend with the first civil conversation they'd had since their breakup. Deceit, cradling a hot cup of coffee, pauses mid-sip to look at the other man, whose eyes are always so beautiful. "You seemed to know."

"I always know," Deceit muttered "I hate knowing, I hate having to know I wish...I wish I didn't," there's still a golden hue to his eyes like he's still reaching into the place they had left behind. "It wasn't a forest, a forest was just a mirage for people like Logan who are too curious and too greedy for knowledge to resist." He rests the cup of coffee down, Roman's body leans towards him as if on autopilot. "Those weren't trees, they were in some way like Virgil but a different type of Demon, a soul-eater, they feed off people's greed and everyone is greedy for something." 

"But not you?"

Deceit looks at Roman with an exhausted look as though he's missing something obvious. Roman is always missing something obvious, but for some reason this time it seems important. "I do, but I'm also not oblivious to what they are, I can see them, I can see through them and every entrance and exit and weakness, and more importantly what I'm greedy for is something that things like them can't touch, knowledge is easy and Logan was practically a buffet for them, but they couldn't touch Patton because he's not greedy at all, he's so entirely selfless that they would have burned to try and feed off of him." He's deflecting the topic. 

"What are you greedy for?" 

Deceit falls silent, he looks down at his feet. "Nothing important, Roman." Love, to be loved, to touch something and not break it. "Let's go see how dinner is coming along." Roman stares at Deceit and then shakes his head, his hand catching the other man's.

"Look Dee I know.."

"Please don't." It's so firm, so demanding and not at all how he usually sounds "I don't want to talk Roman, not about you or us or the thing I did, I won't forgive myself and neither will you and that's the way it has to be," a tense silence descends and Roman shakes his head in response to words he didn't want to hear. "I can only say I'm sorry, but I know and I understand that doesn't repair what I did and I don't want it too, I deserve to be judged by you."

"Yeah well, judge is my middle name," the exorcist whispers, but his hand doesn't move from the other man's "...and one day I will forgive you," maybe he already has "...but I want you to know that...the way you look at Logan..." Makes me jealous, makes my heart hurt "...It's okay, you should go for it whilst you can." 

At that moment, the door opens and Logan pads into the room wearing Deceit's shirt that hangs off his much smaller body in a way that makes both of them blink slowly. His collarbones peaking out of a shirt so baggy that it slips off of his shoulders, his hair messy and fluffed in every which direction. He smiles at the two of them and walks past their absent expressions to the kitchen. The remaining two exchange a look with Deceit exhaling shakily. "I will if you will," Deceit smirks after a long pause, and Roman for the first time in so long in his ex's presence laughs.

"Maybe I will."

[tsarisfanfiction]

An Important Part

Fandom: Thunderbirds Rating: Gen Genre: Family Characters: John, Scott, Alan, Tracy brothers

Another contribution to @gumnut-logic‘s #iirelief, using the prompt “any (adult) bros - the last slice of chocolate cake” from @fictivekaleidoscope.

John’s care packages sometimes contain a very special box.

The weekly supply run for Thunderbird Five was a vital one.  Sometimes it was a task undertaken by Alan, feeling claustrophobic on Earth after a prolonged stint of no space missions and eager to jump at the chance to see his older brother in the flesh.  Most often, it was a more sedate affair, with the space elevator being lowered for the nicknamed ‘care package’ to be placed inside by someone who was usually but not always Grandma.

This week had been the sedate affair, although aside from the lack of a brother invading his personal space for an hour or so, John had no issue with it.  His brothers were busy, too, after all.  He knew that because he was the one that sent them out. Still, it was always nice when Alan rocked up in Thunderbird Three, teenage swagger overlaying an honest desire for a hug from his most elusive brother.  John didn’t despise all human contact, he just wanted it on his terms. Preferably in space.  Sometimes another brother came along for the ride, too – Scott, most likely, with Virgil only mobilising if he suspected something was wrong, and Gordon generally only if he was escaping something Earthside for a few hours – and John welcomed them all with metaphorical open arms, if not always literal.

But lack of brothers aside, a care package was a care package and it always came with a few treats on top of the regular supplies required for his continued residence in space. Updated terminals and modules from Brains, fresh medical supplies from Virgil, homemade cookies that always managed to get left in the airlock from Grandma, and a pile of astronaut-approved food supplies were a given.  Cheeseburgers snuck their way in often.  A new book – ‘new’ being a relative term, considering that the printing business was almost defunct in their electronic era – occasionally appeared courtesy of whichever brother had found it.  Gordon was particularly good at scavenging those up, and John had long since ceased to ask him how.  He knew, anyway.  Hiding online activity from Scott was one thing, but there was nothing electronic on Tracy Island excluding the most secure things in Brains’ lab that Thunderbird Five didn’t read as a matter of course.  Especially since EOS came to live with him.

He could have done without some of her discoveries, particularly those concerning his brothers’, uh, ‘me time’. Explaining that to her had been a challenge he was not keen to repeat any time soon.

Today’s treat was his favourite.  It was messy, and would have him unhygienically licking at his gloved fingers for hours afterwards, but the small box containing a slice of chocolate cake – not homemade, some sacrileges to baking were never to be undertaken – was worth every last crumb he’d be carefully hunting down later when they tried to get into the life support system.

You see, it wasn’t just any old slice of chocolate cake.  Oh no.  It was the last slice of chocolate cake.

There was a rule in the Tracy family.  If there was cake – especially if it was chocolate cake – the last slice went to John.  As far as family rules went, it wasn’t as old as some, but it was the most respected of all. Not even Gordon dared break it, or pretend to do so.  Once the rest of the family had had their fill, the final slice was carefully, almost reverently, placed in a secure box designed to keep its cargo safe and intact during transit through Earth’s atmosphere and put aside to be included in the next supply run.

It hadn’t always been that way.  Then again, John hadn’t always lived in space.

As with most families of multiple hungry boys, the final piece had once been a prize awarded to the fastest eater – a race most often won by Scott, in their childhood days. Older, bigger, and faster, he’d swoop in and snatch the final piece before the others were even halfway.  It earned him bragging rights, which he smugly turned into ‘eldest brother privilege’, and the mutinous glares of four younger brothers.

Then John had moved out, away from raucous family dinners and fights for the final piece – still won by Scott, even though Virgil was getting bigger, Gordon was getting sneakier, and Alan was getting faster.  He’d watched instead, from a safe distance of twenty two and a half thousand miles above their heads, as Scott pulled tactic after tactic learnt from years of being the eldest to bring victory to himself again and again.

He didn’t miss the noise, or the claustrophobic feeling of gravity pulling at his bones.  He didn’t miss the fights, or the way Scott somehow always won.  But as he gnawed on a rehydrated bagel and watched them stuff their faces full of deliciously moist chocolate cake, just shy of gooey, he missed being part of it all.

It was Alan that figured it out.  Scott might be his big brother, tuned in to all the things that could possibly distress him, but back then even his famed big brother instincts – notorious long before Gordon’s so-called squid sense entered the scene – weren’t used to the distance and missed the occasional thing.  Alan didn’t notice a thing, but he asked the right question at the right time, and a quiet admittance to his youngest brother – not even a teenager yet – that the thing he missed most was sharing a chocolate cake with them sparked a revolution.

Alan didn’t spill his secret.  Young though he was, he knew the brotherly code inside and out after having witnessed four older brothers live and breathe it his entire life.  Private confessions were not to be shared with anyone else unless absolutely necessary.  But Alan was smart, and had been steadily getting faster.  Scott Tracy was about to be dethroned.

John was watching – of course he was watching – when it happened.  Scott reached for the final slice of cake, cocky grin on his face as he basked in the surety that no brother would defeat him in the race, only for his fingers to close on air.  Alan had been getting fast, and a simple switch of targets from the cake itself to the plate it rested on yanked it neatly out of Scott’s predicted reach.

He also hadn’t finished what was on his own plate, a point Scott was quick to point out.  Torn between the rules of engagement and finally seeing Scott’s reign come to an end, Gordon and Virgil had stayed quiet, watching.  Then Alan had played his final card.

“John hasn’t had any.”

As blindsided as his other Earthbound brothers by the proclamation, John had been able to do little more than blink as the icy waters of revelation doused Scott, hand still hanging in mid-air where the cake should have been.

“John-” he’d started, stopping and retracting his hand back to his empty plate.  Blue eyes turned to him, pinning him with a look that sat somewhere between surprised and guilty.  It wasn’t a good look for him.  “Do you want it?” he’d asked after another moment, during which he’d presumably weighed up his reputation and unbroken reign of final slice competition against his ingrained instincts to look after his brothers, and decided in true Big Brother Mode that it was a sacrifice worth making.

It was probably the only sacrifice Scott had ever made that John felt wholly, unashamedly, pleased about without even a shadow of guilt or concern.

“I like chocolate cake,” he’d replied, somewhat dumbly considering he was supposed to be a communications specialist, but it had got the message across perhaps better than a simple ‘yes, I do’ could ever have done.

Scott had launched almost immediately, snatching the plate back from Alan before bundling inside Thunderbird Three without even the right clothes on, and John had greeted a dishevelled older brother holding a plate of chocolate crumbs and icing that had once been a cake before losing a battle with g-forces during the ride in a rocket at the airlock.

It hardly counted as cake at that point, which Scott’s crestfallen face had realised as soon as he’d set eyes on the mess he’d presented him with, but John still considered it the best chocolate cake he’d ever had and waved off all apologies as he devoured it before sending Scott home with the dirty plate and a promise to hug Alan for him.

They’d devised a much better transportation system since then, and now he was always greeted by a recognisable slice of cake, rather than a pile of crumbs and icing, but the presentation really didn’t matter to John.  What mattered was that it was the final slice, surrendered without a fight to him by all of his brothers because even if he was twenty two and a half thousand miles above them he was still one of them.

[stone-man-warrior]

February 13, 2021: 3:00 pm:

====================================================

I have a example of Gnosis that was presented to Los Angeles Unified School District students in the early 1970′s.

This Gnosis inclusion in printed required reading material may be possible to find and study further, was a “Life or Death” sort of a COVID Test in the 1970′s where a book report could get a elementary student killed if they say the wrong thing in the report.

The assignment was to read Lord of the Flies by British Author William Golding, then to write a book report about the events that those young stranded people faced while trapped on a deserted island after their airplane crashed there.

I think it’s last final chapter in the book (is) where the Gnosis shows up, and, it could prove to be that entire novel is a work of Gnosis for weeding out non-paratrooper Canadian terror soldiers who landed in great number in San Fernando Valley California in 1970 - 1971.

That last chapter included that at least two people on parachutes had come out of the shy (sky) and landed on the island where Lord of the Flies took place. The parachuting people did not land, but fell, is the way I remember it, and they had gas masks on when the children found them there, as they had hoped some help had come, it was some other thing, not help, and the children spent some time trying to determine who the dead parachuting guests were.

So, the way I did the report, is I read the book twice, then I decided that the part where those people came parachuting out of the sky was a mistake made at the printer, and I approached my book report as if that chapter belonged in a different book, not Lord of the Flies, was a mistake, and that I had somehow managed to pick up a defective book to do the report with. So, my report stopped abruptly at the close of the chapter before the one when those parachute wearing, gas mask donning intruders had come to the island.

The teacher asked about that, why I stopped without including the last part of the book, and my response was that the book was wrong, my book was defective and contained parts of a different book, so, I wrote about the other parts of the book. I got an A on the report. I lived. Others at the school began to vanish, all of my friends were said to have moved away to other places.

Some things to consider about the usefulness of such Gnosis, rely’s on real knowledge, only those who know that thousands of paratrooper terror soldiers landed in Southern California in the 1970′s will understand or be willing to consider why Lord of the Flies is only one of many ways for the terror leadership to reach the terror army that landed there. The paratroopers in Southern California came in tandem, two per parachute, one adult male, and one child on each parachute. The children ranged in age from about 8 years old to about 12 years old. The children started attending Los Angeles Unified School District Schools. Some of the paratroopers did not land safely. Some got hung up on power lines, some of the parachutes failed to open, and some were injured simply because it was dangerous event.

That report assignment based on a book where the premise is about a crashed airplane filled with children on a deserted island where a “Pig” is used as a religious figure head among the stranded group, and so many other details, all serve as fodder for a child terror soldier to say details about their presence, while writing a book report to a terror teacher substitute while the real teachers are away at a educational enrichment “inservice” day somewhere else. That book report gave opportunity to write something about who made it alive, and who did not. If there were injured terror soldiers, that book report was a way to say who and where the injured, or dead ones, were at, and about where parachutes could have been lodged in trees or power lines or other places where they got hung up on the way down.

I once found one of the parachute harnesses, not the chute. That one I found in a remote place at the east end of DeSoto Ave where there is a very old dam structure made of rocks at Browns Canyon Road where the 118 freeway overpass is at, in 1978, about seven years after the paratroopers landed. I’ll describe the harness when I get an interview from US national security personnel.

Think about that Lord of the Flies Gnosis assignment, and all of the simplified details I provided for you here, to see how Gnosis is bad for Freedom, and serves the terror pirates.

I have a lot to say about my youth in Southern California, but no one to say it to.

===========================================

4:03 pm:

Do a Bing search for “Map of Quebec”:

It brings up this image:

Wait about three to five seconds, and the internet terror pirates put an overlay on top of the map you want to look at, the overlay erases the word “Quebec” and it happens live, as you are looking at it.

Later, when the information is shared, like I am doing, Justin Trudeau will go hide under his house in the basement and call his national Canadian Security forces to say that the information showing that the word Quebec has been erased was done because the person who presented the information is planning to explode Justin Trudeau, in Quebec, and that is why he is hiding in the basement under his house.

If the overlay is put on my view of a search result to cover up the word “Quebec” then it will happen to anyone who has drawn the attention of global terrorists such as Justin Trudeau.

For the record, I don‘t have any desire to explode Justin Trudeau or Quebec. That is not my job. I do think the world would be far safer if Quebec and Justin Trudeau exploded, either on their own or by actions taken by Global Security Forces. But like I said, that is not my job, others are in charge of that kind of thing. I am only an elderly disabled man who is a Medicare beneficiary, so, I can’t be expected to do that level of Global housekeeping, others who better equipped, and in better health are responsible for ridding the world of places like Quebec.

This is also a place of interest, the whole thing with exception of some parts of Ireland is the way it looks. I used to say Scotland was not of interest, but that changed, it’s all bad news over there for far too long... where is my eraser?

This has always been a big problem for the whole world. It’s a boat, sink it.

And this is the main source of all of the problems on earth.

It’s just a little tiny place, see below:

This is all it is, and it’s destroying everything else:

It’s a book, burn it.

=================================

4:57 pm:

Revisit this just for a minute. This is really too depressing to really do an the in  depth report and decode that is warranted here, so, I’ll give you a head start, something to look at as a place of basis for your own decode work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00ReU6IGACo

First, some background is necessary:

              (when i do strikethrough that is example of Christian terror at Centurylink changing the text I wright to a “The” for “Theology” means “God”. There are thousands of places where “That” gets changed to “The” by the terror army operatives at Centurylink, Google, and Tumblr terror cells. It’s the same as if the Pope came to piss on the things I wright while trying to get some help)

To see what is happening here, you have to know the (that) when a citizen is awarded a disability status, that event is called “Award of Disability” and beneficiaries receive an “Award Letter” to inform them that Social Security Administration has finished doing their assessment on the application process that people have to go through, it takes more than two years to complete the process, and EVERYONE is denied in the first round, to discourage those who may be trying to deceive the application process. Once “Awarded”, the person becomes a Medicare Beneficiary, and begins to receive a nominal amount of income based on the amount of Social Security Monthly Premiums that person paid, automatically, as it was deducted from their paycheck throughout their lifetime. There is a maximum to the income amount, it’s not enough to survive on for most people. During the first fifteen years of Disability Award Status, those people are subject to the whims of the SSA, if they feel like a reassessment is necessary, the person is called in to a hearing, and must PROVE that they still should be considered as a Disabled Citizen. It turns out that other neighbors are often a threat to such people, and will go out of their way to make life more difficult for disabled people, and will call the SSA to tell them that their neighbor claims to be disabled, but does not look disabled. That means that the neighbor, who is not a doctor, works at McDonald’s as hostess, can make a problem for the disabled persons. You might say that should no problem if the disability is real, just prove it, again. What you don’t understand about that is the lack of control, the threat of having to pay back all of the income that was received before the neighbor called SSA to say stuff they know nothing about, the worry, extra expense, and most of all the time that is required to focus all of your life’s efforts on proving once again that an Award is to be continued. Every other thing a person may have going on, has to stop, all focus shifts on maintaining what is already in place. It’s like you are out at sea, and the information is such that someone is going to take your boat while you are ten miles out in the water. You have to stop everything to save the boat.

Then, for purpose of that video, after fifteen years passes, disability award citizens are no longer subject to any kind of interference from SSA for review no matter what any one says. So, the disabled person will never again be called in and forced to prove anything after fifteen years passes. That is what Jeff Kiesel is talking about in that video after he introduces the “Dotted Line” where a design patent contract is a protective measure. He is pointing out that it is not likely that anyone will be looking at, or interested in disabled people after fifteen years of awarded disability status, and that fact makes them good targets for the long haul where the victims income can easily be maintained after Jeff Kiesel signs the dotted line where the Guitoligist, Brad, does the dirty deed, Gain Cheap, on the Clean Channel.

Contract; Protection; Design.

Those are among the key statement jargon, where “design” is in reference to subjects suitable for surgical experimentation. If not experiment subjects, then such people can be held captive by someone who claims to be a son or daughter or other relation to the victim, and used for things like taking to a SAG friendly doctor so that Jeff Kiesel and Brad the Guitologist can get high on the captive patients pain medicine that is prescribed after a fall down the stairs, or a “gardening accident” in the yard, while those patients never get the medicine they are prescribed. Hear Jeff Kiesel say the phrase “One Leg” to get an idea of the horror of being held in captivity by drug addict SAG members.

Refer to the 6:34 mark in video to get to the heart of the coded message.

It’s coded. You decode it yourself, to keep your parents and grandparents free of captivity, and yourself, because you never know when that freight train is going to run you over until after the train goes by.

All of that is talked about openly on Google/YouTube.

You watch this video and then argue that Google is not in the snuff movie business, I double dog dare you to.

They even know and mark the video with a warning, so, I’ll warn you also: You cannot Un-See this video. Once you have seen it, it will stay with you forever, like a heroin addiction is to a SAG member.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZYDc_yR0qA&bpctr=1613268727

This video worked and was playable here on tumblr for a few hours, someone had to manually see that it’s here, then put the age restriction on the Google Snuff movie service. I recommend using someone else’s computer to view the video, as Google has turned it into a controlled environment where they can trace your address, so, use a police computer or one at the local church for viewing Google Snuff Movie Service Productions whenever possible. If you click the link, they will assume you read this account, if that happens, you will be marked as someone who knows the truth about Google and the Vatican, and they will hunt you down, take you captive, torture you so you will give them addresses of your family, especially small children, and your banking and asset access information. Then, they will put you into a commercial grade Chipper/Shredder, and grind you up into a liquid, add some water, and some seeds, and spray you onto the roadside as Erosion Abatement for profit because the Department of Transportation pays the contractors for the service of doing Erosion Abatement work on the roadsides, so that the road won‘t wash away in the rainy season. That, is the Christian Way. You can‘t see it through so many daisy’s is part of the problem with that. Orange poppy seeds are most popular in Or/egon for the Human Erosion Abatement Program. The mixture starts out as “V-8″ they call it, then when the seeds are added, at the time of the spraying, they call it “Red Hydroseed” and that is what the State is billed for by the contractors. no, I am not joking, does it sound like a joke?.

The reason that video exists and is presented on Google/YouTube, along with other similar ones, and movies of animal torture, is create a market for them. The existence of such movies available mainstream makes a “custom order” situation available through YouTube and it’s all approved and signed off by Sundar Pichai, and the Pope with use of a warning label, and the added benefit of that SAG Media “Color Announcer” who calls the action like a little league umpire calls an infield fly rule. Those who are really in the know, knows that the snuff movie presented, is about young boys and young girls because of the “Infield Fly Rule” that is presented in the approved Google snuff production there. “Infield Fly Rule” at a little league game is far more difficult to call as a umpire, than that snuff movie Color Announcer does with a train.

Boy Scouts of America

Eagle Scouts

Girl Scouts

Brownie’s

Little League Baseball

Pop-Warner Football

Gymnastics

Any and all extra curricular sports activities where SAG members can sign up to be a coach or a mentor, all inclusive, is what the train video is truly about, and is what Google is truly about.

Learn to read terror comm.

Turn off the fucking television, there is nothing real presented on it.

Stop the terror take over of USA. Preserve USA by restoring the Freedom that was lost to the Christian terror pirates.

Expose them, remove their fake Corona Masks.

Make arrests. Take them all to Easter Island and drop them off there. There will be way too many to put into the prisons.

===============================

6:46 pm:

Local Conditions:

About 40 degrees F. Absence of wind, high overcast sky.

I saw lights moving around in my front yard as dusk settled in at the close of that Boy Scouts entry above.

I took a walk to the mailbox.

I hesitated momentarily at the front door, opened and closed it a couple of times knowing that the terror bastards are triggered into action with listen device they put beneath my house at the entry.

I stepped out and a car moved south on Russell Road, as is usual at this time of day when I step outside, I am a little early with walk today because of those lights I saw in the front.

There were no lights on at the 376 Jackpine unit B as I stepped over to the driveway, there is a odor of death there, is faint, smells as if a dead creature or persons is in wooded area over there near the Offensive Monroe Surveillance Travel Trailer. I continued to the road, as I passed by the Monroe’s camara area pointed at my gate, there was the sound of jet ... I looked all over the sky to see the jet, but there was no sign of airplane, the sound went north, then west, then north again, then south, it was not a jet, it was a terror soldier’s nitrous gas tank ignited by my Bic Lighter and the sound of a launched terror soldier.

There was one item at my driveway entrance that was out of place, someone had moved a thing that I don‘t think could have moved on it’s own.

The people at 445 Jackpine have all of the house lights off tonight, is totally dark in contrast to last night when the place was lit up brightly. I could see that one of the vehicles there is a pick-up truck, looks medium grey color, but it’s too dark outside to know more, or it could be blue color.

There was nothing in the mailbox.

That Mazda, or other similar looking car was at 520 Jackpine again, parked in front, there was a dog in the yard, and someone was hiding behind a wood fence there along the road watching as I looked for my mail in the box.

I went over that way, there should have been some trash cans brought to the corner by now, in anticipation of Monday Trash Day, but there were no trashcans out on a Saturday, is unusual but not unheard of.

As I looked around at the corner, another terror soldier ignited at 520 and must have taken off very quickly, that man hiding by the fence came out and got into that Mazda, and drove away while I was still walking on the road.  He used a flashlight to light me up, so, I returned the light back to him, with a bigger, more powerful light.

I was concerned for a moment he might try to run me over, but I just stayed my course, and went to my driveway. I think the man in the Mazda thought I was the Jet I heard, his accomplice terror assassin, or maybe the other one that was standing right next to the Mazda and launched away quick. I think that one landed at 535 Jackpine at Freeberg terror cell, as I did hear a “Thud” sound from that direction.

It looked to me that the Mazda went to 376 Jackpine to Chartrand terror cell. I did not stay close enough to know for sure though.

There is a possibility that the car was brought to Chartrand by remote control, that is not uncommon, and all of the automatic transmission cars are fitted with remote control operation so that in event that the gas wielding terror soldiers are ignited and burst, the cars can be driven remotely to a controlled place to clean the guts, piss, and shit that gets spattered all on the interior of the cars when that happens. The Myers car from 560 has had dozens of Bursted terror soldiers explode in it over many years.

The lights at 376 Jackpine unit B came on at the front entry there as I walked back to my house.

Conclusion is that all four of the 445 Jackpine assassins are all dead now, and as I thought, were working with the people at 376, and, 376 is the Mazda that has been bringing dogs to the 520 address on occasion for staging attacks at my house with help from many terror cells from near and far.

I’ll take another walk later on to see if Mazda Man wants to dance with me...

Here kitty, kitty, kitty .... Ohhh Mazda Man... Let’s Dance!

==============

7:27 pm:

In event that nsa is watching, wondering, learning,  be advised of the VKA follow up work I did earlier today.

Can’t say more.

also: 928-249-3186 Kingman AZ Jeremy is of interest, sent him the 1 2 3 in return for A B C he sent last week about a “SpringBoard”. I could use some help with dealing with Jeremy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQtPzo-7AHs

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bQtPzo-7AHs

Possibly Jeremy Barns. A former renter of one of my houses many years ago, associated with Marc & Kayla Cobb who are members of the Tucker’s Barber Shop on 6th St. at Village Square Shopping Center, a “Hawaii 5-O“ terror cell controlled by “Greens of Olde Three Ply” Vatican Choir high command at Kauai Ranch. Jerremy Barns is also loosely affiliated with Joanne St. Cyr of Quebec Canada, and she is part of many things, Jazz Airline is one of them, a Air Canada regional commuter airline serving the Quebec/Montreal area.

Jeremy Barns, The Cobb terror cell, Todd & Alicia Wright and Micheal & Mercedes Wright terror cells are all Safari terror cell members, the Wright’s are actual Lion Handlers, and the Wrights are family of Richard Wright of Pink Floyd, who is one of the Green’s of Olde Three Ply Vatican Choir terror high command at Kauai Ranch.

I suppose all of tonight’s walk to the mailbox is just for personal documentation so I can remember things as they occurred, since no one is interested in preserving USA, or restoring lost Freedom enough to ask me a question about this account of terrorism on Tumblr.

===========================

9:49 pm:

I am tired, I don‘t want to do the decoding, but you can.

Here, this man runs down all of the necessary ingredients to say: “Last in Line”. a Ronnie James Dio song that is deep, but partly is about a entertainment event where terror soldiers go to the back of the line at the entrance, they have swords, a lot of protection from event staff at a concert, baseball, football, any kind of event where the venue has a “Grey Area”, a median place between the seating area and the entrance to the venue such as the concessions area at a baseball stadium is where you present your ticket to an usher before the event begins. The terror soldiers “Hold their swords horizontally, and move forward” through the crowd that is lined up in such a “Grey” area. The audience is killed before the show begins, three percent of the total show audience is taken, ID’s are processed, and replacement look-a-likes are arranged to go live at the victims homes, ultimately, to vote for SAG Shills on ballots such as are all of the people who are featured at the fake impeachment hearings. He says everything but “Horizontal” in coded language.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1360677045139869702

Here, Twitter covered that missing “Horizontal” twice with trending Letterman bullshit. Here, he “Roasts” Lindsey Lohan to a point of tears, she must have said or done something to gain attention to the ways of the Screen Actor Guild and was punished for saying whatever she had said, maybe some research can find what Lindsey revealed.

She is wearing “Upholstery”, basically is donned in a sofa. So, the Upholstery outfit could possibly be enough to piss David Letterman off, and Roast her.

Upholstery = “There must be some kind of hold up” in SAG terror language, is a Universally used term, many uses. She may be using it as a “USA is being hijacked” sort of holdup. So, they are sending her to Rehab, where she becomes the “Horizontal” member of the impeachment asshole above who is saying “Last in line” and it’s also a “Sloppy Seconds” statement.

https://twitter.com/davejorgenson/status/1360783863887376390

This at the end is a place where Dave threatens Cher (who does not look exactly the same as I recall she looks in that interview) and that video clip makes the horizontal part of the impeachment Last in Line happen twice, with a “Sloppy Seconds” at the end of the show.

It’s complicated, but not impossible to decode David Letterman, besides, he’s been dead for about five years, his head was put into the mailboxes on Jackpine after the show was over.

https://twitter.com/Squidwardsnose8/status/1360696495708778504

One of the more important things to keep in mind is that Twitter made all of that click together, with use of “Twitter Trends”. The content of the Tweets from Letterman are all contained in the vast archive of Twitters digital storage capacity, and Twitter is Google, so arranging all of that stored archive to produce desired results is what Google is all about, it’s what they do, they categorize information.

So, once you do the decode, then you need to see why the decode opertunity presented itself there for you to see. It was Twitter that arranged all of that so it would be there to use as a language, a graphic based language that says more than the individual pieces of video clip when combined, and with a host from the fake impeachment to guide the reader to the message.

The message is about a mass murder at a venue, where there are women who will be punished, captured and killed after plenty of raping is done by David Letterman and Jay Leno, who you know is waiting to share a garage with Dave nearby.

My read is a personal one, that includes much other communication on Google products, in the music industry email promotions, and in my neighborhood, where the message spells out a Rush at my house on Sunday morning by men with swords, and with horses, equestrian snuff at my house, with a draw and quarter featured at the end of the show.

I can hardly wait.

Draw & Quarter: It’s been about fifteen years since the last time I saw someone being drawn & quartered. Usual is done with two horses, where some ropes and shackles are attached to a victims arms and legs, and the other end is tied to the saddle of the horses. They prefer to use four horses, but one will work if horses are in short supply, just tie the other end of the rope to a tree and the result is almost the same. The horses slowly pull the victim into pieces.

The Draw & Quarter events are very unpleasant to see, even worse to be the star of the show.

Best guess is Adrian Witcherly will supply the horses. She is a bank manager at the Midland St. Branch of JP Morgan Chase Bank in Grants Pass, corner of 7th St. not far from OR State Police Field Office which next to the Seventh Day Adventist Church on 9th St.

=====================

11:00 pm:

This man is said to be the most powerful man on earth, surely he will save me, and prevent the event from happening, given that all of information necessary for prevention has been provided.

I am confidant that the US President will do what ever is necessary to prevent tragedy when he has opportunity in advance to do so.

Certainly he will realize the horrible threat to USA, to Freedom, and the threat to mankind that is presented to the world by Google, and will everything in his vast power to stop Google and Twitter from murdering more US citizens forever.

Joe Biden will do the right thing, he has been informed of the danger.

https://twitter.com/POTUS

=======================

11:33 pm:

I just now sent this cry for help to the White House.

2-13-2021 at about 11:27 pm Oregon time.

Take note that I specified to read the information in the links provided, and that 911 Emergency phone service will produce assassins at my house if I use that. I have much other documentation of failure at FBI.Tips.Gov too. It does not work, only assassins come in response to reports of terror mass murder in Oregon.

“Please send help. The state of Oregon has been hijacked by terror army from Canada, they use poison gasses to overpower victims, capture and torture them, then kill & replace them with imposters. There are many hundreds of thousands of them, and they have been murdering the population for more than twenty years. There are more than 800 pages of explanations at the link provided, eye-witness accounts of actual terror mass murder happening in Oregon and all over the west coast of USA. Please study the information carefully, as the terror is very sophisticated. 911 Emergency phone service is not available, it's controlled and operated by the terror army, they only send assassins when people call for help. Please send US Military. https://stone-man-warrior.tumblr.com https://stone-man-warrior.tumblr.com/archive”

They will call the local sheriff.

The local sheriff will send assassins.

That is what happened each time I sent a request for help to a US President.

Obama.

Trump.

Biden.

They have all been informed. none have stopped the terrorism, mass murders, kidnapping, or US takeover.

They all have sent assassins.

Joe Biden started sending assassins before he took office.

If I disappear, Joe Biden’s people did it.

============

11:46 pm:

Here is the BBC UK news response to my letter to Joe Biden at WhiteHouse.gov:

https://twitter.com/BBCNews/status/1360856008969621507

This is the part where Reuters UK (SIS MI6) makes the order to change the contact information I included with the note to Joe Biden at WhiteHouse.gov. This effectively will result in the death of investigative persons sent to the wrong places, because that Tweet says to make “Variant Modifications” and is directed at what I posted regarding the note asking for help.

I used the correct contact information on the form at WhiteHouse.gov. Part of the terrorism includes that the phones don‘t reach the people I need to reach, only approved terror cells can be reached with a telephone, and only terror cells call my phone number.

It’s should not be difficult to see where I live to contact me by reading the information at the links included, to this account. The problem with that is the investigative persons are not provided with the source information and have no idea that this account exists at all, they just go where the leadership tells them to go do investigative work, but the leadership is all SAG Shills, are all terror army operatives, and they send the investigative people into traps intentionally. Reuters UK is making sure that investigative persons go to Bullhead City Arizona, instead of Oregon where I am at, and where I can help them help me to help everyone, and restore the freedom that was lost so long ago.

https://twitter.com/ReutersUK/status/1360857587453988866

February 14, 2021: 10:05 am:

February 14, 2021: 10:38 pm:

https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1360990937606983691

Biden effectively says: “Fuck you minion”

Then turns to his Canadian SDA terror soldiers and commands: “Grab your rakes and pitchforks, let’s get to work”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BniO017oeTM

The President of the United States of America, Joe Biden.

It’s St. Valentines Day today, I forgot, he’s busy ... today is a bad day for doing anti-terror work.

[strudeldoodlearts]

Things I learned while using a smartphone for digital art

This week was pretty fun but also quite busy/rough. 

A picture I’ve been working on got lost when Autodesk Sketchbook encountered a “cannot open file” type of error. Partially due to my fumbling hands and the app lagging, the file was overwritten with a new canvas, so I lost progress on it...

Maybe that’s a blessing in disguise. I’ve been rethinking the layout/form of the drawing (one of those aesthetic, ‘choose a magical pill’ kind of drawings). So this situation forces me to go back and improve on it. Which I’ll do because while I may be a scatterbrain with many ideas that don’t become a tangible thing, I still don’t like abandoning most things I actually start doing.

Also, funny to think that this happens shortly after my SO gifted me a drawing tablet (though it’s still on its way.) While it isn’t the fanciest device out there, it seems to have promising reviews and might just be a good way for me to break out of my comfort zone (as a mobile drawer) so I could properly learn how to do digital art via a tablet.

So be prepared for a good deal of experimentation in my future works! I still plan on using Autodesk. But I also see how using the PC program and having a tablet and pressure-sensitive stylus could produce different results. 

That being said, drawing on a cellphone with a stylus had some perks. The biggest one being on-the-go drawing and being able to quickly scan in a sketch after drawing it naturally via pen/pencil.

Here are some things I learned while drawing on a mobile phone:

Layer management is your best friend. 

It’s likely that your cellphone may not be able to handle as many layers as a PC program. While this may seem like a flaw, this limitation forced me to learn how to block out what I was drawing so that I wouldn’t be swimming in a sea of layers to begin with.

The above illustration uses 16 layers (not counting the scanned in pen/pencil art from my sketchbook.) The line art gets one layer (which is generally made simple from tracing the pen sketch). Each character/object (in this case the bench) gets a layer for coloring and a layer for shading. The background is all one layer + a layer for shading. Throw in a layer for lighting, a layer for a warm, bluish overlay, and a layer for my signature, and that’s the picture.

My trick for coloring each character was to assign them two initial layers. The bottom one would eventually be the final result. The top one would be where I color in a region using the fill tool, add detail if needed, and then merge it with the bottom layer underneath. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed until the character/object is completely filled in on one layer.

I worked through each character, one by one and not multiple ones at once, to prevent merging the wrong layers together.

Blocking things out by character and object helped with shading in both their general form and also details without interfering with the shading of other objects.

Choose your phone carefully, and check for stylus compatibility! 

Unfortunately, the phone I have doesn’t work with a pressure-sensitive stylus I once ordered that was advertised to work with both iPhones and Android phones. I figured this out when checking out its manual. I lucked out at the start because I had a Note 4. But then that died on me. This was likely an internal failure and something due to wear/tear. A new battery wouldn’t cut it. 

In the interest of being frugal and needing a new phone ASAP, I got the Essential Phone since it was affordable, stylish, and super spacious. At the time, I failed to think about stylus compatibility. I figured that any thin, capacitive stylus that wasn’t like your finger would cut it. Somehow I made this setup work. But this lack of pressure sensitivity (which was much more present in the Note 4 + its stylus) was also noticeably limiting.

So if you’re buying a phone that you plan to use for drawing, do the research on how it handles styluses if you aren’t planning on buying a phone that includes one already.

Sit through adjusting your preferences to avoid future headaches. I personally don’t like zoom-in features that tilt the canvas. While this is partially due to my own clumsiness, I also thought: Why use that when you could simply tilt your phone? 

Other things to consider are going into your app’s Pen Mode so your hands can’t leave stray marks on your drawing. Since I wasn’t able to do that with my phone, I adjusted how I held the stylus and got used to the double-tap Undo shortcut since I was prone to the occasional stray dot.

Be careful not to close your app without saving! 

This may sound laughably basic. But when it comes to cellphones, it’s easy to make a careless mistake in the midst of multitasking while drawing--whether you’re researching reference pictures or shuffling through your playlist. I suspect that I left Autodesk on multiple tasks (like having a selected region) and closed it out sometime in the middle of doing something else only to open up the app again and then work on another drawing. This might have contributed to something like the most recent error that made me lose a drawing.

While you’re at it, expect to back-up many pictures/projects to your computer. 

This process will force you to label and organize your drawings. Also do this so that whenever you need to reset your phone or change drawing apps, you don’t lose everything. This is also good for seeing how your picture turns out on a bigger screen.

At the end of the day, your drawing skills are more important than whatever tools you use. Having good tools is great for making the drawing process feel more natural to you. However--this is something many artists can agree with--it’s better to master what you do with the basics than to get overwhelmed by fancy brushes and effects (especially when you misapply or overuse them.)

[deanofwhumpuniversity]

Writer’s Month 1: Tattoo Parlor/Flower Shop AU

This is obviously an AU, sorta kinda character study thingy. It’s not whump, it’s just me practicing; however

Content Warning: Tattoos, blood, needles, nonconsentual tattoo mention

The bell over the door rang as Reynan pushed into the little shop. He found himself in a tiny lobby, just a desk and some chairs, leading to a hallway of curtained-off booths. The art on the walls was modern, and everyone in the drawings was fully clothed, not the image he’d had in his mind of a tattoo parlor. He could hear faint buzzing coming from at least one of the little partitions, and he didn’t want to call out and interrupt anyone in their work. But the bell had summoned someone’s attention, and he soon heard solid yet gentle footsteps approaching from the hall. Their sound was clear but not heavy, tapping on the linoleum like a shoe somehow made entirely of heels.

“What can we do for you?” The voice was ever-so-slightly modulated, but low and smooth, and Rey turned away from a drawing of an astronaut to see he’d been greeted by a green and black android. The robot wasn’t feigning humanity at all, no synthetic skin or hair, with a viewscreen for a face. Two arms, two legs, and a head, unlike old-fashioned worker drones, but Rey could see one of its arms ended a few inches below the elbow. Not in a messy way; no circuits protruded, and the edge was smooth and clean, as if perhaps it had been designed that way.

Rey took his time assessing the creature before answering, not bothering to hide his mild curiosity. “I was wondering...um. I’d like to get a tattoo covered?” He didn’t know if all shops would do coverups or if he’d need to go somewhere special. But he’d had the day off and finally pushed himself to just go inside and ask. He knew surprisingly little about tattoos, despite the one inked across his left shoulder.

The robot seemed to be sizing him up as well; an LED square appeared on its viewscreen and bounced around for a few moments, its odd tracking reminding Rey of a dragonfly. “You work...nearby? I have seen you before. Many times.” The square became a spinning circle, and the robot’s attention was faraway, as though it was seeking the answer itself rather than expecting Rey to furnish one. “The flower shop, down the strip,” it said finally, viewscreen clearing.

“Yeah, the florist; but I’ve never seen you in there.” His tone was mildly suspicious; he’d remember if he’d ever seen this android before, and he was generally good at spotting if he was being watched.

The robot actually laughed at this, and despite the cascading sound seeming a bit like two voices at once, its tone was friendly and disarming. “I see a lot. I remember everyone. I don’t mean to, I just...do.” It shrugged its metal-plated shoulders, then swept its truncated arm toward the back of the shop. “I have time now, if you know what you want.”

This gave Rey pause. The android was an artist? Not just a shop attendant, a cleaning bot, a secretary, but an actual tattooist? He considered this a moment before he realized, if he wanted someone making clean, even lines on his skin he couldn’t do much better than a machine. He started down the hall, and the robot followed, directing him into an open partition at the end.

Inside the android pulled the curtain and gestured for Rey to sit on a faux leather chair, covered in a long sheet of paper like something from a doctor’s office. It crinkled obnoxiously as Rey fidgeted to get comfortable, and he tried to tell himself this was something the tattooist must be used to, and what did a robot care anyway?

“So what were you thinking?” The robot asked conversationally, as it pulled open a cabinet and drew out sheets of parchment and tiny pots of color.

Rey reached into his pocket, twisting in his seat and crackling the paper. He withdrew an embroidered chevron patch and held it out, grip somewhat tight, as though he wanted the robot to only look, but not touch. “It’s my regiment. I want it over -” he shrugged off his button-up, leaving only his tank top “-this.” His bared shoulder revealed a barcode underlined by a small stylized sword. He spoke more rapidly as he explained, “I’ve served my sentence, it’s ok for me to remove it. I’m allowed --”

The android raised a hand to silence his protestations. “I don’t actually care about Accord Forces protocol. It’s no problem.” If focused its attention on the patch, and a line of light scanned up and down his faceplate, scanning the image into his saved files, as though he could tell Rey wouldn’t want to surrender the badge to him. “I’ll have to make it dark, to cover the black, but it’s nothing I haven’t done before. Unless you’d like me to laser the old one off? You’d have to let that heal though, before getting it tattooed over.” It tilted its head, waiting for Rey to choose.

“No, it’s fine. If you say it’ll cover, I’m fine with that.”

“Excellent.” It flipped a few switches on an autoclave sterilizer, and a few wisps of steam escaped as the box’s seal released. The android slotted the end of his shorted arm into a circle of metal on the machine’s front face, and Rey heard a bit of whirring and a mechanical click, before the robot withdrew his now-whole limb from the autoclave. The hand and wrist looked the same as its other arm in color and design; but then the artist opened a sterile package and slotted a grouping of needles into a barely perceptible hole in its first finger.

“Wait! You mean, right now?” Rey wasn’t sure if he was losing his nerve, or if he’d simply expected there to be more to the process. His only experience with tattoos so far hadn’t been a fun one, after all. “Don’t we need to discuss payment, or something?”

The robot picked up a cartridge of ink and pressed it down into a socket in its knuckle until it made a quiet pop. “I don’t generally charge for coverups, to be honest with you.” It turned it’s attention back to Rey, and could see on his face that his concerns weren’t entirely assuaged. “I mean, if you really feel like paying me…” the spinning circle returned to its faceplate as it considered a moment. “Flowers.”

“Flowers?” The request was unexpected, bordering on absurd, but Rey felt the tension release from his shoulders as his nervousness was replaced by confusion. “What do you want with flowers?”

The android paused -- not in a human way, breathing, thinking, considering; but completely, unmoving, with its darkened face turned toward Rey’s. Nothing played over its screen, and he felt he may have made a mistake while he stared into its blackness. Then, just as quickly as it had ceased motion, it started up again, fiddling with its arm as it replied. “I like flowers,” it stated flatly. A bit of emotion returned to its voice and it continued quietly, almost wistfully “I like...beautiful things.”

After a quiet moment, it pulled up a chair and leaned over Rey’s shoulder, holding up its hands over the skin and looking into his eyes as if waiting for him to announce he was ready. “Don’t you um, trace the picture or whatever?” This earned him another soft laugh, and strands of light began to stream out from the robot’s screen, creating an overlay of the chevron on Rey’s skin. “Oh,” he breathed softly. The android remained still, needing permission, and while its attention was clearly on creating the detailed light display, Rey could feel a weight like eyes on him. He nodded his assent, and the artist began.

The pain was the same sharpness he remembered; all the needles moving together creating the feeling of a single blade slicing into him. Rey looked away for a moment, and the sensation seemed to grow worse. Without being able to see, his mind imagined the circular, color-filling motions were grinding and spiraling down into his flesh to paint his very bones. He forced himself to look back at his shoulder, relieved to see that the needles were still there, bouncing along his skin. Barely any blood welled from the punctures, and the android’s arm moved with a laserlike precision that shouldn’t have been surprising, but was completely fascinating, and he found his focus drifting as he watched the artist move.

“Alright.” The robot said simply, startling Rey out of his fugue. The android was wiping at the tiny spatters of blood and ink on his arm, and applying a large square bandage. That was it? It was already over? “You can change this in a couple hours. I’ve got some care sheets at the front desk with cleaning instructions.” The android stood up from its chair but stayed close as Rey got up, as though he expected him to faint.

When Rey was able to get up and gingerly pull his button-up back on, the robot waved his arm toward the curtained doorway. Rey exited and started toward the lobby, realizing the android wasn’t behind him. A click and whirr sounded from the partition, then the robot stepped out into the hall, again minus one hand.

Rey wasn’t sure exactly what to do now. Should he run off to the shop and get some flowers immediately? Should he shake the robot’s hand? What was the procedure for this sort of transaction? He realized he hadn’t asked if the artist had a name; surely it had some kind of designation. Inkbot 2000? He tried not to snicker aloud at that thought; he didn’t figure the android would appreciate it. Before he could offer any sort of awkward farewell, the robot was handing him a sheet of paper labelled “Care Instructions,” and plucking a business card from a little holder on the desk.

“Come back if you need any touch ups or, of course, anything else. You did well. I’d say I like green but that’s every sort of flower, isn’t it?” The robot’s head was tilted in a way that somehow implied a smile.

Rey simply nodded, taking the offered items and mumbling “Appreciate it,” before making his way out the door. He was halfway to his car before he checked the business card. It declared the address and phone number of the shop, and across the top, in a large green font like the display on a digital clock, was what he assumed was the artist’s name: Celadon Argos.

[jeannereames]

Do you think Alexander had some kind of personality disorder or anger issues, or was it just a natural reaction of growing up in an extremely harsh world where he had to fight to survive. How do you think he felt about becoming king at such an early age? In the books, it honestly seems like he isn't completely comfortable with sacrificing and other roles of the king. Historically he wasn't exaclty the prime example of a good person, but negativity breeds negativity, and he had a tough life...

I think it’s virtually impossible, at this remove, to say much about just how much he had “anger management issues” in large part because of the “moral overlay” of our source-reporting. I’ve mentioned before that Romanizing of the sources is a problem, and while I don’t go as far as some of my colleagues, that Romanizing is definitely *there*, especially in sources such as Plutarch, who makes no bones about it. He flat *says* he’s not writing history, he’s writing biography. And furthermore, he was pairing up ancient figures (one Greek, one Roman), then writing “conclusions” about each man’s failures (and sometimes virtues). Alex was paired with--you guessed it--good ol’ Julius Caesar.

It’s particularly in Alexander’s presentation of anger and a lack of self-control when he’s angry (or drunk) that I find the Romanizing arguments to be the most convincing.

That may not make Alexander out to be any better, as it could cast some of his most ruthless acts as coldly calculated, rather than a spontaneous outburst of fury. But some of the more damning events in his career, from the razing of Thebes to the burning of Persepolis, where guilt is partly displaced in the sources (onto Perdikkas, with Thebes, and onto Thais, with Persepolis), if we look at EVENTS, not what the sources *say*, we get a different picture--especially at Persepolis.

Given all the *other* evidence, it looks as if Alexander deliberately intended to burn Persepolis, and then staged it for maximum effect. An Athenian *woman* gets revenge on the Persians for Xerxes’s burning of Athens. (For the surrounding evidence, archaeology reveals the burning was highly *specific*, not at all the sort of burn one would expect from an accidental fire, AND every scrap of moveable wealth was taken out of the palace before the burning.) I absolutely do not think Alexander got drunk and was talked into starting a bonfire by a pretty lady.

Likewise, the smear job against Perdikkas for Thebes is found--notably--in *Arrian*, who heavily used Ptolemy’s account. And Ptolemy was one of Perdikkas’s #1 enemies later. In fact, Perdikkas was murdered (by his own men) while attacking Ptolemy in Egypt.

As noted, the “re-read” of these events doesn’t necessarily make him look any better; as you note, he’s not exactly a prime example of a good person. But both of them were strategic, one to keep Greece pacified behind him, the other to prevent the crowning of a native Persian challenger to his own claim to be Great King. Neither worked entirely. (Agis of Sparta would eventually lead a revolt that Antipatros had to quash, and first Besus then Spitamenes claimed the upright tiara without the usual ceremonial crowning at Parsagadae and Persepolis.) But both of them were calculated moves on his part.

In general, Alexander did not act in impulsively, even when our sources try to paint him as doing so. And I think he, himself, liked to present himself as “hot blooded.” But he was still extremely, extremely “cold-minded” when it came to his decisions. In the modern world, many countries have a specific category of crime called a “crime of passion,” and if/when these are proved, the sentencing for them is typically much lighter. So as much as we may censure people for losing control, in another way, we--weirdly--admire it, or at least excuse it. Alexander acting out of “passion” is somehow less awful than if he made some of his more violent decisions with a cool head.

One thing that is, I think, crucial to remember is--as you note--he grew up in a harsh environment and had a tough life. That’s true.

Even more, however, that entire world was, by modern standards, violent.

We’re sheltered from a lot of what was commonplace to them. We go into the local grocery and buy our pre-packaged, maybe even pre-cooked meat. We don’t go out to hunt it ourselves. Most of us don’t live on farms, or have any contact with animal husbandry, nor have we ever been to a slaughterhouse. My son doesn’t even like to eat things that have bones in them, as it’s a reminder it was once alive. And now it’s not, and he’s ingesting it.

In Alexander’s world, EVERYbody had witnessed animal sacrifice, and had probably even participated in it, up to and including wielding the knife. Men went hunting regularly, and not just for the stewpot. Women wrung the necks of chicken and geese, much as my grandmothers used to do, then plucked and dressed them. Little kids helped, sometimes including the skinning of catches. To live, you have to kill, in their world. Bloodletting was normal in a way that’s wholly unfamiliar to us today.

And death was right next to you. Dead bodies weren’t hidden away in nursing homes or cremated before family members could see it. Instead, the women of the house were responsible for washing and preparing the dead for their laying out. Diseases we blow off today could be fatal. Babies weren’t named for days after birth, in part to see if they were likely to live. And childhood disease carried off upwards of 15-20% of infants inside their first year. Death in childbirth was a genuine fear, not a shocking surprise. Even getting a cut that became infected could result in the loss of a limb, or outright death. There’s a reason cult for Asklepios, the Greek god of healing, was both ubiquitous and fervent, and both infants and children were swathed in little amulets to protect them. Warriors carried those too.

So yes. This was a brutal world, one where luck (Tykhe) could fail you at any minute. And until the spread of the Mystery Cults, the Greeks really didn’t see the afterlife as anything all that great. The epitaphs on graves of the archaic period are pretty uniformly depressing, and it doesn’t improve much in the classical.

Basically, for them, life was rough, harsh, and sometimes short...and then being dead was even worse. That explains a great deal about their very competitive society. You kill to stay alive. Nice guys finish last. There’s no such thing as a “tie” in a sporting event (and one of the most popular, the pankration, sometimes ended with one or both participants dead). And humility is not a virtue.

So when you position Alexander in THAT context, and add to it growing up in the fishbowl of the Macedonian court with possibly competitive siblings, the fact he was so enormously successful almost necessitates a willingness to be utterly ruthless. The fact he *wasn’t* as brutal as Genghis Khan in achieving his success is sort of surprising. He actually displayed empathy at quite a few points.

[cruddyborderlandstheories]

THAT MAP

i didn’t die

also spoilers. like. major spoilers. im serious.

dont click that read more unless you’re totally okay with spoilers cause i talk about some endgame stuff too <3

CELESTICA ERIDIA

THAT ERIDIAN RIFT HUHHHHHHH ITS RIGHT NEXT TO PANDORA

WE’RE ENTERING THE FLORPUS

IT LOOKS LIKE THERE’S A WAY TO TRIANGULATE/OPEN THE WORMHOLE OR SOMETHING???

alright LOOK

each planet (Eden-6, Promethea, Pandora) they’re all circled and when their lines cross it leads to SOMETHING

and looking at the grid that’s obviously what looks to be a wormhole

so we’ve also got the lines

“elpis - not what it seems. is elpis a lens? or a conduit. or both?”

A CONDUIT/LENS?? FOR W H A T??

ARE WE BEAMING SOMETHING OUT OF PANDORA? BECAUSE IF THESE TEMPLES ARE ALL SIMILAR PYRAMID-LIKE STRUCTURES TO THE ONE ON ATHENAS THEN THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE

this is DEFINITELY on pandora (you see elpis up there) so it’s possible something is going to hit elpis and it’s going to beam to this vault-thing and open up a gateway to the Eridian Rift??? OR

we open this Vault and it beams something up to elpis and elpis helps open up part of the Eridian rift

i’d guess we’d need all 3 (?) active to open it?? Eden-6, Pandora, and Promethea

so something SEEMS to be getting beamed either from elpis to pandora or from pandora to elpis

but im going to get elpis to pandora given the way it’s being thrown out? like it hits elpis straight on and then defracts over pandora like a prism

im guessing it’s such a broad spread bc it’s trying to hit the vault-temple-thing we see above (still... not quite convinced those are vaults like we’ve been seeing them in the past games (with lots of big loot inside). again something like teleporters makes way more sense to me)

they also bring this up, that athenas and promethea have a draw to one another, which makes sense since part of the promethean vault key is on Athenas

“Although Athenas is not in the Promethean System, there is a strong pull detectable through use of [eridian resonator (customized) which I have discovered here (seen in purple)]” i have no idea if any of the bracketed stuff is right“

more importantly it looks like one piece of Promethea’s asteroid belt is ‘highlighted’ which i imagine is that giant space laser

which ngl surprises me because

this doesn’t really look eridian to me at all. like, okay, the laser part IS purple but... the actual tech doesn’t look Eridian at all. it looks VERY human. maybe maliwan/atlas discovered it and changed it somehow? that’s pretty much the only reason i can give. like they made it so it would only hit a certain area (concentrated) instead of the entire planet (like we see Elpis doing)

also if we look at Eden-6

eden-6 seems to be 1 of 6 (or more) planets surrounding the gas giant (?) named Eden (which is such a cool fucking detail). or maybe that’s just a solar system named eden. either way. AWESOME.

my question is:

is Eden going to act similarly to Elpis? to the Asteroid Belt of Promethea?? because if that’s the case OH MAN MORE GIANT SPACE LASERS. maybe this is why ships keep on crashing to Eden-6. We know the planet is basically a ship graveyard, maybe there’s some Eridian interference that’s causing this to happen???

Also, when they say “Vaults lead to other Vaults” do y’all think this is tied into in any way the “Vault of Vaults” or whatever “It” is???

because THE VAULT OF VAULTS??? APPARENTLY WE WERE NAUGHTY AS FUCK FOR OPENING IT (the overseer says so when you accept the quest for the proving grounds)

AND THE MASTERS (whoever the FUCK they are!) ARE NOT HAPPY BOYS

ALSO “UNIVERSE DESTROYING POWER” AS CLAIMED ON THE WEBSITE

UHHH IM GONNA GUESS THAT RIFT IS ABOUT TO KILL EVERYONE AND/OR LET OUT A BIG OL SPACE DEMON COUGH THE DESTROYER COUGH

ALSO WE PROBABLY ARE CONFIRMED THERE ARE TEMPLES ON EACH OF THE PLANETS WITH THAT DIAMOND SHAPE

THEY MATCH UP WITH THE SYMBOL WE’VE SEEN EVERYWHERE

(also we now can guess this takes place after Athenas..?)

‘Vault... Key?’ i mean... think about it. we know the symbol for Vault is the circle with the arch. but this is different. this is diamond with, yes, with a vault shape in it. but... there’s obviously more to it than just the vault symbol

plus tannis is using it on pedestals dedicated to Vault Keys so i mean. you know.

and if this IS the symbol for Vault Key than oh man oh me oh my

that would mean opening up the ‘mini vaults’ on Pandora/Promethea/Eden-6 would lead to that big Eridian rift opening, whatever it is

which could explain this line: “the Vaults lead to other Vaults” “Smart, Leda!”

looks like Typhon met someone who writes in blue. who’s name is Leda.

calling it now typhon totally banged a Siren named Leda and had 2 twin kids (it runs in the family) the twins take after their parents: one red, one blue. possibly inherit the Cloth Map and learn about the purpose of the Vaults through it. i got nothing on the cage thing but tbh i wouldn’t be surprised if Typhon or Leda ended up going crazy at some point and/or having kids inside of a Vault for some ungodly reason. spewing random shit about ‘bandits this, bandits that’ to keep them from leaving. maybe they knew their adventures were going to (eventually) lead to the destruction of the universe so they wanted to keep their kids safe without having to admit they’ve doomed everyone outside this has no proof at all, im just spitballing lol i mean look at these love-sick FOOLS lmao

look they both left messages (that i can’t read) with hearts at the end of them

“Genius! [gibberish i can’t make out] <3″ “you know it! <3″

we don’t know what the Vaults really are for, huh Tyreen?? NOW WE DO. NOW. WE DO.

“ERIDIAN GLYPHS ARE CYHPERS!” (sic???)

“by overlaying various found glyphs patterns emerge which are then...” ASDFGSHJ i CANT READ THIS “What is the machine?” “We’ll figure it out together!” MACHINE????????

i NEED it

“Mapping in progress: the key-glyph [something] is an Eridian cypher hiding coordinates to some kind of cyber (????) structure” this perhaps???

also the proving grounds. let’s talk about those. we know they’re eridian, we know there’s 6 of them, we know there’s 1 at least on both Athenas and Eden-6.

we know those Eridian Ruins/Cyphers lead to the proving grounds. we know this much. so is it definitely confirmed the proving grounds hold a higher place in the story than they’re saying? i mean let me pull up my other draft talking about these in-depth and copy paste because there’s only 36 minutes until the NEXT endgame content stream

“Later in the campaign, you may be worthy of taking part in the Proving Grounds: themed gauntlets watched over by a Guardian known as the Overseer who wishes to test your mettle on behalf of the mysterious ‘Masters’.”

so it sounds like at least one is going to take place during the main campaign of the game.

as for uhh who the Masters are... I don’t know. I imagine they’re Eridian in some way/shape/form. to be honest, considering the Overseer is a Guardian (confirmed), I imagine these ‘Masters’ are just literally Eridians. some sort of council, perhaps. i mean “the masters will determine who is at fault” for “naughty humans opened the vault of vaults”. so i imagine they’re like a council.

Let’s start listing stuff we know about the Proving Grounds:

1. you get them by translating (we apparently get a translator later on in the story) Eridian texts (ciphers) left behind, which tell us where (?) these proving grounds are. why we’re not just using tannis... i dunno. something better not have happened to Tannis, gearbox

We’ve seen these texts in the Eden-6 gameplay, so it looks like maybe we won’t need the eridian doritos stabby thing to break any crystals. damn youuu

“Ohhh good. Nonsense.”

i make jokes with my friend that soon i’ll be able to read Eridian given how much i stare at these tablets. it’s only a matter of time...

2. there’s apparently 6 of them, and at least 1 on each planet. We’ve seen the Athenas (Survival) and Eden-6 (Instinct) versions, which does make me wonder if there’s any tie between 6 of these trials and the 6 Sirens...

Also, given there’s supposedly 6 trials and only 5 planets (as the community has gotten devs to tell us), it makes me wonder a) if there’s actually 6 planets or b) why there’s only 1 planet with 2 per planet. i guess if that’s the eridian homeworld then it’d make sense if they have 2.

(Also Varnell did originally say 7 trials at first, but he gets a pass because he was live on stage and i would’ve made that mistake too knowing my dumb brain lol)

3. Apparently during the narrative of the game, at some point, we will unlock at least 1 trial.

“[proving grounds are] encased in the narrative of the game. a combat challenge the Eridians have left for the player to kinda prove themselves worthy for... things i won’t completely spoil right now, but uhhh prove themselves worthy to the ancient, lost, Eridians.”

so... YEAH. big news, gamers.

does this take place at the end of the game? its possible. its likely considering this is considered endgame content. it might not. it could be both, like sort of a repeatable thing. im not really certain. 

What I am certain about tho, is that this takes place after a huge story event.

So, maybe the BL3 story ends on a cliffhanger. Tbh i would upset if that happened, but THAT SAID, if the game does end on such a huge cliffhanger that this is AWFUL and the end of the universe is coming, I don’t think we’d be getting 4 story DLCs that completely ignore this problem.

The devs had said the entire story will be contained within bl3 (no splitting it up between dlcs), and it seems the games like to keep the timeline intact in the real world, so if imminent death is on its way, we can’t exactly wait 5 years irl and in-universe for borderlands 4.

So, if this is a cliffhanger ending, I don’t think whatever happens is... that big of a deal. Sort of the level of finding the Vault Map at the end of BL2. It’s big news! but it’s not going to end the universe. The story marches on. We figure out the new goalposts of this universe and keep doing stuff outside it.

Now that we know that, let’s take note of what the Overseer says at the start and end of this mission:

“Vault Hunter... I thought you might show up sooner or later. So naughty your species, so curious. The Vault of Vaults has been opened and it has been released. Prove your worth and I will reveal why the Masters made me wait for you”.

“Naughty humans opened the Vault of Vaults, but the Masters will determine who is at fault. Until next time, Warrior.”

so that’s some pretty fucking loaded dialogue, isn’t it?

im vvvvvvvvvv curious about who this ‘it’ character is... something the Eridians didn’t want out- well, that’s bad, because we (or the twins, or maliwan, or both I guess) just let it free. and the fact the Overseer won’t even reference the thing by name... that’s probably bad. If this is an actual entity, then that is mostly why I believe this particular Proving Ground takes place during the main story.

that said, ‘it’ could literally be anything. Knowledge, hope, whatever. the potion you brew to become a Siren. you know. anything. She called whatever was released ‘it’ and it doesn’t seem like we’re in a RUSH or anything. Just hanging out doing proving grounds. and apparently this is because we’ve been naughty humans. not evil, just naughty. like she’s giving us (or the cult) a slap on the wrist.

The Overseer doesn’t seem too affected by us opening the Vault of Vaults herself. The Masters apparently are trying to determine ‘who’s at fault here’, like it isn’t exactly clear. was it the humans for opening it? was it the eridians for making them openable?

it would be interesting if this isn’t even talking about something that happens in game, but instead like... she’s referencing Typhon and Leda. the Vault of Vaults had been opened (by Typhon and Leda) and IT has been released... whatever it is... maybe the reason Typhon and Leda locked their kids in a vault? ... i mean if we’re going by the eridium/slag causes psychos, then maybe that? we definitely find eridium on planets other than pandora...

also speaking of stuff taking place during the game, lets remember what was discussed in that interview: “[proving grounds are] encased in the narrative of the game... a combat challenge the Eridians have left for the player to kinda prove themselves worthy for... things i won’t completely spoil right now, but uhhh prove themselves worthy to the ancient, lost, Eridians.”

worthy of what, exactly?

I’m still of the belief that it’s for the title of Vault Guardian (and, yes, by proxy, i want to say Siren, but y’all won’t take me too seriously if i keep advocating for this crack theory lol... implying you took me seriously in the first place 🤡) because of the Guardian Rank

the fact we’re killing Fallen Guardians means, technically, a position HAS opened up... plus I don’t think the Watcher would have come in contact with Lilith if she didn’t think the Eridians needed us

that said, if this isn’t for just becoming Vault Guardians, then... idk. If this is strictly endgame stuff, i don’t even know what we’re trying to prove our worth for.

I guess worthy of not being thrown into alien prison is probably a good one. magic space prison is probably hard to get out of. like, ‘200 years an opening’ hard to get out of. and ur roommate is the destroyer 😨

i mean... maybe worthy of entering the Eridian Rift? i mean... it’s possible this rift leads to the eridian homeworld... there would have to be one HELL of huge Vault Monster to keep people from getting through :o

anyway, we’ve got 20 minutes until the new endgame content, i’ll be sure to add onto here if we learn anything new and/or i think of anything else. im vibrating over this shit, it’s awesome. i LOVE this map. might have to pick one up on ebay or smth.