#when the setting is unclear when it's the middle of nowhere but it's got its magic and its own way for things to happen >>>>

[irusanw4]

Ok so bc of the hyperspecific poll I'm gonna explain my potato dreams. Currently I've only had 2 but I'm hoping that at some point I'll have a third, bc I really wanna see what my brain has to offer. Buckle in because this is a long post.

Dream One

(PT: Dream One)

There were Minecraft mechanics in terms of digging and building and sizing, but nothing else. I, and I think a few other people, were carving out 18 obstacle courses within the city-sized potato. Each one was themed around a different Pokemon type, and the one I cared the most about was the flying course. It required flying between close-together plants and was 2 blocks wide and less than 15 blocks long with a 90 degree turn to the left at the VERY end. Like, the first block in that new section was the finish line. I was super particular about where each plant went, and the real challenge was just how fast you'd fly through it!

That was what pretty much the entire dream fixated on, and it ended when I finally did it perfectly

Dream Two

(PT: Dream Two)

This one was much more lore-heavy! The potato had been split in half and there was a vaguely circular or ovular area set between the two halves with maybe 10, 20 meters of wiggle room max (I'm very bad with scale)

That round area never got filled in by my brain, but it was very clearly mentally labeled as Unsafe. Nothing was allowed to enter that empty area, to the point it wasn't even possible for me to consider walking into it. It was just. Not a space. However, laser cannons could fire through it! That's important for later!

The dream began with a guy, who I'll call uhhh. Boss. There weren't names in the dream but explaining this without names will get confusing. Boss found the essence of a weakened god. The essence visually was just a green fire, smaller than a campfire and floating a bit above the ground. We'll call the god Green because it's consistently associated with the color!

So Boss speaks to Green while his crowd of guys he had with him stand back! And Green tells Boss what boils down to "I'm weak now, but if you work to make me stronger then I will help you with that power!" and Boss agrees. It's unclear if this particular agreement was binding or if Green just kept its word, idk, my dream didn't explain itself

So Boss gets his many followers to carve out a shrine in the halves of the potato. Initially this shrine copied the obstacle courses from dream one, but over time it became huge rooms with defense systems in each one. I don't recall most of them, but the important one was laser cannons, which pointed inwards for some reason.

Eventually, some of Boss' followers betrayed him, shutting down most of the aforementioned defenses, so what was left would require manual direction rather than automatically activating. Boss still had younger, particularly loyal follower who we'll call Frank. Frank looked up to Boss a LOT and idolized him, so he was happy to risk his life using one of the remaining cannons to attack the half of the potato that had been taken over.

At the same time, Green was hit with a strong attack and was an essence again. And essences are very much able to be killed by laser cannons, the strongest of which was actively charging up to hit and kill both Frank and Green.

Boss decides in the moment to sacrifice himself. He makes Green promise to look after and protect Frank in exchange for taking over Boss's body, and Green agrees. It then teleports to Frank, grabs him, and teleports far away so it's just Green and Frank on a hill in the middle of nowhere.

The dream technically ended there, but there was a very clear impression left on me by the ending and some details I missed.

For one: that promise was binding. Like, Green HAD to protect Frank when it agreed to that. I'm unsure if Green knew that at the moment, but it definitely realized it at the end

Two: Green was also associated with rabbits, wind, and fast movement. Which. Haha. WindClan moment.

Three: Frank had VERY mixed feelings after he realized what happened and saw Green. Because Green was still using Boss's body! And Frank genuinely cared a lot about and truly looked up to him! And Boss cared about Green and also maybe about Frank? But Boss is DEAD now, there's no coming back from what Green did in that moment. And yet that's Boss's face.

Genuinely insane that my dream included this level of detail btw. Usually I'm lucky if it all has one plot line. Especially since I don't dream super frequently. I do like my potato dreams though! They're never scary or upsetting or uncomfortably close to a recent stressor, they're just. A story. I didn't add shit to that explanation. Hell, I cut some stuff out like the exact layout of the potato for brevity's sake. The only thing that's stopping me from making an actual story out of my potato dreams is that I want to see if I'll have more naturally. I hope so :)

[eume]

don't think I'll ever get tired of saying this but i love reading a story with a good setting, i love worlds that swallow you until you feel like you're watching it all in real time!!!!!! even if nothing makes sense im here for that!!!!!

[mst3kproject]

Atlas in the Land of the Cyclops

Here we have a movie with a big, brawny hero in a very short skirt, whose hobbies include drinking potions, napping, and bending prison bars!  He stars in a film that is poorly-made, mythologically questionable, and deliciously ripe for heckling.  What more could a MSTie possibly want?

Long ago, Ulysses blinded the cyclops and outsmarted the witch Circe, and they’re still pissed about it.  As the movie begins, they’re on the verge of completing their revenge by murdering Ulysses’ last descendants.  The last king of Ithaca is killed in a raid, but his young son is smuggled away and left in the care of an old shepherd.  Upon hearing of the slaughter, Maciste goes to the land of Sadok to save Queen Penope and the other women of Ithaca, who have been taken captive by Circe’s descendant, Queen Capys.  On the way he saves Capys from a rockslide and they fall in love, each not knowing who the other is… which goes on to make things very awkward later.  Nobody in the movie is called ‘Atlas’.

Nobody Named Atlas Goes Anywhere Near the Land of the Cyclops is a bit oddly put-together.  Theoretically the plot – the need to protect baby Prince MacGuffin from Queen Capys’ soldiers – is established quickly, but then it seems to take a while before anybody makes any progress.  This is because a lot of the early plot developments happen by complete accident.

After making sure the baby is safe, Maciste sets out for Sadok.  He quickly finds out where Capys is keeping the Ithacan prisoners, but this isn’t clever detective work – it’s just a coincidence, when some soldiers ask him to help them carry a giant amphora into the palace.  Meanwhile, Capys has been told that somebody named Maciste knows where Baby MacGuffin is, and orders her soldiers to find this man and bring him in alive.  Her Vizier, Ephetus, does so – but again, it’s an accident!  He arrests Maciste for wandering into ‘The Forest of the Vestals’ and sentences him to death for that before ever learning his name!

Once Maciste is in Capys’ custody the movie finally seems to figure out where it’s going, but this over-reliance on coincidence makes the first half of Nobody Named Atlas Goes Anywhere Near the Land of the Cyclops feel very muddled.  The only thing that really needs to be an accident to make the plot work is Maciste and Capys meeting in Circe’s cavern without knowing they’ve already sworn to destroy each other.  Following that with more coincidences feels like filling time.

The bit where Maciste is arrested is really weird, actually.  The Vestals appear to be playing Blind Man’s Bluff, and Maciste just wanders into the middle of it.  The blindfolded woman bumps into him and feels up his pecs for a moment while he stands there grinning awkwardly, then she pulls her blindfold off, screams, and faints.  Soldiers then run out of the bushes and arrest Maciste.

So that was odd… then there’s the way Ephetus decides to have Maciste executed for harassing the Vestals. They put him on a board over a lion pit (every ancient kingdom has a lion pit) and tie a long rope to each of his wrists.  Then six white guys in green skirts pull on one rope, and six black guys in white skirts pull on the other.  Eventually, of course, Maciste overpowers both teams and everybody but him gets to be Fancy Feast.  Only once that’s all over does Ephetus realize that this is the guy the queen wants delivered to her alive.

There’s other weird shit that goes on, too.  In another sequence, Maciste is getting his ass beat by Ephetus’ flunky Mumba (Paul Wynter from Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules, still buffer and oilier than the guy playing Maciste) and, having recently been drugged, is barely able to fight back.  He gets a second wind when Mumba throws him against another giant amphora, which breaks, dousing him in wine.  Maciste blinks a few times, and then suddenly becomes unstoppable.  Was it the alcohol, or the blow to the head?  There’s a truth serum that is administered by pouring it into an enormous wine goblet… and this isn’t just a thing for Maciste, either, everybody in this movie drinks booze from glasses the size of their own head. Nor can we forget the guy who gets thrown overboard from a ship, and out of nowhere a shark just appears and eats him immediately.

None of these are a full-on WTF Moment but all of them are kind of bizarre and many of them got a laugh out of me.  A lot of them also tie in to the movie’s main obsession, which is Maciste’s Feats of Strength.

We are treated to many of these, all of which go on a little too long.  They are filmed in loving detail, particularly focusing on the muscles in Maciste’s back, which are so well delineated that they almost comprise an anatomy lesson. We get the obligatory lion-wrestling scene (totally separate from the later lion pit scene), in which we are relieved to learn that yes, Maciste does have underwear beneath that miniskirt.  We get him holding up a stone roof that’s threatening to collapse, there’s the giant amphora and the inevitable prison bars, all while Maciste makes some very constipated faces.

My favourite bit is when Maciste rolls a giant boulder into the middle of a road so the soldiers can’t follow him.  What makes it funny is that this is clearly not the first take: the boulder has been rolled repeatedly, and there are places where the paint has come off to show the white Styrofoam underneath.

All this emphasis on Maciste’s rippling trapezius muscles makes the movie feel just a tad homoerotic.  One shot where the camera pans slowly around Maciste’s body while Capys walks a circle around him could be an attempt to depict the female gaze – a very rare thing in movies.  But I don’t know what to tell you about the Maciste-vs-Mumba fight scene, which is either trying very hard to be sexy or else I’m just looking through tumblr-coloured glasses again.

The climactic battle with the cyclops is pretty great.  The cyclops is played by a normal-sized stuntman made to look like a giant through camera angles, which means that Maciste can never be in the same shot with him. There are ways to do this well but Nobody Named Atlas Goes Anywhere Near the Land of the Cyclops does not use those – instead we just get some really funny jump cuts.

According to the movie, the reason Queen Capys wants to carry out her ancestress’ revenge on Ulysses is because until it is complete, she is under a curse.  Capys herself describes this as being ‘forced to live in hatred’, but it is very unclear what this means.  Early on, Ephetus confesses his love for Capys and she replies that she doesn’t know what the word means – this made me think perhaps her curse was an inability to fall in love.  A few minutes later, however, she has laid eyes on Maciste and his sheer manliness thaws her icy loins in a matter of seconds.  So… is her curse supposed to be that her subjects hate her?  They hate her because she keeps feeding them to a cyclops!  She could stop that at any time!  Her curse can’t be that nobody can love her, because Ephetus and Maciste both do!

I mentioned that Nobody Named Atlas Goes Anywhere Near the Land of the Cyclops shares an actor – Paul Wynter – with Mole Men Against the Son of Hercules.  It also shares a director, Antonio Leonviola (he also made Thor and the Amazon Women, the movie that runs over the opening credits of Cave Dwellers).  Maybe that’s why both movies have an evil queen who is supposed to be redeemed by her love for Maciste.  You may recall that I didn’t think Mole Men did this very well – Halismuya continued torturing people even after her supposed change of heart.  Land of the Cyclops does a bit better.

We don’t actually get an impression of Capys’ journey, but we do see the beginning and end of it.  As the movie begins, she’s callously throwing victims to the cyclops and looking forward to breaking her curse by killing Ulysses’ last two descendants.  At the end she sacrifices her life trying to save Baby MacGuffin despite knowing that it means she will never be free.  Her motivations for switching sides are unclear – she says that knowing Maciste has ‘changed her nature’ but we don’t ever see him trying to convince her that this child deserves to live.  She does remark that when she’s with Maciste she’s ‘only a woman’ rather than a queen… so maybe he brought out her maternal instincts?

I also don’t know what Ephetus’ determination to kill Queen Penope along with her son is all about.  She’s not a descendant of Ulysses, but he actually puts off killing Baby MacGuffin – the thing he believes his queen wants him to do – until he has identified the child’s mother.  The movie also never explains why this kid, whose father was the king of somewhere else entirely, apparently has the right to succeed Capys as ruler of Sadok.

Nobody Named Atlas Goes Anywhere Near the Land of the Cyclops is a pretty lousy movie, but it’s a fun lousy movie. It’s kinda racist and kinda sexist, but no more so than a thousand other movies of its vintage.  The only complaint I might have about its entertainment value is that it needed more crappy monsters.  The cyclops is pretty bad, but he doesn’t show up until the very end. Fortunately, the rest of the movie has plenty of other stupid shit to fill it out.

[cutieodonoghue]

dark gray (10/?)

summary: Killian Jones operates a lighthouse in the middle of nowhere, preferring a life of isolation, until one day a woman and a baby wash up on his little island and change his life forever.

read it on: ao3, ff.net

and also catch up on tumblr!

///

Ten

During Henry’s naps, Emma has taken to reading for most of the day. So far, she’s made her way through almost thirty books, which must be a record of some kind. 

If anyone had told her two weeks ago that she would become a stereotypical housewife for the better part of a month, she would not have believed it. 

In the real world, she’s a police officer in Storybrooke with her father, who is sheriff of their little town. It's not a busy place, but it suits her well enough. 

She gets plenty of time off and she spends a lot of it helping her mother with preparing for her classes at Storybrooke Elementary. The woman is a saint, but sometimes she does need someone to help her balance such a heavy workload.

One of the things she’s most excited about is getting to sit with her mother while she eagerly wonders about every little detail of Emma’s life. It can be annoying, sure, but her mother has to be one of the most genuinely kind people in the world.

That kindness is something that Emma takes into consideration while she pours focus and heart into her day-to-day efforts with both Henry and Killian.

Pondering what one act of kindness she could perform for Killian, Emma makes a less-than-half serving of oatmeal for herself. 

Henry sits on a blanket on the floor nearby, playing with a makeshift doll that she’d fashioned out of an old shirt. 

He is a cute little boy, with his little dimples and his sweet, excited babbling. But the more important thing is that he seems happy, despite everything that’s already happened in his life. She’s glad he won’t have to remember this experience. One day, it will just be a story she’ll tell him and he probably won’t believe it. 

The front door opens with a squeal and comes clattering back as Killian steps inside. He looks over at her with worry in his eyes. "We've got some unwelcome company."

Emma furrows her brow. "What do you mean?"

"Every so often, a ship of pirates comes off the coast of the island. I've never dealt with them directly. Usually I have to signal back to the mainland for help, but since I've disarmed our radio, we need to make all appearances that we are not home."

Fear rushes into the peace of the morning faster than she can think to breathe. Her heart begins beating faster, whirling thoughts and worries silencing her.

She turns the stove off and moves the pot to keep the breakfast she’d been preparing from burning.

Killian already makes his way through the small house, flipping off lights and ousting the fires that keep them from freezing.

Emma nervously bites at her lip and crouches down to gather Henry up into her arms. He chatters sweetly in her ear and she smiles, setting her palm to his belly as she gives his cheek a reassuring kiss.

"Come on, baby. We're going to play somewhere else." 

She steps into the living room where Killian enters in from the bedroom.

"The fires are out. Hopefully they haven't seen the smoke yet."

Emma nods. She doesn’t know what to say. Pirates weren’t on her bingo card of potential worst case scenarios, so she truly finds herself fearful and out of her depth.

Killian tips his head toward the bedroom. "Why don't you and Henry hide in there in case something happens?"

In case something happens.

Whatever dangers he thinks these pirates are capable of sends shivers up her spine. 

"What about you?"

He goes over to the bookshelf, digs into a box he keeps higher up, and removes a gun and its components.

“I'll be fine, love.”

Emma wants to argue, but he comes up to her and presses a kiss to her forehead, his hand warm against her arm. She squeezes her eyes shut, not realizing that she would be so worried over something that the circumstances are so unclear over.

It hits her as he's leaving a kiss to the top of her head that he's trying to comfort her. That maybe he's worried about the end. That maybe he has no idea what’s about to happen.

She watches him as he walks away, then takes a shaky breath. "Be careful, Killian."

He turns, his eyes filled with anguished determination. "Stay hidden. It shouldn't be long."

Emma holds the back of Henry's head and walks with him into the bedroom, shutting the door behind them. She carries the baby to the bed and sits him down, taking a few steadying nervous breaths as she stands by him, watching his curious little eyes light up. 

She wonders what Killian’s doing, if he's sitting out in the kitchen or if he's going to go outside. She can't really hear anything, and it produces a sinking feeling in her gut as she tries to keep Henry occupied.

After a little while, she hears shouting voices, but she can't make out the words for the life of her, and she bites hard on her lip as she gathers up Henry in her arms. 

Quickly, she goes to the opposite side of the room, ducking to hide as best she can behind the bed. She holds Henry tight to her chest, determined that she will protect him at all costs.

She’s shocked when she hears gunfire and her eyes widen, holding the little boy ever tighter, especially when he whimpers fearfully. He can clearly sense that something is going on, so she puts her hand over his ear and her chest against his other, allowing him to listen to her pounding heart instead.

"It's okay," she hushes him. "We're going to be okay. Killian is going to take care of us."

Emma clamps her eyes shut. She doesn't know if she actually believes that or if she just needs to hear it from someone. 

The doorknob to the bedroom jiggles before it opens.

Fear crawls along her skin, but she manages a deep breath, recalling her training as an officer. Prepared to fight, she decides she’ll put Henry under the bed to protect him before making her move and grabbing the shovel that leans against a chest opposite the bed.

She hesitantly looks up and over the top of the bed, expecting the absolute worst.

Relief fills her chest at the sight of Killian standing there instead.

She rises to her feet. "What happened? I heard shots."

"I took care of them." He clearly isn't very distressed about what happened, but he trembles a little upon closer examination.

Emma crosses the room to stand before him at the door. "Are they gone now?"

Killian nods. "For the moment at least. They've taken my warning."

Acting on impulse, she wraps her free arm around his neck, burying herself in his grasp. He tightens his arm around her and she hears him sigh.

"I was worried about you," she admits softly. 

He allows her to rest in his embrace for a few solemn moments before he speaks. "How is he?"

Emma shuts her eyes and breathes him in, taking the moment to be thankful that they’re all safe. 

She takes a step back, looking at Henry where he hangs over her hip. He chirps and babbles, making her smile as she tugs at his little makeshift outfit.

"He's good."

Killian smiles softly when she looks at him, reaching out to tug at Henry's foot. "That's a lad. Did you keep Emma safe for me?"

Henry makes a noise that makes them both laugh.

Emma kisses the crown of his head and smiles when he decides to collapse against her collarbone with his hands clutching at her hair.

When she looks at Killian again, he admires her with eyes she's seen more often lately.

He's been getting better with Henry, but the little boy still prefers her company to his, probably because Killian refuses to hold him for very long. He helps when he wakes up crying in the middle of the night and sometimes sings to him and plays with him in the evenings when they're all gathered in the living room with nothing else to do.

"How are you?" she asks him. "Did they hurt you or anything?"

He shakes his head, a smile playing at his lips. "I was the better arm."

"Thank you," she says again, seriously.

He nods once. “How about you, love? Are you alright?”

She takes a breath, assessing, and nods. "Yeah. I am. Just a little shaken up, I guess.” 

On another instinct, she brings her hand up to his face, gently thumbing over the apple of his cheek. She feels him lean into her ever so slightly, his eyes falling shut briefly when her hand meets his face. “I'm just glad nothing happened to you."

His eyes are full of longing. It's downright ridiculous..

"Emma," he breathes out, shaking his head slightly.

She feels her chest tightening and she doesn't know what to say. She pulls her hand away and swallows at the lump in her throat.

He looks at her for a long few moments, then steps a little closer to her. He pauses and cradles the back of her head with his hand, pressing his lips against her forehead in a lingering kiss.

Without another word, Killian turns to go. 

Emma takes a deep breath, unsure what that was about.

/

She laughs with Henry when she has him sit in the tub to take a bath. 

He's happy to be in the water and he splashes her far too much, but she doesn't mind. Emma spends quality time scrubbing his hair and putting bubbles onto his nose to make him giggle.

Maybe being a mom isn't such a bad thing. In fact, she kind of likes it. A lot.

She wraps Henry up in a big warm towel and dries him off, cuddling with him on her way back to the living room. 

The front door opens and closes as she's wrapping Henry's make-shift diaper over him, smiling as he watches her with curiosity. Emma pokes his belly and he flails his legs, making her laugh.

"You are a very lucky boy, Henry. And I'm lucky that I met you."

She strokes up at his hair, making it into a little wispy mohawk before she pulls him into an outfit created by one of Killian's old tee shirts.

Henry kicks his feet and clutches at her hair as she kisses all along his little face. Her heart swells warmly.

"Hey, I love you, little guy. Do you know that? I love you."

Henry just blinks at her.

"I'm going to love you for a long time," Her heart races, because she's never loved anyone like this before. "I promise nothing is going to hurt you as long as you and I have each other."

Emma gives him another kiss to his cheek and sits with him in her lap, her hand pressed against his belly while one of his hands examines her other one.

She glances up, finding herself looking at Killian leaning against the doorframe. She wonders how long he's been watching her when he unfolds his arms and crosses the room.

Killian sits beside her on the sofa and she turns to look at him with a cautious smile.

"Did you finish working?" Emma wonders as casually as she can.

He nods and looks down at Henry when he chirps. 

"He's a noisy fellow, isn't he?" Killian asks, smiling a little.

Emma laughs, nodding in agreement. "He's really happy right now. He loves having baths."

Killian reaches in and strokes Henry's soft cheek with the back of his hand.

"You're good for him," Killian tells her softly. "You make a good mother."

Emma feels a blush fill her cheeks, something she thinks he must notice, because he smiles at her softly.

"Maybe the ocean brought us here for this," Emma muses. She turns her attention onto Henry. "I mean, since it'll probably never happen organically… this is my one shot at being a mom."

When Emma looks up at him, Killian furrows his brow at her in confusion.

She rolls her eyes at her own logic. "You know, because I do so much better on my own. I chase off decent guys and cling to stupid ones."

He hums thoughtfully. "And where do I fall in that spectrum?" She opens her mouth, her ears reddening and words not coming forward. He chuckles, resting his hand against her thigh. "I see."

Emma gapes at him. "It was just a kiss. I don't think that constitutes being on the spectrum. I thought you didn’t even want to consider… us being… involved."

Killian tips his head to the side in thought.

Her jaw falls open in mild surprise and she shakes her head. "We're only going to be here for another week and a half, Killian."

He stares at her for a few seconds and sighs, pushing his head down so he stares at his lap. "I know."

Emma stares at Henry. He's sleepy, his head drooped and his eyes falling shut.

"I know I keep asking you this, but, when we leave, what's going to happen to you?" she asks boldly. "Are you going to stay here?"

Killian stares at her, his gaze unfailing. "Emma-"

"If you can't tell me you don't want to come with me, then it's not worth the heartache."

Emma manages to smile at him, regardless of the tight feeling in her chest. She stands to take Henry into the bedroom to sleep. As she stares at the boy in his cradle, she thinks about the absurdity of it all.

He’s all on his own here. He has a clear cut way out if he leaves with them, but he won’t take it.

Determined, she marches back out into the living room and faces the sofa where Killian's still sitting.

"Why are you here? On this island?"

Killian looks up at her and shakes his head, wordless.

"You know that you're not cursed, right? You've had some horrible stuff happen to you, but that doesn't mean that everyone you care about has to die, or that you’re never going to have a life like you had before everything happened."

Killian clenches his jaw and stands up, clearly getting a little wound up by what she’s saying.

“Just because you're here, Emma, and just because we're friends, it doesn't mean I'm ready-"

"That’s crap. Don’t tell me you’re not ready.” Emma shakes her head. “You keep telling yourself that and you're never going to have any space in your heart to move on.”

He laughs, spiteful. “You’ve been here two weeks and suddenly you’re an expert on what I’m ready to do?”

“I want you to come home with us,” Emma argues passionately. “Okay? I want you to come home with me and Henry, and watch him grow up, and… meet everyone I love and learn new things and go new places…” Feeling weary, she sighs. “I want you to stop hiding out here.”

“I’m not…” he stops himself, falling quiet.

Searching his eyes, she waits for him to finish his reply, but he doesn’t. 

“You’re not alive so you can act dead, Killian.”

Pivoting fast on her heel, she goes into the bedroom, but knows they're not done with this fight.

/

The couch is an uncomfortable bed, but he's gotten more or less used to it in these past few days. He drags a blanket over him and stares at the wall across the room.

His heart races and his mind is a blur as he considers Emma's frustration over his choices. Maybe he's being stubborn, but it's for a good cause. His life has been one disaster after another.

Killian thinks about Liam, how strong his brother had been up through the end of his life. Liam probably wouldn't want him wasting his life away just as much as Emma doesn't.

On a grimace, Killian shakes his head. No, Liam's gone, so he doesn't get to have opinions, and Emma barely knows him.

But still, it feels like he's falling into the deepest, darkest pit and he's never going to be able to get out. The heart of him cries out in silence, begging him to follow Emma and Henry away from this island.

She wants him to. She wants him.

It terrifies him, the thought of living a life away from here. Especially after stranding himself here for so long.

Emma might be worth it.

/

She wakes to the sound of Killian's voice.

Her eyes open slowly and she realizes in a jolt of awareness that he's sitting at her side, his fingers pressed against her arm to try and shake her awake. 

The room is softly lit by early dawn's glow, and she'd think nothing of Killian being here, but they did just have both pirates and a pretty serious argument. His being at her side this early in the morning could be for anything, as far as she knows.

Emma pushes herself upright. Her eyes blink open wider and she forces herself to wake up as she asks, "What's going on? Is everything okay?"

She places her hands between her thighs and looks up at Killian, who sits in silence. He wears a dark expression on his face, something sorrowful knitting his brow.

Suddenly, he slides his fingers down her arm until he finds hers. Emma's eyes meet his in surprise and he smiles slightly.

"There are reasons," he tells her. "Reasons I didn't pursue you when I had every opportunity." He scans her face with determination. Clearly, he's trying to fight something in his mind. "But I'm tired of waiting on the demons from my past."

With her heart in her throat, Emma notices that there are dark circles under Killian's eyes, as if he'd been up all night thinking about the weight of the world that rests upon his shoulders.

If he’d been up all night thinking about this, then what she’d said to him must have been meaningful.

“I… don't..." Emma pauses. She shakes her head. This is something she never would have expected. Her fingers fit easily between his and she stares down at them with her heart still racing. "Killian, I don't want to get hurt when I can leave."

He smiles a little, his eyes absolutely flattering her with the way they light up with adoration. "I don't know if I'm ready to leave, but I know I want to keep you in my life."

She tilts her head, resting it on her shoulder. "Killian-"

He smiles as he mirrors her, clearly captivated by something about her.

"I'm terrified of what it means, but I want to be with you, Emma." Killian says solemnly. "When we kissed, it exposed something." Her gaze shifts back to his. Her heart races at the words tumbling from his lips. "I never thought I'd be capable of letting go of my first love, of my Milah, to believe that I could find someone else, that is, until I met you."

Her heart squeezes tight and she feels tears for no actual reason prickling at the surface of her eyes. She knows he's being serious, because of that deep, meaningful look in his eyes. 

Emma takes a deep breath, like the moment before taking the plunge, and leans in close to him. He's warm and kind when he kisses her, not demanding a single thing from her.

And as she kisses him, for real this time, she feels something she isn’t sure she’s had in a very long time. She feels hope so tangible that she almost worries that it’s too good to be true.

[innuendostudios]

Thoughts on Even More Games

[vague, unspecific spoilers for Heaven’s Vault, Later Alligator, and Life is Strange 2]

Thoughts on Heaven’s Vault

Heaven’s Vault is a game about archeology, which means it’s also a game about incompleteness. This is very clever. Inkle - also the developers of 80 Days, which I will play someday! - specialize in deep narratives that can be explored many, many ways, allowing for a lot of player choice. You make a lot of small decisions - do you share a discovery with the trader in exchange for a valuable item, or hide it so he doesn’t plunder it? do you go looking for your missing friend, or let her stay missing in case there are people trying to follow you to her? These all have their own little arcs and resolutions, and there are so many of them, and so many ways they can play out, that the game can never be played the same way twice. The overall story begins and ends in the same place and theoretically hits the same major beats, but the journey is tailored broadly and finely to each player; it’s a style of design Aaron A. Reed refers to as “not... a branching tree but a braided rope.”

Making a narrative about archeology is how you dodge the exponentially complicated nature of that design: if there are dozens of locations, characters, plot threads, bits of color, which can be engaged with at many points in time, or ignored, or dropped by the player halfway through, how do you avoid telling a story full of gaps and dead ends? Well... you don’t. Having only partial information and having to infer the rest is what archeology is.

The protagonist of Heaven’s Vault, Aliya, is digging up the secrets of an ancient civilization, having been sent by her academy to find a researcher who’s gone missing, and stumbling into his incredible discovery. Everywhere she goes, there are holes: she has partial understanding of the researcher’s journey and motives; he, in turn, had partial understanding of the mystery he was uncovering, and Aliya has only fragments of his knowledge; the ancient texts she translates are usually fragments of larger works, and she is guessing at the meanings of many of the words; the game’s constantly updating historical timeline has entire centuries with nothing but question marks. Aliya arrives in a new location and wonders aloud to her robot companion about what this place was, when it was founded, when it was abandoned, how her predecessor found his way her and where he went next and what he took with him.

The constant feeling of discovery - of unearthing - is magnificent. Site after site, I asked, “What is this place?” Always thinking, if the eventual answer is any good, this is going to be one of the best games I’ve ever played. And, in the end, it doesn’t give you an answer, it just give you enough to make the story feel complete. It answers by not answering.

Also, translating alien texts is just extremely my jam. I’m the weirdo who enjoyed the ending of Arrival but secretly wished the whole movie had been about xenolinguistics like the first half. I guess Inkle felt similar.

The game’s by no means perfect. I think I enjoyed the sailing between worlds more than most - it’s slow, but very pretty - but it’s going to discourage a replay. I don’t think the relationship between Aliya and her robot, Six, ever gets terribly interesting. Some of the archeology is a little too obviously game-y - sail around, wait to find a random ruin, beam Six down to grab an ancient doodad, translate a bit of text, lo and behold it’s from one of the sites you’re looking for and it’s narrowed your search radius somehow. (It gives Star Trek explanations the first few times - e.g. “it has radiation that only exists in one part of the nebula” - and then stops bothering.) And the game sags a little in the middle; it could’ve hacked out 3 or 4 dig sites and still given me the same experience.

But, all told, there’s magic in it, and it just feels good to be there. Do not sleep on this one.

Thoughts on Later Alligator

There’s not a ton to say about this game except that is charming as hell. Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera have build a beautifully animated world of cute alligators, one of whom is having a birthday party where he’s convinced he’s going to be murdered. He wants you to run around getting information out of everyone who’s going to be there, which you get by completing minigames. It’s a cast of weird and funny characters with weird and funny dialogue and there’s not much more to it than that.

The design can be a little frustrating. Some minigames, if you lose, you don’t get to try again. Some are annoyingly finicky. You need to complete them all to get the true ending, which means, in my case, playing the game three times to complete all the bits you missed or got locked out of. The ending was a little different each time, so it wasn’t a total wash, but the game’s on a timer that only advances when you play a game or take the bus, and once you’ve completed most of the games there’s a lot of traveling back and forth from one nowhere to another just to advance time to the next unskippable plot beat.

(It’s also a little unclear what you’re missing as you try to get the final ending, as some of the ongoing puzzle are optional.)

But I can’t get mad. The game is too damn cute! Each character is lively and unique, with tons of personality, and the dialogue is just clever enough not to fall into empty adorkability.

It good.

Thoughts on Life is Strange 2

Somewhere, early in the development of Life is Strange 2, some Dontnod employee wrote in a design document “Episode 4 - cult?” (but in French) and nobody told them “no.”

I will not forgive them for this,

After twenty minutes of LiS2, I was ready to yell at everyone who had reported it was boring. It has one of the most powerful, gut-punching openings of any game I’ve played in recent memory. And all through the first, second, and third episodes, I was in love. Unlike Before the Storm, this was its own creature, willing to make dramatic departures from the original game’s template. Instead of controlling a character with supernatural powers, you play as the superpowered character’s older brother. The one with the magic is a 9-year-old, unable to fully understand or control his abilities, suffering a recent trauma, and needing to be guided through a dangerous and racist world. All the ambition missing from Before the Storm is back, and this time the animation isn’t creepy and the writing is wildly improved (thanks to some journeyman script work from Fullbright’s Steve Gaynor) and I even have a computer able to play it on higher graphical settings.

But nothing good lasts.

Everything good about the series screeches to a halt in Episode 4, the one where some asshole said “cult?” and didn’t get a Nerf football thrown at their head. And it’s not just that it’s a terrible idea; it’s actually sort of amazing how much the game relies on an alchemy of plot, tone, theme, and writing, and how a slight imbalance can throw the whole thing off. Episode 4 has scene after scene that are powerful in their conception - brothers reunited after a violent rift; a boy having his first conversation with his estranged mother in nearly a decade; getting interrogated by the feds for a crime that can’t even be explained by physics - fall flat because the writers can’t think of anything interesting for the characters to say. (Steve Gaynor’s name stops appearing in the credits as of this episode.)

And here the game’s rickety bits, kept delicately together for three episodes, start to shake apart. Dontnod’s overly-earnest voice direction, which I didn’t notice in the early episodes, started to wear me down. (”Could you sigh mid-syllable, like you’re slightly overwhelmed with emotion?” “Sure, on which line?” “All of them.”) The thinness of the secondary characters, most of whom pop up for one episode and disappear, became more noticeable. The lack of a mechanical hook like the time rewinding of the original game, and the attendant commentary on choice-based games and power fantasies, made the game feel less substantial. The surreal imagery of the original, obligatorily evoked in the prequel, is sensibly absent, but there’s nothing equally striking that replaces it. Even the branching path decisions become less clear: the end-of-episode stat screens for the final episodes mentioned at least a dozen choices I didn’t even know I’d made, some of which were critical in shaping my younger brother’s morality and were not necessarily the choices I’d have made if I’d known I was making a choice at all.

Come the final episode, I got An Ending that seemed right for the way I’d played, but much of the way I’d played felt accidental.

So what are we to make of this? Life is Strange is a beautiful disaster, an ambitious disaster, where Life is Strange 2 is almost less interesting for being  more competent. It has a huge mess of charged topics - American racism, teens losing their virginity, raising a child outside the nuclear family, grief and trauma - and, while it handles them without the gracelessness and sledgehammer subtlety of the original, it doesn’t come to any conclusions about any of them. LiS1, for all its jank, had some opinions, where LiS2 falls into the category of “this sure is some shit, innit?” games.

It starts with a powerful premise, deeply relatable characters, fine writing, beautiful art, but can’t even manage, in the end, to be a disaster. It is the only game in the series so far to be forgettable.

[atinytokki]

𝐎𝐧𝐞 𝐭𝐨 𝐀𝐥𝐥

Chapter 12: The Execution

(Warnings: Violence and blood)

When the door slammed shut, Hongjoong felt like he could breathe again.

He couldn’t really feel much of anything at all anymore other than dull pains here and there, but he finally took a moment to absorb what was happening as he was truly alone for the first time in days.

A wave of relief washed over him when he realised everyone else was free now. If only they’d leave this place and never come back.

A storm was coming and it would consume everyone in its path.

Hongjoong was more distracted than usual during his daily chat with the Admiral, a fact that didn’t go unnoticed.

“I know there was another member of your company,” Kim barked, pacing the cell as his eyes burned holes into him. They didn’t bother with the interrogation room anymore.

“Where did he go?” the Admiral’s impatience was growing, so he motioned to Lieutenant Byun where he stood fiddling with his sword. “Will you talk if we burn you again? No? Maybe you’d rather freeze instead? Break his legs, Lieutenant.”

No, he needed those. 

Flogging was one thing, potentially permanent damage was different. Hongjoong searched the Admiral’s face and thought back to the first time he met him, trying to figure out why the man was determined to make him suffer. It hit him like a load of bricks.

“I didn’t know—” 

Hongjoong shifted to avoid the advancing Lieutenant.

“I didn’t know he was your son!”

The Admiral halted Byun with a quick hand motion and dragged Hongjoong up himself, tears brimming in both their eyes until the man gritted out a response.

“You had to have known he was someone’s.”

“Admiral, Prince Seonghwa is here to visit the prisoner,” Lieutenant Byun informed him, awkwardly clearing his throat until the Admiral dropped the prisoner and turned to see Seonghwa walking down the hall and stopping outside the occupied cell.

He was clothed in royal robes borrowed from his brother and he didn’t look happy.

It was unclear how much he had overheard.

Kim and Byun both bowed respectfully and the Admiral plastered a fake smile to his face. “What an unexpected delight. To what do we owe the pleasure?”

“That is my business alone,” the prince responded calmly. “How long do I have?”

“Five minutes,” the Admiral responded, face darkening. “We have a conversation to resume.”

Seonghwa nodded and shifted nervously as the guard unlocked the cell for him to enter.

“He’s your prince,” Kim snapped, turning back to Hongjoong. “Bow to him.”

After a brief moment of surprise, Hongjoong did as he was told, trying to quell his trembling but holding the pose until the Admiral grunted with satisfaction.

“Call the guard if you need anything,” Byun instructed Seonghwa as the two of them stepped out.

Hongjoong tilted his head in confusion. “Seonghwa?”

Seonghwa rushed forward to hug the prisoner but thought better of it and stopped in his tracks.

“That looks like it hurts,” he mumbled, motioning to the fresh bruises and bloodstains as soon as the officers had left them.

Hongjoong shook his head and scooted back to give Seonghwa room to sit comfortably. “It’s not bad. What are you doing here?”

“I’m... I’m just here to reassure you that you haven’t been abandoned,” Seonghwa chuckled nervously, careful to keep the dirt off his new robes. “I don’t think it was my word that got Yeosang and Wooyoung freed, but my brother will unleash hell on Kim if he tries to put them back, I’ve made sure of it.”

“Your brother, the Crown Prince,” Hongjoong smiled and shook his head. “I’m glad you finally reunited, even though it was undercut by this mess.”

“Well, it’s not over yet.” Seonghwa’s eyes glinted and he leaned in closer just in case anyone was in earshot.

“If we just get more time, we can sneak you out of here.”

Hongjoong was already shaking his head. “It’s not happening, Seonghwa.”

“I can smuggle something in like you did back at the Fortress, something to help you pick the lock and get out—“

“They’ll check you before you visit, you know that,” he insisted. “It’s not happening.”

“I can knock out the guards, then, and we can—”

“They’ll know it was you and your word upholding Wooyoung and Yeosang loses its merit. Or worse, they’ll assume it was one of them and we’ll be right back where we started. It’s not happening, Seonghwa. I mean it.”

“But what else am I supposed to do?” Seonghwa threw his hands up, exasperated. “Let them kill you? Because we both know that’s the only way he’ll be satisfied.”

“Just trust me, Seonghwa,” Hongjoong sighed. He’d been saying it since he’d been brought here and they all refused to listen to him. “This is a secure prison and the situation is just... it’s not happening.”

“Then that means...” Seonghwa put the pieces together slowly. “You’ll have to escape at the execution.”

Hongjoong nodded. He’d never had to deal with things going that far before, but there was a first time for everything.

“That’s if they don’t beat you to death first,” Seonghwa pointed out.

Hongjoong cracked a smile at the matter-of-fact way he said it.

“Don’t laugh!” Seonghwa was tempted to shove him but that idea was quickly discarded. “This is serious. You and your disregard for your own life. Unbelievable.”

Hongjoong sobered as he eyed the guard coming to collect Seonghwa. “I mean it, you need to trust me.”

“It’s always me trusting you,” Seonghwa pouted. “Why can’t it be the other way around?”

“I do trust you, Seonghwa,” Hongjoong said seriously, sliding back as the guard unlocked the cage and motioned for Seonghwa to leave. “I do trust you.”

Seonghwa swallowed his pride and left before the prison guards could get aggressive. The moment he stepped outside he had to wipe the emotion off his face.

He was Prince Seonghwa now.

His own bodyguards followed him all the way back to the royal residence. He was tempted to argue that if he could survive the unrestrained violence and near constant threat of his previous occupation, he could surely survive the walk back home.

But, of course, they weren’t supposed to know about that. And it was the first time he had even been allowed to leave the royal residence so he wasn’t pushing his luck.

The guards simply warned him that if he insisted on walking everywhere instead of going by palanquin, they would be walking with him. 

In Junhee’s room, he was free of them at last. The sun was setting through the window shades on a busy day.

The morning had been spent getting Yeosang and Wooyoung set up at the inn (across the hall from their previous room). Practically inexhaustible funds proved to be another of the benefits to being the long lost prince. 

Junhee had requested to have lunch with him and set him to studying the necessary materials for acting the part of a prince. That’s all Seonghwa felt like he was doing— acting— but he appreciated the instruction nonetheless, especially where it came to laws and regulations.

He had spent the rest of the afternoon listening for reports of San, searching the upper part of town for him. According to Wooyoung, he had been sent with the spellbook pages for help in the middle of the attack, and Seonghwa didn’t know where he might’ve taken those spells, but he wouldn’t rest until he found him and ensured his safety.

Coming up empty and tiring of being followed by bodyguards, he dropped by the prison to visit Hongjoong.

And now here he was watching the sunset and asking himself whether he was doing enough.

“What did you have for supper?” Junhee asked from his side of the room as he changed into nightclothes. “Chef Yoo tells me you didn’t turn up while I was dining with my fiancée’s family.”

“Street food in the market,” Seonghwa responded nonchalantly while he followed suit. He was more than glad to escape from the royal robes. It was nigh impossible to move with the silk constricting him.

Junhee sighed quietly before speaking up again. “Seonghwa, you can’t be seen in public running around and eating commoners’ food. At least not while you’re dressed royally.”

Seonghwa turned to look at him curiously. Implicitly, he was being told that it was fine to do whatever he pleased as long as he was undercover. That was to be expected from Junhee, though, considering the man had been undercover himself for years while he searched for Seonghwa. “Alright,” he agreed.

“It would still be prudent for you to dine with me,” Junhee went on, slipping the shirt over his head. “Your palette is nowhere near as refined as it should be if you’re to measure up to future in-laws.”

Seonghwa’s fingers got caught in a loop as he froze. Something told him Junhee wasn’t talking about his own fiancée. “Now, hold on, I didn’t sign up for marriage quite yet—“

“You’re taking it off all wrong, Seonghwa, let me help,” Junhee interrupted, hurrying over to help him undress and effectively ending the conversation about potential weddings there.

As soon as the cloth was pulled away, Junhee gasped at the state of Seonghwa’s skin. Tender flesh that had healed over an old bullet wound, a scar at the base of his throat— 

“You’ve been through a lot, haven’t you?”

He ghosted his fingers over the skin and he sounded worried but his voice was more sad than anything. He didn’t know what Seonghwa may have done to deserve such injury, but it was horrible fate that anyone at all, let alone someone of such noble birth had been treated so barbarically. If Junhee knew who gave him both of those scars it would help nothing.

Seonghwa looked down at the evidence of his own wounds and paused for a moment before answering. “It’s not all bad.”

Junhee smiled fondly and helped him get the rest of his robes off, handing him a fresh set of nightclothes. “How is the life of a pirate, then?”

“Surprisingly domestic,” Seonghwa grunted as he pulled the shirt over his head. “Try it sometime if you don’t believe me.”

“I don’t think I will, thanks,” Junhee laughed, settling into his own bed. “Not if it puts me at risk of whatever happened to you.”

He waited until Seonghwa was comfortable in bed too before adding quietly, “I can’t promise your safety, but as a prince you will certainly have more security than as a pirate.”

Seonghwa hummed gratefully but he knew deep down that he had seen too much to sit safely on a throne.

Not when he still had a week to save the necks of those closest to him.

...

There was electricity in the air and it made Yunho’s hairs stand on end.

The boat was a bit more work with only three of them setting sail this time but they were motivated and running low on time.

After what seemed like ages on the mystic’s island, it actually took an hour or two for them to adjust to the roll and pitch of their vessel. Yunho hadn’t been seasick since he first joined the ATEEZ but his dizziness was giving him second thoughts. 

“Mingi, I think we need to turn three points north or we might miss Namhae,” Jongho was saying, biting his lip nervously and looking at their charts.

“No, we’re on track, you’re just saying that because of the position of the sun,” Mingi argued back, pointing to the distant ball. “Time is back to passing normally now, remember? Just because it moves doesn’t mean we are.”

“Speaking of the sun,” Yunho broke in as he gazed at it. There was a loose halo around it, like a shadow of tiny droplets reflecting its brilliance, and he remembered the rhyme from his youth. “‘Ring around the sun, rain before the day is done.’ It’s exceptionally humid, we’re due for a thunderstorm any minute now.”

Yunho wasn’t born on the sea by any means, but he had done the work necessary to catch up and become an experienced seaman. That included learning to identify the signs of a squall.

“Exceptionally humid? I don’t think so,” Mingi shook his head and turned to look at the sun again. “It’s been humid all season.”

“And! Easterly winds,” Yunho said triumphantly, indicating the full sail. “A storm is travelling toward us from behind.”

“But it wasn’t storming on the island when we left—”

“That’s because the island is a magic bubble that doesn’t experience normal time or weather. Trust me on this, I can feel it.”

“Yunho is right,” Jongho interjected. “Unlike you old men, I can’t feel an air pressure change in my bones or anything but that is a pod of harbour porpoises over there and they are heading back to shore.”

All three of them watched as four porpoises in the distance sped underwater back towards the island. 

“And...?” Mingi pouted, failing to see the relevance.

“Porpoises always head to shore before a gale,” Jongho said with a roll of his eyes. “I thought everyone knew that.”

“Well, not everyone is raised by mermaids,” Mingi countered. “So you can talk to animals, too?”

“No, but honestly Mingi, you lived in a fishing village, didn’t you?” At this point Jongho was fully calling him out. “It’s the tail end of typhoon season and I know the signs when I see them. We need to prepare now, not when we’re being tossed by the waves.”

Mingi gulped and finally let his shoulders drop. Denying the inevitable wasn’t going to help. The wind ruffling his hair was proof of that.

“Alright, Yunho help with the sail, Jongho I’ll need you bailing when it starts to rain,” Mingi ordered before looking anxiously at the sky, waiting for it to darken. 

It was time to be a leader.

...

Nestled safely in a delivery bag strapped to a messenger while he rode his horse was a very important letter.

It was stamped with an urgent sign, as well as Admiral Kim’s own personal seal.

On the morning that Yeosang visited Hongjoong, the messenger reached his destination, trotted up to the front door, and left the letter himself in the hands of Head Navigator Kang.

My old friend,

Finally after these several years not knowing what became of your dear son, I am pleased to report that I have found him. He did indeed leave the service of Bang Si-Hyuk of his own accord, and I regret to inform you that he fell in with the likes of pirates. And not just any scum— the ragtag crew of the ATEEZ, a pirate vessel I’m sure you’ve heard of, for it is captained by Kim Hongjoong, protège of Eden. 

I’ve been hunting this ship for some time and while I can cheerfully announce that the captain is in my custody and due for a public hanging, his ship and crew still elude me. I also regret that I cannot tell you how your son became entangled with them, so I suppose you will have to ask him yourself.

I am quite occupied at present but if you would like to collect him and bring him home (and dare I suggest, talk some sense into him) he is staying at the Jihada Inn, Namhae Island. I’ve kept an eye on him while he’s been staying there and am willing to accommodate you when you arrive though I may be busy with other matters.

Safe travels and Long Live the King,

Admiral Kim Junmyeon

...

Yeosang forced a smile while he was led back through the jail halls, halls he had wished never to see again, until they left him alone in the cell with Hongjoong.

Hongjoong was the only reason he had come back to this place. He would just as soon leave it behind as another of his darkest memories, but he owed it to his captain to keep him informed. And he owed it to Wooyoung to go in his stead and spare him any further emotional distress.

The captain in question was sitting against the wall, fast asleep after what had probably been days. Yeosang gave him a minute of peace, watching his chest rise and fall gently, before shaking him awake.

His bright hair had faded to a dusty pink in the dullness and darkness of his cell, but he pushed it out of his eyes and craned his neck to look at Yeosang.

Blinking at him lethargically, Hongjoong checked the otherwise empty hall.

“What happened to Seonghwa?”

“He’s looking for San,” Yeosang sighed, settling into a crouch. “The Admiral is searching for him relentlessly. It may be the only reason you’re still alive, actually.”

Hongjoong hummed in agreement. As morbid of a thought as it was, it was probably true. The Admiral was greedy and he wanted to wipe out as much of the ATEEZ as he could in one fell swoop.

“We’ll visit you as often as we can, in shifts,” Yeosang was talking again, voice a little softer now. “The Admiral has allowed it. The Navy’s not completely barbaric, you know...”

It was supposed to reassure Hongjoong, but all he could do was shake his head. “Yeosang, you realise the moment you leave...” He stopped himself before he ruined the mood. There was no use dwelling on those things.

Instead he couldn’t help but let out a chuckle. Yeosang looked at him curiously. “Why are you laughing?”

“Just thinking about the role reversal.” His expression softened into a smile as he explained. “It was the other way around at the Fortress island. I was walking free and you were the imprisoned one.”

“But Hongjoong,” Yeosang scoffed. “This is different, they’re trying to execute you!”

Hongjoong frowned. Why did Yeosang always feel the need to downplay his own suffering?

“I told Mingi something after that experience and it’s still true,” Hongjoong said after a long pause. “I’d rather be dead and free than behind bars for the rest of my life. I mean that.”

“Well I’d rather you stay alive,” Yeosang whispered with a halfhearted smile. He was trying to be hopeful, and Hongjoong appreciated it, but he could see how nervous Yeosang was.

“Don’t do anything stupid. We’ll have you out of here soon.” The guards were already coming to collect him.

It was like he had forgotten everything Hongjoong had said when they were imprisoned together.

Hongjoong nodded anyway and hugged him before watching him go. He smiled the whole time for Yeosang’s sake, but he knew it was impossible. There was no way everything could go back to normal.

Yeosang would be dragged home, and he would be dragged to the square to be hung. That was where his fate would be decided, not in this prison.

Yeosang realised that he was shaking halfway through the walk home. It was so much easier to just forget the prison, forget the Admiral, forget their “conversations”... 

And yet the moment he returned to the inn he had Wooyoung’s broken finger confronting him.

“It’s healing fine,” Wooyoung reassured him gently over dinner. The mood was a far cry from the meal they’d shared there as a group of four. “Look, I can even hold utensils properly...”

Yeosang forced a smile again (he’d lost count of how many it had been) and pushed back his own plate. It felt wrong to be eating when Hongjoong was probably starving.

“No, no, come on,” Wooyoung tutted, taking his hand to grab his attention. “I know what you’re thinking. But you haven’t eaten properly in days, you need the nutrition.”

Yeosang shook his head and dropped it into his hands. Here they were in this hotel, dressed in brand new clothes, with enough money to buy them every meal for the rest of the week thanks to Seonghwa, and yet it didn’t feel like the healing time it was supposed to be.

“We’re not doing enough. I’m not sure what else we could be doing, but we aren’t doing it.”

“Yeosang, we’re recovering,” Wooyoung whispered, drawing back and lowering his eyes. He sounded hurt, and Yeosang itched to comfort him, but where could he even start?

He stayed silent until they were alone in their room and preparing for bed. Wooyoung held a bowl of water, seemingly to wash his face, but was frozen staring into it, clutching the edges with a white knuckle grip.

“I can’t,” he whispered suddenly. “I can’t do it.”

“Do you... need help?” Yeosang offered, knowing full well he hadn’t so much as been able to look at a water basin until today. 

Wooyoung glanced up at him and nodded, holding out a washcloth. So Yeosang washed his face for him, wiping dirt and tears away, and murmuring what comfort he could.

“We’re recovering,” he repeated his own words back to him, and wondered if helping Wooyoung heal was helping himself heal as well.

When he lay in bed fighting nightmares and phantom pains, he rolled over and watched Wooyoung sleep.

If staying sane was all they could do for now, Yeosang was dead set on doing it.

...

Seonghwa tried not to flinch as his hair was tugged back to fit his new crown.

His blonde had been dyed back to black at Junhee’s request. He said it looked more royal and wanted the two to match, and that was fine, but Seonghwa remembered the day he dyed it to blonde with a pinch of sorrow.

They had been happy on that island, even if only for a day. 

Seonghwa stared at himself in the mirror while attendants helped him into his ceremonial robes and wondered if they’d be able to go back someday, when all this was over.

“You look stunning,” Junhee complimented him with a giddy smile when he climbed into the palanquin. “Are you ready to greet everyone?”

“Yes,” Seonghwa said after a pause. It was true, he did want to learn and he did want to meet his new subjects, even if it was an inconvenient time to have a royal parade through Namhae.

Seonghwa felt uncomfortable with the way they treated him. It was always difficult to trust when you’ve been kicked down your whole life only for everyone to declare they love you one day.

Still, he smiled and waved when the curtain was pulled back and citizens lined the streets to throw flowers and gifts in their path.

It was only some cheering men and swooning women, Seonghwa could handle it.

The masts of ships craned like necks above the seaside houses and, noticing the absence of one he recognised, Seonghwa got a strange feeling in his chest.

“Take us by the port,” he requested, keeping the shaking out of his voice as long as he could while he came up with an excuse. “I miss the sea breeze on my face.”

Junhee nodded sympathetically and repeated the order for the palanquin bearers.

When the harbour was in view his suspicions became confirmed.

The ATEEZ was gone.

...

When Yeosang returned to visit Hongjoong that evening, he didn’t even bother forcing a smile.

He had received a particularly unpleasant message that morning and didn’t know who else to go to.

“My father is on his way to- to bring me home. I don’t know when the Admiral called him or why Seonghwa didn’t put a stop to it but...”

His voice broke and Hongjoong’s heart broke for him. 

“But everything is falling apart now and I can’t even do anything about it,” he sobbed.

This time it was Hongjoong pulling him into a hug and hanging on tight for as long as he was able.

“I fear I’ve only brought you pain,” Hongjoong mumbled when their time was almost up and Yeosang had realised this was goodbye.

“No, on the contrary. It’s been an honour,” he sniffled, and he meant it. Hongjoong’s shirt was in shreds and practically hanging off him but Yeosang clung to it anyway.

His father was on his way and this might be the last chance he got for who knows how long.

“He’ll be here soon. The winds are with him.”

“You’ve been tracking the winds while we’ve been on land?” Hongjoong was amazed.

“I have,” Yeosang shrugged and his cheeks glowed with embarrassment. He was shy Yeosang again for a glimpse of time and not the burdened shadow he had become. “Habit, I guess. But if only tracking the winds could slow them.”

Hongjoong saw his shoulders fall and tilted his head, thinking of a way to lighten the mood. “Even if he locks you up in a high tower, you know we’ll come rescue you, right?”

Yeosang shoved him playfully, careful of his wounds, before sobering to say what he felt he needed to as the guards warned him of the time.

“I usually like to be alone,” Yeosang admitted. “There’s comfort in solitude and I’ve always appreciated it, but with all of you... I feel like I can actually hear myself think. The decks of the ATEEZ are my home, not that big empty house. And I won’t forget it.”

Hongjoong simply hugged him tight, pressing a kiss to his forehead and watching him leave with heavy steps, leaning against the bars as the air left his lungs.

The two of them had come a long way.

...

Admiral Kim was at his wits end. Every trail that was headed towards the escaped pirate led only to failure. It was as if someone had perfectly covered his tracks and Kim knew it was too expertly done to be a mere pirate.

Only one day until the execution remained and he was done waiting. He’d beat the answer out of the prisoner they did have, or they’d send him to the gallows alone and hope the escapee wandered into their clutches.

A mere five minutes in and it was clear they’d be going with the second plan.

Hongjoong made sure of it.

“Stop getting back up!” The Admiral screamed. He had pushed them both to the edge of sanity, himself included. “You’ve no parents to mourn you, your mentor is at the bottom of the sea, your crew has abandoned you, and I’ve wiped out the rest of your kind. Whatever escape you have up your sleeve is pointless, you’ll live in fear the rest of your life and I’ll hunt you down and kill you. So stop getting back up!”

He punctuated each word of his final line with a blow and then panted from his impromptu speech, glaring at Byun’s concern at his apparent frustration.

“That’s enough for today,” the Admiral muttered before storming out.

Hongjoong didn’t bother trying to resist the sweet release of sleep. Tears collected in his eyelashes but he couldn’t blink them away anymore. They stung faintly where they ran in salty tracks and mingled with open wounds, but Hongjoong barely registered it.

The Admiral was right about one thing; this would all be over soon.

...

“Did you know about this?” Seonghwa sighed, gesturing to the empty spot at the marina. That’s where the ATEEZ was supposed to be.

He’d met the others there in the first watch of the night to discuss what they could before Yeosang was dragged back home. 

Both Wooyoung and Yeosang shook their heads. “Everyone’s separating,” Wooyoung realised quietly, eyes flitting over to Yeosang who remained silent. “And there goes our ride off this island.”

Seonghwa pinched his nose and forced an exhale. He was one incident away from a mental breakdown at this point and all he could do was mutter frustratedly, “Captain is going to be executed tomorrow and even as royalty I can’t do a thing to stop it.”

“Come now, surely he can’t be hanged without due process,” Wooyoung grasped for something legitimate. “And with no evidence and no one to speak for him...”

“Plenty of the Admiral’s own men will speak,” Yeosang finally sighed. “Against him. They believe they have good reason and that they may execute him. He’s a proven pirate, no matter the circumstances, and our country has no mercy for pirates.”

Wooyoung pinched his skin in some unconscious effort to pull a solution out of himself. “What’s he thinking?” He whined.

“Why doesn’t he just tell us his plan? It’s more likely to succeed if we help him, isn’t it?”

It was also more likely that they’d be hung with him if they plotted alongside him.

“The Fortress was his test of trust,” Yeosang whispered, nervously watching a distant ship as it approached. “I think this one is ours.”

...

“Shouldn’t we be taking in sail?”

Jongho had to yell to be heard above the wind and the cracks of thunder.

He repeated his question twice, all while bailing bucket after bucket of water out of their sorry boat. She was persevering now, but the seams were wearing thin and Jongho didn’t know how much longer they would hold up.

“No,” Mingi finally answered him. “We’re going to run the storm. We have the wind at our backs, it can speed us to Namhae.”

“Or it can tear us to shreds,” Jongho returned, frustrated. It was a battle of wits between their puny boat, sped by the wind, and the wind itself with all its ripping strength. “We don’t have spares, can we really risk it?”

“She’ll hold,” Yunho promised, gripping the ropes tightly in his hands. “I’ll hold her together myself if I have to.”

A flash of lightning just above them sent Jongho’s heart leaping. He had always been frightened of thunderstorms as a child, and he supposed he had never really gotten over that fear, only contained it to keep it from showing.

It was a storm on the beach, after all, that had led him to the mermaid cove. And his dreams had stormed inside him ever since.

Jongho had beaten those dreams, he’d beaten their odds, and he’d beaten the crystal that inflicted them to tiny shards. He could beat this thunderstorm too.

He let the rumbling sound wash over him before breathing deeply and helping Yunho close-haul the sail. 

His muscles were fatigued and his clothes were rain-soaked but he felt alive in that moment and he knew they all had the same feeling.

They could beat this.

...

“That’s your father arriving, isn’t it?”

Sure enough, the swinging lanterns reflected on the water belonged to a Navy ship that was coming in. Head Navigator Kang stood at the bow, and he looked displeased to say the least.

So that was why Yeosang had brought his luggage to the docks.

Seonghwa embraced Yeosang quickly, pressing their foreheads together and promising him he would reunite with him again, then slipping away before he was spotted.

Wooyoung clung to Yeosang until the last possible second.

A clanging bell signalled the ship’s arrival but Wooyoung wanted nothing more than to turn it around and send it back to sea.

He and Yeosang had to stay together. Even in a Navy prison, even if they risked death, they had to stay together. And here was this man who called himself Yeosang’s father, arriving only to separate them.

“We’ll find each other again, too, won’t we?” He swallowed nervously but Yeosang’s nod was reassuring. 

This entire business had come around at the wrong time, just when the crew had surrendered everything, just when they’d ended their quest and committed to choosing their own paths.

“When the time is right, we’ll meet again,” Yeosang declared. “I don’t care who gets in my way, I’m taking my life back. And I know you’re meant to be in it— all of you.”

Wooyoung pulled him into one last hug, rocking with the force of it and forcing his sobs to stay inside. 

Even as he pulled away and walked up the gangplank, disappearing belowdecks without even a spare glance at his father, Yeosang’s words echoed in Wooyoung’s head. When the time is right...

The tears were sticky on his face and he turned back towards the town with purpose the moment the ship had left his sight.

He had someone else to say goodbye to.

Wooyoung hadn’t seen Hongjoong since he’d left his own jail cell, but the bedraggled form lying behind bars hardly looked like the same person.

“Let me in!” He screamed at the key keeper. “Let me in, do you hear me? You’re killing him, please, just let me—”

More to cut off his complaints than anything, the guard unlocked the cell and hurriedly closed it behind him as he rushed in 

“Wooyoung?” A faint voice left the sorry lump that was his captain and Wooyoung rushed to take him in his arms just to know he was still alive. Hongjoong protested the movement and pushed at him the moment he drew back. “You shouldn’t have come. You need to leave, all of you.”

Wooyoung wanted to punch him for saying such a ridiculous thing, but his fist withdrew as his eyes found the bruises littered across his captain’s body.

“I’ve made my peace with this,” Hongjoong whispered, squirming like he was exposed. “All I can ask is that you try to do the same.”

“No.”

“No?”

“You haven’t made peace with it— not really! Those are tears in your eyes, I know you’re afraid...”

“Not afraid for myself. I know what I’m doing.” He’d said it a thousand times and it figured to Wooyoung that he’d say it again. Hongjoong’s shoulders slumped with the pause that followed and he met his eyes again, heartbroken. “I’m just sad that I have to leave all of you behind.”

“Then take us with you,” Wooyoung’s voice came out in a pathetic whimper, but he could no longer stifle the sorrow working its way up his throat.

“You don’t understand,” Hongjoong coughed until his voice was hoarse and looked back up at Wooyoung to whisper to him, “This place will burn, I will not let you burn with it.”

“No. No, sir, I did not watch you come back to life before just to let your misplaced altruism get in the way again, please...” Wooyoung knew it was hopeless but he was fixed to his spot. It was abandoning ship or disobeying his Captain and both were dishonourable to him. 

He stayed in the middle ground like that until the sharp voice of the guard warned him of the time.

Finally he released a long and trembling breath, as if drawn out of his very soul.

A year ago he would have run the other way at the first whiff of trouble. But here he was now, wholly undone at the thought of losing one who had somewhere along the way become dear to him.

When had any of these pirates become dear to him? Wooyoung could not for the life of him remember.

“Trust me, Wooyoung,” Hongjoong insisted one last time. “Get out of town, I’m begging you.”

“How will we find each other again?”

“I’ll find you,” he whispered. “Keep a weather eye on the horizon for me.”

Wooyoung would not have been able to leave the cell without that promise.

He needed them, too, like he needed air to breathe, and more than he had ever cared to admit. 

He hurried to the hotel to pack his things. The rest of the crew may be unreachable but there was still someone out there who could use his help.

He was going to finish what the others had started.

He was going to find San.

...

Mingi opened his eyes to a rare moment of near stillness in a world that was always moving.

The sunrise peeked through dispersing storm clouds behind them and the boat was still in one piece, with all of them inside it.

Mingi cracked a fond smile at Jongho’s bedhead, more of fluffy bird’s nest than a head of hair, and reached out to smooth the strands back into place.

Jongho opened a tired eye before accepting his fate and waking up fully. On his other side, Yunho stretched and went to check the hold for food and water.

“We made it,” Mingi croaked, his already deep voice made scratchy from yelling orders all evening.

Jongho nodded solemnly and looked around to see where they were. The birds swooping low above the waves seemed to excite him. 

“Land is close,” Mingi agreed. “Namhae, if my calculations were any good at all.

“Ship to starboard,” Yunho reported, mouth already full of what food they had left, but taking his duties seriously anyway. “No, actually, ships to starboard. Multiple.”

Mingi’s brow furrowed and he moved to the bow to see for himself. Even through the telescope he couldn’t tell yet what colours they were flying but they weren’t the Navy’s.

The Navy would have made the most sense considering the “grave danger” the mystic had described, but Mingi knew to be cautious anyway.

It wasn’t just one ship, it was at least a dozen. And they circled in the water like sharks, waiting for something.

Could this be a sign of the war she said was coming?

“What is it...?” Jongho asked, stifling a yawn and joining him at the bow. 

“Unexpected traffic outside Namhae.”

...

The sun was bright, the air was cool and slightly salty, and it was execution day.

Seonghwa couldn’t eat. He could barely move without troubling his stomach. Junhee had told him it was fine if he didn’t want to come, thinking he was sparing his brother more violence that could just be added like any other incident to the list of unfortunate experiences he had endured.

But he insisted on going, because he needed to see for himself. He needed to be there in case Hongjoong’s plan— whatever it was— took a turn for the worse.

The brothers arrived early in the square and listened idly to the crowd as they gossiped. Pirate executions in the morning were just more free entertainment to the rabble of Namhae.

“I’ve heard he’s of short stature actually,” a woman to his left tutted to her companion. 

“Nonsense,” came the scandalised response. “My brother survived his attack on their ship last fall and told me he was quite the figure— fiery eyes and bright clothes and at least six feet tall.”

“He must have mistaken another pirate for him then,” the first voice argued in a high pitch. “Or else he’s been wearing very tall boots.”

“Well I don’t think they’ll hang him in those, so we’ll see how tall he is for ourselves, won’t we?”

Seonghwa scoffed that this was what the audience concerned themselves with.

“Do you think we’ll tar him before or after he hangs?” A guard was giggling with another. Seonghwa choked on air and put as much distance between himself and that guard as possible. 

He quit trying to peer over heads at the end of the road and went to his brother’s side.

It was no use because Junhee’s conversation was equally foul.

“I’ve decided to display the body by the harbour when the deed is done,” Admiral Kim chatted as if he were discussing the pleasant weather, not killing a man. “It will most certainly deter any followers from resuming their criminal activity in the absence of their leader.”

Seonghwa shook with rage while the man sauntered over to the rest of his regiment, but held in his remark at the hand Junhee placed on his shoulder. “Try to calm down,” his brother whispered urgently. “There’s nothing to be done.”

Seonghwa nodded and clasped his hands together. He would need every ounce of sanity left in him to get through this event.

The buzz of the crowd intensified as the star of the show appeared in the street.

He was dragging his chains with him but stood strong with his nose pointed high. Seonghwa was still stiff with worry but thankful Hongjoong had his dignity with him at least.

And no, he was not wearing boots.

He hadn’t spotted him yet, eyes fixed on the gallows that awaited him at the end of his march, and Seonghwa wasn’t sure if he wanted to be spotted. It was inevitable with the royal entourage accompanying him, but Seonghwa was still afraid to even be watching.

A tomato hit Hongjoong squarely in the face and the speed with which he turned his head to find the culprit was frightening.

Intimidated enough, no one else dared to throw fruit while the red juice dripped off his cheek.

Until he turned back around and another came flying, this time missing its mark and soiling the uniform of one of the guards escorting him.

Hongjoong’s laugh rang out and Seonghwa tried to relax, willing whatever mysterious rescue was coming to his captain’s aid to get there now while they were distracted.

As Hongjoong caught sight of the princes, his smile waned. His eyes were full as he was led the rest of the way up the platform, but he didn’t utter a word to blow Seonghwa’s cover.

Hongjoong maintained eye contact until the noose was forced over his head and he turned to look at the Admiral.

A cold blooded man exacting his vengeance.

The smile that shone on his face made Seonghwa sick.

“Any last words?”

Any minute now, any minute now...

“I’ll say my last words when it’s time for them,” Hongjoong bit back, glaring at the Admiral as if he’d gladly die burning holes into him. “So I’m afraid you’ll just have to wait.”

The executioner unlocked his cuffs and offered him a bottle of ale. It was simple courtesy, after all, to supply the liquid fortitude themselves.

“Why are they unbinding him?” Seonghwa whispered to Junhee, fighting back a glimmer of hope.

“They want to watch him struggle,” the Crown Prince answered sadly. “It’s cruel but it can’t be helped.”

Seonghwa didn’t even bother responding, pulling his clasped hands to his mouth and holding his breath.

Any minute now...

Drums were beating loudly as Hongjoong downed the bottle and smashed it on the ground.

“You’ll regret this,” he whispered, already feeling the rope chafe his neck. It was angled to snap it as soon as he was dropped, or else subject him to the slow death of asphyxiation, and the executioner’s hands were itching to pull the lever.

“By decree of Admiral Kim on authority of His Majesty the King as duly appointed representative, this man, Kim Hongjoong, is convicted of piracy and sentenced to hang by the neck until dead.”

Now a soldier was rattling off a scroll and Seonghwa was seconds away from grabbing the gun of the guard nearest him and targeting the Admiral himself.

Any... minute...

The reading was finished and the man stepped off the stage. It was the Admiral who gave the signal. 

The drums stopped beating and Seonghwa caught his breath. There weren’t any minutes left.

The lever was pulled and the floor opened with it.

An explosion shook the town hall, blowing out the windows in a blast of fire, and foreign soldiers poured into the square, bullets flying every which way as the crowd dispersed.

Seonghwa lost sight of Hongjoong in the screams and chaos, but made to run to him when a bodyguard blocked his path.

“Prince Seonghwa, we need to get you to safety—”

“No, I need to see,” he argued, grabbing the man to shove him out of his way. “Please, just let me...”

But the guard was stronger. 

Seonghwa felt himself be dragged off, out of the square, and down the street before he got his feet under him and brushed the man off. He would much rather go willingly, if he had to.

Suddenly, he was worried for Junhee and searched the writhing crowd for him, with the sunlight catching on the gold and jade of a crown driving him in that direction.

“Seonghwa!” Junhee had seen him as well, grasping his hands and running with him while the guards formed up around them like human shields. There was a bleeding cut in his cheek from the graze of a bullet. A couple of inches to the right and Seonghwa would have become the crown prince just like that.

Shots were fired from every direction and suddenly Seonghwa was afraid they wouldn’t reach the residence fast enough.

The sudden squelch of the man next to him being hit and immediately trampled in the crowd confirmed it, and he drew his gun and fired it at the offending soldier. 

The man’s face was shocked as he toppled over and Seonghwa had no time to ogle his foreign uniform, the likes of which he had only seen in paintings and history books.

“Hurry, Seonghwa, this way,” Junhee panted and his grip around Seonghwa’s wrist tightened. His vision had gone red and he shook so violently it almost interrupted his strides as he ran full speed toward the temporary palace.

He didn’t know why war was breaking out around him or how Hongjoong was connected to it, but he hoped it didn’t kill him before he got the chance to go back for him.

If this was the escape plan, it was already backfiring.

...

“What do we do?” Yunho asked with his voice hushed as they drifted closer and closer to the mysterious ships.

“They’re all congregated in front of the island,” Mingi pointed out. “We’ll just have to try to pass them.”

Yunho nodded and tacked accordingly. It was up to Mingi now to steer them through the cluttered harbour space, aiming for the spit of land that was visible to them.

They only made it within range of the closest ship before they were being fired upon.

Yunho stumbled back from the edge of the boat and drew his gun to return fire while Jongho covered him.

“What are they thinking?” Jongho grumbled, indicating the mast. “We aren’t flying colours, we look like a civilian boat. What do they mean by firing on us?”

“It’s not just us,” Yunho gasped as he spied plumes of smoke rising from the town. It was being sacked right in front of them.

And not by pirates, these were soldiers.

This was a planned attack.

He was shaken out of it by a cannon shot landing in the water right in front of him and hurriedly rifled through their stores to look for anything they could defend themselves with.

Jongho succeeded in picking off a few of the enemy’s gunners but their bullets were nothing to the fleet’s heavy firepower.

“We’re going to be blown out of the water,” Mingi panicked, just barely steering them out of the way of a cannonball headed straight towards them.

Yunho turned to congratulate him, but even before he could get the words out another shot came flying from a different ship and landed in the middle of their boat.

The boat seams that had held up so beautifully in the storm were undone in seconds and before he knew it, the boat was sinking.

“The sail!” Mingi yelled until water washed over him and garbled his words. “Save the sail—”

Yunho threw himself at the mast for support, losing sight of the Jongho and Mingi. The lightweight fabric of the sail covered him and he had to kick viciously to keep himself from being drowned. 

Planks popped up out of the water all around him, riddled with grapeshot the moment they surfaced and as Yunho floated in to shore under the canvas cover of the sail, he dipped under the waves frantically, looking for the others and praying they hadn’t been shot.

He caught sight of an unconscious Mingi and dragged him over to the sail, wrapping his limp arms around the mast and slapping his back until he coughed up the water he had swallowed and came to.

Mingi started and opened his mouth to speak but Yunho shushed him. The enemy was searching above and would smoke them out of the wreckage if they so much as breathed too loudly.

“Jongho...?” Mingi whispered hoarsely, already assuming the worst, and Yunho was prepared to dive back under to look for him when a hand grabbed his leg firmly.

It was Jongho, breathing easily underwater and motioning ahead at the island.

“He’s going to push us,” Yunho realised, nodding his consent and clinging onto the mast himself as Jongho swam hard beneath the waves, nudging the fallen mast along at a pace that hopefully looked natural from the surface.

Yunho kept his gaze on the land in front of them. It was burning and crying out and he needed to know what was going on.

While shells rained down around him, his thoughts went to the other officers probably caught in the chaos of the town.

They needed to find them and get out of this place, before the situation got any worse.

...

“You want to go back out there?” Junhee was completely and utterly shocked at Seonghwa’s foolishness. “Absolutely not!”

They had only just arrived at the residence and bolted themselves in while the chaos outside quelled into an aftermath and guards by the dozens were stationed all around them, the blood of their brothers-in-arms swimming in the streets.

And Seonghwa wanted to go back out there?

“Hyung, if you would just listen—”

“They’ll kill you the moment you step outside, Seonghwa, this is not a conversation we need to have,” Junhee said firmly, wiping his cheek with a cloth more aggressively than was necessary.

The slice in his skin stung a bit, but it was nothing to the bullets lodged in some of his guards.

The moment he got his hands on whoever was responsible—

“Hyung, please!” Seonghwa took him by the shoulders and forcefully turned him around.

As soon as Junhee’s attention was on him, the words he was trying to ask seemed to be stuck in his throat.

“At the execution, the pirate, I need to know, is he—?”

“Dead,” Junhee answered quickly, eyes fastened to the windows. More assassins could arrive any minute. “He’s dead, I watched him fall.”

Seonghwa dropped to the floor in shock.

When Junhee turned back to look at him it was like he had been struck into a stupor. 

“He was your friend,” Junhee realised out loud, as if he hadn’t really guessed the significance of that fact before. Seonghwa had been one shove away from the edge all week and now it made sense.

“Junhee, he... he was...” Seonghwa trembled and clamped a fist over his mouth to trap a sob. “Please tell me you saw wrong, I’m begging you, please...”

A whimper escaped him when Junhee couldn’t answer and it was the gateway to a flood of tears that couldn’t be stopped.

Junhee muttered nonsense while he held him, shushing his cries before they attracted the enemy.

He had assumed that his brother had requested the freedom of the pirates out of his own misplaced kindness, out of the purity of his character. After all, he had travelled with them and lived to tell the tale.

But Seonghwa mourned as if his own heart had been snapped on that rope and he was lonely and friendless in a world of murderers.

If he didn’t take a deep breath soon he was going to pass out.

“Please, Seonghwa, I need you to calm down—”

“How would you feel?” Seonghwa suddenly yelled, pulling away with his wet face an angry red. “How would you feel if I was taken from you?”

“You were taken from me,” Junhee argued. “And I didn’t rest a single day until I found you again.”

“Then how can you tell me to be calm? How can you tell me to be quiet? He’s never coming back, Junhee, and it’s my fault but it’s yours too.”

He stumbled back until he was on the floor again with a fresh wave of tears coming on. “It’s my fault...” his voice broke and his weeping began anew.

Junhee felt pity grab hold of him and he rushed forward to hold Seonghwa again. He felt horrible for arguing back like that, when his brother was clearly lashing out in pain. There was nothing else he could do for the present but rub his back and let him cry it out.

A knock at the door made them both nearly jump out of their skin.

“Who is it?” Junhee called roughly, fingers inching toward his gun.

“It’s Lee, Your Highness,” came the familiar voice of the head bodyguard. “A messenger has come from the palace.”

Junhee bade them enter and gasped at the blood leaking from the messenger’s back. “He was shot on the way here,” Lee explained. 

The man kneeled before the princes and caught his breath, grunting the message that had almost cost him his life.

“Your father is dead. Assassins from the  Haemin Kingdom killed him, as they intend to kill you.”

Seonghwa’s ears were ringing.

“Our country is at war.”

...

Hongjoong’s eyes shifted under their lids until he mustered the strength to open them.

A flake of something stuck to his eyelash, and from its white colour he presumed it to be snow. The first snow of the winter.

The ground was cold underneath him and a chill worked its way to his heart before he realised he must be dying.

It was ash, not snow. The island was burning.

The white that filled his vision was raining down as screams pierced the air and dispersed with the wind. 

No visions had come and it didn’t seem to Hongjoong like his neck was broken, but he didn’t have another experience to really compare it to.

Hongjoong giggled as boots flashed across his vision. Suddenly he was a boy again, washed up on the beach while someone dragged him out of the waves.

How ironic that he, a pirate, lay there motionless again while soldiers ransacked the town. 

But no Navy soldiers; enemies of another kind.

The laugh caught in his throat and blood bubbled to his lips. His brow furrowed in confusion because he didn’t remember being shot. 

Maybe it was the cough racking him that scraped up his throat. Hongjoong was too tired to care.

The sun was veiled behind clouds just thick enough that he could look without being blinded. He made out its perfect shape, laboured breaths soothed by its presence.

Were his parents waiting for him?

Hongjoong was tempted to find out. He liked to think he had a choice in these things, just as it had been his choice to set sail and to stand for his men.

His men.

They were more than that to him. And he hoped as his eyes fell shut that they were far away, together, and safe.

But what he wouldn’t give to see them again...

He didn’t want to die alone. He didn’t want to die right now at all— he was supposed to make it. The attack was supposed to come just a minute earlier than it had.

He had asked them to trust him.

The sounds faded with every moment the darkness advanced. The world closed in around him and suddenly it was night.

Hongjoong strayed in his mind to dreams he had never visited, and patiently waited for the answer.

What next?

...

Taglist: @serendipityunho @celestial-yunho  @nightynightnyx @atzjjongbby

A/N: Okay congrats, you made it, take a few deep breaths!!!!!!

This volume of Treasure is officially concluded 🎉 but don’t worry I’m already hard at work on the next one. I think, in terms of interactions, this has been the most successful so far so thank you so much guys and please anticipate the next instalment :)

I’m always free to hear your comments, thoughts, theories, incoherent screams, etc on Twitter @tiny_tokki or my CuriousCat or wherever else you find me. Have a good one and see you next time <3

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[damian-dreamz8442]

Missing in Action Part II

Hola, back with the second half of the fic. Should I link Part I here?

Psych, I already did. 

BTW this is NOT canon compliant and I do not even try to be accurate at all, just in character. 

Basic re-cap (spoilers) Damian is missing, kidnapped by a pack of goons in clown makeup, right out from under Dick’s nose. Afterwards he got a call from the Joker saying he has Damian, and gave Dick a bit of a clue as to where. 

Meanwhile, the Joker is very angry over the fact that he doesn’t actually have Damian, and the little punk is, in fact, nowhere to be found. 

Dick called the batmobile to his location, putting it on autopilot as he was in no condition to drive. His pounding head was only a minor distraction compared to the all-encompassing worry over Damian. He needed back-up if he was going to find Damian. 

Stephanie was, unsurprisingly, the first to answer. “Batman?” She questioned, no doubt noticing Dick initiated a group call with her, Cass, Tim and Jason. 

“I hope this is quick, Batman,” Tim added, keys clacking audibly in the background, “I’m in the middle of a case with the titans and-”

“Damian is missing.” Dick blurted, abandoning code names. 

“What?” Jason barked. Dick could hear Cass narrow her eyes. 

“He was kidnapped on patrol,” Dick explained, “a pack of goons took him, wearing clown makeup.” 

“Oh my god.” Stephanie breathed, at the same time as Tim’s “the Joker? He’s back?” 

“We don’t know that.” Jason reasoned, voice tight. “There are copy cats of the Joker all over Gotham.” 

“I got a call.” Dick cut his brother off, trying to focus his eyes on the road despite not being in control of the car. “A payphone, somehow he knew I would still be in the area. He gave me a clue.” A really messed up, useless clue. Dick hated even remembering the words as they came along with that familiar nasal voice. He’d written down the message, scrawled hastily on a sticky note in his belt, but somehow he’d dropped it in his panic. 

“He said he took Robin to ‘the place little robins go to... die’.” Dick ignored his voice crack, hoping the others would as well. 

Tim’s typing stopped, “like actual birds or-”

“The warehouse.” Jason growled, eliciting a curse from Dick. “You don’t think...” Jason’s only response was a grunt. 

Jason’s constant death jokes insured that at least they all knew which warehouse he was referring to. It did nothing to instill confidence in Dick. 

“How long do we have?” Tim asked as Dick went about changing the coordinates in his GPS. 

“It’s the Joker,” Jason grumbled, emotion lost from his voice in a transparent way of blocking out old memories, “we’ll be lucky if Damian’s even recognizable when we get there.” 

The line went silent, the implications heavy on the group of siblings. Dick wished for the thousandth time that Bruce was there. He could’ve stopped all this, surely. Dick didn’t have time to think about the irony; losing his first robin the same way the first Batman lost his robin. Dick wouldn’t let his brain go there. He couldn’t. 

Damian finally made it back to the street Dick was supposed to be on. Between limping and sticking to the shadows as much as possible in red and green, it had taken him nearly another hour. Quite the pathetic display, Damian told himself. No doubt if his father had been alive, he would’ve been disappointed. 

Despite it being two hours, Damian was at a loss when he found the alleyway deserted. There was a creepy box, mostly broken, and a stuffed clown face that laid decimated not far away, but no Batman. Damian did not like the idea of limping all the way back to the manor. His ankle pulsed with constant pain, it was getting harder to breathe around his ribs, and the cuts littered all of his limbs had yet to stop bleeding. It was tempting to just sit against the wall and wait for someone to come along and put him out of his misery. 

Instead, Damian limped over to a phone booth across the street. The receiver was unhooked, emitting the most sound, second only to Drake speaking. Damian hung it up with a grimace. He was surprised it worked at all, considering no one used phone booths anymore. Unless they were desperate. Which Damian was. 

He was about to try to remember the number for Wayne manor, when Damian noticed something yellow discarded haphazardly outside the phone booth. It wouldn’t have been of much interest to him, except the handwriting was unmistakable. 

Dick had used the phone booth and carelessly left behind a note. No doubt he was over reacting to Damian being missing, but at least it ensured he was alive. The note made little sense. 

‘Where little robins go to die’, who would even come up with that? Damian made a face at the sickening notion. 

Sluggishly, Damian’s brain aligned the clues. Dick thought he was missing, already on a scale of six of worry. He and Tim categorized a scale of worry for their family. Dick was almost always a five, Damian had never seen Jason rise above a two. 

Someone had called him on the phone booth, obviously. It was unlikely Dick’s communicator was broken in the skirmish and even if it was he wouldn’t think to use a phone booth. For what purpose? He could just call the batmobile. 

So some sicko had called the phone booth and given Dick the message. A clue perhaps? Damian read it again, allowed his mushy, bruised brain to comprehend the words. Wished he was as good a detective as Drake. Bashed the intrusive thought with a mental crowbar. 

Crowbar! Damian would’ve smacked his head if it didn’t already hurt so much. Finally Jason’s fatalistic sense of humor came in handy; his cause of death ingrained in the back of Damian’s mind. A rather dark turn of thought, but Damian was more results oriented. 

The Joker had beaten Jason with a crowbar, then killed him, in a warehouse on the other side of Gotham. It never did get rebuilt, but the Joker had erroneously threatened to do the same thing to Damian. Despite it being a lie, Dick would believe it. He didn’t know Damian escaped. 

Great, just great. How unbelievably fantastic. What an amazing turn of events, now Damian would get the absolute privilege of walking all the way across Gotham, trying to catch up with Dick who was probably a hair shy of a ten. If Damian was wrong well... that would really suck. 

Damian was really starting to understand why Joker was the most disliked criminal in the batfamily. (There was a vote. Ironically, they all like Harley Quinn the most.) 

With no other options, Damian began limping in the vague direction of the infamous warehouse. A street later, he passed a marooned motorcycle. After that, his night got much better. 

Dick ran across the grounds of the warehouse district to find the rest of his siblings not far from the remains of the blown up warehouse. Cass had a hand on Jason’s shoulder, while he quietly muttered about not letting Damian die the same way he had. It was cruelty on another level, this scheme of the Joker’s. Dick just wanted his robin back. 

Tim and Steph were formulating a strategy. Well, Tim was, having pulled up an overhead view of the warehouse rubble. Steph kept suggesting they go in fighting, get Damian, and set Joker on fire. Tim pointed out eight reasons that would not work. 

Dick stood next to Jason, taking a deep breath. “I don’t think we have time to wait, or make a plan.” He shot an apologetic look at Tim, “we just need to go in, canvas it, find Damian-”

“That’s what Joker wants!” Tim insisted, gesturing lamely to the building. “He probably has some game set up, or the entrance rigged, and we’ll all get blown up!” Jason bristled at the prospect of being blown up again, noticeable only to Cass. She squeezed his shoulder. 

Suddenly, a sharp disc cut through the group, lodging in the tree behind them. They all looked at it in shock, Joker’s logo laughing at them. It blinked to life, emitting a hollow cackle. 

“You’re too late!” Came a raspy voice. It hissed, a pathetic amount of laughing gas bubbling out of its edges. The frisbee was not meant to do damage, the real threat...

Dick spun around just as ruins of the warehouse let out a sickening crackle and exploded. Again. 

“No!” Dick screamed, lurching forward. Cass jumped in front of him to hold him back, eyes trained on the building. Jason couldn’t tear his eyes from the flames, memories and horror clutching him. 

“No, no, no, that can’t be it!” Tim insisted, burying his hands in his hair. “It’s... it’s the Joker! Where are the mind games? The... the...” 

Stephanie crashed to her knees, gaping at the scene. “What just-what just happened?” 

“Damian...” Dick’s voice cracked painfully, throat raw. He could feel the heat, there were debris floating down. Cass hugged him tightly. 

Jason spun around and punched a tree, it was unclear if the following crack came from the wood or his knuckles. He let out a furious growl, which morphed into an anguished roar. “I’m. Going. To. Kill. That son of a b-- !” 

Damian nearly stopped his stolen motorcycle as he saw the warehouse rubble go up in flames. What the... who would go through the trouble of blowing up that heap of cement? He could only hope Dick wasn’t in there, it would be just like him to do something stupid without Damian. 

Finally making it over the grassy hill - one of the few greenspaces in this area of Gotham - Damian ditched the bike. He was about to hobble forward when he heard a haunted wail from none other than Jason Todd. Damian broke into a run, despite his bodies protests. 

Had Dick gone into that building? Was one of them hurt? Damian could see his whole family gathered not far from the explosion. He could barely breathe, thanks to his ribs, and tripped on his ankle. He was panting by the time he got close enough to call out to them. 

Are you ok?” He straightened to talk to Jason, the only one looking at him, “what happened? Sorry I’m late, but someone ditched me in central Gotham and-” 

His whole family spun to look at him. Jason looked close to tears. Dick was crying. Stephanie was on the ground. Maybe she was hurt? Before Damian could ask, Dick was running full speed at him. 

“Robin!” His voice was thick with relief as he swept Damian into a hug. Normally such contact was unwarranted but not uncomfortable. This time, could Damian just say, ow. 

“Batman, release me!” Damian managed through gritted teeth, his ribs screaming at the pressure. There were definitely a few broken. 

“Robin, I can’t believe... you were... and then we!” 

“Batman! My ribs!” Dick let go immediately at the pained sound of Damian’s voice, supporting the boy as he doubled over painfully. He looked up to find his whole family gathered around him in concern. 

There were hands all over him, noting his injuries, bracing his ankle, rubbing his back. Someone - Todd, probably - even took advantage of the situation to mess up his hair. It was too much to keep track of, making him dizzy. 

“What happened?” He asked, batting the hand away from his hair. 

“We thought you... you were in there.” Stephanie finally explained, pointing at the burning cement foundation. 

“Joker, he... I saw you?” Dick was still unable to formulate a proper sentence. 

Damian scoffed, which cost him dearly as pain seared through him. It took him another second to get enough breath back in his lungs to explain. “I got away from those buffoons in like... five minutes.” Two hours, but who was counting. 

“Your ankle. Ribs. Head.” Cass countered. Ah, her hands were bracing his ankle. 

“Well, I didn’t get away entirely unscathed.” 

“We were really worried about you.” Tim’s voice was choked with emotion. He was rubbing Damian’s back. Damian couldn’t help but look at him in shock.” 

“So you all rushed here... to try and save me?” 

“Obviously!” Jason scoffed loudly. “Always.” He finished, locking eyes with Damian. 

Damian cleared his throat - another act that rendered him speechless in pain for a few seconds. “Thank you for coming. As you can see, I’m fine.” The siblings shared an incredulous look. 

“Is that Damian for ‘my body frigging hurts and I want to go home’?” Steph asked, leaning down to Damian’s level. He glared at her. “No, I’m-” he was about to say ‘not even that hurt’ but then Cass let go of his ankle to stand and Damian nearly fainted. To his utter mortification, a pained whimper left him. 

“Oh, lil’D, c’mere.” Dick cooed sympathetically, slowly gathering him up. This time he was mindful of Damian’s ribs. Damian would not admit that a huge wave of relief washed over him as soon as he was being carried, weight off his ankle and head cradled on Dick’s shoulder. 

“Put me down. I can... I can walk.” Damian’s protest held no heat, it was basically a whine. Dick leaned his cheek on Damian’s head softly. That was all it took for Damian’s body to finally give into the darkness. 

When Damian came to, he was in the batcave on a bed next to Dick. Dick was holding his hand, half asleep, pristine bandages wrapped around his head. Despite the calm scene next to him, the batcave was anything but. 

Tim and Cass were playing a video game on the huge monitor - correction, Tim was losing against Cass in a video game on the huge monitor - while Jason and Steph cheered them on. Alfred was cleaning up medical supplies when he noticed Damian’s attempt at awareness. 

“Master Damian,” Alfred greeted with a soft smile. Dick jerked awake, already grinning. “Dami! You’re awake!” The game was paused as four more people came rushing to his bedside. 

Damian hated being on pain meds. The sight of his family being so worries about him was enough to make him want to hug them. Humiliating. 

“How are you feeling?” Tim asked. Before Damian could bite back with a harsh ‘fine’, his emotions betrayed him. 

“Thank you,” he muttered, surprising no one more than himself. “Thank you for always coming for me.” Damian bit back the rest of his words, and the tears. He refused to be as pathetic and young as they expected of him. 

Dick saw right through him, he always did. He reached over and hugged Damian - something that was quickly becoming a normal action, not that Damian could bring himself to mind. “We love you.” 

[yodawgiherd]

Toss a coin

Rating: T

>>>Read on AO3<<<

Setting: AU, the Witcher universe

Prompt: I'm a huge fan of the Witcher universe as a whole, both books and games, and with the Netflix series coming out, which I really liked despite some flaws, I got this idea of doing a story in a similar setting.

So if you are a Witcher fan same as me, then I hope you will like this, at least a little bit. :D

Enjoy!

It was damn cold when Mikasa woke up, cat eyes opening into a chilly winter morning. Rolling from underneath her blanket, she stood up and stretched, feeling the muscles in her back protesting. How long was it since she last slept in a real bed, weeks? Months? Mikasa exhaled, watching her breath turn into smoke in front of her face. Honestly, it felt like years. Armin was still fast asleep, clutching his lute to his chest as if that piece of wood was his lover. He woke up quickly however, when Mikasa nudged him, used to harsh awakenings from their time on the road.

“Damn, my balls are freezing.”, he croaked, groaning all the way while climbing out of his sleeping place.

Mikasa couldn’t help but grin.

“I thought your voice was the only thing you cared about, bard.”

“I need my voice for work,”, Armin coughed, his usually honey-smooth vocal cords not agreeing much with the cold, “I need my balls to have fun.”

He looked up at Mikasa with a dry smile.

“Not everyone is happy with just sitting in the dark and oiling their swords, some people actually like having fun, you know.”

She chose not to answer that.

“Need to take a piss.”, she said.

Armin spread his hands, indicating the vastness of the empty forest around them.

“I’m sure the trees won’t mind.”, eyes sliding over where their saddlebags were lying, “I’ll make us something to eat.”, he added.

She left him there, taking care of her basic need while letting thoughts slowly come back into her tired brain. It was cold, and getting colder still, soon it would be impossible to survive on the road. Her mutations allowed Mikasa to handle it better than normal people, but winter roads were dangerous even for a witcher like her. And Armin had no mutagens to protect him, of course, meaning that what felt chilly to her must have been arctic for him. Mikasa wasn’t even sure why he tagged along, but anytime she did ask he simply shrugged and said that she’s his friend. A frown appeared on her face. Friends were such a weird concept.

Armin had a small fire going when Mikasa returned, warming some water in the old travel-size cauldron for tea. Their supplies were thinning, Mikasa needed to restock, and restock soon, otherwise she might end up chewing the bark from trees come next week. The bard’s cheery attitude seemed dampened, not only by the coldness but also by something else, but before Mikasa could ask he spoke up.

“We’re broke.”

Mikasa shrugged.

��So?”

Not like she was swimming in money during any time of her life. Scraping by was the witcher’s kind of life, and she accepted that long time ago. Armin, however, disagreed.

“Let me rephrase,”, he began, “We have no money, the winter is starting, oh and by the way we have no place to wait out the cold in. I know that I often manage to make some gold by performing my songs during winter but...”, he shook his head, “I haven’t written anything new for a long time now, and people remember my old ones.”

“On a creative dry streak, I take it?”, Mikasa popped a piece of dried meat into her mouth, “How terrible.”

“You can stuff your sarcasm.”, he shot right back, “My songs have carried us through many hard times, so keep your criticism to yourself.”

The witcher just shrugged, opting not to remind Armin that while his songs were surely helpful, they also caused a fair deal of trouble. No need the sully the bard’s pride.

“As I was saying,” Armin went on, “we need to make some cash, and fast, and I can’t really be of service.”, he gestured around the tiny camp, “This is hardly a creative environment for me.”

He had a point, Mikasa had to say, with the winter around the corner and their coin supply being practically non-existent, she had to rake up something that would allow them to survive. Killing drowners for a quarter a gold per head wasn’t it. Picking her brain for a solution, she chewed the meat absentmindedly.

“There’s a town nearby,”, she guessed, only half sure from the foggy memory, one of the drawbacks of her long lifespan, “I think…”

“Better than nothing,”, Armin pointed out, “Let’s go there after we eat.”

It didn’t them long to chew through the dried meat and hard bread, washing down the meager breakfast with the weak tea. Neither of them complained, they were used to it. After stomping out the fire and readying their horses, Mikasa straightened in the saddle, trying to guess which way the city was. North, she decided, praying that she’s correct.

They were lucky. Judging from the increasing amount of traffic around them, and the roads that seemed to pop out of nowhere, the city must have been growing closer and closer. Mikasa didn’t mind the cold that much anymore, now that she was on the move, eyes alert and on the road, sword strapped across her back loosened in its sheath, ready to be drawn at a moments notice. Seeing an armed and prepared traveler made the others shy away from her, hardly giving her a second glance which suited Mikasa just fine. Simple precautions, yet quite effective. Next to her Armin didn’t seem to be faring that well, huddled in his coat and shivering from time to time. Mikasa had to get him somewhere warm, and preferably fast.

As on cue, the city walls sprung out into view, old and battered yet standing strong. The gate was open with two bored guards leaning on their pikes staring into the passing crowds. The younger of them noticed Mikasa first, nudging his comrade with the butt of the weapon to wake him up. As she and Armin drew close, they crossed the weapons, for once doing their job. Not that Mikasa was surprised, a witcher was rare enough of an occurrence that guards usually wanted a word. And female witcher? That was unheard of.

“Hail.”, greeted the older guard, a burly man with a wild beard, “What is your purpose here?”

“Work.”, Mikasa replied curtly, nodding towards her sword, “Monster slaying.”

“A girl witcher?”, asked the younger one, staring into her face with squinted eyes. “That is unusual, ain’t it?”

Mikasa opened her mouth to speak but was cut short when Armin nudged his horse forward, taking the lead.

“Come now, lads, haven’t you heard the songs of “The Deadly Raven”? The slayer of the mighty manticore? The savior of the city which was cursed to sleep forever?”

“Aye,”, said the younger one, “I just never reckoned that the Raven was a girl, is all.”

Mikasa snorted, pushing her short-cut midnight hair, the reason why Armin named her Raven in his songs, away from her face.  He usually left the hero’s gender unclear in his songs for a good reason, the tales of a woman warrior weren’t as believable as if it was a man, no matter what the truth was. She usually didn’t mind but being questioned by this baby-faced teen just because she lacked a cock did irk her.

“Well, as the author of those songs, I can attest that Raven is indeed a woman.”, Armin went on, “The one accompanying me, in particular.”

“Oh, master Arlert!”, the older man’s face all lit up, “It’s you! Are you going to perform here?”

“I might. If I ever get through the gate, that is.”

“But of course! Here.”, drawing his pike back, the guard frowned at his younger buddy until he mirrored his movement, letting them pass.

“I hope to catch you at the inn!”, he shouted as they passed.

Armin rode in with a renewed self-esteem, chest all puffed out as if he’s just been granted the title of a count.

“See,”, he whispered to Mikasa, once they were out of earshot, “I told you that my songs are useful.”

Pressing her lips into a thin line, the witcher chose not to answer. Again.

There was only one inn at the town, but it looked decent from the outside, and the stablehands were quick to help them with their horses which was already a big plus in Mikasa’s book. The innkeeper, a portly middle-aged man, greeted them with a smile that froze on his face when he noticed Mikasa’s yellow pupils. Armin was too busy to speak, covertly staring at the serving girl’s arse, although Mikasa couldn’t really blame him as it was a very nice arse, so she cleared her throat and stepped forward.

“We need a room.”, she pointed at herself and the bard, “Food too.”

“Room and board for two,”, the innkeeper muttered, “That will be…”

“I… uh…I don’t really have the money on me,”, Mikasa interrupted him, “But I promise to pay any prize when I finish some contracts here in the city.”

There was a notice board at the wall with scraps of paper nailed there, suggesting that there was at least some witchering work to be found. If it paid well was another thing altogether. The innkeeper’s expression turned sour, but luckily Armin had finally spoken up.

“Do not worry, good man, for I am the great bard master Arlert! There is no question if I or my present company will pay our debts.”

The innkeeper didn’t look impressed.

“Who?”, he shrugged.

The way Armin’s puffed out chest collapsed and that cheery attitude he had ever since the guard at the gate recognized him disappeared was so delicious that Mikasa wished she could bottle that moment and keep it with her forever. The crestfallen bard took a step back, muttering something about backwater city, but before he could truly irk the innkeeper the portly man looked back at Mikasa, recognizing her as the true brains of the operation.

“You’re a witcher I take it?”, he asked.

Mikasa nodded, mentally preparing herself for that “Women can’t be witchers” sentence that was sure to follow. Yet it didn’t.

“There’s a mage in the city,”, the innkeeper said instead, “who’s been looking for a witcher recently.”

Mages. It always came down to mages. Mikasa cringed inwardly, her face twisting. The innkeeper must have noticed the change in her expression, quickly reacting.

“Master Yeager was nothing but good to us, miss witcher, he’s not like the others.”

Meaning that this mage had at least the tiniest shred of human decency and wasn’t just another power-hungry politicking maggot who cared for nothing and no one but his own gain? Yea, Mikasa would really love to see that.

“Look,” the innkeeper continued, “if you give me your word that you will go see master Yeager tomorrow, I’ll give you the room for free. Food too.”

Those were fighting words, and Mikasa could see how Armin’s face brightened from the corner of her eye. Free food and warm place to sleep in for nothing but a promise that she’ll go see this mage tomorrow was a tempting offer. The implication in the innkeeper’s voice also suggested that should Mikasa refuse his offer, he’s going to kick them out. Another night of freezing outside or swallowing your pride and agreeing to go to meet someone Mikasa already despised, a dilemma really. Would she be on her own, Mikasa would probably walk right out of the door, but remembering how much the cold affected Armin stopped her from doing it. He didn’t deserve to suffer for her boneheadedness. So, with a sigh, she surrendered.

“I’ll go to see your mage.”

The food was warm and surprisingly good. After eating, one of the serving girls showed them their room, a clean place with two narrow beds, Armin quickly claiming the one father from the door. If there were some unwanted guests in the night, it would be better if they met Mikasa first. Sitting down on her mattress, she could feel her body yearning for the soft hug of the bed. Way too long since she slept in the bed. Mikasa was on the road for a better part of the year, meeting up with Armin about a month back, and as usual, he tagged along for a time. The witcher disliked company, but Armin didn’t care about that, and Mikasa had learned to tolerate the bard over the years. Not that they traveled together very often, the hard life Mikasa led wasn’t much suited for Armin, but a few weeks in a year her journey was enhanced by his songs. The bard told her that he’s tagging along mostly to collect new materials for his songs, to watch her exploits and immortalize them, but Mikasa had the creeping suspicion he also simply wanted to keep his loner friend company. To keep her mind from wandering in that direction, Mikasa stripped from her armor, inspecting the pieces. The drowner pack did a number of it, the bites of the creatures could still be visible, imprinted in the leather. There was also the thing with the chainmail on her lower back missing, torn away by that unfriendly forktail she hunted a month past. But armorers were expensive, and despite the forktail yielding a hefty bounty, Mikasa simply couldn’t afford to have it fixed.

“Mikasa? Can we talk?”, Armin asked from the other bed, watching her work.

Putting the piece of armor down, as there was nothing she could do right now anyway, Mikasa looked up.

“Sure, what’s up?”

“Why did you accept the innkeeper’s offer? You hate mages.”

“I don’t hate them,”, she corrected him, “I simply don’t trust them.”

“Yet you agreed to talk to the guy.”

“Not like I had a choice.”

“But…”

“Why are you even grilling me this much?”, she snapped at him, “I got us a room, food, everything, and yet you still won’t shut up!”

Armin stared at her for a moment before nodding and lying down on the bed.

“You’re right, I’m sorry.”

He turned away from her, facing the wall, and Mikasa was left on her own. She was tired and pissed off, mostly because of that damn mage, but none of that was Armin’s fault. She shouldn’t have shouted at him.

“Armin?”

He hummed.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s all right,”, he said, “I shouldn’t pry.”

He sighed, turning back over to face her.

“I’ll do my best to perform and write a new song to make us money during winter. You can take the time off, I’ll take care of you.”

“Just like you took care of that bruxa once?”, Mikasa felt her lips turning upwards, “I’m pretty sure I still have scars from that.”

Red-faced, Armin turned away from her again, pride wounded.

“Goodnight.”

Lying down on her own bed, Mikasa sighed in pure pleasure at the softness beneath her. Damn, maybe this bed was worth meeting that mage. Closing her eyes, she allowed herself to drift off.

To her surprise, this mage didn’t even live in a tower. The house she was standing in front of, after following the directions from the innkeeper, was big, but it wasn’t a lavish mansion of any kind. It looked practical, with sober exterior and few tasteful decorations around, for example the metal head etched above the entrance, one that seemed to watch her. Shrugging away the unpleasant feeling, Mikasa raised her hand and knocked, fully expecting one of the mage’s servants to open the door. It wouldn’t be a magic user if he didn’t have a whole group trailing after him, bright eyes boys and girls hoping that he will pick them as his pupil, showing them the secrets of magecraft. Yet she was wrong, again, as instead the carved head above the door woke up.

“Reason for your visit?”, it asked in a neutral voice.

“Uhm... I was told that the mage here was looking for a witcher.”, Mikasa tapped the medallion on her chest, “I’m one.”

The head stared at her for a moment.

“Acceptable.”, it finally said, and the door opened, letting Mikasa in.

Even the insides of the house weren’t overdone, much to her dismay, instead they looked practical, with neat rows of books and scrolls. Following the corridor, Mikasa was taken to a large room where the neat cleanliness gave way to the chaos of work, the tools, scrolls, and books lying kind of everywhere while a figure stood at the table, back to her, absorbed in his work.

“Take a seat,”, the mage said, not bothering to look at her, “I’ll be with you in a moment.”

Mikasa could have picked a free chair, out of all that were standing in the room, but just to spite the guy she chose that one which was covered in books, pushing them to the ground where they clattered loudly and then taking a seat, propping her feet up at the nearby dinner table, sending more books crashing down. And still he wouldn’t look at her. Unable to see what he was doing, as his back was turned, Mikasa watched as he quickly mixed something with precise movements, checking his progress in a scroll before adding a bit of something else, making whatever he was doing emit colorful smoke. Apparently satisfied, the mage stashed the thing away, finally turning and making his way to where Mikasa was waiting, choosing to sit down on the table she rested her feet at, a bit too close for the witcher’s tastes. If he noticed the mess she made, he didn’t comment on it.

Up close, Mikasa could finally inspect the mage, her eyes darting all over him. He was tall and muscular, but she wasn’t surprised by that. One of the first things both mages and sorceresses did was enhance their physical looks, making them most desirable by common peasants. It made them feel superior, Mikasa guessed. Focusing on his face, she was a bit taken aback by the gruff look, knowing that mages preferred the smooth out of this world beauty which would normally be unobtainable. Instead, Eren’s face was handsome but in a very down to the earth way, with a sharp line of his jaw covered by a stubble created by few days of avoiding the razor. Long brown hair, tied back in a messy ponytail with stands escaping. And his eyes, green and sharp, yet somewhat tired and with dark circles underneath. He studied her too, brows drawn together, and Mikasa was once again expecting the classic “how can a woman be a witcher question.” And for the second time in a very short time period, she was wrong.

“That’s a nasty scar,”, the mage said, pointing at the long-healed cut beneath her eye. “how did it happen?”

“A fiend’s claw,”, Mikasa answered automatically, surprised by how genuine his voice was, “I wasn’t fast enough.”

He didn’t sound as the sneering superior being she expected him to be, Yeager’s voice was warm and honest and surprisingly normal. Weird.

“I’m Eren,”, the mage cut into her thoughts, offering her his hand, “Eren Yeager. A mage.”

“Mikasa Ackerman of the wolf school.”, his grip was tight and Eren’s hands were calloused, an unusual occurrence for a mage, “A witcher.”

Greetings out of the way, Eren leaned on the table, watching her with interest.

“I supposed you’d like to know what the job is about?”

“I would.”

“It’s a rescue mission.”

“A rescue mission?”

He nodded.

“A good friend of mine has been captured by a quite unpleasant third party, and I would very much appreciate if you could liberate her.”

She stared at him.

He stared at her.

“Why don’t you save her then.”, Mikasa shrugged, “You’re a mage.”

“It would be too… bothersome…”, Eren’s eyes darted back towards his experiment, “I’m busy.”

Nope, Mikasa wasn’t buying that.

“You’re lying.”, she said, “Either tell me the whole truth or I’m walking out of here.”

The grin that spread on Eren’s face was completely mirthless.

“And here I thought I could pay you enough that you won’t ask questions.”

“You can’t.”, she shut him down, “Talk.”

Eren spread his hands in surrender, shaking his head.

“You want the whole story? Fine.”

Reaching towards his waist, he produced a small bottle and took a sip, offering it to Mikasa after. Seeing her shake her head, he shrugged and stashed it back, throat wet enough to speak.

“This friend I’m talking about, her name is Krista and she’s a mage.”

“How surprising.”, the sarcastic remark made its way past Mikasa’s lips before she could stop herself, but Eren didn’t seem offended, going on with his story.

“I have worked with her on a few projects, and I can tell you that she’s the nicest, cheeriest person you’d ever meet. A very good sorceress too…”

Mikasa didn’t suppress her yawn, which seemed to amuse Eren.

“To get to the point, recently, she’s made a certain discovery that shook the wizarding world. In other words…”, he took a pause to make sure Mikasa was paying attention, “she got pregnant.”

Okay, that got her attention for sure.

“Impossible.”, Mikasa disagreed immediately, “Mages can’t have kids.”

“And witcher’s aren’t women.”, Eren pointed out, “Yet here we are.”

“You’re joking.”, she accused him, unwilling to believe what he claimed.

“I assure you I’m not, and the reaction of the rest of my colleagues was very similar to yours. But when they found out that Krista is indeed with child, the awe grew into…. jealousy.”, Eren sighed, “Krista was unwilling to share her secrets, didn’t want to tell how she managed this incredible feat. And as you can guess, others didn’t take it very well.”

Whatever was next wasn’t very pleasant to talk about, as Mikasa could judge from the way Eren’s hands gripped at the edge of the table, knuckles bleeding white.

“They kidnapped her.”, he hissed, “Locked her away and are experimenting on her right as we speak, trying to force her to give up her secret.”

“That’s disgusting.”

“You tell me.”, Eren shook his head, “And the others? We have made a formal request for Krista to be released, but formal requests take time to process, time in which the ones who took her are free to do what they want. But we have been told that there’s nothing that we can do, and harsh actions would face consequences from the whole mage guild.”

His gaze swung at Mikasa, eyes burning into hers.

“I can’t do anything personally without having the rest of mages on my back the moment I act. I can’t hire mercenaries to help Krista because that could be traced back to me. But a lone witcher…”

He let it hang in the air, waiting for Mikasa to respond.

“You want me to do your dirty work for you.”

Eren nodded.

“That’s one way to put it. The other is to say that I beg you to rescue an innocent woman from the clutches of greedy sorceresses who would prefer to cut her open alive to see how she managed to do what she did. The mission will be very dangerous, no doubt, but I have faith in you. I know that you will manage to do this, Mikasa.”

To her own surprise, Mikasa found that she liked the way Eren pronounced her name, how the syllables rolled from his tongue. He was looking at her with an intensity that she didn’t expect to ever feel from a mage, she always found them cold and alien, a bit of lizard like, but Eren didn’t fit any of those criteria. He was warm and close and very much leaning into her personal space to get the urgency of his message across. He would beg her to help, she realized, this proud mage would fall on his knees and beg her to save this Krista, and that realization alone gave her a pause. She should ask about money, how much was he willing to pay, what the dangers were and other vital things, but instead, Mikasa found herself nodding.

“I’ll do it.”, she said, the finality of the words ringing in the room, “I’ll save your friend.”

A dazzling smile spread on Eren’s face, one that made her feel dangerously warm beneath her armor.

“I’m sure this is a beginning of a very profitable partnership.”, he said, voice smooth to rival Armin’s.

On her part, Mikasa wasn’t so sure. Not anymore.

[renatlia]

For Good

A peaceful silence hushed over the battlefield. It was won. However, the calm could only be enjoyed for so long before the scenery began to change.

Oh. It was over. Time and space were correcting themselves, closing the magical rifts that brought the group together. This was it.

Hearts sank watching the companions - brothers - around each of them fading away to their respective eras. Then, the transition seemed to pause midway. Caught halfway between the former battlefield and home, their surroundings looked strangely melted together. From the violent debris scattered along the ground, to the still eerily-dark sky, to the green grass beneath their feet, to the spectral-like figures of their friends.

There was no confusion on what was happening. The goddesses were giving their heroes the chance to bid farewell. Jaws clenched as emotions swelled and no words came to mind. Taking pity, Nayru cast her musical blessing on the silent protagonists, allowing them to express their feelings into song.

“I’ve heard it said,” the captain started cautiously, afraid to break the moment, “that people come into our lives for a reason, bringing something we must learn. And we are led to those who help us most to grow if we let them, and we help them in return.”

“Well, I don’t know if I believe that’s true, but I know I’m who I am today because I knew you,” the smithy replied. He wasn’t too sure if he himself had made that much of an impact on the others.

The farmhand was finding it difficult to breathe, just like last time, but he wouldn’t say nothing. He had to speak, and by the grace of Nayru, he was able to. “Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun. Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

He was surprised to see his cub once again after his adventure was over, but he was stunned meeting the Hero of Time. If his wild child hadn’t been the one to explain to him what was happening, he would’ve thought he’d finally cracked.

The old man had noticed his recognition, but he never asked about it. Instead, he took well to becoming a mentor, and they grew close enough to share secrets. While he felt horrible about having to keep the fate of his mentor secret, learning more about his ancestors was like a dream come true. Becoming Wolfie was a lot easier with someone to cover your absence. After all, it wasn’t just the old man and his cub on this adventure. Being greeted by someone new wielding the master sword was not something he thought he’d see again, especially not the man who forged it.

It was the man’s protege that sounded next. He had a feeling he was about to experience loss in an entirely new way since waking, and he wanted them all to know just how much they’d affected him. How much he loved them. How he wouldn’t forget them. “It well may be that we will never meet again in this lifetime, so let me say before we part... So much of me is made of what I learned from you. You’ll be with me like a handprint on my heart.”

Coming across a snarky, pantsless man was not as out of the norm as one would think. Someone completely lost and asking what the guardian carcasses were was. He helped the pink-haired man back to his camp. There he was assaulted with equally curious questions well into the night, especially once they recognized his sword.

They knew his name. He would’ve been suspicious if he didn’t feel such a strong sense of familiarity. He was almost afraid of the close brotherly bonds he was forming until they found the familiar face of an old companion. He knew then that no matter how much it would hurt in the end, he wanted to make long-lasting memories with these people.

“And now whatever way our stories end,” their eldest cut in, “I know you have re-written mine by being my friends.” To think, he and the mrs were just about to give up on having children. Now it was something they were looking forward to, and after having known these boys for the past several months, the old man felt slightly more prepared.

Contrarily, their youngest felt grossly unprepared. He didn’t know what he was going to do once the guys he’d grown attached to- lived with- fought together with... were gone. It was all too fast, and there was no new adventure or task given to throw himself into once he got home.

The young teen was choking on his tears. Through a watery and hazy filter, he could make out the face of a knight in shining armor, who he had been mentally referring as big brother, staring back at him in sad concern. No. That look wouldn’t do. The sailor needed to convey that he understood, that he was grateful to have this conversation, that he’d be okay.

“Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea. Like a seed dropped by a skybird in a distant wood. Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better? But because I knew you-“ He shakily gasped to compose himself. “Because I knew you, I have been changed for good.”

He wasn’t panicking. He wasn’t! He’s woken up in strange places before with no memory of how he got there. Looking around, he could see nothing but dark, rocky terrain. Okay, okay. He needed to breathe. He pulled out his compass and telescope.

Finding north, he started to slowly pivot with his telescope hoping to catch any sign of civilization. A giant blue gem filled his vision startling the boy onto his bum. Luckily, he’d met this blue-haired woman, though it had been quite a while.

This was going to be one heck of an adventure.

“And just to clear the air, I ask forgiveness for the things I’ve done you blame me for.” Whether the Hero of the Sky was asking from those listening or from himself was unclear. He knew he couldn’t hold on to the darkness eating at him anymore. The guilt he felt for causing an eternal struggle for so many in his future was met with bafflement by his friends. Even if he could be held partly responsible for ‘causing’ their curse, there was no ill will directed towards him. Alas, the Spirit of the Hero had a tendency for self-blame, so he would ask for forgiveness, if only to release the negative emotions he had trapped in his throat.

“But then, I guess there’s blame to share.” The Hero of Time took the opportunity to apologize as well. He knew his meddling with time had caused the drastically different outcomes in history the group had experienced on their journey together. And though there was always a chance of death, the fact that he was alive while another timeline suffered Ganon’s rule left him with a sour taste.

“And none of it seems to matter anymore!” The Hero of Hyrule could understand their guilt and thoughts of inadequacy, but what is done is done. They had done their best for all good intentions, and no one begrudged them for it. What mattered now was that his friends had to leave, and he would be alone. Having an apocalyptic world like he did, he had never really lost much. Never really had much to begin with. This was all very new to him.

“Like a comet pulled from orbit as it passes a sun,” the smallest swordsman quoted from earlier.

He was just going through his same everyday routine when he met an older, scarred man outside town. He had been taken aback when the man had happily showed him his large sword. Most would’ve waved him off as a nosy child.

The blade was was impressive. Almost twice his height! Proudly centered in the middle of an angular hilt was the Goron symbol. It was incredibly sharp and looked perfectly balanced. He wondered if it was one of Biggoron’s works.

He would have never guessed what would happen next or the journey it would set him on. The man crouched down. Your name wouldn’t happen to be Link, would it?

“Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood.”

A humble traveler walked along a yellow, worn path. Just a little farther and he’d veer off to explore a cave he’d seen once. If he hadn’t been in such a hurry before, he would’ve already done so, but just as well, he was excited. He just couldn’t get adjusted to living in a castle. This was the first time in a while he was able to sneak away.

He met a couple strangers before the mouth of the cave. Not uncommon, he introduced himself. He had not expected they’d actually been looking for him. Confused, he let them lead the way through the cave to their campsite where he spent the night hearing tales of old spoken in first person.

He would still need to explore that cave.

“Like a ship blown from its mooring by a wind off the sea,” a new voice sang softly.

He was running late. Again. Why was it so hard to wake up if he struggled to fall asleep in the first place? How did that make sense?

Finally, he could see the blacksmith’s wife outside waiting for him. Gulley was also outside playing with the cucco. Good. Less embarrassment when he got inside. Curse his decision to continue pursuing the craft.

He took a moment to breathe when Gulley spotted him and waved. The kid winced in sympathy knowing full well the apprentice was just buying time. Well, he couldn’t pretend to wheeze forever. No one bought it anyway.

Out of literally nowhere, a giant club swung by a hinox knocked him sideways. The mother and son ran inside screaming. He counted three and cursed, struggling to stand. How and why were hinox in Hyrule? He cursed again realizing he was legit wheezing now. Lucky hit.

He booked it to the shop avoiding bombs the cyclopes threw at him. Inside, he gently pushed past the three fussing over him and stared the blacksmith dead in the eye. He was tossed a newly tempered blade. He couldn’t let those monsters continue to live in Hyrule.

Shouts disrupted the anxious silence. He ran back outside and balked at a couple of kids running around avoiding bombs. Cursing at everything, it took the three of them about ten minutes to dispatch of the scarily strong oafs. He had to admit, he was impressed.

He could tell what was coming before they could even open their mouths. Goddesses! Could he not catch a break?

“Like a seed dropped by a bird in the wood.”

What? Where was this? He didn’t even get any divine warning! Groose was surely throwing a fit over him vanishing mid-convo. He could only hope the goof wouldn’t do anything stupid searching for him.

A strange, repetitive thunking was drawing closer from behind. He dove out of the way of whatever the beast was, but it had actually come to a stop a few feet before him. A young man with long blonde hair hopped off its back asking if he were okay.

He struggled to answer staring wide-eyed over the man’s shoulder. How was she here? Who was this, and why was she with him?

The man stared back contemplating something in his silence. The stranger then called him by name and seemed proud of the reaction he got. He was getting dizzy from the amount of questions racing in his mind. How’d this guy know him? Why’d he have Fi with him?

Why did he feel so familiar?

“Who can say if I’ve been changed for the better?”

Bumping into a large gentleman in the bazaar was not how he imagined a new adventure to start.

The man asked him if they’d met before. They racked their brains for a good half hour trying to remember where’d they knew each other from. It was only when Lana found them followed by a familiar face that pieces were starting to fall into place.

No, it wasn’t Lana’s doing, and she knew nothing of how either. She did, however, sense their presence and knew they were safer together. The old man was still a mystery, but Lana assured them this was fine. Maybe they’d remember later. They all had the Spirit of the Hero.

Suddenly, they were in a new town. The whiplash of everything changing in a blink made him nauseous. Whatever this was, at the very least, they were somewhat experienced.

“I do believe I have been changed for the better,” the Hero of Legend sang quietly, his flushed face partially hidden beneath his hair. Soft smiles were sent his way.

“And because I knew you,” the Hero of Twilight prompted.

“Because I knew you,” the Hero of Winds agreed.

“Because I knew you.” Streaks were running down the vet’s cheeks. He could never catch a break.

To be fair, there wasn’t a dry eye present.

“I have been changed...”

The unison voices drifted away along with anything not of the world one hero would be standing alone in.

“...for good...”

[thesinglesjukebox]

LADY GAGA - STUPID LOVE

[6.42]

Far from "Shallow" now...

Brad Shoup: Thudding sixteenths and vocal chop straight out of a Todd Edwards remix... it's always great when she visits. [8]

Wayne Weizhen Zhang: It must be exhausting to be Lady Gaga. Here's a short list of her accomplishments since 2013's ARTPOP: winning a Grammy for a jazz duets album, winning a Golden Globe for her role in American Horror Story, headlining the Super Bowl, co-hosting arguably the best Met Gala in years, winning an Oscar for A Star is Born, getting a number one Billboard single from the soundtrack, launching a vegan make-up line, and starring in a Las Vegas residency. And yet, the dominant critical narrative has still essentially been: Gaga is absent from pop music. (For comparison, Katy Perry has been a judge on American Idol.) Of course, her self-mythologizing is partially to blame for this, but it's unclear what could have possibly satisfied her critics and die-hard fans outside of re-reinventing music à la 2010. So what's her move given the weight of the world's impossible expectations? To make simple, unpretentious pop music on her own terms. In a recent Billboard interview, she laughed while stating, "I would like to put out music that a big chunk of the world will hear, and it will become a part of their daily lives, and make them happy every single day." My first reaction upon reading this was: yes, we should hold Gaga to a higher standard because she's Gaga, but how can we balance that with the potentially damaging effects for her mental health and sanity? So on "Stupid Love" when she sings, "Now it's time to free me from this chain/I gotta find that peace, is it too late?" I like to hope it's meta-commentary on her rediscovering the joy in her music and being, free of expectation. Gaga tracks are often described as "huge" or "epic", but none has ever so perfectly embodied "fun." I'm definitely excited about how this track sounds -- an ebullient return to her earliest disco pop roots, at a time when radio is dominated by trap -- but "Stupid Love" stands out to me because of her embrace of radical self-love. This is the Gaga that I've always loved -- and she's always been enough. [9]

Leah Isobel: The production filters back an entire decade's worth of Stefani's influence into a three-minute Fruit Gusher burst of tang, but the lyrics are decidedly forward-looking, all declarative statements of "now is the time!" bullshit. In the middle of this past/present/future time-play, as the beat drops out beneath her, she asserts the key line: "all I ever wanted was lahv." If it's a disappointingly shallow retcon for an artist whose initial breadth and ambition was the entire point, the promise of it lingers in my brain. After all, it's not too far from a similar pop megalomaniac realizing that she "traded fame for love without a second thought" about 20 years ago. That rich vein of popstar self-examination writ large is so suited to Gaga's talents as an artist -- a provocateur, fake-deep philosopher, musical theatre nerd, and hook-writing master all at once -- that I have listened to this song five times in a row pretty much every single day since it, uh, appeared on the internet. My paws are reluctantly up, Stef. Don't fuck it up. [7]

Jessica Doyle: Fun, and otherwise unremarkable. If you've been a Gaga fan for a while -- if you're invested in the narrative of this hardworking woman, who has been through downs and ups and downs and then ups again -- I imagine the fun is enhanced by a certain comfort and relief in seeing her have fun; in imagining her feeling strong and secure enough to release a fun song that doesn't have to upend anything. But I am a heartless, acontextual consumer, for whom the marginal cost of listening to something else is zero, and I miss "Bad Romance." [5]

Tobi Tella: For an artist who at her peak overstuffed everything with too many ideas, there's really not much happening here. It's loud and upbeat, sure, but the lyrics are barely the thread of a coherent song, and the production reminds everyone who wants "pure" pop to come back to be careful what they wish for. Maybe that A Star is Born "pop music bad guitar music good" cynicism rubbed off too much? [4]

Katherine St Asaph: Just when I thought Gaga was lost to the land of Real Music™, or worse, flailing attempts to be chill by the least chill performer in pop music (yes, including Taylor Swift), she goes and releases this, 50,000 firecrackers on a Eurovision stage. The thicket of hooks is packed, with Black Midi levels of referential density. The whole thing sounds like "Born This Way," which is to say it sounds like "Express Yourself"; there's a juddering sequencer out of "Do What U Want" (reminds me more of "Weekend" by Class Actress, but which is more likely to be the actual inspiration?) and a touch of, of all things, September's "Cry For You." Gaga fills every crevice of the song with singing, throaty and belty and huge: a relief after years of songs filled only with half-assed #vibes. If it feels frivolous against much of Born This Way and The Fame Monster and some of Artpop, and far less ambitious, it at least pulls her out of the "Shallow" piano muck. [7]

Vikram Joseph: Perhaps a stupid song about making stupid choices is the Lady Gaga lead single we both need and deserve in 2020. The battering-ram synths feel like running down a hill into a gale-force wind; the best thing about "Stupid Love" is that Gaga sounds like she's having a lot of fun, and by extension so are we. [7]

Alex Clifton: "Stupid Love," much like "Born This Way" before it, is ready-made for pride parades, grown from the same mystical lab that gave Lady Gaga her incredible melodic sensibilities. Unlike its predecessor, though, it has more euphoria in it, presumably because it's not making a political point. Gaga's more focused on having fun here, and you can tell. The verses aren't my favourite, but the chorus hits as an overwhelming rush of dopamine, and now I can't stop dancing in my computer chair. Between this and Dua Lipa's album, we're in for a hell of a good time for pop music this spring, and I am extremely excited. [7]

Thomas Inskeep: She was doing this better a decade ago. A lot better. [2]

Joshua Lu: The narrative surrounding "Stupid Love" regards it a return to the Pop Gaga that's been mostly absent since 2013: A revival if you're a fan, a regression if you're not. The issue with this narrative is that "Stupid Love" lacks any key similarities to the Gaga of yesteryear; the only real sonic link is how the bassline brings to mind the since-redacted "Do What U Want" beat. Instead we have something that's somehow not a Kygo song, with vocal chirps that got old last year, serviceable but clichéd hooks (the entire pre-chorus has all the charm of a Taio Cruz album track), remarkably basic lyrics filled with platitudes, and a title that has no bearing on anything in the song -- there's nothing lyrically or aurally stupid about anything here, and Gaga has shown a deep capacity to be stupid in her past pop works. In reality, what we have here isn't a return to anything, but rather the continued flagging of Gaga's desire to develop genuinely off-beat or interesting pop music, whether intentional or not. Gaga's talents as a vocalist elevate the song beyond the usual pop pap, but it's not nearly at the level I once hoped she could remain at. [6]

Alfred Soto: Kudos to Jamieson Cox for catching an obvious forebear: the rattling sequencer recalls 2013's forgotten "Do What U Want," which was all set to do some business until radio programmers remembered R. Kelly had been a menace for years. Amiably confusing lack of affect with simplicity, "Stupid Love" flexes its pop strength with the expectation that fans will admire it. [7]

Joshua Minsoo Kim: The synths pack a punch but they never quite get me to where I should be. I wanna feel desperation, exasperation -- that love is worth looking stupid for. All I get is a familiar, quasi-stoic performance that sounds like Gaga's doing some excellent karaoke. [4]

Kayla Beardslee: Sure, it's competent, but Gaga is capable of so much more. Many other blurbs will discuss the song's aggressive datedness and bland lyrics, but what really bothers me is that the two halves of "Stupid Love" -- the dramatic vocals and the unrelenting gallop of the synths -- don't fit together. Gaga is giving her all with those signature "laahv"s, but there's just not enough empty space left for her in the production. Her performance ends up laying flat on top of the track, adding nothing except a sense of laziness from her producers and engineers. [5]

Pedro João Santos: Serviceable Max Martin bopathon scams its way into my brain again -- no matter how direly in need of an incubator this whole structure is. Gaga's weakest lead single feeds you Kygo, threatens to ascend during "All I ever wanted was love", and still can't fight the aura of afterthought. [6]

Jibril Yassin: "Stupid Love" is a giddy rush of EDM-pop fun, but it's the first time experiencing a major Gaga single entirely devoid of surprises. Bracing yourself for a twist that never arrives or a strange turn of vocals rearing its head from nowhere, "Stupid Love" makes up for its unremarkableness with a masterclass in songwriting. What Lady Gaga hasn't forgotten how to do is translate the feeling of having your initial gut feelings completely validated. "Stupid Love" makes its magic in casting the act of love as necessary and dare I say it -- radical. [7]

Jackie Powell: On "Stupid Love" Lady Gaga achieved a corollary. By trying to put her healing process into simple poetry, she also created an accompanying sound that's comparable to an analgesic. The function of the track is to heal and liberate. (Truth be told, Little Monster or not, the song has helped me get out of bed in the morning.) Gaga's latest cut is packaged into a familiar formula, and that's part of the reason why this track serves as a formidable lead single and symbol for the upcoming Chromatica. The equation is one that mirrors the "best of" Stefani Germanotta. What's brilliant about "Stupid Love" is that its visual and lyrical messaging and surrounding sonic arrangement and melody bring what Little Monsters and casual music fans with a Gaga fascination expect. And that's okay. She has told Oprah that her goal now isn't just to shock people but rather to exude authenticity. She stirs elements from all of her pop eras into the most hearty and flavourful version of Gaga soup (and that does include Joanne contrary to popular belief.) Each ingredient works and is soluble. She tossed in the elements of the The Fame that made fans want to Just Dance and sprinkled some catchy Swedish-sounding pop melodies (Max Martin, hello!) and sung onomatopoeia from The Fame Monster, à la the "hey-ah, hey-ahs." A suspenseful build, uniquely potent and soaring vocals are ounces of Born This Way. Don't worry, ARTPOP is doused on this track not only in color, but in sound. There's a reason why that sped up "Do What U Want"-esque bassline works. There's a contrast between her bright vocal performance and the electronic bass' darkness. Joanne comes across in the allegorical concept which once again can be interpreted to reflect the current American experience. Music video director Daniel Askill confirmed that Gaga wanted to portray the "warring tribes as a metaphor for the state of the world today." So, Mother Monster is on a mission to introduce the world to her new brainchild, ever-developing ideologies and honest ways to examine life. "Stupid Love" isn't the end-all but merely the beginning. Paws up and welcome to Chromatica bitches. [8]

Nortey Dowuona: NOPE! WAIT. wait. This is actually a welcome back for... the bass, who is joined by his drumming sister, his synth bros and Lady Gaga, who has come here from the Make A Wish Foundation to take him around New York. They have a wonderful day together, with the synth bros getting their percussive background vocal girlfriend an NYPD hoodie, and the experience convinces Lady Gaga to make bright, happy pop music again! (The bass, in the midst of a happy dance, got hit by her limo and had to go back to the hospital.) [8]

Scott Mildenhall: Between its hyperventilating over-excitement and ever-exciting hyper-sincerity, Gaga seems to have finally created a pop emergency. The false alarm of "Applause" was overstuffed and underpowered, but "Stupid Love" redresses that balance by going harder and clearer, like a newly thawed cut from a cryogenically frozen, course-correcting Artpop Monster edition. Time might seem to have turned in on itself, but no: the greater lyrical directness arrives in a way that feels culminatory. The plainspokenness of that indelible "all I ever wanted was love" makes it almost an epitaph, grounding it in a present in which all experience has been lived, and all realisations are realised. Undeniably, Lady Gaga is not dead, but this is what she knows. [8]

Will Adams: I defended "The Cure" and lamented the immense pressure on Gaga to make every release the Next Big Thing, however even that soured when it turned out to be part of A Star Is Born's ~superficial pop~ world. So where to next, when she's caught between turgid rock balladry and ill-fitting trop-pop? On "Stupid Love," we get the best possible outcome: whizzing past Joanne, making a brief stop at Artpop but ultimately landing on the dazzling excess of Born This Way. Like any good synthpop number, the synths display a wide range of textures: they tunnel, they drill, they poof, they gleam. Gaga is more than willing to match their energy. Noteworthy, though, is that she takes a brief pause only on the pre-chorus's "all I ever wanted was love"; even the way the title scans it almost sounds like she could be singing "I want just to be loved." This is the essence of pop: amidst the big dumb fireworks display, a human message at the core. [7]

[pretty-well-funded]

kidnapped Peter pt 4

and we have PORN \o/  in case this was somehow unclear, this was never going to be anything but dubcon

pt 1 | 2 | 3

*

Mr. Stark is gone for ten days. 

It's better, this time around.  Peter has creature comforts and slightly better meals and a book to read, but still.  He's achingly, acutely lonely, every day that passes without another human. 

He replays their last interaction in his head a thousand times.  The way Mr. Stark touched him, comforted him, held him.  He doesn't want to be grateful.  The man took everything away, and only gave back the most basic human kindness, only when it suited him. 

It doesn't even matter.  Peter thinks about those arms around him, that kiss on his forehead, and just wants to feel it again. 

He knows it's not his fault, but he hates himself a little. 

He wonders if he should have tried to run while he had a chance.  Except, he didn't.  Peter doesn't know where he is, exactly, but he knows it must be a building controlled by Mr. Stark. Whether it's out in the middle of nowhere or in a densely-populated part of Manhattan doesn't really even matter.  Peter never would have made it out the door.  The only thing making a break for it would have earned him was punishment.   

It doesn't mean Peter's given up, it doesn't.  He just has to be smart.  If he's good…if he's really really good, maybe some day he'll earn more freedom. Mr. Stark has already proven he can earn that.  If he keeps cooperating, maybe someday he'll have a reasonable chance of actually getting away. 

He just needs to give Mr. Stark what he wants. 

The problem is, no matter how often Peter circles the question, he can really only think of one thing that could be. 

Mr. Stark hasn't done anything to make Peter think he wants Peter to work for him.  He laughed the one time Peter brought it up.  They don't talk about Mr. Stark's illegal business, and while they sometimes talk about science and tech, the idea that he was kidnapped as a recruit him for the legitimate Stark Industries is absurd. 

Every lesson Mr. Stark enforces is a personal one. Don't be rude, don't talk back, address him with deference, be grateful for any kindness.  Any pleasure Peter is granted comes directly from Mr. Stark's hands. 

Peter's not stupid.  He can do that math. 

It's smart, the way Mr. Stark is doing this.  Letting Peter's mind do the hard work for him.  Even though he knows, even though he knows, Peter finds himself thinking: at least Mr. Stark's attractive.  It's not something Peter ever considered, but he might have, if Mr. Stark was someone that he could admire.  He finds himself thinking: at least Mr. Stark's not using brute force.  It doesn't make it better, he knows it doesn't make it better, but at least Peter can pretend he has a choice.  He finds himself thinking: at least he's actually gay.   

Finds himself thinking: at least maybe this gives him a way out.  He can't imagine Mr. Stark wants to fuck in a chilly basement for long. 

* 

Peter doesn't let any tears fall when Mr. Stark gets back, but it's a close thing. 

The sight and sound of another person is almost overwhelming, even before he gives Mr. Stark permission to sit on his bed.  They eat a meal together, for the first time, and Peter listens to Mr. Stark talk about nothing important, and afterwards, when Mr. Stark has pushed the trays out in the hall, he leans against the wall and pulls Peter against his side and starts reading The Two Towers. 

Peter doesn't intend to interrupt until he does. "Mr. Stark, can I ask you a question?" 

Mr. Stark puts the book down, and turns to look at Peter as best he can, given how close they are.  "Ask away." 

Peter stalls out, then.  He knows what he wants to ask, but saying the words out loud seem…dangerous.  Ill-advised. 

Mr. Stark presses his lips to Peter's hair, and combs through the tails of it idly.   

"Am I – I'm here for sex, aren't I?" 

"Smart boy," Mr. Stark murmurs, almost to himself, and Peter's stomach swoops.  Neither of them move.  Peter tries hard not to tense up too much.  It's hard not to, though, when Mr. Stark says,  "If you're asking whether I brought you here to be a mindless fucktoy, the answer is no. But I do intend sex to be a part of our relationship." 

Peter's breaths are shallow.  The word fucktoy sticks in his brain like a burr.  Mr. Stark, for all his…flaws, has never been crass.  "W…what does that mean?" 

Mr. Stark rubs his arm.  "It means that you're a brilliant boy, not just a pretty one." 

A laugh escapes Peter that has an edge of hysteria. "You're actually saying you don't want me just for my body?" 

Mr. Stark actually laughs, too.  "I guess so.  What can I say?  I don't meet many people in my line of work that I like, Pete." 

There's a thread of irony laced through the words, but even though Peter finds it kind of funny, that doesn't stop the discordant scream inside his head. 

"How do you feel about it?" Mr. Stark asks softly, and if circumstances were completely different, Peter might believe he gave a damn. 

"I…I don't really know."  And that's the truth.  Because Peter learned a long time ago that wishing for things to be different is useless.  You have to deal with what is. 

"They told me you got a new hobby while I was gone." 

It takes Peter a minute to get it, and when he does, he's so embarrassed and flustered, he buries his face against Mr. Stark's jacket. He can feel Mr. Stark chuckle, and really isn't sure whether it makes him feel relieved or enraged. 

Peter wasn't exactly horny while he was locked in a barren room and shitting in a bucket with no access to hygiene.  After a few days of being warm and clean, well-rested and comfortable…not to mention bored… 

He pretty much forgot this room has cameras.  He wasn't always under the covers. 

Mr. Stark lifts Peter's hand and kisses his knuckles. Peter's torn about the degree to which he's found this creepy.  "I'm glad you're feeling comfortable in your new space." 

They sit there, pressed together, for a long time. Peter's reluctant to sit up and move away, but it also feels like…it feels like now that he's named the elephant in the corner, he can't live without more answers. 

"What do you expect from me?" 

There's a long pause.  "I'm not in any hurry.  If I'm not mistaken, then you're new to this." 

This, Peter assumes, is sex in general and not being coerced into it by a crime lord. So he nods. 

"I wouldn't object to getting a private show," Mr. Stark says.  There's a beat.  "When you're ready." 

Peter's heart is pounding and he knows he's breathing too fast.  He believes Mr. Stark that he'll wait, that he won't force anything (…yet), but he also thinks that waiting can only make this more difficult. 

He sits up, not looking Mr. Stark in the face and aware that his own is flushed with some combination of arousal, embarrassment, and shame. "H – um, how?" 

Mr. Stark's eyes are dark and…consuming, when Peter darts him a look.  "Why don't you take off that sweatshirt, to start." 

Peter does, not…sexy, he wouldn't begin to know how. He just takes it off and chucks it away, pushing his hair back down out of its floof.  Mr. Stark reaches out to help, petting Peter fondly.  Peter wishes he didn't enjoy that, but maybe it's good that he does. 

"Now, lay back and pretend I'm not here." 

"Oh, is it that easy?" Peter mutters under his breath.  Mr. Stark seems to think it's funny, thank god. 

There's not much to do but follow Mr. Stark's advice, frankly, so Peter piles up the pillows and makes himself comfortable.  He closes his eyes against Mr. Stark's intense gaze. 

He's grateful Mr. Stark didn't suggest he remove his underwear yet.  He reaches down and touches himself through the cotton, working himself up to what he'd normally do.  He's already most of the way hard, just from thinking about sex while fifteen, and he's breathing heavily enough – with both nerves and arousal – to almost cover up the quiet sound of Mr. Stark's breath. 

His dick is straining impatiently at his waistband by the time he's almost worked himself up to going skin-to-skin.  He jumps, startled, when a hand strokes up his thigh. 

"Why don't we take these off?" Mr. Stark says quietly, and Peter tries to ignore the burn in his cheeks as he peels the boxer-briefs down with Mr. Stark's help. 

Pretend he's not even there.  Right. 

Peter's eyes flutter open long enough during the process to see exactly how closely Mr. Stark looks at his body.  He can feel the attention even after he closes his eyes. 

There's no dignity whatsoever in the sound he makes when he wraps his hand around his dick.  It's so much more intense, somehow, knowing Mr. Stark is there. 

Mr. Stark isn't exactly unobtrusive, murmuring "that's it," and "beautiful," and "play with your balls a little, sweetheart."  He settles his hand on Peter's knee, fingers curving around to stroke the crease idly in a way that really shouldn't be hot. 

Peter's whole body feels like it's on fire. 

He's not sure what makes him open his eyes, but when he does, they're drawn like a magnet to Mr. Stark's hand in his own lap, stroking the bulge still concealed in his pinstripe slacks.   

"You're making me so hard, baby," Mr. Stark says, and Peter gasps, shuddering and desperate for air.  "Playing with your eager little cock just for me.  You're gorgeous." 

Peter's stomach clenches, hips bucking up.  Mr. Stark's cock looks…big. Peter's so close, his eyes slip shut at how intense it is – 

Then fly open at the feel of…Mr. Stark licking his cock, just leaning in and swirling his tongue all around the head and Peter shouts, coming while he watches Mr. Stark in disbelief, lapping it up. 

He's trembling and exhausted by the time he's done, unable to move as Mr. Stark crawls up his body, suit brushing Peter's sweaty skin and setting off shivers, aftershocks. 

He can hardly keep his eyes slitted open on Mr. Stark's face, but then Mr. Stark kisses him so he doesn't really have to. He pushes the taste of Peter into his mouth with his tongue. 

"You're delicious, sweetheart." 

Peter shudders, overloaded and unable to do anything but accept the almost-chaste kiss that he gets next.  Then Mr. Stark is gone, and Peter's being wrapped in the blanket that he's laying on… 

He must slip out of consciousness for a second, because the door being shut and locked startles him awake.  Then he's under.

[annerly-san]

Whiskey Woes - Real Contract

Real Contract - Jealousy

His snakes were nowhere to be seen; none of them made any noise either and were very well behaved.  The only source of the random hissing could only originate from one place.  They locked eyes with the food soul who for once actually looked quite irritated.

“....Did...did you just...hiss at me?”

Whiskey turned the other way, refusing to look at them in the eye.  

Oh no he didn’t.  

But he did.

“WHISKEY.”

The food soul made no attempt to respond to the call of his name.

Oh no.

Ohoho no.

No, no.

If that was how he wanted to play, they too, can play at this game.

“I hope that I summon Peking-”

There was the hiss again.

“Pek-”

Hiss.

“-ing-”

Hiss.

“Peking Duck.” That last one was a really long and violent hiss; it was of the type that had saliva spewing from the end of the tongue.

Whiskey, still turned the other way, sat on his bed facing out towards the window.  

It was evident now if it wasn’t before.

“Whiskey… are you… j-jealous?”

He did not respond, but did shuffle a little bit on the bed.

It was a strange revelation that they had.  A queer sensation overwhelmed them with an onslaught of emotions that they didn’t realize they could have.

They made their way over to him slowly, sitting down on the bed next to him.  Making an attempted discrete glance at him, they noted that his usual smile was nowhere to be seen on his face-- rather he was staring desolately outside.

“Do you not like Peking?”

They had encountered a Peking Duck once on their journey to the Light Kingdom for a delivery.  Strangely, Whiskey behaved normally up until the point where they had voiced a comment which mused on the similarities between the two food souls.  They physically looked very similar and were both UR magic souls among the various other items that were not discussed aloud.  They had left that Peking Duck and his master attendant with the compliment of, “You’re lucky to have him.”

Though Whiskey was a master of his calm outer facade, his attendant knew of him well enough to sense the small changes in his actions that gave indication to his mood.  A mood which had grown tremendously irritable when they left for home.

Any breaching of what may be awry in his mood was responded with, “I do not know of what irritable mood you speak of, Master Attendant.  I am perfectly content and happy that you brought me with you to this delivery.”

His scent started to bare a strong phenolic, oily smell that day.  His aroma typically fluctuate depending on his mood.  It would often smell more phenolic and oily when he was in a bad mood, but this time it was overbearing which led them to be extremely concerned.

They had found that this mood had retrogressed into this state when they made a comment about potentially summoning another food soul-- calling out how they may appreciate a Peking Duck to join their household.

Whiskey immediately set down the crate of potatoes with a less than careful motion and hastily made an exit to his room, leaving his very concerned master attendant behind.

They now sat on the bed in silence with a good, respectable distance between them.  The question asked of him hung tensely in the air.

Jealousy?  Was he jealous?

“Do you want me to summon other food souls?”

“No.”

The answer was immediate.

“Why?”

“Why would you need anyone else?”  The words tumbled out irritably.

His attendant scooched a little closer to him and caught a glimpse of an upset Whiskey-- cheeks puffed out and flushed in a tantrum.  He noticed their closer proximity and scooted himself away.

This quickly escalated into a game where they would advance with a scooch and he’d shuffle further away until he was pressed against the wall with his attendant seated right next to him.

He looked at the wall with an uncomfortably focused concentration.

“Whiskey.”  A poke nudged at his shoulder.  “Whiskeyyy~.”

He did his best to ignore it, but it was evident that the act was wearing on his nerves with each prod increasing in its intensity.

“Whiskey are you jealous?”

“No,” he snapped.

Oh ho.

They prodded him again with a upturned smile, unable to restrain from teasing him.  “You are~!”

“Please do not make that assumption, Master Attendant.”  Whiskey still refused to acknowledge them.  “I do not feel such mundane emotions like jealousy.”

“I see.  Of course you don’t.”  His attendant’s words were anything but convinced.  “So there’s no problem in summoning a M soul like Pudding-”

Whiskey, though still faced the other way, was fully engaged in their words now -- it was evident by his suddenly stiff and tense back.

Only when he felt the sudden release of weight from the bed did he turn around to peek over at his attendant.

“It’s true, I’ve got you already.  And you’re the only one I really need for most things.  So I won’t need someone like Peking Duck or Champagne.  A medium soul would do.  I’ll be right back-”

“W-wait, Master Attendant-”  He turned around and grabbed their arm.  “I-I’ll come with you.”

“Oh?  That’s fine.  Let’s go then!”

Whiskey was silent on the walk down the road.  He trailed a good distance behind them, and when they stopped occasionally to turn around to face him, he would look towards the side at one of the shops.

There wasn’t really the intent on summoning another food soul.

They had originally embarked on this little venture to see how Whiskey would react.  However, this sulking mood of his as he trailed so far behind them made them feel a nagging remorse in their heart.

It wasn’t until they turned around another time did they see him completely stop in the middle of the street staring at a quiet little bar.

“Whiskey?”

He glanced over at them before tilting his head in the direction of the store.

“Up for a drink before we head there?”

“Bah!  Foine, foine!” Whiskey let out a grumble before the hand holding the glass of alcohol slammed down on the counter.  “Oi’m fookin jealous, ok?  Yer fookin’ happy nrow?”

“Hmm?  What was that?”

“Yer gone deaf?”.  Whiskey let out an uncharacteristic tsk of the tongue before turning around on the bar stool to face them.  “Oi’m fookin jealous, ok?  Yer can’t fookin’ summon anotha food soul.  Oi’m the only one ya can have!”

“Who made that rule?”

“Oi did!”

“Oh?  But aren’t I your master attendant?  I can summon another food soul, and you can’t do anything to stop me.”

They were teasing him now.  Whiskey, now pretty intoxicated after downing about an entire bottle of his food counterpart, was on the second and the barkeep was still making quite frequent visits to top off his glass.

“Oi’mma fookin kill alla ‘em if ya bring any ‘ome.”  He squinted his eyes and gave them a rather sinister smirk as he poked a finger at them.  He more or less immediately turned back around downed the rest of the drink in a single gulp.  “Barkeep!  Anotha one!”

This was an interesting side of him that they had never seen before.

They had known about the stranger accent and more loose character he had when he had gotten tired, but they did not realize that it applied to his intoxicated state as well.

Alongside the funny little accent and his more relaxed character, he was actually honest.  It was actually endearing about how straightforward he was when he was drunk.

They looked over to see Whiskey swirling his glass around, watching the ice clink around the glass in a childish fascination.

“‘Meri me, Master Attendant.”

“E-excuse me?”

“Uuuughh.  Why are ya so fookin’ deaf?  I said marry me!”

“Whiskey, you’re drunk.”

“Bah!  Oi’m not drunk!  Yer drunk!”  The food soul was barely sitting on the stool anymore.  He was half seated and wobbling around unstably.

“W-we’re going home.”  They stood up and grabbed his arm to support him.

“There’s ta bottles still left on that shelf though!”  Whiskey haphazardly pointed at the bottles of bourbon on the top shelf.

“Whiskey, you’ve drunk two bottles already.  You’ll die if you drink any more.”

“Bah!  I can’t fookin’ die.”

“Whiskey, we’re leaving.  If you don’t leave with me, I’ll summon another food soul and if it’s a UR, I don’t know if you can beat them or not.”

“Bah!  Foine foine!!!”  Whiskey chugged the rest of the drink, turned around, tripped and face-planted on the ground.

“Yer marrying me.”

“Do I have a choice in this?”

“No.”

The two of them were on the way home with Whiskey being more or less dragged by his attendant since he was too drunk to walk upright.  They had left the bar embarrassingly since Whiskey tripped and fumbled face first into the hardwood floor when he tripped on the barstool.

“Why do you want to marry me, Whiskey?”

“So ya can’t get ‘ny moar food souls.  If oi marry ya, yer mine.  Foreva.”

They stared at the food soul, expecting him to be somewhat joking.

But he was serious.

Despite being drunk to the point where he couldn’t walk properly, Whiskey’s slightly flushed cheeks and crimson eyes held a genuine sincerity in them as he stared at their face.

They averted their eyes quickly much to Whiskey’s drunk confusion.

They kicked the door open and fumbled in with Whiskey draped over their shoulder.

As they hauled him to his room, he was winding strands of their hair in his fingers.

“Yer hair’s soft.”

“Thanks Whisk.”  They threw him on the bed.

“Oof.  It’s mah bed...”

“Yea, it is.”  They paused momentarily to catch their breath.  “Goodnight Whiskey.”

“Wait.”  An arm reached out to grab them.  With a strong pull, they fumbled onto the bed with him.  “Yer married to me now.  Ya gotta… sleep here now.”

“Whiskey, you’re drunk.”

“And yer married to me.”

“I don’t think you understand how marriage works.”

“Oi don’t think yer understand that yer merried to me.”

They let out a sigh and tried to escape his grasp, but he had an unbelievably strong hold on them.  “There’s a procedure for this.  You can’t just say that we’re married and then boom!  We’re married.”

“Bah!  Foine foine!”  Whiskey dragged them closer.  The scent of alcohol was strong, and it was unclear as to whether that was his actual scent or the scent from the numerous drinks he had earlier.  “Have yer procedure then!”

He leaned in close and pressed his lips against theirs.

[thetoxicgamer]

Overwatch 2 is bringing back your least favorite mechanic

Overwatch 2 has some big plans in store, and they’re likely to split its audience right down the middle. Ahead of Overwatch 2 season 5, an update from game director Aaron Keller suggests some of the changes Blizzard is considering for its next balance patch, and they include a return of crowd control effects to the multiplayer game, as well as some potentially big nerfs to one-shot characters. The removal of CC, or crowd control (that’s anything in the realm of stuns, slows, and boops), from almost all skills except from tanks was a big part of the changes to Overwatch 2. The goal, Blizzard says, was to put more of a focus on people creating plays rather than shutting them down, especially with the removal of the second tank player. “Overall, we think that this was a positive change to the game,” Keller says, comparing the original game to a “pinball machine.” But, he explains, “we have a lot of high-mobility heroes on the roster, and a team can’t always rely on their tank to take care of them. So we’re softening our approach here.” For season five, Blizzard has two characters in mind as a test bed of sorts – Mei and Cassidy. Mei’s primary, the Endothermic Blaster, will still slow as normal but “will also build up to an effect that will apply a much larger slow for 1.5 seconds” that Keller says “will feel familiar to the way her old weapon worked.” Presumably you’ll have a little more opportunity to counter it than being completely frozen solid, but that’s still rather terrifying. Cassidy, meanwhile, is having his Magnetic Grenade reworked – it’ll do less damage than before, but will now apply an effect that slows targets and blocks them from using movement abilities. It’s unclear whether that will apply when the grenade sticks, or when it explodes – if it’s the former, that could make it a lot more deadly to heroes who can typically escape from its clutches. Also likely to cause plenty of chatter is plans to “reduce the frequency” of one-shots from Widowmaker and Hanzo. Widow’s damage falloff is being dramatically shortened, while the amount the damage drops over distance is being increased, which will make her unable to kill even 200 health heroes past 50 meters with a single bullet. Hanzo will see his damage slightly nerfed “so that he is no longer able to one-shot 250 health heroes.” Another change will make it easier for the enemy team to see where his Sonic Arrow has been used, meaning you’ll know when he’s got a bead on your position. Keller says “the intent here is to reduce his kills that feel like they come out of nowhere.” Keller also notes that a Junker Queen nerf will see her Commanding Shout health gain dropped from 200 to 150 to make her a little less survivable, while Lifeweaver is set to receive “increases to his healing and damage output, a heal on Life Grip, a slightly reduced hitbox, and some quality-of-life changes to Petal Platform.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v4b7DtgOQ_A Personally, I’ve always been a bit of a crowd control defender – I liked the slightly more MOBA-like aspects of the first Overwatch – but, having gotten used to the game without them, I’m not sure how I feel about their return. I’m also torn on the one-shot changes, though I’ll undoubtedly benefit as someone who isn’t a particularly good sniper myself. Either way, these are likely to provide some dramatic alterations to how the game feels, so it’ll be fascinating to see how the Overwatch community responds. Browse our Overwatch 2 tier list if you want to know who’s looking best in Overwatch 2 season 4. You might also want to run eyes over the best Overwatch 2 settings if you’re looking to optimize your FPS and in-game performance. Read the full article

[boldgreys]

The shockingly simple math to early retirement

One of the things I’ve noticed about the FIRE community is how it seems to view work and its role in reaching financial independence. Because with so much time in the “work” phase of my life, is there really that much risk with taking a detour? The Traditional Path to FIRE Understanding exactly how long 40 years really is exactly why I feel so comfortable with my decision to step away from the traditional FIRE path and to try to create my own path to FIRE. But so often, it seems like we waste those years, treating it as something to slog through, rather than something to take advantage of. There’s a lot of value in them – you’ve got energy, you’ve got a lot of drive, and most importantly, you’ve got time. I think there’s a problem here though in discounting those early work years. Once you’ve done that, THEN you can go ahead and try things out and do whatever it is you really want to do with your life. Instead, the typical advice is to play it safe, buckle down early, and hit financial independence as soon as possible. And yet, when you talk to a lot of FIRE people, you seem to get a sense that there really isn’t any time to mess around during the “work” phase of life. That’s a long time with a lot of stuff that you can do during it. I’m on board with shortening that “work” part of life, but for a lot of people on the path to FIRE, I think there’s a bit of tunnel vision that happens where you sort of forget just how long 40 years really is. Many of the biggest names in the FIRE movement have shown that, with frugal living and a high savings rate, that “work” portion of life can be shortened to just 10 years or less. Instead of a 40-year working career, FIRE proponents figured out that if you maintained a high savings rate, you could cut down that middle stretch of life to half the time or more. The FIRE movement (financial independence, retire early) did something interesting with that basic framework of school, work, and retirement, essentially taking that “work” part of life and dramatically shortening it. Life, if you think about it, can be broken down into three fairly distinct stages. And yet, on closer inspection, maybe it’s not really that risky at all – at least not when you take a bigger picture view of things. This move – which results in an uncertain future (and uncertain income) – will likely set me back on whatever path to financial independence I might have been on. One of the most common has to do with the fact that I quit my job when I’m obviously nowhere near financially independent. And it doesn’t come without its fair share of criticism. After 3 years of law school and 5 years of working as an attorney, I made a huge move, choosing to opt-out of the clear career path and instead make the move to the wholly unclear path of self-employment and gig work. A few days ago, I broke some big news on this blog.

[longsightmyth]

Chapter-by-Chapter, The Naming, Chapter 13

PELLINOR

It’s a long one again, folks. Buckle up. (warning for some weirdness with mental health later on)

Cadvan wakes Maerad in the middle of the night because a gormorant (big beastie with a scorpion tale and armor plating) goes trundling by. Thankfully it doesn’t find them, because the Bardhome is like ‘not today, buddy’. Are gormorants actual things from mythology that I have somehow missed? I would have to verify from Green Rider, but I’m pretty sure that is the name and description of a corrupted animal in there. Go figure.

The theme of sleeping outside continues for a few more days as they ride through a large forest called the Weywood: they don't light fires because they’re worried now about being followed. As they travel we get some expository worldbuilding - there are seven kingdoms, most of them along the coast since the last fight with the Nameless One. Nobody knows the origins of the Bards. They do play music, which to me seems like more of an indication of Bards being around than a fire would be but I guess birds have to fly and bards have to play music, etc etc.

Maerad feels like they’re being watched, but Cadvan isn’t acting nervous so she stays quiet about it, figuring it’s her nerves. Maerad remains not genre-savvy, bless her. She wakes up one day to see a pair of eyes “gleaming yellow like a cat’s” but they disappear and she tells Cadvan that she must have seen an owl or something. Bless her heart. She further wishes she could have a bath, since she’s grimy and gross and her clothes haven’t been washed in days. I know that feel, Maerad, my mom liked to backpack the Appalachian trail for a week at a time and take me with her, and don’t get me started on the ten day river trips (though at least you basically got bathed when your cousin tipped you out of the raft out of spite and/or you got overturned in your kayak speaking from personal experience whatever could you mean?)(I got back at the cousin, never fear)

Anyway, they’ve been in the Waywood a long time and Maerad is getting sick of the woods. This will become a theme. Cadvan assures her that it’s two days tops to open sky.

As they travel, Maerad begins to hear faint singing. She keeps waiting for Cadvan to say something but he doesn’t, so she finally mentions it. He says it’s interesting that she can hear it, because a lot of people can’t, and Maerad realizes she can understand the words. She and the horses are immediately distracted by a woman with the catlike eyes appearing from nowhere.

“Hail, daughter,” the figure said to Maerad. “I have been watching thee.”

...She had the wildest face [Maerad] had ever seen, inhuman and fey, amoral and beautiful as a flower.

“Why?” stammered Maerad. “Why have you been watching me?”

The figure laughed. “How often does one of my kin come this way? I thought perhaps you were coming to greet me, and make music in the old way. But I see you are with one of these dolts, the humans.” She laughed again, and Maerad felt a shiver of ice run down her spine. She shook herself and looked down; Cadvan was staring up at her, but it was as if she looked at him through a veil.

“What do you want of me?” she asked.

“I know thee,” said the figure. “I will not hinder thee.” She came closer to Maerad, and it seemed that she stepped on the air and stood before her, globed in aqueous light. “I do not hinder my children.” She took Maerad’s chin in her hand and lifted it, so they gazed eye to eye. “I loved thy forefather many an age ago, and his head rested on my breast, and such pleasure was a wonder to me.”

She let Maerad go and stretched sensuously, like a cat, reaching her arms up into the trees. “But like all mortals, he aged and died. I forgot him. And then I heard your voice, and it sounded like his, and I remembered. So I followed thee, and saw; you are my kin.”

After loosing a few potshots at humans, asking if Cadvan is Maerad’s lover (I guess some leeway must be given here: ages are probably hard to tell when you’re basically a forever-living nature spirit?) and telling Maerad to forget him because all humans die super easy and most are boring, she gives Maerad a pipe and tells her to play it and she (the figure) will hear. I note cynically that the figure does not say she will help. Then she disappears.

Cadvan is understandably a little freaked out by the whole thing, especially since he didn’t understand a single word. He was worried she’d been bewitched, which I assume is roughly the equivalent of being fairy-struck, but she assures him otherwise. He says that not only was the Elidhu (nature spirit, rough elf or fae equivalent in this world) speaking its native tongue (which they don’t do around humans because humans can’t understand them), Maerad was also speaking it. Maerad relays they conversation, “omitting the Elidhu’s comments about Cadvan,” and Cadvan is less freaked out but still kinda freaked out. He examines the pipe - he knows how to make them, but the reed itself is not one he’s come across.

Apparently there are rumors about the House of Karn (which Maerad is descended from through her mother, though we don’t learn that until a page or two later) having Elidhu blood somewhere back there, but Cadvan never really believed them. He clearly is realigning his worldview while they ride to the next Bardhome, and continues when they reach it and set of camp and care for the horses.

He looked tired; deep furrows ran from nose to mouth, and his eyes were hooded. In such moments he seemed a stranger to her - a dark, withdrawn man, his face lined with thought, toughened and weathered by a life of which she had no knowledge.

He apologizes for being so withdrawn, but he’s trying to figure shit out. Maerad can’t understand the Speech but she’s got Elidhu, a language that is not spoken by humans, down pat? He admits that Barding doesn’t cover everything. There are deeper older Knowings, and the Elidhu were here way before humans, so he’s willing to accept that there’s stuff no Bards know.

He paused, then continued, “To have the blood of Elementals is, among Bards, not quite considered a good thing,” he said. “If it was in the House of Karn, it is no wonder it was kept secret.” “Why?” asked Maerad. “She was not evil.”

“Not evil,” said Cadvan. “But neither can they be relied un in the human world. You spoke to the Elidhu; would you trust her? The things of the Wild are not as us; they are apt to forget what we must remember, and turn like fire in a trice from benign to deadly.”

Maerad asks what the House of Karn is, and Cadvan realizes he hasn’t actually given her much background info. It’s a little unclear how much of it was just because it’s generally assumed knowledge and Cadvan just assumed and how much of it was Cadvan not wanting her to put too much stock in a long line of Bards making her special, as many Bards these days seem to do.

This conversation segues neatly into a discussion of Nelac, Cadvan’s old teacher, and Enkir, the First Bard of Norloch. Cadvan says Nelac is a much better Bard, but admits that he is biased. Enkir is from another great Bard house, and he’s a Reader (apparently Norloch First Bards almost always are; I appreciate that it’s sort of a sign of corruption that only powerful magic users are put in charge of things, and that Norloch seems to dismiss its Tenders is a sign of Bad).

“Norloch is very different from Innail,” said Cadvan. “But you have already withstood more frightening things than old men.”

MORE RIDING. It’s almost like crossing a continent takes some time, y’all. Who knew?

They make it out of the Weywood and come upon the Hollow Lands. Maerad is nonplussed at the ruins (that are so ancient literally no one knows who built them. Like, the Dhyllin, who are legendary ancient people and made Maerad’s lyre, didn’t know where the ruins came from) and the dreary landscape. They camp and everything feels weirdly empty. In a nice detail, Maerad wakes up to Cadvan snoring softly, and I don’t know why that detail struck me so much. She looks up at the stars and eventually falls asleep again (why isn’t one of them keeping watch aren’t we worried about hull pursuit YOU GUYS).

Eventually Cadvan says they’re coming up on civilization again, so he disguises them with Bardcraft. Cadvan makes Maerad look like a boy and gives himself red hair. Even his voice is deeper. The horses he makes less conspicuous too, but then he has to rest: it takes more effort to make illusions that will fool Bards as well as nonBards, and they’re about to enter Ettinor’s lands. If you remember, that’s where a lot of rumors about Bards not being bardly are coming from.

The town of Milhol isn’t great and neither is the inn: it’s expensive, everyone is grouchy, and everything smells. Also, bedbugs. Look y’all, I work in a hotel. We do not use the b word. It freaks people out. I hope Cadvan and Maerad have a spell to get rid of them because otherwise those bugs are going to stay there and get into everything and every house town and inn they walk through. Those things are nightmares.

Maerad and Cadvan wake up early and leave immediately (armored up now) and I do not blame them. They find the Bard Road and can make good time because it’s in good condition. Nobody’s happy along the road.

“It’s hard to scrape a living from this land,” said Cadvan. “And it makes the people bitter.”

Ain’t that the truth.

When they camp that night the illusions wear off. Cadvan decides to conserve strength and not recast them for a few days. They ride on in the morning.

Y’all I hadn’t exactly forgotten this part but I sort of glossed over it in my mind. They run into a hull unexpectedly. Maerad pretends to be Cadvan’s ‘lunatic daughter’ to avoid notice. It doesn’t really work, but we do get a good feel for what Ettinor is (or isn’t) doing, re: traditional barding duties, since Cadvan tells the hull he’s taking his daughter for help to the school.

“There might be help in Ettinor for such as you,” said the hull sneeringly. “Or there might not.”

Things are rotten in the state of Ettinor, y’all.

Things aren’t great in the state of Pellinor books dealing with mental health issues either because Maerad pretends to have a fit to throw the hull off and like. There are worse things in the world to read, definitely, but this is one of the few things in Pellinor that pings me as… less well done than they might have been. So that’s fun.

The hull leaves. Cadvan and Maerad high themselves off as quickly as possible, discussing how distressing it is to learn that Ettinor is not only full of dicks but also evil undead dicks.

THRONE OF GLASS

We’re back to three chapters. You’d think I’d learn to just round up every time, but no, so here we go with chapters 25, 26, and 27.

25 starts with Celaena having a dream about exploring the castle secret passages and finding a man and a woman, the woman in light, the man in shadow. They both wear crowns, and we’re assured that the woman’s “wasn’t a tacky, enormous thing, but rather a slender peak with a blue gem embedded at its center.”

Give women substantial crowns 2k18.

Celaena realizes that she’s seeing Elena Havilliard, the foremother of the Adarlan royal line, when she notices that the woman has “ever so slightly pointed” ears, because that’s the last time a fae married into the Havilliards. Elena’s husband Gavin Havilliard is next to her with a famous sword named Damaris. Elena was a princess of Terrasen, which is where Celaena is from (in one of the bonus short stories that you have to buy a specific hardcover edition of a book to read, we also learn that Celaena has a Terrasen (Terrasenian?) accent. It’s never mentioned anywhere else that I can recall, but I’ve been wrong before).

Anyway, Elena starts talking to Celaena in the dream and starts loading on the destiny stuff couched in Celaena being cool.

“You must win this competition and become the King’s Champion. You understand the people’s plight. Erilea needs you as the King’s Champion.”

Turns out there’s an evil in the castle that needs to be destroyed.

”Courage of the heart is very rare. Let it guide you.”

I'm ide-eyeing Elena for reasons entirely different than the book has Celaena suddenly decide to do later.

She gives Celaena something and shouts for Celaena to run because something is coming, and Celaena wakes up in bed holding an amulet. The door to the secret passage is ajar. Celaena shuts it and considers becoming the King’s Champion and the unspecified Dark Force.

“...while she would be more than happy if some dark force somehow destroyed Cain, Perrington, the king, and Kaltain Rompier, if Nehemia, or even Chaol and Dorian, were somehow harmed...”

Holy shit Celaena you’re lumping in some mean girl whispering with conquering and colonization and the murder of your family? Chill, girl. Slow your roll. What the fuck. I’m glad you don’t want Nehemia dead, I guess?

She goes to sleep, which brings us to chapter 26.

Chaol wakes her by banging open the doors to her room, which does not reassure me that he wasn’t watching her sleep because everyone in this book is a creeper. Then again, he does start demanding her whereabouts last night, which is when we learn that one of the named but plain and unimportant champions was murdered and half eaten.

Celaena reflects that this means that the other champions hadn’t been killed in a drunken brawl, which. Okay. I thought we already knew that. Moving on. Celaena says that she was in her room all night, her guards can vouch, and so can Chaol if the king asks. Chaol says they won’t be training together today since he needs to investigate, and Celaena pretends to be pleased. She waits for him to leave before grabbing supplies and going to explore some more. She explores the tomb at the end of the third tunnel and notes that there is a shaft lined with gold that allows people to see in the tomb.

How people have missed a tunnel to the outside that is literally coated in gold in a still functioning castle is beyond me. Also, you’d think they’d use a less expensive (and harder?) metal for illumination. Oh yeah, there are words saying “Ah! Time’s Rift!” on a sarcophagus. What are the burial customs for this culture?

Celaena leaves the tomb after rationalizing her way out of taking any initiative whatsoever.

Later she’s all dressed up in a pink and white dress (other details unmentioned: someone GIVE ME FASHION) that makes her look so spectacular that every woman who sees her is jealous and every man wants her. She smirks about it. Then she tries to go investigate the dead champion.

There are wyrdmarks, so Celaena decides that makes it something more than a brutal killing. She also decides (again) that this wasn’t an accident, since his brain appears to have been removed. Grave appears and is smirky. Celaena decides that she feels bad for two seconds.

We swap to Dorian’s PoV. He’s sparring with Chaol. They’re getting Manly and arguing about Celaena. Then they talk about how the king has left with none of the guards that Chaol suggested. Then Dorian asks if Chaol thinks someone is murdering the champions.

At some point in a later book someone says that it isn’t Dorian’s magic but his brains that make him an asset. I want that noted for the record.

Dorian, after worrying about Celaena for a minute, decides he too has a lot to worry about because of the burned list of eligible women given to him by his mother. Obviously this is comparable to possibly being murdered. End chapter.

Chapter 27 starts with Celaena and Nehemia looking at the clock tower, and Celaena reflects that it’s creepy and that she can’t be sent back to Endovier because another winter will kill her. Nehemia is already improving her use of the common tongue. Celaena has not improved her Eyllwe much. The clock tower is creepy some more. Nehemia wants to know more about the dead body, since her guards didn’t get close enough to give her much detail. Celaena tells her, and Nehemia looks upset.

Celaena begins to apologize for upsetting her (hey look actual friendship moment) but Cain appears and starts slinging insults at champion and princess alike. I question how this court works. Celaena and Nehemia leave, and Celaena reflects that it’s nice to have someone looking out for her for once. I stare in blank confusion.

In Chaol’s PoV we’re watching Celaena train with Nox. Chaol brought Dorian, hoping to impress upon him how dangerous Celaena is, but honestly I’m pretty sure a damp sweet potato could beat Celaena at this point so that’s not a great plan. Dorian is glad she has made a friend and tells Chaol to let her keep practicing with Nox.

Next PoV is Celaena’s, and she’s complaining about researching wyrdmarks in the library. Chaol tells her she sounds crazy when she starts talking creation theories and then scares her with a scraping noise when she’s already creeped out by a different one. Celaena storms out.

COMPARISON

Maerad and Cadvan continue to go through some shit. Celaena continues to have a suite of rooms in a palace and be ineptly flirted with while whining about missing parties. HOWEVER, in both of these sections we meet Elidhu/fae (or half-fae, in Elena’s case) for the first time. Both heroines have powers related to their fae ancestry (though I guess we don’t actually know For Certain Sure that Celaena has fae ancestry at this point, but come on, you and I both knew she was The Long Lost Fairy Princess the first time we read the book, that is the kind of book Throne of Glass is). Both heroines speak to vaguely spirit-y fae/Elidhu in this section, too. I could not have lined these sections up better for comparison if I had done it on purpose.

It might very well be personal preference, but I’ve always found fae and fae equivalents more interesting when they actually are outside human morality. I talked about this in a goodreads status update while reading The Naming for fragments etc, but the Elidhu very clearly exist in a blue and orange morality spectrum compared to a human’s black/white/greyscale. They just fundamentally Do Not Get It. They are immortal. Our concerns are not their concerns. The Nameless One kind of offends them because he tries to use them (we learn later), but they don’t really care about Maerad’s quest otherwise aside from the fact that it is Maerad’s quest, because she has some Elidhu blood in her. Y’all, her ancestor straight up forgot about the human family she had because she’s so fuckng old. This is the otherworldly race I signed up for. The Elidhu isn’t even impressed by Cadvan, who’s a super powerful Bard, because whatever, he’s gonna die or be boring. He is boring to her. The narrative doesn’t even try to say otherwise. He’s not boring to Maerad, obviously, and he isn’t boring to us, but to an Elidhu who has seen it all, married and slept with an ancient hero-bard-king of old, and gone on to forget about the experience? Cadvan ain’t shit.

(I’m sorry Cadvan I love you)

There is never an instance in any Throne of Glass book where the love interest is allowed to be anything less than utterly desirable by anyone. Can you imagine Maeve looking at Rowan and going ‘eh’? No. We are constantly bombarded with discussions of how desirable every man in Throne of Glass is unless they’re evil. They’re the best at everything they do, they’re the best looking out of everyone around, and by god we will hear about it. Random fae comment on it. Random humans comment on it. Bad guys. Good guys. And then we’re supposed to believe they are so powerful no one can ever challenge them even though people constantly challenge them?

All of this comes back to the immortals in the series even though I sort of went on a tangent. Why are the fae so impressed by all of these mortals? Even Aedion, who supposedly has a reputation as the best general around, seems pretty unimpressive (to me) compared to the theoretical accomplishments of people who were around thousands of years ago before a few gods were deified and the world changed etc etc (because I was just reminded in Empire of Storms that Rowan apparently met Gavin Havilliard, who we know from later books was around the first time the Big Bad Valg came into this dimension or whatever how the fuck old is Rowan why is he interested in a barely eighteen year old why is he impressed by anything  at this point).

The fae in Throne of Glass are incredibly invested in nonfae doings. One might say overly invested. It just doesn’t click for me. Further, Throne of Glass focuses way more on making the fae attractive rather than interesting - the narrative goes out of the way to assure us that everything about Elena is dainty and only slightly nonhuman (she’s half goddess, btw, so I don’t know why she’s not MORE otherworldly rather than less?) even down to her crown. Heaven forfend a woman have multiple pages of screentime, as it were, and not be conventionally attractive, though actually now that I think about it this applies to men in ToG too, just in a different way. The men are The Most Manly. The women are The Most Womanly But They Also Have to Physically Kick Ass On Top Of It or they’re treated by narrative and characters alike as not worth their time at best. It’s a problem.

I continue to despair at everyone’s incompetence in Throne of Glass, though I also side eye the playing of music on the down low when you aren’t lighting fires or keeping watch in Pellinor. Cadvan, you should know better even if Maerad doesn’t.

Pellinor is also better at giving me atmospheric creepiness, though I suppose your mileage could vary on this point. Compare the grey, rocky land with no trees and lonely ruins that still remember people with an obsidian clock tower. Bonus points to Pellinor for having to deal with bugs and bullshit.

Another thing I appreciate about Pellinor (there are many): Maerad is from an Ancient and Storied Lineage, but Cadvan is very clear that that doesn’t matter much in the day-to-day, and Maerad agrees. It might CONTRIBUTE to Maerad being the foretold, but people who hold entirely to the importance of their ancestors are dicks. We’ll see that more with Enkir, and I personally feel that it is amply shown (though apparently unintentionally) in Throne of Glass.

STATS

Throne of Glass:

Pages: 29

Fragments: 67

Em-Dashes: 59

Ellipses: 24

Pellinor:

Pages: 26

Fragments: 5

Em-Dashes: 7

Ellipses: 6

[ask-saiyan-chigo-blog]

Chigo’s story part 4

As the Saiyan pod hovered through asteroid rains and beyond stars, some time had passed. Chigo was still soundly asleep and even the smallest dent or the loudest bangs couldn't wake her. The pod had changed its pace after being a while in space and you could already see planet Vume appear on sight. While closing in on its atmosphere the pod started to shake and crack, like this was the last flight it could still handle. “Closing in on p.. planet Vume b.. be alerted.. p.. pre.. pare for i..mpa..ct... beeb” the pod kept repeating the sentence and every time it did. It missed more words and started to sound more heavy. The moment the atmosphere came in contact with the pod, the whole machine started to shake and with hard hits of Chigo’s head against the sides she opened her eyes. She was still dazed from the hyper sleep and the moment she realized what happened, she took a closer look through the small circled window. All she could see was black smoke. After a loud whistling sound she figured out that the whole pod caught fire and was about to blow. With her heart pounding in her head and her mouth dry from stress she knew that if she stayed put. The blast and heat from the pod would be her death. So she loosened the protection belt and tried to keep her balance as she stood up straight. The moment she touched the sides of pod she could hear the hissing sound her flesh made as the melting metal made contact with it. Her teeth clenched and cold sweat broke free while she was trying to ignore the pain. With a loud scream she pushed so hard the pod cracked open from the top side. As it almost landed and fire consumed it whole Chigo cramped into one to collect her ki and made a jump for it. Just on the break of time she broke free through the top crack and an energy flow exposed around her as a protective shield. The explosion of the pod left a grand impact and the force made Chigo crash on the ground. When she tried to ease her breather and wipe the dust from her eyes. She could see a huge crater shaped gape inside the ground, black smoke and some still set on fire pieces from the pod scattered all around. She sat up and landed flat on her back with her arms and hands spread out feeling the soft soil between her fingers. “I..I just... made it... What the heck! I MADE IT, WHOOHOOO!” she rejoiced with a big smile on her lips. When she finally came by and paced her breather to a slower rate, she forced her body to sit up straight. She noticed a stinging pain in her lower stomach, the hot metal from the pod scraped a good piece of flesh away. She had to bind it with something to stop the blood from flowing out and ripped a part of her dress off. “There there..” She said as the cloth was bound on tight. She looked up and checked her surroundings, there was nothing more than red sand around. Her first destination was a total wasteland. She decided to stand up and feel the natures energy flow around her. To her surprise there were quite a few strong beings around, so she wanted to take a closer look. Right before taking flight she checked back in the direction of the crater, there was nothing left to build up a new escape plan. So the only thing to do now is to look forward and see what the future will hold. With the wind in her back she flew quite a while. Chigo could feel herself grow exhausted and her stomach was growling for food. The closer she got to the energy source, the rougher the land got. It looked like animals ploughed through it from a distance. When she hovered closer she could see that the spores were actually a path made of footsteps. She dropped down to preserve her energy supply and went for a walk instead. Not much later the end of it was in sight and she heard chatter in the distance. She walked upon what seemed like a tiny camouflaged base created from wet sand. So she stopped by to take a look inside. “Hmmmmm I don't remember us having a female crewmember now do we Burter?” ,, “Nope.. This is quite the interesting view Jeice.” Chigo turned around to face the 2 shady men standing behind her. Without even giving a response she kicked the one named Jeice in his face. The one named Burter froze up as he saw his friend fall on his behind holding his bleeding nose. When the view got clear they both noticed her tail wiggle around “A.. A SAIYAN!” they screamed in unison. Chigo looked at them funny as their reaction was a bit odd, but this wouldn't back her down. She bold her fists and took up a fighting pose. 'I'm ready when you are!' She shouted to get their fullest attention. Burter bounced back to create more distance between them and attended to his partner. “She broke my nose Burter, get this monkey to pay!” Jeice taunted when he could barely stand on his feet. Burter nodded and struck a pose "Prepare yourself for the Blue Hurricane! BURTER!" He blew of some steam and created a blast of energy that blew the whole base away with one go. Chigo was nowhere to be seen and Burter felt his stress levels rise and checked his surroundings fiercely for some remains. “What.. where?” ,, “Behind you Burter!” The moment he turned around Chigo stood there and punched him into his stomach, he blurted out some unclear words and passed out on the spot. “Burter! NO! You will pay for this, you filthy monkey!” Jeice also struck his pose and charged towards her “Feel the power of the Red Magma! JEICE!” She looked up cocky and moved forward as well to match his speed “Make me pay? Enlighten me please!” Jeice placed everything he had into his fist and almost scraped Chigo's face as she grabbed hold of his. She still needed him for information so she blew off pressure instead of a ki-blast to secure his safety. The force was so powerful that he got blown back all the way and crashed into his partner Burter. Jeice was not out cold yet and tried to sit up straight with the last bits of strength he still possessed. “I'm... not finished yet....Saiyan!” He looked up in dismay and his eyes matched directly with hers. She grabbed hold of his tunic to lift him up face to face. “Call for your strongest reinforcements to show up, NOW!” She fiercely told him as she dropped him back in the dirt. Jeice did exactly as she told him and placed a panic call with his vision device. Not moments later a spaceship arrived with a huge power source on board. “This must be him.. Frieza”  She said to herself as her heart started to race faster out of excitement.   The hood of the ship opened up and three armored men jumped down. The two on the back ran over to Burter and Jeice to help them get back into shape and the one in the middle with an enormous power level walked right up to her. “So.. You are the one that struck down two of my best warriors?” He asked curious while looking down upon her. Chigo did not flinch once and answered proudly “These weaklings? They weren't even a warm-up!”  They both looked fiercely into each other’s eyes without saying a word. The awkward silence creeped the rest of the guys out and they started to call their Captain. “Captain Ginyu.. do you perhaps acquire our assistance?” At that moment Chigo knew that the man before her was not the one she was looking for. “Darn it, this trouble was all for nothing..” She said while she turned around to walk off. By the first step, she felt the hand of the one called Captain Ginyu rest on her shoulder to make her stop from leaving the scene. She looked back at him and to her surprise he was smiling at her. “It's absolutely extraordinary to be able to defeat my first and second hand of the Ginyu Force! Which means for a Saiyaness you are stronger than you look!” he explained while holding his hands behind his head. “Get to the point already? What do you want from me Ginyu?” She said to pick up the pace as there was a lot to do before she could take off again. “It's Captain Ginyu to be precise! Oh and as the rules go, if you beat my men you have a free ticket to become my first hand in the Ginyu Force! So what do you think of that offer?” Chigo bursted out in laughter “Join you? This ridiculous Rainbow Squad? Hell no! I wouldn't even want to be caught dead with you guys!” ,, “You would even be able to meet Lord Cooler! What about now? interested yet?” Chigo fell silent for a moment as she couldn't fully recall a name he just said even though it had a familiar disgusting sound to it “This Lord Cooler? Who is that exactly?” she asked interested. Captain Ginyu could not believe his ears and he moved up closer to her. “You don't know the Royal Arcosian family even though you're a Saiyan? From what rock did you crawl out of girl? Lord Cooler is Lord Frieza's older brother and he is our savior, our new announced ruler of the universe!” She stepped back in shock not knowing what actually went on anymore. “You seem tired and starving, let's talk while we all have dinner together?” He said worried and the moment the word dinner was mentioned you could hear Chigo's stomach rumble loudly. Her face turned bright red and she scratched the back of her head “That would be delightful, Ginyu.. Thank you!” He nodded and snipped his fingers. The others couldn't understand the way their captain did business, but what he decided to do they followed blindly.