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itsbenedict · 3 years

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Two-Faced Jewel: Session 1-B

(Part B, for length- see Part A first.)

Zero and @eternalfarnham are Looseleaf and Saelhen du Fishercrown, a mothfolk animist and a half-elf conwoman whose travels take them to Blacksky University, where the discovery of an unknown magical artifact sets them on the path to discovering the secrets of a shattered world.

Saelhen du Fishercrown has just involuntarily bonded with a magical bracer under false pretenses. The deans of the School of Natural Arts and the School of Arcane Arts have reached a compromise- send Looseleaf (equipped with a wand of Locate Object) to keep an eye on her. None of this bodes well for her plan to skip town and pawn the thing- if she doesn't follow the magical arrow, it's going to be hard to explain.

So... she figures she might as well find out where it's pointing, and see if there's a way to remove it and/or shake her tail at the end.

Saelhen du Fishercrown:Saelhen is best served by seeming a bit silly, here. So I think she's going to follow the arrow directly and just straight-up cross over the fences. Looseleaf:Looseleaf fidgets a bit. "I mean, honor has to tarry for things like, classes, and stuff, occasionally, right?" "Not to mention, you still, like, need to do a whole interview." "And you can't just- like, at the least I'd want to get the campus news department involved, y'know, put this in the news and stuff, right?" Saelhen du Fishercrown:"I will be proud to answer any questions you have as we go, Madam Looseleaf." Saelhen approaches the campus fence and begins to struggle over it. Looseleaf:Looseleaf is only vaguely sure that this campus has anything like a newsletter, but something about this lady's insistency on walking off into the sunset as quickly as she can is making Looseleaf's antennae twitch, a little bit. "Uhhhhhh," Looseleaf says. "Okay, sure, then."

They take a pretty direct route to where the arrow's pointing. On the way, Looseleaf puts the screws to Saelhen by poking at her cover story.

Saelhen continues to roll crazy good on Deception, vs Looseleaf's History, and Looseleaf can't find any fault in Saelhen's staggeringly-detailed hand-calligraphied forgery.

Benedict I. (GM): So- it seems like this was written by someone who's at least read A Flawless History of the Elven Peoples cover to cover. There aren't any obvious contradictions, and a lot of supporting details- it's hard to believe someone could've just made all this up. Looseleaf: But, okay, wow, Looseleaf is... absolutely engrossed in this book. This is the good stuff. Benedict I. (GM): You're familiar enough with the vagaries of the biographical tradition that there could easily be creative reinterpretations or doctored facts in here, but you don't have any way to distinguish them from reality. Saelhen du Fishercrown: Saelhen keeps up a running commentary while they walk. Looseleaf: But presumably there is no mention of any kind of accession ritual? Saelhen du Fishercrown:Jack nothing! Looseleaf:And definitely nothing along the lines of a stone bracer being involved in some kind of ancestral spirit worship ritual.

Yeah, something's fishy here. But it's a long book, and it takes a long time to read, and before Looseleaf can get through it, the arrow starts to swerve.

The bracer seems to have lead them to Yoshimimoto Plaza, a wide pavilion in the middle of a ring of government buildings owned by the Oyashio Port Authority- the city's secular government. Saelhen recognizes the design as remarkably similar to the floor of the Ryokou Temple in Kanzentokai.

The Ryokou Temple, hundreds of years ago, was once a great hub of teleportation, where travelers from all over the world came and went. Thanks to teleportation magic, the concept of "cities" and "nations" and "regional governments" didn't make a lot of sense back then, and the world was something of a fragmentary monoculture featuring several different competing governments- distributed governments which claimed authority over their members, not over geographical territories.

(If you've read anything of the Terra Ignota series, they were basically like the hives.)

Two or three centuries ago, though, something called the Blackout occurred. Teleportation magic suddenly failed- planar travel broke, as did the teleportation hubs in each of the world's major cities. Suddenly, the world was shattered into geographically distant territories, which suddenly had to administer themselves without contact with the rest of the world. The world as it is today was shaped by the effects of this Blackout, and how people rebuilt.

Yoshimimoto Plaza, now an unremarkable empty square, used to be the city's teleportation hub.

Saelhen, following the arrow, touches the bracer to the center of this plaza, and all hell breaks loose.

The bricks underneath them all suddenly fall into a pit, landing about twenty feet down on a squishy surface that yields under the impact. Despite the cushioning, Saelhen takes 5 bludgeoning damage from the fall. (Looseleaf can feather-fall with her moth wings, so she's fine.)

So, what you've landed on... first and foremost, it smells. It smells of mildew and decay, of something sealed up and left to rot. The walls of the pit aren't dirt or stone- you're not sure what they are. They're gray-green and porous, interwoven with what might be vines. The floor has a ton of bricks on top of it, but where those bricks fell unevenly, you can see the floor is a mass of these squishy vines- or maybe tentacles, it's not entirely clear.

What's not fine is the old man who was feeding the pigeons on the plaza, who's broken his legs and is screaming for help. Also not fine are a couple of Oyashio Port Authority guards, who were chatting there and are now very perturbed.

Also not fine are the walls of this pit- they've got holes in them. Holes from which horrible little fleshy winged creatures are crawling:

These bloodsucking fiends claw their way out of the weird porous walls, and begin divebombing people with unholy shrieks.

The party rolls for initiative! Saelhen readies an action to intercept the enemy, and it's a good thing- she downs one of the stirges with a hidden blade when it gets close. (Looseleaf notes how suspicious it is that a noblewoman had a hidden blade up her sleeve.)

Looseleaf uses Rend Spirit on another one- a magical attack that uses animism as a blunt force weapon. The spirit of something is different from its soul- a living thing has a mind, but it also has a spirit, which is just sort of a semi-sentient magical handle on its body and the nature thereof. The spirit of something's muscles says "I want to expand and contract in response to nerve stimuli"- and Looseleaf can tell the muscles "No, you want to snfdkdfrksfjklafdr." The muscles' spirit gets real confused by this and tries to make its physical host do some snfdkdfrksfjklafdr, which makes no sense and results in chaotic flailing and tissue damage. Or, uh, "force damage", D&D's vaguest damage type.

She seizures the other stirge to death, but three more crawl their way out of the walls. Two go for the guards, who call for help and manage to take one down- but the third goes for the defenseless old man. Saelhen whiffs her thrown knife to intercept it, and the stirge buries its proboscis in the man's side and begins to drink.

Looseleaf: Holy shit, this woman is going to get people killed. Her nonsense- and probably confabulated- ancestral quest is going to get people killed.

Saelhen follows up by charging the stirge and slaying it- but four more stirges crawl out of the walls. There's no end to the damn things!

Looseleaf, who has wings, remembers them- and also remembers her starting gear! When do players ever do that? She gets out her 50 ft of rope and drops a rope ladder to help people escape.

The stirges are on the move, though- those not distracted by the guards go for Saelhen and Looseleaf. One of them gets through and impales Saelhen- who only had 6 hit points left after the fall damage, at level 1. It rolls well, and she goes down.

One of the guards grabs the old man and begins climbing out of the pit, just as reinforcements arrive with crossbows- but it's too late for Looseleaf, who gets herself divebombed by a stirge, which beats her AC and latches on. She tries to Rend Spirit it off her, but fails- and its next attack finishes her off. Meanwhile, Saelhen is still down in the pit being fed on, and rolls a critical failure on her first death save, counting as two failures! The party is completely KO'd by these horrible bloodsucking monsters they uncovered.

Luckily for them, they went down... in the middle of the administrative center of a highly populated city, surrounded by emergency services personnel who were actively trying to save them. As a result... they wake up in the hospital, not dead.

Looseleaf: "When the inquiries come in, I just want to make it clear, miss du Surplus," Looseleaf says in her hospital bed, "I do not know you and I do not know who you are and I am pretty sure that this is all your fault." Her antennae are swishing furiously, which is moth for 'fuck everything about this'. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "In my defense," says Saelhen, "I have no frigging idea why that bracelet summoned infinite bats, haha." "Ow."

It seems- from the chafing on her wrist- that someone tried to steal the bracer off her arm while she was unconscious, to no avail.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "If your university wants it back, you're maybe going to have to use a cleaver. Ha ha. You know, I've actually been to places where they chop off your hand for stealing." Looseleaf: "You better hope they don't decide to chop off your arm," apparently Looseleaf's got more of a vindictive bent to her than you'd expect! "You folk only have two arms." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Gonna be a super dishonorable wound." Looseleaf: "Yeah, we're dispensing with the whole, elegant elf politese thing entirely now, are we." "Not that it exactly made sense for a dignified hyper-polite elf to run around with a dozen daggers tied to them under the robes." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "For what it's worth, if you weren't dogging me so closely, I would have probably screwed off, tried to sell it, found out I couldn't and... I guess left town with the next circus. Amazing halfbreed with bad taste in jewelry." "But it's obviously not your fault, right? No idea your actions would lead to that." "Yeah, the mysterious maiden of the orient thing gets old after a while but so many people buy into it." "I am disowned, though, if it helps."

Saelhen pretty much spills all the beans to Looseleaf- and tries to lay out a plan for how they can both avoid taking the blame for this. Looseleaf is shocked that Saelhen has the audacity to try to keep up the con, after what happened- and horrified at the implication that she was somehow responsible for this.

Looseleaf:"You're thinking of trying to keep up the scam," Looseleaf says in disbelief. "By Harmony, you actually want to double down." Benedict I. (GM):"...suspects, wanted for...!" "...my students..." "...jured patients!" There's an argument happening outside your door. Looseleaf:"Oh, there it is," Looseleaf sighs. She folds her arms and looks up at the ceiling of the hospital room and resigns herself to be utterly annihilated by terrible inexorable fate.

The door opens, and in walks... uh. A nurse? It's a round tiefling woman dressed in... not so much a nurse's outfit as a sexy halloween costume of a nurse's outfit. It's... a lot. She seems to be playing the part of an actual medical professional, though, and after a quick checkup, asks which of their two guests they'd like to speak to first.

Who are these guests? Well, the first one is Provost Hamori, from the school. The drow lady. Something in Looseleaf's moth bones shudders as she enters the room and the trailing of her dress masks a skittering noise.

Luckily for them, the provost is very happy with them! Earth-shattering magical discoveries that unleash hordes of blood-sucking monsters on the populace of the city are not at all occasions to be mourned, in her opinion. There's so much new research to be done! It's exciting!

Plus, apparently, while they were out, refugees crawled their way out of the tentacle-floor in the pit! Supposedly descendants of people who disappeared from the face of the Jewel when the Blackout occurred. They'd managed to survive in that sort of horrible Stranger Things-ass upside-down horror-world for hundreds of years! Very exciting!

Provost Hamori reassures them that everything will be fine, and asks them to tell the truth to the nice police lady who's about to have a friendly chat with them.

Said police lady takes her turn to speak to the hospitalized party.

Benedict I. (GM): "My name is Stella Lastwave. I am captain of the Port Authority city guard. I am required to disclose this information." Then she leans in. "Would the two of you like to tell me what the fuck is happening in my city?" Saelhen du Fishercrown: Good question! Benedict I. (GM): "Dozens of bloodsucking hellmonsters are menacing the citizens, a troop of ultraviolent feral children are wreaking havoc in the streets, and the Yoshimimoto Plaza is a ruined crater of necrotic energy!" "I have fourteen witnesses stating that you walked up to the middle of the plaza with a magic item, touched the ground, and unleashed hell on the innocent citizens of Oyashio!" "You're going to explain what the hell you thought you were doing, right now!" Looseleaf: “Um. It was an accident?” Looseleaf begins, and then hedges, because this intimidating cop lady is intimidating her, and all of her prepared lines of explanation have gone right out the window. Benedict I. (GM): "An accident." "Again."

Captain Lastwave is highly suspicious of Saelhen's story- as the de la Surplus family doesn't exist in any of the shipping records they have for the world's busiest port city. If they're not in the records, they either don't exist, or they're smugglers.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "We have... fallen on difficult times as of late. It is a stain on our honor that we have failed to contribute to Kanzentokai's glory, I realize." Saelhen sighs. "...it was my hope that I might restore our reputation by completing the succession, when the means were lost to us for so long." Benedict I. (GM): "Yeah? And your 'succession' means siccing demons on a city of innocent people?" Looseleaf: “They just assigned me to her as an anthropology assignment,” Looseleaf babbles. “I was supposed to follow her doing her rite thingy and write it down and turn it in as an essay for my self-directed project.” Whatever the splash radius of this negotiation is going to wind up being, Looseleaf is absolutely making sure that she ends up outside of it. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Strange are the ways of my ancestors. It is my hope that I will be allowed to serve the free citizens of Oyashio, as I have served those citizens long-imprisoned by the Blackout." Benedict I. (GM): "This is the seventh goddamn evil magic apocalypse that witch up in Blacksky has tried to wipe out Oyashio with! Even when it's not them, it's them, or-" "-what, are you talking about the murdercrazy teenagers running wild in the streets?" Looseleaf: Looseleaf looks at Fishercrown. ”Oh.” Saelhen du Fishercrown: "So I have been told." Looseleaf: "So that’s what the Provost meant by... whoof." "So, ‘we found humans on the other side of the portal’ was definitely a euphemism, huh.”

Thanks to Saelhen once again rolling absurdly high on Deception, Captain Lastwave lets them off with a warning, and leaves. They leave the hospital- or rather, the Temple of Karou, Heartlifter, God of Joy.

as you leave the Temple of Karou, you learn that the Temple of Karou comprises the upper floors of the building, 2 and up the first floor, run by the local bishop of Karou (Vermillion Hansen, the tiefling "nurse" you met) is the Pink Lips Pleasure House- an official government institution funded by the Ecumene of Joy. it is a brothel. the Ecumene of Joy is a little weird.

So with that crisis officially Not Their Fault, Looseleaf and Saelhen return to Blacksky, where the Provost- in exchange for keeping it Not Their Fault- will be having them conduct further research on this bracer- which has sprouted a new arrow, pointing off somewhere to the northeast.

Next session, we'll see what that research entails!

#twofaced jewel

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adragonhoardingstories · 4 years

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Of Blood and Bonds - Chapter 5

"Father you know I respect you." Damian said and everyone at the dining table stilled as they were about to get up and leave. "But I must admit, as my brothers would say, you've majorly fucked up."

Bruce sighed. He had thought about that - had Alfred scold him for having benched Damian - for doing as Damian had said and taking out his anger about his own failures on his other children. But that didn't make this any easier.

"Damian I know you're mad I didn't tell you about your sister-"

"Oh this is not about that. Well not entirely. They are connected but this is not about Marinette alone." When no one spoke, he took it as his cue to continue.

"You saw in her files that there were some vague details about her being possessed by an akuma. Did you figure out what they are? Because I have an its not pretty. Actually, it's bad enough to warrant an intervention of the Justice League as a whole but my sister tells me that they were told not to waste the JL's time."

His youngest's face was worryingly blank. It reminded him of all the times he was set upon something and right now it seemed that his new focus was his older sister. Bruce supposed, he should be thankful that Damian's attention towards her was not of the murderous kind.

"What do you mean?" He made sure to keep his voice free from emotions.

"From what she told me, they asked for help several times until someone from the JL dismissed their problems as a prank, a joke without any investigation or anything about their claims."

Someone was going to be hearing from Batman soon.

"And what about the akumas?"

"It's enough to need more than one member of the JL. I've see a video of one of the attacks, it's...horrifying and according to Marinette it was one of the tamer ones."

"Do you have them?" His sons all looked annoyed and he knew they were probably thinking that he was letting superhero work take precedence over his family again. But that was how he worked. He didn't know what to do about the situation with Marinette but this - this could find a solution to.

"There are videos of them online."

Damian seemed to take that as his cue to get up and walk away.

"I'll play the videos in the cave."

Marinette hadn't necessarily had the best time in the last years but one thing he had definitely learned was who were her real friends and who weren't.

It was before the worst month of her life but things had already started taking a turn for the worse for her at that point.

Her so called friends all started to believe Lila over her, started to - as she now knew - emotionally blackmail her, only gave her the time of the day whenever she did something for them or to scold her for whatever she apparently did for poor Lila.

She was oh so tired and every second she wasted made her feel more guilty.

Hawkmoth had come back more enraged than ever after the Miracle Queen incident and she had done the mistake of lending the more Miraculous out.

She had given Kagami and Luka both different Miraculous for them to fight alongside her because they both have strong spirits and a good resonance with several kwamis but... let's just say that she would never forgive herself for what they had to experience because of her.

In desperation, she tried to find other holders that she hadn't used before who resonated but that...that had been a huge mistake. She almost lost more than one Miraculous that day.

She was their Guardian. And that day she vowed that she would die first before letting something happen to the Kwamis.

She was fighting alone now. Chat Noir...Chat Noir was even more pushy about revealing themselves after the the chaos that had occured. He hindered more than he helped, never showing up on time.

Things had come to head one day as she walked into class. The whole incident had involved a bunch of sheep and a ripped sketchbook - hers to be precise.

It proved to actually be a relief to let go if them. She had never realized how much their 'friendship' had been dragging her down.

I got permission to use this fic as a reference for her backstory so check it out. Thanks for that btw.

That experience proved to be helpful later when she felt like there was no one she could trust.

Apprenticeship with Master Fu had since long taught her that it was better to feel than to see. She had learnt to recognise auras rather than faces and in the end that might have been her saving grace - or well at least the start of her path back to sanity.

She had learnt to see and remember the auras of her friends rather than anything else because afterall the soul didn't lie.

After everything, well her reliance on auras had only increased.

Meeting her brothers had been amazing and even more so now that it seemed that they wanted to have a relationship with her.

But one things that bothered her were their auras.

It wasn't that they were bad - it was that they were scarred, hardened and she could basically see that they had suffered in the past.

The worst of them were probably Jason and Damian. Their auras made it very clear that they had been dipped in the Lazarus pits.

Jason...Jason's soul had been corrupted at such a point that she doubted that the pits had been used for anything less than bringing him back from the dead.

And Damian - Damian's soul seemed to have some of the pits as a foundation. She gathered that he had been dunked into the pools more than once when he was a child. There was something else in his aura too that showed that he had died not long ago too.

There was also another aura that seemed to have to have linked with both of them which made her sure of their last fates and Marinette shuddered to think what had happened to them.

She had to remind herself that the past was in the past and while she couldn't change that, she could at least help them have a better future.

So, one could say, that she was nervous for this upcoming dinner.

The dinner didn't go as expected - at all.

Firstly, they were late. All of her brothers and sister were late, very very late. Marinette was not impressed, especially give that Damian wasn't answering his phone.

But this was Gotham, the few kwamis she had brought with her reasoned, there was probably a problem and wasn't it better that were safe inside than stuck outside and hurt?

Just as she was about to say screw it and transform using the fox Miraculous to see if she could help the bats, she felt the magic around the house shift.

Marinette focused in the disturbance and closed her eyes reaching out for their auras. She soon snapped her eyes open and let a smile come on her face - she knew those auras. But why were they entering from the window?

Marinette shrugged it off and signalled the kwamis to hide while she went to greet them.

She was not ready for the sight that she came upon. Her siblings were all in a state of disarray and it looked like they were trying to be silent.

They were of course failing miserably given what seemed to be a bullet wound in Jason and a stab would in Dick and the rest of them all seemed to have been beat up to at least some degree.

"What the fuck?" Marinette felt like the situation called for her language to be excused.

They all froze in place before slowly turning to look at her.

"Uh hey." Dick or should she say Nightwing because apparently she wasn't stressed enough gave her a short wave.

She cursed and buried her face in her hands. "Of course I can't have normal siblings."

"Siblings?" Black Bat seemed suprised. She couldn't recognize her aura, Marinette decided that she must have been Cassandra.

"You must be confused ma'am." Red Robin jumped in and Marinette rolled her eyes. "I'm not stupid Timothy." And then just to prove her point she point at each one of them in turn. "Jason, Dick, Damian and who I'm guessing is Cassandra."

"What makes you say that?" Tim seemed to be ever the player of words.

She sighed, knowing they wouldn't budge until she proved that she truely believed her words.

"Well, why else would you be here?"

"Uh because it was the nearest place we found to nurse our wounds and last time we checked this place was abandoned?"

"Let's say that's true. Wouldn't it make more sense for you to go a place where you could actually have access to supplies to treat your wounds? Not to mention the fact that that-" she pointed at the hole in Jason's shoulder. "-is a bullet wound and I heard no gunshot. And lastly, what a coincidence it is that Black Bat who is known to work in Hong Kong comes back to Gotham at the same time as my sister Cassandra who from what I've heard also is currently living in Hong Kong too."

No one replied.

"So do you want to continue arguing or are you idiots going to let me help you before you bleed all over my floor."

Unsurprisingly it was Damian who moved the first - it made sense, he was the one who had spent most time with her and at least had a modicum of trust in her.

He removed his mask and met her eyes. "Do you have a first-aid kit?"

She nodded. "Get in the bathroom and get those two in the tub." She nodded towards Dick and Jason. I'll bring it to you."

Marinette hurried to her bed room to find her probably over-packed first aid kit. She had brought it for herself so that in case of a bad akuma attack she could take care of her wounds - after all her cure took care of everyone else before her, she had enough scars to prove that not that she could distinguish them from those the cat had given her.

She was glad to see that they had followed her instructions. Jason and Dick were seated in her honestly huge tub and they along with the rest had made themselves comfortable, having discarded their armor.

She placed the first-aid kit down and kneeled next to Dick. She felt that the stove would in the stomach took more precedence.

Jason reached out for the kit but Marinette batted his hand away.

"You're injured, sit down quietly." She snapped and to everyone's surprise, he did as he was told.

Marinette started treating their wounds, thanking the kwamis that she had done a medical course as soon as she had realised that her wounds could not heal from the cure.

She had finally taken care of the more dangerous wounds and Marinette had enough of them squirming so she broke the silence "So, why in the world did you come here instead of going to your hyper-tech batcave with most certainly more medical facilities than my humble abode?"

She had to supress a smile as the boys looked among themselves. Finally it was Cassandra that replied.

"Did not want to miss dinner. You."

"Well you were already two hours late, you could just have sent me a text that you'd be a little more late."

"Didn't want to take chance."

Marinette smiled up at her. "Well I'm done, come on, I'll get you some clothes to change into."

"I don't think you'll have anything that will fit us."

"I'm a designer." She called over her shoulder. "I always have spares. Anyways, Cassandra-"

"Cass."

"Right, well Cass come with me, we're about the same size, you can take something of mine."

She led Cass to her bedroom and guided her to her wardrobe while she picked something for the boys.

She totally hadn't hoped to see her siblings during this trip and had this made something for them. Nope. Absolutely not.

She handed each of them their clothes. "Choose a room if you want, I have more than enough of them, then come down, I'm re-heating the food."

She smiled at Damian as he came down the stairs. "I tried my hand at some Arabic food. I hope you like it."

The boy looked awed. He walked to her and gave her a hug. "You're my new favourite sibling." Marinette laughed and pressed a kiss in his hair. "I love you too little brother."

She heard the disbelieving whisper of Demon Spawn? And looked up to see the rest.

She squeezed Damian's shoulder one last time before she pulled away, guiding him to sit down.

"Well dig in. You must be famished after your fight."

They did exactly that and soon were making their appreciation known.

"It's the first time I've attempted Arabic food, I don't know if I got the spices right.*

"It's delicious Pixie Pop. Don't worry.*

"Todd's right Mari. I haven't eaten anything this good since I came to Gotham."

"Really? Alfred didn't immediately dote on you and cook you all the food you wanted. "

He looked uncomfortable. "I was a difficult child back then."

"Was?" Jason snorted while Dick elbowed him.

Casssandra intervened. "You good at cleaning wounds. Hands stable."

"Yes well unfortunately it's not the first time I've had to do this."

"How come?"

"Did Damian tell you about the akuma attacks?" They nodded. "Well, Paris had since adapted to handle the akuma attacks. A lot of people have taken medical courses for extensive first aid to be able to help the unfortunate victims of an akuma."

"I thought that your superhero reversed all the damage."

"Well yeah. But Ladybug was insistent to make it clear that they couldn't bank everything on her. If she's taken down, everything's lost."

"This has been going for how many years. How do you still trust that hero?"

"And for how many years have the Joker been spreading his terror?" She asked drily and saw several of them recoil - Jason and Tim especially.

"Ladybug is doing all that she can only get so far with Chat Noir around."

"Chat Noir? I thought that he was her partner?"

"He's supposed to be but we'll these days he causes more trouble than he stops. People hope he doesn't show up because the battles are always over quicker when he's not there." She could see that they wanted to ask more but number one she didn't want to talk about Chat Noir and number two she felt like if she continued talking, she would slip up and say something she shouldn't know and the risk of them catching it was greater since they were themselves heroes.

"And anyways, Hawkmoth only comes out in a blue moon and that's only when he has a lot of faith in his plans."

"So there are a lot of these akuma attacks?"

"I guess it's kind of become a daily event by this point. People plan stuff taking it into consideration and if we're unlucky, there will be more than one in a day."

"So what type of akumas are there?"

"It depends really over what you've been akumatized. We've had a Pharaon, a Mime, Mr Pigeon and Mr Rat as well as Syren in the first year."

"Those seem like... interesting characters." Jason said.

"Wait until you hear this." Marinette snorted. "We had a Batman knock-off once, Owlman - he had his own electronic butler and everything."

The bats shared a look before they all bursted out laughing at once.

How could they not, imagining Bruce's face upon learning of this?

"You need to tell us this story."

Marinette was more than eager to comply.

It's too long so I'm gonna reblog the rest

#MLB X DC #torture #mentions of rape #lila salt #adrien salt #maribat #platonic daminette

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ma-gic-gay · 3 years

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Finally, the legal proceedings begin again, with testimony from rather dull people, if he's being honest. The jury, it's clear to him at least, is fairly calm at the moment, but there's not a chance in hell that Cyrus is getting off. Not this time. And that terrifies him.

A man with nothing to lose is a very dangerous man. A mobster with nothing to lose? Absolutely fucking terrifying.

A few hours and legal spats between Diane and Helstrom later, court is adjourned until tomorrow, at 8 am. Which, he calculates, leaves Cyrus with a fifteen hour period to cause havoc before the next day.

He sighs, "C'mon, let's get you home," to an unresponsive Carly. "Carly?"

"What?" She asks, snapping back into reality.

"What are you thinking about?" Jason asks, mind running with concern. After all, normally when she's zoning out while thinking, she's making a plan.

And the last plan she made landed them in this courtroom.

"The testimony. I mean, they're genuinely trying to make it seem like you or I would concoct some plan and lure Cyrus into raping and kidnapping me. What the hell do they think of us?" Carly asks, a single tear dripping down her face. "I mean, neither of us are perfect, I know, but to think that I'd do that- that you would do that, it's insulting!"

"They're trying to get under our skin, okay? There's proof they're lying through their teeth right now, Carly. Cyrus is a sick bastard and he's going to jail for the rest of his miserable life. You and I get to walk free while he rots. We will win this." He says, sitting back down in his chair to hug her.

Carly lets out a sad laugh, "God, I hate this."

"I do too."

"I need to get out of here," she sighs, standing up. "You coming?"

"I'm the one who's driving, of course I'm coming," he smiles, holding up the keys just above where she can reach. "Ha, very funny. You're in no shape to drive. Let's go."

"You know, if you would just let me drive, I would be a lot happier right now because I'd have something much better to do than-" Carly starts, stopping her statement suddenly as they leave the courthouse.

He surveys the area immediately, seeing not one, not two, but three armed guys who don't exactly look like cops aiming right at the pair. Fuck. His fingers play at his belt loops, but he doesn't have a gun on him today; it's a court day, why the hell would he bring a gun to a courtroom? That's just plain stupid and it's practically asking to be arrested.

His instincts kick in and he realizes they're gonna make the shot. Unlike the other (relatively shitty) gunmen, assassin's, whatever Cyrus calls them that he's sent after Jason, these ones actually look like they're capable of firing a gun correctly. And they're getting paid hinges on whether or not they hit Carly and him.

Bullets fly out of all three guns at the same time and he shoves Carly out of the way, yelling, "Run!" and ducking down himself but it's too late.

He's been shot, he can feel it as he stumbles onto the ground. His head pounds in his skull and he swears for a minute he can feel his brain. Ow. "Jason!" Carly screams and he can hear her footsteps as he tries to figure out where he's bleeding. "Get back here you sick fucks!" She screams even louder at the gunmen, which probably means they're gone. "I'm going to shoot you myself the second I lay eyes on any of you I swear to god."

Turns out they were just getting paid to shoot him. Carly was just the way they'd manage it.

That knowledge is somewhat comforting as the pain of the bullet continues to hit him in waves, coupled with that of banging his head on the ground when he fell from it. It's a very painful situation for the assassin, who can hear himself moaning in pain.

He's enveloped by a haze of blonde as she cries, pulling out her phone. "I need an ambulance immediately at the courthouse. My best friend was shot in the chest and he's got a head wound." That explains the pain; a chest bullet hurts pretty damn bad. It's not a fun thing. Hence why he doesn't normally shoot in the chest, but rather either a non lethal area or something like the head or the heart. The head wound, though, that doesn't make sense. If he's got a head wound, shouldn't he be unconscious by now? "Well I'm not exactly sure why he got shot, lady, but you better get an ambulance here before I sue this goddamn town for negligence of a shot person!"

A chuckle leaves his throat through the pain as the world starts to get fuzzy around the edges, despite his best efforts to have it not happen like that. "Jason, no, keep your eyes open! Look at me!" A frantic Carly screams, pulling what looks like a really ugly scarf out of her bag and putting it over where he assumes the bullet is. "Just keep your eyes open. Focus on me."

In the distance, he can hear an ambulance's siren. "Of course I'm doing everything I can to keep him conscious, what the hell do you take me for?" She snaps at the lady on the phone through tears. Even when she's witnessing him get shot (and possibly dying, though this isn't exactly the way he planned on dying), of course she's still fighting random people.

"Carly, stop harassing the operator," he says, though he can feel it use quite a bit of his strength as the fuzziness intensifies.

"You do not die on me, Jason Morgan, do you hear me? I am not letting you die because of me, I will not be able to live with myself if you die like this and I have to witness it. Keep your eyes open and just focus on me," Carly practically begs as the sound of the sirens intensifies. They're probably getting closer to being here, maybe even pulled into the parking lot. He can't tell.

As Carly's rambling about something, he can't hear her very coherently anymore, the world turns black around him. Vaguely, he can distinguish the sound of her sobs and the pressure of the scarf around his chest.

"Jason, please, please, please, open your eyes," Carly begs, sobs overtaking her pleas as the ambulance approaches. This isn't happening, this is a nightmare, he's not actually shot and possibly dying. Right? He's fine, right?

"Ma'am, we're going to need you to step away from him so we can do our jobs and help him live," a random paramedic instructs her, earning a scoff as she backs away a few feet.

Who the hell does he think he is, ordering her around like that? Acting like he knows a damn thing about either of them, or like he's got any authority. He could be dying right now for all she knows! "I'm riding with you in the ambulance," she declares. "And you won't be able to keep me out so don't even try to."

"You'll just be taking up space-"

"I've been in these plenty of times before. There's more than enough space and," her voice breaks, a quiet sob leaving her lips before she continues, "he has the keys."

Shaking his head at her, the paramedic signals her to get in and she does just that as Jason's loaded into the ambulance her. "Don't die," she begs quietly to the unconscious man. "Please, god, don't die. This can't be the bullet that kills you."

"Say a prayer in your head," the paramedic says to her and she snaps.

"Stop acting like you know what I'm going through. I don't care if you don't understand what's going on here but let me explain it to you: your job is to make sure my friend here doesn't die. Got it? You can give up on ordering me around any minute now because I'm not in the goddamn mood to listen to it." Carly snaps, tears of rage streaming down her face.

The rest of the ride is mainly silent, save for a few sniffles and sobs from the blonde. With her luck, someone will be at the hospital and this'll be front page news tomorrow.

When they arrive at the hospital, Portia immediately takes Jason's gurney and brings it to a trauma room with a slew of nurses behind her. At least he's getting five star treatment, she thinks, sitting down slowly in a chair.

He got shot protecting her. And now he could die because of it.

"Carly, what's going on here?" Sam asks, storming over.

"Jason," she starts, voice breaking and unsteady as she continues, "got shot outside the courthouse. They're, uh, taking a look at him right now."

"What?" Sam asks, disbelief evident in her tone. "How did he get shot?"

"We were leaving the courthouse and I was fighting with him over driving home and I noticed these three guys, they had guns aimed at us. He noticed and I was stuck there, wondering what the hell they were doing outside of the courthouse and he shoved me out of the way. But," she continues, feeling shame and dread crawl into her veins as she watches it unfold again mentally, "he was too late in saving himself. He got shot in the chest and he fell to the ground. I kept thinking to myself, I've got to save him, I've got to save him for one of the million times he's saved me, so I call an ambulance and wrap his chest in a scarf. And I was begging him to live and bickering with the operator when, suddenly, he stopped showing any response. I don't know if he's dead or alive."

Near silent sobs are all that's heard for a few minutes by either of them, both trying their best not to scream. "He could die," Sam notes, "because of you. Because he has this need to protect you, Jason could die."

"What?" Michael asks, heartbreak evident on his face and killing Carly's heart even more. "What happened to Jason?" When he's met with silence, he asks his question again, "what happened to Jason, Mom, that Sam's blaming on you?" She meets his eyes and sees that he's begging for the truth.

"He got shot." The words seem to echo more than she expects, the full weight of them only now hitting her as she sobs loudly in the middle of the hospital, not caring who hears.

To be continued later in this life.

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goodguyjean · 6 years

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I've noticed one of the main differences between your interpretation of Jean and other interpretations of him is that you view his honesty and morals as a choice or a standard by which he holds himself to rather than a more involuntary process or personality trait. For example, reading him as having a commitment to honesty vs lack of filter (or an under development filter). Or reading him as having ethical standards vs compassion born out of human "weakness." Could you speak to this a bit more?

Jean’s defeatism in the draft of chapter 1, published in Englishin the first Attack on Titan guidebook. Sorry for the fuzzy picture!

Hiya, anon! No worries, I got the meaning of your messages :) Ican speak to all these questions a bit more and defend my interpretation ofJean; I think there’s enough evidence to support my reading in the manga, evenwhen it is separated from the initial draft, although I see where yourquestions come from. I agree with you that Jean is much more explicit aboutsome of his thoughts and motivations in the draft of chapter one, but I don’tthink they’re any less present in the actual manga, and may actually bepresented with a greater degree of subtlety in their published form.

(Preemptively, I’m going to say that I don’t think we should use the word sp*zzy; many people with disabilities consider it derogatory. I’m sure you didn’t mean it as such! But just soyou’re aware! I myself am currently trying to unlearn ableist language)

More under the cut :)

Tospeak to your first question, I do think Jean’s honesty is a conscious choicebased on the way the text frames it, but I also don’t think him valuing and choosing honestyis automatically at odds with it being an aspect of his personality. He has animpulse towards honesty and openness (just think of how he blurts out to Mikasathat she has beautiful hair or of his fight with Eren where he vents hisfrustrations in chapter 17; he also calls it his “bad habit” in chapter 15, suggesting it’s kind of automatic for him). I’ve argued elsewhere that by chapter 90Jean has developed a sense of kairos (timingof an argument) which I believe he lacks in the opening of the series–part ofhis evolution might be that he learns to distinguish when honesty is mostimportant and useful, whereas in the beginning some of his honesty might becounterproductive, I admit. But I think people do misunderstand Jean when theyportray his honesty as a complete lack of a filter, unthinking and uninformed.Because Jean does have a filter: he does make choices about when to say certainthings, and when he’s honest it mostly does seem related to important subjectslike the value of individual human life or his criticism of Eren. Tellingly, we actually see him apply a filter early on in the manga: after hisinitial encounter with Mikasa does not elicit positive results, Jean completelyclams up about his feelings for her, only thinking of revealing them when he ison the verge of death, when Mikasa is not even present herself.

Chapter 7. This scene comes before weknow about Jean’s crush on Mikasa in the manga, so it was very confusing for mewhen I initially read it—in the anime it comes after the training sequences, sowe know that Jean is probably talking about Mikasa. Still, the Englishis vague. According to @mirandafandomette who checks the French translation forme whenever I have a question (thanks, bro!), Jean says “faire ma déclaration”here, which has a heavy romantic connotation.

Jeandoes not flirt with Mikasa, he does not hound Mikasa to earn her attention(despite fandom portrayals). He leaves her alone. He creates a filter, andalthough he develops a rivalry with Eren after this event, he keeps thisparticular motivation for it under wraps. Hardly what we would expect of someone whohad absolutely no ability to control his speech or did not care about hurtingpeople. This is not to say that hiding his feelings for Mikasa is dishonest: he never denies them, forinstance, and as such I don’t think his secret-keeping runs counter to hisvalues or his personality. It’s just that, in this instance, he can and does recognize aboundary, and upholds it.

Ibelieve we also see Jean choose to be honest at an early stage of his career inthe military. When Shadis asks him why he’s enlisted, we have a panel whereyoung Jean pauses before answering. He doesn’t just blurt his motivation out,but grits his teeth and gives an honest reply.

Chapter 15.

Ithink it’s important we get this panel of pausing here: I think it shows that Jean isthinking, being deliberate in what he says as a response. For Jean, even at soyoung an age, being honest within the military is a political move. He’s openabout his motivations, refuses to go along with the charade of wanting to do aservice for the king or wanting to be a hero for fighting the titans. Hecritiques both Eren and Marco for their idealism, believing it masks their fearand insecurities. Instead, he chooses to live with his fears exposed.

Chapter 3.

Chapter 15.

Jeanprides himself on knowing the stakes. He doesn’t claim to be something he’snot, even when it makes him look bad or runs counter to military discourseabout bravery and service. This honesty serves him well: as Marco says, peopletrust him because of it, following him when he’s willing to put himself at riskfor a cause because they believe he’s adequately assessed the situation andthought through the risks.

Chapter 18.

Chapter 23. Jean successfully gets Reiner and Armin to follow his plan.

Allof this honesty goes beyond just not having a filter. Sure, Jean canoccasionally pick inopportune times to voice his opinion, but he never does sowithout fully comprehending the risk involved in doing so. That facet of hishonesty, more than anything, is calculated and brave. We see Jean, forinstance, pause and consider before telling Levi that he thinks he’s going toofar with Historia. Jean is the only one who voices a direct critique, and wesee him building up to confronting Levi about his methodology beforehand.

Chapters 55-56.

So Ithink my answer to your question is that Jean both has this natural impulsetowards honesty, but also chooses it as his life philosophy, which he nuancesover time and as he gains experience.

Tomove on to your second point, I don’t mean to sound dismissive, but I actuallycan’t think of a moment in the manga where Jean behaves in a particularlyimmature or goofy way ^^’. Which scenes were you thinking of, in particular? Ithink one would be hard-pressed to read him as a comic relief character in themanga. And sure, he’s growing and maturing post-chapter 50, but he’s notstarting from a really immature point, particularly because he’s alreadyundergone a lot of growth since the beginning of the manga. We don’t see thetype of immaturity and shenanigans incorporated into the cooking contest OVA,for example, and Jean pretty much never gives us the cocky grins he’s known forin the anime—in the manga he’s almost always frowning or making creepy faces,actually ^^’. I’ve read the interview where Isayama claims to have beeninfluenced by the anime’s portrayal of Jean and his VA in particular, but Ipersonally don’t see this influence coming through very strongly (perhaps inthe HS AU Jean?). Jean is pretty consistently serious, and scenes that aremeant to be humorous involving him often involve Sasha and Connie—Sasha stealingbread and Jean and Armin lecturing her, Jean and Connie trying to prevent Sashafrom eating up all the meat at a feast, Sasha and Connie dunking Jean in theocean … I guess Jean drinking from the ocean can be read as goofy, but Iread the ocean scenes as people being giddy and ecstatic at having encounteredthe ocean at last—an understandable reaction! And when Jean challenges Erenafter the events of the Reiss cave, he seems genuinely worried about him andlike he’s trying to provoke him into a fight to get his old spark back—it’s nothim being goofy and stumbling into something that works, it really seemscalculated on his part, given how many times he tries (three!) and Armin’sknowing look.

Chapters 70, 72. My close-reading ofthese scenes can be found here.

Mypoint is, if these scenes are funny it’s because Jean is so serious andsomething distinctly not serious is happening to him, or because everyone iskind of in a lighter mood, or because Jean is actually saying something kind offunny. These jokes don’t really seem to about Jean’s immaturity or naturalgoofiness. I’d be curious to hear if I’ve missed something, but I just don’tsee this behavior you’re talking about, I’m sorry.

To goon a bit of a tangent, I think the comparison to Reiner is apt though, and Ithink it is something that pops up within the manga itself. While Reinerinitially disparages Jean as “not a real soldier,” Jean actually turns out tobe someone Reiner desperately wants to be: someone who lives by his convictionsand never actually hides himself. Whereas Reiner is confused about hisloyalties and develops multiple personas to cope with the disconnect betweenhis feelings and his actions (as well as to just manage everything that’s goingon around him), Jean balks at pretending he’s someone he’s not (Eren, onmultiple occasions, and possibly now Helos) and is very open about hismotivations. We even see them compared in their reactions to a former-comrade-nowenemies’ death, and we can tell they’re being compared because of theirpositioning in these panels.

Chapter 77. These incidents, the former aflashback, both occur in the same chapter. Reiner and Jean both address theircrying comrades, whom they have been leading, after they have killed a formerfriend.

Althoughit pains him, Jean honestly owns Reiner’s “death” while Reiner disassociates tocope with Marco’s death. Now, Jean has not been put under the kinds of stressesthat Reiner has by any means, and I don’t mean to imply that Reiner’s responseto death is somehow a moral failing since it is really beyond his control, butit strikes me that Jean becomes the honest compassionate soldier that Reinercannot be because of his circumstances (not necessarily in the above scene, but elsewhere, even earlier in the manga when Jean suggests to Reiner that they put themselves as risk to give the Survey Corps time to retreat). They’re both “cool,” as you and Isayamasay, but Jean’s the one who is actually practicing what he preaches—again, thisis not to come down too hard on Reiner, who is in a very tricky situation andis suffering severely, but merely to point out that Jean is actually Reiner’sideal and the vision he tried to live out for himself, but couldn’t. And Reinerstill thinks of Jean as his antithesis, a lazy guy who cares for no one buthimself. Tragic irony!

Chapter 94. Reiner’s recollection of Jean. Reiner may also be trying to talk himself out of his fondness for Jean.

As toyour third question, I do believe that Jean is aware of the stakes of thattitan war and is still a genuine defeatist in the published manga. Although he is less explicit that he thinks the titans are going to burst through the walls, I think that probability has to be on his mind as he talks about the Cull. It comesthrough pretty clearly to me in his discussion about how humanity doesn’t havea chance.

Chapter3.

Jean issomber here. He’s incredibly clear-sighted, as we learn from other places inthe manga, and he can’t be unaware that if the titans broke through the Wallonce, they could do it again, especially since they outnumber the humans. His statement is a blanket one: humanity doesn’tstand a chance against the titans. They can’t fight them, they can’t outlastthem, and they’ll never be free from their influence. It seems pretty clear tome that Jean is under no illusions about the ultimate fate of humanity in thisworld, and that his decision to make it into the MP is about making the most ofwhat time he has.

Chapter3.

Ialso think this mindset is suggested by his reaction to the titans’ secondappearance in the manga. He asks “Why did it have to be today?”

Chapter4.

Not,“oh shit, they actually came back,” but, “just my luck, it was today, the day I wassupposed to make it to the MP.”

Jeanis horrified and has a visceral reaction to the reappearance of the titans, butit was not entirely unexpected to him. As I said at the beginning of this post,Jean’s defeatism may not be as explicitly expressed as in the draft of thefirst chapter where he essentially says they’re all waiting around to die, butit still seems implicit in the way he frames the titan threat. It’sinsurmountable, it’s coming for them, and when it arrives it’s terrifying, butnot a surprise.

MaybeI’m reading too much into these scenes, but it seems to me that Jeanreally does think the titans are coming, and what he wants is to experience theinterior and make the most out of whatever kind of life he has. Jean is not afool, although Eren often reads him as one; he doesn’t seem to have anyillusions that the titans are going to stay outside Wall Rose, or that humanityis truly safe inside the Walls. Just that the interior is the safest spot within the walls and the highest quality of life available to him.

Hopethis answers you questions about my interpretation, anon! Thanks for the notes:)

#replies #anonymous #jean kirstein #snk meta #maybe I've read the draft into the main manga #but I think it's a supportable reading that jean thinks the titans will come back #he's such a defeatist #and a realist

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