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nebulablakemurphy · 3 years

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Miss American Pie

Chapter Two: The Perfect Partner Project

Warning!: This series features a romantic Yelena Belova x Fem!Reader pairing. Please keep scrolling if that’s not for you. 💜

Summary: After you’re freed from Dreykov’s control you team up with Yelena and Natasha to take down the red room.

Chapter One : Chemical Subjugation

“I thought you had a jet?” Yelena cocks her head to the side, as you approach the decrepit helicopter.

“I asked for one.” Natasha mutters, under her breath.

“This isn’t a jet.” You add, the closer you get, the worse it becomes.

“I realize that!” The man who’d been standing with his back to you whips around to defend himself. This must be Natasha’s friend. “But you know what you didn’t give me? Time. Or money. I’m not made of jets.”

“Aww, he’s sensitive.” Yelena coos, “I see why you keep him around.”

“I’m not sensitive.” He protests.

“Of course not,” you smirk.

“Listen you-“ he breaks off. “Who are you again?”

“Y/N Y/L/N,” Yelena introduces you, climbing aboard. “She’s my partner….” She shrugs, “you name it really.”

“Partner works.” You chuckle, joining her in the cockpit.

“If you say so,” Yelena waves a dismissive hand. Getting a feel for the controls.

“Wonderful,” the man acknowledges your title.

“Thanks for the ride, Dick.” You salute him through the front window.

“It’s Rick,” he calls back.

“I know.” You give him a thumbs up. Waiting until he turns back to his conversation with Natasha. Taking the opportunity to lean down, kissing the top of Yelena’s head.

She cranes her head back to see you.

You nuzzle your nose against hers, until an exaggeration throat clearing tears you apart.

“We don’t have time for this.” Natasha, of course.

Yelena scowls at her, “yeah, yeah.”

Breaking Alexei out of a maximum security prison using only an earpiece, stowed inside of an action figure is a terrible plan. Nearly as bad as using him for information on how to locate a facility that’s impossible to find, run by a man who’s too slippery to kill.

That doesn’t stop you though. Generally speaking it’s going well. Until one of Yelena’s shots triggers an avalanche.

“Woah.” She marvels at the scene before you, her masterpiece. “Now this would be a cool way to die.”

“Yeah,” you holler back, sarcastically, over the chaos.

“You were getting no where with your tiny guns.” Yelena points out.

“Slow and steady wins the race,” you remind her.

“Fast is better. Solves problems.”

“And clearly creates new ones.” You jerk your chin toward the mountain.

“Get us out of here!” Natasha’s voice blares through the headset.

“I’m on it.” Yelena assures her. Moving into a better position for extraction. “Watch the side window.”

At her request you shuffle to the main ship. The prison guards are still putting up a fight. Inmates running in every direction.

“Alright, Natasha’s with us.” You confirm, once she’s secured her place on the black hanging rope. “Circle between the walls on your left to grab Alexei.”

“Yeah, no problem.” Yelena snarks, steering the plane away from another explosion.

“You’re doing a great job.”

“Don’t lie to me!”

“Fine,” you huff. “The spot is tight and the angle is bad. I don’t know how you’re gonna pull this off.”

Yelena is silent, processing the information. “Lie to me a little.” She amends.

“You got this.” The blinding wall of white threatens to swallow Alexei whole. You’re holding your breath too as the rope moves past the metal bridge he’s standing on.

“Well?” She yelps, impatiently.

“I don’t know. I can’t see.” Once the snow and ice clears, you spot two figures carefully scaling the rope. “Yelena?”

“Hmm.” She hums, expecting the worst.

“I knew you had it.”

“Yes,” Yelena sighs, before falling into easy laughter. More invested in this than she will ever admit.

————————————————————-

Unfortunately, entertaining as Alexei may be, he has next to no information about Dreykov.

Instead he drawls on and on about how the man wronged him. Stuck him on that “boring mission” in Ohio. Then tossed him in jail and threw away the key because of…hair? A party?

You weren’t entirely sure. You excuse yourself to the vacant seat beside Yelena. Giving her thigh a reassuring squeeze.

Full lips twitch up into a grin.

“Tell us where the red room is.” Natasha grumbles.

“I have no idea!” He shouts, and then in Russian. “Why don’t you ask Melina?”

“Mom Melina?” Yelena whips her head around.

“We thought she was dead.”

“You cannot kill a fox that swift,” Alexei sucks in a breath.

You choke on your own saliva.

“Ew.” Natasha winces.

“What?” The man shrugs. “She was the master mind. His architect.”

“Are you telling me that Melina works for the red room present day?” Natasha leans closer.

“Yes,” he nods. “Remotely, outside Saint Petersburg.”

“I don’t think we have enough fuel for Saint Petersburg.” Yelena decides, after checking the needle on the gauge.

“We’ll make it.” Alexei waves away her concern.

“Ok,” Yelena mutters.

You look over at her.

“We’re not going to make it.” She mouths, with a shake of her head.

You smirk, closing your eyes and relaxing into the seat. It’ll be nice while it lasts.

Before long you’re falling into a controlled crash, at the Saint Petersburg city limit.

“So,” Yelena jumps out onto the dirt. “Are we there yet?”

“No, you will know when we are there.” Alexei begins snorting like a pig.

——————————————————————-

You take a seat in the chair opposite Yelena inside Melina’s humble abode. Her pigs can be heard carrying on out in the yard and Alexei’s early snorting makes perfect sense now.

Your eyes dart around the three women at the table uncomfortably as noises continue erupting from the bathroom. “Everything alright in there?” You bellow, loud enough for your voice to carry down the hallway.

Another groan is the only response.

“Let’s drink,” Melina’s voice breaks the tension. She fills each of your shot glasses in turn.

“Thanks,” you raise the clear liquid and toss it back. Feeling it burn it’s way down your throat before going back for another.

After a moment a clunking from the doorway calls your attention.

“It still fits.” Alexei announces, having stuffed himself into his old costume.

Melina whistles, with a slow clasp as he approaches the seat at the head of the table. “I never washed it once. Come eat.”

He hums a tune under his breath, reliving days gone by. “Look at us, family back together again.” If you didn’t know better you’d think it was sweet, he seems…happy.

“Well,” Melina swallows, dishing mashed potatoes onto his plate. “Seeing as our family construct was just a calculated ruse that only lasted three years, I’m not sure we can use this term anymore.”

“Agreed,” Natasha perks up. “So here’s what’s going to happen-“

“Reunion then.” Alexei offers instead. “I want to say something right off the bat.” He says to the woman who’d once been his wife. “You haven’t aged a day. Just as beautiful and supple as the day they staged our marriage.”

Melina moves closer, “you got fat, but still good.”

“I just got out of prison,” he confesses, “I have a lot of energy.”

“Ooohooo.” The older woman exhales.

You can’t help the bubble of laughter that forces its way from your chest. Covering your mouth with your hand as Yelena takes another shot.

“Please don’t do that.” Beside you Natasha looks physically ill as she protests. Swallowing down her disgust she begins again. “So listen. Here’s what’s going to happen.”

“Natasha don’t slouch. You’re going to get a back hunch.” Melina flicks her fork in Natasha’s direction.

“What? I’m not slouching? I don’t slouch.”

“Eh, listen to your mother. Up! Up!” Alexei joins in.

“I told you, I don’t want any food.” Yelena pushes her plate away.

“Eat a little something Yelena, for God’s sake.” Melina says, piling food onto her plate.

Yelena groans.

“Are you kidding me? Stop it all of you. This is ridiculous.” Natasha bites out.

“Me? I didn’t do anything. That’s not fair!” Yelena argues.

“It’s true, she’s just sitting there.” You shrug.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” Natasha roars, effectively silencing the room. “You’re going to give us the location of the red room.”

Melina purses her lips, avoiding the topic. “It’s like when you told them they could stay up to catch Santa Claus.”

“That was fun!” Alexei recalls. “Look out girls, he comes down the chimney. And when the cookies are gone you know he is there.”

Melina clicks her tongue.

“What? I want them to follow their dreams, shoot for the stars girls.”

“No good.” Melina disagreed.

“Killing Dreykov isn’t a fantasy. It’s unfinished business.” Natasha looks between the two of them.

“You cannot defeat someone who commands the very will of others.” Melina says, softly. “You never got to see the culmination of what we started in America. After the perfect partner project was rejected, we took a different route.”

“The perfect partner project?” You repeat, racking your brain. You’ve heard that somewhere before.

“Why’d Dreykov scrap the project?” Natasha’s voice cracks like a whip.

“I don’t know.” Melina’s eyes dart down to her plate.

You can see that she’s lying.

“That’s when we turned our focus to chemical subjugation.” Melina continues, “the control is so profound that when the subject is instructed to stop breathing. They have no choice but to obey.”

Yelena shakes her head. Perfect lips turned into a frown. Hazel eyes glistening with tears as they meet your own.

“That’s enough.” You warn the older woman, seeing the expression. The last thing you want to do is cause her anymore pain.

“No.” The blonde insists. “Tell me more about the partner project.”

“Yelena, we don’t have to do this.” You shake your head.

“Yes, we do.” Yelena slams her fist against the table in frustration.

“The extraction was messy to start. A high profile missing children’s case in North America. But the bond was very strong. Enhanced through targeted conditioning and subliminal messages. Until something happened that Dreykov did not anticipate.”

“What happened?” Natasha wonders.

“The girls became…attached.” Melina’s mouth twitches, “so they were separated.”

“Do you know who they tested on?”

Melina’s guilty eyes land on you. “I am sorry.”

“No,” you suspected, maybe. Somewhere in the back of your mind. You spent the first six months in the red room under solitary confinement. Rapidly and rigorously conditioned in a matter of weeks instead of years. Preparing you…for her. The teenager girl you couldn’t stand, the woman you eventually came to love.

“You,” Yelena laughs, although it’s not particularly funny. “Us.”

“Yelena-“ you reach for her hand across the table.

“Don’t,” she snaps. “Don’t tell me that it will be ok. They stole your life because of me. I never asked them to do that. I never asked for you!”

“I know.” You assure her. None of this was ever her fault.

“That’s right, because you know everything. Don’t you, Y/N?” Yelena scoffs, her hands balling into fists on either side of her dinner plate. “You know what I think. You know what I feel. Look at you. Ready to come out of your own skin because I am unhappy. Prepared to move mountains, prepared to start wars.”

“Like you’re any better.” You challenge, she knows you like the back of her hand.

“That is my point!”

“I’m sorry that this happened.” Alexei interrupts. Surely gearing up for a ‘father of the year’ speech. “But we are here now. All together! Wasn’t that worth a few years of-“

“Shut up!” Natasha growls at him. “You are an idiot.”

No response.

She moves her attention to Melina, “and you’re a coward. You’re a coward. And our family was never real. So there’s nothing to hold on to. We’re moving on.”

“Never family, huh?” Alexei throws up his hands. “In my heart I am simple man. For a couple deep undercover Russian agents I think we did pretty great as parents.”

“Yes,” Melina nods her agreement. “We had our orders and we played our roles to perfection.”

“Who cares? That wasn’t real.”

“What?” Yelena’s voice breaks.

“That wasn’t real.” Natasha repeats for emphasis. “Who cares?”

“Don’t say that. Please don’t say that. It was real. It was real to me. You are my mother!” Yelena all but sobs. “You are my real mother, the closest thing I ever had to one. The best parts of my life were fake.” She pauses, drawing in a steadying breath. “And none of you told me.”

You swipe at the tear that escapes your eye. Traitorously running it’s way down your cheek. It was never fake. Perhaps arranged, but never fake. The way you want to wrap her up in your arms, protect her from her own sadness. The way your heart breaks in time with hers. That is real. It has to be.

She turns back to the woman who she considered a mother. “Those agents that you chemically subjugated around the globe…that was me too.”

Finally she addresses Natasha, “and you. You got out. It is impossible to escape. Are you going to say anything?” A pause. “No.”

She pushes her chair from the table, taking the bottle with her as she stands. Turning her back in the four of you.

“Yelena.” Natasha calls after her. Guilt eating away from the inside out.

“No.” Yelena dismisses her a second time. Moving into the next room and closing the glass doors behind her.

You look down at the plate of food in front of you, now lacking any appeal.

“I had no idea.” Melina whispers, wringing her hands.

“I’ll go to talk to her.” Alexei offers, rising to his feet.

“About what?” You hum, “how you handed her over to a life of pain and suffering at the age of six? How you experimented on her? How you didn’t come back for her? Yeah. I’m sure that’s just what she needs right now.”

With that you excuse yourself, back out to the front yard. Slowly circling the perimeter of Melina’s cottage. Not looking for anything in particular. Just killing time until someone produces information about how to get to Dreykov.

The blinding light that appears moments later catches you off guard. A team of men exit one of the three circling planes. Since you couldn’t find the red room, this is the next best thing.

—————————————————————

Waking up is disorienting, coming to from a tranquilizer always is. It’s bright, almost blindingly so. It takes a moment for your eyes to adjust. You attempt to use your hands to cover them, only you can’t move your hands.

Leaning up as much as your restraints will allow you discover that you’re strapped to an operating table. And you’re not alone.

“Yelena?”

“Miss American Pie,” she drawls from a similar position. Neither of which gives you much chance to escape whatever fate awaits.

“You’re not allowed to die mad at me,” you grumble.

“I’m not mad at you.” She blinks slowly, as the surgeon marks a clean line at the perimeter of her hairline. “I’m just mad.”

“Yeah,” you let out a laugh, turning back to the light above the gurney. “Me too.”

“You are my perfect partner.” She murmurs, while gloved hands busy themselves with preparations. “I don’t know if that makes it better or worse.”

There’s a beat of silence between you. Acceptance…peace. “I love you, you know.”

At this Yelena smiles. A genuine, happy, smile. “I know.”

Something to remember her by.

The syringe at your neck releases a sedative into your blood and you fall asleep. One last time.

—————————————————————

Dying is peaceful, gently rocking in the ocean. Then swaying more violently, giving you the urge to be seasick. Your body should move with the force of it. But something holds you steady, something warm.

“Yelena?” You croak.

“Not quite, but there is resemblance, huh?” A different voice greets you.

“Alexei?” You realize, pushing yourself into a sitting position.

“That’s a girl, up you go.” He says, clapping a hand against your back.

“What happened?” You ask, “where’s Yelena?”

“Still inside,” Melina confirms. “Brought you here so you’d be safe.”

“Natasha?”

“They’re coming.”

You sigh, ready to jump out the open door of the hovering chopper.

“What are you doing?” Alexei demands.

“Going to find them.”

“Wait! Y/N, wait.” He pleads. “There’s something I must tell you. I tried to tell Yelena but I don’t have earpiece.”

“What?” Your brows furrow.

“Never mind that.” He shakes his head. “The point, is you were right. What you said about Yelena. We complete our mission, we move on. But losing her, losing my girls is my biggest regret.”

“I’ll tell her, don’t worry.” You give his shoulder a squeeze.

“Please let me finish.” He stops you again. “She carried your unconscious body through burning building, through explosions. This is not easy, you are very heavy.”

“Oh, Alexei!” Melina scolds him.

“Not that.” He amends, “you know what I mean. It is dead weight.”

You nod, “sure.”

“I look at you together and I see true love and I am happy. You are family now, and this time…we are going to stay together. We’re not leaving without you.” The older man says, helping you onto the metal grate of the falling red room.

Not a second later an explosion rings through your ears, sending Melina, Alexei and your get away vehicle spiraling to the ground.

“It’s the thought that counts,” you’ll make a new plan.

You run toward the flames and gunfire. “Yelena!” You call out, searching the surrounding area.

“Y/N,” Natasha finds you. “What are you doing?”

“I can’t find Yelena.”

“I thought she was with you.” The woman frowns.

“Well she wasn’t!” You bite out, fear and frustration getting the best of you.

“Don’t worry, we’ll find her. You go-“ the red head pauses. Her eyes focused on something behind your head.

You turn to follow Natasha’s gaze. Finding her. Yelena. The wild, unpredictable, firecracker of a woman. On the wing of the jet with Dreykov inside.

“Yelena! Stop!” You rush over, realizing what she’s about to do. Her staff poised at the propeller.

She pauses at the sound of your voice.

“He’s not worth it.” No one is worth it. Not when she is the cost.

Yelena smiles, eyes alight with mischief, “I love you, you know.”

“I know.”

Natasha tries to reason with her. “Don’t do it!”

“This was fun.” Yelena tells her sister, jamming the propeller and effectively destroying Dreykov’s jet. The force of the explosions sends her backwards, hurtling towards the ground with the remaining pieces of the red room.

“Put your pack on and jump.” Natasha tells you. Rushing for the nearest parachute. “I’m going to save my sister.” She dives head first over the edge, without putting on her harness.

“Not if I get there first,” you challenge. This would be a cool way to die.

Chapter Three: Bye Bye

#marvel fanfiction #yelena belova #black widow fanfiction #black widow #yelena belova x reader #yelena belova x female reader #yelena belova fanfiction #natasha romanoff #yelena belova imagine #yelena belova x you #yelena belova x y/n

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inukag-archive · 3 years

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Hello! I’m looking for recommendations for a particular trope/genre: Feudal Era AU as @superpixie42 would say. Fics that are Canon-era (Inuyasha-world without Inuyasha plot) but are not quite canon-divergent or fix-it? I’m thinking along the lines of Out of The Woods (Miss_Dyana), Kintsugi, If We Fall Anyway (both Evilillusions), for example. Any other genre/rating is good. Thank you! 💓

Hey @anisaanisa, it's no secret this is one of Mod Pixie's favorite AUs, so thank you for the chance to put this one together!

Shelter by @lavendertwilight89 (E)

Summary: Song fic inspired Stuck with You and Shelter. Inuyasha has been alone most of his life and one moonless night he gets caught up with a young priestess. She saves him and he, in return, helps her. What he doesn't realize is, this priestess holds a lot of secrets which may or may not cost both of them their lives...

Demon Nature by @shardetector (E)

Summary: He spoke low and gently, although his voice was gruff with his demon still so close to the surface, “You saved me wench, now I’ll repay the favor.” With that, his muscles bunched in his legs as he sprung up and out of the well, a red blur in the night as he made his way through the forest to his destination. His precious cargo held safely to his chest, as he raced to save her with his demonic speed.

there's no place (for us/like home) by guardianKarenterrier (G)

Summary: Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, Inuyasha starts to creep closer to the fire at night. Now that he's not so injured, he's begun to vanish into the woods and come back to throw down rabbits and once a badger at the side of the hut, and Kagome hasn't had to worry about finding enough to eat as the air starts to turn colder. He hardly ever talks to them, or at all, and he won't come close enough to touch- he never comes as close as he had that first day again, but he stays. She's not sure why he stays, but she's glad that he does.

Comfort Food by @splendentgoddess (E)

Summary: Feudal AU one-shot. An ex-miko-in-training stumbles upon a seemingly human man alone in the woods during the moonless night. He seems all alone in the world - just like her. Goodness, when was the last time he had a decent meal?

Half-Breed’s Wife by @gypsin (M)

Summary: On the night of the new moon, a runaway girl stumbles into Inuyasha's life. Little did he realize then what he would be undertaking by saving her. But when Kagome has nowhere else to go will he leave her to her fate Or will he rise to the occasion? And what will the humans think?

Your Lying Smile by @dawnrider (M)

Summary: A beautiful day by the river quickly takes a turn, taking control of her life completely out of Kagome's hands. Her "rescuer" becomes something else entirely before she can get a word in edgewise. A Feudal-esue AU

We Are Family by @theladyofthewest (T)

Summary: Imagine a world in which the Inu No Taisho lived to raise his sons together, as brothers. Inuyasha never had to learn to survive on his own, he never met Kikyo, never heard of the Shikon Jewel. Now imagine if Kagome fell into this world instead of the one she did in canon. Imagine if she and Inuyasha had ... parental supervision.

Oblivion @meggz0rz (M)

Summary: Feudal-era Japan. A war to the death between youkai and humankind. Kagome, rebellious daughter of a noble family, is not about to let her grandfather sacrifice himself in battle. So she takes his place, dressed as a boy and ready to fight to survive. But in love and war, things are rarely as they seem, and there is a spy in the army ranks who just might be Kagome's downfall...

Everybody Wants To Be An Inuyoukai by @superpixie42 (T)

Summary: A birthday one-shot for kstewdeux very vaguely based on the plot of the Aristocats. When Kagome, newly widowed with a newborn son, is named the heir of her mother-in-law's enormous estate things suddenly go from bad to worse. She's drugged, kidnaped, and left for dead on the side of the road. With the help of some unexpected new friends, Kagome finds herself questioning: does she even want to make it back home?

The Shogun’s Daughter by @shnuggletea (E)

Summary: Kagome's father passed away when she was just a child but his Shogun status still makes her a valuable bride to a Lord of lands that border their village. Lord Inuyasha Tashio is pushed by the council into marriage, assured his new bride was an excellent choice. All their fears and anxiety are amplified when they meet.

Timeless and Forbidden Love by lunalibro (M)

Summary: Once, a long long time ago in Japan, demons and other horrid monsters out of nightmares roamed the lands. Wars were never-ending, famine, death and bloodshed abound. Admist this chaos, there lived a great priestess named Midoriko who was renowned throughout for not only her incredible power and fighting prowess, but also for ethereal beauty. She defeated countless demons and staved off many dark evils as the protector of humankind. Eventually, Midoriko fell in love and birthed twin daughters. The eldest was named Kikyo and the youngest was named Kagome, While alike in looks, the sisters were complete opposites. Naturally, these girls inherited their mother’s immense powers. From a young age, Midoriko trained them in combat and in the spiritual arts. The sisters grew in strength and looks. However, Kikyo’s powers had matured far greater than that of her sister’s. Midoriko decided Kikyo shall be the one to take her place as the new protector of Musashi. From then on, Kagome would find herself living in her sister’s shadow. Maybe with the help of a young half-demon named InuYasha, Kagome could realize her worth and possibly fall in love in the process. A forbidden love that will last throughout time.

Beauty and the Hanyou by mishelledor23 (M)

Summary: Inspired by Beauty and the Beast, but Inuyasha style! The terrible half-demon prince Inuyasha is under a fifty-year old curse that keeps him trapped inside his castle. Can Kagome, the reluctant miko-in-training become his friend? Maybe even his love? InuXKag, MirXSan. Lemons and language in later chapters!

For Better or Worse by Anime Wildfire

Summary: Kagome, priestess in training, turns her life upside down when she saves the life of the half demon Inuyasha… and accidentally finds herself bound to him via pesky subjugation beads. This is not how she thought her day- or her life- was going to go.

By the Match, Not the Flame by @goshinote (M)

Summary: Inuyasha is a hellbent hanyo on a mission for revenge. Kagome is a wanted miko on the run. Their intentions align in more ways than one, but secrets abound between them as they partner up during their travels. With an inevitable and impending betrayal looming over them, the pressure rises with every day they spend moving closer to the enemy’s clutches.

A Private Affair by JeremyMarsh (T)

Summary: During a simple patrol operation, Inuyasha, a general in a war between demons and humans that has been going on for two years now, goes all the way across enemy territory to reach the village where his betrothed lived before the conflict broke out. Here he is discovered by her younger sister who intentionally reveals something to him that she shouldn't have.

Shocked, Inuyasha decides to embark on a new and dangerous mission that could cost him his life or worse.

Koi no Yokan by @keichanz (E)

Summary: Koi no Yokan: The feeling when you meet someone that you’re bound to fall in love.

A prince discovering a deeper meaning to seemingly random hordes of bloodthirsty demons. A young woman unwillingly sold to a brothel by uncaring relatives, frightened and alone. How could these two circumstances possibly be related?

We are also including the works Anisa mentioned in the ask for those who are unfamiliar

Out of the Woods by @dyaz-stories

Summary: After the murder of Kikyo, the local priestess, the villagers start leaving offerings to the forest's god, who they think they've angered. Kagome, called to the village to replace her cousin, finds out, too late, just how far they're willing to go when they use her as the month's sacrifice. She decides not to go down without a fight — except that, instead of an angry god, she finds herself faced with a hungry half-demon, who's very annoyed he won't be getting a food offering for the month. “What the fuck are you doing here? Where’s my food?” “Oh I’m sorry, am I not a sacrifice satisfying enough?”

Kinstugi by @soliska

Summary: AU. Failing to be chosen as her village's miko, Kagome had resigned herself to a humble life. An unexpected summons returns her to the city where she's forced to reconcile the taught virtues and the spiralling, warped reality created by those that abuse their power. She holds the key to repairing the fracture between humans and youkai, and the freedom of her new hanyou friend.

If We Fall Anyway by @soliska

Summary: What if the shikon jewel didn’t exist and Naraku never came to be? What if Kagome fell down the well anyway and met a gruff, young inu-hanyou. Would they still become friends? What would be their story? A tale told in snippets.

#inukag archive #feudal au #inuyasha #inuyasha fanfic #inukag fanfic #fic rec #anisaanisa

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dalekofchaos · 3 years

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What would you say are the biggest mistakes Mass Effect 3 made?

Okay this is going to be a long one, but these would be the biggest mistakes ME3 ever made in my opinion

Choosing Cerberus over The Reapers. The thing that annoyed me most about ME3 is the fact that Harbinger is not the main threat. The Illusive Man is. Harbinger has been built up as the big bad since ME2. "YOU HAVE FAILED. WE WILL FIND ANOTHER WAY." He says as he discards the Collectors. Then his speech to Shepard as the base blows up. "Human, you've changed nothing. Your species has the attention of those infinitely your greater. That which you know as Reapers are your salvation through destruction. You will surrender your potential against the growing void. We return, and you will rise. We are the harbinger of your perfection. We will bring your species into harmony with our own. Your species will be raised to a new existence. We are the beginning, you will be the end. Prepare for our domination. Prepare for our coming." Then in Arrival, he came pretty damn close to unleashing quick subjugation and harvest upon an unprepared galaxy. Upon Shepard foiling his plans. "Shepard. You have become an annoyance. You fight against inevitability. Dust struggling against cosmic winds. This seems a victory to you. A star system sacrificed. But even now, your greatest civilizations are doomed to fall. Your leaders will beg to serve us. Know this as you die in vain: Your time will come. Your species will fall. Prepare yourselves for the Arrival." The perfect final villain right? Unfortunately, Cerberus was more focused on than The Reapers. My problem with Cerberus and no Harbinger is Too many Cerberus, too few Reaper forces in plot. We fight Cerberus more often than the reapers. Hardly any boss fight and the one with Reaper Destroyer on Rannoch was more an interactive movie than fight. During the Horizon mission in Mass Effect 2, Harbinger was solidified as the Big Bad. It was menacing and ominous, with just the right amount of annoying. It taunted us throughout the game, telling us how insignificant we were, and how our actions were pointless. It was willing to posses drones through the Collector General to fight us personally, and when we killed the host, it tossed them aside. Harbinger even gave the typical “You haven’t seen the last of me!” villain rant. It made any fire fight frustrating, and that made me want to kill it even more; I hated Harbinger. Many games fail to do that. Harbinger was an enemy which I looked forward to defeating. I had the desire to annihilate. In Mass Effect 3, I got a codex entry and a cameo. Harbinger just swoops in at the last second and blows my friends and I to hell(and lets the Normandy save them), then flies off. Personally, I would have loved to hear Harbinger’s menacing monologue, it drove me on. I would have felt a deeper motivation to take the fight back to Earth if it told me how much destruction the Reapers were causing, how many lives were lost. I felt cheated when I got to the final mission, only to suddenly realize it was largely absent from the game. Harbinger has been replaced. Replaced by the Illusive Man and Kai Leng. The former is an old acquaintance, albeit one now controlled by the Reapers. The latter is a space ninja from a terrible book. What would've been amazing is if Harbinger IS the Catalyst. Harbinger taunts and haunts Shepard throughout the game He uses the memory of that child to haunt Shepard as a symbol of humanity lost. After Shepard activates the Crucible. Harbinger appears. He explains to why and how The Reapers were made. the AI Leviathan created to solve the equation is Harbinger all along, Harbinger manipulated The Leviathan into giving it Reaper form and birth at first it did what it commanded and what they asked of it was to look at the dark energy building up which back then was only an anomaly that Leviathan was concerned with but then the first harvest began and Harbinger and The Reapers were born. Funny enough, Leviathan reminds me so much of FMA:Brotherhood. The Intelligence tricked Leviathan to create the Reaper is very similar to how the Dwarf in the flask became Father. So what I think should have happened is it would've been revealed that Harbinger is the AI that convinced the Leviathan that harvest was the only way to survive and justifies the harvests not because organics and synthetics can't coexist, but because of the dark matter crisis. Throughout the game we would have more confrontations with Harbinger. Have him "ASSUME CONTROL" during fights. Give us a voiced confrontation between Shepard and Harbinger. Make it clear that Harbinger chose The Illusive Man and convinced him of together they could uplift and empower humanity over the lesser races. The Illusive Man is to Harbinger, as what Saren was for Soverign. Then the Crucible will grant us the choice to Destroy or Control The Reapers or Harvest this cycle to survive the Dark Matter crisis. You could either. Destroy Harbinger and The Reapers, while the united races would discover a way to stop the dark matter problem. Give in to Harbinger to harvest humanity to save the galaxy. Control The Reapers to stop the harvesting and to work together to stop the dark matter crisis.

Choosing to have a smaller crew than ME2 and focusing solely on the ME1 characters and screwing over or ignoring the ME2 crew, especially romancing Jack, Miranda and Thane. If it were up to me, this is what my ideal ME3 line up would be Ashley/Kaidan EDI Garrus Liara Tali Javik Jack Miranda Thane(EA forgot about him and simply chose to kill him off, I think Thane could’ve rejoined the crew and even had a mission where we find a cure for Thane and Kolyat) Grunt Mordin(you'll see how later) Legion(You'll see later) Balak or any Batarian Squadmember. Ideally it would be someone who survived the Bahak system or even a Batarian freedom fighter who puts his people’s survival over the pride and prejudices of the Hegemony. His sole goal is to liberate Khar'shan and save his people. But for a more memorable person, Balak would be the squad member. I would make killing Balak not an option. The last high ranking officer in the Hegemony. Instead of causing deaths on the Citadel, he seeks Shepard out. It’s an enemy of my enemy is my friend. Over time, Balak would show remorse for his past actions as a terrorist and for the Hegemony’s past. Shepard and Balak learns to overcome their differences and see each other as friend and works together to destroy the Reapers. We would get a Priority Khar’shan where we could liberate the planet and the Batarians would be in a fighting force.

Keeping James alive. I like James, but he added absolutely nothing to the game. We already had an Alliance character. Ashley Williams/Kaidan Alenko. James should have been the Jenkins/Wilson of the game. He should have died in the crash to take out Eva and Ashley/Kaidan should have been with us from beginning to end. James is a character we barely know. We’ve waited a long ass time to see Ashley/Kaidan and it was downright disappointing that neither Ashley nor Kaidan did not get to interact with Garrus on Priority Palaven and Wrex during Priority S’Urkesh.

Mirandafying Ashley Williams. Mirandafying Ashley Williams for Mass Effect 3 was shallow and unnecessary. Wearing loose and long hair and skimpy clothing? Ashley Williams is a by the books soldier. She would not look like this. She would not grow her hair or let it down like this. I mean, it’s not that they changed her face so much, but they just tried too hard with the makeup, hair and outfit. Ashley didn’t need to be model-sexy and run around in heels and showing cleavage. She was already sexy as hell in her own way. All they needed to do was give her the Alliance Crewmen outfit as her casual look and the Phoenix Armor and the current Alliance type armor she was given in ME3, as well as a unique Spectre armor. It's not just the shallow Mirandafying. It's the fact that Ashley has little to no interactions. Ashley barely has any interactions in the game. Compared to Kaidan, Ashley is not interactable. I don't like that Ashley barely has any interactions and just feels...hollow. Ashley should have crew moments with Joker, Adams, Ashley at the monument mourning those who died with the original Normandy, Liara, Tali and Garrus. Was it so much to ask for simple interactions? And really, Ashley in the first game had a personality, Ashley in ME3 feels hollow.

Choosing Diana Allers over Emily Wong and Khalisah al-Jilani. Emily and Khalisah are two reporters we actually know and respect. They earned their place on the Normandy. Emily reported on crime and traffic controllers. Khalisah gave us hard hitting questions and actually cared about reporting on what the fuck was going on in the galaxy. They earned their place on the Normandy as far as I'm concerned. Compare that to Diana Allers. What has Diana Allers done to deserve a spot on the Normandy? Nothing. They created the Battlespace to make her seem like a hip and cool Alliance News Correspondent. Allers looked, weird and she just comes off as annoying and she's a waste of space on the Normandy when we could've had a whole new or returning squad member. God, I WISH Javik could throw her out the fucking airlock. You had TWO perfectly great reporter characters and you did jackshit for any of them. Just so you could have an excuse to hire Jessica Chobot.

Not letting us see Tali's face on Rannoch. Legendary Edition fixed the mistake by finally showing us Tali's face, but it's still exclusive to Shali romancers. What should have happened was we see Tali's face when she unmasks on Rannoch. If we don't romance her, she unmasks and gives us a smile. If we romance her we see her face and kiss her. Something simple like that. It would've been great to see

Not having the ME2 squad members join in on the Citadel DLC. I mean for fuck's sake, it's like they want us to know "fuck you, ME1 squadmembers only" Again, why? Why wasn’t Jack, Miranda, Grunt, Samara, Jacob, Zaeed and Kasumi not added? If we romanced Jack or Miranda, why didn't they come to save us when we were being hunted? Why not REALLY making it feel like Team Hammerhead by actually adding the ME2 Squad members to the Citadel DLC before the party? There was no reason why you couldn't include the ME2 squad members in the Citadel DLC

Making Cerberus the villains instead of uneasy allies, when The Batarians were the perfect allies for The Reapers. This might just be me but I think Cerberus should have been on our side in ME3 and The Batarians should have been fighting for The Reapers. Makes sense Cerberus has just been a rouge organization doing what the job no matter what the cost(even if the cost is atrocities) and instead of indoctrinating themselves they could of studied it to make themselves immune to indoctrination and The Illusive Man's goal was to use any means necessary in order to destroy The Reapers. I also like the idea that you know you can't trust him, but he does get results. The Council and The Alliance are desperate, so they accept a partnership with Cerberus. The Batarians have always held a grudge against The Alliance, The Council and would have wanted revenge for Bahak/ Viper Nebula. The fact that there are no consequences for what we had to do in Arrival from The Batarians just doesn't make any sense and you'd think this would give The Batarians the motive to turn to The Reapers. Hell in the Terra Nova DLC in Mass Effect 1 it seemed to me that Balak was already indoctrinated and Balak’s revelation of the “Batarian rebellion” makes it seem like they would be the perfect tools for The Reapers. Balak will be the new Saren figure. If you killed Balak, then The Reapers would just bring him back. The first act of war for the Batarians was the destruction of the Viper Nebula, so their retaliation was killing Udina. Prior to the Reaper invasion of Earth, Udina would go to Omega to make peace talks with Aria. The Batarians attack and gain control of Omega, Aria is ousted(but saved by General Petrovsky) and Udina is executed live for the galaxy to see. Because of Udina's execution and Anderson leading the resistance on Earth. The Illusive Man is now the Human Councilor. Miranda and Kai Leng would be squad members. Depending on if you gave TIM the Collector Base or destroyed it, he will either keep you in the dark or help you at every turn. Just think of the Cerberus War Assets Cerberus Scientists General Oleg Petrovsky Collector Base Cerberus Fighters Cerberus Phantoms Cerberus Engineers Project Phoenix We would get a big mission to deal with the Batarians, Priority:Khar'shan. If you do not deal with the Batarians, there will be major casualties. However half of the Batarian forces are not indoctrinated and just want to end the mistakes of their government and live. Balak wants to kill the rebellion of his people. Ironic. Somehow Balak has placed enough bombs on the planet to destroy everyone who is resisting Reaper indoctrination. We can either. Talk Balak out of it. Telling him to resist and fight for your people(which WOULD gain Balak as an ally) or talk Balak into killing himself. Or the true Renegade option is to kill Balak and order a strike that wipes out the Batarian forces, but sacrificing the Batarian Rebellion. By the time we get to Priority Earth everyone is on the same page and united against the true threat, The Reapers. And it is Harbinger who is the final boss

Not having Maelon be there with Mordin in ME3. This isn't really a problem, but I had a thought. If we spared Maelon and kept Maelon's data for the cure. Maelon should have been on board to help Mordin with the cure. If we warn Mordin and Maelon about the sabotage, then Maelon would choose to sacrifice himself to save Mordin. And after that, Mordin would choose to join Shepard's crew.

Legion's "death" is pointless. He....is software. He could easily copy and paste The Reaper code without sacrificing himself in the same manner when he was broadcasting the Reaper signal to all Geth. Or he could've disseminated himself after he made a copy and transfer that copy over to his platform. I just get the feeling that they didn't want to keep Mordin, Thane or Legion alive....for reasons.

#Mass Effect #Mass Effect Legendary Edition #Mass Effect 3 #Ashley Williams #Kaidan Alenko #Commander Shepard #Femshep #Harbinger #Miranda Lawson #Jacqueline Nought #Tali'Zorah #Garrus Vakarian #Urdnot Grunt #Mordin Solus #Thane Krios #Legion #Emily Wong #Khalisah al Jilani #Ka'hairal Balak

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germanicseidr · 3 years

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Frisii

This is a rewritten post on the Frisii tribe, my previous post is over a year old so I wanted to update it by adding more information.

The Frisii were a Germanic tribe who lived above the Rhine in areas that are now known as modern day Noord-Holland, Friesland, Groningen, the Wadden islands in the Netherlands and East-Frisia in Germany. They should not be confused with the Frisians, a tribe which settled in the same area at a later time period, The Frisians and Frisii are however not completely foreign to each other, some Frisii stayed behind and were absorbed by the Frisians, the oldest still existing Germanic culture. The Frisii were neighboured by the Cananefates to the south and Chauci to the east, the west and north were part of the north sea.

The meaning of their name is derived from the Proto-Germanic word 'frisaz' which means 'curly'. There is a common misunderstanding that the word Frisii, and the later Frisian, comes from the word freeze/vriezen or freedom but this is not correct although understandably a good possible meaning.

The origins of the Frisii is still a bit unclear but there are viable theories. Unlike other tribes, like the Chatti, Lombards, Batavi, Cananefates etc.. who all migrated southwards and settled in their territories around 100BC, the Frisii are a lot older. In fact we do not know how old exactly they are but there are several theories:

The most likely theory is that the early Frisii, also called Proto-Frisians, migrated southwards from northern Germany and Denmark around 1000BC. Somewhere around 700BC they migrated from modern day Drenthe towards modern day Friesland, Groningen and Noord-Holland. There is however a more controversial theory that suggests the birth of the Frisii started with their patron-mother the Goddess Freya.

According to this theory a line of matriarchal rulers, known as folk mothers, were descendants of Freya herself and responsible for the creation of the Frisii, this would mean that the origin of the tribe is not around 700BC but around 2200BC. Here is a line of Frisii folk mothers starting with the Goddess Freya: Freya - somewhere around 2000BC Fasta, Medea, Thiania, Hellenia, Minna, Rosamond, Hellicht, Frana, Adela and Gosa. Of course if there was a continuous matriarchal line for about 1500 years long, this would include many more names but those are lost in time. This theory is based on the information found in the Oera Linda book, a highly disputed manuscript worthy of its own post so I will write about it in the near future. An altar stone has been found near modern day Xanten however with the following description: "MATRIBUS FRISAVIS PATERNIS" which could refer to these ancient Frisii matriarchs making the Oera Linda book theory possible.

By 100BC the Frisii were quite a large and powerful tribe who had established themselves fully in their current territory. Their first encounter with the Roman empire was around 12BC when Drusus Germanicus, one of Rome's most succesful generals, invaded Germania with the intention to turn the land into a province of Rome.

Drusus Germanicus, not to be confused with the other Roman general called Germanicus, was incredibly succesful with his invasion. He subjugated every Germanic tribe in his path including the Frisii who were forced to be allies of Rome. The Romans also built a fort, their most northern one, at modern day Velsen to keep an eye on the Frisii. It is likely that all of Germania would have become a Roman province if Germanicus didn't die after a fall from his horse in 9BC.

The Frisii delivered auxiliary troops to Rome and they had to pay taxes which led to high tensions between the tribe and Rome. The taxes were incredibly unfair as the Romans demanded large skins of cows which did not even exist in Frisii territory, they only had a small breed of cows. This rising tension eventually led to the Frisii revolting against Rome in 28AD. The Frisii hung Roman tax collectors which infuriated Rome.

Olennius, a Roman centurion in charge of Frisii administration, escaped the lynching party and hid himself at Castellum Flevum, the most northern fort the Romans ever built. The Frisii however marched onwards to this fort but were unable to capture it, archeological research shows traces of heavy fighting at this fort. The Frisii retreated back towards their sacred grove dedicated to their Goddess of war, Baduhenna, luring the Romans with them.

The Romans chased the Frisii right into the sacred grove. This was however a dreadful decision since the Frisii knew their swampy estuary terrain very well and were extra motivated by being in the presence of their battle Goddess. Almost all of the Romans were slaughtered, 900 of them, some according to legends, were captured and sacrificed to Baduhenna right in her grove. Another 400 Roman soldiers killed each other out fear of treachery, the event has been quoted by Tacitus:

"Soon afterwards it was ascertained from deserters that nine hundred Romans had been cut to pieces in a wood called Baduhenna, after prolonging the fight to the next day, and that another body of four hundred, which had taken possession of the house of one Cruptorix, once a soldier in our pay, fearing betrayal, had perished by mutual slaughter." - Tacitus

The Frisii name thus became famous in Germania and Roman emperor Tiberius tried to keep the Roman defeat a secret, not wishing to entrust anyone with the war because of the shame. The Roman fort in modern day Noord-Holland was abandoned after the revolt and the Frisii became free people once again and remained so until the medieval ages.

The earliest known written record that we have about the Frisii comes from a Roman poet Albinovanus Pedo. In one of his poems, he describes a disaster that occured during Germanicus' campaigns to avenge the Teutoburgerwald battle. This disaster took place around the Eems river in Frisii territory around 16AD and involves a storm destroying parts of his fleet:

"For a long time they had left the day and the sunlight behind them, for a long time they looked exiles from the well known part of the world, who had dared to go through forbidden darkness to the boundaries of nature and the furthest coast of the earth.

From here they saw him, the sea, carrying huge monsters under slow waves with rising wild whales and the dogs of the sea on all sides grabbing ships. The fleet was already in the mud, left behind by a rapid storm. They believed that their unfortunate fate was to be torn apart by these wild sea monsters.

The world was robbed, nothing could be distinguished, his breath was taken from him, and thus he spoke from his heart: Where do we end up? The day itself is fleeing and nature closes the rest of the world with eternal darkness. Do we sometimes look for people untouched by wars? The gods call us back, forbid that mortal eyes see the end of everything. Why do we violate a strange and consecrated sea with oars? Why do we disturb the silent dwellings of the gods?" - Albinovadus Pedo

The next written mention is quite an interesting one. It involves a dispute about land on the Roman border area. Two Frisii leaders, Verritus and Malorix decided to travel to Rome in 58AD and defend their case about this piece of land. During their stay in Rome, they amused the Romans greatly by refusing to sit down amongst the common people in a theater exclaiming that: "No people can match the Germanics in loyalty and bravery!" They then proceeded sitting down next to the Roman senators present in the theater. The Roman emperor, Nero, found the whole event quite amusing himself and granted Verritus and Malorix roman citizenship. This account, described by Tacitus, is also the first account of foreign tourists visiting Rome who were mentioned by name.

In 69AD, during a particulary tough year for the Romans, the Batavi revolted against the Roman empire. The Frisii joined this revolt which was initially quite succesful. Unfortunately the revolt was put down by the Romans the following year, resulting in severe trust issues between the Romans and the Batavi and Cananefates.

By 98AD Tacitus published his work 'Germania' and also provices us with a small description on the Frisii. He separated the tribe in two parts, the Frisii Maiores and the Frisii Minores. The Minores lived in what is now Noord-Holland and the Maiores lived in what is now Frisia and Groningen. Here is a description on the Frisii landscape:

"The terrain is fierce, the climate is rough, life and landscape are bleak. You only come here if it's your homeland." - Tacitus

No significant recorded events exist after 98AD, the history on the Frisii between 100AD-300AD is pretty much unknown. We do know that parts of the Frisii joined the Cananefaat pirate/proto-viking Gannascus in his raids on several settlements, mainly in Gaul. These attacks infuriated Rome and led to improved defenses being built by them. Gannascus is eventually assassinated by the Romans under the pretence of a negotiation which caused great outrage amongst the Chauci, Frisii and Cananefates. The Roman emperor of that time, Claudius, feared a violent conflict with these tribes and withdrew Roman forces from the Rhine in order to ease tensions.

Around 300AD the Saxon confederation came into existence and bordered the Frisii directly to the east. The Western Roman empire started to decline rapidly during this time period as well leaving the borders vulnerable for invasions. With the Huns invading Europe, economic hardship, climate change, failed harvests and empty Roman borders, came the great migration. Many Frisii migrated either southwards to become absorbed by the Franks or to the west by invading Britannia together with the Angles, Saxons and Jutes. Only very few Frisii remained in their original homeland, we have archeological evidence that some did indeed stay.

Frisii lands were now almost completely deserted until the arrival of Saxons and Jutes who settled the area together with the few remaining Frisii. These new settlers started to call themselves Frisians, after the ancient Frisii. The Frisians still exist until this day and they have a rich history which deserves a post of its own, which will be coming very soon.

The last thing I want to mention is the auxiliary troops that the Frisii supplied Rome with. The Notitia Dignitatum, a Roman document that describes details of the administrative organisation of the empire, mentions a Frisii cohort stationed at Vindobala, a fort located at Hadrian's wall. This entry 'Tribunes cohortis primae Frixagorum Vindobala' however contains a possible spelling mistake, Frixagorum instead of Frisiavonum. This entry might however also refer to the Frisiavones tribe unrelated to the Frisii.

Here are images of: A map showing the location of the Frisii, A reconstruction of Castellum Flevum, A depiction of the Frisii fighting Romans by an unknown artist, A reconstruction of a Frisii fortification, A small piece of a Roman helmet, bottom left, found at Velsen where once the Castellum Flevum stood which was attacked by the Frisii, A depiction of the Goddess Freyja, the ancestral mother of the Frisii, from 1874,

#History #Germanic #Germanic Tribe #Frisii #Dutch #Pagan #Freyja #Freya

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thepeakyfckingblinders · 5 years

Text

The Whore || John Shelby x reader

⤠ MASTERLIST⤟

Anon requested: “11&19 with John boy? cause I miss him “ (I miss him too, my poor heart aches)

Summary: n.11 & 19 from prompt list: “Please, please, please” + “I’ll burn this fucking place down” Warnings: swearing, a lot of angst, prostitution, nudity, violence, mentions of abuse, mentions of rape, misogynistic talk, graphic description of signs of physical abuse

Author’s notes:

Behind each one of these works there are sleepless nights and something really close to multiple mental breakdowns, so, please, take a minute to send me a message about it, I need actual feedbacks to understand how to improve my skills and grow ♡

So, this request’s been in my mind for ages, and even though I’m not happy with its final part ‘cause it sucks, I’m literally obsessed with this idea, I love it so much that I’ll probably write a long fic about it, right after Contagio, but it will depend on you babes, because, first and froemost, I need to know what you think about this piece. ⤟ IMPORTANT

Please, if you’re a victim of any kind of abuse, talk to someone who can help you, nobody should go through something like that alone.⤟ IMPORTANT

I edited the gif and added the text, it’s not an actual scene from the show, but I thought it could be a good idea, a small detail that could be added to my works. What do you think about it? Pls, let me hear your opinions babeees ⤟

I’m sorry for being this late, but I’ve been really busy in the past days and writing is never just easy, it demands concentration and effort, plus I don’t want you to be disappointed, so I’m always extra accurate while working. I hope this is worth the wait!

If you want to be added to my tag list, please, directly message me

I’m Italian, English isn’t my first language, so I apologize for every possible mistake I made. Also, please, help me improve my writing by telling me if there’s something wrong

ENJOY!

Birmingham was somehow silent that night, John noticed the unusually empty streets around him, as his feisty pace easily led him towards a well-known destination, his confident steps resounding in between the damp walls of those sordid blocks made of innumerable overcrowded flats. The unmistakable stench of stagnant urine viciously permeated his nostrils, soon causing a disgusted expression to taint his angelic face, while he avidly took the umpteenth drag of smoke from his Cuban cigar and finally stopped his unceasing walk in front of the most renowned brothel in the entire city. For about three years by then, day after day, his life had been perilously circling the drain: things had got totally out of hand, fate had pitilessly thrown him into profound despair, giving life to an apparently endless spiral of darkness and desolation, which was gradually corroding his fragile self, brutally strangling him, rapaciously plundering each of his already strained vital breaths. And, nevertheless, it was beyond hard to blame him for such catastrophic outcomes, after all, he’d scarcely survived the battlefield, only to find himself with a handful of nothing, left alone to deal with a dead wife and four children to raise on his own, while his guts crawled with excruciating grief and ravenous acrimony for the whole world, having him develop a tendency to self-destruction that was just as concerning as it was well concealed. As a matter of fact, in spite of his private hell, he still remained a Shelby, and a Shelby wasn’t meant to be soft, nor weak, none of them could afford to succumb to their affliction, never, not for a moment. They had to be invulnerable.

Or, at least, they had to look invulnerable, for truth was that John was scared, utterly frightened by all those unmerciful changes. Deep inside he felt like a hopeless, undefended child, forsaken by God and discarded to wander that grim world without any destination other than death and misery, thus his blood boiled with virulence and venom, having his heart clench with blind wrath and his devastated young soul desperately long for sort of any distorted kind of unattached affection. That was basically the main reason why his bed was incessantly warm, or more accurately, warmer than it had always been before, because, needless to say, John Shelby had actually been an authentic ladies’ man since his first cry. His stunning beauty constantly teemed on everyone’s lips in Birmingham, there was not a single woman in the whole town who hadn’t dreamt of sleeping with him at least once in her life. Therefore, John was more than happy to please them all, literally, welcoming them with wide open arms, even during his past marriage; and, on those rare times when no girl went to knock on his door, he had now grown accustomed to seek relief into whorehouses, rather than sleep alone and become an easy prey for his ferocious demons.

So he eventually ended up dropping his smouldering cigar on the uneven asphalt of the most rundown place in Small Heath, “Le Belle Donne”, an Italian house of tolerance, quite dilapidated and about to fall to pieces, but which often happened to have his favourite prostitutes. Indeed, ever since the Peaky Blinders had defeated and subjugated Sabini’s clan, they’d occupied a prominent position among the country, to the point that several other Italian gangs on their territory, including the Changrettas who owned that brothel in particular, had finally given in to the Shelbys. As a direct consequence, to put it simply, John and all his brothers had, in a very real sense, earned the full right to abuse of whatever business the wops held.

“Hey, man!” Johnny resonantly barked as he entered the hall, maintaining a pretty intimidating attitude and a menacing look on purpose, in order to strike even greater fear in his newest flunky. “C’mon, show me what you got” That rough order cunningly glided onto his lower lip, immediately followed by his hot tongue, while his famished gaze travelled around the room, examining the face of each harlot standing there with meticulous attention, without however finding something that could come anywhere close to seriously rapture him. Robert Turrini, the whoremaster, was a bizarre bloke, for his physical appearance could be probably described as both disturbing and amusing: his revortingly corpulent stomach wobbled and his short legs dangerously stumbled, when he made haste to stand up and accommodate his toughest client. “Mr. Shelby, what an honour and a pleasure to have you back!” Those sycophant words fled his moist and malodorous mouth, and nonetheless, his stubby fingers inexorably betrayed his true thoughts, since they were either nervously torturing each other or, as only alternative, convulsively running through his greasy, mangy bangs. “Please, sir, follow me, these are for yokels and boozers, nothing to do with gentlemen like yourself” Once again, Turrini’s shrill fawning tone relentlessly grated his ears, making clear reference to the bunch of second-rate whores who could be found at the entrance; thus the lame pimp quickly moved, his hand anxiously beckoning John to tread upon his heels, then headed towards an eerily narrow corridor, so scanty that it was almost impossible to cross, if not walking on the bias. The secret lounge was illuminated only in part by a squalid red light creating a gruesome atmosphere, a dull silence tyrannically reigned into that small space, although you were not alone, but practically glued to another girl; both sitting on a minuscle sofa, your elbows touching, still none of you dared emit a single sound. Everything felt like lead upon your papier-mâché ribcage, that horrible sensation forcing your traumatized brain to involuntarily keep counting the seconds until that heinous burden would’ve potentially staved in your sternum, definitively annihilating your splintered heart. As a result, when the ramshackle door opened and a high-pitched squeak scraped your skin, you really thought to be about to die. Your torturer made his entrance, and right after him, another man came in, yet you couldn’t spot his face, since the peak of his cap designedly casted a mysterious shadow on it. “These two right here, they're real young, real fresh” Robert flaunted his goods along with a nefarious grin, rubbing his soiled paws with evident greed. “Behold the finest offering of flesh and bone on the market” A sadistic snicker repugnantly accompanied his speech, instantly causing John to frown, visibly disgruntled with the way that man deliberately talked about human beings. Luckily, it was a known fact that the middle Shelby was used to treating his women with all due respect: whether he paid them or not, he always made sure they were comfortable with him and never shrank from giving them some good time as well; therefore, a vexed glare was shot in the direction of his gross interlocutor, before his crystalline eyes briefly fluttered around the place, then bumping into your elegant figure almost at once.

Your bloodstream seemed to benumb on the spot as the stranger’s confident stare entangled yours, his rawboned features being now fully displayed, for he had lifted his chin a little in order to properly look at you, and you only, despite Clarissa’s desperate and petulant attempts to get his attention with malicious smiles and ridiculous pet names. Even though your dazed mind had just been ruthlessly brutalized by the sudden, ablaze assault of his glacial irises, a few moments were enough for you to realize how profoundly different he was from all the low-down rats who usually came through that horrible place.

Each sharp, still somehow delicate, trait of his face was brimming with delicious youthfulness, a less keen eye might have even confounded his freshness with actual naivety, but not yours; you were far too clever to make such a coarse mistake. Furthermore, the midnight-blue posh fabric of the classy suit, remarkably folding his majestic body, left gaunt doubt that he was, in all likelihood, a considerably rich man, which was beyond disorientating you, since the price to pay for some tawdry delight in that brothel was outrageously derisory, to say the least. And ultimately, as much as it killed you to conceive it, he was without question one of the most enchanting men you had ever seen, to the point that you found yourself subconsciously wondering the possible reason why a heavenly creature of his kind would’ve needed to buy a miserable hour of dissembled love.

“There she is” That malleable murmur, filled with longing and gratification, furtively sidled past John’s roseate mouth, as its corners seductively bent upwards and his gaze persevered in its praiseworthy commitment to scrupulously linger your finest shape in sheer adoration. Lace and organdy sublimely merged on the light crimson negligee you were wearing, your immaculate form appeared as a beguiling paradox into his dilated pupils, being your long legs lecherously left exposed, while every inch of your porcelain skin, from your lean neck to your groin, was painstakingly disguised by that unholy material, dark and inscrutable, albeit thin enough to allow him to glimpse the inviting turgidity of your nipples. His breath shuddered in awe when he went back to contemplate your aphrodisiac facial features, flushed cheeks and plump lips having him ache with desire, and then your doe eyes flooded by melancholy, strangling his soul with no mercy, entrenching into his brains the treacherous conviction that, at the end of the day, he would’ve gladly dilapidated his fortune, if only to venerate you from afar. “Oi, sweetheart!” His low voice finally rumbled within the walls of that small space, overwhelmingly vibrating into your abdomen, while you forced yourself to swallow the painful lump obstructing your throat and stand up, promptly responding to his command, aware as you had become that rebelling against your pitiable destiny would’ve served no purpose at all. Holding your client’s hand behind your back, but keeping your head down during the whole route, you silently guided him up the spiral staircase to the best room in the house, like you had previously been instructed by your pimp. His jacket and hat were quickly hung on the apposite coat-rack, leaving his muscular top covered with just his white shirt and blue vest, an alluring grin was flashed in your direction and you detected a libidinous sparkle in his irises, as he healed the rift between you at a slow pace. “What should I call you, sweetheart?” He knowingly used the same flattering pet name once more, whispering that barely audible question into your ear, for he was now behind you: his large hands laid around your waist, gently making your back and his vigorous chest fit together, while his skilled mouth brushed forthwith against your nape, drawing an ardent contrail of ephemeral pecks up until your jaw. “Just y/n” You gasped in response, the marked contrast between his warmth and your bitter cold body, along with crippling dread eating you alive, caused your scrambled stomach to squirm and your eyelids to distressingly shut into a frown. “Well, that’s a pretty good one, I’m John, by the way” A lovely, yet hinted giggle fleetingly filled your ears together with that little compliment; there was no record of mockery in his tone, though, it simply sounded like he wanted to be nice to you, without any aspiration of personal gain, and you almost blushed, caught off guard and no longer used to any form of kindness. Nevertheless, it was a matter of instants before another wet, long kiss was pressed on your jawline, making you startle with evident apprehension and, at a later time, definitively back away from him, as soon as you sensed his touch abandoning your hips only to climb your sides, till he reached for your nightgown’s collar and his fingers began to fiddle with its round buttons. “No, I’ll do it!” You curtly gave notice, as you temporarily lost control of both your speech and actions, placing your hands above his in order to shrug them off, then turning to face him with short breath, your open palms shielding you. “I got it” A noticeably softer voice supplanted your preceding rudeness once you gradually metabolised how much damage your incautious reaction could’ve done.

“Aye, aye, darling, as you wish” But John just chuckled, tenderly humouring you, while his forearms jokingly lift in surrender to your commands, although, truth be told, your strange behaviour had left him a bit bewildered, well-nigh confused. Carefully moving backwards, he cockily made himself comfortable on the edge of the double bed, sitting right in front of you with splayed legs, his yearning stare never deflecting from you, and started to unbutton his waistcoat along with his shirt and undershirt, until his statuesque torso was completely nude, in all its glory, as the moon transpired through the curtains and shed its faint rays on his every contour, superbly enhancing all of his muscles.

Without reprieve, he ogled up at you in pure adoration, devastatingly astonished afresh by your dazzling beauty, eager to feel your afire flesh around his, literally hanging on your every word or move, while a provocative smirk steadily rippled his lips. Still, he kept questioning why a seraphic vision like you was slowly withering away in that authentic hell on heart, adamantly squandering your blush of youth amidst that rabble of unrestrained putridity. It made absolutely no sense, and he couldn’t get rid of that pernicious thought haunting his mind ever since he had first seen you: you looked nervous, extremely defensive, almost paralyzed with fear; you seemed so different from all the whores he’d had before, hence his instincts, however obfuscated with cupidity, were screaming that something was wrong. And when he watched you turn your back on him again, so to avoid his penetrating gaze as you reluctantly got undressed, it was enough for him to understand that his execrable hunch was right. Nevertheless, by the time his head managed to eventually reconnect to his mouth, it was already too late, the soft textile of your nightdress ineluctably fell to your feet, leaving you naked under his starving leer.

John choked on his own breath; for the very first time, he felt like a fledgling kid at his earliest experience, no matter if nothing could be further form the truth, in some turbid, cryptic way, you were able to make him vulnerable. His craw went hellishly dry while he continued to gape at you in awe, the sinuous curves of your flawless glutes, the meandering line of your superlatively arched back covered in part by your soft hair, your tensed shoulders and your refined legs, everything about you caused his mind to go entirely black, words stifling in his throat. Yet, as soon as you moved to face him and his sight was blessed with the full view of your voluptuous figure, something altered the light in his cerulean eyes, suddenly making it dark and gloomy. His jaw slightly dropped under the weight of that violent dismay: in conjunction, an obnoxious sense of nausea cruelly shot him in the gut and blind anger virulently assailed him, for your front bust was completely martyrized.

“What the hell...” That unmeant babble died in the gelid air, his shocked orbs demarcating the strokes of your damaged silhouette: your neck and collarbone were horridly plastered with several violet fingerprints, as if someone had mercilessly strangled you over and over, greenish bruises with the shape of full palms circled both your arms, there were conspicuous signs of ligature around your tiny wrists. Worse still, his eyelids had to squeeze a little in order to bring into focus the multiple oxblood dots stigmatizing your soft breasts, until he noticed in horror how those round specks were effectively cigarettes burns; all of the oxygen bluntly withdrew from his lungs, when he dwelled on the multiple blue and black marks barbarically desecrating the protuberances of your ribs. But what irremediably drove him over the edge were the two ghastly scars digging stretched grooves in your lower stomach, in parallel with your bulging pelvic bones and down almost to your livid groin.

Prey of that deleterious humiliation, you observed raw disgust contaminating his features and, with no apparent reason, the dormant hatred you had for yourself began to ferment inside your belly. “I-I’m sorry” you forced yourself to swallow your imminent tears, unexpectedly, the awareness of not being able to please him somehow inflicted more suffering on your mangled soul “If I’m not to your taste, y-you can...” The young man quickly stood up and, before you had the chance to finish your nonsensical sentence, he readily grabbed his shirt, approaching you with dispatch, his cold irises burning with an implausible mixture of fury and concern. “I don’t fucking care right now” His voice was unsteady, rolling down his tongue in fatigued panting, as his hands hastened to wrap his shirt around your shoulders, his trembling fingers struggling to put the buttons through the eyelets “Who did this to you?” In truth, he was talking to himself rather than with you, noticeable impatience worsening his mad tone, yet you persistently steered clear of his inquiring look, more than determined to keep your mouth shut, forasmuch as your dizzy head was already helplessly spinning, along with your heart rabidly hammering against your sore ribcage. You were having a hard time figuring out what was going on, everything around you was so confused, you didn’t even know whether to trust him or not, you only wanted to close your eyes and forget about that lucid nightmare. “I’m not asking you, for fuck’s sake! Tell me who it was!” That searing order tersely brought you back to reality and cleared how easily his rash temper could reemerge; indeed, all of a sudden, no trace was left of that kind, cheerful boy who earlier that night had succeeded in making you genuinely blush, on the contrary, when he cupped your cheeks and vehemently shook you, in a desperate effort to get your attention, his rough, authoritative command unbendingly hit you, and the sweet child within him ended up being thoroughly smothered by the scary, ruthless gangster that he truly was. That unforeseen contact had your feet automatically stagger backwards, your eyes fell to your tiptoes and your teeth started skewering your lower lip, while your exhausted brain resorted to its last ounce of strength, thereby obligating you to spit out a bit of your sorrow. “Three months ago, the man I once called father sold me to settle one of his debts with the Italians” Your thorax seemed to shrink to the point of absurdity once you became aware that it was essentially the first time you allowed yourself to say it all out loud. However, the presence of that compassionate stranger still represented for you a substantial barrier to surmount, leading your unquiet glance to franticly move from the grime on the floor, to the broken window on your left, anywhere, but never daring to meet his. “ I tried to run away, I swear I did, but they always caught me and-”

A large knot callously plugged the bottom of your palate, causing you to hesitate for a minute, gently rubbing your own arms, in attempt to comfort yourself . “Robert has a short fuse, he g-gets pretty brutal when you don’t cooperate” Those disenchanted considerations carried an involuntary grin, it was nothing more than a spasm, but hid the unmistakable sign of an imminent cry, and John’s attentive irises certainly did not let it go unnoticed, yet he chose to stay quiet, because the last thing he would’ve wanted in that crucial moment was to scare you even more. “He beat me to death, each time harder than the time before, and then he let those men-... He-e kept me tied to that bed for days to teach me a lesson” Copious tears were now unremittingly streaming down your flushed face, your heart aching with raw affliction, preventing you from breathing properly, one of your palms instinctively went to cover the space between your breasts, in a vain whirl to ease that excruciating grief. “Oh, God” John simply sighed, he was precariously theetering on the verge of tears as well, thick veins untamedly pumped in the proximity of his temples, till his solid shape ruinously keeled over the longest side of the bed, his elbows piercing his own thighs, as he hid behind his clenched fists and finally permitted himself to indulge a couple of muffled sobs. Innumerable atrocities had clouded his eyes and soul during his brief life, he himself was capable of unspeakable acts of cruelty, still, that was absolutely intolerable, hearing your story was taking a terrible toll on him. Try as he might, he couldn’t conceive how somebody could have been so hopelessly evil, to abuse in such a heinous way a defenseless creature as pure as you were. That thought was irretrievably disturbing him, rancorously eroding his bowels, almost depriving him of his sanity.

“U-until I stopped fighting them” Your last, indescribably anguished whisper struck the fatal blow, it unrelentingly plunged into his chest, sending an unbearable jolt of pain through his poisoned veins. For a brief instant, his expression, together with yours, harshly turned into a mask made of neat despair, as if your synapsis had been ravelled and both of you were enduring the exact same ache, at the exact same moment.

“I’ll fucking kill him!” Then, all at once, something apopletic inside him violently detonated, he berserkly stood up, roughly tripping over the beside table and everything placed on it. “Fucking kill that filthy bastard with my own two hands, bloody hell!” His hoarse yells made your bruised skin cringe and his furious steps covered the whole length of the room in the space of a scant minute; he was literally seething with murderous fits of rage, teeth grinding with irrepressible choler. “No!” your desperate voice erupted afresh and you hurried to reach for him, your hands unconsciously enveloping his cheekbones “Please, please, John, please, stop!” For the first time, his name slipped out of your aching throat in between those pathetic pleads, your wrists forced him to look at you, in attempt to dissuade him from his homicidal purposes; the mere thought of the potential disastrous consequences to his calamitous ire totally asphyxiated you, rampant panic assaulted your frail mind and, soon after, you found yourself hyperventilating and simultaneously rambling a bunch of incoherent words, your fingers gradually tightening their grip on him. “He’s gonna get so angry at me, he’s gonna- he-he’s...” “I’m a fucking Shelby, he does not draw a damn breath unless I say so” He firmly grabbed your chin with just two of his fingers, guiding your depleted pupils to entirely focus on his confident stare, and he growled that undisputable fact a span away from your nose. Petrified by that new awareness, you fell utterly silent, only gawking in his direction, while he put his undershirt back on with ease and rapidly grasped his cap. “Just stay here, do you hear me? Don’t move until I come back” An incandescent kiss was impulsively pressed to your forehead, no other words were spent, before he disappeared behind the door of your private hell. When your persecutor saw his special guest unyieldingly storming towards his desk with a truculent expression exuding fervent disappointment, he jumped on his feet, ready to find a solution to whatever problem had possibly arisen; one thing was sure, he never would’ve guessed what was about to happen. “Mr. Shelby, what’s wron-” John’s fist savagely collided with his jaw, nipping his cloying speech in the bud, without giving Turrini a second to process what was going on, another punch pitilessly smote him, and then another one, and then another, until hot, plenteous blood gushed from his multiple wounds. “You son of a bitch” Animalistic groans left his rabid maws, sheer hate rushing through his brains, as he violently tossed him to the ground, immediately beginning to kick his torso with all of his brute force. “Mercy! I beg of you, sir, have mercy!” His victim’s prayers and harrowing screams barely titillated his ears, everything he could think about was your tragically marred body, hence an unbridled desire to give him a taste of his own medicine completely took over. “Where was your mercy when you were torturing her?” Expertely holding his hat in the most efficient way, in a fury, John went down on his sacrificial lamb, promptly disfiguring just one side of his face, in order to take a quite theatrical pause from his wicked work.

“When she was imploring you to stop?” Robert was now crying out loud, overwhelmed by that merciless agony, reduced to just invoke the glacial scynt of death, since nothing in his entire miserable existence had ever caused him more intense pain, than the coarse perception of a finely sharpened razorblade brutishly lacerating his flesh once more, inch by inch.

“Now bend your ear to this” despite his wrenching laments, John rudely lift him up by seizing the blood stained collar of his jacket “if anyone else but me goes near her fucking room again, I’ll burn this fucking place down!” And with that first, deadly threat the pimp’s head was brutally slammed into the wall, an umpteenth whine of contrition escaping his mouth filled with blood, nevertheless, no time was left for redemption.

“You lay a finger on her again” his skull was doggedly crashed into the bricks once again, a crimson spatter smeared the pale plaster covering them “I will break your neck” John’s knuckles clasped, having his red right hand effectively strenghten its hold on his neck, nearly killing him on the spot. However, fortunately for the whoremaster, Johnny would’ve not put an end to his sufferings, nor he could've simply taken you away, deep inside, he knew he needed to discuss it with his family, first and foremost, with Thomas, for the unstable equilibrium reached by the Peaky Blinder was far too fragile to start a new war against the Italians. Thus, with great difficulty, he forced himself to keep his mind clear and put a lid on his beastly instinct. “From now on, no one of you dirty swines is allowed to even look at her” Throwing him to the floor, the middle Shelby delivered one last kick straight to his fat abdomen, and disrespectfully spit on him, marking with his salt slaver the end of his brutalized prey’s calvary. “By order of the Peaky Blinders” As soon as the crackling door snapped open, your heart seemed to explode, your eyelids bolted with pure fear, whilst you pulled your knees closer to your clavicles, an ancient prayer lingering your lips together with heavy breaths, as you prepared for the worst. But the worst never came. “Y/n, hey, calm down. It’s all right” John’s husky voice echoed in your ears, and, you could’ve sworn it, that was, without the slightest doubt, the most beautiful sound you had ever heard. Your head abruptly tilted in his direction, an oxymoric mixture of fear and hope twinkling into your watery irises, deep pants still rocking your tiny self. “It’s me, it’s just me” Keeping his arms up to indicate his innocuous purpose, he carefully approached you. Almost immediately, you noticed the several scarlet handprints staining his pale top, eloquent sign that he had tried to wipe his palms on that ivory material as best as he could. Yet, you were so profoundly relieved to see his friendly face, that, to be honest, the sight of fresh blood didn’t upset you at all. It was like you had fallen into a fugue state, every single thing around you was so distant, your numb senses were only able to concentrate on John’s lean silhouette kneeling in front of you. “ No one will hurt you anymore, darling” his hands gently went to caress your thighs, while his worried gaze tirelessly sought yours and he spoke those soft, reassuring words “You need to trust me”. And you did want to put all of your faith in that young man. His delicate flair easily awakened you from that ostensible slumber, building a rousing fire inside your belly; without a thought about your unforeseen actions, you threw your arms around his strong neck, your knees producing a dry sound as they collided with the wooden pavement, still you didn’t care and you held him tight, letting out loud cries and drowning into his muscular chest, finally revelling in the feeling of that warm embrace. Soon, he entangled his callous fingers with your velvety locks, subconsciously narrowing his solid shoulders, as to shield your frangible figure from the outside world. “I'll get you out of here soon, I promise”

tag list: @spidey-pal, @shadow-of-wonder, @stassaurus, @peachlle, @livvtheangel, @myjbphase, @namelesslosers, @crazyonesarethebest, @vxxn128, @keithseabrook27, @spaghettirogers, @writingstudent, @hp-hogwartsexpress

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theloyaltyofthewolves · 4 years

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stray kids

one of you asked me if i could talk about why i love stray kids on my old blog. i know it’s about three months too late, but if ur still out there anon, this one’s for you.

it’s been five years since i stumbled into the world of kpop. i started listening in 2015. which is crazy. you know how long ago five years was? bts hadn’t even won an award in 2015. b*g b*ng was still together in 2015. twice and ikon won rookie of the year, nct hadn’t debuted, exo had just begun their rise to fame.

it’s been a fun five years. i have loved many different groups. i have watched them sprout, grow, blossom, followed several of them to stardom. some of them, i’ve broken up with. many of them, i still check in with from time to time. i’ve watched several of them disband or go into hiding. i still listen to their music, i still watch their old fancams.

this is all to say that stray kids are different. they always have been and i knew that right away. i was sitting in my dorm room, five thirty am, headphones on while my roommate slept, watching the 2018 MAMA awards. you know the performance. we all know the performance. two years later, and it’s still their best performance. not just because they won rookie of the year, not just because of bluesung. but because they threw absolutely everything they could into it. sure, maybe the show was a little sloppy. maybe there were mistakes, maybe they were a little bit awkward, maybe the vocals weren’t perfect, maybe they couldn’t fill the whole stage. but they were giving it everything they had. and the thing abt live streams, live performances, is that shit like that shows. you can dose up music videos with as many special effects as you like. you can edit the official recordings, slip in some autotune, crop some angles, blur some skin as much as you want. but you cannot fake desperation. you can’t fake passion.

to this day, i have never seen a performance like that. not from a rookie group, not from a veteran. i didn’t even know who the hell they were, where the hell they had come from, who they belonged to, what their names were, but i could feel their desperation across six thousand miles of ocean. in an industry overflowing with glittering diamonds, these kids were broken shards of obsidian. they were raw. they were unpolished. they were sharp. they had cut themselves open for this performance, they were bleeding all over the stage.

i will always have a weak spot for underdogs. for the kids who fight tooth and nail just to be there, who come out with scraped knees and bruised knuckles. the kids who force themselves into places they don’t fit into, stages too clean for them. the kids who make a scene just by showing up. who come in hot, burning, running their mouths. talking way bigger than they are, way bigger than they have any right to be. the reckless hubris of youth, the kind that turns heads. fucking look at us. fucking pay attention. we fought to be here, we survived, we’re staying.

that is what stray kids is. an experiment, a test. eight wolves just coming into their own. they’re messy and they’re ragged and they’re scrappy and they’re real. they can’t be handled the way that other groups have been built to be, they can’t be air-brushed into perfection. the thing about a company ceding control the way it has is that there is no reclaiming it. there’s no picking up the end of the leash once it’s been dropped. stray kids are self-made. they built themselves with their bare hands. it’s their blood, their sweat, their sacrifices. their music, their dream, their voice, their sleepless nights and empty bank accounts. their fire, their heart, their honest-to-god love. yes, they have been confined within the limits of jyp and yes, they are still chained to the performative nature of being an idol. but they have pulled the boundaries far further than any group that has come before them. their own terms, their own music, their own limits. stray kids are the new standard.

and then there are the members themselves. i could spend another four thousand words talking about why i love them individually. but stray kids are more than the sum of their parts. they always have been.

all idol groups love each other. i cannot imagine there is any other way that they survive. the pressure, the expectations, the fame, the stress, the exhaustion, the bullshit, the objectification, the subjugation. being worked to the bone, run like a racehorse, treated like a commodity instead of a human being. it’s a version of trauma bonding, it really is. your teammates become the only people who understand what you are going through, who can relate to you, share your burden. they are also often the only ones looking after each other. keeping each other safe, keeping each other healthy. friends, if not family. allies, if not friends. teammates rely on each other, that is universal.

but stray kids’ bond runs deeper than that.

we like to talk like it was fate that they found each other, like they stumbled into one another and it all just fell together and everyone was happy and the river ran smooth and the blood was sweet like honey. we like that, we think there’s something holy in it because it rings like destiny and we like that. soulmates, meant-to-be’s.

that’s not what they are. i wish i could get it stapled across my blog in big bold letters. it’s not a coincidence. it’s not a miracle. it’s not an accident. stray kids are not an act of fate, they are an act of love and that is what makes them so fucking special.

it’s not luck that got them this close. it’s not destiny. stray kids put in the time. they put in the effort. they looked at each other and they decided this isn’t going to be an accident. love takes work. love takes sacrifice. love takes patience and selflessness and respect and effort. it’s not one and done, you don’t just fall in love and everything falls into place. choosing to love someone, committing yourself to someone, devoting yourself to someone – never mind seven other people – is a big fucking deal. it has to be done consciously. it has to be done on purpose. you have to look inside of yourself and say this is more important. these people are more important. i will put them first over everything.

it’s the millionth time, but i’ll say it once more for the people in the back: stray kids practice active love. love as an action, love as a verb, love as an act of defiance. on purpose, on purpose. i’m going to love you on purpose. i’m going to take you for everything you are, all your flaws and all your strengths, all your dreams and all your fears, all the stones and scars and ghosts that you carry. i’m going to love you for all of it. the good and the bad.

losing teammates is a bitter and terrible loss. it must haunt them restlessly, follow in their footsteps and shadow their shoulders, whispers in their ears at every turn. wounds like that don’t heal right on their own, so they have stitched themselves up with parts of each other. it’s why they never stray too far, are never more than an arm’s length from each other’s sides. it’s why chan doesn’t let the kids out of his sight, why they are always so on-edge when they are not eight, why every time one of their teammates is returned to them, he is subjected to a full check-up by seven worried faces. they all have it, that obsessive tic. they reassure with their hands, with physical touch. tangible. it’s not enough to see, they have to feel each other under their fingers. reassure that we are here, we are together, we are eight and we are still alive. they are terrified to lose one another so they bind themselves tighter, lean on each other harder, love fiercer and bloodier.

it’s an act of resistance, love like that. screaming into the endless void of hate and emptiness, loneliness and despair, failure, defeat, grief. even after all this time. all the heartbreak and the devastation, everything they’ve lost, all the tragedy. to get back up, to put on a brave face, to take a stand with your chin up and your arms outstretched: these are my people. my heart and my soul, my blood and my bones. you cannot take them from me, you will not take them from me, i will cherish them to my death, i will protect them to my death, i will love them to my death. practicing active love because they want to be together, because they will be together, because they are better when they are together--that’s brave. that is bravery. that is an act of rebellion and it is the most human thing one could do and it is the reason i love them more than anything. because they love each other on purpose, and because somehow in this world of chaos and violence and hatred and fear, that is enough.

you kiss me with your mouth wide open like you're not afraid of swallowing poison. i taste the good and the bad in you and want them both. we call this bravery. - anita ofokansi

#in this stray kids shit for life my dudes #truly some of the bravest kindest most incredible kids ive ever seen #we are lucky to know you boys #stray kids fighting #until the end of the road #happy valentine's day #stray kids #skz #long post #bang chan #lee minho #lino #seo changbin #hwang hyunjin #han jisung #lee felix #kim seungmin #yang jeongin #and now the loyalty of the wolves

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the-angst-lord · 5 years

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Just gonna get this out of the way.

Okay, a few things before Adam probably dies and the fandom rejoices because I think we can all agree at this point. Adam is a bad character, morally and in the narrative itself.

That being said.

Adam is currently written to be a mess of the negative ex-lover tropes. (I seriously think the staff forgot that he’s suppose to be in his early twenties and Blake is still a minor)

He can’t even be called a villain anymore because not even the writers respect his character enough to be called a threat. Literally, it feels like the writers are trying their best to write him out of the show because by doing so it’ll write away any negative implications his character has on the theme of being a Fanus.

The most present Adam, wants to murder Blake. Except that he’s taking a damn long time to do it, I guess because they wanted the allusion to a beast stalking their prey, but like, he could’ve just shot her on the train. His sword is also a gun after all. But I suppose a mecha fight isn’t enough, haveta finally deal with this character that no one likes, probably going to end up killing him because, I don’t know, metaphor for overcoming trauma. Except that’s not how it works, but I digress.

When in reality, it would be really simple to imply what built him up to be a fallen hero, villain, dickhead.

It goes back to a quote from Adam’s character short, and one moment from Final Fantasy 13 it reminded me of.

Warning, I’m going to talk about dark stuff, aligning with experimentation and slavery. If you’re not comfortable with that please do not read.

This is what I think Adam’s story should’ve been set as.

- Adam is from Atlus. We first see him as a child, at first uncertain to who this child is. They have a collar around their neck, and from behind a cage we see them look through the crack of a door, towards a red rose sitting on a desk. That’s all we get so far, just that he’d specifically from the place that we know does not treat Fanus well, from a time before the White Fang was an organization.

From that we jump to when Adam already has the mask on, having a more lighter demeanor, reserved, but quick witted at times. He was Blake’s mentor so would be someone person who had experience in combat, and was the one who had been working alongside Gera and Kali to bring equality for Fanus. What his character short should have portrayed was someone who looked up to Gera as a father figure. Building up their relationship as something that Adam treasured though not outwardly as to keep his composure.

We know nothing about Adam’s childhood, so it would be easy for him to find a sort of mentor figure in the leader of the White Fang. Vice Versa, Gera could’ve seen Adam as like a son, someone with great potential who could’ve led the White Fang should he decide to step down, something that Adam of the past should never wish to see. At that point, he would’ve not only been Blakes mentor, he would’ve been someone she looked up to as a Big Brother which makes more sense as to why Adam would care about Blake’s opinion.

The moment Gera decides to leave the White Fang is when Adam is betrayed for the first time. At this point, the rise of aggression is triggering a response from the humans, fear. And it does seem to be effective more than Gera’s methods, something that Kali assures him of. When Adam confronts Gera, he’s furious, asking why he’s abandoning his fanus brothers and sisters, and Gera just looks at him in disappointment. Saying that fear isn’t the way to bring Fanus equality, and that their actions will just hinder the cause. But that doesn’t sit well with Adam, because right in front of him is a man who is running away from something he cannot control. So he asks, is it because you can’t control the White Fang, or because you can’t control me?

Gera doesn’t respond instead just walking away from him, similar to how Blake leaves in the Black trailer.

From then on, Adam is more aggressive and unrelenting. Everything that Gera taught him is thrown away as he becomes more self serving. It’s around this time that the White Fang adopts a similar kind of mask that Adam wears, signifying their transition to being a terrorist organization. He kills more, and just as before, has nothing but contempt for humanity. Yet throughout all of this, Blake is the only person who hasn’t abandoned him. She sided with him when her father left and is the only family he has left. So of course he’d lie to her, telling her that every action done in service towards spiting Gera was in service of their cause. At first she believes it, but isn’t fooled for long after that.

Once she leaves, just like her father, all Adam has left is the White Fang. He places all his time into protecting that, his hatred for humanity bubbling up more as there comes a chance to eradicate a city populated with them. But when he sees her again, it triggers all the anger festering inside him. He blames her for abandoning him, thus he lashes out, demeaning and terrifying her. Because now this is not the person she knew and looked up to, this person is a monster. So then he traumatizes her and Yang, but can’t let go of his hatred towards people he once considered family.

Once Blake returns to menagerie, Adam does call for their deaths. But he is more focused on making the Fanus the dominant race. His relationship to Hazel could’ve been interesting, if he’d acknowledge Hazel’s morality when it came to Sienna Kahn. That Hazel was just as complicit as he in the destruction of Becon, so why should another death matter to him. On the flip side Hazel making a jab of Adam supposedly garnering the loyalty of his followers, resulting in the betrayal of their own leader. Gera would’ve been hinted at as Adam would mention that every leader past betrayed their predecessor, so he would be no different.

When the White Fang are call to destroy the tower in Haven, it practically kills Adam to see Gera and Blake standing against him. That the people he considered family are standing against him now. He blames both Blake and Gera for being weak hearted and abandoning the cause once they saw something they couldn’t control. This overwhelming of emotions makes him sloppy, but it takes Gera, Sun, and Blake to all take him down, however, he still escapes.

During RWBY’s journey towards Atlus, we see that Adam is tracking Blake, not on a train, just tracking her. Once he gets her alone, he mocks how she’s not a true Fanus so long as she remain’s on the side of humans. That she preaches about equality of fanus yet does nothing to push back the injustice done to their people. He mocks her, saying that they’re alike, which she refutes, now fully seeing him as a monster. However Adam says was once just like her, that he believed in Gera’s peaceful methods, but ultimately they failed, just as she will. Blake would say that she wouldn’t make the same mistakes as her father, and Adam responds with that she already has, never fully understanding the full extent of injustice done to Fanus, and that Atlus will never be a safe place for their kind.

After that Blake and Yang defeat Adam. Easily handing him as a trade to cover up the giant battle that took place, after all he’s a fanus terrorist.

The last we see of Adam is an officer assuring the team that the Fanus will never cause harm again. And this relieves both Blake and Yang, however we see a hint of shock on Blakes face as she turns around to see a muzzle being placed on Adam’s face. However, Yang and the rest of the team reassure that they’re being cautious when handing him. To which she agrees, and that is the last they will see of Adam.

The final scene shows Adam being brought to his knees, surrounded by cages of Fanus, either Feral or cowering. All chained up with collars and muzzles. A scientist approaches him, his face not shown, only keeping a red rose in his breast pocket.

He examines Adam as one would livestock, a smile appearing on his face, “It would seem you’ve come back my love. Appears as though you’ve lost some of your quality, but there must be some use for you.”

The scene then switches to outside of the room, where there are only the sounds of violent tools cutting and drilling. This is the last we see of Adam, as he never returns, as indicated by the last rose falling from the vase of a now dead flower.

- Few notes.

-The term, “My love, acts as a phrase of used derogatorily.” As one would call a pet, “My love.” It’s meant to be insulting when Adam says it, rather than affectionate.

- “It’s time we stood up for ourselves. Our kind has been beaten, murdered, treated like dogs.

In this idea, there’s an implication of experimentation, that every fanus criminal is subjugated to this treatment because they don’t have the same rights as human, thusly they’re a legal gray area.

On the flip side, when capture while they’re young few are sold off as pets to the higher class of Atlus. When I first heard that line previously quoted, it reminded me of a scene from FF13, where the people are essentially pets to be used for the needs of, essentially, demi-Gods. They’re nurtured until they have use, and once their use is fulfilled they’re disposed of. In reality, the same would apply to exotic animals, being bought and sold off the black market when they’re young to rich people who enjoy the idea of them. But are eventually rid of once they’re grown and a hassle to take care of.

So since there’s no clear depiction of Fanus discrimination, I made it up, and look where that got us.

#midnight crackpot time #Adam's trash so I'm just recycling him #adam taurus #rwby

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setepenre-set · 6 years

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Gravitational Equations For Falling (chapter 5)

How Megamind falls in love with Roxanne Ritchi.

pre-movie, canon-compliant, T rating

AO3 | FFN

chapter 1 | chapter 2 | chapter 3 | chapter 4

“So, Megamind,” Miss Ritchi says, “are you really an alien, then?”

Megamind blinkes in surprise.

“I—was not aware that was ever actually in question,” he says.

“There are some rumors that you’re a superpowered human with a genetic mutation—”

“No,” Megamind says. “I’m not human.”

“And do you have a superpower?”

Megamind opens his mouth to answer, then stops himself.

“I don’t think,” he says, “that I’m going to answer that question, Miss Ritchi.”

“Surely with a nemesis like Metro Man, you must have some sort of power.”

“No comment.”

“Superstrength, telepathy…?”

“Miss Ritchi,” Megamind says, a warning note in his voice.

She flashes him a cheeky smile, then resumes her professional expression.

“What can you tell me about your reasons for becoming a supervillain?”

“Destiny, Miss Ritchi,” he says. “It was destiny.”

“What do you mean by that?” she asks.

“I’m evil,” Megamind says, “I’ve always been evil. I’ve simply decided to put my natural propensity for evil to the best possible use.”

“Do you really think there’s any best possible use for evil?”

Her tone holds no accusation or condemnation, only skepticism and interest, but Megamind still flinches minutely when she says that, and

(for a terrible half second he’s standing on the bridge again, standing there and thinking ‘if the cumulative effect on the world of your continued existence is negative, do you not have a moral duty to remove yourself from it?’ and he’s looking down at the water and—)

Megamind raises his chin.

“Of course there is a use for evil,” Megamind tells Miss Ritchi now, just as he told himself back then. “Evil is necessary. The existence of good requires it. Without evil to balance it, the power of good would grow and spread—more and more regulation and restriction and control, smothering, choking, subjugating everything. Righteousness unopposed is a terrible thing to behold.”

“So your choice to become a supervillain was an ideological one, rather than a personal one?” Miss Ritchi says. “Wanting to destroy Metro Man, destroy Metro City—that isn’t down to some sort of personal grudge?”

“I don’t want to destroy Metrocity,” he says. “What—where did you get the idea that I wanted to destroy it?”

Miss Ritchi pauses a moment, looking as taken aback as he feels.

“I mean—you demanded that Metro Man surrender the city to you,” she says.

“To rule! Not to destroy,” Megamind says. “I will conquer Metrocity and reign over it as Evil Overlord!”

“—I see,” Miss Ritchi says. “Well, thank you for that…clarification. And Metro Man?”

“…do I want to destroy Metro Man?”

“Is your rivalry with him simply a matter of principle, or of him being an obstacle to your goal of ruling the city? Or is it personal?”

Megamind—sort of freezes at the question.

“I—I don’t see how that matters,” he says, and he can hear how stiff he sounds, can see by the way Miss Ritchi’s expression changes that this answer isn’t going to satisfy her.

(fuck fuck fuck; he didn’t think this interview through; he didn’t think this through at all oh god he’s such an idiot)

“Metro Man and I have known each other for quite some time,” he says, and hopes that she’ll let him just leave it at that.

(please let him just leave it at that)

“—ah,” Miss Ritchi says, “so it is personal.”

(of course she won’t let him just leave it at that)

Megamind shrugs, the motion sharp and uncomfortable.

“It was fate, again, Miss Ritchi,” he says. “That’s all. Perhaps it is personal, but it’s not—merely personal. Even without our—history—I would always have been—morally and ide-olo-gic-ally opposed to Metro Man.”

He winces internally, realizing too late that he has mispronounced the word, has put the emphasis in all the wrong places—that he’s gesturing too much, gesturing wrong—quick fluttering motions of his hands, nervous and uncertain instead of controlled and dramatic.

He drops his hands to the edge of the tank and grips it tightly, clenches his teeth in front of his inept, alien tongue, waits for her to laugh, to correct his pronunciation, to—

“What happened?” she asks softly.

Megamind’s breath hisses through his gritted teeth, the shock of unexpected mercy stinging almost as much as the expected insult would have.

Miss Ritchi looks at him, and he feels caught by her gaze, held captive by the—the sympathy he thinks he sees in them, but he’s—he’s imagining that; he’s imagining it, and he needs to—

“Megamind—”

“I don’t wish to speak any more on this subject, Miss Ritchi,” he says, words rapped out hard and fast and forceful.

He tears his gaze from hers, turns his head to the side so that he can’t be tempted to look at her again, tempted to look at her and actually tell her—

There’s a moment of silence.

“All right,” Miss Ritchi says. “Well—would you like to discuss your experiences as an extraterrestrial?”

Megamind forgets he’s trying not to look at her. He turns his head and meets her gaze.

“I…suppose,” he says cautiously.

“You’ve said you’re not human,” she says, “but were you born here on earth?”

“No, I was not,” Megamind says.

“Are there any others like you here on earth?”

“Worried about the prospect of an alien invasion?” Megamind asks, unable to keep the bitterness from his tone. “No. There are no other members of my species here.”

Miss Ritchi tilts her head.

“Should I be worried about the prospect of an alien invasion?” she asks, sounding more curious than alarmed.

Megamind’s lips twist into a humorless, ironic smile.

“Definitely not from my species,” he says. “I wouldn’t know about any others.”

“You’re not in contact with any other aliens?”

Megamind raises his eyebrows. No isn’t exactly a completely honest answer; there’s Minion, of course, and Metro Man. But he knows that’s not really what Miss Ritchi is asking.

“Am I in contact with anyone on another planet or spaceship?” he says, rephrasing the question. “No, I am not.”

“So why are you here on earth?”

“Bad luck,” Megamind says.

Miss Ritchi frowns.

“Were you sent here? Or do you mean you crash-landed?”

“Both,” Megamind says. “I was—sent here as a child, following a—a cataclysmic event on my home planet.”

“You—came here in a spaceship, then?”

“A pod,” Megamind says flatly. “Yes.”

“What was it like?”

Something in her tone surprises him; he tilts his head curiously.

“What was what like?”

Her face looks—softer, somehow. Unguarded. Her lips are parted and she’s leaning towards him, eyes shining.

“Space,” she says, and he realizes what he’s hearing in her voice is longing. “What was it like?”

“—terrifying,” he says, without thinking. “Terrifying and beautiful.”

“In spite of being terrifying?”

“Not in spite of,” Megamind says, shaking his head without looking away from her. “No—it’s—have you ever been alone in the water at night? Far enough out that you can’t touch the bottom and you can’t see the shoreline in the dark? And maybe you can see the city lights and the stars, but they’re both in the distance, and other than that, it’s just the darkness all around you, darkness in every direction, so much darkness you could drown in it. And if you drowned, it wouldn’t care. And it would still be just as beautiful.”

Miss Ritchi swallows, and the longing in her eyes doesn’t fade at all.

“Beautiful because it’s terrifying,” she says.

“Yes,” Megamind says. “Yes, exactly.”

“What was your planet like?”

Megamind’s smile fades, and his fingers tighten on the edge of the glass once more. He looks down at them, at the water beyond them. Miss Ritchi’s hands are entirely submerged, the water a little above her waist now, but she still doesn’t look concerned.

“Water,” he says, in a subdued voice. “There was water everywhere. Waterways and rivers instead of roads, and pools and fountains, and floating gardens. ”

“It sounds beautiful,” Miss Ritchi says softly, and Megamind looks up from his hands, from the water, and into her face.

“It was,” he says, throat tight.

“You must miss it,” she says, and her expression—

There’s—it is sympathy he reads in her eyes; he’s not just imagining it. Sympathy and—there’s also a kind of intensely focused attention in the way she’s holding herself, the way she’s looking at him. It—shines out of her, drawing him in, and he’s aware, distantly, that the cameras are still on, that he’s being watched, but somehow that doesn’t really seem to matter when she’s looking at him like that.

(tell me, her eyes say. tell me everything.)

“—I look up, here,” Megamind says, “and the stars are in the wrong places.”

He hears the soft, uneven breath she takes. She sways in place, sways towards him, her eyes fixed on his face, as if she feels the same kind of pull towards him as he feels towards her.

“What—” she says.

Behind him, the warning alarm in the console goes off, loud and shrill, the indication that Metro Man has defeated the last of his traps, and will shortly be on his way.

The moment shatters.

And the realization of all the things he’s been saying to Miss Ritchi slams into Megamind; oh god; how could he have told her all that, said all that, not just to her, but said it with the cameras on and with everyone watching and—

Megamind steps quickly back from the tank and whirls away, cape swirling around him.

“Once again,” he says, without looking over his shoulder, moving swiftly towards the exit, fleeing not just from the prospect of Metro Man’s arrival, but from her, from the cameras, from the entire situation, “once again it seems that Metro Man will be in time to save you! Your good fortune continues, Miss Ritchi—beware that it may not always do so!”

He ducks through the emergency exit without waiting for her reply, leaps onto the getaway motorcycle he has waiting, and, without being intercepted by Metro Man at all, succeeds in getting to Evil Lair, where he very promptly has a panic attack.

It’s his own damn fault, he admits to himself, sitting in the bath, his arms wrapped around his knees, shivering in spite of the warmth of the water. Miss Ritchi is very good at her job, but it’s still his fault for being so stupidly susceptible—ask him a few questions, display just the slightest hint of interest, of sympathy, and he just rolls over and spills his guts, so desperate, so pathetic, so—

(I look up, here, and the stars are in the wrong places.)

Megamind gives a low moan of distress and pushes the heels of his hands into his eye sockets. What had possessed him to say something so—so—unguarded and vulnerable and—

—true.

So terribly, terribly true; the stars in this planet’s skies are in the wrong places, like someone gathered up the heavens and shook them and carelessly let them fall and scatter, and it’s a damn good thing that interview was interrupted before Megamind could say that to Miss Ritchi.

He’d give anything to see the sky on M’ega just one more time, to see his own constellations.

(his mother’s hand pointing at the sky, connecting the stars with invisible lines; his father’s voice, telling him the names—this is Alte-re, Queen of the Stars; you see her arms, open to embrace you? you see the guiding star in her hand, to light your way? and there is Ivri-roh beside her, do you see? Ivri-roh, who—)

Megamind pulls his hands from his eyes with a hurt sound and ducks beneath the water.

Megamind’s interview with Miss Ritchi airs on every channel in the city.

The next day, Metro Man gives her an interview.

Miss Ritchi’s interview with Metro Man is nothing like her interview with Megamind—there’s no rising water, no threat of danger. The two of them sit in the tastefully decorated parlor of the Scott family home.

“I just want to be the best superhero possible for Metro City,” Wayne says, sincere, earnest conviction in his voice.

(Wayne believes it; believes what he’s saying, Megamind knows. That’s part of why people find Wayne so charming. And what makes Metro Man so damn dangerous, that—that utter certainty of his own righteousness, that anything he does must be right simply because he’s the one who’s doing it.)

“Megamind has hinted that the two of you have some unpleasant past history,” Miss Ritchi says. “What can you tell me about that?”

“You know, I really wish I knew what he was talking about,” Wayne says, spreading his hands in a gesture of baffled innocence.

Miss Ritchi narrows her eyes.

“But surely you must have some idea,” she says.

An expression of annoyance flickers in Wayne’s face, so quickly covered that it’s almost invisible.

“Well, we knew each other in school,” he says, “and Megamind was always kind of—well, you know, a little jealous of me. And he’s always been kinda unbalanced. I think maybe he’s worked all that up in his mind into some big imagined injury, you know?”

“But—”

Miss Ritchi’s gaze flicks to the side of the screen briefly, as though something behind the camera has caught her eye. For a moment, she looks almost frustrated, but then she presses her lips together, looks back at Metro Man, and smiles.

“I see,” she says.

The interview ends with Wayne demonstrating his accuracy with his eye lasers, shooting at different targets, hitting them all perfectly.

(evidently he has been practicing.)

The day after the interview with Metro Man, the local tabloids report eyewitness accounts of seeing Miss Ritchi out on a date with Metro Man at one of the city’s most expensive restaurants. There are pictures, grainy and out of focus.

One week later, every newspaper and magazine in town reports that Roxanne Ritchi is to attend the Metro City Charity Ball as Metro Man’s personal guest.

...to be continued.

notes: thank you all for the reviews; I really appreciate getting them so much! Her Majesty The Cat is doing better, now, and I'm gradually getting over my bronchitis, too.

I hope you all enjoyed the new chapter!

#megamind #megamind/roxanne #gravitational equations for falling #fanfiction #pre-canon

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giftofshewbread · 3 years

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Satan’s Final Solution from the Beginning

By Joe Southerland Published on: February 9, 2021

“And the LORD said unto Satan, Behold, all that he hath is in thy power; only upon himself put not forth thine hand. So Satan went forth from the presence of the LORD” (Job 1:12).

“He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil” (1st John 3:8).

We are witnessing the trailing strands of Satan’s long, dark, corrupting thread that runs throughout the entire Bible. Before our eyes, Satan’s long-sought-after goal of obtaining complete global domination over Mankind is once again within his grasp.

It has been a long, wide path of destruction Satan has blazed for himself and his minions to entrap Mankind in his tempting snares. But now, he is primed to finish what he conceived in his vile heart ages ago in the Garden of Eden — the complete spiritual defilement and domination of Mankind.

Satan’s Opening Act

In Genesis 3:15, after Satan’s first rebellious deceptions were vomited forth to Eve, God prophesied Satan and his minions would perpetually war with Eve’s seed, Jesus Christ, and those who called upon His name. Though this judgment was damning, Satan in his arrogant pride would claim victory, for He had succeeded in separating future generations of Adam from God, as they were now all born spiritually dead. But his dark work in Eden was only Satan’s beginning act.

In Revelation 12:4, we see Satan, pictured as a dragon, as he starts his four-millennium-long pursuit of the woman (Israel/those in faith relationship with God), as he attempted to devour her child Jesus Christ even before he was born. The Bible provides us a wealth of historic details on Satan’s strategies to separate Mankind eternally from God.

Satan’s Pre-flood Global Spiritual Corruption nearly succeeds…

In Genesis 4:8, though not specifically mentioned, Satan’s handiwork is on display as he destroys the first two sons of Eve – Cain spiritually and Able physically. As in Job 1:6-12, God, for His greater purposes, had removed His hedge of protection and allowed Satan and Cain to perform their will. While God would ensure Mankind’s survival by blessing Eve with Seth, Satan would try to destroy them physically and/or spiritually by keeping them from calling upon the name of the Lord (Genesis 4:26). And he nearly succeeded, for God appears to have given Satan nearly free reign up until Noah and his family are sealed into the Ark.

By Genesis 6:7 of the pre-flood era, Satan’s cancerous corruptions had spiritually blackened almost all of Mankind upon the face of the earth. Left to his own will and without the intervention of God, Mankind had descended into the self-centered spiritual decay outlined by the Apostle Paul in Romans 1:18-32. Satan rejoiced, for disastrously rebellious, pre-flood Mankind was deemed beyond redemption by God who sentenced them to the first death – as their bodies were washed away in the cleansing waters of the flood. Only Noah’s family of eight was hedged by God and saved.

Satan’s Post-flood Global Destruction attempt…

In Genesis 11, Satan tried to repeat his previous diabolical success by raising the first recorded global god-king, Nimrod, in order to again destroy what remained of Mankind, Noah’s rapidly expanding offspring. As a foreshadowing of things to come throughout history, Satan would empower a thoroughly corrupted man in willful open rebellion against God to do his evil bidding.

Nimrod, Satan’s first prototype of the Antichrist, through wars of conquest, had subjugated all Mankind and, in doing so, created the first known One-World Government (OWG) and One-World Religion (OWR). God would have none of it and directly intervened, or Satan’s wicked plan would have worked to perfection. God abruptly thwarted the Father of Lies and miraculously confounded the tongues of all Noah’s 70 grandsons, formed them into separate nations, and then scattered them upon the face of the earth.

Though Satan would use his god-king template to spiritually corrupt and deceive entire nations throughout history. Even though he is a powerful being, Satan has his limitations; for unlike God, he is neither omniscient, omnipotent, nor omnipresent.

God Aborts Satan’s Plan and Hedges His Power Upon the Earth…

God scattered the nations, knowing full well that Satan’s power is finite and that by decentralizing the governance amidst multiple nations, Satan’s influence and power would be dramatically weakened. God knows that the potential for great evil comes with consolidation of too much power in the hands of a few people, who could fall under the controlling and corrupting influence of Satan as he temptingly appeals to peoples’ self-centered, sin natures.

Therefore, to maximize and enforce his will and deceptions upon the world, Satan must concentrate his power upon spiritually wicked rulers in high places of power and in principalities. It was Lord Acton, the British historian, who said, “All power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The reason this quote rings so true is that it speaks directly to the fallen sin-nature that resides within each and every member of Mankind. Satan knows absolute power corrupts people, and ultimately his power over Mankind thrives upon that fact.

Satan Focuses His Attacks upon Israel and the Seed of Eve…

Hamstrung by God since the Tower of Babel, Satan’s strategy switched from taking global dominion outright to a two-pronged approach: 1) destroy the seed of Eve, which would come via the line of Shem (the Semites), Heber (the Hebrews) to Abraham (the Jews), and 2) corrupt the masses of humanity by spreading false religions which appealed to the sin-nature within Mankind.

In short, Satan succeeded in corrupting/destroying the Lineage of King David and corrupting the nations of Israel/Judah to the point that God allowed the destruction of the Jewish nations, temple, and capital of Jerusalem. But Satan failed, for Israel “brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne” (Revelation 12:5).

Thwarted by the Messiah, Satan retrenches for the Church Age

Satan was enraged by the unforeseen events of the Messiah defeating death and then birthing the Church, but he was not defeated, and he retrenched. During the unfolding Church Age, Satan adds three new objectives to his plan: 1) destroy, attack and internally corrupt the churches, 2) destroy, attack and corrupt the remnant of Israel, and 3) set the stage for the Antichrist’s End-Time rule. Additionally, Satan still maintained his successful corrupting attacks upon the masses of humanity through raising and spreading false religions and spiritually compromising the rulers of the nations.

However, Satan was frustrated; despite all his evil success, his limited power was insufficient to control all Mankind dispersed over the entire earth. But given time, that would all change.

God Advances Technology – Satan’s Span increases

For his greater purposes, God has allowed the advance of technology in the waning centuries of the Church Age as He oversaw the gradual accumulation of man’s knowledge of the underpinning laws upon which he created our world and our universe*. The Lord’s pleasure was to shape discovery and invention in order to set the perfect technological conditions to maximize the Lord God’s coming harvests for His kingdom.

Satan, ever the opportunist, has always embraced and leveraged technology to expand his influence and power amongst Mankind. His corrupting lies were at first limited to face-to-face and word-of-mouth contacts, and then he gradually expanded his deceptions through the written and then printed word.

Now, armed with global communications, mass media and social media, with little effort, Satan can place his lies and deceptions into the hands and before the eyes of nearly every soul on the planet. But Satan wants much more than that. Satan’s pride swells, for now, due to technology, he can once again consolidate and concentrate his power in his desire to control and defile all Mankind. And according to Scripture, he will attempt to do just that.

Satan’s Final Solution – Totalitarian Global Control

No longer limited geographically due to telecommunications, Satan can now enforce tight-fisted control over his children of disobedience to secure his global political and spiritual ambitions. Today, his globalist minions and crop of billionaire business elites are working with and within the nations and global governance bodies to form the underpinning structures required for the next phase of his plan.

Satan’s grand strategy, first conceived in Babel, can now be vigorously relaunched with a new global god-king, the new Nimrod, Caesar, and Fuhrer. Known by many names — Son of Perdition, the Beast, the Antichrist — he will be installed and then enthroned by Satan to rule over the entire earth to align all of Mankind to his wicked will. We know from Revelation Chapter 17 that Satan’s Antichrist will cease power and control the world through ten evil kings/rulers who have sworn their complete allegiance to their master.

The ensuing seven-year reign of the Antichrist will be the most horrific, brutal and bloody period of terror the world has ever seen, leading to the persecution, pursuit, enslavement, starvation and slaughter of hundreds of millions, if not billions. In the final three-and-one-half years of his demonic rule, the Beast will proclaim himself god and demand all nations, tribes and tongues worship him as God, or face death.

According to Jesus Christ, this will be a time worse than any other in history. But Satan will not prevail.

The Lion of Judah Triumphs

At Tribulation’s end, all of Satan’s brilliant schemes will ultimately prove to be failures as the KING of KINGs and LORD of LORDs triumphantly returns and, with the utterance of His voice, destroys the Antichrist and his godless, satanic worshippers. Satan of Revelation Chapter 12, “the great dragon, that old serpent, called the Devil, which deceiveth the whole world” will, at the direction of the Lamb of God, be bound with a great chain and cast into a bottomless pit for a thousand years.

Come out of her, my people

Already, the Prince of the Power of the Air and his children are taking control of the data being transmitted into our lives as they work towards his final act of rebellion against God. Do not be ensnared in Satan’s deceptive utopian promises, nor his false religions, nor become tangled in the materialistic weeds of this fleeting world.

Drawn near to Jesus Christ, and he will draw near to you even though he has never been far from you. Get right with God. Get into His Word. Spread the Gospel.

May our mighty God bless and strengthen you! Maranatha!

( Churches/Preachers have done a terrible job of helping the Believers to Understand Mankind’s Greatest Enemy, Satan. Time is Short now, Great Evil is Rising and Soon Satan will have full Control over the Whole World, No Man will survive what’s coming unless Mankind Chooses JESUS as Lord & Savior, Born Again, Be Saved, and unless GOD Steps in before it’s too late, all Mankind will Perish, Satan’s ultimate goal, he HATES All of US & his Total Agenda is to Destroy/Murder us all and take to Hell ! KNOW OUR ENEMY Satan !!! ) Leho

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peacekeeper-xiv · 6 years

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Honest Q&A: Round 3! Table

By the Twelve! You’re all back!? I mean… um… welcome back, all. Yes. *Cough* Well, as much as it pains me to admit it, I am rather surprised you all accepted my invitation a third time. Excluding mister Mordenson who has… um... graciously chosen to join us despite lacking an invitation… Let’s begin with the obvious question. As usual, we will go around the table.

What is it that prompts you to answer these questions?

Lloire: “I suppose for myself, it’s that I have been through a lot lately. Answering these helps me better understand that man I was and who he is and who he is becoming. The more you learn about me, the more I learn about myself.”

Beta: “That… was surprisingly honest and introspective. Um… We have to be honest right? I’m mostly here to learn more about that guy and to make snarky comments.”

Chadrick: “Aye, ye do seem t’ ‘ave a chip on yer shoulder with ‘Scars’ there lad. Fer me? Ye offered me tha’ hefty pouch o’ gi—O’… too ‘onest ye say? As ye like.”

Aasifa: “The winds blow Aasifa here. You must ask them if you are wanting to know this thing, yes?”

K’risa: “Wait, I thought this was some kinda counseling thing? You’re not just some weirdo asking random questions are you?”

Benedict: “Master Peace there has the right of it. To know oneself is to know the gods.”

Chance: “Good fucking question. Hells if I know.”

Felix: *Laughs* “Master… Peace. Hah. I was bored.”

Alright. Well, now that we have that settled, let’s get into the list of questions our readers have, yes? Great.

Imagine a future point in your life where all your dreams come true. It's the greatest moment in your life and you get to experience it with -one- person. Who's standing next to you?

Lloire: “…I… Well… I have no idea. It depends on the path I take I suppose. We defeat the empire, it’s Ikara or Soren. I manage to uncover all the lost magicks of the world and start a new school of magick, probably Yuti. I… retire and settle down to cook and live with a family… Some unknown person I’ve not met yet or a child I suppose. Choosing one person is too difficult I fear.”

Beta: “No it’s not. Watch. Ikara.” *Eyes Lloire suspiciously*

Chadrick: “Ah’m with tha lad truthfully. But maybe tha’s just us and ye ‘ave way more close friends than we. Fer me though, Aislyn.”

Aasifa: “Hmm, if Aasifa’s dreams are coming true, he is likely alone but he is rathering companion Rahya is with him, yes?”

K’risa: “Rathering is not a word. Where are you from anyways? Oh, I, uh, sorry I asked. Anyways, I don’t know enough people and I’m not all that close to anyone anymore so, I can’t say. Maybe the kid there. He’s adorable and snarky and would probably make whatever it was all the more fun.”

Benedict: “Sunny would be with me. This much I know.”

Chance: “Helfyre.”

Felix: “Oh, you’d all be witness to it.” *cackles* “But only Aya would be standing beside me.”

On an average day, what can be found in your pockets?

Lloire: “Hmm, crystals, jewels, a knife, a few vials perhaps. Some gil obviously. On average.”

Beta: “Gears, wires, bolts, screws, tube of grease, tools, crystals, some nuts and berries maybe. Paper, pen. Um… tape, maybe some choco- oh, that’s enough Sure.”

Chadrick: “A wee bit o’ gil Ah suppose. Most e’erythin else is in me pack instead. Ah prefer t’ keep light on me feet.”

Aasifa: “Hmm, let Aasifa be seeing, yes?” *Starts emptying out pockets on the table* “Pepper shaker, feather of big fluffy dragon with hard to say name, someone else’s grocery list, wishbone of Dodo bird. Hmm… Ball of yarn, playing card, ball from Moogle Paw game. A shell from a snail. A pair of broken spectacles, a frog. Hmm, this is where garlean rubber band ball went. Wait… where is Aasifa’s cotton bolls?”

K’risa: “H-how did, did, you, fit?” *rubs her eyes* “Anyways! Sewing needle, thread, gil, measuring tape, that kinda stuff.”

Benedict: “Gil, as the others have noted… save for Lord Taqalid there. I also keep pamphlets for those interested in learning more of the Twelve as well as marks for each of them. Would anyone here like a pamphlet, no? Alright…”

Chance: “Gil. Knife.”

Felix: “Hmm, herb, poisons, bones, stones, vial of various bloods. What’s with the look? Oh please… fine.”

What’s a body part that you wouldn’t mind losing?

Lloire: “Do we get to live without it? If so, I’d happily remove my heart.”

Beta: “Wow…. Just wow. That… yea.. um… I’d say… Maybe a leg? I could build a magitek one to replace mine. Maybe build a firearm inside it. One of those small ones that pops out in a bind. That would be neat, right?”

Chadrick: “Right… Ye both ‘ave given this thought before Ah see… Ah’d pick, feck… me little finger on me nay dominant ‘and Ah suppose. Cannay imagine losing me ability t’ see tha beauty o’ tha world, or smell good food some lass cooked, or hear ‘er beautiful singing or… well, ye get tha idea.”

Aasifa: “Aasifa is picking his appendix, yes?”

K’risa: “Your what now? I almost wanna swap seats again. I’d lose, an ear I guess? I could always wear hats to hide it.”

Benedict: “Hmm, I need my legs and arms to pray, perhaps an eye. Even if I lost both, Sunny leads us where we need to go anyways.”

Chance: “None. What? He said ‘mind’. I’d mind losing anything. You’re all freaks for not minding.”

Felix: “You know what an appendix is?” *eyes Aasifa* “I mean, that -is- the best answer, but mine is anything except my head. Whatever it is can be grown back.”

What are three labels that you identify with?

Lloire: “Mage, survivor, guilty.”

Beta: “Yup… that sounds about right. You prolly should’a added Martyr first though. For me, Engineer, Inventor, and… Young.”

Chadrick: “Well shyte… ‘ero, dashin’, an’ expert.”

Aasifa: “What is label meaning? Oh! This thing! Aasifa is called vagrant, vagabond, and drifter, yes?”

K’risa: “Sure, Chad, sure. So glad you didn’t add humble. I guess for me it would be miqo’te, seamstress, excitable.”

Benedict: “This is an easy question. Faithful, devout, and friend”

Chance: “Merc, wolf, practical.”

Felix: “Manipulative, cunning, shadow.”

Do you believe in soulmates?

Lloire: “… I did.”

Beta: “…not touching that one. Um, yes. I do.”

Chadrick: “Look, ye can test tha’ souls are real. Ye can also force two souls t’ bind t’gether. It’s nay ‘bout belief. It’s tha science o’ animas. But t’ answer tha question yer actually posing, nay. There be nay two people perfectly matched fer one another. Believin’ so will break yer ‘eart. There’s struggles an’ pain an’ shyte t’ work through to make things work, aye?”

Aasifa: “Aasifa is disagreeing. There is someone perfect for you, they are just not perfect person, yes?”

K’risa: “I’m with Lloire.”

Benedict: “Divine is their will. I cannot say that Nymeia’s hand does not guide two threads together in the forming of a beautiful tapestry.”

Chance: “No. Shit’s dumb. I’m with snowylocks there. You find someone you wanna be with and you work with them to make it. It isn’t some meant to be thing that doesn’t take hard work.”

Felix: “Hmm, actually. Yes. I do.”

What is the most beautiful thing you've ever seen?

Lloire: “This may sound morbid… but the calamity. It was horrifying, terrifying, yet, beautiful it its raw destructive power. Bahamut is a terrible creature. Terrible, yet beautiful.”

Beta: “That… you are just full of surprises today. Anyroad… I saw some sketches of the inner workings of Alexander while speaking with some goblins in Idyllshire. They were the most… um. I mean Ikara. Yup! Definitely Ikara.”

Chadrick: “Tha’ was tha worst save in tha ‘istory o’ lads sayin’ dumb shyte tha’ might get back t’ their lasses e’er boyo. Ye need some practice. Ah can give ye a few pointers if ye like later. As fer me? Me ma’s smile.”

Aasifa: “Friend Chadrick is sweet person at times, yes? The lights of golden saucer from afar are prettiest thing Aasifa is thinking of.”

K’risa: “Chadrick! Don’t you dare corrupt that sweet, innocent, pure boy!” *Huffs* “Oh, right… umm… Snowfields. They just look so pure. Even if it’s cold as heck.”

Benedict: “The Sanctum of the Twelve is a beautiful place if you have not been.”

Chance: “Get the feeling ‘Scars’ there would disagree Benny. Sunrise. Means you made it through the night.”

Felix: “There was this Alagan princess…”

Moving on!

What single act are you most ashamed of?

Lloire: “Trying to kill myself.”

Beta: “Good! You should be! But um… I’m glad you realized that… so um… that’s good. Uh… Oh! I know. Um, when I upset Ikara by not knowing what she meant about liking me and an awkward first kiss and yea… I felt like a warped tool.”

Chadrick: “Stealin’ from an old woman. Ah mean, she di’nay know ‘ow dangerous wha’ she ‘ad was… an’ it was fer ‘er own good… but still, it felt nasty, aye?”

Aasifa: “Aasifa let someone he was close to take her own life, yes? He did not see how miserable she had become and did not make better. This is greatest failure.”

K’risa: “That’s, really sad. Um. For me, failing for a hero.”

Benedict: “I think those thoughts are best left for confession with one’s gods.”

Chance: “Nothing wrong with falling for a hero. I’m not ashamed of what I’ve done. I wouldn’t change things.”

Felix: “What I put my daughter through.”

Everyone has disdain for something or someone. Who or what do you consider yourself to be “above”?

Lloire: “If I’m to be honest… those who the Imperials subjugate. The ones who work for them after they have been conquered. I have to fight off those feelings.”

Beta: “Yea, not everyone is a stupidly stubborn as you. Um… I guess… if I have to say… brutish people who only solve things with violence?”

Chadrick: “Primals. Nasty buggers. Nay ‘ave any respect fer somethin’ tha’ enslaves its followers.”

Aasifa: “The dirt? For now, yes.”

K’risa: “That’s not what they--. Nevermind. Um, I’m with Chad on this one. Fuck Ifrit and his followers.”

Benedict: “I am a lowly man in service to the Gods. No one is below me.”

Chance: “Cowards.”

Felix: “It’s better for all of your prides that I simply pass on this one.”

What do you wish you had more time for?

Lloire: “Fishing.”

Beta: “Spending time with Ikara. I should make more time.”

Chadrick: “E’erything. There are nay enough ‘ours in tha’ day t’ get e’erythin accomplished.”

Aasifa: “Living, Aasifa is thinking, yes?”

K’risa: “To keep track of J’ahama and P’arunru and to just hang out with them.”

Benedict: “I would like to have more time devoted to do things Sunny enjoys doing. She gets bored with my reading and prayers and I would want to spend more time letting her have fun.”

Chance: “I’m kept busy enough. I’m good, thanks.”

Felix: “I have all the time in the world.”

What are some skills that you think everyone should learn?

Lloire: “Sewing and cooking. You can get though a lot of things that way. People tend to be more agreeable on a full stomach. Knowing how to close a wound with a needle can save a life.”

Beta: “I… think you’re the only person that took up sewing to learn to apply it to flesh. I think everyone should know the basics of magitek operation. It’s not going anywhere guys, even if the Empire crumbles.”

Chadrick: “E’eryone should learn t’ play an instrument. Music can soothe tha savage beast as they say. Whether it’s an actual beast or yer beast within.”

Aasifa: “Aasifa is thinking everyone is needing to know how to defend selves, yes? Hmm, he is wondering how friend L’ania has been now.”

K’risa: “The brooding handsome over there already gave my answer, but for me, you never know when your clothes will catch a snag or rip and its way better to travel through Ishgard or the desert without torn clothing.”

Benedict: “Navigation! I am awful at it and would be lost without my guide. I really must offer Llymlaen more prayers.”

Chance: “Basic shit. How to light a fire without aether, pitch a tent, gather firewood, survival in the wilderness kind of things. Seen a lot of corpses out in the wild just dead to the elements.”

Felix: “Alchemy. You’d be surprised at what can be accomplished through it.”

How good of a dancer are you?

Lloire: “Decent. Better when it’s a slow dance with a partner. I’m not terribly great at the solo dances unless they are more ritualistic or tribal in nature.”

Beta: “Yea, no. I’ve got two left feet. I’m really bad at dancing.”

Chadrick: “Step dance, slow dance, dance at a ball. Ye name it, Ah’ll manage it. Lu’ made sure o’ tha’.”

Aasifa: “Yes. Aasifa is thinking he can dance well.”

K’risa: “I haven’t had much chance to learn. -Someone- was still pouting about his ex and her dancing.”

Benedict: “I… do not dance. Sunny does though! She is very good at it.”

Chance: “Do I -look- like I dance?”

Felix: “No, not really wolf-boy, but neither does Lloire there, so... Myself? I was forced to learn eventually. Been a few dozen years since I’ve needed to though.”

Do you have any good luck charms or rituals?

Lloire: “Aye, I have a Gagaroon luck-die that Soren gave me a while back. I never travel without the thing. I’m still alive despite my best efforts, so I imagine the thing works.”

Beta: “Yea, if that thing is to blame, we all could use one. Um, I have a lucky wrench? I guess that counts?”

Chadrick: “Psh! Me blood is lucky. An’ Ah’ve all tha charm Ah’ll e’er need.” *Laughs* “Jestin’ aside, nay Ah di’nay carry around any sort o’ lucky charms.”

Aasifa: “Aasifa has pendant that is for this purpose, yes? He is loaning to friend to keep safe.”

K’risa: “Nope. I’m all full up on luck and charms, thanks.”

Benedict: “Nymeia is favored by those who seek luck. Having her with me at all times should suffice.”

Chance: “Fools that trust to luck wind up dead.”

Felix: “You, mister wolf, are no fun. I have one of our companions old coins. He was the embodiment of luck.”

Worst injury you have had?

Lloire: “Assuming we’re not going with self-inflicted, it would be the repeated beatings to my face that left me half blind.”

Beta: “Oh, not counting self-inflicted. That took out half of yours, huh? Um… I guess the small burn I got when that ceruleum tank caught fire?”

Chadrick: “Ah ‘ad this ‘ead injury, made me forget who Ah was fer a time.”

Aasifa: “Aasifa was stabbed through stomach once. Very painful! Yes.”

K’risa: “I’ve been lucky enough not to get hurt too bad yet.”

Benedict: “As have I.”

Chance: “Took an arrow to my heel once. That brought me down awhile.”

Felix: “Just one? I remember I took about fifteen or so once. Blood everywhere.”

Who influenced your personality growing up?

Lloire: “My ma’ and Aliya later.”

Beta: “Um… Lucilus I suppose.”

Chadrick: “Lad, yer still growin’ up. Fer me it was definitely me ma an’ me da. Both in their own way.”

Aasifa: “The Commander of the Guard.”

K’risa: “My father.”

Benedict: “Halone largely, but also my aunt.”

Chance: “Myself.”

Felix: “Nettle’s family.”

If you could remove one emotion from your life, which would you choose?

Lloire: “Guilt most likely.”

Beta: “I’d get rid of bitterness. I hate that feeling.”

Chadrick: “Nay a damned one. There’s too much o’ life in each. Ye get rid o’ sadness an’ ye lose sight o’ wha’ it means ‘ be ‘appy. Ye lose guilt per say, an’ wha’ is there t’ make ye learn t’ nay ‘urt others?”

Aasifa: “Fear. Aasifa would be fearless!”

K’risa: “Jealousy. It’s a nasty nasty emotion.”

Benedict: *turns a shade of red* “Desire.”

Chance: “I think that’s just call lust Benny. And oddball, fear is important, keeps you alive. I’m kinda with snowylocks. You need all of them to be effective.”

Felix: “No, no. I like Lloire’s answer for once. Guilt weighs too much.”

Well, thank you for your answers. Will I see you all again next time?

Lloire: “Most likely.”

Beta: “Sure. It’s interesting to see what you come up with to ask us.”

Chadrick: “S’long as ye keep up our agreement, aye.”

Aasifa: “If the winds blow Aasifa this way.”

K’risa: “Why not?”

Benedict: “Twelve willing.”

Chance: “…”

Felix: “Perhaps. We’ll see.”

Tagged by: Uh, I made this one. So @me?

Tagging: @wicked-virtue @yutikyis @waitingrose @susukosuko @hedgearcher @hana-xiv @devil-you-know @nebula1984 and anyone I might have left off or forgotten.

#lloire peace #chance ashton #beta imito #aasifa taqalid #benedict granger #chadrick tamisier #k'risa mau #felix mordenson #ffxiv rp

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tuppencetrinkets-a · 6 years

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star wars awakening // tara maclay

----- part of my multi-character verse.

tara was born into a patriarchal family on a fairly back water / primitive world that had little to no use for women except as a required half of genetic sequences necessary to procreate and it was only because of the common societal expectations of the planet’s inhabitants that tara and her female cousins etc. were given the basics of education. tara was expected to be seen and not heard, to abide by all of the rules of the family and to be the epitome of feminine grace and beauty without expecting to ever be rewarded with even basic human kindness for her troubles. this dominance over the females of the family line stemmed from stories that she never knew (still doesn’t) about a woman in the history of the family that was a great warrior, a leader, demanding and powerful, able to wield weapons of the ‘gods’, able to move things with her mind, to control the elements, to control people and bend them to her will, a woman who sought to dominate the world as a whole and, very nearly succeeded.

she was overthrown by her son, by his great will and strength (or so the legend says) and defeated and, summarily, beheaded. her daughter, who had also presented similar abilities, was confined and subjugated until she had provided three children - two males and one female, dying in childbirth with her last child. from that point forward, for the last several hundred years, men in the bloodline or those that married into the bloodline were expected and instructed in how dangerous the females could be and how they were to be treated and controlled -- for everyone’s safety. tara and the other women in her family, so far as she knows, only knew that they were tainted, that there was something inherently wrong with them, a flaw in their genetics that made them dangerous, that made it likely that they would fall into sin and degradation, that they could not be trusted to make decisions themselves, that they would bring evil and ruin to their families.

still, there was something about it all... something about her whole family, her whole world that didn’t sit right with her -- she couldn’t put her finger on it, couldn’t describe the niggling thoughts in the back of her mind, the feeling of malcontent, of not belonging, and there was a streak of something else, of stubbornness that ran through her that got her into trouble over and over again, even as a young girl -- enough so that the matron of her house washed her hands of her, denouncing her as impossible, leaving her father with the option of killing her, as beatings had yet to do the trick, or sell her off. and so it was at the tender age of eight tara found herself thrust into the wide, wide galaxy with nothing and no one but her own wits for survival.

she spent seven years in slavery, passed from hand to hand, from slave pen to casino ship to pirate ship, when no one else would have her anymore. she worked her way up, inch by inch, from slave to crew, buying her freedom just shy of her eighteenth birthday. alone, and grateful for it, she slipped away into the seething masses of the universe, intent on staying free and clear of anything, of anyone that might bring her trouble. all that she wanted was a life that was her own, a life that she answered to no one, that she could do as she wanted, when she wanted ... a life where she would be left alone. and for almost a year, it worked -- never staying still, jumping one ship to the next, one planet to another, never giving her real name, never leaving a trace. small time crimes, those that most people wouldn’t ever bother to report - pickpocketing, skipping out on hotel and bar and restaurant tabs ... minor inconveniences.

always alone, always moving, until yet another man in her life refused to take no for an answer. she had no way of knowing that he was a man of power, that he had wealth and influence - he looked no different from any of the other thousands of scavengers in the underground hive city. he thought he could buy her, offended so greatly when she wouldn’t be bought -- he thought he could take what he wanted, that he and his man would be enough to hold her down, to prove his conquest... and it almost was enough. but there was something. something she couldn’t explain, something that even after she couldn’t explain, couldn’t understand ... anger, anger and pain and fear and a lifetime of it boiling inside of her, bursting out of her with a scream of rage --

the building had been left in ruins, how she’d escaped in one piece, much less unscathed was as much a mystery as how she’d toppled it. she’d fled, certain that if she got away fast enough no one would know, no one would remember, no one would have seen him corner her, his death would be marked as an accident. but she was wrong. he hadn’t died. and he wasn’t just another scumbag, he was a lord. a noble lord who had thought to amuse himself in the undercity... a lord with money and connections and friends in the guild. and so she was on the run, again, for her freedom and her life, afraid of what she had done, afraid of what she might do.

he had found her, a beacon in the darkness. so rare, so few and far between that had the spark of power, that could see and feel the essence of the galaxy around them, that had any chance of grasping the power of the Force, of learning to control it, to use it -- it was an opportunity too good for him to pass by. she had tried to run, wanted to run -- how could she trust him, his word that he would take her away and protect her -- how could she let herself be reduced to trusting someone else, again, ever to keep her safe, to rely on anyone but herself ... but what choice did she have?

----- to be continued.

other play characters that participate in this multi-verse / interact with tara: @theblueeyedvampire as william ‘spike’ serra aka darth kasius aka captain of the zepher. || petra nikonova (here) as a slave of darth kasius’ that resides on the zepher. || negan (here) as a smuggler / pirate captain / slaver who was the one that sold tara off as a child (though she doesn’t remember that yet) and the captain of the ship that she served on and bought her freedom from.

#TARA MACLAY.#STAR WARS AWAKENING. ( tara maclay. )#VERSE. ( star wars awakening. )#VERSES. ( tara maclay. )#STAR WARS AWAKENING.#OOC. ( tara maclay. )#THEBLUEEYEDVAMPIRE #FEBRUARY 2018.

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felassan · 7 years

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Blackwall: 2, Solas: 1 and 3, Sera: 3, Cole: 2, Bull: 1, Vivienne: 3 and 5, Varric: 2, Dorian: 1 and 5, Cassandra: 4 and 5 and wow that's a lot of questions but I missed Gryff tbh

omg ♥♥ thankyou sm. me too tbh. she’s still my favorite of my children. I think maybe another run of DAI is due.

[msg refs this post]

cut for length.

Blackwall2. What did they choose to do with him and how did they feel about their choice? Were they guilty about leaving him in cell, if they choose to do so?

Blackwall joined the Inquisition and stayed until the Inquisitor could declare victory. Blackwall considered the Inquisitor a friend. Gryff strongarmed him out of prison using Inquisition resources and had him continue to fight as part of the Inquisition. ah, but his judgement specifics was a tough one. on one hand, she doesn’t care about what he did before she met him and things he did while outside the Inquisition. she doesn’t care about treason to a human kingdom, nor about the murder of nobles really. on the other, she values honesty and not being a coward, and more importantly, the betrayal of the loyal men under his command was unconscionable and indefensible to her - you protect your men, soldiers who trust you with their lives as their commander. to do otherwise goes against everything she believes in, she’d sooner die herself than betray her men. that was what she took most issue with really, over the general deception, lies or the murder of some people. if he’d done that or a similar thing as part of the Inquisition, while he was under her command, she would have executed him without a second thought. she had respected him as a warrior and as a Warden, but her respect for him completely nosedived and evaporated on learning what transpired between him and his men.

the first time around I had her free him and reveal his identity, but in hindsight I think it makes more sense for her as a character to opt to send him to the Wardens to undergo the Joining for real after Cory’s defeat. thank goodness for the Keep eh?

Solas1. Did your Inquisitor engage Solas academically with questions or were they uninterested in his experiences?3. If your inquisitor was told they were “unlike others of their race” by Solas, how did they respond? Were they angry or grateful?

1. not at first, because she mistrusted him from the outset. she also has little interest in intellectual matters outside of theories of war (and definitely not in the metaphysical), and did not appreciate Solas’ criticisms of and comments about the Dalish. silly really, because they each looked down on the other for a time. it made for a bad combination initially - they had a strange, bitter and belligerent association for a time. the development into mutual respect, comrades-in-arms and eventual friends there is really interesting to me, maybe I’ll write about it to chart it out ‘on paper’ someday.. it doesn’t follow the game exactly.

she came to accept that he was an expert on the Fade, the anchor and the sort of forces she was dealing with when it came to sealing the Breach. consequently, ever the pragmatist, she sought his counsel on those subjects and had him join her in the field as she journeyed around closing tears. eventually her Dalish desire and drive to recover and relearn as much of the past and their culture/history as possible got the better of her pride and distrust, and she would ask him about what he’d seen in his travels through the Fade, about ancient elves, the ancient elven kingdom and what had been lost. then about other stuff, like spirits (her growing friendship with Cole helped springboard that one, she wanted to understand Cole better) and magic in general. and it went from there really. (I will say that I dooon’t headcanon or think of Solas and Gryff as having had a teacher/student or elder/child relationship, for me personally that’s an uncomfortable power dynamic. I think of them as two equals who just had different areas of knowledge and expertise, who learned from one another in a give and take sort of way. I think it’s possible to pick someone’s brain/knowledge banks about a topic without that kind of dynamic being present.)

he did continue to frustrate her sometimes with his occasional bursts of intellectual and general superiority, tendency to longwindedness, and especially over their clashing ideas on how to help the elves. I tend to think that some of the arguments Solas has with Disapproval Inquisitor still occur in a manner of speaking between Solas and Gryff. you know, like DA:I’s main basegame plot spanned a whole year or so and a lot can happen in a year, and Solas content was not as extensive as some of the other companions’ were, particularly as a romance compared to the others. a game is inevitably constrained by length, resources, simplistic axes like “approval” and “disapproval”, unrealistic mechanics like “touch all these orbs for bonus approval points”, etc. real relationships between people are obviously a lot more complex. ah sorry.. these 2 just fascinate me so much, 2 very different individuals who both deeply love the People but have totally different ideas about how to help them.

3. he did tell her that, and she was angry. smh Solas. Gryff believes the Dalish made her who she is, that she’s no different from the rest of them and that Solas misjudged them. she loves and respects the Dalish. there are the new pieces of information regarding portions of elven history and the Evanuris, and she has her newfound.. atheism? secularism? (the main change is that she no longer believes in the Evanuris as gods the way she did before) and has disdain for aspects of the upper echelons of ancient elven culture (ex. the keeping of slaves by an elite upper class), but she is still proud to be Dalish. she feels there is plenty of value and worth in modern Dalish culture and (still practises and takes part in) their traditions, and in what they have reclaimed and made their own. she will always be Dalish and culturally Dalish.

Sera3. How did your Inquisitor respond to the truth of Sera’s childhood (the cookie scene), if they received it? Did they empathize?

despite the differences and initial teething problems between Gryff and Sera, she received it. she did empathize and was angry at the notion of a human noble lying to a young elf and telling her that a baker hated her simply for being an elf. go figure. but she was initially a bit ? about what the hell they were doing on the roof with cookies, and doesn’t have a great interpersonal manner. Sera clarified that she was trying to say she liked it in the Inquisition, and share this with the Inquisitor. kinda ‘thats great and I’m glad, but this is a bit ?. I know! why are we yelling? because we’re friends now. oh okay. let’s go get drunk. :)’ by Trespasser they are good friends.

Cole2. What did your Inquisitor think of Cole’s ability to see into people’s thoughts?

she thought it was unnatural, but quickly realized the strategic value of and advantages to be gained from the ability and indeed, of Cole’s other abilities, both on and off the battlefield. later, she would come to love Cole as if he were a member of her clan.

Iron Bull1. Was your Inquisitor wary of Bull upon learning he was a spy?

yes, and she was wary anyway. it didn’t unsettle her though, and she understood where he was coming from and why - flip the script, and from a certain angle she was a bit of a spy for her own people for their own ends, among other races and cultures, at the Conclave. their early interactions were engaged on a level akin to two soldiers from opposing factions during a time when a temporary truce or ceasefire had been declared. I think they both recognized that. professionals.

Vivienne3. Did the feelings of your Inquisitor towards Vivienne change at all after completing her personal mission about Duke Bastian, if yes, in what way?5. How did your Inquisitor feel about Vivienne? Friends? Allies? Rivals?

3. Gryff got her the heart she requested. Gryff didn’t really know what to say when Bastian died, or in the aftermath, but she felt for her. this sad and unfortunate event showed a side of Vivienne Gryff had understandably not been privy to before.

5. initially she did not really trust her, but Gryff doesn’t trust many people at all early on. early on they had a bit of disagreement for example about the Dalish and mages, the Circle etc. but I think this was not great writing on the writers’ part regarding Vivienne here, as opposed to Vivienne herself. Vivienne is a formidable, compassionate, smart and wise woman of considerable ability and power. Gryff rejected the Game but appreciated Vivienne’s insights and political acumen, for often Vivienne saw what Gryff could not. they were definitely allies, and perhaps something akin to friends by the end - I think Gryff developed great respect for Vivienne, in time. they have some different views on some topics, but this is not a bad thing at all.

Varric2. How did your Inquisitor feel about Varric’s situation with Bianca? Who did they decide was right about what Bianca did?

Varric and Gryff are friends but she doesn’t really have opinions on his personal life. Varric tracked the red lyrium source. gryff thought Bianca was in the wrong with what she did, but at the time just shouted at them both to knock off the arguing.

Dorian1. How does your Inquisitor feel about Tevinter? Did Dorian change their feelings at all about the Imperium?5. Did your Inquisitor agree with Dorian’s decision to return to Tevinter? How did they feel about his choice?

1. dislikes Tevinter. dislikes what it did to Arlathan, dislikes it for its continued slavery and subjugation of elves. Dorian showed her that some Tevinter mages (later, Magisters, even) are different (they became good friends), and it is now of course known that the fall of Arlathan was more complicated than Dalish lore suggested, but she still dislikes the Imperium. she hopes Dorian and his faction gut it and reform it and burn away all the rotting corruption. she wishes them every success.

5. [bit of repetition here sorry] she wholeheartedly agrees with the need to reform the Imperium and remove the corruption, and with his desire to do so. she thinks there’s nobody better suited to doing so. she hopes he will succeed, and would render any aid she’s capable of giving, wolfhunt and clan-protecting duties permitting. she hopes he’ll be safe, be careful and that he’ll find success. she will miss him a lot though. they keep in touch via the sending crystal.

Cassandra4. Did your Inquisitor agree with Cassandra’s vision for the Chantry? Did they choose her as Divine?5. Does your Inquisitor know all of her middle names?

4. on balance Gryff doesn’t give a shit about the Chantry (dislikes it really) and didn’t really care about who the human grand clerics were favoring or not favoring to put on the sunburst throne, but is insightful and strategically-minded enough to realize that it was important to Cassandra, and, more importantly, that the belief structures of whoever ascended would most likely have far-ranging impacts on Thedas. by that point in the storyline she had been using her power and position as Inquisitor to help the People (Dalish and City alike) whenever, however and whereever possible. she supported Leliana for Divine because she agreed with the need for radical reform (specifically, Leliana’s ideas that all races are equal and that the Chantry’s tenets should reflect that). she had no desire to see elves be Andrastian and join the Chantry per se (if they didn’t really want to be that is - in the cases where ones do that’s totally fine), but Leliana’s ideas for how the Chantry should be were doubtless going to improve the lot of elves in southern Thedas in general. she also disagrees with Circles and Templars, and didnt want to lose her friend Cassandra to the Chantry throne, l0l.

5. yes. (♥ω♥ ) ~♪ there is a great affection between the two women, and they’ll always be friends. in turn, Cassandra knows the fabled deeds of the Emerald Knight Brocair, from whom Gryff’s name preserves her descent. its a love story for the ages tbh.

wew! there we go

#gryff lavellan #mj does a meme #bioware #dragon age #video games #assdromeda #cassandra pentaghast #my lady paladin #solas #cole #spirit boy

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anotherwhorewatch · 7 years

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The Daleks

The Dead Planet

In so many ways, this is Doctor Who. Landing on an alien planet, exploring and getting into trouble… This is why the show is still going today. No time has passed for the travellers since last week’s escapade, but the tension between the Doctor and his travelling companions is already down to much more bearable levels - Of course Ian and Barbara are still scared and want to get home, but we also see Ian getting curious about the petrified forest, and touching scenes in the TARDIS as Barbara has a bonding moment with Susan (and, to an extent, the Doctor).

In fact, it’s surprising, particularly when compared to the last three episodes, just how much business The Dead Planet gets through in its 25-minute runtime. The TARDIS crew explore the forest, hang around in the ship and get to grips with the city, and not once does it feel rushed. If I hadn’t already known what the cliffhanger was (Ah, that cliffhanger. Not sure how effective it really is, but god bless Jacqueline Hill for the way she puts her all into overselling the floor manager waving a sink plunger around), I’d have been wondering if I’d missed the end of Episode 1 by mistake.

But the biggest positive about this episode is that the TARDIS crew - all four of them - are front and centre, driving the plot rather than reacting to it from the sidelines. This is what episode two of story one needed to be. Daleks or no Daleks, it’s a change without which the series wouldn’t have seen out the year, let alone the century.

The Survivors

The Daleks, then. They had to turn up sometime, especially on a DVD called The Daleks. I have a complete and total unashamed love for Skaro’s finest, and they’re on fine form from the beginning - the fact they’re so quick to paralyse Ian and threaten him with death just shows, in case there was any doubt, that they don’t mess around. There’s still one or two kinks to be worked out, though - not least the fact that giving them long scenes where they’re chatting amongst themselves is a pretty dreadful idea. Everything. Takes. So. Long!

As for the TARDIS crew, once again they find themselves incarcerated - Doctor Who isn’t Doctor Who without a prison cell. But unlike when they were dumped unceremoniously into the Cave of Skulls, there’s a sense of peril and urgency here as they realise that their radiation sickness is killing them and that the Daleks aren’t likely to help. But they do send Susan off into the forest to pick up the Thal drugs - and it’s a wonderfully atmospheric bit of television, with lighting, sound and various film techniques combining to make it genuinely scary.

The Escape

Something they’ve got right about the Daleks from the beginning (and that gets a bit lost at times as the series goes on) is that they’re cunning. Sure, the offer to the Thals may not be the cleverest evil scheme ever committed to film, but there are several points in this episode - such as allowing Susan to keep the other set of drugs - where they’re a lot more than just “Exterminate!”. And it’s not too hard to side with the Daleks a little bit - Alydon aside, the Thals come across here as a group of boorish lads and their token woman, who happily joins in with their banter and casual sexism. Would their loss really be the worst thing in the universe? No. No, it would not.

The rest of the episode is devoted to a spot - or rather, a long and grimy streak - of good old-fashioned working things out. It’s like a scene from a point-and-click adventure game (scrape mud off shoe, use mud on camera, examine metal floor, talk to Doctor Who), but the protagonists are about as bad at it as I usually am, and it takes sodding forever. Still, for the slow build it’s a satisfying conclusion, and it’s pleasing to watch our heroes escape using nothing but their brains, a cloak and some mud.

And the episode ends with the partial reveal of a Dalek, which is exactly how it should be - the Kaled mutant (or at this point, the ‘Dal’) is a thing of mystery, an unimaginable horror represented by a single grasping claw. Brilliant.

The Ambush

This is the one that should probably be called The Escape, as the majority of it deals with the TARDIS team’s attempts to leave the Dalek city rather than the titular ambush. And how they don’t get killed as they bumble through the corridors is an absolute mystery - for the Daleks not to see through their ruse suggests a serious lack of intellect on the part of the Doctor’s oldest foes. There’s a neat bit of false jeopardy with Ian not being able to escape from the Dalek, though; the scene in which the viewer is left for a moment to wonder if he’s been exterminated is a fun example of a well-worn trope.

Not that there was ever much danger of Ian being killed off even at this early stage, as once again it’s his show. It’s still rather distressing to see the Doctor trying so hard to ignore the plight of the Thals and run away, because it’s so out of keeping with the intergalactic do-gooder he’ll eventually become. Fortunately, his companions have more scruples than the old man and Ian goes back to warn the Thals - or does he? It’s hard to understand why he waits for so long on the sidelines before actually warning them, like an actor waiting in the wings. Perhaps he didn’t know he was being filmed? Whatever the case, you have to wonder if more of the Thals (laaaaads) could have been saved if he’d emerged from his hiding place sooner. Naughty Ian.

The Expedition

Wow. I take back everything I said about the Doctor’s companions having scruples - what an utterly selfish bunch! They start the episode by standing around talking about how they must make the Thals fight and die so that they can get their fluid link back and leave this godforsaken planet - and it takes far, far, far too long for the time travellers to decide that actually this probably isn’t a very nice thing to do. They still get the Thals to fight, of course, but not before justifying it to themselves with the idea that the Thals should fight in order to not die. Or something. The travellers aren’t aware of any immediate threat to the Thals at this point, so it still all feels rather self-serving. At least it’s Ian, not the Doctor, who manages to goad the Thals into violence - it’s difficult enough to rationalise the Doctor’s behaviour in some of these early episodes as it is, without putting that one on his shoulders.

Of course, Daleks being Daleks, the Thals are in immediate danger, but it’s for good reason; we’re used to the Daleks wanting to exterminate and subjugate for the hell of it, but this episode brings them as close as they’ll ever get to a tragic twist with the revelation that they can’t exist without radiation (We’ll gloss over that one later, along with the whole static electricity thing). Sure, they plan on nuking the planet’s surface, but it’s only so they can go outside and play in the forest.

Ian and Barbara reach the swamp of death, and once again the production team have done a surprisingly good job of realising its horrors. It’s not as atmospheric as the forest in the second episode, but it’s still pretty tense stuff.

The Ordeal

Never a truer word spoken… With most of the pieces already in place for the final episode, the ‘action’ slows right down and we’re treated to the lacklustre adventures of Barbara and Ganatus. It’s hard to pinpoint whether the actors playing the Thals are at fault or whether Terry Nation simply wasn’t interested in his Aryan creations (It’s probably a bit of both), but the story certainly doesn’t make it that easy to care about the plight of any individual Thals. The subplot that falls especially flat is that of Antodus, the cowardly Thal who pops up only to suggest turning back and then kills himself at the start of the next episode. RIP Antodus. You’re not missed.

The stuff with Susan and the Doctor is good, though; the grandfather-granddaughter dynamic has got a bit lost in the mix since the first episode, so it’s nice to check in and see that they still care about one another. I also like that the Daleks make a point of bringing up the lift that the Doctor and friends destroyed during their escape from the city; there’s just not enough alien species willing to present the Doctor with an invoice for damages as the series goes on.

The Rescue

This episode is fascinating, because deliberately or otherwise there seems to be a single concrete moment where the Doctor goes from being the man who ran away from Gallifrey to the defender of the underdog. William Hartnell reacts with such horror and anger to the Daleks’ plans to irradiate the surface of Skaro and render it uninhabitable that it feels like his “no more” moment, the one in which he goes from being a passive observer to a meddling hero. Perhaps I’m overselling it - after all, the Doctor’s role in the story’s resolution is still fairly light, aside from his refusal to help the Daleks as they beg for mercy - but the Doctor is not the same man at the end of the story; he’s in no rush to replace the fluid link and get away anymore - though that’s an easy position to be in once the Daleks are dead…

The story’s climax itself feels weirdly slight. It has all the makings of something big - a lengthy countdown to a massive explosion, a ragtag army of Thals in hotpants… But the Daleks’ defeat ends up being rather low key - though the bit where Ian gives a Dalek a kick is fun.

Final Thoughts

This is the story that saved Doctor Who and guaranteed its future for at least the next year, and it’s not hard to see why: it’s intelligent science fiction, a tale of good versus evil, with the protagonists actually taking the initiative and driving the story forward. Oh, and did I mention it’s got Daleks in? Raymond Cusick’s design is instantly iconic, and it combines with the grating voices to produce something truly alien and quite unlike anything that’s been seen before or since. It’s a story that runs out of steam an episode or two too early, but by that point it doesn’t matter - the spell the early installments weave is such a powerful one that the crimes of the last few episodes are largely forgivable.

#doctor who #classic who #classicwho #classicdw #william hartnell #first doctor #tardis #daleks #ian chesterton #susan foreman #barbara wright

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densoro · 7 years

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so @ie9999 asked me ages ago to post info about my OCs and I just realized I’m finally on a laptop so I have a keyboard enough to do that!

Densoro is a long while in the making. I came up with him when I was 11 and for a while he was just the magic/superpower mule for a hyperactive teenage Kingdom Hearts/Final Fantasy/Legend of Zelda fan. Changed every few months to accommodate some new complete misunderstanding of the laws of physics.

The current draft, tho, is a member of the town guard. In his world, magic is common and everybody is born aligned to one element. However, rarely, people are born unaligned. Such people have no bodily pigment, no capacity for magic, difficulty understanding emotion, and experience colorblindness. The lack of pigment lowers their tolerance to extreme weather conditions, and Densoro overcompensates for his lack of magic by excessively sword training.

His world also has three alternate realities layered one on top another. His father once created a sword, using a special ore which is constantly moving like a lava flow, frozen into form. When stabbed into the ground, it opens a portal, enabling travel between the three. This discovery became a regular fact of life. However, his father tried to use the superior quality of the blade to subjugate the people of the new land he arrived in. He terrorized them for years before he was finally killed. He and his sword came to be known as Vandal.

Years later, as Densoro neared adulthood, a man wielding Vandal attacked Densoro’s town. The town guard managed to repel him, but Densoro began to question the nature of the attacks. Long story short, he uses sword training as a way to understand the lessons handed down by other people, and to eventually understand their feelings. His story is not so much focused around defeating the Vandal, as much as about becoming the kind of person who knows what he’s defending and how.

Arvyria hails from a small, unnamed territory nestled between Sweden and Norway in the early 1300s. One day, she wakes up and her entire town has vanished -- not in the sense that it was razed to the ground, but more that it seems to have never existed. She struggles to make it to civilization, steals a weapon and a few ill-fitted pieces of armor.

Around the same time, people are reporting attacks by fae or demons, some variety of monsters roaming the countryside. Arvyria finds a gauntlet which seems to be able to suck the life out of these monsters, and begins asking around to see if anybody understands how these events are connected.

Her character vastly changes depending on which weapon she steals, who she meets, and which creatures she vanquishes, in a branching story with several routes.

Reina is one of the people Arvyria can meet. One side of her face is covered in thick, diagonal scars like claw marks framing one white eye. She’s been traveling for months with her 16 year old cousin Vincent. She ran away from her family’s home after Vincent’s father and her abusive husband killed each other. Vincent followed, believing he had a duty to keep her safe from other violent men. Reina suspects this and doesn’t know how to explain to him how sick she is of men in her family risking their lives when she can take care of herself.

The both of them have the ability to see that magic on Earth is a sort of gaseous fluid that surrounds us like an atmosphere. Much like moving underwater, this fluid echoes off our motions in waves and ripples. This allows them to do superhuman feats, but also keeps them up at night because their dreams have been replaced by the ability to watch these waves ebb and flow off everybody’s actions. In places infested by monsters, though, this flow is frozen in place. Because of this and various other stressors -- including their personal situation -- they’re prone to night terrors which cause them to thrash about. Given their abilities, this makes them a danger to entire cities. Reina’s screams alone can fell redwoods.

Depending on how Arvyria’s relationship with Reina develops, Reina may figure out how to explain the motion of magic to her and turn her into another sleepwalker. Also they fall in so much bi lady love and I ship it so hard tbh

Rowen is another potentially crucial figure in Arvyria’s life. He claims to understand the cause of the frozen atmosphere and the monster attacks. He’s a fervent Christian who believes that these creatures were created by a man -- and that the creation of ‘life’ is an affront to God. He’s dedicated himself to mastering the two-handed sword so that he can fight these creatures off, and he has high, uncompromising expectations of all his allies in this endeavor.

If Arvyria is bad enough at using the sword she stole a week ago, she’ll get badly injured in battle, and Rowen will demand that she meet with him for sword lessons as soon as she’s able to move again. He believes he can’t allow her to be a weakness in their cause.

Arvyria as influenced by Reina is a softer, more worldly sort of person. She’s less shy, more able to open up to other people. Reina brings her out of her shell and teaches her to move with magic. On the other hand, Arvyria as trained by Rowen is even more stiff and businesslike than before, downright militaristic, and is a much more disciplined sword-wielder.

(spoilers there’s also a third ending where shit goes all kinds of fucked up and the same force that created the monsters creates Densoro’s entire world lolol)

Alex Blake is a college student in Anchorage, Alaska, living in present day. However, in her timeline, the world’s been stuck in winter for three years straight. The snow basically never stops. In addition, violent crime rates have climbed exponentially and millions of people have gone missing during the three-year winter.

One day, a man follows Alex home and shoots her. The next day, she wakes up in her bed and, despite gruesome memories of her own death, forces herself to go to school. On the walk there, she witnesses something she can’t quite describe: some sort of entity getting mauled to death by a force she can’t see or comprehend. The dying creature’s shadow casts onto her, physically wraps around her, and forms a suit of armor. Long story short, this allows her to walk through the time stream in order to fight monsters that exist in time in a way we don’t understand.

(Fun fact: Alex’s story was going great until I realized I didn’t understand a thing about Alaska’s relationship with its indigenous people and spent days googling things that did nothing to help me understand :’3 I felt I was mishandling the setting and everything crawled to a standstill)

Carson lives in the near future. Young Carson is fine being assigned female, but they keep getting visions of themselves as a tall, lean man with a sword. It gets to the point where they keep forgetting how long their arms actually are -- like they’re used to being taller.

They keep finding incredibly finely-crafted, modern, machined swords hidden in strange places. They keep recognizing them. And they keep getting drawn into violent conflicts where they’re forced to use these weapons.

As Carson gets older, sword fighting overtakes more and more of their life, and they come out as agender. Their body proportions grow to match the man from their visions. They develop a supernatural sense to ‘feel’ the movements other people are making with their bodies -- to feel your arm as though it’s their own. Using this power, they become a paranormal exterminator of sorts.

An unnamed woman from the Gobi desert (because I realized I know nothing about the linguistic conventions of that region and don’t want my white ass to slap some Mandarin on her lolol) grew up in a militaristic society where the unforgiving climate of the expanding desert combined with monster attacks to make survival next to impossible. Their society is at war with the monsters, and uses armored trains covered in spikes to traverse the wastelands safely. However, she tried out for the leader’s personal guard and received a set of armor and intensive magic training when she passed the test. Her trademark is the ability to make force bounce off on contact. For example, she can fall straight down off a cliff, hit the ground, and rather than taking the shock of the fall directly into her body, she can deflect the force so that she flies forward and armor-punches a monster’s face off. Uncertain circumstances bring her to America to confront Carson.

...It’s late. I’ve got a lot down already, but a lot more still to follow XD Feel free to ask for more info about anyone if you’re curious though!

#long post #Den rambles #nobody loves Kasval #lolol you don't even know who Kasval is yet or why he's my OC tag

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thecorteztwins · 7 years

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@survival-cfthe-fittest Did you want a healthy dose of Farouk this morning? OF COURSE YOU DID! HERE’S A HEAPING HELPING OF HIS GROSSNESS AND HIS HISTORY WITH PSYLOCKE

X-MEN (second series) #77: PSI-WAR PART ONE

Storm gets a message from her Kenyan foster mother, Ainet, and she and the other X-men teleport via some new abilities of Psylocke (Psylocke could teleport through shadows at this time due to...I think her experience with the Crimson Dawn, which is what gave her the red tattoo over her eyes for awhile) to her homeland. Turns out Ainet summoned her to introduce her to a god who is controlling Ainet and the villagers...and the god wants to marry Storm. It seems to be the spider trickster figure, Anansi (spelled as Ananasi in this comic) and he refers to Storm as a "delicious bride" so honestly you already know where this is going. Oh yeah, and he also wants to absorb her power, just as he claims to have absorbed the souls of her people.

Then he sucks out the souls of the X-men around Storm, and they're inside him now, his to play with.

He torments Sam/Cannonball with his dead father saying he's ashamed, but since Marrow, Maggot, and Dr. Cecilia Reyes are relatively new, he goes a different route with them. He tells that they're in a place where truth can be seen, and masks are stripped away. He makes Marrow's horrible bone protrusions vanish, and Maggot's slugs go away, and says he's giving them this gift because "you three have not yet been tainted by the X-men's lies" and then shows them a feral, animalistic Wolverine, who is chained up growling on the floor, and says that he's showing them the X-Men as they really are "without their righteous lies and pretty costumes. I give Xavier's dream and show you it's a nightmare...if you'll listen. So...shall we begin the dishing?"

Basically, he makes them think he's freed them from the nasty, painful parts of their mutation, presents himself as a truth-teller, and makes it seem like it's the X-Men who are not to be trusted. Since these three are newbies, and may not even really want to be there (idk about Maggot but Reyes always wanted to stay out of mutant business, and Marrow doesn't seem to like the X-Men at all despite being one of them) he knows they're most inclined to listen. And, of course, neither they or the readers know he's the Shadow King at this point.

Meanwhile in the real world, Storm is cradling Ainet and saying how she's going to make Ananasi pay, Ananasi starts to taunt her but then is ripped down the middle from within by Psylocke, who comes out of him.

"Has anyone ever told you people how difficult you make baroque posturing?" he complains, as Psylocke quips "Sigh...a typical man...splitting on you the moment you choose to assert yourself. Story of my life."

She explains to Storm that they're not dealing with a spider god, they're dealing with a telepath, and one "of the highest order". Ananasi, however, insists he is a god, and Storm asks Psylocke who he really is, but Psylocke says she can't tell, she can't breach his psychic defenses.

Ananasi changes tactics, telling Storm to be careful keeping counsel with this one (Psylocke) and then taunting Psylocke about how she's been transformed and posessed and reborn so many times she can't tell fantasy from reality.

In other words, he's caught in a lie he knows Psylocke can see through, so he's trying to make both Storm and Psylocke doubt Psylocke's sanity and/capabilities.

"You're everyone's plaything. A mismatched freak. A broken toy who isn't even sure if she exists."

Psylocke retorts coldly that she knows he's frightened of what she can do. I'm betting she's right. She tells Storm to take her hand, and they journey inside him, on his section of the astral turf where Storm's people and the X-Men are imprisoned, while he yells NO! YOU LITTLE WITCH! YOU'LL RUIN EVERYTHING!

Storm gets referred to as his bride once again because gross, and he and Psylocke start to do battle on the astral plane, "Ananasi" belittling Psylocke the entire time. Storm cries out to Psylocke that "Betsy! This is a trap! It's not me he wants! It's--"

And then she's silenced but I think it's pretty obvious it's gotta be Psylocke he was really after all along. He's always had a very strong interest in Storm, since his first appearance, so I have no doubt he wants Storm too, but Betsy is his main target here. We just have to find out why.

He keeps taunting her, insulting her, messing with her head, hitting all her insecurities, until she lashes out at him with all her power.

Which, it turns out, was EXACTLY WHAT HE WANTED HER TO DO

She falls "mind first" into a trap. We don't know the details yet but Ananasi reveals himself as LOL THE SHADOW KING ALL ALONG!

The psychic backlash of whatever he does to Betsy is SO HUGE that it cleaves through the entire psionic plain, and actually affects people in the real world---worldwide. Normal people experience things like headaches and deja vu, whereas telepaths lose their telepathy (which would apply in other comics, and span several issues) This extends not just to people like Emma Frost, but also people like Spider-Man (with his intuitive "spider sense") So it's not just mutants who are effected, but everybody with even the slightest psionic abilities.

X-MEN (second series) #78: PSI WAR PART TWO

The next issue opens with society in chaos. There's car crashes, there's a dude in a pink apron chasing another guy in an art museum, a guy who thinks he's Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz, people choking each other, others laughing maniacially, and from the astral plane, the Shadow King relishes it all.

"Rain anguish and chaos on your fellow man! Flood the earth in misery, that your master may drink his fill! That the Shadow King may rule a world of madness! Ah...all that delicious suffering...glorious, don't you think?"

Betsy, whose form on the psychic plane is a melted, multi-faced mess of herself, can only gurgle in reply. The Shadow King says she's embarrassing him with such praise, and says he couldn't have done it without her, adding that he can only imagine the torment she must be in. He explains that thanks to her, any possible opposition to him has been rendered impotent (meaning, all the other psychics are depowered).

He then tells us how after his "humiliating" defeat on Muir Island, he went into a sort of "hibernation" during which he was "hiding from your cursed mentor, Xavier, in wretched host bodies as my strength returned." Finally, when Onslaught happened, "the dissolution of Xavier's mind and power left the psionic plane without its preminent guardian. Only he could have sensed my subtle machinations. With him gone, I could make my move."

Thus he subjugated Storm's people and used Ainet to bring him "new X-Men to tempt, old X-Men to torture, and one foolhardy telepath to trick."

He says he'd stay and watch Psylocke crumble to dust but "I have some X-Men to corrupt. Even god needs apostles."

As he departs, Psylocke's twisted form calcifies, screams, and shatters.

Shadow King returns to the new X-men--Maggot, Marrow, and Cecilia Reyes---and Marrow's bone spikes return, as painful as they ever were, and he reveals his real self. He tells them he can sense the pain they're in and that he would like to see it abolished, and that he can help them as easily as he temporarily did Marrow...if they will turn their backs on the X-Men and pledge themselves to him.

Cecilia says that the X-men are "a royal pain at times" but that they are "good people"

The Shadow King challenges that, pointing out lots of ways they've wronged the three of them...and seems to be tickling Cecilia under the chin with some kind of feathery thing? Dammit Shadow King, can you NOT make this pervy?

"The X-Men offer you nothing but more pain...more lies...whereas I can turn dreams into reality!"

He tells Cecilia, a doctor, how with his help she could go back to saving lives, how he could put the knowledge of the best surgeons in her head. How Maggot could control his slugs and become the hero he wants to be. How Marrow could walk among the surface people, be pretty, be loved, be touched without pain, be looked at without pity or revulsion.

And these poor people, they seem to be enticed. Not agreeing, but tempted for sure.

"A surgeon...I've never dreamed..." "No more pain..." "Could it be true...an oke like me...a real hero?"

But then Cecilia asks what's going to happen to the X-men. The Shadow King doesn't answer, just says they wouldn't show HER the same concern. She still wants to know. He tells her that he's going to try to help them overcome their own trials and tribulations.

LOLOLOLOL

Cut to Sam/Cannonball, who is being berated by the seeming ghost of his dead father, as the Shadow King tells them he's getting "quality time bonding with his deceased father"

Wolverine, tormented on a chain like a beast ("Stripped of his bestial nature, one layer at a time, until we find the man inside")

Storm being swarmed by skeletons covering her ("My lovely wind goddess, I'm already helping her with a crippling case of claustrophobia. She's making wonderful progress.")

UR A DICK, FAROUK

Meanwhile, the broken shards of Betsy Braddock have come together to form her once more...but not as she was. She's a being of solid darkness in the shape of a woman, wondering why she isn't dead as she should be. She realizes it's due to the arcane energies of the Crimson Dawn saving her life. I do not totally know what the deal with the Crimson Dawn is, but as mentioned earlier, it is responsible for her shadow-porting abilities and her red face mark. I don't know the whole story but I think she died and Archangel used the Crimson Dawn to bring her back to life, in exchange for some of his own soul. Don't quote me on this. But yeah, she should have died from what the Shadow King did, but the Crimson Dawn is magical so it saved her.

Ainet, still trapped in the astral plane, appears and begs Psylocke to "stop the beast". Together, they go to find Storm in the "prison" that the Shadow King has her in, "a perpetual nightmare" that is "her private version of Hell"

Meanwhile, the Shadow King is delighting in infecting people all over the world, feeding more chaos and suffering, and gloating about how he can now "Defile any mind'

DEFILE ANY MIND

HE HAD TO SAY IT LIKE THAT

As for Storm, yeah, still buried in skeletons, paralyzed by her deepest fears. A child Storm is there too, telling them how this punishment for bad things she did.

But Psylocke and Ainet help her work through this and it's awesome.

But the Shadow King is being gross again, talking to Maggot, Marrow, and Cecilia, saying that "So? Are we ready to make a deal? Talent? Fame? Beauty? All can be yours if you say the magic words..."Hurt Me Daddy." All together now.."

AND THEN PSYLOCKE SHOWS UP TO KICK HIS ASS

WHICH, NOT A MOMENT TOO SOON

HURT ME DADDY

I CAN'T EVEN ' WHO WROTE THIS

I DON'T THINK IT WAS CLAREMONT, THE DIALOGUE STYLE IS DIFFERENT

SO I CAN'T EVEN BLAME HIM FOR THIS KINKY SHIT

Naturally, the Shadow King has to voice his surprise at Betsy's return and her new look by creepy-touching her face and telling her how "ravishing" she looks like this CAN WE PLEASE GET RID OF HIM FOREVER

Psylocke thinks that his touch feels like maggots crawling through her skin. I think that's very mean to maggots.

Shadow King says "I haven't been this surprised since I underestimated a certain balding American" and HE TOUCHES HER CHEST

NOPE NOPE NOPE

NOT OKAY

BAD TOUCH

WE NEED AN ADULT

He then offers her the chance to rule by his side as his queen. Because if you can't kill her, fuck her, I guess.

While they have this lovely chat, Storm frees Maggot, Marrow, and Cecilia. Shadow King talks about how Psylocke is going to BEG him for the power she so DESIRES and how he is going to "devour every mind on earth at once!"

Figures. He gets all this power and he just wants to eat.

The X-men's souls are now out of him and back in the real world, but he's still got the real prize, that he's going to get into "the collective subconscious of humanity" and "all the delicious suffering of humanity, one morsel at a time!"

He seems to frame things in terms of food/eating a lot, which I guess makes sense.

AND THEN PSYLOCKE HAS TO SAY *THIS* LINE: "He's...he's doing it...touching them all...EVERYWHERE!"

there is no way this phrasing is not meant to be deliberately suggestive ew ew ewww

And she thinks about how the sensation of it is "intoxicating. Saints protect me...I want it!"

ALL ABOARD THE TRAIN TO NOPESVILLE!!

"But more to the point...so does the Shadow King...at any cost. His thirst for power is so great...his lust so consuming...that he's getting lost in the rapture of it all...stretching himself to the limits, and BEYOND."

And that stretching lets Psylocke get a little sneaky psychic blow in, right at the Shadow King's personal nexus. And so her "subtle attack begins the block the Shadow King's far flung talons from the locus of their power" and his influence on people fades, restoring sanity to the world.

The Shadow King howls that this cannot be, that Betsy is nothing, and Betsy returns that "You are one mind! One consumed with greed, conceit, and pride! And one mind can't possibly poison millions without leaving itself open to attack!"

In other words, he got too greedy, opened himself up to much trying to get to others, and didn't think to close even a little to avoid any attacks getting in, because hey, Betsy, is nothing, what can she do against him, right?

The Shadow King, yelling it's not supposed to end this way, is then imprisoned in Betsy's mind. He points out that she's just one mind too, so the moment she uses her telepathy for anything other than containing him, he'll break free. Thus begins the era of Psylocke being just a telekinetic and not a telepath. Or did she not have telekinesis either at this stage? Her powers change around a lot after the Kwannon thing due to various events like this, so it's hard to keep track. But yeah, Betsy's head was his prison for a long time after this, up until she died in X-treme, freeing him to come after Rogue, and you know how THAT went---he just ended up imprisoned with her instead!

#shadow king

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