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lucarioisinthevoid · 3 years

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What would everyone think of king Afton?

After many years of the animatronics killing nightguards, they finally caught William and killed him. But as you know from my ask about Goldie and Cassidy, Cassidy lied saying it wasn't him. When humans found out the animatronics were sentient, they locked all animatronics underground, including all the nightguards that were stuffed. Which meant Afton was still around to mess with the animatronics and the dead kids. When animatronics started getting the hang of having a society, springtrap (as how he went by in his suit. It became common among stuffed humans to make up names for themselves instead of using their human names) became the town nuisance. He basically caused trouble just get reactions, everyone just ignored him and pissed him off.

A few years later, about a week after Golden Freddy's and Cassidy's death, the guards were waiting for orders from king Fazbear, Bonnie was subcoming to guilt and depression seeing the situation with Goldie and Cassi as his fault, the Marionette was mourning the death of another child in her room, and Freddy was in his palace thinking. He honestly didn't know how to feel in the moment of their deaths, so he just kept thinking about it knowing the should feel something, like sad or angry.

Springtrap snuck inside the palace, almost too easily. When he was sneaking in, a human fell down. Freddy went to investigate, with springtrap following behind in the shadows. The human that fell sorta looked like Cassidy, except she had gold blonde hair, but that was the only difference. It was like the world wanted to play a joke on Freddy, "hey look!!! A little girl that looks like both of your now dead friends!!! Isn't that funny?!!?!" How dare the world. Before he could even think, all the feelings he should have felt flooded through him, the sadness of loosing the people he loves, the guilt of being unable to prevent their deaths, and the anger towards humanity for killing people he held close to his soul. Without thinking, he projected his anger towards humans on the child, and mercilessly killed her.

He was brought back to his senses when William started laughing and applauding the show before him. Freddy then attacked him, nearly killing him before realizing in this moment he was no better than him. After this realization, he declared war on humanity. The Marionette ran away back to the ruins never to be heard from again, and springtrap was made into the new royal adviser. Freddy hired him as royal adviser in hopes that maybe Afton could teach him to be more merciless.

The only reason why he was so merciless as a killer was because Chara made him think he was insane, and he was a player's puppet. He lived his own life so many times, why would it matter if he killed people if he knew they were going to be fine when he wakes up yesterday? Now Chara became dormant, and the players stopped controlling him. Kinda ironic how he's now feeling powerless despite now having complete control of his body.

He began to feel regret for everything his done. The many people he's killed, the many people he let stay dead. He was no longer above his actions. He was no longer above consequences. This made him fall into despair and depression.

After years of being royal adviser, Freddy gave him a title of king, trusting him enough to rule beside him as brothers. After he was crowned, him and Fazbear became closer, like actual brothers.

But they had disagreements, like all siblings do. Except their disagreements had to do with life and death. Freddy would argue with Afton over killing humans, he'd say that he needed to kill humans and collect their souls in order to set them all free. Afton would argue saying that everyone had already suffered enough, and that more children didn't deserve to die. When ever human children fall down and leave the Marionette's protection in the ruins, he would try and protect the children from Freddy, in hopes that he might be able to talk him out of killing them. Usually the kids flat out give up and let themselves be killed. Afton stopped trying to protect the kids after a 5 year old gave up her life to Fazbear.

King Afton, with the help of doctor Bonnie, removed his suit, and rebuilt Springbonnie and Fredbear. Fredbear remembered how Afton used spring for murder, but thankfully Springbonnie didn't remember how he was used. He didn't even remember the surface, he just knew who he was, who his brother Fredbear was, and that Afton was one of the people that made him. Afton talked with Fredbear privately about how times had changed from 1987 to now, when Fredbear was shut down to when he was rebuilt. Fredbear didn't remember the bite of 87, and his memories of the surface weren't any better. All he remembered was kids, the layout of the diner, and the stars he'd look at out the window.

Once Afton explained everything, leaving out the bite incident, Fredbear to forgive the poor corpse for everything he's done. He didn't trust him, he just forgave him. Fredbear and Springbonnie then left Afton's room where they were rebuilt and started living their own lives.

This Afton is a more forgivable, and melancholy version of Afton.

What would everyone in your AU think of King Afton?

First up, very interesting take, though now all the pressure of the “why did you kill” are put on Chara. The concept of Afton getting EXP from stuffing children into suits is wrecking me with laughter to be fully honest- this man must be buff- Everyone is a big number, but I can give you three main people, I think.

Marionette hates him- like all Williams. He doesn’t believe in redemption; he doesn’t believe in the concept of regret. Nobody ever regretted what happened to him, thus regret must be a hindering emotion at best- a liability at worst. Useless and hurtful. This William is pathetic! How can you go around killing children because of some fucking spirit?! And then being all regretful about it, as though it makes a difference?! Devaluing these murders even MORE! How much must he hate these children that he admits openly that his murders were pointless and soulless and now after decades something he would be taking back?! HOW DOES THAT HELP?! WHO?! HE DOESN’T DESERVE PITY. AND YOUR FREDDY, HE SHOULD HAVE KILLED HIM FOR GOOD! SO WHAT IF YOU ARE “EQUALLY” AS BAD?! IF TWO WRONGS MEET AND ONE KILLS THE OTHER, THEN WE HAVE AT LEAST ONE RIGHT! There is nothing more appalling to him than regretting the evil deeds, because then you say you did those evil deeds out of weakness and selfishness and nothing else came from it. Marion doesn’t regret killing the guards. Marion DOESN’T regret killing the guards! (My Marionette would make a much more ruthless ruler of the underground than both William and Freddy combined…) Fredbear is actually somewhat happy. He feels terrible for everything that happened until then and that the Marionette had to leave home because of William returning and becoming an advisor- and of course, he’s agonizing about the fact that another child had to die. But in the end, there’s some reassurance in William just being another puppet, suffering the circumstances and now working for redemption. The children are still here in some way after all, with this new technology- once it is perfected, everyone can live the life they wanted. All he hopes is that William will be a force of good this time around and for good this time. He shouldn’t have crumbled to the timeloop, but… … things like that are mindbreaking, certainly. Not being yourself is extremely scary. And how can you be sure you ARE yourself? If he would have the chance to say anything to Afton, then it’s to not give protecting the children. They need you. They need someone to stand up for them. No matter how pointless it seems or how often you fail, continuing to try is what matters. Stay determined. You owe them this after all- you have proven your ability to use what’s inside of you for destruction, make sure that it will become good permanently. You need to wake up every morning and choose to do the right thing. They need you. Both the living and the dead. Old Sport thinks he’s a funny fucker. As someone in the same shoes as him- well, without that evil spirit thing, but still- he sees his acting out and then doing a 180° as pretty hilarious. Like, sure, you go dude, reinvent yourself as this regretful somebody who wants to help, Old Sport gets it, he has done stuff like that too- but being all mopey and melancholic about it? Just move on! If you were in a loop, what does it matter? Reset and restart. You didn’t feel bad doing it, right? So why feel bad now? What’s the point? Genuine question. You did the deed, you committed the crime and that was okay. And then you stuck to that timeline. Sorry, not sorry, you have nobody to blame but yourself. And that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be able to move on and change and make peace, that’s totally fine, but the way Old Sport sees it from the outside, there’s a lot of misplaced guilt. This is a story, right? … … even if Old Sport doesn’t like, part of him feels jealous. Afton lacked control over his body, but at least he had a soul, right? At least he HAS a kind of personality and sense of self. He can make himself into a consistent character, unlike Old Sport who has to pick and choose and never knows what to do- In his opinion, Afton needs to get a grip and be less ungrateful for the things he actually DOES have. Save the kids, kill the kids, whatever, protect your sense of self… but then at least be satisfied with your choices that came out of that sense of self. Guilt is a choice. Either regret and act or don’t and stay back.

#NOT my AU

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houseofhurricane · 3 years

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ACOTAR Fic: Bloom & Bone (17/28) | Elain x Tamlin, Lucien x Vassa

Summary: Elain lies about a vision and winds up as the Night Court’s emissary to the Spring Court, trying to prevent the Dread Trove from falling into the wrong hands and wrestling with the gifts the Cauldron imparted when she was Made. Lucien, asked to join her, must contend with secrets about his mating bond. Meanwhile, Tamlin struggles to lead the Spring Court in the aftermath of the war with Hybern. And Vassa, the human queen in their midst, wrestles with the enchantment that turns her into a firebird by day, robbing her of the power of speech and human thought. Looming over all of them is uniquet peace in Prythian and the threat of Koschei, the death-god with unimaginable power. With powers both magical and monstrous, the quartet at the Spring Court will have to wrestle with their own natures and the evil that surrounds them. Will the struggle save their world, or doom it?

A/N: Bloom & Bone is back with a chapter in which many things happen... including, FINALLY, some Vassien moments. I hope you enjoy! You can find all previous chapters here, or read Bloom & Bone on AO3. Thank you for reading! ❤️

When Elain takes them back to Prythian, they appear in the Spring Court, and Tamlin has to stop himself from gasping as he takes a deep breath. There is a rot at the center of Koschei’s world that permeates the very air.

Beside him, Lucien’s face reveals no expression.

“You’ll need to tell the High Lords that Beron is dead,” Lucien says, his voice far away. Tamlin feels his heart contract in his chest. He’s heard Lucien speak like this, when he smuggled his friend over the Spring Court border. After Beron killed Jessaminda.

“I would have left him to the monsters if the tethering spell hadn’t worked,” Elain says, reaching for him. He shrugs off her fingers.

“I wanted to kill him,” he says, burying his face in his hands. ”My own father, and I wanted to end his life.”

“He deserved it,” Tamlin says, his hand on Lucien’s shoulder, addressing him the way he would a soldier. He waits until the gold and russet eyes meet his own. “You did this world a favor, Lucien. He would have gladly destroyed us all for a bit more power. He would have killed everyone in that meeting.”

Lucien’s face is still and lost.

So Tamlin thinks of the things he needed to hear after the war with Hybern ended, when he was left all alone. The things that Lucien, who is the best of all of them, perhaps the only truly decent male in Prythian, deserves to hear.

“You will not feel as if you did the right thing now. Maybe you never will. Because there is some part of you that knows it is unnatural to kill. You will wonder if you are becoming a monster, doing what you’ve done. Perhaps feeling what you judge as too little regret. But this is the least monstrous part of you, Lucien Vanserra. You are a good and decent male. I have always known this to be true.”

Lucien’s shoulders heave, and he ducks his head to gasp and sigh into his hands. Tamlin squeezes his shoulder and does not look away.

When Lucien looks up at him, his eye is red and his cheek shines with tears. His golden eye whirls as if it is trying to take in a world it does not recognize.

“My brothers will be at each other’s throats. And my mother -- I am needed at the Autumn Court.”

A second later, he vanishes into nothing.

Before Tamlin can speak, Elain’s hand is on his arm.

“We need to go to the Summer Court,” she says, her voice infuriatingly calm. “Tarquin was about to offer you his army.”

The rage rises in him and for the first time in months, Tamlin cannot claw it back. The sight of Beron grabbing her, his knife against her neck, the monsters circling above, Elain in danger on every side, danger she created, all of these fears overcome him, transfigure into fury.

“You think we will not speak of what you just did?” The words are a roar in his throat, the syllables barely formed.

“You know that Beron would have ripped apart this world for just a little more power,” Elain says, trying to spit his own words back at him, but her voice trembles.

“You threw yourself into danger. You have no idea how powerful a High Lord is. Beron could have killed you with half a thought.” His voice is still rising, filling the hall like thunder.

“He had to deliver me alive to Koschei. He wasn’t going to kill me.” He can see the effort she is making, to keep her face calm, her voice level. He’s seen his courtiers wear this face, and that realization almost stops Tamlin in his tracks. But he cannot stop imagining her in Koschei’s grip, in Beron’s, Elain Archeron with her kind spirit and her wide lovely eyes and that golden power, great enough, he thinks, to create new worlds, but not the kind of magic that will defend her against a death-god.

“Koschei cannot have you under his power.”

“You cannot defeat Koschei either, High Lord.” Something has shuttered in her gaze, though her tone has not lost its courtly veneer. She crosses her arms over her chest, the gesture like the donning of armor. “You cannot lock me in some warded chamber and leave me to rot. You’re needed in the Summer Court, and I need to go to Feyre.”

The breath Tamlin takes is ragged and loud, and Elain’s eyes snag on his, tender for a second before they shutter once again.

“She and Rhysand went to defend the bone in case there was an attack on their court.”

“You can tell them at the meeting. They will return. A week ago, you barely trusted them. Or so you told me.”

“Rhysand just offered you an army.” He notes, in spite of himself, that she does not call him Rhys.

“An army I likely will not need.”

She scoffs at him, her eyes overbright. “You think Beron raised his sons to be any better than he is?”

“I will admit that I hoped Lucien would inherit the Autumn Court in the event of his father’s death. But even a war within their court will require troops.”

“And if the sons agree that an alliance with Koschei is worth the risks?”

“All the more reason to make sure that nobody can snatch you away.”

“I have been taken from this house and from the Summer Court at this meeting of the High Lords,” Elain says, lifting each finger with a frustrated little flick. “You act as if you can guarantee me safety, but that is a lie.”

“And you are waiting for me to give you a real excuse to run.” The rage rises in him again. He feels the claws at the backs of his hands, tearing through his skin. “What will you tell them at the Night Court? That the monster in the Spring Court was just as horrible as they’d expected?”

He stalks toward her, his eyes on hers. He wants to see the moment when her frustration turns to fear. Instead, she reaches out her hand, grabs his wrist.

“You’re going to want to calm yourself before the other High Lords see you,” she says, and then they are in the passageways.

“I am not your puppet,” he manages to say around the fangs in his mouth, the jaws of the beast.

“I have never wanted to rule,” she says, her fingers a brand at his wrist. “But I believed for too long that a man would save me. A good man, a powerful High Fae male. That all I needed to do was play the delicate damsel and I would have happiness and safety. I think my father died to give me that life. I hid in the garden for too long, Tamlin. I am not going to let Koschei force the crown on my head. And I will not let you lock me away, either. I will become a monster, and gladly, before either of those things happens to me.”

His pulse thrums against her grip.

“It is very easy to become a monster,” he says, and he bares his teeth at her.

The silence is laden as she considers him. She could leave him here, amidst the passageways, he thinks, no matter what she promised him. He would have to find another life entirely, if he could not find the door that leads to Prythian.

“Are you angry because you thought Beron could kill me, or because you thought I could kill him?”

Tamlin begins to feel what he felt in that other world, held by the High Lord who’d invaded his lands while he raced towards her, too far away to reach her, save her. And then his vision turns to the female before him, glittering in her golden gown, the light of her own power, amber and diamond and gold and pearls all fading in Elain’s own glow. Sometimes I think I can make whole worlds, she’d told him.

“I thought he would kill you,” he says. He’s answered a different question than the one she asked, and he sees that truth register on her features.

“Men like Beron always think that women like me are only useful as objects.”

He doesn’t correct the human wording. She’s saying something with those words which makes them a revelation, not a mistake.

He takes a breath.

“I am not an object either.”

She only looks at him, her brows furrowed.

“You have grown very used to commanding me,” he says, and when the anger fills him once again, edges his voice, it is a relief. It is better than seeing Beron holding Elain, intent on turning her into a corpse.

“You are too used to going unchallenged.”

“I have done everything you’ve asked of me and still you are waiting until the moment I give you an excuse to run.”

“After what happened to my sister--”

“How long will it take for me to prove to you that I will never treat a female that way again?”

“What if I tell you centuries?”

He takes a breath, forces himself to smirk at her, reminds himself that he is the High Lord of the Spring Court.

“Could you wait centuries, Elain?” She goes wide-eyed but does not speak, so Tamlin continues. “I have followed you into unknown worlds without question. You could leave me here and still I trust you and the power inside you, your command over yourself. I think you like having this power over me. But I am not yours to command, as if you were...”

There are three names he thinks of, all of them offensive and cruel in this moment: Amarantha, of course, but also Feyre, the false innocent she’d been when she’d returned to the Spring Court, driving it to ruin. And Tamlin thinks, without wanting to, of his own father, his vast cruelty like a trap always ready to clutch at anything that could hurt his youngest son.

“I am not whoever you think--” Elain starts to say, then stumbles forward, pressing her fingers into her forehead, her palms against her eyelids. Tamlin reaches for her, leaning her back against him so she can breathe easily. He holds her while her body tenses and shivers, when she groans and gasps over whatever she sees behind her eyelids.

Finally, she drops her hands and leans back against him, her head banging against his armor.

“Vassa and Eris,” she says, each word a gasp. “I saw them -- dead, and Koschei…”

“It was a vision,” he tells her, running his hands down her arms, hoping he’s right. “Do you think you can find them?”

“We need Lucien. And probably Rhys and Feyre, at least. With Eris missing and Beron dead, he could have run with Vassa. That amount of power would probably seem like enough to take on the world. We need to find them quickly and with all the strength we can muster.”

Tamlin realizes, in this moment, that he does not mind Elain telling him what to do. She’s right.

“Do you think you can make it to the Night Court?”

“Feyre will be there.”

“I’ll stay here and wait for you,” he says, shocked to realize that he means what he’s saying. Even if it means an eternity in these passageways.

Elain turns to face him, and for a moment something blazes in her expression, fierce and wanting, and she reaches out her hand, her thumb tracing the line of his cheek.

“I promise on my life that I’ll return,” she says, and then she disappears.

When Feyre and Rhys run to her, for a second Elain thinks they are attacking. It’s only when Feyre hugs her close that Elain lets out a breath.

“Beron is dead and I think that Vassa and Eris have escaped Koschei,” she says, as soon as Feyre has let go. “Did anyone come to steal the bone?”

“Everything is safe,” Rhys says, and she realizes he has not answered the question at the same time she sees the tiny drops of blood on the skin of his hands and face, which undoubtedly stain his black clothes as well. She wills her stomach to calm.

“Do you think you can winnow to Vassa and Eris if Lucien can track them?”

They stare at her and Elain realizes she’s torn through her story, barely caught her breath.

“I had a vision,” she says, “I saw Vassa and Eris dead, with Koschei looming over them, looking like he’d killed them. Eris was missing. You heard what Beron said at the meeting, who he’s in league with. If Beron sold him to Koschei and Eris is the High Lord of Autumn, with that power newly in him, he could believe that it’s enough to escape with Vassa.”

Feyre and Rhys exchange a look, and Elain feels her chances slipping away. Maybe she can find Lucien on her own, take them to Vassa afterwards, but against Koschei she can only disappear.

“I know it sounds ridiculous, but if Eris is High Lord, isn’t it worth the trouble?” She does not mention Vassa, doesn’t want to hear her friend dismissed.

“How do you know that Beron is dead?” Feyre asks her, in a voice that is not sisterly but also not unkind.

“He grabbed me and I pulled him into another world. Lucien killed him. He’s figured out a tethering spell that will hold between worlds. That’s not important. But Beron is dead.”

“Where is his body?” Rhys asks.

“Eaten by monsters by now, I think.”

Rhys starts to respond, but Feyre nudges him with her shoulder.

“He tried to bring me to Koschei,” Elain says, crossing her arms. “I don’t care that he was a High Lord. I would have found a way to kill him if Lucien hadn’t.”

Rhys and Feyre exchange another look, but this time their incredulity is less intimidating.

“What is your plan?” Rhysand asks.

“We need to find them and keep Koschei from getting his hands on Eris and Vassa as quickly as possible. I don’t know if he’ll kill them or if he needs them for his own ends. Rhys, you can winnow us. Lucien should be able to help you track them and hone in on a location. And Feyre, your magic is a new thing entirely. Maybe you’ll distract Koschei. Or destroy him.”

At the light in her sister’s eyes, Elain is sure she’s said the right thing. She enjoys it for a second before she says, “Tamlin is waiting for us between worlds. He didn’t -- I mean, I didn’t, think you’d want to see him here.”

“You trust him?” her sister asks, and Elain wants to say we have no time for this conversation, but she cannot summon irritation in the face of the hurt and love in Feyre’s eyes.

She thinks about Tamlin’s anger, about the pain in his eyes. How it would’ve been so easy to fall into her old habits, to apologize and leave him with a little smile that would kindle desire in his eyes. Instead she’d stood firm, and now he waits for her, entirely at her mercy. There are a thousand things they still need to discuss and argue over, but the truth is clear to her, swift and sure as instinct.

“I trust him,” Elain tells Feyre, and then, “and I understand if you don’t. But it’s Koschei and we need all the help we can quickly assemble.”

Elain can’t read her sister’s expression, doesn’t know if this answer is enough or caused pain or has perhaps further convinced the Night Court of her monstrousness. But Feyre reaches out her hand to wind around Elain’s shoulder, turns to Rhysand.

“Take us to Lucien,” she says, calm and sure, the voice that Elain would be glad to follow even into the bloodiest battle.

“He’s at the Autumn Court,” Elain supplies, and Rhysand draws them into the dark.

Lucien finds his brothers first, their raised voices drawing him to the room where Beron receives formal guests. His mind still stutters on the past tense.

“Our father is dead,” he says as he walks inside the room, cutting through Ealars’ growl and Fionn’s shouting.

“How do you know?” Caelan asks, his voice too calm. He is bracing himself to hear that Lucien is the new High Lord, readying himself to attach.

His brothers all know the truth of his parentage, and still they all eye him now, not knowing if the mantle of the next High Lord has landed on their half-brother through some mystery only the Cauldron could explain.

These stares make it clear to Lucien that the power has descended on Eris. Any one of his brothers would have claimed the High Lordship in a heartbeat if they’d had confirmation that it was theirs.

Before he speaks, Lucien readies himself to throw a shield, reveal the hidden dimensions of his magic. And then he says:

“I know that Beron is dead because I killed him myself.”

Ealars lunges for him, and Lucien throws a bolt of fiery lightning close enough to singe his tunic.

When he opens his mouth to speak, Lucien is met by a wall of fire.

Beron tortured and tormented them all, but the treatment warped something inside these three brothers, making them hard and cruel and instilling a deep longing for his approval, even his love. In spite of everything, Lucien is grateful to have escaped it. Can only hope that Eris, at his core, has done the same.

The air is an inferno around him. Sighing, Lucien winnows to his mother’s chambers.

The High Lady of Autumn, crowned by her gilded hair and swathed in deep green velvet, is seated in front of her mirror, holding her gold and topaz necklace aside as she dabs a perfumed salve onto her collarbone, which is purpled and swollen from shoulder to shoulder. She does not look up at the sound of Lucien’s footsteps.

“Who hurt you?” Lucien asks, the words rough in his mouth, the tenderness he feels almost unbearable.

“It’s not important,” she says, concealing the bruise with a twist of her wrist, allowing the necklace to fall into place. Once again, Lucien wishes that her mother had the talent for healing.

He takes a breath to brace himself.

“He’s dead, Mother.”

In the mirror, her eyes go wide and for an instant, there is such hope in them that Lucien feels his heart fracture. Then she schools her features into the appropriate distress, her mouth into the shape of a gasp.

“I didn’t want to kill him. He threatened my friends. All the other High Lords.” As he speaks, he clasps one hand around the other so he does not reach for her, does not put her in a position to betray her feelings, because in spite of everything he knows and all his years of schemes and observations, he’s not sure how she’ll react to the news that he killed Beron. “He would have destroyed this world for more power, Mother.”

He thinks of Tamlin’s hand on his shoulder, a brace.

His mother turns away from the mirror, her eyes lit with tears. She extends her arms.

“Come here,” she says, and he’s not sure if her tone is bland from shock or from years of practice in his father’s court. Even still, not knowing, he ducks his head and embraces her.

For a few seconds, she only holds him close to her, one hand coming to cradle his head the way she has done since he was an infant. He is surrounded by her fragrance of amber and cinnamon, and for the first time, he is not afraid that Beron will appear to tear him out of his mother’s embrace, or punish her for showing such affection. Beron, who was never his father.

Finally, his mother whispers, “Which one of you is High Lord?”

“I think it’s Eris,” Lucien tells her, trying to keep the disappointment out of his tone. His mother was the one who taught him how to scheme, after all, who taught him how to keep the tender parts of himself hidden. So of course she would never say thank you or I’m sorry or any of the other phrases he would most like to hear.

“Have you seen him?” she asks, her arms going stiff around him. She rises from her chair. “I’m worried that Beron--”

“I’ve seen everyone but Eris. They all knew that something had happened, but none of them have felt the power descend on them.”

“And you haven’t, either?”

He feels one side of his mouth rise, the mocking half-smile forming of its own accord.

“As much as I would love to rip this court from its foundations, Mother, you can trust that I would tell you if I were High Lord.”

She simultaneously rolls her eyes and reaches for him, squeezing his hand in both of hers.

“You should go to your father,” she says, her voice so low he has to stoop toward her to hear her clearly. “He will keep you safe.”

“You should go to him. Come with me.”

“It wouldn’t be safe for me,” she says, and Lucien wonders, seeing her too-bright eyes, if she really believes that, or if she’s just gotten used to using that reason for staying in the Autumn Court. Living under Beron’s rule. He’s wondered, sometimes, if the tenderness he feels to his mother was born out of desperation to have at least one loveable being in his life. If, under her sweetness, she isn’t just as calculating as the rest of the Autumn Court. But Lucien never allows himself to indulge these thoughts for very long.

“I’ll escort you,” he says, holding out a hand to winnow her, when the door bursts open, and Feyre and Elain Archeron dart into the room.

His mother’s eyes widen at the intrusion, her hands up to make a shield. At best, to his mother, it’s bad manners, the High Lady of the Night Court bursting into these inner chambers with her sister. At worst, it’s an invasion.

“Elain had a vision,” Feyre bursts out, before his mother can strike, while Elain gasps for breath beside her. “Koschei had Vassa and Eris, and we think they’re in danger. Rhys is across the building, trying to find you.”

“Apologies, Lady,” Elain offers, into the awkward silence, her breath still ragged as she drops into a curtsey, her heavy skirts shimmering around her. “Our mission is urgent and our time is short. We need Lucien to help us track them.”

At the mention of his name, the latest crisis breaks like a wave over Lucien.

“What happened in your vision, Elain?”

She bites her lips, her mouth a seam.

“What happened?” he asks again, taking a step toward her, not sure if he should be threatening or comforting. If Koschei manages to reclaim Eris, the future of the Autumn Court will be decades of war and bloodshed. If he manages to capture Vassa once again, if he harms her, Lucien is certain now that he will cleave the world in two.

“I had a vision of Koschei over Eris and Vassa’s dead bodies,” she says, the anguish in her voice so thick that he looks to her hands, to make sure she’s fully present in the room. “But even if we can prevent her death, we have to keep Vassa safe and out of his hands. Koschei wants to make her his queen. Give her control of this world.”

“You’ve been having visions again,” he says, surprised at the anger in his voice. He’s seen Elain every day for the past week, and she never thought to mention.

“I thought that it would hurt you more to hear the possibility. You’ve been doing everything you can, Lucien.” She rubs her knuckles at her eyes, her cosmetics smearing down her cheeks. “I will tell you everything when we have them both. As long as you can track them, we can find them.”

“I can’t winnow to Koschei,” he says, even as it occurs to him that Rhys is in the building, and why. If he uses the tethering spell, he can direct Rhys to the place where Eris’s magic has made itself known, stronger now with the High Lord’s mantle on his shoulders. Perhaps he can even detect Vassa, if his magic can be guided by his will. The two of them together a beacon, a tether. In moments, Vassa could be in his arms.

When he meets Elain’s eyes, he realizes that she’d already guessed at the way forward, believed he could do this, and his anger at her evaporates.

“Elain Archeron,” he says, just as Rhysand darts in the room, aiming a bow at the Lady of the Autumn Court, “I have no idea how anybody ever thought you were ornamental.”

She beams at him, says only, “I have to get Tamlin,” and disappears, the ripping sound of her passage between worlds so soft it could be the tearing of parchment.

“There’s no trace of her,” his mother says, turning from Lucien to Rhysand to Feyre with wide eyes.

“She has a particular gift,” Lucien tells her, not offering any more information on Elain’s powers, or the fact that she has, as promised, taken him to a dozen different worlds, though their visits have concentrated on Koschei’s original realm, quick trips which they spend scanning the sky for monsters and trying to learn everything they can about the workings of the death-lord’s magic.

He can tell from the twitching of their lips that Feyre and Rhys have other questions, but before they can ask, Elain reappears, holding Tamlin with one hand and reaching out with the other, as if she’s ready to ward off an attack. Though Lucien imagines that Rhysand is the greatest threat in the room, Elain’s eyes are on her sister, wide and pleading. And though Feyre does not smile, she also does not look away.

“Tether us, Lucien,” Elain says, and as soon as they are all bound, she pulls them away from the Autumn Court and into another world.

Tamlin tries not to fidget while Lucien, Rhysand, and Elain debate the last details of their mission, their voices echoing in the passageway between worlds. His part is simple: hold a shield against Koschei as long as he can. For once, he does not want to argue, and while he lets the killing calm descend on him, he follows the ebb and tide of their strategy as if it is a game among children.

Not wanting to be caught staring at the tiles at their feet or carvings on the doors that surround them, Tamlin looks instead at his companions, which is how he ends up meeting Feyre’s gaze. For a moment, his gut goes cold. And then he feels her in his mind, the dark warmth of her.

You will make sure my sister is unharmed, she says, the authority in that voice at odds with the soft little smile on her face.

Elain can take care of herself, he shoots back, and then, because it’s the truth, but I swear on my life that I will keep her from harm.

Around them, the strategy is decided with hesitant nods, but before they leave these passageways, before she leaves his mind, he tells Feyre, I am so sorry for all the harm I caused you.

Her blue-gray eyes go wide and she gives him the tiniest nod before she turns to Rhysand. His mind is empty of her presence.

There is no time for Tamlin to consider all the implications of what has just occurred, only the fact that he notices the absence of Feyre with no pain or guilt, the lightness in his body. He feels as if he could launch himself into the air from pure relief.

“So I will hold the shield, then?” he says to the group, returning himself to the moment.

“And transform into the beast if Koschei gets through,” Elain says, grave as a general despite her glimmering gown. He wishes she were wearing armor, that she was safe behind a thousand wards in some secret part of Prythian. But he knows that Elain would never agree to this, not when Vassa’s safety was on the line, when her abilities could help.

He reaches out and squeezes her fingers in his, hoping the gesture conveys what there is no time to say.

Lucien works his spell and they all gather around Elain. First there is a tear as they enter Prythian, and then darkness as Rhysand winnows them at Lucien’s direction.

They appear in a forest and at first Tamlin does not think they’re in the right world. The air is hot and the light is nearly red.

Then he realizes the trees around them are aflame.

“Do you see them?” Lucien mutters, barely audible over the crackle of the fire.

“Can you sense them?” Feyre asks, water blossoming between her hands, expanding until it is a bubble around them. “There has to be an end to this fire.”

“This is Eris’ magic. I can try and winnow us to its end,” Lucien says, and the world goes dark and roaring.

For a second, Tamlin glimpses an enormous lake, a mansion at its edge, sees Elain go pale and wide-eyed, whispers frantically to Lucien, and then they are in the darkness again, once again at the edge of the flames.

“Koschei spotted us,” Lucien mutters, and then, as if summoned by the words alone, the sorcerer is before them, grinning. Far from the lake where he should be bound.

“Thank you for--” he begins, but before he can start another one of his mocking speeches, before they’re transfixed and then caught, Tamlin slams his shield in place, forcing Koschei against the flames as Rhysand’s depthless night strengthens the blockade against the death-lord.

“I brought him,” Elain says, anguish in her voice, and despite the urgency of the moment, still Tamlin reaches for her, circles his wrist with his fingers, runs his thumb against the dip at the base of her palm.

“You are saving your friend,” he says, low so only she can hear it. “Go find Vassa.”

He hears her footsteps behind him, following Lucien into the trees, and it occurs to Tamlin that if Koschei breaks the shield and kills him, it will be all right. He will die saving his mate, helping her save her friend. He thinks Elain has always seen the possibility of a better world, a more beautiful one, and maybe now he is giving that world to her.

At that thought, he delves deep into his power and lets it move through him, green and golden, a thousand thunderstorms and a million leaves unfurling. The power of something new and dangerous, all possibility.

There is a sigh like rain and Feyre’s shield of water moves around them, another barrier against Koschei and Eris’ fire.

“How long do you think we can hold out against him?” Rhys asks, and Tamlin isn’t sure whether his drawl is a good or bad sign. He himself cannot feel even a flicker of Koschei’s power beyond their shield. But this does not comfort him.

“Koschei chooses his attacks precisely,” Tamlin says, and he is thinking of Elain, what will happen to her if Koschei breaks through. “He will wait until he thinks we’re flagging.”

“They’ve found Eris and Vassa,” Feyre says. Her voice is a little dazed. “But Elain’s mind is flickering. As if she has disappeared.”

As if she is trying to go to another world, but cannot.

I was the conduit, Melis had said. Elain was the key.

The knowledge washes over him in a wave of words that blare in his mind, echoing and damning. Koschei had chosen his retaliation with care. The death-lord had anticipated the possibility of a rescue mission, knew he could be outnumbered, overpowered. So he turned the rescued themselves into weapons.

He is just about to roar out his realization, insist that they go to Elain, who’s stuck in this world or worse, when everything goes black and roaring around him.

When Elain sees Vassa, she runs toward her, hands extended. Her friend does not look behind her, only sprints through the trees, trailing Eris, but despite the danger and desperation, Elain grins as she runs. Her friend is here. In the space of a few hurried steps, her friend will be safe.

She does not think about the clutch of Koschei’s magic, the way it clung to her when they winnowed from the lake. Tamlin’s magic had blasted her free. All she needs is a few more moments to put the plan in place. She’s seen what Tamlin’s magic can do to the monsters of Koschei’s world. With Rhys and Feyre, he’ll be all right, so long as she focuses on the plan, takes the necessary steps to save Vassa.

Rhys and Lucien had finally agreed to let her pull Vassa into the passageway between worlds, into a world at peace, and then back to Prythian. It was likelier that they’d lose Koschei this way. At a minimum it would be harder for him to guess each point on their journey. She has tried not to think of the marketplace she visited with Tamlin, the taste of those pastries and the sound of his breathing in the room at the inn, or how it would be to experience that world with Vassa. She does not want to give Koschei the opportunity to see the destination in her mind, this place where they’ll be safe.

She can hear Lucien behind her, the way he says Vassa’s name with such hope and desperation, and speeds her pace, willing herself to close the gap.

Then Vassa is only a few steps ahead of her, and Elain is close enough to call her name.

The Queen of Scythia stops and turns, and Vassa’s blue eyes are bright as sapphires. Behind her, the sound of Eris’ steps goes silent.

“He said nobody would come for me,” she says, looking first at Elain and then over her shoulder, at Lucien. Her voice is small and hesitant and lonely, the voice of a lost child, and hearing it makes something crack in Elain’s chest.

“I spent every minute trying to rescue you,” Lucien says, closing the gap between them, taking her hand gently in his. “I am sorry that it took us this long.”

There is something wrong, Elain thinks, with the tears on Vassa’s face. They do not look quite joyful. It is an expression she’d seen on the faces of women in ballrooms when a man they did not love made a proposal: a pain held back as much as their strength would allow.

Before she can say anything, Eris strides toward them.

“No pretty declaration for me, brother?” he drawls.

Power rises from him like heat from a forge, great waves of magic that clearly mark his presence.

As much as she would like to explain everything to Vassa, ask Eris a hundred questions, Eris’ power alone makes them easy targets for Koschei.

“We need to get them out of here,” she says to Lucien. He does not look away from Vassa, but he nods.

“Where are you taking us?” Eris asks, finally in arm’s reach, close enough for Elain to pull him into another world. She will hold them and Lucien will use the tether and in seconds they will all be safe.

“It’s safer if you don’t know,” Elain says, all confidence.

Except that when she touches Vassa, the queen begins to scream. And though Eris is silent, the set of his jaw betrays the fact that he’s in pain that can hardly be borne.

“Are you sure this will work?” she asks Lucien, but he nods, completes the tether, and so Elain reaches out with her power and concentrates on the passageway, the place between worlds.

The trees around them do not become the carved doors.

Vassa’s screams grow louder.

Behind them, there’s the sound of fire in the trees.

Elain tries again. She thinks about the marketplace, the pastry and all the spices she cannot name, the sound of the lilting unknown language, the desert sand sticking to her skin.

They do not move from this world.

She tries again, frantic now, trying to calm her mind, drown out Vassa’s screams, tries not to think about the fact that they sound so similar to the way she sounded when Koschei held her, took her captive once again. She will save her friend. She will keep the Autumn Court from falling into civil war. She will take them out of this world. She will take them into a world at peace. And Vassa will stop screaming, and maybe there will be time for pastries before they return to Prythian, to the rest of their long and boring and pleasant lives.

There is a voice in her mind.

We’re coming, Feyre says, and Elain cannot make herself understand what it means, that her sister is abandoning the shield against Koschei. She cannot believe that they will not succeed. She had always imagined that, with all she’s learned, she would be able to save Vassa.

But Vassa’s screams have turned into thick sobs, and the human queen pulls against Elain’s grip, away from Lucien’s arm. As if she cannot bear their touch.

Something is badly wrong.

There’s the sound of roaring and Rhys, Feyre, and Tamlin appear in the clearing.

“Take them out of here,” Lucien says, handing Vassa and Eris to Rhys. Their faces visibly relax, and then Rhys reaches for the rest of them, and they disappear into the darkness.

Since Vassa started running into the trees, the world around her has been a dreamlike blur of pain and fear and fury. Her feet began to hurt so quickly, her lungs burning with exertion and ashes, and Vassa knows, even as she follows behind Eris, that she is going to die today.

This thought should make her fall to the ground, wailing. But Vassa was born to rule over Scythia, and the mere thought that she will not have a chance to return to the people she loves absolutely infuriates her, fills her lungs with a rage so potent that it seems to give her wings.

It’s the thought that she will die without seeing Lucien that makes Vassa want to crumple to her knees, and so she forces him out of her mind, trains her eyes on his brother and her mind on fury.

Eventually, Eris runs out of fire, but he barely slows his pace. He does not speak to her, and Vassa wonders if he’s regretting bringing her along.

It’s at this point that the harness of Koschei’s spell begins to pull at her shoulders.

“He knows we’ve run,” Vassa calls out, her hands scrabbling to the places where the spell pulls, even though she knows it isn’t any use.

“He knew from the moment we started running,” Eris says, reaching out his arm and hauling her forward, his strength incredible. She always forgets what faeries are capable of, always assumes she’s just as strong as they are. “You need to stop talking.”

They run in silence for a time that feels long but is probably too short. Eventually even Eris’ strength gives way, his hand falling out of her grip. Her lungs crumple like paper inside her, her feet and shoulders screaming with the effort required to keep running.

There are footsteps behind them. Vassa tries to surge forward.

Then she hears the voices calling her name.

She knows those voices.

Lucien.

Elain.

But Eris keeps running, and doesn’t Koschei have the power to read minds? She does not want to turn around, to look, but her body is tired and rage has turned into a dangerous hope.

Vassa stops her feet. She turns around.

In the clearing behind her is Lucien, golden as a perfect sunset, his face radiant when he sees her.

I never stopped trying to rescue you, he tells her. The words engrave themselves on her mind.

And then he touches her, and the world erupts into flame, burning Vassa’s skin, her throat, scalding her from inside. Still she can feel the pressure of those long fingers on her wrist, the way you hold a person you cannot bear to lose. Exactly the way she will hold him when the fire passes.

So Vassa does not cry out, tries to hold onto her smile, the joy of her rescue, until Elain places her hands on Vassa, and the pain becomes unbearable, worse than any of Koschei’s torment. She feels like she is being split into pieces, and yet Elain’s eyes are so gentle, so concerned, and Vassa reminds herself that in spite of her glittering raiment, this is the girl who spent her days in the gardens of the Spring Court so that no flower would suffer the injustice of an insufficient bloom. She reminds herself that Elain would never harm her. That Lucien would never let her experience pain unless it was absolutely necessary.

Vassa can stop herself from running from them, but she cannot stop her throat from screaming, not when the pain escalates in jagged throbs that split her body like parchment torn roughly from its bindings. On her shoulders, around her heart, Koschei’s spell cleaves her like a sword, bone and sinew coming undone.

She does not know how much longer she can bear this pain.

But then there are other hands on her, a High Fae lord who smells of jasmine but whose name Vassa can no longer summon, and as the world goes black, all Vassa can think is that wherever she is going, at least the pain itself has been scared away.

When she arrives in the Spring Court, she hears the urgent whispers, the politicking and strategizing, but Vassa only looks at the marble under her feet, smells the fragrance on the air. Elain used to talk about the way that a gardener must consider the scent of the garden, in order to give visitors the most pleasant experience. She thinks that if these are her last moments, before Koschei captures her, or she has to run for her life, or that tormenting pain returns, at least there was a moment of beauty. This cool, smooth marble whose texture is so evident even in the dim candlelight, the scent of a garden at night, the flowers distilled by dew.

Lucien steps away from the group. His fingertips are on her shoulder, his arm across her back. Each touch is at once a band of fire and intoxicating, so that Vassa can hardly help herself from pressing her body against his, letting the fire consume her utterly.

Instead she follows where he leads her, up the stairs from the great hall, through the hallways, into the room she occupied when she resided at the Spring Court. She does not move from the circle of his arm, not even when tears fall down her cheeks from the onslaught of pain. Instead, she fits her fingers around the doorknob and lets him lead her inside.

The bed where they slept together is neatly made again, and if Vassa breathes deeply she can almost convince herself that she can detect his scent, the sandalwood and lemon and his sunwarmed skin. In this room, the only ghosts are pleasant ones, all those stolen nighttime hours together.

Lucien leads her slowly to the bed, pulls back the quilts. She falls onto the mattress, her body overwhelmed by its softness and the relief of his no longer touching her.

He dips down as if to kiss her and Vassa braces herself even as she angles her chin towards him to give him better access to her lips.

“It hurts you when we touch, doesn’t it?” His murmur is softer than a whisper.

“Not just you,” Vassa says, unable to say a simple yes. She wishes badly that she had enough strength in her to lie. “When Elain touched me, I felt as if I were being pulled to pieces.”

“I wish you would have told me,” he says, and she thinks that all her life, whether it is hours or decades that remain to her, she will never forget the fact that in this moment he did not blame her, did not complain about her silence, that he even made his eyes gentle so that Vassa would remember that she was finally safe. “I think that Koschei made changes to your binding spell. But I’ve learned about his magic. I swear to you that you will not have to live with this pain.”

Her shoulders ache, but Vassa lifts herself from the bed anyway. She cannot bear Lucien looming over her prone form, as if she is already a corpse.

“I believe you,” she says, and reaches her hand toward him. “Now please kiss me, before we have to speak of all the things that are wrong with this world and--”

His lips on hers, soft and full, her fingers tangling in the length of his hair, make Vassa forget about the pain that rumbles through her. All she can think is finally and Lucien and home.

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soveryanon · 4 years

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Reviewing time for MAG165! X_X

- I really wasn’t expecting to hear the calliope music again one day! That took me back to the end of season 3 – it felt like another (successful) Unknowing, a glimpse of what would have happened if the Circus had pulled through in MAG118/MAG119?

Also, confirmation that Tim definitely got his revenge and blew up the Circus to pieces, including Grimaldi/Nikola:

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: [LOW] I’m hoping if we’re quick, we can avoid her notice. MARTIN: “Her”? [SILENCE] J–Jon, please, don’t tell me there’s an evil clown doll down there– ARCHIVIST: No– MARTIN: –because… ARCHIVIST: N–no, Nikola died with The Unknowing; it’s, uh… [INHALE] An old friend.

At least, Tim got that T__T

- The pattern of beginning the statement with “There is…” already got broken with this one:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: … Wha…? [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] … “There is a place, deep in the heart of Fear, where you trap yourself and claim that it is safety. [STATIC DECREASES] It was once a cabin, and professes still to be such, but as with all in this new world that promises respite… it is a trap.”

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: … Alright, then. [INHALE] [SIGH] [STATIC RISES] “There is a wound in the earth. [STATIC DECREASES] A bayonet gouge, scored through the soft and sodden mud for uncounted miles. A trench that marks the front line of a war that has no name. It has always been raging, deep in the hearts of the powerful and those that thirst to see bodies piled high in their name.”

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “There is a sickness in this village. Perhaps you would not see it from a distance and the faint sting of rot on the breeze is easy enough to dismiss; but as you get closer, that infectious feeling of wrongness is harder and harder to shake. The grass is not the green of nature, the buildings are warped by more than age, and the voices that come from behind the inhabitants’ masks… are hoarse, and wet. They move with exaggerated casualness, a parody of idyllic village life.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: [INHALE] … Right. [STATIC RISES] “Your face is not your face is not your face [STATIC DECREASES AND FADES] around the curling carousel, it twists in place to take from you and all the tattered stolen souls whose sense of ‘me’ is swollen and distended into nothing.

Could be because The Stranger (/the Circus/identity thieves/I-Do-Not-Know-You) is Like That and can’t conform to little boxes, or could be because there isn’t really a “pattern” to begin with, we’ll see with the next nightmare pockets.

Consistency-wise: the use of “you” (as a way to include/pull the listeners in?) went through the roof, but was understandable – “you” is “something/someone who isn’t me, in front of me”, and doesn’t need to be as personified as third person. Jon once again used “End recording” at the end of the ~statement~, which is… a reminder that 1°) these aren’t really statements as we knew them (Jon has never labelled them as such; actually, the only times characters have mentioned “statement(s)” this season were dead people mentioning them in the tapes Jon was listening to in the first two episodes); 2°) there is still that recording/pouring-into-the-tapes thing going on, that Jon is aware of, even if the tapes weren’t relevant in this episode for themselves. Unclear whether Jon had any influence on the tape recorder clicking on both times in the episode, or whether it autonomously reacted to stuff (Jon&Martin approaching the Merry-Go-Round, Jon&Martin walking along the edge of it while the Not!Them was coming close… or just because Jon&Martin were chatting about personal things?).

Still *squint* at what the heck is happening thanks to/through the tape recorders at the moment – it still reminds me of Albrecht von Closen pouring out his stories to Jonathan Fanshawe, there is still the possibility that Jon is feeding the tapes themselves to create something even worse, and mmmmm… (New kinds of Leitner books?)

- I’ve already forgotten almost everything I used to know about English poetry, but lots of iambic constructions (up and down) combined with lots of ternary syntactic structures (round, circularity)? My references are mostly French, but the work on sounds really reminded me of Antonin Artaud’s – though way faster, fittingly, since it was also a relentless chase in which selves kept getting stolen and lost (and so was my attention). Beautiful piece, but ooft did it keep losing me before I was picked back up and forced to run with the words again.

Lots of themes that we had seen with the Circus in previous manifestations:

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you. […] Tim… TIM: … Grimaldi. NIKOLA: Once, a long time ago, before Orsinov made me. And sometimes, even now, on special occasions. Like your brother!

(MAG128, Breekon) “When we left our destination, the mule whining at the new weight behind it, he would reach behind us and find a face, sagging, sloughing off its skull, and would pull it to him. He’d place it over the one he wore already, and he would laugh, and laugh, and laugh. Sometimes it fell off. Sometimes it stayed for weeks. I kept the face we chose, but I loved him for our levity, and the corpses piled ever higher. […] But with the Circus we were amongst our own kind at last. They all had names, true enough, but none would dare pretend that names were real. Faces changed more often than clothes, and nobody truly knew who anybody was, save for their function within the show. […] We didn’t like the puppet, when Orsinov began to carve it. It seemed wrong to us to try and bring one like us about; to create or remake it in such a solid, static shape. We were wrong, of course. When Orsinov carved into the thing that had once called itself Grimaldi, and fed the pieces they didn’t need to the shuddering organist, even we found ourselves impressed. And when the faceless puppet peeled its creator and moved itself with their tendon strings, he looked at me… and laughed… and laughed…”

Identity loss, the loss of self, permutability. But it’s interesting that it fit so well to the other Circus members we had encountered and… still was incredibly Hunt-y, with the premise of an ongoing chase where the victims become the new mob of predators (who may become victims once again if they are successful, etc.), taking place in a circular space, where things can never truly end. Really reminiscent of the concept of The Everchase, I feel? Fears bleeding into each other, etc.

(There could be something about a “(word) chain” of Fears, since MAG163 was mostly Slaughter/War and had bits of Corruption with the medical malpractices, then MAG164 was Corruption with what was identified as “strangers” being targeted more heavily, then MAG165 being Stranger with very a Hunt logic, which would lead to MAG166 going for Hunt… But I’m not really feeling it.)

- It wasn’t clear in MAG164, but this one also made explicit that people in the nightmares can’t really die-die – either they seem to respawn (or get stuck in a nightmare inside of a nightmare inside of a nightmare etc.?), either they just… can’t:

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: “There is a rumbling in the earth around him, as a tank speeds along its unstoppable path, and Charlie is immediately pulled under its tread. He has a moment of shocked horror, before being reduced to a smear in the mud. […] Next to his bleeding corpse, Charlie wakes from what passes for sleep in this place. A sergeant is yelling at him, screaming for him to take his gun and get into the waiting transport.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “And so they fall to frantic terror and conflict, just as vicious as it was when it was bearing down on you. You lie there in the fugue of vivid pain and feel that gentle rain from violence overhead, as some fall dead or close as this place lets you lie, for truly thus to die would be too eager an escape; and listen to the ebb and swell of slow, melodic wail that well you know conducts the flowing rhythm laced into this endless, faceless dance.”

Does The End feel cheated, or is the fear of dying (or the fear of not being allowed to die) enough to feed it? Will we meet a pocket mostly dominated by a facet of The End…?

- I wonder if we’ll meet people not yet taken by a “place” since we got a couple mentions of an outside/inside and people still coming in…

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “And people do still come to the village, for however thick the paranoia, however terrible the disease, there are worse things beyond.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “But no, for all the dreams of bounding, leaping off into the great Unknown, you see the ring of broken mewling wretches who have shown the sting that comes with such rejection of the truth, so seldom spoken yet inside you all, that there is no – way – off the merry-go-round. […] It’s not the same as what you had when first you climbed the brightly painted stairs, but not the worst “who” you have been.”

Are the places making people feel like they could leave/that there are newcomers, when they’ve actually been stuck here forever? Or are there people who are still “free” until they’re taken by one of the places? (I mean, outside of main characters: we already know that Daisy is tearing through these places, and that Basira is following her (though that… sounds like a Hunt nightmare in itself), and Jon was unable to tell where Melanie&Georgie were – so unless they’ve been taken by a Dark nightmare, they’re probably outside of the boxes somehow.)

- I’m still trying to narrow down what is making me feel uneasy this season so far, and it’s sadly not something that will be warned for in the content warnings: it’s… about the whole ideology regarding free-will, agency, guilt and responsibility.

So far, all the “nightmares” we have encountered made it clear that it was, yes, people prisoners of a nightmare tailored to make them suffer, but also in which… most of the violence was committed by people against people:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “Something moves outside, struggling to crawl upon a hundred reaching grasping hands. It shudders, and grips the earth, pulling itself along as nails rip free and skin scrapes loose. It is afraid of what it has become, and where it might be going. […] Outside, it is raining. Heavy drops fall, ice-cold and laced with salt; tears of voyeuristic delight from The Eyes that see and drink in all – it sinks into the dry cracked ground, and from the mud faces struggle to push themselves free and breathe. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] They cannot breach the surface, as the slick soil flows down their throats.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: “Ishaan had been afraid, terrified that they were going to strap him to it, pin him to the Goliath’s hull like all the other flayed flags of war, striking fear into the hearts of the enemy. But instead they fed him to it, tossed him into its burning innards and sealed the hatch behind him. Now, his body has contorted itself to fit, his fingers clutched around the firing lever; pulling it frantically is the only thing that will reduce the impossible heat even for a moment. From the tiny slit in the metal, he can see other soldiers: baby-faced friends and the monstrous, pig-faced enemy, both falling beneath his iron coffin’s advance. He tries to cry, but his tears turn to steam. […] Hasanna’s eyes fall on the entrance to the tent, and she sees the line of civilians, stretching away into the distance. They are no less maimed, their agonies no more bearable; but there is simply no room. She tries to apologise – but instead, she closes the tent. […] Far in the distance, she sees Alexei look out over the battlefield, and her stomach turns at the detestable wrongness of his face. Alexei in turn looks out from deep in the trench. He catches sight of the enemy, their shrivelled rat-like heads causing the bile to rise in his throat.”

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: “It is, alas, those who are unblemished that suffer worst. So incomprehensible is it that any from outside could be clean, that there might be another source or vector, the inspectors devise another theory: an invisible infection. A hundred Typhoid Marys spreading mildew and decay. […] For no one would speak up if Gillian Smith were to mark you infected, or declare you foreign. No one would lift a finger as they dragged you to the green. […] What Mrs Kim is… is scared. Scared of her neighbours, scared of her friends, scared of the moment when someone will smell the spreading patch of darkness on her back and decide she is infected, or remember she has only been in the village since her grandfather’s day, and judge her to be an outsider. Should she accuse someone else? Send them to the village green? Perhaps she might petition to join the council, though that would invite their attention as much as anything might. Even through the masks, Mrs Kim knows the looks she gets in the pub; but what can she do? When she hears the shouts outside and sees the smoke pouring from the thatched roof, she knows it is too late.”

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: “The world in which the carousel will twirl is not the hollow hell you fear; it is the world. Just the world. A world where if you’d wish to have a name, it must be stolen, carved and pulled full-bloody from the frame of others who would wish in vain to hold their selfness close. You want a face? Take it. There are so many here; and those who cannot hold them, well, whoever chose to give them such a gift must take the blame, knowing they could never keep it in a world of so much thieving strangeness. […] You feel the last of names and “who” you might have been be torn away and borne towards new bodies. New pages, blank; determined to be people. […] then comes the briefest flash that surely now it’s done, so much, perhaps… the pain will be somewhat lessened. There’s no way it could hurt as much as you remember. But it does. And so of course, you scream, and scream; and curses, foul, obscene will tumble garbled over where there once sat other people’s lips or yours now gone, and teeth that once shone yellowed ivory a crimson in the flowing sanguine flood. And as you lie in agonies and fading dreams of personhood, of knowing who you were and what that might have meant, you hear the bitter whisper of recriminating seekers, who have found the treasure of their eager dreams, but see, it seems there’s not enough… for all. And so they fall to frantic terror and conflict, just as vicious as it was when it was bearing down on you. […] You are, of course, a faceless thing as well, and so should quickly match the pace of those who chase the self-same prey. But now, it is too late, they’ve gone. Their chase will not abate until their former friend is ripped apart in turn. And you have learned to wait. For there are many faces out upon the carousel, and many names that you might be. So bide your time a while and wait the coming of another one whose fate and face might sit upon your grinning carmine skull.

And I feel like there has been a shift compared to statements in previous seasons: it used to be monsters or eldritch things going after people, but we also got people trapped in these oppressive systems, who could have chosen their survival over others’… and still said “no”. Is that even possible in the nightmares? Are we assuming that people are constantly remade in order to keep the circles of violence going (in order to serve them) and that it’s going past a mere influence, that it’s erasing any responsibility in their actions? Or is it still an individual choice and are we heading towards the idea that anyone (or 99.99% of people) would choose to inflict direct violence against others if it means lessening their own pain? (I’m honestly super uncomfy about the latter idea, because it feels bleak and edgy to me, because it’s hard to forget that in this reasoning, marginalised people would always have it worse, and because it narratively feels like “cheating” to have Jon&Martin on the frontline, who are super fluffy and obviously wouldn’t push the other under a bus for their survival… while other people would just be eh, people. ;;) In summary: can people currently be held accountable for their actions, in the same way Daisy took responsibility for her Hunt-influenced actions, or are they deprived of any choice?

Interesting, though, is that in these nightmares, we… have never seen families or groups of friends, so far (Charlie had one, who seemed to exist just to get killed? The fungus village had neighbours who didn’t seem to know much about each other?). It feels like in rewriting reality, the Fears have also isolated people, fractured their previous social links to impose new “societies” with their own rules and mechanisms? Jon, at least, still labels them as “victims” even when aware of what is happening:

(MAG165) MARTIN: Because, uh… [LOWER] I really don’t like the look of those riders. ARCHIVIST: Would you believe me if I said they were the victims? MARTIN: … At this point, I’m not even surprised.

But I’m kind of wary and expecting an argument to be made about how Human Nature Is Fundamentally Selfish or something like this, precisely when The Web is lurking around and had such a knack for the theme of free will… ;;

- What does Jon know that he’s not sharing with Martin? He confirmed that they needed to “experience” these places to reach the Panopticon:

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: Martin… It’s going to be a hard journey. MARTIN: [RELIEVED EXHALE] ARCHIVIST: One– MARTIN: Yeah, yeah, yeah– ARCHIVIST: –in which we… MARTIN: –so, I’ve actually had a couple of bags packed for a while, now! [HEAVY ITEM DROPPED] ARCHIVIST: Oh! MARTIN: And, I found some rope in the attic, and I packed that with the maps.

(MAG163) ARCHIVIST: And if you walk towards it, eventually you’ll get there. But you have to go through everything in-between. […] Nightmares. [BANG IN THE DISTANCE] Come on – that trench is our first. […] MARTIN: Jon… I’m scared. ARCHIVIST: … Yes… That’s the idea…!

(MAG164) ARCHIVIST: We’re fine. MARTIN: A–are we? I mean, that place is– … I don’t, I don’t feel fine, okay, and you were there a long time doing your… y–you–your guidebook, which, you know, I get it, but that place is… I–it’s–it’s infectious, and, I don’t– ARCHIVIST: We’re not infected, Martin, that place, it– … It isn’t for us.

(MAG165) MARTIN: But. You said we needed to go through these places. … Is that even going to work here? ARCHIVIST: Uh… [EXHALE] We need to go through them… metaphorically. MARTIN: Mm… ! ARCHIVIST: Psychologically, we need to… “experience” them. MARTIN: Hm! [SILENCE] D’you think we could get that experience just… walking along the edge?

And his explanation of what they need to do is getting a bit more precise every time.

* It’s not only about Jon experiencing the places, it’s about them experiencing the places. Makes sense since they’re on a journey to the Panopticon, but still interesting: Jon gets overwhelmed by the places to the point of needing to do his “guidebook”; Martin doesn’t, past his discomfort/casual fears, but it’s working anyway. What is happening with Jon…?

* Fear.jpg because “experiencing” them had been mentioned by Elias/Jonah as a way to prepare Jon towards his goals:

(MAG092) ELIAS: [SIGH] What are you? ARCHIVIST: I… The Archivist. ELIAS: Precisely. It is your job to chronicle these things, to experience them, whether first-hand or through the eyes of others. To simply be told, well… ARCHIVIST: It doesn’t please your master? ELIAS: Our master, Jon.

(MAG160, Jonah Magnus) “Because the thing about the Archivist is that… well: it’s a bit of a misnomer. It might, perhaps, be better named “the Archive”. Because you do not administer and preserve the records of fear, Jon – you are a record of fear. Both in mind, as you walk the shuddering dread of each statement; and in body, as the Powers each leave their mark upon you. You are a living chronicle of terror.”

So what is happening exactly…? Is it because Jon simply needs to “experience” the various layers of the new world before reaching the centre of the storm? Are these steps actually “undoing” — or furthering — something…?

- Also confirmation that Martin&Jon seem immune to what is happening, as long as they don’t push their luck:

(MAG161) MARTIN: … Are we still safe? ARCHIVIST: Y–yes, it… it doesn’t want to harm me. MARTIN: And me? ARCHIVIST: I won’t let it.

(MAG163) MARTIN: Good. Good. [SILENCE PUNCTUATED BY PANTING] … J–J–Jon, Jon, w–we’re not alone. ARCHIVIST: I–ignore them, they’re not… Just ignore them. MARTIN: … They’re not… real? [VOICES SHOUTING IN THE DISTANCE] ARCHIVIST: [MIRTHLESS CHUCKLING] No…! They’re real; they were… normal people before the– … Before me. But now they’re here, meat for the grinder. I just mean there’s no point… talking to them. MARTIN: Don’t be a prick, Jon. Hey! I’m, I’m sorry about him. He’s–he’s going through a lot – well… we all are, I suppose, but well… “Hi”, I guess. [SILENCE] Hello? ARCHIVIST: They won’t hear you, Martin, they’re all… too busy waiting to die.

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. […] MARTIN: You, you sure? [CHUCKLING] I could speak to an attendant! ARCHIVIST: [CAUTIOUS] I would advise against doing that. […] MARTIN: Jon, do we– do we need to run? NOT!SASHA: Oh, yes, Martin, you very much do. I’ll even give you a head start! ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] MARTIN: … Jon? ARCHIVIST: You’re bold! [FOOTSTEPS] I’ll give you that. NOT!SASHA: [HISSING] Last chance…! ARCHIVIST: Desperate for one last morsel of terror from us? NOT!SASHA: [HISSES] ARCHIVIST: [CHUCKLE] A final sip, and then we’re gone! Somehow we manage to keep just ahead of you and get away. NOT!SASHA: [SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: God forbid you actually catch us. NOT!SASHA: [FURIOUS SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: Doesn’t bear thinking about…! MARTIN: Jon, what are you talking about? NOT!SASHA: [FURIOUS SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: She can’t touch us. We’re so far beyond her now. NOT!SASHA: [FURIOUS SNARLS] ARCHIVIST: She’s just like everything else here, ruled by The Eye. [CHUCKLING] And she hates it…!

Is it only because Jon is the Archivist, is it thanks to their connection to the Institute/the Eye (… after all, Basira apparently wasn’t taken)? What would happen to Martin if he were to be separated from Jon?

Also curious that both the Not!Them and The Distortion are what I would label “monsters” (as Martin&Simon did in MAG151), and yet the Not!Them was shown trapped… and Helen is roaming free. Did The Distortion lie about its own contentment in the new world? Did it get a better seat thanks to its connection to the Institute, since its Door had often appeared in the tunnels? (Helen had told Jon that this is how she knew a bit more about the tunnels, back in season 4.)

- Martin’s poetry is back as a theme! (Not included: Tim recording over one of Martin’s poems in MAG079.)

(MAG042) ARCHIVIST: I’m glad [Martin]’s moved out of the Archives, as it gives me a chance to work here without his constant presence. Also because he managed to leave some of his possessions behind. For the most part it’s just a few books of… relatively awful poetry… There are a few pieces I feel could almost have been affecting if his style wasn’t so obviously enamoured with Keats […].

(MAG124) MARTIN: Uh, yeah. Yeah, no, I’m… I’m alright, uh… Everything’s… fine. ARCHIVIST: … Right. Hum. … H–how’s… How–how’s the poetry? MARTIN: Oh, uh– Well, I haven’t… exactly had a lot of time recently, so… ARCHIVIST: Yes, uh… Of course… MARTIN: Hm. ARCHIVIST: You’ve been busy. MARTIN: Yeah. ARCHIVIST: …

(MAG165) MARTIN: So was it any good? ARCHIVIST: U–uh… What do you mean? MARTIN: Was it a good poem? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know! “No”? You’re the poetry expert, Martin, not me…! MARTIN: Well, did it stir any feeling in you? ARCHIVIST: Yes! “Nausea”. Because of the horrible things in it! MARTIN: That’s not quite what I meant. ARCHIVIST: Then I don’t know what you mean, Martin, I’m not a poetry person, I don’t… “get it”. I never have. MARTIN: That’s… That’s fine, I understand…! ARCHIVIST: Look. I’m better than I was; I used to think all poetry was bad. MARTIN: Sorry, what?! ARCHIVIST: I mean, I just thought of… [SIGH] I sort of thought it was pointless! Just… write some prose and stop… wasting everyone’s time! MARTIN: Hm! What changed? ARCHIVIST: I don’t know, I just… mellowed on it, I suppose. MARTIN: That’s… kind of weird. ARCHIVIST: In my defence, there is a lot of bad poetry out there.

* With this new information: it’s actually BIG from Jon that he had qualified Martin’s poetry as “almost affecting” given his personal feelings about poetry in general.

* Obviously, I want to tease Jon mercilessly about the idea that he began to mellow down on poetry since someone he was developing a crush on liked it so much… But also, just simply, people’s tastes change.

* … Okay, so if Jon managed to survive uni without getting poetry at all, either he did really well besides that, either it rules out that his degree might have been in literature. (History could fit him well?)

* … I find it interesting how Martin somehow managed to… not say anything about himself in this episode? We learned a few things about Jon – that he had fond memories of the London Zoo carousel, that he was in a bad mental space at a point before the Institute (break-up with Georgie? Being thrown in a new city for his academic studies, leaving Bournemouth? “Regular” student stress?), that he doesn’t get poetry but that his opinion has changed on it a bit.

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. MARTIN: Fine – by – me, eh! Never really liked merry-go-rounds anyway. ARCHIVIST: No? You… gone on any recently? MARTIN: What? Uh– No, I don’t think so, not since I was a kid. ARCHIVIST: Hm! I actually, uh… There’s one at London Zoo – uh, was one at London Zoo. Big old thing. Went quite fast, actually, su–… [CHUCKLE] Surprisingly thrilling. MARTIN: [BURSTS OUT LAUGHING] ARCHIVIST: What? MARTIN: Seriously? ARCHIVIST: It was years back, before the Institute, I… I was in a weird place. Had a good time, though! MARTIN: [CHUCKLES] Well! ARCHIVIST: I mean, obviously I wouldn’t want to ride this one, we’ve got… quite enough thrills already. MARTIN: You, you sure? [CHUCKLING] I could speak to an attendant! ARCHIVIST: [CAUTIOUS] I would advise against doing that. [SILENCE]

But Martin? Asked questions for Jon to answer, but managed to avoid having to tell anything about his own past. It’s not really surprising, it’s kinda fitting – Martin has probably got into the habit of not telling much about himself because of his fake credentials and his fake age? But still, I wonder if he will talk about himself at some point… (I still feel like we’re missing his own perspective on his mother or Tim, for example, since these subjects were mostly mentioned by other people and Martin only even mentioned his mother’s death when he poured his heart out at Peter&Elias in MAG158).

- I randomly really really love Martin’s nasal “Fine by me”:

(MAG102) ARCHIVIST: What about Daisy? MARTIN: Don’t see her much. Which is fine by me. [UNCOMFORTABLE SILENCE]

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Either way, best not to actually climb onto the thing, if we could help it. MARTIN: Fine – by – me, eh! Never really liked merry-go-rounds anyway.

Martin…

- … So, hearing Not!Sasha like this confirms that she didn’t “take” Julia or Trevor! (I guess that one of them could have died from her attack or Daisy’s, but… at the very least, the Not!Them didn’t take on a new identity through them.)

- There are various ways of interpreting what the Not!Them said about Martin:

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: And what if I let you choose this time, which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks very comfortable, positively roomy; oh, wouldn’t you agree, Archivist~?

… and my favourites are either that Martin indeed big, either she was making a tease about them (aND THEY’VE BEEN ROOMMATES).

- Jon Has Upgraded – the Not!Them used to call him “Jon” as a taunt, and now…

(MAG078) NOT!SASHA (HEAVILY DISTORTED, DISTANT): Jooooonnnn… ARCHIVIST: Er… I… [SOUND OF A CREAKY DOOR OPENING] MICHAEL: You – need – a door.

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): Jooooonnnn… ARCHIVIST: Oh Christ. […] NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): Jooooon… Jooooon… Come out, come out, wherever you are. ARCHIVIST: [SCARED BREATHING] NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): It’s okay Jon; it’s Sasha. Reliable old Sasha. Nothing to be afraid of. … You seem stressed, Jon. You’ve been under a lot of pressure. You should talk about it. Have a real good chat. You like talking, don’t you, Jon? … I’m going to wear you, Jon. […] I’m glad we got a chance to run, Jon. It makes it so much more satisfying.

(MAG158) NOT!SASHA: [MUFFLED, HEAVILY DISTORTED] Jooo–ooon~! [SOUND OF STONE AND BRICK SHIFTING, LOUDER, THEN GRADUALLY STOPPING] NOT!SASHA: [HEAVILY DISTORTED] [PANTS] So you finally decided to let me out, Jon! Joooo–oooon~! … Who’s there? MARTIN: [PANICKED BREATHING] NOT!SASHA: Who let me out? [SILENCE] Don’t be shy. I just want to say thank you. [SILENCE] All right, have it your way. Now, if you’ll excuse me: I have some unfinished business. [MENACING SATISFIED LAUGHTER] […] [CRASHING SOUND] NOT!SASHA: Hello, Jon. DAISY: Oh, shit! ARCHIVIST: You gotta be fucking kidding m–

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Eh! My dearest colleagues…! MARTIN: Just get back! [THUMP] NOT!SASHA: I can’t believe you’d decide to pass through my neighbourhood and not say hello, to – dear – old – Sasha. ARCHIVIST: Just ignore it, Martin. NOT!SASHA: Oh, you wound me, Archivist. And we used to be so close! […] And what if I let you choose this time, which one of you would I wear next? Martin looks very comfortable, positively roomy; oh, wouldn’t you agree, Archivist~?

… it’s “Archivist”. He’s really had a special status/power-up, uh?

- So, The Distortion is having a blast in the new world (MAG164), or so it says… but it’s not fundamentally the case for all monsters/avatars out there. It makes sense for The Stranger since it had been presented as opposed to The Eye:

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA: So the monster got its friends to carry the table all around, and it still got to take faces and scare people. Then one day it was sent to the house of its enemy, which had the biggest eyes you ever did see. The monster was sent there to steal all its secrets, but it was sad because it couldn't scare anyone any more.

(MAG092) ELIAS: The Stranger is antithetical to us. ARCHIVIST: [SIGH HEAVILY] ELIAS: We thrive on ceaseless watching, on knowing too much. What we face is the hidden, the uncanny, and the unknown. If you are to stop them, you need to get better at seeing. And my explaining things is simply not enough.

(MAG119) SARAH: You… idiot! Do you really think the world will fare any better under the Watcher? You think you’re saving anyone?

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: She’s just like everything else here, ruled by The Eye. [CHUCKLING] And she hates it…! NOT!SASHA: Well, of course you want to wallow in my shame like your voyeur master! Do you know how it feels? To be… anonymous, and yet known? To have all the sweetest dread I can create tainted by the relentless gaze of that damned Eye! I’ve suffered enough!

So people from the (survivors of the) cult of the Divine Host probably won’t be extremely happy about it either – we know that some were still roaming around, Jon had mentioned seeing people with the pendant at the beginning of season 4. Martin mentioned their lack of allies in MAG164, are we heading towards them getting some “help” from unsatisfied avatars…?

- ;; I said I would put the Not!Them amongst the “monsters”, but technically… the victims in the carousel felt like proto-Not!Them themselves? And Not!Sasha had enough reasoning to try to go into denial – pretending that it could still catch and hurt Jon&Martin, while it knew that it couldn’t anyway, but ready to create the illusion that it could. That’s some very human mental structure…

- Sob, but also:

(MAG165) ARCHIVIST: Pathetic. [SHRILL SCREAMS] Martin, let’s go. NOT!SASHA: Not as pathetic as your little friend when I ate her life…!

… I really like the description of what she did as “eating Sasha’s life”: it was not only that it killed her; it’s that it erased and reshaped her whole life as a memory and a possible influence on others…

- ;; I’m even happier that we got Sasha’s tapes at the beginning of season 5, because it brought her back as a presence, as an existence, and not only as the concept of “the friend we lost but can’t really remember”. The Not!Them getting killed closes a very long chapter: Sasha’s murder at the end of season 1, which was a wound that kept being reopened (Jon realising that she had died long ago, then Martin&Tim having to learn about it; Nikola teasing Jon about her during The Unknowing; the Not!Them getting freed during the season 4 climax), the fact that the Not!Them had been spotted and described as soon as in MAG003, and also… the first time we heard of Adelard Dekker was when he imprisoned it within the Web table?

I’m especially ;; that The Stranger regularly used Sasha’s murder against Jon, and that it has always been a sore spot… until he snapped:

(MAG079) NOT!SASHA (DISTANT): … I’m going to wear you, Jon. I’m going to wear everything you are. Like you never existed. Noone will even know. And it will hurt. Oh, yes, it will hurt. It hurt Sasha. ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NOT!SASHA (CLOSE AND DISTORTED): There you are. […] ARCHIVIST: [WHISPERING] I’m sorry. Martin, Tim… Sasha. I’m so sorry. I should have… I didn’t… I’m sorry. God, I’m so sorry.

(MAG096) ARCHIVIST: He was a–a tax inspector. He came here, and Daniel Rawlings, or his replacement, showed him something he claimed to be the oldest piece of taxidermy in the world. Gorilla skin from Carthage. SARAH: Heh, was this when you sent your “Sasha” to interrogate us? ARCHIVIST: Don’t you dare talk about– DAISY: Sims. Sims. Shut up and focus.

(MAG119) ARCHIVIST: Who are you?! NIKOLA: Who am I? Tim, of course! Who else would I be! ARCHIVIST: You’re not– you’re not… Tim. NIKOLA: Oh, you caught me~ I’m… Sasha! ARCHIVIST: Shut up! NIKOLA: No~! Really, it’s me! Sasha– whatever her name was! Back from the dead, just like you wanted~! ARCHIVIST: Get away from me, or, or I swear I’ll… I’ll…

I mean. Yes, if Jon had to lose his temper and go terrifying due to feelings, it would be about Sasha’s murder ;;

- It’s also jarring how Jon used to be terrorised and victimised by monsters, and took the upper hand this time: the dynamic between him and the Not!Them in this episode was an extreme reversal of what had happened at the end of season 2. I’m also curious about how “Jon using his powers against other monsters” has felt more and more threatening over time:

(MAG091) ARCHIVIST: What, I? I–I didn’t– [RUSTLING NOISES] Plea– Please don’t shoot me… [SOUNDS OF PANIC] [STATIC] W–why are you doing this? Tell me! [GURGLES MORE AS DAISY GRABS HIM ROUND THE THROAT] DAISY: Stop – asking – questions.

(MAG101) MICHAEL: I had hoped that you would stop the Unknowing first, destroy the workings of I-Do-Not-Know-You. But instead you are here, and may bring it about faster. So better your death happens now…! ARCHIVIST: I… [STATIC] Is there anything I can do to stop you from killing me? MICHAEL: [LAUGHS] If you scream loud enough the Circus may take notice of me, but… I promise you will die far more pleasantly with me than with them. [MORE LAUGHTER]

(MAG119) NIKOLA&GERTRUDE: A terrible new world and it’s all your fault. GERTRUDE&LEITNER: Though I suppose you never really had a chance ARCHIVIST: … I see you. NIKOLA: Do you, now? ARCHIVIST: Yes… Yes, I s… I see the sad clown, b–bitter and hateful. I see him finding his way into a ci–circus where nobody knew him. I see him torn apart, becoming the mask, remade by a… a cruel ringmaster. Sometimes a doll, sometimes a mannequin, always hiding in somebody else’s skin. Somebody else’s name. NIKOLA: Not always, and it’s far too late for any of that. Nothing you see can help you.

(MAG128) BASIRA: Get. Out. [STATIC RISES] BREEKON: Make. Me. [RATTLING SOUND] ARCHIVIST: Stop. [HIGH-PITCHED BUZZING SOUND OVER STATIC] BREEKON: What’re you doing? BASIRA: … Jon…? What are you doing? BREEKON: What’re you– Stop it… Stop it! ARCHIVIST: [ECHOING] No. BREEKON: [STRUGGLING, BUZZING INCREASES] Enough! Stop… looking at me! [SCREAMS] [DOOR SLAMMED OPEN, FLEEING FOOTSTEPS WHILE BREEKON IS STILL SCREAMING, DOOR SLAMMING SHUT] ARCHIVIST: [PANTS] [HIGH-PITCHED BUZZING SOUND FADES] BASIRA: Jon…? ARCHIVIST: It’s fine…!

(MAG159) ARCHIVIST: … I, I don’t understand. PETER: And you won’t. Not from me. I’m done. ARCHIVIST: Tell me. [STATIC RISES] PETER: I’m. Not saying. Another. Word. [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: Tell me, or I will rip it out of you! [STATIC INCREASES] PETER: [STRUGGLING] No…! ARCHIVIST: Answer. My question! PETER: NO! Leave – me – ALONE! [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: TELL ME! PETER: [GROANING SCREAM] [RIPPING, EXPLODING SOUND] [STATIC FADES] ARCHIVIST: … Stubborn fool…

(MAG162) ARCHIVIST: “This place wishes to be our tomb. But The Eye does not wish that. No. [STATIC INCREASES] The Eye wishes instead that it be my chrysalis. [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] It is time that I emerge…” [STATIC REACHING A PEAK] […] I, I–I was listening, and I–I was filled with this… hatred. This anger; I–I wanted to leave, and hunt down Elias, a–and…! MARTIN: W–wow, okay… ARCHIVIST: But, when I thought it… the–there was… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] There was something else. Th–this place, it… it didn’t want me, it… [WOODEN CREAKING SOUND] didn’t want us to go.

(MAG165) NOT!SASHA: Not as pathetic as your little friend when I ate her life…! [RUMBLING SOUND] [THE CALLIOPE MUSIC DERAILS, TAKES A HIGHER PITCH] ARCHIVIST: … What did you say? [STATIC RISING: LOW AND SPIRALLING, PRESSURING] NOT!SASHA: [SHAKY BREATHES] I’m–I’m sorry… MARTIN: Jon? ARCHIVIST: You were wrong, you know. NOT!SASHA: [GASPS] [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: There is more suffering than you can ever experience, so much more. The horror of your victims… NOT!SASHA: [CRIES OF PAIN] ARCHIVIST: Their constant, senseless agony… NOT!SASHA: [CRIES OF PAIN] [STATIC INCREASES] ARCHIVIST: Feel it now. Understand it. You have drawn out so much despair, and now finally, it’s your turn. [STATIC INCREASES] [DIGITAL GLITCHING SOUNDS] Ceaseless Watcher, turn your gaze upon this wretched thing! [STATIC INCREASES, WITH MORE PRESSURE] NOT!SASHA: No! No, please, no…! [DIGITAL BURSTING, RIPPING SOUNDS] NOT!SASHA: [FADING] No…! [STATIC DECREASES AND FADES] ARCHIVIST: [PANTS]

Jon used to rely on compulsion to try to struggle his way out (when it was his only weapon), in a panic. But since MAG119, it has begun to feel as if something was coming out from it, as if he were possessed? It really feels like something is trying to come out (and we precisely began the season with The Eye wanting the cabin to be his “chrysalis” and Jon announcing that “he” would emerge…). There also had been a clear escalation in his use of his powers: from giving Tim the tools to prevent Nikola from achieving The Unknowing, to stopping Breekon when he was ready to fight Basira, to compelling Peter to death while Peter was resisting, to… an execution, triggered by his anger. Jon had made a point to tell Martin that the Not!Them couldn’t harm them; it was a murder purely motivated by anger. The Not!Them had it coming, and it’s really interesting that Jon weaponised the suffering of the Not!Them’s victims to force it to feel pain (so, a case of… forcing empathy on it?), but… still a murder, still scary, still concerning that Jon did that when Martin and him weren’t threatened, and that it happened when Jon’s feelings got out of hand.

(Jon, you’re just a shounen anime protagonist gdi.)

- And Jon did nooooooot feel fine with it:

(MAG165) MARTIN: … Whoa–oh–oh! ARCHIVIST: I, uh… MARTIN: What was that?! ARCHIVIST: … I–I destroyed it. [ECHOING CREAKING SOUNDS] Ki–killed her. MARTIN: Are you kidding me, you–you obliterated her! You… you smote her! [ECHOING CREAKING SOUNDS] ARCHIVIST: We, we should go. MARTIN: What about the merry-go-round? With her gone, is it, is it still th– ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t know! MARTIN: [CHUCKLING] Yes you do! ARCHIVIST: I–I don’t… want to know, plea– We need to go. [SHUFFLING] Please. MARTIN: Oh, oh, okay. A–alright. Alright. Lead on. [CREAKING SOUNDS]

* Martin sounded… kinda very very into it (mARTIN), not surprised – Martin was already ready to use whatever he can even if it means compromising himself. Jon sounded more upset, so I’m half-expecting them to discuss this at some point?

* It had already felt a bit like it with Peter (when Jon mentioned the powers of The Eye in relation to The Lonely), but it was way worse here: … Jon really felt like an actual priest of Beholding when he obliterated the Not!Them. As if he was accepting it as a god, and himself as its agent, able to channel its powers.

* It was also SO CLOSE to what Elias did to Melanie and Martin, with the whole implanting memories/truths in someone’s head to make them suffer… oofffft ;;

* ;; I’m. Also very concerned about the fact that the end of the episode seems to imply that Jon made it worse for the victims in the carousel, since we can hear it creaking. Has he just condemned these people to an actual death, or to worse doom? If it turns out that Jon has powers allowing him to have an effect on these nightmares, the fact he chooses to remain an observer and only “uses” the place to experience them will feel iffier and iffier… ;;

- Welp, it does clear up right away why The Web hasn’t tried to contact Jon directly. On a scale from calling his partner while Jon himself is further away to directly taunting him, how much self-preservation instinct do you have?

MAG166’s title is… interesting, because?? Corruption?? But it also feels too easy?? (And would be the biggest Middle Finger at something Smirke mentioned in MAG138.) I see a way in which it could potentially be Hunt, or Flesh, or Vast, or Buried, or End, or Web (well… it’s more like there’s an existing connection for that one + RQ’s teasing about Web stuff this week), but, wow. Bold move.

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #mag165 #tma season 4 #the magnus archives #tma liveblog #tma spoilers/#long post/

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chuchuroon · 4 years

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IKEMEN SENGOKU: FEAST THINE EYES ON STEAMPUNK WARLORDSSSS

Soooo after MM I have finally found my next Otome obsession Currently, the Taiwan server of Ikemen Sengoku is running a region-exclusive event that puts all the Warlords in a Steampunk AU. The outfits are too good, so I wanted to share this with the Western/JP server players! (Currently, I play on all 3 servers like the dumbass obsessive idiot I am)

More photos and information on the event story under the cut! (SPOILERS for the Taiwan Ikesen Steampunk Event). If you’d like to play on the Taiwan server, the app is named 美男戰國 (copy paste into your app store and search) and it doesn’t appear to be region-locked. Ikesen is licensed to/published by a different company (iSweety) in Taiwan, so they sometimes have artwork and events /merch that are exclusive to that region, as well as unique promo videos.

There wasn’t a promo page where I could grab the event artworks, so pardon my phone screenshots of dubious quality. I tried my best to take screencaps where the dialogue was minimal so you can get a better idea of their outfits. They’re all so good!

A 3/4 view of Mitsuhide’s Steampunk outfit. In this event, only stories for Nobunaga, Masamune, and Kenshin are available, and a minor collectible story for Ieyasu. In Masamune’s afterstory, he mentions that Mitsuhide has the special ability to read people’s thoughts.

*holds back nosebleed* I’m weak to men with slender waists ahhhhhghhgh. Masa’s Steampunk outfit fits him so well (Is that a man-corset? Can we make all men wear corsets?) and of course his collar is unfastened. I love the cogwheel design on his eyepatch too.

Even Kennyo looks rather dashing, that rascal, although he’s human in this story and hates the androids (and especially Nobunaga, of course) for having killed his fellow brethren.

IKESEN STEAMPUNK EVENT: STORY BACKGROUND / INTRO

You, the (human) main character, are the granddaughter of an eccentric Duke that created sentient machine life-forms called 械偶, which I will call androids for now (The name literally translates as “mechanical puppets”). Kennyo and others sometimes refers to them as merely “puppets” (人偶), likely in a derogatory manner.

The androids are sentient and are made of cogs and wheels and circuitry, and powered by a main heart-like “core” which contains a rune. The rune contained within the core is referenced as the “soul” of the androids. Runes have different names, meanings, and uses. If an android’s core is too badly damaged, they cease to function, or die in the robot sense of the word. Even if the core is repaired, if the “rune soul” is damaged, the android wouldn’t be considered living/sentient even if the rest of its mechanisms are functioning. Runes can exist in other forms, such as carved on things like doorways and rocks and hold power. There are teleportation runes which is how androids manage to quickly travel to and from the human community when necessary. Different circuits within an android serve different functions (movement, senses, etc), much like how different lobes or parts of the brain control specific bodily functions in a human. There are different types of androids, such as battle-types and healer-types, and they can have specific protocols and purposes. The story alludes to additional types, but they are not specifically named. Androids have masters, who are typically the one who created them, although this can differ. If a master dies, an android can live without a master or choose to follow another one. Androids can have multiple masters in their life, but in the story the majority of the androids live in their own community and no longer have a master.

Androids can obtain energy through consuming human food/drink, although it’s not described as their ideal or main method of obtaining energy (the main method was not specified). It’s possible for traces of human food and drink to remain in their system, which can eventually build up over time and cause them to break down. Androids have their own emotions/opinions and thoughts, and can touch and feel just like humans. However, there is tension between humans and androids, who fear that androids, being physically superior, may one day wipe out the humans, and fights often break out.

After your grandfather’s death, you go to “Elfland”, a hidden, floating island-slash-sky vessel created by your grandfather that is the last standing community of the sentient androids. Within this community, there are peaceful androids, who do not want to harm humans, and anti-human androids, who will attack humans on sight, as well as a third, neutral faction. You are here to search for your grandfather’s hidden treasure, which he left you clues to before he passed away, and you’re assisted by the androids during your search. Nobunaga, Masamune, Mitsuhide, Mitsunari, Hideyoshi, are part of the peaceful faction, while Kenshin is part of the anti-human faction. Yukimura and Ieyasu are part of the neutral faction. In Kenshin’s route, Sasuke and Shingen are also mentioned briefly, but their faction is unknown. There was no mention of Yoshimoto or Ranmaru.

CHARACTER STORY - MINOR TO MAJOR SPOILERS BELOW

Masamune:

Your grandfather the Duke had a friend and fellow android researcher whose eldest son passed away. In light of this, the Duke created Masamune in the image of that eldest son, to keep his friend company. Instead of “Master”, Masamune referred to the Duke’s friend as “Father”, and they had a close relationship.

The Duke and his friend eventually had a bad falling out that escalated to violence, and Masamune got between them to stop them from fighting each other. His “father” tried to shoot the Duke, and Masamune chose to protect the Duke. As a result of this incident, Masamune lost his right eye, and also became estranged from his father, who was upset that Masamune chose the Duke over him. Although Yasu-bot offered to fix it, Masamune declined, saying that he wanted to keep the broken eye as a reminder to himself that “all choices have consequences” (and because eyepatches are cool). When you arrive on Elfland, he has you skydiving into your target exploration area rather than take a long time to walk there, and generally shows you around and adventures alongside you, while simultaneously protecting you from skirmishes against the anti-human androids. Ieyasu mentions that while Masamune “isn’t a battle-type android, he’s pretty capable”, but doesn’t really explain just what kind of android he is. When Masamune’s father got grievously injured, he was kept alive but was on a deathbed, suffering from tremendous pain every day. When Masamune came to visit him, he begged for Masamune to put him out of his misery. Masamune decided to do so, knowing that it would result in his father’s wife and younger son resenting him and people saying horrible things about how he’s an android that killed his own master who treated him like a son. You, of course, help resolve this misunderstanding and also see past the terrible reputation this gave Masamune, and you accept him fully, ya’ll bond over war and fighting dealing with your ex-fiance (who happens to be the biological younger son of Masamune’s father, and colluded with Kennyo to try to wreck Elfland) and discovering your granpapaw’s treasure, and become lovers. In the afterstory, Masamune recalls that his father once told him to live life to the fullest. “If you’re not doing what you love and enjoying all that life has to offer, then you’re not truly living, whether you’re made of flesh or steel doesn’t matter. Otherwise, even if you have a heartbeat and you’re breathing, you’re no different than a walking corpse. If one day, I can no longer feel like I’m alive, then I’m already dead, even if my body is still functioning.” Reminiscing on this, Masamune wonders if meeting you was all fated since then. “I’ve fallen in love with an incredible woman”, he realizes, and listens to your heartbeat and makes you listen to his - “Every movement of every cog in my body is saying how much I love you, to the point of breaking. Can you hear it?” He asks. “Let me listen awhile longer, and I’ll answer,” you reply. In true Masamune fashion, he declares he can't wait any longer and decides to get his answer directly from your body. Yee haw.

Nobunaga:

He has a special ability which can disable the functions of other androids temporarily. During your research you discover that he was made in the image of the famous historical warlord Nobunaga Oda, who once united Japan. You guys are already lovers when the story begins. Human-Android tensions are high, and what’s worse is that Mitsuhide has been sneaking around meeting humans (including Kennyo) and making shady ass deals. You discover your grandfather’s treasure hidden behind a door with a riddle written in ancient Japanese, a dead language that only you know because your grandfather taught you. The riddle reads: “What can save both the humans and androids and allow them to live in peace?” and the answer is “love”, and the door opens when you write out the character for love in Japanese on the entrance. Inside the treasure box you find in the room, you learn secrets that could be used for both great and terrible deeds, including the knowledge of how to create sentient androids and how to destroy them, how Elfland was created, and various other secrets about androids. You decide to hide them again to prevent this knowledge from getting into the wrong hands.

Human-Android tensions escalate into full out war as Mitsuhide informs the humans how to gain access to Elfland and where to attack. Kennyo and Nobunaga cross swords and Nobunaga is nearly outmatched when Mitsuhide appears, revealing that he led the humans here intentionally because he wanted to herd the bulk of the anti-Android fanatics together in one location and collectively wipe them out in order to effectively stamp out future threats of war. He apologizes for being late as he was delayed by Hideyoshi-bot almost killing him. Nobunaga just laughs and tells Mitsuhide he deserves it for worrying Hideyoshi, and a spiteful Kennyo reveals that he has been modified with Android parts to become stronger, and activates this power to try to land a killing blow on Nobunaga - only to discover that Mitsuhide has even plotted everything this far back in advance, and way back when Kennyo was being modified, Mitsuhide ensured that he had faulty parts installed. Heheh. Mitsuhide:2, Kennyo: 0 In the afterstory, it’s revealed that one of the secrets you learned was the process of turning an android into a human. Androids can perform what’s called a “soul contract” with each other; when two androids perform this, they become linked and know each other’s thoughts and feelings, and if one Android dies, the other also loses power to their rune core and dies as well. However, if an Android performs a soul contract with a human, they can become a human (but there are unspecified risks involved, and success is more or less regarded as miraculous), and share a life. Since Nobunaga’s primary protocol was to protect Elfland and the vault that guarded your grandfather’s treasure, and that duty has been completed, he wishes to become a human so that he can grow old with you and share the same lifespan. You establish the contract and miraculously he’s turned into a human and ya’ll enjoy fun kinky times where you both know what the other is thinking and feel what the other is feeling (oh boy).

Ieyasu:

Healer-type android and constantly frets about the fact that he’s not a battle-type and therefore weak, and wonders why your grandfather created him this way. He claims to not like humans, and he blames himself for not being able to save the Duke, but you help him understand that it wasn’t his fault and that you are thankful he was able to stay by the Duke’s side and keep him company when he passed. He complains about having to repair Mitsunari-bot (who we never see). He is reluctant to get involved with humans, though this is revealed that it’s because he believes humans are too frail and die easily, and he didn’t want to experience heartbreak again. One of the lines he mutters to himself (well out of your earshot of course) is how the existence of people like you and your grandfather is the reason he could never bring himself to fully hate or reject the humans. He has a workshop and appears to not differentiate between factions when it comes to treating those who need it, as he mentions having repaired Ken-bot before as well, who is on the anti-human faction.

Kenshin:

The text translates to “My emotional circuits have been broken since a long time ago”. I chortled to myself for a good, long minute at that one.

Anyway, Ken-bot is a battle-type android who also happens to have “protecting you” written as his top/primary protocol by your grandfather, which is why he goes along with all your endeavors despite belonging to the anti-human faction of the androids. He constantly emphasizes the fact that, as a battle-type droid, he is only capable of fighting and causing destruction. His emotional circuits aren’t completely broken, and he still has an obsession with sake and dried plums, which, according to Sasuke-bot, Ken-bot partakes to a degree that leads Sasuke-bot to believe Ken-bot is trying to drink/eat himself into an early grave.

You learn from your grandfather’s journal that he originally created Kenshin as a battle-type android, but that he desired to have Kenshin protect his legacy (the androids on elfland, and his granddaughter) rather than simply for fighting and destruction. He saw Kenshin as a protector, not a destroyer. You try to tell his to Ken-bot and also confess your feelings, which seem to cause Ken-bot’s emotional circuits to malfunction even more. “I don’t understand what you mean when you say you like me,” he says brokenly, and during the height of the human-android battle decides to stick you in the safest place possible, which is in a... dun dun dun-geon. He then throws himself into such a battle frenzy against the humans that invaded Elfland that Yuki-bot (instructed by Sasuke-bot, who we never actually see) comes to release you from the dungeon and take you to Ken-bot in order to save him from himself. Ken-bot believes the only way to achieve lasting peace is to wipe out all the humans. You challenge him by saying he should then kill you, since you are a human. Just as you seem to be about to convince him, a shot rings out, and Kenshin shoves you out of the way, his core taking a hit from protecting you. Shingen-bot and Sasuke-bot also having taken serious injuries, the anti-human faction have no leaders, and retreat.

You take an unconscious Ken-bot to the Oda forces to seek Ieyasu’s help. He says that the rune powering Ken-bot’s core is damaged too badly, so you find the hidden treasure of the Duke, hoping to learn a way to restore Ken-bot. Ieyasu suggests attempting the soul-contract to try to convert Ken-bot into a human as a last ditch effort to save him, as it allows the bonded pair to share their lifeforce, but he stresses that there’s no known record of it succeeding, and you may shorten your lifespan as a result. Your grandfather’s records also mentions that would only work with high-level androids. Yasu-bot also adds this flavor text that by attempting the soul contract, “You will share and endure all of the hardships, feelings and memories from the past of the other person”. You, of course, plow forward without hesitation, to which Yasu-bot gives his typical sigh of annoyance. “As expected of you”, he comments simply, and adds “I can see why this emotionally-broken idiot would be changed by you.”

After what feels like a long and painful dream, you wake up to find Pinocchio - I mean Ken-bot - has become a real boy! He confesses his feelings to you, Yasu-bot fills you both in what happened with current events while you two were unconscious, and slaps on an added warning to Kenshin of “Don’t ever make her cry again. There’s more people than you can imagine who hold her in high esteem, and they’re all incredibly annoying people...and will be much more difficult for you to handle now, as a human” - to which Kenshin answers with a typical bloodthirsty threat and by grabbing and hugging you possessively. Yasu-bot shrugs and says he doesn’t want to meddle in between “an annoying couple” anyway, and makes an offhand snide remark about how neither one of you make him worry any less than Mitsunari-bot does, checks up on you two one last time, and hurries out the room like he can’t stand to be there for another moment longer. Which is smart of him, since in the Afterstory ya’ll basically exchange mushy ass words with each other and do the nasty.

annnnd there’s the Steampunk event as I experienced it. Hope to see some Steampunk AU fan creations of our favorite warlords in the future!

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zekroudon · 4 years

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The Song of our Hearts (Lukadrien June 2020)

@lukadrien-june

Day 16: Injured

Lila is once again akumatized and she is targeting the temporary heroes that were revealed by Miracle Queen. Luka is hurt and Adrien tries to get his boyfriend to safety.You can read it on Ao3 here.

Just a warning, there's lots of angst, things get violent and a temporary character death so if it's not your thing, you can skip this. The next prompt, Day 17: Heart Song, will be a follow up to this to give it a somewhat happier ending. I'm sorry for the lenght of this, I felt really bad leaving things on a bad ending and I kept writing to get to an happy/bittersweet ending. It's part of the reason why it's one week late.

No matter where Adrien carries Luka, everything keeps exploding. Fires and debris cover the streets of Paris, turning the city of lights into a battlefield. Hawkmoth brought the big guns to his first akuma since Chloe’s akumatization into Miracle Queen. The akuma is targeting the reserve heroes that were revealed by her. That included Adrien’s boyfriend Luka. They had been walking along the Seine when the explosions started and Hawkmoth’s puppet started chasing them. Adrien is almost certain that Lila was the akumatized victim once again. A sentimonster accompanies her everywhere she goes, taking the form of the heroes often to terrorize their loved ones. The monster took Viperion’s appearance as he attacked Rose and Juleka, Rena Rouge for Alya's little sisters, etc. Luka had jumped to the rescue and shielded them, but the fake hero threw him at a nearby wall and he landed badly on his right leg. His scream still echoes in Adrien’s mind and he knows it will fill his nightmares for months to come.

He and Marinette had organized a small class celebration in honor of the heroes, but focussing on the temporary heroes. Marinette had worn an amazing Rena Rouge jacket while Adrien had managed to wear a Carapace T-shirt with a Viperion mask. It didn’t fit color-wise, but he had to honor his best bro and his boyfriend. Lila had then walked up tearing up to Alya and said that she was really sorry that Ladybug had chosen her to be the new fox hero. It brought Alya’s mood down and Marinette replied that Rena Rouge was awesome and that if Ryuko and Queen Bee got to use their miraculouses again, Alya and Nino deserved second chances too. She also added that if she was such a great friend of Ladybug, she would already have been given a Miraculous. Suffice to say Lila was seething with anger as she left the classroom.

For an unknown reason, they weren’t targeting Adrien and seemed to be trying to no hurt him, targeting only Luka, though Lila kept telling how lame he was and how pathetic his friends were. If it could protect his boyfriend, he would throw himself into danger headfirst. He spots a metal beam on the ground and picks it up, it could serve as a weapon. For now, his boyfriend is counting on him to bring him to safety.

"Adrien, let me go, I’ll be fine… Ladybug’s cure will save me, save all of us. You need to hide in case she needs someone to use the snake…

- No! I won’t leave you! I won’t let you get hurt…

- I don’t want to see you get hurt either, as long as your song continues, I know I’ll make it…

- Luka, I love you… Please, come with me.

- … How sweet of you, sunshine, though I’m always down to break a relationship. How painful will it be to see him die in front of you, a female voice purrs behind them. Maybe I’ll keep you with us so you have to watch Marinette being tortured… Who knows…"

Adrien and Luka’s faces go white as Lila’s akumatized form jumps in front of them and the sentimonster, now impersonating King Monkey, blocks them from behind. They’re cornered. Adrien seethes as he clutches his metal beam and stands in front of his boyfriend.

"I told you to stop hurting my friends, Lila.

- Why would I listen to you? Your father already offers me you on a silver platter. When those stupid heroes are gone, I’ll have everything I want!"

She gestures to the monster who turns into a heap of bubbles before taking the form of Carapace. He takes his shield and sneers at Adrien.

"Can you fight your best friend, or you care too much about him, she asks.

- He’s not Nino, it’s a monster, just like her, grunts Luka.

- Oh, not scary enough? Alright then, see how you fare against destruction itself, she replies smirking."

The monster turns into an exact copy of Chat Noir, though none of Adrien’s warmth and charm shines through, replaced by anger and cruelty. He picks up his baton and begins walking around them as if they are his preys. Adrien feels Plagg stir up in his pocket, but he knows he can’t transform now. He has to face his replica. He may not be transformed, but he’s the real Chat Noir.

He quickly goes through what Kagami had said were his weaknesses to use them against the monster.

Right now, his weakness is his lack of power. The monster's, he has no clue. He knows he tends to jump headfirst into danger, but there’s no danger for Hawkmoth’s puppets currently, only for Adrien and Luka…

Adrien readies his weapon, eyes still locked on the monster’s. The fact that the monster stays silent is even more unsettling as Chat Noir is always cracking up jokes or mocking the villains. This one was silent, looking at them with eyes filled with so much hate and cruelty, Adrien was certain he could never imitate that expression.

If he had a habit of being lucky, he’d say he only had to hold him off until Ladybug came to save them, but he isn’t lucky. Bad luck follows him everywhere, true to the belief of black cat’s misfortune.

The monster pounces at him and strikes with his staff. Adrien blocks the blow with the beam. The fake hero hits again, and again without any sign of getting tired. Adrien’s weapon curves and folds under his hits.

Lila plunges to him and knocks his made-up weapon away, rendering him defenseless. The monster didn’t want to hurt him… He wanted to get him away from Luka… Lila stands between them, while "Chat Noir" smirks like the cat that got the mouse as he lifts Luka by his throat.

"You know, they always said that Cataclysm couldn’t kill someone… Did they make any tests, she purrs."

Adrien’s face goes white as he realizes what she’s implying.

"NO! Please, he’s already no use to Ladybug, you don’t have to, pleads Adrien

- Just shut up! You and Marinette took everything away from me, he took you away from me. I'll take him away from you! You will all pay!

- NO, screams Adrien.

- Cataclysm."

One word. A cold voice, could as well be death’s, fills the street, bringing the city to a pause, an unsettling silence. Luka’s form doesn’t turn to black ash to Adrien’s relief, but he drops to the ground like a corpse.

"You know, I kind of wish he could have used his power, it would have loved killing him again and again in front of you. You would have gone mad."

Adrien runs to Luka and kneels next to him. His ear over his mouth, he doesn’t feel any breath. His chest stays still. He cradles him in his arms as if it could bring him back. The blond’s tears slide on the other boy’s before falling to the ground…

He hears a voice behind him, but he doesn’t care. Luka is gone. Hawkmoth and Lila killed him… They’re the ones who should pay, not innocents… All Adrien wanted is to be happy…

Something passes next to him in a red blur.

Ladybug.

Hope.

There’s still hope. The Ladybug cure. Adrien is still Chat Noir, together, they’ll bring Luka back. Together against the world, as always.

Adrien ran. His eyes still filled with tears, but the world needs Chat Noir, not a crying mess. Luka needs Chat Noir to help Ladybug cast her cure and save the day.

He turns in an empty alley and Plagg flies out of his pocket. He looked worried, but Adrien hadn’t time to care, they’d talk later when Luka would be back alive.

" Plagg…

- Adrien, please be careful, so many of my holders…

- Claws out!"

He feels bad for shutting his kwami, but other things are more urgent. Green light fills the street as he becomes Chat Noir. Using his staff, he hauls himself to the roof and rejoins Ladybug. He ignores the storm growing inside of him. He lands beside her with a thud. They nod to each other, a simple greeting fitting to the situation. He doesn’t look to where Luka lays, he isn’t allowed to be distracted.

The monster still took his appearance and Lila, or whatever was her akumatized name this time, he didn’t care to register it, readied her weapon. Her akumas are always the worst, and sometimes he feels like she keeps some semblance of control over her actions. She did try to help Oni-Chan defeat them.

He pounced on the monster, staff and claws ready while Ladybug jumps on her.

Staves and claws clashing. He knows he shouldn’t but his anger and thirst for revenge overtake him. It’s just a sentimonster anyway. He punches his imitation in the gut before throwing him on a lamppost. The monster falls to the ground, looking unconscious. The street is gaping with holes caused by the explosions. Water flows out of broken pipes and electric wires like snakes taken out of their holes. Chat Noir takes two and ties the monster with them. He makes sure to stay far enough of his hands and makes sure to tie his ankles too in case he switches form again.

Ladybug screams as she hits a wall. Lila sends an explosive blast over his partner’s head. He pushes out of there and the debris misses his feet by a few millimeters. He helps her stand on her own.

"Thanks, kitty, time for a little luck, she asks smirking.

- I hope it’s not too complicated this time, Ladybug, but I believe in you.

- Let’s do this, Lucky Charm!."

Her yoyo spins in a flash of red light, two black earrings falling into her hands before both heroes are blown away by another of her explosions. "They look like Luka's", thinks the cat hero as they hit nearby walls yet again. Chat Noir grunts as he stands.

Enough .

She keeps hurting his friends, the persons he loves. That’s enough. The storm fills his hand, flowing towards the ring. Like Cataclysm, but stronger, wilder, and uncontrollable. Something echoes in his mind. A word, something he doesn’t know. Black Storm. It calls to him, wishing to be unleashed. It whispers that it would save his friends, destroy her forever, she would no longer hurt anyone…

Chat Noir raises his right fist towards Lila’s akumatized form and screams the words.

"Black storm!"

The destructive energy that was raging inside him escapes his fist, forming a bubble of black energy in front of it before exploding in a black beam akin to videogame character’s power shoots through it and engulfs the akuma’s form. Shortly after, it vanishes, leaving gaping holes into buildings and a black statue of ash where she once stood.

He killed her. He killed innocents that were hiding in their homes… He fell on his knees, clutching his head.

"Chat… What happened? Since when can you do this, asks Ladybug, worried.

- I don’t know… Something inside me… I was so angry, she keeps hurting my friends, she killed my boyfriend… I couldn’t, he sobbed.

- Please talk to Plagg about this, it looks dangerous…

- I will… I’m sorry, I should have been more careful…

- It’s okay, I don’t know what I would have done if she had hurt the people I love… We’ll talk about it later okay? What about some Dupain-Cheng pastries tomorrow evening? It’ll give you time with your boyfriend and to talk with Plagg.

- Thank you, I’ll be there…"

She picks up the lucky charm she dropped before walking to the statue. She doesn’t seem too phased by the statue, as if she already saw something of the same kind before…A gust of wind blows the statue away, like ashes after a fire. The blue feather and purple butterfly appear, but Chat Noir is too entranced by the scene before him. He killed her. If the cure doesn’t bring her back, she would be gone, for real. He will have murdered someone.

He is a killer.

Looking up, he sees Luka’s body surrounded by a pond. He looks serene, though black marks scorch his neck where the monster had held him, another reminder of what destruction could do in the wrong hands.

He turns around as Ladybug frees the purified akuma and amok. Her worried eyes met his ashamed ones. He raises his fist for their usual fist bump, but she walks past it and hugs him tightly. Even with her kind words from earlier, he expected her to be disgusted, or even scared of him, scared of the extent of his powers. Once the shock fades, he enlaces his arms around her. A voice in his head echoes through his shattered mind.

She doesn’t say anything because she has to work with him to defeat Hawkmoth… Well, does she really need him? She’s the guardian, she could take back Plagg from him and give him to someone more competent… She has plenty of other heroes to choose from anyway… Would Luka react the same way if he knew what he did, or would he be disgusted? Would he break up with him because he’s a monster? He’ll be insulted that you hid being Chat Noir to him. He’ll be mad you tried being the snake when you already were the cat…

She breaks the hug and throws her lucky charm to the sky calling upon her miraculous cure. Magical ladybugs swarm around them, the streets, fixing everything that has been broken. Lila appears in front of them, sitting on her knees, not as confused as most akumatized victims happen to be after being freed. She stands up and puts on the usual mask she uses when around us.

Adrien completely ignores her, his whole being focused on his boyfriend sitting on the pavement, looking around worriedly, searching for something, or someone. His body turns on autopilot, walking to Luka and picking him up in his arms. The small part of his brain still working reminding him to not give Lila clues about his identity. Ladybug nods at him and he jumps off, his boyfriend safe in his arms.

#Lukadrien June 2020 #Lukadrien #adrien agreste #Luka Couffaine #chat noir #day 16: injured #angst #temporary character death #violence #zekroudon's fics

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braidedribbon · 4 years

Note

hi! i've noticed that recently you have been posting a lot about several (i think it's more than one) pairings of very pretty men with long black hair (one goth/one angelic) and i was wondering what that was? when i try to google the things in your tags on these posts, the results are mostly in chinese and what's in english i don't really get (what is cultivation?) i'm sorry to be treating you like like a search engine, i'm just curious about the pretty boys and i don't know who else to ask

Hello!

I have indeed been posting about several very pretty pairings. Because I have no self control! *finger guns* But! because I have no self control and I don’t mind being a search engine, I can definitely give you a hand.

The pairings should primarily be from mo doa zu shi and tian guan ci fu; scum villain probably only started showing up a day or two ago. These links are to my tags; the later links will be to good sites for the novels. I don’t have good sites for anything else because I’m a very low-profile p*rate

Before I get too far into anything, the quick and dirty of cultivation is: martial arts + meditation/daoism? = magic powers. These magic powers are then typically put to use fighting evil supernatural powers. As a character’s cultivation improves, their power level increases and they can become immortal or even gods. All of this in the general but vague context of ancient china.

This summary is brought to you after flailing about in an entirely new-to-me cultural backdrop for the past 2ish months. Now, back to the pretty boys.

mo doa zu shi, or The Grandmaster of Demonic Cultivation or The Founder of Diabolism, follows Wei WuXian (goth) who has been brought back to life and Lan WangJi (angelic) who has no intention of losing his high school crush a second time as they solve mysteries. More of a low to mid fantasy, there is a large focus on the various sects or factions and the diplomatics between them. Originally a chinese web novel, it also has a manhua/manga adaptation, a donghua/anime adaptation and a drama adaptation. The novel, manhua and donghua all go by the above names but the drama goes by The Untamed. It’s on netflix. Very good. Everyone loves the bunnies. Be prepared for feels. Including feels for a corpse.

tian guan ci fu, or Heaven Official’s Blessing, follows Xie Lian (angelic), a disgraced heavenly official who has been wandering the world for 800 years, who ascends to heaven (for the 3rd time) and Hua Cheng (goth), a great ghost king and scourge of the heavens, as they fall in love and tear down the government. Definitely would be high fantasy, the characters are primarily gods or ghosts. As soon as you get over the fact that the becoming a god/ascending to heaven that everyone aspires to essentially means they become a bureaucrat for all of eternity, it makes perfect sense. Actually, it really is more accessible than mdzs in terms of needed background knowledge; it explains itself quite well. Glancing through my tag, there’s a bit more variety to it. Many characters are very fun. The other pairing that shows up rather often is colloquially known as beefleaf; Shi QuanXuan (angelic), a super peppy cinnamon roll, and Ming Yi (goth) who reluctantly cross-dresses* with them. (*does it still count as cross-dressing if no one has a corporeal body anymore and occasionally decide I’m going to be x gender today?) Anyway, this is also originally a chinese web novel. Both are by the same author. There is a recently started manhua adaptation that is very lovely and a donghua adaptation should be starting later this year. SUPER soft. Intense but doesn’t take itself too seriously. Great cast of characters.

Scum Villain’s Self-Saving System is the third, or rather the first, novel by this same author. This one requires a little bit more trope/genre awareness but it’s well done and has good translations so that makes it a nice place to get into the trope if you’re looking for one. This is a transmigration story. The premise of transmigration is (or at least seems to be) that a person dies but, instead of dying, they wake up somewhere else as someone else. The particular brand of transmigration found in scum villain is the waking up as a character of a book that is destined to die. Then the story becomes how the transmigrated person changes the character’s relationships and interactions and what the repercussions of those changes are. Here, Shen QingQiu (angelic) transmigrates to become the teacher of Luo BingHe (goth), the protagonist who just wants to love his teacher but all of his advances end up interpreted as death threats. The other angelic/goth pairing you’re most likely to see here is Shang QingHua/Mo BeiJun but I have not yet gotten far enough to give them a proper comment. From what I understand, there were once plans for all sorts of adaptations but they are all cancelled or on indefinited hiatus. Very campy. Very trope-y. Has never heard of the 4th wall. Very funny.

And should you want to continue down this sort of rabbit hole, some nice places to start are:

Psychic Princess - manhua/donghua; m/f; girl gets married in place of her sister thanks to a loop hole, proceeds to make friends with all the spirits in her new home; historical supernatural

The King’s Avatar - novel/manhua/donghua/drama; I believe there is some endgame m/f in the novel, none as of yet in the donghua, can’t speak to the rest; who doesn’t want to watch the world get beat up by some guy with an umbrella; modern day + online games

The Emperor’s Strategy - novel/donghua; m/m; emperor asks a lord what he wants as a reward for a service rendered, lord replies “you”; half historical half mid fantasy

Everyday the Protagonist Wants to Catch Me - novel; m/m; very similar to scum villain

Let Me Tease You - novel; m/m; not quite as similar to scum villain

Imperial Doctor Belongs to the Princess - novel; f/f; most promising looking f/f I’ve come across but it’s not very translated T^T

Mistress, I was Wrong - novel; f/f; could be interesting but also not very translated

Lone Swan - manhua; m/m; kinda like mdzs except with puppets instead of corpses; very pretty like the tgcf manhua

Thank you for the amusing reminder that virtually every couple here can be asked “so who’s the angel and who’s the goth?” I apologise for getting carried away... hopefully this was still good and you don’t regret coming to me to be a search engine!

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comicteaparty · 4 years

Text

July 25th-July 31st, 2020 Creator Babble Archive

The archive for the Creator Babble chat that occurred from July 25th, 2020 to July 31st, 2020. The chat focused on the following question:

Where can your comic be read, what is it about, and why should people read it?

carcarchu

last one

mariah (rainy day dreams)

You can read Rainy Day Dreams on it's homesite: http://rainydaydreams.mariahcurrey.com/ Book 1 of RDD is also currently in pre-orders for both physical and digital books. This volume collects the newly redrawn and remastered first five charters. Currently not all of those pages are online so book buyers will get to see them first https://gumroad.com/mariahcurrey Rainy Day Dreams is a manga influenced, character driven supernatural story with dreamlike pacing. It follows the lives Tristin, an excitable and friendly human who becomes trapped in the Nameless World after a treasure hunt gone wrong, Mara, a reclusive retired knight belonging to an ancient lineage of psychics, and Michael, a sad vampire torn between his vampire instincts and being the soft boy he is deep down. Come for the compelling characters, interpersonal drama, and found family, stay for the underlying slow build of the cosmic machinations of the Nameless World's gods and a villain from the past bent on undoing the very fabric of reality. Reasons you should read it beyond the above pitch: - I've been told by frequently people find it's relaxing to read. We all need a little relaxation - Has a female driven narrative - I take every chance I get to put my characters in ball gowns or party dresses - Monsters! Cute monsters, scary monsters! Monsters that want to eat you, monsters that want to smooch you! - I make this comic traditionally with ink wash so enjoy all the beautiful ink blooms! - Chapter 18 starts this week

CoppertheCarutor

Oh wow, I missed out on A LOT! Dang! Well, here it goes I guess. To start off, please read with discretion, this project is rated R/17+ and for now contains: Abuse, discussion of suicide, blood, violence, queerphobia, trauma, mental illness, self-harm, mild body horror, substance abuse, profanity and full-frontal nudity. You can read my comic, The Guide to a Healthy Relationship, on it's main site: http://tgtahr.spiderforest.com/ I also have it posted on Tapas, Webtoons (nudity censored), Comicfury, FlowFo and Itch.io. The Guide to a Healthy Relationship is a slowburn character driven psychological drama about an emotionally immature alcoholic trying to make amends, and fix his friendship with his ex-childhood friend upon discovering they're not dead. Unfortunately the situation is much more complicated and serious than he can comprehend. Why you should check it out: - Possibly interesting if you enjoy non-fantastical character studies and/or Psychology. - May be cathartic if you like consuming heavy content in a controlled environment. - Has some light horror elements. - Contains an extremely flawed LGBT+ cast. - No romance. - This comic is drawn traditionally with pens and color pencils. - The story is a little over halfway finished. - Contains/will contain beaches if you like the beach. - Lots of sky shots.(edited)

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(Ahhh this was hard to write out, i'll really miss this server) Ghost Junk Sickness is a free to read LGBTQ+ sci-fi that tackles themes of found family, accountability, and acceptance. It rated T for it's course language and violence, and can be read on it's official website, < https://www.ghostjunksickness.com/ > . Books 1-3 are available on the store (link on site) and we're currently on our way to wrap up and print vol 4! Ghost Junk Sickness is about two bounty hunters with an unstable dynamic who are pushed to pursue the elusive and deadly bounty dubbed The Ghost. It updates mondays and fridays, features an extensive cast with queer rep, topics about dealing with trauma, responsibility, and taking control. GJS has: -Space ships! -Lived in worlds/ extensive world building through illustrative backgrounds and characters - Slow burn character growth, expanding relationships, and new love -Drawn traditionally and worked on by a team of two! -Long run story that reached the halfway point, GJS has a huge buffer of over 800 pages now, so it's a time sinker! - hot lizard lady (best part)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

holy shit 800 page buffr

OH wait by buffer you mean archive omg

Krispy §[Ghost Junk Sickness]§

(oh YE we only have 70 page buffer now woohopps lol)

Eightfish (Puppeteer)

holy shit 70 page buffer

that's like 10 months

eliushi [Keyspace]

KEYSPACE: A Winged Tale is a story about kids with wings for hair, and can be found at https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/keyspace-a-winged-tale/list?title_no=322364 https://tapas.io/series/KEYSPACE-A-Winged-Tale/ TW: Body Horror (comes with having wings sprouting from the head and more) Keyspace is my passion project about a world between portals that is dying. A Winged Tale is the first story of this series and touches upon the deeper magic that unites the work. It’s about a wingless girl trying to find her missing scientist mother in a laboratory beneath a forest, winged children discovering their origins and Machines that once ravaged the world, now lost. It’s a story for those who grew up with Studio Ghibli stories but want a little more complications and lore but still retain hope for the future. TL;DR: Come for winged hair, sad robots, possibly dragons, lots of science. The comic returns August 1

CoppertheCarutor

AH! Thank you for reminding about a couple content warnings I forgot to add.

LadyLazuli (Phantomarine)

Phantomarine is a story about a haunted ocean, a ghostly princess, and her journey to save her soul from a death god known as the Red Tide King. http://www.phantomarine.com/ TW: death, body horror, limb loss Princess Phaedra's untimely and mysterious death casts her out into the dark waters of the Candlelight Sea, forcing her to wander the world as an ethereal seaghost. Her journey toward resurrection quickly evolves into a grand maritime adventure on her ship, the Mantaluna, along with a crew of similarly-cursed friends and familiars. But Phaedra's mission has a dark undercurrent to it - a divine mystery that, when solved, will force her to question everything about her life, her death, and her world's long-dead past. If you like:

-THE COLOR BLUE (or just the ocean) -general spookiness that never gets too dark or gory -flamboyant villains of various kinds -swashbuckling pirate-y stories -fancy boats and pretty islands -big elemental animal gods fighting -friends and family fighting for each other -lots of hero-vs-villain salt and sass -DOGS

then heck yeah, this is your comic (edited)

Miranda (Into the Swell)

Into the Swell is about a Pirate with nothing left to lose but his life and a Wizard who wants more than a life of entertaining royals with party tricks being thrown together on the treasure hunt of their lives. The official blurb is: Ocean swells are remnants of storms hundreds of miles away. So do past actions cause swells of destiny on the shores of the present. Fate will always find a way. Given the choice between a one way trip to the gallows or a return to high sea adventure, imprisoned pirate Fletcher makes the obvious choice. With Court appointed wizard Kelwyn watching his every move, the two set off to reclaim a stolen treasure for King and Country. The ocean journey leads the duo through uncharted waters that hide dangers and secrets that could unravel the very fabric of their lives. Could this treasure hunt prove more adventure than they bargained for? TW: deaths? You can find it on https://tapas.io/series/into-the-swell or Webtoons It’s just starting out so there’s not much yet but you gotta start somewhere!

Cronaj ~{Whispers of the Past}~

Heyo! For all you who don't yet know me, I work on Whispers of the Past, a fantasy comic about a farm girl and an amnesiac elf man going on a journey to learn who they really are. https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/whispers-of-the-past/list?title_no=191366 Age Rating: PG-13 or T+ TW: death and corpses, blood and violence, bladed weapons, profanity, depictions of racial discrimination, alcohol, miscarriage, suicide, suggestive content Magical powers can only come from the other side... When Aniya discovers a foreigner with amnesia, she sets out to help him find the answers to his nightmares. Along with their growing feelings for one another, they will uncover an identity riddled with magic, bloodlines, and betrayal. What WotP has to offer: - a unique painterly art style - in-depth world-building (including a conlang) - hurt/comfort themes - hella family drama - MAGIC - ace, bi, and POC representation - cute romance - If you like high fantasy like ATLA, this might be right up your alley

Nutty (Court of Roses)

I wanna say first of all that thank you for this server. Even if I couldn't participate often, it was a lovely place, love you all!! Court of Roses is in several places, but its main site on Spiderforest is a page ahead! Best place to read it is here: http://courtofroses.spiderforest.com/ As summer comes to an end in the kingdom of Prismal, the Bardic Festival is in full swing, bringing together musicians and minstrels from all over. But amidst the celebration, a sinister plot of murder unfolds... Follow a ragtag group of bards as they band together and travel the realm of Prismal; Merlow the Rose, half-elf, charismatic leader, bagpiper, and perpetual drunk; Diana the Fleetfoot Fletcher, human tidinit player with a heart of gold; Nocturne, brooding but classy Infernal and violinist; Sven Rockscreamer, goliath drummer and seeker of justice; and Feliks Halfdance, curious gnome who plays accordion and magically conjures their entire backup. And who knows! Mayhaps they'll solve a murder mystery together! The comic is greatly LGBTQ-friendly, and takes inspiration from both classic fantasy themes (Dungeons and Dragons, Lord of the Rings, The Elder Scrolls, etc.) as well as music across all genres. Specific pages and scenes might even include their own suggested theme songs in the author notes. Contains Fantasy Violence and Alcohol Use(edited)

AntiBunny

You can as always read my comic at http://AntiBunny.net/ and is a film noir inspired story about anthropomorphic rabbits and the difficulty with coexisting with humanity. Crime and conspiracies move the plot along, but in film noir there's rarely a clear black and white. Why should you read it? Do you like stories about crime and conspiracies? Do you like bunnies? Do you want to see a contrast of cute and grim, and see relatable characters who deal with mental health issues, and fight a struggle for acceptance? Do you ask yourself the question what is identity? Well then this is for you.

You can find my other comic at http://nailbat.AntiBunny.net/. Nailbat is part of the AntiBunny universe, and deals with many of the same issues, but using a more straightforward and action packed superhero story. If you love superheroes and action you'll enjoy it, and maybe along the way get into the deeper lore of the AntiBunny world.

Holmeaa - working on WAYFINDERS

Thanks everyone who I have chattet with in here, it has been a delight <3 Wayfinders: Off Course Can be read on Tapas or Webtoons (I prefer tapas ) https://linktr.ee/snackbagstudios Whats it about? You may ask. In a world where magic is as natural as breathing, and the gods are known to actually answer some prayers, a ship is sent to keep the fragile peace between 2 countries that has been at war for 60 years. But guess what? The ship crashes almost immediately. Now the 3 only survivors, a runaway monk, with unexplained powers, the noble son and peace advocate, and a chaos child with an affinity for magic washes ashore on an unknown island and is forced together by a magical compass. With navigation, and magic being broken, it is not an easy task to cross the ocean. If only they knew of the chaos which is unravelling outside their comfortable lives. If they thought this adventure was going to be uneventful, they are in for a surprise. Why should you read it? It is a mix between the Road to Eldorado, and Avatar the Last Airbender, and if that short pitch is not enough, I don't know how else to sell it. It has fun colors, anime reference, and a lot of ocean and sinister magics Thanks to all the admins for putting in so much work in this server

Feather J. Fern

Okay, I have like three comics, and the fourth one coming soon so.....Lets get the easy ones out of the way. On Webtoons, you can read Teasday or Don't you hate it when...(DYHIW) https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/dont-you-hate-it-when/list?title_no=486501 https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/teasday/list?title_no=169870&page=1 DYHIW is a gag comic, so if you want a little laugh to brighten your week, feel free to check it out. Teasday is a tea informative comic, but it's on a bit of a hiatus and ending soon. My current project is Gravitational Pull, a story about a depressed magical girl trying to save the world while also trying to get the energy to leave her bed that day. Read it if you like magical girls, space and representation of anxiety, depression, inferiority complex and learning to take each day slowly. http://gravitationalpull.featheryterrarium.com/ And when it comes out, Go Figure is my comedy action webtoon about someone who wants to use a powerful wish to cure their asthma and allergies over anything else.

sssfrs (JOE IS DEAD)

JOE IS DEAD A band of pirates are visiting an island and they discover the dead body of their astronomer JOSEPH CINNABAR. He leaves behind a will with mysterious instructions that none of the pirates really feel like following. The crew decide to send the least-liked and least responsible pirate of them all on a solo mission to carry out Joe's final wishes. If you like: - Alternate historical timelines where the United States doesn't exist - Gay, lesbian, and transgender pirates - Morbid humor, death, dying - Biblical allusion - Warm colors - Alliteration - My handwriting - Birds or anything else, you will love to read JOE IS DEAD, a webcomic worked on entirely by me that will be at 150 pages within a week or so. My background is in marine biology and satirical writing, so I promise you this comic is funny and scientifically accurate. Rated PG 13, mild violence and swearing Where can I read it Read it on http://joeisdead.com/ (the main hosting website with some functional html) or on Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/JoeIsDead It's also on Webtoons but it's a couple chapters behind on there You can follow me on Twitter for information about updates https://twitter.com/sssfrs_

boogeymadam

Sink Your Hookteeth An LGBT+ Cosmic Horror/Love story about eldritch merfolk that fall for a pair of humans who are studying mermaids to cure a supernatural illness. CW: bodyhorror, gore, upperbody nudity, sickness, drowning, tryophobia, eye trauma, If you like:

-sea monsters

-big teeth

-painted comics

-nonbinary and binary transgender, lesbian, bisexual, and pansexual protagonists

-neurodivergent protagonists

-goofy friendship dynamics

-nasty and imperfect wlw couples

-enemies to lovers trope

-childhood friends to lovers trope

then this is a comic you might enjoy :D! It finished chapter 1 a few months ago with 195 pages, takes maybe an hour or two to read, and is currently on hiatus while I am building chapter 2's buffer. You can read it on Its own site https://hookteethcomic.com/ Webtoons https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/hookteeth/list?title_no=300709 Tapas https://tapas.io/series/Hookteeth/info

also i need to read more of these but joe is dead, wayfinders, keyspace: a winged tale, phantomarine, ghost junk sickness, the guide to a healthy relationship, and court of roses are all absolutely amazing and -chefs kiss- please give them all read if you aren't yet!

varethane

Comics!! Chirault A young half-demon named Teeko has been forced from her home, and to make matters worse, is now the size of a squirrel thanks to a wayward magic spell. Her only protection is the demon-hunter Kiran, who is a demon himself and lacks patience for children. Together, they must seek the help of a mage to reverse the spell on Teeko, but the journey is far from straightforward.. My first webcomic-- it's complete, it's a high fantasy adventure comic about finding family, fighting monsters, and also making friends with monsters (both outside and... inside). Check it out if you enjoy any of those things! http://chirault.sevensmith.net/ Wychwood Tiara is a delinquent who has been using a mysterious power to goof around for years without realizing the kind of attention it could attract. When a powerful organization finally tracks her down and attempts to recruit her, she has to decide what she really stands for. This is my new/current webcomic! It's a sci-fantasy genre-blender, with bits of post-apocalypse and urban fantasy thrown in as a treat just for fun. If you enjoy stories involving evil organizations, fire-flinging delinquents, and angsty supersoldiers, give it a look :U (Chapter 4 has just gotten started!) http://wychwood.sevensmith.net/

TaliePlume

Feather Cleanse (French: Nettoyage des plumes, Haitian Creole: Plim Geri) is a supernatural, sci-fi and military Shonen manga. Set in the year 2034 in the Haitian kingdom, Vérité Kindgom, the story follows 14 year old Soleil Andirans, her two older brothers and their cousin who joins their kingdom's military program to help Soleil find a wanted criminal and stopping a mad scientist from taking over the kingdom. This is a personal project that is very dear to me and I can't wait to share with you all hopefully around June of 2023. Why should you read it: -A positive Haitian representation -Strong female protagonist -Learning about a new culture - Family Bonds -Mad Scientists and experimentations - Criminal MasterMinds - Servant and Master relationships -Kings and Queens/Royalties -Dynamic and Impactful Fights Then, this is the comic for you.

shadowhood {SunnyxRain}

Alrighty cracks knuckles SunnyxRain, a webcomic about monsters surviving college.....BY THE POWER OF FANFICTION. Follow Sunny Dupont, a gluttony demon as she navigates college life and fanfic writing with the help of her housemates Liam (a qilin she roped in as her beta/editor) and Aron (an ocean naga as a fan). A story of trauma recovery and learning lessons about life and love. If you like: -housemate shenanigans -fanfic/fandom culture exploration -kickass but seriously flawed protagonists recovering from trauma - VOID CAT -LGBTQ+ cast because I can -coffee gremlin cryptid dudes -sweet slow burn romance -lesser known mythological creature representation Then this webcomic is for you to read, and y'all can come read it here! https://tapas.io/series/SunnyxRain/info and HERE https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/sunnyxrain/list?title_no=409335(edited)

Deo101 [Millennium]

Well, Here we go ^^ I have 2 comics right now, so: Millennium: A sci fi adventure featuring two best friends as they seek to help anyone and everyone they can, where we put together a bit of a misfit crew who are all intent on bettering themselves and the world around them. It's a lighthearted, LGBT+ Slowburn The sci fi is soft and so are the characters It's got found family, hurt/comfort, and gentle handling of heavier themes. It's easy to read and shouldn't make you think too much, it's just an hour or two of simple adventure between friends! It can be read a lot of places! My personal site: https://millennium.spiderforest.com/ Webtoons: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/millennium/list?title_no=110866&page=1 Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/Millennium Comic Fury: http://millennium.thecomicseries.com/ and Tumblr!: https://millennium-comic.tumblr.com/ Time and Time Again: A noir mystery about time traveling vampires! We follow Adam, a vampire, and his subject of study, Steve, the first werewolf/vampire. The two of them are trapped in the 20's, looking to solve the mystery of a missing relic. It's a limited palette, scroll style comic if you're looking for a bit more action and higher stakes, and a more serious tone, then this one might be a better fit for you than Millennium ^^ I'm planning on finishing it up relatively soon, so get in on it now! (It's currently on a short hiatus while school is doing me in) It can only be read on tapas! https://tapas.io/series/Time-and-Time-again

kayotics

Ingress Adventuring Company You can read Ingress Adventuring Company at https://www.ingress-comic.com/ TW: some gore, blood, violence Saving the world is a pretty big deal, but what do you do once you’re done with that and no one needs you anymore? Do you become a magic professor? Do you study a convoluted thesis that no one understands? Maybe you relive the glory days by starting up a one-man adventuring party to gather mystical artifacts for people who may or may not pay you. Or, if you’re Toivo Kissa, you do all of those things. Reasons to check it out! - You like D&D or other stories inspired by it - It’s got bittersweet comedy - Very fun villains - Expressive art - Elves. Just a lot of elves. - Sad Dads and old men - LGBTQ+ cast

maxwestart

Poison Ivy Gulch is hosted on its own WordPress site: http://www.poisonivygulch.com/ Poison Ivy Gulch is a funny Western set in a frontier town in the 1870s. The protagonists are Lotta Doler, a gambler, and her kid sidekick Ace. Other characters include a marshal, an undertaker, a prospector and many extras. Poison Ivy Gulch is a spiritual successor to Tumbleweeds. If you like Blazing Saddles, you'll love this!

sagaholmgaard

Ahh dang, thanks for the heads up!! Here it is: https://tapas.io/series/_Reclaim_ My comic, Reclaim, is about a prince that has to deal with the aftermath of a successful coup. His father is imprisoned and sentenced to death, and he's in hiding with his dear bodyguard. Now he has to save his dad and reclaim the throne from the power-hungry witch warrior Irene, but how can the two of them hope to stand a chance against the entire force of the empire? And what was the real reason for the coup in the first place? This is for people who want a heartfelt fantasy story, with inspiration from Steven Universe and themes around being a better person than you were yesterday, and sticking together through hardships!

PiraPiranha

DEPARTURE is a story about dead brothers, hot guys and competent women! Lights! Camera! Action! The flaws of our predecessors are the burdens that we carry today! As galactic governance has been passed down from generation to generation of divine beings, the wars and insecurities of the previous pantheons are weighing down on our world. Whether it’s vanquishing your greatest enemies, or buying tomorrow’s cereal, keeping this flaming shipwreck of a universe together is going to require a little elbow grease, and a lot of flashy super powers! Follow Kovit, a space fighter turned part-time cook and his friends Casey (Cool, has a nice jacket) and Vermillion (Dumb, has stupid hair) as he tries to help the most powerful beings in the universe keep it together (Ostensibly by beating them up). Check it out here! http://departurecomic.cfw.me/(edited)

seetherabbit

Vulperra is an anthology comic featuring superheros, cowboys and regular common folk in the fantasy world of Vulperra. Most of the stories are about the hero Flash Gauntlet, who travels from place to place to solve problems with his magical gauntlets which were bestowed to him by the goddess of the land. https://vulperra.com/

NAAN

Legendary Beings Ara & Celi is about a young girl, Miyara, who is chosen to be the successor to a specific line of Angels – headed by none other than Ara–and with it, duties that extend beyond the physical world. Only one problem: Miyara has no desire to do the job! What will happen then, especially with Celi, Ara’s counterpart, is intent on causing chaos in her life?! You can read Ara & Celi at its main site: http://ac.jadinerhinestudios.com/ Here is the Webtoons mirror: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/legendary-beings-ara-celi/list?title_no=59422 Doesn't have any trigger warnings (maybe that (1) page in chapter 2 is too creepy-crawly for anyone?), and it's currently on hiatus because I'm working on chapter 4, will update again when I have completed it! So enjoy the 3 chapters so far! If you like: • MAGICAL GOILS • an old school b&w shoujo manga style (according to some people, and I don't even do it on purpose ) • on that note, since the 3rd chapter, the comic is drawn traditionally! (all covers are in color and traditional) • expressive comedy • language jokes and notes • angels and demons, yes, it's one of those but is anybody really the bad guy here • a lion and a jinn walk into a bar-- • slow worldbuilding and character development • heck if I know what else, you should just check it out and tell me what you think later like in the good ol' days

L Hornsby

Heyo, I haven't been very active. I'm not used to Discord. If anybody would like some silly comics about puppies that live in the clouds and enjoy parties (and also happen to be princesses) my comic Princess Pups has you covered. It's all ages friendly so if you have younger kids you want to get into comics, it's a swell read according to my 3 years old :) https://tapas.io/series/Princess-Pups/info

carcarchu

@L Hornsby oh i didn't know you were in this server! i actually read your comic because our comics have really similar names ahaha

L Hornsby

Oh wow hey there! :)

I usually lurk on Instagram and Twitter these days and have been crocheting more than comics lately

mathtans

What the heck, been on hiatus more than a year but there's an archive and it's not like there's any dangling plot points. I personify mathematics! Because equations are people too. The hairstyles are the graphs, and there are puns.

Main site: http://mathtans.ca/

Tapas mirror: https://tapas.io/series/Any-Q

It's called "Any ~Qs" because notQ is the symbol for irrational numbers. So anything irrational, in a sense. Very G rated - maybe PG, some discussion of biological sex and tangential politics. Enjoy, possibly.(edited)

Spring-heeled Jack

Hey all! My comic is a horror comic that features some LGBTQA+ characters in the main cast. Today is also my monthly update on public sites. I do four pages at the end of the month on Tapas, Webtoons, and my website. (Patreon gets weekly updates.) It is a story of a picturesque town with a dark secret and what will be done to keep that secret. I follow a few characters through the the twisting plot and show how the darker side of this town affects them. I think this would be PG13 mostly because there will be some blood, but there are no sexual situations. Currently Tapas has the most recent free pages as I will have to do Webtoon and the website manually later today. Happy reading and please do let me know what you think! <3 Website: https://www.iamfilledwithstatic.com/crocus Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/crocusheights Webtoon: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/the-secret-of-crocus-heights/list?title_no=405820 Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/iamfilledwithstatic

DanielHookerArt

I have a series of self published graphic novels. When all copies of the first volume sold out I posted it on Webtoon. It's sort of a Isekai Mystery Adventure, inspired by the 1980's movie Labyrinth.

https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/line-of-ruin/list?title_no=232705

StickFreeks

Hi I'm Christy! I make the webcomic / graphic novel series EXTRA! It's about Extras in the backgrounds of a movie world escaping their fates of getting killed off... by going to go ask the Producer to stop killing them off. (Sort of like The Truman Show, but everyone is in on it.) You can read it at https://extra-comic.com/ I'm always looking to make new comic buddies! (edited)

Annausagi2

Hello! I joined right at the announcement of the channel shutting down, so bad timing. :,O I've been working on my webcomic Helix since 2012: Read from the start here: http://helixcomic.com/ Description/warnings: A street rat is given a second chance when he is dragged from the gutter and into a new life. Will he accept his position at the side of royalty, or fight every step of the way? -Rated M for sex (M/M, consensual), violence, nudity, language, and dark themes.- Warnings: -References to child abuse and sexual abuse.- If you can handle these subjects, I hope you'll enjoy the comic. :) Thanks for reading! UPDATES EVERY WEDNESDAY! ~ Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Annausagi2 ~ Join us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Annausagi2

Kalli

I joined right when things were shutting down too :( Just my luck Anyway! I'm Kalli and I have a fully traditionally drawn webcomic, called World of Ruan! https://www.worldofruan.com/ It's a post apocalyptic, sci fi adventure type story, following Cait, a mutant mouse/human hybrid and Roxy, her robot companion! I update every Saturday~ And I'm always down for meeting new comic friends!

Cap’n Lee (Flowerlark Studios)

I make Children of Shadow: Ashes and Dark Wings: Eryl. Ashes is an urban fantasy / horror about teens with supernatural powers who have to team up with woodland critters to save the world from twisted monsters. It’s rated PG-13 and has mild language, graphic violence, and intense scenes. Eryl is a dark high fantasy about a fallen angel, a woman on a journey to find a dragon, and a wyvern who has been kidnapped. It’s rated 16+ and contains strong language, nonsexual nudity, and graphic violence. https://twitter.com/kickyourwrasse/status/1277315129793826816?s=21

Tuyetnhi (Only In Your Dreams!)

Only In Your Dreams! is a rom-com Drama comic featuring shoujo and future LGBT+ elements. Also a mainly BIPOC cast! Rated: PG16+ There are some suggestive language & content, and partial nudity. “Cara Luong is tired of her failed dating attempts and settles for Richie, her imaginary lover every night in her sleep. When given a chance to meet him in person for the first time, she suddenly forgets their long-term romance! Now it’s up to Cara to decide if Richie can live as a real boyfriend. That is, if she wants him to exist in the first place!” What it contains: - Dumbassery moments between a dreamer and a dream boi - Expressions that you can feel it in your soul - Main romantic interest participating in healthy masculinity and embracing femmine traits - horror elements in a romance comic? huh-- - Himbo appreciation - A mixed-Black Vietnamese protag for this romantic rollercoaster lol If you're looking something self indulgent, read it why don't you? I release pages early on patreon! https://www.patreon.com/tuyetnhip Otherwise you can check out the site! It updates once bi-weekly on Wednesdays usually! http://oiydcomic.com/ Tapas: https://tapas.io/series/Only-In-Your-Dreams Webtoon: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/only-in-your-dreams/list?title_no=115046 Other links: https://linktr.ee/oiydcomic

alizarin

I joined near the end of the server but I can't wait to participate in the reboot! So many interesting comics in here * _ * I make a comic called Patent the Sun, it basically reads like a big puzzle. It's about two characters who wake up without any memory, but slowly we learn about their whole universe and what happened to them. Oh and there's also magic, aliens, murder, and crossdressing https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/patent-the-sun/list?title_no=123560 https://tapas.io/series/Patent-the-Sun(edited)

Las Pinter

It is a pity that I was not so active here. I create the Tales From Somewhere comics, currently there are two of them: The Legend and The Secret. Both of them are high fantasy stories taking place in a fantasy world. The Legend is about three adventurers trying to survive in their realm. They are aware of being DnD like characters in a cruel world, where the DM wants to kill them as fast as he can... without luck so far. It has some comedy, action, horror and weird elements. This comic is ongoing since a long time, so expect to have big changes in the style and writing. The Secret is about an elf, who begins his journey from the world's end after an apocalyptic event. Accidentally meets a human thief girl, and now they are travelling together and figuring out what is happening to their world. This comic is currently being revamped and the story is continued parallelly. I would rate them R/17+ since they have some blood, violence, profanity and nudity. Website: https://www.talesfromsomewhere.com/ Tapas: - The Legend: https://tapas.io/series/Tales-From-Somewhere-The-Legend - The Secret: https://tapas.io/series/Tales-From-Somewhere-The-Secret Webtoons: - The Legend: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/tales-from-somewhere-the-legend/list?title_no=77159 - The Secret: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/tales-from-somewhere-the-secret/list?title_no=78355 And I'm on Twitter: https://twitter.com/thelaspinter

quietsnooze

Radio Silence is an award winning queer coming of age webcomic about a British rock band’s rise to fame. Hitting the road on a journey of self discovery and acceptance, this coming-of-age tale gives a backstage look at friendships and the plights of fame as experienced by a modern British rock band. On the fast track toward fame, the five members of the fictional British rock band, Radio Silence, enter into an exciting new life on the road with their best friends. As they tour across the United Kingdom, they excitedly embrace this new lifestyle and all the resulting challenges, including living in close quarters with each other with little privacy, and the overwhelming reaction of the public to their new-found success. Main site: http://radiosilencecomic.com/ Webtoons: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/radio-silence/list?title_no=35242 Twitter: http://twitter.com/quietsnooze

Tired Programmer

This is mine. There will be update tomorrow (in 10 hours). https://tapas.io/series/The-story-of-how-humanity-has-thrown-itself-into-the-scrapyard Civilization, technologically advanced in the past, is now in decline. Killer and hacker are trying to survive and find the answers to their questions among the ruins. What will they meet in this crazy and cruel world of misused technologies? WARNING: strong language, violence and nudity. Only for adults.

JUNK

If any creators or readers are looking for another webcomic server to hang out in, you can check out this one: https://discord.gg/qjWJt7

I'll post it in the general channel too. :3

sierrabravo (Hans Vogel is Dead)

I wish we could have had a bit more time, but thanks everyone for creating such a great space for webcomic creators!! I make HANS VOGEL IS DEAD: an antifascist fairy tale with elements of historical fantasy. A German fighter pilot is shot down and killed during the Battle of Britain. When he wakes up in a fairytale afterlife, he learns what the evil he served has destroyed, and must undo the damage of fascism to become a better person. The end of Volume 1 is coming in the next two weeks, and September will be the fifth anniversary! You can read it on Webtoons: https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/hans-vogel-is-dead/list?title_no=62633 and find me on twitter! https://twitter.com/chjorniy_voron

Haruh2 (Colony Life)

This was such a great discord, hopefully we can keep in touch and still chat about comics and such my twitter is : https://twitter.com/Haruh2 Here is my comic Colony Life, ive been working on this for abit and will always love making this comic no matter what https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/colony-life/list?title_no=193784

boniae

I regret that I wasn't more active in here besides occasional lurking, but I always think back fondly to the CTP chat that my comic was discussed in, it was the first time I ever got to see so much in depth feedback and analysis on my comic and I will forever appreciate this server Four Corners is set in 1995, Yokohama, as the story follows Kazuhiro Tsuchiya who now leads his deceased brother's legendary gang, the Four Corners. Kazuhiro is approached by Hideki Yuhara, a schoolmate who claims to have vital information that Kazuhiro should be wary of. The two unlikely delinquents pair up to figure out the reason as to why gangs in the city are being brutally eliminated...though the unraveling of the mystery is darker than it appears. How far will Kazuhiro and Hideki go to rest their case? If you're looking for a slow burn lgbt romance, 90s manga nostalgia, drama, mystery, and a story with a general theme of: misfits who come together against dangerous odds to protect others, especially the ones they love—come check it out! https://tapas.io/series/four-corners/ http://fourcornerscomic.com/ https://twitter.com/boniaeart

snuffysam (Super Galaxy Knights)

I'll really miss having a new comic to read every week! My comic is called Super Galaxy Knights Deluxe R. It's a story of a small woman from a small town who goes on adventures across a strange kingdom. Action, comedy, and very, very slow burn romance... http://sgkdr.thecomicseries.com/ https://tapas.io/series/sgkdr https://www.webtoons.com/en/challenge/super-galaxy-knights-deluxe-r/list?title_no=41795

LeahVillart

I haven't done much work or anything in general these past months because they've been utter shit for me. This year had stuff breaking in my home, my grandma died from covid, family issues, found out my 9yo dog has lymphoma (blood cancer) and I got to a break point and I'm trying to recover from all the shit. Now it's late and I'm tired so I'm gonna make a super sleepy pitching~ I make Teach Me To Kill a horror-comedy webcomic about a school of villains and killers where a new seemingly innocent teacher arrives to help the worst class become the horror legends they are "destined" to become. [IN ENGLISH AND SPANISH] If you like contradicting/opposite genres or themes you'll find it here, violence, blood, kills, but all done with a cute colorful style where nothing is as it seems. With a cast made of crazy humans, detectives, monstergirls and guys like -our sexy looking hybrid vampire Daki who didn't ask for any of the cards she's been dealt and only wants to find true love and not something attracted by her vampiric aura. - Our lil raven kid Nayla who is a sugar bomb ready to explode, but can break a mountain in two. - Kyllian, a boy who's managed to make a personality out of each of his expressions, which sometimes is helpful and others a horrible mistake. - Q.Bee, an innocent looking girl who radiates sensuality in some weird way luring her victims into her trap. You never know what she's thinking or could do at any moment. the cast and world is really huge and don't want to spoil more, but it's filled with slice of life, mystery, action, dark humor, romance, fantasy, paranormal stuff. A total mix. If you give it a read, thanks for doing so and hope you like it! <3 http://teachmetokill.com/(edited)

Comic Tea Party

This concludes our final #creator_babble chat. Thank you so much to all the wonderful creators who have participated in this chat over its existence. It has been great to see your enthusiasm for the craft of webcomics, as well as learn your unique stories of how you pursue it. We are positive these conversations have helped many other creators out, so we appreciate you having them. For this conversation, and all past #creator_babble chats, you’ll be able to find them archived here: https://comicteaparty.com/creatorbabble

#ctparchive #comics #webcomics #indie comics #comic chat #comic discussion #comic tea party #ctp #creator interview #comic creator interview #creator babble

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jahaanofmenaphos · 4 years

Photo

Art by the awesome @tommieglenn!

Of Gods and Men Summary:

When the gods returned to Gielinor, their minds were only on one thing: the Stone of Jas, a powerful elder artefact in the hands of Sliske, a devious Mahjarrat who stole it for his own ends and entertainment. He claims to want to incite another god wars, but are his ulterior motives more sinister than that? And can the World Guardian, Jahaan, escape from under Sliske’s shadow?

Read the full work here:

ARCHIVE OF OUR OWN

FANFICTION.NET

TUMBLR CHAPTER INDEX

QUEST 08: MARK OF ZEMOUREGAL

QUEST SUMMARY:

Because of Jahaan’s betrayal of Zamorak during their heist of the Stone of Jas, Zemouregal takes the matter of revenge into his own hands. When Jahaan looks to get even, he enlists the help of his Mahjarrat allies to take the fight to Zemouregal…

CHAPTER 5: UNAVOIDABLE CONFLICT

Jahaan landed back at the temple delicately, thanks to Wahisietel basically carrying him during the teleport. Removing his armour, Jahaan sat back against the oak frame of his bed’s headrest while Azzanadra fetched something to ease the pain. The potion was bitter; sweet with a twinge of burnt apples was the only way he could describe it. Despite that, it served its purpose, helping to numb the aching of his ribs.

“That armour is the only reason you’re still breathing, World Guardian,” Wahisietel noted, motioning to the dented elder rune platebody resting against the wall. “It is somewhat fortunate Zemouregal destroyed your first set, is it not?”

There was a twinge of a smile of the Mahjarrat’s face, and Jahaan caught the meaning. Despite the pain of it, Jahaan couldn't help but laugh at the irony. By trying to kill Jahaan, Zemouregal destroyed his armour. Jahaan’s new set of armour saved his life against Zemouregal.

How bitterly poetic.

Closing his eyes, Jahaan let the drowsy side effects of the potion consume him, mumbling before he fell under, “I’ll buff that out in the morning…”

It wasn’t for quite a few mornings that Jahaan had the upper body strength to even raise his arms above his head, let alone take his armour to an anvil. Damaged ribs were a time-taker to heal - there was nothing he could do to speed up the process, just rest in the quarters of his Mahjarrat ally. As promised, he told Wahisietel of the troubling encounter with Sliske, and in return learned a whole new set of Freneskaen curse words.

But at least in the comfort of the temple, Jahaan felt safe. His mind, however, would never let him rest.

Just like after Lucien’s death, Jahaan expected a miracle that didn’t come to pass. He expected to feel relief, joy, anything. He expected the weight off his chest to be lifted, but the pain was still there, predominantly in the form of a cracked rib.

He didn’t expect to still feel so hollow.

The rage had subsided at least, but that had ebbed away in the battle - a miracle in its own right, for Jahaan couldn’t remember the last time he’d effectively controlled his temper like that. The mental image of the sword slicing into Zemouregal’s throat put Jahaan to sleep every night, but he never slumbered for long, awoken either by the aching of his ribs or one of the many delightful recurring nightmares he’d been suffering from since the fire.

They were all there, friends and enemies alike. Ozan, Zamorak, Icthlarin, Zemouregal, Sir Tiffy, Cyrisus… their corpses cold and decaying, only to be dragged into reanimation by wires on their limbs, twisting and contorting their lifeless bodies against their will. Dancing marionettes, puppets on strings, shuffling to the rhythm of a haunting cackle, a gloved hand, a masked face.

Jahaan knew that voice all too well; he could only watch in horror as the familiar puppeteer orchestrated his plays, the world at his mercy.

After just under a week had passed, Jahaan felt like he’d graduated from bedrest and decided to leave Azzanadra in peace, still feeling bad that the Mahjarrat had acted as host and carer to a broken guest for far too long. Now that he was well enough to travel, albeit with the assistance of a cane, Jahaan wanted to check up on Ozan’s progress in the Wizards’ Tower. In one last favour he asked Azzanadra to teleport him to Draynor. There, Jahaan first utilised the bank to transport his armour to safe storage. His ribs still couldn’t quite take the brunt of any constricting armour, despite how light and nimble the elder rune set was.

Then, it was just a short walk across the bridge to the Wizards’ Tower, somewhere Jahaan was glad to be back at under less dire circumstances than before.

The Wizards’ Tower is a Saradominist institute for magic and runecrafting in Misthalin, housed in an immense structure located on a small island south of Draynor. It is one of the tallest buildings on Gielinor, rivalling the greatest cities’ castles, but coming short of the Tower of Voices in Prifddinas. It is connected to the mainland by an exquisite bridge, and the tower’s elaborate architecture and ornaments make it a beacon of human accomplishment in the Fifth Age. The tower has many facilities, including two libraries, an armillary, a telescope, offices and workrooms. In addition, the tower houses several secrets, such as the teleportation spell to the Rune Essence mine, which Zamorakian organisations such as the Zamorakian Magical Institute were attempting to steal. The Wizards' Tower was also known for having created most spells currently used today, as well as many magical theses and theorems. The tower was run by Archmage Sedridor, a very enthusiastic and bubbly old chap who happily welcomed visitors into the tower and would chat their ears off about its history.

As he searched for a certain textbook on the floating shelves, the archmage saw Jahaan in his peripheral vision, who was being signed in by Valina, the entrance clerk.

“Jahaan, Jahaan come in!” Archmage Sedridor greeted him, ushering him inside. “We were beginning to worry about you, you seemed so frantic last time, son. It was quite troubling.”

“It was a stressful time,” Jahaan replied, an understatement that Archmage Sedridor accepted with a deepening frown.

“Yes, yes poor Ozan… we’ve done all we can for him, I assure you. We treated his burns and prevented infection, but there’s still some lasting damage, you see. I’m afraid his skin will never truly heal.”

Jahaan winced. He knew Ozan’s narcissism well, reflected in his reply, “Let me guess, he’s taking the damage to his face the worst, right?”

Sniffing a humourless laugh, Sedridor confirmed, “He does mention it often.”

The two made it to the medical bay in good time; the door was ajar. Inside, Jahaan could hear the pleasant chattering between Ozan and Ariane, and he held back for a while. Archmage Sedridor left to attend to other business, leaving Jahaan to rest against a neighbouring pillar. He couldn’t make out too much from what was said, but noted how Ozan’s usual full-bodied laugh was weaker now, punctuated by tight coughs. The sound made Jahaan’s throat close up.

Finally, he realised he couldn’t hold it off any longer and gently pushed the door open, its ear-piercing creak signalling his arrival.

Once the two locked eyes, Ariane’s face grew dark, her expression cold. She feigned a reassuring smile to Ozan, muttered a few words - seemingly making her excuses to leave - and gathered up Coal, who was chewing on the bed linen. She edged past Jahaan at the door without sending him another glance. Even Ozan couldn’t spin it, offering nothing but a sympathetic smile and a light shrug. He was propped up against the head of the bed, still in nightwear, with bandages taping his arms and half of his face. He looked like an incomplete mummy, something which Jahaan didn’t decide to voice, just in case Ozan’s sense of humour wasn’t fully recovered.

Luckily, Ozan broke the tension, pointing to his own face and saying, “Fenkenstrain’s suing me for ripping off his creation.”

It wasn’t that funny, but Jahaan laughed. Like, properly laughed, doubling over with tears in his eyes. He was just so… relieved. The relief was such that it felt as if a phantom had left his soul in a jolt, similar to how he felt after Zaros disembarked his body, though without the unwelcomed loss of consciousness that followed.

Awkwardly, Jahaan sat down on the edge of Ozan’s bed. He really didn’t know where to start - an apology, a check on his health, on his spirits, an explanation… there was too much he needed to cover. So, he allowed Ozan to make the first move.

“I haven’t seen you for a while,” Ozan mumbled, rubbing the back of his neck. He was clearly sensing the awkwardness too. “Was getting worried, y’know… Ariane told me what happened.”

Meeting Jahaan’s eyes, he finally asked, “Did you get him? That Mahjarrat guy?”

“Zemouregal? Yeah, he’s dead,” Jahaan replied with a shaky breath.

“You shouldn’t have gone after him. You could have gotten yourself killed.”

With a humourless chuckle, Jahaan said, “Ozan, have you ever known me to let anything go? I had to. I had to… to try and make it right. Ozan, I’m so sorry. I’m so-”

“Let me stop you right there,” Ozan interejected, a calming hand reaching out to Jahaan. “You have nothing to apologise for, okay? You never could have guessed what was gonna happen.”

Laughing softly, Ozan added, “Heck, with all the enemies I’ve made over the years, our roles could have easily been reversed.”

“But can you honestly tell me that, if the roles were reversed, you wouldn’t feel guilty?”

Ozan remained quiet, accepting this.

After a long pause, Ozan lightly nudged Jahaan on the arm, tried to raise his voice a tad as he said, “Damn, man. It’s like a morgue in here. I haven’t died or anything!”

Unfortunately, the act preceded a bout of coughs, Ozan shrugging Jahaan off as he reached over to pat his back. “I’m fine, Jahaan. The coughing thing’s gonna go in time they say. It doesn’t hurt that much. My skin, on the other hand…” Ozan’s frown deepened into a comical pout. “The fire’s done a number on my pretty-boy good looks…”

Motioning to his own fire-scarred face, Jahaan dryly remarked, “Well, at least we match now.”

Sniffing a chuckle, Ozan said, “We could start a double act called ‘How Not To Play With Fire’. I’m sure Ariane would lend us some runes.”

Jahaan winced. “Ah yes, Ariane.”

“She’s taking it a lot worse than I am. I think it’s best if you stay out of her eye-line for a while,” Ozan winked, his face contorting slightly from what used to be such a simple action.

Trying to hide the sorrow in his features, Jahaan forced himself to smirk as he replied, “Good idea.”

Noticing how Ozan’s eyes were starting to close, Jahaan realised this little catch-up had probably exhausted the poor fellow who should be conserving what little energy he had at this point. So, Jahaan helped him lie back down on the bed, saying he’d visit again soon. Knowing Ariane’s stance on things, Jahaan wasn’t sure when that would be.

“Bring booze next time,” Ozan drearily called out before turning over and burying himself in the comfy pillow.

His heart heavy, Jahaan watched Ozan’s steady breathing for a few moments. It was serene - just the simple action of seeing his best friend in a peaceful sleep after all he’d been through was reassuring.

Quietly, he made his way out of the chamber, careful not to move the door for fear the creaking would startle Ozan awake.

When he turned around, Ariane was greeting him with a stern face, her arms folded over her chest. Seeing her seemingly manifest out of nowhere surprised Jahaan, causing him to jump slightly.

“How long have you been there?” Jahaan hissed, catching his breath.

Ariane didn’t answer, instead motioning for Jahaan to follow. Leading him into a small study, Ariane closed the door behind them, and from the look on her face, Jahaan knew he was in for a rough time.

“So you killed him, then? This Mahjarrat?” it sounded more like an accusation than a mere question.

Raising his chin, Jahaan confirmed, “Yes, I did.”

Ariane did not seem impressed, her eyes boring holes through the man.

“Look, what is your problem with me?” Jahaan hissed, advancing on Ariane, who didn’t step back. “I know you think I’m a bad influence on Ozan, but the man’s no monk. What matters is that we both care deeply for him, you and I. I’d rather die than let anything happen to him, and I’m pretty sure you know that already. So tell me, please, what have I done to piss you off so greatly?”

“Other than nearly letting Ozan get burned alive?”

“You hated me before that,” Jahaan countered. “So come on. Did Ozan tell you about how I grew up? Is it the people I’ve killed? What?”

“You really want to know?” Ariane snapped, storming forward with such force it made Jahaan back up on instinct. “It’s your attitude, Jahaan. Your callousness, your naivety, your self-centred view on everything. Ever since you became the Word Guardian it’s only gotten worse. The world is falling apart and I don’t think you know, let alone care. Do you ever read the newspapers, Jahaan?”

Wary of where this was going, Jahaan hesitantly answered, “I hear bits and pieces…”

It became apparent rather quickly that Jahaan did not hear enough; Ariane filled him in on all the delightful things he'd missed on his travels, such as the dangerous antics of the Godless.

The Godless are a faction of those opposed to deities being on Gielinor, similar in many ways to the Guthixian views, but with one key difference.

They were violent.

Guthixians would preach about how Guthix banished the gods from Gielinor to protect the world from them. They relied on churches, emissaries and sermons to convey their message to the general populous. The Godless, on the other hand, took it upon themselves to wage war against every god and their followers. They believed no-one should worship a deity, that we were the masters of our own destiny and do not need to follow behind a divine being in order to have worth in our lives.

Before the gods returned to Gielinor and the Sixth Age commenced, the Godless were an incredibly small faction, for almost everyone on Gielinor stood behind a banner of some sort. Now that the gods had returned and they were starting to cause a ruckus, more people were becoming sympathetic to their cause.

The Battle of Lumbridge was their single greatest recruiting tool since their inception.

The Godless would attack and deface shrines during the night, would tear apart churches and harass emissaries. They were lawless, worked underground and distributed propaganda wherever they could.

However, their petty destruction was nothing compared to what the former Bandosians had caused.

After Bandos’ defeat, the vast majority of his followers had defected to the avian deity, erecting shrines and even taking to books and studying the ways of Armadyl. They were helped with the whole ‘learning-to-read-thing’ by emissaries of Armadyl, who set up roaming caravans to teach the former Bandosian loyalists the preachings of their new god.

Sounds great, doesn’t it? Well, old habits die hard, and it would take a lot more than a few commandments and pretty shrines to undo centuries of Bandosian indoctrination. Thus, instead of gradually trying to convert the remaining Bandoanian loyalists - as the emissaries said they should - they went out and systematically hunted them all down.

It was convert or die; any hesitation on the former signed your death sentence.

Goblin and ogre settlements especially were bloodbaths, sometimes even spilling into nearby human settlements, and people often got caught in the crossfire.

The Dorgeshuun, a peaceful tribe of hunter-gatherer goblins that had existed beneath the surface of southern Misthalin, were brought to the brink of extinction. The Dorgeshuun, largely non-religious, did not partake in the battle against Armadyl, and had defied Bandos for years by refusing to submit to his warlike ways. Bandos had planned to wipe them out as soon as he defeated Armadyl, and resolved to make such a day a national holiday. After Bandos’ death, the remaining Bandosian loyalists looked for a scapegoat, someone to blame for their god’s demise, and they settled upon the Dorgeshuun.

They were exterminated before the ex-Bandosian Armadyleans could arrive, who had similar plans for their slaughter.

It wasn’t just converted Bandosians that Armadyl had amassed into his following; more and more humans, particularly Saradominists, were growing increasingly interested in the avian deity’s philosophy. Saradominism and Armadylean beliefs overlapped quite a lot, making the two religions close allies back in the God Wars of old. Now though, more people were getting exposed to Armadylean teachings, and after the way Saradomin helped to tear apart Lumbridge, those same people were becoming open to the idea of supporting a new deity.

This did not go down well with Saradomin; tensions were rising between the two factions, but it had yet to come to a head.

And then came the Zamorakian invasion of Ardougne.

Hazeel and Khazard, along with Zamorakian armies, had marched into Ardougne only last week, taking control of the territory and pushing the warring gnomes - who were already locked in battle with the Khazard troops - out within days. The combined might of the Mahjarrat and their forces was too much for the gnomes alone to handle. Fortunately, Saradominist soldiers had come to the aid of the city, and now a joint Saradominist-Guthixian alliance was fighting to take back Ardougne.

If the Battle of Lumbridge was the first major battle of the Third God Wars, this would be the second. The Armadyl/Bandos scuffle was on a different level - more isolated and less destructive. This time, they’re were battling through the streets of the largest city in the Kingdom of Kandarin.

The Saradominist effort to halt Zamorakian advances in the Kandarin Kingdom forced Saradomin to delay his plans for Morytania, or so rumour has it. It was mere whisperings at this stage, but it was told that Saradomin planned to reignite his desired conquest of Morytania, taking it out of the hands of the Zamorakians (Lord Drakan especially) and liberating the people of Meiyerditch, returning it to its former glory of the Hallowland.

Thanks to two asshole Mahjarrat, that had to be put on hold.

The God Wars were beginning again; at the rate things were going, it wouldn’t be long before an all-out conflict arose.

“You triggered this, Jahaan,” Ariane finished, gravely. “I know it was you who Sliske managed to trick into letting him into Guthix's chamber. Now, the very Mahjarrat that deceived you, the very Mahjarrat you're somehow so chummy with, is the one that’s allowed the world to be torn apart, and instead of trying to stop him, you locked yourself in petty revenge. You're the WORLD GUARDIAN Jahaan - it's time you started acting like one.”

Moving towards the door, Ariane peered briefly over her shoulder with darkness in her eyes. “Actions have consequences, Jahaan. Start thinking of the bigger picture.”

DISCLAIMER:

As Of Gods and Men is a reimagining, retelling and reworking of the Sixth Age, a LOT of dialogue/characters/plotlines/etc. are pulled right from the game itself, and this belongs to Jagex.

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#ozan #ariane

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psuedo-psyde-blog · 5 years

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Deviation: Chapter 1- Feast

Eating your way through a corpse is never easy, especially one that was hundreds of times bigger than one self. I would know. But that was the mountain of a task that our aväk friend had embarked upon. One bite at time the larvae ate its way through poor Leon's brain. Every bite imparting knowledge on the little aväk. For example, the center for motor control way tastier, while the portion that stored memories was disconcerting. Also that bone and blood went extremely well together. Anything that would be useful was withheld until the aväk was ready. It ate bits of everything it could get near. It ate and ate and ate. Until the larvae found itself in an empty cavern that was Leon's chest cavity. Empty is a bit of a lie because there is something already in there, just nothing that should have been there. The Lost Woods is a peculiar place, my dear friends. It gathers oddities and things thought to be dead and gone like a magpie, be it forgotten relics or future technology. Stay in the woods long enough and you will find something. The thing our small mutual friend found is known as a Marg. Looking like a pale rope with teeth, it was used by mages of a bygone era to make themselves more physically adapt. It was a way for them to expel their weakness by feeding their extremities to the marg. They replaced augmented limbs and quite literally had a mind of their own. Only those with iron wills would even attempt it, otherwise they might have a bit more than they would like eaten. The Marg currently nestled in Leon's abdomen had hollowed it out hoping to use this body like a meat puppet. Unfortunately, it's feast had made it rather sleepy so it was resting. Which is fortunate for our little aväk who was still starving. Unwittingly hitting the jackpot, the small black aväk sunk it's four magic teeth into the sturdy flesh of it's elder cousin. It was like watching a house cat eat a sleeping tiger. Almost exactly like that actually. The only reason that the tiger in this scenario didn't wake up was because of the terrifyingly potent numbing toxic on the house cats fangs. Realizing with the first bite that this thing was much tastier than human, the aväk began to devour the marg with gusto. Aväk usually try and avoid filling up on one part of the body in particular. It's in their instincts and their best interests to try and eat every part of the body, so they have a more diverse gene pool

Tiny, squishy, and dumber than a three day old bottle of milk, the larvae could barely comprehend what food was. So a concept like everything that would ever be sending it personalized message was quite lost on it. While that it isn't exactly right it is right enough in this instance. So our small friend continued on his tiny gluttony filled rampage. After 2 full days of slow eating, the bloated aväk made its way slowly back to the skull. The once small black larvae was now about the size and shape of a human eye, burrowed in for a long nap. Aväk are one of the more peculiar species that I have seen in my long life. The life cycle of the aväk usually begin with the death of their progenitor, and then the subsequent feast on them. Most would consider such a birth monstrous in nature and not part of a rational race. For the most part the young are treated as monsters, but the adolescent and adults are hailed as the swiftest merchants in all the land. Dealing in both actual goods and death. This is probably the sole reason that aväk are even tolerated. While a fairly docile species on the whole, nearly all who have met an aväk usually describe them as being pleasant enough, as long as you don't give them a chance to open their mouths. *Crack* You see my dear friends, aväk's have a disconcerting habit of chattering their jaws. Quite frequently. And loudly. That coupled with their boisterous bragging about their chitin, or heritage, makes them rather annoying. In fact, it has been the sole source for three seperate wars on the aväk people. If it wasn't for their intimate knowledge of The Ways, then they would surely have gone extinct. The Ways are a vast series of interconnected tunnels that span most of the globe, that nearly all aväk's grow up in. All, except deviations, of course. *Craaack* Deviations are not born from their progenitor and start life in some other living thing. Aväk being as prideful as they are call such aberrations Deväks. The reason they are so despised is because aväks take on characteristics of the body they feast on as larvae. Meaning the larvae that worked its way through Leon's brainstem and had cocooned itself in the jelly of his eye was quite the rarity. Then again it was also rare for even deviations to be born alone, but with a cracked crystalisk it was luck that there was even one. *CRACK* As the larvae feasts, its small body is analyzing the makeup of the food and preparing to metamorphose into something else. A mix of original genes with information from the Aväks were once the most adaptable and diverse species, but they slowly became obsessed with unity and then tradition. Leading to the aväks hiding away in their cities afraid of the other rational races, and branding the outsider as a new species entirely. *CRACKCRAACK* The newest member of said species was finally breaking out of it's cocoon. After feasting for two days on blood, bone, and brain, it spent nearly a week inside it's cocoon. *CRACK* With a final kick the hatchling Deväk was free. Standing at just over 4 centimeters tall, it wasn't much to look at; with a rounded back reminiscent of a beetle, four arms, and two legs that looked like three entwined segments of rope. Of the two sets of arms, there was obviously a main pair and an auxiliary pair. The main pair had six digits on each hand, including two thumbs on each side of the hand. The second set of hands were smaller and they were tucked in as though it was hugging its chest. These each had 3 fingered hands, but claws instead of normal digits. Its eyes were a radiant blue, but other than that it really didn't look like anything special. The inside however, was a different story. Normally aväks only had an exoskeleton, but our little deviation had both the internal framing of a human and the plating of its species. Yet it's third "parent" made the most surprising change. Aväk's are usually lightweight and hatchlings will almost always have the ability to fly. Unless said aväk is bigger and bulkier than any normal hatchling. Where the wings would normally fold up in the back shell were two separate limbs that looked like miniature black margs. Each one had a maw filled with needle shaped teeth, which would explain why our deväk hatchling had no mouth on it's head. Unlike the real things, these were not independent but rather mutated limbs. It also had one other advantage over the deväk's other mutations

However, in this case it was less good. Aväk's are a highly adaptable race, which can vary drastically from generation to generation depending upon their needs. This is both their greatest strength and weakness, which is why most aväk's only consume the genes of their progenitor. To prevent disastrous mutations that could cripple them. So they cripple their evolution instead. Not knowing how to read, or for that matter possessing even a notion of what communication might be, the aväk larvae tried to eat the boxes, which effectively dismissed them. These boxes though small were vastly important, despite their size. In the simplest terms my dear friends, those 'boxes’ are the universes interpretation of the recipient. The recipients of said 'boxes’ or prompts are the universe's only way of knowing itself, while the prompts are the universe's way to help the recipients know themselves.

Granted both skeletal structures were considerably weaker than a pure bred of either species, but this was still highly useful. However, the real benefits of the union of human and aväk brain structures: it allowed the small deväk to think and be aware of itself. Admittedly this was at the level of a child who had a severe concussion, but it allowed it to process information that might save its life one day.

Which was in fact sooner than it expected. Unfortunately for the insect imbecile, reading was still way beyond it, considering its first reaction was to try and run away from the floating screens. Which was admittedly better than trying to eat them, which its previous iteration had tried. Still it decided to spend the next while running, climbing, and jumping, not to escape the demonic transparent monster, but to test out it's own limits. Obviously. Not knowing what else to do, the young deväk curled up into the fetal position and buried its face into the corpse of the once Leon. Hoping that the screen would lose interest and go away, it suddenly seemed to swell in the deväk's mind's eye and then it popped. Information flooded the idiotic insectoids mind and it understood what was happening. While the message it received was more like, 'Danger! Bad thing happening and bad thing will get badder in small while. Fix if living is to continuing.' Like I said dear friends, it was not the brightest knife in the shoe box.

https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/21963/deviation

#literature #writing #reading #original story #original characters #deviation

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antepenultimatefantasy · 7 years

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FFXII Zodiac Age Playthrough Part 7

Local Viera discovers one weird trick to stop aging! Doctors hate her!

-On the way to Mt. Bur-Omisace, Ashe and Basch reflect on how they would really rather not ally with the empire for the shame of it all, but saving their people from war and death far outweighs their pride.

-Basch has hope for the future and looks on as Vaan, Penelo, and Larsa playfully bicker.

-Does everyone like adopt these kids in their head when they meet them?

-In the empire, two judges talk of how Vayne would be harder to topple than the senate thinks.

-Another judge joins the conversation reminding them that Vayne took two of his brothers lives, and that maybe he's not the best person to look up to.

-Apparently, Gramis found these two guilty as traitors, so Vayne's killing of them was justified, one maintains.

-The judges are summoned to meet with Vayne, who has just arrived in Archades

-The judge who is wary of Vayne, Drace, talks with her colleague about how Larsa is headed to But-Omisace and how that will give the empire time to shore up their defenses against a Rozarrian invasion.

-Even though the senate thinks so, Larsa is no puppet, she says, and Gabranth (the other judge she's talking to) says that that will make the senate turn against him. They agree to protect him.

-Somehow, Gabranth manages not to mention that he would totally kill Basch in this conversation.

-Back with the 99% (and Larsa), the team arrives in a deep jungle.

-Unforch, there are barriers everywhere. Fran says that the jungle is denying them passage and it's her fault.

-She and Balthier head in a different direction, where she casts a cool spell that creates a path into the distance. It's to a Viera village.

-Fran's not exactly welcome there though.

-Fran tells Vaan to look for Mjrn and bring her to her.

-She also tells him to lend her one of the vowels in his name, because Mjrn really needs one.

-The Eruyt Village is basically like Rivendell.

-Its inhabitants want exactly zero things to do with Vaan.

-This includes their leader, Jote, who is very evasive about Vaan seeing Mjrn.

-Fran appears saying that the voice of the woods has told her that Mjrn's not at the village.

-Jote says that the voice of the woods is also saying where she is, but Fran can't hear it because she left the village.

-Viera who leave are no longer Viera.

-That's...not how biology works.

-Jote tells them that Mjrn headed west and walks among iron-clad men.

-It's like a Tinder bio.

-Fran says that staying in the village isn't the only choice Viera have.

-Jote says that she heard those same words 50 years ago.

-Hmmm....

-As the team leaves the village, Balthier congratulates Vaan on some good negotiating and wonders where Mjrn could be.

-Larsa says that it's probably the Henne Mines.

-Then, the most legendary FFXII moment happens.

-Vaan brings up how Jote said that Fran told her that same thing 50 years ago, then asks how old she is.

-Silence.

-Penelo facepalms.

-Ashe pretends to text.

-Basch is wondering if protecting Dalmasca is really worth this.

-Larsa becomes very interested in his sleeve ruffles.

-Balthier's soul momentarily leaves his body.

-Fran has, in these five seconds, imagined 47 unique ways to make sure Vaan's twinky ass never sees the light of day again, but ever graceful, she turns heel and leaves.

-The rest of the party does as well, very unimpressed.

-This is like, Tidus fake laughing in FFX level of embarrassment.

-I love it.

-Back in the Ozmone Plain, the group comes across a wounded imperial and gives him a potion.

-He lets us use his chocobo and tells the team to stay away from the Henne Mines.

-Being good listeners, they head directly there.

-Outside the mines, corpses of imperials and Draklor Laboratories researcher lie strewn about.

-The corpse of Vaan's self-esteem is there too, after what he said to Fran.

-Deep within the mines, Larsa comments on how Henne is much like Lhusu, and the imperials will need the magicite if the #resistance blocks them from Bhujerba.

-There's another dead imperial and Mjrn comes wandering out.

-Girl's drunk.

-Then she calls Ashe a "power-needy Hume" and stumbles away.

-Wig. Snatched.

-The team follows after her and runs into a giant dragon that totally ignores her, but does not like anyone else.

-Aw, she just wanted to get tipsy alone with her dragon friend, but stupid power-needy Humes keep on getting in the way.

-It was self care.

-After the team defeats the dragon, Mjrn reappears holding a nethicite stone. She drops it and it breaks, showing a creepy shadow demon thing behind her that evaporates in the air.

-She's all better.

-Later, she explains that she wanted to investigate the Hume soldiers going through the woods, so she came to the mines but was caught. They placed the stone next to her so that the mist would be drawn within her, and the last thing she remembers is the light of the stone.

-Also, she's Fran's sister. Aw.

-Fran says that she experienced the same thing on the Leviathan before it blew up because Viera are particularly sensitive to mist.

-Larsa never realized how dangerous nethicite was and takes the stone he gave Penelo.

-Ashe says that dangerous things have a place too.

-Ashe is basically Daenerys.

-Back in the Eruyt Village, Jote gives Vaan a means to pass through the barrier.

-Mjrn tells Jote that Ivalice is changing and the Viera shouldn't just hide in the trees while it does. She intends to leave the village.

-Fran dissuades her because the freedom comes at the high price of solitude and exile.

-She tells Mjrn to forget she ever existed.

-Geez, this is really heavy.

-Mrjn runs away and Jote apologizes to Fran for making her do that.

-Fran asks Jote to listen to the Wood's voice to see if she hates.

-Jote says that the Wood misses her, but Fran calls that a "pleasant lie."

-Also, they're sisters too.

-Deeper in the jungle, the team comes across a nice lush mound.

-Nope. Mound dragon.

-When the team defeats it, it turns into an actual mound.

-The team finally exits the jungle, to enter...a snowy mountain?

-Geography?

-Ivalice explain!

-Also, this is where refugees go?

-That's pretty metal.

-Balthier says that while the empire parades around, refugees are walking barefoot through the snow.

-Larsa responds saying that's why he's getting his father to choose peace.

-Or...they could move the refuge to, like, the beach.

-Balthier says that you can never know anyone, not even your father.

-Okay, first of all? Daddy issuesTM.

-Second? That's a myspace tagline, B.

-In Archades, Vayne and Gramis talk about silencing the senate.

-Like, killing them?

-They banter about the difference between vengeance and necessity, but conclude by saying if they don't do anything their house will fall.

-Plus Vayne's already murdered tons of people, so might as well keep to it so Larsa doesn't have to.

-I'm not sure that's sound logic...

-Back at Bur-Omisace, the team comes up to the Gran Kiltias.

-He is not moving and his eyes are closed.

-Is this Weekend at Bernie's?

-Vaan asks if he's sleeping, and without actually talking, he answers that he's dreaming.

-He dreams because reality and illusion are two parts of a whole, and dreaming helps him find the truth.

-Whatever, we get it. You're vegan and do yoga.

-He says that he has seen Ashe's dream of restoring Dalmasca.

-Larsa asks him to give her his blessing then.

-Just then, a cool guy with sunglasses strolls in and asks her to reconsider. He also condescendingly pats Larsa on the head.

-Watch out, Balthier. You have coolest-guy-in-the-room competition.

-He is the frenemy Larsa wanted to introduce to Ashe. His name is Al-Cid Margrace, of the Margrace family that rules the Rozarrian empire.

-Anastasis says that both Larsa and Al-Cid dream of no war.

-Ashe says that she came all this way to make peace and she does not want to reconsider.

-Al-Cid reminds her that she is still reported dead, and her reappearance would complicate things, not because she's powerless because other circumstances have changes.

-Larsa says that he could convince his father for peace if Ashe extends her hand.

-Unfortunately, Gramis is rather recently dead.

-In Archades, two senators are being taken away protesting that there is no reason they could have killed the Emperor.

-Inside the Emperor's chambers, the leader of the senate is dead along with the Emperor. Vayne says that the senate was conspiring against him, and now he has taken autocratic rule.

-Or, as Palpatine says, "I am the senate!"

-Drace is not here for this. It's obvious to her that Vayne is lying and created the whole situation.

-You and me both, Drace.

-She draws her sword to place her under arrest, but another Judge, Bergan, says that it was the law itself which made Vayne Emperor.

-Then he just fucking one handed picks her up by the face and tosses her aside.

-Okay, she's wearing a huge suit of armor. Bergan's got gunz.

-Obviously steroids, says Drace.

-Vayne tells Zargabaath to collect Larsa, but Gabranth says that Larsa was under his charge.

-Vayne says that he shouldn't have been and then asks Gabranth to execute Drace to prove his loyalty, because she has been tried and found guilty.

-She tells him to do it and to protect Larsa. He asks her to forgive him.

-Well, damn. Drace was the best one. Now we're left with Fratricidal Gabranth and Frat Bro Bergan.

-Though Gabranth is getting better, I guess.

-Back at Bur-Omisace, Al-Cid explains that now that Vayne is the Emperor, he's basically just going to blow everything up. His fleet's pretty much ready to go.

-Ashe then returns to the Gran Kiltias and is like, "forget being Queen. How can I too blow everything up?"

-At this, Anastasis opens his eyes and actually talks, saying that seeking such power is something only Humes would do.

-I don't know, have you seen Moogles?

-He tells her to go to the Stilshrine of Miriam to seek a sword that can cut nethicite, which also belonged to the Dynast-King.

-Off the team goes (except a shocked Larsa), and Anastasis cryptically says that his dream is also fading to day.

-That's it for this section!

The only exchange that matters:

Vaan: "I was wondering - what Jote said, you know? About how you said the same thing 50 years ago? Fran: "Your point?" Vaan: "How old were you again?" *longest silence* *Fran leaves* Balthier: "Nice, Vaan." Larsa: "Surprisingly rude." Penelo: "Try to grow up, please."

#ffxii the zodiac age #final fantasy #vaan #penelo #ashe #balthier #basch #fran #playthrough

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thevalicemultiverse · 7 years

Text

Things You Need To Know About: Pern Crash

Tag: ~V: Pern Crash

Premise: It’s hard enough dealing with losing your fiancee to another man, without an inquiry into whether or not you’ve been practicing illegal necromancy and your parents disowning you for the shame. But Victor’s hopeful of a new future in London. He’s got a brand-new fire lizard friend named Moonlight, a job under barrister and solicitor Wilton Radcliffe, and a little flat just big enough for two. And then, one day, one of Mr. Radcliffe’s clients, a Miss Alice Liddell, came around in quite a huff…

This AU is a very low-key crossover between Corpse Bride, the Alice games, and the Pern book series. Specifically, it steals fire lizards from the latter and puts them into the world of the two former. In this world, H’lip and his brown dragon Ipswidth, transporting fire lizard eggs and a few live dragons from one Weyr to another on Pern, had a very strange Betweening (teleportation/time travel) accident, and ended up crashing into 1750 England -- specifically, Kensington Gardens. The dragon and some of the fire lizards died on impact, but the rest of the group escaped, and the rider hung on long enough to explain to the startled royals just what fire lizards were and how to "Impress," aka bond with socially and mentally, them. The royal family adopted the feral fair and Impressed some of the hatchlings from the eggs that survived (with the future George III getting Earth’s first gold queen), and soon fire lizards became the hot new pets of the land.

The incident also brought magic into the common knowledge, as a maid at the castle enlisted the help of an Earth dragon friend to help the fire lizards adapt to their new world. Learning how to cast spells, enchant objects, and make potions became a respectable profession, and in 1762, a magician named John Harper figured out how to permanently “enchant” people by using potions as tattooing ink, allowing anyone to cast any spell their personal magic “pool” could fuel. This new “modern magic” quickly became quite popular with those frustrated with the limitations of “classical magic.” This was not without its problems, though -- in 1789, a necromancer used his newly-tattooed power to raise corpse puppets to kill people he didn’t like. He was caught and executed, and all forms of necromancy (even the completely benign, such as exchanging messages with dead relatives), were outlawed.

Skip forward to 1875, and the Van Dort/Everglot wedding. Victoria has a fire lizard friend this time around, a brass named Mary -- fortunately both flitt and lady like the groom-to-be. Victor likes them both in return, but can’t conquer his nerves during the rehearsal. Fleeing to the woods to practice his vows, he accidentally awakens the corpse bride Emily. Initially terrified (both of the walking dead and of the fact that he broke one of the biggest laws of the land), he soon warms to the friendly Land of the Dead and his accidental bride. Unfortunately, this does not stop him from tricking her into bringing him back Upstairs under the pretense of meeting his parents so he can get some help in explaining how he’s already engaged. And when he seeks that help from Victoria, two things happen:

1) Mary, upon seeing Emily follow Victor onto Victoria’s balcony, panics, making Victoria panic a bit too and bringing her parents running -- and the moment they see Emily, they believe Victor’s dabbling in forbidden necromancy

2) Emily, hurt by his deceit, whisks him back to the Land of the Dead before Victor can even begin to explain anything that’s going on.

The Everglots, considering Victor an unacceptable suitor now, promptly force Victoria into a marriage with local newcomer Barkis Bittern -- unaware this is the same man who murdered Emily for her money and plans to do the same with Victoria (he being unaware the Everglots are broke). Victor, hearing this news second-hand from his parents’ recently-departed driver, decides there’s nothing left for him in the living world and agrees to marry Emily properly via drinking poisoned wine. The dead ascend to the Living world for the wedding, but when Victoria comes in to see what’s happening after her own marriage, Emily can’t go through with the vows and stops Victor from drinking. She reunites the couple, Barkis barges in to reclaim Victoria, Emily recognizes him as her murderer, he and Victor duel over Victoria’s fate, Emily saves Victor’s life, and Barkis accidentally drinks the poisoned wine as part of a mocking toast and is dragged away by the vengeful dead. Emily ascends to heaven, leaving Victor and Victoria to be together. . .

. . .except that the terrified Everglots promptly grab their daughter and flee in the wake of the dead rising, and not long after Victoria sends word via Mary to Victor that while she still cares for him, her feelings are complicated by the whole incident with Emily and she doesn’t think she can marry him. Especially since she’s starting to fall for someone else. Victor lets her go sadly but understandingly -- but the news, coupled with an official inquiry into Victor’s necromancy by the Crown (fortunately some truth spells lead them to agree that he didn’t break the law intentionally and thus spare him punishment) leads Nell and William to disown him. Victor’s allowed to stay in the village until he finds a job elsewhere. Before he does, though, he first finds a fire lizard egg, the only survivor of a fox raid on the nest. Victor Impresses the hatchling, a silver he names Moonlight, and together they eventually depart for London, working as a clerk under solicitor and barrister Wilton J. Radcliffe.

And then, in September of that year, one of Radcliffe’s clients, Alice Liddell, shows up to speak to him. Victor takes an immediate liking to the young lady after chatting with her outside the office, and is disgusted to discover that Radcliffe’s been skimming money from her inheritance to fund his own love of Asian artifacts. Revealing this fact to Alice causes her to go ballistic on the lawyer -- Victor stops her from attacking Radcliffe, but is promptly fired and thrown out. A guilt-ridden Alice gets him a position under her therapist, Dr. Bumby, as a general errand boy, and the two quickly grow a friendship, bonding over a shared love of butterflies, learning, soft furry animals, and Moonlight.

In October, however, Alice, who has been struggling with hallucinations, plunges back into her Wonderland in an attempt to find the truth about the fire that killed her family. Losing her on the streets of London, Victor and Moonlight search to find her and keep her safe. Moonlight is the first to find her -- but runs afoul of a spell tattooed on her by an unscrupulous (if genuinely trying to help) doctor in Rutledge, which allows her to share her thoughts with anyone who touches her skin-to-skin. This unfortunately includes accidentally forcing her hallucinations on people (or fire lizards) when she’s not well. The two faint, and are taken back to Bow Street’s gaol -- Moonlight is able to alert Victor to his location, and the young man takes Alice back to his flat. She escapes when she’s called to Queensland, and Victor and Moonlight find her again in Hyde Park, where she explains what she’s learned about Bumby. As she navigates the Dollhouse, Victor is able to steal Bumby’s diary admitting his guilt, and the two hide out at the shop of a sympathetic local magician, Dr. Fixxler, until Alice is well enough to bring the evidence to the police. Dr. Bumby attempts to flee to Moorgate Station when confronted -- a furious Alice follows, and when she comes back, she claims Dr. Bumby “fell” onto the tracks trying to attack her. Everyone is content to accept this explanation, and Houndsditch is turned over into better hands.

During all of this mess, Victor has fallen in love with Alice (who he considers incredibly brave and kind-hearted) -- to his joy, Alice reciprocates his feelings, and the two end up marrying and moving out to Sandford -- though not before Alice adopts her own fire lizard, a white named Snowflake. Two others eventually follow -- a black female named Sooty for Alice, and a blue male (the son of Sooty and Moonlight) named Skyfall for Victor. His own little fair of fire lizards, a nice house in the country, an amazing woman who loves him, and a job that does not involve running a fish cannery -- Victor thinks he’s done very well for himself.

This verse has two distinct time periods/locations threads can be set in:

Made The East End Into A Privy: September 1875 to July 1876 -- basically anything involving Victor living in London, either working for Radcliffe, working for Dr. Bumby, or helping Houndsditch transfer owners after everything with Alice. He’s missing some of the comforts of being a rich man’s son, but he’s determined to stand on his own two feet -- and besides, freedom and self-respect are worth having to give up a few luxuries and get a real job. He’ll do his best to help anyone who needs it -- so long as they don’t accuse him of being an evil necromancer. He’s had enough of that.

Simple Farm Life: July 1876 onward -- anything involving Victor living in Sanford. Life’s settled down after the excitement in London -- now Victor’s in the card illustration industry, doing something he loves in a place he can breathe. And with someone he loves and a whole gaggle of mini-dragons by his side. Who could ask for anything more? Neighbors, come on and all -- he’s only too happy to share his latest sketches, or perhaps talk about the latest fire lizard news.

Common NPCs:

Alice Liddell (throughout)

Victoria Everglot (and Mary the fire lizard) (throughout)

Christopher White (throughout)

Dr. Jeremiah Jack “J.J.” Fixxler (throughout)

Moonlight the fire lizard (Victor's) (throughout)

The Houndsditch Orphans (Charlie, Abigail, Elsie, Reggie, Dennis) (Made The East End Into A Privy)

Snowflake the fire lizard (Alice's) (Simple Farm Life)

Sooty the fire lizard (Alice's) (Simple Farm Life)

Skyfall the fire lizard (Victor's) (Simple Farm Life)

Shipping: Just Valice for this one -- Victoria's married to Christopher, and Victor's fine with that. The closest they’d come to a romantic connection these days would be if Moonlight flew Mary during a mating flight -- and considering that Christopher’s own brown fire lizard, Trumpet, is pretty protective of her. . .

NPC Ships: Victoria Everglot/Christopher White; Mary/Trumpet; Sooty/Moonlight

Important Facts:

This universe uses the range of colors as provided by the Nest o’Flitts journal on Dreamwidth -- which means that, in addition to the canon gold, bronze, brown, blue, and green fire lizards, there’s also the noncanon brass, silver, copper, red, black, and white ones. This is largely because this verse is a result of Forgotten Vows getting a silver fire lizard from the journal in a meme over on Dreamwidth. You can read more about the colors here: The Colors on Nest o’Flitts

And for those who don’t even know what a fire lizard is. . .well, this PDF article is a pretty good starter: Firelizard Biology and Behavior In general, just think “small dragon with a forked tail and a limited teleportation ability.”

Victor knows magic, though the only spells he’s really familiar with (all classic, not tattooed) are Glowing Orb (used as a nightlight growing up), Mend the Shattered (useful during his clumsy moments), and Flower’s Blush (minor healing spell -- again, useful during his clumsy moments). He’s planning on learning more, especially now that he’s friends with a more powerful magician. He’d actually like to learn some spells that would allow him to talk to his friends in the Land of the Dead -- but he’s mindful of the fact that he had a narrow escape concerning the law about necromancy before, and thus is contenting himself with the knowledge that he’ll end up there again in due time.

Alice knows Protection (shield spell) and Shadow Play (allows one to use shadows as puppets to illustrate something one’s saying) from childhood -- she used the former to protect herself from danger and the latter to make playtime more interesting. She also can use the spell Mind To Mind, though it’s a rather borked-up version -- a doctor named Grantham tattooed it on her without her permission in Rutledge, hoping to make contact with her catatonic self. His lack of skill means that she now can communicate telepathically with anyone who touches her skin. On good days, this is fully under her control; on bad ones, she overwhelms anyone who touches her with her hallucinations. She has a natural affinity for the disguise spell False Flesh, though she doesn’t use that much. Later she’ll figure out how to use Travel Into Fantasy as a way to actually invite people into her mind.

Necromancy being a “forbidden art” means that, while Victor himself won’t automatically hate any undead characters (in fact, if you’re from the Land of the Dead, he’s probably happy to see you), he’s going to do all he can to keep them away from the general public. He does not need another accusation of practicing illicit magic!

Other characters with fire lizards or other kinds of dragons are more than welcome! We can even do awkward “sharing the fire lizard’s feelings during a mating flight” threads if you like, though Victor isn’t going to want to “cool down” with anyone but his wife.

Moonlight’s a lazy, gentle, sweet-tempered little fire lizard. He’ll generally be content to say hello to strangers and ask for pets and treats. Threaten his “daddy,” though, and you’re likely to get claws in the face. (This works both ways too -- Victor is particularly close to Moonlight because the flitt helped pull him out of a pretty deep depression. Hurt at your own risk!)

This verse is open to everyone!

#~V: Pern Crash #~T: Made The East End Into A Privy #~T: Simple Farm Life #~C: Alice Liddell #~C: Victoria Everglot #~C: Christopher White #~C: Dr. Fixxler #~C: Orphans #~C: The Menagerie #~M: when he was a boy (headcanon)#~M: meanwhile in our reality (OOC)

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