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halcyone-of-the-sea · 1 year

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Songs That Sound Like Sea-Foam (I)

AU MASTERLIST || PART II

PAIRING: Fisherman!John Price x F!Mermaid!Reader

WORD COUNT: 6.2k

WARNINGS: Fluff, mentions of death, being hunted, vulgar language, price in a tunic (yes this is a warning by itself), awkwardness, nakedness, suggestive (?), implied age gap, etc.

A/N: I'm feral over this AU, ong. A million kisses to the Anon that brought this to my attention-btw this is definitely becoming a mini-series.

*I do not give others permission to translate and/or re-publish my works on this or any other platform*

Your family told you to never go beyond the deep waterways of the cove, never to brave the open sea. Times were changing. The Harpies, when they weren't as shrewd about their feathers getting wet, would fly down from their tall mountain spires and tell stories—ones about the hunting ships.

They’d seen them, they said as your family listened on in horror from the rocks, dragging all manner of Merfolk up from the waters in large nets made of iron and hard steel. Spears that tore scales to take for profit. In other instances, the unlucky individuals were even sold to royalty to become showpieces in displays of high wealth and standing.

But it wasn’t just Merfolk. It was all manner of mystical beast and being. Hunted. Sold. Humans, your parents had told you, were not friends. They were greedy and selfish; more than often cruel.

And so they started to do the same unto them. Your family would lure them with their voices to the ends of the great ships that were brought close to your cove—watch as they hurled themselves from the sides into the grasp of the ruthless waves. They did it for you, they explained. To try and keep you safe.

For years they did this until they were gone too.

Suddenly the cove seemed more like a prison than a safe spot, and the Harpies no longer came to converse or tell news. Killed or taken you had no idea, but it was becoming fairly obvious that even interactions with your own people were impossible. Were you the only mermaid left? It was a good question to ask and one that you could never answer. All that you knew was that you had been alone for a very long time.

That was, before you first laid eyes on the fisherman.

You watch him now, yet again, from behind the sharp jutting body of the rocks; the water delicately bobs you up and down as your vibrant tail hangs limp in its otherworldly throes. Eyes softly wide and mouth parted in wonder.

He’s walking along the deck of a small ship—not the large and intimidating ones of the other men that sail the seas—with a strong form. A hat on top of his head of brown hair and a well-trimmed beard of the same color made him look gruff in appearance.

Your hands shift over the sharp black stone, and the nakedness of your top is covered by the long strands of your wet, uncut, hair. This man wore a plain white tunic and brown pants stuffed into large boots. Even as far as you were, you heard the soft whistled tune dancing in the shell of your ears. Delicate eyes watch, head slowly peeking out more and more.

He was tending to the nets he had on the bow and as you studied him you were mystified.

“Fascinating,” you whisper, unknown emotions swirling in you.

His muscles strain, large and expansive shoulders lead down to a tapered waist; legs that you blink at before glancing at your tail under the rippling water. There’s a large grunt before the fisherman’s net is thrown in a beautiful arc, hitting the water with a slap and a spray of liquid as it begins to sink. Startled, you flinch back, gasping loudly.

With a racing heart, you quietly scold yourself for the childish reaction, flicking your tail in annoyance. Slowly but surely, your head peaks back out with water dripping down the flesh of your shoulders.

But when you shift back into the open, you find a deep set of stormy blue eyes digging into your field of view. You freeze, seeing his lids go back in surprise and shock as your jaw slackens. A cold fear enters your veins at the new attention brought to you but you find yourself unable to look away.

The Fisherman is the picture of utter stillness, just as you are, like twin mountains of ancient stone. Your nervousness only seems to grow as he doesn’t do anything—teachings and lessons about those who walk on two legs and sail in ships poking holes into your mind.

Gawking and spying were one thing…but being seen meant death. You swallow stiffly and go tense, shifting to half-hide behind your rock.

“Oh, no,” your mouth murmurs, self-hatred and fear lining the tone. “Oh, no, no, no.”

And yet the Fisherman had not moved, nor made any attempt to pull his sinking net back into his boat. Fish panic in the rope grave they’ve been ensnared in. His eyes….why are they so curiously locked on you?

You spare one last glance before shoving away from the rock and disappearing under the water with a violent splash; making off for the deep underwater caves that offer salvation.

When you’re down there—in the darkness with only silent ripples of light to guide your eyes—you find it hard to stop thinking about the Fisherman and his strong jaw. His genuine awe at the sight of you.

Had he not heard the stories of the Merfolk of this region? Or…or were you truly the last of your kind?

The thought troubles you, and, riddled with anxiety, you go over to your store of shiny trinkets that you’d collected over the years; grabbing them in your hands and fiddling with them to try to put your mind at ease. The walls of the caves bare down on you and you hope you’d not just signed over your own death warrant.

Maybe he’ll go away, you offer yourself, face tight and tail curled close, maybe he’ll be afraid and won’t come back.

It was a pointless belief. They always come back—driven by greed or a righteous authority. Humans were cruel.

But your brain goes back to stormy blue eyes like pebbles and softly parted lips. Orbs glinting with wonder and shock. No attempt to shout or grab for the large knife you’d seen strapped to his belt.

A fisherman, you told yourself, who hesitated to go after the biggest fish of them all.

You didn’t quite know if that made you more afraid or more intrigued.

—

It was only after you’d spent three weeks in the underwater caves of the cove that you’d finally decided the coast was clear. You’d cautiously gone back through the winding seaweed and schools of marine life to hide in your little rock fort; afraid but brave. From under the waves in the calm of the water you’d scanned the surface for the shadows of a boat, anything to indicate that the man had returned.

Nothing.

Tension leaves your shoulders and you travel upwards, vibrant scales shimmering like jewels. You were quite close to the mainland, you would say, back to the shore to look out over the open entrance to your home. At the first sign of danger, the rocks would be your first point of shelter if you wished to remain hidden but continue to watch.

Ears popping as your head surfaces, you only look out with the water swaying below your eyes; nose and chin hidden. Sand from behind you shifts.

“Knew I’d seen something, then, eh?” Your heart lurches—brain flashing to hooks and nets; you shove yourself back under the water with a garbled gasp.

Fish around your form dash away as you frantically look back at the surface, your scales shining as the light hits them. Fingers tense in the water, you shift your body so that your form has its back to the floor of the cove and breathe quickly in your own mermadian way with shaking fins.

On the very edge of the shore, you see the shadow of a sitting body in the sand. He hadn’t moved, this Fisherman. Was waiting as inanimate as an empty shell.

What had he said? You ask yourself, hair disturbed by the flow of the waves above your head. A gentle back and forth. After a moment of contemplation, the large muscle in your breast slows itself and a nervous curiosity grows.

Yet still, the shadow stays completely motionless beside the occasional itch and brush as facial hair. Waiting.

Waiting to attack, your hand twitches in the water and you flutter your tail to take you closer to the open air, or waiting to see me?

Taking what you can describe as a deep breath, the top of your head once more breaks the top of the water; lashes dripping salty tear-drops as you blink away the sting. Every part of you is ready to disappear once more if things go south.

And then you lock eyes once more.

The Fisherman sits in the sand with his boots pushing up the granules—his right hand rests over his bent knee while the other keeps him up in a relaxed position from behind his back. You stare, the sun reflected in your eyes with a small glinting and hair in your vision. A foreign heat builds in your face when the man’s head tilts; tiny eyes narrowing as if he’d just proven a point to himself.

Why doesn’t he seem surprised?

There’s a moment of a smirk that slashes his hidden lips but it’s gone in a fraction of a second. His mustache moves as he speaks and your face slightly bobs lower instinctually. The Fisherman doesn't seem hostile—he has a kind of stern comfort to him.

Stubborn gruffness. And his accent only amplifies that fact.

“Well, wasn’t expecting to find you here,” his chest rumbles with his words. You find you quite like the sound of it. Shells grinding against each other and pearls that clatter in palms. Your eyes widen with innocence. The Fisherman clears his throat, still watching carefully as the water sloshes over his boots. “Else I would have stayed clear when I still could.”

Your hands tread water around you, tail flickering in small movements.

The man's gaze darts down to stare as well as he could through the ripples.

“Bloody Christ,” he murmurs to himself, returning your eyes once more, “thought you were all mostly extinct. Fuckin’ hell.”

“Extinct?” Your lips flinch, chin caressing the waves as brows pull up. The Fisherman blinks as if surprised to hear you speak. To be honest, you were half afraid you couldn’t either—how long had it been since you’d had a conversation above water? You spent most of your time passing comments to rare traveling Hippocampus and Sea Serpents.

Not that they could respond, of course.

By now your face had entirely left the water, that word startling you. Your chest tightens.

“What do you mean,” you ask the older man, this strange Fisherman who was shifting his weight in the sand, “extinct?”

Dark brows furrow and his back slightly straightens itself.

“You aren't exactly what I’d be calling common, Love. No one’s seen one of your kind in years.” Your face stills.

“Years?” Head angling itself down, you stare at your reflection in growing fear.

The Fisherman makes a move to stand, and you dart back swiftly. A pale hand is held in the air as if to sedate you.

“Easy, now.” It’s said softly, a grunt stuck at the beginning. A small moment passes before the man fully stands up, dressed similarly to when you’d seen him before.

Top, pants, hat. There’s also a flash of metal around his neck, some piece of jewelry hidden on the chain under the layer of his thin, flowy, tunic. Hands go to cross over his chest in a display of muscle gained from a long time of hard work.

You nervously plead for an explanation, “B-but that…that doesn’t make any sense! I’m not the only one left!”

“No,” the Fisherman slowly states, taking off the hat from his head and delicately placing it on the ground. “No, you’re not the last.”

His eyes dart along your visible body, trying to catch a glimpse of that tail that was in all stories about your kind.

“Your name, Ma’am,” he asks, blue returning to your own sights, “what is it.”

“Well, what’s yours?” You counter, getting snappy in your anxiousness. “You come into my home and expect me to answer to you? And where’s your fishing boat anyways—unless a male Selkie has suddenly managed to brave the deep sea?”

Perhaps it had been a trick of the light, but you had sworn the Fisherman had smiled at you; it was a swift slash of something that pulled his mustache back and wrinkled his face. An amused thing it was. A sort of tiny tease, in its own right.

Your heart beats steadily at the sight, eyes watching.

“Well, I suppose you’re right, then.” He scratches at his beard with one hand, still studying you with a tilt of his head. As if weighing what he should tell you. There was an air of intrigue but that did nothing to hide the hesitance. “I docked my boat in the sea cave, thought it would do more harm than good to leave it in the open. If you’d seen it, you wouldn’t have shown, eh?” The Fisherman points and you look to the deep indent in the mountainside, the tiny ship visible as it stays stationary. You blink at it slowly.

“And you can call me whatever it is you like, I don’t bloody care, but I’m not inclined to tell one of the Merfolk my name—I may have come ‘ere, but I’m not fuckin’ daft, now.”

It was true, what he spoke of. Names to your people have a stark and violent purpose. To know one's name is to own a piece of that person’s soul. Songs gain more power, words grow into orders followed without thought. Not that it was your intention.

You glower, brows pulling in.

“A simple fisherman does well to know that it’s rude to speak ill like such in another’s home.” The man smirks, cheeks rising.

“Simple, am I?” The already expansive build of his shoulders widens as he leans back on his heels, water sloshing at his boots. His eyes glimmer like lighting with humor. The look makes your cheeks burn with warmth, throat swallowing saliva.

“Why are you here?” You avoid the question, treading water and letting your tail drift. Willing the water to cool your senses. It was obvious that this man wasn’t a hunter—foolish, perhaps, but no hunter.

Or maybe just confidently brave.

The Fisherman hums under his breath, grunting in the way you’d already come to associate with him. Rugged fellow, really. Weathered like a pile of old rope but still handsome, the sinews under the stain of dirt pure of color. You found yourself, however apprehensive, enjoying the squareness of his face; how the brunette’s hair would sweep in the warm breeze.

He was attractive.

“Fishing, Ma’am.” A broad sweep of one of his hands, “You have a proper cove. Plenty of places to cast.”

Your tight arms somewhat loosen.

“Just fishing?” Your voice darkens. “Then why is it you’re here on shore and not doing just that.” Tail flickering, it lightly brings you back from him, eyes always darting away to stare into the background of his form—at the dark shadows of trees behind the dark rocks. At the open mouth of the cove in case of extra ships.

If what he told you earlier was true, you were in danger just by living.

Extinct? Not seen in years? No, that can’t be right. A deep knot forms in your stomach.

“I may be human, Ma’am, but I believe myself to be above intrusion.” The Fisherman splays his hands by his waist and shifts his thighs. He seems serious again, like a wave going forward and back he seemed to always revert to a crafted visage of firm resolve. “This is your home, and I’m asking to ferry my boat here when able. Nothing else.”

You blink in surprise, brows pulling back.

He was…asking you?

“I…own the cove no more than the Manticore owns the desert,” your voice stutters, oddly touched by his sincerity. You pause and push yourself farther above a wave. This large man didn’t seem cruel to you. “I have no claim on the waters—they have been here longer than I. Do as you wish.”

While that should have been the end of it, you found his blue eyes continuing to watch you, head tilted like a shaggy dog. Thinking deeply with a slight parting of his lips and rising to his lids.

At the intensity of his silent wonder, your head goes light. Had you said something strange? No, it was just the truth. Then…why was this man’s face going to a modest pink shade? Why were his eyes darting away from yours and his feet shifting?

You narrow at him before he speaks, clearing his throat and crossing his arms.

“Alright,” the Fisherman mutters, chest rumbling.

A silence falls where your ears twitch to the lapping of the sea-foam and the feeling of blood in your veins which mirrors such movements. As you saw him do to you, your vision falls to the man’s body; looking across the tapering of his waist and the rolled sleeves of his tunic—showing off years of muscle

“I don’t suppose…” Your tail flinches from the sudden noise from the brunette, expecting him to swim over to his boat and get to his business. You stare and listen, and for the first time, you believe a mermaid has been entranced by another's voice. “That I’ll have the pleasure of seeing you again?”

The Fisherman speaks slowly, hands shifting on his biceps; thighs tense and settle. You allow the waves to connect and slide around your body and a feeling reminiscent of warm rocks in the sun grows in your heart.

Strange, this man. This serious-faced Fisherman who asks one of the Merfolk for permission over the waters we don’t control. You tilt your head to teasingly mirror the brunettes. He humphs in his throat at your action. I enjoy him.

At the first sign of danger you’d leave—but for now…talking felt good.

“Perhaps,” you say, lips twitching into a smile. “Would this nameless Fisherman enjoy the company of a mermaid? Not many would say yes.”

“I think you’ll find I’m not like those many, then, yeah?” He smiles, a small twitch of his lips. You begin backing up, getting to deeper water while maintaining eye contact. “I don’t care what you are, just that we have an agreement.”

“Very well,” your neck dips under the waves, tail momentarily peaking above the surface. Blue flickers to it, shoulders lowering in hidden awe. The Fisherman’s lungs still.

He hears your giggle before you dive under, disappearing swiftly down to your caves with a splash.

It’s a long while before the brunette picks up his hat and begins walking the length of the shore—strong steps taking him back to his ship with a tiny smile brightening his ruggedly handsome face.

He runs a hand over his chin and chuckles.

“Fuckin’ hell.”

—

You perch on the side of the Fisherman’s boat, golden comb in your grip as you run it over and over through your locks. Tangles and knots are rendered useless to the fine and beautiful make of the object, the handle covered in small barnacles and seaweed. A nice breeze wafts in the air, and behind you, the padding of feet goes across the deck. With the sliding of nets and a small whistling from the Fisherman, you feel your tail gently sway from side to side; the bottom under the water whose waves rise and lower the vessel.

It had been a week since your first meeting and you had become more relaxed about this man’s presence. He had been truthful—every day he would come and fish.

At first, you’d watch from the black rocks, sitting atop them and studying. More than once you’d see the brunette raise a hand in greeting when his boat had entered the cove; an acknowledgment that you were there and nothing more. No expectation for you to come over or speak to him.

Day after day you’d see the net being thrown from the side only to be reeled back by large arms, legs apart and firm to the deck.

On day four, you swam over and grappled onto the side of the ship, curious. Before you could even realize he instantly knew you were there—despite his back being to you—the Fisherman spoke in a cheeky tone.

“Come up, then, if you’re that interested. No use watching from the water.” So you had, with a bit more fire to your cheeks than you thought mermaids could handle.

Now it was routine. The human man would pull into the cove and you would sit on the side of his fishing boat, doing whatever you wished as he worked.

You pull your comb through the ends of your hair, placing it down after and closing your eyes before your hands grab the shiny strands, twisting them. Under your breath, you hum in tune with the Fisherman’s whistled song; the notes like a growing symphony in your head.

Song to Merfolk is sacred and revered—everything sings, in its own right, and deserves careful crafting to fully understand.

“You seem to enjoy that,” you startle to a stop, eyes popping open. Sharply looking over your shoulder, you pause your hands. Staring, the man has completely stopped his work; nets at his feet with slapping fish of all colors stuck in the rope’s limp weavings.

He squints at your confused face.

“Rhythm.”

“Oh,” you offer a smile and watch him look away only to kneel down and begin separating his quarry. “If you’re worried I’ll sing around you, think nothing of it—I know what that could cause.”

The Fisherman hums, amused at you, “I’m not. I was complimenting you,” the knife at his belt glints in the light. “You have a pretty voice, Love.”

You shyly watch him, hair partly covering your visage, and catch a glimpse once more at the necklace he seems to always wear. Silver and shiny but still hidden.

“If you knew about my species, you wouldn’t be saying that.” Explaining lowly, the man grunts, sending a look your way as he tosses a Cod farther up the deck—you watch it flop around for a moment.

“Well,” the Fisherman explains, hands pausing and body leaning closer as one of his knees connects to the wood. It’s a teasing whisper that slides into your drum, and you find yourself nearly shivering from it. Blue eyes twinkle with mischief. “I did. No worries, I’ll never tell.”

A deep chuckle joins a lighter one, and your tail shimmers in the open light; scales vibrant and rich-looking. From what the brunette can see on the deck—the smaller plates that extend all the way up your navel to stop at your belly button—you know he stares at them.

Not a greedy, evil, stare…just one of hidden admiration. It was of no surprise to you that he found it beautifully uncanny.

You have no idea how to read this Fisherman; have no idea what he wants. You think he doesn’t want anything. On your face, a strange calm settles.

“Tell me, Fisherman,” his gaze snaps from your scales to your face, momentarily stopping at the dip of your neck as you turn as fully to him as you’re able from your perch. Your hand rests at your side; spine twisted halfway. “Who are you? No, I don’t mean your name. I want your person. You don’t act afraid of me—of what I am.” He stays kneeling and lets the net rest for now, his heart beating steadily in his breast. “There is more to you than a human at sea, surely.”

Your words are not accusatory, they lacked any sort of confrontation. Curiosity, though, like enclosed treasure, was stuck behind your tongue. He surprises you by standing and beginning to walk over, boots thumping.

As he nears, he sits down with a huff on the edge, right next to you.

There’s a moment when you both stare into each other's eyes as you feel the world shift. Blinking up at him, at the closer range you take into account the ancientness of his eyes and how it seemed, for such an alone man, it was making him look far older than he was. Still older than you, yes, but the sentiment still stands.

With his hat having been retired not five minutes earlier onto one of the many ship’s barren tops, you saw the streaks of sun-bleached strands in his brown hair. You unconsciously reach for your comb but stay your fingers as they flinch over the gold.

Storm-blue carefully glances away before coming back to you.

“Not much to know, Love,” the Fisherman’s brow raises, “you understand?”

“No,” you say, honestly, head tilting at him. He looks surprised, breath hitching.

“It’s just…there’s not much to tell, Sweetheart.”

Humans are strange creatures.

Not knowing this word game, you take your hand away from the comb and bring it to his chest, slipping under the neck of his tunic to grasp at the necklace he always wears. A hand snaps to your wrist almost immediately—a startling speed that makes you flinch.

Above your heads, seagulls squawk at you, but all you can gaze into are those pure blue orbs. They trap you, drag you down far faster than a whirlpool into the briny depths of hypnotic appeasement.

Perhaps you were naive to the magical whims of males that walk on two feet.

The Fisherman’s jaw clenches, eyes tightly narrowed at you in hesitance and veiled threat. You blink at him softly, not doing anything besides twitching your fingers and widening your sight. Before long, his hold loosens but doesn’t leave, allowing you on whatever it was you were doing yet still touching your damp flesh.

Lips parting, you don’t make a fuss. Instead, you hum under your breath and allow his calluses to scrape you. The toughness becomes a stark contrast to your own make-up.

Feels nice.

Your digits peel out the article of jewelry and you shift closer to look; bare chest brushing against his. You can feel his pulse through the brunette’s tunic, the way his throat shifts in a tense swallow of nothing.

The necklace held two pieces of small, round, silver and said the following.

“Jonathan Price, Captain, 141st company under the King.”

As you read, your tail gradually begins brushing his leg in its swaying. Through it all, the large Fisherman only slants his chin down and watches, breathing half through his mouth and half through his nose. You hear his throat clear; feel his grip squeeze your wrist.

It is a small and taken-aback kind of noise. He doesn’t move his hand.

You are happy he doesn’t.

“You’re a…Captain?” Asking, you look up shocked and aren’t taken aback by how close your face was to his. Even if your cheeks begin to burn at the beard bristles itching your nose.

“...Yes,” breathe puffs over the lower half of your face. Your fingers detangle from the Fisherman’s necklace and let it thump to his chest. “I was. Left.”

Blinking, you whisper, steadily, “What’s a…Captain…?”

A small sound is made in the back of his throat and he releases your wrist and pulls back before a loud bark of a laugh jerks his chest. You stare in innocent confusion, hair falling over your shoulders.

“What?” Gripping his mouth, Jonathan Price grounds himself by gripping his thigh as he chuckles.

“No, no,” he takes a deep breath and releases his face, smoothing down his beard quickly with amusement stuck in his smile. “Bloody hell, it’s nothing. Nothing at all, Love.”

He sends you a warm side glance and you huff, moving back and picking up your comb, getting back to brushing your locks again. You are acutely aware that you now know the Fisherman’s name, but refrain from saying anything until he does. Now you know why he reacted in such a way.

Your tail twitches in the water as fish brush past it and the brunette begins with a soft look.

“I was in charge of a small group of men—we had a ship. Far larger than this old girl,” he pats the deck, and you slow your motion to show that you are listening, intrigued. “We did what was needed of us, but there was a thin line that needed to be drawn to keep every bastard sane.”

Blue meets your eyes and the man’s expression darkens. Your fingers twitch as the breeze ravages his hair, chest tightening.

“And yours?” You ask softly, entranced and open, “What was your line, Captain Price?”

He hums after a small silence, sighing deeply. Along the hull of the boat, the waves rock the vessel gently side to side, and your mythical attention seems to entrap him far better than your voice could. His face loses that dark edge, well-trimmed beard relaxes as his jaw does.

The past it seems, looms over him like a tsunami.

Reaching up a slow hand, his fingers brush the tendrils of hair that had slipped out of your hold and were dangling in front of your face; the Fisherman blinks and pushes them back behind your ear. By now your brush had long stopped and your breath was held in your chest. For the first time in your life, you think you feel yourself shiver at the delicate scrape of his skin on yours.

“John,” he mutters, and you suck down a shallow breath as he watches you like you were an idol of the Gods, “Just John.”

Your smile leaves his fingers pressing deeper into your scalp and, perhaps a bit naively, you welcome him to you like a bird to the sky. You liked his gruffness—his beard and his face. The lines on his forehead that you could imagine tracing as if they belonged on a map instead of the squareness of this Fisherman’s profile. Tiny sockets that hold sapphire stones.

“Maybe I left because I couldn’t stand seeing such beautiful creatures being put to the hook, eh?” Your eyes widen, tiny gasp leaving your lips.

Merfolk swooned with flattery, truth be told. They enjoy being doted on and praised; given gifts of both words and objects. You were no different.

Oh…did he call me beautiful?

John smirks at your reaction, taking his hand off of you and standing with a low chuckle. Your tail flutters at the sudden absence, head following after him as he walks back to his net with a sway in his step. You blink in astonishment.

“You’re a strange human, John,” calling to him, you grimace at the blatant disappointment in your bones at the lack of his skin on yours. At his humored hum, you sense your growing attraction to the grind of his vocal cords. His voice. “I don’t know what to think of you.”

“Then think nothing of me,” he explains easily, casually, re-gathering his nets in his toned arms. You try not to let your jaw slacken at the bulge under his tunic when he carries them. “I’m not offended by it, Love.” A sly look, “Do as you wish.”

Your tail twitches so violently you’re afraid you might break the side of the ship.

And so this strange dance between the two of you continued well into the longer months—John would come in his ship nearly every day and you would join him on the side of the deck. Sometimes you would hum for him and he would whistle a tune back, others there were long bouts of conversation about the ways of humans and beasts. John told you that the King had ordered the total extinction of all manner of ‘strange and unordinary’ creatures to secure his line safely to the throne.

When he had explained it, the mad had gone red with anger.

“Fuckin’ muppet,” he’d spit, fiddling with his knife as you watched a small distance away, playing with his silver necklace in your hands. You twiddled it around and liked how it shimmered like your scales did in the light. “Bloody thought I would just go along with the deaths of innocent beings. He had no facts—no proof to back up his claim. I’ve done things. Horrible things,” John explained to you, sending you a stiff look, “but I’ve not forsaken my damn mind to reality. Takin’ the piss.”

Muttering the last sentence to himself, you had felt your lips curve into a smile. “You have a proper conscience, John, done bad or not.”

“Yeah, well, Sweetheart, I’ll be done in soon enough.” You only stared with care-drowned eyes and caressed his necklace. When he had seen this, his body had deflated with an exasperated grunt.

You shared a chuckle and he got back to work; feeling his melting gaze drawn back to you every so often.

Later, yet again, you found your form on his boat, this time with his hands across the small of your back as you studied the blade of his knife.

“Careful, now. Don’t run your finger along the edge.” His free grip points to the sharp side—breath fanning your ear. You feel your throat tighten and nod, caressing a thumb on the leather handle.

John’s hand is hard on your bare skin and you sense his heat drilling past your veins into the very marrow of your bones. You unconsciously sigh when his fingers slide slightly higher, traveling the length of your spine; his scars catching on every knob of bone. Your exploration stills and your pupils widen.

His breath is on your neck, nose tilting as his jaw does just above the meat of your shoulder.

“Why’d you stop?” You stare off into the metal, lashes fluttering when his fingers finally curve at the swell of your neck. Lips drag on your flesh before a deep grumble of affection stems from John’s chest as he kisses your rapid pulse. “Distracted? Hm.”

“It’s,” you breathe out, scales reflecting light as your lower body shifts on the wood. His opposite hand circles your waist, drawing your back to his chest. Skin burns and thoughts go to liquid as you feel his roving muscle. “It’s g-good. Pretty—”

Words fail you as his lips continue to slowly travel.

“Could say the same,” John grunts; beard scraping down your flesh.

Your eyes flutter, head tilting to give more room at the same time you whisper out, violently shivering at the compliment, “John…”

“What is it?” The grip moves to run over your scales, right where your upper hips would be; the sensation of him caressing you with gentle, deep, rubs of his thumb was all it took for you to give in completely to him. “Go on, Love, speak.”

You take a breath and feel his heart beating steady along your back—the texture of his tunic. “What…are you doing?”

John moves your hair and places open-mouthed kisses on the back of your neck. He breathes in your scent and you turn your light head to stare unabashedly at his flushed face. Your tail sways, limp, over the side of the boat.

Blown pupils hide that sea-storm blue like a lock and key to dangerous thoughts and attraction.

In answer, his eyes flicker down to your lips hungrily and your gaze widens; a small sound in the base of your throat.

“You’re somethin’ beautiful, y’know that?” He says and you let him lean in closer to your face, eyes threatening to close when you take in the musk of human flesh and sweat. Rope and wood oil. John’s words make you shiver again, hairs standing on end—responding to that deep growl with a roaring in your ears.

You shouldn’t be enjoying this. Shouldn’t be enjoying his lips or his tight grip; his…his rough, large, hands that encapsulate your body and drown you. It terrifies you, this heart-stopping magnetism. You can’t get enough of him.

John presses his firm lips to yours, groaning into the connection as you sigh and part your mouth. Fingers shaking, you twist and place your hands on his chest, gasping mutely as his teeth nip into your lower lip and pull back before pushing back forward. Sparks of subdued pain mix with pleasurable agony at the scrape of his beard hair.

“Every inch of you…” John’s grip captures you closer, hands ensnaring you against his chest like deeply intertwined strands of fabric, squeezing as he licks his upper lip. He catches his breath shallowly. Blue eyes burn through you. “...is fucking perfection.”

You grab at his necklace and drag him back in, feeling him not waste a single moment to grip the back of your head and keep you trapped to him, tongues slipping out of mouths to tangle together like seaweed. Perhaps it was foolish, but a part of you knew that this Captain, this strange Fisherman—this Johnathan Price—was the only man or being on this planet, land or sea, who could make you feel like you could walk and fly all at once.

When he lifts you in his arms and drops you in his lap as if your body weighed as much as a pebble, you knew you’d brave the open ocean for this man in an instant. His arm drips with water as it slips under the joint of your tail; where your knees would be if you had them, and you whine into his mouth at the slip of his fingers.

Intoxicated, drunk off of his scent and his pressure.

A dangerous mix of two different lives.

It couldn’t last.

TAGS:

@luuvbuzz, @emerald-valkyrie, @anna-banana27, @blueoorchid, @cryingnotcrying, @writeforfandoms, @homicidal-slvt, @jade-jax, @frazie99, @elmoees, @littlemisstrouble, @alpineswinter, @phoenixhalliwell, @idocarealot, @lavalleon, @facelessmemories, @h-leigh, @20forty9, @glitter-anon-asks, @emily-who-killed-a-man, @neelehksttr, @aeneanc, @escapefromrealitysm, @i-d-1-0-t, @pparcxysm, @hawkscanendme, @caramlizedtomatos, @konigsleftkidney, @sanfransolomitatm, @maelstrom007, @jemandderkeinenusernamenfindet, @pheobees, @glitterypirateduck, @uselsshuman, @fan-of-encouragement, @halfmoth-halfman, @ghostlythunderbird, @I-inkage, @pukbadger, @kopatych11, @0nceinabluem00n, @cocrorapop, @knightofsexyness, @abnormalgeil, @smallseastone, @jacegons, @330bpm-whiplash, @simon-rileys-housewife, @4-atsu, @tiredmetalenthusiast

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kingdomoftyto · 11 months

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I'm crying laughing, the DVDs are even worse than I remember... Season 1's menus are silent with a single static jpg of the same key character art they use for everything else, and the episodes on the Season 2 discs don't even match what's listed on the box! Absolutely stunning lack of shits given. Truly unparalleled. But I really shouldn't be surprised given... well... everything about how this series has been treated since the very beginning.

Time for a quick ~✨PHANDOM HISTORY LESSON✨~ to give newer/less hyperfixated folks more context for why the graphic novel being as great as it is is such a HUGE deal:

Danny Phantom was one of Nickelodeon's MAIN cartoons, in its time. It was a central pillar. One of the top three or four of their lineup, which is saying something when the competition includes the cultural juggernaut that is Spongebob.

Despite this, and despite its superhero theming making it perfectly marketable, it got basically ZERO official merch.

What little we did get was often ugly and very, very cheap. The dedication at the start of the graphic novel that jokes about collecting the Burger King toys? That's because it was some of the most notable merch the franchise EVER had. (I sadly do not have any of it. There was no BK in my hometown. Here's a pic from the internet, though, to give you an idea.)

If you think I'm exaggerating about that being the most significant physical merch to come out of the series, consider that the first video game had an entire menu option specifically for the Burger King promotional tie-in:

That video game, by the way, was one of only two ever based on the show. The first was an adaptation of "The Ultimate Enemy" in the style of a short sidescrolling beat-em-up, and the second was themed around "Urban Jungle" and (as far as I can tell--I've only played the first couple levels) was an arcade-style scrolling shooter. Both were for the Gameboy Advance, and both are...... fine, as far as cash-grabby video game tie-ins to kids' shows go. This was pretty normal for the time, so I suppose we did okay in that department, actually. They're not GOOD, but they're playable and have at least a bit of effort put into them.

But besides those two video games (plus a handful of simple, long-defunct Flash games on nick.com)? In the decade and a half since the show ended?

Nothing.

No books, no games, no comics, no web shorts--unless you count mega-crossovers with every other Nicktoon (a la Nicktoons Unite), or soulless promotional material like "Fairly Odd Phantom" (which, trust me, despite being the first new DP animation in over 10 years was not even worth the effort of watching).

...I think there was a limited edition FunkoPop once?

So yeah.

A Glitch in Time is not just the first cool, well-made thing we've seen from the franchise in a while. It's the first THING we've seen since the show. PERIOD. And arguably the first worthwhile supplementary material to EVER come out of the show, depending on how you feel about those GBA games and the Nicktoons crossovers.

This franchise is widely beloved even now, almost 20 years after it first aired, and it feels like that fact is now, finally, FINALLY getting some official recognition.

PLEASE read A Glitch in Time. Tell other people about it. The series--no, the fans--deserve this (and more of this, if the folks in charge see enough of a response and decide to grace us with any followup). It's LONG overdue, but better late than never.

#Danny Phantom #this is why I've been losing my mind repeating ''please buy it'' over and over btw #this is the FIRST and maybe ONLY time we'll ever get to directly show support for the series #it is a uniquely huge deal for this fandom #it's totally fine if you can't (or just still won't) buy it of course but I am begging folks to consider it IF they can.#not for any moral guilting or anything just.... for me. for the fandom. (for yourself because it's a cool story lmao)#long post

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dailyadventureprompts · 1 year

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Planescape: The Inclementus Convolution

It is simple as hells go, there is the snow, the walls, and the shape of things that will haunt you for the rest of your days

It appears first as a troubling dream, endless anxious wanderings through a frigid and featureless maze. While most shrug off these visions others sink into a deep and restless malady, possessed by recurring feelings of being cold and lost. For some the dreams deepen, overtaking their waking life until they sink into an unwakung torpor, others are compelled to walk: seeking out winding alleys or wintry landscapes in the hope of finding a way OUT of the maze, only to find themselves transported to it bodily.

Occult scholars of dream and dimension have named this phenomenon the Inclementus Convolution, and conjectures on its purpose and original architects feature in many a forbidden tome. What these dabblers have failed to understand is that the convolution is not a thing of artifice but part of a great unknowable entity, which uses the maze to filter-feed from the multiverse the way a great whale uses baleen to trawl the sea. While the exact nature of this entity will be discussed below the cut, whats far more interesting is how the appearance of this dream labyrinth affects the lives of others.

A series of disappearances has the party tracing the city’s backstreets tracking rumours of a slaver gang or some kind of monstrous presence. Imagine their surprise when they not only find one of the lost individuals wandering in fevered confusion, standing before an alley from which unseasonable snow billows.

Nearly swept up in the convolution as a child, a minor noble has bent the wealth of her station towards determining the meaning of that traumatic vision, becoming a notable patron for adventurers as she sends them off to explore various ruins or gather scraps of potentially relevant lore. The party are hired by her for a mission, but weeks later when they return from their delve they find that her estate has fallen prey to an otherworldly influence. They’ll need to brave the twisting halls of her manorhome and the hedgemazes that sprawl across the grounds if they want to get paid, and maybe rescue their hapless benefactor in the process.

A fairly simple bounty mission to track down an occultist hiding in the mountains and bring him back alive quickly goes out of control after he opens a portal to the convolution inside his cell, transforming the surrounding guard barracks and its prisons into an eacheresque tangle backing onto an eldritch landscape. With other prisoners looking desperately to escape and panicking guards looking to arrest everyone they don’t recognize, will the party be able to escape before the whole structure is subsumed into nightmare?

The entity at the centre of the maze is seldom seen by those lost with the expanse as the upper reaches of the towering walls are obscured by an omnipresent cloud cover. As such no earthly name has been given to it, as the miles long tendrils it sends skulking through the corners are often confused for individual lifeforms which some call. It is not malicious, nor is it strictly sentient, it is simply a lifeform doing what it has always done to survive, nevermind that it involves pinching beings from across the cosmos. Creatures that die within the convolution desiccate, their bodies becoming dried out husks as the moisture within them is absorbed by the surrounding stone to feed the entity above and later join with the ever present snow, the built up condensation from innumerable victims across time.

Future Adventures:

Lost souls from many worlds have left marks on the walls of the convolution, pleas for help, attempts to map a way out, epitaphs and memorials from those that knew their end was near. One of these happened to be a sage with secret knowledge most relevant to the party's ongoing struggles, meaning if that they want to find it for themselves they're not only going to have to find their way into and through the labyrinth, but also Ariadne their way back out after finding and deciphering the message he left.

Though very little can survive long in the endless halls, there are some interdimensional oddities that have managed to persist around the fringes, carried from one world to the next as the Inclementus seeks out new victims.

The most fearful of these passengers are a remnants of an alien empire known as the Tssol who were led into the convolution when their god-prince decided to lead his people into the otherworld following a "holy vision" (and the encouragement by his less theisticly inclined siblings looking to clear a path to the throne). The survivors of this royal expedition have endured for centuries by by carving their city into the oldest walls of the labrynth, where the entity's fleshy stalks merge with the endless walls. They worship it, subsisting from the meat sloughed off as it grows and using the remains to feed fungal farms, counting themselves blessed for following the god-prince's vision. Those that stumble into the maze are of particular interest to them, as individuals affected by Inclementus influence are capable of wandering in and out of the aberrant realm allowing the Tssol warriors to ride out and launch raids on other worlds.

#dnd #d&d #mid level #low level #dungeon #lovecraftian #abberations #city #noble #planescape #hell #bounty #bounty hunting #occult #dungeons and dragons #ttprg #pathfinder #horror #spooky #eldritch

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andieperrie18 · 6 months

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nobody's daughters (part 1)

Series: Blue Eye Samurai

Pairing: Mizu x Widowed! Reader

Word Count: 1,900+ Words

Warnings: SPOILERS on Episode 5

Chapter Synopsis: Passing by the bridge where the local prostitutes flock, you encounter a wounded man. Or so you thought.

A/N & Disclaimer: So this chapter took a while to come out but here it is. Didn't want to rush this chapter. Considering the timeline, Mizu isn't fully heartless here as this was a period where she had just left Master Eiji. Please note that English isn't my first language and my Grammar isn't any good either so I do hope you enjoy this first opening chapter

Parts: ONE // TWO // THREE // MASTERLIST

“Another good trade, Sen,” you smiled as you held the reins of the white horse as it shifted from a walk to a trot through the dirt road on her way home. You are no great merchant and don't even have that many customers to supply, but ones that you’ve gained have become loyal customers as you.

You leaned down and as your palm glided on the neck of the mare who sighed and leaned to the touch, as you gave a small chuckle at its response. Sitting back your eyes raised to the tree covered skies, rays of sunlight peeked through each space that tenderly kissed your face.

‘It was a vibrant day’ you thought while you continued to tread home, passing by the red bridge where you would usually find a group of prostitutes where they would flock by. They weren't really kind to you despite your consistent kind greetings everytime you passed by them, it only earned you gossip about your widowed and childless life. A part of your life that you've come to terms after a chapter vengeance finally asks due.

“Have a bountiful day of business ladies,” you bow as you reach the end of the bridge despite just like usual, none of them really replied back but a few hums.

As you’re enter another pathway, your eyes caught a glimpse of a limping figure. Your eyes squinted to get a better look of the person. Gently kicking the horse to trot faster as you gained a clearer view of the injured victim.

“Oh dear,” you whispered, jumping off the mare and jogging to the man clad in blue dragging himself, his hand gripping their bleeding side, red seeping through cloth and skin.

“H-Help me…” he gasped as you managed to catch the wounded man as he collapsed in your arms

( -+-+-+-+-)

You and your patient arrived fairly quick on a long stretch of land that was filled with a vast plantation growing fruits and vegetables in their respective sections, and at the center it was a one story house with bamboo fences surrounding it. The white mare staggered to a stop by the front of the house as an elderly couple rushed out of it and towards you with worried expressions after calling to them for a number times.

“My lady, what’s happened?” the elderly female asked, as you hopped of Sen and effortlessly pulled your patient with the elderly male offering support on the other side.

“Please prepare my quarters for me Tanaka and Midori bring my medical materials, I’ll take our poor guest to his room,” you nodded to the man made who help you carried the man before turning to the woman whom both could only nod before dashing in different directions leaving you to following the elderly male to the inside the your house then to a path towards sliding door that revealed a spacious room.

The old man rushed to set your futon as you carefully layed the unconscious man to it all as Tanaka helps you set him properly to a better position to be operated. You told the old man to fetch his wife as he hurriedly flees off as you immediately began to work on the man’s kimono as swiftly as she could. Undoning the know of the tie at front, you grasped the end of the cloth but you halt upon slightly lifting it.

Tanaka reappears by the doorway with a box followed by his wife who carried a basin of water, the couple speed towards you as they placed the things you needed. Midori set aside the basin and began to help her husband open the box filled but stop them

“Tanaka, Midori,”

The couple halts as you turned to them with small smile, “I’ll take things from here, why don’t you both proceed with preparing our meal for the afternoon,” you trailed as you raised to your feet and grasped the raspy hands of the couple and gently pulled them to their feed, leading them away from the man urgently. The couple looked at each other confused and looked back at you.

“Are you certain my lady?” said the old woman, “wouldn’t it be better if we are here to assist you?” supported by the elderly male. You simply shook your head with a smile as you all stopped by the entry way.

“I can manage, what I want you to do is prepare a meal for our patient, we must have regain full strength,” you encouraged as the couple looked at each other skeptically but nodded and turned away, watching them sprinting through halls towards the kitchens as you slid the door closed and rushed back to your patient.

You eyed the unconscious woman on your futon as she helplessly heaved difficult breathes unconsciously, not trying to waste any more time, you finally proceeded to remove her top to reveal her tightly bandaged chest and her continuously bleeding wound on the side of her stomach. You heard a clatter of metal as you had fully exposed her chest, finding a sheathed blade that was tied around to her side. Taking the blade and gently setting it aside, your hands swiftly rustled inside the medical kit pulling various ointments, cotton balls, thread, and needles bandages before tending the wound on the unconscious swordswoman that laid before you.

Mizu flinched half-awake as the pain of the needle entered her skin. Her blurry vision showed a her a wooden roof and a woman who was leaning over her stomach, her hands busy and gentle that did a little soothing with every tug and sew motion. The woman did notice her stares at her as Mizu tried her best to mutter something only stop to due to her weakened state from blood loss. With every pull of the needled with the thread, you see her flinch, an action you could clearly tell that this was her first time to be sew up closed. Confirming the notion in your mind.

“A Life of Vengeance huh, let me guess it didn't really start off great didn’t it?” you scoffed while you began tying knots on the sutures securing them close, not even thinking of looking at the awakened patient. Mizu groaned once more from the tugs through her skin.

“Got a name? Little avenger?” you asked as you finally turned to look Mizu who was in turn looking at you.

Despite being half-lidded, the unusual yet bright hue of Mizu’s eyes never missed you sight before she finally collapsed back to slumber. It left you staring at her for a minute as You can clearly have described it as the color sky in a bright and sunny day but the exhausted yet hardened expression on your patient showed how life hasn't been kind to her, and hues just symbolized ice and lightning.

With those kind of eyes one thing was certain, “I guess life hasn’t been kind to you,” your brows furrowed slightly as your eyes stared at Mizu’s pained expression despite being under consciousness.

(-+-+-+-+-)

Mizu woke up to a sunlit room the following day, the warm ray light coming from an open veranda that overlooked a small zen garden with a small pond by a white wall and rather curiously, a person seated over her close folded legs facing straight head with a straight back with both hands neatly placed on their lap.

With a quieted groan, Mizu strugglingly forced herself to sit up as her vision clears and get a better focus on the person’s back facing her way. Studying said person, she had easily distinguished that it was in fact a woman, although she could still slightly see small buffs over their shoulder that would have confused if she had not gained yet a better sight.

“Excu-”, “Ah, you're awake! Thank goodness,” Mizu turned to another direction to find another sliding door, entered an old woman, dressed in the simplest kimono with a rather large tray and was now making her way towards her position.

“Madame was right on what time of day you’ll wake,” trailed the lady as she got Mizu’s side and gently placed the tray down beside the futon. The blue-eyed femme watched as gently moved while muttering a few winces of pain as she turned to face the lady then to the tray filled with covered plates that she could clearly assume would be food.

“Please eat, these are all freshly cooked and picked from the madam’s garden, she insisted on picking the ingredients herself that will help you gain back strength, help yourself,” she continued, smiling at the Mizu.

The expression had the blue-eyed woman feel a certain churn in her stomach but Mizu could tell that this woman was clearly genuine with her gesture. Not wanting to stare at her too much, her blue eyes returned to the somewhat meditating woman by the open entry way across her. Still hadn’t shown any movement even after the sudden arrival of the old lady who had immediately picked up the spark of curiosity from Mizu who stared at the her serenely occupied matriarch.

“It best not disturbed the madame, but not to worry though, she’ll entertain you as soon as she finishes with her meditation, I’m Midori, the caretaker of the Kento household,” the old lady who had introduced herself as Midori bowed slightly all while Mizu could only mutter “I’m grateful for your assistance,” with a slight bow as she cannot exactly exude a big one with the constant twinges of pain on her side where she presumes the stab wound would be.

“Please help yourself, feel free to come out of this room but sadly milady insisted that you not be free yet without fully healing and recovering your strength, I hope you understand and please take a long rest,” the lady stood and bowed her head in gesture of her leaving Mizu alone in your unconscious company.

Mizu’s gaze went back to you and the frame of your shoulders and back that would gradually slow down yet constantly heaving bigger breaths and longer releases in every passing minute.

But other than her company, the ambiance around her felt warm and serene, one that she wasn’t really accustomed to as her childhood was too focused on the tasks she had at hand without any regard to things too much. It was all she knew.

Her attention went back to the tray of food and went about uncovering each plate on the tray. In all of Mizu’s life, she never really had a big meal, just decent ones that she had while she was under apprenticeship that she wasn’t to complain as she was content with having a roof over her head and decent meal under the care of the swordsmith.

A sigh left her lips as her heart swelled with every plate of cousin composing her large meal. She marveled at how almost each bowl was a brim full of nutrients. Mizu never really knew much difference between a meal made by a chef and homemade, but it was enough that each meal exploded with rich aroma and delicious scents that she had never thought she would never get a taste of in her whole life.

Adjusting herself to sit properly within the futon, she placed her hands together.

“Thank you for the food.”

Her hand found the chopstick and ate to her heart's content.

#mizu x reader #mizu x you #mizu blue eye samurai #mizu #mizu bes #if you hold me without hurting me mizu x reader #if you hold me without hurting me series #blue eye samurai fanfic

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ianthe-is-a-bitch-and-i-love-her · 2 years

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I've noticed something very interesting about the structure of The Locked Tomb series recently, in that it is a series that is immeasurably more than the sum of its parts. Not that that's an uncommon thing for serialized media, it's literally the point of the format to tell a deeper story as a whole than is told in any one installment, but I think tlt is a particularly extreme example.

Like, gtn is the only book in the series that works at all as a standalone story. In most series, if you skip a book, you'll be confused about specifics and backstories and what have you, but you'll probably be able to follow along and get the gist of the theming, even if you miss some details and subtleties.

With this series, though, the subsequent books (especially HtN but also NtN) are essentially incomprehensible if you've skipped the previous books. They don't follow a predictable trajectory from the previous books that can be back-extrapolated from their stand alone contents. Like, genuinely try to imagine what you would think the previous books must have been about if you just read Nona. Imagine what you'd think the themes were. It's completely out of wack.

This is because each new book in the series isn't just a continuation of the previous books - it is in dialogue with the previous books. Each new book is a commentary on what came before, a reinterpretation that forces you to rethink or even reread the previous books with a different perspective that draws more layers of meaning to the surface. It makes the series feel like a knot that you're slowly unpicking - each new thread that is revealed to you changes how you perceive the weave of the previous threads.

I fucking love this. It makes the series incredibly rereadable, and it rewards spending a lot of time contemplating and theorizing about what you've read, which is excellent because the books are written in such a way that they invite you to ask questions without giving you answers. It make you feel ecstatic when you achieve a new level of understanding of a story you had thought you already understood.

There's a drawback to this, though, in that it makes the first read-through of a new book in the series the worst read-through. Again, HtN is infamous for this, verging on incomprehensible on a first pass but bristling with rich meaning and evocative prose on a second, but it's a trait that applies to all three books released so far. On a first read, lacking the context of the later series, GtN's story feels straightforward, sometimes juvenile, full of relatively simple but evocative characters, and burdened with what seems to be needlessly obtuse and obscure worldbuilding that only exists to slow down the reader's attempts to solve the murder mystery and to act as a backdrop to be cut through by Gideon's harshly modern and irreverent quips. (Sidenote, but as much as that is a thing that a lot of the fandom really enjoys, I know a few people who found that choice extremely jarring and unpleasant. It is a polarizing structural choice, it just doesn't seem like it because people who don't like it don't often stick with the series long enough to get invested in the deeper themes and plot of the series).

NtN too follows this format, although we don't yet have the added context of it's sequel, so a lot of what it has to say remains maddeningly out of reach. It certainly enriches rereads of the previous books, though; a lot of people have gone into great detail about how Nona's perspective on Kiriona reframes our perception of Gideon as a narrator. And John's accounting of the end of the world and the Resurrection adds so many more layers to all the interactions we witness in HtN.

It's just a very unique way to build a story, to start with something fairly simple and self-contained and then spend the next two books layering more and more meaning on those events. For me, it's not the characters (much as I love them) but the structure of the series that keeps me so fucking obsessed with these books.

#the locked tomb #tlt #gideon the ninth #harrow the ninth #nona the ninth #nona spoilers

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whxtedreams · 3 months

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Chapter one - Fuckin' Tourists

Lovesick In Jackson

Summary: Your first day in Jackson, meeting a rather rude local and settling into your new home

Word Count: 4,5k

tags: Ellie being Ellie, Joel being a caring father figure, Joel being an ashole to everyone but Ellie, Ellie does mention not wanting to eat (let me know if i miss any)

an. thank you so much for all the love on the prologue! Im stoked you guys are just as excited for this fic as I am to write it! I hope you like it :)

if you saw me post this without the cut and photos - no you didn’t.

Series Masterlist - Main Masterlist

The inn is warm and inviting as you step through the heavy front door, the heat from the lit fireplace warming your icy skin as you enter the building. While winter has almost come and gone, and the spring season teases its arrival, the fresh cold air that lingers outside still covers the land with its icy grip. You take in a deep breath as the warmth from inside envelopes you, savoring the warmth as you admire the rustic interior of the small inn.

Fire crackles from the fireplace, a light glow filling the room. The light dances on the display of unique mugs that hang with grace from the wooden beams that line the ceiling above you. Fairly lights are strung up and intertwined with vines around the beams, adding to the soft and warm glow of the room.

You wander into the middle of the room, your fingertips tracing the small crevices and grooves that line the wooden tables. The table feels smooth under your touch, the wood itself worn down and smooth as well. Setting down your backpack on the stool beside you, you roll your stiff shoulders and hear your bones cracking with relief as they loosen up again. The long train ride across state lines had been tough, with your body screaming to stretch and move after only an hour of being confined in the cramped cabin.

The clock above the fireplace ticks, catching your attention as you read the time. You frown to yourself as you look back around the empty bar. The clock had just ticked over nine-thirty, you would have expected at least one person in the bar at this time of night.

You turn at the sound of a door opening as a soft hummed tune flows through the room. A girl with black hair tied in a bun and a light dust of freckles littering her face walks through a door behind the bar. Her eyes are cast down to a glass shes cleaning with a rag and with a smile on her face as she slowly sways to the music playing in her headphones.

“Excuse me?” You try to gain her attention without startling her, but your effort is futile as she turns away from you and sets the glass down before grabbing another.

You lean against the bar with your arms crossed, your eyes roaming the room as you wait for her to turn back around. Suddenly, there's a startled gasp, as if caught in surprise. She yanks the headphones out of her ears, and her breath is labored with shock. She stares back at you, her eyes meeting yours for the first time.

“Oh fuck, I didn’t hear you come in.” She lets out a huff of a laugh, her mouth twitching into a smile as she realises her mistake.“I’m sorry about that,” she says, apologetically throwing her headphones on the bar in front of you and leaning against it with her hands. “We don’t normally get people in this late on a Tuesday” She shrugs, her face and body language seemingly relaxed despite the initial shock.

“That’s okay, I’m normally not out this late if I’m honest.”

“No? So what’s got you visiting the great Firefly Inn this late at night?” She smirks as she leans over the bar.

“Dina stop flirting with the poor girl.” Another girl teases as she walks out of the back room, rolling her eyes as she jumps to sit on the counter behind Dina.

Dina scoffs.

“Don’t you have a boyfriend anyway?” Ellie leans over and takes an apple from the fruit bowl, raising her eyebrows at her friend.

Dina turns around and snatches the apple from her hand before she’s able to take a bite and takes a bit for herself as Ellie frowns at her.

“No actually, we broke up again.” She shrugs as she takes another bite of the apple.

“Again?” Ellie groans, leaning back until her head hits the wall behind her.

You look between the two teenagers, feeling like you’re imposing on their private conversation. You wait patiently for one of them to acknowledge your presence, but they continue to bicker back and forth like children. They seem almost oblivious to any other presence besides their own, their voices growing louder and their playful arguments becoming more passionate with each turn of phrase.

“Is there any chance I could get a room for the night?” You attempt to break their conversation and their heads snap in your direction, successfully silencing them.

There’s a moment of awkward silence as the three of you stare at each other, no one seeming to know what to say or do. Your request finally registers in Dina’s head, and she smiles slightly in embarrassment, breaking the tension between the three of you.

“Oh fuck. Yeah of course.” She mumbles as she dashes into the room out the back and returns with a thick book you assume is for the bookings.

Dina scribbles down your details while Ellie crunches on the apple she successfully stole back from her friend, her smug smile suggesting that the victory tasted a lot sweeter than the apple itself.

Dina leads you up a set of stairs to the second level of the inn, the candles that line the narrow hallway casting a soft and flickering glow around the vicinity. She unlocks an adjacent room and hands you the key, the space itself offering a warm and cozy atmosphere that feels more like a private home than a room at an inn.

You mumble a thanks as you step into the room, about to close the door behind you. Dina's foot suddenly blocks your attempt, jamming the door from closing completely. She smiles sweetly at you as you glare at her through the crack in the door, the exhaustion from the journey and the teenager starting to wear on your patience.

“Breakfast is at eight, if you want any.” She offers and removes her foot from the door and disappears down the dimly lit hallway.

“Weird.” You sigh as you close the door, making sure to lock it.

The town square is buzzing with activity as you walk down the main street, the morning's chill and overcast skies making the townsfolk more eager to get to their destinations inside the warmth of the next building.

Children are out and about, laughing and racing on their bikes as they speed by you with little to no regard towards any other pedestrians in their way. They seem to be racing each other to get to school in time, their speed increasing with each turn in the road.

With the dull gray skies overhead, the fairy lights strung across the town square provide a much-needed burst of warmth and cozy charm to the town's atmosphere. The lights glow dimly and softly, reflecting off of the damp pavement and casting a gentle glow against the trees and other surfaces that the lights have been tied to. You find yourself smiling at the sight, drawn in by the comforting atmosphere of the town and the familiar charm of the lights. You could definitely see yourself making a life here, and the thought makes you feel a sense of calm and happiness.

You don’t remember living here as a child, but you would have remembered this.

Your eyes scan across the town square as if searching for something to give you a further boost of energy after the tiredness of the morning, and there it is. A coffee shop sign, the words and colors of the sign beckoning you in like a magnet. You let out a yawn that seemingly came from your bones, your eyelids feeling heavier and your body screaming for a caffeine boost to help pick you up.

The bell above the door rings as you enter the cafe, the soft jingle announcing your presence. It's a small and quaint cafe on the inside with a few tables scattered throughout the middle of the shop. Brown leather couches are pushed up against a rustic brick wall where an older woman is seated with a book in her hands. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, the smell of freshly brewed coffee filling the cafe.

Walking up to the display case, you notice it’s full of pastries and cakes and your mouth waters at the sight.

You hear the familiar ding of the bell as it rings again, grabbing your attention from the mouth watering food. Ellie, the girl from last night, walks in with an older man following in behind her. He looks just as tired as you feel, his dark brown eyes heavy with sleep as he holds the door open as she passes through, and she gives him a small smile in return before she bee-lines to the counter. There’s a smirk on her face as she leans over the counter, reaching for the bell and obnoxiously hitting the bell.

“I thought I hid that.” The tired sigh of the barista behind the counter is a testament to the constant and obnoxious dinging of the bell. His back is turned as he finishes making a drink, seemingly used to the incessant noise that constantly plagues his ears.

“Not well enough Jesse boy.” She draws out his name, as if to mock him and his inability to hide the bell. There are a few annoyed glances from other customers who are growing resentful of her loud and disruptive behavior, but she remains unfazed as she continues to hit the obnoxious bell as if it were a toy.

The older man that walked in with her shakes his head in disappointment as he reaches over and takes the bell from her. A small frown settles on her face as she watches him take it from her, her mood being spoiled as she realizes she cannot continue her disruption. She lets out a small and annoyed huff as he places the bell on top of the display case, where his eyes meet yours for a brief moment. His face settles in a soft frown as he looks at you, muttering fuckin’ tourist under his breath before returning his attention to the girl by his side.

Your face shows your shock at the rudeness of the older man, your eyebrows shooting up in surprise. You shake your head in disbelief, still unable to process that someone could behave so rudely to a stranger. “Grumpy old man” You mutter under your own breath.

You look back down at the pastries, feeling a bit put off after the interaction but still considering what to buy.

“Come on kiddo, enough of that.” He mutters as he digs his wallet from his back pocket.

Hmm, maybe a croissant, or a muffin?

The barista turns around with a grin, pushing two mugs onto the counter. “A hot chocolate for the troublemaker,” he says, gesturing to Ellie as he pushes the mug towards her. “And a black coffee for the poor tired soul that has to put up with her,” he jokes, pushing the second mug towards the older man standing beside her.

Maybe a cinnamon roll?

“You got that right.” The man softly chuckles as he takes out his card.

“Whatcha say Joel, you want your usual breakfast or are you finally going to try something else? We make mean waffles here.”

“Just the bacon and eggs.”

The muesli slice looks good.

“Alright, alright. I’ll change your mind one of these days.” The barista, Jesse, sighs with a grin as he taps the order into the tablet. “What about you Ellie?” He asks without looking up from the screen.

“Nah, not hungry.”

“Oh come on kid, you gotta eat something.”

“I’m not hungry Joel.” She shrugs as she crosses her arms over her chest.

A woman with dark brown hair boxed braided and tied neatly into a bun walks in, her eyes quickly scanning the crowded café until they land on you. Her eyes instantly lock onto yours, her warm smile signaling that you're the person she's looking for. She politely asks, "Am I right to assume you're Rose's granddaughter?"

"Oh, yeah that's me." You respond awkwardly, a bit taken aback by the familiarity of the woman's question. You have no idea who this woman is or why she's so familiar with you, and she seems to know more about you than you do about her.

“I thought so. I’m Maria, the Mayor of Jackson. I knew Rose very well,” She smiles warmly, her hand resting on your shoulder as she mentions your grandmother. “I’m sorry about what happened, she was a lovely lady.”

You nod along to her words, a vague sense of familiarity dawning on you as you try to recall where you heard that name before. As she continues to offer her condolences, you remember her name from the letter your grandmother sent you. You thank her for her condolences and look back at the display case.

“I recommend the white chocolate and raspberry muffin.” She points to the muffin and you nod at her offer. “I get it every morning.”

Jesse takes one of the white chocolate muffins from the display and places it into a paper bag, placing it on the counter alongside a takeaway coffee. “All ready for you Maria.” He calls out and she politely dismisses herself from your conversation.

You watch from the side as she pays and thanks the young boy for her order.

The woman turns back to you with a smile and a friendly gesture. "Now, I do have a few things in my office for you," she begins, her voice sounding genuinely friendly and welcoming. "If you want to come by today, I can give them to you and show you the farm?" she offers.

You quickly take her offer, explaining that you were already on your way to her office before stopping by the cafe.

You step towards the counter as the woman leaves, Jesse humming to himself as he wipes over the counter. He looks up at you as he notices your presence, a smile appearing on his face as he offers a warm greeting. "What can I get for you?" he asks, tossing the cloth aside.

You place your order, deciding on taking up Maria’s recommendation and a dirty chai.

Your eyes are instantly drawn to a small table by the window, the sunlight gleaming through the room and illuminating the table as though spotlighting it for you. The bookcase behind the table shows a small collection of books and board games, all seemingly put in a neat and orderly fashion. The entire room feels clean and organized, as if everything has been placed in just the right location and given the proper focus.

You take a seat at the small table by the window and ease into a comfortable position. As you relax, you start to scroll through your emails, going over the updates about the delivery of your belongings. According to the tracking and updates, your belongings should be arriving by tomorrow, and you hope that everything goes smoothly without any unexpected delays.

Movement outside catches your eyes, and you glance out through the window. You notice Ellie and Joel sitting on one of the benches outside, Jesse setting down Joel's breakfast as Ellie continues to talk to him. The two of them laugh at something Ellie is saying as Joel rolls his eyes and shakes his head in a playful and mock frustrated way.

There’s a waffle on Joel’s plate and he shakes his head, shooing Jesse away.

Your eyes find themselves involuntarily drawn to the back of Joel, the short brown hair that curls slightly at the ends and the few soft grays that are starting to sprinkle his head. The thick brown jacket he wears looks cozy and well-worn, a clear indication of years of use and comfort.

He hands Ellie his buttered toast and she shakes her head. He must say something because she sighs dramatically and takes the bread from him.

“Happy?” You can read her lips as she talks.

Joel nods.

You look away, not wanting to be caught staring.

You’re dreaming. You have to be dreaming. A dream is the only reasonable explanation for the check in your hand.

Half a million dollars.

“There has to be some sort of mistake?”

“I can assure you, there’s no mistake here.” Maria assures you, setting her hands on her desk as she gestures to the check.

You're sitting across from Maria in her large office at the town hall. The light wood furniture in the space is sleek and simple in style, the minimalist design giving the office a clean and welcoming atmosphere. The room is filled with natural light thanks to the floor-to-ceiling windows behind her, the sunlight breaking through the gray clouds reflecting off of the wood furniture and making the room feel bright and airy.

A few photo frames sit proudly on her desk. There’s one on her wedding day, kissing her husband with a smile on his face. Then there’s one next to it, the two of them holding a new born baby in a hospital bed, smiling down like proud parents.

Your eyes are frozen on the check though, the number staring back at you as you struggle to comprehend it. You're at a loss for words as your brain tries to wrap itself around the amount listed on the check, Maria's light chuckle drawing your attention.

She digs around in her draw momentarily before setting another note on the table.

“This is a lot to take in, I’m sure. This is a list of everything she did for the town. It’s rather long but if you want to pick up anything she did, you can. No one is expecting you to replace Rose, honestly I don’t think anyone could,” she slides over the list and your eyes widen more at the long list of jobs she did around town.

Farming of fruit Farming of vegetables Farming of flowers Raise cows, provide dairy products Raise Chickens, provide eggs Raise sheep, provide wool Beekeeper, provide honey Fishing, provide fresh fish Deep diving, cleaning ocean Volunteering at town events

You slowly look up at Maria with a raised eyebrow. “I can’t do all this, this is crazy.” You scoff as you look back down at the list.

She laughs at that, sighing and agreeing with you. “She was a very busy woman. But if you want to continue her farm or sell it, let me know. I’ll help you in any way I can. Rose was an outstanding member of our community. If you do decide to continue the farm, even just doing one of these, it’ll be a massive help.”

You let out a sigh, sinking into the chair as you read over the list again. Your grandmother sounds impressive and you wish you had known her, or at least remembered her.

Farming doesn’t sound too bad?

“Alright then, show me the farm. Let’s see what I’m dealing with.”

You stand before the front door to your grandmother's house, a place long forgotten and now abandoned. Cobwebs and critters are scattered all across the exterior of the house, the once meticulously maintained walls now covered in unkept vines that are slowly crawling their way up the structure. The exterior has an eerie and uninviting aura to it, as if the place has been left to become an echo of time lost to memories.

At the center of the front door hangs a small piece of paper, its edges frayed and fluttering in the breeze as the rusty nail it's held to struggles to keep it in place.

Heard someone was moving back in to Rose's place, if you need a hand rebuilding, let me know. Joel Miller ps. I used to work in construction, I know what I'm doing.

You rip the note off the front door and sigh as you look back over the farm, its beauty all but fallen apart since your grandmother's absence. The farm, once a beautiful and lively space, seems almost lifeless now. The plants are all unkempt and overgrown, most of them withered and dry while others are covered in a thick layer of weeds. It's a sad sight, one that reminds you of how much time has passed since she was last here.

How long it's been since you've been here.

“Who’s Joel Miller?” You ask as Maria follows you up the stairs to the front porch.

“That would be my brother in law, owns a sheep ranch down the road. Why?”

You hand her the note and huffs in surprise at the note. “That’s oddly nice of him. Guess he always had a soft spot for Rose. But don’t expect that from him, he can be a bit…” She trails off her sentence, her face scrunching up in thought.

“Rude?”

“Oh so you’ve met him then?” She laughs.

“I think so, took one look at me and muttered ‘fuckin’ tourist’” You try your best to impersonate his southern accent and Maria lights up at your attempt.

“Yep, that sounds just like Joel. But don’t take that personally, you’re not a fuckin’ tourist, you’re officially a Jackson resident.” She hands the keys to you and gestures towards the front door. “This is your home now.”

The sound of the door unlocking sends a nervous feeling through your stomach, your nerves already on edge from the anticipation of moving into your new home. The door creaks as it opens, a stale and musty smell filling your nose and signaling that the house had been shut up and sealed away for far too long.

The house is beautiful.

Your eyes take in the large entry as you step into the house, your eyes drawn to the two hanging black chandeliers with fake candles. A large black wooden sliding door can be seen to your left, and a set of glass doors in front of you leads out to the back porch.

You ease the black doors open, entering the open-floor plan space with a slow and careful step. The modern and rustic wooden kitchen fills your vision, a large dining room sitting to the left as you step over and slide your palms across the white counter tops. The space has been empty for a while, a thick layer of dust on the counters.

“She took a lot of pride in her home.” Maria speaks up as she follows you into the room.

“It’s beautiful.”

“Would you like a tour?”

“I’d love one.”

You follow along as Maria opens a set of dark wooden doors to the right of the kitchen, the door leading into a small laundry room that connects to the back porch. The laundry room is small but spacious, and the view out to the back porch over a pond is quite peaceful.

To the right of the kitchen, a wooden dining table is situated next to the glass windows that lead into the small greenhouse, the space filled with dead and rotting plants.

To the left of the dining table, a small living room that includes a fireplace and wide wooden stairs that lead to the second floor is also visible. Both the fireplace and the stairs have seen better days, their condition clearly being a testament to the neglect the house has seen.

She leads you upstairs, and as you enter the room at the top of the stairs, your jaw falls wide open at the sight. The room is vast and spacious, with its floor-to-ceiling windows on one wall offering a magnificent view of the pond and farm. Built-in bookshelves line the other two of the walls, with couches built in under the windows, giving the space a cozy and welcoming vibe. The books on the shelves display a wide variety of topics, from classic works of fiction to non-fiction books on various scientific subjects.

“Joel helped her do this.” Maria points towards the bookshelves and couches and you nod in awe.

“Maybe I will take him up on the offer to help.” You chuckle as she leads you into a room across from the top of the stairs. The bathroom is fairly run down and rusted, but you can see what it used to be like in all its glory. A cracked tub sits in the middle of the room with an open shower to your left.

Maria leads you to the bedroom, the final room of the upstairs, which is located to the left of the stairs. The room is decently sized, with a big window that faces out towards the farm. The window lets in plenty of lighting and fresh air. To the left of the room, there is a narrow corridor that leads to a small balcony.

“Is the power and water turned on?” You inquire, following her back downstairs to the ground level of the house.

She gives you a quick nod, confirming that she had already planned to have everything ready for your arrival. Everything had been taken care of before your arrival, ensuring that the utilities would be fully functional for you to use as soon as you move into the house.

“Well, it’s been wonderful to meet you. Rose used to talk about you a lot, so it’s been nice to meet you. If you need anything,” She digs through her bag before handing you her card. “Call me, I’ll do whatever I can to help.” She offers before leaving you alone in your new home.

You find Joel’s offer again that night, folded on a table in the entry way while you’re snooping around and attempting to sort through your grandmothers house — or you guess your own house now.

You sigh at the number scribbled at the bottom of the note. Did you really want the help of someone who was so rude to you?

As you look down at the note in your hand once more, you can't help but exhale.

“Fuck it,” you mutter as you enter his number into your phone before sending him a text.

Hey Joel, I just moved into Rose’s farm and found the note you left. Would love to take up your offer! - Fucking tourist

You smile to yourself as you send the text and hope to god that he remembers you from the cafe this morning.

Your phone vibrates as you get out of the shower that night.

Glad your not a tourist. We can grab coffee and discuss what needs doing. Tomorrow work for you? - Grumpy old man

You huff a laugh at his response, glad he has a sense of humor. You shake off the smile on your face, remembering how much of an asshole he was this morning. You text back agreeing to his offer and he sets a time for eight in the morning.

You drift off to sleep with a smile on your face, and you tell yourself that it’s not because of Joel but rather due to your own excitement and happiness about the move. He may be a rude asshole but he offered to help and from the looks of the house and farm, you’re going to need it.

And if Joel Miller wants to help, you’ll make him work.

Chapter 2 - comming soon

Notes

I am having way too much fun with this fic! So, our first look at Dina, Ellie, Jesse, Joel and Maria! I hope you like how i've incorporated them into the story! I’m having Dina and her sister run the inn (which is also a restaurant) Jesse work at the cafe (so far, there’s more he does too) and I cant wait until you find out what Ellie does, yall are going to LOVE her in this story. And then there’s Joel. Please excuse him, he’s just a grumpy old man that needs his coffee and hates tourists. But I really loved his interactions with Ellie.

Tags @jupiter-soups @anavatazes @ruthyalva96 @pastawench @littleblackcatinwonderland @joeldjarin @chiyo13 @readingiskeepingmegoing @northennlights @peachiestevie @brittmb115 @jiminstinypinky @xxrookexx

If you want to be tagged, please comment on the masterlist for this series and I will add you. If you want to be taken off, please DM so i don't miss your request.

Every comment, like and reblog means the world to me. please let me know your thoughts about this, i want to ramble about this story so much.

#joel miller #the last of us #joel tlou #joel fanfic #joel x reader #tlou #tlou joel #tlou fanfiction #joel miller x reader #pedro pascal #joel miller x you #joel miller x f!reader #joel x fem!reader

124 notes · View notes

leportraitducadavre · 8 months

Note

My interpretation of Itachi's character is fairly contrasting with yours. I pose my arguments against your analysis. I hope I would get a lead unto having an unbiased opinion.

Itachi's position in here between was a rock and a hard place. Having witnessed horrors of wars he chose to the stop war. It wasn't the best decision but even still he accomplished many things.

A new Forth Great Ninja war was prevented. Uchihas plan wasn't to reform the government it was to take control of them. Their desires were clearly reflected in their demands. While half of them was about freedom, the rest was only to control village. This, along with Obito's plan for revenge and war, will definitely start a war.

Madara, with the pact, was foiled for more than seven years long enough for the strong Shinobis like Naruto and Sasuke to grow up and defeat him.

Sasuke's life was saved. Itachi would go at all lengths to protect his brother. Afterall, its only obvious he would be over-protective of Sasuke since both loved each other a lot(as siblings).

The Uchiha's reputation were saved. Imagine what would have happened to the Uchihas after the war. The people were already suspicious of the Uchihas and now we will have never ending persecution and would be branded as traitors, doesn't matter if the coup won or lost. The coup wasn't about reforming anyway.

People in the village got to be safe too.

And despite all these he still regretted a lot enough that he wanted the person he adored the most to kill him. Also, no one here is trying to justify his action. A justification and a reason has a clear distinction. Just because there was a reason it doesn't make the acts were justified. He himself acknowledged that. The writer didn't try to justify nor did Itachi himself. People like, Hashirama and Naruto, appreciated the role he played and praised him as a Shinobi.(being seen as a villan while protecting the people isn't easy, btw). They weren't justifying or glorifying his actions in any instance.

He wasn't an absolute nationalist. He he was an idealist. His motivations most cases(especially while making big decisions)were to 'not beget war' and 'maintain peace'. Doesn't matter if Uchihas managed to control the village it still starts war, death, destruction and countless losses which is exactly what Itachi hated from when he was 4. He also wanted to reform the village by becoming a Hokage. He wanted to wiped out the entire ninja system since ninjas were the ones who were used as a weapon for the Diamoyo start constant wars. The Leaf was sort of obnoxious in the time of Tobirama and Hiruzen's regime. But even still, the Hokages were good and passionate and also the people were innocent.

How do you even know it was prevented? Shisui stating that hidden villages will take advantage of Konoha’s civil war to invade was just a fear that was actually constantly proven wrong throughout the series; when Suna invaded and Konoha was destroyed (forcing it to send their most powerful shinobi out of the village to collect money) no other village took advantage of the situation, not even Kumo or Iwa, two of the big five that were not struggling politically or militarily as Suna, Kiri and Konoha were. Kumogakure even tried to kidnap Hinata while in the middle of signing a peace treaty, yet they did nothing against the Hyüga clan nor the village during one of their most vulnerable state.

Furthermore, you mean to tell me that a civil war (I am using that notion generously because Konoha is a military state with a non-civilian population, specifically trained for combat) destabilizes the military and economic power of a city, yet the complete disappearance overnight of one of the village's founding and most powerful clans does nothing to its structure? Other villages wouldn’t see the absence of Sharingan-wielders as an enticing opportunity to strike? Do you mean to tell me that a village was left without police to control it overnight (and their job is considered super important by detractors), yet the city did not succumb to chaos?

Their desires were clearly reflected in their demands.

What were their demands? Enlighten me.

While half of them was about freedom, the rest was only to control village.

Where do you get this information from? There’s nothing of the sort stated in the manga.

This, along with Obito's plan for revenge and war, will definitely start a war.

Obito’s plan needed the annihilation of the Sharingan-wielders as he didn’t want anyone capable of obtaining the Mangekyou to jeopardize his plan to control the ten-tails, Itachi killing the Uchiha literally allowed Obito to start the war!!

Madara, with the pact, was foiled for more than seven years long enough for the strong Shinobis like Naruto and Sasuke to grow up and defeat him.

… what? This doesn’t make any sense and has nothing to do with Itachi… you mean to tell me that Itachi killing his clan made Sasuke as powerful as he is? Because Sasuke has always been powerful and has always been Indra’s transmigrant, and as I’ve said, Obito wouldn’t have been able to initiate the war (or at least would’ve been incredibly difficult for him) with the Uchiha clan still alive!

Sasuke's life was saved. Itachi would go at all lengths to protect his brother. Afterall, its only obvious he would be over-protective of Sasuke since both loved each other a lot(as siblings).

An eight-year-old was tortured mentally by his brother through Tsukuyomi by watching his clan and parents get killed over and over again, was left to live alone in a compound destroyed by his brother’s actions, having to clean his parents’ own blood and fend for himself –but at least he’s alive… the circumstances and solitude in which he grew is abysmal, traumatic, negligent and inhumane, but we don’t care as much about children’s safety as we do children being just alive.

There were other children in that compound, children that knew nothing of and participated not in the coup to which Itachi didn’t extend the same kindness he did his brother.

What “reputation”? The Uchiha were always constructed under a negative light within Tobirama’s system, you lot keep saying they were saved from being seen as detractors when there’s not a single panel that states they were planning to change the system as a whole (rather take down the current government, which is not the same).

Furthermore, to think that they cared about the rest of the population's mindset regarding them is so incredibly simplistic I have to laugh at it –they’re the strongest clan in the village, without Uchiha, there’d have been no village in the first place, and they were already aware of the unfavorable perspective in which they were regarded by others, nothing in itself would’ve changed.

The Uchiha being seen as loyal to the village helped no one but the current system as it is, as they’re seen as a government without opposition, it wasn’t about maintaining the Uchiha’s honor, but keeping the fragile credit of the structure and those in power -if Uchiha died in their own terms, then other clans will know about the clan’s discomfort with the current mindset, and those that feel uncomfortable with it might find a group that validates such sentiments:

Kakashi admits to being uncomfortable with the way he's viewed by the system, he even uses plural when referring to ninja ("we ninja") -meaning there's a communal uneasiness with the whole situation.

The fact that the government silenced detractors (Uchiha) by killing them will only deepen further the general shinobi population's discomfort, which is why is imperative to silence the truth.

[On another note, why do you keep using "honor" as an excuse to execute an entire compound of people? The entire clan was decimated and the whole "honor" of the family rested as another responsibility Sasuke had to endure all by himself thanks to "Itachi's love" -they were left with no honor as Sasuke was forced to restore it! Furthermore, they're all dead! What is "honor" gonna do for them? For the massacred innocents at least? They did nothing wrong and were killed regardless, their honorable nature wasn't even being questioned!]

People in the village got to be safe too.

Safe of what? When was it stated they were going to fight against those who weren’t in power? The problem is they rebelling against those they deem their oppressors but not the government refusing to renounce their power in order to keep the “population they hold so dear” safe? They are both willing to kill innocents (so I guess some people in the village weren’t safe, but in your book, they don’t matter as much), and use the rest of the military population to strike against Uchiha (which is also, never actually stated!). The idea of a “within war” was never confirmed as the Uchiha had no chance to strike, no one is to say they weren’t trying to take power through force yet quietly, no one is to know what was their actual plan as that was never brought to light!

The Uchiha are wrong for wanting to take the power but the government isn't wrong for wanting to keep it, the Uchiha are wrong for their methods to seek authority but not the government for defending the status quo. Uchiha having power would mean annihilation, somehow, despite them being against just their oppressors, not Konoha as a whole; while the government seeks to protect the village despite massacring an entire and most important portion of their militia and one of the founders' clans.

And despite all these he still regretted a lot enough that he wanted the person he adored the most to kill him.

He regretted nothing, he wanted Sasuke to kill him in order to both give him an objective and to distract him from finding out Konoha’s involvement in the Uchiha Massacre, shouldering the entire responsibility of their demisse.

Also, no one here is trying to justify his action.

But you are, you wrote point after point why he had to kill his clan.

A justification and a reason has a clear distinction.

What distinction? You need to expand on the notions you think are relevant to you own argument.

Just because there was a reason it doesn't make the acts were justified. He himself acknowledged that. The writer didn't try to justify nor did Itachi himself. People like, Hashirama and Naruto, appreciated the role he played and praised him as a Shinobi.(being seen as a villan while protecting the people isn't easy, btw). They weren't justifying or glorifying his actions in any instance.

What are you even writing? I’m being honest with that question, claiming to have a reason to kill his clan is used as a justification for his actions! I can’t believe I have to explain that to you. He never said he had no justification (their coup was treated as such over and over, everyone took advantage of them wanting to coup in order to both order the massacre and carry it out!!).

How on earth can you write “People like Hashirama and Naruto appreciated the role he played and praised him as a shinobi but they never justified him”, so are they praising him or not? Them positively reinforcing Itachi and praising him for “his sacrifice” (you see, not only he is perceived as a villain, he is a villain, he killed an entire kin -again, innocents included, in order to maintain specific people in power) is justifying his actions under the notion of the “greater good for the village”.

He wasn't an absolute nationalist.

He did everything for Konoha! He even claimed himself to be “Itachi of the Leaf!” What are you even talking about?

He he was an idealist. His motivations most cases(especially while making big decisions)were to 'not beget war' and 'maintain peace'.

Yet his actions concluded in Obito being able to control the Ten Tails with almost no real opposition as the only other Sharingan-wielder was Sasuke.

Doesn't matter if Uchihas managed to control the village it still starts war, death, destruction and countless losses which is exactly what Itachi hated from when he was 4.

How do you know? Do you have an entirely new manga written by Kishimoto about what would’ve happened had the Uchiha taken over the village? Itachi hated Uchiha since he was four because they brought “war, death and destruction” but not Konoha that actually provoked such wars, deaths, and destruction, what an intelligent boy!

You have to be a troll because, man, “unbiased opinion” my ass. Also, did you just come to my blog with arguments coming from Itachi Shinden? The story not written by Kishimoto?

He also wanted to reform the village by becoming a Hokage. He wanted to wiped out the entire ninja system since ninjas were the ones who were used as a weapon for the Diamoyo start constant wars.

Funny, under Hiruzen’s regime he would’ve never become Hokage, furthermore, when did he even hinted to want to become Hokage?? Never in the entire manga. Also, the Daimyo did little to nothing when it came to wars, those were all the Kage’s responsibilities! Dear Lord, did you at least read Team 10’s Arc? Asuma’s background literally explains how the Shugonin Jūnishi fought each other because six of them wanted the entire military power of the Land of Fire to be managed by the Daimyo alone while the rest, Asuma included, defended the Hokage’s existence.

The Leaf was sort of obnoxious in the time of Tobirama and Hiruzen's regime. But even still, the Hokages were good and passionate and also the people were innocent.

Which people were innocent? The children and non-Sharingan wielders that knew nothing of the coup and were massacred regardless? How can you write “the Hokages were good” while they literally ordered the mass killing of people they swore to protect? How can you use “obnoxious” and “good” to describe the same two people?!

Gosh, the fact that you lot (Itachi stans) don’t comprehend that his involvement in the massacre of his own people alongside the protagonist’s endorsement of state-sanctioned genocide, makes the annihilation of an entire portion of a village a plausible option to handle internal disagreements is disastrous.

Committing genocide against the village’s own people sets a dangerous precedent where future governments can see and use such slaughter as a conceivable, even necessary, tool at their disposal whenever they feel threatened, making any clan vulnerable to the decisions of its government and guaranteeing the silence of possible detractors or even the censorship of constructive criticism of the political, military, economic and cultural system.

Jesus.

#anti itachi #anti itachi uchiha #anti tobirama #anti hiruzen #anti hiruzen sarutobi #anti tobirama senju #anti konoha #anti shinobi system #anti naruto #anti naruto uzumaki #anti kakashi hatake #anti hashirama #anti hashirama senju #anti tsunade #anti tsunade senju #pro uchiha #pro sasuke uchiha #pro uchiha clan

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monstrousgourmandizingcats · 10 months

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Some books and stories that I think are worth reading in conversation with Yellowjackets

Shirley Jackson, all works but especially The Sundial, The Haunting of Hill House, and We Have Always Lived in the Castle. Jackson might or might not need any introduction in this fandom. The Sundial is her take on doomsday preppers, Hill House is of course her haunted house novel (one of the classics of that genre), and Castle has a female protagonist who makes Shauna look like a plaster saint.

Flannery O'Connor, The Violent Bear It Away. O'Connor's work has some of the most pervasive darkness and brutality of any major American writer (maybe Ambrose Bierce comes close), and the second of two novels that she completed before her death is no exception. (The first, Wise Blood, is also very good; the intended third, Why Do the Heathen Rage?, only exists as a fragmentary short story.) Francis Marion Tarwater is kidnapped and raised in the woods by his great-uncle, who is convinced that Francis is destined to be a prophet. The great-uncle's death commences a bizarre adventure involving auditory hallucinations, sinister truckers, an evil social worker, arson, developmental disabilities, and baptizing and drowning someone at the same time. Content warnings for all of the above plus rape. O'Connor is also a fairly racist author by today's standards--she was a white Southerner who died in 1964--so keep that in mind as well.

Ruth Ozeki, The Book of Form and Emptiness. Teenage protagonist is schizophrenic and also a channel for a genuinely supernatural force; well-intentioned but poorly-considered efforts to treat one of these issues make the other worse. Sound familiar? There are supporting characters who are affectionate parodies of Slavoj Zizek and Marie Kondo. A minor character is a middle-aged lesbian who cruises dating apps for hookups with much younger women. Some people find this book preachy and overwritten, but I really like it and would plug it even if I didn't because the author is someone whom I've met and who has been supportive of my own writing.

Yukio Mishima, The Decay of the Angel. Can be read in translation or in the original Japanese. This is the fourth and last book in a series called The Sea of Fertility but I wouldn't necessarily recommend the first three as particularly YJ-ish; Decay is because it deals at great length with issues of doubt and ambiguity about whether or not a genuinely held, but personally damaging, spiritual and religious belief is true. There's also more (as Randy Walsh would put it) lezzy stuff than is usual for Mishima, a gay man. Content warnings for elder abuse, sexual abuse of both children and vulnerable adults in previous books in the series, forced abortion in the first book if you decide to read the whole thing from the beginning, and the fact that in addition to being a great novelist the author was also a far-right political personality.

Howard Frank Mosher, Where the Rivers Flow North. An elderly Vermont lumberjack and his Native American common-law wife refuse to sell their land to a development company that wants to build a hydroelectric power plant. Tragedy ensues. I haven't read this one in a long time but some images from the movie stick in my mind as YJ-y. Lots of fire, water, and trees.

Leonard Cohen, Beautiful Losers. Yes, this is the same Leonard Cohen who later transitioned into songwriting and became a household name in that art form. Beautiful Losers is a very weird, very horny novel that he wrote as a young man; it deals with the submerged darkness and internal tension within Canadian and specifically Quebecois society. One of the main characters is Kateri Tekakwitha, a seventeenth-century Iroquois convert to Catholicism who was probably a lesbian in real life (although Cohen unfortunately seems unaware of this). This one actually shows up YJ directly; the song "God Is Alive, Magic Is Afoot" that plays in the season 2 finale takes its lyrics from a particularly strange passage.

Monica Ojeda, Jawbone. Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. Extremely-online teenage girls at a posh bilingual Catholic high school in Ecuador start their own cult based on such time-honored fodder as Herman Melville novels, internet creepypasta (no, this book does not look or feel anything like Otherside Picnic), and their repressed but increasingly obvious desire for one another. The last part in particular gets the attention of their English teacher, whose own obsessive internalized homophobia grows into one of the most horrifying monstrous versions of itself I've ever read. Content warning for just about everything that could possibly imply, but especially involuntary confinement, religious and medical abuse, and a final chapter that I don't even know how to describe. Many thanks to @maryblackwood for introducing me to this one.

Jorge Luis Borges, lots of his works but especially "The Aleph," "The Cult of the Phoenix," and "The South." Can be read in translation or in the original Spanish. The three works I list are all short stories. The first deals with mystical experiences and the comprehensibility (or lack thereof) of the universe, the second with coded and submerged references to sexuality in general and homosexuality in particular, the third with leaving your well-appointed city home for a ranch in the middle of nowhere and almost immediately dying in a knife fight, which is surely a very YJ series of things to do.

H.P. Lovecraft, "The Colour out of Space," "The Dunwich Horror," "The Dreams in the Witch House," and "The Thing on the Doorstep." Lovecraft in general needs no introduction--the creepiness, the moroseness, the New Englandness, the purple heliotrope prose, his intense racism (recanted late in life but not in time to make any difference in his reception history) and the way his work reflects his fear of the Other. These short stories are noteworthy for having settings that are more woodsy and less maritime than is usual for Lovecraft's New England, for overtones of the supernatural rather than merely the alien, for featuring some of his few interesting female characters, and for their relative lack of obvious racial nastiness. Caveat lector nevertheless.

Herman Melville, Moby-Dick. It's Moby-Dick. Once you realize that Captain Ahab is forming a cult around the whale and his obsession with it you can't unrealize it.

#yellowjackets #books #book recs

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nocturnowlette · 2 months

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what do you think of the Bambi sleep files? i saw some people say that theyre dangerous or predatory but also that theyve been improved to be safer recently, with more safeties and labelling and stuff (i know this isnt really what you do but its realted so i thought you might know since you seem to know a lot about hypnosis content online)

Bambi Sleep files are fairly poorly made outside of the sound design. I do genuinely think the sound design is pretty impressive, but everything else is very sloppy and irresponsible. They stole their entire induction word for word from other people, the bubble thing, and are mostly designed to prey on inexperienced subjects.

I've listened through all of the files and have had exactly 0 effects that existed even beyond the moment the files ended. I've had random 15 minute long files from someone who never made another thing before or after be more effective on me.

The only reason that Bambi Sleep has any effect on people is due to their astroturfing campaigns where they spread a bunch of rumors about it being "dangerous" and "too strong" to lure people in and pre-suppose that idea.

In reality, they're just not all that great. They are abusive and exhausting enough to mess up the lives of people who hate themselves and have little experience with hypnosis, but to give it power as a hypnotic file series would be to outright lie to you. I would honestly say that it's closer to hypnosis fantasy than actual hypnosis for the majority of the work.

#owlette #hypnosis #hypno advice #bambi sleep #bambisleep #bimboification #bimbo hypnosis #bimbo training

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breadvidence · 7 months

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Please mind the #wineposting tag. Regardless: are you asking, "Should I watch this adaptation of Les Misérables?" I'll give you advice, though I suspect if you are reading this blog post you have watched all of these anyway (and quite possibly a few more, besides!).

'25 (Fescourt): Probably! If you are a Brick fan none of the adaptation choices will startle you, but having visuals to go with key scenes is a treat. This is a loyal piece. Toulout as Javert, Gabrio as Valjean, Milovanoff as Fantine, and Nivette as Éponine all give excellent performances. Be prepared for a lukewarm Cosette. You might struggle with silent film conventions, length, and French intertitles.

'34 (Bernard): Probably! This is a fairly loyal adaptation of the Brick that makes internally consistent choices where it deviates from its source (sometimes it has goofy continuity errors—politely ignore). Baur as Valjean and Gaël as Cosette give fabulous performances. Moments of silliness do not detract from the quality. Another long haul.

'35 (Boleslawski): Probably not. As an adaptation of Les Misérables this film is bad. That being said, Charles Laughton is a lauded actor, and you can't say he didn't put his whole laughussy into his performance. Because it is accessible and prominent, a lot of LM fans will have seen this film, and you might benefit from shared context if you're in fandom. Speaking personally, I'm glad I saw it, but I'm not sure you will be.

'52 (Milestone): No. Most likely based on '35 rather than on the book, this film is also a bad adaptation of Les Misérables. There are no notable performances. Because it is accessible, this is another adaptation many fans are familiar with, but understanding jokes about Valjean's boyfriend Robert and Javert's sentient hat probably don't justify sitting through the movie.

'58 (Le Chanois): No. Not the English dub, at least. "Bland" is the word of the day. Contemporary French audiences wildly disagree with me per Wikipedia.

'72 (Bluwal): Strong maybe. If you are an intense fan of the Brick, yes. Its use of a narrator to draw from the novel directly and its focus on the Amis makes this adaptation unique on this list. You might not end up liking it but you will have had an experience. If you have zero investment in Les Misérables but are still reading this post for some reason: no, do not watch this.

'78 (Jordan): At some point I will talk about this film and not make a gay joke but today is not that day. If you are not queer, get off my blog, you cis straight, begone. Everyone else: yes, watch this movie, c'mon. Perkins. That performance. At some point I need to make a serious post about queerness and '78 but right now all I've got is Javert's literal on-screen boner. Jesus Christ. Not a great adaptation of the novel but a virtuoso example of unintentional homoeroticism.

'82 (Hossein): No. This is an odd little adaptation without the charisma of a '35 or '78, somehow not as bad as either of those but not as good either. The GIF of the Amis walking in heavy wind is the best this film has to offer.

'98 (August): No—but I stared into my wine glass for a long, long time before typing those two letters. If we are judging adaptations by how they handle the source material, this is a disaster. As a film? I'm sure entertained. I call it bitchslap Les Mis. I should note here I am also a huge fan of Uma Thurman. Possibly I should recuse myself. I don't know, pal. IDK.

2012 (Hooper): I dwell bitterly on the fact that this is our film version of the musical. Brick fans are restless, musical fans are restless. People who first encountered Les Mis via this version are making feral noises. I'm afraid. I'm moving on.

2018 (Davies): It's really unfortunate that I am at my most drunk while commenting on this adaptation. Sure, watch it, it's one of those BBC series that has watchability sheerly because of production value and proximity to contemporary narrative/film expectations/standards. Personally I hate it. My partner is so tired of the tone in which I utter the syllables "Oyelowo".

The Musical: yes c'mon. Bootleg that good bitch.

#les mis #les misérables #wineposting

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cherryslyce · 1 year

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The Avarice Files (II) | Regulus Black

Series Synopsis: Boundless uncertainty ensues when you’re tasked to complete a mission requiring time travel for the Ministry. The best part? Your partner, acclaimed hero of the Great Wizarding War, Regulus Black, a man who was supposed to be long dead.

— Chapter Synopsis: Your adventures at Rosier Estate bring more than you could have anticipated.

Part I / Part III / Series Masterlist

Pairing: Regulus Black x GN!Reader

Notes: Not canon compliant. A few words short of 4k words.

Time travel was a dizzying prospect to articulate, and an even more disorienting concept to actually experience. Your eyes are squeezed shut, stinging as the rapid rewinding of time causes your surroundings to rapidly blur and warp in a plethora of colors.

You surrendered any attempt to count the seconds that passed, and it isn’t until you feel a gloved hand on your shoulder that you reluctantly peel your eyes open.

Looking to your side, you clear your throat as Regulus continues to peer at you. “Oh, uh, thanks.”

Regulus merely grunts before deftly removing the thin chain from around his neck, head swiveling around to survey the environment as you recollect yourself. The absence of dark tiles startles you into following Regulus’ movements, vision thrumming with faint stars as you do so.

Instead of the long tunnel-esque hallway you were familiar with, you were both greeted by clinically white walls and smooth concrete flooring. “I wasn’t aware this sector was a fairly new extension.” You hum, tucking the time turner under your robe collar.

The bare hallway practically glows as it splinters toward an equally bare doorway, a thick black tarp draping across the wide aperture.

“Can we apparate?” Regulus’ gruff voice draws your eyes toward him, blinking slowly as you unconsciously compare the shade of his mask to the snowy white of the walls.

Nodding, you hum and quickly divert your gaze, “Since this was just recently constructed, I’m sure we can. Present day—no, but that’s due to its close proximity to the artifacts room.”

Regulus draws his wand from his concealed wrist holster, microscopically swiveling it by his side as he turns to you, “You’re right.” Ward detection spell. You almost want to facepalm as you realize that you could have done the same. Clearly, the shock of Regulus’ existence above the grave was still wearing on your concentration.

Shifting your weight to one foot, you hum absentmindedly, “The time turner has a cool down. Plus we’ll need to head back after we retrieve the file. No use in carrying such a valuable item with us the whole time.”

“Cool down?” Regulus intones.

“Should be about half a day after every round trip.” You confirm, keeping your eyes locked to the end of the hallway.

Regulus nods in consideration before falling into silence again.

“Ah, have you been to Rosier Estate by any chance?” You ask, dropping the folders in your hands into the woven bag slung over your shoulder.

The masked man before you nods and juts his elbow out imperceptibly, eyes glazing over with an indecipherable sheen. You swiftly clasp his elbow, filing away your curiosity as your mind kicks into gear.

The tug and spiraling of apparition tangles with your stomach as you’re graced with a familiar pit of anticipation. Once you land, you first hear the rustling of leaves, the bristling chimes fluttering through the air around you.

Detaching yourself from Regulus, you take a step to the side as you admire the forest around you, the aroma of pine and soil lulling you into tranquility.

“How nice.” You hum, throwing your head back as you gaze through the verdant curtains of dancing leaves and toward the stormy sky.

“The manor is nearby. We’ll have to get a little closer to the wards.” Regulus says, poking your shoulder with the edge of the folder to get your full attention.

Softly tugging the item into your hands, you splay the folder open for the both of you to look at.

File 0100: Clyde Rosier. 06/18/1958.

Brief: Retrieve the lost file of Archadiem inside Rosier Estate’s study during the patrimony ball. Leave no witnesses.

Location: Rosier Estate. Bournemouth, England

“Shit.” You hiss out, a groan bubbling in your throat as you reread the curt note. “There’s going to be a fuck ton of people there. How inconvenient.”

“It’ll be fine.” Regulus grunts, thumbing at the edge of the paper as he grips his wand tightly.

You click your tongue before gently retracting the folder and tucking it away into your bag. “Right. Nothing a few Obliviate’s and Imperio’s can’t fix.”

Regulus draws back a little and gazes at you with slightly widened eyes, as if he was really seeing you for the first time. You raise your eyebrows and grin lightly, “Should I be offended that you’re so shocked? We’re in the same line of work. Kind of.”

“It’s just difficult.” He mumbles, eyes now sinking back to their usual blank look.

“Hm?” You muse, spinning your wand around your fingers.

Regulus looks away into the distance before he speaks again. “How does time travel work?”

“Ah, it’s quite a convoluted concept.” You start, scratching your nails gently against your bicep as you attempt to articulate your next words, “We can go back to the past, obviously, but we aren’t able to jump forward to a time where we have yet to experience. In terms of avoiding a complete implosion of our timeline, we have to avoid people that either know us, or will come to know us in their future… er, our present?” You shoot a playful look at him at your next words, “And definitely no killing either.”

“Shame.” Regulus breathes out lowly.

You huff out in amusement and raise an eyebrow at him. “Alright, we should head on over now. I can disarm the security wards just long enough for us to cross.”

“Someone might notice.” Regulus supplies, yet his tone indicated no stress over the matter.

“It’s the house elves you should be worrying about. I’m sure they’ll notice us snooping around.” Your words are tinted with an edge of concentration as Regulus begins to pace through the forest floor with you on his tail.

Regulus’ hood shifts side-to-side ever so slightly as he watches your surroundings. “The elves will be in the kitchen preparing the food.”

“Oh?” Your echo is laden with curiosity as you silently prod him to explain.

“Lord Rosier is not keen on having them wander while he has guests over.” Regulus mutters with firm certainty.

Your inquisitive gaze only sharpens at his words, but you concede at the explanation, not wanting to push the man further and risk shattering any semblance of ease he held toward you. “Sounds good. Do you know where the office is then?”

Regulus hums in confirmation before slowing in his tracks, slightly ducking behind one of the trees and reaching an arm back to gesture for you to do the same. Following the man’s lead, you step further into the shade and peer into the bright clearing. Somehow, your riveting conversation with Regulus lasted long enough for him to trace a path to the side of the lavish estate.

There are a few people milling at the entrance of the manor, all layered with tailored formal wear that reeked of obscene wealth. You and Regulus are a few yards away from the edge of the luscious garden, the sway of tulip beds mottling the expanse of the view in front of you.

Unfortunately, your initial plan of sneaking in seems to flush away as an increasing amount of people pour onto the property. The sudden twitch of Regulus’ fingers tells you that he agreed with your assessment.

“Damn, I think I left my spare polyjuice potion vials back at home. I got too eager.” You curse yourself quietly, mentally kicking yourself for being so careless. Regulus glances over his shoulder at you before digging into the pocket of his cloak, the faint clacking of glass spurring a hum of disbelief to escape your mouth. “No way, Black.”

“Stay here. Lift the wards on my cue.” Without another word, the man softly thrusts the two vials toward you and slinks away to Merlin knows where.

“Wait, Regulus! What cue—” You fiddle with the glass cylinders as the man disappears from your sight. Shaking your head, you can only huff out an exasperated sigh. “Unbelievable.”

Craning your head around, you try to pinpoint Regulus’ swift figure, only catching glimpses of his robe through the treeline. He rounds toward the back of the manor much to your confusion, but as you squint for a few moments, you see two figures slowly trekking toward Regulus’ direction.

Regulus’ mask peeks from the side of a thick tree and darts in your direction, and you’re thrusted into high alert as you see him lift and shake his wand between two fingers. Suppressing an eyeroll, you deftly swing your wand out from your side and aim at the air above the garden, murmuring a complex interception charm at the intangible barrier.

Your magic darts out in a sharp strike, permeating across the bubble of interwoven ward charms, gnawing away at the webs of magic and causing it to flicker before seemingly melting away. Luckily, the temporary dismantling of the wards lasts long enough for Regulus to enact his plan.

Leaning your body weight against the tree beside you, you watch in wonder as a shadow shoots out from the treeline and stupefies both individuals back-to-back. Tapping your foot against a bulb of root beneath your shoe, you patiently wait as you see Regulus haul both of the figures over his shoulders like sacks of potatoes before exiting the scene just as quickly as he arrived.

You feel your charm wane before dissipating, and it's enough for you to shoot a cautious look toward the arriving guests, none of whom seem to notice any changes. Just as you turn back around, you nearly feel your heart stop as Regulus’ masked face fills your vision.

“Merlin almighty, Regulus!” You wheeze out. “A word of warning next time, please.”

The man ignores your near fatal scare and drops both of the figures down onto the ground, crouching to pluck a strand of hair from them both. Approaching the crumpled figures, you uncork the vials before handing them to Regulus, already dreading having to change into their stuffy outfits.

“Who the bloody hell are these two anyway?” You wonder aloud, watching as Regulus hands one of the vials back to you.

Regulus blinks before glancing down at them. “They were speaking in Italian.”

“Possible business partners of Rosier’s, then?” You offer, accepting the vial being extended to you. As you finish throwing back the concoction, a bright glimmer catches your eyes. “And a couple.”

Regulus freezes at this and picks up the limp hand with the lustrous diamond ring in an almost disbelieving motion. You bite back a chuckle and shake your head, feeling your body curling and morphing to match the one by your feet. “I guess it could be worse.” Regulus peers up at this, and you smile down at him, “We could have been stuck with the Malfoy’s.”

“I suppose you’re right.” A breathy sound tangles into the air, and at first you’re immediately put on guard as your eyes fly around to track the source of the sound, but as a few more moments pass, you’re struck with the realization that Regulus just laughed.

You feel your lips part in shock. Except, they’re not your lips. They feel taut and unbearably foreign on your face. A sigh leaves your mouth as you realize that the transformation was complete, leaving you rooted to the ground in a haze of disorientation as you become acquainted with your new limbs.

Shaking your head to snap from your stupor, you raise an eyebrow at Regulus, “You just laughed.”

“Hm.” Regulus’ gloved hand reaches up to cup the chin of his mask, his other hand bringing up the potion to his face.

You spin around before Regulus can lift the mask off, opting to admire the colorful garden to occupy yourself. “You should laugh more, I’ve always liked your laugh.”

Regulus does not dignify your comment with a response, not that you expected him to, but you feel him tap your knee to get you to turn back around.

The man busies himself with stripping your victims of their clothing, pointedly not glancing at you when you drop to your knees to do the same. You both work quietly, only giving the occasional grunt or sigh when a button or zipper gets stuck.

After you peel off the necessary articles of clothing from your… person, leaving them in their underdressings, you mutely trek behind a few trees to swap clothing, raising your eyes upward so as to not peek at your new body.

By the time you make your way back to Regulus, clothes bundled haphazardously in your hands, he is already finished changing, deciding to throw his robe over one of the limp bodies.

Regulus raises his gaze to you as you draw closer, moving to pick up the remainder of his clothes and his mask. You both shove the clothing into the woven bag, maintaining a comfortable silence all the while. After you both finish, you shove the bag into a dark hollow in one of the weighty trees.

“I’ll move them farther out.” Regulus drones, voice still painfully stoic even in his new flesh disguise. You nod and clear your throat, tapping into your years of incognito experience to try and dredge up some semblance of a respectable Italian accent.

Regulus hauls both of the bodies over his shoulders again, briskly pacing away as you smooth out your outfit, admiring the heavy satin fabric and intricate threading.

“You ready?” Regulus’ voice rings into the small clearing, and you shoot him an assured smile.

“Gotta work on the accent, Black. The voice doesn’t match the face very much.” Your accent slips off your tongue smoothly, causing Regulus to raise his eyebrow at you.

The teasing spurs an oh-so-elegant eyeroll from him as he trudges toward you. “Like this?” The faint Italian lilt of his voice is admittedly, quite believable, and you’re left to mimic his eyeroll as you beckon him forward.

“Let’s just hope that Rosier is too busy to approach us.” You mutter, lifting your wand to disable the wards again.

Regulus remains behind you as you execute the task, humming when he senses the barrier flickering ever so slightly. “Let me do the talking if he does.”

“Sure, boss.” You huff sarcastically, quickly passing into the garden before your charm disappears. “He’s going to be on his toes about the wards. Wavering twice in such a short period of time is no accident.”

“Don’t worry. He’s not the observant type.” Regulus says, crouching down behind a dense patch of shrubs.

You follow suit and turn to him, “Are you seriously implying that he’s an ignoramus?”

“Yes.” He deadpans, a sliver of disdain melting into his tone. “Now, we’ll slip in and split up.”

Nodding, you catch onto his plan. “Right, and we’ll both be too busy to stop for chats because we’ll be looking for each other.”

“Good. Exactly.” He praises with a hum, stretching up from his position to survey the area. “Rosier will be making his toast soon. We need to be there so it won’t seem suspicious.”

“How do you know?” You question quietly, walking by Regulus’ side as you both hurry toward the entrance.

“I grew up going to these kinds of events.” He huffs, offering his arm as you both near the towering wooden doors.

Hooking your arm in his, you plaster on a flat expression and square your shoulders, immediately reverting into work-mode. You both climb up the stone stairs, not even flinching when the doors swing open as you both reach the last step.

The aroma of baked bread and pear wafts towards you as you both breach the threshold, the light chattering buzzing through the air gradually increasing in volume as you both drift into the clusters of milling wizards in the ballroom.

“Look who made it.” An unctuous voice cuts over from your left, and you and Regulus swivel over to see an older couple approaching you both. “We were starting to worry.” The older woman muses, a thin smile stretching across her face.

“We decided to get some air.” Regulus greets, an amicable lip turn twisting at his face.

You nod along and tighten your hold on Regulus’ arm. “The tulips are wonderful this time of year, after all.”

The woman hums in agreement, eyes glinting sharply under the light. Her husband chuckles softly and draws his flute of champagne closer to his chest as he finally speaks up, “You’re not wrong. Well, we’re glad you’re both here now. Such a shame that Pierre is no longer with us, but Clyde will do well.”

Regulus hums and feigns dolefulness at his words, “Yes, what a shame. Pardon us, Lord Greengrass, Lady Greengrass, we were hoping to grab some refreshments ourselves before Lord Rosier’s appearance.”

The older man—Lord Greengrass, gives a small ah of understanding before inclining his head. “Of course, Signor Pacelli. We must get together one of these days for dinner.”

“It would be our pleasure.” Regulus agrees, offering a pleasant smile to the two before gently tugging you away. You shoot the couple a small smile before spinning on your heel to follow him, letting out a small sigh.

“How’d you know?” You murmur, eyes slowing in their rapid survey.

Regulus hums and his voice drops as he replies, “The perks of pureblood playdates. The Greengrass’ are familiar faces.”

Luckily, neither of you are stopped again and you’re able to amble towards the champagne table without pause. Just as you pick up one of the glasses, a light ringing fills the air and draws your attention to the center of the room.

The crowd disperses into a vague ring shape to surround the source of the noise: a copper-haired man tapping a spoon against his champagne flute.

“Clyde.” Regulus mutters just loud enough for you to hear. You hum in understanding and turn fully to the man as he begins to speak.

“Everyone, thank you for gathering here at my estate on this lovely day. I am grateful to not only be able to honor my late father alongside his most trusted acquaintances, but to also be given the privilege to inherit the title of Lord Rosier.” The lithe man runs his gaze over every occupant in the room as he pauses. “Trust that I will be diligent in my duty to protect our traditions and culture, we must never surrender our fight for the greater purpose.”

His last statement seems to birth a quiet excitement amongst the crowd as people positively beam at his words, sharing small glances that oozed of complete assent and zealoustry. The topic of blood purity seemed to be the cream of the crop to everyone surrounding you.

A stern looking man steps forward from his spot in the circle and raises his glass, eyes gleaming with approval as a wicked smile settles on his face. “To Lord Rosier.” His voice rumbles across the room followed by intonations of similar endorsement.

You feel Regulus tense up beside you as he sees the man, arm snapping stiff for a few moments before you feel him forcefully relax his muscles. Biting your tongue, you suppress the urge to look at Regulus as you both mimic the crowd’s movements, a nauseating wave wracking through your body as you see the avaricious look on Rosier’s face.

Bloody psycho.

“I am truly honored. Now, please enjoy your time here!” Rosier inclines his head before motioning for the gettogether to resume, immediately moving to speak with who you recognized to be the Malfoy’s. Abraxas and… dear Merlin, a baby-faced Lucius.

Biting back a snicker, you pat Regulus’ forearm as you bring your drink back to your side. “Lucius is quite adorable.”

Regulus discreetly glances over and you see his eyes light up in mirth, quietly muttering into his drink as he tries to loosen up. “Merlin, who would have thought.”

“Are you alright though?” You whisper before taking a sip from your own glass, refraining from looking toward the stern man as you frown.

He nods quickly, before ducking down to your ear. “Later.” He carefully surveys your surroundings before continuing, “I’m going to go to the office. Second floor, west wing.”

You nod smally and slowly slip your arm from his, “Be careful.”

“Come up in five.” He mutters, grabbing another glass of champagne before slinking away into the crowd of people.

You slowly down your glass before also grabbing another one, trying your best to hide your discomfort with the overwhelming environment. A few more seconds pass before you begin to weave through the crowd, intentionally wading around groups in rapt conversation in hopes of fading into the background.

After pointedly ignoring straying eyes, you begin to adopt the composure of someone on a mission to find something, which you suppose works out since it was the literal dilemma you were facing. Your eyes feign search as they glide over people’s heads, a minute frown plastering itself on your lips as you pretend to seek Regulus out.

The charade remains intact for a few minutes until you’re up the staircase and rounding the corner, your huff of contained relief finding residence in the desolate hallway. Muffling your footsteps, you arduously navigate through the maze of hallways and windows.

Just as you go to reach for your wand, deciding to use a tracking spell, a pair of heavy footsteps echo from ahead of you. Slipping your hand away from your concealed holster, you compose yourself just in time to see a sinewy man turn the corner in front of you.

Swallowing roughly, you relax your expression into one of light surprise as he makes eye contact with you. His cobalt eyes widen imperceptibly before a saccharine smile curls at his lips.

Closing the distance between you, he hums as you smile back at him. “There you are, dove. I noticed you were gone earlier. I suppose now is an opportune time. My missus is with Clyde right now, but let’s be quick.”

He goes to hug your body closer to his, and you instinctively tense up at the approach, mind whirling on overdrive as you stiffly reciprocate his movements. The embrace has your skin prickling while a suffocating air befalls on the hallway. Pulling back from the unknown man’s hold, you clear your throat as his face leans towards yours. “Not in the hallway. Anyone can walk by.”

Your voice is even and poised, the complete antithesis to the panic stinging at your nerves.

The man chuckles and runs a hand through his hair as he nods. “Sure. Let’s head to Clyde’s drinking parlor then. He won’t mind.” His eyes scan your face and the look is enough to spur the hairs on the back of your neck to stand up.

A—completely fake, coy smile dances on your lips as you nod back. “Well, lead the way then.”

Fuck. An affair with some mystery man. You were beginning to wish that you had downed seven glasses of alcohol instead.

You both pass by a couple more doors before the man is deftly pushing one open, gesturing for you to go in first. The room was nothing if not exceedingly opulent. Suspended above the two plush lounge chairs is a glittering chandelier embellished with blinding crystals and ivory candles. The far wall stretched out into a makeshift bar with shelves stacked ceiling-high with decanters and waxed-dipped wine bottles. A sturdy glass table is sprouted in between the two lounge chairs, housing a single transparent ashtray.

Before you can drown in your reverie of the room, you hear the mystery man clear his throat from behind you.

Turning on your heel, your small grin washes away as your heart stutters to a stop as you see his wand pointed at your head.

He gives you a flinty smile that flashes too many of his teeth, eyes wide with cold curiosity as he steps towards you. “Now that we have some privacy. Mind telling me who the hell you are?”

TAGLIST: @tomo-tofu @night-fall-moon @darkenwolfie @eliz-eia @justkiyomi @idkwimdahyd @googie-jeon @littleshadow17 @doux-ange @moni-cah @valsarchives @that-bitch-bri @tiana76 @jsjcue @younmey @novella12nite @littlefrogiefairy @rainfell-m @user2772636

#regulus black #regulus black imagine #regulus black fanfiction #regulus black imagines #regulus black deserved better #regulus black x reader #regulus black series #regulus black angst #regulus black fluff #regulus black x y/n #regulus black scenario #harry potter series #harry potter fanfiction #harry potter imagine #harry potter #the noble house of black

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bonzos-number-1-fan · 3 months

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TMAGP 10 Thoughts: History Lessons

What an episode. I'd love to do a bit of preamble up front but there is a load to talk about. No one needs me to ramble before the ramble. This will be a long one so buckle in, kids.

Spoilers for episode 10 below the cut.

Another episode that jumps straight into the incident. I really enjoyed this one. Both for its novel format and also for the way it lays the foundations of what's to come. It's also nice to see an incident that is mostly mundane. There was very little in this, outside of an allusion to something more sinister, that was out of the ordinary. A fairly British dude telling a unique British story. However, I don't think there is an awful lot to say here that isn't quickly expanded upon later in the episode or that won't be best served talking about elsewhere.

So let's get to the more interesting bit of this case. For those of you not from here, or a little too young to remember, the reason it's all so authentically British is because Mr. Bonzo is TMP's version of Mr. Blobby. A very real TV show mascot from the 90's. A lot of what was just discussed in that interview is lifted from Mr. Blobby's real history. He first appeared on a Saturday night variety show called Noel's House Party in its "Gotcha" segment. He was first introduced as a children's TV character to prank unsuspecting celebrities. He got very popular and became a mainstay of the series, became a huge icon at the time, launched a fairly massive range of merchandise, plans to create a Mr. Blobby theme park happened, and he even had a chart topping single. Blobby was a big deal and still pops up a fair amount. He didn't do any murders that we know of, and no one dressed as him to kill either. There is also this which I think everyone should watch to better prepare themselves for Mr. Bonzo, or to soothe the horrors he's already inflicted.

Colin's back! He's still weird! Not much to say here but it's nice to see him and Celia interact.

Next up were hear Alice and Sam, via Sam's phone, exploring the damp ruins of the Magnus Institute. There isn't a whole lot to say in this portion of their exploration but it's nice to see them outside of work again.

Gwen's section of this episode was really the standout IMO. Anusia is killing it and continues to kill it more and more each episode. I think Gwen is now my #2 blorbo. Colin had an early lead with a great email but is more of a background character at the moment. I am really excited to see how Gwen is going to react to this down the line. Whether the abject terror of meeting Bonzo is going dissuade her from pursuing Lena's job or further stoke that fire. I also wonder if she's going to assume what a lot of us are assuming. That the more recent Bonzo related murders are perpetrated by Bonzo, and that the envelope she gave him was his next target, which further plays into the golem references. Can't wait to hear more about what his role is in regards to the OIAR.

But no one could possibly replace Mr. Bonzo as #1 and I'm sure we can all see why this episode. Just everything about how he's being handled is perfect. A lot of history to ground him, incredibly ambiguous origins, his teeth are not soft, topped off with one of the most impactful "screen presence" of the entire TMA cast. Everything I was hoping for.

For those not a part of the ARG, and not a part of the Statement Remains discord server for it, Mr. Bonzo quickly became a massive fixture of basically everything that happened on that server. It's where my blog's name is from. Which is to say Mr. Bonzo has been a HEAVILY anticipated character and has had no small amount of hype built up around him. RQ have managed to deliver on that and then some. It's really pretty amazing he's managed to show up and not be a disappointment if you were part of that crowd, but they really pulled it off.

Bonzo Fact: Did you know that Mr. Bonzo is entirely unique in all of TMA? He's the only character to have a canonical design. He's the only character we can truly behold, and his visage is glorious and awe-inspiring. He is, quite literally, more real than any other character in the show. (Ignoring historical characters we never met)

I'm sure lots of you will have seen what Mr. Bonzo looks like but for those who haven't and have missed it on my posts, it's this.

If you checked out the links earlier, which you should have, you'll see that he's very close to Mr. Blobby. And, yes, he is kinda creepy if you're grossed out by weird mascots but he's not "Oh my god!" levels of horrifying. That's the original Mr. Bonzo, Mr. Bonzo the suit, not Mr. Bonzo the monster. This is who Gwen met.

Which really raises a rather interesting question; when did the suit stop being just a suit? Which in turn raises a more interesting one; why did the suit stop being just a suit? It's pretty clear that Mr. Bonzo really did start off as something mundane but whatever he is now very clearly isn't.

After all that excitement we return to Alice and Sam fumbling about in a ruin. Interestingly we're no longer listening through their phone, but a tape recorder. Which is actually a fairly big deal. Not because it's a TMA thing but because it's an analogue format that's not being digitised. So far that's not been something we've been able to listen through. Which means "Freddy" has some tricks up its sleeves, or "Freddy" isn't the one listening. The actual contents of this part isn't terribly important for the most part. Archivist's office, worms and trapdoors for an allusion to TMA, mystical symbols maybe, lots of books, etc. The real revelation here is "why they chose us… why they didn’t choose me". Likely confirming that the contents of CHDB (see masterdoc) was mostly the first step. Sam "failed" and wasn't chosen for whatever came next. It also likely confirms that Gerry wasn't chosen either as the two had remarkably similar test scores. Anyway, after that they call it quits and head on home.

Now, if you weren't reading the transcript's you'll have missed the introduction to a new character, [Error] played by Beth Eyre who voiced Lucia Wright from MAG 130: Meat. As Alice and Sam leave a padlock rattles on a trapdoor before a key twists and the lock pops open. The trapdoor opens and [Error] emerges. Very very little to really say here. Imprisonment below the Institute probably isn't a good sign, and they're the likely immortal overarching villain of either this season, or the show in general. But combined with strange PoV on those events, what was likely a mystical prison, and it being under the Institute that was burned down for a reason it's not good news. Unless it was burned down to free them, then who knows.

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Incident/CAT#R#DPHW Master Sheet (I added the Magnus Institute's child psych eval. sheet to it)

Somewhat notably here CAT1RB2275 is also very close to the trailer's case number of CATIRB2275.

DPHW Theory: 2275 is actually a pretty interesting number. For clarity this refers to only the initial recording that Celia heard, not anything related to Mr. Bonzo beyond that. 2 in Death is pretty reasonable as the statement brings the subject of murders up but doesn't dwell on them much. 2 in Pain falls under the same explanation. The 7 in Helplessness tracks well too because not only was the format of the interview a bit of a gotcha, but the content dealt heavily with imprisonment. Both in context to the show's premise and the legacy's impact upon his life. It was also eerie and weird and mascot-centric which is good Weird fodder.

The reason this is all so interesting is because it's possible this is an entirely mundane incident that still happens to line up well with the DPHW of Mascot (Kids). What occurred in the interview didn't seem supernatural, what was described in it also seemed mundane. It's only really the last couple of lines that hint towards something supernatural occurring but notably none of that happens in this recording itself, the details of it discussed, nor are any of the people on the recording first hand witnesses to those events and retelling them. But despite all of that the mundane occurrences of the interview still heavily reflect the supernatural ratings of the section (subsection).

CAT# Theory: CAT1. [Insert your favourite screaming reaction GIF here.] I've got no clue what to make of CAT#'s at this stage. This one wasn't particularly elucidating. Gonna be a long few weeks.

There are a couple of theories floating about that I'll briefly mention because someone will do it if I don't. The Subject/Agent/Catalyst theory presumes a lot of stuff about the OIAR I don't think holds up, and assumes they're happy to throw away information which I don't think they are. See here for more. The Person/Place/Object theory overlooks that Dolls (Watching) is CAT2, and not a place, and that Agglomeration (Miscellany) is about a collection of objects despite it taking place at Hilltop. A location only important to us listeners. If you do like those theories by all means keep liking them. I'm just not convinced by them and it seems prudent to mention that I have seen them.

R# Theory: B is right in line with what I outlined last week. Bonzo-themed murders are not overtly supernatural but they are something that definitely happened. The Klaus doc also have a few incidents with the note "Mr. B", including the only known S rank. With Gwen's reaction being so strong I think it's a good indicator that S rank's follow the pattern.

Header talk: Mascot (kids) -/- murder is just another header that seems pretty weird. The section (subsection) bit is all pretty normal but that crosslink again shows that crosslinks have very little structure to them. I'm starting to wonder if they're actually relevant at all, or pre-assigned like other elements are. They're starting to seem more and more like vibes than anything.

#the magnus protocol #tmagp theory #tmagp #klaus = kl4-u5

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mirailenkun · 2 months

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Good. Here are my thoughts about Lotus and its history in ROTMNT.

Remember Shredder warping and appearing at the end of season 1? What if that distortion in time and space had created gaps like Spidey's New Home?

And he would have accidentally dragged Usagi Yuichi and Lotus Blossom. Only Yuichi comes from a different dimension, while Lotus is from Rise's dimension, but from a different time, like the Tang Dynasty.

So we have these two poor displaced people in a time, country and they don't even speak the local language. Yuichi and Lotus communicate through fairly rudimentary Japanese, basically trying to survive in a different world.

They resort to robbery, breaking and entering, extortion, and even work as mercenaries. Along the way they form a close, almost codependent relationship. But THEN COMES A PLOT TWIST…. there is another traveler, one who knows them both, but Yuichi and Lotus had never seen her before in their lives…. Her name is Koya and she wants to kill them. AND WHY THE HELL DOES SHE CALL THEM CAPTAIN AND COLONEL?!

Lotus before this was an assassin at the court of the empress or something like that. Look, I'm from Mexico and the history of China is long and confusing, bear with me. A girl with no clan or family ties, who has never allowed herself to stay in one place or have a family. A sensible, silent and disciplined person, with the great flaw of being indifferent to the pain of others or not understanding their emotions.

On the other hand, we have Yuichi with friends and family to return to. He is impulsive, arrogant, confident and a trouble magnet. Quite a contrast in which they learn from each other in this world of Rise that they don't understand and become friends because in a sad way, they are all they have. And to further angst, they are trapped for 2 and a half years and COUNTING!

(NOTE THAT I COUNT THE MONTHS FROM THE END OF S1 TO S2 + TWO YEARS FROM THE END OF THE SERIES TO THE ROTTMNT MOVIE).

They both miss home, the people they know and seeing that in this city called New York there are pieces of their culture, of their home but it's not quite the same. It burns, in a bittersweet way. Especially for Lotus, because that's her dimension, but it's not her home and Yuichi wants to go back to his clan and family, but they both get attached to each other. They're something they need, like they've always known each other….

Then they meet these people like… Timothy, Irma, Mona Lisa, Dr. Rockwell, Slash, Letherhead even the Hamato Clan. Lotus gets attached to the town, to her friends, to these people who are basically her family, BUT Yuichi wants to come back to continue Miyamoto Usagi's legacy, to be with his clan, his family…. but he also wants Lotus and the gang with him.

Differences of opinion drive a wedge between the two and are their main conflict when they are alone. And the tension only grows between Yuichi and Lotus when they meet the Hamato…..

I'm still thinking what could happen next, but that's basically the idea of my AU TRAVELERS.

#rottmnt #tmnt lotus blossom #yuichi usagi #rise of the tmnt #rise yuichi #rise lotus #tmnt 1987 #tmnt 2012 #tmnt au #tmnt fanart #teenage mutant ninja turtles #tmnt #time travel #angst #tmnt au travelers #rottmnt fanart #rottmnt movie #tmnt 2018

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miilkyrolls · 17 days

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okay fine, Murder at homecoming, YOU WIN

so i finally finished MaH after putting off continuing past chapter 1 since like...february and, i almost used this book as a diamond mine cause i preemptively was like "this looks lame 😒"

... i came, i laughed, i gasped, i yelled, i cried and i left... then i CAME BACK BECAUSE HOLY MOTHER OF REPLAY-ABILITY BATMAN🥲

but no this book hits right where it needed too. I know one of the biggest upsets people have with MaH is A) the villain being guessable and B) not solving Perdita's disappearance and sorta C/ B.2) it being a standalone. and imo for A, that's up to you to feel that way. imo cause choices is a visual form of content, it's kinda hard to have genuinely surprising "twist" villains cause the visuals already clue you into who done-did it unless they pull the twist straight out they ass(i feel this way about movies and shows too. the only way surprises genuinely get me is in books or podcasts, so non visual entertainment)

and B/C, i actually think NOT solving perdita's story AND making it a standalone was actually very mature of PB (first and possibly last time i'll ever say that in this day and age 💀). it's possible they might've made it their next teen drama series if they had the budget. But unfortunately it's honestly realistic. unfortunately a lot of women go missing and rarely do they get found alive and in a short amount of time (esp if you have as a bipoc mc/ perdita). it's an extremely tragic cookie crumble that unfortunately a lot of mysteries in our lives often take us our entire lives to solve and a lot of them we'll never solve in our lifetime. it's a great paradox / parallel to gabbie's death. it took us all of say 4/5 months (cause in the US, most schools go on winter break in late December) to solve with justice being fairly swift, fair, and harsh but unfortunately a lot of victims don't get their day for a long while, if ever. it's a healthy ying and yang of enjoying fictional justice but it being unrealistic with acknowledging the devastation of losing real victims while acknowledging those lost and their unsung stories that we should never completely give up on their days to come. (ofc however, i hc that perdita is still alive and uncovered corruption in the city and knew that making her family deal with legal repercussions would make their lives more difficult and be ostracized by the elites of Beachwood, so she just left and changed her identity. i like to think she did it also cause MC deserved to have a normal teenhood and not be ousted for her actions)

also i love the open and candid conversations around the treatment of queer children, bipoc mistreatment , misogyny, sa and grief. idk why but the ability to choose if you'd experienced homophobia/ transphobia based on your pronouns and who you've romanced, and tyler talking about thinking he was straight before meeting us (i had a masc body) idk why but i like that touch. i feel like PB kinda grazes over the aspect of being queer / trans and the concept of love, coming out, and society acceptance when your same sex romancing/ nonbinary so it's real shocking when they actually..idk address that thing😭. it's nice to have characters acknowledging their sexuality rather then just be automatically playersexual and everyone around them is just immediately accepting/ suddenly bigotry just seems to evaporate for mc's life/ society

also also, WE CAN BE POLY AND LIKE ITS CALLED POLY AND EVERYONE IS HAPPY AND THE LI WE DON'T CHOOSE AREN'T FORCED ONTO US/ GIVEN AS A OPTION

smaller things: i like the heavy usage of sound effects, idk why but i do. i like the flashbacks into mc's and perdita's relationship, the mix of free and paid clues that are non linear, STEVIE (yes she needs her own category)

overall: 9.2/10. i really like this book, it's going on my personal shelf next to the likes of crimes of passion (minus proposal...), Queen B, big sky country, blood bound, immortal desires 1, and with every heartbeat for my good book shelf

#PLS give MaH the fandom she DESERVES #pixelberry #choices #choices stories we play #playchoices #choices stories you play #murder at homecoming

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bethanythebogwitch · 8 months

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Since my previous posts on fish Digimon and mermaid (and mermaid-adjacent) Digimon got lived, fuck it, all aquatic Digimon. This will be a series of posts because there are too many for one.

I'm going to start with Digimon with codified evolution lines. For non-fans, know that while Digimon evolve through different stages, its much less linear than in Pokemon. While Pokemon evolution usually goes a to b to c, Digimon evolution can go more like a to y to r back to g then merge with e to become q. That being said, there are some lines that are clearly intended to be the default, often because they featured in the animes where evolution is usually a lot more linear than in the games and virtual pets.

Literally the OG aquatic Digimon is Betamon. It debuted on the first virtual pet alongside series mascot Agumon and yet its never been in the spotlight. I say Betamon deserves to be a major partner Digimon in some anime or game by now. I love this little frog/lizard/ wamp monster/whatever it is. Betamon also has a recolored variant called ModokiBetamon. Using a recolor as a new Digimon was fairly common in the early franchise. I generally prefer variants to have more changed about them than just the color. I also generally don't like x-antibody Digimon. To make a long story short, x-antibody Digimon are variants of existing Digimon that I generally consider to be overdesigned and ugly. Betamon has an x-antibody variant that isn't too bad as far as x-antibodies go, but it's still adding unnecessary elements to a perfectly good design.

Betamon

Betamon X

Betamon's main evolution is Seadramon and it's a classic for a reason. This sea serpent is a beast and played a significant role in the first anime as a monster of the week. It can also breathe out a stream of supercold air that freezes its targets. When I think of aquatic Digimon, Seadramon is usually the first to come to mind. It's also notable for having an x-antibody variant that actually looks good.

Seadramon

Seadramon X

Seadramon evoles to MegaSeadramon, which is a great follow-up to Seadramon's design. The red body is nice and striking and that big metal horn can shoot electricity. Come to think of it, both Seadramon and MegaSeadramon were monsters of the week in episodes of Adventure where a partner Digimon unlocked an evolution. Maybe that's the line's specialty, they never take the spotlight but they play support to the heroes. MegaSeadramon has a recolor called WaruSeadramon which is just darker and evil. MegaSeadramon has an x-antibody variant that is so overdesigned I can't help but grudgingly respect it.

MegaSeadramon

MegaSeadramon X

The final evolution in the family is MetalSeadramon which is where the line stepped into the spotlight with MetalSeadramon being a major villain in Digimon Adventure. It was upgraded by the Crack Team (a hacker group that upgrades Digimon into cyborgs for their own nefarious goals) to become incredibly powerful and the fastest of all underwater Digimon. And according to the anime, it can fly. Unlike the others, MetalSeadramon doesn't have an x-antibody variant. Sort of. There is GigaSeadramon, which has the x-antibody and looks exactly like what you'd expect from MetalSeadramon X, but isn't. I dunno why.

MetalSeadramon

GigaSeadramon

The aquatic line most people will be familiar with is the Gomamon line doe to its role in Digimon Adventure. Gomamon is a cute little seal. Specifically, it is a spotted seal, or a gomafu-azarashi. I really like this guy doe to its role in the anime as a laid-back and goofy partner to a compulsive worrywart of a human. Gomamon has an x-antibody variant that's fine, but I still prefer the original.

Gomamon

Gomamon X

Gomamon evolves to Ikkakumon, a big, fluffy walrus with a unicorn horn. It looks like someone that would be great to hug if you can get past the fish breath. Also that horn can open up and shoot out\t a torpedo. Because Digimon.

The next stage is Zudomon, who is now a humanoid walrus who appers to be suffering from hair loss. It's now adept at moving on land and in water. It also uses tools, wearing a giant turtle shell as armor and wielding Thor's hammer (despite what the English dub will tell you)

The final stage is Vikemon, a badass viking walrus complete with the helmet. It leads an army of Zudomon and Ikkakumon and (in another viking reference) will go into a berserk rage in combat. It does lose a lot of the aquatic design elements, but I'd say it works out.

While Vikemon is now the default end of the Gomamon line, for a while in the early days it was Plesiomon instead. I can see why they changed it, as the viking walrus has a much better connection to the rest of the line than a plesiosaur. I honestly thin it works better as an ultimate/perfect or champion/adult level than a mega, but I'm not saying no to a Plesiosaur Digimon. Plesiomon has an x-antibody variant.

Plesiomon

Plesiomon X

What do you get when you combine a cyborg sea serpent and a plesiosaur? Turns out a mechanical submarine dragon. This is Aegisdramon, who was created by the afore-mentioned Crack Team using data from MealSeadramon and Plesiomon. While it was created by malicious hackers, it mostly handles data analysis and will allegedly purify evil. When it does fight, it's an absolute badass who is probably one of the Digital World's ocean's top dogs.

Syakomon was a fairly obscure Digimon until the game Digimon Survive made it a partner and gave it a defined evolution line. Syakomon answers the question of "how do you make a bivalve cute" by giving it a little puppy face. Weirdly enough, Syakomon originally debuted as a ultimate/perfect level before being retconned to be a rookie/child level, which makes more sense. It also has an x-antibody variant that is just atrocious. That's not fanart or concept art down there, that's the quality of the actual official art for it. Bandai paid for that quality.

Syakomon

Syakomon X

Syakomon evolves to Shellmon, which is definitely one of the weirder-looking Digimon; a weird, amorphous pink monster in a turban snail shell. Sound familiar? Yeah, it's pretty similar to Pokemon's Slowbro and Slowking. That's because they're based on the same thing: the sazae-oni, a legendary Japanese sea demon that wears a turban snail shell. Shellmon also has a green recolor called MoriShellmon.

Shellmon evolves to Mermaimon, which I covered in an earlier post. The mega/ultimate level is then MarineAngemon, one of the cutest and friendliest Digimon out there. While most mega/ultimate level Digimon are gigantic combat monsters, MarineAngemon is tiny and very peaceful. It spits heart-shaped bubbles that cause targets to calm down and lose their fighting spirit, meaning it disarms its foes with the power of love. It's based on a sea angel, a type of sea slug popular in Japan.

Another anime-canon line that leads to MarineAngemon comes in the supplemental material for Digimon Tamers. It starts win Penguinmon or Penmon. It's a Digimon penguin, nothing really standout about it, but a solid design. It also has a tropical themed red recolor called Muchomon.

The next stage is Dolphmon or Rukamon. Being a dolphin, it is very intelligent, but its thought processes are completely alien and nobody else really understands it. I think thats an interesting take on dolphin intelligence.

The next evolution is Whamon, a very cool whale digimon. This thing is one of the biggest Digimon out there and so large that only a few computers can fully render it. Absolute unit. and in most appearances, it's been a friendly ally to the heroes. Just an all-around excellent cetacean. In the Tamers universe, Whamon evolves to MarineAngemon, meaning one of the biggest Digimon evolves to one of the smallest. I dig it.

The final default line I'm going to talk about today is the Otamamon line. Otamamon is a half-metamorphosed tadpole that is also a singer. It crawls out onto rocks and practices its singing. While Otamamon prefers col water, it has a warm-water red recolor. It also has an x-antibody variant that is pretty ugly.

Otamamon

Otamamon X

Otamamon evolves to Gekomon, which has an amazing singing voice and a face only a mother could love. They're born from musical data and are some of the greatest musicians in the Digital World but man are they ugly. That tongue gives me the creeps.

Gekomon evolves to ShogunGekomon or TonosamaGekomon, which is where the line ends as they don't have a dedicated mega/ultimate level. It's still really gross to look at and still a great musician that leads choruses of Gekomon. I don't really have much else to say about it.

Now that the dedicated lines are done with (the Jellymon line is in the mermaid post), I'll do more freeform entries in a post coming soon to dashboards near you.

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