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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 months

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What kind of bubble is AI?

My latest column for Locus Magazine is "What Kind of Bubble is AI?" All economic bubbles are hugely destructive, but some of them leave behind wreckage that can be salvaged for useful purposes, while others leave nothing behind but ashes:

https://locusmag.com/2023/12/commentary-cory-doctorow-what-kind-of-bubble-is-ai/

Think about some 21st century bubbles. The dotcom bubble was a terrible tragedy, one that drained the coffers of pension funds and other institutional investors and wiped out retail investors who were gulled by Superbowl Ads. But there was a lot left behind after the dotcoms were wiped out: cheap servers, office furniture and space, but far more importantly, a generation of young people who'd been trained as web makers, leaving nontechnical degree programs to learn HTML, perl and python. This created a whole cohort of technologists from non-technical backgrounds, a first in technological history. Many of these people became the vanguard of a more inclusive and humane tech development movement, and they were able to make interesting and useful services and products in an environment where raw materials – compute, bandwidth, space and talent – were available at firesale prices.

Contrast this with the crypto bubble. It, too, destroyed the fortunes of institutional and individual investors through fraud and Superbowl Ads. It, too, lured in nontechnical people to learn esoteric disciplines at investor expense. But apart from a smattering of Rust programmers, the main residue of crypto is bad digital art and worse Austrian economics.

Or think of Worldcom vs Enron. Both bubbles were built on pure fraud, but Enron's fraud left nothing behind but a string of suspicious deaths. By contrast, Worldcom's fraud was a Big Store con that required laying a ton of fiber that is still in the ground to this day, and is being bought and used at pennies on the dollar.

AI is definitely a bubble. As I write in the column, if you fly into SFO and rent a car and drive north to San Francisco or south to Silicon Valley, every single billboard is advertising an "AI" startup, many of which are not even using anything that can be remotely characterized as AI. That's amazing, considering what a meaningless buzzword AI already is.

So which kind of bubble is AI? When it pops, will something useful be left behind, or will it go away altogether? To be sure, there's a legion of technologists who are learning Tensorflow and Pytorch. These nominally open source tools are bound, respectively, to Google and Facebook's AI environments:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/18/openwashing/#you-keep-using-that-word-i-do-not-think-it-means-what-you-think-it-means

But if those environments go away, those programming skills become a lot less useful. Live, large-scale Big Tech AI projects are shockingly expensive to run. Some of their costs are fixed – collecting, labeling and processing training data – but the running costs for each query are prodigious. There's a massive primary energy bill for the servers, a nearly as large energy bill for the chillers, and a titanic wage bill for the specialized technical staff involved.

Once investor subsidies dry up, will the real-world, non-hyperbolic applications for AI be enough to cover these running costs? AI applications can be plotted on a 2X2 grid whose axes are "value" (how much customers will pay for them) and "risk tolerance" (how perfect the product needs to be).

Charging teenaged D&D players $10 month for an image generator that creates epic illustrations of their characters fighting monsters is low value and very risk tolerant (teenagers aren't overly worried about six-fingered swordspeople with three pupils in each eye). Charging scammy spamfarms $500/month for a text generator that spits out dull, search-algorithm-pleasing narratives to appear over recipes is likewise low-value and highly risk tolerant (your customer doesn't care if the text is nonsense). Charging visually impaired people $100 month for an app that plays a text-to-speech description of anything they point their cameras at is low-value and moderately risk tolerant ("that's your blue shirt" when it's green is not a big deal, while "the street is safe to cross" when it's not is a much bigger one).

Morganstanley doesn't talk about the trillions the AI industry will be worth some day because of these applications. These are just spinoffs from the main event, a collection of extremely high-value applications. Think of self-driving cars or radiology bots that analyze chest x-rays and characterize masses as cancerous or noncancerous.

These are high value – but only if they are also risk-tolerant. The pitch for self-driving cars is "fire most drivers and replace them with 'humans in the loop' who intervene at critical junctures." That's the risk-tolerant version of self-driving cars, and it's a failure. More than $100b has been incinerated chasing self-driving cars, and cars are nowhere near driving themselves:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/10/09/herbies-revenge/#100-billion-here-100-billion-there-pretty-soon-youre-talking-real-money

Quite the reverse, in fact. Cruise was just forced to quit the field after one of their cars maimed a woman – a pedestrian who had not opted into being part of a high-risk AI experiment – and dragged her body 20 feet through the streets of San Francisco. Afterwards, it emerged that Cruise had replaced the single low-waged driver who would normally be paid to operate a taxi with 1.5 high-waged skilled technicians who remotely oversaw each of its vehicles:

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/03/technology/cruise-general-motors-self-driving-cars.html

The self-driving pitch isn't that your car will correct your own human errors (like an alarm that sounds when you activate your turn signal while someone is in your blind-spot). Self-driving isn't about using automation to augment human skill – it's about replacing humans. There's no business case for spending hundreds of billions on better safety systems for cars (there's a human case for it, though!). The only way the price-tag justifies itself is if paid drivers can be fired and replaced with software that costs less than their wages.

What about radiologists? Radiologists certainly make mistakes from time to time, and if there's a computer vision system that makes different mistakes than the sort that humans make, they could be a cheap way of generating second opinions that trigger re-examination by a human radiologist. But no AI investor thinks their return will come from selling hospitals that reduce the number of X-rays each radiologist processes every day, as a second-opinion-generating system would. Rather, the value of AI radiologists comes from firing most of your human radiologists and replacing them with software whose judgments are cursorily double-checked by a human whose "automation blindness" will turn them into an OK-button-mashing automaton:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/23/automation-blindness/#humans-in-the-loop

The profit-generating pitch for high-value AI applications lies in creating "reverse centaurs": humans who serve as appendages for automation that operates at a speed and scale that is unrelated to the capacity or needs of the worker:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/04/17/revenge-of-the-chickenized-reverse-centaurs/

But unless these high-value applications are intrinsically risk-tolerant, they are poor candidates for automation. Cruise was able to nonconsensually enlist the population of San Francisco in an experimental murderbot development program thanks to the vast sums of money sloshing around the industry. Some of this money funds the inevitabilist narrative that self-driving cars are coming, it's only a matter of when, not if, and so SF had better get in the autonomous vehicle or get run over by the forces of history.

Once the bubble pops (all bubbles pop), AI applications will have to rise or fall on their actual merits, not their promise. The odds are stacked against the long-term survival of high-value, risk-intolerant AI applications.

The problem for AI is that while there are a lot of risk-tolerant applications, they're almost all low-value; while nearly all the high-value applications are risk-intolerant. Once AI has to be profitable – once investors withdraw their subsidies from money-losing ventures – the risk-tolerant applications need to be sufficient to run those tremendously expensive servers in those brutally expensive data-centers tended by exceptionally expensive technical workers.

If they aren't, then the business case for running those servers goes away, and so do the servers – and so do all those risk-tolerant, low-value applications. It doesn't matter if helping blind people make sense of their surroundings is socially beneficial. It doesn't matter if teenaged gamers love their epic character art. It doesn't even matter how horny scammers are for generating AI nonsense SEO websites:

https://twitter.com/jakezward/status/1728032634037567509

These applications are all riding on the coattails of the big AI models that are being built and operated at a loss in order to be profitable. If they remain unprofitable long enough, the private sector will no longer pay to operate them.

Now, there are smaller models, models that stand alone and run on commodity hardware. These would persist even after the AI bubble bursts, because most of their costs are setup costs that have already been borne by the well-funded companies who created them. These models are limited, of course, though the communities that have formed around them have pushed those limits in surprising ways, far beyond their original manufacturers' beliefs about their capacity. These communities will continue to push those limits for as long as they find the models useful.

These standalone, "toy" models are derived from the big models, though. When the AI bubble bursts and the private sector no longer subsidizes mass-scale model creation, it will cease to spin out more sophisticated models that run on commodity hardware (it's possible that Federated learning and other techniques for spreading out the work of making large-scale models will fill the gap).

So what kind of bubble is the AI bubble? What will we salvage from its wreckage? Perhaps the communities who've invested in becoming experts in Pytorch and Tensorflow will wrestle them away from their corporate masters and make them generally useful. Certainly, a lot of people will have gained skills in applying statistical techniques.

But there will also be a lot of unsalvageable wreckage. As big AI models get integrated into the processes of the productive economy, AI becomes a source of systemic risk. The only thing worse than having an automated process that is rendered dangerous or erratic based on AI integration is to have that process fail entirely because the AI suddenly disappeared, a collapse that is too precipitous for former AI customers to engineer a soft landing for their systems.

This is a blind spot in our policymakers debates about AI. The smart policymakers are asking questions about fairness, algorithmic bias, and fraud. The foolish policymakers are ensnared in fantasies about "AI safety," AKA "Will the chatbot become a superintelligence that turns the whole human race into paperclips?"

https://pluralistic.net/2023/11/27/10-types-of-people/#taking-up-a-lot-of-space

But no one is asking, "What will we do if" – when – "the AI bubble pops and most of this stuff disappears overnight?"

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/12/19/bubblenomics/#pop

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en

tom_bullock (modified) https://www.flickr.com/photos/tombullock/25173469495/

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

#pluralistic #ai #economics #business #hype #bubbles #bubblenomics #residue

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songoftrillium · 7 months

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Likes don’t increase visibility to others! Please reblog this to spread the word!

I think Werewolf is an inherently queer medium

This is all a part of a larger long-term project.

I am trying to hold the World of Darkness to higher standards of inclusivity.

Book 1: Cliath

Meet The Gaians — a chosen people blessed by Gaia of whom among them there are heroes who are born, blessed with the power to Change. They have been charged with the duty of protecting her and her brood, and among them are fellowships from every culture. They are largely comprised of Kinfolk. Vanguards of the earth, they follow the Codes and Creeds of renown in chiminage to the spirits in exchange for favor, protection, and power to strengthen their Fellowships and they form one of several primary factions.

A small number of Gaia’s chosen have been gifted the ability to shapeshift through either bite or birth into animals; warriors joining the fight against the Wyrm. The Gaians have many secret names for these shapeshifters between their cultures, and they range across many animal species and tribes, but the most common among them in these times are Garou.

This sourcebook includes information on First Changes, Rites of Passage, how people become werewolves, and what they're fighting for. Book 1 is effectively a players guide, including enough comprehensive character creation rules for people to create rank 1 Garou.

The World of Darkness is implied to exist just beneath a facade that all others take for granted as simply being a world gone wrong. When the Change happens to a Garou, human or otherwise, the world they once knew ceases to be. The Apocalypse is said to be something happening to everything, everywhere, simultaneously, and on every level. This transcends the concept of everything succumbing to a singular event but many small ones.

In many ways, the Garou themselves are emblematic of this Apocalypse, with these former lives ending and sweeping the cub into something far bigger than themselves. A Call To Action is the theme of Book 1.

Book 1: Cliath goes into warborn, bitten, wolf-born, and human-born lives leading up to the change. It presents a curated depiction of the Garou from the perspective of those who would mentor them. There are not a lot of conflicts, profound lore, or politics so much as 'this is what we are, this is what we do.' Functionally, this can be considered a Players’ Guide, containing your attributes, abilities, advantages, and Merits and Flaws. Gifts and rites will be truncated to rank 1 for the most part. Guidelines for new STs will be found here, including enough powers and enemy stats to keep their troupe of players on their toes. This will also include things like chargen and descriptions of attributes, abilities, and advantages. This will also have many details on packs and the importance of one's packmates. And what better way to introduce new players than to have it happen in an all-new setting for storytellers to introduce their players to the game: the first three chapters of Dead Mountain!

Dead Mountain isn't going anywhere. In fact, it will be used as the foundation for this series. Already-finished parts of the Dead Mountain will be released over the next few months, and a delayed release of the full chronicle will come next spring. The scope of Werewolf: the Essentials will strongly diverge from past game traditions. In past core books and settings, there was an intent to showcase the world at large, written from the perspective of people who had never been to these places. In the end, many details were laughably wrong or mediocre representations that didn’t appeal to the groups they represented. We want the World of Darkness to be HUGE. So, we will be laser-focusing this project to represent the Garou from the Pacific Northwest as an example, with guidelines on how to make your own World of Darkness at your locale HUGE too!

CALLING ALL CHARACHS!

We cannot make this happen without your help. We are putting out the call for folx from all parts of the queer, lesbian, trans, bisexual, gay, and asexual werewolf fandom looking to help make this the best possible release we can:

Artists

Horror writers

Editors

Consultants

Hype Wolves to help spread the word

Indie TTRPG creators

Working together, we can create a game that is fun, engaging, and genuinely representative of the diverse community of players and fans who love Werewolf. To help us out, click here We look forward to providing you future updates!

UPDATE: Our team has grown huge, and we're grateful to the fandom for rising up and howling with us! We received far more applications than we were able to fully process, but we promise to deliver you the best possible Sourcebook anthology we can! Meet the Writing Team Meet the Art Team Follow our official account for future announcements! To check out a book preview and help us hire cultural consultants click here

Social Media Shout-out! I offer my thanks to @peltofash and @a-boros-named-seamus for supporting me on the Adren and Athro tiers! Your contributions are directly helping make this game more inclusive!

#world of darkness #werewolf: the apocalypse #dead mountain #werewolf the apocalypse #werewolves #world building #queer werewolf #lesbian werewolf #werewolf the essentials #wta #w5 #werewolftheapocalypse #werewolf wednesday

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essektheylyss · 10 months

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You know what I'm thinking about? That trip to Vergessen.

Not the memorable one. The super innocuous one, in which Ludinus and Trent insisted they'd just dug this weird rock out of the ground weeks ago, it's nothing to them, the Bright Queen can have it. The one where Eadwulf told Caleb he looked good despite having just crawled out of an eldritch horror's sludge and then showed off his super muscular, super tatted arms.

Let's return to Eadwulf's arms in a moment.

The scourgers were helping out with the Assembly's research portfolio, which at the time had included Ludinus's pet project of developing dunamantic super-serum. The scourgers had also previously been involved—in their off time, when they weren't doing their primary duties of torture and execution—with human experimentation of methods of augmenting a mage's personal reserves of magic.

Sound familiar?

(Really, Ludinus, are you too old to test your experiments on yourself?)

Back to Eadwulf's well-sculpted arms. By the time we meet him in 836 PD, whatever might've been done to them in 810 PD has been covered with those pointedly geometric tats. Somewhere around the same time span, an assassination attempt is made on the life of the Voice of the Tempest by assassins using what was likely a prototype of Otohan Thull's dunamantic contraption, which is a kind of harness that uses the distilled dunamis created by Yeza Brenatto from studying the stolen beacons. This attack of course left multiple Ashari dead and beyond the point of recovery, among them Derrig and Will.

Six years later, Otohan Thull of course would kill Fearne, Orym, and Laudna in battle using that contraption, and not long after would also use the same assassination tactic to draw out the Champion of the Raven Queen so Ludinus could press him into an orb.

Still with me?

In Molaesmyr, after the Solstice had been stuck in time, Team Wildemount find a number of interesting items in Gildhollow, Ludinus's forsaken bachelor pad. Notable among them is a chest harness designed to consume various natural sources of power in order to augment the wearer's arcane abilities.

I think it's incredibly likely that the human experimentation component of the scourger program, given its scope, was requested if not designed by Ludinus, in an effort to further his research in the realm of augmenting mortals' capacities for magic. (Mechanically, I imagine this equates to additional spell slots per day, or the capacity to singlehandedly pull off experimental spells beyond the scope of ninth level, i.e. Dunamantic Nap spell, but that's just speculation.)

Primarily my point here is to demonstrate that its entirely possible if not likely that even the minutiae of the Assembly's horrific program to create child soldiers may have been part of Ludinus's effort to release Predathos and kill the gods, in an effort to show how broadly this may touch even other previous campaigns.

Additionally my point is to say that if anyone has reason to lead the vanguard (pun intended) of righteous warfare against Ludinus Da'leth, it's a Liam O'Brien PC, and frankly, at this point, given all of this character reasoning to do so, I do not care which one.

#critical role #cr spoilers #ludinus da'leth #orym of the air ashari #caleb widogast #vorb #(i do think I'm funny thanks :3)#cr meta #also it's possible the nein bathed before getting shuffled off to vergessen but i do not remember. it's for the joke.

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ludinusdaleth · 21 days

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im honestly very happy ira is one of if not the most beloved npc of campaign 3. and while i know most of his surface level appeal is the sheer unhinged faeishness of him, i think it fundamentally comes down to ira, despite his most un-human everything, being the most Man in his struggles as a fae can get.

as early as his intro he was set apart by past established fae, by working on technology, wearing a tattered suit. he was kicked out of the courts and the vanguard after they asked him to create their war weapons. he is a veteran of a mortal war, and got no accolades. he has spent 3 decades living in caves, taking the shittiest jobs imagineable just to get by, even torturing folk for his shit bosses again (the treshi job) because cash is cash. he knows folk will Just Die if they cant keep up and accepts it bluntly. his voice creaks with age & experience in the dust. it is easy to pin his pettiness & need for vengeance solely on the intensity of a fae til you see that he approaches even those goals with the rusty, tired caution of a man who was a spy, who understands the gravity of war, whose bosses have screwed him over so badly they made he, the nightmare king, scared.

he is a victim of the greed of the rich, easily isolated and made a scapegoat as a sole evil by them. he has lived a life with absolutely no lavish design. even artagan, whom i love with all my heart and find deep relateability in, is so disconnected with mortality at first, in large part because he was a literal fae lord. when vox machina adjusted the leylines to let artagan into exandria, ira was locked out of his home at the same time. ira has lived in the grime of the worst the fae courts and humanity has to offer, wanting to make a mark but always being a pawn hurt by a grand design. and so, while he clearly & obviously knows the difference between mortal & fae, he also knows there's really no defined line between who can hurt you worse... and how it shapes you. does your callousness begin with your fae nature, with everyone deeming you a monstrosity, or with your experience at the bottom rung? it all ends the same, regardless. i think it is fascinating to see the classism & even capitalism choking exandria and its sister realms, and ira is so fascinating because he is the primary example we have of that happening to a fae, and we get to see how that has gruffly shaped someone who could have been as utterly unphased & whimsical as a flower in the breeze.

#i dont want to Vague Chetney but i honestly think ira handles the themes in chetneys story more & better #chet vaguely covers themes of industrialisation but thats mostly behind him save the oltgar episode #ira is SEEPED in what his bosses did to him #it's one thing to see chet be funnily veangeful at his past coworkers and it's another to see *the nightmare king* freeze up seeing zathuda #once again this isnt an anti chetney post obviously but like wow. last episode really floored me on the nuance of how ira feels #and every arc with him has dealt with his own monstrosity vs what the world has taught him & forced him to do #ira wendagoth #critical role #cr spoilers #campaign 3 #critical role meta #fae #long post #classism

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genshingorlsrevengeance · 7 months

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(GFL Short Fic) "Holding out for a T-Doll"

Alternative title: "Local Woman Too Angry To Die"

On an infiltration mission to the inner cities, AK-15's S/O has been kidnapped due to their relation with Griffin and Kruger.

Unfortunately for the kidnappers, Task Force DEFY has a tracker on every member of the squad, and they do not take kindly to anyone attacking their own. Post-edit note: SURPRISE SONG FIC!...People still do these, right? This feels super corny but also kinda funny. It's like writing a 90's action flick. Word Count: 2.3K

AK-12's eyes scanned the building, her glowing pink irises subtly changing colors every few seconds.

AK-15, RPK-16, and AN-94 said nothing as they watched from on top of a skyscraper, looking downward at the warehouse.

(AK-12) "Confirmed. I'm reading S/O's tracker in there."

(AK-15) "Threat assessment?"

(AK-12) "Humans. Doesn't look to be affiliated with Sangvis, or any of the protesters in the city. Might just be human traffickers."

(AN-94) "Our orders were not to cause a scene-"

(RPK-16) "Kind of hard to do when AK-15's beloved is taken, is it not?"

AK-15 just crossed her arms, making no visual recognition of the teasing.

(AK-15) "This is not a matter of relations. S/O is simply a comrade in arms, and a vital source of information on the inner workings of Griffin. If they were to be sold to Sangvis, it could have dire consequences."

(AK-12) "I'm sure that's the entire reason."

AK-15 glared daggers at 12, who simply just shrugged while keeping her smug smile.

(AK-12) "Regardless, I agree. You'll be happy to know I'm ordering that we're going loud, given our primary mission was already accomplished before this whole ordeal happened."

(AN-94) "Our orders?"

(AK-12) "94, get us a ride out of the city and call for the Commander. We're going home after this. Had enough of this place, anyway."

AN-94 nodded and moved downstairs. AK-12 turned to RPK-16.

(AK-12) "I want you to provide cover fire and a distraction to catch their attention. We'll signal when we're all ready, and commence the rescue on your signal. AK-15, you'll be our vanguard to save S/O. I'll move in the shadows to secure your escape in case they get any funny ideas. I also didn't scan anything that could be a significant threat other than a few low grade explosives."

(AK-15) "Understood."

AK-15's ponytail flowed in the wind, stomping towards the stairs and her scowl growing angrier by the second, quickly followed by the other two members of DEFY.

...

S/O remained tied up in the chair with a piece of cloth crudely fastened over their mouth. The two men in the room spat on the ground looking at them and left.

(Guard 1) "Why the hell aren't we just killing them, they're part of a fuckin PMC with those tin cans!"

(Guard 2) "Apparently boss said we can get some money if we talk to the right people. Let's just-"

The intercom suddenly came alive in the warehouse, making the two men grab their weapons.

(Guard 2) "The hell?!"

The intercom began blasting music at such a high volume that it made them recoil. It was quickly accompanied by several men shouting and rushing throughout the warehouse with their weapons at the ready.

The two went towards the main lobby that had crates and all sorts of construction equipment scattered, everyone taking positions. One of the guards stood near the door where the intercom system, trying to turn the music off.

(Guard) "Turn that fucking thing off already!"

(Guard) "I-I can't! Things not-"

A fist suddenly came through the wall and intercom, grabbing the guard's face and violently dragged him away as he screamed, startling everyone and making them aim their weapons at the rubble.

Before anyone could get a sense of what was happening, the same body burst through the rubble, a massive, angry looking woman dressed in black with a long white ponytail emerged, her light purple eyes glowing.

A panicked guard pulled the trigger once, a single gunshot reflecting off her shoulder, and all she did was give them a glare, scaring the absolute hell out of everyone further.

AK-15 dove behind a crate as gunfire rained down all around her. Trying to analyze the area, she then recognized what song was playing over the intercom.

"Where have all the good men gone And where are all the gods?

(AK-15) "...Seriously?"

"Where's the streetwise Hercules To fight the rising odds?"

An exacerbated sigh left AK-15's mouth before she refocused her attention, reloading the pistol the guard she killed had. Some of the guards had moved to flank her while her position was suppressed, which she immediately turned to shoot.

"Isn't there a white knight upon a fiery steed "

She pulled the trigger three times, each one entering the head of S/O's kidnappers, and AK-15 snuck around the corner they had entered.

"Late at night, I toss and I turn And I dream of what I need"

She stopped right at the end of the crates as the gunfire followed her position. Without warning, a hail of bullets tore through the upper windows, hitting every one of the guards trying to pin her down. AK-15 grunted in thanks, which RPK spoke up.

(RPK-16's Voice) "Coming from the door on your left."

"I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night"

AK-15 saw the door swing wide open, and before the men inside could open fire, she kicked the forklift towards them. The machine skidded across the floor and slammed right into the doorframe.

"He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight"

Wasting no time, she sprinted up the stairs as more guards came from below, all attempting to shoot her.

She didn't bother to fire back as she dodged the oncoming bullets, knowing that with every second passing, S/O might be in more danger.

"I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light"

The door she was about to enter had another group exit, one that noticed her approach far too late. She grabbed one of them by the collar and effortlessly tossed them over the railing before punching the next one in her way.

(AK-15) "Get out of my way."

"He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life Larger than life"

One of the guards managed to open fire, she was far too close to escape, and the bullet tore into her chest. Even though she felt some amount of pain, she clenched her teeth in ever increasing anger, grabbed the arm holding the gun and snapped it like a toothpick.

With a vicious headbutt, she completely knocked them out and more than likely broke their nose and some of their teeth.

"Somewhere after midnight In my wildest fantasy"

Hearing the fight happening outside, S/O tried to get out of their restraints until a guard ran into the room. The guard immediately had their weapon pulled out and wrapped their arm around S/O's neck, backing away in fear from the door.

"Somewhere, just beyond my reach There's someone reaching back for me"

AK-15 disposed of another group that tried to engage her in close quarters and failed.

Finishing off the last one in the hallway with a bullet to their chest, she felt her head budge towards the wall, accompanied by a metallic clang.

"Racing on the thunder And rising with the heat"

Turning towards the source, one of the guards had gotten up and stared in horror at the metal pipe that was now completely bent in their hands.

"It's gonna take a Superman to sweep me off my feet"

She grabbed the pipe from them and slammed it against their head, the pipe shattering completely as she found S/O's signature, right behind the door with another guard, using them as a shield.

"I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night"

S/O and the guard saw the outline of a massive figure standing outside the door, making the guard panic even more.

(Guard) "C-COME IN, AND I'LL PULL THE TRIGGER!"

"He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight"

The door flew off the hinges and almost slam into the both of them, the guard diving out the way and aiming for S/O. AK-15 rushed in and immediately got in front of S/O, with her back tanking an onslaught of bullets that opened fire.

S/O looked horrified, more for AK-15 than themselves. She clenched her teeth making sure not to move until the only noise was clicking.

"I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light"

AK-15 spun around and was prepared to mutilate S/O's attacker before AK-12 leapt down from the vent, on top of the guard and knocking him out.

Her pink eyes glowed in the darkness, addressing them coldly, devoid of her usual emotions.

"He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be soon And he's gotta be larger than life"

(AK-12) "Everyone blocking your escape is dead. Proceed."

AK-15 nodded and ripped off the restraints on S/O, being a bit more gentle when it came to their mouth.

(S/O) "T-Thank you!"

(AK-15) "Do not thank us yet. We have yet to escape."

(S/O) "Right...By the way, what's with this music?"

(AK-15) "I do not know, I just wish we could've used a less annoying distraction."

(S/O) "If it's annoying you, then it must be annoying the enemy, right?"

AK-15 made a noncommittal grunt before they moved to escape.

"Up where the mountains meet the heavens above Out where the lightning splits the sea I could swear there is someone, somewhere watching me"

AK-15, S/O, and AK-12 ran out the room and down the hallway, kicking open the door they found an empty parking lot. They stood on catwalk that was dozens of feet above the ground.

And without waiting, AK-15 carried S/O bridal style and leapt off with AK-12, making them scream in surprise.

"Through the wind and the chill and the rain And the storm and the flood"

As soon as they landed, several of the guards burst out from the door across from them and tossed grenades at the three.

I can feel his approach like a fire in my blood

AK-15 dropped S/O before grabbing a nearby dumpster, dragging it across the ground and slammed it in front of them, right as the explosions went off.

AK-12 covered S/O as debris ran down, tearing apart their already dirty and battered suits.

(Like a fire in my blood, like a fire in my blood Like a fire in my blood, like a fire in my blood, blood)

Before the guards could do anything else, they dove for the concrete when a wild barrage of bullets almost took their heads off, firing wildly across the wall.

I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night

RPK-16 continued to lay down suppressive fire as AN-94 sped into the parking lot, slamming on the brakes and kicking open the door towards the side her comrades were on.

"He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast And he's gotta be fresh from the fight"

Not needing to say anything else, AK-15 picked up S/O like a suit case and threw them into the back seat, quickly joining as AK-12 closed the door behind them.

As the bullets flew through the windows, AK-15 held S/O tightly to shield them from any potential stray shot.

"I need a hero I'm holding out for a hero 'til the morning light"

AN-94 put the pedal to the metal, quickly escaping the warehouse and dodging oncoming traffic and onto the main road so they could not get tailed.

Once they were out of harm's way, S/O took a deep breath as AK-15 released her grip on them.

"He's gotta be sure, and it's gotta be-"

(AK-15) "Turn that off already."

AK-12's pink irses flashed gray before she closed her eyes, the music in the car being shut off. As soon as her eyes closed, her signature smile came back.

RPK-16 rolled up her windows as she turned the safety on her machine gun.

(RPK-16) "I thought the song was quite fitting, honestly."

(S/O) "That was intentional?"

(AK-12) "It was. Clearly it was worth it, seeing how you're in the car with us now."

S/O looked worried at how damaged everyone was. AK-15's suit was almost threads, with the amount of bullets that either flew off her, or entered.

AK-12 and RPK-16 did not fare any better, and even AN-94 had parts of her blue suit scorched with black marks.

(S/O) "I'm...I'm so sorry, everyone. One second I was inside my room, and the next-"

(AK-15) "The fault is mine. You were supposed to be under my watch and-"

(RPK-16) "I don't think it particularly matters whose fault it is. After all, we're still breathing, aren't we?"

(AN-94) "Affirmative. Our damage is superficial. Yours is not."

(S/O) "...I guess I can at the very least say, thank you."

(AK-12) "Hm.~ Apology accepted. Besides, if we let even one of those men lay a finger on you, 15 would've torn us to shreds."

(AK-15) "Please, shut up already."

S/O laid a hand on her back and felt a piece of metal slightly out of place, making them recoil. Sighing, AK-15 grabbed their hand.

(AK-15) "I will be fine. I am entering sleep mode for the duration of the drive."

S/O nodded and moved to give her space before realizing AK-15's grip was not budging. She wanted their hand there. Slightly blushing at that, they rested onto her as well, both of them sleeping.

(AN-94) "A Griffin Black Hawk will be picking us up as soon as we reach the destination."

(AK-12) "Which is how long?"

(AN-94) "Four hours."

(AK-12) "Make it three. I already feel like I'm intruding on their love nest just sensing them."

(AN-94) "Understood."

(RPK-16) "...That song sure is interesting. Music in general is quite fascinating, given how humans normally are-"

AK-15's eyes opened and glanced over to RPK-16.

(AK-15) "Do not start singing it."

RPK just smiled and looked out the window as AK-12 scooched away from S/O and AK-15.

The duration of their escape was a quiet but surprisingly comfortable one. DEFY's mission was successful, and they were leaving with every member accounted for.

#girls' frontline x reader #girls' frontline headcanons #girls' frontline imagines #ak 15 x reader #ak 15 gfl #ak 12 gfl #an 94 gfl #rpk 16 gfl

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barid-bel-medar · 2 years

Note

Ask game: an AU where Izuku gets captured during the summer camp instead of Bakugo.

(Actually it baffles me a bit AFO didn't order this in light of how he already knew Izuku was the Ninth OFA user???)

The order is given to grab Izuku, which the Vanguard Squad is more than happy to do, due to how many Stain fans there were and didn't Stain after all say Izuku was a 'real' hero. Shigaraki is mostly just curious why Sensei wants Midoriya so badly, but for the time being just shrugs it off.

Shigaraki is a bit exasperated by the extreme level of injury Midoriya has because he did tell those idiots (following Sensei's own orders) to not do that. Muscular as a result of being the primary problem gets to have 'doctor's appointment'.

Shouto was the one who reached for Izuku and failed. He is not handling it well in the slightest. All Might is also handling it much, much worse in canon over it being Izuku for obvious reasons.

All For One attempts to...convince Izuku to give him One For All by revealing he's Midoriya Hisashi. All For One is promptly impressed by how creatively Izuku cusses him out, but also attempts to wash Izuku's mouth out with soap, leading to him getting bitten.

This leads to the discovery Izuku incorrect in believing he didn't have an in-born Quirk!

All For One wants it explained to him why his son's Quirk is basically All For One but must ingest DNA/be bitten by a feral cat of a teenager.

Now the LOV has a much, much bigger issue on their hands, but hey it makes it easy for All Might to find them all! And he and Izuku get bonding via, well, murder/patricide!

#all for one #midoriya izuku #shigaraki tomura #all might #five headcanons and an au

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utilitycaster · 1 year

Text

The thing about Imogen's circlet and Liliana claiming she wants to wipe out their moon powers is that Imogen is extremely interested in power. She sees it as the world's primary motivation (as other people have noted, that's how she perceives clerics and their potential response to the Vanguard's plan) and she's not going to unlearn that in a snap. Laudna was correct - she could leave and raise horses in a cottage at any time, and if she chooses to keep pursuing her powers, especially after the solstice, that's a huge choice that says a lot about her, and I hope she makes it.

#i should note as always: in a good way.#d&d characters who are interested in power are the fucking best bc that's literally the game.#a lot of weird-ass puritans do not get this.#imogen temult

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jate-kara · 7 months

Text

Horizon | On AO3

Thirty-seven hours.

Andal had told himself he’d stop counting after twenty-four. It was his usual compromise: worry for a while, and then let it go. Focus on your work. Don't get distracted. Do some extra training when you get too restless. This was all familiar agony by now. The field was for his Hunters. The Tower was for the Vanguard.

Traveler, sometimes he wished he’d never accepted that damn Dare.

Andal risked another glance at the clock. Zavala was at the head of the conference table and still deep in conversation with Saladin. He wasn't likely to catch the fourth check in two minutes. Ikora, though - she knew. Andal felt her shoot him a worried side-eye from somewhere to his left. He pretended he didn't notice. His datapad had sat untouched in front of him for so long that the screen had gone dark, so despite the stylus he'd been toying with to at least look sort of busy, it was painfully evident that he was not paying any amount of the requisite attention. Shit.

He clicked the datapad on again, more to avoid Ikora's concern than to actually accomplish anything. His notes were messy and scattered. The notifications were equally cluttered. Mission report submission flags. Memos from scheduled check-ins. Updates from secondary Scouts he'd sent out after the primary Hunter for the mission had dropped off the map for too long. Sometimes, that was just Hunters being Hunters. Other times, that was Hunters being dead. Andal scanned the updates. There was nothing new.

There was nothing that would stop the clock he was supposed to have started ignoring thirteen hours ago.

The meeting ended an hour late. Andal was the first one up. As soon as he rounded the hall corner and was out of the others' immediate sight, he let the Void wash over him. Technically, using the Light to go invisible in the Tower was frowned upon. Only technically. And he had no intentions of getting caught, just like he had no intentions of speaking to anyone between here and his Vanguard office. His head was spinning. He had to remember to breathe. He had no idea what the hell anyone had been talking about for the last three hours.

He needed out of this damn Tower.

He didn't go to his Vanguard office. He climbed up to the highest point of the Tower that he could find and he dangled his legs over the edge and he looked at the City and the world beyond its horizon and he wanted to scream. Shiro and Tevis and Cayde were out there somewhere, each on their own assignments. He'd put them on a special check-in schedule, one that guaranteed he'd be able to talk to them, no matter how briefly. They were supposed to call one after the other: Shiro, then Tevis, then Cayde. But he hadn't heard from any of them in thirty-eight hours. Even meticulous, responsible Shiro had missed the last window; there hadn't been so much as a ping from his Ghost to say he was still alive.

Andal dropped his head into his hands and dragged his fingernails along his scalp. He'd pulled his long hair up into a messy bun a while ago, too distracted to bother with brushing it. Cayde would fuss over him if he saw it - Haven’t taken a break lately, huh? - and then gently undo and untangle it. Andal closed his eyes and imagined it, just for a second. That warmth. That peace.

He'd kill for that right now.

"I'm sure they're fine." Astraea materialized beside him. "They're just…busy.”

I should be there with them. The words died in his throat. He’d made his choice when he’d accepted the Dare. This was his life now, and had been for well over a year. Him, here, with the Vanguard and the bureaucrats, while his most important people in the world were out there. Maybe in danger. Without him. For the rest of eternity, unless some other Hunter stepped up and said they wanted the job. Or he died. In which case it was Cayde's problem.

Andal drove his palms into his eyes. “Get a grip,” he groaned, and was glad Astraea knew him well enough to know when he was talking to himself, and not at her. “Not like any of this is new.”

Astraea bumped his shoulder. Andal patted at her absently. "Thanks," he muttered. "Sorry I'm not the best company right now."

His comm buzzed before she had the chance to respond. Andal scrambled to answer it. He recognized the code immediately. "Shiro, you all right?"

There was a long, weighted pause. "Are you?"

Damn, he really did need to pull it together. "You missed your check-in," Andal said, instead of explaining the crack in his voice. "I thought-"

"Sorry about that. Ran into some comm interference unexpectedly. I've got the patrol data and I'm making the return trip. So I'll ask you again: what happened to you?"

There was no good way to answer that. "Vanguard stuff," he said. "Nothing to worry about."

"Cayde and Tevis haven't checked in either, have they?" It sounded more like a statement than a question. Shiro really had a way of seeing through bullshit. It was very useful when it was leveled at Cayde or Tevis. Not so much right now.

Andal blew out a breath. "No. Not for a while."

"You know Tevis doesn't check in because he doesn't want to, and Cayde is…Cayde. They're probably fine."

"I know."

Shiro gave a disbelieving huff. "I'll be back at the Tower in a few hours. We can go over the patrol data then, unless you have other obligations."

Shiro didn't need to come all the way back to the Tower to go over data. It was something they could easily manage through a few messages or comm calls. Some of the tightness in Andal's chest eased. "I don't," he said, without checking his schedule. "I'll meet you in my office when you get here."

It turned out maybe he should have checked his schedule, because when he finally made his way back down into the inhabited part of the Tower, Zavala was standing outside his door. Andal came to a slow stop. The Commander wasn't holding a datapad so they probably didn't have a meeting Andal had forgotten about, and he didn't have a severe expression, so Andal probably hadn't done anything to warrant a reprimand.

"Something I can help you with?" Andal asked, crossing his arms and propping a shoulder against the wall.

Zavala watched him with a furrowed brow. He was quiet for a moment, as though he was trying to figure out how to say what he wanted to say. "You seemed - distracted, earlier today. I wanted to-"

"I'm fine." Oh, way to go, Brask. Top points for selling that one.

Zavala studied him. "You've received a great deal of difficult reports in the last week," he said. "If there's anything I can-"

"Look, I appreciate it, but there's nothing to worry about." Andal tried for a smile, and knew it didn't reach his eyes. He pushed himself up off the wall, then moved to access the keypad for his office. Zavala stepped out of the way, but he didn't go any farther. Andal shot him a glance as the door opened. "That all?"

There was a tired defeat in Zavala’s eyes. "Yes," he said quietly. "Goodnight, Andal."

Andal stepped in, swiped the door shut, and slid down against the wall beside it. He didn't bother turning on the lights. The only source of illumination was the moonbeams streaming through the floor to ceiling windows, and the muted glow of the City below. Andal leaned his head back and let his eyes slip shut.

"He's just trying to help," Astraea said. She sounded disapproving. Andal kept his eyes closed. She nudged his shoulder - once, and then again when he didn't move.

"I know," he allowed.

"He's your friend. So is Ikora. I know you saw her message yesterday."

"I didn't say that I didn't."

"But you didn't answer her."

"She's got enough going on without me adding to it."

"They're worried about you."

"I'm fine."

The lights clicked on. Andal jumped, and was halfway to his feet when the sound of the door opening finally registered, like the information had been caught in a buffer before it hit his brain.

Shiro stared down at him as if he'd just found him half dead in a pit and not slumped pathetically in his office. "'Fine'," he repeated. "Yeah, you sure look fine."

"You're okay," Andal said, like it wasn't obvious.

"Is there some reason you thought I wouldn't be? It was just a patrol, Andal. Very routine."

Almost every one of the dead Hunters' missions had been routine. Andal blinked at him. "Uh. No?"

"If you want me to believe you, don't phrase that like a question." Shiro eased to the floor beside him, close enough that their shoulders were pressed together. Some of the tension strung along Andal's spine released. "You want to tell me what's going on, or do you want me to drag Cayde back here for you?"

"Are those my only two options?"

"Well, I can get Tev, but he'll probably make you buy him a drink before he'll listen."

Andal managed something close to a laugh. "If I pull him off recon to come back to the Tower, you'll need to find another Vanguard. He'll kill me. He hates it here more than I do right-"

He cut himself off too late. Shiro tilted his head at him, and Andal shrugged helplessly. "Forget I said anything," he said, as if that had ever dissuaded Shiro before.

It hadn't. And it didn't this time. Shiro's gaze was considering. "Is it the Tower, or someone in it?"

That look was distinctly Tevis. Andal shoved at Shiro's shoulder, to at least jar him out of it. "It's the Tower. And even if it wasn't, you can't just shoot someone for bothering me."

"Hey, I'd make sure they were a Lightbearer first."

There was no grin in Shiro's voice. Andal wanted to believe it had been a joke. No, he was going to believe it. For his own sanity. He scrubbed at his eyes. Shiro waited.

"It's the Tower," Andal said again. "It's always the damn Tower. I'm up here sending the Hunters out but it's never me getting shot at."

"Ah." Shiro didn't sound surprised, just thoughtful. "Someone took a hit and didn't get back up."

"Three fireteams in the last week." Andal's voice cracked. He felt more than saw Shiro shift, so he was pressed a little closer.

"We all know the risks."

"We had bad information." The words tasted acrid. Like an excuse. "The assignments I gave them went sideways because of it."

"You do what you can with what you have, and so do they."

Andal's heart turned painfully. "One of these times," he whispered, a voice for the fear burning in his chest, "it could be you. Or Tevis. Or Cayde."

"Maybe. But I've always known that, even before you were Vanguard. If anything happened, I wouldn't blame you, Andal. I'd appreciate it if you respected that enough to not blame yourself."

Shiro never did waste time dancing around the point. Andal opened his mouth to argue, but one glance at Shiro's unwavering stare was enough to kill the protest before it started. "All right," he said, and held his hands up in mock surrender. "I get it."

"You don't. But you'll get there."

Andal elbowed him. Shiro was unaffected. "I know you well enough to know this isn't the last time we're going to have this conversation. That's fine. I'll say it as many times as you need me to."

Breathing hurt, suddenly. "Thanks," Andal said, more quietly than he'd meant to.

"You don't have to thank me. Just remember what I said." Shiro's expression shifted, from resolved to concerned. "You've been Vanguard for a while. This isn't the first time this kind of thing has happened. Tell me you've been talking to someone when it does."

Andal didn't answer.

"Andal."

"...does Astraea count?"

"He doesn't talk to me about it," Astraea interjected. "He just says he's fine and not to worry about him."

Shiro heaved a soul-weary sigh. "I don't know what I expected."

Andal grimaced. "Sorry. I probably owe you a drink after all this."

"You don't owe me anything."

"Pretty sure I was supposed to give you some glimmer at some point."

That earned him a chuckle. "Keep it. I've heard Vanguard pay is terrible."

They lapsed into a comfortable silence. Andal let it be for a moment, and then he broke it. "You know, it'd be easier to see the stars out there if you'd left the lights off."

"So go turn the lights off."

"I didn't turn them on. You do it."

Shiro held up one sparking finger. "Don't fry my office," Andal grumbled, pushing himself to his feet so he could cross the room to the lightswitch. "Damned Bladedancer."

Halfway there, his comm chimed, and his heart leapt into his throat. He barely registered the code as he fumbled to swipe the screen on. "Cayde?"

"I'm sorry," Cayde blurted. He rubbed the back of his head awkwardly. "Just realized I missed the last check-in. Sundance reminded me. Fallen were shooting at us. I was shooting back. It was a mess. Glad we made - hey, are you okay?"

"Do I look not okay?"

Cayde made a show of scrutinizing him. "Huh," he said, and nothing else.

Despite the relief flooding his chest, Andal wanted to strangle him. "What do you mean, 'huh'?"

"Just huh," Cayde returned. "How's the Tower?"

"A lot quieter when you're not in it."

"Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"You tell me." Andal's datapad pinged an alert - Tevis sending a short summary of his findings, which usually amounted to about three sentences: Went to the Place. Killed the enemies. Left the Place. This one had an extra few at the end. Shiro told me to check in more. I'm not doing that. ~ T.L.

"Andal?"

"Tevis sent me his report. He was nice enough to leave the location tag on it. He's somewhere in the City. And he missed every check-in."

Cayde tried to stifle his laugh. "Sorry, I know it's not funny," he said, through the palm he'd plastered over his mouth.

"Yeah, I can tell," Andal said dryly. "Don't you have your own report to be writing right about now?"

"No, because right now I'm talking to my beloved Vanguard."

It was far from the sappiest thing Cayde had ever said. It still made Andal's heart melt. "Fine," he said, trying for a measure of sternness and completely and utterly failing. "Do it later."

"He won't," Shiro supplied, exasperated, and Cayde sputtered some kind of protest. Andal barely heard it. He hit the lights, settled down next to Shiro, and listened to them bicker. If he closed his eyes, he was back with the crew, laughing around a campfire under a blanket of stars. The air was crisp and cool and their eyes were shining and no one was dead. He breathed and his chest didn't hurt.

He breathed, and for a while, it felt like peace.

—

Peace did not last long: only until the next morning, actually, when he woke up on his office couch with his neck at a bad angle and his limbs tangled in a survival pack blanket that didn't belong to him but had trim in Shiro's signature yellow. The sun was streaming through the windows, he couldn't move his head more than a few degrees to the left - and someone was banging on his door. Andal blinked blankly at it for a few beats. He didn't have meetings early.

"Good morning!" Astraea chirped, like the world's happiest alarm clock. "It's almost noon."

Andal cast her a sour look as he dug around in search of his datapad. "Hello?" he croaked, and cursed his dry throat.

The banging stopped. Small mercy. Andal untangled himself the rest of the way from the blanket and stumbled from one end of the office to the other until he realized his boots were right next to the couch the whole time. "Could just cloak and go out the window," he muttered, and shuffled over to slam the door release.

Lord Shaxx was not a frequent visitor; he hadn't been even before Twilight Gap had taken him from a position in the old Vanguard to Crucible handler. There were no meetings on Andal's schedule. He hadn't agreed to any Crucible match he could remember. But Shaxx was still here, fully armored, with his hands on his hips.

"Shaxx," Andal said, haltingly. "Something I can help you with?"

"You're alive! Good. Come with me."

Andal jogged to catch up, acutely aware of Astraea's amused hum and his own disheveled appearance. "If I missed a meeting, you have my apologies. But you could just send me a message."

Shaxx gave a booming laugh. "You aren't missing anything," he said, like that made whatever he was talking about obvious. "But you think you are. And I have a solution."

"Your solution to everything is a Crucible match."

"Not quite."

Shaxx led him out of the Tower, and then out of the City, all the way to the outskirts. To the Wall. To the gaping wound in it. Andal slowed to a stop. The wind was just as cutting now as it had been then, but today, there was no fire or smoke or seething ruin. The sky was clear for miles. Flowers had grown over the rubble, and they waved gently in the breeze. No death. No bodies. No blood. Just old scars, and a quiet peace.

Andal turned to Shaxx, stricken. "Why here?"

"Where else?" Shaxx's volume had dropped, but his voice was no less powerful for its softness. He took a few steps forward and rested a hand on the wound in the Wall. "You remember that day as well as I do."

"Everyone in the City remembers Twilight Gap."

"'Everyone', you say, as if you didn't lead a charge off the Wall and into the fray yourself. As if you didn't hunt the Fallen to the end of the pass alone. No ammunition. You'd lost your knife. All you had was your will, and your Light."

"Are you going somewhere with this?"

"Tell me, Brask: do your Hunters follow you of their own free will?"

Andal bit back a sigh. "Do you think there's anyone in the damn world who could get that many Hunters to do something they didn't want to do?"

"No," Shaxx said simply.

Andal dragged a hand through the mess that was his hair. Half of it had come free of the bun when he'd been asleep, and he'd pulled it apart the rest of the way on the walk to the Wall. The wind cutting down through the mountain pass blew it across his face, so instead of answering Shaxx, he focused on tying it back.

Shaxx was still staring at him once he finished. "Zavala thinks you need time. Ikora says to give you space. I think you've had enough of both. What you need is a reminder.

"A reminder?"

"That there is a reason for the Hunters' belief in you. That you would give your life for the City as readily as any of them. That your leadership from the Tower is not cowardice. That there is no shame in your grief, and that it is not weakness to ask another for their strength."

The words rang between them. Shaxx let the echo hang there, and Andal didn't try to dispel it. He didn't want to crack a joke, or bury the ache building in his chest. He wanted to breathe without the crushing weight. He wanted to hear Shiro weave a story again. He wanted to see Tevis give that rare grin. He wanted the warmth of Cayde’s arms around him. He wanted the open air and the faint light of the stars above. But he was caught between the familiar agony and the City's horizon: always reaching for a world he could no longer touch. Always mourning the deaths he couldn't prevent. Always wondering who might be next.

Andal crossed his arms against the wind's chill. "I wish it felt like enough," he said.

Shaxx relaxed his stance: less proud warrior and more gentle giant. "I know," he returned, and what he didn't say, Andal heard anyway. There was a reason it was so hard to find Hunters willing to be the Vanguard: why Tallulah had made that bet with the Ahamkara, why Caliban had lamented his fate when the role fell to him after, and then dropped off the map, and why every successor since had either died or disappeared, too. The Tower wasn't a cage like Cayde seemed to think, but it kept them separate from the Hunters they sought to unite. They could plan and guide and inspire all they wanted: it wouldn't change the fact that they couldn't stand shoulder-to-shoulder with their Scouts. Sooner or later, it drove them to desperate recklessness. Sooner or later, one way or another, it got them killed.

Andal met Shaxx's line of sight, and knew, even through the helmet, that his gaze was steel. "I know what you're trying to do," Andal said, with a rueful shake of the head. "You don't have to. I'm not going to go off the deep end."

Shaxx didn't move, except to square his shoulders. There was a current of tension to his stance that hadn't been there before. "It's a funny thing," he said. "Caliban said something similar to me once. And where is he now?

"I'm not Caliban."

"Neither was Aparajita. Or Kauko Swiftriver."

"I'm not them either," Andal shot back. "I gave my word when I accepted the Dare. I'm Vanguard now. It's my responsibility. That won't change. I just - I wish I could be out there with them."

The words left him like they'd been forced out by a blow to the chest: explosive and desperate. Shaxx considered him for a long moment. He didn't look convinced, not even a little, but he didn't push further. In the distance, the sun was sinking below the mountains. Shaxx turned to that instead, and Andal followed him. They stayed in the quiet of the Gap until the fire of the sunset had faded into twilight. Then, with a thunderous clap to his shoulder, Shaxx left for the City.

Andal propped himself up against some overgrown rubble and dug his datapad out of his pack. He wanted to put it back immediately. Every Hunter he'd dispatched on a mission in the last two months had apparently decided to send in their reports at the same time. His messages were a veritable flood

"Not dealing with that right now," Andal muttered, and scrolled past them. The rest was standard - Vanguard shit, a couple pings from Shiro for no reason besides saying hello, a single line from Tevis's datapad that just said Checking in - from Shiro, Tev is with me - and sixteen missed calls from Cayde. Andal jolted upright, then immediately relaxed. The most recent call had a short note attached: sorry - sat on my datapad. <3

Warmth swelled in Andal's chest, and stayed there all the way back to the Tower. His Vanguard apartment was tucked in the lower levels, far from any hum of activity. It made the chances of running into a Consensus lackey significantly slimmer - which was good, because he didn't have that much patience for them on his best days, and all he wanted to do now was clean up, make some tea, call Cayde, and settle in on the couch to maybe review at least some of the report deluge.

Right after he figured out why the damn door was already unlocked. Andal reached for his knife, called the Void, and slipped inside without a sound. Nothing out of place in the entryway - except an extra pair of boots that most certainly did not belong to him, and a familiar cloak hanging on the hook.

The Void receded in a rush. He heard more than saw Astraea lock the door behind him. "Cayde?" Andal called, sheathing his blade and toeing off his own boots.

A soft noise came from the pile of blankets on the couch. Andal made it to Cayde's side just in time to see him shoot upright and fling the blankets off. "Damn it," Cayde muttered. His shoulders slumped. "I was gonna make you dinner."

This close, Andal could see the telltale signs of exhaustion. Cayde had a particular way of holding himself when he'd gone too long without stopping; that thin strand of tension was corded through his frame as if it was the only thing holding him up. "Sorry," he mumbled, and stifled a yawn. "Got in early, took a shower and thought, hey, what's five minutes. Turns out it was not five minutes."

"Are those my clothes?" Andal asked, amused.

Cayde looked down at himself like it was a surprise. He'd stolen a simple pair of black sweatpants and a soft navy blue jacket that he'd only bothered to zip up a quarter of the way. "Maybe."

"Either they are or they aren't. There's no maybe option."

"Maybe," Cayde said again, with more conviction.

Andal fought the smile tugging at the corners of his mouth as he kneeled next to the couch. "You look tired," he said, pushing a careful palm against Cayde's exposed chest to ease him into lying down.

Cayde went without resistance or retort. There was a faint, unfocused haze to the glow of his eyes. He covered Andal's hand with one of his own and held it there, pressed to the low thrum of life. "Missed you," he whispered.

Andal's heart turned so sharply his insides ached. "That's supposed to be my line," he managed, leaning forward to lay his cheek against Cayde's chest.

"Hey, Andal?" Cayde's voice wavered. His other arm settled across Andal's back. "You'd tell me if something was wrong, right?"

Andal hummed an affirmative. It earned him a low chuckle. The fingers tracing lazy circles on his back crept up to tug his hair free, and Andal couldn't help the soft groan when they dragged along his scalp. "I don't mean with just this," Cayde said. "I mean in general."

"Not when you're in the field. I don't want you distracted."

"You know I think about you anyway." There was a spark of mischief in Cayde's tone. "And anyway, I'm not in the field right now."

Andal rolled his eyes and pushed himself to his feet with a huff, heedless of Cayde’s pitiful whine at the loss of contact. "I need to clean up. Then we can go get dinner."

Andal made it halfway to the bedroom before he heard footsteps, and arms wrapped around his waist from behind. "Lemme help," Cayde murmured, a rush of warmth against the back of his neck.

"I actually want to get clean sometime today, Cayde."

"Your hair's a mess."

"I was out in the wind." Andal twisted in his arms so he could look him in the eyes, and his next protest died on his lips. It wasn't often Cayde looked at him with so much raw vulnerability; he cloaked his fear and his grief in dazzling sunlight, so the rest of the world would focus on the flash of his smile and not the cracks in his heart. Andal had learned to see through it a long time ago. But it was different when Cayde stripped it away himself.

"I missed you," Cayde said, and his voice cracked. "I still miss you. And I can't figure out how to get to where you are so I can stop."

Andal brushed his fingers along the sharp line of his jaw. Cayde’s next inhale stuttered, more a sob than a sigh of contentment, and Andal's world collapsed and coalesced until all he could see was Cayde, burning with his own familiar agony and breaking himself apart to cross the horizon between them.

Andal surged forward and wrapped his arms around him and kissed him until the fire in his lungs was because he couldn't breathe, and not because the peace he wanted was out of his reach. Cayde was warm and solid and pressed against him, and that low thrum was strong and sure beneath his fingertips, and Cayde's breath was a soft whisper against his neck.

"I'm here," Cayde said. The words were ragged, strangled by his desperation. "I've got you."

Andal tried to ease a step back, to see his face, and to kiss him again, but Cayde resisted any movement that could put any amount of space between them - like if he let go now, Andal would once more be beyond him. It made Andal's chest ache. He didn't want to let go. He wanted to be here, where there was no death, or loss, or crushing weight. He wanted to lose himself in the steady hum from the heart of Cayde's frame. He wanted to open the windows and gaze at stars while he was wrapped up in Cayde's arms. It felt like peace. Like home. A single word burned in his throat, a plea he could never voice - Stay.

"You wanna tell me what's going on?" Cayde asked, a long time later, and still holding him close.

Andal shook his head.

"Okay," Cayde said. "You wanna go clean up?"

Andal heaved a deep sigh. Cayde laughed softly. "C'mon, it'll help."

"I'm fine here," Andal grumbled, and grasped futilely at Cayde's shoulders when he gently pulled away.

"C'mon," Cayde said again, tangling their fingers together and tugging him toward the bedroom. "I gotcha."

Cayde helped him wash up and slip into a comfortable hooded sweatshirt and loose pants, then set him down on the couch and went to work on his hair. It was still wet from the shower, and gradually less disastrous the longer Cayde spent painstakingly massaging various products into it. The careful rhythm soothed Andal into a warm haze. His head dropped back against Cayde's collar, and he only noticed he'd almost drifted off because those lovely fingers in his hair stopped moving.

"You know you have to sit up more if you want me to finish this."

"Mm."

"Andal." There was fond exasperation there. Cayde tapped his cheek. The quiet ping of a message notification interrupted whatever he was going to say next. He gathered Andal to his chest and planted a quick kiss on his hair, then started to extricate himself from the embrace.

Andal's heart lurched. He closed a tight grip around Cayde's wrist reflexively. "You're leaving?"

Cayde paused his efforts to untangle himself from Andal and also escape the sinking cushions of the couch. He didn't tug at the wrist Andal had in a vice grip. "Just for a minute," Cayde answered slowly. "I asked Tevis to pick us up some food. He's almost here."

Andal made himself let go. "Tevis hates the Tower. He won't come here unless he absolutely has to. Trust me, I've tried."

"Well, he does absolutely have to. He owes me a favor."

"Do I want to know how that happened?"

"Nope," Cayde said, with a little too much enthusiasm, as he finally managed to get back to his feet. He reached down to tilt Andal's chin up with a single digit. "Be right back. Don't go anywhere, beautiful."

Andal swatted at his hand. "Quit flirting and go let Tevis in," he said, despite the warmth blooming under his ribs. "I don't want him to break my door down."

It wasn't Tevis that showed up: it was an uncharacteristically surly Shiro. He handed the bags to Cayde with all the airs of a man who'd just spent too long fighting a losing battle. "I owed him a favor," he muttered. "And he decided that his debt to you was paid when he picked the food up and brought it to me. So I could take it to you."

"I told you he was a cheat," Cayde said, unhelpfully.

"Thanks, Shiro," Andal called, and Shiro studied him intently for a second. Whatever he found swept some of the aggravation away from his stance; he tossed off a cheerful wave as he ducked out.

Cayde was already unpacking the ramen onto the coffee table. Behind him, Sundance closed and locked the door with a sigh. Andal cast her a thankful look as he settled on the floor and propped his back against the couch.

Cayde dropped down next to him. "I was thinking," he said, looping an arm around Andal, "that I'd stick around the City for a couple weeks. Maybe drag you out of the Tower sometimes. Shiro said there're a few local festivals coming up, and-"

He didn't finish, because Andal stole the rest of his words with a searing kiss.

"Didn't know you liked festivals that much." Cayde sounded breathless. His gaze was completely unfocused. "Damn."

Andal tapped his cheek. "You okay in there?"

"I think I shorted something, but yeah." Cayde shook his head, like that would clear the fog. "Do that again."

Andal almost considered it. Almost. But the weariness in his bones felt like a lead weight, and the ramen was steaming, and Cayde was half curled around him. "Later," he said instead, and felt Cayde's chest hum with a soft laugh.

"You got it."

—-

The damn Tower was only ever loud on the rare occasion he wanted it to stay quiet.

Andal heard the hurricane coming before it hit and immediately categorized it as a five, because while there were two pairs of hurried footsteps approaching his office door at battering speed, the only raised voice he could make out was coming from the Speaker, and that always meant serious trouble. Could be an issue with the Consensus. Could be an emergency meeting to address some kind of apocalyptic threat.

Or it could be Tevis Larsen, stalking through the door with the Speaker two steps behind him. He didn't wait for the leader of the entire City's governing body to come through after him; he slammed a fist back into the controls to close and lock it in his face.

Andal shot to his feet. "Tevis, what the hell?"

"He asked me to explain calling out to the Void to him." Tevis looked utterly unperturbed. "I said no. He kept asking. I wasn't gonna say no twenty times."

Andal dragged a hand down his face. Tevis, who hated the Tower, was in the Tower, in Andal's office, with a slighted Speaker standing just outside the door, presumably after having followed Tevis across the entire structure asking about a power that was anything but well understood, which had to do with a branch of the Light that certain vocal fringe groups still considered controversially aligned with the Darkness, despite every writing Ikora Rey had ever produced with evidence to the contrary. Great. He could already see the fifteen new committees this was going to spawn.

"Tevis," Andal said, voice tight, "the Speaker is in charge of the entire Consensus. He runs the City."

"I don't answer to the damned Consensus. And if you weren't on the Vanguard, I wouldn't answer to them either."

Andal closed his eyes and massaged the bridge of his nose. "Fine, then look at it this way: I work with these people. Could you try not to make me look bad?"

"Cayde's been in here all the damn time lately. I don't think their opinions can get any lower."

Andal bit back a retort and reached for the door controls so he could start to smooth the mess out, but Zavala's voice on the other side stopped him. Ah. He was already on it. Andal would have to thank him later. "Okay," he said, turning back to Tevis. "What the hell is going on?"

Tevis's face didn't even twitch. "I can't just visit a friend?"

"Not when you've spent the last week avoiding me."

Tevis shrugged. "Shiro's been on my ass about coming to see you. I got sick of it."

"Shiro's been on your ass about that for a lot longer than the week you've been back in the City. Nice try, though."

A flicker of unease flashed in Tevis's eyes. He tugged at his hood, but didn't lower it, shifted his weight from one foot to the other, and glanced at the door. "Can we talk somewhere else?"

Andal waited until there were no more voices behind his door, then led Tevis outside, away from the Vanguard and the Consensus and the low buzz of their chaos. He only stopped once they made it to his sanctuary at the highest point of the Tower.

"You allowed to be up here? Thought your Vanguard might be kinda uptight about it." Tevis sat down gingerly, like he didn't trust the edge not to crumble by virtue of it being a Vanguard structure, and dangled his legs over the abyss below.

"Don't know. Never asked." Andal eased down too, and leaned back on his hands. In the distance, the sun was just starting to sink toward the horizon. A warm gust of wind caught Tevis's hood and blew it back, and Andal jolted. Tevis's long, dark hair was pulled up and braided into an elaborate coil at the back of his head. It wasn't something he had the inclination to do himself; mostly he just tied it however was quickest.

"Did you finally let Cayde do your hair?" Andal blurted.

He knew the answer before Tevis gave it by the exasperated eyeroll. "One time and one time only," Tevis muttered, but a faint smile still curved the corner of his mouth when he ran a hand over the coil of hair. "He said he wanted to practice it. Looked so happy about it I didn't have the heart to tell him off."

"Looks good on you," Andal said brightly, and earned an elbow to the side of the head. "Ow."

"You get shot and you don't make a damn sound. How the hell is that 'ow'?"

"Most of the time getting shot kills me."

Tevis gave a deep sigh. "Not what I meant."

"Pretty sure there was something else you came here to talk about anyway." Andal gave him a sidelong glance, and Tevis's shoulders tensed. "Did something happen?"

"No," Tevis ground out. His face went through an impressive array of volatile emotions before settling on blatant discomfort. He opened his mouth to say something else and all that came out was a single cracked syllable.

Andal shifted closer, so their shoulders were pressed together. He didn't say anything and, for a long time, neither did Tevis. He just sat there glaring into the distance with his hands clenched into fists in his lap.

"You're okay here?" Tevis managed at last.

"I'm not sure what that means, Tev."

Tevis scowled. "Being in the Tower all the time isn't killing you?"

Andal tilted his head at him. Tevis avoided his gaze. "It's where I belong now."

Tevis scoffed at that. A thin tremor ran down his spine. "Fucking Dare," he hissed under his breath.

Andal groaned. "Don't start. I get enough of that from Cayde calling the Tower a cage every other week."

"No, I don't mean - " Tevis stopped short. His fists were clenched so tightly his forearms were trembling. He took a ragged breath. "When you left to be Vanguard, I told myself it wasn't that different. You were always the mastermind and the marksman. Who the hell cared if you were on overwatch from the Tower now? You were looking out for us, same as always. But it wasn't the same."

Tevis took a steadying breath, but it didn't stop his arms from shaking. "Wasn't the same," he repeated, like he was forcing the words out. "Didn't know how to deal with it, so I left. Spent a lot of time on my own before I met Cayde and he dragged me into his crazy bullshit. Never thought I'd like being part of a crew. Never thought I'd miss it this much, either."

Andal's chest ached. He nudged Tevis with an elbow. "You know you can still come see me," he said. It came out flat, as if it couldn't mean anything when it was weighed against the gravity of everything else.

Tevis gave him a tired stare, then turned back to the horizon. "It's like there's a barrier," he said, so softly Andal almost missed it. "Between here and out there. Shiro goes back and forth across it like it's nothing. Cayde's a damn disaster about it, but he won't admit it. And you have to stay in the Tower even if half of you's on the other side of that horizon."

"What about you?"

"It's easier to just stay out there."

Tevis fell silent. Andal let the quiet be until some of the tension in Tevis's shoulders had eased. "Hey, Tev?"

"Hm."

"You know avoiding me because you miss me doesn't make a lot of sense."

"That's what Shiro said."

"Shiro's usually right when it comes to you."

"The hell he is."

"Cayde agrees with me."

"Of course he does. Cayde'll do anything to be a pain in my ass." Beneath the dry delivery, there was a note of undeniable fondness.

Andal huffed a laugh. "Can't really argue with that."

Tevis went quiet again. At first, it looked like he was winding up to bolt. Andal could count on one hand the number of times Tevis Larsen had had an honest conversation about his feelings and not imploded afterwards, and all of them had happened at death's door. But while he had half curled in on himself like he was protecting a wound, Tevis didn't get up, or make a move to throw himself off the Tower to escape. He stayed, and he watched the sun sink into a sea of fire at Andal's side.

"I'll try to be here more," Tevis offered gruffly, once the burning sunset had faded to a cool twilight. "On one condition."

"Anything."

"You check in too."

Andal blinked at him. "Huh?"

"You make a hell of a Vanguard, Andal, but I know it's killing part of you to be up in the Tower. Stop acting like it isn't. You can't talk to Cayde about it because he gets all guilty. Fine. Talk to me or Shiro then."

Tevis offering to talk about emotions on a regular basis: that was a new one. It stunned Andal to brief silence. "Okay," he said, a long moment later, and almost jumped when Tevis dragged him into a rough hug.

"I'll hold you to it," Tevis said, and even though Andal couldn't see his face, he heard the smile in his voice.

Andal tilted his head back to look up at the stars. They cast a faint glow high above the hum of the City, just enough to see the faint outline of the horizon beyond.

Suddenly, it didn't feel so far away.

—-

#destiny #destiny 2 #andal brask #cayde 6 #candal #shiro 4 #tevis larsen #zavala #ikora rey #lord shaxx #my writing

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azure--gunslinger · 5 months

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Got a stalker bolter for my joytoy! I love the old crusade/heresy era bolters.

My headcanon is that this one was used by one of the raven guard survivors at the drop site massacre. Who proceeded to use it through the heresy until his death, at which point it was placed into a vault with other gear and relics from that time. Before being picked up by a primaris marine millenia later.

#warhammer 40k #Raven guard #loyalist astartes #Space marines #primaris vanguard #Primaris marines #adeptus astartes #Joytoy #wh40k #imperium of man

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genshinarchives · 2 years

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𝐆𝐎𝐃 𝐎𝐅 𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐎𝐄𝐒 𝐂𝐇. 𝟏

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟏 : 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐈𝐍𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐒𝐊𝐘 𝐒𝐈𝐋𝐕𝐄𝐑

𝐒𝐔𝐌𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐘 : Shortly after being transported to another reality, you clash with a god who goes by the name Enkidu. You later learn that you have been thrown into a warring era in which the gods of Teyvat are fighting each other to claim a divine seat in Celestia.

𝐋𝐎𝐕𝐄 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐒 : Al-Haitham, Kaveh; hints of Cyno x reader

𝐆𝐄𝐍𝐑𝐄 : Romance, adventure, isekai

𝐖𝐀𝐑𝐍𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐒 : N/A

𝐀𝐔𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐑'𝐒 𝐍𝐎𝐓𝐄 : N/A

𝐍𝐀𝐕𝐈𝐆𝐀𝐓𝐈𝐎𝐍

𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐋𝐎𝐆𝐔𝐄

Year 2052.

The gaming industry has flourished in the past years, and VRMMO-RPG took over the market. VRMMO-RPG is abbreviated from Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, an online game that allows the player to enter a virtual world and experience it as though it were real life. On the pinnacle of VRMMO-RPG is Camelot Chronicles, a game that is popular for its unusually high player freedom which enables the player to customise their character however they want, and they could also create their very own unique NPCs. The latter requires a hefty sum of in-game currency and materials, so you were only able to create one NPC for yourself.

His name is Enki, a doppelganger capable of copying the appearances and abilities of the people he interacts with. Although your character is of the same heteromorphic race, most of your points were spent on levelling your magic skills so you're only able to retain your humanoid form. In your party, Enki functions as the vanguard and so was given high physical and magic resistance, but this is adjustable when he takes on the form of someone else. His primary purpose is to aggro the enemies while you attack at a distance as a mage; outside of the battlefield, he's your loyal attendant who caters to your every whim.

As you stretched your arms over your head, you expelled a deep sigh before closing your notebook. You've just finished taking notes of the reading material your teacher had assigned you this week, and decided to play Camelot Chronicles for the rest of the night since it'll be the weekend tomorrow. Humming a random tune, you put on the specialised VR headset that's needed to play VRMMO-RPG and logged into the game.

You were immediately greeted by the sight of Enki standing next to you in Arondight Forest, the surrounding pine trees and uneven topography conjuring up the feeling one might get when venturing through a coniferous forest. You've been farming Jagged Fangs for the new craftable weapon that's coming in the next update, as Enki needed a new spear; you wanted to make him stronger so you could explore Galahad Ruins, a new area that was recently released. Extending a hand in his direction, you gently waved it from top to bottom.

"Follow," you said. The in-game command was immediately processed by him, prompting him to trail closely behind as you led the way. You traversed Arondight Forest in search for the bird-like mobs you'd usually farm for Jagged Fangs, only to notice their unusual absence. The lack of mobs in the area was already concerning enough, making you wonder if there was some sort of lag that's causing a delay in their spawn time.

Just as you're about to teleport to the nearest save point, your console froze.

"What's going on...?" you mumbled, tapping the air where your console had frozen in place. You then tried to close it by force which didn't work, and when you shifted your attention to your surroundings, you saw distortions in the environment. As incessant buzzing filled your ears, glitch patterns appeared around you before vanishing abruptly, and this repeated until the scenery shattered like glass.

You stared in awe. Things that you've never seen before were reflected in the shattered pieces. Upon closer inspection, you noticed that those things - those people - were moving, which drew you in. One scene showed an armed group of humans uniting under the leadership of a young boy holding a lyre; another showed a multi-headed sea serpent being rained on by gargantuan spears of stone; another showed a brutal war between a gigantic white snake and a woman with long violet hair wielding a spear.

"Master!"

A hand clasped your elbow suddenly, startling you. You were then spun around to meet the crimson eyes of Enki, your creation. Your jaw went slack when you realised that he had somehow become sentient amidst this strange glitch.

"E-Enki?!" you squeaked.

"Master, it seems like we've gotten ourselves in a dangerous situation," he said, "Stay close to me so that I can protect you. We don't know what's going to happen next."

Quickly recovering from your surprise, you told him, "I believe the server had crashed. My console froze and I don't think I can contact the admins at all." To prove your point, you tried using the call function only for unpleasant crackling sounds to echo in your ear.

Suddenly, the ground beneath your feet cracked. With panic overtaking your mind, you clung to Enki for dear life whilst he held onto you firmly.

"The ground is about to break!" he exclaimed. As if on cue, the cracks swiftly webbed out and an ear-splitting crash resounded through the area.

The next thing you knew, you were falling.

❀

"... aster... ake... up..."

You let out a groan and knitted your eyebrows together.

"Mas... Please..."

Is someone calling for you?

"Master, please wake up!"

Eyelids flying open, you quickly sat up with an audible gasp. Your eyes immediately burned from the sudden brightness overhead, forcing you to close them again as you raised an arm to shield them. Seeing your discomfort, Enki moved himself in front of you, casting a protective shadow over your form.

"How are you feeling?" he asked.

"I'm alright," you replied, "Just a little disorientated." Lowering your arm back to your side, you slowly lifted your eyelids and scanned your new surroundings curiously. "Where exactly are we?"

Standing up, Enki then looked around briefly. "It appears that we've been transported to a desert by mysterious means. I'm afraid I don't know any more than that."

You pushed yourself to your feet whilst brushing the sand off your clothes. This doesn't look like any of the deserts in Camelot Chronicles, and as you rummaged through your brain for any coherent explanation to the situation you've found yourselves in, you suddenly remembered the moving images you had seen during the glitch. The young boy with the lyre reminded you of Venti, who's a popular character in an old fantasy ARPG; the woman fighting against the serpent-like monster also resembled the Raiden Shogun, another iconic figure from the same game.

What was the name of the game?

You knew that Camelot Chronicles took inspiration from it after you watched an online interview with the game developers. You had done a little research on the game it took inspiration from out of curiosity and was impressed by the unique gameplay and rich lore.

"Jen... Jenshin...?" you mumbled.

That didn't sound right.

Your attention then shifted to Enki, who appeared to be waiting for your orders patiently. You noted that up close, he's quite good-looking; his sharp red eyes complimented his long ivory hair that's tied in a half-ponytail. Without a second thought, you held his wrist and was surprised to feel a pulse. You cupped his face and gently caressed his cheeks, your jaw going slack in disbelief; not only did he become sentient, he looks and feels real! He has a pulse like most living creatures do, and he smells pretty nice as well... While you were busy admiring Enki, you failed to notice his flustered look.

"Wh-what is it, master?" he asked with a slight stutter.

Before you could answer him, a loud explosion sounded at a distance. Startled, you both turned in the direction you had heard it come from, and your eyes widened when you caught sight of a sandstorm heading straight towards you. As it neared you and Enki, you noticed a shadow barely concealed behind the sandy veil.

"A hostile object is beelining towards us from 12 o'clock!" Enki exclaimed, summoning his spear. You instinctively slammed your hands on the ground, spawning a glowing glyph beneath you and Enki. "Making contact in 3... 2... 1!" On cue, silver chains shot up from the glyph and overlapped each other to form a makeshift shield in front of you. Something crashed into the chains at high speed, the impact causing the sand near its point to spew towards you like a tidal wave. Gusts of wind whipped around the two of you, and once the chaos has settled, the chains dissipated at your command to reveal another human standing before you.

Your gaze immediately settled on the bull horns protruding from the sides of his head. The mysterious man smiled, but you could sense the underlying malice in that supposedly friendly gesture.

"How brave of you to step outside of your god's domain," he said, "Which god do you follow? Gugalanna? Rukkhadevata?" He arched an eyebrow when he perceived your puzzled expression. "Is it neither of those two? Then perhaps you're one of those desertfolk whose god I've slain." He then threw his head back with a loud laugh, as if the words he had uttered carried no weight at all. "He was truly a weak god. For someone who's revered as the God of Heroes to fall so easily... How pathetic!"

"Who are you?" you asked with a frown. Although you didn't know who this God of Heroes is, his arrogant attitude still got on your nerves.

He ceased his laughter to answer your question, "Enkidu. You picked a wrong time to go adventuring, humans."

Enki couldn't accept the rude way in which Enkidu had spoken to you and immediately became aggressive. "Where are your manners? Do not speak to my master in that tone, and kneel when you greet her!"

Enkidu was unfazed.

"Oh... So that woman is a god as well?" he mused, grinning, "I suppose that makes us enemies!"

"Watch out!" Enki said, swiftly moving in front of you to deflect the light projectiles Enkidu had fired from his palms. Before you could fully process what was happening, your attendant had engaged in a ferocious combat with Enkidu. Sparks flew like steel birds of prey as their weapons clashed, their feet manoeuvring around each other's like elaborate pieces of footwork.

Gods. This world has gods, and the gods are fighting each other for some reason. You wondered if you got thrust into another reality during an era that's being devastated by countless power struggles - because if that's the case, you're the unluckiest person on the planet right now.

"Whatever," you mumbled, raising a hand with your open palm facing the sky. You'll worry about the war ravaging this world later; helping Enki take down Enkidu is your top priority, and fortunately, you possess the very weapon that's meant to combat god-like beings. "My soul has united with the stars. I command the celestials of the sky! Where the heavens shine, there am I! Thou wait at the gates of hell! Come forth, divine restraint! Shirshirdingira!"

A large golden portal expanded above Enkidu. Its sudden appearance made him falter as he looked up, and Enki took this chance to swiftly run him through with his spear. Enkidu bellowed as his chest exploded with pain, and the sight of a gigantic spearhead attached to a silver chain emerging from the portal prompted Enki to drive him into the ground before leaping out of your attack's range. As Enkidu lied on his sandy grave, you dropped the chain on him, quickly cutting his life short.

"That's... it...?" you said, blinking. That seemed far too easy; his bravado earlier gave you the impression that it would take more to kill him. When the chain dissolved into golden particles that were swept away by the passing wind, crimson webs were seen on the sand.

Enkidu is dead.

You killed someone.

But why do you not feel anything?

You stared at your hands.

Could it be because your character's race has merged with you when you came to this new world, it made you indifferent towards the things that humans would normally react strongly to?

"Y-you must be..."

You were pulled out of your thoughts when a new voice filled the silence, and you looked to your right to see a man crawling out from behind a rock. His expression was a mixture of fear and wonder as he regarded you with wide eyes, and the next thing you knew, he had prostrated himself before you, his forehead touching the sand.

"What are you-" you began, but were cut off by him.

"You must be the new god Celestia sent down! You're the one who will become the new God of Heroes!"

When Enki stepped forward to punish him for interrupting you, you barred his path by raising your arm in front of him.

"I don't think I follow. What is this world exactly?" you asked.

"You have descended to the world of Teyvat, O Exalted One," the man answered.

"And your name?"

"I am Ushar, a humble desertfolk from the sands of Sumeru. I work as a soldier for the city the God of Heroes had built."

"Raise your head," you ordered, and Ushar complied. He had clear crystal blue eyes, dark brown hair and a tanned complexion... You can't help but notice how much he resembles Dehya, a Pyro character from Sumeru.

Your pupils dilated when realisation dawned on you.

Celestia. Sumeru.

You finally remembered the name of the game.

Those are places in the world of Genshin Impact.

But how can that be? How can Genshin Impact be your new reality when it's been 30 years since the game was released?

"Then right now... It must be in the middle of the Archon War," you murmured.

"That's correct. Every day, the gods of Sumeru are at war with each other," Ushar said, having overheard you, "The God of Heroes whom we follow... was slain by Enkidu, the one you had defeated. Which means that you must be the god he spoke of before he passed! The god who will avenge him, and take his place to guide us! Please hear your servant's plea, and be our new God of Heroes!"

You were hesitant to accept his request. You didn't know if the deceased God of Heroes was fighting to protect his people or to claim one of the seven divine seats in Celestia. You had enough knowledge of Genshin Impact's lore to survive with just Enki by your side, and you were well-aware that if you participated in the Archon War, battling the future Dendro Archon - Greater Lord Rukkhadevata - will be inevitable. At the same time however, you needed more information, more than what the game has already revealed about Teyvat's history.

"... I want something in exchange," you finally said, "If you can give it to me, I will protect you and your people as your new god."

Ushar bowed deeply in gratitude. "Whatever it is that you wish for, will be yours."

You knelt down to his level. "I want information about this world."

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝟐

The picrew below is Enki.

𝐓𝐀𝐆𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓 : @flowwerpot / @myevergarden / @hey-comrade-hold-stil / @genshin-idiot /

#✍️ : alice writes #genshin #genshin impact #genshin x reader #genshin impact x reader #nahida #cyno #alhaitham #alhaitham x reader #kaveh #kaveh x reader #fem reader #god of heroes

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ship-o-rama · 7 months

Text

Name: U.S.S. Vanguard

Class: Miranda

Year: 2259 (Kelvin Timeline)

Background: Ship's primary mission is to detect threats to Earth and deal with them before they become a problem. Located the Botany Bay, and boarded her, finding 72 preserved people in stasis, including Khan Noonien Singh.

Appeared in Star Trek Khan, IDW Comics

#Star Trek #Star Trek Comics #USS Vanguard #Kelvin Timeline #Miranda Class #Starfleet #Federation #Starship

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shuttershocky · 1 year

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How is the character Vigil in Arknights? He looks awesome and being free at least means regardless no need to worry about rolling, but otherwise I'm not sure how he stacks up gameplay wise.

Alright so here's the thing: you're not gonna find very nice things about Vigil if you look online. A certain CN poll had him listed with the lowest E2 rate among 6 stars, and his ownership rate was only high due to literally being free, else he would probably be even less popular than Dorothy and Stainless, the bottom of the barrel. Looking up any discussions of Vigil online has him compared unfavorably to the two other Tacticians: Blacknight and Beanstalk, and there's generally a lot of criticism about him.

Now, in fairness, this is not /entirely/ Vigil's fault. As a free 6 star, his predecessors are Gladiia and Lumen, the strongest free unit in the whole game and a medic that hard-counters status effects respectively. Those two have lots of utility, are absurdly strong in their niche, and give plenty of value for the resources put into them. Even people who would normally ignore free units will end up raising Gladiia and Lumen, they're that valuable. Vigil on the other hand...

He's a DPS unit. In a game full of DPS units. His DPS is also reliant on keeping his summons alive, as Tacticians deal 150% ATK to enemies being blocked by their summon, but his summons are squishy and can block up to three enemies vs one (unlike Beanstalk's crab or Blacknight's tapir), which means they take thrice the beatdown from melee enemies.

The Tactician Vanguard subclass has always been a sort of utility role. Beanstalk's Crabs are respectably tanky, and with her S2 she can multiply them into a swarm, drawing enemy fire and blocking crowds in one go. Blacknight on the other hand, has the very useful ability to put enemies to sleep and damage sleeping enemies, giving her a place in Sleep-centered squads. Vigil... kills things, if they're being blocked by his wolf. Or tries to, because if they KO his squishy wolf he's not going to be doing much damage at all.

This is not to say that Vigil is unusable or that you can't raise him even if he looks cool. When he's allowed to play his game he's actually not terrible at dealing damage. Not great, but not bad either. If you can find a lane that prioritizes small numbers of stronger enemies instead of one that swarms you with a bunch of mooks, Vigil and his Wolfpack can do a pretty good job at laneholding with his S3's damage output (assuming they don't instantly kill his wolfpack)

Here's a clear where Vigil and Tequila act as the primary DPS units in BI-EX-8, where the two take down Degenbrecher.

youtube

#Arknights #Hoping for a Gladiia-tier module for Vigil lol

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ahamkara-apologist · 7 months

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you have GOT to post guardian pics I'm begging you. feed us (me?) information about your characters. I must know. it is imperative

TYSM FOR ENABLING ME ANON BC THEY ARE MY BLORBOS AND IM VIBRATING ABOUT THEM. buckle the fuck up because this is gonna be a long fucking post

Okay first up is Aeris Sharphawk- aro/ace, he/him. he's my main character, my hunter, and the Young Wolf of my timeline.

He’s half-Awoken, half-Human (I’ll get to that in a moment, he’s actually an older oc of mine that I ported over from Bloodborne whose bastard nature needed a D2 equivalent), and the older half-brother to my solar titan, Marcelline Attenbough- one of the few little remnants from their past life that they were able to discover in a diary on Marcie’s corpse when they were rezzed together (which occurred because their ghosts are twins). He’s autistic, lawful neutral, and vastly prefers using Darkness over Light because of sensory issues; his ghost (Hoarfrost, previously Mercury) mods his helmets to drastically reduce noise, but he can’t help how Arc tingles, Solar burns, and Void numbs. Tends to spend most of his battles either hyperfocused or dissociated to deal with it. As for the lawful neutral title, that’s because he doesn’t fight for the Vanguard because of a loyalty to humanity, but exclusively for the survival of the Last City and everyone in it. This extended to House Light and the Cabal under Caital instantaneously, and would do so to Eramis if she so chose, because he really just doesn’t take most things personally. He's sometimes derogatorily called 'the Vanguard's Hound' because of this.

He’s skilled with a bow, and is cursed with a resting haunted stare that can rival even the fiercest bird of prey- hence his title, given to him because his last name wasn’t present in the little diary that Marcie had when they were rezzed. Personality wise, he’s quiet, stoic, extremely efficient at what he does, fiercely protective of those he loves, and deeply curious about the unknown- though if you don’t know him, you’d never be able to guess it, because he struggles deeply with facial expressions and tone, giving him the appearance that he’s ruthlessly cold and unfeeling (pretty much the Guardian we see in game). Because of this, he tends to do much better with Eliksni than most of humanity- bar the Awoken, though Mara makes him deeply uncomfortable- and is thus far more comfortable with them. He’s the moon to Marcie’s sun, and helps keep her in check, for despite her cheery personality, she has a very strong sense of justice and a penchant for impulsive, temperamental behavior when she thinks that justice has been wronged. This goes both ways, however, as Aeris is the very definition of ‘curiosity killed the cat’; he voluntarily gets bit by venomous snakes at venom labs to see how immunity/allergies develops over time, and has a fascination with the Vex that got him a ‘needs watching’ report after he nearly jumped into a pool of radiolaria to see what would happen. The older-brother affection isn’t related to just Marcie, though; he’s unofficially adopted Eido as his younger sister (or kid? Because uhhh that curiosity of his has extended to fucking Misraaks once or twice), and is a mentor figure of sorts to Crow, though he’s unaware that Crow idolizes him; he only hunted Uldren down to keep Marcie out of trouble, as he didn’t like Cayde and was neutral on Uldren, so seeing Crow for the first time didn’t bother him at all. Tutored on occasion by Osiris, and thus has a very deep respect for him.

People other than Marcie that he likes: Zavala, Ikora, Osiris, Eido, Misraaks, Eris, and Variks, Petrichor-12 (oc), Viper-4 (oc, lightless guardian), Crow

People he dislikes: Cayde, the Spider, Clovis Bray, Savathun, Mara Sov, Petra Venj (can’t read her very well), anyone who is loud or insistent or confusing

Primary class (Dark): Stasis

Primary class (Light): Arcstrider

Motifs: Dark, cool blue/silver, viper and hawk symbolism

Likes: Learning about things, working with the Eliksni, being good at being a hunter, bows/glaives/swords, playing with Strand, Gambit (surprisingly)

Dislikes: Crucible, loud noises, fusion rifles, snipers because of the kick (despite being very good with them), shotguns, fans and most other guardians

Fun fact: When Hoarfrost and Solaris found them, it was in a frigid part of old Russia, with Aeris holding Marcie close to his chest with his back to the door- they had frozen to death while trying to keep each other warm, and were under a thick layer of permafrost. When they were risen, they found out their names, their relationship to each other, and the fact that their father was a cheating bastard who produced Aeris after screwing an Awoken woman for the novelty of it because Marcie had a little diary in her front pocket, which had been somewhat preserved by the cold. Both their ghosts theorize that the reason why Aeris is so drawn to Stasis and Marcie to Solar is because of how they died, though neither guardian will say anything about it. He can also speak near-fluent Eliksni.

Then there’s Marcie, younger half-sister to Aeris and the sun to his moon; she/her, Solar Titan, lesbian, lawful good. Where he is quiet and introverted, she is loud and bombastic, and where he likes to dart in and strike down his enemies from afar, she likes to punch. I just recently made her in Destiny because the character creation doesn't really match how I see her, hence why she's got Arc on here

(closer to her actual face minus the blue eyes; this is a very old bloodborne pic)

Unlike her half-brother, Marcie is a full human, and- according to the diary she rezzed with- was objectively her father's favorite, though the feeling was not mutual, and their relationship was strained by her taking so kindly to the bastard son he tried to send away. Compared to Aeris, she's bright, bubbly, and outgoing, but has a fierce temper, and is quick to snap if something has pushed her too far-think a jack russel's terrier of a human being. Her ghost's name is Solaris (previously Quicksilver), and she prefers the Light and Solar by far. Her preferred method of combat is to hit first, ask questions later, which can be incredibly effective or incredibly dangerous depending on who's on the opposite end of her wrath. Her and Aeris share many quests together, with me typically attributing all the seasons that I didn’t play to Marcie, given that I didn’t make a Destiny character for her for the longest time.

She was best friends with Cayde, and was so devastated by his death that Aeris had to go instead, as she would have killed anything and everything in vengeance without a second thought. She did, however, kill Riven- something that Aeris himself was somewhat reluctant to do,given his fascination with the Ahamkara. She's stubborn as a mule, surprisingly strong despite her small stature (well, small-ish), and is an absolute massive lesbian, with her type specifically being 'big strong ladies who can kill me'- which was primarily why she wasn't allowed to fight Eramis, or other big hotties, as she has a pretty hardcore crush on her. (The second reason was that she would have stood and bickered with Eramis about the ethics of what she was doing until either one or the other yielded). Instead, she was assigned to work with Misraaks to evacuate House Light refugees, which ended up being a fortuitous partnership with the coming of the Endless Night. Now, her primary work for the Vanguard consists of aiding Eliksni refugees, along with general alien-human politics and tackling xenophobia, as well as working on being an apprentice Splicer. She is very, VERY passionate about equal rights and will drag you to the Crucible if you fight her- and good fucking luck winning against her, because she fucking loves the Crucible and will beat your ass everytime. She’s somewhat of a local celebrity in that reguard

Her deep fondness for her brother comes primarily from the fact that he is one of the few people to take her seriously without either asking her to calm down or come off as patronizing- he's also a well of stability to her excitable moods, the voice of reason to her hyperempathy. While he keeps her from biting off more than she can chew, she acts as his translator + guide, yanking him back onto the path of sanity if he starts to wander into the Deep, and helping him with dysfunction things that Hoarfrost can’t do. She also enjoys working through the data he collects, even if she has no desire to go searching for it herself, so they make a good pair- even if, like most siblings, they will argue over every little thing and sometimes drive each other up the walls with their stubbornness.

I've already mentioned that she got along with Cayde, but her other friends at the tower are Shaxx, Drifter, Saint-14, and Ada-1. Misraaks is her mentor, as well as one of the few people who can talk her down from stupid shit, with uh…questionable results. And while she couldn't stand the sight of Crow when Aeris dragged him back, she managed to befriend him reguardless, mostly because he was so different from the Uldren she remembered that she couldn’t help but accept him for who he was. She often went out drinking with him and Amanda, and was devastated when she died.

People she likes: Cayde, Shaxx, Drifter, Saint-14, Ada-1, Misraaks, Crow, Amanda (rip), Caiatl

People she dislikes: Uldren Sov, The Osmium Siblings, The Spider, Lakshmi-2, anyone against the Eliksni or people who are rude to Aeris, Calus

Likes: Crucible, Gambit, fucking around with weapons in new and creative ways, going out to drink with friends, playfully flirting, helping with construction work around the Eliksni District, playing around with the Light, moths and other fuzzy creatures

Primary Class (Light): Solar

Primary Class (Dark): Strand

Dislikes: Fighting Eliksni, any exploding enemies that she can’t punch, bows because Aeris will always be better than her at using them, the fact that Aeris fucked Misraaks at one point for science, being alone, her inability to score a girl who isn’t a war criminal

Motif: crimson and gold, bears or lion with eagle wings

Fun fact: Her grasp on Eliksni is actually more fluent than Aeris, and she spends a good deal of her time in the Tower socializing with people while he’s off doing…whatever.

Okay, now onto Petrichor-12, who decided to nope out of being a Guardian so I deleted their slot to make Marcie before I really did anything to dazzle them up

Petrichor-12 is a now-retired guardian that actually came from a dream I had before I even played Destiny. They/them or he/him, neutral good, Void titan, ghost is seldom-speaking and called Whisper. Neutral good. I attribute them with D1 content, so they’re the guardian that killed Crota and Oryx, though Marcie and Aeris were also there to help.

Petrichor is an older, somewhat quiet, melancholy do-gooder that's been haunted by guilt ever since they found out the memories of who they were via the Deep Stone Crypt- a bodyguard for Clovis Bray that was turned to a path of anger, abuse, and violence after agreeing to be tested on for power, and got corrupted by the Darkness. This, paired with being rezzed in the Dark Ages, means that they have a lot of trauma surrounding violence, power, and the dilemma of being made to kill when all you want to do is save people. As such, Eramis's predicament troubles them greatly, and while it was them who gunned her down in conjunction with Aeris, they often found themselves returning to her frozen body on Europa to talk to her (presumed corpse) about Darkness corruption in a sort of venting monologue-advice system, which worked both as a way of fending off their troubles as well as keep an eye on her state- though now that she’s defrosted they’ve vowed never come near her again out of embarrassment.

While retired, they are a stalwart defender of anyone who needs it and a keeper of peace, driven partially by a genuine desire to do good and a need to prove themselves not the person that they used to be. No longer able to mingle with other guardians or humanity at large due to PTSD from what they learned, they live in the Botza district as an ambassador between the Eliksni and humanity, they like to knit + quilt in their free time, teaching whichever hatchlings will listen and getting tutored on weaving by old Wolves in return. They're also 6'3", so…lorge. Zavala and Misraaks are the two people they talk to the most outside of the Eliksni refugees, and they drop by to say hi to Eva and knit with her whenever they have the chance. The war with the Witness is threatning to bring them out of retirement, something that they are deeply unhappy with.

People he likes: Namrask, Misraaks, Saladin, Zavala, Ikora, Osiris (recently), Marcie and Aeris, Saint-14, Eris (complicated)

People they dislike: Themselves, Osiris (formerly), Eramis (reminds them of themselves), Ghaul, Oryx, Xivu Arath, Clovis Bray, anyone who goads them to fight, Elsie and Ana Bray by association, Rasputin

Motif: gold and sapphire blue, used to have a gryphon motif but stopped wearing it because they don’t want to be recognized as the Kingkiller

Likes: Knitting, sewing, weaving, gardening, really anything restorative they can do with their free hands that forces their mind not to wander

Class (Light): Void, sometimes Arc

Class (Dark): no.

Dislikes: War, fighting, being a guardian, everything that has to do with what they used to be, anything Braytech sciences, the cumulative trauma from the Dark Ages and seeing recordings of who they used to be in the Deep Stone Crypt, their own fear of themselves

Fun fact: Petrichor-12 can speak Eliksni fluently, having modulated their voice and hearing to be able to incorporate the subsonic clicks and chirps in their speech, and is now working on learning Ulurant despite not at all liking the Cabal empire

Ash: Another dream character of mine, and my newest Guardian (so she’s somewhat of a wip). She/her, solar + void warlock, chaotic neutral to lawful evil depending on her mood. Pansexual but bitchless. Rezzed in the tail end of the Dark Ages, just long enough for her to see how horrible everything was but not long enough to see the true extent of it. Scholar of the Light, and most recently a scholar of the Dark as well.

Ash is a warlock with an awful temper, a moral code that changes on a whim, and a ravenous appetite for knowledge that comes at the cost of everyone else, including herself. Her ghost (an anxious and caring little lass) is called Nutmeg, and is pretty much the only indicator that she has a soft spot. Ash dedicated herself to learning how to get closer to the Light, but unlike the more conventional meditations that people usually do to, she was inspired by ancient Greek priestesses and decided for a more unconventional route- by doing hard drugs. By getting either extremely drunk or very high, she claims that she overcomes the need for meditation (or, rather, bypasses it entirely because she’s too impatient for it) and gains a deeper connection with her powers, as she’s connecting with it instinctually rather than choosing to seek it out. Nutmeg and many others are not as convinced about this method, but they also can’t deny that it doesn’t have its perks, as Ash does have a very powerful connection to her light- mainly through exploding things, or setting everything around her on fire. It’s how she used to survive the Warlords she’d steal from in the Dark Ages, and she’s known specifically for her ability to mimic a nova bomb, but with solar power, which is strong particularly for how unexpected it is.

However, being constantly hungover and harbouring no friends doesn’t exactly have its benefits, and as a result Ash is almost always grumpy, abrasive, quick to anger, quick to turn to cruel jibes and mocking when being defensive (which is often), and is generally awful to be around. She has no friends other than Nutmeg (whose bond has become strained as of late, since Ash is now turning to substance abuse for coping with the impending threat of the Witness rather than simply using it for her studies), her apartment is an uncleaned shithole she only uses for crashing in when she’s particularly out of it, and she's constantly in a state of passive-aggressive warfare with Osiris, as she and him used to occasionally cross paths and share research; they might have had a student-teacher dynamic if they didn’t grate so abrasively, and if Ash wasn’t so much of a lone wolf. He’s tried to whip her into shape a couple of times, but to no avail- they just devolved into shouting matches. Pretty much the only people she listens to are the Drifter and Nutmeg, but whether or not she’ll actually take their advice is a toss-up.

Despite this, she will overall always choose to do what's right and will begrudgingly trudge along with people in random strikes to ensure that important missions get done, as she fears failure more than she does judgment. And yet, to an extent she also fears judgment, for part of the reason why she’s so cruel is to keep people at arm’s length, so as to prevent them from learning her weaknesses- not even her constant complaining about being bitchless will cover up that the core reason why she makes no effort to clean herself up and be nicer is because she fears vulnerability. She’s also brilliant with the Light and cunningly adept with the Dark, which is why the Vanguard continues to ask for her help and expertise.

People she likes: the Drifter, Hawthorne, Nutmeg, Eido, Toland, Shaxx to most everybody’s surprise

People she dislikes: Pretty much the whole Vanguard and 90% of other guardians, Saladin, the Iron Lords, Osiris, Misraaks,

Primary class (Dark): Stasis, wants to learn Strand but has a hard time letting go

Primary class (Light): Solar, Void

Likes: Learning nuances of the Light that others don’t go into detail to, connecting with the Light, growing more powerful and shaping it into new, experimental Supers that would make Zavala have a heart attack if he saw them in action, taking leadership in Strikes and prodding around New Lights to teach them about what it is to be a Guardian (but gently), killing assholes to put them in their place, spooking people

Dislikes: Being told what to do, being reminded that she’s a mess, being reminded that she’s afraid and that her behavior is starting to turn self-detrimental, being looked down on by other Guardians, the restrictive nature of Vanguard protocol that keeps her from playing around with her experimental supers, guardians who have no respect or care about mortal lives, getting kicked from bars for fighting said guardians with no respect or care for mortal lives, being reminded that she has a soft side and cares so much for other people that it scares her

Colours/theme: black, flame-gold, and green

Fun fact: Likes the Hive aesthetic, and knows their tongue just for the hell of it. Has quite a bit of fun tormenting and taunting Hive Lightbearers, loves digging around the Osmium Siblings. Despite this, she’s not passionate about the Hive, and doesn’t care one bit if they’re wiped out or not. She also pretty much never takes off the Stag helm, as dropping a rift on death has saved her ass more than once, and tends to sleep in her robes. It’s a miracle that she doesn’t stink something awful, but smells perpetually like smoke instead.

and last but not least: Viper-4, an ex-guardian who I have almost nothing on because he tends to be a side character: he/him, trans exo, primarily black chassis with red markings, not yet settled on alignment. A friend of Aeris, he's an ex-Hunter who is now the primary caretaker for a variety of venomous snakes whose species have survived the Collapse. He collects their venom to try to recreate old Golden-Age medicines and antivenom- which he does with Aeris's help- and had his forearms modded with soft silicone so that the snakes don't hurt him if they bite him. Generally a friendly and chill guy, but has a melancholy air as most Ghostless do, and wants to learn Strand so that he has some modicum of control over the elements again, as his lack of feeling the Light was the hardest part about his Ghost's death. Much like Brya and Sagira, his ghost sacrificed her to save him, but he blames himself for her death and pretty much entirely refuses to talk about it. Used to be quite adept with Void. I note that he's trans here because it carried over into his exo body, as he was raised with synthetic top surgery scars that were then worked into beautiful engravings of flowers, swords, and snakes by Viper-1

#long post #destiny 2 #my ocs #my guardians #oc: aeris sharphawk #oc: marcelline attenbough #oc: petrichor-12 #oc: ash #oc: viper-4 #maybe i should have used a readmore but #im paranoid about accidentally deleting this blog and having it be lost #sjdhfg

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