#story: crimson drought
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Full disclosure, I am a monster (not that that should be a cause for concern)
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I don't know if the soulmate event is still open (depends on your time zone, I guess), but if it's still open: purple (inumaki toge) with lilac (angst to fluff) #6 (flowers on your body where your soulmate got injured)
If you've already closed your requests, I'm sorry for bothering you! I just really like this event and am looking forward to reading all the stories (again 🙊)
Hi anon! My event was still open, so don't worry about it. I'm glad that you enjoyed the event so much. Thank you for giving my man inumaki some love (secretly, he's my fav)
Also, sorry this took so long. I was going through some serious creativity drought...
Hold You (Inumaki x Reader)
Word Count: 1.7k
CW: Blood, injury, panic attack, reader has female pronouns, angst to fluff, not proof read (as always)
Event Guide | Event Masterlist | JJK Masterlist | Blog Navigation
The first thing Inumaki does upon awakening is reach for you. Realizing your side of his bed was cold, he momentarily panicked before remembering that you had a mission early this morning.
With a little grumble and a pout, he snuggled further down into his blankets intending to sleep a little more before he had to get up.
But without you, staying in bed was no fun, so with reluctance he hauled himself out of bed and headed downstairs to find something to eat.
Mmm...maybe he could have his leftover onigiri from last night. He could probably heat up some miso soup too...and he was going to kill you.
Heartbroken, he gazed into the empty spot in the fridge that once housed his onigiri.
Instead, there was a pale pink post-it with the word "sorry" written on it in your handwriting.
After mourning the loss of his precious onigiri, he forlornly set about making himself a cup of tea.
As he reached to grab the tea bags from the top shelf he heard someone entering the kitchen. Grabbing the tea and turning, he realized that it was Maki.
"Konbu-"
He began to greet her but paused as he realized she was staring intently at the spot just above his waistband where a sliver of his skin had been exposed while he was reaching for the tea.
"Takana?"
He asked, worried and a little perplexed.
"Inumaki..."
"Tuna mayo?"
He asked, instantly on edge. It was rare for Maki to show this much concern.
Suddenly she surged at him and was tugging at his shirt with barely contained panic shining in her eyes.
"Your shirt. Take it off. You have to take it off. I need to see."
"Tu-"
"NOW!"
She bellowed, frantically lifting the hem when he didn't instantly move.
Staring at the giant petals slashed across his torso in vicious crimson swathes, the two froze.
"Your soulmate trait makes any injury she has appear on your body as flowers and vice versa, right?"
Exhaling shakily, she wasn't sure she wanted to hear the answer.
There was no response. She didn't need one either way - she was just confirming, but his lack of reaction concerned her.
"Inumaki-"
Taking a good look at his face, she realized he was frozen, pupils blown out as he quivered staring at the marks on his midriff.
"Hey-"
But he was gone. Tearing down the hall he headed towards Gojo's room. Gojo. He would be able to help. He would have to trust Maki to go get Shoko.
Slamming his shoulder into the wall as he made a sharp turn into the next corridor, he stumbled but kept going.
What if he was too late? God, he never should've let you go on this mission alone. You're a strong sorcerer, he knows that. Maybe even stronger than him. But if he isn't able to protect you, how can he call himself worthy of being your boyfriend. Of being your soulmate.
Tears pricked the back of his eyes as he burst into Gojo's room.
Looking up from his kikufuku, Gojo was greeted with one of his students tearing off his shirt.
"Whoa-whoa hold on now, it's a little early to be getting this frisky-"
He stopped seeing the flowers etched into Inumaki's skin.
In near hysterics, Inumaki pointed at his chest.
"Sujiko...Takana...She-"
He managed to get out between pants.
"Please."
Luckily, Gojo understood what he was trying to say. He had understood in sickening clarity the second he had seen the marks.
Something was about to steal the bright future of not just one, but two of his students. And he'd be damned if he let that happen.
Striding over and placing a hand on Inumaki's shoulder he spoke.
"It's going to be okay. We're going to go get her."
And with that, he teleported them off.
─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───
Pain. Mind-numbing, nauseating pain. Pain was all you knew.
Crumpled against a wall on your back, you could vaguely hear Ichiji's worried voice calling your name as he searched for you.
For a split second, you registered a muted panic, unsure if your final attack had been enough to take out the special-grade, but then you realized that Ichiji wouldn't even be in here if the curse was still alive, because the veil would still be up.
Relief slowly drifted in among the fog clouding your brain. At least you got your job done.
As your blood leaked out and stained the concrete beneath you your hand slowly started slipping off the three violent gashes that had been clawed across your torso.
Clinging desperately to consciousness you fought to stay awake as your vision fuzzed with black.
Toge. You had to think of Toge. You couldn't do this to him. You had to hold on for him.
Your hand slid fully off your upper body and fell with a quiet splash into the puddle of blood surrounding you.
I'm so sorry Toge..."
─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───
Appearing next to the black car that had transported you and Ichiji to the scene, Gojo and Inumaki instantly got to work searching for you. Following the sound of Ichiji's voice, they were eventually led to a frantic Ichiji calling your name as he stumbled across rubble. When he looked over and noticed the two of them he frantically waved them over.
"Thank god you're here!"
He exclaimed as he made his way to meet them.
"I don't know what happened! The veil went down so I assumed the curse was exorcized but when she didn't appear, I became worried and went to search for her. I still haven't found her though and I'm beginning to be quite concerned...."
"She'll be fine."
Gojo said confidently, waving away Ichiji's concerns.
"We'll find her, right Inumaki?"
Trying his best to ease the tightness in his chest and breathe, Inumaki nodded.
"Shake."
Splitting up they began searching, calling out your name. It would've been easier to track your cursed energy, but it appeared you'd fallen unconscious, so that was out of the question.
Minutes passed, and with each one Inumaki found it harder and harder to breathe. He began to fear the worst, and images of your beautiful body mangled and broken flashed in his mind's eye.
Finally he found you. But instead of feeling better, the sight he was greeted with only kicked his oncoming panic attack up a couple notches.
Blood. There was so much blood. Crashing to his knees, he attempted to put pressure on the gashes clawed across your torso. Wait, when did he even get to your side? Dimly he heard a high pitched keening sound, not unlike a dying animal.
It wasn't until hands pulled him off you that he realized that the sound was coming from him. Or that blood was dripping from his mouth because he had been using his cursed speech to attempt to command you to wake up, to stay with him.
He cried out and tried to throw himself back over you. They couldn't touch you! Didn't they understand? You were hurt! But the same hands from before gripped his shoulders and held him back as Gojo teleported you off to Shoko.
"She'll be okay son."
Nanami murmured into his ear. When had he gotten here?
"She'll be okay, just calm down. Take a breath."
Listlessly staring at the puddle of blood that you had been lying in, he allowed Nanami to gently pull him away and guide him back to the car waiting to drive them back to the campus.
─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───
When they arrived back on campus Inumaki was out of the car and tearing off towards the infirmary before it had even fully stopped.
Bursting into the room, the door hit the wall with a bang, causing everyone in it to look up.
“Toge?”
You asked, sitting up a little straighter as Shoko finished up examining you.
Frozen in the doorway, he stared at you, hesitant to believe that you were okay after witnessing the gory aftermath of your injuries.
Lowering the t-shirt you had been changed into, Shoko patted your shoulder and advised you to take it easy before standing.
“C’mon Gojo. Get out of here. Give the two some privacy.”
Shoko herded Gojo out, shutting the door behind them. Then the two of you were alone in the quiet room.
The quiet sound of you sniffling filled the room.
“I-I’m so sorry.”
You cried quietly as you wiped your tears with the palms of your hands.
“I’m so sorry I worried you because I wasn’t strong enough. I was so scared. I thought I was going to die. I thought I was never going to see you again…”
A choked sound escaped Inumaki as he took a hesitant step forwards. You looked up at him, your tear-filled eyes making his own fill.
“Can you come here and hold me?”
You asked, extending your arms.
And that was all you needed to say. He barreled into you, mindful of your injuries as he nuzzled his face into the crook of neck and relished in the feeling of having you in his arms again.
“Sorry.”
He sobbed, pressing kisses to your pulse point.
“Sorry.”
He repeated, unable to say anything else for fear of hurting you with his cursed speech.
“No, why are you sorry?”
Your tears trailed down your face, dripping off your chin and mixing with his before staining your shirt.
“You didn’t do anything-”
I couldn’t protect you.
He traced the words into the palm of your hand.
“Of course you couldn’t!”
You exclaimed, thumping him lightly on the back.
“You weren’t even on the mission with me, dummy! How could you have? Plus, it’s not your responsibility to protect me. That’s not your job as my boyfriend. All I ever asked of you is to hold me like you are now, and to love me.”
You buried your face in his hair, inhaling deeply.
“Stop blaming yourself. Just stay with me like this for a while, okay?”
Nodding, he snuggled further against you.
That’s right. Everything was okay. You were okay. Everything would always be okay.
As long as you were holding him.
And he was holding you.
─── ⋅ ∙ ∘ ☽ ༓ ☾ ∘ ⋅ ⋅ ───
#lee's brain writes#lee's 1 year anniversary event#jjk x reader#inumaki toge x reader#angst to fluff#jjk x female reader#inumaki x female reader
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no wait you don’t understand it’s not just that xie lian saved baby hua cheng during his crown prince swordsman parade and that’s why hua cheng is so devoted to him. it’s that xie lian saved him again and again and again. against qi rong abusing little hua cheng for disrupting the auspicious parade of precious crown prince. when the swordsman of the xianle pavilion blamed the attack of demon spirits on hua cheng. when xie lian became a god and still somehow found little hua cheng and saved him from the beating of bullies.
it’s not just the red umbrella baby hua cheng found at the entrance to xie lian’s shrine. it’s that god xie lian put that umbrella there. saw this child bloodied and bruised and dirtied, shivering in the rainy cold. gave him the red umbrella hua cheng keeps still, almost a millennia later.
it’s not just that xie lian always keeps food on his person because in the years he was cast down from the heavens he was starved and scrounging for any token of survival. it’s that long long before that he watched his people, the people he was crown prince to, starve and suffer from drought and famine. he knew far before he ever learned himself, what hunger looked like.
it’s not just that hua cheng asked xie lian if he would hate his true form even if it was ugly. it’s that he, as a child, was beaten and shamed by those who should love him. by those who could have loved him. got told he was ugly and unwanted over and over again. with his one eye already carved out, and bandages always adorning his face. while still a child. a baby only stumbling out of toddlerhood. it’s about how hua cheng had not known what love without physical body meant. and about how xie lian saw him as a child, grimy and scoundreled, and was not afraid to hold him and his blood fingers, and his blackened clothes. it’s about how xie lian never thought to worry about the physical body. for he knew the heart always. it’s that hua cheng asks xie lian as a way to know if xie lian cared now, centuries later, about the physical body. it’s that xie lian stays the same, cares only for the heart within.
it’s not just that hua cheng is called crimson rain sought flower. it’s that god xie lian’s statues held those flowers to show his gentle heart. it’s that little hua cheng used to put fresh pure white flowers at the statue of god xie lian and ask to it every day. it’s that xie lian saw him replace an old flower with a crisp new one while it was raining in their kingdom of drought. its that hua cheng used that umbrella to protect the flower that gave him his famed name. it’s that crimson and rain and sought and flower are all things that mean xie lian, but given to hua cheng. it’s that hua cheng is named xie lian. it’s that xie lian is named hua cheng.
it’s that they have been connected their entire lives. since before any story could conceive of weaving together. it’s that hua cheng is hua cheng because of xie lian. it’s that xie lian has only ever felt like himself with hua cheng.
it’s that…it’s that…they’re devoted to each other. their reason to live.
#heaven official’s blessing#tian guan ci fu#ciara reads hob#you don’t understand I am having an INSANE time reading this book
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𝕀𝕟𝕥𝕖𝕣𝕥𝕨𝕚𝕟𝕖𝕕
SFW—fantasy AU, aged up characters (21+)
pairing //fairy!bakugo x reader
summary // a story about a stubborn fairy born from laughter, refusing to abide by fairy law and instead adventuring into the world to find its maker.
word count // 1.2k
tags // fantasy AU, fairies, platonic love, platonic soulmates
AN // some flower language background you may need
daffodils: symbolize rebirth and new beginnings, bloom in spring, usually in april
orange tulips: symbolize understanding and appreciation between two people, being spiritually and physically connected to someone
The sound of raindrops on flower petals, the smell of daffodils in spring and the promise of new beginnings—rebirth. Vermillion eyes open for the first time, the faint sound of laughter echoing over the rainfall.
A tiny figure rises from inside the blooming yellow flower, sleek golden wings engraved with shimmering patters like moving vines shake off the remnants of slumber and spread wide on the fairy child’s back, full of life and eager to explore.
In the haze of feelings being born and searching for memories that have yet to be created, crimson eyes gaze into the sky above—a rainbow forming in the clearing sky as the rain dies down and makes way for the fire in his heart to light up.
Katsuki is the name this flame fairy was given by the unnamed gods, born with fiery determination and unquenching, burning desire in his soul. From the moment his eyes open and he takes in the world, takes his very first breath of air—hundreds, millions of questions bloom inside his mind, making him eager, impatient even to find his answers.
Normally, flame spirits are mischievous, they bring warmth to those who need it, but they can also set forests ablaze, burning down what stands in their way and defies them. Flame fae are temperamental, never staying in one place for long, their mood as volatile as the fire in their hearts. But all fae folk are born with purpose—they are born from laughter and they fulfill a role, upholding the laws of nature and providing the world with magic that the humans cannot perceive.
Fairies bring rain after long droughts, then turn it into frost—a single touch of theirs makes flowers bloom each morning, their songs replacing the sun with the moon. From the moment their wings flutter and their eyes take in the world, they know what they must do and they diligently do their work each day. Such is fairy law.
Yet Katsuki denied these laws—his only purpose being to answer the one question that burns the brightest in his mind, to quench his ever burning desire to meet his maker. To find the person who’s light and gleeful laughter he heard as he took his first breath of life that faithful spring day. He needed to understand what made him who he is, to observe this magic bestowed onto humans to be able to give life to his kind.
So letting go of his responsibilities, against the better judgment of his elder spirits, he sets out on his own adventure, following his own blazing path as he searches for answers. Through forests and meadows, taking shelter from the rain under amanita mushrooms in the forest and using elm tree leaves as makeshift umbrellas, he kept marching forward, directionless but with strong resolve.
No matter how many times the sun and moon take each other’s place, no matter how much the stars plead him to stop—his ruby eyes only look forward and his golden wings carry him high. Sharing burrows and seeds with field mice, asking sparrows for directions and following butterflies to patches of flowers that he could use as beds at night.
Katsuki has long since forgotten how much time had passed, how long he had been searching—not knowing how far he had even gone. But that would not stop him, uncertainty would not extinguish the fire burning in his eyes as he sets out each morning to search for that which he had not yet met. So full of hope and desire, he flies up to an orange tulip at sundown, appreciating the flower under him mimicking the sky above in fiery shades of orange—tinges of pink at the tips.
He curls up inside the flower, settling on the soft petals and being careful not to harm the stamen inside. The fragrance of the flower calms him, gently coaxing him to sleep and bringing pleasant dreams to the fae. In his dream he’s wandering amidst flower fields, chasing that laughter again—the sound as sweet as he remembered it, full of life and joy.
The melody of it guiding him home.
Katsuki is abruptly woken by the rustling of leaves nearby, a somehow familiar tune being hummed as his own flower bed trembles and he feels the world shifting under his feet. Poking his head above the flower petals it becomes clear to him the tulip he was using as shelter was picked and placed in a basket amongst other tulips, all in shades of red, orange and yellow.
He turns his head and is met with eyes he’s seen before, in his dreams—eyes full of promise and adoration, eyes that reflected his love back at him. These human eyes should not be able to perceive him as he was a fairy, born of magic that has always been beyond the grasp of humans.
Yet he was sure that you could see him—taking in his tiny frame, carefully memorizing every detail of his outfit made from leaves bound together by corn silk, inspecting closely the features on his face. Your eyes sparkle with curiosity and innocence, the most beautiful smile he had ever seen adorning your features.
From the moment his eyes met yours, his purpose became clear to him. His long search is finally over—fate had brought him to his final destination, for these magical eyes could only belong to his maker.
From inside his flower he waves shyly and is greeted back with the most delightful giggle, just like he remembers it. The sugar laced melody of your voice brings tears to his eyes as the fire inside his heart no longer rages violently, untamed, but calmly spreads from his chest to the tips of his fingers that reach for you.
Your hand stretches out to him, slowly and carefully as if he might get scared and run—index finger making contact with his tiny hands in a makeshift handshake. To him your smile was brighter than the sun, drinking in your voice as you introduce yourself to the tiny fae, asking questions that he could not answer as his voice could not reach your ears.
But even so, he gestured animatedly, smiling and flying around, using his body and his surroundings to do his best to answer you—to communicate with you.
“What brings you here?” you ask, hands placed in your lap as you sit on the grass amongst a field of flowers—your beauty overshadowing that of the tulips.
Katsuki’s wings flutter to life and like a golden ribbon of light he circles you, stopping in front of your chest and placing his little hand over your heart. Though there were no words spoken, you understood he was here for you, and you could feel that unspoken and unseen bond between you.
The feeling of familiarity seeped in your skin and bones, soaking through to your heart and soul and giving you the ability to see colors and beauty where you had not seen it before. The small frame of the golden fae rests in the palm of your hand now, and you can understand him—with every fiber of your being you understand that this magical being is woven from the same thread you are.
Therefore the next words that roll off your tongue in a whisper feel natural and ring true:
“Welcome home”
𝐃𝐈𝐒𝐂𝐋𝐀𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐑! I do not own any of the characters or people mentioned in my work. these are works of pure fiction that do not reflect the views, opinions, or actions of any person, real or fictional. Furthermore, all characters I write for [thirsts, drabbles, fics, etc.] are aged up to 21 or older – they are adults with adult characteristics presented and written in adult contexts.
all rights reserved © by maliciouslove. my work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. all fanfics belong to me, please do not copy, translate nor repost the fics or files seen above as this is strictly prohibited.
#holytext#exe#bakugo#bakugo katsuki#katsuki bakugo#fairy bakugo#sfw#bakugo sfw#bakugo fluff#bakugo comfort#katsuki sfw#katsuki fluff#katsuki comfort#katsuki bakugo sfw#katsuki bakugo fluff#katsuki bakugo comfort#bnha fantasy#bnha comfort#bnha fluff
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A list of Fanart by @crimsoncold
Organized by Fandom, includes links to posted art work (in white) and a list of ongoing series (in green), in progress works (in blue), and soon to be posted pieces (in red)
(All artwork will be tagged and made searchable with #Crimson Cold)
A Song of Ice and Fire/Game of Thrones
Jon Snow x Sansa Stark (Jonsa):
Family Portrait in the godswood of Winterfell
Weirwood Wedding (TO BE POSTED)
Free folk AU (TO BE POSTED)
Regency AU (WORK IN PROGRESS)
ASOIAF/GOT Second Generation: (ONGOING)
Robb Stark, Jon Snow, Sansa Stark,
Arya Stark, Bran Stark, Rickon Stark
House Stark
ASOIAF First Generation: (TO BE POSTED)
Miscellaneous:
Alayne Stone
Harry Potter
Harry Potter x Hermione Granger (Harmony):
Family Picnic (TO BE POSTED)
Dancing in the common room (IN PROGRESS)
Sirius Black x Hermione Granger:
Family Outing to Diagon Alley (TO BE POSTED)
Attack on Titan/ Shingeki no Kyojin
Erwin Smith x Levi Ackerman (EruRi):
Expedition beyond Wall Rose (TO BE POSTED)
The Witcher/Wiedźmin
Geralt of Rivia portrait (WORK IN PROGRESS)
Fae Jaskier | Dandelion (WORK IN PROGRESS)
Star Wars
Padmé Amidala x Obi-Wan Kenobi (Obidala):
Clone Wars AU (WORK IN PROGRESS)
Tatooine AU (TO BE POSTED)
Miscellaneous:
Queen Amidala (TO BE POSTED)
Check below for a bit about me as an artist and what my posting is going to look like...
Sudden Inspiration and a backlog of art...
For several years I was without the energy or drive to engage in the hobbies I loved so much growing up.
In 2020 (facing a sudden surplus of both free time and solitude) I started to encourage myself to take time for things that had no other purpose than making myself happy. Slowly I once again started to create art that was for my own enjoyment and done at my own pace.
A huge inspiration became the various fandoms I was a part of and by 2021 the ideas I had for various fanart pieces soon became nearly overwhelming- after a multi year drought I was finally excited to make art again!
It would however take me a while to find the courage to share my work anywhere - like many artists I sometimes struggled to see the worth in my own work and soon the absolute plague of AI generated images and AI content scraping was making me dread the idea of sharing anything publically. But with positive encouragement from friends (and holding to the firm belief that any art work/song/story/or creative piece made with the passionate effort of an inspired individual will hold vastly more worth and outdo any AI generated thing in terms of quality, impact, and longevity) I finally decided to just enjoy fully engaging in fandom and posting my fanart for anyone to enjoy.
So right now I have a 2-3 year backlog of fanart I've been working on but never posted anywhere so I'm making a master list up above that will have links to each individual piece organized according to Fandom, Concept/Series, and Pairing.
Also included in the list are completed but not yet posted pieces and in progress pieces that I will post at a later date (hopefully this will encourage me to complete and to post my 50+ backlog of art pieces steadily over time while I focus on making new fanart).
- Crimson Cold
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Yeehawgust 2023 - Day 16
Prairie Fire
The campfire crackled with life as the desert slept. Sat comfortably around the flames, the group had been sharing stories. Jules regaled about how they had helped take down President Eden, a story Leroy, Boone, and Arcade had heard a version of before. Izzy awkwardly discussed the Crimson Raiders, keeping details sparse and refusing to give more than he said. Arcade and Boone both stayed quiet, neither wanting to share their past. Arcade had been surprised at the new pair's willingness to tell tails, though he supposed that they wanted to remember the worlds they apparently came from.
Leroy had been the last to share a story. He’d been hesitant at first. His military stories were dull and the group already knew how the occupation of Vegas was going, along with his involvement in it all. His memory of before joining the NCR military had been patchy at best. He was prepared to settle on not regaleing the group with tales of his life, when a memory surfaced in his mind. One he hated that he’d forgotten.
“You don’t have to tell a story if you don’t want to.” Jules piped up from across the fire, her face alight with the fire. Their eyes a steady storm of curiosity that they tried to tame, an attempt to alleviate any pressure for him to tell his tale. But he knew better than to let Jules sit with curiosity beneath the surface.
“No, it’s fine. I’ve got something. It’s sad though.”
“If you’re comfortable with sharing, we’re all ears.”
“Well, this starts out East. Further East than the Legion, though not as far as where you herald from.” And so he began his tale, a story no one had heard before.
Young Leroy sat there, on the stump of a tree. He had been waving a stick around, pretending he was a fighter like his father. The stick was a pistol, then a rifle, then a sword. The grass, up to his waist, was a forest from his fathers stories. He was just beyond the walls of the family’s farm. He knew of the major dangers created by radiation, blowflies, radscorpions, ghouls.
“Leroy. Get back inside the wall.” His mother called.
While his father was a fighter, at 10 Leroy had not been privy to the details of his fathers work, his mother kept the farm. With a strong arm and a stern voice she kept all the workers in line, and did her best to keep young Leroy from wandering off into trouble.
The farm itself was small, a simple mutfruit and brahman farm. Nothing like the farms they passed when going to the local settlements to trade. They were large, with over 10 people working out in them. The farms that had more than one field for growing. His mother had always said those farms were far too big for the arrangement they had. Their farm was just big enough to provide for themselves during a drought but grant enough for decent trade in the better years.
He had been set to inherit that farm. Until it was lost.
The attack had come from everywhere. His father had been nowhere in sight. His mother had handed him a gun and ordered him to run. And he did. His mother was on his heels, taking down any of the sorry souls that tried to follow them. She had been just as good of a shot as his father, perhaps better. Not that either of them would admit that.
When Leroy looked back at his home, he saw nothing but fire consuming all he had known. His childhood died that day. Only 10 years old, and forced to grow up in a way he didn’t understand.
His mother insisted they were lucky to have stumbled across his father in the nearest settlement. She had frantically explained what had happened. That the farm hands were somewhere, likely dead. That the new hire had sold out the farm to some lowlife raiders. Throughout the explanation Leroy sat, thinking about everything that was in the house. He couldn’t understand why they couldn’t go back.
His father had said he could buy them passage on a caravan, get them out west. That if they could get to NCR territory they’d be able to buy land and protection for it. He had so much hope for the NCR, it bled into Leroy’s mother and then to Leroy, himself. Leroy had grown up on the road, and felt safest when travelling. Joined the NCR military to pay them back for giving his family hope after the prairie burned.
Tears brimmed in his eyes. Reflecting the fire. His eyes saw nothing but the fire. His mind saw nothing but the irony of what the NCR had done. He hadn’t seen Jules sit beside him, or that everyone had settled down, getting the much needed rest.
“It’s okay.” Her voice cut through his thoughts. They were exhausted and he could tell, but they had purposefully kept himself awake to hear Leroy’s story. He couldn’t help but shed a tear for the Jules he had lost.
With the fall of the first tear came a stream. He couldn’t see, all he could hear were his sobs, all he felt were the tremors as emotion flooded through him. He hadn’t mourned in so long.
Jules pulled him into a hug, saying nothing but just being there. Their shoulder dampened as he let go of all the emotion he had been holding onto. He didn’t let go, grateful for someone who was just there, holding him. He knew that their friendship wasn’t permanent. They would return to their world, go back to their life. Leroy would be nothing but a blip in their timeline.
But they were together in this moment. Holding each other. He didn’t let go. As his father had his mother that day.
#yeehawgust#yeehawgust 2023#fallout#fallout new vegas#fallout nv#new vegas#fallout oc#courier six#jules courier 6#leroy clayton ncr courier#aith art writing#memories#greif#tw greif
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Movies I watched this Week #108 (Year 3 / Week 4):
Un Flic, Jean-Pierre Melville’s last moody flick, a French Heist Noir. With Alain Delon playing the cop this time instead of the crook, and Catherine Deneuve just showing her beautiful self. A minimalist exercise in style and genre. 4/10.
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7 more by Polanski:
🍿 His genial first film, Knife in the water, as strong as some of cinema’s best debut features (‘Citizen Kane’, ‘Sex, lies and videotapes’, ‘Badlands’, ‘Breathless’, ‘The Iron Giant’, ‘Margin call’, ‘Who’s afraid of Virginia Woolf’, Etc). Co-written by Jerzy Skolimowski (Whose ‘EO’ I just saw last week, and whose complete canon I am going to pursue). A very tense psychological power game with only three players, which surprisingly does not end in violence. A terrific saxophone score. 8/10.
🍿 Venus in Fur, a surprising discovery! Featuring only two characters on an actual Parisian stage, a playwright who looks like a young Polanski, and his real-life wife Emmanuelle Seigner, as an actress who shows up late for an audition. it’s an engaging erotic power-play, a masochistic love story, and it deals with repression, domination, role playing, degradation and cross-dressing. A perfectly-dark subject matter for this brooding director. 9/10.
🍿 For his next number, Polanski directed his wife in another tight two-hander, Based on a True Story, with similar slow-burning psychological threats. This time about a depressed writer who is being befriended by Eva Green, a super obsessive jealous admirer. Co-written with Olivier Assayas, with some inside literary throwaway lines about Amos oz , Cormac McCarthy and Don DeLillo. 6/10.
🍿 First watch: The Pianist. I found the first 1/3 of the film artificial and glossed out in the worst-traditional Hollywood way: Everything was ‘too nice’, and too clean, and not horrible enough. Later in the ghetto and toward the end as Warsaw gets destroyed, it became a bit more “real”, if you can call it that. I can’t stand most movies about the holocaust, because they obviously have to smooth things out, make them palatable. Lanzmann’s ‘Shoah’ was an exception.
Coincidentally, I saw it on Friday, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
(Also, how did they shave in the holocaust?...)
🍿 Both ‘The Pianist’ from Warsaw and his Parisian The Tenant were made in English, which made it impossible to take them seriously. The tenant is the last of Polanski’s “Apartment Trilogy”, but it doesn’t compare to ‘Repulsion’ or ‘Rosemary’s Baby’. I can’t remember how original were the themes of sexual guilt, anxiety, cross-dressing and paranoia in 1976, but they surely didn’t age well.
🍿 “...It won't hold. I won't build it. It's that simple - I am not making that kind of mistake twice...”
To me, Chinatown is one of the ‘Best films of all time’. It’s like a song I can listen to again and again and again.
The quintessential LA film, the haunting nostalgia to an era that existed only on celluloid. A perfect dark Noir on every level: the perfect screenplay, the masterful sound and score, even the character names are iconic, Lieutenant Lou Escobar, Russ Yelburton, Hollis Mulwray, Noah Cross, Emma Dill. And Jake “Gits” who appears in every scene and gradually being pulled into the tragic mystery together with us, not realizing that he is played for a fool. This film is about duality, (Sister/daughter, money/power, water/drought, the city and the valley) and about ‘Eyes that are Flawed’. Always 10/10.
🍿 I was planning on seeing all of the Polanski movies I haven’t seen yet, but I had to stop after The Fearless Vampire Killers. Good for him for meeting Sharon Tate during the shooting of this lame Central European vampire ‘parody’, but it took me 3 days to finish it, it was so so tedious. 1/10.
If I were to write a new vampire comedy today, I would call it ‘Garlic’.
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“Life is brief; fall in love, maidens, before the crimson bloom fades from your lips . . .” Ikiru, Kurosawa’s timeless retelling of Tolstoy’s ‘Death of Ivan Ilyich’ about the ‘meaning of life’. A terminally-ill salaryman realizes that he never really lived.
I plan on taking a deep dive into Takashi Shimura‘s vast portfolio.
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3 with Alba Rohrwacher, 2 by Paolo Genovese:
🍿 The pupils, a short by Alice Rohrwacher (who directed some episodes of Elena Ferrante‘s ‘My brilliant Friend’). A somehow-related topic to ‘Friend’, it tells of a group of young girls at a Catholic boarding school during the war, and stars Alice’s sister Alba as the Mother Superior. The day after watching it, I was surprised to read that it was nominated for the 2023 Oscars!
🍿...”How many couples would split up if they looked at each other’s phones?”...
Perfect strangers is a perfectly acceptable drama about a group of middle class friends who meet during an eclipse of the moon for their regular dinner. But this time they decide to play a game, and leave their phones in the middle of the table. It’s dark, dialogue-rich, witty and intelligent. 7/10.
This movie has a completely unique history though: Since 2016, it had been re-made into 24 versions, in 24 countries - I never heard of any other movie like that!
🍿 Genovese next metaphorical film, The Place, from the following year, had one of the most unusual stories I ever saw on film. It all takes place at a small cafe where an ordinary looking man meets with various people, and grants them any wish they have, if they perform an arbitrary task he assign them. Yes, it’s the story of Faust, and yes, apparently is is based on a concept from an earlier Canadian TV-show, but I found it absolutely fascinating. 9/10.
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Another nominee for this year’s Oscars, My year of dicks. A feminist animation short about a 15-year-old girl in the early 90′s who is determined to lose her virginity. Explicit, real talk and original about the first sexual experience from a girl’s point of view.
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2 award-winners from Finland:
🍿 Grand Prix winner at Cannes, Compartment Number 6 is different: It starts in a claustrophobic, uncomfortable and compact sleeping car train, which a Finnish woman has to share with a gruff and unfriendly Russian miner. This is the first film I ever hoped to see from the bleak, arctic desert of Murmansk. It ends up literally at the edge of the world, with wide and endless frozen landscapes all around. 8/10.
🍿 The White Reindeer, a 1952 folk horror tale about a Sami woman, wife of a arctic reindeer herder, who turns into a witch in order to make her new husband attracted to her. Not too interesting.
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You people, a new rom-com. It started frantically in a upper-middle-class, plugged-in Brentwood synagogue on Yom Kippur with super hipster Jonah Hill’s family that made me wanna throw up. But soon it turned into a super-sweet romance of super-sensitive Jewish Hill who falls for Eddie Murphy’s black daughter, and sometimes-funny update to ‘Guess who’s coming to dinner’ 55 years later. Eventually it fizzled out into a typical Netflix-level sitcom. 3/10.
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2 unrelated depression musicals:
🍿 "Never again will I allow women to wear my dresses!”
Israel Beilin’s (Irving Berlin’s) musical Top Hat with Frederick Austerlitz (Fred Astaire) and Virginia Katherine McMath (Ginger Rogers). Wonderful high-society dance numbers (mostly in single-shot) in great rooms with 20 ft. ceilings. (Photo Above).
🍿 Re-watching Pennies from Heaven, a strange and uneven musical soap opera by Herbaert Ross. The musical numbers with Steve Martin,Bernadette Peters and Christopher Walken lip-syncing and dancing in Busby Berkeley-style extravaganza, were marvelous. But the depressing drama about a drifting, amoral and horny sheet music salesman who falls in and out of love with a mousy teacher turned prostitute was appalling. It does re-create (nicely, but for no apparent reason) Edward Hopper’s Nighthawks in one scene, and also uses a scene from Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers’ ‘Follow the fleet’ as background, in another.
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Re-watching the revenge flick Law Abiding Citizen with non-actor Gerard Butler. I remembered it as a technologically-sophisticated ‘fight for justice’ story. But no: It was just sadistic entertainment for sadists, which opened with a brutal child-killing and Clockwork Orange rape, and and continued from there. 2/10.
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Stand up with Jimmy O. Yang: Good Deal. Leaning hard into his hapless Jian Yang character from ‘Silicon Valley”.
Bonus: 25 minutes of The best of Jian-Yang.
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Throw-back to the art project:
Adora in Chinatown (again).
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(My complete movie list is here)
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I wrote a poem
hope you like it <3
______________________________________________________________
Existance:
Why do you hate yourself?
When your cellulitis looks like moon craters
and Your stretch marks look like ocean waves
When the moles and marks and scars
Look like galaxies and shooting starts
When you say your hair
"Looks like a bird's nest"
I think of the life we could live
The life we could have
In our own corner of the Earth
Your wrinkles tell your story
Wether you've
Cried
Laughed
or Shared your words the most
The dark brown eyes you call mud
Remind me of rainy mornings in bed
or Crimson rubber boots at the park
When you talk about your "Witch nose"
I think of fishing trips
and Cabins in the woods
The fat along your body
Remind me of warm nights
and Lazy Sunday mornings
When you cry you remind me of the clouds
and How they, too, know strength in vulnerability
It reminds me of the rain
How even after a long drought
It comes back strong
Breathing life into everything it touches
So tell me, why do you hate yourself?
When every piece of you screams life
And every part of you reminds the world
That beauty
Still exists?
______________________________________________________________
okay bye now hope you have a wonderful day/afternoon/night!
<333
#i really like poetry and i'm kinda just starting to write it myself so sorry if this is bad lol#<33#love you!#bye now
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Kobold Clan Names
All kobold clans are named after a magic item or ancient relic they have access to which defends their clan, influences their fashion, and shapes their culture.
The Red Hat clan for example, has a Crimson Red Iron helmet which allows the wearer to breathe dragon fire at will!
Clan Sky Eater has a sword that when held up to the sky calls down a violent thunderstorm to strike down their enemies! They use it to water crops in the region, and charge ancient generators in nearby villages.
One time Swordbearer Dro used it to recharge one of the ancient data tables out in the fields, and it started to play a movie from the old world! None of us could understand what anyone was saying, but there was a cool fight between two wizards with hard light swords.
Clan Rata Rata Rata has a replicating armory of submachine guns, and each member carried two of them into battle! They work with Dwarves under the mountains to melt down the guns, and use the metal to build tools and houses. They also sell the bullets to travelers in exchange for gossip and stories.
Clan Iron Skin has a fully working old world tank they built their village inside of! They use their mobile fortress to ferry people from one town to the next. They carry out rescue missions in the old world ruins. One day they hope to make the ruins safe enough for everyone to settle.
Then there's clan Magic Metal Box. They have a pantry with infinite unmarked soup cans that changes each day. They sell them to people as mystery meal boxes, and run a very successful restaurant in the central valley. When the droughts hit a few winters ago, their entire clan travelled to every town in the valley and made sure no family went hungry.
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Ranka?
oh god i typed way more than previously intented
Why I like them: It's always so hard to choose where to start with my faves! Funny enough, before I got into Arc 2, I figured she was gonna be a "token tsundere" character and that I probably wouldn't get very invested in her. How completely wrong I was on both counts...
She's crafty, has a sense of humour, and is a supportive friend to the few people she's close with. But she can be hard to get along with since she's abrasive and short-tempered, and she has trouble expressing more "vulnerable" feelings, like concern or guilt. Even simply letting her guard down to make friends is difficult for her. Some of this is her natural personality, but I bet some of it comes from the trauma she endured in Futatsugi's witch drought, too. She would've had to get used to lying, fighting, and putting up walls for herself just to survive. Trying to readjust to being a normal teenage girl would feel impossible after that.
(lmao @ the way her romance advice is "love is war, you know! if you don't go for it, someone else will snatch them up." as if she doesn't struggle with being honest about her feelings)
The way she hurts people (ie. Ao and Rena) and then later goads them into attacking her is-- "good" feels like a weird word to use here. Sad-yet-interesting? She pushes them into attacking her because she feels like she deserves punishment for making them suffer, which. :( rankaaa.......
... This could tie back into her messy family life, now that I think about it. Maybe a bit of a Yozuru-type mindset where she's used to getting punished for every mistake.......
and she's super cute with a nice voice, so +2 for those. it's fun that her normal speaking voice is kinda cutesy and then gets a lot rougher when she gets mad (which is often)
Why I don't: This isn't a criticism of Ranka herself, but man, why would F4 make her episode level up quote "That arcade that became a sacred ground… I’ve actually got something to do with it. Wanna hear more?" and then refuse to elaborate in either her MSS, an event, or the main story??? >:( f4 i am tapping on your window respectfully please give us the Ranka Lore
Favorite episode (scene if movie): Crimson Resolve! Perhaps I am biased for... reasons™️, but honestly she's just really good in CR anyway.
I can't decide if my favorite moment with her is when she's telling Juri "I won't leave you" when Juri is lying around their base feeling pathetic, or when she's baiting Ao into fighting her at Janomiya's base. Actually, I think I'll talk about the latter for a sec.
It's implied that Ao and Ranka were friends before everything went to shit, since they know each other's screen names. Then in Monzenbashi, Ranka was often ordered to violently punish the gang's weaker magical girls for their failures. This included Ao, regularly and repeatedly-- Ao herself talks about how many times she was beaten and robbed.
What a horrible situation all around. Ranka would've felt bad enough already for the things she had to do, but I imagine that having to hurt an old friend over and over again was excruciating. She knows Ao resents her for it-- but she probably resents herself for it even more.
Constantly telling Ao things like "If you really hate me, you should be able to do more than this...!" and "Keep going and show me just how much you hate me, Ao." in their fight, trying to get Ao to hurt her back (or flat-out kill her) for all the times she had to make Ao suffer... Even the Bat notices that Ranka is taking Ao's hits on purpose, to which Ranka replies "This is how it should be."
Just... God. I can't imagine how long Ranka's been bottling up all that shame. Despite all the awful things she's done, she herself is a good person at heart, as shown by her being so consumed by guilt that she would've let Ao murder her.
I love Ranka, man. ;_;
Favorite season/movie: Er, Arc 2 again. (she does show up briefly in the A New Beginning event from the end of Arc 1, but that doesn't count)
Favorite line: That'd have to be:
"Back then, I did everything the Bat told me to. Even things I didn't want to... Because I thought I couldn't make it without someone strong nearby."
... full disclosure, this is partly my favorite because I have terminal komoran brainrot. HOWEVER it also sheds some neat light on her personality? She often acts pretty cocky and self-assured, but similar to Rena, she seems to be very insecure under all of that.
Like I said earlier, she was regularly ordered to punish Monzenbashi girls who didn't live up to the gang's standards. We see this in a flashback in CR, as well as in Ao's MSS, where she hesitates to join the Bat in torturing some weak girls in their base. Originally, it seemed curious to me that Ranka chose to stay in Monzenbashi, despite what the Bat always put her through-- but perhaps she didn't think she was strong enough to join Ryuugasaki or Torayamachi? Or maybe some part of her felt safe under the Bat's wing, away from the Torayamachi/Ryuugasaki conflict. The Bat did work to protect her from rival gangs, after all.
Ranka might not be on the same level as Futatsugi's gang leaders, but she isn't a pushover, either. Learning that she saw herself as weak and incapable of surviving on her own (hey, another yozuru similarity) is interesting, as well as... honestly pretty depressing. She let herself get dragged around and used however the Bat saw fit because she thought she'd die without someone stronger to cling to-- because as much as this situation hurts, she's even more scared of what could happen if she was alone.
Yeah. This is a good line.
Favorite outfit: She only has her school uniform and her magical girl outfit at the moment, but between the two, I like her magical girl outfit best! The colour scheme is nice, and it gives that classic console/arcade vibe without being tacky. The ruffle necktie and the ribbons around her ankles are cute, too.
OTP: KOMORAN!!!! im going to fling myself into the sun im so [clutches my fistful of crumbs like a lifeline]
idk how I got this deeply invested in Bat (kōmori)/Ranka, but it's gotta be tied for my favorite magireco ship (the other one being juriyuna). The Bat only shows up in CR and a few flashbacks, and is... uh, kinda implied to have been killed by the end of CR (disregard that), but what we do see of her relationship with Ranka managed to strike a perfect chord for me anyway. Got that bad-good potential.
The Bat clearly likes Ranka, given that she appointed Ranka as her second-in-command. We never see her torture Ranka like she does with... uh, basically everyone else in Monzenbashi, which has to count for something. When Ranka was letting Ao beat her up, the Bat jumped in to protect her, knocking Ao away to put some distance between them. Although she'd expressed that she wanted to force Ao to work for her again, she was ready to kill Ao herself if it meant keeping Ranka alive.
That's... kinda sweet to me? Like. idk if the Bat's "I want to be at the top of the food chain" thing stems from a fear of vulnerability like Ao's does, but... She says that she doesn't regret the awful things she's done because she had to kill and steal from others, lest she be eaten alive herself. And yet, despite what could be taken as the Bat having some deep-rooted trust issues, she still trusts Ranka. She likes Ranka, to the point where it pisses her off to watch Ranka let herself get hurt. She doesn't want to lose her.
... listen, man, I'm weak for the trope of coldhearted, vicious, and/or jaded characters having one person they genuinely care for. It's cute!!! ;_;
On Ranka's end, her feelings are... more complicated. Despite the Bat putting Ranka through hell without the barest of apologies, Ranka never cut contact with her after Monzenbashi fell apart. They're still on good speaking terms in Ryuugasaki together. Ranka gets back together with her shitty ex teams up to fight with the Bat again in the second half of CR, so I guess the Bat doesn't hold Monzenbashi's downfall against Ranka, either.
(still kinda funny to me that ranka was literally in tears begging juri to save her from monzenbashi pre-CR and then i guess juri was like "ok. i'm gonna beat up your boss so she works for ME now" instead of killing the bat. thanks juri lol)
I feel like... for as much as Ranka hates what she had to do, and as much as she likely also resents the Bat for exploiting her, the better parts of their relationship make it hard for her to hate the Bat completely. She protected Ranka for a long time, after all; Ranka probably figures she would be dead by now if it weren't for that. I don't know if they knew each other prior to Monzenbashi or not (BACKSTORY...), but they seem close, so I choose to believe that they at least saw each other outside of gang time. Hung out at the arcade or smth. cute date stuff
Following Monzenbashi's downfall, I feel like Ranka would know that she should cut ties with the Bat, but... She's ended up with this sick sort of attachment to their relationship where she doesn't know if she wants to leave anymore. She both loves and hates the Bat, for many reasons-- but either way, she spent so long by the Bat's side that it's hard to picture not being with her anymore.
10/10 ship; has given me brain fungus for a year and a half now with no signs of stopping
Brotp: Since I answered Juri+Ranka for Juri, I'm gonna go with Ranka+Rena this time! They're similar enough that they were bound to either be best friends or absolutely hate each other, so I'm glad that they ended up being friends, haha. (Although they do still butt heads a lot.)
Their relationship starts off so fun in Ranka's MSS (do recommend giving it a watch, for anyone who hasn't yet!), with them bumping into each other and deciding to face off in various games to determine which one of them should apologize (neither of them do lmao). Ranka hangs out with Team KMR, has a good time, gets to relax and be happy for the first time in ages... and then you realize that it was doomed from the start because of the PB/KMU circumstances.
Ranka leaving Rena's last text on read makes me emotional. ;_; Poor Ranka having to break things off, but also poor Rena-- she has such awful self-esteem; she probably thought she did something to make Ranka hate her.
Their repeated fights through the main story chapters are good in a painful way (I can totally see why people ship them; "star-crossed" is an apt description for their relationship). My heart broke in ch.7 when Ranka couldn't bring herself to kill Rena, and instead shooed her off, hoping that if Rena had to die, it'd be by someone else's hand.
On the bright side, PB and the KMU are allies now!! So I hope we get to see Ranka and Rena hang out again... ;; (Sorry Momoko; you'll have 2 Renas to handle soon.)
Headcanon: Going by the advice she gave Ao about designing a swimsuit in a video game, I headcanon that Ranka's the type of person to put her character in a ridiculous outfit in games, especially if she's going online. One of those jokey mascot costumes that clips through everything, or a hideous MH clownsuit (now with layered armor for maximum ugly!). The kind of armor that makes other players go "lol nice" or "wtf are you wearing???" when she joins the hub. Probably beat BotW with Link naked in a Moblin mask.
Unpopular opinion: hm...... well, uh, I have trouble picturing ranrena romantically, somehow, despite it being probably the most popular Ranka ship next to juriran. _(:3 」∠)_ It's like, I can still appreciate art/fics for it, but whenever I try to imagine them as girlfriends my brain is like [TV static]. Just can't get into it myself, I suppose.
(lukewarm opinion on a popular ship probably doesn't quite count as "unpopular" but it's the best i've got here)
A wish: I really want her to get a nice homescreen outfit. The ideal would be something pretty and vampire-themed for Halloween because she gives me that vibe, but I'd take any other seasonal (or casual!) outfit too.
An oh-god-please-don't-ever-happen: please don't let her die ;_; Aside from the fact that she's one of my faves, PB and the KMU just formed a tentative allyship, meaning that Ranka and Rena can finally be friends for real. Don't take that away from them, F4...!
5 words to best describe them: okay okay i'll take this seriously now Conflicted, playful, stubborn, hotheaded, clever
My nickname for them: N/A; just "Ranka".
#magia record#chizu ranka#hc post#long post#asks#putting my brainrot on display for the world to see
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I AM EMOTIONAL ABOUT UMBRELLAS
Xie Lian feeling hopeless about how to help the Yong'an drought as it starts to rain in the capital of Xianle. The emptiness of the words he reads on the little shrine in the rain after he has beheld real suffering: body in abyss, soul in paradise. The rain and umbrellas. The rain as a source of life that people in Yong'an are dying without, and in the capital its an inconvenience, getting caught in the rain is bad luck. The bamboo hat. Kindness and scarcity. The rules of what is right when they go against what is compassionate. All those rules that were created by Jun Wu because all the suffering his compassion caused. The precarity of the weather, the destruction and life it brings, scenario after scenario of environmental crisis that creates scarcity, that creates war. Guoshi's story to Xie Lian about the two people in the desert and the god who can give a cup of water to save only one of them, Xie Lian's story to Lang Qianqiu about how to stop two people fighting for food. You cannot expand the source, you cannot change fates, give more luck, what is given must be taken from somewhere, so Xie Lian chooses to give everything he has, give another cup when that means he will have no cup for himself. Hong Hong-er, hungry and bruised and homeless, bringing a fresh flower to the humble shrine and asking an invisible God how can he live? Live for me. The umbrella some Xianle locals casually give Xie Lian in the rain while he's thinking about the people dying in dry, hot Yong'an, the bamboo hat he is given as he lies in the rain in the kingdom of Yong'an with a stab wound, desperate for just one person to help him. The umbrella he gives Hong Hong-er, planted like a crimson flower in the mud, the umbrella Crimson Rain Sought Flower holds up to shield first a flower, then Xie Lian, from a downpour of blood.
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I've always been curious about the quantity of magical girls in the PMMM world and how many of them can be in an area without conflict. I remember reading The Different Story spinoff, where Homura muses that 4 magical girls (herself, Mami, Kyoko, and Sayaka) in Mitakihara is too many and there aren't enough Witches to go around. Other spinoffs like Oriko Magica and Suzune Magica imply that the number of magical girls in a given city is pretty small. But Kamihama has, like, at least 100 magical girls. I know it's a special case, but even the other cities and towns in Magia Record seem to have a glut of magical girls. Like, the city where Promised Blood originated had enough magical girls for them to form their own gangs.
I do like the increased quantity of magical girls that Magia Record has, though. I've always thought it was weird that Mitakihara is so big and is said to be a prime spot for Witches and yet for quite a while Mami seems to have been the only one patrolling it.
Late, sorry!
I think the out-of-universe answer is that the game wants to keep making more characters, therefor the cities are suspiciously stuffed with magical girls.
For in-universe answers, hmmm.
Kamihama is a special case-- but also, I feel like the fact that the purification/doppel system exists as it does is a reason there are so many magical girls. Like, think about every uncap that happens. Without the doppels, all of Mikazuki Villa is gone, and so is Emiri, Meiyui, Nanaka, Kako, Shizuku, Hinano, ect.
And in some cases, if one character falls (Hinano, Nanaka, ect), then we can imagine a ton of other characters “falling” as well, whether that to be a witch themself or death in combat. Imagine how bad the ward situation in Kamihama would be if Hinano didn’t exist-- I feel like her holding down the center was the only reason that the West and East didn’t descend into their own version of Crimson Resolve.
I feel like Kyubey probably gets more characters to contract than we know of. After all, he needs to have a few witches out there so that magical girls have an enemy to fight, but he also can’t have witches just running rampant everywhere too. He also needs to make more than what you’d originally think, because not every magical girl will become a witch-- some will just die. Characters like Mami in the original were noted to be kind of rare because she had been a magical girl for at least a year which is... pretty horrifying when you think about it.
Additionally, Mami had Mitakihara on lockdown, and Kyubey seemed to regard her as a cleaner of some sort (in Nagisa’s event story, Kyubey mentions needing to bring Mami in to get rid of the witch). Even though Kyubey wants some magical girls to become witches, he probably values having someone as strong as Mami around for those kind of circumstances, so I can see him contracting a bunch of girls (who’d witch out very quickly) just for Mami’s sake.
As for other places, like the Promised Blood city... I honestly don’t know. I think it’s possible that, since the girls had formed into gangs, they might have prolonged their lifespans and put off becoming a witch for a while. There are benefits to working alone (all the grief seeds that drop are yours, ect), but there are also a lot of benefits to working with a team-- sure, you have to share grief seeds, but you’re less likely to die, and if you’re on the brink of despair, it’s possible for your teammates to fix you up by witch hunting for your own sake.
It’s weird though, because the Promised Blood are noted to have killed Kyubeys repeatedly until Kyubey didn’t visit the city anymore to stop him from making magical girl contracts. So where the fuck did all those girls come from? It’s possible some people transferred in, but that would mean a lot of characters are long-term veterans (for a magical girl), which I have a hard time buying, especially with a drought.
Lastly, I don’t know if there are too many magical girls in the Promised Blood area. I think that Yuna and Juri had nine each on their teams (forgive my memories from watching Crimson Resolve a while back)-- which is still a fuckton, but not as many as Kamihama has.
I also kind of wonder if the setting itself has any part for the meguca to witch ratio. I feel like that a more affluent city might have less witches/less magical girls, whereas a poorer city will have more. In Promised Blood, Yuna is said to have made her school into a much better one so maybe the Promised Blood city is sort of not as good? I’m not sure.
This is an excellent question though and I’d love to hear what other people have to say on it.
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VALOR - DARTH MAUL
CHAPTER ONE: THE HUNTRESS AND THE HUNTER
SUMMARY: After attempting to kill a Sith lord unbeknownst to her, Ucilla Zykoff realizes she has made a grave mistake.
WORD COUNT: 3.4K
NOTES: Chapter one here we goooo! Love a couple who want to murder each other on sight. Sorry it took so long. I had so many ideas ready to go, then life got in the way. Anyway! I have a discord that my readers can use to discuss the story! It also let me share my silly memes and get to know y’all. Thank you for reading!
WARNINGS: general sci-fi violence
VALOR MASTERLIST
AS THE SUN BENDS BEHIND the horizon, the cover of night encapsulates the city. With the rising of the moon, the mission is awoken.
Dusk phasing into night elapses with a stillness, but as a gust of sudden wind shakes the shutters as it passes, a chill runs up her spine. Startled by the sounds for a fleeting moment, a sigh passes through her lips before turning into a bemused hum. Cool air drifts over her skin, soothing yet awakening. With the seasons beginning to change towards a wet, flourish spring, the air is crisp and dry from a winter willing itself to create one last frost before retreating once more. She would be offworld long before the petals started to bloom.
Once the last of the day's shadows unite into one blanket of darkness, Ucilla Zykoff stands from the measly excuse of a bed to glance out the window through the slits of the shutters. Her icy blonde hair is pulled back with a tie resting against the nape of her neck, a few hairs escaping to try to obscure her sight. Her golden eyes watch figures tuck into their homes, counting down the seconds until their lights are shut until the next morning. It will not be long before the impenetrable sound of the night life masks her task from wandering eyes and ears. Tucking strands of hair behind her ear, the young woman leans back on the wall of her room. Cobwebs cling to the fabric of her clothes as she does so.
The establishment is nothing to rave about, though the dusty room and a firm cot above a noisy cantina is a luxury in comparison to other make-shift lodgings. The bounty hunter has grown used to rocks boring into her spine, cramped spaces, and days without sleep— typical for someone in this line of work.
Across from her, a sniper rifle stands against the opposite wall. The durasteel has seen better days, but so has she. Ucilla pushes herself off from where she leans, making her way towards her weapon. It is surprisingly light due to Ucilla's modifications. Positioning her sniper rifle in her hands, Ucilla now waits patiently for movement off in the distance. The barrel of the gun sits between the slightly ajar shutters, invisible to any bystander. Waiting was part of the job, and she has become very good at it.
Ucilla scans the rooftops of the city buildings using the scope attached to her weapon. The infrared colors become all too boring as the sight hardly changes over a period of minutes. The job is similar to any of the other hundreds she is taken: hunt, locate, go for the kill. All her missions become an identical cluster after a while.
The night carries on and Ucilla's eyes are beginning to sore from being trained on movement. All she wants is to get the job over with and allow herself to indulge in the reward. Bounty hunting is not a line of work that she believed would ever suit her, but with the hefty rewards for high targets, the comfort of credits is enough to keep her coming back. Even though Ucilla could buy a small house or decent apartment for what she currently has in Republic credits, settling down never seemed to work out well for the Scaki. She had not even returned to her home world, despite having every reason to do so.
Where once soft mummers acted as a hush over the city, now the lights and the noise of cantinas flood the dark alleys and streets. The city is preoccupied by dreams or by those wishing to live in dream, opting for late nights in hopes to escape from the trivial lives they find themselves in. As such, Ucilla would remain unbothered.
As the sound of drunken men and flirtatious women reverberate as echoes under her feet, Ucilla uses the increasing noise from the cantinas around the area to mask the sound of her ignited weapon. No one would hear a whirling buzz or the unexpected cry when a tankard had drowned out all their senses.
Ucilla is good at her practice. She must. There are many hunters who would not bat an eye in killing her if she stood in the way of an expensive bounty. Trial and error led her to where she is, and it did not take long before her use of stealth, accuracy, and efficiency turned her into a highly sought out freelance bounty hunter.
Though she would never admit to it openly, Ucilla has a slight advantage on her associates. One being evident by the cylindrical weapon always hidden at the bottom of her satchel that has not been ignited in years.
Ucilla learned long ago that studying a target is far more beneficial than making things quick and messy. After all, depending on the target, the price typically rises each week. For instance, in the scope of her rifle, Ucilla now spots the man who disclosed a long list of individuals working for one of the galaxy's biggest crime syndicates: his bounty doubled just two days ago.
Over the week and a half, she spent watching Jaro Linst, Ucilla had memorized the snitch's schedule. In the morning, he wakes early to have a large breakfast. He stays indoors during the days, but he typically makes a run to a shop or the market before noon. He seldom has guests, but when he does, their either men being paid to protect him from the Hutts or Twi'leks being led by chains. When night envelops the area, he is bold enough to bring his guests to the rooftop of his hideout. Linst's eyes are always shut as he takes the first breath of the nighttime air, absorbed in the taste of prolonged freedom.
Just as she suspected, Linst reaches the top of the building with a drink in his hand and his broad, tall body open to whatever blaster fire she could afford to waste.
However, unlike most nights, his face is turned downwards, and he is not entirely alone.
Trailing behind the man, a figure in all black has their face hidden by a heavy cloak with a hood. This offered no indication as to who this mysterious person may be. Not that it mattered. Her bounty was clear: kill Jaro Linst and get the reward, no matter what happens.
Her sniper-rifle is angled towards her bounty but, given the fact that Linst may have more hunters on his trail, Ucilla decides on removing the additional threat first. In the scope, the hood still conceals the face of the new target.
No matter.
She pulls back on the trigger.
The shot rings out near silently and in perfect alignment.
But it never reaches the head of her target. Instead, it ricochets off a familiar weapon and embarks on a mission straight towards her forehead.
Ucilla dodges the attack, rolling her back against the wall of her hotel room just in time as the red blaster fire digs straight through the opposite wall. Imagining if she had frozen for half a second more, Ucilla offers her blessing to the makers for her reflexes.
Clutching the gun to her chest, Ucilla finds herself now semi-frozen in fear. An icy feeling coursing through her veins offers no help in alleviating the shock. Instead, she releases the breath she was holding from stupor, blinking away the cloudy vision.
The brightly colored weapon that shot her fire back was one she had used long ago. This time, the blade was not lilac in color. Even the most uneducated creature could sense the danger that flows through the shaft, the deep dreadful color that exuberates caution.
A bleeding kyber crystal resides in that blade, crimson in color.
"Kriff."
Wasting no time, Ucilla lowers herself to the ground, carefully making sure the lightsaber wielder could not see her through the shutters. Cursing in every language she knows, Ucilla crawls on her belly until she finds the brown satchel at the foot of the cot. In haste, the blonde slips the strap over her head, hugging across her chest tightly, but there was no time to adjust. She flings the rifle over her shoulder before hurriedly skidding out the door.
On her way out, Ucilla pushes through drunken patrons to reach the bar to slam down a handful of credits on the counter in front of the inn keeper, continuing to walk towards the exit as she does so. The inn keeper raises his voice, calling out that she owes him more, but his voice is drowned out among the crowd and she is already gone.
Lifting her wrist closer to her face, the Scaki swipes through her holocom until Jaro Linst's bounty appears. Despite the large sum, Ucilla presses down on the option to forfeit. There was no chance she would go near a mission that was compromised by a Dark sided individual.
A Sith.
Ucilla could not calm her heart, the organ forcing blood to pump fast through her body. The reverberation echoes in her ears. But the headache is nothing in comparison to what the Sith could do to her.
She was almost to the heart of the city when an impeccable drought in the energy stifled her movements. The atmosphere is heavy, darkness tingling at her senses. Ucilla's hair stands on end at the sensation. Against her better judgment, she freezes.
Moments later, Ucilla's thrown off her feet, landing hard against a wall before crumpling down.
The blow had torn the breath right out of her. Gasping, Ucilla reaches for her chest, gripping the long, worn leather vest tight in her palms. From the inside pocket above her heart, she pulls out a circular object, yanking the pin out of place before dropping it to the ground.
Footsteps draw near. Instead of wasting her time, Ucilla prances from her crouch and bolts up the side of the wall, using rails and the closeness of the buildings as her foot and handholds. She forces her body to move swift and precise, just as she was taught years ago. By the time she reached the roof, the smoke bomb had gone off. All Ucilla can do is hope that the distraction is enough.
Ucilla is left without much of another option. The shingled roofs were difficult to adjust to at first, some coming lose from her added weight, but eventually her footing held on and she was off like a speeder. Running along the tops of the buildings, jumping to the next one with grace and stead, Ucilla knew when to dodge attacks and when to advert her direction. It was not the first time she was running away from a foe, and she had a feeling it would not be the last.
Daring to look back, Ucilla feels her heart drop. The man following her copies each step, leap, and now, he is close enough to claim her dead, for real this time.
With no other option, Ucilla calculates her jump. Instead of throwing herself far enough to reach the next building, she leaps down several stories. Thankfully, they had come across the hub of the city and a canopy breaks her fall, bouncing from the cloth and onto the ground once more. The moment her tall boots hit the earth, she is off running again. With so many people wandering the streets, Ucilla hopes she can blend in, even though she is seemingly the only one in worn clothes and dashing through the streets.
The city is vast and incredibly narrow— easy to get lost in— but Ucilla had been here for quite some time, learning every back alley and corner shop during her weeks on the planet. With this knowledge in mind, surely, she has some advantage over her opponent. How likely is it that they, too, has memorized back alleys that leads to the shipyard?
Ucilla felt as though she could feel their breath on her neck, their fingertips just centimeters from gripping her hair. As if possible, her legs pushed harder than ever before.
Ducking into a back alley, Ucilla used her petite figure to maneuver through the garbage, boxes, and drunks that scattered the path. To her surprise, the person following was not prepared for the turn nor the obstacles in their path. They had fallen behind. She takes this moment to press her back against a wall between two strangers, pulling her hood further to hide her face.
It was not long after when Ucilla feels the dark ease away. She needs to know if he still lingers. Before she can make it safely to her ship, she will have to know how far behind the hunter is and if he can easily make it onto her ship or destroy it in some way.
Any normal foe would have mistakenly moved on from the area, never to find her again. Though she has never faced off against a Sith before, nor does she know anyone who has, what Ucilla does know is that there is no telling what a creature fueled by uncontrollable emotions with an unpredictable nature will do.
Before the drunken men could ask once more if she would like a drink, Ucilla pushes herself from the stone wall, cautiously making her way through street after street, back alley after alley. Her heart hammers in her chest no matter how she tried to stop it. Without knowing what kind of species the dark side wielder is, she has no conclusive answer if he can hear her labored breathing. As she sticks to the shadows of the city, Ucilla sends silent prayers to the makers to spare her this time.
With each step nearing the shipyard, the amount of people out and about grow less and less. By the time she was within blocks of her ship, only a few stragglers walked the streets. She felt lucky, allowing herself to walk faster even if the passersby gave suspicious looks.
Ucilla is no more than a block from the garage where her ship was located when she tumbled to the ground, a powerful blow toppling her, a wrestling match ensuing to determine life or death.
Kicking the figure off her, she throws a punch blindly. The huntress's punch misses the figure's jaw by a second, but that does not stop her from swinging again.
To her surprise, the saber is not ignited, nor does he go to reach for the weapon. The Force wielder instead copying her hand-to-hand combat. Maybe they thought she deserved a fair chance, or maybe they were simply trying to torture her into submission.
The hunter was the first to strike a powerful blow.
Ucilla's nose begins to bleed upon the impact of a fist, knocking her dazed for a moment. In the haste of her backing up and the figure coming forward, Ucilla did what any bounty hunter would have done.
Perhaps the cloaked Sith was not expecting the blaster to be drawn and the trigger to be pulled so fast, because the hunter is thrown off balance by a bolt embedding itself into their shoulder. A sound akin to a growl shakes Ucilla to the core.
When his head turns back, the hood from his cloak falls, just enough to give Ucilla a picture for her nightmares.
A male Zabrak. How interesting. Ucilla's eyes run over the intricate black tattoos on his face, trailing from where they start down to where they disappear beyond his dark robes. The red and black contrast is frightening to some degree, but Ucilla has faced worse. His appearance matches the fiery energy he exudes. Horns adorn his skull, several points wrapping around to remind Ucilla of a crown. Glowing, boiling amber of his altered eyes catch her attention.
So full of hate and anger; a storm that brings no calm in the wake of its destruction. There is a moment where Ucilla wonders what happened to this Sith, the journey that led him here to strike her down.
A Sith deals with the lust for absolute power, the destruction of the universe to make their strength known. To conquer is all they know, no matter who stands in their way.
He bares his teeth, and Ucilla can feel the rage coming from him. Rather than sticking around to anticipate his next move, Ucilla shoots several more times in the Zabrak's direction then begins to run to where her ship waits.
She can feel his decision, the way his anger directs his actions, how his natural rage bubbles over, destruction always existing, white-hot. There was no other warning before the Zabrak throws the dual blade at her. Instincts kick in. Ucilla turns on her heel to hold out her hand, something she has not done in years.
In midair, the blade is still. One entity aims to kill, the other refuses to let death take her.
The blade then falls, dust splashing along the steel. Both watch the unignited weapon on the ground. Simultaneously, both look up, their eyes meeting with new sentiment.
The tension is heavy in that street. Neither can predict what the other is thinking nor what moves they plan on making. However, there is something that Ucilla can read off the Zabrak. The squint to his eyes combined with wrinkles forming on his forehead tells her that his mind races with questions. After all, he most likely was not expecting the night to end with a woman one-upping him in the Force. Like a switch, Ucilla suddenly feels the anger exploding from the Zabrak; he is not going to let her get away.
But Ucilla is faster. Her secret is already out, and she has no time to waste. Reaching up, she uses the Force to bring down the archway, the stones and rubble falling on top of the tattooed Zabrak. She hears him cry out in anguish, but she does not stay long to hear anything else.
Ucilla is quick to slip into the cockpit of her ship. Her voice has once again resorted to curses in a number of languages as she flips various switches. A loud sigh of relief exits her when the sound of the engine roaring to life reaches her ears. As she activates all the right gears to get her off the dry planet, she takes one last look down to the earth: her blood runs ice cold.
There, close enough to stop her if he wanted with a single slash of his crimson ignited saber, is the Sith. His hood has now returned atop his crowned head, though it does little to obscure his glowing amber eyes.
His actions, or lack thereof, surprise Ucilla, the woman he had been hunting for a good mile through a city. And now, he stands there, seemingly unfazed, without care as she makes a successful escape. Escaping was certainly part of the plan, but the fact that the Zabrak has forfeited in spite of being so close to winning is annoying to some extent.
Before Ucilla has another moment to dwell on the Sith nor giving him another moment to reconsider, the YT-1210 lifts off from the ground. The Scaki's focus is drawn away from her foe despite knowing that turning her back on an enemy is a recipe for disaster. To her fortune, the Revenant makes it into the atmosphere and into hyperspace with ease.
The coordinates are placed. A safehold on Duro. Ucilla had not been there in quite some time and if she were lucky, an enemy-to-partner would be there, too. At least she would have someone to listen to her story.
The ship is set to autopilot, allowing for Ucilla to lean back in the pilot's chair, her leg bent to hold her knee against her chest. Though she is safe at the moment, Ucilla can not be sure for how long. What would she do if the Sith tracks her to Duro? Would he make her wait in anticipation as he had done in the shipyard?
For the first time in millennia, a Sith had revealed himself. At least to her knowledge: dead men tell no tales. Perhaps telling Bane about her encounter is for the best. If she becomes a successful mission for the Sith, at least someone would know what happened to her.
If anything, Ucilla knows of one plan that has not failed her yet. Just as she had done long ago, running has always been part of a good plan.
☆ ☆ ☆ ☆ ☆
TAGLIST:
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IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TAGGED, LET ME KNOW!
#valor#darth maul#darth maul x oc#darth maul x reader#maul#maul x oc#maul x reader#star wars#star wars prequels#ucilla zykoff#chapter 1#The Clone Wars#Clone Wars#obi wan kenobi#Anakin Skywalker#crimson dawn
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Steel samurai facts because why not
The Steel Samurai is a himbo
The Nickel Samurai doesn't respect women.
This was most likely going to be a part of character development in a planned crossover episode with the Pink Princess.
The evil magistrate is a complex character that has done wrong in the past but has shown signs of deep regret over his actions and is as flawed as you or i
The Steel Samurai was canceled after episode 13 due to controversy surrounding the murder of Jack Hammer, actor for the Evil Magistrate.
The Pink Princess is referred to as Season 2.
The Pink Princess was hella gay-coded.
The pink princess gets consistently underestimated for being feminine
Signal Samurai characters and their family are consistently appearing throughout the shows.
Pink x Steel is a good pairing even though Steel x Magistrate and Masked Princess is also good.
Pink is a good character and if you say otherwise fuck off
Rivalry.
Rivalry everywhere.
Season 3 introduced the Samurai Brothers, Nickel, Tin, and Aluminum.
Nickel and Tin were in mortal danger during Tornado Slash and Aluminum caused a lot of it.
Tin Stans are a wierd group
We don’t talk about Nickel Myth.
Steel Samurai and Nickel Samurai don’t have a good relationship.
Tin has zero character development, primarily because he gets filler arcs more than story arcs.
This causes a lot of people to not really care for the character.
Strawberry Clan was pretty long.
That arc introduced Sayo, the Masked Myth.
A summary of Strawberry Clan:
The leader of Strawberry Clan is Sayo’s father, whose goal is to kill off the Samurai Brothers.
He managed to get Nickel Samurai to fall in love with Sayo, but she hasn’t been shown to fully reciprocate those feelings.
Mister Ichigo sets up several traps for the Brothers to kill them, but Sayo, who was originally evil, begins her redemption after Tornado Slash, feeding information about the traps to the brothers under the guise of the Masked Myth.
After Sayo is revealed to be “evil”, Nickel blows up at her, as she can’t expose herself as the Masked Myth.
The Masked Myth still remains a presence, but the Strawberry Clan never fully goes away, and she still can’t reveal her identity.
Myth and Princess get a few episodes together, as well as most of the Shogun White arc.
This results in a lot of people shipping Sayo and Yumiko (the pink princess).
Unfortunately, season 3 ends before Yumiko finds out about Sayo’s identity, and there was a long drought before season 4.
The Iron Infant stage play IS NOT CANON.
Otherwise, it simply wouldn’t be consistent with ages, as Pink is around the same age as the Samurai Brothers, who are around 10 years younger than Steel and see him as a father.
Oooor at least Alu and Tin do. Nickel sees him as a weak little pussy.
Season 4 introduces gold and Zinc samurai, as well as the Ironsmith, previously known as the Iron Infant.
This takes place a while before Season 3, and while it does involve the Strawberry Clan, they’re a lot less of a presence.
It also features child versions of the Brothers.
Jammin Ninja is one of the main characters who appears in both, being both Nickel’s rival and appeared in a season 4 arc.
Jammin’ Ninja’s identity was a mystery for a really long time, until the reveal that he was actually Hiroshi from the first arc, a childhood friend of the Brothers.
He was thought to be killed by the Evil Magistrate, but it turns out Hiroshi was brainwashed by Emperor Strawberry and ended up killing the evil magistrate for betrayal of the crown.
Wham episodes:
Season 3 episode 11 “Pinky Promise”
Season 3 episode 34 “Behind the Mask”
Season 4 episode 13 “Emperor Strawberry″
Crimson Warrior’s a chaotic force who really doesn’t give a shit. He gives up revenge for two tacos in season 2, and accidentally took credit for saving Gold in Season 4.
Crimson will fuck you up though.
Basic plotlines:
Season 1. Steel and Evil fight, Evil dies in episode 12. He reappears in season 4, when we get a better look into the Strawberry Empire and discover Magistrates are actually replaceable. They get “uploaded” into captured people, and that’s what happened to Hiroshi. the “Ninja” Hiroshi is a personality uploaded into Hiroshi in Episode 13, astonishingly graphically.
He doesn’t actually ever come back, But that Ninja eventually decides to protect the Brothers of his own volition, and is killed by the Strawberry Clan after his mask comes off in episode 34 season 3.
#steel samurai#nickel samurai#tin samurai#aluminum samurai#pink princess#gold samurai#zinc samurai#jammin ninja#yellow streetlight#signal samurai#evil magistrate#masked myth#ace attorney#There was no reason to do this#I just wanted to make sure everyone knows the lore for their#magurai#fanfics on ao3
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This one hit me out of nowhere as I was putting something in the oven
Probably not my greatest work but I have to get it down before I forget
Cistern
Tobirama’s steps were sure and steady as he made his way towards his chosen destination. He felt some regret for what he was about to do. Not for himself. But for his family. He knew Hashirama would never approve of his plan, which was why he hadn’t told him. His brother had ever been a dreamer, unable to see that sometimes there were no good options. That the needs of the many, would always outweigh the needs of the one.
This had been the worst year Tobirama could ever remember. That anyone in the clan could remember. It hadn’t seemed so bad at first. Many had even enjoyed the unseasonably warm fall. Though wiser heads had begun to become concerned as the winter rains failed to materialize. Then, as winter turned to spring with the sun still shining bright in the sky, it was clear something was very wrong.
Fighting had died off. Not due to any treaty, but because each clan found themselves focusing on survival. This was no bad harvest that could be made up in trade. A drought the likes of which only came around every thousand years had descended upon the Land of Fire. Crops withering in the field as children starved.
As a child the albino had never really worried about going hungry. The Mokuton was a far more complicated bloodline than those outside the Senju knew. It was true that a wielder like his brother was a rare occurrence, but it was hardly a matter of all or nothing.
Some Senju returned life to the earth through their mere presence. Others had a talent for encouraging medicinal herbs and other plants to produce something new. Itama had been a natural healer of both plants and animals. Then there were those who found flowers blooming in their wake, trees and bushes bending under the weight of fruit and nuts at harvest time. It was one of his distant ancestors Dhar-sii who had said it best. They were the trees, and the earth, and the rain.
And right now, the rain was what was desperately needed. Hashirama’s force-grown crops may have kept one’s belly from rumbling, but they did not truly feed them. They were flash with little substance. Fine on occasion, but not for every meal.
Tobirama could feel the Uchiha watching him as he stepped up to the banks of the river that bordered their lands, not that it was much of one at the moment. He didn’t care. So long as they stayed where they were, they could watch all they liked.
“What is he doing?” Izuna hissed to his clanmate. It was unlike his rival to wander so close to their lands. Tobirama wasn’t even wearing armor. Just a simple kimono; though something seemed to be odd about it.
The other Uchiha could only shrug. How was he supposed to know?
Down by the river, Tobirama closed his eyes. With the aid of a lifetime of practice, he dropped into a meditative trance reaching deep inside himself. At the same time casting his senses as far out as they would go, past the mountains and down to the sea. It was no secret many considered him to be the greatest Suiton Master in the Elemental Nations.
Nor was it a secret among the Senju as to why, even though most of their clan specialized in Doton. Reaching for the water around himself had always been child’s play to Tobirama. However, he did not actually need to. Even in the depths of the driest desert, he would never be without his element. He took one deep breath, then another, calling on the power that was his birthright.
Izuna frowned as the temperature abruptly dropped. A sudden wind whipping his hair into his face. Irritably shoving it back, the Uchiha look suspiciously at the sky. For a moment, it looked perfectly normal. Then a haze began to form.
At first, Izuna didn’t quite believe what he was seeing. He knew what Tobirama was capable of. He had seen the other form massive waterspouts out of nothing. Felt the cut of needles sharper than any knife and experienced the irritation of Tobirama’s water dragons swallowing his fireballs whole. He had even, on one memorable occasion, seen a child hunter’s blood ripped right out of their body.
Still, there was no way. The Uchiha’s eyes flicked to his rival, and then back to the sky, this time shining red with the sharingan. It was no gengetsu. The sky was filling with clouds. Not just above the Senju lands, but as far as the eye could see. Great thunderheads forming behind the Eastern Mountains.
He had no idea how long he stood there, staring at the sky. He did know it was the drops of cold water hitting his face that snapped him out of it. Izuna blinked, turning his head to look back at Tobirama, only to be overcome with shock of a different sort. With the sharingan swirling in his eyes, it was easy to see what was wrong with the Senju’s kimono.
It crossed right over left. His rival was dressed for death. Part of Izuna couldn’t help but think such foresight was just like the other. The rest did not think at all. Tearing away from his kinsman, Izuna bolted towards the river. He couldn’t let him do this. “Tobirama!” he screamed.
Tobirama didn’t even hear him. Didn’t feel a thing when Izuna reached out to touch him, once again calling his name. His whole life, his whole existence was the water.
Izuna bit his lip, uncertain of what to do. On some level, he knew this was foolishness. Tobirama was his mortal enemy. But he could not allow the other to die. Not like this. Stealing one last glance at the now darkened sky, the Uchiha decided there was just one thing to do.
Bracing himself, Izuna pulled his arm back before slapping his rival across the face as hard as he could.
The albino staggered, crimson eyes shooting back open. He looked disorientated to say the least. “Izu. . .” That was as far as he got before his legs collapsed beneath him.
Fortunately he did not fall far, Izuna quickly catching the other man before lowering him to the ground, one hand coming up to check Tobirama’s pulse. It was slow, very slow. But it was there. And that was a good thing? Maybe? Izuna was not sure.
One thing he was sure of was that his rival continued to be nothing but trouble.
And that is the story of how Tobirama single handedly thwarted a drought, nearly died, and eventually caused peace between the Uchiha and Senju Clans
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