#( this event fundamentally changed him and he was never the same after )

[marsattaxk]

「Swan Song」 / KATSUKI BAKUGO

── .✦ ENCOUNTER. 1 The only thing I got were wounds

SYNOPSIS: KATSUKI BAKUGO has gotten used to the monotonous routine of his physical and quirk therapy. Going over the same sign-in chart, same exercises to bring back feeling in his arm, and slowly introducing his quirk back. That all changed when one day, during one of his usual session times a teen around his age showed up. Wearing two ankle braces. 

MY HERO ACADEMIA  ✦  KATSUKI BAKUGO × BALLERINA!GN!READER  ✦ ©marsattaxk 2024

NOTE + WARNINGS: Reader will and is a ballerina in the story and will be described as tall no other reference to their appearance, reader has a quirk called Swan Song, due to their quirk reader is very emotionally unstable after their quirk is used (be used in later chapters), reader is also a Shiketsu student, poor description of physical therapy, katsuki is curious and intrigued as hell by reader, poor description of ballet (I haven't done it in YEARS), description of injuries, teenagers being teens so swearing (we'll get to dialogue eventually just let me cook)

WORD COUNT: 4.6k

KATSUKI BAKUGO HAD ALWAYS BEEN ONE FOR ROUTINES. His daily life, ever since middle school consisted of one: waking up early, going for a morning run, having breakfast, going to school, homework, study, more training, dinner, shower, and go to bed at the latest of 9pm. A cut and dry routine that he, himself, had created. He was a creature of habit and never liked change. That of course changed when he entered U.A.

His life, the one he knew, changed when his childhood best friend suddenly and out of nowhere got a quirk. His quirkless childhood best friend had a strong quirk and was improving fast. Way too fast for his liking. The ideal life and routine he had in his head changed to now include his goal of surpassing and still being better than IZUKU. And his immense growth his first year at U.A was proof of that. 

His loud, explosive, and angry personality had consistently mild down throughout the year and the events that he and his classmates were and had experienced. Of course it is no secret that a war would change a person fundamentally, especially him considering he had died for a moment of time during it. Thankfully, he was able to be brought back and see the end of it, marking the end to one of Japan’s darkest times and even witnessing his childhood best friend become the greatest hero of all time. Finally allowing for the reform their hero society needed to begin. 

However, surviving a war didn’t mean he got out scot-free. Katsuki was left with some gnarly scars and a heart that had to be monitored, reminders of what he went through. But those were the last of his worries when it came to his dream and goals of becoming the best hero of all time. His worries came with his arm. During the war his arm had received a lot of damage, profusely messing it up. He could no longer fully move his hand, and his quirk, which relied on his sweat, was practically unusable in its current state. After waking up in the hospital, getting time to get used to being awake he was told that he had two options. 

One: get his arm amputated and get a prosthetic, or two: go the long route and go through physical and quirk therapy. 

Katsuki knew one thing at that moment and that was if he wanted to even fully use his quirk and achieve his dream, he’d have to have both his arms. So his choice was pretty clear, he was going to go through the long process of physical and quirk therapy. He not only had the support of his parents but of his friends as well, so the road ahead didn’t seem too rough to him. 

With the defeat of Shigaraki and All for One, society was slowly but surely starting to recover which meant that physical therapy clinics were finally and fully opening back up. Plus with most school’s needing to be rebuilt or fixed, summer came early for students all around the country. And so Katsuki’s routine changed once again for the third time. His training had now been replaced with physical and quirk therapy at 5pm every Monday, Wednesday and Friday. 

From the moment he got discharged from the hospital, he was immediately required to go to his first session on a Wednesday. And just like that Katsuki had a new routine. Being a month into rehab, Katsuki had gotten used to the monotonous routine of his physical and quirk therapy. Going over the same sign-in chart, same exercises to bring back feeling in his arm, and slowly introducing his quirk back. That all changed one random Wednesday when he showed up. 

Katsuki always liked showing up a little bit earlier than his scheduled time, just so that he could get the sign-in chart quickly over with and not have it take up time from his appointment. He, like usual, had been dropped off by his mother at the clinic, her promising she’d be back in an hour, with him responding in a disinterested tone that he knew and understood. He’d then watch her drive away, a byproduct of his senses always on edge, before finally walking into the building. He expected it to be empty as it had always been but to his surprise there was someone there before him. 

The person that from what he could see was around his age. They sat there with their head low, the cap on their head covering most of their face except for their lips and chin. The cap wasn’t what caught Katsuki’s attention as he went and sat down in one of the uncomfortable chairs in the waiting area. What caught his attention was the two ankle braces they were wearing on each ankle. The sight genuinely intrigued him, making questions fill his head. Why two braces? How did they injure themselves? Did they hurt one ankle first and then the other? Or did they hurt the two at the same time? Were some of the few that filled his head. 

The waiting room was mostly silent, with the only noise being the typing of the receptionist and the low humming noise of the A.C unit. Katsuki had genuinely expected the teen to at least maybe look in his direction and acknowledge him or even attempt to make conversation. But no, all he got was silence on their end. The silence didn’t help his curiosity at all, with him taking peeks at them as they both sat in the waiting area. 

Every time he’d expect them to at least have slightly moved, but no, they continued to sit in the same position he had seen them since he had entered. Their elbows resting on the arm rests, their head hanging low, body slightly slouched as if they were ashamed, and their feet firmly planted against the floor. And god, those damn ankle braces didn’t help in want of knowing what happened. But Katsuki was never one to initiate a conversation, and if the teen didn’t want to say anything then he wouldn’t either. 

It genuinely felt like an eternity in the waiting room, with the silence so deafening that Katsuki began to contemplate if he should speak up just to get rid of it. But before he could decide whether or not he should, his name got called out making him turn his head in the direction. It was time for him to start the usual routine he mentally created for himself. As he stood up and made his way over to the nurse that had called out to him, Katsuki glanced one final time at the teen, before heading to the back to get started. 

Katuski believed that when he’d get out of his session the teen would be gone but to much of his surprise, they were still there. He guessed that their session ended before his since they were at the receptionist desk setting up their next appointment for Wednesday at the same time as he would be right after they left. From where he stood he could catch a glimpse of their face, seeing their clearly tired eyes, and the frown on their face. He could tell that they didn’t want to be there, and that just added more fuel to the fire, wondering what happened to them for them to land here, just like him.

Their frown wasn’t just the only thing that intrigued Katsuki, but their height as well. Katsuki was tall, clearly. He stood, proudly, at five’ eight and used his height as an advantage over villains. But from what he could see this teen a few feet away from him was taller than him, only by a few inches. They towered over the receptionist, with her having to crane her neck to look up. Normally something about that would infuriate him but with them it was different. Their height added to the curiosity that he held for them and maybe even some attraction, but Katsuki would never admit that. 

He watched them only nod in response to the woman's words, giving her one last nod before walking and out of the clinic, clearly they wanted to get the hell out. And honestly Katsuki didn’t blame them for it, he also just wanted to be done with his therapy sessions and go back to his regular life, going back to doing hero work. Standing there he listens to the receptionist talk about his next appointment and the upcoming ones he had next, watching as their silhouette walked away from the building and got into a car. 

✦ 

[Y/N] HAD ALWAYS HAD ONE DREAM SINCE THEY WERE A CHILD. From the moment they had seen them gracefully glide across their screen, twirling, dipping, and jumping, they knew that was what they wanted to do. Seeing a Prima Ballerina perform Tchaikovsky Swan Lake, they knew they wanted to be the white swan. They knew they needed to be a ballerina. 

They still remembered going up to their mother and telling her how they wanted to do ballet, how it didn’t matter to them if they got a quirk or not, they just wanted to perform Swan Lake. They remember the begging they did, trying to convince their pro-hero parents to allow them to do ballet, begging to break the family tradition of being heroes. They knew how important it was for their parents for them to follow in the tradition, it was the legacy their great grand-parents had started. But, even as a small child they knew that wasn’t what they wanted and what they did they saw dancing on their screen.

Their mother was more skeptical, not seeing the appeal of it, that maybe there was another activity that they could do related to hero work. Their father was the one who fully listened to them. Maybe it was because this was his only child wanting to do something they wanted, or maybe it was because that spark they had for the dance was the same spark he had when seeing his father be a hero. He made them make him a promise. He made them promise that if they ever stopped or showed disinterest in the dance style, they would start hero training. 

And ever since that day, they have never broken their promise. Everyday from that day forward they spent their life going to dance classes, practices, going to rehearsals, performances, doing pointe shoe fittings and getting lead roles in productions. Even when their quirk came in, aptly named ‘Swan Song’ they continued to dance no matter what. Their entire elementary and middle school years were spent perfecting their craft, hoping and dreaming that in a couple years their dreams of becoming a Prima Ballerina would become true. And it was during the 8th grade, that it finally happened. 

That lifelong dream came in the form of a letter from the official National Ballet of Japan, with them offering them the position of their brand new prima ballerina. To say that [Y/N] was excited would be an understatement. They were ecstatic over the fact that they would be finally able to fulfill their childhood and lifelong dream. Of course their dream opportunity came with an exception, that being that they would have to move to Japan and attend one of the country's prestigious high schools. 

[Y/N] was used to going overseas and going to performances all over the country, but moving to a completely different country by themselves? Without their parent’s? Now that was a whole new experience. The thought of being thousands of miles away from their parent’s, their family was daunting, scary. This was their dream, their once in a lifetime opportunity, but doing it without their parent’s? That was something they weren’t prepared for. Talking and telling their parents about this life changing opportunity was one of the hardest things they had to do.

They remember their mom telling them another opportunity like that could at some point present itself again, that they didn’t have to commit to this in a completely different country, that they should stick with their current dance company. Their dad on their other hand had only one question for them. ‘Have you fallen out of love with the dance?’ The moment that question left his mouth, [Y/N] knew what they had to do. And that was mailing their acceptance of the offer back to The National Ballet of Japan and looking into what school they would go to. 

After hours of research, enrolling, transferring their grades and transcript, packing, mailing their stuff over to their new school dorm rooms, heading over to Japan, [Y/N] was finally able to step foot into their room in Shiketsu’s dorms. With their overseas move, The National Ballet of Japan welcomed their new and first foreign Prima Ballerina. But, as things would have it, their first year at Shiketsu and as Prima Ballerina did not go as planned. Every student in Japan's lives were put on hold right after the Paranormal Liberation War and with the fight to stop Shigaraki. While [Y/N] had good control over their quirk, they didn’t play a role in fighting in the war, they mostly helped in the sheltering of civilians. 

With the war over and life slowly but surely beginning to go to a sense of normalcy, [Y/N] was finally able to go back to what they loved doing the most, ballet. As much as [Y/N] had become accustomed to the constant Piles, Pirouettes, first, second, and third positions, it was hard for them to get back into the rhythm of things. Their dance instructor never blamed them for making simple mistakes, or slightly tripping when making moves, he knew that with the war and the lack of practice their body wasn’t used to going back to the constant practice and rehearsals. 

Even if their ballet instructor wasn’t frustrated with them, [Y/N] was frustrated with themselves. This was their craft, their lifelong career and dream, the fact they couldn’t land a simple saut de chat was infuriating to them. How was it that in a couple months they were able to just forget everything they had been doing since they were four years old? When did they regress in their abilities? 

Everyday at practice and rehearsals for their company’s production of Notre-Dame de Paris, they kept pushing themselves to get back to where they were originally. It was a constant push and push and push to dance at the level they had been used to, pushing their muscles, feet, legs, and arms to keep up to remember what they knew. Of course dancing with frustration and having tightness in their muscles was never a good sign, because during one rehearsal practice they took a tumble and ended up landing weirdly on both of their ankles after a jump. 

Their instructor told them the same thing he had been telling them the past month, ‘take it easy. You are getting back into the rhythm of things. Take care of your ankles’. The same speech and lecture they had been hearing since the start of the new season. Did they listen? No, [Y/N]  was a teenager who thought they could improve by sheer force and will. And that unfortunately backfired on them greatly. On opening night of the first performance on Notre-Dame de Paris, and their first performance back on the stage, in front of their parents, during their Esmeralda variation that [Y/N] took a fall after the finishing jump, absolutely decimating their ankles. 

The ride to the hospital felt like an eternity to [Y/N], their hearing muffled as the only thing they could look at was their ankles. Bruised beyond belief, showing the damage their fall had done to them, the harm that their frustration and push to dance had caused them. They couldn’t hear the words of their mother or of the paramedics as they talked to them or around them. The only thing they could hear was the screaming thoughts in their head telling them their career was over. 

The arrival to the hospital was a blur. The morphine that the nurses had injected into them made them tired, before everything went black after having anesthesia for their urgent surgery. Due to their untreated ankle twist and the fact that they had been applying pressure on both of them, [Y/N]’s ankles were messed up beyond a point. Their ligaments and tendons had been worn down, making them require surgery to fix them. Thankfully everything went well, but that meant that [Y/N] would have to undergo physical therapy to even get their ankles back to their full health and back to what they were if they wanted to go back to dancing. 

The lecture they had gotten from their parents was justified. It was reckless of them to not take care of themselves, to allow themselves to become so frustrated they were willing to hurt themselves just to improve. But of course, they could understand the frustration. They were hero’s after all, their careers hanged on the thread of them getting better quickly. In their hospital room, [Y/N] and their parents discussed what would happen now, fully talking about itf they’d go back to dancing or if they’d finally stop. But they weren’t gonna stop, this was their dream. Plus they had a promise to uphold. 

 So they made their first appointment at the Musutafu Physical and Quirk Therapy Clinic. And all they hoped for was that they got better quickly so that they could go back to dancing. 

They arrived an hour early, due to living on the complete other side of the city, since Shiketsu was on the west side they had a long commute to even consider arriving on time. The train ride over was as peaceful as you could call a subway cart. As well as the cab over. When they arrived it was empty, allowing for the receptionist to take the time to explain the charts, documents, and sign-in sheet they had to fill out, that taking up most of their time before their appointment. 

Sitting there in one of the chairs of the waiting room was embarrassing to [Y/N]. Not because they had physical therapy but because of how they could have prevented this if they had just listened. If they had taken the time to rest their weirdly twisted ankles they would have been able to do the full Notre-Dame of Paris show and wouldn't have had to have surgery on their ankles. And so they sat there, with their head hanging low with their cap on their head, their braces on full display, they waited for their appointment time to arrive.

At some point from what they could tell someone new had arrived. They genuinely had no interest in who this person was or even if they were there to have a session like they would, all they wanted was to get it over with and get out as quickly as possible. However, maybe it was their imagination or maybe it really was happening, but as they sat there, looking down at their shoes, they could feel as if someone was glancing at them. Very continuous glances. They had no idea if it was the person who had just entered or if they were making it up. And so they ignored it, continuing to look down at their shoes.

The feeling stopped when the person who had, in fact, arrived went to what they assumed was one of the rooms to have their own session, and soon enough it was their turn as well when their name got called out. [Y/N] had no idea what to expect for their first therapy session and thankfully it was something simple to start. Just some ankle pointing, circling, and some resistance band pulls, some simple exercises to get them used to the motion of using their ankles once again. 

Their session ended early, they chalked it up to needing to start off simple so that they wouldn’t hurt themselves again. Going back to the waiting area, they stood at the reception desk, listening to the nurse at the desk explain how their session would go on from then on, and of course setting up their next appointment Wednesday at the same time. This time, however, they were able to get a glance at the person who had entered the clinic. It was a boy, clearly around their age, with blonde hair and scars. Something about him looked familiar to them, but they could figure out why. 

And so they just chalked it up to probably seeing someone similar to him somewhere and left the clinic to get to the cab waiting for them outside. Having no idea how just their presence at the therapy clinic had impacted the blonde teen. 

✦ 

TO SAY THAT KATSUKI WAS INTRIGUED WAS NOT FAR FROM THE TRUTH. Getting into his mom’s car as he answered the usual questions she asked him after his sessions all he could think about was the teen who had been there as well. Never in his life had he cared so much about someone else, excluding Izuku and All Might, that this was jarring to him. And the fact that he told his own mother about it was even more jarring. He never told the old hag anything like this before. 

To say that his mom wasn’t curious about this person who had captured her son’s attention was a blatant lie. She was intrigued and needed to know who had captured her son’s attention immediately. Katsuki being Katsuki he refused to tell his mom anything. The hag, in his opinion, didn’t need to know anything and telling her was clearly a mistake considering she couldn’t let it go the entire car ride. And couldn’t let it go the next two weeks after she picked him up from his therapy sessions. 

During the course of those two weeks and the sessions Katsuki had, his curiosity for this teen had severely increased as weeks went by. He wanted, no, he needed to know about them. He needed to know why they were even in physical therapy. To say this was just morbid curiosity would be a bold face lie. This kid had an obsession with a person he had no single piece of knowledge about. This was a complete stranger, for christ sake. How was it possible that a random teen was able to capture his intrigue more than any other person he had ever met could. 

Going to his therapy sessions had been something he had started to look forward to, honestly. And that was information no one would be able to get out of him, no matter what. His annoying friends didn’t need to know, his parents didn’t need to question him about this person, and Izuku and All Might clearly didn’t need any form of indication that he was obsessing over a total stranger. And genuinely, he knew just telling them about his ‘obsession’ would either make them make them try and help him or raise concern in their heads. And it was probably the latter. 

Every time he’d show up and he’d see them his mind would go wild. It’d go racing with thoughts and guesses on who they were, what they did to land in physical therapy, what their quirk was, were they a hero in training just like him, did they go to U.A just like him. And apparently the receptionist at the front desk had picked up on it as well, much to his chagrin. 

It was like how he had found them the first time he had seen them when his session had ended. They were at the reception desk, clearly setting up their next appointment, when the receptionist did something. And by that something, he meant, making up a made up policy that required her to look at patient’s faces to make sure it matched their ID. Telling them they had to take off their cap to be able to look. Katsuki knew that was a lie. From the moment he had started there had never been a rule or policy that enforced that at all, but he knew the receptionist was doing this for him by the way she glanced at him. 

Their response of a nonchalant, almost disinterested ‘yeah, sure’ were the first words Katsuki had heard them say in the two weeks he had seen them. He watched as they removed their cap, finally getting a good glimpse at them. Something about seeing their face that made an unknown feeling bloom in Katsuki’s chest. This unknown warmth that he had never felt before. It wasn’t the usual warmth he felt from his quirk, it was different and he couldn’t explain why it was. And so once again, he watched them walk out. 

Standing up at desk, Katsuki listened to the receptionist tell him that since they couldn’t give out any information on them, the most she could do was tell him to look up a website. That website being The National Ballet of Japan’s page. Telling him he'd get the information and answers he had been looking for by searching through it and the dancers in had under its company. 

To say that Katuski went home and didn’t look up what the receptionist had told him would be a lie. In the comfort of his room, he went onto his laptop and looked up the National Ballet of Japan. He scoured the page looking through performances, articles, awards, seasonal tickets, class registration forms, information about the company before stumbling up on the dancers. He scrolled through hundreds of dancers, all of them stemming from the past and the present until he reached a face he clearly recognized. And a face that made that warmth he had felt back at the clinic, spread through his chest once again. 

✦ 

THIS WOULD MARK THE FOURTH WEEK OF [Y/N] PHYSICAL THERAPY SESSIONS. Apparently their plea of wanting these sessions to go by quickly had been heard. Every day for the past week had become the same for them, going to therapy, doing the exercises, and going home to do them once again, all in hopes to better than ankles quicker. This appointment would mark if they would be able to start going back to practice once again. A light practice, as their instructor had told them, a small step into the swimming pool before even attempting to go back on pointe shoes. 

They had thought this session would be normal. Showing up an hour early, doing the sign-in chart and just sitting in silence as they wait for the teen boy to show up and for their appointment to start. But something in their head told them today would be different. And clearly it was. The blonde boy was there before them. Which was odd. What was even more odd was where he was sitting this time.

Usually when they sat in the waiting area, there was a space in between them, the two always leaving an empty chair. However this time, the boy was sitting in that chair. They didn’t want to seem rude and just move one seat over, then again they really didn’t care where he sat, so they just sat down, and didn’t say a word. The waiting area was quiet like it had always been but, once again, today was going to be different. 

“Hey,” a gruff, almost raspy voice called out to them, making them turn their head in the direction it came from. And for the first time since the two of them started attending physical therapy at the same time, [Y/N] AND KATSUKI MADE EYE CONTACT WITH ONE ANOTHER.

AUTHORS NOTE: hello hi! welcome to my first ever ‘x reader’ fanfic that I have fully committed to and actually have written. This is the first ever fic that I have posted to tumblr, more like the first ever piece of content I have ever posted to tumblr and I’m both nervous and cautiously excited about this. this isn’t my first rodeo posting fic's on the internet (we don’t talk about wattpad) but it is the first one I’m actually proud of since I’m no longer writing like how middle school me did back then. all I ask is that y’all don’t burn me at the stake for however long it takes me to put out chapters. I am a college student so my grades come first than this silly little fic. I hope that y’all enjoy this piece of fiction that I’ve written and I’ll be back whenever chapter two is ready. buh-bye!

P.S: it was while editing and talking to friends that I decided to make this a ‘universe’/ connected story series. whenever this series is over and fully completed (re-edited at some point because i’m never happy with end products) i’ll announce the next one. so stay tuned for that.

TAGLIST: @oddball08

[heyclickadee]

So, here’s the thing. The finale is weird. Yes, I’m hurt by the fact that Tech didn’t come back and that a character that’s very near and dear to my heart was badly handled, and that will never sit right with me. But even apart from that, the finale fundamentally does not function as a piece of storytelling or as the end to this story. I’m glad that people are enjoying it, and I will never tell anyone not to. But I don’t think it works. (I get very negative about the TBB finale under the cut.)

It’s not just the Tech stuff or the CX-2 stuff (which may very well have been the same stuff) that got dropped. It’s *everything*. Every theme, Every narrative thread besides retrieving Omega, every character arc except marginally Omega’s, Echo’s (also marginal), and Emerie’s, which was the shortest and gets wrapped up by her deciding to help Echo rescue the kids. It all stops. It makes everything that came before seem cheap and pointless if you take it into account. And this is so, so frustrating for me, because the entire show was driving towards this incredibly rich payoff, it could have been immaculate, and then it whiffed the ball so bad in the last episode that it didn’t just miss, it managed to knock over the bleachers and set the entire court on fire.

Some examples:

1. This season had a really interesting exploration of Crosshair’s PTSD via his hand tremor and how it was something he can learn to manage, but not something that would ever fully go away. Aaaaand then his hand gets chopped off. One, that was stupid. I’ve seen some excellent posts (here’s one by @the-bi-space-ace) detailing why that was a terrible way to handle Crosshair’s lingering trauma, and others talking about how the idea there was that Crosshair needed to move on and it was severing his last ties with the empire. The former, I agree with; the latter, I don’t, because not only—not only!—does this episode stop dealing with Crosshair’s trauma, it doesn’t even deal with having cut off his hand! It just sort of occurs. No one reacts to it, no one says anything about it, there’s no follow up or commentary, nothing happens as a result—it’s an event which occurs with no results coming after it. It may as well be an animation error. You can say it was about Crosshair needing to let go and move on, but that’s something you have to project on to the text, not something that’s actually offered by it. It’s empty.

2. Crosshair again: We also have the lingering issue of Crosshair’s guilt and the fact that he never seems to get to a point where it’s resolved. There’s set up for a resolution. We have that, “Sure you have,” like about Crosshair from Rampart. We also have Crosshair saying he deserves whatever happens to him in Tantiss. And then…no pushback. No resolution. No moment of Crosshair realizing that he doesn’t need to carry that burden. Nothing that says he didn’t deserve what happened to him. He had all this character development this season, but he needed - last little push to forgive himself—and we never get any indication that he does. It, like his trauma, gets dropped like a rock.

3. Hey! More Crosshair! A good chunk of Crosshair’s arc this season was about learning that anyone can change, first, and that no one is beyond saving. Eeexcept that goes no where.

4. Which brings me to my next point: There is set up for the CXs to be saved. Even if we’re laboring under the conclusion that CX-2 was never intended to be Tech at any point in the writing process (I have. Doubts. Yes, I’m calling the creative team liars, here, but with the understanding that they have contracts that may require them to lie), we do have the set up where we learn the electrocyanide zappers can be removed, and with Rex offering forgiveness to CX-1. “Whatever they did to you, whatever you’ve done, you’re still one of us.” CX-Tech or no, Crosshair’s arc was tied up with the CX plot, and because he’s the one the CXs tend to react to—or, at least, understands what was done to them—the set up was there for him to help save and maybe rehab the CXs. At the least, there was an indication that they could be saved. Eeexcept nope! That gets dropped like a rock, too, and they’re not going to deal with it. Time for maximum carnage.

5. Hunter’s arc actually takes a step backwards. Sure, he gets a technically happy ending, but because the squad is basically in the same place they were in “Pabu” back in season two (down a member but successfully hiding from the Empire in a safe place), it negates Hunter’s development towards actually taking action—and actually hurts Echo’s arc, too.

There’s been this tension all through the show between just sitting things out on the one hand (Hunter’s way) and taking direct action despite the futility on the other (Echo’s way), but instead of finding some kind of middle ground or third road, it sort of comes back around to saying that, actually, Hunter was right, they should have just gone to Idaflor back in episode three and never left even though the Pabu invasion said that no, you can’t just hide, and even Hunter’s development was moving in the opposite direction. And this also means that Echo never reaches a point where he feels like he can walk away and that he doesn’t have to get himself killed doing this. Despite development otherwise they both end up back at that conversation in “Tipping Point” without any move in either direction or resolution of that tension.

6. Omega. Okay, Omega probably comes out the best after the finale, and, conceptually, I actually love the idea of Omega becoming a pilot even if the epilogue falls a little flat for me. But stuff with Omega still got dropped, including:

- The force stuff. We have two episodes dealing with m-count (after learning in episode three what Omega was created to do). We also have Ventress telling Omega that she doesn’t have a high m-count as far as she can see, Crosshair immediately calling Ventress out for lying, and then Ventress basically saying, “Yeah, no shit, but if she has force potential she’d have to leave you behind, and it doesn’t matter what your opinion on that is, so I’m not dealing with that.” Aaaand then,m. That. Goes nowhere. Despite a bit of set up for Omega connecting to the force as early as episode one, and some more set up in Tribe, and that whole subplot of her learning how to meditate, and so on.

Now, I don’t think that it was ever going to turn out that Omega did actually have a high m-count or that she had a particularly powerful natural connection to the force. I think she’s probably got a low or baseline m-count. What I do think, however, is that we were going to see Omega connect anyway as a refutation of Palpatine’s and Hemlock’s entire scheme. Their goal (based off of the ST) was to create extremely force sensitive clones as a way for Palpatine to jump bodies without having to waste time re-learning how to connect to the force. You know—dark side, quick and easy path, focus on eugenics and raw power, etc. Had Omega connected anyway because of her big heart and desire to protect, it would have not only paid off that set up, it would have also refuted Palpatine’s and Hemlock’s entire goal. It would have worked so well thematically and the set up was THERE.

- branching off of that, I think the Omega force stuff was probably tied to the Zillo beast. We also had a through-line of Omega being good with animals and taking the time to calm them instead of responding with violence. The first time we see this is in “Replacements,” where she realizes that the ordo moon dragon (also an electrophage—I don’t know what to call these things—like the zillo beast) is just scared and hungry. This is all conjectural, but it still fits with what was set up.

- Moving on from the force stuff, we also had a through-line that started way back in episode two of the series, but which was really emphasized this season, about Omega feeling like she’s the cause of the bad things that happen to the people she loves. This is why she gives herself up during the Pabu invasion in the first place. This is never resolved! We get Omega’s confidence boost when she realizes she has the force kids to take care of, but we never get a moment where Omega realizes that she has no reason to feel guilty. She’s the glue that holds the family together! But nope! Also dropped!

- But wait! There’s more! The first two season finales have Omega watching someone she loves fall away while she’s helpless to do anything to save them. That’s perfect set up to put Omega in the same situation, but be able to save them, because she’s finally come into her own. Instead we just end up with her needing to be rescued again.

- Omega has this big speech in Shadows of Tantiss about spending her life stuck in one place or another against her will, and how she refuses to be confined like that. I don’t think Omega would have been happy just staying on Pabu for the entire rest of her childhood and young adult life, even if I think she’d want to use it on a home base. But! Dropped!

7. I still can’t get over the fact that the zillo beast is on screen for about two minutes and then just. Walks away. It’s a large beastie that’s been locked in confinement for a while and is probably hungry. And somehow it didn’t go straight to the reactors for some delicious energy smoothies. Like. It. Did. The. Last. Time. Someone. Let. It. Out. But no, that would have required it sticking around for something that was probably dropped sooooo ZILLO BEAST EXIT STAGE RIGHT I GUESS. (Edit: I have been reminded that Hemlock does say to turn off the generators once the zillo beast is out, so that at least makes sense. I still think the zillo beast should have stuck around to do something.)

8. You notice how there are a ton of commandos around Tantiss, even up through “Flash Strike?” And how they kind of largely cease to exist? And how Echo says that there are far more clones imprisoned in Tantiss than anyone thought? And then how they rescue, like, a dozen guys? Because we never find our way back to those cells Crosshair was held in during season two? And how Tarkin does mention not wanting to allow clone dissidence to turn into an uprising back in “The Summit?” Because I did. This show was never going to be about a clone rebellion, that wasn’t the point, buuut I do think the set up was there for an uprising at Tantiss itself. Begin the series with clones losing their agency en masse, end the series with some of the most subdued clones taking it back. Except nope, dropped, soooo we gotta pretend the commandos don’t exist and murder the hell out of poor Scorch.

9. SPEAKING OF. The batch does kill clones sometimes, that does happen, but they do at least usually make some kind of effort to be non-lethal even when they’re not using stun, and times when they do resort to lethal tactics are usually born out of extreme circumstances. Not here, though!! NO HESITATION MAXIMUM CARNAGE. For. Reasons I guess.

10. There’s one point IN THE FINALE where Echo mentions signaling for Rex. This never comes up again. Rex does not show up. In fact, despite being called, “The Cavalry Has Arrived,” the cavalry does not in fact arrive. There is no cavalry. Yes, I know it’s a reference to Wrecker’s first line. But I’m sorry if you call an episode that YOU HAD BETTER HAVE A CAVALRY SHOW UP. Especially when you have a one about calling them in! But that also!! Got dropped like a rock!!

11. One positive: the moment Crosshair and Hunter leaning on each other to make that shot was nice.

12. Sorry, but Hemlock’s death was deeply unsatisfying. Let’s do something more than just shoot him multiple times, okay?

13. Rampart’s death, on the other hand, was incredibly satisfying. That said, the conversation about project necromancer? I’m dying. It’s actually hilarious, because it basically goes like:

“Tell me about project necromancer.”

“Wow! How interesting!”

I’m.

Are you serious?

I’m going to become the Joker.

Yes, I know we know what project necromancer is because of a different show. That’s not the point, the POINT. Is that any pay off for project necromancer in this show got dropped. And that’s deeply frustrating from a narrative perspective.

14. Speaking of, we never find out anything more regarding that partially successful m-count transfer from episode three.

15. We also never do anything with those medical records!

16. And Omega has a whole crossbow she never actually shoots despite the fact that her role on the team was as a sharpshooter after Crosshair left, and despite her getting advice from Crosshair on how to be a sniper. The literal chekov’s gun never goes off. I’m going to go eat gravel.

17. AZI, likewise, got toted around for three seasons for no reason. Probably could have helped with the medical records. Given that he was a Kaminoan medical droid. Oh, and that Omega was Nala Se’s medical assistant. So. Hmm.

18. You can cut everything in the season past episode five and skip straight to the epilogue and end up in the same place. This is not because the other episodes are filler. Far from it! The other episodes are great and deliver some amazing set up. But, because the finale does nothing with that set up, it doesn’t go anywhere.

19. And you know what else? From a narrative perspective, there’s no reason for Hunter, Wrecker, and Crosshair to be in these episodes at all. They don’t accomplish anything and make everyone else’s job harder. Omega was doing fine, she would have gotten out with the kids with just Echo and Emerie, and Tarkin was coming to cut off Hemlock’s funding and shut everything down once Hemlock lost control of the facility anyway. I can only suppose that the whole reason they were in this episode ended up getting dropped, too.

20. CX-2. Listen, the answer we get about CX-2 isn’t that he’s not Tech. It’s, “Maybe, maybe not—you don’t get to know.” Because. He’s the only CX whose mask never comes off. After a season and a half worth of buildup of unmasking CXs and people pressing them to learn their names. It’s not a no, it’s a non-answer, which is far less satisfying.

And finally:

21: CX-Tech. I’ve seen some people speculating that there was a planned CX-Tech reveal that got scrapped at the last minute—dropped, along with the other points I’ve already laid out. And, honestly? I have to agree. Despite what the creative team says, because even their denials kind of come out weird (like the Kiners saying that the large brass chord in “Battle of the Snipers” was just a nice sounding brass chord and not a reference to “Plan 99.” They also basically say that the sacrifice theme from “Plan 99” is Tech’s leitmotif. Which. Is all over “Battle of the Snipers.” That theme. Not Crosshair’s. In a scene. Where he’s supposed to be fighting a shadow of himself who Totally Isn’t Tech but we put Tech’s leitmotif here and layered it in Techno music but nooo that was never supposed to be him. Nope. I mean, come on. I’m not stupid).This post is already long enough, so here are some posts by @apocalyp-tech-a pointing out the reasons why I think this was the case, and one by @eriexplosion pointing out why CX-2 as Crosshair’s shadow and only that doesn’t quite work. I don’t need to go over the trail that was laid out again. Up to the finale this was a character that had more screen time—and far more solo screen time—than Echo. Some people will not stop yelling that there was no evidence, and. No. I’m sorry, there was. I can’t agree.

And some people might say, well, okay, the show misdirected you guys and pulled off a twist by having CX-2 be no one, and well, I can’t agree with that either. Twists only function if the twist is more satisfying than the conclusion to which the story seems to be leading. And I’m sorry, you can’t tell me that a season and a half of CX building and three seasons (because I can find set up all the way back in episode one of the show) for Tech survival culminating in what amounts to a boss fight is more satisfying than getting to see Omega have her big brother back. You can’t.

The reason I bring this up last is because, yes, I think CX-Tech was a plot dropped at the last minute, but because I also think that it’s the dropped plot that ripped everything else apart. CX-Tech was an incredibly efficient way to tie up most of the lingering plot threads and dropped character development.

-Crosshair’s guilt? Okay, he faces down the end result of his decision to stay with the empire and possibly something he knew about (Tech would be in this situation because of Crosshair, and were given hints that Crosshair knew) and is finally able to forgive himself because they’re able to save him.

- Hunter’s decision to finally take action and be proactive rather than reactive is validated, because it’s the thing that finally gets him his entire family back.

- Echo saves someone the same way he was saved, and maybe he realizes that it is enough and that he doesn’t have to be a soldier forever.

- Wrecker’s efforts to keep the family together and keep Hunter sane finally pay off.

- Omega is able to protect the people she charges about and finally, finally has all of her brothers.

- Thematically, it rounds off each member of the batch (Omega included) traumatically losing and then taking back their agency in a way that correlates directly to who and how they are as people.

- It also rounds out the OG batchers each being haunted by a failure that has to do with the thing that makes them special.

- You get pushback against “Clone Force 99 died with Tech! We’re not that squad anymore!” because no, it didn’t, and they’re more than a squad, they’re a family.

- It comes around and closes the wound opened in Aftermath and ripped back open by Return to Kamino: they go in for Omega and lose someone, but here, they go in for Omega and get someone back.

- Would allow Tech to close off his lingering threads and finish his character development BECAUSE THOSE REMAINED UNFINISHED.

- Completely subverts the “bury your disabled” trope by making sure we know the character whose disability was explored the most’s life is more important than his death. Seems like an important thing to do in a show that is kind of about disability. Just saying.

- Makes the lack of closure and little mentions of Tech make sense from a storytelling POV because the necessarily catharsis would come from his return.

- And it would actually add some triumph to the ending. Yes, this little family survived. They outlived the war. They’re together, despite every effort to rip them apart. They made it, despite the dark times, despite the Empire, despite what they were made to do and be. They defied all of that. That would have been so, so satisfying.

As is, without Tech, without that CX-Tech reveal, we sort of end up in this weird place where all the themes are half-baked. They are more than soldiers…except Tech, who had to fall out of the story as a soldier (despite us getting the clearest glimpse of what his life outside of soldiering could have been). They get to live how they want…except Tech. They don’t leave their own behind, except Tech that one time. They should value their own lives a little…except Tech. They’re more than a squad, they’re a family…except Tech, the only one besides Omega to say that’s what they are, doesn’t get to see it, and they don’t get to have him around. We begin the series with a broken family and end it with a family broken differently. That’s not dynamic.

So there’s no really punch to the ending. It’s sort of…well, okay, we tortured a family for three seasons I guess. Relieved that the survivors are doing okay, but that’s kind of it.

22. The finale in general is just sort of a bunch of events which happen, but which don’t lead into one other. It’s weird. It’s not that too much happens, it’s that almost nothing happens. Nothing of substance, in a way. The finale is, in a word, the only true filler episode in the entire show.

TL;DR: I think a lot of stuff got dropped from the finale. I don’t know why. I suspect that it might have to do with the strikes—basically, the script was done, most everything was recorded and boarded, and then when the finale was in production they got sudden drastic budget cuts (this was during a time when the studios were disappearing entire completed shows and movies as tax write-offs), had to gut what they had planned, and couldn’t bring the writers or even showrunners in to smooth over what was gutted or to even pick what got taken out. They wouldn’t have gotten to choose or compress things. They were on strike (because the studios wouldn’t negotiate), and whoever did choose ended up just ripping out the stuff that would actually take any time or budget to deal with (so, basically everything I laid out), killing it (literally), and using the remains of what they already had recorded. And who knows how they had to fill in gaps.

But I don’t know for sure. Maybe it was that. Maybe it was a last minute decision to take certain plot points and put them in a different show. Maybe it was executive mandate. Maybe the creative team just sucked the whole time (that’s one I have a hard time buying—we have four other shows and most of this one that tell me that they’re better at their jobs than this). Maybe everyone said screw it, who even cares anymore at the same time.

Maybe nothing happened. Who knows? I strongly suspect something bad did happen behind the scenes that was out of the creative team’s hands—I really do, because that’s the only way I can make sense of this—but until we can get someone talking without six layers of PR and NDAs, we won’t know for sure. All I know is that The Bad Batch is an amazing show with 46 episodes that range from “fine-but-clunky” to “IMMACULATE,” with more leaning towards immaculate than not, and some incredible set up, and one episode so nonsensically bad it makes me want to eat drywall.

It’s just that the one terrible episode comes right at the end.

I love The Bad Batch. I love every single episode and all the things that were set up, but…eh, I think I’ll be ignoring the finale until further notice.

[thr0wnawayy]

"Canon" Perception: Why MHA's World Building SUCKS!

I figured I'd make this post because it's about time I discussed my views on "Canon" or as I like to call it

The Vanilla-verse

Why?

Because Hori's version of events feel like he opened a choose your own adventure game and clicked the most straight forward options available.

Quirk Awakenings Make No Sense (JJK mentioned)

@bibibbon might like this one.

It's no secret MHA's world building is, lackluster. It feels empty.

Characters not allowed to speak out or back against favored ones, Plot lines dropped, Victims shuffled off to the side.

But where Hori fails most of all is his power system:

But first Jujitsu Kaisen

Similar to Hori, Gege (I hope I spelled that right) also struggles with world building.

Firstly the concept of Cursed Spirits.

Monsters being created from "bad" or negative emotions can work as a concept. But it also heavily depends what is considered bad.

It could allow for the tackling of what makes emotions "bad" and tie in with the shows setting of a restrictive society that forces people to either mold to the pressure or be crushed by it.

Suppressing their true selves and emotions in favor of fitting in with the norm. (to evade social subjugation)

Instead, it demonizes what is a fundamentally intrinsic part of human existence, if nor most sapient life.

It also brings up too many questions that go unanswered: Like the historical implications. If spirits have been around for so long, then why aren't places like Japan (with it's bloody history and bleak present) overrun with then.

Why are spirits trying to replace humanity if humans act as the sole reason for their existance. After all: No Humans = No Cursed Energy = No Sprits

What exactly counts as a "negative" emotion and how much does it take to give birth to a cursed spirit. Stuff like that doesn't seem to have an answer.

[This is also coming from someone who has never interacted with JJK in their life]

Similarly Hori has the same problem with almost every detail in the Vanilla-verse. Stuff like: Eri's bullets, Quirk Singularity, Trigger and so, so much more is never elaborated on.

So pray tell, why did I chose Quirk Awakenings to be the subject of this section.

Because they prove that Hori has no idea what he is doing.

Quirk Awakening or QA's might just he the most frustrating thing in MHA. Doesn't matter if it's in Hori's-verse or someone else's.

It hardly fucking ends well and that's because it's so broad.

Take Himiko's quirk awakening.

At first glance, it seems alright. A tad off but not something to raise hell about.

That is until you look at her quirk.

Transformation is a quirk that relies on blood to work, Himiko cannot copy quirks partially because quirks are stored in the DNA of an individual and Transform can only copy the outward appearance of a person.

She needs to learn the individuals mannerisms and habits on her own, she doesn't achieve those by the default of her quirk.

(The same could be argued for her voice, it would be much more impressive if she trained it)

It would make much more sense then, for the evolution of her quirk to allow her to better mimic people. Expanding the scope of who and what she could change into and how accurately she could become a subject.

It also would fit the theme of 'becoming who you love' with the saying 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery'

Instead, though. Hori decided to make her AFO lite and it is broken.

If she copies AFO, does she obtain his quirks?

Would her quirk awakening account for other quirk awakenings. Say she transforms into Shigaraki would she be as strong as him post MVA or would she be stuck with USJ-level Decay?

Ignoring the blatant retcon-ex machina of it being dependent on Himiko's connection (not like it mattered during the Forest Camp Raid!), It is massively over powered and it doesn't fit Himiko's themes.

Now, let's look at Twice.

Twice's quirk (Double) allows him to produce identical copies of anyone through a sludge like substance that excretes from the palms of both his hands.

Each copy is a little weaker than the original, if a copy makes a copy then that fragility doubles.

Twice's quirk is ties to his character by his trauma. To the point he's so fearful of turning to sludge, that he actively goes out of his way to avoid conflict.

This guy had to watch himself kill himself, clone against clone and until MVA, Twice isn't even sure he's the original.

Twice's quirk awakening works.

It works solely because of Twice's character and themes, it simply fits.

It makes sense, Twice was so traumatized that he actively suppressed a part of himself and by breaking through that barrier he can begin to grow stronger by accepting himself.

Twice's quirk awakening works because the peice were always there. It wasn't that Twice pulled this out of his ass, he earned it.

He not only unlocked a part of himself, he came back stronger. In this way the formula works

Quirk + Effort/ Character Growth = Stronger Quirk.

Rather than replace or rebuild, Twice's QA works with what was already present and it comes off wonderfully.

I wish I could say the same for our next "challenger"

I have plenty of complaints about Shigaraki as a character, plenty.

His quirk awakening is certainly up there, not on the top. But it's up there.

It takes the weaker aspects of what I mentioned above and uses it as a crutch.

Besides Shigaraki remembering and accepting his past, this QA has nothing going for it.

It's almost boring.

There's only so much you can do with a quirk like Decay.

All it does is expand the speed and radius. And while that works for what Decay is, a quirk made to destroy things. It's really boring from a story perspective.

Seeing Deika and later Jaku was cool, but just that, cool. It only really served to push things forward and what it pushed was horrendous.

Stepping away from the narrative side, let's discuss the In-Universe side.

Post MVA Decay has two advantages. It spreads really fast and it makes things explode:

So why doesn't it work like Twice's did?

Themes. Nothing about Shigaraki's QA ties in with the themes expressed in MVA.

As the protagonist of the arc, we should feel a connection with Shigaraki, but we never do. Mainly because we don't get that much time with him.

Besided the bonding he does with the LOV we are given little reason as to why Shigaraki ticks like he does, there's little to no theme-ing with Shigaraki.

Doctor Garaki says it best with this line:

What does Shigaraki have to show us outside of his past and the PLF.

Hardly anything.

We know he's an avid gamer and likes to destroy things.

That's it.

Even Magne had something before she died, somekind of concrete goal that aligned with her character.

Tomura has nothing we can attach that to and as such his QA falls flat.

And this set the standard for every other quirk awakening in the series, no I'm not counting that monstrosity Hori bulled with Bakugo .

Uraraka's, Midoriya's, Shoto's (implied) Awakening, they all fall flat because they don't match the themes that were set literal years ago. Hori doesn't know how QA work despite having written them.

If your at the point where you, as a writer, don't understand your own in-universe system. Then maybe it's time you take away some stuff.

Why Shigaraki fails as a antagonist (featuring: Nine and Hana)

I already brushed the surface of this topic in the last segment. I'll elaborate on it here.

Shigaraki sucks as an antagonist. I don't like to use Reddit due to the attitudes on there but had found something while looking for information.

I managed to find a post that I think sums up my issues with Shigaraki pretty well, even if I don't agree the rest of the post (mainly blaming Shigaraki for Hori's failures)

The main one being what is the LOV even doing?

Spinner brings up a good point why do they even follow Shigaraki, what can he provide them as a leader that they can't get by sticking it out on their own.

Shigaraki is spoon fed practically everything and once you notice, it kills any possibility of him being taken seriously.

Let's see:

Dabi, Himiko: brought in by Giran, AFO's associate.

Spinner, Mangne, Compress: Came aboard under the false pretense that Shigaraki had cooperated with Stain.

Gigantomechia: Kurogiri has to draw him out, gets arrested while doing so.

The MLA: Has to gain a quirk awakening just to match ReDestro's output and ReDestro hands him the keys almost immediately. Only reason the merger happens is because ReDestro and Spinner planned it.

Every single goddamn thing in this story is because of factors external to Shigaraki. He literally stands around until Garaki gives him a new quest-line like a fucking Bethesda NPC.

It was understandable in the USJ because Shigaraki needed to be introduced. He was at his base form and needed to grow, except that growth never happens.

The story just dances around him, he doesn't need to try because Hori will just force things to happen.

The entire Jaku arc is him throwing a tantrum and the benefits just falling onto his lap. It is sheer luck that the public made that correlation.

Because the Nomu's behavior don't line up at all with Stains ideals. Nor does Shigaraki's "philosophy", and that was what partly triggered the whole Hosu arc in the first place!

Realistically nearly every member of the LOV should have turned tail the moment they met Shigaraki in person and spent time with him for over five minutes.

The LOV only exists and works because Shigaraki takes the backseat.

The entire Camp Raid, the focus is on everyone but Shigaraki who does fuck-all until Bakugo gets captured and we see him at the bar.

You could pluck Shigaraki from the arc and nothing would change because the central focus was on Dabi and the Vanguard Action Squad. How is anyone supposed to take Shigaraki seriously, when he is second fiddle to his own team.

And it's pretty much the same in the Overhaul Arc what does he direct contribute?

Again, nothing. I've heard the term 'Talk no jujitsu' used and it perfectly encapsulates his response to Himiko's anger.

No one in the LOV has any reason to believe him, to put faith in him because the fuck up was so colossal.

Let's review:

Shigaraki knew someone (someone important, a villain) was coming, made no plan if things went south. Dabi had actually left the base to recruit on Shigaraki's orders! Meaning that Shigaraki is primarily to blame for the casualties dealt during this fight.

Already bad, but maybe he does something to reaffirm their belief in him as a leader. Nope.

His revenge plan hinged on Overhaul not deciding to kill two of his team members on a whim, or use them as bargaining chips. Sends them directly into enemy territory with no resources.

Put his teammates on a position where they are forced to kill a hero in order to evade capture, making them a priority target for society at large* and further pushing them away from possible resources. (*A society, mind you that openly mutilates and kills outlaws)

His relationship with his team members is near non existant: from the Reddit Post

Spinner. Shigaraki plays videogames with him off-screen. Never even shows any concern for his whereabouts after Spinner starts losing his mind and almost goes full Nomu off of his quirks.

Kurogiri. Shigaraki never shows any wonder or comment as to Kurogiri's presence, despite the fact that Kurogiri was his babysitter for a long time and he apparently missed him after his capture.

Mr. Compress. Shigaraki never shows any wonder or concern as to his capture.

Dabi. Shigaraki never interacts with him in any way that suggests real friendship.

Toga. Shigaraki never interacts with her in any way that suggests real friendship.

Twice. Shigaraki never shows any kind of wonder or any concern as to his death.

Magne. Shigaraki never interacts with her in a way that suggests real friendship. Side Note: he never really reacts to her death either.

Y'wanna know who does have a relationship with his team?

Nine:

Nine might be one of the few characters Hori has ever created that managed to make me give a shit about them outside of alternative (or fanon) materials.

He is everything Shigaraki tried to be as a character:

A solid goal: To create an ideal world for his allies and himself where their idea of the 'strongest' rule.

Connections: Everything Nine does, he does himself. His teammates ate intertwined with hin through their history, he actually saved Chimera's life and it's implied he also did this for Slice and Mummy.

Effort: Nine puts himself in harms way numerous times for the sake of his allies and their mission. He even goes through with Garaki's experiments knowing he will likely wind up as the experiment himself.

Nine is phenomenal for what he was: A character from a spinoff movie.

And then he was killed.

God Fucking Damn it Hori.

===============================

Something that always bothered me about the defaced All Might statue was the laziness of it all.

In a way it reflected the direction MHA was headed, headlong into a kerosene coatdd dumpster.

I Am Not Here.

That's the best thing you could come up with? The falling action of the Arc and all you could conjure was that!?

When MHA ended, I said no, no fuck that and began putting some of the concepts I had made during MHA's decline to good use.

The logical conclusions went into Crownless Monarchy. Which serves as a continuation to what Hori failed for finish.

The rest?

The rest had been going into a side project of mine called:

I Am Nowhere

Or Nowhere for short.

Total Timeline Derailment is a phenomenon I noticed pop up in specfic works.

It occurs when an author throws out all stages of canon in favor of crafting their own story and shedding the limitations of the source material.

The story of Nowhere starts off modestly, following an alternative line of events where Hana's quirk causes a much larger scale massacre upon it's blossoming and the expands to show just how different this universe really is.

Such changes include: Hana's quirk being named and shown:

Soundwave: evolution of Nana's quirk and takes inspiration from Hana's name meaning (Flower)

Present Mic and Jirou losing their quirks in their youth (or as an infant in Jirou's case)

Himiko's parents making a deal with the Symbol of Evil himself.

Expanding upon Doctor Garaki's past and friendship with AFO.

The Yakuza going a different route (Overhual gets a new brother)

An alternate USJ: Christmas came early

AFO and Garaki both having successors.

And a ton of other things I need to flesh out more!

One may wonder what this has to do with my critiques on Hori's canon.

Besides being a pitch of sorts, this allows me to elaborate on how Hori seems to make mistakes one wouldn't expect of someone with as many years under the belt as Hori.

The one thing Hori always forgets is consequences. In Nowhere, Consequences are everywhere.

Enji shipping Rei off to the mental ward to cover up his abuse?

AFO takes interest and decides to pull some strings to get Rei transferred to Jaku General.

UA slacks on security?

Ok! Just let Hana bring Warmonger (USJ Nomu) along and have her kill Thirteen and nearly kill All Might in the same hour. Oh, and Himiko is playing the insider (of her own volition)

Bakugo rejects Midoriya's hand?

His abuses attract the attention of the Pale Sculptor herself, leading to him loosing both his parents in a "gas leak" ignited when Marsaru clapped his hands and caused an mini explosion to occur. [They get Rei's version of Nomufication] setting Nomufication forward by a decade in the process.

Ideally this story won't leave things out. Speaking of that I have one last thing to discuss

The whole debacle with the Winged Nomu and how some people don't know that it's apparently supposed to be Tsubasa

(yk the obscure character who only shows up twice and who we didn't get a name for until said reveal)

"What a Bomb to Drop", yeah it would have been better to "drop" it without needing to cram it into volume extras.

That right there is what gets me about Hori's writing, the lack of storytelling.

We shouldn't have an entirety different series just to understand why a character is they way they are (I'm looking at you Oboro)

I will say Vigilantes is leagues above it's parent series, even with the glaring flaws that plauge it.

Moral of the story: LEARN TO WRITE!

[linkspooky]

BSD VS LITERATURE: NO LONGER HUMAN

The second entry in my long running series to analyze every single book referenced in Bungou Stray Dogs, to try piece together the author’s intended meaning in referencing the work. 

Osamu Dazai’s ability name comes from the author’s final novel “No Longer Human”, you may have heard of it. The novel contains several events from the author’s real life, but is considered semi-autobiographical because it depicts the life of a fictional character “Yozo” who much like the real life author attempted suicide a total of five times in his life before utlimately succeeding. Many believe the book to be his will as Dazai killed himself shortly after the last part of the book was published. As for the connection to the fictional character, more under the cut. 

1. Disqualified from Being Human

Dazai as a character borrows several traits from Yozo the protagonist of the novel. He has the same habit of clowning and engaging others in a false persona, while it happens mostly offscreen the audience and Dazai’s coworkers are aware of the fact he regularly indulges himself in vices like drinking, having illicit relationships with women (its often referenced he has a long line of exes and women he’s left upset over him) and that he’s also constantly in debt. 

Deeper than those surface level traits though, Dazai shares the same motivation as Yozo for his antics. They are both people who feel utterly alienated from the people around them, unable to connect with their thoughts and feelings and because of that they resort to always engaging them in a false, and comedic facade. They are fundamentally uncomfortable with ever presenting their true selves around others. 

As a child I had absolutely no notion of what others, even members of my own family, might be suffering from or what they were thinking. I was aware of my own unspeakable fears and embarrassments. Before anyone realized it, I had become an accomplished clown, a child who never spoke a single word. No Longer Human. 

Dazai is described as a child in the same way by Oda, who is arguably the character who knows him best. Even with Oda though, and the rest of the Buraiha trio as a whole though they were friends it carries the tragedy that they never were truly honest with one another, Oda never overstepped the clear boundaries between him and Dazai, Ango never let either of them into the secret that he was a government spy all along. Even that friendship which Dazai found comfortable, and was so significant to him he changed his entire life’s past around Oda’s dying words, he still placed an uncilimbable wall between the two of them. 

“I thought you were similiar to Dazai at first, rushing into battle and wishing for death without even considering the value of your own life. But he’s different. He’s sharp witted, with a mind like a steel trap. And he’s just a child - a sobbing child abandoned in the darkness of a world far emptier than the one we’re seeing.”

He was too smart for his own good. That was why he was always alone. The reason why Ango and I were unable to be by his side was that we understood the solitude that surrounded him, and we never stepped inside no matter how close we stood. 

But in that moment I kind of regretted not stepping in and invading that solitude. Bungo Stray Dogs, Volume 2. 

There’s a supposed difference in Yozo, who is a drunken layabout constantly in debt who fails out of college and Dazai the super genius who is apparently one of the smartest members of the cast, but honestly if you peel back the layers of Dazai’s “Superhuman / Godlike Genius” status his and Yozo’s behaviors and treatment of other people is actually pretty similar. 

Here is the secret of No Longer Human that a lot of readers miss in their interpretation. While Yozo can be a sympathetic character, because he’s genuinely miserable in his life, and the way he tells his story is highly relatable to the unhappiness of many readers, Yozo sucks. 

If you look at his actions outside of his self-pitying narration, Yozo is a serial manipulator of people, especially those with a status weaker than him in society (women, and even chidlren) he strings them along often taking money from them until he abandons them. Yozo is considered to be so pretty and likable, people often relate to his misery and give him what he wants without him giving anything in return.

There’s four major women he interacts with in the novel. A married women he gets to pay for his drinks a couple of times, doesn’t see for months, and then commits suicide with her. His reaction to her death is very minimal and he doesn’t even seem to mourn her. Then, he becomes a kept man for a woman with a child for awhile gets her to pay for his drinking habit, has multiple affairs on her while living at their house (or at least it’s implied).He also comes to view the child as an enemy of his. 

“I would like my real Daddy back.”  I felt dizzy with shock. An enemy. Was I Shigeko’s enemy, or was she mine?

No Longer Human.

He abandons them. (Surprise, surprise). Then moves on to marry a seventeen year old girl, specifically because she is a virgin. I probably don’t have to mention the predatory subtext there. 

Yoshiko’s pale face was smiling as she sat there inside the dimly lit shop. What a holy thing uncorrupted virginity is, I thought. I had never slept with a virgin, a girl younger than myself. I’d marry her. [...] I made up my mind on the spot: it was a then-and-there decision, and I did not hesitate to steal the flower. No Longer Human. 

That wife then gets raped and not only does Yozo feel little to no sympathy for her whatsoever, he then proceeds to just leave and abandon her because his image of her as a perfect image is ruined. He even refers to her as a possession he lost far earlier on in the novel. 

Once in a while, it is true I have experienced a vague sense of regret at losing something, but never strongly enough to affirm positively, or to contest with others my rights of possession. This was so true of me that some years later, I even watched in silence when my own wife was violated. No Longer Human.

The last woman he gets involved with only because he has a morphine addiction and he wants to string her along so she can keep supplying him with morphine. If you strip away the thin veneer of Dazai as a master manipulator and superhuman genius, you are just left with his actions which include his constant manipulation of other people (children younger and more vulnerable than him) and even his own allies. He is a user, much in the same way Yozo is. This is just named characters, it’s implied offscreen that Dazai has Yozo’s same habit of burning through relationships and women like jet fuel. 

Of course, there is a tragic reason for Yozo’s behavior it is implied he was violated by a female servant as a child, but that further adds onto the underlying point of the novel that Yozo’s genuinely miserable but he’s also the architect of his own misery. He is a victim who basically continues the cycle of abuse. His two primary methods of interacting with people is either manipulating them / stringing them along, or abandoning them. Even the Dazai who works at the agency keeps Akutagawa his biggest victim wearing the coat that Mori Gave him that represents the cycle of abuse just... wrapped around his little finger because it’s more convenient to use and dispose of him that way. 

Akutagawa’s so insanely devoted to Dazai that he believes being abandoned was just a secret little test and if he performs well than he’ll finally get the carrot that Dazai has been dangling in front of his head for a long time. Dazai’s treatment of Akutagawa as someone to just conveniently use and then dispose of is something that leads to Akutagawa getting himself killed trying to earn that praise. 

Dazai and Yozo have a similiar problem where they are pitiable in the fact they are victims themselves, they have been used in the past and it’s left them feeling alienated and unable to connect with others, but then they jump right into treating others as less than human too. Dazai has this strange paradox where he scolds Dostoevsky for believing in god and seeing himself as an agent of god or some kind of omniscient manipulator and that the real people who make a difference in the world are the people living in the world and struggling in it but Dazai... still doesn’t see himself as one of those people. Dazai’s like “You shouldn’t manipulate people like pieces on a gameboard...” but Dazai still views himself as one of the players sitting and watching things from on high rather than one of the pieces. 

Dazai and Yozo are incapable of seeing themselves as human beings and eternally feel like outsiders when they try to be around others. However, at the same time they give no respect to the humanity or the feelings of other people. They don’t treat others like humans. Which is why they are essentially the architects of their own misery, they are alone because they choose continually over and over to either only engage in other people with lives, or treat relationships as transactional. These flaws of Dazai’s have been toned down since the dark age, but even Detective Agency Dazai still has this habit of looking down on other people. He has good intentions he tries to live by, but also in crisis situations tends to fall back on old habits. 

2. Lover’s Suicide

Finally, there’s two relationships in the book that parallels Dazai’s two most significant relationships in the story. The tragedy of Oda in the dark era, actually mirrors what was Yozo’s most significant suicide attempt in the book. Yozo runs out of money and on a whim attempts to commit suicide with a married woman who had been more or less a longtime but distant acquiantance. 

We threw ourselves into the sea at Kamakura that night. She untied her sash saying she had borrowed it from a friend at the cafe, and left it folded neatly on a rock. I removed my coat and put it in the same spot. We entered the water together. 

She died. I was saved. No Longer Human. 

This event mirrors the defining tragedy of Dazai’s backstory as depicted in the second light novel, and his reason for leaving the mafia. Essentially, Dazai finally becomes close to someone his longtime acquaintance Oda, who unlike him has a reason to live in raising children and dreaming of one day becoming an author. However, by the end of the novel it’s Oda who commits suicide and Dazai who lives. 

“You’re such an idiot, Odasaku. The biggest idiot I know.”  “Yeah.” “You didn’t have to do this. You didn’t have to die.” “I know.” 

Bungo Stray Dogs, Vol. 2

If you want to sprinkle in an additional homosexual subtext what Oda basically does is commit a lover’s suicide with someone else, by choosing to die with Gide. Which means that not only does Dazai survive while Oda dies, but Oda chose to commit a lover’s suicide with someone other than him. 

Then there is Yozo’s acquiantance to longtime friend Horiki. HOriki is his only real significant friend in the novel, but Yozo absolutely despises him. Nothing healthy ever comes from their relationship, he gets Yozo addicted on cigarettes and alcohol, he drags him to secret communist meetings, however Yozo who frequently just abandons people never really gets rid of him. 

Horiki and myself. Despising each other as we did, we were constantly together, thereby degrading ourselves. If that is what the world calls friendship, the relationships between Horiki and myself were undoutably those of friendship. No Longer Human. 

The reason being that Yozo despite loathing Horiki senses that the two of them are alike in nature. There’s also something to be said about Yozo getting along more naturally with someone he hates, rather than the people in his life who constantly attempt to love him. 

Horiki and myself. Though outwardly he appeared to be a human being like the rest, I sometimes felt he was exactly like myself. No Longer Human. 

His relationship with Horiki reflects both the partnership of the double black duo, two individuals who loathe each other but had near perfect cooperation in their teamwork but also the foiling between Chuuya and Dazai. They are both people who do not view themselves as human, Chuuya because of the mystery of his origins as the host of Arahabaki and Dazai because his intelligence leaves him feelings isolated from the world. 

He looked up in the direction of the sudden voice. It was a familiar voice, one that belonged to the person he hated most in this world. 

Your birth itself was a mistake. We’re the same. Is there a really a point to suffering through all that pain for a life that isn’t real?” 

The voice was taunting him. 

[...]

“Screw you Dazi.”

Chuuya wanted nothing more than to slice off the ear the voice was whispering right into. He could see Dazai’s wavering shadow by his side, and he wanted to gauge out his eyes. 

“That’s just proof that you at least somewhat believe what I’m saying. Because deep down inside you’re the same as me.”

Like, they hate each other, but they hate each other for the real person they are deep down on the inside. Which results in him and Chuuya having an entirely antagonistic relationship and yet at the same time Chuuya is the one person that Dazai can’t really bullshit or lie to, because sharing so much in common gives Chuuya some insight into Dazai’s darker tendencies. 

Which results in a relationship where neither of them like each other, and yet both of them are just a little bit obsessed with each other. Despising each other and constantly together. 

So in summary, No Longer Human is a work about a character’s difficulty to form relationships with others because not only do they not see themselves as human they also treat the others around them as lesser than humans. Yozo is a character clearly stuck in that cycle of abuse, whereas Dazai Osamu himself is someone struggling in the story to break that cycle and curb his own manipulative tendencies inside of himself, ironically because of the close relatonship he had formed with the one person he was ever even a little bit honest with Odasaku. 

[vasito-de-leche]

Hello!😄, I admire the way you write ✍️The way u never mischaracterized characters and the way you write them accurately is fascinating to read for ,and how you also took focus on small details about the character heck im starting to believe you work on the game R1999, if may I ask if you could write about Six from R1999 with a timid S/O or about a self-aware au of Six ? It had been my obsession of him after he came out and with his story making it more fascinating and made me attract towards him more

;R1999 6 - Self-Aware AU

Headcanons about how 6 would act upon becoming self-aware. Related to this Self-Aware AU post.

tysm for the kind words! I rlly like overthinking and overanalyzing stuff <3

I'll do the self-aware AU for this post to match the other one posted recently about 37, but feel free to send another ask if you'd still like 6 with a timid S/O!

There is a lot to be discussed about 6 and how all four characters of the 1.4 update contrast and complement each other so wonderfully, but I have a lot of trouble narrowing down what exactly I want to talk about here and what I should save for a proper analysis of the characters and the way I interpret them. So as usual, I ask that you guys bear with me with these trains of thoughts!

For starters, in my opinion, 6 is a very good narrative foil to 37.

Both focus on alienation and isolation from their respective communities, both are characters that struggle with the concept of fate, and both were born knowing their numbers--the key difference is the way each tackles this piece of information.

As discussed before in her own post, 37 does not question the reason why she's 37: like 210 says, "she stumbled upon fate at birth," and did not go through the same process of having to figure out one's number like the rest do. When it comes to 6, it's slightly different but the fundamentals are the same: he knows the number he will be assigned, and yet this revelation is not part of a natural process, it's something that us forced upon him and his family.

What I'm trying to say is that 37 and 6 weren't given the choice of discovering their soul numbers, and thus lack the most important part: the understanding of their own lives and selves. Compare this to 210, who became "too predictable" upon finding out his own soul number, or Sophia, who has clearly developed a very complex relationship with her own friends because of the inferiority and feelings of inadequacy she feels not knowing her own number.

And this is when the contrast between the two become clear: 37 is partially isolated from her community because she doesn't understand fate, nor the importance of one's journey, she doesn't respect the discovery of one's number. 6 is partially isolated from his community because no one else but him is able to see the concept of fate--or the Revelation--as a negative thing. His entire life, his entire bloodline is defined by fate and the Revelation, but only he understands the burden and the pain such knowledge entails.

Because only he has seen the way this Revelation takes over his loved ones, until they become strangers, mere vessels for infinite knowledge and bound to their role as perfect, eternal leaders. His character event shows the radical change in his aunt once she receives the Revelation and 6's fears of his entire self being rewritten once he receives it as well.

It's important to note that the moment Atticus becomes a proper 6 and receives the revelation happens on the very same day that everyone on the boat becomes a victim of the "Storm." Sophia's father and 37's mother were on that boat--but so was Alma, the current 6 at the time and Atticus' aunt. This event is crucial for all characters, as it cements their chosen paths: it's the study of the Emanation for 37, to continue her mother's research.

It's the day 6 will receive the Revelation and see if his efforts to prepare for it will amount to something.

And yet we know that 6 was able to withstand this Revelation without his entire self being washed away by the infinite amount of knowledge. We know this because we see him retain his hermit-like behaviour in the main story, avoiding people and preferring peace and quiet. We know this because, at the very end of this event, he says that the revelation is "just as simple as it is."

37 does not understand fate, but she doesn't fight it either because studying it won't change the fact that her soul number is 37. 6 understands and once feared fate, and he fought to resist it because his entire life, his memories, his personality and essence were at risk. I also really love that small detail about how 1.4 focuses on Plato's allegory of the cave, with 37 and 6 being put on this pedestal as those who witnessed the truth and came back to save the others--and yet, these two characters needed people OUTSIDE of the island to help them with their respective journeys (37 with Vertin, and 6 with Sophia). It just clicks so right to me!

In the context of a Self-Aware AU, I like to think that the self-awareness is something that comes with the Revelation. That every 6 before Atticus himself realized the truth of their world, similar to how 37 sees this self-awareness as yet another eternal truth. And because the number 6 is meant to represent harmony and perfection, they understand more than anyone that to ensure the peace in Apeiron, they cannot allow others to know the truth. Think of it as the whole deal with Pythagoras and irrational numbers--the discovery of irrational numbers ruined the whole system.

I think that a much younger 6 would've been distraught at this information, to know that Alma was the only person who was "real" and that he began to drift away from her because he couldn't recognize her anymore. But now, after receiving his Revelation and becoming the new leader, he might be more focused on appreciating life as it is. Why would he be bothered by knowing everything so far has been a script? He's already been haunted by fate his whole life, this is, in the end, the same thing. Of course, 6 is a philosopher in his own right, despite knowing pretty much everything there is to know, I think he would like to ponder about the more existential issues and topics that come with self-awareness.

I also like to think that his self-awareness and the Revelation come with knowing how the story will develop, at least in relation to Apeiron. He knows of Vertin's arrival, he knows of Arcana's schemes, he knows that by the end, Apeiron will be revealed to the human world. 6 believes it's impossible to change the course this game and its story, and the best thing he can do is help everyone prepare for it--I like to think that's why he specifically sent 37 to greet Vertin and the rest!

When it comes to finding out about the Player, I already said in 37's post that it would be very nice if she could see the player, but not hear them. And to contrast that, I wanted 6 to hear the player, but not see them.

The Player's existence is the one thing that 6 cannot pinpoint nor rationalize. He listens so very attentively when you speak, and he quickly realizes that you are not part of this infinite stream of knowledge from his ancestors, you're ... Just a person. What are you trying to teach him, if that is even your goal?

At first, I can see him struggle with this strange presence interrupting his very much needed alone time, choosing to remain silent until you go away, but he would grow to find it comforting, similar to his friendship with Sophia when they were children. You are an outsider, you're not part of this little world he lives in--you can offer a refreshing and different perspective. Once he's used to this new change, perhaps he will speak again, either to ponder out loud about your existence or monologue about whatever might be occupying his mind. Unlike 37, he wouldn't tell a single soul of your existence, largely because he believes it's something unique to him, entirely unaware that there's someone out there behind the screen rooting for him.

[iniziare]

Some 'randomized' Solas tidbits, some of these are things in DATV that I default to (though I will change as to accommodate decisions made from the Rooks I will write with within reason: example being that I'm not open to all endings), and others are just random thoughts I wanted to touch on. Ah, sometimes I get a little sad that I need to put all of this under a read more, but I don't want to spoil anything for people. Here we go!

— The ending. As a writer of Solas, I can't do anything other than default to the 'best' ending, which includes Solavellan, and the choice to use Mythal's essence. Which is not to say that I will force Solavellan onto everyone, and it actually is not even the main reason as to why I choose it (though my heart does, every time) as my default. It's simply that the inclusion of Mythal is incredibly fundamental to him being able to atone for his 'sins', that you will have to bribe me with kilograms of chocolate to have me waver from it. I can and will do it if you insist, but then it is important that you know that he can not, and will never properly 'atone'. No other ending will get Solas to that state of mind, and 'insisting' on it as you see in the 'bad' (/worst) ending will simply fetch the intense reaction you would expect from going so firmly against the embodiment of pride, rather than wisdom (I'll write a separate post on how this works in a bit, and link it here for reference.)

— Solavellan. On that note, yes, I'm an intense Solavellan shipper, and the ending that includes her is, in my opinion, most fitting to his character, and is the one that I choose as, shall we say, 'my canon'. I will not force this decision on anyone, but in threads with others where Lavellan is mentioned, unless we've decided differently in our plotting, I will default to it in the same way that Bioware has decided to do with Veilguard's release. It's simple: Solas has, does, and will always hold feelings of great love for her.

— Emotive expression. It is noted that spirits feel incredibly deeply, and we notice this from Solas as soon as the second regret memory where we hear him speak to Mythal. He speaks softly, and earnestly, he reaches out to grasp, to touch, and you hear a deep sense of something akin to defeat in his voice when she refuses his offer, and him. Of course, this is emphasized even more by the memory of him as a spirit of wisdom. It is for this reason, that it's important to note that the best way for this to manifest in mortal form, is through artistic expression, and that it wasn't only specific to the timeline of Inquisition. The music room is a treasure trove to me, and through the note that we find there, we know that it was a spot of great importance to Solas himself, and that memories held therein are precious to him. I will go into details in a separate post for it as well, but it's not just the musical instruments that are important in here, but the mural plays an equal part. Did you see it? The mural that holds the symbol of the Inquisition? Not only does this tell me rather firmly that Solas returned to the lighthouse at some point after the events of Inquisition, but it isn't just any Inquisition insignia. No, if you look closely, and remember: it's a recreation of Solas' frescoes from his rotunda in Skyhold. Not only that, but it is in the place that serves as something akin to a museum or memorial to his regrets. Go ahead, tell me what that says to you, and how much it breaks your heart. Any way, back to the... original purpose of this bullet point: Solas' way to cope, or his way of expressing his emotions, is through the stroke of a brush (Spotify decided to ruin me at the worst of moments:"If I sway my brush, will I capture thee?') a chord engulfed by silence, or writings to parchment, but is not relegated to just these things.

— His connection to Mythal. This is an incredibly complex and very nuanced topic that I will be going into on a regular basis on this blog. I will never say that Mythal should be glorified, or forgiven (I'd say the opposite), but what I think doesn't matter, for what matters on this blog is what Solas thought, and thinks. Sifting through Morrigan's reaction to being asked to talking about them and having such a deep reaction to it, to the conversation that Rook had with the potentially 'oldest' and least 'evolved' (and so the closest to what Solas once knew) fragment of Mythal, I can't say that they are not complicated. From 'What should I have done when Solas turned against me after all we had been to one another?' to 'Can you even understand what it is to battle with someone and love them even still? That is what Solas and I are to one another.' To Morrigan's 'Yet Solas was once beloved of Mythal.' And finally, the note found in the music room. And those lines? They are from the side that I think is much more complicated than the other. Regardless of how it came to be, I think that the nature of Solas' intense emotional (as I elaborated on in the previous point) perspective of Mythal is undeniable, and it served as the driving force for everything that he committed himself to doing, including going against his nature as a spirit of Wisdom over, and over, and over. And yet, with each day that passes, I think that the nuance is much deeper than I first thought on day one of finishing Veilguard. Mythal did terrible things, but it's paramount to remember what Solas, himself, was like and still is, because a lot of answers can be found in that. I'm sorry, perhaps not everyone will like my future analyses of this despite the fact that I am very far from a Mythal apologist, and never will be, but I insist on critical thought and nuance when I seek answers. And yes, I think that all of this only empowers Solavellan.

— Fade Prison. 'Regret, like all emotions, is a powerful thing. (...) Regret is even strong enough to serve as the lock on a prison built to hold gods'. It is, in fact, a prison of regret. And for it to be able to hold Rook captive instead of Solas so that the latter could escape it, Rook's regret, for that moment in time, had to outweigh Solas' own. But by that same token, I raise a different, and very important topic: Varric. 'When you disrupted my ritual, the magical energies pulled me here, into the Fade.' Focus on the words, he got 'pulled into' the Fade, unintended, not of his own accord. Now, as of the moment that the struggle between Varric and Solas comes to an end, which leaves the former stabbed, over twenty to twenty-five seconds pass during which Solas could have gotten 'pulled into the Fade' and yet was not. So I ask: why not? If it is, as he says, a prison of which the lock is held by the intensity of one's regret(s), then I think that it can only mean one thing. Now, if you let the scene play out, you notice one thing, and that's that Solas is only pulled into the prison, directly after Varric actually dies (which Solas is turned towards, and thus witnesses). To me, it's always been clear that Solas created, and fostered bonds within his time in the Inquisition, but I think that this moment is proper evidence of that. He who called him 'Chuckles' wasn't just an ally, but he was someone that Solas regarded fondly enough, that witnessing (and being ultimately responsible for) his death, was ultimately the pivotal thing that the prison needed, and used, to pull him in to it, which in turn set loose both Elgar'nan and Ghilan'nain.

[blender2902]

MARIKA NEVER ABANDONED MESSMER! (IN DEFENCE OF MARIKA PART 2)

Well it would be more accurate to say that they were seeing each other regularly until the shattering. I know I am not the first person to say this but I have not seen anyone make a dedicated lore post establishing a solid timeline with proper evidence so, I shall be the one to do it. My goal is to prove that Marika had contact with Messmer until she shattered the Elden ring.

Let’s first establish a general timeline of the events that are going to be relevant-

We know from gaius’s remembrance and Rellana’s lore that Messmer’s crusade must have begun sometime after 2nd Liurnian wars. The crusade must have begun before Radagon became elden lord as he removed all colosseum practices in his era as per the ritual sword talisman description and in the lands of shadow we find the dueling shield which says that these practices somehow remained in the shadow realm.

Now, whether the crusade took place before or after Godfrey’s banishment is unclear. I have seen many claim that Messmer knows what a tarnished is so the crusade must have begun after his banishment but then you are assuming that Marika abandoned Messmer as soon as she sent him there. If you believe that the YOU ARE DEAD WRONG! Two item descriptions refute this theory completely-

Black Knight Andreas spirit ash-

Focus on the line I have underlined, ‘flight from the Erdtree’. This description is straight up saying that during the crusade Messmer did go back home but then he was chased away

Don’t try to argue that the flight was the beginning of the crusade as it was commemorated which means that the crusade had the support of the erdtree at its beginning.

This means that the flight must have happened after the crusade began.

To further solidify this, the stone tablets at the specimen storehouse and the queen’s bedchambers are the exact same-

This is not a case of reused assets because these tablets are found nowhere else in the base game to my knowledge. Messmer must have brought these to Marika by himself. This also disproves the assumption that Marika wanted Messmer to be forgotten, since if she really did want that, she would have destroyed those stone tablets as well. Why does Marika want these tablets? Well, the answer doesn’t really matter but my personal headcannon is that Messmer found out that the jar innards are still alive and he told Marika so she started doing research in an attempt to cure them but it seems she was unsuccessful. Anyhow, what matters is that Messmer did return to her.

Here is how the timeline looks like now-

So now we know that the crusade must have started around the time Godfrey was banished but we still don’t know when the Messmer was sealed in the lands of shadow. Thus, we must look at another piece of lore from the dlc, the death knights of Godwyn. From what I have seen most people just ignore this part of the dlc lore, which is a shame, because this fundamentally changes our understanding of the timeline. The death knight armour says-

“Cadaver Surrogate” means a substitute for the corpse itself. What is this substitute? It must be what these death knights are guarding.

We don’t see this face in any other catacombs both in the dlc and in the base game. We find one of these faces in stormveil castle. Rogier straight up calls that thing a corpse-

All hints point towards those faces being the “Cadaver Surrogate.” This leads me to believe that the knights did not get to the realm of shadow through some ‘deathroot bulshit’ and got to the realm of shadow using those faces because these knights went there to specifically search for these. If they were transported to them, then it would make no sense to say that they went to search for them. Now, let’s look at some interesting enemies we find in these catacombs.

These guys belong to Messmer’s army. The black knights are right behind the fire knights when it comes to position in the army so it doesn’t make much sense that they would be here without orders. The shield those little guys drop literally says they are loyal to Messmer which means he must have ordered them-

We can argue that these guys are here just to protect the spirit ashes of Andreas and Huw respectively but there is one detail that goes against that, this stake of Marika here which is right before the Death knight boss-

Who could have placed this here? It must have been Messmer’s soldiers as I do not think the death knights would carry these around. Therefore, this heavily implies that Messmer sent these guys here to protect the death knights. The fact that these guys only appear in death knight catacombs but do not in any other mini dungeon further proves that. Now comes the question, why would Messmer send these guys here? His mission is to purge the hornsent not to help the death knights out right? Well, the only way we can make sense of this jumble is if Marika was the one to order Messmer to guard these knights. Remember, after Godwyn’s death, Marika is through with the golden order and has lost all faith in it. The golden order fanatics that hunt those who live in death use fundamentalist incantations which were created by Radagon not Marika which implies the stigma against them was Radagon’s doing not Marika’s. Therefore, it is well within Marika’s character to help these death knights out and send them to the shadow realm. Whether she was the one who came up with the idea of the “Cadaver Surrogate” I am not sure but that does not matter. What matters is that Marika let the death knights go to the shadow realm to accomplish their mission and asked Messmer to protect them. She might have thought that the death knights could revive Godwyn but that is a discussion for another day.

Even if you want to argue that the death knights placed this here, that still implies that Marika sent these guys there which means the Lands of shadow was not sealed yet.

This means that Marika had contact with Messmer AFTER THE NIGHT OF THE BLACK KNIVES which means Messmer was sealed AFTER GODWYN’S DEATH.

Here is the finished timeline-

To clear up some confusion about the sealing of the shadow realm and the timeline-

The shadow realm had two things happen to it-

The shadow land was veiled (the place was hidden but traveling there was possible): During Marika’s ascension to godhood she veiled the lands BUT THERE WAS STILL A WAY TO TRAVEL BETWEEN THE LAND OF SHADOWS AND THE LANDS BETWEEN which likely only she could access. The veiling must have happened before Messmer’s crusade because in the story trailer we see that Messmer is assaulting Belurat when the lands of shadow is veiled. Why do I think the place was veiled at Marika’s ascension? It is heavily implied that the Scadutree is responsible for the veil and the Scadutree avatar’s remembrance says-

The Scadutree is called the shadow of the Erdtree which along with the line from the story trailer ‘gold arose and shadow too was born’ implies that when the erdtree was born so too was the scadutree.

2. The shadow lands were sealed (all forms of travel were cut off): This, as I have proven in this post, happened after the knight of the black knives.

Many people have this notion that Marika shattered the Elden ring immediately after Godwyn died but according to Rogier’s dialogue, there was a period of time between the shattering and the night of the black knives. Messmer was sealed during this time.

Now there are several justifiable reasons I could give to Marika for sealing Messmer away but there is one that is supported the most. Messmer was sealed because in one of his visits the base serpent revealed itself somehow which caused the people to turn on him. Fearing for Messmer’s life, especially after losing Godwyn, she sealed him in the shadow realm where he would be safe.

Here is the evidence pointing towards this-

Let’s look at Andreas’s description again

Look at the part I underlined in yellow, Andreas somehow learned of Messmer’s serpentine nature. This serpentine nature has to be the base serpent and not the winged serpents for 2 reasons- 1) the winged serpents are visible on messmer at all times and 2) the winged serpents are depicted on the serpent crest shield so they must have been common knowledge. This implies that the base serpent was somehow able to reveal itself despite Marika’s seal

2. The Erdtree society hated serpents even before the crusade as we learn from the duelist helm description-

These colosseums existed during Godfrey’s era, when Messmer was living at Leyndell, which implies Messmer was never too popular among the upper echelons to begin with due to his winged serpents. The colosseum practices were removed by Radagon but the hatred for serpents must have persisted.

3.Correct me if I am wrong on this but the base serpent in the original Japanese description is called ‘malevolent serpent’ not base serpent. Either way it is called a piece of shit in every item description which implies that it is not necessarily impure but inherently evil which would only make people hate it more.

All this combined with the details about the timeline makes the set of events clear to me - After the night of the black knives, Messmer visited his mom again. During this visit, the base serpent somehow revealed itself to the public. This caused a massive uproar due the widespread hatred of serpents and the nature of the base serpent. All this pressure on top of the fact that Godwyn died made Marika fear for Messmer’s life, so she sealed him away in the shadow realm where he would be safe. Due to the widespread scorn for Messmer, the people would remove all traces of him from history. This would make for another motive for Marika shattering the Elden ring. This is just my speculation, so you can have your interpretation of events but I believe this is supported the most by facts and implications.

Some counterpoints I want to refute-

Why do Messmer’s armies in the lands of shadow ask Marika for a sign to end the crusade? Would that not imply that she said nothing to Messmer? -

Well, Messmer could simply have chosen to keep that business a secret and continue the crusade. When his armies got mad, he let them decapitate Marika’s statues instead of telling them the truth as then his secret would be known by even more people causing more rebellions, which he did not want as that would result in him killing more of his comrades.

2.Why does Messmer’s armor say that Marika wanted him to take the blame for the crusade? -

If this is what you think the armor description says then I have a lot to tell you my friend.

Let’s look at what it is actually saying-

What does this tell us for a fact? It tells us that Marika wished for Messmer to purge the hornsent. Now for some reason people think the ‘direct thy maledictions, thine ire, and thy grief towards me alone’ part means Messmer took the blame for the crusade. With all due respect, this take is just terrible for many reasons-

Why would he need to take the blame for the crusade? The only reason I have seen people throw around is that the crusade ‘became too violent’ which is stupid for 2 reasons- 1) the Land of Shadows (LOS in short) was veiled during the crusade as we can see in the story trailer so how in the almighty name of fuck would anybody know it was violent? ’Oh someone could have travelled to LOS and seen the crusade.’ Marika is the only person capable of allowing travel between the realms, why would she allow a random noble to go to the LOS which is literally the place where all manners of death wash up. Why would any noble want to wander into the LOS anyway like they would know that is the place where the hornsent reside, you know the race of people racist to everyone without horns. 2) Even if it was violent why would the people of the erdtree mind it? Like they are fine with butchering omen babies and stick their horns on a cleaver and all the fucked up bulshit happening to albunaurics at volcano manor (we do see tortured albunaurics at Leynedell right before the entrance to the sewers). If they are fine with these practices, why would they take issue with the race of horned people who made the lives of all those living without horns miserable? It’s just stupid, Messmer would not have to take the blame for anything.

Let’s translate what those last lines mean into simple english-

"Direct thy maledictions, thine ire, and thy grief towards me alone" means:

"Send all your curses, anger, and sorrow to me only."

If we were to consider that Messmer is speaking to the erdtree people then the first two words make sense, curses and anger, but then comes sorrow. What would the erdtree people be sorrowful of? Nothing! They lose nothing from the purge of the hornsent. Don’t say that ‘Oh they lost their sons who became fire knights’ They did not, they shunned them after scorning Messmer as the fire knights were chased due to their allegiance to Messmer.

This means they had no reason for being sorrowful before shunning Messmer. It is logically impossible for Messmer to be addressing the erdtree people here.

Who is he addressing then? The hornsent. He is asking them to curse him and not Marika. Why is that? Well, there is the dialogue of the hornsent grandam cursing Marika with ‘an omen’ which has some heavy implications which I will have to elaborate on in a future post but nonetheless Messmer is talking to the hornsent here not the erdtree people according to logic and evidence.

3. Let’s question the fact that it is Messmer saying those lines. We can clearly see the hornsent still curse Marika to hell. We can also see that Messmer’s armies have started to resent her and cut the heads off of her statues, which is in a way cursing her. Even Messmer himself curses her when he dies due to the influence of the base serpent. Nobody besides the hornsent is cursing Messmer in the game. All this suggests that Marika wishes for Messmer and his armies to direct their curses and grievances towards her and not towards Messmer. She is the more significant character of the two so this is very much a valid interpretation. You can disagree with this third point but I fell the first two are quite solid.

Ok that should do it for this talking point. If you are somehow still convinced Messmer took the blame for the crusade from the erdtree people then I am willing to hear you out though I think that is simply impossible.

3. Why does Messmer curse Marika with his dying breath? This would imply that she abandoned him, right? ���

No. He curses her due to the influence of the base serpent. Messmer knew why he was sealed and was perfectly fine with it. However, when the Elden Ring was shattered, it was seen as a sign of wrath according to the wrath from afar description.

This would make Messmer have doubts which would turn into resentment. This resentment however, is overshadowed by his loyalty and love towards his mother as shown by him having only love and reverence when he speaks of her; her statue in his room is the only one with its head intact. He only curses her when the base serpent takes over. That thing is stated to be evil in multiple item descriptions as I have said earlier so it is not much of a stretch to assume that it would amplify any negative feelings Messmer would have once it takes over. I have also seen some people say that in the Japanese lines Messmer says ‘I curse you’, but the kanji of you he says is the most respectful one which suggests that he was fighting the base serpent for control. I could be wrong about the kanji but either way, what we gather is that 1) Messmer shows nothing but sheer reverence towards Marika before letting the base serpent take over him and 2) that the base serpent is called evil in all item descriptions which implies that it amplifies all negative emotions. This means Messmer was fine with being sealed until the Elden ring was shattered which caused him to have some amount of resentment. When he removed the seal, these feelings were amplified and he cursed his mother.

Other Interpretations I would like to refute-

Marika always planned to abandon Messmer because he was a threat to the Erdtree in one way or another- Impossible, as he returned home and was sealed after the night of the black knives. If she saw him as a threat, he would have been sealed right from the get go.

Marika abandoned him because the crusade got too violent- I’ll copy/paste my points from earlier, 1) the LOS was veiled during the crusade as we can see in the story trailer so how in the almighty name of fuck would anybody know it was violent? ’Oh someone could have travelled to LOS and seen the crusade.’ Marika is the only person capable of allowing travel between the realms, why would she allow a random noble to go to the LOS which is literally the place where all manners of death wash up. Why would any noble want to wander into the LOS anyway like they would know that is the place where the hornsent reside, you know the race of people racist to everyone without horns. 2) Even if it was violent why would the people of the erdtree mind it? Like they are fine with butchering omen babies and stick their horns on a cleaver and all the fucked up bulshit happening to albunaurics at volcano manor (we do see tortured albunaurics at Leynedell right before the entrance to the sewers). If they are fine with these practices, why would they take issue with the race of horned people who made the lives of all those living without horns miserable?

And that is the end of my post. If you disagree with anything feel free to argue. Do present your arguments pointwise

[itsclydebitches]

I think I sent an ask like this along time ago? IDK though.

The weird thing about Oz is that it feels like there was stuff they could have brought up if they wanted us to view him in a darker light that they just...dont

Like, that whole thing with Oz conquering the world with Salem and tricking people into worshipping them as gods. Yeah he eventually saw what he was doing was wrong, but that was after he and Salem had 4 kids. So for a long-ass time he was an imperialist god-king

Or the part where he nearly attacked Ruby once she asked Jinn the question.

It just...feels like those are totally things that should be discussed more. But instead they focus on a bunch of other things that are really weird to hold against Oz.

Like why focus on this you have way better things to hold against Oz right there.

That's very possible, anon! I don't know how many unanswered asks are sitting in this inbox now, but it's not a small number...

Totally agree. I think Oz gets criticized to an unfair degree by the canon and fandom alike (no one is shocked to hear this lol) but part of my issue is what he's criticized for, not just the extent. The show tends to take incredibly weird perspectives like, "How dare you give our uncle cool bird powers with no downside" and "How dare you save group members from a deadly airship crash." The fandom takes stances with larger political implications like, "How dare an abused man 'steal' his daughters away from the mother who wants to use them for a magical form of genocide" or issues that fundamentally break the core concept of the show: "How dare you let teenagers fight dangerous battles / How dare you reincarnate - something you have no control over - into a 14yo boy." The show does engage with some of Ozpin's morally complex choices with no easy answers like, "Is it okay to keep secrets if history has shown severe downsides to revealing that information?"... but then the answer the story decides on - "No it's not" - immediately doesn't apply to half the cast, with no examination of how that changes our perception of Ozpin's choice. And, as you say, the show simultaneously introduces HUGE mistakes - "You positioned yourself as a god! Then a king!!"- that the characters could absolutely mistrust him for... but they don't. Because they're too busy focusing on all of the above.

The only thing I'd push back against here is anyone being mad at Ozpin for "nearly attacking" Ruby. I'd consider that a highly unfair criticism as well given that:

We don't know if he would have attacked. He just charges with his and out-stretched, so Ozpin could just as likely have been intending to snatch the Relic

All these characters have aura and train/hit for funsies on a regular basis. It feels like a stretch - one working to paint Ozpin in an unfair light - to act like Ruby taking a hit is suddenly some horrific event that's worthy getting up-in-arms about

In this same scene the girls pull their weapons on Qrow and Oscar - someone WITHOUT that training/fully unlocked aura - gets punched into a tree. Again, consistent morality. Why is Ozpin in the wrong for charging with an open hand (ambiguous) but the girls are justified in pulling their weapons (clear intent)? Why should Super Fighter Ruby be defended for taking a hit after forcibly stealing secrets from Ozpin, but we should shrug off the newbie farm kid taking a hit for the "sin" of being an unwitting, passive vessel?

Plus... as said above, "forcibly stealing secrets." I'm not saying Ozpin is 100% justified in attacking Ruby over this, but I think he's a HELL of a lot more justified compared to actions like threatening Qrow or attacking Oscar. Ruby ignored his requests to give the Relic back; she ignored how terrified he clearly was. She wasted a wish (which Ozpin knew would happen). She revealed his entire, traumatic history to the group PLUS a total stranger (Maria) which, again, Ozpin knew would happen. Of course he tried to stop her. We will never know what lengths he would have gone to, whether he would have truly fought Ruby or just made a last minute grab, but even if he had fought her... It think that's understandable. We can argue about whether it's right, but it's not the sort of thing the heroes should be holding against him once tempers have cooled, especially when he has stuff like playing God that they have hold as a long term grudge.

Out of everything Ozpin has done, maybe being willing to fight the prodigy fighter to keep her from making one of the stupidest decisions we've seen in the show to date is pretty low on the sin list.

[our-heartless-angels]

I got impatient, so I'm gonna info dump my AU onto this blog and none of you can stop me. (It begins below the cut)

Content warnings: Talks of abuse, torture, death, manipulation, miscarriages, and (possible) mentions of self harm (if i get there ofc)

I was really inspired by Crisis Core when creating this au, and at the time I was looking at those "Hero swap" aus where Sephiroth and Cloud swap places. When making my au (with CC in mind), I decided to take that premise and completely flip it on it's head.

Thus, The Seraphim Verdict: An au where everything is the same except for Sephiroth and Cloud. Because of these two being the sole changes, certain events play out very differently. How differently, you may ask? That's what you're about to find out.

In this au, Sephiroth wasn't born from the Jenova Projects. I was inspired by all the angel motifs attached to the canon Sephiroth, so I thought that I would make him into a real angel. A seraph, to be exact. He's the main character of the story. Cloud, however, is a human-turned soulless demon who loves nothing more than to make Sephiroth suffer. He's the main antagonist, and instead of vowing to destroy the planet, vows to become its supreme ruler.

Side note: The remnants we're created when Sephiroth was four, as a result of physically splitting into three people, meaning they cannot exist outside of him, nor can he exist outside of them. He can separate into the three whenever he's put under stress that he can no longer handle, and this happens at random, so yes they used to be in SOLDIER, too. Hojo forced it upon them just as much as he did with Sephiroth, and as a result while Kadaj is mostly the same in behavior as he is canonically, Loz and Yazoo are fundamentally changed due to mistreatment by their peers. Loz is a lot less of a "no brains, only brawns" character, having wizened himself up and sealed away all emotions that weren't his rage, and has sent several SOLDIERS into the infirmary after getting fed up with being beaten by them. (Many SOLDIERs were paid to harrass the trio by Hojo "for their own betterment." He was also forcefully tranquilized out of fear that he'd kill everyone in the building if they did not stop him.) Yazoo regressed into an anxiety filled mess, refusing to stand up for himself, as he fears punishment. People deemed him the weakest link, and he's been a target his whole life, leaving him completely afraid of the world.

Sephiroth was created by many gods all at once, using the soul of what would have ended up being Sephiroth, as Lucrecia in this universe ended up having a miscarriage, meaning that Project S was a failure. Though because they used the soul of what was to be the Sephiroth we would all know and love (or hate), this seraph would have been made flawed in their eyes. He, as a newly created (baby) seraph, would have earned an extra wing. An extra wing that was a part of his more human-like appearance. They only saw him as a mistake that shouldn't have been made, and they dumped him onto Gaia, his Grace intact and everything. The gods thought their creation would have not been capable of survival in this fragile form of a child, and thus pretended he never existed, abd because of this, never made another angel ever again.

From the start, the seraph has known abandonment. From the start, he was fated to be alone. From the start, he lacked the love he deserved to have. That was, until a distraught Lucrecia stumbled upon the abandoned baby one night outside of Shinra HQ. Being worried for the child's safety, and holding that longing of wishing to be a mother, decided to take him as her own in secret, once determining that he was abandoned there.

In secret, she cared for him. She loved him dearly, and was completely enamored by his tiny, white feathered wing. Unfortunately, this didn't last very long, as one day Professor Hojo discovered him and decided to take him away without her knowledge. As she was returning to the child, she was distraught by his disappearance, and through grief she left, never to be seen again. Hojo, now in possession of Sephiroth, decided to write off Project S as a sucess, in an attempt to hide his true research.

Sephiroth has the same kind of childhood he would have in canon, though he was never really addressed as a person until he was around ten years old (in human years), and instead he was treated like a beast. Even when he started calling him a "he" instead of an "it", he never really treated him well whatsoever. Even if he was supposed to be his father, he never acted like one. Not once. Those abandonment issues and that separation anxiety he harbored ever since he was an infant only got worse the older he got, as Hojo often took advantage of this, and he purposefully had him isolated. Sephiroth rarely interacted with others in his childhood years.

Sephiroth would also experience everything he would come to experience in his life pre Crisis Core, and all the way up until he was an adult. Crisis Core does play out relatively the same, save for a few key differences.

Those differences were: He was lied to twice about what he truly was, Cloud's jealousy towards Sephiroth's position and perceived power, and the subsequent attempts to squander his good name which lead to him seeking out a power beyond himself to get his wish of power granted (by a demon who was thought to be a god), though at the cost of his humanity, and thus his slowly degrading sanity, the Nibelheim Incident was all staged (Sephiroth pretend to go insane) in an attempt to draw Cloud out, and have him show everyone what he really was, Zack doesn't get killed, and Genesis doesn't end up with Deepground

The events post Crisis Core are both very much the same and also very different. While Cloud was going around, and continuing to try and paint Sephiroth in a bad light through lies and deceptions, Sephiroth, who had newly acquired an ally in Vincent Valentine, are going after Cloud, as Sephiroth knew the truth behind Cloud's false acts of heroism. The two go out to Shinra HQ, where they discover the existence of the Black Materia, to which after promptly putting an end to Professor Hojo, set out to retrieve it before Cloud does. When they suceed, it would be moments before they come across Cloud (and his freshly manipulated group of friends). Sephiroth, who has been anticipating their arrivals, decided to hand the black materia to Vincent, telling him to leave and not return until he deemed it was safe. By the time they arrived, Vincent was long gone, and Sephiroth remained.

Cloud made an attempt to pry out the location of the black materia on his person? and Sephiroth, who wasn't exactly lying to him, tells him he never had such a thing in his possession. Cloud wouldn't believe him though, and after countless attempts at making him hand over something he never once had in this moment, beat up the seraph in a fit of anger before leaving him there once determining that he wasn't lying. Sephiroth not once fought back against Cloud, as it felt completely unnecessary. Vincent does eventually return, taking Sephiroth with him to where they were currently camping out, so he could tend to his wounds in a safer location.

That night, however, they would receive a nighttime visit from a very distressed Aerith, who sought out Sephiroth personally. She was quick to beg and plead with the angel, knowing that he was the key to her salvation. She asked him to send her back to the lifestream. To his shock at such a request, he vehemently refused her no matter how much she pleaded with him to. Aerith then told him everything about the mistreatment she suffered behind everyone's back through the hands of Cloud Strife. All the gritty details of his physical and mental abuse upon her were laid bare for him to see, and that was enough for him to (reluctantly) aid in her suicidal desires under confirmation that this was something she actively wanted.

Pretty soon, he was to take Vincent to meet with her at a place long forgotten to time. While Vincent remained stoic about this predicament for the sake of not worrying the seraph, Sephiroth's thoughts were all over the place despite his blank expression. He tells Vincent to hide himself in case Cloud's group decided to go and find her, while he went to prepare himself for this moment. He complies, and once he left, Sephiroth took up residence in a high spot and waited. Unfortunately, he still had his gripes about doing such a thing. He didn't have much time to dwell, as Cloud came over towards a praying Aerith, who looked furious that she left him and the others behind. Before Cloud could do anything against her, Sephiroth made his move. As he was inches away from taking her life, he sensed her feelings about this shifting away, and coming to the conclusion that she didn't actually want to die anymore. It was too late, however, as by the time she had second thoughts about it, his blade would pierce through her, and she would ultimately die by Sephiroth's hands.

He was absolutely horrified by what he had done. The trauma of knowing her final feelings were that of wanting ro live hit him like a bag of bricks, as he quickly withdrew his blade. He looked at her in complete horror and silence, as Cloud's anger rose. From that moment on, Cloud declared to Sephiroth that he will make him suffer tenfold for what he did to the cetra girl, and he immediately left to quell his rage before it got worse, leaving Sephiroth to be responsible for putting her body into the waters that surrounded him, a sombre tone suffocating him all the wile.

Zack Joins the duo a few days later, after he was satisfied with his visit to his family. While the death of Aerith remained fresh on Sephiroth and Vincent's minds, they refused to tell Zack about it. It was during the addition of Zack, that they came across one of the gods. A god of time by the name Chronos had come in search for the seraph they got rid of, a feeling that he was still alive having brought him there. He was the sole god who wanted him dead, and thus he finally came to fulfill such a wish. When the trio arrived, Sephiroth immediately told his allies to leave. While Vincent understood why, Zack however, had a much harder time understanding why he didn't just let him fight with him. Sephiroth told Zack that this was his payment for forcing all those assignments onto him in the past, and that he's doing this to keep him alive, to which got Zack to reluctantly comply, and they two went somewhere more safe.

The subsequent battle was brutal and completely unfair. A mere seraph going against a whole god was simply unheard of, and the seraph was very close to losing his life, though by a stroke of luck, he managed to pick up on the secrets to Chronos' underhanded tatics, and decided to use them against him, which lead to him out right managing to kill the god for the sake of his survival. Beatened and bloodied, Sephiroth then collapsed. Vincent and Zack return, only to see a dead god, and their barely allive leader. They were quick to grab him and retreat, where Sephiroth would spend a few days recovering (much to his disapproval).

Sephiroth, after fully recovering, decided the next thing they would do is to break out those who were pulled under Cloud's influence. It was time they knew the real truth. They then silently trailed after Cloud and co, one by one convincing Yuffie, Red XIII, Cait Sith (and by extension Reeve), Cid, Barret, and finally Tifa into joining them on their quest to stop the demon. Each person had varying levels of difficulty when it came to breaking them free, with Tifa being the most stubborn. Once Cloud was alone, he scoffed at the betrayals, deeming that this endeavor was better done solo, and headed to the northern crater on his own.

Once the team was finally assembled proper, they decided to take a break for the next few hours one day to get a clearer head, so they could decide together when it would be the right time to strike, leaving Sephiroth all alone with his own thoughts. He then spent the night alone with the highwind, thinking over all that happened in the past, and hoping that the future he sees in his visions wasn't too out of reach. Eventually, everyone came back together, fully refreshed and ready to take on their foe. The group soon sets out, and what happens is deemed a final battle they would never forget.

Soon after the events, and within the time span of two years, it would be proven that Cloud refused his own demise, and forced himself back into the world of the living. All he felt was hatred towards Sephiroth. This was when he decided to make him pay, setting out to find him. This then began a painful cycle of Cloud finding him, and taking him away somewhere. Sephiroth would then undergo bouts of physical and mental torture that no living human would be able to survive, let alone be left mentally sound if they happened to live from it all. It was a constant loop that eventually was broken up with Zack coming to his rescue (despite it being mostly too late, and the damage having already been done.)

This constant cycle would break down the once untouchable seeming man, leaving him as a broken, and pathetic version of what he once was. Gone were the days where he remained strong in the face of torment, for now he ultimately became soft and meek through his suffering. He became a shell of his former self from then on....

Oh yeah btw Sephiroth stopped physically aging around his twenties, so he permanently looks like how he does in Crisis Core, fun fact.

[a-bit-too-much-of-a-zelda-fan]

Why Tears of the Kingdom's Story Doesn't Work

While I will defend the lack of nuance in the text of Tears of the Kingdom, what I will criticize is how the story was executed. TL;DR: The writers tried to tell a story like Skyward Sword, but were limited by Breath of the Wild's nonlinear gameplay formula. Read on below the cut. Spoilers, obviously.

Let's start with Skyward Sword's story and how it was executed so well. There are three arcs: Find Zelda, find the sacred flames to purify the Goddess Sword, and seek out the dragons to find the Triforce. The first arc is notable here, because it's a suspenseful mystery. Link is constantly a step behind Zelda. He's chasing after her with no goal other than to just reunite with her.

The story is able to move from arc to arc and tell a story that evolves over the course of the game because of how rigidly structured the progression is. You will go from point A to point B, whether you want to or not. That way, the writers could drop the right story beats at the right time. It's traditional storytelling, because no other medium has the same level of interactivity as a video game, and it works. Regardless of how it feels to play, you can't deny that the story was executed very, very well.

Breath of the Wild, by contrast, is nonlinear to a fault. You can go anywhere, anytime. The writers were cognizant of this, so they wrote a one-arc story that was compartmentalized into four entirely separate plot lines. Link has one goal that never changes across the game: free the divine beasts to defeat Calamity Ganon. You go to one region, free that divine beast, then go to another at your pace and discretion.

Nothing carries over between plot lines. Nothing you did for the Rito has any impact on what is happening to the Gorons, because every plot line had be to designed so it could the first or last one you tackle. This approach deprived the story of depth or any sense of momentum. They aimed to make up for this with the memories: cutscenes that tell a linear story with more depth, but can be discovered in any order then rewatched in the proper order for the "complete" picture. Critically, though, the memories only provide context to the current events. Knowing what happened in the past has no bearing on the present.

Now we come to Tears of the Kingdom. They went the same gameplay approach as BotW: complete non-linearity. But they tried to tell a mystery story. This fundamentally fails because, like BotW, nothing carries over between the regional plot lines, and they should be impacted by the dragon tears (TotK's memories) but aren't. There are so many ways this falls apart. I'll talk about it through the order I played the game in: Zora, Rito, Gerudo, Goron.

Once Link returns to the Surface, witnesses Zelda appear and disappear at Hyrule Castle, and tells Purah what happened, she instructs him to investigate the odd regional phenomena. So he goes to Zora's Domain and starts working with Sidon. Zelda appears to them, and at this point, Link--and the player--has no idea what's going on. After that, Link goes to Rito Village, finds Tulin near the huge blizzard, and they see Zelda. Alright, something isn't adding up. By the time Link gets to the Gerudo Desert and sees Zelda there, he must know something is wrong. That is not Zelda, and it's pretty obvious at this point. But he still acts as if he knows nothing.

Finally, when he and Yunobo are chasing after her on Death Mountain, there is no fucking way he doesn't know it's not her. Yunobo is all like "oh no, we have to find Zelda! We have to go after her! Is she okay after going into the ceiling like that?" At this point I am screaming in my head, "Link! Tell Yunobo it's not her! You know it's not her!" Because Link is clever. He can put two and two together, so why the hell isn't he? Well, it's because he's doomed by the format of the narrative.

This is made doubly nonfunctional once you find all the dragon tears. Once Links knows that Zelda is the Light dragon, there is no way on God's green earth that he is fooled by the Zelda that he sees with any sage afterward. But he acts like he is. Brother, Link talks so much in this game. He's constantly explaining shit to people. They really got their mileage out of his "moving hands as if explaining something" animation. But when it matters most, he is fucking silent. It's disrespectful to the player's intelligence and Link's character.

Look. When you're trying to tell a mystery, as your audience's knowledge of the situation increases, your main character's knowledge needs to as well. If the character witnesses a major clue, they can't just forget that clue so they can discover it again but in a different place. It just doesn't work like that. There need to be bread crumbs. There needs to be momentum. There needs to consequence, cause and effect. Mysteries are linear stories. But when you try to tell this kind of story in the nonlinear way that this gameplay formula demanded, it does not work.

What kills me is that each of the four plot lines in TotK are well-written and fun (quick ranking: Rito, Gerudo, Zora, Goron). But through no fault of their own, they decline in coherence and satisfaction as you progress through the game. I can imagine that someone who played the order opposite I did was as mystified as Yunobo, but screaming at Link to just tell Sidon that's not Zelda.

The nail in the coffin of this story's nonfunctionality is that the longest side quest has Link going around Hyrule's stables, trying to find clues to Zelda's whereabouts. He works with Penn to investigate and set these stories straight. But once Link discovers that Zelda is the Light Dragon (or at least, that the Zelda who keeps appearing isn't really her), he should be able to tell Penn the truth. But he doesn't, because he can't for the side quest to function.

I managed to put aside how frustrating all of that is by rationalizing "well it has to be this way for the gameplay to work the way it does", and that's fine, but they didn't have to write the story they did. BotW's story worked because they wrote it in a way that it can be thoroughly enjoyed in any order. TotK's doesn't because they tried to have their cake and eat it too: tell a story with depth, but tell it in any order. They could have written a story that worked with the gameplay, but they didn't.

TotK did a lot of things right. On their own, I think the regional plot lines are more compelling than BotW's (especially the Rito one, and maybe except the Goron one). Having the soon-to-be-sages follow Link through the dungeons was a good choice. The search for a fifth sage provided a feeling of momentum that BotW was sorely lacking. And from the moment the search for the fifth sage starts, the story works just fine because it becomes linear. I had a fantastic time playing this game. I wouldn't have played it for over a hundred hours if I wasn't enjoying myself. It's just a shame it didn't turn out better.

[voxofthevoid]

WAIT LMAO I NEED TO HEAR THE TEA ABOUT SUKUGO NOW! i'm not fond of the ship either, so i'm curious to hear your thoughts

Ngl, I did crack up at how this landed in my inbox a handful of minutes after that post popped out of my queue. Also looping in @zyukan since you wanted to know too. Never change, y'all.

The tea isn't particularly scalding, just my take on canon events, but negative thoughts/assessment regarding sukugo to follow, so people who like the ship probably shouldn't read further. Unless you're into that, I guess, but then don't come bitching at me. There's also some relatively positive references to satosugu.

Initially, the ship was something I tried out during my exploratory phase in JJK. I thought I might like it but quickly realized I really fucking didn't. Granted, that applied to all non-goyuu Gojou ships because I'm a man with a pattern. Anyway, after that, sukugo was off my radar until the Shinjuku Showdown, at which point I got soured on the entire dynamic.

It's partially the framing, partially the execution, plus how these interact with what makes a dynamic shippable for me. There are moments of levity in the fight, and both parties (well, mostly Gojou if we're considering the explicit text of the fight) are having fun, but I could sense absolutely no connection between them despite the narrative trying to frame it that way. The repetition of Yorozu's words falls flat in that particular fight; it's there in her and even Kashimo's fight against Sukuna—that desire to reach him to fulfill themselves, one way or the other. In Gojou vs. Sukuna, the same is stated by the narrator, but I don't see/feel it. They're both focused entirely on themselves, even as they're enjoying the challenge.

Outside of the narration, whenever we see Gojou's and Sukuna's own thoughts, it's focused on either victory or external factors. The other person isn't anything more than an obstacle. After the fight, Gojou's happy he died a fun death and clearly respects Sukuna for his power and skill, but his focus there is on the fact that he went out the way he wanted. Sukuna praises Gojou immensely, but it's the same kind of praise he gave Jogo after he killed him—not the same extent, since Gojou warrants more respect and admiration, but both the driving factor and manifestation are fundamentally the same.

I'd say the lack of any genuine connection there is best illustrated by how there's no little chitchat between them after Gojou dies, the way there was between Sukuna and Jogo as well as Sukuna and Kashimo. That's explicitly presented as "the rare phenomenon of connecting with a sorcerer during the height of battle," and you'd think Gojou and Sukuna would have that given how much they pushed each other during the fight, but nope, it's just some slice and dice and then buh-bye.

Granted, none of this is a lack of shipping fuel—quite the opposite, given how the ship has taken off after that fight. But it's shipping fuel that's entirely antithetical to what I find appealing in a pairing.

In that linked post, I said I prefer even satosugu to sukugo, and I'd say the salient difference is that satosugu is a ship I was neutral about but ended up disliking due to fandom, while sukugo is a ship I was neutral about but ended up disliking due to canon. The former is ultimately ignorable, but the latter really isn't. Canon does a great job of presenting Gojou and Getou as two people who loved each other, and I enjoy poking at satosugu in my own fics, either when referring to Gojou's past relationships or even as part of Gojou/Yuuji/Getou. With sukugo, even that little spark is not there—I wrote an entire threesome scene with goyuu and sukuita, and Gojou and Sukuna didn't touch except in violence. I love Sukuna as a character while disliking Getou, but when it comes to ships, satosugu is more interesting than sukugo. I'll be avoiding both ships religiously, however.

[eresia-catara]

Let's say we get a proper movie or series about Dante, like a thoroughly researched and well-written adaptation of his life by people who actually give a fuck. How would you want them to portray his relationship with Guido? Beatrice? How would you like them to portray Dante as a whole? I feel like a lot of adaptations fail to make him human-like, with flaws and strengths.

Oh interesting question...

The main problem with movies about Dante is that it seems the writers and directors sort of get a 'performance anxiety', in the sense that they so desperately want to go over the top and shock and amaze everyone that they end up with total disasters; and this is partly because Dante is the most important intellectual we have in italian literature so it would be tragic to let down the public (and yet it's what they do) and partly because it's just modern culture to want to produce extravagant movies.

My opinion is that we need to briefly take a step back from all these dreams of grandeur and look at things inside their context once more, because it seems people don't really know where Dante's greatness lies, they just know that he was great. At the same time, everybody knows Dante was human, he was an ordinary man with his flaws and virtues, but does that mean we have to show the public that Dante had sex and ate and whatnot? No, because that's a lowly interpretation of humanity, that's actually portraying a generic living animal (cough cough looking ad Dante 2022). Then do we have to show a hallucinating outcasted genius who's above everybody else? No because that's a kind of mystification that actually ends up belittling his greatness. The fact is that Dante was great exactly because he achieved what he did as a human. He struggled a lot, he had his contradictions and moments of weakness and yet what he ended up gifting to posterity is a message of unconditional love and a new look of wonder onto the world. If there is something that needs to be central in a portrayal of Dante then it has to be his love for humanity. Not Beatrice (as in an actual woman), not a crazy love delirium for Jesus. It is through catholicism that Dante manages to accept all the bitter events of his life and thus find beauty in life in itself. I think this is the fundamental thing one has to keep in mind.

So Dante has to be shown — like in any biographical movie — in his different moments of joy and struggle. You can't just skip his youth years in Florence during which he meets some of the (if not the) most important people of his life (Beatrice and Guido), but you can't even skip his travels across Italy during his exile, because it is then that he actually faces life and the difficulties through which his very capacity to love changes and evolves. We need to show Dante as an evolving, dynamic character whose thoughts and opinions change through time, not a static genius who had One thought and pursued it for all his life from start to finish. Is it complex to portray? Yes. But can you make a 2-3h movie? Yes, if you do it well (looking at Dante 2022 once more).

In relation to these considerations, I think the interpretation of Beatrice and Guido also needs to radically shift from what we're used to.

The way I see it is that Beatrice Portinari may have interested Dante in his youth, but after her death, when Dante started to elaborate new ideas and thoughts he chose her as the right figure to embody them, not because his was a desperate love for this woman but it was for his ideals and as a good little medieval man he needed to materialize it through allegories. So Dante's relationship to Beatrice was mainly intellectual, she was the vessel of his creativity and should be represented as such. No salivating after her, no hallucinating about her during sex (do I still need to mention Dante 2022?) because it wouldn't make sense. The thing is that he idealized her because he never knew her that well as a person (because of the customs Dante rarely saw her, speaking to her was even more difficult), and this should be reflected in the movie. You cannot, in fact, intellectualize and abstract a relationship this much if you truly know someone. So the abstraction of Beatrice needs to become the embodyment of the voice of his conscience, of his perfectionism.

With Guido it's more complicated simply because unlike Beatrice he was actually present in Dante's life, he was his actual friend, so he has played both the role of human and of Idea; as such, we cannot think of a black or white relationship like we did with Beatrice. I think that first of all we need to understand their friendship. Dante saw a great man in Guido because the two shared a lot of qualities and passions. They were both poets, inclined to pensiveness and speculation but most importantly both were free thinkers: neither could ever be satisfied by common sense or common ideas, both always looked to find truth by themselves regardless of any convention. This, I think, was the core of such a tight bond. I think the two could truly share all thoughts with each other and such cases can truly create a dynamic that can border on what today we percieve as a romantic bond. It is therefore understandable how disagreements could then be felt more intensely compared to those with other more casual friendships. So Words are the key to their relationship. Guido shapes Dante as an intellectual, we can't marginalize him to the typical two shots of their first correspondence and of his exile. Everything that happened in between is what truly matters. I believe that through Guido Dante saw Man at the apex of his glory and misery because Guido was also heretic and, I believe, self-destructive. So he was an exemplum of both the good and bad. We need to show this. If I were to make a movie I would treat the story of Guido as a tragedy within a biography whose finale gets dragged beyond his death up until the end of the movie, because after all that's what Dante did. So we need to see the human and the ideal mixing.

[unparalleledfocus]

As a Shadow of a Distant Storm Turns Into Petrichor – A Neuvillette Character Analysis

As a Fontainian playwright would tell you, if a member of the audience could somehow participate in the action on stage, perhaps they'd have a deeper understanding of what was actually going on.

Only when he emerged from the water and stepped onto the stage would he truly begin to understand the plot, the characters... even himself.

Neuvillette is many things. He’s the Chief Justice of Fontaine, considered the embodiment of justice by the people. He is also the reincarnated Dragon Sovereign of Water, a reborn primordial being, the very manifestation of water and life. And yet, at the same time, he’s simply a man searching for answers, someone on the long journey called ‘life’, just like the world around him – and perhaps like you and I, too.

What does this entail? What truly lies in the heart of someone both human and dragon?

This shall be an analysis on Chief Justice Neuvillette, the dragon who reflects humanity.

(Contains spoilers for Fontaine's Archon Quests, Neuvillette's Story Quest and a few of his Character Profile details)

As Streams Converge, So Does Every Memory of Rain

Each course of flowing water carries with it an array of complex emotions.

When they reach their final resting place, who would then dare disturb them?

Neuvillette is kind, compassionate and deeply emotional. As the Hydro Dragon, he is immensely sensitive to the emotions contained in the waters, and deeply resonates with the emotions of other living beings as well. He could even feel the sorrow and anger of a narwhal from another dimension.

“This regret has filled me with a sadness that has haunted me for days.”

“I mourn this turn of events…”

I find it so beautiful how the story never in any way chastises Neuvillette for causing the rain, in fact quite the opposite – it encourages him to embrace his emotions, despite what he may think about himself. Rain, much like human tears, is a symbol of not just sadness, but also calming down, contemplation and, in a way, hope. It’s a wonderful example of how emotions aren’t something to simply be brushed aside, but are what make you – you.

If Neuvillette is considered to be the original God of Life, then to him living on and even just existence itself are, in a way, justice itself, likely something he shares with Focalors. It’s no wonder he was so distraught about Callas and Focalors' actions – they too were living beings deserving of existence, yet they gave up their own lives to ensure many others don't loose their chances at existing.

The wish for coexistence and life is fundamentally ingrained in his being, and becomes the compassion he has for others – humans and Melusines... and even the gods.

Though at first he was indifferent to humans, it took him less than 100 years to not only become attached to Fontaine and its residents, but even befriend a human, to the point that he was deeply hurt over declaring his friend guilty and being chastised by said friend. The loss of Vautrin, along with Carole, someone who was practically a daughter to Neuvillette, hurt him so deeply that this ended up haunting him for over 400 years. And after said 400 years, he finds out the truth about Vautrin’s actions, as well as realizes how both he and Fontaine have changed since then. And then, as he walks under the rain, contemplating the past and himself...

“Good morning, Monsieur Neuvillette! The rainy season’s almost over. The skies are supposed to clear in a few days!”

“I hope you have time to enjoy the sunny days ahead.”

Despite the fact that memories contained in water are chaotic, the world itself managed to find a way to tell Neuvillette that he deserves happiness and hope for the future, and that Fontaine has always been his home.

Though someone might be gone for a long time now, the results of their deeds and memories will remain. In a way this is reminiscent of Aranyaka – not only will the forest remember, but so too will the earth, the waters and the skies. It might not seem like much at first, however – every action you and everyone else take leaves a mark on the world in some way, be it on a yourself, a friend, a stranger or a group of people, all of this eventually converges into something more. At times it can cause something harmful, yet in other times it can create something quite beautiful, something to strive for.

Everchanging as the Tides

“To me, humanity is like a pool of water, in which I see my reflection.”

“As I said, I find it difficult to express my emotions... because I cannot fully understand myself.”

“But there's one thing I've discovered along the way: My emotions easily resonate with those of others... even I don't have the slightest idea what they mean. My guess would be that there are at least some similarities between humans and myself. By observing their behavior, perhaps I could one day understand the meaning of my existence.”

Due to being a dragon in human form, Neuvillette struggles to understand himself. He watches on as people seemingly naturally go through their lives, while he tries to glean new knowledge about both them and himself. And as time marches on, we all transform into new forms, take on new roles in our lives and the lives of others, however – sometimes we may not even notice it.

I saw some people say that the reason Neuvillette was so worried about history repeating itself is because he experiences time differently due to being the Hydro Dragon. While I feel like this does have some truth to it, I personally believe that the main driving factor of his worry was first and foremost because of his trauma. Trauma can cause you to experience time differently – though an event seems to have happened long ago, the shadow it left behind never truly went away, nor do you know if it ever truly will. However, time marches on, some wounds heal by themselves, while others await gentle care.

“You might be overthinking this. Time can change a lot of things. Everything's different now.”

“Monsieur Neuvillette, the Melusines are a species you introduced to Fontaine. How the public treats them is also reflective of their attitude towards you. When people refused to place their trust in Melusines, it was because they were still on the fence about you — their unfamiliar Chief Justice. For almost five hundred years, you've conducted every trial with impartiality. You made the right judgment each time regardless of whatever nonsense went on. People no longer have any reservations about you and even consider you a symbol of the law. Right now, your every decision will impact all of Fontaine. In other words, you've gradually transformed the whole nation.”

Feeling like an outsider is something many people have felt or will feel at some point in their lives. And yet, the longer this feeling lasts for someone, the lonelier the world begins to become for them. Despite the attempts to observe others and learn from them, hoping to connect to them, the memories and experiences of being an outsider remain, and will likely haunt you for years to come, unfortunately in spite of who you and those around you are now.

Prior to the end of his Story Quest, Neuvillette hadn’t gotten over the early years of his position as Iudex of Fontaine. Though he loved the people of Fontaine, he refused to acknowledge himself as one of them, a mix of not only being the reincarnated Hydro Dragon, but also wanting to remain a truly impartial judge despite his yearning for connection, and because of how Fontainians had treated him and the Melusines centuries ago.

His feelings of being an outsider had caused him to develop a deep insecurity of himself as a person. He thought that the very sight of him would either cause a commotion or he would be completely ignored – after all, he’s a dragon out of water, how could he hope that others would accept him as he is? How could they accept someone seemingly distant from them? How could they accept someone who hasn’t even figured out who they truly are, and where their true home lies?

“Outsider? But aren't you the Chief Justice of Fontaine? Why would you be an outsider?”

“I understand where you're coming from, but there is not necessarily a connection between my responsibilities and how I perceive myself.”

“Even though I was born with a human form, there's a fundamental difference between dragons and humans. Taking on the role of Chief Justice does not make me a part of this community. In fact, the status I was granted has prevented me from forming deeper bonds with others. I have lived in Fontaine for a long time, but I do not belong here. That is why I call myself an outsider — a fish out of water.”

“Perhaps, but I find such progress difficult to describe. As an outsider, chances to engage in meaningful interactions with others are few and far between.”

“Emotions carried by water are always chaotic and disconnected. As an outsider, having my mind occupied with irrelevant memories isn't exactly a pleasant experience.”

“No, I should stay where I am. My appearance could give rise to unnecessary commotion.”

“While some are here to redeem themselves, there will inevitably be those who harbor resentment towards me. The less time I spend here, the better. My presence could very well result in an unwanted disturbance.”

And yet time flows on – old memories make space for new ones and together they create the present. And perhaps it can reveal answers to long-held questions. Maybe you won’t find your home at one point in time, but perhaps it is waiting for you in the future? Or perhaps it is right in front of you, and you simply needed to open your eyes to finally witness it?

“While I was investigating the Fountain, I discovered something strange. I did not sense too much hatred towards me within its accumulated emotions.”

Neuvillette, despite trying to distance himself from others and assuming that others tried to distance themselves from him, kept on trying to not only be a truly fair and honest judge, but a kind and compassionate man as well.

The years went on, and in the eyes of the people of Fontaine he is now one of the very symbols of the entire land. Even if they don’t know him personally, Fontainians deeply respect and care about him. This extends to his identity as the Hydro Dragon as well – though he assumes the rain he causes, and in turn himself, are an inconvenience to others, though the people of Fontaine might not know who or where the Hydro Dragon is, whenever it rains, they truly hope their words of comfort reach the dragon and calm his sorrowful heart.

Conclusion – Reflection of the Overcast Skies

“What I really think is… Every trial you've ever judged has left its impression on you. And that's what makes you who you are today.”

As the Hydro Dragon Sovereign, Neuvillette still thinks of himself as an outsider due to his identity… But so much time has passed since then... Perhaps the lines between him and humans have long since blurred.

“Since some time ago, I've begun to notice the changes that have occurred upon my person. These changes were not due to any specific occurrence, but emerged as a result of time itself.”

In conclusion, though Neuvillette may believe one thing or another about himself, both his and the people of Fontaine’s actions speak volumes of their hopes, dreams, compassion and wish for belonging and coexistence. Though we may feel like outsiders, perhaps there is someone out there, maybe even someone you might even consider a stranger, who deeply hopes you live a long and wonderful life. Times change as well, and we all grow and learn. Even if we are still searching for where we belong, it’s possible it isn’t that far away, or perhaps you’ve found it long ago and simply haven’t realized it yet. „Where you belong” could simply be a friend or two, or a small community.

We all reflect one another like pools of water and mirrors – as we try to do our best for both ourselves and others, this can create a domino effect that causes others to do so as well. From seemingly small things like finding a love for water-tasting or simply an encouraging pat on the shoulder, to large things like finding a metaphorical guidepost for where your life should take you and trying to protect another, we all can make great impacts on one another and carry those sentiments onward.

“I am undeserving of such high compliments. From my perspective, I have simply been fulfilling my duties. It isn't anything special or worthy of praise. I'm simply fulfilling the promises I've made and searching for answers through my judgments. It's unnecessary to hold me in such high regard... The complexity of human emotions and willpower far exceed those of mine. As a matter of fact, I believe that you are the ones who deserve my respect.”

“Ah, there's no need to be so modest. The current state of affairs says it all."

"You're no longer that outsider you were before.”

The skies will clear someday and I hope that you, too, find time to enjoy the sunny days ahead.

[bronte-deserves-better]

Please tell me more about Fintan/Oralie because it's a very fascinating ship and I am Curious about it 👀👀

Okay so. [ramble unlocked!]

This all started because I wrote a passage in a fic that might have accidentally implied that Fintan and Oralie had some sort of fling back in the day, but then I got thinking and I actually think their dynamic over the years would be really interesting. A brief (okay, brief might be a lie) summary of my ideas below!

Oralie is a young Councillor before the pyrokinesis ban. She and Kenric detest each other at first, but she and Fintan (and Bronte) get on like a house on fire. They're all some flavor of queer and transgender- Fintan and Bronte show her all the underground ballrooms and other queer places that I headcanon as existing in the elven world. Bronte largely got the shenanigans out of his system as a young emissary who had all sorts of ill-advised affairs with nobility members, but Oralie and Fintan are young and beautiful and powerful amidst all the glitz and glamour of Eternalia, and the world is theirs for the taking. They dance their nights away in hidden ballrooms and exclusive events hosted by nobility members; they drink in Fintan's living room and talk about life and pretend there are no consequences to any of this.

When they fall, it's hard and fast and more lust than it is love. They know that what they're doing is against their oaths, they know that if they get caught it's all over for them- and they don't care. They're young, they're a bit stupid, they're having fun sneaking around and dancing their nights away (and Bronte gives them smug looks when they're hungover and exhausted in Council meetings and he's fine).

There's never a question of them stepping down from the Council for each other. If there's one thing they agree upon, it's that they're both too ambitious to give up what they've worked so hard for, even for each other. It's not that kind of love.

I actually think it would be super interesting if Oralie supported Fintan's pyrokinesis experiments at first. I really enjoy the characterization of young!Oralie as incredibly ambitious and ready to push boundaries; we saw in the later books that Oralie, even in canon keeper, can be ruthless when needed. (Also, the fic Perfect Match on AO3 has a ruthless hold on how I characterize Oralie in the early days of her Councillorship.) It's one of the things Fintan and Oralie bond over- they're both ambitious and overconfident and ready to push the boundaries of what's possible. They're ready to change the world. It drives a wedge between each of them and Bronte, as well as contributing to Kenric and Oralie's initial hatred of each other- Kenric thinks she's arrogant and foolish and Oralie thinks he's patronizing. But Fintan- Fintan believes in Oralie, and she believes in him, and they make each other worse.

So Oralie supports Fintan in his experiments, and then they blow up in his face and five people die and she doesn't know what to think anymore.

The everblaze incident and the ensuing pyrokinesis ban is a formative moment for both of them, and a turning point in their relationship. At first, to Oralie, it hardly seems real. Death is such a foreign concept to the elves, and they were Fintan's friends, not hers. She almost wants to pretend that things can go on the same as before. Fintan, meanwhile, is wracked by guilt and grief, and it fundamentally changes him as a person. He supports the pyrokinesis ban, steps down from the Council, and becomes increasingly isolated and unstable. Oralie wants to keep what they had, but Fintan is no longer the same.

They have a horrible fight about it not long after Fintan steps down from the Council, and break up nastily. This coincides with Bronte and Fintan's relationship becoming worse and worse, and Fintan locks himself away from his former friends and grows steadily more consumed by his yearning for flames.

Oralie, over the years, begins to recognize how dreadful the everblaze incident truly was, and how arrogant they all were to think that the fire of the sun itself could be controlled by elves. She's still ambitious and rebellious, but she begins to grow wiser and more humble, as well as more subtle in how she enacts her plans. She aligns herself with the Black Swan and gets involved in Project Moonlark, though she still generally believes in Council.

Fintan, meanwhile, after getting past the initial years of trying to cope (badly) with his grief, becomes increasingly obsessed with trying to control everblaze. He longs for flame and begins to hate the world that bans and scorns his ability, even though the ban was his idea in the first place. He founds the Neverseen and starts working actively against the Council.

By the time they meet again in canon, some hundreds of years after they broke up to begin with, they hardly recognize each other. There's no trace of the carefree young elves they once were; Fintan is bitter and unstable and prone to violence, and Oralie is older, more tired, more cautious. The shadow of their ill-fated relationship still hangs over them, though- it's a struggle to reconcile who they are now with who they once were.

Oralie does still cry for Fintan's mind break.

Fintan takes a smug glee in tormenting Oralie with reminders of Kenric's death- his relationships are often defined with jealousy and a desire for control, and not only has he definitively eliminated Oralie's new love, he's gleeful at the power he has over her.

Honestly, I don't know how to end this whole ramble, so have one final thought about them:

However you want to headcanon Bronte and Fintan's relationship (brothers, old friends, lovers, etc.), Bronte is the unspoken ghost that hovers between Oralie and Fintan after their breakup. He's both of their friend in those early days in Eternalia, one of the most important people in Fintan's life and quickly becoming the same for Oralie. Their shared ambition and lack of caution drives a wedge between them and Bronte, who thinks that the experimentation with pyrokinesis is a bad idea- and he's proven spectacularly right with the deaths of five people.

After the ban, Oralie and Bronte bond over their love for Fintan and their helplessness to do anything about the guilt that torments him. Fintan, meanwhile, grows yet further away from them both, where once he and Bronte were closer than anything. His hatred and glee at his power over Oralie are driven in part by a horrible jealousy- he should be the most important to Bronte. He should have the power over Bronte that Oralie does. He's jealous of Oralie, and he's jealous of Kenric, and he can't cope with the fact that Bronte decided to sentence him to exile. He's furious about that, but he also idolizes Bronte and can't seem to hate him, so all the rage is subsumed into blaming Oralie for taking his place in Bronte's heart. It's the same way he can't accept that Oralie doesn't love him anymore, so he blames Kenric instead.

[defira85]

Apologies for the delay! 1 and 11 for the latest creator ask?

And my apologies for the slow answer😅from your very magnificent ask meme here (and I've JUST seen the political minutiae one from today as well and I'm WHEEZING)

1. Your hottest Durgetash take. The kinda heat Gortash had to endure in HoH. (But be respectful about it fellas, this means everyone)

Oh man I sort of try to avoid posting "hot takes" because I did my time in the Dragon Age fandom and it's very easy to hurt people's feelings because there's such a fine line between vagueblogging and hot takes sometimes... I suppose my thing would be that as much as I'm notorious for writing a happily ever after tragic romance with Gort, I feel like it does him a fundamental disservice as a character to try to... whitewash? His capacity for cruelty? There are piles of rotting bodies in the Steel Watch factory from what we are told are explicitly his experiments, based on the correspondence between him and Balthazar about controlling an undead brain with a tadpole. He kidnaps several young women and girls - at least one of whom he murders and puts her head in a jar 'because he liked her singing voice'. And yes teddy bear bombs etc etc, we all talk about that one, but as much as I love reading romantic Gort stories (with Tav or Durge! I'm not fussy!) he's so much more than just a charming bad boy villain, he's a man with a cruel and sadistic streak a mile wide. He's not afraid to get his hands bloody, and will in fact enjoy it

And yes we can all have our own headcanons of course, that's what makes fandom such a beautiful place, is the depth and breadth of ideas people bring to a character and offer up to one another by way of fic and meta and art but I suppose that's just one that'll always make me go hmm

11. Sceleritas my beloved, how exactly does he fit in there?

He’s my best friend, he’s my pal, he’s my homeboy, my rotten soldier, my sweet cheese, my good time boy-

Younger Kass had a relationship with Sceleritas that I would almost classify as... he was like an extension of herself. He was there almost before she could anticipate a need, and they worked together in a fluid harmony that could be unsettling. This synchronism was fundamentally broken by Bhaal's resurrection, because of course she wasn't supposed to survive that event and so they never reconnected on that same level again. That's the point when he became more of a babysitter, spending his time trying to realign her with Bhaal's desires and slowly failing over the next decade

I wasn't as huge of a Sceleritas fan until I saw a video of an Accepting Dark Urge kill him permanently. That was the moment I saw him as a creature fully separate from Bhaal and not just a shadow puppet Bhaal was projecting onto the wall of the cave. His capacity to change like Durge is questionable, but his fear of death and his anxious desire to live really hit me hard and since then I've been ride or die for him. Bhaal can't have him in my canon, if I can redeem Gortash then I can redeem Sceleritas

[calamity-calliope]

Thinking about Enoch and what will happen to him between the events of Sunless Seas and Sunless Skies, because my man is definitely not ending up in the High Wilderness, no sirree.

I have elected that the most likely thing to happen to him is that the British government ships him back to Kentucky. They don't care about travel costs, the man is a liability and he is bound to create issues.

Which raises questions about what happens when he returns to Kentucky. He's returning there a fundamentally changed man. His neighbors learn that this is not the same Enoch they knew. Maybe he's someone else entirely. This Enoch has sunlight in his eyes.

This Enoch sings hymns to himself while he works iron. The old Enoch was never a religious man, and these hymns of his aren't to the Good Lord in Heaven. This Enoch looks directly into the sun, as though trying to stare it down. This Enoch walks coatless out into the snow during the cold winters, always as warm returning as he was leaving.

And the people swear up and down that his eyes were a gentle blue once upon a time. Now they are a fierce gold, a color many a prospector has wept over. Nobody asks him about them though. Nobody wants to know.

Especially not after hearing all the stories he's told, about a sun beneath the surface of the earth, a sun made out of steel and iron. A sun that lived. A sun that commanded a fleet of glittering ships and a host of sailors to go along with them. A sun, he says, called the Dawn Machine.

Things are almost the way they once were. The farmers tend to their crops, the carpenter works his timber, and the blacksmith forges. But the blacksmith sings. Almost the way he once was.