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shihalyfie · 3 years ago

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About the Adventure: reboot, the likely reason why it exists, the question of target demographic, and whether I would recommend it or not

I think this reboot has been kind of a strange outlier in terms of Digimon anime in general, in terms of...well, just about everything. I also feel like everything surrounding it has kind of been giving us mixed signals as to what the intent and purpose behind the anime is -- well, besides “cashing in on the Adventure brand”, but looking at it more closely, that might be a bit of an oversimplification.

I’m writing this post because, having seen the entire series to the end for myself and thinking very hard about it and what it was trying to do, I decided to put down my thoughts. This is not meant to be a review of what I think was good and bad, but rather, something that I hope will be helpful to those who might be on the fence about whether they want to watch it or not, or those who don’t want to watch/finish it but are curious about what happened, or those who are curious as to why this reboot even exists in the first place, or even maybe just those who did watch it but are interested in others’ thoughts about it. I'm personally convinced that -- especially in an ever-changing franchise like Digimon -- how much you like a given work is dependent on what your personal tastes are to the very end, and thus it’s helpful to understand what kind of expectations you should go in with if you want to watch something.

With all of this said and done, if you want to go in and best enjoy this series, I think it is best to consider this anime as a distinct Digimon series of its own. The relationship to Adventure is only surface-level, and by that I mean it’s very obvious it’s doing things its own thing deliberately without worrying too much about what prior series did. Of course, I think everyone will have varying feelings about using the Adventure branding for something that really isn't Adventure at all, but we are really talking about an in-name-only affair, and something that’s unabashedly doing whatever it wants. So in other words, if you’re going in expecting Adventure, or anything that really resembles Adventure, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. But if you’re able to approach it like yet another distinct Digimon series, and the other aspects of it fit your fancy, you’ll probably be able to enjoy it much better. And, conversely, I think it’s also important to remember that this series seems to have a writing philosophy with a fundamentally different goal from most Digimon series, and since it’s understandable for most long-time Digimon fans to have their tastes built on those prior series, it’s fine and completely understandable that this reboot may not be your cup of tea, for reasons that probably don’t actually have much to do with whether it’s an Adventure reboot or not.

There are no spoilers in the following post. (Although I use some emphatic language for the duration for it, these are mostly just my personal thoughts and how I see the series and the overall situation.)

On what exact relationship to Adventure this series has, and why it’s an “Adventure reboot”

If you ask why they did an Adventure reboot, the easiest answer to come up with is “Adventure milking, because it’s profitable”, but that’s kind of an oversimplification of what the issue is. This is especially when you take into account a key fact that official has been very well aware of since as early as 2006: most kids are too young to have seen Adventure, and therefore have no reason to care about it.

That’s the thing: Adventure milking only works so well on today’s children, and Toei and Bandai know this. This is also the reason that the franchise started going through a bit of a “split” starting in around 2012 (after Xros Wars finished airing), when the video game branch started making more active attempts to appeal to the adults’ fanbase with Re:Digitize and Adventure PSP. (Although they were technically still “kids’ games”, they were very obviously aimed at the adults’ audience as a primary “target”.) The generation that grew up with Adventure and other classic Digimon anime was getting older and older, and targeting that audience would require tailoring products more specifically to them -- ultimately culminating in 2015 and the solidification of “very obviously primarily for adults” media in the form of both games (Cyber Sleuth and Next Order) and anime (tri.). Note that Appmon ended up getting its own 3DS game, but since it was targeted at kids, it seems to have been developed by a completely different pipeline/branch from the aforementioned adults’ games, so even that had a split.

So if we want to talk about full-on nostalgia pandering, that’s already being done in the adults’ branch. In fact, Appmon development specifically said that they felt free to not really care about the adults’ audience because that was tri.’s job. Of course, the hardcore Digimon adults’ fanbase is still keeping an eye on the kids’ shows, and it’s good to not upset them -- and, besides, even if we’re all suffering under the hell of capitalism, people who work in kids’ shows still tend to be very passionate about the content and messages they’re showing the kids, so they still put an effort into making good content that adults can enjoy too. But, nevertheless, adults are still the “periphery demographic”, and a kids’ show is not a success if the kids (who have not seen and do not care about Adventure) are not watching it or buying the toys. Appmon ended up being extremely well-received by the adults’ fanbase, but that all meant nothing since the kids didn’t get into it.

Most kids are not super incredibly discerning about so-called writing quality (it’s not like they don’t at least unconsciously know when something is good, but they’re much less likely to be bothered by little things adults are often bothered by), so there’s a certain degree you have to get their attention if you want things to catch on with them. Critical reception does matter a lot more when we talk about the adults’ audience, but for the kids, the more important part is how much you’ve managed to engage them and how much fun they’re having (especially in regards to the toyline). Moreover, there’s the problem of “momentum”; Digimon’s sister shows of PreCure, Kamen Rider, and Super Sentai have sometimes had really poorly performing shows (critically or financially), but have managed to recover it in successive years to avoid getting cancelled. Digimon never managed to get to that point, with sales nearly dropping to half with Tamers and again with Frontier. So in essence, Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon were all attempts at figuring out what was needed to just get that “kickstart” again -- but things just never lined up for it to work.

So if kids don’t really care about Adventure, why would they do Adventure nostalgia pandering? The answer is one that official has actually openly stated multiple times: they want to have parents watch it together with their children. Both Seki and Kinoshita said this in regards to watching the reaction to Kizuna, and it was also stated outright as a goal for the reboot, but, believe it or not, there’s reports of this having been stated back as early as Savers (followed by an admission that maybe 2006 was a little too early for people who grew up with Adventure to be old enough to have their own kids). So the little nostalgia references in Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon aren't really meant to magically turn the series into Adventure as much as they’re supposed to be flags waved at the parents to get them to pay attention, so that they can introduce their kids to Digimon and watch it together with them, until the kids eventually take an interest on their own and they don’t need to rely on that kind of standby as much. (I say “as much” because of course PreCure, Rider, and Sentai all are still very indulgent in their anniversary references, but they’re not nearly as reliant on it to the point of life-and-death.)

This is also why Kizuna’s existence and release date two months prior to the reboot is a huge factor in this. The reason tri. wouldn’t have done it is that it never actually reached a properly “mainstream” audience. It’s a huge reason I keep emphasizing the fact that tri. and Kizuna are two separate things with completely different production and release formats, because tri. being a limited OVA screening released in six parts over three years means that, although it was a moderate financial success that did better than the franchise’s other niche products, in the end, it didn’t actually reach the “extremely casual” audience very well. We, as the “hardcore Internet fanbase”, all know people who watched all six parts, and the difference between tri. and Kizuna’s release formats doesn’t hit us as hard because of international distribution circumstances, but even on our end, if you talk to your casual friends who barely remember anything about Digimon except what they saw on TV twenty years ago, you will almost never find anyone who got past Part 1, maybe 2 at most. (That’s before we even get into the part where a good chunk of them got turned off at the character design stage for being too different.) Sticking with a full six-part series over three years is a commitment, and if you’re not someone with a certain level of loyalty to the franchise, you aren’t as likely to put aside the time for it!

Kizuna, on the other hand, was a full-on theatrical movie with full marketing campaign that was aimed at that extremely casual mainstream audience, including a lot of people who hadn’t even heard of tri. (due to it being too niche) or hadn’t bothered to commit to watching something so long, and thus managed to “hype up” a lot of adults and get them in a Digimon mood. (Critical reception issues aside, this is also presumably a huge reason Kizuna isn’t all that reliant on tri.’s plot; Adventure and 02 both averaged at around 11% of the country watching it when it first aired, but the number of people who even saw tri. much less know what happened in it is significantly lower, so while you can appeal to a lot of people if you’re just targeting the 11%, you'll lock them out if you’re overly reliant on stuff a lot of them will have never seen in the first place.) We’re talking the kind of super-casual who sees a poster for Kizuna, goes “oh I remember Digimon!”, casually buys a ticket for the movie, likes it because it has characters they remember and the story is feelsy, and then two months later an anime that looks like the Digimon they recognize is on Fuji TV, resulting in them convincing their kid to watch it together with them because they’re in a Digimon mood now, even though the actual contents of the anime are substantially different from the original.

So, looking back at the reboot:

There’s a huge, huge, huge implication that the choice to use Adventure branding was at least partially to get Fuji TV to let them have their old timeslot back. Neither Xros Wars nor Appmon were able to be on that old timeslot, presumably because Fuji TV had serious doubts about their profitability (perhaps after seeing Savers not do very well). This isn’t something that hits as hard for us outside Japan who don’t have to feel the impact of this anyway, but it’s kind of a problem if kids don’t even get the opportunity to watch the show in the first place. While there’s been a general trend of moving to video-on-demand to the point TV ratings don’t really have as much impact as they used to, I mean...it sure beats 6:30 in the morning, goodness. (Note that a big reason PreCure, Rider, and Sentai are able to enjoy the comfortable positions they’re in is that they have a very luxurious 8:30-10 AM Sunday block on TV Asahi dedicated to them.)

Since we’re talking about “the casual mainstream”, this means that this kind of ploy only works with something where a casual person passing by can see names and faces and take an interest. This is why it has to be Adventure, not 02 or Tamers or whatnot; 02 may have had roughly similar TV ratings to Adventure and fairly close sales figures back in 2000, but the actual pop culture notability disparity in this day and age is humongous (think about the difference in pop culture awareness between Butter-Fly and Target). 02, Tamers, and all can do enough to carry “adults’ fandom” products and merch sales at DigiFes, and the adults’ branch of the franchise in general, but appealing to the average adult buying toys for the kids is a huge difference, and a big reason that, even if they’re clearly starting to acknowledge more of the non-Adventure series these days, it’s still hard to believe they’re going to go as far as rebooting anything past Adventure -- or, more accurately, hard to believe they’ll be able to get the same impact using names and faces alone.

This advertising with the Adventure brand goes beyond just the anime -- we’re talking about the toyline that has the involved character faces plastered on them, plus all of the ventures surrounding them that Bandai pretty obviously carefully timed to coincide with this. One particularly big factor is the card game, which is doing really, really well right now, to the point it’s even started gaining an audience among people who weren’t originally Digimon fans. Part of it is because the game’s design is actually very good and newcomer-friendly, but also...nearly every set since the beginning came with reboot-themed Tamer Cards, which means that, yes, those cards with the Adventure names and faces were helping lure people into taking an interest in the game. Right now, the game is doing so well and has gained such a good reputation that it probably doesn’t need that crutch anymore to keep going as long as the game remains well-maintained, but I have no doubt the initial “Adventure” branding was what helped it take off, and its success is most likely a huge pillar sustaining the franchise at the current moment.

Speaking of merch and toys, if you look closely, you might notice that Bandai decided to go much, much more aggressively into the toy market with this venture than they ever did with Savers, Xros Wars, or Appmon (Appmon was probably the most aggressive attempt out of said three). They put out a lot more merch and did a lot more collaborative events to engage the parents and children, and, presumably, the reason they were able to do this was because they were able to push into those outlets with the confidence the Adventure brand would let them be accepted (much like with Fuji TV). Like with the card game, the important part was getting their “foot in the door” so that even if it stopped being Adventure after a fashion, they’d still have all of those merchandising outlets -- after all, one of the first hints we ever got of Ghost Game’s existence was a July product listing for its products replacing the reboot’s in a gachapon set, so we actually have evidence of certain product pipelines being opened by the reboot’s precedent. (The word 後番組 literally means “the TV program that comes after”, so it’s pretty obvious this was intended for Ghost Game; in other words, the reboot’s existence helped ensure there be a “reservation” for this kind of product to be made.)

I think one important thing to keep in mind is that Toei and Bandai have as much of a stake in avoiding rehashing for their kids’ franchises as we do. Even if you look at this from a purely capitalistic perspective, because of how fast the “turnover” is for the kids’ audience, sustaining a franchise for a long time off rehashing the same thing over and over is hard, and even moreso when it involves a twenty-year-old anime that said kids don’t even know or remember. Ask around about popular long-running Japanese kids’ franchises and you’ll notice they practically rely on being able to comfortably change things up every so often, like PreCure/Rider/Sentai shuffling every year, or Yu-Gi-Oh! having a rotation of different series and concepts, or the struggles that franchises that don’t do this have to deal with. And, after all, for all people are cynical about Toei continuing to milk Adventure or any of the other older series at every opportunity, as far as the kids’ branch of the franchise goes, this is only capable of lasting to a certain extent; if they tried keeping this up too long, even the adults and kids would get bored, and there is some point it’ll be easier to try and make products directly targeted at the kids’ audience instead of having to rely on the parents to ease them into it.

So it’s completely understandable that the moment they secured a proper audience with the reboot and finished up their first series with this, they decided to take the risk with Ghost Game right after. And considering all that’s happened, this is still a risk -- they’re changing up a lot (even if not as much as Appmon), and there’s a chance that the audience they’ve gathered is going to shoot down again because they’ve changed so much and they no longer have the Adventure branding as a “crutch” to use -- but they’re taking it anyway instead of going for something at least slightly more conventional.

Which means that, yes, there’s a possibility this will all explode in their face, because the Adventure branding is that huge of a card they’re about to lose. But at the very, very least, Ghost Game is coming in with the “momentum” and advantage that Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon all didn’t have: a brand currently in the stage of recovery, all of the merchandising and collaborative pipelines the reboot and Kizuna opened up, a fairly good timeslot, and a premise somewhat more conventional than Xros Wars and Appmon (I’m saying this as someone who likes both: their marketing definitely did not do them many favors). There are still a lot of risks it’s playing here, and it’s possible it won’t be the end of more Adventure or reboot brand usage to try to keep that momentum up even as we go into Ghost Game, but it’s the first time in a long while we’ve had something to stand on.

Okay, so that’s out of the way. But the end result is that we now have 67 episodes of an Adventure “reboot” that actually doesn’t even resemble Adventure that much at all, which seems to have achieved its goal of flagging down attention so it can finally going back to trying new things. This series exists, we can’t do anything about the fact it exists, the period where its own financial performance actually mattered is coming to an end anyway, and we, as a fanbase of adults hanging out on the Internet keeping up with the franchise as a whole, have to figure out how each of us feels about this. So what of it?

About the contents of the reboot itself

One thing I feel hasn’t been brought up as a potential topic very much (or, at least, not as much as I feel like it probably should be) is that the reboot seems to be actively aimed at a younger target audience than the original Adventure. It hasn’t been stated outright, but we actually have quite a bit of evidence pointing towards this.

Let’s take a moment and discuss what it even means to have a different target audience. When you’re a kid, even one or two years’ difference is a big deal, and while things vary from kid to kid, generally speaking, it helps to have an idea of what your “overall goal” is when targeting a certain age group, since at some point you have to approximate the interests of some thousands of children. Traditionally, Digimon has been aimed at preteens (10-11 year olds); of course, many will testify to having seen the series at a younger age than that, but the "main” intended target demographic was in this arena. (Also, keep in mind that this is an average; a show aimed at 10-11 year olds could be said to be more broadly aimed at 7-13 year olds, whereas one aimed at 7-8 year olds would be more broadly aimed at something like 5-10 year olds.) Let’s talk a bit about what distinguishes children’s shows (especially Japanese kids’ shows) between this “preteen demographic” and things aimed at a much younger audience (which I’ll call “young child demographic”, something like the 7-8 year old arena):

With children who are sufficiently young, it’s much, much more difficult to ensure that a child of that age will be able to consistently watch TV at the same hour every week instead of being subject to more variable schedules, often set by their parents, meaning that it becomes much more difficult to have a series that relies on you having seen almost every episode to know what’s going on. For somewhat older kids, they’re more likely to be able to pick and pursue their own preferences (the usual “got up early every week for this show”). This means that shows targeted at a young child demographic will be more likely to be episodic, or at least not have a complex dramatic narrative that requires following the full story, whereas shows targeted at a preteen audience are more willing to have a dramatic narrative with higher complexity. This does not mean by any shake of the imagination that a narrative is incapable of having any kind of depth or nuance -- the reboot’s timeslot predecessor GeGeGe no Kitaro got glowing reviews all over the board for being an episodic story with tons of depth -- nor that characters can’t slowly develop over the course of the show. But it does raise the bar significantly, especially because it prevents you from making episodes that require you to know what happened in previous ones.

The thing is, the original Adventure and the older Digimon series in general didn’t have to worry about this, and, beyond the fact that their narratives very obviously were not episodic, we actually have concrete evidence of the disparity: Digimon has often been said to be a franchise for “the kids who graduated from (outgrew) a certain other monster series”. Obviously, they’re referring to Pokémon -- which does have the much younger target demographic. That’s why its anime is significantly more episodic and less overall plot-oriented, and Digimon wasn’t entirely meant to be a direct competitor to it; rather, it was hoping to pick up the preteens who’d enjoyed Pokémon at a younger age but were now looking for something more catered to them. This is also why, when Yo-kai Watch came into the game in 2014, that was considered such a huge direct competitor to Pokémon, because it was aiming for that exact same demographic, complete with episodic anime. When Yo-kai Watch moved to its Shadowside branch in 2017, it was specifically because they had concerns about losing audience and wanted to appeal to the kids who had been watching the original series, but since they were preteens now, they adopted a more dramatic and emotionally complex narrative that would appeal to that audience instead. So you can actually see the shift in attempted target demographic in real time.

Adventure through Frontier were aimed at 10-11 year olds, and here’s the interesting part: those series had the protagonists hover around the age of said target audience. We actually have it on record that Frontier had a direct attempt to keep most of the kids as fifth-graders for the sake of appealing to the audience, and so that it would be relatable to them. You can also see this policy of “matching the target audience’s age” in other series at the time; Digimon’s sister series Ojamajo Doremi (also produced by Seki) centered around eight-year-olds. Nor was Seki the only one to do this; stepping outside Toei for a bit, Medabots/Medarot had its protagonist Ikki be ten years old, much like Digimon protagonists, and the narrative was similarly dramatic. The thing is, that’s not how it usually works, and that’s especially not really been how it’s worked for the majority of kids’ series since the mid-2000s. In general, and especially now, it’s usually common to have the protagonists of children’s media be slightly older than the target age group. This has a lot of reasons behind it -- partially because kids are looking to have slightly older characters as a model for what to follow in their immediate future, and partially because “the things you want to teach the kids” are often more realistically reflected if the kids on screen have the right level of independence and capacity for emotional contemplation. Case in point: while everyone agrees the Adventure through Frontier characters are quite relatable, it’s a common criticism that the level of emotional insight sometimes pushes the boundary of what’s actually believable for 10-11 year olds...

...which is presumably why, with the exception of this reboot, every Digimon TV series since, as of this writing, started shifting to middle school students. That doesn’t mean they’re aiming the series at middle school kids now, especially because real-life 13-15 year olds are usually at the stage where they pretend they’ve outgrown kids’ shows (after all, that’s why there’s a whole term for “middle school second year syndrome”), but more that the narrative that they want to tell is best reflected by kids of that age, especially when we’re talking characters meant to represent children from the real world and not near-immortal youkai like Kitaro. In fact, the Appmon staff outright said that Haru was placed in middle school because the story needed that level of independence and emotional sensitivity, which is interesting to consider in light of the fact that Appmon’s emotional drama is basically on par with that of Adventure through Frontier’s. So in other words, the kind of high-level drama endemic to Adventure through Frontier is would actually normally be more on par with what you’d expect for kids of Haru’s age.

But at this point, the franchise is at a point of desperation, and you can see that, as I said earlier, Appmon was blatantly trying to be one of those “have its cake and eat it too” series by having possibly one of the franchise’s most dramatic storylines while also having some of the most unsubtle catchphrases and bright colors it has to offer. Moreover, one thing you might notice if you look closely at Appmon: most of its episodes are self-contained. Only a very small handful of episodes are actively dependent on understanding what happened in prior episodes to understand the conflict going on in the current one -- it’s just very cleverly structured in a way you don’t really notice this as easily. So as you can see, the more desperate the franchise has gotten to get its kids’ audience back, the more it has to be able to grab the younger demographic and not lock them out as much as possible -- which means that it has to do things that the original series didn’t have to worry about at all.

Having seen the reboot myself, I can say that it checks off a lot of what you might expect if you tried to repurpose something based on Adventure (and only vaguely based on it, really) into a more episodic story that doesn’t require you to follow the whole thing, and that it has to break down its story into easy-to-follow bits. In fact, there were times where I actually felt like it gave me the vibes of an educational show that would usually be expected for this demographic, such as repeated use of slogans or fun catchphrases for young kids to join in on. That alone means that even if the “base premise” is similar to the original Adventure, this already necessitates a lot of things that have to be very different, because Adventure really cannot be called episodic no matter how you slice it.

Not only that, even though the target audience consideration has yet to be outright stated, we also have interviews on hand that made it very clear, from the very beginning, what their goals with the reboot were: they wanted the kids to be able to enjoy a story of otherworldly exploration during the pandemic, they wanted cool action sequences, and they wanted to get the adults curious about what might be different from the original. Note that last part: they actively wanted this series to be different from the original, because the differences would engage parents in spotting the differences, and the third episode practically even goes out of its way to lay that message down by taking the kids to a familiar summer camp, only to have it pass without incident and go “ha, you thought, but nope!” Moreover -- this is the key part -- “surprising” people who were coming from the original series was a deliberate goal they had from the very beginning. They’ve stated this outright -- they knew older fans were watching this! They were not remotely shy about stating that they wanted to surprise returning viewers with unexpected things! They even implied that they wanted it to be a fun experience for older watchers to see what was different and what wasn’t -- basically, it’s a new show for their kids who never saw the original Adventure, while the parents are entertained by a very different take on something that seems ostensibly familiar.

On top of that, the head writer directly cited V-Tamer as an influence -- and if you know anything about V-Tamer, it’s really not that much of a character narrative compared to what we usually know of Digimon anime, and is mostly known for its battle tactics and action sequences (but in manga form). In other words, we have a Digimon anime series that, from day one, was deliberately made to have a writing philosophy and goal that was absolutely not intended to be like Adventure -- or any Digimon TV anime up to this point -- in any way. And that’s a huge shock for us as veterans, who have developed our tastes and expectations based on up to seven series of Digimon that were absolutely not like this at all. But for all it's worth, the circumstances surrounding its production and intent don't seem to quite line up with what the most common accusations against it are:

That it’s a rehash of Adventure: It really isn’t. It’s also blatantly apparent it has no intention of being so. The points that are in common: the character names and rough character designs, some very minimal profile details for said characters, Devimon having any particular foil position to Angemon, the use of Crests to represent personal growth, the premise of being in the Digital World and...that’s it! Once those points are aside, it’s really hard to say that the series resembles Adventure any more than Frontier or Xros Wars resembles Adventure (which are also “trapped in another world” narratives) -- actually, there are times the series resembles those two more than the original Adventure, which many have been quick to point out. The majority of things you can make any kind of comparison to basically drop off by the end of the first quarter or so, and trying to force a correlation is basically just that: you’d have to try forcing the comparison. The plot, writing style, and even the lineup of enemies shown just go in a completely different direction after that. So in the end, the base similarities can be said to be a marketing thing; if I want to criticize this series, I don’t think “lack of creativity” would actually be something I would criticize it for. (Of course, you’re still welcome to not be a huge fan of how they’re still guilty of using Adventure’s name value to market something that is not actually Adventure. We’re all gonna have mixed feelings on that one.)

That they don’t understand or remember Adventure’s appeal: Unlikely. All of the main staff has worked on character-based narratives before, which have been very well-praised while we’re at it. The producer, Sakurada Hiroyuki, was an assistant producer on the original series, and I would like to believe he probably remembers at least a thing or two about what they were doing with the original series...but, also, he’s the producer of Xros Wars, which definitely had its own individuality and style, and, moreover, was more of a character narrative that people generally tend to expect from Digimon anime. (Still a bit unconventional, and it has its own questions of personal taste, but a lot of people have also pointed out that this reboot has a lot in common with Xros Wars in terms of its writing tone and its emphasis on developing Digital World resident Digimon moreso than the human characters.) All signs point to the idea they could make a character narrative like Adventure if they really wanted to. It’s just, they don’t want to do that with this reboot, so they didn’t.

That they misinterpreted or misremembered the Adventure characters: There’s been accusations of said characters being written in a way that implies misinterpretation or lack of understanding of the original characters, but the thing is, while I definitely agree they have nowhere near the depth of the original ones, there are points that seem to be deliberate changes. (At some points, they’re actually opposites of the original, and certain things that operate as some very obscure references -- for instance, Sora complaining about having to sit in seiza -- seem to also be deliberate statements of going in a different direction.) The lack of human character depth or backstory doesn’t seem to be out of negligence, but rather that this story doesn’t want to be a character narrative to begin with -- after all, we’re used to seven series of Digimon that are, but there are many, many kids’ anime, or even stories in general, where the story is more about plot or action than it is completely unpacking all of its characters’ heads. In this case, this reboot does seem to have characters that are taking cues from or are “inspired by” the original, but, after all, it’s an alternate universe and has no obligation to adhere to the original characters’ backgrounds, so it stands to reason that it’d take liberties whenever it wanted. (Again, the head writer outright stated that he based the reboot’s Taichi more on V-Tamer Taichi than the original Adventure anime Taichi. He knows there’s a difference!) Even more intriguingly, the series actually avoids certain things that are common misconceptions or pigeonholes that would normally be done by the mainstream -- for instance, the Crest of Light (infamously one of the more abstract ones in the narrative) is fully consistent with Adventure’s definition of it as “the power of life”, and, if I dare say so myself, Koushirou’s characterization (emphasizing his relationship with “knowledge” and his natural shyness) arguably resembles the original far more than most common fan reductions of his character that overemphasize his computer skills over his personal aptitude. In other words, I think the staff does know what happened in the original Adventure -- they just actively don’t want to do what Adventure did, even if it’s ostensibly a reboot.

That it’s soulless or that there’s no passion in its creation: Well, this is subjective, and in the end I’m not a member of the staff to tell you anything for sure, but there are definitely a lot of things in this anime that don’t seem like they’d be the byproduct of uninspired creation or lack of passion. It’s just that those things are all not the kinds of things that we, as Digimon veterans, have come to develop a taste for and appreciate in Digimon anime. That is to say, there is an incredible amount of thought and detail put into representing Digimon null canon (i.e. representing special attacks and mechanics), the action sequences are shockingly well-animated in ways that put most prior Digimon anime to shame, and the series has practically been making an obvious attempt to show off as many Digimon (creatures) that haven’t traditionally gotten good franchise representation as they can. Or sometimes really obscure “meta fanservice” references that only make sense to the really, really, really, really hardcore longtime Digimon fan (for instance, having an episode centered around Takeru and Opossummon, because Takeru’s voice actress Han Megumi voiced Airu in Xros Wars). If you follow any of the animators on Twitter, they seem to be really actively proud of their work on it, and franchise creators Volcano Ota and Watanabe Kenji seem to be enjoying themselves every week...so basically, we definitely have creators passionate about having fun with this, it’s just that all of it is being channeled here, not the character writing.

So in the end, you can basically see that this series is basically the epitome of desperately pulling out all of the stops to make sure this series lands with the actual target demographic of children, dammit, and gets them into appreciating how cool these fighting monsters are and how cool it would be if they stuck with them even into a series that’s not Adventure. The Adventure branding and names to lure in the parents, the straightforward and easy-to-understand action-oriented narrative so that kids will think everything is awesome and that they’ll like it even when the story changes, and the merchandise and collab events booked everywhere so that they can all be reused for the next series too...because, remember, they failed with that during Savers, Xros Wars, and Appmon (I mean, goodness, you kind of have to admire their persistence, because a ton of other kids’ franchises failing this many times would have given up by now), so it’s a bit unsurprising that they went all the way to get the kids’ attention at the expense of a lot of things that would attract veterans, especially since the veterans already have a well-developed adults’ pipeline to cater to them. This does also mean that this series is more likely to come off as a 67-episode toy commercial than any previous Digimon series, but it’s not even really the toys as much as they’re trying to sell the entire franchise and the actual monsters in the hopes that they’ll stick with it even when the narrative changes.

Nevertheless, here we are. The series is over. Ghost Game -- which, as of this writing, is looking to be much more of a conventional Digimon narrative, complete with older cast, obviously more dramatic atmosphere, and pretty much everything surrounding its PR -- is on its way, presumably thanks to the success of this endeavor. It’s hard to gauge it; we have it on record that they also intend it to be episodic, but remember that this doesn’t necessarily prevent it from having an overall dramatic plot or nuanced drama (especially since the abovementioned Appmon and Kitaro were perfectly capable of pulling off this balance). Nevertheless, it seems to be a lot more of the conventional kind of Digimon narrative we usually expect, so, as for us, adult long-time fans of the Digimon franchise (many of whom don’t have kids anyway), what exactly should we make of this? Well, as far as “supporting the franchise” goes, you’ll get much more progress supporting Ghost Game than the reboot; I highly doubt view counts and merch sales relative to an already-finished series will do nearly as much for the franchise’s health as much as the currently airing series, and, besides, it’d probably do us all a favor to support the endeavor that’s actually new and fresh. So when it comes to a “past” series like this, it’s all just going to come down to a question of personal preference and taste: is this a series you, personally, want to watch, and would you find it entertaining?

For some of you, it’s possible that it just won’t be your cup of tea at all -- and since, like I said, the majority of us here have based our expectations and preferences on up to seven series of Digimon that were not like this, that’s also perfectly fine, and in that case I don’t actually recommend you watch this. Of course, I’ve never thought that it was ever fair to expect a Digimon fan to have seen all of the series released to date; the more series we get, the more inhumane of a demand that’ll become, and I think this franchise becoming successful enough to have so many series that most people won’t have seen it all is a good thing. (It’s actually kind of alarming that the percentage of people who have seen it all is so high, because it means the franchise has failed to get much of an audience beyond comparatively hardcore people who committed to it all the way.) But I think, especially in this case, with a series for which adult fans like us were probably lowest on the priority list due to the sheer amount of desperation going on here, it’s fine to skip it, and if you’re someone who lives by a need for character depth or emotionally riveting narrative, the fact this series is (very unabashedly and unashamedly) mostly comprised of episodic stories and action sequences means you won’t have missed much and probably won’t feel too left out of any conversations going forward. That’s before we even get into the part where it’s still completely understandable to potentially have mixed feelings or resentment about the overuse of the Adventure brand for something like this, especially if Adventure is a particularly important series to you.

But for some of you out there, it might still be something you can enjoy on its own merits. I’ve seen people who were disappointed by the limited degree of Digimon action sequences in the past or the fact that the series has gotten overly fixated on humans, and had an absolute ball with the reboot because it finally got to represent parts of the franchise they felt hadn’t been shown off as well. “Fun” is a perfectly valid reason to enjoy something. It’s also perfectly possible to be someone who can enjoy character narratives like the prior Digimon series but also enjoy something that’s more for being outlandish and fun and has cool Digital World concepts and visuals -- and, like I said, it does not let up on that latter aspect at all, so there’s actually potential for a huge feast in that regard. I think as long as you don’t expect it to be a character narrative like Adventure -- which will only set you up for disappointment, because it’s not (and made very clear since even the earliest episodes and interviews that it had no intention of being one) -- it’s very possible to enjoy it for what it is, and for what it does uniquely.

#digimon #digimon adventure:#digimon adventure reboot #digimon adventure 2020 #digimon adventure psi #shihameta

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13uswntimagines · 4 years ago

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Secret Santa (Alex Morgan x Reader)

Reader is in the military and surprises her wife and daughter (with a little help from Preath). Merry Christmas from @literaryhedgehog and Me!!!

“Little bit still hasn’t told you what she wants for Christmas yet?” Kelley asked, munching on some pretzels and hummus.

Alex rolled her eyes sliding into a seat next to her. “No, she utterly convinced that it won’t come true if she tells anyone but Santa.”

“Didn't she write a letter? Why didn’t you just take a peek?” Tobin interjected, sitting on Kelley’s other side. Her fiancé had been so excited to have her niece for the day.

“She mailed it to god knows where with Christen before I could,” Alex sighed, shaking her head. She had been fine with the whole mailing letters thing (actually watching your four-year old try to write out something heartfelt in blue crayon was kinda adorable), but then Camren had insisted on mailing it herself. Alex felt a little bad for the person in Antarctica who was getting the random letter.

“Damn,” Kelley huffed, blowing her cheeks out, trying to drum up ideas.

“Yeah, apparently it’s a Press family tradition or whatever, and Chris did it because Y/n isn’t here to. If she was she at least could have curbed some of her enthusiasm long enough to take a picture of the letter.” Alex grumbled, chewing thoughtfully on a pretzel. Your big sister had been picking up a lot of slack while you were away with the SEALs, but it just wasn’t the same as having you there.

“We hired a Santa, so just listen to whatever she tells him,” Tobin shrugged, a look that Alex didn’t recognize crossing her features.

“And pray to god it gets here overnight,” Kelley snorted. Hopefully whatever Camren wanted could be found at a local Walmart.

*****

The holiday party was in full bustle. There were benefits to doing training in Florida, so while Camren still had her heart set on snow for christmas, the adults had strung the outdoor tent with string lights and decorated it with holly and mistletoe. Camren had promised to eat at least two bites of every food there -- even the healthy ones that looked weird (her words not Alex’s) -- before she ate too many of Emily’s double chocolate chunk brownies, and so Alex was feeling rather proud of herself. She and her daughter were both there, dressed up, and only 15 minutes late for the party-- not bad for single parenting skills. Maybe after Camren was done talking to Santa, Carlie or Lindsey could be persuaded to babysit for a bit so Alex could go introduce herself to that lovely bottle of merlot she saw hiding in the corner.

Alex was surprised with how comfortable her daughter seemed on Santa’s lap. Camren was a bit nervous walking over, but it was nothing compared to her fear last year, when she had bawled until you eventually gave up and held her behind the poor man. Perhaps it had to do with how tenderly the poor suited person seemed to hold the small child, and the little glimmer in their eyes. .

Santa’s eyes met Alex’s for a split second, and the sense of security the slight contact brought her was slightly alarming. They looked so familiar and sent warm tingles through her chest.

“Did you get my letter?” The little girl asked, drawing the bearded one’s attention back to her. Alex bit her lip, there was no way this random stranger got the letter addressed to Rudolph at the North Pole.

The Santa nodded, their features softening. “I did. It seems you were very concerned about your mama getting her gift?”

The little girl nodded rapidly. “How do you know where to take it, if she’s on top secret missions all da time?” Her brow furrowed, “what if she doesn’t have a chimney to hang her stocking on?”

“I just know. Remember I know if you’ve been good or bad, or if you move. I promise she’ll get everything she wants. Now back to you. What do you want for Christmas?” Santa tried to explain.

The little girl thought for a moment, her finger tapping on her chin, before she leaned up to cup the person’s ear. She whispered a few words, leaned back to look the bearded person in the eye. The (very fake) white beard at the top of the red coat bobbed up and down in a nod, and Alex saw a sparkle in their eye as their lips twitched above it.

“Well that’s quite the order.”

“Pwease? Its not that tall, and It’s the only thing I really want,” Camren pouted, pulling the puppy dog eyes that never ceased to make her parents melt. This was important, and if she only got one real chance to talk to the person who could make it happen, she wanted them to know just how much she wanted it.

“I’ll see what I can do,” the Santa said, nodding seriously and stroking the beard as Camren jumped up and ran back to Alex.

“What did you ask for?” Alex whispered. Good grief, wasn’t the whole point of hiring a Santa to hear what the munchkin wanted?

“Can’t say. Want it to happen,” Camren whispered back, twirling slightly as she buried herself in the hem of her mom’s skirt. This was going to be the best Christmas ever.

****

Alex smiled widely as the Santa pulled another wrapped present from the gaudy red bag. It was a nice spin on their usual tradition, and she just hoped Pino didn’t get her for a secret Santa. That woman forgot every year, and Alex’s name hadn’t come up yet and that bag looked suspiciously empty. No wait, there was one- nope, that was Beckey’s present from Alyssa. Maybe there was a gift card in there somewhere? Alex looked down at Camren, who despite practically nodding off in Sonnet’s arms an hour ago, had woken up during the secret santa exchange. She was now sitting on the ground playing with the toy horses, blind to her surroundings.

“Hey, um Kelley? Who was running the secret santa exchange again?” Alex whispered, grabbing her arm. “I think my person forgot to get me a present.”

“What?” Kelley, turned to her shocked. “I think maybe Tobin was in charge this year, we’ll ask her if someone wrote down who your person was.”

“Oh that’s not necessary,” Christen’s voice broke in. Alex and Kelley turned to look at her and Tobin, who were standing with a very confused Emily. “I’m really sorry, we just didn’t get a chance to wrap your gift. You’ll get it at the end of the party.”

“Isn’t it like against the rules for Christen to get Alex since they actually spend Christmas together every year?” Sonnett whined. If she couldn’t buy presents for Lindsey, and Sam couldn’t do it for Kristie then that totally wasn’t fair.Sister-in-law and fiance-of-sister-in-law definitely had an unfair advantage on the ”knowing what presents to buy” front. She had to buy Jullie’s gift, and had just settled on some tea-rex patterned socks and a starbucks gift card.

Lindsey glared in her direction. “Can it disonny,” she wasn’t about to let her girlfriend mess up a surprise that had been 6 months in the making.

“It’s fine Chris, you didn’t have to get me anything,” Alex smiled sadly.

“I mean that would have been cruel since Camren has been campaigning pretty hard for your present,” Christen snorted. It was all your daughter could talk about. She had even harassed every Santa she saw while they went Christmas shopping, and wrote several letters (that she forwarded to you) about the issue.

“She told you what she wants, and you didn’t tell me?” Alex asked exasperated. She had been fighting with your daughter for a month to know what she actually wanted. Why on earth would she tell her aunt but not her mom? She was going to have to have a conversation with Camren about how Santa had different rules from wishing on a star or a birthday candle. Namely that she should tell her mom what she wanted!

Christen shrugged, a smile pulling at her lips, though Alex didn’t know what she was so amused about. “Well, it was for you, so I get a pass,”

“I for one think that Christen’s present is totally on point, even if it’s wrapped in ugly, sweaty red velvet,” A new voice joined the conversation, just as arms wrapped snugly around Alex’s waist.

Alex froze, her eyes going wide and her mouth opening and closing several times.

You chucked from behind her, spinning her around so you were face to face for the first time in almost a year.

“Hi love.”

“Holy shit,” Alex breathed. Her hands reached up to touch your cheeks, the sense of touch confirming what she couldn’t trust her eyes to see.

“Surprise,” You mumbled, leaning in and finally connecting your lips. You sighed into the kiss, thoroughly enjoying the way they moved together, and the taste of your wife. She impatiently pulled down the beard when you paused to breathe, and your hands found her hips, pulling her closer, while her fingers tangled in that baby hairs at the base of your neck. “Let’s do that again,” you said, your breath fanning against her lips before she pulled you back in. You had an awful lot of time to make up for.

“Why is mommy kissing Santa Claus,” Camren asked from somewhere below your feet. You were fairly certain you heard one of your wife’s teammates explaining in the background that Santa left a little while ago, and Mama had just dressed like him to surprise Mommy. You were a tad busy to explain anything right now.

#uswnt imagine #uswnt imagines #uswnt x reader #alex morgan x reader #alex morgan imagine

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whitehotharlots · 3 years ago

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The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc.

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism.

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable.

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself.

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing.

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse.

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back.

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure.

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juniaships · 4 years ago

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After being reminded of how awful canon film is I wrote my own self indulgent version of Batman Vs. Superman. I want the story to be self contained, so no Doomsday or Darkseid forewarning. Warning: Rambling, me being butthurt while high on sugar, really trying to make this a coherent storyline with genuine development, some Bruce x OC moments shut up you demon!

The beginning is the same as in canon with Lois in Africa???Middle East??? With her partner James Olsen trying to resolve a hostage situation. James gets killed trying to protect a hostage, but before anymore are killed Superman comes in and rescues them. He subdues not kill the terrorists but gets into trouble with the intelligence agency for interrupting their mission. This incident reaches the ears of Helen Hunt's character the no-nonsense Senator. However Superman is more concerned for the deceased James and the unharmed hostages than getting in trouble with the government, he feels guilty being unable to save James in time.

After James Olsen's funeral Clark and Lois are unsure what to do next. They decide the best way to honor his memory is continuing their line of working bringing light to troubling issues as well as a troubling rose of villains. They also find out that the terrorists had weapons given to them by Luthor (to protect interests in that region).

Meanwhile, Lex decides to capitalize on the post destruction of Metropolis by launching a smear campaign. He also starts pursuing charitable events to make himself look good in front of the masses. Because of growing negativity towards Supes, Clark starts feeling a lack of confidence but from reassurance from his mom he redirects his focus hero by doing small stuff around Smallville. Gradually the town starts to see him in a far better light but there's still Metropolis and the larger world. Clark goes there to help rebuild. At his job at DP, he gets the chance to interview visiting millionaire Bruce Wayne in Whatever City (not the actual name but a totally different city from Metropolis and Gotham). At the press meeting Bruce is rather cold & not as Clark expected. He's even working with Lex Luthor as part of a business deal, which makes Clark wary as he knows about Luthor's criminal activity.

Superman goes out in a flight to clear his head. While flying around he sees a kid walking on the railroad tracks hy himself with a pair of headphones....and a train steadily approaching! Supes swoops in and saves the kod from being nuked and chastises him for being so reckless. The teenager apologies and introduces himself as Jimmy Olsen (a nephew of the deceased James). He had been listening to music as a way to cope with his uncle's death. They talk for a while and Superman brings Jimmy back home. Several weeks later Clark ends up mentoring Jimmy as a school project.

Back in Whatever City we're introduced to one of Lex's assistants Nicola. She's a former Holliday Girl who had overheard Lex's plan and vowed to stop him. She managed to get in contact with an old friend: Diana Prince. Nicola brings up Lex's plan and hidden research of metahumans. The Amazon surmises that such a scheme could result in the deaths of hundreds if not thousands of people. Diana decides to bring her agency to stop him & asks Nicola to stay low. Diana gathers her old armor and prays to the Gods for luck.

Lex apparently likes Nicola enough to send her an invite to a charity ball, where she crosses paths with Bruce for the first time. They talk for a while only to be interrupted by Clark.

After a meeting with Luthor to discuss a merger with their companies, and seeing hints of Luthor's true selfishness, Bruce grows suspicious of him and started to dig around. We see through memorabilia that his initial coldness towards Clark and other people wasn't out of spite but of grief: Jason Todd's death some years ago.

Clark continues his good deeds and is slowly regaining his respect. He even makes plan to visit a children's hospital but is forced to cancel when Superman gets called to show up for a Congress hearing. At the meeting Superman admits his guilt but tells about James and how he died a hero. The Senator doesn't know where Superman is going with this but is listening. Then Superman's voice trails of as he hears a beeping noise and shocked he leaves the room in a hurry. He briefly searches the place and finds a bomb strapped in a closet. He carries the bomb out and throws it as high into the sky as possible Back inside the audience and senator are bewildered by his absence then hear a loud booming noise outside. There's shock as a bright light flashes in the sky...

Superman legit rejected their hearing to save them from a bomb. A bomb planted there by Tess on the instructions of Luthor...a plan she was willing to sacrifice her own life for.

This leaves the senator reconsidering her stance: if he really was as bad as people say then he wouldn't have saved them.

After the incident the entire country begins to have a more positive opinion of Superman while the government launches a search for possible terrorists. Bruce hears about what happened and after sneaking around as Batman, finds out about Luthor being the one responsible for the attempted terror attack. Later on he (as civilian) makes an announcement that he is not going to go through with the merger with LexCorp.

Hearing the news that Superman foiled his attempted assassination (and losing out on Wayne Enterprises), Lex gets very pissed off and threatens to fire Tess. She tries to save face by reminding Lex of his contingency plan...making Lex calm down and grin as he begins to remake his plan.

Nicola agrees to a date with Bruce and prepares. Meanwhile Lois and Jimmy are enjoying a night on the town while Clark stays behind to work on a news story. The two friends were about ti make it back to their hotel before being accosted by some men who force them into a car and takes them to Lex Corp.

At the HQ Lois calls him out that his plan could spell doom for the world. Surprisingly Luthor agrees but makes it clear he doesn't care. He orders his men to capture her, but Jimmy manages to escape and goes off to find Clark (who is writing a story to expose Luthor's actions). Jimmy tells him learns from him that Lois is in trouble Superman tells him to stay as he fetches the police. In reality he jas gone to find her as his hero alias. He finds her but just as he's about to rescue her Lex threatens that he also has another certain someone (Martha Kent ) captured if he doesn't comply, seeing that Supes was often seen visiting her. Reluctantly Superman complies and Lois is freed from her bonds, yet Lex takes them as hostages to a room lined with Green Kryptonite. He leaves to his warehouse to check on progress of his prototype. Jimmy wonders where Clark has gone and goes to the police station himself.

On their date Bruce mentions to Nicola that he knows what she's up to. Nicola coldly replies what was he talking about and he mentions Lex's actions and her possible status as an accomplice This starts a spat leading to Nicola spilling that she is working against Lex (making her a foil to the blindly loyal Tess) and that her goal was to stop Lex from unleashing his plan. She already called a friend to help them yet when Bruce presses forward they see a kid (Jimmy) wandering around and concerned asks what's wrong. Jimmy replies that his friend was kidnapped and doesn't know what to do. Bruce leaves to find Clark while Nicola stays with Jimmy.

Nicole & Jimmy arrives back at the hotel and sees Tess Mercer waiting for them. She had been sent by Luthor to eliminate the witness. Nicola tries to talk her coworker out of harming an innocent kid but Tess refuses. They duel but Tess proves to be a surprisingly stronger fighter. Before Tess could come in for the kill a frightened Jimmy knocks her out cold from behind.

At HQ Lois & a weakened Superman attempt an escape. Lois believes its hopeless but Clark reminds her that Lex won't put them down for long. Batman arrives at the HQ and stealthily avoids the guards. He deduces the room Lois and Supes are locked up in and free them. Batman says thay a little birdie told him everything Lois and Clark grinning that it's Jimmy and the two superheroes decide to work together to bring down Lex.

Batman goes to save Martha (the warehouse fight) while Superman goes to confront Lex, dropping Lois off at the hotel where rhe police are waiting (Tess apprehended). Nicola researcher offers to take the reporter home but she declines, not wanting to sit back and watch Lex try to destroy the world. After giving her report to the police she and Nicole meet Steven Trevor (a descendant of Steve Trevor and an agent). Steven says he already sent his men to arrest Lex as they found that he waa behind the bombing. Lois sneaks away to see if she can help Clark.

Clark manages to catch uo to Lex at his lab and tries to reason with him. Lex says that he already unleashed his prototype as a test to see how many lives Superman is able to save. Superman argues that Lex has gone mad trying to play god, which he disagrees: "I'm not playing god I'm only playing favorites is all." Disgusted, Superman leaves and goes off to fight the prototype. As he does an entire line of trucks arrive...led by Nicola's special friend...

Lex realizes he has been found out and tries to destroy the evidence. Lois realize that the monster was made of Kryptonian DNA so she looks around for the spare Kryptonite and manages to grab a considerable long piece. Just as she does the place starts flooding and she runs. However she nearly drown. Fortunately she gets pulled out by a woman wearing armor. Lois doesn't even ask her name as she recognizes the W shaped emblem and blue&red color scheme. Lois gives the heroine the spear and tells her that she says she loves Clark. Wonder Woman nods and heads towards the direction of Superman.

Superman draws the monster out away from the city and is helped by Batman. Wonder Woman arrives with the spear. The final battles commences with Batman providing a distraction to lead the prototype away. Diana and Superman fight the beast but is soon overpowered. Clark takes the makeshift spear and goes off and manages to subdue the creature rather unwilling to kill it. However he gets blown up by a missile sent by the US military and everyone thinks he is dead.

To his he walks out of the smoke, banged up but alive, having narrowly escaped the blast. The monster has died, leaving Clark to wonders sadly if the monster could have been saved as it had no control over its actions. A relieved Lois embraces him as the other two supers look on in bittersweet triumph.

Several days later, the President, on the behest of the Helen Hunt Senator, gives Superman a full pardon. The world also starts to see rising of actual superheroes to take in the increase of villains having been inspired by the actions of the newly dubbed Trinity. The ending shows that long term exposure to Kryptonite left Lex without any hair, cementing his iconic look. He had also beem arrested and tried and ends up locked up at a mental institution on an insanity plea. His other henchmen & Tess are jailed and Luthor's company scrambles to do damage control. Bruce catches up to Clark and apologizes for being cold. They part ways on better terms before musing at the similarities between their alter egos. Diana teases that they make a great team and returns to the capital with her team. Bruce returns to Gotham and stops at the cemetery to place flowers on Jason Todd's grave, showing that he moved to the acceptance stage of grief. Jimmy also ends up getting a job as an intern for Daily Planet with Lois as his mentor this time. And Nicola goes to Gotham to work as a social worker and takes up a case: Cassandra Cain.

The final scene ends with Clark as Superman dressed up in Metropolis visiting a local orphanage/foster home, showing that at his core he truly does care about humanity despite all them haters. 👏👏 👏 happy ending everyone!!!

The movie ends with a montage of

- Cyborg walking around aimlessly in his hometown and finding a discarded newspaper highlighting the heroes' exploits and getting the idea to try becoming a hero himself

- Aquaman in his kingdom catching up with the surface world and becoming curious, and wonders about an alliance

- Barry standing in a hill in his city in costume. He grins and smiles, before pulling over his cowl and racing off

- And Lex, plotting an escape from his cell, suddenly sees a peculiarly tall guard looming over him. He makes a digging comment that the guard shrugs off. To his surprise the guard unlocks the cell and leads Lex out. Lex asks who the guard is; the guard slips off his disguises revealing a sapient Gorilla...Gorilla Grodd!

All This sets up a future plot point that wouldn't be explored until after Justice League where we're introduced to the cinematic LEGION OF DOOM!!! The prototype they fight is not doomsday but foreshadows the creation of Bizarro (who was one of the original members of the LoD).

With the actual Justice League movie we continue with the formation of the team through several subplots converging into one major story arc. The Helen Hunt Senator plays a huge role being their ally and influence on building the Hall of Justice. Plus more Brucola stuff because we need fun stuff in Batman, Tom King.

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bre-meister · 4 years ago

Text

This one is actually a continuation of that ask from a while back: “I heard you had lunch with ___”

Hope you enjoy!

Leon Kennedy was many things. He was a D.S.O Agent, a close confidant of the President, and, most importantly, a husband and a father. But, at the end of the day, Leon Kennedy may have been all of those things, but he was also just that, a man. And like many men, he got jealous.

His conversation with Claire about her boss, Neil Fisher, had put a lot of things into perspective for him. He knew that Neil was not a threat to him - never was and never would be. However, Leon would be the first to admitted that he has somewhat of a...possessive streak especially when it comes to his family. Personally, he thinks it’s a holdover from his line of work - keep his loved ones close and no one can hurt them. Whether that was true or not didn’t negate the fact that his slight possessive issues were very much present and when that mixed with his jealousy, Leon was a force to be reckoned with.

So, while Neil possessed no problems within his marriage, he had shown an increasing interest in his wife and that was something that Leon could not just let slide. Thus, his master plan had been birthed.

He hid his intentions from Claire; if she found out he would most definitely end up in the dog house. That was a place he’d learned from experience that he did not want to be. So this operation had to be top secret - even if Claire would be involved later.

He planned and he waited - patience was a virtue of course. Finally, the perfect moment presented itself and Leon was poised to strike.

Hunnigan mentioned on Monday that this would most likely be a slow week - at least as slow as a government agency that deals closely with both the President and B.O.W attacks could be. She suggested he take advantage of that and use some of his accumulated down time to spend some time with his family. So, he planned to take off for just a few hours that Thursday to have a nice lunch with his wife. He’d arrive early to make sure that Neil would see him sweep his wife off of her feet right before taking her out for a nice, well deserved lunch between just the two of them - a feat that they don’t accomplish often now with a baby in the house.

So he planned and he waited - just a few more days. He thought up idea upon idea of how he could make it obvious to Neil that Claire was most definitely (and happily he may add) taken without all but saying it. PDA had never really been his thing - it kind of made him uncomfortable to be honest - but he was prepared to feel a little uncomfortable to make Neil uncomfortable enough to control his wandering thoughts about his wife.

_________

Thursdays were always interesting days for Claire. They were far enough into the week that one was most definitely ready for the weekend and terrible at the same time - taunting almost in the sense that the weekend was so close but so far away, safeguarded by two full days of work. It was good work; the work of a rescuer as her husband would say. It needed to be done and Claire enjoyed it - the knowledge that she was helping people. But, sometimes she wished that work didn’t involve so much paperwork. She briefly wondered if Leon ever felt the same way. She’d seen the stacks of reports that had to be filled out after each of his missions and assignments; there was no way any of that was particularly pleasant to fill out.

So, as Claire got ready that normal Thursday morning, she found herself preparing for a hopefully boring day doing good work to help good people. And as she sat at the breakfast table watching Leon make goofy faces as he fed their daughter, she couldn’t help but wish the weekend would arrive just a little sooner. She was already making plans to spend as much time as she could with her family.

It seems that everyone had been making plans that day, because when Claire made it to the office, she noticed that Neil had apparently planed a whole day of work for their team in what, she assumed, was a bid to grab her attention for a large portion of the day. Claire being more experienced in most aspects of bioweapons made her the perfect person for a go between her team and their boss as they created a campaign to bring more light to Umbrella and the viruses that still wracked the world even as the company began to sink.

Neil pretended to need extra explanations of certain aspects of the plan in order to extend their time together. Claire knew he was putting on a front, Neil was a smart guy, he wouldn’t have his current job is he wasn’t. But, Claire humored him against her own personal wishes, afterall, he was still her boss.

In terms of personal feelings against the man, Claire didn’t have any in particular. Neil seemed like a nice enough man but she was aware of his feelings for her and she was a happily married woman. Even though she had told Leon he had nothing to notice about - and he didn’t - but she felt it was still best to limit her interactions with Neil as much as she could.

It came as no surprise to her that when the typical lunch hour rolled around, Neil began to insist that they spend it together.

“I think it would be a great opportunity for you to further explain this brilliant plan of yours.”

“I’ve already explained every minor detail to you. Now I think it would be best if you just read through the proposal on your own, maybe that way you can figure out whatever is confusing you. Sometimes it’s just the way someone is explaining it and not the content itself.” Claire began to gather her things and move to her own office to grab her purse and head to lunch. She had somehow managed to forget her pack lunch on the kitchen counter and would now have to go buy one.

“Well, then we could use this time to get to know eachother better. Every boss should know his employee’s right? Especially ones he tends to work the most with.”

“Well, if we’ll be working so closely together so often then I fail to see why you would want to spend more time with me.” She had reached her door now. Turning the nob she prayed she would be able to slip in and close the door on Neil without too much resistance.

“Who wouldn’t want to spend more time with you Angel?”

She froze. Looking up she was shocked to see her husband sitting in her chair, a bouquet of red roses sitting in front of him on her desk.

“Leon? What are you doing here?” she shook her head, moving to embrace him as he stood, “i mean, not that i’m not happy to see you but still, what are you doing here.”

“Well I just missed your smiling face so much I had to rush over immediately to see you.”

She fixed him with a look that said she was not amused (even though she was).

“It was kind of a slow day at the office and Hunnigan suggested I use that to my advantage. I noticed that you left your lunch at home so, being the chivalrous, caring man that I am, I decided I would come and whisk you away to a well deserved lunch. Just the two of us...alone...together.”

By this point she was completely wrapped in his arms. That familiar, calming sensation was enough to distract her from noticing how intently Leon was looking over he shoulder and through the doorway.

“Hmmm,” she hummed, “That does sound nice.”

Leon leaned down with, Claire assumed, the intention to place a kiss on her forehead or cheek like he was known to do in public. What she was not prepared for was a deep, heated kiss that would have been classified as that type of PDA that makes everyone around incredibly uncomfortable. The exact kind of kiss that Leon planted on her right in the middle of her office - a fact that was confusing to Claire considering she knew how much Leon preferred to avoid PDA.

The sound of someone clearing their voice is what finally caused them to pull apart. Claire would be the first to admit that she was a little sad the kiss ended so soon - having a baby on top of their already busy schedules didn’t leave much time for them. They were always Claire and Leon, Isabelle’s Mommy and Daddy. Or, Claire and Leon, Terrasave and the D.S.O’s best. Even Though she loved her daughter with her whole heart and believed just as strongly in the work she was doing, sometimes she just wanted to be Claire and Leon - that’s it, just them.

She didn’t need to turn around to know who was behind her - the smirk on Leon’s face told her it was Neil. Suddenly, Claire was begging to put two and two together.

“Hi, Neil right?” Leon jumped right in.

“Um - “ Neil was not able to get a real word in before Leon interrupted him,

“I don’t think we got to properly meet at that event the other week, what with me technically working and all. Leon Kennedy,” he held his hand out for th either man to shake, “ Claire’s husband.” Neil’s grip tightened at that.

Claire could see the pride flowing through Leon at the small slip in Neil’s outward stature. When he dropped his hand, he immediately snaked it around her waist, pulling her close. Even Claire thought that his hand was a little too close to her ass considering her boss was standing in front of them. Then again, that was probably part of whatever plan he had concocted in his jealousy.

“I forgot my lunch at home so Leon is going to take me out.” Claire stepped in, hoping that neither Leon nor Neil would make a fuss about the whole situation.

“I see he also brought you flowers...how nice.” Neil’s body language was stiff, it was obvious he was trying to restrain what was probably both disappointment and some varying degree of his own jealousy.

“Only the best for my Angel. She deserves flowers as beautiful as her but, alas, no such flower exists. So, I settled for roses.”

Claire loved Leon and so, she tended to put up with a lot of his antics. This one, however, was starting to irk her and the confidant smirk on his face really did it in for her. She was done being a things for these two men to fight over - one of which who definitely had no right to.

Claire shrugged out of Leon’s hold, moving behind her desk to grab her purse.

“Well, times wasting. Common Leon, let’s go.” She grabbed his hand and began to pull him out of the room. She was thankful he didn’t resist. As the passed him, she turned to speak to Neil one last time before leaving,

“ I have some time after lunch if you really need me to go over the plan again. I still suggest you go over the proposals on your own first though.”

Neil let out a mumbles “of course” but Claire was more focused on getting Leon across the open office space, into the elevator, and away from Neil.

___________

“I’ve gotta admit,” Leon looked up from his fries to his wife as she spoke, “that line about the flowers? Some of your best work.”

Leon chuckled but looked back down at his plate. Apparently once they’d left the office he had found his shame at the way he had reacted even after being told by Claire he had nothing to worry about.

He’d insisted that Claire pick where they go to dinner. She had decided on a small dinner not that far from her office that they used to frequent often on impromptu dates not unlike their current one. The milkshakes here were her favorite.

“Ya well, it’s true.”

She reached across the table to hold his hand, milkshake forgotten in front of her.

“As much as I love beautiful flowers and amazing lunch dates, you know that you really don’t have anything to worry about. Neil is just my boss - a pretty poor one - but my boss none the less.”

“I get it, I do. I know you would never but, “ he sighed, “ I can’t help it Claire. I saw the way he looked at you and it just - forgive me?” He looked her in the eyes, his own wide enough to portray all the remorse he truly did feel about what was probably an overreaction.

Claire just smiled, she could never stay mad at him. She knew that they hadn’t been able to spend any real alone time together lately and that probably exacerbated his feelings threatening his fragil, male ego. Besides, she couldn’t say she didn’t enjoy that kiss earlier. Perhaps she should take Jill up on her offer to babysit more often.

#Cleon #Cleon fic #Leon Kennedy #Claire Redfield #jealousy #resident evil #My writing

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songofclarity · 3 years ago

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Out of sheer curiosity, what do you think of Wen Xu. Any HC?

Two Wen Xu asks came in back-to-back and I could probably have answered them both at once, but I'll use your daring moment of sheer curiosity to focus on headcanons/theories I have for him, Anon~!

Similar to Su She, who caused problems while lurking in the background, I think Wen Xu, who also caused problems while lurking in the background, is our guy who has been inciting several other rising conflicts between the Qishan Wen and the other sects over the years. He doesn't need explicit orders to do this, mind you, because he is simply doing what any self-respecting son of the Qishan Wen Sect would do. Just like the Twin Prides look to the Jiang motto of Attempt the Impossible and the Twin Jades look to the 3,000 Lan rules, Wen Xu is also guided by Clan tradition:

The Wen Clan used the sun as the motif of their clan, signifying that they could "compete with the sun for radiance, match the sun in longevity." (ch. 17, ERS)

The sun, however, is beautiful and warm and radiant all on its own, which means he doesn't have to play nice with the other sects if he doesn't want to. In fact, it goes against policy to treat the other sects as equals! Therefore, with him being the predominant Wen outside Nightless City, it seems apt to assign these events to him:

1. Monopolizing all the prime Night Hunt locations and excluding the other sects, which made the other sects resent the Qishan Wen even more

Remember Jin Ling setting up those 400 golden nets? That's expensive and entitled! I imagine Wen Xu was our first Jin Ling, except rather than using 400 golden nets it's Wen Xu and his friends and Wen favorites who are staking claims on all the best sites. They're having a fun time and everyone else can cry about it! Remember that guest cultivators love being with the Wen Sect! It likely comes with plenty of favors, and Wen Xu as Wen RuoHan's eldest son had much to offer to gain and keep their support for the Qishan Wen.

2. Pushing the Waterborne Abyss from Qishan into Gusu Lan territory, making it a Lan problem and making the other sects resent the Qishan Wen even more

I headcanon that this event is what eventually prompted Wen Chao to daringly declare that he killed the Tortoise of Slaughter. Did Wen Xu declare that he had killed the Waterborne Abyss (which would sound absurd since the only known way to defeat it is to drain the lake and keep it dried out for years)? Or did he own up to how he simply got rid of the problem? Either way, he made Qishan safe, which is what any cultivation sect is supposed to do for their region.

The Qishan Wen are good to the Qishan Wen and the common folk beneath them. It's really only the other sects that take issue with them and see them as a threat.

*Please remember that the Qishan Wen Sect isn't an empire. They aren't trying to take over the world. They are simply seeking dominance and prominence, with all the power and prestige that comes with it.*

3. It's canon that Wen Xu led the attack on Cloud Recesses, that he accused QingHeng-jun of something to validate this assault, that he ordered Lan WangJi's leg broken when he stood in their way, and that he is responsible for the death of QingHeng-jun (whom I headcanon died due to critical burns from the fire)

The big question here is what, exactly, was Wen Xu/the Wen accusing QingHeng-jun of? It could be something real: neglecting his duties or even something to do with Madam Lan, since we really don't know her backstory. Or something overblown: having two sons who wear clouds on their ribbons, and clouds block out the sun, and those two sons did better than the Wen in the archery competition, so it must be an anti-Wen conspiracy, etc etc. (Wang LingJiao had to learn that logic somewhere!) The latter appeals to me the most, and highlights how Wen Xu was a role model for his little brother. The difference being that Wen Xu had experience handling other sects without getting everyone killed.

Frankly, that Wen Xu destroyed Cloud Recesses and got their Sect Leader killed and made their second Sect Leader go missing and all the other sects let him get away with it just reinforces, to me, that he has indeed been up to no good for a long time and that he is incredibly strong in his own right. Although Wei WuXian comments that the Wen Sect has a higher proportion of weak and incompetent disciples/subordinates, I headcanon that Wen Xu is not one of the weak ones.

But also Wen Xu is not bloodthirsty. He did what he needed to do and the only one left dead was the one that the Wens had a undisclosed problem with: QingHeng-jun. Wen Xu is strong but he has restraint. He never pushed anyone into a corner which could incite a rebellion, which was Wen Chao's mistake.

Until Wen Xu finally did push too hard:

4. It's canon that he went against Wen RuoHan's speech which effectively said to leave the Qinghe Nie alone. By ignoring how Wen RuoHan said that Nie MingJue would not bend, he pushed the Nie into a corner and bit off more than he could chew and got himself beheaded

All the Wens appeared to agree that the Sunshot Campaign was just an act of arrogance on the part of the other sects. The Wens did not take it seriously during those first three months, and therefore neither sought to squash it out or defeat it.

Wen Xu is what proves them wrong when he gets himself killed.

But what was Wen Xu doing in Hejian!? I headcanon/theorize that he was trying to end the Campaign on his own terms. Wen Xu was used to winning and used to the sects capitulating to Wen power and presence. Cloud Recesses was already destroyed and Lan XiChen is no threat, Lotus Pier was conquered and the Yunmeng Jiang were annihilated, and the Wens expected the Lanling Jin to come crawling back to them when things got too rough. This left the Qinghe Nie as the last foe, and thus Wen Xu went on his own prerogative to take Nie MingJue out and claim dominance for the Qishan Wen once more.

RIP Wen Xu

I don't say all of this to somehow make Wen Xu look evil--the Wens aren't evil and I don't understand why some readers want to dumb down the whole story by shoving them into a little evil box--although I guess I headcanon him as having a big head and being something of a bully lol. He's just being the same kind of pompous rich kid like Jin ZiXuan and Jin Ling except he has actual power and authority to back it up. The Qishan Wen are the biggest, richest, most powerful sect. He is the one who will one day inherit it as he is Wen RuoHan's oldest son. So he is both simultaneously protecting the Qishan Wen name as well as reinforcing it's power. He is endearing himself to his father by "fixing problems" and "taking care of unruly sects" before the problem even reaches Wen RuoHan's ears. Considering what we see and hear from Wen RuoHan, and how Wen RuoHan fails to make decisions he's not already being ushered into by a third party, Wen Xu and others are very much pro-actively promoting the Qishan Wen on their own terms.

Wen RuoHan is thus very happy with this loyal and righteous son of his! And it leaves Wen Chao striving to follow in Wen Xu's footsteps.

I headcanon that Wen Xu is much older than Wen Chao, like at least 10 years older if not more. (Who knows how old Wen RuoHan is? However old or young I want him to be at any given time! lol) This puts their relationship in a funny/annoying range of Wen Xu being the big brother but also old enough to pull the adult/parent card. Wen Chao has poor cultivation and he's the baby, which is why he gets Wen ZhuLiu as a bodyguard while Wen Xu, who is arguably quite strong, just gets to run around with his subordinates. Wen Xu is the jock big brother who pushes Wen Chao's buttons and it looks like they hate each other--but I also headcanon that Wen Xu likes seeing Wen Chao succeed in whatever dumb thing Wen Chao decided to do today and Wen Chao wants to grow up to as respected and powerful as Wen Xu (and Wen RuoHan) one day. They are not adversaries although there is competition and conflict between them.

And, as I mentioned before, we get Waterborne Abyss vs Tortoise of Slaughter competition between them. Both of them don't believe it! Father, he is not that competent!

Wen RuoHan laughs it out and disagrees, because he appreciates that both his kids are doing amazing feats. (Are they though? Are they???)

Then there are headcanons of Wen Xu and Wen Qing! Their families were close because they are family and their parents were BFFs! I have yet to decide if I want Wen Xu or Wen Qing to be older. Da-ge or Da-jie? One idea I like for them is that they were close as children, but maybe grew up and went their separate ways a little. That Wen Qing never renounced the Wen Sect makes me hold fast that she did love her family and clan, even if she didn't agree with what they did for their sect. Wen Xu wasn't a bad guy even if he did bad things. (She disliked Wen Chao but maybe she liked Wen Xu a little more lol)

I headcanon Wen Ning's outstanding archery involved Wen Xu giving him some hands-on assistance. (Da-ge? Da-ge...!) Like everyone else in the Wen Sect, I headcanon Wen Ning would have also wanted to impress Wen RuoHan and be noticed by him, too. They didn't keep it a secret from Wen Chao on purpose, it just turned out that way especially since most of the work was done by Wen Ning. (Wen Xu was at the discussion conference but he didn't watch the archery competition, instead teasing it was for babies in order to make Wen Chao cross. Wen Xu likes Wen Chao but he needs to grow up!)

There are also headcanons about his mother, but that's a whole rabbit hole of its own lol My main headcanon is that Wen Xu and Wen Chao have the same mother, but she had difficult pregnancies that resulted in them being born years apart. Madam Wen and Wen RuoHan had wanted a large family and sadly only had two sons. Wen Xu did not grow up short on affection, which resulted in him wanting to protect the Qishan Wen name even more.

I headcanon that Wen RuoHan is a good father and his relationship with Wen Xu was very good, although of course it does not come without it's own difficulties and conflicts at times. (Considering how terrible all the other fathers are, statistically there should be one good one, right?)

There are other random headcanons I could throw in here but I will finish this off by saying I don't have a solid headcanon on who is Wen Yuan's father, although I can see the poetic appeal of it being Wen Xu. Wen Xu burned down Cloud Recesses and said the Wen would help the Lan grow from the ashes. Wen Yuan grows up there as if reborn from the ashes by help of the Lan, given a new name and family, too.

(That Wen Chao is explicitly given a wife in canon makes me headcanon him as Wen Yuan's father though, as I also like Wei WuXian protecting Wen Chao's son for my own dark delight~)

I also tend to think of Wen Xu as someone running around and playing around and not quite ready to settle down. But Wen Xu with a wife and a family of his own? I would love to see it!

#asked from above #anon #wen xu #mdzs thoughts

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wangxiangiftexchange · 4 years ago

Text

Lunar New Year Gift for muckkles!

For @muckkles, I hope you enjoy this!

*****

Pearls Dissolved in Vinegar

It isn't Wei Ying's fault. Lan Wangji was very firm on this matter.

When they were young, Wei Ying's habit of flirting with everyone in range had driven Lan Wangji off the wall. When he was gone, Lan Wangji had occasionally thought that he would happily watch Wei Ying flirt with every woman in a hundred li if it meant he were alive.

When Wei Ying did, in fact, somehow, miraculously, return to him, Wangji didn't doubt for a second that it was a trade well worth making. Which did not stop watching his beloved charm strange women from being extremely irritating.

Since the Guanyin Temple--since everything had come out in the open--since Wei Ying had become his, his, his--Wei Ying's flirtatious behavior with others had diminished. Not...ended. Not completely.

Wei Ying was just so friendly. And absurdly trusting of others' intentions, for someone who had been through everything he had, although possibly that was just his self-esteem issues surfacing again, leaving him unsuspecting that his brilliant smile was enough to inspire intent upon his virtue. Whatever shreds of it remained after Lan Wangji's very thorough and very much appreciated campaign to remove it, in any case. Regardless of the reason for his husband's obliviousness, Lan Wangji found that having his beloved did very little to quell the prickles of his jealousy.

Admittedly, it hurt less. Knowing that Wei Ying was his and any encouragement of others' attention was obliviousness and not intent, the fire that roared within him when anyone else dared to lay appreciative eyes on him was warm and free to be acted upon, not cold and futile and needing to be suppressed with all the Lan self-discipline in his possession.

Wei Ying yelped as Lan Wangji lifted him bodily from where he was chattering with a fruit-seller--dispensing loquats of all things, which certainly didn't help even if the connection couldn't reasonably be said to be the fruit-seller's fault. He threw his husband over his shoulder and stalked off towards the inn where they were staying for the particular night-hunt they had just completed.

People gave the two of them askance looks as they passed by, Lan Wangji carrying his husband over his shoulder as though that was a thing people just did, face unreadable to these strangers, Wei Ying keeping up a light chatter of insincere protests and (decidedly not obliviously) flirtatious complaints. No one, however, dared to do anything, perhaps due to their collective or individual reputations, perhaps due to the fact that Wei Ying was really very bad at pretending he wasn't delighted by his husband's outrageous behavior.

The innkeeper looked for a moment like he might be about to do or say something, but then he hesitated, and when Lan Wangji swept past with Wei Ying, the two of them were not followed.

Lan Wangji threw Wei Ying down onto the bed as soon as they reached their room, pausing only to close and lock the door behind him.

"Oof," Wei Ying said as he hit the bed, then pouted in a way that made Lan Wangji want to take his lower lip between his own teeth immediately. "Lan Zhan, what was that? Do you think that just because you're so strong you can manhandle this poor husband as you please? Have you no--mmf!" His disingenuous protests were cut off as Wangji followed his earlier impulse with a kiss that started out as a savage bite before turning softer and more probing, relishing in the wet heat of Wei Ying's mouth and the warm line of his body under him.

"I can't believe people think I'm the one who's shameless," Wei Ying gasped when Lan Wangji let him breathe again, in what Lan Wangji supposed was the most genuine complaint he had issued since he had physically removed him from the produce stall at the market.

"Mn," Lan Wangji said noncommittally, nosing his way down Wei Ying's jaw and neck. Wei Ying giggled and gasped, and something in Lan Wangji's chest purred smugly at his ability to draw these sounds from his husband.

"You scoundrel," Wei Ying said fondly as Lan Wangji temporarily stopped mouthing lasciviously at his collarbones in order to redirect his attention to the ties holding Wei Ying's robes shut. Wei Ying actually disliked it when Lan Wangji destroyed his clothes too often when they were on the road, so Lan Wangji nobly refrained, even when he really wanted to, so that he would have the leeway to do so when he really really wanted to. Ideally, any night passionate enough to result in serious sartorial damage would also be passionate enough that it wouldn't occur to Wei Ying to consider the state of his clothing until the following morning.

Lan Wangji was not yet ready to rule out that kind of night, but for the moment he was just barely patient enough to manage to get his husband's top off the long way. Fortunately, Wei Ying wore very few layers when the weather meant he could get away with it.

As soon as Wei Ying's chest was exposed enough, Lan Wangji latched onto his nipple with more teeth than lips, drawing an approving hiss out of his husband as he arched up into it. His other nipple barely had time to feel neglected before Lan Wangji's hand came up to pinch it, twisting viciously.

"Mean," Wei Ying panted. "My husband is so mean to me!"

"Mm," Lan Wangji hummed contentedly.

"So mean," Wei Ying said with a pout that showed off his swollen lip, a sight that set the smug and purring thing in Lan Wangji's chest off all over again. "My husband kidnaps me off the middle of the street and brings me back to his lair to ravish me in the middle of the day!"

"Mn," Lan Wangji agreed.

Wei Ying tipped his head back. "Ahh...there's no way for me to get free...I'm completely helpless, my husband is too strong..." Wei Ying could absolutely have gotten free if he really wanted to. It never failed to give Lan Wangji a thrill that he did not.

Lan Wangji pulled the ribbon from his head, surging upwards to capture Wei Ying's hands above his head, tying the ribbon around them and to the bed beneath. Wei Ying moved cooperatively underneath him. Lan Wangji kissed him again, harsh and sweet and full of so much love.

Wangji pulled away for a moment, over Wei Ying's nonverbal protest, to yank Wei Ying's trousers off. He fell back upon his husband immediately, kissing him greedily and groping him enthusiastically.

"Ahhh, no," Wei Ying sighed huskily, pushing his ass back into Lan Wangji's hand. "No...ah, I'm completely overwhelmed...there's no way I could stand up to the great Hanguang-jun."

Lan Wangji gave his ass an extra squeeze before releasing the handful of cheek he had captured and bringing his hand center-wards, sinking one finger into Wei Ying's hole as Wei Ying pressed back eagerly into his hand.

"Ah, ah, my husband is so cruel, he's going to do me without any kind of oil," he said. Lan Wangji wasn't sure whether he intended this as prediction or command, but either way he sounded plenty enthusiastic about it. Wangji obligingly added a second finger, gaining a number of delighted protests of "Mean!"

Lan Wangji moved on fairly quickly from two fingers to three, and then he was lining himself up and sinking inside in one stroke.

"Aa-ah!" Wei Ying cried, head thrown back, exposing the elegant line of his throat. Lan Wangji bent down to bite it, teeth sinking in around the protrusive Adam's apple. Wei Ying moaned in pleasure as Lan Wangji thrust roughly inside him. Part of Wangji wanted to nail Wei Ying to the mattress with full force and speed immediately, but he held back for the moment in order to make it last.

"Lan Zhan, please...ah, ah, so mean," Wei Ying pleaded.

Lan Wangji sped up a little, his thrusts rocking Wei Ying's body as he once again abandoned his pursuit of covering the entirety of Wei Ying's body with teeth-shaped bruises to grab his face for a frenetic, fantastic kiss.

If Lan Wangji were truly trying to do so, he could have held out for hours. But right now he had other concerns, such as staking his claim on Wei Ying's body in every way possible, including a few that were slightly implausible. When he finally came, after fucking his husband to orgasm three times in a row, he simply lay there, head on Wei Ying, reveling in the feeling and the smell and the sheer ecstatic knowledge of him.

"Not that I'm complaining," Wei Ying said, serious this time, "but what was the reason behind this little interlude?" Lan Wangji buried his face in one of Wei Ying's shoulders, savoring the cozy connection and marshalling his words.

"The fruit seller," he said.

"The one I was talking to when you grabbed me? What about her?"

"She was flirting with you."

Wei Ying broke into peals of laughter. Lan Wangji would have been more concerned by the possibility that Wei Ying was laughing at him if it wasn't such an incredibly beautiful sound.

"Ah, Lan Zhan, I'm a handsome man," Wei Ying teased. "I can't help it if I attract a few admirers." Objectively true. And yet.

"Mine," Lan Wangji said firmly.

"All yours," Wei Ying agreed softly, and the two settled in for a good long snuggle.

#muckkles #wangxianLNY21 #*LNYfic21 #*LNYgifts21

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jenovahh · 3 years ago

Text

The Honey Pot - Ch. 20 - The Queen’s Cruelty

Staring blankly at the art on the underside of your canopy, you try to unravel all that occurred tonight.

“Though I trust it will not come to that. You are a force of nature of itself, Honey.” Reaching for your hair, Varis takes a strand of it between two fingers, much like he had when you first met him. “One I hope to claim for myself.”

It is taking all your control in that moment to not recoil in disgust, letting him twirl your hair between his fingers. You’re already shaken by what he’s unveiled to you in this trip, your mind spinning in circles trying to figure out what he could possibly do with knowledge like this.

“But...I am happy working for Zenos.” You murmur, frowning deeply. You meet his gaze head on despite your voice wavering slightly. “Ignoring the sex, loathe as I am to admit it, I have enjoyed our banter, our duels. And I don’t think you can give that to me.”

Varis studies you silently, hand dropping from your hair and you swear you hear the guard behind you reaching for something. Instincts kicking in, you spin around and strike at his wrist, effectively knocking the gun he had just grabbed from his hand. Swiftly, you grab that same wrist and quickly spin behind him to twist his arm behind his back, grunting as he whines in pain as you kick the gun out of arm’s reach.

Varis is still quiet through the whole event, hands tucked behind his back as a covetous look fills his gaze. Looking down at the guard you had disarmed, he tuts. “While I appreciate your quick action for her speaking out of turn against me...you are far out of your league.” He hums, eyes sliding back up to you. “Nonetheless...this is an unfamiliar feeling to me.” Varis chuckles, eyes narrowing.

“For all my life, I have had everything I have ever desired handed to me without question. Women have been no different. Any woman would be grateful for the attention I have basked you with, Honey.” The way he says your name makes you sick to your stomach, a sort of wanting that sounds warped and twisted. “No one has resisted me as much as you have. It will make claiming you all the more rewarding.”

Whereas anytime you were forced to be in Varis’ company only filled you with indescribable hate, now you felt unnerved and wary of his presence. Something about his attitude changed where you were concerned and your instincts screamed at you everytime to give him a wide berth. You had hit the jackpot as it were in terms of information, the only issue is you didn’t know what to do with it, and you had no way of contacting your superiors.

You had to wonder if they were worried about you. Surely they kept track of you in the news, but you wondered if they tried keeping track of you with shadier means. Zenos destroying your phone effectively killed any contact you had with them. Zenos making you his personal bodyguard scattered months worth of carefully laid plans like leaves on the wind. And after seeing first hand what the personal technology the Galvus name was capable of, there was no way you were getting any inside info out of the compound.

It’s probably best it remains that way. May the Twelve save your soul when the police find out you’ve been fucking the heir’s son because you wanted to. Really, you had no idea how things could get any worse.

Well, Varis could continue holding you hostage like he had been. It had only been two days since Varis had shown you the Aetherochemical Research facility, your mind still unable to fathom it. You knew it might as well have been the closest thing to rocket science, so you didn’t feel too bad for not understanding it, but the persisting feeling of something much bigger at stake wouldn’t leave you alone.

It was rare your gut was ever wrong, especially when you felt it so strongly. You wish you could explain the feeling, because you were positive that normal people didn’t have a gut feeling so intense it sat at the back of their minds. Anytime you had tried explaining it to Y’shtola and Lyse they had brushed it off as you just being perhaps a little paranoid, but you were never wrong.

Whatever it was, you would just have to be on the lookout for it.

Dressed for the day, you dust yourself off as you waltz down to Varis’ office where you had begun to meet him to start the morning. He started his days a little later than his son, having no wish to work out at the crack of dawn. You leave out much later than Zenos does as a result, leaving you restless with nothing to do with the extra free time.

Reaching the door, you knock twice as you hear not just one, but two voices from inside. Raising an eyebrow, you hear a “come in” from the other side of the door, hand reaching for the knob and giving a solid turn as you step inside the office.

To your surprise, you meet not just golden eyes, but a pair of ruby ones as well.

“Good morning, Honey.”

Seated in one of the plush lounge chairs lies Elidibus, his ruby eyes twinkling with curiosity and concealed amusement. You feel almost as if he is studying you somehow, starting to feel unnerved by his presence, but for different reasons entirely.

As if he knows something you don’t.

“Good morning.” You return with a bow, awaiting your orders. “Good morning to you as well, Emissary.”

Elidibus gives a polite nod of his head, a welcoming smile on his face. “It has been a few months since we’ve seen each other last. Have you been well?”

Nodding, you cast a wary glance at Varis who somehow seems less annoyed. “Yes, I have been well.” Focusing on Varis now, you take a deep breath. “What are my orders for today?”

Frowning, Varis closes a folder you didn’t notice was on his desk and fixes you with a disappointed look. “Due to the nature of business Elidibus and I must discuss, I am unable to keep you as my bodyguard for the upcoming months. You may return to your duties with Zenos.”

Shock stills your tongue for a moment, genuine surprise on your eyes as confusion stalls your thoughts. Brain finally catching up, you blurt out the first thing on your mind. “I thought you didn’t want me anywhere near your son.”

Instead of frowning, Varis smirks, reclining back in his chair. “This is true, but unfortunately it is more important that this information regarding my campaign trail remains classified. Your actions and failures with Garlond’s bodyguard have proven you untrustworthy.” His eyes narrow, but his smirk remains present. However, if you wish to make your position permanent...you may stay.” He pauses, smirk growing wider despite you not gracing him with an answer. “Loathe as I am to send you back to him, it will make winning you from him all the more satisfying.”

You can feel bile nearly come up your throat at those very words, quickly composing yourself as you give a deep bow. “I understand.” You reply, knowing you got off lucky this time and at least won’t have to serve under him for the foreseeable future. Giving one final bow, you turn to exit the room, nearly reaching the door before you sense something flying for your head.

With preternatural reflexes you turn just in time to catch it, finding you had caught what looks to be an inkwell that was once sitting upon Varis’ desk. Examining it, you look back at the two men in the room, finding Varis looking at Elidibus in question. Sliding your gaze to Elidibus, his own is even more scrutinous than before, though he seems to also look surprised. You didn’t even hear him move to stand. “Can I get an explanation as to why I had something thrown at the back of my head?” You ask, staring both men down.

“I have heard rumors of your skill, and merely wished to test it for myself.” Elidibus answers, a purr to his voice as he circles the desk to retake his seat.

“Wouldn’t it make more sense to just ask to see me fight?” You huff angrily, tossing the inkwell back at him.

Astonishingly, he catches it without missing a beat.

“That is true,” he sighs, rolling the inkwell around in his hand, ruby eyes looking at you in a new light. Now you especially get the feeling he knows something you don’t. “If you don’t mind, perhaps I will come watch a spar with yours. That is, if young Zenos does not mind.”

Huffing a laugh, you give him a sarcastic look. “Oh yes. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind at all.” You drawl, complete with an eye roll. How you felt so brazen in front of Elidibus was anyone’s guess, especially given you were in front of your boss as well. There was a strange sense of ease you felt around the Emissary. Or rather you didn’t feel you had to be so on guard around him. Given his relationship to Varis, you would think he would put you incredibly on edge.

Strange.

“Either way, I will take my leave.” You bow and turn back around to open the door and step out into the hallway.

That was weird, you think as you head to grab a few extra things from upstairs before heading back down to catch a car ride to the office. Zenos has been long gone of course, having done his training and headed off to work well over an hour ago, and your heart stutters in your chest to even think about seeing him once more. It had been well over a month since you had been able to speak with him; winter’s chill had finally set in and his gaze was as cold as the wind outside. Not that you would ever admit to anybody, most of all yourself, you were nervous.

Extra knick knacks in tow, you head on down to the front door and step outside to hop in the car where the chauffeur awaits. Yuyusho gives you a gentle greeting as you step inside, somewhat soothing your nerves. Engaging in some small talk helps keep your mind at ease as he drives along, Yuyusho driving neatly as he safely navigates the bustling streets of downtown Kugane. Once at the Galvus highrise, you swallow thickly, wishing silently Yuyusho would’ve run over a broken bottle or something and popped a tire. You’re here now, and there’s no turning back, so you exit the car and wave goodbye and head on in.

It’s strange to enter the building alone, not having to flank either Zenos or Varis as they go about their business. Building security welcomes you as you head toward the elevators, and you're thankful that Zenos takes after his father and keeps his office on the uppermost floors. This gives you plenty of time to think about what you’re going to say when you get up there and face him.

Would he be cold toward you still? Hell, did he even know you were on your way? He had to, right? Would he be happy to see you, but wouldn’t show it like a normal person? Would he be happy in his own “Zenos” way? Maybe he’d tell you to die in a fire.

The more questions popped up, the sicker you felt until you had to stop the elevator on the closest floor and briskly walk to the closest restroom. Splashing water on your face, you gaze at yourself in the mirror, a few stray hairs clinging to your skin.

What were you so nervous for?

This man had seen you naked. Twice.

And despite him not being your first, you know he’s seen the most vulnerable parts of you had never dared show anyone. Not even Lyse or Y’shtola. You hand this man’s ass to him on a daily basis for crying out loud. He should be afraid to see you.

Yet, here you are, anxiety twisting your gut like you’re somehow a teenager working up the courage to ask their crush out on a date.

There was so much unsaid about your relationship. Perhaps sex did not change things for him, but it certainly did for you. You had never been a blushing maiden saving herself for marriage, but to you, sex was not just about the sex itself. The intimacy of it all, the kissing, the touching, how they would linger on your skin for hours after...that is what led you to Estinien.

That is what made everything with Zenos so confusing.

In the back of your mind, you knew why you were afraid. To face the unsaid, to unpack the feelings beginning to grow out of control was to acknowledge you felt anymore more than annoyance for the Galvus heir.

And as a fucking undercover cop, that just would not do.

It would be so much easier if he just treated you like shit in bed! How could you have ever guessed he would be a considerate, passionate lover? Any other day, he spoke to you as if you were his servant, barked at you, insulted you to the point that anyone else would’ve cried or filed a lawsuit by now. But in his arms you felt safe.

You felt like you belonged there.

You felt like he cared.

Words are the only thing you understand.

You watch your eyes widen in the mirror, realization dawning on you.

Touch.

Zenos understood touch.

Twisted as it was, it made so much sense now why he was never bothered by you kicking his ass. Why he always saw your manhandling him as just friendly banter and flirting. Why he held you close in the fountain, why he never let anyone else near you, why he felt like he was making love to you--

A hysterical laugh bubbles up from your throat, escaping too fast to catch, and another one follows soon after. What did it say about you that a monster like him figured out how to communicate his feelings to you in a way you understood before you could do the same for him?

Not that you didn’t know this already, but by the Twelve, you were fucked.

Smoothing your hairs back in place, you dust yourself off and straighten up in the mirror. Taking a deep, cleansing breath, you stride out the restroom feeling a little better, but not any more confident. You won’t let that stop you however, head held high as you head back to the elevators and resume your trip up the building.

Reaching the upper floors, you take one final breath before stepping out. Looking left and right, you find the hall is surprisingly quiet, not dissimilar to how it had been your first few days here. However, as the months had gone on, employees would chat more and converse amongst themselves. It was mostly due to fear of upsetting Zenos somehow that had kept them quiet, and you guessed that in your absence, he had been taking out that excess energy on his subordinates.

Frowning, no matter how much you wanted to see him, treating people, even if they were his employees, like shit was unacceptable. Feeling a bit more sure, you stride down the hall and make a beeline for his office. Passing by cubicles and copiers, you can see various expressions on their faces, ranging from surprise to relief at seeing you pass by. You swear you hear someone whisper “thank the kami” as you head by. Fixing your jaw, you reach the opulent doors that lead to Zenos’ office and knock three times, waiting for an answer.

“Enter.”

Sounding entirely too much like his father, you open the door, cool air brushing across your face as you step inside. The grand door shuts behind you and across the way you can see Zenos sitting at his desk, not an onze of surprise on his sharp features. In fact he’s scowling at you, so much so that if looks could kill you’re sure you would’ve taken psychic damage from how hard he is glaring at you. Naturally, instead of offering an olive branch, you go straight for the throat.

“Well don’t look too happy to see me.” You tease, throwing a smirk his way, though it fades as you realize he isn’t rising to your bait.

Maintaining his frown, his fist clenches tighter around the pen in his hand. “I’m not.” He responds, clipped and to the point, his eyes jolting where you missed Livia sitting on the couch in your spot. Glaring at her for no reason other than the fact that you can, you repress a satisfied grin as Zenos orders her to leave. “I see father has deigned to take you back. You are dismissed.”

Livia, seeming to know what is best for her, stands and bows to Zenos, remaining entirely silent as she strides out the office without as much as a word. The door shutting again sounds much more final as it leaves you alone with Zenos in his office. Clearing your throat, you eye your spot, shrugging slightly. At least she’s warmedit up for you.

Before you can move to sit down, Zenos cuts you off. “And what do you think you’re doing?”

Shooting him a deadly look, you find yourself getting annoyed quickly. “The fuck does it look like I’m doing? I’m sitting down, you idiot.” You snap back. Zenos places his pen down with the utmost care, seeming to do so for worry of crushing it in his fist.

“I would have thought you had learned some respect while attending my father.” He seethes, the words scathing and meant to bite, but as usual you rise to the challenge.

“I kick your ass on the daily and you expect me to fear your old man?” You laugh, throwing your head back to cackle at the thought of allowing Varis to make you do anything. “The bastard’s lucky I didn’t kill him in his sleep. Trust me, I thought about it. I had plenty of opportunities to snap his silly, little neck.” The words sound wrong from your lips, not for the words themselves but how much you mean them.

Zenos seems to realize this too, but his expression doesn’t lighten in the least. “I see.” Is all he says, picking up his pen again. “Well, since you are here, I have some work for you to do.”

Arching a brow, you stand up straight and cock your hip out to the side. “What happened to your secretary? What’s-her-face,”

“I fired her.” Zenos interjects, looking more annoyed by the second. “Are you really going to stand there and continue to question me?” He places his pen down once more, standing to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets. His suit is tailored to his form as usual, accentuating his figure deliciously to the point you can already feel desire creeping into your gaze. “I spent a month without your presence, and I must say, it helped me realize what a terrible subordinate you truly are.”

Snapped out of your shameless ogling, you fix Zenos with a menacing look, remaining still as he makes his way toward you. “Excuse me?”

“I said you are a terrible bodyguard.” He huffs, having made his way toward you. Looking down his nose at you like he did the first time he met you. “You talk back to your superiors. You think yourself untouchable and above consequences. You question orders instead of following them. Livia was the perfect picture of an ideal bodyguard. A silent shadow.”

Scoffing, you give him a sly look, seeing the lies in his words. “Really, Zenos. You’d have me no other way.”

This seems to anger him as he raises his fist as if to punch you but your reflexes are faster, blocking it without a flinch. You hold his hand, gripping his fist tight within your palm. “Now I have a question for you: when are you gonna sit and talk like a fucking adult and say what you really want to say, instead of trying to go back to treating me like shit, huh?”

Jerking his fist back, he says nothing and retreats to his desk, leaving you standing in the middle of the floor amongst the furniture. “Stand there for all I care. I have work to do.”

Sighing, you go ahead and plop down onto the closest couch, kicking your feet up on the coffee table and prepare for yourself for a long, slow day.

As the morning drags on, Zenos seems set on ignoring you, scribbling away at Hydaelyn knows what. Once or twice you comply with his wishes and do run a few errands for him since it seems he really did fire his secretary. She was a nice girl and you could not understand what could have possibly led him to sacking her; she did her job well and was pleasant to talk to. If this is what just a month without you around was like, you hate to think about how much the long term employees had to deal with. No doubt the majority of them felt the paycheck was too nice to give up and would rather deal with their boss’ abuse.

Once again he wasn’t responding to any of your teasing, closing himself off and speaking to you in one word sentences. As the day waned on, you found that sad feeling creeping up again, just like you had felt that night at the gala. A wish to understand why he was being so cold to you, and what could be done to get back to normal.

Words are the only things you understand.

With the sun having set, you stand just outside the office, a stack of copies in your hand. It was easy to cling onto your pride, to try and maintain your moral high ground, because at this point it was the only thing you had. Because you knew as soon as you let go, that was it.

Would it be so wrong to be mine and mine alone?

Zenos had been vulnerable. He may not have realized it, but remembering that pained look on his face, the desperation to understand, he had bared his heart to you with sparkling clarity, and perhaps it was you who was closed off. In your fight to not give in, you had alienated yourself.

You could have easily left messages or snuck to see him during your time with Varis, anything to let him know that you still cared.

With a melancholy sigh and your mind made up, you push open the door and stride into the office, eyes set on the blond haired man across the room. “Zenos.”

He doesn’t even look up, still scribbling away at whatever documents are beneath his hands. While angered by this, you keep a cool head on your shoulders and make your way over to his desk. Standing in front of it, you place the papers down gently. “The files you wanted.”

Not that you were expecting any actual thanks, you’re still pissed when you don’t receive any. Deciding that your anger seems to be the only thing that ever gets anything out of him, you let the feeling take hold of you. “Zenos yae Galvus.” You growl, slamming your hands on the desk.

That seems to get his attention, if only because you slammed hard enough to cause his hand to jerk and ugly mark now lies upon whatever document he was writing. With a cool and relaxed tone that sounds like the calm before the storm, those blue eyes you adore look at you with a look that is venomous. “Speak quickly before I kill you.”

“You wish you fucking could.” You snap, jabbing a finger in his face. “We aren’t doing this bullshit. Not again.” The surety of your words makes him frown but he says nothing more, so you continue. “Are you really going to act like a child, again, because your father dragged me around? You heard him yourself; he’s the top dog around here so if I want to keep my head on my shoulders I better fucking listen to him! Didn’t you say that?”

You watch as his bottom lip nearly pokes out to pout but he stops himself. Barely. You're right and he knows it. “And what problem is it of mine?”

“What your problem is, is that you’re taking out your daddy issues on me! The only person on this damn planet that gives a damn about you!” You nearly yell, teeth bared as you let your emotions flow free. “I figured you’d be happy to see me again! I hated every moment of every day of every bell with that excuse of a man!” Your chest is heaving and you start to feel a little warm.

“You assume much, thinking I spent any time thinking about you.” Zenos scoffs, crossing strong arms across his broad chest, eyes narrowed on your form. “I knew you were foolish,”

You cut him off with a frustrated yell, close to ripping your hair out. He didn’t get it. He really didn’t get it.

There was only one way to get him to understand.

Marching around his desk, you take satisfaction in seeing the small amount of alarm in his expression as you give a firm push on the back of his chair that pulls him from his desk. Spinning him toward you, you waste no time straddling his lap, grabbing him by the hair and pulling back, finding him already half hard beneath you. A filthy moan comes from that pretty throat of his and you swallow it whole, pressing your lips to his in a crushing kiss, passion sweeping you away as you feel what it is to finally be near him like this after so long.

Your tongue demands entrance before he gets the chance to do it first, your hand having a firm grip on his hair as you bite harshly on his lip, hips already rolling into his own. You feel his hands snake around your body to crush you to him, pressing you closer than close as you finally part for air. “You fucking idiot,” you rasp, tilting his head to go for his neck, peppering kisses and love bites on his perfect skin, claiming what is rightfully yours.

It surprises you as much as it doesn’t as he turns into putty beneath your hands, any tension that he had held at the mere sight of you all day going away with his hands on your body. His hands are greedy, groping your ass, your hips, your thighs. Feeling, touching, as if you had disappeared from the very star and he was sure you would never return.

His hunger is deeper than you could have anticipated, for he steels his grip at your hips to grind against your core, standing to his feet to sit you on his desk, the documents atop it instantly forgotten. The change in control is so jarring, his hand reaching to pluck yours from his hair, pinning it to the wood beneath you. “Honey,” he breathes, his other hand leaving your hip to undo the button on your slacks.

Unzipping your pants, he shoves his hand in them with a small amount of decorum, fingers wedging themselves between your thighs before you can spread them wider. “Give me a second,” You hiss, wishing he didn’t have you crushed halfway beneath him with hardly any room to move.

“I won’t even give you that long.” He groans against your neck, finding what he was looking for as his fingers brush across your lower lips, still covered by your panties. Your hips jerk, almost to the point of embarrassment, having never felt so sensitive to a lover before. Granted in that entire month you hadn’t even seen Estinien; going without sex ever since the day Varis split you and Zenos apart. Zenos seems to notice this, pleased as he searches for what he knows will make you scream for him.

With that thought in mind, panic shoots through you, trying to shove him off you for at least five seconds. “I didn’t lock the door--”

“And I couldn’t give a fuck.”

The use of such foul language is enough to still your movements from shock alone, body going rigid until he pulls your head back further by your hair, lips ravishing your neck. It was already enough that you werent supposed to be fucking the Galvus heir in the first place, and here he was refusing to lock the door just in case someone wants to pay him an unexpected visit and finds you kneeling under the desk with his cock halfway down your throat.

Twelve above, the idea excites you more than it should.

Because what is a bigger fuck you to Varis than immedaitely being released from his side to go do the very thing that got you there in the first place? What would grind his gears more than showing Zenos how much you care in the only way he’ll understand?

At the very least the hour is late; most of the nine-to-five workers have gone home and if anyone pops in on you, it’ll be a janitor looking to clean Zenos’ already immaculate office. However, with his aggression already this high, you don’t doubt they’ll actually have something to clean later. In the corners of your vision you already see one of his pencil cups tipped over from how roughly he put you on the desk and you know the papers are crumpled beneath your ass. Humming, you let him have his way with you, knowing now that he needs this outlet.

“If anyone has missed me, it is you.” He purrs, feeling how wet you are for him. Before you can even open your mouth to protest he nips at your bottom lip, gasping at your look of surprise. “Your body will always tell the truth, my beast. I like that about you. You may curse my very name until your dying breath, but your body will always let me know just what you feel.” He continues brushing the pad over a finger between your lower lips, his other hand moving to unbutton your shirt. “I’ve been thinking...would you be opposed to wearing skirts? It would make this much easier.”

Clamping onto his shoulders, you try to push him off you but instead your arms curl around his broad frame. “I thought you wanted me to be a good bodyguard.” Your voice is already breathy, face warm from embarrassment. What happened to the control, the confidence you had walking in the room? Just a few touches, and now he’s got you bucking into his hands.

“It took me time to realize...but I want you to be no one else but yourself.” He whispers, finally slipping a finger inside. He lets your body adjust as you throw your head back, toes curling in your shoes. With gentle lips he trails kisses along your pulse, inhaling deeply to breathe you in. “Livia bored me. She obeyed every order, and never spoke out of turn.” He frowns, pumping his finger out of your wet sheathe.

Whimpering, you move your hands to grab for your pants as best as you are able with him halfway on top of you. Shoving them down, you try to lift your hips but Zenos is stubborn and continues to pump that single finger within you. “Let me get my pants off--” You snarl, kicking him in the shin, smacking him on the shoulder as he barks out a rich laugh.

“Very well.” Pulling his hand from your pants, he backs off entirely, your body immediately missing the warmth. Not hiding your confusion, you watch as he sits back in his chair, almost slouching as he gets comfortable. “Go on. Take them off.”

Flushing deeply, somehow you find yourself stuck with stage fright. “A-Are you going to just watch me?” you ask incredulously, shoving your blazer off your shoulders.

“Well of course. Why not make it interesting?” He croons, eyes half lidded and molten with lust.

Despite your continuing nervousness, when you have one of the most powerful men in the world looking at you like that, it’s hard to not feel at least a little sexy. While you were by no means a lady of leisure, you did your best to finish his task of unbuttoning your shirt, letting it slip from your shoulders in a way you hope is sexy. You can’t help but feel a little silly, but Zenos’ attention is focused on you entirely, and judging by the tent going on in his pants, he likes what he sees.

You only wish you had cuter underwear, your panties and bra built to be practical and not for looks. You decide to leave your bra on for now and begin to push your pants down your legs, hands gliding across your skin as the clothing falls to the floor. As you bend over to kick out of them and get them off your ankles, you can’t help but stare at the obvious bulge in his pants, mouth watering as your eyes hone in on it. Continuing your way down to the floor, you rest on your knees and place your hands on his thighs, using force to start spreading them before you as he quickly catches on and splays his legs wide.

Scooting closer between them, your hands reach for his pants, caressing his length through the material, able to feel how firm and hot it is through his slacks. His breath hitches immediately, and you hazard a glance, finding his eyes still half lidded, but no less focused on you. He doesn’t look smug or amused, he looks almost…

Reverent.

With that in mind, you slowly unzip his slacks, hands fumbling in their hurry to free him from his underwear, which are of course as fine as the suits he wears. Face to face with the thing that rendered you unable to walk straight more than once, you give yourself a moment to look at it.

Most genitalia looked a little weird, but you had to give it to Zenos; he had certainly lucked out that it had looked as perfect as the rest of him. His length was just enough that you would need both hands to grip him effectively, and you didn’t even want to start on his girth because that was the start of all your problems. The skin is like satin beneath your fingertips, his abdomen twitching as he remains silently still at your exploration. While giving head was not your most favorite activity in the world, you had to admit you wanted to do this more than anything to speak in a language he understood.

Leaning forward, you press the head of his cock to your lips, tongue darting out to swipe the precum beading at the tip, the salty taste coating your tongue. Pressing forward, you take the head into your mouth, a second hitch of his breath all the encouragement you need. Patiently, you slick his length with your spit until your hands can glide along with ease, lips still wrapped around the head of his cock.

You have no practice with deepthroating, but have heard plenty of tips from coworkers and friends alike, relaxing your throat as best as you can to take him as deep as possible. Given how big he is, you know you can only go so far, but it seems to not take much, for you feel a hand snake into your hair, pulling gently. Glancing upwards, his head is thrown back, his mouth agape as a moan comes forth, a sigh of Honey on his lips. Just hearing that has you moan around his cock, Zenos’ thighs tensing further at the vibrations you send through him.

Fully enamored with your task, you allow him to bob your head up and down at a reasonable pace you can handle, his eyes coming back to look at your lips wrapped around his cock. He still has that reverent expression, bordering on grateful, edging on...adoration.

On something more.

“You feel,” He groans, hips threatening to jerk and push too far but you use your strength to hold him down as he uses your face, hand gripping tighter and tighter in your hair. “I’m close,” he grunts, and you take a deep breath, preparing for his orgasm.

He moans your name in bliss as he comes, cum shooting into your mouth and down your throat, and you do your best to swallow it all down. Pulling off, a last few drops spurt onto your lips and chest, the viscous liquid warm and sticky as it clings to your breasts. Reaching up with your fingers you swipe it off your skin, sticking your fingers in your mouth to lick them clean in an unintentionally lewd display.

You watch as he catches his breath, looking as if had sucked the soul from his body. His skin is entirely flushed, cock beginning to soften before your very eyes as his chest rises and falls with every breath he takes.

"Stand up. Now." Zenos orders, still sounding breathless in his post orgasm haze. Standing to your feet, he grabs you fiercely by the hips and pushes you back toward the desk, feet scrambling for balance as he practically forces you onto it. You land on your back with no amount of grace, propping yourself up on your elbows as more of the items atop the desk tip over.

"Use your words you brute," your tirade is sharply cut off with Zenos ripping off your underwear, seams digging into your skin before they give way to his superior strength. Habit compels you to complain, but somehow his impatience is so arousing you find yourself once again shocked into silence. This gives Zenos plenty of time to scoot forward in his office chair and take a thigh in each hand, kissing the skin as one might worship a god. It is like night and day the way he treats you in bed. You knew he held you in high esteem, but only by touch do you truly grasp just how much.

It is evident in how he does not explicitly ask to do things to you, choosing to forgo words as he gazes up at you from beneath his lashes, lips drawing nearer to your molten core, asking permission with only his eyes. There is a beauty in the respect that he gives you, knowing full well he could use his strength to overwhelm you and take you hard and fast, but instead he chooses to be near…

Subservient.

His lips brush just across your petals, breath hot despite the fire you already feel between your own legs. Curling his arms around your thighs, he flexes his fingers into your flesh, gripping just to the point of pain as he holds you still. When his lips first touch your center you whimper, hips instinctively jerking forward into his face of which he doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, he grips you a little tighter, as if to encourage you.

His tongue slips between your lower lips, tasting you, his eyes fluttering closed as he throws himself into his task. It is your turn for your head to fall back in bliss, a long moan pulled from deep within, the looming threat of a passerby having fled your mind. The heels of your feet dig into his back, your fists clench without anything to hold onto. Zenos devotes himself to his task as well as he would training, using his strength to subdue you so you don’t crush his head between your thighs.

Unable to take it anymore as he pushes you closer to orgasm, you finally lie back and thread your fingers through his hair, canting your hips toward his face and his mouth that is oh so lovely in this very moment. Your moans increase in pitch and frequency as he pushes you closer, that feeling of too close, too fast making itself known once again. Somehow only he has made you feel that way, as if he is giving you no other choice but to come.

When he hums, the vibrations shoot up your spine and you finally orgasm, crying out his name in abandon as you arch off the desk, crumpling the papers beneath you even further. Back arching taut like a bow, you clutch hard at his hair, the resulting moan providing an endless feedback loop of pleasure as the vibrations once again shoot through you as you still come down from your high.

Unable to hold fast to him any longer, you finally release his hair, watching as he sits up, licking his lips much like a cat. Only he is no house cat; he is a predator beyond compare, a beast in his own right. Something that could never be tamed or domesticated. Certainly not trained. A beast that would yield only to another just like it.

“Did you really not miss me at all?” you ask, wanting to hear it despite experiencing very clearly just how much he did. You allow him to move you as he wishes, his hand grabbing your own and pulling you up to a standing position. You give a sharp squeal as he unexpectedly spins you in his hold, pressing your back to his front.

He leans to brush his lips against your ear, his breathing ragged and torn with pleasure. “Such notions are beneath me.” He asks, his length nearly to full hardness and ready to go again. You shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but still, it was a wonder how you could go back to regular men after this.

He presses you harshly against the edge of the desk, the glossy wood pressing uncomfortably into your flesh. His hand presses firmly on your back urging you to lay your front flat against it, your hands shoving documents and stray pens aside. The cool surface does little for how warm you feel with him against you, the shuffling of clothing reaching your ears as you mull over how to respond.

“Well, I did.” You breathe, voice quaking much more than you’d like. “I-I missed you.”

His touch halts on you for a second, and fear grips your heart too tightly to even think about taking a look at his expression. Your face is on fire, a cocktail of embarrassment and vulnerability coursing through your veins. It feels like forever until he reaches for your left leg and hikes it up on the table, holding it in place as his other hand takes his cock and rubs it along your folds, slicking himself with your juices. Satisfied, he begins to feed himself slowly inside, his name torn from your lips as he slowly works himself inside.

He leans down above you, snaking a hand beneath your abdomen to hold you close to him, burying his face affectionately into your neck. You are surrounded by him entirely, his very existence eclipsing your entire being. It is hard to tell where he ends and you begin, especially as he is pushing those last few ilms of his cock deep inside you. Your hands reach for the other end of the desk to grab onto anything, until the hand that is holding your leg leaves it to grab your arm and pull it back toward his hair. You hold tight, enjoying the shiver he gives at the contact. Once he hilts himself fully he burrow further into your neck, tongue reaching out to taste and mark and claim.

He takes you.

He takes you as if there is no Galvus enterprises, no Varis, no Estinien.

As if you are not a cop and he, the son of a mob boss.

As if you are just a man and a woman in too deep but unable to turn back.

Every plunge of his cock into your core leaves you wailing beneath him, the desk shaking with the force of his thrusts, what few items remaining on the top rattling until they fall off entirely. You’re distantly aware of his computer monitor crashing to the floor but you cannot bring yourself to care and neither can Zenos, if anything he pounds harder, determined to bring you to the peak once more.

It’s personal.

Despite how much you don’t want it to be, you’re tired of fighting it. Fighting yourself.

When Zenos tilts your head to kiss him, you don’t bite back.

When you caress his face like one would a lover, you don’t think too hard on it.

And when he brings your world crashing down on you with another orgasm that has you crying his name out against his lips, you revel in the feeling of him being there to hold you through it all.

There’s no getting around that your skills have suffered slightly in your time apart from Zenos, who happily takes it upon himself to come to your room for your own personal wake up call. Smug as ever, he stands in your doorway already dressed and ready for the day as you chuck the smallest pillow you have at his infuriating face. He doesn’t even bother moving, cracking a joke that he would be more than willing to help you dress, to which you throw your alarm clock at him.

Of course, he catches it.

“Can't believe I’ve gotten this out of shape…” You sigh, throwing your head back to squeeze water directly into your mouth from your bottle. Sweat runs down your skin in small rivers, the air conditioning doing its job of keeping you cool. Seated upon the floor with your legs strewn, you look every bit unladylike as you are. Twisting the cap back on, you heave out a sigh.

“All because what? I got a few hits on you?” Zenos scoffs, holding an offending out expectantly. Scowling, you toss the water bottle at him rather than toward his hand, and he catches it without flinching.

“Yes.” You answer, smirking at him. “I can’t afford to have you catching up to me. Someone has to keep you in your place.”

He returns a smirk of his own, only his is tainted with desire. “Really now? I look forward to it.”

Finishing off the last of the water, he tosses it with perfect aim into the trash can, walking over to where you were seated upon the floor. Reaching out, he offers his hand and you grab it without a second thought, allowing him to pull you up to your feet.

“Do we have anything planned today?” You ask, heading to grab your things from the counter on the far wall.

“Today all that is on the agenda is to prepare for a trip; there is another charity event we must attend, as much as I hate to do so.” He drones, making his way toward the door. Before he exits, he looks at you over his shoulder. “We only have a few things to take care of at the office today before we return here and prepare for our trip. Or rather, you prepare for the trip. Packing my own things is beneath me.”

Not knowing what else to say aside from sticking your tongue out at him, you wave him off as he exits the gym and heads out to most likely shower before heading downtown. Slinging your gym bag over your shoulder, you make your way toward the door as well, opening it slowly only to find it stopped by a pale hand. Instinct immediately takes over, hand moving to strike whatever attacker had somehow made their way into the estate, before your hand only stops ilms from punching Elidibus in the face.

Releasing the breath you were holding, you nearly collapse from the shock alone, not expecting your mission to nearly end prematurely via way of “local bodyguard decks Garlean Prime Minister in the face” making the eleven o’clock news. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people, Emissary.” You finally get out as your lungs catch up with your racing heart. Where had he even come from? Was he lurking around some corner? You didn’t sense him at all…

“I apologize, I did mean to startle you so.” He chuckles lightly, ruby eyes gleaming with mirth.

“I merely meant to catch up with you. I knew you would immediately return to training with young Zenos, and made sure I woke up on time to speak with you.”

Relaxing a little, you find his eagerness to speak with you a little off putting, but otherwise you see no harm in it. It still baffles you that a whole ass dignitary would be scrambling for the chance to speak with you, especially since you can’t figure out the reason for his fascination with you. “What did you want to speak about?” You ask, taking a few steps out the doorway and into the hall. You watch as he gently allows the door to shut, ruby eyes never leaving your form.

He is dressed in a stark white suit, accented with golden embroidery on the lapels and cuffs. His hair is neatly trimmed as usual, though it seems longer than usual, in a neat braid down the back of his neck. “I will say, your reflexes had certainly intrigued me. I had always...sensed you had something special about you, Honey, and had taken it upon myself to find out.”

Unsure what to make of that, you shrug lightly and begin making your way toward your room so you can take a shower yourself. Elidibus isn’t through with you yet you realize, for he remains in step beside you. “Well, I’ve always been that way, since I was a kid. I was always faster than others, able to fight in ways nobody else could.”

“Is that so…” He murmurs, something in his voice making you slow your walk to face him more. Once he catches you looking at him, he fixes his face with a suspiciously kind smile. “What a rare gift, you must have. I will admit, when I had thrown that inkwell at you, I had not believed my own eyes. So this morning, I sought to watch your sparring match with the young master.” He pauses, raising a hand to tuck under his chin as if in thought. “Indeed, I saw for myself your ability. Zenos has always towered above his peers in combat, but to see someone not just stand toe to toe with him, but to dominate him so completely…”

Frowning, you stop walking, facing him full on. “What are you getting at?”

He stops a few steps ahead of you, staring at you with a sudden wisdom that makes him look twenty thousand years older than you rather than twenty. “Nothing...I just had the thought that perhaps some legends may become reality.”

A sense of apprehension fills you, one that is equal to the amount you felt when at the Aetherochemical Research Facility. Standing before the face of something greater, something far beyond your comprehension. “What...do you mean?”

The Emissary gives you an inquisitive look, as if he holds a million secrets and is willing to share none of them. “It is most intriguing that you have no idea who or what you are…” He murmurs, and you swear his eyes glow.

Standing before the Emissary, you feel as if he knows you better than you do yourself, and not in a way that makes you feel comfortable at all. You feel as if you stand before some sort of judgemental god, and he is readying himself to pass judgement on your poor mortal soul. “Elidibus...do you...know something about my past?”

The Emissary stands there silently, watching, waiting. Seemingly thinking over what he is to say, or perhaps inwardly laughing at how he will tell you nothing at all. “Have you really thought nothing more of your abilities? Thought you were just extremely talented?” He asks, voice as neutral as possible.

Frustrated, you rack your brain for an answer. “I don’t know. Growing up I thought...I just always thought I was really good. A strong fighter. You know how there are those like olympians? People who can lift weights with their pinky finger and stuff like that.”

He huffs out a short laugh at that, shaking his head, looking bemused as he takes a step closer toward you. “Oh, Honey. Really, you think that being able to snatch things from the air when you don’t have eyes in the back of your head isn't a little abnormal? Having the reaction time of coeurl is just a little quirk?”

“Rookie, you put her down so fast it was almost unnatural.”

“No one moves like that! It’s unnatural! You’re a freak!”

...Was there really something different about you?

Looking strangely content, Elidibus gives you an reassuring pat on the shoulder, jarring you from your thoughts. “Well, sorry to question you this early in the morning, my dear. I’m sure I’ve held you up long enough and we both know young Zenos has a temper on him. I’m sure we’ll find another time to chat.”

Still a little shell-shocked you nod weakly, and give a limp wristed wave goodbye. “Uh, yeah. Thanks for the talk. See you later, Elidibus.” You continue down the hallway, thinking on his words. Were you really that different? Were you just not an outlier?

When you turn back to try and ask Elidibus a question, you find the hallway completely empty.

The trip Gyr Abania is relatively problem free, the flight smooth and relaxing as you are once again treated to first class seating. You decide to have a juicy steak on your flight over, despite the flight taking only a few bells, knowing this was one of the few times Zenos couldn’t monitor your nutritional intake like a damn hawk.

Once you set foot on Gyr Abanian soil, you find it strange that it is still so warm. Kugane will no doubt have snow in the next month if not next few weeks, meanwhile in the arid land of Gyr Abania, you could easily wear some short shorts if you wanted to. The landscape is so different from Kugane, where even the more rural parts of Hingashi are rolling plains and lush, green grass, Ala Mhigo is dust and dirt, but no less beautiful. There is a magic to the barren land, and you feel no less fascinated by it all despite Zenos’ unamused sigh.

You ignore him, because even if your cover is a street rat that got swept into gang life, even as a cop you could only dream about saving up enough money to leave the country. Hingashi had the misfortune of essentially being an island unto itself, surrounded by the Ruby Sea and the plains of Othard where natives of the Azim Steppe kept to the ways of their ancestors. Travel outside the country was a true luxury, and living in Kugane made rent sky high, and your savings very little.

“I honestly don’t see the appeal.” Zenos feels the need to comment, expression bored as ever. The taxi rolls through the grand city, many of the buildings hailing to Gyr Abanian architecture, and you snap as many pictures as you can.

“I don’t recall asking for your opinion.” You snark, flashing him an angry look. “I’m not going to listen to a rich kid who’s probably seen it all already. So shut up.”

“Shut up? I think not. Unless, you have something between your thighs that will keep me quiet…” he trails off, staring out the window as you whip around to face him, your cheeks on fire.

“Zenos yae Galvus!” You hiss under your breath, sneaking a quick look at your driver who seems otherwise unaware of the words that just passed from his lips.

Zenos shrugs, smug look already in place as he fixes you with a molten look. “He doesn’t understand a word we are saying. However, if you require me to translate, my Gyr Abanian is rusty, but I’m sure I could--”

Your hand is over his mouth before he can finish the sentence. Naturally, like a kid, his tongue licks a clean line on the palm of your hand and it takes all your willpower to not pull back on reflex.

Since that night at the office, things had become incredibly pleasant between the two of you, as if something had been unlocked and you had had the key all along. The key being that Zenos responded to touch, and as a result, you used it more. When you were angry, you had no problems throwing him over your shoulder. Now it was more tender gestures such as a gentle hand on his shoulder to get his attention, or a playful shove when he said some ridiculous innuendo. It made being around him feel the same, yet brand new all at once, but you knew that largely due to the fact you had just stopped fighting it.

“It” being feelings you still were not ready to explore, but at the very least, you had dug this hole, so you might as well freshen it up a bit. Make a home out of it the best you can.

That didn’t mean you didn’t fight Zenos himself of course, but it made the days go by easier now that you weren’t stuck in that state of constant denial. The state of trying to hold yourself back from trying not to fraternize with the enemy and failing miserably.

Friends with Benefits Plus you had called it, because what else did you call sleeping with your boss who you would kill and be killed for? The boss who would kill for you without question?

Unfortunately, you get no time to explore the city of Ala Mhigo, at least not tonight. With a few carefully placed touches and some begging-not-begging, Zenos had acquiesced to staying an extra night to tour the city the next day after the gala, given the two of you didn’t stay up too late and party all night. Which, was unlikely to happen as Zenos hated these events anyway, and didn’t even want to go.

“Why send you then? I thought your father ate this shit up.” You ask as you ride in the limo with Zenos on the way to the event, senses on high alert due to this being a solo mission. Security is thankfully tight from what you saw, but you still remain focused on your job. Zenos had been taken away once, but you were determined to make sure that was the last time.

“I actually don’t know.” Zenos muses, as if he is just now realizing it. “Not that he filled me on every single detail of his schemes, that or I tuned them out because I didn’t care, but as of late he’s been…” his brows actually pinch together in thought. “He’s not told me anything as of late.”

“I take it that’s not a good thing…” You mumble as you hear the crowd of the red carpet getting closer even from the inside of the limo.

Zenos doesn’t answer, looking incredibly displeased and too deep in his thoughts. Deciding to leave him to it, you place a steady hand on his back as the two of you enter the limelight, pulling out your shades as the first camera flashes reach your eyes. Zenos becomes the picture of a celebrity in seconds, face schooled into an expression of cool indifference as paparazzi clamor him with questions. As his bodyguard you become his shadow, hanging just behind him as he answers questions, greets other celebrities, and makes his way down the red carpet to go inside.

Reaching the front doors the facade stays in place, the picture of the perfect son of Varis zos Galvus. As you tail behind Zenos, you spot Estinien and Cid across the way, the latter giving you a big wave to ensure you saw him. Naturally the paparazzi's attention turns to you immediately, and you duck behind Zenos' hulkish frame in a sudden bout of shyness. You don't have to look at Zenos to know he's rolling his eyes, continuing forward as more reporters attempt to swarm him.

Part of wishes you could leave Zenos long enough to go and speak with Estinien, to try and clear the air between you, but you can’t leave Zenos’ side, not when you are the only one here to protect him and confronting Estinien would mean confronting your own feelings about Zenos as well.

By the Twelve, when did you become such a coward?

“Something on your mind?” You hear Zenos ask, having zoned out on whatever conversation he was having with another businessman. That isn’t to say you’re unaware of your surroundings, but you have been taking the time to gaze at the various art pieces for sale, studying them with your peasant like tastes. “You have been concerningly quiet this evening.” He notes, flashing a winning smile at whatever celebrity waves at him as they pass by.

“No…” You murmur, suddenly quiet and shy, not wanting to tell him just what was on your mind. Things had gone back to normal, you would dare say even improved from the norm, but you still weren’t at a place where you would willingly vent to him about your problems. That was Ardbert’s job.

“Do not lie to me.” Looking up, while Zenos’ voice was surprisingly gentle, his expression spoke of retribution if you dared to disobey him. “I hate lies. Are you unwell? Do we need to retire early?” He questions, reaching a hand for your forehead, skin to skin. Your face heats immediately, stunned he would ask such questions.

“When did you start giving a damn about how I feel?” You ask, trying to push things back into more familiar territory.

Looking down at you, he arches a single brow. “Does that matter?” He tuts, smoothing a stray hair of yours out of place. That he feels so comfortable and at ease touching you so intimately in public like this while you’re overthinking every single interaction with him makes you wonder what goes on in his head. “You belong to me and I take care of things that are mine.”

Pushing his hand away (whereas months ago you would have slapped it), you try to not feel pleased by his words. “How many times do I have to tell you people are not possessions?” You grumble, knowing your face is still warm from embarrassment. “Don’t you care about paparazzi? What if the tabloids catch you doting on me?” Or worse your father…

“I care little for whatever tabloids have had to say and that is not about to change.” He lets his arm fall back to his side, giving you a sly smile. “And perhaps, I want to make sure a certain person sees just who you belong to…”

Looking up you follow his gaze to where you can spy a trace of silver hair retreating through the crowd.

“You asshole!” You snap, smacking Zenos hard in the chest, wishing you could deck him in the face but sadly you’re in the middle of a party. “How could you do something so cruel?!”

He scoffs, expression turning into one of irritation. “Cruel? You would most certainly know of cruelty, Honey.” He breathes, leaning into your space as if there is not an entire party around you. “You have been the sole object of my desire for months. Whereas you have gone between myself and another man, sleeping with him every weekend.” Your eyes brim with tears as he stands back to full height, giving you that condescending look that is oh so familiar. “Now, who is the cruel one?”

Your lip trembles as your heart breaks, hands reaching up to clutch each other as you find a deeply hidden pain you never would’ve thought possible in his eyes. Unable to look at him any longer you back away from him until you push through the crowd to get away. You ignore the looks you get as you put as much distance between you and Zenos as possible. Reaching the exit, you feel like you can finally breathe as you stumble into the hallway, nearly keeling over with how fast your heart pounds in your chest.

Standing straight, you swipe a flute of champagne off the tray of a busboy as he passes by, downing it in one gulp as you let your legs carry you down the hall. The security guards stationed outside the doors give you a questioning look -- it is no secret who you are and who you work for -- but otherwise mind their business as you amble down the hall.

What a mess you were.

You hunch over into a slouch as you find a door that leads to an enclosed garden, the fresh air doing wonders for your nerves. The air is balmy and cool, and you are actually thankful for the warmer climate of Gyr Abania. It’s not necessarily pleasant enough to stand out and hold conversation in, but feels nice enough that you can stand and think about what you’ve done.

Now, who is the cruel one?

You were going to hell.

You were supposed to be the righteous one. The one who actually knew anything about feelings, who had any emotional intelligence, the one who knew how to not treat someone like a fucking slave.

And here Zenos goes, acting like he had the ability to treat you like a decent human being all along.

You wish you could laugh but you’re still technically in public, and decide to just silently weep into the night instead.

He had really wanted you for that long, huh...looking back, you wonder just how many of those touches were invitations. If he would let you flip him over because he loved to have your hands on him. If his insistence at instructing you was to save face, or was it to share something he enjoyed with you?

“Gods...I’m the clueless one.” You murmur to yourself, furiously wiping at your cheeks like a madman. While you were running off into Estinien’s arms, Zenos was pining for you the whole damn time, though he’d probably die before he admitted it. And where he was at least forthcoming about his feelings, you instead made things worse by sleeping with Estinien to run away from truths you did not want to face. And you ran back to sleep with Zenos when Estinien wanted more out of you than just sex.

“You really are an awful person.” You whisper to no one in particular, no one aside from yourself.

“Are you sure I’m not a bad kid?”

Blue eyes look down at you in surprise, a sweet face framed by blonde hair coming to scoop you into her arms. “Why would you ever think you’re a bad person?” She asks, wiping some stray tears from your face. Your cheeks and eyes are puffy from your latest tantrum, lip poked out in an adorable pout.

“Y-You said I was bad.” You stammer, rubbing at your eyes with small hands.

“What you did was bad, my dear.” The girl nuzzles your face, peppering your cheeks with kisses. “But sometimes, the bad things we do do not make us awful people. We just have to promise to do better.”

Wiping the last few tears from your eyes, you gaze to the stars in the sky, finding comfort in their presence. It is not often you think about your childhood, what little of it you can remember, but sometimes you remember what wisdom Minfilia tried to impart to you as a child while essentially being a child herself. A calming breath fills your lungs with cool night air and you feel like you’re finally ready to face the music. Turning around, you exit the garden enclosure and head back to the party.

Oh Minfilia...what would you do? You wonder, still stuck in your thoughts until the sounds of an explosion reach your ears.

#zenos #zenos yae galvus #FFXIV #ff14 #Final Fantasy XIV #THP

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itsbenedict · 3 years ago

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Two-Faced Jewel: Session 12

Foolish Heroes of Barley

A half-elf conwoman (and the moth tasked with keeping her out of trouble) travel the Jewel in search of, uh, whatever a fashionable accessory is pointing them at. [Campaign log]

Last time, the party had returned to Barley to deal with a few loose ends. They've been staying in town for a while, waiting for their hired Deathseekers to deal with the dragon in the tower. This session, their stay comes to an end, and as you can see from the image here, they don't get into any trouble whatsoever.

A few other things happen before their fateful final night in town:

Kevin Softbreeze, the herbalist from the Deathseekers, visits town and sells Looseleaf some magic flowers that repel demons- though they're not very potent, and she'll need to stop by his garden in Cauterdale if she wants some seeds to try growing. Saelhen buys some potent knockout drops.

The villagers appear to still be arming themselves and preparing for battle with Wheat- since they didn't mention Arnie as the culprit at all, and tried to pin it on the dragon directly, Malath is still skeptical that they're totally safe from invasion, and defensive preparations continue.

Rumors spread that Chitch has gone missing, but no one can find the body. The party spreads rumors of their own- true ones- that Chitch went to go find his daughter after learning that the pain-wizard is dead.

On their fifth night in the village- somewhat earlier than expected- they notice something outside the window of their rooms in the inn. Lumiere's tower, previously unnoticeable, is suddenly aglow with some sort of yellow cylindrical magic barrier, made up of hexagonal panels.

Looseleaf rouses the rest of the party- the plan is to watch from a distance, and not interfere. A very loud roar is heard in the distance, which is suddenly cut off in the middle- it seems the Deathseekers have sprung their trap.

It's not too much longer after that when they begin to hear screams from around them in the village.

Saelhen's elf eyes spot... something rustling in the fields around the village. All of them. Quite a lot of somethings. Except despite the rustling, she can't make out anything but barley stalks. And the nothing- the hordes of nothing- is moving towards the tower.

The party leaps into action, heading downstairs with weapons drawn. On the ground floor, they see... something sort of familiar. Those Greed Echoes, the mud-and-grass monsters they fought on the road- one of them is forming itself out of broken bottles, dust, and wooden planks uprooted from the floor of the Harvester Inn. Cassie, the innkeeper, is watching in terror, knuckles white gripping a frying pan.

Congratulations! You're both right! The dragon is summoning an army of hateful Justice Echoes powered by the roused hatred of Wheat that's been stirred up in town!

Oyobi thinks fast, and oneshots the echo in the kitchen with an arrow, shattering a bottle that'd become its core. The screams outside continue, though, and the party exits the inn to find panicked villagers fleeing their homes. Justice Echoes made primarily from twisted stalks of barley have formed in their fields and homes, taking the weapons amassed for self-defense from their owners. They attack only those who resist, and make their way towards the tower.

Looseleaf: Let's just attack some hate-plague spirits and see if they decide to attack us instead. If they don't attack us at all, then we can just ignore them and run leisurely next to them and pick them off as we go. If they attack us, then it's a regular fight. "We're up to do some heroism this fine night, right, team?" Oyobi Yamatake: "Obviously!" Orluthe Chokorov: "Uh, I don't have that one prepared, do I? Uh..." Vayen: Saelhen du Fishercrown: "I am up to rub Mother K's face in the super obvious consequences of her actions while incidentally preventing pointless suffering." "Go team! Woo!"

Looseleaf starts us off by rending the spirit of the closest barley-monster, using her new Painspike ability to make the target Frightened of her.

However... these monsters have no purpose except to attack that which they fear, so rather than the normal effect of being Frightened, Looseleaf has now drawn aggro from this monster. Which is kind of what she wanted! So, that's a win! She now has a way to goad the enemy!

The party takes some swings at the monsters, knocking a couple out, but most of them seem to just be ignoring them, continuing to run through the fields towards the tower. They could become a problem for the Deathseekers if they're not dealt with- or for Wheat, for that matter.

Backup arrives in the form of Malath Kanthalga, who perceives these events as- what else?- an attack by Wheat. She's screaming, demanding to know who's responsible, and smashing echoes apart with her mace. Still, the echoes are mostly ignoring the village- they're grabbing anything they can find to use as a weapon, sort of ransacking the place, but most of them are just fleeing.

So Saelhen comes up with an extremely well-timed plan. It's a really good plan, I love it, and I'm excited to hit them with the consequences of her plan- until Looseleaf issues a timely bit of advice:

Saelhen du Fishercrown: Saelhen dashes (Cunning Action), steps forward, inhales a great gulp of breath... "FOOLISH HEROES OF BARLEY!" she bellows. "WHILE YOU FUTILELY WASTE YOURSELVES AGAINST WHEAT'S DEFENSES, I, THE SECRET SHADOW MAYOR OF WHEAT, WILL BE HERE BURNING YOUR HOMES!" "AND ALSO MENACING YOUR CITIZENS WITH MY PERMISSIVE IDEOLOGY!" She waves her hooded lantern, unlit, above her head, to drive the point home. "WHO AMONG YOU CAN STOP ME AND DELIVER JUSTICE? NO ONE, PROBABLY, I ASSUME!"

Vayen, in a surprising show of, let's call it camaraderie, is very much in support of this plan for some reason! He takes a break from his busy schedule of doing absolutely nothing every turn in combat to cast a helpful illusion, to ensure as many monsters aggro Saelhen as possible!

A few more rounds of combat ensue, with a good chunk of the monsters- including a few very large building-sized hulks- immediately turning to kill Saelhen. The party gets some good hits in, and Saelhen gets a little roughed up. She... would like maybe fewer things to be attacking her, actually.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Their attention is on me, Mother Kanthalga, the secret mayor of Wheat this entire time, but you might be able to calm their anger! These creatures were born from this town's... collective mind, or something, they may listen to you if you order them to stand down!" Benedict I. (GM): Not with advantage, but a 22... "Wh... what? What are you saying? That's..." She hesitates, then speaks, in a booming voice she- well, you spent a few days here, you know she reserves it for sermons. "STAND DOWN! The time to strike against our foe has not yet come!" "We must be prudent! We must defend ourselves, not attack!" [DEFEND OURSELVES,] the echoes agree, continuing to bear down on Saelhen. Saelhen du Fishercrown: Worth a shot!

It doesn't seem like these things are hugely receptive to emotional appeals or logical argument- they have the one emotion, which they're made of, and they don't super do other ones.

In the following combat rounds, Saelhen... takes a few more hits, which she is not designed to do on account of being a rogue.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: WHY DID I NOT DECLARE ORLUTHE THE SECRET SHADOW MAYOR

More echoes emerge from the fields and attack, and Saelhen is starting to look really rough- and Vayen just keeps the illusion on her, not actually helping in any way. Until... one of them goes for Looseleaf, instead. When it starts looking like she might be in danger, he fires off a bolt of blue electricity, which begins to singe one of the monsters attacking her for damage every turn. He's... a higher-level spellcaster than anyone else in the party, apparently!

Looseleaf, with a little room to maneuver, unfolds her wings and takes to the air- up and out of reach of the smaller monsters, drawing their aggro and forcing them to waste turns. Meanwhile, Orluthe and Oyobi, backed up by Malath and a couple of villagers who've reclaimed their weapons, cut down a few more echoes as more surge forth from the fields to replace them.

Saelhen... keeps trying to persuade Malath to persuade the echoes to stop. She does very well at persuading Malath to try that! Malath tries that, wholeheartedly, once again to no effect! Eventually, Malath stops trying.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Would you consider coming to them as a trusted comrade, who trained them to protect them, rather than the one leading them off to war? Maybe?" Malath Kanthalga: "I am going to come to them as a very angry warrior with a mace," she growls. Saelhen du Fishercrown: "Okay! Okay, fair enough. Spiritual remedies off the table, understood."

Orluthe is getting really tired, and keeps whiffing his swings- it's touch-and-go for a while. But Saelhen and Looseleaf's frantic attempts to kite enemies out of range have been paying off, and they manage to down the remaining super-hulks juuuuust before anyone dies.

Benedict I. (GM): Y'know, it's possible that making the two squishiest members of the party draw aggro was not the number one best strategic move Saelhen du Fishercrown: IT MAYBE WASN'T, NO Looseleaf: eh, it's worked out so far!

The combat wraps up, and we transition to a bunch of Athletics rolls to chase down and terminate as many of the smaller echoes as possible. They build a firepit in the center of town, to dispose of defeated echoes in- just in case that's necessary, because who knows what kind of magic is animating these guys.

So after a wild night of chasing, taunting, fleeing, and burning justice echoes- well, it's not so much a wild night as a wild twenty minutes or so- there's a point at which the fields just suddenly fall silent. A pair of echoes chasing Saelhen fall to the ground, inert.

With a good roll...

Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...of course, you're free to dismiss this as the ramblings of a crazed outsider. But keep in mind, Mother Kanthalga, that the ones who fell upon your town, tore it apart in a frenzy of violence, and stabbed you repeatedly for your pains, endangering your people, your daughter and your livelihoods, were repeating the words you taught them." Benedict I. (GM): Malath winces. "That... I don't know why they..." Saelhen du Fishercrown: "...think on it. You're reasonable people, around here. You can come to your own conclusions." Benedict I. (GM): "I tell you, I did not make these things! If not for..." She's kind of lost for words. "...Apologies. I have much work to do," she says, and leaves.

After some work mending the village and cleaning up the aftermath, Looseleaf heads back into the inn to check on Vayen, who hasn't been helping at all and is instead drunk at the bar. He asks "Did she make it?"- and Looseleaf gets a nat 20 on Insight.

She's pretty sure that he was talking about Saelhen- and that he sounded almost hopeful. He was unusually jazzed about a plan that involved her being attacked by a horde of angry monsters- and he chose to shoot the echo that was attacking her, not the one bearing down on Saelhen with a bunch of its friends. When she informs him Saelhen survived, she's able to tell he's disappointed.

Saelhen du Fishercrown: so he doesn't hate us, as a group he hates saelhen specifically Looseleaf: But also weirdly- okay, what if: what if he actually has an ancestral quest involving that bracer and he's mad that saelhen beat him to the punch and furthermore used it as a shitty cover story Saelhen du Fishercrown: saelhen going THE DE LA SURPLUS ANCESTRAL QUEST IS REAL???

Looseleaf switches to talking to Vayen via her spirit-magic imitation of the Message spell.

Looseleaf: (Like, Vayen, everything you're doing is about Saelhen in some way or other. And I can't figure out why. You seem pretty much ambivalent towards all of us except for her. I don't get it. If you want Saelhen dead, why haven't you just killed her? I saw that lightning bolt- if you wanted, I bet you could take all of us, in a straight fight.) (You're sending real mixed signals. If you want her dead, why isn't she dead? Why do you want her to be dead via a hand other than your own?) Vayen: He locks up. And then sighs. Looseleaf: (And now you're sitting here sounding all tired and sad and I feel bad about that.) (I dunno, do you want to, uh, talk about it, with someone.) Vayen: "I don't... want her... to be dead," he says, clearly choosing his words carefully. "I have nothing against her." Looseleaf: (Then it's the- bracer??) Vayen: I'm letting that one Insight roll do a lot of work here, but he definitely reacts to that. "I- um, no," he says, lying. Looseleaf: (There is literally nothing significant about Saelhen other than her bracer, unless you plan on telling me that your deepest desire is to defeat the dance emperor of Kanzentokai in a danceoff and reclaim your ancestral throne of dancing glory.) (Which, granted, if that's the case, that'd be amazing.) Vayen: "I don't know what you're- that's not..." "It's all coincidence. Whatever you're thinking. I don't have- I don't have anything against- Saelhen? Noeru?" Looseleaf: (Look, I- okay, here's how I see things. I don't know how the bracer works, it's weird magic stuff, but the way I see it, there's two major ways the bracer could work.) (That is, you either want the bracer for yourself, because whatever it does or whatever you need it for, you need to be the one wearing it- OR, you just need anybody willing to use the bracer to do whatever it is the bracer's supposed to do.) Vayen: "...Can you not?" "I- I have a job." "I have an important job." "It's from the School of Restricted Arts." Looseleaf: "Well, tell us about the dang important job then! Maybe we can help you with it." "I don't get why you're preassuming that we'd never do anything you might want us to do." Vayen: "It's from the School of- are you listening?" "It's secret." "Look, it's- you don't need to worry about it, okay?" Looseleaf: "Hhhhhrlgkrkshxzshktkrrrzzzzktttttkzzz," Looseleaf says, reverting to her natural dialect in a brief moment of frustration. Vayen: "Sure, it's easier if- I mean, she- that was her idea, she wanted to..." "I just- I can just..." "As long as I can keep an eye on..." He groans. "I shouldn't be talking to you." "You're not in the School." Looseleaf: "Okay, just- hhhjkkkkkrkxxxxxtk." Vayen:"Are... you okay?" He's never asked a question like that before. Looseleaf: (I'm fine, that's just how we express frustration, our throats don't naturally conform to making sounds like 'hrrrrrgh', whenever I do that it's a performative thing that I do to adhere to human expectations- look, the big reason why I'm trying to, pound my way through your portcullis of secrecy with a twenty-foot battering ram of blunt communication,) (is because right now Saelhen is like, probably 80% convinced you're trying to poison her in your sleep.) (Seriously, this amount of in-party distrust is, like, way too Ccorde-damned much.) Vayen: "I wouldn't do that," he says. "If I were going to do that, I'd have done it already. Looseleaf: (If you'd express, in a credible way, that you're actually just trying to get Saelhen to do whatever it is she'd do anyways, she'd feel a lot better about it!) (And then she might even work with you to further your goals directly!) Vayen: He doesn't say anything for a little while. "...This is stupid." "This isn't even- it's wrong, even." "Maybe that's why." Man, that bottle he's holding is emptier than you thought it'd be. He's only been here less than half an hour. "Don't try to- guh, friends. He'll never- stupid. What's the point." He sort of collapses on the bar.

Vayen, it seems, can't hold his liquor. Looseleaf... carries him back up to his room.

Next time: the party finally leaves Barley, for good this time! And also a minor medical emergency happens, and also they kidnap a twelve-year-old, but like, it's fine. It'll be fine. Don't worry about it.

#twofaced jewel #tfj log

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liskantope · 4 years ago

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A few tired thoughts on impeachment and Trump

So, impeachment. Or, to back up a bit, Georgia solidifying its new identity as blue-leaning background state, immediately juxtaposed with a violent insurrection, a public falling-out between the president and vice president (for the first time I think since 1832, and now extreme MAGA people want the VP’s head on a stick, final proof that they are truly part of a cult rather than just passionate about policy), calls to invoke the 25th amendment, and an impeachment, in barely more than a week.

I already wanted to write a post like a week ago putting some scattered thoughts into words, but more and more kept happening, and I got sort of burned out thinking about it all, and I’m actually quite tired now so I think this will come out fairly short (edit: as usual, it didn’t really).

I’ve had a lot of mixed feelings on impeachment and what the impeachment process is really about. Managed to express some of them on Facebook and have a helpful and enlightening dialog, amazingly enough. I’m still sticking with my resolution to mostly quit social media and certain YouTube channels once immediate political situations died down (which I had thought would be after the run-off elections but clearly the day-by-day developments are continuing until Inauguration Day), but at least that kind of exchange has been a decent enough note to go out on.

I think one of the main potential traps in this whole thing is assuming that what happened last Wednesday was a direct result of the speech Trump had immediately just made (although this Twitter thread I just saw makes some very good arguments that it was, so the epistemic status of this point is not very high-confidence). The case for impeachment was largely being framed as “speech on January 6th was a direct incitement of breaking into the Capitol building and threatening the lives of congresspersons and the VP -- look, he even used words like ‘fight’!”, and the NYT for instance put phrases like “Trump speech incites riot” in its headlines and news articles. This seems like a fairly easy argument for the other side to knock down. Trump never told anyone to be violent; he even used the phrase “peacefully and patriotically” at one point (though not the part everyone quotes); and phrases like “we fight like hell” are used with a non-physical meaning by politicians all the time (and particularly often by The Young Turks, who highlighted the phrase as “proof” of incitement!).

And at the same time, Trump was absolutely, devastatingly responsible for the travesty that happened, just not through the particular speech immediately preceding the event, but through weeks and months and years of meticulously (inasmuch as he does anything “meticulously”) grooming a cult following and weaving an alternate-reality narrative with an anti-democratic twist to it regarding the election, fanning flames and riling up the hardest inner core of his supporters to such an extent that now in retrospect it seems like something like Wednesday’s event was bound to happen. The post-election tantrum has actually disgusted me to my core in a rawer way than almost anything else he’s ever done (I know things like kids ripped from their parents and kept in detention camps is worse on a direct level, and this all speaks to my privilege, but I have a Thing about the meta-level sin of trying to mess with our self-correction and bring the presidency closer to a dictatorship), and as far as I’m concerned, a second impeachment is well deserved.

But to actually argue this requires invoking psychology and “social sense” or social intuition, and that catch with Trump -- one of the most fundamental themes of his behavior as a campaigner and president, in fact -- is that to effectively argue that anything he says is reprehensible requires analyzing these more subtle psychological effects and connections, while both sides tend to stick to interpreting his literal words which almost always can be interpreted on their face as meaning something much more innocuous. In these case there’s often a nudge-nudge-wink-wink or dog-whistling layer to what he says which both sides often refuse to actually investigate in arguments: anti-Trump people just insist that it’s sitting out there so starkly that no justification of its existence is needed, while Trump defenders entirely refuse to engage by saying to just look at the words he said in the most literal way possible. This has played out again and again and again for over five years; the incitement issue even just feels like the climactic final culmination of it. I’d like to see just for once a national debate over Trump’s recklessness where the two sides weren’t just talking past each other in this way.

But maybe I shouldn’t be thinking at all about what a substantive debate would look like, or seeing Trump punished on a basis of rhetoric that fully exposes how exquisitely and subtly profound his negligence as a leader and human being has been rather than arguing back and forth about a particular speech: as my friends have reminded me, impeachment proceedings are a purely political endeavor. For whatever reasons (tradition and propriety?) the congresspersons stand at podiums and give arguments but they aren’t particularly meant or expected to persuade. (Okay a lot of it is about the people watching and each of their political futures, I guess.) Maybe it doesn’t matter if none of the arguments are particularly strong ones. I’m biased against the idea of the proceedings being entirely political because it disgusts me and seems to betray the ideal vision of how Congress is supposed to work, but I imagine it’s reality (and certainly not the most disgusting or distressing aspect of reality right now).

I didn’t get a chance to catch much of the House debate this time around but I did listen to a lot of it during Impeachment Take 1 in December 2019. At the time I wanted to write a lengthy post detailing how pointless it all ways but it coincided with a sudden rush to grade my students’ exams in time for the holidays and so the post never happened. But it was really striking how almost interchangeable the Democrats’ speeches and the Republicans’ speeches were (it was almost perfectly divided along party lines as I recall), how often the same particular handfuls of phrases came out of almost every single congressperson in each sides’ arguments (I can’t remember the phrases now). It was almost as if each politician had cobbled together their speech by copying off the same model and rearranging a few paragraphs and orders of phrases. The little I saw of the speeches for Impeachment Take 2 in the House suggests that they were a little less uniform, but I doubt they were much more substantive.

Anyway, at this point all that really matters to me is for the Senate to vote to convict. I’m not too optimistic that this will happen and hope that the House politicians put enough emphasis on analyzing the likelihood of this when deciding to impeach, because the first impeachment didn’t actually seem to do much good and a second one might do more harm than good without actual concrete punishments coming Trump’s way as a result. But if they do, it will be as satisfying as possible a postscript to the whole humiliating debacle of the past four years as I can really ask for, outside of non-government actions like arrest and imprisonment.

#Our Current president #(hopefully my last time using that euphemistic tag)#maga cult #kids in cages #american government #impeachment 2019 #impeachment 2021 #young turks

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p-artsypants · 4 years ago

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Arcadia or Bust (16) Corner of Main and State

"Yeah, so mom…we made it to New Jersey, and we're all safe...but the Heartstone isn't really...impressive. So, we're bringing what we found home. See you soon!" In Which Arcadia welcomes back it's underground citizens, Jim gets used to mundane life as a Troll, and drama seeks them all out like a magnet.

Ao3 | FF.net

I’m rewatching Trollhunters, because it’s been like a year since I watched it, and the more I listen, the less the plot of Wizards makes sense to me. Don’t get me wrong, I loved it, but there’s some lore and continuity issues. That being said, I’ll continue to write this story using Trollhunter’s lore primarily, with a sprinkle of Wizards and 3Below lore as I see fit. :)

—

Jim had been through a lot of trauma in his life. At least since becoming the Trollhunter. But nothing was as jarring as looking down to his chest and seeing his ribcage, muscles, and heart beating.

They had taken the amulet from where it was nestled, and in return, left the gaping hole wide open, oozing with blood, and exposed. Could trolls get infections? Because humans certainly could, and this was just asking for infection.

He had been lying here alone for a few hours now. It was hard to tell exactly how long in the vast passage of time while drenched in pain.

When Colonel Kubritz appeared at his side, he wasn’t even surprised. Had he fallen asleep?

“How do you get this to work?” She bit. In her hand, she held the cleaned amulet, and it glowed, aching to be back with him.

“You can’t. You have to be chosen by it. Even if I die, it will pick someone else. And it might not be you.”

She slapped him for that, but it looked like it hurt her more than him, by the wince on her face. “Don’t give me that crap. Tell me how to work it!”

“Just speak the incantation inscribed.”

“We already tried that.”

He shrugged. “That’s all it is.”

She narrowed her eyes. “Teach me to use it, and I’ll let you go home.”

Jim sighed. It was pointless, but he may as well try.

—

Claire rang the doorbell at the designated house.

A surly man opened the door. “Yeah? What do you want? No solicitors! Unless you’re a girl scout…no, you’re too old. Are you with the tamale lady?”

“Hello sir, I’m not here to sell anything, I actually came to ask about the car you had totaled a few days ago.”

“Are you here to hunt down that devil that flipped my baby?!” He gestured to the smashed in car in the driveway. It looked drivable, but one bump away from death.

“Not quite...I’m actually here to fix it.”

“Fix it? You want to fix that? My mechanic couldn’t even fix it! And you want to! What are you, 15?”

“17, actually.”

“I doubt you have the experience for this, little lady.”

“Oh, I’m not a mechanic, I’m a sorceress.”

“A what now?”

“Sorceress, a witch! Do I have permission to fix your truck?”

“Girlie, if you can fix my truck, I’ll owe you a huge favor.”

“I was hoping you’d say that!” With a little skip, Claire went over to the truck and rested her hands on the hood. “Ad initium redire...” Her hands glowed purple, and pulsed against the metal, making it groan. Then it began to twist and crunch, popping out dents and welding pieces back together.

The old man stood in shock as his beloved truck knit back together, and when she was done, it was in perfect condition.

“How did—where did you—?!” He rounded the car, circling it like a vulture. “It’s perfect! You even took out that bump from years ago! You’re a miracle worker, girlie!”

Claire fell on her butt on the driveway, dizzy and winded. “Glad to help.”

“You alright?”

“Just a little winded. I’m still getting used to using magic, especially without a staff. It’s exhausting.”

“Well why don’t you take a seat up on the porch instead of the road? I’ll get you a beer.”

“I’m seventeen.”

“You’ve earned it!”

Claire chuckled to herself and climbed to her feet. She followed the man up his steps and took a seat on the porch swing while he went inside.

Only a minute later, he returned with beers in hand. “Here you are darlin’. Summertime ale. I’m partial to dark ale myself, but my neighbor got me this pale ale. It’s pretty good! You have a favorite?”

Claire took a sip and tried to hide the grimace. “I don’t really get to drink very often, unless it’s a special occasion.”

“Right right, we’ll keep it our little secret. Now then, I owe you a favor. You just saved me a whole chunk of change and a basket of anxiety. You must have something in mind since you offered?” He suddenly sat up straight. “Oh god, you don’t want my soul do you?”

Claire snorted. “No no, you can keep your soul! Don’t know what I would do with it anyways...You know the boy that damaged your truck in the first place?”

“I only saw a glimpse of him, that blue devil? What about him?”

“He’s actually my boyfriend, and he’s really very sweet and usually not like this. But he was...fed something he shouldn’t have had and it made him go berserk.”

“Crying shame.”

“I’ll say! So the army came in and took him away! They wouldn’t listen to us at all!”

“So what do you want me to do about it?”

“We are going to run a campaign to get him out. Hopefully, if we get enough attention on the issue, they’ll let him go.”

“Oh, I gotcha.”

“So if you could just...spread the truth around town? He’s actually the one that stopped that troll invasion back at the beginning of summer.”

The man looked surprised at that. “No kidding, that was him? Well, he’s a local hero! He’s been talked about a lot since then! Sure I’ll set the record straight! What’s this kid’s name?”

“Jim Lake Jr.”

“Got it! Don’t worry, I’ll bring it up at the lodge, and the rotary, and the chess club...”

—

The phone was ringing, he had been successfully patched through. Strickler sat in his office after hours, wanting to make the call as private as possible.

“Stricklander, I haven’t heard from you since the fall of the Janus order. What reason have you called on me?”

“Can’t I just call an old friend to catch up?”

“You? No.”

Walt cracked a smile. “Fine. I need a favor.”

“Changeling to changeling, or school principal to army general?”

“The latter, actually.”

The man on the other line laughed. “Color me intrigued.”

“You know of the human Trollhunter, correct?”

“Just what you wrote in your dossier, a human male, 16 years old, lives in Arcadia Oaks, California, turned half-troll by the wizard Merlin. Responsible for the death of Bular and Gunmar. Quite a remarkable young soul. Is there anything else to know?”

“He’s been captured by the United States Army.”

The man let out half a chuckle. “Captured? What dumb trouble did he get into?”

“His deadbeat father left out some cocaine for the boy to find, he thought it was trash, and ate it.”

Distantly on the other line, there was laughter, a strong bark of laughter that lasted far too long. When he came back, he was calm. “How unfortunate.”

“He’s a good kid. Why would there be a kilogram of cocaine in the trash anyways? I fail to see the humor in the situation.”

“Of course. So, I assume, he went on a rampage following his meal, and then attracted the attention of some of us?”

“So you haven’t heard about it?”

“Not where I’m stationed. But give me a moment.” The line went silent, only a very distant and quiet tapping of keys on a keyboard being tapped. Then the man returned. “I’m glad you told me about this. This incident hasn’t been reported to our database. That shows evidence of misconduct. Did you get the name of the commanding officer responsible, by chance?”

“Colonel Kubritz, I believe.”

More typing. “Area 49-B.”

“That name was also passed around.”

“Technically not my jurisdiction, and since she didn’t report it, I’m not supposed to know about it.”

“I’m afraid you will officially know about it soon.”

“Oh?”

“His friends and family, myself included, are going to put on a protest for his freedom. Drawing attention to the situation.”

That echoing laughter was back again.

“It wasn’t my idea, in case you were wondering.”

“I know, you wouldn’t come up with something so bold. Regardless, go ahead in through with it. I’ll make sure whatever protest happens gets brought to my superior’s attention, and then I will take it from there.”

“Thanks. I will owe you one.”

“Oh come now, Walter, we Changelings that survived the Fall of the Janus order have to stick together. Besides, I heard rumors that you’re caring for my familiar?”

“He’s still in the cradle stone, and the moment. One baby at a time, for now.”

“Then we’re even. Besides, this is the most interesting thing that’s happened in a while. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

“Your kindness is refreshing. I’m glad Gunmar didn’t eat you.”

“Gee, thanks.”

“We’ll be in touch then, Samuel.”

“Of course, Walter.”

—

“How goes the car repair?” Asked Merlin, as he met up with Toby and Claire in the park.

“Ugh, exhausting. First I stopped at the mechanics, and they’re still backed up with fixing other cars. Apparently, Gunmar’s army did a number and backed them up for months. But they gave me the names of all the clients who got totaled from Jim. I had to hit the scrap yard for four of them, and I just finished another two in driveways.”

“How many does that leave you with?”

“Seven more,” she sighed. “How goes the road work?”

“It goes. Now come along, there’s someone I’d like you to meet.” He didn’t wait for them to follow as he turned and started walking away.

Sharing a dubious look, Toby and Claire quickly caught up with him. He led them to a bookstore, where a young man was sweeping outside.

“Hisirdoux, my faithful and loyal apprentice—“

“You're damn straight I’m loyal!” He shouted. “Where have you been? I’ve been cleaning tables for the last 900 years!”

“Calm yourself boy, I’m here now, aren’t I? And I need your help.”

“Finally! What is it? Just say the word!”

“I need you to go with Miss Claire Nuñez and help her restore recently smashed vehicles.”

“What?”

“Or, you can repair street damage.”

Douxie crossed his arms. “What is this? I saw what happened! There were trolls, and evidence of Morgana! And now you need my help? To clean up, several months later?”

“That is correct.”

“Why didn’t you call for me back then?!”

“I forgot.”

“You forgot? About me?”

“Oh come now, don’t take it personally. I was busy trying to prepare the Trollhunter to fight Gunmar. And get my magic back from Morgana.”

Douxie seemed to become more sympathetic at that. “Morgana stole your magic?”

“Yes, but it’s all in the past now. Everything is fine. Well, not really. Seems that the US Army has declared the Trollhunter as a menace to society. We must get the trust of the city on our side if we are to get them to trust us, and agree that his capture is unjust.”

“Please,” said Claire. “We need all the help we can get.”

Douxie sighed. “Alright. Afterwards, you’re training me again.” He gave Merlin a hard look. “And no amateur magic either. I’ve been doing the same drills for 900 years. I think I’m ready for more advanced work.”

“Oh, you will be. Starting with helping Miss Nuñez field her shadow magic.”

Douxie looked at her, in awe. “You’re practicing shadow magic? Truly?”

“It’s a recent development…”

“She took Morgana’s Skathe-Hrün, and wielded it without any training. Because of that she has a tether to Morgana in the Shadow realm, who has been teaching her ever so slightly. I’m not allowed to train her, but she could use the guidance of a Wizard in the physical realm. Do you understand Hisirdoux?”

“I do, and I’ll be happy to teach her…I’m just…I’ll need a moment or two to digest the sentence you just said.”

“Well, don’t take too long, we have a Trollhunter to rescue!”

—

There was a heavy knock on the door, which was never a good thing. Especially nowadays.

Still, Barbara went to the door.

Standing there was Detective Scott and James Lake Sr.

“Does this belong to you?” Asked the detective.

“I don’t claim him, no.”

Her almost ex-husband smiled at her, pleadingly, “Please Babs?”

“What is he even doing out? You arrested him!”

“About that…” Detective Scott winced. “We don’t have enough to keep him on.”

“What!” She shouted. “He confessed in front of a bunch of people!”

“Which would be helpful if we had a case for a trial. But as it stands, he doesn’t actually have any drugs on him. And we don’t have a confession on tape. So…we’re shit out of luck.”

“Oh come on Louis, you know the cocaine came from him! Where else would Jim have gotten it from?”

“Look, the chief’s not thrilled that we didn’t arrest the guy responsible for trashing the town, but we’re supposed to arrest someone else without evidence?”

Barbara threw her hands up in the air. “With probable cause!”

“That doesn’t work with drug dealers. He’s clean, Barbara. All the blood tests came back clean too.”

“Ugh.”

The house shook slightly, and Barbara felt the floor bow behind her. “Is there a problem, officer?” Asked Draal.

“Nothing you can help with, Draal. Thank you.” Barbara sighed. “James is not being charged.”

“But he is a criminal, this degenerate flesh bag poisoned the Trollhunter! He should face banishment for his crimes!”

James withered a little with the glare Draal gave him.

“Well,” said Officer Scott. “Maybe you can keep an eye on him from now on. If you have evidence that he is dealing, like physical traces of cocaine on the premises, call us. But for now, there’s not much else we can do.”

“This is ludicrous.”

“I know, I’m sorry Barbara. How is Jim?”

She frowned. “You haven’t heard? The army came and collected him from the hospital!”

Louis sputtered. “The army came?!”

“Yes!”

“Where were they when Gunmar was terrorizing us?” He scoffed. “Again, sorry Barbara, I can’t help you here.”

“It’s alright. We’ve got a plan.”

“Love to hear it, but I’ve got to get back to the office. I’m sure Toby will tell Darci, and she’ll tell me. Good luck!” And he left James on the porch.

“Babs, I’m sorry…”

“Save it.” Barbara scoffed, but allowed him in the house.

Draal never took his eyes off the man.

“Well, you’ll be happy to know I have no more supply. And after Rudy found out what happened to my last Kilo, she’s not getting anymore for me. So…”

“I’ll have to thank Jim for keeping a kilogram of Cocaine off the streets of Arcadia. We have a fairly low rate of drug use around here, and we don’t need you to ruin people’s lives.”

James sighed, knowing he had dodged a huge bullet by being let off the hook. He’d rather deal with his wife than with his ex-associates in jail any day. “I think I’ve still ruined people’s lives anyway.” He walked into the living room, only to halt at the signs on the table.

Release Jim Lake Jr.

Justice for Jim

Let Lake Go!

“Babs, what is all this?”

“That’s part of our plan to free Jim! I’m friends with the councilwoman, and she suggested that we campaign for his release. Bringing a lot of unwanted attention onto his capture will stir the government to let him go!”

James jutted out his jaw, a sign of barely concealed rage. An expression Barbara had grown very used to in the last few months. “So, you’re going to put his name—my name in the news? You’re going to broadcast what city we live in?”

“Yes.”

He whirled on her, grabbing her arm. “Babs, people are looking for me! Horrible, mean, and ruthless people! If you put his name out there, they’ll know where to look!”

“All the better! Then they can come take you off my hands!”

“You don’t understand! I owe them a lot of money, and they’ll take it anyway they can! That includes extorting you, Jim, and whoever else they connect with me!”

Draal stepped in, removing his hand from Barbara’s arm. “This house is under my protection. If anyone dare tries to enter, they will be dealt with swiftly.”

“You don’t know what these men are capable of.”

“I assure you, I’ve decimated armies of flesh bags in my day. These men are no different.”

Barbara smiled. “If you’re really that scared, I hear Vermont is lovely this time of year.”

James just narrowed his eyes, before storming out of the room.

—

The first rally took place from 3pm to dusk, starting from after school, and leading up to when Trolls would be able to participate. Granted, it was only a handful of people, but standing in the middle of downtown did garner a lot of attention. More than a dozen people walking past had stopped to ask about the cause. They were then given a short synopsis of the situation, as it pertained to them:

“Jim is a 16 year old student who was chosen by the trolls to be our protector. He willingly gave up his humanity to defeat Gunmar the Black, the monstrous troll that attacked the city at the beginning of the summer. Now, he looks like a troll, and was sabotaged to go into a rage and damage the city. The US army took him away without a trial! He’s a hero to the city, and deserves fair treatment!”

Reactions ranged from:

“Oh, he stopped that thing?”

To:

“Oh my god! He’s just a child!”

Overwhelmingly, there was no negative feedback, at least in person. But it was only day one.

—

“This daylight...is it significant?” The colonel asked, as she circled his table.

“It’s just a name.” Jim lied. “A sword with a name is stronger than one without.”

“Interesting. Interesting indeed. According to my notes, trolls turn to stone in daylight. Any correlation there?”

So she already knew? Then what was the point? Was she just playing with him?

“I’m the Trollhunter, and I fight bad trolls. It would make sense to name my sword after something they’re afraid of.”

She hummed. “And what about you?”

“What about me?”

“Are you afraid of daylight?”

“Why would I be?”

The colonel laughed. “Oh Jim Lake Jr. You’re the worst liar I’ve ever met. You are honest and forthcoming with truths that work in your favor. You freely told me of your transformation, and of your victory against a Troll tyrant. But now that I’m edging on the topic of your weakness, you clam up and give me vague answers. I can do this all day, beast. What does daylight do to you?”

“Nothing. It doesn’t do anything to me.”

“Really? Even as a troll? That’s interesting.”

“It’s fortunate.”

“I would say so. Though, now you’ve got me curious. These burns on your skin…where did they come from?” She dragged her fingernail over one of the dark marks.

Jim winced. “I don’t know. I wasn’t aware in my rage state.”

“Then you won’t mind if I find out for myself?” She crooked a finger towards the shadows. Jim could hear the creak of wheels before a lamp with several fixtures was wheeled forward.

“Oh no…”

“UV lights, all different wattages. Let’s see what works the best, hmm?”

—

ARCADIA TRIBUNE

Justice for Jim

By Nadja Chamack

Who is Jim Lake Jr. anyway? This is a question I asked myself as I drove downtown three days ago. No doubt, you’ve seen the crowd of students and teachers holding signs on the corner of Main and State Street. It’s pretty hard to miss, quite honestly. Among the students, there’s also Councilwoman Nuñez, and resident Troll Mascot, ARRRGH! Signs range from ‘Justice for Jim’ to ‘Free our Lake’.

But who is Jim Lake Jr.? And what happened? A precursory search on my end showed only a scant few facts. Jim is a student at Arcadia Highschool, in his Junior year. He was nominated as Spring Fling King last year, and played the part of Romeo in the school play. His criminal record seemed pretty clean too. A misdemeanor for scratching a rental scooter was all that showed up. But hey, who hasn’t done that?

So I went to the source, his family and friends campaigning for him. On Saturday, the group was downtown, campaigning all day long, so I had the chance to interview each and every person about why they were there.

Turns out, Jim Lake Jr. might be the most amazing person in Arcadia.

From his mother, Dr. Barbara Lake, I learned that Jim is an Arcadia native, born and raised here. He enjoys cooking gourmet food, working on his vespa, and acting.

Oh, and he’s the first human Trollhunter.

What? You’ve never heard of a Trollhunter? Me neither. But Barbara and Blinky, another resident Troll, gave me the scoop.

You all remember that night at the beginning of the summer that we all promised not to talk about? Well, I’m going to talk about it. In fact, I’m here to give you all the answers you’ve been craving.

Many months before that fateful night, a new Trollhunter was chosen, after the previous one had perished. “The Trollhunter is chosen according to his mettle, by the amulet of the Trollhunter, as created by Merlin, the wizard of Arthurian legend. Jim was chosen after the fall of Kanjigar, his predecessor. Jim is the first human to be chosen, also the smallest and weakest. But, he was the first to defeat Bular, son of Gunmar!” Said his mentor, Blinky. None of this made any sense to me at first, though it was said with great enthusiasm.

It turns out, the trolls that we’ve gotten used to seeing around town, mostly ARRRGH, are ‘good’ trolls. The bad trolls, ‘Gum-gums’ are what invaded our town and destroyed my car. The Trollhunter’s whole job is to fight off these bad trolls, and gnomes, and goblins, and everything else that goes bump in the night. And so he did. The Gum-Gums invaded from the ‘Darklands’, being led by a fearsome troll named Gunmar the Black, the Skullcrasher, the Dark Lord…he had a lot of names, and it was obviously a bad dude. Gunmar had plans to invade the whole world by blotting out the sun, a.k.a the eclipse we saw. And he would have gotten away for it too, if it weren’t for those meddling kids!

Mainly Jim Lake Jr. and his friends.

And how does a sixteen year old defeat a couple millennia old, bloodthirsty, all powerful tyrant? With a fancy sword? Close. With some magical armor? Closer. By giving up a part of his humanity and becoming a half-human, half-troll hybrid? Now you’re getting it! Yes, to protect Arcadia, to protect us, Jim Lake Jr. allowed himself to be changed. You may have seen him around town. Blue skin, big horns...okay, I just described most of the trolls that are around here.

“Jim works the night shift at my store,” said Stu Harding, owner of Thrifty Furnishings. “He’s a very hard worker, and always willing to do the heavy lifting that is hard for the other employees to do.”

“Despite his appearance, Jim ultimately decided to attend school,” said Principal Walter Strickler. “After the school found out about why he had missed so many days of school, they were willing to move him onto the next grade to be with his peers. He was a good student before all this, and he fought really hard to keep his grades up regardless. We felt he should still have the opportunity to graduate. We were looking forward to having him on our football team, and in our spring production of Beauty and the Beast.”

So what happened to Jim? And why is there such a big campaign for his freedom?

Well, the truth is that Jim is a victim of unfortunate circumstances. In more ways than one, obviously. Trolls eat our trash. That’s why Arcadia has such a small carbon footprint! (Be sure to thank ARRRGH next time you see him!) And this trait was adopted by Jim too, when he was transformed.

“He just picked a bunch of items out of the trash. Cans, an old sock, and what looked like a VHS wrapped in duct tape,” said Jim’s best friend, Toby Dolmzalski. “It was a normal lunch for him. But right in the middle of gym class, he turned crazy town banana pants and took off! I had never seen Jim act like that! Ever!”

After an 8 hour rage through town, Jim collapsed and was taken to the hospital for evaluation. It turns out what Jim had ingested turned out to be a kilogram of pure cocaine!

At this time, it is unknown where the cocaine came from, or if it was planted purposefully. (Seriously, who throws away a kilogram of cocaine?)

But the damage that Jim caused was extensive enough to catch the attention of the US army, who has taken Jim into captivity from the hospital. No trial, no rights, they even took him while he was unconscious. His friends and family have not heard from him since.

“I’m so worried,” said girlfriend, Claire Nuñez. “He was injured from the battle with Gunmar, and didn’t completely heal. In the hospital, he was covered in burns from the sun. I have no idea if they’re caring for him properly, or dissecting him like some creature. But he deserves so much better than this. He saved our town, he saved my life, and the life of my baby brother. That’s why we won’t rest until he’s home!”

“Not bad,” said ARRRGH, long time friend of Jim. “Good troll have bad days, best trolls have worse days. Jim need some good days.”

Couldn’t have said it better myself, ARRRGH.

Friends and family of Jim are asking everyone share #JusticeforJim on social media, hoping to get the attention of someone in charge. All the damage caused by Jim has been repaired, and there were no casualties from his attack.

Of course, the whole ‘troll’ aspect of this story has to be a local legend. So when sharing it to social media, kindly leave that part out.

—

“C-Bomb!” Mary shouted from the other end of the hall. She came running and almost crashed into Claire and Toby, holding her phone up in the air. “My twitter feed is blowing up, girl! Look at all of this!” She held the screen up so they could see.

“Citizen abducted by the government, is this China or North Korea? Neither! It’s the US! #JusticeforJim”

“Imagine if this was your son. So sad, and so scary! #JusticeforJim”

“This is real life, not science fiction #JusticeforJim”

“Whoa, where did these all come from?” Asked Claire. “What did you post?”

“Did you know Snapper Karr did a report on it!?”

“Snapper Karr? From KTTV in LA?”

“Yes! Thankfully, he left out the whole troll thing. I’ll send you a link. In his story, Jim is just a kid that has a rare genetic disorder that makes him look different, and so the government took him away!”

Claire winced. “This is…kind of spiraling out of control.”

“I don’t know why you’re worrying, Claire,” said Darci. “We want people talking about Jim getting abducted. It doesn’t matter if the world outside Arcadia doesn’t have all the facts. They still know he’s been taken away without a trial, and that’s all that’s important. Besides, Jim doesn’t want the whole world knowing about Trolls, right?”

She nodded. “As long as this works, I’ll be happy.”

“And sensationalist stories like this blow up for like a week, and then they die out and are forgotten. This won’t last.” Mary waved her hand. “It should work long enough to get Jimmy Jam out though.” Then she squealed. “OMG you know what we should do?! We should totally have a welcome home party! Or-or a parade! Like they have for veterans!”

“Mary, I don’t think—“

“Don’t worry, I’ll take care of it! You’re not the only one with ties to the city!” And she hurried off, texting frantically.

“What’s up Claire? I would have thought you’d be ecstatic the hashtag went viral.” Asked Toby.

“Don’t get me wrong, I am happy. And I’m happy that Snapper Karr chalked the troll thing up to local legend or superstition…but I can’t help but worry that something bad is going to come out of this.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know. It’s just a gut feeling.” She scoffed and went to her locker. “It’s dumb, don’t worry about it.”

No sooner had she said that, did Strickler appear. “Claire, Toby, come with me.”

“What?”

“I’ve already spoken with your teachers, now come along.”

Claire and Toby shared a look, but followed regardless.

—

They were led to the parking lot, where a black van with tinted windows waited, a huge red flag, if there ever was one.

“Umm…” said Toby.

“Don’t worry.” Strickler assured.

A man in an army uniform stepped out of the driver seat. “Walter, good to see you again.”

“Glad to see you as well, Samuel. And thank you for following through with your promise.”

“As I said, this is the most interesting thing to happen in a while.” He glanced at the two teenagers in attendance. “We’re just waiting for his mother, correct?”

“She should be here soon.”

Toby muttered to Claire, “Who’s Jorgen Von Strangle over here?”

“No idea.”

And just like that, Barbara pulled into the parking lot, haphazardly parked, and ran over to them, still in her scrubs. “I came as soon as I could! We’re going to get Jim?!”

“What?!” Screamed Toby. “We’re rescuing him?!”

“That is the goal,” the man answered. “I’m General Samuel Attila. I’ve been given authorization to intervene in this situation, given that this project, whatever it is, hasn’t been officially recorded. But, bear in mind, you may not like what you see. We may be bringing home Jim, or just his body. I don’t know. So if anyone is uncomfortable with that idea, I suggest you stay behind.”

“I’m going,” Said Toby. “No matter what.”

“Me too,” said Claire. “It’ll hurt, but I want to know what happened to him.”

“Alright, then let’s hurry. The facility is about an hour away.” He ushered everyone into the van, which had two front seats, two benches along the walls, and a gurney in the middle. As soon as everyone was buckled, they headed out.

“Hey, if you know Mr. Strickler, does that mean you’re a…?”

“A what, Toby?” Asked Walt, with a hint of amusement in his tone.

“A…man of culture?”

“Yes, I am a changeling.”

Toby exhaled. “Okay, it’s like super hard to ask that question when you don’t know who knows, you know?”

“I owe the Trollhunter a debt of gratitude for stopping Gunmar. After he ate the entirety of the Janus order, we the few that weren’t present for his return stayed in hiding. Had Gunmar taken over the world, my death as a traitor would have been slow and painful. We were thinking about sending him a thoughtful gift basket, but I think this is more fun. I love to bully those in lower ranks. The fleshbags get a few pretty badges and think they’re invincible. I love watching them cower!”

Toby leaned closer to Claire. “He was so nice and helpful, I was beginning to wonder if he was actually a changeling.”

“Same! But I actually feel better knowing he’s got ulterior motives, and that they have nothing to do with us.”

“Have you heard from Nomura lately?” Samuel asked Walter.

“She was in Arcadia for a while. She helped with the fight with Gunmar. Right now, I believe she’s on her way back from New Jersey.”

“New Jersey? What was she doing out there?”

“After Morgana and Gunmar destroyed the Heartstone, Jim and Blinky went in search of a new one.”

“Oh, yes. I forgot there were rumors of a source in New Jersey. Did they find it?”

“Yep,” said Claire. “But it wasn’t very big, so we brought it back to Arcadia in a truck. The rest of the tribe is making their way back on foot.”

“Ah, that explains it.” Samuel nodded. “You’re both very lucky. Not many Changeling’s are allowed in Trollmarket.”

“Now that Gunmar’s out of the picture, I’m sure you could visit too!” Toby exclaimed, before getting elbowed in the gut by Claire.

“It’d be nice to see it once. I’m sad I didn’t get to see the Heartstone in its glory, but such is life.”

The rest of the ride continued in relative silence. Strickler and Samuel spoke to each other, mostly catching up. But Toby, Claire, and Barbara were far too anxious to keep up with the conversation.

There were no windows in the back of the vehicle, so there was no way of knowing where they were. From the front, they looked to be in a weaving forest trail.

Then there were huge cement walls in front of them.

Samuel pulled in the front gate.

The man at the gate didn’t look up from his computer. “You’re not authorized to be here.”

“Excuse me?”

“I don’t recognize your vehicle, so I know you don’t have clearance.”

Samuel sat up a little straighter, glaring at the soldier at the gate. “How about you scan my badge first, and then tell me if I have clearance, Lieutenant.”

The soldier gave a little shrug and reached out for the badge, his eyes widening as he caught a glance at the four stars on the man’s shoulder. “Oh.”

“Problem?”

“No, sir. I just…I don’t need to scan your badge, you can go in.”

“Thank you. At ease soldier.”

Toby held back a snicker.

“And, let Colonel Kubritz know she has company.”

“Yes sir.”

“As you were.”

The gate rolled open, and they pulled through.

It seemed like Samuel’s message was received pretty quickly, because the woman that had taken Jim was waiting for them, flanked by soldiers with strange weapons.

“Stay in the car.” He told everyone, before getting out.

“I was not aware of any sort of inspection. You are not my commanding general, and therefore not welcome here. This facility holds highly dangerous equipment and confidential projects.”

“Stand down, Colonel. I am here on behalf of general Adele. I’m here to recover Jim Lake Jr. General Adele will be speaking to you about your discharge.”

“What are you talking about?” She demanded.

“You kidnapped a teenage boy from a hospital. Surely you didn’t think that wouldn’t go unnoticed? I have video evidence of you leaving the hospital with him.”

“He’s not a normal boy—“

“I’d say so! His whole town is hailing him as a hero for saving them from an invasion! I thought this facility was for research on protecting Earth from invaders. And you’re punishing a boy for saving a town?”

“He also destroyed it. Don’t give into their little campaign. Jim Lake Jr. may have done something good once, but that doesn’t stop him from being a monster.”

“I was just in Arcadia, Colonel. There is no damage. There’s no lawsuits against Jim Lake Jr. There’s not even any pending arrests.”

“I have video evidence of his destruction!” She barked.

“Then let the local police handle it.”

She growled, then commanded her men to stand down. “Fine. But if he does this again, no one will stop me from taking him.”

“Actually,” he clarified with a smirk. “You’re being discharged. So you won’t have any means to take him again.”

Her mouth opened in shock, as she fought to find an argument.

But he was a general, he was above her.

“Now, Jim Lake Jr.?”

She grumbled something and started off towards a big central building.

Samuel was quick to beckon the others out of the car to follow him, and headed towards the same building as Kubritz.

When Barbara reached them, she spoke, “you didn’t hurt my son, did you?”

Kubritz didn’t even look at her. “I don’t have to share information with civilians.”

Claire clenched her fists in anger, a black haze coming over her hands.

But Toby simply patted her on the back to ground her.

Colonel Kubritz led them through the research facility, ignoring their questions.

They reached the room Jim was being held in, and she entered her code to open the door.

Of course, Jim wasn’t the only thing in the room, being surrounded by specimens of all sorts of living creatures, but he was right in the center, with a spot light right on him.

“Jim!” Claire shouted first as she ran to him.

The poor boy was naked, lying on his back and strapped to the table with thick iron bonds. His wound from Morgana wasn’t the worst on him anymore, as he was covered in blackened burned spots. The spot that had the amulet was now just a hole in his chest, that went right down to the ribs. Claire could see his heart beating, and his lungs moving, thank god.

“Jim...” she cried, seeing the carnage.

“What did you do to him?!” Toby shouted at the Colonel, but she didn’t respond.

“Honey? Jim? Can you hear me?” Barbara asked, as she assessed the damage.

His eyes opened ever so slightly. “Mom? Is that you? Are you...really here?”

“Yeah kiddo,” she wiped some tears from her eyes. “It’s me, I’m here. Toby, Claire, and Walt are here too. We’re going to take you home.”

His smile was just a hint, and he stated, “I’m tired.”

“I’m sure you are. We’re going to get you fixed up!” She turned to the Colonel. “Get me a gurney or a wheelchair!”

She scoffed. “I don’t take orders from civilians.”

Samuel interceded. “Then get me a soldier who isn’t completely incompetent! If you’re going to continue to endanger the life of this young man, then I suggest you get out of my sight before I endanger yours.”

The Colonel didn’t waver, though a tremor went down her spine. “Lieutenant!” She called.

A man hurried into the room, standing at attention.

Kubritz just gave a roll of the eyes. “Follow whatever order the general gives you.”

“But—“

“No, I’m done.” With one last glare to Samuel, she added, “I'll be sending my evidence to General Adele, then we’ll see who’s the one putting the nation in danger.”

“Go ahead, I’ve already given my report.”

She growled at him, turned and left without another word.

The lieutenant just stood at attention in front of Samuel instead. “Orders sir?”

“Get someone to fetch the gurney from the back of our van, and send for the medic! And get someone to get these shackles off this kid!”

“Sir yes sir!”

Meanwhile, Claire stood right by Jim’s side, holding his hand, brushing the bangs away from his face and combing his hair with her fingers. He had a pretty strong fever.

“You’re going to be alright Jim. We’re going to take good care of you.”

“I’m…cold…” He breathed.

Barbara found some vinyl gloves nearby and got to work examining her boy. “I don’t know about the Troll half, but this tissue looks alright. I don’t see any infection yet, or any tissue death. Of course, we need to get this covered immediately.”

“Where’s the amulet?” Asked Walt. “That’s what’s missing.”

“The amulet!” Barbara addressed Samuel. “His amulet, we have to find it!”

He nodded, “we can’t let these psychos have it. They have no idea what magic it possesses, even without being the chosen wielder.”

Only a beat passed before the army medic came with the gurney, and another soldier came with a crowbar to undo the shackles.

“Lieutenant, we’re looking for an amulet that came with Jim. It’s what’s missing from his chest.”

The Lieutenant blanched. “I don’t know anything about it…I can ask the Colonel?”

“She won’t tell.”

The shackles fell free from Jim’s limbs, but he didn’t seem to register it.

“Alright,” said Barbara, “Let’s move him onto the gurney. We can worry about the amulet later.” It took everyone to lift him and carefully slide him over. Then, he was covered up to his stomach with a blanket.

“You’re going home, Jim. Mi amor, you’re safe now.” Claire whispered, kissing his forehead.

“Hmm…” Jim weakly groaned. “…for the…glory…” But before he could finish, he fell back into sleep.

#arcadia or bust #tales of arcadia #Trollhunters #troll jim #jim lake junior #claire nunez #toby domzalski #fanfiction

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