#(which was fun fact something similar to what my own grandfather did during the second world war)

[tf2-plus2]

Employee Profile #113

Employee Profile for; Jeremy Michael Reinier Scout

Age; 18, but I have a feeling he's younger and didn't want to say so.

Hair; Dusty Blond/Sandy Brown

Eyes; Aqua Blue

Blood Type; A Negative

Height; 5'11"/180.4 CM

Weight; 171 Lbs/77.5 kg

D.O.B.; June 23rd, 1943, but again, I question this.

P.O.B.; Boston, Massachusetts, United States

Class; Scout

Job; Rapid Recovery

Background Information; I have been able to verify that he was from Boston. It appears his older brothers helped him train and learn to fight, which explains his very unorthodox... fighting style. While certain information from him I do call into question, such as not knowing his father or his age, he has learned some very valuable hit and run tactics from his older siblings.

Weapons; Mister Reinier prefers his newly acquired "Scattergun" from Mann Co, claiming it reminds him of "Michael's shotgun practices". He also seems adept with a variety of slide based handguns. However, his most preferred weapon is a... baseball bat. He did leave several remarkable holes in the training area with it, though, so perhaps it is not a useless weapon.

Notes; Perhaps one of his most useful skills is his apparent immunity to food related illnesses which was made apparent when he reached for a nearby can of Bonk! that was marked to be thrown out and did not need medical attention. However, the radiation did have an interesting effect in causing his natural speed to become enhanced. He also has somehow learned to jump off of thin air to give him an extra reach for high places, and due to his brothers frequently beating him to fights, has increased his natural speed greatly. Hopefully, his very apparent Dyslexia does not cause a detriment, as he mixes up larger words easily.

Hiring Date; [REDACTED], 1961

[iwa1zumis]

“i love you and i like you”: passion and burnout in Haikyuu!! 

tw: discussions of self harm, anxiety, burnout and breakdowns. 

spoilers for the whole manga!! 

okay this is probably gnna be jflkafjdklfj all over the place, but i’ve been thinking a lot lately about the difference between loving and liking something, and how haikyuu emphasises the importance of both those feelings being present when pursuing a passion. 

a quick look at google (and i KNOW my college professors are cringing away in horror victor frankenstein-style @ my use of google definitions but jflajfsdk bear with me!!) demonstrates how often the concepts of love and like are conflated, with love her being framed as a sort of deeper or more intense like: “to like or enjoy very much” to be specific. but personally i’ve always thought there’s something a bit misleading about that kind of definition, since its absolutely possible to love something or someone without necessarily liking them. to take a personal example: i love debate. i debated through middle and high school, made captain of the debate team, and was constantly travelling to and fro for different tournaments. even before i started to debate formally i’d jump at the chance to do mini-debates in class, argue with and rebut parents and friends over meals and causal conversation.... you get the idea. i loved debate, and still love it dearly, but i honestly don’t think i particularly liked it much. tournaments would always fill me with the most INSANE kind of stress, i’d barely eat or sleep in the days leading up to a meet, and i’ve had more muffled bathroom breakdowns in between rebuttals than i can count. after my final year of high school, i decided against joining the debate at university. i knew that if i were to retain ANY love for the activity going into the future, i had to force myself to take a break. 

so what does this solipsistic tangent have to do with haikyuu, you ask? well i have no doubt that a vast majority of the players in the series love volleyball. they’re dedicated and passionate about it. they hunger for the chance to be put on the court. but do they like to play? 

1. oikawa: “i forgot that volleyball can be fun” 

ofc i wouldn’t be an oikawa stan worth my salt if i didn’t start this off with the (grand) king himself!! imo one of the reasons why oikawa is such a popular and well-loved character is his constant determination to keep moving forward and playing, even in the face of seemingly insurmountable opponents and adversities (”never forget my worthless pride”, anyone?). inevitably, all the hard work and practise he put into his craft has left him with a very carefully constructed, put together playstyle-- he’s the kind of player who knows how to bring the best out of each and every teammate on the court because of the amount of time he spends observing them and playing with them. it’s an outlook and playstyle best encapsulated in his now iconic line during the second karasuno v seijoh match: 

“Talent is something you make bloom, instinct is something you polish!” 

in my opinion the word “polish” it super significant here-- it explicitly singles out the years and years of hard work that set a foundation for his talent and instinct to shine. 

but what happens when they don’t shine? there’s no denying that oikawa is an incredibly skilled and intuitive player (something that hinata’s acknowledgment of him as the “great king” to kageyama’s “king” immediately sets out) but oikawa himself is acutely aware of the fact that he can never quite measure up to his long-time rival ushijima or his immensely talented protege kageyama. oikawa’s self described strategy to deal with opponents is to: 

“Hit it until it breaks” 

but what happens when hitting something again and again with your carefully honed, “polished” skills yields no results? imo there’s a very clear binary mentality drawn here-- either you hit it and it breaks, asserting your superiority; or you hit it and it doesn’t break, enforcing your inferiority. with each perceived loss against ushijima and kageyama, oikawa’s internalized logic holds his own weakness up to his own face, shaking his faith in himself as a player. if you’ll pardon the on-the-nose-metaphor: the whole “hitting it till it breaks” strategy is a two-way street, and oikawa has been hitting himself, metaphorically speaking, for a very long time. i have no doubt that he loved volleyball, passionately, through middle and high school. but with his inferiority complex growing in the face of constantly refuted results, i think he slowly began to like it less and less. 

so how does oikawa get his groove back? to answer that, we’ll have to turn to the post-timeskip chapters, particularly the two chapters that deal with oikawa and hinata’s unexpected meeting in Rio (372 and 373 for anyone curious!). while reminiscing with hinata over dinner, oikawa finally reveals the event that made him want to play volleyball (as a setter, to be exact)-- as a child, he watched veteran setter jose blanco step into a game and

“... inconspicuously help[ed] the ace get his bearings again... and then simply left the court.” 

oikawa’s reaction to blanco’s playstyle might just be one of my favourite panels in the chapter for how it conveys so much with such little space: 

the stammer of “i-i--”, which suggests a sense of resolve and determination forming in real time, finally coalesces into the determined declaration of “i wanna be a setter too!” what i took from this is that oikawa’s admiration for-- and liking of-- blanco expresses itself in the agency with which he makes his choice, in this case, actively deciding to be a setter so that he can support players on the court like blanco did. the liking that oikawa has here is therefore inherently linked to the agency and freedom he feels here-- freedom to choose his position, and how he wants his volleyball career to develop. 

this recollection of his childhood memories, and the subsequent game of beach volleyball that oikawa and hinata play afterwards, essentially push oikawa back into the mental and physical space of a child or beginner, as the manga demonstrates with panels of oikawa being forced to ditch his usual carefully developed, polished playstyle to learn the ropes of beach volleyball: 

ultimately concluding with the beautiful panel transition of oikawa, as a child AND adult, celebrating after a successful play: 

“It reminds me that-- I forgot that-- volleyball is fun.”

in a different country, playing a familiar game by slightly different rules and led back into the mentality and freedom of a novice after years of careful development, oikawa rediscovers his liking for the game. 

2. kageyama: “when you get strong, someone stronger will rise to meet you” 

moving on to the king of the court himself!! i’d argue that kageyama’s childhood memories and experiences of volleyball function almost oppositely to oikawa’s-- while oikawa has to re-access the sensation of being a beginner again to like the game along with loving it, kageyama’s process of coming to like and love volleyball come from moving away from his early experiences and into a new phase of playing-- specifically, his partnership with hinata. 

one of kageyama’s defining features is his individualism-- he’s both skilled and solitary enough to prefer to, as he puts it, “play every single position on the court”. notably, he wants to become a setter because: 

“[it’s] the one that touches the ball the most.”

in fact, i’d argue that kageyama’s “king of the court” attitude that he was known for in middle school is an extension of this individualistic mindset: he holds himself to extremely high standards, and expects his team-mates (as extensions of himself) to meet those very same standards. the similarities between his internal monologue and his commands to kindaichi in these two panels, for example, are strikingly, visibly similar: 

there’s that near-identical intonation of “move faster, jump higher!” that implies that the way he treats his teammates is just an extension of how he treats himself-- a deeply self-critical, miserable way, as it turns out. it’s telling that for the first few chapters of a manga in which characters’ eyes literally light up when they’re happy, passionate or excited, kageyama’s eyes are drawn as pitch black, even while he’s playing. 

imo the reason why hinata’s appearance, and their later partnership, is so significant for kageyama’s personal development is because he can’t treat hinata like an extension of himself. hinata challenges him and his preconcieved notions of the sport at every turn: first with his lightning-fast reflexes and raw intuition, and then with his determination to hit kageyama’s toss no matter what. in fact, the first time that kageyama’s eyes light up in the manga is, you guessed it, when he and hinata first pull off a successful “freak quick”: 

during the post-timeskip chapters we’re introduced to kageyama’s backstory in much greater detail: the way in which his grandfather fostered his passion for volleyball and the timing with which his grandfather’s illness and later death left kageyama increasingly alienated, thus further enforcing his individualist mentality. but what the chapter also gave us was an explicit confirmation of a theme that had been built up from the very beginning of the story, when kageyama’s grandfather tells him: 

“when you get really strong, i promise someone stronger will rise to meet you”

i’ve seen translations of the line that use both “meet” and “challenge”, and personally i’d have to say that i prefer “challenge” for what it implies-- even before hinata got strong enough to actually meet kageyama halfway he challenged him to move away from his pre-established mindset of doing everything himself, and into one where he actually comes to enjoy-- and like-- volleyball. 

3. hirugami: “maybe you’ve just had your fill”

hirugami’s case is kind of a strange one-- unlike oikawa and kageyama he’s not a major character, and his relationship with volleyball only gets a single backstory chapter as opposed to a series-long arc. but i personally ADORE his mini-arc for the things it has to say about burnout, passion and moving on. 

hirugami is introduced as the youngest member of a volleyball family-- his parents, older brother and older sister all play the sport. when explaining how he began to play himself, hirugami says: 

“... naturally, i started to play too. because i was good at it, and it was fun.” 

imo there are a lot of really interesting things to pick apart with this phrasing: the “naturally” implies a foregone conclusion but also a degree of passivity, like he himself recognises that he was swept up in his family’s influence. the “it was fun” coming AFTER “because i was good for it” also implies a degree of correlation, as though if he didn’t have the aptitude, he wouldn’t enjoy the game (a mindset markedly different to both oikawa and kageyama). as hirugami gets older, this correlation of being good ----> having fun ----> being able to play begins to reverse, and therefore manifest in increasingly self destructive ways: 

the main impetus for hirugami has now become not wanting to lose, which therefore requires a degree of heightened practise and self discipline in order to achieve. notably, having fun has been reduced to an afterthought, a state that might be achieved if he wins. 

the correlation of “winning” and “being good” is a slipperly slope to go down, though, something that becomes especially apparent after hirugami’s team lose a game. the frustration of being unable to reach his goal of winning manifests itself as not being “good enough”-- acting on this, hirugami seeks to punish himself for “messing up”: 

the close up panel of hirugami’s “confession” after hoshiumi confronts him hits particularly hard because it taps into a feeling that i’m sure almost all of us have felt at one point or another-- the realisation that something you once both loved AND liked is now only bringing you misery: 

ironically, it’s actually this acknowledgement of “not really liking volleyball that much” that acts as a catalyst for hirugami’s recovery from burnout. hoshiumi’s acknowledgement of, and reply to, hirugami’s state is seemingly simple but deeply freeing: 

and honestly, why not just quit? there’s nothing tethering hirugami to volleyball, certainly nothing as serious as life or death. personally my favourite part of this panel is hoshiumi’s description of volleyball as food from which hoshiumi has “eaten his fill”-- a lovely metaphor that re-contextualizes what could be seen as “time wasted” into something productive and indeed nourishing. 

when we check up on hirugami post time-skip, we find out that he has indeed quit playing volleyball in favour of going to veterinary school, but he’s seen watching the game between the jackals and adlers on his phone with an eager, fond smile on his face, implying that it was the act of moving away from the table (so to speak) after eating his fill that let him still hold on to a love and passion for the game, even though he is now interacting with it as a spectator instead of a player. and indeed that might just be why i love hirugami’s arc so much-- with it, haikyuu tells us that sometimes passion’s don’t need to be re-ignited in the same way. while oikawa and kageyama rediscover their love for, and liking of, the game through a return to childhood and the arrival of a new partner respectively, hirugami’s journey away from burnout comes from recognizing that he can step away from the volleyball court, and that the love and like will still remain. 

[anncanta]

Horses of Carfax Abbey

Fandom: Dracula (2020)

Characters: Count Dracula, Agatha Van Helsing

Relationship: Dracula/Agatha

Rating: Teen and up audiences

Warnings: None

My thanks to my reader Lanovh94 for making me think about this.

Read on AO3

Or read below

The clock in the living room chimed melodiously at noon.

Closing the glass door that protects the dial, Agatha took a step back and checked the chronometer on the chain she held in her hands.

That's right, she noted with satisfaction.

A large mahogany grandfather clock with an exquisite copper dial was delivered yesterday morning, but only now Agatha has the opportunity to set the correct time on it and check how fine-tuned the delicate internal mechanism is.

This Scottish antique clock by Joseph Taylor was chased by Agatha for probably two months. Maybe a little less. In any case, when, after a long search, she finally bought them at auction, intercepting at the last moment from the owner of a hosiery factory in the West End, the owners of all the antique shops in London (not to mention the sellers) knew her by sight.

Taking another step back, Agatha glanced at her acquisition. It was beautiful.

‘Agatha, return my pocket watch!’ a demanding voice from the hallway made her flinch and turn around sharply. Clicking on the silver cover, she hid the chronometer behind her back.

‘Why did you decide that I have them?’ she asked Dracula who appeared at the door in the most innocent tone possible.

‘By the method of exclusion,’ Dracula went up to her and, hugging Agatha with one hand around her waist, with the other pulled out the desired object from her palm. ‘The housekeeper does not understand anything about it, the coachman considers it a pointless trinket, and the maid is afraid of it.

‘I’m the only one left,’ Agatha admitted, following the watch with her eyes.

Dracula nodded silently.

‘Finally, perfect exactly?’ he asked, hiding the watch in his waistcoat pocket.

Agatha turned in the direction he was pointing.

‘I hope so,’ she drawled thoughtfully. ‘I thought yours was in a hurry,’ she added absently.

‘On the contrary, it is falling behind,’ Dracula laughed, pulling her towards him. ‘This is my peculiarity, I would say – my style.’

Agatha smiled, running her fingers over the velvet fabric of his vest.

It has been a little over a year since both of them set foot on the English coast, and they lived together for about the same time.

After Peter, Olgaren and the captain had left Demeter, which had lost half of the crew and all the passengers, Agatha sat in Dracula's cabin for a long time, until the sun began to sink into the horizon. She could not say what exactly delayed her – the desire to postpone the moment of the explosion, or simply the tiredness that had accumulated over the long days. It must be both.

In any case, she did not reach the hold.

Dracula intercepted her on the way, and before Agatha had time to recover from surprise at the fact that he survived, fear for the lives of people whom she tried to save from him at the cost of her own life, and an incomprehensible relief – all together – she found herself on deck in the midst of a hideous quarrel, screaming curses and crying.

Dracula later told her that he did not remember the last time he was so angry. ‘Suicide, seriously?’ he growled at her, as if, having conceived such a plan, she encroached on his personal self-esteem. ‘Double murder is better,’ Agatha hissed, looking at the flashes of fury in his dark eyes.

Somehow they managed not to sink the ship and get to the shore, after which Dracula, without saying a word, stopped the first cab that came across in the port, shoved Agatha into it, and sat down behind. They spent all the way to the count's London house in silence, and when they were in place, Dracula, having paid the cabman, dragged Agatha into the living room and, sitting in front of him on the sofa, said:

‘I'll be honest and won't hide anything from you. You saw who I am and you know me. I will always be like this, more or less. But I want you to stay with me. If for this I have to feed on... rats,’ without looking, he caught the animal running by (Agatha asked herself how long the house had not cleaned) and, after looking meticulously, let it go; the rat instantly disappeared in one of the dark corners, ‘then I ask you one thing: promise, that over time my menu will improve. I don't care how.’

He came close to her.

‘Promise.’

Agatha remembered that she was so amazed that for a couple of minutes she could only sit, looking at him and blinking silently. She didn't even really know what she finally answered. It probably meant agreement, otherwise, she wouldn't be here now.

A year and three months have passed since that day, and during this time Agatha managed to learn many things, some of which she never wanted to learn, the other, as it seemed to her at first, would haunt her in nightmares until the end of her life, and the third, although not become a discovery, still did not stop surprising her.

The danger posed by the sun and the cross, as it turned out almost immediately, was nothing more than a fiction – another legend about vampires, in which Dracula believed so long ago that he himself did not remember what for and why. It scattered like dust from old ceilings when they, examining the house, climbed into the attic, and the roof that had not been repaired for years collapsed on them. Agatha remembered how, lying on the floor, covered with debris, they looked up at the rays falling through the holes in the ceiling, gently caressing them, and how they whispered at the same time: ‘It should be the same with the cross.’

And so it turned out.

Much more effort was needed in order to solve the problem of vampire hunger. After sequentially going through several options and making sure that the blood of mammals close to humans in their physiology was the most suitable for Dracula, Agatha conducted a series of experiments and, discarding goats, sheep, pigs, and cows, settled on horses.

Dracula added a large stable to the west of the house and ordered ten thoroughbred riding horses from Yorkshire. And since Dracula needed food, although daily, but in small quantities, after a couple of months, in order to save noble animals from the blues and inactivity, Dracula began to put them on the races. As a result, his capital doubled in a short period of time, and after another three months, having looked through the settlement books, he called his attorney and acquired a stud farm in the suburbs of London.

Agatha looked at it all with a mixture of surprise and curiosity. At first, out of habit, it seemed to her that Dracula was having fun, striving, as he once told her, to learn to live among civilized people and study them properly, before tying a napkin and picking up a fork and knife. However, days, weeks and months passed, and nothing changed: Dracula was kind, led an active social life, went to libraries and theaters and rode horseback, in the evenings he went to the laboratory, which he equipped in the house at the request of Agatha, in order to give her a couple of ideas regarding the properties of horse blood and the similarity of its taste and the effect of influencing to him with human one and, in general, did nothing else.

Agatha tried to convince herself that the count lived for four hundred years, waiting for a convenient opportunity to enter the civilized world and that another two months meant nothing to him at all, but every day it became more and more difficult to believe it. And she had less and less desire to do it.

Agatha perfectly remembered the evening when it disappeared completely.

She was sitting in the living room and writing something in her diary – a new experiment with horse blood was in full swing, there was a lot of data and a theoretical basis, but the formulas did not agree. Deciding to take a short break, she put aside her notes and began to clean the dull nib. Agatha did not know what was the reason – whether the knife was not sharp enough, or the hand lost its dexterity from fatigue, but even before she could understand what exactly was happening, the blade proportioned the skin of her right hand and got stuck at the base of her fingers.

Agatha spent a moment looking at the scarlet streak of blood that stood out in her palm before a long shadow covered the chair in which she was sitting.

Looking up, she saw Dracula standing in front of her.

For a second, nothing happened. As if spellbound, they watched the blood dripping from her hand. Agatha wiggled her fingers to test. Finally reaching consciousness, a raw pain swirled in her hand.

Without looking, pulling up the second chair standing to the side, Dracula sank into it and, taking Agatha with one hand by the forearm, pulled out a knife. Then he took out a handkerchief and, wiping off the fresh drops that had come through, tore a flap from the sleeve of her shirt, and quickly bandaged her palm.

He did all this in silence, without looking at Agatha, and only when finished he raised his head and leaned back. His pupils were bloodshot, but he himself was absolutely imperturbable. Letting go of Agatha's hand, he went to the fireplace and threw the dirty cloth into the fire. The fabric hissed, cringing in the flames.

‘Tomorrow, samples of the second negative will come,’ said Dracula, glancing into the opened diary of Agatha, thrown on the sofa, ‘you can check the calculations,’ and, turning around, left the room.

Agatha sat for several minutes, listening to his steps, and then got up, climbed the stairs, went to the door of his bedroom and knocked. And he opened.

… ‘There will be guests in the evening,’ said Dracula, distracting Agatha from her memories. ‘Two stud breeders from Australia and a professor from Cambridge.’

Agatha raised an eyebrow questioningly.

‘He has ideas on how to improve the breed,’ Dracula shrugged. ‘He is unsociable and usually does not go anywhere. I promised him dinner in a pleasant company and access to a reprinted version of On the Origin of Species. I had to somehow lure him. We met several times in Cambridge, but apparently too briefly. I invited him to participate in the experiment, even offered a small stake, but he refused. I hope today I will be able to persuade him.’

Agatha sighed. She knew well what it meant to ‘persuade’ in Dracula's language.

Dracula handled business with the same careless ease and a certain mocking touch that were inherent in him when dealing with people in general. Not that he disliked or disdained them: watching him day after day, Agatha came to the conclusion that it was just convenient for him – as if, not being able to eat them, he nibbled them with words and a look, held some time in his teeth and let go.

‘The hunting instinct is not going anywhere,’ Dracula smiled in response to her remarks after another visit to another salon or to a party, on which behind him, like on a battlefield covered with black velvet and silk dresses, there were glades of silent condemnation and bloody spots of flaming cheeks.

What a truly warm relationship he had, was the one with the horses. Which at first puzzled Agatha. ‘You drink their blood,’ she said hesitantly when Dracula asked her what exactly she thought was strange about it. He gave her a long look, and, muttering something like ‘who would speak of it’, took her hand and led her into the stable.

There Agatha witnessed one of the most incredible things in her entire life.

She knew that Dracula can communicate with animals, can control wolves and bats if desired, and is able to establish contact with most mammals.

But it was more than contact, communication, or control. Standing in the stable doorway, Agatha watched as he opened the corral and, clasping the head of Lissa, a young mare that Dracula was one of the first to acquire, stood for a long time, pressing his cheek to the smooth skin, smiling and whispering something before embracing becomes stronger, – and after five minutes he opens his hands and, gratefully patting the horse on the withers, leaves the corral.

Agatha never thought it could be so... beautiful. Then she did not dare to ask, but later could not resist.

‘Do you hypnotize them? Fool? What are you doing?

Dracula smiled as if he was waiting for this question.

‘Horses are stronger and tougher than humans. The portion of blood that will cost you a serious illness or put an adult young man to bed is almost imperceptible for a horse. I had never tried drinking their blood before and therefore did not know how sharply and deeply they react to contact. Amazing animals.’

‘But they can't like it!’

‘They like closeness,’ Dracula said thoughtfully, ‘and they are incredibly generous.’

Yes, and also sincere and discerning. Resistant to Dracula's charm, they seem to have loved him for no reason.

During the time that they lived together, Agatha managed to find out that Dracula had two types of charm. The first is the very vampire charm that was written about in books and legends warned about. It was powerful, bright, and beating on the spot. It reminded Agatha of the scent of flowers that appeared in early spring in Holland – hyacinths. Thick, heavy, enveloping odor. Among the peasants, there were stories that if you fall asleep in a tightly closed room, in which there is a bouquet of hyacinths, you may not wake up.

Dracula used his vampire charm mostly for entertainment, or when he wanted to quickly get what he needed. He lavished it generously at balls and appointments, signing contracts with business partners, on walks and social events such as theater premieres and horse races, while sparing no one.

Once they were at the performance of the famous opera diva who came to London on tour, either from France or from Germany, – Agatha did not remember, – and after the performance, Dracula invited Agatha to go into the diva`s dressing room, – ‘to express our admiration for the singer,’ as he said... Agatha agreed, not suspecting a catch. The performance was really beautiful, the diva sang magically, and there was nothing surprising in the desire to personally pay tribute to her talent.

So they did, and everything went well until Dracula – the very kindness and the embodiment of secular courtesy – asked the diva if she would be an encore. Diva replied that, alas, she would not, as she was tired and would like to go home as soon as possible.

And then it turned on. Vampire charm. In vain the unfortunate singer babbled something about how exhausted after the performance she was, – when dark eyes flashed and a soft smile lit up the cramped dressing room, the diva's fate was decided. Hearing the words spoken in an intimate tone about how much his companion loves opera and how happy she will be to hear such a delightful performance again, the singer turned around and silently wandered onto the stage.

Agatha did not speak to Dracula after that for three days. She hated violence in any form.

But there was also another charm, the one that Agatha remembered from Demeter, the same, probably, that made her believe in a cozy living room and soft conversation at chess – more than vampire illusions and drug intoxication.

Agatha called it ‘a charm for his own’, and if she quickly learned to resist the charm of a vampire, and soon completely lost the interest, then she was powerless against this one.

Dracula looked at ‘his’ people with a gentle warm look and smiled with a cheerful, almost boyish smile. It was physically impossible to deny him anything when he was like that, which he shamelessly used during quarrels.

He did not ask, did not demand, and did not scandal. Did not push and did not try to confuse. He just smiled and said: ‘As you say, dragostea*.’

‘Better vampire charm,’ Agatha moaned and vowed to buy a bell so that she could inform him in advance and without words that he had crossed the line.

...Agatha pulled away from Dracula and, smiling, went to the sofa.

‘The poor professor deserves a second chance,’ she said, leaning back.

‘I gave him everything possible,’ Dracula answered, ‘he missed them.’

‘So maybe we should just leave him alone?’

‘No, I need him.’

Agatha waved her hand. It was useless to argue. All she could do for the Cambridge pundit was to arrange for a good dinner and a relaxed, friendly atmosphere at this very dinner. All the rest was, alas, beyond her power.

The clock struck a quarter to one. Agatha thought idly that she should go to the kitchen and discuss the menu with the housekeeper. And let her cook the steaks with blood, she decided vengefully.

***

Professor Theodore Clifferson was a great scientist and no less an idiot. A combination that Agatha did not believe existed until today. But after spending three hours at the table with the aforementioned professor, she had to admit that sometimes intelligence and learning are depressingly different things.

When the door finally closed behind the venerable merchants and the Cambridge celebrity, and it became possible to remove the kind smile from her face and give vent to the irritation that had pursued her all evening, Agatha wandered into the living room and, groaning with relief, fell on the sofa.

‘Why didn't you warn me?’ she asked Dracula, who came in after her.

‘About what?’ he sank down beside her and pulled her to him.

‘How can you know so much and be such a cretin?’ Agatha continued without listening to him.

‘A common story,’ Dracula chuckled. ‘You look from the point of view of someone who, for the sake of knowledge, was forced to fight the circumstances and mine them like gold,’ he said. ‘And your inquiring mind cannot imagine someone who, from his youth, having access to the fruits of progress, does not realize their value. And worse – to whom they are not useful.’

Agatha covered her face with her hands and shook her head.

‘I want to forget this.’

Dracula buried his fingers in her hair and sat for several minutes, fingering the thick strands.

‘Forget this or what he said at the end?’ he asked quietly.

Agatha, leaning back in his arms, straightened.

‘What did he…’

‘Agatha.’

She knew that look too well. Freeing herself from his embrace, she sat up straight, as if in a theology lesson. Come on, she never visited them. Although it might have been worth it. At least, she would have learned – if not to quote freely from the holy book, than to look calm and confident, when she had not a penny neither the first nor the second.

Damn Clifferson.

‘Dracula, you shouldn't, really…’ Agatha began.

He sighed.

‘I thought so. Should I say it myself, or, as before, do you perfectly understand where you are?’

Agatha shivered at the reminder. But he was right – the situations in which it sounded were too similar. And something had to be done about it.

She tried to smile.

‘Of course, I know. But that hasn't... Look, he's just a stupid boy. Saw something and said tactlessness.’

Well, if you could call it that. Agatha briefly thought that the dinner was already as unpleasant as it could, so that...

‘Clifferson said that you and I are lucky,’ Dracula said slowly, ‘since our age is not too different. And that means,’ he added in the deep silence, ‘we are not threatened to live the rest of our lives in separation, without another who has left this mortal world.’

Well, Agatha thought. Well, he said it. It will no longer be possible to pretend that what the unlucky professor blurted out does not exist or none of them heard him.

Turning away from Dracula, she began to look at the copper dial of the clock, which she was winding in the morning.

Time. Over the past year, she and Dracula were absorbed in settling in the new world, taking care of the house, experimenting, in the end, each other, so much that they forgot about time.

Anyway, she forgot. She hadn't thought about it at all. Looking at Dracula again, Agatha suddenly realized that she would not believe for anything, that he hadn`t.

‘I'm forty-two,’ she said quietly. ‘And if I'm lucky, I'll live long enough to bore you terribly.’

He was silent.

‘And even when I... When you live with people, time does not drag on as long as when you spend it alone,’ Agatha felt how with every step the ground beneath her becomes less reliable. ‘When it is filled with events... and meetings…’

Dracula still didn't say a word.

‘In fifty years, I will be…’ she made another attempt, in an almost inaudible voice, knowing perfectly well that it made no sense.

In fifty years, a decrepit old woman will be with him, but he will remain as young, no older than the same forty-five or fifty.

Pulling herself together, she finally looked into his eyes.

‘Sorry,’ she said in response to the silent gaze that met her, and, quickly getting up from her seat, left.

When Dracula went up after her into the bedroom, he pretended to believe her awkward attempts to pretend to be asleep, and Agatha spent the time until dawn, staring into the darkness, trying to figure out how to be and what to do next.

‘How could I forget that you are a vampire?’ having entered the next morning without knocking into the parlor and resting her palms on the table at which Dracula was sitting, she asked.

Dracula looked up from the settlement book, in which he was writing something.

‘Yes, that's my omission,’ he said, leaning back in his chair.

Agatha looked at him for a minute, then turned on her heels and left the parlor.

They did not see each other for the next two days. Early on Saturday morning, Dracula went out of town to choose a place for a new stud farm, warning her through the housekeeper that he would not return earlier than Monday evening, and Agatha, not knowing whether to enjoy the unexpected respite, or be angry with him, considered it best switch to something else, and completely immersed in experiments.

‘Why is your face black?’ were the first words that returned Dracula greeted her with. He stood at the door of the laboratory and surveyed the surroundings with curiosity. To tell the truth, a lot has changed here since he visited it three days ago: then there were many more whole flasks and jars and less broken glass on the floor.

‘When heated to the boiling point, horse blood explodes,’ Agatha said calmly and carefully placed the test tube she was holding in a tripod.

Dracula nodded and, looking out the door, took out a scoop and a broom and began sweeping soot, stone dust, and debris that covered the floor in the middle of the room.

Armed with a rag and a jug of water, Agatha joined him in cleaning the table and chairs from the burning.

‘I'm not angry about your silence,’ she said after about half an hour, distracted from polishing the gas burner. ‘I understand that the problem is not that this question has no answer.’

Dracula looked up. They both knew very well that the problem was that the answer was too obvious.

‘You know it can't be my decision,’ he said.

‘I know,’ Agatha nodded. ‘Give me time,’ she added after a short pause and began scrubbing the alembic.

***

‘Sir, I swear I would never…’

‘Remove your pockets.’

Agatha glanced into the living room.

Dracula stood by the fireplace with his back to her, in front of him was a terrified coachman, drawn to the line.

‘It's a mistake, sir. I beg you…’

‘It was a mistake to keep the silver cigarette case in the dresser. However, so was hiring you,’ Dracula's voice was cold and indifferent. ‘By returning it voluntarily, you will save time for all of us.’

‘I…’

Dracula tilted his head.

‘It's in your right pocket. Next to old tissue paper, dirty silk ribbon, and flakes of tobacco.’

The coachman hiccupped and recoiled.

‘How…’

Dracula held out his hand.

‘It rustles deafeningly,’ he said, taking the cigarette case from the coachman's shaking hand. ‘If you are attracted by the career of a pickpocket, then first learn not to stomp like an elephant when you take someone else's, and not to rattle with loot. You will come in the evening for the calculation,’ he finished, gesturing to let go of the unfortunate man.

Dropping his shoulders, the coachman nodded and went to the door.

‘Vampire hearing,’ Agatha said, letting the unlucky thief pass and entering the room. ‘Strongly interferes with maintaining faith in people.’

‘Those who had the one,’ Dracula smiled. He put the cigarette case on the mantelpiece and turned to Agatha. ‘Looking for the benefits of being a vampire?’ he asked innocently.

‘I'm conducting surveillance,’ Agatha said.

She went to the fireplace and looked at the cigarette case.

‘You knew he stole it because you heard it rub against the lining of his pocket.’

Dracula rubbed the bridge of his nose.

‘He dragged around with it for a week. He had been looking for someone to sell it for so long that I could hardly resist not offering myself as a buyer, just to get rid of this annoying sound.’

Agatha walked around one of the armchairs by the fireplace and stood in front of Dracula.

‘Have you been waiting for his nerves to break down and he confesses, or for the right occasion when you can show me once again the benefits of being a vampire?’

‘How can you,’ Dracula was sincerely offended.

Agatha grinned and sank into a chair.

‘Okay, what else?’ Decently folded her hands on her knees, she asked.

Dracula shrugged.

‘You know all this. After all, you've been watching me for a year. I'm sure you wrote it down and sorted it into categories in those notebooks of yours.’ He nodded at Agatha’s diary on the table. ‘It is unlikely that I can add something else.’

‘Okay, then let's go over the main points,’ Agatha nodded, without changing her pose.

Dracula smiled.

‘You are strong and enduring, you have an increased ability to heal wounds, you can stay awake for weeks and understand some animals.’ She paused. ‘You can control some of them. You can climb walls and send fog.’ Noticing his approving nod, Agatha continued: ‘Let's add to this the ability to keenly smell and hypersensitive hearing…’

‘...tirelessness in bed...’

‘Um, did you notice that I fall asleep in the middle?..’ Agatha got up and walked over to him.

Dracula smiled again.

‘I'm working on it,’ he said, hugging her.

Agatha was silent for a moment and turned away.

‘Is it normal? I mean, how... how right is that?’ absentmindedly running her hand over his shoulder, she said.

‘What exactly?’ Dracula asked.

Agatha frowned and rubbed her forehead thoughtfully.

‘The world works the way it works, for a reason,’ she said slowly. ‘All living beings die, replacing each other. How natural is it to be immortal?’

She lifted her head and looked at Dracula.

‘Vampires are mortal,’ he said. ‘Agatha, the time when I offered you eternal life is over,’ he added after a short pause. ‘But it’s obvious that I would rather live long before I’m ready to face death. I do not know how much this is against nature, but I still have not heard of heavenly thunder punishing parrots, sequoias, and turtles.’

‘Oh my God,’ Agatha laughed. ‘Of the above, I know only sequoias. And then according to the pictures.’

‘And the parrots?’

‘Are they centenarians?’

Dracula shook his head.

‘The oldest ones are four hundred years old. Turtles can live twice as long. Ask Clifferson about sequoias, but as far as I remember, their exact age cannot be determined.’

Agatha grimaced, demonstrating her attitude to the need to learn something from Clifferson.

‘I will not become immortal,’ she said, summing up, ‘but I will lose the ability to eat human food, sleep at night, and breathe.’

‘A matter of habit,’ Dracula shrugged.

‘But I will learn to understand bats.’

‘What scope for your work on small rodents and nocturnal insects!’

Agatha sighed.

‘Are you kidding?’

‘Yes, I am.’

She nodded.

Everything is the same as before.

‘Decide yourself.’

***

‘Please, try to be more restrained in the future,’ Agatha said with a sad smile, holding out an envelope to the boy standing in front of her. The young man nodded, drooping guiltily, cautiously, as if afraid that his touch would burn her, took the envelope from her hands, and, saying goodbye, left the room.

For a minute Agatha looked at the door that closed behind him, and then she also left the parlor and went into the living room.

She managed to persuade Dracula to give the coachman decent recommendations, and a couple of weeks after the unpleasant incident, Agatha found a good place for the guy. Dracula watched all this with restrained skepticism, but remained silent and did not interfere. Agatha suspected that he had threatened the poor coachman with some terrible punishment – the boy was in too much haste to leave their house. But in the end, even she was forced to admit that he got off easy.

In the living room, on the sofa with a book, sat Dracula. When she appeared, he moved, making a place next to him.

Approaching, Agatha climbed onto the sofa with her legs and leaned back, resting her head on his lap. Several minutes passed in silence, broken only by the measured ticking of the grandfather clock.

‘Will it be like with Harker?’ Agatha asked. ‘Will you break my neck and sit down to wait for me to wake up?’

‘God, Agatha, no, of course,’ Dracula put down the book. He looked shocked. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘The first thing that comes to mind. I mean,’ she said, looking sideways at him, ‘the most obvious and simplest.’

‘Didn't you say that you would beat the barbarism out of me?’

She looked up at him.

‘Is that when you burned a five hundred pound electric kettle? I was on edge.’

‘I noticed.’

He brushed a lock of hair from her face.

‘How could you think that I…’

Agatha shrugged.

‘It must somehow... I mean, if in order to turn a person you need…’

‘No damage. This is out of the question,’ Dracula said in an unchallengeable tone.

Agatha looked at him thoughtfully.

‘There are other ways,’ she said, scratching her nose. ‘Strangulation, various poisons. Drowning…’

Dracula bent down and, choking with laughter, buried in her shoulder.

‘Agatha,’ he moaned, ‘your imagination is really scary.’

‘I'm trying to solve the problem,’ Agatha said. ‘That's what the smart do,’ she teased.

‘The smart ones like to complicate things,’ said Dracula, straightening up and looking at her. ‘The most obvious is not always the simplest. Why, of all imaginable and inconceivable ways, did not the most humane one come to your mind?’ He rolled his eyes at her puzzled gaze. ‘Which one of us is the prince of darkness and the lord of shadows?’

‘No one encroaches on your laurels,’ Agatha grinned. ‘Wait. You want to say…’

Dracula bent down again and brushed his lips lightly over hers.

‘My love, you forgot that a vampire's kiss can be very long.’

***

The fabric was red and the earth was red. Heavy woolen floors flowed like a scarlet stream over the horse's white rump, crumpled from above, and ended in a silver fox collar. The rider's long hair was messed and matted with blood, and crimson dawn caked in his wide-open eyes.

Bending down and grabbing the horse by the neck, the rider rushed forward, as if not making out the road, through the black and red forest, in a straight line, to the ancient castle, frozen on the rock.

Bursting into the courtyard, the rider stood up sharply, pulled on the reins. Dismounting, he threw them to the frightened horseman who ran up, unfastened an oblong large sack from the saddle. He walked with a quick step through the gate, dragging his load along the ground. In the great hall, he stopped and threw the sack on the floor in front of him. He raised his head and brushed the dirty, wet strands from his forehead.

‘I said he would be here before sunrise,’ he turned to someone sitting in a dark corner.

‘Is it really him?’ asked from the darkness.

Pulling a knife from his belt, the rider bent down to the sack and cut the thick cloth, soaked and hardened in the frost.

A pale human face appeared in the narrow gap.

‘I said I’ll deliver him,’ the rider said again, put the knife back in his belt and left, not looking neither at the one he was talking to nor at the dead man lying on the floor.

...

Two thick long candles were barely enough to light the middle of the room. Hands were aching from the cold, and he felt as if Transylvanian soil was poured into his eyes. The younger heir to the old Count Dracul raised up, turned several times, on one side, on the other, and finally lay on his back, his meaningless gaze resting on the carved canopy above him.

There are no younger heirs. Neither for princes and kings from distant lands, nor for Wallachian rulers. From ancient times the eldest sons inherit the ruler who has died in peace or fallen on the battlefield. But what if both the ruler himself and his firstborn left God's world in one day? From the elder brother, if he has no male descendants, the younger takes power. The one that survived.

The heir moved his head and gritted his teeth. God knows he did not seek this power, he did not want to. In vain the courtiers grinned in disbelief, clinked their tongues, suspecting treason, the squad whispered in vain when they brought them, father and brother, on a narrow sleigh – without a drop of blood on expensive clothes and without a single paint on their faces. In vain the brother's widow sobbed loudly, rushing in the yard like a thin hungry bird, in vain screaming and howling – you did not keep him safe, you did not rescue him. In vain she threatened to curse.

He did not wish death to either his father or his brother. Never wanted to become a ruler. Perhaps that is why he was not touched by the piercing words of the courtiers, or the cries of his daughter-in-law, or the sidelong glances of the squad. Standing motionless next to the sleigh, he silently looked at the gathered soldiers and household, did not say anything, only wrapped himself in a warm cloak. And only when the wrong old steps were tapping on the stone slabs of the yard, did he turn around.

Old Count Dracul, a patriarch of eighty-seven years of age, dressed in a light marching cape over a simple linen shirt, slowly walked over to the sleigh and sat down beside it. With long fingers, white and hard as a January crust, he stroked the dead faces. Raised his head to the gray sky. Said, addressing the younger:

‘Bring me the murderer.’

The younger nodded.

He did it all, he did it, – the young Count Dracula got up and ran his hand over his face damp with sweat. It took five hours to search, three of which the heir spent on horseback, racing to the border, hurrying to catch up the defector who had surrendered the lord and his son to Turkish spies, and who was about to join the foreign troops. Almost drove father's stallion. Intercepted, managed.

The light from the candle flickered, swept as if alarmed by a sharp gust of wind. Dracula looked around and lay back on the pillows. What a strange night. It feels like there is something, moving in the corner... As if sitting in silence and looking, waiting for the moment when...

‘What's wrong, young heir, not sleeping? Do ya not satisfied with the blood of the enemy?’ a voice, deaf and raspy, rang out very close to him.

Dracula jumped up and backed away.

‘What scared you, noble master? Why don't you meet a guest?’ squeaked mockingly from the shadows. ‘Or are you afraid to look?’

Dracula turned in the direction from which the voice was heard.

A thin, tall man with an unhealthy blush on his sunken cheeks emerged from the thick darkness that began two spans from the bed.

‘Why are you silent, master?’ he asked Dracula, who stared at him in horror. ‘Why don’t you offer a glass, why don’t you invite me to the table?’

Without waiting for an answer, the man stepped forward and stopped at the very edge of the bed.

‘It can't be. I killed you,’ said Dracula.

‘That's right, you did,’ the man bared his teeth and opened the tattered, worn-out sheepskin coat he was wearing. A scarlet slit crossed the shirt underneath from throat to groin. The man lowered his head and, touching the cut, plunged a knotted finger into it. ‘It hurts,’ with a barely audible smack, removing his finger from the wound, he said thoughtfully, ‘it hurts, but you can live.’

Dracula felt sick.

‘How did you manage...’ He straightened up in bed and reached for his belt for a knife.

‘Take your time,’ the man rushed forward, grabbing Dracula's raised hand. His fingers were inhumanly strong and cold as ice. ‘We`ll have all night.’

‘What are you?’ Dracula, recoiling, whispered with his lips, already knowing the answer.

‘I am Grigor Vostritsa, Grigor-The-Traitor, Grigor, whom your gullible dad warmed on his chest, and the crazy grandpa ordered to catch and feed the mad dogs,’ the man replied, grinning. ‘Grigor, who missed the spoil, and came for it. And what a feast it will be...’

Long, sharp teeth gleamed in the candlelight.

Dracula screamed.

...

‘Dracula! Wake up! Dracula! Come on, wake up, it's just a dream!’

Agatha struggled to shake Dracula, who was rushing about in unconsciousness. Not needing to sleep in the usual sense of the word, at night he plunged into a semblance of numbness, which helped him not so much to restore physical strength as to give rest to his mind. This state was in every way similar to a human dream, with the exception that it was more difficult to end it.

Agatha moved closer to Dracula. He looked even paler than usual, shivering and whispering something in Romanian.

Sitting on the bed, Agatha took a deep breath. The sounds made by Dracula were not loud enough to wake her up. But after what happened on Demeter, already here, in London, Agatha sometimes began to sink into his dreams.

Most often they were just scraps of images and vague impressions – reminiscent of flat shadows on a gray stone wall. They were short and blurry, and after them, in the morning Agatha got up with a headache, a feeling of loneliness, and dull melancholy.

Today, for the first time, the dream was so real and clear.

‘Dracula! Wake up, Dracula!’ Agatha tried again.

Dracula groaned and reached for her without opening his eyes.

Agatha bent down and ran a hand over his sweaty chest. Gently stroked, sliding from shoulder to stomach and back, lingering to the left, where the heart was silent, softly touched his cheek. As if alarmed even more by this short caress, Dracula got up and sat up in bed.

For a while, he simply sat without moving, in the light of the moon falling from the window.

Agatha was silent, not daring to turn to him again.

Dracula winced and took a deep breath, and then suddenly opened his eyes and looked at her.

There was such pain in his eyes that it stabbed inside her.

Without a word, she stirred and, sitting down on his lap, hugged him tightly.

‘Everything is fine, everything will pass,’ she whispered, ‘everything will pass, it's just a dream. This is a dream. This is a dream, you killed him,’ she said, kissing his hot forehead and cheeks, ‘you won, he's gone.’

She was saying something else, snuggling up to him and feeling how the nightgown was getting wet from the heat, putting herself under the hands and lips that were taking possession of her – for the first time so strongly, furiously – and so unexpectedly good.

When the splash of pleasure dies down and she opens her eyes, the moon seems higher – the light floods the room, leaving no corner untouched. Agatha looks at Dracula, who is holding her with both hands, and just sits for a couple of seconds, admiring his tired, peaceful face.

The rest is seen as natural as spontaneous. Slightly pulling back, Agatha pushes aside the collar of her shirt, throwing her hair back and exposing her shoulder.

‘Come on. I'm not afraid,’ she says, moving closer to him again and screwing up.

For several long minutes, nothing happens at all.

Opening her eyes, Agatha stares blankly at Dracula. He sits motionless and looks at her, smiling openly and tenderly.

‘No, Agatha,’ he says. ‘Not today. Not this way.’

***

‘You're avoiding me?’

Agatha met Dracula at the entrance to the living room and stopped, blocking his path.

‘Where did you get it?’

‘Oh, I don’t know. Maybe it's all because we haven't seen each other since last week.’ Agatha shrugged.

‘I have a lot to do,’ Dracula tried to walk past her into the room, but Agatha did not budge.

‘You leave home in the morning when I’m still asleep, and you come back after midnight,’ she said. ‘If you come at all. On Tuesday and Wednesday, you were not here, although the carriage did not leave the gate and all the horses remained in the stable.’

Dracula took a deep breath.

‘If I wanted to lead a secret life, I should have chosen someone not so observant,’ he said with a short smile.

‘At least,’ stepping aside, Agatha nevertheless cleared the passage.

After following Dracula into the living room and sitting next to him on the sofa, she was silent for a while.

‘I don’t believe it’s because of what happened that night,’ she said quietly at last. Lowering her eyes, she absentmindedly smoothed the folds of the dress. ‘You and I knew worse times, and I saw you in a much more unsightly light. If now...’

‘Agatha.’ She raised her eyes and met his gaze. ‘You know that's not true,’ he said.

‘I know,’ she sighed. ‘And I also know that you never lied to me or hid anything from me. Even on the Demeter.’ She waved off when she saw the protesting expression on his face. ‘You didn’t deceive me – all I needed to know about what was happening was in front of my eyes. I just didn't get it right away. Which, of course, doesn't make your behavior acceptable,’ she said immediately. And added: ‘You drank my blood and made me a favorite dessert, but you did not lie to me.’

Dracula was silent.

‘You were honest, although you fed on me, and took me to the ship against my will,’ Agatha continued. ‘That is why your behavior seems all the more strange to me... now when I said ‘yes’.’

Still silently, Dracula leaned back on the sofa. His lips were tightly compressed, and his eyebrows were furrowed, as if for a long time he had been trying to solve a problem that turned out to be too difficult, and could not bring himself to stop thinking about it.

Agatha regarded him thoughtfully.

‘Maybe…’ she began slowly, ‘maybe this is the whole point? That I agreed?’

Dracula turned his head and looked at her amazedly.

‘Count Dracula, the Wallachian ruler,’ said Agatha, ‘cannot choose the daughter of a merchant from a distant province as a life partner. Which has neither a title, nor a suitable name, nor a sufficiently well-born family.’ She looked straight at Dracula. ‘The laws of blood are harsh and unbreakable.’

‘Agatha,’ it was clear from his look that her suggestion took him by surprise, ‘Agatha, I have been living with you for over a year.’

‘It's one thing to live together, sharing leisure and bed, and even going out by the arm, and quite another,’ she smiled, ‘to enter into a relationship under the hand of the clan and under the coat of arms of the dragon. You could reject me when I become a vampire,’ Agatha said, not allowing him to object, ‘reject, as soon as I would bore you – but it was not accidentally that you called those you turned brides. Obligated to you with a new life – no matter how terrible and gloomy it might be – they have become part of your family. As I would. And even you wouldn't be able to change that. Wherever I went and wherever I lived my indefinitely long centuries, I would forever remain Dracula's companion, recognized and accepted by him.’

The silence that followed her words was long, but contrary to her expectations, it did not seem depressing. For a couple of minutes, Dracula just sat, still frowning and unconsciously rubbing the ring on his ring finger.

‘Four hundred years ago I was baptized in Orthodoxy,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘What?’ Agatha did not understand. She leaned back slightly and eyed him suspiciously.

‘I presume, you are a Catholic,’ Dracula continued, as if he hadn’t heard her. ‘It is unlikely that we will be married under this condition, so, apparently, I will have to convert to Catholicism.’

Agatha looked at him in amazement.

‘Why not me – to Orthodoxy?’ she asked blankly.

‘Because considering what you just told me, it would be offensive to me.’

They looked at each other for several seconds until Agatha turned away, covering her face with her hands.

‘Am I making up nonsense?’ muttered, feeling him hug her.

‘You're too smart,’ Dracula smiled, kissing the top of her head. ‘I should have taken this into account when I suggested to you... I should have talked about it with you right away. Everything you said’ he pulled away and looked at her ‘is absolutely reasonable and absolutely real. Except that has nothing to do with you and me.’ He brushed the hair from her cheek and added: ‘I have not been a Wallachian ruler for a long time, Agatha. Not in the sense in which you described it. And even if I were still a sovereign medieval seigneur, I would be free to choose a wife to my liking. I would have offered you my hand and heart a year ago,’ he said when he saw Agatha trying to protest, ‘if I thought it meant anything to you.’

Agatha averted her eyes.

‘I thought... I thought after I agreed...’

‘I suddenly realized with all clarity how you would humiliate my good name,’ Dracula laughed. ‘This is perhaps the best thing that I have heard about myself in four hundred years.’

‘But still...’ Agatha did not stop.

‘You were right,’ Dracula interrupted. ‘That night I realized for the first time that it was serious. And I wondered if I really want this for you?’

‘You told me...’

‘Agatha,’ he said, burying his fingers in her hair, ‘it's a long life, Agatha. A life in which values, people, traditions, and customs change. The future and the present, as before, become the past. Only now you don't go with them. Others leave – relatives and acquaintances, faithful servants, and old friends. Not all of them you can take with you. And sometimes you just have to look after them. It hurts, Agatha.’

He fell silent again. Raising her hand, Agatha ran her fingers over his cheek. ‘You will be with me,’ she wanted to tell, but she held back. They both knew perfectly well what a world closed for two could turn into over the years.

Unexpectedly to herself, she laughed.

‘Changing faith can be easier than coming to terms with yourself,’ she said in response to his questioning look. ‘But if trees and birds can,’ Agatha added, remembering their conversation with Dracula about longevity, ‘then I can too.’

He looked at her uneasily and incredulously, and it was like their first evening in this house.

‘And you know what else?’ Agatha said. She hesitated. ‘I want to ask you: do not create any illusions by doing this. I want to know what's going on. I go for it with open eyes, and I want it to apply to everything.’

Dracula smiled and covered her fingers over his face.

‘As you wish,’ he replied.

***

November 15, 1898, Times

‘We are pleased to announce that on November 15 of this year in London, at Carfax Abbey, the wedding of Count Vlad Dracula and Miss Agatha Van Helsing took place.’

Agatha put the newspaper down on the dressing table and cast a thoughtful look at the ring on her hand. A thin strip of gold glittering in the twilight of the room seemed like a spark on the surface of the calm sea. Agatha chuckled shortly. A sea that she never intended to enter. It was not only about her past as a nun – her stay in the convent was short and rather forced than chosen at the call of her heart. Marriage as it was just never seemed attractive to her – or useful from any side.

She was distracted from the contemplation of the wedding ring and, straightening, began to remove the hairpins from her hair. Agatha hated complicated hairstyles, but for a sophisticated lady, especially in her current status, a wedding hairstyle was a must. Agatha sighed. It was already good that they managed to avoid a magnificent celebration, limiting themselves to a modest wedding in a local chapel.

The door to the room creaked softly as it opened and closed again.

Freed from bobby pins and hairpins, the hair fell to the shoulders in a heavy wave. Agatha looked in the mirror.

‘I look like a witch from old fairy tales,’ she said, turning in her chair, lifting her head and looking at Dracula standing in front of her. ‘Who appeared without an invitation to the royal palace.’

Dracula smiled.

‘Witches usually have a much more interesting past than the daughters of foresters and crown princesses.’

‘Maybe,’ Agatha agreed. ‘Did you let the servants go?’ she asked, getting up.

‘Gave them leave until next Wednesday.’

‘So long?’ Agatha, approached the bed and began to unfasten the hooks on the dress, anxiously turned around.

‘I think it will take less time,’ Dracula came over and freed a lock of red hair stuck in one of the fasteners. ‘Still, it’ll be better if you and I will be alone in the next week and we don’t have to look back at the door.’

Agatha nodded. Her fingers returned to the hooks and laces. Having straightened with them, she shrugged her shoulders, and the dress slid to her feet.

She did not see Dracula, but she knew for sure that he was watching her. Stepping over the dress, she straightened the lace shirt on her chest and, walking slowly to the bed, climbed onto it.

Slightly closing her eyes, she watches as Dracula locks the bedroom door, extinguishes the lamps one by one, leaving only the candle at the head of the bed to burn, and, going up to the bed, reaches for a silk scarf tied with an elegant knot around his neck.

Once next to her, he sits down behind and, holding Agatha to him, runs his palms over her hands. His fingers stop at the shoulders, freeze as if in thought, grasp the shock of hair that has been scattered down her back, and lift it up.

A slow, long kiss on the back of her head makes her arch and bite her lip. For a few seconds, Dracula does not move, and then he kisses her again and sinks lower, his hands slide forward, to the buttons of the shirt, lower the thin fabric from her shoulders.

Closing her eyes, Agatha completely surrenders to her feelings. From fleeting touches, the body burns and melts, filling from the inside with a silent ringing, opening and dissolving, almost disappearing, until it gathers again at one point to the left, where the neck passes into the shoulder.

...Soft darkness surrounded her from all sides. There was absolutely nothing frightening about it: Agatha stirred and tried to turn her head rather out of curiosity.

‘Don't resist,’ Dracula's voice rang through her head. And a second later – a chuckle. ‘You'll like it.’

***

The awakening was... sharp. And in a completely literal sense. Smells, sounds, colors were sharp. From the world hanging over Agatha, details seemed to appear and emerge at once.

Dust particles on the dark red velvet curtain of the bed. A scent of fresh varnish rising from a parquet floor painted three weeks ago. Spiky sheets that scratch the body with the skin of an ancient beast. Electric discharges from the back of the head and lost in the thick of long hair.

Agatha closed her eyes. The raging sea of spots of color disappeared and was replaced by a thin squeak.

‘When will the convulsions begin?’ Agatha asked into space without opening her eyes. Her own voice sounded low and hoarse, heavy in her ears.

‘So you want to try?’

Agatha opened her eyes. Dracula's pale face bent over her. A mosquito hovered carefree beside his right cheek.

‘Not that I wanted,’ Agatha said slowly, shifting her gaze from the mosquito to Dracula. ‘I just thought it was part of the process.’

‘Apparently, not always,’ Dracula held out his hand and helped her to rise and sit, leaning on the pillows. ‘How are you feeling?’

‘Loud,’ Agatha muttered, wincing.

‘It's okay,’ Dracula leaned away and reached out to the side. ‘You are hungry?’ asked. Agatha lowered her eyes to the crystal glass that appeared in his hand. The dark scarlet liquid in it looked unusually tempting.

‘I don’t know,’ Agatha said barely audibly and looked at Dracula in dismay. ‘I can't,’ she blurted out and closed her eyes, once again dazed by the sound of her voice.

‘Agatha, this is not human blood,’ Dracula reminded her gently. ‘And if you're not ready, we can still wait. It's just that the sooner you satisfy your first hunger, the less strong and uncontrollable it will be later.’

Agatha nodded silently.

Swallowing shortly, she stretched out her hand to the glass – and immediately leaned back, groaning exhaustedly.

‘Agatha?’ Dracula asked worriedly.

‘So many... so many things,’ she said, shaking her head and licking her lips.

Dracula put his hand on her forehead. The rough skin of the palm felt like a touch of stiff paper, but it was cool and soothing.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Dracula said quietly. ‘In the beginning, it is always like that.’

Agatha could not resist a skeptical smile.

‘It has advantages,’ Dracula whispered conspiratorially, bending over slightly. ‘And a lot.’

‘I remember,’ Agatha snorted. ‘The ability to hear rats scratching under the floor, to catch negligent coachmen...’ Hot lips, catching her earlobe, silenced her. ‘Give me a little time,’ she said with an effort, ‘maybe I can find more.’

He laughed.

Agatha turned and looked again at the glass on the nightstand.

‘Lissa?’ she asked.

‘No,’ Dracula shook his head.

‘Are you afraid that I will find out your secrets with her?’ Agatha teased him. She climbed higher on the pillows and made herself comfortable. The first shock receded, and the deafening world gradually became just unusually bright and clear.

‘Too much information confuses newbies,’ smiled Dracula. ‘Besides, Lissa is active and willful. Her blood may excite you unnecessarily. This is Richard, a stallion from Angola, who arrived four weeks ago. Gentle and meek like a sleeping child.’

Agatha reached for the glass. She held it in her hand for a moment, staring at the dark liquid inside. Then she raised it to her lips and took a quick sip.

Nothing happened, and the curtain of the bed did not collapse on her head. It felt as if she had taken a sip of old thick wine. The metallic flavor confused her at first, but the further she drank, the more acutely she became aware of her hunger and the satisfaction of being able to satisfy it. A piercing blue sky, humid winds, and a light rustle of hot sand were felt in the shades of taste.

Having drained the glass to the end, Agatha put it back on the nightstand and licked her lips thoughtfully. Neither the taste, nor the sight, nor the smell of blood made her lose her mind, which she most feared. Perhaps, she mused, the insanity of many newly turned vampires was not caused by the craving for blood as such, but rather a consequence of the ‘return’ and the wave of impressions and feelings that attacked them.

Suddenly the silence of the room was broken by a sharp, persistent rustle. Like someone... Agatha turned quickly towards the sound and saw a large rat crawling across the floor.

Agatha squinted at Dracula. He gazed at her in silence, without a shadow of a smile, but his nostrils fluttered in a very familiar way.

‘You will not get it,’ she said.

* Dragostea (Romanian) – love.

[reel-em-in]

Pre-Production:

I feel that the pre-production for Coming Out Country went really well. We researched a few different things in relation to country music, but there was a big focus on the stereotypes held about the genre and those who listen to it, wether country always had ties to conservatism and right-leaning ideals, and examples of country artists that are/were more progressive or queer themselves. I also created a survey during pre-production which I posted in some groups online, as well as sending to people that I know. This was to find out a surface level view of the demographics of people who consider themselves fans of country music and wether these fans feel they had been treated unfairly within the country music fan base due to their identity. It also had a section for people who did not consider themselves fans of the genre, and instead they were asked what their feelings were towards country, if they disliked the genre they could tell me why, and what there stereotypes were about country music fans. This was interesting as something I noticed was that many of the stereotypes had their origins in classism (many felt that country fans were less educated and less progressive and suggested that this was due to their rural/less well-off upbringing).

We also conducted some zoom interviews during pre-production. With the group formulating questions to ask me. This allowed us to get an idea about the sorts of things I would be able to talk about in the film, and what was of interest to the group. This was very useful as country music is a special interest of mine so I would find anything about the topic to be interesting, whereas I understand that to the general populace it probably wouldn’t be that interesting. These interviews fed into the questions that would later be asked during the interviews during production.

I also spent a lot of time collecting the archive photographs. I managed to get a large selection of possible photos, whilst also learning that we have more photographs of agricultural machinery in the house than of me as a child. An amusing fact.

Production:

I feel that for the most part the production of our documentary was successful, though there are definitely a couple of things that I would improve upon.

Production began with me getting the b-roll footage of me working on the farm. This footage worked well within our documentary, though it is also something that I would have done differently had we not been in a pandemic. In a perfect world I would have liked to have had the group (or at least Luke as our DoP) come to the farm and film the b-roll footage properly with a camera. Though due to travel restrictions this was not possible. I had also left my camera in Edinburgh as I was not anticipating being home for so long. This meant that I had to film the b-roll footage on my phone, and ask my mum to be my camerawoman. Telling her what footage I needed, and then getting her to point and shoot. She now knows all about the rule of thirds!

Once I was back in Edinburgh, Luke and I shot the rest of the footage. We spent a few days in my flat filming the interviews as well as some of the songwriting process, and eventually the song. I think this worked really well as due to Luke being a friend of mine I felt much more able to open up in the interviews than I would have if someone I didn’t know that well had been the one asking questions. This meant that our doc took a much more personal direction than it was originally going to.

A lot of the song writing process was also filmed, though much of it wasn’t as it was a long process. I am pleased with the final song, though it was definitely difficult to write. Now that I have proved to myself that I can do it, I plan on writing more of my own music though.

We also recorded the song during this time, something that I think was really well done! I would have liked to record the song in a studio, but unfortunately to to time constraints and Covid restrictions this was not possible. With that being said I think the recording is of a really good quality for being recorded in my room, with sound equipment that Luke had access to.

Post Production:

The post production was also mostly successful, though once again there are a couple of improvements that could be made.

Beth began the editing process, putting together the first cut before I joined her for the rest of the editing process. I spent several days with Beth working on the edit, creating the narrative of the film from things that had been discussed in the interview. This was a difficult process as we had so much footage from the interviews with so many interesting points that deciding was to keep in the film and what to discard was a bit of a nightmare. I feel like what made it into the final cut worked really well though. We were working under more time constraints than initially planned due to other projects we were working on simultaneously, but each day we would send our cut to Sana and Leo for feedback, and act upon that feedback the next day.

One thing I would have done differently though is to have included the sound from the interviews underneath the archive photographs, as the lack of dialogue did impact the flow of the film. I don’t think this was too much of a problem, but having dialogue there would have definitely improved the final film.

Once we had picture lock, we sent everything off to Jess for the sound design. This was also done with more time constraints than we would have liked, but I feel that it was mostly successful. I think that the levels of the mix were great for the most part, and the different audio clips blended into one another nicely. Without any noticeable or jarring cuts. Though Leo mentioned that the water sounds over the archive photograph of me sitting by a pond was somewhat jarring. If we were to revisit the sound design I think that this could be fixed by either bringing it lower in the mix, or by adding similar linking sound effects to the other archive photographs. Or perhaps a mixture of both.

The final step of the post production process was to send it to Luke for colour grading, and for Luke and I to add the titles. The colour grading was really well done, and made the film link together much more than in our non-graded cut. The titles and credits were inspired by westerns, something that I think worked well within our film both through its thematic links to country as well as through the fun and quirky atmosphere it created. We also chose to have the credits appear in time with the final part of the song, and be in the colours of the trans pride flag.

A couple of other things I would have changed during post-production I should have done during this final step. The first is that I would have liked to have added subtitles to the song, as the lyrics draw on a lot of the topics discussed during the film. The use of subtitles would have been a great way to draw attention to this. The second thing I would change is the way that I am credited. I realised after submitting the film that at no point do we introduce the character that is the focus, for all the viewer knows this is just some dude with green hair and no name. Even if I didn’t include a name or anything earlier in the film, it would have been a good idea to have clarity given in the credits by perhaps saying ‘starring and directed by’ or something similar.

Overall:

Overall I feel that Coming Out Country was a success, both in terms of the final film, and the fun that we had making it. It is also a project that I plan to improve by acting on feedback from the crit, as I want to make sure it is as good as it can be and can be added to my portfolio.

Feedback From the Crit:

I know that some of this was covered in the rest of this post, but I have included it anyway :)

Sana:

What Worked Well:

The hand held footage on the farm

The structure

That it took a more personal route than originally intended

What Could Be Improved:

The cutting back and forth between interview, archive, and b-roll didn’t work as well. It would have been nice to remain with the b-roll for longer

It would have been good if my grandfather had been reintroduced into the narrative again, later in the film

The archive photographs could have been used more effectively. Some of them feel as though they were added a bit randomly

Leo:

“This is a really enjoyable film for people who know Tom, and don’t know much about country music. If you touch up the edit a bit it can also be a really enjoyable film for people who don’t know Tom, but enjoy country music.”

What Worked Well:

Fun to watch and listen to

Luke was included as a character (both visually and through audio), but he did not feel overbearing. The choice to not include his face even when he was on screen playing guitar was well made.

The titles

The song was well written and recorded

What Could Be Improved:

Dialogue should have ran under the archive photographs

The water sounds were a bit jarring

The narrative ‘sections’ could have been made to intertwine more, rather than being in distinct blocks

The Class:

What Worked Well:

It was fun to watch

It represented who I was well (it’s just a shame if people didn’t already know me they wouldn’t have known who the person represented was).

What Could Be Improved:

Could have played more on the juxtaposition between the country stereotype of right wing ideologies and my identity

It could have been interesting to have my trans identity act as more of a reveal

[stillness-in-green]

MLAWeek Coda: The Lore Post

Sorry this is a few days late!  To the surprise of absolutely no one who has read some of my longer meta posts, I just don’t know how to shut the F up.  (Spoilers: this post is only a few hundred words away from being as long as everything else I wrote for the week put together.)  

Anyway, hit the jump for, in order:

A quick breakdown of the Liberation Army’s general structure.

A list of members, broken down by broad generation, including the ones we have gotten explicitly IDed in canon, the ones I based on figures we see in canon, and the ones I completely made up.

The basic tenets of the MLA and some discussion about their views on quirk supremacy. (feat. fandom salt)

An overview of the way the Advent shook up the political landscape in Japan and the Hearts & Minds Party’s place in that landscape.  Pretty much the same material Trumpet’s victory speech from Day 4 covers, but modestly more in-depth, removed from the need to play well to a crowd, and with some added explanation about the structure of the Diet for readers who are less familiar with it than Trumpet’s audience would be.

A timeline (with only moderately arbitrary dates!) covering the birth of the glowing baby up to the first year of the manga.  Mostly concerned with detailing the events the MLA would care about, but with a few other points of reference to contextualize things for the rest of us.

Bonus Fun Facts: discussion of the considerations that went into the timeline, a look at All For One’s actions re: the MLA, and some miscellaneous blurbs on terminology, worldbuilding and characterization.

A smattering of asides in the form of footnotes.

Note that while this material is based in and accurate to canon as much as I could remember at the time that I was doing my notes on my fills for the week, there’s a lot in here that is based entirely on supposition, interpretation and, at times, just plain-old guessing.  

Thanks to @codenamesazanka and @robotlesbianjavert for their assistance in naming, brainstorming, and just generally putting up with me while the Liberation Army was completely devouring my attention.

@red-the-omnic Somewhat belatedly, here’s that list of MLA members you asked for back during the middle of the week.  Sorry to make you wait so long! 

Enjoy!  

———–      ———–      ———–      ———–

ORGANIZATION

Grand Commander: Destro and Destro’s line of descendants.

The First Families: Those who fought at Destro’s side and escaped to continue the fight, and their descendants.  Veritably all high-ranked within the MLA, their tie to the original incarnation of the Army marks them as elites, whether or not their quirks would do so otherwise. The elders of the First Families do a certain amount of collective decision-making when and if the Grand Commander is unable to do so and has left orders otherwise.

Sanctum: “Sanctum” is a special position in the Army.  The name denotes the person who’s tasked with remembering the MLA’s history, practices and lore—the position is considered contiguous, so even when someone is new to the name, they’re still considered “the longest-serving member of the Liberation Army.”.  When they’re getting on in years, they select an appropriate protégé, to whom the name will pass upon their death/capture.  The name must always go to a member of the First Families (though in truth, they’re only on their third one, so it’s more of a pattern so far than a hard rule).

Commanders & Lieutenants: People in charge of major operations, liberated districts, etc. Frequently, though not always, members of the First Families.  Have discretion over their own assignments, but may not have much influence in the Army’s operations on the whole, depending on who they’re connected to otherwise.

Advisors: This title denotes those who are specifically tapped to give advice and aid to the MLA leadership.  Levels of authority vary depending on who they’re advising.  Advisors of lieutenants, if any, are a step above the rank and file, advisors of commanders are about on par with lieutenants, and advisors to the Grand Commander are considered commanders in their own right, regardless of any other rank they may hold.

Rank and File: Pretty much everyone else.

———–      

KNOWN MEMBERS [1]

The original MLA—

Destro: Yotsubashi Chikara.  Established the Meta Liberation Army in his mid-30s in response to the development of what he felt were overly restrictive laws on the usage of meta-abilities. Having observed evidence that meta-abilities grew stronger generationally, he was particularly concerned that no oppressive laws could be enforced by the generation that established them because the next generation would always be more powerful.  Thus, he believed that establishing the use of meta-abilities as a fundamental right was the only way for society to avoid indefinite intergenerational strife.  He was particularly incensed by the government co-opting the message that got his mother murdered to put a pretty, self-congratulatory sheen on laws that did the exact opposite of what she wished for.  Allegedly committed suicide after some months in prison.  The MLA is highly suspicious of this claim—they’re correct to be, but not for the reasons they think.              His quirk, which his entire line would inherit, turns a key emotion into enhanced strength and resilience in the form of a characteristic ink-blot marking.  While it would develop over time, the basic nature of the quirk remained the same. Chikara’s driving emotion was resolve.

Fathom: Destro’s lover, she dedicated a decade of her life after his capture to building up the survivors he’d left behind.  It’s said her son got his drive from Destro, but his anger from Fathom.  Had a large hand in raising her son to be the sort of man he was, particularly in her decision to commit what many considered to be suicide-by-hero when he was in his teens.  A large part of that choice was wrapped up in her never-fully-assuaged grief over Destro’s loss (and, she believed to the end, his murder), but there was also a cold calculation to it—her making a big show of it would lead the police to believe that her attack was the last gasp of the Liberation Army, ending their investigations into MLA activities.  It would also stoke the fires of her son’s rage, honing him into a stronger weapon against their enemies.  Her judgement in both cases proved broadly on-point, though her death did serve to make her son more cautious than she might have hoped.              Meta-Ability: Antennae.  A pair of insectile feelers emerging from her forehead that give her a passel of sensory boosts, particularly in the taste and smell categories, and which also make her able to detect shifts in the air from quite some distance.)

Cascade: A man whose meta-ability lets him turn body parts into loosely controllable masses of water.  Can’t transform fully.  A quick-thinking type able to make hard calls.

Sweeper: A woman with a radio-scanning quirk.  Caught by police in the same fight as Destro.

Sanctum I: The first bearer of the codename.  Had a protective ability of some sort.

Sanctum II’s father: The same quirk as his daughter; see below.  Known for getting some eight people safely out of a police raid by carrying them all out at once despite not actually having superhuman strength of any kind.  (Probably tore several muscles in the process, but adrenaline is a hell of a thing.)

The Second Generation—

Destro’s son: Raised to deeply resent heroes and the government that put them in place, but he was also very cautious of them.  He was profoundly aware that his death would mean the end of the dream that his father had begun and his mother had cultivated, so he was very meticulous in spreading the MLA’s influence underground, rebuilding their numbers before he even began to consider starting to make attacks again.  Destro’s army had been a guerilla force; his son’s would be something much more dangerous.  His driving emotion was anger, and he had two children before being killed by a cerebral aneurysm at 43.  Was able to use his power to make his body larger.

Sanctum II: A woman with an unusual fondness for the traditional Japanese arts, particularly tea ceremony.  Meta-ability: Stride.  Teleport to any location she can directly see by taking a single step forward.   Can take whoever she can carry under her own power. (First Families lineage)

Anchor: An advisor to Destro’s son.  Prominent bull horns.  Meta-ability: Immobilize.  Similar to Lock Rock’s Lockdown quirk, except it only works on his own body.  Very good at wrestling holds (and holding his breath), he tends to fight with backup that can deliver finishing blows to opponents once he has them pinned down.  (First Families lineage)

The Third Generation—

Yotsubashi Kyouyuki: The elder child of Destro’s son.  Deemed an unsuitable Grand Commander for his driving emotion of joy.  Always presented a façade of being cheerful and upbeat, but the ever-present rhetoric that the MLA pushes about the ongoing suppression of quirks and the misery and injustice it leads to left Kyou always struggling with guilt.  In college, it finally got so bad that he resolved to run away, enlisting the help of a friend with a swap-based teleport quirk to get him out of a party undetected. His fate thereafter is a secret that’s been taken to the grave by the MLA members involved in it, but given the typical reactions of illegal underground cults to members wanting to leave, it’s unlikely that he’s living somewhere in happy anonymity.  (Name means Unyielding Happiness, following in his grandfather and nephew's patterns of having characters in their names meaning power/strength.)

Yotsubashi Yukie: The younger child of Destro’s son, and Rikiya’s mother.  With a driving emotion of sorrow, and having been steadily losing family her entire life, Yukie wrestled with depression for most of her life. The presumptive heir to the title of Re-Destro, she spent considerably more time in training than her older brother, but she never much had the temperament for it.  When her father died only a few scant years after Kyouyuki’s disappearance, she expressed her fears that she was incapable of being the leader the Army needed.  This led to her becoming a mother at a relatively young age, continuing the bloodline rather than picking up the banner.  For all her struggles with her grief, Yukie was very determined to at least be there for the son on whom the weight of leadership would fall.  The world of My Hero Academia is a dangerous one, however, particularly before All Might established himself as Japan’s pillar, and Yukie was a casualty of the chaos of a villain attack when Rikiya was ten.  (Name means Glittering Conqueror, ditto the note above about the family pattern for name kanji.)

Rampart: Guardian and general caretaker for Rikiya in his younger years.  Hand-picked for the role by Yukie, who had considered him a close friend since their school days.  Meta-Ability: An earth manipulation power akin to Pixie-Bob’s, though less powerful.  (First Families lineage)

Shinseigi: Trumpet’s uncle, unspecified code name.  Also in politics, though of a more local variety.  Meta-ability: His speaking voice makes listeners suggestible.  (The phonetic pronunciation of his name sounds like “New Justice,” but the kanji are “Sleeping Voice Technique.”)

The Fourth Generation—

Yotsubashi Rikiya: The current Re-Destro (42); CEO and President of Detnerat.  He took up the former title when he was only 6 years old. With the succession of losses that were his uncle, grandfather and mother, the MLA has been fairly careful with him, grooming him with care and rarely leaving him without some form of supervision, be it Rampart when he was young or Trumpet in college.  An extremely dutiful child grown into an urbane man whose good humor disguises a morose—and occasionally volatile—inner character.  Always under a lot of stress (his MRIs are clear so far, though, haha!), but there’s only so much effort dedicated to mitigating that, since stress is his key emotion.  The first in the family line to be able to separate his power from his own body, in the form of his Stress Bomb attack.

Trumpet: Hanabata Koku (44).  One of Rikiya’s advisors and party leader of the Hearts & Minds Party (see below); has known Rikiya since their preteen years.  The Hanabatas were a political family of old, but largely saw those fortunes crash and burn when they started manifesting quirks a few generations into the Advent.  They’ve been clawing their way back into politics ever since and were an early target for the MLA’s project to infiltrate and/or start their own political party.  It was decided very early on that Koku’s quirk and his family connections made him a good choice to groom for leadership of the HMP, so he and Rikiya bonded over their similar positions.  They would go on to attend the same university, during which time they became romantically involved.  In truth, Koku’s university was functionally chosen for him on the basis of which one Rikiya would be attending; the First Families were not about to lose another Yotsubashi to college life.  Koku is more aware of this particular fact than Rikiya.  Still a little wistful about their college days, his opinions regarding Re-Destro’s big starstruck crush on Shigaraki are borderline unprintable.

Sanctum III: Twice’s No. 1 advisor, the dude with the big imperial handlebar moustache and what looks an awful lot like a dress uniform for the Japanese navy.  A few years older than Trumpet.  (First Families lineage)

Curious: Kizuki Chitose (36).  RD advisor and Shoowaysha Publishing Executive Vice President.[2]  From a relatively small liberated district up near Sendai; the MLA connections plus her own profound ambition got her moving very quickly up the MLA chain of command. Daughter of a wlw couple; got her blue skin from her bio mom.  One younger sibling, a sister.  Masterminded the dinners we see the group having in Chapter 218, originally to make sure Rikiya was getting at least one well-apportioned meal a week and a chance to socialize with the closest thing he has to peers, but also because it proved to be an invaluable opportunity to swap information and rumors.

Skeptic: Chikazoku Tomoyasu (31).  RD advisor and Feel Good Inc. board member.  On the bottom end of the generation age-wise, a prodigy in every sense save his broadly terrible people skills.  Recognizes Rikiya’s stress tells because he shares several of them himself, and is also the only person of Rikiya’s generation with the confidence to verbally push him around a bit.  It’s regarded as borderline scandalous by their elders, but Rikiya himself finds it bracing, and anyway, Skeptic’s ability to organize a schedule for maximum efficiency is nothing less than miraculous.  Got Rikiya onto fidget toys.

Toryu:  Toryu is the family name of Galvanize (aka Taser Face aka Kaminari’s Dad).  Mr. Compress’s No. 1, the dude who strolls out onto the lawn after Cementoss rips the hotel a new one and immediately gets his smarm repackaged and returned to sender by Kaminari and Edgeshot.  Great for morale before that, though!  In Rikiya’s age group, his mother’s side of the family (from which he gets the electricity powers) has been in the Army for at least as far back as her school days. (The name comes from the characters for leaping/rising and current/flow.)

Slidin’ Go: Tokoname Tatsuyuki (37).  He’s Slidin’ Go!  Skeptic’s No. 2, possibly because Slidin’ Go strongly resembles the puppets Skeptic is so used to barking orders at and there’s comfort in familiarity.

Aozono: Family name for another of Rikiya’s childhood peers, nothing is known but that green skin runs in the family as far back as her father.  May or may not be related to Curious’s family.

The Fifth Generation—

Geten: Real name unknown.  Family status unknown.  Age unknown, but I’d peg him in the 18-23 area.  Seems to be allowed to attend the weekly dinners without contributing anything but his incredibly terrible table manners.  Can talk an impassioned game about the Liberation Army’s goals (though he pushes the quirk supremacy line a good deal harder than anyone else in the Army is shown to; it’s not even close), but it’s fairly clear that he’s more personally dedicated to Re-Destro than he is the MLA’s cause in and of itself.  I’ll be honest; I have no idea what Geten’s deal is. My tentative headcanon is that he’s an orphan—the English meaning of his name, Apocrypha, refers to sacred writings of uncertain authorship/authenticity—who’s in some kind of Batman-and-Robin guardian-and-ward situation with Re-Destro, but I didn’t wind up writing enough about him to come up with much beyond that.

Nimble: Spinner’s No. 1, the woman with the weird paper-strip-esque hair who doesn’t seem to be in possession of a nose or mouth.  (She absorbs air through her skin like a frog, which is why no one has ever seen her with that sweater covering both of her shoulders.)  Nimble is a friendly sort, though she regards her outgoing good cheer as being a simple matter of social networking.  Ambitious, but sensible about it.                Meta-ability: Sky Write.  Allows her to project letters and pictures into the air around her, giving her a way to communicate she would have otherwise lacked.  She can create words in air she can’t see, but it takes some concentration, and the closer the better.

Scarecrow: Spinner’s No. 2, 21 years old.  Born with amelia (see link in Day Two’s author’s notes) that disfigured his face and severed his arms in the womb.  His quirk-based forelegs—a pair of spider legs emerging from his shoulders—can do a certain amount of basic object manipulation, but it tends to wig people out, so they push him to use his prosthetics like he’s “supposed” to (see Stray Notes section for more on this).  He was viciously angry about it even as a kid, and his parents were frustrated, making them easy pickings for cult indoctrination.  A family friend recommended that they look into Detnerat, where it wasn’t long before Re-Destro himself took an interest in their situation (or at least in making a good impression on them).  Scarecrow joined the Army as quickly as he was allowed to—16.              Meta-ability: Webbing.  The bug legs can project silk like a webspinner (the insect on which he’s based), allowing him to do anything you might broadly understand Spider-Man to be able to do with his webbing, though he certainly lacks Spider-Man’s strength.

Red: Named in passing in the manga, he’s the laid-back dude with the fluffy hair who serves as Skeptic’s No. 1 post-merger.  Probably invaluable in helping Skeptic maintain what bare vestiges of chill he can muster.  (First Families lineage)

The Sixth Generation—

Every child currently under the age of 10 being raised in MLA households with a picture of Destro over the mantle.  It’s not a small number, representing a group that neither the fandom nor the Hero Commission seem to have even realized exist.

———–      

CORE TENETS & THE MATTER OF QUIRK SUPREMACY

Re-Destro is not (contrary to popular fandom belief) in favor of full-throated, might-makes-right, survival of the fittest Quirk Darwinism.[3]  Destro’s will was for people to be able to use their meta-abilities as they saw fit to the extent that that freedom did not interfere with the freedoms of others. He was against the regulation of meta-abilities, but he was not—to the best of our knowledge—against the regulation of crime.  His belief was that one murderer with a fire ability killing people did not justify barring everyone else with fire abilities from using those powers to fire clay, start campfires, engage in fire-themed performance art, use fire to char wood in artistic patterns for money, help park rangers set and direct controlled burns, coordinate explosions for the movie industry, light cigarettes in public, or any other of dozens of possible uses for a fire ability that don’t involve burning people alive.

The MLA do believe that meta-abilities have an impact on one’s personality, but they also believe that that’s okay; that it should be understood and accepted, not feared and repressed—Curious would not have wanted to turn Toga into a tragedy about the consequences of repression if she didn’t think that a spree of bloodletting murders was a tragedy.  Their belief as an organization is that people should be free to use their powers as they see fit in the same way that they would any other natural talent or cultivated skill.  They believe that people will, if free to do so, naturally gravitate to ways of improving their own lot in life via use of their meta-abilities.

Freedom from regulation and freedom from discrimination—these are the core tenets that the vast majority of the rank and file hold to.  A great many of them are laborers, blue collar types who just want to be able to better support themselves and their families.  Many others are those who suffered discrimination because of their quirks and want better for both themselves and their children.  Of course, the further back their connections go, the more likely they are to both be higher-ranked in the cult (with attendant greater resources) and to have grown up soaking in generations’ worth of resentment, groupthink, and radicalism.

Geten, a particularly virulent and single-minded MLA attack dog, has parsed the tenets to mean that people with strong, well-trained meta-abilities will naturally be able to use their powers to do more and raise their status in the MLA’s ideal society, and thus that those who can’t or don’t choose to will not be able to live lives that Geten personally thinks are worth living.  Likewise, Trumpet doesn’t fault Spinner only for his weak ability, but also for his anti-social tendencies.  Of course a politician who’s deeply invested in a narrative of people uniting to throw off their chains and better themselves would be disdainful of someone who locked himself in his bedroom for years and emerged only to violently lash out at society.  (Spinner’s right to call Trumpet a huge hypocrite on this, mind; terrorist cult members have no business lecturing other terrorists about the correct way to violently reform society.)

The MLA does have a problem with quirk supremacy, but it’s not quite the problem fandom thinks they do, and it’s certainly more nuanced than fandom thinks.[4]  Frankly, I could write a whole post dissecting this, but rather than analyzing the canon at length in a post intending to be about my fanon for a series of slice-of-life MLA fics, let me just lay out some issues I think the MLA have.  Note that these opinions may vary member to member, particularly as you work your way up the chain of command.

Many in the MLA believe that people with poor quirks are less capable of asserting their will and becoming whatever they want to be.  They are not, notably, alone in that that sentiment—we hear versions of it not only from villains like Trumpet and All for One, but from the paralleled parents of Midoriya Inko and Shimura Kotarou, the would-be hero Bakugou, and even the iconic hero paragon All Might.  While it’s not universal, My Hero Academia’s Japan is full of people who believe to some extent or another that people with weak or no quirks are inherently less capable of making their mark on the world.  The MLA is just more blatant about it than most.

The MLA are, as a group, not concerned about the fate of the quirkless.  My suspicion is that this is because they think quirklessness as a trait is on its way out—that the touted 20% of the world population that’s quirkless is hugely weighted towards the elderly, those who are from generations when quirklessness was more common.  Think about it: 20% is two out of every ten people.  Statistically speaking, that’s a huge portion!  You only have to look at Deku’s middle school classroom in Chapter 1—thirty kids, exactly one of whom is quirkless—to begin to suspect that there’s something a bit off with the 20% figure.

Further, the MLA follows Destro’s beliefs, and we know from Destro’s manifesto that he believed meta-abilities were growing stronger over time.  So to their mind, not only is quirklessness becoming a thing of the past, but so are weak quirks in general.  While their clear disdain for both is damning—and certainly discredits them as a group suited to decide how society should be structured!—please understand that, “We’re not very concerned with the rights of the quirkless because we think that there won’t be any such thing as quirkless people within a few more generations,” is not the same statement as, “We are A-OK with 20% of the world’s population being second-class citizens for the entire rest of human history,” and it is really not the same statement as, “People with no quirks, or bodies that can’t handle their quirks, need to be proactively removed from the gene pool and we are actively advocating for a systemic, organized culling.”

That said, their disdain, if blown out to society at large, would absolutely lead to discrimination and, undoubtedly, incidents of the same sort of violence that the MLA themselves were forged from.  That they haven’t thought or don’t care about this is one of many things that make them villains.

Further, there is an ugly strain within the MLA that still recognizes quirk marriages.  Because the MLA values freedom, they’re not as ubiquitous as you might think (at least if you think the MLA is a bunch of quirk supremacists with no other goals or values)—“freedom” does nominally include the freedom to marry who you want rather than let your own meta-ability trap you in a life you hate. However, it’s equally true that in a group that believes very strongly in the value of quirks, the power of quirks in the future, and the necessity of fighting a war to bring about that future, there will obviously be members who support the practice.  There are absolutely men and women who have been bullied and guilted by their families into loveless marriages for the sole purpose of producing children with powerful, desirable quirks.  How likely this is in any given location mostly depends on the commander’s opinion on it, though it’s a very rare one indeed who would go so far as discouraging it entirely.

———–      

THE HEARTS & MINDS PARTY

(Considerations on Japan’s political landscape.)

The current monolith of the Diet, the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan, managed to hold onto power for a full century after the Advent, but their grasp grew shakier and shakier over time.  Initial measures to bar meta-humans from voting proved increasingly unpopular as the percentage of the population with meta-abilities grew both larger and older.  People with easily-concealed powers gained office, sometimes being outed, sometimes not, but on the whole, decades of oppression and violence led to an ever-more-popular opinion that the LDP had mishandled the whole mess.  They lost their supermajority in the Diet when their longstanding alliance with the Komeito party splintered, regained it again for a few electoral cycles, lost it again when Komeito itself fractured, and so on, their once implacable numbers shrinking year by year.  Still, they managed to hold onto a coalition majority right up until Saneki Yuuichi was elected to the House of Representatives.

Saneki headed up a small party based almost entirely on the issue of meta-human basic rights.  Like many meta-humans of the period, he believed that the best way for meta-humans to attain those rights was to live like so-called “normal humans,” to show that meta-humans were just like everyone else. His party advanced the ideology that meta-humans should only use their powers to help others or better society, not to advance their own self-interest.  They pushed stringently for metas to be allowed equal recognition under the law as any Japanese citizen, but also supported measures such as requiring licenses for the use of meta-abilities and limiting those licenses to those actively engaged in assisting police.  Deeply tied to respectability politics, Saneki’s party contained virtually all emitters, a scant number of transformers, and no heteromorphs, who the party felt were an impediment to reaching their legislative goals, but whose particular needs could be brought back up at a later, more receptive time.

Saneki’s politics gained him many supporters, but also drove many into the arms of the Meta Liberation Army, who vocally loathed him and everything he stood for.  The confluence of public dissatisfaction with the spike in violence represented by the MLA, Saneki’s coalition gathering popular support among both metas and non-metas, and the rise of named, organized hate groups trying to roll back what few advances had been gained in meta-human rights finally spelled the end of the LDP’s majority.

The LDP falling apart prompted a scramble for power that would stretch on for nearly half a century. Old alliances whose only common ground had been opposing the LDP found themselves free to seek groups with more compatible goals.  Young single- or dual-issue parties leapt at the chance to address their issues with more fervor.  New parties sprung up across the country.  Not only meta-humans, but minority groups of all kinds saw new avenues to press for substantive positive changes that had been dead in the water under the LDP.  Voting numbers surged as they had not for decades.

The old, conservative elements of the Diet were not gone, of course—they remained a substantial powerhouse!—but no longer could they muster the undefeatable veto-proof numbers that they had once enjoyed.

Like everyone else, the remnants of the MLA saw opportunity in the new, ever-shifting status quo.  With the place of metas secured for the time being, there was no longer a need for metas to form coalitions in the Diet merely to get their basic needs addressed.  A single-issue party from its inception thirty years prior, Saneki Yuuichi’s party was fragmenting, unable to decide on a single direction now that their uniting issue had been resolved to their satisfaction.  In recognition of meta-humans reaching population parity, the MLA launched a project to begin seeding the ideals of Liberation at the highest levels yet—the Hearts & Minds Party.

Beginning as a local party in a prefecture in which the MLA had gained significant underground support, the HMP campaigned on a platform championing individual freedoms and a wide range of improvements to Japan’s battered and overworked social safety nets.  They made an effort to showcase diverse representation in their leadership and gave impassioned speeches promising to reach across party aisles in searching for nuanced solutions to the various difficulties facing the country.

It’s impossible to say exactly how large the Hearts & Minds Party is compared to the Meta Liberation Army, which is claimed by Re-Destro to have 116,000 action-ready warriors (the “warriors lying in wait, ready to rise to action” description presumably indicating that his count does not include uninducted children).

On the one hand, one can presume that everyone who’s a member of the MLA is voting for the HMP on every ticket they can, but not every member of the MLA—who induct combat-ready warriors as young as 16—is old enough to vote, and many probably live in districts or prefectures where the HMP has yet to establish a campaign-ready foothold. On the other hand, while the HMP certainly serves to funnel people towards the MLA, it doesn’t require membership—indeed, it’s far better for their goals for them not to do so.  Therefore, it’s also probable that the Hearts & Minds Party has many supporters who are not (yet) counted among the Liberation Army’s number.  Thus, for the purposes of ballparking estimates, I opted to simply suppose that the two areas lacking overlap (MLA members who can’t vote for the HMP and HMP supporters who aren’t members of the MLA) are relatively equal.

That established, we’re working with a party that has 116K voters/supporters/members.  The closest thing to that number that I could find numbers for is the Japanese Communist Party (JCP), which counted 300K members as of 2017.  Using their total membership compared to their representation in the Diet (as well as a willingness to viciously bastardize anything resembling reliable political math), I plugged in my estimate for the HMP’s membership and wound up with the Hearts & Minds Party holding four seats in the House of Representatives, five seats in the House of Councillors, and sixty-odd assembly members in various prefectural positions.

For some context to those numbers, the House of Representatives (more powerful, but more vulnerable to sudden electoral shifts) has 465 members, 233 of which are required for a majority, and 310 of which are required to override vetoes imposed by the House of Counsillors. The House of Counsillors (less powerful, but serving longer terms and unable to be dissolved for general elections like the House of Representatives can be) has 245 members, with 123 required for a majority.

As you can see, the HMP holding a handful of seats isn’t going to tilt the My Hero Academia world on its axis.  Still, it’s more seats than any number of real-life Japanese political parties hold, and right up until the one-two punch of Shigaraki taking over the MLA and Hawks outing Trumpet’s allegiances to the Hero Commission, the Hearts & Minds Party was well on-track to continue growing its power and influence.

———–      

TIMELINE

(For ease of calculation, most dates are rounded to the nearest five years.)

1980: A glowing baby is born in Qing Qing City, China, heralding the Advent of the Age of the Extraordinary.  For almost two decades, meta-abilities remain rare and poorly understood—incidents are widespread and show huge variance, so most people write them off as anomalies or hoaxes.  As the years go on, however, meta-abilities become more widespread, moving out of the realm of the odd headline that many people think is an elaborate hoax into an alarmed spotlight as it gradually becomes apparent that this is a thing that all humanity is undergoing.  Most major technological development pivots to trying to understand, undo, document or control this new phenomenon.

2030: The child who will become All for One is born.  By this time, society is breaking down into chaos. Across the globe, measures from outlawing all meta-ability use to internment are seen.  Eugenics laws are discussed or put in place.  Communities attempt to run out metas and, in response, groups of metas attempt to form their own communities.  Infanticide rates are rising alarmingly.

2060: Yotsubashi Chikara and Ujiko (original name unknown) are born.  Japan is in complete disarray, awash in mob violence, with organized groups of both metas and non-metas attacking victims indiscriminately.  Developing an ability can get you disowned.  Divisions among the meta minority are developing a noticeable strain of respectability politics rhetoric.

2065: AFO forces an ability on his younger brother, unintentionally creating One for All.  Chikara’s mother is murdered by an anti-meta mob for attempting to speak out in defense of the normalcy of her child’s ability.

2085-2090: Saneki Yuuichi becomes the first meta-human to attain a seat in the Diet. Despite nearly a century of violence, meta-humans are becoming a larger and larger percentage of the population, and the people of Japan are tired.  The prevailing sense is that it’s time to make peace; however, the peace that is being forged involves laws sharply restricting the use of meta-abilities for those who haven’t been formally licensed.  These restrictions see markedly mixed reactions from metas.  Chikara rallies the most vehement dissenters to create the Meta Liberation Army, calling himself Destro.              Disagreement over how to handle the MLA finally finishing the job of rattling the Diet free of the death-grip of the LDP.  Many years of fractious elections will follow as new coalitions form to try and seize majority power.

2095: Japan signs an international accord acknowledging the fundamental rights of meta-humans.  This gesture begins to splinter both internal support and public sympathy for the MLA.

2097: Destro is captured by police and their newly designated Quirk Unit.  Other surviving members of the MLA are hunted down or go into hiding.

2100: The term “Hero” is formally adopted, having been casually in use for some time.  A Hero is one who is licensed to use their power to fight quirk-based crime in accordance with local and federal laws, assisting the police when requested.  The Hero Commission is established as an agency with oversight in the licensing and regulation of Heros.              Destro dies in prison.  Though the matter is questioned, no proof of foul play is ever brought forward, and the death is ruled a suicide.

2110: Ujiko presents his paper on the Paranormal [5] Singularity Theory.  The paper suggests that the power of quirks is continuing to grow with each generation and will, in time, become more powerful than the human body can control.  His evidence is inconclusive, however, and his citation of some of Destro’s observations on the phenomenon becomes a particular sticking point.  In a country that is finally beginning to get its feet back under it, no one wants to see another widespread panic.  Ujiko is stripped of his position; having been living on campus at the time, he’s left functionally homeless and is approached by All for One not long after.

2120: The population of those with quirks and those without reaches parity in Japan. Seeing an opportunity, the MLA launches the Hearts & Minds Party as a local political party, intending to grow it over time.

(2125: Yagi Toshinori is born.)

2138: Yotsubashi Rikiya is born.

(2148: Debut of All Might.)

(2165: Shimura family tragedy.)

(2174: All Might “defeats” AFO.)

2175: Hanabata Koku is elected to the House of Representatives.  He’s not the youngest party leader in the Diet, but he’s close.

2180: The events of Deku’s freshman year at UA lead the MLA to turn their attention to the League of Villains.

———–      

STRAY FACTS

Why 1980/2180?—

It’s an even number for ease of calculation, triangulated between a few considerations.

Firstly, tasers are mentioned in the One for All dream, so the events of the dream (which themselves are happening far enough into the Advent that society’s had time to slide into all-out chaos) must post-date the invention of the taser, which was in 1993.

Secondly, Spider-Man’s silhouette is seen amongst the group of characters who represent the “fantasy” that became reality.  If we assume that those media properties existed in-universe (since the narration is delivered by Midoriya) and were assumed to be fantastical at the time, they must predate the Advent—Spider-Man is the newest of them and his first appearance was in 1962, his material being translated into Japanese by the 1970s.

Lastly, technological and societal development crashed to a halt with the Advent.  The world of My Hero Academia generally reflects a modern-ish Japan, so I wanted modern technology—and modern social reforms—to still feel modern to the characters.  Thus, the point at which society stopped developing needed to predate the Digital Revolution, which really began to hit its stride in the mid-80s.  Hence, 1980.

The opening period is, admittedly, fairly generous on my part, and does assume a certain amount of modern advances were probably underway, but then were lost, sidelined or rolled back as the chaos spread.  You could probably trim off twenty years by stepping up how quickly quirks begin to appear and spread, but the very beginning is the best window to do so.  I’d still peg the Advent at 1980 based on the calculations above (again, it has to fall somewhere between the mid-70s and 1993) but, for example, maybe All for One is from that first generation, and society only takes 30 years to reach the lowest point of its collapse instead of 80.

As to the 2180, the older characters introduce several requirements for the post-Advent timeline.  Ujiko was 50 at the time that society was beginning to stabilize, while AFO dates to its days of utmost chaos.  AFO also needs to be running on at least one anti-aging quirk prior to meeting Ujiko; if the only one he were running on was Ujiko’s own, then based on his appearance and the mechanics of Ujiko’s quirk, I’d peg AFO at merely 85, and he needs to be not only over 100, but far enough over 100 that he’s described that way rather than as “a century-old evil” or something to that effect.

Meanwhile, All Might can’t really be any younger than 50, and seven generations of OFA bearer predated him, even if they did all die relatively young.  Destro’s mother was killed in those early chaotic days, while Re-Destro (himself no spring chicken) is told as a child that the MLA has been in hiding for generations.  “Generations” implies at least two; I further suppose that Rikiya needs to be at least the original Chikara’s great-grandson for him to describe himself simply as Destro’s descendant, rather than use a more specific relationship term.  All of this points to a fairly lengthy stretch of time, much more than is glossed over by Midoriya’s series-opening narration.

AFO and the MLA—

I mention in the very first story of this series that the MLA’s contacts all go “mysteriously missing” after the capture of Destro.  While the police certainly did their own measure of work in tracking down the Liberation Army’s members and allies, there was another figure with a significant hand in the MLA’s downfall.

All for One, then in his early sixties, had watched the rise of the MLA in some interest.  On a personal level, he admired Yotsubashi’s charisma and resolve, and, of course, he wholly supported the free use of quirks (well, his own free use of quirks, anyway)!  On the other hand, All for One also sought to restore order to society, albeit order as he himself envisioned it.  While he was confident that there was no one who could stand up to him no matter whose ideals won out, Saneki Yuuichi’s way promised a more stable society, and bribable and/or blackmailable bureaucrats seemed easier to manipulate than ideal-driven zealots ready to give their lives for the cause.  Thus, AFO decided to help the police a bit behind the scenes, offering a few tip-offs and hints to guide their efforts to end the threat of the Liberation Army.

Of course, as long as Destro was alive, the cause of Liberation still had its focal point. And AFO was still a bit curious to meet this man, who’d inspired so very many loyal followers.  It was an easy thing to arrange.  An interesting man, and an interesting quirk.

Destro did commit suicide in prison.  A man who had always embraced his meta-ability for motivation, and whose ability transformed that motivation into power in turn, AFO stripped him of in the same moment. Isolation from other contact, separation from his lover, his friends and allies, and his cause, a gap in his psyche like no pain he’d ever experienced--all of these piled up on one another into a fatal despair.  After AFO’s visit, there was no need for anyone to arrange a convenient death for Destro.

(And if in later years, the monstrous Noumu, who are driven entirely by pre-programmed, single-minded resolve, are flint-skinned from head-to-toe, well—who would ever even think to connect those dots?)

The Mother of Quirks—

An interesting thing I observed from Re-Destro’s confrontation with Clone!Shigaraki is that, based on their exchange, it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge that the Mother of Quirks is the mother of the Meta Liberation Army’s leader?  Re-Destro’s apology for assuming Shigaraki wouldn’t recognize the story suggests that it’s a matter of fairly basic historical education, but he then goes on to explain her connection to Destro at some length—if that connection were taught at the same time her story was, surely he’d see no need to do this? Clone-a-raki’s response backs this up—unlike the general existence of the Mother of Quirks, which was such basic knowledge that he was insulted that Re-Destro thought he wouldn’t know about it, her connection to Destro was unknown to him.

Re-Destro describes the connection as “an inconvenient truth.”  This, in turn, suggests that the connection has been actively obscured.  The MLA’s place in history is taught; the originator of the term “quirk” is taught, but the two are not connected to each other. Kids in school aren’t taught that the very child whose mother was murdered for her words hated what his country was using those words, that message, to do.  It’s naked appropriation that continues to this day, and it’s no wonder that the MLA is furious about it.

The Quirk Unit—

An early term for the group that would, in relatively short order after their formation, officially be dubbed Heroes.  Composed of both meta-humans already on the police force and vigilantes willing to remit themselves to legal oversight, they fought quirk-based crime in many forms, from the common mugger to the terrorists of the MLA, and even former allies in vigilantism.  Well-regarded by history thanks to their efforts in reining in crime and disorder, but quite a controversial group in their early years.

MLA Age of Induction—

Being raised in the MLA means being raised with the goal of eventually being assigned a codename and tasked with supporting the Great Cause in whatever fashion your superiors think you best suited.  The minimum age for this is 16, though 18, being the age at which students graduate from high school, is more common.  At no point is there really a safe way to leave once you’re involved; they are, after all, a secret army.  There’s no aging out of the MLA—it’s a lifetime tour—but disability, injury or general decrepitude can get you assigned to work that generally won’t expect you to see open combat.  The Army is composed of a great many lifetime-of-service families, after all, which means they need teachers and caretakers; another option is dedicated work for the Hearts & Minds Party, who always have room for community organizers.

Liberated Districts—

Settlements that are at least 85% MLA-inducted.  At their largest, they’re small towns; rural villages are far more common.  Without exception, they’re isolated or out of the way.  Tend to have unusually good access to city services compared to similarly-sized settlements.  Deika was one of the largest districts the Army had, chosen for the Revival Celebration due to its combination of a sizable population and a particularly closed-off location.  The MLA knew they’d need many warriors to fight the League of Villains, but they also needed a site that was not merely remote, but that had controllable points of access.

It can take well over a decade to hit the 85% saturation mark in even small villages; Deika and the MLA’s handful of other full-fledged towns are the work of generations.  They begin by moving people into an area and setting up gatherings on some useful pretext or another, enthusiastically welcoming newcomers and very, very gradually indoctrinating people further into the ideology.  Financial support, an accepting environment for difficult quirks or those with patchy legal histories, the odd homeless shelter or food kitchen, a robust presence in the foster care network—the MLA is very, very good at making themselves a warm, sincere, reliable presence in peoples’ lives, a group that encourages everyone under their banner to be their best selves. They think everyone deserves that kind of support!

They are also willing to shed quite a lot of blood to make sure that everyone can get it.

On the Intersection of Disability and Quirk Suppression—

There are a few factors contributing to why Scarecrow can’t use his quirk to do things others would.  First, his quirk is the kind of off-putting that gets Gang Orca ranked third-most villainous-looking hero and leads Shoji to wear a mask because his face disturbs people.  So Scarecrow’s quirk is already the kind of visible that makes people look at him askance.  Compounding this, his prosthetics are obvious, visible to any old person, and people have a very ugly tendency towards bootstrap, “you can do it if you try” mentalities around people with disabilities.  These two factors mean that people who are disturbed by his creepy articulate bug legs would much prefer that he use his significantly less-creepy prosthetics, to the degree that they’re willing to suggest that he’s being lazy if he doesn’t.  They cite the quirk-use laws as a deflection tactic, but Scarecrow—whose pattern recognition functions just fine, thanks—is keenly aware of the underlying mindset.

Nimble is in much the same boat—she literally can’t talk without falling back on a visual representation of some kind (sign-language, a text-to-speech reader, etc), and why on earth shouldn’t she be able to use the fastest and most convenient one without people getting up her ass about it?

None of this is the kind of thing that would likely get either of them arrested (though Scarecrow’s creepy enough that the odds are higher for him, “villain quirk” bias being what it is), but the laws-as-written, nonetheless, are discriminatory, and that makes people justly angry.  Angry people are easier to radicalize, and the Liberation Army has been working that angle since their very inception.

Re-Destro and Trumpet’s College Days—

RD’s an Engineering major with a focus in Manufacturing; Trumpet’s in PoliSci.  They’re two grades apart, with Koku being the older.  Those two years of greater experience shift the power balance between them significantly when Rikiya arrives for his freshman year, facing a new place, a new workload, an entirely new rhythm to his life.  For the first time, Koku is not merely a friend in similar circumstances who is still—as they’re both reminded near-constantly—subordinate to Rikiya’s every word.  Rather, he’s a senpai, someone with specific experience in every aspect of this new stage of life—and someone who’s had two years to become more eloquent, more well-studied, more confident, more mature.

Removed from the immediate supervision of the First Families for the first time in his life, Rikiya allows himself to lean on Koku in ways he never would have back home. Koku, for his part, has had his responsibilities here impressed on him by the First Families at some length, and has spent his entire life being groomed to devote himself to his Grand Commander.  Having said Grand Commander looking to him with such glowing esteem in his eyes—well, there’s no denying that it’s pretty enticing.  The two of them enter a romantic relationship that will endure for several years until Rikiya gets his head back around the idea that Koku’s ability to say no to him is fundamentally compromised.

The Bindi Connection—

I had no reason to develop them any, and thus I don’t have names to assign, but it seems that Twice’s No. 3, the smiling old woman with the gingham dress and the rough-and-ready attitude to combat, and Geten’s No. 2, the short-haired woman whose face is being devoured by her out-of-control sweater neck, are related.  Note the bindi on both of them, as well as the similar hair color, particularly in the page introducing all the advisors.  Mutual connection to Dabi’s No. 3, the guy who got into a fight with a hole punch and lost, is uncertain but possible based on the confronting-the-heroes page spread in which Hole Punch dude’s hand lays familiarly on Grandma Bindi’s back while Big Sis Bindi turns partly towards him as if to whisper some sarcastic observation about how lame Cementoss’s ponytail is.

———–      

FOOTNOTES

1: Regarding codenames, the first generation of the MLA tended to have names that reflected their meta-ability in some way.  From the second generation on, at the behest of Destro’s son, the codenames have become less literal, and thus less revealing.

2: Viz renders the job tile “Executive Director,” but having checked the raw, the Japanese term, senmu, is associated with a fairly specific level of executive authority, and it’s lower than I would peg “Executive Director,” which to my ear sounds synonymous or slightly below Chief Executive Officer.  Executive Vice President is wikipedia’s translation; Google returns Senior Managing Director.  In any case, she’s near the top, but not at the top.

3: At least, he wasn’t prior to meeting Shigaraki.  Now he’s pretty much in favor of a very organized and coherent belief structure that can be summarized as, “Watch Shigaraki tear down the world ‘cause he’s beautiful and I love him,” and honestly, mood.

4: I’ll just come out and say it: fandom blew Geten’s words way out of proportion because a bunch of people got mad that he was being mean to Everyone’s Favorite Serial Killer Dabi.

5: An archaic term by this period.  Even “meta-human” saw more use in academic parlance, while the term “quirk” had become much more widespread among the general population since its official adoption during the period of legislation twenty years prior.

[tired-college-student-writing]

Here we go Loopty Loo pt 2

Summary: Graduation was supposed to signal the final time they all spent time together at UA, to show they have all grown into the Heros they dreamed of being.

It was supposed to be, but when has anything ever been easy for class 1-A?

pt1

pt2 (HERE)

pt3

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Loop #7

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The Rules had begun in Loop #7 when the class realized that things weren’t always identical to the original timeline.

They realized this by waking up in class on the first day before the Quirk assessment like they had the last six times only to find each and every one of them was the opposite gender.

Aizawa was not proud to say he lost all cool in front of his students as he jabbed the frankly too large globs on his chest swearing obscenely as they jiggled. It did not help that instead of a jumpsuit he was wearing a skintight long-sleeved crop top and fucking tights with high heeled boots.

On the other hand, the students were not doing much better, each looking at each other and screaming, as they seemed to forget common courtesy and smacking each other’s chests.  

Some, like Midoriya, Jiro, Backugo, Ashido, and Todoroki looked similar to their usual appearances, while others like Sato, Iida, and Uraraka looked drastically different to the point that the only reason Aizawa could tell who they were were the mannerisms he was overly familiar with from them.

After a few minutes, he wrapped his head around it enough to slam his hands down on the closest desk and order them to calm down.

“Okay, I get we’re all having an existential crisis,” He snapped, “I get it, this wasn’t what I was expecting either. Clearly, we aren’t just returning to the start of our own timeline unless I’ve always had fucking D cups and no one deemed it important to share with me.”

The first order was to get everyone to their seats so Aizawa could go through the class list, going through the new names he… she knew the students would mess up more than once.

Aoyama Aki

Ashido Mareo

Asui Susumu

Iida Sumiko

Uraraka Kaito

Ojiro Megumi

Kaminari Emiko

Kirishima Etsu

Koda Kaya

Sato Riko

Shoji Miki

Jiro Kazuo

Sero Hiroko

Tokoyami Jakushitsu

Todoroki Suzu

Hagakure Taku

Bakugo Kasumi

Midoriya Kumiko

Shinso Toshiko

Yaoyorozu Kado

Great, she had to learn all their names again too, which reminded her, “My name is Aizawa Saki. My hero name has remained the same. Your other teachers are Yamada Himari, aka Presentation Mica, Ishiyama Kamin, aka Cemetoss, Kayama Naoki, aka Midnight, and Ectoplasm still demands we don’t tell the students her name, so deal with that.”

“All Might is Yagi Yoshiko,” Modriya piped up, “But she still coughs up blood when I call her anything other than All Might so let’s let her relax for a bit.”

Mo- Yaouarozu raised his hand, “Si- Sensei would creating a list of rules and changes that happen from each timeline so that we don’t trip up as much? I imagine this loop will be particularly difficult for obvious reasons.”

“You’re not wrong,” She agreed, rubbing a hand over her eyes, “Would it be possible for you to create a rolling whiteboard? It’ll be easier to hide and keep up for the next three years.”

The creation quirk user seemed more at ease now that he didn’t have to worry about flashing the entire class to create such a large object. It didn’t take long for it to be set up and Aizawa took the offered blue marker.

“Alright,” She breathed, drawing a seven at the top of the board before splitting it down the middle, “Rules to take through loops if we keep going and rules and changes to keep us from getting in trouble in this loop, how does that sound?”

The agreeal rang out as she started listing off things she’s used as rules of thumb since she had been sure they had been looping.

#1 - Only talk to the others that are looping about looping and previous timelines.

#2 - Do your best to make the changes between your consciousness from the original version of yourselves from this timeline seem as natural as possible, we do not need people thinking we’re Toga.

#3 - Reveal all relevant information on the changes to the timeline that you know at the first awakening, or when we’re all together after the first awakening.

#4 - If the stress gets too much talk to us, we’re all going through it together.

She paused from writing, tucking her still long hair from her face with a soft sigh before turning back to the students.

“Can anyone else come up with any other rules right now?”

The silence was all she needed, “Great, we can edit it down the line as things change, but I want you all to remember these rules. They might be the only thing keeping us sane depending on how long we’re stuck in these loops.”

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Loop #10

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He was going to bash their heads in, he swears to god these children were sending him to an early grave. Midoriya, Todoroki, Iida, and Uraraka had managed to track down the Hero Killer to try and get him to change his ways wasn’t a huge shocker, what had been a surprise had been that Mina, Tsu, Denki, and Jiro had joined forces with Stain to try and destroy quite a few heroes that were abusing their positions in society to harm others as they had discovered in previous timelines.

The result had been a huge nightmare and a media shit show. How the next two years were going to go now that these eight had to pretend to hate each other was going to make him go grey.

No one commented as their irritated teacher scrawled down a new rule. It seemed fair enough.

#5 - Any major timeline changing decisions are required to be discussed with the entire group present.

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Loop #21

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“Shit,” Mina cried the moment they woke up, “I’m the mole!”

“Oh I get a break then,” Aoyama hummed, “Oh exciting, the League was getting tiresome”

While it was nice to know ahead of time who to keep an eye on, Mina played the double-double agent a bit too well, informing them of everything they could possibly want for the timeline to go seamlessly, all the students could feel the

Aizawa didn’t even bother to get out of his sleeping bag when Iida stood up unprompted in the middle of the test he had given them, mostly for appearances since he knew they could ace it easy at this point, and stomped to the closet where they stashed the whiteboard.

#6 - If you have information that could make the timeline interesting if kept secret (such as being the mole) keep it secret.  

He stood next to the board, as if daring anyone to counter him, but Aizawa nodded.

“As much as peace is nice if I have to go through another timeline that’s this easy I might actually expel all you brats.”

“Does that mean we can be vigilantes?”

“No, I refuse to deal with you during the night if I decided not to see you during the day.”

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Loop #24

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The class just blinked in confusion as the villains fell to their knees in apparent pain. The USJ attack was old hat to them at this point, but the fights had barely started.

Dabi tried to stagger to his feet, hand held out as if to call forth his flames, only for nothing to happen. Around the different zones, the heroes were having similar dilemmas as they faced the seemingly depowered villains.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Midoriya screeched, once the time travelers had made it back to the classroom. They had rounded up all of the villains, confusion evident between the villains, pro heroes, and students on why the villains had suddenly lost access to their powers.

All Might suggested that perhaps All for One had something to do with it since it had appeared to be his quirk but couldn’t come up with a reason his enemy, who he knew from the large scar on his side was that he was, in fact, a villain this time, and not just a kindly father like had happened before.

He received an answer from an unexpected place.

Sero gave a small laugh, “So… fun fact, my great grandfather may or may not be All for One this time, and I may have All for One as a ‘second’ quirk…”

“Fucking hell,” Yagi groaned, face planting on the desk as the class stared at Sero with a combination of awe and fear.

However, the intrigue of their classmate having All for One was short-lived as they realized that the villain mastermind was not going to attack anytime in their next three years as he now had to recruit new henchmen to fight them, and well that took time to cultivate villainous intent that stood a chance against them.

It wasn’t even the end of year 1 and they were already so tired on just… being normal heroes in training. Even Yagi was at the end of his rope, deciding to retire early even if he hadn’t had to use up the last of One for All.

Bakugo glared at Sero as he amended rule six, the rest of the class staring down the sheepish boy.

#6 - If you have information that could make the timeline interesting for an extended period of time if kept secret (such as being the mole) keep it secret.

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Loop #63

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Aizawa coughed harshly trying to clear the dust from his lungs as the rumble shifted around him.

An ambush, it had to be, but… the class had been acting the same as ever. Aoyama had let slip that he wasn’t the mole this timeline, so the hunt for the mole as the attacks changed kept them all on their toes.

Yagi had assured Aizawa he would keep an ear out, telling them he was sure All for One was still out there, even if his wounds weren’t quite as grievous as they had been in the first timeline, causing him to look more like a sleek runner then skeleton true form they were used to seeing him in, though he could still transform into his buff form, holding it for almost the entire school day even after passing on One for All to Izuku.

It was a nice change overall, even if it was nearing the end of the class’s second year without a sighting of the evil bastard. The students had filled the space they usually spent in the longer battles tormenting Endeavor, with Aizawa giving convenient alibis for the students each time as long as they made sure to keep the dorm kitchen stocked with his favorite coffee brand.

But now, on a solo patrol, they struck.

He should have predicted this, but after almost 200 years of doing the same thing with only minor changes over and over again, he was growing sloppy, too comfortable with the norm to remember what it felt like to have pure adrenaline and fear running through his veins.

“Oh darn, you’re still breathing, I thought that would end you for sure,” A familiar voice groaned, causing Aizawa to try and spring to his feet only to find his leg pinned some of the fallen building.

A familiar lithe form sitting on top of the pile, staring into his soul with clear mirth in the oh so wrong looking purple depths.

“Toshinori?”

“Hello, Shouta-kun,” The man hummed, a smile pulling at his lips, a cruel imitation at the normally blinding grin, “Suprised?”

His eyes bulged as his heart lept to his throat. There was no way… All Might…

“What?” The symbol of Peace asked, “You were oh so busy looking for the mole with among the children, the other staff, even growing suspect of your closest friends, but you didn’t even bother letting me be a possibility did you?”

“But you’re All for One’s nemesis,”

The man laughed hopping down to stand over his fallen, “Oh I was, but the man you’re referring to is dead, Shouta-kun. He’s been dead since I fought him six years ago. ”

“You said he was still out there,”

“No, I said All for One was still out there,” Purple eyes blazed as he tapped the rubble, watching it explode, disassembled to the very base level.

“Overhaul…” Aizawa didn’t even try to get up, feeling ice going through his veins, “How…”

“When I faced All for One he became desperate,” Yagi explained with a sigh, as if reminiscing about a pleasant date, “He tried to shove as many quirks into as he could, hoping I’d explode from so much power in my system, but that’s the great thing about One for All, it stockpiles power. He didn’t realize until it was too late that by opening the connection between us, I was able to take his quirk from him. He crumbled into dust once the last of the quirks were left him. The powers, however, refused to join.”

“And you just what?” Aizawa demanded, “Decided to become the villain? What about giving Midoriya One for All?”

The man just laughed, “What’s a villain without a hero trying desperately to stop him? I spent so much time trying to save a society that doesn’t want saving, perhaps Young Midoriya can finally get through to them.”

“Kuruigiri,” He called before Aizawa can answer, and suddenly the pair were pulled through a portal and into a dimly lit cell, the other members of the League of Villians jeering around them. Aizawa felt overwhelmed, heart beating harder then it had in a long time, real fear churning in his gut.

“Nori?”

He felt the other time traveler pause at the name, understanding the silent demand.

They had made a system years ago, Aizawa couldn’t even remember which loop now. If the students ever needed one of their teachers to talk about the Loops, they would call them Shouta-sensei and Toshi-sensei, if they needed to call on each other, they became Nori and Sho.  

“Leave us,” Toshinori barked, and slowly watched the villains dissipate into the dark misty portals.

“Wh-”

Toshinori held up a hand and an ear-piercing ringing passed over them before fading.

“What was that?”

“Siren,” Toshinori hummed, “Until I release it they can’t hear what we say but they can still see us, so keep up that grumpy look of yours.”

His scowl deepened but the panic that had started clawing up his throat began to retreat, “What is going on?”

Toshinori chuckled, “I was under the impression that rule #6 was still in effect.”

“You’ve…” Aizawa couldn’t stop the laughter from bubbling passed his lips, “You sly old man… you played us all like a fiddle this time didn’t you?”

“Fiddle?” Toshinori hummed, strutting across the room to a chest just outside the cell, “No, fiddles actually take effort, this was shockingly easy. After all who would ever believe the Symbol of Peace would be the big bad evil~”

Aizawa hummed in agreement, as the hero… villain turned back to him.

“So no, Shouta-kun,” Toshinori continued as he entered the cell, “I didn’t play you like a fiddle, I played you like the cheap kazoo you are,”

“I’m going to kill Denki for teaching you memes,”

“If they find you,” Toshinori chuckled, grabbing his wrists and handcuffing them to the bed.

“Oh, kinky,” Aizawa mumbled, “Haven’t seen those in a few loops.”

“Maybe next time we’ll be hit by a sex pollen quirk again,” Toshinori suggested with an eye roll, “Now hold still while I treat your leg.”

“Isn’t this counterproductive to your whole shtick?”

“Rule #6. What fun would it be if I let you die or stole your quirk?”

“Your buddies won’t question it?” Aizawa hissed as his wound was cleaned out.

“No,” Toshinori hummed but didn’t elaborate, sealing the bandage over the wound, “No stitches needed.”

“Good, your stitching is shit.”

Toshinori just huffed before rising, “I better return to the students, they’ll be oh so devastated to hear you’ve been taken.”

“ ¥ 10,000 Todoroki puts it together first,”

“ ¥10,000 says Young Shinsou catches me,” Yagi counters, not turning around.

“No giving him hints,”

Yagi just smiled as the ringing reappeared, “Wouldn’t dream of it, Shouta-kun.”

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Taglist:   

[livlepretre]

So what happened with the ghosts? If you want to share. 🙂

at first I thought you were asking about one of my fics and I was like ???? but now I realize you are asking me about my actual terrible time living in a haunted house in good old Dublin. 

okay. so, to begin, I’m not particularly skeptical about ghosts. New Orleans is a really haunted city and my grandfather’s house which I spent a huge amount of my childhood in was pretty haunted-- newspapers mysteriously sitting in the foyer in the morning even though the doors are all locked and the alarm is on, hearing your name being called all throughout the house and it turns out you’re there alone, a gardener who used to never go out at sunset because there was a man in a planter’s hat who would walk from the corner of the house to the pecan tree and back every night at the sun was going down-- honestly I knew A LOT of people with similar experiences growing up so I just,,,,,, accepted that ghosts were pretty much a benign part of life sometimes. (and there may have also been an incident where that same gardner pulled up an old flagstone and a woman popped out of the ground and he came inside white as a sheet, but my grandfather’s house pre-dated the civil war so it didn’t surprise anyone that it was super haunted.) 

well. when I was in college I had a JYA in Dublin, and I moved into a townhouse with a group of other Americans. something like day 3 or 4 in the townhouse, I knew for a fact I was the only one home, but I had this intense feeling standing in the upstairs hallway that there was someone standing right behind me. I can’t describe it as anything other than absolute certainty that there was another presence in the home. at the time, I was like, chill, there’s a ghost. and I went on with things and didn’t worry about it, as my own personal experiences with ghosts were pretty much that sometimes they’re just their and they’re harmless, and I kept this insight completely to myself since  I also suspected that my roommates were likely to be skeptics and I didn’t want to come off week 1 as Ghost Girl. 

Well, end of week 1, little did I know, but the gang who lived on the 3rd floor of the townhouse (I was on the 2nd) decided to make a ouija board on a lark. I have no idea where this idea came from, since I specifically did not mention the ghost to anyone... other than obviously it was on a lot of other people’s minds as well. well. they do the ouija board. the power cuts off in the middle of their fucking seance. it comes back on after a few minutes, and they decide to be done with trying to contact anything, but that night all of my roommates who were involved with the ouija board incident had.... like,,,,,, suicide fuel nightmares. like the worst most vivid nightmares they had ever had in their entire lives. 

that was also the night that the fire alarm started going off at 3 am. each floor had this old fashioned red metal bell with a mallet, and it would go off 3, 4 times a week for no reason at all... it was one of those things where at first we just chalked it up to an annoying old building. 

but there were a number of weird things that happened-- door slamming shut by themselves with no possible explanation, the fire alarm bell going off all the time, a mysterious fire that none of us could figure out, just a lot of little things that were interesting to me and which I was like ghost! I was super interested in the ghost and talked about it a lot because I was fascinated. Big mistake. 

I didn’t understand at the time that some ghosts are malevolent. I didn’t understand that there were times where it’s best to ignore the ghost and pretend it doesn’t exist rather than to talk about it where it can hear you. 

we had this big heavy mirror that hung on the wall at the top of the stairs. big sturdy thing, weighed a ton, must have been hanging there forever. 

one night I was standing under it talking to one of my roommates and the thing came off the wall and nearly landed on my head-- I was really lucky that I jumped back in time. The whole thing shattered. It probably could have killed me. I was freaked, so I went back to my bedroom, where my laptop was open and in the middle of my queen sized bed. I remember that it was in the middle specifically, because I had noticed it was sort of weirdly slipping off the edge of the bed for some reason when I had it over to the left, so I put it smack in the middle of the bed. well, I walked into the bedroom immediately after the mirror had nearly fallen on me, and honestly describing this still nearly breaks my mind. literally less than two minutes after the close call with the mirror my laptop gets hurled against the wall-- like four or five feet-- to land smashed up on the ground. 

At that point I realized that I had been talking about the ghost and it had noticed me and my only hope was to shut the fuck up right that second. 

I never talked about the ghost where the ghost could hear me again. 

Not to say there weren’t still ghost issues. The fire alarm continued to go off at the witching hour all the fucking time. There was an incident where my whole bedroom started to mysteriously v i b r a t e ??? Like, thundering. I thought that the gang was upstairs in the bedroom above mine dancing or something, but they were all on the other side of the house. (I later found out the fucking ouija board had been long-term stored directly above my bed, w o n d e r f u l ) 

There was also the time I was sitting on the floor in my friend’s room down the hall from mine, and I said to her, “why is there a pillow stuffed up your chimney???” naturally, she was like, “what the fuck” -- so, slowly, we pulled this throw pillow out from the chimney (realizing that the pillow was the one missing from the sofa upstairs??) and there, on the throw pillow, was a bird with a broken neck. 

there’s probably more that I can’t recall anymore because it’s been like a decade. I mostly remember being really afraid a lot of the time, as were like half of my roommates who were feeling similarly.... oppressed by the ghost, and being kind of helpless about it because I was a poor student and honestly that ghost wrecked me financially that semester when it wrecked my laptop so maybe it did get the upper hand at the time. idk. 

fun fact I actually met my husband because he was one of my roommates during all of this, so there were positives?? he’s a very rational person though so he just stuffed a book between the bell and the mallet on his floor so the fire alarm couldn’t torment him and ignored the ghost. 

I’ve had a couple of other ghosty experiences since then, but this is the one that stands out as the most personally harrowing. it was pretty wild to realize that some ghosts mean harm and that this one had it in for me in particular. I had a friend (actually one of my roommates who drew the fucking ouija board back in Dublin) go through something much much worse that honestly I can’t talk about, but has decently fucked me up for life just knowing about it. The funny thing is that he basically didn’t believe in the ghost back in Dublin (I think he was blacked out most of that semester though), but he reached out to me about his frankly horrific situation all because he remembered me flipping the fuck out in Dublin. 

Anyway. that’s the story of how ‘don’t talk about the ghost where the ghost can hear you’ became one of my lifelong rules to live by. 

[umusicians]

UM Interview: Jimah, El Cézar & Quantum Flush

Many artists today are constantly evolving in their artistry, whether that be personally or musically, through their image and sound. This Atlanta trio is no different. The trio made up of Jimah, El Cézar, Quantum Flush are bringing a new sound into the music industry, creating music under a  genre of music, called "Afroton". A blend of Afrobeats and Reggaeton, which the trio introduced to the world with the release of their debut EP, 'Rice & Stew'.

Amandah Opoku sat down with Jimah, El Cézar, Quantum Flush to talk about their new record ‘Rice & Stew’, embarking on a solo career and more!

Amandah Opoku: Jimah, El Cézar & Quantum Flush, thank you for doing this interview today! Before we kick off please tell our readers about yourself and one random fact people do not know about you? JIMAH: Hey, my name is Jimah, I’m a Cameroonian artist based in Atlanta and it’s my pleasure to do this interview. As far as one random fact goes, I used to go to boarding school in Cameroon when I was younger which was a crazy experience.         EL CÉZAR: What’s up! To start off, I was born in Maracaibo, Venezuela.  I love to make music, i love to game and i love to eat good food. Me and the guys are gonna have our own food show when God permits. One fact about me that is not so known, is my day hustle when i’m not wearing the cape; i bartend for a living. I go to weddings and serve up to 200 people and no cap i make a good ass margarita.                                                                  FLUSH: I am a composer and producer of world music based in Atlanta.  I’ve been creating my entire life and I’m a believer in God.

Pictured: JIMAH

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you each to create music and pursue it as a career? JIMAH: When I was like 13 in boarding school, I used to write out song lyrics for my friends in class who wanted to know the words to songs. From doing that over and over I figured I should start writing my own lyrics, and that led to me getting into instrumentals and trying to make my own songs. I used to also battle rap some of the kids in older grades and it used to be a little thing we’d do to pass the time between studies. The way the people reacted to me and what I did was a rush. The more I did it I realized I didn’t want to do anything else in life but chase that feeling that making music gives me.  EL CÉZAR: What inspired me. My dad is a percussionist and had drums in the house at all times.  I remember being 5 years old when i got my first drum set and driving my mom nuts playing the hell out of it.  My grandfather was also a singer in a gaita group along with his brother, who played the cuarto, (basically a smaller guitar.)  I remember growing up in Venezuela.  Every time we had a family gathering, beer and live music was always involved.  My grandfather singing his chords out with by grandma, my dad banging his drums, my uncles joining in with claps.  It was overall great times.  As i grew in the States, I began to fall in love with hip-hop and the culture.  Around my junior year of high school, I quit drumline and started messing around with FL studio.  The rest is just history, well growth and history.  Music is all I know and love. FLUSH: I began this journey in sound my first trip to Africa and got inspired by what was around me. Good things always came out of the arts for me. It always felt good for me to share my sound with people. With music, more opportunities opened up for me and I felt it was the most natural path for me in life.

Amandah Opoku: What artists would you say inspire you both musically and personally? JIMAH: I listen to a wide variety of music, so I’d say Sade, Fela Kuti, Future, Wizkid, Bob Marley, and Kanye West to name a few.  There are so many others in Africa like the late DJ Arafat, and the late Manu Dibango, Flavour, and so many others. EL CÉZAR: Definitely, Wiz Khalifa because of his lifestyle.  It’s a carefree, luxurious lifestyle.  He preaches good energy, hard work, and that you can become a self-made boss on your own.  His old music was all I listened to.  My second inspiration is Bad Bunny.  He writes all his songs, his style is unmatched, and he’s always creating the wave.  A big thing for me and the guys is creating the wave and not riding it.  FLUSH: I’m really inspired by Bach, Beethoven And Debussy because of the passion and their ability to push music into a new era. They inspire me to play with chords and form when laying out my ideas.  Dub Reggae inspires me too. I really love King Tubby and Lee Scratch Perry.

Amandah Opoku: Who are artists that you look up to that you would like to work with or collab with in the future? JIMAH: I feel like Skepta and I would make a smash for sure.  Wiz and Burna would be crazy. Rema has been going crazy too.  I feel like we’d make something that would really shatter the boundaries of the sound. EL CÉZAR: Right now, I'm really praying and manifesting a feature from Fuego. He’s an innovator, a genre bender just like us. Another artist I really look forward to collaborating with is Rema. The guy is just a vibe wizard. Lastly, Nessly. Nessly is fye. FLUSH: There are so many to name.  But, I definitely want to make records with Oumou Sangare, Fatoumata Diawara, Gunna, Young Thug, Alfa Mist, and Yussef Dayes just to name few.

Amandah Opoku: If you could describe your music in three words. What words would you choose and why? JIMAH: I’d say my music is a “Futuristic Eclectic Medley” because we are really taking elements from cultures from all across the globe and implementing them into the music. From instruments to lingo, I just want everyone in the world to be able to relate to the music. EL CÉZAR: Three words: smooth, sensual, and at times enigmatic.  I feel like I’m a pretty chill guy so this type of music is what resonates with me.  Plus, I’m also a night owl.  Listen to my music at night and you’ll feel what i’m talking about.  With the guys though, I’m heavily influenced by the energy Flush is trying to emit with the beats.  Flush is an unpredictable man, so i have to adapt a lot.  I love it though.  FLUSH:  The words that best describe my sound would be diversity, eclecticism and originality.  I’m creating music that transcends cultures and language. I pull inspiration from all aspects of my life and create with the intent to weld different cultures together.  I’m born and raised ATL with parents from West Africa.  So when I think about creating, certain sounds make sense with others.

Amandah Opoku: You recently released your project, ‘Rice & Stew’. What was the writing and recording process like? JIMAH: Yeah Rice & Stew was a lot of fun to make.  Working with El Cezar and Flush was just a flawless process.  Flush and Cezar are always coming with some crazy production and once they press play on the beat, it doesn’t take long for the ideas to start flowing.  I typically do a mix of freestyling and writing, and we record ourselves.  I went to school for engineering and Cezar is a beast with engineering too; so all the recording, mixing, and mastering was done in house, handled mostly by Cezar. EL CÉZAR: Rice & Stew man, the process was great!  I’ll never forget those times.  I think Jimah and I have a similar process.  During Rice & Stew, it was always hard to figure out who would go first on the song unless Flush explicitly said who he felt like should start.  We played rock paper scissors sometimes for who would go first, LOL.  Once we figured that out, we just vibed on the beat.  We spit melodies, and sometimes words will come out so we get an idea of what the song will be about.  After that, we either knock out the song in one go and write it then and there, or we’ll vibe on like 3 or 4 more beats and pick the best one to finish.  FLUSH: The writing process is actually something similar to a therapy session. Jimah and El Cézar are my friends so we talk about what’s happening in our personal lives. They pretty much narrate my feelings into song form. We have inside jokes the somehow worked it’s way into the music. Everything we do is from the heart I swear.

Amandah Opoku: You are 3 individuals contributing your own visions, sounds and ideas to what ultimately became, ‘Rice & Stew’. How did you integrate your own personal ideas/views into the project? JIMAH: The one thing we realized when we all came together was that we all had very similar life stories but just on different sides of the world. We also realized that our music and cultures were very similar and were almost like cousins. On every record we tend to tell the same story just from our points of view, whether that be in our native language or with lingo that only people from our cultures would understand, we’re like 3 sides to the same coin. EL CÉZAR:  Being yourself is really easy when it comes to making music. You do what feels natural.  I feel like because we’re from different parts of the world, we’re even more encouraged to hone into our cultures.  In 17hrs, I talk about taking my girl to Maracaibo, comiendo cepillao’ por el lago. Maracaibo is known for many things, but a great attraction is the Lake walk, “La vereda del lago,” and we also eat special iceys with condensed milk called “cepillado.” Also, in Maracaibo we have a different dialect then pretty much the rest of Venezuela.  We use the “vos” instead of “tu,” which completely changes the language.  It feels forced when i try to speak with the “tu”, the “vos” just feels too natural to me. I definitely like to incorporate that in the songs, mainly because it’s what I write naturally, but I sometimes want to make it digestible for those who aren’t too familiar with the “vos” dialect.  FLUSH: We respect each other’s vision and also learn along the way. El Cézar definitely taught me a lot about Maracaibo to the point where I feel like I was there. This is what Rice and Stew is about. Creating a hot meal by bringing our own seasoning and mixing it together.

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you to come together and release this project together? JIMAH: We felt like there was an absence of Afro-Reggaeton collaborations, so we decided to really spearhead that movement by labelling the new genre AFROTON. Once we figured out the formula for blending the cultures sonically, we knew that we had to give the people a collection of music from that genre. EL CÉZAR:  Me and Jimah met during one of our studio internships and clicked the first day we met.  We spoke about Afrobeats and how it’s similar to Reggaeton.  We spoke about the similarities the genres shared, the emotion the genres give us and how we resonate with the sound.  We cooked up beats at the internship that same day and pretty much planned our first session together.  At the time, I wasn’t really behind the mic much.  I was just making beats.  Our first session, I played Jimah a beat and we recorded “Wahala,” our first track together.  I loved the vibe and i felt inspired to write something in Spanish.  This was my first Spanish verse ever.  When we finished the track we literally went nuts and knew we found something special.  We even shot a video to that song, but never dropped it.  After weeks of cooking up with Jimah, he finally introduced me to Flush.  That day, me and Flush cooked up a beat for a song called “Shayo.”   Great song man, humble beginnings.  After that, we knew we had to keep cooking up.  This was something truly special.  After months of cooking and just vibing, getting closer and growing together, we decided that maybe it was time for a project that would showcase this new sound that we’re bringing to the world.  We knew that this would bring people together and that’s all we ever wanted.  I see these guys as my brothers and this music really fortified that.  Now, the ultimate goal is to have the most diverse dance floor anybody has ever danced on.  FLUSH: We felt that the world was changing especially now that we have reached a new decade. The sound has to transform and reflect the new age we live in today. We are all experiencing something completely new some of these things being life threatening. It’s only right that the sound changes with the times.

Pictured: EL CÉZAR

Amandah Opoku: What inspired you to name the record ‘Rice & Stew’? JIMAH: Honestly it was a joke at first, but it eventually stuck. Rice & Stew is a staple household meal that most cultures eat in some form or fashion and we felt like people would be interested to hear what rice and stew would sound like sonically. EL CÉZAR:  EVERYONE EATS RICE & STEW. Flush named the “La Zorra” beat “Rice Stew” and that’s what truly inspired it.  That’s where the name came from.  FLUSH: The name came from a crazy beat I made.  After making the 4th record on the project, we noticed that rice and stew is a meal people all over the world can resonate with.

Amandah Opoku: If you had to choose one song from ‘Rice & Stew’ to introduce someone to your music, which song would you choose and why? JIMAH: I would probably show them La Zorra. That’s because that record really cuts across all cultural boundaries and has a lot of energy that is just undeniable. EL CÉZAR:  I would choose Outta Line as the song to show the first timers.  It’s the perfect blend of everything - vibes, emotion, story, theme, the BEAT.  This song is my fav from the project.  Me and Jimah go back and forth, passing the baton, and telling the story.  This man Flush went crazy on the beat as usual.  It’s just an overall digestible vibe.  Anybody can vibe to that song. FLUSH: I would choose La Zorra. That song is the one that makes me speed down the highway when it comes on.  I love the high energy in the drums mixed with the psycho synths and syncopation.

Amandah Opoku: In the future, do you think you’ll create a group name that your projects would be released under or do you think you’ll continue to release music credited as your individual selves? JIMAH: You know this is something we talk about very often and we just didn’t want to force a name that did not resonate with everyone. So, until we get the perfect name, we’ll keep crediting each other. EL CÉZAR:  We’ve actually thought about the group name A LOT.  If we get a name, we want it to be something that represents all of us.  We’re really not tryna force it so as of right now, I think we’re going as individuals.  To us, we’re still a group.  We’re still the Afroton trio.   FLUSH: I feel that we could have a name in the future, but as of now God hasn’t revealed that message to us yet. We are just trying to grown in our sound and through that it’ll manifest itself.

Amandah Opoku: What do you want people to take away from your music? And as an artist, what do you hope to achieve with your music career? JIMAH: The underlying message throughout my music is unity and cultural appreciation. We all have different things to learn from each other and appreciate so I really want to preach that. I want to be recognized as one of the greatest artists of all time for bringing cultures together and I want to really represent for my country Cameroon, and I want to change the lives of people back home with my music. EL CÉZAR: I want people to understand that we’re all brothers and sisters at the end of the day.  We want people to treat each other like family and really to share the dance floor together, metaphorically and literally.  As an artist, I want to be up there with the greats, just like any other artist. But not because we’re good at what we do, but because we are innovative and we brought something to the table that no one has ever thought to bring - something genuine built from love and passion.  FLUSH: I want to inspire people to express themselves. People should be free in thinking and shouldn’t be afraid to take their time in finding themselves. I find out more and more about myself through the sound and share it with my listeners.

Amandah Opoku: What has been your favorite track released this year and why? JIMAH: I released a song at the beginning of this year called “Fake Energy” and that song really set the tone for me this year in terms of my mental state and how I approach people and this music. Whenever I listen to it, it really inspires me to stay on my game. EL CÉZAR: La Zorra had to be my second best because there’s an unmatched emotion that i get when i listen to that. The song is just crazy. From another artist though, it has to be Ginger by Wizkid.  The production is impeccable and the mixing is on point. Burna boy did his thing, Wiz did his thing too.  The outro of the song where the key signature changes was just perfect.   FLUSH: My favorite track released is Right Mind because that is when we all came together for the first time. We created the song at a studio called Danny Vails and since then we’ve been rockin heavy. That was the first time I linked El Cézar.

Amandah Opoku: 2020 has been a very interesting year for all of us. How has the pandemic affected you as a musician? JIMAH: It’s just given me more time to create, and if not for the pandemic, I don’t think we would have been able to really lock in to make Rice & Stew.  It was a blessing in disguise.  EL CÉZAR: It was truly a blessing to just be able to sit at home and perfect my craft.  Every day was productive for me. I was either studying music business, learning new methods to master songs, or making new beats and songs.  It was great. It gave me time to really hone into this music.   Being able to dedicate my energy into just music felt amazing to me.  Rice & Stew would’ve probably came out in 2021, if not for the pandemic.  We literally cooked up weekly and pushed out about 30 songs in the span of 3 months. FLUSH: It sucks because we have been performing in clubs and can’t enjoy it like that cause of the masks. We are also on a virtual tour which is cool, but it would have been better if we could get on the road and physically interact with our fans. I pray everything clears up so we can really go crazy.

Pictured: QUANTUM FLUSH

Amandah Opoku: With ‘Rice & Stew’ out now, what can fans and music listeners expect from you next year? JIMAH: Expect more futuristic culture blending, culture bending vibes from all 3 of us.  EL CÉZAR: Rice & Stew was only the beginning. Expect more collaborative projects from the guys and I.  In 2021, I am planning to release my first solo EP to showcase what I can do as an individual.  Music from us as a trio is inevitable! Expect greatness in 2021.  FLUSH: This project is just the spark to a flame that leads to the dynamite going boom. We have so much music to share and many experiences to give our listeners. We are performing shows and collaborating with people all over the world, It’s just a time to be global.

Amandah Opoku: Jimah, El Cézar & Quantum Flush, thank you for sitting down with me! Before we close this interview is there anything you want to say to your fans and our readers? JIMAH: I appreciate you for interviewing us and to everyone reading keep your head down and chase your goals, don’t worry about what those on the outside have to say, and go stream Rice & Stew out now on all platforms and more vibes on the way! EL CÉZAR: To all of the readers and supporters, thank you for taking the time to read this. Thank you for listening to Rice & Stew, and for accepting this sound.  We don’t want it to be esoteric, but even if it’s that; I’m happy and thankful for those who resonate with the music. We love y’all and we want to keep growing with y’all.  Stay safe and don’t forget to just be yourself.  You’ll get further that way. Peace. FLUSH: I want to thank my fans for taking this journey with us into the new world. Thank you for reading and if you haven’t heard the project yet check it out and hop on the UFO. There is plenty of food to go around just take a bite of this Rice and Stew.

Stream ‘Rice & Stew’ here and connect with Jimah, El Cézar, Quantum Flush on the following websites: Jimah: @jimahlegar (Instagram), @Jimahlegar (Twitter) El Cezar: @elcezar_ (Instagram), @elcezar_ (Twitter) Quantum Flush: @quantumflush (Instagram), @quantumflush (Twitter)

[shadowofthelamp]

@poppun-chan submitted:

Today has been tough, so that means we’re distributing another happy ending tonight (fun fact if you look closely at the opening ceremony scene you can spot Gaz standing on the podium):

Twix gasped happily as she saw her human dad, her real one appear in front of her. “Dad, you’re here!” she called as she threw her arms around him “We’ve been trying to find you for days, I’m so glad you’re safe” he said as he returned the hug “Come on Twix, let’s go home” as much as she’d love to leave this horrible world behind there was something she still needed to take care of.

—-

Soon the two of them were standing in the dimly lit laboratory, Twix was right, Dib had been able to fool the I.D. scanners his alternate self had installed, however he wasn’t ready for what he saw.

Zim was there, emaciated and tired looking from years of expeimentation with half of one arm missing; why did his 11 year old self ever want this? The Zim’s remaining arm was wrapped protectively around this world’s Twix, slightly more healthy looking than her parent but a few inches shorter than his own daughter, likely from malnutrition.

He didn’t know how she was made, he wasn’t sure he wanted to know, but it broke his heart seeing the way the pair looked at him, how afraid they were.

His thoughts were interrupted by his Twix “I know you’re scared, but I promise he won’t hurt you” she explained to the others as she reached her hand out “In my world he’s really nice and we’re all happy, so please….come with us”

Both hesitated for a moment, while the Dib had some unfortunate resemblances, they trusted the Twix, and this Dib did have a look of kindness their’s didn’t. Besides, nothing could be worse than here. They both nodded to each other before Twix reached out and took her sister’s outstretched hand.

A second later the Dib had wrapped his trenchcoat around them and scooped all three of them into his arms before running for the exit; amazingly they made it to the machine without security so much as blinking at them, likely assuming it was their boss. The smaller Twix looked around wide eyed, she’d never been outside the lab she was born in, and now the first time she sees the sky she can almost touch it as she and her father leave their old lives behind.

—-

A few minutes later Zim’s nervous pacing around the living room stopped when he saw the machine appear and his family climb out. “My Smeet!” he called happily as he pulled his daughter close “I’m so glad you’re back! My-”

Whatever he had planned to say was cut short as he spotted the other two passengers “….What….What is happening?”

The other Zim looked around the alternate version of his old base which somehow felt foreign to him now; as did the healthier, more vibrant version of himself, one that still had the fire he’d lost years ago. His anxiety was calmed as he was greeted by somebody he never expected to see again; he was almost knocked over as a tiny robot ran up and hugged him. His Twix qietly petted the robot with her little antennae perked up in curiosity and he wrapped his newly free arm around him. He’d missed his Gir.

—-

After receiving a nice meal, warm bath and change of clothes, the two escapees were seated in the living room of another house when a tall man walked in. “You wanted to see me, Granddaughter?” he said warmly, the taller Twix nodded before explaining the situation, or rather the cover story they’d been given.

They were her “foreign” Father’s relatives, who had been held in a lab for years during a war and subjected to experiments, one of which lead to the creation of her “Cousin”. The other genetic donor was a worker at the lab that happened to have a very similar face to her other Father, that was why he wasn’t here and why they were meeting him here instead of his workplace. ‘Dad and labs make then nervous’ she had said 'Now they just need somewhere safe and quiet to live, somewhere far away’

The Professor listened to her story in unreadable silence before suddenly rising to his feet “That fiend!” Twix was startled; she’d never seen her grandfather be genuinely angry before. “Science is about making new discoveries to create a better world, not….this” he said, gesturing to the huddled family before angrily muttering about non-volluntary human test subjects and experimenting for the sake of experimenting while kneeling down to eye level.

“I’m so sorry about what happened to you" he offered sympathetically “I promise were aren’t all like this” This world’s Dib had said the same thing.

Zim nodded slowly “I know” his eyes were wide from realisation: he knew this man. In his old world he worked as a low ranking assistant or custodian, he had been the only one to offer any help delivering Twix, and would sneak them extra food and blankets, even the odd book now and then.

“May I?” Zim was pulled from his reverie and noticed the man holding his hand towards what remained of his left arm, he nodded and the man gently examined it. “Yes. Yes, I think I could work with this” he smiled at Zim “If you want, I could build you a functioning  prosthetic arm” he offered before pulling up his sleeve to reveal his own replacement limb “I have experience with this sort of thing”

—-

A few months later escapee Zim was sitting at his desk in his new home, finishing work on a project. He had been surprised at how quick the process had been, in just a day or so they were in their new home, with a full set of furniture no less. The Professor had even stayed a few days to make sure they were settled in and make some final adjustments to Zim’s arm.

He’d hired him as well, while Zim was understandably put off biology he was still fond of robotics, he’d been working to revive Gir in his spare time, too; he had kept Gir’s A.I. chip in his Pak all these years and the head was almost ready to receive it now, he and Twix will have so much fun together. The Professor had also been impressed with his work in astronomy, and he’d started taking a few botany projects as well; Twix loved them and was always asking questions and putting together her own observation journal. He even felt a little of his old spark return.

“Dad, I’m home!”

His Twix is almost unrecognisable from the scared little girl she was when they first arrived; while she still didn’t like sleeping alone at night, she was now blossoming into a bright eyed & curious child and was starting to become more comfortable around people. She looked healthier too, he proudly noted that she was starting to outgrow the hand-me-downs the other Twix had given her as the two of them sat on the sofa.

Twix sat in her father’s lap with her head resting against his chest, they often sat like this when they still lived in the lab to help her feel safe, but now it was more to have some quiet time to recharge after school. “Guess what?” she asked as she settled into a comfortable spot “Marie’s parents offered to take me to the fair this weekend, they said you could come too, do you want to?”

Zim smiled warmly at his Smeet as he stroked her hair lovingly “I’d like that”

In another world, a human with the body of a man and the mind of an angry 11 year old is sitting atop a moose whose unenthusiastic expression contrasts with the mood of it’s passenger and the cheering crowd. He may have been annoyed that the alien & hybrid disappeared, but he knows about the coming invasion now, it doesn’t matter. Elsewhere his father smiles bittersweetly as he cleans the lab, he may not know where she is, but his granddaughter made it, and that’s enough for him.

In another country the local Zim is informing his leaders that there is now another Zim living on Earth and asking if they would like his contact information. He happily misinterprets their stunned expressions and insistence that his calls are “more than enough” as a compliment.

And in a few days this Zim & his daughter will go to a fair for the first time where they’ll watch shows by the most adequate performers a shoestring budget can hire, win cheap wall-eyed stuffed animals, and discover the joys of cotton candy.

But for now he’s just glad to hold his daughter close and know that she is happy and safe, they both are.

______________

Shadow: YOU MADE IT BETTER... gah, this is all really, really great! Thank you so much! The idea of Zim getting a job and something to do and WLOD Twix getting to go to school, WLOD Membrane actually kind of helping them... this is so nice.

[ornament-of-rhyme]

Hi! I read your Spazkins fanfictions and I think they're really adorable! Can you perhaps give us some headcanons about them?

Hi there! Despite what it may seem,considering how long it’s taken me to reply to you, I am goddamnstoked that you asked about this! (I am so sorry to keep you waiting,though.) Thank you for asking, and thank you very much for reading mystories. I’m happy you liked them.

As the length of this post can attest,I have a lot of feelings about these characters to share with anyonewho will listen, but I must confess that many of my headcanonsdevelop during the writing process. Seeing as I’ve only written acouple of short fics for this pair, I still haven’t developed myversion of them as much as I would like. However, I do have someheadcanons, both for these characters as individuals and as a couple.It’s entirely possible they’re not exactly interesting HCs,but they help me flesh out the characters as I continue working withthem.

Before I go on, I want to take a moment to state that these are only headcanons, interpretations, and observations, not things that I am trying to present as fact or push into fanon. I’m just having too much fun with these characters.

Since you read my stories youalready know, but for anyone else who stumbles upon this, when Iwrite these characters I use the names Gilbert “Gil” Braun akaSpaz, and Edwin "Eddie/Ed” Hopkins. I’m also throwing in a fewheadcanons about another background character in the film, listed inthe credits simply as Stick, though I call him Norman “Norm”James. In my mind, he’s Gil’s best friend, so he’s relevant toSpazkins in that way.

This cutie is Stick, by theway:

Now, on to the headcanons! Hopefully Ican put them in some sort of coherent order. (Note from future Orn:This post oscillates between being a disorganized essay and a list, but hopefully it’s intelligibleanyhow!)

I’ll start with Gil and Norm, seeing asI headcanon them as having known each other the longest out of thesethree. In fact, I like to think Norm was Gil’s first friend atWelton.Norm was given the nickname Stick by his peers becausehe is the smallest kid in their year. Seriously, look at the guy.

Stick indeed.

I began to associate him with Spazbecause the two of them are seen with the Poets multiple times in thefilm—including at meals, where they are the only two non-Poets atthat table. I imagine they have complementary personalities, and werefast friends because of it. Likely they were drawn to each otherbecause of the things people think are odd about them; namely, Gilhaving health problems and Norm being small and thin. I headcanonthat Gil and Norm are able to bond over being avid readers of sci-finovels and pulp fiction, and once they’re out of school they becomeequally eager viewers of The Twilight Zone. (The latter, Edwin findshimself enjoying as well.)

In my mind, Norm is related in some wayto Nolan. Grandfather, uncle—I don’t know how yet, but I amdetermined to work this into one of my future stories. Due to hisrelationship to the dean, he isn’t bullied like Gil, but he is teasedon occasion, as most boys know he isn’t the type to tell Nolan. (It’snot like he’s overly fond of the man, either.) The teasing he gets isnot as rude as that which Gil has received. But after a number ofyears at Welton, someone came along who did much to stomp out theworst of the bullying on Gil’s behalf…

Two years before the events of thefilm, Edwin Hopkins enrolled in Welton Academy and was assigned adorm room with Gilbert. It was tense at first, with Gil unsure how tointeract with someone so aloof and, according to how Edwin presentedhimself to his peers, apathetic. However, they slowly built up acompanionable relationship when Edwin began to take it upon himselfto blandly intimidate or retaliate against those who teased orbullied Gilbert. Edwin wouldn’t react violently, or even loudly, buthe knew how to get people to knock it off, if only temporarily.

At first, Edwin was taken in by Gil’smore awkward, innocent demeanor and became protective of him becauseof it, while Gil’s feelings developed as he floundered in surprisethat he is being defended by someone he would have expected topartake in the bullying. They started speaking more in their room,and their friendship developed from there.

After Edwin madeit known to others that Gilbert was under his wing, so to speak, thebullying generally eased into lighter teasing. Though it remained anissue for Gil, his time at Welton improved significantly with thischange.

And while Edwin is something of aguardian angel to Gil, Gil pulls his weight in the friendship.Gilbert is the voice of reason, the wiser mind, of the two boys. Heknows how to get Edwin to listen, to stop and think before doingsomething reckless or impulsive. He also takes care of Edwin in hisown ways; he makes sure Edwin is awake in the morning and doesn’tmiss breakfast, offers help with homework, puts in an effort to cheerEd up if he is brooding, and so on.

Edwin is surprisinglythoughtful when it comes to Gil’s needs as well. As I wrote in TheSickly and the Meathead, he even thinks to tell Gil where he’sputting aside his glasses, that way he doesn’t have to blindly searchfor them. This is because when it comes to something he cares about,Edwin is quite detail-oriented. This is also the case with hisinterest in carpentry (touched upon in Safe in the Boughs, as well aslater in this post.) He considers the little things, and he thinksahead. Along that same line, Edwin checks in with Gilbert to makesure he doesn’t miss any doses of medication. He does it so casually,one would think he’d been doing it for years. Gil might be puttingaway his clothes as Edwin works at his desk, and without turningaround Ed asks if he remembered to take his medicine. Gil says yes,because of course he remembered, Ed grunts in acknowledgment, andthat’s that. Gil thinks it’s sweet.

Another way Edwin expresses hisaffection is through gifts, and the best example of this is TheBlanket of ‘58. See, Gil has two more blankets on his bed than theother boys, but they don’t hold in heat well enough for him. Knowingthis, in late November of his second year at Welton, Edwin gives Gila heavy crochet blanket as an early Christmas present. His motherbegan working on the blanket the previous winter after Edwin wrylycommented that his roommate was likely to freeze to death during oneof the cold winter nights at Welton. Despite his typical stoicism,she saw his fondness for Gilbert early on and was eager to make ablanket for this friend who mattered enough to Edwin to be mentionedoutside the context of sports and class. Later, Gil’s mother wouldexpress her thanks to Mrs. Hopkins by inviting their family todinner, where the parents hit it off. It is this meeting thatinitiated the friendship between the Hopkins and Braun families.

Above all, Eddie is a man of actionover words, and thus it is through his actions that he mostfrequently expresses his affections. Touches, kisses, favors—whetherrequested or not—he makes it known to Gil how he feels. And hisfeelings can run deep, especially where Gilbert is concerned. Even ashe threw himself into building their tree house (featured in Safe inthe Boughs), Edwin more than once indulged in idea of one day havinga real house to share with Gilbert.

All that said, it isn’t entirelyunheard of for Edwin to verbally express his feelings to Gil. Termsof endearment they’ve come to use are simply “baby” (Edwinaddresses Gil as such, though it is in private and not too frequent)and “Eddie.” Edwin’s pals at Welton often refer to him asEddie, too, but he finds that Gil’s voice can make it ring with sucha level of emotional intimacy that it may as well be an entirelydifferent name.

Kissing was a bit difficult for them atfirst. It took the two of them a while to get used to heavy kissingdue to Gil’s braces, but eventually they learned how to work aroundit. Another problem that occasionally crops up is that Edwin is verygood at taking Gil’s breath away, and as nice as that sounds, Gilneeds as much as he can get because, of course, he suffers from SteveRogers Syndrome. That is to say, his medical records are expansive,but he’s not on the verge of death. He is even able to participate insports at Welton, but is given much leniency. Chess and croquet aremore his deal.

Alright, I feel like this would be agood time to talk about their hobbies and other activities.

I believe Hopkins may canonicallybe captain of the soccer team. Though if this is the case, why did heflub his kick in the poetry/soccer exercise? To joke around? I don’tknow. My jury’s out on this one, but I think it’s interesting. I’mmostly basing this theory on the shirt he wears in these scenes:

I don’t know a dingle damn thing about sport ball, but I’m pretty sure that shirt denotes something important.

(Along a similar vein, though it isn’tnecessarily relevant to this post, I believe Keating may be thecoach. He even has a history with soccer. According to his schoolannual, he was the captain of his soccer team for a bit.)

Along with soccer,I have a headcanon that Edwin has a passion for carpentry! It beganwhen, as a child, he was told that Jesus Christ had been a carpenter.Thinking that was rad as fuck, Ed took a strong interest in it. Eventhough his faith grew weaker over the years, he maintained his lovefor carpentry independently of that.

General aloofnessaside, Edwin also likes to joke around with and show off in front ofhis friends. He’s even willing to do so in front of authority figuresif he thinks he can get away with it. Though he doesn’t strike me as someonewho brazenly defies authority when he knows it will end inpunishment. Keating in particular has proven he is willing to put upwith Ed’s dumb shenanigans—though, as is shown in the movie, hedoesn’t appreciate or reward them. I agree with Keating’s jabs at thestunts he pulls. They’re not just disruptive, they’re lazy. I like toimagine that the laziness of the jokes is more of a bother to Keatingthan the fact that they’re happening in the middle of class.

As for Gil’spreferred activities, he is a pianist. The organ player at Weltonpicked up on his interest in the instrument, and offered to teachhim. Gil agreed, and discovered he enjoyed it. As he pursued theactivity outside of Welton, his family was able to procure a pianofor their home on which he continued to practice. He also enjoysbird-watching. (With this in mind, Edwin gives him a new pair ofbinoculars for his birthday one year. He doesn’t get the appeal ofthe activity, but Gil lights up when he talks about the birds, so Edhas no qualms humoring him.) And as I said before, Gil has fungeeking out with Norm over sci-fi.

Now for some stragglers:

-Gilbert’s fatherreminds me of George McFly. That’s all I have to say about that.

-Gilbert’smedications are kept in Hager’s office, so Gil has to visit him inthe morning and before bed to take his medicine.

-I can’t tell forsure if it’s true to life, but I like to imagine that Gil is tallerthan Ed.

-Edwinloves the silkiness of Gil’s hair, and Gil likes to card his fingersthrough Ed’s shorter 'do. And, though he doesn’t appreciate the cause,Ed thinks Gil’s consistently red nose is adorable.

-Edwin’s friendsat school are not a tight-knight group. Notice that as he smugly readhis Truly Great poem The Cat Sat On The Mat (coming to a poetry slam near you), Hopkins was looking for the reactions of some of the boys around his own desk. None of these boysstood at the end of the film. Not saying this is canon, but it makessense to me.

-Gil’smother embroiders handkerchiefs before gifting them to him. Some aremonogrammed, others are only patterns or simple images. He sometimesfinds it embarrassing, but she puts so much love into herembellishments that he has never spoken a word of dissent.

-And finally, if you manage to catch agood look at Hopkins in the film, he has some birthmarks on hisface–small indentations on the left side near his hairline, and aline coming off the outer edge of his right brow. Wait, I have ascreencap for this one, too!

Sometimeshe’s asked if they’re scars and what caused them, and just for kickshe comes up with a different answer each time. He doesn’t care thatpeople notice, and isn’t particularly self-conscious about them. Moreoften than not he only remembers they exist when Gil gathers theinitiative to press his lips to them.

And that’s my current lot of Spazkins headcanons!

Thankyou again for asking, iamidentical. Your question not only helped me think more complexly about these characters, but it also led to a new idea for a Spazkins fic. It felt good to share thesethoughts with you.

[christhehoff]

Direct Hit?

Nintendo Direct 9/13/17 Thoughts & Notes

The latest Nintendo Direct has come and gone, and it delivered pretty much what I expected, if not slightly more. Given the timing of the presentation, this was Nintendo's best opportunity to push its fall and holiday lineup, and it did just that with new information on Super Mario Odyssey, Pokémon Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and a smattering of others. Anyone expecting big reveals set themselves up for disappointment; this was about selling the games hitting in the remainder of 2017 first and foremost. That's not to say there weren't surprises; not only were new first-party games announced, but so were third-party titles, new hardware variations, and even an unexpected blast from Nintendo's past. Here are the top 15 notable moments as far as I was concerned.

1. Super Mario Odyssey The more I see of this game, the better it looks. Nintendo has obviously been holding back information on this game since E3, showing only a handful of environments, enemies, and abilities, but the curtains opened a whole lot more during this Nintendo Direct. Sure, we expected Mario standbys like an ice world, a water world, and a jungle world, but it's nice to see them with our own eyes. As with previous looks at this game, the new footage displayed a world bursting with imagination and unparalleled creativity: running on water, controlling an adorable flying dinosaur, racing against Koopas, and engaging in a 2D Donkey Kong homage. The classic outfits tug at my Nintendo nostalgia, and the photo mode opens up a lot of fun creative possibilities. The best part is I think we've still only scratched the surface of this game. Well, the best part for some might be topless Mario's nipples, but I guess that's a personal preference. The Switch bundle that includes red Joy-Cons and a Mario carrying case is pretty snazzy too.

2. Xenoblade Chronicles 2 The new footage of Xenoblade Chronicles 2 really emphasized just how vast and beautiful the world is. The living, breathing environments, built on the backs of massive creatures, look absolutely stunning and, like in previous Xenoblade games, simply beg to be explored. The Nintendo Direct presentation - evidently narrated by a bored, genteel British grandfather - was absolutely ridiculous and probably didn't garner many new fans, but it didn't negate my enthusiasm for this anime-influenced RPG. The special edition - including a music CD and a 220-page artbook - is somewhat tempting too, but maybe not for $100.

3. Project Octopath Traveler Even though it's not set for release until next year, Nintendo put a heavy emphasis on the ludicrously named Project Octopath Traveler for Switch. I know it's supposed to be a temporary name, but hopefully it finds a better one sooner rather than later. More exciting than the presentation was the release of the playable demo, which lets you sample the game as two of the eight protagonists, Olberic the warrior and Primrose the dancer, each with unique special skills. The inclusion of eight protagonists gives the game a Saga Frontier feel, while the retro graphics feel like a throwback to 16-bit Final Fantasy games. This one has a lot of promise.

4. Nintendo Arcade Archives This came out of nowhere. Hamster, the company responsible for publishing a ridiculous number of Neo•Geo games on Switch, will now be delivering Nintendo's classic arcade lineup in pixel-perfect form to a console for the first time ever. Nintendo should have tried something like this with arcade Virtual Console on Wii, but it didn't; now, at long last, the original versions of these seemingly lost arcade games will finally be playable once again. While the differences between the arcade and NES versions of these games aren't huge, they're a captivating piece of Nintendo history, and hardcore fans will love picking up on the subtle differences in games like Mario Bros, Vs Balloon Fight, Vs. Ice Climber, Vs. Pinball, and Vs. Clu Clu Land. For me, it's all about Vs. Super Mario Bros and Punch-Out!!, but if the price is comparable to past Arcade Archive offerings ($8 or so), I'll probably buy the whole lot.

5. Doom & Wolfenstein II I'm not a big FPS fan, so these aren't games I'll likely buy personally, but I love the fact that the Switch is diversifying its lineup and seeing more support from Bethesda in the form of these popular shooters. Hopefully other publishers will do the same.

6. Pokémon Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon I loved Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon, and I want to say the same about Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon, but the latest footage shown of these games didn't really inspire. Whereas Sun and Moon were exciting and refreshing, it looks like Ultra Sun and Ultra Moon are going to retreat an awful lot of the same territory. The Pikachu Park and new beach areas look nifty, as do the new Ultra Beasts, but I was hoping for a lot more.

7. New Nintendo 2DS XL Hardware On the other hand, the Poké Ball Edition New Nintendo 2DS XL (coming Nov. 3) looks amazing. I have to believe this will be one of Nintendo's most in-demand hardware variations yet. And the new white-and-orange New 2DS XL (coming Oct. 6) looks perfect for fall as well.

8. Kirby: Star Allies It's bright, it's colorful, and it's full of multiplayer action and crazy copy abilities - it's definitely a new Kirby game. We still don't know much about this previously untitled Kirby game that was revealed back at E3, but it's sure to be a blast when it hits in spring 2018.

9. Mario Party: The Top 100 With a November 10 release date - less than two months away - this one came out of nowhere as a surprise announcement. But is Mario Party out of ideas? This 3DS release curates the best 100 minigames from past Mario Party titles and compiles them into one game. Mario Party games have a reputation for being very similar, but in this case it literally reuses the ideas from the past. Hopefully it has compelling boards to tie it all together.

10. Kirby: Battle Royale Taking a break from the usual Kirby formula, this is a four-player Kirby fighting game for 3DS. There's a single-player mode, of course, and several types of competitive play, but it's kind of a bummer that there's no stereoscopic 3D.

11. Dragon Quest Builders Essentially combining elements of Dragon Quest with Minecraft, this one was released on other platforms some time ago, but I'm glad to see that it's coming to Switch in North America.

12. Minecraft: New Nintendo 3DS Edition It's hard to believe there wasn't a 3DS version of Minecraft until now. This game probably would have had more impact if it were released a year or two ago, but better late than never, I guess! The digital version is already available for download, and a physical version will be coming down the road.

13. Snipperclips Plus The original Snipperclips was a tad too frustrating for my tastes - perhaps I needed better co-op partners - but it's nice to see it returning with an expansion, and with a physical release. You can grab the full package at retail for $30, or if you already own the original digitally, you can add on 30 new stages and other features for just $10.

14. The Alliance Alive Other than the fact that it's a traditional fantasy RPG featuring nine protagonists, and that the story focuses on humanity rising up against demon conquerors, little has been said about this one. But Atlus rarely steers us wrong with role-playing releases, and one of the writers of the early Suikoden games is involved, so I'm definitely interested.

15. Amiibo Release Dates If there’s one thing I love, it’s amiibo. And I can't wait for the latest releases, all of which now have release dates. Koopa and Gooma hit Oct. 6 (the same day as Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga + Bowser's Minions); Chrom and Tiki hit Oct. 20 (the same day as Fire Emblem Warriors); and the Champions of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Mipha, Revali, Daruk, and Urbosa) hit on Nov. 10. Who knows? Maybe the second batch of BOTW DLC will hit around that time too. Of course, the Mario, Peach, and Bowser amiibo hit alongside Super Mario Odyssey on Oct. 27.

[sunokasai]

Impression - “Star Wars: The Last Jedi”

I am not a die hard “Star Wars” fan who knows every bit of lore or all of the old extended universe (that unfortunately is not canon anymore… thanks for that, Disney…) and I admit that I also do not watch the animated series. But I grew up with the old trilogy, having watched these movies countless times. I watched the Prequels more than I would like to admit. So of course the new trilogy had me excited. And “The Force Awakens”, despite its flaws, managed to get me excited again. “The Last Jedi” launched, the second movie of the new trilogy, and I’ve had a good night’s sleep and a whole day to sort my thoughts and feelings on this movie. And with this: SPOILER WARNING! If you have yet to watch “The Last Jedi” – or really any of the other movies – do not continue further. This will contain spoilers!

First things first: I did enjoy “The Last Jedi”. It was fun to watch and overall it was a positive experience, but it left the movie theatre with a lot of thoughts and kind of torn. Hours later I still feel that way. I think by now I can explain why. And funnily enough it all comes down to one thing: when there is light, there is also shadow. The plot is interesting and intriguing and a lot different from what we are used to. Throughout the original trilogy the rebellion had been presented as something small and yet it seemed that whatever they did was crowned with success, even when luck played its part. Episode 8 presents us with a completely different approach, especially after the big success in episode 7. The former Rebellion, now the Resistance, is completely outmatched and trapped, loses one fighter and one ship after the other until, from a once strong fleet only a couple people survive. The plan to have Finn and Rose enter the enemy ship - one that I belief would have succeeded if this were the original trilogy – goes horribly wrong and in the end it is pure coincidence that they survive. To me, this shows how different the two trilogies truly are. Even if they started out rather similar. The plot revolving around Rey, however, does not have as much of an impact to me as I think the creators intended. In fact, it has none. And that is because this plot is so closely connected to Rey’s growth as a character. Character development - something Rey lacks with this episode. To me, the Rey at the beginning of episode 8 is still the same Rey we see at the end of it. She is still the lost child that looks for her place in the galaxy, looks for guidance. The influence of her parents still hangs heavy over her head at the end of the movie, especially after she discovers the secret regarding them, causing her to lose the one well defined driving force for her character. At the end of the movie Rian Johnson (producer) wants to present the new light and dark to us: Kylo Ren as the dark and Rey as the light. But to me it feels as if this is not yet the role Rey should have. She feels forced into it because she herself has yet to accept that role, especially as the “last jedi”. She is not yet a jedi. For the moment, she is still just a girl from Jakku that is force sensitive who can wield a lightsaber and lift stones. In contrast, “The Last Jedi” also presents to us one of the strongest character developments a “Star Wars” movie has to offer in the role of Poe Dameron. At the beginning of the movie we are once again reminded of what Poe is: the rebellion ace, a hot-shot that gets into an X-wing to blow things up as the way to solve a problem. Even if there are sacrifices made along the way, Poe thinks of those as heroes. Throughout the movie he has to learn that sometimes blowing things up is not the right approach, that it would lead to more sacrifices than necessary. And this development gets presented really well: we have a Poe Dameron that fights a battleship of the New Order almost on his own, risking (and losing) a whole fleet of the rebellion, not backing away. At the end we see a Poe Dameron who does back away in order to save the remaining forces. Unfortunately, Finn takes his place as the reckless hot-shot, willing to sacrifice himself for a small piece of hope. Which doesn’t mean he doesn’t have any character development because he does. At the beginning of the movie there is only one thing on his mind, he exactly has one motivation: Rey. Getting Rey to safety when she returns is his number one priority. So much that he almost manages to leave the rebellion to take away a transponder that Leia gave Rey to guide her back to the rebels. While later, facing of Captain Phasma, he does identify himself as a rebel. That is thanks to the new character Rose who shows him what they should fight for during their mission and that it is something worth fighting for. One of the biggest controversy of “The Last Jedi” is the former last Jedi himself, Luke Skywalker. While I’ve read a lot of opinions that this doesn’t feel like Luke, that this can’t be him because he would never be so broken… I honestly do think that yes, it does make sense for him to have become what he is in this movie. Luke had to become a Jedi quickly due to everything in the original trilogy. He lacks most of the training younglings would have underwent during their training, even if he started to look into the old Jedi traditions on his own. He faced the dark side at its presumed peak and upon his shoulder laid the weight of having to raise a new generation of Jedi all by himself. A task he ultimately failed with, also because he was not yet fit to be a teacher (something Yoda hinted at when he burned the ancient tree). More than that he had lost Ben Solo, son of his twin sister and his best friend to the dark side. A dark side that seems much stronger than what he faced in Darth Sidious and Vader. If that does not break one, having failed at what one thinks to be their destiny, I don’t know what would. With this in mind, the Luke presented here, especially with the way he ‘teaches’ Rey, becomes understandable. He still has a lot to learn, as evidenced by Yoda’s appearance. And it is thanks to Yoda that he regains his trust in the force. Also by starting to trust and believe that Rey, despite knowing that the same power of the force that resides in Ben Solo also resides in her, will choose the right way. And it is this trust that leads him to be the one spark of hope for the rebellion that helps them escape. My biggest personal issue lies within the dark side of the force, namely Snoke and especially Kylo Ren. Snoke still remains the one mystery. The rule of two only ever allowed two Sith: a master and a pupil. So where does he come from? Who is he? Was he the start of a new Sith cycle and thus the reason we know about nothing before him? We may never know because unfortunately he died at the hand of Kylo Ren. Kylo Ren, who is quite admittedly the biggest contradiction in this new trilogy so far. Episode 7 shows us a struggling Ben Solo who aims to be the new Darth Vader. He wears a mask to match his grandfather and also managed to get his hands on Vader’s old helmet. But he is also still struggling with the force because the light and the dark both fight in him. An issue that he thinks he manages to solve by killing his father Han Solo. The initial shots of him in Episode 8 seem to present us the very same Kylo Ren. Until Snoke tells him he will never be like Vader and in a fit of rage her destroys his own mask. A symbol that probably should tell us that this chapter of Kylo Ren is over. The next hour presents us with a still struggling Ben Solo, indicated by his conversations with Rey. With him killing Snoke though, we are presented a whole new Kylo Ren. One that wants to get rid of the past, especially the Sith and the Jedi. Only to have him walk in Snoke’s footsteps two minutes later, declaring that he is the new Supreme Leader of the First Order and underlined by Darth Vader’s own iconic tool: the force choke. To me, the character of Kylo Ren is an undefined mess. It would make sense if being a mess without direction would be the essence of Kylo Ren himself, if that was him as a character. But Johnson tries to present him as a character with a goal, with a belief that the old needs to get destroyed. And it is this, the way the character gets presented and the way they want to present him, that feels redundant. Last but not least: Leia Organa, whom Carrie Fisher had portrayed in an amazing way. There is not much to say about Leia. Throughout episode 7 and episode 8 she was the wise voice of reason, seemingly guiding everything. Thanks to an interview with Mark Hamill we also know that neither episode 7 nor episode 8 were supposed to be “Leia’s movie’s”. The original plan had been that episode 9 would be the one focusing on the character Leia Organa and thus I suspect most of her growth would have been within its plot. We will have to see what happens with that now. It is notable though that we get to see a part of Leia that, while questionable in its execution, is crucial to her character. She also is a powerful force user, not just a force sensitive. Up until now we’ve only seen her feeling things through the force, now we’ve seen her actively using it, reminding us that she is also a Skywalker.

[epivskey]

Just wondering about your next gen headcanons. Do you favor any characters (including OCs and ships)? Also, who plays what on the Quidditch team?

oh my dear this will be long. most of my headcanons can be found on /tagged/hp-next-gen-headcanons on my tumblr.  

I’m just going to do my faves because there are too many kids.

Teddy Lupin - I subscribe to the canon that he is the Head Boy Hufflepuff. I like thinking that while his teachers expected and received grades worthy of his father, that he would also have his mother’s energy and clumsiness. His hair reflects what he feels, and since blue is the colour of calm and happy, its the colour you would most likely see him in. He’s close with the Potters and the Shell Cottage Weasleys. He plays the resident big brother role pretty well, so well that even the adults don’t notice the hurt he feels. He’s jealous that these are full families, that his family ended before it could properly begin. He relates to Professor Longbottom in that way, since they both were raised by their grandmothers. He didn’t have the paparazzi as bad, since his parents were dead war heroes not alive ones. He never let on to the younger ‘uns that he was too busy with exams to help with their problems.

Victoire Weasley - I like to pin her as the perfect cousin, the one on such a high pedestal in terms of looks, grades, her Gryffindor status and general care toward paparazzi and followers. She’s kind to the paparazzi, never breaking their things or swearing or making rude gestures; her head is always kept low and often holds a soft smile. Because for all the attention she got from them as a child, and from being told that all the others should act and be like her, Victoire enjoys the attention. She enjoys the flashing lights, although she didn’t always. When she was young she despised the camera, knowing that it awaited her outside her home, but as she got older and accepted it as part of her life, she found that she actually enjoyed it. It helped her greatly when Dominique broke a camera from sheer rage, because she got to fake niceness to get on their good side; her sister’s anger and rage was her saving grace. She enjoys it when her face is plastered onto a magazine, looking as pretty in her flawless nature. Fights break out with Dominique over how paparazzi should be handled, but she ultimately doesn’t give a shit.

Molly Weasley - Ever since a young age her father pressured her to do her best in school. Percy was a prefect and got high grades, and he expected no less from his daughters. Molly did as she was told and studied hard, studying even before her enrollment in Hogwarts. It didn’t help that her mother was Korean, so the stigma of her being smart was only due to “natural” instances of her being Asian, not her hard work. Half the time she questioned why she hadn’t been sorted into Hufflepuff, but the answer was always the same: expectations. Of course she would do well at school, of course she strove to be number 1, of course she was a Gryffindor. She was called a “Mini Victoire” or a “Victorie 2.0” by tabloids. The weight of expectations and the constant exposure to paparazzi outside of school did not do good things to her mental state. At thirteen she fell into a pit of depression. Her sister Lucy and cousins, James and Fred, were the only ones that really knew. For once she was glad she was in Gryffindor, because she had James and Fred to keep her from falling- both figuratively and literally. She made a suicide attempt at age fifteen. Her self-esteem was hurt and self-confidence plummeted; an incident concerning her friends, Daniel Wood and one Rita Skeeter during a Hogsmeade day caused her to lose them all because of an article written. That was the pushing point that led her to try and jump off the Gryffindor tower. Luckily James caught her and brought her back to his and Fred’s dorm. She’s being using them as a crutch ever since.

Fred Weasley - Having your dead uncle who is also your dad’s twin brother as your namesake could not be easy, and for Fred it was hell. His entire family had a legacy from their involvement in the Second Wizarding War, and while only one Weasley died for the cause, he was named after said Weasley. From when he was about ten years old Fred realised that everything he did and said would be compared to his namesake. Every bad joke he tried to tell that received pitied laughs, all the times he did something naughty with James and got scolded by Grandmum Molly, when he got sorted into Gryffindor. It was like he lived in a shadow he could never escape, the sun never shone where he stood and it would never shine for as long as he would live. He once spoke his fears aloud with James and Molly and was surprised when they resonated with him. At twelve he made himself a promise for the future: he would never ever name his kids after anyone he knew. The responsibility of knowing a namesake was heavy enough when it was just his family, but the tabloids took it to new heights, blowing his position as a Keeper in Quidditch way out of proportion, “Fred Jr walking away from everything his family taught him! Read more about how this junior is diverting from his predestined path.” He’s the most vocal of all the cousins about how fucked up their lives are.

James Potter - James has five things he considered to be the worst in life, but their order always got shuffled around: being named after your grandfather and great godfather; being Harry Potter’s son; being Harry Potter’s first born; being Ginny Weasley’s son; and being sorted into Gryffindor. Sometimes being named after your grandfather and great godfather sucked ass because of their reputation as tricksters, and replicating that kind of expectation was hard- or at least harder than anyone would know. The two categories of being Harry Potter’s son and being Harry Potter’s first born were split, because the former added pressure onto James to do something equally as selfless and amazing. How do you trump the fact that your father basically saved the whole world? The latter because, according to all the movies James had watched, the first born was always “destined for greatness” and was always the mold from which the other siblings would follow from. But James considered himself to be a mess and got into trouble- but not the good kind. He caused scandal after scandal leaving behind strings of “broken hearts.”  He loved his mum dearly, but hated that she pursued professional Quidditch (and that his father was the youngest Quidditch player in a century) because that meant James had to pursue Quidditch. He loved watching the sport and the thrill of the games, but hated actually being on the pitch. But duty calls, and so he joined Quidditch and became Captain. This tied with him being a Gryffindor. He didn’t want his future to have been planned out for him already, often waking at night from nightmares.

Relationships I do ship are: Teddy & Victoire, Scorpius & Albus. Ships with the canon and my ocs: my oc Imogen Wong & James, my oc Dinah Wood & Teddy, my oc Frank II & Louis, and my oc Bella Hart (Pansy’s daughter) & Lucy.

As for OC’s I favour:Amelia Finnigan-Thomas - Adopted child of Dean and Seamus from Myanmar, Amelia was a darling to the public eye. It was a fairy tale, the tale of a poor unknown witch from a poor country being adopted by gay, loving war-hero parents. She had an older brother who was adopted from kenya with a similar story. She hated the paparazzi and still does, but she loves to make fun of them with her brother and friends. At fourteen she became the Quidditch Captain for Hufflepuff, managing to bring Hufflepuff to victory and get the House Cup! She spawned quite the attention when she did, doing everything she could to emphasize the fact that she did it, she brought her house victory. She’s at times cocky and unchecked, but if you ever say shit about her fathers or her brother, she would not hesitate to hex you.

Dinah Wood - First born child of Oliver Wood and Quidditch mastermind in her own right. She was captain of Gryffindor’s Quidditch team when James first entered Hogwarts, drawing knowledge from her father on tactics to use on the field. Many players from within her own house, and plenty from the others, complained that she had an unfair advantage. McGonogall brushed it all away, and Dinah felt connected to her head of house, grateful that her faith was placed in her. Her hype about Quidditch is considerably less crazed than her father. But her legacy as a Captain garnered her a position as a “popular” girl, alongside the fact that she was best friends with Teddy Lupin and Victoire Weasley. She’s very competitive, fighting for the title of prefect in Fifth Year, and Head Girl, but the title instead went to a Slytherin prefect.

The kids that played Quidditch in Hogwarts:James II - ChaserFred II- Beater, KeeperDominique - Chaser, BeaterLucy - ChaserScorpius - KeeperAlbus - SeekerDinah Wood- ChaserAmelia Finnigan-Thomas - Seeker, Chaser Louis - ChaserFrank Longbottom II - Beater

[brian-wellson]

What got you into writing? What's your story?

It would be cliché for me to say that I have been writing all my life… cliché, but also true. In order to understand that statement, you have to understand who I am as a person.

I come from a broken home. An actual broken home — my biological parents divorced when I was two or so; I lived with (and was physically and emotionally abused by) my biodad while my mom was in a psychiatric hospital; my biodad told me I was a mistake; and my mom lived with a prostitute because she needed someone to help her make rent. All of this by age five! Books were, by all rights, my only friends. Books were a marker of stability — they were pretty much all I had.

When I had entered kindergarten, I was already reading at the fifth grade level. By the end of that school year, the seventh grade level. Even as a kindergartener, I think I recognized that literacy was imperative, for it was through reading that I could give myself something I was not getting elsewhere. I could play in a peaceful, sun drenched  meadow, I could meet dignitaries and nobles and queens and kings, I could be a biological researcher … If I could imagine it, then it would happen. (Reader’s Digest had some amazing coffee table books back then filled with detailed pictures and graphics and flow charts … but, most of all, clear and concise text.)

Anyhow. Around second grade or so, I immersed myself in the Choose Your Own Adventure series (and its compatriot, the Time Machine series). I thought they were amazing. It was then I realized that there were so many different ways to end a story, so many different ways to your demise. I think I liked them so much because the crux of their concept and execution hinges on personal choice; the books were comprised of short vignettes, and every short vignette was accompanied by a choice at the vignette’s end. That choice would send you to a different part of the book, down a new line of inquiry. Retrospectively, I see my child’s reasoning — if I could not control things at home, then I would seek it out elsewhere. Lo and behold, I was given control in the form of books! The choices I made actually mattered! I was hooked, and read every book many times over. I found myself wanting more of them, but none in that series were to be had; I was reading them too quickly, and my pace overtook new book drops.

Concomitant with reading the aforementioned series, I began to staple little books together. They were made of college-ruled notebook paper. As you can no doubt guess, I modelled my own writing off that in which I had immersed myself. I think the first ‘book’ I ever wrote was entitled “The Lost Gold of the Seneca”. I’m originally from upstate New York, and we are pretty steeped in Iroquois culture; as a child, the Seneca tribe fascinated me. Well, I had my culture… what about the plot? The plot was based off a myth my grandfather had told me about an old, abandoned lead mine in the southwestern Catskills. So I merged the lead mine myth with Seneca culture, and made my own story. Of course there was no gold to be had in real life… but I was only eight. A writer typically writes about the things with which they have familiarity. And, like I said, I was eight. (I wonder if that little book, written on scraps of stapled notebook paper, is laying around anywhere?)

When I was 12 (1991), my mom had several psychotic breaks. She became violent and delusional. My reading habits had, of course, grown along with me over time. I had just finished Tom Clancy’s Hunt for Red October and Patriot Games. (I was also an avid reader of comic books, though they did not figure into anything. I just liked Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, and Infinity Gauntlet. They were so fun to read!)

As my mom battled her mental health issues, my stepfather searched frantically for job following his layoff from a defence contractor… all while I had to contend with being — well, bad things would happen to me when I would visit my biodad.

High school was a  difficult transition for me. My mom, stepfather, and I moved from our creepy ass apartment in the bad part of town to a complex close to the high school on the hill; our complex was in the nicest part of town. Somehow the rent was cheaper… well, not somehow, it was about two-thirds the size of what we’d had before. I was small and awkward. I read books. I was a musician. Accusations of homo- and bisexuality were levelled at me, and I was bullied relentlessly as a result (high school was much different in the 1990s… ‘boys will be boys’ was still the norm, and bullying was not that big of a deal). You can imagine how that went — a poor, artistic kid who kept to himself, and was socially awkward, and slapped with the label of – as they would say – “being a queer”? During my walks home from school, rocks and bottles would be hurled at me from passing cars along with  derogatory taunts about my mom, my stepfather, and me. What friends I had were people of convenience, people in my orbit. One of them even shot me with a BB gun once just because he thought it would be fun. (Hint: it wasn’t.)

So I took control.

The resultant novella I wrote was sprawling, a true epic of ambition. 150 pages. Gunfights, a conflicted sniper, the mafia, international jewel thieves, a corrupt cop, the mass media, a jet ski pursuit down raging rapids, Army Rangers, and international, multicultural government agents. Oh — and a town levelled in the third act by gunfire and bombs and grenades and an exploding helicopter shot down with a Stinger missile. All of the novella’s characters were metonymic for people I knew in real life. This was my attempt to put them into the slots as I saw them: hero, villain, bystander, enabler, or something in between. This was my attempt at control. I left it open for a sequel, but it never materialized. The novella itself took about 1.5 years to crank out (on a word processor; we did not have a  computer in our house until I was a senior). Not bad for a 12-year-old. I was proud of that manuscript. I am still proud of it… in fact, it’s one of the few artifacts I have kept from those horrible adolescent years; the sole copy sits with my other archival materials from later in life (like my ballets and my flute concerto/dissertation). Who knows. If I ever write a novel, perhaps I will use that plot.

With college came baggage, and with baggage came a downward spiral of my own mental health. I ended up functionally homeless for a couple of months… I was not allowed to be around the house when my parents were home, but I could clean myself up and catch some sleep during the day. That summer (1999), I started an Angelfire online journal, one that was modelled after my best friend’s. She and I were in a very similar space, and it seemed to help her out, so I decided to try it; to tell you our state of mind, my favourite line I had written from that time: ‘I wish I was a river rat’. My best friend had been thrown out by her dad, so, that summer, we had each other’s backs: sleeping under bridges, dumpster diving for cans and bottles and trinkets, selling trash at yard sales, eating from abandoned room service trays. Things were bad, but we still had our words – I still had my words.

Every day for a year (1999-2000), I updated that online journal. Over that span, I welcomed more and more followers — so many followers that had I to buy my own domain and server space (2000-2004). The domain hosted not only my own online journal, but those of others, as well. That core of people, we became our own community, and exchanged stories with each another across the continent. We organized an epic meet up, and people from up and down the Eastern Seaboard showed up. In fact, I am still in contact with several of the other online journalers. My site won a “Best of the Web” award, an award I had not sought, nor did I necessarily think I deserved, but one which made me happy. The site was a true labour of love: all of the HTML & CSS coding was written by me (in Notepad), all of the photos were digitally rendered by me, and all of the written (and musical) content was written by me. I even had a live streaming cam for the semester when I reënrolled. (And yes, there were watchers.)

I kept that online journal for years; eventually the constant maintenance became too much for me to handle. I needed to bang out my Masters (including thesis!) in a year, and went straight on to my doctoral program (2004). Writing fell by the wayside for many years…

…and then I had an accident which rendered me neurologically and physically compromised (2010). I couldn’t work, and I hated doing nothing, so I went back to school (2012-2016), and started down a path of study which has proven to be generous to me.

If you had told that disabled guy of four years ago that he would be offered an MFA slot at many different & prestigious schools to study Creative Nonfiction, he would have laughed at you.

If you had told the little, socio-economically disadvantaged teenager from a broken home that he would be offered a slot at an ivy for graduate school, he probably would have tried to kick your ass … it had been accepted that those things weren’t meant for people like him — for people like me. We don’t get to do that, we don’t belong there. This is a belief that still haunts today for many different reasons. That said:

I believe education is the great equalizer. Knowledge, wisdom, and literacy are the things that grant equity in our culture. Yes, it is used as a weapon by some; yes, it is also used as a form of control.

But that control was mine to take. I had no other option. So, I seized it.

That just about sums it up. These are the stories and reasons why I write, why I read, and why I care so very much about literacy. These are the reasons why I care about all of the writing I read on this site every single day. Each person has it in their power to craft a good story, and each story has the potential to change the way a person sees themselves and the world around them.

These are things I believe to be true.

Thank you for such a lovely ask.

(( @alastar-wyatt ))

[catalyssts]

Our Habitus

Going into the BINHI activity, I had initially bottled up reservations and concerns. I admit that at first, I was more excited to participate in this activity so that I could bond with my friends. It was more of how fun it will be for us in this certain community. With that mindset, my sudden change in perspective was understandable when I did not end up in a slot with them. My excitement was diminished to frustration because I felt as if my experiencing would be more taxing now that I have to not only situate myself in the assigned area, but also get along with those who are also assigned to my area. I realized that a lot of my frustrations came from the fact that I would be completely out of my comfort zone for the activity.

The BINHI preparation session definitely helped ease my frustrations because I was able to familiarize myself with the people that I would be working alongside with and the community in that area. It definitely did help that the agenda for what is supposed to be accomplished was clear among us. At that moment, I was able to regain the same excitement I felt before. On the day itself, I was nervous. Gawad Kalinga Bulaklakan had houses painted with different bright pastels. My partner and I talked and got to know more about our nanay and her family. We were able to laugh with her, which made the whole situation feel light and easy. It even came to the point wherein her shy granddaughter was able to warm up to us. Because of this positive experience, I felt more relaxed during our second visit. I felt as if we were welcome to be in that community.

Hearing my nanay’s stories helped me introspect on how similar and different our lives are. With the concept of habitus, I was able to further understand the reasons behind our human actions. I come from an upper-middle class family that is motivated by hard work. Everyone in my family was raised by our grandparents. They were in charge in disciplining us. The children in our family were taught arithmetic early on, because my grandparents took pride in raising children who excelled in academics. We were expected to study well, become top of the class and go to good universities. However, they required that we had a hobby. Despite our own interests, our grandparents enrolled us in classes that taught us how to play music instruments or play sports. For me, I had to learn how to play the guitar, dance and swim. Thus, the children of the family grew up to be well-rounded individuals who practiced balancing academics and extra-curricular activities.

In the same way, the habitus of the community we immersed in valued education. We saw this in the way our nanay took pride in her children finishing school. Her wall was decorated with graduation photos of her children – some of which are the same child, but different graduation level. We asked on what the family does for fun, and she said that they usually just stay at home for the weekends. They prefer to lounge and watch their favorite television show. Thus, hobbies were not particularly something they held high regard of.

During both times of our visit, the husband of our nanay was out for work. She decided to stay at home instead of work because her husband prefers that she were home to watch the children and prepare the meal when he comes home. This was done out of care, and not out of obligation. In contrast to that, my family grew up knowing my grandfather constantly empowered my grandmother to work for he saw that she was particularly skilled in business. This translated to their daughters and granddaughters pursuing professional careers. With this, there is an observable difference in gendered disposition in the habitus of my family and the family of our nanay. This was seen in how the women of each family viewed careers differently. Despite the difference of habitus, I ended up feeling at home in the community. People of different lifestyles can definitely enjoy each other’s company and learn from each other.

[missconduct]

As Strong as Darth Vader

<p>“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.” (Yoda, 1980, The Empire Strikes Back). I usually don’t begin an essay with a quote but in this case I feel it’s important. My theory here is just a theory based on how I’ve viewed this story for 35 years. If you don’t agree it’s ok take it with a grain of salt, my friends in Star Wars fandom, because it’s not canon lol this is all in my head. I’m speculating how the story could go, and that’s part of the fun in this saga is speculation.<br>

  The first time I heard they were making a new trilogy I cringed as a lot of people did fearing the worst for a story I love so much. I didn’t read spoilers, or cruise YouTube looking for theory videos. I barely watched the trailer. In fact all I saw of the trailer was a few glimpses of Finn wielding the blue saber (only because I was already a huge fan of John’s because of his character in Attack the Block). I stepped into this new world not knowing anything. I didn’t even know who Adam Driver was. I didn’t even know there was a girl protagonist in the movie. My canvas of TFA was blank.

  As I watched the movie quite a few things caught me by surprise. I’ll quickly list them; Kylo as a villain, the interactions between Rey and Kylo (that’s a huge ass one), where the hell is Luke? The symbolism in the story as a whole, and my deepest one is Kylo’s obsession with his grandfather. As I watched the movie these things caught my attention because the rest of the story is (and I saw it admittedly) a re-play of the original trilogy (which I think was a strategy to play on the nostalgia of the original). It intrigued me intensely though because there were all these twists in it that were obviously not a copy cat of the original trilogy.

  As I sat in the theater watching it for the first time the scene when Kylo is speaking to Darth Vader’s helmet began. I watched this clearly conflicted, confused, lost villain pleading with a dead man’s helmet to, “show him again, the power of the darkness.” I literally said in a whisper under my breath, “this doesn’t make any sense to me??? Vader’s greatest moment of triumph, his greatest strength was his ability to turn back to the light side. He chose to be good again, to do the right thing, to save his son, his family, from the darkness. Why would this mask show him anything dark???” I didn’t like it at first. The scene made me feel so sad. It was as if Vader’s sacrifice meant nothing at the end of ROTJ. Like his greatest moment was forgotten in this new world.

   Then I saw this girl who I viewed as confused and lost as much as the villain was. Trying to come to grips with where her life was going. Should she stay and wait for her family? Should she finally accept whatever the truth was and move on? Then she hears a call. I thought it was interesting that the call was a little girls cries, almost as if her own loneliness were calling to her. She touches this long lost relic that once belonged to Anakin Skywalker, and her life takes a turn that is going to forever change her destiny.

  I’ve watched Rey’s force vision way too many times to count and the 2 things that are consistent in them that stood out to me were 1: Kylo Ren, and 2: various voices from the past echoing through the force. Now a lot of people think that these past voices are the individuals speaking directly to her, but I didn’t see it like that. Even though Obi-Wan says her name, it’s more like the force is speaking to her through the echo of past force users. This is important because I’ll bring it up again later.

  Through my journey with Rey, I saw her frightened and alone after the vision. I know Maz is trying to help her, but it might freak me out if someone had just made me come to the realization that my deepest fear was true. That I had to accept the people who were supposed to care about me and come back for me were never coming back. She’s afraid, she’s alone (Finn just abandoned her also. He’s leaving her to go to the outer rim territory.) She runs, and who does she run right into? Our strange lost Villain. At this point, I was really wanting to know who and what was under that mask. Remember spoiler free, didn’t even know who Adam Driver was.

  Then he sweeps her away “Bridal carry” style onto his ship, abducting her! That had me on the edge is my seat because that whole scene had me trying to figure out where this was going. Was he a man under that mask ? Or a monster? Was this an endgame romance or a creepy stalker crush?

  Then I witnessed the “interrogation scene.” This is the most important scene in the movie for me, and not for the reasons you might think. Yes, my jaw dropped and (despite my very good looking husband sitting right next to me ) I almost wet my pants when Kylo took off his mask. I turned to my daughter and whispered in an awestruck voice, “I think he’s the leading man. How about you?” My 13-year-old daughter’s reply, “omg mom, damn” and we laughed. Yes, there is a lot of incredibly hot, passionate, sexually charged shit going down in that scene! That’s not why it’s the most important scene for me. As I watched, this girl rise to the occasion and step up onto the equal ground with this boy, she said those famous words that helped me piece my headcanon puzzle together, “you, you’re afraid, that you’ll never be as strong as Darth Vader!”

  Now a lot of people don’t pay much attention to this line. They simply think it’s just her calling him out on being a Darth Vader fanboy. Maybe the writers were going that direction, but I don’t think so. When I first heard that line I whispered under my breath “oooooooo that was deep.” And in my head it made sense. That was a huge foreshadowing of Ben solos redemption, and the part this girl is going to play in it. This part of the movie is what drew me deep into the story.

  So I went back and saw the film 5 more times after that, in the theater. Then immediately pre- ordered my iTunes copy to be available for download as soon as it was available. I watched, and watched, and watched it again, and again. I could even watch it again today lol. It wasn’t enough. I kept wanting to know more. I started cruising and just looking through fan bases, but it looked like the things I wanted to talk about weren’t subjects that were well received, so I didn’t venture into joining or posting in any fan sites. Then I started cruising YouTube and came across this channel called Star Wars Connection and found a video titled, “Visual Storytelling in The Force Awakens.” Omg, these ladies understood me !!!! They understood everything I understood in the movie!!! And listening to them helped me develop my theory about Kylo’s redemption and the connection between Rey and Kylo-Ben.

  During the second part of this outstanding podcast, they briefly talked about Luke’s journey into the cave on Dagobah. In that scene, Luke is confronted by Vader when he cuts his head off, and the helmet explodes revealing Luke’s own face within the mask. It got me thinking about Luke’s greatest fear and how it related to Kylo. They are similar but different. Luke’s greatest fear was falling to the Dark side and becoming just like his father. Kylo’s greatest fear is the (I hope this is the correct term) subverted version of Luke’s, that he will never be as Strong as Darth Vader, that he will never be like him. Is it possible that part of what went down between Luke and Kylo has something to do with this fact? This is all speculation but it got me thinking that if there are similarities between Anakin and Kylo, then wouldn’t there be similarities between Luke and Kylo also? When Luke sees his face in the mask it scares him. Kylo wants to see his face in the mask.

  While thinking about Luke and Kylo it leads me to Rey. These three individuals are key to what this story really is about. It’s not about who Rey’s parents are or aren’t that is irrelevant. I’m sorry to all those anti-Reylo’s out there who are gunning for her to be a Skywalker or Solo but in my headcanon, she’s not. Her part in this story in my mind is clear. It was a passionately romantic love that started all this, and it will be a passionately romantic love that will end all of this. 

   Rey and Kylo have collided. I have seen a lot of speculation about whether or not they knew each other prior to their meeting on Takodana. Through all the speculation I’ve seen the only one that makes sense to me is that they have seen each other in dreams and visions. In the novelization, it even says that Rey knows this man from a dream or a nightmare. I believe she has had dreams of him her whole life. Which is why I think he smiles when he sees her image of an island. Anakin had dreams of people and future events, why can’t Rey. I believe Kylo has had dreams of her as well. In my headcanon dreams and visions are two different entities. A dream coming to you in your sleeping state, a vision coming to you through a waking moment through something else. Rey has visions of Kylo when she touches Anakin’s lightsaber in the castle. Is it possible that Kylo has had a similar vision of Rey? Someone speculated that maybe Kylo had Obi-Wan’s lightsaber somehow. (Thank you Rebel Scum Podcast for twisting my idea lol to present it as yours, but you got it all wrong) Kylo doesn’t need anyone’s light saber to have a vision of Rey. He has Anakin’s mask. Part of my speculation is that Vader/Anakin’s mask is Kylo’s transmitter for his force vision.

  Now I know a lot of people probably think of Vader’s mask as a Completely Dark side relic. I’m sorry though I don’t see it that way. Remember I told you that the first time I saw the movie while watching this scene I kept thinking that the mask was more a representation and symbol of Vader’s greatest strength and triumph. Think about Vader’s last moments while wearing the mask. The moment Luke told him he could feel the conflict in him, and he knew there was still good in him. His sadness feeling torn, watching the emperor torture his son, Padme’s son! almost to death. The pain he must have felt being torn apart between the dark and the light at that moment. Vader chucking the old guy over the railing into the abyss to save his family, to do the impossible, something that Yoda said couldn’t be done. He came back to the light. Even the walk with Luke carrying him to the shuttle. Still trying to save his father. Removing his mask peeling it off of his face so he could look at his son one last time with his own eyes. That mask in my opinion saw a lifetime of light before Vader/ Anakin passed away and became one with the force again. I view that mask as potentially being a grey instrument of the force. If the mask has given him visions both light and dark it would make sense that he would ask it to show him again the power of the darkness. A lot of people think that individual characters from the past are directly speaking to both characters, as I pointed out earlier. Could Kylo think that Vader speaks to him through the mask. Is it possible that this is just purely THE FORCE itself using voices of powerful Jedi of the past? The force is just using these voices as an echo to bring these two very powerful force, sensitive individuals, together. Why would the force will this?

  I try to clear my mind and recognize what Yoda says over and over numerous times in the saga. It is this entity that binds everything together. It has a will all its own. It calls those bound to it, it is a force sensitive beings choice if they will answer the call. If they will choose the light path or the dark. Perhaps there is a medium ground.

   No matter which religion it is there are light and dark sides to it. Without one the other cannot exist. In my theory the force is trying to bind Rey and Ben together, and yes I do believe it is trying to bind them together using a romantic passionate love. The evidence of this is clear in TFA. Kylo is already addicted to her presence. He can’t just hand her over to Stormtroopers like he did Poe, he has to carry her. He’s not trying to intimidate or frighten her. He takes off his mask for her. He speaks softly and calmly. I’m sorry but when I was growing up if my brother was interrogating me for any reason (Like where I hid the remote to keep him from changing the channel.) he was never nice, never calm, and it usually ended with blows aiming for the head or the gut, and furniture flying across the room, and the last person we wanted around was the other one. Kylo is not her brother or cousin. Sorry folks it’s not in the story. He wants her in his life! He pretty much begs her to let him teach her, he needs her in his life. Which is a big reason Otze’s essay about force bonds is now my favorite Star Wars Reylo essay. If they are related, I will still love it, because it’s Star Wars.The story can still be explored through different characters in a future trilogy, but I will be reading and writing tons of Reylo fan fiction to get over it lol!

  While I believe that Kylo will be redeemed through this love he has for Rey I do not know how it will end for him in my head. I do not think it’s going to end well for him. I see them both being bound together through the force and I think it’s very foretelling that each one has a connection to a relic that once belonged to Anakin Skywalker. The lightsaber was Anakin’s. He was the first to wield it. The mask also belonged to Anakin. Anakin is still being chosen by the force to achieve balance. Using relics of both sides of his life To bring these 2 people who share this connection in the force together. I think this could foreshadow one of them (probably Ben) making a self-sacrifice to save the other. I really don’t want that to happen though, I want Kylo to survive. Maybe going on a journey of penance, wandering the galaxy trying to help others to pay for his past. IDK if that will happen either but I’d love that, and it could spark an animated series. (lol)

  I believe it’s possible. As many have said in fandom his character still has a lot of growing up to do. I’m so on the edge of my seat to watch that unfold. I want to know if in the end, he will fulfill his ambition and his destiny and truly become “As Strong as Darth Vader!”

 I went on for a long while now and I hope my day dream about this awesome passionate story made people think, maybe even daydream a bit themselves. I’m sure I’m probably completely wrong about this whole headcanon of mine lol (@Scavengershoard ) Like Rachel and Kirsty are always saying though it’s always fun to speculate. Have a great rest of your weekend everyone and thanks for reading

Feel free to leave comments and let me know what you think(Please be kind though, do unto others right!) ❤️⭐️