#Also yes Escape from the City is VERY relevant to him-

[webbedphantom]

SPELL OUT YOUR URL USING SONG TITLES. THEN, TAG AS MANY PEOPLE AS THERE ARE LETTERS IN YOUR URL.

W - What I'm Made of - from Sonic Heroes

E - Escape from the City - from Sonic Adventure 2

B - Break in to Break Out - from Persona 5: The Animation

B - Break Through it All - from Sonic Frontiers

E - Elevate - from Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse

D - Daredevil - from Persona 5 Strikers

P - Price - from Persona 5

H - He's Back! - from Spider-Man 2

A - All Stations - Stop Spider-Man - from Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse

N - Nothing is Promised - from Persona Q2

T - Take it All - Sonic Frontiers Fan Song by Zakkujo & KØNTAGIØN

O - Oscorp Tower - from The Amazing Spider-Man (film)

M - My Dark Disquiet - by Poets of the Fall

Tagged by: @electricea (technically anyway)

Tagging: Your left arm... and by extension also the rest of you, if you feel like doing it

[anxiety-pickle]

Jade + Aventurine analysis bc you guys can't read

A somewhat pretentious analysis of Jade and Aventurine by your friendly local neuroscience major (with receipts) (I am putting my academic knowledge to good uses obviously)

Let’s recap what we know about Aventurine

He is, insofar as he’s aware, the last surviving member of the Avgin people of Sigonia

Is he actually the last member? It’s unclear, but the IPC seems to think so (which will become relevant later)

The genocide of his people occured on the day of the Kakava festival, his birthday, by the Katicans, an opposing clan of the Avgins. Both the Katicans and the Avgins were exiled to the desert because of the fighting. The assorted clans of Sigonia were not willing to protect the Avgin people, and they knew that if they were to be let inside the city, the Katicans would follow

The origin of their fighting is uncertain. It is implied that none of the clans got along well. (Aventurine’s second character stor)

Why did the genocide happen? Because of the Katicans and the IPC

But wait!! I hear you yell, didn’t you just say the Katicans are the ones who killed the Avgins?

And to that I say, yes! I did! But the IPC is still the reason they died. During the 2.1 story, All the Sad Tales, during the cutscene with Kakavasha and his sister right before the massacre. 

“Little do the katicans know, this time we will fight back! The men in black that descend from the skies are on our side. The Katicans stand no chance against them…” (Kakavasha’s Sister)

This means that the Avgin people only decided to fight back because the IPC told them that they’d protect them, which they clearly did not do

The IPC also had a financial motive for getting rid of the Avgin people (and the Katicans, though that’s not relevant to the discussion)

We can see in Aventurine’s character story I, “And let’s not forget the letters from the councilors of the Sigonian Sovereignty. They denounce his tribe for once breaking arrangements and sowing discord… resulting in repeated delays in the signing of agreements between Sigonia and IPC.”

The IPC therefore had a very clear motive for deceiving the Avgin people and allowing them to enter a fight unprepared

To make matters worse, the IPC, the hub for technological advancement, medical discoveries, etc, could not save a single person? Not a single man, woman, or child could be saved? Forgive me if I find that unbelievable

“The clan launched a massive attack on the Avgin… who were under the protection of the IPC, resulting in 6,728 deaths and 3,452 missing.”

So… around 4,000 people were missing…? This brings me to my second concern:

The Katicans do not particularly strike me as the type of people who take prisoners - their goal is clearly to exterminate the Avgins

4,000 missing individuals implies that either

1) The IPC did not give a single fuck and simply decided not to search for them (didn’t bother collecting their bodies, tracking down the Katicans who took them, giving them proper burials, etc), or,

2) The IPC DOES know where they are, and decided to mark them as missing persons

As far as real-world tragedies go, I am not inclined in the slightest to give the IPC any benefits of the doubt. These are the same guys who nuked Boothill’s planet. And are currently extorting Belobog. And canonically forced Topaz’s planet into indentured servitude (and were likely going to try the same with Belobog). We don’t even know the full extent of the damage they’ve caused, honestly, and I don’t think we ever will.

After the genocide, there is an unspecified period of time between Kakavasha’s escape and his enslavement. The ‘indifferent man’ in his quest calls him a “scrawny brat”, so he was probably a teenager/young adult at that time. It’s unclear what his history was prior to that point, however we do know:

Indifferent male: “The guys in black didn’t say much…”

…the guys in black? As in, the IPC? Those are the EXACT WORDS that Kakavasha calls the IPC workers multiple times throughout the quest

It also means that he bought him from the IPC

So, at the VERY LEAST one department of the IPC was involved in human trafficking

It would make sense if the IPC had somehow captured him at some point, as he would’ve been like. An unsupervised 7yo in the desert. And of course, upon realizing someone survived the massacre, decides to ‘maximize profit’, for lack of a better word

It’s unclear to me currently why the case of Kakavasha tricking the IPC and the Intelligentsia guild is called the “Eghazyo Aventurine case” because this would have happened before Kakavasha became Aventurine, unless this is a mistake or mistranslation. The voiceover seemed to imply that the name of the case was aired during the time that Kakavasha was testifying, so I doubt that it’s called the Aventurine case because Kakavasha became Aventurine

Another option I’ve seen is that ‘indifferent male’ is the previous Aventurine, which I can’t confirm or deny, though it seems likely

Only thing that doesn’t make sense to me is that if he was the previous Aventurine, why would he call his fellow IPC workers “men in black?” Does anyone know if there are other instances of IPC workers calling each other this?

Aventurine is forced, by ‘indifferent male’ to kill 34 other slaves. He essentially Hunger Games’d 35 people. It’s also implied that it was broadcasted, because other people were betting on it and were making comments about he “looked good”.

At some point, Aventurine manages to trick the IPC and Intelligentsia guild into believing that the remains of Tazzyronth (or the Sand King) are buried in the unclaimed Sigonian desert, costing the IPC billions of dollars and eventually killing the man who bought him (rightfully so)

After that point, he’s taken to trial before Jade, where he strikes a deal: he gets off death row if he proves to be a good investment

Now, let me make myself clear: Jade did not save Aventurine from shit. Aventurine got himself out of a horrible situation by any means he had available to him, and those means happened to involve leveraging his situation and putting his life on the line to prove to Jade he was a worthy investment. I’ve seen people try to argue that ‘joining the IPC is what Aventurine wanted’ but I think this is a shallow and disingenuous argument because it removes the context of his decision entirely. He did that because he felt cornered, and then, presumably, because he hoped he could use the power within the IPC to protect other Avgin people (which is why he asks after them in his character story). I also saw people saying that Aventurine deserved to be on trial…. Which is certainly an interesting opinion. Mind you, the man who Aventurine killed was responsible for the deaths of 34+ people and was actively buying human beings on the black market, so as far as I’m concerned killing him was an act of public good.

A few more things to clear up about this situation:

In the IPC broadcast about the Eghazyo Aventurine case, it conveniently leaves out that Aventurine was enslaved, probably because that could influence public opinion; additionally, I think the erasure of the whole ‘slave’ thing was just to cover their own ass because they knew that shit wouldn’t fly

Aventurine was not ‘in control’ of this situation; too many of you don’t understand what coercion is and that scares the hell out of me. He killed that man because that was the only way he could be free, and after that the IPC sentenced him to death. It isn’t a choice when your only other option is death. It baffles me that people think this.

Jade does not give a single fuck about Aventurine beyond what he provides to the IPC because she cannot conceptualize relationships or the value of human life outside of a transactional purpose, which tracks with her being a debt collector…

Jade literally says, and I quote, “A servant should obey his master”. For the people in the back, A SERVANT SHOULD OBEY HIS MASTER. Who the fuck says that. Even if she isn’t personally involved with whatever human trafficking the IPC has going on (which I seriously doubt she isn’t at least aware of, given her rank), she sympathizes with a literal slave owner over his victim which is genuinely insane.

Something also incredibly important: Aventurine had no legal defense

Like… none at all? I’m not overly familiar with the US legal system, but even in this case I feel like there would be some kind of self-defense justification. Like. He bought people. On the black market. And then made them kill each other. I don’t think killing him warrants a death sentence for Kakavasha (especially one that holds over once he’s a Stoneheart)

This extreme overreaction on behalf of the IPC probably also has something to do with him not having an ‘interastral refugee travel permit’ (mentioned in the first broadcast message during All the Sad Tales) which also begs the question what in the godamn fuck is an interastral refugee travel permit. I can only assume that the IPC is handing out these ‘travel permits’.... Which also means that they are directly responsible (for the sole survivor of a genocide THEY caused) not having one

The fact that the legal system is structured like this does not surprise me at all. It was stacked against him from the beginning and we need to stop pretending this was a power play on Aventurine’s part rather than a desperate last ditch attempt at some form of freedom

Additionally, Aventurine’s banner is literally called “gilded imprisonment” and his light cone is called “inherently unjust destiny” like they literally could not make it more obvious. He just exchanged his old shackles for shinier ones :/

Something else I’d like to point out: Penacony has a grand overarching theme of “a cage is still a cage”; in fact, Himeko says that verbatim in 2.2! I think that’s also important to consider when looking at this situation. 

Also, Aventurine also feels so little autonomy that he was literally willing to kill himself to escape. Like full stop kill himself. His future self tells him that “death” is the only real freedom he will ever experience, and I think that alone demonstrates that the IPC has done nothing more but lengthened his leash. I don’t think it’s fair at all to claim that any of this is what he “wanted” or that he’s like. Enjoying himself. Because 2.1 makes it so abundantly clear that he’s fucking miserable. Like you’re aware that this is still coercion right. What do you think happens if he stops performing well? What do you think the IPC will do to him if he is no longer producing money for them? Quickly. Look me in my eyes

Now onto the elephant in the room: Jade herself

Personally I find her character design gross fetish-bait, but to each their own I guess. It’s not really my business if you like her character for whatever reason. I’m not saying that you can’t enjoy her character, but I do think people should be examining their reasons for liking her a little more closely. Or at the very least not making jokes about slavery. That is very strange. 

I’ve seen a lot of people say that we should reserve judgment for what her character is like until after she’s out; I disagree. I think we have everything we need. (This is coming from someone who could see Aventurine’s backstory from a mile away and predicted it in 2.0. So far my track record is unblemished but if you don’t want to take my word for it I have evidence).

Let’s take a look at her eidolons:

E1: Altruism? Nevertheless Tradable

E2: Morality? Herein Authenticated

E3: Honesty? Soon Mortgaged

E4: Sincerity? Put Option Only

E5: Hope? Hitherto Forfeited

E6: Equity? Pending Sponsorship

That’s a mouthful, right?

Eidolons are supposed to be the truest reflection of one’s soul and provide us information on the character themself. All of her eidolons reference a kind of transactional relationship - in which she evaluates concepts like altruism, morality, and honesty on a scale of how much worth she can drag out of them. This is consistent with what we’ve seen from her character so far. I find the specific statements ‘Hope? Hitherto Forfeited’ and ‘Equity? Pending Sponsorship’ to be… so sinister lmao. Like she is straight up saying the quiet part out loud. Now let’s compare her eidolons to Aventurine’s:

Aventurine’s E1: Prisoner’s Dilemma.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma game theory wherein two people, separated, must cooperate for mutual benefit, or betray their partner for an individual reward. This perfectly reflects Aventurine and Ratio’s plan in 2.1, and goes to emphasize the importance of trust that Aventurine has. 

Aventurine’s E4: The Unexpected Hanging Paradox

At first inspection, the ‘unexpected hanging paradox’ appears to be a regular thought experiment, but actually has to do heavily with probability. The Unexpected Hanging Paradox entails a situation where a criminal is sent to death, however the Judge does not tell the prisoner which day he will be executed on, only that the executioner should ‘surprise him’ over the course of the next week. The prisoner therefore concludes that he will not be executed because it will be impossible to surprise him based on a game of probability. This directly references Aventurine’s experience in court both as Kakavasha, on trial for murder, and when he confronts Sunday.

We can see here that eidolons are absolutely reflective of character goals, intentions, and thoughts. Jade’s eidolons are based entirely on a manipulative, exploitative worldview. Whether or not her worldviews include herself are up for interpretation at this point, but it’s obvious to me that she sees Aventurine as an investment and not a person. The first thing she comments when she sees Aventurine is how pretty his eyes are - immediately assigning material value to his body, which is especially gross considering she is well aware that he was enslaved. 

Then, at the end of 2.2, she makes another cameo - and Aventurine does not seem to receive her well. Understandably so. He mentions wanting to “escape her” during his phone call, providing us with insight into his framework and how he perceives her. He literally uses the word ‘escape’. He does NOT like her. Jade proceeds to call him “child”, which I interpret as at least partially demeaning. She also didn’t seem to care at all when she thought he died in 2.1, so I’m not really sure where anyone got the idea that they were close. 

As another note on Jade’s character design before I wrap up, I personally find it extremely uncomfortable that she has a whip. Again, I’m not going to tell anyone that you can’t enjoy her character, but there are definitely some extremely strange undertones that hyv is leaning into that I really don’t appreciate. I also think the greater reception of Jade’s character deserves its own post because I don’t even know where to start with that. 

So, giving Jade EVERY benefit of the doubt, we can conclude that she: she ONLY knows about the enslavement - but has no personal ties - and does not care, does not appear to care that her colleagues were participating in human trafficking (specifically seemed more put-off about the lack of revenue than the various human rights violations, which makes sense because she doesn’t seem to care about any of the other human rights violations, such as nuking planets, either), would have had no problem sentencing him to death had he not been a company asset, implied that slavery is good, claimed that she didn’t know why Aventurine would kill the person who owned him because it ‘didn’t benefit him’, is participating in the repossession of Penacony by the IPC, is a debt collector (derogatory), did not gaf that her colleague was going on a suicide mission, and did not gaf when her colleague presumably died. 

Footnote: Before you start, no disliking Jade but liking Aventurine is not misogynistic (and that accusation is, in itself, misogynistic), yes, it is disingenuous to claim that Aventurine was not coerced, it is also disingenuous to claim that the IPC had no knowledge of the human trafficking, yes you can still like her. Idgaf. And stop making jokes about racism and slavery, it’s weird and I think your brain should be studied in a lab so that doctors can determine what is wrong with you

In conclusion:

Media literacy is dead and the hsr fandom killed it. 

[w1f1n1ghtm4r3]

ippiki au: minor characters edition

first things first: here look at everyone. dont mind the inconsistency of style, i took a 4 month break in the middle of these okay

and now! lore and stuff will be under the cut to not clog up everything

ill include everyones images a second time before their specific lore just to help keep track of things i hope you dont mind that. also implied vbs event spoilers (specifically for light up the fire) when you get to radder, if thats a concern at all

mizuki- deer. a runaway from an arena with lower security, met ena early into their escaped days and theyve stuck together since. their antler broke while in the arena, and they havent shed yet to grow back evenly. whether the white spots are because of their deer species or the fact that theyre still a teenager or just because of weird hybrid things is up to viewer interpretation (aka i never really settled on a specific type of deer for them). unfortunately the antlers make them pretty visibly trans and they dont really like having them, but at least most other hybrids dont seem to care too much.

ena- mountain lion. grew up in the same lab as akito, and to neither of their knowledge, they are actually related (ena was still somewhat of an older sister figure to him, along with some of the others from his group. they havent seen each other in a few years since ena got taken to an arena. to each other they might as well be dead). not the biggest fan of their current situation, but shes trying to make the best of it.

they live together currently in the undercity, living somewhat steadily off of odd jobs. its not the greatest life, and maybe one day theyd like to leave, but for two teenage girls, its the best theyre managing for now, and it certainly could be a lot worse. they both couldve never escaped their arenas and died there.

haruka- domestic shorthair cat (but often mistaken for being a russian blue... shes just a regular gray cat with blue eyes). an ex-feral (captured as a child) turned show pet with a reputation for her cool charm. while shes taken to this life with relative ease, she misses her home from far outside the city and her childhood best friend who got captured at the same time and separated from her (she cant help but fear that an is probably dead, sent to an arena for her rowdier personality. shed like to hope otherwise, but the odds are against her)... also yes, her outfit mainly looking like her asrun outfit is intentional.

minori- goat. i forgot her sideways pupils here but she has those, just like kohane and luka. a childhood friend of kohanes, raised in the same lab, but was bought as a show pet instead. no one really knows why, besides her enthusiastic personality having its strengths in the idol-like niche of show pets. admires haruka from a distance, but theyve never had a chance to properly meet. maybe one day...

nene- longhaired fold cat x canary. part of a private project attempting to create non mammalian hybrids by balancing them out with known stable hybrids, and shes one of the first semi successful ones. she might have survived to a reasonable age so far, but not without complications. shes prone to occasionally unstable health and has some speech issues, mostly caused by the bird parts of her not mixing well with everything else. the feathers are cute, but at what cost? although being kept in a very restrictive environment isnt doing her any favors either...

technically shes not even a main part of the au! shes got her own side storyline with wxs lol

kotaro- racoon. literally just some guy. from the same town as haruan, but hes just been there the whole time. probably the only character here who hasnt experienced the horrors to some extent. not actually relevant to the au besides like oh he exists he might briefly show up, but i wanted to draw him because i had design ideas

souma- domestic dog, some kind of mutt. suffered a combination of severe injuries throughout his time in an arena and during their escape, leaving him with a nasty mess of scars across his body as well as a mostly paralyzed arm and a noticeable limp. hes trying to stay positive despite that, after all theyre free! but its tough sometimes, he cant help but feel bad that hes slowing down their pace in traveling.

arata- caracal. from the same arena as souma, but escaped much more unscathed, his past injuries are nowhere near as severe. heard stories about the outside world somewhere and is now determined to find somewhere worth living out in the wasteland with souma. hes not exactly friendly to people they cross paths with, but its mostly out of caution to protect both of them.

fun fact i had to redesign soumarata partially because i just wasnt satisfied with their designs (i had made some very early on into the au) and partially because me and my friends realized souma is the taller one (hes like. slightly taller than touya? while arata is only taller than akito) and i had it the other way around before.

nagi- maned wolf. a popular face around town, and one of their most successful participants in various resource gathering missions (it isnt uncommon for hybrid towns to have members who will steal things for their towns from supply trains that go out to human towns in the wasteland and nagi was often a fan of going on those). she liked to get out and explore the wasteland! sometimes shed let an (and less often, haruka as well) tag along with her so they could see more of the world while still supervised, but that led to her own downfall. a mission went wrong, the kids got caught, and she got killed trying to save them.

taiga- tiger (how could i not go for the pun, and also canon did it first anyway). while once a common sight around town, after nagis death hes become a rare visitor, traveling more often than not, only stopping home once in a while. maybe he doesnt want to linger around the feelings left behind now that shes gone. scary and serious, but not out of bad intentions.

ken- fox (just like an). runs a somewhat popular cafe in town, comfortably settled down. he regrets not being there to protect his daughter, but theres nothing to do about it anymore. maybe one day shell come back, but for now, hes got a job to do and thats the most important thing for him to focus on.

nagi and taiga are fully aware that theyre siblings, unlike akito and ena. it was more common for their generation to be aware of this, rather than having knowledge about their origins withheld. they both were in an arena that focused on team fights, and when taigas original teammate was killed, nagi ended up with him, prompting him to help them both escape because he didnt want to let his sister get hurt more than necessary (even though shes capable of taking care of herself in a fight). they met ken (another arena escapee) during their way out of the city, and began traveling as a group of three until they found the town they all called home. their presence was an important part of making that town thrive into the place it is now, even if things for the trio have since fallen apart quite a bit. nagi is gone, taiga rarely sticks around, ken is the only one who stayed now.

meiko- bear. runs a convenience store at night in the undercity near one of the arenas (the one akikoha are in), well known around the area and uses her advantageous shop location to help new escapees get a little more set into their newly freed lives. a kind if intimidating woman, and very reliable at her jobs.

miku- striped hyena. just an average young escapee living in the undercity, although she doesnt try to blend in very well. ever since she got her hands on some hair dye shes been stubbornly sticking to the faded and grown out color, she thinks shes cool with it. friends with a couple humans who seem completely unbothered by her animal traits

luka- ibex. an escapee from the outer city workshops who decided to move to the undercity... and never really settles down anywhere. she likes to wander from place to place, experiencing the great expanse of the city from its depths. shes got her favorite places to come back to, but more than anything, shes always on the move to see something new.

kaito and the kagamines are humans (the kagamines are mikus human friends!) which is why theyre not here 👍

and thats everyone! apologies this is a monster of a post, but i hope youve enjoyed reading. and hopefully its semi coherent lol

[sevenrs]

POST OC STUFF 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️

*scrambles into my cave

i will talk about my newest guy, industrial immunization, or ii as he prefers to be called! (pronounced eye-eye)

(YES I POSTED THIS BEFORE BUT. AGAIN)

i can't decide if his gender is "he/him but in a woman way" or "world's first cishet iterator" because both fit him really well so he's in gender limbo

his structure isn't outstanding compared to some of my other iterators but i headcanon that all iterators are capable of bioengineering and that's just his passion. he got good at it through sheer will

mostly in an attempt to automate his ancients' lives with organisms. they had a lot of demands and expectations from their iterator-- i think they forgot that they put a person into their computer. regardless, they wanted him to plan many many cycles ahead into the future and create specific projects (at first, work animals, then later, mostly display animals for beauty). it was very confusing for him when he first went online but wanting to do good for them, he eventually fell into the rhythm was was regarded more highly by his colony. their artificial god

the path to get there took help from a lot of iterators. i imagine that when everyone was more connected, there were anonymous public broadcasts dedicated to talking about bioengineering-- he asked a lot of questions there, and as he got more comfortable doing it himself, he became a frequent helper in those broadcasts as well

someone he got a lot of help from was three star songs, who was built with special equipment in her structure to more efficiently and rapidly create purposed organisms. they became fast friends in the broadcast, and later moved off the broadcast to speak with each other more directly.

and at first they got along like a house on fire. talking for many many cycles about bioengineering and their projects-- they mostly talked about their more absurd and difficult projects a lot of other iterators couldn't or didn't want to pull off. their organisms with drastic modifications that were moreso good for the iterator and the ancients then the animal itself. songs made a lot of mostly work animals and ii made more vanity

they were friends for a good long while but ii also started to crush on songs. and she didn't notice until he asked her out. at the time songs was unaware of her sexuality because she didn't really think about it. and not wanting to make things awkward with her friend she accepted, figuring that she would eventually like it since they were so close regardless

and at first it was ok, she had some fun but over time there was doubt. she just. did not like him like that. but they pushed down the feeling and kept going on with ii out of her own stubbornness and anxiety

now, ii had a very particular vision about how he thought his life was going to go. he thought that he and songs were going to stay together until the end of their lives, that his ancients would stick around and he would continue to attend to them. so as you can imagine the mass ascension was distressing for him. he denied that they were all dead for quite a few cycles, but i think songs wouldve helped him try to accept that they were

he copes by making a new project of his own-- the perfect ecosystem, entirely artificially made by him, that would live atop the city his ancients left behind. it was going to be balanced and eventually live without any intervention, something he could watch from the side. the problem is when you try to make the perfect little society, a lot often gets sacrificed in order to achieve it

ii made two stronger lizards (lizards are his favorite but barely relevant)

these lizards he treats more like pets. but they will also hunt down and take out any "problematic" organisms from ii's "perfect ecosystem". they try to kill the troubled organisms but some escaped and scourge around the legs and surrounding area of ii's structure. and because they often have drastic mutations, they can be horrifying. however he doesn't notice because he is way too focused on the top of his structure

songs eventually comes to a point where she knows for sure that she is aroace, and cannot keep going in a romantic relationship with ii because she is unhappy and believes that ii isn't happy with her unable to reciprocate his affection as well. she tells him that theyre aroace, and would still like to be friends, but.... he doesn't take it well

he does not believe that she could be-- everything else was supposed to work out after this! but alas, he was so focused on himself he couldn't notice people changing around him. he comes up with a lot of excuses doubting her autonomy-- taboos did it, somehow her ancients told her to stop, or her brother, flesh of the innocent told him to stop (he always hated that guy!!!)

but songs, not wanting to deal with this, just ghosts him after and the two never speak again. ii doubles down on this theories even now. lowkey hopes to see songs again but with decaying broadcasts the hope grows more and more slim

he continues to work on his ecosystem project, plunging more random life into the obscurity of his shadow and not daring to look up from his self-made world

[thefirstknife]

The thing is that. They were besties. *bursts into tears* I'll show you some of their lore that's most relevant.

They appear to have been friends since childhood, pre-Guardian life, as noted here (implied).

Behold, ERI-223: a child of the Last City, born to civilian parents in a mortal-Guardian integrated neighborhood. Behold, too, tiny VIP #1786—though he is almost more unbelievable than ERI-223, if you look at his smile.

Implied through this as well, which is a letter Eris writes to, presumably, Asher:

Cousin, do you remember the streets of the Last City? Do you remember eating fresh red grapes and playing tag between the market stalls? You cannot. We grew, we died, we were reborn. But I remember. It is the one thing I know is true. You used to LAUGH. What manipulation of the fates has led us each to our own calamities? [Forceful, looping script.] I listen to Vanguard channels every day for news of your death. If and when that news comes, I will fly to you at once, no matter where I am and no matter what front I fight on. [Aggressive pressure, carved deep enough into the paper to tear it.] I swear it.

So as you can see, we're starting off well; they were friends since they were kids and Eris remembers this, most likely due to Ahamkara shenanigans. She is deeply concerned about him and would do anything to help. It shows in this grimoire which introduced Asher in D1 to prepare for D2, in which Eris visits him in the hospital shortly after he escaped the Pyramidion with his Vex affliction.

His name was Asher Mir. Irascible. Annoying. Cantankerous. She’d even seen Ikora Rey become… exasperated in his presence. Her lips quirked, very slightly, upwards. A kindred spirit, if she’d ever had one.

They write to each other frequently, trying to help each other with various things, like for example here where Asher wrote to Eris to help her with Hive stuff. They also bond about their respective afflictions; Asher struggles with admiration/connection to the Vex and wonders if Eris feels the same about the Hive. Eris writes to him as well, just to inform him of things in general, but also she seems to do it whenever she feels like there's nobody else she can turn to.

One of my favourite insights into them is from the Dawning lore book in which Eva and Ikora are trying to get the two of them to respect the holiday social norms which they both really don't. They truly are kindred spirits; they understand each other very well and don't feel the need to do pointless social rituals. Ikora also notes that Asher is someone that Eris seeks out on her own often. It's really funny, but also sweet:

It was folded in four to form a greeting card. Nothing on the cover, but inside was written, "Eris, the Warlock Vanguard has approached me about 'cheering you up' for a holiday that is going on. I shall seize this serendipitous opportunity to send you the research notes you demanded of me on heretical practices among the Hive, however spurious the grounds for your request. Warmest wishes to you this Dawning! —Asher Mir" "Did you dictate that last part to him, Ikora?" She paused for a moment. "Yes."

And then Eris' response:

Later that same day, as I was about to head out on my last round of deliveries, Ikora approached me yet again. She told me, "I went to see Eris. I don't know if she's any more cheerful, although she did say, 'Ah yes, I had been expecting these notes for some time now. Good.' She even wrote a Dawning message back to Asher." Ikora handed me back the same piece of parchment that her scribe colleague had used, but it had been refolded. I read, "Asher: Take heed not to succumb to the whispers, as fools do. Warmest wishes to you this Dawning! —Eris Morn"

To say that I love their bizarre ways would be an understatement.

However, there's also the horrors. One of the last things that Asher did was to walk all the way to the Tree on Io just to speak to Eris in person and make sure that she will do what he requests to be arranged for when he dies. It has to be read in full.

They don't really talk much and Asher could've easily just messaged her to ask this question, but he made the trip just to see her in person and to bring her a drink, along with two glasses, though neither of them actually drink it. There is really nothing that required them to meet up this way, which means that the reason he did it is that he knew it would be the last time they see each other. So you understand the kind of stress I'm under.

After he's gone, she writes him another letter which obviously he cannot read. In it, she also reveals that Asher had been the one who was taking care of her after the Hellmouth. Every sentence here is a one hit kill. Just a few of them:

I feel guilt. Pain. Anger. I am sorry I was not there for you at your final hours. What you must have felt, knowing you were facing the certain end… I hope the majesty of Io and the sacred land of the Cradle provided some comfort where I could not.

+

I will never forget how you cared for me after my escape from the Hellmouth. You provided me with hope after I had lost all, and compassion when I believed I deserved none. You made me feel myself again. I have stolen strength from the Darkness, imagining it would lead to a changed world after all of this. There would be peace. A cure for you. A warm cup of jasmine tea between old friends.

+

I make a solemn vow today to you, Asher: I will have our revenge. I am powerful beyond our enemy's anticipation. The abominable Hive will be exterminated, and Savathûn's illusions of sovereignty will be broken. The vile family line will end with the Witch Queen. I will not stop there. The Vex will have their day. I will scream your name, so it echoes for eternity as I banish them in time to rust and decay and be forgotten.

Okay! So we're supposed to just suffer I guess. And we are because Asher, even as he was decompiled by the Vex network and merged with it, retained sense of self and composed messages that he was unable to send, including to Eris, of course. We don't know what the messages are of course, but he clearly wanted to continue talking to her (and some other characters, though I suspect that his reasons to talk to Eris were quite different in comparison with his need to talk to Ikora, Zavala and us). The point is, that even after all that, even as he became a part of the Vex network, his friendship with Eris remains.

SOMEONE tell me about Asher and Eris please thank you (please)

[pluckyredhead]

Please Care About Aquaman With Me: New Millennium, New Magic Water Hand

Welcome back to Atlantis! Last time, things were going pretty okay for Arthur and company! Don’t get used to it.

CW: Ableism, specifically regarding autism.

The previous Aquaman run, the 1994 volume, ended in 2001. It’s two years later, and the status quo has changed drastically, mostly thanks to a Justice League plotline called The Obsidian Age. The first time I read the 2003 series, I thought that the initial writer (Rick Veitch) didn’t do a good job of summing up The Obsidian Age for context. Now that I’ve read The Obsidian Age, I understand that that’s impossible, because it’s incomprehensible.

But here’s the short, relevant version: during a massive interplanetary war, Arthur decided to keep Atlantis safe by having Garth use magic to transport the entire city and all its inhabitants centuries into the past, to a golden age in Atlantean history known as the Obsidian Age. (You know how I keep saying Garth is ridiculously OP? Yeah.) This turned out to be a bad call, since this so-called golden age was actually ruled by a tyrannical queen, who enslaved the modern Atlanteans (and turned Arthur into sentient water and kept him in a swimming pool, lol), and Garth and the JLA had to go back in time and rescue them, and most of them died in the process (they got better).

ANYWAY. The Atlanteans are back in their home time now, but they are pissed, because Atlantis was above the surface during the Obsidian Age, and now it’s underwater again, and apparently by resubmerging Atlantis, Arthur basically did a blasphemy, even though it saved them all from slavery centuries in the past. Sure.

Et tu, Vulko??? I mean, I guess this is par for the course for you these days.

Arthur is left to die. He manages to break free, but Atlantis has been taken over by the Evil Wizard Political Party, who have turned the fish against Arthur (lolll again), so he can’t go back into the ocean. He staggers inland, to a lake, where he meets the Lady of the Lake. Yes, that one:

She calls him a hero and replaces his harpoon hand with a hand made of magic water:

Arthur falls in with some fisherpeople, including a lady who he’s very flirty with, and decides to just stay in Ireland indefinitely I guess? (Oh yeah...he’s in Ireland.) But what’s going on down in Atlantis?

Well, it’s not great:

The scaly dude is Hagen, leader of the sorcerers and the new prime minister. That’s Mera under all that coral (?); Hagen and his cronies are keeping her magically drugged and then using her authority to do whatever they want.

Mostly "whatever they want” involves...making giant monsters with sex magic?

Yeah, these two fuck in the water over an open volcano and giant mutated sea creatures come out of it. That’s a thing. That happens.

Anyway. Rodunn, the former captain of Arthur’s guard, is told by Hagen that he has to kill Arthur properly if he wants to be the captain of Mera’s guard. He goes to Ireland to murder Arthur, but the giant mutated sea creature he’s riding attacks him, and Arthur saves him and then heals him with his magic water hand:

Rodunn goes pretty much completely around the bend at this point, but at least it’s in Arthur’s favor. He basically returns to Atlantis and starts running around babbling about Arthur like he’s Jesus.

Meanwhile, Garth shows up to tell Arthur that the situation in Atlantis is bad: he’s not allowed to see Mera, he and Dolphin and Cerdian are under house arrest (he escaped), and also there’s the weird volcano-fucking-to-make-monsters situation. Arthur’s like “But Atlantis hurt my feeeeeeeelings.” Garth has no patience for his whining:

He projects their souls into the bodies of fish so that they can enter Atlantis and Arthur can see how bad things are. They see Mera being forcibly drugged and Arthur is furious, but when they get back to land he’s like “Idk...maybe I won’t save Atlantis...” until Garth’s like “Uh, Mera, though?” and he’s like “Oh shit u right.” The WORST husband, I swear to god.

Unfortunately, Arthur’s magic water hand isn’t supposed to be used for violence, and he totally punched Rodunn with it before. This awoke an ancient evil called the Thirst that is now going to...drink the Lady of the Lake and her sisters, unless Arthur stops it.

GLUK GLUP GOLP

Also, Black Manta shows up pretty much completely at random, at which point it’s revealed that he’s autistic, and that’s why he’s been a baby-killing supervillain all this time. YEAH. THAT HAPPENS. FUCK THIS COMIC.

Arthur uses his magic water hand to “cure” Manta:

HOO BOY.

Manta’s like “Omg I’m so sorry my autism made me evil, can I team up with you and defeat the Thirst?” Garth’s like “This seems like a really bad idea, and also, what about Atlantis???” Arthur tells him that he’s pretty sure him defeating the Thirst will free Atlantis, SOMEHOW, but that Garth should go back home and find Vulko or Rodunn to help him...overthrow the government or something. So helpful, Arthur!

Garth returns to Atlantis and teams up with Vulko, who has been quietly working against Hagen by teaming up with an escaped experimental, uh...jellyfish man named Man O’ War, who has killed that extremely uncomfortable volcano fucking couple from before so that they can’t make more monsters.

Man O’ War’s the guy with the tentacles. He will never show up again.

Meanwhile, Arthur and Black Manta pursue the Thirst, and Arthur actually defeats him - only to be shot in the back at a critical moment by Black Manta:

I mean...I guess at least Manta’s like “just kidding, my autism didn’t make me evil, I was autistic and also evil for unrelated reasons of it’s fun”? But what the actual fuck.

Arthur gets so mad he hits Manta with his magic water hand, which causes him to merge with the Thirst into a giant water monster, OBVIOUSLY:

“A relapse.” Of being autistic. Jesus Christ.

Arthur/the Thirst (Arthirst?) travel to the side of the dying Lady of the Lake, fighting each other all the while, and Arthur kisses her, thus restoring her with love instead of violence and permanently vanquishing the Thirst. This has the added and completely inexplicable bonus of stripping away the magical powers of Hagen and his allies down in Atlantis, meaning that...Vulko and Garth are in charge now, I guess??? This makes zero sense but whatever.

With Hagen vanquished, Arthur is safe to return to the sea, and so he must bid farewell to the woman he has been flirting with for twelve issues now. She assumes they can’t be together because he’s too busy shacking up with people like Wonder Woman, and instead of explaining that it’s because HE HAS BEEN MARRIED THIS WHOLE TIME, he drops this absolute mindfuck of a line:

THEN WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU???

Next up: Sub Diego!

[marinerofthestars]

screaming into the void about arcane ep 5

Oh dang young Cait? GRAYSON? We be in flashback territory me hearties

Cool motive, still a cop

Wow Marcus really didn’t want anyone to know too much about his scapegoat (presuming he arrested Vi as a “dangerous criminal” to help him climb the career ladder)

Interesting – Cait knows who Silco is? And he’s an industrialist??

well looks like it’s time for some good old fashioned casual prison brutality

And now I’m wondering whether this is meant to show “there are no good cops, by being one you’re part of a fundamentally fucked institution”, or whether Riot are wimps and we’re trying to go “nOt AlL cOpS aRe BaD aPpLeS”

Well your city’s values are shit, but they did try to do something, so…kudos to them I guess

interesting, is that his kid or the kid of one of the Enforcers who got killed?

nvm

a good old not so subtle threat from Silco, but also him petting the dog and showing he gives a shit about people

Viktor, why do I get the sense that you’re one of those people?

well damn good on Jayce for actually trying to do something about the system

yesssss squirm Marcus, squirm like the maggot you are

Double helix…is this the origin of the Glorious Evolution? Is it really just going to be the result of magic-induced hallucinations? Or is Vik having an idea?

Interesting contrast of the blood and the steel of the guardrail, there’s probably a metaphor about humanity’s relationship to technology or the inevitability of emotion overcoming modernity’s logic, but I’m too lazy to find it

“To the realm of heebie-jeebies” Jayce you better not be trying to emulate Icathia young man

NOOOOO POWDER POOR BABY

Cait aren’t those tickets expensive? Oh wait you’re rich, you probably don’t think of it as a big expense (shower thought: do rich people think of themselves as being average money-wise? or are they aware what’s not a lot of money to them is an obscene amount to others?)

vi be doin parkour, trying to escape? or? Do some good old fashioned pursuer-pursued flirtation???

wait is that you, bald guy from the blonde Shimmer monster teenager’s gang? did you grow up?

“My little sister” ow

yeah honestly I’m with Viktor, using magic as a battery is nice and all but you can do so much more than you are with reality as your clay

roll credits

Ah, the good old “thing that the straight man thought was relevant isn’t and the wise guy seems to know less than they made themselves out to” trope

and a double switcheroo! “seemingly irrelevant task turns out to be important”

Ah Mel, as slimy and manipulative as ever (wait can someone tell me the optics are on the main “capitalist running dog” character being a black woman? I feel like that’s a little iffy but I’m not black and so don’t feel super qualified to judge)

Oh god it’s the scene from the trailer but EVEN WORSE

OH POWDER I AM SO SORRY YOU DESERVED SO MUCH BETTER

Remember when we just thought POW was meant to be a shorthand for “I like explosions” rather than a nickname? Good times, good times

ah a lovely visual metaphor for Powder’s fear she’s not strong enough

yeah bad mouthing Vi’s home, dumb move Cait

“favors among friends” my ass, you’re the problem with the system

yeah Jayce was VERY clearly uncomfortable with being offered councilor (could he have said no?)

well this seems…relatively innocuous (“support me and I’ll make sure you get access to my new stuff first”)

but of course, the fool shakes the devil’s hand, and his soul falls to the sound of laughing gods

beautiful violin music for fucked up politics tho! Wonder if it’s on YouTube or the Arcane OST

hey Cait be more sex positive! though with your background I can’t say I blame you, societal standards around sex work suck

*gasp* VICAIT VICAT VICAIT VICSIT

WOMEN YES YOU GO GIRL

omg that horrendously bad southern accent that immediately goes back to British/Piltovan(?)

“pirate”

oh my GOD

YOU

yussy is canonically plot-relevant I can’t

ah the coin stained with Grayson’s blood, Very Symbolic (but seriously why would he keep that coin? Even if it’s a reminder shouldn’t the blood be brown?)

OH SHIT THAT’S A WAY TO REMOVE A CHARACTER FROM THE PICTURE

HOW IS SILCO GOING TO SURVIVE THIS??

nvm Marcus continues to suck

I mean Topside will definitely have political and economic power – being able to explode skulls with magic doesn’t necessarily translate to true power, as lots of fiction is eager to forget

well, that plus I’m pretty sure he’s more a bio than a physics/mechanics/thaumaturgics guy

Yussy giving us some good old fashioned “do what you gotta do” survivor mentality

I am a mariner of the good ship Vicait but just this??? Cait?? Being tender?? With another woman??? 🥺🥺🥺 A+

Mel I’m sorry but you are so full of shit

viktor: Heterosexuality? in My laboratory? you fool. you nincompoop. you turnip holding dullard. my only loves are unethical science and glaring at jayce talis as i enter a state of sophisticated malding

and red, for the Evolution yet to come

oh shit *this* is the Evolution’s birth! presumably Viktor will wake up, see the hextech reacted to his blood, and realize integrating hextech with flesh is the way to go

ooh 2D fluid animation

Well fuck they just

What

Wh

Uh

Why are they intercutting these two scenes

I got spoiled and knew there was a Jayce/Mel sex scene at some point but why did they have to frame it like that

“better then gen:LOCK’s” my ass

Guess there’s your equal and opposite reaction – for every tender Cait and ViCait scene, there’s a really weird het sex scene

damn Jayce is really just this post but steampunk

Silco: dips

jinx: “um dad are you okay this can’t be happening again”

is it just me or does Silco look actually hot after that chem dip? If nothing else his hair’s def slicked back

Powder this might sound good but I promise you it’s gonna fuck you up in the end

“You’re strong now” kiddo you gotta make like Allison Ruth and realize that strength beyond strength is found only in those you love

“Jinx is perfect” oh god does he know what this means to her?

uh Silco why do you gotta hold her Like That

and this DEFINITELY isn’t healthy are you going to give her a rebreather Silco? Is she just going to hold her breath??? What if she emerges a new kickass woman and then dies a week later from septic shock???

JINX SHIMMER TRANSFORMATION?

no

something better

BWOMP

BWOMP (LOOK OUT FOR YOURSELF)

IT’S THE BOYS

THEY CANONICALLY EXIST IN UNIVERSE

WAS THAT MUSIC VIDEO OF THEM RELEASED BEFORE ACT II OR AM I JUST BEHIND

BECAUSE IF IT WAS RELEASED BEFORE THEN DAMN THAT’S A NICE TEASER

I am now just realizing that I would like sevika to please step on me

Bastard man is miserable at work! Good for him

wow that drawing does NOT bode well for his chances of survival (also can we please just let shitty cops be shitty without any redemption arcs? bad people can have sympathetic qualities but still be bad people)

Part of me – a small, silent part – feels kinda bad for Mel, because to the surprise of nobody it turns out being a manipulative elite is lonely

Oh

Oh fuck

This is much worse than just nausea and a nosebleed

Ah some good ol major arcana! though I’m not sure if they represent people or events, or if it’s just a cool little detail that ultimately doesn’t mean anything

YOU GO VI

oh so those guys ARE blonde shimmer monster’s old gang members! Bald guy got his nose fucked up tho

Wait it’s been a While since I saw Act I, did Vi and Sevika know each other? or is she a traitor in a broader class traitor sense?

ah the good ol fashioned slow mo cape throw off. bit cliche, but still classic!

OOF that’s gotta have hurt

okay at first I was wondering if I was overanalyzing this fight scene but. there’s definitely something iffy about all the protags being white and more antagonistic characters (Mel, Sevika) being POC

okay make the darker skinned woman display visibly animalistic behavior okay okay yep this is totally fine /s

at first I wasn’t sure how I felt about how the punches’ weight not seeming to connect, but yeah it’s very clear that this is a visceral fight, like episode 1 – no theatrics, just two people trying to beat the ever living shit out of each other and gradually wearing each other down

oh that reaction to her name is subtle but speaks volumes

OH FUCK

a mortal wound, to body and soul

Cait not saying you should have but you could absolutely have headshot her, especially in that brief pause where you looked all cinematic-like

thank you for proving my point Vi

Again, not saying killing her was justifiable (though maybe I’m overthinking how much socioeconomics influence the morality of a no punches pulled fight) but it’s kinda yours Cait

“But you’re so sweet. Like a cupcake.” “Shut up.” MY HEART

oh fuck Jinx is gonna use magic, like not just as a battery but actually do reality warping shit, oh god oh fuck

also as an aside: LOVE how Arcane portrays Jinx here. it’s nice to see the fact that she’s not only a mechanical genius (all her weapons? SHE BUILT THOSE HERSELF), but a mechanical genius who deals with psychosis (in maybe less than healthy ways, but still) highlighted, rather than just having her be “haha funny crazy explosion girl

Sevika: comes in clearly having been beaten up and with a busted arm

Silco: dammit sev I just got done with my eye goop needle

act ii finale is going to wreck me isn't it

[martyrbat]

og tags: #bao making friends and protecting the narrows as he moves on from his tragedy can be very interesting and fun! #but my expectations in dc writers is. low. like I'll still read it because thats my shithead nephew but its that frustration of knowing #and seeing a premise for art that could be wonderful and then getting a too glossy too boring product instead #and jason's is just because i think red hood is stupid and that his character is boring and spinning his wheels in the same 3 plots #that he just keeps going through again and again. like let him actually be interesting again and put him in new situations PLEASE.

@pendulum-north yes yes!! fully agree!! this is gonna get slightly sidetracked because i was just writing as i think but i PROMISE i'll loop around to it being sorta relevant:

i think a big problem with jason is the rinse and repeat cycle they have with his character. he's either arguing with bruce on the killing rule and pushing for him to kill the joker or he's the black sheep of the “family” and is bruce's greatest failure in not being able to be saved or he's a tool for the joker to use. his character constantly revolves around bruce (and the associates) or the joker—he's an extension of them or any other bat character instead of being allowed to grow and be established as his own character.

batman is gotham's protector but he's also allowed to be in and out of big leagues. the justice league(s), the outsiders, batman inc, he has more than a handful of powerful allies and he's established and well-known as gotham's primarily hero. you know im a filthy bruce stannie but as comics evolved, more and more of the featured stories are about those big threats—the end of the world ones, the city is going to be destroyed ones, the arkham escape ones instead of how the 1970–90s had a lot more random ones of him helping people he just came across in gotham.

the stakes are constantly being raised and pushed—its the saving the world/millions vs saving a few—theyre obviously and technically higher in the former. but... it loses something that makes it more personal, in my opinion, and makes any tension a bit lackluster despite the increased risks and action. of course its great that the world is saved, a failure would mean this horrible tragedy where millions of unknown faces would be dead!

but when a story focuses and is centered around people in a more personal situation where yeah, the world will keep turning if you don't help but their world will be destroyed? or they'll just be dead and you'll directly feel and see the impact of their death on the community if you fail? to me, that grounds it and makes it more personal and enjoyable. it's why in movies where the stakes are that high, the main character is usually given a love interest to fight for or to personally be motivated by and it makes the audience more invested in seeing their happy ending despite the bigger risk being the entire world gets destroyed if they fail.

but jason todd is bitchless and possesses zero rizz. my aroace king. so instead of a love interest to save, it's a neighborhood <33

instead of having him join a big league of these unbelievable heros with powers or tackling world ending events on a casual tuesday afternoon, i STRONGLY think his character needs to be grounded (or as grounded as a comic will allow, you get my premise) and that's what will allow his character to actually grow the most. he needs to be involved in the narrows and protecting the streets directly. i can still see him having a mask or little emblem on a jacket or something that could get tagged on walls/street poles by the people he saves but... i think he shouldnt really have an alias. it just wouldn't make sense to. hes not hiding and he doesn't have a personal job or responsibilities outside of this. he doesn't have a secret life to protect. his life was already destroyed all those years ago but through his work and heroism, he finally builds a new one (ideally, for me, the most personal life he gets is he helps leslie in the clinic and gains a bigger medical knowledge. this allows him to pay for an apartment to operate from and be more involved with the narrows and protecting/helping the people who live there and get direct information from injured people who come in)

but he doesn't have super[man/boy/girl/dog/etc] on speed dial but he does have a guy who wants to defend his home and is pretty handy with a wrench if you need some work done on your bike. he has a single mother who's in college and will grant access to a lab because todd saved her kid. he (may) have leslie's clinic. he has a big fucking bag where he can just build his own base resources with stolen shit because he's crafty and resourceful. he's not a cowl, he's just a man doing his best for a community that needs it most. let batman and the ninth regrouping of the teen titans or young justice handle the larger than life threats as he's primarily focusing on the people who would normally get overlooked.

i think it'll benefit his character in the premise of going back to where he originally came from to help in any way he can. as a boy he lost his first life to ‘the bat’ and by trying to track down his mother—trying to find out who he is and to find the woman who was supposed to love him. but as a young man he's able to recognize the community that he once was part of and the people who did help raise him, even if it was more indirect. and now he's dedicating his second, unasked for life to protect said community (and allowing the healing of reconnecting with said community and being able to finally find and make the answers for all those questions he had about himself even before his death.)

but i also think it'll allow his character that growth, like i mentioned!! instead of focusing on bruce and joker and being in that boring cycle, he'll be making decisions and his actions will directly impact these people in a way he can see and how that will effect him and his methods will vary. it gives this character a great, open sandbox to play around in and present different challenges for him to handle. the main concern it may bring for me is i dont trust the writers (or fandom...) to behave when it comes to poor people or addicts in a sympathetic and respectful manner but like... we already get that so im used to it lol

re last post tags actually ill allow a jason and bao team up but only if theyre both allowed to change their main aliases 👍

[farlynthordens]

SKB Volume 4 Summary

yall know the deal. this is a summary of important points, including spoilers and new characters. vol 4 is the longest in the series so far, so this got pretty long too.

TW for mentions of physical/sexual abuse and sexual harassment Volume 2 | Volume 3 | Volume 4 (here) | Volume 5 | Volume 6 | Volume 7

*Note that names of new charas and places haven’t been officially translated yet, so the way I write them may not end up being canon

Sisi wakes up as she’s being pulled into an incinerator for cremating dead prisoners. she has short, dark purple hair with long bangs and deep red eyes, and uses the pronoun “ore”.

She call upon her father’s flower abilities. red camellia petals and green vines appear. she uses them to open a drain pipe and escape.

The main setting is Kaso prefecture (a fictional place), kyushu. kaso is barren due to volcanic ash and rust. it’s known for being a prison city centered around Rokudou Prison, considered inescapable. “Rokudou" refers to the 6 realms of existence, and the different zones of the prison are named after the realms.

2 women, Gopis and Mepaosha, are the vice wardens of rokudou. they’re very catty and argue a lot.

Mepaosha has long, spiky black hair and wears glasses. she wears a long blue dress and white lab coat.

Gopis has long, silky blonde hair. she wears a red dress with an open front and has a whip. she’s described as “clearly looking like a sadist”.

Milo, bisco, and pawoo originally came to kyushu to find Bisco I.... the robot from vol 3. i can’t fucking believe it’s relevant again, but it’s been causing havoc and giving bisco a bad rep. they stop in the kyushu mushroom keeper village, only to find it overrun by sakura trees and all the villagers taken away to rokudou.

Bisco and milo enter rokudou looking for the mushroom keepers, but run into sisi and help her escape after she had been recaptured. milo heals her wounds, but notices the vines growing on her body absorb any mushroom-based medicine. milo notes that she seems to not be human.

Sisi has a red camellia behind her left ear, and it changes state based on her emotions. when she’s really happy, it blooms!

Sisi admires bisco for his fighting prowess. she declares him her older brother/teacher who will train her into a warrior fit to be a king. she reveals that she’s the child of King Housen. she refers to herself as a prince.

Sisi is a benibishi (crimson caltrop). they’re artificial humans created to aid the labor shortage in japan, and are infused with plant DNA. they can mostly sustain themselves thru photosynthesis. when extra labor was no longer needed, many benibishi were sent to be used in entertainment - singing, dancing, prostitution, etc... benibishi were and are still seen as slaves, and it’s literally ingrained in their DNA that they can’t defy humans.

King housen is the leader of the benibishi who united everyone to fight for freedom. he’s now a death row prisoner under false charges.

Pawoo suggests talking with the head warden, a man named Satahabaki, about erasing housen’s charges.

Satahabaki is around 3 meters tall, wears heavy blue armor, and can create sakura trees. the people of kaso hail him like a god. he captured the mushroom keepers and bisco’s robot and brought them all to rokudou.

Bisco and milo enter rokudou in disguise as guards to search for information they can leverage with satahabaki.

Pawoo has a heart-to-heart with sisi. sisi wants to be seen as a man, because as a girl she can’t become king and thinks she can’t be strong either. pawoo gives her confidence by showing off her own fighting skills, and tells sisi that she’s still young/inexperienced and can become a great warrior one day. sisi misses the point, but her heart’s in the right place? s: “I see! As long as I have the soul of a man like you do, I can become a warrior!” p: “Yes! Wait... no... also, my soul is very much female...”

Satahabaki finds sisi/pawoo. he asks pawoo why she’s protecting a child she has no connection to, and pawoo responds “If a child is being attacked, is it not an adult’s job to protect them?”

Pawoo being bisco’s wife is mentioned often, so apparently that wedding was a real thing they’re not going back on. pawoo/bisco have a nice moment for once, and milo “looks at them with an unreadable/complex smile.” hm.

Sisi and milo prove to satahabaki that king housen’s charges were falsified by gopis. sisi reveals gopis’s other crimes by showing off the whip marks on her body, and explains how gopis tortured and killed other children. satahabaki is swayed; gopis will be put on trial, king housen can go free, and he gives himself a prison sentence as punishment for hiring gopis. he’s a freak for the law like that.

He decides that ALL benibishi in rokudou will be executed in 1 week. it’s dangerous to let the benibishi live lest they become powerful enough to break free of slavery, because evolved forms like sisi will keep appearing. normal benibishi can’t harm humans, but evolved benibishi no longer have that restriction.

Surprise! he’s also a benibishi. who knew the tree man could be a plant person? anyway, he includes himself in the execution list because he’s a freak like that.

He deems pawoo innocent and lets her go. she’s forcefully taken back to imihama by his lackeys, while he takes the other 3 captive. pawoo isn’t mentioned again for the rest of this volume. RIP.

Bisco and sisi are sent to the hungry ghost zone, the last zone, meant for the worst criminals. bisco is also cursed by satahabaki - it takes the shape of a flower pattern tattoo, and spreads any time he disobeys the guards. it will slowly brainwash him, turning him into a jailer like satahabaki. all the mushroom keepers they meet in rokudou have the same curse.

Bisco and sisi escape by purposely being put in solitary confinement, knocking out the hallway guards and blowing up walls with mushroom effects. they break into Bisco I’s cell, sisi uses her vines to destroy its chains, and it then accompanies them for the escape. bisco shows sisi a paper that milo gave him before they were separated. it has a description of how to escape, which they had followed almost exactly. bisco then completely throws milo under the bus: s: “milo made this..?! ...but why is it all in hiragana?” b: “he’s a dumbass who doesn’t know how to write kanji” s: “oh, I see... so it’s not because you can’t read!”

Milo is taken to the first zone (”human”) and has a much nicer time. none of his things are confiscated except his weapons. his “punishment” is providing treatment to anyone who visits him. he earned sentence cards for his work - a form of prison currency used to reduce your jail time. he sees a lot of benibishi in this zone too, living pretty carefree.

Milo meets king housen. he’s very tall with pale skin and red eyes, wears a lavish robe, and lives in a highly decorated room. he knows exactly who milo is, and what he and bisco are up to. milo worries that the escape plan will be thrown off and he won’t be able to meet up with bisco if housen gets in his way.

Sisi kisses bisco to transfer some of her plant powers to him (doing so made sense in context, but isn’t worth explaining. but this definitely could have been done in a less weird way). we’re 3 for 3 on girls kissing bisco against his will, though sisi doesn’t actually have a crush on him. she's just impulsive and bizarre.

This is IMMEDIATELY followed by milo doing chiropractic work on housen, and some.... purposely innuendo-filled dialogue. basically, housen is having milo do favors for him in return for answering milo’s questions.

Housen explains their plant powers: flowers easily die to rust in the wild, but can survive if they have a strong host to support them. flowers can grow from the benibishi’s bodies because they can withstand rust AND provide energy. flowers destroy mushrooms because they can absorb mushrooms as an energy source, too. the plant powers of evolved benibishi are called shinka (進花, advanced flowering), a pun on shinka 進化, to evolve.

Housen's next favor is clear from his forceful sexual advances. he has an extensive history of using benibishi and humans, women and men, as his toys. milo isn’t sure how to escape since housen is much stronger than him and has no clear openings. he thinks about how tirol would be upset at him for giving in so easily* (see notes).

They’re interrupted before anything worse happens. a benibishi informs housen that the prison guards are demanding they hand over multiple benibishi children to be put in a death match for some big-wig guests’ entertainment. housen does not approve of this.

Housen is a master of sword dancing. he moves incredibly fast, and blasts enemies away with explosive giant flowers. benibishi flock around and praise him, but he's very dismissive of them.

Housen’s flowers can awaken others’ shinka abilities, and he even gave satahabaki his sakura powers. he chose to not give all benibishi powers, though, because they would easily overwhelm humans and wipe them out. many understandably hate humans, and will kill if given the chance. rokudou prison was made as a place for benibishi to escape persecution, but it also keeps the benibishi at bay.

“Rainbow powder” rained from the sky one day, and it awakened vine powers in some benibishi like sisi, and also caused satahabaki to go mad.

Milo goes to the ashura zone, and bisco/sisi/the robot are in the animal zone, so they’re now in neighboring areas. bisco and co fight against mepaosha, gopis, and their giant animals. bisco wishes a couple times that milo was there to help.

The end of vol 3 said bisco/milo lost their rust eater powers, but they actually just went dormant (which makes more sense). bisco stabs himself to awaken the rust eater cells, and uses his blood to save sisi from dying. the cells awaken her shinka ability.

Sisi overflows with power, free of the literal chains restricting her from attacking humans. she loses herself in rage as she beats gopis nearly to death until gopis begs for her life, reveling in the twisted pleasure of tormenting her former abuser.

Milo shows up and creates a barrier around gopis right as sisi is about to kill her. milo explains that he’s glad sisi got her revenge, but now she’s going too far and is in danger of becoming an abuser herself unless she can accept her anger.

Sisi feels like milo doesn’t understand the hardships she’s experienced and why her rage is justified. she insults milo by calling him sheltered and weak, saying that bisco is always protecting him. milo patiently listens until sisi says she would be a better match for bisco, and then he snaps: “I was going to let this go as just a child’s tangent, but... what did you just say?” Milo’s attitude dramatically changed as a cold wave shot through him and pierced sisi at her core. ... Before her stood, physically, the same milo, but he was teeming with bloodlust as if enveloped in icy flames. “You said I wasn’t a good match for bisco, right, sisi? just fucking try me, then. but be careful, I don’t play as nice as he does.”

They have an intense battle, but sisi can’t even touch milo. he’s already familiar with sword dancing from seeing housen do it (and sisi’s isn’t as good). her moves are easy to read. she grows stronger as her rage intensifies, and milo uses mantras to form a new blade when sisi breaks his first one. milo cuts through her giant vine sword and immobilizes her by pinning her to the ground, defeated. sisi is clearly no match for him, but she struggles and swears that she’ll kill him. she returns to her senses when milo mentions housen, reciting the words she said herself earlier: a king only uses flowers for the sake of his people’s happiness.

milo finds bisco and treats his wounds. sisi shows up later to apologize for what happened, and milo apologizes too for the insensitive things he said. sisi goes by herself to the ashura zone to scout the area and save any benibishi there.

The ashura zone holds a coliseum where battles are held for the entertainment of outside guests (who pay handsomely for it). the child death match was prevented by housen’s intervention, but now there’s a match between some benibishi adults and human iguana riders, which is clearly going to be a one-sided slaughter since the benibishi can’t fight back. human vs benibishi matches are normally forbidden for this reason, but housen must have agreed to some deal.

Sisi jumps into the ring to save the benibishi fighters. when sisi activates her powers, the other benibishi’s shinka abilities are awakened, but they fall into a trance where they’re blinded by bloodlust. they slaughter the human fighters, not knowing what they’re doing or that housen was watching.

Sisi is horrified that her powers caused such violence, but the benibishi are glad to have lived. housen banishes her to being a normal citizen as punishment, never to become king.

Milo and bisco call out housen's hypocrisy, saying sisi used her powers to do what made their people happy. housen acknowledges that’s true. he even says sisi would be a better king than him, but he’d rather she not be involved in things to begin with and just live a happy life as a normal citizen.

Bisco tells sisi that she should quit being bothered by housen’s rules and teachings, and forge her own path in life according to what she believes is right.

Housen and a large group of evolved benibishi face satahabaki. housen tries to stun/confuse satahabaki for long enough to get the front gates of the prison open, but the warden resists housen’s attacks (benibishi have an ironclad rule of not killing each other, and housen seems to heavily abide by it).

Bisco enters the fight, facing satahabaki himself and telling housen and his squad to take down the satahabaki’s horse instead. bisco‘s only weapon is an animal’s fang, as milo and the robot are still off looking for where their belongings were hidden.

Sisi comes in and helps face satahabaki. her flower abilities are far more effective than whatever bisco was doing, and her vine sword is able to pierce satahabaki’s armor. they work together by infusing rust eater cells into the vine sword, and the resulting explosive flower growth takes down satahabaki.

However, he rises again as basically a plant zombie - he’s overtaken by sakura branches and seems to have lost his sense of self. milo and the robot show up just as bisco is about to get attacked. milo fires an arrow to knock satahabaki off-balance, but bisco is also caught in the blast: “Milo, you fucker!” Bisco yelled as he was pinned under Bisco I, having been knocked down by the king trumpet arrow’s shockwave. “If you’re gonna fire a king trumpet, can you give a signal first?! you’ve been real sloppy lately!” “But you literally just said that 100 or 200 reckless acts are forgivable?” [bisco very much did say that] “Don’t say that like it’s supposed to make me feel better.”

Milo has a plan to defeat satahabaki. he takes off, telling bisco to cover him and follow his lead. bisco continues to complain that milo’s being reckless and not doing things the way he should be, but milo doesn’t listen.

Milo uses his mantra abilities to create a giant rust axe, and chops through satahabaki’s branches. the great volume of rust is enough to kill the plants, and the warden’s body weakens. as milo keeps sending rust into satahabaki, rust starts taking over his own body, too, while he waits for bisco to finish this with a rust eater arrow.

Milo is blown away by the rust eater’s power. bisco jumps into the air to catch him and they tumble to the ground: “...You dumbass. You used your powers so recklessly, and now look at you...” As Bisco lay on the ground, he ran his fingers across the half of Milo’s face that was now covered in rust thanks to his earlier use of mantras. His appearance was starkly reminiscent of how Pawoo looked when he first fought her in Imihama. “It’s okay. No matter how much rust there is, I have plenty of vaccines.” “That’s not my point! One wrong move and it could’ve infected your lungs, and then it’s all over.” “Haha! So watching from behind like that made you worry about me?” Milo smiled teasingly, wiping away the blood from his partner’s face so he could clearly see the tattoo under bisco’s right eye. “Maybe now you get how *I* feel all the damn time?”

With satahabaki defeated, housen opens the prison gates. he says the benibishi are now free, and are going to ask the kyoto government to be allowed to live alongside humans. housen forgives sisi for her past mistakes and reinstates her as his successor, acknowledging that sisi has the strength to control her powers and be a great leader.

In accordance with benibishi tradition, sisi kills her father by cutting off his head. she holds it like a trophy and declares, “The false king who trampled upon his subjects, the traitorous housen, is now dead.”

She gives a speech to the benibishi: “From now on, we will abandon the old laws and shackles of our past. Use your unforeseen flower abilities to resist, to kill, to dominate as much as you like. That is the path I shall lead you on. I, sisi, king of the benibishi, will create an enteral garden of flowers.”

...And that’s it. This ending feels incomplete, so I think this storyline continues in vol 5.

Other notes:

The kyushu mushroom keeper village is in the mountains of Fukuoka prefecture

Satahabaki’s full name/title is Satahabaki Kaso-no-Kami Someyoshi. Satahabaki = “declared clear of charges”, kaso-no-kami = “protector of kaso”. someyoshi is a real first name, meaning “dyed in good luck”.

Satahabaki has a fascination with edo-period magistrates, and his armor gives the vibe of ceremonial samurai armor. his horse is named Kanhi (a type of sakura) 

Sisi is shown to have a lot of unique skills outside of fighting, such as dancing, being knowledgeable about food and the effects her plant powers can have on it, and having a commanding presence.

Bisco meets mushroom keepers from kumamoto. they insult him/his shikoku tribe, saying they don’t think he’s hot shit nor do they worship him like a god. to kyushu mushroom keepers, bisco is nothing more than a regular person.

Housen is named after the flower housenka (impatiens balsamina). sisi is named after shishi-gashira, a type of fern, or possibly shishi-tsubaki, a type of camellia? they mention both so it’s kinda unclear to me.

Housen’s ultimate ability is called housenka, but it’s another kanji pun. it’s written as 砲閃火 - idk how to translate it concisely, but it means a flame that flashes brightly and quickly like gunshots.

Milo doesn’t know how to fight barehanded. he also says his specialty is short swords/blades.

I feel like bisco and milo have started adopting parts of each others’ speech patterns. there’s a lot of moments where one of them will speak in a way that I would have expected to come from the other, if that makes sense. I also definitely think milo’s getting more wild over time - that was apparent thru all the volumes, but the final battle here is the first time bisco acknowledges it too

[pochiperpe90]

Here comes “The Old Guard”. Marinelli goes to Hollywood, alongside Charlize Theron.

“Alone, fragile and immortal.”

A story of love, friendship and compassion with an ancient warrior and a young African American, who has just discovered she is immortal, as protagonists. Because the world needs women and courage knows no gender differences. 20 years after “Love & Basketball” and after “The Secret Life of Bees” and “Beyond the Lights - Find Your Voice”, Gina Prince-Bythewood comes to the action movie with very clear ideas on how to reinvent the rules. We talked to her over the phone while she was in Los Angeles during the lockdown. 

A superhero movie that doesn't look like a superhero movie. Is that why you decided to make it? 

Absolutely yes, when I read the script I realized that despite the fantastic genre there was a very realistic background. These characters are real and it's easy for the audience to relate to them despite being immortal. They fight for goals and reasons that people understand. The more realistic the film, the more viewers can reflect themselves in the protagonists. 

In fact, the most fascinating aspect of the characters is their vulnerability: they are immortal, but up to a certain point, which is a paradox. They too have to deal with the sense of the end. 

There is a possibility that they may die, that their immortality is interrupted, that they still suffer from their wounds, and this brings them closer to us. The public still feels sorry for them when they see them in danger.

Immortals suffer, and not just physically.

Many think that being able to live forever would be extraordinary, but no one asks what this really means. Immortality has consequences: it can be a gift, but it can also be a curse.

And we don’t know why immortality fell to them. 

The thing I loved about the graphic novel and the script is the fact that there is no explanation. Not only do we not know it, but neither do the protagonists. But it is a trilogy and therefore there is still a lot to tell.

Could you offer your contribution to the script? 

It was a great script, with great roles based on the graphic novel so I stayed very true to the text. With the author, Greg Rucka, we wanted to reflect on the fear of taking someone's life, the one that sometimes overwhelms soldiers in war, whose psychology is often neglected. Hollywood films have never been very concerned with this aspect, as if killing had no consequences. The protagonists are forced to kill, but if someone has been doing it for centuries, for others it’s the first time. 

What struck you about Luca Marinelli? 

I could talk about him for days, I love him, he's the actor that all directors dream of having on set. He loved the character and gave him life in a very credible way. Between him and Marwan Kenzari is born a great complicity, necessary between two people who have been together for centuries. Luca's eyes are full of soul, his Nicky is the heart of the group, he’s the most sensitive character of all of them. 

Charlize Theron, who is also one of the producers, has an increasingly and more torn body.

Charlize has already played roles like this one, she is very credible in the genre of action and has been helpful to who had never faced it before. From her, who really worked hard, others learned to do the same. She is very credible in the role of a woman who lived for thousands of years.

Matthias Schoenaerts, on the other hand, has an insidious role. 

He embodies the tragedy of immortality, loneliness, betrayal. He is the actor who most resembles his character in the graphic novel. He wanted to make the film at all costs because he had never measured himself with the action genre and felt he had things to express. 

The film underlines how today it’s no longer possible to hide, images can capture you at any time. 

In a scene near the end, when the immortals look at photos and articles about them, they truly become aware for the first time of everything they have done to protect humanity. They understand the power of images from which they continually try to escape in order to hide their identity. 

And then we talk about science and profit. 

In the film, people from different places join forces to protect the world, a need even more relevant today. Yet it is increasingly evident that profit matters more than human lives. 

Do you think the film industry is becoming more inclusive with women? 

Things are finally changing and I am grateful that, despite having no other action films on my resume, I have been entrusted with The Old Guard. I am grateful for the trust they have placed in me. It should be taken for granted by now that women are capable of coping with any film genre and I think how much pressure from the industry Patty Jenkins, who directed Wonder Woman to success and opening the door for many of us, went through. But the door must be wide open because there are still few who have such opportunities. 

In your opinion, have opportunities grown with the arrival of platforms like Netflix? 

Netflix wasn't afraid to trust a series of directors. Which studio would have produced Roma or Irishman? He has the courage to make films that Hollywood deems too risky.

The Golden boy

“Luca Marinelli, as we have never seen him before: in his Hollywood debut, he becomes an immortal and fights with Charlize Theron to save the world.”

Just before the lockdown he was one of the jury members of the 70th Berlinale in the city where he has lived for years - and he swears he had so much fun watching three films a day. The audience awaits him in theatre in the role of Diabolik, in the film directed by Manetti Bros., but on July 10th he arrives on Netflix with The Old Guard, the action movie that sees him alongside Charlize Theron. And where he plays the Italian Nicolo, Nicky for the group of immortals he belongs to. Directed by Gina Prince-Bythewood and based on the graphic novel by Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández, the film offers Luca Marinelli an insidious superpower, an endless love and a new opportunity to demonstrate his talent as a true champion. We reached him on the phone and he, less shy than usual, told us how he became a secular "superhero".

How did you get to the project? 

I auditioned in London, where I later returned and met the director. Lastly, there was a final meeting between me and Marwan Kenzari. We made a scene together and then they announced to me, "We'd love for you to be Nicky." 

What struck you about this character? 

The story fascinated me because it tells of immortals as if they were the damned. Nicky and Joe live this condition as a gift because they are linked by a wonderful love story and they are not alone. They met in an absurd and paradoxical situation, during the Crusades, ready to kill themselves. They did it a hundred times and then they looked at each other and fell in love. But others suffer from it, like Andy and Booker. In a beautiful scene, Booker, played by Matthias Schoenaerts, explains what happens to them: they see the people they love die and blame them because they cannot prevent it. And they are tired of watching the world repeat itself following the same dynamics. They fight to save people, but everything seems to go on the same way. Only in the end will they discover what they have done and what they are doing. 

How did it go with Charlize Theron? 

Well, it was wonderful! As I read the script I said to myself: am I really going to make a film with Charlize Theron? And hug as well! I was very excited and intimidated already while reading. She is an extraordinary actress. In the scene where we are at the table and everyone tells Nile something about us, Andy tells her what we are and it was nice to see her running and venturing into the midst of emotions and thoughts. Sometimes I got distracted and didn't say my line. But Charlyze is also a crazy athlete. You have to be really athletes, otherwise you don't survive at the end of the day. And Charlize is an athlete of the body and the heart. 

What about her athletic training? 

We got together a month before shooting to start working with the stunts. I had to get some athleticism back: when I arrived and they looked at me I think they were a little worried. We had to become familiar with martial arts and then we switched from the sword to other weapons and to hand-to-hand combat. We prepared scene by scene, including the choreographies, different for each fight, and each of us had his own rubber reproduction of the sword. It was an unforgettable training.

The immortals come from different places in the world. How much of Italy is there in Nicky? 

Apart from the pronunciation? They still laugh at some of the things I said. Marwan and Matthias, but also Charlize, speak Italian at different levels and every now and then I enjoyed shooting a few sentences to which they could answer me. 

Did you offer your character something that wasn't in the script? 

Well, being in such a group, shy as I am ... I tried. I have always focused on the bond between Nicky, Joe and the other members of the group, because I am interested in discovering what is inside a character, his feelings, how he looks at the world, what excites him. Nicky has lived for centuries, but still greets the people he meets in the desert with a smile, inside him there is the flame of an infinite good. Each character has a different sensitivity and their own armor. Nicky is perhaps the least armored one.

The challenge was also to make people believe in a love story that has lasted for centuries. 

Marwan recites a beautiful monologue in which he talks about their love story. I hope that each of us, in their short life, can say the same thing about the person they love. 

You’ve already had superpowers in “They Call Me Jeeg”. What is your relationship with this genre? 

I like it very much and I think that both films, very different from each other, have a very interesting soul. In Jeeg Robot, Enzo Ceccotti uses his superpowers to help others, taking on a social responsibility. In The Old Guard the protagonists put themselves at the service of others, even if no one has asked them to. “This is what we do,” they repeat over and over to each other. What they do is save people, participate in what they think is right. 

How do you think they would react to protests on American streets and around the world?

I don't feel like playing games, mixing reality and fiction on a terribly real subject like this. I think that in reality, outside of any cinematic fiction, it’s fundamental to fight for equality, within society, but also within ourselves. To go back to our film, if in a microscopic way we manage to carry a message in that direction, I would be very happy. 

What director was Gina Prince-Bythewood? 

She is always ready to listen, and I am someone who asks a lot of questions even at inappropriate times. She always had great patience and was very attentive to the emotional side of the film, to the interiority and beauty of the characters.

CIAK Magazine - Luglio 2020

Just wanted to translate this old interview for the non-italian’s fans ^^ (sorry for my English)

[sapphire-weapon]

Yeah, so like... the way that I've been approaching remake canon is basically "if it happened in OG, it happened in remake, unless we have evidence/reason to believe it didn't." So, like. Remake's Operation Javier is Remake's Operation Javier, and nothing from the DSC version is relevant. But on the flipside, while we don't see for sure the government taking Sherry from Leon in this version like we saw originally with his OGRE3 epilogue, there's no reason for us to believe that his recruitment happened any other way, so that's what I assume still happened.

And in terms of Umbrella Chronicles/Darkside Chronicles specifically, I have only ever taken the new information in it as canon. Like, as much as I love DSC Steve (and I love DSC Steve), he's never been canon to me. What happened in the actual Code Veronica is what actually happened. But on the flipside, UC's depiction of Ada escaping Raccoon City has always been canon to me in OG -- and I have no reason to believe it didn't happen in a similar way in Remake.

So that's sort of where I'm coming from in terms of like... Wesker and Ada's relationship. He saved her ass in Raccoon City, and now he's saved her ass again in Valdelobos. He does also call her an asset in the bedroom scene, even if he only does so in order to warn her against becoming a liability. So, like, he does value her.

What I didn't mean to say/imply is that the values her for a romantic/sexual reason. All I meant to say was that they have a deep relationship based on trust, and that's likely because Ada has worked a lot of jobs for him and been and remained an asset for him not just for the past six years, but probably even longer than that. He probably has every reason to value her as an asset and trust in her abilities.

That deep relationship based on trust is the basis for which I ship them, but the ship is not my starting point for my analysis. It's the shit behind the ship that I analyze.

I also think you're under the impression that Wesker radios her more often than he does in SW. I've been through SW a few different times now, and I would say that 60-70% of the time, Ada radios to him first -- not the other way round. She's reporting status/progress to him; he's not checking in on her. So, in that sense, yes, they're meant to be a parallel to Leon and Hunnigan. A field agent is typically meant to call in at least once per hour if for no other reason than to tell command "hey still alive." That's true in real life law enforcement, it seems to be true for Leon, and it makes sense that Wesker would run his field operations the same way, considering his own background in law enforcement.

I also have a very different opinion of Wesker than you do, though, because I see Excella as the exception, not the rule. Jake wasn't an experiment; he wasn't conceived deliberately and then abandoned. He was an oopsie baby that Wesker didn't even know that he had, and we know that he's an oopsie baby because he wasn't raised in a lab and had no idea what kind of man his father even was. If Wesker had planned on doing something with Jake, he would've kept him around at least long enough for Jake to have at least some kind of memory of him; memories form as early as three years old, and Jake had enough weird genetic shit going on with him that he was worth observing for at least that long. Artificially inseminating a woman and then disappearing makes absolutely no sense. This means that Wesker is going around pumping and dumping women, sometimes charming them to the point of them falling in love. In all honesty, Jake's probably not the only bastard child he has -- he's just the only one we know about.

There's also that weird bullshit with the photos of Rebecca in Wesker's desk in the STARS office, and the fact that, instead of killing Jill like he absolutely should have, he looked at her and went "ok but what if I made her my mind slave and put her in a skin-tight leather catsuit, tho." He does also have an exceptionally friendly relationship with Ada in both OG and Remake, and Ada is -- whether we like it or not -- the most overtly sexual character in RE.

So, like. I can't prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he and Ada were fucking, but to think of them this way does add an extra element and layer to Ada's character. For her to carry on an intimate relationship with Albert Wesker and then become weak for someone like Leon goddamn Kennedy in RE2make, and then weak again for someone like Luis Serra in RE4make, shows an inner conflict within her character. Wesker is easy and familiar and representative of a time when she never bothered asking questions, but for her to be so thoroughly entrenched in him and the lifestyle he both provided and represented, and then for her to be tempted/swayed by two good-hearted men trying to do the right thing? Shows that her relationship with Wesker isn't who she thinks she is.

It feels less potent if Wesker is just another random occasional employer to her. To carry on an affair with him adds an extra level of complicity to his actions, and it becomes more poignant when it gets stripped away. It creates the start of a journey of identity for Ada, which personally, I think would be a great fit for her character. Once she realizes that what Wesker has her doing isn't who she wants to be, her character journey becomes "but who do I want to be/who really am I?" And it's super interesting for her to start asking herself those questions in her thirties.

But that's just me.

Here’s some RE Separate Ways analysis that isn’t about shipping because I like Ada. I’m happy her DLC actually focuses on her, but some of the takes I’m seeing are Insufferable. Main statements in bold for ease of reading and skipping purposes.

-Wesker and Ada haven’t been working together consistently for the past 6 years. This dripless bitch is calling Ada every five minutes to babysit her. I don’t think that’s the relationship dynamic of someone you’re regularly employed under, and when it is, Ada is not the type of character to tolerate that behavior for 6 years. We know Ada is a contract worker. We can understand she’s worked for Wesker on and off, but she’s a freelance agent period. She must’ve done enough jobs for Wesker that he feels the need to check on her and have this constant reporting in to make sure she stays on task since he’s clearly used to her not always following his orders. He 100% hired her for this assignment because he knew the situation and compared to the other options, she had the highest survival chances. Which, he was right. High risk, high reward.

Sometimes Wesker’s babysitting works: Ada holding Luis at gunpoint when he tries to negotiate saving Leon and Ashley. Sometimes he knows when to step away: “Keep your dog.” All of it is in the effort to get what he wants. Look, he let her live. He worked with S.T.A.R.S for years and wanted them all dead. If he worked with Ada regularly and she pulled this shit with the amber, he would’ve had that helicopter blown out of the sky. There’s always some restraint with personal distance, especially with a guy who thinks so highly of himself.

-Luis is a drama queen. In the regular game, Luis acts cool and under control to the best of his abilities around Leon and Ashley. It’s a part of his newly found hero-complex even though he does still know when to ask for help: “save me prince charming!” In the DLC, we see the real side of Luis. The one who’s scared, and dramatic, and knows when he’s not shooting with a loaded gun so to speak. When Ada tells him to leave her to fight, he does. He wants to help, but his respect for her abilities sends him fleeing like she orders him to. Also, like every scientist, he has zero self-preservation! He ran into a fire that clearly would kill him to get medicine. And the exchange afterwards? “No! Now you’ll all die!” “Make some more medicine.” “Oh..yeah…I can do that. I do have that ability.”

The flamenco dance. “Are you mad at me???🥺 You’re mad at me!😭” This man understands Ada can kill him without blinking, but still can’t keep his composure around her. This is such a fun dynamic to explore in fic for expansion stories and “Luis lives” au’s. The DLC gives him breaks to freak out and panic, whereas the main game holds the “cool persona” moments after Leon saves him. Even his dying words to Ada. This man is bleeding to death and still can’t shut up. I love him.

Okay, that’s all I gotta say about the loser men. Now for the star of the DLC. Ada. :)

-Ada “Sans Undertale go into my eyes” Wong. The methods Ada uses in the DLC are fun and appropriate. It’s not invasive and in your face unlike another agent, but more subtle. She can track footprints, fingerprints, gauge the safe distance required for her grappling hook, and she knows when she needs to fight and whens he needs to run. Her practicality has always been the cleanest of the entire cast due to her being a spy, but this time we actually get to see this trait utilized through her tools.

-Ada is silly and quips her own jokes to get through it. Something I’m not seeing anyone talk about including the aeon people who are claiming anything they can get, is this specific humor parallel between Leon and Ada in the remake. Both of them have gone through the horrors of Raccoon City. Both of them went right back into very difficult military in function style work which always has a body count. I talked about Leon’s humor coping mechanism here [X], but to hear Ada do the same thing? I feel like they went under the radar because they don’t sound as stupid as Leon’s quips, but they are still so stupid. “Nighty night.” “Lights out.” “Bring me a real challenge next time.” “Now look at the mess you’ve made.” “You think that gun will be enough?” She and Leon even share the same “Next,” line!

If I had 80GB to spare on the game, I’d see just how many more I could get out of her. Like, these are dumb as hell. She’s found a method to cope with the horrors she’s witnessing that just so happens to coincide with Leon’s. I’m not saying this as a marker of whatever romance you’ve tossed them in or even to diss any other romances. What I am saying is that they have a similar type of mental illness resulting from trauma, and they ended up using the exact same coping method despite never seeing each other.

Ada fans who hate Leon! This opens a door for you when it comes to character analysis and how Ada deals with her PTSD and/or depression! Run through it RIGHT NOW!

-Ada’s infection pulls a lot more weight than it seems. I’ve seen some people say Ada’s parasite should’ve been removed the same as Leon’s and Ashley’s. (Which is an extremely unsubtle argument to get them all in the same room for your shipping nonsense.) However, something I noticed with the DLC were the parallels to the troubles in RE2. The Black Robe/U-3/Pesenta monster is the first time where we get to see Ada dealing with a stalking enemy. Due to RE4 being so much more plot-lined streamed to maintain the flow of gameplay, these events were not allowed to be random, but the narrative purpose remains. Ada gets to have a stalking enemy in her DLC like Claire and Leon did in RE2 with the addition of a hubris check.

The hubris check? Well, Ada has never been infected until this DLC. In the original games, she can step back and watch people die because she doesn’t know what it feels like. Now she knows what it feels like. The lack of control. The pain. The slow turning. Her job has had her flirting with death for years, but not in a way she can’t fiddle with the odds. A parasite is not something a person can distract with words. The action to steal the amber is backed up via personal experience not just a morality code slapped on. The addition of Wesker’s correction to “billions of causalities” means she’s included in that number and just cements her incentive to flee. She’s not doing this for Leon. She’s not doing this for Luis. She’s doing this for herself, and if it so happens to help other people then it is what it is. After being on both sides of the coin when it comes to viruses, she can no longer function as entirely impartial to the work she’s doing.

-Ada doesn’t ask for permission but asks for forgiveness. Don’t take this phrasing literally. She doesn’t ask Wesker to forgive her. What this means is that she’ll do something before asking, and if it upsets people then she’ll course correct. Her job is not the kind of job where she needs to take orders for every action she implements which is why Wesker calling every five minutes was annoying as hell. In the OG RE4 she kind of argues with Wesker for Leon to live for “his usefulness”, but it’s swiftly shut down until it’s convenient to Wesker for Leon to live. This forces her to sneak around and betray Wesker multiple times to save Leon secretly, and the concept rightfully gets thrown into the garbage for the remake DLC.

The scene in the bedroom where Wesker tells Ada not to become a liability after taking her blood? Ada doesn’t fight to get her shit back. Some people said this was flirting. Wrong. This is Ada seeking forgiveness after the fuck up of passing out in the middle of an active field by letting Wesker walk off with an infection sample. She then makes sure not to fuck up a second time in the same way, and she doesn’t. She learns the signs of her parasite so in case she does pass out again, she’ll be somewhere much less conspicuous. She listens for the changes in her environment and the feelings in her body and prepares herself for what’s next.

-Ada saves Leon and Ashley for Luis’ sake. I stated earlier that Ada’s action to take the amber was for her own sake but ends up helping others. This is the exact situation going on when Luis talks about getting the suppressant. She needs the suppressant in order to do her job and kill the black robe so she can heal. It just so happens that Leon and Ashley need the suppressant for survival reasons too. They are an afterthought until Luis dies.

We watch Ada question Wesker and his plans all throughout this DLC, and she comes to her own conclusions after her experience working with him. She could’ve gotten the amber back and let the whole place blow into smithereens like Wesker intended. Who cares about the president’s daughter? Who cares about another dead federal agent? Luis did. He cared so much he died for it, and just like that other clown in Raccoon City (aka her), she got emotionally attached. If there was anything she could’ve done for Luis to make his death mean something, it was this act.

-Ada sells Leon’s jacket. This isn’t analysis, but I thought this was funny as hell. ACAB! No exceptions! Freeze your tiddies off, Leon! I don’t give a shit!

-Ada’s new outfit is still better than her old one. It’s still not the best they could’ve given her. I’m also not speaking from a fashion point of view when I say this. In the OG RE4 we see Leon in a jacket which is forcibly removed to show off his pecs to the ladies, but it clearly marks a colder time of year. OG RE4 Ada has arms out, legs out, and tits out because a hoe never gets cold. The sweater dress for the remake re-establishes that it’s colder here because even Luis doesn’t lose his jacket. Ashley doesn’t lose her jacket either until they yoink it off her for ritual reasons. I still hate that the thigh high boots have that heel and would prefer the flats, but that’s going to be in the complaint paragraph below.

-Capcom sexism at play once again. I don’t give a shit about rigs and motion capture or whatever, her walk cycle was 2 adjustments from being full Bayonetta, and I hate it. The ass shots? Disrespectful. Her heels didn’t have to be that high. Never heard of a kitten heel? They exist. The people who worked on RE3 Remake and worked on this DLC sure love to make a woman vomit don’t they? Why the fuck was she so clean the entire game? She was being thrown around and tossed in the dirt a lot, but this woman’s skin is shinier than a waxed apple. Either she has some wet wipes on hand, or god forbid women get filthy. Absolutely zero reason she shouldn’t have been looking as rough as Leon by the time she gets on the helicopter! No reason at all!

That’s all they wrote! I love Ada. I loved this DLC, and I loved the dynamics going on here even though I hated every time Wesker was on screen or opened his mouth at all.

As much as I would love to expand this post and go further into the changed Ada and Leon relationship, I frankly hate all the takes I’ve been seeing so much on either side of the Aeon debate. I hate the ongoing conversation around it so much that I don’t know if I want to discuss this at all. The Aeon should’ve gotten this if not for Luis and Ashley side and the Aeon is dead side going back and forth with each other? All of you put on your clown noses! None of you are looking at this situation objectively to see where the lines cross and where they run alongside each other, and frankly I’m tired! I could clear this whole table off so both of you can get exactly what you want based on what you’re not actually interpreting from this media, but I won’t! Kill each other!

[wearepurplejackets]

Crazy theory of this week (cause again, I really need to sleep!)! #JSHK

I don't know exactly why and I assume this information because Teru seems a character that know some relevant sh*t in the story. (He also hates Hanako to a point of no return so... Not maybe the most reliable opinion BUT!)

Anyway, chapter 70 gives two interesting povs. Teru's and Hanako's.

Teru explained to Akane what was going on inside the school under his own conclusions.

Nº6 did all of this, "kidnap a maiden" thing because he wanted to keep protecting this land (Aka the school, that was built on it.)

The Supernaturals of the school threaten alive ones so they keep existing and with that, they protect the school. But they... are losing the power to do that. ("The knife has been very subtle" eh Teru.)

Why exactly? Because this motherf*cker was in love with the girl that was planned to be sacrificed in the first place:

By advising Akane, Teru implies there is going to be a confrontation in the future. "Be careful because Hanako-kun is an evil spirit and in the future I'm going to need you to defeat him." Now we are in chapter 79, we know Teru has a dream. And to make it true he needs Aoi-chan too. In this chapter, he even gave a protection charm to Aoi-chan. Because he knows what's going to happen next and he knows what's going on. He knows this was all planned by Hanako-kun (And he is right. Mostly.) When he reach for Akane-kun in that place, and see Aoi-chan with him, he realizes there is nothing he can do in that moment. And for sure, that he is coming back for her. She is necessary for his own move, and Teru is about to do something pretty soon.... So, we will know sooner or later. We know the Minamoto were part of the village that sacrificed girls just to be safe of the Evil (Which I think is the sh*t that "lives" in the cursed red house. And also in the Fake Tsukasa Yugi we all have seen in the school messing around and not Hanako as Teru believes, the only thing he doesn't know. We can assume that Hanako as a ghost took all responsibility for Fake Tsukasa's crimes...), Teru explained everything in this chapter, he even changed the way he was speaking in order to doesn't sound rough.

(Akane-kun is so relatable here...) Teru knows about Hanako's setup, but not about Tsukasa at all I think. And we have seen Tsukasa (the fake one) just causing chaos. But Hanako, well he is more elaborated. So I guess he thought the evil spirit was just Hanako by himself, when in realise Hanako just wanted Yashiro to live longer. It's like when Tsuchigomori saw him smiling with Kou and Yashiro and told him: "Didn't expect you to want friends at this point." Because Hanako was always a lonely spirit that God put into the school to "atone" his crimes (which I believe are: none.) Another day I'll write some theory about why Hanako is going to come alive, again, because maybe he is not as dead as we think... wait for it!

There are still a lot of questions. Why was Yashiro to be sacrificed in the first place? Why is she a kannagi? (Cause if she is a kannagi cause again, she is going to die soon as all the characters had said, well that's a f*cking paradox.) And what is Teru planning? This way the school is safe and as an exorcist he doesn't have to worry anymore, so why? Hanako did his job. They will lose their jobs as exorcists? Even if the school is sealed more supernaturals will appear in the city and now without the 7 mysteries they have lost a great ally to beat them... Or he needs Aoi-chan to fight this evil spirit who he thinks... is Hanako(?) We might think for sure the school can be attacked now the 7 mysteries are gone... (I also believe the death of his mother is relevant to his interests now...) We will see.

That was Teru's point of course. But that's not all.

This is when everything starts to falling apart. Because, before Hanako appeared in front of Yashiro, she was destined anyway to die young. Okay, right? But how? He wanted to protect her, so he messed up with all the school mysteries ("he was the traitor all the time" the one who weakened them) and they lost their powers to protect the school of... other things. (The night Aoi-chan was kidnapped by Nº6, the supernaturals were all over the place.) I mean, he doing all of this is the reason Nº6 came out of his hole to kidnap some random girl and ending all just fine and the 7 mysteries dissapeared for good... But is not that easy.

What have we been learning so far? Yes, Tsukasa, Natsuhiko and Nanamine started everything with Nº2. Tsukasa's wishes make everything dangerous. But it was Hanako the one who, with the idea of ending these dangerous scenarios, also weakened all the 7 mysteries in the future. He was even judged for it in chapter 61, night of the kidnapping. So: it was to get dangerous anyway? If he just had let the mysteries go wild like they were in the past of the story Yashiro might died even sooner because Nº6 was going to appear in any case? He was going to appear the night of the sacrifice and take Yashiro you like it or not? Yes, but... for this scenario to occur we need: chaos. Because without it, there is no need of protecting anything. (Yashiro's remaining life and Tsukasa's decisions are so related that it actually hurts...)

So my conclusion is... (Hanako needs to take a break.) I think at first Hanako thought that maybe keeping the school without strange incidents was the best way to keep Yashiro alive, Nº6 shouldn't show up to protect the school that night, and everything would be fine... YES, but this is when Tsukasa (the fake one/real evil spirit) comes out on stage. And Hanako/Amane undestands everything is bigger than he believed. Even if he fix a mystery with Yashiro, another will get out of control. There is no stop. He couldn't do anything. If he didn't protect the school, Yashiro dies. And if they keep destroying the yorishiros, the mysteries then lose their powers and can't protect the school either way, so Yashiro dies. (Yashiro dies in every possible line because of that chaos. Because Nanamine's wish and Tsukasa's existence.) There was no escape, he even tried to wish for a fake world (thanks Number 4) where Yashiro could live happily. But that didn't end really well... So the only final way to help Yashiro was... sacrificing another human (which is also... something like what happens when you make a wish in the red house... right).

What Hanako commits is not really different from what Tsukasa does, even if his reasons are compelling... And the same happened in the moment he presumably killed his brother. How much power has the Red house over Hanako? How much of him is himself and how much of his soul is changed cause the evil spirit of the red house? And in the end, Teru said the 7 mysteries threaten but they also protect. That implies Hanako is the one who weakened all of them (having the role of the leader too) and he seems like the bad guy or the traitor, when he just did all of it to protect Yashiro (and the other kids for sure!), so he is just doing what he thinks is correct. He didn't help other mysteries go berserker in the first place but at the same time he let Aoi dies for his own desires. "If she is not Yashiro, then is fine. She wanted to die..."

I also believe Teru and Hanako are destined to fight again, that Nº1 should choose in which side to support. That something bigger is coming, with the supernaturals, the Red house, the Minamotos. And they will have to leave their differences behind to defeat a real evil. (N°6 is an air head btw.)

It also interesting how Hanako didn't want to destroy Nº1 Yorishiro either because, as Teru said too: It could come in handy. Akane was even in the moment Nº6 took Aoi-chan. He also was there with Yashiro first. He is there to protect even if he will sacrifice his own lifespan. He is important for what's coming next, I don't think the other two mysteries of time chose him because those stupid reasons they said...

[robininthelabyrinth]

extra 2 for Tedious Joys - warnings for adult content, WRH/Lao Nie, slightly dubcon, not necessarily in the same universe as the previous extra, possibly AU

ao3 link

-

Humans had three modes of dealing with evil things: fighting, feeding, and fucking.

Much to Jiwei’s disgust, it seemed that her Master could not be dissuaded from treating with Wen Ruohan through the last of these.

You’re disgusted any time I pick the ‘fucking’ option, her Master said tolerantly. He was watching Wen Ruohan’s body as the other man moved through the crowd like a shark amidst waters filled with fat fish, merciful and restrained only in his current lack of interest and yet convinced of his superiority. You’re barely more interested when I pick ‘feeding’, and my body would collapse if I stopped doing that.

I’ve heard good things about inedia, Jiwei retorted, but her Master only laughed. You agree that he’s evil, though.

Jiwei, sweetheart, you think almost everyone is evil.

Because they are!

The ethical frailty of humanity was practically a given at this point: one need only look around this sect conference to find examples of it, the hall teeming with the stench of moral corruption. Sect leaders who would sell their daughters for an iota more of power, who had blood on their hands from executions conducted behind closed doors, liars, thieves, cheats, crooks, evil –

To be both good and evil is natural, Jiwei, even for us two. It’s not worthy of a death sentence.

Jiwei was not arguing in any seriousness: she had long ago reached the conclusion that it was not a debate that her Master was inclined to yield upon, and of course he had long ago won the argument. After all, her Master had done his share of terrible things too, in his time, to defend his sect and his family as needed, and she had been at his side, aiding him as she ought.

She was not as rigid as Baxia, that fearsome child, who longed only, as her master did, for righteousness; she would not argue with her master the way Baxia did, quibbling over mundanities as if the human world were something that could be judged through the merits of a saber. But then Baxia had Nie Mingjue, whose soul was very near to a saber itself – unbending in its ferocity and clear in its simplicity – and Nie Mingjue listened to his saber in a way his father did not, too close and too compassionate, too forgiving of his inhuman partner’s flaws and too willing to take the time to convince when he ought to simply order.

Perhaps it was simply different for the two of them.

Baxia had roared to life with an ancient soul, a queen among sabers, and even Jiwei would not so easily choose to face her down, for all that she was more clever and more practiced, more thoughtful and more reserved, her power the greater, but her potential worse. Luckily it seemed unlikely to ever become an issue, what with Nie Mingjue earnestly trying to teach Baxia the meaning of being filial to one’s elders, as if age were at all relevant to a saber spirit.

Still, even if she were not Baxia, Jiwei had her own pride: she was still a saber, stubborn and inflexible, and so she said, Even Lan Qiren thinks you shouldn’t fuck him.

Jiwei rather begrudgingly liked Lan Qiren. She hadn’t at first, of course – not that she’d noticed him much when he was just a fellow cultivator her Master had taken a shine to, a teenager with a strange manner and his own pride, but later, when her only thought of him had been to wonder how he would dare attempt to interfere with her connection with her Master – but he was stubborn in his own way, obstinate, uncompromising, tenacious.

There was even unexpectedly some rage in him, buried deep beneath his rules and the scars left on his heart – not enough to do anything with it, the poor soul, but enough to show that he knew what it was. Jiwei had finally started condescending to give him a little of her time and attention, maybe a little of her rage that he always seemed to be seeking: at least he knew that he needed it.

Lan Qiren doesn’t want to fuck anyone, her Master said, fond as always. He, at least, would be more than happy to fuck Lan Qiren if the other man were interested. He doesn’t understand the appeal, so how can he really make a judgment on the matter?

Jiwei wasn’t sure that was how it worked – her Master respected Lan Qiren’s judgment on all sorts of things that Lan Qiren didn’t personally appreciate, and in all honesty she suspected that her Master was thinking with all the brain in the lower half of his body again – but she also didn’t actually care all that much.

Wen Ruohan hates Lan Qiren, she said instead, not for the first time that day.

Her Master frowned, as he did before. I don’t know what’s gotten into Hanhan over it. He even went and got Qiren drunk again, and I thought he swore never to be in his vicinity while drunk ever again, after last time.

Lan Qiren, when drunk, dropped all façade of caring about other people’s lack of interest in his favorite subjects, and also any reservations about using his strength and body to pin people into place – he’d held Wen Ruohan down by the arm, and ended up at one point in his lap to loudly insist that he pay attention because they were just getting to the interesting part, despite assurances by Wen Ruohan that it was not interesting, had never been interesting, and that he would shortly begin to bite off his own limbs in order to escape if it did not rapidly become more interesting.

Her Master had gone over at that point, nominally to assist but actually in order to enjoy having Lan Qiren on his own lap, and yet somehow that had only made Wen Ruohan’s expression worse.

Humans were so confusing.

Didn’t you tell Lan Qiren that you’d rescue him sooner if he got drunk again?

Her Master laughed, but he put down his drink and went: Lan Qiren had drunk four toasts, which was three and three-quarters more than he could tolerate, and he had cornered some poor sect leader and started in on some subject on musical cultivation that even Jiwei, who had no ears, could identify as being both esoteric and extremely boring.

Wen Ruohan caught her Master by the wrist before he got to Lan Qiren’s side.

“You should come spend some time with me, my friend,” he said, his eyes intent, purposeful, gaze as hot as the sun patterned on his clothing. “I have scarcely seen you this evening.”

Because you were too busy trying to get Lan Qiren drunk for some reason, Jiwei said scathingly, and her Master shushed her.

“The days in your Nightless City are long and the nights longer, A-Han,” her Master said, turning his hand to stroke two fingers along the underside of Wen Ruohan’s wrist – the other man released his hand, recoiling as if he’d been burnt; he had never grown accustomed to her Master’s shameless displays of affection. “There will still be time for us to spend time together.”

Wen Ruohan’s eyes narrowed. “But not now.”

“Not now,” her Master said agreeably. “I promised Qiren that I wouldn’t let him embarrass himself.”

“Someone else could do that.”

“They could, yes, but I’m the one that promised him.”

Wen Ruohan’s lips twisted. “You promise him many things. More than you should, with him the sect leader of another sect…”

“So are you, Hanhan,” the Master said. “And don’t I promise you the moon and the stars, if only I could fetch them down for you?”

The poetry of humans was truly insipid, in Jiwei’s view, and yet like all monsters Wen Ruohan both hated and loved the purity of her Master’s emotions, his heart offered on a platter without reservations.

It didn’t seem to be working this time, though.

“Go to him, then,” Wen Ruohan sneered, his jaw tight from where he was grinding his teeth together. “I trust you will tell me, then, when you finally decide to promise him that I will no longer be sharing your bed.”

I like him when he’s jealous, her Master remarked to her, and sometimes Jiwei thought her Master could be a very stupid man. He’s never more ferocious and passionate than he is when he thinks someone has taken something of his.

Never more dangerous, you mean. You always did like the ones that could and did want to kill you.

It adds some spice to life.

Life is not a food. It does not require spice.

You don’t eat, sweetheart; what do you know?

Jiwei considered this comment to fall into the same category as the one about Lan Qiren not knowing a bad idea just because he was sensible enough not to want to fuck it.

“Lan Qiren has no say in who I allow to share my bed,” he said, and stepped forward abruptly: Wen Ruohan, his senses as always tuned to the highest level of paranoia, instinctively stepped back, and so allowed her Master to corner him up against the wall, bringing their faces level and close to each other until their breath was shared. “Don’t think I didn’t see who was sending all those toasts to him, A-Han.”

“You object?” Wen Ruohan hissed, trying to pretend that he was unmoved by her Master’s nearness – as if anyone could miss the blood pounding through his veins, or the hardness beneath his clothing that her Master deliberately pressed his thigh against in a teasing gesture that made Wen Ruohan inhale sharply.

Wen Ruohan was too powerful, Jiwei thought; his wives treated him like a god, and his concubines like something even higher – he had never been treated so intimately, so recklessly and without care for whether or not he approved, and he was fascinated by it.

“Do you like him?” her Master asked, and Wen Ruohan’s eyes went wide in indignation. “The Lan sect breeds for beauty, and he’s got his fair share of it, even if he doesn’t think of it that way.”

“You cannot be serious.”

“There’s something appealing even in his very disinterest,” her Master mused, and Jiwei resigned herself to hearing this again. “He’s above such things, like a statue carved into the mountainside, untouchable and cold, the stone unyielding, and yet his flesh is as soft as any other man’s – it would give if you pressed on it. Turn red if you dug your fingers in, bruising like the skin of a ripe peach.”

Wen Ruohan’s throat worked as he swallowed.

“You like that sort of thing, don’t you? You like it when people are in pain…you like the rush of power it gives you. There are other ways of having power, A-Han.”

Her Master had thoroughly pinned Wen Ruohan against the wall now, even though the other sect leader’s cultivation was higher, his physical strength above their own. Their hips were slotted together, the two of them grinding up against each other, and Wen Ruohan’s mouth was a little agape, his lips and the tongue between them very red.

“There are,” he murmured, eying her Master as if he wanted to peel off his skin and devour him whole, put him in his belly where no one else would be able to reach him. “And this is his: that even now you will leave me and go to him instead.”

Her Master laughed.

“I need to take him to bed,” he murmured, words deliberately ambiguous, and Wen Ruohan jerked in his grasp – perhaps her Master was not so wrong in thinking that Wen Ruohan admired the coldly beautiful Lan Qiren more than he should. “Why don’t you help me?”

Wen Ruohan frowned, even as her Master stepped away. “Help you?”

“Take him to bed,” her Master said, and smiled as Wen Ruohan scowled at him. “It’ll be easier to carry him with two of us.”

Lan Qiren did not especially want to go with them, eager to continue his elaboration on whatever subject he was on now – actually a method for temporarily cutting off someone’s breathing using sound alone, not that anyone would be able to tell unless they had an excellent understanding of musical notation, esoteric cultivation techniques, and the human pulmonary system – although the sect leaders he had cornered were deeply grateful for the intervention. Still, Lan Qiren was a cultivator of song and thought, his strength respectable but nothing in comparison to martial cultivators like Jiwei’s Master or Wen Ruohan; they were easily able to drag him away despite his protests.

Her Master eased the way further by picking up another jar of wine and pouring it into Lan Qiren’s throat as they fought to get him up the stairs, the additional liquor finally acting to push him from wildness into quietude in a single step: he fell asleep at once, instantly becoming as limp as a fully cooked noodle and just as inconvenient.

“Do you have to deal with this every time?” Wen Ruohan complained.

Jiwei’s Master chuckled. “It helps to have experience,” he said, tapping the side of his nose. “Come, get his shoes off while I get the bed ready.”

“You treat me as if I were a common servant,” Wen Ruohan said disdainfully, although he did kneel and remove Lan Qiren’s shoes. Jiwei almost wondered at his willingness, given Wen Ruohan’s usual self-perception as a soon-to-be deity, or at least she did until he ran his fingers up Lan Qiren’s calf and even up to his inner thigh, his gaze firmly fixed on Jiwei’s Master as if in challenge – he was starting something, of course.

“You can’t make him jump when he’s like this,” her Master said, unmoved by the provocation. “He’s utterly insensate; he wouldn’t even notice if you put your hand on his dick.”

“Maybe I should,” Wen Ruohan said, the implicit challenge now outright.

“Maybe you should put it on mine instead,” her Master said. “There’s a second bed in the room.”

Jiwei did not have eyes, but she could enjoy the expression of shock on Wen Ruohan’s face through her Master’s perception of it.

“You’re not serious,” Wen Ruohan said. He did not sound repulsed by the idea – merely surprised that Jiwei’s Master had suggested it, and more than a little intrigued by it.

“I’ve gone night-hunting with him before,” her Master said. “He understands that men who are not him have needs that must be fulfilled; he’s told me before that he doesn’t mind me getting myself off near him, or even while thinking of him, as long as I don’t involve him.”

“You’re rather pushing the boundaries of that agreement, aren’t you?”

Jiwei’s Master had a smile full of teeth – his own type of shark, his own type of monster. “Don’t you like pushing boundaries the most, A-Han?”

It was things like this that drew a clear line between Jiwei’s Master and Baxia’s, Jiwei thought to herself, amused. In the ranking of things that were dear to her Master, his sect came first, and all else second, even family, friendship, or morality; Nie Mingjue, in contrast, would rank family first, morality second, and sect third, and would never take even minimal advantage of a friend, even when the gains were great and the downsides almost none.

Their power over Wen Ruohan was useful to the Nie sect, and pleasing to Jiwei’s Master on a personal basis; the power they drew out from their dual cultivation beneficial to both him and her – they did, in fact, engage in it on the second bed in the room, her Master’s voice rough against his Hanhan’s ear, spinning fantasy and filth at the same time, both their gazes fixed firmly on where Lan Qiren slept innocently on, detached in his disinterest and unlikely to object to anything other than the sheer impropriety of it even if he awoke.

Certainly that had been his reaction the last few times her Master had brought someone back to the single room at the inn that they had been sharing – not that Wen Ruohan needed to know that he wasn’t the first.

Do you intend to court them both? Jiwei asked, curious. It wasn’t the worst idea, even if she despaired at the thought of there being even more fucking instead of fighting: Lan Qiren’s coolness was a good counterbalance to Wen Ruohan’s heat, even if Wen Ruohan’s viciousness was more their speed than Lan Qiren’s level-headed contemplation and compassion. If he obtained them both, her Master could get the benefits of Lan Qiren’s company and conversation, which he truly enjoyed, and Wen Ruohan’s body and cleverness, and perhaps with two of them at his side Wen Ruohan would finally find himself content with what he had, able to stop his endless quest for more, more, more, the yawning pit of greed that lay beneath his arrogance and drove him to do increasingly terrible things.

Perhaps, if they’d let me, her Master replied. His mental voice was tight the way it always was when he dual cultivated with another cultivator, in the time before he reached release – he would be full of energy in the morning, excitable; their morning training together would be especially good for them both, strengthening them as they shared the qi between them. They’d be a force to be reckoned with, especially with me beside them…Qiren doesn’t like sex, but he’s never objected to romance, so it’s not hopeless. Hanhan could be taught to respect limits, and Qiren’s always been remarkably easy-going with those he considers his friends. It would be a good match. Don’t you agree, sweetheart?

You’ve always had eyes for things bigger than you can swallow, Jiwei said. She would roll her eyes if she had them. Well, good luck. Don’t let it be your funeral.

Don’t worry, her Master said, reckless as always. I won’t.

[aellynera]

The Best Years of Your Life (Reeves x Reader)

THE BEST YEARS OF YOUR LIFE

(hey hey, this is my other submission for @wasicskosgirl and her 800 follower celebration! and yes, you read that right - it’s REEVES. i had a lot of fun writing it and i hope you enjoy reading it! CONGRATS Amanda!!)

Word Count: um like 6200ish oops it was supposed to be a blurb

Summary: They say the best years of your life happen in high school, but what do they know?

Warnings: Some language. Female reader implied but no pronouns/description. Teenage angst. Adult wistfulness. Mostly fluffy tho. No promises about proofreading. Frog murder. 

with the prompt - “Like what you see?”

It all started back in high school. Sometimes you wonder how often people say that, and if it’s really true or they’re just falsely remembering how things happened because high school is supposed to be the best four years of your life.

But in this case, it’s true. Because high school is when you met Reeves.

Sophomore Year. High School. A Friday. 

It was the third day of sophomore year, fourth period on a Friday morning, your last before the lunch break. Biology class was maybe the one you were least looking forward to, not exclusively because of the required frog dissection, but pretty damn close. Gross. And you never understood why the school year didn’t just start on a Monday, but you were new here in San Diego. Maybe they just did things differently.

It was bad enough being the new kid. It was worse when you walked into class halfway through the lecture, even if it wasn’t your fault. The timing of the move was weird, and you’d spent most of the first two days, and this morning, doing placement tests and talking to your counselor. 

And now you were being called out in front of the entire class.

“Ah, there you are,” your teacher announced as you walked in the door. “Everyone, this is our new student, please make them feel welcome. You can sit over there.”

Your eyes followed as she motioned to the empty seat at the lab table in the back of the room. Suddenly you weren’t sure if your face felt hot because of embarrassment or because of the boy in the other chair.

Dark, curly hair cut close on the sides but longer on the top. Deep brown eyes framed by long, long lashes. Full, plush lips curling up into his cheek on one side. A nose that, okay, maybe might be a bit oversized but for some reason worked on his handsome face and--

Well, shit. Definitely not the embarrassment.

You shuffled your way to your seat and slid into it with your head down. A few students watched you curiously but soon turned their attention back to the lesson. You tried your best to focus on what was going on, to not look to your left at the distraction next to you.

You weren’t very successful.

By now you thought you’d sneaked enough covert glances to know that we was wearing a leather jacket, had a small diamond stud earring in his left ear, a bunch of silver-studded brown suede wrap bracelets around both wrists, a silver ring on his right index finger, and oddly precise handwriting as he took notes. In between relevant facts the teacher was sharing, he was doodling tiny music notes in the margins of his notebook.

And he totally caught you looking.

“Like what you see?” he leaned over and whispered.

Your mouth felt drier than the Sahara but also somehow so moist you were afraid you might have actually drooled on yourself. You should have opened your mouth to respond but your brain refused to make the connection. Probably for the best.

At least, at first. When it finally caught up to you, the only response your brain could provide was, “Maybe?”

Now would be the perfect time for the floor to swallow you whole.

He just winked at you and his attention went back to the doodles around his notes.

You shifted your gaze back to your own notebook, but you don’t know if anything else of importance was said, and don’t remember writing anything down. The bell ringing sharply pulled you back to reality and you hastily shoved your books in your backpack, ready to escape.

Just as you were about to leave, a voice called out. “Hey, sorry about earlier. If I freaked you out or anything.”

You looked up. He was smiling at you, a little shyly. You bit your lip, your brain and mouth still refusing to connect.

He stuck his hand out. “I’m Reeves. You’re new here?”

“Um…” you smacked yourself internally. This was ridiculous, you weren’t really shy, you knew how to have a conversation, he was just introducing himself. You were going to have a serious conversation with your brain later about proper communication techniques.

It felt like hours had passed, but you finally pulled yourself together enough to respond. “Yeah. My- my dad got transferred for work, we moved here like a week ago. He literally dragged the family across the country. I’m originally from New York City.”

His eyes lit up. “Oh, cool! I always wanted to go to New York City!”

You found yourself smiling back.

“Do you...wanna sit with me at lunch?” he asked, tilting his head to the side. “Maybe you could tell me a little about the city? And...about you, since we’re gonna have to commit heinous acts of violence on an amphibian together? I’d like to know who’s wielding a scalpel next to me.”

The giggle that escaped your throat could not be contained. This boy - Reeves - was adorable. “Oh. Okay, yeah. I’d really like that.”

The Present.

Poor Lenny the Frog never stood a chance. Then again, neither did you.

To be fair, Lenny was already dead when you and Reeves got your hands on him. Well, when you got your hands on him, because for the full first half of that specific class period, Reeves refused to touch him and nearly turned as green as Lenny once was. That’s when he insisted on naming your cadaver, because somehow giving it a name made it easier to deal with.

You were pretty sure Reeves was nuts.

By the middle of sophomore year, you were dead too, but not for the same reasons.

By the middle of sophomore year, you weren’t sure how you were still alive, because every time he looked over at you and gave you a sly smile during class, gave you that look, you felt your heart go taut and you forgot how to breathe and certainly, rightfully, should have been dead.

Your friend Alexis stuck her head into your bathroom. “Hey, we’re just waiting on Vanessa, and then we’re good to go. Drinks first? The show doesn’t start until 8 so we have time.”

You glanced up from your makeup and nodded. “Yeah, that sounds good. I’ll be out in a few minutes.”

Alexis grinned. “Aaaaaah I’m so glad you agreed to go out tonight! It’s gonna be so much fun!”

“Oh, it’s gonna be something,” you muttered, going back to your eyeliner.

Alexis had been the first one to see the concert announcement about a week ago. A benefit show at one of the clubs down in Greenwich Village, some punk revival thing (for charity) with a bunch of different singers and musicians. Not normally your scene, but Alexis scanned through the names and suddenly remembered you’d known Reeves in high school. You said yes, he was in your class, and you’d been lab partners once. Vanessa squealed in excitement and Alexis announced you were going to the show. There was never any actual agreement.

Because of course Reeves was going to be there. And of course, you had to be too.

Junior Year. The Parking Lot. A Tuesday.

“I’m just saying, it was a ridiculous foul, and it should never have been called,” Reeves groused as you walked out of the gym.

“We also should have made like twenty more of our own foul shots,” you pointed out.

The Lake Howell Silverhawks had fallen to their arch-rivals in a somewhat glorious fashion. You didn’t even like basketball that much. But that didn’t really matter. The games were just an excuse to go out for burgers before and hang out with your friends during.

It was definitely an excuse to hang out with Reeves.

Junior year, you were both disappointed to find you didn’t have any classes together, but you still almost always ate lunch together. He’d come over to your house to study during the week and sometimes just to chill out on the weekends. Over the past year, he’d shown you all around the city and taken you to his favorite places. You told him all about New York, how you missed it and one day you’d go back, and all the famous sites and which ones were tourist traps that he was only allowed to visit the very first time and then never again.

You spent so much time together, even your mother liked to tease you about why he wasn’t your boyfriend.

It took a while for you to find the words to tell her it was because he was someone else’s.

As much as you liked to pretend she didn’t change anything, Randie Rustenberg changed everything. It was gradual, like a creeping vine of ivy, and she slowly took him over. There was no malice; it was just one of those things that happened. Reeves spent less time with you, his best friend, and more time with Randie, his girlfriend.

The girlfriend you desperately wished was you, because ever since that first biology class you’d had the biggest, stupidest crush on him.

Eventually you had a boyfriend of your own. Theo was a nice guy, he really was. Polite, friendly, had a good sense of humor, liked your family. And your family loved him. Your mother was so happy that you had a boyfriend, she seemed to forget to ask how Reeves was and if you’d seen him lately.

Of course you saw him. You saw him every day, in the cafeteria, at his locker, passing by in the halls. Sometimes you could find him playing the grand piano on the stage in the empty auditorium. Yes, if your mother bothered to ask, you saw Reeves all the time. Now it was just always with her.

Except this week. It was a break of sorts, no classes, just some sports and other school activities. Randie was on some trip with her parents for some kind of church function, and Theo was fishing with his dad on some lake up north. He’d told you where, but you honestly couldn’t be bothered to recall. So when a bunch of your friends and a bunch of his friends all said everyone was going to the basketball game, there was no debate.

As if there was any way you’d say no.

Sometime during the game, your friends wandered off to the snack bar and never ventured back. His friends started a game of hacky-sack under the bleachers. And you found yourself pretending to understand all the finer points about hoops strategy, cheering and yelling along with Reeves and having a great time, just like you used to.

“Where’d you park?” he asked as you left the gym and headed out into the sea of cars. You vaguely pointed in the direction of yours and he grinned. “Oh, good, I’m that way too. Come on, I’ll walk you.”

The faint glow emitted by the lampposts in the parking lot bounced off his curls and his eyes, when you could catch a glimpse, were bright beneath them.

As if there was any way you’d say no.

The walk wasn’t very far, but it felt like it was over in a second. You hadn’t said anything on the way, just soaked in the comfort of walking next to him as he kept commenting on the game.

He was waving his hands everywhere, looking at them as he talked as if his hand motions would make things make any more sense to you, in the middle of saying something about your center and how they needed to get better about blocking out when you finally spoke.

“Oh, shit.”

Reeves looked up at you. “What, you don’t agree?”

You dropped your bag on the ground and rolled your eyes. “No, my car is locked and I left my keys inside.” You pointed to the passenger seat. Your keys stared back at you derisively.

You both stared back at them for a moment, then he grinned. “Hang on, I got you.” He held up one finger and trotted off to his car, coming back a minute later with something in his hand. “This should take care of it.”

You took a step back. “Reeves? Um. Okay, why do you have a coat hanger in your car.”

He rolled his eyes back at you. “For emergencies, duh.” He quickly twisted the hanger into a hook shape and went to your passenger side window.

“And why do you know how to break into a car with said coat hanger?”

“Like I told you,” his tongue poked out between his teeth as he worked, “for emergencies. You think I haven’t locked my own keys in my car once or six times?”

“Did Randie teach you how to do this?” The words were out of your mouth before you could think. She probably had. She might have been churchy when required, but she was also responsible for about half of Reeves’s stints in detention (the other half just being him making the wrong joke at the wrong time and pissing a teacher off.)

Thank god he didn’t seem to hear you as he kept working at the lock. Finally you heard a *click* and he pumped a fist into the air with a little “yessss!”

And then you’re not really sure what happened. You bent down to pick up your bag and then you were standing up and Reeves’s face was literally about three inches away from yours and for the eight thousandth time since you’d know him, you forgot how to breathe.

Neither of you said anything for what felt like days. You just stared at each other under the dim halo of the parking lot lights.

“Here you go.” He took your hand and dropped your keys into it.

“Thanks,” you whispered.

“Like what you see?” the corners of his mouth quirked up, just the slightest little bit.

“...Maybe.”

And the staring recommenced. Were you two getting closer? Physically closer, you meant, of course you were close, you’d always been close. Well, at one time you were really close but then Randie Restenberg happened and it wasn’t fair that she got to know what those lips felt like and did he always smell this good or--

“Yo, Reeves!” A pickup truck full of guys skidded to a stop behind your car and one of his friends - Jake? Jack? you barely remembered your own name right now - stuck his head out the window. “Fight to the death ping pong tourney at Matt’s house! You in?”

Reeves bit his lip and closed his eyes for a second before he pulled back with a soft “I’m sorry” before turning to his friends. “Um, yeah, sure. Sounds brutal. I’ll meet you there.” 

The pickup sped off, tires screeching out of the parking lot. Reeves turned back to you, but you’d already gotten into your now unlocked car and started the engine.

You rolled down the window a fraction and gave him a weak smile. “Hey, um. Thanks for saving my butt. Now go kick theirs at ping pong, yeah?” Your face felt so hot, and for once you were grateful for the dim lights in the lot.

“You could, um, come along if- if you want.”

“Nah, I’m...I’m tired, I’m just gonna...um, head home. But I’ll see you tomorrow maybe?”

Reeves looked like he was about to say something else, but he didn’t. He just stepped onto the curb in front of your car, smiled, and raised his hand in a little wave as he watched you drive off.

The Present.

A series of shrieks and the slamming of the door told you Vanessa had finally arrived. It sounded like they were jumping up and down on the tile just inside your front door, which was ridiculous since you’d all just seen each other the day before. But typical.

You smoothed a pinkie under your eye, checked your makeup one final time, and went into the living room.

“Oh, you look hot,” Vanessa gushed. She grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge and plopped down on your couch. “Who are you trying to impress tonight?”

“Reeves, of course,” Alexis laughed, leaning on the kitchen counter. She sorted anything she might need from her big purse into a little evening bag as she talked. “You know we go to all his shows. And you know they went to high school together.”

You snorted. “That was a long time ago. I’m not even sure he’d remember me.”

Vanessa waggled her eyebrows. “You’re probably right, No offense, honey, but no one was that hot back in high school.”

He was, your brain supplied. Very helpful. You smiled wanly.

Vanessa continued. “But you were friends, right? You’ve never really talked about it. God, it must be so cool now to think that you were friends with Reeves back when he was an awkward high school teenager.”

“Reeves was never awkward,” you laugh. “It was kind of unfair.”

“But you totally had a crush on him,” Alexis offered.

Had? What do you mean, had? Oh my god, shut up, brain.

A pillow flew in your direction and you ducked as Vanessa giggled and Alexis rolled her eyes. “Come on, tell us something about him,” Vanessa goaded. “Wait. Was he, like, your prom date? That’s your secret! You totally went to prom with Reeves and you never told us!”

Senior Year. Prom. A Saturday.

The night was not supposed to go this way.

It was supposed to be limousines and corsages and dinner with dates and friends. It was supposed to be endless pictures while your mother told you how gorgeous you looked and how handsome he was and your father gave a thinly-veiled shovel talk about how he knew what happens on prom night and what would really happen if that actually happened. It was supposed to be punch and cookies and balloons. It was supposed to be dancing closer than the chaperones were comfortable with and kissing with tongue when they weren’t looking.

It was supposed to be the best night of your life. It was supposed to be fun.

Nowhere in your weeks of dreaming of this night did it involve sitting on a bench in the girls’ locker room, knees pulled up to your chest, while the party carried on in the gym just beyond.

It definitely didn’t involve crying.

The bass beats of the deejay and the harmony of laughter temporarily got louder as the locker room door opened, and then faded back into a muted thumping as the door closed again a second later. You could hear footsteps headed in your direction but before you could unfold yourself and wipe your tears away, a familiar voice called out.

“Hey, there you are!”

Being able to find the words to describe how he looked in his tux, his curls slightly tamed by some gel, the blue rose (of course it would be an off color, why would he pick something standard?) pinned to his lapel, his lopsided grin… Finding the words was nearly impossible.

Of course he would show up now. Because your night wasn’t already crappy enough and half the reason you were sitting there weeping instead of out there dancing was standing right in front of you.

You realized that wasn’t fair. It was probably more like, twenty-five percent of the reason, and it wasn’t his fault. But that didn’t make it any better.

“Why are you in the girls’ locker room, Reeves?” you sniffled.

He furrowed his eyebrows and his nose scrunched up in concern as he took in your mascara-streaked cheeks and puffy red eyes. “One of your friends said you came in here like half an hour ago and nobody’s seen you since. I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

“I’m fine.”

“Clearly not.” He sat down next to you. “Wanna talk about it?”

A deep, shaky sign left your chest. You didn’t really want to talk about how, earlier in the evening, you’d excused yourself to use the restroom and come back to the gym to find Theo dancing with...you didn’t remember her name, nor did you care. You didn’t mind that he was dancing with another girl, in theory, but it was another matter entirely when his hands were on her ass and she was sucking a deep purple mark into his neck. And he was laughing. 

A short, vicious argument ensued in the coat room after you’d cut in and dragged him off by the elbow. And it turned out that he’d been seeing whats-her-name for months, somehow, behind your back while pretending that everything was perfect with you. When he was supposedly visiting his grandparents? He was with her. When he had to work an extra shift? He was with her. When he got off the phone with you, saying he needed to get to bed early? He was calling her.

Prom wasn’t supposed to involve a very public break-up.

And things didn’t get any better when, deciding you needed something to drink, you went back into the gym and immediately saw Reeves and Randie, dancing cheek to cheek, arms snugly wrapped around each other as a soft, romantic song wafted through the air. Because of course he was with her. She was his girlfriend and Reeves wasn’t a detestable cheating asshole.

There was always another her.

You couldn’t handle it.

So you took off to somewhere almost guaranteed to be empty. You figured the locker room wasn’t really the kind of place kids would want to make out, and you were right. It was blessedly empty. Until now.

But you couldn’t tell him the second part, so you just went with the first. His eyes got wide as you blubbered through the sordid details of Theo being a complete and utter twat. Another quivery sob half-burst from you and Reeves got up. He grabbed a few paper towels from the dispenser and handed them to you as he sat back down.

“Thanks,” you hiccuped.

“I never liked him,” Reeves announced.

You found yourself choking on a huff of air. “What? Yes you did! Everybody loved him. That’s what makes it extra shitty.”

“Did you?”

“What?”

Reeves cocked his head and looked at you with an expression you couldn’t quite place. “Did you love him?”

Your mouth opened and closed but nothing came out. Why did you always seem to forget how to make words when Reeves asked you questions?

“What?”

He shrugged. “Everyone else loved him. Did you?”

You used every last ounce of willpower you had to not jump up on that bench and shout that of course you didn’t love Theo, you idiot, because I love you.

That would not make this night any easier.

The next thing you knew, Reeves put an arm around your shoulders and pulled you into his chest, hugging you soundly. He rested his cheek on the top of your head. “Doesn’t matter. You’re better off without him.”

You dabbed at your eyes. Nope, still couldn’t make words.

Minutes, hours, days. You had no idea how long you stayed like that, pressed to him and feeling him breathe beneath you. You no longer had any idea how long it had even been since everything crashed around you and he’d come to try and help you pick up the pieces. You just listened to his heartbeat, strong and steady, as the muffled music and joyful shouts of classmates went on past the closed door.

Finally he spoke again. “Hey, you wanna get one of those complimentary pictures?”

“What?” Oh, great. You were finally able to answer his question but you could still only come up with that one word? Stupid brain.

“Well, I…” he sat up straight and, after the briefest look into your eyes, he glanced away. Was he blushing? You weren’t sure. “I always kind of...I kind of thought we’d have a prom picture together. I mean, I just figured, y’know, we’d go with a bunch of friends, but I always hoped I’d get a picture with my best friend.”

The sniffles were back in an instant. Damn him. “Reeves, I...you really want to get a picture now? I look horrible, I can’t get a picture taken like this!”

He took the paper towel from your hand and gently dabbed at your cheeks. “You couldn’t look horrible if you tried. Come on, it’ll be fun. And just think how excited your mom will be when she gets a copy of it.”

Despite your best efforts, you had to laugh. “Okay.”

You headed to the photo area after you washed your face, Reeves helped you wipe off the stray streaks of mascara, and you reapplied just a bit of makeup to make yourself feel better. You were never sure what Reeves said to the photographer before the shots, but he seemed quite happy to take multiples. Reeves stayed pressed against your back with his arms down around your waist, hands clasped together in front of you, for each and every one.

At some point between the second and third shot, he leaned just a little closer into you and you suddenly felt his breath against your ear. “Like what you see?”

For maybe the first time that entire night, your face broke into a genuine smile. “Maybe.”

For a few minutes, your night was absolutely perfect.

The Present.

It was the greatest date that never was.

“No, Reeves was not my prom date,” you told your friends with a shake of your head.

You left out most of the other details, partly because you didn’t want to answer eight hundred questions from Vanessa and partly because, well, you just wanted those moments for yourself.

After the pictures, Reeves had asked if you would like to dance. Until then you didn’t realize it was possible for eyebrows to shoot that far up a person’s forehead, but yours were up for the challenge. You’d mumbled something about if Randie would mind, because you were sure she absolutely would, but he brushed it off. Randie had gone off with her friends when he came to find you, and he really wanted to dance with you, just one dance with his frog murder accomplice. And he said that with a straight face and a twinkle in his eye and there was no way you could refuse.

As if there was any way you’d say no.

One dance turned into two, and then several, until the girlfriend in question finally did show back up and Reeves was pulled away, leaving you with a soft smile and a mouthed “sorry”.

Definitely the greatest never-date.

After prom, life returned to what vaguely resembled normal. Your love life sucked and Reeves still had a girlfriend that wasn’t you, and you didn’t see him much. To be fair, the end of senior year and graduation did creep up pretty fast so there wasn’t a lot of time anyway. Graduation was there before you knew it; he cheered for you and you cheered for him as you each walked across the stage. You made brief appearances at each others’ graduation parties and talked a bit and then, once again before you knew what happened next, it was time to leave for college.

You went back to New York. Reeves stayed on the west coast.

And over the years, like so many other people before you and after you, you just fell out of touch.

“And anyway,” you asserted, “we were just kind of friends. Yeah, like I told Alexis before, we were lab partners sophomore year, and we hung out sometimes, but that was it. Really.”

Alexis snorted and Vanessa narrowed her eyes. “Mmmhmm.”

You threw the pillow back at her. “Mmmhmm.”

“All right, you two,” Alexis chided. “Come on, let’s get going.”

Somehow, you managed to get down to Greenwich Village without further interrogation and minimal shenanigans.

The Present. One Hour Later. Another Saturday Night.

The bar inside the club was pretty packed. Granted, it was a Saturday night down in The Village, so it wasn’t too uncommon, but you were honestly surprised that this many people showed up for a punk retrospective.

There were a few other relatively big-name acts you recognized on the bill, and a fair number of people were wearing t-shirts with Reeves’s most recent album cover on the front. There were even a few that had shirts with his face on it, which was frankly kind of weird.

“Looks like you’re not his only number one fan,” Vanessa smirked.

“I just enjoy his music,” you said off-handedly as you tried to flag down a bartender. “But anyway, tonight isn’t even about him. We’re just here to support charity, right?”

Alexis pretended to agree with you. “Right.”

You glared at both of them before turning your attention back to the bar. Yes, you came to every one of his shows in the area. When you had time. When you could take the night off. When you could rearrange your schedule and switch shifts at the last minute and promise favors to be able to attend them. When you maybe once or twice just called out sick because nothing else worked. So what.

They were really starting to get on your nerves. 

The bartender finally noticed you and took your order, and you looked around the club again while you waited.

Lots of people, ranging from just-allowed-to-buy-booze to mid-sixties businessmen. A few folks that looked to currently be in their golden years but were clearly once punks in their prime. Many people in black and chains and mohawks and neon hair and piercings, to the point where you honestly couldn’t tell who was a performer and who was a patron.

The one person you were looking for was the one that you couldn’t pick out of the crowd.

“He’s gotta be here somewhere!” Vanessa’s voice shouted from somewhere behind your shoulder.

“Vanessa, you’re getting a little weird about this,” you called back as you grabbed your drink and turned around.

“Like what you see?”

Eyes wide and mouth slightly hanging open, you almost dropped your full glass.

Vaguely, nearby, you heard the sound of glass shattering and shot a glance to your left. Alexis really had dropped her drink, and Vanessa was clutching onto her arm for dear life. She was holding her glass at a slightly odd angle and the contents were dripping onto one of her shoes.

The crowd silently pulsed backwards as one, clearing out around the four of you for a respectable distance. Several people watched curiously; surprisingly, they just stood back and stared instead of trying to get involved.

Reason Number One why you really couldn’t blame them: Reeves stood there, right in front of you. Literally less than two feet away, looking right at you. His mouth pulled up into his familiar lopsided grin, his hair still dark but shot through with strands of silver, curly on the top and shorter on the sides. His nose with the little dent, perfect on his face under those dark, luminous brown eyes and...holy shit, was he wearing eyeliner? He was wearing eyeliner.

Reason Number Two why you really couldn’t blame them: Leather pants. Under his old, faded t-shirt and black leather jacket (you were used to seeing him in brown, but you had to admit the black looked good) he was wearing leather pants.

Reason Number Three why you really couldn’t blame them: Quite simply, Reeves was standing in the middle of a bar in New York City and he was talking to you.

You blinked once, then twice. You may have blinked more times but all you could think about was the fact that, after all these years, your brain still couldn’t make words when Reeves asked you a question.

That same old question.

Suddenly you were grinning back, completely ignoring your friends and their dumbfounded squawking and sputtering next to you. You were smiling because even though your brain couldn’t make full sentences of words, it could pull one particular word out of the void and let it come out past your lips.

“Maybe.”

Reeves grinned fully now, his eyes lighting up and the crinkles at the corners deepening.

Someone - maybe Vanessa, maybe a total stranger, you couldn’t be sure - might have swooned from the sidelines.

“Always told you I wanted to come to New York,” he said.

“Always told you I’d go back.”

And the next thing you knew, the next thing that made any sense anywhere in your mind, was that Reeves had stepped forward, wrapped his arms around you, and placed the softest, sweetest, most heart-achingly gentle kiss on your lips.

You pulled away in a daze, felt the heat rising in your cheeks, as you heard a muffled choking sound halfway behind you. Definitely Vanessa.

Alexis and Vanessa’s eyes, already bugging out of their faces, nearly fell out of their sockets when Reeves turned to address them.

“Hey, ladies. I’ll come talk to you after the show, but for now, I just need to borrow your friend for a few minutes, okay?”

There were somehow still more bizarre, mostly inhuman noises that came out of your friends and even later, when they’d deny ever acting like that in front of a famous rock star (and rolled their eyes at you when you corrected them that he was a musician, not a rock star), it wouldn’t matter because you weren’t paying a single bit of attention to them them anyway.

You only had eyes for one person.

He took your hand and pulled you past the bar, into a little room in the back; the office, presumably. The second you were both inside, he wrapped his arms around your waist and looked you in the eyes. He just stared for a few minutes, or maybe hours, you weren’t sure.

It really didn’t matter.

“Do you have any idea how long I’ve wanted to do that?” he whispered.

“Third day of school, fourth period biology class, sophomore year?”

Reeves smiled softly. “The second you walked in that door.”

“Why didn’t you?” you tilted your head to look at him. Okay, to gaze into his eyes. You tilted your head to gaze into his eyes and your subconscious hoped to any gods that would listen that you did not have actual hearts or stars in your pupils.

Not that it really mattered.

His arms never left you but he gave a little shrug. “Never seemed to be the right time. And then I had a girlfriend.”

“Yeah,” you laughed. “And I ended up with that lame excuse for a boyfriend. But do you know how long I’ve wanted you to do that?”

“When you couldn’t stop staring at me when you sat down at the lab table next to me?”

“Hmmm, maybe. But definitely when you told the teacher we had to have a funeral for Lenny.”

“Hey, Lenny was a fuckin’ hero,” Reeves batted his eyes at you innocently. “He performed a brave and great service to his country.”

“I am oddly happy you’re still an idiot,” you giggled.

“I’m ecstatic that you kept coming to all my shows in the city.”

You pulled back slightly and looked at the ceiling. “You noticed?”

Reeves gave you that look. That look he always gave you, when you were teenagers, when you said something either completely ridiculous or completely profound. That look he gave you when he thought you might not be looking, even though you were always looking. That look that said he always had your back and you were his best friend. That look that you thought you’d be lucky to see one more time but probably never would.

That look.

“Of course I noticed. I thought about having security make you stay back, but that’s just...no. You always looked happy, and I don’t know...I just didn’t want to intrude, I guess? Just always wondered why you never stuck around after the shows, never stayed to talk to me, never came knocking on the dressing room door.”

You thought about that for a minute. You really did try, but you couldn’t come up with a decent answer. You were happy. Just seeing him was enough, you told yourself. Just hearing him sing was enough, just being in the same room with him, just being near. Just like it was back in high school.

Only it wasn’t high school anymore, and now that he’d finally, finally - after years of would’ve and should’ve and maybes - kissed you, you knew enough wasn’t going to be, well, enough.

So that’s what you told him.

And Reeves pulled you close, leaned in closer, and kissed you again.

You pulled apart, breathless again, and rested your foreheads together.

After minutes, or maybe days, or maybe hours, and definitely years - it didn’t really matter - Reeves was there. You were there. And for once, you were really there together.

“Like what you see?”

“...definitely.”

The Future. Any Day. Every Day.

You always thought, and your friends always said, that the best years of your life happened in high school. And to a certain extent, that was true and you believed in that notion for a very long time.

But ever since that night, that one glorious night in a Manhattan bar, you realized you were wrong.

The best years of your life were still happening.

~end~

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[james-joyces-right-eyeball]

Absolute Favorite Books I’d Recommend to Anyone

This is a list of my top-tier favorite books that I would recommend/talk about endlessly to pretty much anyone (in no particular order). I know people probably don’t care but I just like talking about books I love so here we are.

Beloved - Toni Morrison

~ Based off the real story of Margaret Garner, a slave woman who escaped slavery and when captured killed her child in order to prevent them from ever being enslaved again, Beloved tells the story of a mother named Sethe, born in slavery who eventually escaped and is haunted by the figurative demons of her trauma and the literal (arguably) ghost of her dead daughter, who she herself killed. It is an excellent exploration of the horrors of slavery and of the haunting legacy of the institution for those who were subjected to it.

Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov

~ If you’ve been on Tumblr for a while, you probably know what Lolita is. The story of the predatory Humbert Humbert who lusts after, rapes, and kidnaps the “nymphet” Dolores Haze. An excellent construction of how predators, unreliable narrators in their own right, hide behind fabrications, almost-believable excuses, and pretty words to make their actions seem maybe not so bad. In the words of the book itself, “You can always count on a murderer for a fancy prose style.”

Ulysses - James Joyce

~ Notoriously one of the most difficult books in the English language, Ulysses lifts its structure from Homer’s Odyssey to tell the story of a common man, Leopold Bloom, as he goes about his day. Yes, this book takes place over the course of only one day. We follow Bloom as well as Joyce’s literary counterpart Stephen Daedalus through their thoughts and actions, gathering details of their lives previous throughout. It’s a book that, in my own words, “is life”. It is sad, funny, strange, vulgar, disgusting, beautiful, revelatory, sensual, and nonsensical all at once. Joyce aimed to create a reflection of life through his stream-of-consciousness style which some people might find confusing, but I personally find absolutely beautiful and honest and realistic. The prose is also gorgeous, but that could be applied to everything Joyce wrote. 

Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte

~ The classic gothic book that tells the tale of Heathcliff and his ultimately destructive love of Catherine Earnshaw, whose eventual marriage to someone else and the general mistreatment of him by her family drives Heathcliff insane and he spends the rest of his life trying to take revenge by abusing and torturing the next Earnshaw and Linton (the family into which Catherine marries) generations. If I’m being honest, I like this book mostly because of how wild and dark it is, but the writing is also genius and beautiful. I think the book also carries an interesting view of the destructive nature of revenge, overzealous love, and othering.

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn - Betty Smith

~ A coming-of-age story at the turn of the century that tells the story of Francie Nolan, a young bookish girl growing up in a lower class family in New York City. It tells about her father’s struggles with alcoholism as well as her mother’s struggles to deal with that and at the same time raise Francie and her brother. Francie is confronted with a strange, uncertain world as a young girl, but tries to face it with bravery throughout childhood

Little Women - Louisa May Alcott

~ Another coming-of-age story, this time about four young sisters: Meg, Jo, Beth and Amy March. You are probably familiar with this book already; it’s had more movie adaptations then I can possibly remember off the top of my head. It’s the story of four sisters as they try to navigate growing up, love, and loss during the mid to late 1800s.

The Color Purple - Alice Walker

~ A novel that tells the story of Celie, a young black woman who is raped and then married young to a man who will go on to use and abuse her, through her letters to God. Throughout the novel she meets Shug Avery, a woman with whom she eventually falls in love and begins a relationship with. Through this and her eventual freedom from her abusive husband, she is able to gain at last her own sense of self and take back control over her life, a life no longer ruled by the abusive men around her.

The Bluest Eye - Toni Morrison

~ The tragic story of young black girl Pecola Breedlove, who wants nothing more than to have blonde hair and blue eyes just like the women she sees in the movies. Both a deconstruction of the whiteness of beauty standards as well as how these standards can utterly destroy vulnerable young girls, it is also an exploration of the people who allow these sorts of things to happen, including Pecola’s mother and father. The Bluest Eye, I think, showcases one of the aspects of Toni Morrison that I like the most, that I aspire to the most: her ability to enter the minds of all people, even people who you might despise at first. Her characters, especially Cholly in The Bluest Eye, are ones you might not entirely sympathize with, but they will always be ones you understand.

The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath

~ Based off of the author’s own experiences as a young college student, The Bell Jar tells the story of Esther Greenwood, whose depression over her place as a woman in a patriarchal society as well as her inability to choose a life path for herself leads to a suicide attempt and a subsequent stay in a mental hospital. A very nuanced portrayal of mental illness, especially anxiety and depression, The Bell Jar is an extremely moving and relatable story for me and clearly is as well for others. It is a classic for a reason.

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings - Maya Angelou

~ A memoir of Angelou’s childhood, this book tells the story of her experiences living as a black girl in the south with her grandmother and brother as well as her later years living with her mother. It also tells of how she was raped by her mother’s boyfriend when she was around eight or nine, and how she struggled to live with that and find her voice, both literally and figuratively. A wonderful book about overcoming struggles and the power of words and literature in such times.

Invisible Man - Ralph Ellison

~ Ellison’s novel tells the story of a young black man, never getting a name in the text, and his feelings of invisibility and his struggles to find a place in society to belong. His struggles only lead him further into despair, until he decides to “become invisible” as people seem not to see him as a person anyway. Invisible Man is an exploration of American mid-century racism and the isolation it causes to those subjected to it. Not only that, but it is surprisingly relevant to our times now, especially on the subject of police violence. (Personal anecdote: When I first read this book, when I got to the aforementioned police violence part it was right in the middle of the BLM resurgence last summer and I cried for a good twenty minutes while reading that chapter over how nothing had changed and it still hurts me to think about it. Embarrassingly, my dad walked in on me while I was crying, and I had to quickly explain it away.)

A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

~ The title basically says it all lol. This book tells of the coming-of-age of Stephen Daedalus (the same one from the later-written Ulysses). His sensitive childhood, his awkward and lustful adolescence, his feelings of Irish nationality and Catholic guilt, and his struggles to fully realize himself, both as an artist and a human being. It is a very hopeful story, and one that I love mostly because I relate so much to Stephen Daedalus as an artist and as a person.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez

~ A magical-realist intergenerational family drama, Marquez’s book traces the various lives and loves of the Buendia family over the course of (you guessed it!) one hundred years. A beautifully written, at times extremely emotionally moving and chilling masterpiece, Marquez in a way retells the history of Colombia, of its colonization and exploitation.  

Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy

~ A classic Russian novel of society and love, Tolstoy tells the story of Anna Karenina, married, wealthy woman with a child she adores. However, she falls in love with another man, Count Vronsky, and comes to a tragic end for her love. The parallel story of the novel is that of Konstantin Levin, a wealthy landowner who also struggles to find fulfillment in his life and understand his place in society.

The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

~ A novel that features an entire family of unreliable narrators, The Sound and the Fury details the fall of a once-prominent southern Compson family and always-present place of the past. There are four different narratives: Benjy Compson, a mentally disabled man who is unsure of his surroundings and of time and only knows that he misses his older sister Caddy; Quintin Compson, the eldest son and a Harvard man both obsessed with his sister retaining her “purity” and the fact that she failed to do so and had a baby out of wedlock, going as far to claim it is his baby in an attempt to preserve something of the family reputation; Jason Compson, who is the caretaker of Caddy’s daughter and believes her to be going down her mother’s “sinful” path; and Dilsey, the black maid of the Compson’s who unlike the people she cares for is not weighed down by their history. The narratives take place in different time periods and is in a stream-of-consciousness style. It’s a deeply dark and disturbing novel about the haunting nature of the past, a common theme in Faulkner’s work (see Absalom, Absalom! for more of this).

Song of Solomon - Toni Morrison

~ It is the story of Milkman Dead, a young black man growing up in the south and his relationship with his very complicated family. To say anymore would be to spoil the novel, but I will say that it is an excellent book about family, self-fulfillment in a world that tries to deny you that, and, like The Bluest Eye, exhibits Morrison’s excellent character work.

Cat on a Hot Tin Roof - Tennessee Williams

~ A play which takes place on the patriarch of a family’s birthday in the oppressive heat of the midsummer south, Williams’ play explores lies, secrets, and how repression only results in anger, frustration, and sadness. It’s a tragic but brilliant play that I think was very ahead of its time. If you’ve read it (or do read it) then you know what I mean.

Giovanni’s Room - James Baldwin

~ This book tells the story of a young man and his love of another man named Giovanni while he is in Paris. It is a book about love, queer guilt, and has what I would call an ambiguous ending. There is uncertainty at the end, but there does seem to be some kind of acceptance. It is a bit of a coming-out story, but more than that it is a story of personal acceptance and at the same time a sad, tragic love story.

HERmione - H.D.

~ An underrated modernist masterpiece, HERmione is a somewhat fictionalized account of the author, Hilda Doolittle’s, experience as a young aspiring poet dating another poet (in real life Ezra Pound in this book named George Lowndes) who is a threat to her both physically and emotionally. It explores her own mental state, as she considers herself a failure and falls in love with a woman for the first time (Fayne Rabb in the book, Frances Gregg in real life). 

To the Lighthouse - Virginia Woolf

~ People think about going to a lighthouse. They do not. A couple years and a war passes then they do. That may seem like a boring plot, and you may be right. However, To the Lighthouse is not much about plot. It is more about the inner lives of its characters, a family and their friends, on two different occasions of their lives: one before WWI and one after WWI. Woolf explores in this novel the trauma that results from such a massive loss of life and security. Not only that, she also explores the nature of art (especially in female artists) in the character of Lily Briscoe and her struggles to complete a painting. It’s a short novel, but it contains so much about life, love, and loss within these few pages.

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter - Carson McCullers

~ A southern gothic novel about isolation and loneliness in a small town. Every character has something to separate them from wider society, and often find solace and companionship in a deaf man, John Singer, who himself experiences a loneliness that they cannot understand. There are various forms of social isolation explored in this novel: by race, disability, age, gender, etc. A wonderful, heart-wrenching book about loneliness and the depths it can potentially drag people to.

The Waste Land - T.S. Eliot

~ A modernist masterpiece of a poem, Eliot describes feeling emptiness and isolation. The brilliance of it can only be shown by an excerpt:

“Your arms full, and your hair wet, I could not Speak, and my eyes failed, I was neither Living nor dead, and I knew nothing, Looking into the heart of light, the silence.”

“The river’s tent is broken: the last fingers of leaf Clutch and sink into the wet bank. The wind Crosses the brown land, unheard. The nymphs are departed. Sweet Thames, run softly, till I end my song. The river bears no empty bottles, sandwich papers, Silk handkerchiefs, cardboard boxes, cigarette ends Or other testimony of summer nights. The nymphs are departed. And their friends, the loitering heirs of city directors; Departed, have left no addresses. By the waters of Leman I sat down and wept . . . Sweet Thames, run softly till I end my song, Sweet Thames, run softly, for I speak not loud or long. But at my back in a cold blast I hear The rattle of the bones, and chuckle spread from ear to ear. “

(My personal favorite line from this poem is, “I will show you fear in a handful of dust.”)

The Trial - Franz Kafka

~ The protagonist of the novel, Josef K., wakes up one morning to find that he has been placed under arrest for reasons that are kept from him. Kafka creates throughout the novel a scathing satire of bureaucracy, as K. tries to find out more about his case, more about his trial, but only becomes more confused as he digs deeper. There seems to be no rhyme or reason to the world he lives in, and the more tries to explain it the further the more that proves to be the case. An excellently constructed novel and a great one to read if you would like to be depressed about the state of the world because, though Kafka’s work is a satire, like a lot of his other work, it manages to strike a strangely real note.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead - Tom Stoppard

~ An absurdist play that is a retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from the perspective of minor characters, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, who in the broad overview of the original play, do not matter. Throughout the play, they question their existence and the purpose of it and through that Stoppard dissects not only the absurdity of life, but how fiction and theater reflect that absurdity inadvertently.

As I Lay Dying - William Faulkner

~ The novel details the journey the Bundren family makes after the death of the family matriarch, Addie, to bury her. Each chapter offers a different narrative from the family members and those who surround them, revealing some ulterior motives to them “going to town” to bury Addie. The patriarch Anse desires a pair of false teeth, and the daughter Dewey Dell is pregnant and needs an abortion, as there is no way for her or her family to support it. It’s about the powerlessness of people in the impoverished south. The Bundrens are constantly subject to forces beyond their control, struggles which would be easily solved if they had the money to spare for it. There is more to the book, but that is my favorite reading of it, that of class. Faulkner’s ability to create distinct voices for every one of his characters shines through here.

And, last but not least:

The Collected Poems - Sylvia Plath

~ All the poems Plath wrote during her tragically short lifetime. The best way to demonstrate or summarize the book’s brilliance is just to show you. This is her poem “Edge”, which appears in the book:

“The woman is perfected.   Her dead Body wears the smile of accomplishment,   The illusion of a Greek necessity Flows in the scrolls of her toga,   Her bare Feet seem to be saying: We have come so far, it is over. Each dead child coiled, a white serpent,   One at each little Pitcher of milk, now empty.   She has folded Them back into her body as petals   Of a rose close when the garden Stiffens and odors bleed From the sweet, deep throats of the night flower. The moon has nothing to be sad about,   Staring from her hood of bone. She is used to this sort of thing. Her blacks crackle and drag.”

HOPE YOU ENJOYED! HAPPY READING TO ALL!

[rena-te]

I’m gonna throw some random thoughts/predictions about NEO at the wall. Mostly bc I’ve been thinking about this stuff for a while and need to shout into the void about it. (It will get into the Game’s Opening Sequence as well as any information that’s come out so far, just to mention it in case you were avoiding that content.) Join me for a lot of this down below the cut!

First of all, Tsugumi. In A.N.D we see her in a destroyed Shinjuku. Along with the visions of the future she gives Neku there are these messages.

“Everyone’s gone away..... All that’s left in the world is me.” (City being destroyed.)

“I can’t hear a thing...” (Tsugumi is walking the streets alone.)

“Hello? Is anybody there?” (Joshua shooting.)

“Somebody... Anybody... Can anybody hear me?” (Rhyme dying to (purple) shark noise.)

This last one isn’t a vision. It happens after Coco shoots Neku and he vanishes. Which leads me to think, since it is mostly a repeat of the first two future visions, it’s actually happening in this moment. It could be Tsugumi calling out one last time...... Before she’s overtaken by something?

“Too late... It’s all over...” (Same as first two. Tsugumi’s eyes notably turn red more than before.)

How is she giving Neku these visions? (It seems that she’s just calling out to anybody, and for some reason Neku heard her.) To send visions like that I’d think that Tsugumi is either Shinjuku’s Composer or maybe an angel? Or something else we’ve not seen? And they’re all visions of the future. Is Tsugumi speaking into the past as well as projecting those images? (We’re assuming that the reason for Shinjuku Reapers being in Shibuya is bc the UG in Shinjuku has been destroyed. So are the visions congruent with Shinjuku being destroyed or is the city being destroyed in the future, likely sometime between TWEWY and NEO?) The possibility of time travel makes things a million times more complicated.

Or maybe Tsugumi wasn’t quite sending him visions at all, and it was a kind of side effect of being linked to a Composer (since they are somewhat omniscient, and bc some of those visions were not really related to Tsugumi.) She was just trying to communicate with him, but some of that power leaked through their psychic bond and gave Neku a bit of clairvoyance?

If Shinjuku’s UG got destroyed, does that leave the Composer alive? We know that the Composer killing themselves would effectively shut down the UG, but if it happens the other way around? The Composer still exists, but would there be no consequence for losing an integral part of themselves? If the Composer’s connection to the UG is so pivotal, maybe the UG being gone is the reason why Tsugumi seems so...empty? (Is she so vacant that someone else is pulling the strings at this point?) It’s odd for Tsugumi to call out to Neku for help, but target him in NEO. (Given orders to target him.)

Also maybe the UG being destroyed but the Composer still existing explains Joshua’s....odd reaction to her? “How fortunate she managed to escape erasure.” Said when he was just in a position of wanting to kill himself in order to destroy his UG. He doesn’t use that sprite often ya know. It could explain the expression he has and the mumbled speech bubble used. Joshua said that he needed to get rid of His UG bc it could negatively tamper with the other grounds. To discover that could be done without killing himself... (And without him knowing of the apparent side effect of a “vacant Composer” Assuming that theory is true in the first place.)

But why does she have a Mr.Mew doll? Uhhhhh.... There’s also some time shenanigans happening too. And that throws many “what-ifs” into the mix, so I’ll avoid going down that rabbit hole. Basically I have no idea, the possibilities are kinda endless with time travel.

Another thing. This guy is also important. Very important apparently. I had a vague idea about him at first, a guess kinda outta left field, but I mean....I’m liking what bits I’ve scraped together for my guess theory by now. Onto speculating about Mr.Kubo here......

In the game’s opening sequence he walks right past Tsugumi (so connected to her in some way), leans in towards the camera, looks at you and does his little eccentric pose.

The only other characters who sorta look into the camera for the opening sequence are Shiba and Shoka, BUT in Shiba’s case it’s more like the camera is centered on him looking forward, and Shoka is more so interacting with Rindo with the way her scene was done. Here Kubo is just walking alone, stops and his eyes lock with the camera...... so wtf does this mean, you’re probably asking. It’s just a funky game introduction, it’s just this dude being weird. Yes, that is all true.

I know that he’s introduced in the line up as a Shinjuku Reaper, along with everyone else. But... I think this guy is Shinjuku’s Producer. If Tsugumi is Shinjuku’s Composer it makes sense for him to follow Her into Shibuya, he’s basically tasked to watch over Her.

Compared to the other Shinjuku Reapers, his color scheme is more...grey scaled. The girl has a grey suit, but Kubo doesn’t have any colors to his outfit at all. His clothes are plain compared to everyone else in this lineup. His facial expressions are the only...unique thing to his appearance. In the little bit of English dialogue we have of him so far, it seems that he’s giving us some kind of advice? And Fret looks to be put off with his eccentric (I can’t think of a more accurate word for it) demeanor.

So the middle aged man with an eccentric personality, with a tendency to give advice (?), pretending to be involved in the game in ways they are not, clothes styled in only neutral colors, and the funky little watch they’re wearing....along with the light poking at the fourth wall (Mr.H- “You mean those teasers?”) both Kubo and Hanekoma fit that bill.

Tbh Hanekoma is a bit eccentric, we’re just so used to how he is by now. The watch is just a minor thing that’s a fun little similarity in their designs don’t worry about it. Don’t tell me the watch isn’t important it ties everything together. Also after a quick goggle search, one website is telling me that Kubo’s name means “sunken ground” in Japanese and this other website is telling me what the individual kanji means, (I do not know Japanese in any way and am assuming that the internet is right about all this. I feel like it tracks with him being a Producer though.)

And just to cap it off, maybe Shiba was Shinjuku’s Conductor. If he rose through Shibuya’s ranks so quickly he’s gotta know what he’s doing. Did he throw Shinjuku out of balance and get rid of the UG so the Composer would be an empty puppet (like Tsugumi kinda seems to be.) Is that why he’s doing all this? Does he plan to become the Conductor (right hand man of the Composer) and then erase the UG, rendering it’s Composer vacant and take control? Shiba wouldn’t know about the Producer, naturally. Is that what it’s all culminating too? Will Joshua be in danger at some point from this guy? I’m wondering when the Higher Plane would step in, but this might just be Kubo’s job since Shiba was Shinjuku’s Conductor (and Hanekoma’s job, since it’s happening in Shibuya now) unless it gets completely out of control. They don’t seem to interfere much, just letting the assigned angels do the groundwork.

So that’s all my thoughts about stuff. I wouldn’t go into the game heavily expecting much of this though. As fun as theories are I’ll be fine enjoying the game for whatever happens. The world-building in twewy is just extremely fascinating to me and I love it so much. This is just my take on a “‘what if” situation anyways so nothing close to this may happen, hahaha. But speculation is very fun and I love to flex my twewy knowledge (it’s been next to useless for like 10 years. Finally twewy is relevant.