#Anyway i would commit real crimes to see them reunions

[spkyart]

Typical 3 kings meeting

[yourpalmickeymouse]

Mickey helllo!! ☀️ how long has it been since I was here the last time? (The last time I asked you was… months ago haha!) I’ve been busy with my life and well, let’s just say a lot has happened to me! 😄

Okay enough about me, I wanna ask you something, it’s actually have to do about well. Your height (if that’s okay for me to ask!),

Do you get tired of being small? I can feel not many people would take you seriously for your size or would make fun of you height for laughs… (is it also a genetic thing in your family where your relatives are also the same height as you?)

But to me, I don’t think you’re small at all. Physically yes but I know deep down you have a big heart that would never stop trying to help the people they care and cherish the most! :D (that’s all I got Mickey, it’s great to be back here once again! I’ll be sure to stop by again pal!)☀️

Hiya Sunny,

It's swell to hear back from you again. It has been quite a while, hasn't it? Though to be honest, I've also been pretty busy with all these crooks runnin' around Mouseton. Sometimes it feels like they're tryin' to break a world record on the most amount of crime they can commit within a couple of months. It's real annoyin'.

As for your question... ha... I was wonderin' when this would pop up. Don't worry 'bout askin'. I love answerin' 'em all. 😊

When it comes to my height, I guess I could see why someone would see it as a flaw. To be honest, the world I live in doesn't always seem to have people of my height in mind. Outside of havin' a heck of a time gettin' a car where I can reach the pedals, I have to bring my own stool whenever I go to the market since whatever I want is always, always, on the highest shelves. It's real annoyin' at times. But there are benefits too. If anythin' I think it offers me a bit of unique perspective that not a lot of people get. Sometimes I feel like I can be a bit more agile and fit into places most others can't. Also if I can't find something I like in the men's section of the clothing store I can always go to the kid's section and find somethin' there, ha ha. The clothes are usually cooler there anyway.😉

I think with the right mindset, you can do anything no matter what size you are.

As for where it comes from, it's definitely genetic but also very random. My Uncle Jeremy is short like me and yet my sister and Aunt Melinda are tall. I guess it would seem only the men in my family seem to be short, but based on past family reunions, that doesn't always hold up. To be honest it seems to vary wildly in mice in general. Even Minnie's family can be all over the place. It kinda makes me wonder if there's a size fairy that goes around to all the baby mice, randomly decidin' whether to make them short or tall🧚. Ha ha, Wouldn't that be funny? Maybe I should see if they can make a last-minute change.

Though seriously, as I said before, my height doesn't really bother me. Or at least it doesn't now. I'd like to say that it hasn't caused me any problems outside of high shelves... but that would be a lie. As you mentioned, I've definitely been ridiculed or not taken seriously for my height sometimes. I feel like I'm constantly havin' to prove myself and show that I'm more than capable of doin' what someone a little taller can.

Sometimes there's an advantage in people's underestimatin' ya, at least when I'm fightin' bad guys. But when I was younger and had lower confidence, it would really get to me. I remember readin' or hearin' somwhere 'bout how you could grow real tall if you eat a bunch of yams. So I used my allowance to buy a ton of yams and started eatin' 'em all in one sittin'. Of course, it didn't work and all I got was really sick. But after a nice talk with my sister and my aunt, I learned that nothin' was wrong with my size and I'm fine just the way I am. A bit cliché, but a much-needed message I still keep close to my heart.

Talkin' 'bout hearts, I appreciate you sayin' I have a big one. I definitely do try my best when it comes to carin' about others and makin' the world a better place. And ya know what, I think that's what really matters. We can't pick our own size, but we can pick the size of the positive impact we make on the world.

Thanks a bunch for the questions. I hope to see ya real soon.

- M.M.

[adlbeay]

I wanted to talk about the themes in the Walk in the Dust event. The story of Arknights has always had a high level of thematic consistency, but it’s especially prominent in this event. I feel like a lot of the discussion of the story in certain places comes down to “lore” and surface-level plot details, so I wanted to get this out there somewhere.

The two big ideas that are covered in Walk in the Dust are that of revenge and the homeland. Let's talk about revenge first. Long post and story spoilers under the cut.

In the beginning, we are introduced to Elliot, aka Passenger, who by the time we meet him, is an aimless husk of a man. He is utterly empty inside despite being the most powerful figure in the Reefsteep black  market, with vast wealth and political influence under his thumb. Having completed his decades-long quest to slay everyone who was involved in betraying his teacher, he has no more goals for his life. After killing  the Lord Ameer of Ibut, the last of his targets, he realizes that the revenge he had been pursuing was ultimately empty, that the weapons he built and the schemes he engineered to that end no longer moved him. Even the death of the Lord Ameer didn't matter one bit in the political landscape of Sargon.

As for the Sargon army... We live in different times now. The ruling  Padishahs simply care not about what is happening here in this barren  wasteland. My guess is that it matters not to them whether it's the  father or the son that's in charge. Actually, to tell the truth, it  hardly matters to me either.

Ultimately, no one cared if the Lord Ameer was murdered or simply  died in an accident, not even Elliot himself. Sargon continues to be exploited by the Columbian military and the ruling Lords. Professor Thorne remains dead. His research, once entrusted to Elliot to prevent  it from becoming a weapon of war, has nonetheless been used by Elliot  himself to bring even more death. Now, 22 years later, Passenger sees  finding Kal'tsit as his only path to salvation, so that she can once  again give him a purpose like she did when she rescued him the first time.

Folinic's mom, Lillia, also shares the same kind of story. Her husband was killed in Chernobog when the count decided to purge the researchers working on the sarcophagus device. Among the children of the families broken up by this incident are Lyudmila (later Crownslayer), Alex and Misha (later Skullshatterer), and Luisa (later Folinic). Lillia finds Kal'tsit after months of searching, intending to take revenge on  Grand Duke Vanya not just for her husband, but also for Luisa, who never got to know her father because of it. Kal'tsit tries to talk her out of  it, even during the final phases of the plan, but Lillia's mind is set.  She entrusts Kal'tsit with taking care of both Luisa and Lyudmila, as  she knows she won't be able to come back to live a normal life after  this. And... she succeeds. Although it is Kal'tsit who ultimately administered the poison, their plan works flawlessly and Duke Vanya is finally dead.

Except it still ended up being completely meaningless. The Grand Duke was in a glorified nursing home already near the end of his life, and if Kal'tsit didn't kill him then some other conspirator from the Ursus  political backstage would have done it anyway. He was already crippled and blind, and as we find out during the confrontation with the Emperor's Blade, even Kal'tsit only agreed to Lillia's plan because it  defused the conspiracies of other powerful figures who would have used  the Duke's death to spark another rebellion. The only thing that Lillia ended up accomplishing was making sure that Louisa would grow up without both a mother and a father, and Lyudmila would never get the answers she really wanted about her family's death. And, although she ended up not doing it, she was even also planning to go back to Chernobog to kill  Sergei, Alex and Misha's father, for his betrayal.

And this carries on through the future outside the event. Crownslayer ends up joining Reunion because she thinks it will give her the answers  she wants and avenge her father. Folinic almost lets her anger at Atro's death get her into a confrontation with Wolumonde. In the end, Crownslayer is stopped by Kal'tsit and Folinic is calmed down by  Suzuran, but we might be able to imagine what would have happened if  they managed to carry out their vengeance.

The theme of homeland is one that's intrinsically tied to Kal'tsit and has at least a bit of relation to the broader story outside of the event. It's harder to talk about since it's not clearly  split into individual stories like previously, but there's at least one character that exemplifies this theme the most: Old Isin.

Old Isin is appropriately to his name, old as rocks. He remembers being a servant to some lord of a long-lost city that very few even know once existed, and spends his time telling fortunes while trying to seek out people who, like him, also share that past. According to Kal'tsit, the city's people were scattered when it was destroyed, and now only Isin even remembers the origin of the name "Reefsteep". Even then, Isin only has vague memories, and believes it to be his unforgivable sin that  he has forgotten so much about the city.

Old Isin originally helps Kal'tsit and Elliot because he hopes that  she can help him remember about the lost city, and thus absolve his  "unforgivable sin". And Kal'tsit indeed does help him. Isin begins to recall the conquests of armies a thousand years ago, something even with  his age he should not have been a part of, much less remembered.  Kal'tsit dispels the illusions clouding his memory, and reveals that  what Isin remembers is only the stories that the padishah recounted to  him, that the glory of his old city was only a memory of another memory. In truth, the city in Old Isin's memory was merely a stepping stone for the padishah's ambition to conquer the uncharted deserts, and was abandoned just as easily when that campaign failed. His homeland's glory was just an illusion created in his mind by the padishah's charisma.

Which brings us to the Emperor's Blade. Wherever he stands is the dominion of the Empire of Ursus. Whatever he does carries out the Ursus Emperor's will. Or at least, that's how the Royal Guards imagine themselves, single-handedly carrying out their homeland's legacy. Kal'tsit lays it out clearly:

Kal'tsit: Tell me, what does the current Ursus Emperor think of the Pine Valley affair? Or do you mean to tell me the seeds of that uprising, the origins of the crisis were all the will of the Emperor? Feel free to keep deceiving yourself, but the truth is the young emperor is unaware of the events that transpired there. You believe he has no  need to know. You... all of you seek a bygone era. You are just caught up in the former emperor's grand vision!

As does Patriot in Chapter 8:

Patriot: I fought with your fathers. Your strength and tactical acumen are no less impressive than theirs. But you look at the Ursus of those times with rose-colored glasses. What you see is nothing more than your wild fantasies.

The Royal Guards are described in not too unclear words as soldiers  who probably believed too much of their own grandiose affect. They are unparalleled fighters, to be sure, but it isn't hard to infer that those words about executing Ursus's will and each Royal Guard being his own nation are words intended to strike fear into their enemies rather than  statements of any real truth. Indeed, if you know anything about the internal politics of Ursus, the idea of "Ursus's own will" can be seen as more of a nostalgia at a bygone era when Ursus was, or at least seemed, united in conquest under the previous Emperor. The perceived glory of their homeland is what motivates the Emperor's Blade, but like with Old Isin, the truth behind it is shaky at best.

We also have the contrast between the retired veteran at Pine Valley  and Grand Duke Vanya. While talking to Witte, the veteran cuts off one of his own fingers, claiming that the scars he has suffered in Ursus's wars, once considered symbols of his glory and honor, were ultimately meaningless, and he wants this self-inflicted wound to be his only legacy to Ursus. At the same time, the Grand Duke is postulating about how the seeds he had sown in the winter would give birth to beautiful flowers. Even though his actions and the crimes he committed never bore fruition, he is convinced even in death that Ursus's soil will bloom.

The issue of a real or imagined homeland, and its loss, is also  shared by the Sarkaz as a whole not only in this story but in the main story and many other events. It's even arguable that Rhodes Island's mission to help the Infected was originally inherited from Babel's goal of establishing a stable homeland for the Sarkaz. After all, as pointed  out in many places, the Infected and Sarkaz share much of the same discrimination.

Sarkaz Mercenary: Home...? How could us devils... us Infected possibly have one... Kal'tsit: The Sarkaz have tried to rebuild 'Kazdel', their home for centuries, though they have never succeeded. Everyone has a different idea as to what the term 'homeland' means, but as it stands right now,  Kazdel is perhaps as close as you can get to the term's original meaning.

And in Twilight of Wolumonde:

Armed Infected: We’re going home? To what home?

Mudrock: Kazdel. There may be no place for Sarkaz outside of Kazdel.  But in Kazdel, there is a place for you. Not because of tolerance. But because there is... nothing there. Kazdel... is where the homeless go. A land of rootless people.

So what does all this have to do with Kal'tsit?

In the ending cutscene, Passenger asks Kal'tsit whether this "Rhodes  Island" is yet another passing persona to be used to accomplish a goal and discarded when it's complete. Like the persona of the Trusted  Advisor, or the Servant, or the Laterano Cleric, will she abandon Rhodes  Island as well? Kal'tsit initially puts up a front saying he has no  right to ask, then bluffs about having thousands of answers, but is pushed by Passenger saying he'll even accept a lie. In one of the only times we get to see Kal'tsit faltering, she actually has no answer to this.

Unlike the other characters we see throughout the story, Kal'tsit has no homeland. No matter how fake or illusory it is, Old Isin and the Royal Guard have something to believe about a place where they can belong. The nobles in Victoria, as incompetent as they appear from the outside, are dedicated to defending the peace of their home despite having no ruler. Even the ostracized Sarkaz can ultimately go back to Kazdel, as unpleasant as that might be. But while Kal'tsit wanders the earth to keep the homelands of others from falling into chaos, she has no homeland of her own to go back to.

In one of the trailers for Chapter 9, we hear a recording from Theresa, addressed to Kal'tsit: "I hope this Rhodes Island can be a place to call home, a place you can always return to."

[maoam]

i love how sasuke haters accuse sasuke fans of being biased to the point we condone sasuke's wish to commit genocide and excuse everything bad that sasuke did while they stan characters that did way more shit than him. like they bitch about all the shit sasuke did and they turn around and stan characters like gaara?? obito??? itachi??? gaara literally killed for sports and for the fun of it until he got his ass beaten and tnjed by naruto and then he suddenly became this nice guy. and the people in his village had no problem to allow him to become kazekage despite him having been a psychopath for years?? if he was able to become kazekage after something like that, why couldn't sasuke become hokage, for example? i can't express how tired i am of people insulting me for being a sasuke fan, calling me stupid and whatever while those people are so fucking full of shit and have ZERO self awareness. the worst sasuke did was kill some samurais in self defense, threaten to kill some shitty people, which he gave up on doing anyway, and yet those bitches won't get off his dick while stanning and making excuses for characters that ACTUALLY killed innocent people for fun? i have nothing against him, but i gotta love how people give gaara a free pass for everything despite him being, in part 1, worse than sasuke ever was, while they constantly bash sasuke. make it make sense

Let’s not forget that Temari, the girl-power character everyone loves, was smiling joyfully and taunting the victims when Gaara was brutally killing fodders in the forest. Meanwhile Sasuke couldn’t even kill Orochimaru’s henchmen because he was “too soft” as Orochimaru said. People also died during the invasion to Konoha but I don’t see people calling the sand siblings “irredeemable”. So they had their reasons? So did Sasuke. Team 7 could have died but Sasuke’s words to Naruto gave him motivation to protect Sasuke and Sakura and beat Gaara. (I’m not hating on Temari btw)

It’s funny how they mention genocide when the only genocide that happened was towards the Uchiha lol. Not that anyone cares about it or think Konoha should pay any reparations. And they also genuinely think Konoha which discriminated the Uchiha for decades leading to the extermination of them should be allowed to imprison or execute the last living one. Do people in the Naruto fandom understand you can’t prosecute people for saying stuff they never act on or even come up with a comprehensive plan for. Sasuke had a clear opening and didn’t do it not to mention he helped save the village anyway. It’s almost like people say stuff in a severe psychological breakdown without going through with it. 

There are real life victims of genocide and state violence as well as child soldiers that have violent ideations that don’t lead to anything, it’s hard for normal people to understand how mentally broken these type of experiences can leave people. Sasuke’s comments during team 7 reunion during Kages arc are actually uncomfortably realistic, many victims of violent massacre have violent thoughts and feelings. I’ve read about cases where victims wanted even the children dead, the thing they said were messed up and uncomfortable but it was all because of how broken the experiences had left them, it’s honestly sad.

People should sometime talk to people who deal with things like these as their daily work, or read about it. This is the reason we have things like rehabilitation and therapy, people who have suffered severe injustice don’t need prison or execution. Not that I mind Sasuke having self-reflection or even doing  community work, but what he truly needed was understanding and someone to validate his feelings, as well as some help. And no, “power of friendship” is not the same at all and I don’t get why people think it’s realistic it would heal people like that.

By the way, this seething Sasuke hate comes mostly from the west, I remember someone once mentioned being confused why people hate Sasuke, and saying this must be western people misunderstanding his character or something. I think partly it might be that, but I also think people don’t want to understand characters like this. Look at how everyone adores the army in Fullmetal Alchemist, especially characters like Mustang or Olivier who are both war criminals who massmurdered Ishvalans, Olivier even defending the genocide. Why is it that we are okay forgiving and liking characters for committing war crimes and massmurdering disadvantaged people but not when victims lash out after years of psychological abuse and trauma?

Anyway, continue on your Sasuke loving, he’s great! Don’t care about other people’s opinions.

[cienie-isengardu]

The Development of Law and Zoro relationship: Wano, ...and Law Is Not Happy About That

<Part I: Before Meeting>> <<Part II: Sabaody Archipelago, The First Meeting>> <<Part III: Punk Hazard: The Alliance (A)__(B)>>  <<Part IV: Dressrosa, The Breaking Point (The Plan Failed)__ (Saving Law)__(Protecting Law)__ (Birdcage, Pica and Doflamingo)__ (Aftermath)>> <<Part V: Zou, The Kindred Spirits (Traveling Together)__(Searching for Nakama)__ (Reunion)__ (Ninja-Pirate-Mink-Samurai Alliance)__(The Last Moments before War)>>  Part VI: Wano, Against Emperors (The Untold Journey)__(Luffy & Zoro Means Troubles…)__(…and Law Is Not Happy About That)

The fight between Law and Hawkins was stopped; Law didn’t manage to eliminate the enemy nor prevent information leakage about alliance presence in Wano. He almost was run over by a speeding cart with stolen food (another “crime” against Orochi & Kaido, which Straw Hats committed in his absence). No wonder why Law was so pissed of at Zoro (chapter 918):

➽ Up to this point, Law never have been so openly angry at Roronoa, nor aggressive toward the other man. Now, Law vented all frustration and anger while Zoro kept silent… and maybe felt some embarrassment(?) about Trafalgar’s unusual outburst, considering bubble speech with three dots and “sweat drop” expressing Zoro’s reaction in a more visible way.

➽ Another interesting detail is how calmly Zoro endured Law’s angry rant. He simply let the other man scream at him, and even tolerated grabbing his kimono and invading his personal space. When it comes to scolding, Zoro reacts differently, depending on the seriousness of the situation and who is scolding him. He either fights back in such situations or doesn’t respond to angry rants and taunts. For example, if Sanji started screaming and pointing his faults, Zoro most likely wouldn’t be so tolerable because those two like to antagonize each other. Seems like Roronoa opted for the calm approach with Law. Maybe Zoro knew that Law was right and his anger was justified. Maybe he simply figured it will be better if Law got all the anger and stress out of him. Or maybe he was just taken by surprise by the sudden outburst? 

↪ In all fairness, I think he perfectly knew what Law’s reaction will be, especially considering this ambiguous frame:

At first it seems like Zoro talked about Kinemon, what honestly would make perfect sense. He already mentioned Kinemon when repeated samurai’s warning to Luffy but couldn’t really say his name in front of just met Kiku. At the same time, he could also talk about Law, because at this point he was familiar enough with the man to predict his angry reaction. Law seems to be prone to stress and he likes planning everything ahead and Zoro not sticking to plan (letting Luffy smash enemy) would definitely earn Law’s ire. Righteous so. Then what was the point of arguing with Trafalgar? Even more, when the man, despite stress and rage, doesn't hold on such emotions for too long. Which really seems like the best way to deal with a pissed off Heart Captain was just let him scream until he cooled down and adapted to the new situation.

➽ Because Zoro did not stop Luffy as he should - as Law hoped he would - Trafalgar was blaming Zoro for the whole situation, even though Luffy was as much guilty, charging into unknown without care for consequences. Zoro not once tried to excuse himself or Luffy, did nothing to stop Law’s outburst nor remind Law he wasn’t his captain (superior) thus he wasn’t obligated to listen. He simply let Law scream and blame him for the mess.

Anime expended this moment by actually giving Zoro a chance to explain to Law why he screwed so badly. Which literally was “I met Luffy” what immediately refocused Trafalgar’s anger from Zoro to solely Luffy:

This extended scene fits well with already existing Law’s personal experience from Dressrosa - the usually stoic and reliable Zoro will throw away rational thinking in the favor of Luffy’s whim and craziness. Monkey D. Luffy has that kind of effect on Roronoa.

Also, another funny thing anime did with that scene is when Law was scolding his fellow Supernova, Zoro was maintaining eye contact.

But when he was saying “sorry”, he was clearly looking to his left, instead at Law. Which makes the apology feeling insincere. Zoro wasn’t really that sorry about the mess but he said it, most likely to placate angry (stressed??) Law. Seems like Roronoa is bad at lying; not on Luffy’s level of bad, but still not really into telling lies.

Law most likely could tell Pirate Hunter wasn’t sorry at all, which explains grabbing Zoro’s kimono and screaming more at the other man’s face.

➽ Zoro’s patience and lack of response makes an interesting contrast to Law’s unusual aggressiveness. We may only wonder if Roronoa already had some experiences with such an outburst from the other Supernova. Once again, there is little to no information how their relationship was affected by the journey and situation in Wano, nor why Zoro was so indifferent while Law’s level of stress so high.

➽ Manga and anime versions of the scene give us valuable informations. One: Law was aware that Zoro promised to not cause trouble, like not fighting with samurais and Kaido’s men. That of course was a rational thing to ask of Zoro, because the man is too bloodthirsty for his own good and is always up for a good fight. The manga translation makes it look like Law personally witnessed Pirate Hunter swearing to not cause any trouble. Yet Law’s screaming sounds a bit confusing. On one hand, he knew Zoro A) became a wanted man and B) was supposed to be in Flower Capital. So it seems Law was informed about Zoro’s mission of pretending to be ronin. Whatever Kinemon initiated him from the start or after the wanted poster was made public, Law understood the danger of drawing the enemy's attention to the alliance. Which may be the reason why he was so mad at Zoro and referred to him by surname or called in his mind an idiot. On another, asking Zoro - a wanted man - why didn’t he stay in capital sounds, well, kinda stupid (and interestingly, the additional symbol of irritation was added to this specific question / bubble). Roronoa killed in broad daylight an important person (magistrate), and either killed or injured the magistrate's samurais, so it is not like Zoro could wander through the capital or any city without causing more problems. Of course, wandering directless did not help the alliance at all but it was still the best outcome. As a wanted man, Zoro could either stay in capitol and draw enemy’s attention to himself - and in result, endanger Franky, Robin and Usopp’s missions and even alliance’s presence in the Wano or wander through the wasteland in which was easier avoid unnecessary troubles and, in case of fight, hide dead bodies without increasing the vigilance of Beast Pirates or Orochi’s samurais. As a wanted man, Roronoa wasn’t really in position to come back to Kinemon because of possible pursuit - though he managed to wander into Kuri region, but that is more lack of direction sense than anything intentional, I guess. Unless this is why Law was the most angry? That Zoro came too close to their main secret base of operation? Anyway, Trafalgar for sure did not hold back and vented all his anger and frustration at still passive Zoro.

Soon, the group made it into Okobore Town and gave the stolen food to starving locals while Luffy brought the fresh water with himself. Straw Hat told the happy people “I’m Luffytaro! If anyone asks, you tell ‘em my name!” (chapter 918). For the first time Luffy also noticed Law - now much calmer than a moment ago. Law made clear, that what Luffy and Zoro did was ultimately an act of rebellion against Wano (Orochi and Kaido) to which Luffy responded he was “repaying the favor” to Tama, who fed him, once again getting into additional trouble just because someone gave him free food. The serious note disappeared right away, when Luffy started screaming at the starving people to not eat all meat without him:

➽ The meeting between Luffy and Law is drastically different from meeting of Law and Zoro. Like was mentioned, Trafalgar didn’t show any anger or frustration, so either screaming at Zoro calmed him down or he already gave up trying to reason with Monkey D. Luffy. Taking into account all previous adventures from Punk Hazard to Zou, what in universe happened through what? One or two months at best? Law’s resignation makes sense. Luffy wouldn’t care nor bother to apologize for the pulled stunt, while Zoro, well, didn’t care much either, but at least didn’t try to argue back.

➽ Once the serious talk was done and Luffy literally jumped after the meat, Zoro and Law shared the same reaction (visualed by bubble speech with three dots, though the “sweat drop” symbolising embarrassment(?) is only on Zoro’s part). Despite the previous intense moment, both men were again on good terms and even in agreement toward Luffy’s idiotic/childish behaviour.

The next time we see Zoro, Law and Luffy, Trafalgar kept his distance from everyone else. He stood the closest to Luffy yet with back turned to him. Was that sort of ostentatious expression of dissatisfaction or did he keep watch in case of an enemy's attack, hard to tell.

Luffy loudly declared his intention about Wano to Tama (“By the time we leave this country, it’ll be a place where you can eat as much as you want, every single day!!!”). With a sigh, Zoro noted how because of Luffy’s action, the enemy will come after them for real. Law did not take such a comment from Zoro kindly, because the man ignored(?) his own part in the mess.

➽ Surprisingly, Law still was angry more at Zoro than Luffy, who was the main culprit. But it may be just Zoro’s uncaring attitude that provokes Law so much.

➽ Despite the still fresh feeling of irritation, Law decided to focus at the best course of action - moving on to safest place. In this case, to the ruins of Oden’s Castle, in which Kinemon and the rest of the alliance stayed in hiding. 

The group said goodbye to Tama who was taken to home by Horselina (a former enemy-turned-into-her-loyal-servant thanks to Tama’s devil fruit powers). Like always, Law kept his distance from others (in manga on one frame, he kept close to Zoro, on another, to Luffy). In anime, between sharing food and saying goodbye to Tama, Trafalgar was shown usually close to Zoro, similar like he did on Zou:

At this point, there is something to ponder a bit about Law and his (lack of) interaction with people. Like in the scene above, does Law keep close to Zoro (or Luffy) because of their bond (trust?) alone or is that partially due to his minimal social skills? As in, he keeps close to people he at least knows and doesn’t make contact with strangers unless it’s necessary. Zoro and Law both have some asocial traits (seen especially in their tendency to isolating themselves from too large group), but in contrast, Zoro and Luffy were shown through the Wano arc to interact and even befriend the local people while Trafalgar was interacting only with his crew, Straw Hats, samurai group (extended of Shinobu person) - the people he already knew for some time. Law isn’t going out his way to meet new people (like Luffy) nor bonds with accidentally met people (like Zoro with Tonoyasu). It seems in Law’s nature to avoid interaction with strangers as much as possible. Which makes me wonder if that comes simply from his introverted nature, general distrust for people or maybe even some social awkwardness created by childhood trauma and growing up in criminal organisation (Donquixote Pirates)? Because Law’s way to interact with people he just met is either ignore them (seen above) or act in cool manners around them, like in Punk Hazard with Straw Hats…  but frankly, Straw Hats freaked him there on so many levels it really makes Law looks like social interaction is not his thing. 

This reflection actually comes close to another detail. Namely, Law’s general feeling about Straw Hats helping starved people. Because the locals were truly happy and expresses that just before the departure of Three Supernovas (chapter 919):

Law has strong opinions about pirates, it seems. And it comes from a man that admitted he doesn't like to kill but yeah, doing nice things for (poor) people makes him sick. Was he so annoyed by the cheering people, or did he simply didn’t know how to react to such situation so he went with a grumpy approach?

Law expressed a lot emotions; the outbursts of anger departs from the image of stoic captain but at the same it makes me think that Law must feel okay around Zoro to be so open about his frustration (and lack of control over situation?). At the same time, Zoro let him take out all anger on him without a word. But the most important thing, no matter how much Zoro’s screwed up, no matter how much Law’s screamed and accused and was unhappy about, it didn’t change their already estabilished relationship. Once the situation calmed down, Law again kept close to Zoro and shared the same opinion about Luffy’s antics and in general they were okay in each company. 

Next part: Separated Again

[attina-the-responsible]

How to Make Up with a Sister According to Mermaids ~*~ [Coral feat. the other mersisters]

In which Alana and Aquata have arranged a surprise for Attina during her hen party...[takes place on May 22, 2021]

@andrina-the-amazingsupergenius​, @adella-the-idyllic​, @arista-the-musical​, @aquata-the-champ​, @alana-the-brilliant​

[tw -- mentions of miscarriage/child death, sisters fighting :(]

ALANA: So far, so good.

The weekend was going very well if you asked Alana. She'd managed to corral everyone into at least slightly matching outfits and Tina was super pleased with all the decor. They'd played a few of those cheesy games and were working their way through the custom Attina cocktails they'd made.

All was well.

Alana glanced at Aquata across the room. The rest of the plan involved perfect timing.

"Attina!" Alana cooed, draping an arm around her sister. "Let's put on these feather boas and take a few polaroid pics!! I got a tiara for you!"

AQUATA: Aquata nodded at Alana seriously from across the room, like they were about to pull off a secret mission. They were, in a way. Operation Get Attina and Andrina To Put Their Bullshit Aside for One Week Because It's Attina's Wedding and Seriously People This Is More Important.

They could workshop the name, anyway.

She made her way over to the door. Secure the exits. That was important. Then she pulled out her phone. It's go time, she texted Alana.

ALANA: She felt her phone buzz. Right, good. All was going to plan. Attina was at least buzzed, if not drunk, and all too eager to go along with Alana's plans.

"Oh!" she said, as if she'd just gotten a great idea. "Here, sit down! We'll cover you with streamers and it'll look so cute." There we go -- totally pile Attina with stuff so she couldn't get away. "Come, help me girls!"

ATTINA: Attina was quite tipsy.

She had definitely probably drank more than she needed to, but it wasn't her fault that people kept putting drinks in her hands! When you had seven sisters who all made you a cocktail, the polite thing to do was drink it!

Also, her wedding was just in a few short days. This was a time to celebrate. They all deserved it, she thought. And, although this day was hers, Attina wanted to share it with her family, so it could be a good memory for all of them. So, she was doing her best to let loose (it wasn't that hard) and was enjoying the night, even if they were convincing her to do more and more ridiculous things.

She squealed as everyone descended upon her, covering her in plastic beads, several boas, and plenty of streamers and party poppers.

"Ah! I'm not gonna be able to move my arms," she giggled as she shimmied her shoulders a bit to try and dislodge some of the extra trappings. "This is so ridiculous!"

ALANA: Lana glanced at Aquata from across the room and nodded. Then, turning to Tina she giggled, pretending to be more drunk than she was.

"Teeny," she gushed. "We have a big surprise for you~ Aquata, roll it in!"

AQUATA: Aquata nodded and walked out through the door. Honestly, this was an absolutely ridiculous idea, but... it just might work. It was kind of fitting. The Tritons were ridiculous, after all. She rolled the giant cake in on the cart, which was decorated with glitter and more feather boas, and grinned at Alana, though behind her smile, she was honestly a little nervous.

"Alright, let's do this."

ANDRINA: Andrina was inside the cake.

Andrina had always wanted to be inside a cake. In fact, if she thought about it, her vicious fight with Attina and subsequent flight from all things Triton had set her up to complete this very dream and therefore gift Attina with the world’s best bachelorette surprise of all time. Who wanted a stripper when you could have your estranged sister pop out of nowhere? Oh yeah, this was a great idea. Attina would scream, then she’d probably cry, they’d laugh, they’d hug, they’d forget all about their fight, thus rendering an apology from either side unnecessary, and then they’d move on! Hallelujah! Merry Christmas! Happy You’re Getting Married Day!

This was what was running through her mind while crouching in the cake. It was also her reasoning when the plan was initially devised. And to be honest, it was at least 10 percent of the reason Andrina had dropped her international tour of crime to RSVP to the wedding in the first place.

And okay, maybe she also missed Attina and wanted to see her big sis get married.

She waited, with baited breath (seriously, how much oxygen was in this thing? Imagine dying in a massive cake. What a way to go) until she heard Attina squealing outside. Three… two…. this was absolutely not a bad idea and no one was going to regret it… one…

“SURPRISE!” Andrina popped up, bursting through the top of the cake and then pulling on her separate popper to unleash it.

ATTINA: “Oh my gosh, no!” Attina squealed and giggled when she saw the ridiculous cake. She knew what it would be, because this was what happened in all the cliche movies. (Honestly, she didn’t even know those things were real.)

She wasn’t particularly mad about it. Strippers at bachelorette parties, in her opinion, were not there to be sexy and turn you on—but to embarrass you and make everyone giggle.

So, yeah, she’d play along—and get mad at her sisters for being so stupid. But in that fun, playful way that champagne kept from turning into real anger.

But then a unfamiliar stripper didn’t pop out of the cake.

“ANDRINA?” Attina barked at once, sitting up straight, all of the giddy alcohol draining from her veins in an instant. Her gaze bounced around to all of her sisters, and her cousin—no one else looked surprised.

Her nostrils flared. “What the fuck is going on?”

ARISTA: “Surprise!” She giggled, definitely drunk, she’d echoed after Andrina, clapping her hands together so pleased that the plan had worked out even though she wasn’t immediately involved in it (she was just so terrible with keeping surprises) but it was lovely to have all of her sisters and cousin together again.

Unfortunately, Attina didn’t look as happy. Whoops. She just took another sip out of her cocktail, giggling at the silly question, “Well, Tina, we’re all drinking and having fun because you’re getting married and Andy just came out of a cake and it was very entertaining.” She waved at Andrina, “Hiiii Andy.”

AQUATA: Aquata kind of wished she had pregamed this more. She had tried not to drink too much so that she could be alert if anything went wrong or if Tina tried to make a run for it, but now seeing how excited Arista was, Aquata had some regrets.

But then again, that was just kind of Arista's personality.

"...Wow, cool, good surprise, well done!" Aquata finally said after a silence. "Alright, who wants to do shots?!"

ANDRINA: Right, that didn't go the way Andrina thought it would.

But! Andrina was committed to the bit like always. She hadn't come here to cause a fight, she really hadn't. In fact, she'd asked Alana if her showing up really was a good idea, but her sister had insisted that of course Attina would want her there. And didn't Andrina want to be here too? She did. She might hate being part of the Triton at times, but it was still her family, and she'd never miss the big stuff, even if it meant putting her current wacky hijinks aside.

She wasn't here to fight. She wasn't going to fight. ...Probably.

"What Arista said!" Andrina exclaimed and then reached down, producing another popper. POP! She pulled the string and confetti rained down. "C'mon, Tiny, course I had to come to my big sis's wedding!"

ATTINA: Attina’s eyes narrowed and a hot feeling ballooned in her chest, though she wasn’t sure what it was. Partially because of the alcohol probably.

She just knew—she was mad.

Andrina wasn’t here for her. She was here to make a scene and steal the show, just like always. And was it really “of course” she had to come? Where was the same respect for her family when she had gone off and eloped and not even told anyone?

Abruptly, Attina stood up, ripping the boa off her neck and the crown with the stupid cheap veil off her head. She tossed them both on the ground.

“I’m going to bed,” she announced as she turned on her heel. 

ALANA: Alana and Aquata had not spent the last three months orchestrating this grand reunion to be snubbed like this.

Alana could acknowledge that Attina had the right to be pissed off about this, considering the last time she'd seen Andrina, Andrina had basically slammed her into the kitchen counter. But it also pissed Alana off and she felt her lip curl a little. Because family came first. Family came above stupid fights and runaway marriages and whatever the hell else was going on here.

Before Attina could make it out of the room, Alana launched herself in front of her older sister, blocking her path.

"No," she said. "Not allowed. As your official Master of Ceremonies, I am decreeing that bedtime is not for at least another hour. Back me up, Aquata."

AQUATA: "Lana's right," Aquata agreed, crossing her arms stonily. She had thought it might go like this. Aquata understood holding grudges, she had plenty of them, but family just felt different.

"And you know I don't say that often. Am I still pissed at Andy? Yeah, a little bit, but family's way more important than some fight from a year ago and she wanted to be here and it's not every day you get married. So... yell at each other, get it out of your systems, whatever, you don't even have to forgive anyone, but let's get on with it."

ADELLA: “You’re the one who was always talking about how important it is for our family to stick together.” Adella said, smiling gently. “Yell at each other if you must but pretending Andy doesn’t exist is just going to hurt you longer.”

Adella’s smile grew wider. “We have a great relationship now. Remember just five years ago though?”

ATTINA: Attina narrowed her eyes at her sisters. All of them. There was a part of her that agreed with them. That knew family was more important than anything. She was the one who had instilled that belief in all of her sisters and having the rhetoric spit back at her should make her proud. But, right now, it just made her angry.

"That is easy for all of you to say, you're not the ones she fought with and hasn't spoken to in months." Attina's eyes were on Andrina as she said this, her arms crossed over her chest.

"It wasn't just some little fight," Attina snarled the words and tears were in her eyes. She was too drunk for this. "You left. Didn't even say goodbye. Am I just supposed to be okay with that? With everything you said to me? Why should I? This is my day and I get to decide who should be there. Just like Andy did." And now she looked at he sisters, narrowing her eyes.

"When she decided she didn't want any of us with her at her wedding."

ANDRINA: "Oh come on, that can't be why you're really angry!" exclaimed Andrina.

And hey, she meant that. Attina had loads of reasons to be pissed at Andy. She's take a lot of it. But Andrina was not Attina. She would have never wanted all of this-- not the bachelorette party, not the wedding dresses, not the nice venue and the dinner and the dancing after. The idea made her want to barf if she thought about it with her in the spotlight. Like, go Attina, have your wedding, but Andrina didn't want one! And Attina should know that?? And also, it wasn't like the marriage was something she'd even planned?

"Hold up, if we're doing this I gotta get out of this cake--" Andrina said, huffed, and then struggled to climb out. She sort of half-rolled over the edge and nearly fell on her ass. Saved it though! 

ATTINA: "It's one of the many reasons, yeah," Attina shot right back, not moving to help Andrina. Not even flinching when she almost faceplanted. 

Like usual, she didn't find Andrina's antics cute. Not right now. 

ANDRINA: Andrina put her hands on her hips. Alright, that was good. All she had to do was... well, she was going to say get Attina pissed, but she seemed pissed enough already. Maybe she just had to stand here and Attina would go off.

"Oh yeah? Well let me have it then," said Andrina. "I'm sure you got a list somewhere."

ATTINA: Attina rolled her eyes.

“Why should I even bother? If you don’t already know? Besides, it’s not like you will apologize or even care. So, I don’t want to waste my time.”

ANDRINA: "I'm here, aren't I?" Andrina shot back.

Some of her pride had been pricked by that. As if Andrina didn't know she made mistakes. That was her spot in this family, wasn't it? Andrina was the eternal fuck-up. Uni drop out, seven times running! It was Miss Perfect Attina who didn't know shit about apologizing.

But hey, she'd show her sister how it was done. There were some things she'd never apologize for, but there were others that-- now that time passed-- she saw that she'd been too rash and impulsive and selfish.

"Look, I don't want to fight with you my whole life. You're still my big sister. I don't want to miss-- stuff like this." She flourished her hand around at the room. "You're still important to me."

ATTINA: "You have a funny way of showing it."

Such as not talking to her for, what? Over a year? As if Attina hadn't missed her that whole time. As if she hadn't want Andrina there for all the wedding planning and celebrations. She had missed Ariel's eighteenth birthday. Aquata's run for board. Adella leaving.

"You didn't even call and ask. I haven't talk to you for a year and you think you can just show up and pop out of a damn cake and pretend like nothing's wrong?"

ANDRINA: This felt like a trap. Andrina probably shouldn't feel that way but since when had she ever felt what she should feel? And so yeah, she expected to apologize, but she didn't expect to grovel. Besides--

"And you didn't invite me, but I wasn't going to throw that in your face," Andrina said now, the irritation twitching on her brow. "Look, sure, I could have called or texted or emailed or sent a freaking pigeon but so could you."

ATTINA: “Why would I have invited you?” Attina screeched. Her anger exploding.

“The last time we spoke you insulted me, said you didn’t care about Amelia, and then left without even saying goodbye, and then haven’t said one thing to me, even though you’ve spoken to everyone else in a year? You made it pretty damn clear you wanted nothing to do with me. So, don’t act like it’s water under the currents. It’s not. This whole bloody conversation you haven’t even said sorry! I know you hate me for holding you accountable for things no one else does but I can’t just let it go, Andrina. You hurt me and you’re not even sorry about it.” By the end, her voice has cracked and her eyes had filled with tears.

���It’s just like you to come here and make this about yourself. You didn’t care about us being at your wedding and you don’t care about you being at mine.”

ANDRINA: This was probably not going to go very well. In fact, there was a chance this could turn into the repeat of the kitchen brawl all over again.

Andrina's eyes flashed. Her anger was hot in her chest all over again. "Oh my god, I never fucking said I didn't care about Amelia! I was there for you for weeks-- there for you, holding you, spending time with you, grieving with you-- I did all of that!" Andrina said. "I did one thing that you didn't approve of though and suddenly I didn't care? Suddenly all that other support didn't matter? I said it then and I'll say it again, me getting married had nothing to do with you and Amelia! Nothing! It had nothing to do with anyone and I am not sorry for it. You want me to say I'm sorry? Then look-- I'm sorry I left without making up. I'm sorry I hit you, I shouldn't have done that. I'm sorry I wasn't more sensitive and I'm sorry I haven't talked to you for over a year. Those are the things I'm sorry about, and I am trying to make up for it now, but don't lie about that fight okay? Don't say I didn't care about Amelia just because I did one fucking thing for myself!"

ATTINA: Attina wanted to keep yelling and spitting. Maybe, if she was younger, she would have. Or if it was not her wedding tomorrow, she would have.

But, she had said what she wanted from Andrina was an apology and here it was.

And, she could admit, that it was a good apology too. Maybe Andrina didn't really mean all of it, because she'd had her arm twisted to say it in the first place, but--Attina thought she might. Unlike Andrina, Attina was sensitive to these things. She was sensitive to the fact that maybe she had blown Andrina's comment out of proportion: So what? she had said, about Amelia's death. Attina still remembered the exact way she said it. That question had rattled around Attina's head so many times since.

So what?

Attina's eyes were still filled with tears, but she tried to scrub them away without completely destroying her make up. Though, that was probably futile at this point.

"I never--" she started, though her voice was reedy and weak. "It was never about you doing something for yourself," Attina finally said. "I just--didn't understand--I don't understand why you wouldn't want us there with you. Why you wouldn't...want us to share that with you. And it felt like--you hated me and didn't want to be part of my life either, if you didn't want me to be part of yours."

ANDRINA: She didn't hate Attina.

But she had resented her for a long time. She was so controlling. She had her ideas of what Andrina's life should look like, and she thought those ideas were like, objectively right-- take this whole wedding thing for example. Just because Andrina felt differently about weddings and marriage and whatever, Attina thought that was an insult to her. When it just wasn't.

And that was why Andrina needed to get the fuck out of Swynlake. Not just because of Attina-- but because of her whole family. She had needed to find who she was out of the Tritons and all the shit that happened to them. Yeah, it was selfish, but after twenty-five years as a sister, trying to be a good one, Andrina thought she deserved a freaking break. She was glad that Adella was doing the same thing. She hoped all her sisters were going to find something for them because she did love them, okay? She did.

She took a breath, and then sighed, not really sure how to say some of that stuff without upsetting Tina. "It just isn't the same for me. It never has been, okay? I'm not in love with Rob." Rob knew this; Rob loved her for it, btw. "I didn't get married to him because I loved him. I'm not with him because I love him-- I mean, not like...that. We get each other. It's just different, okay?" Her arms tightened around her, feeling defensive and a bit weird since... well Tina was Tina, Tina loved love, and Andrina felt like it was just one of many missing pieces of her fucked-up personality.

"Me having a wedding and inviting you all would have only been for you guys,  I would have like-- hated it, not because of you but because that isn't me. But there's seven of us. That's plenty of weddings. Isn't it okay that I do something differently?"

ATTINA: No, it isn’t okay!!! That’s what Attina’s brain screamed.

She held her tongue, trying to let the thought settle because a lot of the times, she didn’t. Attina said the first thing in her brain, not because she wasn’t sensitive, but because she was overly so. Like a sea anemone, the second you touched her she flinched. Or puffed up like a puffer fish. It was always one of the other and for whatever reason, Andrina made her into a puffer fish.

Despite what Andrina might think, Attina had done some self reflecting since Andrina had left. She knew that some of the things Andrina had said were fair. Attina was controlling and judgmental. And she was harder on Andrina than anyone else because there were so many times she had needed Andrina as back up, as someone to lean on, and Andrina had failed as much as she rose to the occasion. And just like how it wasn’t fair all the pressure Daddy put on her, it wasn’t fair all the pressure she put on Andrina.

It didn’t stop her from wanting to criticize now. She felt it balloon up inside of her. How could she marry someone she didn’t love? How could she not want them there?

Attina suspected Andrina and her would always fight. They would never agree. Maybe they would never be friends again. If they had met one day in secondary, they would’ve hated each other and that would be it. But, they weren’t strangers. They were sisters. And maybe they didn’t have to like each other, but they could love each other. And be there, for the important things. (Unless, you were Andrina and were only there when you wanted to be, ha. Okay, last one.)

“I guess,” Attina admitted reluctantly. “I’m sorry to, for being so judgmental.” Her own arms were crossed over her chest. She gave a little shrug.

“Well, you don’t have a bridesmaids dress, so you can’t be in the party. But, if you want to come to the ceremony, you can.”

ALANA: Alana let out a sigh of relief and high-fived Aquata behind their backs.

ANDRINA: She wasn't sure if she believed Attina's apology honestly.

Did it matter? Maybe not. Andrina did not intend to stay long. She loved her life on the road-- she loved her life with Rob, actually, and his friends. They had plenty of plans to keep their gears spinning for a while. And as long as they did? Andrina wouldn't have a reason to go back to Swynlake.

But that was where she belonged. Finally, she was happy, finally, she felt accepted, for being exactly who she was. And Attina belonged here-- with her sisters and her husband to be.

"Well actually-- Alana ordered a dress for me," said Andrina. "But I mean--if you don't want me in the ceremony, I get it. Totally fine. I can kick it in the front row."

ATTINA: Attina looked over her shoulder and raised her eyebrow at her little sister. Alana just looked smug, which was annoying.

Attina appreciated it. Really, she did, but she still felt like she was reeling. Caught in a riptide, forced to do something that she didn’t know if she really wanted. Yes, she wanted to make up with Andrina but on their own terms. Not because of some bait and switch secret that the rest of her sisters pulled.

But, it was clear to her that the other sisters wanted Attina and Andrina to talk to each other. And that Andrina—was not exactly trying, but at the very least, was here. That did mean something to Attina, it did.

“No, I want you there,” Attina admitted reluctantly, tilting her head back to blink away tears, because she had wanted that. This whole time. Andrina being gone had certainly hurt Attina much more than it had hurt Andrina. She looked back at her sister and smiled a little.

“Thanks for coming.”

ANDRINA: She waited for another excuse. Attina would have one-- or hey, maybe she'd just come out and say it: she did not want her in the wedding.

Andrina wouldn't care. (Yes she would. She'd definitely care.)

But instead, the rest of the tension felt like it drained from the air. Attina relaxed, or at least-- she gave up.

And so Andrina gave up too. She let the rest of her anger go, that feeling that Attina was never going to see her for who she was. Maybe Attina didn't right now, but Andrina really wanted her to. Before coming here, Andrina had convinced herself it was impossible, but now... now she saw her sister again, not an adversary. They were on the same side.

And so Andrina broke into a smile and she crossed toward her sister. The last time they'd been this close, Andrina had her claws in Attina's hair. Now, she hugged her sister.

"Of course I came. Now c'mon--" she pulled away, but kept her arm slung around Attina's shoulder, "let's get this party started again, okay? Put on the music! Let's go, sisters!"

[ecto-american]

I was doing some research for a fanfiction, and remembered this line from Reality Trip, which got my criminal justice self all excited because of the implications. So have some analysis from a rambling autistic with a criminal justice degree.

“Daniel Fenton, in accordance with the Federal Anti-Ecto Control Act, Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A, you're under arrest.”

Y'all, this is kinda wack? It means, on some level, there has been a federal judgment within the world of Danny Phantom that not only acknowledges that ghosts exist, but has an entire fucking act describing specifically the course of action in a sense. Lots of acts will kind of be this vague overarching thing with various random acts thrown into it, but the name along with the article one, section one subsection a dealio implies that this entire act focuses on ghosts. I say act and not law btw, because those terms are not necessarily synonyms.

Not only does this confirm that there are acts (at least one anyway) in Danny Phantom that specifically talk about ghosts, but kind of really and truly cements that the Guys in White are actually a federal government agency, rather than them simply acting as one but really being a private company of sorts or being some local state government program.

And with laws about ghosts, it means that legally, the government had to define what exactly a ghost is as well as their rights and lack of rights, and that they legally acknowledge, as a nation, that ghosts exists. While, of course, we don’t really ever get to see this act, and as far as I know, it’s literally Never talked about again, this scene means that this act applies to Danny. For a quick refresher, this happens after Danny is exposed, and so this act still applies to Danny despite him being outted as a half ghost. A scary sidenote is before this scene and line of dialogue, the agents told Danny that he was coming in for questioning and experiments.

So what might it possibly say? If there are any acts that we can potentially base what this act possibly would say, I would probably guess it’d be similar to the acts used for minorities within the United States. And I say these kinds of acts because they’re specifically acts that discriminate towards a group, and that have used various reasons to justify how they are not human, citizens or have any legal rights. If the agents’ lines were correct, these acts probably gave them justification for doing inhumanly cruel things to Danny.

Of course, Danny could be arrest for something totally different and not for some anti-ghost reasons. At this point in time, he’s still kind of half-loved, half-hated publicly as people are shown to still believe that he stole during the events of Control Freaks and the mayor incident of Public Enemies, but if he was under arrest for any of those crimes, the agents would have said that. And I refuse to believe this is an oversight of the writers, because they would have found any nitpicky thing and made it a funny situation where the agents went on and on and on about this endless list of crimes that the ghost boy has committed until Danny roundhouse kicked somebody. And no, it’s likely not because the Guys in White are only interested in Ghost Crimes. As federal officials, which they are confirmed to be, they would have arrested him for everything and have to basically fistfight the other government agencies investigating his Non Ghost Crimes.

So what exactly is he under arrest for? No clue obviously, and it’s hard to really even guess. Article 1, Section 1, Sub-section A for most acts are basically describing what the act’s going to be before it moves on to detail that. I think this is an oversight of the DP writers, lord knows we get enough of them, but it could also potentially highlight the Dumb factor of the Guys in White that we would see them sometimes exhibit, where instead of properly referencing the piece of legislation he’s under arrest for, they just blurt out the first section of that law.

And who wrote this act? It could be anybody, of course. Anybody within politics. It also begs the question as to exactly when this act was written and when it was put into effect. I’d wager it heavily depends on when the Guys in White came into effect, as they are clearly acting under these laws. Which begs the question: how many pieces of anti-ghost legislation are there? Who’s writing them? There’s potential that there are literally lawyers who are literally experts in ghost law. Keep in mind that in the beginning of the series, there was a lot of skepticism that ghosts even exist.

This honestly leads me to propose a new headcanon: The Guys in White are a very new government organization that spawned after the events of Public Enemies. To preface this and clarify, in order, the Guys in White appear in only five episodes: Million Dollar Ghost, Double Cross My Heart, Reality Trip, Eye for an Eye, and Livin’ Large.

Evidence to support this theory:

They only show up four episodes later in their first appearance in Million Dollar Ghost. Public Enemies seems to also be the first episode in the series that shows a massive onslaught of ghost attacks. I would guess that this is the ghostly event that probably spawned the act in question, which may have called for the organization of the Guys in White. Prior to this, ghosts were basically shown that they’re unconfirmed to exist on a public level. Even Jack, our lovable and excitable ghost hunter who’s been doing this since his college years admits in Mystery Meat that he’s never seen a ghost until that point. Jazz mentions that Harriet Chin in Bitter Reunions lost her job for writing an article about ghosts because she was laughed for writing about something that was more for “the national enquirer”, a conspiracy theory newspaper that nobody really takes seriously.

Why are they there during the events of Million Dollar Ghost anyway? If they’re a new organization, they may need that money or are cashing in on the publicity of the event to spread their name, or they’re just starting out and have no real clue where else to go. Only two of them even showed up anyway. The only other groups there are very small ghost hunting groups: literally two young adults on scooters, another set of young adults with a tiger fueled by anxiety and a van, and FentonWorks. And while they, out of all of them, clearly have the most advanced technology, they’re about on the same skill level as the other ghost hunters (getting captured and tricked and such just as easily). Danny even was just as “haha” about them as he was the other hunters who had showed up.

Their technology in Million Dollar ghost is nothing in comparison to the literal jetpacks and planes and four wheelers and armor they get several episodes later. Their funding increased when they proved ghosts exist and more ghostly events happened, and they likely proved their competence in some way. Especially when we see that they have been catching other ghosts (like Skulker in Double Cross My Heart and Lydia in Reality Trip) and gathering important information on ghostly artifacts (Reality Trip).

It would explain why they don’t really show up that often in the series, especially during major ghost events where they really should be there, such as the ghost king invasion of Reign Storm. They may have not secured the funding or manpower to really do anything just yet. Note that Reign Storm happened in between Million Dollar Ghost and Double Cross My Heart, which is almost a 20 episode gap. Their skills, knowledge, ability, technology and apparent funding jumped massively between these episodes, and it kind of stays about the same consistency for the rest of the show.

They really only seem to have one department, and they have really low employee numbers for a government agency. There’s no talk or implications or having multiple departments or anything, such as research or technology. Even during the SWAT invasion during Reality Trip, there’s only like twenty or so agents there. In Livin’ Large, there’s only about seven there, and two are the Agent K and O that we know. They play a lot of roles, from researching, questioning, gathering information, tracking down criminals, getting information from the Fenton’s lab, technology things in FentonWorks, etc. Of course, this is a staple for many law enforcement jobs where you have many tasks, but they seem to be playing the role of detective, computer analysis, and police officer at minimum given the wide variety of things we see them do. As somebody who’s worked in three situations where the company/program was very new, it’s incredibly common for a new company that’s still finding it’s groundings to have a very blurred job line. Or they’re heavily underfunded, but look at the goddamn jetpacks they get, look me in the eye and tell me they’re underfunded.

The lack of basic ghost information. In Livin’ Large, they want to destroy the Ghost Zone. It’s apparently very obvious that you Can’t Do That, but the Guys in White seem oblivious. While you can argue that they’re just fucking dumb, it may be more reasonable to assume that they simply just don’t know.

There’s no dialogue (that I can find) prior to Million Dollar Ghost to suggest they exist. There’s also no dialogue from Vlad, who would have known and been wary of such an organization had it been around for years, to suggest that they’ve been around a while. Jack, who also is open about how much he admires them, would have likely said something to. But I am willing to chalk this entire part up to simply poor writing.

“But Danny knew who the Guys in White were when they showed up in Million Dollar Ghost!” Yeah. He also knew who the other people were, and I heavily doubt that they’d be as big of a deal or name as the Official government branch. It’s very likely that they all introduced themselves when they showed up.

[bounward]

DAW | 1,623 words - but still not enough [re: everyone]

Dawson… was ready. He (thought) he knew what would come next, and he was prepared for it. Or, rather, as prepared as a man could be, before ultimately facing death.

Then death walked through the doors, alive as ever.

The folklorist stared, his head reeling as he tried to make sense of the situation. Listened, as his peers spoke - voices somehow more real than ever before, when they had been mere ghosts of themselves. Waited, for the questions about his crime, for O'Malley to pull away, for the escape via punishment that… seemed like it would not come. Not yet.

Shaking and miserable, Dawson was not. A man wrestling with his convictions… perhaps that was more apt.

His heart ached, seeing Dola again. Lucita again. Chirin again. Vixen and Chuck again. Basil again. He’d had no way of knowing that they’d be returning, somehow, some way. If he had, would he have held back? Dawson felt the familiar sting of loneliness, of loss - now more than ever, seeing them here, in the flesh. It was right that the people he longed to reach out to most sat furthest from him, out of reach. (Not that they would consider reaching back, at this point.) He watched their emotional reunions, aching for one of his own. Dawson withdraws his hand from O'Malley’s entirely, and places it in his lap.

Well, he’d made his bed. He could lay in it later - for now, answers.

“Ah, I suppose any questions I have can come later, hm?” he asks, green eyes slowly drifting from person to person. “You want to know the how, and I assume Prix’s not going to give us much time for the remainder of our discussion, so… Allow me lay it out plain, then. No point in hiding it, and no time to waste hashing it out.”

After inhaling deeply, he begins speaking, and does not pause for questions or sidelong glances. Dawson keeps his eyes trained to the table in front of him, as if looking anyone else in the eye might cause him to falter.

Even as he spoke, their words flooded his mind.

“This wasn’t as methodically planned as you probably assume. I didn’t sit and stew over wanting to kill [Basil] for weeks, plotting out my plan of attack. You saw the hasty cover-up - death hadn’t been my intention. Not at first.”

“I spoke to Basil a few weeks ago, about… more or less the same topic. The Wardens, whether our association with them might be able to lend itself to some use in understanding the tapes. I’ve been mulling those things over, since I realized they existed. How do they work? Why do they work? What combination of technology and magic allows these artifacts to function, and could we glean some sort of information from them? I’d hoped Basil would be able to assist.”

“… The conversation didn’t go anywhere, and I felt as though he’d been hiding things. Understandably, in hindsight, considering his feelings toward the Wardens - ah, and towards me.” You’re a real fuckin’ dick now. “Both of which I have been oblivious to, it seems. And since I seem to be rather skilled at drawing the ire of my peers around the topic of the tapes, I took it to the living members of my crew.” You cooooooooouldn’t wait until I was cold in the ground before pissing me off again. "Dola and Lucita were gone, but this was something we might be able to do. The three of us talked it over, decided to try and question Basil further. I asked [O'Malley] to stay behind, knowing that I didn’t want to put him into the middle of my own theories - and knowing his closeness to Pan. However, we decided Fievel would tag along, just in case anything did go awry - and to be a second set of ears to hear what Basil might have to say.“

"The plan was to question him, then bring the information back to the rest of the group to discuss and figure out how we’d handle it from there, together." …But you have never listened to me anyway. "Fievel and I went to the theme park to test out his abilities in a larger body of water. If anything went wrong, we wanted to be able to stun Basil - not kill him. You saw the results of those tests - the People Mover was drained of power, the fish in the lagoon had been killed. Not exactly a thorough means of training, but good enough to know how much or how little charge to use in the moment.”

“… I met with Basil that night, in the lobby of the Modern building. We were headed toward the Old Time Bar via the Oasis, and I stopped to discuss things there, where Fievel had hidden himself. I brought the tranquilizer gun with me, tucked into a pocket, just in case. The conversation… didn’t go anywhere, again. Ah, it got a little heated.” Yo-ou gave him no escape, forced him to dig up terrible memories for your own satisfaction, to satisfy your own theory crafting–! “I pushed Basil into the pool, and yelled out to Fievel. I think what happened next is obvious. We quickly retrieved Basil from the water, and restrained him with the bedsheets I’d cut earlier, preparing for an interrogation once he woke up. I’d tossed most of them into a bucket of bleach, not anticipating needing them all… but ended up using them, anyway. I’m not a master of tying knots.”

“Which is clear, since Basil broke free from his restraints upon waking up, after Fievel had already left to recharge. I pulled out the gun, but didn’t shoot. Basil started to use his powers - light radiated from his hands. It was bright, I dropped the gun, I, ah… I panicked.”

Beneath the table, Dawson knits his hands together. He wouldn’t force O'Malley to comfort him through this. He could hardly look to Smee for support, now that Dola was back with them. He’d put enough on Tanya, after killing her close friend. His quadmates couldn’t be expected to carry him anymore.

But still, the image of the light… It seared through his memory, like a seven-year-old boy, back in the forest amidst a thunderstorm. His heart beat faster with every clap of thunder, until he saw that flash of light, and everything went dark. His mind turned to static, and his body moved on its own. Dawson squeezed his hands together, knuckles draining white.

“I rushed Basil. He was still weak from the shock. I thought his reaction to my questions was proof enough that he might have had something to do with the tapes as a whole. The traitors. And… I figured that the only way our group would be able to make an actionable decision would be here, in the boardroom, with a vote.” If you don’t want what happened to [Chuck] to happen to Fievel or Dawson, vote for me. "Even if it meant facing my own death in exchange for murdering an old colleague, I… wanted to bring us back here.“

Finally, he pauses for longer than a breath between paragraphs. It’s a lot to take in. It’s a lot to put out. There’s no catharsis, no release of the weight from his shoulders. They droop, as if holding more weight - as if each explanation only adds to it, rather than allowing it to lift.

”… I’m not going to re-hash all the details about trying to cover it up. Most of you saw it, anyway. And I’m not going to excuse my actions, either. Ah… What was it I said, last time we were here? ‘Every single one of us has something that can justify the crimes we might commit, or the crimes we might overlook.’“ You didn’t get it none. Guess, guess you do now. ”I suppose in that moment, I felt that the ends justified the means, despite being unforgiveable.“

His eyes pan to Knuckles, next to him. A gaze that reads, I understand now, affixed to an expression that laments, I don’t want to.

After a few moments of this, he turns his face to meet the eyes of those who had asked him questions. To Campion, to Chirin, to Dola - a pause, however brief - to Tanya, to Chuck, to… as many faces as he could, before returning back to the table.

"I think the connection of the case to the traitors is clear, isn’t it? I wanted to question [Basil] based on my assumption that he could have done something to help explain - or at least more effectively look into - the tapes, and how they worked, perhaps lead us to a connection to the traitors. I killed him because of his reaction; I assumed he was one of the traitors, and wanted to bring us back here to discuss and vote on it. If I was going to kill anyone, at least it would have been…”

He trails off. Easier? Better? One fewer person to have to kill later?

“… one out of the two traitors. I know that so many of us were content to living here for however much longer - but why would we trust Prix on her word, or lack thereof? And none of us knew that we’d be reunited at all, let alone so soon.”

“I would not have done what I did, had I known everyone would return. That we might have been able to get this chance without the need for such drastic action. But I can’t undo my mistakes, so ah, perhaps all I can say now is…”

The regret permeates throughout his body as Dawson finally allows his eyes to settle on Basil.

“Welcome back.”

[angryhausfrau-writes]

I Travel Troubled Oceans - Chapter 2: The Heist

Charles was, in fact, difficult to persuade of the plan. Sure, he wants money just about as much as any of the rest of the crew. But he's also pretty fucking pissed at Eleanor Guthrie.

Although the prospect of getting one over on her – and ruining another one of the people responsible for sending him to jail and getting filthy rich in the process – is a strong incentive. And Jack's always been good with words. Persuasive, one might say. Charles is stubbly, slightly recalcitrant putty in his hands.

So they all troop down to the nearest YMCA so Charles can take a shower. And Anne shoplifts him some slightly more upscale slutty clothes, because God forbid the man ever actually wear a shirt. But he looks like a halfway respectable stripogram by the time he shows up to Eleanor's little birthday party – a fashionable two hours late so the party's in full swing and he doesn't look desperate. Though Eleanor will probably still read him that way. A pathetic sad sack crawling back to her on bended knee, ready to beg forgiveness and willing to do anything to get back in her good graces now that his former crew is a wreck and Flint's run off to America.

Eleanor thinks she's got Charles right where she wants him – under her two-thousand dollar heels. But that doesn't mean it's not a scene worthy of the fucking Baftas when she sees him come through the door.

Jack and Anne and the new guy are posted up in the kitchen, dealing to all the posh little fucks looking for a bit of white gold to get the party started right. Just killing time until Charles makes his move and he and Eleanor head to the bedroom.

And minimalist open plan living being in fashion, even in these old Victorian piles, they can hear every fucking word of the happy little reunion from a whole half a house away.

“Why Charles,” Eleanor practically purrs – and it's the purr of a Jaguar, lethal and expensive. “Whatever are you doing here.”

It's not a question.

Charles forces himself to look down at his feet. As if he's weak. As if he's ashamed.

“Eleanor.” He makes it sound anguished instead of angry. “I had a lot of time to think while I was away.”

Because Eleanor and her lot threw him away. And who knew Chaz was such a good actor? There's none of the violent, simmering fury Jack knows he feels over the betrayal. His tone is contrite and he must look suitably groveling, because Eleanor lets him continue.

“I started thinking about what was important – what was good in my life.” Namely her. And what he'd do to get her back. Though that goes unsaid, because there's such a thing as laying it on too thick, even for Eleanor fucking Guthrie.

And they – Jack, mostly Jack, who'd coached Charles through the whole interaction - must have struck just the right balance of pathetic groveling and virile masculinity with that little performance, because Eleanor says, “Why don't we discuss this somewhere more private, Charles?”

A few minutes later, Jack gets a surreptitious eggplant emoji from Charles's burner phone – the prearranged signal that he's successfully convinced Eleanor to sleep with him and that they're free to comb the house. Jack sends a winky face in response and then he, Anne, and the new guy split up to search for the cash.

Knowing Charles – and Eleanor – they'll probably be tied up for a while. Charles almost definitely literally. But that doesn't mean they can dawdle.

Anne takes to rifling through the bedrooms, disturbing several couples – and more – in the throws of passion. But she's always been good at intimidating idiots to stay out of her way – and so obviously on a mission that they don't do more than voice a few token protests. Plus, she's good enough at what she does – and they're so wrapped up in their drugged out fucking – that she's in and out before some of the participants even notice she's there. But, as Jack learns from her regular updates of terse “NO” and red “X” texts, she has no luck finding the cash.

Jack hadn't really expected Eleanor or Woodes Rogers to keep the cash in a random bedroom, where any horny houseguest could stumble upon it. So that just leaves the master suite – empty, what with Eleanor having taken Charles to the room that apparently serves as her bedroom cum sex dungeon, if Max's deeply - horrifyingly deeply - detailed description is to be believed. (Privately, Jack thinks Eleanor may have gotten just a little bit too invested in the whole Fifty Shades trend. But bored horny women are bored horny women, regardless of bank account balance, apparently.)

And Woodes Rogers is otherwise occupied downstairs, courtesy of the new guy, who's apparently caught his eye and is being rather badly flirted at, if the increasingly frantic texts Jack keeps getting are any indication. Jack feels bad, he really does – ok, not that bad, he'd do the same thing on purpose if Woodes Rogers was into queens. But he likes a little bit of rough - not that Jack can blame him – and the new guy seems to be doing it for him, even if he's got a pretty boy face. And this is probably the best chance they're going to get of having the house to themselves for the search. So he tells New Guy to stick it out and if Woodes Rogers starts getting too sleezy to make a break for it. They'll all meet at the rendezvous point at the kebab shop in the West End anyway, it doesn't matter if they don't all go together.

Plus, it'll help take the heat off if they just look like regular party goers instead of co-conspirators in a heist.

But Jack doesn't have a lot of extra time or attention to spare for New Guy's plight. Because Anne's struck out in the master bedroom, except for some rather tasteless but presumably expensive jewelry. And Jack's searched the study - a big, stupidly imposing room that practically screams “compensating” - and he's come up with zilch. A fucking goose egg, outside of a moving bookcase that hides a humidor. Probably Eleanor's.

So he moves on to the library, the last place the cash could reasonably be without them having to try and search the fucking basement.

It's probably the least used room in the house. Because sure, Woodes Rogers is a lawyer of some description and Eleanor an accountant. But the paraphernalia for that kind of stuff gets kept in blinding glass and steel corporate offices. This room is for impressing the impressionable. And it's absolutely stuffed to the fucking rafters with first editions of classics and entire sets of encyclopedias that Jack would bet real money have never even been opened by their current owners.

There are also several oil paintings in heavy gilt frames – perfect for hiding a wall safe. And if that doesn't reveal anything, there's always the horrifically overbearing desk situated in pride of place in front of the enormous bay windows. Jack can just see Eleanor there, sitting in the high backed antique chair like it was a throne, dispensing her version of mercy on groveling penitents.

Jack wonders if she ever made Max fuck her in that chair. That feels like something she'd be into.

And with that lovely thought, Jack turns to search the nearest painting – a drab toned portrait of a man who is presumably one of Woodes Rogers's antecedents. Blugh. But, heinous crimes committed during his life or no, he isn't the final resting place for stolen goods.

Jack turns to the next painting and the next with no more success. The final painting – one of hounds on the hunt – doesn't reveal the cash, but it does reveal some rather racy photographs of Eleanor and one of her previous lovers (neither Max nor Charles, so Jack doesn't remove them) in what is apparently Woodes Rogers's pathetic attempts at a black mail collection on his wife. It's quite sad really, so Jack just takes a snap of it for Anne – who'll undoubtedly show it to Max, who'll get a kick out of it - and moves on to the desk.

There, he strikes gold. Or cash, really. There's a hidden compartment in the bottom of the desk drawer with a lock on it – as if that could stop Jack. Or anyone with better fine motor skills than a toddler. It only takes him a few minutes and an unbent paper clip to open the catch.

And there lays the cash.

Jack signals Anne and the new guy to come help, since there's approximately a metric fuckton of it. Someone who's not Jack is going to have to practically crawl inside the desk to get it all. But they've found it, finally.

Thank Christ.

Jack starts laying bundles of cash into the bottom of his traveling case – one of those hard-sided suitcases that businessmen so love to use. And he's honestly not sure if that's going to be enough. But fortunately, the new guy had the foresight to bring a ratty backpack along and between the two bags and the three of their pockets, they get it all stowed away.

Jack texts Charles a Jolly Roger to let him know he can wrap things up with Eleanor and all that's left now is to get away clean.

Which is almost easier done than said. They walk out the door, times staggered enough that it doesn't look like they're all leaving together, and no one notices a thing. It's all very anti-climactic, honestly. The movies always make this part seem so exciting – car chases and shoot outs and etcetera. But they just walk right out the front door, completely invisible to the partiers still inside the house.

Jack leaves last, so he's only about a half block away when Charles finishes their little distraction off with a bang. They'd planned it all out – how to make it look like Eleanor had the upper hand in the breakup this time, so she wouldn't look too hard at the evening and link the theft back to Jack or Anne. How to make sure that Eleanor was left physically and emotionally satisfied enough that she never seeks Charles out for another night of fun. How to make her feel in charge and in control and like she's throwing Charles over, instead of them conning her.

And frankly, the bits Jack can hear are a masterstroke. Charles is pathetic and groveling in a way that is genuinely unappealing – but that apparently gets Eleanor's rocks off, because she's got the most self-satisfied fucking smirk on face, the one he imagines she wore the entire time Charles was in her bed. And Eleanor stands at the top of the stairs, framed by the open doorway, lauding her everything about herself over Charles as he begs her to take him back. Which she does not deign to do at all.

All the other party goers have gathered around to witness the carnage and Eleanor's not even pretending to feel sorry about making such a scene. This – this is what she's been looking for ever since Charles gave her the boot – coincidentally right before he went away on that two stretch. And she's milking her ability to get one over him in that same way for all it's fucking worth.

“We're done, Charles.”

She says it with the cold finality of a vault door swinging shut. And she sweeps back into the house, surrounded by the ranks of simpering sycophants. Leaving Charles curled into himself on the cold pavement.

[sharyrazade]

Maybe it’s because I was spoiled by Ashnard (BL/AM spoilers)

Having pre-battle convos with everyone and their grandmother, but as hype as the battle with a certain Lovecraftian Juliette Caesar in Three Houses was, I was a little...disappointed by the lack of pre-battle exchanges with her. I mean, it’s completely justifiable plot-wise to only have Byleth and Dimitri having them, but I was still mildly disappointed by the missed opportunity, so I took the opportunity to correct it myself! This was originally only supposed to be with the other Black Eagles, but you know how things get with me; they snowball.

Okay, I can’t (and won’t) take credit for ALL of these. Just most of them.

HE: So I see you have betrayed the Empire after all, Ferdinand. It seems you truly are so petty to commit treason over an old rivalry. Or perhaps you simply want the throne for yourself...

Ferdinand: I am anything but, Edelgard. This mad dream of yours- it ends today.

HE: You always were an arrogant bastard. Do you truly believe you can match my power?

Ferdinand: I cannot and I accept that fact. But as long as I have the Professor and all of our allies by my side, we cannot- will not lose!

HE: Arrogant insect! I’ll crush you like I should have done ages ago!

Linhardt: So your crests did hide such power after all...fascinating.

HE: Stare all you like, Linhardt. For I will be the last thing you see!

Linhardt: [sighs] It’s a shame. In all of the Empire’s history, perhaps no other ruler has used the talents at her command to the degree you have...But all the same, no other emperor has chosen a path so incredibly stupid. Farewell, Edelgard. I suppose it won’t do anyone any good to let you live in this state.

Caspar: [shocked] Edelgard! W-what the hell happened to you?!

HE: I’ve become more powerful than you could ever dream of, Caspar. You have chosen very poorly to stand against me.

Caspar: I could say the same! I’ve got no interest in gaining power just to trample on the weak like you do! And that you’re ready to become a monster to get it?!

HE: Come, show me how strong you’ve become- let me crush you!

HE: Is that you, Bernadetta? Tell me; what does the little mouse have to say before the eagle swoops in to claim her?

Bernadetta:..I finally understand what it is I wanted. I wanted you to acknowledge me. To accept me as an equal, not a vassal...But that’s not enough. You said to me “can you not live unless you were born for some purpose?” I’m not living for anyone else. There’s no special meaning in living. When I sensed my own death, I wanted to live. I know now. That’s all I needed. So...I don’t need you anymore, Edelgard. It doesn’t matter if you accept me or not. Here I am. Alive! And we will defeat you!

HE: You’ve acquired some impudent wisdom, Bernadetta. Too bad you’ve acquired it too late to do you any good! Die!

HE: [Angry monstrosity noises]

Dorothea: [sadly] Oh, Edie...what’s become of you...? I suppose...it would be the least I could do...

HE: You would dare raise your weapon to me, Petra? Your sister of sorts? After everything the Empire’s done for Brigid?

Petra: Yes, I will. I believe in the Professor. And I will not sacrificing the life of my people for your dreams, Edelgard!

HE: Insolent girl! Once I’m done with you, I’ll raze those damnable islands and salt the earth!

HE: You lowly lapdog! You would dare turn your blade against the savior of your people?! On behalf of the King of Faerghus?!

Dedue: [smug] Yes. Yes, I would. It seems you’ve taken on an appropriately monstrous form to match your soul, Emperor of Adrestia. And THAT is exactly why I believe in His Highness and the Professor- instead of you.

HE: Prepare to justify your poor choices to your butchered kin and people- your reunion with them is imminent!

HE: Grrrah! Fraldarius dog! Had it not been for you and your cursed family-

Felix: Shut up. This will be the greatest fight of my life. I don’t intend to have you ruin it with your babbling. Besides, I’ve got a score to settle with you on behalf of my father and brother anyway.

HE: Discuss it with them in the next life! Die!

Felix: Show me what you can do, Emperor of Adrestia.

Ashe: [disturbed] Waaaah! E-edelgard? Is...that really...you?

HE: You! You are the lowliest scum of them all! Raising your bow against me in favor of the murderers of Lonato and Christophe!

Ashe: Don’t...you dare speak their names, Edelgard! The very last thing they would want is for me to “live” like you- obsessed with revenge!

HE: If you are so confident in their answer, ask them yourself! Die!

Sylvain: Eeesh, I’ve heard of stress aging people, but this is ridiculous.

HE: You insolent fop! You want nothing more than to be liberated from your crest, but turn your blade against your liberator!

Sylvain: Oh, you know what? I changed my mind. That won’t matter after we beat the snot out of you anyway.

HE: Allow me to relieve you from your tortured existence then!

HE: Do you truly seek to meet your goddess so soon, weakling?

Mercedes: [softly] Dear Goddess, please forgive what I’m about to do- please grant this tortured soul the peace she was unable to find in life.

HE: [angry] Don’t you DARE pity me!

Annette: (Alright, Annie, this is it. Just stay calm, and start casting)

HE: You weak-hearted fool. Still content in your servitude for nothing in return. A pathetic old fool of a knight sires a pathetic, foolish daughter- how poetic.

Annette: [angry] Alright, you’ve done it now, Edelgard!

HE: You insignificant gnat! Do you truly love your sorry lot in life so? You hate your station and its burdens, but wish to throw your life away for this rabble?

Ingrid: Maybe I do. But I do know one thing for certain: I hate tyrants like you more!

Lorenz: [shocked] Edelgard?! How ghastly!

HE: This is what true power looks like. Your foolish notions of chivalry and noble obligations have no place in my new world.

Lorenz: [irritated] I might say the same of you and your tyranny. En garde!

HE: You musclebound dolt. What is it you truly hope to gain, standing against me?

Raphael: I made a promise to myself and everyone when you attacked the monastery. No matter who I had to do it from, I’d protect my sis and all of our friends from the Empire- even if I’ve gotta throw down with you, Edelgard!

HE: I assure you, all of them- and your dear sister- are not long for this world!

HE: I’m somewhat impressed that you found the courage to stand against me, worm. Do you truly hate your life so much?

Ignatz: [slightly disturbed] N-not at all. I love my life- I love this world. That’s why...I’m willing to give it to protect the world from you!

HE: The world needs me! It does not need insignificant specks like you!

HE: This is most unfortunate. We are very much the same, Lysithea. And yet you still have chosen poorly- for that, you must pay with your life.

Lysithea: If I had followed your path...would this have happened to me, as well...? As someone who shares your fate...Edelgard! I will destroy you!

Marianne:..

HE: Out of all our school chums, you probably confound me the most. You should be crawling to me, begging to be a part of my new order. To take revenge on those who scorned and mocked you your entire life. Called you a monster.

Marianne: [softly] Monster...

HE: I am Fódlan’s only hope for a future not shrouded in darkness!

Marianne: [angry] Edelgard! Your life ends at my hands!

Hilda:...Yikes! Talk about a bad look on you.

HE: All you EVER had to do was hand over the Hero’s Relic and TRY to convince that scheming bastard to stand down. You could have had a life of comfort, luxury, and more wealth than you could have ever known what to do with!

Hilda: And betray Claude, the Professor, and my brother? Don’t think so!

HE: It seems I misjudged you.

Hilda: Damn right you did, you freak!

HE: My new world has far greater use for your skills than this lot. Why then have you chosen these bluebloods and malcontents?

Leonie: What kind of use? Trampling on the weak? Brutally killing your enemies, real or imagined? No thanks! I’d never be able to look myself- let alone Captain Jeralt- in the eye ever again!

HE: Your reverence for that admittedly-powerful freak of nature shall be your downfall, Leonie.

Leonie: “Freak?!” Oh-ho, that’s it, Edelgard; your freakish ass is mine!

Assuming he’s engaged Myson (because that’s what I did)

Seteth: [shocked] Of course! Those attacks...THAT’S what you needed with Flayn’s blood and Rhea both. You and your friends!

HE: Nosy old fossils such as yourself have no place in my new world- or any world! Do it a favor and die already!

Seteth: [simmering anger] Well said, Edelgard. In the name of Fódlan, your victims, the Goddess, and Nabatea alike, may your tyranny wither and die at my blade!

Flayn: Edelgard please! Cease this madness and release Rhea! For everyone’s sake!

HE: A creature like you is incapable of appreciating the ideal world that I have envisioned.

Flayn: How can your world be ideal when you’ve killed countless innocent people?!

HE: You...beast! Don’t tell me what’s right and wrong!

Hanneman: Edelgard?! Goddess, THIS is the sort of power that lies dormant in crests?! I suppose, given the potential complications with Hero’s Relics and incompatible crests...

HE: I tire of your babbling, old man! Die!

Manuela: [sadly] I always knew you were a little rough around the edges- hell, I was back in my day- still am. But this-

HE: Manuela, you insufferable old hag! You couldn’t have just left the stage gracefully, could you? Allow me to grant you one last curtain call! Die!

Gilbert:..

HE: [smug] Well, well, this pathetic old knight has come to me to seek penance for his failure.

Gilbert: Not quite, lass. In the name of both the daughter and king whom I could not be there for, your tyranny ends here, Emperor of Adrestia!

HE: I shall grant you the death you seek, you pathetic wretch!

Alois: Edelgard! It is high time you answered for your crimes!

HE: What, no stupid jokes or puns?

Alois: No. For Captain Jeralt...I would have followed them to the ends of the earth and into the eternal flames- even if it meant serving you. Boy, that was a close one!

HE: Well, discuss it with him in the afterlife! I shall send your dear wife and daughter there to greet you as well!

HE: [smug] Take a good look, Cassandra. It seems your beloved Lady Rhea’s existence has finally contributed something of value to the world.

Catherine: [furious] EDELGARD! I’ll cut you into a thousand pieces, then grind you into dust!

HE: Show yourself, wretch! Know that I will find you eventually, and when I do...

Shamir: Yep, that definitely settles it. No way am I getting paid anywhere close to enough for this.

HE: What a pest you are!

Cyril: I fight for everything living and breathing and all of your victims. I fight for the Professor and all of our friends. But most of all, I fight for Lady Rhea! And it’s in all their names that I will crush you, Emperor of Adrestia! I won’t let you steal another innocent life!

[whetstonefires]

Same anon as Seph anon, thanks for answering my ask! Ahahaha I really did go a little wild with the chance to ask one of my favorite authors about one of my favorite characters... so, here's a more restrained version of that for another one of my faves I guess cause it's just a pleasure reading your responses. Tifa Lockhart. 4 (because i see her as kind of a person who'd be into the idea of romance?), 5, 14, 18, and 20.

Oh well hey again! Glad you liked the last one. Aww, thank you. 💗 Enthusiasm is always nice. More opinions by me, then! ^^

4. Best places to kiss on their body

Haha I agree Tifa’s a romantic in both the general and narrow senses but ooh, spicy. 😆 Hm.

I think Tifa would like kissed...just below the corner of her mouth, and on the insides of her forearms, and in her palms and knuckles because her hands are so much of her, and would be so easy to see as things that don’t need or deserve tenderness because of their power. And on her hip, at the outside hinge, just below where her belt rests in her main outfit.

5. Guilty pleasures

Unlike Sephiroth, Tifa does guilt a lot. She’s also a lot better than he ever was at pleasure. Both are highly contextual. They change.

More than once, it’s been Cloud. When she was fifteen and sick with feeling trapped in this dead-end town, her promise with that awkward boy next door who’d acquired a certain mystique through his standoffishness and big dream was a vehicle for fantasy that she’d have been mortified if anyone suspected.

When they were traveling the world and she knew something was wrong with him, with what he remembered, and she wasn’t saying anything because she was too afraid to find out what was wrong with who--she was still happy to have him there. Her person. Hers. Leaned into enjoying it more than she would have, if she hadn’t felt like it was going to be snatched away, somehow.

When she first lived in Midgar, it was pain, and blood on her knuckles. She went looking for fights, in those first months after she healed up from Masamune, and the slums had plenty on offer. She knew it was a waste of herself and her training, a stupid risk and a cruel choice, but it was the only thing that felt real.

That was how she first came to the Heaven--not as terrorist, or potential owner, or interviewing for a position as a barmaid. She was looking for a brawl.

In the days after Meteor, it was sweets. She’s always been active enough that indulging her sweet tooth only twinged her a little on an internalized-weight-bullshit scale, but when the main engine of industry had just been crushed and there were refugees on every side and she was spending most of her waking hours trying to mitigate the suffering in the aftermath...spending outsized chunks of her share of the enormous heap of gil the team had accrued traveling the world on getting A Whole Ice Cream all to herself felt more like a crime than half the people she’d beaten to death in her time, but it was one she went ahead and committed.

14. Ingrained habits/forces of habit 

Tifa has many good and responsible habits. She does dishes promptly, without thinking twice. She does her kata every morning. She’s good at forming habits, and keeping them up.

She’s also good, of course, at habits she doesn’t want. Patterns of rumination that aren’t good for her. Habits of avoiding a subject or a problem that bothers her, until it’s a bigger problem than it started as simply for her habituated inability to confront it.

And if she doesn’t change contexts after she loses someone, it takes a long time for the habit of expecting them there to go away. She never quite stopped expecting to see Cloud when she was leading the team after the Northern Crater, and it took until after she’d spent a few days with him in Mideel to stop looking for Aerith.

18. Things they’ll never admit 

They’re mostly silly or obvious, or both. She thought Sephiroth was cool and Zack was hot, when she was sixteen. She really did believe Cloud wasn’t real, for long enough to matter, even though it was Sephiroth who said it.

There’s one that isn’t. She tries to be sorry, for everyone and everything that was lost and broken in the road to ending the old world, and she can’t. It’s sad, and she wishes it hadn’t had to happen, and she’d never have done it, but she wouldn’t wish any of it undone, if it put Shinra back in power.

Even the people she loved. Her town, her Midgar friends, Aerith. She’s given her heart to the future, and she’ll let go of everything from the past if that’s what it takes to build something new. Nibelheim was a cage for her anyway, dear as it was and dearly as it loved her. It’s easier to leave behind than she thinks it should be, now that she isn’t alone in the emptiness of its destruction, or strangled with a hopeless need for vengeance.

She has Cloud left, from those days, and that’s enough to live on.

But she thinks even Barret would give it all up, everything they have now, just to have the massacre of Corel unmade. And maybe Cid or Reeve would agree with her, but she doesn’t want them to. So she’d never tell anybody.

20. What-ifs/Alternate Timelines 

There’s a lot you could do with alternate-timeline Tifa but only three things that I’m persistently interested in.

First, she realizes she can leave town, too. Like...she clearly more than a little wanted to, and felt that she had to stay. Leaving town to seek your fortune and become a hero or whatever is only for boys. So she was living vicariously through Cloud, in canon.

The natural thing as a fic writer is for her to also try for SOLDIER, which I’ve seen done, though in character terms it’s a little less likely, assuming it’s even an option. I tend to assume Shinra only recruits men for active combat roles (which Turks technically are not even tho they actually are) because that’s what we’re shown, and while you can headcanon around that because of helmets and so on, I’ve never felt that ‘pretending the fascists aren’t as sexist as they seem’ was really a strike for women’s lib in transformative fandom? Shinra is not a positive environment. That’s a fact I’m happy to let stand.

They might make an exception if you were good enough, tho, and Tifa is very good.

Second scenario, Zangan doesn’t turn up at just the right moment to get her out of the reactor before Hojo swoops in, and she gets picked up with the rest of the survivors for the Sephiroth Copy Reunion Project. I started writing this one. It’s uh. Dark.

Third, she doesn’t wind up in Midgar. There’s suggestion in the game that Zangan brought her there to get treatment for her stab wound but it’s literally the other side of the Planet so I mostly ignore that on the basis that it’s absurd and adds nothing of value to the story, and assume she made it there on her own.

But in this AU he left her with one of his 127 other students and they bonded while she was healing up, and got into contact with some of the others who knew how to contact some of the others, and all these people knew people of their own, and Zangan-Ryu became a Mass Movement without actual Zangan’s direct involvement or support, at least not until later on.

Because I think it’s wild that this man wanders the world dropping in on his scattered collection of disciples one at a time, meaning Tifa is part of a fairly large community with whom she is not at all acquainted, and there’s potential there that I’ve never seen built into.

Tifa fomenting provincial insurrection potential. :D

[omgjasminesimone]

Tequila Sunrise Part IV

Previous Part: Part III

Next Part: Epilogue

Logan x MC

Author’s Note: Final part! Thanks to everyone who read, liked, commented, and reblogged!

Summary: 10 years have passed since Logan and Ellie last saw each other. After a brief unexpected reunion, they part ways again. But now, Ellie is back and Logan finally has a reason to stay.

Word Count:  1750

Logan and Paul set the couch down in the rented U-haul trailer, both men wiping sweat from their brows.

Logan looks around appreciatively. “That’s the last big thing. Thanks for your help man.”

Paul smiles. “Of course. Don’t be a stranger Logan, stay in touch.” Paul grasps Logan’s hand, pulling him in and patting his back in a half hug.

Logan smiles. “I will.” He promises, though he knows he won’t. He never does.

Paul leaves with a friendly wave, and Logan gets to work gathering the last few boxes. He would have moved soon anyway, but Ellie knowing where he is has increased the urgency.

It’s been three months since he dropped her off at the restaurant, forcing himself to drive away instead of running after her, pulling her into his arms, and never letting her go like he really wanted to. He knows it was the right decision, no matter how much it hurt. He knows she’s probably hurting too, and he’s afraid she’ll come back here to find him. He hopes she won’t. That she’ll realize how much better off she is without him. But if she does come back, he doesn’t think he has it in him to turn her away again, although he knows that he should, that he has to.

So he’s moving again. He really liked Puerta Vallarta, but he can’t stay in one place for too long. Can’t get too comfortable. He has to keep the Feds guessing.

He takes one last look around the empty hut, making sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. He smiles fondly, he had some good times here, but it’s time to move on.

He locks the door, leaving the key under the mat for his landlord, and brings one last box to his truck bed. He loads it in, and is about to close his truck bed door, when he hears a car coming. The taxi turns the corner, kicking up dust as it heads towards him. His heart initially soars, but as reality sets in it plummets instead.

He knows it will be her before she opens the door, but he still prays that somehow it’s not. That she’s not going to make him leave her, again. He’d prefer an FBI agent get out of the taxi and arrest him than having to say goodbye to her for a fourth heartbreaking time.

The door opens, and of course Ellie steps out. She’s wearing the Panama Canal shirt he gave her, paired with black leggings. The taxi driver gets out of the cab, going to the trunk and removing her large purple rolling suitcase. He places it on the dusty ground. “Muchas gracias.” Ellie chimes, handing the man a tip.  

She grips the handle, spotting him standing outside. Then she spots the U-Haul trailer. She shakes her head in disbelief, a huge grin spreading across her face as she rushes over, awkwardly pulling the suitcase across the unpaved dirt road. The taxi drives away.

“Going somewhere?” She asks when she reaches him.

“Ellie, you shouldn’t be here.” He says softly, eyes pleading with her to not make this any harder than it already is.

“I shouldn’t? Do you not see it, Logan? Fate, the universe, bringing us together?”

He sighs. “Ellie-“

She interrupts. “No Logan, listen. I didn’t even want to come to Mexico. I wanted to just wallow in San Francisco and feel sorry for myself after I found about Trent cheating. But Riya showed up to my apartment and personally drove me to the airport and made sure I got on the plane. We’re at the same very crowded bar, where we easily could have missed each other, but we don’t. We find each other. I go home, reluctantly, because ‘my life’ is in San Francisco, and then a month later my company goes bankrupt and lays everyone off. I get here now, and if I had been even 15 minutes later, I would have missed you. I assume I wasn’t going to be getting your new address?”

He sighs again. “No, Ellie. I wanted to move so you couldn’t find me. So you’d move on.” Logan admits.

Ellie nods. “Thought so. But fate obviously had different plans.” She reaches out, taking his hands. “Did you know that birth control is 99.9% effective when taken correctly?”

He had been looking at their clasped hands, but now his gaze returns to her pretty brown eyes.

“And you know how I am Logan. I’m very organized, very regimented. I never forget to take my birth control. I take it at the exact same time every morning, I take it correctly.”

His face drains of color as he starts to see where this is going.

“But despite that, and on top of all the other coincidences, with a .1 percent chance of this happening, I’m pregnant…..Oh my God Logan you look like you’re about to throw up. Maybe you should sit down.”

He all but collapses onto the still open truck bed door, beginning to hyperventilate.

Ellie stands between his legs, wrapping one arm around him and pulling him to her, his head resting on her chest. She uses her free hand to gently run her fingers through his short brown hair. “Breathe baby.” She soothes.

“Are you sure it’s not Trent’s?” He asks softly. Even if Trent is an asshole, at least he’s not a wanted felon.

She stops running her fingers through his hair, clearly irritated he would even ask. “No Logan, it’s yours. It’s ours.”

He pulls away slightly, looking up at her with tears in his eyes. “Fuck, Ellie. I’m so sorry.” They should have used a condom, he should have made sure this didn’t happen. God, what a mess. How could they possibly bring a child into this situation? He squeezes his eyes shut, turning his head down as he thinks. His negative thoughts are interrupted when she grips his chin, forcing him to look at her.

“Stop thinking whatever you’re thinking. I’m not sorry Logan. I want this baby. I want you. Don’t you see? This happened for a reason. Because this is the only way that you would ever stop running from me, from us. You want to protect me, you think you’re doing the right thing, keeping your distance. But do you think it’s really the right thing if it’s making us both miserable?”

“Of course it’s the right thing Ellie. Being with me would cost you everything. I love you too much to let you give up everything for me.”

“That’s my point. This baby will be the one thing you love just as much, if not more, than me. You want to leave for me, but you have to stay for your child. You’re not the kind of man who can walk away. Not when you know what it’s like to not have a father.” Ellie reasons.

“I have to leave for our child too. We can’t do this Ellie, we’d be raising a child on the run. What happens when he or she starts school? We make them leave all their friends every year?”

“Maybe we don’t have to be on the run.” She says softly, wiping away the tears that are starting to run down his cheeks.

He looks at her, trying not to allow himself to hope, not wanting to be disappointed. “How?”

“Not to bruise your ego, but you’re not really a major bust for the FBI. They got the Brotherhood, and you were a minor when you committed most of the crimes they know about. At this point, they just want to close the case. My Dad says in a few months he might be able to negotiate a plea deal that would get you off with probation.”

“Your Dad would do that for me?” The disbelief is evident in his voice. He hasn’t forgotten about the loaded gun Detective Wheeler pointed in his face when he saw him last.  

She loops her arms around his shoulders, drawing him in close once again. “No, not for you. For his grandchild. He wanted me to tell you that. He’s actually pretty mad at you.”

Logan wraps his arms around her, tracing patterns in her back. “Yeah, I’d imagine.”

“But he’ll come around eventually once he gets to know you. Now that there’s a baby, he knows you’re not going anywhere so he’ll have to get used to you.”

“I don’t know how to be a father Ellie. I never had one. Closest thing to a father figure even was Kaneko. What if I’m terrible at it?” Logan asks, with so much insecurity that it breaks Ellie’s heart.

“Logan, no one knows how to be a parent until they’re a parent. But I know you’re going to be a wonderful father. You love so deeply and always put everyone else before yourself. Our baby is so lucky to have you.” She assures.  

“I’m the lucky one. I never could have imagined that this would actually happen. That I could actually have you…We’re having a baby.” His voice trails off, thick with emotion.

She smiles, kissing the top of his head. “I used to daydream about this, back in the day. Of course, in my dreams we were married.”

He smirks, looking up at her. “Was that a hint?”

She shrugs. “Take that however you want to.”

He lifts her shirt, exposing the barely-there baby bump. But it is there. This is real. They have a future. He places adoring kisses over her stomach, tears welling up in his eyes.

“I love you so much Ellie.”

“I love you too.” They hold each other for a few minutes before she steps away. “So, where are we moving?” She asks.

He stands up, kicking at the clamp to make sure the trailer is securely fastened to his truck. “Ensenada for now. If…I mean when I get that plea deal, we can go back to Los Angeles, or anywhere you want.” He replies.

She smiles. “Ensenada is only 200 miles from Los Angeles. My Dad will love that.” She turns to retrieve her suitcase, starting to lift it into his truck.

“Hey! That looks heavy and you’re pregnant!” Logan takes the suitcase from her, lifting it easily into the truck. It’s actually not that heavy.

Ellie places her hands on her hips. “Are you going to be like this the whole pregnancy?”

Logan smirks “Probably. Do you still want to be with me?”

She pretends to think on it. He laughs, pulling her to him so he can kiss her.

…

..

.

El Fin/The End (Although I might write an epilogue because I miss RoD)

taglist:  @choicesarehard @ifyouseekheart @brightpinkpeppercorn @powdesiree0816 @regina-and-happiness@choicelogansbitch @flyawayboo @fairydustandsarcasm @alesana45@umiumichan @maxwellsquidsuit @professorortegasstudent @god-save-the-keen @mrsmckenziesworld @paisleylovergirl @iplaydrake @sinclaire-made-me-sin @sibella-plays-choices @hazah 

[winterisfinallyhere]

How season 7 should have gone...

...if they wanted a believable Dany/Jon love story.

____

Even the most dedicated of JonxDany fan must admit that there love story lacks finesse at best and at worst is not a love story at all. As a storyteller and watcher of way too much television, I decided to put together this little re-write of season 7 with an actual Dany x Jon romance. Mostly to demonstrate how easy it could have been done with this was the actual aim of the writers/ producers.

Let’s jump right in.

We’ll assume everything starts off the same. So we have 7x03 with Jon arriving and being stripped of his weapons. Because Dany is careful and so even though this is an impolite way to act towards someone you’ve invited as a guest, we’ll keep it

1# First meeting.

 If I was writing it the first meeting would take place pretty much anywhere but a cold and mostly empty throne room. Maybe over a shared meal, where Dany could talk like equals (which they as Queen / King are at this point). Even her small council / the war room would have made it feel better. But let’s keep the setting the same because Dany of the Many titles likes set-up like this. 

So yeah. It goes pretty similarly only this time, during their first meet, Dany tells him of the Red Woman’s visit and is a tiny bit more open-minded about the prospect of the White Walkers and the speech about how Dany managed it all because she had faith in herself gets taken out.

Jon x Dany would meet and talk and rather than having Tyrion tell her to give Jon the Dragon Glass, she would come to this decision on her own and while perhaps still a little doubtful (not sure why the girl who has three dragons isn’t willing to believe in magic, but I digress). Perhaps here, she’d ask him to bend the knee again (because she sure likes doing that) Jon would point out he’s been named king and can be unnamed(very true). The only way for her to win the north is for her to show the north she’ll fight for them. That if she truly believes herself the true ruler of all of Westeros seven kingdoms, isn’t it her duty to protect all of them? She’d come away from this talk a little unsure.

Next episode we have Jon finding the cave paintings as they mine for dragon glass. Dany agrees that this is something and rather than asking to bend the knee, she suggests he show her the army of the dead. He’d asks, “How? The Wall is hundreds of miles away.” She’d smile and say something like “Do you forget so easily? I have three dragons. I can go anywhere.” But as they exit the cave, Dany learns her forces have been defeated and that the Lanisters army is on the move with food and gold. This is where she gets annoyed with Tyrion and asks Jon’s advice. This time the advice would maybe be more like, “Send your army to handle this, but let us fly north and I’ll show you the true enemy.” She’d agree, because who wouldn’t want to spend hours cuddling with Jon Snow on the back of a dragon?

So this is where things would change majorly. Dany would not take part of the field of fire, but if the desired/ needed outcome here is to have both Sam’s brother and father dead (so he can be lord at some point maybe?) then having the Dothraki kill them would be just as effective. The coolness of a dragon battle would, of course, be lost and so would one of the defining Dark!Dany (bend the knee or die is pretty dark, an executing prisoners of war is a war crime) moments but if DxJ is going to have a happy ending this would just be a good thing.

So, now we have Dany X Jon, off on an adventure together. Possibly Dany just misses her reunion with Jorah, because that would just be for the best. Or it could be included and we’d have some much clearer parallels on how both Jon and Jorah has the hots for Dany but Dany only has eyes for Jon. 

Anyways, JXD are off to see the WW’s army. So many chances for bonding and bantering and maybe some talk of succession. Maybe how they both can’t see much further than the wars. Maybe they’d still stop off at the wall and meet up with the Brotherhood + hound. Maybe not.

Back south the gang left behind could still be attempting to negotiate some sort of peace treaty with the most amazing royal bitch of them all (Cersei) which would be a chance for the Jamie / Tyrion reunion as well as Gendry’s reintroduction. Maybe this meeting could be set up to discuss possible terms for the return of the remaining Sand Snakes / Theon’s sister (which show!!Dany seems to just have forgotten were her allies since it’s no longer convient for her).

In the north, perhaps Dany’s dragons aren’t faring quite as well as she’d hoped. This could serve as a sort of reason to why they suddenly are super easy to kill. Let’s say they do a fly over and Dany sees the Night’s King’s army and is actually horrified by it and the implications.

This is the second big change. Because in order for Dany X Jon to work out, they need to get on the same page about who the real enemy are. Canon!Dany refuses to do this even after seeing the White Walkers and having lost one of her dragons to them.

Let’s say now Dany or Jon together come up with the crazy idea of getting a wight back south. Maybe to get Cersei’s army to help them. Maybe to just show everyone that the danger is real. Not just Cersei (my sweet darling Queen of evil) but the whole realm (because let’s face it, at this point no one really believes in dead men walking). Jon agrees, a little reluctant because he knows that Cersei is not to be trusted. But he tells Dany she can’t come on this mission and instead the Brotherhood without Banners tags along. Before leaving, Jon and Dany would share a romantic kiss and she’d tell him he had to come back to her safe.

Wight hunt goes the same as the show and they end up with one they can bring along. Gendry runs back to Eastwatch but instead of having to send a raven across a whole bloody country, all he has to do is tell Dany and she’s off to save her new boy toy friend. When she shows up, she gets to play the hero, one of the dragons still dies, and instead of being a heroic fool Jon actually takes her hand and get on the dragon. The “awwaaws” in the audience is deafening.

Still wanting to return home, Jon asks Dany to come with him to Winterfell, because even though he’s falling for her he still wants to see Arya and Bran who he hasn’t seen in ages (and maybe first now learn have returned to WF). Maybe at this point, we could have some Jon X Rhaegal bonding? Maybe jokingly suggest Jon could almost fly home himself. She would tell him she can’t leave with the dragons for fear of being attacked by Cersei’s fleat but that she’ll let him return home if that is what he wishes. He chooses to stay with her to go to KL to try to gather more support and awareness.

Yet another quite OoC move, as I believe Cannon!Jon would have gone home. But alas, he’s in love with Dany or at least getting there (because he’s a guy and all guy must fall in love with Dany) and wants to stay with her.

We all know how the rest goes. We’d have the silly dragon pit meet, Cersei would find some other excuse to not accept the treaty other than Jon having bent the knee to Dany. We’d still get the shady exchange between Cersei and Tyrion, which we still don’t know what he promised her to get her to agree.

We can still have everyone reuniting at once (because that was such a great idea) and have Dany x Jon talk about the dying of the dragons and her not being able to have babies. Only she’s as determined as him to fight the NK even if Cersei tells them she won’t help. The stakes are lower, but the still need Cersei’s men to fight for them.

Having gotten their peace treaty, Jon and Dany decide to sail to Winterfell together.

We can have something similar to boat!sex the original with Bran letting us all know just how doomed this love story is in the voice over (only let’s assume they’d have skipped that if JonxDany were endgame. because it made so freaking creepy)!

Thada!

We’ve almost everything happening the same way they did, except for a small few changes in the character’s choices and settings. This way we get Dany actually believing in Jon, Dany X Jon spending private time together, an emotional first kiss, a rescue of lover and we totally eliminate the whole “I am your prisoner” aspect (if she offers to let him leave) and we still end up with creepy boat sex. Jamie can still betray Cersei, Sansa and Arya can still cut LF’s throat and Theon hopefully would have gone to rescue his sister without a Jon Snow pep talk.

So yeah. That’s my take on how Jonerys should have been done if they were actually being portrayed as a romance. But clearly, they weren’t, because there were so many chances to actually add it and make it more believable.

Dany sharing about her brothers should have led to a bonding conversation. The cave scene looks pretty romantic but Dany ruins it by asking him to bend the knee again. Rather than share why he got the scars, Dany figures it out by peeking at him as he sleeps and then deduces from what Davos said about taking a knife in the heart. Jon fails to tell her he saw his Ucel Benjen out there and that he saved him. No first kiss before the sex scene. No emotional commitment/ admission beforehand. No marriage proposal. The list goes on and on.

Point is,DXD  and their whole team didn't just completely forget how to write romance. Which means Jonersy is not the endgame romance we’ve all been waiting for. Jon might very well be attracted to her and in the commentary and in interviews they can tell us DanyXJon are in love as much as they like. But their story, what actually happened on the show was not portrayed as a romance and without changing much else in season 7 probably quite easily could have, begging all viewers to ask, why?

[our-happygirl500-fan]

Inspired by @golden-redhead  Again series.

Kaito doubted anyone would call him a patient person; it wasn’t like he couldn’t be patient or didn’t know how to wait he’d been patient lots of times! When he was a kid there was a stray dog that wouldn’t even let him near it but after a few weeks of bringing it food and showing he wasn’t a threat it had eventually let him pet it and play with it until it became comfortable enough around Kaito that he managed to bring it home and make it the family pet, after begging his grandparents to let him keep it…

Though he guesses that technically might have never actually happened.

But he’d been patient with his sidekicks! He thought latching on to the memory that he *knew* was real, that he knew was his or as real as any memory made in virtual reality could be. He’d been patient coaxing Shuichi out of his shell waiting for the shy detective to open up and have confidence in himself, he’d been patient with Harumaki waiting for her to let him in, for her to trust others.

Kaito Momota knew how to be patient but that didn’t mean he liked waiting, what was the point of waiting for things to happen when you could go out and make your dreams a reality now? Why wait when you could do something?

But sometimes he thought with a sigh there was nothing you could do; sometimes waiting was your only option.

Absentmindedly he gently held the hand of Kokichi’s unconscious form almost scared that the action would shatter the smaller boy. It was hard to think that Kokichi was really here finally out of that damn pod even if he was technically still unconscious.

He wouldn’t have to wait much longer at least

He had died among the stars, finally reaching the goal he’d dreamed about for so long his heart filling with exhilaration and contentment as his lungs filled with blood and thoughts of pride and worry and hope for his sidekicks and guilt and thoughts he couldn’t shake for his rival? Partner? Whatever the hell Ouma was to him in the end mixed together in his head swirling like galaxies as he coughed and coughed until he finally closed his eyes the view of the universe being the last thing he saw…

And then he had opened his eyes to neon blue and green.

It would be a complete and utter lie to say he had anything resembling to coherent thought at the time, and honestly it was a bit of a blur from his disorientation of dying and coming out of the simulation. He remembers the confusion and even some anger though as he thrashed about as doctors and nurses swarmed him almost as soon as he opened his eyes shouting out lists of vitals and medical jargon and trying to see how aware he was of his surroundings at that moment as they tried to calm him down.

He’s pretty sure he punched one of them before he was injected with a sedative and fell back into unconsciousness. He hoped he had punched one of them.

When he had woken up again they’d explained everything to him, that everything was fake, that it was all a lie and virtual reality and a damn show that he’d fucking signed up for. He didn’t really like thinking about the feelings he felt when he learned that, before he tried to force his mind to think about, to focus on literally anything else.

“So Ouma’s alive?” Was the question that was the first thing that came out of his mouth after they had finished explaining everything to him no thought going into it as he asked. He wasn’t really sure why Ouma of all people was the first person her asked about… But it made sense to check; if Ouma was alive that meant that Kaito hadn’t actually killed someone right?

The doctor he had been talking to looked slightly surprised for a second before schooling his expression “none of the participants have actually died as I’ve explained Ouma Kokichi included” the doctor told him and Kaito felt something close to relief at the information.

Ouma was alive; part of him couldn’t believe it and part of him desperately wanted to. “Can I see him?” Kaito found himself asking part of his mind not truly being able to comprehend the idea of Ouma being alive; not when he could still smell the familiar, metallic scent of blood that was everywhere in the hanger unable to escape it even in the exisal leaving him unable to tell if it was Ouma’s or his own, not when the sounds of his screams nearly drowned out by the hum of the hydraulic press still rang out almost constantly in the back of his mind. Maybe if he actually saw Ouma and talked to him about all this the screams in his head would finally stop.

He wanted to talk to the liar anyway regardless of his own guilt just to hear the other boys opinion on all this; the smaller boy always seemed to figure out more than the rest of them, always seemed to know more than he would let on after all and after what happened in the hanger part of Kaito thought that he was probably more qualified in dragging out whatever the liar was thinking about than anyone else.

Something unreadable flashed through the doctors eyes before he shook his head at Kaito’s request, the astronaut feeling disappointment settle in his gut almost immediately not really listening as the doctor blathered on an answer “I’m afraid I wouldn’t recommend seeing anyone at the moment since you’ve just woken up and we want to check that everything is completely alright” the doctor continues talking but Kaito’s honestly not really listening anymore at this point, despite apparently sleeping for so long in a virtual reality pod he’s still tiered and he barely has the energy to thank the doctor and watch him leave before he drifts off into unconsciousness once more.

He wakes up nearly an hour after that for the doctors to run more tests him noticing that their thoughts seem to be slightly distracted he finds out why a few hours later when someone knocks on his door and a familiar face he thought he would never see again pops in.

“Hey, the doctors said you were cleared for visitors,” Kaede Akamatsu said walking quickly followed by Chabashira. Despite everything that he had been told seeing them both here and alive was jarring he almost couldn’t believe they were real.

As if sensing his thoughts Akamatsu gives him a knowing smile “I’m real this isn’t a dream or a hallucination I can offer to pinch you if you want?” Kaede offers jokingly and Kaito finds himself spluttering at being so easily read her smile becoming a bit more obvious.

“Kaede-san you don’t have to reassure him that we’re real and besides if he does need convincing Tenko can always flip him,” Chabashira offers causing Kaito to let out and indignant protest as Akamatsu hides a laugh behind her hands, part of Kaito makes note of Chabashira’s use of first Akamatsu’s first name but that’s not really important at the moment.

“…How…” Kaito tries to ask not really sure what he’s asking but still feeling the need to start a conversation and say something.

Akamatsu’s smile almost turns bitter as she responds “I was one of the first to die remember? I’m pretty used to greeting people who saw me die by now,” Akamatsu half heartedly jokes though resentment is clear in her voice, Chabashira looks at the other girl worriedly before sending a glare Kaito’s way as Kaito puts his hands up in a placating gesture and resolves to fix the situation.

“Hey Akamatsu mind telling me what’s been going on? I’ve been stuck in this room and these doctors are kind of useless,” he says rubbing the back of his head nonchalantly.

That seems to do the trick as the dark look drains from Akamatsu’s eyes and she nods as she pulls up a chair to sit at his bedside. “Sure! So what do you know?” Akamatsu asks after a moment of silence and Kaito just shrugs in response.

“I know it was all fake and virtual reality if that’s what you mean but I don’t really know how the others are doing, you two are the first ones who aren’t doctors running test results that I’ve seen since I woke up. Kaito explained as Akamatsu nodded in understanding.

“Well it’s kind of over now, they had the last trial and everything apparently they’ll pull out the ‘survivors’ soon.” Akamatsu told him and Kaito decided to ignore the almost condescending was she had said survivors to focus on another part of her sentence.

“The games over?” Kaito said his voice a mix of disbelief and hope while Kaede gave him an almost sad smile.

“Yeah, Shirogane was the mastermind… turns out I didn’t actually kill Amami-kun as well…” Kaede trailed off her eyes clouded over with a number of different emotions and seeing the other girls distress Chabashira immediately jumped in to explain to Momota everything that had happened and how Shuichi and the others had ended these damn killing games for good.

Kaito wanted to voice his pride in everything his sidekick had done but seeing the emotions barely visible on Akamatsu’s face he decided that the best thing to do right now was distract her, he didn’t know how long she knew that she had been unfairly executed for a crime that she didn’t commit but with everything now finally over there was probably a lot to think about so Kaito decided to distract the her with various small chat and conversation the three of them all talking until Hoshi came to collect the two girls saying they should probably let him rest.

The first people Kaito went to see as soon as he was allowed to leave his room were the survivors, nearly everyone had gathered in the little communal area the hospital had provided for them to greet the survivors who had just been informed of everything that had happened, they were all talking to Kiibo who lived on a computer now which was kind of weird but it was great to see him Amami seemed especially excited to see Kiibo apparently his AI was created by one of his old classmates in the last season, which was another weird thing to think about.

When the survivors came in, it was a full-scale emotional reunion Chabashira running to Yumeno before the smaller girl even had a chance to walk through the door the two of them hugging and crying before anyone really knew what to do, Angie seemed to be the one to move back into action first cheerfully moving forward to greet the magician only for Yumeno to hug her as well as soon as the artist was in range.

Smiling slightly at the scene Kaito raised his hand to grab the other two survivors attention calling out to his sidekicks “Hey! Shuichi! Harumaki!” he called and even over the clamor of the other students he could hear the sharp intake of their breath and he couldn’t fight the smile on his face as their eyes lit up at the sight of him and rushed towards him.

Maki surprised him slightly by hugging him but he wouldn’t complain as he ruffled Shuichi’s hair before returning her hug, he congratulated and complimented them both on everything they’d done, he really was proud of them. Everyone spoke and talked and caught up and it really made a knot settle inside Kaito’s stomach, it was really over and they were all by some miracle together again.

Well not all, Shirogane wasn’t there thank fuck, after all she had helped to put them through if the astronaut never saw her again it would be too soon.

There was only two things that kept the moment from being perfect because despite nearly everyone being back together again Akamatsu and Ouma were no where to be found.

After making up some reason to excuse himself and a brief search he found Akamatsu hiding out by the back staircases, sitting on one of the steps looking deep in thought.

“Hey you’re missing the big reunion in the game room,” he told her catching her attention and announcing his presence as he sat down next to her, he watched as she seemed to try and suppress a grimace before giving him a friendly smile that felt slightly forced.

“I… I don’t know how good I’ll be there I mean I didn’t even really last that long you know?” Akamatsu told him fidgeting with her hands trying to ignore the slight frown that was forming on his face.

“Shuichi would want to see you,” he told her earnestly but that might have been the wrong thing to say as she flinched at the mention of the detective.

“That’s… kind of what I’m worried about…” Akamatsu began to explain hesitantly. “Saihara-kun was nice… but we only really spent a few days together we don’t really know each other you know?”

Akamatsu let out a hollow laugh as she finished explaining while Kaito rubbed the back of his head almost awkwardly.

“Yeah but you two have a chance to get to know each other now,” he offered trying to sound encouraging while Akamatsu simply shrugged.

“Maybe,”

The pianist began to look slightly lost in thought again so Kaito decided to sigh loudly to snap her out of it “geez, you’re really moping over here over something like that?” he complained rubbing the back of his head “you and Ouma are hopeless hiding from everyone”

With everything that had happened in the game Kaito understood why the Supreme Leader might have a hard time seeing everyone again, the little liar had put them all through a lot of shit but now everything was over Kaito at least kind of understood why Ouma did what he did which meant he wasn’t going to let him just hide away he had a lot to make up for to everyone after all!

At the mention of the supreme leader Akamatsu’s head sprung in his direction so quickly he was worried that she might hurt her neck “wait has no one told you about Ouma?” Akamatsu asked her voice full of disbelief and worry.

“Told me what?” he asked giving her a confused look as he tried to ignore the dread welling up inside him.

Ouma would have probably made fun of him or called him naïve for thinking everything was over just because the game had ended. Logically he knew that things wouldn’t end so neatly, that this wouldn’t be some typical happy ending where everyone rode off into the sunset like in an ending of a movie; they all still had a long way to go. They still had to go through physical therapy after being asleep in those pods for so long, there was also trying to convince their bodies that they hadn’t actually died their minds too in a way they’re all dealing with issues and problems the game left them with but still in spite of all that those were all things they just needed to overcome.

They were out of the game! They were safe! Well, almost all of them anyway.

Kaito wondered if this was a trend for Ouma his own brilliant mind and plans making his life harder than anyone’s should be, from what Kaito had seen it probably was.

Despite kids literally signing away their identities and literally having their personalities and memories erased replaced with identities made to be tortured and traumatized in a killing game Team Danganronpa had apparently been incredibly proud about how ‘safe’ their killing games were.

After fifty-three seasons they’d all but perfected their virtual reality bullshit and were constantly monitoring the health of the shows participants and were able to pull someone out of the simulation almost immediately after they died. Executions were despite how awful they could be were ironically the safest route the staff knowing exactly when and how that student would ‘die’ and were prepared to pull them out and with victims with all their surveillance they could see the death and murders coming and could plan around that. The most risky was instantaneous death but the brain itself may not really know how it died and so it was easy to bring a student back from that.

He should have expected Ouma Kokichi to be an exception to every fucking norm.

Thanks to Ouma setting off one of Iruma’s electro bombs no one knew exactly what happened in that hanger only Kaito and Ouma themselves and Kaito wasn’t going to tell anybody what happened, it seemed too personal, too vulnerable though he wasn’t sure who that vulnerability applied to himself or Ouma but it didn’t matter he just… didn’t really want to talk about it with anyone. Maybe he could talk about what had happened with Ouma one day but right now Ouma couldn’t talk about it at all so it was pointless.

Since no one could see who died in that hanger they had no idea who to pull out, it made sense since Monokuma hadn’t known who was in the exisal if they had been able to pull Ouma out when he had died then they would have known who was the victim and who was the culprit and they could have just informed the ‘motherkuma’ AI and their plan would have been pointless.

It was kind of amazing how effective Ouma’s plan really had been when you thought about it.

But since Ouma hadn’t been pulled out his brilliant mind hadn’t been protected from the sensation of dying and so his brain was convinced that he was dead, not just any death too dying of poison and then crushed by a hydraulic press he remembered one of the staff saying how it had been a worse death than anything the people who designed the executions could have thought of.

Kaito didn’t even bother trying not to flinch when he had overheard that conversation.

It had been three weeks since the game had ended and Ouma Kokichi was the only one who was still in his pod, he still hadn’t woken up. Kaito wondered not for the first time if he was going to turn out to be the only one in his game to have actually killed someone.

Between group therapy and everything else they all had to deal with Kaito always made time every day to visit the pod room and sit by Kokichi’s pod hoping that today would be the day that the smaller boy finally woke up.

How long he stayed by Ouma’s side would vary depending on the day sometimes he only stayed for a few minutes not being able to find himself able to look at how small and fragile the supreme leader looked underneath the glass of the pod so different from the sheer presence that he had had during the game while sometimes Kaito would find that he had lost hours just sitting by Kokichi’s side.

He wasn’t exactly sure why, because Ouma and him had worked together as partners at the end or something else? He really wasn’t sure how to explain it but he just felt like he *had* to be there when Kokichi woke up, he had to see with his own two eyes that the supreme leader really was alive.

Sometimes he just sat there in silence almost like he was standing watch over the other boy in his sleep but lately he had been talking to Kokichi, telling him about everything that was going on and how everyone was doing and how his day had been. He’d read that talking to coma patients could help them wake up and at this point Kaito was willing to try anything. He had no idea whether or not Kokichi could actually hear him but it felt oddly nice to just tell him about his day.

Occasionally Amami or Akamatsu would join him in his waiting and both Iruma and Gonta had cornered Kaito to ask how Kokichi was doing; the astronauts daily ritual wasn’t exactly a secret but for the most part Kaito’s waiting was almost kind of a private thing between Kokichi and himself, the doctors and scientists that would work in the pod room simply fading into the background.

That was why he was so surprised when nearly exactly two months since the game had ended he had walked into the pod room to see Harumaki sitting by Kokichi’s side glaring at the liar with an uncertain look on her face.

He wasn’t sure what to make of it honestly everyone knew that Harumaki and Ouma hadn’t exactly gotten along so seeing her visit him was strange but it wasn’t as though Kaito was going to stop her from visiting it wasn’t like she was going to do anything bad after all.

“Hey Harumaki! Here to keep my company today?” Kaito asked taking a seat next to her. Harumaki almost jerked slightly as if she hadn’t noticed his presence until he announced himself to her which went to show how deep in thought she must have been, she almost seemed embarrassed having been caught as she played with her hair a muttered out a half hearted ‘do you want to die?” causing him to chuckle slightly to himself letting his gaze wonder over a bit to Ouma’s pod, they were all done dying, Kokichi just needed to wake up.

He wasn’t sure what to say since when he brought his gaze back to Harumaki she looked conflicted her eyes staring at some far off spot deep in thought so he let her work out whatever she wanted to say, he knew she’d tell him eventually. They sat in silence like that for a bit before she finally spoke up.

“Do you really think he’ll wake up?”

At the question Kaito found himself sitting up straighter almost defensively, “oh course he will!” if Harumaki wasn’t taken aback by the slightly the almost harsh tone of voice towards her then she was by the flicker of regret that flashed across his face.

Ouma would wake up, he had to. But with every passing day it sometimes felt harder and harder to believe that the liar would wake up. But Kaito had to believe he would someday, had to hope that Ouma would eventually get out of that pod.

He had to believe that Kaito didn’t really murder him.

With his own feelings that drove him to visit Ouma being so complex that Kaito doubted he could ever put them into words, he’d never really asked Maki on why she would sometimes sit with him in his watch over the smaller boy.

But after nearly a week or so of joining him while visiting Kokichi she did give him a brief idea.

That day had been like any other with him being slightly surprised to see Maki already watching Kokichi the same uncertain look on her face that she always did as Kaito sat down next to her simply acknowledging that today was one of the days Maki joined him.

They sat in silence for a while until Maki decided to break their routine by finally saying what had been on her mind. It was just a question, both somehow too simple and too complex for Kaito to let out more than a slightly pained noise as she asked it.

“Why didn’t he just let us die?”

The question obviously seemed to make Maki as uncomfortable asking it as Kaito felt hearing it her hair becoming increasingly unkempt as she fiddled with it, when he offered her no response she continued.

“I… I didn’t want to think about it… It was hard thinking about how easily manipulated I was and when we were told nothing was real I didn’t think it mattered you were alive and so was Ouma… It didn’t matter” Maki said as she tried to collect herself “… but he didn’t know it wasn’t real, and even if he somehow did then that means he did this to himself willingly… he let himself die at best and forced himself into a coma at worst but he didn’t need to… you were going to die anyway because of your illness but he still chose to give you the antidote… I ‘survived’ because of that” Maki’s eyes furrows before she turns her gaze to him eyes begging for answers he doesn’t have asking the same questions he can’t bring himself to ask.

“He could have just let you die and then he could have just let *me* die… why… why didn’t he?”

Kaito ran his hands down his face, feeling so, so tiered. Ouma’s unconscious body provided no answers.

“I don’t know Harumaki… I just… don’t know.”

A girl Kaito’s never seen before stands with Amami outside one of the pod room one day Amami introduces her as a classmate from his last season Kotobuki Yukari, Amami asks if Kaito has still been visiting Ouma to which Kaito responds with an ‘of course!’ and a thumbs up trying to show the same amount of certainty and charisma he was somehow capable of in the game.

The girl rolls her eyes and tells Kaito to save the jokes for his hairstyle.

Four months.

Shuichi and the others had managed to change the world and stop the killing games finally showing that they were wrong. For four months.

That’s how long it took before fans started talking about Danganronpa again, before reruns started showing and the popularity of the show began to pick up again.

That’s how long it took for the outside world to grow more and want and miss the same stimulation they had just been convinced was wrong.

Four months.

Suddenly his trips to see Kokichi now also became about trying to avoid Team Danganronpa’s employees who had been cornering them all about interviews and photo-shoots and trying to escape his own voice playing on the TV of the hospital televisions.

Kaito was popular.

In any other circumstance he’d have been happy about that statement but having people tell him how much they loved his ‘character’ left nothing but a bitter taste in his mouth.

Statements that he had once worked so hard to earn; that he was ‘inspirational’, that he was ‘heroic’ how he was able to bring out the best in everyone… it all felt like an insult.

But Kaito’s popularity, none of their popularity compared to Ouma’s, people either finding him hilarious or tragic. Theories and analysis and music and art all dedicated to the supreme leader.

Ouma’s statements about having a ten thousand subordinates might actually be an understatement if you counted his fans. Despite his loss of love from his classmates in the game Ouma Kokichi seemed to have captured the hearts of fans worldwide.

He was consistently on the top of fan favorite character lists for the fifty-third seasons despite being the only one who hadn’t appeared in a single interview or photo shoot.

In fact Ouma’s coma might have made him more popular than appearing in the public eye could make any of them, Kaito was getting the feeling that the hospital was getting overwhelmed by the constant gifts sent by fans wishing for Kokichi’s recovery.

Enough flowers to fill a green house and crates and crates of cards and panta and sweets and toys, Kaito even saw that some people had bought Ouma stars.

It was hard for those not to feel like a punch in a gut.

It had taken six months but one day on his way to visit Ouma, Kaito was met with a swarm of doctors and nurses rushing to the pod room and Kaito’s heart almost stops when he sees Shirogane’s almost worried face as there is shouting from the pod room to help stabilize the patient.

Kaito’s body seems to realize what’s happening before his body as by the time he finally realizes what’s happening hospital staff is already holding him back from trying to charge into the pod room.

He nearly punches the orderly trying to calm him down as Ouma’s screams rip through the halls of the hospital.

If Kaito hadn’t considered himself some kind of protector to Ouma than he sure as hell did now as he stood in front of Kokichi’s hospital room glaring at one of danganronpa’s representatives giving a definite ‘no Ouma wasn’t up for a camera crew to burst into his room and have an interview on the first day he’s been awake'.

It took Maki joining him to finally get the employee to back down.

“Go I’ll wait out here,” Maki mumbled playing with her hair and Kaito felt a wave of gratitude as he stepped inside Ouma’s room knowing that she’d stop any threat from coming near them.

Ouma almost looks like he’s drowning in the gifts surrounding him that fill the room, from what Kaito’s heard there are even more on the way as fans celebrate the final contestant waking up. He’s pretty sure Ouma’s made the news.

With a sigh Kaito moves a gift basket off a chair and sits down to do the same thing he’s done every day for the past six months, wait.

Kaito had been imaging what he would say to Ouma multiple times coming up with questions and speeches but all that seems to disappear and Ouma’s eyes flicker open with confusion and uncertainty somehow looking more fragile than ever.

Ouma tries to speak but gets raspy coughs for his trouble and Kaito practically falls over himself trying to give him water and reassure him before hospital staff push him out of the room.

Kaito almost feels like Kokichi’s shadow as he hovers over the other boy as he struggles to eat, struggles to walk, struggles to do most things as he seems to try and fit his utter bewilderment at everything under that mask of his.

Kokichi seems uncertain around him and practically uncomfortable around Shuichi but after Maki had blurted out an apology and Kokichi had disappeared into a room with Iruma and Gonta for a while, the shadows under his eyes seem to lessen

Kaito had felt so useless back when Kokichi had still been in his pod; he’s not sure why he thought he’d be any less useless when Kokichi woke up. It wasn’t enough that Kokichi’s body had been messed up by everything but the fact that even his mind hadn’t escaped harm stung.

Claustrophobia, Kokichi was claustrophobic now.

It almost felt wrong in a sense, Kokichi was nimble and small to squeeze into tight spaces and hide in air vents and anything else he needed to do to cause mischief and chaos, but he couldn’t do that anymore.

Because of Kaito.

They’d found out by accident, Kaito had wheeled Kokichi into the elevator with Maki and Shuichi trailing him and suddenly when the elevator doors shut Kokichi had began to breath as if he was drowning, breaths becoming quicker and more shallow until he was gasping for air Kaito completely frozen not even understanding what was happening let alone what to do.

Shuichi pauses at his side as he watches Kokichi try to scramble out of his wheelchair and fail due to his body being too weak, muscles unable to support him from lack of use, before moving to kneel beside Kokichi as the smaller boy begins to curl in on himself.

"Ouma-kun. Breathe." Shuichi commands in a voice of certainty that Kaito hasn’t heard outside of the class trials

Despite how much Kokichi seemed to pride himself in doing the opposite of what people he actually seemed to be trying to follow Shuichi’s instructions, tears springing to the corners of his eyes as the air fails to make its way into his lungs.

"I need you to count with me. Can you do that?" Shuichi asks both gently and uncertainly.

Kokichi nods and drops his head between his knees, as Shuichi is crouching in front of him gently coaxing him. "Just repeat after me. One."

Kokichi’s breathing somehow gets faster, and he shakes his head. Shuichi puts a hand on his arm. "You're okay. Come on. One."

Kokichi glares at the arm for a second as if he’s thinking about shaking it off off, but instead seems to decide on focusing on his breathing and sucks a breath in between his teeth. "One," he gets out, and the word ends up being more like four syllables, but it's a sound and it's there and Kaito somehow feels a wave of relief from such a simple number

"That's great. Keep going. Two." Shuichi encourages with a determined nod.

"T-t-two," Kokichi gasps, and then three, and four, and by the time he has counted to ten, the elevator doors have opened, Maki’s rushed out and Kokichi is breathing again.

When the hospital staff burst in Kokichi’s shaking has stopped as Shuichi steps aside and begins explaining that Kokichi had a panic attack. Kaito watches his sidekick resolve the situation and feels a familiar prickle of jealousy.

“Momota-kun are you angry at me?” Saihara asks uncertainly after Kokichi’s first attack reaching for a hat that’s no longer there. Kaito paused in shock, why the hell would Kaito be angry at Shuichi? He was the one that had managed to actually do something.

“What are you talking about?” Kaito asks in confusion as Shuichi looks down in something resembling shame.

“I- I knew Ouma-kun was having a panic attack and I, I paused for a second before helping him,” Shuichi admitted staring at the floor as what he just said sunk in.

“Oh,”

“Yeah…”

Kaito knew the moment of silence he took as he shoved down some bitter emotions was too long, was probably too worrying but Kaito needed to take a minute before collecting himself and encouraging Shuichi with a thumbs up,

“What's important is that you decided to help him,” Kaito said both for himself and Shuichi who looked both slightly relieved and still a bit nervous as they walked down the halls in silence for a few moments before Kaito spoke up again.

“...Do you think you can teach me how to do that though?”

Apparently every season of contestants living arrangements after the game follow a trend; the contestants all get one big house together, they break up into smaller groups or cliques or they all go their separate ways their memories from their respective games too painful for the reminder they give each other.

While most of them are all on some level still caught up with their various bullshit and awkwardness from the game Kaito’s glad they haven’t all gone their separate ways completely. It’s not sixteen people crammed into one house but at least everyone is paired up with someone. Except for Shirogane because fuck her.

Rantarō chose to live with that Kotobuki girl that was one of the two ‘survivors’ of the second game which Kaito can respect even if something in him still feels a bit of disappointment at being unable to tell if Amami was really part of their group or not but for now Kaito’s decided that he is, the mysterious adventurer just as messed up from the game as the rest of them especially memory wise though from what he hears that’s getting better. He’s called Kotobuki ‘Ushiromiya’ a while back and apparently that was her name in the game. She’d changed it to stay out of public eye as much as possible.

Kaito wondered if he’d ever have to change his name to deal with all the hassle Danganronpa has given him but he can’t imagine it. No matter what anyone says he’s Kaito Momota luminary of the stars!

Still Amami being in good hands and Tsumugi doing who knows what Kaito’s glad that the group is sticking together. Angie and Shingūji are weirdly enough living together, which should be a cause for concern, but Tojo is with them so she should stop them from doing anything too crazy and Iruma and Kiibo were living together with Gonta and Hoshi. Though all their houses had a spare room for Hoshi, it made him smile at the thought of the tennis player who had been convinced he had nothing to live for now had several places to call home.

Kaito would admit he’d always been a bit of a social butterfly so it shouldn’t be surprised that his group was the biggest one but for some reason he still was. Kokichi would probably make fun of him if he voiced this however but he was still reeling over how this all happened.

At first Kaito didn’t really care about living arrangements other than his plan to stick with Kokichi, those months he spent by the liar’s bedside just waiting for the smaller boy to wake up he’d promised he wasn’t going to let Kokichi crawl back in his shell. In his bad moments when physical therapy was too hard and Kokichi’s frustration of *still* not being able to walk on his own got to him the liar had accused Kaito of simply trying to ease his own guilt. That wasn’t it and he should know it but Kaito couldn’t fully blame him for thinking it, it’s just after everything that happened in the hanger leaving Kokichi alone left a pit in his stomach.

So whether the smaller boy liked it or not Kaito was sticking with him! But then it turned out that Shuichi and Harumaki wanted to stick with Kaito which he didn’t mind he’d be glad to have his sidekicks with him! But then it turned out Yumeno was coming with his sidekicks the three ‘survivors’ sticking together and Chabashira obviously followed Yumeno and Akamatsu who had grown especially close to Chabashira during their time in the hospital followed the Aikido master and that’s how the seven of them all started living together.

Not that he minded it was great but seven high-schoolers under one roof was just asking for drama he thought as he watched the awkward air between Shuichi and Akamatsu across from the kitchen.

He’d just wanted to get a cup of coffee.

They were getting better, or at least Kaito believed they were. Kokichi was walking again and though he was forcing him to take his meds and go to therapy Kokichi was gradually looking like he was more at peace with himself.

Shuichi and Akamatsu were trying to sort out their bullshit or at least the air between them wasn’t so tense.

Everyone in the house was talking more, smiling more and though interviews, and photo shoots and panels and responsibilities were something actively working against their progress they were all getting better.

At least Kaito thought so as he help Kokichi’s hand while he turned off the TV the latest character poll putting Kokichi in the number one slot once again.

The day started like any other they’re all talking, all eating breakfast and making their own plans for the day. Shuichi walked in and passed along their mail hesitantly giving Kokichi a heavy letter and everyone’s movements slow at the sight of the all too familiar logo.

They all seem to share a frown and Kokichi dramatically rolls his eyes as he reaches over and opens the envelope though Kaito spots the flicker of worry that flashes through his eyes.

After all this time Kaito’s still not sure if those rare moments are because Kokichi let’s his mask down at least a little bit around them or if Kaito’s simply gotten that good at reading the smaller boy. Maybe it was a mix of both.

He watches Kokichi’s eyes skim the letter, and then skim it again and again each time looking more and more panicked, looking more and more distressed before his face goes blank and the letter slips from his grip.

Kokichi looks seconds away from another panic attack the rest of the houses occupants are by Kokichi’s side as Kaito picks up Kokichi’s letter and reads…

Kaito would swear he felt his heart shatter.

 Dear Ouma Kokichi,

   According to the contract Ouma Kokichi, the participant of 53rd season of Danganronpa is obliged to follow the condition of participation in future Danganronpa events and as such will be required to participate in the next chapter of Danganronpa’s history.

 Team Danganronpa is pleased to inform the renewal of the series with the latest upcoming season Danganronpa Re:Birth!

 Fifth-teen participants have been chosen to take part in this season with a fan favorite from the previous season being decided to come back for this very special season of Danganronpa the survey to select the sixteenth participant took place while auditions were still being held and Team Danganronpa would like to congratulate you on listing as number one in the polls.

We are pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as the sixteenth student of the next season and we look forward to your participation.

 More information for the participants can be found below with information on the setting and general backstory of each participant’s character. Also found below is a list of Team Danganronpa recommended doctors suggested for the surgery to support your upcoming character design….

[redditnosleep]

I Ran Into My High School Sweetheart Tonight At My 10-year Reunion…The One I Married?

by ImJustC0nfused

Part 1 |  Part 2 |  Part 3 |  Part 4 (Final)

A lot has happened over the past couple of days. The local police will be on their way here shortly (they said they were going to prep and deploy a team). I explained the full story to them over the phone, and they took a statement. This is sort of strange, but I got the impression that they were expecting my call. They asked all the right questions, and didn’t seem all that surprised..

Since this isn't exactly an emergency (i.e. crime in progress), I should have a bit of time to share the details. I cannot tell you how relieved I am that they're taking this seriously. I should have involved them sooner. I’m typing as fast as I can here. I'll hurry and explain the events that lead up to now.

After my last update at 3:00am the other morning, I was planning to take the kids and get out as quickly as possible. Without hesitating, I went straight for their room to grab them (they share a room). But, they weren’t there. How could that be?

I panicked, and by this point I was running room to room. I went back to mine and Stacy's room to check if Stacy was still there. She too was gone.

The kids were gone. Stacy was gone. Everybody was gone.

This was looking really bad. I should have taken them sooner. Why didn’t I take them and go as soon as I read the document?

She must have already been gone by the time I got up at 3:00am to look for the note. Did she ever even come to bed that night? How did I not notice?

I decided it would be safest for me to leave and spend the rest of the night in a hotel. I parked my car across the street in a small shopping plaza, and walked across to the hotel. I hoped that would give me a bit of cover if she went looking for my car.

I texted the number back the next morning

Me: I found the document, and I read it.

619-xxx-xxxx: That was my mother and I.

619-xxx-xxxx: Take the kids, get out now. If your wife suspects anything things are going to get bad.

Me: Stacy took them. I don't know where they went.

619-xxx-xxxx: What?

Me: I found the envelope on Monday. Stacy must have found it when I was asleep and took off.

619-xxx-xxxx: I told you to text me immediately once you had it.

619-xxx-xxxx: This is really bad. I need you to meet me now. There's a dirt road behind the theater (left side). Drive down it, and I'll be there waiting.

I met with her, and we talked. I’m positive she is the real Stacy. This was when I decided it was time to involve the police. I need to find my kids.

Stacy explained everything in person: She had a stalker in college (in California). The report from my previous post was in fact about her and her mother. Her mother was killed in the accident, but she survived (she was seriously injured though). After the accident she was put into the Witness Protection Program. Her new identity was "Beth." She had a new life and she was living somewhere completely under the radar. Things were going well. She was happy. Or, as happy as she could be, given the circumstances.

She was even on Facebook - though, she wasn't using her real name, nor was she using a real picture. And of course nobody knew it was actually her. She eventually became “friends” with several old classmates so she could stay somewhat in the loop on how everybody's lives were turning out. She said she was living vicariously through classmates who were dumb enough to accept a friend request from someone they didn't even know. It was a guilty pleasure. This was obviously against the rules of the Witness Protection Program, but she figured it was harmless as long as she just observed and always used fake information.

As our 10-year reunion approached, she saw a Facebook group created for our class that several prior classmates were joining. In a moment of weakness (or stupidity), she said she broke down and sent a friend request to me after seeing that I was in the group (up until then, she made it a point to never look me up for her safety and for mine). Anyway - I guess I was one of the people dumb enough to add someone I didn't know.

She checked out my profile, and was completely dumbfounded when she saw that I was married... to her. That was when she knew she had no choice but to get in contact with me. Even if it meant risking her own life and breaking every rule in the book when it came to the Program.

She had to do it soon, and it had to be in person. The reunion seemed like the perfect time and place.

Anyway, the reality is, she doesn't know who my wife is, and neither do I at this point. Nor do we know why she is doing this. Stacy suspects that it may be the same person that stalked her ~10 years ago, which is absolutely terrifying to me. How could I not notice? Did my actual memories of Stacy fade, only to be replaced with the memories of someone else, whom I was convinced was Stacy… making all of this possible?

Side note... I just got a text from Stacy, as I was typing this:

619-xxx-xxxx: Steven, I forgot to tell you one last piece. I'm outside the hotel you're staying at. Come outside for a sec and I'll explain.

Me: How did you know where I was staying?

JESUS WHAT IS HAPPENING. It's the police. They are banging on the door. But I'm the one that called them. This is crazy. Not sure what’s going on. It has to be a misunderstanding. Posting this now, just in case.

*UPDATE: * Hello, Reddit. This is Andrea... or as you probably know me, "Stacy," Steven’s wife. I've been following along myself. Gripping story, huh? That's all it'll ever be. A story.

Steven was the love of my life. We dated as freshmen in college, and I would have done anything for him. Even after Stacy was long gone and off in California not thinking about him, he still talked about her. I knew I'd never have him to myself. She left him! She didn’t want him. I was there for him. It wasn’t fair. He eventually broke up with me because he missed Stacy. He wanted to be with her. She didn’t even realize, nor did she care.

So, I did what any reasonable person would do in that situation. I became Stacy. You have no idea how easy it was. I found Stacy on Facebook. I went to California and I watched her every move. I laughed like she did. I talked like she did. I smelled like she did. After finally mastering all that was Stacy, I knew that still wouldn’t be enough. I went further.

With the right documents, a pretty smile, a bit of cash (and 19 times under the knife) I could have whatever my heart’s desire. America the beautiful.

The procedures were grueling. But in the end, God was it worth it.

I digress, back to today’s events. His laptop was open, so I went ahead and took the liberty of picking up where he left off. I had to finish the story so you wouldn't be left wondering what happened. That is, had the story not all been a “delusion.”

When I left the house that night after finding the note, I immediately contacted the local police. I have indeed been lurking, so I told the story just like he told it. I showed them pictures of “us” dating all of the way back to our high school years. Even I’m surprised how easy it was to sell his “delusions” as his concerned wife.

To them, his schizophrenia diagnosis was apparent. “We see it all the time,” they said. The story was incredulous. He was clearly a threat to me, and to our children.

I told them he would be calling, and I was right. All I had to do was set the stage.

As for Stacy (err.. Beth) well. Unlike the first time she went into hiding, this time she won’t be seen again. Steven is gone. I had him 304’d (involuntarily committed to a mental facility). Serves him right for choosing Stacy over me a second time. Either way…he'll now get the treatment he so desperately needs and deserves. Only the best for my Steven.

Anyway, the kids want to go out for ice cream. This is /u/ImJustC0nfused signing off. I guess things weren't so perfect, after all.

[macdennisofficial]

Is Dennis Going to Become the Bar?

While there are a lot of good theories floating around, I’m disappointed in the lack of discussion on this one in particular. I know what you’re thinking: Dennis, becoming the bar? That sounds like something from science fiction! This isn’t science fiction! Au contraire, mes amis. According to The Gang Turns Black (E01S12) It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia takes place in the same universe as Quantum Leap. And what genre was Quantum Leap? That’s right: science fiction.

While first I was reluctant to accept this reality (I’ve never been much of a fan of crossovers, tbh) I cannot ignore the fact that even upon waking, Old Black Man looked into the mirror to see Sam’s reflection in the mirror. It was only in his dream that Quantum Leap was a dream, and he was Scott Bakula. Extradiegetically, this is done because we, the audience, know of the show Quantum Leap starring Scott Bakula. Intradiegetically, however, the explanation is that Sam, tired of having leapt since the late eighties, simply dreamed that his life was a TV show and he was an actor name Scott Bakula. Given that Sam’s name is Sam Beckett, clearly he just gave himself a name that had his same initials. This is why, despite him saying Quantum Leap was a TV show, he sings for Ziggy to leap him elsewhere because he knows that, despite dreaming, his reality is that he’s still leaping. In the show Quantum Leap, we “saw” Sam because we, the audience, needed to see the actor, and he saw the reflection of the person he was leaping inside; however, it was necessary to flip the roles of reflection law so that we, the audience, would fully grasp that OBM was actually Sam Beckett. Now, why else would they go out of their way to show Always Sunny does take place in the same universe as Quantum Leap unless was important to the narrative?

Seeing as it’s been established that Quantum Leap and Doctor Who also share a universe (no seriously, here is the source: x) then Always Sunny is also connected to Doctor Who. Inanimate objects have souls (uh, the tardis most notably, although I do remember the time Moaning Myrtle became a cement block) so it’s not outside the realm of canon possibility. We also have to remember that, in Doctor Who lore, every individual human has psychic auras, some more powerful than others. So now that we’ve covered that Always Sunny is science fiction, let’s move on to the real meat of the theory: Dennis will become the bar; a disembodied voice that knows all, etc. Throughout the series, Dennis has referred to himself as a God.

Here we see Dennis emphatically insisting he is The Golden God in The High School Reunion pt 2 (E13S07) although it is not the first time he said it that episode: he had proclaimed it in from of his high school alumni moments earlier.

And here, again, we see Dennis stating while hallucinating in a sensory deprivation chamber in Charlie Rules the World (E08S08) when emotionally conflicted over the Gang becoming more invested in a game than him. That’s not even taking into account that Dennis did start a cult, in which he claimed to be the Supreme Leader during Asskickers United: Mac and Charlie Join a Cult. (E10S10). Am I suggesting that Dennis literally knew he was a God? No, though he would state otherwise. I am merely suggesting that RCG has been foreshadowing for years that Dennis would, eventually, become the Bar, which is as close to a God the show has. The bar, itself, is a character; one that Dennis, by all rights, owns. He bought it with Mac, though let’s be real, Dennis was the one who paid for most, if not all, of it, and Mac being is co-owner was something Dennis allowed as Mac is his best friend. If anyone owns the bar, it’s him; he is also the one who has been most insistent on the bar being financially successful, as noted heavily in The Gang Tends Bar (E08S12). Even if they signed over the bar to Frank, we all know Dennis is the true, original owner, and the one most emotionally dependent on it. I’ll take this time to include Mac into this theory. Everyone knows that out of the Gang, Mac is the most religious, and is heavily into Catholicism (even if he doesn’t always know what the fuck he’s talking about) and is very worshipful of the Lord. There is someone else, though, that occupies Mac’s thoughts and emotions though, isn’t there? Someone who he could be said to worship? Someone he stares at in awe? Someone he dreams about? A relationship in which he puts “so much of my heart and soul?” That person is, naturally, Dennis. Could this also be foreshadowing of Dennis’ true nature--that of a God? A Golden God? In The Gang Goes to Hell pt 1, any time a member of the Gang does something, an Act of God occurs; when Mac was being homophobic, thunder boomed. Lightning crashed when Dennis was being ultra creepy with that nineteen year old girl. A bird shit in Dee’s mouth when she explained her Insinuation. The boat sank when Mac denounced God, although when he prayed they were miraculously saved. In Hero or Hate Crime, Mac was rewarded only after he came out of the closet. Almost as though, using these two episodes, there is some form of omnipotent presence rewarding them for good behaviour (and punishing them for shitty behaviour; there is a reason why their lives so often turn to shit). In Doctor Who, it is stated that while the Doctor does not believe in Gods or Devils, he believes that there are alien species at the root of those myths; perhaps there is some form of God watching over them? A . . . Golden God? Hear me out: in Dennis’ Double Life, Dennis is faced with the decision to move to North Dakota to be a Good Father for his child or stay behind with the Gang. Now, we all know that Dennis is a dick and incapable of being a decent father. Please, he taught a young woman how to con the shit out of people. Is that Father of the Year material? No. Given that he enlists the Gang for help out of the “being a dad” jam, he clearly doesn’t want to leave, either. When all the plans fail (including faking his death via gunshot) he comes to the realization that perhaps it’s meant to be, him leaving. Perhaps he’s not meant to stay. So he leaves. The Gang, whether from celebration (due to him insulting each of them more viciously, whether out of him wanting to push them away or because he genuinely is angry) or trying to prevent him from going (because they love the dynamic he brings to the Gang) they blow up the car . . . and accidentally Dennis along with it. He’s dead now, but furthermore, his body has been burnt to shit. It makes more sense, then, that instead of a burial, they’ll have him cremated. We all know what the Gang does to the ashes of cremated dead people.

If they dumped Country Mac’s ashes in Mac Day (E05S09) then it’s safe to say they would do the same for Dennis, who has an emotional connection to the bar anyway. And then . . . Dennis becomes the bar. His soul ascends into Godhood, as he was meant to all along. This is his Purpose. He can now see all that is, was, and ever will be . . . for all those who are important to Paddy’s Pub (Him). He becomes the Paddy’s Pub Entity . . . creating a looped ontological paradox, similar to Bad Wolf in Doctor Who. Hell, even Quantum Leap was a time travel show. Dennis, therefore, was the Golden God looking out for the Gang since he bought it. He was the one punishing the Gang when they committed wrongdoing and rewarding them for being good. When Charlie straight up huffed bleach and ammonia and didn’t die? That was Dennis. Rewarding Mac for coming out? Dennis. Not only will he become Paddy’s Pub, but he has always been Paddy’s Pub. He has always been the Golden God he said he was. This was his purpose all along.