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a-duck-with-a-book · 4 years ago

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REVIEW // Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle, #1) by Jay Kristoff

★☆☆☆☆

So I’m very late to the party, but I just finished reading Nevernight by Jay Kristoff I had such high hopes for this series based off of what people recommending it had told me and what I read about it before picking up. Dark fantasy? Check. Strong leading lady? I’m here for it. Gays? It’s literally my only personality trait. Sign me up. Unfortunately, this book fell flat in all those categories. It reminded me a lot of Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass, which made me take one point off of to begin with simply for making me think of Maas’s writing. Overall, I just found the book to be too predictable, with bad writing, exposition, and pacing, and too many parts that just made me ~uncomfortable~.

In case you are not familiar with this novel, Nevernight tells the story of Mia Corvere, a girl who lost her family when she was a child after her father was convicted of treason. When the book begins, she is 16 years old and embarking on a journey to join the Red Church, a school for assassins, so that she may one day be able to avenge her father’s death. Along the way she meets a bunch of forgettable characters whose names I can’t be bothered to remember and is taught by the most fearsome killers in the Republic. Here she gains many valuable skills, like how to survive being poisoned, how to fight, and how to get big boobs.

+ Side note: by chapter 3 three I started picturing Mia as the crow guy from RWBY and I could not shake that for the rest of the book

I had many issues with this novel that I will try to summarize in some sort of coherent fashion, but to be honest this book sucked the will to live out of me so I don’t know how much energy I can put into this review.

// image: official cover art by Jason Chan //

FOOTNOTES

The footnotes were probably the most jarring element of the book for me, and, unfortunately, there’s a lot of them. Their function seems to be twofold:

they are the form of most of the world-building, explaining several customs, the history of the institutions and peoples Mia meets, and the mythology followed by the people of the Republic.

they allow for the narrator of our story to interrupt with comical one-liners or cryptic foreshadowing

In my humble opinion, both of these are unnecessary and stupid. The interruptions come off as crass and immature and make the other more textbook, boring exposition come off as a joke, especially when it is dealing with sensitive or serious topics. There is one that explains this brothel called the Seven Flavors, which the footnote explains refer to “Boy, Girl, Man, Woman, Pig, Horse, and, if sufficient notice and coin was given, Corpse.” Now, on its own, this passing mention of pedophilia, bestiality, and necrophilia could very well contribute to the world building and tone of the novel, but when placed side by side with the childish, joking tone of the “cue the violiiiiiiiins” or, regarding the acoustics of a room, “…they were, as it happens, exceptional. Falalalalalalaaaaaaaa”, come off as way too light-hearted for the topic at hand. Maybe I’m being way too sensitive, but I’m pretty tired of authors using serious topics as off-hand remarks as a lazy way to make their world daker and grittier. Plus, these footnotes were just so incredibly cringy that I would recoil from second-hand embarrassment every time. They resemble the things I wrote when I was 14 and trying (and miserably failing) to be funny. Also… there are way too many of them. While at first I appreciated the attempt to deepen the lore of the story (I’m a sucker for world-building), after a while it became evident that the author was just forcing information down our throats without taking the time to actually weave the lore and background into the story itself. It came off as a very lazy way to force exposition.

OVERLY FLOWERY LANGUAGE

This story is BRIMMING with similes and metaphors, like every other sentence is some overly complicated way to describe something that could have been presented in three words. When you include so many metaphors/similes/etc., they begin to lose power. They should allow the reader to extrapolate more meaning and emotion from a sentence, but if the book is bursting at the seams with them, they become increasingly ordinary, to the point of losing all of their luster. One prime example appears on page 30:

“It was a bucktoothed little shithole, and no mistake. Not the most miserable building in all creation. [here there is a footnote about some other inn/brothel] But if the inn were a man and you stumbled into him in a bar, you’d be forgiven for assuming he had—after agreeing enthusiastically to his wife’s request to bring another woman into their marriage bed—discovered his bride making up a pallet for him in the guest room.”

So first of all what the fuck is that supposed to mean? That whole paragraph is a fever dream. Let’s begin with “bucktoothed little shithole”. Bucktoothed? Really? What does that mean. Please, someone explain to be right now what a bucktoothed building is. Is it uneven? Is it awkward? Is it half-finished? Is one side longer than the other? Did they do a bad paint job that only covers on side? Are the windows askew? Is the door too big for its frame? We already know from the paragraph above that it is “disheveled” as well, so why the need for another weird phrasing of its appearance? We then move on to that whole JOURNEY of a sentence, where the inn is compared to a man being cuckolded. That is the most insane tale-can you imagine running into someone in a bar and that story being the VERY FIRST thing that runs through your mind??? I know I’m focusing way too much on this stupid paragraph, but basically what I am trying to get at is that even though we spend half a page talking about how bucktoothed and disheveled and cuckolded this building is, we get no actual physical description of it. Imagine if Kristoff had just written that it was a run-down, ill-kept building that looked as worse for wear as its owner did. Done, one sentence. Great. Let’s move on. Instead, we spend so long reading these absolutely batshit descriptions that ultimately tell us next to nothing. Flowery language is placed over actual context. You may think that a description this long and complex means that this inn is a significant or recurring setting in the novel. Nope. It’s not. Mia leaves and that’s that. The reason that I’m focusing so much on this objectively irrelevant paragraph is because it is so representative of the biggest issue I have with the writing in this book. There are so many unnecessary comparisons that function only to make the author feel clever rather than add anything to the story at all. It’s very à la 2010s Tumblr.

THE (IN MY OPINION, BAD) WRITING

For the first half of the book, we are constantly being TOLD things rather than being SHOWN things. With the exception of one of the teachers cutting off Mia’s arm, we rarely see the ruthlessness that the assassins are so feared for, but we hear about it in nearly every other sentence Where are the consequences? I think this book would have been way more enjoyable if there were actually consequences to the characters’ actions. The inclusion of the weaver and the weird vampire guy completely remove any tension regarding the fate of the central cast. When Mia had her arm chopped off, I was shocked, and pleasantly surprised. How was she going to overcome this unexpected obstacle in her training? Then a couple pages later, its reattached with absolutely no lasting consequences. All of the initial tension and shock value of the loss of Mia’s arm is entirely removed because of the two incest-y siblings. Their entire purpose for existing is just to undo all damage to the main characters. Then suddenly, out of the blue, Mia is willing to take on a ton of consequences and completely throw away her chance at becoming initiated in order to avenge her family just to save Tric from receiving like one punishment??? Like why?? As an aside, the only moment I truly enjoyed was when Ash fucking stabbed Tric to death. I assume that when the reader’s favorite moment is one of the central characters’ death, it does not bode well for their reception of the book.

THE THEMES

TW: rape-y subjects

The author seemed a little too keen to include rape and sexual assault in his story. Mia withdrew her consent in the sex scene in the very first chapter, and even if you read it as consensual (which I do not), it is described as incredibly unpleasant on her end. Tric is the result of a rape, which is brought up several times throughout the story. Further, Mia is constantly facing harassment from men. I understand that this is frames the idea that the world she lives in is misogynistic and ruthless, but there are other ways to push that idea through other than constantly putting in her in those situations. As in, this didn’t need to be the ONLY way we explored this subject. Beyond the uncomfortable propensity for sexual assault, I also very much disliked the sexualization of the 16-year-old main character. Oh. My. Gosh. Mia is CONSTANTLY sexualized. Every single damn character makes comments about her body, how hot she is, how much sex she potentially has. It is so weird and uncomfortable. I feel the need to reiterate that she is SIXTEEN. There is, however, a focus placed on the power Mia can gain from seducing her targets. Girl power? Not to me, really. The issue I have with this is the idea that a woman has to be overtly sexual in order to be considered powerful. This is something that we can see in many female assassins and supposedly powerful female characters in fiction (like Black Widow) especially those written by men. Now, there is nothing wrong with using one’s sexuality as a weapon, and I’m certainly not saying that a strong female character cannot be sexual, but the idea that a sixteen-year-old girl is shown having her body painfully modified tp be more desirable, and in a graphic sex scene with another character, in order to for the reader to read her as liberated and powerful does not sit well with me. I don’t really feel like this aspect of her training should be relevant to the overall story. I wish the time that Kristoff had dedicated to hammering into our heads that Mia is a femme fatale to developing her Darkin powers instead. The way she is written now feels more like she is a faux strong female character written for a male audience.

Secondly, Mia is fully written as “the plain-girl-who-is-actually-pretty”. This whole trope bothers me IMMENSELY. YA is full of girls who are described as plain, forgettable, or ugly while their physical descriptions are just the dictionary definition of conventionally attractive. It seems like a way to market off of girls’ self-consciousness while still being able to market the main character as a hot heroine in official art. And there is, of course, the issue of Mia’s boob job Readwithcindy (just “withcindy” now!) did a whole video about this so I won’t get into it much just to repeat what she already said, but I agree that the idea of a 30-something year old man including this completely unnecessary detail regarding the sexualization of teenage girl, who we have ALREADY seen in a rape and being sexualized by other men in the story, made me really, really, uncomfortable. I highly recommend you go watch her video, as she touches on this in way more detail. [Cindy's video

RATINGS

Worldbuilding: ★★☆☆☆

A lot of thought obviously went into the world-the mythology, society, and politics are well-thought out. But the way they are introduced is annoying and bland. It seems like the author put a lot of effort into constructing this world but realized a lot of it would be left out of the book, so he crammed it into footnotes instead.

Tone and writing style: ★☆☆☆☆ for first half, ★★★☆☆ for second half

The tone of the first half is all over the place, like it doesn’t know if it should be dark and gritty or comical and immature. Footnotes and character dialogue ranges from lighthearted and crass to seeped with themes of torture and sexual assault. It is jarring, to say the least, and often feels like the author doesn’t take these ideas of rape or violence seriously. There are so many instances where the scene is tense or gritty, and Kristoff is actually writing it pretty well, I’m enthralled and on the edge of my seat, and then Mia or some other character (or the footnotes) throw in some stupid comment or make the same “Mia is such an asshole lol” joke for the billionth time and completely ruin the mood of that scene. The second half of the book moved much faster and was helped with way better writing, but it really did not do enough to make up for the horrendous structure of the first half of the book.

Pacing and structure: ★☆☆☆☆

The first half of the book really drags on. Once we arrive at the school, there are constant jumps in timeline, marked with periods when a thousand things happen all at once and the plot moves forward at a dizzying rate, and others when the characters just seem to be going about their daily lessons.

Concept: ★★★☆☆

I found the overall idea of the books to be very interesting, even though it is certainly not the most original or unique concept for a YA fantasy book. The issue is that the potential is squandered with a poor execution.

Characters: ★☆☆☆☆

I truly did not care about any of the characters. The token mean girl, the bumbling nice-guy-who-is-definitely-the-love-interest. too many of the characters just sat nicely within their tropes, doing nothing much to pique my interests. I think my favorite overall was Mister Kindly.

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gamer2002 · 4 years ago

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Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair - Review2002

Super Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair is a sequel to Danganronpa that focuses on a new cast that, this time around, is trapped on a tropical island. The game is an improvement when it comes to writing, mechanics (mostly), characters, and executing own premise. It’s pretty much a perfect sequel that is a genuinely good game.

Like in the first game, we have a set of cases where one of participants of the killing game commits murder and tries to frame somebody else for their crime. This time around, our main character is Hajime Hinata, who doesn’t remember his own Ultimate Talent. Hajime is much better main character than Makoto, not just because of an intriguing mystery about him, but also because of being a better character with a better story. Sure, since Makoto was a painfully generic goodie-goodie, it isn’t saying much. And, Hajime isn’t really an outstanding character. But he is relatable, sympathetic, and funny, as the only sane man in the cast. He does a good job as a protagonist, while going through his own journey. He actually experiences far more hardship and Despair™ than Makoto did in his game. Which is why, at the end, you really want the guy to overcome it.

The gameplay also has improved, mostly. I like new blue statements in the Nonstop Debate. I like new trial minigames, though Rebuttal Showdown is more a neat idea than a good execution (you can’t really focus on what the characters are saying). I like that now, from the start, there is some logic element in the rhythm minigame. The so-called Improved Hangman’s Gambit is an overcomplex crap, though.

Outside of trials, the game also has improved acquiring new skills. Now you gather skill points from Free Time events, and you can spend them on buying available skills from a list. You can also unlock characters’ skills, by maxing out their Free Time events. It’s a much better system that gives you more control over gaining new skills. And you also have more control when it comes to getting presents, as you can buy few from a vendor machine, or spend coins on rolling random ones. Acquiring coins is also improved. Now you don’t need to examine same locations all over again, you just hunt hidden Monokumas. You can also get coins from taking care of Tamagotchi.

Music is pretty much the same, with just few new tracks. Island is much more interesting environment than the school. Direction is also more interesting during the trials. And also, we have better characters, but I will elaborate on that later on. There is still meme writing with hope and despair, but it is twisted into something far more interesting.

There are flaws, tho. I say that finale, while it had great last third, was exposition-heavy and also was relying on pretty heavy retcons. The world lore is expanded on, but is pretty unimpressive. But I still say - it’s a good game. A ridiculously animu edgy shonen that relies on selling underage waifus and a shock value, which can be not to your tastes, but a good one. The previous game was just fun, which means that you could enjoy it despite its flaws. The sequel fixes quite a lot of flaws, and also improves its strengths. And one of such strengths is its set up that allows to experience brutal treatment of likable kids. Yeah, the kids actually earn that they can be called likable, this time around.

It is an 8/10 game, even though I maybe should have given it a half point lower. I enjoyed it a lot more than the original, and also was more moved by it. I think that sequels that strive to improve the series deserve recognition.

But now, to expand on my review, I’m going to tell more why Danganronpa 2 gives us better cast than the first game, and why it is such a good sequel. In the spoiler section, I’ll be focusing on the new, much better, villain, and expand my thoughts on the game’s finale. So, let’s start with the characters…

Prepare them likable before the slaughter

In this game Danganronpa finds its strength as a series, which lies in its set up that allows building up likable characters, before brutally killing them off. While the new cast is still is mostly a bunch of two dimensional ridiculous stereotypes, they are more likable and useful to the player. Because they actually try to be.

The first cast wasn’t really good at giving us reasons to like or respect them, with two or three exceptions. Especially if you didn’t happen to make free time events with them. Most treated Makoto like a pushover (albeit deservingly), or plainly neutral at best. The motives, while understandable, were just realistically understandable, not sympathetic. Most of those that didn’t end up being killers still mostly focused on self-survival than improving anybody’s else situation. It wasn’t a group of people you’d be happy to live with, let alone be locked with. It wasn’t even much of a group. Even in the final case, after everything that survivors went through, Monokuma still could make them turn against one another with a rather unimpressive trick. While it’s realistic that kids in such situation would be self-centered, even if they didn’t end up becoming killers, such characters’ deaths rather can’t make you feel devastated. Not you can feel glad over their survival. Even if you happened to like their personalities, which is subjective anyway.

Hajime has better relationships with his cast. Only Fuyuhiko and Hiyoko (after her personality has shifted from killer of little animals into a foulmouthed shortie) ever treated him like crap, but they were like that towards everyone. And one of them had proper character development. Everyone else was neutral towards Hajime at worst, not best. One character has noticed Hajime’s reliability, and asked him for help with keeping security of others. Other character wanted to watch girls on the beach with him. I also don’t remember the first cast to mourn the deceased ones as much as the second cast does. Neither I remember them trying much to be supportive to those that were feeling down. The motives that are meant to be understandable are also more sympathetic, so even the killers are more likable.

And the usefulness? Let’s do a spoiler-free comparison of both first cases. In the first game, everyone, but one person, falls for the set up that framed Makoto. During the investigation, aside from the most reliable person in the cast, nobody really was much of any help, excluding one person witnessing something helpful. During the trial, Makoto had just one ally to count on, until he managed to clear himself from wrongful suspicion. But even afterwards, the trial was still carried by just two people. It doesn’t help the mystery wasn’t really complex.

The second game? The situation isn’t better just because nobody is wrongfully accusing Hajime. Excluding the two smartest characters in the cast, three Ultimates use their talents during the investigation, and each provides us with useful information. There are also two others that were screwing around, but still accidentally allowed us to learn something of use. During the trial, everyone tried to be involved, and just one character was briefly idiotic about it. Other than that, mistakes happened, but they were understandable due to the crime’s complexity.

The difference in the first impression is pretty self-evident, and that was just the start. Needless to say, 2nd game’s emotional peak is higher than the 1st game’s. Actually, more disturbing and sad things are happening in the 2nd game. And that’s where Danganronpa can shine. While this game can turn people off for being a ridiculous animu nonsense, when you get past that, you do get likable and pretty useful characters that experience terrible things. This is what this series has to offer, with the writers realizing that in their second game. Because, let’s face it, most of the first game’s cast were either caricatures, or had no proper chance to shine.

But this game isn’t just what the first game should have been. It is also what its sequel should be.

How to sequel

There are three kinds of sequel: betrayals, cash-ins, and genuinely good ones. Danganronpa 2 is the last one. An example of a cash-in sequel is second Ace Attorney game, Ace Attorney: Justice For All, which is my least favorite game in the series.

JFA is pretty much everything you’d expect from an Ace Attorney sequel, and that’s simply not good enough. While it’s always nice to be able to follow the story further, long-runners are popular for a reason, good sequels are more than that. They are supposed to do more than just deliver another set of cases that are rather similar to the previous game. They are supposed to give us a better rival than just watered down amalgam of previous ones, but with boobs and a whip. Expansions are more of the same, sequels are meant to have a game-changing aspect to them. And it’s not supposed to be only used as the final case’s main gimmick. An example of good sequel is Virtue Last Reward, because it uses the concept introduced as a final twist of 999, as the core element of the game. Even Zero Time Dilemma, the disappointing finale of the trilogy, does add an interesting twist to said concept.

Danganronpa 2 is a good sequel because it improves a lot from the previous entry. The main character actually has an interesting story that isn’t just “an optimistic guy tries to remain optimistic, so he does”. A new setting allows for more different murder mystery set-ups. Ultimate Talents are frequently used during crimes and investigations. And, like I’ve said earlier, many game mechanics are improved. And there is also a game-changer.

Years before Among Us becoming popular, I was playing with my friends Battlestar Galactica board game, which is also about managing a space ship with a traitor, known as Cylon, among us (hah). In a way, Danganronpa series is similar to those games, with a killer being a hidden withing the group traitor, that will doom everyone, if remains undetected. Anyway, an expansion to Battlestar added new characters, new environment, and also a game-changer – Cylon Leader, a character that is a known Cylon, but at the same time may be not, due to own mysterious agenda. While regular Cylon players wins when Battlestar Galactica is destroyed, and human players win when they reach their destination, Cylon Leader player was a wild card. At the start of the game, Cylon Leader randomly draws its own secret victory condition. And it not only could go either way, but also had special requirements. A Cylon Leader could want Cylons to win, but only after specific game phase. A Cylon Leader could want humans to win, but only after specific losses of resources. Other players didn’t know Cylon Leader’s exact agenda, only that he could shift sides depending on situation.

That being said, Cylon Leader was a controversial addition to the game, and not every fan liked it. But regardless, it was a game-changer. Which is what Danganronpa 2 offer, by quickly introducing its own Cylon Leader. But that’s for the spoiler section.

The superiority of Hope Man over Despair Thot

Nagito Komaeda is a superior villain to Junko, and this is simply an objective fact. Like you could tell from previous paragraph, he is this game’s Cylon Leader.

When I started the sequel, I’ve already been spoiled that Nagito is a psycho. What I expected was him being the sequel’s hidden in the plain sight Junko, a nice guy that befriends us just to be revealed as the mastermind in the finale. Well, I was wrong about that. In the very first case, Nagito tries to kill somebody, but this is all part of his plan to drive somebody else to murder, because he has no interest in his own survival. The killer was executed, but Nagito remained, declaring own readiness to aid anybody who wants to kill him and escape, at the cost of everyone else. And this put the new cast in a situation the old cast never was.

Some people say that Nagito has Byakuya‘s role from the previous game. But Byakuya was just openly outspoken about wanting to accomplish what every other killer wanted, until he was hit with character development, before delivering anything as an antagonist. Fuyuhiko is more similar to Byakuya. Meanwhile, Nagito delivers, first early, and then later on, after his character development goes wrong, orchestrating the most twisted and personally devastating crime in both games. He successfully forces us to sacrifice the Ultimate Gamer Waifu, how can you get more personal than that?!

But doing twisted and devastating stuff is what Junko is all about, so what makes Nagito better? First of all, even though he has literal good luck superpower, he doesn’t pull things out of his ass. Nagito doesn’t have Junko’s unexplained endless resources, he just finds opportunities in what is available to everyone. Even in case 5, where he has ton of crazy tools, we know that he obtained them during case 4.

Nagito also does have his twisted philosophy. For Pate’s sake, Junko herself admits that causing despair is nothing more than main characteristic of her one-dimensional character. He also does have a past (if you complete his Free Time event), even if it is the Joker-style multiple choices of past. Maybe he lied to Hajime about being terminally ill. Maybe he lied about lying, to motivate Hajime into killing him and escaping. The game never tell us, and this makes it more fascinating.

There are also opinions that Nagito ultimately plays into hand of Junko, nearly delivering her 15 bodies to control. I don’t agree with that. In the event of Chiaki being the sole survivor of her trial, she wouldn’t have a reason nor intention to graduate and allow Junko to take over bodies of the deceased. Neither Makoto and co. would have a reason anymore to risk themselves getting trapped in virtual world. Wrong and twisted as it was, Nagito plan would’ve neutralized Junko, forever trapping her with Chiaki in her virtual prison.

In the end, Nagito is a highly dangerous enemy, a highly useful ally, and a highly unpredictable wild card. He is an interesting character and he actively makes the game more interesting. Did I mention the sequel has Junko again and it is same old, same old? Ok, Junko/Monokum is slightly better now, but she still has many of her old issues.

The good and bad things about the finale

Overall, I liked the finale better than the first game’s, but it had some issues. One problem is that the investigation is an lazy exposition dumb. The first game was better at handling its revelations during its final investigation, as we were receiving more vague clues, not fucking walls of text. Not to mention, there were emotional moments, like Kyoko visiting her father’s office. Here, we are hit with a wall of text after wall of text, and there isn’t any meaningful scene. The only exception was meeting Alter Ego and receiving message from Makoto, but that was it. And those weren’t really strong scenes. The final investigation of the first game did much better job at handling its reveals. Even the final trial was better in the original, until the confrontation with Junko.

Also, retcons. The sequel wants us to believe that Junko, who was easily defeated, was constantly screwing herself over, and whose successes at driving people to murder were more attributed to weak opposition than anything, was the one responsible for the world’s collapse. When I played the first game, I saw Junko as a part of Ultimate Despair, whose task was to infiltrate Hope Peak Academy and broadcast a killing game to lure the groups’ opposition. A high and mighty Doctor No that only works for SPECTRE. But her being a manipulative genius that has turned the entire cast into her devotes? Have you seen her doing that in the first game? Where she could left Aoi devastated and resentful towards everyone, after the 4th trial, but she blew it so hard that fucking Byakuya had a change of heart? Where she was ultimately beaten by Makoto like it was nothing? Please.

That being said, Junko/Monokuma are better in this. Because the game is set in simulation, there is no problem with Junko being able to do whatever. Because the cast has stronger morality than the previous one, she does have to be more cunning with driving them to murder. Junko also sticks better to the rules, even if she is forced to. Her plan and the final dilemma she has for the cast is also actually a good one. But that actually wasn’t Junko anyway, just Junko-based Alter Ego. If I was writing this, I wouldn’t try to retcon a turd villain into something she never had been, I’d just state that Hajime/Izuru was behind everything in the first game and he has used Alter Ego to recreate Junko and lure Makoto and co.

One last complaint about the finale I have is that they retcon Kyoko’s father into a doctor Mengele, without her even reacting to it. The twist itself with the Academy fucking over Hajime was good, but they shouldn’t just carelessly (and without noticing it) turn a character that wasn’t evil, but good-intentional albeit flawed, into a monster that was experimenting on children. Or, at best, a detective family’s failure that had no idea what was happening in the Academy he was running.

After all that complaining, what is good about the finale? Well, things have slowly picked up since it was revealed that Monokuma/Junko wanted the cast to graduate. Everything related to Hajime was also good. The dude really went through a lot, starting from doubts about his lost talent and Nagito’s betrayal, through the revelation that he never had any talent and the loss of Chiaki, up to learning that the Academy has altered his very identity. The idea of everyone from the cast being part of Ultimate Despair was also a good twist, a much better one than “lol, the world is already destroyed”.

Besides that, the last moments of the game have masterfully used gameplay for storytelling. Movies and books can make us feel two things – pain or pleasure. Alternating between those is how stories have impactful twist and turns, causing them to be engaging. But in video games, we can experience a spectrum of feelings that other mediums cannot provide. In games, we can also feel power or powerlessness. And the game’s final gameplay segments put us at start in a state of powerlessness, in form of a choice between bad and worse, then letting us slowly regain power, culminating in a satisfying beat-down of helpless Junko. The point of that section of the game was death and rebirth of Hajime into SSJ Chadiyan, and the game makes you experience all of it.

Also, unlike the previous game, this one makes a proper statement. In the bad and worse situation, where you can either allow the devil to triumph at cost of other people, or become a martyr to stop the devil, what you say is “screw the devil, there’s a chance we will still survive, and we are risk takers!”. This is exactly the statement that the first game should have made. You can’t fall into despair and give up in face of overwhelming hardship. But you can also be betrayed by a false hope of everything working out. But not much can be accomplished without facing the risk and taking your chances, even if you odds are desperately small.

Overall, the finale did drag and relied on retcons, but its climax was truly enjoyable and worthwhile.

#danganronpa #danganronpa 2 #hajime hinata #nagito komaeda #vn #game review #review #review2002 #video game #video game review #writing tips #super danganronpa 2

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avaantares · 5 years ago

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Artemis FOUL: A Disney+ Dumpster Fire

Soooo it had been a kind of rough week for a variety of reasons, and a few of my friends/family wanted to kick back and do something mindless over the weekend, so we ordered pizza from one of our favorite local places, I set up a screen and projector in the driveway, and we had an outdoor/socially-distant movie night. Since several of us had read the books, we decided to watch the new Artemis Fowl movie on Disney+.

We knew from the trailer and its 10% rating on Rotten Tomatoes that it was not going to be a good movie. But I had not been prepared for... uh... what is quite possibly the single worst film I have seen released in YEARS. I can’t imagine this insult to cinema having an actual theatrical release (which it was intended to, before the pandemic shut down theatres). I haven’t seen the Cats movie, but I imagine this aggregation of waterfowl* could give it a run for its money.

Not only is it a bad adaptation of the books (and by “adaptation,” I mean they used a couple of names; the story and characters are utterly unrecognizable), but the script is like something a teenager would turn in for a class assignment. No, scratch that -- I’ve actually read better writing by teenagers. Plot points are explained to the audience three or four times by both characters and frame-story narrator (apparently the writers thought viewers were dumb and wouldn’t catch on?). There are missing connecting scenes. The villain is actually played by three different actors using a hood and voice modulation, because apparently they couldn’t decide whom to cast in the role. There are multiple significant plot threads that never get wrapped up. The pacing is a mess. The characters are devoid of personality or charisma. There is some truly hideous CGI.

But all of that is just (grossly) bad filmmaking. The film is worse than that -- in fact, in light of current events, it comes across as not only tone-deaf, but actively offensive.

I’m sure someone in an office somewhere thought it would be a good idea to mix up the casting of book characters a bit, to add some diversity. At first glance, this seems like a good idea: LEP Recon commander Julius Root has been switched to a female role, played by Dame Judi Dench, and Artemis’s bodyguard Domovoi Butler and his sister Juliet are played by Black actors Nonso Anozie and Tamara Smart, respectively.

Don’t get me wrong -- I am actively in favor of diverse casts and strong female roles. The problem here is 100% in the execution. Because I think we can all agree that bad representation can be even more harmful than no representation at all, and this is some bad representation.

For starters, Juliet -- a kickass martial artist in the books -- has been stepped back to being Butler’s Domovoi’s 12-year-old niece. (The movie is insistent that he is not to be called Butler, which might pass for awareness if not for the rest of the script. In the books, it’s actually a characterization point that he is only to be called Butler; in fact, Artemis doesn’t even learn his given name until book 3.) When this younger Juliet was first introduced, I thought, well, it’s a kids’ movie, maybe they want to include a younger female character to act as an active role model for girls watching? NOPE: Juliet has speaking lines in only about three scenes in the entire film. In two of them, she is bringing sandwiches to other characters. In another scene, we see her sitting alone in the kitchen while the rest of the characters are off doing plot-related things.

That’s right. Disney added a young Black girl to the cast just so she could serve food to her uncle’s rich white employer.

There is literally no other purpose served by her character in the film. She’s conspicuously absent from (and irrelevant to) key plot scenes, and the only thing she accomplishes in the entire movie apart from serving food is, in one scene, she looks at a monitor and reports on the weather conditions. That’s it. Honestly, it would have been better to leave her character out completely, rather than have this token appearance characterized by inactivity.

[Warning: Spoiler ahead!] And then there’s Domovoi himself. In the books, Butler (who possesses extensive martial and tactical training, as well as superhuman strength) earns the fear and respect of the fairies by singlehandedly holding off a rampaging troll. In the film, he is not only completely useless in the fight against said troll -- scrappy little Artemis gets more hits on the beast than Domovoi does -- but he is actually killed (temporarily, because magic) saving Artemis in the troll fight. In fact, he’s the only named character with an onscreen death in the course of the entire film.

Or, as my sister put it, staring at the screen with her jaw hanging: “Did they cast a Black actor just so they could have the Black guy die first?!”

To top off the dubious optics of both of those character choices, the apparently-progressive move of changing Root to a female character is undermined by the complete nerfing of the story’s female lead, Captain Holly Short. In the books, Holly is a whip-smart, no-nonsense officer who acts as a foil for the wily Artemis; in this film, she’s reduced to a novice recruit who technically has some agency, but her personal motivation (what little she has of it) revolves solely around her father, and is so poorly conveyed that our viewing group had an ongoing discussion trying to determine exactly what she was doing and why throughout the film.

The worst thing is that some middle executive somewhere is probably patting himself on the back for facilitating some “woke” casting, because look! There was a racially-diverse cast! And Strong Female Characters(TM)! when in fact the entire film was not only a crock of pure garbage, but insulting garbage. Both my intellect and my social sensibilities feel bruised after viewing.

I wish Disney+ had a “rate this film” feature, because I would leave a smoking hole where the star rating should be.

-----------------------------------------------

* This is a term my sister and I coined to (politely) describe something that is a complete and total disaster. I’m sure you can parse its meaning when you consider that an aggregation of waterfowl might also be described as “clustered ducks.”

#artemis fowl #disney+#movie review

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antihero-writings · 4 years ago

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The Boy with the Unspeakable Name (Ch6)

Fandom: Harry Potter (and the Chamber or Secrets)

Fic Summary: Tom Riddle may have won his battle with Harry in the Chamber of Secrets, but there were a few unforeseen consequences; loss of Tom's memory being the most obnoxious of them. Is it possible to stop Tom's past from becoming his future? Or is the young Tom Riddle doomed to repeat his mistakes?

Chapter Summary: The interrogation scene

(I'll put the links to chapters 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5 in a reblog!! I also have a version of this fic with all the chapters in one place!!)

Notes: My apologies for the delay!! I was working super hard on a couple projects with deadlines, and I didn't really have the chance for a break. I tried to get back to it as fast as I could once those projects were done!! I hope you're still interested in reading, even so <3

In addition to other things occupying my time, this chapter itself wasn't easy; for some reason, for a good while I had no clue what I'd do for the interrogation scene, add to that to the fact that I picked a very difficult perspective to write for here and it wasn't the easiest XD I hope I ultimately did a good job, and that you guys enjoy it!!

Comments are always extremely appreciated!! And do let me know if you'd like me to add you to a tag list for this fic!!

Chapter 6:

Snape didn’t think his day would go like this.

One must keep a sense of preparedness about them, still, he didn’t think it remiss for not expecting a day that started with Neville handing him a bottle of goop that would be poison in a better context, would middle with the message that the Chamber of Secrets had opened and a student would be killed, and end with Potter standing in his office with Veritaserum conducting his tongue, telling him said student was dead, and the Dark Lord was back, but without memory, and in the body of his sixteen-year-old self.

And said day wasn’t even over yet.

They still had an interrogation to enact—(which would be a lot harder with the aformentioned truth-serumed Potter…and a lot easier with a mute Potter)—to make sure the missing-memory-claim was unequivocal fact.

He was about to walk into McGonagall’s office to see a sixteen-year-old Dark Lord. And he was expected and required to act like the boy was an ordinary student—(though the boy himself probably already knew he wasn’t).

The person most feared in the wizarding world, who’d killed so many he lost count.

Not the least of which was—

It wouldn’t be a problem.

There was a spiteful look in Potter’s green eyes as they ventured through the halls.

The silencing charm was proving enjoyable in addition to practical...But the small pleasure he gained from Potter’s plight had a fly’s life span.

As they approached the door to the office, his grip tightened around the truth serum in his hand. From a glance out of the corner of his eye he saw Potter had a similar tenseness about him.

He hated this boy, no question…but he’d be a monster if that story didn’t incite some form of empathy in him.

—(In another time there was another redhead lying dead on the floor Halloween, killed by the same person. Empathy wasn’t a choice.)—

They opened the door, and the sound was like a conversation being snapped in half.

“We’re not interrupting, I presume?” Snape’s voice carried across the room—(sure they very much were)—calm as if Dumbledore really was speaking to an ordinary student.

He let his eyes flick from Dumbledore to the boy in the chair in front of him, who had turned to them.

Annoyance may have flared in Potter’s eyes, but this boy bought his annoyance from an entirely different factory, one where they manufactured all sorts of other, far more gruesome emotions.

The eyes were brown, and human, but they were an echo—(What’s an echo before the real thing sings off the cliff edge?)—of the red ones he’d later possess. Red sitting behind the brown, like adult teeth in the skull behind the baby’s, ready to force the childhood out bloody, for something worthless as a couple coins.

“Thank you for coming, Severus.”

“Of course. I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” he sneered as he stepped to Dumbledore’s side to face the boy once more.

He knew he’d be young, but a hex wasn’t entirely out of the question. Seeing this, this thing that once murdered thousands without blinking, this thing that shrieked the words of death with a high, cold voice over countless muggles and muggle sympathizers, and whose eyes held no form of remorse, or sympathy …sitting before him, young and handsome and perhaps even human—

His left arm itched.

“Well, unless anyone can offer a viable reason to continue dilly dallying, I suggest we begin.” Dumbledore spoke pleasantly.

Snape glided over to the boy—whose voice was level as he asked;

“What are you doing?”

Snape held up the truth serum.

“Do you have any idea what this is?”

The boy’s eyes flicked from the bottle to Snape wordlessly. Odds are it physically pained him to admit he didn’t know something.

A smirk tugged at Snape’s lip.

“Wonderful.

“And I don’t suppose you’ll drink it willingly, if we were to ask you to?”

The boy’s eyes lidded; You must be joking.

“Even better.”

He flicked his wand and ropes bound the boy to the chair.

“What the hell are you doing?!”

“Well if you won’t drink it willingly, then we’ll just have to make sure you do so unwillingly.

“Open wide.” A said like a dentist, that smirk marking his features as he grabbed his chin and forced his mouth open, like offering King Claudius the poison.

“Try not to enjoy this too much, Severus.” Dumbledore cautioned.

The boy started to protest, but the sound was drowned out by the potion pouring into his mouth—which Snape quickly cast a spell to keep him from spitting it out.

When he swallowed Snape cast the counters to each of the curses binding him and glided back around the desk.

The boy wiped his mouth, gaze throwing daggers at him. “Is this how you treat all your guests?”

“Only our favorites.”

“What happened in the Chamber of Secrets?” Dumbledore asked, his voice commanding, but never losing its calm.

“What happened in the where?” Tom demanded, not altogether politely.

“The Chamber that you woke up in earlier.” Dumbledore continued, still pleasant. “Would you mind filling us in the details of what happened there?”

“I don’t have to—” He was probably about to say ‘tell you anything’ but quickly found himself rather inexplicably compelled to do just that.

He detailed his waking up in the Chamber without memory to see Potter crying over the dead Ginny, about how they exchanged words, how they got out…nothing that would betray the idea that he had lost his memory.

“Thank you for telling us that.” Dumbledore replied simply—though something flickered behind his eyes when he spoke of the girl. Potter fidgeted in the back of the room, and likely would have asked why he had to stay if he could. “Are you certain you remember nothing prior to that?”

“I told you I don’t remember anything! What did you do to me?!”

“You mean you don’t usually feel overly compelled to tell the truth?” Snape examined his nails.

“No.” His eyes were lidded.

“Oh? If you don’t remember who you are, how would you know?”

“Does anyone feel overly compelled to tell the truth? Seriously, who are you people?!”

“We already told you,” Dumbledore intonated. “I am the headmaster of this school, a school for witchcraft and wizardry. The oddly silent Harry,”—He gestured to the boy standing mutely at the back of the room—“is a student at this school, and Severus Snape here is a professor.”

“I have a hard time believing teachers would strap a student to a chair and force a truth potion down their throat!”

“We are wizard teachers. That means, at times, our methods can be a little…unorthodox. Tom”—The name made him flinch—“we merely want to discern if you truly are without memory. You may remember more than even you yourself are aware of—and more than simple questioning would illuminate. There are few other ways to discern this efficiently. Personally I would have attempted a bit more explanation and persuasion before resorting to tying you down.”—He shot a glance at Snape—“But…though it may not seem that way, we are trying to help you.”

“I don’t think Severus”—Snape flinched at his name even more visibly than Tom had—“is particularly inclined to help me.”

Snape was seconds from doing something either very stupid, or very smart, but Dumbledore stood, his voice with a bite to it.

“Professor Snape is not particularly fond of you, that’s true.”

"Oh yeah?” He raised an eyebrow at Snape.

“Hmm…I would like to phrase this delicately…” Dumbledore continued. “In your time here, you could be a bit of a…a bully. This is of course why Harry here isn’t particularly fond of you either. He has been subject to your bullying on more occasions than one. Isn’t that right, Harry?”

Potter froze, as if surprised they asked him a question, then nodded.

“So what you really mean is that you are trying to help me, and these two are here to watch me suffer your ‘help’?”

“I did not intend my ‘help’ to cause you suffering. I apologize that it has. And just because you were not a particularly kind individual in the past doesn’t mean others are unwilling or undesirous to help you. That is what it means to be kind.”

Snape’s eyes met Harry’s, and he was particularly glad the boy’s overly truthful lips were sealed shut at that moment.

“Let’s get back to the questions shall we? Do you have any memory at all attached to your own name?”

“Excuse me?”

“Your name. Names are very powerful. You mentioned you did not know it until Harry mentioned it to you. Does hearing it arouse any particular memories or feelings in you?”

“Memories, no. Feelings…”

“Yes?”

“Hatred.” Tom froze, eyes wide, and his hand flew to his mouth—the first real reaction they’d seen from him.

Despite his particular distaste for divulging the truth, he hadn’t said anything too incriminating yet. This was clearly one of those things he thought would grant him power if it stayed inside.

“You feel hatred at the sound of your name? I see. Do you feel this hatred hearing anyone else’s names?”

“Yours.” He said into his hand. “His.” He threw his thumb over his shoulder, gripping his mouth.

“Wonderful.”

His hand came back down into his lap. “Wonderful?”

“Well, not wonderful that you hate the sound of all our names, I don’t imagine that’s very pleasant. But this is helpful information. And this hatred does not come with any concrete memories?”

“No. Why do I hate—?”

“I imagine it’s because you were not overly fond of us either.”

“Why didn’t I like you?”

“Because we were two particularly large roadblocks in your path of bullying.”

He paused. “…Why did I bully you?”

“Troubled home life, perhaps? You may find it difficult to believe, but you did not divulge the contents of your personal life to us. But I imagine you were dealing with quite a bit of internal strife to take it out on your fellow students. I do hope you will choose a different path in this new life you have been given, so to speak.”

The boy tapped his fingers on the armrest. “…What are you going to tell my family?”

“Your family?” His eyebrows raised. “About what?”

“About the fact that I don’t remember them.” He said like Dumbledore was stupid for not knowing.

“Oh, well, in that sense you are both particularly lucky, and particularly unlucky, in that your family is dead.”

“Dead?”

“Dead.”

The boy paused, his gaze falling to the ground as he thought. “So where is my home?"

"Of that I am not aware. I think, perhaps, Hogwarts was more home to you than anywhere else."

"...Where will I go, then?”

“Go?”

“When I’m not at this school. You yourself said you might not let me back. Where else can I go?”

“That’s what we will have to discuss over the next few days.”

A look of surprise crossed Potter’s face, as if he hadn’t realized the sixteen-year-old dark lord would be any sort of permanent fixture.

To tell the truth the thought was rather jarring, but Snape hadn’t ruled out disposing of him just yet.

"What about my friends?" the boy asked.

There was a small indication of surprise in Dumbledore's eyes at the question, but it faded quickly as he answered. "It pains me to inform you that—to my knowledge at least—you did not have any."

His eyebrow raised. "None?"

"None of whom I'm aware."

The boy looked down at his hands in his lap, as if pondering.

"Does that sadden you?" Dumbledore asked softly.

"No." The answer was cold and immediate...but apparently not truthful, as a moment later he barked the word "Yes," followed by an annoyed groan. Another pause. "...I don't know that 'sad' is the right word."

Dumbledore nodded. "Such a potion cannot always help one discern the truth of their emotions, that is, if they do not know them themselves.

“Severus, do you have any more questions?” Dumbledore’s gaze ticked to Snape, a meaningful glint in his eyes. Snape gave a small nod in return.

“You are completely certain you don’t remember anything prior to a few hours ago?”

Imperceptibly, Snape flicked his wand at his side.

“Why do I keep having to repeating myself?! I—”

Scenes flashed before Snape’s eyes. A darkened chamber, a tattered diary, a sword, a phoenix, a boy crying, a dead girl, red hair like flames on the stones—

“What the hell was that?!” Tom demanded immediately, shooting up. “What did you do to me?!”

“To what are you referring?” Dumbledore asked.

“That—That—Those visions! What was that?!” His eyes darted venomously between Dumbledore and Snape. “You’re looking through my memories, aren’t you?!”

“Merely a side effect of the potion.” Dumbledore answered as if they were having a conversation over afternoon tea. “Nothing to worry about. Please, proceed.”

“I said I don’t remember anything!” He spat.

Snape tried again, and again the same scenes that they had already described flashed by.

After exiting the memory, the boy’s eyes were wild and fiery, continually darting between the two of them, and Snape swore he saw something red there.

“Is that all the information you need?! Can I go now?!” He spun to storm out of the room before they gave an answer.

Another flick of Snape’s wrist, and the boy was lifted into the air by his ankle.

“Class has not been dismissed, Tom.”

Emotion rushed across the boy’s face; horror, rage, humiliation, and Snape reveled in it.

“You said yourself;” Snape stepped closer, and his voice softened into a taunting whisper, “where would you go? Would you wander the halls like a lost, little boy without his mommy?”

Tom’s eyes flashed once more, and he squirmed against the spell, and it almost seemed, for a second, like he’d hit Snape.

Another flick, behind his back this time, and this time he concentrated very hard at breaking past the scene only an hour earlier.

It was as if he hit a wall in the boy’s mind. Snape never thought of people’s minds as books to be perused by any passerby, but the harder he tried to break through, the more the boy’s mind looked like the ripped pages of a book too old to hold itself together. Like walking into a dream where the dreamer stopped imagining the world, so reality just…tapered off. The world in his mind, ripped, hazy, rotted and congealed.

“Would you stop that?!”

“That concludes my questions.” Snape pocketed his wand and turned to Dumbledore.

“What about you, Harry?” Dumbledore asked gently. “Anything to ask?”

Potter glanced between the two of them, surprised his opinion was of any worth in this situation—(and, if he was frank, Snape wasn’t altogether sure it was).

“I think you’ll find Potter is disinclined to speak for the next few moments.” He tried not to smirk.

Dumbledore looked over his half-moon spectacles at him.

“Will you Let. Me. Down?!”

Another flick, and the boy fell to the ground on his head and in a mess of limbs.

“You could’ve been gentler!” He sat up, rubbing the back of his neck.

So could you.

Notes Cont.:

As I said, Snape is a rather difficult perspective to write for, and I’m still not entirely sure I did a great job with him... I would have used Tom’s perspective and reveled in his horror, but I felt I should probably use Snape because of the legilimacy thing. I wanted you guys to know what he saw there. It's possible I might try rewriting this chapter from Tom's perspective to check if I missed any reactions or questions he would have/ask too, or even if it's overall better from his perspective...so keep in mind stuff might get edited in the future!! And do let me know if you liked in in Snape's perspective!!

FYI, these should be the three perspectives I use/alternate between (Tom, Harry, Snape). At the moment I don’t intend to add more. Maybe if I really need to for an off chapter down the road I will, but I can't imagine what that would be at the moment.

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sparrowwritings · 4 years ago

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Final Fantasy 14 Writing Challenge Day Four: Fortune Cookie

Day Three -- Masterpost -- Day Five

“Well! Fancy seein’ you here!”

Both Lara and Roger looked up from their table with a blank stare as an older midlander woman came to greet them. When neither of them spoke, she placed a well-manicured hand on one of her hips. “Don’t tell me you don’t recognize me. And after all I’ve done to help you two in the past!”

It took another moment of awkward silence before Roger sat up straight. “Wait you--Rowena? What’re you doing here??” Lara belatedly followed suit, finally recognizing the merchant woman.

“Yeah...who’s looking after Idyllshire if you’re all the way in Hingashi?”

“Idyllshire can look after itself for a bit--not like I can’t use the aetheryte to check in on things.” Rowena chuckled and winked as she relaxed her stance. “Particularly since there’s good business to be had here. And what about the both o’ ya? Ain’t there some sorta kerfuffle over in Ala Mhigo?”

The teens inhaled sharply at nearly the same time, each looking at the other as if to suss out what they should reveal.

Rowena’s good cheer dimmed a little. “That bad, huh?”

“No--I mean, sort of…” Roger rubbed a hand over his face as if that could get rid of the dark circles starting to form under his eyes. “It’s...complicated.”

“We uh, have business here.” Lara managed after some hemming and hawing. “Sort of related to Ala Mhigo. Hancock said he’d take care of the more complicated parts and left us to wander…” Her words trailed off as she tried to think of more to say. Clearly she was coming up with a blank, tired as she looked.

“Hancock? The rep for the East Aldenard Trading Company?”

Roger nodded. “Blonde guy, red glasses, dresses like the people who live here? That one.” The irony of describing someone who completely stood out in both name and appearance among the people of the port city of Kugane completely went over the boy’s head.

Again there was a silence, though this time it was from Rowena’s end. “...And you’re sure you’ve got things handled? East Aldenard Trading...well, even in my business ya hear things about the guy that runs it.”

“Lolorito is…” Lara sighed, rubbing her temples. “He’s got his own agenda, but he’s helping us. So he’s not so bad, I think…it’s complicated.”

Before Rowena could respond, a loud growl caught the attention of all three of them. From the sudden glances of some of the other patrons around, they weren’t the only ones to have heard it. Roger’s face went pink, which clashed with his red hair. She was glad for the distraction. Clearly the kids had been through a lot in the short time since she’d last seen them. It wouldn’t be proper to force them to talk about things they clearly didn’t want to, especially on an empty stomach.

“Well! That’s simple enough to understand!” Rowena laughed. “Tell ya what, I’ll order something nice for you both.”

Both of them blinked at the same time. It never stopped being odd to witness. Lara was the first one to recover. “Th-thank you. We had no idea what to order and Roger doesn’t like to eat meat and I haven’t even heard of half of these names so--”

“Keep in mind you’re still gonna have to pay for the meals, kiddos!” Rowena laughed, and something in her shifted a bit at the kids starting to genuinely smile at that. She’d never been interested in having any, but...

“Good old Rowena.” Lara chuckled as she handed over a small bag of gil.

As she ordered the meals for the kids, Rowena mulled over what she’d heard and seen. She was no stranger to keeping her cards close to her chest. You don’t go far in business if you don’t learn the skill. When last she’d seen Roger and Lara they were certainly weighed down by stuff related to the Dragonsong War, but it hadn’t been enough to extinguish their enthusiasm. What she just witnessed...it was as if the two had been completely beaten down by recent events.

But what could she do about that? All she had to offer were her antiquities and a familiar face in an unfamiliar part of the world.

Rowena glanced down at a menu left behind by some patron and did a double take as she read one of the entries. Making a quick decision, she called back the bartender as she was about to place the order. “Add some o’ these to that order?” She asked while tapping at the entry, then glanced back to where the Warriors of Light were still sitting. They’d gone back to nearly laying on the table when she’d gone. Satisfied that no one would be paying attention, Rowena took out a few coins from her own purse. “This should cover it.”

It was an investment, she told herself.

She made sure to follow along as the food was being brought to Roger and Lara’s table. As if someone had cast a healing spell, the two seemed to revive with the smell of hot food. It didn’t take any encouragement for them to start tucking in with abandon. When she was satisfied that the two wouldn’t keel over from hunger, Rowena cleared her throat to get their attention.

“Well, I’ve gotta go. Lots to do, people to see, y’know how it is. Looks like the kitchen gave you two a treat, though.” She indicated the small cookies in between Lara and Roger. “Don’t just eat those. You gotta break em open for a fortune.”

“Really?” Roger eyed the cookies with wonder.

Lara took one and gently broke it in half. “There’s a paper inside!” She picked it up from where it had fluttered to a landing on the table.

He was almost bouncing in his seat. “What’s it say? What’s it say?”

“‘An acquaintance of the past will affect you in the near future.’” Lara’s dark blue eyes looked up at Rowena quizzically. She shrugged in response to hide her nerves at the oddly accurate statement.

“There’s all sorts o’ pithy phrases in the cookies. Can’t just expect what they say to be true.”

It seemed as if Lara was about to say something else, when Roger grabbed hold of another cookie and opened it up himself. “Oh! Mine says, ‘Swimming is easy. Stay floating is hard.’ What?”

“Told ya.”

“Let me see another one--” Lara grabbed another couple of cookies and Rowena took this time to make her exit. As she left, she could hear laughter coming from the two of them as they read the increasingly stranger and more generic fortunes. Her insides felt like they were melting a little at the sound.

She still didn’t want to have any kids. But helping a couple of them out of a funk? Rowena could see the appeal in that.

#final fantasy 14 #ff14 #final fantasy xiv #fanfiction #writing challenge #fortune cookie #rowena #lara marner #roger briden #dual WoL au #okay i took some liberties #since i can't remember if fortune cookies even *exist* in ff14 #but if they did for sure it'd be in kugane #also a brief look at just what several months of all the bullshit the wol has to deal with does to people #well to these two in particular #they're babies #17 years old but still *babies*#four down twenty seven to go

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anistarrose · 5 years ago

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The Liching Hour (TAZ Balance AU)

AO3: archiveofourown.org/works/22963831

Summary: Taako is a lich, but he doesn’t die alongside Barry when his memories start to fade. In fact, he doesn’t die for another whole decade… until he arrives in Refuge, and first hears the clock strike noon.

Characters: Taako, Lup, Barry Bluejeans, Kravitz, Magnus Burnsides, Merle Highchurch

Relationships: Lup & Taako, Kravitz/Taako, Barry Bluejeans/Lup

Additional tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Major Character Undeath, Angst with a Happy Ending, relationships listed in order of focus

“Taako is a lich too” is definitely an AU that’s been done before, but I couldn’t resist giving it my own unique twist! I actually started writing this fic exactly eleven months ago, when I was still fairly new to TAZ, but I forgot all about it until a few weeks ago when I came back to dust it off and finish the last few scenes.

(if you want an accompanying soundtrack for this fic, then I strongly recommend Lifetime Achievement Award by Lemon Demon! the song has big lich energy)

***

The set of planar systems traversed by our IPRE was indescribably vast, but far from the only one of its kind. Over eons, countless other universes are forged and then left to their own devices by elusory, non-interventionist creators — and in more than one of those universes, a ship called the Starblaster takes flight, propelled between planar systems by the strength of the bonds between its crew. In more than one of those universes, members of the IPRE put enough faith in those bonds to undertake a great risk — fusing their life forces with their magic and becoming liches, constructing a failsafe to protect their family from the Hunger that pursues them.

In one of those universes, Taako joins Lup and Barry in taking that risk. The ceremony goes as smoothly as the transformation into a lich can go, and the three of are all able to hold themselves together, thanks to their love for each other and their crewmates...

But when Lucretia feeds her records of their journey to the Voidfish, when Lup is already trapped in the Umbra Staff and Barry cleverly cheats amnesia by falling to his death off the deck of the Starblaster, Taako stays in his living form. Being undead isn’t the first thing he forgets — no, it’s Lup that he loses first, for Taako’s bonds with his twin are more carefully documented in Lucretia’s journals than anything else he’s done or cared about over the century — but the second that awareness of lichdom vanishes from his mind, the second he forgets the safety net he has in place in case of death, a self-preservation instinct kicks in again after nearly two decades of lying dormant. No need to go charging into uncharted and potentially deadly territory — Taako’s good out here.

For over a decade, he avoids death, and he never remembers what happens to him when he dies. Sometimes animals will shy away from him for no apparent reason, and maybe that faint burning sensation that fills his chest whenever Merle channels Pan to cast a healing spell on him is a little weird — but there’s no dogs on the moon and Merle hardly ever casts healing spells in the first place, so Taako just... tries to forget about it when he can, and convince himself it’s normal when he can’t.

He has a vague suspicion that he hasn’t been like this forever, but he can’t remember a clear date of onset for these symptoms, so he just brushes them off and keeps them to himself. It’s no one’s else’s business, anyways.

Or so he thinks, until he meets the Grim Reaper one fateful Candlenights.

***

There are two presents left under the shrub, both in similar silver-wrapped boxes — but one is addressed to all three Reclaimers, and the other is specifically labeled for Taako. Neither indicates the name of the sender.

Magnus and Merle don’t even attempt to hide the jealousy in their stares as they watch Taako pick up his gift, but something compels them to all stay silent and open the boxes as subtly as possibly while the Director makes conversation with Johann on the other side of the room. There’s nothing inherently suspicious about them other than the lack of a “from” name, though the handwriting on the tags is extremely familiar, but Taako still positions his arm to shield the box from the view of the others before he opens it and sees the contents…

The interior is plush purple velvet, cushioning two items: a coin and a note. The coin is golden and about as big as the circle made by Taako’s index finger and thumb when curled to meet at the tip, and it’s engraved with runes he doesn’t recognize — but he can read the accompanying note, though he has no idea what to make of what it says.

Keep this to yourself. If you ever encounter a situation in which you need it, you’ll know what to do with it when the time comes.

A quick use of Detect Magic reveals that the box and note are completely mundane, but the coin is enchanted. Nothing feels inherently volatile or dangerous about the complex divination spell it’s imbued with, but it still gives Taako a sinking feeling, like it’s something he should be forbidden from possessing.

So he casually slips the coin into his pocket and pops the note into his mouth, chewing and swallowing as he peers over Merle’s shoulder to examine the other gift — an identical box, this one holding three circular blue patches with twelve smaller circles embroidered around the circumference and an unreadable acronym word lying in the center. There’s another accompanying note here too, this one simply reading: “For your eyes only.”

Then, three different noises happen in very quick succession: Magnus turns to Taako and whispers “What was in yours?” and a second later, the Director echoes “What is that? What did you guys get?”

But before any of the boys can blurt out some lie despite not knowing why they feel so compelled to hide the gifts, the Director’s necklace unexpectedly interrupts the conversation, glowing faintly as a staticy, panicked voice yells “Lucretia!” The Director instantly whirls away from the boys, angrily whispering into her pendant which replies with words that are hard to make out from a distance.

Almost on reflex, Taako slips one of the patches into the same pocket as the coin and disposes of the second note with the same method he’d used for the first, cleansing his palate with an elderflower macaron immediately afterwards. He doesn’t think about the patches or the coin for a long time after that — but then again, he ends up getting distracted by a lot over the course of the next few hours. With the impeding crystal apocalypse, and the floating lab, and the death crimes and all.

***

“Well, that’s weird,” Noelle says. Her satellite dish is blinking green as it rotates, scanning the perimeter of the Cosmoscope two, three, four times. “At first, I thought it musta just been interference, but… one of you guys isn’t a lich, are you?”

“A what?” Magnus asks.

“A lich. The signal was real faint at first, but it just got stronger, and now it’s fluctuating a whole lot…”

“Nope, not me!” Magnus declares, with surprising confidence considering that he doesn’t appear to have any understanding of what being a lich means.

“Well, not that I’m aware of,” Taako answers slowly. “But I think even ya boy here would know if he was a lich. Right?”

“I’m friends with a few liches!” Merle adds. “They’re fun at parties.”

Noelle sighs at Merle’s comment, and then continues: “Yeah, Taako, I guess you’d hafta know if you were one. Guess my scanner’s just on the fritz.”

***

“Now Taako, Taako, Taako,” Kravitz mutters from within the sapphire mirror, and the pure exasperation on his face is almost adorable. “Care to take a guess what your bounty is for? I would really hope that you, at least, would know.”

Taako has a feeling he’s been saved for last because his crimes are the worst, but he’s got no clue why — there’s no way he’s died more than fifty-seven times, right?

“I dunno, is it about that tentacle thing? 'Cause don’t worry, my dude, this is a safe and non-judgmental environment where you don’t need to be afraid of being yourself —”

Kravitz's eyebrows raise and he looks aghast for a moment, but recovers quickly. “Taako, you've died twelve times — but alone, that makes you practically a law abiding citizen, compared to the company you keep! I never thought I’d see the day that I’d thought Magnus, with his 19 deaths, would be the least of the evils present, but — but —”

He sputters. “But you three all seem determined to make your crimes as unprecedented as possible —”

“Unprecedented, that’s me!” Taako laughs, and tries to ignore the half static-drowned screams of all his instincts, telling him to run as far away from Kravitz or any portal to the Astral Plane as he can get. “But uh, what is the deal with my bounty if —”

“Playing dumb about dying is one thing,” Kravitz growls, “but you’re really playing dumb about being a lich?”

“But I am dumb,” Taako blurts out, before the accusation really sinks in. “I’m just a humble idiot wizard!”

Kravitz bursts into bitter laughter. “An idiot necromancer, more like. Do you really —”

“There’s no way,” Magnus cuts in. “If Taako was a lich, we would have to know!”

“Oh, I don’t doubt that you would, given how long the three of you have been cheating death together!” Kravitz replies.

“Okay, first of all — how do you know we’ve actually been cheating death for that long?” interrupts Merle. “We could’ve just died all those times in the span of, I don’t know, a month or two! We’re really incompetent.”

Magnus and Taako nod in enthusiastic agreement as Kravitz sighs.

“And second of all?”

“Uh... I forgot what I was going to say second.”

“Of course you did! What won’t you three conveniently forget — GAH!”

A giant skeletal hand reaches out of the Eternal Stockade and grabs Kravitz by the robe, dragging him inside the Eternal Stockade. It slams the door of the prison with a force that Taako winces at, all the way on the other side of the sapphire mirror.

“Did we solve the lich puzzle?” Merle asks. “Are we free to go?”

“Gonna be honest — just personally, I’m not too worried about the lich puzzle!” Taako shouts back, as a high-pitched hum emanates from the crystals around them and the room begins to shake. “Mostly just thinking about how much I don’t want to remember what dying feels like!”

“You know, that’s fair,” Merle agrees as he watches a complete skeleton materialize behind the hand, wading through the Astral Sea and towards the mirror. “That’s pretty fair.”

***

“Look, you saved my bacon back there,” Kravitz tells them after Legion is defeated. “Not just my career, but the world too. Things would have gotten very, very nasty, in a way that I wouldn’t have exactly wanted to put on my résumé…”

He sighs. “And Merle, Magnus… I would be willing to let you off with a warning, because you’ve technically never escaped the Astral Plane, and that leaves a convenient little loophole in the law for you two to slip through. Even Lucas — he’s learned his lesson with necromancy, it looks like. But Maureen, Noelle, and especially you, Taako — you’re all going to have to come with me. I can’t make exceptions for those of you who have succeeded in a jailbreak — nor can I do so for a lich.”

This time, he doesn’t spit the word lich with any of the disgust or outrage that were in his voice before, but rather speaks slowly and solemnly — and if Taako didn’t know better, he might think Kravitz actually felt bad about having to lock him up.

“Look, Ghost Rider.” Taako’s heart is racing just a little bit faster than he’s comfortable with, and the worst part is he doesn’t know why. It’s tempting to blame it on the slight crush may or may not be developing, but his crushes — although few and far-between — definitely never send his pulse up this fast this early in the relationship.

“You seem like an okay fellow who’s just trying to do your job, so I’ll be honest with you — I can’t remember ever touching necromancy with a ten-foot pole. Look, I used to make my living as a chef, and when you’re cooking the last thing you want is your meal coming back to life in front of you. I’ve got no motive!”

“Does your book with the bounties say anything else about the charges against him?” Magnus asks. “The charges against any of us, actually?”

“Not a single thing, I’m afraid. The bar’s not very high, but you are some of the… less unsavory bounties I’ve hunted, which is why I genuinely hate to say this, but —”

“Oh, so it’s savory you like? Let me take you out for an evening at Taako’s Bar and Café, and I’ll cook you up as many savory dishes as you like —”

“The — the bar,” Kravitz stammers, slipping out of his Cockney accent, “is so not high —”

“He just wants to help you broaden your horizons!” Merle chimes in. “You must not get out of the — the, uh, whatever your plane is called very often, do you?”

Kravitz sighs. “It’s the Astral Plane, and — and look, we just… we need to get going, alright? Taako, I… I could give you the benefit of the doubt, I suppose, and let you stay here until you die and return to your lich form, but I still need those two souls in the robots to come with me —”

“Wait!” Magnus interrupts. “Gambling with death is a trope for a reason, right? Can we play cards for their souls?”

Kravitz shrugs. “You know what? Sure! This day can’t get any wilder!”

***

Boyland’s rites of remembrance aren’t until tomorrow, but Taako is down in the Voidfish’s chambers ahead of time, Umbra Staff clutched tight as he stares at the twinkling galaxy pattern within the jellyfish’s bell.

“Uh… do you need something?” Johann asks after Taako’s stands there silently for about a minute.

Taako twirls his umbrella and shifts it from hand to hand, half expecting it to fire on its own again like it had when talking to Angus, but it stays dormant.

“Can your jellyfish pal, like… I dunno, choose what it innoculates you for?”

“Uh… no? At least, I think we woulda noticed if it could… why are you asking?”

“I was bored.” Taako turns to leave, but before he can get back in the elevator, he hears the Voidfish sing a short tune — not quite as loud as when Magnus had touched its tank, but definitely the same three notes.

***

Taako dies a few times in Refuge before he notices anything weird about it — well, not that dying and being revived continuously isn’t weird albeit familiar, but at first he’s just immediately whisked off to the white space alongside Merle and Magnus. No special treatment for him — until the first time that they die before the hour ends, and everything starts unraveling.

Magnus leans away from locker as he opens it, but it proves to be a futile precaution as the sound of an explosion blows out their eardrums and shockwaves tear through the room, sending the floor beneath their feet blasting towards the ceiling at the same time that massive boulders rain down from above, crushing the cave’s occupants before there’s even a chance process what happened.

As the dust settles and the roar of the explosives and falling rocks dies out, Taako blinks — except it feels strange, like it’s not his physical eyelids moving as much as it is his vision shifting into another spectrum, as if someone had just cast True Seeing on him.

Huh, he thinks. Thought that would’ve killed me.

And then: Of course it killed me. I’m a lich.

(Well, there goes any chance I had with Kravitz —)

I’m a lich like the Red Robe — no, like Barry. And like —

Like Lup.

How could I forget Lup?!

The sensation of incorporeality hits him on a delay and doesn’t stop hitting him, harder and harder until he feels like he’s about to disintegrate. His red-tinged skeletal hand drifts through the air, catching the silver threads that hang lazily like cobwebs in the space all around him as his spectral fingers curl into a fist. He clutches those bonds with every ounce of strength he has but they’re unraveling now, just like his robe, like his magically deformed essence…

He’s ready to disintegrate, to unravel, to crumble into ash just like Lup’s skeleton in Wave Echo Cave, because of course it was her, it was all that was left of her —

I found her but she was gone — everything was gone, except for her robe and —

“Taako?”

Lying just a few feet away from the hem of his robe is Lup’s Umbra Staff, pulverized into a dozen smoldering fragments — and above it floats another red-cloaked figure, eyes blazing red like miniature versions of the explosion that freed her.

“Taako, I’m here!” she assures him, and her echoing voice is a chorus of too many simultaneous emotions to count — it’s worried, and desperate, but joyous and relieved and comforting all at once. “Don’t break down on me now, Taako! It’s okay!”

Something solidifies in Taako, a grounding sensation so powerful he feels almost corporeal again, but words are failing him, motion is failing him. He stays frozen as the bonds he’d clung to wind back into place, stretching from his arms to Lup’s and pulling them together into the closest thing to a hug that liches can achieve, and he feels warm.

“You idiot,” he finally chokes out. “You didn’t think that absorbing magic shit would make a bad combo with being a fucking lich?”

Lup is literally beaming with happiness, emitting beams of light that would blind someone with physical eyes. “You didn’t exactly realize either, you dingus!”

They stay in the embrace for a few more minutes — and Taako may or may not let out an ugly, messy sob or two, complete with tears and snot made of pure magical energy that crackles like lightning when it strikes the rubble below — before he finally feels stable, and Lup quietly asks:

“How much time do we have? Forty minutes? Thirty-five?”

“What?” Her words don’t sink in immediately, but the second they do, Taako immediately feels like the victim of a sick joke. “Oh, shit. The Umbra Staff’s gonna get fixed next loop, and — and I’m not gonna remember you’re in there —”

“It’ll be okay,” Lup assures him. Taako can tell from the tone of her voice that she’s just as frustrated as he is with the irony of the paradox, except trying to redirect that anger into stubborn optimism. It’s a lifesaving skill for liches of their particular breed, that ability to channel destabilizing negative emotions into sustaining positive ones — a skill Taako hasn’t had much practice with, lately.

“There’s got to be some way to cheat the loops — you know, a loophole.” Lup laughs — a rasping, echoing noise that would probably be terrifying to anyone who didn’t know her, but is a massive relief for Taako to hear. “It’s practically in the name. We’ll figure something out — we always do. Let’s just think — and besides, I’m sure Magnus will get you blown up at least another two or three times, so we’ve technically got even more than forty minutes.”

“Right, right, okay. Physical objects are a no-go, Magnus figured that out after his bank robbing stunt —”

“Yeah, I think I caught that. So we’ll have to try something magical —”

“Wait.” A thousand different realizations are slowly coalescing together all at once in Taako’s mind, and he struggles to find words to articulate any of them. “How much could you, like — how much could you see from in there? You helped me out fighting the vine monster, right, and — and ruined Ango’s cookies, so… you musta been pretty aware to do all that —”

Lup looks down at the remains of the Umbra Staff, now reduced to mostly ash.

“I could see and do plenty, if I put enough effort into it,” she explains, “but it wore me out quickly, especially casting spells. After I spelled my name, I was just… clinging to consciousness for the next few weeks. That stunt might not have been the best idea, since I’d figured out by then that you couldn’t remember, but… I had to try.”

“Did you see Barry, in… let’s see, Goldcliff and the Cosmoscope? He, uh… wasn’t doing so great that second time…”

“He’ll be able to hold it together,” Lup declares confidently. “He’s stubborn like that.”

“Do you think he realized… your situation? He was pretty stable until he saw you —”

“He would have done something about it by now if he’d known, though…”

“Yeah, of course, you’re right. But he definitely seemed like he had some kinda plan — wait, I think I got it! Where’s my body?”

“Wait, got what?”

Taako levitates a few boulders out of place, and summons two Mage Hands to rifle through the pockets of his corporeal form. “Our way out of this time paradox shit, courtesy of Barold himself! As long as it didn’t get crushed — ah, here we go!”

One of the Mage Hands procures a familiar golden coin, imbued with a divination spell of Barry’s own engineering that Taako finally recognizes. “Well, I guess I don’t know for sure that Barry sent it to me, but it’s his spell and came alongside some IPRE patches, so I’m gonna say it sure wasn’t from Lucretia.”

“Is that — is that the spell he made when Magnus was worrying about the Temporal Chalice overwriting things without us knowing?”

“Yeah, storing info across timelines is its whole gimmick! He knew we were going to go after the Chalice eventually, and musta realized that I would forget anything I did as a lich if a time loop like this revived me —”

“Gods, I love him!” Lup shouts, laughing and lighting up with joy all over again. “Then what are we waiting for? Let’s send Amnesiac Taako a message!”

***

Taako faceplants in the dirt alongside Merle and Magnus, alive again and holding an unbroken Umbra Staff. As always, Roswell stands guard outside the gate, and Taako and Magnus immediately start running through their explanation.

“Great job, Maggie!” Merle mutters under his breath. “Now we’ve gotta go through this whole shebang again.”

“We’ll be able to make a great speedrun video on Fantasy Youtube by the end of it, though!” Taako whispers back, and Roswell tilts their bird head in confusion.

“What? What’s a speedrun?”

Taako opens his mouth to reply, but a slightly muffled yet incredibly familiar voice from within the pocket of his skirt beats him to it.

Yo, Taako! T to the double A-K-O! I’m you from half an hour ago now, so listen up!

“What the fuck?” he blurts out, digging out the coin. “That’s — that’s not me! I never said —”

I know you don’t remember recording this, but there’s something you’ve really gotta do, the coin goes on, still in Taako’s voice, and he drops it to the ground and stares at it in horror. It’ll make sense later — well, maybe a long time later. Eventually, I hope!

“I don’t trust you!” Taako shouts, not sure if he’s expecting the coin to respond or not. “I don’t know who’s behind this, but I know a trick when I hear —”

You need to break the Umbra Staff, Taako, a second speaker explains, and Taako goes stiff at the sound of her voice. And you need to break it again in every new cycle — or every loop, I should say, until you get out of here. Please, Taako, trust us. We’ll explain as soon as we can, I promise.

Magnus kneels on the ground and pokes the coin gingerly, as if expecting it to explode. “Taako, where did you get this? Do you know what triggered it to —”

Taako snaps the Umbra Staff with his bare hands, and a column of fire erupts around him.

As his vision turns into an orange blur, he can just barely hear Merle yelp in shock and Magnus shout in concern over the roar of the flames, but he doesn’t feel afraid — which is itself a deeply unsettling feeling, because he should really be terrified out of his mind — but he just can’t fear this fire no matter how hard he tries. The warmth of the flames that weave so deftly around him is not harsh, but rather, comforting — almost fiercely comforting, in a way Taako wasn’t prepared to be comforted, a way that makes his heart seize up just like the woman’s voice that he couldn’t help but trust.

The blaze consolidates into a spectral figure in red who floats in front of him and nods, face obscured by the cowl of her robe but a smile manifesting clearly in her voice nevertheless.

“Thank you so much, Taako. I knew you’d come through.”

Then Magnus swings Railsplitter through her — harmlessly, of course — and she turns to face him.

“What do you want from this town, Red Robe?” Magnus yells. “Why did you bring Jack and June here?”

“Magnus, calm down! Really, I should be asking you about Jack and —”

She pauses, noticing Magnus’s disoriented expression. “Shit, was that static? You know, that’s probably for the best. Let’s start over: Magnus, Merle, Taako, earth elemental who’s name I missed —”

“I’m Roswell. Could you please identify yourself?”

“Magnus, Merle, Taako, Roswell — but mostly you Tres Horny Bois, or whatever you call yourselves these days — first things first, I’m not the Red Robe you met before. Second and on a related note, yes, I’ve been in Taako’s umbrella this whole time. Yes, it sucked. And third…”

She sighs. “You’re just going to have to take my word on this one, but I literally can’t explain who I am or why I’m on your side. It might seriously damage your minds, but I should be able to tell you my name, which is Lup.”

“Lup, why do I trust you?” The name feels strange in Taako’s mouth — familiar, except it shouldn’t be, except it is, except it couldn’t be, except…

The contradiction just spirals on forever, boring a hole in his mind that aches like hell and makes his stomach churn.

“Taako — oh, Taako, you’re not thinking about it too hard, are you? You can’t think about it too hard — you see why I can’t try and explain anything else. I would if I could…”

Slowly, with help from Lup’s Mage Hand, Taako stands up. He can’t even remember when he fell to his knees, but… he tries not to think too hard about it. Just take things one step at a time.

“Lup can help get us out of here,” he tells Magnus and Merle. “I don’t know why, but I’d trust her with my life even outside of a time loop, so… we’re doing what she says now.”

Magnus shrugged. “You know, I guess we could do a lot worse than putting a competent woman in charge, even if she’s undead. Lup, whatever your plan is, I’m down for it.”

***

By the time the purple worm dives back down beneath the earth with her children, Taako’s just about ready to collapse. Physically, he’s uninjured — he had a lich and an earth elemental watching his back, after all — but mentally, he’s a wreck. The persistent roar of static in the back of his mind has taken its toll, especially since the loop where he died before anyone else, and woke up to find Magnus and Merle giving him the two most confused and concerned looks he’d ever seen on their faces.

So when Avi freezes, glowing red, and everyone’s Stones of Farspeech go dark, Taako barely has the energy to wonder why until another robed figure materializes, holding a finger to his lips —

“DID YOU RETRIEVE THE…”

Every fold of fabric freezes in place, as lightning washes over the Red Robe’s form.

“LUP?!”

“Hey, babe,” Lup whispers, unfazed by the lightning bolts as she floats forward to wrap her arms around the other lich. “Thanks for the coin.”

“But — but how?” the Red Robe stammers. “How are you finally —”

Several curls of hair, made up of ghostly orange fire, escape from under Lup’s hood as she explains, and the Red Robe gently twirls a coil of flames around one of his skeletal fingers. “How are you really here?”

“You’re not gonna believe this,” Lup explains, “but it turns out that magic-absorbing staffs and beings made of pure magic aren’t actually the best combo.”

“Oh my god, we’re idiots,” the Red Robe gasps. “We’re magical undead idiots.”

“Love you too, Barry,” Lup murmurs.“God, I missed you so fucking much.”

“Wait, like Barry Bluejeans?” Magnus asks, at exactly the same time that Taako mutters: “Ugh, get a room.”

Barry whispers something to Lup that Taako doesn’t catch, and then both liches turn around.

“So, slight change of plans,” Lup announces. “It looks like the bubble isn’t quite down yet, but once we get that taken care of… anyone else up for a moonbase infiltration?”

“I’ve got one condition,” Taako immediately announces.

“What’s up?”

“If we run into the Grim Reaper, neither of you crimson lovebirds know me.”

#taz #taz balance #taako taaco #lup taaco #kravitz taz #taakitz #barry bluejeans #blupjeans #magnus burnsides #merle highchurch #taz balance spoilers #rosalia writes fic

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athingthatwantsvirginia · 5 years ago

Text

Bowie Didn’t!

PART EIGHT OF THE DO YOU SEE HER FACE? SERIES

Pairing: Jess Mariano x Original Character (Ella Stevens)

Warnings: mentions of death, plentiful pop culture references

Word Count: 3.7K

Summary: On the night of Sookie’s wedding, Ella visits the diner and encounters a surprise.

Though the sign on the door read Closed, Ella gave only one knock and rushed in. She could see Luke closing up, wiping down the main counter. Upon looking up to see her, Luke groaned and hung his head. Ella only smiled, a slightly wicked look. The lights were turned down low and it was shadowy, adding to her fatigue. Sookie’s wedding, out under the early summer sun, had been a fun, all-day affair, and it had taken the wind out of her. But she only had a night left before she shipped off to New Britain for the rest of June, and she had to get one dose of Luke’s food in before the three-week excursion.

“Ella, how many times-”

“I’ll help you clean up whatever mess I make, alright? I know the procedure,” she insisted, her grin growing.

He sighed. “Fine.”

“Thank you, Luke. I am eternally grateful,” she said with mock severity. “I just had to get another look at the place before I depart forever.”

Luke rolled his eyes. “You’re only gonna be gone for a few weeks.”

She scoffed. “To a youth like me, that’s practically a lifetime.”

“What can I get ya?” he snapped, over her theatrics, but in his usual gruff, lovable way.

“Fries, please. And a water?” she asked. Luke nodded and disappeared into the back.

Smiling still, she shrugged off her jean jacket, left in only the army green dress she’d worn to the wedding. The air was clear and full of promise. She would miss the diner, of course, but it would be a welcome escape from her family. Not that her father was entirely behind the idea, but she’d wheedled enough to get him to agree to not send the police looking for her while she was gone. It was odd, considering he usually gave less than one percent of a shit on a daily basis about where she was or what she was up to. Suddenly, feet thumped down the stairs to the apartment and Jess emerged from behind the checkered curtain. He was rubbing his big brown eyes with the heel of his hand. When he looked up and saw her sitting there, he staggered back in slight surprise.

“Hi,” he said, nodding a little.

She raised her eyebrows at seeing him back in his old haunt. “Hi.”

“So,” Jess began with a sigh, raising his hands and gesturing to himself standing in the diner.

Ella nodded, pursing her lips. “Yep. Guess you didn’t think to mention this on the phone two nights ago?”

He chuckled. “Of course I didn’t. Gotta keep things exciting.”

A crooked smirk on his face, Jess ambled over and leaned his forearms on the counter in front of her. Before she could ask him any questions, he shifted toward her and produced a shiny silver quarter from behind her ear. She furrowed her brows at the action but smiled. Holding out the coin to her, he smiled back. He heard Luke puttering around in the kitchen behind him. The deep fryer sizzled lowly. She took the quarter and rolled the cool metal between her fingers before shoving it in the pocket of her jacket.

“How was the wedding?” he asked, his chin propped up on his hand.

She shrugged. “It was a wedding.”

“Hence the name.”

Luke came back around with a basket of fries and a glass of water, eyeing Jess suspiciously, and said nothing as he set them down in front of Ella. She shot him a pointed look. “Thanks for keeping me in the know, boss.”

Sighing, Luke rolled his eyes. “Seems like you figured it out on your own. You’re gonna be gone all month anyway.”

“Gone all month?” Jess echoed.

She nodded. “The New Britain aunt. She just asked me yesterday if I could help her out for a while. She's getting married next week, and they already have a couple kids. I’m babysitting while they’re on their honeymoon.”

“Thrilling,” Jess quipped.

“Should be.”

“Guess I’ll just have to call you here for a while then. You’ll be waiting at the phone, desperate just to hear my voice,” she said in a breathy, dramatic voice, reminiscent of 1940s screen queens.

“Keep dreaming.”

“I always am.”

“Well, it’s not too far. Maybe I’ll return the favor. I’ll show up and you can take me on a tour of all the New Britain hotspots,” he said dryly, though there was a joking tone.

She scoffed. “No such places exist, Mariano.”

“What’s he talkin’ about?” Luke asked, crossing his arms over his chest and looking down at her.

Pausing for a moment, Ella shrugged, feigning nonchalance as she stared down at her fries. “I went and saw Jess in the city a couple weeks ago.”

“What?” he asked, throwing an accusatory glare to a smirking Jess. “When?”

“Mother’s day,” she said shortly, finally meeting Luke’s eyes again.

A knowing expression passed across Luke’s face. “Oh.”

“Mm-hmm,” she hummed in response, aware he wouldn’t say another word about it. Lost in her mind for a moment, she cast her gaze over to the door of the stock room, memories rolling over her like waves.

. . .

one year and three weeks earlier

It was summer when she died, almost a full year before. The warming weather brought with it unpleasant, familiar stirrings in the pit of her stomach. She could hear the keys of her mother’s piano, smell her perfume, feel her mother’s hands brushing her hair when she was a child. Order after order, she brought pancakes to happy families. There were mothers with bouquets of flowers in their arms milling around out on the street. And she was happy for them. But it was so hard to maintain the facade when she had nauseating clouds of grief washing her in gloomy rain. She hadn’t even known it was Mother’s Day until she left the house, her father and brother not having yet awoken. But the looks people were giving her told her something was wrong. The chalkboard outside the bookstore announcing the holiday sale solved the mystery for her.

Blowing strands of hair away from her rosy face, Ella felt the throbbing of her sore feet and wanted nothing more than to be listening to her Stevie Nicks tunes on a low volume in her bedroom. She wanted to be reading Dickinson and wallowing in the misery she had no idea would befall her. There seemed to be nothing on the Earth which would cheer her up until the bell over the door jingled and she saw the faces of Lorelai and Rory.

“If it isn’t my favorite mother-daughter detective team!” Ella smiled as they sat down at the counter in front of her.

Luke came over to greet them as well, a cheery expression on his stubbly face. “What can I get ya?”

“Pancakes with chocolate chips that spell out ‘Mother of the Year,’” Lorelai said immediately, batting her eyelashes.

Sighing, Luke looked up from his writing. “Is that a serious request?”

“Am I one to joke about pancakes?” Lorelai countered.

Grunting out an affirmative monosyllabic response, Luke went back into the kitchen. Ella shook her head. Her boss would do anything for that woman.

“We’re gonna have to wolf those pancakes down if we’re gonna get through all the movies today,” Rory reminded Lorelai, a sweet smile on her lips.

“Oooo, what kind of marathon is it?” Ella asked.

“Audrey Hepburn,” Lorelai answered through a grin. “Funny Face, Sabrina, the whole nine. Maybe we’ll add some Katherine, too. All the Hepburns.”

Feeling her heart drop into her stomach, Ella hid the crestfallen look which threatened to cross her face. “That sounds great. I um...I gotta go get some extra chocolate chips from the back if Luke’s gonna fit all those words on the pancakes.”

Rory furrowed her brows in confusion, but Lorelai realized their mistake almost as soon as the words left her lips. However, Ella was in the stock room before either of them could say anything to correct themselves.

Ten minutes passed before Luke noticed his waitress was nowhere to be seen. Admittedly, he had to search his mind to remember if she’d told him he was taking a break or not. When he decided there was no such memory, he returned to the counter where Rory and Lorelai were finishing up their candied pancakes.

“Did you guys see where Ella went?” he asked.

The two women looked between themselves with hesitant looks. Lorelai sighed and shook her head, a conspiratory whisper to her voice. “She’s back in the stock room, but I would just give her a minute.”

“Why? What’s goin’ on?” Luke was immediately concerned, and Lorelai’s face softened at his worry.

Rory chimed in, looking guilty. “We told her we’re doing a Hepburns marathon for Mother’s Day. And her mom also loved Katherine Hepburn and it just slipped out and it’s Mother’s Day and-”

“She’s probably just gonna need a few minutes,” Lorelai cut in, finishing for her daughter.

Luke’s face dropped and he blew out a long breath. “Oh. I...I should go talk to her.”

“Should you?” Lorelai asked doubtfully, but Luke was already walking away. “Luke?”

Back in the stock room, Luke found Ella on the floor near a rack of canned goods. The room smelled of tomatoes and dirt, but it was homey in an odd way. She rested her head on her crossed arms, elbows on her knees. Luke hadn’t seen her so small since she was a toddler, sitting there crumpled up into herself. Her shoulders were shaking slightly, though her cries were silent. Wiping his hands on his jeans, Luke almost returned to the diner but Ella’s muffled voice stopped him before he could leave.

“I know you’re there, Luke,” she said, though she didn’t raise her head to look at him. “I’m sorry, I’ll be back out in a second.”

He sighed guiltily, then shuffled on his booted feet a moment before taking a seat next to her. Though she could feel his presence at her side, she still didn’t look up. There were dark smudges around her eyes, she knew, and tears steadily streaming down her cheeks. Even at the funeral, she didn’t cry. No one had seen her cry since she was a small child. It was only nights alone in her room when she finally let her heart open up and bleed. In a million lifetimes she never would have imagined a simple mention of Katherine Hepburn would break her down in public, or that Luke would be the one to see it. But in the last year, she had learned how grief would come and go like a flash flood. The thought of the loneliness, the pure isolation she’d brought upon herself while coping with the loss, sent another shuddering sob up her spine. She swallowed it back and sniffled, her face still buried in her jeans. Suddenly, she felt Luke’s arm around her shoulder, and she flinched at the touch. Her muscles were tense.

“I’m sorry, Ella,” he said solemnly.

Before she could stop herself, she blurted out a tearful whisper: “Everyone else gets to have a mom.”

Luke nodded, and he wrapped his arms around her as she brought her head to his shoulder and cried into the flannel of his shirt. “I know, I know.”

“I don’t have a mom anymore. I’ll never have a mom again,” she murmured through her tears.

“Yes, you do. She’s still with you. It’s gonna be okay,” he spoke softly, feeling his heart break for her. He knew exactly what it was like to lose a mother at a young age.

And there they sat for the next half hour, until Ella’s breathing finally slowed to a near-normal pace and her hands had calmed their shaking. Luke let her go early, and promised her Mother’s Day off for the rest of eternity, or however long she might work there.

. . .

Her high heels fell rhythmically on the sidewalk as she and Jess left the diner and strolled through the balmy night. There was a warm breeze, and somewhere far off an owl hooted, a loon called. After she had washed up the dishes from the fries and the water, Jess had suggested they go out and do something since she’d be missing in action for three whole weeks. The flowers were blooming all around town, and the gazebo was adorned with hydrangeas of pink, blue, purple.

“Hey, you gotta see this,” she said, grabbing him by the sleeve and marching the both of them up the steps.

“Jeez, relax,” he grumbled at her insistence.

She only grinned, her eyes travelling up when they reached the gazebo’s center. They sat down next to each other on the small wooden bench. A fragrant floral sheet cloaked them. Jess followed her gaze to the sky, and immediately understood. There was a hole in the gazebo ceiling, small but enough. There was a beautiful view of the stars, through a cloudy lattice of flowers.

“Huh,” he chirped, nodding slightly.

“Wow, don’t act so impressed,” she scoffed, annoyed at his ambivalence.

He smirked at her, looking over at her profile in the moonlight. “No, really, it’s cool. Something you should paint.”

“Maybe,” Ella agreed, finally meeting his eyes with a tiny smile.

“How’d this happen, anyway?” he asked, gesturing up to the hole.

She shrugged, scrunching up her nose. “Something about Kirk and a batting machine a few nights ago. I just tune most of it out at this point.”

“A wise choice.”

“I think so. Anyway, it'll definitely be fixed in the next few days. Figured you should see it before it was gone.”

“Well, I’m so honored you thought of me,” he teased.

Ella rolled her eyes and flushed, staring ahead at the square glowing silently around them. “Don’t flatter yourself, Mariano.” She paused and spoke again, losing her wistful air. “So, come on, don’t keep me in suspense any longer.”

“What?” He furrowed his brows.

“Well, what are you doing here? And are you visiting or are you...here?” she asked hesitantly, avoiding his eyes.

“I’m here. I came back. I just...wanted to.”

“Why?”

Jess shrugged, running a hand over his mouth. “World bites you, you bite back, right?”

A full smile crossed her lips, and she nudged him with a joking elbow. “That’s right. Took my advice, huh?”

“Just this once. Don’t let it go to your head.”

“Too late.”

“Yeah, I figured,” he said. “Besides, it wasn’t like my mom was suddenly gonna want me back there.”

She hummed and nodded, appraising him. His arms were crossed over the chest of his Clash t-shirt, his hair mussed and his eyes tired. Again, she thought of Jess wandering out in the city alone in the middle of school hours. A pit of guilt settled in her stomach at the thought of leaving the next day, just as he had returned. But she thought better of it. He didn’t need her, and she instantly felt more than a little presumptuous. Without thinking, she chewed at the nails of her right hand.

“You need to quit that, honey,” he scolded with good nature in his voice.

Ella rolled her eyes and scoffed, casting him no more than a momentary glance. “Yeah, I’ll quit biting when you quit smoking.”

“Touché.”

“I’m just nervous.”

“Really? I couldn’t tell,” he quipped.

She snickered and shook her head. “Shut up. My dad doesn’t want me to go, and there’s probably gonna be hell to pay. But I have to take my escapes where I can get them.”

“Don’t I know it,” he agreed. Her makeup was smudged around her eyes, her lipstick faded. There was a stoic look across her features, guarding her thoughts. Jess found himself frustrated at her unreadable expression.

“Hey, just for the record?” she began, breaking the silence.

“Hm?”

“I think I might hate your mom,” she admitted.

Jess laughed bitterly. “I don’t know. You two do share the inclination toward Stevie Nicks.”

She scoffed. “The one commonality. She doesn’t think you’ll go to college, right?”

“More like I’ll never amount to anything, but close enough.”

“That’s bullshit, Jess,” she said with earnest.

“Hey, don’t shoot the messenger,” he snapped defensively.

Before she could stop herself, she shifted to face him and raised her eyebrows doubtfully. “The messenger? Like you don’t walk around acting like someone you’re not.”

“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?” Jess exclaimed, brows furrowed.

“Just…” she sighed, trailing off. Then, she doubled down and took a big breath before beginning again. “This whole Holden Caulfield thing, acting like you’re too cool to want anything!”

“Like you know what I want,” he countered. “And college isn’t the end-all be-all of existence!”

“I didn’t say that! Who gives a fuck if you go to college? Bowie didn’t!” she agreed, voice still raised.

“Exactly!”

“But, that’s not the point! Jess, what do you want?!” she asked. “You go through like five books a day and you almost failed eleventh grade! I mean, Jesus, you could do anything you wanted if you tried!”

“Like it’s so simple,” he grumbled.

“I didn’t say it was simple,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You’re just too fucking smart for your own good, Mariano. You can’t waste it.”

He shook his head, biting his lip.

Ella sighed, running a hand through her curled hair. “Fine, don’t listen to me.” Again, she bit at her thumb nail, gazing over the town. Luke was finally finished closing up, and she saw him shut off the lights.

“I’m listening,” he muttered, his voice not without frustration.

“Whatever you say, jackass.”

Before he could respond, Ella stood up and smoothed her hands over her skirt. Her hair fell down her back in golden curls, and the silver chain around her neck glinted. Jess could hear the gentle buzz of insects beneath the thick blanket of night. Upstairs in the apartment, there was a Hemingway novel awaiting him. But he had an inkling he would have a harder time concentrating on it than normal. He thought she was going to leave without uttering another word, but instead she turned and stood back against the rail of the gazebo. She leaned down and unclasped the strappy black shoes she wore, gathering them up by the heels in one hand.

“You’ll get an infection walking around without shoes,” he warned lightly, hoping to drop the subject of his ambiguous future.

She smirked, and Jess felt himself relax. “Maybe in New York. Not so much in Stars Hollow.”

“Oh, was Manhattan not up to your small town standards?”

Her smile grew into something more genuine and she crossed her arms against the summer breeze. The night was quickly cooling, and she had only her jan jacket to shield her. “No, actually, it exceeded them. It was so...dynamic. Just like you described. But there was no five-dollar street corner sex!”

Jess laughed, though his heart fluttered inside his chest at the look in her eyes. The one of glittering wonder she’d had while they watched the Hudson. “Yeah, well, can’t win ‘em all.”

“Next time?” she teased expectantly.

“Next time,” Jess assured her, nodding.

“Well, I gotta get home,” she said, glancing behind her in the direction of her street. “I have to finish packing.”

“Right,” he sighed, glancing down at his boots, then back up. “Guess I’ll have to keep that place in business until July, huh?”

“I suppose,” she said, descending the stairs of the gazebo and calling back over her shoulder. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

“I’ll try my best,” he shot back. “But no promises.”

She rolled her eyes and threw him a glance. “I would expect nothing less of you, Mariano.”

And with one final wave and a shouted goodnight, she turned away and continued on the short walk back to her little blue house. Jess smiled after her, watching her glide barefoot over the grass of town square and down the main street until she took a left and disappeared. And he felt a tug at his heart at her absence, but shook his head to himself before trudging back over to Luke’s.

. . .

The mid-morning bloomed warm and sunny, a break from the showers which had recently hung over Stars Hollow, and much of the north East. Pebbles crunched beneath the tires of Ella’s big blue Station Wagon, loaded with her duffel and her suitcase, various books in a grocery bag on the passenger seat. After the morning she’d had, she was biting her nails down to the quick. If she hadn’t admonished Jess the night before, she might have even smoked a cigarette or two. She had smoked for only a short period, the few weeks following her mother’s death. And every now and then when she incurred her father’s wrath. Watching her load up her car had made her father’s ears steam, and he’d broken one of the kitchen chairs. Being hungover certainly hadn’t helped him keep his temper under control.

As she rolled past Luke’s Diner, the radio blasted a sharp Liz Phair tune. Ella sang along at the top of her lungs, but quieted as she slowed down and let her gaze wander to the diner. For a moment, she debated stopping in for a final cup of tea, but she had to blink twice to make sure what she saw was accurate. Jess, with his black hair spiked up and dressed in his familiar camo shirt, had his hands in a girl’s back pockets. They sucked face as they leaned against the diner, right on the sidewalk. Ella scrunched up her nose at sight and scoffed as she turned her eyes back to the road. Apparently it didn’t take Jess very long. Had he even been back for twenty-four hours yet? She ignored the way her palms began to sweat. As she sped away from Stars Hollow, she turned the speakers up until she felt the music’s vibrations in her chest.

#jess mariano imagines #jess mariano imagine #jess mariano one shot #jess mariano one shots #jess mariano #jess #mariano #gilmore girls #gilmore girls fanfiction #jess mariano x oc #gilmore girls imagines #jess mariano x original character #original character #original character stories #luke danes #lorelai gilmore #rory gilmore

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cawolters · 5 years ago

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✷ Babes in the Well ✷ (Liar Alliance snippet)

Good day to you! It’s been a minute, but here I am with a little thing that I think you guys might think will be a neat read.

It’s a little snippet of a scene I wrote between charming young King Deria and my newly hatched/refined character, gloomy necromantic Hinrich.

(Hinrich is a Mask btw, a sort of ambassador to the Kings of the ten kingdoms in the empire.)

Where: Tall Castle at the beginning of book two

Who: Deria is talking

What: He’s wandering the Chalice Room, looking at paintings and thinking about magic when he’s interrupted by a gloomy apparition.

WC: 1800

Themes: Ghost magic, politcal intrigue, secret coup!!

Is it gay?

( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

Well. Yes, on multiple levels, but not explicit in this scene.

Unfortunately.

Plot needs pages too.

✴ BLUE FLAG ✴

What a delightful day it was indeed. The sunlight in the mountains cast its gentle overcast glare over the hills as afternoon clouds drifted slowly over the subtly rising and falling hills deep down, down, in the valley, below my childhood home, Tall Castle.

The patterns of shy light and then sporadic sharp beams, raying out of the heavens and touching a little cottage outside the village, was more enchanting than magic.

Or, I would have thought that before I had seen the gold coin eyes of the Blade by the Empress’ side. Ah, and then her flat pieces of dull ebony to contrast his. They had been standing so close and then she had laughed. I saw it, a flower blooming in the deep dark night.

Magic indeed.

I drifted away from the massive window and toward the far end of the grand chambers of the vacant Chalice Room . My father had called it the Chalice Room because of the grand ornamented stone goblets that ran along the walls on either side of a wide aisle, making an elongated space where politics could merge or divide in its rift.

It was here all the meets with the kingdoms were held. In the middle was the round stone table, large enough and fit for Kings and just a moment ago it had been stuffed with every inch of the continent. The Ten Kings, or, rather our four border kingdoms that could come to us within a week, had gathered here in the tallest of castles, but to what end?

I wondered.

My eyes followed the walls. Paintings, taller than two able men on top of each other’s shoulders, were hung between the lit oil-chalices. King after King draped in deep rich velvets, queens and offspring, squeezed into gilded frames. More often than not, there were more than seven people stacked together in dim rooms and posing.

As I walked, their lifelike eyes followed me. Even my own green gaze, almost hidden behind the black sorrow veil that honored my late father, seemed eager to stalk me through the fabric on my stroll. It would stay like that for five years, covered with black silk to grieve The Great Fifth King. The Wall To The North. Praise in his name.

My face twitched, entirely involuntary, and I quickened my pace for the next two paintings until I got where I had wanted to go.

I stopped at the end of the aisle and came closer to the portrait, larger still than the rest and looking almost empty as there were only three people in the dim light of a dark background.

Kōrudo, The Cold. The Emperor.

Ohtani, The Sun Smile.

His lovely tragic wife that looked like she had never smiled in a hundred years, and now she never would. And then, there, holding her mother’s hand; their little daughter.

Empress Shiroin. The Pure One.

I almost laughed out loud at the nickname.

I had seen this portrait many a time of course. I had admired that oddity of the first girl to be born in the imperial line for a thousand years, but now that I had seen her in person, had had her presence just a breath away from mine, I never imagined an artist to be so wrong about a face.

The portrait looked like her, the likeness was there, no doubt, but he had caught her wrong. The artist’s hand must have begged him to dot those two fictive pearls of oil-white in her black gaze, add that tint of pink life on her cheeks and erase some of that hatred that blazed out of her face like the cutting rays of sun in my valley.

She had only been five when the painting had come into creation, so small a human, but in truth not looking like a human at all. Despite the artist’s efforts.

“Have you fallen in love?”

The quiet voice behind me, slightly distorted into more whispery voices speaking simultaneously, sent my heart racing and made me whip my head over my shoulder.

When I immediately spotted the menacing cloaked figure of Hinrich, standing in the middle of the Chalice Room, appeared out of thin air, my stomach did a small flip as unease hit it.

His cloak moved as if under water, wavering around his ankles and framing his pale face irregularly. Hinrich’s mass was see-through. An undead ghost. The Mask of Kaiserhof.

I sighed dramatically in a smile, suppressing the urge to flee, and turned back to the painting. My eyes once more seeking Shiroin’s pits.

“Yes always, and with everyone. It’s not a sporadic occurrence it’s a chronic condition. You should adapt my philosophies, Hinrich, then perhaps you wouldn’t look like a wraith who wants to crawl down a well and haunt it.”

Though I had my back to him, I could sense the Mask had glided closer while I talked. His presence had changed the temperature of the room.

“My philosophies are my own, they don’t need outside pollution. And wells are only haunted by dead whore-babes. Not men. I fish for them when my work demands bones and rotting flesh.” He said, quietly, the wisp of a voice far away and carried to my castle with death magic.

By the Gods he was a creepy sort of errand boy. We had been dealing with each other since the Empress had first vanished and I had almost gotten used to it by now, his unsettling being and ghoul magic, but admittedly not totally.

“Gone to the Gods through a wet hole.” I joked lightly, “what an enchanting way to depart this world. Out the way we came in, and frequently visits, no?”

He wasn’t actually a ghost of course. I would not have had the stomach to engage if he had been dead.

When I turned, his mouth was sour, disgust crinkling one side of his straight nose sitting on his translucent face.

“If you’re talking about sticking your cock in somewhere, it better be the Empress.” The light in the room did not fall on him, and he cast no shadow.

“Now now, Hinrich, manners. I am still a King after all.”

“Not my King.” He was a statue, staring at me and pissing me right in the face without a flinch. Then he added:

“Did she comply to the marriage?”

I threw my head back in a loud laugh. The Chalice Room made it sound like a roar.

“Comply?! Good Sir, Have you met her?”

Hinrich’s expression told me that he hadn’t and that he had no interest of ever doing so. All he wanted was his master’s orders carried out. He was an unsettling figure, but a good lapdog, to the right lap.

“If you cannot deliver, we will recruit one of the others. Errin’s King is unwed too.”

“Are you threatening me with ‘The sickling from the swamps’? I have the wall, the army, the looks and I am what they call a ‘team player’. I’m a quality bargain.” I smiled wider and tilted my head, “Besides. If you just wanted an unwed King to lock down the Empress with a ring, or stick something still up her dress, why not use your own?”

I knew exactly why. I was dealing a friendly blow, aimed right up under Hinrich’s arm at the only spot I knew he was truly sore.

“Hm, why hasn’t Eckhart apparition joined us here at Tall Castle to seduce the Grand Empress?”

In a blink his ghost was nose to nose with me. Hinrich wasn’t actually dead. His young, able, body was alive and well in Kaiserhof, but his spirit, tainted and twisted as it were, was right here with me. And though he was not haunting me, the illusion of terror, in that moment, was rather convincing.

I gulped.

Hinrich could not touch me, I had tested that when I had thrown a book at him the first time he came to me, but he was freezing my blood.

“Never take my King’s name in your dirty mouth.” His warning was slow and hateful.

There was a long pause where I could only see his sunken in eyes and feel the ice.

I slowly wet my lips with the tip of my tongue. My bones were shaking.

“Are we about to share our first kiss?” I whispered.

Another pause slid by, in which Hinrich processed my third joke of the day. Then he drifted backwards. Not amused at all.

“Deria, the quick. You think you are so smart,” his gaze darkened “but you know nothing. Make her say yes. Force her to be your ring.” The word ‘ring’ was a quiet bark his mouth.

“Force her? And how would I do that. Let me tell you, she almost stabbed me twice already, I’m sure she’s eager to actually spear me through my throat the third time I give her an excuse.”

Heinrich didn’t hesitate.

“Use the war.”

My smile fell.

“… Retract my forces? Then the empire loses two thirds of the world army.”

The Mask didn’t blink and he didn’t answer.

“But… Then the war is not ours. The Elsalvians could win, we don’t know their numbers with utmost certainty. Hinrich, people would die -A lot of people, my people your people, everyone! And mine are the first to meet the doomsday fire on our doorstep.” I ran a hand through my curls. “It- it’s the thousand year war, by the Gods! I won’t risk all of humankind for a coup at puts me at the top. I am not starved for a power that comes at that price.”

“Do what you have to.”

“You’re not hearing me, I can’t agree-“ I started but Hinrich interrupted me.

“It’s a threat. The Grand Empress will have to take you as her ring, for the sake of the empire. She will fold. Use the war.” Hinrich drifted backwards, his cloak soaring and floating in water that wasn’t there.

“And if she says no? She’s not striking me as a humanitarian.” I bit. I was getting angry now.

“This will happen whether you want it to or not. You cannot stop it.” His strange hissing voice was fading, the winter cold was becoming more tolerable.

I gaped at him in disbelief before I found my reply.

“Maybe I can stop you. I could expose your little illegal spells to the worlds, the other kingdoms, and then you’d be burned before the rooster is crowing on the last day of this week.”

His face scrunched up as he snarled.

“Try, and you will know what true horror looks like.”

I opened my mouth but closed it again.

“That’s right. Do what you have to do. Or we will, King Deria.”

My name hung in the air for a moment and then the Mask was gone. Disappeared and dissolved like a drop of ink in the running river.

I stared at the spot Hinrich had just been. Contemplating how I was a mouse between two mountain lion. He had had a point. If I declined, they would stage their coup around me, shut me out and keep me in the dark while they worked their sorcery to manipulate the fate of the world.

My hands became fists of their own as I strode out of the Chalice Room.

“Fucking magic.”

-Ciao-

#writeblr #dark fantasy #wip #original writing #cawolters #riseoftheblooddawn #theliaralliance #ayearofauthor

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mashitandsmashit · 5 years ago

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America’s Got Talent: Season 15 - Auditions 1

Hello, and welcome to my reviews/countdowns for “America's Got Talent”, Season 15! I'm Mashitandsmashit, but you can call me Mash or Mashit for short...

So with AGT turning a decade-and-a-half old, some changes are bound to be made...I guess I'll just get them out of the way real quick...

1: Heidi Klum has officially returned to the AGT judges' desk, and yes, I will admit that after the boredom I endured from What's Her Name and That Other Chick last year, her quirkiness was sorely missed...

2: Sofia Vergara will be taking the other seat, and while she can be likable and entertaining, they probably just hired her because they wanted a chick with an even funnier accent than Mel B.

3: Due to a certain virus flying around, some of the auditions will be held remotely, like every other “live” show on TV right now...In fact, a handful of them have already been uploaded to Youtube, but I'm not sure whether or not they'll air these auditions on TV, so I'll hold off on reviewing them for now...

Anyway, it's not like we have anywhere to be these days, so let's get right down to tonight's premiere...

Here's my first act ranking for Season 15!

10: Archie Williams. The act that felt more like a Golden Buzzer than the ACTUAL Golden Buzzer, and the act most likely to win the whole season so far...And he's at the bottom of my list...Not that I don't see the value in him, his singing was very nice and all...BUT it was far from the best singing I've heard, including from old brothas like him...Indeed, when Simon said he will never forget this audition, it's pretty obvious what the reason is, and raw talent is not it...That being said...this is one case where I might be willing to throw the act a bone specifically BECAUSE of the sob story! In fact, I don't think I'm even gonna complain about this guy making it all the way to the Finals! Because you know what, as rubbish as the results on this show can be a lot of the time, even the worst results in the show's history don't even hold a candle to the injustice that this man had to suffer for all of these years! I'm at a point in my life where my mortality has hit me hard, giving me an existential crisis over not having accomplished anything significant that I would have liked to in life, and feeling trapped in my current situation, unable to improve it! I can only imagine what THIS guy went through, having the prime years of his life stripped away from him and thrown in a cage over something he didn't do! A LOT is owed to this man, not the least of which are those 37 FREAKING YEARS of his life back! But since that is a tragic impossibility, I guess the LEAST we can give him is his time in the sun on this show! And we won't let that sun go down on him! ...Even if he's by no means the best...Will he win? Probably not...But he'll probably go far either way...And maybe he can even legitimately earn some of it by improving his voice or performing an original song...Who knows...? (HOO, boy...That's a HELL of a review to open this season with!)

9: Double Dragon. I didn't know the Lee Brothers had successors! Where's the coin slot? I wanna beat up some Black Warriors with these ladies' singing and choreography! Anyway, this was entertaining, if rather gimmicky...We'll see if these ladies can pick a song choice I can take a little more seriously next time, or if they go all out on the silliness! ...Honestly, I'm kinda rooting on the latter!

8: Voices of Our City Choir. A choir getting the Golden Buzzer? STOP THE PRESSES! But seriously, I do see potential in this group...There were a few aspects to this act that we haven't seen in previous choirs, like the (very catchy and enjoyable) original song, the instruments and the choir leader actually singing with them (in a very unique singing voice, no less). I'd rather avoid another Detroit Youth Choir situation, but seeing that this IS Terry's Golden Buzzer, and the hosts' GB picks have consistently made the Top 3 AT LEAST every time...again, save for that old burlesque dancer lady...I'd say these people have the potential to keep that streak going...Then again, Angel City Chorale had similar draws to them, and they never did that well in the votes...The whole numbers factor usually only works for kids, because parents are more likely to vote than OTHER relatives...So between that and the comparisons made between this act and Archie, it's a tough one to call...We'll just see what develops as the season goes on...But if nothing else, maybe it's time to break that streak...

7: The Pork Chop Revue. We've seen dog acts, bird acts, cat acts and even a rat act, so who's to say we can't add pigs to the animal trick collective? I guess when you get down to it, it's pretty much another dog act but with pigs...And I probably wouldn't even say that pigs are the most difficult animals to train, as they're actually quite intelligent...But this was unique and different enough for the time being, and both the gigantic mother and the little baby pig stole the show...and everyone's hearts! That'll do, pigs...That'll do...

6: Ryan Tricks. I would like to take this moment to coin a new AGT term: The Shin Lim Effect! Basically, it refers to the shadow that has been cast over all magicians on this show by a certain other magician, hence the name...Because of it, all magicians that compete on this show will inevitably be compared to You-Know-Who...It's not exactly a fair comparison, but it does set the standard for what is expected of all magicians from here on out...This man, for instance, did a trick that was far from the most mesmerizing or head-scratching...BUT, he still made me wonder what made this trick possible, and as mundane as that sounds, it IS the highest of compliments you can give a magician! The only answer that could hurt his credibility is if Howie and Simon were plants...But I've long since stopped assuming that they do those things...I'm not ENTIRELY sold on him yet, but he is likable enough that I'm willing to give him a chance...

5: Broken Roots. These guys were easily the most interesting singers for me tonight! I look forward to seeing how they improve with a little more practice...

4: Muy Moi Show. Just when you thought you'd never see a more insane sideshow act than Bir Khalsa...This guy did everything short of hanging something off of his eyelids! He even put his shirt back on! That's almost a cardinal sin in the eyes of the female judges! All I have to say is, I look forward to seeing what he does with a bigger budget!

3: BAD Salsa. Is it wrong that I almost wondered if they were former V.Unbeatable members? I mean, they certainly had the acrobatic abilities! This takes the whole dance duo genre to a new level, so I guess it's no surprise that it's from India!

2: Vincent Marcus. I wish I had Eminem and Jay-Z singing my nursery rhymes back when I was little! I never watched Vine, so I'm not aware of this guy's earlier work, but he seems like a pretty funny guy! Question is, will he make good progress like Greg Morton, or will he be taken out prematurely like several other acts of this nature...? Who knows? But I hope he does well, because this was certainly one of the more memorable acts so far...

1: Malik DOPE. Looks like my dream band consisting of Tokio Myers, Brian King Joseph and Marcin Patrzalek finally has a drummer! I'm not sure if this guy blew me away to the same degree that those other guys did (yet), but I do love his moves! I see a lot of potential in this act, especially when he gets enough of a budget to add some special effects or something...(PS, I'd probably pick Courtney Hadwin to be the lead singer...I'll call them the Sounds of Chaos!)

Overall, a pretty solid opener to the season! Even the weakest acts (not counting the rejects) had something to admire, and that's always good!

Next week, Simon's apparently got the Golden Buzzer...And I figure that it's only a matter of time before his GB wins the show, so we'll see if this is the year...I just hope that WHATEVER kind of act it is, it's deserving enough to go all the way to the Finals as I'm sure it will inevitably either way...

So I guess I'll see you then...Assuming anyone else will be posting here with me, after the total silence I got at Champions a few months back...

Still looking into that podcast...

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sabraeal · 5 years ago

Text

With Ribs Laid Open

A companion to Creatures of a Brief Season, written for @inkybookwyrm who won 5th place in my 500 followers raffle! She requested some Obi backstory for the daemon AU, which I was only too happy to oblige. This fic has literally been a year in the making (2019 was a terrible year guys), and I’m happy I finally get to share it with all of you!

There are few moments that Od Ana considers precious, those few memories tucked into the secret place in her heart to be pulled out when the hour seems dark or the fog of misery hangs low. She and Obi have walked a long path together, but it has not been one of comforts, of quiet talks, of soft touches.

It has not been one of trust.

At least, not until now. Maybe all of this would be easier if that hadn’t changed.

“Did you know,” Shirayuki begins in that bright way of hers, eyes shining, “that birds have four-chambered hearts?”

She hadn’t. It had never occurred to her that such a thing might matter one way or the the other. After all, a blade stopped one from beating no matter how many it had, and that was the only metric that mattered.

But she didn’t say such things to Shirayuki. Anyone else-- and certainly Suzu-- she would have, but Shirayuki...

Never. Not when she tip-taps her slender finger right against the bone of her breast and makes the world light up like Longest Night.

“Usually it’s only mammals,” she continues, one dimple dinting her cheek. It’s a good thing Obi isn’t here; he thinks so loudly about how he wants to put his mouth to it. “But birds do too. Just like humans.”

It’s a significant point to make, she knows, but she can’t fathom why, not until Shirayuki casts her gaze toward where Obi stands, Little Ryuu perched on his fur-clad shoulders as he reaches for the top shelf, Perkunas’s pointed face staring up from his feet, and she says, “Your heart beats just like Obi’s.”

Od Ana thinks of that now as she spirals over the forests, feeling along the ache of her tether. Her own bird heart beats in her chest the same way Obi’s does, blood in, blood out, lub dub, lub dub. And though Shirayuki would huff to hear it, mincing politely through yet another the brain in the center of thought lecture, it feels the same pain his does too. The distress that thrums through her veins is as much his as it is her own.

She clicks her beak, annoyed. You’d think it’d make finding him easier.

Her eyesight is acute, enough to count the hairs on the rabbit dodging through the forest’s underbrush, but that amounts to less than nothing when Obi doesn’t want to be found.

Which he doesn’t. That part he’s made abundantly clear.

She swings lower, just above the trees now, relying less on her physical sense and more on the game of hot-cold she plays with the tether, triangulating her human by the amount of nonsense she can feel rattling her teeth as she gets closer.

Od Ana knows the rumors by now, how the guards and maids at Wistal whisper behind their hands when they see her in flight. Their tether’s broken, the most ignorant will say, they’re soulless, the both of them. The smarter ones will watch with fearful expressions as she swoops past, murmuring, I heard only those Samese witches have daemons like that.

It doesn’t bother her. When it had been just the two of them, clawing tooth and nail through the underground, those whispers had kept a fair share of blades in their sheaths.

She could only wish it did the same with wagging tongues and loose lips in the castle. Still, it changes nothing; their tether exists, as strong as any other, just...stretched.

A feature she regrets every time he pulls something like this.

She descends into the forest itself, gently spiraling through the canopy. He’s nearby, she can feel it, but Obi’s fond of hiding in plain sight, tucking himself into a branch or shouldering into a hollow. It takes hours to find him like that; it was a habit that had come in handy before they’d come here, but now--

Now he’s standing in the clearing, plain as day, still clad in his dress blacks.

Huh.

Her landing is ungainly, a series of hops as she tries to negotiate the forest floor, but it seems important to meet him as he is, to face him head on like a knight instead folded in the branches, like a shadow.

His back is to her, but she can tell by the set of his shoulders that he knows she’s here, that he’s been waiting. His placard is buttoned up to the chin, not a single one loose; she hardly recognizes him.

He’s no longer the starving boy he was. Od Ana doesn’t quite know what sort of man he’s becoming, but she likes it. Like the fact they’ve lived long enough to see it happen. “Two years is a long time.”

He doesn’t move, doesn’t even twitch.

“A long time to miss someone,” she presses.

“Master will get used to it.” His voice is hollow, falling flat as he strains for his usual humor. “That’s what Sir said, anyway.”

Her feet shuffle in the soft fill beneath them. “Will you?”

His chin jerks, so stiff; a puppet tugged by its strings. He’d moved like that today when Shirayuki looked to him, expectant and resigned. She’d jumped to surprise when he’d tottered toward her on stilted legs, arms reaching out like a clock figure about to clang its cymbals more than a man trying to embrace a woman but--

Her chest has sparked like tinder when Shirayuki touched him, when her arms wrapped around him like he belonged.

Would he miss his mistress? She knows the answer as well as her own feathers. But still, still...

Some poisons need to be sucked out before they fester. It’s the same for truths, as well.

“He’ll ask you to go.” It’s superfluous to say it; their tether wouldn’t be all twisted up in knots if Obi didn’t know that. It’s not the melancholy that’s choking him, it’s the guilt.

“He will,” he says, too late, too light. There should be a joke to follow, a crack at the prince’s prowess, but--

There’s only silence.

Od Ana tires of these games, as if she is not another part of him, as if she is not acutely aware of how he feels. She just doesn’t know what he’s thinking. “What will you say?”

The silence stretches. “Obi?”

“I’m sorry,” he says, too quick.

She blinks. “Sorry?”

His head turns just so, the sun catching the gold in his eyes until they burn. “I promised I would never bring you so close again.”

The air burns when she sucks it into her lungs, each breath coming harder, shallower than the last. Wolves are big, bigger than anything she’s allowed herself to become, but it doesn’t solve her exhaustion, or the way the cuts on his legs sear into her own.

Blood still ran down his legs in fresh rivulets when they left the master’s compound, staunched only by the scraps of cloth she’d helped wrap around them with her dexterous monkey paws. If master had been willing to wound him so easily, over so little-- well, they did not have time for them to heal.

Slaves did not get shoes, at least not the ones that worked inside, but he’d wrapped old laundry around those too, three layers thick. The snow seeped in anyway, soaking the cloth through before the compound had even rolled over the horizon. That had given way to chills, and now a painful numbness the burns her own paws as she walks.

He lost the ability to walk a mile ago; he is human, and his body gives out long before his heart. She had to sneak under him as a mouse and change to a wolf to get him on her back, and now she wishes that she could be something bigger, something warmer instead. A polar bear, like the ones men said roamed the northern tundra, or maybe even one of the dogs witches keep, if she dared.

It’s all just dreams. He may be small and undersized, but so is she. Food may not nourish her as it does him, but there are other ways for a soul to starve. As much as hunger has stunted him, privation has stunted her as well.

“This is stupid,” she says finally, the words lost in the wind. A waste of breath, but anything is better than the silence, than listening to the thin strain of his breathing. “We should just go to the border. There are people there, that’s what the traders say. They’ll help us.”

“This is the only way,” he insists, stubborn, the words muffled in her fur. “People will just hand us straight back to the slave-catchers for coin.”

“Not in Clarines,” she huffs, “it’s different there.”

“People are the same everywhere.” His fingers clutch tightly into her pelt. “It’s the only way.”

“How will they even find us?” It’s the doubt that been nagging at her since they left, since he first mentioned what he might do if they ran. “How will they even know? It’s not as if they sit around this wood, is it? Just waiting around for little boys to wander out? They’re w--”

“I don’t know,” he admits, heart racing in her chest. “But they do.” His breath pulses out of him, ragged. “They have to.”

“What are you thinking?” Od Ana’s claws dig into the window’s sill, if only so that she might not sink them into his own neck. “You want to go! Or did you forget?”

Obi’s back stands to her, hunched as he packs his trunk. His movements are stiff, unnatural, like a puppet in a market show. “No, I didn’t forget.”

“Then why are we heading south?”

He stills, back straight as a poker, hands clenched around a pair of trousers. Even from where she sits she can see his jaw clench.

“You want to be with her.” The words are sharp as an arrow’s head; he flinches as they hit. “I can feel it.”

“I never said I didn’t.” He sighs, a tight hiss between his teeth as he drops the bundle in and reaches for another. “It’s just...complicated.”

Only because he insists on it. “Do you want to stay?”

“Yes.” He shakes his head, almost violent. “No. I don’t know. I don’t want to stay here. I want to-- to--”

Words may fail him, but his heart beats in her breast too. “You want to stay with Shirayuki.” At his pained expression, she adds, “And Zen.”

A breath pants from him chest, like she hit him. “Yes.”

Od Ana leaps from the sill, swooping to his bedpost. It’s strange now; bare months ago she had perched in the same place as Obi pried up the board that would hide their stash. They’d kept a rucksack in there, stuffed to the brim with whatever supplied they could pilfer without getting caught: food, clothes, things to trade. She’d spent weeks flying above the roofs, picking out the best routes to escape, which exits were guarded least. They’d been so certain it was only a matter of time.

And the food had gone bad. They’d replaced it that first time, and every week after, over and over until--

Until they stopped.

From where she sits she sees Obi too, hand clutching his shoulder, mouth bared in a rictus of pain, and with a chill she knows-- he’s scared.

Abruptly, Od Ana is too. They aren’t like this. They’ve never not had an escape ready. They aren’t the sort of people who do this, who stay. They aren’t the sort of people who have homes.

And yet there’s a seed that sits in his pocket, heavy against his thigh. Even if he never plants it, it’s already taken root.

They belong here. Or at least, they want to.

“It doesn’t feel right to go. Not right now.” Obi’s chin jerks to the side, every line of his face tortured. “Not when I feel this way, and Master...”

Her wings itch at the title. She’ll never understand how he can bear to say it, how he can apply it to any man and not have his skin crawl at the sound. How even after all that they’ve been through, he can give his leash-- his fealty to someone so fully.

Zen is a good man, a good prince, but still, still--

“It would be lying.” Obi’s lips press together, another white scar slashed across his face. “I can’t feel this way and go.”

Od Ana is loath to let any man stand above them again. “The prince is a good man, but you don’t owe him anything.” Her beak clicks, annoyed. “Especially not your heart.”

He huffs out a laugh. “That’s good advice.”

They say that daemons are man’s soul made flesh, an expression of their truest nature. Od Ana doesn’t often brook with scholars, doesn’t often delve into the philosophy of the spheres, but she’ll allow that she knows Obi better than he knows himself.

He closes the trunk, slipping leather through its catches, and offers it a pained smile. A quick series of raps completes the ritual, and he leaves, a spring to his step and a shadow to his shoulders he just can’t shake.

Od Ana knows what happens to good advice he’d given:

It goes unheard.

He’s been gone too long.

She’d been a fool to let him go. She should have dragged him to the border, kicking and screaming if she had to, finding anyone who would take them south, as far from the mountains as they could. It would have been better to take their chances with tradesmen and thieves, to risk discovery by the slave-catchers. Anything but letting him walk away from her.

He’d rolled off her back, staggering to his feet with skin more blue than bronze. He’d given her that cocky smile, the one that had seen them punished more often than she could count, and limped through the pines.

He’d left blood on the snow.

It’s gone now, if she’d thought to find it. The wind’s picked up and the storm with it; she can feel the way it stings his skin, the way the cold has sunk bone deep, but--

But she can’t see him. Only the mad flurry of snow and the muted green of the fir around them. And--

And, oh, she knows the moment he reaches the end of their tether.

It’s a game all children play, even those who slaved under master’s thumb: how far can you be from your daemon? One at a time they go, human children huddling as they watch their friend turn down a hall or disappear into the wood. They all shriek when the daemon does, then laugh, and then the game is over.

But it’s not playtime, not anymore.

It’s quick, a bee’s sting; he takes a step and shies back, breath caught in his throat. He’s gone farther, though. In their games he’d never stopped at the first bite, stretching the taffy of their tether until they were breathless, until black had threatened to eclipse their vision.

And he doesn’t shy from it now. His next step is deliberate, and the next.

It hurts more than the whip.

The muscle beneath her skin roils, each step a spasm as she rushes toward the wood, her only thought to close the gap, to end the pain--

She bounces off, as if the boundary were made of glass.

A second attempt sends a shock through her, enough to rattle her teeth, but it’s better than the pain of this separation, than the way her body is stretched to its utmost. She races, running her shoulder into the boundary, trying to find a place where the magic is weak, where it gives, but it’s no use, no use.

The pain is searing now, and she cannot hold her shape, losing the wolf to a mouse, the mouse to a butterfly--

She drops to the ground, pain too much to bear. Her shape will not stop, will not ease, and darkness rings her visions, gaining ground with each of his steps. But still, still, he will not stop, will not give up--

As her breath tears from her lungs, light leaving her vision, the last thing she feels is not the pain, not the cold, but, but--

The weight of settling.

There are no sailors on the deck tonight.

“You asked him up here, alone?” Od Ana asks, every word sharp as she shuffles on the rail. “Haven’t we been over this? You don’t need to do this. You don’t owe him--”

“It’s not about owing.” She expects the words to be scathing, to be angry, but instead they are oddly flat, almost resigned. “Or about what I need to do. I’m trying figure out...”

He lets out a long breath, hand clenched beside her. “I’m trying to figure out what I want to do.”

“Obi.”

Obi turns, but Od Ana only needs to drag her gaze up, watching warily as the prince of Clarines emerges from the lower berths.

“This is the first time you’ve called for me.” The prince’s mouth lifts at a corner, amused. Fondly so, Od Ana will give him. “You want to end the postponement, I hope.”

A luminous pair of eyes emerges behind him, followed by the sleek, golden coat of his lioness. Od Ana shifts, wings raising subtly as Feronia prowls closer, her gaze fixed to where she’s perched. She clicks her beak, agitated. They might be daemons, outside the savage circle of predator and prey, but a bird will never sit easy with a cat.

“Yes.” Obi’s voice is strong now, determined, and even though she cannot see his face, she feels his fondness for the man before them. “Actually, I already made my decision a long time ago.”

She hisses, annoyed. Now that’s news to her.

Obi gives her a quelling glance before he turns back to the rail, gaze fixing out toward the night’s horizon. “I told you there’s something I had to tell you myself.”

“Before you do that.” The prince keeps a careful distance, almost wary. “There’s something I’d like to ask you first.”

There’s a tension in the air that itches, that feels like the press of bars, of the snap of a trap. This is how it ever is with these royals; as clear as the air is one minute, the very next can be a test.

Od Ana tires of taking them.

“Obi, you...” The prince hesitates, and there is not a part of Obi’s body that is not tense, that is not braced for impact. “...Like me, don’t you?”

“Yes.” The tension snaps like a whip’s crack, Obi’s mouth cocked in a grin.

“T-that was quick!” Zen’s face flushes cherry red, and oh, he should have known better than to ask Obi about what he likes. “Though it’s-- fine, I guess.”

Obi tilts his head, grin easy. “Is that all?”

Zen goes still, only the wind moving him, and the air is so thick she could choke on it, so heavy with expectation that she wishes Obi could turn to a bird as well, and they could fly from here--

“What about Shirayuki?”

Lie, she wills, but oh, she knows that smile, knows that Obi never hesitates to stick the knife even, even when it’s his own back--

“Yes,” Obi says, easy as a breath. “I love Miss.”

He’s never known pain like this.

Master has kept him hungry, has kept him tired, has beaten him until he’s little more than a bruise, but none of it has ever left him so empty as this, so alone. His stomach churns, boiling at a ceaseless roil as he stumbles toward the boundary. It’s a miracle he’s come so far on his feet, but they are too numb to warn him of the root he turns his ankle on, and he sprawls, face-first, on the thick snow beneath him.

He won’t make it. He’s come so close to death before, only for fate to save him for another day, but now, now--

His luck runs out.

He can’t feel her. He can’t feel her.

Maybe he’s already dead.

No, it can’t be. His breath rasps out of his lungs, misting on the air as he drags himself forward. Death wouldn’t hurt as much as this.

There’s no way to know when he’s passed the boundary, if he’s past it. When he’d entered, it’d been like walking through a cobweb in the dark, a faint shiver across his skin, but coming out--

Who knows. He no longer has her, and every tree looks like another.

He throws himself to his back, squinting up into the snow, into the dregs of the storm, and sees only endless gray. His breath fogs above him, but it’s weak, thready. One of these will be his last.

“Please,” he calls out, even though it’s no more than a whisper. “Please.”

The only answer is his own echo, lost in the wood.

She had been right. She always was. There was no way for them to know where he is, no way for them to even know he took this test. He’d taken rumor for reality, and now he’ll die as he never lived: alone.

A dark shadow circles overhead, wings nearly blotting out what light falls from the sky, and oh, he’s heard of this too. Birds circling above a wounded animals, waiting for them to die so their feast might be fresh. It makes sense, in the end; he’s only ever been an animal, never a boy. Maybe the scavengers will find some satisfaction in him, the way his master never had.

His stomach growls, and he can’t help it, he laughs. More likely they’ll go hungry picking his bones.

It drops closer, closer, until something impossibly huge soars over him, landing with a soft crush in the snow.

He rolls, curious to the last. He is not disappointed.

It’s looms before him on the path, the size of a small child, feathers glimmering in the bare light of the forest. Not a single one is the same color, dappled in black and whites, and browns and golds, and as it breathes its topography changes. It meets his eyes, just as gold as his own, and sweeps open its wings to the height of a man.

It’s majestic. He’s blessed to have it as his last sight on this earth.

It drops what it carries in its beak, splattering crimson across the fresh snow. He squints to see it, a large body and long ears: a rabbit carcass. It’s so fresh it still steams in the air.

He stares, mouth salivating, and wonders if the gods mean to mock him as well as bless him with this feast for crows.

“Look,” she says, snapping her beak in triumph. “I can hunt for you now!”

His breath stops in his chest, and-- and yes, he feels her, their tether stretched like a muscle over-used. “It’s you.”

She cocks her head, and in her eyes, humor shines. “Who else would come to you here?”

He’d thought himself near death, on his last legs, but somehow he stands, somehow he runs to her, throwing his arms around her warm body. “You’re so big.”

“Then you best get tall to match,” she teases, wings fluttering around them. Already he feels more alive than he has in days, in years. This is his daemon, and she is glorious. “I won’t have people laughing at me tipping you over when I perch.”

He picks up the carcass, finger numb. “Then I guess you’ll need--”

His words catch in his throat as he sees them, the men first, impossibly giant dogs at their hips, and then the red-wrapped figured next to them.

“--more rabbits,” he finishes weakly. They were here. They had been found.

One of the red women step forward, face utterly obscured by her scarves.

“Congratulations,” she says, voice ageless, “you have passed.”

The porcelain is chill against Obi’s fingers; it shocks him after all this time to feel it, to have bare hands. But there is no other way he can come to her, not now, not when she said, I have a feeling I’ll see you there, and this is his answer.

“You could have worn gloves,” Od Ana snips, shuffling on the step next to him. “It’s cold out.”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I couldn’t.”

Hidden hands have something to hide, and for once, he isn’t that man. Not with her. Not with what he needs to say.

“If you’d just done it last night it would already be over,” she continues, as if he hadn’t spoken at all. Od’s greatest talent by far is ignoring him. “And we’d be inside.”

“You have feathers.” He turns the mask over in his fingers. His hands may need to hide nothing, but his face always says too much in front of her. “You’re warm enough.”

“Shows what you know.” She clicks her beak, like she’s thinking about crunching one of his fingers. “I--”

“Last night it was snowing, I think--”

Her voice chimes like bells down the hall, and he nearly fumbles the mask trying to get it up, to get it to hide his face.

“--so now it’s completely white outside--”

He knows the moment she sees him, her breath catching so loudly that it nearly echoes in the arcade, and oh, he had worried shouldn’t wouldn’t recognize him even if he’s worn this fancy get up before, but no, no--

His miss would know him anywhere.

“Little Ryuu.” It’s so much safer to talk to him than to Miss, than to look anywhere near her while his eyes sting. “Did you shut the windows?”

“Mm,” he hums, but it’s lost in the way Miss shouts, “Obi!”

The name sings through him, from his chest to his toes and back, and even though it’s not his, it suddenly feels like it is, like--

Like he’s home.

His fingers tug at the cord, and he turns less for drama, and more because taking any moment longer to see her is torture, like being in that forest all over again, alone and in agony.

“Mistress,” he says, watching the way she glows, feeling the way he lights back, “I drifted in with the snow.”

#obiyuki #akagami no shirayukihime #snow white with the red hair #my fic #Creatures of a Brief Season #daemon au #this was so incredibly fun to write #and joanna had actually been needling me about it for a while #so i'm glad I finally got a chance to put it to page

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chilly-territory · 6 years ago

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K Case Files of Blue 2, chapter 3 (part 3 out of 3)

I’ve finally remembered about this one, hooray!

Case Files of Blue 2 by Miyazawa Tatsuki

Chapter 3 (part 3/3) (volume 2, pages 168-196)

† The headquarters brimmed with activity. When Akiyama and Benzai were walking along the hallway, briskly marching ordinary troops passed them by. They had been sent off to different regions on Benzai's orders, and now, as the respective situations in them were finding their resolution, the operatives, too, had started to come back one by one.

"...The Coin Toss theory, huh. Its power certainly is fearsome," murmured Akiyama, and Benzai nodded. "Not only was it used to scatter all those strains across different regions, but the false charges against you were apprently fabricated via its application, as well."

Akiyama's face turned miserable. "But why did they have to choose to falsely accuse me of molesting, of all things? I'm sure there were plenty of other methods if they wanted to put me out of commission."

If he absolutely had to be entrapped by the enemy, he would have much preferred to be abandoned on an uninhabited island like Fuse, or sent on a trip through various regions unable to return like Benzai - those kinds of pretexts, in any case. Sure, his innocence had been proven and he was able to come back, but there was no small chance that he would've been finished socially had something gone slightly wrong. That's what he'd become firmly convinced of after hearing about everyone else's respective situations from Benzai.

"Captain said Kounomura was going to make the truth come to light eventually in any case though, but..."

Akiyama nodded to Benzai's words. Strangely enough, he could believe it. Kounomura had no wish to make anyone miserable through his actions, Akiyama was sure. And their adversary had definitely made sure to prepare more than a few safety nets to that end.

"Well," said Benzai calmly, "it's just probably that he thought that against a guy who is too serious for his own good like you, this kind of ploy would be the most effective, you know?"

Akiyama's expression turned bitter. Indeed, even if it was no more than a ploy, he had to admit that Kounomura had succeeded with flying colors. His approach had really proven exceptionally effective.

"And there's another thing." Benzai gazed at Akiyama's profile. "As a result of catching the real culprit, the girl who handed you over to the police has come forward saying she wants to apologize to you for mistaking you for a groper. What will you do?" "..." Akiyama was in thought for a while, before replying: "There is no need. That girl is just another victim. And since I doubted the authenticity of her claim about groping to begin with, I still have a lot to learn, myself. The reason for what had happened was my ineptitude, and that girl is not to blame for anything."

That attitude, manifesting in him being able to declare such a thing without batting an eye, could be seen as truly manly, but at the same time it could also be called bigoted. Either way, it was just like Akiyama. Benzai found himself smiling at that.

Akiyama continued. "Besides, no matter what people said, I knew no one at Scepter 4 doubted my innocence. And that's more than enough, I'd say, no, Benzai?" "Yeah. Yeah, you're right." Benzai looked away. For some reason, he felt sorry for Akiyama that it was hard to look him in the eye. "Hm? What's wrong, Benzai?"

But before Akiyama could press him about it, there came a welcome interruption in the form of the bright voice of an office clerk Yoshino Yayoi who stood in front of the Captain's office.

"Oh, Akiyama-san! It's so great that the false charges against you have been dropped! Congratulations!" "Yes, thank you." Akiyama smiled.

With that, Akiyama and Benzai accompanied by Yoshino all pushed through the open door to Munakata's office.

Inside, there already were the members of the special ops squad, including Fushimi, Fuse, Doumyouji, Enomoto and Hidaka, along with some ordinary troops, people from accounting, general affairs, and even Zenjou Gouki from the archive room, which was a rare sight.

The Captain's normally fairly spacious office was now packed with people in blue uniforms. And in the center of that mass, Munakata Reishi himself was seated. Chin on his joined hands, he was smiling with a composed smile.

When Akiyama and his companions who'd just made it through the door caught his attention, he announced, "...With this, we have more or less everyone essential present. I apologize for my recent absence." He rose. "Also," looking at Akiyama, he smiled, "Welcome back, Akiyama-kun."

Akiyama gave his king a sincere bow. "I apologize for causing you trouble, sir."

Munakata dismissed him with a wave of his hand. "No need. You are not to blame. The blame is mostly on me, for letting myself be led astray with Kounomura-shi's illusions."

He strode forward to stand in front of his table and cast an eye around to take in all the present.

"That, however, is no longer an issue. Ladies and gentlemen," joining his hands behind his back, Munakata declared, "from this moment onward, Scepter 4 will work towards arresting Kounomura-shi. We're going to teach that good sir who has been amusing himself with games entirely unbecoming of his age and status a lesson. No objection, I trust?"

Noises of approval filled the room. Among the agreeing faces, there was one that didn't look enthusiastic in the slightest, and that was Fushimi's, who then raised his hand.

"...So, Captain, I take it you've figured out where Kounomura is hiding right now?" "No, I have not yet," Munakata confessed flatly. "But," he continued, "in another 24 hours I will because I have extracted enough source information from the routes you had brought me." 'Oh, that,' Fushimi nodded, seemingly satisfied, but the rest could only feel perplexion at that reply.

Munakata beamed. "First, let me explain certain things. To trap us, Kounomura-shi used a strain who could read people's minds and through him, thoroughly analyzed our psychology. Isn't that right, Fushimi-kun?" "Yes." In contrast to his usual fed-up face, Fushimi's report that followed was exhaustively accurate. "Marumoto Keiji, 21, an aspiring photographer and a strain with the ability to read minds through the lens of his camera. Although my efforts to that end are temporarily suspended at the moment, I'm pursuing him - that sickening shit-eating asswipe!" he must have recalled something unpleasant because he slammed the fist of one hand on the palm of his other with a resounding bang.

Munakata, utterly unperturbed by Fushimi's outburst, thanked him for the information. "Thank you, Fushimi-kun. A strain capable of reading minds. Although lacking an immediate offensive ability, he proves quite a hassle when antagonized." Fushimi clicked his tongue especially loudly at that and turned away.

"Fushimi-san looks royally pissed off, no?" "Did something happen between him and that strain, I wonder?" Enomoto and Fuse whispered between themselves, but when Fushimi glared daggers at them, they held their tongues.

Meanwhile, Munakata continued. "That Marumoto character is not the only such opponent. Kounomura-shi had employed even more astonishing means to accumulate the psychological data on us and cause malfunctions in our headquarters' systems. I assume you have already heard about it. He had dispatched a strain with a perception manipulation ability to infiltrate us and had him masquerade as Gotou-kun."

A turmoil rose among the present. Someone who they thought was their collegue was, in fact, a brazen impostor. They couldn't hide how shocking it still felt.

"Captain." Fuse raised his hand. "If that's the case, then where was the real Gotou all this time? Is he okay?" The last sentence sounded tinged with worry. Munakata slowly shifted his gaze from Fuse to Hidaka. "Hidaka-kun. As I recall, you are currently in change of that man's interrogation, are you not? Does he know anything about Gotou-kun?" "Uh, well..." Being the focus of everyone's attention made Hidaka feel a little uncomfortable, but he braved on, "Yes, he speculates that Gotou might be held prisoner in the same facility as Lieutenant Awashima. He also stated that measures had been taken to ensure Gotou's safety."

Fuse nodded. "Well, yeah, considering how they've been going about it until now, it must be true. It was the same when I was stranded on that deserted island, too... But still... That freak was among us for quite a long time now, yes? Yet we all were none the wiser... Damn!" His voice dripped with self-condemnation and frustration.

Munakata's next utterance was put in no uncertain terms. "That is exactly what is so terrifying about strains with perception manipulation abilities. They influence and confuse the brain directly. If you know about the existence of such a strain around you, you might have a chance to break the illusion, but when you don't, you lack any means to resist from the start." "Umm, may I add something, sir?" Hidaka spoke up after raising his hand. "It's something else that guy said. Apparently, he'd avoided running into you as best as he could because there was a high chance you'd discover his identity. Supposing he still had to see you, it was only allowed after the situation was under Kounomura's tight control, as per his plan." "I see." Munakata stroked his chin. "How prudent of him." "Also, as to why Gotou was chosen as the target for the switch on Kounomura's orders. According to Kounomura's comprehensive analysis of the special ops squad, among all the members Gotou was the one most likely to notice tiny changes, that's why it was him that guy'd switched with." "Hmph, reasonable judgement." Hidaka's words made Munakata smile. Many of the troops gathered there nodded in agreement.

Indeed, it rang true. Gotou Ren was a strange guy, to be sure, but he also had a certain keenness and discerning sensitivity about him. A sort of intuitive something that went beyond Akiyama's dependability or Fushimi's brilliant brains.

"Still, we've got to give credit where it's due for the job well done. To think that someone would actually succeed in impersonating a member of the special ops squad right in the middle of Scepter 4... Naturally, it was only possible due to the extensive research on us done beforehand, but the person who managed to pull off something as nigh impossible as this must be quite capable in his own right regardless." "That's true. It seems he's a former police officer himself. That said, there are a few things he turned out to be surprisingly careless about."

Having said all that, Hidaka suddenly remembered himself and fell silent. He had noticed he had touched upon a mildly offensive topic, but was left no route to backpedal and just pretend nothing had happened. All the gazes were focused on him now, and what's more, Munakata himself looked highly interested, even leaning forward a little.

"Erm, well, to explain... you see, we manage something called "Archive E" jointly..."

Enomoto squeezed his head between the hands he put on his cheeks, his face silently but eloquently begging Hidaka to stop, though it really couldn't be helped. After all, it had to do with the case in question. They had a duty to provide all the information they could.

"He apparently misunderstood, thinking "Archive E" is some sort of treasure-chest of classified documents, so he raided the storage site to steal it."

In the end, having learned that that abbreviation stood for something as trivial as "erotic", he flew into rage and disposed of it right in the back yard. That was the cause behind the mysterious disappearance of the erotic book archive that everyone pitched in to collect.

Now that the truth was out in the open, it really was quite silly. For that reason, half of those who happened to be present to hear it wore fed-up expressions on their faces, while the other half snickered despite themselves. In particular, Yoshino Yayoi's half-lidded coldly-looking eyes bore into Hidaka. Who, in turn, was so ashamed he wished for a hole to crawl into. The other members with a connection to "Archive E" were no better, all looking quite uncomfortable, too.

"Hidaka-kun." Munakata suddenly called out to his subordinate with a serious face. "Y-yes, sir?" Hidaka was stiff as a board. "Show me that archive of yours some time." Raising his thumb up, Munakata showed his pearly whites in a grin. "Certainly, sir! Any time!" responded Hidaka eagerly. What a blessing it was to have an understanding superior.

It took Zenjou casually clearing his throat to put the discussion that went off on a tangent, back on track.

Munakata resumed his explanation. "In short, thanks to the spy in question and the aspiring photographer in the person of Marumoto-kun, intelligence on us was gathered and our activities disrupted, while Kounomura-shi analyzed our actions, set traps and nearly paralyzed our work. It's said the world is big, but I suspect this personage might be the only one on the whole globe who could manage a feat of this magnitude." He nodded to himself. "However, like I said a minute ago, now it's our turn. The day after tomorrow we're going to raid the place where this good sir is hiding and apprehend him. And then lecture him with all sternness not to do anything like this ever again."

Under the bombardment of everyone's gazes, Munakata added: "Well, in truth, finding the legal basis for punishing Kounomura-shi presents a slight problem. However, judging from that good sir's personality, I believe defeating him at his own game should prove enough to dissuade him from interfering with us ever again. With that in mind, I would like you to get ready, ladies and gentlemen." "Captain, sir, may I ask a question?" It was Enomoto who timidly raised his hand. "We've been searching high and low all this time, trying to locate Kounomura. Despite that, we couldn't find a single clue to his whereabouts. So my question is, how are you going to pin it down, sir?" "Oh, it's easy." Munakata declared nonchalantly. "We shall simply do what he did and apply the Coin Toss theory, too."

That caused a buzz of agitation to run through the crowd. Fushimi folded his arms and shut his eyes.

"I pulled a few strings and borrowed a super computer that's currently in the process of analyzing Kounomura-shi's activity. We are lucky that he is a celebrity. There is a veritable mountain of data on him in newspapers and magazines that could serve as clues, and there is also an archive of our contacts with him to date. With all of that as the base, we will have an answer in 24 hours."

Most of the present stood there in blank amazement.

"Excuse me, sir," said Benzai. "This is something I've asked before, but it still bothers me. Captain, when exactly did you have an opportunity to familiarize yourself with that theory in detail? I would think the particulars are top secret business information for the Coin Toss company..."

Munakata shook his head slightly. "As a matter of fact, that theory is so complex that even experts in life science mathematics and chaos theory find it difficult to comprehend, so it is out of question for a layman like myself to achieve an understanding of it. Only..." he paused, "I have commissioned an experimental program that applies it solely in the field of pinning down a person's whereabouts." "Commissioned? Whom, sir?" Akiyama tilted his head to the side a little. "America. At present, the FBI is researching and developing an analytical program applying the Coin Toss theory that's limited strictly to criminal investigation. For that reason, technically it's not the same "Coin Toss" as Kounomura-shi used." "Oh!" Akiyama exclaimed before he could check himself and whirled to Fushimi.

Fushimi stood there with an unruffled air and firmly shut eyes.

"That's right," Munakata said. "It was one of the gifts that Fushimi-kun brought back from his business trip, short though it was." Fushimi opened his eyes and let out a sigh. "You gotta take into account that I had to supply them with all sorts of intelligence in return, so it's not really a gift. Besides, the case in point aside, this theory ain't really ready for practical application yet." "What do you mean by that, Fushimi-san?"

It was Munakata who answered Akiyama's question in Fushimi's place. "To start off, terrible cost-effectiveness is the most glaring issue. Obviously, there exist very few supercomputers that could perform such an analysis, nevermind that running it takes a whole day and costs 10 million yen. What's more, trouble pertaining to collecting enough data for such an analysis to even become possible is nothing to make light of. With the above in mind, the tried and tested approach of simply assembling enough man power to handle the task is a better and faster alternative. This time it's a viable option only because we're dealing with a personage as unique as Kounomura-shi, and because the expenses allotted to us in order to catch him are almost unrestricted." "I see," Akiyama nodded deeply.

But Benzai posed yet another question. "But you did manage to catch Tamada, didn't you, sir?" "As the officer who was in pursuit of him, I assume you already know it, but by nature, he's an anarchist and an aspiring artist. You may not tell it at a glance, but he has revealed quite a bit of information about himself through his blog, publications in fanzines, poetry anthologies and such. Furthermore, he had received psychological counseling several times during the reign of the previous Blue King. There are not many criminals with a track record like that though, wouldn't you say?" "No, I suppose not," Benzai replied thoughtfully.

Speaking of, said Tamada, perhaps having embraced Munakata's mysterious aura, swore to turn over a new leaf after serving his prison time. Apparently, once he got out, in order to get employment at Scepter 4, he was intent on sitting for their exam.

"So in short, we're finally gonna do battle with them, right?" Doumyouji chimed in loudly. The reason why he'd kept silent until then was due the lack of sleep he'd been suffering from lately. "Alright! Can't wait!"

For some time now, he'd been forced to do work that contributed greatly toward building his frustrations. And now, at last, his moment to shine was coming.

"But is it really okay?" Akiyama wondered worriedly. "The opponents have a task force consisting of a fair number of strains, no doubt. And one of them in particular, that man named Nakamura Gouki, is apparently skilled enough to give even the Lieutenant a hard time in a fight. Naturally, if you make your appearance, Captain, we're not likely to have much unforeseen trouble to worry about, but in case it does come down to, say, street fighting, some collateral damage might be unavoidable." "Oh, that shouldn't be an issue," Munakata denied resolutely. "I'm quite positive Kounomura-shi only surrounded himself with strains that could be deemed combat-ready troops, like Nakamura Gouki." "Huh?" came the collective noise of puzzlement. Even Fushimi frowned his brows, dubious. "What do you mean, Captain?" asked Akiyama playing the crowd's representative. "Well," Munakata started, "allow me to ask you a question in return. Akiyama-kun. What makes you think Kounomura-shi has a strain task force at his disposal?" "Uh, well..." Akiyama momentarily stopped to think. "Seeing as they took over our duties, even if it was only temporary, they must have a number of people to---" "That was only deception." Not waiting for Akiyama to finish, Munakata interrupted him. "We fell under a certain preconception. Since we are well aware that the job we do on a regular basis is by no means easy, we tend to think that in order for someone else to accomplish it, they'd have to have about the same number of equally skilled people. But as it turns out, that is not necessarily true."

In a sense, it was a statement that utterly denied the very essence of Scepter 4's work. And it was no wonder that those who'd heard it couldn't help being doubtful in its wake. Even Zenjou stared at Munakata in astonishment, like he was seeing him for the first time.

Munakata waved his hand cheerfully. "Oh no, please don't get the wrong idea. I did not mean to disparage our work, I assure you. What I'm saying is the issue to consider is the underhandedness of some of those on the side of justice."

For the majority of the present, those words didn't hit home, but the expressions of Fushimi and Zenjou changed to reflect their understanding, the same as if they'd have said "Oh" or "I see".

Munakata went on. "What in our job is of the utmost importance, in your opinion? Let's see..." Without warning, he pointed at Doumyouji. "What do you think, Doumyouji-kun?" "Erm, the most important part of our job, huh?" Doumyouji looked troubled. "Aw, shucks. Hmm, what might it be? Maybe upholding justice?" "And what is necessary for that end? On what do we spend the bigger part of our time and effort?" "We, uh, maintain public order, catch bad guys... and ummm, sow the good, I guess?"

At that vague answer, those around couldn't help wry smiles raising on their lips along with a warm feeling in their chests, while Munakata shook his head in no uncertain way. "No, that's not it. Unfortunately, you are wrong." In reply to the baffled looks on his subordinates' faces, Munakata elaborated. "The hardest part of our work, requiring the most effort, is to deal with each and every thing in a law-abiding way. This is what unfailingly presents a challenge to us."

Akiyama's mouth formed an "Ah" when he heard that. "...I see. That's what it's about," he was heard muttering under his breath.

Munakata continued his explanation. "In other words, if we were to set out to catch wrongdoers, foregoing the formalities and simply doing what it takes to get the job done, like Superman or Batman, there wouldn't a need for a large scale organization like ours to start with. Coordinating with the police, finding a working balance with the court, negotiating with local residents - it is on those tasks that we spend most of our time, wouldn't you say?"

Doumyouji was still making a face that said he didn't get it.

"When Superman or Batman handle a case, they don't bother going to the courthouse to complete the official procedure, neither do they work on a loan to the police. They don't have to obtain a formal approval from anyone or calculate their exact expenses and fulfill corresponding paperwork. You never see them drawing up reports that have to be submitted to the superior or filing documents pertaining to an investigation, do you?"

With Munakata's elaboration, Doumyouji's face brightened. Seeing as he always endured hellish suffering when it came to his paperwork, to him, that explained everything.

"If I were to put it as bluntly as I can," Munakata added, "simply catching criminals by using illegal means like Kounomura-shi did, such as hacking security cameras or obtaining intelligence through spies, is not really a job especially difficult to do. And that is why I said what I did earlier: from our perspective, the heroes of justice are quite underhanded." "But, in that case," Fuse sounded very frustrated, "wouldn't guys like them always have an edge on us when it comes to accomplishing something? Making us who earnestly jump through the hoops look like fools?"

Munakata didn't wait for him to finish, talking over him. "We have the greater cause to defend. They don't. That's the difference, Fuse-kun." His tone was soft, but at the heart of it was steel-like strength. "And that is precisely why I always say whenever the occasions arises that "our cause is pure". Isn't that right, Fuse-kun?" Fuse was in thought for some time. "Indeed. That's right. We and them have different goals. Now I see," he murmured soon after as if letting the thought sink in deeply into his being.

Munakata gazed at Fuse warmly for a while, then stated, "Everything was but an illusion cast by the schemer extraordinaire Kounomura-shi. Having only a small number of allies makes it easy for him to transfer hideouts, while also minimizing the risk of an information leak. As an added bonus, it certainly helped confuse us and lead us astray. Meanwhile, the actual work was done by Nakamura Gouki and but a few of our adevrsary's most trusted confidants, I assume." "But Captain," Hidaka voiced, "the strains that've been captured all attest it was multiple people that did it?" Munakata's answer was immediate. "And what is the ability of the person you are presently in charge of questioning?" After a moment of vacant silence, Hidaka's eyes went wide. "I see!"

Munakata nodded. "That's right. He made the number of captors appear more than it actually was - every time when a crime committing strain was seized, at that. As a result it looked like there was a whole multi-person force moving at the scene. Let me reiterate: what they were doing looked the same as our work only on the surface, and that is the sole reason why it was even possible. Everything was no more than an illusion created with figurative smoke and mirrors."

For a while, everyone present seemed to be absorbed in his or her own pensive thoughts on the issue.

Watching them with a smile, Munakata commented. "Eventually, we will pin down where our adversaries are hiding. And every false image they have shown us will also come to light." When he continued it was with glee that almost gave one the creeps. "It's finally time to put our opponents in checkmate. Kounomura-shi is already as good as stark-naked before us."

It was then that Zenjou, who kept his silence until now, raised his only hand. "There is one thing that bothers me though." "What might it be, Zenjou-san?" Munakata inquired, unperturbed as ever even at something as uncommon as Zenjou speaking up. "At present, we still have several missing people, starting with Awashima Seri, who have yet to come back. And I think we can't disregard the possibility of them being used as hostages come the worst case scenario."

His words made Munakata fall silent for a while - for the first time today. But then, the Blue King declared: "...I believe Awashima-kun and the others will be back with us soon enough, each having overcome their respective obstacles."

Zenjou's eyes narrowed sharply. "All according to your plan, that included, then?" Munakata shook his head slowly. "No, it is not," he said pensively. "If I had to find a word for it," he smiled, "it would probably be 'faith'."

†

About 2 days before Scepter 4's meeting took place, Gotou Ren, whose place the impostor had taken to infiltrate Scepter 4, was on the sea more than 600km away from Japan. Next to him, a bullet ricocheted with a metallic ching.

"!@#$%^&*(!"

Next, yells in a language he couldn't quite determine could be heard. Which, in turn, was followed by demands to surrender in some broken Japanese with English mixed in.

"Anata no, okasan, naitemasu." //T/N: equivalent to something like "Ur mama cry" Gotou sighted, muttering in a light tone, "My, my, what a pickle."

English wasn't his forte. Due to the fact, he bet on body language as his chosen means to make his resistance apparent.

He stuck his head out a little from the catwalk. "Hey. Me, go back, Japan. Don't jama shinaide!" //T/N: "Don't stand in my way"

With that, he hoisted one middle finger up high in the air. A moment later, he got a response.

"FU*K!" It was accompanied by the sweeping fire from a machine gun.

Gotou panicked, getting on all fours and crawling to hide behind an iron pole. There, he grumbled again in a voice, still lacking any urgency, seemingly oblivious to what unmistakably was a provocation on his part, "My, my, that's why quick tempered foreigners are such a pain."

Presently, he was aboard an enormous ship, the Nefertiti. The overall length of it was 175 meters, with the width being 25 meters. The total displacement tonnage measured at 8900 tons. The highest speed it could achieve clocked at 23 knots, with its crew counting 130 members. It was an imposing military transport vessel capable of transporting 2 helicopters, 30 large trucks and 25 tanks.

Its owner was a private military company called 'SPT' - a multinational enterprise that, among other fields, also engaged in paramilitary activities regulated by a treaty signed in Toronto by 24 countries. A so called Mars-Mercury agreement was enacted between the USA and the EU and designed to keep Japan's economic growth in check. To counter that, in the last 20 years or so, international laws had been developed allowing active operation for a number of private paramilitary companies, with Japan playing a central role.

And this was what Kounomura Zen'ichi resorted to when booking the vessel in question and its crew for the period of 1 month as a private individual. The mission he gave the crew was to reliably keep Gotou Ren away from Japan. He'd certainly gone out of his way to arrange for a military ship just to keep Gotou under house arrest and strict supervision, and then, to be doubly sure, even make said ship put a considerable amount of distance between itself and the mainland Japan. All of which exhaustively proved the utter importance Kounomura attached to Gotou Ren's custody as one of the keys for the success of his plan.

Incidentally, said Gotou Ren was currently on the run from the armed guard units after having broken out of the prison designed exclusively for him by escaping through a door 1 meter thick and locked with an electromagnetic lock that required multiple passwords and a fingerprint of the supervisor to open.

At first, his jailers were quite amicable, but after Gotou punched their platoon leader's lights out, blew up sewer pipes, made three or so of them take a plunge into a septic tank, and two more wallow in wheat flour, their rage had reached the boiling point. Calmly carrying out such acts with a disinterested air about him was what it meant to be Gotou Ren.

The way he went about his breakout was also unusual. For about 2 weeks, he did nothing at all. He seemed perfectly content to just sleep, play smart phone games on the phone supplied to him as a present or paint pictures in isolation, making even his jailers question with concern if he'd even understood his current situation. Still, they had directions from Kounomura to let him spend his time as pleasantly as possible under the circumstances.

Only, Gotou wasn't doing all of the above without a reason. Those drowsy eyes of his kept meticulously watching and observing. And, having found a blind spot, a momentary opening in his guards' defenses, he attacked it and freed himself. And just now, he wasn't just randomly angering his guards. He used their reactions to deduce where on this ship were the most crucial areas.

In the process of running around from his pursuers, he'd arrived at the ship's vast hold.

"Huh?" With his pursuers closing in on him from behind, Gotou leisurely inclined his head. "This is strange. I thought this should be the engine room or something equally important." He ran while compiling a map of the ship in his head, but it seemed he went wrong somewhere. "Mn, I still have a lot to improve on, I guess."

Not sounding especially regretful, Gotou approached a strange cube placed isolatedly in the middle of the hold. He found himself oddly curious about it.

"...I wonder what is this?"

It was then...

"Haaaah!"

...that a tremendously loud scream had issued from inside the construct, making Gotou instinctively take a step back. He had a feeling he might have heard that voice somewhere before.

"HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"

This time the war cry managed to pack even more fierceness; cracks, one after another, started running across the surface of the cube as a result, and then...

"Phew, finally it breaks."

...Awashima slipped out of it, twisting her body to fit in through a slender crack. For some reason, she was dressed in a scarlet dress.

"..." "..." For a while, Awashima and Gotou simply stared at one another.

"Why are you here, Gotou?!" Awashima broke the silence first. "...I could ask you the same, ma'am. No, actually, I'm more interested in asking you why you're decked out like that. Lieutenant, are you getting ready for a wedding or what?" "D-Don't be absurd! It's just this was the only piece of clothing provided to me."

Both of them looked mightily confused, but the moment their ears caught the sound of Gotou's pursuers' footsteps from the passage he'd taken to get here, the two donned composed faces.

Gotou briefly outlined his circumstances to Awashima. In short, having taken him prisoner, the chances were the ship was now a long ways off from Japan. Awashima was quick to get a grasp on the situation, and even quicker to make a decision.

"Understood," she said as if it was the most trivial thing in the world. "Let's commandeer this ship."

That took even Gotou by slight surprise. "...We'd be up against more than 50 armed soldiers though?" "Oh?" Awashima smiled charmingly, working on rolling up the sleeves and shortening the hem of her dress to make it easy to move in. "Does that really count as 'many'? You and I are both the Blue King's clansmen, don't forget." "I see." Gotou had found his resolve. Smiling without a trace of tension, he added, "Seems like an appropriate number in that case." "True." Awashima fixed her gaze on the entrance from which the soldiers were likely to appear. "We've got to go back to the Captain's side as quickly as possible, and to that end, every second counts. I have no doubt he's waiting for our return even as we speak."

Gotou nodded in agreement, cracking his fingers.

It was 4 hours later that the ship made a sharp U-turn and started heading back to the far away Japan it had previously departed from.

#k project #project k #k case files of blue #k translation

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nowitsdarkfic · 5 years ago

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chapter ten (joe the drummer)

“Coin operated boy, He may not be real, experienced with girls but I know he feels like a boy should feel Isn’t that the point? That is why i want a Coin operated boy, With his pretty coin operated voice saying that he loves me, that he's thinking of me Straight and to the point, that is why I want A coin operated boy.” -“Coin Operated Boy”, The Dresden Dolls

November 28, 1988. Boston, Massachusetts.

So I had left Oswego at about ten this morning because I didn't know if or when Matt and Dominique were going to be in Boston today, but I have this hydrogen car that Maya left behind and I have nothing more to do than to take it for myself. I had the copy of Ultramega OK in the disc player for the first stint of the trip: as I drove through Syracuse, their cover of “Smokestack Lightning” came on, and I couldn't help but think of Ellen and seeing Brick in the hospital. It felt like a sign, seeing the chimneys in the outskirts with their rising smoke against the bitter upstate cold.

I've done this drive before by myself and with my parents and my grandparents, but this time it was interesting because not one time did I have to stop to refuel because of the hydrogen. There was that one time Maya stopped on the way back up, but that was it. The whole thing throws me because I always think it's going to run low at some point and it never does. To be honest, I'm surprised this car doesn't have an autopilot option because sometime around Albany, I wanted to put my feet up on the dashboard next to me and relax for a moment before I resumed onward to Springfield and then eventually to Boston. I played Ultramega again once I entered Massachusetts, where more and more the brick and mortar began to rise up from the cold earth and the outskirts of the City.

She said they're going to be near the women's college, and the only one I can think of offhand, just from my doing gigs over here with Anthrax and a couple of my past cover bands, is to the north of the heart of the city itself.

I take the next exit leading me over to Wellesley, and this is the part of town that, along with New York City, makes me wonder if Maxwell Industries in Seattle is serious about their wanting to move out this way. Over the edge of the freeway, I can make out the small cobblestones comprising the streets down below: every other building is made of stone and brick, and has a chimney bleeding out plumes of pure white steam. The sky is pure white with the sun reflecting on the steam, and so I'm driving about with my mirrors on and my scarf around my neck like I'm a pilot. I even have the black gloves and the black boots.

Everything is made of brick and mortar and cold metal: not a lick of bright blue neon to be found. There's a row of shiny silver entities floating in the air over my head, but they're too small to be considered airships. At least I think so anyways. They seem to drift onward over me and across the freeway to the other side within a mile of my next exit. Something about them is unnerving, like what are they?

I'm soon winding my way through the tightly woven web of spirals that is Wellesley and I indeed recognize the school up the street and past the four roundabouts.

Oh boy, this is going to be fun!

Trying not to wreck the car, seeing as this isn't even mine and I just don't want to wreck the damn thing, I begin to weave my way through the roundabouts like it's a snake. I really am like a pilot now because I'm having to keep this thing in control. The hydrogen hum is totally silent but the tires are yelling at me over the cobblestones.

Surprised there are no passersby on the sidewalks. It's the middle of the day following Thanksgiving: usually I would expect the whole area would be filled to the brim with hustle and bustle like Syracuse or Albany—Oswego had more happening when I left this morning. But no: there's no one here.

I weave one last time around the fourth and final roundabout and I catch the view of the stationary shop in question: this little pale brick building with a bright pink and white striped awning over the gilded glass. I know that's what it is because I recognize Dominique and her heavy black overcoat and purple tinted glasses standing next to Matt and another woman.

I don't realize where I'm going and I almost drive right into the narrow alleyway running adjacent to the place.

I slam on the brakes. I turn the wheel around so as to avoid hitting anything.

And the car drifts up to the curb.

I stop right there right before them, and Matt pushing the two women back away from the edge of the sidewalk so as to miss me. He then recognizes me with a nod.

“Oh, hey! It's Joey!” I hear Dominique declare through the windshield.

I switch the thing off and stumble out of the car to meet up with them. The steam in the air makes everything feel cold and the whole place smells sweet, like cooking molasses. I toss back my black curls and adjust the shades before meeting up with them.

“Quite the entrance if I might say so myself,” Matt remarks with a big beaming grin underneath his big smokey sunglasses.

“Joey, this is my mentor Angeline Belotti from the New York Times,” Dominique introduces me to the blonde lady in a lush dark red velvet dress with a low plunging neckline and a big matching handbag in her left hand. She's got on these little cream colored leather gloves protecting her hands from the bitter cold around us.

“Joey Belladonna, right?” she asks me in that strong Queens accent that makes me think of Anthrax.

“Yes'm.”

“I thought I recognized you. That little upstate indigenous boy that Anthrax fired for—reasons I haven't been able to find out.”

I shrug at that. Yeah, me, too, and the thousands of other fans who are left wondering.

“Anyways, I'm glad you could make it, Joey,” she continues, “Matt and Dominique were just telling me about a young lady named Maya Sorensen whom you found last month in a gutter.”

“Yeah, I was just walking and I saw her laying there on the sidewalk all disoriented and helpless.”

“He was just being a good guy, y'know?” Dominique fills in for me.

“Well, of course. But what I don't understand is why didn't you take her to the authorities and earn credit that way?”

I flash back on what she said in After the Watershed: her fear of being discovered by someone who wanted to hurt her. Come to think of it, that's actually quite the bullet I dodged myself, too.

“She told me not to,” I reply to her.

“She told you not to?” Angeline repeats it.

“See, I thought there was more to this,” Dominique says, her eyes lighting up behind the purple lenses. “I thought you and I would be in for hell of a scoop, Angeline.”

“Well, anyways, she and I were going to do some writing practice here in this shop next to us,” Angeline explains to me, “and we were hoping you'd show up because Matt's got nothing better to do at the moment.”

“Yeah, today's my birthday,” he says out of the blue. “I'm twenty six.”

“Oh, really? Happy birthday, man.”

“There's a pub right back here if you guys want a bite to eat,” Angeline gestures behind me to the sidewalk running around the corner of the shop.

“Yeah, we're gonna be in here a while,” Dominique adds.

“I haven't eaten since I left Oswego,” I confess.

“All the better,” Matt assures me. “C'mon, man—”

He leads me away from there and we turn the corner to the narrow alleyway I almost plowed into. This little passage way smells more of molasses even with the piles of rusty wires and the shiny silver air conditioners resting upon the ground.

“Dom and I got one of these,” he starts, gesturing to the air conditioner closest to the other end of the alley.

“These exact ones?” I ask him as the bright white glare of the sun shines over his blond hair like it's a vein of pure gold.

“Exact one. For some reason, the cybernetic ones Maxwell Industries makes don't work as well as they should. Here we are—”

He holds the door for me and I step into the cozy, intimately lit pub of dark wood and wire framed lamps first. The place smells of French fries and honey. Once I take off my sunglasses, I catch a glimpse of a little plaque on the wall next to us.

“'Open mic night,'” I read aloud.

“Huh?” He takes off his sunglasses once the door closes behind him.

“It's open mic night.” I grin at him as I lead him into the main room of the pub.

“Oh, no, you aren't suggesting—”

“I am, and—hey! Check it out! There's a full on drum kit in here!”

“Oh, man.”

“Come on, dude. I'm out on the job and I'm pretty much a trash digger at this point. Sometimes a guy's gotta drum his heart out, y'know?” And then he bursts out laughing.

“I hear that!”

We take a seat at the big heavy dark polished wooden bar dotted by single beeswax candles held up by fancy iron catches. He asks for a glass of stout, and I for a glass of straight up root beer. Too much bad karma with sarsaparilla now. He takes a sip from his glass when I sit back in the stool with my legs crossed. A few more people enter the place behind us, followed by an elderly couple.

“Been meaning to ask you this, too,” he starts, “—what do you think of our album?”

“Ultramega?”

“Yeah.”

“It's all so—grungely,” I tell him, and he bursts out laughing at that. “Grungely and totally badass.” He picks up his glass again for another swig of stout and then takes a look over at me with a lick of his lips. I raise a glass to him and we clink them together at the edges. He asks for a refill when I ask for some battered cod and a little dish of tartar sauce.

The candles seem brighter than they were when we came in. More and more people are coming in behind us, and soon the pub is bustling with people.

I turn my head to the window on the other side of the room, at the growing shadows casting across the floor and the drum kit with the waning light. A girl with a guitar steps up onto the stage.

“Any volunteers to play rhythm section with me?” she asks into the microphone over the drum kit. I turn to Matt as he's downing the rest of his stout.

“That drum kit over there's freed up,” I point out to him.

“I dunno if I can play, though,” he admits. “I can be—kinda unsure of myself when—hic, 'scuse me—I've taken down a couple of drinks.”

I think back to the first time I played Ultramega OK on my player, and the other times I played it, including this morning.

“You know, I really like you guys' cover of 'Smokestack Lightning',” I tell him.

He swallows, but doesn't reply. I glance up at the drum kit once again. All the times I played in cover bands are returning to me.

Oh. Oh, okay. I'm gonna be Phil Collins now. I take one final sip of the root beer and wolf down the last bite of fish before striding on over to her to join her.

She welcomes me by telling me she's not the best singer. I concede as I take a seat on the stool behind the snare and the bass. It's a small kit, one that I'm definitely used to. I tell her what song I want to play and her face lights up; and then there's that microphone next to my head.

“Hi, my name's Joe Belladonna. I'm the singer as well as the drummer for tonight. Just call me Joe the drummer.”

I'm a little rusty, especially since Matt's got such an interesting way of playing but I do know it. I'm also doing the duty of singing like Chris.

Nancy says I'm like Chris. Well, tonight I'm gonna be Chris as well as Matt, playing this old blues song in a dark steamy town that smells of molasses.

There's just one difference: my screams don't go as nearly high as Chris, and I'm a tenor.

#after the watershed #who cares wins #now it's dark #chapter 10 #new chapter #fanfic #fanfiction #heavy metal fanfiction #anthrax fanfics #soundgarden fanfics #joey belladonna #anthrax #matt cameron #soundgarden #noir au #steampunk #amwriting #text

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johnnymundano · 5 years ago

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Giallo (2009)

Directed by Dario Argento

Screenplay by Jim Agnew, Sean Keller and Dario Argento

Music by Marco Werba

Country: Italy

Running time: 92 minutes

CAST

Adrien Brody as Inspector Enzo Avolfi

Flavio Volpe as Giallo

Emmanuelle Seigner as Linda

Elsa Pataky as Celine

Robert Miano as Inspector Mori

Silvia Spross as Russian Victim

Giuseppe Lo Console as Butcher

Luis Molteni as Sal

Lorenzo Pedrotti as Delivery Boy

Daniela Fazzolari as Sophia

Valentina Izumi as Keiko

Taiyo Yamanouchi as Toshi

Sato Oi as Midori

Maryann McIver as Girl In Bookstore

Barbara Mautino as Nurse

Massimo Franceschi as Coroner

Liam Riccardo as Baby Yellow

Anna Varello as Butcher's Wife

Giancarlo Judica Cordiglia as Desk Sergeant

Nicolò Morselli as Young Enzo

Farhad Re as Designer

Patrick Oldani as Officer Gian Luca

Andrea Redavid as Officer #1

Linda Messerlinker as Girl Victim

By rights Giallo should be called Marrone. As in brown, as in crap. I’m not saying it reflects poorly on Dario Argento’ skills in 2009 but…but you could have an art installation in the Tate Modern with one screen playing Deep Red (1975) next to a screen playing Giallo and just call it “Time’s Cruel Hand at Play”. Okay, I am saying Giallo reflects poorly on Dario Argento’s skills in 2009. What is most surprising about Giallo is not learning Adrien Brody sued the producers but learning that he didn’t do so because the movie was so bad. (He actually did it because they hadn’t paid him all his fee; which is also a really good reason to sue them.) Giallo is a giallo called Giallo, directed by the modern master of giallo himself, Dario Argento. And it’s not very good. Some of Giallo is excruciatingly bad in fact, admittedly like much of the wayward genre of giallo itself. But one expects better from Dario Argento.

In a listlessly lit but still visually arresting Turin young, beautiful foreign ladies are being abducted, tortured, killed and dumped. Even in bawdy Italy this behaviour is frowned upon, and maverick, rogue, loose-cannon cop Enzo Avolfi (Adrien Brody) is on the hunt for the maniacally sadistic killer. When young, beautiful, foreign model Celine (Elsa Pataky) is snatched, her visiting slightly older, slightly less beautiful, equally foreign sister, Linda (Emmanuelle Seigner) badgers Enzo remorselessly until he has no choice but to have her accompany him on his investigation, completely contravening every procedure in the police manual. But Enzo is a roguetastic maverick, so there you go. Can the mismatched duo find Celine in time? Will love blossom? Will the torture of young, beautiful, foreign ladies make you feel a bit seedy? Will sense play second fiddle to style? Will the killer’s set piece demise be a thing of ridiculous beauty? How daft will the clues be? Yes, the usual giallo questions apply. Unfortunately the answers are less satisfying than most giallo by quite some distance.

Which is a shame. I don’t want to overstate this but if we can’t rely on Dario Argento, of all people, to provide a decent giallo then what’s the point of us having left the oceans for the land in the first place! Anyone, as am I, familiar with Argento’s movies up to Opera (1987) will likely be unimpressed at best by Giallo. (Getting hold of his movies after Opera in the UK requires effort, effort which I’m not entirely sure their quality will repay. See: Giallo) The awfulness of Giallo is utterly mystifying unless 1987 to 2009 was a period of implacable decline for Argento. I mean, it doesn’t even look very good. The first thing anyone associates with Dario Argento is his weird need to film his daughter in the nude, but the second thing is: style. Giallo, the genre, is all about style, unfortunately Giallo, the movie, has very little style. It has some style; Argento can’t entirely avoid picking the odd good angle, or visually interesting location. But mostly it’s lit in a really underwhelming way, it all looks a bit TV, in short. And the torture is a bit much too; it’s as though Argento has taken all that sado-nonsense like Hostel (2005) as a challenge. Unfortunately, it’s a challenge Giallo lowers itself to with unseemly haste and distasteful success. These grubby interludes puncture any of the necessary dreamlike surrealism a top tier giallo requires.

Every now and again Giallo does try for the necessary operatic ambience though. Mainly in the flashbacks to Enzo’s violent past. These are so good, so stylish and so startlingly direct in their violence that they seem like refugees from a different movie, one Argento is far more interested in. He certainly seems decidedly more apathetic about the rest of Giallo. It all, presumably, is intended to build to a shocking climax between Enzo and Linda which deliberately kneecaps any nobility the viewer has lazily projected onto our cop protagonist. Unfortunately this crucial scene is filmed with such a lack of energy that it merely evokes a disgruntled wife shrieking at her husband as he stalks off to the pub instead of washing the car like he’d promised.

The best thing in Giallo is Adrien Brody. But not because he’s good. Although, he is quite good as the cop, Enzo Avolfi, with his mannered walk and Bronx rasp. Brody’s acting really hard here, and in his head you can tell he’s acting the part of a physically much bigger man, which is quite entertaining to watch. He’s only a slight fella after all. (!!SPOILERS!!) Unfortunately he also plays the totally separate role of the killer, Giallo by name, in a move which can be most generously described as misguided. I mean, I get it, I get the rationale. They, the cop and the killer, are two sides of the same coin. (I didn’t say it was original). So why not get the same guy to play them both? Conceptually that’s quite smart and partially atones for another plod through familiar “There but for the grace of God…” territory. But, hoo boy, does Brody misplay Giallo. I mean, woof! I mean, woof! Woof! First of all he’s hampered by a big yellow prosthetic face, a curly wig and a poorly judged sweatband. That, obviously, isn’t ridiculous enough so Brody adds a cod-Italian accent more suited to a lightly racist 1970s sit-com about foreign students learning English. “Prreeeteee! Bee-yoo-ti-fowl! Pretteee!” he chirrups repeatedly, but the nadir is when he hisses “Shuduppayamawf!” as he injects a struggling woman’s tongue with a sedative. Essentially Giallo disembowels itself by having a killer who resembles a melting Sylvester Stallone waxwork and talks like a homicidal comedy Italian waiter.

So, yes, Giallo is entertaining but for all the wrong reasons. I’ve barely scratched the surface of the misfires in wait, I wouldn’t want to kill all the pleasure of Giallo. But I will mention that Emmanuelle Seigner acts throughout the movie as though someone has told her that if she moves her face it will crack into a thousand pieces. Oh, and…but, no, enough. Trust me, Giallo isn’t a good movie, it isn’t even a good giallo. From Dario Argento that’s a shame, but, hey, we’ll always have Deep Red.

#Movies #Horror #giallo #Italy #Dario Argento #Adrien Brody #Emmanuelle Seigner #2009 #The 2000s

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