#I absolutely would for Rtas though

[bluehoodedmousebane]

"Master Chief? You mind telling me what you're doing with that ship?"

"Sir, OC x Canon is highly underrated-"

....I think im funny (No I dont)

Hate to sidetrack on a silly ask but why are all the Halo characters so good. Like in CE they’re all thought-out characters with their own goals and ideals. For no reason. It’d be easier to make them all have the same simple goal, like just killing the Covenant, but instead each character has their own agenda, a slight variation on everyone’s overarching goal.

A good bit of conflict comes from Keyes’ “I’ll go down with the ship” Cortana’s “this war has enough dead heros” and Chief’s “get it done” perspectives all rubbing against each other. It’s a depth of character that seems weird for an early fps. Half life didn’t do this! Doom didn’t to this extant!

I could argue that there are some pretty flat characters in CE, like how Johnson doesn’t have much of a motivation and is set up as comic relief. But. Even he is used to flush out the world of the game, like in the opening cutscene. Or the legendary ending, where yeah it’s just supposed to be funny, but it’s also explaining that the marines were spread out across the ring and that there were survivors outside of Chief.

And then Halo 2 comes around and gives the same depth to the enemies!

It’s fascinates me because you can see the same level of thought and effort being applied across the board. In the different enemy and friendly ai’s, in the worldbuilding, and the designs for the different races in the Covenant which. Is an entirely different rant for me. Why did they do it like this. Why’d they put so much effort into a game that reportedly had such a rushed production. Who’s the freak that kept adding inspirations from Alien.

Idk. I think all of this is just to say I’m scared to make a Halo oc because all of the characters are already so good.

[brf-rumortrackinganon]

Hi RTA ..

Adding to my earlier ask about Meghan stealing clothes from a photoshoot.

Vanessa said that this was a recent photoshoot that meghan has done AFTER megxit. She did this is California, the photoshoot happened in santa Barbara and that it was for a news organization (as opposed to a magazine). It was NOT reitmanns. And that sources from from the organization and designer team have confirmed this to her sometime in the last month.

So, now we have 2 confirmed separate incidences, reitmanns and this recent one, where Meghan stole stuff. As in simply walked away with things that she wanted to keep after the photoshoot and never informed or asked.

Vanessa is legit. She has previously done a profile on Meghan for Tatler and The Cut. She also came on Andrew's podcast 2 years back and dropped some tea back then.

Interesting. Thanks for following up!

In that case, the options are Time Magazine (for the hairdresser photos), The Cut, and Variety. I’m leaning towards Variety because it’s the seminal Hollywood insider publication that someone like Meghan would obsess over. The Cut is too new media and doesn’t fit in with her 90s/00s dream of worldwide domination.

And note, this could explain why she hasn’t gotten any more photoshoots - everyone knows about her sticky fingers and no one wants to risk it. Fashion and media is a small world so those people are absolutely going to talk to each other about this. Even though it may take time, years even, for it to trickle out to the general public, people in the industry would learn about it pretty quickly.

It may also explain the difficulty she has in finding people to dress her for events and she has to resort to the off-the-rack bargain Hermes and Carolina Herrera. And if that’s what’s going on, it may explain her avoidance of the Hollywood awards season despite all the manifesting - the people she wants to wear won’t dress her.

And now I’m rethinking the new stylist. Did she hire Adele’s stylist because Meghan realized she burned fashion bridges and thinks having a stylist to hustle on her behalf will get her back in everyone’s good graces? Something to think and speculate about.

(This is probably a good time to say that I don’t listen to podcasts or watch YouTube so a lot of those links y’all send me are going to be posted without being listened/watched.)

[rhmis-user-2020]

My experience as a Tangled the series / Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure fan.

Why hello there, it's a pleasure to meet you and welcome to my rant of myself. Today, I'll be talking about my experiences of being a TTS / RTA fan and why I've been wanting to express my opinions as such don't read if you don't feel like wanting to hear my pet peeves as one of the fans of the show and fandom.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

SO! What I've been doing more often is posting things relating to the fandom itself, I used to post 100% content of Varian. Due to first not knowing about the fandom at first and I've been a Varian fan or stan of the show, I used to act a bit exaggerated and weird but soon. As I learned about the fandom of RTA / TTS, I started to design characters from the show other than Varian. That's not saying that I'll not be posting Varian content, it's just that I admire Varian more like a friend than a crush. Hence why I sound neutral about Varian and not a hyper-loving fan of him. I continued to post content based on any character from the show, except those who are difficult to design in Gacha mods (Yes, I use Gacha mods even though I appreciate Gacha club) but all I'm saying is that I admire characters and not just Varian since even though Cassandra has done worst things, and even if Rapunzel denied and betrayed Cassandra and Varian. I wouldn't wanna blame Rapunzel, since I view myself as her. The one who betrays the trust and promise of either my friends or such, Rapunzel denied Varian's promise but for reasons. She must protect her kingdom from the blizzard, and her parents were in danger her boyfriend and friends went to go save them and there was a good chance they weren't coming back. Varian caught her at a bad time and what happened sucks, I slightly felt bad about Varian but I feel more about Rapunzel and non of it was her fault. I know I may sound like I hate Varian but no, I just view him pretty negatively I soon grew into him in season 3 once he reformed but even then I slightly forgive him and even if I post Varian content, I would write it in a neutral sense.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Next was my boy, Eugene. I absolutely love him a whole lot in the series, he's one of my favourite characters besides Rapunzel of course. I would love to listen to more songs about him, it brings joy to my heart. He deserved more screen time in the series and a friendship with Lance as his partner in crime and Varian as a team awesome group with Lance and has a couple of romantic moments with Rapunzel, his soon-to-be wife.

And he is fucking hilarious and look at his face.

LOOK AT HIM, HE'S ONE OF THE CUTEST BOYFRIEND AND SOON-TO-BE HUSBAND OF RAPUNZEL AND I DON'T CHANGE MY MIND ABOUT THAT TOPIC.

And he doesn't get any love, come on.

And his dynamic with Lance is hilarous.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Now, for Cassandra. Well, I am not mad at her at all even though the rest of the fandom is mad at her for her villain arc, she might've been a petty, manipulative, two-faced monster just like her mother and she may commit severe crimes like:

Malefic

High treason

Theft

Abuse of power

Psychological and emotional abuse

Usurpation

Mass destruction

Torture

Kidnapping

Attempted mass murder

Slander

Extortion

The drugging of a minor

Aiding and abetting

Brainwashing

Enslavement

Terrorism

Animal cruelty

Identity theft

Vandalism

Pollution

Fraud

Sabotage

Gaoling

Blackmail

Conspiracy

And I too thought that the king or queen would provide some sort of punishment for Cassandra but they set her free since one user of mine said "I think the reason why she didn’t get arrested and got help was because Rapunzel was in charge and not Fredric. Fredric was in charge of Varian’s arrest and that was handled terribly, while Rapunzel handled Cassandra’s. I do also think that Cass got some punishment off-screen, she’s not the type of character who would be ok with getting away with her crimes, but I just wish we saw that for justification."

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Lance is so fucking underrated this dude wasn't even talked about at all in the fandom and I wished that people to talk about him since I love Lance, he is the first black character and that's right, he is voiced by James Monroe Iglehart a African-American person. And him being the father (or adoptive father) of Kiera and Catalina is wholesome as hell, it's so cute to see him with children.

If any of you who are fans of Lance, I would love to hear your opinion on him.

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

Now the underdog himself, Varian. While yes, Varian is voiced by none other than Jeremy Jordan. So it makes sense the fandom would show their love to these characters. He is a fan favourite of the bunch, as he is well-known in the fandom to be one of if not the most relatable and sympathetic villains like Cassandra and Eugene. He is the only one who has character development.

He might've done crimes like:

Kidnapping

Assault

Aiding and abetting

Attempted regicide

Terrorism

Usurpation

Mass brainwashing

Conspiracy

Sabotage

Animal cruelty

Vandalism

Theft

Treason

But the king actually cared about Varian and Rapunzel warned him by saying "Don't be too hard on him, Dad." and he valued her discussion, since he accepts his daughter a whole lot and even mentioned this. "I'll be sure to do everything I can to get him help."

And yes, I do prefer the king's concern over this.

This may come across as valuable but he placed Varian in an adult prison since either a) he messed with grown up stuff and committed crimes that may come across as one adult would do or b) he did so out of pureness to keep him safe only for him to be manipulated by adults.

Who knows.

Varian showed some remorse and shame for his past deeds and thought that he could never be forgiven, which was why he teamed up with Andrew and the Separatists of Saporia to erase everyone's memories so that he could have a fresh start and be friends with Rapunzel again. However, by Rapunzel's compassion and the Separatists' change of plan, Varian turned over a new leaf and helped the princess and her friends save Corona. His rekindled friendship with Rapunzel soon gave him back his dad and the forgiveness of Corona.

And he is admirable and funny. And he does have a trusted friend named Ruddiger which is the most cutest dynamic ever, like an owner and pet relationship.

Why do I analyze Varian way more than any character? WHY?

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

And now Rapunzel, she is by far my second favourite character. And I especially loved her romance between her and Eugene as well as her friendship with Cassandra, both Eugene and Punzie might be the most cutest couple ever.

I wished they stayed like this.

[a-god-in-ruins-rises]

What's this cult I keep hearing about? Do you have to be a part of a certain religion to join?

damn. perhaps it's time i start working on writing out an actual official statement of beliefs and faq and all that.

the cult is my cult. it's purpose: to cultivate the gods, man, virtue, culture, the nation, etc. i just want to create a community of like-minded free-spirits who can all collaborate and support each other and do good in the world. i think having a tribe is important. i want to create a tribe.

now there is definitely a religious dimension...

what does religious mean though? well, it's a term of obscure origins. it original meaning is debating but i take the side that it meant something like "to bind or connect". but it eventually came to mean something like "right living, duty, obligation". and back in roman times it wasn't inherently a religious term, as we understand it today. it was often used in mundane life too. and it only later became more associated with "reverence for the gods, piety".

but it reminds of many similar words in other indo-european languages: arta, rta, aryas, dharma, harmos, aristos, order, lex, logos, etc. not saying they're necessarily etymologically connected (though i know some of them are). but semantically, they all have sort of overlapping definitions: right living/right work, law, cosmic order, duty/obligation/binding, balance, rank-ordering, righteousness, nobility/aristocracy, etc.

and that's kinda what i mean by religion. just that bundle of meanings all together. when i say "my religion" it's an entire way of life that relates to the gods but also everything else too, including the mundane. my religion is keeping my oaths to the gods but also to my friends and business partners.

and so i think that if you live according to this way of life (this religion), even without actually believing in my specific idea of the gods, then you are in effect honoring the gods in a way.

so the answer is "yes" and "no", depending on how you look at it.

since the whole idea is to find like-minded people i'm obviously going to be predisposed to initiating people who believe in the gods and those who believe in the gods similarly to how i do. but even if you don't, it's not necessarily a dealbreaker as long as you are otherwise worthy/compatible.

so yeah being part of my particular religion (or a religion adjacent to my own) would definitely be advantageous but it might not be absolutely necessary.

i think there will be tiers to this organization. i think at the "highest" level the organization will be somewhat open and lax. more like a broad coalition/ecumenical movement which promotes some kind of unifying non-sectarian civil religion. but then there will be different "branches" within it which will be more specific and exclusive. so there will be a "mother-cult", so to speak, and then it will give birth to offshoots. so perhaps there will be a "asatru cult" branch only for people who worship norse gods or the "cult of demeter" where only people who are especially devoted to demeter can join.

we can call the mother-cult a "pantheion" to signify its devotion and openness to "all gods" and then there can be more specific cults within it. and these cults will have some degree of autonomy/self-governance but in accordance with the supreme laws of the pantheion.

not sure! like i said, it's still a work in progress. again, this is being created from the ground up. it's starting as an organic, un-systematized way of life and will slowly become more systematized and institutionalized as time goes on. and that's part of the beauty of it imo. the dynamism and evolution of it. there's so much potential! so if you ever wanted to have a hand in the development of the religion of the future, now is your chance!

[ghostess-with-the-mostess]

Here's a few more! (Granted god knows other posts mention these)

Cheating Men Must Die - A chinese 'system' manhua where a once-spurned rival/villainess character becomes an OP agent who dives into the worlds of third-rate novels to grant justice to other secondary character spurned to downfall by shitty male leads

With One Day Left I'll Break All the Destruction Flags: "Serves You Right!" RTA 24 Hour Record - the reincarnated villainess regains their memories of earth only 24 hours before the condemnation event; she proceeds to completely decimate everything before then ALSO THIS ONE IS COMPLETELY FINISHED

The One Within the Villainess - imagine Hamefura but with two key differences: the heroine is also isekai-possessed by an absolute two-faced bitch that completely reverts the progress the reincarnated villainess made - but also, the original villainess was still conscious in a mindscape where she was comforted by the life and presence of the reincarnator - and once the condemnation occurs and the reincarnator's personality is traumatized away, leaving the original personality to return? She is hellbent on using what she's learned from the reincarnator to completely obliterate the reincarnated heroine in the ultimate revenge.

Endo and Kobayashi's Live Commentary on the Villainess - kiiiiind of skirting the line but two japanese high schoolers find out they're able to talk to the male lead of an otome game and help him understand how cute his tsundere villainess fiancee is and it's GETTING AN ANIME!

The Fed-Up Office Lady Wants to Serve the Villainess - A woman gets fired from her OL job, only to be summoned into an otome game as the Villainess' familiar, to which she makes it her goal to save her from her fate of villainy (though the arc is unfortunately already underway)

Milday Just Wants to Relax - A "reincarnated villainess embraces the condemnation to gain a commoner's life" story where the MC hides away in a small village working a cafe and gets entangled with the beastmen mercenaries that the rest of the town fears while dealing with her own fear of being found by her controlling, horrid family

The Villainess' Slow Prison Life Began with Her Broken Engagement - only a couple of chapters of the original novel were adapated into manga sadly, but its SO GOOD - the villainess gets condemned and locked away in a cell - that she's already filled with every worldly desire she could imagine, and from there she proceeds to absolutely troll and fuck with the male leads in every which way possible while enjoying her newfound freedom to be lazy

May I Ask for One Final Thing? - This villainess is only interested in one, single thing - punching the most punchable of the corrupt nobles, and she has every ability to do so.

Though I May Be a Villainess, I'll Show You I Can Obtain Happiness! - one of various anthology series that do small single-chapter stories with the theme of Villainesses obtaining their Happy End through their lowest point - some are amazing, some are good, and of course some are awful. My personal favorites from this are

- The Tale of the Noble Girl who will go to a Monastery after her Engagement Annulment

- Shall We Walk Hand in Hand Down the Flowery Path of Evil? (this one has been serialized)

- The Villainess Laughs Innocently

- The Art of Rebuilding a Nation Begins with a Broken Engagement!

- You Were Set Up, You Know?

- My Betrothed's Personality is Way Different from the Game!

- It Would Seem You've Broken Off your Engagement in Order to Marry Me, But I have No Intention of Marrying You

- I'm a Survival Gamer Reincarnated into an Otome Game

- Overthrown for My Younger Sister, but She's a Ticking Time Bomb

- Villainess gets Dumped, Doesn't Care, Lives Happily Ever After with her Super Masochistic Childhood Friend

- The Jilted Villainess Becomes a Lady of Justice

Isekai with male protags: "I was a loser on earth but now I'm super fucking strong and gettin mad bitches"

Isekai with female protags:

Reincarnated princess uses earth knowledge to make magitech a thing and romances sad girl

Girl romantically pursues her video game waifu

Girl is tasked to teach actual fucking gods to be more empathetic to humans

Woman reincarnated as the daughter of a magic item crafter uses earth knowledge to advance her trade

"Straight" girl is sucked into a world with zero men and lesbians everywhere and finds out she's sapphic (there's like actual plot but the gay is what matters.... to me)

A ghibli film. Need I say more

Woman reincarnated in video game as doomed villainess desperately tries to change her story

Girl reincarnated as a tiny baby spider kills monsters to level up

Like the male protag one but the lame guy's mom got isekaid with him and she's the op one.

Two normal girls fight urban legends in terrifying danger dimension

[nyehnyeh12]

Hello!!! I'm NyehNyeh, but you can call me Nyeh for short, and I'm an artist! I do some other stuff besides drawing but I will not be posting it here lol. I will be reposting occasionally on my main blog, but mostly posting my own stuff. Secondary will be probably undecorated and will be purely for reblogging! I will be using “#nyehnyeh art” for all my art/important posts, to make it all a lil easier.

This blog is going to be 2 things:

1: Art blog owned by someone who has no idea how Tumblr works and only just now decided to try it

2: Silly freak out blog where I will occasionally pop up to rant about either stuff that made me have a strong enough opinion to care, or something that made me go absolutely crazy, or as I like to say, balls-to-the-wall-insane. It will all still be mostly lighthearted though lol.

Some random fandoms I'm part of:

Undertale/Deltarune, She-Ra ATPOP, Welcome Home, Vocaloid, PJSK, FNAF, indigo park, RTA/TTS, Gravity Falls, Hellaverse, Stardew Valley, TOH, Ever After High, Hades, Danganronpa, Sonic, Heathers The Musical, Puss in Boots TLW, SU, DDLC, Spiderman ITSV/ATSV, Luca, MLP, The Mario Movie (Mario stuff in general, but less), Lackadaisy, Bendy and the Ink Machine, TADC, Tinkerbell (the movies), and a milion other things

I would list way more fandoms, or things I really really like, but there's so many it would be half the post... I'll eventually do that if i post enough of a certain thing, to the point where it is part of my account and worth following for! For now there's no such thing, orrrrr.... I'm too lazy to make a new pin. :))

As I previously stated, I'm multifandom and very inconsistent , so whoopsie daisy if I suddenly vanish and come back with completely random art...My apologies.

I will eventually pin commissions or anything I'm trying to sell here, but for now it's just a lil info post so yay :DD it will drown in reblogs for the sake of money 🙏💔🕊️

[teamxdark]

🔬✏ - ToA/RtA? 👀

Hooo boy. This got long because I can't shut up about ToA.

🔬- Was there one scene you were building up to/knew you had to get just right?

For ToA? Oh boy, MANY THINGS.

In the beginning perhaps less so, when there weren't many people reading and there was a lot of establishing going on. Chapter 9 (Corbenic) was the first one I was nervous about publishing and the first big plot chapter, but I don't remember stressing about getting it just right.

Chapter 13 on the other hand. The one where Arthur nearly dies and Lance goes ballistic before having his major realisation? Yeah. That one I needed to get right. Even though very few were reading. And even though I got almost no response to it aside from a few new kudos, I was very proud of it.

Other major things after that, that I wanted to nail on the head? So many things. The second half of ToA is basically the meat of the story.

I wanted to show the warrior side of Nimue and her frustration at being kept in place.

I wanted to show Arthur messing up and handling the consequences.

I wanted to show Lancelot falling and falling hard, but still retaining his love for his son and his friends and his mother.

Guin. Just... Everything about Guin.

THE WEDDING CHAPTER. I WAS REALLY EXCITED FOR THE WEDDING CHAPTER OH MY WORD I LOVE WRITING DANCING AND I LOVE GUIN AND LANCE SHOWING EVERYONE UP AND I LOVE ARTHUR STRUGGLING WITH FORMAL DANCES BECAUSE HE NEVER HAD THE TIME TO LEARN THEM BUT THE INSTANT THE MUSIC SPEEDS UP HE SHOWS WHAT HE REALLY CAN DO AND INVENTS BREAKDANCING. Also building up Gareth.

Building up the conflict with Lance and Gawain.

Chapter 20 in its entirety.

Chapter 21 where Arthur FINALLY REALISES.

Chapter 22 oh wow that one terrified me to write because of some of the topics involved, especially at the time when it was being written. I didn't want people to see Gawain as a villain, and I was afraid that the direction I took him in could be viewed as xenophobic in some ways, and there were times when I sat there and felt genuine anxiety over this chapter because I wanted people to sympathise with Gawain's plight and feel the weight of his decisions and ultimately understand why he puts a blade to his throat (as he does in SatBK). And that part at the end when he and Guin basically exchange their most valued items to demonstrate a trust in each other and as a way to promise to move past that night and work to build a better future.

AND THE LAST CHAPTER. THE LAST. FREAKING. CHAPTER.

THE PAYOFF.

THE CULMINATION OF THE SLOW BURN AND THE CONCLUSION OF THE TALE.

I remember finishing the chapter and sitting on it for a week and just. Dying to post it. It was a relief. It was such a relief to write something soft and sweet and reciprocated and the beginning of a time of healing.

Meanwhile with RtA... Everything to do with King Ban. And there are some coming up as well, but those are spoilers! I will say, though... That I hope the end of Chapter 11 makes everyone lose their minds anew.

✏️-Would you go back and change anything if you could?

For ToA? Absolutely.

Make Gawain and Lancelot's relationship more of an explicit friendship. Amp up the tragedy of the final five chapters and be closer to the legends by doing so.

Show a younger Arthur calling Lancelot 'Lance' and Lancelot protesting it. I had the idea of the nickname when I was writing Chapter 13 and I wasn't about to go back and change earlier chapters, so I told instead of showed.

More slice-of-life chapters or interludes so more of the knights have character moments, though that might ruin the flow of the story.

Allude to the fact that Galatine makes Gawain stronger while in the sunlight. I could add it to RtA but that would feel kinda shoehorned in at this point.

Establish that Merlina can only see visions of death and misfortune and tie that in to her motivations to attempt to frighten Arthur into retrieving Excalibur so she could make the proceedings of SatBK happen. Honestly the whole chapter when Arthur finds her and puts a stop to it feels... lacking to me.

I'd let Arthur say 'fuck' just once. Not sure when but. I'd let it happen. He's earned it.

[bestworstcase]

my most controversial tangled opinion is that the sundrop/moonstone lore isn’t confusing, it’s just a soft magical system in a story that wanted a harder one.

what i mean by this is: there are zero theoretical limits on the powers of the sundrop and moonstone, but their actual established powers are nebulous and controlled by vague concepts (“faith” and “feelings”) without any hard explanation. this works as long as the magic is a mysterious quest object and its actual use is largely incidental, but once cass takes the moonstone, the magic becomes a central component of the plot and the system fails.

for those unfamiliar with the soft/hard magical system distinction, in the most general terms, a hard magical system is explained—it has defined rules and limitations so the audience can understand How It Works—while a soft magical system isn’t. neither is better than the other per se, but which type works best for a given story depends a lot on how the magic is used in the plot.

to give an example, bending in avatar: the last airbender falls into the “hard” category. bending is a martial art with a strong spiritual component; there are four types of bending, each tied to one of the four nations; with one exception, benders can only bend a single element, and the exception is explained and given his own set of rules, like the requirement that he must learn the four types of bending in a particular order. even the last-minute introduction of a fifth type bending is logical within the context of the universe: humans learned the other four types of bending from powerful magical creatures, so the lion-turtle’s ability to gift energy bending to aang follows the established rule for how humans acquired bending abilities in the first place; and aang himself has long been established as valuing and prioritizing the spiritual aspect of being the avatar, so it makes sense that when he entreats the spirits for a way to defeat ozai without killing him, the spirits basically go “sure, here.” 

and of course, we the audience need to understand these rules, because bending is integral to the plot and to the way characters solve problems. if the characters in atla were constantly pulling new powers out of their butts to deal with the problem of the week, would that be as satisfying a story? characters do discover new powers (katara’s healing, toph’s metalbending, iroh’s lightning redirection, hama’s bloodbending), but when that happens the series is quick to establish how those powers fit within the framework of what we already know. we see this happen in fanworks too, because the audience understands the underlying mechanics and we can extrapolate new powers that fit within the defined rules, eg: could a sufficiently skilled and motivated firebender manipulate the electrical signals of the brain? taking control of a pre-existing electrical discharge and manipulating elements inside the human body are both possible, so i don’t see why not.

now back to rta.

the magical system in the series is very soft. for the purpose of this discussion, we’re going to focus on the sundrop, moonstone, and zhan tiri, because those are the core pillars of the magical system—the assortment of enchanted artifacts that pop up are sort of tangential and irrelevant here. 

let’s start with what we know. 

the sundrop and moonstone are two halves of an ancient cosmic power (hereafter ACP). the ACP was destroyed by an unknown calamity, the two drops fell to the earth, and they have been longing to reunite ever since. 

whether this “longing” implies a degree of sapience or if it’s simply an attractive force like a pair of magnets is never specified, but based on the way the two forces behave i think the magnets explanation makes more sense.

the sundrop and moonstone are said to be inverses of each other. the sundrop heals, the moonstone harms. simple enough. 

...but the moonstone also has a secondary protective ability, which it gifts to rapunzel in the form of her unbreakable hair. and the moonstone has the black rocks, which seem to exhibit both the destructive and protective/invulnerable facets of the moonstone’s power. 

and the the sundrop also has a secondary destructive ability in that it. explodes.

so...

sundrop heals ↔ moonstone harms sundrop destroys ↔ moonstone protects

now this internally contradictory set of powers for the drops does make sense when you remember that they were originally just one thing. the ACP was theorized to have basically unlimited powers of destruction and creation, so it makes sense for its two halves to exhibit that duality within themselves as well.

if we consider the wording of the four incantations (and the events of BVA), we can kind of get a sense of what else the drops might be able to do: 

i think there’s a strong argument to be made for understanding the healing/decaying capabilities of the drops as temporal manipulation. the sundrop doesn’t “heal” so much as it reverses time so it’s like the damage never happened (“make the clock reverse!”)—which incidentally would explain how gothel stayed fertile for two thousand years a lot better than “healing”—and the moonstone’s decay does the same but in reverse, so fast forwarding rather than rewinding.

they both alter/manipulate fate (“change the fates’ design”/“end this destiny”). this may be a metaphorical reference to the temporal manipulation thing, or it could be that the tangled universe truly is deterministic and the drops powerful enough to literally change fate.

a case can be made for a third dichotomy of sundrop faith ↔ moonstone will. by which i mean that the sundrop runs on belief/faith while the moonstone runs on feelings/willpower. the sun incantation focuses on hope (“and let our hope ignite”) and eugene having faith in rapunzel in LAF is what allows her to activate the sundrop nuke even without the incantation. meanwhile, the moon incantation focuses on willpower (“bend it to my will”) and in BVA, the moonstone is shown to react intensely to cassandra’s feelings and is also able to manipulate the feelings of other people (meaning that, presumably, the sundrop could also inspire faith). 

...but notice, here, how much of this is postulation. very little of this is explicit textual information; instead, i’m drawing connections between the lore given in LAF and the things that we see the sundrop/moonstone do on screen in an attempt to line up what we see with the loose, vague framework of “two halves of a broken whole that are opposites/complements of each other.” 

and i really think this is what people mean when they say the sundrop/moonstone lore is “confusing.” unlike in a hard magical system like atla, the series dedicates no time to explaining how it all works. it’s just There, and while we can make some extrapolations based on what we see, it’s not really a system that is meant to hang together in a coherent, rules-based way. and—unpopular opinion—that is FINE. hard systems are not innately better than soft systems. 

do i personally have a preference for hard systems? yes. are hard systems in vogue in modern fantasy? also yes. does that make soft systems inferior to hard systems? no. can i suspend my disbelief enough to enjoy a fantasy story with a soft system? absolutely, yes, though no force on earth can stop me from picking over it with a fine-toothed comb to develop a personal theory on how it all works, or from breaking it down into its component parts and then building a hard system from scratch for my own fanworks like i did with bitter snow. 

but—the key thing is—it’s not confusing if you go into it with the understanding that the magical system is soft. the nebulous vague what you see is what you get thing is a feature, not a bug. 

the same goes for zhan tiri. i’ve already expounded at great length about her canon lore and i’m not going to get into it again, but suffice it to say: she’s some sort of powerful ancient shapeshifting demon with nature-based magic, a side helping of dream/mind-based magic, and a penchant for deceit and manipulation. and again, the underlying mechanics of any of this are not explored, because rta has a soft magical system.

but farran, you said rta needed a harder system, so why are you now saying that soft magical systems aren’t bad? 

i did say that, yes, but it’s not because soft systems are bad. it’s because soft and hard systems are different tools used to accomplish different things, and rta as a series tells a story that, ultimately, would have been better served by a hard system rather than a soft one.

let’s start with cassandra’s control over the moonstone. in RR, she uses its powers instinctively and effortlessly. then, she loses that ability, and zhan tiri tells her that it’s because she needs to focus on her rage because that’s what the moonstone responds to (this is an obvious lie ziti uses to get cass to wallow in her anger, but the basic principle that the moonstone responds to emotion appears to be sound). and then, in BVA, cassandra’s fear about attacking rapunzel causes her to spontaneously manifest a completely new ability that sends magical fear-empathy rocks all the way to corona where they start giving people nightmare visions and petrifying them. 

that’s huge! we had no idea the moonstone could do something like that. but then they go away and cass never uses them again. why? who knows!

next, zhan tiri (off screen -_-) evidently tells cass that it’s not actually a matter of trying harder to master the moonstone’s power, she needs to use the moon incantation to unlock it. this is inconsistent with what we’ve seen before (RR and BVA proved that she could access the full range of the moonstone’s power, she just doesn’t know how), and could be explained by zhan tiri lying again... except that when cass recites the incantation it works as-advertised. 

and “mastering the moonstone’s power” turns out to be... black rocks and lightning, but bigger and more elaborate. that’s it. there’s no expansion on the withering incantation, or the empathy-rocks or petrification abilities introduced in BVA, it’s just black rocks and a light show. and black rocks shaped like dogs that one time in plus est. 

the same thing happens with the sundrop. it glows and it blows things up and it heals things and that is all it does. it just does it... bigger, and flashier, after rapunzel recites the sun incantation. 

and when zhan tiri acquires both of the drops, something that we are told grants her the (undefined) “ultimate power,” she... uses them to make rocks, but they’re golden now. what do the golden rocks do? who knows! and she uses the decay incantation, which works exactly as it did when rapunzel used it except faster and bigger and not uncontrolled. 

and then she’s beaten by whacking her over the head with a frying pan and tricking her into clapping her hands together, which blows her up. and then rapunzel takes the unified drop and revives cass everyone before letting it fly off into space. yay!

but... do you see the problem here? why so many people felt so dissatisfied with the lore surrounding the drops and zhan tiri in season three? people say it’s “confusing,” but i think that describes a symptom, not the root of the problem. a good, well-utilized soft magical system doesn’t cause confusion; it blends into the story and doesn’t call attention to itself. it’s like... lighting. it’s just there and it just works and it enriches the story but we don’t question it. 

whereas a hard magical system is an actual component of the narrative, almost like a character in its own right in the sense that we understand what makes it tick. there are rules, and we understand the rules, and because we understand the rules we can make predictions about what influence or role the magic will have in the plot. to use atla as a very simple example again: when iroh teaches zuko how to redirect lightning, we can predict that this ability will become a vital form of defense against azula and ozai. atla sets up lightning bending, then sets up a defense against lightning bending, and we don’t need to wait around for it to happen to understand that this is going to become Very Important later.

now compare this to rta season three. a whole episode is dedicated to establishing that the moonstone is connected to cassandra’s emotions in a pretty significant way. after bva, there was a lot of speculation about how this fact would play out in the events to come; speculation about other types/colors of rocks and what effects they might have; speculation about how this would tie into cassandra’s emotional arc; speculation about how zhan tiri’s manipulation might interact with the moonstone’s emotion-based magic. and... absolutely none of that happened, because that was rules-based speculation built on the assumption that rta’s magical system had definitive rules. and that was an assumption made because, in s3, rta’s soft magical system started to behave as if it were a hard one. ie, it jumped into center stage and went “look at me! i’m important.” 

except it was still a soft magical system with no definitive rules, so any rules-based speculation was impossible and pointless. it is like trying to build a house out of beams of light. you can make a house shape, but if it rains you are still going to get wet. 

and i made this mistake, too! i also made the assumption, after BVA, that answers were coming and we could expect the magic to continue to develop into, if not a hard system, at least a hybrid one, and a lot of my speculation after that point came from a place of expecting answers (and trying to unravel the answers on my own before the series showed them to us). 

but rta’s magical system just was not built that way. it wasn’t set up to play this central role in the plot, it didn’t have definitive rules, it didn’t have a preexisting framework that could be used to expand and elaborate on characters’ abilities in a naturalistic, predictable way, so... as is often the case with mis-used soft systems, the magic just got vaguely Bigger whenever the narrative called for escalation, and the “ultimate power” ended up being completely underwhelming because it was just More Of The Same, But Make It Yellow. 

as... a point of comparison here, because i’m struggling to articulate what i’m driving at, let’s consider my take on the sundrop/moonstone lore—the hard magical system i created for bitter snow. 

1) magic is drawn from a powerful magical entities (deities, demons, spirits).

2) magical abilities are based on the abilities of the patron.

3) the sundrop and moonstone are artifacts belonging to/created by a solar deity (huma) and lunar deity (turul). they are basically teeny tiny shards of those deities that fell to earth when it was still a molten lump of raw material and then molded it into a world capable of supporting life. the drops themselves can serve as direct conduits to huma/turul, and both have extensive root systems; the sundrop’s roots support the outer crust of the earth, while the moonstone’s roots (the black rocks) form the inner core. 

4) the magic of the sundrop is restorative, and it also “casts” a shadow in the form of destructive magic. the restorative/destructive magics are always equal (hence the “shadow” metaphor). the restorative magic heals, creates and nourishes life, offers strength. the destructive magic is the opposite: it destroys, it kills, it weakens. 

5) the magic of the moonstone is transformative. it takes the sundrop’s “shadows” and refashions them into the black rocks. it adapts, it moves, it alters things. it is neutral, centered, and stable in comparison to the sundrop’s intense extremes. 

6) both huma and turul (and by extension the drops) are also connected to zhan tiri, as all three formed very early in the beginning of the cosmos. like huma and turul, zhan tiri’s magic is centered around change; hers is corruptive. zhan tiri’s magic manipulates strengths into weakness, and weakness into strength. it gives by taking away. it feeds.

7) to put these three types of magic into more concrete terms: let’s say alice, bob, and carol all break their arms. alice calls on the power of the sundrop to heal herself, and her arm is instantly and perfectly repaired, but some destructive, uncontrolled magic is unleashed into the world to balance the scales. bob, meanwhile, calls on the power of the moonstone, and it transforms the broken arm into solid stone; the pain is gone and the arm is no longer broken, but it is also no longer, strictly speaking, a human arm. and finally, carol entreats zhan tiri for healing, and zhan tiri sets the bone but also infuses it with her own magic, so it festers/grows into a well of power for carol.

now, if we apply these rules to a plus est en vous type of situation where zhan tiri claims both of the drops for herself, what does that look like? it’s the power to instantly unmake and re-make the entire cosmos. it’s the power to transform the entire world and everything on it into stone or ice. it’s the power to cure every disease and heal every injury suffered by every living thing on the planet instantaneously, and to inflict those same sufferings on everyone and everything with a snap of your fingers. it’s, literally, limitless. (it also fuses zhan tiri, huma, and turul into a single entity called jinarche but that is a little beside the point for the purpose of this discussion.)

and... how do you beat a creature like that? well. you sort of can’t, on paper, but in practice the overwhelming shock of the fusion of that much power into a single being would cause a few minutes of intense disorientation and that creates a window of opportunity to break the fused power apart again... but this isn’t a “win” scenario either, really, because when you do that it is going to cause an explosion of power violent enough to shred the entire cosmos so it is basically hitting the reboot button on the whole universe.

so, operating within the bitter snow magical system, the key to defeating a zhan tiri who wanted to acquire the sundrop and moonstone (and fuse with huma and turul in the process) would be to stop her before she gets her hands on both drops. because of the framework created by this hard system, the plot of this alternate plus est en vous is all about preventing zhan tiri from acquiring the drops, because the second both of them are in her possession it’s game over even if you manage to kill her. you either get an unkillable, omnipotent god or you get the entire universe self-destructing. the stakes are that high.

*deep breath*

with this in mind, let’s wrap this back around to canon. when zhan tiri takes both the sundrop and moonstone, what... are the stakes?

in TOTS, when zhan tiri revealed her plan to take both drops for herself, did the stakes feel high? we are told at several points that the drops have the potential to destroy the world, but does the stinger at the beginning of TOTS feel like an “oh, shit, the literal planet is at stake here” moment? 

does zhan tiri in plus est feel like a super-powered demon who has just acquired the ultimate power of creation and destruction? no! the golden rocks and turbo-charged decay incantation don’t even feel like an escalation over the cassandra vs rapunzel battles in CR and earlier in plus est—in fact, frankly, they feel like a downgrade by virtue of being less flashy!

the series has given us no frame of reference for what the ultimate power looks like while simultaneously providing no internal scaffolding on which to build that kind of escalation. this is the biggest downside of a soft magical system—it’s really damn hard to keep raising the stakes if you don’t have the basic framework of “here’s what the rules are, here’s the limitations.”

back to bitter snow: neither zhan tiri, turul/the moonstone, nor huma/the sundrop on their own are powerful enough to rip the whole universe apart. zhan tiri is the most individually powerful of the three, and while she could probably destroy the planet if she really put her mind to it, that would take centuries to come to fruition. it would be a matter of planting the right seeds, worming her magic into the right cracks, growing and feeding and hollowing it out from within, and then hitting the pressure points at just the right time. it is only in combination that these three become strong enough to just unmake the whole cosmos in the blink of an eye. this kind of escalation is possible because i know what the limits are. 

in a soft magical system version of bitter snow, it’d be more like “well zhan tiri is really powerful, the sundrop and moonstone are pretty powerful too, if you put them all together they’d all be... like, Really Really Really powerful.” because the whole point of a soft magical system is that it’s vague. it’s not supposed to have this level of clarity and precision in how it works. this doesn’t make escalation impossible, just super difficult, because it’s so easy for escalation or new powers to come across as plot contrivances (BVA) or deus ex machina or purely aesthetic in nature like the gorgeous and dramatic fight in CR or the golden rocks zhan tiri uses. and from an audience perspective, there is literally no way to guess what might happen next because there are No Rules. you can predict character beats and plot developments, of course, but you can’t make accurate assessments about the magic.

and when you’re using a soft magical system in this way, where escalating stakes based on magic use are integral to the plot, you are basically inviting your audience to go “hey, wait a minute, how does this work...?” for the same reason audiences try to analyze and understand why characters are acting the way they do. 

and that’s why rta’s magical system ultimately failed. not because it’s confusing, but because it was too soft for what the story wanted to do with it. 

[invisible-pink-toast]

ask game: rta/tts?

Thanks! 

Fandom ask game

Favourite character: aaaaaa that’s such a tough question, it changes by the day. Today I will say Cass!!

Least favourite character: Frederic or Quirin. Fathers who treat their kids like crap, keep secrets and put everyone’s lives in danger for stupid, selfish reasons - and then never face any consequences for any of it! At least most of the fandom seems to hate Frederic, people seem to love Quirin and I just don’t understand why

Well I guess with consequences Quirin got trapped in the amber because he wasn’t honest with Varian about the black rocks, but once he is freed there’s no consequences for all the shitty things he did before it

brOTP: Eugene and Cassandra!! Do they have a brotp name? They should... 

Also Varian and any of the adults (Raps, Cass, Eugene, Lance, and more of a crack!brotp but I think Lady Caine would be a great mentor for him)

OTP: Everyone x therapy 

OT3: Uknighted Dream!!! With New Dream & Cassunzel being romantic, and Eugene and Cass being friends. Three of my favourite pairs all in one as a polycule, I absolutely adore them, one of my all time favourite ships!

NOTP: Leaving aside the gross ones shipping adults and children (why.) I really don’t like Lance and Adira. While I don’t think she ever straight out rejects him, she clearly has no interest in him and he just keeps pursuing her and I don’t like that. Plus I hc Adira as being aroace. Love Lance though, he deserves a great romantic partner who loves him just as much, in my post-TTS story I have an oc that he falls in love with. 

Favourite storyline: hmmmmm, there’s a lot I love - all of the series opening, midpoints and finales are incredible, and there are a couple of other individual episodes that are up there too - Not in the Mood, Rapunzel: Day One, Be Very Afraid.... 

I think I’ll have to do a tie between Rapunzel and the Great Tree & Cassandra’s Revenge.

Least favourite storyline: any Hookfoot episode. He is so boring. It adds nothing to the story. Even though ‘No Time Like the Past’ was a wasted opportunity and makes no sense - at least it was entertaining.

What I wish had happened but didn’t: ACKNOWLEDGE EUGENE’S TRAUMA!!! HE DIED!! THAT’S A BIG DEAL!! I waited for it for the whole show and it never came, even though there were perfect opportunities to address it in ‘The Quest for Varian’ and ‘Be Very Afraid’. I go into more detail here

what happened that I wish hadn’t: Frederic (and Arianna to an extent) get off with no consequences. Frederic terrorised the poorer citizens of Corona after Rapunzel was kidnapped - honestly Lady Caine was 100% in the right to abduct him in the pilot. Frederic also puts EVERYONE in Corona in real genuine DANGER by ignoring the black rocks. He also sent armed, masked guards after a traumatised 14 year old boy to stop Varian getting word out about the rocks. wtf? He’s a terrible king. 

He also abuses Rapunzel and specifically does the EXACT SAME THINGS Gothel did to her - lying to her, keeping secrets, literally locking her in a tower. And once again faces no consequences. He’s a terrible father. 

He just sucks. And if the show had gone into that in s3 and explored the repercussions, and he apologised to everyone and worked to move forwards that would’ve been interesting. But it’s like none of that ever happened and it’s never spoken of again. boo

[nemrut]

Epic 7- Update 03.02.21

So, a couple of things in this update.

Not really liking the new Luluca skin. Epic 7 really does have a problem with most of the skins being meh which is weird for a game which has such great character designs and concepts when it wants to. Sure, at times it leans too much into fan service ladies what with the big boobs, but it is anime so while I am not happy about it, I can tolerate that to a degree. But then there are skins like Luluca’s or Yun’s which are just nothing skins. The game introduces skins relatively rarely as it is and when it does, quite often it is a bit of a disappointment.

That said, the F.Ceci skin looks neat, and I will have to try and push into masters. Didn’t really play much RTA. Still in Gold or so, I think, after my placements. 

The multi banner for the limited heroes looks interesting. I have all artifacts and heroes that are offered there so I am lucky to not have to pull there but yeah, seems like a good opportunity. Not sure that I completely understand the new currency for that but yeah, seeing how many good limited heroes there are in the game, newer players absolutely needed something like this.

Man, the new collab stuff is hopefully something awesome. I will admit, I would absolutely LOVE if they collaborated with Hololive. I am not super familiar with the hololive japanese side of things although I saw clips from Pekora, Korone and others and I guess they would be way more probable and I guess the EN side is still too new for them to get epic 7 heroes designed and animated, just time wise, but I would whale so hard for Ame, Calli, Ina or Kiara heroes. They all lend themselves so well to be heroes with iconic and distinct but also fun attacks. Someone already did a fan trailer for a potential Gura hero. But yeah, I would also roll for Pekora, sure.

Another big issue there would be that it would be hard to pick the characters for the collab. There is a lot of choice on the Japanese side, and you can’t really only pick three from the EN chars, they would have to pick all five, and who has the skystones to roll for 5 limited heroes? I guess one would be free to get via playing, but then we would need to roll for 4 more, lol. I have enough to guarantee one hero, and then I would need outstanding luck to get a second one. That’s my limit, which I guess is true for most people.

Crazy that Hololive EN only debuted a few months ago, feels like they have been around for way longer. They are big and relevant enough for Epic 7 to be interested, but yeah, just too recent of a thing for SG to have created heroes of them already unless someone in the management over there just whipped everyone to work on them 24/7 which I hope didn’t happen, lol.

Other collab ideas, hmm, last collab was Kizuna Ai of sorts and Guilty Gear, so we’ll see. The Kizuna Ai collab barely counts though, we literally just got thrown a meh 4 star with no story or anything. If it is a Hololive collab, i wanna see them interact with the Epic 7 characters. Coco could do something with the dragons, Korone with the Suin and Pekora could commit war crimes with Tenebria.

Various manga properties could be interested. Naruto and Bleach are long over, and I doubt there will be anything from that regard. Popular current shōnen like MHA is a possibility, but I am not really a fan of that so personally speaking, wouldn’t really want to have Deku cluttering up my hero box, especially if they make him a must-have, lol.

Azur Lane is still a possibility, and I am not gonna lie, getting Belfast or Prinz Eugen would be kinda cool but dunno, not really seeing that as likely.

I have no idea what the collab could be, I was personally underwhelmed with guilty gear. Like, the story was decent enough and yeah, the units were mostly strong (well, okay, Dizzy was super strong and Baiken is definitely useful, and I know some crazy people use the fire dude and Elphelt, but they were decidedly meh) but I am just not really familiar with Guilty Gear or interested in it.

Guess when looking at other games, there are plenty of fighting games which could work like Blazblue which I am not really familiar with. RWBY is possible, still popular and well recognized. Overwatch for Overwatch 2, lol, could see Blizzard maybe going for that, since Overwatch has been declining popularity wise, and they might be trying to rekindle interest with something like this.

Lots of choices and I am mainly hoping for Hololive or something similarly fun.

[tangledcassandra]

Cassandra is Saporian: An Analysis

I’ve seen this theory tossed around a bit, but I think we need to take a good and serious look at it from all angles.

First off, what would this add to the plot?

Well, we know Saporia was formerly an enemy of Corona, until the two united when their leaders fell in love. Shortly after, the Separatists of Saporia were formed, a splinter group dedicated to taking back Corona for Saporia.

So, making Cassandra Saporian would give her a good reason to take the Moonstone, using it as the means to take back Corona for her ancestors.

Has that always been her true goal? No, absolutely not, and that’s not the focus of this post. But I will come back around to her motives for taking the stone. Hang on.

The ONLY time Saporia is mentioned in the show is in “Under Wraps”, which, as you may recall, is a Cassandra heavy episode. While that could be a very loose hint at her being Saporian, I think we’re missing the larger piece of foreshadowing that is presented. Something that Andrew tosses out right before his defeat.

"Oh, Cassandra. Saporia will rise again, and we'll have you to thank for it."

And sure, that seems like an empty threat on Andrew’s part. But the writers of the show have known for a long time what was being planned for the end of season 2 and the upcoming season 3. When you consider that, it’d be easy to drop in a forgettable line for a (much) later reveal.

But, there’s more.

The Saporian crest on Andrew’s necklace is used as the catalyst for Xavier to reveal information about the Separatists of Saporia. Two reasons why this is significant.

Why go through all the trouble of elaborating on Saporia and its history for one episode? Why focus so heavily on the backstory of a character that only appears once? Sure, the lore at the beginning of the episode was relevant for explaining the Day of Hearts holiday. But the show took it even further, not only detailing who the Separatists of Saporia are, but ALSO revealing their crest. Why was ALL of that so important for a single episode?

Except...

We see the crest a second time, 27 episodes later.

The potion book Cassandra reads from in “Rapunzel: Day One”. Now, the RTA Crew could have chosen to put anything, or nothing, on the cover of that book. But they specifically chose the Separatists of Saporia emblem. Why?

Well, I guess we can assume this stuff belonged to the Separatists, or some traveling salesman/magician (whoever the cart formerly belonged to) came by it through unknown means.

And yet, it found its way into Cassandra’s hands.

Now, this detail is completely trivial, and easy to miss, just as Andrew’s line could easily be forgotten. But it does ever so subtly add another point connecting Cassandra to Saporia.

But what else do we know about Cassandra?

We know she’s adopted.

Cassandra and Eugene had a brief bonding moment about being orphans in “Cassandra v. Eugene”. Now, that could have just been a throwaway moment, a nice ‘something in common’ between the two of them. But Cassandra could have EASILY been Captain’s biological daughter. I mean, why not? Why did that happen to be the thing they had in common? And why did Cassandra shut down when Eugene asked if she ever wondered what her parents were like?

Maybe she already knows.

But, that’s completely irrelevant.

Cassandra was raised in Corona, she considers herself a citizen of Corona, and she’s been striving her entire life to succeed her father as Captain of the Guard of Corona. She’s loyal to the kingdom and especially to Rapunzel, regardless of whether or not she knows she’s Saporian. And it wouldn’t even matter to Rapunzel, Eugene, or anyone else. On the off chance she knows, she’s been shown to literally not care at all based on the fact that it’s never come up in conversation.

So again, whether or not she knows, it’s irrelevant to this theory.

More importantly, for us, the audience, we don’t know where Cassandra came from. We don’t know her parents or heritage. It’s a small loose end the show has not yet touched on. And maybe it wouldn’t even be important, if we hadn’t just learned about Eugene’s origin and parentage in “Destinies Collide”.

Now, Cassandra is the only one of the main three whose background is still shrouded in so much mystery. She’s guarded, she doesn’t talk about her feelings, and she knows Rapunzel and Eugene BOTH can’t keep secrets. Rapunzel is a “sharer”, and Eugene just has a big mouth in general.

So, getting back on track. We actually have 3 pretty solid pieces of foreshadowing evidence for Cassandra being born into the Separatists of Saporia. She’s an orphan, Andrew’s quote, the crest popping up again in her hands. All very subtle, and yet, all connected. Very interesting.

Okay, the Moonstone. I said we’d come back to that.

Cassandra is Saporian: An Analysis: Part 2

The door.

We all know this is going to be relevant to Season 3 in some way, but just like Cassandra’s past, what she saw in there has been withdrawn from the audience. For now. We can almost certainly say whatever she saw or experienced convinced her to take the Moonstone, or at least, planted a seed to get her thinking about it.

“I believe everybody's got a destiny.“

Now, this is funny, because we really haven’t heard Cassandra talk about destiny a whole lot during the series. She’s been pretty adamant that she is on this journey to help Rapunzel fulfill her destiny. But here, she says, “All in the name of fulfilling destiny,” and then goes on to elaborate with the quote above. This whole journey she’s put a lot of emphasis on this being Rapunzel’s destiny, but here, she kind of leaves that out. Kind of leaves it more open and vague and a little bit ominous.

Let’s roll back to right after the door closes on Cassandra and this imagery of Zhan Tiri is shown. Maybe it’s nothing, or maybe, more likely, it’s something!

Now, we’re really going to stretch into theory territory, but it’s all going to tie together. Let’s talk about what could have been behind that door!

What if Zhan Tiri convinced Cassandra that her destiny was to bring about the rise of Saporia once again? Think about it. Cassandra has consistently been overlooked in Corona. She wants nothing more than to be on the guard, and she’s willing to earn her place the same as anyone else. If you recall, Eugene managed to pass the guard test in a few days. Cassandra, on the other hand, has been training since she was 6 years old, and her father still won’t allow her to join. Captain is not overprotective by any stretch of the imagination; there is literally no good reason Cassandra shouldn’t be on the guard. (Other than the fact that she’s a woman.)

Not only that, but her friends have shown very little appreciation for all the times she’s saved their lives. She is so underappreciated, it wouldn’t be difficult to convince her to turn on them. (Except for Cassandra’s undying loyalty to Rapunzel.) Plus, with Cassandra feeling less like Rapunzel’s best friend and more like a servant to the princess, she’s not doing so great. Rapunzel said in the past (multiple times) that she trusted Cassandra, and yet, as of late, she hasn’t shown that to still be true. Cassandra is in a vulnerable state, ripe for Zhan Tiri to take hold.

The connection to Saporia? A very convenient way to tip the unsteady emotional iceberg of Cassandra’s heart.

Wait, wait, wait. Didn’t I already say any connection Cassandra had to Saporia wasn’t important to her?

Right, that’s absolutely correct. It’s not important to her, at all. But it IS important to the story. It IS important as a plot device.

Zhan Tiri is an extremely powerful force that has been constantly looming over the heads of our heroes throughout most of the series, popping up every now and again to remind us, oh yeah, there’s a big bad coming. The final boss will be in town shortly, even though our heroes have barely been able to hold their own against his minions. Are they ready to face the ultimate evil? Haha, no.

Okay, we’re in the home stretch of this theory.

Cassandra being Saporian gives Zhan Tiri an in. A wedge, to drive between Cassandra and her friends and convince her that taking the Moonstone is her destiny. To get revenge on everyone who has treated her badly. I mean, that’d be great, wouldn’t it?

Not for Cassandra.

Cassandra, who loves Rapunzel. Cassandra, who, MULTIPLE TIMES in not just the series, but in the final episode of season 2, saved Rapunzel’s life. She grabbed Rapunzel when the gondola was falling. She pushed Rapunzel out of the way of a flying ax. She helped defend Rapunzel from the ghosts. Even after everything that happened on their journey, making sure Rapunzel is safe has CONSISTENTLY been Cassandra’s TOP priority.

But you see, Cassandra wants Zhan Tiri to believe she’s on his side. She has all the right motives for taking the Moonstone, so she could easily convince him that her actions are genuine. She wants to destroy him once and for all. But, until he revealed that she could take the Moonstone and use its power, she didn’t have the means. Of course, Cassandra needs Zhan Tiri (and the audience!) to believe that she has betrayed her friends. She needs him to trust her. She needs him to let her get close to him.

So why not tell her friends her plan? Why not let Rapunzel know? First off, nothing would convince Rapunzel to let anyone else take that risk for her. No one else would be allowed to bear her burden. Remember the foreshadowing that touching the Moonstone might obliterate Rapunzel?

“Freebird“, Rapunzel: “These rocks are my destiny, and that's terrifying. What if they lead to somewhere I'm never supposed to come back from?“

“Destinies Collide“, Adira: “While I'm certain bringing the Sundrop to the Moonstone will neutralize its threat, I'm not sure what will happen to you.“

Comforting!

Secondly, I must repeat, Rapunzel and Eugene BOTH can’t keep secrets. Rapunzel is a “sharer”, and Eugene just has a big mouth in general. There’s NO WAY Cassandra could let them in on any kind of plan to take the Moonstone. No way she could let them know she planned to risk her own safety to defeat Zhan Tiri. No way she could convince them to trust her to do this.

Too long, didn’t read: Cassandra being Saporian gives Zhan Tiri an opportunity to divide our heroes by convincing Cassandra to grab the Moonstone so that she has the power to take back Corona in the name of Saporia.

Lastly, keep in mind that Cassandra never actually says what her destiny is.

“I'm fulfilling my destiny!“

Okay, great. And that is?... Is it betraying her friends? Preventing the Sundrop and Moonstone from uniting? Opening the portal for Zhan Tiri? Taking back Corona for Saporia? Grabbing the Moonstone so it doesn't destroy Rapunzel? We literally don't know.

And I think that’s great.

Cassandra’s actions at the end of season 2 left us with a beautiful cliffhanger, hungry for more. It left us with questions, concerns, and a slew of ideas about what could be coming next. It left us with a few final parting words that ultimately have us stunned and bewildered.

But let’s get one thing straight. Cassandra isn’t. Cassandra has not betrayed her friends. Not permanently, anyway. It may seem like that now, but if you’ve been keeping up with the series, you know how much she cares about Rapunzel. You’ve seen that look in her eyes. How soft she gets when Rapunzel smiles at her. You know that she’d give her life in place of Rapunzel’s. Whatever Cassandra is doing, whatever she’s planning, is for the greater good. She’s not evil. Never has been. Never will be.

So have a little faith. Not just in Cassandra. But in the hardworking creatives who put their hearts and souls into telling this story. Who have set up clues throughout the series to keep us guessing and make the show interesting. Cassandra is a main character, a main protagonist, even, who has had more screen time than Rapunzel’s own love interest. Our girl’s not evil. She just has yet-to-be-revealed plans.

[codynaomiswire]

TTS/RTA Theory - Cassandra is Right About Adira

Have been doing some thinking in regard to Cassandra and Adira’s conflict in “Rapunzel and the Great Tree,” and I’ve come to think that Cass is right in her suspicions about Adira.

Part of this conclusion comes from Adira’s own vague answers whenever she was asked any questions about what was going on with Hector, the Great Tree, the Dark Kingdom, the Brotherhood, etc.  Even though Cassandra tells Adira not to give them any of her “cryptic run-around talk,” Adira never actually gives a direct answer, or she just doesn’t answer at all.

Examples:

When Hector is giving chase at the beginning of the episode Cass: “You know this guy?” Raps: “What does he want?” Adira: *doesn’t attempt to offer an answer* (Ok, granted, Adira may not have been in a position to give an answer as they were being chased and Hector was trying to knock them off a cliff, but still, it was a time when she was asked a question and didn’t give an answer, so I’m listing it here.)

When Raps and Cass ask for answers after they escape from Hector the first time Adira: “His name is Hector.  (turning to Cass)  And I don’t think I appreciate your tone!” (Adira didn’t seem bothered by people’s tone much before now (thinks back to Eugene’s own hubris in “The Forest of No Return” and Adira didn’t say much to the point; or at least not directly, or just with a bit of harmless sass).  Was she trying to subtly change the subject perhaps?  Or buy a tiny bit more time to formulate her answer?)

When asked about the Brotherhood Cass: “How many are in this Brotherhood?” Adira: “Not many.” (That’s not very accurate Adira.  Don’t you know who’s all supposed to be in your warrior guild?  Especially if it’s not very many people and you all talk in kinship terms?)

Cass: “And how do you know so much about all of this?” Adira: “Let’s just say some of us in the Brotherhood...disagree on a couple of things...” (Ok...but disagree on what things exactly?)

After Adira tells them about how they’ll be safe in the Great Tree since Zhan Tiri’s magic is sealed away, and “more importantly” they have Adira herself guiding them Cass: “Look Adira, you may have sold my friends on being the wise but cooky old mentor, but I’m not buying it.  I’m watching you.” Adira: “Well, if that’s what you want, be my guest.  But as a servant of the princess, isn’t it your job to watch...her.” (Again, is Adira trying to change the subject and/or deflect the attention elsewhere?  Or trying to cause tension between Cass and Rapunzel that hadn’t been there before now?)

When finding the room with the scrolls and runes Hookfoot: “What does it mean?” Adira: “No one knows for sure, but many have perished trying to unravel its mystery.” Cass, while looking right at Adira: “Well, someone translated some of it.” (Again, Adira gives a vague answer, yet there’s a significant clue right there in plain, decoded writing in front of them, and Cass caught this.  Perhaps this was when her suspicions of Adira wanting Raps to read the moon incantation began?)

And probably the biggest kicker in the whole thing - when Cass accuses Adira of ulterior motives Cass: “You know what I think?  I think you’re playing us!  I think you led us here on purpose, and for some sick reason you wanted Rapunzel to find that incantation and read it!” Adira: *makes no attempt to answer the accusation, and instead lets an argument ensue between Cass and Rapunzel without trying to quell it*

During Hector’s own accusation of Adira Hector: “Listen!  Your friend is right!  Adira is lying to you!  She-she might have you think she’s helping you to find your destiny, but if you go to the Dark Kingdom...you’re doomed...” Adira, right before jumping down into the pit after Hector: “Rapunzel, stay on the path.  All of our destinies lie within you...” (Again, Adira doesn’t directly address the accusations against her.  Again, she may just not have been in a place to do so really, but still.  Could she have also taken the opportunity to go after Hector as a means by which she could escape further questioning in that moment?)

Another big piece of evidence that may indicate Adira having mixed motives is how she seemed to be gradually pushing Cass and Rapunzel to get into an argument with one another, and particularly to cause Rapunzel to distrust Cass’s judgment on things.  Adira was also strangely antagonistic towards Cassandra (and Cass towards Adira come to think of it, at least initially) in this episode, especially after they seemed to get along pretty ok in “The Forest of No Return,” Cass even trusted her over Eugene in that particular adventure, and Cass even says at the end, “I gotta admit, she is growing on me.”

But we have learned from the previous episode “Under Raps” that Cass is pretty astute when it comes to seeing through people’s façades, and Adira may have picked up on this aspect of Cassandra’s character, and so tried to employ tactics to work around it and/or deflect Cass’s energies elsewhere and/or bring a rift between Cass and Rapunzel so that Rapunzel wouldn’t trust Cassandra as much as she would trust Adira, and thus get Rapunzel to do what Adira wanted/needed her to do, both in this episode an in events yet to come.

In connection to this, another outside-of-canon source that makes me think that Cassandra is right about Adira is the myth about the prophetess Cassandra in Greek mythology, who was blessed by the sun god Apollo to have the gift of prophecy.  But after Cassandra refused to return Apollo’s affections, he cursed her so that no one would believe what she had to tell them about the future.  Perhaps in a kind of parallel to this myth, Adira forcing the rift between Rapunzel (the sun) and Cassandra would result in Cassandra’s suspicions/premonitions not being believed by Rapunzel and the others, and thus making the TTS/RTA Cassandra a kind of parallel to the Cassandra of Greek mythology.

Possible theories/evidence to the contrary:

While Adira is definitely a shady character, there’s also the possibility that her intentions are not all-out hostile towards Rapunzel and Co., and that she has what may be considered good reasons for behaving the way that she does.  One possible theory is that Adira’s interactions with the group are always meant to be a kind of testing for them, or showing herself only when they absolutely cannot get passed the next obstacle without her.  If this is the case, the reasons for her testing them seem rather unclear, but either it could be that she’s subtly preparing them to face whatever lies ahead in the Dark Kingdom, or else she’s testing them to see if they could even make the journey to the Dark Kingdom in the first place.

It’s also worth noting that while Adira does avoid answering certain questions from the group, she’s also voluntarily given information that has been valuable to the group.  In “Beyond the Corona Walls,” Adira is the first person to disclose to the group about the existence of the Dark Kingdom, even though they didn’t need to know what the place they were going to was called in order to just follow the rocks and get there and find out upon arrival.  So...why tell them about it unless the information was somehow helpful to them?  In “Rapunzel and the Great Tree,” Adira did voluntarily tell them about her own membership in the Brotherhood (which, yes, she did keep close to the vest until that moment which could be considered suspicious, but it was something), and also told them about the history of the Great Tree and Lord Demanitus, even though she was never directly asked about it.

And heck, she probably couldn’t have anticipated that the gang would need to know about the enchanted spear or how it could seal away the dark magic infecting the heart of the tree upon Hector unleashing it again.  Or if she did, then maybe she’s actually the one who has the prophetic/psychic abilities out of the group, and knew that they needed to be in an exact location at an exact time in order to get Hector to remove the spear and get Rapunzel to recite the moon incantation again in order for all this exposition to come full circle.  Because, I mean, there’s no way she could’ve engineered all that, right?

Adira: “I suggest we camp out here for the night.” Cass: “No way!  We are getting out of this tree as soon as possible.” Adira: “I’m not sure that’s your call kid...”

...Wait...

[gaudeixcc]

Peloton news – Pride and prejudice

Deep breath. 

OK, here goes.

I am prejudice. At times, horrifically so.

There. I’ve said it.

I feel better. Marginally.

Society today is becoming increasingly intolerant of any individual who dares transgress the firming social lines of the protection of the individual. And if the individual is in any kind of minority group, then watch out buster, say nothing or have your very being besmirched for being an out-of-date and contemptible individual. Cast out of the society you circled in and forever damned as being a sinner amongst saints.

Last week a cable TV show announced the annual winner of the ‘Funniest joke at the fringe’ award.

Every year I read through the top 10 and smirk at the inevitable, but usual amusing and witty contenders. 

This year was no different. 

An example of the type of top gaggery comes from the 2017 winner. Topical, as it came at the time of a new release from the Royal mint:

I'm not a fan of the new pound coin, but then again, I hate all change

Nice. A gag that has both a slight play on meaning and it topical. 

This year’s winner was equally gentle in its bending of phrasing.

I keep randomly shouting out 'Broccoli' and 'Cauliflower' - I think I might have florets.

Now I read this at work one morning, and seconds later moved on with other things. A few days later and a casual glance at the BBC website and there was a follow-on story. This time Auntie Beeb has published an article about the annoyance that the Tourettes Society have felt at with this joke.

A prominent lady within the society voiced distinct disapproval;

“Humour is a great way of educating people - but not only is it not funny to poke fun at people with Tourette's, it's not even that funny a joke, is it?”

In the irony of all ironies, the Tourettes society were one week away from launching a campaign aimed at stopping the condition being a punchline in jokes. How d’ya like them fucking apples.

Now I personally think you’re treading a fine line by dictating what you can and can’t make jokes about. Clearly the old days of Chubby Brown and Jim Davidson are well and truly behind us. Humour used to belittle particular groups and minorities. It always left a nasty taste in the mouth. But not being funny because someone is in a minority group? Not such a clean-cut affair.

I find it almost unbearably funny taking the piss out of people who are different. People who don’t conform. Social groups are almost always driven by some sort of common conformity after all. Look at the Peloton. All centred around cycling and conforming to what that social circle deems acceptable.

Let’s look at a few examples of what happens when someone wanders off group alignment.

• JT rode a Cube FFS. And it was a triple! In the fullness of time he was nearly bullied into tears over that little faux pas

• RTA made the best repair he could to a pair of shoes that had given him particularly good value. Merciless haranguing followed

• Has Damo worn the famour winter ‘lobster glove’ since that particularly cold ride on January?

• Macca and the white ‘show the world your penis’ bib shorts. 

Now none of the above makes any difference to the enjoyment of cycling. But they all made a helluva difference to the enjoyment of cycling on that particular day (for 7 out of the 8 riders at any rate).

But this is the thing. Comedic highlighting of group norm differences within the group, gentle isolation, then regular revisiting of past errors affirms group identity. And, it actually re-shapes individual behaviour and brings it back to group behaviour.

An interesting point to ponder is this. Should the individual who made the brave move away from group compliance, continue to do so without giving a merry fuck, would the group then gently steer towards him as a standard? Would his own confidence and ‘don’t-give-a-flying-fuckery’ actually position him as a standard setter…one to follow…? 

It’s difficult to believe that the Peloton could, in some parallel universe all be riding about the place in white penis-flaunting bib-shortery… but you never know.

Thank fuck Macca is a social conformist is all I can think.

This behaviour however is inbred. It’s part of humanity. When it’s one of your own, it’s good natured and mistakes are to be pounced on with glee. They’re funny. And there is nothing quite as satisfying as being the first one to publicy spot a fellow rider’s error.

Outside the social group, the prejudices are all still there, but all sense of warmth evaporates. This is where my inner demons roam. This is where my critical and saintly eye turns on humanity from the comfort of my own stately glass house.

I have a broad expansive set of prejudices and as part of recognising who I am, I feel the need to unburden myself. Think of it as detoxing. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll be a better person. More accepting. Happier, dare I say it.

So, in no particular order, here is a summarised list of some of the things that really hack me off about people whom I don’t know who have the temerity to be different to me.

• People who ride bicycles with the seat too low. Every time of see one of these hapless fuckers I think exactly the same thing. ‘Not very efficient on the quads that…. And you could do with dropping a gear or two. That slow cadence is making is harder that it should be.’ My gaze lingers for a few seconds whilst I mentally shake my head. Now what difference does it make to me that ‘random station commuter’ is going to spend exactly 8 mins not being as absolutely efficient as he could be? Answer? No difference whatsoever. So why do I feel slightly annoyed by it? How is this man’s seat height affecting my life in anyway whatsoever?

• People who ride by pushing the pedals with the middle of their feet as opposed to with the ball of their foot. When I see this, I want to see justice delivered instantly, preferably by the police using a taser gun to stop the offender in their tracks before then shouting at the quivering and prone floor-bound body to ‘pedal that fucking bike properly’ and then going about lesser police priorities. An overreaction? I think not. If I’m with the kids and I see this social travesty I point it out them. Seriously. It absolutely boils my piss.

• Now this one is perhaps my all time, most heinous of heinous crimes against civilised society. I mean, when exactly did some people revert to living with the apes in that great troop on the savanna? Have we forgotten millennia of tool-making and using skills? One of the very few things I might add, that genuinely separates us from nearly all living creatures on earth. When sitting in a restaurant or pub for that matter, and I see a mature homo sapien, who can seeming talk. Seemingly dress themselves in a manner compliant with social norms. Who can order food. Who can pay for food. Who can interact with waiting staff with courtesy and conviviality. But, who can’t hold a fucking fork like you are supposed to…! I mean for the love of sweet baby Jesus… you’re holding the thing with thumb and three fingers (pinky redundant)…jabbing it down like a fucking chop stick…. What the fuck do you think you’re doing? Why aren’t your parents at this very second, beating you to within an inch of your worthless life at your inability to grasp and use the most basic of tools in not just the right way, but the ONLY fucking way to use a fork!!! When I see this, I just want to shout ‘WANKER’ across the table and over my salmon and quinoa salad. 

I had my annual BUPA health-check last week and no ulcer was detected, but I’m telling ya, it’s fucking coming.

This weekend I’ve been mountain biking with my eldest. I bloody love it. He bloody loves it. He’s new to it and the activity is nothing short of joyous. 

Yesterday we went over to Holmbury St Mary and into some of the well-established MTB trails. Second time round I had a proper go at ‘Barry knows best’, a long swopping bermy 3 or so minutes which is just fabulous for the 2 beginners alike. This time though, whilst absolutely caning it and trying to set a time which my son wouldn’t beat (he did), I properly stacked it. Half way down. Came down hard and narrowly missed a tree. Very lucky really to only have a hurty shoulder today. After the event we went to the local pub and had chips and a pint. (Well, I did. Jnr had chips and a couple of glasses of coke. It’s like the Tenants super for the young generation.)

Outside there were scores of pretty serious looking bikes and bikers. They all looked different, but oddly the same. They all conformed to this particular group norm. I could tell my eldest was a little wary of being seen as a beginner. Neither of us where particularly dressed to ‘shred the gnar’ or whatever the fuck it is Macca says when he’s talking MTB mumbo jumbo. 

I sat there and munched a chip. ‘Don’t worry about it son… I don’t care about them, we’re doing this and enjoying it. I don’t care what we look like. We have as much right to be here doing this as they do’.

Off we went, back to the car. I felt bruised. Jnr felt good following the Strava analysis. He’d come out on top. As we walked past a table of fellow diners I noticed the husband holding his fork the wrong way. Our eyes crossed. As I walked past I felt a sense of calm solidarity. He had every right to be there. Just as much as me. And if he insists on eating like a wanker, that’s his call. 

Celebrate the commonalities, not the differences. 

Hold that thought as the rag-tag peloton makes its way to France this year. Perhaps we will see more tolerance? (I bloody hope not).

Finally, for the first time in 5 years I rode with Clemo today. The Peloton’s favourite chippy and the most upright tax-paying citizen this country has seen has rediscovered his cycling mojo and is out on his bike.

Clemo and Amesy in Majorca fo G20?  For the fist time in this edition, I’m not taking the piss.

Ride safely mon fuckerettes.

Hoppo

[codynaomiswireart]

Ruddiger Goes Missing

As this fic turned out to be rather flangst (fluff + angst), I decided to make it my contribution to both the angst and fluff weeks in the TTS/RTA fandom.  Also includes an illustration at the end.  Hope y’all enjoy it!

Quick Note: This scenario is meant to take place after the events of TTS/RTA, and in the royal alchemist AU.

Varian was getting worried.

Ruddiger had been gone for several days now, and Varian had no idea where he was. 

Of course, it was not at all unusal for the little guy to go off and do his own thing from time to time.  While he was basically Varian’s pet, Ruddiger was also a free creature, and Varian allowed him to come and go as he pleased.  But even then, Ruddiger didn’t usually stray too far for too long (especially after all that happened on that terrible day several years ago…).  Thus such a long absence now was very disconcerting to the alchemist.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Varian tried to reassure himself as the sun set for a third time since he’d last seen his fluffy, masked friend, and Varian tried to distract his worried mind by mixing one last elixir for the day.  “He’s fine…He has to be.”

It had been two weeks.

“How’s this look?” Varian asked hurriedly to Cass as he held up the latest sketch he’d done for the “missing” posters that they were to be put up around town and in the neighboring villages. Cass gently took the sketch from Varian, giving it a look over as she brought a throughtful finger up to her chin.  “Looks great Varian.  Very accurate.  But…you don’t actually have 100 crowns to give as a reward, do you?”

“Wait, what!?” Varian exclaimed, swiping back the poster from Cass, and then quickly reworking the number.  “Wow, thanks for catching that Cass,” he said as Cass responded with a quick, “Yeah, well, we don’t want the awkwardness of anyone bringing Ruddiger back and finding out that you can’t actually-” 

“Here we go!  That’s more like it!” Varian quickly interrupted as he shoved the sketch back into Cass’s hands.  “Now, if you could run this over to the printer’s and get about, oh, five hundred copies or so, that would be a big help!” 

“Five hundred!?” Cass exclaimed.  “Wait!  Are you crazy?  How am I supposed to carry five hundred-?”

“Thanks Cass, you’re the best!” Varian shouted over his shoulder as he dashed out the door, slinging a pack over his shoulder and grabbing a map and book of zoology off the shelf as he made to scour the woods yet again for any signs of his missing friend.

Cass shook her head as she watched him leave, and gave a deep sigh of irritation (though also with a good hint of pity in it too) as she looked at the crinkled poster sketch in her hands.  The reward number had been changed to 1,000 crowns.

It had been three weeks.

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Varian growled to himself through gritted teeth as he knocked on the heavy oak door.  After hearing a gruff, “Come in or stay out, I don’t care,” from the other side, Varian pushed his way into the lodge, and immediately cringed as about five big hounds came bounding up to him, all barking loudly and trying to sniff at his pants and jump up to lick his face as he shut the door behind him.

“Oi!” the big man sitting at the wood table by the fireplace called out to his dogs.  “Pipe down you miserable mutts!  And get back over here!”

Despite the man’s harsh tone, Varian could tell by the condition that the dogs were in, and by the way that they happily responded to their master’s voice, that the man loved them very much and took very good care of them.  After the dogs’ barkings, jumpings, and scamperings had settled down, the man finally said, “Well, what do you want stranger?”

Swallowing hard, Varian made his way forward towards one of the empty seats by the fireplace.  As he went, Varian couldn’t help but scan the environment around him with his eyes.  Though the lodge was quite clean – and even had a hint of pine in the air – the alchemist didn’t feel entirely comfortable there, what with all the bear and goatskin rugs strewn about the floor, and the blank animals eyes that stared back out at him from the various taxiderm heads that were mounted to the walls.  Varian shuddered hard when he caught sight of a coonskin cap that was hung up on a coatrack made from deer antlers…but he forced himself to continue on, and began to present his proposition to the old hunter as he took his seat by the fireside.

“I-I want you to track an animal for me,” Varian said, trying his hardest to sound very assured and grown up.  The man responded with a lazy swig from his flask before asking his own questions. 

“And what sort of animal are we talkin’ about here son?” the old hunter asked.  “If it’s any of them white stags, chimeras, or unicorns from your picture books,” here the man gave a dismissive huff of disbelief.  “I’d suggest you look elsewhere.”

“Don’t patronize me,” Varian retorted, earning a raised eyebrow from the hunter.  “I’m serious.  I need you to track a raccoon for me.”

“Hmm,” the hunter hummed to himself as he took another swig.  “A raccoon, eh?  Certainly doable.  And what would someone such as yourself want a raccoon skin for?” 

“N-NO, not the skin!” Varian nearly shouted.  “Absolutely not!  In fact, you’re not to hurt him at all, do you understand?  I just need you to find him, and then bring him back to me – alive –  if he’ll go with you.  Otherwise, just let me know where you find him, and I’ll go get him.  Either way, you’ll get paid.”

The man’s eyes narrowed inquisitively.  “So, it’s a lost pet you’re asking me to find.”

“His name is Ruddiger,” Varian carried on insistently, ignoring the man’s eyeroll as Varian placed one of the “missing” posters on the table and slid it the man’s way.  “He looks like this.  He’s about yeh big.”  Here Varian gentured with his hands to give an approximation of Ruddiger’s last known size.  “And he loves apples.  Oh, and he responds well to human speech, so as long as you don’t scare him, he may be willing to show himself to you if you call him.  Especially if you let him know I asked you to find him.  And he’s-”

“Look, kid,” the man now said as he set down his flask and prinched the bridge of his nose between his eyes in clear irritation.  “I’m sorry, but I’m not about to go traipsing around the woods wavin’ apples about and calling out to a raccoon like I would one of my own dogs.”

“I’m not asking you to traipse around!” Varian snapped.  “I’m asking you to track him.  I thought you were supposed to be good at that sort of thing, or was that all just talk?” 

“Watch your mouth youngster!” the man growled back, though Varian only replied with crossing his arms and giving a small smirk in challenge.  This hadn’t been the first time Varian’d faced a grumpy adult within the last few years, and such a mild snapping didn’t shake him.  Not anymore.  “I’ll have you know I’m the best trapper and hunter this side of Vardaros!”

“Then this job should hardly be a problem for you, right?” Varian asked.

“Oh, I can track a raccoon all right,” the man continued.  “Nothing hard about that.  But to track a specific one?  You do realize they all look the same.”

“No they don’t,” Varian replied, and would’ve gone on about how distinct and special Ruddiger was, but obviously the man didn’t want to hear any of it.

“And anyway, in case you hadn’t noticed, I’ve got a livin’ to make.  I can’t go wasting my time lookin’ for lost animals that I may not even find when there are animals that I can hunt that I know I can find.”

“I can pay you even if you don’t find him,” Varian said, taking a pouch of money from his pack and placing it down on the table, making sure the coins clinked together loudly as he did so.  “Here, look.  Consider this my downpayment.  You’ll get even more if you do find him, but even if you don’t, this should still be enough to equal an actual hunting job, right?”

Now the hunter raised his eyebrows a little, and with a quick glance at Varian he took the pouch from him, and peeked inside.  His eyebrows went a little higher.

“…You’re really serious about this, aren’t you?” the man finally asked, casting a quick upwards look at Varian.  Varian nodded earnestly in reply.  Tentatively, the hunter removed one of the coins from the pouch, looked it over, and after giving it a quick bite between his teeth to check its authenticity, he then placed it back in with the others and set the pouch beside him on the table.

“For this pay, I can go looking for him for two days.”

Varian let out his breath at this; just now realizing he had been holding it.  “Thank you,” Varian managed to say evenly.  “But remember, absolutely no hurting or killing him!  Or you will be sorry!”

“Contrary to popular depiction kid,” the man now said tersely, “hunters are not all brutal animal killers.  While I may have crafted my skills for hunting, I also craft my mind and soul to see the world through the eyes whose fire I put out when I take their life.  When I hunt, I remember every single one of them that I take in season, and make sure to take no more than I know Mother Nature can restore.  So don’t go talking to me like I’m some sort of trigger-happy monster that needs talking down.  The job was to track the animal, so that’s what I’m going to do.”

Varian fell silent and blinked a few times at this, and felt perhaps a little ashamed.  He certainly didn’t expect that kind of response from the old man.

“Oh, uh, well,” Varian now stammered as he made to rise and leave the lodge, suddenly feeling like it was all becoming a bit too cramped for him.  “Th-thank you for, er, for your help.  I won’t keep you any longer.  Just…let me know if you find anything.”

“Yeah yeah yeah,” the man muttered over his shoulder, again resuming his former demeanor as he held up the “missing” poster to the firelight, reading over it carefully as downed a few more sips from his flask, and Varian shuffled his way out of the cabin quickly and hurried on back to the castle.

Five weeks.

It had been five weeks since Varian had last seen Ruddiger, and while the huntsman – whom Varian later learned to be named Eli – had tracked down several raccoons in the area over the two day period they had agreed upon the other week, none of them turned out to be Ruddiger upon further investigation.

“Right sorry I’m sure,” Eli had said as he had given his report to Varian.  “Though…I’ll keep my eyes peeled anyway, whenever I’m out in the woods.  Just in case.”

Varian thanked Eli again for his efforts and vigilence, and though it was a bit reassuring to know he had another set of keen eyes keeping a lookout for Ruddiger, Varian also couldn’t shake the feeling of despair now beginning to take hold of his heart.

It had been a long time now.  Perhaps far too long…and Varian didn’t know what to do now.

“Hey Varian,” Rapunzel’s voice called softly to him as she gently opened the door to his lab, her eyes having to squint hard to find him in the dim light of the room as Varian sat alone in the dark by the window.  “We’re all having hot chocolate and bimberry butternuts in the parlor upstairs.  Do you want some?”

“No…no thank you,” Varian replied as he continued to stare out the window.  Rapunzel knew at once what must’ve been bothering him.  It was the one thing had been bothering him for well over the last month now. 

“Hey, Varian,” Rapunzel repeated again from earlier as she came up to him, her bare feet padding softly on the stone floor, and she placed a sympethtic hand on his shoulder as she stood by his side.  “I…I’m sorry Ruddiger hasn’t been found yet.  I know what it’s like to worry about your best friend like that, and…and I would never wish that on anyone.  It really is awful.”

There was a moment’s silence as Varian reached up to place a gloved hand over Rapunzel’s, pressing her hand further into his shoulder as if seeking reassurance.  Rapunzel squeezed a bit tighter in return.  “We’re all here for you though,” she continued.  “And we will keep looking.  I’m sure we’ll find him sometime soon.  I pro-”

Rapunzel quickly cut herself off as she was about to say the last word that she knew Varian needed to hear right now.  No.  Rapunzel couldn’t promise that they would find Ruddiger.  And she couldn’t promise everything would turn out all right.  Rapunzel had learned those several years ago that it was better to acknowledge a bad situation for what it was, than to try to fill the void with flowery words only meant to glaze over things or to make empty promises.

“We’ll keep looking,” she ended up repeating again feebly, not sure of what else to say.  Varian remained silent, though the way he kept his hand on Rapunzel’s was enough to let her know that his feelings were of gratitude, if only a sad, hurt kind.  Finally, Rapunzel gave Varian’s shoulder one last squeeze before moving to pull away.  “Well, we’ll be upstairs if you need us,” she said, and made to turn and head back out the door.  But as her hand clasped the door handle, she heard Varian call to her softly from behind. 

“Princess,” he said…and Rapunzel turned, only to see the young alchemist begin to quiver with soft, hiccupping sobs as he managed to say, “P-please…don’t go!  N-not yet!”

“Oh Varian,” Rapunzel whispered as she rushed back over to him, and wrapped Varian into a tight hug as he cried into her shoulder.  Rapunzel rubbed comforting circles into his back and stroked his hair with motherly tenderness as he wept.

“I-I don’t know what to do!” Varian said between sobs.  “I…I can’t lose him Rapunzel!  I can’t!  He-he was always there for me!  And now, w-what if we don’t find him?  What if-what if he never comes back?  What if…?  What if he’s…?  I-I just can’t Rapunzel!  I caa-a-a-an’t!”

“I know Varian,” Rapunzel said as some of her own tears fell with his.  “I know…”

Exhausted from his cry, Varian now made his way back to his bedchambers, with Rapunzel walking along closely at his side.  After bidding each other good night, and Rapunzel checking one more time with Varian that he would be ok for the evening, the young alchemist went into his room, shut the door softly behind him, and then collapsed into a heap on his bed.  Varian felt too tired and miserable to try to change into his nightclothes, so instead he just lay there as he waited for sleep to overtake him.  He hoped it would come soon.

As Varian lay there in a light doze, he suddenly thought he heard a muffled chittering noise on the edge of his hearing, and if he didn’t know any better, he thought he felt something tickling at his forehead.  Varian hoped it wasn’t a moth or some other nocturnal insect come to bother him in his sleep.  With an irritated groan, Varian made to bat away at whatever it was that was so insistently brushing against his forehead, and also tried to find a way to rest his head so he didn’t hear those infernal squeaking and cooing noises.  (“Maybe it’s mice,” Varian dreaded to think.  “I hope I don’t have to set up any more goo traps around the castle in the morning.”)  But Varian again felt something touch his forehead…though this time it was a bit wet and rough, and stroked across his forehead over and over again in quick succession.

“Ugh!  What in the world-?” Varian mumbled grumpily as he again swatted the thing away…only to freeze stock-still and snap his eyes open as he felt his hand come up against a soft but sturdy resistance.  It took Varian a few seconds to register what was sitting before him as his eyes adjusted and cleared, but then when he did realize-

“RUDDIGER!” Varian shouted with joy as his face lit up with recognition, and he all but tackled the little creature as he scooped Ruddiger up into his arms with a cry of delight and held him to his chest, feeling Ruddiger nuzzle into him affectionately in return as Varian couldn’t help but plant a few kisses of his own on his friend’s furry forehead.

“Oh my God, Ruddiger!” Varian exclaimed to him between sniffles as he wiped away at his misty eyes.  “Where-where have you been!?  You had me worried sick!  Wha…Why did you leave for so long without telling me!?  I mean, yeah, you can’t exactly tell me, you can’t talk!  But some sort of signal or something would’ve been nice!  Or-or maybe if you’d just popped your head in?  Let me know you were ok?  Oh, Ruddiger, I thought I’d lost you!  Don’t you ever do that to me again, ok!?  Don’t you- Oh!  But wait, you’re not hurt are you!?” Varian suddenly yelped, holding Ruddiger out at arms-length as he looked him over.  “You’re not sick or anything?  No one’s hurt you?”

Ruddiger shook his head in reply.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Varian sighed with relief as he brought Ruddiger in close again, stroking his hand down his back and scratchin his ears.  “Oh Ruddiger, you had me so scared.  I…I don’t know what I would’ve done if you hadn’t-”

Suddenly, Varian stopped as he again noticed the faint chittering noise from before, and he looked this way and that about him, trying to pinpoint where exactly the sound was coming from in the dark.  “Hey, what is that-?” Varian began to ask, but found that his question was interrupted by Ruddiger giving Varian a few taps on the arm, and then gently wriggling his way out of Varian’s grip and hopping down to the floor before disappearing underneath Varian’s bed. 

“Hey, where’re you going Bud?” Varian asked after Ruddiger as he too dropped to the floor and made to peek under the bedskirts, now realizing that the sound was coming from where Ruddiger had disappeared underneath them.  At first, Varian couldn’t see a thing in the pitch black darkness, but presently he lit the lamp on his nightstand, and then shuffled out from the drawer one of the vials of glowing algae that he kept at the ready in case of emergencies.

“Ok boy, what’re you-?”

Varian drew in a small gasp and brought his free hand up to his mouth at what he saw huddled underneath his bed.  There he saw Ruddiger…along with an adult lady raccoon, and five raccoon kits all clustered together; their bright eyes reflecting green in the light of the algae vial Varian held in front of him.

Varian was dumbstruck as it all began to sink in.  “O my gosh, Ruddiger you-!” Varian said with a huff of surprise.  “Ha ha!  Ruddiger you-you’re a daddy!?”

Varian thought he’d never seen Ruddiger look more proud as he nodded to Varian, and Varian now realized that this was why Ruddiger had been away for the last few weeks.  And it was only now that his kits had been old enough to make the trek back to the castle from where they must’ve been born in their raccoon nest or burrow!  Varian let out a few more gleeful giggles as he looked over the happy family with wide, wondering eyes.  After a few moments, the lady raccoon – Ruddiger’s mate – now made to shyly make her way out to him.  Varian scooted himself back a little as she came forward, and he could hear the high yelps of protest from the little ones as their mother shuffled her way past them to meet the friend Ruddiger had brought her to meet.

“Hey there girl,” Varian cooed to her gently as he held a hand out to her to sniff.  “So you’re the reason why Ruddiger left like that.  Oh!  Wait!  No no, I didn’t mean it like that!” Varian scrambled to explain as he saw Ruddiger’s mate also understood his speech, and apparently took it as him blaming her for his friend’s absence as she drooped her ears and shrunk back a pace or two.  “No, it’s ok girl.  It’s ok.  I was just worried about him that’s all.  It’s ok.  Don’t be scared.  That’s right now…”

After another moment of giving Varian’s hand a good sniff-over, the lady raccoon now made to gently brush herself up against the palm of his hand, and Varian gently stroked across the top of her head in return.  “There’s a good girl!  Very nice to meet you!  Hmm…But I really can’t keep on calling you ‘girl’ can I?  No.  We must think of a name for you!  Hmm, how about-?”

But Varian was again interrupted as Ruddiger came waddling back out from underneat the bed, and Varian saw he carried one of his kits in his mouth as he did so.  Then, to Varian’s utter joy and astonishment, Ruddiger brought the kit forward and set it down tenderly in Varian’s lap.  Varian’s mouth worked to try to come up with any sort of response to Ruddiger’s profound gesture, but he found he couldn’t speak as the tiny Ruddiger-like face looked back up into his own, and all Varian could do was helplessly melt into those two pools of cuteness that stared back up at him; both a little bit frightened but also extremely curious.  They were very intelligent, thoughtful eyes, and Varian’s own never left them as he carefully brought a hand over and stroked his fingers gently across the baby raccoon’s fluffy pelt. 

Soon enough, Ruddiger came back with a second kit, and a third, until finally Varian had five happy baby raccoons all nestled in a furry bundle in his lap.  Varian stroked, held, and talked in baby talk to each one of them, as Ruddiger’s mate moved to settle herself down with them, and Ruddiger looked on proudly from Varian’s shoulders. 

All of a sudden, the whole happy company fell silent and looked up as they heard a knocking on Varian’s door, and it creaked slowly open as the door came unlatched and a tentative voice whispered in.

“Um…Varian?”  It was Rapunzel.  “Are-are you asleep?” 

“No,” Varian squeaked back, earning a puzzled pause from Rapunzel before she took the cue to open the door further.

“Sorry to bother you, but um, Pete said he thought he heard you cry out as he passed by a few minutes ago, and we-”

Rapunzel – followed in by Eugene, Lance, and Cassandra – stopped dead in her tracks, and the rest of her company did likewise, and their eyes all widening to the size of dinner plates as they now saw Varian sitting crosslegged on the floor, the biggest smile on his face that they’d ever seen on him, and his lap covered with the fluffy shapes that were raccoon babies, and the proud parents also peering from their respective places on his lap and on his shoulders.

“Holy whaa-?” Eugene breathed from where he stared at Rapunzel’s shoulder.

“Aww!” Lance now gushed after getting over the initial surprise.  “Look at all those cute little furry babies!”

“Varian?” Cass now finally piped up.  “What is-?” 

“Ruddiger’s a dad!” Varian exclaimed happily as he sat stroking one of the said babies as he held it to his chest.  “Can you believe it!?” 

“Yeah, real cute,” Eugene said, still looking a shellshocked.  “Um…it just pooped on you.” 

“I know~,” Varian said, nuzzling the baby raccoon with his cheek.  Varian was on cloud nine right now, and it would take more than a few baby raccoon droppings to bring him back down again.

“Eeeeee!  I’m sorry everyone, but I gotta get a closer look at these little guys!” Lance said as he went to sit beside Varian.  “Oh, if they aren’t just the cutest things I’ve ever seen~!?”

Soon enough, everyone was seated around Varian and gushing over the latest additions to the castle household, and Varian could hardly have been happier – or more honored – to be sharing this special moment with his best friend as he nuzzled Ruddiger at his shoulder, and Ruddiger stroked a familiar and tender paw across Varian’s cheek in return.

Author’s Note:  A special shoutout to @coronagoddess (who had the idea on the Discord of Ruddiger putting his kits into Varian’s lap), and to @glowamber (who had the idea of Varian finding Ruddiger under the bed with all his babies)!

[sailor-cresselia]

The Great Ex-Aid Rewatch: Ep 09

Oh no. This took ages to write. I planned to get two episodes down in this update, but nope.

Episode 09 OP update: the shot of the four riders lined up from episode one’s cold open was replaced with them transforming into level 3.

–––

…For all that Hiiro goes on about not taking unnecessary risks, he’s kind of terrible at following his own advice. The bugster hasn’t emerged from Secretary Hinata yet, so he’s just going to make it come out – shoving Emu to the ground in the process. This isn’t even Emu’s clumsiness in play; Hiiro actually shoved him. But since someone rushed the process, they’re all caught completely unaware when the bugster ‘union’ starts differently than usual.

Maybe if he had waited just a few moments, he could. You know. Find out that the symptoms were the same as the readings that they got off of Graphite.

Just saying, Hiiro.

This is the first time that there wasn’t any sort of bugster union, too. The dragon just straight up separated completely. Even Graphite was implied to have formed from a union – Taiga was surprised that the bugster separated from Saki back when all that went down.

–––

…oh my Gaim.

I just thought of something. Gamedeus Cronus was technically an overpowered bugster union, right?

Could… could Emu and Parad as the OG Genius Gamer M have been considered a Union?

Okay that got a little off topic there, back to the show.

–––

...Graphite, I have a couple comments for you.

One, I can’t believe you didn’t catch that Kuroto was tempting you into taking the proto gashat.

Two, please stop looking like you’re enjoying the blatant pain you’re in when you shove that thing into your chest.

Three, did your base character have a habit of shoving power sources into his chest? Because you do that a lot, and it’s a little concerning.

–––

Here’s the thing about Parad and his not being worried about Graphite here. We later find out that he knew all along that since Graphite was complete, he could come back at any point, even though Graphite didn’t know that.

Which raises the question, which will never be answered, of just how Parad knew that when Kuroto didn’t, but oh well.

So, when Parad hears that they just need the battle data for Drago Knight to complete phase one, he smiles.

In a far more menacing manner than when he was gushing about how ‘terrifying’ Kuroto was just a few moments ago.

–––

Back on the battlefield, Hiiro is focused entirely on defeating Graphite to avenge Saki. He didn’t even know that Secretary Hinata was infected specifically with the Drago Knight strain until Graphite showed up, because he didn’t take the time to get any information on the situation before leaping into battle. But Graphite showed his face, and oh no, Hiiro is not having him around.

Emu, meanwhile, is focusing on the actually time-critical task of. You know. Defeating the dragon that emerged from Doctor Kyotaro. Because he’s keeping his cool way better than the supposedly level headed surgeon.

–––

Taiga you can’t just hide out in the sitting room in front of the CEO’s office, that’s rude. Thanks for the reminder that that’s the tenth gashat, though.

–––

Emu rightfully calls Hiiro out on his recklessness. For the genius surgeon to act without any knowledge of the situation is a bad sign for his judgement and objectiveness. And yeah, Hiiro’s right that Emu’s getting a little too personal in this case, but that’s kind of who Emu is, and he does have a genuine personal involvement in this case, but the point stands. Hiiro got distracted, and really was just fighting for revenge there. The intern is being more logical than the surgeon.

One is fighting for someone who’s already gone, and the other for someone who is still here.

Nobody is truly objective here, but… well, Emu’s priorites may be strained and a little off balance, but they’re still more in order than Hiiro’s.

…Ah. Interesting.

When Emu say’s that he’ll show them that it doesn’t matter if it’s a four player gashat or not, that he’ll show them he can clear it? He’s still using ‘boku’.

This is entirely Emu speaking.

–––

At least Hiiro seems to have realized that he was being irrational.

And then proceeds to ‘confront’ the director about the compatibility surgery. Apparently Hiiro had it performed 5 years ago – which doesn’t seem right to me, since he was still a student then, but fine. Excite and RTA both seem to agree that’s what was being said, so. Fine. I still don’t think he’s actually been using a driver that long, though.

I also still think there’s got to be more to it than ‘introducing a sample of the Bugster Virus to produce antibodies’, but since canon never elaborates any more than that… fine. Whatever.

Hiiro asks why Emu doesn’t know what Taiga was talking about the other day with ‘what it means to be a compatible user,’ and yet is still somehow surprised when the director says that Emu hasn’t had the surgery.

–––

Kiriya. Kiriya this is not the way to earn someone’s trust.

You do not go around saying that someone died in order to get their medical records.

Or, well, you’re not supposed to. I know you only have so many avenues for information gathering, but really.

I somehow doubt you ever corrected this bit of misinformation in the three weeks between this and Christmas.

But still… well, it does look a little suspicious. A person who isn’t supposed to be able to transform can, and only has one surgery on his record. Which does happen to imply that the compatibility surgeries for the others are on their medical records, but that’s just an aside thought. And when the person who performed the single operation is the one in charge of the department that uses the compatibility surgery…

Well. It does make sense that Kiriya would be willing to doubt the secretary.

–––

Asuna’s right to point out that Emu’s acting strange. He’s being hasty – less so than Hiiro was earlier, but he is still running off on his own a lot. He’s so desperate to prove himself, to prove that he can be a good doctor, that he’s losing track of quite how to do that.

I don’t think he’s forgetting how dangerous this is – even though he doesn’t quite have the proof of how fatal it can be for the riders. Not for another few weeks.

But he wants to prove himself so badly that i’m not sure he entirely cares at the moment.

Even when he’s saying that he can’t lose at games, when he’s saying that he’s the only one who can perform this operation… he’s getting cocky.

But Emu is still using ‘boku.’

–––

Seeing this many people collapsing is scary. I’m sure it must be even worse for the people with no context, for the civilians – from their perspective, there is no cause. Emu knows… and. Ah. Interesting.  Every now and then, when he’s out trying to figure out where Graphite is going to strike, they play that ringing sound that they usually use for certain types of bugster headaches. The bell-like one, not the static-y screeching.

–––

Emu didn’t use ‘ore’ up until on the roof with Graphite, when he triggers the gashat.

Basically, aggressive Emu isn’t always M, or his acting more like when he was M isn’t always because Parad’s exerting a little bit more influence.

I don’t think that Parad’s even putting that much into Emu/M/Kamen Rider Ex-Aid, honestly. Just using enough of his control over the bugster virus to keep Emu transformed, to keep him from getting hurt by it. Maybe a little extra, to keep him more coordinated.

(Also, I high-key think that by the end of the series, Emu’s less clumsy because he started subconsciously adopting some of his movement patterns as Ex-Aid into his normal life. Just picked up that little extra sense of balance, now that he’s experienced it. He just doesn’t even notice he’s doing it.)

...okay, yeah, the transformation cutscenes are absolutely happening when they’re shown, because Ex-Aid just transitioned straight from his level two upgrade sequence. Like, he went through the usual spiel of bouncing, and then descended, with the background dissolving into pixels as he landed back on the roof, fading between the pink space and reality.

–––

See, this is what Emu gets like when he’s frustrated. He gets sloppy, and rushes, and turns cold. he’s never been this selfish in his desire to save people.

I kind of think he feels he has to be the one to do this not just because the other three riders are a tad… unreliable. Not just because he wants to prove that he can be a doctor. But because he wants to prove that it was worth it 16 years ago.

For the record, even if we run with the novel backstory, I don’t think Emu was actively trying to… well. I figure he just… didn’t really care. He was 8, and lonely, and in pain – both from the growing virus and from just being alone all the time. He just sort of… didn’t really think.

But I also think that he isn’t always sure that his still being here is worth it. Not when he’s struggling to get even just a scrap of respect from his alleged peers, and from his patients. And now he has a chance to prove that it was worth the effort, that he does have value, despite being told over and over that he shouldn’t be a rider, that he fails as a doctor.

Parad looks awfully disappointed in how sloppy Emu’s being today.

And even though Emu’s not in a good place right now, he’s still showing some great tactics, even if he’s being a jerk about it. Grabbing Hiiro’s sword – which was already prepped for a finisher – and using it to make a path to the dragon is inspired. We’ve seen that the ice mode can make a trail on the ground, but never a ramp before. And using that to both get in range and hold the dragon still? Clever. Especially since the only one there who could have gotten close up until now was Taiga, because Jet Combat. Emu and Hiiro only have close range attacks right now, and even if they had their level three forms available, the attacks still wouldn’t be able to keep up with the flight and distance. We saw that in the fight against Taiga just last episode.

Emu manages to get the dragon armor… but he can’t control it.

It doesn’t even look like Emu’s ‘home’ right now, as the armor just sort of… takes over, causing him to attack indiscriminately, with no tactics at all, just flailing and throwing energy everywhere. it’s strong enough to knock Graphite down, yes, but the transformation sparks out almost immediately after. He was at half health when it force ejected. Usually that doesn’t happen until their on their last reserves.

–––

So, that’s episode 9 recapped and theorized! I have to say, I’m having fun doing this. Doing a rewatch-live-blog is interesting. I’m not stuck speculating on events that may or may not be cancelled out the next week like I am with Zi-O. I get to go off on whatever tangent I find relevant, which can lead to new realizations about, say, Emu and Parad occasionally functioning like the Union forms. (Which is a thought that I am not actually completely okay with having come up with, but it sure is one I thought of.)

[teamxdark]

Hello, its the anon who asked the question about Lancelot. I saw the whole chapter 3 thing. Sorry! I also feel like Lancelot cares a lot about Galahad, I just had a vague memory about reading something in RtA that made me think Lancelot cared more about Arthur than Galahad. I asked the question because I too had no idea who he would pick (And I felt that he would be mentally unable to) so I asked about your input on it, since you write for him a lot. Thanks for the answer!

Yeah that... does concern me a bit. One of my big rules is that, no matter how infatuated with Arthur Lancelot becomes, Arthur is, under no circumstances, to become the sole important person in his life. A big part of Lancelot's character is how seriously he takes his role as a knight, and that is intrinsically linked to his relationship with Arthur, as well as the hints of dependency that the two have with each other, something that I am planning on addressing in RtA and BfA. All of that does lead to Lancelot thinking about Arthur a lot.

But that doesn't mean that he doesn't think and care about Galahad as well. He wants to make sure his son becomes the best knight he can, and that means teaching him the lessons he needs to learn. Lessons like the fact that sometimes he won't be able to do as he wishes, and that he needs to place his job in high regard if he truly wants to become a knight. There was also no way to make Galahad relevant before chapter 3, so I didn't put him in before chapter 3. Perhaps the late arrival added to that impression that you had?

Like... Arthur is ridiculously important to Lancelot. I'm not going to deny that. Important to a point that, if it weren't for Galahad, Guin and Nimue's presence in his life, Lancelot would choose death if something fatal were to happen to him.

But he has those others, so even though it would break him to pieces, he would choose to keep going.

And to choose between them? Absolutely impossible. Lancelot is a man who loves with his whole heart.