#I have no excuse for Wolfwood though other than all the other figures of him were too pricey

[chloemew]

My desk, before and after! As much as I loved my new desk, there was still too much visual clutter that I think was contributing to me never wanting to do anything art-related. So, I got a custom mousemat and swapped out my old LIDL keyboard for something that a.) is much smaller and b.) I like looking at :] greeeeen

Turns out my graphics tablet can also be used wirelessly (somehow I never knew this despite having owned it for like 6 years at this point), so to further de-clutter, I made a little charging station under the desk using 2x £1 IKEA hook racks :0 So now I can easily grab it when I wanna use it and keep it tucked away when I don't.

[eventheodds]

Despite this being her idea—about going around and chatting up folks who might spill the beans on the intel they’re looking for—it takes her a moment longer to push herself off the pillar and scans the room for the person she is looking for.

The one who had been tending to the guest list has not wandered far from their post, and with the majority of people already in attendance and now mingling since the guest speaker had finished his piece, it seems unlikely the event will be allowing new attendees to enter. She takes this as her chance, swiping a pair of champagne flutes off an incoming tray, and carries them over.

The list, she notices, is still on his person, which will make it difficult to get a look without being forward in asking him about it.

Still, offering a drink might be her best option for now until something else proves otherwise.

He sees her coming and offers her a polite, yet strained, smile. He seems like the kind of sort who had been told not to mingle with guests, that he was there to do his job and nothing else. Judging by the way he holds himself, Meryl thinks she might have a difficult time getting any information from him—much less access to that guest list.

“Very kind of you, but I will have to decline, Mrs. Smith. Despite all the guests being accounted for, I am still on the clock.”

Meryl—Mrs. Smith—does her best to look a tad disappointed and takes a sip from her flute while still holding onto the other. She spends a second to admire how her satin gloved fingers looking holding the stem of the crystal flute, offering it again in a silent gesture as she does her best to give him a coy smile.

“I’m sure one little drink wouldn’t hurt, would it?” As if to recall what he had said about being on the clock, Meryl gazes around the gala room to see if anyone is looking in their direction. It seems to be clear and she looks back at him, cocking her head slightly to the side.

He seems to give in at this, taking the flute from her hand, though just as he is about to bring the champagne to his lips, he immediately sets the flute and the list down in what seems like a hurry. 

“Please excuse me, Mrs. Smith,” he says with a note of urgency in his voice and Meryl cannot believe her luck. As stealthily as she can, she picks up the list and gives it a cursory glance before tucking it away in the layers of her midnight blue evening gown and finds a secluded spot to go over the names. 

Thankfully every name is in alphabetical order, with the last names being first. She does not find any of the Bernardelli names anywhere on the list.

Wracking her brain for possible aliases she might have heard, or perhaps affiliates she caught wind of along the way, Meryl comes up empty-handed and feels like this was bound to happen.

She can only hope that Wolfwood might have more luck. She can still feel her scalp tingling pleasantly from when he’d done his best to smooth out her hair, making her appear more presentable.

Managing to place the list back where she had found it, Meryl downs the second flute of champagne and decides to find Wolfwood and take him up on that deal about them leaving this place for their rooms. Her eyes scan the room for a familiar figure; she can see women giggling and talking amongst themselves, their eyes wandering the room in the hopes they can land on Mr. Smith. 

She’d seen what he’d been doing before she lost sight of him and she knew he would get a serious kick out of knowing the jealousy she felt when she saw him cozying up to them. A part of her wonders if he did so on purpose to get a rise out of her, though she knows her failed attempts at flirting would be a less than hot topic of discussion.

Her excuse? Thinking too much of that final kiss he’d given her when she told him what they needed to do before deciding to leave. She can still taste him on her lips and wants nothing more than to push her against another wall, preferably in their paid room, and continue where they had left off.

She sees him, after searching for some time, and he is in the arms of a blond man who is getting rather comfortable with her not-husband. Before she has time to walk over to them, Wolfwood gestures for her to meet him and she heads over to him. She is doing a rather poor job at hiding her jealousy at this point.

“Yep, I saw that,” she says, her tone a bit clipped and a bit petulant, but God she still wants him badly.

“Listen,” she says after a moment, pushing aside her thoughts of jealousy, “I didn’t find any names of interest on the attendance list, but maybe I wasn’t looking properly—did you find anything?” It’s clear she wants to leave this place, with or without new information, but that she just wants to leave and return to their room.

As a silent apology for being jealous, though Meryl thinks she had every right to be, she sidles up next to Wolfwood and presses herself against his side. “Couldn’t stop thinking about you kissing me,” she says in a soft voice that can barely be heard over the din of other noises in the room.

Wolfwood's lazy gaze lolls to meet Meryl's serious—cocky—look of determination. There's no two ways about it; they have to get back to work. He sighs dramatically.

"Alllllright, deal. I guess I can try to seduce some unsuspecting, yearning women. Maybe a couple gentlemen too, we'll see how the cards fall," Mr. Smith shrugs, pretending to be defeated. He gives her one final, deep kiss with tongue and teeth before he backs his knee away from the column and his body out of Meryl's personal space.

In truth, he's really not one for flirting. He just figured it suited this space and atmosphere, and it'd be the easiest way to get good intel.

Meryl's reaction though... that makes him reconsider how he feels about flirtation and espionage. Holy—

As if on cue, the sound of applause marks the end of the speaker's introductions. Not once were the Bernardellis or any other person of interest mentioned. It doesn't mean they're not here, but it's definitely strike one.

Smirking, Wolfwood smooths his hand through Meryl's hair, combing it back to something neater than the mess it was, "Might wanna touch up your makeup, hon. You look like sex." He winks, knowing fully that it's his fault. "You can gather intel however you want to. I'm sure you've got some fancy suitors hanging around who would love to create a scandal with you."

This is definitely some kind of foreplay. He's convinced now. He's never been so turned on in his life.

Because he or Meryl can seduce as many hapless gala attendees as they want—in the end, they'll both go back to each other.

———

And so Wolfwood heads off on his own—or rather, Mr. Smith heads off on his own. He takes care to visit the restrooms to wipe the smears of lipstick off of his mouth, then the game is on. Suavely, he swipes flutes of sparkling wine from servers and offers them to women that he notices looking towards him. He can always see them in his peripheral; not everyone in this room has quite the same amount of training that he does with regards to combat efficiency and strategy. It works for perception as well.

A few of the women had their interest piqued by his and Meryl's little scene during the opening words. Those ladies lean towards him boldly. He returns the gesture, making sure to lean against a wall, or gently guide them away from a passing server or guest—something to show off his arms. If he unbuttoned a couple buttons and loosened his tie, well, that would be a treat, wouldn't it?

A couple of women—a married pair, actually—mention one of the names on their list unprompted. They're quite forward, praising Wolfwood's boldness and immediately urging he and Mrs. Smith to join them after the celebration with a wink and a nudge. After they ask, one laments about their other friend—the name on the list—not being here because, "She would've loved looking at you. Absolutely would have been swept off her feet."

Well now, what a compliment.

He satisfies them with a cryptic 'maybe,' then goes off on his way, meeting a few more different ladies. Some are married, some widowed, some are looking for love, some are looking for babies—he gets just about every type of attention that he can think of.

And yet, all he can think about is taking off Meryl's pretty midnight blue evening gown behind closed doors later.

When he's just about satisfied with the info he obtains, Wolfwood finds himself taken by the same smooth moves he performed on the women before. A pretty blond man—of course he's blond—swoops an arm around his waist and offers him a flute of sparkling wine. Thankfully, he doesn't get inebriated (easily) due to his body working overtime to heal itself and any impurities, otherwise he might've caved to this guy.

He introduces himself as one of the people of interest on Meryl's list, and yeah, the name does ring a bell. The flawless face is memorable too. The man offers Wolfwood a few compliments, teases him with 'a good time,' and their faces come within breaths of each other.

'Be strong. Don't give in, don't give in, don't give—'

Before he knows it, the man's lips are on his and he's not saying no. He can say no—but the kiss is passionate, fiery. God, this could be a big break; he could spend the night with this guy, but then Meryl...

The blond tugs on Mr. Smith's tie, offering up his room, but Mr. Smith pauses him by placing a hand on his.

"Need to consult my wife first. She doesn't mind the opportunities that open up at galas, but she likes to know beforehand," he needs to really hook this guy in, bury his teeth in, so he moves the blond's hand to his breast and allows him to palm a handful, "Surely you understand?"

If this man is a mark, he'll do anything to get him to stay, especially if it's for Meryl. Unlike when he's working alone, however, he's not sure how far he has to go to get Meryl what she needs. For himself, he usually stops at third base or so.

Fingers trail down his mark's waist, then subtly graze the front of his pants. The blond is absolutely entranced. Got him.

"Take this for me and get me a new one? I'll talk to wifey, then you can sweep this man off his feet," Wolfwood purrs into his ear and hands him his empty flute. The man nods and walks away.

Wolfwood—Mr. Smith—spies Mrs. Smith and gestures her to a spot nearby where he had just met with the potential mark.

"So, uh, did you see any of that, or...?"

[theironweasel]

My Problem with the ending to the Trigun Anime compared to Avatar’s Endings

SPOILERS! Obviously!

Ok, so I spent most of the day yesterday watching all of Trigun and before I get into this I want to make something clear, I like Trigun, hell through most of the last third I was ready to love it. The episodes Paradise and Sin were especially good, getting me to cry quite a bit. However, I found the ending to the series to be unsatisfying and I felt the best way to explain why would be to compare it to the endings of both Avatar: The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra which have similar endings.

So at the end of Trigun, Vash confronts his genocidal brother Knives but decides in the end not to kill him. And then he declares that while he will always love his mother figure Rem, he is going to live by his own words instead of following hers, even though he seems to still be doing that by not killing Knives (Yeah that confused me a lot.) And presumably, he takes Knives back to try and rehabilitate him. Look, I understand and appreciate the idea of killing being wrong because it robs a person of a chance to change. However, this ties into the other big problem I have with the show, Knives isn’t a very interesting villain. So let’s compare this to both Avatar series.

So let’s start with ATLA. While Ozai is also a one-note villain, I do feel that Ozai is a stronger character because of his slightly more restrained and logical motivations (slightly being the key word) as well as the acting skills of Mark Hamill. However, either way in each case we are not supposed to feel a ton of sympathy for either of these characters, however, the difference lies in the reasons why the protagonists choose to spare the villain. With Vash, it comes from the fact that he believes that everyone deserves the chance to change. Aang outright admits that Ozai is horrible and probably will never change, instead, his primary reason for not killing Ozai is that it would be betraying his own belief in the sacredness of life which made him feel like he was not being himself, the very thing that led Zuko down his dark path, and even more important it would be betraying the most core principal of Airbender philosophy, and if he did this it would mean that in effect the Fire Nation would have succeeded in wiping out the Air Nation by forcing their last survivor to betray their culture. However, it is important to note that when he believes that he has exhausted all possibilities he states he is willing to kill. We will never know whether he actually would have been able to do it but at least he is willing to accept the possibility.

In LOK Kuvira is decidedly more human than either Ozai or Knives, while some of her actions put her close to the edge of redeemability she never quite crosses the line because her actions always come from a desire to do what is right for her country due to the emotional trauma of being abandoned by her parents and seeing Suyin, someone she trusted as family do the same thing to her country. With Knives, it never comes off as though he is traumatized by the abuse he suffers, instead, it comes across as Knives uses this as an excuse to deem all of Humanity as “garbage” even though the others treat him with love and kindness. In both of these cases, the Hero seeks to redeem the villain, but with Knives, we never get the indication that he has any humanity to save and in Kuvira’s case there is also a clearly pragmatic reason to do this. If Kuvira were killed it’s likely that her army would have rampaged out of control, therefore the safest and most efficient way to end the conflict is to get Kuvira to recognize the harm she has caused and surrender.

Finally, there are several aspects in both cases that are not true with Knives. First, while both of these Avatar villains are physically powerful, their primary power is political, so if they survive there isn’t an immediate threat to human life the same way that there is with Knives, who has the ability and desire to wipe out all of Humanity. This makes Vash's decision to take Knives alive all the more confounding, there is no way the law could keep him contained and it's hard to see Vash being more successful at this given the insane powers and intelligence Knives has. Simply put this guy is too dangerous to be kept alive with out somehow depowering him. While a ton of time is spent talking about how Vash won't kill because he believes it is wrong to kill because it is robbing a person of a future where they could change. However, there isn't really much attention given to the fact that Knives is destroying hundreds of peoples' futures and wants to scale this up to the complete extinction of humanity. Divorced from "Punishment" "Justice" "Revenge" or any other concepts, when does the risk simply become too great. Additionally, the show never seems to consider the reality that maybe some people can't change. This is something that LoK addresses in its first season when Tarrlok kills himself and Noatak because he believes that neither of them can actually change and will stay stuck in the cycle of violence.

So how would I change things? Well, I know that some people take issue with the penultimate episode as it can come off as naive and even a bit self-righteous, but I'll defend most of it as Vash has been living with his code for over 100 years and he never really blames others for acting differently. However, I think there could have been a more realistic and mature revelation on Vash's part, by coming to a Euthyphro conclusion. Look up that Socratic dialogue for more info. Essentially what I mean is that I think the understanding Vash should have come to is that what separates himself from Knives or even Wolfwood is that he tries everything in his power to not kill and when he does he recognizes it as an imperfect solution and not something good or even excusable. But I do think he should come to terms with the idea that it may sometimes be a necessary evil. To be honest I feel the place where Wolfwood ends up makes more sense, as he only decides to stand by a pacifist ideal when the only person at risk is himself. I think this is an issue that is never really addressed: when does a choice to stick with a strict pacifist ideal conflict with the risk to other people. As much as someone doesn't have the right to end someone's future, does someone have the right to risk others futures through inaction?

I just wish there was at least a bit more self-reflection on the philosophy that is going on and maybe some more buildup to the ultimate conclusion. However, I still feel this was a pretty damn good show all things considered and I’ll probably regard Vash, Wolfwood, and even Milly as some of my favorite characters I’ve ever seen and there are many aspects I regard highly from the emotional intensity of the last third of the show down to that frightening noise that plays whenever the villains do something messed up. So, I will always have fond memories of this show, even if I felt the ending was a bit of a letdown.