#I will be able to easily change some character's behaviour | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

stardustgates · 1 year ago

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Author’s Notes: Possibly OOC behaviour? I’ve done my best to stick by Canon as much as I can, but given I’m a newer player, I don’t know the relationship between Kafka and Silver Wolf or the characters individually as well I’d like to. Though I did do my best, please be aware that I may have taken some creative liberties in their characterisation and inner thoughts regarding each other. Also I am aware that this may just be 5.5k words of nonsensical BS but I haven’t written proper fanfiction in a hot minute so take it with a grain of salt. Not so much of a reader/canon thing and more like a reader AND canon thing currently. Perhaps that will change in future works, who’s to say? Oh yeah this is a SAGAU.

Warnings: Canonical In-game violence, references and descriptions of dissociation via player-induced body possession, references to drug use (one sentence), yandere tones if you squint really hard (shes a slowburner ya’ll), and a single swear word :3

Beyond the mind, within your body.

Description: Unaware that your presence has been made apparent to the eccentric duo during your first run through of Honkai Star Rail, you happily indulge yourself in the immersive (tutorial) world before your eyes. Kafka and Silver Wolf attempt to adjust to the feeling it brings, which leaves their minds constantly switching between distrust and euphoria, and all the things in between.

Word Count: 5.5k

Hoyoverse’s newest game hadn’t seemed much to your liking when you’d first heard the announcement. For one thing, you weren’t particularly pleased with the constant stream of ‘HONKAI STAR RAIL - PLAY NOW’ interrupting your YouTube doom-scrolling every other ad; Not to mention, you weren’t very keen on the gacha aspect.

Within your small circle of friends, you’d been known to cave easily when attractive anime characters were involved and you weren’t planning on another hyperfiction to solidify your position as the group’s resident simp. That being said, with such a title swaying above your head like a shiny silver dagger, you’d held a metaphorical death grip on your wallet, solemnly swearing that you’d keep your distance from the game for as long you were able.

Ultimately that so-called iron will of yours didn’t last so much as a year, as just seven months after its release a simple character trailer was enough to break your steadfast resilience. Well, it wasn’t ‘simple’, if you were being honest with yourself- It was a brilliantly unique masterpiece, tailored to the exact essence and spirit of his character. You were sure Argenti wouldn’t be released for a good while, so you decided to pick up the game and grind what you could before his arrival.

That was your plan at least. Your friend had warned you a few months prior (Though admittedly, you hadn’t been paying much attention at the time.) that the download and installation would take an exhaustingly long time. Well, it was better than Genshin Impact had been- but still, you were getting bored and subsequently decided to fetch yourself something to drink in the meantime.

With your back turned to the loading screen, you waltzed out of your bedroom with little care in the world- oblivious to the ominous glowing cracks slowly sprawling across the screen of your device.

As you returned a few moments later, you found that it had finally finished installing! You’d certainly waited long enough. Sure, it wasn’t as soul-sucking as Genshin had been but your patience wasn't that of a saint’s either. With a renewed sense of anticipation, you hit start and breezed through the usual terms and conditions without reading anything and let out a sigh at the beautiful change in scenery.

It perhaps wasn't the smartest idea to skip it completely- but you had spent so long waiting already that you weren’t going to bother wasting time reading a document filled with dolled-up words you could barely pronounce.

��————————————————

Herta’s Space Station’s defences hadn't been particularly difficult to slip past surprisingly, though Kafka didn’t recall any mention of difficulty regarding entry in Elio’s script, so she supposed the lack of security wasn’t of any particular importance.

Despite the calm confidence that usually accompanied her on these little operations, Kafka couldn’t shake the strange feeling of being watched. It wasn’t the usual sort of lingering gaze or sharpened stare, but a vague pulsating heartbeat that faded in and out, as though blinking through blurry vision.

Needless to say, she kept her guard up. Playing none the wiser and bowing mid-air to the tempo of a rather graceful tune. She forced her shoulders to relax and gently swayed her body, controlling her every little move with practised ease- even as that strange pulsating presence slowly sped up and stroked the fires of an oncoming headache- as the elevator descended to the station’s ‘ground’ floor.

(You remained none the wiser to her sudden awareness, the rapidly changing scenes flashing past your eyes far too quickly to pick up on a single, brief second of stillness in her body.)

A sudden explosion reverberates across the station's cold, metallic body and brings Kafka’s impromptu air-violin session to a screeching halt. Simultaneously, that presence settles over her body like a thick blanket of fog. That ‘gaze’ she had felt becoming so vivid she could feel its weight pressing down on her tongue.

She has little time to process the feeling before the usual blueish glow of Silver Wolf’s communications screen flickers into existence before her very eyes.

“... Seems I came at a bad time.”

“No, No – I think you couldn’t’ve timed it better. Twenty-three-fourty-seven-fifteen system time. Very punctual, Kafka.” Silver Wolf almost sounds impressed, though Kafka suspects she’s only trying to butter her up so she’ll let the girl go off task again. Perhaps, under different circumstances, she would have been kind enough to allow it, but with the nature of their current mission and this inexplicable presence, Kafka doesn't find herself in a very generous mood.

Kafka merely hums in response and ignores the empty praise.

“Elio always tells the exact future. So What’s with the explosion just now? Was that part of his script?” Silver Wolf picks up on her cue to focus without any fuss.

“Twenty-three-four-four-fifty-nine system time: The pulses from the explosion cause a massive breakdown from the master control system.”

Pulses. Perhaps it’s linked to the feeling curling itself around her senses?

“You did that?” Kafka doubts that Silver Wolf would waste effort on something so minor.

“No, the antimatter legion did it. They completely invaded the space station two system hours ago.” She whistles in response and glances down the glass panelling to the approaching ground floor. A small group… annoying, but manageable.

“Alright, so do we need to fight the legion?”

“Dunno, Elio didn’t say anything about it, so it doesn’t matter.” Hmm. Silver Wolf made a good point.

“Got it. So from now on, I'll be in charge of this operation.” She feels that tingle of a smirk reach the corner of her mouth, and smiles a little wider in anticipation.

“Copy. Can you let me have some fun this time? Our last few operations turned out to be pretty dull.” Kafka lets out a playful hum as she ponders over her colleague’s request with faux consideration. She can practically hear Silver Wolf’s stifled groan in the second of silence that passes.

“...Sorry~ I’m afraid there’s not much I can do for you- our task this time is just to ‘place’ the target properly.”

Her choice of words is careful, though not enough to cause any alert in potential eavesdroppers. The feeling still hasn’t left.

“But if you wanna go look for some fun yourself, I won’t stop you.”

“I mean… after all…” she chuckles lightly as the blue hologram blips out of her vision, and reaches for the holsters tucked into her lower back. “After all…” Kafka readjusts her footing just in time to watch the elevator’s doors slide open, the sound of metal dragging against metal pinching at her ears.

“Elio didn’t put it in the script… Why would it matter?”

Just as the impact from her gunshots flitters across her skin, Kafka feels her mind being pulled back to the edge of her skull.

The group of voidrangers in front of her feel distant and smudged, the sockets of her eyes creating a blurred tunnel of vision that refuse adjust no matter how much she tries to blink it away. Their dark forms bleed into black speckles that crowd her already limited vision until she’s staring directly into the singed edges of the universe.

Kafka’s body… is no longer hers to command.

✄————————————————

She returns to her mind with startling swiftness. Her memories of the brief battle suddenly bubbling up as though pushing themselves through a thick soup of aether. She feels disconnected from the memory but can at least recall that she’d lost control of her body before blacking out.

She attempts to think back on that burnt, golden memory but is stopped by a sudden wave of nausea. She opts to set that aside for another time and refocus on the operation. Elio had not mentioned this happening anywhere in the script- so either this had no significance or…

Still, those Voidrangers hadn’t proved to be much trouble- in fact, they’d been less of an annoyance than she had prepared for. Either she’d been far more ruthless than intended or the antimatter legion had lost its touch.

“When did the anti-matter legion become so weak?” She asks out loud.

“I could only attract this much. Did you really want the entire legion to come here?” Silver Wolf speaks in feigned annoyance, her usual behaviour.

She hadn’t even realised. Kafka chooses not to mention anything for the moment, instead opting to subtly gauge the extent of control this presence… or rather... Entity, seems to have over her.

“This lot won’t be able to slow down the Astral Express crew.” Silver Wolf sighs in response on the other end of the device.

“Relax, a doomsday beast is also here.”

As she approaches one of the station’s automatic doors, Kafka feels it slip back into her body as if wearing her like a coat. Its influence feels… less heavy than it previously had been a few moments ago. At the very least she remains conscious this time; A strange lightness in her feet as she feels herself stealth towards a lone voidranger lounging about the area.

Her movements come to her now like instinct, striking down enemies with admittedly far more efficiency than she was naturally capable of. If it weren’t for her body being strung along like a puppet against her will, she’d almost be grateful for the power and resiliency it granted her.

Kafka has barely had her fill before a euphoric sense of power seems to swell up all at once; Killer instinct pumping through her veins like a well-oiled machine.

Ahh. Now this… this particular feeling wasn’t so bad.

Truthfully she’d liked to have toyed with this one a bit longer, but she knew all too well that it wouldn't manage to survive her next attack. She chatters to no one in particular, the ecstasy in her mind clouding whatever decorum she would have usually displayed.

“Good times never last… time to say bye.”

“Ah- She’s so cool…”

Kafka tenses up at the stranger’s voice, just as the swirling dark mass in front of her collapses into itself.

She sheathes her sword and adjusts her gloves, ignoring the voidranger approaching her from behind. Just before its darkened claws reach her, Silver Wolf’s ability activates no more than a hands-width from her shoulder blades.

“Cleaning up other people’s mess isn’t in my job description… y’know Kafka?” Silver Wolf huffs out, but her voice has no real bite in it. Was it her? She wasn’t usually one to doubt herself, but that fog of exhilaration certainly could have played with her mind.

“Yeah, yeah. Where did you send it Silver Wolf?”

Kafka turns in time to hear the gooey pop of the silver-haired girl’s bubblegum as she hops to her feet. She isn’t sure if it's Strawberry or Grape, but the artificial sweetness and scent of no-fruit-in-particular is so strong it actually grounds her mind for a moment.

She sighs for no real reason, but it brings her relief regardless.

Oh.

She hadn’t realised how bad her headache was.

“Some random Co-ordinates, not important.” She avoids Kafka’s gaze for a reason she couldn’t care to name before taking on an adorably defiant stance, her hands placed at her hips as though it would help her short stature in any way.

“You care about where that voidranger ended up?” She doesn’t. But she’d rather think about that than, well… She didn’t know what to call it at this point. But it was distracting and she needed to focus on literally anything else for the sake of what sanity she had left.

Though some could argue that she wasn’t sane at all- which was only half true because most people’s definition of sanity varied greatly from her own.

Oh, Silver Wolf was still blinking up at her expectantly.

“Of course not- I’m just amazed at this fancy technique of yours, as usual.” she smiles down at her colleague, who only rolls her eyes in response. To the girl’s credit, she’d been dealing with Kafka’s empty flattery for quite a long time.

“Just a little trick of tampering with the data of reality, I wouldn't call it fancy.” Kafka smiles a little wider, following behind as Silver Wolf strolls down the hallway. Her tells were always so obvious.

“What were you looking at just now? Let me see.” Silver Wolf huffs a bit as she settles herself onto a desk and faces her.

“Herta’s toys,” she begins in an almost mocking tone

“A catalogue featuring the space station’s collection of rare items.” Her fingers briefly tug on the white fluff of her jacket as she speaks “They’ve got quite a looot of interesting gadgets~”

Kafka’s previous interest (however feigned it may have been) dies down a little at the prospect of these ‘gadgets’ but nonetheless she indulges Silver Wolf’s unspoken desire to share what information she’d dug up.

“Like what?”

“There’s this gun, it can rate any creature within its crosshair as a score from 0 to 100.”

“... Doesn't sound very interesting.” Her brows pinch together and her mouth stretches into a thin line of clear disappointment. Not one to be disheartened so easily, Silver Wolf continues on

“Aren’t you curious how much you would score? I kinda wanna know mine.”

So this is what she’d been hinting at since earlier. Kafka crosses her arms and takes on the tone of an exasperated mother having finally given up after being nagged at for far, far longer than the reality of it.

“Fine. I guess we can swing by and play with it, if it’s not too far. What’s our destination?” She redirects Silver Wolf’s distractable attention onto their current objective with practised ease.

Hmm.

She feels a little cold for some reason… and those watchful eyes haven't left during the entirety of their conversation. Kafka’s guard raises a little further than before.

Her colleague’s eyes flit down to a small blue hologram, her fingers swiping past various screens until arriving at what Kafka could only presume was a list of directions given to her by Elio.

“Go down the corridor, behind the door… ooon the left. There’s a room where some kind of rare item is stored.”

Kafka feels the entity strongly now, she stares just beyond Silver Wolf’s shoulders where it feels most concentrated. The feeling she is met with is a dense smouldering hotness. It’s like melting iron dripping down her throat and burning it in the process. It feels almost itchy.

She redirects her gaze back to Silver Wolf far quicker than she’d intended to and resists the urge to scratch at her throat.

“So that’s where the Stellaron is?” Kafka is somewhat relieved when the feeling seems to simmer down. She once again debates speaking on the sensation during the slightest lull in their conversation but when Silverwolf turns her head back to face her, she finds the girl’s gaze to be much sharper than before.

“That's where we can find out where the Stellaron is.”

Kafka immediately knows that Silverwolf has finally caught on to this feeling and says nothing as she readies herself for the next half of their mission. Almost instantly, she feels the presence shift and roll over her shoulders, like a cat stretching out its limbs.

It's languid and smooth and she feels her tense- She had been tense this whole time?- muscles slowly relax until she finally feels that usual calm focus she’s so intimately familiar with. She hadn’t realised the extent of how cold she’d felt when it had stepped- strange, it feels like a person?- away.

Kafka decides that her feelings towards this... Being- She isn’t totally sure if it feels sapient, but it certainly has some form of will… That much she can tell- are mixed, to say the least. She wonders one more why Elio hadn’t mentioned anything about something so foreign and strange but sets the thought aside and refocuses on the task at hand.

She locks eyes with Silverwolf briefly, and just as she thought, Silverwolf is most definitely aware of it at this point.

“The central area of the space station is up ahead. There’ll be loads of Legion Void rangers there.” Silver Wolf hops to her feet and saunters toward the door’s control panel. A bit too casual to be natural, but it doesn't cause the feeling to stir, so she says nothing.

“Okay.” Kafka breathes out.

Then that feeling of puppeteering seems to stitch itself into her mind once more, albeit in a much more faded sense- it feels more like muscle memory than it does being pulled from her own body. She allows it to pull her along and lead her toward whatever it wants. As her fingers glide over the room’s control panels and her heels click against the cold steel of the station, she feels that fog of exhilaration settle over her again- that almost euphoric surge of strength from earlier suddenly vivid and fresh in her mind.

Silverwolf seems to feel the building strength in her own body too, as she quickens her pace when they turn the corner to find themselves at the back of a particularly strong-looking voidranger. She huffs out in bemusement and half-heartedly mutters out some encouragement to her colleague.

“May as well kill them all.”

Not needing much more encouragement than that, Silverwolf leaps forward with as much grace as her short form can allow her and drags her digitally enhanced blade across the muscles and sinew of its chest. She leaps back beside Kafka as it staggers on its feet and tries to regain its footing. Kafka’s arm pulls itself up, gun in hand, and fires out a cascade of bullets that each burrow and pierce into its flesh.

“This… seems a lot easier than it should be.” Silverwolf comments under her breath quietly.

“Well, let’s count our blessings–” Kafka is cut off as her arm is singed by the blast of the voidranger’s fire canon.

“Tch. Didn’t hurt.”

Silverwolf pulls out her holographic system at such speed that Kafka feels the static waft across her skin.

“Hmph, still. This combat needs optimising.” Just as the creature aims its weapon once more, it’s hit with a blast pulled from the loosened strands of reality itself.

“At that speed? Too slow!”

Kafka almost feels sorry for it, as she watches its body disintegrate while collapsing into itself.

Unfortunately, the girls are not left with time to bask in their victory- Silver Wolf lets out a small yelp- the entity has left its place on Kafka’s shoulders and draped itself over her companion it would seem. Her short colleague adjusts to the sensation of its guiding hand far better than she had, if her losing conscious was anything to go by.

Kafka follows behind silently, eyes trained intently on the girl in front of her for any indication of danger.

“Hold it. Someone.. Or something is up ahead.” she warns quietly, arm extended out to her side like a makeshift barrier. They both come to a sudden halt as the entity violently rips itself from their bodies and settles just beyond their skin.

Goosebumps this time.

The cold seems to get worse and worse each time it separates from them… well, her. Silver Wolf grits her teeth. Kafka notes the tiny pearl of sweat rolling down the side of her face. Still a shock to the system then.

“Looks like we’re the ones getting ambushed.”

“...But they’re the ones getting besieged.”

✄————————————————

The game has felt pretty cool so far, and you quite like this Kafka woman. You don’t recall her being part of the main cast your friend had rambled about however many months ago it was, but you hoped you’d get to see a lot more of her.

Her design was really nice- though strangely familiar?- and her voice was pretty too! Silver Wolf was alright, but she hadn’t really caught your interest so far, so you werent sure what to make of her yet.

They did seem to be close though, but less like friends and more like tired workmates who’d been stuck in the same dead end job for a decade- that is to say, it definitely felt like they were used to dealing with each other’s nonsense.

Were they a ship? You could see it. Ah, another battle, sweet!

The combat system Star Rail used wasnt particularly innovative or anything, but it’s playstyle was strangely addictive- especially the Ult animations! Kafka’s especially had you nearly squealing with how badass it was. Did the MC have a cool one too? You could hardly wait to see.

✄————————————————

The mood is light despite the circumstances, they both feel a sense of safety and confidence while the presence pulls them along, as though leading them in a dance. The Voidranger’s movements stand out like a pindrop in an empty room. Predictable, and delectably so.

Silver Wolf barks out a short, quick laugh- a taunting thing that aggravates the musclehead stomping around in front of her- before decapitating the creature in a single, swift move.

“You took the bait, just like that?” Her jubilance is cut short by an attack from her blindspot, it isnt fatal- hell it barely counts as a battle wound- but its enough to flip her mood in the opposite direction. “Tch.”

Kafka laughs lightly at her, amused with her momentary lapse in spacial awareness. Silver Wolf scoffs and scowls lightly at her. Really, like she hadn’t gotten hit before?

Just as she opens her mouth to hurl a barely-an-insult-but-im-still-annoyed-with-you comment towards the magenta haired woman next to her, Kafka’s aura shifts somewhat. Time seems to slow down for a second as Silver Wolf watches the woman’s pupils dilate in slow motion.

Had she appeared like this? When that wave of energy had swelled within her?

She receives no answer to her unvoiced question, and instead hears Kafka’s voice ring through out her ears.

“That breathing sensation. Remember it.” Silver Wolf gulps in a breath of blood-scented air and breathes out a sickly, golden-sweet taste. As Kafka’s bullets rain down upon the bodies of their would-be-ambushers she can't help but feel pure ecstasy in the moment. Truly…if this was a drug she’d be hooked like a fish to water.

Even just being near it is enough to cloud her mind.

“Alright, now that that’s over with…” Silver Wolf’s body relaxes significantly as Kafka speaks, the strength of whatever had possessed them slowing dripping out from their bodies like tree sap. She feels like she just got a massage.

“I could get used to that.” She isn’t sure who she’s talking to, but it feels appropriate to voice. Kafka ignores her and spins her around to face the door, and Silver Wolf seems to go into auto pilot as she unlocks the control panel blocking their path, stepping lightly as her taller colleague gently pushes her forward without a word.

The monitoring room is completley empty. Nothing but the quiet beeping of a few monitors and the rustling of swaying leaves, courtesy of the air conditioning unit humming softly above them.

“Huh. not a single soul here. Impressive evacuation work. Did herta organise it herself?” Kafka seems mildly impressed- and entirely unaffected by the sensation Silver Wolf is still trying to shake from her skin.

“According to the access history, she hasnt logged in her for over six months. The evacuation was directed by the acting lead researcher - a girl named Asta.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell. Oh, right. Elio said we wouldn’t run into herta. It seems she really isnt here.” Though something else definitely was, but Silver Wolf supposed they weren’t going to be making any conversation on that topic.

She sighs, and scrolls through her holograms nonchalantly.

“Elio’s Script doesnt include any info about the location of the stellaron. Which means in the future he foresees…”

“... we would find the stellaron in a non-physical way?” Kafka crosses her arms, easily having picked up on her train of thought and already dipping her metaphorical toes into several different plans of action. She was always efficient like that. Silver Wolf strolls over to the water cooler and pours herself a cold cup. She gestures to Kafka who only shakes her head in response.

“This space station is packed with extraordinary objects, I wouldnt be surprised if theres one that can make it happen.” She takes a long sip, the cooling sensation bringing relief to her sweltering body. The combat efficiency was nice, but she was left feeling like an overheating graphics disk everytime it took control of her. She idles on a page in her hologram briefly before continuing on her scroll-fest.

“Hiding something extraordinary with something extraordinary… this is pretty Herta. I assume you know what to do? I mean, You’ve been reading that cataogue for a while?” Ah. Perseptive as ever, Kafka never changes. She ignores the heat building in her ears at the prospect of being caught slacking-off, and bins the styrofoam cup as she turns to the older woman.

“Hmph. I’ve got all the clues we need. The only piece missing is a simple trick- maybe this entity thats been stringing us along could lend a hand? After all, it doesnt have a physical form.”

(You didn’t expect them to involve the player like this! What an awesome storytelling device, and it would hopefully grant a lot more player agency too! Hoyoverse had truly out done themselves this time. Feeling a surge of excitement at being learning you’ll be able to lend a helping hand ‘directly’, you decide that Silver Wolf is also really cool.)

Kafka says nothing in response, only staring down at Silver Wolf in consideration.

“Why dont we have it help us investigate the terminals around here, that item we’re looking for may be inside.” The magenta haired woman only sighs, internally cursing the girl’s lack of caution. Though… she couldnt deny that it had only been helping them so far.

“Alright, lets give it the spotlight.”

“Oh god, I hope I don’t fuck this up…” Kafka stills. The same voice from before. So it can speak? She tucks the information away in her mind for later.

She watches it guide her along the messily arranged desks and flickering monitors. Stopping at a memory storage cart- which is, of course, missing its memory. Not useful for her current objective, but it at least told her that whatever it was could see the same things she could.

“...I cant see the memory storage for this terminal.” Her body shifts slightly.

“This is the monitoring room, the must have deleted the records and made a run for it. Classic.” Silver Wolf is still scrolling through the holographic catalogue, idling against a desk in the middle of the room. She doesn’t look up, even as Kafka is strung along past her towards a monitor on the other side of the room.

“You don’t seem to be very affected by it? Its control over you, I mean.”

“And you? You seemed a little weary earlier.”

“I wouldn’t say that. It’s just new, thats all.”

Kafka’s hand reaches out to flick through various active surveillance cameras, interesting but ultimately fruitless.

“Hmmm… I can see the whole space station on the surveillance screen. But not the Stellaron.” Silver Wolf scoffs indignantly behind her, she almost sounds offended.

“Even if you could it’d be a trap. Herta doesn’t display her collections.” She turns to her hologram once more.

“This thing isnt very good with investigating, is it?”

Kafka expects some form of insulted rage to squeak in her mind’s ear, but she hears nothing. Though faintly she imagines a rather adorable ‘Hey! I’m trying my best!’ echoing in her skull.

Kafka staves off the sudden urge to get defensive in response and clamps her mouth shut.

Silver Wolf sighs at her lack of response and shifts onto her feet.

“Make your way over here then. There’s no point in trying to search like this.”

“So? Got a master plan? I’m all ears.”

Kafka’s tone takes on a slightly irritated edge, for a reason she herself doesn’t quite understand. If Silver Wolf picked up on it, she chooses not to say anything and instead gestures to the warping static of the holographic screens lining the walls of the office.

“Its a matter of hacking the surveillance system directly.” She says matter-of-factly, smirking playfully as her iconic vandalism plasters itself onto every screen in sight.

“Aha, I see. Herta’s collections aren’t in the system so anything unaffected should be our target.”

Their heads are guided to turn and face the back of a lone monitor by the main desk. Ah. that one then. As they both stroll over to investigate, Kafka feels a strange sense of pride bubble in the back of her mind. Not for Silver Wolf’s accomplishment- that much would be expected from the shorter girl- but for the entity curling along the edge of her mind. What exactly she was supposed to be proud of she couldnt tell, but the feeling was pleasant regardless.

Silver Wolf slips into a chair and slides forward to the desk, cracking her knuckles and wiggling her fingers as she readies herself for some data mining.

“Crude, simple, but effective. Look, found it.” The computer’s cursor circles a line of code tauntingly. Kafka doesn’t understand what any of the values mean.

“Item number two-eleven, ‘Blind Spot’ : a simple light-deflecting field. It allows an object in its field to pass unnoticed, but if a different item ceases to be obvious, the object gets revealed.”

She isn’t sure which set of numbers.. Or letters? That item is supposed be, but it does seem like a very… uncomplicated form of security for someone like Herta.

“So, Herta the genius… hides her collection with something as simple as this?”

“the simplest method is the hardest to spot, isnt that our motto?”

“Huh? How is that simple?” Kafka nearly chokes on her saliva while trying to hold back a bark of laughter and wonders why she’d kept her guard up for this thing. She follows Silver Wolf towards the glitching hole in the wall and sighs bemusedly.

“The data suggests its just an ordinary hologram. But it has an added layer… “ Silver Wolf eyes the frayed edges of the hologram cautiously, despite the confidence in her voice.

“Lets take a look. Dont worry, this place wont be our grave.” The girl only puffs her cheeks and steps forward, ignoring Kafka’s words of comfort completely. Well, she’d expected that much at least.

As she follows behind, her vision melts into a stark change of scenery.

The bright, ethereal glow of the Stellaron coating the walls of the closed off room in a golden-blue light. A strange combination, but one that was all too familiar; the everchanging strands of reality warping and stretching around itself, as the Stellaron sat patiently- sealed away- in the center of the room. Such an otherworldly treasure was exactly what all Stellaron hunters across the universe strove for. Though admittedly it was a mere front for their true purpose, a fact that Kafka was intimately aware of.

Their true goal would see this stellaron- sealed away, courtesy of Herta- to another use. Once said seal was removed by Silver Wolf, all Kafka would need to do was take hold of it and place it inside that vessel.

It had been laying in wait for this exact occasion…Kafka smiles fondly at the memory of it. Silver Wolf makes a small noise of surprise, catching her attention. She steps over towards the girl and the control panel, asking a question without speaking.

“It has its own security system… I guess even for herta, a Stellaron is no ordinary rarity.” Silver Wolf sounds genuinely surprised at this fact, though Kafka feels this was a rather likely outcome.

“Can you get it?”

“Of course, even the genius Herta cant compete with me when it comes to hacking.”

“Good. Then I’ll also count on you for the preparation of the receptacle.” Not to mention, she was quite sure this being wouldn’t be able to provide much help if Silver Wolf couldn’t figure it out herself. Speak of the devil, she feels the entity waft away like smoke in the wind and settle in the air around them as she lifts the Stellaron from its prison. She turns to her Silver haired companion and unspoken words flicker between their eyes.

This is Kafka’s decision.

Or perhaps it isn’t, she corrects herself over the distant sound of Silver Wolf’s voice.

When it enters her body, it no longer feels like being puppeteered or controlled.

She recalls that first feeling of possession, and the bleeding darkness making way for glowing golden edges of a burnt milky way. Her mind is dipped like an apple into the thick syruppy taste of synethesia. The amber eyes of the vessel- piercing into her soul and leaving her tongue sizzling in an almost addictive sort of pain- briefly flash open before collapsing to the floor in Kafka’s arms.

The Stellaron has found its place. And something else entirely has made its home there too.

(What an amazing tutorial and intro! You get the feeling you’ll be playing this game for a very long while!)

#not super happy with how this turned out honestly but I can’t be bothered looking at it anymore #honkai star rail x reader #yandere honkai star rail #(sort of?)#hsr kafka #kafka x reader #silver wolf x reader #hsr silver wolf #kafka honkai star rail #silver wolf honkai star rail #hsr fanfic #yandere hsr #my writing

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sansaorgana · 1 month ago

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— ONCE UPON A DREAM

FADING LIGHT (PART ONE) FADING LIGHT (PART TWO)

PAIRING — Sauron x Moreth (OC)

SUMMARY — Sauron develops a slight obsession with Adar's daughter, which accidentally creates an unbreakable bond between them when he finds himself in his weakest state. Lady Moreth has no idea who the man from her dreams and visions is but it is his tempting that causes her sickness and encourages her to go down the path of darkness. She feels guilty after finding out the stranger's true identity because of Sauron's past with her father. However, now, it is too late to break their connection.

AUTHOR’S NOTE — Moreth (the name is supposed to mean gloom) is a daughter of Adar and Reader from my "Fading Light" fanfic but since this story is about Moreth herself, I gave her mother a name and that is Aranya, which apparently means free. Since Moreth was originally Reader's daughter, I haven't described her looks much – she has black hair (after her father) and I mentioned some things that are connected to her corruption: hollow cheeks, skin "a few shades paler than originally" etc. Her mother's appearance remains undescribed. Even though it can be read as part three of the "Fading Light" fanfic, it can also be read as a one-shot. I do believe you don't have to know the fanfic about Adar and Moreth's mother to understand the backstory of these characters enough. In "Fading Light" Moreth was a bit... boring, let's be real. She was not the most important character there and I kinda gave her no depth. I wanted to change that and to give her a (love) story she deserves. 🥰

WORD COUNT — 10,190 (💀💀💀)

ENGLISH IS MY SECOND LANGUAGE.

ONCE UPON A DREAM

Morgoth knew that Adar had plenty of potential but he had a weakness, which was easy to exploit – his family. He truly believed that when his suffering and training would be over, he would be able to reunite with his wife and daughter, to give them a new, better life. Not that their life was bad – they were wealthy Elves living in a beautiful realm. But Adar was one of those who wanted more. Way more. Without limitations and without the noble shackles of the Elven light.

And even though Adar reuniting with his family was never a part of Morgoth’s plans, the Dark Lord often used Lady Aranya and her daughter Moreth to convince Adar to stay or to threaten him.

And when Morgoth fell, Sauron wanted Adar as his Lieutenant. Adar was not only very well trained by Morgoth but also had an army of Orcs that was following him. Sauron needed him by his side but Adar kept mentioning that now, when he was finally free, he could go back to his family. Sauron couldn’t let that happen.

He knew the illusion he wanted to show Adar but to make it more believable and more realistic, he had to see Lady Aranya and her daughter himself. To observe them for a little while.

He even considered killing them to make the story as real as possible but then he realised he might need them alive one day – it could be his wild card to use against Adar that his family was actually alive. Yes, killing them would serve no purpose.

Wearing many disguises, Sauron managed to get close to Mithlond where Lady Aranya resided with her daughter. And while wandering around, he even found out that the two had been attacked not so long ago by a bunch of poor human villagers. They had been on the road from Eregion to Mithlond and robbed of their expensive jewellery. Sauron immediately knew that he could easily twist this scenario into a much bloodier and cruel one. All he had to do was to show Adar a very realistic image of his wife and daughter laying dead by the road in the puddle of their blood.

But to make it convincing enough, he had to see them better. To learn the patterns of their behaviour and to seek for every little detail. And finally, the opportunity arose.

He was sitting by the tree, hidden in the tall grass nearby the river. And then he heard the laughter of a young, Elven maiden coming from the other side of the shore. Sauron squinted his eyes and spotted two women sitting by the river. The older one was holding a book and she opened it immediately after sitting down. The younger one – her daughter �� kept dancing with a flower crown in her hair and singing a song.

“Moreth, I am trying to focus on the content of this book,” her mother scolded her gently and the young maiden pouted. She sat by the river as well and she dipped her legs in the water, watching the water with curiosity.

She was a young Elf – Sauron could sense her youthful energy. She did not have the old wisdom yet like her father or mother. She could not be older than a century or two. Her long, black hair that she had inherited from her father danced in the air and she was humming the song now.

Her mother was not very old either – not as old as Adar for sure – but Lady Aranya had a very sad and melancholic energy around her, which was no surprise. She sighed at her daughter but refused to scold her for the second time even though she visibly struggled with focusing on the book when her daughter kept humming her tune.

Sauron was able to penetrate Adar’s mind and he had seen these two many times before in Adar’s memories but they were different there. In Adar’s memories his daughter was a child; a few years old. And his wife was younger, full of energy and smiling widely, radiating warmth. Sauron had to admit that in real life she was even more beautiful and he understood why Adar wanted to go back to her so eagerly.

But Sauron was not focusing on Lady Aranya. He could not keep his eyes off of her young daughter. In fact, his gaze had to be so intense that the young girl spotted him. She stopped her song all of a sudden as she got visibly startled, staring into the tall grass on the opposite side of the river’s shore. She tilted her head as if she had no idea if what she was seeing was real or an illusion – a pair of eyes looking back at her. Observing.

“Mother…” She started and Sauron moved back quickly, hiding further.

“Yes, Moreth?” Lady Aranya sighed as she glanced at her daughter.

“I think we should go back,” Moreth answered. For some reason she did not tell her mother about the pair of eyes staring at her and she did not reveal the reason why she wanted to go back so quickly.

She was too young to sense the intruder’s darkness.

“Well, if that is your wish…” Lady Aranya nodded and they both stood up to walk away. On their way, Moreth looked back one more time, squinting her eyes but this time Sauron made sure she could not see him.

For many years, Sauron could not stop thinking of the young Elven maiden he had seen by the river and he could not understand why. What was so special about her? Yes, she was beautiful and full of light but so were many other Elven women.

Adar did not know about any of this, of course. He was grieving his wife and daughter, having absolutely no idea that Sauron was thinking of Moreth more often than he would like to.

Perhaps it was her innocence or the seed of darkness planted deep in her soul because of her father’s downfall. She was somehow doomed already without even knowing. She was a Princess of the Orcs and had absolutely no idea about it, living her innocent life far away from all the battles and wars happening. But – just like her father – she had potential. And Sauron believed that, perhaps, with his help, she could become the best version of herself.

But first, he had a war to win.

After Adar’s betrayal, during all those centuries of coming back to life, Sauron was often thinking of Moreth. At first, his horrendous form – so full of primitive and raw instincts – felt nothing but pure hatred towards the young woman. She was Adar’s daughter and his blood was flowing in her veins. Murdering her would satisfy Sauron’s thirst for revenge.

But then, as his form evolved, he remembered that in a way he had killed her already – he had already killed her in Adar’s mind and he had already struck that blow to his enemy's heart.

The days of growing back to a full form were long and boring. He sometimes wondered where the young Elven woman was and what she was doing. Had she discovered her darkness already or was she still unaware? Had she gotten married? She would be about an Age old now. Perhaps she had children of her own already. Sauron did not like that idea.

He was trying to search Middle-earth to reach her with his mind; just to satisfy his curiosity, but he was too weak to be able to do that. All he managed to get were misty glimpses of her and he could not figure out much from them. He could feel a deep sadness about her as with age she had gotten more and more melancholic just like her mother.

And he swore to himself he would eventually find her somehow once he’d go back to his shape and form. He would get to know her better and perhaps he would find an answer why he couldn’t get her out of his mind.

The door of the dark and damp hut opened as Halbrand moved uncomfortably, expecting Waldreg to come back and torture him some more. But the moment he heard the footsteps, he immediately sensed that they did not belong to that filthy man but a being much more graceful and with a presence much more soothing.

Lady Moreth, The Uruk Princess, entered the hut and the very first thing she did was approach the warg that was kept on the chain in the same building. She petted the beast and the animal seemed to enjoy her touch as it nearly purred into her hand.

Halbrand’s heart skipped a beat at the sight of her after so many years. It surely was not the way he had imagined their first proper meeting to be like. He wanted to awe her in his most gracious form. He had not expected that she would reunite with her father and she would see him covered in mud and bruises as Adar’s prisoner. And he could not understand why she even came to him – a worthless human that her father had ordered to torture.

Moreth was humming a song to the warg and it reminded Halbrand of the song she had been singing by the river’s shore an Age ago. He still remembered that tune and he had often been reliving it in his mind. She must have loved to sing and nothing had changed – even now, when he could sense that the light of Valinor was gone from her.

She was still beautiful when she finally turned around to face him. But her beauty was of a terrifying kind now. Her cheeks were hollow, her eyes empty, her skin a shade or two paler than it had originally been. There was a crown made of leafless branches tangled in her long, black hair, decorated with the grey stones of various shapes and the skulls of the small forest animals instead. Her dress was black but not very grand and the edges of it were covered in mud. She, however, did not seem to care about it. And by her waist there was a small dagger attached in case she needed it – her father would never leave her completely unprotected.

Halbrand had seen her mother as well. Lady Aranya had been by Adar’s side when the Orcs had given him to their Lord Father. Moreth’s mother had changed, too – she had gone cold and her melancholy turned into ruthlessness. Both mother and daughter were no longer radiating the warmth and light of the Elves and Halbrand wondered if Adar deep down hated himself for causing that.

“One would think that you enjoy all the tortures my father is putting you through, human king,” Moreth addressed Halbrand with a gentle smirk.

“One would think wrong,” he answered in a raspy voice, looking up at her with curiosity.

“You have spent a long time with Lady Galadriel, so I’ve been told,” Moreth left the warg’s side and crouched down in front of him. He could see her face better now and his heart clenched in his chest at the sight. He was drawn to her in a way that was nearly as painful as all the Waldreg’s tortures. He was dying to touch her but he could not since his hands were tied. “She is believed to be the most beautiful of my old kin,” Moreth pointed out.

“What do you want to know?” Halbrand raised an eyebrow at her.

“Do you think it is true?” Moreth wondered out loud.

“She is beautiful,” he admitted with a head nod and she smiled at him with a hint of sadness. She had to be aware that her transformation had taken some of her grace but he could not disagree more.

She is beautiful, but not as much as you, he thought but did not dare to say it. Because in his eyes she was – terrifying, unsettling, twisted. He could imagine all the beings in Middle-earth worshipping her just because she’d look at them. If she wanted it, she would have everything he was trying to achieve but without any effort.

At least, that was how he perceived her.

Moreth reached out to a bowl of water that the warg had for himself and she dipped in it a cloth she had been hiding inside her sleeve. When the cloth was wet enough, she retreated her hand and gently wiped Halbrand's face with it in the most delicate manner. Even on her path towards the ultimate darkness, she still remained gentle and innocent in a way, which Halbrand found somehow endearing. She was being corrupted by Adar, but that was a gentle corruption rooted in fatherly love. She remained unspoiled by the true evil.

That was something that he himself would love to do to her.

“Why can’t you just tell me what you know about Sauron?” She asked, looking deep into his eyes.

“So, you came here to deceive me?” He smirked at her. “And I thought for a moment that you simply had a good heart,” he teased.

“Really?” Moreth seemed to be surprised as she froze for a moment.

“Of course not. You’re the Uruk Princess,” he mocked her and she clenched her jaw but she went back to wiping the blood and mud off of his face. “And you have lost your abilities to seduce people, you know? You no longer radiate the alluring light that could easily lead lower forms of life to their own destruction just because an Elven maiden smiled at them,” he explained, trying to anger her further. Just for fun.

“I did not come here out of my heart’s goodness or because I want to feed off of your compliments, human king,” Moreth pursed her lips as her hand went lower and her damp cloth reached the iron collar around his neck.

After a moment of hesitation, she gently wiped his skin underneath it, wherever her agile Elven fingers could reach. This action caused shivers go down Halbrand's spine as he watched her with his lips slightly parted. She was a seductress without even realising.

“Why are you here then, Elven witch?” He asked her and she sighed before looking into his eyes.

“I feel as if I know you already,” she admitted and his heart quickened its pace. “As if you were…” She did not finish the sentence and looked away. “It does not matter. It does not make sense.”

“As if I were… what?” Halbrand asked her, gently.

“You will misunderstand me, human,” she laid her eyes upon him again.

“Then explain it to me, Elf.”

“...As if you were the man from my dreams,” she revealed and cleared her throat but he did not say anything. He furrowed his brows, waiting for an explanation. “Not in the way you must think of. Not that you are everything I crave or want in a man. But, for some time now, I have… dreams… visions… of a faceless and nameless man and… it is as if someone is trying to reach me,” she confessed. “The dreams stopped some time ago but I still remember the man clearly and… and I miss him even though… even though he terrified me, too,” Moreth admitted and looked deep into Halbrand's eyes.

For a moment, he got scared she would see right through him, but that did not happen since she was too affected by her confession.

“He was the main reason for my downfall. He was teasing me, tempting, encouraging. But if it was not for him, I would not have found my father again. I would not have gained my freedom here by his side. This man… I have never told anyone about him,” she added and swallowed thickly. “Not even my mother… She thinks I transformed into the creature like my father because I am his daughter. But that is not completely true. And now she has fallen as well just because she did not want to abandon me in the darkness.”

Moreth retreated her hand and began to play nervously with the damp – and now also dirty – cloth in her hand. She looked down, refusing to keep staring at the man in front of her; too embarrassed of what she had just confessed.

“I know nothing of magic,” he only said.

“Yes. And the dreams… I had them for centuries. Before you were even born,” she shyly looked up. “It cannot be you. And yet… I feel as if I know you.”

“You must be mistaken. Perhaps you have lost your senses,” Halbrand answered, harshly.

“Perhaps,” she agreed with him. “I do wonder why the man has stopped coming to me in my dreams.”

“Is it not for the better? He terrified you. He caused your downfall,” Halbrand provoked her to explain to him better.

“That man… I might not know his face or his name but I could sense his power,” Moreth stood up and straightened her back as if the mention of him alone was enough to make her feel more proud. Being chosen by him to be the victim of his scheming was making her feel special. “He was greater than any Elf, he was like a… nearly like a God,” she explained. “I do not expect a human to understand the bond between the creatures like us,” she added with contempt and Halbrand could not help a little smirk.

She was not aware of how beautiful and tempting she was to him at the moment; only proving to him how right he had been for thinking of her so excessively for all those years.

Just like that, Moreth left the building and the warg went back to growling at him but Halbrand could not be bothered. He was left with a smile upon his lips.

He had no idea that all those years when he had been trying to go back to his shape and trying to see Moreth to check on her – that she could have actually felt his presence. That he had actually reached her in a way and appeared in her dreams and visions as a ghost-like creature.

And to know that he was the reason for the downfall of Adar’s daughter – his murderer – felt undeniably satisfying. It was his sweet revenge. Or at least the first part of it.

The second part would be to make her his. Completely and entirely. Forever.

Knowing what effect he had on Lady Moreth and that the door to her soul was open for him, Sauron began visiting her in her dreams again.

At first, he returned carefully and tested the waters. She seemed to be happy about his comeback and curious about his long absence. He was reassuring her as much as he could and slowly teasing the reveal of who he was.

He did not plan to tell her yet about being Sauron for that could be a shock too big and she was aware of her father’s difficult past with the Dark Lord. Therefore, at first, he just revealed to her that the man she had met back in the old and dirty hut was indeed the man from her dreams.

He visited her one night in his new form of Annatar and revealed to her that he had to hide his true identity. Moreth seemed to be intimidated by his new appearance.

“You are made of so much light,” she whispered in a trembling voice. “How could you be the one to deceive me towards darkness?”

“It was not you I have deceived. It is the Elves I am with now that I am deceiving,” Annatar explained with a gentle smile as he reached his hand out to put it on her cheek. It was nothing but a dream but he could feel the shadow of her real presence.

Moreth closed her eyes and took a deep breath in, enjoying his hand on her even if it was only an illusion.

“What are you?” She asked.

“Someone for whom you were made, Lady Moreth,” he explained and, just like that, she was sold completely.

Moreth was returning from the walk in the woods nearby when she spotted her parents talking nervously by one of the houses in the camp. They looked very upset and worried, which caused her heart skip a beat as she hurried to their side.

“What is it? I could sense your nervousness from afar,” she asked them and raised an eyebrow.

Lady Aranya put her arm around her daughter and pulled her closer in a reassuring manner.

“We have been fooled, it seems,” she explained to her daughter.

“Fooled? By whom?” Moreth looked up at her father. His jaw was clenched and his eyes burnt with rage.

“That man from Mordor, the king of Southlands…” Aranya began saying as Moreth felt a little dizzy at the mention of him. He was the man from her dreams. What did he have in common with all of this?

“He is Sauron,” Adar finished his wife’s sentence.

Moreth felt as if the ground under her feet moved and opened, trying to swallow her whole. She held onto her mother tightly and took a deep breath in as her heart fluttered in her chest.

“Impossible,” she only whispered.

“There is no such a thing as impossible when it comes to Sauron,” Adar explained in the most serious manner. “We have foolishly trusted him enough to release him. I should have known… I’ve had that feeling that something was wrong…” He cursed under his breath and walked away, angrily.

Moreth looked at her mother with fear in her eyes. Fear and guilt but of the second thing her mother could not be aware of.

“Your father, he… He shares history with Sauron,” Aranya explained.

“I do realise,” Moreth nodded.

“You do not know everything,” Aranya shook her head. “And I do not wish you to know.”

“I understand, mother,” Moreth squeezed her hand and followed her father inside the house.

He was standing by the wall and staring intensely at the fireplace.

“Father,” she approached him and gave him a hug. Adar wrapped his arms around her and pulled her closer. “Do not blame yourself,” she tried to somehow comfort him. “We shall find him and kill him. He will not hurt you or the Uruks again. I shall not let him,” she looked into his eyes and he cracked a smile at her words.

“And how could you prevent it, child?” He asked.

“I am no child,” she reminded him. “I am an Age old and–”

“And I shall not let you fight my battles. I shall never risk your life. Or your mother’s. But when you are by my side, I have strength I need to face my challenges,” Adar fixed his daughter’s hair and she smiled at him gently.

Oh, poor father. If he had only known…

Perhaps she was more doomed than she had thought.

Sauron tried to visit Moreth in her dreams on that night as well, but he could sense from the very beginning that something was wrong. Moreth did not let him in as deep as usual and she fiercely tried to fight back his interference.

“Be gone, dark spirit. Deceiver,” she spat out at him.

“What is the meaning of this, my love?” Annatar tried to reach her but she flinched, making him freeze. His face remained gentle but his eyes filled with anger as he looked at her after this rejection.

“Now it all makes perfect sense to me. Why you have chosen me out of all people to torment, to haunt,” Moreth’s eyes filled with tears. “It was because of my father, was it not? You wanted your revenge. I know who you are. Sauron.”

Annatar took a step back. He had been so busy with Celebrimbor and the rings that he had neglected the whole affair with Moreth. He had trusted she would not find out on her own until the right time would come.

“Be gone. You have caused enough evil and pain in my life. My parent’s lives, too…” Moreth shook her head and the tears streamed down her cheeks.

“I had been thinking of you even before your father betrayed and slaughtered me,” Annatar revealed. “Ever since I had seen you by the river’s shore, hiding in the tall grass.”

Moreth gasped and furrowed her brows. Apparently, so far, she had not connected the dots that the mysterious pair of eyes from that day belonged to the man from her dreams.

“You have been the bane of my existence ever since I was a young maiden,” she realised out loud. “Why? Why did you choose me? Why did you lie to my father so cruelly about my mother’s death and mine, too? Why have you caused him so much pain? Oh, I do not wish to know! Just be gone!” She kept shaking her head and turned her back on him. He could feel the vision around him getting more transparent and fading away. She was shutting the door close.

“Moreth, wait…” He tried to reason with her. “Moreth, listen to me…!”

The vision disappeared and now he was all alone in the darkness of his chambers in Eregion again. He took a deep breath in angrily as a single tear streamed down his cheek.

He was not going to give up so easily on the woman he had been thinking of for centuries now. Even if it meant changing some of his plans and letting go of some of his old grudges.

Moreth woke up all sweaty from the most realistic nightmare she had just had. She took a deep breath in and looked around but everything seemed to be still and quiet inside the hut.

It was this way only inside because there was a battle going on not so far away from here. But Moreth was not taking part in it – her father would not let her. She was in this hut in the middle of the forest with her mother, waiting for his return.

She stood up and approached the window. Lady Aranya was outside and staring at the stars above. It looked as if she was praying even though no Valar would ever answer her pleas for she was fallen and far too corrupted for that.

Moreth sighed and wiped the sweat from her forehead.

In her dream, the Uruks had betrayed her father and murdered him as she had been screaming for them to stop. One of them had been holding her and her mother back to make sure they would not help Adar and he had been not moving an inch, allowing their blades to cut him.

And when they had finally been released from the Uruks’ hold, they had ran up to him and held his dying body while sobbing. The most dreadful part of this dream was not the betrayal of the Uruks but the fact that a fallen Elf was not welcome to Valinor anymore. They would never reunite again. Moreth had lost her father so quickly after getting him back.

“That will happen,” a familiar voice filled her head as she winced, trying to fight it back. The moment of weakness opened the door in her soul slightly for Annatar to sneakily slip inside.

Just like the anxiety about the battle had weakened her enough to allow him to present her with that nightmare.

“Go away,” Moreth hissed.

“You can save your father if you come to me, Moreth,” Annatar lured her in with the gentle but still threatening tone of his voice. “Come and meet me. I have dreamt of your touch ever since you laid your hands upon me back in Mordor; comforting the tortured human king so generously with your gentle touch.”

“I do not trust you, deceiver. I am no fool,” Moreth massaged her temples.

“Come to me, my Queen, join my side and many lives that you care about can be spared. The Elves, the Uruks and the man between them – your father,” Annatar kept tempting but Moreth snorted at his words.

“A Queen you dare to call me? Do you really think I am vain like that to be lured by such a promise? I do not wish to be a Queen. What I have now is enough – perhaps even too much already. Be gone!” She suddenly gathered the strength to cut him off and she took a deep breath in before rushing out of the hut.

Lady Aranya turned around, confused.

“What is it, my child?” She asked, sensing that something was wrong.

“I must… I must go and see father…” Moreth mumbled as she approached the horses.

“Moreth!” Aranya approached her, trying to stop her daughter from departing. “It is too dangerous, there is a battle and your father might be in the middle of it.”

“Nothing will happen to me. The Elves and dwarves will take me as their prisoner and the Uruks are my brothers and sisters,” Moreth explained although she was no longer certain about the part about the Uruks.

She wanted to believe that what Sauron had shown her was nothing but a lie and illusion, created to scare her. But if it had been true, she could warn her father about the betrayal that was coming his way.

“Well, if you must go. I shall go, too,” Aranya approached her horse.

“Mother, no!” Moreth shouted, making her mother freeze as she looked at her daughter in shock. “You do not understand, I must depart alone,” she hopped onto her horse.

She could not allow her mother to leave with her because in her dream there had been the two of them and she had to do everything to avoid this scenario from happening. If her mother was not there, the exact scenario could not happen.

“Please, I am aware you are worried, but do trust me,” Moreth reached down to squeeze her mother’s arm and then she ordered the horse to gallop away as fast as possible.

As she rode through the woods, her heart pounded and her mind filled with chaotic thoughts. She hoped to get to her father on time no matter what. She cared about nothing else and paid no attention to her surroundings.

And just like that, she felt her horse stumbling and throwing her off of its back. Moreth yelped and landed on her face in the mud, although she had managed to put some of her weight onto her hands that were placed flat on the ground. The dried out leaves got stuck to her hair and she coughed while wincing out of pain, looking up at the running away horse.

“No! Come back!” She shouted after him but he did not listen to her as she cursed under her breath in Black Speech.

Everything was against her but she would limp to her father if she had to. And when she struggled to stand up, she froze, feeling someone’s eyes on her.

“Well, well, well, I knew you would show up eventually,” Annatar smirked as he kept staring at her, leaning on the tree nearby.

“I am not here for you!” Moreth hissed at him with pain and anger. “I am on my way to warn my father since you have been so generous to show me what is about to happen.”

“That is what I mean,” he laughed and she froze, realising that it was exactly what he had wanted her to do.

She felt like an absolute fool; standing there in the middle of nowhere, holding her own chest because of the bruised rib cage, slightly bent out of pain. Face to face with Sauron.

He approached her slowly as his face turned serious. She felt his hands touching her gently and even though she flinched, he did not retreat his fingers.

“Let me,” he whispered softly to her and removed her hand from her chest. He put his own hand there and she could feel her injuries mending slowly, bringing her relief. “I have not planned to cause you pain, my love,” he assured her as she kept squinting her eyes at him, knowing very well she should not trust his words.

“I hate you,” Moreth spat out as Annatar met her gaze. But instead of anger, she spotted a hint of pain on his undeniably beautiful face.

“Do you really?” He asked.

“No,” she admitted, ashamedly. “But I wish I did.”

“I know that you do, my love,” Annatar let go of her chest, knowing that she was healed now completely from her injuries after the fall.

“Do not call me that. How can you call me that after everything you have done to my family? To my father? My mother? Me?” Moreth asked, her eyes filling with fresh tears. “You have tormented my father, you have lied to him about the deaths of me and my mother. You have enslaved his children. You have caused my mother a whole Age of pain and loneliness without her husband by her side and you have caused the same to me – a fatherless life. And you have deceived me, you have pushed me towards darkness–”

“Do you regret the path you have chosen?” Annatar asked and Moreth closed her mouth.

“No, but–”

“Let me confess something to you,” Annatar took her hands gently and she was clearly uncomfortable with his touch but she did not push him away. “The visions and dreams you saw before meeting me in Mordor, the ones you were having for centuries until now. I did not control them. I was trying to reach out to you, to check on you, to see what you were doing, because – as I have confessed to you before – you had been on my mind long before your father betrayed me. But I had no idea that my mental search for you was causing your visions and dreams. They were not my intention. Therefore, whatever you had been seeing me doing or hearing me say, it was coming from the depths of your own soul, Moreth. You were affected by my presence, yes, but it was all coming from… you,” Annatar explained softly.

“You are lying to me,” Moreth refused to believe him although deep down she knew that he was right.

“Am I? You should have known out of all people the most when I lie or deceive,” Annatar pointed out and squeezed her hands tighter. “I was in my weakest form when I was reaching out to you. You have penetrated my soul the same way I have penetrated yours. And what your mind was making you see and hear in visions and dreams, it was taken out of me as those were the parts that have been unguarded in the times when I was struggling to survive,” he explained as Moreth blinked a few times, trying to comprehend everything.

“I am not sure if I understand. It is all so blurry,” she confessed.

“I know. I have struggled to understand our bond for some time, too, until I finally realised that our minds had intertwined,” Annatar explained. “It was done accidentally on my part but you… You invited me in.”

Moreth looked away, not knowing what to say to all of this. She could not deny that she still loved the man standing in front of her. His presence was soothing to her and holding his hands felt as right as it could. Her life had always been a lonely one, she had never had a lover before as she had only been watching other Elves fall for each other and marry. But she had always felt as if she could not leave her mother. Her mother had been living in sadness and grief after her father, so Moreth had decided to accompany her in it.

And even though she had been trying to remove Sauron from her heart after finding out who the man from her dreams truly was, it was not so easy to do so. He was imprinted on her heart and soul whether she wanted it or not.

“There are Uruks on their way now to betray your father,” Annatar informed her and she immediately turned her head around to look at him with widened eyes. She tried to get her hands out of his grasp but he only squeezed them tighter. “You can still save him, Moreth.”

“The pain you and your master have caused to my father… I cannot forgive you for it. I cannot betray him myself,” Moreth explained as tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Your father has caused me pain, too. He has betrayed me and slaughtered me. Humiliated me in front of his army, used my crown against me and watched me being ripped apart… Piece by piece,” Annatar’s eyes lit up with rage at the memory. “You have no idea what a pain that was.”

“I can imagine,” Moreth admitted and sniffled some of her tears back.

“Yet I am willing to forgive him for that,” he promised. “But it must be a transaction. A forgiveness… for forgiveness.”

Moreth did not say anything. She was still doubting the man in front of her but she also knew that she was running out of time to save Adar.

“You still are not sure about my intentions but, my sweet Moreth, you have the ability to search through my soul and see for yourself if I am deceiving you or not,” Annatar pointed out with a smirk.

Moreth hesitated for a moment before holding his hands back and squeezing them lightly, furrowing her brows and trying to get inside his mind.

What she saw there terrified her at first. Even though she was a creature of darkness now, the amount of evil and pain she had suddenly found herself in was simply overwhelming. She saw glimpses of his schemes and plans, the big, dark creature wearing the Iron Crown and a heavy armour amongst the ashes. She saw the rings and corruption, she saw death and whole realms destroyed for disobedience. She saw thousands of Uruks marching with a war chant on their lips, she saw a big, black fortress and a throne.

Chaotically searching through all of this, she managed to find herself amongst that disarray. As if she was an eagle, she saw herself and Annatar from above, between the trees, holding hands and staring at each other like in the very moment. She dipped down and managed to sink herself into his form and to be able to perceive the scene through his eyes – to see herself as Sauron.

And she did not see a woman dirty from the mud with dry leaves stuck to it. She did not see a scared woman who was terrified of what was coming to her father and torn because of the choice she was presented with. No, she saw a beautiful, strong creature, standing proudly. She saw a dreadful Queen, radiating death and darkness. She felt respect towards her even though it was, actually, her.

“I know you do not wish to be a Queen,” Annatar’s voice filled her head. “But I also know you wish to be by my side. And this is how my love will make you flourish,” he said.

“You call that a flourish?” Moreth snorted through her tears and she could sense Annatar’s anger at her question, so she quickly explained that it was no rejection from her. “The path of the light is no longer open for me since I have abandoned it. I can only improve myself through the darkness and I do wish for perfection,” she confessed. “I shall be your Queen.”

She took a step back, letting go of his hands and breaking up the inner connection for now. She stood there, breathing heavily as she kept staring at him with shock on her face. She had not suspected to be able to dig so deep into his mind.

“My love,” Annatar caressed her cheek affectionately. “Let us go save your father now.”

He truly intended to keep his promise even though he was bitter about it. However, he did not want to begin the tale of his love with betrayal. He could deceive and betray everyone but not her – even villains like him needed one person they could trust and keep close. It was making the greatness and power more bearable.

It was early morning already when they reached Moreth’s father. Lady Galadriel was standing behind him and there were a few Uruks coming his way carrying Glûg on the stretcher. Moreth glanced at Annatar and immediately understood what the smart plan was. Adar would never walk past any of his children’s pain.

When he saw them, he immediately hurried to their side to check on one of his most loyal and closest Uruks.

“Father, no!” Moreth emerged from between the trees and Adar turned around at the sound of her voice, surprised to see her so far away from the hut she was supposed to hide in with her mother for the time of the battle.

“Moreth! What are you doing here?” He asked in a scolding tone.

“I am here to warn you of the betrayal,” she hurried to him, grabbing him by his wrists and trying to keep him away from the Uruks. “It is Sauron’s trap,” she explained as the Uruks looked between each other uncomfortably.

“What are you talking about? How do you know?” Adar furrowed his brow and that was when Annatar joined them, walking out slowly and gracefully. Lady Galadriel gasped at the sight of him and shot him a deadly glance.

Adar put his arms around his daughter immediately as if he was trying to protect her from the man coming their way.

“Stay away from her,” he drawled out at Annatar as he realised that he had emerged from the same path his daughter had walked out of.

“I can try, old friend, but I am not sure if she would stay away from me,” Annatar smirked at Adar.

Moreth’s father looked down at his daughter, confused. But he had no time to ask her any questions when the final betrayal revealed itself.

“So what do we do, Master?” One of the Uruks asked Sauron as he bowed his head.

“Why are you calling him a Master?” Adar asked him. “My son?”

“They are not children anymore,” Annatar explained to him and then looked at the Uruk. “Leave us,” he ordered. “That is a family matter between me and your Lord Father,” he added. “Raze Eregion, leave no Elf alive, but bring me their leaders.”

“A family matter?” Adar asked, even more confused and even more angry than before. He let go of Moreth as he kept staring at her intensely.

“Hail Sauron!” The Uruks chanted in Black Speech. “Hail the new Dark Lord!” They added and ran away to follow his orders. Adar reached his hand towards them but his movement was weak because he knew it was hopeless as tears filled his usually cold eyes.

Moreth’s heart cried out for him and she was the one to touch his hand gently, bringing him back to reality.

“Bring me my crown,” Annatar ordered harshly and Moreth looked up at him, confused. Was he giving that order… to her? And what crown was he speaking of?

She turned around and saw the Iron Crown of Morgoth on a stone next to Lady Galadriel who kept watching the scene in silent terror.

“Please, my love?” Annatar added in a much softer voice.

Moreth looked away to avoid her father’s eyes at that moment. She knew she had lots of explaining to do and she only hoped he would not hate her as a result of all of this.

She knew why Annatar had made this request. She had to prove herself since her promises of wanting to become his Queen could have been nothing but treachery to save her father’s life. Now, when Adar was safe, it was her turn to keep their deal.

But Lady Galadriel standing there as if she was guarding the dark item was surely an obstacle. She was one of the greatest warriors of the Elven race – a Commander of the Northern Armies. She kept staring at Moreth, challenging her.

Moreth swallowed the lump in her throat and straightened her back, feeling the sudden outburst of courage as she remembered the dreadful Queen her lover had been seeing her as when she had penetrated his mind.

When she took the first step, her father reached his hand out, trying to stop her. She, however, ignored him and kept taking more and more steps towards the Iron Crown.

So far, everything she had been doing in her life, she had been doing with her parents on her mind. Her mother and her father. But she was not a child anymore – just like Adar’s Uruks. She was an Age old and it was the time for her to do something for herself. To choose her own path and make decisions for herself. To start a life that would be hers to live.

Her parents had themselves now again, they could spend an eternity making up for the lost time. And she refused to be a background character of their love story. She wanted her own. She wanted to be with the man she had been dreaming of for centuries.

When she reached her hand out for the crown, Lady Galadriel did not move to stop her but she spoke:

“Are you fully aware of what you are about to do?” She asked and looked at Moreth in a way that made Moreth realise that Galadriel was still trying to search for the remains of her light.

“I am not a child or a fool, Lady Galadriel,” Moreth answered calmly but with a hint of anger. “I am aware. And I shall not be underestimated ever again,” she stated and grabbed the crown, feeling its corruption and darkness spilling all throughout her body. She tightened the grip and walked back to Annatar to hand him the item.

But when Annatar held it with a smirk and tried to take it away from her, she squeezed the Iron Crown even tighter, refusing to let it go. He furrowed his brows at her.

“And you will not bark your orders at me ever again,” she informed him with her chin held up high as her eyes filled with anger and confidence.

“You have never been more beautiful,” Annatar whispered with a malicious grin and Moreth nodded her head at him, letting go of the Iron Crown. “Go with your father to your worried mother, I can sense her anxiety through the miles of this forest,” he caressed Moreth’s cheek gently. “I shall join you later and for now… I have unfinished business with Lady Galadriel here,” he looked up to meet her eyes.

Moreth nodded at him, touching his cheek as well as if she was blessing him before his confrontation with Galadriel. Then, she gathered her courage to turn around and face her heartbroken and confused father.

“Come,” she grabbed him by the sleeve but Adar kept standing still. “Father, please. I want to explain and I have not done all of this just for you to foolishly lose your life now!” She exclaimed and that was what eventually made him follow her into the woods, hesitantly.

Aranya and Adar were sitting by the table and staring at their daughter with pain and a hint of disappointment. They were holding hands under the table and Moreth was sitting on the opposite side with tears in her eyes after explaining everything to them. Well, almost. There were things they did not need to know. The most intimate parts of the bond she shared with Sauron.

“He… He caused your father so much pain…” Lady Aranya started as her voice quivered.

“I know…” Moreth shook her head, fighting the fresh tears. “It is not like I can fight it, I have tried, with every fibre of my being, I swear to you, to the both of you. I have tried to fight it but–”

“I know,” Aranya nodded. “I have tried to fight the darkness within me as well but in the end, I decided to join you and your father. I know what it is like,” she confessed.

“Thank you,” her daughter took a deep breath in. “Father?” She looked at him.

He was even more quiet than usual now and she understood why – his whole world had just tumbled down. Not only did his daughter want to share her life with his greatest enemy but also the Uruks he had considered his children for centuries went away with the man he had sworn to protect them from.

“I am… defeated,” Adar confessed finally.

“Oh, Adar…” His wife reached her hand out to caress his scarred cheek. “Do not think of it this way. As long as I am by your side, there is no obstacle we cannot face together,” she assured him and Moreth bit on the insides of her cheeks. She could not wait to be in her lover’s arms already.

“The Uruks are like children to you just like I am… and they have made their decision – just like me,” Moreth explained. “But, father, I swear to you, by Sauron’s side, I shall make sure to take care of them just like you would. I shall follow your steps and after all the centuries of commanding their army, it is time for you to retire. To live a peaceful life alongside mother and enjoy each other’s company,” she tried to comfort him.

“Well, I must admit, that last part is something I would enjoy very much,” Moreth’s mother squeezed Adar’s hand tighter. “Before all of this happened, before Morgoth took you away from me, you had told me that you would love to live with me far away from everything else. I have not forgotten that, my love,” she reminded her husband.

“I do not trust Sauron with the Uruks and I do not trust him with our daughter. Simple as that,” Adar stated.

“And that is the problem, father,” Moreth tried to make him understand as gently as possible. “You do not have to trust Sauron. You have to trust your children who are old enough to make their own decisions.”

Her mother gave her husband a meaningful look. She seemed to be quite convinced but Moreth knew that her mother deep down was just glad to get rid of the Uruks and that she could have her husband for herself now. She had grown to like these creatures but she did not like this life of constant travelling, conquering and fighting.

The conversation was interrupted by a knock upon the door. Moreth straightened her back immediately. She had been too focused on her parents to sense him earlier but now it was very clear who was standing outside.

“It is him,” she announced.

“I can smell his stench,” Adar nodded with a clenched jaw.

“Father!” Moreth exclaimed. “I beg of you, if you still have some love for me in your heart, do try to understand,” she pleaded.

“I have all the love for you in what is left of my heart, my sweet daughter. Out of all things in this world, you should not doubt that,” he answered very seriously.

“And knowing that I am lucky to have my father's love gives me confidence,” Moreth nodded with a smile as she stood up and approached the door to open them.

Annatar stood there with an unreadable expression on his face. She was sure he had been listening to her conversation and perhaps he had been doing that for longer than she knew. Moreth lowered her gaze and glanced at his crown that had blood on it. She could smell the blood was pure and Elven.

“Is she…?”

“Unfortunately not,” Annatar drawled out as he entered the hut. “And I have not managed to get her ring,” he added, visibly upset.

“Her ring?” Moreth furrowed her brows.

“Nenya, the ring of water,” her father said. “It is powerful and uncorrupted.”

Annatar shot him a glance.

“Bold of you, old friend, to speak of corruption,” he remarked.

“Please!” Moreth rolled her eyes and put her hands on Annatar’s chest. “You have promised me to forgive my father for the sake of me.”

“I have promised you forgiveness for forgiveness but there is none coming from your father,” Annatar pointed out.

“How do you expect my husband to ever forgive what you have done to him?” Lady Aranya asked and did not even try to hide her indignation.

“We both were the victims of Morgoth,” Annatar’s voice went softer as he addressed Aranya, trying to use some of his charm and treachery to convince her.

“You were his servant out of your own will, not a victim,” Adar pointed out. “And even right now you hold his crown.”

“And you have followed him out of our own will, too, old friend,” Annatar answered. “And even right now you wield his sword,” he pointed at the weapon.

Long silence occurred between them all. Apparently, there were no more accusations to throw since both of them were too involved in the evil deeds and darkness, too twisted and corrupted to be able to truly find out which one had been the most guilty one and which one was to blame the most.

“I could forgive the tortures,” Adar finally whispered. “But how can I forgive you the illusion of my wife and daughter dying? You have no idea what it did to me for you have never loved.”

“I have and I do,” Annatar answered, putting his hand around Moreth’s waist as Adar’s eyes filled with rage at the sight. “And all I can say to that is; I shall ensure that your daughter will never be harmed.”

“I can ensure that myself,” Adar replied.

“A conversation with your father is pointless,” Annatar was annoyed. He was easily getting angry and the frustration was even greater now when he had just failed to kill Lady Galadriel and get her ring. He sighed and left the hut, slamming the door shut behind him.

“Is that supposed to be threatening?” Adar smirked to himself.

“Father!” Moreth shook her head. “Mother, do something,” she looked at Lady Aranya.

“Whether we like it or not, whether we accept it or not… They have a bond we cannot break and trying to stop it might possibly cause more chaos and destruction than goodness,” Moreth’s mother tried to explain to her husband. “I have not sacrificed everything for my family only to watch this very family fall apart just because my husband is too stubborn.”

The look Adar gave her took her aback at first because he seemed to feel betrayed by her. But he also understood why she was able to have compassion towards their daughter in this very situation since she had been in a similar one when it came to him.

“I have abandoned my friends, who were like family members to me. I have abandoned my old life without any chance of going back there. I have abandoned the light and the shores of Valinor… for you. For Moreth,” Aranya reminded him. “I do not wish for my daughter to abandon anything for her lover. We shall swallow our pride and our pain for the sake of her. I do not wish to lose my daughter because I know that we shall lose her if we keep opposing her like this. She will choose Sauron and I do not want her to be forced to make a choice,” she tried to make him understand and he went silent for a moment before addressing his daughter.

“You would? You would choose him?” Adar asked Moreth and even though his voice was full of contempt, there was also pain that felt like a slap in her face because she had never wished to cause pain to her parents.

“I…” She started, not sure of what to say. It was not so easy, but also – she had already made a promise to Sauron so it did not matter anymore.

“It does not matter,” Aranya answered instead. “If she chose us, she would grow to hate us. And I do not wish for that either. I want her happiness.”

“I wish for Moreth’s happiness, too,” Adar approached his daughter and looked deep into her eyes full of tears. His eyes were wet, too, and he cracked a smile at her. “He is a deceiver, Moreth. How can you trust him?”

“I have seen and explored his mind as much as he has mine,” his daughter replied. “I am the only one he cannot deceive. I know his heart, father.”

“His heart?” Adar asked, mockingly.

“Yes, father, his heart. Beating in his chest, pumping the blood of his flesh and with each breath there is a thought of me and a yearn to be with me. And it has been this way for centuries now. You surely do know something about it even though your heart is quite rotten, too,” she pointed out and Adar took a step back. He was still not fully convinced but a little more peaceful now, which his daughter and wife could sense.

Aranya approached him and placed her hand on his arm, pulling him closer to her and away from their daughter. She nodded at her and Moreth nodded back before following Annatar outside.

He was standing by the tree nearby and caressing the Iron Crown with his fingertips. His face was still annoyed and Lady Galadriel’s blood remained unwiped from the item.

“He will accept it but it will take him time,” Moreth stood next to her lover and explained softly. Annatar snorted at that. “Do not be too harsh, my darling,” she addressed him and he moved slightly, trying not to reveal what an effect it had on him when she addressed him as her darling. “What if it was your… our… daughter wanting to be with the man who has tortured you in the past?” Moreth tried to make him see as she put her hand gently on Annatar’s arm.

“That would have to be Morgoth. He was the one to torture me,” Annatar answered. “And he is a God. I would be delighted if a God wanted my daughter as a bride.”

“I… I do not think my father shares your mindset,” Moreth chuckled. “And I do not share it either for I would not trust a man who has hurt you…”

She was trying to be sweet but it only made him laugh at her as he pointed his finger at the door leading back to the hut. Her father was inside and he had hurt him in the past.

He had killed him.

Moreth closed her mouth, not knowing what else to say to make it all better.

“The thing is,” she finally said, “I have promised to be your Queen and even though the crown is not something I wish for, I want to be by your side. But I also refuse to give up on my parents. And I do not care anymore what the two of you will do with it,” she shrugged her arms. “You will have to live with it and work it out somehow,” she added and gently took the heavy crown from her lover’s hands. Surprisingly, he allowed her without any resistance as he looked at her softly.

Moreth cracked a smile at him, thinking how beautiful he truly looked in this form of Annatar and how lucky she was to be the woman he loved. She lifted her hands and put the crown upon his head, delicately.

“I have loved you for centuries without knowing your name or your face but that was only the beginning of the eternity together,” she whispered, grasping his hands with her fingers and Annatar looked down at their hands intertwined as he squeezed her fingers back.

“I shall make the whole of Middle-earth love you as much I do,” he assured her and she sighed but also smiled at him.

His love was more than enough to her but she had to get used to the fact that his love was as great and loud as everything else he was doing and he wished to scream it from the mountaintops. And the more powerful she was becoming, the more powerful he was becoming as well. She knew – she could have seen it all inside his mind.

“I do not think it is possible to make anyone else love me the way you do,” she laughed softly, “but I cannot forbid you from trying.”

MASTERLIST

#sauron x oc #halbrand x oc #annatar x oc #lotr oc #lilysfiction

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iwritenarrativesandstuff · 1 year ago

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About the whole "Fyodor-switch personality" thing: We don't have enough information to confirm whether it was real or fake right now, and besides, both possibilities are really interesting.

If the switch was real and Fyodor was lying to cover it up (...because 'you know characters can lie, right' could mean... this part of it was the lie too...), that could easily be made a reference to Dostoevsky's The Double, as I was kindly made aware of. We've also already had an image of a young woman who looks like Aya from potentially a long time ago, given the outfit and that it is Bram's memory we're presumably seeing there, which may tie in interestingly with "what year is it?" The knife he pulled out also is genuinely a unique design for the series, and looks like it might be an old make. If this original is very old, then something in the takeover of personalities may explain why he hasn't seemed to age. Fyodor being a separate personality created from his ability and kicking out the original could tie in with his ability not attacking him in Dead Apple. This also raises more questions about Fyodor's motives, and I think opens the path for some pretty fascinating theory making. It also places Fyodor as something both human and not... intriguing for the ongoing theme of humanity in the series.

If the switch was a fake and Fyodor was being a completely hilarious little shit (which, we know the Joker is part of his inspiration and he is often contrasted with Dazai, Nikolai, and Mori, for whom this kind of behaviour would be expected - it's characterization, that's not 'done for no reason'), it would quite possibly be the funniest thing he's done in the series so far. But! More importantly, it strengthens Fyodor's connection with the Book (or rather, with altering the narrative). He's told a lie that sounds completely ridiculous but makes sense given the world and situation he's in - and notably, could fool Sigma... and the readers. Fyodor also managed to change the lightness of his eyes without changing the state of his soul - something that no other character seems to be able to do. (I know Dazai can feign the shocked expression, but that's not the clear lightness we saw in Fyodor's eyes in this panel. Nikolai's eyes change lightness but that actually seems to be genuine.) While this doesn't help us discern anything more about Fyodor's motives, it does emphasize his expertise at information manipulation - we cannot trust a single thing this character says, not just in universe, but out of it too. We, the readers, cannot listen to Fyodor and take anything he says as supporting evidence for theories. If this is true - that's fascinating. The other characters will have to solve the mystery of this man completely indirectly, and so will we.

Of course, there is the secret third option: it was a lie mostly, but there is an element of truth to it somewhere, which is actually par for the course for BSD as a whole. It is very rare that a character turns out to be lying completely. The question then becomes "what part is true and how much is it true", which is also very compelling. This, personally, is what I'm ascribing to for now until new info comes up.

Anyways, the last thing I wanted to point out is that if it was genuine, then remember The Double was inspired by Hohol's works, and if it was a lie, then that is very similar to the bait-and-switch performances that Nikolai has done multiple times in the series. Either way, it implies some influence on Fyodor by Nikolai and of course vice versa, which probably means the return of the clown (finally!) and more focus on their dynamic, which is a funny thing to show Nikolai having apparently had influence on Fyodor (even if in more of a meta way) as he is actively trying to kill him right now.

Love wins/loses?

#i also kind of have my gripes about split identity storylines... but in the end i just want whatever happens to be #the most interesting story to tell with this character #we still know nothing about fyodor and certainly not enough to know how much we can take as truth or lies #bsd #bsd chapter 108 #bsd spoilers #bsd fyodor #fyolai #storyrambles

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th3-c0rps3-r0gu3 · 1 year ago

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hidden sadness.

pairings: Natasha X fem reader.

Warnings: depression, lots of sadness. Swearing. Thoughts of self harm. Yelling.

Happy ending tho.

A/n: this is a vent post. And Natasha is only a year older than y/n in this. Please do not mind me dumping my bottled up sadness here.

Y/n had joined the Avengers when she was 23. She had been hoping for a new start. And she had always been really good with daggers. Like exceptionally good. So she had gained the avengers trust quite easily.

The avengers would describe y/n as walking sunshine. She was always able to cheer someone up or just bring the happiness level up in general. It was a known fact that y/n was friends with every avenger. Every avenger other than Natasha Romanoff. For some inexplicable reason Natasha hated y/n. However despite Natashas dislike for her y/n was always kind towards her.

Natasha would describe y/n as a clingy childish girl who never experienced the hardships if the world and probably had everything handed to her on a silver platter. And the only reason that y/n was on the avengers was because her dad brought her a place and claimed she was good with daggers.

Nobody had actually seen y/n handle a dagger. But every mission y/n went on came out successful so they assumed she was as good as she claimed. Everyone but Natasha who suspected y/n just had someone else do the job for her.

Y/n however was far from either of the avengers expectations. She was a happy ball of sunshine on the outside but inside was a while nother story. In all reality y/n was sad. Desperately sad. Y/n found it hard to even get up of a morning. She forgot meals and basic health things. Luckily she could easily brush it off as simple forgetfulness as it fit her personality.

Despite y/n desperately wanting to tell someone, anyone, about her sadness she couldn't. Not the avengers. They had enough issues to deal with as well as their own sadness. Y/n's mother didn't understand. She tried to but she couldn't grasp her daughter's depression. And y/n's father had left for another woman a year ago. Not that that changed anything as he basically ignored y/n her whole life. So y/n bottled her sadness. Well she had one place she put it. A blog she had. There she could dump all her emotions under an alias where noone would recognise her and tell the other Avengers.

On social media y/n went under "inej". Her favourite book character whom she shared her dagger and knife skill with. Y/n's blog was her safe haven. The one place where she could be y/n y/l/n and not just "the silver blade" which was her hero name. Nobody but y/n's followers knew about y/n's depression. If it's even depression. Y/n don't know. All she knew was she was sad.

"hey y/n you think you could show us your daggers?"

Kate asked from beside yelena. The other Avengers turned to look at y/n.

"sorry Kate not today. Maybe another day."

Y/n responded shooting Kate an apologetic look. Y/n didn't like to show her daggers to others. They were special. Her grandma handcrafted them specially for y/n before she passed away. She had left y/n with twenty daggers in a wooden box with a glass lid. It was important to y/n as it was the last thing her grandma ever gave her.

"of course you cant. Because they don't exist. Admit it y/l/n you use your father's power to get your missions done."

Natashas voice broke y/n out of thought. It was cold and cruel but y/n was used to it.

"sorry to disappoint Natasha but I don't use my father's status to get missions done. I do have daggers but I can't show them to you. It's personal and I've said that."

Y/n gave Natasha smile. Natasha had always been y/n's favourite avenger. It saddened her more that Natasha hated y/n. Natasha simply scoffed at y/ns words and smile.

"what's personal about daggers. Their just fancy knives."

Natasha's insult hurt. Not that y/n would ever show it.

"leave it alone nat."

Steve said frowning. Natasha glared at him before leaving the room.

"sorry for her behaviour y/n."

Steve said then turning to y/n.

"it's fine Steve. I'm used to it. I know she'll eventually get over it."

Y/n responded calmly. She then hesitated.

"I'm gonna go to my room though. I feel awkward now. I'll see you all later ok."

Y/n then finished. The avengers nodded and y/n retreated to her room.

Y/n had a simple room in which no one but her was aloud in. It had bookcases lining two walls and a bunk bed with a study area underneath in the corner. There was a picture frame that held two photos. One of y/n with her mother and the other of y/n with her grandma the day she gifted y/n the daggers. Under said photos was the box contained the daggers. The daggers were intricately decorated with dragons or crows. Dragons because y/n adored them and crows as a reference to y/n's favourite book duology, six of crows.

Y/n climbed up to her bed and lay down grabbing her phone to dump her emotions on social media. Opening her blog she created a post. It just went on about how her friend group had one person who hated her despite her attempts at being friendly. And her slight struggles to deal with her depression and not being able to discuss it. After posting she turned off her phone and lay down sighing. Y/n didn't feel much better. She glanced back at the daggers. What if... No. She couldn't. She wouldn't. She didn't have the heart to do it. Let alone deal with her mother's sadness or the avengers sadness if she was caught. Besides her suit was sleeveless. Y/n buried the thought to the back if her mind.

A few hours had passed now. Wanda called everyone down for a team meal. Y/n wasn't hungry. She made the simple excuse of she wasn't hungry and went back to her room. Not after getting another snarky remark from Natasha though. This time a dig at her size. Y/n wasn't big but she wasn't skinny like the others either. It wasn't a bad thing and y/n knew that but it still hurt.

Once back in her room y/n turned in her music and as 'devil town' by cavetown came on she pulled out her sketchbook and drew. That was y/n's only other coping mechanism that kept her away from sh. Other than reading, drawing was one of the only things y/n legitimately enjoyed anymore. As the lines started to take a shape y/n realised she was drawing a realistic heart that was cracked open and bleeding. Disturbing but accurate to y/n's emotions currently. Mean while downstairs the other Avengers were arguing with Natasha.

"you can't say that natasha. It could really hurt her feelings y'know."

Wanda scolded. Natasha rolled her eyes.

"she's a cinnamon bun Wanda she's fine."

Natasha said. Wanda frowned at Natasha and was about to make another comment when Yelena interupted.

"can we not do this over dinner. You two can have your quarrel after food."

Wanda and Natasha sighed before sitting back down. Everyone ate in silence as the obvious tension between Wanda and Natasha was uncomfortable.

The next few weeks went by almost the same. Y/n continued her happy persona and Natasha continued to make hurtful jabs while the other Avengers disapproved. Y/n continued to act like it didn't matter. Then Natasha and y/n were assigned the same mission. It was simple. Break into HYDRA put the information on the hard drive and then blow up the place. Easy right. Wrong. Natasha was furious.

"why can't I do it on my own!?"

Natasha fumed at fury. Y/n stood there silent.

"I don't need some happy go lucky daddies girl bugging me as she fakes being an avenger!"

That actually hurt y/n and she flinched though nobody noticed.

"well there's obviously some drama between you both and you need to figure it out. Besides the other Avengers need a break."

Fury remained professional despite the red head yelling at him. Before Natasha could even think of a response fury left. Natasha whipped around to face y/n.

"you better not fuck this up or I will fuck you up got that daddies girl."

Natashas voiced dropped with venom at this statement and y/n simply nodded. The black widow proceeded to storm out of the room leaving y/n to mull over this situation.

The day of departure was the hardest y/n ever experienced. She felt so heavy. It was unbearable to leave the sanctuary of her bed let alone her bedroom. Despite all odds she managed to get up and grab her daggers and change in time to meet Natasha. Y/n had also grabbed a couple books and her sketchpad. This was not a single day mission and y/n knew she was gonna need some coping mechanisms or else things would go south.

Y/n met Natasha at the launch pad to board the quinjet. Natasha scowled at y/n and went on about her nearly being late. Y/n was early. They boarded and started the long flight to the HYDRA base.

The majority of the flight Natasha scowled at y/n and made harsh comments. Y/n simply read to drown it out. As soon as they landed and headed to the hotel they were staying at Natasha made almost silent judgements about the way y/n held and carried herself. Y/n simply sighed and tried to ignore it. They checked into the hotel and entered their room. Lucky for them it had two beds. Y/n set up to the one next to a window and natasha on the one closest to the door.

The first night y/n and Natasha needed to discuss plans if the break in. That was mostly Natasha telling y/n what to do and ignoring any statements y/n made before bringing them up later as if her own ideas. Y/n went along with it.

The next day they were to stake out the base. It went as well as one could anticipate from Natasha and y/n. Natasha constantly criticized y/n and said she was too obvious and how this was just proof of her faking her missions successes. It ended worse. Y/n had ended up in a trap and Natasha had to get her out before HYDRA agents found them. It was worse when back at the hotel.

"how could you be so stupid! Had I known you were this shitty I would've demanded a new partner till I got one! You jeopardized the whole mission you know that right!? Your not an avenger. Your a pathetic excuse who only got to join the team cos her daddy brought her a spot."

Natasha yelled. Y/n blocked out the rant. She had heard enough if Natashas rants to know the lines this one would take. Bla bla ball you could've got us caught. Bla bla bla your a failure. Bla bla bla daddy's girl. That was all Natasha's rants. Soon however Natasha ran out of air and stormed into the bathroom to take a shower. Y/n decided to make a post for her blog.

'inej':

-hey guys. I think screwed up again. It's all I ever seen to do now a days. I truly feel like a failure. I could've gotten my friend in trouble on accident. I've also been left alone with the friend who hates me. I keep fucking up and I don't know what's wrong with me. I'm trying. But sometime it feels like it's not enough. Stay safe.-

Y/n posted it and then turned off her phone before pulling out a book to read the rest of the night. Y/n knew sleep was not gonna be an option tonight. Sleepless nights were more common now.

Today was the infiltration day. Today was the important day. And y/n could only think about how she was gonna fuck up. Natasha got ready and y/n joined her outside. They were soon both outside the base again.

"ok I'm doing all the work as your incapable of doing anything right. Just follow my orders and maybe you won't fuck this up."

Natasha demanded. Y/n nodded. Natasha then lead y/n in.

At first everything was going smoothly. Till Natasha was downloading the information and it tripped a security alarm. HYDRA agents filled the room and Natasha and y/n were fighting for their lives while gathering the information. Y/n didn't have time to grab her daggers and she wasn't too good at hand to hand combat without them. That and the sleepless night and y/n was fighting terribly. Natasha obviously noticed and took it as y/n being incapable of doing the mission and a liar like she thought. Then Natasha saw the files were downloaded. She quickly went to retrieve the USB and turned to yell at y/n to ditch before g/n barged into Natasha and a bullet was shot. Y/n yelled at Natasha to grab the USB and run and that she had the bombs to blow it up. Natasha did run. She felt no obligation to help y/n. Soon after Natasha was out y/n got the time to whip out her daggers and soon the agents were dead. Y/n planted the bombs and exited the building and blew it up. Y/n met with Natasha at the hotel room.

"what the fuck were you thinking!? You nearly got me killed. Your pathetic attacks were useless! We could if failed because of you. Let alone you jumping at me!? And where are you stupid daggers huh!? I never even saw a blade in your hands!"

Natasha screamed. Y/n was tired and bleeding. Littlest did Natasha realise was y/n had take a bullet for natasha. Had she not jumped at Natasha she would if died. But all Natasha was doing was yelling at y/n for saving her life. No. She had enough.

"I jumped at you to take a goddamn bullet!"

Y/n finally gestured to the bleeding wound in her chest. Natasha shit up but before she could speak y/n began to yell this time.

"and the reason I didn't pull out my daggers was because I didn't have an opening to! I saved your stupid life and what I get is being screamed at!? I've tried so hard to get to where I am now. And you daddies girl comments sting y'know. And if you knew jackshit you'd know that my father left my mother for another woman a year ago. Even before that he hardly acknowledged my existence! I have tried so hard to be good at this but I can't! I'm just sad all the time. I struggle to get out of bed. Yet I try to keep you and the other Avengers happy because I don't want to bring down high spirits! Maybe this was a mistake and that being an avenger was a shit decision but I enjoy it! Or I did."

Y/n finished her rant and then looked at a shell shocked Natasha. The y/n pulled out her bloody daggers.

"and those non existent daggers are here."

Natasha now stared at the daggers. Then she eyed the bullet wound.

"i.. I'm sorry. I didn't know."

She said almost shakily.

"no. You didn't know. You don't bother to know. To know Ive been miserable near you. I've thought about self harming before but you have nearly made me actually do it! And y'know what. Maybe I should. Just to relieve the pain you cause me!"

Y/n shouted. Natasha looked scared at the mention of self harm.

"don't do that. Don't even think of that. Please I'm sorry. I didnt... I'm sorry. I am truly sorry."

Natasha said. Concern was written all over natashas face as tears streamed down y/n's. Natasha stepped forward.

"Please dont, cut yourself..."

Natasha begged. Y/n looked away.

"it's just so hard.. you making comments. Being judged about the fact I won't show my daggers because I'm not ready to face the fact that if I show them I'll need to say who gave them to me and then that leads to grandma's death.. I cant. I can't admit she's gone because if she is then I'm lost.."

Y/n practically sobbs. Natashas eyes widen at your explanation of why you refused to show your daggers. Natasha then wrapped y/n in a hug.

"I'm sorry. I was just jealous. I thought you had a privileged childhood and got everything you needed and was upset because that privilege was taken from me. I'm so sorry. I never meant to take effect in you like I did."

Natasha whispered. Y/n simply leaned into Natasha's arms.

The rest of that night was filled with, Crying, hugs, admitting troubles and making up. The two women then became friends and returned to the compound as such. They proceeded to confuse the fuck out of the other Avengers as they had departed basically enemies and now y/n and Natasha were arm in arm. Natasha explained everything and y/n was taken to therapy. Things soon got better. And eventually Natasha and y/n grew into more than friends.

A/n: the ending is shit but I didn't know how else to do it. (I redid it like 20 times). Lmk if it's shit or not. Not that I care this is just me emotion dumping lol.

#natasha romanoff #natasha romanoff x reader #natasha x you #black widow #natasha x y/n #natasha romanoff x fem!reader #black widow x reader #wanda maximoff #avengers x reader #the avengers #mcu #steve rogers #kate bishop #yelena belova

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just-another-star-47 · 5 months ago

Text

The next MC I wanted to draw is Damien Evans from @theladyofshalott1989 because firstly she is one of the most lovely and kind hearted people I met in this fandom and secondly because Damien is a well crafted and thought-out character, that I hope to get to know even better, by reading his story.

While sketching I had a lot of time to reflect on certain things, think about what I read and I want to share some of these thoughts.

I always thought, the main reason why I never came across drama regarding my person was, that I'm not that big and only interact with posts from people I hold dearly to my heart.

But to be honest, now thinking about it, it's probably because of what I write as well. Over a year ago, I started to create f!MCxSebastian snippets, because at that time I found huge comfort in it (still do). It helped me to write Sebastian as my personal comfort character and find some sort of healing in the interactions I wrote with him.

Even though I write more for the love of the world and characters now, there is still some kind of healing process in it, using my MC as an abstraction of my own trauma.

But that's not the point. The point is: I want everyone to be able to seek comfort in the HL characters and their world by creating things that benefits them. And it makes me sick, that because of some ignoramuses some people are kept from experiences this. Everyone deserves to create MCs to their liking, write stories to their liking, just create to their hearts desire. To heal, to find comfort, to have fun.

What kind of person are you, to want to take that away from someone, just because you personally don't like it?

A fandom should be about listening to each other, accepting that everyone deals with life differently and enjoys different things. I think the HL fandom is rather small, which could be such a good opportunity to create a safe space, to connect easily and lift each other up.

It's not for making other people feel bad because your own life is shitty right now and you're unhappy with yourself. In that case: write, draw, create, go to therapy. Do something to change yourself and leave other people alone. You're welcome again, if you are able to reflect on your behaviour and show empathy. Unless then, get out!

#hogwarts legacy #hogwarts legacy mc #hogwarts legacy fandom #this needed to be said #damien evans #ri draws your mc #ri draws

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definitelynotafurinasimp · 2 years ago

Note

Hu tao , Amber and Kujo Sara with an innocent looking s/o when in battle they ace crazy and ruthless like Akechi in persona 5 royal when showing his true personality

Since I can't exactly make a post with 9 characters, I'm just picking the two I can think of something to write

Them with an innocent looking reader that turns out to be a merciless fighter

characters: Kujou Sara / Yelan x gn!reader (separate)

warnings: mentions of blood, although nothing graphic, reader commits some... rather over the top acts of "not exactly being goofy" (I mean, cmon, you can't expect them being the sanest of the bunch when they're compared to goro akechi)

a/n: Idk if you planned on sending me this request the moment I was done with p5r, but I have to applause you for the timeing.

Also, I'm so sorry for those people finding out about akechi not exactly being like he seems through this request, Idk how to hide the spoiler in the ask.

Anyway, hope you enjoy!

Kujou Sara

Sara knew how trouble looked, she had to deal with it on an almost daily basis with that oni running after her, demanding a rematch even though the winner was already clear, but whenever she looked at you, she saw a person that wouldn’t be able to harm a fly. And while she would never dare to say it out loud, looking at you always put her mind at ease, the same way others might have relaxed when seeing a cute dog doing nothing but existing.

So when she heard about how the road you frequently took was being blocked by a couple of thugs, her first instinct was to assemble a group as quickly as possible and try to clear it out before something were to happen to you, only to arrive just in time to watch you beating them into submission and seemingly enjoying every last second of it.

“...y/n?”, Sara couldn’t help but utter your name, completely dumbfounded by what she had just witnessed, only for you to dust off your clothes and turn to her with the same innocent smile you always wore.

“Oh, hey Sara! What are you doing here?”, you asked after noticing the other soldiers who looked just as surprised as their general, all of them having known you for a long enough time to have felt certain of your nature.

“Oh my- Sorry that you have to see me in this state, my clothes are completely dirty… I don’t know if I’ll be able to get the stains out of this- they just had to offer a fight on the one day I decided to dress in my favorite clothes…”, you apologized after following her stare back to your bloodied clothes, letting out a frustrated sigh as you inspected your shirt.

“That’s not- How- D-doesn’t matter. I’m just glad you’re unharmed”, the general’s voice betrayed her shock, only for her to quickly regain her composure.

Seeing you escape unharmed was a huge relief, even if she would be lying if she said what she saw wasn’t at least somewhat worrying…

…what worried her more however, was that her heart skipped a beat or two while watching you show such strength.

Yelan

Yelan, being Yelan, didn’t need long to find out about your… change in behaviour when embroiled in a fight. After all, she couldn’t call herself an expert at reading people if she couldn’t even figure out someone this close to her.

Luckily for you, she quickly figured out that you going rogue only ever happened when you were attacked and never when you started a fight, causing her to confidently put you into the “no harm for innocent” box.

It also had the added upside of basically having a guard dog with her on every mission who didn’t hesitate for even a second to throw themself at any criminal stupid enough to try and harm her, and sure, while she would have been easily able to handle them herself, Yelan was the last person that would complain about not having to do something tiring.

“That’s enough”, Yelan finally put an end to your ‘advanced method of self-defense’, causing you to immediately get up, leaving the treasure hoarder to solemnly reflect on his decision to threaten you. That was if he was still conscious. “I need him to answer my questions later”, she explained further after seeing you send her a questioning look, her, as usual, mysterious voice refusing to betray any emotions.

As she bent down to inspect the person lying on the floor, you finally managed to calm yourself down, feeling the usual mix of shock and disappointment as you looked down at your knuckles, sighing as you looked for a bit of water to wash them, before making your way back, scooping the criminal up and taking his weapon, which by now laid several feet away from him, in case it could be used as evidence or something of those sorts.

“I know he began it by threatening us, but I can easily handle a dozen of them on my own, so at least try to refrain yourself from going overboard next time. The last thing we need is for word about a mysterious figure beating up people in the middle of night”, she told you off, only for you to nod as you continued to look down, causing Yelan to put on a soft smile.

“Good, now let’s get this done and over with. I have a pair of new dice and you look like just the right person to test them with.”

#sara is a simp for stronk people. That's a hill I'm ready to die on #kujou sara x reader #kujou sara x you #kujou sara x y/n #kujou sara #yelan x reader #yelan x you #yelan x y/n #yelan

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my-coven-is-claudia · 2 years ago

Text

Katelyn has BPD analysis

i love psychoanalysing my favourite characters whenever i am currently questioning my own mental state.

disclaimer!!

this is based off extensive research,, the people in my life who deal with this condition and my own personal experience. i very much doubt jess intended any of this but once i began to notice the dots connecting when it comes to katelyn’s behaviour and common symptoms of bpd my brain had to make this post.

i aim to have be as accurate as possible with the resources and knowledge i have at my disposal about bpd. if you wish to add anything or believe i’ve said anything inaccurate please feel free to say!

so finally,, without further ado…

1. causes

“If you get a BPD diagnosis you're more likely than most people to have had difficult or traumatic experiences growing up, such as […] losing a parent” - Mind.org

in her early years,, katelyn’s mother left her and the rest of her family,, leaving them poverty stricken and in a single-parent household. losing a parent in any context can be deeply traumatic,, especially if the child does not have the right support systems and/or has to fill the role of the parent themselves. losing an attachment figure can increase a child’s poor psychological well-being,, changes in behaviour and mental health issues. although we don’t have much information,, losing her mother most definitely negatively affected katelyn. this is amplified by the fact this happened roughly during her preteens where a parent’s death is more likely to have a significant effect as the child and parent would have developed a close bond by then.

with what information we have on how elizabeth’s disappearance specifically affected katelyn suggests that there was a refusal to move on. it is said that she would throw tantrums whenever her father planned to be with another woman. this shows that katelyn was likely one of the most affected out of her entire family by this trauma; whilst the rest of her family attempted to move on with their lives katelyn was still stuck in the moment where she first learned that her mother was gone. she was stuck in the trauma. a fear of abandonment was instilled in her and her father disrupting the walls she had made would throw her into a state of distress. witnessing her father treat other women the same way he treated elizabeth possibly even triggered a return of the past trauma of losing her mother.

katelyn describes these episodes as “tantrums” a common way to phrase bpd episodes when the person experiencing them is undiagnosed. without the proper tools to address and control these episodes katelyn likely was left to process it all herself. this would have added to her complex trauma as a mishandling of an episode can also be a form of trauma. having no idea why not only your mind but your body is having such a violent reaction and your cry for help is being met with even more mishandling only leads to the problem becoming worse. if you struggle with any kind of mental disorder and your symptoms aren’t being questioned this will negatively affect you. these outbursts are usually cries for help in some way or another and them being simply ignored only digs the hole deeper.

with all this said katelyn does state that she eventually overcame her grief and was able to move on. we see that the grief over elizabeth’s disappearance does not affect her nearly as much as it once did as an adolescent and is no longer debilitating. but at what cost?

2. emotional instability

“If you have BPD, you may experience a range of often intense negative emotions” - NHS official website

one of katelyn’s most defining traits is her intense emotions,, usually extreme anger. in the early seasons of mystreet we see her snap and become easily irritated with people,, even with her friends. when she displays emotions such as panic or rage it is always extreme. furthermore,, violence is usually the next step as she regularly threatens the people around her and even sometimes goes through with it.

an important note to make is that those who struggle with bpd are not inherently violent. not in any sense of the word. however,, this does not mean people with bpd cannot be violent,, whether this is a byproduct of their bpd or something else. katelyn is someone who i think is violent because of her intense emotions brought on by bpd. she is not equipped enough to deal with these and consequently,, let’s it out on other people. no one has questioned why she acts like this and so she doesn’t find an issue with it. her problematic behaviour has been so normalised and the people around her are seemingly used to it,, aphmau and nana mostly notably so.

Nana: “Oooh you know Katelyn~Sama… she just likes to get in a snarky remark. She does that… a lot… to our customers at the restaurant.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 1

nana and aphmau do not take any notice of katelyn’s behaviour,, simply brushing it off as her being well - katelyn. this shows that she’s been like this for the majority of her life,, long enough for her two closest friends to consider it normal. her knee-jerk reaction is defensiveness and fury and it’s a habit that goes deep and is ingrained into her.

it is deep in her veins,, so intrinsically a part of her being that she cannot be separated from it; the people around her quite literally solely associate her with wrath. this passive acceptance of this toxic trait likely enables her behaviour,, preventing her from healing. although she mentions that she does meditation it cannot replace actual professional help. she doesn’t appear to have enough self awareness to keep herself in check that she ends up hurting others in an irreversible way. but that’s for later on.

another example of her extreme emotions is her anxiety.

Katelyn: “Do you not remember high-school? I always freak out before tests.”

Travis: “Oh yeah. But you usually passed so why worry now?”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 23

although anxiety over exams is common, travis points out that katelyn has been repeatedly successful in tests so this worry seems to be a lot more like paranoia than simple nervousness. katelyn feels like her whole world is ending and is completely frazzled.

Katelyn: “There’s no way I can [calm down]. The test is in 10 minutes - I need more time.”

no amount of rationalising will make the situation any less stressful for her. she only experiences in extremes; in terror and alarm and not simply nervousness and worry. on top of this,, she doesn’t appear to have any proper coping mechanisms for this outside of meditation. no grounding method. no breathing technique. she either lashes out or freezes up. for a character who when it comes to picking between fight or flight usually chooses fight she has a pattern of being so overwhelmed by her emotions that she cannot function. her brain’s rationality is drowned out by anger,, anxiety,, sadness whatever she’s dealing with and all that is left is pure instinct.

3. impulsive behaviour

“Impulsivity is regarded as a clinical, diagnostic and pathophysiological hallmark of borderline personality disorder” - PubMed.gov

impulsivity in the context of bpd is thought as usually being something of the like of drug misuse or unprotected,, risky sex. however,, it can also present as less extreme actions (although still harmful) like binge-eating or going on a spending-spree. impulsivity in someone with bpd goes deeper than individual reckless actions and can affect the personality of the person. for example,, maybe they’re charismatic and charming or dramatic and seek thrilling activities. this all can actually be tied back to lower impulse control.

i bring this up because although we don’t see katelyn acting impulsive much,, her true symptoms may be more clear in her personality and this does happen in those with bpd. for example,, katelyn is playful with her friends and has flirted with quite a few people. her flirtatious behaviour doesn’t seem to hold much meaning,, however,, usually being meaningless. this kind of attitude to love and relationships is an example of how reckless behaviour in bpd can affect someone’s personality and day-to-day life. in episode 31 after a chaotic string of events due to zane and aphmau faking a relationship whilst zianna visits,, katelyn ends up stepping in and lies about her and aph being in a relationship and even goes as far as being willing to kiss her. all of this is obviously in jest but that is the key issue here. to katelyn it is a joke,, nothing serious. she appears to be much more comfortable with the idea of romance and intimacy than having a genuine and raw connection with someone.

in this episode once zianna is told this lie by katelyn she encourages katelyn and aphmau to kiss. aphmau is flustered and is made even more distressed than she already is whilst katelyn immediately leans into it.

Katelyn: “Well, if you insist.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 31

again all of this is casual but the fact that she gives less than a second of thought before agreeing to this clearly implies how lightly she takes the situation. it’s superficial at most. not in the way that she has no desire for intimacy but more so that she doesn’t view it with the same meaning and significance as someone else would. as a result,, this leads to her impulsivity.

this recklessness,, especially when it comes to romance,, comes to a climax when katelyn kisses travis in an attempt to prove a point to lucinda.

Katelyn: “Because he doesn’t deserve a kiss from you. Plus you’re terrible at kissing.”

Lucinda: “Excuse me but I am amazing at kissing… because I have a potion for that.”

Katelyn: “Pft let me show you how it’s done.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 34

katelyn promptly kisses travis and doesn’t realise the implications of what’s she’s done until a good few seconds later. in response to travis reading the kiss as a declaration of love she immediately punches him and runs off,, denying any meaning behind the kiss. she doesn’t realise the implications of what she’s done until it’s laid out right in front of her.

a lot of her impulsive actions seem to be done to prove herself or a distraction from reality. when egged on to prove her confidence or superiority in some way she lunges at the opportunity. she doesn’t critically think about the effects this may have on others or the general aftermath. if it seems like fun to her she won’t hesitate to do it. this ties into her general lack of care for other’s feelings in these situations. when she pretends to be aphmau’s partner and when she kisses travis she causes both of them to be flustered,, clearly not thinking about how her words/actions affect those around her. although these instances are not severe she shows a pattern of disregarding people’s feelings. she isn’t self centred per say but her impulsiveness leads her to not register the severity of what’s she’s doing. not until it slaps in her the face.

4. intense and unstable relationships

“To split something means to divide it. Those with BPD tend to characterize themselves, other people, and situations in black and white.”

- healthline.com

splitting is when a person with bpd alternates between extremes of idealization or devaluation. the key part of this is the exaggerated and rapid change in perception of a person or situation. this usually applies to relationships,, causing the person with bpd to have a distorted view of their partner,, seeing them only in the best or worst possible light. sometimes this derives from projection,, pushing their negative view of themself onto their partner. this black and white can destroy relationships as the person with bpd is consumed by their distorted thinking whilst their partner is left in the dust.

katelyn exhibits this black and white thinking very clearly. she antagonises people like zane,, refusing to get to know him and disregarding any possible positives about him. in contrast,, she adores her friends like aphmau,, thinking only good of her and defending her at every chance. she clings onto quick-second first impressions of people and doesn’t let go even when she’s been proved wrong. very rarely does she feel neutral towards someone,, either loving them and showering them in praise or despising and only thinking the worst of them.

this is shown when aphmau asks her to be nicer to zane and she refuses to change her stance.

Katelyn: “Um.. I think you already know the answer to that. You know he and Jeffory don’t get along and Jeffory is my friend. So no.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 15

even if she may not have a negative experience with someone personally if someone she trusts and values doesn’t like someone she will automatically share that same opinion.

this kind of black and white thinking doesn’t appear to massively negatively affect her relationships as she appears to have enough rationality to keep her thoughts to herself. however,, this awareness that good and bad can exist together in one seems to falter when it comes to her relationship with travis.

from the moment that katelyn meets travis her view of him is engulfed him in negativity

Katelyn: “I also bet you didn’t know what pain was until I-“

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 15

in their very first interaction katelyn punches him. without any thought or remorse she just hits him. however,, this first instance of abuse is somewhat understandable as he approached her by flirting which reasonably and justifiably upset her. travis is the one mainly in the wrong in this situation,, even if his flirting is mostly humorous.

what appears to anger katelyn specifically in this context is that nana appears to be ignorant to travis’s inappropriate behaviour.

Nana: “Katelyn-sama that’s not nice. Travis has a broken heart and needs more chocolate!”

Katelyn: “How blind are you Kawaii~Chan? He’s just trying to smooth talk you!”

this passive reaction to travis’s behaviour is a pattern throughout the series. no one particularly appears to have a problem with his comments or flirting. but katelyn does. everyone else doesn’t feel uncomfortable around travis and her friends expect her to feel the same. her discomfort around travis is undermined and minimised again and again,, played off as a joke.

an instance of this is when in an attempt to distract katelyn,, lucinda teleports travis into her home.

Travis: “Oh- what the- where am I? I was just about to take a shower and… heyyy Katelyn.”

Katelyn: “What the- Travis?! Lucinda you said….”

Lucinda: “I said I wasn’t going to use any spells on you. You said nothing about a teleportation spell. Oh, and don’t bother to smack Travis I put a temporary spell on him to prevent physical injury.”

- Mystreet Season 1: Episode 28

this is presented as lighthearted fun between katelyn and lucinda. just another instance of two friends trying to annoy each other. very clearly,, katelyn wants nothing to do with travis,, even despising his presence but she is forced into the same room as him repeatedly whilst all her friends laugh at her. it’s no surprise that she reacts with violence.

this is in no way to excuse her actions but her abuse towards him grows more and more extreme because she’s being constantly taunted by those around her. her own friends push her buttons with no regard for how she feels and treat her like a rag-doll. both travis and her have been pushed onto a stage,, all eyes on them and forced to play caricatures of themselves. the only difference is that whilst travis appears to live off the attention katelyn cracks under it. she smashes to the ground and shatters into a million different pieces. and they all aim towards travis.

where katelyn’s behaviour veers off from being simply weirded out by travis to physical assault and abuse is when she starts taking out all her of anger on him and him only. it goes from her only hitting him when he flirts with her to when he even utters a word.

this is why her behaviour is so toxic because it seems she begins to want to hurt him for merely existing. she already has a history of allowing this black and white thinking to harm those around her,, even those she cares about,, and her own self-destruction turns into destruction of others. too blinded by her own anguish and suffering,, she doesn’t realise her wrongs and that she’s hurting people.

why she likely doesn’t see her mistakes is because she’s been told all her life that she’s dramatic and overreacts. as i said previously the mystreet cast brushes off travis’s harassment and pushes katelyn to be in situations with him. despite what her friends say,, she doesn’t believe that she’s in the wrong to be suspicious of him and stands her ground. but that doesn’t mean their words don’t affect her. her friends’ lack of understanding worsens katelyn’s mental state as she feels misunderstood by her own friends. this leads her to grow suspicious of them and ignore them. at every turn she’s told that’s she overly aggressive and no one attempts to even comfort her or try to understand why she doesn’t like travis.

on one occasion when she displays this distrust she is only met with mockery.

Lucinda: “I assure you it wasn’t any potion I used.”

Mystreet Season 1: Episode 25

on the surface this may not appear that malicious but it’s the fact that this isn’t the first time someone has brushed off katelyn’s concerns is what likely pushed her over the edge. cutting back to when travis first moved in nana does not listen to katelyn and defends him.

Nana: “Katelyn-sama that’s not nice. Travis has a broken heart and needs more chocolate!”

Mystreet Season 1: Episode 15

but despite her seeming hatred for travis katelyn is revealed to actually like him. sprinkled through season 1 and 2 katelyn is shown to have some sweet,, soft moments with travis; moments where her perception alters and it appears that she tolerates at him and at times is even… fond of him.

this is called splitting.

this flip-flopping between hating and loving travis is not due to her discomfort being an ‘act’ or her being ‘dramatic’ instead it is as a result of her own distorted thinking. most of the time she only views travis in absolute negativity and disgust. even when she appears to tolerate to him she treats him coldly and considers him with suspicion.

Travis: “H-Hey Katelyn, these flowers are for you.”

Katelyn: “Oh… thanks.”

Travis: “Y-You looks beautiful….”

Katelyn: “What’s wrong with you?!”

Travis: “Why, can’t a guy be nice?”

Katelyn: “No suggestive remarks? No trying to get close with me? No looking at my butt?”

Mystreet Season 1: Episode 25

however,, as per the nature of splitting,, there are times where she thinks the complete opposite of him. during season two when travis suddenly appears katelyn initially regards him with a lot more care and kindness,, especially after shoving him off from atop a building.

Katelyn: “Travis, you really worried me.”

Mystreet Season 2: Episode 7

this drastic change is a clear indication of splitting and its effects. in a very short amount of time katelyn goes from completely despising him to seemingly harbouring romantic feelings for him. this juxtaposition only confuses travis and worsens their relationship as katelyn continues to stick to her black and white view of him,, without any communication.

this all comes to a climax at the end of season two where travis finally confronts katelyn for her mistreatment of him. travis admits his own faults and puts out a hand to katelyn,, asking for a fresh start between them. all that is left is for katelyn to own up to her mistakes too.

Conclusion

do i think all of this was intentional? no. do i think it’s a justification or excuse for katelyn’s toxic and abuse behaviour? definitely no. am i emotionally drained after writing all of this? yes

hope you enjoyed reading !

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ririnya7 · 3 months ago

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VegasPete Deep Deep Dive

I'm still trying to understand why I am so obsessed with VegasPete after watching KP and I think it's the unbreakable bond they develop the more Pete is held captive.

This is in chronological order and very self indulgent so bear with me

This bond is not new. The minor and main family are forever going to be tied together no matter the hostility and vendetta they harbour for each other. So it's only natural that somehow in some form Pete was inevitably going to be interacting with Vegas.

Unfortunately for Pete it happened when Vegas was able to capture him. Suspiciously easily one might say.

So there was a level of acknowledgement and awareness from Pete of what might have happened to him. He told as much to Kinn before the mission. Pete was ready for any consequences that might have come from this mission. He was ready to die for the main family. Which is why he's laughing all the way through his torture. He thinks all of this suffering and humiliation will end soon.

What he was not ready for however was being kept selfishly alive by his captor. Vegas was admittedly having too much fun with the main family's pet as he names him. He wants to break Pete both mentally and physically to make a point. He wants tangible proof in the face of Pete that the main family is crumbling and full of disloyal pawns. He's done it before with Tawan and Ken, he could do it again.

But then Gun breaks the façade Vegas had so carefully constructed for himself. He humiliates him in front of his newfound experiment and their fate is sealed. From this moment on there's no turning back. Vegas has to make a choice and with his pride on the line he decides to keep Pete alive going against his father's orders and thus prolong his suffering.

Pete has no choice but to analyse Vega's behaviour and endure. From here on out we see Vega's vulnerabilities out in the open, his fragile state made clear for Pete to see who is solely focused on his own survival. Vegas is intent on playing mind games with Pete through humiliation (comparing him to his pet) and through hope. Pete seizes an elaborate opportunity and tries to escape but fails to realise it was a trap and gets recaptured.

Later we see Vega's reading A Childhood's End by Arthur C. Clarke which showcases his boyish and inquisitive nature at first glance but for me the book choice has a deeper meaning.

This book is science fiction (this is taken from wiki): the "story follows the peaceful alien invasion of Earth by the mysterious Overlords, whose arrival begins decades of apparent utopia under indirect alien rule, at the cost of human identity and culture."

And the premise of the book feels weird for a character like Vegas at first. Why would the cruel son of a syndicate read about aliens of all things?

For me it's an analogy for the relationship of VegasPete as a whole. Vegas strips Pete's will out of him in the most brutal and violent way (just like the Overlords) and Pete can do nothing about it but accept Vega's terms and survive even at the cost of his own humanity.

This might be a stretch but I also feel like it's a nod at Vegas lost childhood because of his father seeing as their scene where the book is shown is during a fight with his father.

And there's a clear pattern happening here. Vegas gets berated by his father and he reacts by lashing out at his frustration on Pete. Pete is his literal punching bag. Vegas even goes so far to expect and demand Pete's pity and mirth at seeing Vegas so distraught by his father. He wants Pete to acknowledge his pain even at the cost of his own humiliation.

That doesn't happen though because Pete's injuries are finally catching up to him. Vegas realises he's unresponsive and in an unprecedented show of empathy he nurses him back to health.

Vegas wants to keep his human pet alive for a little longer, the bond being shown clearly now. He doesn't want to end this sick relationship he has forced upon them so he changes tactics.

He takes care of him in an uncharacteristic way for him. He wants to make Pete trust him. When Pete rightfully doesn't, he goes out of his way to prove he's not poisoning him with a very unconventional approach.

They slowly seem to create a connection between them. Vegas comes in Pete's prison cell battered and bruised, showing the abuse from his father to Pete allowing himself to be vulnerable with him only. Pete in turn does feel for Vegas' pain and worries for him, the cycle of violence making sense to him now.

As the relationship grows more liberties are allowed for Pete. Seeing as Vegas has no interest in torturing him anymore he gets bored and reads a book that describes personalities based on blood types. When Pete describes Vegas' personality based on his pet hedgehog as weak and vulnerable, Vegas gets mad, his amicable persona switching in an instant.

Now the hedgehog as a pet is be an indication on Vegas' state. He has a thorny exterior, the one he likes to parade around especially near the main family but also a soft underbelly that he shows only to the people he trusts enough to retreat his spikes.

And on that note, the hedgehog falls ill. Vegas tells Pete there are no guards around to take him to a vet and Pete snatches the opportunity to escape, taking advantage of Vegas' distraught state. But as he leaves he sees Vegas holding the little creature dead in his lap.

Despite everything Vegas has put him through he decides to stay and even helps him bury the pet. Vegas is clearly mourning the loss of yet another pet and Pete listens attentively to Vegas' story. He grieves the loss of his pet but also his fate as the minor family's eldest son. His father seems to be his biggest thorn at his side but also the most important person in his life wanting desperately to prove himself to him. There's anger and frustration that leads to self infliction and Pete tries to help Vegas through his emotions.

Vegas then switches his demeanor yet again into a more seductive one. He claims Pete enjoys seeing him get moody and that he's clearly attracted as well but won't do anything without consent. Pete answers by kissing him and they end up having safe sex, which is impressive considering how unsafe their dynamic has been all throughout.

Pete however realises that he wasn't all that consenting to having sex with Vegas. Whether it was out of an instinct of survival or actual attraction we don't know and it matters not at this point. Pete is desperate to free himself of Vegas'shackles both the emotional and the literal ones on his wrists.

Later Vegas' father hits him again and Pete notices. The pattern is clear once again, their dynamics set. Pete tries to comfort him and naively convince him to side with the main family. Vegas gets offended and switches his mood again to an aggressive one, one Pete is too familiar with by now. Pete asks to be killed by Vegas and Vegas complies at first pushing a knife at his throat, aiming to scare the other.

Pete has every intent to leave his prison one way or another, dead or alive and he tells as much to Vegas. He grabs the knife from Vegas ready to use it on himself and Vegas visibly panics at seeing Pete lose his carefully maintained composure he had until this moment. He begs for Vegas to see him as a human for once and free him but Vegas is too stubborn and selfish to let Pete go. Vegas claims to need Pete, begs him not to leave him and even apologizes. He's trying everything but freeing his captor which is Pete's one and only request.

Vegas agrees to release his restraints but begs Pete to stay with him and start over. They share an emotional kiss which Pete uses as a distraction to strike Vegas and finally make his escape not before apologising to an unconscious Vegas feeling the guilt of betraying him immediately.

And he escapes. And everything changes. Nothing is as it was, not for Pete and not for Vegas. Are those feelings love or a toxic coedependent relationship that they both formed in the worst of conditions?

#3am ramblings #vegas kornwit theerapanyakun #vegaspete #kinnporche the series #kinnporsche #thai bl #thai series

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jemmo · 1 year ago

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actually, the more of sit with it, i do have things to say about only friends

the more and more i see people talking about how much they love boston and how unfair they think his ending was, the more i think it’s actually a very interesting and, for me at least, a good and interesting way to tell a story, even if the writers really didn’t intend it. i think it’s interesting in such a morally grey show to have the show end with this condemnation of the most technically morally wrong person, to have it ultimately ‘conform’ to what is thought of as the correct morality. bc i think it’s interesting that we all can overwhelming agree that we don’t agree with it, bc i think it says a lot about how people who are willing and open-minded and able to look at things both objectively and with humanity and kindness can agree that what other people who just look at acts and behaviours isolated from everything else and subscribe to normalised values wanted and got from this ending is not what we wanted or think is right. bc i think it’s very interesting who we and the characters in the show are quick to forgive and who we aren’t. take Boston and top. they say mew forgave top bc top put in all this work and effort to make it right and earn forgiveness, but in that what he actually did was fight for that image of normality back. he is the rescued promiscuous bad boy who was fixed by settling down and finding happiness, and we can agree and think that’s right bc just generally thats the expected aim and he did it. boston on the other hand wasn’t ‘fixed’. he didn’t settle down, he didn’t become monogamous, he didn’t change, and so we punish him. but did he really not change?? if you recall, top had that emotional scene last week when he told mew he’d suffered enough, but when i saw boston in this ep at their gathering, so quiet and reserved and down, i thought back to early boston and all his confidence and bravado and self-assurance. now tell me this guy has not changed. but we just don’t see it, nor do we value it, bc in fact it’s not a good change. this guy is still suffering, he has been for a while, and while we are so quick to forgive top or ray’s actions through this show bc of their trauma that’s shown to us, do we ever once think that while not trauma, boston might have his reasons, things that have happened to him, the ways he feels, that make him act like this?? and if they were explained by some single trauma, would we more easily forgive him?? i can’t stop thinking about this, about his secret room, his secret passions, his secret identity, all these things he’s made to hide bc of who his family is. and then i think of this tendency for him to try and hold onto people while being messy and promiscuous, hiding the way he truly is, the way he truly wants to love bc he’s afraid that the people he cares for don’t love the same way he does and can’t handle it. which is fine, not everyone can, but it’s precisely bc not everyone can and those people that can are harder to find that he feels the need to keep stringing people along with what’s expected of a relationship while still giving in to the other side of him that doesn’t want monogamy. and when i think about that, i can see why he treated nick the way he did, keeping him hooked with the promise of promises that he could never keep bc it’s not who he is, and while it’s still shit for nick to be treated that way, boston can still only keep hanging the promise of more in front of him so that he can keep him around whilst also reducing his guilt where he can by not making any grand promises.

in the end, the show rewarded those who chose their partners and only them, who settled into monogamous relationships full of love, and bc of those endings, all those precious wrongs get to be erased, they get to start fresh, to begin again. but bc of who boston is, he is left to always feel like he is in the wrong. he’s always been gay, and that’s something he’s never been able to fully show or own bc of his family, and something deep inside of him has been made to feel that both that and not wanting monogamy are wrong, so please story, tell me, how else is he supposed to act?? how else is he supposed to end?? why do we just leave him to feel continually condemned for not being the norm?? and what really got to me was when nick said i think you’d be better off alone, or something to that effect. bc i think it’s wholly not true, and while i get what he meant coming from him, someone that’s always wanted complete monogamy from him and ultimately has to face that he’ll never get it and move on from his feelings, i don’t think it’s true. we’ve seen boston alone. it’s where he is now. and he is not happy. that’s the thing, he’s not meant to be alone, he’s meant to be understood. he’s meant to be treated with the same humanity and kindness that we’ve treated all these other people that have done bad things. just bc he can’t own who he is in the correct way, bc he’s never been allowed to, that doesn’t mean we should just give up and resign him to this life. why is there no one there around him willing to fight for him?? to find out who he truly is where he can’t, and tell him that that’s ok, and that he can do it, he doesn’t have to do it by these means that hurt people, that he can be who he is and cause no harm, bc everyone can be on the same page and choose to be up for it or not. and why is no one around him willing to be that voice of reassurance that says no matter how bad or messy your romantic or sexual relationships are, i will still be here as your friend, bc i value and understand you. bc maybe that’s the presence he really needs in order to explore his romantic and sexual wants in a more open and healthy way. and maybe his actions in this show perfectly are perfectly explained by him himself. he says it to mew, I didn’t do it to hurt you, i just didn’t care. he has never been that purposefully malicious, his actions are just like that bc he’s never learnt to deal with how he’s feeling in a better way. he’s lived his life not caring, detached from relationships bc it’s too hard to find one that works in the way that works for him, and detached from his friends bc they never understood him either, and so he was never able to fully care about them bc they didn’t truly care about him either. they wrote him off from ep 1 the way everyone else did, the ‘hunter’, the whore, the playboy. and we saw him making some progress with nick bc nick did love him, but ultimately bc he didn’t reciprocate nick’s feelings in the way nick wanted him to, he was left alone again. we see it with him just as we saw it with atom, this repeated story of people falling in love with him and when they can’t have all of him, they don’t want any of him. and the way he’s compartmentalised his self worth from these experiences is sex. he can’t offer people complete monogamy so he offers sex, he derives his sense of self from it. bc that’s the thing he is fine with sharing, that he wants to share. he can’t offer romance bc whoever he gives it to, as we see with nick, will ultimately leave him when they can’t get everything else.

so just ask yourself this, if someone understood and loved boston bc that’s the way they were too, or were truthfully ok with him sleeping with other people, and he loved them back, do you think he’d act the same? and do you think we’d see him the same? would we still think his behaviour is bad? would we persecute him the same? or would we celebrate them the same way we celebrate topmew and sandray? the thing is the show won’t give him that bc the show is rewarding monogamy, but it’s worth thinking about if you are one of the people that think boston got the ending he deserved. why do we forgive and explain away the bad behaviour of the other couples bc we can write it off as ‘they did it bc they love each other’, but we can’t do it for boston when the explanation is ‘he did it bc he can’t love himself’. and it’s all rather ironic that we can celebrate nick coming to find self-worth and self-love through boston, but we don’t grieve the fact that boston couldn’t do the same for himself. when of everyone, he’s the one that is, and should, and deserves to begin again, go to a place that doesn’t know his behaviour only through its infamy as dangerous and uncaring, but will evaluate it of their own accord. maybe then, he’ll find the right people he needs in his life, and he can be on his way to feeling like he can treat himself a little more kindly.

#god if you’d told me when this show started that I’d be writing such a sappy emotional defence of Boston I wouldn’t believe you #i just think he’s such a neat and interesting and important character to have in this space #bc even if the show didn’t tell us explicitly #we as viewers can see that this character deserves more than what he was given #and it can drive us to open up to how other people want to live instead of persecuting it #and I’m glad to know there are people out there that see it too it makes me have a little more faith in humanity #anyway boston is just great I’m so glad he exists and I’m so glad we all came to care for him #only friends

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whypolar · 11 months ago

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Gundam Unicorn OVA 5: The Black Unicorn

This is the first time watching one of these where I came out of it unambiguously preferring the novel. I guess it's only fair, after OVA 4 was such an improvement on the source material.

There's nothing particularly objectionable about it, to be clear. It just didn't meet the high expectations the previous episodes had given me. I'd been very impressed by how they never left me disappointed when the credits rolled, and it's a shame to lose that streak.

This was probably inevitable. Unless the narrative is deliberately on a small scale�� think War in the Pocket— I tend to prefer my Gundam in a longer format. Seven film-length OVAs were never going to be able to cover everything I would want.

It's hard holding off on researching the production until I finish all the episodes. I'm so curious about what limitations they were working under and the motivations behind various choices.

As always, novel excerpts in this post have been sourced from the English fan translation hosted on Baka-Tsuki, with my own (clearly marked) edits to smooth out grammar or correct any particularly obvious deviations from the Japanese text.

The fan translation is very rough, and I'm not any kind of expert. If you're interested in any of the quotes, I encourage you to do your own research and look at the original text!

(Previous posts: Day of the Unicorn, The Second Coming of Char, The Ghost of Laplace, At the Bottom of the Gravity Well)

Surprisingly, a significant part of what I found disappointing was the visuals. The production values up to this point have been incredibly high, so it just feels wrong for such an intense battle from the book to get scaled back.

Some of this is just a consequence of moving the attack on Torrington to Loni's episode, but not all of it. The fights on the Garuda could easily have played out more like they did in the novel, and it would have helped a lot.

Cool stuff still happens on screen— mobile suits are jumping around in the sky! The Banshee has big crazy claws!— but it's all very sterile in comparison to the original text, which is relentless and chaotic in its violence.

I'm not just complaining about missing out on eye candy; I genuinely think this stuff is important for the themes. The destruction reflects the emotional stakes of what's happening for the characters.

I wish brainwashed Marida had actually killed some people during her big dramatic episode.

A Change in Premise: Who Planned What?

Here's how the OVA plays out: Bright sets up everything beforehand. He makes sure both the Nahel Argama and the Garancieres know the plan and agree to it, and he gives Banagher direct instructions. While there are some unexpected complications, everything ultimately goes according to plan.

The situation in the novel is very different, in that it's a clusterfuck of many people making decisions on the fly as they learn new information. The different groups who ultimately end up working together have very little contact with each other before the attack begins.

This is the setup:

Zinnerman plans the attack on the Ra Cailum at Torrington, with the goal of rescuing Banagher and retrieving the Unicorn. He does not know Mineva is there.

Banagher knows that Mineva is on the Garuda and that Marida is piloting the Banshee. He does not know Zinnerman's team is coming to rescue him. He has a positive opinion of Captain Bright after their conversation in his cell, but does not speak to him after that. He refuses to get in the Unicorn to help the Vist Foundation people move it.

Bright is suspicious of the Vist Foundation and unhappy with their behaviour on his ship. Beltorchika gives him some intel on the Box and the conflict surrounding it, to get him caught up to speed with the audience. She also warns him that the Zeon remnants seem to be mobilizing in the area, so he has some advance warning of the attack. He is aware of the Nahel Argama's location.

The Argama is sitting in orbit, doing nothing. The entire crew is bored and anxious.

Zinnerman only learns where Mineva is after meeting up with Banagher, at which point he has to change the plan on the fly to include rescuing her and Marida. Bright only decides to contact the Argama and tell them to rendezvous with the Garancieres after the fight has already begun. He is not able to tell Banagher or Zinnerman. They learn about Bright's plan for the first time at the literal last minute, when the Argama appears to pick them up.

Zinnerman and his crew see a Federation ship approaching and assume they're being captured, even after being hailed and told otherwise. Ultimately, Banagher and Mineva convince them to stop fleeing and go along with the plan.

The new conceit for the anime is fine. I think the changes they made are clever as a way to streamline events, and I can appreciate that. They clearly put a lot of thought into how the original narrative is structured, and how some plot elements need to move to compensate for the removal of others.

It was probably necessary to fit with the time they were given. I just don't like it as much as the original, unfortunately.

I thought everyone coming together in an environment of total chaos was more interesting than a flawlessly executed plan. Characters had to choose whether or not to trust each other in the heat of the moment, with limited information. In comparison, this new version feels artificially clean.

I also just liked that Zinnerman cared enough about Banagher to rally these scattered Zeon remnant forces for a big battle, with no instruction of any kind from Frontal. He's part of the crew now. 🥺

We lose some specific action moments during the battle— not even counting any of the Torrington stuff that was in the last one instead:

Novel Banagher lays down in front of a truck and lets it drive over him during his escape attempt, before he even knows Zinnerman is coming to get him. Alberto tells his guards they're allowed to shoot Banagher when he's running away so long as he survives, yeesh— the book definitely has more human-scale gunfighting generally. Riddhe actually attacks Banagher, giving us a Delta Plus vs. Unicorn fight.

The consequence of moving Torrington that I care about most is that it means Marida didn't get to participate, so she only really gets to fight Banagher. Seeing her actually killing Zeon soldiers who should have been her comrades did a lot to emphasize both the threat she poses and the effectiveness of her reconditioning.

Reunited, Apart

The OVA opens with the Banshee getting the drop on Riddhe and Banagher. It plays out pretty much like the end of novel 6, barring accommodations for the change in setting.

It may be short, but I really like the visuals of this fight. It's fun watching the Delta Plus schmoove about, and I love the lighting at the end.

They kept Riddhe telling Banagher to run here, which was a pleasant surprise. His characterization in the first half of this episode feels significantly more recognizable than like... literally anything else we've seen from him up to this point.

After the fight, we're treated to a sequence of Banagher waking up in the cockpit of the Unicorn and gradually trying to get his bearings. I think it's a really cool framing, and it's another one that's wholly unique to the anime.

A lot of minor dialogue we hear directly in the book is instead silent and left to implication through body language. The meaning is still conveyed very clearly. I thought it was neat.

One example: we get to hear some of what's said to Banagher during the interrogation in the novel. The interrogator is clearly trying to scare him. He claims to be an ex-Titan who got kicked out for torturing too many suspects to death. It's not necessarily notable, just 'flavour'. The silent video feed we see in the OVA gives us the same general information.

The more important part of this scene, which we actually lose, is that Alberto sends the interrogator away so that he can speak with Banagher personally.

Most of the conversation is about their father. Alberto tells Banagher that Cardeas must have enhanced him as a child, making Banagher a Cyber-Newtype. Banagher strongly denies this, but hearing it does plant a seed of anxiety in him going forward:

“You’re really amazing. You have a strong will, [guts], and even the sense [to pilot] the “Unicorn” ... It seems that the Laplace Program’s data can’t be extracted without your neurowaves. Even if we tie you down to the cockpit, nobody else can read the data as long as you don’t agree. When did you learn how to operate it like that?” Banagher [wasn't sure himself]. When Alberto barged into the cockpit, his [immediate] thought was to [make it disappear], [it wasn't something he did by understanding the system]. “Seriously, you’re made too perfectly.” Alberto sighed as he put his elbows on the table. “You [look] like you don’t understand anything, but you’re always in the center of everything. The [situation changes] according to your will; you’re [like] a natural king ... so perfect [it's almost disgusting]. What was unsealed might not be the Laplace Program, but you.” [...] “Don’t you find it weird? You’re too perfect already. As expected of an enhanced human [created by Cardeas.]” “Enhanced…human?” Perhaps you’re the same kind as me.—Marida’s voice, which he heard some time before, suddenly awoke deep within his ears, and he felt goosebumps all over him. “Am I wrong?” Alberto said as his sneer intensified. “When you were in the Vist family, I was in a boarding school, so I don’t know how Cardeas raised you, but…you said before that you don’t have any memories of that time, right?”

Alberto's resentments are obvious. His feelings of inferiority to both Cardeas and Banagher are a major part of his character. The OVA hasn't really shown that side of him at all so far, instead presenting him more straightforwardly as bumbling comic relief.

(Remember, the last time these two spoke Alberto told Banagher that his entire existence is a curse and then tried to kill him. Really, they're both being remarkably civil.)

The family relationships in the OVA are generally less developed than they were in the novels, and I really wish that wasn't the case. The anime cares about family ties, unquestionably— we just had Loni's entire arc about that— but the actual intra-family dynamics between characters are less complicated and less interesting. I think that's a huge loss.

Unicorn is very much about family. The entire conceit hinges on it. The Vist Foundation and Laplace's Box are a pretty substantial bit of retroactive lore to add to the UC timeline, and the reason I'm content to buy into it is that the story does stuff with it, and clearly has things it wants to say. Again, the anime still explores those same themes, but the loss of detail and specificity makes the Vist and the Marcenas families feel more like nebulous plot devices than real groups of people, and I dislike that.

This conversation with Alberto also tells us more about the ideology behind the Box:

“What’s the so called “Laplace Box”? It’s an order. The world’s rules can [be maintained by belief] in this [hidden] “Box”. It’s like a common delusion, an existence that guards people from their selfishness. Once we lose it, the Vist Foundation will not be the only thing that can’t continue. The gears running the world up till now will lose control [as well]. The Dakar incident was [proof] of [that]. If Cardeas never [tried to open] the “Box”, that incident would never have happened. After the chaos of the One Year War, we [have learned] how to control war.” The shadow formed by the lamp caused the slightly arched back to look heinous. That’s the back of someone scared of something. [...] “[...] There is an instinct to fight within humans; as long as society continues to rely on the differences in hierarchy, wars will never disappear from the world. ... Gears to drive the economy, a catharsis that can purge the instinct to fight; without these two factors, humans will continue to start full-scale [wars]. This is a symptom of ill-management of humanity, and it’s impossible to cure [the disease]. We can only think of ways to live with our bad habits.”

The translation combines some sentences in that last paragraph in a way I'm almost certain is incorrect, but I'm not confident in my ability to render it more accurately. Sorry.

The gist is that by carefully managing tensions and allowing occasional smaller-scale conflicts, total annihilation can be avoided. The Box is a tool for this purpose.

Alberto is arguing that the Vist Foundation's goals are a moral imperative, not merely motivated by greed. I cut the paragraph where it comes up, but Banagher gets the impression that he's also trying to convince himself.

Banagher changes the subject to ask about Marida, which catches Alberto off guard. He dodges the question, telling Banagher he should be worrying about himself.

Banagher verbally reiterates his ideals, making it clear that abandoning them is not an option. He names all the people who're counting on him. There's a precursor to his conversation with Bright, where he thinks about the helplessness of the individual and the strength that comes from relationships and connection.

Alberto dismisses Banagher's conviction as Cyber-Newtype brainwashing— and it's clear that the idea had also occurred to Banagher. There's a discomfort taking root about the nature of identity, the self, and the way human beings are inherently shaped (and sometimes deliberately manipulated) by others. Connection with other people is vital, but also frightening.

My final note on this conversation: Banagher and Alberto both frequently describe each other as looking or acting like their father. They usually only compare themselves to him in the context of difference, generally with the subtext that these differences are something that makes them insufficient. Ouch.

There are more differences during this period of captivity. For one thing, Mineva is held on the Ra Cailum before they move her to the Garuda. There's a 'so close yet so far' dynamic where our three protagonists are finally all in the same location again, and they all know it, yet they are totally isolated from one another.

Banagher and Riddhe both get scenes where they chase after Mineva, and in both cases Marida intervenes and prevents their meeting. She almost chokes Banagher out, it's very dramatic.

Banagher and Riddhe manage to meet very briefly. They don't get the opportunity to talk for long; the scene takes place when Banagher has just escaped his room and is being chased by Vist Foundation goons. Riddhe deliberately creates a distraction to allow Banagher to pursue Mineva.

Compare this passage to the closest anime equivalent, where Banagher calls out to Riddhe and Riddhe just turns and walks away:

He ... turned right, and nearly knocked into someone else running [toward him]. “You’re…!” The young man dodged behind to avoid a head-on collision, and widened his eyes. “Mr Riddhe…” Banagher muttered, but the pursuers’ footsteps caused him to look back again. He immediately grabbed Riddhe’s uniform and pulled him over, “Ensign Riddhe. Audrey’s on this ship now. The Vist Foundation wants to use her as a hostage.” “Hostage…!?” Riddhe gasped, and lifted his [chin]. “Wait!” “Oi, get that guy!” the yells came from the corridor behind Banagher, and he gave a pleading stare at Riddhe. It’s all on you. If it’s you, you’ll definitely be able to understand. Banagher had relied on Riddhe when their mobile suits interacted with each [other. He] looked at [Riddhe's face and saw him gritting] his teeth. Riddhe lowered his brown eyes, and [turned away with] a bitter expression. “…Go,” he muttered with a barely audible voice, and took the fire extinguisher installed on the wall. “The mobile suit deck’s straight ahead. Hurry.” Riddhe informed Banagher, who did not have the time to thank [him] as he darted forward. The sound of the fire extinguisher being sprayed [overlapped with] the pursuers’ [approaching] footsteps. "Hurry up!" echoed down the hallway, breaking through the agitated voices of the guards. ...

I don't mind the anime scene, and I actually think it's still well within the bounds of things the original Riddhe could plausibly do. It's just another example of him clearly playing a different role in the adaptation than the original text.

Returning Characters and Cameos

The Bright-centric scene that I consider most thematically important is his talk with Banagher, which is essentially the same in both versions. The only real difference is that the novel shows the audience Banagher's internal thoughts, many of which are about things that aren't in the anime anyway (such as his conversation with Alberto, and specifically Alberto's claim that Banagher must be a Cyber Newtype).

I like this scene, and being unchanged means I don't have much to say about it. It was nice.

I'll be honest: I wish Bright was in this episode less. Making him the mastermind behind everything that goes down inflates his individual importance— and screentime— relative to other characters.

The bit where he came back and talked to Banagher a second time to tell him the plan was the tipping point for me, I think. I was sitting there thinking 'Again? Fucking again?'

I just don't think it's a good use of time, and it rubbed me the wrong way in the context of how much other stuff I thought was important didn't make the cut.

I love Bright— and when I want to see him, there are three other tv shows and a movie I can go rewatch to do just that. When time is clearly extremely limited, I think the priority should be developing the characters that originated in Unicorn.

Bright's scene with Beltorchika is quite different. Aside from her giving different information due to changes in premise, the conversation is very streamlined. I'm fine with it, but it does make her presence kind of... perfunctory?

The information Beltorchika provides is necessary for plot progression in both versions, but the actual character interactions that made it matter that she's the one delivering it have been removed in the anime.

Bright contacts Luio & Co. by private mail with the recipient listed as Hayato Kobayashi, seeking more information about the Box. Later, Beltorchika is the one who responds to deliver the results of the investigation, stating that she is acting in lieu of Stephanie.

Bright was not expecting her. While he obviously knows who she is, this is the first time they've actually met.

Instead of telling him about the General Revil, she warns him about the movements of the Zeon remnants and the possibility of an attack on Torrington base and the Ra Cailum. She makes it clear that she's telling him this unofficially, and not on behalf of Luio & Co.

The novel version of this scene is very much about the Amuro-shaped void in the room.

Beltorchika used her hand to tidy her blond hair that was cut short and gave a somewhat stiff smile. (Because of my relations with [Karaba], senior manager Stephanie has been taking care of me, and Mr Kai Shiden would often come by too.) “Oh…it sounds like there’s quite a few people both you and I [know]."

[...]

The reason why both sides could not show their honest smiles was probably because of the huge hollow they saw in each other, the man called Amuro Ray.

[...]

“What happened to Lieutenant Amuro was a pity.” ... This insensitive line would touch upon a person’s old wounds, but Bright believed if [it caused] Beltorchika to waver, he could be certain that it was best not to trust in her abilities. He realized that he was doing something cruel as he hid his sense of guilt ... with a nonchalant look. Beltorchika herself merely [looked him over carefully], then chuckled. (It’s Commander Amuro, right?) [...] “Ah, you’re right. Sorry.” (You don’t have to think for my sake. We used to be deeply in love with each other, and then we broke up. I heard he died in battle during “Char’s Counterattack”, and I was depressed for a while…but his body wasn’t discovered, right?) “Yes…” (Isn’t him being MIA after the battle against his arch-nemesis Char a suitable ending for a romantic like him? Up till now, I sometimes feel that he should be alive, somewhere. Even if we lose the shell of the human called Amuro, I do feel that his heart has merged with space…) Beltorchika looked like she was staring in the distance as she narrowed her eyes, and Bright felt that these words of her were not forced. The brat who’s always crying about on “White Base” had become a man who made a woman show this expression? Bright was suddenly overcome by grief as he too looked afar, and Beltorchika chuckled, saying, (You’re just like what Amuro said, always worrying.) ...

She also makes him feel old after he starts lamenting about how he thinks the world is getting worse because nobody believes in anything anymore.

(I do understand what you mean, but I can’t accept this way of thinking. Your words seem to imply that it’s alright to start wars as long as we have our own ideals.) On hearing this direct refute, he felt that someone just poked him in the head. (I’m sorry. I’m someone who speaks too much. Amuro used to remind me of this habit I have.) Beltorchika said, but the glance she shot through the monitor showed that she had no intent of retracting her words. Bright was shocked that he was unabashed in beautifying the past and criticizing the present, and that perhaps was the proof that he was advanced in age. “No, I was insensitive in my choice of words. My wife often reproves me regarding this too.”

lol

While he is briefly name-dropped by Beltorchika, Kai does not appear in the seventh novel, and he has no contact with the Garancieres. His big scene is in Volume 8, where he speaks to Ronan Marcenas. It's fairly substantial.

It begins with Kai arriving in Dakar, giving us a look at how things are on the ground in the aftermath of the attack. It's a nice, evocative bit of scene-setting. He sees the remains of the Shamblo being disassembled, still lying in the street. The destruction is so severe that it looks like areas the Shamblo passed through have been carpet bombed. Emergency rescue and clean-up teams are still searching for survivors buried under the rubble. Armed soldiers and mobile suits have a strong presence.

The Shamblo never made it to Parliament, but the building still sustained some indirect damage from tremors during the attack. Repair crews are present, coming and going while everyone else still works in the slightly fucked up building as usual. The phones are ringing off the hooks.

When Kai arrives, he is greeted by Patrick Marcenas (Cynthia's husband / Riddhe's brother-in-law).

Patrick is a fan of Kai as a member of the White Base and seems a little star-struck. He gets embarrassed when Kai wryly tells him not to believe everything he reads.

In his office, Ronan is watching a televised speech by Monaghan Bakharo, the Defense Minister of the Zeon Republic. Bakharo denounces the attack on Dakar and denies all involvement or association with Neo Zeon / Sleeves.

I'm not sure how the tone is meant to read in Japanese, but as rendered in English it comes off very insincere and backhanded. Like, he's denouncing Zeon's past misdeeds, but also simultaneously justifying them and complaining that it's unfair that everyone is still being mean about it.

Kai arrives during this. Ronan gives some political commentary, basically saying that Bakharo is full of shit, then turns off the tv so they can have their conversation. He makes it clear that he is offering information.

Kai acts politely disinterested until Ronan asks if he has heard of Laplace's Box, which manages to shake his composure. He doesn't know much, but he has heard rumours. One of his reporter acquaintances seemingly disappeared after attempting to publish a series of articles on the subject, and the magazine that published the first piece went out of business soon after.

Ronan says he has evidence that the Vist Foundation is interfering with the Senate Council. He explains their goal of preventing the release of the Box, and the connection between the Box and recent battles with Neo Zeon.

He offers to provide Kai with a list of Senate Council members involved with the Foundation. He assures Kai that he will do everything in his power to ensure Kai's personal safety.

Kai is keenly aware that Ronan isn't whistleblowing for principled reasons, but rather wants to use Kai's platform for his own benefit. Ronan tries to appeal to Kai's hatred of Zeon, and emphasizes the importance of ensuring stability and safety to prevent it rising again.

Ultimately, Kai is not interested in being used as a politician's propaganda tool, and he doesn't have much respect for Ronan. He tells Ronan that he researched his career beore he arrived, and proceeds to give him a scathing review— the gist being that Ronan was a left-liberal politician who flirted with big, radical ideas, then moved right over time after being elected.

When he goes to leave, Ronan namedrops Bright as a last-ditch effort, with an offer somewhere in the territory between a bribe and threat (basically, 'I can help him keep his position as Commander now that he's involved with the Box and causing trouble... but only if we root out the conspirators with the Foundation in the Senate.')

Kai is pissed. He tells Ronan that he's shameless and pathetic, and that this is probably why Riddhe ran away from home. Jesus, Kai, were you just keeping that one in your back pocket in case you needed to bully him?

Ronan is too stunned to respond, so Kai gets the last word. The scene ends with Ronan looking at a photo of Riddhe on the wall. It's not the one we see in the anime, but one that feels a little more sinister:

There was his wife, narrowing her eyes [as if to say] that the sunlight in Africa was too strong, Cynthia, who was in the vibrancy of her youth, and Riddhe, who was less than 10 years old. As Ronan stood there, unable to show a sincere smile once he started to understand the rule that this world could not change, Riddhe was showing a weird stiff smile beside him. At that time, he would mimic Ronan’s own actions which he somehow saw, and was often reprimanded by his mother. In fact, Riddhe, who seemed to be giving an adult-manufactured smile, looked just as pitiful as Ronan was. Right, that child understood. Ronan looked at the door and imagined Kai’s back on it, telling himself the words he could not say out. That child understood everything and accepted the destiny of the Marcenas family. I let that child bear the burden of the “Box”. I wanted to change everything in this generation, but I couldn’t do anything, and added the burden of my father and grandfather upon him. Ever since the battle of Torrington, there was no news of Riddhe. His “Delta Plus” was reclaimed safely, so he probably was not hurt. This news alone was enough for Ronan. No matter where Riddhe was, no matter what happened to him, he would not betray the Marcenas’ destiny. Even though others could not understand, he could firmly believe so.

Kai appears again very briefly in Novel 10, when he calls Bright and tells him about his conversation with Ronan.

Martha and Mineva: Negotiation

This line is important. Banagher thinks the same thing almost word for word about Frontal later. People generally seem very aware of how referential Unicorn is to previous Gundam media, but sometimes I wonder if it's obvious to anime-only watchers just how referential it is within itself? The whole narrative is a funhouse hall of mirrors. Everyone is always reflecting at least one other person, and usually more. Characters bleed into each other in other characters' perceptions, both implicitly and explicitly. I say Frontal is my favourite, because he is— but when I think about Unicorn, I'm usually thinking about the ensemble cast as a unit. They're deeply enmeshed. I think this is why the mangling of Riddhe threw me so badly before I had even fully realized that I cared about him and why— if you move one of the mirrors without compensating for it elsewhere, the illusion breaks.

Martha and Mineva's negotiations happen in the novel before they move to the Garuda. The scene takes place on the Ra Cailum, in the unused Commander's room.

One irrelevant but extremely funny detail is that Martha started a feud with Bright over her accommodations, because she originally wanted to stay in that room specifically:

[The VIP room] was the last arrangement Captain Bright made when Martha demanded to have the commander room. As the commander and captain, Bright was staying inside the captain’s room, and the commander’s room that was often kept empty should be okay for anyone’s use, but this was a serious problem to the military. The disputes between Martha and Bright had been becoming a common scene to the crew, but it could be said that this room was the start of the dispute between the two.

I'm not sure if this was meant to be implied in the anime or not, but Mineva is on a hunger strike and refuses to eat or drink anything but water while being held captive, so she's quite physically weak during this scene.

Martha tries harder to be "friendly" in the novel. She's playing fake nice in the anime, obviously, but there's a professional distance there. Novel Martha gets up in Mineva's space— whispering in her ear, putting an arm around her shoulder, saying some truly bizarre shit about wombs... the vibes of this conversation are rancid either way, but the over-familiarity is a slightly different genre of red flag.

I think these are good changes, especially since they've already changed the tone of Martha's character by choosing to omit her sexual abuse of Alberto. The original characterization might feel incongruent with New Martha, leaving aside all question of whether or not the way she was originally written was "good".

God, I still really love reading most of Martha's novel scenes, so long as she isn't directly alone in the same room as Alberto. She has just the right mix of traits for a petty, 'shit-stirrer' antagonist that I love to watch bounce off other people: highly perceptive but still unable to truly understand other people; deeply angry about being wronged but perfectly happy to take advantage of others; carefully manicured and put together until suddenly she's not.

She's a creep. She's morally repulsive. She's mean, and she knows exactly how to pinpoint a person's vulnerabilities, but she's also constantly letting her own bizarre preoccupations bleed into the conversation.

The way she's written and described is, unfortunately, almost always some level of misogynist in its framing— and her bizarre preoccupations as a person are arguably also Fukui's bizarre preoccupations as an author.

And yet.

Later, after Martha leaves, the OVA shows us a flashback of a champagne glass breaking, and we hear Martha chastising Mineva for rejecting her proposal. The implication is that Martha's facade eventually shattered, and she threw the glass in a fit of rage. The novel shows us this directly.

This means we get to hear the specific thing Mineva said that got under Martha's skin, which is, uh... maybe it's easier to just show you.

Martha is doing her spiel about the innate biological superiority of women and the importance of The Womb, and then we get this exchange:

“Miss Martha, do you have children?” The interrupting voice caused Martha’s fingers, resting on Mineva’s shoulder, to tremble. “Two of them. why?” Upon hearing the stiff tone, Mineva felt the reason by the chill in her heart, “Are they the children you bore?” she started to ask with a personal tone. “…What do you mean?” “I don’t understand what kind of person my mother is, and that’s because she [died] before I could remember. However, [I still remember the way she felt]. [A woman who has become a mother, or who has the qualities to become one,] will give off that sort of gentle presence. I can’t sense that maternal presence from you.” Martha’s expression immediately changed as she stumbled backwards. Mineva saw the suit that showed the other woman’s bodyline, realized that she obviously put in her utmost effort to maintain her skin so as to prevent people from realizing her age, ... [This woman played the role of] a clever tactician, [but there was something childish about her]. Her girlish ideals and grudges had [festered, rotting down to the root], and [she seemed to have] lost something as she [grew older]. She talked of her knowledge of humans, but she never understood people, and did not intend to understand them. Martha was a hypocrite of a reformer. Mineva stood up and looked in front, feeling that there was no need for her to be afraid. Martha wanted to maintain [her] footing, but could not do so, and stumbled backwards again as Mineva glared at her with her clearly hostile eyes. “You denied the logic of men, and yet used that to conquer Marida. It’s possible if you explained that it was the ruthlessness of women at work, but you’re acting just like a man when you’re using that excuse to rationalize your knowledge. You’re not the kind of woman you say. Of course, you’re not a man. You’re just using the tone of a man to exercise the cruelty of a woman, a conman who uses whatever indecent weapons—” Something grazed past Mineva’s face before she could finish, and a sharp sound glided past the sky as it entered her ears. The shrill sound of the glass breaking rang from behind, and the Foundation subordinates in black charged into the room, perhaps because they realized that there was something amiss in the situation. Mineva stared at Martha, not moving at all, ...

...There's a lot going on here.

I've gone back and forth on whether the implication is just that Martha is unwilling to actually go through the difficulties of pregnancy despite her posturing, or if we're supposed to assume her reaction implies some kind of complex about infertility.

I feel like the former makes more immediate sense and is the less weird option of the two, but the latter would have some interesting implications on a character level, in that it could be a reason for her to genuinely see herself in Marida.

Even if that were the case, it would be a false understanding. Martha considers the projection of her own desires onto Marida more important than Marida's actual personhood.

One last thing I want to mention is that the original version of Martha is extremely angry and resentful.

It was too cold to call them martyrs, the Zeon soldier that disappeared in the explosion, and Marida, who was mind-controlled to kill her comrade— “How impressive.” Martha, who unknowingly got behind her, had the color of fire reflected in her eyes [...] “The self-satisfaction men have will all—be severed by her sword.” Martha clenched her hand that was pressing against the window, seemingly wanting to [crush] something in her hand. At that moment, Mineva had a feeling that it was this vengeance that was driving Martha, and the rage within Marida’s heart was driven by this poison, ...

If anime Martha is meant to be bitter and vengeful like this, then she's much better at hiding it. Her greed and ambition are central, and whatever sincere emotion or vulnerability she might theoretically have is entirely concealed from us.

The Riddhe Section

As I've said previously: in the first half of this episode, Riddhe feels more like himself (and generally more interesting to me) than he did in the first four. Then, around the 30 minute mark, he has a single line of dialogue that implies a dramatically different ideological viewpoint and motivation. It's honestly kind of fascinating.

I'm not mad about it. At this point, I've resigned myself to the fact I'm dealing with a different character. I'm just surprised, and wondering about the reasoning behind the choice— they pretty much completely inverted the nature of Riddhe's hostility to Newtypes.

The breakdown Riddhe has after Mineva's jump from the Garuda is also different from its novel counterpart. I actually enjoyed it a lot, mostly because it's fucking silly. A character who is unhinged in a way that makes me laugh is an improvement over one who vacillates between being boring and making me angry.

Novel Riddhe doesn't necessarily have a clear over-the-top moment where he 'snaps' like this after Mineva's rejection. His instability becomes obvious long before this point, but he doesn't go violently out of control like this until the climax of his arc. It's a gradual but inescapable downward spiral, with fewer dramatic hard drops.

Riddhe, Alberto, and Marida

The Alberto-Marida-Riddhe dynamic is fascinating in the book, and there's much less of it in the anime. This scene here is still an important one for Riddhe, though.

The novel equivalent is told from Alberto's perspective, and it opens with him talking to Marida before Riddhe appears. It also happens a bit later than it does in the anime, after Banagher has already been interrogated and had his first escape attempt.

Since running into Banagher, Marida has been having a harder time connecting with the Banshee. Her physical symptoms have worsened, with more frequent headaches. Alberto is worried about her, and tries to tell her not to push herself too hard. The moment has a very different tone than the anime version, which mostly seemed to be played for laughs.

Novel Alberto is deeply disturbed and upset by Marida's blankness. There's a callback to an incredibly vile innuendo from Martha about "playing with dolls," and remembering it upsets him so much he yells at Marida, trying to make her understand the seriousness of what he's saying. She just responds with flat, uncomprehending obedience.

Riddhe enters, interrupting Alberto's one-sided argument. His reaction to Marida is interesting.

“It confounds me to think that this lady here is a Cyber-Newtype.” Riddhe said as he frowned and approached Alberto. Since when has that guy been standing there watching? Alberto resisted the urge to click his tongue and turned to face Riddhe, ostensibly trying to block Marida’s sights. “She’s most likely a kidnapped orphan, am I right? Does the Vist Foundation deal with human trafficking too?”

Riddhe asks to see Mineva, then Banagher when this is denied. This is when Alberto tells Riddhe that Banagher is his half-brother. He's deliberately trying to break Riddhe and Banagher's friendship, because he knows Riddhe tried to help Banagher escape.

Riddhe's reaction is more outwardly dramatic than in the OVA. He crumples, bracing himself against the wall so he doesn't collapse— he wasn't thrown by Marida, so he's still standing— and then starts laughing bitterly and saying cryptic things about the history of the Vist Foundation.

I think this would feel very weird and out of place in the context of the anime, so it's good they cut it, but I did like it as a scene in the book. It makes for a nice little chapter cliffhanger, where Alberto realizes that Riddhe seems to know what's in the Box.

Later, Riddhe meets Marida and Alberto a second time.

The scene takes place in the hangar bay while the Unicorn is being moved. As he watches, Riddhe thinks about Banagher— until he catches sight of Mineva, who is also being transported. Riddhe calls out and attempts to go to her, but Alberto and Marida get in his way.

The white frame of the “Unicorn” was lifted by the two “Jestas” and laid down horizontally on the trailer, [...] Unlike the “Banshee” that was moving into the “Medea” on its own, the “Unicorn” was dragged over by the trailer, and the reason for this was due to the only pilot, Banagher, refusing to work with the Vist Foundation. That’s his style alright… he thought, but [he] felt Alberto’s words appear in his mind again, and bit his lips [alone] in the [cockpit.] His rational side was telling himself that there was no reason for him to feel angry, but he could not [help but feel] cheated, and [an uncontrollable frustration] continued to swirl in his heart. That guy [seemed like an ordinary person who] simply got involved in this [by chance]—no, there was already an [unsual feeling] about him right from the beginning. If he really has the Vist bloodline, I can only describe my two battles alongside him as ironic. He’s supposed to belong to the other side, but I got fooled by him saying ‘you’re a man of your word’, and ended up [learning the truth about] my cursed family. I’m like a clown performing ...

[...]

... just when he wanted to shake [this] thought from his mind and [refocus] on the inspection, a [flash of] familiar chestnut-colored hair appeared in the corner of his [vision,] and he felt his [heart that had been pounding suddenly go] silent.

[...]

... Riddhe got down to the deck and yelled, “IT’S ME, AUDREY!” as he leapt off the gondola. Mineva’s eyes widened as she looked back, and she [tried] to break away from the ranks, [but she was] restrained by the subordinates in black suits. Riddhe [ignored] Martha’s piercing stare ... as he continued to dash down the mobile suit deck.

[...]

[Just] when Riddhe was about to see [Mineva's] face, [Alberto interrupted.] “How troublesome”, [he] said as he [stepped in front]. “I should have told you that you’re not to see her, Ensign Riddhe.”

I love this whole section, even through the garbled grammar. It hurt me to trim it down, but I can't justify all that text.

Alberto and Riddhe argue. Marida steps between them when Riddhe gets too close. He tries to push her out of his way, but she dodges and throws him to the ground. When he gets up and fights back, she starts trying to choke him like she did to Banagher earlier. However, the fight ends abruptly when something triggers one of Marida's headaches, and she collapses in pain.

Alberto rushes over to Marida's side and orders his subordinates to fetch Bentner, the Cyber-Newtype researcher who facilitated Marida's reconditioning. Alberto clearly wants to help her, but his only solution is asserting control and further reinforcing her brainwashing. He soothes Marida by walking her through her 'Gundam is the enemy' mantra. Riddhe is still there, watching this happen and getting increasingly creeped out.

It's heavily implied that what Marida is actually reacting to is Zinnerman's approach. The scene ends with an alarm going off, as the Neo Zeon attack finally begins.

Unlike the reader, Riddhe doesn't know what's happening yet— but he has a bad gut feeling. When the alarm rings, he books it straight for the Delta Plus, without even bothering to wait for Bright's announcement.

Newtypes, Cyber and Otherwise

Let's back up for a moment and get some more context on Riddhe and Marida, since what he thinks of her is relevant to his later interactions with both Banagher and Mineva.

What does Riddhe know about Cyber-Newtypes? Not necessarily a whole lot. He's heard what the crew of the Ra Cailum think, though, and their perception seems to be that getting enhanced may as well be a lobotomy.

“Cyber-Newtypes…” Daryl’s face suddenly turned pale as he muttered this. “With those guys from the Newtype research institute around, I guess you’re right.” “You mean that if we end up becoming this thing’s pilot, we might end up being enhanced…?” Watts whispered as he looked at the back of the pilot who disappeared behind the cockpit hatch. There was already a rumor amongst pilots that a Cyber-Newtype was a synonym of being a vegetable. Then what about Banagher? Riddhe pondered, and then shook off this question without an answer ...

This is Riddhe's starting point, before he ever interacts with Marida. It's a bad first impression, and it doesn't get better.

His narration compares her to a guard dog. He calls her a puppet. When he recognizes her as a person, it's generally in the context of a person who is being or has already been destroyed— a kidnapped orphan; a brief flash of emotion in the eyes that fades to nothing. Empathy is overridden by disgust for what was done to her.

Riddhe doesn't know much about Cyber-Newtypes, but he thinks the decision to make them was morally repulsive.

So, what about "natural" Newtypes?

Trick question.

Novel Riddhe doesn't think Newtypes are real.

He has an entire back and forth with Banagher about how fake they are. You can imagine my surprise when "the revelation that Newtypes really exist" came out of his mouth in the anime.

"Newtype" as a word has a lot of historical and political baggage in-universe. It refers to multiple different concepts that are loosely related but not identical, and they're often conflated.

Do you remember the first episode, when Banagher is in class? This is what we hear of the lecture:

They claim to desire autonomy for the Spacenoids, but at their heart you will still find the same ideas of the inherent superiority of the chosen elite found in the philosophy of Gihren Zabi. The concept of Zeonism proposed by Zeon Deikun, the so-called 'Newtype' ideology, was a dangerous belief that ultimately produced rebellious elements such as these.

This is Riddhe's position— Newtypes are just Zeon's equivalent of the Nazi Übermensch. It's an ideological concept, and only real insofar as humans have made it so through enhancement.

He isn't disturbed by the Box because he considers it proof of Newtypes being real; he's disturbed by it as a propaganda tool for Neo Zeon that would strengthen belief in a harmful myth.

Riddhe is terrified of Zeon. It doesn't matter if he's sympathetic to spacenoid rights and disdainful of his father's politics; Zeon is still the greater evil. He's able to make an exception for Mineva because she's acting against her own government on moral grounds, and her words moved him.

That's how Riddhe felt at the start of the series, when he still had an optimistic outlook. He's been thoroughly disillusioned by this point, and just recently spent half a novel watching people die at ground zero of a terrorist attack carried out by Neo Zeon.

This is how Riddhe describes Newtypes during his confrontation with Banagher:

(Zeon is the tumor born from twisted idealism of the Space Migration Issues. This Newtype thinking is just a fantasy they have, and a virus that divided humanity into two after humanity nearly united. If we don’t eradicate them, there won’t be peace…!)

"A fantasy." Not a real phenomenon.

It makes sense that Riddhe would think it's bullshit. We can assume this was probably also true in the anime at first, even if his political beliefs are less developed— we've already established that Newtypes being fake is a mainstream position that gets taught in schools.

The point of divergence is that OVA Riddhe is apparently convinced that Newtypes are real when he learns the truth about the contents of Laplace's Box.

... Why, exactly? Did Ronan tell him that's what it means? Did he come to that conclusion on his own?

I know characters can be fallible and believe things that are wrong, but I literally already know what the Box is, and it doesn't prove anything about Newtypes. Riddhe already has vested emotional interest in them being a myth, so it seems strange to me that he would change his mind without undeniable evidence.

It could be they were trying to make his motivation simpler, so that he wouldn't have to spend time explaining it? The concept of Earth society and "Oldtypes" feeling threatened by the emergence of "Newtypes" has already been raised by other characters, so the writers might have felt it would be self-explanatory.

It strikes me as a dubious choice from a storytelling perspective, even if they don't care about making Riddhe look a bit dim. Sure, we've already seen other characters speculate about the Box, but Riddhe is the first character who we know is aware of the contents to make a specific claim about what's in there. The audience is reasonably going to assume what he's saying is accurate, and I think setting up that kind of false expectation is a mistake.

I've always assumed learning about the contents of the Box is intentionally meant to be a bit underwhelming for the audience, because the ossified political structures around it were more important and dangerous than the thing itself. I just think this particular implication feels more like a bait-and-switch that could lead to disappointment, rather than realization. I dunno.

Anyway: Riddhe hates Zeon. Riddhe is traumatized after Neo Zeon's attack on Dakar. Now Neo Zeon is attacking again— and Banagher is co-operating with them.

(Banagher! Have you really become a Neo Zeon member…!?) The solid anger pierced through the armor of the machine and came right at Banagher. It was a stubborn will that was overly stiff, one that felt impossible to communicate it. ... [Banagher] could sense all warmth of the human called Riddhe disappear as he pulled the control stick in the moment of extreme stress. ... Now’s not the time for this. Banagher felt that the distance between both of them was very far, and gritted his teeth anxiously.

[...]

“You’re saying the same things as the people of the Vist Foundation, Ensign Riddhe. You courageously brought Audrey back to Earth, so why…!” (That Riddhe Marcenas is dead.) ... (I don’t have the power to save the world. Even if order is incomplete here, I’ll protect it if there’s no way to [change] it. That way, I can protect Mineva too…!)

[...]

The humanoid that leapt from the barren land instantly transformed into a wave rider and entered the clouds. If I let him go like this, he’ll really become an enemy. Banagher was driven by the anxiety in him, “Mr Riddhe, wait…!” and called out. (Are you alright, Banagher?) however, upon hearing this call from Zinnerman, he looked back at the sky again, and spotted the homebase-shaped machine of the “DO-DAI Kai” approach him.

I cut a lot here, both action and dialogue. I skipped over the parts where he talks about Newtypes and Zeon, since I already quoted them previously.

These are the details I think are most relevant:

Riddhe's belief— and anger— that Banagher has joined Neo Zeon

His loss of faith that the system can meaningfully be changed

His description of his previous self as dead

The official severance of his relationship with Banagher.

I do think what the anime did, having him catch on to what's happening and conclude "they're all working together," was a smart way to spur him into action. It fosters a similar sense of frustration, betrayal, and paranoia.

God, though, he just feels so much less connected to Banagher in the anime. I thought this was one of the more interesting episodes for their relationship, and the most direct interaction they had was Riddhe ignoring Banagher calling out to him and walking away.

After the fight with Banagher, Riddhe immediately heads for the Garuda, where he confronts Martha and Alberto. This scene plays out fairly similarly at first, with a few tweaks.

First: Riddhe pulls a gun on them immediately.

Second: Martha is not at all worried about the idea of killing Ronan Marcenas' son. It would be an easy cover-up. Soldiers die all the time during battles like this, no matter how important their daddies are.

She backs down when Riddhe tells her that he's recording the conversation, and that the Delta Plus would automatically transmit the contents of its black box if it was destroyed.

Third: Riddhe's paranoia about Zeon now extends to Mineva, even if his entire reason for doing this at all is supposedly to keep her safe. He snaps at her about her loyalties when she presses him for information about the box. When she pleads with him further and reminds him why he brought her to Earth in the first place, he reiterates his previous proposal— Join our family. Renounce Zeon. Prove I can trust you. He doesn't seem to actually expect her to agree, and she obviously doesn't.

I'm so glad he didn't do this in the anime, holy shit. I was sure it was coming and dreading it. After how they changed the first proposal scene to be so much more weird and aggressive, it would have pissed me off to hear it again.

Everything else he says during this scene is roughly the same, up until "the revelation that Newtypes really exist." I've already explained that novel Riddhe doesn't believe in Newtypes, but he definitely wouldn't have told Mineva about it right now if he did.

This scene is told from Mineva's perspective, as with most of the scenes with her and Riddhe. We get more insight into how she's feeling. Her actions and dialogue differ from the anime in several ways.

Points of interest:

Mineva still feels the general "Newtype pull" from Riddhe. She has to actively resist just automatically doing what he tells her, even now that his behaviour has changed to become closed off and aggressive.

Mineva is feeling genuinely angry toward Riddhe, which has never been the case until this scene.

Mineva specifically confronts Riddhe about how his idea of protecting her is just keeping her locked away in his family's house while he handles everything himself. He doesn't seem to understand why she needs to talk about this before she's willing to follow him.

Mineva doesn't just slip away during the commotion of Neo Zeon boarding the Garuda— first, she refuses to leave with Riddhe. Then she elbows him in the gut when he isn't expecting it, steals his gun, and tries to use it to get away from Martha and her goons. lol

And the big one, that I really wish had made it into the anime:

Riddhe's lack of empathy for Marida is the reason she ultimately decides not to go with him.

“Let’s go.” Mineva’s shoulder was grabbed unexpectedly, and Riddhe’s face appeared in the direction she was being pulled towards. He forgot to control his strength, and even if it may be caused by anxiety, this caused her to feel a little repulsed. “There’s no reason for you to be here. Come with me.” “But Banagher and Marida are still…” “Marida? Are you referring to that puppet?” Riddhe [said simply.] [Mineva’s body inadvertently tensed up, and at that moment there was] the sound of something breaking ... as the Medea transport carrier, fastened at the rear hatch, tilted drastically.

...

“It’s dangerous here, let’s go!” Mineva saw the growling Riddhe’s face as he grabbed her arm, and instinctively shook his hand away. “Audrey…?” “Ensign Riddhe, I understand your good intentions, but I can’t leave with you now.” Mineva understood very well that Riddhe did not have any malice, but he would choose to abandon Marida like a puppet without care, and that was [not] something the old him would do. This man who used to be so understanding ignored all that he could see in the past because he tried to kill his old self, but even with that factored in, the pull he had was not enough for Mineva to entrust her life to. ... ... If she went with him at this point, [they] would simply fall into the abyss together—no, that was not the reason. Perhaps it was the feminine aspect within her that gave her the instant conclusion [that] this man was not someone she was willing to go down with.

Mineva's Jump

This smile is the first time I felt convinced that OVA Mineva might have ever had a positive thought about Riddhe. That's kind of nuts, given this scene is supposed to be the culmination of her finally deciding that caring about him and believing he has good intentions is not enough. Still, it's... nice that they kept this line? A little humanizing moment for both of them? An actual hint that there was anything positive about this relationship for Mineva?

The way this scene is described in the novel is more harrowing, since we actually witness the moment the Garuda tears and Mineva gets stuck holding onto that steel frame. She's also wearing normal civilian clothes still, not a protective suit. The floor is warped and falling apart, so Riddhe getting over to her is more precarious.

Again the scene is told from Mineva's perspective, so we see her thoughts as she makes her decision.

She can feel the psychoframe resonance from the Unicorn and the Banshee fighting. She concludes that Banagher will definitely be able to hear her thoughts, because he's in a machine specifically designed for that purpose.

She also considers the jump to be a test, to prove to herself that she's following the right path.

I know that this choice [is] illogical, but the hand I want is in that light. Maybe nothing can be done, maybe we’ll just die with regret, but this is a test to me—a test to see whether [someone so small can affect the fate of] the world.

This is what romance is, to me.

After Mineva's jump, all of Riddhe's appearances for the rest of the episode are anime-original. The fixation on the Gundam as an object of hatred is new. They basically made him do the same thing Marida does, with the verbal repetition, which is interesting. I hope they play up that comparison more.

Novel Riddhe resents the Unicorn and the Banshee for their ties to the Box and the Vist Foundation, but he never responds to them with this kind of mindless rage. He actually doesn't get angry at all during the immediate aftermath of Mineva's rejection. Maybe he would have if he'd been left to his own devices long enough, who knows— he gets taken out of the equation fairly quickly.

Riddhe returns to the Delta Plus and begins searching for Mineva, apparently too addled by grief to accept that she would be dead if someone else hadn't already caught her.

Marida shoots him out of the sky, completely unprovoked. She can tell it's a friendly machine and everything, she just gets pissed that it looks too much like a Gundam. lmao

The thick grey streamlined body was looking towards the sea of clouds below it, completely ignoring the “Banshee” as it tilted its head around. The allied machine marker and the name “Delta Plus” were indicated on the enlarged window, but these details did not matter to Ple Twleve. That was because the visor on the main camera was sunk inwards, and the head looked like it had eyes on it; to her, it simply looked like a “Gundam” without the horns. “You’re a “Gundam” too…!?” Ple Twelve [shouted] as she aimed the beam rifle at [the machine.] The “Delta Plus” showed no signs of [dodging, continuing to stare down at] the clouds. The human thoughts inside the machine suddenly entered her head, causing her fingers on the trigger to numb. —Mineva, where did you go? Answer me. Don’t leave me alone, don’t leave me… That thought interfered with Ple Twelve’s consciousness like noise, and she could sense the owner of this thought crying. The pleading ‘voice’ became a discomforting particle bouncing around in her mind, and she felt nauseous as she exerted strength into the trigger. “If you’re just going to weep here, DON’T GET IN MY WAY!!” The beam rifle let out a flash, and the empty Magnum cartridge was ejected from the gun. The beam grazed the “Garuda” wing, brushed right by the engine block, and the right shoulder of the “Delta Plus” was devoured by the light. As it was deflected by the impact and falling, the engine block of the “Garuda” let out flames as it got hit by the scattered particles that exploded, and the large machine lost another support as it tilted heavily.

His suffering makes her angry. Her own empathy is overwhelming and repulsive...

When I first read this, I found it extremely funny, even if it's obviously tragic for the characters. This time around I was able to take it completely seriously, because it will never match the comedy of "Riddhe repeatedly shoots the Banshee with a handgun while chanting 'Gundam' until Marida psychically brain blasts him into unconsciousness."

I like OVA Riddhe so much more now that he's insane. I feel like I'm being stockholm-syndromed into enjoying him.

What caused Riddhe's heel turn?

Even though Riddhe's dialogue about the box is almost identical, it feels like it comes from a different place because of his previous portrayal.

Both versions of the character experience a disillusionment, but the things they've lost faith in are different.

OVA Riddhe's arc feels like he has been forced for the first time to think about what he believes. His sheltered worldview has been shattered, and he has to grapple with that. Because of his position, he naturally reaches for the comfort of the status quo.

Novel Riddhe's arc is about the destruction of the convictions he already had. It's about watching this guy get repeatedly emotionally brutalized until he no longer believes in the possibility of a better world. He's willing to kill himself for societal stability because he thinks that's the best he's ever going to get.

The thing that drags him down is isolation. Mineva and Banagher both go through similar moments of disillusionment, and they both are ultimately pulled out of despair when they are able to reaffirm their beliefs through connection with other people.

Mineva is the one out of the three who holds up the best under pressure, possibly because her childhood demanded she develop that kind of resilience. A friendly guy in a diner was enough to help her get her bearings.

Banagher is literally catatonic after crashing on Earth. He recovers because Zinnerman deliberately, aggressively pursues him, refusing to let him waste away.

Riddhe responds to emotional distress by withdrawing from other people and throwing himself into his responsibilities. He isn't going to go looking for a friendly man in a diner. He doesn’t have a Zinnerman. Bright and Nigel are something, but evidently not enough.

The people he knew and loved from the Nahel Argama all think he's dead. The two people he's closest to now, Banagher and Mineva, are immediately confined where he's not allowed to see them.

There’s no one he trusts enough left to help him reorient. By the time he finally gets a chance to see Banagher again, he believes he defected to Neo Zeon. Rational communication is impossible.

Then Mineva throws herself off an aircraft rather than take his hand, which. Like. She had her reasons. But lmao

(For anime Riddhe, Mineva's rejection is clearly the final straw. I think novel Riddhe was already over the edge by then. Banagher's perceived betrayal was the breaking point. Losing Mineva as well was just salt in the wound.)

I still don't know why they replaced his model airplanes with this thing.

I'm curious. What do you guys think of Riddhe's lucky charm as a piece of symbolism? Does it add anything for you? They put an incredible amount of effort into visually highlighting it. Obviously, he drops it during his final scene in this episode to represent some kind of significant change or loss. Aside from the charm being an anime-only addition, I think what throws me is that novel Riddhe had already lost all the things the charm would logically represent before this point. He already underwent his most significant emotional and ideological changes. "That Riddhe Marcenas is dead." It's why he can't make peace with Banagher, and it's why Mineva rejects him.

That's what novel Riddhe loses at Torrington: his two most important remaining relationships. I definitely don't think that's what the charm is meant to symbolize in the anime.

Since it's a charm for luck, I'm assuming it represents caring about his own well-being. That makes sense to me, when dropping it is being associated with choosing to pilot the Banshee. "Riddhi" is also a real name and word that means "prosperity" or "good fortune", which meshes well with that interpretation.

I'm assuming this means he's going to finally develop novel Riddhe's trait of deranged latent suicidality going forward. Beyond that, I'm not sure what to make of it— though I did like how it was used in "Return of the Lion".

Marida in the Banshee

The motion sensor showed a matching signal, and the word “RAS-96” appeared on the screen. That’s called the “Anksha”, right? Name and model number, Marida and Ple Twelve. ... What is a name? What significance does it bear? It’ll simply cause confusion to call the same thing two different names. [...] I just don’t have to think. I can continue to fight as long as I don’t think.

There are things I could criticize about Marida's portrayal in the novel— we'll get to that— but I still found the anime version of this arc to be the less compelling version of the two.

I think there are three key issues here.

I've mentioned before that the environment mirrors the conflict between characters. The combat in the anime version is more static and less visceral, failing to match the heightened emotions the characters are feeling.

Characters in Unicorn are very densely interconnected, and minor details are often carrying more emotional weight than it might appear. If something had to get cut, Alberto's scenes were a rational choice— but removing them also means removing meaningful character moments for Marida.

Marida's history of sexual abuse was weaponized as part of her brainwashing, so it is referenced often during this part of the original text. In the anime, this is elided.

I'm sure it's difficult to thread the needle regarding that last point, and I sympathize. I mentioned in my last post that I think Fukui's writing could probably benefit from an editor willing to rein him in, and the handling of Marida is one of the areas I cited. The anime reined him in— but in this case, I find myself wishing they left more of the original. Ah, well.

I don't think there's a perfect solution here. I'm not sure there's even a more correct decision. All I can do is explain my own feelings about each work.

I wish Banshee pilot Marida was scarier.

Novel Marida sees significantly more extensive— and effective— use as Martha and Alberto's weapon. While her kills are all minor players in the narrative, at least one of them is a named perspective character with an important role in Neo Zeon's offensive.

Unfortunately, moving Torrington unavoidably defanged her a little as a threat. Since she didn't fight in the battle, she never had the chance to engage with anyone other than Banagher and Riddhe, and they both came out of it alive and physically sound.

They also cut the moment during her rampage where Marida causes the gruesome (accidental?) death of novel-only character Bentner, the head Cyber-Newtype researcher from Augusta. As someone who directly contributed to Marida's suffering, his death is poetic, even if it wasn't a choice she made with intention.

I'm a fan of this claw weapon. It gives the Banshee something that makes it more than just a visual Unicorn redesign, and it's appropriate for the lion theming. It's new for the anime, so I appreciate the addition.

I'm glad they kept the detail of the robots "screaming," and I dig the Banshee's new unique loadout, but the fight on the Garuda left me really underwhelmed. It was so cool in the book, man. There has to be more they could have done.

If you're specifically invoking the Axis Shock, I want it to look crazy. A colour overlay on the robots absolutely does not cut it. Have the surface of the Garuda that they're standing on start peeling! Get some real psychic miasma going! Make it so I can't even tell the sky is blue when the camera pulls in close. Something.

Am I being unreasonable here? Is this an unfair expectation?

I'm aware of the difference between drawing an illustration and doing the same thing in animation, but maybe this gives you an idea of the kind of imagery I had in my head going in:

LOOK HOW SICK THIS IS.

Another thing about the novel's Banshee-Unicorn fight is that Zinnerman boards the Garuda while it's happening. He's literally an exposed human figure dangling on a wire while these metal giants are stomping around and swinging superheated beams at each other. Then the wire snaps, so Banagher has to catch him and cradle him to the Unicorn's chest while the Banshee attacks!

Zinnerman shoots the Banshee with a rocket launcher at one point. I swear to god, so much shit happens.

Marida tearing into the Delta Plus had more of the aggressive vibe I wanted, and it was definitely my favourite visual in the whole fight. The scene they placed it in, unfortunately, is still significantly less dramatic than the original scene that inspired it.

The anime version of the Garuda's hangar bay is essentially a big, empty arena for the mobile suits to fight in. In the novel, there's a ton of shit in there, and people are still present. Several small work vehicles explode, so the whole deck gets set on fire. There's human gore, because Marida unintentionally crushes Bentner with the Banshee's hand. It's a nightmarish scene, especially for someone like Zinnerman who isn't in a mobile suit.

Excerpt, for comparison:

The entire hatch was blown off, and [the air inside the plane was sucked out through a huge gash where the deck caved in]. The [wind roared in Zinnerman's ears] as he heard the frantic voices of the crew, “Retreat to the deck!” “We might have to evacuate everyone here. Get everyone to the escape pods!” He [could barely] distinguish the yells ...

[...]

He turned his [head sharply] and saw the black “Unicorn” with the thruster lights on its back, followed by the white frame of the “Unicorn Gundam” closing in on it. Both “Gundams” proceeded back and forth within the deck, [knocking down the hangar and releasing hot air from their verniers]. Zinnerman saw the black [“Unicorn's” hand fall, crushing an] old man in [a white coat.] Blood and flesh was splattered everywhere immediately, but [it was drowned out by] the impact and [sound] of ... these several ton machines [colliding, followed by] a hot wind [that blocked all vision] as it blew above his head. The workcar got knocked into the air, crashing right into the compressed gas cylinders, creating an explosion of flames. The energy of the explosion created a quake, causing Zinnerman, who was sprawled on the floor to feel a rumbling, and he lifted his head only when the heat wave passed by. Alberto had disappeared, and the two “Gundams” were in front of him, stepping on the floor and trying to get up. The black “Gundam” was lit by the flames, [making the likness of] the “Unicorn Gundam” it [opposed] in this mirage, and the [golden glow of the] Psycoframe [flickered] like it was breathing. [The heat of the beam saber erupting from the machine's sleeve made] the [catwalk railings] melt and bend like malt candy. “MARIDA!” Zinnerman covered his face as his skin was being burnt, but the black “Unicorn Gundam” did not care about what was below it as it continued to backtrack and knock over the work vehicles.

Like. Holy shit.

Sexual violence, gender, and "the light"

(Content warnings for this section: rape, csa, pregnancy and pregnancy loss, forced medical procedures, incest. I'm not getting graphic about it, but this is the primary subject of this section.)

I had a fairly negative opinion of how the sexual violence was handled in book 7 the first time around. It has the disadvantage of coming directly on the heels of book 6, which is the one that really pissed me off, so I wasn't feeling particularly charitable.

My feelings are more positive this time, now that I'm rereading with the context of the whole work. Paying more deliberate attention to Alberto and Martha has also paid off in that regard.

The screenshot I chose at the top of Marida's section has a very particular bit of dialogue in the subtitle:

"This is the light that will save me. I won't let anyone steal it from me!"

While it still makes sense with the overall imagery used in Unicorn— it calls back to the church scene, where Marida talks about how people need a light to keep living— they otherwise removed all references to "the light" from this episode.

"The light" refers to a lot of different ideas, but the way it's invoked by Marida in this arc specifically represents both a general desire to erase the violence that was done to her, and a more specific longing for a child.

I am instinctively predisposed to roll my eyes at "infertile female character with a strong secret driving motivation centred around the ability to become pregnant," especially when it's written by a cis male author, double especially when the story also involves a child conceived by rape.

While Marida is fixating on her past, Martha is constantly talking about wombs. We also just had Loni in book 6, who told us she wants to have ten kids. If you're already reading with a pessimistic outlook, it's easy to start feeling like every major female character except Mineva has suddenly had their characterization re-centred around how they relate to motherhood.

I'm sure that Fukui probably has different opinions about gender than I do, but I've ultimately warmed up a lot to these elements of Marida's story. It's more thoughtful than I was originally willing to trust it to be.

It helps that the repetition is very much not unique to female characters and motherhood. Marida strongly mirrors Banagher, Alberto, Angelo, and Full Frontal. When the paralellism is so consistent across the board, it becomes clear that the similarities between female characters are more than just the narrative assuming all women have the same basic neuroses and drives.

Marida is also brainwashed, obviously. Her priorities have been artificially altered, even if they contain traces of her genuine thoughts and emotions.

Moreover, her reconditioning was explicitly based on Martha. The similarity isn't just intentional on a meta level as a storytelling device, it was intentionally cultivated in-universe.

"Light" as a theme for Marida first appears during the church scene in volume 4. It's usage is roughly analagous to Banagher's "Inner God." It comes up again in that same book, during Marida's backstory flashback.

Light is a repeated visual element that connects every scene we see from her past. It's very much not presented as something with purely positive associations. In these brief moments, light is frequently something sinister.

Light is the first thing Marida sees when she wakes up for the first time, shining behind the silhouette of Glemy. Light is the explosive deaths of her sisters. Light is the neon signs of the red light district, and light is the surgical lamp of the abortionist. Light is her baby, already gone by the time she understands what it was.

Light is the open doorway when Zinnerman comes to take her away. Light is a reason to live. Light is the desire for purification by death, and the glow of a beam rifle shot that never comes.

However, the girl could recognize this warmth. A long time ago, a hand reached out to her from the water surface. The warmth of the human hand she touched when she was pulled out from the capsule was about the same as [this hand.] The girl focused all her consciousness on the thick and hard hand of the man. Warmth flowed out from there, and as she felt the cells within her shaking, the girl looked up at the man’s eyes. The [damp eyes] reflected her black and dirty face. Who are you? The girl tried to ask. I’m me. The her present in the eyes answered. You’re not the 12th sister, but a one and only existence granted the name of Marida Cruz. You have a real master, so you must live for master. Don’t live on because you’re created this way, but give your all to serve your master. This warmth is the real ‘light’, the one and only ‘light’ that reached into this darkness. Don’t let go of this ‘light’. Go do what master hopes for you to do, fight master’s enemies until this body of yours get burned one day, and all your sins and guilt return to nothingness— Marida’s thoughts were calling out within Zinnerman’s eyes. That’s just a curse on yourself! Banagher’s thoughts interrupted at this point. That’s just a curse you set on yourself. The Captain doesn’t want you to do that in the first place. I know. You’re right. But I said it before, didn’t I? Righteousness might not be the only thing that can save humanity… Marida’s retorting thoughts merged into the light, surrounding the girl that was standing blankly in the underground room. The white light covered the entire room [...] and Banagher saw the light transform into heat as it evaporated the tears. Light. A purifying light that burned all sins and guilt—

[...]

Since where is there this kind of redemption? Banagher yelled in his thoughts with all he hand as he tried to make the rioting machine stop. I understand you, whether dream-wise or illusion-wise. When our thoughts overlapped and resonance in that sensation, I saw your existence. Humans can understand each other—and that is the real ‘light’. What you want to redeem you is to reveal the possibility that’s dormant and release the inner god within you. However, you only looked at your past—

Basically, "the light" is introduced as the thread that connects all of Marida's suffering and hopes, and connects her to others. The way it's used while she's brainwashed is a departure, redefining it to represent only a small part of her past.

Consider that two extremely important associations that Marida had with light— Zinnerman and Banagher— have been deliberately removed from her memories. The shift in meaning makes sense.

But the thread is still there. The belief that "the Gundam stole my light" doesn't really make sense if we're only talking about her baby, does it? It only makes sense when we see the totality of her suffering: the loss of her child is the same as the sexual abuse that created it in the first place, which is the same as the death of her sisters.

Marida has never belonged to herself, but now the few things that made the world make sense have been taken away. Something is missing, and she wants it back.

(…The “Gundam”, is the enemy.) The armor on the machine expanded, and the huddled black shadow expanded. “Miss Marida…!?” The “Banshee” did not respond to Banagher’s call as it lifted its head that was looking down, and the exposed Psycoframe started to radiate a golden glow. (You’re the enemy that killed us. You’re the enemy that robbed the “light” from within me. You, you’re the “Gundam”…!)

Character parallels: sexual violence, non-consensual medical procedures, and textual comparisons thereof

I could write an entire essay just on this theme in Unicorn. Maybe I will, eventually.

I'm going to try to avoid getting too in depth for now, since there's a ton of relevant information that only comes up in later books. Still, I want to at least go over some general points.

There are many places in the text where the comparison is drawn, both implicitly and explicitly, between sexual abuse and other non-sexual violations of the body and mind— particularly in medical or experimental contexts. Marida is the point where this comparison is made at its clearest, because she has experienced both.

The sexual abuse, the forced abortion, the reconditioning, even her original creation as a Cyber-Newtype clone— these are all framed as similar kinds of violations.

Not every character has the framework to understand how these experiences are related, but Marida makes the connection instinctively, sometimes even collapsing them together in her thoughts as if they were a singular continuous event.

Is she wrong? They're even related on a causal level: the abortion happened as a direct result of the sexual abuse, and it was performed to allow it to continue. The reconditioning deliberately drew on memories of sexual abuse to alter her behaviour, and the woman who ordered it was herself a sexual abuser of children.

Martha is another obvious demonstration of the comparison: she's the point of overlap between both categories of perpetrator. Her sexual abuse of Alberto and her brainwashing of Marida function similarly, and both serve the same purpose of controlling the victim.

It's unclear exactly how much Alberto knows about Marida's past, but it's not a huge leap to assume he sees himself in her. If he isn't consciously recognizing her as another csa victim— or realizing the similarity between that experience and Cyber-Newtype conditioning— he at least understands that they are both Martha's puppets. The tragedy is his inability to admit that as long as he continues acting as Marida's "Master" he is actively complicit in harming her, not merely a witness.

I want to talk about Angelo and Frontal here so badly, but it's probably best that I hold off until at least the next episode. For now, I'll just say that Angelo is the most blatant Marida paralell in the whole series, and he has his own symbolic fixation akin to Marida's "light."

Gundam is the enemy

In the original work, the moment where Marida processes that the Banshee is a Gundam and concludes that she is herself "the enemy" does not involve Riddhe. She already shot him down earlier, so he isn't even on the Garuda at all anymore. Instead, the realization happens when she mistakes the Banshee's shadow on the wall for the Unicorn.

I guess they swapped the shadow for Riddhe because... there just isn't fire in the hangar to cast a strong shadow. But why? Why not put a fire in the hangar? Many inexplicable choices in this one.

Marida isn't just breaking the logic of her brainwashing by realizing a fact about the robot. When she makes this connection, she's also forced to acknowledge feelings of self-blame and guilt that she had been repressing. That's the sentiment that ultimately causes her to collapse: I failed to protect my master. I broke formation rather than dying with my sisters. I was too weak to protect myself, and too weak to protect my child. The person I want to punish and destroy is me.

She let go of the control sticks and touched her face with her hands. The flames lit the “Banshee” and the shadow of the “Gundam” was reflected on the wall. This means that I’m on a “Gundam” too? I’m inside the enemy, and the enemy’s inside me? The enemy that killed my sisters, robbed me of my ‘light’, and continues to remain in it no matter how I tried to chase it or catch it? I’m my own, enemy— A snake was wriggling inside her mind, causing the seeds of pain to erupt. Her body and mind were breaking apart. [The] ideals that were once connected to her heart were severed [and] the flesh and blood [flowing through] the machine [gradually converged into the helpless] body. I’m my own enemy. The one I hated [and] wanted to kill is [myself, the person] who can’t protect my own ‘light’.

(Mineva actually calls this very early. In one of her scenes with Martha, she thinks to herself that Marida is not actually being animated by revenge on others like Martha believes.)

Here's how the encounter concludes:

Marida falls out of the cockpit. Notably, she is still conscious. Her inner monologue immediately identifies Zinnerman as her father when he reaches out to her; it's very sweet.

Alberto is still in the hangar. He panics, and tries to tell Marida to get back in the cockpit again. She doesn't recognize his voice.

One of the Anksha mobile suits from the battle outside flies into the hangar through the open hatch. It takes aim at the Unicorn, and Marida immediately realizes Zinnerman is in danger and will not be able to get out of the way. She calls out to the Banshee and wills it to move, and it does— it raises its Beam Magnum and fires.

The Anksha is hit by the Beam Magnum and explodes. The shot it fires goes wide, hitting the side of the Banshee. Marida is thrown by the force of the blast, and burnt by the wave of heat.

Banagher gets out of the Unicorn and helps Zinnerman and Marida into the cockpit. They're both a mess. Zinnerman is covered in ash, furious and crying with bloodshot eyes. He tells Banagher not to waste time— "I won't forgive you if your blunder ends up killing her."

When they're about to leave, Alberto stumbles over to the Unicorn in a daze. Banagher is shocked, having assumed that he had already left on the shuttle. He re-opens the cockpit and tells Alberto to get in.

Shaken from his daze, Alberto is infuriated by this offer. He pulls out his gun and fires at Banagher until he is forced to close the cockpit and leave.

Alberto goes down with the ship.

The Fate of the Garuda: Who Goes Where?

In the OVA, we see Martha and Alberto leave on a little aircraft shuttle together, directly from the Garuda.

The Banshee is still on the Garuda, where it is found by Riddhe after he regains consciousness. Mineva, Zinnerman, and Marida all make it back to the Garancieres, which is successfully picked up by the Argama.

The General Revil shows up at the end, as well as Full Frontal and Angelo. Banagher is still in the Unicorn.

In the novel, Alberto and Martha are separated. Martha boards the shuttle, but Alberto stays, because he's worried about Marida.

Banagher offers Alberto a ride in the Unicorn, but this enrages him, and he shoots at Banagher with his handgun until he retreats into the cockpit and leaves.

The Garuda crashes, with the Banshee and Alberto still on it.

Riddhe was shot out of the sky by Marida, after which he fell unconscious. When he wakes up, he retrieves the Banshee and Alberto from the wreck of the Garuda.

Zinnerman and Marida are not able to be brought back to the Garancieres in time, so they are still in the cockpit of the Unicorn when Banagher connects the tether.

The Garancieres and the Nahel Argama escape successfully and are not immediately pursued. Angelo and Frontal show up several days later, at the start of the eighth book.

So, there are quite a few differences, but I think Alberto's scenes are the most obviously significant that I haven't already discussed. I've mentioned this a few times in previous sections, but Alberto is a different type of character in the novels than he is in the anime. The novel takes him significantly more seriously and gives him a larger role, while the anime has kept him within the realm of comic relief.

I'm going to include a bunch of excerpts here, sorry. I think they're more illustrative than just me summarizing or listing character traits. I've tried to shorten them and fix the worst of the grammar.

Alberto with Zinnerman, refusing to leave on the shuttle:

“She’s no long a member of Neo Zeon. Give up and leave this place. The “Garuda” won’t last for long.” This person is Marida’s current master. Is his name Alberto? the blood surged up Zinnerman’s head as he growled, “What nonsense are you [spouting?]” ... “You’re the one who should scram. I’ll take Marida back. She’s not the tool you people think she is.” The gun held in both hands trembled even more. This [guy] isn’t used to [this kind of] situation. Zinnerman understood that it was not wise to agitate the other man, but he still finished his words. [However, he was taken aback by Alberto's agitated reply—] “I KNOW THAT!” “SHE’S NOT A TOOL! SHE’S…” Alberto was at a loss of words. [His lips twisted, and a bitter expression appeared] on his face. What’s going on? Zinnerman frowned for a moment, [then heard a yell—] “Master Alberto! Hurry! The shuttle’s leaving!” [— as an old man in white clothing] appeared from the side, [completely covered] in ash. “Oi, someone’s calling you.” Zinnerman pointed his chin, and Alberto glared back at him as he exerted more strength into his hands holding the handgun. ...

Alberto witnessing the Unicorn vs. Banshee fight and finding Bentner's horrible crushed corpse. Again he refuses to abandon Marida, even when Martha directly contacts him and tells him they're leaving:

... [The] flying high-heat particles [were] scattered [and rained down] as [a] powder of light. [They] landed between Alberto’s [thighs] and [made a sound as they melted into the floor], [and he scrambled] back [in fear]. As [his hand reached behind him, it] touched another person’s arm, and he gasped as he turned around. The [arm, wrapped in the sleeve of a torn labcoat, clearly] belonged to Bentner, but [there was no proof.] [Just like the white coat,] there was no body beyond the [severed] shoulder, [only a pool of blood like splattered red paint] ... The scattered particles of the beams dropped into the [pool], and [white steam rose from the mixture of blood and solid matter]. The smell of cooked meat entered his nose, and [all Alberto could do was] remain seated, [unable to feel anything]. [...] (What are you doing, Alberto!?) It was only [upon hearing Martha's hysterical yell] that he finally thought of bringing the wireless communicator to his ears. (We’re leaving. Forget about [the] specimen. We just need to find a replacement, whether it’s the machine or the pilot.) Alberto’s numb senses were jolted awake by this voice, and he looked down at the communicator in his hands. She doesn’t understand. Aunt [Martha] doesn’t understand, and she has no intention of understanding—no, maybe to her, everyone else is just something that can be replaced ... (There’s no time. Hurry—) Alberto ignored Martha’s call as he switched the frequency of the communicator. “Ple Twelve, it’s me, your Master. Do you hear me?” [...] “There’s no need to reclaim the machine ... Wreck the “Unicorn”. Hurry up and beat that guy and escape me with. You and I are the only ones left here.”

Alberto thinking about Cardeas, Banagher, and his childhood. Very brief / vague mention of incest:

“If it’s you, you’ll definitely be able to beat the “Unicorn”. This guy’s the cause of everything. As long as you destroy it, the path leading to the “Box” will remain sealed, and aunt will only give up. Even my father…” Can only give up, right? Alberto could not help but ask himself, and shut his mouth as he answered himself. Wrong, that man will never stop. [In this kind of situation,] Cardeas Vist [would simply take a proactive approach and plan his next move]. [Using his own strength as the standard], [he determined] that [the weak] were simply [lazy]. That willful foolish man ignored his own son and left the “Unicorn” to the [child of his mistress]. Why did things end up like this? Who let the gears spin out of control first? [...] He recalled the expression his father had when he died, that look of despair and pity ... [and] the [sudden rush of] emotions [dampened] his vision. No, I’m not the one at fault here. It’s his fault. ... Banagher Links took [my] dad away, and even took the machine he built, [without] even [realizing] that he [had stolen anything] at all. That guy [is the reason everything was] thrown [into chaos]. Just looking at [him] makes me anxious. [...] I feel inferior, like I’m being taunted for being useless. It [would be] good if he [had never been born]. If I could be as strong as him, I [wouldn't] have [had] a complete breakdown in relation with dad, I [wouldn't have ended up in] an abnormal relationship with [my] aunt, and I [couldn't have] possibly [harmed] dad— Tears swelled in his eyes and slid down his cheeks; he wiped them away and brought the communicator to his mouth.

...

I won’t let you take anything else away from me. Marida will beat you. This [unique] life that’s strong-willed [and] gentle, [who feels ephemeral and fragile like my mother,] [she'll] defeat you and settle all our debts. I don’t need aunt [Martha], and I don’t need dad. I’ll just wait here, until ... the “Banshee” [slices] you apart and [chases] away the [inescapable darkness.]

Mother comparison. Of course.

I'll skip Alberto rejecting Banagher's offer of help, since I already described it.

That brings us to the final scene of the novel, where Alberto wakes up in the cockpit of the Delta Plus with Riddhe. Interesting that it can still fly despite falling out of the sky earlier— maybe the shot Marida fired knocked him unconscious immediately, or it can only stay airborne in waverider mode?

This ending makes me lose my fucking mind every time I read it. Riddhe saves Alberto's life and then they literally fly off into the sunset while Alberto thinks about how much they have in common.

Alberto opened his eyes. The light in reality was too sharp, and he closed his eyes before opening them slowly again. What he saw first was the sea surface from the sky. [...] Is this some mobile suit cockpit? he touched the curved monitor panel at his feet and intended to look up at the linear seat beside him, but at this moment, a shadow appeared in a corner of the all-view monitor, and his heart jolted, beating his chest. There was a mobile suit riding on the “Anksha,” ... gliding diagonally below ... He realized that it was the “Banshee”, ... Alberto looked down at the machine lit by the [light reflecting off] the sea, and [he] thought of the name Marida, [when a voice rang out from just beside him.] “We can’t seem to find the pilot.” ... [Alberto] lifted his [gaze] and looked [back] at the linear seat to find Riddhe [Marcenas] there. Riddhe looked at him for a moment, before turning his somewhat forsaken expression forward as he activated the display board. He opened the expanded window to show the “Banshee” [up close] as it laid down on the disc, but Alberto’s face remained unmoved. How did things end up like this? Why is this guy—no, where is this place? Alberto could not clear the doubts rising [in] his heart [as] he [stared at Riddhe's face]. ... Riddhe turned around in an annoyed manner [and] removed his helmet, [running his hand through his blond hair.] “Since you’re awake, pull out the assistance chair yourself,” [he said curtly.] “I’m already out of breath [just from pulling] your unconscious [body] on board. You’re an Anaheim employee, so you should know the [layout] of a mobile suit, right?” ... Alberto looked around the inner wall of the cockpit again. Since he could see the sea surface, it meant that this mobile suit was not on a Base Jabber, which meant that it could fly in atmosphere on its own. This means that I’m on Riddhe’s machine, the transformable “Delta Plus” in its wave rider form? Upon realizing this, Alberto calmed down slightly as he exhaled. He searched his tattered clothes, [confirmed] that he had no [real] injuries, and turned towards Riddhe again. “Why did you save me?” he asked... [Riddhe didn't even make eye contact.] “That’s [just] how things are going now,” He answered with a sigh. “I [passed out] after I was shot down by the “Banshee”. By the time I woke up and got back to the sinking “Garuda”, you and the empty “Banshee” were the only ones [left.]” Riddhe looked over at the “Banshee”, lifeless like a puppet as it laid on the “Anksha”, and narrowed his eyes. “The “Unicorn” has vanished.” And Mineva too… some heartfelt words could be heard right after this mutter, and Alberto did not intend to ask further [...] His love affair may have ended, this understanding landed upon the cavity in Alberto’s chest and created ripples in his hollow body. Both of them were descendants of those cursed by [“Laplace's Box”,] and both [had] lost their fleeting love—[with skepticism, a sense of loss, and a touch of empathy,] the “Delta Plus” [flew] through the [twilight] sky. [Unsure of] where they were going or where they should go, [Alberto] looked [out] at the [amber-coloured] sky and sea. The “Anksha”, ferrying the unmanned “Banshee”, turned with the sea surface behind it as it pivoted its way through the crimson sky, [leaving behind] an empty trail of jet cloud.

Alberto/Riddhe real...?

The Escape: RGB Gamer Mode

The original text description of this phenomenon is a little more blatantly rainbow and less dominated by green, but these visuals are still very pretty.

The ghosts of Daguza and Gilboa do not appear during this scene in the novel. I think they're a sensible addition. It foreshadows exposition about "lingering thoughts" that we should be getting next time.

The biggest change here is that in the novel, Marida and Zinnerman are still in the cockpit with Banagher. There was no time for them to be transferred to the Garancieres while shaking off their pursuers. The trigger for Banagher's renewed determination, the Unicorn's strange glow, and the resulting miracle is Marida regaining consciousness for a moment and taking his hand.

I would have really liked to keep that... I think it's a strong way to end a conflict that had Marida as such a central figure, and the imagery ties directly into her fixation on "the light". Marida does have an inner light, and none of the terrible things that were done to her can ever take it away.

The General Revil: What????

They introduced the General Revil this episode, when Bright talked to Beltorchika. I was still incredibly taken aback when it showed up at the end. Especially since it immediately engaged in combat? This was very much not what happened in the original.

Bemused as I've been about it, it's easy enough to figure out why this was done. Again, they're cutting things for time, by making the path between locations and plot points more direct. I just really wasn't expecting it!

In the novel, the crew of the Garancieres and the Nahel Argama get away successfully, and it takes some time before anyone catches on to where they actually went. I'll probably get more into the details of all that next time, since it's the start of book 8.

I will say that the Federation ship that Angelo and Frontal attack like this in the novel gets destroyed. Surely they're not going to sink the General Revil... ???

Speaking of which,

THE BOYS ARE BACK IN TOWN

Do you have any idea how happy I am to have an excuse to put pictures of Frontal and Angelo in one of these again? Do you?

The Rozen Zulu is one of my favourite mobile suits. Stiletto heels, big metal claws, INCOMs, and character-focused visual theming? She has it all.

This is exactly the problem: this part was the coolest robot stuff in the whole thing to me. An exciting hook is never a bad thing, but I think the coolest robot moments should always try to be the ones at the emotional core of the episode.

Yes, I know I get excited every time Angelo and Frontal show up. I can distinguish that from this. Did you see those ReZELs get melted? Did you see Frontal's totally unnecessary bazooka twirl? So good.

I'm glad he's having fun. :)

So that's the end. It looks like we have quite an exciting setup for next time— which may or may not be a bit of a fakeout, depending on whether they're keeping or skipping certain scenes.

I'm not even going to try to make predictions at this point.

Haro, play Broken Mirror by Boom Boom Satellites.

#remibloggue #gundam #gundam unicorn

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