#I’ve been doing almost anything except for the main quest line

[yormp]

Why can I see Purah just going “but Linky! We could upgrade it!”

And Link running the other direction like “no! Don’t touch me or my arm!”

[fishysaltine]

Honestly I’ve always seen Bloodbath (or the kill Zara quest) as Illario’s final desperate attempt to be swayed form his plan. It kind of reminds me of Solas and Varric’s note of him in the beginning of the game “he just needs someone to give him a different option”

Like Illario is genuinely upset about this whole thing. He thought Lucanis was dead, and we see that he was such a chronically depressed alcoholic yapper after Lucanis’ death that even though he did give the hit, he at least regretted it or it didn’t sit well with him. (I have no doubt Zara manipulated him to some extent into it, since she has her eyes on Lucanis after the Wigmaker job anyway, but neither Zara or Illario are actually explored in game). But when Illario is taking us to the boat, he makes note of saying Catarina didn’t tell him because “I would have tried to save him.” The way he says that line is in a COMPLETELY different tone than anything else he says. It’s stern and to the point, not condescending like after Illario takes out Zara and talks down on Lucanis, telling him he’s a danger and liability.

If Illario knew Lucanis was actually alive, he probably would have killed Zara earlier. And Zara obviously KNEW THIS because she didn’t tell Illario Lucanis was ALIVE for that very reason. Illario never knew about Spite. He never planned for the Ossuary. He never meant for that to happen! Zara knew that whatever Illario and she had going on would never even be close to the bond Lucanis and Illario have, and Illario would put that over power every single time.

Almost every single time.

Because he knows what he did, and he still goes out for coffee with Lucanis and the weirdo rando that saved him. And then he tries to convince Lucanis to stay away from Zara, because he knows that Zara is capable of and how not only she can, but has hurt Lucanis. (She turned his big brother into an abomination!)

WAIT A MINUTE WHO ELSE DOES THAT? Lucanis does! Except Lucanis is more direct about it. Says that Zara might come after him. Illario tries to convince Lucanis she’s in fuckass land, get him out of the situation ENTIRELY involving Antiva, the Anntam, First Talon. Yeah, there’s probably a selfish motivation, but in Wigmaker Illario is so fucking scared Lucanis is going to essentially fling himself off a cliff, there’s a genuine “heyy can you take a holiday? Can you stop being passively suicidal for me, your little cousin? Can we stop with the ‘death is my calling’ shit?”

Of course Illario can’t just go “uhh I’ll take care of it dw bro” because to Lucanis the beef with Illario and Zara isn’t merely as personal as he (and Spites) beef with her. They really just want to protect one another and get their dues.

Illario killing Zara wasn’t so much for him. I mean she kind of played him, but whatever, it didn’t necessarily affect Illario in anyway, it was for Lucanis. A way to try and appease the guilt of something that he never intended to happen to his older brother. That’s why Illario wants to be there during Bloodbath. “It’s Crow business” aka ‘WHY ARE YOU TAKING WEIRDO RANDO 1 & 2 OVER ME? I deserve to be at your side, I’ll follow you to the ends of the earth and back, why won’t you let me anymore?’

So Illario meets Lucanis and his rando friends on the rooftop. Lucanis asks him what he’s doing there- and Illario says he wants to go. He’s so desperate to go, to prove his alliance to his big brother cousin. But that’s not all. Lucanis has been gone for a year, and then left immediately. Killing and missions, being Crow’s is one of the main ways Lucanis and Illario bond.

Illario has never felt good enough. For his grandmother, for Lucanis, for anyone. That’s why he started this mess. Zara tells him Lucanis doesn’t think he’s good enough, he never will be, until he does the most Crow thing ever and cuts him out of the family line. Then finally, maybe, when his cousin’s eyes are glassy and corpse empty, will they be filled with approval.

But Lucanis is right here (with two randos)! And Illario asks him to involve him, just looking for that smidge of approval. And Lucanis says no. Ok. Cool! Maybe he just wants you safe. Fine, whatever. But you’re capable- at least you think you are.

So you ask the damning question. “You think I’m not good enough?”

And your cousin, your big brother, simply says: “Are you?”

While surely a good natured jab from Lucanis as siblings do, had Lucanis’ answer been anything even close to praise or more concern, I think Illario would’ve been fine to step out of the way. ALL he needed was Lucanis’ mild assurance/approval. Just a ‘oh no, you’re good enough. I just don’t want you getting hurt is all’

But he doesn’t say that. He simply feeds into the very insecurity that sent Illario to selling him out, the very one that Zara told him but he never quite believed until the words came from Lucanis’ mouth. ‘You’re not good enough to stand by my side anymore.’ And potentially ‘I’ve replaced you with rando 1 & 2, I don’t need you anymore’

So then he doubles down. No more playing nice cousin or big brother little brother. If Lucanis doesn’t want Illario by his side anymore- fuck it, Illario doesn’t need him. Lucanis saying Illario isn’t good enough isn’t just a blow to his ego, or self confidence/self esteem, it’s a flat out rejection. So he takes the kill from Lucanis, and essentially tells him to get the fuck out of dodge or else, and then tries to strong arm first Talon.

Lucanis never quite gives Illario “the different option.” Illario throws their bond away not because he necessarily wants to, but because he thinks Lucanis’ threw it away first, and that he’s just folding onto a frayed rope (not even mentioning how Illario crosses out Lucanis’ name in the family line, showing how he just… almost doesn’t exist. He’s gone to Illario. Illario’s so hurt by everything he just wants Lucanis gone at this point, come hell or high water.)

Lucanis quite literally says that the only way Catarina would be proud of Illario is if he kills her, and if that extends to Lucanis, so be it.

[kdramafeminist]

Performative Badassery & Women in Kdramas

When I said I wrote an essay, I meant essay. This is a long one! Grab a snack and venture below the read more. I’ll see you at the end!

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You know the feeling. The drama begins. Our female main lead walks onto screen. She’s a successful businesswoman, a hotshot detective, clever lawyer, smartass retail worker, etc, etc. She stares down a random man to prove she’s the powerful one here. Or kicks some ass. Or rattles off a bunch of demands to her workers. Or talks fast to show off her intelligence.

Then she meets the male lead. There’re fireworks. Slowly we find our female lead has a softer side. Good to know. 3-dimensional and complex characters are important. It’s nice to see women on-screen who are both capable and emotional. Kick ass and feminine. 

But slowly... something starts to go wrong. She seems to be crying more than showing literally any other kind of emotion. And is it just me or is she getting saved and manhandled and flustered quite a lot for a woman who we were told was so well put together? Sure, the circumstances are extreme. But they’re extreme for the male lead too and he seems to be managing just fine for some reason. Also, if both of them are ordinary people with no on-screen fighting experience, how come he’s so great at throwing fists out of nowhere and she’s busy keeping hidden or needing rescuing? Exactly how many times can one person just faint like that without anyone checking to see if she has a medical condition?

By the drama’s end our lead has gone through trials and tribulations. She’s fallen in love too, I’m happy for her. But... now that the story’s ending and she’s getting in one last chance to show us she’s a “badass”, why am I left feeling hollow? She’s showing us how tough she is but... we ALL spent this whole drama watching her have absolutely no agency or such a little amount that she might as well have been trying to put out a fire with a water-pistol. It’s almost like her previous badassery (in whatever form it may have been - I don’t mean badass only in terms of being able to throw a good punch) was just a façade. A way to hook in female viewers like me who want to see something more than a wilting wallflower or one-trick Cinderella. But the tiniest knock and the cardboard house collapses.

And no matter how many times we get throwaway lines about her being “the smartest/toughest/scariest/most capable one here” it doesn’t ring true compared to the actual character we’re watching.

Rom-coms, melos and sagueks especially (but many more genres besides), have a real problem when it comes to performative badassery in their female characters. The writers give us a female lead they claim is hyper competent, but the reality is totally different. Any plot that features romance, almost always features this. Honestly the way the start of the relationship in dramas actively MURDERS the female character’s agency could be its own essay so I won’t go deep, just know the two are 100% linked.

The “Faux Action Girl” Problem 

A Faux Action Girl happens when a writer wants the popularity that comes with having a cool action girl character, or they want the praise that comes with writing a lead that breaks gender norms, or they want to be lauded for writing a FL whose more capable & progressive than the female kdrama lead we’d imagine, but they don’t end up actually giving us her. Instead we get the fake or faux version. The reasons are usually a combination of:

Relying on outdated tropes. Wrist grabs, damsels in distress, a girl fainting so she misses some vital plot related moment to increase runtime etc...

Sexist worldviews. As a by-product of being Korean which is still a heavily sexist country because of the holdover of Confucianism mixed in with the Christianity westerners brought over that leads many writers to (often without even realising) inserting moments that inadvertently reduce their female leads because they think that’s what correct or natural for the female character based on their opinion of women in general. Even if it doesn’t actually fit the type of character they’ve set out to create.

Executive meddling. Producers who think their demographic wouldn’t be able to handle a real badass but also know their female viewers want more complexity and agency in their FLs these days and so give us the paper-version instead of the 3D model.

This character’s more “badass” traits are nearly always just an Informed Ability (the writers tell us via other characters what she can do but never actually show us on-screen these same things) or we only ever see her utilise them once/twice at the beginning and maybe if we’re lucky once at the end, but never again. 

It really hurts.

The “Badass Decay/Chickification” Problem

Sometimes she really is a legitimate action girl though. She’ll be a cop whose good at her job or an ordinary citizen whose well-versed in taekwondo. She has actual moments on-screen to prove herself. 

Well. She has moments in episodes 1 and 2. Then she almost always goes through Badass Decay/Chickification. Which means that writers (& producers) believe that if we don’t see her having a softer side, she’ll become unrealistic or unlikeable. 

They fix her. So she becomes more vulnerable. As the only girl on the team (usually), she becomes the one who ends up injured more often or needs rescuing most. Her life begins to revolve entirely around her romance and nothing else. (Meanwhile the male leads gets to have the romance and keep his side-quest - have you noticed that? If the FL is really lucky she gets to keep one side-quest too, maybe a dream job or solving some family mystery. Never more though.. only men get to be complicated here). Once she was competent... now it feels like she legitimately had a personality transplant. 

Is this even the same person we began with?

The “Worf Effect” Problem 

Worf Effect is when the danger/power level of a villain is shown to the audience by making him successfully attack/hurt/ruin the plans of someone that the audience knows is skilled. This isn’t a bad thing alone and writers use it all the time. We need to acknowledge the villain as a proper threat and this is a useful way to do it!

But in kdramas it’s something used almost always against the lead female character. The one we’ve seen is intelligent, or strong-willed or quick-witted. 

And because it’s always her, this character begins to look weak. If this writing trope is abused, her reputation as the "biggest, toughest" etc. begins to look like it never existed and we’re back to her having an informed ability. 

That this is something that happens to the female characters not only more often but almost exclusively is a sign of sexism. Plain and simple.

Competent, Real Badass Female Characters Aren’t Scary

 If you’re going to sell me a capable woman, give me her. 

Not someone who has one very unique, specialised skill but otherwise can do nothing else except for that one time when her one skill is useful. 

Or has built up her own empire, implying a certain level of smarts, business ability or networking skills, but then once she’s removed from it she becomes so utterly useless it begs the question how she built that empire in the first place. 

Or has a rep as the detective whose taken down the toughest guys off-screen, but whatever skills she used to do that seem to disappear the moment anything really challenging happens on-screen. 

I’m not saying she needs to win all the time. Of course she doesn’t, how boring is that? All I’m asking is that when she loses, it’s in keeping with the character I’m supposedly watching. A woman that can kick ass can still be outwitted. A clever woman can be physically beaten. A street-smart girl can be foiled by rules and regulations. A leader-type can be beat by someone whose more unconventional.

It’s not difficult to write someone like this. I know the writers can do it because every male lead is written this way. I’ve never once, whilst watching a badass male lead lose, get beaten and cry, thought “oh no, his badassery was fake all along!”

Because when he loses it makes sense. It’s in character. There’s a solid plot reason behind why it happens.

Meanwhile my ladies who are meant to be able to kick ass and take names somehow just got kidnapped out of nowhere?

Make it make sense!

Consistent Characterisation is Good Writing

I get wanting moments where one is injured and the other fusses over them. I love those moments! All I ask is more imagination taken to get us to that point. Make it in-character. If my taekwondo black belt is kidnapped, I want to see her really fight. I want the kidnapping to be shown as genuinely tough on the people trying to nab her. Imagine how much more satisfying it would be to see her fight off all these bad guys, yet still end up losing? How much more heart-breaking?

We’d be so much more invested in the mind games or politics the villain is playing if the female lead we’ve been told is good at that stuff is playing the game just as hard. When she loses it’ll hurt more.

Writers need to stop being afraid that her remaining capable in some way diminishes the masculinity, attractiveness, prowess or “hero” status of the male lead. Trust me. It doesn’t. Ever. 

It’s not a case of either/or. We don’t think less of the male lead because his partner is as capable as him in whatever way that may be. Instead, we think more of them both. Once a romance begins, the heightened worry both characters have for each other should only make both of them stronger in whatever area they’re skill lies in. Not just make the man a sudden defence wall and the woman a worrying mess. 

I’m sure everyone who reads this can immediately think of at least one drama with a FL who is a Performative Badass. I know I had about ten in mind as I wrote this. 

There are exceptions. Cases where the badass gets to stay a badass. Usually these cases happen in genres without romance because like I said above, those problems are linked. But I can think of a few romcoms/sageuks/melos where it happens too. 

But those are the minority.

Women in kdramas. Give them agency. Make their characterisation genuine, not just a bit-part for the sake of a cool trailer. Not just one moment someone can edit into a “badass multifemale” video edit - only for us to watch the drama from the clip and discover we’ve been sold a lie. 

How satisfied would we be?

Writers! Give us a story we enjoyed because of the excellent characterisation. A new female character we can add to our lists of faves. Women who proved themselves as consistently badass as their first scenes claimed. Women in kdramas who, no matter what problem they faced, don’t become echoes or paper-thin versions of who we were promised.

Actual, complex, layered, enjoyable, KICK-ASS AND BADASS female leads.

Wouldn’t that be a miracle.

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PS. This is an open notice that it’s OKAY to reblog with added commentary/thoughts/rambles of your own. I would *love* to see it if you have anything to add.

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(Disclaimer: This essay was written with a specific female character type in mind. I am not saying every FL needs to be a badass or hyper competent. Soft, shy, physically weak female characters exist and can be just as realistic and complex. There’s a few I can think of who I adore. Instead my essay is very specifically about characters who are *meant* to be badass from the start but then... don’t end up being. So, yeah, before anyone claims I’m some angry feminist who needs every FL to be some tough martial artist or something. Absolutely not! Diversity is amazing and interesting. All I ask is that when I am told I’ll be getting a badass in a drama I get her. Not have my heart broken by the fake wilting flower I find in her place. Ok. End disclaimer. ^^)

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Also I’m tagging a bunch of you because you reblogged my post saying you wanted this so here! TY for making it to the end ^^

@kdramaxoxo​ @islandsofchaos @storytellergirl @vernalagnia-blog @lostindramas @salaamdreamer​ @planb-is-in-effect​ 

[ramblings-of-a-mad-cat]

icl, i kinda miss Alanza. i know it’s an unpopular opinion but honestly i don’t mind her. she was in one of the assignments in the new year 7 chapter and it was nice to see her again even if it wasn’t in the main story. it’s almost like she doesn’t even exist outside astronomy lessons most of the time like i’ve literally seen a few ppl saying they forgot she even existed and honestly i can’t entirely blame them at this point. i don’t know why they even added Alanza in the first place, i like her enough but she doesn’t really do anything anymore. they never bothered to explain why she was staying an extra year either. maybe they originally had bigger plans for her but Alanza didn’t turn out to be as popular as they hoped so they changed their minds or something.

Y'know, I am convinced more than ever that there was some sort of alternative plan for Alanza's character, whatever it might have been, that was ultimately scrapped for whatever reason. Like you said, it's not at all clear why they added her to begin with, and while they may have just kept her around for mechanical reasons or to appease fans...they conspicuously never gave a reason for why she stayed. All it would have taken is one throwaway line.

There's something more. I've been leveling Alanza up recently. (Looking forward to donning those kickass robes.) and one of the questions that I constantly roll when I'm having butterbeer with her is "Who's necklace did I give you?" The correct answer being, her Grandmother's. There's just one problem with that. Alanza has never given MC a necklace. Not her grandma's or anyone else's. Maybe there's just some quest that I missed or haven't unlocked yet, maybe it's a quest in the code that never got released. (Think of Jae's cooking quest, it was in limbo for ages.) But if there is, I've not heard about it. And even if the quest exists, the fact is, my file has never completed it. So this bit of trivia doesn't make any sense. At the rate the game is going, I don't see us getting a necklace from Alanza either, outside of maybe in a TLSQ.

I haven't forgotten Alanza existed, but I frankly have no idea how to work her into my canon. Her arrival in Year 6 is something that I find difficult to describe as anything but filler. I don't want to think of it as filler, but similar to Victor, her character just hasn't really contributed to the plot much at all. I guess she recruited the Weird Sisters? But MC already knew them, Alanza wasn't necessary. I guess she told MC that Rakepick smelled like cinnamon? As if that ended up mattering, or did anything apart from raise more questions. I've said it a million times, but the story grinded to a halt to introduce Alanza, and then the universe seemed to conspire to ensure she found out about The Circle of Khanna...only...then she didn't join.

Am I alone in thinking that Alanza presented herself differently in Y6CH22 then she did for...the rest of the game, pretty much? In her initial appearance, she gave the impression of being the adventurous type. For crying out loud, she got lost in the jungle for a week. She lived on ants and rain! And then, after the player is forced to let her in on the secret organization that she was so curious about...she doesn't want to get involved? I know first impressions aren't everything, and any character can have their own cases of early installment weirdness, but...I'm not the only one who's noticed this, right? Alanza became significantly calmer and less inclined toward danger after her initial introduction. To the point that I noticed it, again and again.

Then there's her affinity for creatures, which they make such a big deal about, that I assume it has to be a Checkov's Wand. The scene where she sits in Rowan's seat, obliviously. Just a harsh moment for MC, or...is it supposed to mean something more? I'd suspect it might, except...Alanza has hardly done anything in Year 7, and I'm just left wondering...what exactly is her home situation like. I mean, she'll be seventeen by this point, so her parents can't make her come home, but...why wouldn't she want to? Doesn't she miss them? Did something happen there? I want to know, gosh dangit.

EDIT: I was wrong about the necklace, she does technically give us one, but it's still a huge error.

[jason-pipers]

the jason/piper breakup and jason’s subsequent death

it is a long and angry post so you have been warned 

 I’m really sick of seeing Jason Grace/Piper McLean slander in their own tag, and I’m really, really sick of seeing people justify their breakup/his death as good writing. 

As I’ve been studying literature and text for the past four years at Uni- I can say with absolute confidence that The Burning Maze utilizing Jason and Piper was horrible. Like a bag of shit mixed together then smeared on paper and published kind of horrible. Actually, you don’t even really need a degree to be able to point out the very basic absurdity of them appearing in TBM. So even though I have a paper due on a completely unrelated topic and a lot of homework, I naturally decided this was a much better thing to write about: 

 Maybe in another world, Rick’s ghostwriters will be better at writing his books. The reason why the Jason/Piper breakup was extremely confusing and done very poorly in the sense of their character arcs was that there was no buildup to the breakup. In fact, I think these two got together off-screen and broke up off-screen. Yet, I’m sure Riordan sat at his desk thinking “now why don’t people just like Jason and Piper?? I give them so much!” Actually, you gave them nothing. It’s also considerably easy to disguise their breakup as logical when it isn’t. Now, people will argue that the basic foundation of the relationship was poorly made because of Hera’s meddling and that’s why they broke up. This is a lazy way to think about it because it’s obvious you don’t care about the characters so you should just say that and go. Hera’s meddling (putting false memories of Jason in Piper’s head and wiping Jason’s brain) really only gave Piper a vague notion of Jason (based on real attributes the Mist pulls) and also gave PERCY and Jason multiple relationships after the switcheroo. But Piper actually meets Jason and then has a subsequent breakdown that maybe he’s not her boyfriend. However, once she gets to know the real Jason (very accurate to the one she knew in her memories because Aphrodite said she could sense real possibilities hinting at their romance), she is still developing romantic feelings for him. It’s implied that the reason why Piper is falling so fast is because the memories she has of Jason are based on the real Jason. It’s easy to establish that Piper has real romantic feelings for Jason, not the made up Jason because the majority of TLH is them getting to know each other. If she felt like there was some confusion on her part about developing feelings for him because of Hera switching Percy and Jason- why did it not come up EVER? The months where Jason and Piper started dating. How about that long ass quest on the Argo? It could have been a valid plot line but it never came up. If it had come up near the end of the series or maybe even if it was a small subplot in the series, it would make the breakup logical, at least narratively. But no, we end Blood of Olympus with Jason and Piper coming full circle with the moment in the stars. Flash forward three years later to TBM where everything (and I mean EVERYTHING) about Piper and Jason are thrown into the trash. They’re broken up due to the false memories and overall I guess it’s implied Piper doesn’t have feelings for him anymore or something? Or the trauma of being in something like that prophecy was a lot for her to handle and she needed some time to figure things out? Yeah of course! Just like when she will go through another trauma (Jason dying for her) and start dating someone new right after. This would be so much easier to read and digest if these things are shown- in their own series and maybe not as a side thing to Apollo’s series. Reading it in TOA was completely out of left field. I know SO MANY PEOPLE were like that makes so much sense! Good for you Piper! But I was like girl, who are you? I feel like I have not spent any time with you and none of what you’re saying is connecting to anything you were like before. Which leads me to believe people just did not like Piper in HOO but just say that and go. HOO Piper is not TBM/TOA Piper. RR doesn’t know how to characterize his own goddamn characters. Furthermore, everything in canon up until TBM implies and directly states that Jason and Piper are endgame. It’s not to say they didn’t have problems that were resolved or that the way they got together was conventional. There was not even a smidge bit of reluctance to admit they were canon endgame- I think RR even had Cupid involved. There was no prediction or even hint of what would happen in TBM in HOO, which is a very big narrative problem. Jason, always isolated by loved ones and quite frankly always shouldering way more than a human can handle dies exactly the way he suffers. There is no growth or even a small lovely moment where we can see Jason. 

This brings me to the most unnecessary death I’ve ever read in my life. I know RR’s ego hurt from the complaints about Jason/Piper/Frank/Hazel/Leo (basically a non-Percabeth character) being underdeveloped. I know his ego was fucked when he “killed” Leo but didn’t really kill Leo so everyone was like what the fuck. I know he wanted to prove he is a good writer but like any other bad writer, he decided to jump the shark. And I know he wanted Jason and Piper to be more likable but the fandom really wanted a Leo-esque character. The breakup really happened because he wanted to demonstrate to critics that he could live with couples not being endgame and knew Jasiper was relatively unpopular compared to Percabeth/Caleo/etc. He wasn’t thinking in terms of ‘does this fit what I’ve created’ but in terms of ‘people might be like oh shit this is violent and they’re finally gone!’. I don’t know what idiotic thought process made him reach the point of killing one of them but he obviously got there. See, there is no difference between Jason or Piper dying in TBM. It could’ve easily been Piper who was impaled by Caligula and reminded Apollo “what it’s like to be human”. They were made *that* insignificant in TBM. Pretty much fucking interchangeable. IN DEATH. It also could’ve been anybody else in the world. It could’ve been that cheerleader from The Battle of the Labyrinth. It could’ve been Piper’s dad. It could have been Sally Jackson. Not a single part of Jason’s death was really related to Jason or his growth. Jason was the main/lead from HOO and if he was destined to die (which he wasn’t because RR doesn’t think anything through anymore), he should have died in his own series. That would make his sacrifice more compelling and important, but dying in TOA is just a big fuck you to his character. I think the only equivalent I can think of is if HOO had solely been Jason’s series but RR pulled up Percy to simply kill him and then just kept writing. What the fuck does TOA have anything to do with Jason or Piper? Or even Leo? I usually love when characters make cameo appearances to remind us of the past we loved them in. Kind of like when Lynda Carter appeared as Asteria in WW1984. Conversely, involving them in the plot and then using them as a plot device for the main character- AKA USING YOUR MAIN CHARACTER AS A PLOT DEVICE FOR ANOTHER MAIN CHARACTER IN A SEPARATE SERIES- is not only dumb but it truly makes everything else you’ve written for the first main character devoid of any real significance. Jason was never a fully fleshed-out character, the way he deserved to be written, because RR couldn’t world build as well as he thought and that ‘every single character gets a POV’ didn’t do the legendary thing he thought it did. However, anything that mattered about Jason was pretty much killed in TBM because he was easily killed by a villain that was not even remotely interested in Jason or aware of his existence. What does FUCK does Caligula mean to Jason? Nothing. Did the final battle create a full circle for Jason other than the line “remember?” which is not really related to his amnesia- no. His character arc was about an identity crisis- being pushed and pulled in two directions. Jason barely means anything to Apollo so RR using Jason as a convenient kill to send home a message is also shitty for Apollo. Lead hero characters can die- they sometimes just have to. Marissa Cooper’s death in the OC narratively makes sense due to the nature of the character being a damsel in distress from the very beginning- a foil to her counterpart, Ryan Atwood. But in this case, RR knew he had to shock people to keep getting $$$. I never got the impression RR cared about Jason or Piper, especially since he was incredibly disrespectful and lazy when writing about Piper. (For that- I can link really detailed posts explaining his racism). The truth is Riordan cannot live without putting his characters in relationships- Frazel, Caleo, Tyson/Ella (?), Hedge/Mellie- but he wanted to prove that he could which is why Jasiper broke up.

Piper’s girlfriend in TON- I didn’t read TON for the reasons above and I don’t think I’ll ever read a Riordan book again: I did find out that Piper gets a GF in TON which at first I thought was incredibly neat but then later became angry when I learned it was only months after Jason’s death? I have always wanted Piper to explore her sexuality but RR has this case of never giving important things the development it deserves. He’s incredibly messy and inconsistent when he creates lgbtqia+ characters, usually only including them so he can get credit for including them. He’s never actually explored Piper’s sexuality fully in the series, but he threw her in yet another relationship we didn’t get to read about right after she was almost beaten to death and then witnessed the murder of her ex-boyfriend. If you think that is representation, please rethink that. We don’t get to hear her talk about anything at all, except maybe mentioning the girl’s name. A subtle hint. Just representation is not good representation and it is right that we demand better representation. Don’t settle for less. For fuck’s sake, Riverdale is only really good at queerbaiting but they get so much praise. (Do they? At this point I can’t tell). If we wanted to explore Piper’s sexuality, it could have been done while she was with Jason or even broken up with him in her own series- why didn’t RR explore the nature of being lgbtqia+ in an Indigenous family? He had the chance to demonstrate an awareness of intersectionality through Piper but he fucked up. He had so much to write about. So, people who are yelling happily about that Piper appearance in TON-??? 

 This was long and frustrating to write. But I had feelings.

[razorblade180]

Overall thoughts on V8? Assuming you didn't answer this already.

I meant to do a volume wrap up review but I got incredibly busy and it fell to the waste side. The thing about me judging RWBY I have to come at it from two angles or I won’t feel like I judged it appropriately. There’s the casual, first time seeing the episodes and seeing this through the lens as a casual watcher who probably only sees the episodes once or twice. But then there’s the other side to that coin. I review these episodes, write aus, theorize, check extended lore, listen to the music, etc; that means I have to go back and watch episodes several times for any given reason and that’s when you start noticing the holes or picking up on things you didn’t before.

As a casual watcher, I’d give this an 8/10. There’s plenty of moments where characters do things that got me excited and plot points I wanted explored. This volume actually gave a decent amount of things I wanted for quite some time and some things I didn’t know I needed. Certainly there are things I don’t like in this but I’m open and curious to see where RT takes their storie because it’s their story.

Okay, now as a someone who’s had to deep dive and take a step back multiple times for a variety of reasons. 6.5/10 maybe a 7/10 if I’m being generous. A lot of my problems with this volume are problems that aren’t new to RWBY and that’s just how surface layer portions of arcs are and how a variety of choices/bonds don’t exactly make sense with what we were previously shown, or they only make sense because the writers don’t want introduce other complexities even though they should be there realistically. I’ll give a couple examples of these and yes, I’m aware what I say doesn’t bother everyone but it bothers me.

Qrow was never angry at or brought up Robyn being the reason their airship crashed in the first place because she started the fight; which aids in Clover dying.

Emerald follows Cinder, not Salem. Even if Cinder is working under Salem, why would Emerald be so willingly to complete shift to the side that actively goes against Cinder? There’s been no grand revelation to make Emerald believe Cinder doesn’t give a damn about her. Leaving made sense because she was about to get tortured. Going full turncoat right now doesn’t. No change happened. Emerald always hated being near Salem but adored Cinder no matter the crimes and the show hasn’t done anything to switch that view point.

I’m happy Whitley and Weiss had a touching sibling moment that implies they’re okay and making/made up, but there was never a conversation about the actual problem and thoughts that had them at odds in the first place. Weiss saving his and Willow’s life shouldn’t be the thing that smooths things over. It would’ve been terrible if Weiss do something to save their life. Whitley helping Penny is okay I guess because he really had no reason to contribute but did anyways. Even so, a person doing a morally correct thing doesn’t automatically warrant the conflict between him and Weiss’s resolved.

We got Cinder’s backstory; it didn’t tell us anything about how she eventually came into contact with Salem. Honestly her back story felt more in line of her main goal through the series was an absolute freedom by the means of breaking down the systems that trapped and didn’t give a damn, rather than her quest for power. Yes you can argue gaining power means it’s easier to maintain her freedom to do whatever she wants but I personally think that’s a little off the mark when you gave her a story that involves her trapped by rules and time rather than being too physically weak to gain freedom.

This show has built up that the Schnee family has suffered various types of abuse because of Jacques and uses Weiss as a medium to build towards breaking free from that. Not just overcoming but confronting the abuse by cementing it’s place below you. We don’t really get that. There will never be a moment where the siblings and mother truly get to break out of Jacques grasps emotionally and then put him in his place because he’s dead! Yeah they never have to worry about him again but even last volume they showed Winter still having turmoil and being able to get strung along by him. We don’t even really know how Whitley perceived his father. It feels so lackluster. Then they care to mention how it’s Weiss’s idea to save him like it’s an empowering moment when in actuality, it would be against her character, values of a huntress, and morality to let a person die in cell when you’re the reason they’re in a cell! Letting him die in there would just terrible. I don’t even know why he wasn’t let out in that scene! He’s a coward! He’d follow their orders to save his skin. All he has to do is shut up and walk through a portal.

Ironwood and Oscar both knew they could remove that staff to use it and Atlas wouldn’t drop immediately. Why did nobody have any kind of compromise with one another since there’s nothing stopping them from using the staff for something and then putting it back? They had this morally gray thing going on which I liked but then they decided to make Ironwood go full evil. I’ve never had to say this before but the song he got in V7 and the character they made him be in V8 just don’t connect. I got upset listening to that song recently because I liked that Ironwood.

Clover’s importance. RT tried making a character who had no more than 9 minutes in the series and one meaningful line of dialogue into the cornerstone of a side plot. Clover is such a nothing character. Vine did more than Clover. They try to make him have such a profound impact to the people around him but we never see him bond with his team; Harriet specifically. We get one scene of Clover telling Qrow the kids are fortunate to have Qrow even if he doesn’t think so. First, I doubt Clover knows Qrow decided to get drunk in a ghost town and the kids nearly died and cellar while he did it so that compliment doesn’t hold much weight for me. Second, We see nothing meaningful between the two. V7 has a time skip and just expects viewers to be on board with Clover being this influential change on Qrow without showing anything outside of a witty remark and Clover flexing his semblance. I would’ve bought it more of Qrow almost relapsed and Clover stopped him then had a real meaningful conversation.

Ruby goes against Ironwood only to then want to do a plan that’s aligned to longer term thinking than even his, talks about how everyone should be working together, but then adds a part in her video to actively antagonize and vilify Ironwood. Afterwards, she wonders where everything went wrong and doesn’t think of a plan or do anything to immediately help either kingdom until the final hour between the ultimatum being made, to everything getting destroyed. The inciting incident was disagreeing Mantle should be left in favor of Atlas but the main character didn’t do anything to help Mantle 90% of the season and hindered Atlas’s safety up until the final plan.

Yang is used to be the devil’s advocate in a bunch of situations, but she’s wrong most of the time or her lines just don’t make any sense. They weren’t doing just fine before Atlas. They almost died every step of the way. The team didn’t beat a Leviathan; silver eyes and a robot take credit for that. Why would Blake think less of Yang for wanting to go save people immediately? Blake was never mad at anyone to begin with. Yang consistently calls out people for following orders as if it’s objectively wrong, but is never called out on the fact she hasn’t followed anybody’s orders but her own and added discourse to every situation. I get RT is making her ask questions because that’s what Raven told her to do, but all she’s really doing is picking fights and disobeying every order. Yang states to Ruby they accomplished more than they expected. That’s false, getting Oscar back is correcting a mistake caused by her own plan that she didn’t even complete.

It took 6 volumes before Yang had anything to do with the Summer Rose subplot again and 7 volumes before her and Ruby had a sister to sister conversations; 5 if you wanna count Yang telling Ruby to leave at the end of volume three. The reason I bring this up is because in V8 , they treat their argument as if it’s a big deal but then have every character say it wasn’t that big a deal; but then have two circle back to that conversation later after having neither character discuss to anybody that the argument actually did weigh on them. Yang doesn’t think about Ruby until she sees her again and the closest we get with Ruby is Blake reassuring her that people need her and how Blake admires her. I like that scene but it’s not the same as Ruby actually airing out the specific point that Yang said something that Ruby found hurtful. Vol8 in general people trying to comfort others but nobody ever actually addresses what made them uncomfortable to start with. Except Ren.

This one is a nitpicking but I’ll say it anyways. Penny getting hacked only served as a purpose to go to the vault, a thing Ironwood already wanted them to do. Nobody got her because she was hacked. You can’t even say her getting hacked is the leading factor to her actually dying because Penny became a vulnerable human afterwards that can’t be rebuilt. Pietro was gone, and already stated last volume he doesn’t have the aura to build Penny again. If she died as a robot then it’s still permanent death. No core, no Pietro, and no aura; hacking her was just to create a Hound reveal situation and make them go to the vault on a different set of terms. I’m not exactly upset with this, but I don’t understand why the extra steps. The Hound was hunting her anyways. I would’ve brought some kind of value if she hurt a friend and it caused them to potentially hinder the plan later on or remove them entirely. Penny could’ve rekt Yang and it only adds value to Yang getting one shot later. I don’t know. I’m rambling.

I think I’ve wasted enough people’s time. Honestly, I do like this volume. I’ve enjoyed a bunch of it. But there’s things that legitimately make me think it’s not as good others and makes V7 even worse.

[redantsunderneath]

DC COMICS: Incoherence as Not-a-Bug-but-a-Feature (Spoilers for Batman 89-100)

Due to the emergence of the new Batman villain character Punchline, I wound up buying the last 12 issues of Batman and reading them in a single sitting. I’ve had trouble following DC comics for a while, constantly feeling that they were in trouble since back in the mid 2000s (with a glimmer of hope here and there). The act of reading DC comics has been a frustrating experience, where individual good stories and runs were laying around in the context of a lot of things that didn’t make sense while the company’s thrust felt chaotic and ideas not well blended. Every status quo change seemed hard to figure out the rules of enough to parse the context.  We’ll get into the background of this, but my reading today of this extended stretch of comics that keeps losing the plot in favor of a fever dream of what’s happening at the moment with specific characters that refuse to cohere, it became obvious that what I had been looking at as subtext or critique was actually the text. I could see the messed up trees but was missing the the forest the universe was trying to describe.

What happens in these issues (Batman current series 89-100, I missed the beginning of the first of 2 arcs) is rolling war between the major Batman villains and the heroes (plus Harley Quinn and Catwoman), which shifts into a Joker and Joker adjacent vs. all as the Joker double crosses everyone then manages to steal Bruce Wayne’s fortune.  We meet 3 new baddies – Underbroker, whose schtick is putting ill-gotten gains beyond the reach of the legal system (with an explicit line to rich globalists drawn), the Designer, who back in the day offered the four A list Batman villains plans to achieve what they most wanted, and Punchline, who is your toxic ex’s new millennial GF who really has it in for you (there is also a new good guy Clownhunter, which is a whole different thing, and a new costumed detective that predates Batman).  This doesn’t convey the chaotic nature of what is happening issue to issue, but there’s more than one Batman hallucinogenic spirit quest, dead characters ostensibly walking around, a plan revolving around the Bat’s origin story that tells some version of it several times, and a no-nonsense declaration that the Joker, as the Devil of the Batman spiritual system, cannot die.   The whole thing has the effect of convincing you there is no definitive sequence of events, only versions.

Alan Moore’s Killing Joke is not a favorite of mine, for a number of reasons.  But the ending holds up.  The Joker has done terrible things there is no antecedent for, and Batman wonders aloud if this never-ending dance they do ends in anything but both of their deaths; can they uncouple from the unhealthy duality the cycle of which simply repeats.  The Joker responds, well, with a joke about two lunatics trying to escape an asylum.  One jumps the roof to the next building, while the other is too scared to try.  The escapee offers to hold a light while the other crosses on a beam but he says no, no you’ll just cut the light while I’m half way across.  This not very funny joke nonetheless has a bunch of resonances – BM and Joker as conspiring co inmates, BM wanting to break out, a commentary about their natures (almost a reversal of the frog and scorpion story where the scorpion won’t go because he knows how this ends), but mostly it implicates BM as the one who is enabling the cycle, the reason why it won’t end.  They both laugh uproariously, and the ambiguous final panels can be read as the fundamental realization of his complicity causing BM to kill J.  A lethal joke indeed… except, next month, we see the both of them again.  In broader context, the ceaseless cycle of the diad is reaffirmed.  This has been hellaciously sticky as an idea in the Batmen universe.

My realization of what DC has been doing is pretty banal in its pieces. Marvel has “ground level” heroes while DC has a mythos, a pantheon.  Their archetypal makeup is strong, the seven JLA members lining up with the pantheon of Greek gods and the Chakras weirdly closely.  DC has big characters that are somewhat flat which they can use tell big bold individual stories that are cool the way legends and fables are cool. But these stories require bold strokes that a bit incompatible with each other. People get attached to these iterations. Meanwhile, Marvel trucks in soap operas where the characters give you an empathetic stand in and are narratively flexible. Marvel events are usually about the writer vs. the company, asking you to sympathize or deconstruct the creative impulse amid efforts to impose control or order.  DC’s events are about editorial vs. the audience, the shapers vs. the forces of the world.  It may seem obvious, given this description, that DC’s focus is on an archetypal tableau though it may be less obvious that this tableau is under extreme pressure from expectations when trying to tell ongoing tales month in, month out (or semi-monthly in some cases). The stories are constantly compared against the big stories that have gone before, and the audience’s ideas of the characters exert pressure to push them in directions that capture “the” version they believe in.  This circle is not possible to square.

DC and Marvel both have a multiverse of sorts.  DC used to tell “Elseworlds” stories which were later tucked into pocket universes.  DC invented crossing over between “realities.”  DC’s continuity is heavy baggage and they began to have “Crises” to resolve the narrative incompatibilities.  These only made things worse as you can’t get rid of the past people have a relationship with – it will come back.  Now you have to explain that away too.  Marvel just lets it lay – forget about the iffy stories, they count, sure, just no one is ever going to talk about them unless they have an angle.  Marvel continuity is all angles and amnesia. This is just easier to do with dating and rent and your ancient aunt’s medical bills than with Gods. Marvel’s multiverse is about sandboxes that you can always dump into the mainframe if they work (and never really mention the sandbox again).

There is a shift that occurred in the industry in the 2004 to 2005 era that is less remarked upon than many upheavals in comic’s history. Marvel had gone through a period of incredible new idea generation in the early 2000s after a late 90s creative cratering but had just fired the pro wrestling inflected soul of that moment (Bill Jemas).  DC was coming off of a period of trying to do moderately updated versions of what they basically been doing all along. The attitude was “yeah we’re under stress from the combined history of these characters, but we got to keep telling the stories.” Geoff Johns was one voice of DC over the 99-04 period that showed potential - he seemed to get how to find the core of characters and push them into a new in sync directions if they over the years have lost a clear identity.  But mostly he had internalized a basic schism between something mean that the audience wanted, and something good and wholesome about the characters themselves, and figured out how to mess around with this in a equilibrating fashion.

Interestingly, the ignition point of the main forces that were going to blow DC over the next decade and a half was a comic that had virtually nothing to do with any of those main forces. Brad Meltzer, a novelist, was hired to do a comic called Infinity Crisis, which sold extremely well and was, justifiably or not, recognized as an event.  At the same time, everyone also kind of hated it because the dark desires of some DC fans were pushed forward just a bit too much for comfort and for a comic with Crisis in the name it didn’t do a whole lot other than “darken” things.  Nonetheless, this lit an “event” fire at both companies.  Marvel chose a shake up the status quo for a year, then do it again, pattern and was off to the races (I have written about this, and more, here) while continuing its Randian framing of beleaguered do-gooders opposed by rule making freedom haters.

As this was playing out, Dan Didio quietly took power in DC Editorial.  His outlook was more Bloomian – he seemed to spark off of writers who exhibited anxiety of influence. He recognized Johns was the one person they had could be promoted into something of a universe architect, starting work on two key projects from which the rest would evolve. The first, was bringing back Hal Jordan as Green Lantern and diffracting the GL universe into its own symbolic system, with parts frisson-ing other parts, and almost a Magic the Gathering color scheme of ideas. The other was to build up to Infinite Crisis, which would become the model for most of their universe changing events until the present day.

The basic frame is this: DC heroes want to be good (in a sense of their inherent nature) but forces outside form a context that makes them fall.  It’s a very gnostic universe, DC.  They  examine reflections of the concepts, invent scapegoats for certain tendencies (see Superboy Prime as entitled fanboy, Dr. Manhattan as editors that try and fail to mend things, etc), make characters violate principles, rehabilitate them, then show that the world if anything is more broken than before.  This is kind of Johns’ thing and it fits Didio’s narrative as historicval tension fetish.  But then came Scott Snyder (not to be confused with Zack) who began to work on Batman in 2011.  Since then, as much as Justice League is pushed as the central title and Lex Luthor has been pimped, Batman has been the core of the universe and the Joker the core villain.

Snyder had the same continuity conflict wavelength but was significantly more meta and able to contain multitudes than Johns.  He was the first to make an explicit mystery of how there could be several Jokers around at one time (who are the same but not, he posited 3 – man, Christians!) that seems prescient given the near future coexistence of filmic Jokers that are not able to be resolved.  I believe he was the first to begin to tease out an idea – that different versions of things in comics are not a diffraction or filter effect, a using the set of things that work best for that story and leaving the rest, but are a matter of the archetypal system of the audience coming apart. From an in story perspective what appears to happen is that multiple versions of incompatible things exist in the collective unconscious of the continuing narrative, and this is something that the characters may become conscious of.  

The run I just read is written by James Tynion IV building on the above trends.  The trick seems to be going all in on the Jungian aspect (at Jung’s most religiously epiphanic).  The Designer was a progenitor and adversary to Batman’s predecessor and his intellectual approach eventually defeated the detective… broke him.  At some point in early Batman history, the Designer brought the top four Bat-baddies together and offered each, in turn, a plan to achieve what they most desired: the Riddler, a way to achieve an empire of the mind; the Penguin, power; and Catwoman, money.  They are all elated as they await the Joker to come out.  The Joker emerges with a furious Designer on his heals and promptly shoots him dead.  He explains that he didn’t like his joke in the form of a fable – the devil offered four people the path to their greatest desire: the three chose earthly things, but the Joker’s wish was to be him, to become the devil.  The story proceeds to suggest that the Joker just exists, he is present as a necessary component in the system.   You can kill him, yet he is alive.

DC has been using physics metaphors for the nature of their reality since Flash of Two Worlds in 1963.  The multiverse as a continuity concept was their idea and the holographic universe of the hypertime was a thing.  It seems like since Dan Didio took over, they’ve been heading towards a concept of broad superimposition, of measurement effect being weak, of the universe being like a quantum computer with all possibilities coexisting and the story instantiating not one reality but a path through all the possible ones.  By making Batman trip balls through quite a few issues and relive his origin from different angles, the story is one of its own instability and the heroic task that confronts our hero is attempting to actualize the world.  The Joker is the Devil in the sense of lack of fixed meaning, of relativistic chaos, of the world not making sense because it’s unmoored nature with ultimately no knowability.  Batman, in this story, functions as a postmodern knight crusading against the impossibility of epistemological grounding.

There’s more going on, sure.  One plot is, literally, defund Batman.  There is rioting, people brainwashed by being exposed to toxic ether, people paid to go to theaters even though they will die as a result, and questions about neoliberalism similar to that one Joker movie. Punchline has no personality yet (Tynion’s not the best at that) but she serves well as a generational foil for Harley – a rudderless ideological vacuum susceptible to Joker-as-idea-virus rather than an unfulfilled MD who felt alienated due to the structures of her life and was seeking escape into structureless possibility.  The Designer stuff is both continuity play (See why they changed from goofy villains to more “realistic” ones! Look how pulp heroes informed superheroes!), a comment on the nature of a longstanding narrative (strong intentions die out as Brownian motion overwhelms momentum), and a lawful evil/chaotic evil setup of the dualism of apocalypses (overdetermined authoritarian vs. center does not hold barbarism).  But the thing that ties this to the past decade and a half of DC is the sense that the reality is fluid and susceptible to change or outright s’cool incompatibility.

This is different than other flavors of meta in superhero comics.  Grant Morrison believes the archetypes are stronger than the forces that seek to bend them.  Alan Moore wants you to deconstruct your sacred cows and probably hates you personally.  Marvel might play with self-awareness, but effortlessly resolves inconsistencies after it’s finished playing.  DC, at this point, allows you to watch the waves solidfy into symbols and dissolve, and the constant confusion and lack of grounding is more of a choice then I thought this time yesterday.  The conflict theory of DC reality has been in full swing but this looks to be turning towards a kind of Zen historicism, holding contradictory things in your mind at once. Warren Ellis’ JLA/Authority book is the nearest comparable text I can think of. I need to call this, but I didn’t even talk about Death Metal, DC character multiplicity as meta-psychosis event extraordinaire.  Comics just keep getting weirder.

[devourer--of--books]

Some time ago (and by “some time” I mean a long ass time, oops) Kate (@pumpkinpaperweight) posted an analysis of gold rush by Taylor Swift tracing parallels to Agatha, which this post is clearly inspired by. 

(Go check that one out after you finish reading this post, it’s really good.)

Ever since, I’ve had an entire tagatha x taylor playlist/unfinished post that I don’t think will ever see the light because I’m too lazy to actually finish it. But now I have some spare time and I noticed that,,,, invisible string wasn’t on it.

And that's cause, well, despite the obvious gold fingerglow motif which is very tagatha … you already read the title of the post. It’s more like my own version of of what I would have had happen post-otk (will my epilogue version ever see the light, I wonder) than anything else, but this is my account, in which I am correct all the time and accept no criticism so,,,,

Green was the color of the grass where I used to read at Centennial Park

I used to think I would meet somebody there

Basically, these first two lines are about how Sophie’s egocentrism isolated her and kept her from making genuine connections with people from very early on, until she becomes friends with Agatha and even after that.

Okay, so have you guys ever seen those tiktoks that are like ‘13-year-old me, in black jeans and sneakers, at the beach, reading a book mYstERioUsLy so that when Harry Styles showed up he’d know I’m dIfFeRenT'?

This is the energy I get here. 

Like, Sophie in the start of book one doing all those ‘good deeds’ so set herself apart in the eyes of the school master hoping that he’d bring her to the school where she would meet *drumroll* The One. 

Most of us have, at some point (I hope, otherwise it was just me and that would be so embarassing), tried and failed to channel that main-character-energy to manifest ourselves into a story much more interesting than whatever is going on in your life at the moment. I feel like at the very core, that’s sort of what Sophie was trying to do? It’s a very juvenile feeling and shows just how little Sophie knew about love overall. Love as it is in fairytale books, as opposed to as it actually is.

She thought herself as above everyone else and thought she was entitled to true, unconditional love, which ended up holding her back and isolating her from everyone in the town, save for Agatha, give or take. 

This mindset is what really keeps her from seeing Tedros (and Agatha, and everyone else) as people, rather than characters in her story, and actually connecting with them on a non-superficial level. 

Teal was the color of your shirt when you were 16 at the yogurt shop

You used to work at to make a little money

I don’t think this part needs much explaining? 

On surface level, Nicola canonically started working at her father’s pub at a very young age to help with family expenses.

If you think about it a little more and contrast it with the previous line, though, it highlights the differences between Sophie and Nicola:

Nic works to help her family, learning responsibility and duty, while Sophie barely ever did anything for her father, both out of vanity (and a superiority complex) and out of spite (which is honestly undeserved all the way up to book 3, when Stefan let Callis die and fucking tried to blame Agatha for returning without Sophie and then guilt-tripped her into going to save her, after which he was dead to me lol). Sophie grew with a princess-like mindset, despite being just slightly better off than Nic, given all the villagers save from Callis and Agatha (due to them being outcasts) seem to have a similar income (with the exception of the beggar which I don’t understand and am probably overthinking about, but honestly, it’s a impossible to leave town and people die on the mill all the time, there's no college or whatever, did none of these assholes offer the beggar a job- I’m getting carried away), while Nicola has to shoulder most of the responsibilities due to her dad being sick.

Also, given the *misogyny* I’d be surprised if Nic didn’t have to do all the housework, as the only girl in her house.  

I doubt that the uniform of the pub was teal and given the book timeline she wouldn’t have been 16 in any instances in which Sophie and her met in Gavaldon, but I digress.

Time

Curious time

Gave me no compasses

Gave me no signs

Were there clues I didn't see?

Also kinda self-explanatory in a way?

On one interpretation, it takes Sophie an awful long time to mature and grow into an okay person. She lashed out after Tedros’ rejection because her desire was, when you get down to it, to be loved, even though she didn't understand what love was or how to go about it. She was already loved both by Agatha and by her father but she couldn't see it because the idea of love (romantic, loud, grand-gesture) was so embedded into her, but the clues to it were there all along.

On another, you could argue that Nicola also did not see this coming at all, specially if you consider canon!Nicola rather than fanon!Nicola (why would you, but okay, ignore my Hunter post, go on, stomp on my feelings). Nicola, whose purpose in TCY was to be the new hort-love-interest no one asked for, ending up with her *gag* love-rival? Unexpected, iconic, never done before (never actually done in canon), amazing, mind-blowin-

Bad was the blood of the song in the cab on your first trip to LA

You ate at my favorite spot for dinner

Bad Blood was a smash hit on Taylor’s career, playing on the radio  non-stop during the 1989 era, arguably her peak in terms of mainstream pop and radio plays.

The Tale of Sophie and Agatha was the equivalent in this context, as it was all the rage in Gavaldon after book 3; Sophie’s persona as the Dean Of Evil is solidified and everyone in The Woods knows who she is and read her tale, including Nicola (who already knew who she was, but now had a another version of her to compare to the version she already knew, which hm, did not favour Sophie either way).

I think it’s kind of fascinating how parasocial relationships work in the context of SGE because like, the storian is there as an omniscient narrator, but it doesn’t write everything. Like, does it just expose what the people in the tale feel and think only if it suits the plot or do the tales look just like the SGE books, in some sort of fourth wall break or is it like an actual children’s fairytale, where you just get told actions and have to sort of assume motivations? How does that affect public opinion? I don’t think most people would be too keen on stanning Sophie after reading The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha (cause damn, Sophie does a lot of questionable shit there) but canonically, they do, despite her being the villain, which is something I have opinions on (do I ever not have opinions on things?).

Like, sure there would be Nevers stanning her, but honestly, if they read the tale, wouldn't they be more likely to stan Hester or even Agatha? Cause Sophie almost got both Evers and Nevers killed, doomed everyone in The Woods for a guy, and was overall a horrible person with no regard for actual Good or Evil as balanced things? Isn’t this why The Coven sided with Agatha, like, I don’t get it- Is it stanning out of fear? Cause that’s the only sort of explanation I have, specially for people in Gavaldon, but that’s something I’ll go deeper into in another time.

Anyway, I wouldn’t be surprised if Nic’s first class at SGE was about The Tale Of Sophie and Agatha, given she was originally placed in Evil, due to Dovey and Sophie’s bet, and Evil’s school curriculum was under Sophie’s control, so if you think those classes were anything other than the Sophie-Show, you are wrong.

Now, on to headcanon territory, wouldn’t it be poetic if during her first lunch Nic sat at that tree in the middle of the clearing where Agatha and Sophie used to sit? Not only for ship reasons, but the tree is right in the center, which could relate to how Nic was supposed to be half/half?

Bold was the waitress on our three-year trip getting lunch down by the Lakes

She said I looked like an American singer

It’s a real shame that I don’t remember most of TCY. (But is it really?)

This is kinda of my own personal interpretation of what the OTK epilogue should have been like (and so, it's kind of a spoiler for my ever unfinished rewrite sksnsksn).

Imagine if, instead of that horrid school wedding (kill me now, please), they actually held the respective funerals for all the people lost in the Camelot power-struggle (I’ll take a school funeral, but don’t come at me with school weddings or I’ll lose my shit).

Tedros and Agatha, poor traumatized children, are on their way back to Camelot to try and get stuff back under control and do royal things. Sophie is pretty much on her own, with the remaining faculty of the school, as well as the new kids (yeah, Hort’s staying dead, boo hoo, I’m not sorry sbfhbsdb). Nicola will be returning home to Gavaldon soon, since the school schedule is already messed up beyond repair and everyone is taking some time off anyway. She was only staying there until christmas originally, so might as well.

Public opinion on the main trio is kinda weird at the moment:

Tagatha suffered a coup, then a while laterTedros killed the brother of his usurper, whom had been more popular than him, and well, they do tell people that Japeth killed Rhian, but it’s not like they have receipts? Like, there’s no way to fact check that. They could very well have killed Rhian, we, as bystanders, wouldn’t know? You can bet rumors like these don’t just go away.

And Sophie?

Well, I think public opinion on Sophie was already fear-based rather than coming from a place of admiration for her acts. People aren’t sure of her alliances anymore, and don’t really know how to behave around her so they mainly avoid her. Now that Dovey and Hort are dead and everyone else is resuming their quests, she’ll be pretty much on her own to deal with the aftermatch, which is not only sad, but also probably not healthy. She considers staying with Agatha, but she doesn’t want to add more scandal to the Camelot situation.

So she decides to go back to Gavaldon. Not permanently tho. Just to visit her father and take some time off to decide who could balance her well enough to be appointed as Dean Of Good. 

She'd choose Agatha, but you know, Agatha is kinda busy. Plus, it'd be good to see her father. Watching most of your parental figures drop like flies really puts things into perspective and maybe (just maybe) there's still something to salvage there.

Not many people know she's at Gavaldon, and that's on purpose. For once, Sophie just wants to be left the fuck alone, so she just tries to lay low and not bring unnecessary attention to heself. It's so unlike her to do so that when she walks in to have lunch at Nicola's pub, no one but Nicola even recognizes her.

And if Nicola keeps her company and accompany her on walks, well, it’s no one’s business. Bonding time? Bonding time.

Time

Mystical time

Cutting me open, then healing me fine

Were there clues I didn't see?

You know what these kids need after this Camelot shitstorm? Therapy, that’s what.

There’s no therapy in The Woods, so friendship will simply have to do. Please sir, let these kids heal.

Nicola was dragged to SGE while her father was sick and knew no one there personally, then got dragged again, now into a power struggle where she almost died multiple times, dated a guy, broke up with a guy and I can’t even remember what else but that sounds like a stressful time considering how close together the events from TCY are compared to TSY. What does she want to do now? Will she become a knight? Will she remain in Gavaldon? Does she have to finish school? How have Hunter and her dad been? Whatever went down with her brothers? Why was she important in the first place? Lots to reflect and self-search.

And Sophie. Oh Sophie.

Sophie fell once again for a ‘get-love-’quick’ scheme, not once, but twice! That is not something easy to look in the face and forgive yourself for.

With Rhian, it backfired by hurting everyone she loved, and after the shit Rafal pulled on her, she should have known better. But can you blame her? It’s not like the Rafal thing left her unscratched: you try being in an abusive relationship with a predator, see if you don’t get some trauma. And instead of doing the hard thing and keeping up the work she had been doing on herself she threw her progress out the window the moment Rhian said what she wanted to hear!

After that went belly-up, she at least managed to help her friends, but then later that backfired and she got brain-washed (are we gonna talk about this? disturbing much?). Then, she got fragile enough for her to attempt to find purpose in her life within Hort’s feelings for her, even if she didn’t actually reciprocate those feelings, simply because she was sure of them and they were familiar.

And later, even Hort was taken away from her. 

(Probably for the best, given their attachment had been… precarious, to say the least.)

Therapy, I’m telling you.

A string that pulled me

Out of all the wrong arms right into that dive bar

Something wrapped all of my past mistakes in barbed wire

Chains around my demons

Wool to brave the seasons

One single thread of gold tied me to you

These two would be so good for one another.

I think that being alone when you’re going through something is literally the worst you can do, but when you have someone who just…. gets it, you know? They were there too. They understand. It forms a connection.

After OTK, both of them (Sophie mostly) have enough on their plates for them to go down a dark path to a horrible place. But they don’t. Cause they are here for each other and have their support system to help them.

Does that translate into late nights drinking together after the pub shuts down? Maybe.  Keeping tabs on each other to make sure they’re sleeping and eating right? Yes. Keeping secrets and confessions? You got it.

And then my friends, begins the pining.

Cause, you know, they’re just gals being pals, gals being gay- wait what.

Nicola probably comes to terms with it first, but thinks Sophie is not interested in her like that (she also suspects that Sophie only sees her as Agatha’s stand-in and will drop her eventually once Agatha is no longer in such high demand.) Sophie is, in classic Sophie-fashion, neck-deep in denial, she’s not a lesbian right? she’s boy crazy, she’s not a lesbian-

Except she never felt like this with any of those boys. The only comparison she has is what she feels for Agatha, this feeling of being heard and seen and understood, but-

But Sophie doesn’t want to kiss Agatha.

And in retrospect, she never wanted to kiss anyone like this either.  Tedros who, Rafal who, Rhian who, Hort who, these bitches could never.

Eventually they attend the official tagatha wedding, HELD AT THE CASTLE, as each other’s plus-ones, and well, maybe consider checking my eventual OTK-epilogue for more on this, once it eventually comes out.

Cold was the steel of my axe to grind for the boys who broke my heart

Now I send their babies presents

Very self-explanatory, Tedros may be Sophie’s favorite ex, but he’s still an ex and they will be killing each other if left unchecked for two long unsupervised.

Nicphie as the tagatha baby godparents. Please, YES.

I’m not gonna go into detail because children make me uncomfortable,  I wish this was a joke, haha, but yes, Sophie and Nic pic the presents together and they attend the baby shower together. Are they dating, are they just married but don’t know it yet? I wonder. They're just together and no one really knows what's going on.

Gold was the color of the leaves when I showed you around Centennial Park

Hell was the journey but it brought me heaven

You know what’s funny? I didn’t tell you anything between the wedding and the baby shower. Remember how there was an opening for Dean of Good?

Yeah, too late to send in your resumes, position is already filled.

Sophie shows Nic the ropes of being Dean, or at least that’s how she’ll present it, but they’re still sort of figuring it out together. And that's okay.

They spend summers traveling around, christmas in Gavaldon, new years in Camelot and all is well. Their fingerglow colors now match. But it’s, unfortunately not gold.

Time

Wondrous time

Gave me the blues and then purple pink skies

And it's cool

Baby, with me

Yeah, it’s fucking purple.

I can’t remember if Nic has a canon fingerglow color, but I don’t really care much for canon, do I? I just really like the imagery of it, so it’s blue and pink mixed together. Because, you know I’m a symbolic bitch.

And isn't it just so pretty to think

All along there was some

Invisible string

Tying you to me?

Anyway, I am correct, this is the post.

[reachexceedinggrasp]

So the majority of the shows I’ve seen lately can be charitably described as ‘light entertainment’, including the ones with dark elements or more weighty, ponderous plots. They might be entertaining or interesting, they just... don’t stand up to scrutiny. Turn your brain off because this isn’t that carefully or skilfully made and you’ll only be annoyed if you start thinking about it as a whole. Including the last couple 'tragic’ historical dramas I’ve watched, which were not effective tragedy for that very reason. If you’re going to kill off the main cast, you have to earn it, and overwhelmingly writers don’t. Anyway, I’ve been getting despondent about whether stories which actually hang together and form a coherent narrative unit with consistent themes are the exception rather than the rule.

(And I feel like that should be a pretty low standard to meet, it’s sort of Step 1 of ‘being a story’: be about something! Communicate something, no matter how basic it is. Dead simple stories with rock basic messages can be revelatory! Just do it well!)

I’ve seen very little genuinely focussed or meaningful storytelling in my ventures for what feels like a long time. Basically, I can kind of count on one hand the number of films or dramas or whathaveyou I’ve seen from the last few years where it felt like the filmmakers were in complete control of their story and everything in it was purposeful and intentional. Most things have felt slapdash or shallow or fleeting. Story elements and character choices come out of nowhere just to derail already concluded arcs and fill screen time with empty repetitious drama, not to serve a meaningful narrative purpose. I would be watching with zero confidence anything in particular was going anywhere or that the writers knew where that should be. It’s just throwing shit at the wall, fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants type writing all the time and it fucking shows.

But then I watched Money Flower.

Money Flower is different. Money Flower is towering head and shoulders above every modern drama I’ve ever seen. Titanically good writing which rises above its genre and makes conventions seem radically new and fresh not by reinventing them or deconstructing them, but by playing them straight, taking them seriously, and committing 1000%. This is all your familiar rich family tropes but with masterpiece execution, infused with consequence and meaning because they’re all driven by the psychology of complex three-dimensional characters. So many moving pieces and none of them are random or unmotivated. Just... GOOD WRITING. And I want to make the point that it is this wherein art lives. The difference between a rank Lifetime movie and Romeo and Juliet is not novelty or tropes or plot twists- it’s execution.

This show is such a perfect example that it is not ‘mere events’ (aka plot) or novelty or shock value or cool ideas which separates something brilliant and timeless from forgettable schlock; it is solely and entirely execution. It’s writing itself, if you know what I mean. You can describe many of Shakespeare’s tragedies and history plays as soap opera plots. What makes Macbeth a deathless masterwork and Death Wish Hollywood wank isn’t a fundamental difference in subject or genre. It’s Shakespeare’s characterisation and purposeful storytelling. It’s the poetry of the dialogue. It’s the craft of writing. Most of Shakespeare’s plots are based on existing stories or on historical events and that has never mattered because novelty is not an inherent good or of any inherent artistic value.

Like, this is the problem with storytelling right now blah blah GOT, shitty endings everywhere etc. because power over the audience (can’t let anyone guess the plot, looking ‘clever’ with meaningless callbacks) and novelty are valued over narrative structure or things making sense or emotional verisimilitude. We have so many writers thinking being ‘shocking’ is all it takes to be a genius. It’s easy to be shocking if your story makes no goddamn sense because things that don’t make sense are literally unpredictable. Not in a good way, though. A great twist or sudden swerve needs to be unexpected but inevitable in hindsight or it does not work. I should be able to rewatch your thing and think ‘oh, of course! you can see it was [x] all along!’

We have so many popular writers now who are so shallow they don’t think anything needs to make sense on a character or emotional level. They don’t think their story has to be about anything. Substance is irrelevant as long as the surface is flashy enough. That has no staying power, you can only watch it once and you will forget about it quickly.

However, if you have ever wanted to experience the constant heightened stakes and High Drama of a soap opera without being annoyed at how ridiculous it all is and while actually giving a shit about the characters because they feel like real human beings, if you’ve wanted to feel repercussions when characters make choices, and get the emotional payoff that is the entire point of drama- now you can. Watch Money Flower. And let me tell you, it is fucking riveting. This show is mostly made up of people sitting in rooms talking and yet it is heart-pounding excitement nearly every episode. It is profoundly traditional and by the book while being totally fresh. It’s the most engrossing and satisfying artistic experience I’ve had in a long time.

Like, THE TENSION, THE DRAMA, THE REVEALS!!! You can, in fact, spend most of 24+ hours on the edge of your seat about family problems and business mergers. It seems unlikely, but that is the power of this series, it creates insanely high stakes and mesmerising suspense out of the most commonplace ingredients. Familiar plot elements become brand new and surprising under the deftness and tightness of this narrative. The plot itself is certainly 100% melodrama but it never feels like a soap opera and is never ever soapy in in a pejorative sense because it handles its classic tropes with such maturity and nuance that it's like you've never seen them before. The writing is incredible.

It is on an entirely different level than the vast majority of dramas, with a total self-assurance that keeps the pacing relentless yet unhurried- taking its time to let the impact of events be felt, the narrative always knowing exactly where it’s going and how to get there. The characters are all multi-faceted and unpredictable without ever being incoherent, their motives and goals always being gradually uncovered in more detail that only makes the storytelling and characterisation even tighter, even richer. The twists and cliffhangers are always mind-blowing but always earned, never cheap or nonsensical, and I can't remember ever thinking that about another show. (There’s literally one exception towards the very end where something a bit random happens for reasons of pure symbolism- it’s a misstep imo but it’s minor in the scheme of things)

Every time I started to doubt the writing, started to think ‘oh no, they’re going off the rails’, they showed me I was wrong and they were in total control. The only 'problem' with the show is that the drama is also profoundly painful to watch unfold, particularly in the beginning, because it's a story where everyone makes terrible life choices and moral corruption is everywhere. It's hypnotic though, like a car crash. If you can handle something dark, insidious, cerebral, and character-driven there is nothing I've seen in the same vein that can approach its brilliance. It’s like The Magnificent Ambersons as a slick modern revenge drama. There is also (PRECIOUSLY!!) a core of stunning romanticism around which all the horrors revolve and that saves it from becoming hideous or cynical. There is a chance for redemption and a new beginning after all, in spite of all appearances.

The ending has apparently been controversial, and it is definitely not quite as climatic as you would have expected given how powerfully climatic almost every regular episode is, but it's a good ending. There isn't full closure, they don't provide final resolution in a bow, but to me it's an ending about hope. It suggests optimism for our characters and I was satisfied with that. It's extremely rare for a 'revenge story’ to allow this kind of room for healing and it can do that because, imo, we discover in the end that it wasn't ultimately vengeance in Pil Joo’s heart. He has not become a tragic hero who will be consumed by the cannibalistic darkness of revenge, his quest was for justice. He teeters on the edge of the abyss but he avoided falling in; he didn't sell his soul, at least not irrevocably.

He is nonetheless a very tragic figure and an anti-hero, but despite having dedicated his life to bringing down the Jang cabal, it’s not that he’ll stop at nothing. He will make any personal sacrifice no matter how desolate, he lives as a mere husk of a man, and he facilitates enormous emotional harm to others in service of his goals, but he has ethical hard lines he never considers crossing. His sense of decency and compassion is never extinguished; he does care about the collateral damage he is causing even when making justifications for it. It’s important to him to give people as much agency as possible in their choices, to mitigate the damage done by his schemes as much as he can. To try to prevent harm coming to undeserving bystanders. Not that this makes it okay that he uses people, which he does, but the point is he never completely surrenders his moral compass to avarice. He’s never okay with burning down the world or ruining innocent lives just to get to his target.

Pil Joo is less a vigilante and more an avenging angel, he wants justice more than retribution. He wants fairness and a better, safer world where what has happened to his family won’t happen again. The reason this story never becomes Sweeney Todd (aka: a full on tragedy where we see the inevitable outcome of lust for revenge) and the reason he can survive twenty years spent pursuing someone’s downfall is exactly that principle. Searching for retribution would have destroyed him, he would have become the very thing he hated, but instead he goes as far as necessary to publicly expose the Jangs for what they are and then willingly submits to penance for his complicity in their crimes and tries to atone with the people he hurt along the way. Purged, he’s symbolically reborn and takes back his real name to maybe finally have a chance at the life he should have had. He moves on, content, a positive force. He’s capable of healing from the ordeal because he realises he doesn’t need retaliation, just seeing them stopped and facing consequences for their actions is enough.

The love story is a superbly poignant part of this. Their love is the ‘victim’ of his revenge and it will forever be impacted by it, but it’s not something that can be killed, so there’s still hope. Mo Hyeon’s bookending rescues of Pil Joo from death mean first that he has a purpose he must fulfil and then the second time that he has freedom to finally live as himself, for himself. There’s a future. And maybe they can be together there. I’m emo about it.

Anyway, if there was the slightest doubt about me becoming a long-term Jang Hyuk fangirl, it’s been put to rest. This performance is easily one of the best I’ve ever seen, period. No contest it’s the best I’ve seen in a tv drama. It’s also the most subtle and masterful turn he's delivered in his whole career. He's so restrained, but he is giving absolutely everything; he has total control over every microexpression, every gesture, every molecule in his body. There is so much simmering under his surface, so much going on in his eyes; the layers and depths are endless. The intensity and sharp intellectual focus he brings to the character is breathtaking. Everyone else is doing amazing work too, but he is almost constantly on screen and has this spectacular command of such a sprawling story, such a complex character, and he makes it look effortless. All artifice has melted away. The fact that being so tightly contained is in stark contrast to the bombastic element in many of his other roles renders its delicate precision even more startlingly impressive. I thought he was a great actor before, but I didn’t fully appreciate what he was capable of until Pil Joo.

[fyrapartnersearch]

Looking for some sci-fi shenanigans!

Obligatory long post ahead warning: this post is quite long and I know it may be intimidating to some readers but please don’t let it put you off if you’d still like to rp with me :)

Hello ladies, gents and fellow rpers. After having a writing blast and seeing how I’ve got room for some more partners I’ve decided to come back in search of some partners who are interested in what I’m looking for.I’ve got a good ten or so odd years of rping experience under my belt but any potential partners do not necessarily have to have the same experience, they simply need to fit under these three things:

-third person only with correct spelling, grammar and punctuation.

- at least one small (no less than seven lines) paragraph per post as well as being willing to write more if the situation calls for it. Please do not contact me intending to give me only small paragraphs with each response as the above is simply the bare minimum I’ll accept if there’s not much going on in the rp that warrants a full paragraph.

-no one liners, one worders, script talk, poorly written sentences or just laziness in general.

This isn’t terribly much to ask for as picky as it sounds.

An important thing I shall mention is that NSFW (i don’t fade to black nor do I care when the smut happens. Just please don’t leave me once the smut has happened like lots of people seem to unfortunately do) and dark themes are a thing that occur in all my rp’s so I require you to at least be eighteen before you reach out to me. I will not accept anyone younger than 18 since I myself am in my early twenties. Underaged characters are also a no go as well. Please know that I’m in the eastern Australian time zone but almost any time zone Is compatible for me as I am awake at very odd hours. Another important thing I shall add is that you must be able to post at least once or more a day and if I don’t get any response after two weeks then I shall simply move on (only exception is if you notify me beforehand as to why you may not be able to post for a while. I’m not that vicious).

I only rp as male characters, as it’s simply my preference, I do MxM or FxM pairings. I will not double and I do not play multiple characters. I don’t do sub/dom dynamics when it comes to any aspect of the relationship. My characters are also non human (they’re aliens since this is a sci-fi rp after all) but what species your character is doesn’t matter to me at all as long as it’s not some god modded Mary Sue. Please remember that alien simply means a creature not from earth. Aliens can have fur, scales, feathers, etc, depending on where they come from. An alien with fur or scalies is not a furry or a scalie and please do not refer to them as such as it’s rude to label someone’s character as something they’re not. I will not write with someone who will insist that the theory of chimpanzees and humans unable to crossbreed should apply to hybrid characters regardless of whether they’re alien/alien or human/alien. This is fiction, not reality. Please also do not control my characters or dictate their actions. My characters are also premade and only have descriptions, I don’t do face claims or pics. I also do not care if you make a character up on the spot.

Please remember that this is a sci-fi rp and that I will not accept requests to do fandoms or any genre that doesn’t fit within the category of sci-fi. i will not accept a character that has no place in a sci-fi rp either like a dragon,harpy,demon, elf or some other fantasy creature.

All aboard the galactica!:

The galactica was a first class explorer ship led by only the greatest of military leaders and alliance figures. Many cadets dreamed of the day that they would one day either get to work onboard the ship whilst many more longed for the day that they’d be chosen as it’s next captain. To be the leader at the helm of the ship was considered the greatest honour and duty one could ever have befall them. Not everyone is content with having the responsibility of an entire fleet on their shoulders nor are the first few days, months or even years of being captain easy. To top it off, not everyone always agreed with the captains choice of their chosen protégé. As a wise man once said, one must be a follower before they could become a leader. When disaster strikes, will the remaining crew members be able to accept their new dynamic, or will it all fall to chaos?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the character chosen to be the next captain of the galactica, you can either play as my character’s rival or a friend who has turned a bit cold from jealousy. I’m also open to you being the one who was chosen to be the next captain.)

Precious one:

It was supposed to be a simple job with a end goal that would benefit just about everyone: escort the snobbish prince/princess of lektora to their new home on their betrotheds home world and return home to malgor to have a secret celebration with the other knights, guards and castle staff about how they’d be free to live in peace once more whilst the king and queen were too busy praising themselves for all they’d accomplished in life. Sadly, not everyone seems to be happy about the two main planets of power coming together as one and an unknown party has sought to stop it. What was once a simple journey to and from one place has become a quest that will cause views and hearts to change with each passing day and moment as two people fight to survive and figure out what went wrong before it’s too late.

(Important point of notice: I do not mind who plays what. Just let me know who you’d like to be :))

Academy days:

*the galaxy alliance and military defence force academy was one of the most respected training academies in the known galaxies. Men, women, aliens, humans and all of those who were in between went there to study, train and, one day if they passed the mentally, emotionally and physically gruelling years of tests, fly and be put in their own squadron. There were approximately six spots to fill on any team and the cadet who suited that spot the most would be given the title of pilot, squad leader, second in command, engineer, gunner and navigator. Each team was similar but unique in what they did. Not everyone gets along though and rivalries grow high during that delicate time between graduating and being put on a team. What happens when the top student and the lonesome outcast with a temper clashes?*

(Important point of notice: I’m also open to this being a story about new recruits on a space ship who still have a fair few things to learn before they can consider themselves official crew members.)

First day on the job:

Everyone at the space academy remembers graduation day. The day where they became recognised as the very things they strived to be whether it’s a pilot, an engineer, mechanic, a simple Jack of all trades or even a commander if they worked hard enough. Everyone also remembers the few days after the big Moment as well. Days where one is expected to take to whatever rank they’ve had bestowed upon them almost immediately and the responsibilities that came with it as if they’d been born to do it from day one. Some things are easier said than done though, especially when trouble finds ways to manifest in forms that many would not suspect to be of any cause for concern.

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the newly graduated commander of a small crew. You are free to play as either a crew member of any rank or even a trouble making character like a criminal or something similar that gives my character a run for their money. Possibilities are endless)

Runaway royalty:

The life of a Royal was simple yet complex at the same time. They were weighed on hand and foot and never had to lift a finger to do anything provided there was a maid or servant nearby willing to do whatever task it was the royal had for them. They were expected to grow into decent, respectable leaders who could ruler a planet fairly without struggle. For many royals, they were content to follow this regularly repeating path of “destiny” that their ancestors had set them on. All but one it seems. What happens when a sheltered prince/princess takes their chance on the world beyond the walls of their castle for a chance to see the universe itself?

(Important point of notice: you will be playing the prince/princess. I’ll be playing the non Royal character they run into.)

Worlds apart:

War. War was a terrible thing that brought nations to their knees and saw many people lose their lives and freedom. Many people and aliens liked to think that all the major wars were over and done with, that they’d never have to relive the horrors that once fell upon them. To put it simply: if no one hears about bad happenings, then it’s not their problem that needs to be taken care of nor does it exist. Sadly, it does not seem to be the case for everyone. A stranger from a planet so far away that many do not believe it to exist turns up on the doorstep of an alien who is forced to realise that war could very well be just around the corner once more.

Forced:

“there’s no such thing as a bad person. Only bad choices.” Is a saying that is older than time itself. For many who are forced into a position where they have no other choice but to put their morals aside and do as they’re told, this is all too true. A space farer is captured by criminals and forced to choose between death or working as the criminals captain’s personal assistant. That means every order has to be obeyed and every rule must be followed or consequences will be dealt by force. As time passes and life go ons, the captured spacer starts to see his predicament in a different light.

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the captured spacer. You will be playing the captain.)

Forbidden romance:

aliens and humans are forbidden from associating with one another in any way that isn’t political. Whilst the two races have put aside enough of their differences to coexist in their own little pockets of space, not everyone is accepting of the idea that the two different species could live together as one, let alone ever simply just coexist peacefully together without insisting that alien planets and human planets are to be kept seperate. To trespass on the strictly human or alien occupied planets is a crime that few dare to commit. What starts out as a simple act of one sided rebellion and show of courage turns into an unanticipated adventure.

(Important point of notice, I shall be playing the alien. I’m open to this also being an alien X alien pairing.)

The hunter and the hunted:

bounty hunting was one of the few illegal professions in the galaxy that made any trouble you got into for participating in the act of killing or kidnapping someone for worth it depending on who it was you’d been given the task of tracking down. Many bounties were more profitable alive of course since it cut back on many of the legal troubles one could face if caught with a dead body. A galaxy renowned bounty hunter has been tasked with taking down one of the roughest and most wanted criminals known to man and alien with the orders to return them dead or alive. Will they succeed or fail like many before them have?

(Important point of notice: I shall be playing the criminal. You shall be playing the bounty hunter.)

Space criminals and the law:

humans and aliens have been living amongst each other side by side ever since humanity dared to venture beyond the Milky Way and made first contact with aliens. With the solar system no longer being man’s only playground other planets were quickly colonised under the new alliance between extraterrestrials and Homo sapiens. Whether you were an alien, human or a hybrid did not matter in the known galaxies. All that mattered was who you were. Not everyone took to the integration very well (there were numerous protests on both sides) but most people were willing to share in the hopes of peace. Not everyone had good intentions though……

Trouble in the alien kingdom:

the planet of (insert generic planet name here) was one of prosperity, hardship and wealth. The kingdom of (insert generic kingdom name here) was ruled by a king and a queen whose heir was betrothed to a rival planet in the hopes that a political marriage would prevent another war from happening. Only problem was that no one could see the rival planets true plans….all but one. Unfortunately no ones going to listen to a deranged commoner who probably may not even be telling the truth. What’s one to do when no one will listen?

Exile:

The wind howled as thunder crashed and shrieked all around the abandoned cargo ship. Rain pelted the metal hull, turning the ground into a cold, treacherously slippery and muddy shallow river. The ship itself had crashed into the planet countless centuries ago and was slowly being reclaimed by the environment. Plants grew from cracks in the floor as moss and vines decorated the walls. A figure sat miserably hunched in what was once the cockpit of the ship, their only shelter from the raging elements outside but not from the storm that raged inside of them. The figure leapt to their feet as the sounds of footsteps in the mud drew closer and they held their breath. Who would dare to venture out here on such a miserable night?

War of the worlds:

humans and aliens were never meant to coexist peacefully with one another. There was too much fear, Too much misinformation and too much bias on both sides for such a thing to have ever been successful. It was the humans fault that the war had started. They were the ones who’d shot down the alien ship that had been packed with specially chosen diplomats that represented each alien race known to the galaxies they dwelled in that had been on their way to earth to negotiate a truce and a plan for peace. They hadn’t even hesitated to shoot the ship full of aliens yet they’d been surprised when war had been declared on the spot. Two races. Two worlds so different yet the same fighting one another for what was either a mistake or intentional murder.

Rehab:

The UGWP alliance (unite the galaxies for the protection of all worlds and for peace alliance) portrayed themselves as calm, charismatic and kind men and women who held only the thoughts of a life together with all species living happily together. They advertised campaigns for inter species jobs, provided information to the public about human/alien interactions and encouraged diversity amongst planets. Their rehabilitation program for troublesome fellows was considered to be a god send to try and cut down on the amount of space related crimes. No one ever questioned what went on beyond the closed doors to the facility, if they did, the UGWP would have their darkest secrets revealed. Something they strove to keep under wraps. When the arrival of a particularly wild prisoner occurs, the threat of their first failure and first escaped prisoner is lurking around the corner.

(Important point of notice: in this rp idea I’d be playing said prisoner, I don’t mind if you choose to be one as well.)

Academy days:

the galaxy alliance and military defence force academy was one of the most respected training academies in the known galaxies. Men, women, aliens, humans and all of those who were in between went there to study, train and, one day if they passed the mentally, emotionally and physically gruelling years of tests, fly and be put in their own squadron. There were approximately six spots to fill on any team and the cadet who suited that spot the most would be given the title of pilot, squad leader, second in command, engineer, gunner and navigator. Each team was similar but unique in what they did. Not everyone gets along though and rivalries grow high during that delicate time between graduating and being put on a team. What happens when the top student and the lonesome outcast with a temper clashes?

Captured:

Space criminals have been around ever since advanced technology allowed others to travel and live in space as if they were living anywhere else. They’re often cunning, tricky to catch and more often than not are clever at disguising themselves whenever those wanted posters come up. It takes skill to be on the wrong side of space law and true talent to get away with it. The galaxy’s current most wanted man has finally been captured by an alliance captain and his crew. Will he beg for mercy? Will he be given a trial before being thrown into a cell to rot or will he be given a chance to turn himself around with some hard labour?

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the criminal for this one. You will be the alliance captain)

Enslaved:

imagine living the life of one of the most successful people on the run that could exist. Galaxies trembled at your name. You and your crew swam in wealth and the going was good. Mutiny, sadly and sometimes not sadly, exists on its own accord. One man reflected on this as he was forced to his feet. A collar attached to a chain and electromagnetic handcuffs prevented his escape as he stood for all those who cared to glance as they walked by in the market to see. No one wants to have their only life’s purpose to be to serve another……only sometimes people don’t get that choice.

(Important point of notice: I’ll be playing the slave/servant. You’ll be the master/mistress.)

Betrothed:

for as long as there has been civilisation and leaders, there has been arranged marriages. Arranged marriages, or betrothals as they were more often called, consisted of pairing two people together and making them get married in order to secure ties to another land or another planet. Political marriages benefited everyone but the married pair it always seemed. After all, you couldn’t possibly be happy being married to a complete and utter stranger? How does one who is betrothed build a life of love and prosperity when the one who bears the rings of their union is not the one who also bears their heart?

(Important point of notice: this can go two ways, either our characters are betrothed to each other or one character is betrothed. The idea has endless possibilities)

Invasion:

march 18th in the year of 6079 was the day that the aliens invaded earth. They’d been planning the take over for some time as they came prepared and easily took out Earth’s defence forces. No one knows exactly why the extraterrestrial beings from the outer worlds came to the humble blue and green planet the humans had existed on for millions of years nor did they seem to have any true intentions known other than conquering the planet and taking it for their own. This has led to the belief that all aliens must be the cruel monsters the humans stories have made them out to be. What happens when the actions of one alien puts that to the test?

(Important point of notice: I’m open to having this idea turned around and having the humans invade an alien world to take over.)

The chosen:

The galaxy alliance had chosen its newest crew to serve and protect the known galaxies. Five young cadets who’d graduated at the top of their classes and would hopefully mark the start of a new generation of spacers and heroes. The leader of the new crew has yet to be decided and tensions are high because of this. Can differences be put aside and acceptance shown? Or will nothing but chaos ensue?

The Walking wounded:

when one worked as a galaxy defence force member, they were on the frontline of everything. Every battle. Every loss. Every victory. Every struggle that the force went through they had to be there and follow the rules. You could not kill an unarmed person regardless of whether they were hostile or not. You could not turn down a plea for help even when there was reasons to suspect something was amiss. In simple terms: you simply couldn’t do anything that would make your morals be questioned. What happens when even the captain says to leave all those rules and everything you were taught by the door when faced with someone who seems to be the exception to the rule. What’s the right thing to do not by them but the entire galaxy?

Stowaway:

the galaxies were once a place of freedom and exploration. A place where you had no limits as to where you wanted to go. Now thanks to new laws, permits are required to access certain systems, quadrants and galaxies. Problem is, this permit is unobtainable by the average civilian so many have taken to learning the art of boarding another’s ship and hoping for the best. Discovery is more or less a matter of life and death. What happens when someone is unfortunate enough to be discovered?

Monster:

aliens. Aliens were terrifying beasts that were the monster in every bedtime story the humans told their children to keep them home at night. Many mothers wept when their sons and daughters applied to the space military in order to keep the extra terrestrial scum away from the galaxies they’d claimed as their own. When a human ship crashes on an alien world so far away from human civilisation it may as well not exist to the aliens and a crew member is found lost and alone by a wandering alien, will their fate be decided by a monster? Or a benevolent being?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the alien in this scenario. I’m also open to the characters situations being swapped around so it’s the alien who crashes.)

On the run:

even on the most modern of planets, life on the lamb can be difficult. There’s authorities to avoid and even more rules to break in the game of survival. No one takes pity on those who have done wrong to the point that they have their face in the paper. Even if it’s not your fault will anyone give you shelter from the harsh cold winds of reality and a biased opinion. What happens when someone does take a chance on a poor wayfaring stranger? Will the wrong doer be turned in or given a new lease on life?

Disgraced:

when one entered the royal guard they took upon themselves an oath that bound them by blood and courage to the dedication of the protection of their king, queen and the kingdoms heirs. They were sworn to protect them from any harm whilst at the same time not allowed to use their position or power to hurt anyone else. When one breaks that oath, they are sent away in disgrace and branded as a traitor who must swear to never return. Life on the run changes people, sometimes for the better…..or for worse.

Space pirates and nobles:

space was a vast starry and endless sea that many voyaged across for the purpose of research, leisure or finding ones destiny. Like any real ocean, it was filled with dangers. The most feared of all was space pirates. Bands of blood thirsty cut throats and scandalous troublemakers whose sole pleasure in life was to steal, kill and take others prisoner against their will. Only pirates dare to do what other criminals would not. When a merchant ship is robbed by pirates what fate will befall the nobles onboard?

Healing wounds, growing love:

winter on the planet of malgor is one that is feared for its extreme weather. Snowstorms could appear out of nowhere and many a traveller had frozen to death whilst trying to make their way from one village to another. It was also a time where people were at their most vulnerable, relying on the winter harvest to feed every mouth that had been born and raised in the kingdom meant no mercy was spared for poor wayfaring strangers. When a kind soul finds a wounded outcast and decides to bring them home, they discover a threat that’s lurking just beyond the borders of their place of protection.

The knight and the heir:

royals could be spoilt. There was no denying that. A life of good food, wealth, the knowledge that they’d be pampered and weighed on hand and foot by servants was more than enough to turn even the most well mannered child into an insufferable brat. The knights tasked with the protection of the future royals knew this all too well. What happens when one particularly gruff, no nonsense knight refuses to bow to the whim of their future ruler and shows them what it means to be a true leader?

The last of a dying breed:

long ago, in a time when nobles, governments and space Pirates ruled the starry seas of space, there was a terrifying race of aliens that were considered to be the most dangerous creatures to have ever lived. When the great wars started up again due to rising tensions, the humans destroyed the planet these aliens lived on to ensure the battlefield was even. The aliens were furious at the death of an entire race and very quickly turned each and every human occupied planet into a warzone littered with their bases and encampments. Only in very small pockets of the universe does this war not exist. What happens when the last member of the species shows up on a small backwater planet?

(Important point of notice: I will be playing the alien who is the last of their kind, you are free to play as a human or the story can be made to suite a scenario where you are also an alien.)

Harden my heart:

once upon a time, there was two friends who were the best of friends that anyone could have ever seen. Two people who had each other’s backs through thick and thin. Two people who supported each other endlessly even if their morals weren’t entirely inline with each other’s. Two friends who swore to never leave each other’s sides. Alas with the time of great growing came changes, the two friends bond had severed and they’d gone their separate ways in life. What happens when they run into each other many years later?

(This idea is one open to brainstorming, anything is possible.)

captain on deck!:

captains weren’t meant to fall in love with their subordinates. They were supposed to be well refined leaders who only mingled with those of a similar status. They represented the people they worked for after all, therefore they had an image that had to be strictly maintained towards the public in order to not be disgraced in any form. Behind closed doors however…..feelings were allowed to be a little more free. Secret lovers were frowned upon but one could take the risk if they were careful. After all, the captains word was law.

yes sir!:

order.serve.fight.lead.mourn.sleep.eat.rethink your life choices and repeat. Such was the ways of a military lifestyle on a world where war seemed to be a permanent occurrence and the leaders of every world trying their best to outspite one another with their relentless attacks that it made one think of how they could improve the boring daily routine they endured each and every day. In the army, you have to be tough if you want to be a leader. You had to be charismatic, strong, cold, incapable of doing anything that would sway you to possibly turn the other cheek and let your comrades be hurt. However, even the most stoic and battle hardened leaders can get lonely despite the fact that attachments to ones comrades outside of anything but friendship are forbidden by an unspoken law.

I need you:

space is a cruel mistress to even those who are experienced with charting her waters. Space, although beautiful, is often the grave of many brave explorers, soldiers and other space faring strangers. When a stranger comes to scavenge parts from a newly crashed ship in the hopes of finding something useful, they come across a familiar face. Old feelings stir and clash with one another when the crash’s survivor awakens and finds out who their rescuer is.

Sooooo….. about those pairings. What has two stars next to it is what I’m going to play if we choose the scenario:

1: enemies to lovers or rivals.

2: **captured criminal** x prison guard or other prisoner.

3: two soldiers from seperate sides falling in love.

4: **academies bad boy/outcast** x top student

5: **low ranking ship crew member/second in command/captured space criminal** x captain.

6: **commoner/rogue/knight/street rat** x prince/princess/king/queen

7: **slave/servant** x master

8: army superior x **lower ranking soldier**

9: married person X unmarried person

10: stowaway x captain

11: nurse x **injured soldier**

12: human x **alien**

13: bully x **victim**

14: old lovers/friends finding each other again.

PLEASE DO NOT APPROACH ME IF:

1: YOU GHOST AT THE DROP OF A HAT.

2: YOU ARE NOT WILLING TO PUT EFFORT IN TO MEET MY REQUIREMENTS.

I’m open to discussing and potentially mixing these ideas up till we get something that we both like. If you want to learn more about a certain idea tell me the name and I shall expand on it.

The only platforms I rp on are discord,telegram and google hangouts. I will not rp on any other platform other than the ones listed. If you do not have any of those then unfortunately we cannot rp. When you reach out to me requesting for an rp via one of the below platforms In the opening message tell me what idea you liked, why you liked it, give me a little introduction about you and you must put 123 somewhere in your message so that I know you’ve read all of my post, don’t just put “hi wanna rp”. Make it interesting.

My contacts

Discord: crankypurplespacecat#6187

My telegram: Tiberionwars

My hangouts: lleo52560@gmail.com

I look forwards to meeting potential partners.

[rayadraws]

end of an era

Oh my gosh anon, our waiting is OVER. Patiently, not so patiently yearning… wishing… hoping… dreaming… we have IT.

I gotta talk about it, because of course I do, ahhh! This will be long, sorry…

I got my hands on the OVA this morning, about half an hour before work. I watched it, yelled on Discord and then went to work, practically vibrating the whole day until I could go home and watch it again and write down my thoughts!

Before release I had seen what available video clips and screenshots we had, plus a summary given to me by a Japanese mutual, in somewhat limited English. I was unsure what to expect but I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I might! I understand that there’s a lot one can be confused or perhaps even put off by in the OVA but. Well. I enjoy seeing a vulnerable Genos (if like 90 % of the fanfic I’ve written wasn’t an indication lol) so I just ate it all UP. And since I’ve written a fic about him getting amnesia specifically, I was very curious to see how off the mark I was.

I won’t give a proper summary, there’s a good one by Nysh for that. Nor the animation. JC Staff is what JC Staff is. I’m instead going to just… muse and compare and go wild with my own personal headcanons - in that regard, this OVA was excellent, because it does give some hints about what makes Genos tick. Hold on to your butts…

Oh, and need I say that there will be SPOILERS? XD

—

Before I wrote my own amnesia fic, I did some research. So, what is amnesia? Well, the popular TV show version is one thing, of course RL is another. There are several kinds of amnesia, with different causes and different treatments. But the two main categories are longterm memory loss, where you can’t recall past memories (often up to what caused the amnesia) and short term memory loss, where you have difficulty forming new memories. You can get one or both. In my fic, Genos deals with both. In the OVA, he appears to have longterm memory loss only, as he tries to find Fubuki again to help him defeat the monster (if only he knew Saitama would by far have been a better choice!), so he remembers her. Not to mention at the end, when he’s trying desperately to apologize…

There is no instant cure for amnesia. Emotional support is important, medication (if it’s caused by underlying disease, which it can be) and psychological therapy can also be useful. Saitama is doing the right thing in the OVA by remaining calm and trying to avoid agitating Genos or pushing him to remember.

After he first wakes up, Genos is very lost, he only remembers his name and that he’s a cyborg - but not why! It’s really heartbreaking when you think a little more about it - imagine waking up in a cyborg body and not remembering why/how that happened… We actually discussed that on Discord before we had the OVA, what if he wakes up and doesn’t remember… but nahh, that’d be too dark, right? APPARENTLY NOT.

I can’t explain why Genos would be so heavily influenced by media around him as he is. That’s just made up for the humour… but if I were to try to find an actual in-world explanation, hm… Well, we do know he can be a Drama Boy. We also know he tends to be very standoffish and reserved towards most people, which I think is related to his trauma, in a few ways (he doesn’t want to get close to people due to the risk of once again experiencing the pain of losing them - and spending four years more or less on your own during your late teenage years is not an ideal environment for learning how to socialize…). We also know that when Genos finds something or someone he considers important, he latches on. So you could see it as being part of that, perhaps. Lost and confused he looks for anything that would make some kind of sense, trying to find a sense of direction or idea on whom he might be.

What exactly did you forget? Your quest for revenge or the sale you briefly remember later? Knowing Genos, it could be either…

He reacts in confusion to his body telling him that there’s an elevated energy signature nearby - I LOVED this. I wonder if he saw it as a note on his HUD, or if it’s more ingrained, more subtle. The way he got antsy and couldn’t sit still… it’s like his proximity sensors act as an extra sense, like Spiderman’s spider sense…. An extra sense that’s probably saved his life on more than one occasion.

He takes off, feeling like it’s his body moving, not him. I don’t think his body has an separate will of its own, but I have always hc:ed that he probably has systems that can calculate stuff for him mid-fight - how to move, where to release his weapons and at what strength etc. A little helpful internal computer. It’s a LOT for one little monkey brain to keep track of, so it wouldn’t be crazy to think he has some help with that, I think. And here, I don’t think his body is truly moving on his own without him having any control of it… more like muscle memory? Like there are times where I think I’ve forgotten a password to my work computer if I’ve been away for a week but then I sit down and my fingers remember the typing motions on their own. I imagine it’s something like that. He doesn’t know what to do, so he’s going where his instincts tell him.

Fubuki, ah, ever the scheming one. I enjoyed her showing up and being casual at Sai’s place because that’s how I like to write her in my fics. You can see the exact second when she goes into Business Mode, playing hard to get to lure Genos closer. Too bad she didn’t consider just how much his personality changed too, came on way too strong in the end…

And!!! A couple of times Genos puts his hand in defense, without seeminly knowing why, or doing it intentionally really. Hmmmm where…. have I seen this before…

He jumped when a warning flashed at the corner of his vision. It was his proximity sensors going off, his HUD informed him. On instinct, he ducked down behind the nearest tree. He should go back. Kuseno would keep him safe. But if he moved, the stranger might see him too. Don’t turn your back on an enemy.

His sensors told him the direction and the general size of the approaching being, but he couldn’t actually see it between the tall trees. It was moving very fast. He ducked lower, ferns brushing softly against his cheek. On instinct, he held his palm out in front of him, open and pointed at whatever was approaching him.

I am SO glad that I called this in my fic, it’s a small detail but it adds a lot I think! Raising his palm as a threat is second nature to Genos, even when he doesn’t consciously know why he’s doing it…

It’s interesting that throughout, Genos keeps referring to himself as “boku”, which is usually reserved for a male who is younger than 16 (though there are exceptions - Amai Mask also uses it, probably as part of his charming idol persona). Usually Genos refers to himself as “ore”, which is mostly used by adult men, more informal and can be viewed as disrespectful, depending on circumstance (Genos is not typically respectful towards people, if they are not Kuseno or Saitama). Combined with how meek he is, man… Okay, ONE said that before the mad cyborg attack, Genos’ personality was about the same as it is now. So why is he so different? Well… I don’t think that’s too shocking, really. I mean, if you lost all your memories and sense of self, realized you were a cyborg for some reason???, ended up alone in a weird city, not knowing where you were or what to do, and suddenly people pointed at you asking you to fight a terrifying monster even though you have no idea how to fight… you’d probably be terrified too! I think we can assume his personality change is caused by his amnesia. But we can probably also assume that a Genos who never had his village attacked and never got involved with fighting/being a hero would not grow to be exactly the same as canon, anyway. He’d probably be a rude brat… but yeah. At least a few degrees less aggressive/ready to throw down!

Again with the hand!

A thought I had reading the exchange between the monster and Genos… it reads almost like how you might expect Genos’ meeting with the mad cyborg might have looked like, only in a sad, reverse kind of way. These lines - “I’m not ready yet… I’m not ready to die here… not yet!” - like, dude… that sounds exactly what might have gone through his head back then. Maybe the first inkling of his past returning to him at that second…

He feels something, remembers something, is shocked.. and it comes back… “I cannot win like this!”. And then he remembers Kuseno, and Saitama…

Once more, those lines together: “I’m not ready yet… I’m not ready to die here… not yet! I cannot win like this!”

We’ll probably never get it verified, but I find it very, very likely he used more or less these exact words, or something very similar, after meeting the mad cyborg.

Also, as much as I appreciate the closeness between Genos and Saitama, I AM glad that he remembered Kuseno first - he’s known Kuseno for four years, Saitama for less than 2 months, when this takes place. It’s only right and it fits very well with his character introduction too, where he thought he was dying and his last thought was an apology to Kuseno. A nice nod. I enjoyed that animation sequence a lot too!

When he remembers who he is, Genos feels so bad about his actions but he still can’t deny what he said before… Saitama’s face… omg… Bless them both.He brings Saitama wild/game meat - d'ya figure he bought it or, um… got it for free? I mean, that’s… exactly the kind of creature he fought… maybe he’s learnt Sensei’s ways…

And Saitama is happy he’s back. He cares about Genos! He likes him like he is, as intense and blunt and socially awkward as he is! What a sweet note to end the OVA on!

[geometricalien]

oh dear i'm super duper late but I have a lot of questions about your wips!! I wanna know more about sick Akashi, nekoma pirate crew, BoKuroo/BokuAka midsommer, Pining + Jacket, The truth burns and destroys, feeling good, Punk Noya, Strawberry Blonde, sunspot and the merman au!!! Thanks babe <333

Hi Vee!!! This is it, I spent wayyyyy too long on this, I think my finger is cramping from typing. But thank you for asking, I love sharing my ideas, sorry if it’s incorherent.

This is super long so it’s under the cut, saving people room

Sick Akashi 

So, it’s based off of a line prompt “I’d like it if you’d stay” and as the title suggests, 3rd year Akashi gets sick, sorry Vee it’s not fatal, Furihata comes to Rakuzan to check on his friend after he doesn’t answer his phone. The entire premise is Akashi works himself sick with his various responsibilities he takes on as “perfectionist who can’t show any cracks at all”. I don’t want Bokushi Akashi showing up so it’s minus the mental break elements. (also technically in canon terms it's after they have merged so yeah) I feel like they deserve a cute little “nurse” the other from a sickness ficlet. And… maybe… sick Akashi confesses…….. It’s almost a writing challenge for me because Akashi has a more polite sophisticated way of thinking and speaking, so cough yep

The rest are Haikyuu aus so buckle in

NEKOMA PIRATE CREW 

Admittedly this is more loose, less of a solid idea. It’s Yaku centric, and how he went from a merchant from his grandfather’s company searching for lost merchandise and became the first mate who keeps track of the ship's finances and keeps their captain Kuroo on track. Other things of note, he meets Kuroo first as a pirate on another ship who stole his merchandise, Kenma is a sea witch (is that science or magic? That's always the question), and about halfway through the adventure they get Lev on board as a new member. So yeah! Kinda a fetch quest but on of my favorite fanfics is legitimately a fetch quest so it's okay fjdkaljf

BoKuroo/BokuAka Midsommer

This is based off of a fanart by desdelasombra my friend Shayla showed it to me and we threw this idea around together, we really don’t want to write it but it's also spectacular. So it's the movie Midsommar, right? Bokuto is a “gatherer” bringing his friends to come join in his village’s rituals. But we didn’t want anyone to die (except for Kenma sorry he’s dead as the substitute for the main character’s sister), so a grieving Kuroo comes with his boyfriend Bokuto, joined by their friends the smart studious and jaded Oikawa and bright bubbly Hinata. Obviously the three react badly to the first ritual and Bokuto doesn’t understand because for him it’s always been a joyful experience and he wanted to share it with his friends. A Lot of things happen, but most important is Akaashi and Kuroo dancing under the may pole together. BokuAka was in the past when Bokuto was home so part of this is them coming together as poly and escaping the final scene of the movie. Again this is very painful but that art is beautiful and the world is better for it being created

Pining + Jacket (KuroLev)

Again this is a line prompt about lending a jacket because it’s cold and it had so much potential for pining and who is the most pining bastard that I know? LEV and Shayla told me about KuroLev and somehow this happened. It’s currently going to be a sequence of drabbles of Lev pining after Kuroo, what else could you ask for? Uh? Lev confessing to Kuroo and them going out??? Sorry I can’t hear you over the exquisite angst and pain of one sided love that I want to explore

The truth burns and destroys

GOOD CHOICE, I began this on saturday night and it has earned a very special place in my heart. Sometimes I fear that my writing is like a lazy pool, sure it's nice and easy and smooth but there isn’t an intensity or raw emotions, BUT THIS this accomplishes what I want. And I’m really glad, its metaphor and imagery heavy but it really captures their emotions and thoughts without it sounding like I’m a 7th grader writing my first fanfiction glances to my abandoned wips from that time. Okay, Vee, I am a glutton for punishment and angst and I choose to pursue cheating fics. But specifically where and how they build the relationship up again after finding out. So, I was reading a KageHina cheating fic and how the character’s reacted felt off somehow so at midnight I wrote this snippet to fullfill my craving, you know what they say the best fanfiction is self indulgence. Here is a short excerpt,

He wants to brush this aside and continue their lives. He wants to wake up next to Tobio and still be seen the same way. He doesn't want anything to change. 

Tobio is his favorite book. He has read it time and time again. Highlighting, underlining, cherishing. So Shouyou is able to read the silent begging in his eyes. The right clenched fist. 

"Shouyou," a deafening pause "What is this?"

Please lie to me.

…

It stretches on. The eternity of silence. They sit together holding on to the last hope they have. Shouyou memorizes those beautiful hands, each crease and bump. Hands that helped shape him become who he is and that reached out unwaveringly. 

Tobio sighs a world ending sigh. 

Shouyou was the one who created their world, it's only fitting that Tobio is the one who destroys it.

In summary I like angst, I want to feel something 

Feeling good

AAA, okay uh, This is a BokuAka pop star au. Akaashi sings “feeling good” at a big charity event hosted by Akashi (... yes I am AkaFuri trash and I can and will sneak them in anything and everything I write) while he is singing he walks down a big staircase remembering moments in his relationship with Bokuto, how much they have grown and how much he loves him. I love the concept! But I tried to write smut in the beginning of it and OOF THATS A NO. I actually have the majority of it written but I do want to add more emotions and thoughts (the lazy pool writing) and make it Ao3 friendly because I have all of the lyrics for feeling good in it as “post signs” for what he sings and that’s against their rules. 1 major aspect of this fic is it's all leading up to the point where Akaashi says “I love you” for the first time to Bokuto after finishing the song, on stage, in front of everyone and on every screen broadcasting it.

Punk Noya

I have a love for feral boys, especially feral alternative punk boys (and girls and humans) so this whole idea is that Noya goes to another school for high school, embraces more punk aethsetics, and on the first day of the preliminary tournaments he hears the rumors about a high schooler in a gang, getting up to nasty things, and he decides to confront them. He finds Asahi, rants him out and leaves. The plot then follows canon, at the winter tournament Karasuno faces Dateko, Karasuno loses even more badly because Noya isn’t there. Asahi quits volleyball, BUT Asahi and Noya run into each other at the store and talk leading to friendship which leads to romance. Idk man, I want more punk haikyuu characters, it gives me life. Alt Yamaguchi is my favorite but onwards we go

Strawberry Blonde

!!!! So this is Mitski’s song and to give a vague idea this is a pining Kageyama fic where he tries to pull away from Hinata and that back fires. (I  do have more to say but I’ve been typing this for over an hour and I’m getting really tired fjkdaljl) There is one paragraph that I love, so here it is! Kageyama and Hinata are practicing by themselves outside of school and they are playing pepper (its a volleyball warm up practice routine where you partner up with someone pass, set, and spike the ball to each other sesquentially) Hinata goes to spike the ball and for a moment Kageyama sees it, 

They are at nationals and they made it to finals. The crowds are screaming, but everything except the court is thrown into shadows. They are at match point of the final set. Everything is at peak intensity and at the center is him. Flying in the air. Orange hair waving with the momentum. His loud take off echoing in the gym. Arm poised for the kill. Eyes sparking with ferocity and passion as he aims. And finally, tipping the world over is the loud slap of his hand, sending the ball to the far side of the court-

This was actually going to be finished and posted in time for Haikyuu season 4 coming out and the manga wrapping up.... clearly I failed my goal fjdaklfj

Sunspot

You don’t know this about me but I love royalty aus, and this is BokuAka Prince Akaashi and Knight Bokuto. This was a short snippet of this grand idea I have for them where they run away from Akaashi’s inherited destiny together. It has potential to be really wide and expansive with the differnet teams as different kingdoms (AGAIN ILLUSION OF CHOICE, that fic really influences me doesn’t it fjdskalj) But this was a short glance at Akaashi taking a break from studying and watching Bokuto and the other knights practice duel. The title comes from the fact that Bokuto is a sunspot in Akaashi’s life, and his day is substantially better basking in his golden shining light.

Merman au

I’m so glad you asked about this and its technically the one I’ve written the most for since it's actually the one I posted on my haikyuu writing side blog. But brief recap, long term it’s a BokuAka little mermaid au but instead of a sea witch it’s an underwater deity who makes “wishes” (it's a deal) with every royal who is born. And Akaashi has a lot of siblings: Ushijima, Oikawa, Suga, Terushima, and Hinata, and its in that order. So I have information on every sibling’s deal, what they wish for, what they give for it, what happens to them in the future, romantically and otherwise. But, this is the one I haven’t updated in over a year, I am working on it!! I’m currently on Koushi’s (suga’s) wish/deal, its just taking forever. If you want to learn more about it I’ll link it in parts  1  2  3  4

BUT I will work on Suga’s part and then Terushima’s and then to the meat of the idea with Akaashi. 

If you have made it this far, thanks, you are cool as always. My brain and fingers is ded. 

[spoon-writes]

Ends of the Earth | Chapter 21

Fandom: The Mandalorian

Pairing: Mando x OC

Read on FFN or AO3

Summary: When Sinead's husband is ripped from her, she escapes the Hutt Empire and goes on a quest to find him. Since being a runaway slave in the Outer Rim isn't exactly easy, she makes the Mandalorian an offer he can't refuse, and soon they travel across the galaxy looking for her missing husband.

Chapter index

Chapter 21 -  Sinead and the Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

The Razor Crest exited hyperspace directly over Zessol, close enough that Sinead could make out long mountain range cutting clean across the continent. The airspace was crawling with ships. The planet's main draw was the space station locked in orbit over the largest city where the near-constant stream of ships going back and forth made the air shimmer. The station had been a medcenter during the war and abandoned when the Empire took over. Scavengers found it and somehow managed to haul it all the way to Zessol, and thus Alpha was born, a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

Sinead swallowed thickly when the station came into view, nervous energy making her leg bounce. There was no reason to be so affected by this, but it was all she could do to ignore the urge to hijack the Crest and run for the opposite side of the galaxy. She was so lost in her thoughts that she didn't register the ship's turning down towards the sprawling city.

"What're you doing? I thought we were going to Alpha."

Mando swerved out of the way of a light freighter that cut clean through the line of ships going for the planet. "I don't think ... I think you should stay on the planet."

She sat up straight. "I'm not gonna hide while you fight my battles for me."

Mando huffed out a sigh. "That's not what I meant. It's too dangerous for the kid while there's still bounty hunters after him. I don't want him anywhere near the station."

Sinead looked darkly at the looming station that seemed too big to be able to function like Zessol's gravity would suddenly take hold and drag it to earth. It had been made for outer space, not hovering in the atmosphere.

"We've left him on the ship before."

"From what I've heard, this place is worse than Tatooine. Even if there aren't Guild members, someone else'll try to turn him in."

"Worse than Tatooine. Never thought I'd see the day."

It still felt like an excuse to keep her out of it, and she sorely wanted to take it.

"All right. I'll stay with him. But only if you get me if anything happens. No matter what."

What if Kyen was in there? They had passed at least a dozen dark ships, weapons tacked on with varying degrees of competence. The entire sector was crawling with pirates.

"I will. Just keep him safe."

After waiting for what felt like ages for permission to land, Mando dropped Sinead and the kid off on the landing platform. She watched the Razor Crest rise into the air, catching a glimpse of Mando through the windshield before it turned and headed up towards Alpha, which seemed to fill the entire sky. According to the navicomputer, it was in the middle of the night planet time, but the station lit up the sky like a sun.

She could still see the Crest as a small dot among the other ships when a finger tapped her hard on the shoulder. A short human sneered at her as she turned around, crossing some very muscular arms across her chest.

"You need to scram," she said through a wad of chewing tobacco, "less you wanna get squashed."

A ship was nearing the landing pad with its landing gear out, and Sinead didn't stick around to ask who would do the squashing.

"What a warm welcome," she mumbled into the crown of the child's head. "It's a wonder anyone wanna leave."

The port was teeming with sentients trying to get off-planet, voices in basic, huttese, twi'leki haggling for a spot onboard the next freighter heading out, standing in groups carrying large packs or children on their backs. It looked like half of Zessol was trying to escape.

Stepping out of the main port, they found themselves in the middle of the city. It was a lot bigger than Sinead had expected for a small out-of-the-way planet like Zessol, but being a haven for criminal activity paid off, apparently. Standing by the side of a street and watching the many speeder bikes block traffic flow, it was almost like being back on Coruscant.

The kid watched the surroundings with rapt attention, turning his head to follow every sound with his ears lifted to catch whatever could be heard over the general wall of noise from the city.

"Never been to a big city before?" Sinead asked the kid as they made their way down the trash-strewn sidewalk. "You probably have, being fifty and all. You're older than me."

He made no sign that he had heard her even if he could reply. How much did he really understand? Sometimes when she talked to him, she felt like he understood every word she said. Maybe he was all grown up, just unable to communicate. She shuddered at the thought of being trapped in a body, unable to talk but aware of everything.

The main thoroughfare was lined with shops that spilled out over the sidewalk selling mostly food and drink, with other more specialized shops offering weapons and everything else a full-blooded pirate could want. While it wasn't the roughest place she'd ever seen, she definitely understood why so many people were trying to leave.

She stopped in front of a stall carrying the saddest produce she had ever seen this side of Jakku. A surly besalisk glanced up from a datapad. "Yeah?"

"25 creds for a keebada? That's a bit steep don't you think?"

"You must be an outsider. The price you pay to live on Zessol."

"I guess." Sinead looked over the bruised or moldy fruit. "Don't suppose you have a fresh batch right out back, do you?"

"Heh. What you see is what you get. It's been a long time since Zessol had anything to offer except blood and death."

Sinead hoisted the kid further up her arm. "The galaxy is in no short supply of that."

The Besalisk shrugged and placed a hand the size of a dinner plate on the counter. "Well, it's all we got. Ever since the station turned up-" she cast a dark look up at the sky- "the crops have all withered if they even grow at all. All because of that thing."

Sinead followed her eyes to Alpha that turned slowly in the night sky. "Zessol's changed a lot?"

"Ha!" The laugh seemed to explode from deep in the Besalisk's chest. "Did it change! Imagine someone left a big hulking scrapheap in your atmosphere, how would you like it? Tides all kriffed up, fish disappeared, plants don't grow no more."

"I never realized …"

"Yeah, well … ya want anything?"

"Sorry. Not really in the market for perishables."

The Besalisk grunted and went back to her datapad, and Sinead continued down the street.

Suddenly, the kid made a noise and started to wiggle so wildly that Sinead nearly dropped him. They stopped in front of a store with a small display of sweets beside the door to entice potential customers. A small pile of candied boba fruit had caught his attention, and he reached for them with an almost comical look of concentration on his little face.

"Sorry, space-bug," Sinead said and grabbed his hand. "Candied fruits aren't really in the budget. Next time I promise to buy as many as you want, okay?" There were barely credits enough for fuel after Zlii had seen to the Crest.

He made a last attempt to wiggle out before calming down enough that she could move him to rest on her shoulder where he could still look out at the city. His hand curled around a lock of Sinead's hair.

"How long do you think it'll take?" She asked him after wandering aimlessly for a couple of minutes. Alpha seemed to grow larger in the sky with every passing moment. "You know, I practically grew up on stations like that. As long as we did enough legal work, the Empire didn't bother us too much. We ran cargo for them now and again. If my parents could see me now, they'd tell me to get a grip and stop moping. And they'd probably be right."

The kid cooed.

"I think you would've liked my father. He was always so calm compared to my mother." The words came out softly. "Everyone was calm compared to my mother. All he ever wanted was to travel the galaxy. Before you, I'd never met someone as curious as him; he could spend hours wandering the planets we landed on. If it hadn't been for the rest of the crew keeping track of him, I'm sure he'd have gotten lost a long time ago. He had this way of spinning even the most mundane things into masterpieces. Nothing was ever ordinary to him." Her chest felt tight. It had been so long since she’d allowed herself to think about her family. It was like telling Mando about her past back in the cabin had knocked something loose.

The kid watched her with his dark eyes, and at that moment Sinead was sure he understood every word she said.

"Enough of that," she said and gave herself a quick shake, returning the memories to the back of her mind where they belonged. "It's time to use those legs of yours, don't you think?"

When they reached a less packed street, Sinead sat the kid down on the ground and kept an eye on him as they walked at a much slower pace than before; the child kept stopping to examine everything in his path, and Sinead had to stand back and wait patiently. Who knew how much time they had to kill before Mando came back.

Suddenly, a door flew open, and a Wookiee came barreling out, shoulder checking Sinead so hard she spun on her feet. The Wookiee stared her down with his icy blue eyes and growled deep in his throat. Whatever snippy thing she was about to say died on her tongue.

She watched him as he started down the street, a bowcaster strapped to his back. "What a friendly bunch they are here, huh."

Looking down, she expected to see the kid watch her with curious eyes or examine something that no one really should look too closely at.

He was gone.

The ground disappeared under her feet, eyes locked on the patch of pavement where he should have been. He had been there a second ago! "Kid!" It came out as a screech. "K-kid? Child- fuck!" When Mando returned, she would force him to give the kid a name if he didn't kill her first.

Forcing herself to breathe, she ran to the nearest sentient, a human man standing on the corner watching the traffic and smoking a cigarra. The world spun with every movement like she was running on ice.

"Have you seen a little-- a small green creature? Big ears, half the size of an ewok?" Her voice came from somewhere above her.

Yellow stained teeth flashed as he sneered. "Haven't seen nobody. Piss off."

She was off before he finished talking, sprinting down the street while calling for the child with a voice more than edged with panic.

Reaching the street corner, she bent over with her hands on her knees and breathed in through the nose and out through the mouth. Two young Togrutas watched her. Just as she managed to get her breathing under control, a crash further down the street sent her heart thundering to a halt. She flew towards the commotion, pushing and shoving through the crowd which had quickly gathered in the street.

Elbowing a Duros out of the way revealed what remained of a stand and a crashed speeder bike. Lumpy vegetables littered the street, and the spectators had already begun to fill their pockets. A human and a Weequay were screaming at each other, gesturing wildly to the pitiful wood splinters. The crowd was egging them on, just waiting for the first to draw their weapon.

Somewhere in all the screaming, Sinead caught a snippet that made her heart skip a beat.

"A little green thing came out of nowhere-"

Without thinking, she stumbled into the circle. "Where did you see him?"

The human and Weequay stopped mid-scream to stare at her.

"Bugger off?" The human said in the slow voice of someone not sure what was going on.

"You said something came out of nowhere-" Sinead wanted to grab his shoulders and give him a shake- "where did it go?"

"I don't know, somewhere down the street- Hey!"

She pushed past him and was gone until she reached a wide road that cut through the city. A strangled moan escaped as images of the kid trying to cross the street flashed through her mind. Mando was going to kill her.

Suddenly, she spotted him between the speeder bikes; he stood by the mouth of an alley, looking so incredibly small against the darkness.

A wordless yell exploded deep in her chest and before she knew it, her legs carried her into the middle of the road. A speeder bike clipped her leg, and she stumbled, took her eyes off the child for a second. When she got to her feet and looked up, he was gone.

"No!" She stumbled into the alley and started ripping aside the garbage cans that had been collected against the wall, dripping with a smelly substance which slowly oozed into a grate running along the middle. "Fuck!"

She looked up just in time to see a small shadow disappear around a corner.

"Kid! Come back!"

Down the alley and around the corner, there was no sign of him, only a labyrinthian nightmare of dirty alleys that seemed to crisscross randomly, so narrow that the light from Alpha struggled to penetrate the gloom. She had stepped into another world, the high walls shutting out all sounds of the city, only leaving her labored breathing and the crunch of broken glass with every step. The air felt oily, coating her tongue with a foul taste. She reached a dead end, a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

"Fuck!" She kicked a dented can into a pile of refuse, which created a domino effect and the whole thing fell in on itself.

What do I do, what do I do, what do I-

Her ears prickled as a faint sound echoed down the alleyway. Without a second thought, she started running.

Turning a corner, she screeched to a halt so suddenly that it felt like parts of her were still going, pushed forwards by sheer momentum. Five darkened silhouettes stood in a circle, two crates and an open camtono between them. Their conversation died as they all turned to stare at her, whose brain completely blanked from surprise and adrenaline crash.

"Have you ..." her voice faltered as one of the menacing silhouettes slowly reached towards their hip. Her eyes flickered to the open camtono on the filthy ground. It was filled to the brim with credits.

Fuck.

"What the kriff you doin'?" One of the shadows barked out.

"Don't move!"

Sinead stopped and released a slow breath, eyes jumping from one shape to another. "I'm not trying to cause any trouble…" she calculated how far she could run before getting a blaster bolt between the shoulder blades. "I'm looking for-"

"Yeah, right." One of the silhouettes passed from darkness into shadow revealing a heavily scarred human face hidden behind a curtain of dirty hair. "Who sent you? Was it Grish? Come for a little revenge, have you?"

If she'd dared to take her eyes off them, she would've hidden her face in her hands. "I don't know who you're talking about," she said in as calm a voice as she could manage, which wasn't very calm considering the kid was still missing and she was likely to be gutted in some random alley. "A child is missing. I'm looking for him."

"Likely story. Now, why would a kid wander round in an alley, huh?" A voice rasped out. "Can't believe Grish didn't shell out for a better merc."

The corner was right behind her. If she jumped back and somehow kept her footing on the slippery ground, she could get behind cover, and then what? Run? She had no idea how to get back, her panicked sprint had left no time to memorize the route.

"Maybe she's one of Julel's lot. She'll have our heads if word gets back to her."

Slowly, carefully, Sinead inched back again, scanning the dirty alley for anything that could help.

"I told you-" the human took a step, reaching out to grab her- "don't fuckin'-"

Whack.

Grabbing a board propped up against the wall, she swung it as hard as she could. It splintered against his head and he stumbled.

She dove around the corner just before two blaster bolts lit up the darkness.

They followed behind her, footsteps echoing between the walls. The street crossed another, and she took the branching path just as another blaster bolt tore a chunk out of the wall. Everything became a blur as she tried to put as much distance between herself and the thugs.

Turning a corner, her foot hit something slippery that sent her careening into bins that had been stacked precariously on top of each other. Trash rained down around her as she got to her feet, dazed but with panic still coursing through her veins. She stumbled to her feet, ignoring the pain radiating through her shoulder, which had been the main point of contact. Various fluids stained her clothes, and she would have gagged on the smell if there had been room in her brain to comprehend it. Her brain was filled with only one thought: RUN!

Finally, there was hope. Two buildings leaned against each other, creating a narrow path nearly invisible in the gloom and barely big enough for Sinead. She squeezed into the gap and tried to claw her way along the grimy wall, but it quickly became apparent that just a few meters in it was blocked by a heap of trash that didn't budge when she tried to shoulder it out of the way. She was stuck.

The footsteps were fast approaching. She swallowed and grabbed her blaster, crouching down to make her a smaller target. The walls were too steep and slippery to climb, and when they opened fire, there was nowhere to go.

A shadow thundered past the opening. Then another. Then another.

She waited with bated breath for someone to stop, to look inside the nook and see her trapped. Gradually, the footsteps faded into nothing. It felt surreal crawling out on her hands and knees, looking down the alley where her pursuers had gone. She got to her feet and leaned against the wall with legs too wobbly to carry her weight.

"Holy shit."

Gritting her teeth, she pushed off the wall and started jogging in the opposite direction. A clang somewhere in the labyrinth made her pick up her pace, and she glanced over her shoulder into the shadows. It felt like someone was watching her.

The dark alley fell away, and she stumbled into a busy street, wincing against the sudden light. The sounds of people and speeder bikes echoed in her head.

In the sky, Alpha loomed.

"Excuse me," Sinead said, stopping a Twi'lek who was hurrying down the sidewalk. "I'm looking for the port. You know where it is?" Her voice was warbled.

The Twi'lek jerked away while giving her a disgusted look. "Keep going thataway." His voice was hollow, like he was trying not to breathe through his nose. "You'll find it eventually."

She did find it after some time. The ever-present swarm of starships made it easy to distinguish between the rest of the buildings. Her heart grew heavier with every step. Just what the hell was she going to tell Mando? I'm sorry but I lost your kid? If we're lucky, some bandits have found him and he'll live a happy life as a pirate.

The main entrance was in sight when she had to stop and take a deep breath, twisting the sleeve of her jacket in her hands so hard it started fraying. She had to tell him. There was no other way out.

A soft coo broke through her panicked thoughts like a rock through a window.

She looked down and let out a strangled sob.

The child looked up at her, ears perking up in innocent curiosity. A sticky powder stuck to his face and down the front of his little robe, and he clutched a half-eaten boba fruit.

"You!"

The nearest sentients were startled at the yell, but Sinead didn't notice. She snatched the kid off the ground and held him at arm's length, turning him to make sure that he wasn't hurt. "Don't ever do that again!" Her hands shook with the wild urge to squeeze him against her chest. "I’m getting you a leash, you hear me! I swear if you do that again, I'll leave you. Got it?"

The kid babbled and held out a sticky hand, offering her the candy.

"You're back to not understanding a word I'm saying, huh?"

He grinned, and she couldn't help but smile, releasing her anger with a sigh. She let him snuggle into her shoulder.

"We’re not telling Mando."

<- Previous chapter - Next chapter ->

[warrioreowynofrohan]

Thingol, for the opinion thingy?

I am very behind on my Asks and I’m sorry this one has taken so long!

Opinions on Thingol: I’ve ended up with quite a lot of them, and I think I’ve become more sympathetic to him that I was initially when my predominant impressions of him all derived from the Leithian.

He does come across very, very poorly in the Leithian. At the point when your child is a few thousand years old, they are certainly competent to decide whom they wish to marry!  This stands out even more in the context of LACE, which indicates that (at least among the Amanyar elves) 1) it was common to be married soon after after age fifty, and be informally engaged ever earlier than that; 2) elves rarely made such choices impulsively or wrongly; and 3) elves could marry whomever they wished, and familial consent was not required (though doing without it was discourteous), meaning that within elven customs Thingol had no right whatsoever to demand anything of Beren; Lúthien and Beren had every right to wed irrespective of what Thingol thought of it. It isn’t a medieval European society where parental control over marriage is the norm.

Thingol is very deliberately and openly trying to get Beren killed in a way that, technically, leaves his hands clean. And almost equally notably, in a different way, he does absolutely nothing when he learns that his nephew has been captured by Sauron, and actively tries to prevent anyone else (well, with ‘anyone else’ being his daughter) from doing anything either, in a way that suggests he regards Finrod – who he actually likes – as being acceptable collateral damage for getting rid of an unwanted prospective son-in-law.

What made my opinion of him more complex is that the story of Túrin suggests that Thingol realized how wrong he was and was, in a sense, trying to atone for his treatment of Beren by adopting this human child. And he went to great lengths to guard and guide him, to the point of pardoning him for deeds that were on the line between manslaughter and homicide, and sending one of his top warriors away from the front lines in order to guard him, even when Túrin was keeping very poor company.

And it’s after this attempt fails, and fails horribly, that he begins to become obsessed with the Silmaril. Because if, in obtaining this jewel, he has lost everything else, and he cannot make it right, and the universe appears to have rejected his attempt at atonement, then the jewel must be of unimaginable worth, because it’s the only way of conceptualizing its cost. (The fact that the Nauglamír is both cursed and has had Glaurung sitting on it for years likely does not help.)

 This is the main reason why I do think that he would get out of the Halls of Mandos (which seems to be a disputed question in fanfic) – by the time he dies, he already understands on some level just how badly he has screwed up.

Favourite ship: Well, I generally go with the canon ships, so I suppose him and Melian, but I honestly have to say that Melian deserves better. When you’re  married to someone who is literally older than the world and has a great deal of wisdom, you should occassionally listen to them.

 The degree to which Melian seems to take a step back from decisive action and ruling is very interesting.  I’m particularly thinking of the Leithian, where she tells Lúthien that Beren is held captive, but doesn’t take any action either to aid or or to prevent her from leaving. I’m not sure to what extent this is about her nature as one of the Ainur – a recognition that this is a crucial moment, and how it progresses needs to be determined by the actions of the Children and not of the Powers – and how much it is the choice of a grieving mother who knows where Lúthien’s story is going to go, and where it should go, but can’t bring herself to contribute to it.

Favourite non-romantic relationship: I don’t really have a favourite, but one minor one that interests me is the idea that he must have known and likely been very good friends with Treebeard.  It stands out that the Ents, after taking no part in any of the other events of Beleriand, specifically intervene to punish Thingol’s murderers, and it makes me think that his relationship with the Ents must have been very close, especially in the earlier days before the First Age of the Sun. (Treebeard specifically mentions Neldoreth, a part of Doriath, in one of his songs.) As ruler of a forest kingdom, it fits that he would know and be on good terms with them.

And as almost no one, not even elves, had seen the Ents for many years prior to the War of the Ring, he would doubtless be surprised and delighted to learn, when members of the Fellowship arrived in Valinor, that they had met his old friend!

Unpopular opinion: It’s hard to say which opinions on this character would be unpopular, because the I suspect most views are unpopular in some sectors of the fandom and popular in others! I’m sure that at least one of the ones that I’ve stated qualifies.

Something I wish had happened/would happen with them in canon: I wish that he had been able to reconcile with Lúthien before her death, but I don’t think that he did. To me, the choice of Lúthien and Beren to go live in Ossiriand speaks volumes. Half the rationale for completing the Quest was Beren’s conviction that Lúthien wouldn’t be safe anywhere except Doriath - and then, after completing it, they leave Doriath, the safest place in Beleriand, and go to Ossiriand, which is much less defended and is on the borders of Fëanorian territory.  To me, that says that Lúthien’s relationship with her parents, and for that matter with Doriath as a whole, never really recovered from Thingol first attempting to get her fiancé killed and then imprisoning her. (And Lúthien and Beren’s apparent rejection of both Doriath and their royal status makes Dior’s self-identification as Thingol’s heir - Elúchil - very interesting.)

[fallenfurther]

A drop into silence - Part 3

I decided not to leave this without a little hope for you all. I go a little into the science at the end, I hope I have kept it at the right level. I did have some fun researching stem cells.   Part 1 and Part 2. Enjoy

************

The next few days were spent lying in a hospital bed, a smile plastered on his face, keeping up appearances for his little brothers. He laughed at Gordon’s jokes, smiled as Alan relayed his latest adventure on Cavern Quest and tried to reflect the air of positivity that the doctors seemed to have. His fingers stayed pink and healthy, his wounds were healing nicely, and his bones had been repositioned correctly first time. He was considered lucky. Yet deep down, beneath it all, Scott felt despair. The support of his family kept him there, kept him present and he would have drowned without them. But part of him wanted to drown. With every passing day the neurologist looked less satisfied with his progress. A week after the rescue and he was discharged with physiotherapy booked for when the cast they sent him home in was removed. The joy on everyone’s face kept him going. They were like a storm, spinning around him with such force it carried him along. Yet that night, after he’d thrown his nightshirt across the room in frustration, he let the façade fall. Scott lay on bed shirtless, placed his head on his pillow and stared at the ceiling. Only then could he let the thoughts surface. The tears silently fell, dampening his pillow. When the sound of someone entering his room came, he couldn’t stop them, couldn’t pull on the façade he’d discarded. He was thankful when it was Virgil who pulled a chair up to his bed.

“I can’t feel anything, Virgil.”

The soft brown eyes met his, a sadness in them that showed the truth.

“The doctors say the feeling could still come back; your nerves just need time to heal.”

“Screw the doctors!” Scott growled, anger filling him as tears continued to fall. “What do you believe, Virgil? You’ve seen the scans; you know the medical facts. I know you��ve spoken with Grandma, gotten her opinion. Do you think I’ll regain enough feeling, enough movement?”

Scott watched as Virgil broke eye contact. His brother was bent over in the chair, and guilt spread through him. He should take it out on Virgil. It wasn’t his fault. The tear that Virgil shed made Scott want to reach out. He did reach out, except he didn’t. His left arm didn’t move, didn’t follow the command Scott gave it. Instead, Virgil met his eyes and held his gaze. Those hazel eyes were strong and held, ready to speak the truth.

“I believe you’ll regain some feeling, just not enough for you to use the arm. You would only be allowed to fly a specially adapted plane and your days as an International Rescue operative are over. Brains is already planning on a way to allow you to fly Thunderbird One but…”

“I won’t be able to do rescues. I’ll be a liability.”

Scott’s heart broke and he knew Virgil’s was shattering beside him. International Rescue would never be the same. It would go on, because it had to, but without him at the helm of Thunderbird One, it wouldn’t feel right.

“I’m sorry, Scott.”

Scott pushed himself up awkwardly, still not used to the dead weight of his arm and twisted so he sat facing Virgil. His gaze fell on his fingers, again he tried to wiggle them, every thought projecting down the arm. Nothing. Virgil picked up the hand and shifted so it lay on his knee. Silently, he started massaging the muscles and flexing the fingers. These were some of Scott’s assigned exercises, all of which were easier done by someone else. Virgil went through every finger, bending it and flexing it, being careful of the cast that stopped at his knuckles. The tender care of his brother’s touch was lost to Scott. Closing his eyes, his body felt still. None of the movement could be felt. He had felt the tug when Virgil had pulled his arm, up in his shoulder, above where the main nerve had been severed.

“Grandma is reaching out to all her friends, asking if there is any research that has evaded her that might help.”

Scott fought the sob. Of course, she wouldn’t give up. She was a Tracy too, stubborn as they come. It brought a smile to his face, despite the tear that escaped. He felt his hand being placed on his leg and returned his gaze to Virgil. The artist’s hands fell on his bare shoulders, an act that gave Scott the strength he currently lacked.

“We’ll get through this.”

Scott gave Virgil a resigned nodded. He still struggled to believe it could get better. Virgil got up, leaving Scott’s shoulders to feel cold, only to return with the nightshirt he’d discarded.

“How about we get this on?”

*****

Scott stood in front of the mirror in just his suit trousers. The skin on his left arm clearly displayed the scars, a fresh pink colour, that reminded him that even though he looked okay, he wasn’t complete. It’d been almost three months and there was no change in the arm. It just hung there, limp. The rest of Scott’s body was still toned due his continued use the island gym. Even though he couldn’t be a member of International Rescue, the need to maintain his fitness remained. Yet as Scott stared at his redundant arm, he could see the signs of wastage. The bicep had less definition and his forearm was looking slimmer. Signing, he turned and slipped the shirt from its hanger. He’d gotten the technique now, on how to slip his dead arm into the sleeve, though he knew it would create creases in the crisp ironed material. Pulling it up at the shoulder, he pulled it round and slipped his right arm in. Again, his fingers had mastered the one handed fasten, and soon the shirt was done up. The suit jacket followed in the same manner. Sitting he pulled on his socks and shoes. He had yet to buy any new dress shoes, not wanting another reminder of what he couldn’t do. Slipping on the shoes, laces left untied, he grabbed his tie and room key. Outside Grandma was waiting. She’d flown him over and insisted on staying to help him. He regretted that he needed help, but the tie slipped from his hand and was thrown over his head. Scott smiled at his Grandmother as she tightened the knot round his neck before bending down and tying his shoes tightly. These shoes hadn’t let him down yet, but his secretary was aware of his difficulties and she was good at discreetly helping him.

“All ready. Go get them, Scott.”

Scott couldn’t help the small chuckle at his Grandma’s enthusiasm. He’d taken to doing more Tracy Industries work, so he didn’t just spend his time watching, worrying, and envying his brothers when they were out on rescues. They were all being careful, his arm a subtle reminder of why they must be cautious. Yet at the same time, when in the heat of the moment, they could forget it and they had started to push themselves again. They had just returned from a rescue before he had left last night, so goodness knows what could happen to them while he was away.

“Thanks Grandma. Are you sure you’ll be okay by yourself in New York?”

“Oh, don’t go worrying about me. I’ve plenty to keep me occupied. Anyway, we need to get you to your meeting, can’t be late now.”

“I’m the CEO, they can’t start without me!”

Grandma looped her arm in his good one and started guiding him towards the exit. She was one of the strongest women he knew and as he peered down at the top of her head, he absorbed some of that strength. It was his family that got him out of bed each morning, his family that got him through the pain that rose when he found himself staring up at Thunderbird One, or when he went to the supply cupboard and saw his spare uniform. His family kept this grounded pilot going.

*****

The previous day had been tough, and all Scott had wanted was to be flown home so he could sleep in his own bed. However, Grandma had insisted that they stay another night and spend the day in New York. One gaze into his Grandmother’s hopeful blue eyes, her hands clasped together, and he relented. Maybe he needed some time away from the island.

“So, where are you planning to take me today?”

Scott smiled down at the older woman, who had her arm in his and was pulling him towards the exit. There was an energy in her that reminded him of Alan.

“Actually, I was hoping you’d agree to meet a friend of a friend I met yesterday. She’s currently doing some research you might be interested in.”

Scott’s heart stuttered in his chest. He knew what she was referring to and he tried to stay calm. There had been so many false leads, so much promising research that was still in the earliest of stages. They had even investigated bionics, though Scott wasn’t too keen as some of the early work was less than successful in the long run. He also had Brains working on an exosuit-like device that would be able to move his arm for him, but the prototypes were still bulky and hard to control. If Grandma thought it was worth his time then he would go, he just wouldn’t get his hopes up. The car out front took them to a skyscraper, and they were met in the lobby by a smartly dressed woman who embraced Grandma.

“It’s good to see you again Sally, and you must be Mr Scott Tracy. My name is Charlene Russell, I’m a neuroscientist and it’s my research that might be of interest to you.”

Scott shook her outstretched hand, noting the glance to his useless one. They were then led up to an office where they were subjected to a presentation. Scott didn’t miss the eagerness radiating from his Grandma.

“…so, as you can see, the rats regained full use of their legs after the treatment. When it comes to the same in humans, we have been given permission to start some trials in extremely specific patients, mainly in smaller less complex neurological deficiencies. We harvest the stem cells from the bone marrow, as well as the testis in men. Unlike earlier therapies we plan to harvest multipotent stem cells, so they still obtain the ability to become most cell lines. We have managed to find a combination of signalling proteins, hormones, and growth factors, which push human stem cells to become neuroectodermal cells, which is the first stage in the development of the nervous system in a foetus. We also have the right combination to produce neural stem cells. Our treatment involves injecting these cells into the area around the damaged nerves to allow the cells to trigger repair and in some cases, even bridge the broken strands allowing signals to pass along the nerves. It can take a few treatments to get the best results, but in our trials so far, patients have regained more function than expected from normal treatment alone.”

Scott sat straight, trying to take in all the science that was being thrown at him. The take home message seemed that they could repair damaged nerves in some patients. But would it work for him? He dared not hope for full movement but even some. If he could just feed himself and tie his shoes. To not have to rely on someone else for the simplest of things. It would ease the worry he saw in Virgil’s eyes.

“Do you think it could help me?”

“Well, Sally kindly shared with me your medical scans, and considering the nerve damage is limited to a few small areas, with the main break being at the top of your arm, this type of therapy has the potential to help. This therapy is very individualistic, and outcomes can vary, but if we could get even a few stem cells to bridge the gap at the top of your arm then that could restore some function, even if it’s just sensations of touch or pain.”

Even the feeling of touch would be an improvement. Currently he often bruised or cut the skin on his left arm because he couldn’t feel it. He had once left a trail of blood through the house when he’d cut his finger on something and hadn’t noticed.

“You said only a few selected cases could undergo the treatment, would I fall into this category?”

“Currently you don’t, however we have just been granted permission to try the therapy on a person with a similar injury in their leg. I believe we could apply to allow you on a trial as we could use your data in conjunction with theirs to assess the therapies potential in humans. We would have to apply straight away as the sooner after injury the treatment is preformed the better the success and you are already close to three months post injury.”

“Do you think we could get permission?”

“Yes. I believe the fact that you are Scott Tracy will help with your case too.”

“Then let’s do it. I have nothing to lose.”

Charlene smiled at him and Scott couldn’t help but mirror it.

“I’ll go fetch all the appropriate paperwork. I’ve had one of the medical teams on standby ready to do the required examinations and tests on your arm. These will have to be repeated at a late date for confirmation. Also, if you consent, they are also able to do the tissue harvest to start the process of extracting and culturing your multipotent stem cells. This would mean we could move quickly into starting treatment once permission is obtained.”

“So, I’m going to have a bone marrow harvest and you said something about testis in men, what does that involve?”

Charlene looked a little sheepish.

“Yes, the doctors will take a small slither of testicular tissue. They have assured me that it won’t affect your ability to have children and involves making a small incision with minimal scaring. The doctors will explain all the risks later, though from what I’ve heard most men don’t complain, especially if the bone marrow harvest is done first or at the same time.”

Scott swallowed, but nodded. There were always risks with new procedures, but this might be his best shot. There was a chance, a glimmer of hope if bureaucracy didn’t get in his way. Then he was Scott Tracy, CEO of Tracy industries and still considered Commander of International Rescue to most of the world. When had a bit of paperwork ever stopped him from getting what he wanted?

[avengersobsession]

SPOILERS FOR STAR WARS: THE RISE OF SKYWALKER.

...

...

...

TROS.

Four weeks later. Anybody still care what I think?

Okay, anything I think needs to be tempered by this: I went in spoiled. For just about everything. Not intending to, but I saw the biggest spoiler accidentally (KR dies) and I couldn’t deal with any ambiguity on that one, so I hunted down every spoiler hint available to see if that was true. And I disliked almost everything I heard—Palpatine’s return, Rey Palpatine, Ben’s death, very little Rose. I was so, so, so prepared to hate everything (except the promise of Reylo and a Reylo kiss—take what we can get). I went into the theater thinking, “Ugh. Let’s get this over with.”

Fellow Reylos, I loved it. Maybe that was because I was spoiled? I maintain and will maintain that Palpatine’s return was dumb. I also maintain Palpatine lied. But my attitude to all the things I didn’t like was, “Well, if they were gonna do this...they did it as well as it could be done.”

Dumb: Palpatine’s return. Reality: Opening with Kylo Ren stalking across the system to confront the old geezer, cutting through everything in his path like a cold joyless bastard? Saying, “Fuck nosferatu here, imma go get Rey and overthrow this guy and rule the galaxy with her”? Ohhhh yeahhhhh.

Dumb: Retconning Leia as a Jedi at this late date. Reality: Leia being a Jedi Master, training Rey, having her own lightsaber? OHHHH YEAHHHH. I’ve been wanting Jedi Leia since Empire.

Dumb: Going after a MacGuffen as a main plot (again). Reality: A fast-paced multi-world quest featuring Rey/Finn/Poe with funny snarking (“You were a spice runner?” “You were a stormtrooper?” “Oh, we gonna do this now?”), Chewie as a true companion at risk, Lando’s return, Rey cooing over babies, Kylo showing up here and there through the force bond to freak out and interrogate Rey, funky hidden sand caverns, Rey healing scary space snakes...guys, this was all levels of OH YEAH for me. It was fun, it was exciting...it felt right for Star Wars, what can I say?

Dumb: Shafting Rose. Reality: ...there was so much going on already! You couldn’t fit any more people on the Falcon without it turning into...look, there’s a MST3K episode of the movie Lost Continent where the party of 6-7 prepares to head out on the expedition. “Are we ready?” “I’m good!” “Can’t wait to get out there.” “Yeah, let’s go.” And JoelandBots riff, “Everybody get a line?” That’s what it would have turned into. I wish there had been more time for her but I also recognize her major story arc was completed last movie. She was not treated disrespectfully here but there just wasn’t enough time. (Us MCU Hawkeye fans are all looking at Rose Tico fans saying, “what are you, new?”)

Dumb: Rey Palpatine. Reality: STILL DUMB. I’ll say more later.

Dumb: Hux: “I’m the spy.” Reality, still dumb, but his “I don’t care who wins, I just need Kylo Ren to lose,” is pure Kylux subtext. Bitter exes, so sexay.

Dumb: Ben dyi— okay, wait. Not dumb. A very real potential outcome for this story. Honestly, I never thought JJ Abrams meant Kylo to live after he became a patricide. I DIDN’T WANT THAT THOUGH. I wanted Reylo and Reylo wedding dress and Reylo babies on parents’ hips and gahhhhhhh. And yet? This is not a bad death if there had to be death. Unredeemed Kylo Ren = bad death. Stray blaster because sometimes people just die for no reason = bad death. Redeemed Ben who is tried and executed = bad death. But this is a narratively understandable death. Fuck, it would have been really, really hard to have happily ever after with the war criminal/patricide/genocide First Order leader, wouldn’t it’ve? This is the guy who cost the deaths of his father, his uncle, and his mother just to SLOW HIM DOWN, migod. They could have worked around it, yes. As my S.O. says, “there was never gonna be Poe-Finn-Rey-Ben poker night, ‘k?”, but we could have had Ben and Rey go off together, create a new Jedi training temple and never mention the name Kylo Ren again. It. Would. Have. Been. So. Beautiful. But he was redeemed, he was Ben again, he was lovely, he was brokenhearted, he gave his life to save the Jedi Rey who was the woman he loved. AND HE SMILED AND WAS GLAD TO GIVE IT. Oh, my heart. Reylo 4evah.

Okay, the good that was not dumb at all:

-Who said this was paced badly? It was so exciting! What did you want, sitting on couches? There’s a reason the prequels are all but disavowed.

-KYLO STALKER-CHASING REY. Ah ha ha. Oh. Oh my god, every beautiful horrible line of his. “The next time I see you, you will take my hand.” “The only way you’re getting to Exegol is with me.” TAKING THE NECKLACE omigod that was the sexiest moment in the whole goddamn series. I was so expecting him to say, “I’m a NICE GUY, why don’t you want me?” next, ah ha ha. Really, it was just so characteristic of the post-rejected TLJ Kylo that absolutely had to be. He had tried being nice, no, really—“You’re nothing. But not to me.” Ah ha ha, oh, KYLO, you beautiful idiot piece of trash.—now he’s going to turn the screws. And Rey, going for the lightsaber every time to make it a fight because she doesn’t want to talk to his stupid stalker ass. It. Was. Perfect.

-C3P0 not being a prick! He was prissy and annoying and actually funny this time around, but he put away the everpresent dickishness this time. Wow. Best Threepio since...ever, maybe.

-Doing what they could with Leia. I have craved Jedi Leia forever so I’m forgiving what should have actually felt like “too little too late.” And I’m never going to get over her achingly lovely embrace with Rey.

-Han. Han. Han. I don’t even love Han nearly as much as Luke and Leia and I’m still enraptured with this moment. Does everybody get that in TFA, Han walked out on that bridge with his son knowing he was very possibly going to his death? At the hands of his own son? That when Kylo said, “I don’t know if I have the strength to do what I need to,” Han fucking knew that he was warring, that what he wanted to do was kill his father so that he would have committed an act so heinous he could never never go back to the light? That Han knew that? And gave him his life willingly because he was ready to take that chance Kylo would not do it, but also that in killing him it might haunt Kylo and help him turn back later? Han is not an idiot. And he’s that much of a loving father. So when we got to the echo of “...to do what I need to,” it was that turning point that Kylo was at last feeling. YAYYYYY.

-New characters. I liked them! They were engaging and had intriguing presence.

-Rey Skywalker. Okay, some of you hate this. But I’m more than fine with it. The Skywalkers have been the most important people in her life: mother, father, soulmate. Why shouldn’t she claim it and refuse to let the line end with the dead? Though I would have been equally happy with, “Just Rey.”

-Force dyad. You know what that means? That means in TFA when Kylo says, “What girl?” it is subtextually possible that he already knows what girl—the dyad part of him he’s always felt. Ooooooooooooooooh.

-Passing the saber via forcebond. God, I wish I hadn’t been spoiled for that one.

And now, it’s time for:

(Note. I’m not telling you it IS this way. I’m telling you this is my headcanon and I’m sticking to it.)

-So Palpatine’s alive, sort of. In him are the spirits of ten thousand Sith or whatever, which he can wield, but he’s still a walking corpse.

-He’d prefer to possess the body of a great force-user but they’d have to allow it, ritually. Kylo Ren would be good for this, but he could also be a useful ally. Meantime the Jedi Rey presents a threat. Kill her, she’s out of the picture, good enough. He could have her body to possess if he turns her, though.

-So if Kylo Ren finds him, he’ll make an ally of him and tell him to kill Rey.

-If Rey finds him, though, he’ll convince her to turn. How? Rey doesn’t want power. He’ll give her the one unshakeable thing she wants. A family. A lineage. A destiny.

-His “I don’t want to kill you, I want you to kill me,” “you are my granddaughter,” lines are just that: lines. He shows his true colors later when he snarls, “a worthless scavenger cannot inherit the dark side.”

Liar, liar, Mustafar on fire. Her parents were filthy junk traders. Rey of Jakku. Rey Nobody. Rey Skywalker because she adopts it. There’s my truth. Pbbbbbthhtttpbbthhht.