#Nintendo give the people what we really want

[kowaibunny]

[minty-mumbles]

LU Survey 2024 Results

The long awaited results of the survey. Thank you guys for being so patient with me :)

There were 350 responses to the survey this year! Not as many as there were last year, but still impressive. If you want to look at the raw data for this, you can do so here

Demographics

General Questions

Favorites and Least Favorites

Blank Space Question (Select Answers)

I'm so normal about Legend (the biggest lie I've ever told)

WIND BABY WIND OUGH IHGH UUOA I AM SICK FOR HIM MY SKRUNKLE MY OUGHGHHGJUA BELOVED

Remember that fandom is a community! Reach out to each other and learn something new! Give someone a compliment! Ask them a question! Encourage new artists and writers who are still learning! Thank you Mint for doing the survey again, too!

The fact no one has thought of calling Warrior's Zelda, "Areia" hurts me deeply "Hyppolita" even, please, with how much shipping there is between them, people sure are eager to name her after goddesses who have vowed to never have romantic relationships.

I dont think the fandom talks about it but i really love that every single piece of sky clothing is embroidered, because unless skyloft has embroidery machines thats all hand done. Which means either someone he knows makes a lot of them and gives them out freely (i give most of my projects to friends and family) or he would have paid someone for it, which means that either someone on skyloft lives of decorating clothing (and likely other fabrics) or someone just uses it to get some extra money (both are amazing since in the modern day people dont want to pay for handcrafted works what its actually worth)

Shark skeletons are made of cartilage, not bone

It's dangerous to go alone. Take this. 🦆

FOUR SUPREMACY🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️🔥🔥🔥🔥💚❤️💙💜💪💪💪💪🔛🔝💯💯💯💯💯

No but the Athena/Artemis thing is so real. What’s up with that. Why did we pick Artemis? Why did we do that?

I find it so funny how the fandom has decided to call Dark Link "Dink" because whenever I play a Zelda game I name my character Dink or Dinkus :D I started doing this waaaaay before I knew about LU

Im so excited for Echos of Wisdom! I find it really funny that Nintendo keeps making it harder for JoJo to stick to the plan, I'm pretty sure it's Legend and Fable but I'm not certain any ways Im really happy!

I love how LU is a culmination of so many of my favorite tropes from other fandoms! It’s been really comforting and nostalgic for me despite the fact that I only got into it this year. Especially since so many creators I liked have been getting revealed as problematic, it’s nice to be able to fall back on fictional characters who can’t ruin the lives of real people. :)

[gay-jesus-probably]

Okay so I have a lot of thoughts about the whole thing of the Gerudo being a race of entirely women, with the only exception being one man born every hundred years, and that man automatically being their king. Now this worldbuilding comes from Ocarina of Time, and there's obviously a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications there, because it was 1998. And it seems that Tears of the Kingdom is sticking with the lore of Gerudo men being extremely rare and becoming the King of their people, which once again has a metric fuckton of unfortunate implications because it's 2023 and Nintendo has somehow gotten even worse about this shit.

But let's set aside the whole... everything, and look at this from just the in-universe perspective. How does it work? I mean, it's pretty clear that there is no overlap between the kings; the old ones are normally long gone by the time a new one is born, but the Gerudo manage to take care of themselves during the hangtime. So they must have an established system of government and leadership that doesn't involve a king, and somehow that system is set up in a way that does a smooth transfer of power once a new king is born and old enough to take the throne. But why bother always declaring a random guy to be your King when you already have a perfectly functional system in place?

I mean again, the whole thing has a lot of sexist implications, but we're not looking at this from a real world context, we're examining it in-universe. And we could just go the lazy route and say that their king is in charge just because he's the only man, but I don't like that. I mean come on, the Gerudo are a race of entirely women, and most of their outside problems come from Hylian men being creepy about it. They are entirely a matriarchy; there is literally no reason for their culture to have an inherent respect for men, even if the man in question is one of them. And they're desert people; they live in an extremely harsh and dangerous landscape, if they don't have their shit together, they will die. By sheer necessity, their culture needs to put a lot of value in being practical, because if they're stupid about things, people die. They really can't afford to have a shitty leader take over, and just letting some guy take the wheel doesn't really fit with the way their culture must otherwise work.

So again, why the fuck do they bother having a King?

I think it's mainly just a ceremonial position. Yes, if the guy is a good leader he'll be in charge, but if he isn't good at being a King or isn't interested in the job... fuck it, they've already got a functional government system that's been leading their people the whole time, why fix what isn't broken? The title of Gerudo King isn't about leadership or power. I think it's more about belonging. Because the Gerudo are a culture where every single one of them can be defined in the same way... and there is exactly one exception once a century. Men are considered to be inherently outsiders at the best of times, and more often they're enemies. A man born into this culture is a natural outsider; he is completely unique, and that means he doesn't really fit into his community. And well... when someone is fundamentally different from the rest of their community, they tend to be ostracized.

So I think that's why the position of Gerudo King exists. It isn't about them needing or even wanting a man to lead them. The title of King doesn't need to involve any leadership at all. It's about giving the man born every century a place in their society. It's a way of saying yes, you are one of us, you are a Gerudo, you belong here, you are wanted and you are loved.

The Gerudo know that every hundred years, one of their children will be fundamentally different from all of his peers. And so their society is built to ensure that a child who is completely different from them will still be loved and accepted. He will always have a place in their society. He doesn't need to earn their love, he has it just for existing. These are his people.

The title of Gerudo King isn't an inherent position of authority. It's a promise of acceptance.

[avalypuff]

Answers to the common questions of “Why didn’t Zelda retain dragon features?” and “Why did Link’s arm revert to normal?”

I’ve been dying to do some analysis posts since TotK came out, and after seeing a lot of people complain about the above, I decided my first should be related to the endgame.

So, I’ve seen a lot of posts where people seem to misunderstand what was going on when Zelda changed back into a Hylian, and why Link’s arm returned to normal. Many write this off as simply plot convenience, and while it’s true that Nintendo wouldn’t want to leave the main characters of one of their most popular titles with permanent changes, I’m here to try my best to explain the actual reason these things happened the way they did, because whether you noticed it or not, there is plot relevance to this reversion.

Draconification is permanent.

This is an indisputable fact.

And while I have seen people criticizing the way Zelda changed back, the fact is she swallowed the stone knowing that she never would.

“I’ll be forever changed…”

Her cry for Link to find her was not for her sake. She wasn’t depending on him to find the key to changing her back. Nay, the only reason she desperately prayed for him to find her was so that he could get the Master Sword, which—ignoring game mechanics that would allow you to beat Ganondorf with literally any weapon with the right damage/durability ratio—canonically is the only thing that can hurt him.

When Zelda changed back, it was almost entirely thanks to Sonia. That’s right!

…Let’s take a second to recall this scene in which Rauru decimated the horde of Molduga.

We see Sonia extend her hand and then gesture for Zelda to do the same.

Here they’re extending their own power to amplify Rauru’s counterattack, even beyond the already-massive boost the Secret Stone provides.

In the final scene when Link finds himself hovering over the sleeping Light Dragon amongst a dream-like atmosphere, it’s really quite telling that Sonia is the first to rest her hand over Link’s, then followed by Rauru.

This time Rauru is fulfilling the role of amplifying Sonia’s power over time. Not just that, but adding it on top of the time manipulation that Zelda gave to Link at the beginning of the game.

That’s what’s happening here. This is immensely powerful, triple amplified time magic!

The change from dragon to Hylian wasn’t a transformation in the same sense that it was when Zelda changed from Hylian to dragon. I know that’s a confusing sentence, but consider the basis of Sonia’s time magic is recalling things as they once were.

Zelda didn’t retain dragon features because, through the power of time reversal, she was never a dragon to begin with.

This is the also the reason the Secret Stone reappeared on her necklace.

This is ALSO the reason Link’s arm reverted to its natural state before he was affected by the gloom.

And before y’all come at me with “well, why didn’t Rauru do that in the first place instead of giving his arm to Link?” Simple; Sonia wasn’t there. Even spirits aren’t omnipotent… in Hyrule. (Probably.)

The point is, this was essentially a lucky break for Zelda and Link, because if Sonia (and therefore Zelda, by inheritance) didn’t have time magic, there would have been no way to undo the Draconification. It would have been every bit as permanent as Hyrule legends and history says it is, and Zelda would be gone forever.

In fact, it’s likely it was a shot in the dark even on Sonia and Rauru’s part, considering there was no prior knowledge of reversing time on a dragon, let alone a person. It was a glorious blend of the convenience of Sonia’s time magic, and luck that it worked out the way they (“they” being all characters involved) wanted.

Anyways, to wrap this up, Draconification is indeed permanent, unless you have the number one badass-master-of-time-manipulation Queen Sonia on your side. Then you can probably undo anything. :)

[honey-milk-depresso]

Batboys x reader who is a game/singer streamer

So I'm assuming that s/o is a singer + game streamer from what I can see soooo yeah! I think I went to focus on the gamer part than singer though. Also I could only do this for Dick, Jason and Tim because 😭 sorry ;-;;;

TT o TT

Batboys with a game (mostly) + singer s/o

Dick Grayson

Don’t even get me started on how hype Dick’s gonna be. You game??? And stream?????? Epic-

Dick has played video games with Tim before it’s just that he sucks at playing the modern one sometimes-, so he probably wants to do co-ops with you and maybe join your streams and play with you.

He sucks ASS though in Among Us because he’s bad at lying when he’s imposter and too trusting when he’s just a crew mate. He’s so funny though when you record him while playing with you and your other streamer friends.

“Awww, look at me and s/o walking together and building snowmen! We are so—”

*Kills him* “…” “s/O WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME ARE YOU TRYING TO BREAK UP WITH MEEEEEEE????”*loud sobbing*

Obviously, no, it’s just what you had to do as an imposter and you have to apologise to your sulky boyfriend.

Fun fact: bought your two of those matching cat ears headphones and he’s so sappy, dear god- he loves those earphones.

Also your voice?? IT’S SO GOOD??? You made your own songs and that’s so cool!! No wonder your fanbase is so big, damn-

And he’s obviously your biggest fan! <

Jason Todd

He’s trying, he really is. Because the last thing he played before he died were Game Boys and then he awoken to Wii Games, Nintendo Switches and whatever the fuck those online games are.

Those sus game ads he clicked randomly made him question what happened when he was still dead-

Jason thinks it’s pretty cool you stream gaming content and all, although don’t ask him to play any RPG with you because he’ll rage quit. He will go insane.

Jason keeps insisting on wanting to join your streams in Among Us but like come on- WE ALL KNOW HE’S GONNA START RAGING MORE-

When he gets killed, he calls the imposter a “Joker” 💀 Sometimes you have to calm him down and tell him it’s their role as imposter to do this. Also, when he gets imposter, he’ll kill everyone except you. Like he’s your bodyguard or something and everyone’s out to get you. You don’t even need to be imposter. If you did kill him before, he’ll kill you back though-

He’s okay if you let him play Minecraft together though, he finds it peaceful (on creative mode).

Listens to your songs on repeat while he’s repairing vehicles or hear it live on your stream when he’s reading. Wholesome supportive boyfriend stuff. <3

Tim Drake

Immediately follows all forms of social media you have, and give subs to every time you go live and stream. No hesitation.

He thinks it’s cool you stream games and all, something he wished to do but just doesn’t have much time to do so, and that he has no idea how to start up a fanbase anyways so-

Tim would join your streams every once in a while to play with you and he doesn’t mind any sort of games, he’s pretty good with the controller… well, maybe RPG. Because if he’s doing a multiplayer game like with Genshin needing to join servers and all, most of the time, people wouldn’t listen to his plans and end up dying and then he goes berserk. Only you listen s/o… wHY?? WHY DOES NOBODY LISTEN TO HIS STRATS????

Also, cat ears headphones?? He has one and he looks so cute in it and would ask if you want one too- he only wears those headphones in private though, or in front of you.

Anyways, Tim loves your singing too! Would listen it live or hear it on Spotify if it’s available. If you sing covers, it’s gonna ruin him. He can’t listen to the original track anymore because it’s just not the same-

Overall, gamer boyfriend you got here. <3

[chongoblog]

My First Pokemon Playthrough

So I've noticed in my time of talking about Pokemon, I've told a lot of various anecdotes that are all a part of my very first time playing Pokemon. I was feeling nostalgic, so I figured I would share what I remember about this playthrough for everyone to enjoy. There may be a tangent or two in there and people who have followed me a while may have heard these before, but hey.

For context, I believe I was about 8 years old at the time, and after collecting some Pokemon cards, watching a kid play Crystal at summer camp, watching some of the anime, and generally being a pretty big fan (I even have Pokemon Yahtzee burned into my memory for some reason...), I finally got myself a Game Boy Advance with Super Mario Advance 2: Super Mario World, some Frogger game (after looking it up, it was Temple of the Frog), Tony Hawk Pro Skater 2, and, of course, Pokemon Sapphire.

I remember that my starter was Torchic. I don't remember why I chose that one, although I remember really liking the color red at the time (which I still do), so that was probably why.

I don't remember too much about my team or the general progress I made in most of the game, but I do remember Slateport City. For those who do not recall, in Slateport City in order to advance you need to get into the museum, which is blocked off by Team Aqua Grunts until you talk to someone in the shipyard. There are also Team Aqua grunts blocking the route ahead

Now, my 8 year old brain for some reason concluded that the only way to get past the Team Aqua Grunts was to intimidate them with a high enough level Pokemon or something like that. So one night, while I was supposed to be asleep on a family beach vacation, I beat down more poor level 13 Pokemon than I could count. I learned later what I was actually SUPPOSED to do, which led to me finally fighting the Team Aqua Grunts.....with a level 42 Blaziken.

And since the Name Rater was in Slateport City and my starter had evolved, I figured it was only appropriate to give him the new moniker "MAGMA MAN"

The rest of the playthrough went about as normally as tearing through the game with mostly Blaziken normally would go. There were a couple exceptions though. First off, at the Weather Institute, after I saved the day from Team Aqua, they were kind enough to gift me a Castform, but my party was full, so I couldn't get it. My 8 year old self did not read this. (Remember this, it will come back later). But I managed to make my way through the game, catching Kyogre with my Master Ball and giving it the nickname "LEGENDARY"

Then we come to the Elite Four where I hit a brick wall. I don't remember my team at the time exactly, but I do remember it was MAGMA MAN which had reached about level 80 or so, LEGENDARY which was about level 48, a level 36 Pelipper, two level ~35 Tentacruels, and some other sixth Pokemon I don't recall. And for some reason, I just couldn't beat the Elite Four with this team for some weird reason. The best I could ever get to was Drake. I felt I was utterly defeated.

That's when we bring a new character into the story. A member of my friend group at the time who we'll call "John" to protect the innocent. Now John had a very "uncle who works at nintendo" type energy to him. The group used to play Gauntlet: Dark Legacy together all the time, and when I got the GBA port of it, he convinced me to trade my recently obtained copy of the Pokemon Trading Card Game Boy game for a Gameboy-Gamecube cables, only for me to learn too late that it didn't work like that, and from there, there were no backsies (but then I got ahold of a copy of Pac-Man VS and Four Swords Adventure then I learned to emulate, so who's laughing now).

Anyway, John saw that I was struggling and he decided that he wanted to help me out. You see, he had come across an incredibly powerful and rare Pokemon that couldn't be found in the wild. He had gotten it exclusive, and I had never seen it before. It was called a "Castform". Now John had Ruby version, so he decided that as much as it ached him to part with it, he figured it would be a reasonable trade to trade this powerful Castform for the slightly less powerful LEGENDARY. I agreed.

And then he moved to Ohio.

To this day, Castform is my least favorite Pokemon because of this betrayal. I was so distraught at 8 years old that I completely restarted my game of Pokemon Sapphire. I don't remember much about that second playthrough, but there's a reason why.

This rival battle on Route 110 is somewhat infamous for being quite the sudden difficulty spike. And since I knew how to get past Team Aqua now, I didn't have an over-leveled starter to stomp my rival with ease. After losing to her about five or so times, I got frustrated and figured that whatever team I had wasn't cutting it. So I restarted again.

In my third playthrough, I made it all the way to the rival battle on Route 110. Then she stomped me repeatedly. So I restarted again.

This cycle would go on for, like, 15 resets. I didn't count, but it felt like there was hundreds. As I would keep on resetting and playing through the early-game of Pokemon Sapphire (which I had practically memorized at this point), I would start to take things a lot less seriously, sometimes picking the girl character, making my name random gibberish, etc.

Eventually, on one of these playthroughs where I started with Treecko, I actually managed to beat the Route 110 Rival Battle! And on my first try too! And thus began the epic journey of a girl named DE.

Now, I'd figured at this point that maybe only leveling up one Pokemon wasn't the best approach, so I was trying to balance my teams a bit better (I guess my rival taught me something). I was making my way through the game, and one day I'm checking out my best friend's Pokemon in Ruby, and who do I see in his box, but a Kyogre. I take a look at his name, and I can't believe it. It was LEGENDARY. John had traded it to my friend before he moved.

My friend didn't know that it was originally mine, so he offered to trade it back, which I accepted. LEGENDARY was a disobedient little bastard since I didn't have enough badges, but he got the job done. I don't remember the team I ended up using to finally beat the Elite Four, but it included my Sceptile starter, a Sableye that somehow knew only Fighting-type moves, and two Kyogres, LEGENDARY and LEGENDARY2.

And that's my first playthrough of Pokemon Sapphire. Thanks for reading, hope you enjoyed it.

[aestheticpearl]

— 𝐥𝐢𝐬𝐭𝐞𝐫𝐢𝐧𝐞

✧·˚you and jonah have been together for so long, so here’s a few moments that you share together

𝓲.

at first jonah started streaming when he felt like it, he had absolutely no schedule and it kills his followers cause they would always ask when his next stream is and he’ll just torture them by going ‘well i was going to tonight but since you asked i don’t really feel like it anymore’ he loved tormenting them and then just giving them what they want.

he would mostly plays horror games— stone faced, it’s one of the reasons he got so popular (besides his good looks obviously). elias and him usually played together when it a multi player horror game and it’s like the quietest stream ever. so quiet in fact that the chat ended up hearing shuffling in the room which made them speculate that their beloved streamer had a partner~

spill the beans, are you getting under the desk support rn? 🤨

“if i was you’d notice sooner trust me” he says with a smirk.

AYO⁉️⁉️

JONAH HAS A PARTNER THAT PROVIDES UNDER DESK SUPPORT CONFIRMED‼️‼️⁉️

PARTNER REVEAL (NOT CLICKBAIT)

“first off i never said i had a partner that was providing this quote ‘under the desk support’ unquote— besides i don’t think they need to be my partner to do that.” jonah scoffs at the chat and rolls his eyes before focusing back on the game.

truth was you were under the desk but just giving a different kind of support, to the desk. jonah’s poor desk has been on the end of many of his tantrums and a screw ended up coming loose so he had to text you during stream to ask you to sneakily fix it before the whole desk collapsed under the weight. so here you were, under the desk fixing the loose screw that was apparently ‘threatening the stream’ like the good partner you are.

you hear the snarky comment jonah make’s towards his chat and smile to yourself before finishing the quick fix and tapping his leg to let him know that you were done. jonah glances down at you and you smile up at him before he slides his chair out enough for you to crawl out and stand up out of frame, he mutes himself before speaking to you.

“thank you, i was unsure if the desk would’ve held for the rest of the stream.” you lean in making sure you’re out of frame before placing a kiss on his forehead.

“good luck with the rest of the stream jonah” you say to him has you leave his gaming room.

jonah directs his attention back to his chat and unmutes himself.

WHY DID YOU MUTE??

WHAT ARE YOU HIDING FROM US JONAH⁉️⁉️🤨

“ugh you people are insufferable.”

𝓲𝓲.

one of his love languages is quality time so playing games with one of his favorite activities to do with you, whether it’s playing with you or just having you watch him while you lay across the couch with your head on his lap he loves it. so when you suggested a date night which was staying inside and playing video games with each other he was ecstatic to say the least.

that was until the date night came around and you had fallen ill. it was nothing serious but it’s definitely left you bed ridden and you felt awful physically and emotionally since you had to tell him you couldn’t play the game with him.

“i’m sorry babe i wish i could play honestly, but i feel queasy every time i sit up.”

“…”

“jonah?” you lock eyes with him standing in the doorway before he turns and leaves you in the bed alone.

“alright good talk.” you say out loud to no one in particular before closing your eyes to try and get some more sleep.

you’re right about to fall asleep when you feel a weight on the bed and before you can really register what is happening your head is on jonah’s chest and you can hear his steady heartbeat.

“mmm what are you doin?” you ask slowly opening your eyes to look at the nintendo switch in-front of you.

“since we can’t play together, you feeling up to watching me play minecraft?” jonah asks in a quiet voice, which you appreciate greatly since you have a worsening headache.

“i’d love to watch you play minecraft.” you smile up at him. “thank you”

he responds with a simple ‘mmm’ before kissing your forehead and starting the game. you don’t get to watch him long before unintentionally falling asleep to the sound of his soothing heartbeat.

𝓲𝓲𝓲.

flash forward a year or two and jonah is now a streamer that actually does have scheduled streams, but he is also now one of those streamers that does a lot of the side quests of the game off screen so he just has the materials but doesn’t continue the main story line without streaming.

he’s now more effortlessly charming and charismatic which makes everyone in the chat swoon. he’ll say the most mundane things or respect people and the chat will be all heart eyes.

“that’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it.”

i think i’m in love 😻

me when he does the bare minimum

PLEASE JUST ONE CHANCE

whimper audio?

“a what?”

the chat does know that he has a partner because you always bring him snacks at the half hour mark. they’re usually just simple after school snacks that don’t take a lot of time, but sometimes you’ll bring him a sweet that he absolutely loves.

he will always take your hand and kiss the back of it as a thank you and the chat will swoon for you.

i’m getting butterflies for them 🥰🥰

WHEN IS IT MY TURN TO BE HAPPY?

whimper audio?

i’m sleeping on the highway tonight

“good luck streaming bubs” you say before planting a kiss on his head. “bye chat, make sure to harass him for me.”

“heyyyy”

“i love you~” you say closing the door and walking down the the kitchen to make him a snack that the chat will surely get jealous of even with its simplicity, it’s more of the domestic act that they love.

𝓲𝓿.

jonah loves having you on his lap while he games and you love it almost as much as he does. he definitely owns like a bean bag chair instead of his gaming chair to makes things so much more comfortable too.

“mmm sleepy”

he chuckles softly, you love when he does that.

“i can tell babe, you can sleep if you like.”

“nooo i wanna watch you play.” you whine.

“you’re not even facing the tv” he kisses your temple gently.

it’s true, you haven’t exactly been watching him play more like listening to him play, you know what’s happening without looking at the screen and he knows that. jonah also knows that if you become sleepy during these cuddle/gaming sessions you’ll just fall asleep, but you seem very set on not falling asleep this time.

“what’s keeping you awake baby?”

“i just want to spend time with you that’s all and i want to be conscious this time” he smiles.

“alright, if you say so but just know i wouldn’t be upset at you for falling asleep” you nod and bury your face into his neck to place feather like kisses.

he unintentionally squirms away from the attack while laughing softly.

“i think someone is tired”

“tired of you accusing me of being tired” he laughs and kisses the side of your head. “my mind is awake but my body is so sleepy”

jonah chuckles softly and readjusts you so you’re in a more comfortable position and soon you’re out like a light as he turns the volume down and plays silently.

.love always <3 pearl

.masterlist

[genericpuff]

Why is the art so unappealing in lore Olympus now Persephone looks like a highlighter and maybe it’s just me but the proportions like the fingers in arms are soul over the place I don’t think they used to be this bad. Am I just looking at it with nostalgia or am I crazy ?

Honestly, nostalgia does play a huge part in it, even to this day there are times I look back on old S1 panels and go-

Actually here's a great example that literally just happened yesterday in the ULO Discord that nearly had me on the floor LOL This is from Episode 70:

Like I didn't even believe that that was real until I was told what episode it was from and I was just. Astounded and flabbergasted. The over-shading of the blanket that just makes it look like a really bad edit. Insane.

And yeah, there are a lot of old panels that hit different now that the rose-colored glasses have been removed, crushed, and thrown into the trash compactor.

I think that's why it makes it all the more amusing when people come into my inbox and ask me "wait, why did you like LO to begin with?? It's always been ugly as shit, I think you're just romanticizing it" because like... there's something to be said about art and subjectivity, even if something is ugly to one person doesn't mean it isn't beautiful to someone else. It's why I try not to be too mean towards the fans of this comic for still enjoying it, because while I definitely have strong opinions about how "LO has gotten worse" and what kind of following Rachel has cultivated (cough cough), there are also just as equally valid arguments that LO has never begin good to begin with that I can't necessarily disagree with now that I'm looking back on it with a more critical eye.

That said, there's tons of media that I enjoy that is objectively awful. Like y'all, you don't need to take my opinions about a dumb pink x blue fantasy romance comic seriously, I like Starfox Adventures-

Like yeah it's a badly made rushed piece of shit that was developed right on the ass end of Rare's glory days and was really an original IP (Dinosaur Planet) that got Frankenstein'd into a Starfox game so it could "sell better" for Nintendo, but I don't give a fuck, I love Starfox Adventures and some day I wanna be in the top 10 speedrunner leaderboards for it, which I know doesn't mean much because no one is speedrunning Starfox, but I do and no one can take that away from me dammit-

Anyways. Lore Olympus has, in many regards, always had "bad art". But "bad art" can and should still be enjoyed by those who find joy in it.

And in LO's case, the world it existed in when it launched was a lot smaller than it is now - more specifically, the world of Webtoons. We can look back and see how 'bad' LO looks and reads now because there are genuinely way better comics surrounding it. It was unique and refreshing and experimental back then... now it's just "that stupid blue and pink comic for horny teenagers".

In most cases I would consider that "cringing in hindsight" feeling a good thing because normally it means something has grown and that it seeming "bad" in hindsight would mean that it's outgrown itself and moved onto bigger things. But LO has the more unique problem of "its current stuff is shit and it's making us want the old stuff more, even if the old stuff wasn't good either". In that regard, LO is closer to being like Harry Potter. Remember when The Cursed Child came out at the height of Rowling being exposed for being a TERF and even people who liked Harry Potter didn't like The Cursed Child because it was just objectively worse overall (with or without Rowling's bullshit attached)? It made a lot of people go back and re-read / rewatch Harry Potter with a more objective lens and go "wait a minute guys, I think we only adored these books so much because we were 12 when we read them". Often times it's the good memories we have surrounding certain things that make us have the opinion about them that we do.

Of course, LO is definitely not as politically weaponized as Harry Potter is, so that's where that comparison ends. But my point is that LO is definitely in a situation where it's been riding off the same privileges it had back in 2018 - having an 'experimental' art style while also utilizing tropes and characters that were VERY popular at the time (remember that 2017-18 was when Tumblr was at its height of H x P "Hades was a chill accountant guy who wore socks and sandals and didn't cheat on his wife like Zeus did" fantasizing) - and thinks that those same tricks and tropes will still work today.

Because of this, the art in LO really, really hasn't aged well, even the stuff that we look back on fondly. But I think it's the panels that we specifically think of when remembering "old LO" - the ones that stuck in our memories the most - that are the ones that make us miss or just not care about the panels that don't look good (the panels that make people question why we ever liked it to begin with).

We liked it because of how it made us feel to look at panels like these-

Those genuinely wonderful panels that we think back on the most don't exist separately from the bad panels, they exist in spite of them. Even if we can look back on panels like these and pick out problems in the lineart or the proportions or the color travelling outside of the lines, that can't and shouldn't change how those panels made us feel at some point or another. And that's why when people ask me "why were you even into LO in the first place" I don't have any one answer, because I can't fully explain how something made me feel to justify why it's good to someone who can see from the outside - without rose-colored glasses - that it evidently isn't. It's very much a "you had to be there" type of thing.

Unfortunately, nowadays even the 'best' LO panels in S3 still don't come close to what the S1 panels accomplished - because for many of us, the rose-colored glasses are gone, we can't appreciate the good among the bad because we know now how bad it truly is and so the good just feels like wasted attempts at trying to recreate something it can no longer be. It "came back wrong" so to speak.

LO came back just regular. But our journey to resurrecting it changed us to such a degree that even its closest intimacies are now foreign to us. Sorry dude.

This is still probably one of my favorite panels out of the entirety of S3 for being as close to "old LO" as I've seen since S2, and even it feels like a mistake, an accident, how could a panel like this exist in S3 when so much of it is a dumpster fire? It's like a flower growing in the ruins of an apocalyptic wasteland.

But wasn't that always the case? Isn't that 'always' what LO has been, since the very beginning? A poorly cobbled together mess of writing and panels that, every now and then, manages to leave an impression that makes you feel something? Did we ever truly know LO? Or have we just been relying entirely on an idea of it that we've built up in our heads that when it does do exactly what it's evidently always done (even if not made apparent until looking back on it in hindsight) we think it "came back wrong"?

[crowdeerdire]

OLBA boys with a Gamer MC

Featuring: Cove, Baxter and Derek Synopis: How the boys would be around a Gamer MC (whether they're in PC gaming, console gaming, cozy, shooters, etc)

Cove

Honestly would be happy with any interests you had

Although he prefers to go outside and be at the beach, he would probably also try to learn about whatever game you're into at that moment

maybe he wouldn't fully understand (aka 'MC... all you're doing is farming and cleaning? Can't you do that irl?', or 'why are you making a sims character that looks like me? I'm right here? You can talk to me?')

but if you're excited, then he's excited

he would support you, and hell, maybe you could get him into a game or two? (M/C: 'Cove! This one has mermaids!' Cove: 'What?? I wanna play!')

If you're the type to get up early for things like Nintendo Direct or some other video game announcments, he would be there with you too. I mean, he's a morning person anyways, but he would still wanna to hang out and find out why you're so excited

would ask questions and be genuinly interested when he get excited over an announcment

If you're the type to swear and get angry at video games, Cove would be surprised at first but depending how you are with him normally (like do you usually have a potty mouth?), he would laugh it off

If it starts getting too much he would definetly come over to you, concerned and worried that you're getting too heated

talks to you in a gentle voice and tries to ground you/calm you down

M/C: 'F**K THIS MARIO GAME WHY CAN'T I MAKE THIS STUPID F**KING JUMP?!' Cove: 'I don't know but you're getting really riled up, M/C... Why don't we take a break and just breathe? I'll listen to you rant, if you want?'

would play Mario party with you if you ask :)

The 'downside' would probably be Cove pouting if you're gaming too long (some new expansion came out and you wanna play it for 12hrs straight? oops) and ignoring him. He's all for you enjoying yourself, but he wants attention too...

would probably have to get him an extra chair if you're a pc gamer

or sit in his lap if you're playing on console

I think he would REALLY enjoy watching you play too? Like honestly watching people play games is really relaxing and I think it would be relaxing for him because he gets to spend time with you

would force you to take breaks/eat/hydrate and whatnot

Cove: 'You've been playing four hours straight.. At least stand up and walk around M/C!!' M/C: 'Just one more game...'

He WILL pick you up and drag you away from your game if he needs to

Baxter

he may not get it either, like Cove, but he would support you

honestly all three boys are like: if this makes them happy, then I'm happy :)

I feel like he may get more into the tech side of it, tho, if he starts taking an interest?

and help figure out what best specs to use for whatever kind of games you are into?

he seems like the type to be willing to do research for whatever, especially if it helps you out and you're overwhelmed

Baxter: 'If you want M/C, you can go for this version of the console since you tend to play less intense games. That's why you don't have to overspend on something overpowered.' M/C: 'Oh, you're right! Thank you!'

Although I feel like Baxter might want to spoil you too...

M/C: 'YOU BOUGHT ME A PS5??? AREN'T THOSE SOLD OUT EVERYWHERE???' Baxter: 'I have my connections :)'

Would say 'My uncle works at nintendo/playstation/microsoft/etc' in the most serious tone, but we all know he's bullshitting... right?

Would probably enjoy watching as well, especially RPGs I think?

Like he would get into the story and ask questions and maybe even theorize with you

If you got up early for a game announcment, he would give you a thumbs up from bed before falling back to sleep. He ain't getting up for that, but he loves and supports you

If you get really heated playing a game, I think he would egg you on as a joke

M/C: 'F**K YOU I SHOT YOU!! HOW DID YOU KILL ME FIRST??' Baxter: 'You tell them, honey'

Of course if you get too rilled up, he would be beside you, gently putting his hand on your shoulder and suggesting a break and something to eat. Maybe just spend some time with him and relax :)

He can't blame you also if you get super hyperfixated on a game and play for hours on end

I always think Baxter is a work-a-holic and would get what those kind of moods would be like

Would bring you snacks and drinks tho :)

Derek

Derek is a gamer as well, which we know from his DLC

not a huge gamer maybe as yourself

BUT

would enjoy playing party games and racing games with you

Would really get into it as well. Maybe try to win by giving you smooches and tickles if you're too good

He would also be the type to be excited if you're excited by something

Would also get up early with you for game announcments - would even skip the gym if it was something you were really excited about

Would ask lots of questions but also do his own research into the game so he could talk about it as well with you?

I feel like out of the three boys he would most liking get into gaming with you

Maybe nothing too crazy, but you could convince him into something more casual

If you were playing something competitive, he would be cheering you on

Probably REALLY enjoys watching you play

Like honestly, watching someone play video games can be really relaxing and almost intimite somehow? Cause you're sharing their passion? idk man :)

If you're getting heated over a game and are swearing up a storm, he would be at your side quickly, trying to calm you down.

He gets games can be frusterating, but you need to breathe or you're gonna get upset and he does not want that

Will force you to take breaks

Derek: 'M/C... You gotta eat and drink properly if you wanna keep gaming! C'mon, we can have something together!'

Would probably make sure you keep a semi proper sleep schedule as well because he's a worry wart and wants to make sure you're healthy

Will carry you away from a game if he has too (will wait inbetween matches if it's something you can't pause. He understands that much)

a/n: my mind is unhinged today :)) Hope y'all enjoyed and I hope non of the boys were ooc? Let me know what you think :)

divider by: @/cafekitsune

[channel-eclair]

Who is the Luigi archetype of every major Nintendo series? - An Essay

I love Luigi, I love Nintendo, and for some reason I want to go on a mental quest to determine who the "Luigi" of every Nintendo series is.

What does it mean to be a "Luigi"?

Usually the second most important character in a series, but can often be less important. Also works well if they're a player 2 character

Parallels or connects to the main protagonist in a few ways shapes and forms

Could be green. Not necessary but it is bonus points if they are green.

And without further ado, let's begin!

The Kirby Series

This is one that is very debatable. Many might say Bandana Dee, which makes a lot of sense! Often player 2, looks similar to Kirby, not as important as the main protagonist and antagonists..

But honestly? I am kind of leaning towards King Dedede.

When you think of Kirby, the second character most people think of behind Kirby is Dedede. He is like Kirby's shadow, Kirby's parallel.. but he is NOT a villain in modern day Kirby. Dedede is not the Bowser of the Kirby series.

King Dedede being royalty could also have him be compared to Peach.. but Dedede's immense amount of playable roles make him feel more in line with Luigi to me.

I think Dedede is the second most important Kirby character; and with his parallels to Kirby's moveset, I honestly will crown King Dedede as the "Luigi" of the Kirby series

Plus, the best Smash game already knows whats up!

Pokemon Series

It's Eevee. 100%. It's Eevee.

Pikachu is the "Mario" of the Pokemon series, the beloved mascot.

Eevee is the parallel of Pikachu, beloved and different but always second behind Pikachu. The two mirror each other excellently, and Eevee really just feels like the perfect Pokemon to call "the Luigi" of Pokemon.

I will say, Mimikyu fits nicely as a ghostly doppelganger (and I think Luigi would totally have one on his team), but purely from a brand and gameplay standpoint, it is Eevee.

Animal Crossing

This is a bit of an odd one, but I'm going to give it to Isabelle.

In many forms of promotional material, the face of Animal Crossing flipflops between Villager and Isabelle. I geniunely think Isabelle is more iconic and known at this point, as Villagers are so customizable yet the right amount of plain that they're often not seen as a character (unlike say, Inklings, who are super customizable but have such unique designs they stand out a lot)

However, Villagers ARE the player character. Not to mention Isabelle is only in two of the five Animal Crossing games! I would say that despite her popularity, she is only the second most important character of Animal Crossing.

Also she wears green. Luigi!

Splatoon

And now after mentioning Inklings, here we are at Splatoon!

If Inklings are the Mario of the series, I'd say Octolings are the Luigi, I guess? They aren't enemies anymore so Octolings aren't really a Wario (even if DJ Octavio's the Bowser of the series more or less)

However I want so badly to point out that the Squid Sisters are basically a parallel of the Mario Bros. Callie is "Mario" and Marie is "Luigi". This doesn't make sense with the pattern I've established but I wanna throw Marie into consideration here too, as the possible Luigi of this series.

And if the "Mario" of the series is Callie... maybe Inklings are, uh.. the "Yoshi" of the series, since they're a species? Hmmm..

Fire Emblem

So FE is an interesting one because it has SO many different casts. And honestly; there's not really a definitive "main cast". Like Marth is the face of the series, but his OWN game is not that popular compared to other and greater entries. Fire Emblem is a lot like Pokemon where every game is a new cast, but Fire Emblem's first cast doesn't hold onto the series as much as Gen 1 of Pokemon does (except Marth)

For Marth alone, I'd say Merric is the Luigi. He's green, Marth is the Mario, Caeda is the Luigi.

For the Binding Blade and Roy, I'd say Wolt is the Luigi. He's green, Roy is the Mario, and Lilina is the Peach. This one is also kinda funny considering how forgotten Wolt is in this trio, compared to the other two.

For Awakening, I'd actually argue Robin as the Luigi, as Chrom and Lucina really take over as protagonists. Also I just kinda feel like Robin and Luigi have a lot in common. They were both vessels to become final bosses with Grima and Dimentio, they both use electricity, they both kinda sleep a lot with Dream Team, idk! I think they'd be friends

For Three Houses... Claude, maybe? Amidst all the main intensity in 3H, Claude kinda sits back and goes his own path. He's not as beloved as Edelgard or Dimitri but has his fanbase, and if Edelgard and Dimitri are the "Mario, Peach, or someone else" then Claude really just feels like a Luigi to me.

Also worth mentioning is the "Christmas Cavaliers", the pair of red and green knights in almost every Fire Emblem game. I like to joke and call them the Mario & Luigi knights, but they're just not important enough characters to be "Mario" and "Luigi".

Pikmin

Thanks for making this one easy Pikmin, it's Louie

(To properly explain to non Pikmin fans reading this: Olimar and Louie are somewhat named after Mario and Luigi, with Louie being the second playable character in the series!)

The Legend of Zelda

So.. I saved the series thats always by the Mario series side for last. I wanted to do it first, but I saved it for last because honestly??? This one is a doozy

Link is "Mario", Zelda is "Peach", Ganondorf is "Bowser". It is set in stone and easy, that part I got.

But... that's the trio. That's the main part. That's it.

Who, uh, who's Luigi..?

I initially thought Midna or Fi or Navi.. but wouldn't those companion characters be more akin to Cappy and FLUDD and the Luma in Mario's hat?

Beedle comes to mind cause he always shows up, but I dunno- he's just a shopkeeper? Maybe he's a candidate? But that just doesn't sound... right.

Dark Link is "Wario", alter egos. Tingle is "Waluigi", both joke characters more or less.

If I used the logic for Callie and Marie from earlier, then it'd just be Ingo from Ocarina of Time who's blatantly based off of Luigi.. but the issue is, saying Marie is "Luigi" works because its debatable if Inklings are the "Mario" of their series. Here, Link is 100% the "Mario" of the series, meaning that it wouldn't make sense to say Mario is Talon and Luigi is Ingo because then who would Link be????

But.. who is "Luigi".... where is the "Luigi" of Hyrule..?

I looked up anything I could about "who is the Luigi of Zelda" but alas, literally nobody has asked this question nor do they want an answer and so I was left with nothing but more questions.

I honestly consider maybe even like... a different colored Link, like in Four Swords and Triforce Heroes?

WAIT. THATS IT

ITS YOU!!!!!

Allow me to explain: Link is green. Mario is red. Link is the "Mario" of his series. In Four Swords/Triforce Heroes, you have other colors of Link as other players (red, blue, and purple. at least purples in four swords)

But Link is already green.. so what if you put Mario's color ON Link?

Then there we go. Red Link is Luigi by way of parallels.

So there we go: Link is Mario, Zelda is Peach, Ganondorf is Bowser, Dark Link is Wario, Tingle is Waluigi, Midna/Fi is Cappy/FLUDD, we could keep going on like saying Daisy is Hilda since Hilda is a parallel Zelda!

......

....Wait. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT. WAIT A MINUTE.

THINKING THIS OUT IN MY HEAD I DIDNT REALIZE THIS UNTIL I TRIED TO THINK OF DAISY AND REMEMBERED HILDA

YOU!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW DID I FORGET MY FAVORITE ZELDA CHARACTER (next to fi and mipha)

OH MY GOODNESS

RAVIO IS THE "LUIGI"

THERE WAS NEVER A LUIGI IN HYRULE. HE WAS IN LORULE THE WHOLE TIME. RAVIO IS THE LUIGI OF THE ZELDA SERIES

And yes, I know that Ravio is near identical to Nabbit (even Miyamoto himself commenting on this!) However, I feel like Nabbit still lacks a solid role and story in the Mario series that could really tie him down. On the flipside, Hilda is basically the Daisy of TLOZ due to paralleling the main princess. I feel like the connection of Ravio and Hilda connecting back to Luigi and Daisy gives Luigi enough of a connection to Ravio. If Nabbit is the "Ravio", then who is Daisy's Zelda equivalent?

...I have no idea what I'm saying.

ANYWAYS by all means if Nabbit takes Ravio, I resort back to Red Link as the Luigi archetype.. but for the sake of making it simple, both Ravio and Red Link will be marked down as Luigi archetypes.

...

And there it is. For all 9 of Nintendo's main series (according to My Nintendo's store pages and various Nintendo advertising), there is the Luigi archetype. Luigi lives on in every bit of the wonderful world of Nintendo.

Maybe the real Luigi was the friends we made along the way. Thank you for reading.

---

Final "Luigi Archetype" Summary

-Ravio / Red Link (Zelda), Isabelle (Animal Crossing), Octoling / Marie (Splatoon), Eevee (Pokemon), King Dedede (Kirby), Merric / Wolt / Robin / Claude (Fire Emblem), Louie (Pikmin)

[shima-draws]

OKAY I’ve been playing for a couple hours now and here are some thoughts

-I LOVE that they actually give you time to hang out with the starters and bond with them and see what their personalities are like before you get to pick one. That was really neat

-They were right! This game really do Open World RPG! I haven’t even gotten to the school yet I’ve been too busy running around the map for two hours

-Not sure how I feel about items in the field literally having a neon light showing where they are from a mile away. Kinda defeats the whole purpose of open world if the items are too easy to find. The novelty of “treasure hunting” is gone because of this

-MIRAIDON REALLY DO BE LIKE TOOTHLESS FOR REAL…

-I’m going to kick Arven’s ass if he even LOOKS at Miraidon the wrong way. “Oh this Pokemon is too hard for me to deal with so I’m abandoning it and shoving all of the responsibilities I had caring for it onto you” OH YEAH?? Alright asshole I’ll take it off your hands CLEARLY it was so difficult for you to take care of a living breathing creature that also happens the be the coolest looking motherfucker on this side of the continent. Your loss

-Ohhh the clipping is so bad! It’s so bad! If I rotate the camera too far in my own house I just get a black screen! Yikes 💖

-The concept of being in battle and still being able to see Pokemon doing their own thing in the background is REALLY neat? Like life just moves on around you while you’re duking it out with another trainer. I know we had a specific saying for this when I was in school for animation but I forget what it was exactly RIP anyway just the whole organic. Breathing life into the game kinda thing.

-APPARENTLY WE CAN’T GO INTO OTHER PEOPLE’S HOUSES ANYMORE???? Like that’s one of Pokemon’s staple features throughout ALL the generations, we’re allowed to barge into random people’s homes. At the very least the first town had all their doors locked so all the houses were off limits. I was VERY upset

-The graphics may be janky as all hell but the story is really intriguing so far!! I wanted to cry bc the scene of us rescuing Miraidon really gave me HTTYD vibes. This game is just HTTYD in disguise we are all Hiccup taming and training our Toothless

-Standing on the beach before battling Nemona just gave me a HUGE rush of nostalgia bc it had very very big PMD2 vibes

-The controls for Legends Arceus are ingrained in my brain so I keep pressing buttons and getting confused when they do something different. LMAO

-I’m sorry I don’t like that the Pokemon Centers are outside now;; it just feels Wrong. Like clearly this was some cool edgy thing they wanted to try but I in fact hate it :-/

-THE PLAYER CUSTOMIZATION THING IS SOOOO SICK. The fact we get to customize SO much and at the very beginning of the game is awesome. Props to Nintendo for this I’m really glad they included so many options and right at the start so we don’t have to actually UNLOCK customizing what we look like

-Nemona is just Ash Ketchum but Girl and I love her

-And, most importantly:

[dr-spectre]

You mentioned something about Splatoon 4 thoughts earlier today, and I really wanna hear you ramble about that. But I also really wanna listen to you ramble about a Hypno Callie rewrite lmao. So if you haven't already, since there's a good chance I missed it lol, what would a Spectre Hypno Callie rewrite look like?

OH DUDE NOW YOU'RE GETTING ME ALL PUMPED UP TEHEHEHEHE! ITS TIME FOR ME TO RAMBLE!!! Imma go ultra autism on you!!! It's gonna border on fanfiction territory! (Not the creepy or romantic kind...) Don't say that I didn't warn you...

Splatoon 4 Ideas.

Now here's the thing right. I only have a few ideas on a Splatoon 4 so I don't think I can do a giant ramble about it yet. But so far I got the idea of Splatoon 4 taking place in a giant futuristic city near the beach. So you get this cool plaza area near the beach and I got that idea from the AMAZING Project Splatoon 3. Seriously go check that out, it is amazing!!!!!!!

But you can also go into the city and explore some of it. And you can ride a bike to different shops and have your own apartment!!! I know people want apartments for the next game and yeah I agree. We NEED an apartment maker, it's the next logical step from lockers!

Also for weapons... I would LOVE to have a flamethrower weapon but instead of fire it's mist. A crank operated shooter made out of bike gears where you gotta keep spamming the ZR button, kind of like the Octoshower's weapon. A Wii Zapper charger!!! PLEASE NINTENDO! A saw blade Splatana. Maybe a pool noodle Inkbrush? That would be funny. Maybe a Painbrush that has a fan on it? Man... I'm starting to sound like Sheldon HAHAHA!

For the new Idols, it would be a duo instead of a 3 Idol group because oh my god 3 team Splatfests are so unbalanced sometimes. They would have the colors red and cyan. I don't have much on what they would look like, but I imagine one of them is a female Inkling with a cyan color and the other is a male octoling with a red color. It's time we have a proper God damn male Idol that isn't a giant manta ray!!! Now since I cannot draw for shit and I don't have the desire to draw (drawing has made me so angry so multiple times so I stick to writing and rambling) so I'll just show some pics to show you what kind of vibe I'm going for.

(Yes I'm not fucking joking. I've gotten inspiration from Silver the Hedgehog and Spider-Punk...)

I think it would be an interesting dynamic to have a fancy, highly teched out character paired up with a grungy and punk character who's loud and funny. I can imagine their music to be futuristic and techno while including segments of rock. Basically techno rock with romantic elements in it.

I would like some quality of life improvements and just general improvements as well, like being able to customize EVERY part of your look without having to go through that annoying character creation menu in the crater. Faster levelling up for abilities, ability drinks and food actually giving you which ability you want instead of a chance at it. Way more pants and a pants shop. WAY MORE hairstyles, eye colors with an option to select from a color wheel, eyebrows, scar and tattoo options too with a new tattoo vendor. (the tattoos are explained in game to be temporary ones even though they secretly aren't, to make sure parents don't get the wrong idea lmao)

Maybe some gameplay tweaks too? like including very slight momentum when going downhill? It has to be very slight though for balance. I would like to add a dolphin dive like mechanic where if you press the jump button in the air in your swimming form, you'll quickly stomp to the ground, and that speed will be carried over when swimming in ink for a little while. Maybe faster horizontal wall swimming too? Basically make the gameplay a little bit faster is all I'm trying to say, Splatoon doesn't need a giant gameplay overhaul, just small tweaks to make the last game seem worse to play lmao.

And of course, BETTER SERVERS! WE NEED DEDICATED SERVERS! NOW!!!!!!!!!!! EVEN IF ITS JUST A FEW IT'LL BE SOOOOOO HELPFUL! STOP BEING STUPID NINTENDO! GOD!

Um... anyways!

Now, in terms of story.... I would have 3 parts, one is the main campaign while the other two are DLC. The main campaign is focused on the Salmonids. You play as a new agent (Agent X or something, i think that's a cool name) as you explore these islands Super Mario 64 style where you do missions and try and stop the Salmonids from getting out of control as they gone on a rampage from an unknown cause. You have to complete enough missions on an island to go to the next.

Basically, think of Salmon Run maps and areas found in Mario games but they are WAY LARGER and more complex areas to go through with NPCs to talk to. I really want Splatoon 4 to expand on the concepts found in the hub worlds in Alterna and go fully into a 3D Mario sandbox style game.

You also have to team up with Frye, Big Man, Neo Agent 3 and Marie who join up with a new cast of characters who are in charge of guiding you to new islands (haven't thought much about what these characters are) to figure out what's going on. Callie doesn't appear in the story as it's explained in a Sunken Scroll that Callie is helping Octavio figure out what to do with the Fuzzy Octarians that are still trapped in Alterna. And yes Octavio has now fully joined the New Squidbeak Splatoon which Callie is very ecstatic about.

Cuttlefish is fully retired and doesn't appear, and Captain is taking a break from captain duties, leaving Marie to watch over Frye and Big Man as she is their boss anyways. Now, where is Shiver in all this? Well... here me out... she's the villain. And no she doesn't have any sort of bullshit evil headgear on. She's a villain due to being corrupted by greed and wanting more power. She has become addicted to the high she gets from winning and feeling powerful and has teamed up with the Salmonids to gain even more power and cash. She's been fully consumed by power and cash and Frye and Big Man are not on board with her plans as Shiver doesn't wanna give back to the people in Splatsville anymore. So Shiver leaves the group and gathers up the Salmonids and commands them.

However it's revealed that Shiver is doing these things because she had a bad family upbringing in her clan and was always talked down to and treated as weak. So all that trauma and resentment is finally on the surface and Shiver is lashing out at everyone because her pain is so much for her. There could be some themes about found families and healing trauma with the people that you love and stuff like that. Haven't thought too deeply about it. But I would really love to see Deep Cut forgive Shiver and just hug and cry it out. I'll cry alongside them lol.

Now, the second story is focused on the Squid Sisters and takes place before the events of the main campaign. You play as Agent 4 and Callie finds you lying on the floor and tells you that Inkopolis Plaza has been covered in a strange fog and a weird green substance that looks like gooey moss. The buildings have changed and there's all this weird plant life and dust everywhere. Callie escorts you to the tower found in Inkopolis Plaza to figure out where Marie went and that's where you meet Octavio who got shot down in his mech from a laser.

The three go inside and the building looks very similar to the aesthetics of Side Order but with a hospital liminal space edge to it. It looks like a twisted dream hospital environment with a giant lobby in the middle.

This kind of vibe but more open and less hallway like. It should invoke the feeling of going to a hospital as a kid.

However, instead of an elevator to go higher, it's a giant spiraling staircase that grows after each floor Agent 4 completes. Basically the gameplay is the same as the rogue like gameplay found in Side Order but its heavily expanded upon with new enemies, objectives, color chips, etc. However... during the first 12 floors you hear these weird whispers and voices that sound very similar to Marie's voice.... Callie says she's getting major Deja Vu, and then Marie's voice is fully clear and echoes throughout the building, telling Callie in specific to leave her alone and to get out of here. They don't listen and continue forward.

When you reach the 12th floor, you go inside a giant white chamber and you see Marie in a new outfit that's similar to this outfit found in the Splatoon 2 artbook. Basically this but with a cool cloak and squid tentacle patterns on it and a gas mask instead of shades.

She's standing on some kind of green gooey moss and looks angry. Marie attacks Agent 4 with her charger and its a stealth boss where you gotta sneak around and get up to Marie and knock her down from the moss pile. Evil Marie has always been a beloved fan concept in the community, like Hypno Marie has so many cool fan designs out there and i think that could work honestly.

Callie manages to knock the mask off of Marie with a splat bomb but she's still angry. Callie grabs onto Marie and Marie calms down and cries. Agent 4 looks at the gas mask and its just filled with regular oxygen, nothing special about it. No hypnosis gas or anything. Just regular oxygen... Marie says she's sorry and explains that stuff from her past is catching up to her and making her unwell (you can guess on what I'm referring to wink wink.) She was unable to sleep for several days and was being manipulated by someone...

The thing behind Marie's manipulation appears from the ceiling and it's this giant white metallic squid that has transparent glass on some of it's body and arms, which shows this bright green goo flowing inside it. (think of Overlorder but he's a squid). I don't have a lot of information for this guy but this villain was created to cure Fuzzy Octarians, but due to unknown circumstances it went out of control and its coding was changed to "heal" people's pain by covering the planet in a modified and twisted version of Marie's low tide ink which now has evolved to be very similar to plant life. This goo/ink neutralizes certain parts of the brain, leaving the victim completely unfeeling and depressed, unable to feel anything, even physical touch or sensation. The villain manipulated Marie by going inside her head, analyzing her memories and telling her that all she has to is to get rid of "the intruders" and he will "heal her pain."

After the Marie boss fight, you have to travel up to 40 floors instead of 30 and during the downtime you get to learn about the Squid Sisters. Stuff like Callie and Marie before they blew up, who came up with their outfits, more info about their parents and managers, Marie talking about how she has trauma and nightmares from the events of Splatoon 2 and is terrified that one day Callie may leave and never come back again, Callie diving into her time in the Octo Canyon and finally clearing up what happened to her, Octavio showing remorse and sorrow for the actions he has done over the past 100 years. Basically Side Order but with the Squid Sisters, Octavio and Agent 4. I know it's a lot like Side Order but Side Order is so damn good so why not do it again but improve upon the gameplay you know?

That's all I got for this story and it's probably gonna change and be tweaked over time.

Now for the third story of Splatoon 4. I barely have anything for this but it will star the new Idol duo of the game, Off the Hook, Eight and Captain. I think it'll be like Octo Expansion in terms of gameplay and difficulty, but also expanded and longer to complete.

OKAY! NO MORE SPLATOON 4! TIME TO TALK ABOUT HYPNO CALLIE!

Hypno Callie Rewrite.

Honestly, the way I would go about rewriting Hypno Callie is very simple... Remove the Hypnoshades. That's it. She can still have them as an aesthetic part of her outfit, but i would make it so Callie is no longer hypnotized and it's WAY MORE clear to the audience that Callie is suffering from mental illness and that she left with the Octarians, not "kidnapped, overpowered and brainwashed into being a mind controlled slave." Splatoon 2 was always about the separation of the Squid Sisters and their eventual healing and reunion, it was always gonna be about that but due to time constraints probably, they rushed it and introduced bullshit shades to make it easier and simpler, they then tried to fix it later with an obscure post with a relationship chart that no one even fucking talks about, even timeline explainers fail to fucking mention it... ugh...

Making Callie an actual antagonist that has been manipulated by Octavio, whispering to her and playing into her insecurities and pain is way more compelling and makes more sense for Octavio to do as a character. Like how the fuck did he come up with the Hypnoshades and why did he only use it on Callie? He can just make hypnosis tech out of nowhere? Huh? It makes way more sense for Octavio to just manipulate her as he is a master of words and propaganda.

So what I would do is introduce a new mandatory collectable in the Splatoon 2 Hero Mode called "Callie's diary." At certain moments in the campaign Agent 4 and Marie find pages from Callie's diary as she explains her feelings and pain from being overworked and feeling some resentment as Marie has stopped calling or texting her. Marie looks so ashamed and disappointed and starts blaming herself for Callie's disappearance. Some of the diary entries include the photos found in Sunken Scrolls 21 and 22. The last diary entry found in Sector 4 is an emotional rant from Callie the day she went missing. She rants about how she can't take working anymore and how she's so lonely. Her last line is "if no one truly cares for me up here... Then... Maybe..." And there's a small tear stain at the bottom of the page.

Now for the final boss, the main plot points would occur sorta the same way, you fight Octavio and Callie, after a bit Marie comes in and shoots her in the eye, Callie calms down, blah blah blah. I actually really do like the idea of the "low tide ink" that the English translation team introduced. I think it's a neat idea that Marie has this special ink that calms someone down so I'll keep that for the rewrite.

However, during the final boss, i would make it to where Marie is really trying to reach to Callie and trying to convince her that she is loved and she matters, she tries to apologize for her actions and explains that Octavio is just manipulating her for the Octarians' goals. Callie fights back and doesn't wanna listen to her, constantly trying to shut her down. Marie even reminds Callie of their childhood and it almost gets to Callie, but she becomes more emotional and angry, she's so confused because deep down she knows Marie is right, but she's so scared to listen to her because she doesn't want to get abandoned again.

However what really gets to Callie is Marie collapsing on her knees and crying, just begging her badly to come back to her. And Marie says "I love you...." Callie is in shock and starts getting flashes of good memories with her and Marie. She holds the shades in her hands and destroys them. Callie leaps into the air and collides into Marie's arms, and they cry their eyes out and say sorry to each other.

The battle plays out the same but i would like to add another cutscene after Octavio gets his shit kicked in, Callie and Marie are on Sheldon's van and they look at the sunset together. I think that would be really sweet and connect beautifully with the credits and Fresh Start.

I took a lot of inspiration from the game Marvel's Spider-Man 2 and two boss fights in particular. The Miles vs. Peter fight, and the Spider-Man vs. Scream/MJ fight. In those boss fights, it's sort of like a therapy session for the characters in that the people under the symbiote are venting about their issues and expressing their anger they have kept hidden for so long, and the person on the other side is trying desperately to reach for them and save them from themselves. It's really powerful shit honestly and it made me feel emotional seeing Peter go "ALL I WANTED WAS TO SAVE EVERYONE! MJ! MAY! NOW THE CITY THINKS I'M THE PROBLEM! you think I'm the problem." Like i know it's kind of crazy to take inspiration from a game made for adults and take some of it into Splatoon but... I really don't give a shit. Children's media can show powerful scenes of characters struggling with their inner demons. They can do it and have proven to be successful. Children can handle it, they can.

Now... i have worked on a Splatoon 2 finale rewrite and I'm pretty much almost done with it, i need to finish the last bit of it and then go over it again so I'm fully happy with it. However i don't know how to present it as it's in the form of a script and idk how that's gonna work on tumblr, i mean i could put it on AO3 but idk if i wanna make an account just to post one thing on there and idk how many scripts get posted onto AO3 anyways...

It's like I'm a chef and I'm cooking something, but there's no waiter to deliver the food lmao.

ANYWAYS! Thank you for reading my autistic ass ramblings! I got so much free time that i just so much of it just writing down fan concepts for things on different games and stuff (I have a 42 page and counting document on a potential Sonic Frontiers 2.) Yeah... I got THAT kind of autism, not the maths and science one... Again, thank you for reading!

[aquatark]

My previous post made me realize that not a lot of people here are aware of Endless Ocean's bowmouth guitarfish glitch fiasco, which I think is a shame because 1) it's an interesting look into this game's history, and 2) I find it really funny... long-winded explanation incoming!

So! you see this guy?

You can place him in the game's aquarium, right? I bet if you've played the game, you've done it without even thinking twice!

...Well, in the initial Japanese release of Endless Ocean (known over there as Forever Blue), you couldn't. In fact, attempting to place this little scrimbly in the aquarium crashes your game.

Now this isn't too bad, since you can just press the reset button and continue your game normally, right? well... if you happen to leave the aquarium and save the game after having opened the creature placing menu, selecting a bowmouth guitarfish, and then closing the menu without placing anything... then congrats! you can never use the aquarium again, because it autoplaces whatever you left in that menu on your next visit! :D

In case you're wondering what this looks like in action, this video taken around the game's launch showcases it well, while also using the game's MP3 playback feature to put some anime music in the background, which I think adds to the experience:

So... how does this happen? How could something like this make it into the final game?

Turns out, this is due to how Endless Ocean categorizes creatures internally. Each creature in the game falls into a category, depending on the movements and behaviors the developers wanted to give them. For example, "migrate" type creatures follow a set of coordinate points creating a route around a stage, whereas "swim" type creatures simply swim around the area in which they are placed within a certain radius. Think of a whale shark's movements versus that of a butterflyfish - they have very different AI telling them how to behave.

Now, trying to load a creature of one type as a creature of another... does not make the game happy, to put it lightly. It doesn't know how to handle the request, and so crashes to prevent further weirdness from ensuing. There is only one byte (literally the second smallest unit of digital information storage you could use) per creature responsible for telling the game what type to load the creature as, and this includes when placing creatures in the aquarium. A slip of the keyboard caused a dev to type the wrong number in this byte, making it attempt to spawn bowmouth guitarfish placed in the aquarium as "swim" type rather than their correct "migrate" type. Literally one wrong number caused the game to crash, and for ears to bleed across Japan.

Since the aquarium is unlocked so early in the game, people discovered this on day one, in their first play session... and since Endless Ocean was a launch game for the Wii in Japan, that's even worse. It's not exactly a great look for your brand new console to have a game break so bad you can't use a mechanic anymore. And Wii game crashes are not pretty. So, Nintendo put out a statement on the day of release, notifying people of the problem, how to avoid it, and saying that a recall would be put in place. A week later, they released another statement, which stated people could apply to have their games replaced with an updated version, which would be mailed to them free of charge, by either phoning in or filling out an application online. This service continued up until 2020, over ten years after release! They really didn't want any copies of the broken version around... good thing we have archives of it!

The updated version even has different box art, with an added blue bar at the bottom, showcased in this incredibly crunchy image:

I love picturing Nintendo executives freaking out after a humble diving game causes such a mess they have to print the game again, losing them a lot of money and causing the game to get a lot of negative press...

I've seen old forum threads talking about the game as if it's garbage before it even came out internationally, because this situation was pretty much the only major news coming out about it. Can't have helped sales, at least...

Anyway, the game was patched to fix this glitch, along with a few other minor tweaks, and it was this version of the game that got translated worldwide. Japanese fans love joking about the whole ordeal, and I can see why! For example, on the bowmouth guitarfish's Niconico Pedia page (for which the closest equivalent in English would be something like Know Your Meme), this is recounted comedically as "...probably the most notable moment for the bowmouth guitarfish in the history of the internet", which is probably true! There's even image macros about it!

So yeah. The bowmouth guitarfish's reputation was forever tainted, and some Nintendo execs to this day probably wince when they see one.

tl;dr - A developer for Endless Ocean typed one number wrong in the code, making the game explode if you place a bowmouth guitarfish in the aquarium. Nintendo had to recall the game, and that specific fish has lived on in infamy among Japanese fans ever since.

Next time you use the aquarium, try putting a bowmouth guitarfish in there, and be grateful you can at all!

[airplanned]

By popular demand:

Don't get me wrong, I'm really enjoying Tears of the Kingdom.  Parts of it are fun in ways that I never felt during Breath of the Wild.  And I really like the story itself, just not the execution of that story.  And actually the storytelling is fine, but Breath of the Wild did some narrative things that I have been praising for years, so to have less than stellar storytelling in the sequel feels jarring.

I have three points.

Point 1: Amnesia and the Time Skip

In Breath of the Wild, Link begins the game with amnesia.  Therefore, even though this is the country that Link grew up in and has explored, it's still understandable that he has no idea what kind of environment is going to be around the corner.  You the player are able to discover the world along with Link. 

Meanwhile there is also a 100 year time skip, which means most of the characters you meet have never met you before.  (The characters you did meet in the past completely understand that you've been gone a while and have amnesia.) You start knowing no one and are able to build relationships from the beginning.

Tears of the Kingdom has something like a five to six year time skip.  But instead of being in a comma during that time, Link was apparently up and about, helping to rebuild Hyrule.  Link ought to know significant portions of what's going on, but the player does not.  So we have our first disconnect between game play and story.  It's hard to tell what's a new development since the upheaval and what has been an ongoing process that Link ought to know about.

This is muddled even further because Nintendo wants the game to be accessible to people who haven't played Breath of the Wild.  They made the decision that instead of having all the NPCs greet you like an old friend (which all of the Zora do, so this is a thing that is possible), most NPCs will greet you as if you've never met before.  So what am I the player supposed to know?  What is Link supposed to know?  It's unclear.

And as funny as it is to think that Link is like Tony Hawk and no one recognizes the Hero, or that Zelda drew so much attention that no one noticed Link standing behind her, it's strange to me because Link made friends with these people not as the Hero, but on a personal level.  Link introduced couples.  Link attended a wedding.  Link helped a guy move out of his mom's house and start his own business.  Link helped couples in rough times.  These people should greet you with a, "Hey, Link!" even if they don't know that you're over a hundred years old and defeated the Calamity.

The theme of botw was isolation, so it made sense that Link started the game alone.  The theme of Tears of the Kingdom is working together.  So there's a disconnect, because instead of starting the game with a boatload of allies, Link begins the game having apparently lost a lot of the friends he made in the first game.  Once again, he's isolated, which is not what the game play and the co-op fighting is implying.

Point 2: The Stated Objective

The story in botw was straight forward.  At the very beginning of the game, Rhoam’s ghost tells you how that story ends: Zelda is using her powers to hold back the Calamity.  Rhoam also gives you the game's objective: Defeat the Calamity.  The memories that you collect fill in the story of Zelda’s struggles to activate her powers and her changing, growing relationship with Link.  They deepen your understanding of where Link come from and what happened, but none of it is plot essential and none of it affects your objective.  There’s no shocking twist.  There’s nothing that would change the way you play the game (other than maybe not picking the silent princesses).

TotK on the other hand at the very beginning presents you with the objective: Find Zelda and solve the mystery of what happened to her.  Learning what happened is not presented as some deepening of understanding, but as the point of the game.  You don’t get the objective to defeat Ganondorf until much later on.

There are several story threads working at the same time, all of which lead you to where Zelda is. The hyroglyphs tell you what happened and where she is.  One of the sage quests tells you what happened and strongly hints where she is.  The Deku Tree strongly suggests what happened and where she is.  You know where she is.  You know what happened. 

And you cannot tell any of your allies.

There are other characters who are “helping” to solve this mystery.  With the theme of working with other people, it would make sense that I would share my breakthrough findings with them and we would work together towards the next step.  I’m thinking specifically if Purah (who explicitly tells you to search for Zelda by doing X even after you know where she is and that that while it would be nice to get another sage, it won’t solve the "find Zelda" problem) and Paya (who won’t let me into the floating ring even though she’s clearly working with bad information), and to a lesser extent the sages (Looking pointedly at Yunobo, who has apparently usurped my himbo throne???). 

Even if you've done all three of these quests, the game play treats you as if you don’t have this information.  It’s frustrating in a game that advertises itself as open play where you can do anything in any order.  It’s another disconnect when achieving what is expressly stated as the goal of the game is not acknowledged within the game.

Part 3: Lack of if-else statements

Honestly, this is the thing that pushed me over the edge into writing this. 

I went and helped the monster squad with a mission.  We killed some monsters.  It was a great time.  Side adventure achieved!

At the end, the team leader pulled me aside and said that he noticed that I didn't have my legendary sword.  In fact, my equipment looked less than legendary.  Har har.

...My good sir, not only do I have the Master Sword, but I am holding it in my hand, and I used it to defeat the monsters we just fought.  Maybe you don’t recognize it because I have fused a dragon part to it.

Why is there no if-else statement coded into this event to prevent this from happening?  There were if-else statements in the dialogue in botw when people talked about the sword.  They responded differently if I had it. Elsewhere in totk, there are elaborate conditionals about the weather.  Having the Master Sword is kind of a major plot point.  But the game is uninterested in if I have done the plot, even while directly addressing that plot point.

Again, it's fine.  Just disappointing after botw worked so well.

[inthedayswhenlandswerefew]

Comet Donati [Chapter 3: Steal My Girl]

A/N: Hello lovely readers! Thank you so so so much for the love this fic has received. I wanted to give you a heads up that I will be co-leading a field trip to Japan from July 4th-14th and will therefore have much less time to write. HOPEFULLY I won’t have to skip a Sunday update, but I wanted to make you aware just in case. I hope you enjoy Chapter 3!!! 💜

Series Summary: Sex, drugs, boy bands. You are a kinda-therapist recruited (via nepotism) to help Comet Donati through a recent crisis. Things are casual with Aegon, very not-casual with Aemond. Loosely inspired by One Direction.

Chapter Warnings: Language, references to sexual content (18+), drugs, alcohol, smoking, mental health struggles, Aegon-induced chaos, ANGST, Iceland, you cannot escape the Cookie Monster pajama pants.

Selected Chapter Quote: “So what, you don’t like me anymore?”

Word count: 8.3k (wtf I need to chill).

Link to chapter list (and all my writing): HERE.

Taglist: @doingfondue @catalina-howard @randomdragonfires @myspotofcraziness @arcielee @fan-goddess @talesofoldandnew @marvelescvpe @tinykryptonitewerewolf @mariahossain @chainsawsangel @darkenchantress @not-a-glad-gladiator @gemini-mama @trifoliumviridi @herfantasyworldd @babyblue711 @namelesslosers @thelittleswanao3 @daenysx @moonlightfoxx @libroparaiso @burningcoffeetimetravel-fics @mizfortuna @florent1s @heimtathurs @bhanclegane @poohxlove @narwhal-swimmingintheocean​ @heavenly1927 @mariahossain @echos-muses @padfooteyes​ @minttea07​

Let me know if you’d like to be added to the taglist! 💜  

Athens, Madrid, Porto, Vienna, Stockholm, and now: descending into Reykjavik through clouds like iron. The North Atlantic is an endless sheen of cold overcast blue, a mirror of the sky. The earth is rocky and anemic. There are no jewel tones here, no sapphires or emeralds or aquamarines or fire opals or topazes. It is impossible to look down at Iceland, this dominion of impassionate jaggedness, and not think of how the Vikings had to reap their treasures from every other corner of Europe, silver and gold and glass and slaves piled into ships to be rowed back to the hostile earth they clung to, perhaps just to prove they could.

Across the aisle of the private jet—more like a penthouse than a plane, posh neutral colors and hand-stitched leather—Luke is showing Aemond his latest lyrics, loops of silver on matte black pages. They’re good, from what you’ve heard. They’re really good. And that tells you what kind of person Aemond truly is as he helps Luke polish rocks into gemstones. Anybody can soften the blow of mediocrity. It takes courage to build ladders for people who might one day outclimb you.

Daeron is playing his Nintendo 64, which is hooked up to a 98-inch flat screen tv; Mario is leaping through paintings into worlds of lava, ice, sentient ticking bombs. Criston is answering emails. Cregan is sprawled across a couch with his sunglasses on, presumably sound asleep. Jace is leering at you, dark hair hanging in his face and slurping a Vesper.

You ask him half-mocking: “What tattoo are you going to get for Reykjavik?”

He yanks off his sequined red blazer—nothing underneath, as usual—and twists around to show you the puffin on his left shoulder blade. Comet, at some point in time that preceded you, has already been to Iceland. “Cute, right? Wanna pet it?”

You roll your eyes. “I’m sorry I asked.”

He grins. “No you’re not.”

Aegon kicks the back of Jace’s chair. He’s scribbling some notes of his own, which is unusual. In place of a spiral notebook with onyx pages, Aegon is writing on crinkled Starbucks receipts with a Sharpie. He’s wearing his favorite aviator sunglasses, khaki cargo pants, an excessively bright cyan tank top, and matching Crocs.

Baela stares blankly out the window for a few seconds—like she’s buffering, a lagging connection—and then she looks to you hopefully. “Shopping when we land?”

“Does Iceland have shops…?”

“Probably more than Kansas,” Aemond says, then smiles mischieviously.

“Missouri,” you fling back. He returns his attention to Luke.

“They totally have shops in Iceland,” Baela assures you.

“Then I am amenable. I need more concert outfits.” You mostly wear your boy band t-shirts from home, which has become a joke: One Direction, Backstreet Boys, New Kids On The Block, NSYNC, the Jonas Brothers, Boyz II Men, 98 Degrees, BTS…but never Comet Donati. Anyone but them. Aegon calls you a traitor. Aemond teases, smirks, tries to hide how much he watches you the same way people contemplate art on museum walls, a little confounded, a little entranced.

“Rhaena?” Baela says. “Hello? Hello? Hola? Bonjour? Rhaena?”

Rhaena startles, peering up from her novel: Jurassic Park. Once upon a time, as you’ve learned, she had planned to study paleontology. She wants to be alone in the middle of a field someplace digging up bones. Well, no great tragedy there; one is never too old to be a paleontologist. She can take off five years, or ten years, or twenty, or thirty to see Luke through his touring days and then pick back up her own ambitions like keys left on a hook. But Baela gave up a ballet scholarship to follow Jace across the globe, puddle to puddle, land to land, and in your albeit limited understanding, ballerinas age in something like dog years. Their career is a brilliant, lightning-brief flash and then long, anonymous decades running out their mortal clock as choreographers, backup dancers, personal trainers, instructors for blue-blooded five-year-olds. Baela won’t be able to reclaim that dream for much longer. It might be too late already. She is out of practice; but she misses ballet. When Jace is being snide or oblivious, you’ve seen her gazing out windows—Escalades, hotels, jets—wondering if it was all worth it. You gut yourself for someone and they don’t even have the courtesy to put up a gravestone. It’s only natural to develop a propensity to haunt.

“What?” Rhaena asks.

“Shopping. This afternoon. Interested?”

Rhaena’s eyes go wide. She fidgets: closing and then opening her book, touching a hand to her earrings, delicate strings of small silver hearts. “Um…I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Oh, not this again,” Baela groans.

“Just go without me. Bring me back something, you know what I like.”

“What’s the problem?” You are investigative but not accusatory. The tone is essential.

“She’s scared of store employees,” Baela says.

“Well you don’t have to make it sound like that—!”

“What’s so scary about store employees?” you ask Rhaena, calm, cool, collected, nonjudgmental. Aemond glances over, as he often does when you’re working, like he can’t get enough of watching that switch flip, when you slink covertly into therapist mode like a water moccasin weaves through swamps, subtle ripples in the muddied water and vigilant eyes.

“I just hate it when people are watching me,” Rhaena says, twirling an earring. “They’re always waiting right by the door—especially at the posh places like the ones Baela goes to—and they want to know what I’m shopping for, and they want to make suggestions, and they follow me to the fitting room and ask what I like and what I don’t. And I can’t get rid of them! Even if I’m like ‘Just looking, thanks!’ they’ll circle back every five minutes to check on me. I can’t stand it. I get so frazzled I can’t decide how I really feel about a skirt or dress or whatever because I’m too busy trying to make conversation with someone I don’t want to talk to anyway. I end up with a headache and a shopping bag full of regrets. I’d rather click a button on my MacBook Air and save myself the suffering.”

You nod sagely. “What is it about talking to the employees that stresses you out so much?”

“I don’t want to say or do the wrong thing. I don’t want to cause problems.”

“But it’s not like you’re going to do anything they haven’t experienced before. They see hundreds, maybe even thousands of customers a month. And even if you did something ridiculously, dementedly embarrassing, like…um…hey, Aegon, what’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done while clothes shopping?”

“I fell asleep in a fitting room. I pissed on the floor. I set something on fire. I vandalized One Direction merchandise.”

“No, there was that other time,” Daeron says. Mario is swimming through rings of underwater coins; they chime gleefully as he collects them.

“What other time?” Aegon says.

Daeron grins. “Come on. You know.”

Aegon remembers. “Oh yeah. Once I bit a girl’s feet until I accidentally ripped off part of a toenail and she bled everywhere. But that wasn’t my fault. She was begging for it. It was consensual.”

Criston, not looking away from his emails, says: “And that’s why Aegon is now banned from all Michael Kors locations for life.”

“Right.” You turn back to Rhaena. “So you would never do anything that deranged. But even if somehow you did, what’s the actual worst-case scenario? What, realistically, could happen as a result?”

Rhaena considers this. “The employees will think I’m weird, I guess.”

“So what you’re so concerned about is that the store employees—who are literally paid to be inconvenienced by you—might think you’re weird? Which they’ll remember for, what, maybe an hour before some other customer gives them a more memorable calamity to focus on? You don’t think they’re more annoyed by purse-dog-toting heiresses screeching at them or cokeheads pissing on their floors?”

“Rude,” Aegon says.

Rhaena smiles guiltily. “I mean, when you put it that way, it does sound stupid.”

“Not stupid,” you insist. “Just out of proportion.”

“Okay,” Rhaena says. She takes a deep breath, steeling herself. “Okay. I guess I’ll go shopping.”

“Yes!” Baela cheers, already scrolling through Reykjavik shops on her iPhone.

“Hey, Stargirl,” Aegon says, and then hurls something at you like a frisbee. It’s an Amex Black Card.

“Oh no.”

“Oh yes.”

You raise an eyebrow at him. “What’s my budget?”

“No budget. As long as it’s slutty.”

“I will buy nothing but cardigans and mom jeans.” You crane your neck to peek at his receipts. The black Sharpie squiggles aren’t words; they’re shapes, pictures. “What are you drawing?”

“New merch designs!” Aegon holds up the receipts so you can see.

“Circles…?”

He is somewhat wounded. “Donuts!”

You don’t even know where to begin. “Why donuts, Aegon?”

“Because that’s his code word for doing lines in the bathroom,” Criston says.

“No!” Aegon objects. “Because Donati sounds like donuts! So we could have all these mini donuts, print them on hats or shirts or whatever, and then in the frosting where the sprinkles would be we can put tiny stars, suns, moons, planets, galaxies…and comets, obviously.”

Jace scoffs. “I think you spend a little too much time thinking about donuts.”

Aegon goes quiet. So does everyone else. Gazes flit nervously around the cabin. The only sounds are the roar of the jet and Mario 64, although Daeron has turned his back on the cheerful Italian protagonist and is looking pensively over his shoulder at Jace. Aegon resumes sketching his cosmic Sharpie donuts, his lips pressed tightly together.

“Hey,” you say to Jace, and then once you have his attention, wicked dark eyes: “Shut the fuck up.”

“What?”

“It’s a great idea. It’s a really adorable idea, actually. Let’s see you come up with something better. Go on, whenever you’re ready. I’m waiting. I’m still waiting. But you’re not much of an ideas guy, are you, Jace? Fortunately, you’ve always had other people around to pull that weight.”

Jace opens his mouth to say something, then snaps it shut as Cregan stands up. He towers over you both, as tall as Aemond but more muscly all over, in the chest and the shoulders and the legs. He lowers his sunglasses to show his eyes: greyish, cold, flinty. He glares at Jace, and then at you, and then at Jace again. Jace holds up both hands, showing his palms. You bow your head in capitulation. Cregan lies back down on the couch and repositions his sunglasses just as the pilot turns on the fasten seatbelts signs. As you click yours into place, you exchange a glance with Aemond across the aisle. He is smiling, foxlike and approving, as if he can’t wait to see what else you have left to show him.

“So!” Baela says. “Guess who found a shop in Reykjavik that sells Gucci!”

The jet glides through mist and fog to make a rather bumpy landing at Keflavik International Airport, fighting against gusts of wind coming in off the North Atlantic Ocean, the same water that swallowed the Titanic, the Faucett Peru Boeing 727, the Free Life hot air balloon, whaling vessels and Viking longships, countless cruisers and destroyers and submarines that blasted holes into each other during the world wars. As the band prepares to disembark, Aemond reaches into the front pocket of his shirt—black, with white circling koi fish—and slides out a pair of sunglasses. He doesn’t like wearing them. They limit his vision even more than it already is. But he never walks into an airport without sunglasses on, you’ve discovered. Just in case paparazzi are there snapping photos.

“You don’t have to do that,” you tell Aemond.

He gestures to his scar and his blind eye, a pale cloudy blue. “I’ve thought about just getting it cut out. But then I’d have to worry about shoving in a fake one.”

“I think it’s kind of beautiful,” you say. “It reminds me of Neptune or something.”

And the look he gives you, the look, like he’s never heard anything like this before, like he didn’t know that words could fit together in that order. You hold out your hand to him. He lays the sunglasses in your palm. You put them on, grinning up at him.

“Now I’m the one who looks like a multi-millionaire popstar.”

“Hey, we match!” Aegon says as he follows you and Aemond out of the jet, massaging your shoulders and clopping noisily in his Crocs.

There are paparazzi at the airport, but only two of them, young men in black hoodies who dart around loosing flashes into the stuffy, aggressively heated air. Jace, Baela, Daeron, and Aegon beam and wave, radiant, magnetic, born celebrities. Rhaena smiles politely but hides behind Luke. Cregan saunters and smolders, knowing exactly what his devotees expect from him. Criston and the security guards are loaded up with suitcases like pack mules. The paparazzi don’t pay much attention to Aemond—a former heartthrob, a cracked relic, a fossil or a ruin—but one of them snaps a few pictures of him. Aemond turns his face so they’ll get his good side, his unmarred side…and then he grabs for your hand. You try not to reveal how ecstatic you are, how wildly, uncoolly, over-the-moon thrilled. Your expression might end up commemorated forever in a tabloid, after all.

Shopping in Reykjavik is mostly wool sweaters, hiking boots, and weather-proof jackets, but Baela leads you and Rhaena to a boutique that carries something more her speed: Gucci, Burberry, Balenciaga, Valentino, Saint Laurent. You and Baela try to distract the employees as much as possible; still, they find time to nettle Rhaena with those bothersome, predictable, unnecessary questions. She gets a little flustered, but she fights the instinct to run and hide, to allow herself to sink into a frenetic puddle of self-inquisition. You can almost see the words scrolling behind her dark gentle eyes like a news ticker: They get paid to help me. They aren’t going to remember any of this in a few hours. I’m not on a stage. I’m not being judged.

In the fitting room, you take two selfies to send to Aemond’s WhatsApp account: one in a flowing neon yellow gown, the other in a short, velvet, sparkly black dress embroidered with silver stars.

You ask: Day or night?

He answers before you’ve changed back into your jeans and pink Harry Styles hoodie. Night, obviously. And then he adds: Which constellation are you? Vulpecula the fox? Cygnus the swan?

“God, he’s such a dork,” you murmur to yourself, smiling. You have to think for a while before you reply. You don’t know many constellations; that makes it difficult to rattle off something witty. Then you are inspired. You type: Definitely not Virgo :)

He responds immediately: :)))))

“What does that mean?” you whisper to yourself in the solitude of the boxlike fitting room. “What the hell does that mean???” He spends nearly all of his time with you, but he rarely touches you. He’s never made a move. He’s never even kissed you. You wouldn’t mind if he did. No, fuck the coyness that women are supposed to cloak themselves in to preserve their worth. You’re waiting for him to kiss you like someone drowning waits for a gasp of air.

Despite Aemond’s vote, you can’t help yourself. You buy both dresses. You don’t look much like an Aegon Targaryen, but the cashier doesn’t seem too troubled by this. Baela and Rhaena are still trying on outfits, so you swing your bag around boredly and wander over to see what Criston is up to. At Aemond’s insistence, he accompanied you on this shopping expedition and left the rest of the security detail back at the Reykjavik EDITION, a luxury hotel overlooking the harbor. Criston is in the jewelry section and holding up a medallion necklace, rotating it to see how the light reflects off the speckling of tiny gemstones, the wise golden face. His own face is distant and melancholy.

“Oh, that’s lovely, Criston!” you say. “All those emeralds. Who’s pictured on it?”

“Saint Jude. Lost causes.”

Interesting. “Are you religious?”

“Not especially. But Alicent is.”

“Who…?”

Criston walks off to the cash register. You watch him go, curious and perplexed.

Back at the hotel, you enter your suite to find a blond Targaryen lounging in your bed…but perhaps not the right one. Aegon still has his Crocs on and is, for some reason, clutching a plushie puffin. He glances over at you, noting your shopping bag.

“Fashion show?” he says. “I hope it’s nothing but miniskirts and bikinis.”

“Don’t you have places to be? Substances to snort?”

“Cregan is currently trying to locate some.”

“That’s really not good for you. Physically or mentally. You might be addicted.”

He barks a laugh, like it’s absurd. “You can’t get addicted to coke, Stargirl.”

“You definitely can.”

He suddenly looks panicked, like he’s never considered this before.

“So.” You hesitate. “Aemond.”

“Yes, I’m familiar with the concept.”

“He’s insecure. Very insecure, though he’s learned how to hide it.”

Aegon throws and catches the puffin, bouncing it off the ceiling. “I wouldn’t disagree.”

“It goes deeper than the accident, I think. The scar, his eye, what happened with the band…that awakened it again. That freed something that he’d had locked away. But where did it start?”

Aegon stares up at the ceiling. He tosses the puffin a few more times, abusing it terribly. “Whoever you are when you’re in high school…that’s sort of who you are forever, you know? If you’re popular and beloved and understood, you carry a certain self-confidence into the rest of your life with you like a suitcase. It’s an assumption that people care about what you have to say. It’s a conviction of your own value. It’s a presupposition the world would have to wrestle away from you. But if you’re a loser in high school, that stays with you too. And it’s one hell of a heavy suitcase to lug around.”

You try to imagine seeing Aemond through eyes that aren’t awed, craving, quietly adoring. It’s simply not possible. “He was alone?” you ask softly, dreading the answer.

“I had friends. He had grudges.” Aegon’s mouth twists as he tries to stop it from trembling. “My father…”

“I know, Aegon.” Your voice is gentle. “You told me in Kansas City, that night at the bar. You don’t have to say it again.”

He is relieved. “Yeah. So people respond to that in different ways, right? I lived in the present. I talked to anybody who would listen to me, and I partied and I got high and I got laid, and I was the antithesis of the kind of son my father would have wanted just to spite him. Aemond escaped into the past. He read books, traced bloodlines, collected old obsolete things. Maybe that gave him hope that a better place was waiting for him out there somewhere, a better time. He got to be cool for three years. That’s it, and that’s all he’ll ever have. He was the one with vision. He said he was going to audition for The X Factor, and I only went with him to meet girls. Then he made it through the first round and I did too. And when they were going to cut us, he found Jace and Luke and Cregan and convinced everyone to start performing together. The show wanted to replace Luke, did you know that? They thought he was too boyish, too innocent. Aemond fought for him. And then Comet finished in second place, and all the sudden we were signed to a label, and we were selling millions of records and we were touring, and we were winning Grammys, and we were buying our parents and siblings houses…and two months after our third album came out, Aemond was maimed at the Budokan and it was time for him to get off the ride.”

You stare at Aegon, tremendously sad, not knowing what to say. Sometimes the right words don’t exist.

Aegon smirks. “He really likes you.”

“Maybe.” And then, with guileless vulnerability: “I hope so.”

“That’s dangerous.”

Your brow knits into fearful grooves. “Why?”

“I know how to enjoy something without owning it. I don’t think Aemond does.”

You don’t want to ask, but you have to. “What was Shelby like?”

Aegon considers this for a long time before he answers. “She was simultaneously too good for him and not good enough.”

Too gorgeous. Too cool. Too Pinterest-board perfect, airy like summer. But not deep. A river, a glimmer, but with no understanding of the abyss. You aren’t sure how you know that this is what Aegon means, but you do. You don’t want to think about Shelby anymore. You pivot. “So Aemond is the past and you’re the present. Who’s the future? Daeron?”

Aegon smiles, lazy and warm. “I think you’re the future.”

“Yeah right. Get your Crocs off my bed.”

He complies, groaning, flopping onto the floor gracelessly.

“Where’d you get the puffin?”

“Some Icelandic kid recognized me in the elevator. He wanted to give me a present. In return, I signed an autograph and got him and his dad front row seats to the show tomorrow. So I’d say it was a very favorable exchange for him.”

“You’re a saint,” you say, and then find yourself thinking randomly of Saint Jude again. Lost causes. Lost causes.

Aegon grins at you as he crawls to his feet and makes for the door. “Patron saint of mayhem.”

~~~~~~~~~~

You’re watching old Comet Donati performances on YouTube when the hotel fire alarm goes off. And it’s strange, because the unscarred, clear-eyed boy on the screen is Aemond but also isn’t him; he smiles more easily, he looks at people without suspicion, he is ebullient and confident and carefree like kids blowing bubbles on front porches. When you open your suite door, dressed in your favorite Cookie Monster pajama pants and an oversized New Kids On The Block t-shirt, Aemond is just arriving.

“Oh good,” he says. “You’re still awake.” And then he walks with you to the nearest stairwell.

Outside, the hotel guests are clustered together with their travel companions, shuddering under coats and sweaters and blankets clasped around their shoulders like capes. Even at the start of July, Iceland is cold: fifties during the day as Americans like you measure in Fahrenheit, forties at night, nearly always overcast. It’s 11 p.m., but the sun won’t set until midnight, and even then only for a few short hours; the sky is wearing the colors of dusk, lilac, rose pink, pale blue, fire and gold. You’re shivering, rubbing your bare forearms and feeling the goosebumps that have risen there like braille. Aemond tugs off his black and white Calvin Klein hoodie and offers it to you. As you pull it over your head, you breathe in the pieces of him that have snared in the fabric: smoke and cologne, gin and soap and the brine of the seaside air. Now wearing only his jeans and his koi fish shirt, Aemond lights a cigarette and gazes up at the hotel, postmodern angles and semi-transparent glass.

“No one’s going to give me a hoodie?” Aegon says, quaking in his cyan tank top. Criston reluctantly unzips his bomber jacket and hands it over.

“Did you do this?” Criston asks him, meaning the fire alarm.

“What?! No! No way, man! It wasn’t me!”

Criston turns to Cregan for confirmation. Cregan shrugs, ambiguous. “I knew it!” Criston exclaims. He is distraught.

Several fire engines arrive, red lights strobing, and firefighters enter the hotel to investigate. Baela and Jace are standing near each other but not speaking, arms crossed, faces tense. Luke, Rhaena, and Daeron are watching an episode of The Crown on Luke’s iPhone. Cregan lights a cigarette and manages to take two drags before Criston notices and lunges to bat it out of his hand.

“Stop it!” Criston orders. “You’ll ruin your voice!” Nobody tells Aemond not to smoke. His voice doesn’t matter anymore.

Aegon asks you, his hands buried in the pockets of Criston’s jacket: “Would you run into a burning building to save me?”

“Why would you be in a burning building?”

“That’s really not the point.”

“I’d think about it.”

Luke says, the glow of his iPhone dancing across his face: “Wow, Prince Charles is a bitch.”

“You’d think about it?” Aegon says to you. “You’d think about it?!”

“You have no excuse to be in a burning building. You have now experienced an evacuation, you know exactly how to leave a building successfully, if you’re still in it for some reason then that’s your problem.”

“You hear that, Criston?” Aegon says. “This is a good thing. Now everyone knows what to do if there’s a real fire! And we’re in hotels all the time, so this is super helpful!”

“Please shut up,” Criston begs.

“Hey Cregan, share with the class, what did you learn about fire safety from this fortuitous occasion?”

“I already knew what to do.”

Aegon is grinning. “Yeah? What’s that, Cregan?”

“Get in the shower and wait for the fire department to come rescue me.”

Everyone laughs—even Jace and Baela—and Cregan’s lips quirk up in one corner, the only hint that he is joking. A parade of firefighters exit the hotel. One of them is carrying a toaster. Black smoke pours out of the slits in the top.

She says something in Icelandic that you can’t understand, then repeats in English: “Who was trying to cook hotdogs in a toaster?”

The guests chatter incredulously among themselves: Who would do such a thing?

You, Aemond, Luke, Rhaena, Daeron, Cregan, Jace, Baela, and Criston are mindful to look anywhere except at Aegon. You gaze out at the horizon, the kaleidoscopic midnight sun. Aegon peers down at his Crocs, hair tangled and blue eyes wide.

“Very well,” the firefighter with the toaster says, a little smugly. “We will consult with the hotel staff and see which guest was registered to that room.”

“Goddammit!” Criston hisses, and shoves by the band to go meet the firefighters. You can’t hear what’s being said, but his hands move in exaggerated gestures of humiliation, apology, restitution. Fortunately, the Icelandic people seem to be forgiving.

Daeron turns to Aegon. All he says is: “Why?”

“I couldn’t figure out the buttons on the stove!”

Criston comes trudging back to the band. Guests are being admitted into the hotel to return to their drinks, their television shows and mystery novels, their families, their lovers, their beds. “Alright, it’s taken care of. Go to your rooms. All of you, right now, go.”

No one has the heart to argue with him; he looks half-broken already. Everybody disperses. You and Aemond end up alone together as the elevator zooms to the fifth floor. He takes his small, square metal lighter out of his jeans pocket and toys with it, repeatedly flicking the lid open and then shutting it again.

You point to it. “Vintage lighter. Vintage bike. And yet you write with glittery gel pens instead of quills and ink. Poser.”

“I like old things,” he says, smiling. “I think history is important.”

And you hear Aegon’s words like an echo: That’s dangerous. You start pulling off Aemond’s hoodie to give it back to him.

“No,” he says, sounding pleased. “You keep it.” So you do, finding excuses to bring the sleeves close to your face—touching your hair, your lips, your eyelashes—so you can inhale him.

Aemond leaves you at the door of your suite, but you don’t go inside. You wait for another five minutes until Criston steps out of an elevator and into the hallway, alone and agitated. Still, he has concern to spare for you.

“You okay? Locked yourself out?”

“No. I was just hoping to ask you something.”

“Go ahead.” Criston is tired, but his eyes, dark like fertile earth, are attentive.

“When Aemond was hurt…when the label yanked him out of Comet…no one fought for him?”

“Luke did,” Criston says.

And then he continues down the hall, shoulders low, a man troubled by both the past and the future.

~~~~~~~~~~

The Blue Lagoon is like Aemond’s sightless left eye: a milky blue, opaque, something you could drown in. The band spends several hours splashing and wading in water warmer than the blood in your veins. The white silica mud that forms the floor is soft beneath your bare feet, squishing between your toes; people spread it over their skin like a skin shedding its scales in reverse. Criston orders strawberry-banana smoothies from the in-water bar, trying to distract Aegon and Jace from the beer and the wine. Currently, Comet’s most worrisome performers are locked in combat: Daeron is on Aegon’s shoulders, Luke on Jace’s, entangled in a spirited chicken fight. This is much preferable to their first choice, Marco Polo, which led to Jace ‘accidentally’—and repeatedly—bumping into various early-twenties female tourists, whereupon he would inevitably profusely apologize, introduce himself, and pose for selfies, beads of turbid mineral water dripping from his curls. Cregan has drifted to the other side of the lagoon, floating on his back and basking beneath the overcast midday sun.

“I can’t believe they made everyone shower naked before getting in here,” Rhaena says, drinking her smoothie, submerged in rippling blue up to her collarbones. She had nearly refused to go through with it—I’ll wait in the car! I’ll be fine! I’ll just watch The Crown on my phone for three hours!—until you and Baela offered to hold up your towels to shield her from view and insisted that none of the other guests (all female, as the showers are sorted by gender) were paying attention. Nudity is not a big deal in Iceland. It’s quite a far cry from Missouri.

“You gotta honor the local culture, babe.” Baela flashes Rhaena a teasing grin. “Scandinavians are super progressive. No shame about bodies or relationships. Very sex-positive.”

“Well Jace is certainly blending in.”

Now Baela isn’t grinning anymore. She frowns broodingly out over the lagoon. Rhaena, regretting that she said it but knowing it can’t be taken back, noisily slurps at her smoothie even when it’s gone. You and Aemond exchange an uncomfortable glance. Baela has never broached the topic of her relationship with you, but you know it’s coming. You can sometimes see her working up the nerve like a bucket filling with water, drop by drop.

You change the subject. “See, Rhaena? The naked shower thing wasn’t even that bad. It was over in two minutes, and absolutely nobody was judging you. And if you hadn’t done it, you would have missed out on this amazing experience!”

“You weren’t nervous?” she asks you. “Not at all?”

“I little bit, yeah. Of course. I’m an American.” Everyone chuckles. “But logically, I knew no one would really be watching me. I’m not that interesting. And also…I wasn’t truly naked.”

“Huh…?”

You wiggle your eyebrows and, smiling radiantly, spin around and point to the black-ink tattoo between your shoulder blades, underscored by the straps of your swimsuit that cross just below it: a comet with a streaming tail, lyrics that Aemond dreamed up in a kinder world. Rhaena laughs.

“Oh, right, of course.”

“You are obsessed with that thing!” Baela says, but she sounds relatively happy again.

“It’s true. I am. I admit it.” Sometimes you find yourself staring at it in hotel bathroom mirrors still foggy with steam, wiping away condensation to marvel at the irrevocable ways in which Aemond has marked you, ways you are thankful cannot be erased. When you wear anything that reveals your upper back like a spilled secret, you often catch Aemond gazing at it too. Now he reaches over and skims a fingerprint along the circle that his lyrics form around the comet:

I’ll come back for you if it kills me

Comets clip by again after eons and so can I

There’s a jolt down your spine like lightning, but more eager than jarring. All other thoughts vanish from you. You look over at Aemond, and he looks back, his lips slightly parted, his right eye beckoning to you. And you know it will be good with him, if it happens, when it happens. It will be more than good. It will be laced with an intensity, with a dire breed of necessity that you’ve never tasted before. All at once, you and Aemond realize what you’ve done and drift away from each other again, weakening gravity, elliptical orbits.

“No shame, guys,” Baela quips, raising her smoothie glass in a toast. “Sex-positive, remember?”

After the 45-minute drive back to Reykjavik, and after the concert, the band coalesces in Jace’s suite. There aren’t many hangers-on for this stop of the tour; Reykjavik is isolated and peaceful and not particularly desirable for friends of convenience who are more interested in clubbing and drugs than camaraderie. You wouldn’t trade nights like this for anything in the world.

Aemond is reading off his latest notes, white ink on black paper, stars on the backdrop of the universe. A Benson & Hedges cigarette smolders between two fingers on his left hand. Smoke curls up around his face. “Aegon, you were three steps behind the choreography for basically the entire show.”

“Yeah, that was on purpose.”

“It wasn’t,” Aemond counters, but he can’t help but smile.

“Women love a tragic disaster of a man who is screaming to be fixed.”

“Daeron,” Aemond continues. “I really like that hair flip you’ve started doing…”

Aegon is knocking back dark glass bottles of Gædingur Stout and slurring, very drunk and sinking deeper by the minute. In the absence of coke, he has resorted to other crutches. You are squeezed between Aemond and Baela on one of the couches. And Aemond isn’t really touching you, but he also is: the delicious subtle pressure of his thigh against yours, occasional nudges of his elbow, ostensibly unintentional grazes of knuckles and palms. He’s drinking his usual, a Bramble, and so are you, swirls of slow-moving pink like drops of blood in open water. And you think in a hazy bliss like listening to ground-level conversations from the bottom of a swimming pool: Tonight, tonight, tonight, he’s going to come back to my room with me tonight.

“Oh great,” you mumble as you check your Facebook messages on your iPhone.

“What’s wrong?” Rhaena asks. She’s nestled against Luke on the opposite couch, twirling locks of his hair around her benign, delicate fingers. Jace is sitting beside Luke, drinking a Vesper and trying not to make eye contact with Baela. Daeron is in the fuzzy white sheepskin lounge chair, Cregan perched on a bar stool, Criston standing watchfully with a vivid green bottle of Perrier in one hand. When he briefly steps out onto the balcony to take a call from the label, you can hear only the most dim, indistinct murmurings through the thick tinted glass, sounds but not words. Aegon is sitting—and occasionally crawling around—on the floor. The Backstreet Boys’ I Want It That Way is playing.

“I’m subletting my apartment in Kansas City and there is a strict no pet policy. But my neighbors snitched on the new tenant and apparently she’s got a Flemish Giant rabbit living there with her.”

“Not even a normal rabbit,” Baela muses. “A giant rabbit.”

You sigh. “All the rugs are going to be chewed up by the time I get back.” And Aemond glances over anxiously, like he doesn’t want any reminders that you won’t always be around.

“What’s your apartment like?” he says.

“Old. Vintage. Most of it hasn’t been updated since the 1950s. You’d appreciate it, actually. It would match your aesthetic.”

“Maybe I’ll have to see it sometime.”

You smirk at him, flirtatious, baiting, the silver stars on your dress reflecting golden lamplight. “Maybe. If I invite you.”

He leans in to whisper so only you can hear: “You will.”

“I think I’d be a landlord if I wasn’t famous,” Jace says, nursing his Vesper meditatively like an aspiring philosopher. “I’d just sit back and collect the checks as they rolled in. And you get to raise the rent every year.”

“Yeah, that sounds like you,” Aegon says, grinning up at him saccharinely.

“What would you be, Stargirl?” Jace asks; and you realize you hate the sound of him using Aegon’s name for you.

“I mean, a therapist.” And everyone laughs, even Criston.

Jace flushes, brushing his curls back from his face with one hand. “Oh yeah. Clearly.”

You look to Aemond. “You’d be a historian or an archivist or something.”

“Or a writer,” Luke says.

“Maybe,” Aemond agrees, a tad uncomfortable with the attention. “Or an animal activist, maybe. I’d like to do some sort of good in the world.”

Aegon shouts, far more loudly than necessary: “What would you be, Criston?”

“Thousands of miles away from you.” More laughter, riotous; but Criston is smiling a little.

“What about you, Cregan?” Jace asks. “What would you want to be if Comet didn’t exist?”

Cregan downs a shot of Absolut Vodka. “A plastic surgeon.”

“What? Why?”

Cregan shrugs. “You get to see tits all the time.”

There are scandalized squeals and guffaws. Baela says: “I would not let you anywhere near my tits.”

“And not just tits!” Daeron adds brightly. “Don’t they do, what’s it called, vaginal rejuvenation?”

Cregan points at him with his empty shot glass. “Exactly.”

“Oh God, that sounds painful.” Rhaena hides her face behind a flute of champagne.

“Yeah,” you say. “I don’t think I’m interested.”

Aegon snorts, drips of Gaedingur Stout flying from his nose. “Like you’d ever need it. You’ve got a pornstar pussy, fucking gorgeous.”

A hush sweeps through the room like a dust storm. Baffled glances dart around wildly. Immediately, Aegon realizes his mistake. He gazes up at you from the floor with large, glazed, drunken blue eyes that glisten with apology. You gape back, half-furious and half-petrified.

“Wait, what?” Aemond says. Ashes build on his cigarette, forgotten.

“Oh, wow.” Jace gestures from you to Aegon. “You guys…you guys have…?”

“It was once, a long time ago,” you say quickly. “Like, a really long time ago. Over a year ago.”

Aegon is trying to help. “Ages ago. Ancient history.”

“Where? In Kansas City?!” Baela gasps, stunned.

Aegon tells her: “You remember that bar we all went to after the show, right? The one on the roof?”

Baela is blinking at you, not comprehending. “You hooked up with him? In a bar?! Aegon?!”

“Um, yeah.”

Jace brays out a laugh, shaking his head. “Damn, Stargirl. I thought you had better taste than that.”

You feel like you’re fighting for your life. You feel like you can’t breathe. “It really wasn’t serious…” Not the sex part, anyway.

“No, no, it totally wasn’t,” Aegon agrees gamely. “It was like, what? How long were we in that bathroom? Maybe ten minutes total?”

Daeron is giggling. “Bruh, stop roasting yourself!”

As the chatter flies, you hide your face in your hands; beneath your palms, your cheeks are hot. You can feel Aemond pulling away from you, spaces opening up between your thighs and shoulders and arms like the ever-expanding void of the universe. When you steal a glimpse of him through the cracks in your fingers, he is staring down at the floor. He is silent, but you can see the thoughts—the images—riddling him like bullets. You can see him filling up with them like a punctured ship fills with seawater. He smokes until his cigarette is gone, and then immediately lights another.

Luke is the one to mercifully intercede. “Hey, Criston, where are we going next?”

“Uh,” Criston says, trying not to gawk at you or Aegon. “Let me think. Uh. Oh, right. Paris.”

Jace cackles. “The city of love! How appropriate!”

Criston ignores him. “You have some press interviews and then you’re doing two shows at the Accor Arena on July 7th and 8th…”

Aemond gulps down the rest of his Bramble and then walks out onto the balcony, closing the sliding glass door behind him.

“Fuck,” Aegon sighs miserably, then guzzles his Gaedingur Stout.

You bolt off the couch and go after Aemond. The heavy sliding glass door growls as you roll it open and then shut it again. Outside, Reykjavik is cold and windswept. The midnight sun is aflame. It’s still too bright to see the Northern Lights; even if they were there, you would have no way of knowing. Aemond is smoking with his back to you. He’s looking out over the boats bobbing in the harbor, sunbeams glinting on the crests of waves. Flapping gulls swoop and scream.

You say cuttingly, like a surgeon slicing away malignancies: “So what, you don’t like me anymore?”

Aemond flicks ashes over the balcony railing. “I just think I understand you better.”

“What does that mean?”

He whirls to you and says pointedly: “Why are you here?”

A disorienting question. Too easy. “I followed you out onto the balcony.”

“No, here with the band, here in Reykjavik, why are you here?”

You know how the truth sounds, but you can’t rewrite it. “Because Aegon asked me to be.”

“Because he asked you to come fix me, right?” Aemond demands. “To crack open my skull and stir things around until I’m okay with the fact that my life ended seven months ago.”

“No!” you shout into the wind. “I mean, yes, he thought I’d be able to help you, to help Comet, but that’s not what this is about for me anymore—”

“Why would I believe you? You’re a liar, you’re a confirmed liar, why would I believe a single goddamn word of what you have to say?!”

“I didn’t lie to you!”

“Friends!” Aemond roars. He doesn’t touch you, but his rage is horrifying, ageless and deep like lava bubbling beneath tectonic plates. “You said you and Aegon were friends!”

“We are friends—”

“No, you’re not. You met him, you fucked him, and then when he invited you to join the tour you dropped everything to do it, why, because you still want him? And I’m the charity case? Or I was just next in line? Maybe you were planning to work your way through the whole band. Who’s next, Jace? I don’t think he’d object.”

“No—!”

“You and Aegon. And you didn’t even have the guts to tell me.”

“Because I didn’t want to have this conversation, the one where you eviscerate me for something that happened before I even met you!”

“You chose him,” Aemond says, venomous. “At the bar in Kansas City, you chose him.”

“What?! Aemond, I don’t even remember seeing you, I don’t think you were there at all—”

“I was there.” He glares at you, thunderstorms, tornadoes, the earth splitting in two. “Last June. Rooftop bar. String lights. View of the river. I remember it, I was there.”

“Well then you didn’t notice me either and you probably spent the whole night with Pilates princess, Malibu Barbie Shelby, so what’s the fucking point?!”

He glowers at the horizon. Iceland DOES have jewel tones, you think erratically. But they only come out at night, like owls or bats. “It’s different.”

“It’s not different! You’re so convinced people don’t like you that you do insane, irrational things that make people not like you! It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy! It’s a fucking circle, you idiot!”

“I’ve had enough psychoanalysis, thanks.”

“No, you could use some more of it, you could use a lot more, you have so many demons it’s like Paranormal Activity in your brain, they’re in there all day tearing things off the walls and kicking over chairs and sabotaging anything you dare to care about and you let them!”

He turns away from you. “Just go the fuck back to Kansas.”

“I’m from Missouri!”

Aemond pitches the end of his cigarette over the balcony. His good eye flicks to the sliding glass door. The curtains rustle as the faces that hovered there just seconds ago disappear back into the suite. Very muffled through the thick glass, you can hear Criston chastising people.

You ask Aemond, embers in your throat: “This is really something you consider unforgiveable?”

He shakes his head, mournful, violently disappointed. “You’re just a groupie. You’re just a slut.”

Slut. It’s not the word, it’s the way he said it, with dismissiveness, with condemnation, the same way men love to use it as a blade to carve off every other piece of you—kindness, coldness, ferocity, loyalty, wit, passion, talent, triumphs, failures, ghosts—until that one little word is all that’s left. You’re dismantled into a clutter of loose bolts and bent nails. You’re a beef cow that was led into the maze of a gnashing, metal-and-blood processing plant and came out the other side a brainless, raw-pink patty just the right size to fit in a Big Mac box, something to be consumed but not remembered. “What did you say to me?”

He’s staring out into the twilight sky, both hands on the balcony railing. “I can’t believe you. I can’t believe I…”

“Are you kidding me?! I can’t believe I got your lyrics tattooed on my fucking back, what am I supposed to do about that now, rip my own skin off?!”

“So get it covered up. I’m sure Aegon would be thrilled to help you choose a new design, or Jace, or Cregan, or Daeron, or whoever.”

“You know what I think?” you say, caustic like acid.

“Don’t say it,” he threatens, low and dark.

“I think you haven’t fucked anyone since the accident, and you’re terrified to. But you shouldn’t be, Aemond. Because there’s nothing wrong with you. There has never been anything wrong with you.”

But he doesn’t hear that part. He only hears the first thing, what you never should have said at all. It’s true, but that doesn’t mean you should have said it. “I hate you,” he says softly, and you can’t think of a reply. The space between you fills up with wind, cold, dying sunlight. Aemond looks at the sliding glass door. “I don’t want to go back in there.”

“Well, we’re five stories off the ground, so you’ll probably have to.”

He studies the series of balconies that run along this side of the hotel, each separated by perhaps three feet of open air. Then he starts climbing over the metal railing.

“Aemond, don’t!”

But it’s too late. Fortunately, he has long limbs. He scrambles onto the next balcony, and then the one after that, and then one more, until he reaches the balcony for his own suite. He tries the sliding glass door���locked—and then sits down to wait for someone to open it. You go back inside Jace’s suite, where everyone pretends to have been talking about something other than you.

“Where’s Aemond?” Criston says, alarmed.

“He’s on the balcony of his suite. You should go let him in.”

“What?!” Criston yells, and then sprints out into the hallway.

You flee too. Both Baela and Aegon try to stop you, try to talk to you. They’re asking what Aemond said. They’re asking if you’re okay. You tell them you’re fine and that you want to be left alone. They argue. You insist. You walk back to your own room and start packing.

Your suitcase fills up with crumpled clothes and souvenirs: a Colosseum pencil sharpener from Rome, a tiny alabaster Apollo from Athens, a Spanish fighting bull refrigerator magnet from Madrid, handmade soap from Porto, a bar of chocolate from Vienna, a moose snow globe from Stockholm, a silica mud mask from the Blue Lagoon, a tiny stuffed comet that Rhaena crocheted for you. You reach back to touch your fingertips to the comet tattooed over your spine, tears biting in your eyes. If I had told him from the start, would that have made a difference? If I had met him first, would we have had a chance? You are gathering up your makeup when you hear a knock on the doorframe.

Cregan lurks there. When he speaks, he sounds startled; he sounds afraid. “You can’t leave.”

“I’ve literally never had a conversation with you, so thanks for the input but I’m still going.”

“No,” he says, persistent. “You can’t leave.”

“Aemond doesn’t want me here.” Your voice is fragile, shattering. “I can’t help him anymore.”

“It’s not just about Aemond. It’s about everyone. They’re all fucked up. They all need you.”

You stare at Cregan, not understanding. “I really don’t think I’m equipped for this.”

He fixes his cool greyish eyes on you. He is harsh but somehow not unkind. “You would never be able to comprehend where I came from. I’m not going back to that. The band has given me everything. I’m not going to let anyone take that away from me. You have to stay. You have to fix Comet. You can’t leave.”

He watches you, and you watch him, and you aren’t sure who has the upper hand here, who is the predator and who is the prey. Maybe it doesn’t matter. Maybe everyone is a patchwork of strengths and deficits, fields of gold strewn with landmines.

At last, you relent. And Cregan doesn’t vanish until you’ve begun taking your souvenirs out of your suitcase and placing each of them—carefully, reverently—back on your nightstand where they were before.

[alatuswind]

Attack on Titan Nintendo 3DS game translation (#13)

This is a translation I did for fun as I was curious to know what this scene from the game was about. As I couldn't find any translation I decided to share the one I did. There are probably mistranslations as I don't speak Japanese, but, once again, this was just for fun. I accept any corrections

(Door opens and closes, and steps are heard Hange appears in Erwin's office, glasses up and angry, talking loudly.)

Hange: Aah! No more! I can't do this! At all!

Levi: It's noisy, be quiet.

Hange: (still talking loudly, now with the glasses) But hey! Can something like this happen!? Sonny, too! And Bean too! They were cute children that I cared for with great care! From now on! For humanity! A lot! It was supposed to be helpful! I can't even look into those round eyes anymore!? Who could have done such a thing!

Erwin: (ignoring Hange) Levi. What are the tea leaves today?

Levi: It was diverted from the centre. Not bad.

Hange: (angry and talking loudly) Hey, you two. Are you listening!?

Erwin: (looking at Hange) Calm down, Hange. Why don't you drink it too?

Hange: (in a more calm voice but still bothered) I'm not having tea. It isn't the time for a drink.

Erwin: Well, don't say that.

(Erwin makes a cup of tea and gives it to Hange)

Hange: (sighs, calm) ････････････, phew! I see, it tastes good.

Levi: So, You still don't have any idea who did it?

Hange: Not at all. Not even a clue. We've been completely outwitted. The only certain thing is that the crime was committed using a three-dimensional mobile device.

Levi: ･･････ I see. ････････････････････････ Erwin, are new recruits also eligible?

Erwin: Of course, this year's 104th training corps seems to be full of people with strong habits.

Hange: Ah, some kids are really smart, right? That's interesting.

Erwin: (agrees silently) ････････････････････････

Hange: (silence) ････････････････････････

Levi: ････････････････････････It's been 5 years

Erwin: Yes, that would be a reference point. It seems like it would be a good idea to exclude those who have been there for a while before that.

Hange: Five years. Now that I think about it, it was around that time that Levi joined the Scout Regiment. 5 years ･･････ or was it 6 years ago? When he first came in, he was like "I don't care about anyone!" So it was hard to get close to him.

Levi: (rudely) Shut up, damn glasses.

Hange: Yeah, like a wounded cat! But now, we're so open to each other. Well, you know, from the very beginning I knew we'd definitely get along!

Levi: ･･････ Who's good friends with whom?

Hange: Of course, it's me! However, Levi is loved by everyone. I was surprised at how strong he was right after joining the Scouts, but now he's the captain who brings everyone together. I think it's amazing that it's only been 6 years.

Levi: Even after 6 years, your annoyance hasn't changed. I think it's a big deal.

Erwin: (approaching) ･･････It's about time, both of you. (with a more serious expression) Levi. Next outside the wall check, you will be in the centre of the fifth row.

Levi: ･･････ Understood.

Hange: Take care of Eren. Because the fate of humanity depends on him.

Erwin: (still serious) Hange, how are you preparing?

Hange: (starting to get enthusiastic) Do you want to hear it? That's right, it's the best feeling. We have strengthened the elasticity of the wire. Efficacy testing has already been completed. The results are as expected. All that's left to do is wait for that time. Well, it was worth hitting the investor's ass until there was no dust left!

Erwin: That's why we need results.

Levi: You just have to put it out.

(Cups and spoons are heard. Everyone appears with a cup of tea. Erwin is with a teacup in his hand looking at Levi. Levi is drinking his tea and looking at Hange. Hange is happily pouring tea into the cup.)

Levi: Erwin, are you sure that he will definitely come?

Erwin: Yes.

Hange: (distracted and starting to sound creepy) Well, I have to treat them well, after all, they took Sonny and Bean from me. I need to deal with them in place of those children. I'll leave aside the question of whether they're human or non-human for now. What should I do?

Levi: ･･････ Erwin. I feel a little sorry for that guy just for now.

Erwin: What a coincidence, Levi. Me too

Hange: (didn't hear) What, what are you two talking about?

Erwin: No, it's nothing.

Levi: I'm talking about the tea being delicious. You should taste it too.

Hange: Hmm, let's see. ･･････

(Cups and spoons are heard. Hange drinks.)

Hange: Oh, it’s true. It’s delicious——