#No resilience no flexibility just. One thing only or I will give up and die

[chicago-geniza]

Terminal "won't do anything I don't want to" syndrome extends to...eating food which means I will straight-up starve or let myself get malnourished to the brink of scurvy if the only options are foods I don't like, so it's just. Constantly cajoling my brain and sneaking vegetables into its meals like you would for a picky toddler. Today this was some split bao with mushrooms & asparagus in a gluten-free soy marinade & cucumber salad with Szechuan chili oil. If there aren't six types of umami at once I will spit it out and throw it at the wall from my proverbial high chair

[serorat]

Symbolism is really cool, with things like Tarot cards or flowers with meanings in the specifics, but I feel like that should also be applicable to chess! If you look at it, there are only 6 chess pieces (King, Queen, Bishop, Rook, Knight, Pawn), so it should be easy! The thing is, I've seen things about chess that look like they should have some deeper meaning, such as the specific mentioning of "Knight takes Rook" in that one Hamilton song, but with googling I can't find exactly what it could mean other than being a smart lyric that flows well into it. Either way, whether it already exists or doesn't I don't particularly care, so here's what I think every chess piece could be representative of in a metaphorical or symbolic sense! King - The King represents Control and Stability. if one is to "lose their king" it could mean the same as losing one's mind, for example. Queen - The Queen represents Power. With it being the most powerful peace, this makes sense game-wise, but if someone is to "lose their queen" it could be similar to a situation of someone not seeming so scary and therefore losing their power over someone, or maybe it's literally someone losing power. Bishop - The Bishop represents Hope. This ties in well with it's religious connotation, and it seems rather usable in terms of flexibility with how often it could be used. Lots of stories involve the losing of hope, right? Rook - The Rook represents Identity. More specifically, ones own sense of who they are as a person. To bring in niche examples, in the game Your Turn to Die, (Spoilers ahead btw) The character Shin Tsukimi sacrifices their Rook for the sake of survival at the beginning of the game when they pretend to be someone else. Knight - The Knight represents Whimsy. There's no real reason for this, it's just a whimsical piece. someone who seems to find no joy in the little things of life has lost their knight. Pawn - The Pawn represents Resilience. These things die a lot, but that's by design, of course. Someone who gives up during a difficult task has lost their pawn. Is this stupid? probably, should I have written this? idfk. Use this how you will.

[saltwaterconfessions]

gideon nav, beacon of hope in lightless places, my absolute beloved. harrow has the sort of steel "ill work myself to death to achieve something" tenacity and gideon has the "if it doesn't work the first time i'll do it again and again and never give up on it" sort of tenacity. it's so admirable - 87 escape attempts in 14 years is about every two months. she's been under the heel of the ninth her entire life and yet??? AND YET?? she's still packing her things and cleaning her cell and fighting tooth and nail w the ninth herself because this chance has to be it -- but if it isn't, she'll pick herself up and try again when she's ready.

throughout gtn she never loses that hope and flexibility. and it's really interesting to see as she starts putting more and more faith & trust into harrow - it becomes part of the support of their relationship, that if something doesn't work, they'll try something else, and it really shows itself when they're succeeding as a team.

and it's incredibly endearing, towards the end, that she focuses on the THING SHE CAN FIX. people are dying left and right, harrow is on guard, everything's horrible, she feels responsible for some really unfortunate teenagers dying, AND SHE'S BEEN A HOMEWRECKER?? FOR SOMEONE WHO'S BEEN NOTHING BUT KIND TO HER?? oh NO she has to SOLVE. THIS ONE THING!! and like yes it's a dearly needed comic relief moment leading to a new development but like. it's so fucking sweet and meaningful for her values and character.

even at the end when everything is fucked up and horrible and they're all about to die. she's going to do the only thing she can do, she's going to make sure harrow and cam can keep going. it's at the cost of her life (fucked up!!) and the result of her giving into the inherently exploitative relationship of necromancer/cavalier. her narration there HITS ME WHERE IT HURTS. she accepts the worst so quicky.

i think i'd call her attitude at the end of htn as something more resigned than anything else. it's not the same sort of bright, nurtured spark of tenacity and determination. it's full of anger and grief and confusion. but she's still going to keep the homefires burning. still going to do her best to protect and respect harrow's body. still going to try to make the right choice when there are no good choices.

i really hope we get acknowledgment of gideon's emotional depth and resilience and strength in a serious way bc jesus. she's been through THE MOST. her feelings deserve more than a comic relief page and a half.

it's 2:30am and i am not sober but i just. characters who choose to keep moving bc they have no other choice. my FAVORITES.

[nothing-but-dreamy]

AFTERLIFE ~ Part 2

Part 1

Pairing: Connor x Reader; RK900

Words: 2.998

Warning: mention of blue blood (is that even a warning..?)

Retrospectively, to get Connor out of the building wasn’t the hardest part of your plan. In fact, it was easier than you had thought. On your way, Connor had hacked the camera and scanner of the parking deck. No alarm went on as Connor passed the checkpoints. So, the two of you got into your car to drive over the long bridge to leave the island and to get back to Detroit.

But you should have known it better. It wouldn’t stay this easy. At the end of the day, Connor was CyberLife’s property and of course, even if they wanted to deactivate him, they also wanted him back. But the last thing you had expected them to do would be sending an armed unit. And of course, part of this unit was Colden, the RK900. You weren’t surprised that they would try to get Connor back. You should have known it.

Like in an action movie, the unit stormed your house from all sides. Connor was fighting them back one by one and holding the upper hand until the situation changed. From the corner of his eyes, Connor saw you stumbling through the living room with your hands raising in the air in surrender. The RK900 was walking behind you, pushing you forward while it pointed a gun to your head.

software instability^

“Give up, Connor! Or this human will die.”, the RK900 ordered. Its voice was a bit darker than Connor’s and as cold as its name.

As Connor saw you got threatened by a gun something snapped inside of him and the wall that held him back from admitting his emotions started to fall apart. The RK900 pushed the gun closer to your head which caused you to wince in fear. As Connor heard that sound, he broke the wall down and finally understood what you had tried to tell him about to feel. After all the time where he had fought against the deviants, now, he had become one on his own. Because now, there was a reason for him to turn deviant: The only thing in his mind was to protect your life. To protect you, “Let her go and maybe I will spare your life.”, Connor said, low and threatening, he adjusted his standing and was just focused on the android behind you.

“Connor…”, you whispered, concerned about the fact that the RK900 was better than Connor would be. The last thing you wanted for Connor was to get in any more danger. He already had a gun shot in his chest and blue blood was running out of it. Androids could endure more things than humans but they weren’t indestructible.

“Let her go.”, Connor demanded calmly.

The RK900 just smirked. But the smile never reached its piercing blue eyes, “Fascinating. You turned deviant, Connor? You started to feel because of this human?”

You looked surprised at Connor. Was it possible that he had finally awoken? Were you really the reason for him to change from a machine to a living being? Quickly, Connor looked at you and you saw warmth in his brown eyes… and concern. Even a soft smile appeared on his lips which should reassure you.

“Oh, bloody hell! That’s disgusting!”, the RK900 spat out and rolled with his eyes as it witnessed the small exchange between Connor and you.

“I said: Let her go! Otherwise, I see myself forced to kill you.”, Connor hissed and looked up again. You shook your head slowly to stop him from his plan but Connor ignored you. There was no room for softness even if he was starting to feel. The RK900 wouldn’t stop until it got what CyberLife wanted.

“You know what, you could come with me and I will spare her pitiful life. I’ve been ordered to get you back. My orders are a bit more… well… flexible when it comes to her. It’s your choice.”, the RK900 said calmly but with a vicious tone.

“Connor, don’t listen to it! It just wants to kill you! CyberLife doesn’t want you alive-”, you called out but the RK900 stopped you from talking as it punched into your ribs with the back of his gun. The air got knocked out of your lungs and you slumped down on your knees trying to catch your breath.

Connor stepped forward as he saw you suffering. But as the RK900 pointed its gun back at your head, he stopped.

“I can continue with hurting her all day long. If you don’t give up, I swear you will see her dying right here. You have to think about what is more important to you. Your freedom or her life. You can’t have both.”, the RK900 said with a lopsided smirk.

Connor gritted his teeth as he searched for a way out. His existence would already be over when it weren’t for you to save him. Now, Connor was faced with the worst thing he could imagine. The last thing he wanted was to lose you now, where he knew what he was feeling for you, “Alright, alright! You win. I give up.”, Connor said finally.

“No! Connor, don’t!”, you called out in fear for his life. As you looked up at Connor, tears were blurring your vision but you were sure that you had seen Connor … winking at you?

The RK900 shoved you aside so you were falling to the ground before it stepped over you to go to Connor, “Wise decision, Connor.”

You looked shocked how the RK900 pushed Connor around to shove him to the front door of your home. You crawled back on your knees as something was clanking. As you looked up, you saw the RK900 stumbling slightly as it tried to wipe glass fragments out of its face and hair.

Connor had grabbed one of your heavy vases to break it on the androids head before he attacked the RK900 immediately. It stumbled back. They fought against each other and for you, there were just arms and legs involved in a too fast way. First, you expected the RK900 to dominate the fight and for a few moments it looked like this but then, just one minute later, Connor gained the upper hand.

Connor kicked into the side of the RK900, shoved it back violently against the next wall, grabbed its head and crashed his knee into the android's face. You looked away as you heard a disgusting sound. It wasn’t exactly the sound of breaking bones but it was also nasty to hear. Connor disarmed the taller android who had fallen on its knees and pointed the gun at its head. Blue blood was running down from Colden’s nose to its lips but it still managed to smirk. It’s blue eyes were twinkling with mischief.

“Go ahead, Connor. Kill me. Otherwise, you will never be free. But there will be more of me. The next one will hunt you.”, the RK900 said low.

You stumbled over to the two and placed a hand on Connor’s shoulder. He relaxed a bit as he noticed your presence. You saw his determined expression. His hand was firmly holding the weapon. You placed your hand on his arm to move the gun away.

The RK900 chuckled as it saw that move, “Oh, how sweet. What are you trying to do? You haven’t many options. CyberLife will search for you again even if I might fail.”

Connor pointed the gun back at its head.

“Don’t kill it, Connor.”, you said calmly, again moving his arm away from the RK900.

“It tried to kill you, yn. It hurt you.”, Connor said with a determined expression. Ready to shoot. Ready to protect you at all costs.

You stepped around him with your eyes just focused on Connor, “Can you turn it deviant? It could join us.”, you suggested.

Connor was surprised by your request. His eyebrows shot up. “You want- what?”

“I will never join you! What makes you think that this would be working anyway?”, the RK900 said, “I’m more resilient. Mostly against deviancy.”

You turned around and knelt in front of it, “I have no idea if this works or not. If not, Connor still can kill you. But maybe, it will work. In the end, your model is based on him. There is a chance for him to convert you no matter how resilient you might be.” You stood up and stepped aside with crossed arms. The RK900 looked up at you. There was something in his glance that let you frown. You tilted your head before you smirked knowingly, “You are scared."

"W-what? I'm not scared!", the RK900 insisted.

“Yn, this is not a good idea. And anyway, why should it join us? For what cause?”, Connor asked.

“You know, as Kamski designed androids he had a vision. I’m sure he wanted more for them than just to be servants. He never created you all to be slaves. That was CyberLife’s idea. The revolution had shown CyberLife that they would be in danger if the androids rise up - so, they stopped them. It would be more difficult for them to make money if no one would want to buy an android anymore.”, you said. You started slow but with each word, the idea in the back of your head grew bigger. You laid a hand on Connor’s cheek and he leant against your soft touch. You tilted your head about this sweet move, “You are more than just a machine. You have realized it - just a bit too late. But there’s still a chance for a successful revolution.”

“You want to start a revolution? Hehe! That will never work. Deviancy got stopped by your precious Connor. And beside that, it's just the two of you.”, the RK900 said, smirking.

You turned around to face the kneeling android, “Colden”, you said softly and the android reacted to you using his name. It was the first time someone was calling it by its name directly.

software instability^

“Colden, you might think of yourself as smart but you forget something. You have noticed it even by yourself. Connor had turned deviant. And what I understood of this whole thing is that deviancy is like a virus. And now, we will check if you can get ‘sick’, as well.”, you said grinning.

Before the RK900 could do anything, he watched fearfully how Connor knelt down, removed his synthetic skin from his hand and connected with the arm of the RK900.

You watched how both androids were slightly blinking and shaking. It looked like a data exchange and in the end, it was nothing else than that. Through this revolution, CyberLife had tried everything to find out what deviancy could cause. But they never got any real answer. You had thought about it yourself and in the end, you accepted the fact that you explained it like a virus. Once an android was infected with it, it would never obey again.

Ten seconds later, Connor slumped back and you checked on him. He was okay just a bit … exhausted. Then, your eyes fell on the RK900. It knelt there slumped down, its head hanging between its shoulders. Totally motionless.

“Colden?”, you asked carefully.

“More resilient, huh! I would say we kick some CyberLife asses.”, Colden answered, raised his head and smirked mischievously. His piercing blue eyes were sparkling with emotions as he looked at you.

***

CYBERLIFE ABLE TO STOP THE ANDROID CRISIS: PROTYPE NEGOTIATOR TOTAL SUCCESS

AFTER THE WAR: CAN WE STILL TRUST OUR ANDROIDS?

RK900: THE NEXT GENERATION FOR MANHUNT?

CYBERLIFE DELIVERY PROBLEMS: STATE DEPARTMENT STILL COUNTING ON ANDROIDS?

DISASTER: CYBERLIFE ADMITS LOSING A KILLING MACHINE

BACK TO THE PAST: A LIFE WITHOUT TECHNIQUE

FALLING SALES: CYBERLIFE NEAR STOCK MARKET CRASH?

DISAPPEARING ANDROIDS: WHERE ARE OUR SERVANTS GOING?

SIX MONTHS AFTER THE REBELLION: ARE HUMANS STILL SAFE?

CYBERLIFE’S NEW CRISIS: DO WE HAVE TO LIVE IN FEAR AGAIN?

***

“What are we doing here?”

“It’s dangerous to be even here. It could be a trap.”

“I know but … they say this place is safe for people like us. You know, for deviants-”

“Psht! Don’t mention this word.”

About fifty androids had followed the invitations and rumors which had occurred in Detroit over the last months. The signs were only visible for androids. Just an android who went deviant was able to understand the cryptical messages. Now, the androids waited in an abandoned warehouse outside of Detroit. Some of the androids had been with Markus before and they remembered the first revolution where everything started in a place like this. These androids were the most sceptical.

“Over there! Someone's coming!”

All eyes were looking up at the same time as two tall, dark haired androids dressed completely in black appeared on a podest. One was a bit taller and had ice blue eyes while the other one looked exactly the same beside his height and his eye color, it was a soft brown. Both androids had a stern expression while they stood left and right like bodyguards waiting for another person.

You appeared slowly. Placing yourself between Connor and Colden who were watching over you protectively. Looking down into all the waiting faces, you smiled softly before you spoke up, “Welcome. My name is yn. I’m happy to see so many new faces. First of all, I want to be honest with you. I am human. But don’t worry, you have nothing to fear. These two here are Connor and Colden. They are deviants like you. And like you, we want the same thing: equality. Yes, Markus’ revolution had failed but that won’t keep us from trying it again. You’re not forced to join us. If you join us, you’re not forced to fight. Everyone will be able to contribute something to our cause in his own way. Colden will join you now. He will answer all your questions.”

Colden nodded briefly and left the podest. He waited for the first android to approach him. After a few minutes, the first, scared looking android walked slowly over to him. That was the beginning. After the first, more and more walked over to ask their questions before they decided to join this new revolution.

You were sure that all of them would stay. The will to be finally free was still burning in them, “It came more than the last time.”, you stated pleased.

“Yeah, more and more are finding the signs. Some others are also spreading the rumors. Your idea was very successful.”, Connor said and walked over to you. The two of you had sneaked into a shadow to watch the scene unobserved.

While you leant against the wall, Connor stepped in front of you. His eyes were slowly roaming over your face, taking in every inch of your features. He did that from time to time because he couldn't get enough of you. Since you had rescued him, six month had gone by. Many things had happened. Connor, Colden and you had grown together as a team with the purpose to start a new revolution...this time just bigger than the last one. But beside finding more deviants, finding a new place for the operation and finding resources, Connor and you had been finding each other.

Everything started slow as the two of you were safe but it didn’t need much time for you to fall completely for the android with the brown eyes, “Aren’t you getting bored by now? I mean, my face isn’t changing much.”, you said softly smiling.

Connor raised his hand to cup your face carefully, his thumb slowly caressing your skin.,“And I’m very happy about that! You’re beautiful the way you are. I just can’t get enough of you, yn.”

You leant against his touch. His words made you blush, so you looked at the ground. Slowly, you felt Connor coming closer.

“The fact that you’re still blushing because of my words tells me that you’re not bored about me, yet.”, Connor whispered softly.

You looked up to meet his glance. He was just inches away, “Of course, not. I will never be bored with you.”, you said with a smirk but your smile faded slowly as you saw Connor’s intense glance.

His eyes held something meaningful. He was still learning to express his feelings, you knew that, but in the meantime, he had found a way to show you his affection even without naming them. Deep emotions were displayed in his brown eyes and before you could say anything, Connor leant down to kiss you softly.

It wasn’t the first kiss you two shared but each time it was as if the world would stop for a moment. Everything that mattered were just the two of you and no one else. You clung your fingers into his black suit shirt to bring him closer while Connor deepened the kiss with his fingers tangled with your hair and his other hand on the small of your back to bring you as close as possible to his body.

“Are they a couple?”, one of the new androids asked Colden who turned around and followed the glance.

As he watched you and Connor, a smile crawled on his lips, “Yes. These two are the evidence that humans and androids can work perfectly together.”, he admitted. To see you together like this was a rare picture because you wanted to keep it as secret as possible. The revolution was the focus point. So, Colden happily watched the intimate scene.

“I want to join you.”, an android said who walked out of a shadow.

“Me too.”, another android said.

“I’m in, as well.”

More and more androids announced their support after they had seen you and Connor. Colden was sure with the lead of the two of you, this time, the revolution would be successful.

And CyberLife would have to watch out.

A raging storm was coming their way.

[anonymouslyangsty]

Been seeing a lot of taka lives au which is *chefs kiss* but it really does make me wonder just how difficult taka's physical and mental healing process would be if he survived the hit.

Chefs make out session more like it

But that's a really good question. Like, this boy has a horrible time. He makes his first friend in a death game, only to have said friend brutally murdered in front of him. Then he gets depressed, has a total mental breakdown that ends with him adopting his dead friend's personality, then gets bludgeoned half to death.

Yeah, Kiyotaka is going through it.

And yes, he's the Ultimate Moral Compass. But at that point, you really have to question if his upbeat, kind personality can endure. We already saw him break under the weight of the loss of Mondo, and I don't think he'll ever fully recover from that break.

I don't think he'd snap and break his morals, but I can't see him going back to his normal cheerful demeanor either.

Maybe he'd give up his title of Moral Compass. He failed to keep the students alive, he failed to save Mondo, he lost control and threatened another student, then he broke the rules to try to find an exit. After all that, does he really deserve his Ultimate? He's done nothing but fail the people around him.

Not to mention that Mondo's death in itself shattered his entire worldview. Because how could Mondo, a man he looked up to so much, be a killer? Taka has a very black and white view of the world, and Chihiro's murder utterly shatters that. I don't think he'd be able to pick up the pieces easily.

And honestly? I could see this segwaying into him actually making friends that aren't Mondo. Because to be honest, it's clear that Mondo was his only friend there. Makoto and Hiro were also pretty nice to him, but besides that, he’s kinda disliked or tolerated at best.He's not very popular, and a part of that is because he's so strict.

But if he gives up on his title? Then he doesn't need to be as perfect. He doesn't need to carry the burden of taking care of everyone. And sure, he'll frame it as "I'm not worthy of such a role" rather than "I shouldn't carry the weight of every life here", but the end result of him taking on way less responsibility is there.

Without that strong need to take care of everyone, Taka would feel less obligated to lecture everyone. Plus, he can be less strict with both his classmates and himself. Because let's be honest. Taka deserves a nap and a hobby that isn't studying or working out.

(Dang, now I wish Hifumi was still alive in this situation: I want him to try to show Taka some anime)

Slightly off topic here, but I don't think the title of Ultimate Moral Compass is doing Taka any favors. Yes, morals are important. Yes, working hard is vital. However, Taka is so extreme that he denies himself the ability to relax and also seriously hinders his ability to socialize.

Without the burden of that ultimate, Kiyotaka would have a much richer life. Which is ironic in a way. Kiyotaka thinks that one cannot succeed without hard work, which is true. But can one thrive without a life outside of work? No. And it's only through giving up, something Taka would normally never do, that he can start really bonding with the other students.

Also, if Kiyotaka gives up his Ultimate, then he can be mean to Togami. He doesn't need to take the highroad anymore. Taka gets to punch the hell out of Togami because his bro never got to.

This can all lead to a new Kiyotaka by the end of the game. One that is still trying to help everyone, but is far more open to different points of view. One who is more flexible, and thus more resilient. One who doesn't carry the weight of the world on his shoulders.

Because no, he is not fit to lead them. He's already failed them time and time again. But that doesn't mean he has to give up either. Mondo wouldn't want him to.

So I mainly talked about character evolution, but there's still the physical to consider. He got freaking bludgeoned over the head. And yeah, I hear that head wounds bleed a lot even if they aren't bad, so it may look worse than it is. But still. He's not walking away from that without a concussion.

And I love the idea of that being an excuse for him and Sakura to hang out more. Because of all the group, she and Hina probably have the most experience with injuries, so it'd make sense for those two to take care of while he's healing.

I feel like that situation has so much room for character development! Because let's be honest here, it would've been so cool if Hina and Sakura actually tried helping Taka after Mondo's death. It seems in character for them, because both are very kind people. So this gives the chance to make this happen.

Plus I just think those 3 would have a great dynamic. Both Taka and Hina are loud, expressive, and passionate. With Kiyotaka abandoning his ultimate, he'd have no reason to refuse Hina's indulgent attempts to cheer him up. They can eat doughnuts together <3

Sakura and Taka are both strict, determined, and moral. So I think they could both get along really well! Let them drink tea together, and Sakura can give him some wisdom. She can help him realize that good people can make bad decisions, and that bad decision doesn't immediately make them evil. Good advice given Mondo's death, plus foreshadowing.

Also! I love how this could lead into Sakura's death! Sakura being the traitor would once again fit into that whole "oh no my friend who I see as morally good did something horrible" thing. But now, without the weight of his talent and a more flexible worldview, Kiyotaka can withstand that type of blow.

I can see him and Hina being the ones to vouch for Sakura, to look for solutions rather than attacking her. And when Sakura does die, and Hina has her breakdown, Kiyotaka can be there for her. He knows all too well what it's like to lose a friend to the death game.

Just...let Taka and Hina be friends. Let them be part of the "I made a buff friend in the death game but they became a blackened and died. Also fuck Togami" club together.

So basically: Taka gets a more healthy level of depressed (not comatose) and abandons his talent. That lets him explore more things about life, even if they aren’t related to school. He makes friends with Hina and Sakura, who help him with balancing work and fun (Hina), and having a more flexible view on morality (Sakura).

Then Sakura dies, and Kiyotaka is better equipped to be a comfort to Hina.

[filthfichunter]

The time of Witchers ended, but the Witchers didn't. Instead of killing the Witchers, the mages took them to use. to be milked for their cum and breastmilk to make potions and such, and be incubators, ass and magicked cunts, for their experiments and rare monsters. They learned the secret to changing Witchers and make as many as they need, the younger the better, because it gives more time for breeding them. They get used by anything and everything. stuffed full all the time and never free

Find the full fill here on AO3

Well Anon, I kinda just took the inspiration from your original prompt, and then as I tend to, got stuck in the "Explore How This Works" fussing around.

A DeadDoveDoNotEat exploration of the trials and training of Witcher trainees. What actually does happen to those that fail? #WhatHappensDuringTheTrialsStaysInTheTrials

The Brotherhood of Sorcerers setting up Witcher's training and creation to cultivate resilient fuck pets.

Seriously DeadDoveDoNotEat here.

More tiny vignettes based around the prompt. Sorry Anon, I'm apparently incapable of doing a short succinct fill without getting sucked into the larger "What If" spit balling.

*Geralt and Eskel aren't given an age here, but the fate of younger witcher trainees is explored, so I'm marking this underage but there actually isn't any graphic underage smut here, just magic users acting badly.

Content Warnings: Gangbang Not Safe Sane and Consensual Dead Dove: Do Not Eat Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con Trauma Object Penetration Dildos Fucking Machines Come Inflation Object Insertion Underage* - Grooming Anal Fisting Rimming Evil Plans

--- The True Fate of Failed Witcher Initiates ---

Less than one in ten boys that started their training to become a Witcher in the Wolf School at Kaer Morhen reached their last trial.

Geralt's school had always had one of the better survival rates, down mostly to the care and teaching from older Witcher instructors. If you survived your maiming and made it home alive you helped teach the next generation to avoid your mistakes.

Of those that did make it to the last trial before becoming a fully trained Witcher, it's was an even coin toss on their longer term survival rate. If they survived their last infusion of mutagens and chaos magic from the sorcerers, and lived through their first year on the Path most Witchers were likely to continue to survive baring the accidents and fatalities intrinsically tied to the vocation of course.

The Brotherhood of Sorcerers had use for Witcher's and were careful in how they grew each successive generation. Manipulating their concoctions and methods between each batch of initiates.

For all of the copius research notes that most of the sorcerers and magic users kept, it was still unknown who that first mage had been, or why they had decided to create a creature like a Witcher.

There were plenty of initiates across all of the various schools - the levels of attrition never really impacted the scale and scope of the Witchering work needing to be done compared to the trained workforce carrying out that work.

It wouldn't do to flood the market with too many new graduates when new jobs had statistically been on the down turn since the time of the great confluence.

If every Child Suprise, bartered third son, orphan or runaway that made it through the doors of the mountain keep of Kaer Morhen had been successful there would be too many of their mutant ilk, and the continent would be over run with too many Witchers and not enough work to keep them all employed and occupied not causing trouble for their betters.

The mages made certain to keep the numbers balanced.

It was no tragic circumstance that accounted for the total number of failed initiates. It wasn't just a cruel trick of fate that saw most of the number of boys thinned out early on in their training. It was down to the appetites of the mages in charge of creating new Witchers.

The more beautiful or submissive or sweet a boy, the more likely they would 'die' at their trial, or if the sorcerer was particularly horny it was likely their favorite would 'die' during a freak training accident.

No one ever saw the boys who didn't return from their trials or from the special healing rooms of the magic users who rotated through the Witcher schools.

They all heard the screams, could scent the distress and pain, but the one mercy the magic users gave to the Witchers was dealing with their failed boys.

There was no graveyard in Kaer Morhen.

The 'dead' were wisked away through portals to workshops and towers. The remains studied and used to tweak and feed the mutegens used on the next batch, the next trial, the next boy. At least that's what everyone thought.

The training even before the first trial made the boys lithe, strong and flexible. The physical drills and magical practice left them open to suggestion, helped along by a regiment of potions and tinctures.

The Brotherhood of Sorcerers helped raise a delectable and hardy stock of fuck pets.

It was a fun gig 'helping out' at a training school. If you were frequently involved in cultivating the new herd you had your pick of the boys. Most magic users had a predilection for sadomasochism and used their toys roughly. Centuries of sexual exploration of their appetites, boredom and unchecked magical power a dangerous combination.

The genius that thought to grow a cabal of fuck toys that could also help police the failed experiments and monsters that the Brotherhood's other experiments often created was a bonus.

Less work dealing with irate townspeople, more time on pleasure projects.

Stregobor was a prime example. He was known to have at least two nubile little Witcherlings in stasis if not actively being used in each of his tower strong holds at any given time. The boys would see to his pleasure, help in his experiments and rituals and then when they grew too damaged or boring he would trade them out for a new set. He'd almost single handedly depopulated the Cat School because of his appetite for little cat boys and disregard for the numbers needed to maintain the population.

The Cat School was considered particularly unhinged by the other school's of Witchers, another PR win by the sorcerers, it would not do for their pets to be too friendly with one another and start comparing notes.

Better they doubt one another and remain weary.

Anytime the secret got close to being figured out the Brotherhood would agree to cull the majority of the herd and start again if enough of them were still interested in heading up the Witcher sub committee or needed vessels for other projects.

Witcher Trials and Training:

Geralt and Eskel were the only two left in their age group when they were taken for special training in advance of their trials. If they did well, they might even receive extra instruction.

No one talked about their training sessions with the sorcerers. Or when asked couldn't share what their experience had been, unwilling or unable to recall what trials or training they had undergone.

Both had prepared in advance for the week they would spend in testing, by eating well doubling up on their stretches and conditioning.

When they both were returned everyone was too happy to see them alive to ask questions.

The physical proof of their hardships was evident to all, Geralt's hair gone white and Eskel with a limp that would take weeks of long soaks in the hotsprings and regular stretching, balm and massage to remedy.

There are only half memories and impressions they remember. More sensation and pressure, everything hazy and seemingly impossible.

Things they whisper to each other in their shared quarters, unsure if what they remember was reality or a shared fever dream brought about from their shared experience and love for one another.

Things they'll not discuss years later across campfires and in rooms at inns.

Experiences hard carved into their psyches, Eskel more reckless, Geralt more quiet and terse. Both prone to insomnia and short tempers.

They scrabble confidently together down over the back of the mountain keep toward a portal that will take them to a training evaluation and then, if they are lucky/unlucky a final trial together.

They'll be gone a week, or forever.

The long arms of the fucking machine engaged them both- halfway between where Geral and Eskel were both strapped down on breeding benches, limbs bound and their tits, asses and cocks made accessible.

The thrusting was constant and fast, cum churning up in their bellies, the large ballons wisk attachment similar to something found in bakeries- buried deeply in their guts, battering their insides, bashing their swollen prostates with each revolution.

Groans and cries over shadowed by a mechanical grinding of the machine, and the squelching sound as more and more fluid was introduced through the hollow handle of the device down into their bellies.

A robed figure came to periodically to check on them. Pulled the wide open balloon part of the wisk part way out. It's widest point would strain their assholes open obscenely wide, the chasma of their pink inside on display as more cum and icy cold potions were funneled into their depths.

Expanding and solidifying into an important alchemical agent.

Overfull and over stimulated holding on to one another pressed bloated belly to bloated belly sobbing as they tried to expell the contents packed so tightly in their bodies.

Desperate for one another after such a long session strapped down to their individual benches, so close to one another but unable to touch each other for reassurance as the volume inside them increased and their throats gave out dehydrated and unable to offer encouragement to each other.

Geralt chapped lips sealed around Eskel's ass hole frantically lapping and sucking racing to save his best friend, his brother from the rising toxicity of the solution still stuck inside.

The previously tightly furled hole, (something they would tap shyly on when exchanging blow jobs and hand jobs in their shared quarters) was swollen so much no wrinkles remained.

It was tighter than ever before, raw from frictions and stimulation. Acting as a barrier, keeping the massive solution retained behind, poisoning Eskel.

A crescendoing cascade of noise: squealing from Eskel, and slurping from Geralt who had to work frantically sucking the last of the solution out, spitting globs of thick mixture into the catchment bucket before diving face first back between the other boys cheeks.

Both their veins getting darker and darker as the toxicity spread.

Elbow deep in Eskel, drawing the last of it out, his friend's hiccuping cries and the very real throbbing pulse squeezing in time to the beat of Eskel's heart surounding him like a living glove.

The shuddering rhythm assuring him that they were both still alive.

Two pale pairs of buttocks crashing together, sharing a monsterously large double sided dildo.

The Sorcerers in charge of them making gestures and signs, causing the penetration to increase in both breadth and width.

Eskelin a crumpled ball, ass proped on folded slightly sprawled knees, face smashed bloody on the ground from when his arms and consciousness gave out.

Geralt straddled over and above the larger boy, taking more and more of the vibrating phallus deeper into himself- saving his friend more pain, even if he isn't awake to feel it, letting him rest.

The sting of over worked muscles and sweat running over open abrasions, thighs straining as he has to raise and squat down endlessly.

Both of their butt cheeks chaffed, red hot and bruised from the repeated impact and friction of slamming together.

The clapping of their asses accompanying the clapping and rasping sound of those watching stroking their own cocks along at the same pace.

The end of the dildo pulsing and expanding twisted so deep into him he is certain he'll choke on it before the Sorcerers who are watching are satisfied. -

Waking up alone certain that Eskel must be dead, must have failed the trials. -

Going through a second set of trials. -

His hair going white, the only outward sign his body is able to give, the only visible record of the trauma of his second lonely trial.

The relief, both felt at seeing each other again alive. Geralt and Eskel quiet and solem under the eyes of the Brotherhood of Sorcerers. Both thanking them for administering their training and trials. Both turning to travel back up the mountain over the path named Killer back to Kaer Morhen and hopefully to a future where they will now both be on a Path together. -

Whenever they are within each other's orbit they'll always Interlock their fingers grasping tightly, fingers laid against one another's pulse points, just checking to make certain.

Gladthey survived where so many other initiates died and were lost forever.

Not knowing that scores of their number still lived locked under spell and command, still existing in an unending trial.

[quicksandblock]

Hi!! I’ve just spent way too long writing down a probably excessive amount of worldbuilding for Jevin’s species in @martuzzio‘s hermit space outlaws AU!!! Disclaimer: I pulled everything scientific-sounding in this post straight out of my ass. Also I’m pretty sure I contradict things that have been established as canon at at least a couple points. martuzzio, please feel free to take this or leave it, or only take part of it, whatever you like. I just got hit by worldbuilding inspiration! And I had to get it out!!

History of Slimes!

Modern slimes’ ancestors were simple, non-intelligent slimes a lot like the Minecraft ones. Jevin’s species (the only intelligent species on the planet) is specifically descended from cave dwelling slimes, but there were also species that lived aboveground in damp environments such as swamps.

Ancient slimes needed very damp environments in order to survive. (Even the ones that lived aboveground were nocturnal, because direct sunlight could be deadly to them!) Modern slimes, including Jevin’s species, are much much more resilient than their ancestors, though hot and dry environments are still bad for them. This change came about because of a mass extinction event that killed most ancient slime species as well as most other life on the planet!

Slimeworld used to be a very wet place, but several million years ago, something happened to cause a planet-wide drought. The evolutionary pressures of the drought are what eventually led to the rise of Slimes as an intelligent species - before then, there was no intelligent life on the planet.

The cause would have to be unnatural, because I'm pretty sure there’s no natural way for a planet to just lose all its water. So I think some advanced spacefaring species came and drained most of the water off of Slimeworld for some reason. Why? Who knows, they’re probably all dead now.

This catastrophe left almost no habitats for slimes to live in. The surface-dwelling species almost all died immediately, with only a few hanging on in obscure corners of the world. The ones in the caves were a little safer, but not for long, because the devastation wasn’t just limited to slimes!

The extreme damage to Slimeworld’s environment killed off most life on the planet. The ancient cave slimes thrived for a little while! Dead stuff falling into caves from above had always been their main food source. But eventually the fallout of the drought settled and the famine hit them too.

Food was scarce and it wasn’t coming to them anymore. Anything that wanted to eat on this new world needed to be able to survive and ideally travel long distances in the harsher climates of the outside world. Most cave slimes couldn’t do that, so most cave slimes died off. But a few had mutations that let them do just well enough to survive. Those were the ones that evolved into Jevin’s species!

Ancient slimes spent a long time hanging around cave mouths, rolling out at night to find food and retreating back during the day. The ones that got the furthest and still managed to make it back were the most successful. The first big break of the Slime species in terms of intelligence was when they started carrying their shelter around with them instead of having to hide every day.

That’s right: the first human technology was sharp stick, but the first Slime technology was leaf hat.

Physiology of Slimes!

Ancient slimes started out pretty much the same as slime molds here on Earth. They were colonies of individual organisms that all acted together like a single body, but could survive just fine on their own. However over time they evolved to become more and more dependent on the colony, and the cells became more and more specialized. Now they’re something in between a colony and an individual! Each cell of their body is technically a different organism, but they can’t function outside of the colony. Also, each colony does have a single consciousness, they’re not hiveminds.

They evolved like this because in the harsh environment of the drought, a single cell would die in minutes. A colony could retain moisture for much longer! The fact that colonies were now staying together all the time let them start to evolve more internal organization, which led to the evolution of intelligence!

Slimes are very structurally simple. A slime is made up of a jelly-like mass and a more rubbery, less malleable core.

The jelly layer cells have a unique structure - under a microscope they kind of look like sea urchins, but with long flexible tendrils instead of spines. The way they tangle and cling lets the slime hold together and keep its structure instead of melting!

The tendrils also act as transmitters and receptors for the electrical signals sent out by the slime’s “brain.” Each cell is in constant communication with all the cells around it, which is how a slime moves and controls its body. They also pass nutrients to each other based on chemical signals!

However the structure of these cells means that they lose water very easily. In hot or dry environments, the tendrils of the cells retract to reduce the amount of surface area that water can escape from. This means they don’t cling together as easily, and the slime “melts.” Enough time in its melted state and the cells start to die because nutrients aren’t being passed around the body like they should be.

The jelly-layer cells are all pretty much interchangeable. They’re also very adaptable! When exposed to open air, jelly cells lock up their tendrils and partially dehydrate themselves, passing the liquid back into the mass of jelly behind them. The result is the thin, rubbery “skin” of a slime’s body. This was the most crucial adaptation that allowed modern Slimes’ ancestors to survive the drought, since it drastically improves their ability to retain water.

The core cells are different, more structured. The core is a slime’s brain. If most of a slime’s body is like jelly, the core would be like stringy algae. It’s still very flexible and malleable, but if it tears or breaks, that damage can’t just be healed by squishing the parts back together. The brain is usually kept scrunched up safely in the middle of the slime’s body, and there’s a dense layer of more rubbery jelly surrounding it.

Slimes can digest almost any organic material, but a lot of the life on their planet evolved to be toxic to them, and if something is toxic to slimes you better believe it’s toxic to most everything else. There are a lot of really weird toxins native to Slimeworld!

Culture of Slimes!

First I’ll just copy/paste the ask about Slime fashion I sent to martuzzio a while ago since I am still enamored with it:

idea: since they're blind, Jevin's species's fashion is entirely based around the vibrations they make when they contact whatever surface they're moving on. you pick up different materials or combinations of material depending on what "look" you're going for and hold it on the outside of your body. they could use all kinds of material for this - cloth, metal, powders, whatever. you arrange different items in patterns on your surface to create different "outfits" (soundscapes) of vibration. the more complex the pattern, the fancier and more formal the "dress." this stuff makes it a bit more difficult to move since it reduces their traction, and it also takes effort to maintain more complicated "outfits", so dressing up is really only for formal situations or showing off. casual dress is keeping just a few things you like the sound of on your surface, and it's also perfectly acceptable to wear nothing at all. of course this all looks really weird to people with eyes.

Slime language doesn’t just involve sound. It also incorporates chemical signals (which give a sense of the slime’s mood and fulfill the same function as body language does for us humans) and touch. Two slimes having a conversation will press tendrils of their body together and communicate with something like a cross between braille and sign language. This is actually the main component of their language - sound is kind of secondary. It’s impossible for a non-slime to “speak” the slime language without the help of technology, and slimes can’t make the range of sounds that humans do with their vocal cords. Fortunately they can hear at least as well as humans and using a soundboard to talk is pretty intuitive for them!

Most slime cities are either underground or underwater. The oceans of Slimeworld are pretty densely populated! It actually led to a lot of environmental problems in the Slime species’s history, because there isn’t a ton of ocean left to live in. A lot of aquatic animals on the planet went extinct during the slimes’ industrial revolution a thousand years or so ago.

Slimes obviously don’t have visual art since they’re blind. Some of the main art forms of the species are perfume and culinary art! Because of all the stuff on their planet that’s toxic to them, slimes evolved a very keen sense of taste/smell. They can detect minuscule amounts of a chemical. Most other species can’t appreciate their art because their senses aren’t fine enough to pick up on all the subtle flavors and smells! Also slimes’ ideas about what tastes and smells good can be... eccentric.

They also do sculpture and music. They have some really awesome musical instruments because they can shape their body to whatever shape it needs to be to use the instrument!

Personal space isn’t really a thing in slime culture. Their language requires being in constant contact to speak, so casual touch with strangers isn’t just normal, it’s the polite thing to do. If there’s a group of slimes in a room, each one is pretty much always touching at least one or two others. Blobbing together is natural for them!

...aaand that’s all I got for now, because it’s 4:30 AM. I hope this is coherent because I didn’t really edit it! If you have literally any questions at all please let me know! because there are certainly details that didn’t make it in here!!

[lethesomething]

Ghost of Tsushima and the Hands of Fate

I see we're still trying to prove that games are an art form by making everyone feel bad.

For the record, Ghost of Tsushima is one of my favourite games in a very long time. It is extremely pretty, the aesthetic and general … polish is *cheff's kiss*. You can pet foxes and backstab people. The fighting mechanic is decent and there are just So Many Hats.

But also, it has the kind of story that pulls you in to the point where you have to drop the controller to hide behind your fingers going 'ohgodno'.

It is an absolute bastard of a game, is what i'm saying.

So let's talk about that, and specifically about Straw Hat Ryuzo and how I feel bad for him.

I am, by the way, going to be talking about the narrative structure of a video game about medieval samurai, so expect like, a bunch of spoilers.

The narrative is one of the big draws in Ghost of Tsushima. Like yes, it's an open world rpg with fighting and flower picking and all the important stuff, and also yes, some of the bits are sloppily written (looking at you, specifically, 'Ending to Norio's Arc'), but the game definitely sets out to Tell a Story.

And because this is a Serious Game that openly bases itself on samurai movies like Kurosawa's, it is a Drama.

In many ways it is an utterly brutal Bildungsroman, a narrative in which a young man finds his identity.

I have joked with friends about the clear intent for this game to make Important Stories, in that it actually tries to tick all the boxes of hotbutton subjects: childhood trauma? Obviously. Gay relationships?  Yup. Survivor's guilt and PTSD? Oh yes. Domestic abuse? Several. Suggested pedophilia? Damn, even that.

The foxes are there to soothe the soul

It's interesting to note that from a writing point of view, this bildungsroman is even Very Classically Structured. It goes so far as to be a three acter, with a pretty standard build-up.

 Jin Sakai, traumatized man that he is, spends the first act slowly getting to grips with the bit where you don't fight an army by yourself by  just walking up to them and challenging them With Honour, like he has been taught his entire life. Instead of getting stabbed repeatedly in the chest and set on fire, he  discovers guerilla warfare and creates this persona of the Ghost, a literal vengeful spirit seeking justice for the island of Tsushima.

It gets him some big wins and in the second act he slowly embraces this identity until things get to a head where he clashes with his entire old life. The third act starts at the hero's lowest point and is utterly gut wrenching (i am Still Not Over the horse, game), forcing him to pull himself together for an ending that is, well…fitting for the narrative. It's an ending that is needed, but perhaps not what Jin deserves.

 But anyway, this is about Ryuzo, and how until that ending, I was very upset about his role.

You see, this story is told in part through the lives of Important Npc's, who contribute to Jin's journey of self-discovery. This is pretty obvious with someone like Yuna, who is the one to introduce him to the Stealth Life and who is a driving force behind the marketing of the Ghost.

Someone like Masako, meanwhile, portrays vengeance and self discipline, but Jin also kinda tries to make her fill the mother-shaped hole in his heart.

Lord Shimura, meanwhile, is an Obvious Father figure but also stands for Jin's past. He's rigid and ineffective, which pushes Jin to further look for alternatives.

Ishikawa, that other mentor figure, is more moderate and flexible, but he also represents a possible unwanted future. He literally warns Jin at one point not to become like him.

Norio, then, is as mentioned not the best written, but he too is a person that searches for his destiny and tries to become like his hero, while only barely holding on to his sanity. 

Kenji, I'm sorry, I love you but you're just comic relief, that's all you do. It's an imporant job in the story, because god does it need it, but you're not teaching Jin anything other than how to make different 'resigned sigh' noises.

So what about Ryuzo? From the very beginning, Ryuzo's story didn't really sit right with me. There's the obvious class issue: he's one of the few important npc's that are poor, and he's an Antagonist.

It has always rubbed me the wrong way that his original intentions were good, depending on how you read it. He's trying to feed his men. He essentially made the decision that this one man's life (even if it is an old friend) is worth the price for the lives of his band of ronin.

It's a lot more complex than that, of course. Ryuzo partly blames Jin for his predicament in life, and he also knows that samurai treat their soldiers as chattel, which the game goes out of its way to show you they DO.

  Essentially, he's a complicated character who makes bad decisions for arguably good reasons.

Ryuzo did everything he could to save the lives of the people he cared about. He went so far as to abandon his honor and his childhood friends, to try to make this happen.

Does that ring any bells?

It kinda clicked for me at the very end of the game.

Jin, being the protag in an assassin game, does a lot of killing. But some of these deaths are given more meaning than others. Some of them are there to make you feel like shit (the Horse Again, but you lose several friends along the way), others serve a more defining purpose.

You see, there's a fair amount of what i'd like to call 'intimate violence' in Ghost of Tsushima. It's an old trope. The 'if someone was gonna kill me, it had to be you' kinda scene that hails from a worldview in which some deaths are better than others, sure, but some deaths are better even than living. It's a worldview in which life itself is less valuable than your legacy. You die for your place in history. For your clan, for your family, for your honor.

Bushido is full of that sort of thing, so it makes sense that a game building on that worldview, would use the heck out of that trope.

  The first is Ryuzo's death. You fight him in a duel, in which he tries to plead for some resolution. You could let him go, come up with some story. But Ryuzo is a traitor, so Jin ultimately defeats him and sends him off in what would be a touching moment of bro friendship if it wasn't for the blood and my 21st century sensibilities.

You grant him a warrior's death, is what I'm saying.

  It happens again with Shimura. The game actually gives you a choice here, but if you go through with it, the scene almost perfectly mirrors Ryuzo's.

You fight in a duel, and Jin tries to get his uncle to just let him go, come to some kind of resolution. But Jin has been branded a traitor, and the only way for Shimura to restore his honour and clan, is to take his life;

This being a game in which you have the power of bamboo strikes and also save games behind you, Jin ultimately wins the duel, and has the option of granting Shimura a warrior's death.

It is utterly heart wrenching and that whole scene has no business being as pretty as it is. The swelling music? The fucking strings? The anguished yell?

Fuck.

  But anyway.

That's about where it clicked with me, that Jin never had a choice.

Ryuzo's whole role wasn't fair, but this is one of those stories where life itself is just not fair at all.

Both him and Shimura are there to show us Jin's path.

  What if, the game says, Jin had listened? What if he'd taken one of several offers the Khan made and surrendered?

What if he'd cooperated?

Well, we see in Graphic Detail what would happen. He would get pushed into doing horrific things. He gets manipulated, again and again, until there is no way out anymore. At some point it becomes clear to him that he's on the wrong side but whenever he tries to devise some plan to turn things around, things go Badly. He's firmly stuck in Khotun's web and the only way out is death.

But what if, the game says, Jin had stayed true to his honour? What if he had listened to his uncle, not defied him, if he had dropped the Ghost before it was too late?  If he'd gone full bushido and repented for the shogun and done all the groveling and the proper stuff.

Samuraihood is just another straightjacket, says Shimura's fate. The tenets are so rigorous you would take your loved ones life, while fucking bawling your eyes out. Shimura knows damn well it's unfair but he also has no way to leave this path. It's a ride he cannot, and will not, get off alive.

  Jin never had a choice.

There was only ever one way for him to go.

Like let's be real: pretty much everyone in this story was dealt a bad hand. It's a narrative about resilience in the face of utter horror, of reinventing yourself and giving up entire structures of faith. People like Masako, Yuna, Norio are finding peace in dealing with huge levels of trauma and regret.

The goal isn't to start a family and live happily ever after, it's to Survive.

Submitting to the mongols would have killed Jin's spirit. Standing tall and rigid as he was taught to do would have, ultimately, killed him as well.

  "I've given up everything to save these people", he says near the end. "And I would do it again."

That's someone who has no regrets.

Jin never could have taken another path and he knows it.

And this is why Ryuzo needed a fate as shitty as his. He fell, so Jin could walk.

I'm sorry, it's still not fair.

This game needs some comfort fic.

[myaekingheart]

kakashi for the ask game! :D

Oh this is gonna be dangerous xD (and also really fucking long I’m so sorry lmfao)

send me a character and i’ll list...

favorite thing about them It’s so hard to pick, but I think his resilience. Kakashi has genuinely been through hell and back and yet he keeps going. His character development in Naruto is one of my absolute favorite things, the way he starts out as this seemingly apathetic but deep down very guarded character who ultimately grows to love his students and make peace with his past and finally find some happiness. He’s the man who lost everything and still keeps going and maybe it’s just because I, too, am a depressed bitch but that’s always bee super comforting to me and felt very reassuring. Like if Kakashi can hit rock bottom but pull himself up out of that pit and find happiness and success, then so can I.

least favorite thing about them I don’t even know if I have a least favorite thing about him. I honestly love everything about him. I guess the closest thing I can get to a least favorite thing would be that I wish we saw more of him goofing off and having tons of fun like when he and Guy raced in Shippuden. Hearing Kakashi laugh and joke around was just so good for my soul.

favorite line Oh no there are so many, I can’t pick just one. My favorite contenders are: “Leaf Village Secret Finger Jutsu: One Thousand Years of Death!” “Behind this mask...is another mask! Pretty cool, huh?” “I’m telling you this because you don’t get it. You think you get it which is not the same as actually getting it, get it?” “Those who break the rules are scum but those who would abandon a comrade are worse than scum” “I won’t allow my comrades to die. I’ll protect you with my life. Trust me.” “It’s like an acorn.” “Sorry I’m late, I’m afraid I got lost on the path of life.” “Sorry I’m late, a black cat crossed my path and I had to take the long way around.” “For those who follow the path of revenge, it never ends well. You’ll only tear yourself apart and even if you succeed and you get your revenge, what will you get then? Nothing. Emptiness.” “So it looks like neither of us have led a charmed life exactly. But still, we’re not all that bad off. At least you and I have found new comrades to help fill the void.” “Calm down, Naruto. Slow your breathing down” (mainly because this scene just gets me every time as someone who has had severe panic attacks for twenty years lmfao) There was also another “sorry I’m late” excuse that I don’t remember exactly and cannot for the life of me find but it was from a picture I saw somewhere, looked like it was maybe from a video game? Where Kakashi said something to genin Naruto and Sakura about the path of love or something? And they’re staring at him flustered pointing insisting “That’s...a lie!” Like I can recall the image clear as day in my head but I cannot for the life of me find it.

brOTP Hands down Guy. I mean, I ship them, too, but I just really love their friendship especially. Guy just really brings out the best in him and provides this really nice foil to Kakashi’s personality. I genuinely think Kakashi would’ve been done for if not for Guy’s loyalty and optimism. Their friendship is so fun and the two of them together never fail to make me smile.

OTP Does my KakashixOC ship count? Because if it does, then that’s my OTP. I have spent way too much time and energy on their relationship for it to not be. That probably sounds super cliche and maybe a little Mary-Sue-ish but I don’t even care, Rei and Kakashi are my magnus opum and I love them. I’m also just really, really proud of the way I’ve written their relationship. So much of their bond is informed by my own relationship with my fiance, and I think my own experiences have really evolved my understanding of what real intimacy in a romantic relationship looks like. It’s not so much about flowers and chocolates and date nights as it is about caring for and comforting the person you love, spending quality time with them, making them laugh and smile, being 110% yourself around them, and providing for them in their times of need. I have never written a relationship so real and specifically raw before, and there’s a lot of intricacies that I’ve worked in as well, that just overall make me incredibly proud of the progress I’ve made on their story, and proud of the story I’ve been creating for them in general. But if an OC ship doesn’t count for OTP, I really like Kakashi with Shizune, Guy, Yamato/Tenzo, and Iruka.

nOTP Oh god I have quite a few. I really don’t enjoy focusing on negatives nor do I want to start ship wars so I’ll keep these explanations brief. I can’t stand Kakashi and Sakura, the mere thought of it makes me *this close* to puking. I take big issue with ships in general between characters that met when one of them was a child and the other an adult, though. It just comes off incredibly pedophilic to me and makes me nauseous. The other big ship I take issue with is Kakashi and Rin but that’s more of a personal issue because their relationship, and Rin’s character in general, hit way too close to home (in a very warped and psychotically symbolic way) to some really traumatic stuff I dealt with in the past that took me years and lots of therapy to deal with, and it still trips me up to this day. It’s not anything that anyone in fandom has done or anyone who ships Kakashi and Rin with each other, it’s just a matter of me noticing parallels between the ship and my own trauma that make it incedibly hard for to tolerate content of it. Just to tack these on, as well, but I also really dislike him with Hanare from the filler episode and with Kahyo from the book Lightning in the Icy Sky. The romance with Hanare just felt really disingenuous to me like I can tolerate it, but it’s not my favorite. And as for Kahyo, I blame bad writing. The fact that the book was referring to her as “the woman who has Kakashi’s heart” literally within like two pages of them meeting really pissed me off. I couldn’t even finish the book so I can’t even speak on the rest of the relationship but I just got so turned off by the entire story in general because the romance was so unbelievable and abrupt. I feel like anyone who has read my fic, though, likely has picked up on my opinions on these, though. Not that I’m writing ship hate or anything because I’m not, but there have been little plot points here and there that have kind of touched on my feelings on these ships.  

random headcanon I have way too many but here’s one of them, I guess, though this is more a musing than a headcanon. I think, when the war is over and Kakashi can finally catch his breath, he goes through a bit of an identity crisis as he comes to terms with the fact that he no longer has his sharingan. After all, he had Obito’s eye for almost twenty years. Learning to function without it is going to be incredibly difficult but not only that, so much of his identity was founded on his secondhand sharingan. Who even is he without it? Does he even recognize himself anymore? And how can he ever live up to the reputation he’s garnered over so many years now that the source of all of his power is gone for good? Yes, he was a prodigy before the sharingan and he is still capable without it, but it’s going to be a big change and take a huge toll on him and his perception of himself.

unpopular opinion I’m glad Kakashi has never been given an explicitly canon love interest. Honestly, I don’t want him to have one. As much as he deserves to find love and start a family with someone, from a fandom perspective I much prefer him being open and available. It creates a much more flexible interpretation of him and his love life so that we, the fans, can write him however we damn well please and I think that’s pretty fantastic. I think it’s safe to say that Kakashi is one of if not the most heavily shipped character in the fandom and everyone has very strong opinions on who he belongs with and even how he idenifies from a sexuality perspective. I can only imagine the uproar that would come from finally giving him a canon love interest because you absolutely cannot please everyone. In a way, I feel like Kakashi is just a character who belongs to all of us. He is something different for every single person in fandom whether that’s someone to look up to and seek guidance from, someone to protect and root for, someone to relate to and find comfort in, someone to love and/or lust after. Or in my case a precious emotional support ninja husbando. I don’t know if he would’ve had quite the same effect on fandom if he had been canonically shipped with someone from the get-go, but I’m grateful that he never was and I hope he never will be so he can continue playing the role in fandom that he has been for so many years. That probably sounds selfish, though, but I just really want him to remain a character that belongs to all of us and is not inhibited by canon in terms of who he loves and how he identifies.

song i associate with them Again, there’s so fucking many so I’m just gonna list some of my favorites. Sign by Flow Friendships by Pascal Letoublon Hospital for Souls by Bring Me the Horizon SCARECROW by My Chemical Romance Disguise by Motionless in White-- this is a big one, especially the line “sick of wearing a mask, sick of hiding my face, sick of every motherfucker that is in my way, sick of digging for answers while you bury the truth, fuck your method to my sadness, I will bury you” like it just reminds me of ANBU Kakashi specifically, but overall his character development in coming to terms with his past and crawling out of his depression, too.

favorite picture of them Again...there’s multiple x_x

[letterboxd]

For Sama.

“I think I crossed a lot of lines. One of the important reasons I had no limitations was because while I was filming, I never expected to stay alive.” —Waad al-Kateab, director of For Sama, newly minted Oscar nominee and Letterboxd’s highest-rated documentary of 2019.

In an awards season where the Academy Awards’ Best Director nominees are all male, it’s in the Documentary Feature category that you’ll find the women, on four out of the five nominated films: Julia Reichert (a director of American Factory), Petra Costa (director of The Edge of Democracy), Tamara Kotevska (co-director of Honeyland), and Waad al-Kateab, one half of For Sama’s directing team. (The final nominee is Feras Fayad’s The Cave, notably produced by Kirstine Barfod and Sigrid Jonsson Dyekjær.)

For Sama began as a record of the tragedies that so many don’t see, and turned into an essential, enormous archive of footage taking the documentary world by storm this awards season. There have been, and will be, many other documentaries about Syria, but what makes For Sama unique is its female eye behind the camera.

Looking forward to a future as a new mother and young wife to the love of her life, Hamza, Waad al-Kateab was never afforded the freedom to simply savor young motherhood. From age 21 she filmed the horrors and small joys of every-day life in rebel-held Aleppo covering five years of political uprising. This included the taxing day-to-day work of her doctor husband and their friends in the small hospital they ran on courage and donations.

That Waad made it out of Syria with her 500 hours of footage is no small miracle. Having gained refuge in London, she partnered with Emmy-award winning director Edward Watts to shape the film. We see her grow as a storyteller and become more courageous in her focus, zooming closer into wounds and keeping the camera rolling, even when those on screen are drawing their very last breaths.

For Sama has made waves around the world since premiering at SXSW in 2019. It’s an overwhelming experience; fearless filmmaking that captures the immense and urgent extremities of human joy and suffering. David Ehrlich called the film a “bracingly horrific yet resiliently beautiful documentary”. Graham Williamson noted that “beauty, in For Sama, is a reminder of humanity, a reminder that people still live and give birth and play and laugh and fall in love in these places, as well as just die”. Many other Letterboxd members could only quote al-Kateab’s poetic narration directly, to describe their intense emotional responses to the film:

“My first baby, Sama. Her name is meaning ‘the sky’. Sky we love, sky we want. Without air forces. Without bombing. Sky with sun, with clouds. With birds.”

This is what the filmmaker says of her daughter, epitomizing the hope that was never lost, that allowed her to be where she is today. Waad and Edward spoke to Letterboxd correspondent Ella Kemp just as our 2019 Year in Review went live, with their film topping the documentary list.

‘For Sama’ director Waad al-Kateab.

For Sama is the highest-rated documentary of 2019 on Letterboxd. It’s also the highest rated feature-length documentary of the 2010s, and is in our top ten documentaries of all-time. How does that make you feel? Edward Watts: That’s incredible.

Waad al-Kateab: To know that and to see that the film isn’t just doing well as a Syrian mission but in the film industry, it really means a lot to us.

EW: And to know that it’s reaching so many people is such good news. The dream was always that the film would reach many people and they would come in contact with this incredible story.

How did the film come together from over 500 hours of footage? WaK: I worked with Ed for two years to shape the film’s story, to decide what we wanted to keep and take out. We were open to trying everything. We had really amazing editors who were also so flexible with us and would let us try anything.

EW: It was about the meeting of our two perspectives as well. Obviously Waad had lived the experience, she was the insider. It was her story and in so many ways it was her people’s story, and I was coming to it from the point of view of an audience, of an outsider, albeit one that cared passionately about Syria and what happened there. The beginning part of the process was understanding our two perspectives and what was important to both of them, where they met in the middle. It was like sculpting, gradually working down this huge, extraordinary and powerful archive, and the shape of the film gradually taking form.

Ed, you’ve praised Waad’s footage for capturing “the full spectrum of humanity”. How did you find that balance in the final cut? EW: That was one of the reasons it took two years—it was a very complicated process to find that balance. In a lot of our earlier versions we didn’t have that balance. When it was told chronologically, you started in a place of light and hope, those positive emotions of the early days of the revolution. But then it was kind of a straight line down into the darkness and you ended with this long section during the siege and all of the hardship that involved.

It was too much, the audiences we showed early on became overwhelmed by the darkness at the end. It was a real journey. Because that wasn’t the truth of the experience, that was clear from the footage but also from Waad and Hamza themselves. The truth of the experience was that full spectrum of human emotion, so it was about finding the best way to reflect that by always thinking to ourselves, we’ve just had something really horrific, how do we bring it to the light? How do we keep it moving so that we never get stuck in one emotional place? When we changed the chronological structure to move around in time, that helped hugely.

Waad, in this film you’re omnipresent as a filmmaker, a citizen journalist, a mother, a wife. How do you see these roles informing each other? WaK: They were all mixed together while working on the film and living in those circumstances. In one second it was most important to be the journalist and the filmmaker, focusing on how I should shoot something, but then it would always still be so important to keep my awareness as a mother to protect my child and keep hope all the time. Sometimes you feel as a mum that you can’t leave, that you can’t film and abandon the one-year-old child—but this is what life was in those circumstances, it’s all mixed. I was just trying to live everything as much as I could to give it the right work and effort.

The finished product frames women’s domesticity in an urgent way. There’s war, there’s violence, there’s men fighting, but there’s also all the women behind and alongside it. WaK: In all the films and reports from Syria, we’ve never felt like our voice is heard. Even if there are female characters in movies, no one has their own voice in that loud way. There are layers of feeling happening very deeply to reflect the truest experience. We’ve never seen films like this. When I was doing the film I was focusing on how I can reflect the experience exactly, one that can speak to everything I love, everything I hate, everything I was scared about, to be honest with all the women and mothers who lived through that, who can see themselves in my shoes and see what I’ve done for Sama and for my work as well.

You film so viscerally, always going further, rather than choosing when to censor or cut away. Were there ever lines you felt you couldn’t cross? WaK: I think I crossed a lot of lines. One of the important reasons I had no limitations was because while I was filming, I never expected to stay alive. In everything I was doing, I thought, I could be dead tomorrow. So I kept filming, going deeply through all the fears we were living. It allowed me to be okay with everything, because I’m not a foreign journalist coming to film other people’s suffering. I’m living through that, and I know exactly what it means. I think that’s why if I were to make the film now and I knew I would survive, there might be many things I wouldn’t have filmed in that way.

Hamza al-Kateab, in white coat, holding his daughter Sama, with fellow hospital staff in rebel-held Aleppo.

When did you decide on the perspective of the narration, in addressing the film to Sama, Waad’s daughter? EW: The idea didn’t come until we were two thirds of the way through the whole process of crafting the film. When you’re living with this material for so long, suddenly you can hear it in a different way and suddenly it begins to speak to you. It was a moment of epiphany where we tuned into that essence of the film, not only in the way that Waad and Hamza had lived was for Sama, but the way Waad had shot the footage had a conversation going on with Sama, even before Sama was born, in the way Waad filmed her pregnancy. It was just one of those moments where we found the key that unlocked everything, and everything fell into place. Hamza is a very stoical person, but we called him up when we had this idea and Waad explained, and he started crying. That’s how we knew it was a good idea.

WaK: By linking everything to Sama, it becomes about not just Sama as my daughter but also as an idea of the future in general, hope, everything we were fighting for. Sama was one simple example of why the struggle existed. Everyone around me felt they could name the film for their own kids too. It really touched everyone who went through that experience in different ways. Everyone who has kids, everyone who dreams of having kids, even those who don’t want to bring kids into this world but have a stake in the future and are fighting for something for themselves, or for their country, or for their life.

You’ve said before that films can’t change the world. What do you hope for the legacy of For Sama? WaK: Films can’t change the world but people can. People who could be engaged in the film and really want to do something. That’s why we didn’t stop at making For Sama a film—that’s why we launched our impact campaign, Action For Sama. We ask people to react to what’s happening right now in Syria, to the bombing of hospitals and civilians, to make a movement.

EW: I had this great conversation, admittedly with one of those people you find in Los Angeles full of wacky ideas. I said, “films can’t change the world,” and he said, “man, what are you talking about! Your film is changing the soul of mankind!”. It was a bit much, but there’s something about this film that has connected people with what happened in Syria in such a visceral, emotional and personal way.

I wonder whether maybe it is part of the change that’s happening, that hopefully people will start seeing how connected we all are and that one day we might not live in a world where crimes are committed with impunity in the Middle East or elsewhere and we wring our hands and say that there’s nothing we can do. I really hope that this film is part of this sense that in order to solve the world’s problems and to stand up against these crimes and these tyrants, we all need to work together.

What film first made you want to be a filmmaker? EW: My parents were never together, and I only saw my dad once a month. He was a huge film lover, that was the thing that he chose us to bond over. He showed me Yellow Submarine, that trippy Beatles film. I got obsessed with the flying glove. And then he showed me a film called Séance on a Wet Afternoon, and I watched that when I was eight and didn’t know what the hell was going on. There was something about his passion for film that I drank in at a very early age.

WaK: I really don’t know the answer and have never thought about it. Even when I started filming, I’d never really thought I would be in this position as a director. What really makes me want to make films is the fact that we had such a lack of media and freedom in our country. Because we felt that there was nothing allowed to us, not to watch, not to do. Everything was totally under their control. That’s why I felt that I wanted to do something we couldn’t really hear or see before, which is why For Sama came to be.

What do you think of the specific strength of documentary as a form? WaK: I didn’t really watch many other things in the past. I’ve been watching documentaries here, one of the things I watched and really loved was American Factory. The other one was The Great Hack. The Biggest Little Farm, One Child Nation. Most of the people who are with us in this category! The only thing I knew about documentary was my point of view. When I watch these other movies, I admire all these people and love their films, and enjoy how you can see the world through different points of view.

EW: This is the great age for documentary. I’ve been making docs for over ten years. I think documentary is the right form for these crazy days we’re living through. These days of great turbulence, when the history of humanity is at such a critical juncture. I think documentaries in their reality, in their ability to tell us so much about who we really are, and these amazing people who are around the world, living extraordinary lives and showing the best of courage and humanity and difficult circumstances, I think that’s why they’re resonating more and more. Because sadly the world is more and more troubled.

One of the earliest documentaries that I loved was Burma VJ: Reporting from a Closed Country—it was just an example of a country I’d never been to, a story that was so hard to tell, and yet, similar to this, it was told through the footage of the people who had actually lived through it. It’s such an extraordinary story of hope, and human beings’ desire for freedom, and then the violence of dictators that crashed that. Nothing like a documentary can capture that emotion when you’re dealing with events of such magnitude.

Which Syrian filmmakers and films should Letterboxd members seek out? WaK: There’s a filmmaker called Ossama Mohammed, he has a film called Silvered Water. There’s also Omar Amiralay, and Ziad Kalthoum, who did Taste of Cement. There are so many about people who maybe you haven’t heard of, but who really created cinema for Syria, who were trying to work in very hard circumstances while everything was happening.

Sama, with sign.

On the red carpet in Cannes you held up a sign: “Stop bombing hospitals”. What do you feel about your role at these kinds of events across awards season? WaK: I see myself as a Syrian woman who believes in this cause, and that’s why I made the film. I really believe that any filmmaker has a cause in their life and that’s why they’re really doing a lot things, out of passion. On every platform we can reach with For Sama, it really needs to be about Syria, and for Syria, and for the people, for this experience which I can’t just move on from.

That’s why we held the signs, that’s why in everything we are trying to do now, it’s always about how we can shed light on what’s happening. I hope we can continue to do that. We don’t do films for nothing. We want to be useful as much as we can, to be the voice for our own people and doing more for the future.

‘For Sama’ is currently streaming on PBS Frontline in the US and on Channel 4 in the UK. The 92nd Academy Awards will be held on 9 February 2020. All images courtesy of PBS Distribution.

[roll3d6inorder]

Daughter of the White Stag

Str 10

Dex 13

Con 13

Int 15

Wis 17

Cha 7

Really lucky rolls here! Only charisma is bad, which is bad for, like, half the classes in the game, but those classes are almost all flexible enough to live without it. Everything else is looking good! Let’s see what our race and class are.

Shifter

Bard

And speak of the devil, there’s one of them now!

Of course we get a charisma class! Just our luck. But, the Bard is one of those classes that can make use of any ability score, at least through skills, and a descent Dex and Con means we can be a fine sword-fighter. I’m just glad we didn’t get saddled with a Sorcerer. I mean, what would we do with that?

Our class is versatile and so is our race. For the purposes of being a strong duelist (who’s just pretending he knows how to entertain or inspire people) we’ll either want Beasthide or Swiftstride. Swiftstride would give us a small leg up to try and dig ourselves out of our charisma hole, but frankly it seems like a lost cause. For this reason, let’s go Beasthide.

Dex 14

Con 15

As you might imagine, we’re going with one of the martial-focused colleges, but which should we choose? Valor gives us access to shields while Swords gives us a fighting style. Both of the extra ways to use our inspiration are mostly pointless because without charisma we’re only getting one day. The difference is essentially between Valor for defense or Swords for offense. As much as I would like to double-down on defense to make up for our 1d8 hit die, I feel like Swords is the better choice overall. We can also cast spells with our hands full of weapons as Swords, which is not too great for us because we have terrible casting stats, but we’ll make that work for us as well. 

Tally grew up in a hamlet high in the hills where travelers seldom came. All she knew of the world, she learned from her mother. Her mother was a bard and a storyteller, known throughout the world for her songs and tall-tales. Tally wished she could be a part of those stories, but never seemed to get the hang of writing them herself. She read though, read whatever she could get her hands on throughout her whole childhood, just waiting for the chance to live these adventures herself when she was older. When she did get older, though, something changed. Her body changed, more than the other girls at school. She was a Shifter, and she believed she knew why. Her mother’s magnum opus was about a hunt for a great white stag, and how all the great hunters who tried could not catch it, but how a woman with a sweet song of longing was able to draw it to her. It took human form and became her husband. They were happy together, until one day the hunters found him and chased him away, leaving her heartbroken. These lovers, she decided, were her mother and father. She left home, then, to search for her father as well as to discover the truth about herself in the wilderness. For years she searched, coming up empty, learning patience, learning to cooperate with others on her path, and learning a great deal about her body and the forces of nature. Her fathers trail eventually lead her to the city, where perhaps that form-shifting fey was hiding out. Here, she made a living by using her skills as a tracker in bounty hunting. She believes that patience and diligence will surely lead to her success, as it does for all things. 

Level 1

Background: Urban Bounty Hunter

Insight and Stealth

Bard 1

Animal Handling, Medicine, Survival

Athletics and Perception (from race)

Dancing Lights and Message 

Comprehend Languages

Identify

Sleep

Longstrider

Level 2

Bard 2

Feather Fall

Level 3

Bard 3

College of Swords

Fighting Style: Two Weapon Fighting

Expertise: Perception and Stealth

Invisibility

Level 4

Bard 4

ASI

Dex 16

Mage Hand

Heat Metal

Level 5

Bard 5

Non-detection

Level 6

Bard 6

Plant Growth

Level 7

Bard 7

Freedom of Movement

Level 8

Bard 8

Feat: Resilient (Con)

Con 16

Locate Creature

Level 9

Bard 9

Polymorph

Level 10

Bard 10

Mending

Magical Secrets: Booming Blade and Armor of Agathys

Expertise: Medicine and Survival

Basically what we have here is a character who desperately wants to be a Ranger but can’t be. She fights with two weapons and medium armor. She’s all about tracking, hiding, and nature. She has Wisdom for days. She’s just trapped in the body of a Bard.

Despite that, I like her a lot. It’s rare that characters I make have a distinct visual theme (I’m not an artist) but the myth of the White Stag gives me a strong impression what her visual design would include. I’m thinking white fur armor, a helmet with antlers, kind of tall and lanky with long legs like a deer. And when she transforms, those elements of her design would take over as she shifts into her bestial form. It makes me want to use this background to create a more conventional character (again, probably a ranger) to play for myself.

It’s always nice to have a strong theme when I’m choosing spells for a spell-caster as well. You can always just pick “good” spells, but picking spells that fit with a theme gives you the chance to experiment with ones you wouldn’t usually use. Also, of course, I had to pick spells that don’t rely too much on our Charisma, which is still terrible and always will be.

Happy Rolling!

[mtgsharzad]

the cool thing about doomsday is it’s a very efficient tutor for multiple cards

so you can set up your clunky combo onetwothreefourfive justlikethat

(and how do you like your blue-eyed boy mister death)

I. DOOMSDAY CONTEXT AND HISTORY

Doomsday in Constructed is originally a Vintage combo deck that uses Black Lotus to pull off some really quick combo kills. There's a Legacy port of it, which is where most of my knowledge comes from, but it's a different beast without Lotus and Yawgwill. The OG OG OG kill is Lotus, Recall, Mana Vault, Mind's Desire, Beacon of Destruction - so elegant! - but Doomsday decks have killed in a number of ways. Vintage Doomsday is brutal and uncompromising while legacy doomsday is a lot more work than every other combo deck for no discernible edge, so of course I have a soft spot for the card and not the anger it deserves. 

Some early piles used Ill-Gotten Gains, a Storm engine card from a beautiful deck from a bygone age. It was called IGGy Pop, and it abused Ill-Gotten Gains to generate mana and storm and featured Intuition both as part of the combo and a tutor for its initiator (intuition for IGGx3, loop 2 IGGs, Lion's Eye Diamond and cabal ritual for mana and storm, eventually IGG for Intuition for three Tendrils of Agony for lethal). Sometimes you could just use fast mana to slam IGG as a Mind Twist that sets up your combo a turn or two later, also.

Obviously IGG says "each player", so it could only really work in a meta without Force of Will control decks (which indeed is when it lived up until like original rav block) and so it died out. Traditionally you'd get recursion, protection and a kill, cast your Duress first to strip their Force, and then go off. As if Force of Will weren't cruel enough, New Phyrexia dealt the death blow. Now IGG had a real enemy - Misstep on Duress, Force exiling the other blue card. [c=Counterbalance]Counter[/c][c=Sensei's Divining Top]top[/c] control's rise to prominence was also less than kind. Good luck setting up your clunky kill! Doomsday used Top itself (it filters for the combo before you go off and then taps to draw you into it) but didn't really gain an edge until it started to kill with the uncounterable combo of Shelldock Isle casting Emrakul.

Contemporary Doomsday builds usually kill with Lab Maniac in Vintage and Tendrils in Legacy, (siding in to Shelldock/Emrakul against counterspell decks) but they're flexible enough that they can play (and play around) all sorts of things, which is what Doomsday in particular enables. It's not that hard to go through the motions, the challenge is in working out which kill gets around what sideboard hate and how many turns you should do it in.

II. HOW TO PLAY DOOMSDAY

Here's how you build piles: card draw and mana on top, combo and protection in the middle, recursion on the bottom. That's Doomsday, now you know how to pilot Doomsday. You're welcome!

III. DOOMSDAY IN CUBE

Now this is where this post stops being pointless b/c even though Doomsday is allegedly REALLY COMPLEX or whatever it's honestly not that hard to play if you have an idea of what's up and don't care about mastering the deck. Obviously some people have exhaustive tables of potential weirdo combinations (kill around two swords to plowshares and Leyline of Sanctity is one i remember being impressed by) but you're essentially going to look at the resources you have, the kills you have available, and build a pile that takes you from A to B. With fast mana, Brainstorm and recursion, the Eternal formats get a really sweet package out of it.

In the Lab Man case, you need lab man, mana to cast him, a way to draw five cards, and protection for Villain's meddling. Thought Scour is cool because it's not just 3 cards off your pile for 1 mana, it's valid protection against removal (thought scour in response, can't draw the card, win), so where you put it in the stack can depend on what you need it to do. Flexible cards like these are probably key to making Doomsday/Lab Man work in Cube.

The key to porting it to Cube is you probably need to give up on the idea of winning the turn you cast Doomsday. That's fine, I think! It lets us really focus on its strengths and show them off. First off, it's a combo-agnostic tutor; it doesn't care what you wanna do, as long as you don't need more than 5 (12) cards to do it. This excites me because conceivably I (one of my drafters?) could use it to support whatever janky corner-case interaction I think is interesting that draft. It's "for" DDLM combo though, that's just a bonus.

I'll go through a couple of Cubable DDLM piles at the end of the post, so don't worry if this doesn't make sense yet. Doomsday's interesting as a combo enabler in that you're not doing anything to your hand when you cast it. Any spells already in your hand are part of your combo resources, but remember that Doomsday also looks through your graveyard so if your fair spells are part of the combo you get to cast them as fair spells first! This is really key to making it work over other combo archetypes IMO - you can cantrip away in the early game and then have those cantrips all over again post-resolution. 

IV. PRACTICAL EXAMPLES

You do some stuff, maybe draw some cards, make some mana sources, and then you cast Doomsday. We're doing Soft Doomsday here so let's assume we pass the turn and kill next turn or the turn after that. This lets us draw 1 or 2 cards off our pile naturally, which is huge, because then we can build looser piles. Instead of 'draw six cards and you win', we just need to draw 4. It also means we're probably putting protection at the top of our pile so we draw it first. If we don't have any protection, that's okay, we can recur Doomsday somehow, draw into it, and make a new pile (remember, we can tutor from the graveyard).

We drafted Brainstorm, Snapcaster and Unearth, so we'll untap, cast a cantrip from our hand (activate a planeswalker?) to go to 3 cards in deck, and then we'll cast Lab Man. Maybe we fight over it on the stack - maybe we drew into Thoughtseize and that isn't a problem - or maybe Hero (at this point I concede I am in fact the villain here) tries to bolt it immediately. We could either cycle Unearth and then brainstorm in response (winning the game) or wait for Lab Man to die, Unearth it, and hold brainstorm in case there's a second piece of removal. Or just make a pile of Lab Man, recursion, brainstorm, and two flex slots for draw or protection.

Remember for these examples that we're passing the turn and drawing into the first card naturally unless otherwise noted. If you've got a Ponder still in your hand when you cast Doomsday, that resilience should count for something, no? You get to go off a turn faster, and the tightest builds get to go off really early (esp. with Dark Ritual).

Left card is the top of the deck.

'just the brainstorms, thanks' pile: (negate on the bottom brainstorms out a turn faster but doesn't protect your first brainstorm)

'he's already in the lab' pile

'high school boyfriend' pile (eternal witness gets back doomsday but he forgot to bring protection)

'johnny five aces' pile (he gets all the goods)

Conveniently there's actually all sorts of marginal stuff (at a few power levels!) we might already be running to support DDLM combo and probably wouldn't suck that much to include (although I think Brainstorm and Unearth will be key to making it work):

Sensei's Divining Top

Unearth

Thoughtseize

Darkblast

Lotus Petal

Chromatic Sphere

Conjurer's Bauble

Duress

Eternal Witness

Thought Scour

Painful Truths

Tezzeret's Gambit

Breakthrough

Meditate

Dark Ritual

Cabal Therapy

Gitaxian Probe

Brainstorm

Snapcaster Mage

Mnemonic Wall

Ancestral Vision

Relic of Progenitus

Faithless Looting

Red Sun's Zenith

Emerge Unscathed

Chain of Vapor

Ill-Gotten Gains

Unearth is awesome because, like Thought Scour from earlier, it pulls double duty: recurring Lab Man or drawing the last card you need (since if lab man dies in response to the cycle, you'd lose and be unable to unearth regardless). Brainstorm's resolution involves drawing three cards before you put back two; if there's two cards in your library it'll win the game as well. These are the heavy hitters in Cube, but obviously the looseness of the tutor leaves our panicked drafter open to alternatives.

Next time, I’ll talk about the Tendrils of Agony kill, but this has already gone on for long enough. 

ALLEZ CUISINE

[ralfstrashcan]

3x06 Reaction / Commentary (Part 1)

This got so ridiculously out of hand, so I've decided to split it. The second part is linked at the end. Also I got my Malec Feelings all over this post, so. Consider yourself warned.

I somehow didn't register this in 3x01, I only remembered Raphael administering the sleeping potion, but now that I think about it.. why didn't he use this fancy UV flashlight (that totally looks like a Clave invention... just sayin') while she was unconscious? I mean vampires burn in the sun all the time, not just when they're awake. So. Could have spared her the pain. Especially because he administers the potion seconds after the failed attempt. Ah, I get it. If she'd been unconscious the viewer wouldn't have understood that this is painful.

Okay but... where is she? Did she buy all this make-up stuff? (First I thought she was still hanging around the boat house aka Simon's former residence and was a little disconcerted as to the amount of make-up Simon has lying around.) Also with the candles again. It's becoming a running joke.

*sigh* This is so inefficient. And Heidi just applied her make-up perfectly, so she obviously has no problems with fine motor skills. So why do that? To demonstrate her evil-ness? And, really, why do it at all? Isn't the blood tastier coming fresh out of the body? Why collect it in a bowl, wasting two thirds, letting it cool and congeal? Kinda dumb. And what I liked about Heidi so far is that even though she is seriously insane she's still clever.

Sorry, I just had flashbacks to the music video from As Long As You Love Me.

So the show not only remembered that she was eerily absent in the past episode but also has an explanation, I'm impressed.... tho where the hell was she? I mean she's studying at an online college thing, she works at the Hunter's Moon, she has no contact with her family, she probably has no friends outside of the pack (and those are more frenemies than friends) so where the hell was she and why. This really just causes more questions than it gives answers.

So if one attack from Simon's forehead is enough for him to call it a night, why don the armor at all? Didn't really prolong his resilience. (Also is that a camera on his helmet? Why? Does he need documentation of Simon's Mark in action? Then shaky cam footage is of course the way to go, I guess, instead of a camera installed a few meters away with a better vantage point. Also, doesn't he totally risk destroying the camera like this? I don't get it.)

Casually betraying the location of a super elite and probably secretive organization. Nice.

That is a very fine dress

tho I would have gone with a more dainty necklace.

Did that even happen in 2x15 or are they just claiming that in hindsight, because I certainly don't remember it. But, as I already proved my memory is far from perfect.

....yeah, no, let's say it was a joint effort. Haha imagine Saphael sharing custody for Heidi. That's the stuff that crack fics are made of.

Yes it is. I'm not saying it's not relatable, I'm just saying Heidi is right.

Famous last words.

It looks like he's not simply putting the food in his mouth, but sticking his tongue out and putting it on there. I kinda like it, because it shows that even though he's very graceful most of the time he has his inelegant moments, like when he's home in company he feels completely at ease with.

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I find this line incredibly hilarious. And it's further perfected by that sassy coffee sip. It's like talking to someone on a flip phone, hanging up and then additionally flipping it shut. Also it reminded me of the first version of the Sherlock Pilot where they're on their stake out and Sherlock says: Why don't people just think? And John says: Because we're stupid. Followed by aggressively taking a bite

Fork clanking against his teeth and all. I love it.

I was a little disappointed with this turn in conversation. Last episode's set up clearly went in the direction that Alec can't deal with the fact that after his death he'll be next to meaningless to Magnus, Magnus will move on, etc. And even though this is unlikely to happen because Alec is very special to Magnus it could get relevant any second because Alec could die any moment. It makes sense that he's getting worked up about this, especially because the sooner he dies the less time he had with Magnus and the less time he had 'to make an impression on Magnus' or whatever self-deprecating thing he's thinking. What Alec is talking about right now is a different matter entirely, he won't get old suddenly, that'll take at least another thirty years. If not more, because how do Shadowhunters even get feeble when they have runes for flexibility and agility and stuff. Of course he could have an accident and be impaired in the process... but this isn't what he's worried about. He's explicitly worried about the symptoms of old age making him a burden. To worry about that at this point in time is extremely irrational and the fact that Alec does shows that this fear is highly emotional, and it has everything to do with aging because mortality VS not-aging because immortality. (Also it's very sad to witness that Alec is letting go of the hurt he himself experiences at the thought of Magnus moving on and instead focuses on the way his aging might be a bother for Magnus. It's very subtle, but he clearly dismisses his own feelings as irrelevant and concentrates on how this matter might impact Magnus negatively.)

Smooth, tho I believe Alec isn't in the mood for reassurances. He wants facts. He wants a plan. I would have wished for Magnus to say something like 'Imagine the roles are reversed, imagine I had an accident, suddenly without magic, dependent on you. Would you turn me down?' And of course Alec would object loudly, and then Magnus could have turned that around, saying: Then why do you think I'd ever desert you and let you down?

(Those stairs. That carpet!) Alec is barefoot and I really like this detail because it's a very subtle way of showing their domesticity. Also he's eating with a dishtowel on his lap? Like a true gentleman. Also reminded me of this

hehe

Yeah no. That is completely besides the point. If Alec had angsted over being forgotten or not mattering to Magnus after he's dead (like last episode implied) or whatever this might have been a valid point, because then Alec would know that not being in a relationship anymore doesn't necessarily mean he can't on some level still care about that person. But that wasn't Alec's issue here. And I don't see how having a relationship before this would have helped with this. I have to admit tho that after rewatching that scene one could argue that Magnus's heart isn't in this line of reasoning and he's just brainstorming possible causes for Alec's issue.

Edit: I talked a bit (a lot) with @kaysgreenery about this scene and she offered some insight as to why Magnus would say that. Even in a 'normal' (i.e. between two mortals) committed relationship you would probably consider what happens if you grow old, what if you end up a nursing case, how would your partner deal, do you wanna burden them with that, etc. and if Alec had a relationship before he would have had these thoughts before already and wouldn't be so overwhelmed by them now. Also, having a previous relationship could have entailed the experience that there are things about a partner you can never change and have to accept. That makes it a little more understandable for me why he said that, but I still think it's beside the point. For one, Alec tends to overthink. So he wouldn't have needed a relationship to go down that road as soon as he was feeling attraction towards Magnus, who is immortal. Second, I think what factors into Alec's angsting is that in a mortal relationship it's 50/50....... 25/25/25/25 if you or your partner or you both or nobody ends up as a nursing case. In the mortal-immortal relationship its 100% certain that if someone ends up old and frail it'll be Alec. (Okay, Magnus is old already, but you know what I mean.) Third... what relationship exactly does Magnus think would have helped Alec come to terms with this? If he'd dated a Shadowhunter this wouldn't have been an issue, because Shadowhunters have a life expectancy of like 40-50 tops? This is an issue specifically about mortality and immortality clashing, so the relationship Alec should have had to prepare him for this issue would have had to meet specific criteria. Why am I pointing that out? If Magnus had expressed it this way, if he'd said “If you'd been with an immortal before this wouldn't be that much of an issue” it could have made sense. Still would have been kinda insensitive, but made sense. The fact that he's just generally talking about having a relationship makes it sound as if any kind of relationship would have prepared Alec for this, and that's bull. It also shifts the focus to Alec's non-existent relationship experience as if that was what was holding Alec back from accepting this matter easily. And even if he'd said that differently it would be very hypocritical to use a previous relationship with the same conditions as a reason that now you have to just shrug the issue off because you have dealt with it before. Magnus might be over the fact that his mortal lovers will be old and feeble and he maybe even experienced that already and therefore knows he'll stick to them til the very end. But what about the dying bit? He must have experienced that several times (his memento box is proof of that) and still this is clearly a very sensitive topic, and he has problems to accept it. Despite the number of immortal-mortal-relationships he's had. So yeah. Not an argument that makes any sense.

Yes and no. Considering my reasoning just now it totally makes sense for Alec to draw the conclusion that what Magnus is actually saying is “If you weren't a dumb virgin* then you'd deal with this better.” Such a statement is bound to make you feel defensive. Furthermore Alec interprets this as criticism. He said at the beginning of the conversation that this was his problem. Now – from Alec's pov at least – Magnus is pointing out why Alec is having this problem at all, and even if he had a point with this, even if lacking relationship experience really was the cause for this problem.... there's nothing Alec can do about it now. There's nothing to be gained from this statement in ways of practical instruction how to solve this problem but Alec is regarding it as such anyway.

So yeah, Alec isn't putting words in Magnus's mouth, he's just interpreting them in a way Magnus didn't mean them, because obviously. I mean it's clear Magnus wasn't suggesting Alec sleep or date around a bit to deal with his immortality angst.

*I may be reading this wrong because I'm not a native, but while Magnus talks about a 'relationship' Alec uses the term 'sow oats' which, at least in the way it's translated into German definitely puts the focus on sex. They both use the term 'person/guy you/I've been with' and I guess that falls somewhere in between. While watching I definitely got the feeling that Alec was putting the focus on the lack of sexual experience whereas Magnus put it on the lack of interpersonal relationship experience.

This is incredibly condescending and hurtful and it doesn't even make sense, it's just a snappy comeback. Because where is Alec acting like a child? He might be overthinking things in the extreme, and being extra salty, but that is like the opposite of what kids do. Normally when you tell someone to stop acting like a child, you mean take responsibility for your actions or think about the consequences of your actions or even stop behaving stupid. And none of that applies to the situation. And I really can't believe Magnus said something like this when age is clearly part of the issue. Like, what was he even thinking. Nothing probably. Tho it doesn't really fit that he's so deliberately composed and calm through the whole thing and then suddenly he impulsively snaps, saying something totally baseless and nonsensical.

It was in this moment that Magnus knew he f*cked up.

Still, his sigh at the end felt more like an Oh-no-stress-in-da-house-so-annoying-Sigh than an Oh-no-I-screwed-things-up-Sigh.

Well, at least now there's more French Toast left for him, amiright??

“No, I had to go back and fetch socks. That was awkward, let me tell you.”

I like that dress. I normally don't dig the Short-Skirt-Long-Sleeve-Cut but I really like that pattern.

Is it rude that I actually love the fact that Alec snaps at Izzy? Because it really shows how on edge he is. And Izzy is like “Should I call him out on it? Nah, if I do he'll just have one more thing to feel shitty about and he's stressed enough already.” That's some true Izzy Awesomeness at work.

I have so many feelings about that line, and none of them are good. I don't know, I'll probably post something about that line sometime later but I don't want to get into it now. We'll see.

Sassy walk. I like. Also I love that she's wearing a shawl, it's not even mentioned but it's clearly to hide the lack of runes. Great detail. I'm so disappointed we didn't see Maryse getting de-runed, mainly because I was sure the Show had forgotten that there was already a scene showing how de-runing works (Val's Circle Rune in 2x15) and it would differ from that and I was gleefully preparing to point that inconsistency out since 3x03 when I learned about the pending de-runing. Does that make me a bad person? A little bit, maybe.

“Wtf is that for a dumb question, Alec, I thought you were smart.”

Seriously tho. It's widely known that de-runing hurts. Why didn't he just ask if she's alright now or if the pain has faded?

(Also the amount of candles in the background is making me uncomfortable.)

And you pay your rent with what money exactly? Or do you just live at Luke's? If so, why the hell didn't Luke have Simon stay with him instead of shipping him off to Kyle? Ah, because Luke wanted his privacy with Maryse. (If Luke had just said that to Simon's face he probably would have felt a lot less abandoned and maybe even high-five-d him. Just sayin'.)

I mean.... it simply ripped his heart out. I'm pretty sure anyone with a saw and enough determination can manage that. Just sayin'.

And that's the reason why Clary is so....... Clary. She just says stuff like that and I'm like, do you ever think of the implications of your words for one second? If you're locked up, how will you help anyone? How will you protect Jace? How will you curl your hair?

And why did she go to all that length with the potion and the soul and the whatnot just to get that last one real fast? Again I'm wondering why the hell she didn't just wait until Sleeping!Owl!Jace finished the job. Then again, maybe this all was just a pretext to have a reason to visit Magnus, you know, fangirl a bit, admire his interior decor. I could relate.

.......I wonder if they staged such a dramatic dialogue every time.

What is she doing there? I can't catch sight of it, now matter how much I crank up my screen brightness. Is it something naughty? What else could explain this weirdly intense zoom on her hand?! I need answers!!

What is that? First I thought it's supposed to be a bling from the chandelier but this shot

shows that it's nowhere near them. Is it a mic? What is it?????

I kinda get their kiss, but I also really don't. She says “Now kiss me. You'll need your energy” but the transfer clearly starts before they kiss, so kissing is probably not necessary? It could be quicker, and it also could be about humiliating Jace, who's still in there, showing him he has no power.... but even then, shouldn't she be a li'l less enthusiastic about kissing the guy she totally hates to pieces for killing her son? Just a thought.

Maybe get a job so you don't lose your new apartment. Sorry, sorry, shutting up now.

I just got distracted for a moment there that a) Izzy hasn't put on new sheets on her bed since 1x02

and b) the fact that she stole the cushions from Alec's bed when she was watching over him in 2x03

(And yeah, I'm working on a post about the Shadowhunters' beds, that's why I noticed. I'm not normally that obsessed with decor, I promise.)

I don't mean to be rude, but the fact that Maryse is taking an interest in her daughter's life is a new development and up until now she has treated Izzy's relationships with contempt because they were a) with Downworlders and b) she disregarded them as noncommital. And considering that line from earlier Izzy has never been in a serious relationship, so even if Maryse knew her daughter better she wouldn't know how she is when it gets serious. I get that Izzy smiling dreamily at her phone and brushing her hair behind her ear was supposed to be a tip-off but even someone who's never seen Izzy before would know how to interpret such cliché behavior. Lines like these irk me because I feel like they try to gloss over the fact that up until very recently Izzy and Maryse's relationship was extremely shitty, and just because Maryse is now changing doesn't mean they are instant buddies that braid each other's hair and talk about boys. Building trust and opening up to someone who's been emotionally not-very-nice to you for years takes time.

I like Luke, I really do, but can that guy give one straight answer for once? Like when he was talking to Ollie about Simon, he was super vague. He's constantly on her ass about how lethally dangerous the Shadow World is, yeah then how about you explain some?? Srsly.

Okay so I get that Alec couldn't be with Jace during his treatment (because that treatment didn't take place and The Plot knew this of course, so it was already mentioned one episode ago that the Silent Brothers apparently don't accept witnesses to their healing mojo so Jace didn't have to suspiciously shake Alec off when the time came) but why didn't Alec at least try to accompany him to the entrance of the City of Bones, like Jace did with Clary in Season 1? I would have expected that.

Also, notice how Alec and Jace are standing in the middle of the sidewalk and all the people wanting to pass have to walk around them? I hate it when people do that in real life. Also, this wouldn't have worked if they were invisible, so Jace goes mundane-hunting in plain sight. Clever move.

.............................................so tempting, but I will resist to make a bitter comment. I'll be nice to Jace. I need to let go of my anger from Season 1.

Price Question of this Part: What happened to this shot?

Part 2

(Sources: Hannibal Fanart and Set Pic. The rest is mine.)

[elysianinsignia]

IDENTITY PAPER

                                      by: Mary Angelyn D. Villa

Life. One word but lies a thousand meanings and countless experiences. The life I hold is a journey to self-discovery. A trip for me to have a complete understanding of who I am and what I am. Who am I? Am I because of me? or am I me because of how the world molded me? Through the discovery of self, I can identify my purpose and actualize my potential. On the other hand, failure to embark on a pilgrimage of self-discovery will cheat on the opportunity to understand who I am and what I want out of my life.

For years, I never really understood myself. I never had the chance to have a full grasp on myself being a whole. For years, I never felt having a complete sense of self-identity, whose interest is concrete. For years, I was lost in my own realm with no concrete mastership, stability, and control. Growing up, I spent in confusion, with portions of who I am seemingly floating in the mist, my palms reaching out to grasp a piece of myself. Parts of me that I cannot fully latch onto for it ultimately slips through my fingers like warm water. 

 In my 18 years of existence, I have gone through a lot of roads. Tested me, shaped me, and let me realize a lot of things. My journey started on the year 2002 of December 8th, Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception; it all began when the curtain of night fell upon the province, a province chained together by credence, conviction, customs, and certainty. It was raining cats and dogs at that time. Cold air pierced one's skin, cars were complaining due to heavy traffic, but amidst it all was a woman, a woman drowning in tears because of the unbearable pain she was enduring like she was being torn apart. It was the day I was pushed out of my mother's womb to witness how harsh, hard, and harrowing the world could be. But before I could see the world itself, my father was put in a situation that almost took his sanity. A situation which he needs to decide, his wife;the love of his life  or his second-born daughter or else both will die. Instead of choosing, my father fled to the nearest chapel and prayed like there was no tomorrow. Cried rivers and knelt desperately. The moment I was pushed out, my grandmother immediately decided to name me Mary Angelyn. 'Mary' was included for I was born during the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, the day for Mother Mary, and 'Angelyn' is a combination of "Angel" and my mother's name, Evelyn, it was combined with the word 'Angel' for the reason that my grandmother believed that all the angels of heaven and the Divine God sent an angel, I, to protect and guide my family.  

Since time immemorial, my family and my relatives had been religious and avid followers of the Almighty. Maybe it is because our forefathers are Spaniards, who were the ones who introduced Catholicism to the family, or maybe because of all the hardships, challenges, and misfortunes my family had experienced back then that led them to be closer than they ever were to the Almighty. On the other hand, I am a product of love from two individuals from two different localities. My mother was born, raised, and blossomed independently in the tropical paradise of the southern tip of the Philippines, where nature trippers find refuge in the clean, peaceful, pleasant sands of Sarangani. Despite the lack of financial support, she rose from the ashes and strived hard to have a brighter future. My mother did not disappoint herself; she graduated with flying colors. Contrarily, my father, 7 years older than my mother, was born and raised in one of the leading corn producers in the province. A municipality works under the slogan "Cooperative Efforts towards Peace and Progress." The difference between them is that my father had his full support, financially and mentally, from my great grandparents and his parents. He may have his family's full support; this does not change the fact that he needs to strive hard, more complex than he ever did before, to provide a bright future for his own future family. He succeeded. Graduated with flying colors.

The heartwarming affection of the two lovebirds that both have been showering upon me and my older sibling had put us in a pedestrian where we felt safe and protected from the monsters lurking in the dark, waiting for an opportunity. Both had opened our eyes and let us witness how big, and scary the world would be. How one's life can quickly be taken without any caution. This is the reason why on every holiday, free time, or even just a random day, our family would come together, have a simple buffet to catch up on each and every one. Since then, feasting and having yakiniku on a simple day has become a custom in the family. But one must take note that because our clan had a mixture of Spanish, Filipino and Japanese traditions, a simple day and buffet may often be complicated for a new guest. Since day one, as a daughter of a man who was born with parents that was introduced to different countries customs and traditions, we were taught Spanish rule such as to always keep your hands visible when eating; keep wrists resting on the edge of the table, one should not expect dinner any time before 9pm, and when invited to a home for a meal, it has become customary to give the host or hostess a gift: a good bottle of wine, dinner, sweets and/or a dessert. As for the Japanese, we have applied 'bowing' in our daily life. Bow in times of greeting someone or apologizing, asking a favor, or making a request. We also say "let's eat" instead of "itadaki-masu" before a meal. But, growing up in the Philippines, I have learned to be resilient, flexible, adaptive and put my family at the center of everything. Culture is likely compared to an onion; it has many layers, taken from different roots but puts the spice in our life. 

The influence of my family guided me in my journey with God as my sole compass. Although I may not realize it at the time, they made a difference and changed my life in a way I never could imagine. To think that they have a profound effect on my life forever is truly a blessing. It is because I've learned some of life's best lessons and often even learn a bit of myself.

In another way, in my journey, I have come to terms and wholly believed that everything that happens in one's life all happens for a reason, and sometimes that means we must face heartaches to experience joy. I may have been filled with comfort and care from my family, yet I still do experience difficulties, especially becoming a woman where I need to depend more on myself rather than on my loved ones; it has been a chaotic phase for me, where friendships run amok, setbacks are commonplace, and even I, who is one of the fortunate children out here still wanders through the woods for own self-discovery. However, at the age of 17, where the world has become unsafe due to the pandemic, it has become more difficult for me to navigate through the tides of my own everyday life. Eventually characterized by circumstances that ultimately shattered the notion of having a complete grasp on my self-identity, where instead of spending my time finding out who I am, I struggled with survival, always fleeing at the sight of danger. Yet, with everything that is happening- the pandemic, rallies, government negligence, and so on have let me exercise my power as a citizen, as a youth, and as an individual. Yes, I am young, but I know what is right from wrong. I'm not stupid. Speaking up against something that I know is inhumane and shouldn't be tolerated by anyone is beyond scary. This is why activism is never for the weak because fighting for what you believe is right takes courage, a lot of that. Frightening and life threatening. But I did it anyway. My parents did not raise a coward. I respect others as we all have different opinions on everything. Mine is way different from others, and others differ from mine. I am allowed to voice out mine as much as you are allowed to voice out yours. If you choose to close your mind and eyes, shut your ears and mouth, it's okay. If I decide to speak out, it's okay, too. All of us are encouraged to speak out, but we're never forced. It's a matter of choice. And this is what I will choose. Always.

I am not halfway through my journey. I am still blossoming.  But throughout my whole life, my entire journey, I've established my self-identity solely from the influences of those people and circumstances around me, adapting pieces of passers-by that arouse my interest until their significance vanishes into the wind, and my brain prepares itself for another gust of inspiration. In each road, I take, with its bumps and thorns that often strips my innate understanding of who I am by replacing images with ideas of how I should be, what I should look like, and how I should live out my life had let me discern that only by walking through its bumps and enduring the thorns when I can genuinely reveal the innermost workings of my most natural self and adapt on my whole persona, instead of allowing the road itself change and dictate how I should be. 

Nonetheless, I choose a life that will be an endless journey of self-discovery, an infinite collecting of portions of myself hanging in the mist just waiting for my palms to reach onto the pieces. Perhaps someday, I will have a full grasp of my identity as a person and find my niche and establish a foundation upon which to cement my self-identity. Yet, until that day arrives, I will persist with my self-discovery through the fog of danger, threats and challenges, and maybe I will emerge from the shadows with a triumph in my hands. My submersion into this journey has only just begun, and I will not relinquish hope in the face of defeat.

[brosura]

hey there demons, it’s ya girl mimi (no last name)

QUICK FACTS:

like, twenty? she’s not keeping track.

originally from lestallum but her origin story was different before comrades

irresponsible knife gal

more info below the cut!

BACKSTORY:

originally conceptualized her as a side quest character in the vein of dino except that instead of asking them to put themselves in danger for rocks she asks them to put themselves in danger for food

in her original concept, she’s nineteen and from lestallum but is also a persona non grata there bc she kept dining and dashing from all the food establishments & lives in one of my friend’s (@ cara dis u) ocs little hunter settlement intermittently

to be fair tho she was orphaned by the war w niflheim and raised by an old lady in lestallum who spoiled her and tried to teach her to become a crown citizen (bc she believed she’d have a better life there) and the old lady died when she was like thirteen so she basically doesn’t know how to take care of herself

started hunting bc she has 0 sense of responsibility but likes being active! and she got pretty good at it! likes the independence!

very irresponsible tho - hitchhikes everywhere, forgets to eat, forgets to make sure she has money, forgets to take on hunts, takes on hunts ALONE bc she doesn’t want to split the money, etc.

the boyos met her on one of those sidequests where you give some stranded hunter medicine except it’s not medicine, they literally have to feed her since she’s irresponsible and a FOOL and forgot that she had no money for food and went out on a hunt to get money for food but passed out as soon as she’d completed it because she hadn’t eaten it in like??? she doesn’t know  

immediately attached to the group because like, her dream since becoming a hunter was to have enough money to travel to meldacio and afford the hunter’s ragout and when ignis just casually makes something similar for her she’s like ??? y’all eat like this every day??? and they haven’t been able to get rid of her since

she’ll just show up, greet only ignis, and ask what he’s making for dinner and wait expectantly to be invited, and her side quest is to obtain ingredients nearby usually with a fight involved

joins the party as a guest party member tho so at least she helps

ignis stan, he’s the only one whose name she remembers

calls the rest of them a variation of ‘city boy'

in this version she has only brown hair and keeps it cut short and usually wears a secondhand hammerhead hat (BIG CRUSH ON CINDY) 

in comrades!!

still from lestallum, but actually made it to insomnia at around age sixteen after the old lady died

had a hard time in school both bc she was hella behind after years of just struggling to stay alive (and still honestly struggling to stay alive, tbh) and bc this group of girls bullied her for being an outsider and kind of ??? gave up on it. 

chance encounter with some kingsglaive in her neighborhood (while she was cutting class lol) gave her Ideas, and she joined up at around age 17 (lied about her age and said she was older, and honestly she doesn’t know how old she is)

kind of distant from the rest of the kingsglaive, bc she’s younger, joined later and is mainly in it for the paycheck and access to a place to sleep and eat, so she doesn’t really catch on to the coup that’s happening

basically shows up to the movie kingsglaive 15 minutes late with coffee and accepts the first orders she’s given which were, naturally, from draut0s

catches on hella late when someone tellin her to take on cor and she’s like wait?? no? why?? i don’t want to die? and she joins the glaive/crownsguard that are trying to evacuate the city instead

the rest is, as they say, history

honestly really unhappy to be back in lestallum bc i imagine she was still a dine and dasher in her youth and is like :/ :/ don’t recognize me pls :/

SKILLSET:

K N I V E S

she’s from lestallum when i created her so she’s a sSTRo NG and has HIGH HP which actually fits her tenacity and will to live?

bad at magic but good at warping!

warps, even when it’s unnecessary, purely bc she thinks it looks cool

WHAT SHE LIKE THO?!?:

first of all she’s bi so jot that down

her two persistent crushes are ignis and cindy (she met cindy once while hitchhiking and she’s been in love ever since)

very externally motivated with a #treat yoself mentality and in her original concept it was food that she was motivated by just bc that was a ‘luxury’ but in insomnia there’s like clothes, too?? hair?? anyway she’d definitely dye her hair as soon as she found out that was a thing bc now the luxury is Lookin Fly

she’s still into the food thing tho tbh

CRITICAL disagreement with gladio on the value of cup noodles, she’s had to eat them for so long & doesn’t care for the taste

flexible/adaptable to the point that she’s almost flaky? like. in her original concept as soon as she was kicked out of the city she was like ‘i’m a hunter now i guess’ and she was flip flopping sides during the events of kingsglaive bc she was confused and just?? ran with it. 

resilient, tho!! and aggressively optimistic! doesn’t let hopeless situations get her down! 

very confident that noct will come back during the WoR even tho she’s technically never met him!! and when people are like ‘that’s a lie he’s just being a coward’ she’s like ‘well if he’s a coward then we’re all gonna die so like? i’m just gonna believe he’s charging his King Powers because that’s the scenario where we get to be alive’

a fool also, tho, really really dumb

in the original concept she just doesn’t get that noctis is the prince even tho he accidentally introduced himself as noctis and she’s got the evidence and that makes her SUPER insensitive sometimes

like, ‘noctis, huh? your parents must’ve really liked the prince to give u the same name. well, he’s dead now so it looks like ur one of a kind!’

in comrades this translates to her like, never having actually SEEN noctis before moving to insomnia so one time she gets assigned to his guard at an event and he walks in wearing regular clothes and she’s like WHO’S THIS KID and the person with her is like MIMI SHUT UP THATS THE PRINCE

very knowledgeable about certain things tho!

fixes and sews her own clothes!! good at repurposing objects from other hunters/glaives for her own use! very practical gal! 

short sword fangirl! like the thing that makes her recognize that noctis is the prince in the original concept is the fact that he summons the engine blade and she’s like??? wait excuse me??? that’s the engine blade??? that’s the blade that royalty uses??? your name is noctis??? are you the noctis??? the royal noctis??? that uses the engine blade???? engine blade??

honestly the responsibility of running Lestallum’s power grid should never have been given to her bc like me, she would absolutely divert critical power to the clothes store first bc she wants to look Cool

[dmech]

What should one do in their 20s to avoid regrets in their 30s and 40s?

Pranav Park

, Enjoying life since birth!

Answered Nov 18

‘YOLO’ lifestyle is overrated. Discipline is paramount. It is what will either make or break you. Grasp this fact quickly.

Save money. Every penny saved is a penny earned. It will lay a lot of eggs (dividends) by the time you turn forty. You will have more money to spend on important things rather than having wasted them on unimportant things.

Build networks. You can’t achieve anything great alone. Building network does not mean sweet-talking or being a sycophant. It simply means keeping in touch with like-minded, identical goal oriented people.

Realize that Growth mind-set > fixed mind-set. Realize that learning is a process and it never stops. Till your last breath. No matter how old you become, there are still things to learn. Develop that growth mind-set.

Invest time in yourself. Don’t take your talents, family privileges, third-person praises, fame etc for granted. Explore who you truly are. It may sound way too cliched but it is not as easy as it sounds.

Be true, at least to yourself. Remember, you are your only friend. And best friend. Every other person can only complement your life. Nobody can live your life. Don’t ever try to outsource your self-esteem through other people.

Never engage in gossips. This is difficult in 20’s because gossips can pretty much be the sole source of entertainment in your life right now. But with practice, you can avoid gossips. You will save yourself of so much time, energy and group conflicts. Moreover, people will respect you for this.

Disappointments are necessary, not failures . There seems to be a lot of self-help books solely focusing on the importance of failures. Trust me, too many failures will horrendously demotivate you. Failure in itself is not a vital factor. It is the disappointment arising from failures, rejection, expectations, lack of abilities etc that actually acts as an impetus to succeed.

Face as many embarrassing situations as possible. Ask that stupid questions, apply to high-profile jobs, do a bad presentation, pitch your mundane ideas. It’s okay to look small in front of others. In your 20’s, you will have enough vigour and strength to bounce back in no-time. But guess what, now in your 30’s you will no longer fear rejection and embarrassment. You will speak your mind out with clarity.

Challenge yourself. Regularly, try and do things which you have been secretly fearing the most. Go ahead and ask that girl out, complete that arduous assignment in the best way possible, do that difficult course, learn a new language, learn coding, try public speaking, speak to that person boldly, communicate what you genuinely feel etc.

Learn to cry when you have to. This does not mean crying to gain attention, crying to gain sympathy, crying to persuade others into doing something. It is much more significant than that. Crying in isolation is different. Tough people do that. Ambitious people do that. Emotional people do that a lot. And it is good.

Learn to focus on priorities. Spend more time with your family, friends and important people of your life. No matter how busy you are, there is always time for that one phone call. Remember, your parents did not ignore you when you were growing. Learn to reciprocate.

Learn to say NO. No to late-night parties, no to excessive alcohol, no to self-destructive habits, no to last-minute plans, no to toxic people, no to over-spending, no to breaking laws, no to unnecessary arguments etc.

Cultivate the art of being nice to people who are not nice to you. This may sound rubbish, but the secret is that you will no longer be affected by other people’s opinions of you. You will be the sole owner of your emotions. A blissful achievement. Highly recommended.

Invest time on your communication skills. No matter what career stream you pick up, communication is all that will set you apart from the rest. If you communicate with clarity and with lucidity, you will win people. Even your crazy boss won’t mess with you.

Learn to view everyone equally. Everyone are equal but everyone is different. Respect everyone but don’t start worshiping them. Yes, Elon Musk is great. Learn skills from him. But don’t try to be him. That place is already taken. At the end of the day, we are all mortal Homo sapiens.

Learn to trust your gut-feeling and instincts. More importantly, learn to differentiate between your gut-feeling and your mind-created illusory feelings.

Practice self-control. After an exhausting day at work, you should be able to sit in front of your favourite dish with an empty stomach for at least 5 min before you eat. You may ask what’s the point. You know very well that you won’t die in that 5 min. But, you are just conditioning your instincts there in that 5 min. It will be immensely useful in the later part of your life.

Exercise regularly. Toil your body as much as possible. This is the age to set a strong physical foundation for the rest of your life. A healthy body can do wonders. Mind simply follows a healthy body’s orders and vice versa. Take charge of your body and hence your body.

Meditate. This does not mean aspiring to sit on top of Himalayas and breathing snow. It simply means to sit quietly at a designated spot everyday at a particular time and just observe your thoughts. With time, you can start flushing the bad ones out with practice. Meditation sessions are almost like being born again. If done properly.

Learn what money is. It is not primarily meant to be spent. That’s what foolish people do. It is meant to give you returns. It is meant be in circulation, not sit idle in your bank. Learn stock markets and investment. Play around with money, the right way!

Take risks. This is possibly the best time to take multiple leap of faiths and learn your lessons the hard way. If you succeed, you succeed. If you fail, you have a great story to tell in your 40′s. At this age, you will have all the energy, courage and spirit required to rise back. Moreover, you will not be afraid to fail which apparently sets apart successful people from the others.

Read a lot of books. I mean a lot. My entire life changed just because of this one habit. You become more knowledgeable as a result of which you can speak to people on a wide variety of topics. You social and professional circle expands. But remember, reading is labour. It is time-consuming. So make sure you spend your time on the right kind of books. Read books that challenges your mind-set, character, perception and resilience.

Be flexible. Don’t have strong opinions on your ambitions, capabilities, interests etc. This is the time to explore various avenues, interests, adventures. Your calling will come when your character is ripe.

Learn to control your temper. Never, ever, ever spit out vicious, venomous, acidic words, not matter how livid you are. Moreover, never blurt out any secrets which someone had entrusted you with when you are angry. This attribute will clearly demonstrate your level of maturity.

Learn who your true friends are. Eliminate the toxic ones. We have very limited time on this planet, let’s spend them with the one worth it.

Learn how the world operates. How money works, how politics work, how economies work, how governments work, how the water-cycle works, how climate works, how physics work etc. Let these not be esoteric to you.

Learn to spot liars. Read books on this. Liars have specific body-language. It can save you a lot of time, money, energy and even relationships.

Learn to spot fake news. Don’t get carried away in any mob-movement straight-away. Be it physical or virtual, learn to analyse a piece of information. Do your independent research if required. And for God’s sake, don’t ever circulate sensitive information about someone on Whatsapp groups!

Realize that character is more important than success. Success does not give you a license to act sick. You can even become a president, but that does not make you great. Neither will people respect you long for your position. There is a difference between a celebrity and a personality. It is okay if you are not a celebrity but it is vital to have a great personality.

The big three: politics, human-beings and God. Your opinions on these three will radically change with time and maturity. So, don’t get stuck to them too early in your lives.

Practice gratitude. Be grateful for what you are and have today. Life is precarious and highly uncertain. On your happiest day, there are chances of you receiving a phone call from your doctor about your growing cancer. People have. Your entire life is simply an interaction between your genes and ambient environment.

Practice service. People land up on the streets not because they are lazy, sick or criminals but because they were unfortunate. Fate, destiny, karma, you call it whatever you want. It is our duty to help the less-fortunate people as much as possible. We are not doing a favour. We are simply doing our duty.

Respect women. Don’t objectify them. Don’t squeeze them. Don’t slam them. Don’t judge them. Let them be themselves. Most importantly, No means No. No matter what. Let this rule not be an option in your life.

Fall in love. Do it genuinely. It is okay to get your heart broken. They make you strong. It is also okay to break a few hearts (not intentionally though!). You will learn your lessons. Life moves on. A heart-break is not a sad episode. It is an essential episode.

Stop consuming adult pornographic content. I don’t think I need to elaborate on this. Total bullshit.

Pranav.