#actually no i wouldn’t have made it out of infancy probably

[cursedvibes]

Hi~! I was wondering what you think would happen if Yuuji had a twin brother (or sister up to you lol) 👀 I’ve seen this a few times in fan art so it made me think how Kenjaku would interact with them lol I think he would of course compare the two and see how the two would react to different scenarios and experiments. I wonder how they would have grown up too, at least Yuuji wouldn’t have been alone. And Jin of course would have been overjoyed 😂

[insert Yuuji is Sukuna's dead twin theories here]

Oh boy, I think that would actually be worse for Yuuji and his sibling. Because y'know, twin studies (and I think Kenjaku is partially inspired by certain doctors who studied these or at least the Death Painting experiment is and then there's also Mononobe Tengoku who performed experiments on the conjoined twin Ryomen Sukuna in the urban legend). It would make them even more interesting in their eyes, especially with how cursed techniques and heavenly restrictions can manifest in twins, see Maki and Mai. So comparing the two might be the mildest scenario....

They'd probably run down the common trials like seeing how they react to separation, different stimuli, if their expertise lies in similar areas, in what areas their bodies differ and what genes might be attributes to what characteristic. I definitely think they would have to go through a lot. More than what Yuuji has to deal with right now. I wonder if Kenjaku would maybe try to take advantage of identical twins not being able to differentiate between themselves in early stages of their infancy and thereby avoid the problem of CTs or heavenly restrictions splitting between twins. Or they go the complete other round and send one away, while raising the other to see how their influence and the environment affects them. Jin could help here too. One gets raised with more affection by Jin, the other gets the stricter treatement from Kenjaku. In any case, I think Jin would be very stressed...

And this is all based on relatively nice experiments and assuming Kenjaku doesn't just do a kodoku ritual, where they lock both in a chamber and see which one of them comes out alive, strengthened by the other.

So Yuuji might be alone either way or have to deal with the guilt of possibly being treated better or worse than his twin. The bond they'd have would also be very strong, possibly the strongest family bond Yuuji has, even in the case where they get separated early.

[wanderer-on-the-steppe]

For the “Character Ask Game 💚🤍🖤” post… Bohun? :D

Oh, this is gonna get long! Thank you for an excuse to shamelessly ramble about Bohun! :)

One aspect about them I love:

Just one? That’s clearly impossible! So… I’m just about as good at counting as Bohun is at writing, okay?

Okay ;)

His sincerity. Whatever one can say about him, he does not pretend. He may delude himself, of course, and misunderstand his own feelings, or be unaware of some of his motives, or mistake something he does for an expression of love that actually harms the person he loves – but he’s never just careless or indifferent. He doesn’t compromise on things that are important to him. He takes love as seriously as it deserves to be taken.

Then… (you remember, I can’t count ;)) his capacity for an almost childlike awe and reverence for everyone and everything that is dear to him. He’s kept that alive amid all the horror and violence he’s experienced and also among all the horror and violence he’s become capable of himself. He always reminds me of this one Simone Weil quote:

“At the bottom of the heart of every human being, from earliest infancy until the tomb, there is something that goes on indomitably expecting, in the teeth of all experience of crimes committed, suffered, and witnessed, that good and not evil will be done to him. It is this above all that is sacred in every human being.”

And then (I CAN’T COUNT!) this abyss of despair and rejection and loneliness that just bursts forth from him and that cannot be contained or toned down or made to look tame and banal enough to be socially acceptable. Of course, if he was real, I wouldn’t wish that suffering on him, but as a fictional character, I’m deeply thankful to him for making it possible to express things (and see them expressed) that few are brave enough to say out loud with regard to themselves.

One aspect I wish more people understood about them:

I don’t think I know anything about him that others haven’t known for longer, but to put something here:

He isn’t “stupid”. Yes, he fails disastrously at seeing things from other people’s (especially Helena’s) perspective, and it does a lot of harm. But I don’t think it’s something he just could have easily avoided. Because this kind of narrow focus made sense for most of his life. He has constantly struggled to survive – both in a literal sense and psychologically – and most of the time, he had to look out for himself. And being especially attentive to others was not something that would have been an advantage. Quite to the contrary: it’s likely he had to steal a lot as an orphan child, and he probably accompanied Burłaj on raids quite young [and you know all this better than I of course, because you have written about it! ;)], so not thinking too much about the situation of the people he stole from (and later the people he had to kill!) must actually have made things easier for him.

And when it becomes clear that he suddenly needs the skill to see things from another person’s point of view – because he has fallen in love – there’s nowhere he could just take it from. Of course it does harm to Helena that he cannot imagine what the situation is like for her, and how much fear she’s in, and that she will be traumatized afterwards. But it’s also not just avoidable carelessness or stupidity from his part. It really is this difficult for him.

One (or more) headcanon(s) I have about this character:

Bohun has a much easier time being kind to animals than to people. Because animals haven’t hurt him, animals don’t look down on him or regard him as beneath them, or do anything that he cannot bear without resorting to violence. He will certainly have had to hunt – both as a child always on the lookout for his next meal, and during military expeditions – but I cannot imagine him hurting or killing animals unnecessarily.  And I imagine that as a child who both depended on his hunting success (together with the just mentioned stealing ;)) and was lonely and used to rejection from people, he watched animals closely and developed respect for them. I also think he’s been talking to them as a child, and maybe singing his very first songs about or even for them.

One character I love seeing them interact with:

This one gets a short answer: Jan Skrzetuski :) Both in canon and in fanfiction.

One character I wish they would interact with/interact with more:

Khmelnytsky. And I especially wish we’d get to see their first encounter: when Bohun, distraught, arrives with him after the raid on Rozłogi, and Khmelnytsky figures out, more or less (how much might Bohun have told him – and how much might he have been able to guess??), that this man is in serious trouble, and decides to trust him anyway, and Bohun gets his first impression of the man he’s now going to follow, with no way back, not as a deliberate political decision, but because it’s the only path left to him…

I’d also like to see more of the time afterwards when Bohun gains Khmelnytsky’s trust and rises through the ranks despite initially having joined the uprising in an act of despair.

One (or more) headcanon(s) I have that involve them and one other character:

When he came back from his last raid before becoming estranged from Helena, he really was in a bad state psychologically. My imagination hasn’t been specific yet what exactly had happened, but even with everything he’s already experienced, something he had to do, or maybe even something he just witnessed, was too much for him. (And no matter how much violence he’s already done at this point, I think that this thing was something that genuinely wasn’t his fault.)

The thought of coming home to Helena helps him stay alive, and he needs to be able to tell her what happened, and to still be the person he’s always been for her, and not be regarded with horror… But when he returns and sees her in her certainly unhappy, but – for someone just returned from war – quite peaceful looking daily life, he’s reminded of just how unimaginable it all really is for her, and he hesitates, again and again, until there is that one quarrel that gets out of control, and his wartime instincts take over, and he fights his opponent, and he kills him, and Helena does recoil from him in horror. And he probably never gets to tell that thing anyone.

Though, in a world where fanfiction fixes things and he ends up as part of a happy OT3, there might still be a day when he’s first able to tell Jan (because Jan’s been a soldier and knows what war is like), and then asks Jan to help him tell Helena…

[dulcewrites]

Yeah, I could totally see that happening to Alicent. I think the really terrifying thing must’ve been from Aegons perspective. If it did happen after Aemonds birth it would’ve been shortly after Viserys make the very mature and logical decision to ignore and neglect his son from now on because the birthday of a two year old made Rhaenyra sad.

He’d basically be in this phase where toddlers realize that not everyone around them wishes them well and now that the king has shown that he no longer cares for his son I’m sure that many of the servants and Lords who were friendly to Aegon in the hopes of gaining the kings favor slowly turn away from him, when they realize that they won’t get anything by being kind to him.

I imagine he’d be like semi worried at first when they informed him that his mother wasn’t well but then, imagine him overhearing the servants, or someone else saying that the queen might die and Aegon gets like really really scared, but his nurses just make him go about his day and when he’s having dinner with Viserys and the other members of his family, his mothers absence just dawns on him, and he realizes that without her, he is entirely alone and none of the people in this room care about him or wish him well. It would probably be the first time he would actually take note of the fact that his father doesn’t care about his mothers well-being at all. 

And then, when Alicent finally gets better he develops real separation anxiety and tries to stick with her as much as possible but sadly it only damages their relationship because I imagine she’d be completely exhausted, and would also have to take care of Aemond ( and would be worried about whether or not, he would survive, infancy ), and it would just be very difficult for her to not feel upset by Aegons sudden desire to be with her at all times

Maybe that would lead to Aegon believing that Alicent loves Aemond more than him ( which would explain why he bullied him in his childhood ) 



☹️☹️☹️☹️☹️ I think this is a sound theory. I wouldn’t be surprised during that period she had Aemond was really hard for Alicent. Based on the show and book dates, she probably got pregnant with Aemond almost right after otto left. So now she was really alone at court. Plus Rhaenyra at this point is now married, so she has to deal with the fallout of that. That’s probably around the time criston was around more.

I can imagine now having three kids all under the age of four, and one (Aemond) possibly being sick or more of a health risk would have her stressed out. On top of maybe dealing with health stuff herself. I mean despite him clearly not carrying for the kids, viserys still kept calling her. She was probably so worried about that would happen to her if she had to bury a child, like aemma had to do many times over :/. She saw how disposable someone viserys supposedly love was to him, who is to say viserys wouldn’t blame her or do something if Aemond wasn’t well. Or worst who is to say he wouldn’t just let her die if she was sick. Any excuse to scapescoat his shifty behavior

And Aegon, is just a child at that point internalizes it as him doing something wrong. When he gets old enough to understand how the realm works, that is compounded bc now he wonders why didn’t he name me heir. I’m his first born son. Hence the “because he never liked me” line in ep 9

[skye-huntress]

Otherside Picnic Volume 8 Thoughts - Part 6

File 25: Learn Your Lesson (cont.)

Sorawo having an impromptu therapy session with Runa was not on my bingo card for this volume.

As Runa pointed out, there is a precedent for Sorawo suddenly popping into her room out of thin air. If I recall from last week correctly, she was just talking to Kozakura about the present situation and naturally Kasumi was there. It wouldn’t be improbable to assume that Kasumi followed Sorawo to the Otherside and rescued her. The only other possibilities would be something on the Otherside doing it intentionally, or the Otherside itself reacting to Sorawo’s mental state, but that’s getting further into pure speculation.

If it were Kasumi, it wouldn’t be surprising she left Sorawo with Runa after what she witnessed during the T-san incident. Given the state Sorawo was likely in, Kasumi probably figured Runa would be able to calm and soothe her like the other Fourth Kinds.

At this point, I feel bad for Runa, finally seeing something interesting happen right in front of her, and not getting any of the context or the juicy details.

Can we talk for a minute about how Sorawo sees Toriko seemingly mad at her, and immediately thinks what she did with Runa was like cheating on her. Girl, all the signs point to the fact you’re in love with this girl and already acting like you’re already dating. The answer to your question is to recognise your existing relationship for what it already is!

“Have you learned your lesson?!” Well, there’s the title. Question is, what lesson is the mujina trying to teach Sorawo? Is it trying to bring her together with Toriko, or drive a wedge between them? Or is it a phenomenon that has no will or motive, and is merely a manifestation of Sorawo’s internal conflict? Either way, I’ve said this before, but this is very much her own fault. She shouldn’t put this on Toriko whom has been very open about how she feels and has been incredibly patient with Sorawo and her nonsense.

File 26: Accomplices No More

Finally, the main event. At this point, I am very concerned with Sorawo’s current mental state and the choices she’s about to make. Especially in matters of interpersonal relationships, she can be impossibly dense.

1

So the ghost story was interesting and very much Otherside-like, but applying it to the current situation with Toriko gives it a much more disturbing and chilling spin to it. Toriko has no other family or friends, so for her to disappear like she never existed would be all to easy to happen with the Otherside involved. Now I understand why Sorawo is going into crisis mode.

Oh, now she’s starting to get it! Part of what made the File where Sorawo went to Toriko’s university one of the better Files, is because it was one of the few times that Sorawo showed real interest in Toriko as a person. Like it was mentioned before, she was so hung up on calling themselves accomplices and saying they had “the most intimate relationship in the world”, Sorawo was blinded to the fact that their actual relationship was a work-in-progress, still in its infancy. They have a lot of shared experiences on the Otherside, but what about on the surface world. Sorawo did say near the beginning of this mess that it wasn’t uncommon for them to go a week without contact. Does that sound like a relationship between two people who are actually close? Now that it’s been said, it has been bothering me for a long time, which is why I was ecstatic that Kozakura pointed it out last time.

Can understand Toriko’s hesitation. The Otherside has tempted her with the very thing she wanted most on multiple occasions, last time was even with Sorawo’s doppelgänger.

Why would you block her number?! I get the thing about temptation, but what about in cases of emergencies, like this case?!

Seriously, Toriko, let her in already?! After running around in the rain so much, she’s almost certainly going to catch a cold now!

I think this is another one of those instances of Toriko getting ahead of herself again. I don’t know if she is a hopeless romantic, incredibly horny, or both (it’s probably both), but she tends to get carried away.

Now that it was just getting good, we have to wait another week! And we still have 3 more parts to get through so there’s still a fair bit more to come.

[jess-the-vampire]

Idk how u feel about the Grimwalker theory, and idk why but that 3rd meme (all those memes are drawn rlly well btw, and are rlly funny) reminded me of this idea I had that the palismen that choose Hunter was Like... Actually Belos' at one point way b4 he became the emperor. And the reason why Lil' Rascal choose him not only was bc he recognized that want - no need to choose your own path, but also saw the remnants of the person his old friend was.

oh thanks very much!!!

ok first off when it comes to the pailsman, i think that theory only works under the condition belos isn’t philip and is just...some other dude. Since phil has now canonically been confirmed to have a spider pailsman.

Interesting choice for him for sure.

Not sure if rascal’s previous owner will be important or not, they could be but i can easily see them not being important either. (Maybe one of phil’s friends who died owned him or something?)

thing is i think it’s fair to confirm the reason rascal bonded with hunter was more akin to their feelings or wanting to escape and explore, hunter and rascal bonded because of hunter’s desire for freedom.

They bond through emotion, as confirmed by the bat queen, but that might be the only reason.

this does not dismiss the idea he could have belonged to belos (Though that would imply belos had a desire for freedom too at one point), but it’s not likely rascal chose hunter solely on much relation since it doesn’t appear to work that way.

It would make me ask why rascal wouldn’t have a stronger reaction to belos upon seeing him if he knew him too.

Though it is a cool idea.

As for the grimwalker thing, yeahhhhhh, there’s no denying that the idea of hunter....being this...thing, is VERY heavily implied based on the book alone. The same eyes (Unique too, never seen another witch with his eye color yet), his nose, the fact the creature is raised from infancy.

People say belos might be trying to make a new one and that’s why the book is out, but i doubt it.

Because if he wanted to make one, then why did he just want the selkidomoius dead? He didn’t even harvest it, and if he needed to harvest it they’d figure out it was never killed in the first place! And hunter, since that was his job, would very much be punished for failing if that’s what the point of him doing that was. So basically there’s no way belos had that out attempting to make one right now because hunter would be SUPER in trouble for it.

So why have it out? Well outside of it being there for us, the viewers, and imply what might be foreshadowing for hunter. I think in canon belos had it out because it has details on the creature in question, and if belos made hunter....and NEEDS him, he’s probably just reading up on him for the future plans with him.

It would have details on grimwalker abilities and things belos would need to know about is he wanted his grimwalker to function for his plan.

but no, it’s very implied belos already made a grimwalker, he isn’t planning to make one right now. I think someone even pointed out a galdorstone actually is already missing if you go back to TTLGR.

And yeah, hunter right now makes the most sense to be it.

Because i knew something HAD to be special about him for belos to need him, it was a matter of what make hunter in particular so unique belos couldn’t use anyone else.

I don’t think it’s to harvest him or something, i think it’s likely a grimwalker has unique abilities that belos requires for the plan, but we need more on that for now.

I don’t know if belos wants to take over his body or not, but i def don’t think killing him is what they’re going for either.

It does raise the question about hunter’s “Ancestor” talk, and being “Found” by belos. Like that whole thing only gets more confusing under the condition belos like....made him.

But there is a likelyhood belos gave him false memories, there’s enough room here for that to be a likely reason, we have no reason to believe currently that belos didn’t just.....tell hunter stories of their ancestors being magicless just to avoid telling him what he is.

the show could be trying to throw us off, but also like, there’s strong evidence to support the idea hunter is something belos...made:

He clearly already made a grimwalker, and isn’t making a new one.

the grimwalker ages, and there’s even a CHECKMARK right now to the “Child/teen” stage.

Hunter has to be unique in some way to be part of the titan’s plans.

it would explain his lack of powers.

and it’s hard to deny he bears resemblance to the grimwalker depicted.

i’m pretty much expecting hunter’s next appearance to be centered around this grimwalker thing honestly. I’m curious to know more about what it is and why belos needed one.

cause if he wanted a body, couldn’t he just....find a random kid to do this with? Why did he MAKE one?

so i like this idea, it’s honestly funny cause one of my early assumptions about GG was “Maybe belos made a clone?”, cause i felt we were gonna get weird parental vibes with them and belos seems like the weirdo who’d do that. 

And i guess that came full circle now.

i def don’t think it’s creepy luz cause that’s both a waste of resources on belos’s part and couldn't even happen to begin with since he barely knew luz before the creature was already on earth and he can’t even get to earth to begin with so there’s no way that thing got sent by him.

But no, in conclusion, i like this idea.

Hunter is already an interesting character, this idea.....only builds on the pile of things that make him so interesting.

i’m impressed how in so few episodes they made him by far one of the most interesting characters in the series.

[robininthelabyrinth]

Hello! If this prompt is to your liking - something along the Ladyhawke plot? Basically, during the day LWJ is turned into an animal while WWX is human, and in the night returns to human but then WWX is turned into an animal :) Or, for simplicity’s sake, I‘d just like to see LWJ turned into a bunny XD attempting to communicate with WWX who is oblivious, as you’d expect. Thank you! Your writing is amazing and I’m so pleased to read it always.

The f‎irst thing Wei Wuxian was aware of in his new life, before he ever recalled his name or recovered his cultivation, was the feeling of safety and security that came from being held in the palms of two hands, strong but soft.

Wei Wuxian had been the last and smallest of a too-large litter, causing his mother to bare her teeth at him and chase him away no matter how pitifully he cried. By the laws of nature, he should have died, unloved, but even before he remembered his past deeds he was never one to be bound by those laws. He was lucky: the soft hands came for him then, lifting him high off the ground, letting him shiver against a warm breast and even faithfully feeding him milk from a hollow reed every time he was hungry.

After some time, the haze of infancy cleared from his eyes and, for the first time, the soft hands offered him a leaf instead of milk. It was a good leaf, too. Crunchy and firm, unmarred by any insect bites and still wet from the morning dew.

Wei Wuxian gnawed on it, quite content, and reached up with his left hindleg to lazily scratch at his long floppy ear. For a rabbit, this was the very definition‎ of paradise.

Not bad at all, he thought to himself, quite smug, and not for the first time considered himself rather lucky in comparison to his stronger brothers and sisters, who were probably being taught to forage even now. They might have a mother, but Wei Wuxian has a pair of soft hands framed by long, sweeping white sleeves, and he thought that he did quite well out the bargain.

With such thoughts, he was naturally reluctant to be left behind. He followed those hands on their daily rounds, hopping‎ down dabbled forest pathways made of stone and painstakingly climbing steps to sit in cold rooms that smelt of sandalwood while the soft hands plucked at the strings of a guqin. He wouldn't hold himself back, either: he would nuzzle a kneeling thigh or try to clamber onto the man's belly to sleep, and he was never rejected. Even when he couldn't keep up, he shamelessly cried until the hands came and gathered him up close, letting him rest his sable head against the stark white robes and listen to the comforting sound of a strong heartbeat.

All things considered, Wei Wuxian was quite pleased with his life, a state of affairs that lasted right up until the first time the hands wrapped up the guqin in a white cloth, drew an ice-pale sword from its sheath and took to the air, leaving Wei Wuxian behind, abandoned and bereft.

Obviously, this was absolutely intolerable.

Wei Wuxian settled himself down on the bed and began loudly crying. Other pairs of hands, smaller ones that sometimes brought treats, sought to comfort him‎, but he remained steadfast in his misery, lying prone on his side and weeping until he fell asleep and then waking up and starting all over again.

"He missed you a lot," the white-clad ‎child murmured anxiously to the soft hands when they return a few endless days later. "He wouldn't even eat - I even tried offering him some of the pickled cabbage he's always stealing from your table, but he wouldn't take it. Forgive me, Hanguang-Jun -"

"Forgiven."

Something about that voice echoed in his mind as familiar, but Wei Wuxian was distracted by picking himself up and throwing himself at his pair of soft hands at once, unable to hold a grudge and act indifferent the way he'd schemed he would, taking a mighty leap that did not even begin to trouble his pillar of stability though it did make the child giggle.

"I told you he missed you!"

"En."

The soft hands caressed Wei Wuxian quietly, then - as if familiar with the pain of separation, the torture of longing for what is not there - did not put him down. Instead, they brought close a dish of leaves and grasses for him to eat while still pressed up close to that broad chest, his ears full of that strong heartbeat that showed he was still alive, warmed by the bright golden core within.

Wei Wuxian, as always, forgot his woes, and was happy.

He was full, he was warm, tucked in safely into the collar of long white robes embroidered with clouds‎, and he could think of nothing at all that might disturb his joy.

That state of affairs lasted for about an hour, until another voice, also familiar but less so, said, "I am pleased that you have returned safely, Wangji."

Wei Wuxian opened his eyes, startled out of his planned nap.

Wangji? Lan Wangji - Lan-er-gongzi - Lan Zhan -

White robes, like mourning; clouds, to signify the main family; soft hands, a gentle voice, upright manner, the guqin -

His soft hands were Lan Wangji!

‎Wei Wuxian remembered, suddenly, all of his past life of toil and hardship - his carefree youth at Yunmeng, his brief time at the Cloud Recesses, his wide broad road turning narrow and dark -

He dismissed the latter part as unimportant.

"It seems your pet rabbit had also missed you," Lan Xichen, now recognizable, added, his voice slightly mischievous in a way that was familiar as well.

"En," Lan Wangji replied, calm as ever.

Wei Wuxian began cackling at once, little huffing rabbit sounds.

Who would think, he thought to himself gleefully as he raised up his head to take a look, that Lan Wangji, of all people, would break the rules of his sect to adopt ‎-

To adopt -

A rabbit.

A rabbit!

He was a rabbit! Wei Wuxian, Wei Ying, Yiling Patriarch, demonic cultivator -

He was the rabbit Lan Wangji had broken his sect's rules to adopt!

Wei Wuxian's head lolled back, stunned into a daze that did not abate even when Lan Wangji gently caressed his small head with his soft hands.

Of course Lan Wangji would adopt a demonic cultivator rabbit, he thought. That would just be his luck, breaking his precious rules for me of all people. But what did I do wrong to be reborn as an animal?

Well, actually, he'd done rather a few things wrong, come to think about it. And even if he was a rabbit, he'd had the best possible‎ life as one - he barely had to twitch his nose for a half dozen Lan disciples, not to mention the great Hanguang-jun himself, to scurry over to tend to his every need, so clearly the heavens weren’t intending on punishing him that badly.

Not to mention, he ‎seemed to still have his spiritual awareness - something of a new development, in fact, as he'd only noticed Lan Wangji's golden core for the first time today.

Of course, that didn't really matter. What use was spiritual awareness to a rabbit? All it meant was that he was now a yao, capable of cultivating and, if he turned evil, to be a target for a night hunt led by righteous cultivators.

He'd had quite enough of tha‎t in his last lifetime, thank you.

No, there was no benefit, except maybe the possibility of one day cultivating enough to form a beast core and transform into a human being -

Hm.

"Are you sure you will head out again so soon?" Lan Xichen asked. "You are still barely recovered from your injuries; for you to go out alone could be dangerous -"

Wait, what? Lan Wangji? Injured? Alone?

Absolutely unacceptable!

Clearly Wei Wuxian was going to need to get on that yao cultivation business sooner rather than later. Someone needed to take care of Lan Wangji, if he wasn’t willing to do it himself – and why not him?

After all, Lan Wangji was his pet human.

[houseboatisland]

I'm rather curious for your own takes on Thom Thom~✨💙

Edit credit to @/ComradeOpThomas from Twitter, this is my ideal Thomas!

(Season 5 Thomas is the best Thomas, I don’t make the rules)

I started this hoping for it not to become a whole biography, but it just kept pouring out of me, so here's a very, very long post indeed lol

Thomas is NOT an L.B.S.C.R. E2 Class. He’s actually a unique design born to the North Western Railway in its earliest days… and in remarkably sad circumstances.

When the Railway Executive Committee first took over in August 1914, they were repulsed at the state of the Sudrian railways. Here were several argumentative companies operating in isolation from one another, with geriatric engines and stock, and one of them hadn't even run a train or maintained its permanent way since the start of the century. A key agenda item of the R.E.C.'s was a continuous, efficient railway system to quickly move men and materiel to the Island's eastern coast were Ireland to side with Kaiser Bill against John Bull. The existing standard gauge railways would have to be more or less torn up and rebuilt from scratch, and several new miles of track laid in to make for a single fluid network.

This required, among other things, many new engines. Several came over the Channel as and when could be spared by the Mainland, but as it became increasingly clear that the war would not be over "by Christmas," this wasn't an ideal long-term solution. The R.E.C. was especially upset that it had to put so many of its tender engines onto construction trains when their strength could be better used on other work. Two tank engines off the former Wellsworth and Suddery Railway, No. 1 "Short" and No. 2 "Stumpy" were by now nearing fifty years old, and exhausted mechanically.

The R.E.C., out to keep costs down and use resources to the fullest, ordered the N.W.R. to scrap these two engines and use the best parts of each to create one new engine. Measurements were taken, plans were hastily drawn up, and Short and Stumpy were quietly cut up in January 1915. Several fittings were made new for what odds and ends neither engine could contribute a usable part. The resulting new engine was "Thomas," who was put to work fresh off the shop floor.

Thomas at this point became the N.W.R.’s No. 1 quite by accident. He was the first engine to be built at Crovan’s Gate, and the REC misinterpreted this on his builder’s plates as an intention by the N.W.R. TO make him No. 1. So when Thomas gained his number, the R.E.C. and the N.W.R. both assumed this was deliberate by one another. And it was just too much of a hassle and too unimportant to change, so No. 1 he stayed.

As for his name, Thomas is named after Thomas Reginald Payne, the North Western Railway's first Chief Mechanical Engineer. Payne had made Thomas' construction a reality, from drawing up his blueprints to supervising his piecing together. Payne, who was CME from 1914 to his death in 1951, never forgot this connection to "his" engine, and often wanted to be on the shop floor whenever Thomas was in for repairs.

Thomas’ “infancy” was in a word, harsh. He was working around the clock, surrounded by engines who came and went, and did little if any socializing. Foremen were ordering him about at every turn. His first friend ever was the new N.W.R. No. 2, Edward, the former Wellsworth and Suddery Railway’s No. 5 and only tender engine, who knew his old crewmates were chopped up to make Thomas. Thankfully, Edward knew better than to let Thomas in on this, lest he give him some sort of existential crisis, and he made quick work of making himself a mentor to the little engine.

In these conditions, Thomas’ “cheeky” and anti-authoritarian streak took shape. His whole life thus far had been work and taking lumps from his superiors, most of whom were English and not Sudrian. This morphed into a disrespect for big engines, who wanted him to be their errand boy as construction work began to ebb and focus shifted to running trains. Ever the contrarian, Thomas only doubles down on his disrespect for tender engines when he finds out that that’s “the traditional order of things.” Edward is of course exempt from this attitude, but in his tensest moments Thomas can even lose patience with HIM momentarily.

The war finally ends. January 1919 sees the N.W.R. out to make an identity for itself as peacetime takes hold and Parliament quietly rumbles about Grouping or outright Nationalization. Thomas is the first engine to wear "Hatt Blue with Red Stripes," the company's planned standard livery. This isn't unique to him for long, however, and Thomas' new line of work from hereon is Station Pilot for Vicarstown. Needless to say this is upsetting to him. He's not moving up and down the Island like he was when building the railway. He's still rushed off his wheels. He's expected to be answerable to tender engines as he makes up their trains. Most importantly, he's still having as much difficulty as before to make time to make friends. This new job is in every respect everything Thomas could have wanted to avoid, and there's no telling if he'll ever even get out of it. January 1919 is thus where "Wants to See the World" Thomas begins.

Thomas still gets to see Edward regularly, and he is for a pinch joined by two other tank engines shunting at Vicarstown. They're also ex-Wellsworth and Suddery Railway, Nos. 3 and 4 "Edwin" and "Victor." Thomas befriends Victor, who is a friendly old joker, but dislikes Edwin who has become cranky in his old and as a 2-4-0T has a tendency to slip and not be of much help. They leave him too, in 1922, when The Fat Director relocates them to run other branchlines on the Island. So, 1922 onward, we meet Thomas as the sole pilot, thoroughly busy and thoroughly lonely.

This seems more or less canon, but The Fat Director probably sent Thomas to Wellsworth after his runaway with Edward's trucks in anticipation of giving him the Ffarquhar Branch once he was a matured engine. He didn't give Thomas the line just because he rescued James in fine style, that was really what made his mind up.

Thomas looks kindly enough on Henry as a big engine at this time, he and Edward as mentioned aren't necessarily the kinds of "Big Engines" he dislikes. He'll occasionally give him a tease or two, or lose patience with his health, (something he now deeply regrets years later,) but there's no real malice in it. Think of him as the little brother poking fun at his bigger brother for having one arm in a cast, but altogether still feeling sorry for him and accommodating him how he can. Henry for his part appreciates Thomas, but takes his teasing very seriously considering how sensitive and implicating it is to, you know, his whole existence.

My idea of Thomas' relationship with Gordon is heavily inspired by @/mean-scarlet-deceiver's: Thomas is initially awed by Gordon's arrival and finally confident the N.W.R. can survive, but quickly resents him when he shows his true colors as a "big engine" through and through. I wouldn't even call Gordon and Thomas "friendly" until their alliance at Toryreck Mine. From 1923 all the way up to then, depending on when you place it, they... legitimately dislike each other. There's no affection beneath all the ribbing and jibes, they ACTUALLY disliked each other that whole period of time.

I'm still hashing out my headcanon of 98462 and 87546, (just know that those aren't actually their numbers,) but it's safe to say Thomas hates their guts, and '62 and '46 hate his guts in return as a servant willing to speak up for himself.

Thomas and James were a couple from 1924 to 1933, when they broke up amid the Big Engine Strike. I'd really rather reserve this for a post of its own at a later date.

Thomas and Percy are good friends, but I wouldn't go so far as to call them "best friends" like the TVS has so often hammered in. They clearly come to blows whenever the tension's too much. I like to explain that away as a shift in Thomas' character. With him doing more passenger work as Percy and Toby handle the stone trains, and his increasing fame, Thomas begins looking down on Percy, not long after he transferred to Ffarquhar in 1955 in fact. This might also have to do with unresolved feelings between them both. (Hey, remember that little green engine you kissed once just to try it over twenty years ago? He's your roommate now, probably forever. Play nice!)

[operationbigskye]

WIP Wednesday

Started this awhile ago, decided to dust it off and give it a try! It’s a post-season 5 tale basically shedding light on healing not being linear and the reality of dealing with Veterans Affairs. It’s in its infancy, as you’ll especially see near the end, but I hope the jist is clear. Thanks for readin!

“I can’t look at it.” Eddie clenched sand in both his fists, nails digging into palms. “Not without wanting to vomit or break things. I just want it gone.”

Buck looked from the velvet box sitting between them up to his friend. “I—I get that Eddie, and I’d have no problem with you chucking that thing into the ocean if I thought it would help,” he said gently. “But I think you’d regret it.”

“Why, because I’m such an American hero, and I’d be spitting in the face of Uncle Sam?”

“God, no, fuck that. I don’t care one bit about loyalty to the military. But I think it would just be you trying to erase it, and…well, you can’t do that, Ed. You deserve to one day, when you’re ready, look that thing with your head held high and realize that it has no power over you. That you survived, because this is a part of you, and you did a good thing. How everything ended for the others, that’s not on you. You gave them their best chance at the time, and that’s not nothing. To them and their families, it was everything.”

Eddie didn’t say anything for a moment, trying to focus on the soft lapping of the waves. “Did you know I’m 70% service connected?”

“What does that mean?” Buck asked curiously.

“When I got back, I was set up with some…I think they call it a reintegration case manager. Probably wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for Sophia dragging me there. Anyway, he had me meet with a Veterans Benefits Administration rep who asked me a bunch of questions, had me fill out a mountain of paperwork, and made me get a physical to determine just how damaged I’d been by the war. Turns out I lost some range of motion in my wrist and shoulder, which automatically made me 10% connected. Then I was granted another 10% for tinnitus.”

“So that’s why you’re so hard of hearing sometimes? I just thought that was just old age.”

“Shut up.” Did he actually just smile? Only Buck could make that possible at this moment.

“What about the other 50%?” Buck asked.

Eddie swallowed. “PTSD. I was feeling pretty shitty when I talked to the psychiatrist the doctor referred me to, and I guess I gave all the right answers for a diagnosis. A part of me thinks they felt obligated to throw that in there because of the Silver Star. So I get a pension every month, and I try to put as much of it as I can in savings. You know, for Chris and other things that pop up.”

Buck chuckled dryly. “Why doesn’t that surprise me?”

“One good thing about the 70% figure is, it makes me eligible for long-term care, or short-term rehab, even hospice care, and it would be completely covered by the VA. That way, Chris doesn’t have to worry about anything someday if I need it. At least there’s that.”

“Well, you deserve all the peace of mind in the world for what you went through.”

“Peace…that sounds nice.”

“You’ll get there. You’re doing all the right things, and you’re not alone.”

“What do I do until then?”

“Well, for starters, how about I hold onto this for you?”

“You’d do that?”

“Duh.”

“Thanks, Buck.”

[mineofilms]

Womb (2010)

Womb (2010) (Russia) Written/Directed By: Benedek Fliegauf (Hungarian) Stars: Eva Green, Matt Smith, Lesley Manville IMDB Rating: 6.3/10 Stars Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score: 45%

Plot Synopsis: After her lover (Matt Smith) dies prematurely, a woman (Eva Green) makes the controversial decision to bring him back to life by giving birth to his clone. From his infancy to manhood, she faces the unavoidable complexities of her controversial decision.

My Review: This nearly 2-hour movie would have made a better 65-minute Black Mirror episode than a full-length foreign art film about the perversion of technology from grief. I don’t know... I can see how some might like it as an "art film." Me... Not so much... I have never been a fan of foreign filmmakers trying to have political commentaries about society touching on a possible POV of the everyday American POV.

Not saying this movie was made for Americans, it clearly isn't but it feels like they tried to cater to American movie lovers and with that, failed miserably. That is why I said Black Mirror here. If they just would have stayed with the mental health aspects, the perversion of technology and more horror/thriller-based themes the movie might have been better than it actually was.

Right now to me; it just comes off as pretentious and morally/sexually weird border lining on downright sick. Some on MovieChat.org were very arrogant about wanting the film banned and whatnot. That isn't the dumbest thing I read on there in relation to the film lol. Some people were/are just straight nasty and added nothing but name calling at each other. Probably why I hardly ever go on there anymore.

That site was, may still be, the best alternate to the IMDB.com message boards that they removed some years back due to “toxic fandom.” I hate these buzzwords people and the media will create to describe something insanely toxic online.

But It's Whatever.

It's a 10-11-year-old film now and they tend to talk about perverting technology with cloning all the time in films/shows now. If it would have been more Black Mirror style this might have had a shot at being decent.

This whole thing was executed wrong and sloppy… That is why it sort of doesn't make much sense on the narrative. Spoilers ahead… What I took away from the film was she is a virgin this whole time. She longed for her long-lost love. They finally meet up as adults. A day or 2 later he is killed in a car accident. At that point, she has emotionally checked out. She immediately goes back into the jeep not being able to properly process the accident and his passing.

Since this is "sci/fi" they introduce cloning as an option with almost no real explanation as to why/how this is a thing in this low-tech narrative story line. It is just part of the reality here, but they make no real introduction that this is a future human society. We could have used some visual clues that this is a technologically evolved society. Maybe like the teddy bear from A.I. Something "advanced" to show us humans are very capable with technology, but lack normal basic human skills like grieving a lover.

This movie really needed a Black Mirror and/or American Horror take to it and maybe a cohesive script... Now it just looks like a very misunderstood, artsy, weird sexual tension film. There are few themes in the film that they could have dug more into, but chose not to and the film suffers because of it. The performances are fine. The cast was really good for a really badly written script and just about all the lovey/dovey child scenes are very awkward and to most American audiences this wouldn’t make much sense to us. To non-Americans, maybe it is better understood but I don’t know. Most of the comments I saw about the film are about a decade old now and most had nothing but negative things to say about the film.

The rest of the comments looked like your everyday Twitter Troll looking to stir the pot. The only reason I watched this is because I wanted to see more of Eva Green because I just think she is fantastic in everything, even if said film is really bad, like this one. Just a little mini-review here. I’d say enjoy Womb but there wasn’t much here to enjoy. It is a cluster of nonsense that also borderlines on the weird sexual dynamic at play here. Very hard to enjoy that, but if you are into dystopian style stories with decent performances then someone, somewhere may actually like this movie.

Womb (2010) by David-Angelo Mineo 8/1/2022 776 Words

[felassan]

The rest of this post (quotes from the article) is under a cut due to length. [source]

(There are discussions of colonialism under the cut / in the article.)

After speaking to various devs who worked on MEA I’ve learned quite a bit about what happened here. First of all, there were several more species designed for this galaxy. One writer lists having proposed “five or six” new alien types, while another states that the ones BioWare opted for in the end were specifically chosen for being in “cosplay-safe” territory. Another dev mentions that an entire system was constructed just to facilitate communication between species who were indigenous to Andromeda and those who had arrived from the Milky Way. The “species who were indigenous to Andromeda” part is important, given that there were also different ideas for how to handle first contact - making the Pathfinder a violent colonist who shoots first and asks questions later wasn’t something that was set in stone from the get-go.

“I think it was a project that couldn't have possibly lived up to expectations,” Neil Pollner tells me. Pollner was a senior writer on Mass Effect 3 before going on to write parts of Andromeda. “Not just the high bar of the original trilogy, but the logical expectations anyone would have of Mass Effect going to a whole new galaxy. Because the scope of [the first] Mass Effect was so incredibly massive, there was an inherent promise that you'd be getting a massive new experience with a ton of new things in [what was supposed to be the first] Mass Effect Andromeda - new species, new lore, an entire new galaxy at your fingertips, etc.

“But we were only given the budget for two new species, plus the Remnant. Not to mention that we couldn't even include all the Milky Way species. And we weren't going to be able to let you travel throughout the galaxy. This meant that we had to develop the story around some pretty glaring inorganic limitations. So, not only did you get something that felt (and was) much smaller than what you got before, almost everyone playing the game probably had something that they really liked about Mass Effect that just wasn't there.”

Pollner goes on to explain something I mentioned above - that there’s an inherent disconnect between making your character an explorer in a game where the vast majority of gameplay involves killing. “Ryder the explorer should have a challenging and dynamic first contact experience,” he explains. “Instead, you're almost immediately killing kett. So, some very basic pillars just weren't lining up.”

When I ask about the fact that several species had apparently been cut from the game - something I had already learned in previous interviews - Pollner assures me that I had “no idea” of what was dropped in the early days of Andromeda. He also lamented the iconic narrative and branching complexity of earlier BioWare games, stating that he wishes the team had been able to maintain the same level of variation, options, and consequences as the revered RPGs the studio was known for.

“The other BioWare Montreal writers and I were dreaming up and developing things for Andromeda months ahead of Edmonton officially starting the project - i.e. before the budget and scope had been decided/communicated,” Pollner says. “We just knew that we were going to Andromeda, with almost nothing else established, including even when in the timeline it would happen. And we set out to brainstorm and grow ideas that could organically serve that general premise. “That first contact expectation I mentioned? We'd developed ideas for how the player would navigate that. We were working on a process for the Milky Way species to learn how to even communicate with the new alien species. We were developing several additional species for the new galaxy, as well as several different storylines for why the expedition had been undertaken. Most of that pre-development work ended up not being used.”

“I proposed five or six new alien species when Andromeda was in its infancy, and I still think they had a ton of potential,” Hepler says. “[Ex-BioWare writer] Jo Berry came up with a few, too, they were awesome.

“However, I'm pretty sure those ideas are still property of BioWare, so even though I'm 100% certain they won't be used, I can't talk about them without getting some kind of permission.”

Given that Pollner had his own ideas for new species, and that Hepler had “five or six” on top of a “few” more from Berry, it’s reasonable to conclude that concepting was done for up to ten additional species that never made it into Andromeda.

“I remember some early concepts that were pretty out there,” Dorian Kieken tells me. Kieken was a design director at BioWare Montreal for Mass Effect 2 and 3 before being promoted to franchise design director at the beginning of Andromeda’s development. “One of the strengths of the original Mass Effect trilogy is that you can actually cosplay most of the alien characters - except the Hanar, although I wouldn't underestimate the creativity of some cosplayers. The intention in Mass Effect Andromeda was to introduce new races that would still be in the realm of cosplay, which is probably why more crazy concepts were abandoned.”

I was surprised that this was even a consideration, so I followed up. Kieken assures me that after Andromeda’s two new races had been decided on, their evolution of their design gradually went into more “cosplay-safe territory,” with the team consciously steering away from “jellyfish” types of aliens. “In the early development of the game, we explored a lot of new species. I'm not sure why we settled on the specific number that were in the final game, but my guess would be a mix of production reasons and having a reasonable amount of races to deal with knowing we were already bringing quite a few from the Milky Way as well.”

As Pollner mentioned earlier, the team only had the budget for two new species plus the Remnant. On top of that, they weren’t able to bring all of the Milky Way species, which corroborates Kieken’s recollection of why so many species were cut.

Given the context of these conversations - species being cut from Andromeda, first contact being muddled with militance, and even cosplay potential governing alien design - I also ask why, in the devs’ eyes, Andromeda was poorly received in relation to the original trilogy.

“I think it’s more story-related than setting-related,” Kieken says. “Andromeda has strong core gameplay that improved a lot over the trilogy, but the story didn't feel as strong. I didn't connect with the new character cast as much as I did with the original trilogy.

“It's also not a fair comparison as the trilogy is three games, so you have a lot more exposition and time to bond with the characters. That being said, I seem to recall a stronger rollercoaster of emotions in the original trilogy, which I think led to more memorable moments. From the tension of almost blowing up Wrex with your shotgun or gathering everyone on a suicide run, to the lightness of listening to Mordin sing ‘I'm the very model of a scientist Salarian’ or shooting cans with Garrus in the Presidium.”

Pollner also explains why Andromeda was perceived so differently from the original trilogy, citing differences in the amount of time the team were given to make the game, but also noting that the core issue was more systemic in nature.

“I think the thesis statement for why is that the Mass Effect trilogy was an incredibly demanding endeavor,” Pollner says. “The checks that were written for it, the complexity of the experience was insanely massive. The team worked their asses off non-stop for so many years, on back-to-back-to-back games. The prospect of doing the same thing again was not only exhausting to imagine, but totally impractical. Some of the ‘lessons’ learned from the original trilogy are ones that are important for game development but result in the player experience being less. When you're talking about triple-A development, the original trilogy is actually the anomaly, not Andromeda.

“Because I moved on from BioWare after my work on Andromeda was complete, I have no idea what, if any, future plans there might be. At the time of my departure, there were none.”

It’s worth noting that Pollner is clear about Andromeda being better than a lot of people give it credit for. While some of the concerns people had have now been verified by people who worked on the project - that there could have been more species and that the core premise of Ryder the explorer becoming Ryder the killer is inherently flawed - the team still worked hard on delivering an ambitious game within the constraints of what they were given.

“I find the game to actually be pretty darn fun, and once the technical flaws were ironed out, and the initial reactive disappointment faded, the game does stand on its own,” Pollner says. “There's some really good stuff in there.”

[source]

[lesdemonium]

romtober day 6: adopted by love interest’s family

Rating: T Ship: Geraskier Word Count: 1675 Summary: Jaskier wasn't quite expecting to have such a warm welcome at his first visit to Kaer Morhen, but he certainly isn't complaining. Especially not when he accidentally overhears conversations he wasn't meant to hear.

read on ao3

“I do not kiss and tell,” Jaskier insisted haughtily, though he winked at Eskel and Lambert as he did so.

Lambert snorted into his drink--something far stronger than Jaskier would find at any old tavern in the Continent. Jaskier had taken one sip, gagged, and made some crack about it curling his chesthair that had Eskel and Lambert howling as they offered him something more suitable. More suitable, apparently, meant probably the strongest wine Jaskier had ever taken. It was meant to be sipped, absolutely, but at least Jaskier could stomach this one. He had never considered himself to have a weak constitution, but Witchers just so loved proving him wrong.

“That’s a lie and we all know it, bard,” Lambert accused, a finger pointed at Jaskier as he narrowed his eyes. Jaskier smiled pleasantly back. “If you had actually managed to kiss that princess, you would be bragging about it until your dying breath. I bet she rejected you.”

Jaskier feigned affront. “Rejected? Me? I’m offended you would even suggest such a thing. But I will forgive you, simply because you do not know of what you speak; you have not seen me in action.”

Now was Eskel’s turn to snort. “We haven’t seen you in action,” he repeated, an eyebrow raised pointedly and a teasing lilt to his voice.

“Have you seen him in action, Geralt?” Lambert asked, with all the faux innocence a shithead like him could muster. “Is it truly a sight to behold? Knicker dropping, would you say?”

Jaskier’s face flushed and he resolutely did not turn his attention toward Geralt, lest Geralt read a bit too much on his face. Geralt, however, didn’t seem to notice the teasing, which was less surprising and more disappointing than Jaskier would have thought. Instead, he hummed and tapped the table as if he was actually considering his answer. Bastard.

“It’s a sight, I’ll say that much,” he answered, ever the diplomat.

“Inspirational, truly. I think your roles should be switched. Geralt should sing of Jaskier’s triumphs,” Eskel said, rolling his eyes.

Jaskier waved a hand. “Save us all that misfortune, Eskel. Geralt would have to say a nice thing or two about me on occasion. I don’t think his poor, delicate heart could take it.” Jaskier grinned at Geralt and nudged him with his shoulder, only to receive an eyeroll and a push back--Geralt likely thought it was just a nudge, but it sent Jaskier tumbling over on the long bench. “See? Brute.”

When Jaskier had first come to Kaer Morhen, he had expected a far cooler reception than the one he received. He had been traveling with Geralt for years, and though he knew Geralt was fond of Jaskier, in his own ways, Jaskier could never quite call him warm. It was a safe assumption that a winter in Kaer Morhen would be much the same, but from three new witchers. 

Vesemir did have a bit more of his progeny’s cool and collected demeanor, but he had clapped Jaskier on the back in a way Jaskier could almost call fatherly on multiple different occasions. When he had met Lambert and Eskel, Lambert had loudly started singing Toss A Coin at them and Eskel had pulled Jaskier in for the most thorough hug of his life. 

Since that welcome reception, they had been outrageously chatty compared to their brother in arms, and nearly every night was spent talking well into the evening. Jaskier had no monster stories to regale them with, but the others did not make him feel as if he was the odd man out. Instead, they looked forward to his stories of skirt chasing and court drama just as much as he looked forward to their tales of heroics against monstrous monsters.

Monstrous monsters. Maybe he’d had a bit too much of the wine.

“It seems my meager human constitution pales in comparison to what your sturdier frames can put away. I fear I must retire before I say something to embarrass myself,” Jaskier said, pushing himself back from the table and standing.

“That’s the longest way to say ‘I’m pissed, gonna go sleep it off,’ I’ve ever heard,” Lambert snorted. “Do you ever say things straight?”

“No,” Geralt answered. “He once ranted through an entire meal, but the only thing he managed to say was that I was a troll.”

“And you are, darling. And a miserable hag to boot.” Jaskier waved a hand dismissively. “A true wordsmith such as I knows how to weave even the most simple of statements into works of art. Try not to miss me and my eloquence too much, and pray that you do not drink yourselves into an early grave. Is it still an early grave if you’re well over a hundred?”

The witcher’s laughed and bid him goodnight, and Jaskier made his way out of the hall.

The problem with the witcher’s keep was that it was not the most intuitive place to navigate. Jaskier prided himself on his sense of direction, having been in many a castle before, and all castles started to look alike with their long, windy hallways and doors upon doors, many of which led to nowhere. The keep was much the same, and the combination of its inherent confusion, the darkness, and Jaskier’s slight inebriation had Jaskier lost. Quite quickly.

It took him about ten minutes and four different doors he was certain had contained stairs earlier that day to finally admit defeat and shuffle back to the dining hall. He didn’t mean to overhear, he really didn’t. Jaskier wasn’t even trying to be sneaky--why bother, when you’re in a keep full of men pumped with so many mutagens they could tell the color of a rabbit from the way it shuffled its feet? Only, apparently the ale had dampened their attention enough that Jaskier’s quiet steps had gone unheard, and he was able to approach the door to the dining hall without so much as a stutter in their conversation.

“--like him, Geralt,” Eskel said.

“Aye. If you manage to fuck things up in the next year and don’t bring him back, I’m not sure if we can let you pass through the gate,” Lamber agreed, though his voice was unusually pleasant. Like he was teasing Geralt.

“So glad to know my own brothers have turned on me so quickly,” Geralt scoffed.

“Well, we’d probably let you in, but only because if your froze your balls off we’d be hearing about it for the next century or so. Seriously, though. He’s nice to have around. You have certainly been less moody this winter,” Eskel said.

“Yeah, you were a right prick last year. And the year before that.” Lambert paused, as if he was considering something. “You have been a right prick this year, too, now that I think of it. Maybe the bard just distracts from your overall unpleasantness.”

There was a quick scuffle and a grunt from Lambert, followed by a long laugh from all of them, though Lambert’s took a moment to move from begrudging to warm. Sometimes, Jaskier wondered if they truly were brothers since infancy; they certainly acted like it. Though, he supposed experiences like they’d had bound people together far more securely than mere blood.

“I’ll ask him, but there’s no guarantees. He makes his own decisions. Goes where he wants. I have no claim to him,” Geralt said, and Jaskier was sure he was not drunk enough to be imagining the sadness etched in his voice.

“Well that’s bull--” Lambert started, only to be drowned out by Eskel.

“Geralt, are you kidding?” Eskel asked, incredulous. “That bard would go wherever you went, if only you’d ask. Even over a fucking cliff.”

“Seriously. He makes eyes at you so frequently, I don’t think he’s even aware he’s doing it at this point.”

Lambert laughed, as if it was a joke, but Jaskier’s face grew hot with embarrassment. Ah. So they had noticed. Jaskier was half afraid they would, and now he had mounting concern over the fact that they were telling Geralt. Jaskier was quite certain this winter was about to get a hell of a lot longer, lonelier, and colder. Either Geralt would realize Jaskier’s affections were just as his brothers said and be disgusted, or he would just let them stay there, as if nothing had happened. Jaskier wasn’t sure which option was worse.

“I’m going to bed,” Geralt said, his voice gruff, and Jaskier heard the scraping of his chair against the wood. 

Jaskier stumbled back a few steps, silently cursed himself, then tried to tiptoe away without attracting too much attention. This was not something he wanted to explain. Except, he still didn’t know how to get back to his own room. Fuck.

“If you’re smart, you’ll go to your bard’s bed!” Lambert called as the door opened. Fuck.

Jaskier scrambled behind a nearby door, trying to hide as quietly as he possibly could. It was a fool’s errand, he knew. After all, even drunk, Geralt would be able to notice him, surely. But he had gotten lucky once tonight when it was him against witchery senses; Jaskier could only hope he’d be lucky again. Otherwise he would have a fair bit of explaining to do.

Geralt walked by the door, and Jaskier only narrowly avoiding expelling a breath of relief. Until he heard Geralt stop, then push the door closed.

“Next time, you should make sure you close the door after you hide behind it,” Geralt said, a smile in his voice, then continued on his merry way, as if he hadn’t left Jaskier frozen to the spot in shame.

It took a long time for Jaskier to build up the courage to leave whatever room he had been hiding in. By the time he did so, Geralt was gone. Apparently, that was that. Apparently, Geralt was content to allow Jaskier to at least sort of live this down.

Maybe this winter wouldn’t turn out to be horrible after all.

[x0401x]

Febri Talk Interview with Jin (Complete)

Commissioned by the lovely @sodasexual​ again!

Part 1: overwhelmed by the power of friendship in “The☆Doraemons: Kaitou Dorapan no Chousenjou!”

Musician and creator Jin has been bringing countless topical works to the world, including “Kagerou Project”. In the first part of this serial interview, we had him talk about a work from the series “The☆Doraemons”, which he experienced in his childhood and continued to be influenced by for a long time.

A work that unexpectedly became one of the origins of “Kagerou Project”.

——Jin-san, we would like to ask you about anime shows that have had an influence on you, following in order from your infancy onwards, so would the first one be “The☆Doraemons: Kaitou Dorapan no Chousenjou!” (hereon, “The☆Doraemons”), which came out in the year 1997?

Jin: That’s right. I watched this one in the theaters when I was either 7 or 8 years old. It’s an animation short that was screened together with “Doraemon: Nobita no Neji-maki Toshi Bounen-ki”, and it had one hell of an impact on me. At the time, I was living in an isolated island in Hokkaido called Rishiri Island, so just getting to watch a movie was quite a spectacle in itself (laughs). Actually, not many animes were broadcasted in Rishiri Island to begin with. There were few channels, and other than that, they aired those black-and-white period dramas in cable TV, I guess.

——No, I think that last one is a stretch (laughs). Did you watch “Doraemon” because you liked it from the start?

Jin: I liked it a lot. But the so-called “The☆Doraemons” is a spin-off about six friends of different colors. If I were to talk about the contents of “Kaitou Dorapan” in a summarized way, it’s the story of the Doraemons receiving a letter of challenge from an mysterious enemy called Dorapan, then completely getting caught into his trap and falling into a pinch... And, surprisingly, Doraemon isn’t active at all in this movie (laughs).

——Aah, it’s a work where the Doraemon friends are the main characters, right?

Jin: That’s right. A duo that didn’t have much popularity among the friends, Dora-med III and Dora-rinho, were set as the main characters in this one (laughs). Of course, I didn’t go watch it thinking that Doraemon would participate actively, but he almost doesn’t do anything. Instead, we were shown these two, who are something like sub-characters, in a big scuffle. But when it ended, I began to really like Dora-med III and Dora-rinho.

——Ahaha. So you totally got into it.

Jin: They had something called a “Friendship Telephone Card”, which was introduced as a key item, and this “friendship” thing made the back of my nose sting – that was the kind of feeling I got from it. Dorapan, the one who plays the role of villain in this movie, attempts to take control of robots from all over the world using the power of the Doraemons’ Friendship Telephone Card. However, there’s actually a mastermind behind the scenes, and one heroine is taken hostage, so Dorapan is doing bad deeds because he has no choice. We find this out in the middle of the movie, and at that moment, Dora-rinho goes, “I see; so that’s what was going on” and voluntarily tries to sacrifice himself. By believing in self-sacrificing friendship, everyone was able to reach a happy ending. That kind of storyline was truly wonderful... To tell you the truth, the initial motif of Kagerou Project (hereon “KagePro”) was this movie.

Making KagePro out of wanting to create his own “Doraemons”.

——Eeh, is that so!?

Jin: I created KagePro because I wanted to write about friendship, or rather, I wanted to make my own “Doraemons”. I started KagePro when I was about 20 years old, as I was vaguely beginning to realize that friendship apparently doesn’t exist at that point in life (laughs). Also, same goes to music, of course, but among the books I was reading back then, quite a lot of them had cynical views. Although these stories were my own taste, I also had the impression that there was a generational trend in them, like “people shouldn’t look at this if they’re dumb” and “those who understand this thing are admirable”. Therefore, I did my best to pretend to be like that at first, but I gradually grew tired of it...

——Ahaha. You were getting out of breath.

Jin: That’s right. So, when I looked back, I thought, “I do like ‘Kaitou Dorapan’ after all”. Therefore, if I was going to make something by myself, I decided to use it as the theme. In that sense, amongst the things I watched in my childhood, this work was a turning point. After watching it in the theater for the first time, I watched it over and over again as rental video, and because of this, I even now remember the moments when the sound effects come in.

——Generation-wise, you’re precisely from the generation of “The☆Doraemons”.

Jin: Yeah, spot-on. Also, the Doraemons from “The☆Doraemons” are comical and cute, but on the other hand, they show us that they are extremely strong-willed characters. Moreover, the Doraemons are rich in individuality – as in, everyone is irregular and there are some characters that make you go, “Isn’t that a problem?” amongst them. For example, the wolf Dora-nichov can’t speak human language (laughs).

——I see! Thinking that way, I feel like I can see the points in common with KagePro.

Jin: Also, all of them are purely good guys. The fact that they’re all good people and only have one enemy is pretty awesome. I believe that this kind of thing has an influence on the KagePro series as a whole.

Part 2: paralyzed by the hardboiled worldview of “Cowboy Bebop”.

In the second part of this interview series, where we ask Jin about anime works that influenced him, we have “Cowboy Bebop”, a masterpiece still loved by many fans even now. Here, Jin, who works as both a musician and creator, discusses thoroughly about the appeal of it.

Learning the attitude and stance for creating things.

——You talked about how not many animes were aired in your homeland, but did you keep watching anime after that?

Jin: If you mean watching on TV, anime was what I enjoyed most. However, the shows on broadcast were limited, so when it comes to series that left an impression on me, it would be things like “Card Captor Sakura”, which I used to watch with my little sister. “Kinnikuman” was also re-aired and I liked it a lot. As expected, I was weak to “friendship” (laughs). When they were fighting for the throne or whatever, man, I cried, for real. This happened around the time I was in grade school, but when I got into middle school, I stopped watching anime entirely.

——And when you came back to it, it was right on time for...

Jin: For the series that I pointed out as second in line, “Cowboy Bebop”. Because my father had made up his mind to get his hands on a satellite television called SKY Perfect TV! I think he probably wanted to watch Discovery Channel, but back then, he also included Animax in the contract. And, by sheer coincidence, a re-run of “Cowboy Bebop” began right at that timing, around 2004 or 2005, I guess. I was a middle schooler then, and there were lots of CMs that went like, “Broadcast begins on X day of X month!” together with that opening theme by Kanno Youko-san.

——So that’s what caught your interest.

Jin: There was also the fact I’d been disconnected from anime for a while, so I watched the first episode not knowing anything. And the contents weren’t aimed at children at all (laughs). Dude sprayed an eye-drop drug into his eyes, went, “UWAH—!” and died, like.

——Ahaha. It was a shock.

Jin: “Cowboy Bebop” was my first time coming in contact with a hardboiled worldview. I was like, “What’s this? It’s so cool”. Until then, I had this impression that “anime was made for kids”, but for the first time, I felt like I was watching a drama. Plus, the story was interesting, so I was super hooked as I watched it, and while doing so, the episode “Jamming with Edward” (episode 9) had an impact on me.

——Satou Dai-san was the one who wrote the script for it, right? You later came to work together with Satou-san in “LISTENERS”.

Jin: That’s right. It was such an impact that it had me thinking, “You wouldn’t be able to do that in a TV drama”. And so, this ninth episode had me completely addicted to it, and in the end, I watched it up to the finale. Later on, when I began my own creations, I noticed that what I was doing overlapped with “Cowboy Bebop”, and when this happened, I realized I was doing something quite risky (laughs). To top it off, just when I thought, “There must be lots of animes like that out there”, there was surprisingly none.

The coolness of affirming that KagePro has both pop and hardcore songs and that this is what it is about!

——Ahaha. Did “Cowboy Bebop” have any influence on you? For example, on the music side...

Jin: Hmm... if you put it that way, maybe not (laughs). Only in the variety aspect of the narrative, as people call it. Each one of the 26 episodes has wholly different colors, so to say. They felt like a gashapon from which you couldn’t tell what was coming out next.

——Like, although there were episodes where they threw in comedy to their hearts contentment, there were also episodes that showed vigorous action.

Jin: When I think about it, there are also episodes that go through a simple approach by way of genres that even I would know. I think the creators must’ve had a lot of fun when making them. So when it comes to what influenced me, it I think it was the variation of songs. I think there probably aren’t that many composers like me, who make songs one by one and have no idea what song to write next.

——As in, you do it while intentionally deciding to change the tone and genre?

Jin: Rather than that, I guess it happens naturally. I was always the type who doesn’t listen to the same genre all the time – it’s like, “Today is rock day; tomorrow is punk day”. I believe it’s possible that “Cowboy Bebop” made me think this kind of feeling was valid. The themes also don’t have to be consistent, and even if you turn upside-down the things that you had been asserting in a previous episode, their value and meaning will still hold. Moreover, I didn’t think that the people who made “Cowboy Bebop” had to plan this stuff up in their heads and study about it so that they could put it to action. It just so happened that when they drew out the things they like and lined them up, it turned out the way it did.

——So they didn’t do it while aiming for that, but rather, it turned out to have a sense of variety to it when it was finished.

Jin: And I think it’s amazing because it validates itself with that. So I guess being able to say all we have to say is what actually matters (laughs). If I were to affirm, “This is what KagePro is about!”, then that’d be pretty much it. Even though there are both pop and hardcore songs in KagePro, nobody can say, “That doesn’t feel like KagePro”. That’s why I think that the coolness of proudly declaring, “That’s what it is!” is something I learned from Bebop. Like, “This is what’s cool”. It feels like, on my own accord, I accepted something that was like a stance to be taken when you create these kinds of things.

Part 3: obsessing over “Tokyo Godfathers”, which had developments where one couldn’t predict what lay ahead.

This is the third part of the interview series where the creator Jin talks about works that influenced him. Here, he discusses about a hidden masterpiece from the director Kon Satoshi, which also had a great influence on “Kagerou Project” and which he encountered during his vocational school years, while living a wasteful life.

——The third work is “Tokyo Godfathers” by Director Kon Satoshi, but when was it that you watched it?

Jin: It was during my vocational school years. After graduating from high school, I attended a vocational music school located in Sapporo, but my upperclassmen from that school taught me many bad ways of having fun (laughs). I used to buy lots of sick equipment. Then, obviously, I’d run out of money, so I worked to death in part-time jobs, and well, lived a wasteful life (laughs), but during that time, a friend from my class lent me a DVD of “Hidamari Sketch”. At first, I told him, “Nah, I’m not too into this kinda stuff”, but when I took it home and watched it, I wailed aloud.

——Ahaha.

Jin: That’s why I asked Asumi Kana-san (who voices Yuno) to play KagePro’s main heroine... Anyhow, “Hidamari Sketch” became the cue for me to start watching anime again. And Director Kon Satoshi was from Sapporo, so it was probably being featured in a video shop. “Tokyo Godfathers” is a 2003 movie, but I saw it in the video in 2008 or 2009.

——What piqued your interest about it?

Jin: It was tremendously well-done and fun, and on top of that, it was sharp – a work like no other up until then, I thought. A dramatic production with parallel storylines focusing on different characters is incorporated within the span of about an hour and half as if it weren’t enough. During that same time, there were also works by Mitani Kouki-san and Isaka Koutarou-san’s “Golden Slumber” was being made into live action, so I believe that the so-called multi-protagonist story kind of approach was being used in all sorts of places. But even among them, “Tokyo Godfathers” was outstandingly interesting. “Where the heck is this story heading to?” You can’t tell at all until the end. Three homeless people pick up a baby on Christmas night and try to take her to her mother, but as the story goes on, it gets to a climax like, “Does she even have a mother in the first place?”. Plus, we find out that the person who they thought to be the mother and handed the baby over to is actually someone who kidnapped her from a hospital. The story just keeps changing over and over.

As the story progresses, the characters’ pasts become visible. It was interesting that the past and present were firmly bound together.

——We can’t predict what comes next at all, huh?

Jin: So, the topic will go back to KagePro now: when I thought of writing a novel, first of all, I decided that I “wanted to do a multi-protagonist story”. To make a story like the one from “The☆Doraemons” into a multi-protagonist story. Back then, I really liked the type of novels that went on in first person – such as works by Isaka-san or Morimi Tomihiko-san, and also Yonezawa Honobu-san.

——I see, I see.

Jin: On the other hand, “Tokyo Godfathers” is structured so that the characters’ pasts can be seen more and more as the story progresses. As if the story progresses with the past mini-arcs as the main focus. Like, “Person A and Person B were actually parent and child!” – it was interesting that the past and the present were bound together so firmly. Moreover, the developments go on at an incredible speed, and there’s a proper catharsis at the end. Also, all the characters that show up in it have rich facial expressions.

——To begin with, the fact that the three main characters are homeless is a twist.

Jin: In the first place, it starts with the main heroine spitting onto people in the streets from a rooftop (laughs). I really like those sharp-edged points of it too. “Tokyo Godfathers” has a content that can be written even if the protagonists were parent and child from an ordinary household. But through making the protagonists homeless, it became extremely vivid.

——It’s as if it turns them into down-to-earth characters and gives you a sensation that they connect with the audience’s “present”.

Jin: If I were to speak of other words by Director Kon Satoshi, I also think that “Paprika” and “Sennen Joyuu” are amazing. But on the other hand, I end up thinking, “They’re so wonderful”. As in, “Awesome, aren’t they? I don’t get them very well, though” (laughs). But “Tokyo Godfathers” is a candid form of entertainment that even an idiot like me can instantly get hooked on. The fact that I indeed want to keep doing entertainment resides strongly inside me.

——Listening to you talk like this, Jin-san, it makes me think that the books you read and movies you watched because you liked them reflect straightforwardly in your own manner of expressing yourself.

Jin: I myself think that I’m usually straightforward (laughs). Rather than “I want it to be seen like this” or “I want people to think of it like that”, I prioritize “I want to do this” and “this is fun”, so to say. By multiplying “The☆Doraemons” to “Tokyo Godfathers”, it turned into “Kagerou Project” (laughs). I feel like that’s my foundation.

[amanda-glassen]

Her Everything

Part of @svuappreciation #WSVU Week. Day 7: Heartbreak. Twelve-year-old Olivia overhears why her mom never told her who her dad is. TW: rape mention.

From March to June, twelve-year-old Olivia’s Saturday mornings would be dedicated to softball. Her team may not have won that morning, but the loss didn’t matter to Olivia. She had hit a homerun and three of her favorite people were there to watch her: her mom, her uncle, and her girlfriend, Alex. It made Olivia particularly proud to see her two favorite women dressed in her team colors. Alex was wearing a mint green v-neck t-shirt with her long hair back in a ponytail with a mint green scrunchie. Her mom wore the t-shirt that all the moms wore but, never being the kind to wear an oversized t-shirt, she had cut it into a tank top to wear with her leggings. Neither her mom nor Alex knew anything about softball, but her uncle Kyle was there to explain everything to them and, even if Alex didn’t understand the game, Olivia didn’t mind as long as her cute good luck charm was there to watch her play.

She and Alex had been a couple for two months and, at twelve, two months felt like a serious commitment, especially because Alex was now allowed to come over on weekends. There wasn’t even the slightest chance that she’d be allowed in Olivia’s room with the door closed, but Olivia didn’t care where they were as long as she was allowed to hold Alex’s hand.

They decided to watch a movie on the couch after the game while Olivia’s mom and uncle were having a glass of wine in the kitchen. Olivia always enjoyed when her uncle visited and she’d overhear the casual back and forth between them－the kind that happened between siblings－the casual teasing, sharing stories, making each other laugh. It was what Olivia sometimes longed to have even if she knew it were impossible.

“I wish I had a brother,” she told Alex.

Alex pressed pause on the remote so she could focus on Olivia without any distractions. “No, you don’t,” she told her, her eyes wide. “Little brothers are annoying. I’ll give you mine for the weekend and you’ll be so glad you’re an only child.”

“Not even,” Olivia insisted. “Your little brother Logan is fun. Remember when me and him built a LEGO T-Rex and your parents took us to the batting cages and I taught him how to hit a curveball?”

Alex batted her eyelashes at her. “That’s because you like boy things.”

“I like you,” Olivia said as she started to tickle her. “And you are definitely not a boy thing.”

“Olivia!” Alex squealed loudly when Olivia continued to tickle her. 

“Girls?” they heard Serena call out from the kitchen. “What are you doing in there?”

“Nothing,” Alex and Olivia responded in unison, although they knew their time alone was now over. She quickly pressed play on the remote and sat a comfortable distance away from Alex.

Her uncle Kyle was the first to enter the living room followed by her mom, both with a full wine glass in hand. “Your mom says we have to come cramp your style, as if she didn’t have her first girlfriend when she was twelve or thirteen,” her uncle said to her. He sat down on an accent chair on one side of the couch while her mom sat down on the other. “What are we watching?”

“The Blair Witch Project,” Alex responded. “I’ve always wanted to see it, but my mom has my Netflix profile set to a Kids’ profile. I never get to watch anything fun. I’m twelve now. I should be able to watch whatever I want.”

“Maybe not whatever you want,” Serena told her. “But I’m sure she’ll let you watch more things little by little. Middle school sleepovers are when most girls start watching horror movies.”

“I remember the first time Serena watched this movie with her friends,” Kyle began. “She had a sleepover for her 13th birthday and there were probably ten girls over. My sister thought she was so cool because she was the only one who wasn’t scared. What she didn’t tell them was that she had watched this movie the night before to prepare herself so she wouldn’t be scared in front of her friends. There’s this scene toward the end where there’s a lot of screaming and that’s when I decided to mess with the circuit breaker and turn all the lights off in the house. Serena ran to our parents’ room, screaming ‘Daddy!’ at the top of her lungs. Just like that, her seventh grade reputation was ruined.”

Olivia was laughing hysterically, but Alex wasn’t so amused. “That sounds like something my little brother would do. Why are boys such jerks?”

Serena gently swirled her wine in the glass before taking a sip. “Boys are jerks until you humble them.”

“Had I known what my sister was capable of, I wouldn’t have spent the first 18 years of my life messing with her and it’d be in your brother’s best interest for him not to mess with you either,” Kyle responded. “Serena and I are best friends now, but when we were kids, I messed with her all the time and she never did anything about it. Little did I know she wasn’t one for petty revenge. My sister is calculated and cunning and she got me back in the best way.”

“How?” Alex asked, wide-eyed. “Is it something I can do, too?”

“Maybe in a few years,” Serena responded. “It was the first time frat boys proved themselves useful. Out of every college in America, he decided to go to the same school I did and join my sorority’s brother fraternity.”

“Had I known my sister had actual henchmen, I wouldn’t have,” Kyle chuckled. “This was 2007, so you know those douchey looking frat boys in teen movies back then with the gelled hair and Abercrombie shirts with the popped collars? That’s exactly what they looked like. They had these rich boy names like Kemper, Bennett, and Bradford, and my sister had all of them wrapped around her finger. They made my life a living hell when I started pledging just because she told them to and when I begged her to call this whole thing off, she said, in the most innocent tone of voice, ‘My darling baby brother, this is only the beginning. You still have eight weeks left.’ After that, I never messed with Serena again. To this day, I won’t even eat the last slice of pizza until I make sure Serena doesn’t want it. There was this other guy, Emerson, who was her best friend at the time－”

“I have to call my girlfriend,” Serena interrupted. “Excuse me.” She quickly got up to leave and Kyle hurried after her.

“Ren, I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. Ren?”

Although she wanted to check on her mom, she knew whatever her mom was upset about was probably something she had no business asking about, so she decided to stay with Alex. “Everything is okay,” Alex said as she rested her head on Olivia’s shoulder. “My brother and I fight all the time and everything is okay after our parents make us talk about it.”

“Maybe you’re right.” Olivia pressed play on the remote and the two of them watched the movie until the pizza arrived. With free reign to order whatever she wanted, Olivia got two large pizzas, wings, cheesy bread, and pasta. It took both her and Alex to carry it to the table, but Olivia made sure to carry the pizzas because they were the heaviest items and Olivia thought it would show Alex how strong she was. 

“I’ll be right back,” she told Alex once everything was neatly placed on the kitchen table. “Mom! Uncle Kyle! The pizza is here!”

She pressed her ear to the door and kept as quiet as she could so she could hear them talking. 

“How could you even bring him up in front of Olivia?” she heard her mom ask. “Or bring him up in front of me, for that matter? You’ll never understand what he did to me...what he still does to me every time I see him on social media with his wife and kids. He ruined my life when he raped me and it didn’t phase him. I don’t follow him. I don’t search for his name. I blocked him, but there’s no getting away from him in our social circle when everyone knows everyone. I have these constant reminders of the worst night of my life. Even Olivia…I just thought...how could I love someone that was conceived by a monster?”

She never even wanted me. She still doesn’t want me. The person I love most in the world doesn’t even love me back. She’s just been saying it all these years because she’s had to. Olivia swallowed hard to prevent herself from crying. With Alex waiting for her in the kitchen, she wanted to remain calm and collected. She didn’t cry when she saw her. Instead, she hugged Alex longer than she ever had before and found comfort in her arms since she knew she couldn’t hug her mommy anymore.

Just as she had been taught to do by her own mother, Serena touched up her makeup and pretended as if nothing had happened. It was all a misunderstanding her mother had told her when she was twenty-one. ‘What did you expect, Serena? You were in his room and you kissed him.’ It was the same thing his mother and father had told her, too. ‘How was my son supposed to know when you were giving him every signal that you wanted him to.’ Her father had told her not to report it; they’d settle this between the two families. Mr. Benson was a producer and with a premier coming up, he didn’t want an investigation getting in the way and ruining his career. Social media was in its infancy in 2008, but Emerson and his parents had found a way to use it against her. 

That night, once Alex and Kyle went home and Olivia was fast asleep, she started to reflect on what had gotten her to that point in her life. It happened at a beach-themed party that Emerson’s frat was hosting. She was in a bikini top and denim shorts as were the rest of the girls and she had taken a few shots as had everyone else at the party, but the pictures posted on Facebook the next day portrayed a girl that had gotten completely wasted and was hanging on the entire executive board of the fraternity. For the past two years they had been her friends and she had several pictures with them, but because of what she was wearing and because these were some of the first to be posted on social media, an entirely different narrative was created, one that even her own parents believed.

Serena knew the statistics on rape that were told to her and every other student during freshman orientation, but she had lived a sheltered life before college and she had always imagined that rapists were scary-looking men that attacked girls in the middle of the night when they walked alone on quiet streets. She never could have fathomed that her rapist would be her best friend. 

With three weeks left of her junior year, Serena was already looking forward to her final year of college. She had run for president of her sorority and found out she won just hours before the party began. Serena wasn’t a binge drinker by any means, but she drank more than usual that night to celebrate her victory. She went up to Emerson’s room just as she did every time she visited the frat house, but unlike every other night, she kissed him. Kissing led to something a little further that she consented to, but when she said she didn’t want to have sex and wanted to take things slow if they were going to go from best friends to something more, he took that choice away from her. The alcohol she had consumed earlier had left her in an in between stage where she was lucid enough to know what was going on but too drunk to fight him off of her. To make matters worse for her, he held her afterward and suggested she stay the night because, as he said, ‘you never know what kind of maniacs are out there in the middle of the night.’

...but she didn’t stay. She figured whoever was out there probably wasn’t as bad as who was in that frat house. Not knowing what else to do when she got home, she immediately got in the shower to wash off his scent and anything else of his that was left on her. She saw the bruises on her body from when he held her down and, for the first time, it felt real for her. It wasn’t a bad dream or some drunken hallucination. Her rapist wasn’t the boogeyman hiding in the shadows; he was one of the people she loved most in the world.

Kyle had beat him within an inch of his life once he found out what had happened and it was another thing that both families swept under the rug to protect their image. It’ll all go away during summer break, Serena told herself. I’m going to come back here and I’m going to be president of Phi Delt and be who I used to be－who I still am; however, a positive pregnancy test that summer made her come to the realization that her life would never be the same. Her parents and her friends all told her to ‘get rid of that thing’ and she had every intention of getting an abortion until she felt her baby kick. She knew her life would never be the same and she also knew it probably wasn’t the right approach to take, but Serena wanted to right the wrongs of her own mother and she felt as if this baby would give her that opportunity.

“Mommy,” she heard her now twelve-year-old daughter sobbing in the doorway of her bedroom that night, bringing her out of her thought process.

Serena lifted up her comforter and patted the bed with her hand so her daughter could join her. “Come here, Ollie.”

Once she lied down, she felt Olivia cling to her tighter than ever before. “Mom, I heard something you told Uncle Kyle and I wanna know if it’s true or maybe you’re gonna lie to me again. I don’t know. If you want, I can leave. We can call social services tomorrow and－”

“Ollie,” Serena interrupted, completely taken aback. “Ollie, what are you talking about? I never want you to leave me.” One of Serena’s worst nightmares had just come true. She was going to have to tell her and she had no idea how.

“I know you were raped,” Olivia blurted out. “I know you never wanted me and my dad was some monster who hurt you. Do I remind you of him? Why did you even keep me? No mom would want a daughter like me. I learned that in some places abortion is only legal if the pregnancy is because of rape. It’s okay everywhere to abort babies like me. I’m one of those kids that’s...less than. I’m the kind that it’s okay to get rid of.”

Serena wiped her daughter’s tears away and held her close. She still had the slightest hint of the cologne that she wore whenever she wanted to impress Alex, but the LEGO movie PJ shirt and PJ pants she was wearing made Serena feel like she was still her little girl despite how much she was growing up. “Ollie…” she hesitated to give herself more time to think. “Every woman has the right to choose what she does with her own body and I would never judge another woman for the choices she’s made regarding abortion just as I’d like to think no other woman would judge me. With that being said, I had every option in the world available to me and out of all those options, I knew the best choice for me was to keep you and I’ve never regretted that.”

“Do you promise?”

“Hold up your pinky,” Serena told her. Olivia held up her pinky next to Serena’s. They were both wearing heart-shaped pinky rings that Serena had bought a year earlier. “Remember what I said when I got us these matching rings that time we went on our mother/daughter adventure? I pinky promise to always love you and always be there for you. No matter what happens in life or how far away you may go for college or for your career, I’ll always be in your heart and you’ll always be in mine. I know things weren’t easy for us at first and I couldn’t be there for you as much as I wanted to when you were little and I might have made a few mistakes, but there was not a single moment in your entire life that I didn’t love you.”

“I don’t remind you of him when you look at me?”

“No, Ollie, nothing about you reminds me of him. Yes, that had crossed my mind when I was pregnant, but that never happened once you were born,” Serena promised her. “You don’t even look anything like him. You look like your uncle Kyle but never tell him that because you’re beautiful and I don’t want him thinking he’s attractive and getting all arrogant about it.”

“Mom,” Olivia laughed. 

Olivia’s laughter was and always would be Serena’s favorite sound. Her daughter had been conceived in a violent act, but everything about her was so innocent. The twelve years since she had given birth to her had been the best years of her life. Twelve years of cuddles, laughter, and being able to love someone so unconditionally. She’d do anything for Olivia and she had already done more than her daughter would ever know. There were custody battles between her and Emerson when Olivia was a baby and he was still trying to fight Serena for the chance to be a part of Olivia’s life. It all happened out of court now that he had a wife and kids, but she and Kyle and the rest of the Benson family were going to do all they could to keep him away from Olivia.

“Ollie, I want you to listen to me, okay?”

“Okay,” Olivia nodded.

“You are, have been, and forever will be the best thing that has ever happened to me. He was there when you were conceived but he didn’t create you. It was my body that created you for nine months, not his. You are nothing like him, Ollie. You are the sweetest girl and being your mom has been the greatest experience and greatest honor of my entire life.”

“Mom?”

“Yes, Olliegator?”

“I don’t think you made any mistakes. I think you’re the best mom in the world. My friends think so, too. Everyone says you’re the cool mom.” Olivia gave her a kiss on the cheek. “And, Mom?”

“Yes, Ollie Koalie?” Serena playfully tapped her daughter’s nose.

“Why do you sleep in Jamie’s shirt instead of the pretty pajamas you used to wear?”

It was yet another question that Serena wasn’t prepared for. “Jamie is my girlfriend now and she and I love each other very much and sometimes, when we aren’t together, I really miss her. If I sleep in her shirt, it’s like she’s here with me.”

“I miss Alex sometimes, too,” Olivia responded. “Do you think she’d like it if I gave her a shirt to wear when she misses me?”

“I think she’d like that very much,” Serena told her even if she wasn’t ready for her little girl to be that serious about her girlfriend. “I have an idea. What about if you and I have a sleepover night?”

“Sleepover night!” Olivia said excitedly. “I’ll make the popcorn and pick a movie for us to watch. Can we watch another scary movie?”

“Anything you want,” Serena smiled at her.

Sleepover night was Olivia’s favorite mother/daughter tradition and, even if she was tired, Serena was willing to do whatever she could to make her daughter feel loved. 

When her college-aged self imagined life in her thirties, she imagined she’d be a famous writer living in London or Paris and she’d spend all of her free time travelling the world and treating life like some grand adventure. Motherhood had never even crossed her mind because she felt it would only slow her down. Serena Benson was now just a couple of weeks shy of her 34th birthday and, although her life had turned out nothing like she had planned, the twelve-year-old girl eating handfuls of popcorn on the couch next to her－her daughter, her everything－was the reason why it had turned out better than she could ever imagine.

[unmaskedagain]

Not the Devil, but Twice as mean

           This is a short story that I wrote. Its dark. It does reference suicide early on. It talks about evil and the supernatural so be warned.

“My mother committed suicide,” Claudia told Dr. Sykes dryly. She kept her face blank, like always.  Nothing the therapist could latch on to or exploit. “She did it because she would rather die than raise a daughter like me.”

Claudia had always been Dr. Sykes most… peculiar client. She didn’t come with the usual problems that plagued other schoolgirls her age. There were no body issues, boy troubles, too much pressure to succeed from family, or a desire to improve her popularity at school. Nor did she seem to have any narcissistic tendencies like Sykes thought she would. Claudia was cold, seemingly indifferent to all the troubles that had wreaked havoc on her life but more than willing to discuss them as one talked about the weather.

Dr. Sykes resisted to write the word sociopath on her notepad again. She was a thin, middle-aged blond woman with a big nose and a haircut that reminded people of Tinkerbell. “Why do you think that’s true?”

Her patient raised one of her perfectly sculpted eyebrows at the question. It would be an understatement to say that Claudia Valencia was a pretty girl. She had an otherworldly beauty that would’ve been odd on any woman, let alone a girl of fourteen. Her ink-black hair was a mess of endless curls that framed eyes such a deep brown they were easily mistaken for black. She had high cheeks bones, scarlet lips, and her amber skin was flawless and blemish-free as if the teen hadn’t ever so much as had a pimple.

Which was probably true, Dr. Skyes thought. And when she did, she could swear she saw a flicker of a smile on Claudia’s sweet face.

“I don’t think it’s true. I know it is,” Claudia finally answered.

“Uh-huh,” The older woman said. Dr. Sykes had been Claudia’s therapist for two years. She probably knew more about the younger girl than anyone else. “Why do you know it’s true? And what do you mean: a daughter like you?”

           Claudia smiled pleasantly. The answer was the same for both questions. Evil, Claudia thought. She was born evil. She had always known it. Claudia was born with black blood, literally pumping through her veins. The first time she was placed in a crib, Claudia had set fire to the entire room. When Claudia was little, she’d walked the earth with two shadows. One belonged to her. The other did not.

Her mother didn’t mind at first, even when little Claudia had started speaking to it. She wrote it off as a child talking to an imaginary friend. It wasn’t until she finally heard the shadow talk back did she finally have enough. Her mom’s death was the last time Claudia saw her second shadow. Her father’s shadow.

“My mother was a good woman,” Claudia said. “A kind, loving woman. And a fool.” She sighed as she remembered her mother. “She loved fairy tales. She loved books and shows about magic, love, and good, always triumphing over evil. They blinded her of how dangerous such things really are, how dangerous my father was. The reality set in after I was born. I wasn’t the daughter she expected me to be. I could never be the daughter she always wanted. Still, she tried to love me as best she could.”

           Dr. Sykes nodded and took more notes. “And do you think she loved you?”

“As best she could,” Claudia repeated.  

“And your father?” Dr. Sykes. “Did he want you? In our past sessions, you hardly ever spoke of him. I wish to address him now because, as you have stated, this will be our last session.”

           Claudia paused to contemplate what to say, how best to give an answer that wouldn’t end with Sykes accusing her of being the anti-Christ. The situation happened with her last therapist. It was an unpleasant experience. “My father is a cold man, a harsh man. Cruel, even. He demands perfection out of everything and everyone in his life. He despises weakness and stupidity. He firmly believes love isn’t freely given. It’s earned.” It was, Claudia was willing to bet, the kindest words anyone had ever said about her father. “I am exactly the daughter my father always wanted.”

She’d be dead if she wasn’t. I had sisters, Claudia wanted to scream. A dozen, maybe, if she remembered right, give or take one or two. They spanned back centuries. Most of them hadn’t made it past infancy. Too human for Daddy Dearest to even bother with. The rest dead before or by their fifteenth birthday. Too weak, her father had said, to do what was expected of them. However, even though this would be their last meeting, there were some things Claudia couldn’t bring herself to reveal.

“So, he loves you?”

           At the question, Claudia’s face turned thoughtful. “My father is capable of many things, but I had always wondered if the ability to love is one of them. He is fond of me.” No daughter of his had ever lived as long as she had. Only sons. And even then, only pure sons. Never a half-breed like her. No daughter of his had ever come so close to completing the Blood Rites, not that her father knew that yet. Countless of her brothers had tried and died in their attempts to complete the Blood Rites. Or had been killed for their attempts. “He is proud of me.”

           Dr. Sykes straightened up in his seat, “You’ve had contact. The last time we spoke about your dad, you swore you’d never speak to him again.” This was growth, the woman thought.

“I haven’t seen or spoken to him since I was seven-years-old,” Claudia said. The shadows told her everything she wanted to know. They were how Claudia knew she was running out of time. They could travel to places she dared not tread. It was how she knew her father still looked for her and that he was getting close to finding her.

He had been searching for Claudia for most of her life. It had taken five years, and having a child for her mother to admit that the man she loved was, literally, pure evil. Once she had, her mother had taken her and ran. It was the smartest thing she had ever done.

“He doesn’t know where I am,” Claudia whispered. She always preferred to limit any mention of her father. Speak of the devil and all that. “I don’t want him to know. Not yet, at least.” The very thought of her father finding her before Claudia could finish the rites made her entire body tremble.

           Dr. Sykes mistook the emotion for another one entirely. “Do you miss him?”

“Sometimes,” Claudia admitted. She just feared him more. Claudia was terrified of what he would do to the people she loved; her family, her friends. Not could do, not might do; would do. “He was a good dad from what I remember. He always made time to play with me; tea parties, princesses, superheroes.”

“Why don’t you invite him to your birthday?” Dr. Sykes suggested a smile lit up her face. “You’ve talked about it for months. It’s a big day for you. It would be a good time to work out any lingering… issues.”

           Claudia sighed. Dr. Sykes still thought she had abandonment issues. She did not have abandonment issues. She had ‘if father finds out I’m doing the Blood Rites in an attempt to declare emancipate myself from his control once and for all, he’ll have everyone I’ve ever known and loved slaughtered in front of me before killing me himself’ issues. “The timing wouldn’t work.”

“It’s a week away,” Dr. Sykes stated. “Is your father overseas?”

“Practically in another world,” Claudia smirked. “Besides, he’s my father. He doesn’t need an invitation. He’s had this birthday marked on his calendar for years.”

           Dr. Sykes gave her an understanding look. “My mom was deployed a lot when I was young. Maybe he’ll make it in time.”

“He will,” Claudia said, a coldness went down her spine. “Fifteen is a special age to turn in my family.”

“Yes, a traditional celebration for young Hispanic girls,” Dr. Sykes remembered. “Your Quinceanera.”

           Claudia smiled. “My mother used to dream about how’d mine would be. A big puffy dress, going from flats to heels.

“What was your mother’s name?” Dr. Sykes asked. She had finally caved to two years of building curiosity about the young girl’s family. It was her last chance, after all

“Rosemary,” Claudia answered with a soft smile on her face. “My father found it amusing.”

           Dr. Sykes leaned forward, hand on her chin. “Why?”

“People call him the devil,” Claudia answered. “He isn’t, of course. My father isn’t old enough, my grandfather maybe. That old man is where Christianity got their idea of what the devil looks like.”

“What?” Dr. Sykes drew back as if bitten.

           Claudia carried on as if nothing happened. “It’s absurd, of course.”

Dr. Sykes breathed a sigh of relief and ran a hand through her blond hair. Her sleeve caught her attention. That was when she realized she wasn’t in her regular work clothes, a well-fitted power suit, but her pajamas. “Of course…” She said, blinking in confusion. Why was she wearing her pajamas?

“Lucifer was cast down from the heavens,” Claudia added. Evil, yes. Bringer of darkness, yes. But he is no more of a demon than you. Why in all of time and space would he look like one? Or choose to look like the very incarnation of evil. Even my father doesn’t walk around all black-eyed with his horns showing, and he’s very proud of his heritage. It’s tasteless. Though these days, with all that’s going on in the world, some people might actually welcome the apocalypse. Nevertheless, evil is meant to be tempting. Evil seduces.”

           Dr. Sykes barely paid attention to what Claudia had said as too preoccupied with assessing the odd situation she slowly realized she was in. It was like her mind was cloudy, but she was starting to pick out various clues that screamed something was wrong. For starters, she never worked after six, and the view from her window said it was night outside, well after office hours. They were in her bedroom, not her work office, where she only dealt with patients. Her home address was confidential, and she wasn’t listed anywhere. Furthermore, how had Claudia gotten into her house? Why? And why hadn’t she questioned anything until now?

           .

Claudia waited patiently as Dr. Sykes struggled to regain her memory of the last hour. It was the least could do, she knew. Dr. Sykes had been a big help to her in the last couple of years. She was fun, easy to talk to, caring. Odd as it might be, Claudia would miss her.

Panic started to fill the woman. She remembered feeling like she was being watched all night. She remembered red glowing eyes peering down at her from a shadowy corner on her ceiling. Dr. Sykes remembered thinking it was just a dream, her imagination. She remembered getting out of her bed for a drink of water. She had stepped into the darkness of the hallway, and then there had been a pain—blinding pain, and then nothing.

“Ahh, there you go,” Claudia said. “Was that really that hard?”

Dr. Sykes let out a shuddered breath and brought up her terror-filled eyes to meet Claudia’s. “Did you…  Am I…” She asked, but the question she wanted to ask didn’t leave her lips. Instead, the doctor asked, “Why is this our last session?”

“Because I killed you,” Claudia sighed. “And spirits can only stay earthbound for so long.”

Dr. Sykes's mouth dropped. “No! You didn’t! I’m not! I can’t be!”

           Claudia stood up and brushed off the imaginary dirt of her clothes. She was small, dainty, even, and dressed in a dark blue and green school uniform.

As if she was an innocent little girl, Sykes thought bitterly.

“You’ve been floating above your chair for the last half hour,” Claudia put a manicured hand on her hip. “As smart as you are, as you were, I figured you would’ve realized long before now.”

Condescending little bitch, Dr. Sykes thought viciously. Murdering little demon!

           Claudia grinned, red-stained lips spread from ear to ear. “I made it quick, nearly painless. But death is never easy. And I’d watch yourself. Your soul is in this little demon’s hands.” Dr. Sykes’ eyes widened in surprise. “No, I can’t read minds. You’re a ghost, chica—a soul. Souls tell everything. You’ve been talking out loud this entire time.”

           It went quiet. Dr. Sykes was too busy coming to terms with her life being over to talk, and Claudia had decided to be generous enough to allow that.

“Are you taking me to hell?” Dr. Sykes finally asked.

           Claudia waited to answer. She eyed Dr. Sykes over as she grew more and more afraid of what the answer would be. She loved fear. The feelings of other people’s fears always warmed her right down to her toes. “No, You’ll face your judgment like any other,” Claudia told her. “I only needed your life.”

“Oh? Only my life,” Dr. Sykes said sarcastically. “Well, in that case.”

           Claudia laughed, “You always were funny,” She said as she walked to the door, easily stepping over the body in the middle of the room. “I really did like you.”

“Do you kill everyone you like?”

“Some of them,” The girl shrugged. “Usually, just the ones that get in my way. Your death put me just over four dozen. I only killed you because you were born under a full blood moon. That’s harder to find than you think. It was a lucky break that you told me when your birthday during our last session. I already knew the year you were born. After that, it was easy to figure out where you fell on the lunar cycle. I’ll send flowers to your funeral. You liked Madonna lilies, right?”

“I preferred golden rayed lilies,” Dr. Sykes answered drily.

“Oh yeah!” The girl nodded. “I’ll remember that. Goodbye, Dr. Sykes. I hope you make it into heaven. If not, well… I’ll see if I can put a good word for you in hell.” And with that, she was done. Claudia was about to walk out the door when she was called to stop.

“Wait!” Sykes called. “Why do this? Why kill so many people?”

           Claudia paused in the doorway and looked over her shoulder. Her face looked far too angelic for all the evil she had done as far as Sykes was concerned. “Because daddy is going to make an uninvited appearance at my Quince. And I have to be ready for him,” She said. “You think you’re afraid of hell. Trying showing up as a demon with a soul.”

[arctimon]

*insert witty title involving Momakase here*

(Warning: This post is long.)

So I never actually shared this theory outside of DeviantArt, and it was also part of a greater post of predictions for the show. But now that I've essentially had a year to sit on it, and can now better illustrate my points, hopefully I can make it clearer. Today, on the "Big Hero 6 Conspiracy Theories" Podcast with Arctimon, we're going to be talking about...Momakase.

“But Jason, you’ve already talked about Momakase and her comparisons with Lady Deathstrike!” You are correct, imaginary person I made up for the purposes of this conversation.  But we’re going to go a little deeper this time.

However, before we get into Momakase, let’s talk about someone else for a hot second.  And that person’s name is Ana Cortés. Now, if you’ve read my stories, that name may seem familiar to you: it’s the alias that Momakase uses when seducing the rich guy at the end of "The Usual Suspects” (Chapter 9 of Continuity II).  But what if I told you that the name isn’t just an alias to her?  What if it’s her real life? But let’s chat about the Prime Marvel Universe Ana Cortés.

The character was only around for four issues back in the 2013 run of X-Men, when the all-female team was being led by Storm.  She made her first appearance in Issue #7, being introduced as the daughter of a recently-deceased Colombian businessman.

Being the head of a billion-dollar company wasn’t enough for young Ana, so she recruited a Yakuza member named Reiko to bring her the consciousness of Lady Deathstrike, who had recently been killed.  That, along with the nanites that she would later be given, gave Deathstrike a new young body, capital to boot, and a quest to make a new Sisterhood to topple the X-Men.

Which ultimately lead to Ana/Yuriko’s new look...

Through the next four issues, Ana would recruit others into her new Sisterhood, such as Amora the Enchantress, Typhoid Mary, Selene, and Madelyne Pryor, with them ultimately achieving their goal: to bring back to life a sentient bacterium named Arkea and declare war on mutants and humans.

As the plan progressed, Ana started getting cold feet, fearing what Arkea wanted to do and hating what she had become.  So, in Issue #11, after pleading with Typhoid Mary to finish her life...

She decides to take her own.

And thus the life of Ana Cortés came to an end.

So what does this have to do with Momakase? Well...everything. Momakase’s history is a mystery (unintentional rhyming).  The only clear thing that we know about her past is her family in an indirect way, courtesy of “Hiro the Villain” and her recruiting him to get her family swords back from Yama:

The katana and the wakizashi seem very important to her, so much so that she would risk breaking into Yama’s penthouse to get it and getting Hiro to come along with ehr.  Unfortunately, this is never expanded upon because this is the last speaking part of Momakase in the show before the series finale in “The Mascot Upshot”.

We know that her father gave them up because they were being threatened by gangsters.  We don’t know how long ago that was, but since Momakase mentions that the swords are “the last connection to her family”, we can deduce that they’re probably not in the picture any more.

(By the way, if anyone can decipher what that emblem is suppose to be, knock yourself out.)

But as we all know, apples don’t fall very far from trees.  And this is where we’re dealing with pure conjecture and guessing on my part.

I’ve written in my stuff about how Momakase started out in villainy at a young age.  Her first attempt at crime ended up with her being caught by Boss Awesome.  And she must have left an impression on him, because remember...he had a file on her in “Food Fight”.  So she must have been active at least a couple of decades ago, because Fred’s dad retired before Fred was born.

But what really led her to go down that path?  Perhaps the mash-up nature of this world could give us some insight. So imagine that your father is a Colombian handyman who had to work extra hard to support your immense family of brothers and sisters after his parents died.  Now imagine that your mother is a Japanese socialite and never had to lift a finger in her entire life.

Now imagine their fates intertwining.

The mother is immediately infatuated.  The father tries to rescue her from her life of artificial captivity.  They run off, elope, and in less than a year, they give birth to a wonderful daughter.

That daughter being you. Your elders, seemingly seen the error of their ways, gift the couple a pair of ceremonial daisho swords that have been in the family forever.  Life goes on. You witness the bullies of the world threaten your family.  You see their most cherished possession being taken away, and then you swear to yourself you won’t end up like that.  So, you get yourself involved in villianry.

And then years later, when it doesn’t seem like you can do anything right...you meet someone.

He’s a police officer, also in the infancy of his occupation.  He visits you in jail, talking on and on about how justice was served...but something else is there in his eyes.  Pity?  Interest?  Sadness?  All of that and more?

Once you get out, you visit him between heists.  He doesn’t know, of course.  You tell him you’ve gone straight.

But the more you stay with him, the more you feel yourself getting closer.

“But it wouldn’t work”, you say.  He’s a man of the law.  You’re a woman of lawlessness.  Both you and he come to the consensus that while things are good between you, it’s best to quit while the both of you are ahead.

Fate, of course, had other plans.

Life rears its beautiful and ugly head.  Your enemies come calling for you.  They want your debt paid.  And they’ll do anything to get it, including taking down your beloved...

And your newborn baby girl.

Of course, we all know who this certain “man of the law” is.

The person who suddenly had to leave San Fransokyo with no reason to the befuddlement of the people closest to him, including Aunt Cass. I mentioned before that it didn’t make sense that his father dying would be the reason why he had to leave San Fransokyo.  It would have to be something that needed to be kept away from public consumption.

Alternatively, what do you think would happen to the most hardnosed, relentless officer in the San Fransokyo force if word got out that he fathered a child with a criminal?

And what do you think would happen to her?

Megan is looking into it with the help of Kate (as of Loose Ends).  We’ve seen Diego and Momakase have this conversation in “Assembly Required”.  Heck, even Hiro seems to think something’s up when he talks to her in “Anti-Hiro”.

She doesn’t have any of her attributes.  She doesn’t have any tremendous thieving skills.  She has never interacted with the Cruzes in the show at all.  It’s the theory that, no matter how you look at it, doesn’t make a lick of sense at all.

And somehow it makes perfect sense to me.

Momakase, the woman whose real name is Anastasia “Ana” Momo Cortés...is Megan’s mom.

And that is a plot thread that I plan on tugging on even into The Future.

What was that about apples and trees?  They never seem to stray too far from each other...

[robininthelabyrinth]

AU where the Nie clan has dragon blood in their lineage, and usually it just manifests as bad temper and a generally martial inclination. Except, once in a rare while, generations apart, an actual dragon will be born among them... (aka nobody really expected that NHS was the latest Nie dragon).

The Nie sect’s ancestors were butchers; that lowly heritage is well known and widely celebrated, much to the not-entirely-concealed disdain of some of the more refined, gentlemanly sects. Butchers at home and butchers at war – everyone knows that.

What’s rather less well known is that the third sect leader, colloquially known among his descendants as ‘that idiot’, rather heroically saved an imperial princess in battle and then – and this was why he was that idiot – married her. She was a proper princess, too, the true-born daughter of the emperor; other sects might see that as a good thing, since for all that cultivation sects saw themselves as being above petty things like the politics of the common folk, a princess was still a princess.

The Nie did not.

The reason for this was quite simple. What does a cultivation style that already incorporates an increased chance of death through anger most assuredly does not need?

The blood of the eight-clawed dragon, that’s what.

Arrogant, explosive, unruly –

It was a mess.

The sixth sect leader came up with the saber halls to honor his father and grandfather – most especially his grandfather, who’d had a bad tendency towards slit-pupiled eyes when he’d been especially enraged, and whose saber had absorbed every ounce of his ferocity – and the next few generations made a point of finding especially meek daughters or sons for their children to marry, and that was that; everyone hoped that that idiot’s mistake could be diluted out of existence.

It was, for the most part. 

But every few generations, imperial blood ran true, and not only in terms of majesty or arrogance, and then the entire sect had to close its doors to the outside world and pretend with all their might that no, of course there wasn’t a rampaging beast of an especially draconic variety raging behind the extremely sturdy walls of the Unclean Realm, what nonsense that would be.

Still, if Lao Nie had to wager on one of his children being a dragon, he probably would have put money on it being his firstborn: already far too tall for his age, a brilliant prodigy with his saber, and a temper that rivaled some of the older members of the clan.

Certainly not Huaisang.

The only time that child hadn’t been a disappointment was when he was a baby: he’d been remarkably lazy even back then, sleeping more hours of the day than he didn’t even past infancy, and what had been a relief to his nursemaids quickly turned to annoyance by everyone else. It was commonly believed that such a weak and unlively child was likely to grow up to be slow-witted and dull, and, worse, the doctors confirmed his muscle tone was underdeveloped; even with a great deal of practice, he would likely always be a bit behind those his own age.

As he grew older, his penchant of sleeping twenty hours out of every day got even more noticeable, and the family largely lost interest.

Well, most of them. His older brother, who’d quietly taken on the responsibility for caring for Huaisang when no one else in the family had had the time or, truthfully, the interest in the disappointing son of an especially fortunate (unfortunate?) family maid-turned-concubine, indulged him far too much, even carrying him from place to place.

“You’re not a mule, Mingjue,” Lao Nie scolded one day, reinforcing the lesson through swipes of the flat of his saber. “Have some dignity! If Huaisang wants to go places, he can damn well walk there himself!”

Nie Mingjue bowed his head, obedient and filial in every way except for the fact that he didn’t listen; if anything, it got even worse from that point on, the boy barely being seen anywhere without a napping toddler as an accoutrement.

“Did you hear what I said?” Lao Nie roared at him.

“I’m not a mule,” Nie Mingjue recited. “If he wants to go places, he can walk there himself.”

“If you heard me and persisted regardless, you’re undisciplined,” Lao Nie said, arms crossed.

“I accept whatever punishment is appropriate,” Nie Mingjue said, and that was most irritating of all: why would his otherwise perfect eldest son insisted on being beaten once a week when all he had to do was leave that useless lump behind in his rooms, where he’d be happier anyway? It wasn’t as though Nie Huaisang even wanted to be outside: sometimes it seemed he’d only learned to talk in order to complain about how uncomfortable he was, how hot, how sweaty – and he even had the gall to keep complaining even after his older brother fetched a fan for him, like a loyal dog.

Discipline was paramount in the Nie sect; to be undisciplined is to risk being monstrous, and with their cultivation style they could not tolerate such a thing. That was why their punishments were so strict, even if the rules were relatively sparse - more principle than rule, really. But on the other hand, their family had always been the sort that would rather break than bend: if Nie Mingjue wanted to pay for his willfulness by accepting punishments, he was entitled to do so.

Still – there was punishment, and there was wanton cruelty; at some point, one of the men in the punishment hall abandoned the former for the latter. He was a popular man, the son of another sect’s diplomat that had married a close cousin of the main family and stayed in Qinghe; for some reason he’d developed an intense dislike of Nie Mingjue – a dislike which was mutual, and likely to cause trouble in the future when Nie MIngjue became Sect Leader, but which currently put Nie MIngjue in a very bad position given the man’s status as his elder.

Lao Nie only learned about the whole matter much later, and when he did he was so spitting mad he grabbed his saber and would have spitted the man on it, cousin or no cousin, if he hadn’t been held back; but at the time he had no idea, busy as he was defending the borders of his lands against troubles caused by that ever-smiling bastard Wen Ruohan.

When he did hear about it, though, he was infuriated: his son and heir had been beaten three times the usual amount, a compilation of a thousand little offenses that could only technically be termed breaches of discipline, forced to complete several dozen of their most demanding exercises, and then made to kneel outside on the hottest day of the year; to no one’s surprise, he had eventually collapsed rather than yield and beg for mercy, his skin cracking and lips starting to bleed as his consciousness left him.

He was after all a Nie. 

Who knows how far that bastard might have gone, his eyes fixed on a prize he would never inherit with his outsider’s surname, if Nie Huaisang hadn’t been there, tucked away curled up underneath a shady tree and made to watch despite Nie Mingjue’s request that he be sent back to his rooms.

Those who were near enough to see – and Lao Nie had plans to punish the whole lot of them for not having interfered: what was the point of a clan motto that prioritized justice and suppression of evil no matter what the consequences if they would allow it to happen in their own damn home? – said that it didn’t happen at once, that there was a pause when Nie Mingjue’s body hit the ground; perhaps it was only that Nie Huaisang was slow to realized what was happening.

Perhaps it just took a while for the change to happen.

Either way, everyone agreed on what happened next: the unfurling of a serpentine body twice the length of a fully grown man, although only about as wide around as a goat, a red-eyed glare that was backed with teeth and claw, and a roar of challenge at anyone who even thought about pulling Nie Mingjue’s body away from the center of those coils.

Apparently Nie Huaisang had needed all that sleep because he was still growing. Who would have known?

It was the youngest full transformation they’d ever had in their clan by far. The boy hadn’t even reached the age of three!

“If he’s stopped sweating, he has heatstroke,” Lao Nie told his apparently not useless younger son, having been urgently summoned to the training field. “He needs to be taken inside at once; you’re only making things worse.”

Nie Huaisang bared his teeth at him, and Lao Nie bared his teeth right back.

He might not be a dragon, but his son’s blood had come from somewhere.

“I am your father,” he snarled. “You will listen to me and obey. You hear me? You will get off of him this instant. If he doesn’t get water soon, he will die.”

Lao Nie will never know if it was the demand for filial piety or the threat to Nie Mingjue’s life that got Nie Huaisang to comply – he suspected the latter – but Nie Huaisang gave in and backed off, allowing the clan’s medics to rush over and take Nie Mingjue away.

Lao Nie looked at the dragon, thinking to himself that the vastness of the underground caverns beneath the Unclean Realm weren’t for nothing: if this was what a two-year-old dragon looked like, he’d be a full-fledged calamity when full grown.

His saber itched in his palm at the thought, but he ignored it. The embarrassing yao-derived portion of their bloodline aside, the Nie sect set itself against evil, and Nie Huaisang was lazy, not evil.

“This is going to be trouble,” he finally said. “It can’t be allowed to get out.”

You can’t go out, he meant, but maybe Nie Huaisang in all his laziness wouldn’t mind being restricted to the Unclean Realm. Maybe, if they were lucky, they could teach him to like paintings and books instead, since he could never be allowed out to join a proper battlefield.

He’d be locked at home forever, unless the Sect Leader decided otherwise - and that meant Lao Nie would be the one responsible for it.

Ancestor or not, damn that idiot. 

In the end, Nie Huaisang didn’t respond to him at all, merely took to the air – flying must be inherent, since he didn’t seem especially bothered by what should be something brand new – and headed inwards, aiming towards…

His brother’s bedroom.

Not really a surprise, that.

A bit of a surprise that he could find it so quickly, though, from such an unfamiliar angle…

Lao Nie’s eye twitched.

If his stubborn older son had known about this, he was going to wish he’d died of heatstroke.