#also the basic choices??? you need to make some horrid decisions from the get go it's fantastic

[ndostairlyrium]

8 Videogames to Get to Know Me

I was tagged by @n7viper @demandthedoodles and @idolsgf 💛 thanks loves ;; I’m not a gamer but I do have some strong favorites!

1. Mass Effect Trilogy - faithful adoration for many aspects of each game so I’ll just pack them in a single slot lol every time someone talks about suicide missions, I urge them to play the second game. The score, the narration, the preparations, the stakes... it’s just perfect, really. And the DLCs??? Lair of the Shadow Broker omgg seeing Liara for the first time after [spoiler] and the way they remind you the real face of Cerberus while you fight [spoiler] in Overlord?? BRING DOWN THE SKY!! Also the ugly crying that Citadel caused ;A; - Saren best villain ever, I will die on that hill 👏 2. Machinarium - must replay it because I don’t remember much about it and it’s a shame because it was my main artistic influence back in the late 00s 3. Dragon Age Origins - mooom ali is making favorites again DD: seriously tho, the other two games wished they had its depth << 4. Pokemon Silver - my late childhood and early adolescence were spent on this game. I still know that specific pokedex by heart lol  5. The Battle for Wesnoth - and this is probably the only strategic game I’ll ever mention because it’s not really my genre :’D it’s totally free and you can download/make your own scenario. Super cool! 6. Ducktales for GameBoy color - I think it was distributed by Capcom? I’ve spent entire days trying to beat that game omg its soundtrack is amazing too 7. Stardew Valley - look at all these brown chickens! 8. Yes, Your Grace - “a medieval monarch nightmare sim” is probably the most fitting description lol my heart was so broken at the end I had to sit down and watch the paint on the walls dry with a drink on my hands

I’m tagging: @layalu @underneathestars @greypetrel @shivunin @star--nymph @daggerbean @gvnseylike and whoever puts an 👀 emoji in the replies

[itsclydebitches]

I kinda wonder, what could bakugou do (hori write bakugou to do) to make him less popular with the "anti" crowd. Like He was a horrid child no doubt and people who try to put blame on Deku or lessen the terrible shit bakugou did aren't great. But as we don't rly see it, we have to assume bakugous behaviour wasn't stopped, we only ever saw his mum "punishing" him when he was being rude after getting kiddnapped. Nothing will excuse what bakugou did, but he has stopped? He's overall a harsh person but he's not harrassing and bullying people anymore, specifically not deku, he's trying to attone for what he did to deku and has now apologised for it. His behaviour was never viewed as justified or good in the series, he's a scary figure in middle school, we're not meant to like his behaviour, so the series itself hasn't justified his actions.

As someone who relate to both bakugou and deku more than I'd like to admit (never told someone to jump tho, that's fucked lol) so I can 100% understand not liking or even hating bakugou but as someone who's not 15 anymore, looking back I also made a lot of really shitty decisions and like bakugou have tried to make up for it, and like deku I was 'friends' with people who hurt me.

Is there anything he can do for the "antis" to just dislike him rather that be "anti"?

(I'm very sorry if you've talked about this somewhere, you can just tell me to look for it if you have, I'll continue to look for your posts on the subject)

Hey there, anon! I think I’ve spoken about this only tangentially and/or in my main Bakugo meta, which is too big for anyone sane to read. So yeah, let’s chat here!

For me personally—and that’s all I can ever do: speak personally. I think it’s important to keep in mind that there is no single solution to please the “anti” crowd. Each fan will be looking for something slightly different in Bakugo’s character, much of which might contradict what a “stan” is currently enjoying. Given how charged a character he is, I'm not sure it's possible to get the entire fandom to like him—what I’m looking for hinges on having a different reading of the story than you seem to. Meaning, I think the series does justify his behavior. Not in any overt, super obvious way like having all the characters go, “Wow, Bakugo! I sure do love how you threaten people all the time. That’s super cool and heroic!” Things are rarely that straightforward. Rather, it’s in a more subtle, but consistent manner that paints a rather conclusive picture across hundreds of chapters.

Simply put, Bakugo is continually rewarded for his actions. Or, if not outright rewarded, his actions are ignored in a way that implies silent acceptance. Characters may not always like what he does... but they're willing to let it slide because Bakugo's heroism was always treated as a given, not something he had to earn and prove.

With the ever necessary disclaimer that I’m not fully caught up yet, here’s a list of some of the things that stood out to me in the first half of the series:

Bakugo’s bullying made him the most popular kid in school.

Bakugo’s bullying was ignored by/outright supported by the teachers.

Bakugo’s bullying did not hinder him from getting into U.A., one of the most prestigious hero schools around.

Despite acting horribly throughout his time at U.A. too, this behavior was continually ignored by the teachers and other authority figures around him.

Bakugo’s struggle to realize that other people aren’t “trash” doesn’t hurt his achievements in any way. He still gets top scores, still wins the tournament, etc.

Bakugo’s behavior gets him special attention from All Might, the greatest hero and Bakugo’s personal idol.

His behavior doesn’t make others dislike him in any manner that’s taken seriously. Everybody is still willing to not just put up with Bakugo, but—in time—start treating his behavior as a quirk (no pun intended lol) that they’re secretly fond of, rather than something he should legitimately be striving to change. Kirishima is the most overt example of this.

This is compounded by his behavior constantly being framed as humorous. Much like with Mineta’s perverted actions, characters might superficially go, “No, that’s bad!” but the story never demands any significant development because then we’d lose the “joke” of Bakugo screaming in rage at the slightest inconvenience, threatening to murder someone over nothing, constantly belittling everyone around him in a “funny” manner, etc. When fans talk about development of a manga character as archetypal and extreme as Bakugo, most don’t really want to see significant change to his base personality. Because then that would result in someone who doesn’t look like the “real” Bakugo: someone nicer, more even-tempered, more mature, etc. But for those of us who were never drawn to that personality in the first place, the continued acceptance of his rude, egotistical, and violent behavior is discomforting. The easiest comparison I can draw is between this and Bakugo’s mother slapping him. That slap is meant to be another “joke”—we see it constantly in shonen anime, something "humorous" you shouldn’t take too seriously because haha, it's just an overprotective mother—but many fans do take it seriously, using it as the basis for a whole “Bakugo was abused and this explains his behavior” reading. Well, I take the “joke” of Bakugo’s threats and insults seriously, especially in a story that starts with something like telling Izuku to jump off the roof. In the same way that many fans want others to treat Bakugo’s mother as a serious topic that has had a negative influence on his development, I want the series to take Bakugo’s everyday actions seriously as a negative influence on… well, everyone around him. But it doesn’t. His base personality is grudgingly adored.

The above two points are seen most overtly in Izuku, who never wavers in his respect for Bakugo despite how Bakugo treats him. Not just prior to U.A., but during their training too. Izuku, as the protagonist, is the emotional heart of this tale, so when he talks about how inspiring Bakugo is, it encourages the reader to see his behavior as inspiring too. Rather than, as said, something that needs to change. Izuku's continued friendship with Bakugo, his adoration of him, and his acceptance of the way he's treated has severely warped how the entire story sees Bakugo's actions. After all, if #pure Izuku can see the good in Bakugo, why can't everyone else? He must not be that bad after all.

I could get into detailed analyses of all the above—like how Bakugo was the one comforted after attacking Izuku outside the dorms at night and how the messed up relationship he has with Izuku is upheld as something to nurture; how the remedial courses he had to take were made to be rather silly, thereby undermining their supposed importance to his development; how Bakugo’s kidnapping had nothing to do with his flaws, but much of the fandom uses it as a way to dismiss any appropriate consequences because, “Hasn’t he suffered enough?” etc.—but in the interest of keeping this within a readable length, I’ll leave it at that. The point is that Bakugo has always been privileged when it comes to his behavior, resulting in others either outright praising it, ignoring it, or demanding that he change a miniscule bit, which always keeps him far below the standards of both his peers and the expectations of a hero. Everyone in 1-A must learn to be even better than the good people they already are... Bakugo needs to learn that other people aren't dirt at the bottom of his shoes. It's never been a particularly impressive development when pit against the rest of the class. All of which can make something like an apology feel pretty hollow. Yes, he’s apologized and I say with all seriousness that that’s great! But how does that apology stack up against 300+ chapters of content? As Bakugo’s words highlight, he's been a really awful person up "until now": he was consumed by Izuku being “miles ahead of [him],” he “looked down on [him]” because he didn’t have a quirk, he “didn’t want to recognize that,” he “hated that,” “grew distant,” “tried to beat you down,” “opposed you and tried to show my superiority over you,” and ends it all with, “it probably doesn’t mean anything telling you all this” before finally getting to the “I’m sorry.” This is basically a laundry list of how horrible a person Bakugo has been for the entire series, with an acknowledgement that this apology is coming really, really late. This is the moment where I could START to like Bakugo, depending on how he acts form here on out, but that pivotal moment arrived after six years of content and in the final arc of the story. It’s too late. Bakugo needed this kind of self-reflection and positive action 250+ chapters ago so he could (hopefully) grow into a better person across the story, not at the story's end. What we got instead is 322 chapters of him being a really horrible person, but the story going out of its way to excuse or even praise that behavior the majority of the time.

As a quick comparison to end on, I think what Bakugo needed was what Soo Jin got in True Beauty. You don’t need to have seen the drama to follow along. The tl;dr is that she has a lot of the core qualities of Bakugo: an all-consuming drive to win that was created due to abusive parents with high expectations, resulting in her bullying a peer to a pretty horrific extent. The difference between them is how the story frames their actions. When Soo Jin becomes the bully she loses everything. Rather than succeeding academically, her grades plummet, making it clear that this anxiety and self-doubt (things the fandom keeps insisting Bakugo is struggling with, but that rarely ever show up in the text) is actually impacting her day-to-day life. Her best friend drops her because she’s not going to support her choices. The boy she likes rejects her. She’s eventually forced to start over somewhere new - which importantly separates her from the girl she was bullying - and get some distance from her parents, resulting in the growth needed to become a healthier, happier, good person again. So when Soo Jin apologizes to the girl she hurt, it feels earned. The story continually recognized how horrific her actions were and put her into a place where she either had to change, or continue losing at everything else that was important to her. Bakugo? Bakugo doesn’t lose. Oh, he claims he does because he’s comparing himself to Izuku constantly, but that’s just him thinking in extremes. He still wins academically. Still wins many battles. Still wins at having friends. Still wins by maintaining the prestige of being a U.A. student. Still wins by getting All Might’s attention. Still wins by receiving Izuku’s respect and an agreement to maintain this rivalry that Bakugo is so obsessed with. Bakugo comes out well 99% of the time, he just thinks he's "lost" because he can't stand not being the absolute best.

For me, the story needed to have Bakugo face consequences for his behavior, not receive rewards and/or have others ignore it, and that revelation/apology needed to come way, way sooner. For me the issue is not a specific action that Horikoshi can have Bakugo do in the next chapter and them bam, I like him now. The problem is Bakugo’s entire concept, how he’s received by the entire cast, and his run across this entire series. "Entire" is the key word there. Which is why the “But he’s apologized. What more do you antis want?” reactions don’t sit well. What we wanted is a better written redemption arc across those 300+ chapters, not a single scene that’s meant to have us forget all the other problems inherent in the story. At this point it’s a far more complicated situation than, “Bakugo just needs to do X, Y, and Z and then we’re golden.” At the end of the day, Horikoshi failed to make me like him as a person and I’m pretty sure he isn’t going to change Bakugo enough to make him likable to me. Bakugo was never the sort of character I’d be inclined towards without a serious, nuanced redemption arc, but sadly, a core, crucial part of that redemption arc took six years to arrive. At this point there’s no way to change the problems in Bakugo’s writing for that huge chunk of the series and not enough time left in the series, it seems, to do the work we should have seen across the entire run. Honestly, idk if the Bakugo we'll get going forward is someone I can just dislike as opposed to being really uncomfortable with, but my money is on there being too little story left and too much investment in upholding Bakugo's base personality for that to happen. I could absolutely be proven wrong! But I think the problems are structural and needed to be better dealt with from page one, not hastily patched over in the final hour.

[awlwren]

Favorite Character from 10 Fandoms

I was tagged by @shieldmaidenofsherwood and @exlibrisfangirl. Thanks for thinking of me! No thanks for making me make decisions. :(

Rules: List your favorite character from 10 different fandoms and then tag 10 people.

Rather than try to actually chose, I'm just going to do the last 10 characters I used their tag to find fic for on Ao3, from most recent to least.

Nyx Ulric from Kingsglaive/Final Fantasy XV. RIP to your feeds; this man has captured my attention for almost a full year now. Wow. He is trying so hard to save his friends in spite of everything, but also isn't afraid to chew people out who need to hear it. There are so many blanks to fill in, too.

Elrond Peredhil from the Hobbit/LotR/Silmarillion. A very old, but enduring fave from back when my dad read the Hobbit to me when I was eight or so and started my love for Tolkien. He was wise and smart and helpful, and gave people shelter. Instant fave. Nice to see him getting some more love lately!

Cordelia Naismith Vorkosigan from the Vorkosigan Saga. All you people here on tumblr made me decide to start the series and I adored her and her husband and so was very disappointed to see less of them as the series shifted to their son, not that he isn't fantastic! But I've always had a weakness for the previous generation, so this is nothing new.

Luke Skywalker from Star Wars, my original blorbo, as the children say. I got introduced to Star Wars when I was six and it has been an obsession ever since. What can I say, I am basic and weak for main characters. I was heavy into the EU and so I started to draw away when Episode II came out and I could see it killing itself trying to cope with contradictions, but Luke, with such a burden always trying will always be a favorite. 4b. Mara Jade also has gotten a character tag search, but she is in the same fandom so she doesn't get her own number. But don't neglect her!

Jason Todd from Batman comics. I fell sideways into this fandom through an old mutual who loved him, and since that's how I came into the fandom I have stuck with him. I tend to latch onto a character and stay loyal, so here I am, through some very bizarre characterization and storyline choices, having learned from this man and fandom how to pick and chose fanon and canon very harshly. Definitely a character that when written well is very very good, and when written badly (or how I don't like) is horrid. 5b. This is basically a (hopefully more mature) carbon copy of how I got into BtVS through a friend obsessed with Spike.

Clark Kent from Superman comics/shows (yes this counts as separate fandoms). Another oldie. My grandparents had the 1940s cartoons as some of the few brother-approved VHS tapes they had, so I watched a lot of it, and then STAS came out and I was hooked. What can I say, I love characters who always try so hard to be the best they can be, and the reminder that even the Man of Tomorrow, for all his powers, can't do everything.

Meliara Astiar and Vidanric Renselaus from Crown & Court Duel by Sherwood Smith. Yes, both of them, shut up. I got on a nostalgia kick and they have a few excellent fics on Ao3. Ultimate culture clash, all the tropes and they make it work.

Trafalgar Law from One Piece. (No, I am not caught up and will not be until Wano is done.) He...he also tries so hard but in a different way. He tries to be serious in Luffy's world and it never works and it's great. Trash man trying to be creepy and trying so hard. And he's genuinely badass, he just cares too much and it cracks me up. And then his backstory breaks my heart.

Eve Baird from The Librarians (tv show). Mama Baird knows what she wants and knows her skills and is doing all she can to protect her idiot Librarian and equally chaotic LITs, but isn't afraid to admit when she needs to learn from them as well.

Alberich from Valdemar by Mercedes Lackey. Another nostalgia lookup, with even less fic. I like mentors, okay? I like older people learning and teaching and I always have, even when I was young. I actually haven't read much of this series, but I got his two books and enjoyed them, and didn't do much with the rest.

I'm going to chose to interpret the lack of women on this list as a critique of the books I read and not solely of me myself. But it's a good trend to see as I try to figure out what to procrastinate by reading next. (as is the appalling lack of explicit POC. Ouch.)

Again, these are the most recent character tag searches I've done on Ao3, not my top 10 characters, because this took less decisions, honestly.

Absolutely no-pressure tagging of @garbria, @whumpwriterforlife, @starjunco, @sanzochan, @whostarlockeda03, @noirbriar, @newlyorange, and @maychorian, along with anyone else who wants to go. I would love to get more character reccs, honestly. It's gotten me started on two series that I've enjoyed but haven't gotten far enough in to seek out fic yet for risk of spoilers. ^_^

[tyrantisterror]

Have the Beyonders ever lobotomized and then gene-edited a kaiju mutated from a "civilized species", or would by the time they had the capability to modify kaiju that sort of evil would be harder for them to justify to themselves and just go for an execution?

So, before we dream up more war crimes for the Beyonder Alliance to commit, I want to stress that the Beyonders aren't Pure Evil (TM). They have done evil things, but most of those were, in their eyes, justifiable, necessary, and pragmatic.

From their point of view, both the martians and humanity were beyond saving. The martians had devastated their planet's ecosystem, turning a once thriving biosphere into a dying husk with little biodiversity outside of the kaiju population. An argument could be made that Mars was doomed to total extinction even before the Beyonders invaded - while the martians had been trying to undo the damage they had done, whether or not they would have succeeded is unknown. The amount of biological life and potential knowledge that was essentially wasted by the martian civilization was viewed as reprehensible by the Beyonders, and they did not want a civilization that killed its own planet to continue existing so they could then unleash such ruin on OTHER planets.

Humanity seemed to be heading in much the same path, with biodiversity already beginning to slowly decline around the same time humanity discovered and starting playing with atomic weapons. The Beyonders justified the extermination of the human race as necessary to the salvation of earth's biosphere - destroy one species to save thousands upon thousands of others. The fact that they could get a shitload of kaiju out of it was also pretty great from their perspective.

Notably, the Beyonders never openly went to war against the Reptodites, because while the Reptodites were sitting on a bounty of natural resources the Beyonder Alliance desperately coveted, the Reptodites themselves were also the kind of civilization that the Beyonders would gladly welcome into their ranks. Quick to abandon war, keen on diplomacy, both knowledgeable and deeply invested in caring for the environment, had the Reptodites developed space travel, the Beyonders likely would have been diplomatic and tried to welcome them into their ranks.

But the temptation of Earth's resources, and the Reptodites lack of ambition to reach the stars, proved too tempting, and so the Beyonders jostled a few asteroids to try and wipe out the nascent civilization so that earth's resources could be claimed in lieu of any rightful civilized natives. This of course failed, as the Reptodites not only survived, but were eventually followed by a second earth-born civilization, and the Beyonder who made the decision to try to wipe them out is likely viewed as a colossal dumbass for making that choice.

Thematically, the Beyonder Alliance is a modernized take on H.G. Wells's martians from The War of the Worlds. Where Wells's martians were basically the Late Victorian British Empire, the Beyonders are, well, the United States of America circa the 1950's/60's. If we completely dehumanize them and turn them into total monsters that we can easily condemn, then the point of that comparison is lost. Because, for all the horrid shit America did in the 1950's/60's, it was not composed solely of evil, genocidal monsters. It was primarily made of people - flawed, ignorant people who all thought they meant well and had all the facts, and who were thus led to support or at least allow some horrid shit because they felt it was what their society had to do. They don't just do horrid shit for the sake of it - they have reasons. Flawed reasons, reasons that don't hold up to scrutiny, reasons that are flimsily justified by their own innate prejudices, yes, yes to all of that - but reasons nonetheless.

SO, to finally get to the question: is it within the scope of Beyonder Alliance to lobotomize and brainwash a sapient, civilized kaiju into being their obedient soldier? Well, thematically, that is the sort of thing the United States of the 50's and 60's would at least consider, so I can't say the Beyonders for sure wouldn't.

But I also think that, when it comes to handling a civilized kaiju from outside the Beyonder Alliance, there are a lot of other options they would consider first.

The Beyonder Alliance is called the Beyonder Alliance because they are composed of multiple civilizations, and in general they try to add to their power by making alliances with any new civilizations they come across. They would much rather recruit a planet's population than exterminate it - it wastes less resources, and new civilizations often bring a lot of fresh ideas to the table.

So our kaiju in question has to come from a civilization that, for one reason or another, the BA either couldn't or wouldn't make an alliance with. Maybe they refused the offer out of mistrust - if that's the case, the BA would pull back and keep up communication, like a store that really wants you to renew your membership card. They've been around for millions of years, they can be patient.

Maybe the civilization in question is just, by the Beyonders' standards, underdeveloped. Standard procedure would be to sit back and wait for them to reach a more technologically advanced stage of development. If the Beyonder Alliance is going through a crisis at the time and desperately needs resources, they might try to nudge a natural disaster towards the civilization and hope it takes them out so they can stripmine the planet of resources - but that's not something they do super often, because, as stated above, if it fails, they not only can't claim the resources, but have potentially made a bigger problem for themselves. Either way, they aren't taking any kaiju from the planet yet.

What ultimately needs to happen for them to even consider this proposal is the discovery of a civilization they deem irredeemably reprehensible, and one they try to exterminate. If that's the case, why brainwash the monster when you can just point out the obvious: we killed your people, you have nothing now. Submit.

It's the same tactic that's been used on all the non-civilized kaiju in their employ. You don't need to brainwash a creature when you can just present it with the inescapable fact that there is, well, no escape, no rescue, nothing for them except service to the Beyonder Alliance. Play ball or die, those are your choices, take your pick. Hell, it's arguably easier with a civilized kaiju because you can literally tell them that, instead of having to show it to them with repeated beatings as they have to do with the wild kaiju they domesticate into war animals.

And if the civilized kaiju won't take the offer? Send in Dorazor or a similar unstoppable juggernaut and crush them. Kaiju are valuable, but they aren't THAT valuable.

[soyeahitsmiddleearth]

Hold Me, My Hands Are Cold pt. 1

Fili x Reader x Kili

These cold nights suck, but being sandwiched between two pretty princes doesn't suck in the slightest. 

*There are two other parts on my AO3 that are smut if you're interested*

Traveling during the days is rather easy for the most part. 

All you really have to do is keep an eye out, not fall off your ride, and follow the group. If there's conflict you hide in the middle of the group, and joining in on pleasant conversations is basically second nature. 

These things are all a cinch. Easy as pie. Simple. 

What isn't so simple, is staying warm at night when your little body simply refuses to retain heat. 

Your body just doesn't stay warm all that easily, and as frustrating as it is you certainly can't complain about it because it's your choice. You prefer not to sleep in the middle of the group despite the persuasion of the others.

"It's safer." They insist.

"It's so much warmer." They assure.

"It's quieter." They promise. 

"We won't bother you."  They lie.

On night one you knew that there is no way you'd be able to stand another night in the midst of this pile of dwarves. Bilbo shared much of the same sentiments, too. So the both of you sleep together at the end of the group, but he doesn't need the warmth like you do. And, believe it or not, Bilbo Baggins is also a horrible blanket hog. 

Now, you've only actually slept next to Bilbo, Dori and Nori, and Bofur so you don't know if all of their sleeping habits are the same, but you simply cannot afford multiple sleepless nights in a row. 

Only that's exactly what you've got now that the air has turned icy and the ground frozen as the nights get colder and colder the deeper you get into winter. 

The cold was bearable at first because the beginnings of winter aren't usually that bothersome, but after the first week it really began to freeze.

It was at this time you began to share your sleeping space with Bilbo, and though the first two nights of sleeping next to the hobbit were nice, he didn't take long to show his true colors. In the middle of the third night, you awoke to the feeling of your warm covers being literally ripped off of you. One look to the right told you that it was Bilbo who had done it, and unconsciously too. 

No matter how hard you pulled on that blanket or how vigorously you shook him, you simply could not get him to let it go. So you eventually gave up and lay there on the freezing ground with nothing to cover you other than the chilly air. 

This went on for another week. 

Eventually you reached your breaking point, though, and explained to Bilbo as kindly as you could that you think your sleeping arrangement is going to have to end. He actually seemed kinda bummed about it and asked you why. 

"But you get so cold at night, what's prompting you to leave?" 

"I don't know if you've noticed, my dear Bilbo, but your sleeping habits are going to be the death of me. Every morning I wake up nearly frozen through, so while I very much enjoy sleeping next to you I'm afraid I just can no longer handle it when it's so cold." You reach up and place your hand on his shoulder, smiling sympathetically. "I hope that isn't too harsh. Once the heat returns, though, I'll be back." 

At the end of your explanation Bilbo is smiling, so you assume that you haven't hurt his feelings and go about the rest of your day. Little did you know, the two princes were eavesdropping not too far back. 

---

When night falls once more and the sun is replaced with the white light of the moon, Thorin calls for everyone to stop and set camp for the night. 

You assist Gloin and Bofur in securing the ponies as part of your nightly duties, then move on to your things which you'd settled against near a tree off to the side and further from the fire than you'd like. 

Before long Bombur has some soup cooking in his large pot, and the smell wafts over to your sleeping area. 

Not 10 minutes later is said dwarf calling for everyone to come get their food, but you decided to wait until everyone has got their before going to get your own to avoid the hassle. 

Two pairs of feet disrupt your meal time, and when you look up to see who belongs to those feet, you smile. It's Fili and Kili, and they've both got their dinner in hand as well as an extra bowl held in Kili's other hand. 

"Hello, boys. What can I do for you?" You ask, moving to stand up. 

You're stopped when Fili places his free hand on your shoulder and urges you to sit back down. "We just came to eat with you, is all. We brought you a bowl as well." The older brother explains.

Suspicion makes you look between the two of them distrustingly before you zero in on the food that Kili is holding. "What did you do to it?" Your approach to this is wary, for you're not entirely certain that they wouldn't mess with your food just to prank you. 

"You think we would mess with your food? I'm hurt that you think we're stupid enough!" Kili exclaims with a good-natured laugh. 

Fair. 

You sigh and pat the spots next to you, "Well, sit down then. But I'm warning you, any funny business and I'll skin you both." Your delivery isn't the most threatening you will admit, but it was meant as more of a joke anyways.

The two dwarves settle on either side of you and Kili hands you the extra bowl, and the rest of dinner goes in comfortably with nice conversations and lots of joking around. 

Eventually, though, the soup is all gone, bellies are full, eyes are droopy, and it's time for lights out. 

When Fili and Kili left that ever present cold returned, so you burrow into your bedroll and cover your head with your blanket in hopes of warding off the mid-night chills. Like you expected though, it does very little. 

You don't know how much time passes, but pretty soon you're more focused on warming up than you are on actually sleeping. For a split second you even regret your decision not to sleep next to Bilbo anymore. 

At some point your teeth begin to clack together upon their own accord, and you've since pressed your knees to your chest and wrapped your arms around them in hopes of keeping all of your heat centered. The cold has also decreased blood flow to your fingers, toes, and face, so everything has begun to feel frigid and stiff. It's gotten to the point where all simple movements are a chore. 

Right as you're about to accept your fate of becoming an ice cube, there is movement somewhere just in front of you. 

You're alert right away, but, not wanting to notify whoever it is that you're awake, you don't immediately jump into action. Instead, you grasp a part of your blanket and slowly tug it down to catch a glimpse of the intruder. 

But it's no intruder at all. Rather, you're met with two handsome faces hovering over you less than 5 inches away. You jump and pull your blanket back over your head reflexively, startled at how close they were (how did they move so quietly??). 

Quite chuckles register just above you and it successfully makes you huff indignantly. 

You reach up and pull your blanket back down, glaring up at the pair of them suspiciously much like before. "W-What are you two planning?" You stutter out despite trying to appear cross. The chattering of your poor teeth is just too strong to stop with speech, apparently. 

They look at each other and have a silent exchange instead of answering you, and when it seems that they've come to a conclusion they both straighten up. 

So you try again. "Hey, whatever shenanigans you're getting up to I want no part of." 

Still they do not answer. 

Verbally at least. 

Before you can even open your mouth to demand acknowledgement again Fili is at your feet and Kili has moved behind you. You try to sit up but a pair of arms coming up beneath your armpits and hands grabbing your ankles halt your movements. 

You almost complain, but Fili's hands are really damn warm on your icy ankles and- holy shit these two are strong. 

They lift you up like you're nothing and walk you over towards where their things are, still offering no explanation to their antics might I add, and moments later you're being lowered to the ground gently to lay between their things. You almost get up to return to your things, almost, but when Kili walks back over and grabs all your belongings and brings them over, you realize you just don't care enough. And they've already succeeded in kidnapping you away from your cold patch of ground anyway, and their patch of floor is much warmer than your own. 

You don't really know what you were expecting when they came over and 'woke you up' and literally carried you over to their area, but when Kili settled down to your right and Fili did the same at your left, suffice to say Y/N.exe has stopped working. 

Warmth spreads to your cheeks as you look back and fourth between the two, meeting their eyes each time you turned to look at the other and vise versa. 

"Did we startle you?" Fili asks suddenly, amusement sparkling in his pretty blue eyes. 

You just nod dumbly, looking at him silently as you try to process what the hell is going on. 

Then Kili speaks up, "We've shocked her dumb." It's meant as a joke, you know, but yeah he's not wrong though. 

"I'm not used to being ambushed like that. Especially by two handsome princes who are constantly pranking everyone else." You reply evenly despite your horrid mixture of embarrassment, flattery(?) and incredulity. 

"Aw, she thinks we're handsome." Fili speaks up again. 

Oh god did you actually say that part out loud?

They laugh again.

Shit you didn't say that in your head either.

You shake your head quickly and pull your blanket up to just under your chin. "W-Well, why did you bring me over here anyways?" An attempt to be nonchalant is made on your part, but you don't really think it's working. 

"Isn't it obvious? You're cold, and we are quite warm. Just because we like jokes doesn't mean we'll let the cutest member of our group freeze in the night." God the way Kili says that is so natural it's almost like he isn't complimenting you in an obvious attempt to fluster you. 

"Aye, Kili's got it exactly right. And there is no recollection of you saying you want us to bring you back, so..." 

Ah, now you get it.

They may have brought you over here by force, but they by no means intend to make you stay if you don't wish. 

Who knew they are actually total sweeties behind... nah you knew that the whole time. 

Deciding that their explanation was good enough, you look back up at the sky and lay your arms by your sides. "I'll accept that. But I'm not getting any warmer over here by myself." You state in an attempt to be confident. 

You only fluster yourself with your words though, and when a blush settles across your face again, they decide to poke and prod at your cheeks. 

"She's gone and made herself blush." Wow, great observation Fili. It's not like it's obvious or anything. 

"Okay, okay, we shouldn't bother her anymore. I'd hate to see her explode... or leave." Kili states in a softer voice than before. 

It seems they've had their fill of teasing you (finally), because you're suddenly being engulfed by two strong (WARM) pairs of arms. 

Fili, who is still at your left, turned onto his side and wiggles his right arm beneath your head and ushers your head to rest on his shoulder. Then he moves his not-pinned arm to lay on your stomach, curled so his hand lies on your sternum, between your breasts. It's not a sensual touch in the slightest, and the heavy weight there makes you feel protected.

Meanwhile, Kili has also turned onto his side with his heavy arm settled across your midsection. You can feel his chin pressing lightly against the top of your bosom, his head resting on your shoulder as his leg comes up to wrap around your own. His fingers press into the soft flesh of your side, and you release a quite, pleased sigh. Much like Fili, his touches and the placement of his head is in no way meant to be venereal. 

Being wrapped up between Fili and Kili like this makes your heart thump in your chest, and for a few moments you're not sure what to do with your hands of if it's okay to move.

"Relax love, just get comfortable." Kili mumbles muffledly against your chest. 

You try to do as he says and shift around slightly, closing your eyes as you lay your right arm just below Kili's and grasp his hand while simultaneously turning your head to press against Fili's neck because of the access this position gives you to it. 

Right away you're wrapped up in a cozy warmth and two safe embraces, and for the first time since this horrible winter has started, you feel comfortable. 

Sleep came quite easily to the three of you that night, and for the first time since this damn winter settled in, you actually slept through most of the night. 

When you wake, it's still dark and you aren't quite sure what time it is. 

It doesn't seem like anyone else is really awake yet other than Ori, who is on watch and minding his own business like a good boy, so it must mean that you've got a good few hours left to sleep.

You simply stare up at the sky above for a little while, before an obvious weight on your chest comes to your attention when someone moves. 

At some point in the night, Fili removed his arm from behind your head (no doubt because it fell asleep) and it was no tucked beneath him. His left hand had somewhat migrated in the middle of the night and now, instead of on your sternum, his heavy hand, quite literally, is placed on top of your left breast. Thank god it's the left one, though, because it's your favorite. One of his legs is hooked around your left one too.

While you're gazing down at your intertwined legs, you see that your other leg is entrapped as well, stuck between Kili's as he's basically on top of you. 

Kili's head also migrated in the middle of the night so that it's now laying on your sternum between your breasts in place of where Fili's hand was before (now you're beginning to wonder if it really is accidental, I mean come on, both of them?). His right arm is curled around your midsection too, and your right arm is sprawled out off to the side.

Your left hand is no longer clutching Kili's, for instead it simply rests on your stomach. 

Slowly you lower your head back to the ground, allowing your eyes to slip shut once more when they begin to droop. You're much to comfortable, more so than what's good for you probably, and you find that you loathe the idea of getting up any time soon. 

It doesn't take long for sleep to get ahold of you again, and when it does, you're basically dead to the world. 

---

The next time you wake up, it's not a natural occurrence. 

Movement and soft whispers bombard your senses, and, wanting to things to stay as they were, you whine and mumble a quiet, "Shh... 'm tryin' to sleep..." 

The shifting stops right away and silence ensues once more.

Right when you're at the edge of sleep again, though, you feel something gentle sliding down your cheek and another 'something gentle' caressing your arm. 

With a quiet sigh, you open your sleepy eyes and release a big yawn, eyes watering from the action. 

The first thing you see is Fili's face hovering above yours and his hand gently rubbing your cheek. You glance down and are met with soft brown eyes looking up at you with an expression you've never seen on that face before. His fingers are gently stroking the cool skin of your arm, and it successfully causes goosebumps to spread across your arms and legs. 

You break eye contact when heat begins to spread to your face, and you look back up at Fili who was watching you the whole time. 

"G-Good morning." You stutter out shyly, gaze flickering down to Kili's briefly. 

They both grin at you and reply in unison, "Good morning, Y/N." 

They're whispering, you notice, and with a quick graze of a look around camp you see that only a few early risers have begun to get up for the day, for the sun has only just begun to peek out from the horizon. 

The weight on your chest suddenly disappears, and another face comes up next to Fili's. 

You don't try to get up and instead just look up at the both of them. "Um... hello." You greet again. It seems your brain has ceased all rational functions, because you can't come up with anything witty or sassy to say for once. 

"Hi." Kili whispers back, not seeming amused by your loss for words like he normally would. 

Okay now it's getting kinda weird. 

You reach up slowly and pinch their cheeks in your hands, watching as Fili's nose twitches and Kili straight up glares at you. 

"I guess we haven't broken her after all." Fili muses, sitting back to give you some space. 

You sit up into a seated position once they're both out of your way and you stretch your arms above your head to loosen your tight muscles, squeezing your eyes shut from the effort. You groan softly from the pleasant stretch of your limbs, arching your back slightly to raise your hands higher. Once you're satisfied you allow your hands to drop back to your lap and reopen your eyes, looking between the two who are, still, staring at you. 

A blush unconsciously stains your cheeks again, and you begin to wonder when you've become so self conscious around these two. 

Whatever trance they were in seems to have broken, because suddenly they're both smiling again and moving to gather their things. 

"Now wasn't that much better than freezing to death?" Kili asks, slinging his arm around your shoulders after shoving all of his items at his older brother. 

"Hm, good question," You pause as a bashful smile curls at the corners of your lips, "I'll have to try it again before I can decide." 

Your answer seems to please him, because his grin grows and he looks over at his brother, "What do you think?" 

Fili only rolls his eyes at Kili's antics as he packs your blanket back into your pack for you, "Of course she has to try again, no one can make a decision after only trying something once." 

"Yes, I do suppose you're right, Fee." 

"Of course I am!"

"I wonder what else we can do to shock her?"

Gods these two are going to be the death of you. 

[orionsangel86]

You want the boys to separate in the end?

Yes. Because it makes the most sense. I don’t say this because I hate them being together please don’t assume that. I love Sam and Dean together, but I find their relationship very interesting in how they have basically been forced from childhood to depend entirely on each other and to not really know how to function without each other and since at least season 8 the show has been showing us just how unhealthy this is.

When I talk about the toxic codependency, I am not being hateful towards the brothers bond. I am just explaining what I feel the show itself has made very clear - that Sam and Dean’s dependence on each other, and desperation to stay joined at the hip, has caused not only a threat to their own safety and mental health, but also a threat to the world. Their terrible decision making when the other is in danger has been shown over and over again. Their willingness not just to die for each other, but to sacrifice the world for each other, is a huge problem, and one that hasn’t been tackled fully in the show, but we have been making great progress with it in the later seasons.

In fact, so much of Chuck’s storyline relies on Sam and Dean’s codependency. In 15x09, the vision that Chuck showed Sam of the future where “they won” was tied heavily to the brothers inability to let each other go, even when they were both extremely unhappy. They just spiralled until they ultimately became what they had always fought against. Of course, there were other key factors such as Dean losing Cas which caused him to give up leaving his only reason for living being his brother (which is a bleak and horrid future but one that did make sense given the season 13 grief arc), but ultimately it was the reiteration of “Butch and Sundance” and the call backs to the warewolf murder suicide from 15x05. Sam and Dean’s codependency is always their downfall.

When the show has explored the brothers separate desires, dreams, and wants, throughout the series, it has always clearly shown how different those desires are. Sam has previously questioned whether he would continue to hunt without Dean. He has said that he couldn’t do it without him, but so much of the time hunting and Sam are not portrayed positively. It always comes across as an obligation or something he has resigned himself to. Sam has explored taking a leadership role - which he suited extremely well until his set back in season 14, and he has also been a sort of apprentice to our Witch Queen Rowena. More recently, his relationship with Eileen has been framed as a realistic goal for him. She is a hunter too, but they are also both legacies. Sam’s desire to learn and gather lore, his interest in magic and his leadership skills have all been built on and explored more heavily in Dabb era. It stands to reason that Sam’s future and endgame lies somewhere among these things.

Dean, on the other hand, thrives in hunting. Where Sam was dragged back into it much to his own protests, Dean always enjoyed it. Dean enjoys the hunt. He wouldn’t have called Purgatory “pure” if that wasn’t the case. But Dean has also expressed his desire for a beach vacation and also a partner to stay by his side. He says he won’t do the apple pie life, but so much of Dean’s arc has been about finding a happy middle ground between apple pie life and hunting. Dean has a lot of abandonment issues - something the show has made very obvious since season 1, and in later seasons what I have always called Dean’s “pining arc” has continued to subtly play out in the subtext. Sam may have the clear romantic love interest right now, but Dean still very much wants that too. 15x10 showed this through Garth, and through Dean’s dream, where symbolically his platonic dance partner disappears and instead Dean dances with a lamp whilst imagining a love interest. The meaning in that is blatantly obvious.

Given that Chuck’s ending wish is for the brothers to die in some epic murder suicide way, we know that this won’t happen. Sacrifice is also old news on this show, so in fact is death in general since death will never be satisfying in a show that made death trivial in season 2. I believe that part of the endgame will be a massive shake up of the afterlife and the various realms but I still don’t think the show can end with both brothers dead. So how then are we supposed to close out this story if they stay alive and are still just doing what they do? There still needs to be some sort of bittersweet feel to it. It has to feel like the end of an era, but once you rule death off the cards, a brother separation by choice is the only thing that feels right.

Plus it makes sense. The toxic codependency MUST end. That is a big key area that has been laid out as a negative quality in the brothers relationship for seasons now. Sam must choose to find his own path away from standard hunting, and Dean must find a level of peace that allows him to go on whilst also letting Sam go. Dean must choose to let Sam go, just as Sam must choose to walk away.

This is why Castiel and Eileen are so important. Eileen has her purpose by Sam’s side. The liklihood that she is an endgame match for him is very strong. Even if they don’t actually take the relationship any further in text, just her coming back and standing by Sam’s side would be enough now following the kiss for the show to set that relationship in stone.

Castiel has his own journey to make, one that includes fixing heaven, guiding Jack towards his true purpose (my speculation being him taking Chuck’s place as God), and making a choice about his own future. Given every single one of Castiel’s storylines so far in the entire series, Castiel should choose Dean.

Whether this means Castiel decides to permanently give up his halo or not remains to be seen, but Castiel fits the missing space by Dean’s side in every way. I don’t just say this as a Destiel shipper, I say it because the story has placed Cas in this role countless times now. It makes sense. Regardless of whether the surface level relationship between them remains platonic or takes that final step, I am pretty damn positive the ending will keep Dean and Cas together, with the “end of an era” closing bittersweet emotional note being Sam and Dean saying goodbye to one another and parting as brothers who have been on one hell of a journey, but recognise that it has come to an end.

Frankly, it’s my ideal ending for the show. Sam taking Eileen’s hand and making the choice to travel the world searching for other Men of Letters chapter houses, to collect more magical artifacts, and to build a better resource for other hunters world wide to tackle the remaining supernatural creatures on Earth (yes I know i’m entering fanfiction territory here but I love the idea of Sam being a Supernatural artifact hunter in Europe - give me THAT spin off!) and Dean and Cas sitting side by side in the Impala, on their way to the beach - Dean will take Cas shopping first of course. He’ll try to convince him to buy a tiny blue speedo but Cas will raise an eyebrow and pick out the novelty swim trunks with the little bees on them (He’ll alsosecretly get the speedo for later).

Okay okay I’ll stop with the fanfiction :P. Other than my silly ending headcanons, the parting of the brothers just makes sense. If you don’t agree that’s fine. This is all just my spec and Dabb does have a tendency to throw major curveballs at us so who knows what will actually happen. So long as they don’t go all Game of Thrones on us.

[woodrokiro]

Hollowed (fic) Part Five

Fandom: Bleach

Pairing: IchiRuki

Summary: They call her a miracle, but he looks at her as if she’s normal. It scares her. Fantasy/Futuristic/Zombie kinda?AU. Read Parts One, Two, Three, and Four. 

It turns out to be a Hollowed… Because of course it is. 

Luckily it’s only one, and small from what the messenger describes. Still, from the way the messenger’s eyes widen while describing it, Ichigo assumes it really has been a while since these people saw one, and must’ve given the soldiers quite a drill.

But he could care less if the soldiers panicked. What he wants to know is if it’s dead.

“Y-yes sir! I saw if for myself, its eyes had clouded over, and its mouth--”

“I don’t need to hear about it.” And he really didn’t, as he could already imagine it: its yellowed fangs bared into a nasty snarl, the eight legs curled pathetically into its jet black body, its eyes peering from behind a horrific mask, milky with death.

He’s seen enough of them. 

“Were there any casualties?”

“No, not that I’m aware of--”

“Aware of? What does that mean?”

“Well, all soldiers are accounted for…”

“But not civilians here?”

“If you’re worried about your friends,” Rukia calls from behind him, and the messenger straightens as if he’s forgotten she’s there-- “there’s not much to worry about. Very rarely are civilians even let outside the compound. When soldiers go out, they are often flanked and covered by the remaining at the walls. It’s all planned far out in advance. We would know about it.”

That clears a bit of Ichigo’s anxiety, but not enough. 

In truth, he’s worried about his sisters. The last time they all encountered those monsters, they were even more horrifying than all the previous times before. Their village was destroyed, people left dead in the streets, their father fighting with all he had left…

Not that he’s not worried for his friends’ mental well being, but his sisters are just twelve years old: too young for any of this bullshit. 

And yeah, it’s always been a part of their lives… But he’s their big brother. He’s supposed to be their protector, or at the very least comforting them. 

Which is why being cooped up here in the name of a job is driving him insane. 

When the bell first started clanging, a soldier ran through to tell him he was to remain here with Lady Rukia at all costs until somebody gave him further instruction. When Ichigo tried to ask when might he be given further instruction--let alone what happened--the soldier sneered. 

“This is your job now,” he spat. “And an important one at that. You are never to leave Lady Rukia during your shift. As for what’s going on, you’ll be told when the information needs to be relayed to you. I recommend you stop asking questions.”

Fucking hell, he’s tired of hearing that. The guy is lucky he ran out so quickly, as Ichigo could’ve throttled him. Instead, all he could do is pace around his partitioned space like a tiger in a cage, ignoring the girl on the other side of the room who probably wouldn’t speak to him anyway.

And now, apparently, she feels inclined to butt in, all uppity and knowledgeable. He spins to face her. 

“Yes, I’m worried about my friends,” he grits out his teeth. “But I’m also worried about my sisters. I’m all they have, and the last time one of those things were within such a vicinity to us it was a real fucking nightmare. Now,” he turns back to the messenger. “If you have the time, I’d really appreciate if you could go to the kitchens and relay a message to Karin and Yuzu Kuro--”

“Go to them.”

Ichigo turns incredulously back toward her, and is starting to think this twisting back and forth is getting really old. “Huh?”

“I was clear enough, fool. Go find your sisters. Take the rest of the day off.”

He nearly sputters. Is there something he’s missing here? “B-but you heard that other guy--”

“That ‘other guy’ is technically correct, in any other situation you won’t be able to leave me.” She’s got her arms crossed, with a superior look in her eye that Ichigo kind of hates but also he’s feeling hopeful about what she’s saying so he’ll just ignore it for now. “But today is your first day. I believe you’ve received basic training enough--”

“Well, I mean I didn’t really do anything--”

“Don’t be so modest, sir. You’ve done plenty.” She looks at him with raised eyebrows pointedly. 

He shuts his mouth. 

“Some soldiers will probably be here shortly to relieve you in any case. They always take me when this sort of occurrence happens...” she drifts softly, before her eyes suddenly shine (yes, shine) toward the messenger. “Sir there! Would you be willing to chaperone me in Sir Kurosaki’s absence, until then? I would be most appreciative of it.”

The messenger shifts, but Ichigo can see a blush rise on his cheeks. “Oh, w-well I’d be most honored, milady. But I’m afraid I’m not of military calibre to watch you. You see, I might as well be a grunt--”

“Oh, that doesn’t matter. So long as you’re a soldier, you can protect me. And don’t worry, if any of the higher ranks or even Lord Yamamoto raise questions about it, I’ll be happy to take the blame.” She smiles sweetly before turning back to Ichigo. “Thank you for your services, sir. You are dismissed.”

He blinks. “So, does that cover for me too or…?”

“What, you believe I would cover for one party in a situation and not the other? Yes, Mr. Kurosaki, you as well. Now, goodbye.” She waves him off dismissively. 

While that kind of pisses him off--and it’s bizarre how fast she changed gears--he’s grateful.

---

He finds the girls perfectly safe and sound when he rushes into the kitchens. In fact, they hadn’t even heard the news of the Hollowed… Which Ichigo finds quite eery how news like that isn’t relayed to the service as quickly as the bell clangs for the military--but at the very least, he’s glad to find they’re safe and not scared. 

He tries to express some sort of a game plan to them: that if he’s not able to go to them in times of danger, find Chad, or even Uryu--well, not Uryu, as he might be on the front lines--

“Relax, Ichigo.” Karin cuts him off with a gentle smirk. “We know how to take care of ourselves for this sort of thing… Or at the very least: how to not get killed. Worst case scenario, I’ve got kitchen knives here I can use.”

“Plus, they’ve got me.” Inoue steps forward from the spot she’s been quietly listening and kneading dough. She claps her floury hands together. “I know that I-I don’t look like much, Ichigo, but you can count on me to protect the girls! All this kneading is giving me some real arm strength! Not to mention when I put in my secret ingredients, that makes it even tougher!!” 

She strikes a pose with her biceps flexed, and while Ichigo’s not quite sure if that’ll be enough to tear apart the creatures responsible for the near extinction of humanity, he still smiles and thanks her. He has to remember that the three in front of him are smart and very much capable of taking care of themselves.

He doesn’t really have a choice, otherwise. 

---

Later that night when everyone else but the boys are asleep, he asks Uryu whether he saw the Hollowed. 

“I did. In fact, one of my arrows got stuck in its putrid ribs.” He pushes his glasses up.

“I saw it as well,” Chad offers. “My boss and I were restocking the weapons on the wall while they burned the body.”

“Chad, you too? So I was the only one to miss out on the action, huh?”

“Not much action, Kurosaki. Truth be told, the military is true to its word. Pretty organized on the killing, once they got past the initial shock. I imagine they’d have a harder time with a horde of them, though.” Uryu opens his mouth to say something, but hesitates.

“What?” Ichigo eyes the look passed between Uryu and Chad. “What was wrong with it?”

“It… Had some… One of its legs was a human arm.” Uryu grinds his teeth. “Recently turned. I think… It might’ve been someone from our village.”

Ichigo prays it wasn’t anybody he knew well, let alone his dad. Trapped in a horrid body like that, slithering miserably up the mountain for fresh blood--it’d be a nightmare he can barely stomach. 

But it wouldn’t matter in any case, he guesses.

A loss is a loss is a loss. 

---

The next morning, he’s informed that he has to report to Yamamoto before his shift. It must be because of what happened yesterday, he realizes. The old man is pissed.

He drags himself into the office, where Yamamoto is (seemingly) calm, reading a book.

The old man smiles. “Ah, Kurosaki! Do sit. Why, you look quite uncomfortable. Are your concerns with the Hollowed yesterday? I hope your sisters were all right.”

Well, shit. 

“Yeah, they were… Thanks.” Ichigo eyes the man across him, waiting for an explosion. “So… Rukia told you…?”

“Lady Rukia told me she dismissed you, yes. Oh dear, you thought I might be upset about that? Well, I suppose on any other occasion I might be quite angry.” 

Ichigo shifts uncomfortably. “So… Why not this time?”

“Well, I suppose I never did properly explain Lady Rukia’s position in this place. Certainly, she is technically ranked above you--ranked above many generals, in fact--and so I cannot blame you for following her orders. How did you like her, by the way?”

“Well… I mean she’s… Quiet. But okay, I guess--”

“She can be quite quiet, you’re right. But I hope you’ll find she’s also very kind. Gentle. Clever, too.” Yamamoto raps his knuckles against his desk. “But she’s also rather frail. The soldiers that took her after you left go to her quarters quite often to escort her to the medical facilities. She runs through quite a number of tests and medicines there for her condition. She’s very smart and capable, yes; but also can suffer some… Sufferings in judgement. Sometimes she doesn’t know what’s the best for her, so a select few including myself make certain decisions for her. Does that make sense?”

Ichigo doesn’t think the girl he saw yesterday looked sick at all, let alone capable of being anything but a smartass brat--but he nods. 

“So next time it happens that my lady gives an order that you’re not quite sure about, request my presence immediately and I’ll sort it out. I trust your judgement. In fact, I’ll be requesting meetings every few days to ask you about updates on her condition and such.”

“... So you’re asking me to spy on her?”

“Not at all! Just that she gets quite tired sometimes… You’ll see. I just want to know how she’s doing after her treatments, so we can get her the help she deserves.” Suddenly, the old man’s focal point shifts to somewhere past Ichigo. “Ah! Well, speak of some sort of devil. Ichigo, this is Lady Rukia’s older brother, Byakuya. He’s a captain within our military.” 

Ichigo turns around to see a man with long black hair standing in the doorway, eyeing him coolly. He clumsily gets up, walking over while reaching out his hand. The guy looks like a complete douchebag, but an older brother deserves to know his sister’s taken care of. “Ichigo Kurosaki, it’s--”

“I know who you are, thank you.” Byakuya drifts past Ichigo’s outstretched hand, toward the seat where Ichigo was previously sitting. 

All right. So he really is an asshole.

“Give Rukia my regards. Lord Yamamoto, I have some reports with you I’d like to discuss.”

“Of course. Kurosaki, you may go now.” And just like that (again!) it seems the Yamamoto forgets his existence. 

Ichigo is just about to shut the door when the old man’s voice calls out. 

“Oh, and Kurosaki?” 

He holds the door, waiting. 

“I understand some--including Lady Rukia--warned you against being in her quarters with her, past the screen. This is one of the occasions I’d like you to ignore her order.”

Ichigo looks back inside at Yamamoto. “Um… I’m not sure I’m comfortable with that. Not if she isn’t.”

“Of course, completely understandable. But if she ever relays a sense of danger in being there… Worry not. There is none.”

Ichigo shuts the door.

He’s not about to go into some girl’s room without her wanting him there.

[pipesflowforeverandever]

11 and 7 :0c

11: What do you like best about this fic?

Of the fic itself: The gradual buildup to and then the reveal of anything to do with Joey; delving into Sammy’s religiosity and mindset; creating a female character I can be proud of.

Of writing it: Seeing people analyze it and see everything I intended and then some, and then gush about it. 

7: Where did the title come from?

As a heads up, a lot of these refer to things in each arc so if you don’t want spoilers for parts you haven’t read (and don’t want to be spoiled ofc), I wouldn’t read about the titles you haven’t gotten through yet. It especially includes the major plot twist in ARITR and the end/climax of the whole series.

Hymns of Struggle: This was the very first thing I had to name, and I don’t remember a lot about the process, but I think I was just especially thinking of things I wanted to convey in a way that sounds good. “Hymns” fits both musicality and religiosity, and “Struggle” conveys a feeling of, well, struggle. And together, I intended to give the idea that people are praying through their suffering, with hope (either pointless or good).

Wonders of Heresy: I wanted to keep the same basic rhythm in titles, so this is where the pattern (blank) of (blank) starts. This in particular is supposed to point out the things Francine brings that are amazing, even if they distract or go against Sammy’s faith. This goes for both her phone and new knowledge as well as her meeting Alice. I also think it especially fits the very last chapter where Sammy is trying to teach Francine how to sing/pray to the ink demon and she just… *plop* to the floor like a little kid.

Parables of Empathy: I already knew ahead of time I wanted this part to be about Francine getting to know Alice and the Projectionist better. “Parables” in this case refers to biblical lessons meant to be modeled after, and so this part is about trials Francine (and Sammy secondarily) goes through that she and others will learn from and use in the future.

Flickers of Faith: “Flickers” simultaneously refers to a flame dying and a flame sparking to life; it’s an in between state and by the name alone, you can’t really tell where you are. It’s precarious, and dangerous, and the characters both physically and emotionally are threatened. My first chapter for it is called “The Last Stair,” which tries to convey the idea that sometimes the in-between is more distressing than whatever outcome is next. And so, Sammy for the first time has doubts in his faith, and Francine for the first time begins to question what Sammy has told her and goes out to test it herself.

Tides of Longing: In Flickers of Faith, I use the title here to refer to Francine’s want of something more eating something up Sammy holds dear- if I recall right, his sense of security in the ink demon. Here, I use it to also refer to a recently revealed Joey swallowing the studio up in his curse because he longed for his son. Joey, Sammy, and Francine are all shown here to deeply want something, and they face the moral complications of the pursuit of it.

Cares of Communion: In a way similar to Parables, I knew I wanted to talk about people “communing” or talking and being together. I knew I wanted Francine to talk to Joey again- inevitably so, as they are both very drawn to one another despite justified apprehensions on both sides- and I wanted Sammy to talk to Alice after Francine met with her again. This is probably my weakest title choice, but it’s still not necessarily bad imo because it sounds good and rolls off the tongue. I want to say I changed the title at least three times, even after posting chapter 1 of it.

Dances of Duality: I was talking at either @startistdoodles or @aceofintuition‘s stream and I was asking for ideas for titles of upcoming arcs in general, and Ace suggested either the whole title or at least the Dances part. In this section, I try to make it more apparent that something deeper is happening, that there is mirroring between Joey and the rest of his studio and between Francine and Henry. 

“Dances” is both literal and figurative, of course; it can both be something fun and intimate as well as an analogy to dodging one another in a fight- predicting their next move. It goes for Joey especially as he does his best to analyze Francine while simultaneously marveling at the warmth she brings other people, and so Joey ends of in one moment letting himself go and allowing himself to enjoy the otherwise horrid, murderous whimsy/power of the studio with her…and in another moment he has to predict what she is going to do, and what the demon is going to do. And well. I actually already drafted two dancing moments prior to writing this arc, so “dances” kind of fell in my lap…and especially so with Sammy’s dance mirroring Joey’s.

A Rock in the River: I had a big, long talk with Ace about this one. I was pretty attached to the title pattern at this point, but they convinced me that the finale needed something different, because something different is happening in a major way for the story and the characters. And so the title itself represents that- a change. The path of life is being redirected by something towards another direction. 

We first came up with the idea that something nature based and/or like a fairy tale is fitting, and a lot of the analogies I use of such things (candles, bodies of water, trees, rain, etc) would be brought full circle. In particular, I was thinking about the second or third chapter of Tides where Joey is described as having the belief that time is like a river, and when Henry left, fate was going in the wrong direction. Joey had faith in magic and believed that it brought him and Henry together, and therefore as a man of magic, he had the ability to change the flow of fate and put things where they were supposed to be. Of course, he only ends up in the most ironic way shifting it entirely away with his selfishness and lack of introspection, and so no one was allowed to continue living as their were supposed to not just as employees but as human beings with proper bodies and souls that can rest in death. Time is askew and means nothing to the studio, and this is not a world these people are meant to be in. 

There’s a few people that I could say are the “rock” that comes and changes everything to the way it’s truly supposed to be; most obviously, Francine brings about change and it’s entirely plausible the studio would not be set free if not for her influence. But I also really wanna give credit to Sammy, for one. Sammy goes against everything he’s taught himself to emotionally survive what he’s been through for nearly a century- he runs away with his faith and believes in himself and his friend. He basically kills his “god” in order to set himself free, he is the change he prayed for.

 …I really, really need to mention Henry too, though. Henry changed the studio- his game-canon arrival creating the setup of Hymns- but also in his own personal story, he sought for his dad and ultimately left again after realizing (one way or another) that he not only did not change in a way that mattered- and actually got even worse as his destruction created an eternal cycle of self-hatred and perpetuated harm and possessiveness. I haven’t written about this yet, but Henry presumably had to struggle with the aftermath of his decision and try to reconcile the truth that he did what was good for himself and his family. And in the end, Henry survived and left the studio, and he had his own peace living a full life with a loving family. And Joey realizing Henry in spite of Joey’s mistakes still had his own life in his hands of course couldn’t take back everything the 50 years of believing he killed his son did to him emotionally and to the studio, but it managed to undo the knot for Joey to let go; he let go of his son, and his son saw the sun again, and so could everyone else without him. 

It’s also less directly relevant, but I feel I should be fair and give a shoutout to Alice for changing too, going from someone that harms others because she believes they’re wasting away anyway- using their bodies to make herself who she wants to be- to someone willing to throw away the body she’s worked so hard for and put her fate into someone else’s hands. She learned to love, and to let someone care for her instead even after being reaffirmed in her first life and the eternal one that no one was really looking out for her.

As another note, I also already planned out the ending where everyone is released at Joey’s “heart”- or his sacred childhood home in a beautiful, natural scene like a fairy tale, and so the title helped wrap everything full circle that way too.

[smoothshift]

Test drove several sport coupes in the 30k range this past weekend. Here are my impressions. via /r/cars

Test drove several sport coupes in the 30k range this past weekend. Here are my impressions.

I am in the market for a new car.  Looking for a sport coupe either new or slightly used in the 30k ballpark. I have always been a manual transmission guy, but I did the Porsche Driving Experience in Atlanta last fall and I was extremely impressed with the PDK gearbox.  So I have been focused on cars with dual clutch (very few options I can afford) or very good shiftable automatic transmissions like the ZF8 and A10.

2019 Camaro SS: This car looks really big, with huge wheels/tires/brakes. Yet somehow the interior feels very small and cramped. It doesn’t feel like a boat when driving it, but it doesn’t exactly feel nimble either.  It feels like you have a lot of grip primarily due to the giant tires, not the suspension if that makes sense. And people are not kidding when they say this thing has visibility problems!

I am not really a fan of the retro-style interior.  The 1SS looks decent in pictures, but looks low quality/cheap in person.  The 2SS interior with leather is nicer, but still not great. The materials on the wheel and shifter were decent, but most of the interior still feels dated and cheap. I think I would really want the 2SS if I went with the Camaro, but the 2SS is closer to 40k and out of my budget.

This car is fast, though! Definitely faster than the others I test drove. The engine sounds great, almost good enough to make you forgive the cars shortcomings.  The A10 felt really good, too. Shifts were instantaneous up and down in manual mode, the tach just pinned from one RPM to another.  I did notice a very clunky downshift when coming to a stop in manual mode, though.

2015 Mercedes C350 (W204): I think this is a beautiful car, very understated but still sporty. My girlfriend (who is not a car person at all) thinks it looks like a car for old people. She kept calling it the “granny car”.  Driving the Mercedes was different from the others.  It absorbed all of the bumps in the road and felt kind of like driving a couch, yet somehow still felt planted and handled really well for the ride comfort.  I felt very insulated from the outside world in this car.

The interior in this car is pretty good. The materials on the dash/wheel/console felt really high quality. The seats looked and felt really good, also. The only problem is the center console and navigation screen look really dated for a 2015.  The buttons and radio don’t look like something you would find on a new, modern, luxury car. The nav screen looked tiny and was very low resolution. If I plan to keep the car 5 years, the nav screen display is going to look absolutely ancient.

The C350’s speed was just decent, not slow but it doesn’t feel fast, either. It lacked the “oomph” of the Camaro or 435i. Honestly, I could live with the speed, I just was not impressed with the Mercedes 7G-Tronic transmission at all, though.  I have seen some reviews online where people said it was pretty good for a “regular” style automatic, but it was miles behind everything else I drove.  There was a noticeable delay between when I pulled the paddle and the shift actually executed.  It also seemed to downshift pretty clunkily on every downshift while cruising slowly.  The car only had less than 30k miles on it, but I almost wonder if there was something wrong with the transmission?

2015 BMW 435i M-Sport:  The car looks great in person. It looks the most modern of anything else I drove.  Very futuristic and angular.  Really loved the look of the headlights and taillights, too. I know the roofline is roughly the same height as the others, but my perception is that it seemed lower.

The interior of the 435i was miles ahead of the other options.  It looks super modern and I have no worries that it will look dated in a couple years. I personally like how the navigation screen extends out of the top of the dash (even though many seem to hate it).  The materials in the interior all felt top notch.

The car’s handling felt very balanced, nimble, and in-tune with the road. It kind of reminds me of how the Porsche’s felt when I did the Porsche Driving Experience. It was also very fast, it felt like it had more power in the low RPM range than even the Camaro.  It must make full boost really quickly, because I didn’t feel any perceptible turbo lag. But, I was most impressed with the ZF8 transmission! It shifts so perfectly like the A10, maybe even better.  And I did not notice any clunkiness on downshifts at all. It had perfect shifts in manual mode but still felt super smooth like a regular auto. I think the ZF8 is the best gearbox out of anything I tested.

2017/2019 Toyota 86: This is the cheapest option I have considered.  So that definitely helps it to try and overcome some of its downfalls.  I have also kind of wanted one of these since they came out, so it was near the top of my list now that I am in a position to get a new car. I think they look great in person, especially the new headlights on the 2017+ models. I drove both a 2017 automatic base model and a 2019 manual with the GT trim level.

The interior of the base model was passable.  It was not amazing, but I could definitely live with it.  It’s a big improvement over the FR-S, which had a horrid interior in my opinion.  The only thing is that the GT interior was just way nicer. If I got this car I would want the GT interior no question.  The layout of the interior kind of reminds me of a poor man’s Porsche. It is definitely Porsche inspired.  The only thing I didn’t really like is how they just forced a rectangular LCD screen into the round pods of the gauge cluster.  It just doesn’t look right.

The steering feel in this car was awesome, maybe even the best of anything else I tested.  I really liked how it felt smaller and more nimble than the others.  The automatic shifted pretty good in manual mode, definitely better than the Mercedes. This is the only car out of the bunch that I would get in manual, though. The clutch felt excellent, nice and light. The shifter was also amazing, so much shorter and tighter than the stick in my Civic.  This car is actually a ton of fun to drive.

There is just one problem: after driving the other cars, this car is just so slow!  I know it’s basically a meme how this car is slow, but the power is really just underwhelming.  On the test drive in the auto, I told my girlfriend I was going to gun it from a complete stop to see how fast it was.  She literally started laughing because it was so slow (yet somehow far louder than anything else with the TRD exhaust it had).  It kind of hurt my soul a bit because I really wanted to like this car after lusting after it for so long.  The manual did feel a noticeably faster than the auto, but it was still pretty underwhelming.

The other downside of this car is that I would want to mod it.  Header, tune, coilovers, wheels, and supporting mods.  After you add all of that up, you could just buy a better car to start with (which is also probably a wiser financial decision).

Additional Options: I still plan to drive a 2015-2016 Audi A5 and S5 (with the DSG) and I know I need to check out a new Mustang GT.  For some reason I thought only the GT350 had the A10, but I just found out you can get it on the GT.  Not sure If I will bother trying to drive a V8 Challenger. I know it has the ZF8, but I have been in them before and the interior is sub-par quality and feels like it was made for giants. I suspect it would feel like the Camaro, but all the downsides would be magnified. Is there anything else out on the market I am missing?

Conclusion: I am really glad I went and test drove a bunch of different models.  It really gave me a feel of all their differences.  I have not really ever been a big BMW guy, but after driving the competition, I get it. The BMW is my first choice right now, which is not what I expected.  It has the driving dynamics, the speed, and the super nice modern interior.  I was really impressed. I may even stretch my budget a bit and try and get a 2017 440i M-Sport.  I’m curious what everyone else thinks about my impressions.

[newx-menfan]

What do you think of the mini-series "Spider-Man & the X-Men?" Personally it's one of my favorites, but I also like hearing your analysis of things. (also why does Julian wear the yellow training uniform in #1 and have purple tk?)

I’m… mixed on Spiderman and the X-Men.

On the one hand- it is hella funny and enjoyable! It’s everything ‘Wolverine and the X-Men’ comic tried to be, but just wasn’t.

The Sauron panel about curing cancer, is probably one of my favorite comic book panels/scenes.

It’s useless fluff, but it’s enjoyable useless fluff.

On the other hand- there’s basically zero character development in this book.

If you’re hoping for a storyline delving into Julian’s trauma and character motivations- this isn’t it.

If you’re looking for a storyline where the X-kids move past being generic students-this isn’t it.

Julian still gets the 'Jerk with a Heart of Gold’ character development; just a whole lot less well written than DeFilippis and Weir/Kyle and Yost.

It’s another book ignoring how the kids have been repeatedly screwed by the adults and undergone various horrors.

It just politely sweeps all that under the rug, because this book is supposed to be 'fun’. We can’t be reminded that Rockslide and Julian have been ridiculously loyal to the X-Men despite almost dying several times, being abandon and neglected, watching their friends die in a bus explosion, ect… So the idea that one of them would be a mole is preposterous; because that would be a 'downer’.

On top of that, then you have Julian in that horrid school uniform/Hellion’s uniform hybrid (Let’s be honest, Julian loves his Hellion’s uniform too much to ever stop wearing it…) and his TK aura being wrong… And Eyeboy being in it (Sorry to Eyeboy fans, but I will never be made to actually care about that character…); so all in all…SMATXM is OKAY. Fun when you need something light and 100% better than WATXM; but disappointing when you compare it to New Mutants/original Generation X/Academy X.

On recent Teen Books, in General:

I haven’t really been impressed by recent teen books; because it seems like all writers are hopped up on this 'lovable loser’ trope, Marvel keeps making horrible marketing decisions, and they rely too heavily on the adult X-Men instead of the X-kids to sell the book.

* The problem with the 'lovable losers’ trope is A] Grant Morrison did it so perfectly with all his meta commentary in New X-Men (the 2001 series, not Academy X) and B] can you realistically keep that plot point going for more than a year, without it getting stale (Just look at GLEE, for further example). Even Morrison didn’t do an entire series on 'the special class’, he just had it be the B-plot of his X-Men run.

* Marvel made so many horrible marketing choices for Generation X Volume 2, in my opinion.

The first being naming it 'Generation X; you had a lot of old fans hoping for reunion for years and when this was announced SO MANY fans got their hopes up, only to be disappointed when it was announced that it would be about the X-Kids.

The second was advertising it with multiple teen X-teams in the Resurrection teaser; making readers think it was going to be a mix of New Mutants/Original Gen X/Academy X/Generation Hope/ect… You had a ton of people pumped about their favorites showing up or guessing who would be chosen… Only to be disappointed when it was announced it would mostly be WATXM kids…

Leaving people guessing can be worse that just immediately announcing the lineup, because potentially fans will come up with WAY BETTER ideas than you did. Why Marvel keeps doing this 'one at a time character reveal/blacked out characters’ on social media MAKES NO SENSE to me, because you’re almost always guaranteeing disappointment instead of excitement…

Then Marvel priced it at 3.99; at a time when DC was releasing 2.99 books for some pretty big name characters.

The only big names on this team were Quentin Quire, Bling, and Jubilee; everyone else were pretty minor characters, even among X-teens.

2.99 is reasonable for this book; 3.99 is putting it in competition with some pretty big name DC and Marvel characters- if I have to chose between 'Doom Patrol&rsquo (a book that DOES basically do Strain's premise...but a million times better...) ; or 'Generation X’ on my pull list because I have limited money- sorry, but Doom Patrol is totally winning out.

I could have justified purchasing this book if Strain had used some Academy X kids more in the book; but the fact she used Quire and WATXM gang kind of sealed the deal for me, despite the fact that this series was pretty well written…

* Anymore Marvel seems to think the only way to sell teen characters is by focusing on a big name A-lister.

For 'Wolverine and the X-Men’, it was Logan and Kitty.

For 'Spiderman and the X-Men’, it was Spiderman.

For 'Generation X Vol. 2’, it was Jubilee.

Here’s the thing- I read the teen books to get a BREAK from the A-listers. I like teen books, because you can do really interesting character growth and plot points, you can’t with adults.

The original New Mutants UTILIZED Xavier and Magneto: but generally it was always about the students.

The original Generation X usually UTILIZED Banshee and Emma: but generally it was usually about the students (plus, Banshee rarely gets a push in main X-books ANYWAY and Emma was a B-lister at that point, so I didn’t feel all that bad about Emma and Sean getting a push at that time…)

The original Academy X MOVED AWAY from focusing on Dani and the original New Mutants pretty quickly, to focusing on the students. Emma and the other adults were also secondary characters in the book.

You DON’T need A-Lister adults to sell the story if it’s well written; yet Marvel keeps doing this despite the fact that it’s essentially turning the teen characters into secondary characters or wallpaper IN THEIR OWN BOOK!

Overall I’d rank the recent teen books as:1. Generation X being the best- because IT was decently written despite A LOT of plot holes and questionable marketing choices. It’s the only slightly serious teen book to come out recently.2. SMATXM- it was funny and did the 'lovable loser’ shtick better than most other series.3. WATXM- the WORST; useless fluff THAT was poorly written, too much focus on Wolverine and Quire, Quire being OP and having zero character growth, problematic things like sexualization of Oya or making fun of her religious struggle, ect.

Overall though, all three of these books are disappointing when you compare them to any of the older X-teen books written…

[janiedean]

finn and poe’s sl in the last jedi: a few considerations

first thing to state: these two both needed to have some kind of journey from A to B in order to arrive at the ending that this movie had in mind and the set-up for IX, finn needed to deal with Some Issues that were there since TFA and poe needed a lot of screentime to make up for the fact that while he’s one of the main three, in TFA he had very limited screen time. now.

finn:

needed to work on his main **character flaw** that was stated in TFA, ie: he tends to go flight when in a flight or fight response, which is entirely understandable from his POV but not exactly useful if he has to, uh, *be in a rebel resistance*;

needed to know more people and see more beyond what he knew since he’s been a stormtrooper all his life and only ever worked for the first order and he can’t get around just knowing rey and poe and maybe leia but it’s not like they knew each other;

needed to see beyond his stormtrooper bringing up and get around, you know, having individuality;

what this movie did was addressing all of that by:

sending him away from the only two people he knows (okay, poe not so much because they were in contact always but still) so that he has the chance to, you know, leave and come back;

giving him a storyline with rose ie someone who has entirely good reasons to fight for the resistance and lost her family and everything she had and opened his eyes to other horrid shit the first order did (you know, he goes from ‘this town is beautiful’ to helping her tear it apart sooo) and who admires him first as an icon but then as himself and is willing to die for *him* without really owing him anything beforehand;

doing that, he realized which were his priorities, he fought for people other than his two friends, he realized that he wanted to be rebel scum (or did I dream that conversation with phasma) and by the end he was about to die for the cause when in the beginning his first thought was running (without even warning poe for that matter) so that he’d save his ass and rey’s. which is entirely understandable from his pov, again, but it was something the movie needed to address and is named character development, which he got in spades;

now he’s reunited with his friends, made more friends, knows his place in the world and doesn’t want to run anymore. mission accomplished.

poe:

needed more time to have his personality established given his lack thereof in TFA;

needed to be established as leia’s successor which this movie obviously was pointing at;

needed to learn the skills to be a good leader;

now, they could have shown him already being good at it, but thing is: this movie ran two hours and a half and no one wants a Perfect Protagonist Without A Flaw in movies, because it’s completely unrealistic and the fact that poe was a+++ amazing in TFA worked because we saw him less than the other two, if he was like that all the time he’d have been a gary stu.

so, what this movie did was addressing all of the above by:

giving him a hell of a lot of screentime which was used to show us that while he’s an excellent guy all around he does have some flaws;

(which are all by the way entirely consistent with his character because if he’s a hothead who likes to blow things up and fly in the middle of the action he most likely won’t consider that sometimes you have to retreat or that sometimes you have to look at saving lives rather than making sacrifices of most people you have before being left with a handful)

establishing that he and leia have definitely a parental/familial vibe because she basically treats him like she’d treat her own family and they’re familiar in ways you are not with your boss;

putting him in a situation where he realizes that acting rashly means you get demoted regardless of how good you are at your job;

giving him the tension with holdo which made him realize that you can be a good leader also by retreating and not ATTACKING all the time, that sometimes you have to buy time like that and that it’s not cowardly to run and that it’s not necessary to go around sacrificing your own life and others’s for the cause;

doing all of the above, he went from promising general to virtually effective leia substitute, because at the end of the movie he did exactly the contrary of what he did in the beginning, told finn what leia told him (to disengage), stopped finn from going after kylo and luke when he realized luke was buying them time so they could run, and leia herself told people to follow him and not her, which brings us to the conclusion that the infamous rewrites post-tfa most likely were to give him a larger role and effectively set him up to become the next general (also because let’s be real, if han died in VII and luke died in this one, leia was gonna die in the next one if carrie had lived to act in it, and all of them needed the new trio to pick up where they left from), and this when poe was a character who was supposed to be killed at the beginning of tfa.

like, they gave all of this hell of a storyline to a character who was supposed to not even survive the first movie, that’s how much they liked him and how much they accounted for the fans liking him.

so: what happened with this movie was giving them arcs with proper screentime for both which addressed points that couldn’t be addressed in TFA and set them up respectively to a) finn being a full part of the resistance where he’s staying by his own choice and where he’s made friends and found his own individuality and not forcing him to be it which would have happened if he stayed in the main ship for the entirety of tlj, he needed to leave and come back and get rid of his former boss/phasma to fully leave his past behind, b) poe being the new general of the resistance with leia’s full blessing and after we saw that he learned how to be one and we can trust him to take good decisions because he learned on his own skin what it means to take bad ones.

doesn’t seem to me like *character assassination*, except that of course we get to the crux of the problem which is, ‘stormpilot didn’t happen’ and ‘neither of them is confirmed gay’ and apparently that trumps everything else. ship discourse under the cut because this post is long.

now:

this is the middle movie of this trilogy. if stormpilot was gonna be a thing I highly doubt it’d have been a thing here since we’ve seen that people were clutching their pearls over freaking lefou in b&b and here we’re talking about main characters - if it was happening, it would happen next movie;

if they locked lips now it’d have been in a situation where finn literally knows no one except rey and poe and we don’t know anything about poe except that he’s a good pilot, he’s a nice guy and looks hot in leather jackets, which.. I mean, do we want them to establish their personality before thinking about them kissing?

neither of them was *confirmed gay* (though I mean with finn I guess he’d need some experimentation around to find out what he likes but never mind) and finn and rose kissed and poe was flirty-ish with rey so OMG HORRIBLENESS: you know, they could.... be bisexual. or pansexual. both of them. which would also mean they might be interested in women as well as each other. like, just a thought to consider;

the finn/rose kiss was her kissing him, not him kissing her, and like it could either go somewhere or it might not, but if it turns out that he likes her and they become canon and stormpilot doesn’t happen.... there’s nothing inherently horrible in finn liking rose who is a nice girl who went through a lot of shit and has all the reasons in the world to like him and tbh I find it really gross that I’ve read around ‘ew omg he kissed a girl how horrible’. I mean, back when TFA came out we were all rejoicing that we had a nice diverse ship and we were all having fun and sorry to break it to you but finn/rose is also a *diverse* ship so it’d be still fairly progressive to have it canon in a mainstream scifi movie. but now since finn kissed the wrong diversity it’s... a downgrade? like, you do realized how it sounds?

anyway, if finn/rose doesn’t go anywhere, the next person in line realistically to be his love interest (if he does have one by the end) is poe, not rey (who, as much as people around here like to deny, might have been set up to have a meaningful story with *ben solo* who is, sorry to say, not the horrible irredeemable villain a lot of people decided he is, and if you still think he is just go watch the OT and realize that the entire point of it was redeeming darth vader ie someone who did a lot worse than kylo but of course we all forget that SW is a franchise about redemption, huh?), and those two spent the entire movie worrying about each other, staying in contact if they were apart, let’s not go over the ‘finn is naked and wet’ part or finn wearing poe’s clothes for the entire thing or poe coming fully into his future-general self by ordering finn to retreat therefore saving his life rather than send him to sacrifice himself at all costs to take out that cannon (while most people who went after the cannon in the beginning died, including rose’s sister), which doesn’t seem to me like *nothing*. like, we had a lot of stormpilot interactions in this movie considering what they needed to do with it;

now, while it’s probably not likely that it might happen forreal or overtly (it’s still disney guys) saying that, considering all of the above, what I’m seeing was a movie that did both of them justice and didn’t sideline them or their relationship while also dealing with another ten storylines at once and if the point that makes everyone think they’ve been butchered was that they didn’t lock lips you know how it sounds like? like whatever these two characters do or stand up for it’s worthless unless they make out, or unless they’re **gay** (not even bi, gay), and therefore you’re basically reducing them to their PERCEIVED sexuality. ie they’re worth nothing if they aren’t the sexuality the fandom wants them to be, which sorry but a) it’s bullshit, b) it’s tokenism, c) it’s ASSUMING SOMEONE’S PERSONALITY ENDS AT THEIR SEXUALITY AND THEIR ACTIONS ONLY MATTER IN LIGHT OF THEIR SEXUALITY.

like, we have two main characters in the new trio who were given extensive screentime and storylines that brought them forward from the previous movie and gave them character evolution and development and brought them to a narratively better place and made them better people (never mind that if they get together in IX it’d be way healthier than if they had in this movie)........ and that somehow doesn’t matter because we didn’t get a confirmation that they would lock lips or that they prefer to bang men and actually one of them being kissed by a woman is seen as character assassination when in the first movie finn sure af wasn’t going around stating his sexual preferences if he even figured out any?

I mean, I’d like to think we’re watching these movies also for the plot and if poe and finn have to be lgbt rep other than minority rep maybe it’d be nice if they also had a personality to go with it, and possibly realistic too because people without flaws aren’t realistic and sure af the OT trio and prequel trio weren’t flawless people actually all the contrary, and this movie did nothing wrong in establishing it. but hey, seems like we only care about it if they kiss. does it sound woke to you? because to me, it doesn’t.

tldr: idk how this movie butchered either of them or did them wrong or ruined them (all the contrary), but if all the criticism’s point is OMG THEY AREN’T GAY AND THEY DIDN’T KISS then we don’t want well-written characters, we just want the ship. and honestly, making it everything about the ship while throwing everyone else under the bus (rose first and foremost) is hardly, like, progressive or anything, but whatever you like.

[korra-the-red-lion]

Unnatural Affairs. Chapter 21: The Banishment.

(Ally + Lyn + Michael)

Lyn.

“You’re going to training camp, aren’t cha, Lyn?”

I looked over at Matt who was hanging off the lane rope, water dripping off his beard. Andrew looked at me quizzically as well as they waited for my answer.

“Probably, yeah,” I said with a shrug. I’d totally forgotten about it, honestly. I’ve been so busy with all this spirit hunting junk that training camp just slipped my mind.

“Good. Kerry and I are going too.” Matt licked his lips. “So, you, Loryn, Kerry, Maddie, Thom, Ollie, and Will. Oh, and me!”

“I’m going to,” said Emma. “So’s Robin and Tams.”

“That’s not too bad,” I commented. “You only got like 7 people last year. You nearly got half the team. Wait, is Gunner not going?”

Andrew shook his head. “Me and Gunner are gonna go home together this year. I think he needs it.”

I looked over at Gunner, who just dove in the water for his heat. We were doing practice races today to work on our spirits and diving techniques. We got out of the pool since they started and walked over to the benches, where we sat and waited for it to be our turn again.

I rested my head against the wall and closed my eyes, thinking about all the shit we learned the last few days. I couldn’t believe that old prof was the killer. I didn’t like the guy, but I didn’t think he was capable of murder. Of course, not all killers looked like killers. That’s how Ted Bundy and Paul Bernardo got away with so many killings before they were caught.

We hadn’t told the police yet because we literally had no concrete evidence that he did it. We really only were going off what we’ve seen and what ghosts have told us and done to us. We couldn’t really say much in our defence. Whatever. Tomorrow we were going to get rid of the monstrous Fredrik Moore with the help of Katherine.

Ally told us this two days ago. Then she causally mentioned that she nearly got killed by Kinkly when she went to go speak to the ghost residing in the art building. I swear to God, between Ally and Michael, I was going to have aneurysm. Who the hell causally mentions they nearly died through a text message?? It was a little exhausting to keep up with, truthfully. I only understood so little, yet I was expected to keep up with all the crazy. I was definitely ready for it to be over.

Katherine had sent Ally a list of things that we needed for the ceremony tomorrow, or whatever you wanted to call it. I guess it was basic ghost hunting stuff like salt, iron or silver, special amulets. I didn’t really get it, but Michael was more than happy to find all that for us. Where he got it from, I didn’t really want to know.

“What’s on your mind, Lyn?”

Loryn’s voice pulled me out of my thoughts. I blinked back into focus. “Just some stuff.”

“Hm.” Loryn sat down next to me. “I can’t wait until this semester is over. I feel like once Christmas goes by, we’ll reset and refocus.”

“I agree.”

I watched Thom glance at Loryn as he walked up to the block. I wasn’t the most observant person on the planet, but I was starting to notice the looks he was giving her. I wondered if he had a crush on her or something. The thought of that brought a cheeky grin to my face.

“What are you doing for winter break, by the by?”

I shrugged. “Suffer until my flight, I guess.”

Loryn rubbed her hands together nervously. “Did you want to stay over at my place? We could leave together.”

“Loryn…” I stared at my friend, emotion building up in my chest. She was watching me with this stupid soppy look on her face too. “I can’t just impose on your family, especially not during the holidays.”

“And I can’t let my best friend go back to a place that makes her miserable,” countered Loryn. “C’mon, dad is totally okay with it. I just want you to think about for real, okay?”

“I will, I promise.”

She reached over and hugged me, and I hugged back. It really did mean a lot to me that she even asked. I didn’t know what I was going to do for winter break. I thought I’d just hang around here until then, but who knows, maybe the ghost problem was still going to be a thing then. I broke off the hug when I realized it was my turn to go up again. I patted Loryn on the head and headed over.

XXX

Michael.

I was so excited to see the list Ally had sent. I knew exactly where to get those things! As soon as my horrid math course ended, I raced down to the Dreaming Mythic. When I got there, Talia was in today. She smiled at me as I pulled off my hat and shoved it in my pocket.

“Mr. Yamamoto! It’s been a while since I’ve seen you last.”

“Yup!” I walked straight over to where the bags of salt were. “I’m here to stock up today.”

“I figured you were,” she said softly as she drifted over. “Katherine told me that you asked her for help.”

I froze. I smiled guiltily at her as I reached for the salts. “Yea’ I did. I hope that’s okay with you. I just got really excited when I saw her reading the spell book.” I did feel bad that I asked her like that, it probably caught her so off guard.

“Katherine is an adult,” said Talia wistfully. “If she wants to help, then she can make that decision herself. I just hope that you children are going to be safe.”

I nodded as I poked around the amulets. “I hope so too. I think that if we get hurt again, Lyn might kill us. And trust me, she doesn’t look that strong but that’s only cuz she’s wearing sweaters right now. She could crush my head if she wanted to. Plus, I’m pretty sure I’m scarred for life now because of this, so I don’t really need to add physio on top of therapy.”

Talia walked into the back room as I continued to poke around. I wasn’t really sure where I was going to get any silver from, but maybe the weird antique store down the road had something. These small towns and their wacky stores, huh? You could always find the weirdest stuff. This whole town had proven to be p r e t t y i n t e r e s t i n g so far.

I walked over to the counter with an armload of things. One could never be too careful when it came to fighting a giant ghost monster that could totally crush you with one hand. Never. I dumped my stuff and tapped my fingers against the counter as I waited for Talia to return. I wasn’t in a rush, so I didn’t mind waiting.

When she came back out, she was carrying a bundle in her arms. I looked at it quizzically as she set it on the counter delicately. My jaw fell open when I saw what it was.

A gleaming silver blade.

“This belonged to my mother, who got it from her father and so on,” said Talia as she ran her fingers on the flat part of the blade. “It served them well. I would like it if you took this to protect yourself. It’s much more efficient than a baseball bat.”

“How…?” I was dumbfounded.

“Mr. Yamamoto, I’m aware of how the minds of you people work,” she said, her eyes twinkling. “Also, I was a student once too, in a house full of girls. We all had our own weapons of choice in case anyone ever tried to break in.”

I ran my hand over my head. “I feel bad if any person ever tried to, after seeing this guy.”

She slid it back into the sheath and wrapped it back up. She put everything in a paper bag and handed it all to me. “Please, be careful. Those are dark forces you’re dealing with. And…” she paused, her face thoughtful. “Never mind. Take care, Michael.”

“Thank you, Talia.” I squeezed the bag to my chest tightly. It meant so much to me that she’s been so awesome this whole time. I can’t think of anyone else who would go to such crazy lengths to help a practical stranger. She really was a great person, no joke.

I smiled one last time before leaving the store. I couldn’t help but feel the nerves starting to creep in. It was going to be really dangerous, we knew that. It’s been dangerous this whole time. I think only when Ally spoke to Amelia was the only time she didn’t get hurt. These ghosts mean business, and their business is to kill.

In some weird way though, we had to do finish it. We were the ones who started this whole thing, really. If we hadn’t bothered to dig around more, then we wouldn’t feel the sense of responsibility to help them all move on. No one else could do this job but us. Sure, it was terrifying and stupid, but I’m happy in a way. I’m happy that we’re going to make a difference. Especially since all the victims were people that thought no one cared about this. But there were people who cared, somewhere out there. I mean, hell, we cared!

I understood their anger, though. I’ve been there. People making offhand comments about me behind my back. Being a biracial kid in Victoria hadn’t been terrible, but there were times that I was all too happy to forget about. I’ve been pulled over more times than I care to talk about because of the colour of my skin. There were times were people asked me if I was visiting people from home, as if my family didn’t live here in Canada. I understood all that. That’s why it was so important to me to help them out. Because someone had to.

So yeah, I was nervous. I was nervous because there was so much more at stake than just stopping Kinkly from killing again. It was about telling these people that they mattered. Because for the love of fucking God, they do.

XXX

Lyn.

When I got back to my room, I was surprised to see a package lying on my bed.

Nura would pick up my mail for me sometimes because she was a sweet and wonderful person. I didn’t order anything for myself, so I wasn’t sure where it came from. With a confused frown, I dropped my bag to the floor, grabbed the package, and opened it up.

A letter fell out, landing gently on my bed. I picked it up, surprised to see Olivia’s name scrawled on the front of it. Feeling even more confused now, I opened the letter to see what she had to say.

Lyn,

I just wanted to apologize again for making you come home for Thanksgiving. It was wrong of me to make you promise something like that when you needed a ride to the hospital. I still don’t know the real reason why you needed to go, but hopefully one day you’ll be able to share the truth with me.

It’s a little early for Christmas, but I got you a gift. It’s not much, and maybe you’ll hate it. What you do with them is your choice, and I’ll be none the wiser on what you decide. Speaking of, if you would like, Travis and I would be happy for you to come and stay for a while. I know you’re probably flying off to Florida or wherever again for your winter training camp. I just wanted to let you know the offer is there for you to take if you wish.

Anyway, I hope that you’ve been well and that all your finals go as you expect. You always give everything 110%, so I know you’ll do amazing.

With warmest love and regards,

Olivia.

I sat heavily on the bed, my emotions conflicted. I reread the letter a few more times, making sure I didn’t miss a single thing. It absolutely meant the world to me that Olivia went the extra mile to apologize for making me go back there. She didn’t have to, but she did.

I reached for the rest of the package and pulled out the box that was inside. It was a shoe box for Converse, and when I opened it, a brand-new brand of blue-green high-tops rested inside. I pulled them gently and examined them. They were my size exactly, and there was another note inside the box.

I know you loved those black ones you have, but since they were bloody, I thought these would be a good replacement.

They were gorgeous. I loved them already. I wouldn’t be able to wear them for while because of the weather, but Olivia made an awesome choice.

I thought back to Loryn’s offer. Now I had two places to go for the holidays, meaning that I wouldn’t be spending them alone, regardless of my choice. I felt warmth blooming in my chest. Maybe later tonight would end horribly for us, but for now I was content to just sit here and be thankful for the people in my life.

XXX

Ally.

December 1st.

If someone had asked me at the beginning of the term what I would be doing 9 days before the first day of exams, I probably would have said pretending that relearning the entire course wasn’t stressing me out at all. Instead, I was going to go back to the swim team’s locker room for the third time this term to hopefully help a ghost move on from this plane of existence. You know, a typical Wednesday.

I stared up at the clouds as I sat outside on one of the benches scattered around campus. It was a really peaceful day. It was cold, and the wood was wet on my legs, but still peaceful.

The nerves I felt were not as bad as I thought they would be. Maybe because we’ve already been through so much already. Scarred, bruised, hurt, but alive. We lucked out twice already, and I know we’ll do it again a third time. If everything went according to our plan, it should be fine.

I laughed to myself. When has anything gone according to our plans?

Still, I dropped my head back, so it was dangling over the bench, we’ll be okay. I have to believe that. I don’t want anything to happen to them. I won’t let anything happen to them.

I wasn’t a physical fighter, but I was going to try my best to make sure we all made it out of here okay. I owed Michael and Lyn that much. I dragged them into this wild world, and I was going to be the ones to make sure they got out of it alive.

“You’re doing your thinking face.”

I smiled as I sat up properly. “Hey. Did you get everything?”

“I totally did,” said Michael as he sat next to me. “Now, don’t divert the convo. What cha thinking about?”

“Just everything, honestly.” I tucked my hands under my armpits. “You know my brain is always running, it never stops.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” he chuckled.

We sat there as I rested my head against him. He put his arm around my shoulders. We took comfort in each other’s warmth. The steady rhythm of his breathing added to the calm I was feeling. There was something about sitting with a friend on a cold winter day that was under appreciated.

The day slowly waned away as we sat silently. I don’t know what Michael was thinking about, but it was probably about tonight. I could feel the anxiety emitting off of him. He wasn’t biting his nail, but he was bouncing his leg away from me quite a bit. I reached down and squeezed his hand in comfort, causing him to look my way. I smiled at him and he returned the gesture.

“Do you really think we’ll be okay?” His voice was small.

“I do,” I said firmly.

He nodded slowly, staring off again. “Do you think it was a mistake to ask someone else to help? I feel more guilty the more I think about it.”

I frowned in thought. “I’m not sure, honestly. I do think that she would have said no if she really was against the idea, though. She’s got spirit, I think.”

“Okay.”

“Hey,” I looked up at him. “Michael, I know you. Don’t beat yourself up over this. We’ll make sure nothing happens, alright?”

Michael closed his eyes tightly. “Alright. I just…I don’t know if I would ever forgive myself if someone got hurt because of me.”

A flashback of Michael smacking into the wall and the blood flying from Lyn’s arm shot through my head. I swallowed thickly as guilt rested heavy in my stomach and said, “Yeah, I get that.”

The sun dipped below the skyline as it started to get dark. It was only 6:00 now, and we had to wait until closing. Stupid winter and shorter days. It was starting to get too cold for me to stick around much longer, so I gently pushed away from Michael and stood up, my body shivering from the loss of contact. I fiddled with my glasses anxiously.

“I’m going to head back to my room for a bit,” I said. “See you soon.”

“See you soon,” echoed Michael.

XXX

“Hey, Ally?” The RA leaned against my doorway. “There’s someone waiting for you outside.”

I glanced at Sarah before pushing myself away from my desk. The RA walked all the way to the door with me before leaving without saying a word. I pushed open the door and saw Lyn standing there, her cheeks pink from the cold.

“Hey! Why didn’t you just text me?”

“Left my phone in my room,” she said with a shrug. “I don’t really want it to get ruined.”

I stepped out of the way to let her in. She gave me an appreciative smile as she came in. I wasn’t sure where we should go, since Sarah was still in our room. I decided on the common area and led Lyn that way.

After a quick look around, I walked in once I saw it was empty. I sat down on one of the sagging couches and Lyn plopped down besides me. She slipped her hat off and ran her hand over her hair to smooth it down. She took my hand into hers, which was freezing, and gave it a quick kiss.

“Are you feeling nervous?” she asked, her eyes searching.

“I’m definitely feeling it, yeah.”

“That’s good,” Lyn laughed. “I’m scared shitless.”

I nodded in understanding. “You’re not alone in that feeling.”

Lyn ran her free hand over her face before squeezing her ear. “That’s great to hear. Like seriously, you do all this crazy shit, and it always amazes me. Well, it makes me want to kill you first, but then I’m amazed. I don’t know how you can keep it up.”

I mulled over that for a few minutes before saying quietly, “Because no one else can. I mean…yeah, I totally scared. I literally think I’m going to die each time we go out, or that I was so stupid for doing this, or for dragging you guys into this. But…” I frowned, scrubbing a hand against my eye, “someone has to do this. I would feel terrible if someone else died while I sat by and did nothing about it, you know?”

Lyn looked thoughtful as she nodded. She didn’t say anything else as she released my hand, instead slipping her arm around me and taking my other hand back. She kissed the top of my head and held me close. I closed my eyes, taking comfort in her presence.

To be perfectly honest, I never would have done this alone. It was only because I had Lyn and Michael that I was able to do this. Not even counting the close encounters, it was really traumatizing to see how someone died. They have been here for me this whole time, and for that, I’m forever grateful. Sure, we’ll all be in therapy because it, probably. But at least it won’t be alone. At least someone I know will always understand what I’m going through, on some level. And hopefully after this was all done, we could figure out a way to stop Kinkly once and for all. Then it would all be over, and we can go back to being normal students. Students who were worried about their exams, not about whether they’ll be haunted that evening while studying in the library.

We sat together like this until it was time to go. My stomach lurched as we stood up, the realization of what we were about to do catching up with me. Lyn squeezed my hand tightly, her jaw set determinately. I could see the fear dancing in her eyes, the way she kept cracking her fingers, but she was ready to go. When she caught me staring, she winked at me with an easy smirk.

“Hey, we’re the Spook Searchers, this is what we do,” she said jokingly. “We search for spooks.”

“I don’t think dealing with monsters and witches is part of the description,” I pointed out.

She rolled her eyes as she held the door open for me. Startling, the wind was ranging outside. Despites my protests, Lyn pushed my back to my room. She was firmly insisting (read: leaving no room for argument) that I put on a pair of pants. According to her, every time we’ve gone there, we’ve had to flee outside and that I wasn’t going to be freezing my ass off just for the sake of my style. She had a point, but that didn’t mean I agreed with her. However, I sullenly complied because it did make sense.

Finally, we left Lukas and made a painful walk to the Athletic Centre, hopefully for the last time. The wind was biting into my face. It felt like tiny little cuts were opening on my skin. The walk only lasted 5ish minutes, but it sure as hell felt longer than that. Michael and Katherine were there when we showed up.

Michael grinned when he saw us, though I could see the tightness in his face. Katherine wasn’t even attempting to smile, instead glaring at us moodily. I gave Michael a quick hug while I nodded to her. She just stared back. Yay, this was going to be really fun.

Lyn patted Michael on the back and gave Katherine a nod of acknowledgement as she pushed the door open. Her friend was sitting at the desk and looked up as we walked over. Apparently, she had spoken to him the other day and told him this huge lie about how she wanted to sneak us into the pool for a secret party. She told him it was totally safe and that she’d lock up afterwards. Her ability to come up with believable lies was really amusing to me. First a camping trip gone wrong now this.

“Just make sure you put everything back to where it belongs,” he said to her nervously as he handed over the key.

“I totally will!” said Lyn in a bubble-gum tone. “Thanks so much for doing this for me, Hassan.”

“You owe me one.”

She gave him a big hug. “Yup! Have a good night, buddy.”

A smile flickered onto his face. “Yeah, yeah, you too, Lyn.”

Lyn cheerfully waved to him as he left the building. After she was sure he was gone, she quickly locked the main doors. Her shoulders were tense with stress as she came back over to the three of us.

“This better go well,” she said as she pocketed the keys.

“I think it will!” said Michael with a fist pump. “I have a really good feeling about it this time. Plus, look at all this awesome stuff I have!” He held his bag open for us to look inside. I saw bags of salts, some knives, and amulets. Katherine stuck her hand in there and pulled out the necklaces.

“I need you guys to put this on,” she said as she handed one to each of us. Michael readily put his on while Lyn stared at hers skeptically. I understand why, since the last time we relied on jewelry it didn’t do much for us. I took mine from Katherine and slipped it on, the weight of it feeling a little strange. Lyn finally shrugged and put hers on as well.

Katherine stuck her hand into her coat pocket and pulled out a small object. I felt my brows raise in surprise as she flicked it open, revealing the blade inside. I winced as she sliced her finger open. Michael’s face went pale, and Lyn frowned, her ears lighting up. Katherine hissed as she pressed the bloody digit to the center of her amulet, and it started to glow brightly. She muttered something under her breath and the brightness dimmed, the necklace reflecting only a warm glow.

“Who’s next?” she asked with her hand outstretched.

Michael tentatively stuck his hand out. Katherine took his hand gently, before quickly nicking the skin open. Michael’s face scrunched slightly in discomfort but otherwise he said nothing. She pressed her finger on top of his before placing it on the amulet. The same light show happened before it dimmed down.

I was about to lift my hand when Lyn quickly thrusted hers out. Katherine glanced up at her before cutting her thumb open, causing Lyn to flinch. She had her eyes closed the whole time Katherine worked silently. After it was over, she sucked on the thumb as if that would help with the pain.

Finally, I was up, and I gave her my hand. Katherine’s eyes searched mine before she took my hand into hers. Her grip was surprisingly gentle as she looked at my fingers. She grabbed my ring finger and sliced the knife against the skin. I felt the tingling in my face from the pain as she pressed our fingers together. I only just noticed now that she used a different finger for each of us, as three of her fingers dripped with blood. Once she was done with me, she quickly stepped away and dug out a clean thing of gauze with her other hand. She ripped the thing open with her free hand and grimaced as she pressed her fingers into it.

“Here, let me help,” said Lyn. She reached over the desk and grabbed the first aid kit. She quickly wiped up the blood and wrapped each of them in a small gauze.

“Thanks,” muttered Katherine.

Michael fingered his amulet with a curious look. “So…what was the point of that?”

“Protection,” said Katherine. “Your blood mixed with a witch’s should be a much better protection against anything that might try to take your body from you. It will do little against physical harm, so you still gotta be careful.”

“Gotcha.” Michael smiled at me. “Should we head down, then?”

“If we’re all ready,” I said with a smile of my own. I certainly didn’t feel happy, but I didn’t want all of us to be freaking out, so I put on a brave face. I did a quick look around and when everyone nodded in agreement, we headed down.

The hall lights flickered on as we walked down the stairs. The pipes were moaning overhead as they settled. I could hear the fans working through the pool doors as we walked by. Michael handed Lyn something that was wrapped up in a bundle, causing her to look very confused.

“What’s this?”

“Something I think suits you best,” he said with a wink. I could see the trembling of his hands but he hid them behind his back so we wouldn’t see his fear.

She pulled the rope off the bundle and let the cloth fall to the floor. She gasped as she held out the sword in her hand. I was surprised to see a weapon like that too. I looked over at Michael with wide eyes, who just gave me a shaky thumbs up. Katherine was eyeing the weapon with a strange look before she looked away, wrapping her arms around herself.

“We should keep moving,” I said, my voice echoing into the darkness.

Our footsteps sounded incredibly loud as we approached the locker room. When we stood in front of it, Katherine frowned in trepidation. She poked around for a bit before sighing deeply through her nose.

“This is it, then?” she asked, looking at us.

Lyn nodded. “Yeah. This is where the big fucking angry ghost in. The other one is apparently in the mirrors where the bathroom and showers are.”

“’Kay.” Katherine shrugged her bag off. “This is going to be a very dangerous thing. Once I start, he’ll fight against me. He’ll probably attack us. I wouldn’t be surprised if the other ghosts around the area get involved. Are you all ready for that?”

I swallowed thickly and nodded. “We know what we signed up.” Ugh, my voice definitely cracked there a few times.

Katherine looked at me for several long seconds before turning away. “Alright. Just give me a few minutes to get ready then.”

Only a few minutes before shit hit the fan, oh boy. Those were going to be a long few minutes.

XXX

Michael.

Watching Katherine work was something weird for sure.

She sat down on the floor and poured a bag of her own salt around her in a protective ring. Next, she set up a few black and red candles around her. She pushed her bangs out of her eyes as she muttered to herself quietly. I wanted to ask what she was doing but I thought leaving her alone was the right move to make. I went over to where the others were leaning against the wall instead.

Lyn looked really pale as she watched Katherine. Her face was devoid of any showing emotion, but I could tell by the way she kept tugging at her ear that she was really nervous. Ally was biting her lip as she fiddled with the zipper of her jacket. She attempted to give me a smile when I stood next to her, but it came out looking grim.

“We’re going to be fine, Ally,” I said. I believed it, too. I had to.

She nodded slowly, her eyes unsure. “I think so too,” her voice was so quiet. “It’s just what happens after that I’m scared about.”

“Whattya mean?” I tilted my head.

“With Kinkly,” her voice cracked at the end. “Sure, we’re helping Fredrik here and that’s really awesome. But what about the actual murderer? We don’t exactly have tangible evidence that says ‘hey, this guy is the killer!’”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.” We both were startled by Lyn’s sudden jump into the conversation. She tore her eyes away from Katherine and gave us a tight smile. “We’ve already done so many crazy things together, what’s one more? I’m sure that we’ll figure it out once we have time to think about it. But first, we gotta focus on this, you know?”

We both nodded in agreement. My heart was thudding rapidly in my chest suddenly. The temperature in the hallway started to drop and I looked over at Katherine. Her face was screwed up in concentration as she continued to mumble to herself. Her gaze lingered up and when I caught her eye, she nodded towards the door.

It was time.

Trying my very best to swallow my growing fear, I held out one bag of salt in one hand and an iron knife in the other. Lyn drew the sword smoothly from its scabbard and held it tightly in both hands, her knuckles white. Ally took a deep breath as she held onto her own knife. She reached for the door handle, but it ripped open before she could even touch it.

Fredrik in his monstrous form bellowed at us in the cramped space. Suddenly, I felt the floor shifting beneath my feet as the area expanded. I stumbled a little before getting my footing again. I wasn’t sure what happened, but this wasn’t the locker room anymore. It was, but it wasn’t.

The whole space was distorted. The lockers looked like they were curved and wider than they usually were. The tiles on the floor were red with blood and the walls moved as if they were breathing. The whole area felt alive. Fredrik stood in the middle of it, his mouth drooling bloody saliva. Fiona stood next to him, her expression dark and hard to read.

“You shouldn’t have come here,” she said grimly. “You’ve made a horrible mistake.”

Her face twisted horribly as her own body began to transform. My pulse was pounding in my ears and my hands shook violently. My eyes flickered to Katherine, who was chanting loudly now, her eyes glowing brightly. All we had to do was make sure nothing bad happened to her while she finished.

Fredrik lurched forward, his powerful legs carrying him forward. We scattered away from the attack. He whirled and immediately went towards Katherine. My legs felt like lead. I tried to move but I couldn’t. I looked down and saw that my legs were trapped in a gory cast. I yelled in surprise, stabbing at it with the knife. Katherine was in danger, and I was helpless to do anything for her.

I looked up when I heard Fredrik scream. Lyn stood in front of Katherine, her eyes wide in fear but she held her ground. Fredrik’s face was dripping with fresh blood and the sword glistened with blood.

“That’s for scarring me, asshole!” Lyn swung the blade heavily, causing Fredrik to draw back.

Quickly I cut myself out of the gore cast and was about to run over to where they were when Lyn pointed over. “Go to Ally! I’ve got this!”

That sounded like a lie, but I wasn’t going to argue once I saw that Fiona was swiping at Ally, who was trapped waist deep in a gory hold. I ripped open one of the bags of salt I had and threw it directly at Fiona. She shrieked as she tore at her face. Pieces of flesh fell to the ground with a sickening wet sound as the blood welled on her face. The salt that landed on Ally’s gory prison started to dissolve and she started tearing chunks off with her own knife.

“What is this stuff!?” Ally scrambled back so we were side to side.

“I have no idea, but it felt very…fleshy,” I said with a heavy swallow. I was not going to be sick here.

Ally looked sick at the thought but nodded. “Okay. Okay. We need to stop them from getting to Kat.”

I nodded in agreement. I handed Ally a bag of salt. She looked around before kneeling down and ran the knife through a puddle of something liquid. She stuck the knife in the bag and pulled it back out, the blade now covered in salt. Geez, that was so quick thinking. I was about to do the same thing when Fiona screamed at us.

“YOU ARE GOING TO SUFFER FOR THAT, HUMAN. I WILL KILL YOU!” Her voice was distorted, sounding like it was being layered with something else. Her back ripped open with a wet sound as a second pair of bloody arms grew from her back. Her head twisted with a vicious crack as her jaw opened widely like a snake’s, only it didn’t seem to have a stopping point. Ally and I stepped away in fear.

We ran away from her attacks, each punch pounding into the floor with a fleshy sound. The floor kept trying to get a hold of us with its gory prison. Bones grew from the floor like tree roots, and we had to dodge them so we didn’t trip. Fiona was howling behind us like wounded animal. I could see the pain in Ally’s face as she tried her best to keep moving forward. But no matter how far we ran, it was like we couldn’t get away.

I barely felt fear as we rolled away from a smash of her claws. My body was running on instinct to survive. There were nearly no thoughts in my head besides run, survive, get away, dodge. Fiona picked something up that suspiciously looked like a body without a head and threw it at us. I shouted as we fell to the floor. Hands with rotting flesh shot through the floor and grabbed at us, keeping us in place. I struggled against their slimy grip, sweat dripping down my face. Fiona leisurely approached us, her twisted features manic.

“You should have kept your nose of this, Ally,” she said quietly. I could see the pain in her eyes, the agony she was feeling. She raised one hand, claws ready to tear into us.

“I’m sorry.”

Her eyes widened in shock. I twisted around to look at Ally, who’s face looked utterly heartbroken.

“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I’m sorry that you’ve been forced to become this thing, Fiona. I’m sorry that they gave up on you and your brother so easily. I mean it, and I meant it last time. What happened to you two was tragic and it’s so horrible that no one tried harder. I can’t imagine the pain you’re going through, I really can’t. B-but,” there were tears streaming down her face, “I know you don’t want to do this. I-I saw how David was being controlled.”

Tears sprung to my own eyes as Fiona hesitated. There was a battle of conflict playing out on her face. Ally closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “You are in control here, Fiona.”

Fiona’s face twisted as she howled. She brought down both arms.

XXX

Lyn.

The sword was heavy in my hands as I swung it.

I thought it would be like a baseball bat, but man was I wrong. This thing was wearing me down so quickly. I could hear Katherine behind me, continuing with the spell. The hair on the back of my neck and arms were standing on end as the pressure around us continued to increase.

There was blood dripping off the sword where I had sliced Fredrik. My hands were covered in it from the splash back. My chest was rising and falling heavily as I panted. My whole body was shaking from the effort of keeping her safe. My heart was racing from a mix of adrenaline and fear. My stomach felt like it was cramping shut.

I was so worried about Ally and Michael too. I saw Michael run off to go help Ally, but I haven’t seen them since. I really had no idea what was going on and it was freaking me out big time. This whole place looked like a fucked-up rejection from a horror movie or something. The walls moved away from you each time you took a step. The floor fucking looked like it was made of human bodies. If I stayed still for too long, rotten hands reach up and try to grab me, or some gory entity does.

Fredrik watched me carefully, circling around. I sluggishly followed him with my eyes, careful to have the sword pointed at him the whole time. He was waiting for me to let my guard down. That wasn’t going to happen.

Katherine gasped loudly behind me, causing me to look back. Fredrik screeched as he launched himself at me. I swore viciously as I tried to defend myself. I really didn’t want another scar to match.

“Step back and swing upwards.” A jolt of panic shot through my whole system.

I did as the voice said, and Fredrik’s claw missed my face by half an inch. I swung upwards and caught him by the chin, Blood sprayed all over me and I blinked it out of my eyes as I stumbled back.

“Duck, then thrust forward.”

Again, I did as it said. The sound of his claws rushing by filled me with dread as I took a huge step forward. I jabbed the blade into his belly. Fredrik shrieked in pain as he doubled over, stumbling away from us.

“Good job. Stay close to the witch now.”

“Who are you?” I asked into the wind.

“Someone trying to help you, darling. I know we’ve never talked before, but you have to trust me.”

I shook my head as I stepped back. I stopped next to Katherine, who was breathing heavily. She pushed sweaty bangs from her face and looked up at me, her face going pale as she took in my appearance. I felt disgusting, so I could only imagine what I looked like.

“Are you finished?” I asked, kneeling down next to her.

Katherine nodded quickly. “It should only take a minute for the effects to kick in now.”

“Thank God,” I muttered darkly.

“Are you hurt?”

I glanced at my hands and shrugged. “I really couldn’t tell ya, honestly.”

“That’s…that’s fair.” She pulled her knees to her chest, her eyes wide with fear. “This place is so fucked. Is this what you’ve been dealing with the whole time?”

I shook my head. “Mostly just insane shit happening in the locker rooms. Though I took a lovely blood shower once,” I said sarcastically.

Katherine opened her mouth to say something when there was a huge roar that shook both of us to the core. Fredrik was writhing on the floor, clawing at his skin. Blood gushed from his self-mutilation. My stomach lurched from the display, and I looked away. But when I heard him howling, I found myself looking once more. Layers of flesh peeled away from his body. Bones became exposed as they crumbled away. Organs were exposed as they melted away into nothing.

“What’s happening to him?” I asked, my voice thick with fear.

“The monster is dying,” Katherine said flatly. “The human soul is becoming exposed.”

I watched in horror at the remaining parts of what was Fredrik dissolve into a frothy liquid. From the remains stood a boy, not much older than Ally or me. He looked scared and confused as he looked around. When he saw us, he tripped over the bones of the monster as he tried to walk over. He stopped a couple feet short of us and fell to his knees.

“You saved me,” he cried. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome,” said Katherine softly. “I hope you have a better time in the Shadow Lands, Fredrik Moore. I know this journey hasn’t been easy for you.”

He wiped at his eyes and nodded. “I hope so. Is…is my sister here?”

Katherine lifted her hand and pointed. Fredrik looked over and gasped when he saw his sister standing over Ally and Michael. I felt fear coarse through my veins as I saw her bring down her own claws. I screamed out their names as I tried to get to my feet. Tears left paths down my blood covered face as I stumbled over to where they were.

The plume of dust dissipated, revealing a very stunned Ally and Michael but otherwise unharmed. I collapsed next to them, grabbing a hand from each of them and trying to control my crying.

“We’re okay,” coughed Ally. Her eyes widened as she took in my appearance. “Are you okay?!”

I nodded as I squeezed her hand. “I think so,” I said with a hiccup.

Michael sat up, his face pale and ashy looking. “I’m okay too, in case you forgot I was here.” He said it jokingly, but I could hear how weak his voice sounded.

“I’m glad you’re okay too,” I sniffled as I gave his hand a good squeeze.

I stiffened when I saw Fiona approached us. She was no longer a monstrous version of herself, instead looking like a young woman. There were tears dripping down her face as she bowed her head. Fredrik put his arm around her and rested his head on hers.

“Thank you, Ally…for saving me. He was controlling me, and I couldn’t stop myself from hurting you.” Fiona wiped at her face.

Ally smiled tiredly. “You’re welcome. I’m just glad you are together again.”

Fiona grabbed Fredrik’s hand tightly as she looked around. Both her and her brother looked confused as to where we were. That was not a good sign. Even though my body was physically exhausted, the panic that was settling into my bones was causing me to feel twitchy.

Then we heard the slow clapping.

XXX

Ally.

I looked around, but I couldn’t place where the clapping was coming from. Fiona and Fredrik both looked terrified. Michael sat up straighter as he looked around as well. Lyn’s pupils were wide with fear. Katherine stood wearily next to us.

“You need to get out of here,” whispered Fiona. “He’s coming.”

The whispers of ‘he’s coming’ echoed all around us. I shakily stood up. Lyn and Michael did the same. We instinctually stepped closer to each other. Lyn reached out and even pulled Katherine a bit closer.

“I can’t believe you managed to pull that off, Alexandra,” said his voice all around.

“Pulled what off?” I called out, hoping my voice sounded stronger than it felt.

There was an unsettling chuckle. “Getting rid of me from Fredrik. That required a lot of power. I didn’t think you’d be able to find someone to pull it off. But you proved me wrong.”

“Show yourself, you monster!” I yelled.

The earth shook underneath our feet violently. Fiona and Fredrik ran away from our group, disappearing from sight. The ground split open to reveal beating organs beneath our feet. Michael finally couldn’t hold it in anymore and threw up. Lyn looked sick too, but she managed to keep it down. Katherine couldn’t tear her eyes away from the horror that we were standing on. When there was another chuckle, the ground shook again.

“I’ve been here the whole time, Alexandra. This is my body you’re standing on, after all.”

Shocked coloured my face. How was that even possible? I stepped away from the seeping wounds at my feet, trying to make sense of it all.

Then he showed himself.

Robert Kinkly looked just as he always did. Round glasses, frumpy sweater with crazy wispy silver hair. He smiled at us and gave a polite clap for us. Lyn gritted her teeth and hefted the sword back up. Michael held the knife high as well, his hand steady despite his fear. Katherine looked petrified as she stepped slightly behind us. I didn’t blame her at all. All I wanted to do was ran away and hide away forever.

“Honestly, I do have to ask, how’d you figure it all out?” He tilted his head in that way that he always did when he asked us questions in class.

“I’m not telling you,” I spat out. God, I was feeling a lot braver than I actually was.

He blinked owlishly. “Huh. Well, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I’ll just have to kill you three and make away with all that research you have. It will be tragic, three students losing their lives just before exams. But the roads are icy at this time of year, after all.”

“You’re a fucking psycho,” snarled Lyn. “I can’t believe you murdered all those people.”

“Language, Lyndsey. There is no reason for you to be speaking to me that way,” he scolded coolly. “Besides, I had to kill them. It was the only way for me to survive.”

“But why?” I cried out. “You died! I don’t understand how you’re even here!”

Kinkly held his hand up. “Patience, Alexandra. To be honest, I’m not quite sure myself. I remember when I died, and I remember begging for a second chance. The next thing I knew, I was alive and well. The only issue I ran into was my flesh began to rot away on me. However, I soon discovered I could stay alive so long as I could sacrifice someone else’s life in exchange for mine. And well…” he spread his hands out with a cold grin. “It was obvious who I was going to choose.”

“But…” Michael’s voice cracked with emotion. “How could you do that to innocent people? Amelia and the Moore siblings didn’t deserve that. Dahlia and Jamieson didn’t deserve that.”

Kinkly laughed with a shake of his head. “I didn’t kill Dahlia. She was already here when I died. But the others? Nobody cared when they were alive, and nobody cared when they died. Really, I may have been the way to swing the axe, but I wasn’t the one who killed them. Society did.”

I felt anger bubble in my chest as I took a step forward. “That’s a lie you tell yourself. These people, they had live. They had futures. You are the one who took that away from them, no one else!”

“Please, stop with the dramatics already,” he said with an eyeroll. “I told you so many times to keep to yourself and mind your own business. Really, your own death is on your hands. Shame, too. I thought you had potential.” His face twisted into something horrible. The grin was too large and stretched out, like it belonged on someone else’s face. His teeth were just slightly too pointed to be natural. He laughed loudly and the floor shook once more.

“Lie down and die for me, ALEXANDRA HOLLAND, LYNDSEY HART, AND MICHAEL YAMAMOTO.”

My whole body shook as panic shot through my brain. It was bad for a ghost to know your full name. It was really, really bad. But I didn’t really know why, I just knew it was. I could feel the power behind those words. I closed my eyes, ready for the end.

[artyrogue]

Blind Date Gaming: Nobunaga’s Ambition

Oh lordy. I never thought I'd see THIS one again, at least on a Blind Date. See, a while back, I heard good things about this particular game series that PRANG had matched me up with today. It was supposedly a very good strategy game with some addictive gameplay and a background rooted in Japanese history. So, I bought a used copy for the NES on a whim one day at the ol' resale shop. That choice ended up being a horrid one, as what followed was me being utterly confused at what the heck was going on and ultimately losing the game, my time, and my patience. But...a blind date is a blind date. So say hello to Nobunaga's Ambition.

Let me put this out there at the get-go: I'm certain this game is actually all that I've heard it was. It seems to have the makings of a decent strategy game, with a lot of factors going for it: resource management, tactical fighting, choices on methods of tackling adversaries, and just enough randomness to keep each playthrough fresh. However, like my experience before, I have no manual. Unlike the NES version, there's no option to watch the CPU play the game itself. That's not a typo. There's an option to watch a game play itself so you can muddle through how to actually play it yourself. So, I turned toward the modern marvel of the internet. Online resources seem to point more toward recent versions of the game, and so here I am once more getting lost in complex menus and options that mean absolutely nothing to me. Imagine playing a board game like chess, but not knowing what pieces do what. Actually, this is more like Arkham Horror without any instructions and replacing most information with symbols. So yeah...I am lost. That said, let's pick this guy to be our Daimyo! I based this decision solely on his resemblance to Agahnim from Zelda: Link to the Past!

Of course I'mma need a guy with some high Ambition. We all know what that stat translates to in game terms, right?

So you manage a fiefdom among several other fiefdoms. It's kinda of like a board game where everyone gets a turn to manage their area. The 'board' has several territories, each with a 'player' managing the resources. You can go to war with foes and capture their fiefdom, converting it to yours. There's a ton of other players, all differentiated by horrible patterns in the 4 colors the game boy is capable of.

Looks like a war of tie patterns

Going to war with a neighbor starts the military strategy part of the game, where you direct your forces against the enemy's. If you capture the enemy's warlord, you get to claim their territory as your own. In this way, you can slowly claim the territories and become the sole Daimyo of all of (blocky, misshapen) Japan!

The warlords are symbolized as horses stroking their chins with indecision, of course

Makes sense, right? Okay, let's look at what we have to deal with to make these decisions. This right here is the primary action screen of the game. It's the interface to your resource management, like a menu screen for running a country.

I can only assume most modern presidents or monarchs have one of these puppies

...okay, so uh

what

I think I managed to figure out the left side. The money bag is cash, which you need to do everything. And I mean pretty much EVERYTHING. Like, you can't talk to other nations, go to war, or develop anything without some dosh. The one underneath it is rice? I guess in bags or something? I think you use it to sustain your people and for bargaining. Under that is the number of men you command to battle, and I assume the emoji dictates how happy your people are. The entire right column? No friggin' idea. There's a plant and I guess some water? Does that have to do with farming? And what's under that, an Excel spreadsheet? And I have 30 pagodas? Well, it might have something to do with infrastructure, but I have no idea how to improve that since it takes money, and I have no idea how to make money. Let's not even touch the decimal values of Rate (?), Rice, Men, and Arms. No clue what those mean or if my numbers are any good.

This was me trying to figure out wtf was going on

So yeah. Like the real world, everything revolves around money. However, you don't know how much is needed to do anything. You're told when you don't have enough, but never how much ANYTHING costs. Further, outside of selling your rice to traders (who, I might add, are not always there), I have no clue how to make more money. Defeating foes doesn't give you any. Resting gives you none. In fact, resting does absolutely nothing! You sometimes? get more rice and money after a turn, but when and how is a mystery. When you do, it's like 5 gold and 3 rice. If you have no cash, you basically lose. Period. I spent some money developing my farms, but that didn't do anything for my rice yield. I got married successfully, too, but that didn't do anything either beyond costing like 30 gold. Hooray?

So, I spent all my time training my military. I used whatever scraps of gold I had left to buy more men. Feeling brash, I took on a small territory south of me and managed to defeat them. It gave me some classy options for their captured leaders!

I think more games need a 'Behead' option

Ahh, the life of a samurai. I got a new head and hired a dude for posterity. After that, it was more training since I couldn't do anything else. Eventually my warriors were maxed out, so I tempted fate by attacking a larger neighbor. With all my time in training, I thought I had this in the bag. Then their men outnumbered me like 4 to 1. Also, some of their units were invisible and sneak attacked me? So, uhh...yeah, that didn't go well.

Excellent news.

That was apparently all I needed to be completely destroyed. Maxed out strength means nothing compared to AI that actually know how to play the game. What a waste of time.

Probably says 'Don't let the shoji hit you on the way out'

And thus ends my returning nightmare that is playing Nobunaga's Ambition. Classic confounding gameplay with a sheer cliff of difficulty, no tutorial, no help, no decent UI, and no fun. Glad to put this one back into the far depths of my mind again. Obviously, I wouldn't dare date this again unless I get a tutor to come show me how to play this dumb game. I'm sure there's some college-level class to do so somewhere. At least I did manage to find this Sprite of Passage from that one daimyo I slew. Now I can see why all these samurai are fighting so hard!

Even when dying of thirst, the ancient Japanese knew the importance of high fives

[woodrokiro]

Hollowed (fic), Part Eight

Fandom: Bleach

Pairing: IchiRuki

Summary: They call her a miracle, but he looks at her as if she’s normal. It scares her. Fantasy/Futuristic/Zombie kinda?AU. Read Parts One, Two, Three, Four, Five, Six, and Seven. 

It’s the same dream, each and every goddamned time.

It starts out simply and true and horrid enough: the night he last saw her. His mother put him and the girls to bed, kissing each on the nose and wishing them sweet dreams. There is wetness on her cheek from when she briefly nuzzles her son--but it’s quick, and her expression is as peaceful as it usually is.

Was.

But in this dream, he gets out of bed.

His father isn’t in the living room, for whatever reason--but he’s too focused on his mother’s retreating form out of the house to really think about that detail. He starts to follow her--nine year old feet silent as they can while still trying to catch up. He thinks maybe she’s going outside to the safety cellar--even though there has been no Hollowed alarm, even though they haven’t had enough food to store there for ages--until he sees that she’s drifting toward the river.

His heart stops beating so quickly, because the river is a sacred place to Masaki. It’s where she taught her children how to swim, where they catch most of their food, where she has taught him that water is life. So long as they have this river, she says, they need to keep fighting for their lives, for their happiness.

But when she reaches the silt at the water’s edge, she suddenly stops.

“Ichigo,” she calls softly without turning around. Her voice is oddly distorted. “Get away from here.”

He is about to ask why, why would he ever leave her here when she knows the tide gets so high at night and then she turns.

Half of her beautiful face is mangled into a grimace, the other half covered by a Hollowed mask. Her body bubbles and blackens, and she reaches out a hand--gnarling into a claw--toward him.

“Run.”

--

Why he’s awake far earlier than the rest of the group is never questioned, and he’s glad. 

He doesn’t know how he’d answer, anyway.

--

He finds out soon enough that Rukia likes books. 

He guesses it’s not too surprising: he can’t imagine there’s much else for her to do, after all. 

But about a week after he starts, when he realizes there really isn’t much to do except sit around, ask what she’s doing (to which she may or may not answer), and watch dust filter through the screen, he makes do on his oath and brings a book. Well. His only book. It’s not gonna last him long, but hey. Something to do is something to do.

He’s about five pages in when he hears a creaking of the screen and looks up to find her hands gripping through the holes, eyes peering curiously down on him.

“What are you reading?”

Unnerved by her sudden attention, he slaps the book closed. “Look, I told you I’d bring something to read if things got as boring as they have been--”

“No, no. Of course.” She waves her hand impatiently. “I understand. What’s the name of your book?”

Slowly, he raises the tattered cover for her to see. “It’s… Hamlet. By William Shakespeare. Do you know it or…?”

She grins from ear to ear, clapping once in obvious pleasure. “Know it? Well, I know of it. They talk about it in a book Lord Yamamoto has of Shakespeare, but no one’s ever been able to find a copy for me. Is it true? That it’s his best, darkest work?”

“Well… I definitely don’t think darkest. Titus Andronicus is pretty dark, I hear--”

“Titus Andronicus is a travesty amongst his writing. Dark, yes: but no substance.” She sniffs with visible distaste, but Ichigo is intrigued with this conversation. Sure, he loves this book--it’s the one personally prized possession he was able to grab before fleeing his village--but he’s also fascinated with the sudden light in her eyes, the excitement in her voice at having someone to talk about an interest with.

The thought slips in uninvited that this glee suits her.

He shrugs, feeling a heat rise up his neck. “I wouldn’t know. I only have this one. I read All’s Well, once, but the copy was lost a long time ago. I had a book on his biography, too. Would love to find his other work, someday… But there’s more important things to ask for.”

Her fingernail scratches the screen in thought before she quickly glides over to a huge bookshelf in her section. Ichigo watches her: he’d be lying if he said he’s never noticed it before.

“What are you…?”

She trots back over, shoving a beautiful book through the larger exchange slot in the partition. “Here. I’ll trade you. I’ll take care of yours if you take care of mine.”

He eyes the cover. King Lear’s title is stitched in fine gold thread and he gulps. Although tempted, he shakes his head.

“Sorry. That thing’s in mint condition, but this copy is pretty important to me for sentimental value--”

“No, not literally trade, fool.” She rolls her eyes as if he’s the idiot being unclear. “Trade for reading. That thing isn’t deserving to be in my book collection, but it’ll do so I can finally read it. And when you finish this one, you can borrow another. I have near all of his work.”

He’s unsure, but finds himself putting his Hamlet copy in the slot too. “Okay… But I can’t really give you anything else, that’s the only one I have--”

“It doesn’t matter.” She’s grabbed his Hamlet, already finished with the conversation. “I like reading something a few times over anyway. And besides… It’s nice. I mean. To have someone to talk to about it with. I hope.” 

And with that, she walks her way up to her seat next to the window, curls her feet beneath her, and starts to read. 

He opens his own borrowed copy, starting a couple pages before he hears a sound.

Humming.

Strangely, he thinks, that suits her too.

--

“I just don’t get why she’s so… Isolated? But weirdly idolized? Like… She’s an imprisoned queen, or something.” Ichigo picks a piece of lint off his shirt. “Not to be dramatic. It’s just weird.”

It’s his day off, and he’s decided in his boredom to mosey over to Chad’s masonry unit and hang out. He and Chad don’t talk a lot (well, Chad doesn’t talk a lot), but he knows he can count on his friend for advice or venting whenever he needs.

Even when Chad’s pipsqueak boss glares at him from across the room the whole time he’s there.

“If you’re going to distract my apprentice,” the kid calls out, “you can at least be useful and help him in his work.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know the drill sir.” Ichigo hops off his stool, stands next to Chad to half-assedly polish weapons while his friend pounds away at hot iron. “Jesus. How this tightwad place managed to hire a runt as the head of masonry is beyond me.”

Chad stops his work momentarily to wipe the sweat from his brow. “Hitsugaya’s a good boss. He’s taught me a lot in a short time, and besides. He lets you in here while I’m working. Can’t say the kitchens or Ishida’s units would allow for your company.”

Ichigo huffs, but doesn’t disagree. As little as Chad may speak, he has an annoying habit of being right. 

“Yeah, yeah. Still can’t imagine it feels great being bossed around by a twelve-year old, though…”

The two work in companionable silence for a bit, and Ichigo can’t help but think that they really did match Chad to the best job for him. He’s glad someone in his group has found a job that makes sense, at least.

As if reading Ichigo’s thoughts, Chad clears his throat. “Have you talked to Karin recently?”

“Nah. I haven’t really had a chance to. Why?”

“Nothing new, but Yuzu mentioned to me she’s struggling.” Chad keeps his eyes down on his work, but Ichigo can read a tinge of worry. “Been messing up a lot in the kitchens, she says. Inoue makes some… Strange choices in her cooking, we know--but at least she enjoys the work, and is quick to correct her mistakes. She’s well liked there. But Karin…” He stops, not needing to say more.

“Karin’s got a temper.” Ichigo sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “Fuck. Okay. I’ll--I don’t know. I’ll figure something out.”

“I’m sure she’s doing her best, but…”

“No, I know. But it’s not fair to her. I didn’t drag you all here so that any one of you could be miserable. ‘Specially my sisters.” 

“Why don’t you put her here?” Hitsugaya suddenly pops up beside them, carrying a couple of buckets of water to cool the iron. “Sado here says she’s almost as good with weapons as you are, and Old Man never gives me enough workers. We could use her help.”

Ichigo blinks. “Don’t you have some sort of… Weird sexist rule here? That women aren’t really allowed in the military?”

“You obviously haven’t met Captain Soifon… But I guess she is a special case. Anyway, I don’t have that rule.” Hitsugaya grunts while he pours the water. “If someone can do the work, who cares? It’s Old Man’s preference that things are the way they are. Comes from his religious background, having been a monk and all.” 

Ichigo’s jaw drops. He gives Chad a look before hounding on Hitsugaya. “A monk? Are you fucking--why are you so nonchalent about this? Aren’t they--weren’t they supposed to be peaceful ‘n stuff? How is he the HEAD of this entire military institution--”

“Don’t go screaming at me just because you don’t know the history of this place! It’s not my fault you didn’t educate yourself before you got here!” Hitsugaya crosses his arms and glares reproachfully up at him. “Whatever. I guess it’s not that long of a story. Basically, this place was a monastery when the Hollowed first appeared. A big important one. It’s debated whether Yamamoto was head monk and all, but then I guess it doesn’t matter. Anyway, what’s left of the military scampered up here, and Yamamoto took over as Head General. Some sort of ‘God’s Will,’ thing in his mind, probably. The rest is, as they say, history.”

“So Lord Yamamoto didn’t come from the military directly?” Chad vocalizes Ichigo’s next question, however scrambled it might be in his mind right now. 

“No. But to be honest… Look, Yamamoto’s done some disagreeable things. Frankly I don’t trust a lot of his decisions, but without him the entire human population could very well be dead right now.” Hitsugaya shrugs, picking up the emptied buckets. “Anyway Kurosaki, if you want to get your sister over here, I’ll take her. But I wouldn’t recommend asking Yamamoto directly. He’ll probably say no. I’d ask Lady Rukia to request the transfer.” 

Ichigo’s mind takes a minute to process the mention of the name and frowns in confusion. “Rukia? Why would she change his mind?”

“It may not seem like it, but she does have some input here. Not to him directly--through her brother. Whether you call it Byakuya’s guilt or affection, who cares? Anyway, it’s helped me get a friend from the valley into the service sector.” He twists his mouth thoughtfully. “She’s much kinder than the whispers say she is.”

Before he can ask the pipsqueak about that story, the kid turns and walks out the front door to (presumably) get more water.

Ichigo turns to Chad and his friend shrugs in response.

“It’s worth a shot,” he manages gruffly, and Ichigo can’t help but agree. 

--

Later that night, Ichigo approaches Ishida about it.

He doesn’t want to get Karin’s hopes up quite yet, just in case it doesn’t happen. Instead, he wants Uryuu’s input: Uryuu--who he definitely still thinks is an idiot--is at least a good sounding board for ideas, and he can count on him to be blunt.

Plus, it’s been a while since he talked to the guy. 

He’s been quiet ever since he started his part time shifts on the medical grounds two days ago, and hasn’t really been speaking to anybody except Orihime. He’s never been exactly chatty in the first place, but this…

When Ichigo tells him his idea about asking Rukia for the change, Ishida’s eyes flash strangely at her name. 

“I wouldn’t ask her during your shift tomorrow. I don’t know that she’d be… Up for it.” He says quickly before focusing back on mending a shirt. There’s a brief silence before he stops, sensing Ichigo’s stare.

“What?”

“I mean… That’s a weird thing to say. What do you mean she wouldn’t be ‘up for it?’ You meet her without telling me, or something?”

“No I didn’t meet her, and if I did I wouldn’t need to tell you--anyhow.” Ishida pinches his forehead and breathes in. Ichigo frowns.

“Everything okay?”

“Yes, I’m fine. Really. Just… You’ve mentioned she’s tired after your days and nights off, right? Maybe you won’t catch her… At her best. That’s all. Just give her a break tomorrow morning.” 

He gets up and is about to walk out of the room when Ichigo calls out to him.

“You said we gotta keep each other updated about this place. Is there anything you’re not telling me? I know we argue… But you can talk to me, Ishida.”

Uryuu doesn’t turn around to answer him for a minute. When he does, his face is solemnly thoughtful. “I know. But I’ll have to let you know when I’ve figured out what exactly is going on myself, Kurosaki.” 

He shuts the door, and wonders how many more secrets his group is keeping from him. 

[ameliiorable]

So You Want to Be a Real Estate Agent? Good Luck!

STEP 1: SOME QUICK BEGINNER'S TIPS • Tip 1: There is a ton of money being made in park colonial condo. It is just not going to be made by you. In truth, much of it is in reality going to come FROM you. The real estate companies themselves produce an obscene amount of money in part by churning people by means of their "programs" and spitting them out with emptier pockets. • Tip 2: There's no salary. Make sure you have enough money in the bank to eat and pay your bills for the purpose of six months. And start looking for a real job NOW. By the occasion you get it, you'll be out of money. I landed a position at a company six months and 1 day from the day for my layoff. If it wasn't for Unemployment, We'd have been living in a cardboard box waiting for my properties career to blossom. • Tip 3: Everyone you're sure will feign support while questioning the decision and building fun of you. I'm serious, and you know the already. You've hated every real estate agent you've dealt with, couldn't you? CHAPTER 2: THE INTERVIEW Real estate offices will be constantly listing open positions, so it's easy to get the interview. Don't be too nervous, because guess what? You're retained. This isn't an interview, it's a pep talk. You could step in and urinate in the lobby, you're probably yet hired. Their ideal agent is someone who is divorced and miserable, sitting on a pile of alimony hard cash or an available line of credit, and just needs something to continue them busy. Next in line would be someone who's going to be unhappily married, sitting on a pile of cash and / or an available line of credit, and just needs something to keep these products out of the house and away from their spouse. If you're not one of them two, that's OK - they'll take you. DESCRIP . 3: LICENSING How do you make things better? You get hawaii involved! This company that "hired" you will now send you to definitely a training "school" (these are companies that, for a fee, teach you all about the real estate industry and help you go away the state required test). This is 2 weeks of classes which have very little to do with the actual career. There are laws that point out that even though your licensing training is taking place from a Real Estate office, that no one from that office will probably "recruit" you. Expect to be recruited. One of the instructors was initially a Company X manager and took a special interest in others. He took me to open houses at steeply-priced homes during the weeks of training, introduced me in order to everyone in the office, took me to lunches and had me out for beers after the training was through. The entire time, he talked about how Company Y (who had sent me to this training) was horrible, not to mention why Company X was far superior, and most certainly the place for me. Ethical? No . Fun? Yes. I however went with the company that sent me to the coaching because it was the right thing to do. CHAPTER 4: FEES, RATES and MORE FEES You didn't think anything was zero cost, did you? Here's the rundown on fees: • Licensing. If you talk to a real estate company before you bring the class and get licensed, they'll pay for the style. Well, sort of. They'll pay for it, then take the bill back out of your first commission. Wait, who paid for after that it? Yes, you did. You didn't think that was complimentary, did you? •The Multi-List System. You simply cannot be a real estate agent without access to the MLS. It must be free ideal? No . • Cardkey. You need this to get into any residential home that's up for sale. Yes, you have to pay for it. And they can't deliver it; you need to drive 30 miles to pick it away. • Associations. The County Realtor Association. You have to be part of it. It costs money... every year. The State Realtor Connections. You have to join it. It costs money... every year. The particular National Realtor Association. You have to join it. It rates money... every year. Join this organization. Join that enterprise. You'll get a magazine, and maybe even a pin. It's most of mandatory, and it all costs money. Sometimes they have totally free cookies at the meetings though. • Signs. Small warning signs, big signs, plastic signs, metal signs, name signs or symptoms, for sale signs, open house signs. You have to have them, you will have to pay for them, and they cost hundreds of dollars. • Enterprise cards. They're free! Well, kind of. The basic, crappy editions are free, the ones that scream "I'm new to this! " To get nice ones, with a picture, you have to pay, and also have to pay for the picture. • Automobile. They'll have the funds for your car! No, they won't. If you're one of the top 2 providers, and are willing to put a God-awful giant sticker within the sides and back of your (correctly colored) car, they won't hesitate to pay a nominal amount to you. Why shouldn't some people? It's the cheapest advertising they could get. • Free tours! 5 years from now, if you beat ALL the odds, work ridiculous hours and sell everything you get close to, you might get a free trip. Don't hold your breath. • Name tag. Good news, the name tag is no cost. The bad news, you have to wear a name ticket. Back when I had a real job, I knew a guy who always said "If a man has to wear an important name tag during his job, he's not very thriving. " • Realtor fees get you the "Realtor" flag. This is the most expensive pin you'll ever hate wearing. PHASE 5: THE "OLD-TIMERS" They hate you. When I tell you "old-timers", I'm referring to the agents that have been working in any office for more than a year. They will rarely make eye call at first because they expect you to be gone in a several months and they don't want to waste their time. Once you've long been there for 2 weeks, they'll start offering you the "opportunity" to sit in their open houses for them. What they may be actually asking you to do is sit in a house pertaining to three hours that no one will visit, and essentially sell it for them, on the off-chance that you could get a patron out of it. When there aren't enough newbies in the office, they're going to fight over your house-sitting efforts, and may even deliver cash (don't get excited, I'm talking about $20. ) Get paid FIRST, I never did get paid for supporting someone out. And remember, top producers use exclamation points! Lots of them! In everything they do! Just simply an FYI. I mean: Just an FYI!!!! CHAPTER 6: THE CLIENTS They hate you. You will be asked to make sure you basically alienate everyone you know and make social cases incredibly awkward by begging for referrals. Parties, cathedral, school, the gym - anywhere... you need to be fishing for house hold buyers or house sellers. It is painfully awkward for all those concerned. Don't forget to wear the little R pin everywhere you go! For anybody who is lucky enough to get someone to say they'll use you to advertise their house, you should know now that their house is worth much more than the one particular three doors down that is exactly the same. Why? I need ideas of. Maybe they're delusional. Maybe they're dumb. Maybe there're greedy. Maybe they're upside-down on the house. Maybe many people just need the money. It's probably all of the above. It will be weird to be involved in such a significant financial project just for someone you know. They will use you to buy or market a house, but no one wants you to know their particular financial business, so it's difficult. Your friends and family might want little party favors, like.... they'll want all their money back. Yes, seriously. I did a relative ask if I would give them back all of my best commission if they used me to buy a house. I been reduced, and the request was probably the nail that sealed the real estate coffin shut. CHAPTER 7: YOUR LIFE AS AN PROFESSIONAL Say goodbye to fun and leisure. Here's your week: • Monday. Mandatory meetings and house tours, all day. Typically the meeting is useless, which is why you'll rarely see old-timers there, they veer off after the first house and also end up God-knows-where. They're probably at the bar. The travel is fun, though. You get to hear everyone complain with regards to everyone they work with and everything in the houses. You reach walk through a stranger's house and hear your co-workers (proudly displaying their name badges) criticize the homeowner's choices in everything. Examples: What were thinking using this carpet? Have they ever cleaned this room? World of warcraft, those are some ugly kids in that picture. Determine believe they left Prozac AND Paxil on the destroy, what a basket case. • Tuesday. In-house training, or perhaps "how to waste 3 solid hours of primary work time. " • Wednesday. "Twilight" open contains. This means your night is shot. • Thursday. Nothing is required. This is your weekend, enjoy. Don't spend money nonetheless, you don't have it. • Friday. Mailings, client hunting, placed around. • Saturday. Mandatory training... all freaking evening. Done with the mandatory 15 week training? Start ongoing instruction that repeats what they taught you in the 15 week training! • Sunday. No more football games, family group picnics, etc ., because you need to sit in Open Properties. At various times during the week, you'll get a few three hour stints answering the phone. The idea is that individuals will call in looking for an agent because they have a house they buy. I would guess that this has happened once, ever, from the history of real estate. Most of the time you're sending calls towards the old-timers. I had a gorgeous Ford Mustang GT when I received this "job". I sold it because I was basically told that you have to take your clients all over the place to view real estate. Out with the sports car, in with the Volvo station wagon (in the horrid corporate color, of course. ) Because turns out, no one wants to ride with their real estate agent; they want to go along with you around in their car. This is for many reasons: to enable them to escape you when they want, so they can talk about the properties without you hearing them (even though you are the trusted advisor)... oh, and they hate you. I really pass-up that Mustang. CHAPTER 8: "SUPPORT" (note quotation marks) • Computers. Don't know a computer from a toaster? Don't be bothered, no one else does. I don't know why, but all of us I worked with was horrible with any technology-related resource. They constantly needed help with the computer, and the Laptops or computers were always down with a virus of some sort. • Your web site. The company has set up a page for you on the website, you need to fill it with useless things that normally cares about, like "resident of (our general area) for umpteen years" and Realtor and "Member in (Our County) Real Estate Club. non-e of this helps individuals or you, but it does fill the page, even when no one will look at it. You can put a picture " up " there too, unless you're ugly or hideously disfigured. • Mailings. I lucked out with Company Ful, they pay for mailings. This means they provide the marketing equipment and they pay the postage for a certain amount to be sent by mail out. The database of addresses that you could send deliver to was protected by a Rottweiler in our office, a person I'll call Travis. Travis was tremendously tan year-round, with slicked-back hair, and he was dressed as a 1970's JC Penny mannequin every day. I don't know should he was gay, but I bet his ex boyfriend was. • Office Help. They hate you. The earliest day I met Travis, he was in the middle of the full-fledged hissy fit because someone had stolen the Cross pen. This is understandable, as it's not like individuals sell them at drug stores for a few dollars. Sure, they do indeed sell them at drug retailers for a few dollars. The hissy fit lasted an hour, plus included our manager sending a phone message for you to every agent in the office to please return the pen if they had it. Travis also kept a much-needed eye on the labels that one would use to prepare these mailings. To get them, you had to request the complete number of sheets you needed. There were 25 on a sheet and if you were printing 68 labels, you would not receive 3 sheets. CHAPTER 9: "ETHICS" (note quote marks) Ethics rule #1 is "just get the listing. inch This means that if you have a person that wants to sell their house for $330, 000 but you and everyone know it won't fetch $250, 000, you tell them that you will list it for their rate, and then slowly let the price drop when people guffaw at the house. CHAPTER 10: AFTERTHOUGHTS I am one fella. The Realtor's Association is a huge conglomerate which obviously has numerous lawyers on the payroll. My brother-in-law is actually a lawyer.... but I still feel outnumbered. So you can notice I only refer to real estate agents, not Realtors. Take into account though, that you have two choices here: you can either become a Realtor or you can become a Realtor. Yes, you learn that right. I'll make no judgments on the worth of the organization, except to say that sitting through the almost all boring training ever nets you a tiny R green. Nothing says I'm a success better than a pin using an R on it... right next to your name tag. Reference Status means that you've quit the day-to-day grind regarding trying to sell/buy houses. You become inactive, but now any time you point someone who is looking to buy or sell a house with your real estate company, you get a percentage of the commission. All you have to try is pick up the phone, tell the company their name as well as telephone number and where they're looking. The irony? AT THIS TIME it's payday. I know people who made more on recommendations than I did as a real estate agent, many times over. Of course, we have a fee to be in the program, but you didn't think that was free of charge, did you? And to stay in "referral status" you need to receive ongoing training. This is just my story. Don't let the software change your mind if you want to enter the world of residential realty. Heck, I had a former real estate agent tell me that of a horrible idea it was and I still went front with my stupid plan.

[mermaidsirennikita]

Thoughts on Mary I and Elizabeth I (if you don't mind to open that can of worms)

I love cans of worms, historically speaking!

Purely speaking of them in terms of how they fared as monarchs--of course Elizabeth was a much more successful ruler than Mary, and is rightly remembered as such.  With that being said, I don’t think that she was the shining paragon of queenliness that some hold her up to be; she definitely displayed the Tudor temper we saw in both Henry VIII and Mary I (though it was oddly lacking, for the most part, in Henry VII it seems).  She was prone to jealousy and possessiveness concerning her favorites (not just her male favorites, but her female friends as well) and clearly was insecure about her throne, and rightly so.  But the thing is that Elizabeth seemed to be able to distance her personal feelings from what she needed to do as a monarch--not all of the time, but a lot of the time, and more often than Mary did.  I don’t feel like anyone can say, for example, that she never wanted to marry and have children.  She clearly had reason to fear marriage on a personal level, and like any woman of her time likely had a healthy fear of childbirth.  But while we can’t assume by any means that she wanted a husband and children, there’s really nothing to indicate that she was deeply against these things on a purely personal level, and much to me indicates that at one point in her life, she was pretty passionately in love with Robert Dudley and it’s quite possible that she wanted something more than what they were limited to.

But she made the pragmatic decision there, not just to secure her own rule but because the more secure her rule was, the more secure her country was.  She also--while not being totally above religious persecution--was able to separate herself from the pretty shitty treatment she’d been given as a Protestant by a Catholic queen, and had a fairly pragmatic approach to religion.  While Elizabeth was not the fervent fanatic for Protestantism that Mary was for Catholicism, she cared enough about her religion to never really give it up, even on pain of death.  So it meant something to her; but she wasn’t going to attempt to eradicate Catholics the way Mary did Protestants, though Elizabeth had the same reasons to fear Catholics that Mary did Protestants.  (And frankly, she had greater reasons to fear them because many of the other European powers were governed by Catholics, and indeed her greatest rival for the throne was her greatest rival because she was Catholic.)

Mary has always struck me less as this horrid monster--though she did monstrous things--than a pretty tragic figure.  She seems to have been intelligent, charming, and attractive in her younger years--and she also seems to have wanted marriage and children.  Her father screwed her over on so many levels.  Not to armchair diagnose Mary--and for every emotional explanation you can make for her mistakes, you can probably come up with several political ones--but it almost seems that she lived a stunted life.  Of course she made moves to eradicate Protestants once she became queen, but she also seemed to be trying to make up for lost time on a personal level.  Henry SHOULD have found her a husband when she was in her teens and she knew this; but she was left scrambling to marry ASAP and produce an heir in her thirties, in an era when that age meant a lot more for fertility than it does now.  As much as it’s often been said that she was besotted by Philip, and as much as she does seem to have made some bad decisions in an attempt to have a good marriage--Elizabeth saw more astutely, perhaps, that you missed out on an heir in avoiding marriage but in the long term consolidated personal power--she was also looking for that heir.  You could see this as Mary attempting to cultivate more traditional power and prioritize the Tudor dynasty, while Elizabeth put her own rule first and sacrificed the dynasty.  In the case of the Tudors, personal rule > dynasty ended up being a better strategy not just for the ruler, but for the nation.  But it was a roll of the dice.

 As for their relationship with each other--look, on a psychological level...  I know it sounds harsh, but I think it makes total sense that Mary resented Elizabeth and likely saw her as a representation of her father’s treatment of her mother, and for that matter Anne Boleyn.  It honestly weirds me out a little when people act as if Mary I was some bitch for disliking Anne.  I love Anne B. and all, but making nice with a stepdaughter who was pushed from the line of succession and otherwise jeopardized her own child’s rule was not a priority for her, and from a political perspective shouldn’t have been.  And even if she had been nice with her--we can try and be above it all, but let me know how that works for you when you’re faced with making nice with “the other woman” (or other man) in your parents’ marriage.  Mary seems to have tried to be a loving sister to Elizabeth when they were younger, but I doubt she was ever really able to get over what happened to her mother, and honestly, how could she?  For that matter, everything Mary Queen of Scots was to Elizabeth, Elizabeth was to Mary I--except her claim was stronger.  Elizabeth was, to Mary, her natural heir (and therefore threat, as they were of differing denominations and for that matter born of different mothers) and at the time, much younger and much more capable of bearing children.  Mary was under immense stress for the entirety of her reign, and this doesn’t excuse what she did, but it does explain some of her more erratic and emotional moments (and her “phantom pregnancies”).  

It’s honestly no wonder that Elizabeth was a stronger queen, because she was mentally stronger to begin with.  She grew up, basically from toddlerhood to 25, with the specter of death or at the very least extreme disfavor with the king hanging over her head.  She was dependent on the whims of her tyrannical father, then spent time being assaulted by Thomas Seymour (who was very close to the king, of course) and then she lived under Mary’s threat.  Mary spent more of her formative years as a beloved princess, then had all of that--and her inheritance--torn from her.  She was someone with a grand legacy on both parents’ sides who was battered mentally, and by the time she became queen it showed.  Elizabeth had her neuroses, but the way in which her trauma occurred seems to her toughened her in many ways.  But, ironically, while Mary I had the opportunity to execute her sister, she never did.  And though Elizabeth did her best to talk herself out of executing Mary Stuart, she ultimately did so.  Maybe the bonds of sisterhood prevailed in Mary I and Elizabeth’s cases--maybe Mary couldn’t help but cling to the idea of a Tudor dynasty, even if it continued through a sister she hated and at certain points seemed have convinced herself wasn’t a Tudor at all. We really can’t know why she let Elizabeth live, exactly, because it was clearly a very personal choice.

Either way--fascinating women, both.