#also the concept of everyone getting their powers back at the end did not instill peace in me lol

[deanpinterester]

OKAY finally done the series and while i have a lot of issues with how the concept of prejudice was handled (like. no way the book was trying to say the council was just ~misguided~ when they were negligent at best. i feel like the council did not learn their lesson by the end at all) but the drama and plot twists were just too juicy. i don't usually stay up past midnight to read but this series got me hook line and sinker

the renegade council rly is like "sorry we accidentally put you on death row but have you considered we were being cancelled on twitter"

[filipinoizukuu]

hello mr simp do you have any thoughts on the leeks 👀

FIRST OF ALL. THEY CAME SO FUCKING EARLY??? BRO I WAS ASLEEP

SECOND OF ALL

holy SHIT YALL

Okay, it's no secret that I'm an All Might stan. I LOVE All Might. Very very much. Not just as a simp, but genuinely, I enjoy his character SO MUCH.

--And unlike what some people may think, I'm not totally blind to his flaws. I know he sucks as a mentor and that he's done way more harm to Deku than good. He's.... not perfect. in every sense of the word. The whole point of AM's character is that he is a DEEPLY FLAWED individual— but at the end of the day, still good.

This new chapter gave me SOOO many new feelings. I'm not gonna lie to y'all and say I was a Stain apologist beforehand because I wasn't. I disliked Stain to a certain degree, but I also knew he was morally grey enough that I was able to still quite appreciate him as a character. This chapter was about EVERYTHING to me because I honestly did NOT expect Hori to go in this direction and for things to happen the way they did. It was too good to be true! Too fanfic-y! The disbelief I felt when I read what happened was on par with when Bakugou and Deku had that apology and kinda-hug in the rain!

But this disbelief is not because it was a bad thing.

I think the writing in Chapter 326 is phenomenal. The moment that All Might was really beginning to lose hope in not just himself as a hero, but himself as a PERSON... we finally hear the opinion of someone who would abso-fucking-LUTELY make or break the last of his spirit.

Stain is, as much as his views are pretty agreeable and his label is that of a vigilante, still a pretty shitty guy. He's tried to kill literal kids who got in his way, even if said kids made pretty dumb decisions. AM hearing what he has to say is absolutely mind-boggling to him because he knows all of that. He knows Stain is a shitty person and that his worldview is perhaps terribly skewed. He knows Stain has spent a hot minute frying his brains down in Tartarus and isn't good at making judgment calls. Knows that for all intents and purposes, Stain's opinions are not to be trusted.

But the thing is... Toshinori also knows that Stain, regardless of the soundness of his mind, is telling the truth.

Regardless of how fucked-in-the-head Stain is, we as readers are able to acknowledge that he isn't blinded by hero worship. Sure, he's bitter, cynical, and quite the absolutist--but Stain is still clear-headed enough to be able to see AM's flaws for what they are and accept them, ultimately proving to Toshinori that the power of All Might was never his own but rather the legacy that he inspired.

The society MHA takes place in is flawed. We all know this. Heroes, as a concept, had been corrupted into being purely about good and evil. Purely winning fights for money or fame or the abstract concept of victory (coughs Endeavor and the no.1 spot coughs), making heroism as we know it about flashiness and power instead of mercy and the desire to help others.

All Might symbolizes the ideal version of the Hero Society. He represents doing the best you can. Being a hero until you reach your limits, and then going even past that. He symbolizes pure intention and the desire to be a hero not for material gains but because of the pure want to make society a better and safer place. Stain refers to Kamino Ward and the statue as a "holy land" because he believes that through and through, AM's only had the purest of intentions and morals. To him, Toshinori was like a deity that had no fault in making society what it was in the present because that accountability fell on the generations of heroes that failed to fulfill his legacy.

The point being, Stain understood that All Might was fundamentally not about 'being there' for everyone 24/7, but rather the message his presence had sent.

All Might's monologue at the beginning of the chapter essentially boiled down to the ideas that:

A. He regrets not being there properly for Deku

B. His image was a delusion that ultimately led to the downfall of hero society.

To break this down, his problem with Deku is his inability to be a competent mentor. It shows that he has led him down dangerous and horrible paths (Deku's stubbornness to do things by himself and his 'dark' arc post-war), and is unable to bring him back into the light even if he tries. It was only when Class 1-A had intervened that they were able to get Deku to rest and let people tag along, after all, which is why Toshinori was far too embarrassed to follow him into UA's walls even after everyone had come out with umbrellas.

Stain disproves this in two ways.

First, he says that it was never about All Might's ability to actually be there for people. The whole point of what inspired Deku to be the inherently good-hearted "true hero" he is today is because of the values that AM's brand had instilled in him as a child. AM's biggest positive impacts came from behind the screen where he was used as the proof that true heroes can and do exist. Deku does want to be exactly like All Might, yes, which is why we see Toshinori leading him down the same path that he walked--but the underlying message of this is that the very first thing All Might gave him even before OfA was the courage to help fix society.

I do believe Deku is an innately compassionate person. Most people in the series are. However, what makes All Might's smile so uniquely impactful to what it did to Hero Society is the way it gave people courage to help people. Less hesitation. Less bystander syndromes. The ability to move without thinking. Because you can feel the want to help a person, but the courage to be nosey and actually do it? That's portrayed as something AM's image teaches people.

The second way he disproves AM's insecurity of dragging Deku down is that he makes it clear that this pain is somewhat of a necessity in reforming society. He says, interestingly enough, that this is but the 'middle process' in reforming society. This spills over to how he addresses Problem B, but what Stain is essentially saying here is that this sort of brutality and isolation that Izuku faces is impermanent. A phase. It implies that even if Deku is struggling and Toshinori is unable to help him, it is something that needs to happen before they re-realize the ideal heroes All Might's image is meant to create.

The second problem in regards to how All Might feels about current society (how it's collapsing because of him, etc. etc.) is more interestingly addressed. There are many things that Stain says--like how Toshinori doesn't need to actually be the one to fix society with his bare hands. The current society is not his fault because of the fact that it is not finished developing. I'm not sure if I can go so far as to say that Stain means this in the sense of the Scorched Earth method of tearing everything down to build it back up better-- but I can say that Stain still has faith in society to rebuild after this period of chaos.

This rebuilding starts with the old generation of heroes correcting what they messed up (i.e. Endeavor v Dabi) and more importantly, paving the way for a better generation of heroes that was inspired by All Might's image. Heroes that are led by people like Deku, who is defined by his proclivity to help without thinking. The violent deconstruction of society is about exposing society to the raw truth of All Might's image that not everybody can be as strong as him-- which is why we have to take care of each other.

When the lady comes in to remove the sign and start cleaning the statue, it's symbolic. It's a clear metaphor that the past few chapters are the turning point for society as a whole, and how people are starting to remember what real heroism is. From the distrust that was seeded in society ever since LoV had surfaced, we are seeing that trust being returned TEN-FOLD now that people can see not only the mask of a hero's smile, but also the person underneath.

I think it's some really neat symbolism here too about how Deku, who's metal mouth guard was literally all about representing All Might's smile, is shed.

This is hero society dropping their masks. Letting people see them for as they are. Toshinori revisiting the statue in this form makes all the more impact because he shed his mask ages ago during the Kamino Bust, so this is him coming face to face with the image he's created and seeing the differences between them, and how his image continues to live on even after he's almost completely Quirkless. The lady cleaning the All Might statue shows off the fact that things can be repaired again--that society can be clean (hehe stain pun) again.

It's interesting to me here how Stain offers the information from Tartarus.

He doesn't care anymore about his life. It's evident. He disagrees with what the LoV is doing, but believes enough in Deku to think that it's time for him to retire the mantle of 'Stain'. Unless this is another test, it's very odd for me to hear that Stain is offering a blade and his life to someone he isn't even sure is All Might.

But the impact of this action reads loud and clear.

This is Stain taking pity on All Might. This is him realizing that All Might too is a person behind the hero. That Toshinori Yagi is incapable of doing anything past the image he had already created. By offering that knife and information on Tartarus, Stain is giving control back to Toshinori. He is giving AM the chance to do something big again to help society's reconstruction. To be a part of the revolution that he so badly deserves to see. That knife is essentially an exit ticket from the sidelines, and one last chance for All Might to be able to see what his image has done for people.

I personally think that the main reason Stain is willing to die then and there by Toshinori's hand, despite not being sure that he is All Might to begin with, is because of the final impact it creates that it isn't about Toshinori Yagi's true power as a person, but the image of All Might. It is because he looks like the symbol of peace, that Stain (the literal HERO KILLER) feels comfortable laying his life in his hands and giving away valuable information.

If that isn't a great testament to the power of AM's image, I don't know WHAT is.

I guess all I have to say is I absolutely love what Stain did in this chapter. Everything felt so incredibly symbolic and emotional and as someone who absolutely ADORES All Might and what he stands for in the story, this felt like a cool balm after seeing Deku tragically reject his bento box a good few chapters ago. I have a few more opinions about symbolism, and how I think Deku's generation of heroes is going to stray from the old gen, but I think that's a discussion for another time.

Thanks for reading 'til the end!

[ruby-whistler]

I feel like if we really want to take a closer look at the topic of c!Dream’s obsession with c!Tommy, we have to look into both his reasons for it, and the tactics he employs to achieve his goals concerning it.

[ /dsmp /roleplay I did not tag this that way but this entire analysis is hugely c!Dream critical and focuses on the various facets of his manipulation, so if you’re not in the mood to read that, you have been warned not to. ]

Interestingly enough, before the SMP was actual heavy roleplay, back during the original disc war, the reason c!Dream listed for keeping the discs was to use them as bargaining chips, because he knew c!Tommy wanted them back, as they were hard items to get at the time, and knew he could use them for that purpose.

He had just gotten mugged and repeatedly killed by c!Tommy, who had also participated in a conflict beforehand, and only gave a half-hearted apology in the end. He had also seen him cause problems on the server before that. The discs were meant to be something he would threaten to destroy if c!Tommy started acting out of line, because he didn’t trust him to keep his word and wanted a guarantee. That was the reason he insisted on keeping the discs after getting his armor back, which is why he originally stole them.

And I feel like c!Dream’s train of thought, while skewed and twisted with irrational mindsets, is rather straightforward in essence. Conflict is what he actively stands against and what stops him from having a united server, hence in his mind, he needs to destroy things that bring conflict, and control what he can’t or doesn’t want to destroy. He thinks c!Tommy brings conflict, so he feels like he needs to find ways to control him.

Sure, we all know about the systematic abuse and isolation he employed to make c!Tommy believe he was his friend, but one of his major tactics since the beginning has also been intimidation, or a particular type of manipulation that leads to people fearing him or thinking that he has more power than he actually does. In his mind, if people are scared of him, they’re much more likely to listen to him. And the most fascinating thing is that it works.

During the initial exile conflict, despite him being just a single person with no official political power, he assures victory by aggressively, and very intelligently, threatening his way through the negotiations. c!Tubbo is scared of him, and that is not a coincidence. It’s purposeful.

Seeing as he planned to give L’Manberg technical independence either way - he said that there was no real way for him to stop them from pursuing that anyways, so that wasn’t the intention - even the war seems like a very likely ploy to make the revolutionaries fear him enough so that they wouldn’t start conflict after seceding. c!Wilbur is careful not to start anything with the Greater Dream SMP after this, because c!Dream has shown that he can and will ruin them if they do. c!Tubbo also knows exactly the lengths c!Dream will go to if he promises war thanks to this, and that if he says he’ll build a wall and keep them from leaving it with force, he’s going to do it. When c!Tubbo is faced with an ultimatum, seeing as his goal is to keep New L’Manberg safe and peaceful, he knows he has no option but to give in.

Another variation of this tactic is making himself seem more dangerous and unpredictable than he actually is and obscuring his motivation. If people don’t know what he wants, they are less able to devise effective tactics to stop him from getting it. The element of surprise is something that he utilizes constantly throughout warfare, and psychological battling is no different. For instance, during Doomsday he begins talking about how the server will “be at peace now” thanks to L’Manberg being gone, before c!Tommy barges in, and begins implying he did this all because he hates him.

DREAM Tommy… Look. In all destruction *looks at the falling TNT* there is a new beginning.

TOMMY You- you did this…! To all of us! Not just to me, but to everyone here…!

DREAM Beautiful. You know… the unfinished symphony, right?

…

TOMMY Why…?

DREAM The server will be at peace now.

TOMMY Why, Dream…?

DREAM Because I didn’t-

TOMMY Couldn’t you just- couldn’t you just burn the discs…? Couldn’t you just do it to me? Why did you have to…?

DREAM This is much more fun.

[ credits to @dsmptranscripts on twitter ]

Although c!Dream’s motivation for destroying L’Manberg was actually that, much like with c!Tommy, he thought that it bred conflict and division, he picks up on this and switches to saying how he did indeed do this all to hurt c!Tommy because he finds it fun.

He talks very inconsistently plenty of times, but it’s rather easy to spot a pattern of him being honest about his motives with his allies but straight up lying to his enemies. This makes sense, and it is usually employed as a deliberate tactic.

Intimidation is something he also uses to manipulate people during his time in prison. Ever since he got locked up, it became a mental fight. If people fully realized that he was powerless to stop them from hurting or killing him, his life only hanging by a thin strand on the concept of the revive book, he would’ve lost the control he needed to assure his survival.

The difference is that before then, c!Dream had actual physical power, however the manipulation gets harder to pull off when he has none, even with people he finds naive enough to fall for it. He still risks it because he’s desperate, and has nothing but his own life to lose, which is something he believes to be protected by his possession of the revival book. He had never been big on self-preservation besides staying alive to reach his goals.

He first tries this on c!Sam, who, rather unpredictably, begins to get morally corrupted by the power he has over c!Dream, on top of other factors. c!Dream talks to c!Sam about exile and about c!Tommy because logically, if he’s afraid of him, he’s less likely to try to hurt or kill him. This backfires because this new, unexpected version of c!Sam begins to fiercely hate c!Dream instead, hurting him further.

The same thing happens with c!Tommy - when he realizes that he can’t influence him through repeated visits anymore, he attempts to scare him into obedience again. He establishes himself as someone dangerous who has the power to escape and hurt c!Tommy as well as his friends, which he hopes will subconsciously sway him to not do things that he would disagree with. We can see him pretending to be the one in control throughout the stream after c!Tommy first got revived.

He also tells him that he can bring back the person who he’s afraid of the most and get him on his side, which is precisely the bit that ends up backfiring, but it doesn’t really matter, and trying was still the best thing he could’ve logically done.

If he hadn’t, at some point people would realize he actually has no power at all, and pay back the fear he’d instilled in them previously. This happens with c!Quackity, who began to take advantage of c!Dream’s lack of control as soon as he realized how easy it was to strip away the last bit of power he has, which is also keeping him alive.

Getting back on track, c!Dream essentially tries to control c!Tommy first by manipulating him into believing he is his friend, then believing he is a threat to him when that fails. We can see this from the way the Finale is prepared to be somewhat of a final showdown between the two, and also by him actually revealing the tactics he used to employ during exile, for example talking about taking away the invites to the party and not actually being his friend. This also proves he knew exactly what he was doing during that time, and he could easily switch between tactics because the end goal of controlling c!Tommy was more important to him than what c!Tommy thought of him.

And that’s it.

It’s all just a ploy to control him because he finds him one of the hardest people to stop from causing conflict.

Controlling him is as important to c!Dream as destroying L’Manberg and dethroning c!George and collecting people’s attachments, because what is important to him is achieving his goals through whatever means necessary, not the means themselves.

As for people, while he has no desire to actually kill them - or feels he cannot, because they could still be useful to his plans in the future - he treats them as either tools or obstacles he needs to deal with, especially if they ever get in the way of his plans, and he isn’t particularly attached to them. He does this to himself as well, and doesn’t seem to care about his own well-being or reputation as long as he achieves what he wants. While he’s focused on the ends to his means, that is the only thing that is important to him.

You could argue this does stem from thinking of the people he wants the server to be united for as important, since cc!Dream said his goals are for “everyone to get along”, but that doesn’t change the fact that the ways in which he works towards that goal doesn’t treat others’ or his own feelings as consequential at all. In the case of people who stand against him, their entire well-being is put to the side until what needs to be done in his mind gets done.

c!Dream isn’t “scared” of c!Tommy per se, nor does he seem to be obsessed with the guy himself, but he finds him something necessary to get out of the way to accomplish his goals, and he does so, ruthlessly as ever.

And even though the goal of eradicating conflict and uniting the server is something that he is so focused on that it could definitely be called an obsession, c!Tommy really isn’t that important within the equation at all.

This wasn’t a post to excuse or downplay any of his actions, nor do I agree with the “logical” thoughts I mentioned. There is a reason why I used phrases like “he finds” “in his eyes” “he thinks” “in his mind” “he feels like” a whole lot throughout this essay.

The character has an extremely flawed worldview that I in no way agree with (and although that should probably be pretty obvious, you really don’t know with this fandom). All this post is for is to analyse certain traits that are assigned to him, and figure out through logical reasoning whether they’re a mischaracterization or not.

And as far as the evidence goes; c!Dream isn't obsessed with c!Tommy, he is obsessed with his goal, and he sees Tommy as a big obstacle to achieving it, which makes him focus on him. These feelings he puts on display are an illusion to distract people from his real goal so they don't know how to get in his way - because, just like cc!Dream said, he “likes to withhold information; withhold plans; and withhold feelings” from everyone else.

[maxwell-grant]

So, any thoughts on The Green Lama (who unexpectedly became one of my faves), the Pulp Hero who is also a Superhero?

Much like other pulp heroes of the time, The Green Lama had multiple secret identities and a massive supporting cast aiding him in his quest for justice. Unlike his contemporaries, The Green Lama eschewed guns in favor of radioactive salts, magic, and sleight of hand. He rarely, if ever, killed his enemies. His tales also had an advanced sense of continuity, with characters growing and changing over time, plot points introduced in one story paying off several tales later. The Green Lama is a character of contradictions, driven forward by a faith he is forced to betray. It makes him flawed and imperfect, and in that way, one of the most human of all pulp heroes - The Green Lama: Scions

While not the "only" example of a pulp hero who is a superhero, The Green Lama is arguably the one who leans the most into the superhero aspect out of all the classic 30s pulp heroes that usually get brought up. I would argue that The Green Lama is the most direct answer to the question "what happens when you combine The Shadow and Superman together", considering he was modeled extensively after both in his forays into pulp, radio and comic books, and has also grown into his own character.

He's got the unique skills bordering on superpowers (that eventually became outright superpowers). He's got pretty much The Spectre's costume, except of course he came first. He's an urban costumed crimefighter wh deals with gangsters and criminal masterminds, and yet has an extremely strong stance against killing and carrying guns under any circumstance, even saying they would make him no better than the criminals he fights, which makes him by default the pulp hero that Batman would get along best with. The comics took it way further even turning the “Om Ma-ne Pad-me Hum” chant into a Shazam! transformation cry (Shazam came first, although the two debuted in the same year).

He's got a suitably punchy and dramatic origin: guy spends 10 years in Tibet and returns to America intend on spreading Buddhism's pacifist doutrine, only to witness the murder of children at the hands of mobsters the literal second he steps off the boat, and after spending restless days in the police station to see if they would find the culprit, he sees the killer walk out of the commissioner's office free, which convinces him he needs to take up crimefighting because the police are useless, and he outright calls the police "incompetent" in a letter to the papers that he uses to introduce himself to the world, which is not something you find often in 30s/40s fiction even if's an implicit part of the pulp hero/superhero fantasy.

He had a stronger sense of continuity than most pulp heroes were usually afforded. He has a lot of the pulp hero stock and trade like the assistants and the pseudo-science and the odd radio gadgets and of course the Orientalism that we'll get into, but remixed in a pretty cool way that allows him to stand out from his inspiration. He's got incredibly weird aspects to him like the fact that he gets enhanced abilities from crystallized salt or even becoming radioactive (which could be interesting to explore considering "radiation" became the go-to origin for superpowers in the 60s). He's got an allright supporting cast and Magga, while ultimately a deus ex machina, is a very interesting addition to it and I wish her mystery was played up more often in subsequent stories past the original run. There's a lot about The Green Lama that really works, he was incredibly successful at the time and he's managed to thrive over the years lot more than most of his contemporaries

Despite all the powers he wielded he felt impotent, nothing more than a rich boy playing the games of gods. He had chosen the path of the Bodhisattva, sacrificing himself for the good of all sentient beings, but even so the weight of responsibility, the lives of so many in his hands, threatened to crush him. It was tempting to turn away, to deny his calling, but the life of a Bodhisattva demanded more; and it was only recently that he had begun to realize how much it truly required.

The main problem with The Green Lama, and by problem I mean "the character works fine for his time but this is seriously holding him back from becoming sustainable again", is the fact that he's a white rich man who fights crime by going as hard into Orientalism tropes as possible, which is inescapably baked into the premise.

Now, I will argue that The Green Lama was, for his time, a progressive character. The Buddhist aspects of his character weren't just backstory fodder or an excuse for his superpowers as they were to pretty much every other character at the time, Jethro was a practicing Buddhist, who fought crime informed by his beliefs, trying to respect them (and not exactly succeeding) and offering a wholly positive perspective of Buddhism. Nowadays, it creates a problem, but at the time, it made the character stand out from every other hero who had "traveled to Tibet" checked out, because Tibet and Buddhism were heavily incorporated into the character. The Lama may have been born merely out of a desire to cash in on The Shadow's newfound radio popularity, but Crossen took it much more seriously than his contemporaries and made it an effort to instill admiration in his readers towards what he was referencing, which he was pulling from books about the subject and the Pali language. Is research the bare minimum? Yes. But it’s a bare minimum that even today’s writers don’t do even having an infinitely bigger wealth of information at their disposal. 

To further cement my point: There's a particular Green Lama comic story called The Four Freedoms, which is about the Lama receiving a letter from a fan in the army who's worried about a racist private who keeps insulting the black privates while crowing about racial superiority, and so the Lama kidnaps the private and takes him on a tour through Germany so he can witness firsthand how his talk aligns with Nazi ideology, even specifically referring to Jim Crow's laws, criticizing how easily Americans fall for racial war rhetoric, and pointing out the idea of racism as a tool of tyrants to divide and conquer. It's not my place to champion this as some great representation and that's not what I'm doing, but if this all seems passe or simplistic or even problematic to you, trust me, this was still the era of Slap-A-Jap Superman, stories like this were absolutely not the norm at the time, even in other stories where superheroes dealt with racial discrimination.

He even caps off the story by stating that punching or ending Hitler is not the solution (although he lets Jones take a couple of swings) because Hitler is just one part of a much bigger problem that needs to be fought on all of it's forms. It's all very much afterschool special/anti-racism PSA, sure, but it's easier to mock those in our time. You find me a Golden Age superhero comic that shits on Jim Crow specifically while the hero tells the reader that Hitler is not the ultimate evil but merely "a cog in the wheel", part of a problem that's deeply entrenched in America's own shores (really, do, I'm genuinely curious if more of them did anything like this).

Does any part of what I said negates the fact that, at the end of the day, he's still a white man using Orientalism mysticism to fight crime? No, it doesn't. And if Iron Fist can't get away with it, if Dr Strange only just barely does, the Green Lama sure as hell can't. And you cannot downplay those aspects either lest you end up with a completely different character. It's a bit of a conundrum that makes the character tricky to approach from a revival perspective.

I completely agree with what you said here, Green Lama would benefit from a Legacy Hero approach very strongly. And Green Lama: Scions opens up an interesting possibility of Jethro Dumont not being quite what he seems, backed up by the fact that he wore disguise make-up in the original stories:

They had a lot of names for him in the papers—the Verdant Avenger, the Mysterious Man of Strength—but Reynolds had always been partial to “Buddhist Bastard.” No one had ever seen his face or, at the very least, the same face. Seemed like everyone had a different story. The Green Lama was white, he was black, he was asian, he was old, and he was young. You could fill a room of witnesses and no two would describe the same person.

Really I think if you just got rid of that one thing that holds the Lama back the most from catching on in modern times, I think he's the kind of character that lends itself a lot to long-term sustainability. He's already fairly popular as is, definitely an indispensable inclusion of any shared pulp hero or Golden Age superhero universe and definitely one of my favorites among the 30s American pulp heroes. And there’s ways to make the concept more interesting and workable.

Maybe The Green Lama is just a title that's been going on for generations, with Jethro being one of many to fill in. Maybe Magga used to be it, maybe the tulku that instructed Jethro did, maybe there's a new character with it. Maybe Jethro is just an identity used by an Asian-American adventurer to operate safely in the US, or maybe Jethro has a sort of Lamont Cranston arrangement going on. Maybe he's part of the reason why Tibet was the superpower capital of the world in the 30s or 40s, or part of the reason why radiation started granting so many heroes superpowers in the 60s.

The character's skillset has been fairly "anything goes" ever since his author made him a flying superman for the comics, and really he already started out being able to deliver electric shocks through his fingers by guzzling radioactive salts. He's a very weird character, and I will always argue that weird is what works best for the pulp heroes.

[dragonheart-swtor]

Imperial Agent Storyline: Drunk History Version

Since people really seemed to like the last one! Y’all’s collective wish is my command. Spoilers for the Imperial Agent storyline, obviously. Enjoy!

- so you start out with your agent on Hutta, a little polluted slimeball of a world that literally everyone but the Hutts canonically hates. there's lore but we're going to ignore it. the important thing is that you're here to con a Hutt, always a dangerous gambit, into working with/for the Empire.

- you sneak into a corner to space facetime your boss, a guy we only ever know as Keeper because Intelligence is weird about names. sneaking into corners to facetime people is a repeating theme throughout the story.

- you are informed that you've already got a cover story set up, and you'll be posing as an infamous pirate called the Red Blade who'll be able to get in close to the Hutt in question, whose name I've forgotten. Nethro or Nefro or something.

- "wait, what about the actual Red Blade," you ask your boss, probably

- "he's halfway across the galaxy, you don't need to worry about him," your boss replies, in a textbook example of what we in the writing business call “foreshadowing”

- (spoiler alert: you need to worry about him)

- but we won't worry about that for now. bada bing bada boom, you stroll on into the Hutt's place. you are immediately confronted by a guy who, shock and horror, actually knows the real Red Blade and knows you ain't him. (one would think that all-seeing Intelligence would have known about him, but nuance.) this is a problem for a number of obvious reasons.

- your options are as follows: bribe him, kill him, or sleep with him. (this is also something of a recurring theme throughout the story.) whatever option you take, he's dealt with. (yes, this is the man eris fucked five minutes into her storyline.)

- (I didn’t want to pay him money, leave me alone.)

- anyway, the mission progresses smoothly. meet the Hutt, do some jobs for the Hutt, betray the Hutt's right hand and stab him in the back right after convincing him you were friends, invade the Hutt's rival's palace, McMurder the Hutt's rival, you know. your average day at the office

- most of the way through, the Hutt's other right hand starts to be suspicious about you. this is Kaliyo Djannis, and she will be Plot Relevant™.

- by which I mean she shortly thereafter walks in on you facetiming your boss and gets hired by Intelligence to help out for gods know what reason. welcome to your first companion

- (or possibly you walk in on her facetiming your boss in your room, I.. don't remember, honestly. something like that.)

- anyway one Hutt is dead the other is working with us bada bing bada boom this is going great and hey remember when I said you needed to worry about that guy you're impersonating this whole time? yeah, about that,

- so the real actual Red Blade comes sailing in to Hutta and Intelligence immediately calls you up like "hey, hate to bother you, but your cover's about to get blown in a big way and we need you to murder the guy whose identity you've stolen before he can expose you.” 

- "so, just like that training mission last week. gotcha, boss, no problem."

- murder time™

- congration you done it! go home to Dromund Kaas.

- "You're on Imperial soil now, agent. Welcome home." [nonhuman Agent immediately experiences 27492738957 microaggressions] (this joke isn’t mine, for the record)

- first off, Intelligence HQ has a bomb aesthetic, as does the entire Empire in general

- second off, you do walk in on your boss talking to - by which I mean "being given a speech by" - a Dark Lord, which is less than optimal for a number of reasons, first and foremost that speeches by Dark Lords of the Sith quite often immediately precede someone getting killed

- said Dark Lord is one Darth Jadus, who will proceed to be a thorn in your side for approximately the next three hours of gameplay

- (don't worry, after that three hours you'll get a worse thorn)

- Darth Jadus decides he likes you and declares you "his" agent, which you immediately get the gist is about the worst thing that can happen to an Intelligence agent from the way everyone around you treats you like you've just had a ticking bomb strapped to your back for the rest of this meeting

- you're sent on a handful of missions, including one to the Dark Temple which, you know, Force-deaf people aren't supposed to be in, but Jadus Does Not Care

- Jadus calls you into his office at one point and tells you he's going to do some ritual to bind you to his service or something, it's not really clear, but it's clearly Not Optional and also terrifying in concept

- now, quick sidebar. there are basically two paths to take here: one where you suck up to the Sith and treat them with the utmost care and respect and fear like you're kind of supposed to, and one where you mouth off at every opportunity. Eris is mortally terrified of Sith, so she just kind of.. submitted knowing she was going to die if she didn't.

- my second run, however, was just a "hey how bad can I fuck this up" character because I already knew the story.

- I decided to mouth off to Jadus at every opportunity, including adamantly refusing this ritual.

- "What can he do to me?" I asked the person I was playing with. "I'm the protagonist! It's not like he can kill me!"

- Jadus: *kills me*

- me:

- (mechanically, anyway; story-wise I'm sure he just. put her on the brink of death. but mechanically speaking he literally actually did kill my toon)

- (this should be a warning for exactly how much this storyline is willing to put its usually-heavily-plot-armored protagonist through.)

- anyway.

-  do some missions, blah blah blah, Sith possession in the Dark Temple, blah blah blah, you know the drill

-  well, turns out Jadus is going on tour with several hundred Imperial civilians, military, and Sith, allegedly all hand chosen, to share his ~vision for the Empire~. that's all well and good, whatever I gue-

- sorry what do you mean his ship exploded

- what do you mean a member of the Dark Council just blew up in orbit

- cue Kill Bill sirens

- Panic! At The Intelligence HQ

- this throws everything into chaos; not only was Jadus more directly involved in Intelligence, but he was a Dark Councilor so now there's a massive power vacuum

- the Sith who ends up filling this power vacuum? Jadus's daughter, Darth Zhorrid.

- remember when I said you'd have a bigger thorn in your side after Jadus?

- so yeah. so Zhorrid is, for lack of a better word, fucking terrifying

- she's sadistic and completely careless of others' lives or wellbeing and oh yeah she also instantly latches onto you even harder than her father did and demands you find his killer

- a lot of your meetings with her aren't really plot-relevant so I'll sum them all up here:

- Zhorrid was horribly abused by Jadus, completely broken. She tells you a story about how she used to sing, and her father hired a tutor, then had her sing at a Kaas City performance until her throat was so damaged she could never sing again. He tore every scrap of joy out of her life, completely failed to teach her what she needed to know to survive the rigors of the Dark Council, and instilled every ounce of hatred, sadism, and complete lack of pity he could in her.

- She kills people for no reason other than a whim, because she was listening to a Sith opera and the aria was "very moving" (an actual literal thing that happens).

- She acts like a complete spoiled brat child. At one point the other Dark Councilors literally beat and torture her, presumably for this reason because she's insufferable and arrogant and way out of her depth, and she cries to you about it

- If you’re like me, your response to all this is basically “cool motive, still murder”

- I have sidetracked  very hard. where was I

- so you spend a while trying to hunt down the people who blew up Jadus's ship. There's a bunch of rebels, you hunt them down, they've got biotech weapons called Eradicators set up to destroy cities on multiple planets, skippity skip to the big reveal

- Jadus is alive, and he organized the whole thing so he'd be able to remake the Empire into the image he wanted. He tortured and enslaved the survivors of the Dominator's destruction

- Jadus gives you a whole speech about how fear is a gift to be shared and "Through victory my chains are broken" but there must be chains to break and blah blah blah holy shit this man is genocidal

- you have three choices: join him for real, pretend to join him so you can sabotage his ship and then kill him (at the cost of hundreds of thousands of Imperial lives), or refuse outright and save those hundreds of thousands of lives but Jadus escapes (and you know he's allegedly likely to return and do even worse damage later).

- (Quick sidebar again, for those who haven’t played it: Eris chose the second option and has nightmares about it for the rest of her life. It's actually extremely haunting in-game - as you're running through Jadus's ship to sabotage it as fast as possible, you can hear the distress calls from various colonies and planets being attacked, the screams of the dying that you doomed. It's horrifying.)

- so yeah there’s really no winning that situation but hey! at least Chapter One’s over. surely in Chapter Two things can’t get worse.

- Chapter Two: Things Get Worse

- there's this guy, Ardun Kothe, an SIS agent. he's a huge threat for some reason I don't remember. you're supposed to infiltrate the SIS to get close to and eventually kill him. not an easy job, but okay, we can do this.

- Intelligence sets up the meeting; months ago they sent the first word to Kothe that there was an Intelligence agent ready to turn and they've been building up from there, sending him a steady stream of information

- enter Hunter, aka the worst bastard in this entire storyline and that is an achievement. He's the one you meet first on Nar Shaddaa.

- you do some missions for the SIS, whatever, it's not important. You finally get to meet the rest of the team - and Ardun Kothe.

- Kothe wants to speak alone, which is p typical tbh. He expresses some doubts, which you assuage as best you can; he gives you your code name: Legate. It's from a form of sabbac, he explains, you'll have to play with him sometime.

- (It is difficult for me to make what happens next funny instead of horrifying, so forgive me if the tone changes a bit here.)

- Everything is going fine.

- "I'm sorry about this, Legate."

- What?

- "Keyword: onomatophobia. Engage Thesh protocols, phase one."

- Everything is not fine.

- You black out and have an extremely rude awakening.

- So it turns out whatever happened with Jadus, the Dark Council decided you were too dangerous (usually for doing your job too fuckin well) and that you needed to be leashed. So not you have mind control programming in your brain, and anyone who has your keyword can take complete and unequivocal control of your body. this is, in a word, not great.

- (This is, as I mentioned, actually extremely horrifying. You have dialogue options and they don’t change what you actually say. You have an opportunity to shoot Kothe and even if you try to select it nothing happens. But we’re not here for the horror take (not today, anyway) so let’s just This Is Fine that and move on)

- Tl;dr you can’t harm Kothe or any members of his team, you’re forced to obey anyone who has your keyword, and this wouldn’t be that much of a problem because we’ll just tell Watcher Two what’s happened and oh wait you can’t tell anyone about your programming either. well, shit.

- You go on to work double agent, like it was planned, with this new, uh. twist

- about a third of the way through the chapter, your mind kind of cracks and you start having hallucinations - seeing things you know can't be real during a holocall, passing out in the middle of your ship and waking up in medbay.

- After that, a new voice lives in your head! Watcher X, someone you either killed or let flee on Nar Shaddaa, has sort of joined the party. Is he an AI in the spinal implant the real Watcher X gave you? is he a figment of your broken mind trying to process its situation? Who knows! Not you! either way, this is not optimal but at least he seems to be being helpful this time

- so anyway we should probably try and figure out how to undo this programming bc Intelligence is being Wholly Unhelpful

- (ASAP, please, especially with how horrible Hunter acts toward you - let’s go with “uncomfortably leery,” which I promise is generous.)

- by the way, your companions still have no idea what’s going on during all this, although they try to be varying levels of supportive (thank you vector I love you bug husband)

- Good news! The Intelligence Archive almost definitely has information on what they did to you and how to fix it. Bad news! You’re definitely not authorized to look that up and crashing the power mainframe to make sure they don’t see you do it sends the security droids after you. whoops.

- Good news! There’s a way to fix you. Bad news! You have to make and inject yourself with a still-kinda-experimental cocktail of chemicals and it may or may not give you permanent brain damage. it’s fine. this is fine.

- also it takes a while to kick in which is Less Than Optimal and by the time it finally does you’ve just been left with a binding order to stay and guard the door on what is, for you, a suicide mission. there’s some incentive to “break your chains” for ya.

- You fight and kill Kothe. Who, shock and awe! is an ex-Jedi! this was in no way painfully obvious by how he kept talking about “sensing” things, I’m sure. definitely not.

- Hunter escapes, because of fuckin course he does. Hunter, who suddenly seems far more in control of everything than he had before. Hunter, who knows far more than he should. Hunter, who ends up leading you to a much, much larger conspiracy.

- End Chapter 2.

- Hate to disappoint, but Chapter 3 is honestly the least interesting to me personally, so this’ll be brief compared to the previous chapters

- You spend a lot of time hunting down this much larger conspiracy, including Hunter specifically. There's a lot of betrayal and secret reveals. (It's not tedious by any stretch of the imagination, but the story beats definitely don't stick in my head as well as the first two chapters, even after two playthroughs.)

- you go to Voss and, in order to get into a Voss-only archive, get married to a person you just met before almost immediately leaving the planet (and your new spouse) behind. this is never mentioned again.

- you get hold of a holorecording from the Star Cabal, the big conspiracy. problem: the holorecording contains a trap for the brain-enhanced Watchers, and now half of Intelligence is in a vegetative state. this is not optimal.

- partially as a result of this, Intelligence basically gets dissolved, which is Not Great because it puts you right under the thumb of yet another asshole Sith lord

- the Watchers are recovering, though, so that’s something. Watcher Two, now Keeper (the old Keeper got promoted), contacts you so you can keep working on this Star Cabal thing.

- you get intentionally captured so the Star Cabal can torture you and you can “break” and give them false information to lead them into a trap. you are immediately afterward expected to get back to work like nothing happened. this is never mentioned again.

- You track the Star Cabal to their base, way out in the Unknown Regions iirc, and infiltrate it during a meeting of the top agents.

- murder time 2: electric boogaloo (well, more like murder time 45, to be honest, but shh it’s fine)

- You fight the Star Cabal guys, chase Hunter through the whole place, and finally corner him.

- (Salt warning ahead on my part for the next story beat, if you can call it that.)

- Hunter, when beaten, reveals what I personally think is the most bullshit stupid reveal in the entire game: he is actually a she, and has been using a stealth field generator (or something similar) to change his/her appearance the entire time. There are multiple interpretations of this - "he's trans" is my least favorite, sorry-not-sorry, because a) it's pretty clear she still considers herself a woman and Hunter is just a convenient persona, and also b) a clearly predatory man is absolutely horrid representation as far as playing into harmful stereotypes about trans people, thanks. Personally, my rather cynical interpretation is that they wanted one more shock value reveal at the end of the storyline and I guess couldn't come up with anything better. It's my least favorite thing in the whole IA storyline.

- anyway, that's not really important. I just needed to be mad about it for a minute. ignore me. moving on

- The important part is this: what you gain from the Star Cabal's base is an item called the Black Codex, an ancient piece of technology with the power to erase all records of a person's existence.

- Unless you are very stubborn about it the Agent’s reaction to this is basically “oh thank fuck I’m freeeeeeeeee” and you fly off into the hyperspace sunset with your crew, giving middle fingers to the Sith whose grip you’re escaping all the way. which, really, who can blame you.

And that’s the Imperial Agent storyline, folks. Roll credits. I’ll probably do the Bounty Hunter storyline next while it’s still fresh in my mind, but I could also do the Sith Warrior storyline probably if y’all’re more interested, vote now on your phones.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: Jaw$! or How Lena Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Webby (Lena Retrospective Commissioned by WeirdKev27)

Trigger Warning: Part of this review contains discussions of abuse which can’t be avoided but I still want to be senstive to my audience and any trauma they’ve gone through.  Welcome back weblena world to Shadow Into Light: My Lena Sabrewing Retrospective. And Jaw$ is here, long live Jaw$. Tiffany was a shark who bites the law she was in an episode i’m reviewing called Jaw$. 

And it’s the money shark before the storm as next month i’ll be going from two Ducktales reviews a week with the Lena retrospective and the last few episodes.. to three, as i’ll ALSO be covering the Della arc from season 1 in the build up to shadow war. And if your wondering if I expertly planned this to coincide with the finale, to the point the shadow war review and those leading up to it will be on the same week as the finale.... nope. I just got REALLLLY lucky as I already had all of that planned out, and the schedule for the  new episodes happened to synch up perfectly, ending just in time for me to revisit the series start and having Magica’s big in person appearance reviewed a week after we get her backstory in Life and Crimes. Though I am VERY happy it worked out this way as I get to properly celebrate the series end with more ducks than ever, and get to cover the pilot the same month as the finale, all things i’d of loved to do anyway and probably would’ve rejiggered my schedule to do. Point is lot of Ducktales content coming for this blog if you like that so stay tuned, but for now join me won’t you under the cut as we dive into a money bin of gay ducks, shadowy machinations, and Bad PR. 

We open as Lena and Donald awkwardly sit on the couch, waiting for Scrooge and the Kids to get home. Understandably it’s just.. dead silence.Given their a cynical teenager secretly working for and forced to obey a horrifying shadow monster and a 35 year old man who dosen’t like living in this house due to painful memories of his presumed dead sister.. and painful memories of pain in general, you have a huge awkward bowl of chips and “I really don’t want to be here right now”. 

Our heroes return though, and Louie tries to take some of their haul for himself but Scrooge stops that “It goes in the bin not to next of kin. “... Man in a Hurry if you would please. 

Thank you. Man in a Hurry everybody. He has to go now, he’s in a hurry. 

 As you can probably guess I do not like this, as it reminds me WAY too much of Scrooge’s worst “quirk” in the comics: how he’d barely pay his nephews, who are often hard up for cash mind you and one of whom is supporting three children ALONE, take them around the world and reap all the benefit for their hard work. It’s not like he did nothing, he did, but it’s way to exploitive for my tastes and can often sink a story if taken too far. It’s not AS bad... but they all went on the mission they all deserve at least something. I DO get keeping the rarest and most dangerous stuff for himself, as he is bankrolling things and does have two bins and a massive garage to safetly store them. But this just comes off as douchey for this version, who while liable to make mistakes with them, is far more nurturing towards his boys and girls. 

Thankfully this was course corrected next season. While Scrooge’s greed was properly restored.. this sort of treatment wasn’t. “Treasure of the Found Lamp” had him undergo character development and realize simply hoarding his treasures isn’t right or fair, and set up a musuem wing so both duckburg and his descendants can see them and get the stories behind them. And on not getting to take things clearly he’s eithe relaxed or stopped the policy as our heroes do have souveneers from time to time. Not a LOT mind, but little things like Dewey having a giant sword or Scrooge outright giving Louie one of his things show he did soften up. Though Della’s return and likely lack of tolerance for this stupid policy in the first place probably helped a lot, I also like to think he did change a bit and realize it was deeply unfair they didn’t get more than a few treasures of their own. So the writers did realize they kind of went overboard here.  I suspect this was more to setup for the episode’s subplot and to make Scrooge’s karma at the end feel justified. Speaking of which we get the start of said Subplot as Beakley comes in with a money cart and the news the board called. Why they called his house instead of his phone I don’t know, some things slip through the cracks when you running both a billion dollar company an da trillion dollar fiendish organization  for world larceny. I mean they clearly worked themselves so hard the other two apparently died between seasons. That or it was the diet of whiskey, orphan tears and grease in a wine glass both had. Bradford always told them it’d kill them though to his credit he only said I told you so twice at their funeral. 

For once no their not mad Scrooge is spending all the money they use to buy fowl jetskis, but because the Company’s having a bit of a PR nightmare now that Scrooge is back in the adventuring game. And we cut to the beanstalk they just adventured on having tore up a good chunk of the town and destroyed large swaths of it just to sell the point this isn’t their normal old man yells at other old man for spending all me money schitck, but a serious problem. As such they’ve booked him an interview with Roxanne Fetherly to improve his image and the companies. 

Scrooge scoffs at this, baffled why he has bad pr as his adventuring is GOOD for the city in the long run: He pays for any damages it causes, and likely at a cost no less which is a LOT coming from scrooge, and puts most of the money he makes on these adventures back into the city and his company, creating more jobs and better living conditions. He does get a wakeup call via  truly hilarous gag as Launchpad pops his head up to say “Good news mr. mcdee, it missed the orphange!” before getting ready to chainsaw the stalk for him. He quickly realizes MAYBE he needs some PR and agress to the interview. 

 This whole subplot really plays into one of the series main themes, one Frank brought up a few months back: Risk vs Reward. Adventuring is entirely about this, that adventure is dangerous, can cost you a lot as we see with Della and the aftermath of her terrible decision making, and can hurt people.. but it can also help people, bring money to those who need it, free those who are being oppressed and open new worlds to everyone. This subplot distills it down great: Scrooge is right that his adventures do bring in money, and as seen with the first episode brought in clean water and power with no drawbacks and only asked to be paid for it, which is fair given he still has to run machines and likely help relocate any workers whose jobs are now redundant to other parts of the company and retrain them. But it costs people their homes and jobs, not forever but still as long as it takes to construct, tears up roads and puts people in danger. It’s plots like this that make Bradford the perfect final boss for the series: He’s someone who blinds himself to the reward of all this and only sees the risk, and raises valid points even if he himself is deeply wrong. He’s right Scrooge causes a lot of danger and threat to the world.. but wrong in that he dosen’t see it’s all worth it for the good of everyone. 

But enough about future story arcs let’s get back to this one, as Webby excitedly greets Lena and hugs her, realizes she’s not hugging her back then gives her another squeeze anyway after claming to hate hugs when just a LOOK at Webby would tell you that’s false. The two are having a sleepover, Webby’s first ever.. and given Lena’s essentially an Emo Hobo and the closest thing she has to home is that starlight ancient amptheater that’s never properly explained. Seriously ancient ruins near Duckburg dosen’t suprise me, but at least tell me what they are and why Magica chose them. And why Louie hasn’t tried to sell tickets to Dewey boxing a gorilla in them. Or probably a possum I mean their on a budget and gorillas snap necks, but still i’d pay to see that as would we all. 

Point is it’s their first sleepover and naturally Webby’s first bit of smalltalk.. is how tucking in can be used for interogation techniques. I’d be more suprised if earlier this season it hadn’t already been shown Beakly regularly enrolls her daughter in the no murder, unless you really want to, hunger games every year. The fact Webby hasn’t become the bat is only because she hasn’t found a costume that’s the right combintion of pinks and purples to instill pantswetting terror yet. That shit takes time. 

Lena goes to the bathroom.. to talk to Magica who we properly get to meet. She did speak last time, but this ep is the one that properly establishes her personality for the reboot: she has clever plans, tons of power, if sealed currently, and is a genuine threat.. but she’s also a bit of a ham, in love with the old ultra violence and really short sighted in her plans, something we got hints of last time as her best solution to the Beakly Problem was  to just leave her to die and hope scrooge and webby, two people who love solving mysteries and unlocking puzzles, don’t investigate the horrifying death, accident or not, of their only friend and grandmother, and that neither, especially the 12 year old spiraling with grief, would suspect a former spy died. Thoguh in fairness on the spy thing it’s plausable Magica didn’t know that, but still it’s a bad plan. Magica has good ideas but is just so obessed with the brute force way of doing things she forgets the subtle approach works better.. and so far it has well for Lena.  Problem is it’s VERY clear by this point that Lena likes Webby, maybe not romantic styles JUST YET but it’s getting there. Webby on the otherhand has been in love with Lena from the freaking concept art which showed her blushing around her.. and that was in her 87 design.. which they thankfully changed. It’s not terrible but it just dosen’t fit well with this universe. Point is Lena is catching feelings and Magica realizes this and tries to gaslight her telling her she’d never acccept the truth abotu her and so on. As we all know and as we’ll see that’s bullshit but it’s an effective manipulation. We also find out Magica’s plan: she had Lena sneak a jewel into the treasure going into the bin, and it’s going to turn into a monster that will seek out the Number One Dime for them. She also vaugely hints that there’s something Lena needs from Magica. 

Once Lena returns, and Webby let’s her rabbit know the interogation isn’t over, she gives her possible future girlfirend a gift: friendship bracelets! They both put them on and it’s really fucking cute.. and will be both a tangible symbol of hteir friendship and a plot point several times, something I honestly hadn’t thoguht about till now. Lena, put off by the gesture not because she dosen’t aprpciate it because of the crushing guilt of lying to the one person who cares about her under the insucrtions of a sociopath, goes to Webby’s big old corkboard which is always fun to look at.. especially since it’s clearly the ONLY glimpse at Hortense we’re going to get all series. 

We’re not getting Grandma Duck either. Though at least Frank actually regrets that one. But the important part is one of the posts mentoniing Scrooge hates magic, something Webby elaborates on: He hates spells, hexs curses and what not and feels them a shortcut.  From the man who has a garage full of them. 

I do kid as I did realize there’s a valid expliantion for this: Scrooge will use magical items, protection spells that sort of thing.. but he uses them like anything else as needed. He’s too pragmatic to not say, use the jewel of atlantis to give a city clean energy and water he can montizie, or the split sword against FOWL.. but more often than not he just dosen’t need them. He collects them because it’s fun, oftne profitable.. and their simply SAFER in his museum wing, garage and second bin will get to in two weeks. He’s seen time and time again how people misuse magic, forget it has a price, or just rely on it instead of actual skill. He’s also clearly been on the bad end of a LOT of evil sorcerers and soreceresses, especially magica. Magic isn’t inherently bad, which in itself is a BIG message of Lena’s arc, it’s just somethign that’s the OPPPSOITE OF everythign scrooge is: sacrifcing others for power, relying on something besides yourself, distance attacks versus up close and personal phsycial attacks.. it was never going to be for him and tons of bad experinces with it only cemented it. He’s just not so stubborn outside of the santa thing to avoid something if it’s going to net him a profit or come in a pinch. 

So naturally Scrooge has banned any magic books from his house, as he has no use for spellcasting and any he’d need to keep for saftey or history’s sake are likely at the archives, but just as naturally, Webby smuggled one in and wants to try it with Lena ducking it and asking to play some games. I”m sure Huey has a few yugioh decks in his room go bug him. But before they can decide on one, the boys attack for a PILLOW FIGHT.... which is a sweet gesture and them just wanting to hang out, but ends with them all eating the ground and questioning why they thought attacking the duck equilvent of cassandra cain was a good idea. Louie decides to salvage it with a swim.. but since their pool has a boat in it he has a diffrent location in mind: the bin.

So while they head off to get head injuries, Beakly tries to prepare Scrooge as the Media are vultures and looking for the next scandal with public figures and it’s accurate. But given Scrooge’s natural mood is grumpus, this dosen’t go well at all and even a spray bottle dosen’t exactly help.. I mean it is the best method to deal with grumpy old men but it can only do so much. 

At the bin we get a lovely bit as Dewey prepares to dive and his brothers treat it like an olympic one, with both doing commentary, Dewey’s apparently response to if he was worried about brain damage was Nerp, and we get the wonderous national anthem of dewdonia. Just nice as well as lovely to see the brothers just having a crack and enjoying each others company with their own weird injokes but without the injokes feeling as forced as they were in “Beagle Birthday Massacre”. Things take a turn though as we see just what magica created with the stone... a giant shark made of scrooges money who eats that fucker in a single bite.. in this case Dewey. Louie and Huey naturally run off panicked.

So while Huey and Louie gain another scarring memory to tell their therapist when their older, Scrooge begins his interview with Roxanne Fetherly who.. honestly just weirds me out. Not for any personality stuff but because she has green feathers. And it just.. really feels WEIRD. I mean green ducks are a thing in real life.. but it just looks off to have such a pastel color on a duck when the other colors are white or tones meant to invoke real world races, allowing ducks to be black, latino, asian and so on and so on coded. That’s fine and blends in fine.. but with that metaphor the green just really dosen’t fit well at all. It feels like an early decision they made, but decided not to retcon or go with for anyone else which makes it all the more weird. We’re 3 seasons in , almost at the end, and the only other green duck we’ve seen was like that because of magic and the offputting nature of it WORKS for magica. Here I just don’t get it and I never well. But naturally Roxanne starts in on invasive, gotcha questions with no real good answers or time to respond, so fox news level questions, and then asks what part of ireland he’s from. 

Naturally that sets him off so while that rant goes on, literally next time we see him he’s still going on about it, we cut to the girls playing truth or dare.. and given Webby’s first question is about deepest darkest secrets the boys once again save her by running in... to report on the monster she created that just ate their brother. Lena brushes it off but does get them not to go to scrooge claming he’ll throw them to the shark himself. I mean he’s not comics scrooge so he probably woudln’t but their also two scared 11-12 year olds so it works well enough. They just need a way to go after the money shark. Enter launchapd who in the second best bit of the episode, says he sensed his best friend dewey was in danger. Beck’s delivery is what sells it.. and I’m not going to question it. He’s somehow alive despite presumibly living off a diet of spaghett-o’s, barely avoiding a car accident on his best days, and as we’ll find out later believing children in costumes are monsters he summoned when he was 8. The fact he suddenly has spider sense specifically related to people he cares about is honestly less of a surprise than the fact he’s not in heaven crashing God’s Speedboat into God’s Golden Castle with God’s Golden Lion riding shotgun. 

So they do the natural thing and.. steal Donald’s houseboat while he sleeps. He has no more involvement in this episode other than noticing it’s back and not in great condition at the end. I bring this up because this is one of Donalds ONLY apperances this season, and it’s part of the larger more irritating problem that he’s hardly ever used.. despite promoting him as a major part of the series. 

I will talk about this more during the Della arc as i’ts more relevant there, but needless to say it bothers me a lot and not knowing how to ballance it’s massive main cast was a constant struggle for the series even up to the final episodes going on right now. 

So our heroes head out on the bin late at night, where could the Jaw$ be she’s nowhere in sight. So they decide to use other treasure as a lure they either fished out of a bin or out of scrooge’s bathwater. How bathing in coins gets him clean I don’t know and frankly I dont’ think we want the answers to that and the idea of scrooge fully naked is so horrifying I forgot what I was talking about.

Ah yes our heroes are playing bait the money monster and find out it’s a shark, and Lena.. is not okay with that and goes to talk to Magica inside the boat. Magica tells us she has a name, Tiffany. Awww what a lovely name for a money shark. I would of gone with Rags to Bitches, but I may have brain damage.  Lena understandabily does not like the idea of getting eaten by a shark, asked to be informed and while Magica is mad at her for going after the thing, Lena reasonably points out that it was this or Scrooge got involved.  Up top Huey tries catching it with a bit of treasure on a rope.. after not shutting up about shark facts because “Facts comfort me when i’m nervous!” Precious angel. But Huey’s leg gets caught and he and Louie, somehow on the latter get thrown up in the air and chomped. Back bellow Webby has a suggestion: using magic. Lena naturally not wanting to blow her cover or really liking magic period is against it for now. 

Back at the interview, Roxanne brings on a special guest to prove people don’t like scrooge: GLOMGOLD!

Glomgold may create some issues for the subplot and we’ll get to those in due time, but damn if it isn’t always a pleasure to see him. He’s also on good terms with Roxanne... are.. are we sure this is local news and not fox news? Taking the word of a conservative greedy billionare over a progressive one seems like a fox move. Though I might actually watch fox news if glomgold was a commentator.  “I propose a red new deal instead of this blasted green new deal, I throw Scrooge to a tank of sharks connected to a generator, the tank turns red with his blood and that somehow creates power! HOW DO YOU LIKE THAT MCDUCK” 

So we get the best bit of the episode as Glomgold tries to complain about his building being destroyed which would be fair... if he hadn’t tried to blow up Scrooge’s bin twice this week, with Glomgold going for THREE.. for threee.. for three... it dosen’t go off but it does get scrooge to say he’s glad the building was destroyed. Which is fair but NOT super great PR.  

Back at the shark things don’t get better as Webby and Lena argue over the use of magic, I mean as much as they can argue Webby just wants to know why she’s so cagey about this while they go with plan “Launchpad crash into it”. Launchpad also gives a hell of a monologue. Good on you bud. As you can see launchpad’s gotten 100% better since his low point in our last episode. That’s because it’s clear the writers had some struggle ballancing his amped up stupidity with actual competence, making him primarily jokey comic relief in the first few episodes and I wouldn’t be shocked if Terror of The Terra Firmians was written before a lot of the later episodes despite airing around the same time. But by mid-season he’s got his much more lovable charactersation of a dangerous moron..l but one who CAN be competent and is genuinely charming due to how much he cares about his friends and his job. They also dialed down the stupid down to an acceptable homer simpson level: still a danger to himself and others but hilariously so. Point is they fixed it and while i’ll complain about mistakes the show made I will give this crew all the credit for course correcting time and time again and actually listening to fan feedback.

So Webby figures they tried the Jaws option and lost the boat and launchpad, time for plan Magic. They hold hands, EEEEEEEEE, and try a spell.. and it clearly starts working but almost works TOO well, as Lena starts glowing first purple.. then blue. Hmmmm... intresteing. Lena breaks it off and Tiffany breaks out of the bin.. just as scrooge says on the news his adventures aren’t dangerous. 

Scrooge naturally goes to face it while Webby wonders why Lena didn’t go for it. To make it a triple Scrooge shows up in time to distract tiffany.. with the number one dime, which as lena found out earlier is on his person rather than at the bin like the public thinks. So while Scrooge puts up a good show.. seriously it’s really awesome and really neat looking, though he also gets VERY upset that people are naturally holding out buckets for the cash shark, which he’s not happy about because well.. he did EARN that money. Most bin money is stuff directly earned by him so fair enough. But while he’s you know, Scrooge Fucking McDuck, and thus puts up a good fight the monster eats him.. and gets the dime stuck in it’s tooth with Magica wanting Lena to grab for it, forgetting that minons, while mildly disposable, aren’t really replaceable when your SOUL’S ATTACHED TO THEM. That’s where Magica’s weakness is. her plans aren’t half bad but as I said, she’s far too bloodthirsty and short sighted. She has better ones than glomgold but ironcially they share the same problem of not thinkign them through. And Magica cares so little for lena she’s blinded to the fact her own personal saftey is tied up in her. 

Lena naturally dives for her future girlfrriend and heads into the belly of the beast. And it’s here her REAL moment of truth is. While the one last episode was noble.. it was also easy enough to brush off internal as pragmatisim. Letting Beakly die would’ve brought too much heat and been too easy to quickly go terrible, while saving her got her off Lena’s trail and gave her free reign of the manner. But here? Webby is about to slip into Tiffany’s stomach and whle she hasn’t digested anyone yet given who made Tiffany with it’s likely just because she hasn’t had enough mass to create chainsaws to carve them all up. It’s the Dime or Webby. Lena’s own freedom or the girl she loves. Nothing good comes from saving Webby.. other than Webby. Other than the one person whose truly loved her. I mean think about it: She was created by magica, abused for a good decade and a half. No one but Magica has had a chance to care about her and as we’ve seen Magica only sees her as a weapon to get back at scrooge and not as a person. Webby was the first person she’s ever made a genuine connection with, that’s been there for her, that loves her unconditionally and woiuld be there for her no matter what. And it’s in that moment Lena realizes she can’t sacrifice her for her own good... that after years of having to be selfish to surivive being chained to that monster... she can’t be this time. No mastter what it costs her.. Webby is priceless. So Lena recites the spell, growing bright blue and blowing up tiffany. Lena gladly hugs webby who reciorpates, awww gaybies, and Launchpad hugs dewey. Awww... what it’s still precious he’s a good surrogate uncle. The wacky kind who sleeps in a van on your lawn. 

So Scrooge is glad.. though it’s here his subplot falls flat. Him getting attacked by the media and getting a compupance by loosing tons of money from tiffany is fine. Evne if he earned it, his lack of care did bring this on him.. hte problem is they take it too far by having all his nemies show up, him unable to say anything and glomgold blatantly doing so just to steal from him. Otherwise the subplot is fine, a bit heavy on scrooge being a dick but it has to to work and puts him in an awkward situation. But this ending just feels to over the top to realy enjoy. And the series does do over the top humor well so I don’t know what happened here. But having a bunch of outright thieves steel his money instad of a bunch of citizens who didn’t know better and deserved it for the damage, feels wrong and it tastes wrong. 

Speaking of feels wrong and tastes wrong we get an INTEINTONAL dose of that as back at the amptheater, Lena and Magica argue about the situation and Magica trying to kill her. Lena tries to walk away but can’t.. phsyically. Magica won’t let her. And this is honestly a very crushing and very well crafted metaphor for how abuse victims sometimes CAN’T escape their abusers. Magica is verbally abusive, treats lena like she’s disposable and constnatly downtalks her self esteem. To Lena magica is nothing but a tool.. but like MANY children caught in horrifcally abusive situations Lena can’t get away. It’s a literal metaphor, an da good one, for how you can’t ALWAYS escape abuse easily, and this especially true for kids who have nowhere to go and hte law on their abusers side more often than not. It’s hard to escape an abusive parent and even harder when they dont’ consider you a person. I thankfully have no personal experince with this but it dosen’t make it any less of a problem nor any less noble of this show to tackle the subject in a frank, if fantastical, way, and a good chunk of Lena’s arc is overcoming this abuse and not letting her abusive past drown her. But for now.. all she can do is agree to do what Magica says till she can hopefully be rid of her. But the light at the end of the tunnel’s coming.. there’s just a whole lotta darkness first. 

Next Time: We take a break from the episodes to cover some Lena related comics for a double feature; The first Spies Like Us has everyones faviorite lesbian ducks go on a spy adventure that was never printed in the us for silly reasons we’lll get to and then the 87 ducktales comic dime after dime which features Lena’s predecessor Minima. 

Later Today: Close Enough Season 2 is here! I”m going to talk about it! Exclimation Points! 

If you liked this review feel free to follow for more. And if you have an episode of Ducktales or another animated show you’d like me to cover just hit me up via my asks or direct messages on here and comission it. And if you’d rather just support me on a monthly basis, head over to my patreon. THE LINK IS RIGHT HERE.  Even a buck a month would help and the more of you that donate the closer we get to my Duckcentric stretch goals. The current closest ones are 15, which would lead to reviews of The Goofy Movies and Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and 20 which would lead both to a review of the Super Ducktales mini series, and monthly darkwing duck reviews! So if you like me talking about ducks and want to bolt some duck reviews to the schedule, even a dollar a month would inch me closer to that goal. Eveyr bit helps. But money or not, it’s been a pleasure and i’ll see you at the next rainbow. 

[shemakesmusic-uk]

INTERVIEW: Penelope Trappes.

Australian-born Brighton-based musician Penelope Trappes has shared a new single and accompanying short film directed by Agnes Haus, ‘Blood Moon,’ from her forthcoming album Penelope Three. The album will be released next Friday, May 28 on Houndstooth. Following singles ‘Fur & Feather’ and ‘Nervous,’ ‘Blood Moon’ is atmospheric and dreamlike; a song about repurposing the fear within.

"I consider the moon a temple, a mirror of our emotions,” elaborates Trappes. “The blood moon symbolically represents the beginning, the ending and a clean slate. ‘Blood Moon’ is about being uncompromisingly true to oneself despite societal expectations. Everyone should be free to express femininity in their own individual way. The burdens and expectations instilled in us at childhood weigh us down and hold us back. This song is about never giving in to this pressure and dismantling a system of oppression that is carried within our bodies. A metamorphosis." Commenting on the accompanying visual, she adds: "The short film ’Blood Moon’ is a modern take on the goddess Isis if she were around to face today’s world. Isis is the protector of women and children and the healer of the sick - but despite her powers, she would still be weighed down by societal expectations of what is expected of women."

We sat down with Penelope to discuss Penelope 3, being back on stage and what she has planned next. Read the full interview below.

Hi Penelope! How are you? How have you been coping with everything thats been happening this past year?

"Hello! I’m doing well, thanks. Keeping sane in a world gone a bit mad. I’m doing daily yoga and meditation, I’m vegan and very recently gluten-free, which has been great! I’m a bit of a bore with the health stuff...but I love taking care of my body. Also, after sometime of getting used to it, I am now embracing the slower pace of life, what with no travel, and less commuting places. It’s a bit like how I imagine things were in say Victorian times... but with internet."

You're gearing up to release your new album Penelope Three. In it you explore your metamorphosis through tales of motherhood, the divine feminine, anxiety, healing powers and their spiritual connections. What sparked the inspiration to write about these themes?

"I have always felt emotions deeply within my body, since I was a child, particularly ancestral trauma. I am not sure if there is a word for this, but it’s my reality and at times it has been quite hard to cope with. So as I have been going through a lot of physical changes in my own body in recent years, these have shifted and moved me on a much deeper level - emotionally and spiritually. On top of that there was the pending separation anxiety of my sole daughter leaving home, which turned out to be more emotional than I expected. Living overseas for all of my adult life has always been difficult in relation to my family back home in Australia.  My mother is getting older and more unwell, and with my not being able to visit her in Australia due to the pandemic, i had to dive deep to find coping mechanisms. All the imposed alone time and the isolation has led to a lot of introspection. I am thankful to be able to find healing in channeling these feelings through the power of writing."

Sonically, how is Penelope Three different (or similar) to your previous releases? Were there any musical influences or sounds that you were able to incorporate on this record that you hadn’t previously?

"For Penelope Three, I based most of the compositions around my voice and words telling more of a tale. In the past i chose to pause on that aspect of myself and let the space take the forefront. I also explored a few more elements of my voice that I had trained in when I first started doing music, including jazz, opera, and sacred music. It’s not to say this album doesn’t have space like the last two albums, it does, but perhaps the pieces might feel a little more like “songs” on this one."

What was the creative process like this time around? Did lockdown affect it at all?

"The album was actually finished before lockdown. I wish I could say I was creating music since the pandemic, but sadly no.  I was spending a lot of time during lockdown just trying to navigate life itself, though i did find the time to co-direct, film, and work on the visual side of Penelope Three. ‘Penelope Three’ actually falls into a strange world of before, during, and after. It has grown with the changing world. I think it sits well in all realms of past, present and future - which the visuals that accompany the album represent."

What was your favourite part creating Penelope Three? And were there any parts you found particularly challenging?

"There were times during the initial creative process that I went way out there, right off on tangents. Sometimes quite dark. I really enjoyed exploring this side of me but sometimes it was a little bit too much. It was challenging to decide to put some of this off to the side and stay present in hope. I would say my favourite part of creating P3 was in making the final decision to embrace the many voices I carry within me, curating these into one cohesive album."

What do you hope fans will take away from the new album?

"Hopefully they have heard Penelope 1 and 2 and can feel the vision and the love now that I am at the end of the trilogy. Either way, a sense of strength versus vulnerability and the empowerment that comes from embracing both of these qualities is what I hope they find while listening."

You have some live dates lined up in September. I expect you’re excited to be back on stage. What have you missed the most about performing?

"I have missed sharing the music and the space with an audience. Those moments when you can hear a pin drop. Sharing these fragile moments together where anything could happen will be pure joy!"

Will there be any changes to your live show?

"I now have a cellist and keyboardist / backing vocalist on stage with me, two wonderful women, Maddie Cutter and Hinako Omori. The 3 of us sharing the stage together helps to communicate the elements of fragility and strength within P3.  It also frees me up to play guitar and really focus in on the vocals a bit more because in the past, I was multi-tasking on stage and had to rely on a holding down a lot of synths keys and chords the whole time."

Based on your musical journey so far, what’s been your biggest takeaway/piece of advice?

"Don’t ever stop creating no matter what family, friends or society tell you! Just keep evolving, changing and exploring everything that inspires you."

Finally, what else is next for you? Any non-musical goals?

"With Penelope Three, I have been working a lot on videos and I’m intending on exploring more aspects of filmmaking. I am particularly inspired by acting and the concept of story-telling and expressing all the emotions of life just through a delicate glance, the flick of the hand, or a tear. I am interested in telling tales with the body - with performance - but without music. I want to embrace the confrontational. I am also thinking a lot about musically what comes after this Trilogy. I have half of the music written already for a future album, but I just need to define what it’s all about before i continue on it."

Penelope 3 is out May 28 via Houndstooth.

Photo credit: Agnes Haus

[cobra-diamond]

The Unfinished 2nd Half of Zuko’s Journey

Zuko’s journey consists of two parts. The first part we saw in the show; it was Zuko receiving his Uncle’s forgiveness and becoming Fire Lord. The second part we did not see; it is his struggle to restore the honor of the Fire Nation.

The True Ending of Avatar

The ending for Avatar was not Aang and Katara kissing in Ba Sing Se in front of a beautiful sunset followed by the word “The End”.

No, the true ending of Avatar was Zuko’s coronation. That was the moment when you knew the Gaang had accomplished their goals, that their journey was complete and that the Avatar world had changed for good; the Fire Nation’s war was over and Zuko was the Fire Lord who was going to restore the honor of the Fire Nation...

... Going to. He had not done it yet by the show’s end.

Zuko: “I promised my Uncle that I would restore the honor of the Fire Nation, and I will.”

“And I will”... Will. It was a new goal that hadn’t been achieved and you can bet your butt it wasn’t over three months later. Now read the next lines:

Zuko: “The road ahead of us is challenging. A hundred years of fighting has left the world scarred and divided. But with the Avatar's help, we can get it back on the right path, and begin a new era of love and peace.”

The road ahead is “challenging”. “Get it back” on the right path. “Begin” a new era of love and peace.

Restore the honor of the Fire Nation... A Goal.

Begin a new era of love and peace... A Motivation.

The road ahead is challenging... A Conflict.

These are the beginnings of an entirely new story for the franchise; a logical continuation of the original cast that does not erase the significance of what came before. It is the continuation of Zuko’s stated Goals and Motivations at the end of the show where he must change and grow in order to become the Fire Lord that redeems the Fire Nation.

It is the beginning of the second half of Zuko’s journey.

Where Aang’s Journey Ends, Zuko’s Endures

Aang’s journey in the show consists of a single, clear goal with a definite endgame: master all four elements and defeat the Fire Lord. Once Aang masters all four elements, he is ready to face the Fire Lord. Once he defeats the Fire Lord, his journey is over. How he masters all four elements and defeats the Fire Lord, along with the people he meets along the way, is what makes the story deep and compelling. This is where Zuko comes in.

The purpose of Zuko’s journey wasn’t clear for over half of the show. Until Iroh spelled it out for him in Avatar and the Fire Lord, it appeared he was a morally ambiguous wild card who could end up on either side. Why Zuko’s inner turmoil was so important to Aang’s journey was not clear.

Indeed, we did not know the full importance of Zuko’s journey until he stood up to his father in Day of Black Sun. That’s when learned why Zuko was important: he was the crown prince abandoning the evil ways of his country to help the Avatar save the world.

So you’d think that when Zuko helped Aang master firebending, defeated his sister in the Agni Kai and was crowned Fire Lord that his journey was over, right? That being crowned Fire Lord was Zuko’s reward for being a sensitive, gentle soul unlike the ruthless, warmongering norm in his family?

That he’d spend the rest of his days slowly coping with his trauma while enjoying endless, relaxing days of romantic bliss with Mai? That he wouldn’t face internal opposition from the diehards and stalwarts of the old regime? That from the start of his reign he would be leading a Fire Nation that was fully accepting of him and everything he stood for… Right?

Wrong.

The Tragedy of the Fire Nation

In addition to the central conflict of ending the Hundred Year War and Aang’s need to defeat the Fire Lord, there were numerous subtle threads running through the show that gave Avatar its heart and soul: the tragic, lasting effects of war on a people and their culture, the effects of foisting too much responsibility on children, the importance of friendship and having people to lean on, among many others. One of these threads concerned the topic of how decent, normal people can turn bad.

In Season 1, it is revealed that Avatar Roku—a firebender—was a respectable, honorable Avatar despite being a member of the Fire Nation.

In the same season, a Fire Sage helps Aang in his effort to connect with Roku despite being loyal to the Fire Nation and Fire Lord and Avatar.

Aang: “If this is the Avatar's temple, why did the Sages attack me?” Shyu: “Things have changed. In the past, the Sages were loyal only to the Avatar. When Roku died, the Sages eagerly awaited for the next Avatar to return. But he never came.”

In The Blue Spirit, Aang laments to Zuko how one of his best friends was Fire Nation and says to his enemy, “Do you think we could have been friends, too?”

A Fire Nation admiral and firebending master—Jeong Jeong—deserts out of disillusionment with the war.

And Iroh fights Zhao to stop him from destroying the Moon Spirit, to which Zhao does agree, for a moment, until his temper gets the better of him, showing that concern for harmony and balance isn’t a lost concept in the Fire Nation; it’s just buried deep.

In Season 2, Aang rescues the child of Omashu’s occupying governor, ignoring the practical advantages of keeping it as a hostage, and we are explicitly shown how happy this makes the invaders.

In Zuko Alone, Zuko becomes a truly sympathetic character. We are shown how he has always struggled to live up to the expectations of his warmongering family, and leading up to Season 2’s finale, Zuko and Irohs’ disillusionment with their country reaches new heights, showing that the militaristic expectations of the Fire Nation isn’t even embraced by all members of its ruling family.

In Season 3, the Gaang lives in the Fire Nation. We see Fire Nation people, their kids, their towns, their daily lives. Aang is actually excited to be in the Fire Nation because it reminds him how much fun it was before the war.

In Avatar and the Fire Lord, Roku is shown to have been the best friend of the Fire Lord that started the war, but Sozin’s desire and willpower to achieve his goals corrupted him, and in that same episode, Aang comments that friendships can transcend lifetimes, suggesting that the Avatar and the Fire Lord can be friends again. Ultimately, this is proven true when Zuko joins the Gaang, helps them stop the war and becomes friends with Aang.

Toph: “It's like these people are born bad.” Aang: “No, that's wrong. I don't think that was the point of what Roku showed me at all. Roku was just as much Fire Nation as Sozin was, right? If anything, their story proves anyone's capable of great good and great evil. Everyone, even the Fire Lord and the Fire Nation have to be treated like they're worth giving a chance. And I also think it was about friendships.”

Everyone, even the Fire Lord and Fire Nation, have to be treated like they’re worth giving a chance. Even if they don’t ask for it.

But most importantly, at the start of every episode, Katara says the Four Nations used to live together in harmony.

What the show was saying in so many small ways was that the Fire Nation’s war and what its leaders had become were neither normal for the Avatar world nor for the Fire Nation itself. Not even Chin the Conqueror’s conquests of the Earth Kingdom holds a candle to the Fire Nation’s multiple layers of evil, self-interest and disregard for world balance. It was a world first, even for the Fire Nation.

While the existence of the all-powerful Avatar, in theory, helps keep the peace between the four nations, the Fire Nation did not used to be hostile to the other nations. Sozin changed the old Fire Nation, the one that was peaceful and enlightened, that achieved an unprecedented era of prosperity, that convinced Sozin that the Fire Nation was first among equals. The fun, friendly Fire Nation that Aang remembered was lost and it stayed lost for a hundred years…

… And the solution wasn’t to destroy the Fire Nation.

The True Purpose of Zuko’s Journey

Until the series finale, Zuko’s journey appeared to be about him achieving moral redemption for his time spent as a halfhearted, incompetent, semi-accomplice in his nation’s evils. But Zuko did not turn against his father and help the Avatar in order to redeem himself of his sins. No, he turned against his country because he was alienated from it, couldn’t meet its expectations and became disillusioned with its goals. In other words, because it was what Uncle Iroh had taught him.

Zuko’s heart told him that betraying Iroh in Ba Sing Se was wrong and that he needed to right that wrong. To Zuko, doing the right thing meant following Uncle Iroh’s guidance and accepting him as his true father, and to do that required switching sides. Zuko’s redemption was not achieved when he stood up to his father. It was not achieved when he stood victorious over Azula. It wasn’t even achieved when he became Fire Lord at the end of the show. Zuko’s redemption was when Iroh hugged and forgave him. That was the moment of catharsis for Zuko. That was his “redemptive” moment.

Zuko wasn’t redeemed when he showed people he was “good” or “righteous” or “honorable”. Zuko was redeemed when he felt accepted as a son... By his uncle.

Unfortunately, Zuko’s troubles were deeper than his banishment and Agni Kai with his father. In short, he simply didn’t belong in the Fire Nation he was born into.

Zuko was a normal boy born into an abnormal situation that he didn’t have the personality for. He didn’t have the ruthlessness, intelligence, competence, precociousness and raw talent for militarism and totalitarian rule that his sister had, so he failed to live up to his father’s self-serving, power hungry expectations which, in turn, represented the peak of malice, moral corruption and ruling-through-fear that the war had instilled in the country’s leadership.

In fact, Zuko also didn’t live up to the expectations of his country, as revealed by his monologue in Siege of the North Part 2.

Zuko: “She's a firebending prodigy – and everyone adores her.”

Hmm. I wonder who “everybody” is...?

If you think the Fire Nation’s militarism is simply the result of genetic predispositions, I encourage you to read The East Asian Origins of the Fire Nation and Its Villains. It helps shed light on the potential reasons why a “soft” boy like Zuko might struggle in a militaristic culture such as the Fire Nation’s.

So when Zuko finally realized the righteous path and followed it, his story was over, right? He stood up to his father and Iroh forgave him. He showed us that he had a pure heart and was a good person and good, moral people are supposed to be rewarded for their innate qualities, right? What only mattered to Zuko’s journey was that he help the Avatar, vanquish his sister and end the war by royal decree so that a new era of love and peace could begin… Right?

Wrong again. Iroh even says so when he tells Zuko that his journey is not over when they are together in the White Lotus camp in The Phoenix King:

Iroh: “… Someone new must take the throne. An idealist with a pure heart and unquestionable honor. It has to be you, Prince Zuko… And only you can restore the honor of the Fire Nation.”

Until that moment, Zuko had no visions of himself as the ruler of his country, never mind changing anything about it.

Let me repeat that.

Until THAT MOMENT Zuko had no visions of himself as the ruler of his country.

Zuko: “And then... then would you come and take your rightful place on the throne?... I'll try, Uncle.”

Very reassuring words from somebody who believes they’re destiny is to rule a country full of walking flamethrowers. Not. Once more, I encourage you to read The East Asian Origins of the Fire Nation and Its Villains for insight as to why this could go wrong.

To Zuko, the Fire Nation he grew up in is the Fire Nation. As he understood it, his father had to be eliminated, the airships destroyed and the rest of the world defended from what remained of the Fire Nation’s power. Him taking the throne was an afterthought at that point, never mind what to do about his sister.

Perhaps he thought that stopping his father and helping Aang become a fully-realized Avatar would be enough to intimidate Azula and the rest of his country into submission since there did not appear to be a plan to militarily dominate the Fire Nation. However, that’s a topic for another day.

Whatever Zuko thought his endgame was, he didn’t know it, but Iroh knew it. Avatar Roku knew it. The White Lotus knew it and Aang came to know it. Zuko’s journey was not to prove that he is a good person on the inside. It was not to turn against the Fire Nation. It was not to teach Aang firebending. It wasn’t even to defeat his sister and assume the crown. Those were all just means to his journey’s end. Zuko’s journey was, and always has been, to be the Fire Lord that redeems the Fire Nation.

And it wasn’t over when the final credits rolled.

The Two Halves of Zuko’s Journey

Zuko’s journey could be thought of as having two parts. Part one is in the show. It is where Zuko learns why the Fire Nation needs to change and what he needs to do to change it: help Aang, subjugate Azula and become Fire Lord. Part two would be the trials and tribulations that result in the Fire Nation’s redemption, or at least the key events that set it firmly on that path.

Redeeming the Fire Nation, however, is not a process solved by merely wearing the Fire Lord’s crown. It is not enough for him to have a pure heart and have unquestionable honor. He has to make the right choices and answer the hard questions when it comes to weening his country off of war, conquest, colonies and a massive military industry, to say nothing of the culture that supports it.

If “everyone adores” Azula, is everyone going to adore him?

He has to reform the members of the old regime: the generals, admirals, soldiers, nobles and true believers. He has to get the people who are resentful of him on his side. This is not a simple, good versus evil, 3 months later having tea in Ba Sing Se kind of problem. Do you really think Zuko is going to hold mass executions, imprison families and burn books like certain Chinese emperors of old? Or will his “pure heart” and “unquestionable honor” collide with the realities of the post-war Fire Nation?

Will the broken, anemic state of the Royal Family be important? Without old-man Iroh, the ruling family is just him, himself and himself. Will Azula’s ability to create heirs be left to shrivel to dust in the asylum? Ew! Gross!! But that’s a question Zuko has to ask; that’s how power is transferred in his government, and at the end of the show, it’s only him.

Will he even try to get Azula on his side? Does he need Azula on his side? If so, for what purpose? What role will his mother play in the government? Can he simply allow Iroh to be a “multinational agent” via the White Lotus? Will he have to force Iroh to put the Fire Nation first? Will the nobility and military see the state of the Royal Family as a weakness that must be fixed... Or be replaced?

Who will oppose Zuko? Who will follow him? What mistakes will he make? What will he get right?

How will Zuko struggle, how will he change and grow in order to become the Fire Lord that redeems the Fire Nation?

If you thought the reward for finishing hard work is not having more hard work to do, then you’re probably not an adult.

That is the unfinished second half of Zuko’s journey, that we didn’t get to see.

But don’t worry; the hard work ahead for Zuko is the basis for Season 4.

[dragoler]

Embrace the Void - An Optimistic Outlook

This is a theory post about Hollow Knight and contains spoilers, so if you haven’t completed the game you should probably not read this post. This was originally posted to Reddit but i’m putting a copy here too. It is my belief that the Embrace the Void ending does not spell doom for Hallownest as is often believed, and here I want to present the evidence as to why. Much of this information will be common knowledge, but I've included it to support my greater point.

Firstly I want to establish that the Shade Lord (or Bill if you're so inclined) is indeed the Knight and not a dormant god or amalgamation. The ancient civilization that predates Hallownest is said to have worshiped no god, instead worshiping the void itself, taken from Lemm's comments on the Void Idol:

Inspired or mad, those ancient bugs. They devoted their worship to no lord, or power, or strength, but to the very darkness itself.

Lemm is not the most reliable of source, but this is supported by the Abyss statue that holds the void bowl when the Knight dream nails it before acquiring the Void Heart:

...Void... Power... Without unity...

Void here is considered a power, but without unity void becomes nothing more than a writhing pool of liquid with some very interesting properties. Now, I have seen it argued that void has a mind of it's own due to some of these properties, but the game actively tells us that it does not. The original description for the Hall of Gods reward statue depicting the Embrace the Void form used to read ‘Void Given Mind’, but ‘Mind’ was quickly changed to ‘Focus’ in a patch. This makes it clear that Team Cherry wants to avoid the association of void having a mind, at least when it comes to an ‘untarnished’ entity. So what causes that weird mind-like behavior? Well, lets talk about what it naturally does first. Void is naturally adverse to light, this is evidenced by a lore tablet found in the king's void workshop:

VOID, yours is the power opposed.

The king is a being of light, so it makes sense for him to consider it opposed to him. It is also evidenced by the lighthouse in the Abyss being used to suppress the void sea, preventing it from lashing out. Void also consumes soul, evidenced by the apparent need for the lighthouse keeper to be kept supplied with the stuff (though most bugs cannot utilize it for spells, if a bug were to become low on soul this may be a way to top up without the use of a hot spring), but also naturally shown by the Knight's capabilities (this could also be attributed to their status as a higher being) and how the shade cloak consumes soul projectiles that pass through it. The soul totems built by the civilization who worshiped the void are another possible avenue of evidence, they were likely constructed from void in its solid form and are used to contain soul. As soul is said to be found in the air, it's possible these totems would be able to extract it as well. From the Deep Focus charm description:

Naturally formed within a crystal over a long period. Draws in SOUL from the surrounding air.

Going back to the Abyss lighthouse, the strongest piece of evidence for the void having its own mind comes from the lighthouse keeper's dream nail dialogue:

...Turn it off?... Cannot...

My King. I'm sorry... The sea calls...

It is apparent that the void had exerted its will over this bug, but here I get into the most important property of void: void is impressionable. Void starts empty but it does not necessarily stay this way, the king used molds to shape void to his will for the creation of the kingsmoulds and wingmoulds, but it can do this organically as well. The most obvious example of this is the Hollow Knight who was "tarnished by an idea instilled", which is strongly hinted to be the bond formed between it and the king. A more extreme example of this exists in the Collector, a seemingly rogue, armourless kingsmould who for whatever reason spent a lot of time around another bug who imprinted upon it. Evidence for this comes from the dream nail dialogue of the husk you find the Love Key on:

Too long... spent together. We become as one...

This is all evidence for void being shaped by others, so what of the lighthouse keeper? Well, this bug was in the unfortunate situation of being right next to an ocean of the stuff. Husks found in proximity to void have void in their eyes, giving evidence that the void manages to get inside of them. Although usually it's just a small amount it is enough to kill them, and in this case, also influence them. Void is opposed to light - void vapor infiltrates the mind - void tells bug to turn the light off.

Okay that was a bit of a tangent but back on topic. After the Knight acquires the Void heart it gains control over the void. Shades no longer attack, tendrils no longer lash out and the Abyss statue changes its dream nail dialogue:

...Lord of Shades...

Furthermore, Bardoon has this to say:

Ohhhmmmm... Tiny thing... It evolves beyond that Wyrm. Such union in a single being. A strength before unseen. Would it too challenge nature? It could perhaps defeat it.

Pretty much everyone agrees that the Wyrm is a god, so if the Knight has truly evolved beyond the Wyrm, that should make it a god at this point as well. Gods in Hollow Knight are not very clear-cut from other bugs, they tend to be more powerful and longer lived, but still remain mortal and vulnerable to the ravages of time (at least when in the physical realm) and physical harm. The Godseekers in particular muddy the water on what can be considered a "god", but even without them there is a contrast in power between the higher beings. Despite not gaining any additional physical prowess, the Knight attaining godhood at this point, particularly as it was already the offspring of higher beings, would not be a far-fetched concept.

So if it is already a god, why did the Godseekers not notice? Because they weren't looking for it. The Godseekers attune through the dream realm by connecting to the minds of bugs, but the Knight is mindless. The Godseekers were only able to find the Hollow Knight because of the Radiance within:

O Gods of Hallownest, graciously thee open the way to this greatest of Pantheons! Thy voices grow closer and thy resonance draws Us ever higher!

Pray will We, Attune will We, until that spark of divine light shines from the deepest darkness!

And still they fear it for its silence:

O bound one, thy silence nearly deafens Us. Foolishly we feared thee, yet only by thine providence shall We find the one We seek. The God sleeping within...

Which is their deepest fear of all, taken from the tuner memory dream nail dialogue:

What gods, to save Us of Our silent mind?

So where am I going with this? Well if the Knight was already a god, then why should its behavior change so dramatically just because it gained a bigger, scarier form? I want to bring attention now to the Dream No More ending. The start of the cutscene that plays during this ending is very similar to the void breaking out of the Godseeker during the Embrace the Void ending, but here it comes from the Black Egg instead. If the scene had cut before showing the void dripping down from the lanterns then anyone would be forgiven for fearing the worst, but it doesn't. After the Black Egg dissolves into void, we see a pool of void disappear from around Hornet, then Hornet wakes up alive and unscathed. Why doesn't it consume her? Because the Knight is in control of it. Later, we see the siblings in the Abyss peacefully returning to their rest, giving us a bitter-sweet ending.

Now to add onto this i'm going to start analyzing the Knight's character. Not much direct characterization is given besides ‘it is empty’, and obviously everyone's Knight is going to act differently depending on how it is played, but there is characterization that can be inferred. Firstly, from what the Knight does regardless of what we want it to do. The Knight always slows to a walk when around Dirtmouth, NPCs and certain sites of significance, I interpret this as it being respectful (interestingly it also slows down around the Radiance statue at the top of Hallownest's Crown, so it seems to understand the religious significance of the site even though it is opposed to the deity). Also in this category are the endings, one of which I've already gone into and i'll get to Embrace the Void and Delicate Flower later. Next would be actions the player can chose to perform, and most players will for gameplay reasons. These include saving Sly, saving Bretta, freeing the grubs and placing the Grey Mourner's delicate flower on her dead lover's grave site. Lastly are choices you get that you don't have to follow and there is no benefit to doing so, these would include giving flowers to other NPCs and sitting beside Quirrel at the Blue Lake, and Marissa at the Pleasure House. The Knight is also a rather aggressive character, but with a few exceptions it only attacks creatures who are infected or insane. The exceptions to this would be if it is attacked first (Hornet, Dung Defender) if it challenges a boss to combat (Mantis Lords), is requested to attack (Nailsmith), it enters a non-lethal dream fight, or the one being attacked really deserved it (Millibelle).

The Knight is not incapable of performing bad actions however. It can leave Zote to die to the Vengefly King (though it cannot kill Zote actively), it can cause Hornet to be trapped with it inside the Black Egg, it can dream nail away passive ghosts and the worst crime of all - it can murder Menderbug! On balance however, the Knight is a generally benevolent character.

I think it's time to address the Vessels in the room, literally - the cutscene you see after completing the Pantheon of the Knight for the first time. This one is strange, it depicts the siblings as though they are alive alongside the Knight and young Hollow Knight before an exchange occurs - the Radiance roars, her light is revealed above, and then the void rises up to meet her. What is odd about this scene is that the Knight can see it without having the Void Heart, but I think I have an explanation for it. When the Knight defeats the Pure Vessel for the first time it becomes attuned with it, by proxy of relation this attunes it with the minds of its other siblings as well. in Godhome, characters attuned within the dream are represented in living form unless they become "gods" while dead, such as the dream warriors and various animated husk bosses. The Knight seeing the siblings together, followed by the void rising up to pursue the Radiance is an indication that they all share a common desire to snuff her out, even when the Knight doesn't have control over them. This can be taken as evidence that the shades are a part of the Shade Lord but I do not think this is the case. As mentioned above, characters attuned to the Godhome enter in best form and none of these siblings are attuned as shades, so they show up in Vessel form (The Hollow Knight presumably shows up in this second form only due to the Knight's attunement with it). Furthermore, no shades show up to assist the Knight in defeating the Radiance at the peak of the Pantheon of Hallownest, meaning the Shade Lord could only be composed of the Knight and the raw void you see rising up during the fight.

So now for the Embrace the Void ending itself. Upon defeating the Radiance we see the Shade Lord descend from above and wrap the Godseeker up in void tendrils, then the scene cuts to her physical body leaking void before the void bursts out of her violently. We cannot know exactly what the entity was doing here, but it's likely that embracing the Godseeker was a means for it to escape into the physical world. The Godseeker does not seem to be afraid of the Shade Lord but rather in awe of it, and there is evidence that despite how devastating its emergence appears, like with Hornet, she survived the ordeal:

Punish this shell, o God of Gods! Blast Our frail, worthless form to ash. We welcome thine fury! Desire beyond desire!

This dialogue is taken from the Godseeker game mode which is set after the Embrace the Void ending, she also thinks this in dream nail dialogue:

We bequeath our all. Our shell. Our mind. We are naught but vassal before thee, o glorious God of Gods!

The Godseekers are a collective hive-mind contained within the body of a single individual. The Godseeker you interact with in Godhome is the lead Godseeker and her shell is her own, so when she refers to ‘Our’ shell she is almost certainly referring to the physical shell they all share. Unless the Godseekers have lost all touch with reality and now only exist within the dream, this indicates that they still have a living body. Although their attitude towards the Knight has shifted... dramatically, they still appear to be perfectly aware of everything that is happening.

After the above mentioned scene we see Hornet watching the infection wither from the Black Egg temple, and then she is startled by the emergence of the Hollow Knight, now free from it's restraints. The Hollow Knight being alive as its own entity serves as further evidence that the Shade Lord is not composed of the siblings shown in the Pantheon of the Knight cutscene, as the young Hollow Knight was a part of that. At the end of this scene, the player gains the Embrace the Void achievement which has the description ‘Ascend the Pantheon of Hallownest and take your place at its peak’. Your place, it is the Knight specifically who is at the peak.

Possible counter points:

You cannot leave Godhome in Godseeker mode, which could be taken as evidence that Hallownest was destroyed. The Knight's physical form has been irreversibly altered, however just like Godseeker their dream form can be different, so they can only exist as the Knight within the dream world now.

Why did the Embrace the Void ending cut away from Godseeker when it did if not to imply something terrible happening? Dramatic effect, uncertainty, possibly you are meant to draw parallels with the Dream No More ending yourself. I'm only here to shed doubt on the Shade Lord being a malevolent entity, not to definitely state that nothing bad will happen.

Why can the Knight bring the Godseeker a delicate flower if not to protect Hallownest from what would emerge? The Knight doesn't know anything about the delicate flowers, as mentioned in dialogue from the White Lady:

There is rare power hidden in those frail petals.

To hold it so close, one must surely be unaware of its nature...

It is my belief that up until this point the Knight had been protected from the flower's power by its ‘holy shell’ born from the White Lady and Pale King. Upon shedding this shell and becoming one with the void, the flower reacts by banishing the Shade Lord along with the Godseeker who still harbors it.

What about the roar of the Shade Lord we hear in the scene after the Pantheon of the Knight? If it hadn't been pointed out to me that this was a roar and not just the noise of the void rising up I wouldn't have even noticed honestly. You have to take information found in the game files with a grain of salt, this can be foreshadowing or the ‘voice’ of void even when not united, though void having a ‘voice’ at all is a rather contradictory idea...

So in conclusion, given what we can extrapolate about the Shade Lord and the nature of the player character, I don't think there is good enough evidence for it to become a malevolent entity within Hallownest. Thank you for reading and please tell me if I've missed anything!

Tl;DR: Bill is the Knight, Bill is a cool guy, please don't be scared of Bill.

[lighthearted-science]

Arcturian Group Message

via Marilyn Raffaele -  JULY 12, 2020 onenessofall.com

Dear readers, we bring with our message a great deal of love and respect for we are well aware of how difficult things have become for so many. Remember that present times represent a large part of the journey you yourself chose for helping to create a new and better world. You are right where you are supposed to be at this time even if it doesn’t seem that way according to three dimensional standards.

The silence, the isolation, and the ceasing of that keeps people hypnotized, unaware, and always frantically looking outside of themselves for their good, is serving to awaken many who have never before taken time to look within and honestly examine their and the world’s belief system.

The basic structure of most three dimensional creations must first dissolve before reappearing in a higher form. This is what the world is now experiencing. The chaos will not last forever because manifested three dimensional concepts have no law to support or hold them in place without the energy of belief in them. As more and more awaken, these old creations will simply no longer have the substance necessary to keep them in place.

You have awakened and now understand that everyone including yourself, has always been and always will be Divine Consciousness in physical form. However, over time individualized expressions of the One Divine Consciousness became polluted, conditioned, and manipulated through the acceptance of duality and separation as reality and thus creating the “human condition”.

You now know who and what you are and thus it is time to cease judging or criticizing yourselves for actions taken in a previous state of consciousness. Accept the truth of your Divine Nature and stop dragging debris from the past front and center to moan about and regret in the false belief that this is spiritual humility. You are now able to see things from a higher perspective, so you must cease living from familiar but outgrown programming in order to “fit in” or please someone.

Many things taking place seem horrendous when seen with enlightened eyes, but do not allow yourself to get sucked into (align with) the negative and fear based information that constantly bombards you from news and politics. Also, be aware that there are some channels that do not reflect a high level of Light and that just because they are channels, they are truth. Channels can rise no higher than the consciousness of the one doing the channel. Always trust and be guided by your intuition in these matters. Be informed but not immersed– spiritual observers informed and aware, but able to withhold adding energy to appearances.

Understand that many “victims” chose their experiences as part of their evolutionary journey. Sometimes it is a necessary karmic resolution experience that they are ready to complete. A spiritually evolved soul may plan a life experience that will place him/her exactly where their experience will force others to awaken. These brave souls chose to assist the ascension process in ways they themselves choose but did not personally need for soul growth. Other times these types of experiences are simply on the “bucket list” of an individual who needs the experience for growth and learning.

It is not always the case, but examples could be that of the cruel slave owner who on the other side realized his need for energetic balance and greater understanding chooses to reincarnate in a black body. A person who killed and persecuted Native Americans 200 years ago may choose to experience life as a Native American living on a poor reservation. In spite of appearances, everything is perfect.

Energy is always seeking to align with ITself as the completeness and wholeness of ONE .

Knowing these things does not mean you ignore where there is some human need, but means you remember that there is a bigger picture happening that most as of yet do not know about. Stay centered in the realization that higher dimensional frequencies of Oneness are integrating into the collective at this time, exposing and bringing about the outer events. All is proceeding according to plan.

Chaos will continue to reign for awhile as the new collective consciousness struggles to be born. Let go of all programmed fear dear ones, and accept that you are right where you need to be at this time. Stand back, allow the process, and trust. As Divine Consciousness individualized, you need do nothing but hold to truth and allow IT to guide as you go about the ordinary “human” activities of daily living which then become not so much “doing” but rather “be-ing”.

You knew on a deeper level that present times were going to take place but you still chose to be here because you knew that the intense energies would allow you the opportunity to clear any remaining karmic imbalances, old cellular memory, and allow you to shift into a higher state of consciousness while in a physical body.

Look within for any remaining power you may still give to some person, place, or thing. Replace it with the realization nothing in the outer has power because there is only One Power, and that Power is omnipresent, omnipotent, and omniscient. This Power is you. Not your humanhood, not the Mary, John, or Bill, you believed yourself to be, but the real YOU. Hold this sacred truth foremost in your head and heart whenever you are tempted to give power to someone or something in the outer.

The reality of you is Divine Consciousness and until you can accept this and allow it to become your state of consciousness you will remain in and continue to experience old energy. It is time to step away from all old programing instilled into you by family, friends, religions, politics, schooling, military, or any authority figures regardless of how fully you may have at one time accepted or even still accept some of it.

This doesn’t mean that every law, rule, and all information at this time is wrong, it simply means to re-examine your current belief system about these things and begin to bring your beliefs into alignment with a higher expression of these things.

Know that forms of duality and separation consciousness can only ever be illusory pictures in the mind, concepts of whatever spiritual reality underlies them for you cannot make something out of nothing. Pictures of sense manifest in alignment with the state of consciousness of the individual and or collective. So called “good” pictures are no more real or better than “bad” ones. This is why things rot and disappear when the reality of them is no longer present.

There is only God and IT is, always has been, and always will continue manifesting ITself in and as all life. There is only ONE LIFE and that ONE LIFE can never be ended, manipulated, changed, or eliminated regardless of appearances to the contrary. This ONE LIFE is forever expressing Itself in and as infinite form and variety.

Protect, love, and honor all life in the realization that because there is only ONE and thus what you do to others you do to yourself. Everyone draws to themselves whatever energies they are in alignment with. Again, ONE automatically seeks alignment with the wholeness of ITSelf.

This information always brings forth the topic of abortion. We will not get into this today only to say that a soul doesn’t not fully enter at the time of conception as so many believe, but rather goes in and out often deciding if this is a right choice or not and frequently not fully integrating until birth.

The energy is allowing those ready and willing to move into a higher dimensional state of consciousness. The choice to accept the process is and always will be an individual free will choice but the choice is now. Now, not down the road, not after you feel a little more holy, not after you read a certain book or take another class, make pilgrimage to some holy site, or no longer curse and get angry.

The time is now dear ones, to know, accept. and thus consciously become that which you have always been.

We are the Arcturian Group 7/12/20

Donations are welcomed

[shilkaren]

How Do I Start My Data Science Career?

    I would say that my data science learning path was fairly traditional. I did my undergrad in economics and have master’s degrees in global commerce and computer science (concentration in machine learning and artificial intelligence). I learned my business acumen from my coursework during my commerce degree and picked up most of the technical elements from my master’s in CS. I had a data science internship, and I was on my way. Looking back, there was nothing wrong with my path, but knowing what I do now, what would I change about my learning journey? This question is particularly relevant for people that are new to the field. Many things have changed since I started. Positions are more competitive and there are far more learning options. I would hope that my experience could help others learn data science faster, more completely, and give them better job opportunities.

    I will caveat this article by saying that learning is a little bit different for everyone. My word is not gospel, and there is a good chance that you will find something that works a little bit better for you. Still, I hope this is a good foundation from which to build off. I hope it instills in you the big picture priorities that are relevant when learning this field. This article focuses more on how to learn than on where to learn (courses, boot camps, degrees, etc.). I recommend these two articles for specific courses and online resources for learning the field.

If I had to start learning Data Science again, how would I do it? (Santiago Viquez Segura)

My Self-Created Artificial Intelligence Masters Degree (Daniel Bourke)

For Those Who Would Prefer The Video Version:

Lesson 1: Break it down

    When I first started learning data science I was overwhelmed with the size of the field. I had to learn programming languages and concepts from statistics, linear algebra, calculus, etc. When I was confronted with this many options, I didn’t know where to start. Fortunately for me, I had coursework to guide my studies. The degrees that I did broke down many of the concepts into smaller chunks (classes) so they were digestible. While this worked for me, I find that schools have a one-size-fits-all approach to this. They also include many extraneous classes that you don’t actually need. If I could go back, I could definitely break my data science learning journey into chunks better suited for me. Before diving into data science, it makes sense to understand the components that are used in the field. Rather than breaking things into “courses”, you can make data science into even smaller and more digestible chunks. I generally break data science into programming and math. Programming — familiarity with Python and/or R

Variables

Loops

Functions

Objects

Packages (pandas, NumPy, matplotlib, sklearn, TensorFlow, PyTorch, etc.)

Math Statistics

Probability theory

Regression (linear, multiple linear, ridge, lasso, random forest, SVM, etc.)

Classification (naive Bayes, knn, decision tree, random forest, SVM, etc.)

Clustering (k means, hierarchical)

Linear Algebra Calculus By breaking data science down into its components, you transform it from being an abstract concept into concrete steps.

Lesson 2: Start somewhere

    When I was starting out, I was obsessed with learning things in the “correct” sequence. After entering the field, I found that many data scientists learned their skills in drastically different orders. I met Ph.D.’s that had studied math first, and only learned the programming concepts after taking a Bootcamp. I also met software engineers that were incredible programmers and learned math later through self-study and application.I now realize that it is most important to start somewhere, preferably with a topic you are interested in. I found that learning is additive. If you learn one thing, you are not forgoing learning another concept.     If I had to go back, I would start with the concepts that were most interesting for me at the time. Once you learn a single concept, you can build on that knowledge to understand others. For example, if you learn a simple linear regression, multiple linear regression is a fairly easy step. Still, I probably wouldn’t jump right in and start with deep learning. It helps to start small and simple and build on that foundation.

Lesson 3: Build Minimum Viable Knowledge (MVK)

    Over time, I’ve had a change of opinion about how much foundational knowledge you need. After experiencing many different types of learning myself, I believe that learning by doing real-world projects is the most effective way to grasp a field. I think that you should understand just enough of these concepts to be able to start exploring your own projects. This is where minimum viable knowledge comes into play. You should start by learning just enough to be able to learn through doing. This stage is fairly hard to identify. Generally, you will feel like you aren’t ready when you first get here. This is a good thing though, it means that you are pushing yourself out of your comfort zone. You can reach this stage fairly easily. I think you can get to this level of knowledge with every introductory online course, and I generally recommend the micro-courses at kaggle.com. To get to this step, all you really need to understand is the basics of python or R and have a familiarity with the packages used. You can start learning math later by applying some of the algorithms to real-world data.

Lesson 4: Get your hands dirty

    With your basic knowledge, I recommend getting into projects as quickly as possible. Again, this sounds scary, but a project is all about how you define it.     At the early stages, a project could be something as simple as experimenting with a for a loop. As you progress, you can graduate to projects using data on Kaggle, and eventually using data that you have collected. I am a HUGE believer that the best way to learn data science is to do data science. I think that the theory is VERY important, but no one says that you have to understand it all before you start applying it. The theory is something you can go back to after you have a functional understanding of the algorithms. For me, real-world examples were always what made things click. If you start with the real-world examples through projects, I think things have a far higher chance of things “clicking” when you start learning the theory. Projects also have the power to make data science smaller. One of the biggest challenges I see for new learners is that the field of data science can be overwhelming. Confining the things you are learning to the size of a small project allows you to break things down even further than you did in Lesson 1. Projects offer one additional benefit. They give you immediate feedback on where you need to improve. If you are working on a project and you run into a roadblock about what package, algorithm, or visual to use, you now know that you should probably study that area of the field further.

Lesson 5: Learn from other people’s code

    While doing your own projects is great, sometimes you don’t know what you don’t know. I highly recommend going through the code of more experienced data scientists to get ideas about what to learn next and to better understand logic or syntax. On Kaggle and GitHub there are thousands (maybe millions) of kernels where people have shared the code that they used to analyze datasets. Going through these is a great way to complement your projects. I recommend making a list of the packages, algorithms, and visuals that you see being used. You should go to the documentation for the packages and expand your knowledge there. They almost always have examples in the docs for how they should be used. Again, this list can be used to help you think of new project ideas and experiments.

Lesson 6: Build algorithms from scratch

    This is a rite of passage for most data scientists. After you have applied an algorithm and understand how it works in practice, I recommend trying to code it from scratch. This helps you to better understand the underlying math and other mechanisms that make it work. When doing this, you will undoubtedly have to learn the theory behind it as well. I personally think that learning in this direction is far more intuitive than trying to master the theory and then apply it. This is the approach that fastai has taken with their free MOOC. I highly recommend it if you are interested in deep learning. For this, I generally recommend starting with linear regression. This will help you to better understand gradient descent, which is an extremely important concept to build on. As you advance your data science career further, I think theory becomes increasingly important. You bring value by matching the correct algorithm to the problem. The theory associated with the algorithm greatly facilitates this process.

Lesson 7: Never stop learning

    The beauty of the data science journey is that it never ends. You will need to keep learning to stay on top of new packages and advancements in the field. I recommend doing this through (you guessed it) more projects. I also recommend continuing with the code review and reading new research that is published. This is more of a mindset recommendation than anything practical. If you think that there is a pinnacle, you are in for a surprise!

Insideaiml is one of the best platforms where you can learn Python, Data Science, Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence & showcase your knowledge to the outside world.

[littlemisssquiggles]

I was watching Phoenix/Night’s chapter 11 review video, he had ideas of what’d happened to Oscar. One of them was that maybe he was able to get away from Neo and try to run away from her but he wasn’t fast enough to get away and somehow got captured by her. I assume that Neo took him to the Vault of the Relic of Creation where I assume the Oscar vs Neo fight is gonna happen. I believe it’s gonna parallel the Raven vs Cinder fight in V5, a fight for the two relics. What do you think about that?

Hey Chels. Hmm…I’m not sure about the vault part, fam.

Even if Neo managed to take Oscarhostage, why would she take him down to the Vault of the Winter Maiden? As faras the audience is aware of, Neo (and by extension Cinder) doesn’t know thewhereabouts of the Vault within Atlas Academy. Nor is she aware that Oscarknows about it either. While I agree with the part about a potential fight downin the Vault, I doubt it’ll be between Oscar and Neo. For me, I’m moreexpecting Oscar and Ironwood to have a confrontation either down in the Vaultor on the way to the Vault. My assumption is that Ironwood went down to theVault and is probably waiting for Winter to join him down there once she’sclaimed Fria’s power. That way Winter would open the Vault for Ironwood so thathe could use the staff’s power to hoist Atlas Kingdom into the orbit; removingthe kingdom and its citizens from Remnant.

However, my presumption on whatmight really end up happening is one of the following few concepts--

Ironwood will be waiting down in theVault for Winter only for Cinder to show up instead to challenge him for theStaff. A fight then breaks out however Ironwood is unfortunately overpowered byCinder who had the strength of two Maidens on her side after successfullyclaiming Fria’s power for herself; confirming much to Ironwood’s despair thatWinter Schnee---his right hand and top operative---had been killed by one ofSalem’s very own. Cinder then goes to kill Ironwood but he’s saved from neardeath by Oscar and Ruby arriving down in the Vault. Oscar then instructs Rubyto take the injured Ironwood to safety while he tries and stop Cinder fromtaking the Staff. A fight then breaks out between Oscar and Cinder, rekindlingthe fateful rematch us Pineheads have been itching for.

The alternative to this is Ironwoodwaiting for Winter down in the Vault but Oscar shows up. Since the othersalerted him of the General’s intentions, Oscar attempts to talk some sense toJames but at this point he’s too far gone. He won’t listen to reason. He eventrains his gun on Oscar. But just as it appears as if the two were going toclash, Cinder arrives down in the Vault to claim the Relic.

As a third alternative, Ironwoodgoes down to the Vault to wait for Winter. But as he enters the vault he isbemused to discover a narcissistic Cinder Fall already waiting there for himwith the corpse of Winter Schnee in one hand and the remains of a dismantledPenny Polendina in another which she wickedly lays at Ironwood’s feet; as if togloat of her accomplishments. A fight ensues between the two. At this time,Ruby and Oscar arrive at the Vault in an attempt to stop Ironwood. But as thetwo Rosebuds arrive down the Vault they are met by Cinder who has alreadysucceeded in gaining the Relic of Creation. With the staff in her hand, thingsget a bit topsy-turvy as Atlas begins to fall out of the sky as a result of thestaff’s removal leading to Oscar and Ruby to fight gravity and a dual-powered MaidenCinder for the Staff as a means of stopping the collapse.

Those are just a few ideas I have. Eitherway, my headcanon remains that Oscar willbe the one to fight Cinder in the end. I have a feeling that V7 endgamecould parallel V3 with Oscar sending his allies away to safety while he staysbehind to prevent Cinder from claiming the Relic of Creation. This way I canimagine Oscar embodying both Ozpin and Pyrhha--ensuring that his friends---thepeople he cared for and whose lives he was more or less entrusted with---madeit out alive before moving forward to do whatever he could to stop Cinder; evenif it meant sacrificing his own life to stop her. The last time, a Wizard ofLight challenged Fall Maiden Cinder, they lost. The last time Oz stood up toCinder, she killed him and that was back when she only had one Maiden power.

Somehow I kinda like the concept of Oscar challenging Cinder and avenging Ozpinby being the one to put a stop to Cinder. I don’t know what the CRWBYWriters’ plans for Cinder are. But in the event that V7 is to be her final curtain call, I feel like it wouldbe fitting if Oscar was the one tofinally do so.

@moondrop04, I know I told you Ididn’t like the idea of Oscar sacrificing himself for his friends. However I’vehad more time to think about it and now I can actually picture it beingsomething Oscar would do as a testament to his bravery. This doesn’t mean thatI think Oscar will die though. Nah. If anything I expect Oscar to fight Cinderand survive. I like the idea of Oscar sacrificing himself to try and stopCinder just like Oz. Who knows? Perhaps,in a similar fashion to V3 with Pyrhha, Rubyends up going down to the Vault just in time to find Cinder about to kill Oscar. At first she suffersdifficulty to summon forth her Silver Eye power as a result of the fear Saleminstilled in her in regards to her mother’s death by her hands. It’s a momentwhere Ruby finds it impossible toclear her mind long enough to think of positive thoughts to protect everyone.So in that moment, Ruby does the just thing. She basically emulates the advicethat Other Dimension Peter Parker gave to Miles Morale about becoming a hero inSpiderman: Into the Spider-verse.

“…Youcan’t always just think about saving everyone. You have to think about saving atleast one person first.” 

Or something alongthose lines since I’m paraphrasing here. Sobasically that’s what Ruby does. She thinksabout Oscar; how much he’s proven to care about her and their team sincethey met and the way he made her feel. Because in that moment, Ruby wasn'ttrying to save everyone. All she wanted to accomplish in that moment was protectingOscar. Because in that moment, saving him was all that mattered and she was notabout to let Cinder Fall kill another friend she loved ever again.

Soin a nutshell, Ruby is able to summon her Silver Eyes at full blast which issuper effective again Cinder who shrinks back from being exposed to the light.As Cinder lunges for Ruby, she is finished by Oscar who lands the final killingblow. Imagine if… crystalized stalactites with the the Vault. Perhaps Oscar could use the magic of the Long Memory to cause oneof the stalactites to fall on top of Cinder, crushing her before she could getto Ruby.

Notsure how to feel about Oscar killing someone, even if it is a villain. I don’twish for a repeat of what transpired with Bumblebee last season with AdamTaurus now with the RosegardeningRosebuds. I’m not even sure if Cinder will actually be killed off. I’mstill waiting to see what the PLOT does with her especially since we’resupposed to learn more about her backstory at some point for this arc trilogy.Regardless, still wanted to toss the idea on the table.

As I said to @daggerpawstudios inanother, I’m starting to like the idea of Oscar trying to get away from Neo. Soin that regard, I agree with Phoenix/Night. However where I deviate is that Ilike the idea of Oscar not being kidnapped at all. My headcanon is that Oscarsuccessfully escaped Neo’s attempt at taking the Relic off of him and iscurrently somewhere else on Atlas premises trying to get as far away from Neoas possibly. However V6 highlighted Neo being able to mask objects with hersemblance (as she did with Mistral airship), my idea is that currently Neo haspoor Oscar trapped in an illusion where he’s been attempting to find an exithowever Neo has disguised all the exits as dead ends, making Oscar think he wastrapped with no way out and with no way of getting in contact with his comradessince Ironwood locked off communication within the hero group.

I like this concept since it’s aninteresting way to show off Neo’s cunningness as a villain while additionallytesting Oscar’s resolve. I dig the idea of Neo messing with Oscar psychologicallythrough her illusions, making him believe he was all alone trapped in a maze ofher creation with no way of finding his friends. 

What’s more terrifying is thatNeo could also disguise herself as any of Oscar’s female allies, inclusive ofRuby. Oscar wouldn’t know where to turn and who to trust since, in Neo’sillusion, he wouldn’t know what’s fake from reality.

It’s cool since it provides an opendoor for Oz to return and guide Oscar in the same manner as he did back inArgus. Not to mention that it also provides an opportunity for Ren to debut hisevolved semblance. 

Imagine if…JNR hasbeen trying to find Oscar too but Neo’s illusion winds up confusing them aswell and keeping them from reaching Oscar until Ren reveals a new ability thathe’d been developing all season where he can possibly locate Oscar’swhereabouts by locking onto his emotions specifically. 

I really do that have afeeling that Ren might play a role in finding Oscar; especially in the eventthat he’s stuck inside an illusion that’s keeping him trapped inside and anyoneelse trying to find him outside. 

I like this concept a lot and I think I’llkeep that as my main hunch for RWBY V7CH12 until the episode debuts.

~LittleMissSquiggles (2020)

[hall-of-merlin2]

Magic, Monsters and Merthur - 1x03 - (Merthur)

I see what the people want, I give the people what they want.

Loads, loads, and holy fuck how much character content can there be in one episode???!!!

A lot.

A whole frickin lot.

<_><_><_>

“Dad? her’es your sandwich.”

“Mmm, what’s in it?”

“It’s smoked pigeon, but I’d say there’s more smoke than pigeon.”

***

“And I’ve done you some watercress soup tonight.”

“Don’t tell me... With more water in it than cress?”

03:02

This is just… This is so frickin’ adorable. They’re both cuties, and I will declare now that “cutie” is the highest praise a character can get.

A new list is born, except we’re not comparing Cuties, we’re just all getting mushy over them.

<_><_><_>

03:45

AWH!

This is such obvious flirting! Even more obvious than Arthur and Merlin, I daresay, but then it went nowhere because someone suddenly realized that Gwen needed to end up with Arthur. I wish whoever it was that they didn’t.

(JUST LOOK AT THEIR SMILES THEY’RE SO FRICKING ADORABLE)

<_><_><_>

04:10

Okay, so I’m not the biggest Morgwen shipper, but…

Come on! This really is sweet!

(And can you blame Morgana for falling for Gwen? Just look at that Cutie’s smile!)

<_><_><_>

04:40

And on the flipside we have Arthur “I’ll come all the way out to this tower that’s directly opposite everything else just to give you a message by myself and not let another servant or guard do it for me” Pendragon.

Both Pendragons really are completely gone for their servants.

<_><_><_>

04:48

I like Gaius’ face though.

He looks like he’s one second away from shaking his head and looking at Merlin in that look that’s just so exasperated at Merlin taking everyone’s hearts on his first week.

<_><_><_>

05:02

Gaius: Has a point.

Merlin: :O

Merlin: >:(

<_><_><_>

05:08

YA’LL WANNA TALK ABOUT SOMEONE ICONIC-

<_><_><_>

“But not all magic is bad. I know it isn’t!”

“It’s neither good nor bad. It’s how you use it.”

07:50

The first version of the “Evil lies in the hearts of men” line.

So, once again, YA’LL WANNA TALK ABOUT SOMEONE ICONIC-

<_><_><_>

08:40

OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

-aaaaaaaaa, nah. It’s just Arthur getting back at Merlin for “Being late”.

What a different episode THAT would have been…

<_><_><_>

09:38

Arthur uses a snappy tone.

(Almost an accusation.)

But Gaius is having none of it.

And Arthur immediately SITS THE FUCK DOWN.

God, imagine how Arthur would have turned out if Gaius wasn’t there to “occasionally” remind Arthur that he will not be taking his shit and he can get off that pedestal now.

YA’LL WANNA TALK ABOUT SOMEONE ICONIC-

Okay okay I’m gonna stop.

Gaius has earned the Cutie award.

Welcome to the big leagues!

<_><_><_>

Are you mad? Merlin, your life’s destined for more important things.

But what if I don’t practice, then how will I get to be this… Great Warlock?!

There will come a time when your skills will be recognized.

*Frustrated noises* When?! How long do I have to wait?!

Patience is a virtue, Merlin.

Oh sitting by and doing nothing, that’s a virtue?

*Raises ladle* Your time. Will come.

I point this out a few episodes later, but this is the real difference between Gaius and Kilgharrah.

Both of their goals are to get Merlin to fulfill “his destiny”. Kilgharrah may know more of what his “destiny” actually is, but Gaius has no clue. He truly has no reason to believe that Merlin is “one side of a coin” or that Arthur is important in his “destiny”, he just sees how powerful Merlin is.

He also sees just how eager Merlin is to use his magic. How he understands the more complex concepts of magic and knows how to use it, and has quite the moral compass, that Merlin is actually prepared for “his destiny” or “doing good”, but he also sees what a hothead Merlin is, how quickly he jumps from one thought to another, how little he thinks at all once he gets something into his head. Gaius knows that whatever Merlin’s “destiny” is, he could probably handle it with what he’s already taught him, but he also knows that this thing is not “it”. And realizing that Merlin still has to wait, knowing how disinterested he actually is in that, he tries to get Merlin to power through this time. He tries to instill this “hope” into him, that he will be great, that he will be free, that he will be fine and that he just has to endure, and not kill everybody along the way.

The intent is good. And I think Merlin realizes this later, but at this stage, Merlin is still not used to sitting still. I don’t think he ever is, he’s just become more clever about it.

Also… Please enjoy yet another perfectly timed screencap.

He look happy.

<_><_><_>

What’s different about this victim?

Uh… She’s a woman!

…

Sometimes I do wonder if your magical talents were given to the right person.

12:10

Gaius is so fuckin done XD

Ahhh okay. Gaius gets the Snarky Cutie award. This will be competed for, let’s see who holds it the longest.

<_><_><_>

So what’s the thing they do share?

Uh… Water.

*Encouraging pen pointing*

Water. You think the disease is spread through water!

Merlin. You’re a prodigy.

12:45

Yeah… Gaius is keeping this award for a long time.

<_><_><_>

17:19

Oh… Oh my poor Merlin… My poor boy is reminded that he has no father to hug :(

Is that one of the reasons he acted so impulsively? Besides the obvious one, that he loves Gwen – but did Merlin cure Gwen’s father because he didn’t want Gwen to live without one, like he has?

Oh… Oh…

Oh my sweet precious sunshine, my heart just shattered.

MERLIN RECEIVES THE SELFLESS CUTIE AWARD. I DON’T THINK ANYONE WILL TAKE IT OFF HIM.

<_><_><_>

18:55

EPISODE 3 MAGIC REVEAL – THE DUO OF MERLIN AND GWEN, FUCKING SHIT UP SINCE MERLIN DECIDED TO COME TO CAMELOT.

WE DESERVED THIS.

“I’m psychic.”

*laughing* “No you’re not.”

“It’s true!”

“Alright, what am I thinking?”

“That I’m not psychic.”

*laughter* “You’re strange...

“I don’t mean that in a nasty way!

“You’re just... Funny.

“I like that.”

MY FUCKIN HEART.

THEY ARE BOTH SO ADORABLE!!!

THIS IS SO BLATANTLY OBVIOUS!

CUTIES OF THE HIGHEST CALIBER. THE ADORABLE CUTIES. THE MOST ADORABLE CUTIES TO EVER EXIST.

OH REALLY.

*loud screeching in the distance*

*sound of glass shattering*

NO THAT WAS MY HEART WHY DID YOU TAKE IT!

I MEAN CONGRATS YOU NOW HAVE IT! ARE YOU HAPPY?

I AM!

CUTIES!

<_><_><_>

“It’s too late. They think Gwen’s a sorceress, they think she caused the disease.”

“But she didn’t!”

22:25

By any means fucking necessary.

<_><_><_>

“I have seen the way the girl works. Her fingers are worn, her nails are broken.

“If she was a sorceress, why would she do this?!

“Why would she kneel on a cold stone floor morning after morning, when she could make these things happen with the snap of her fingers?

“Like an idle king.”

“You have no right!…”

“But you have the right to cast a judgment-!”

“I have a responsibility to take care of this kingdom!”

…

“I take no pleasure in this.” (AS FUCKING IF)

“But you are sentencing the wrong person!”

“She’s right, Father. You hear the word ‘magic’ and you no longer listen.”

“You saw it for yourself, she used enchantments.”

“Yes!… Maybe. But to save her dying father! That doesn’t make her guilty of creating a plague.

“One’s the act of kindness, of love, the other of evil – I don’t believe evil’s in this girl’s heart.”

“I have witnessed what witchcraft can do. I’ve suffered at its hand. I cannot take that chance.

If there is the slightest doubt about this girl she must die or the whole kingdom may perish.”

“I understand that…”

“One day you may become king… Then you will understand – such decisions must be made. There are dark forces that threaten this kingdom.”

“I know witchcraft is an evil, Father, so is injustice!”

24:25

God, Morgana and Arthur uniting against Uther for Gwen and Uther just ignoring what they’re saying and repeating the same “mAgIC iS eViL hUr DuR” bullshit.

Uther should have died sooner.

Like… this episode.

Morgana should have just snapped.

<_><_><_>

27:25

Gwen the martyr.

I can already imagine it. People at the execution whispering among themselves “She’s a witch?” “No way! She’s so kind!” “Rumors say she’s not.” “She’s not! It’s just the King again.” “But if she’s innocent, why?” “He’ll burn a frog if he thought it would help.” “That’s dumb. She doesn’t deserve to die!” “No, she does not.”

I can imagine everyone looking away, quietly letting their anger build up, but unable or not courageous enough to save her. I can imagine the people whispering to themselves when the guards are out of earshot, about how “The king is out of control”, “Her death stopped nothing!” and more. How that anger they thought they buried flares up. How it seeps through the cracks they left. How it makes them draw a knife, and plunge it into a guard’s neck. How if they felt guilty, everyone who called them a hero say that was one of Them who stood by and watched it. How that anger forms a community, how it brings people together. How the first time the chopping block is being assembled after Gwen’s death, people start talking. Who’s dying, for what reason…

How can they stop it?

A direct assault? A stealthy escape? An infiltration into the guard ranks? Maybe torches? Make bombs?

Anyone here know magic?

Oh, you do! That’s great.

Let’s kill the king.

As amazing as this sounds, Gwen would have had to die. One of the Adorable Cutie Award holders.

I will not condone that.

<_><_><_>

28:40

Do you think Arthur’s so convinced Merlin can’t have done it because of what happened with Valiant, Merlin exposing a sorcerer, therefore his own kin if this were true? Or because, as Morgana said about Gwen

“Why would she kneel on a cold stone floor morning after morning, when she could make these things happen with the snap of her fingers?”

Or because Arthur likes him just a little bit?

I think we all know what we want to believe.

<_><_><_>

“He’s in love.”

“...What?”

“With Gwen!”

“I am- not!”

“Yes you are.”

“No way-”

29:03

Oh boys…

<_><_><_>

“...Arthur’s not going to find it. He thinks he is… so sharp. But even when I told him I was a wizard – he still couldn’t see it.”

30:14

I don’t think Arthur noticing or not has anything to do with his intelligence, Merlin, just whether or not he’d like to see you burn :)

Also, Gaius.

“Sometimes it’s pretty hard to spot.”

“Maybe I should go around wearing a pointy hat.”

“I don’t think you’d find one big enough.”

That Award crown is staying firmly planted on his head.

<_><_><_>

32:16

Nope.

<_><_><_>

“We need to destroy [the afanc], then the plague will stop and Uther... may see sense.”

“And that’s why you need Arthur.”

“He’s our best chance.”

“But he won’t want to disobey the king.”

“Leave that to me.”

36:07

Morgana receives the Scheming Cutie Award! My girl knows what buttons to push to get men to listen to her and I think that’s very sexy of her.

<_><_><_>

36:35

Okay, both of these Cuties receive the True Sibling Cutie Awards. I don’t think there is anyone who can take their crown from them, unless…

The True part only means how accurately sibling dynamics are portrayed. Which opens up place for at least some competition!

Hahah! No one gets to have their Award forever.

(But everyone has permanent Cutie status.)

<_><_><_>

37:33

!!!

TRUST!!!

!!!

Merlin said what sounded like something made up, like he always does, but Arthur still goes in because he believes him!

(Yes yes Morgana’s influence may be there, like ‘Oh so you’re chickening out?’, but I THINK ONLY IN MERTHUR.

And I do that because it’s very scarce in this particular ep.)

<_><_><_>

38:01

I love this and all, but I can already think of a better way for Morgana to tell Arthur to stop being sexist.

Just pull out a fuckin sword.

Like… literally. Just from her dress. A knife maybe, but one that doesn’t look like it’s for a kid, a serious dagger that she could stab you with 50 times before you collapse from blood loss.

That’s a… Compliment to her swiftness, not… Not a comment on the dullness of the knife.

Morgana with a sword please!!!

<_><_><_>

43:19

Ah, the cop-out. The writers have committed a robbery.

(I do have to say that it is a masterful manipulation of our feelings. The first and then second episode was all about Merlin dealing with having magic and where to use it, trying to figure out his purpose and whatnot, and very strict repeats of “Do not let anyone else know, you will die”. There’s a reason Uther’s introduction is him killing an innocent sorcerer, and why Morgana is so angry at him about it. It’s establishing that Merlin revealing his magic to someone is a big deal, and it kind of is, so when we get cop-outs like these, we are dissatisfied, because Merlin revealing his magic is a positive thing, and we didn’t get this positive thing, so we are sad. And because this was hinted at, and we were already thinking of how it would look like, and we still do with the fics and stuff, we start to crave Merlin revealing his magic to those people that it was hinted at. To finally get that positive thing – that positive emotion.

This is probably more relevant when Lancelot comes by, since him being so casual about Merlin’s magic is yet more manipulation – it was only a possibility that Merlin revealing his magic is a positive, now it’s confirmed, and Lancelot becomes one of our favorite characters because of this positive thing attributed to him.

I can’t say it’s evil manipulation though, since first impressions do matter and every writer has this dilemma of how to introduce a character to associate some sort of emotion you want to invoke in people when they see them. Introductions are important, and we love or hate characters based on them, at least until learning more about them and then strengthening/changing our opinions of them. That’s why consistency is important, cause if it’s too far from the first impression, it feels odd and takes you out of the story and once you’re out of the story you start looking for more things to take you out and then you just start to hate that thing, and if someone has changed/strengthened their opinion because of one interaction, and then after that interaction the character doesn’t act like how that someone now perceives them, it also breaks the immersion and makes you question whether the writer knows what they’re doing.

I don’t… I don’t know why I’m writing this. I guess… writing theory? Stuff I noticed while writing/analyzing stuff so I could write better? Uh… Anyway.)

THE CHAOS OF THE TRIO OF GWEN MERLIN AND MORGANA WOULD HAVE BEEN GOLDEN. IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH TO DESTROY CAMELOT, OR UPROOT THE MONARCHY AND ESTABLISH A DEMOCRACY!

…

It would have been FUN.

(And I’m not gonna get into how the ‘fun’ factor of a show/movie/book contributes to its re-readability and overall positive opinion more than the ‘angst’ or ‘drama’ or ‘depressive’ factors do. That’s… Meh. It’s also something I noticed while writing/analyzing stuff so I could write better. I could get into it, but I just want to finish this episode and go to sleep.)

<_><_><_>

“I hope you didn’t come to her attention.”

“Doubt it.

*Glare*

“Well no one else seems to appreciate my skills! I just want someone to see me for who I am.”

43:52

Case in point…

It really hammers home this idea in the first few episodes. And it makes it incredibly easy to understand Merlin’s motivations in the later episodes.

He just wants to be himself.

<_><_><_>

The Cutie Awards!

(First Holders of an Award Receive an Extra 2 Points Towards Their Score)

(Also everyone can have every single award at a time, it depends on what they do in the episode. At the end of a season, the one who has the most points in one award will be the winner of that award. If everyone gets to be an Adorable Cutie in one ep, it’ll even out the odds ;))

Gaius – The Snarky Cutie (3)

Guinevere – The Adorable Cutie (3)

Tom – The Adorable Cutie (3)

Arthur – The True Sibling Cutie (3)

Morgana – The Scheming Cutie (3), The True Sibling Cutie (3)

Merlin – The Selfless Cutie(3), The Adorable Cutie(3)

<_><_><_>

The episode starts with Nimueh summoning her little afanc beast in an egg with a ton of her own marks on it just so everyone knows who did it. Not very smart. It ends with Gaius reiterating the same “you’re an idiot” thing to Merlin, when the real idiot is in fact Morgana, who didn’t hear that Merlin nearly shouted a whole spell in a compact cave with echo. Camelot is the home of the once and future dumbasses.

<_><_><_>

The Magic

The Monsters

[edge-lorde]

original vampire bullshit 4. final!

i got to the orcs. it is done. felt good to write this but now i must sleep. will link to 1-3 tomorrow. EDIT:  part 1 here   PART 2 HERE  part 3 here

This next part may be a bit disjointed because at this point in time, I have not fully realized why the vampires of this world would be doing some of these things. I have no idea if this is even remotely efficient way of running a war effort. But this is MY pretend. The holes that i cannot fill will be taken care of by the concept of cow tools for now.

Blood farms. What are they? 

I have already written about how vampiric control works in free, normal countries. Those are the norm because vampires do not actually care enough about human societies to actually try to run them. But what happens when they do try to take more direct control? Typically these look like walled or very remote pieces of country with a small town in the middle. The vampires themselves typically still do not try to be enforcers of strict rules or be in direct leadership positions. There will still be human organization with the vampires off to the side somewhere with tables and lists of things they want this population to accomplish. Classically this is how much blood needs to be taken to sustain the patron vampire clan, who needs to give it next, and how to keep everyone healthy enough to do this. Quality of life in these places is usually fairly good, because the vampires see themselves as farmers and they need their crop to be healthy enough to harvest and also because they don't care about control as much as they do complacency. As much as they can, vampires try to make these places nice enough that people will not want to leave. They do this by providing enough resources so that there is nothing to fight over and by keeping their human populations extremely isolated so that there is nowhere that a human who wanted to leave could think to go. There must be enough space in these places that if some humans want to break off from the others they can, but not so much that the vampires can't find them. 

Now time for a little thought experiment. Imagine a specific vampire clan. A large one, with ties to the government of a powerful country. A branch of this clan decides that they want to build a vampire run health research facility. The goal of this would be to find an alternative to human blood that vampires could use instead so they could finally have they’re perfect floating vampire utopia in the sky. This sounds like a great idea to everyone. They set out to find a site in order to do this, but they want it to be vampire only, obviously.  So they decide to make it its own deal and have it be in conjecture with a blood farm, the concept of which already exists. This means it should be in an isolated place. 

They weigh their options and pick somewhere perfect. They begin construction. They wall off a section of forest and fill it with lots of domesticated plants and animals and build many nice places for humans to live. They build the research facility and begin the process of filling their blood farm population. They gather hundreds of babies and toddlers from both adoption agencies in their country of origin and from the existing communities in the place they decided to build. This place may not technically be part of their human country, but there are no other vampires claiming it so that makes it free real estate, right? The vampires gladly offer to let these existing human communities voluntarily integrate themselves into their overall workforce, but it seems that not all of them want to do this. That, and it really is better for blood farms to start without any ties to the outside world. This is why they primarily want children who don’t know how to speak yet, so they can be raised communally within the new city walls and taught a constructed language so they won’t have anything in common with the local humans and wouldn't be able to speak with them even if they did come across each other. It really is better just to make a clean break like that so there won't be drama later on. If the locals really have a problem with that then they really shouldn’t be allowed into the larger facility area either. And the vampires only use force to protect themselves. 

Flash forward a bit and what's this? The vampires human country is at war with with this other human-only conglomerate population thing? And the home country refuses to admit wrongdoing? In fact the larger vampire clan refuses to admit there is a ‘war’ going on at all? 

This war is very long and drawn out. Most of vampires weapons to be used against humans are bio-based. They begin conscripting the humans living in this blood farm (and others) as soldiers because the main country refuses to acknowledge the war. The focus of the research facility moves from health to military based. They begin to develop more soldiers at faster rates. They go from drafting existing humans to cloning and splicing perfect soldiers and create a separate class of human living in the blood farm. There are now civilians, which are the base population and do not leave the main blood farm unless it is to work at the facility, and soldiers who are raised from birth to fight in this war. 

The vampires build more facilities, they're getting good at it. The war goes on. Its less organised now, the enemy has been greatly weakened by the vampires bio-weapons but they have allies. The vampires are super paranoid about letting their super soldiers out into the world. They are terrified that the enemy could be catching up to them in terms of bio-tech and be creating their own super soldiers from their soldiers DNA, or by creating their own bioweapon diseases that could infect one of their own. Through that patient zero, their entire human population could in theory be wiped out, which would essentially end the war. The soldiers also take too long to make for them to make sense. The artificial womb is invented, that increases productivity but they still need to be trained from birth. Ways of pre-aging soldiers so they are ‘born’ as adults are invented, but they are useless and dont know how to do jack shit. Ways of implanting muscle memories and other knowledge and skills begin to be researched. 

It happens. The vampires army experiences a blow in the form of a counter bioweapon. Many soldiers die. They become barred from going back into the main blood farm population areas. The war effort slows. The vampires don’t leave but there is little left of the enemy human population left. After they had their success killing of the soldiers they retreat and try to rebuild for a while. There is an uneasy truce. 

The vampires do not stop their developing though. They realize they've been doing a lot of extra useless stuff with them that they didn't need to, once they realize they can make all training obsolete. They lie low for awhile. Turns out these new soldiers can be made pretty fast, like a full grown, fully trained soldier born in less than 10 months from nothing fast.  

But everything is quiet now. They are almost left to themselves as long as they don’t leave their facilities. This is what they wanted all along. But it's a matter of pride now. The vampires do not want to make peace with their human enemies now. They made a fool of the clan and used their own tech against them and never conceded. The land they live on is still not claimed by any vampire clan-- except for them. They will live to see these humans brought down now even if it takes a thousand years. They have all the time in the world. Its been at least a hundred since the war has begun. 

The vampires plan their next move carefully. They do not want to directly subject their home country to another war again. They would still rather humans would just take care of their own affairs. The ideal situation would be if another human population would just sweep in and finish the job. They had been made out to be monsters in the last war and they didn't like that at all. They knew that if they were to send out more soldiers like they did before, the enemy will know right away that they are to blame. What they needed was a scapegoat. 

I never mentioned this before, but other kinds of hominids currently exist/existed within living memory of this setting. Just roll with it for a second. The vampires decide what they need is for a new group to enter into the picture, one that everyone can agree is bad. Worse than vampires my a mile. Worse than the old stories told about them. Worse than any enemy they've faced before. An enemy that could be the enemy of all enemies and unite all others against them. The vampires would join this fight too, if necessary, meanwhile they would continue to manufacture this new enemy in secret. They would continue to do so until all their enemies were overwhelmed and forced to join up with the larger vampire run country for protection. It would be awkward at first, but what is the enemy of your enemy but a friend? 

In order to do this these new soldiers would have to look different from the old human soldiers. And they would have to act different too. They would have to strike terror into the hearts of all who came across them and be able to back up their threats. 

So the vampires thought to themselves what was the most terrifying enemy they could think of and it came to them-- Unaffiliated vampires. They have none of the reasons to value human or vampire life the way any natural being should and a reason to kill. Working off this framework, they set about finding ways to instill the perfect frame of mind into their future soldier experiments. In tandem with this, they began collecting odd features developed within their human experiment populations and began splicing them together. Next they began building great cylinder vats that could grow hundreds of these new soldiers at a time, as well as places to house them that were NOT near their precious blood farms. 

They planned to pack their heads with all they needed to know and no more, and supply them thinly enough to make the human towns enticing targets. All that, and a little bit of green dye was more than enough to make any human think these new creatures had nothing to do with them. Now all they needed was a name......

[onestowatch]

Nilo Blues Pays Homage to Cult Anime Film Akira in “Akira Harakiri” [Premiere + Q&A]

Photo: Frank Lin

The city of Toronto never ceases to amaze us. What can arguably be considered the epicenter for a new wave of hip-hop, Toronto has become notorious for generating underground sensation after sensation. Through their cultivation of hypnotic and innovative soundscapes, to their impeccable flows and lyricism, Toronto has solidified an extensive roster of industry frontrunners, and Nilo Blues is proving to be the newest addition to the team.

Despite being a self-proclaimed poster child for Generation Z, the 21-year-old is anything but ordinary. Growing up in the Toronto art scene, Blues encompasses what it means to be a multi-hyphenate creative, utilizing his talents as a singer, rapper, dancer, and producer to tell stories that grapple with his Asian identity within the context of western society. 

His debut single, “No Risk Involved,” is an intrepid statement on Asian cultural identity and showcases how Blues’ struggle to live and create beyond rigid stereotypes has ultimately fueled him to pave his own way, in music and life. His nuanced and complex approach to the modern trap soundscape mirrors that of his own evolution and understanding of his own personal identity. Woven within his uncompromisingly honest storytelling and conviction lies the infectious hooks, melodic arrangements, and unsparing production of a true, multi-hyphenate artist. And despite “No Risk Involved” being the official introduction to his discography, we’re here to tell you that it’s just the tip of the iceberg for Blues.

As we patiently await his debut EP, set to release this summer, Blues gives us a peek at what’s to come with his most recent drop, “Akira Harakiri.” Explosive and audacious, this track has the power to cause havoc to the silencers of a corrupted system. Compiled within roaring trap-laden beats and terse hip-hop rhythms, Blues’ adroit vocals and dynamic fluidity convey a sense of fervor, all while challenging the status quo of Asian representation within American culture. 

“Akira Harakiri” pays homage to the anime that Blues grew up with, most notably the raw tenacity of Akira and the thriving energy of Dragonball Z, which influenced its sonic foundation and cinematic execution. In an effort to gain a more comprehensive understanding of his artistry, we spoke with Blues about his position in the current Toronto-trap soundscape and what motivates him to create breakout tracks like “No Risk Involved” and “Akira Harakiri.”    

Ones To Watch: It seems like dancing used to be a significant part of your life before music. What sparked your transition?

Nilo Blues: Growing up I was surrounded by music, whether it be at home or in the dance studio. I always had this natural appreciation for music grow in me because of all the different sounds I was surrounded by. I remember having 10-hour dance rehearsal days and then coming home to record photo booth videos of me and my best friend spitting melodies and lyrics over beats we found. I started producing at 16 when I discovered the iMaschine app for iPhone. I would spend hours trying to cook up beats until one day I decided to learn Ableton Live. My mentor cracked it on my laptop and started showing me the ropes, instantly I was hooked. My musical journey honestly started out from me just wanting to make music I could dance to. I owe a lot of myself to dance. 100%.

Has being a dancer influenced your creative process at all?

Dance has influenced me creatively in many different aspects of the process. Growing up as a dancer, you immediately instill a high level of discipline and work ethic as a young child. We were training like athletes and expressing like actors. It shaped the way I hear music (especially my own), it developed my approach on execution and staying on my P’s and Q’s, and it allows me to perform and add a visual component to the sonics. I grew up admiring Michael Jackson, James Brown, JT, Usher and now Bruno Mars. They all hold all aspects of their art to such a high standard. I’m trying to set that exact same standard and quality, through my own vernacular.

Growing up in what can be considered as the epicenter of Canadian hip-hop, do you think Toronto, and the artists that have put it on the map, have influenced your sound at all?

I started learning how to make music right when the 2015-2016 Toronto rap boom happened, so definitely. I feel like Toronto artists collectively do such an amazing job at emulating the vibe of Toronto. At a time where Toronto was only synonymous with Drake (the GOAT), The Weeknd, and PND, Toronto artists really stepped up to the plate and let the world hear the type of shit we’re on. It's super inspiring, and I just want to keep pushing the envelope. I’m trying to land where no one has before, and make my mark in everything I set my mind to. I’m hungry and I want to get great shit done. I thank Toronto and the lively music scene in the city for sparking that.

Your first single “No Risk Involved” highlights the misrepresentation of Asian identity in mainstream culture. Why was it so important for you to create your own narrative and debunk westernized versions of Asian culture and identity?

My family was the main inspiration for wanting to evoke that conversation. Western media loves to exploit the great ideas from different cultures without ever giving credit to the cultures that cultivated them to begin with. They perpetuate false narratives and generalize us in order to keep control. I’ve seen what my family has gone through in order to even be here. My mom is Filipino, and my dad is Viet-Chin, so I’ve had my fair share of perspectives at a young age. One thing I can guarantee is that Asians aren’t as one-dimensional as the media portrays us to be. It’s about genuinely telling our stories, and being able to control the narrative in the world we share with the culture.

How was it filming the “No Risk Involved” video? Did you have a vision for how you wanted it to look?

It was amazing. I definitely felt back in my element while performing on-screen. The positive energy and hard work by everyone on set was the difference-maker. I feel like that energy shines through the video. I’m so grateful to have had such an amazing cast and crew, they fucking killed it. As for the concept, NRI was one of the very first concepts I started developing with my team. Had my first meeting with Angelica Milash, the director of the video, and everything clicked. The inspiration was drawn from aesthetics you’d see in legendary Hong Kong movies like Young & Dangerous. We also based the female looks on different characters from movies that included Asian characters with exaggerated Asian female stereotypes.

You once tweeted “I love good music but when an artist can pull off a great visual it tells you a lot about that artist.” Do you think it’s important for artists to be active creative directors in the videos they come out with?

Personally, I love dipping my fingers in every pot when it comes to my creative direction. I believe it takes a strong team in order to create beautiful shit, and, as the artist, I want to lead the team to victory. If one of us wins, we all win. Being active as a leader is what’s important. Sharing ideas, and building with the people around you. That’s how the best ideas shine through. You just gotta be a leader with this shit. Take control of your vision and work together to execute. If you aren’t paying attention to every aspect of your craft, you’re only going to see one perspective. At the end of the day, no one will execute your own ideas better than yourself. We all have that capability.

Your newest single “Akira Harakiri” is inspired by the 1988 cult cyberpunk film Akira. How did this iconic anime influence your lyrical and production process?

I wanted the essence of the track to emulate the same essence of the movie. The production was what sparked the idea. Colin Munroe was working on the beat while we bounced ideas around and I instantly felt the beat belonged in an anime. Akira was an automatic click. This song is supposed to feel like a song The Capsules gang would bump around Neo-Tokyo. I loved the dynamic between Kaneda and Tetsuo in the film, and wanted to combine the charisma and poise of Kaneda with the maniacal energy of Tetsuo. That’s also something I want to tap into on the visual component as well. This song is an homage to a visual masterpiece, as well as an iconic moment in film and culture.

What are some of your favorite anime films?

I grew up watching anime on TV like Dragonball Z, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Pokémon, Digimon. As I grew older, I wasn’t exposed to as much as before, but I rediscovered my love for it in high school when I binge-watched Death Note twice in succession. Now I’m trying to watch as much as possible. I feel like I have so much to catch up on lol.

What are some of your goals for 2020? Both as an artist and as a human being?

I want to work on killing the urge of having a cigarette or vaping again. I quit at the end of 2019, and started working out four times a day with my trainer. I’m trying to stay consistent in doing my laundry but that shit fucking sucks. I'm trying to meditate more, as I’ve recently picked up on transcendental meditation and want to keep consistent. Other than that I wanna keep dropping cool shit and repping what I know best. I wanna keep pushing myself to my limits and keep evolving. I hope people find strength in my music and I want to evoke new thought and conversation.

What can we expect to hear more of in your future projects?

More genuine energy. You’ll definitely be able to feel exactly how I felt when creating the music, from the growing pains to the gratitude. More singing too. You’ll be able to identify the spectrum of my sound, and how dynamic it is.

Who are your Ones to Watch?

I’ve been on my hip-hop shit as of late, so I’ve been bumping a lot of Kaash Paige, Fivio Foreign, The Kid LAROI and shit. Deb Never is an artist that I've been wanting to work with personally. Out of Toronto, definitely keep your eye out for Stefani Kimber. One of the most talented artists I’ve ever heard and a great human being. She’s definitely one of my top Ones to Watch artists.

[datsexykiwi]

Scarlet Carnation - Chapter 2 (F!Byleth x Edelgard)

Collaboration with @loyalflutist​

A/N: Heya, this time I’m posting Chapter 2. I suppose, the usual saying I always do, enjoy it with us! Have fun. You can check out for the prologue and chapter 1 on @loyalflutist‘s page!

Prologue: https://loyalflutist.tumblr.com/post/187157093258/scarlet-carnation-prologue-fbyleth-x-edelgard

Chapter 1: https://loyalflutist.tumblr.com/post/187283454818/scarlet-carnation-chapter-1-fbyleth-x

LoyalFlutist’s A/N: Hope you enjoy Kate’s part! It’s nice and fluffy.

---

Sometimes you have a dream and it feels too real to be just a simple nightmare. Then, it makes you quite confused about what to believe in. 

That was how Byleth felt when she awakens. 

 Sweat gleamed on her forehead as she sat up on the mattress. Fingers digging into the blanket, she examined her surroundings. It was her private quarter. Everything was still in place. However, there were a few notable observations that struck out to her. A couple of objects that had been in the room yesterday vanished; it was almost as if it had never existed. Then, there was Sothis… and that tiny girl’s features barely withheld her bewilderment. 

 She was utterly confused with what was happening and was welcomed with Sothis’ scream and complaints about that world. Apparently, she saw through Byleth’s eyes, but her voice couldn’t be heard.  

 ‘ This is just preposterous! Are you serious you couldn’t hear me?? ’

 “I swear, I tried to call out for you.”

 ‘ I know you did. I heard you loud and clear, but it felt as if something was preventing me from communicating with you. ’

 The first day that Byleth woke up and returned to her world, everything that happened in that nightmare dream felt as if she was present there… along with everyone. Emotions she felt from everyone and that warm, desperate embrace from the emperor Edelgard… It lingered in her mind as if it were reality. 

 After Byleth rolled out of bed, the massive amount of complaints that came from Sothis almost made the professor turn up to the first lecture late. Their exchanged continued. They had a long discussion after the lectures, came up with countless possible theories to explain the situation - but it all came to naught. They knew nothing of what was happening and why it is happening with her. 

 Even worse, it seems to be occurring every single day. She would return to that ‘dream-like nightmare’ where the emperor, Edelgard, waits for her. When she goes to bed… she simply returns back to her world. 

 It was a confirmed back and forth transition. Byleth also had to admit that she was emotionally unstable as she believed that the nightmare realm was her world. Luckily, it wasn’t. She sighed with relief, but at the same time, it didn’t help solve this mysterious shift between the realms. 

 ‘ This is one messed up situation we are in. I cannot believe it. ’

 “I believe we have to find answers in our own way… Maybe we might know why I keep on dreaming of that world.”

 ‘ True. Doing nothing takes us nowhere. At least we have to take some action. I suspect something is off about that place… It didn’t feel like a dream, but more of another world just like ours. ’

 “Are you implying that is also another real world? Like, a parallel world.”

 ‘ Not sure. However, that world is too real to simply be just a dream. ’

 Byleth couldn’t argue that back with Sothis. She agreed with how realistic everything was happening in that world. The scent, taste, touch, and sound. They were too real to be a dream. They both eventually agreed to call that world the ‘nightmare realm’ to differentiate it from their ‘real’ world.

 ‘ I suggest you do not trust that adult Edelgard. She seems suspicious. ’

 “...”

 ‘ Keep an eye on her. I felt like she is hiding something from us. She knows something and she’s not telling everything. ’

 “Just as much as I want to trust her… I can’t deny what you mean.”

 ‘ She may be our lead. Also, please don’t have a soft spot for her too. ’

 “What do you mean?”

 ‘ Don’t forget, you have your own Edelgard to take care of already. She may be Edelgard too, but they are not the same person. ’

 It felt like a slap in the face from reality. 

 She’s right. The more she learned about the adult Edelgard, the more she sympathized with her. However, she is not the same as the current, radiant Edelgard that’s spending time with her in the monastery. 

 Sothis reminded Byleth to treat them as two different people. If not, then she would end up making things worse for herself. The young disheveled green-haired girl knew how much that white-haired child meant to the professor. 

 ‘ It is a warning, Byleth. Be careful how much you know about that world… and that suspicious emperor. She is not your innocent Edelgard. ’

 “...Noted, thank you. I will be careful.”

 ‘ A life lesson for you, kid: When you know too much… it only brings you more harm than good. Ignorance is bliss. ’

 -

 About a week has gone by since that first trip to the nightmare realm. She was fortunate to have Sothis’s understanding and reliability. She became her second pair of eyes, watching her surroundings in her place when they were taken to the nightmare realm. Despite spending time catching up with the grown-up students, they were also on a hunt to figure out the truth behind their constant traveling between the two realms. 

 The longer and more frequent they visited the nightmare realm - the more Byleth reaffirmed her thoughts that this is another world just like her own too. The touch of the dirt, the taste of dirt and blood in the air, the scent of the flower garden, the radiant smile from her older students and warmth from Edelgard’s body. 

 All of them are real. 

 Sunday soon came by, and Byleth was able to relax a bit after a very long week of classes and practical lectures. However, some of her students wouldn’t allow that. They requested for special morning classes to fix their bad habits that they have through their training week. Byleth immediately accepted it. Spending time with her students will distract her from the nightmare realm, as well as remind herself that this is her world. As Sothis warned, she should never get the two worlds mixed up.

 “That’s right, that’s how you do it.”

 “Yeah! I’m getting the hang of this.”

 Caspar and Ferdinand were struggling to do the exercise Byleth has been teaching them in class - the arts of body balance. Dorothea and others were able to do it well and incorporated into their fighting styles to maximize their potential. 

 ‘ Life and experience… can change people significantly. Anything can happen, even if it is something we never thought could possibly happen. ’

 As Byleth watched her young vibrant students, she wondered about how their destinies were completely different in the nightmare realm. With the fact that Caspar betrayed them and went to join the Blue Lions… and how Bernadetta and Linhardt left to escape with the Leicester Alliance. She wondered to herself while staring at their smiles and how close they are with their team members. She wanted them to care for each other and love one another like one big family. If there could be one lesson she could instill in them permanently, it would be to stick together. 

 “Professor! We have a question!”

 Dorothea called out for Byleth as others gathered up and waited for her to come over. Without further ado, she drifted out from her conservative thoughts before focusing her attention on her eager students. They asked if they were doing it properly, and that’s when she had to step in to explain everything in detail to them again.

 “Just be careful with it, if you were to come across those that know how to use their body balance better than you - avoid making contact with them.”

 “What would happen if we did?”

 Her students were curious with much more things that rooted in Byleth’s foundation training. She turned over to the young redhead boy and called him over.

 “Sylvain, do you mind doing a demonstration with me?”

 “Not at all. What do you need me to do?”

 She asked him to attack her and so did she. That was when Byleth showed them how she managed to forcibly strike back and pushed a tall man like Sylvain back using her body strength instead of her arms. He literally lost his balance and stumbled backward a couple of steps. 

 “I-It felt like I just ran into a brick wall...”

 “That’s when your body is stronger than your opponent. If not, then you should counterattack it by using their strength instead.”

 Sylvain attacked again and this time, Byleth made contact with his sword with her own. She navigated his force passed her body. Then, she spun and took that momentum to land her blade onto his back. He tumbled forward due to Byleth’s force in addition to his own; he had lost complete control.

 “The force of attack depends on the power you can take from them. Sometimes, the best way is to make them lose balance is by adding more force to their momentum.”

 All of the students listened closely without further ado, including Edelgard. After the special morning session was over, it was about time the professor used her time to enjoy her day off from work. As she bid farewell to her students, a couple of students, including Edelgard, Dorothea, Bernadetta, and Hubert took their leaves. However, some stayed a little longer to have a friendly chat catching up with their lessons throughout the week.

 “I hope the professor makes us play that team game again! It’s really fun.”

 “I still remember the matches well. I have to admit, I learned a lot from it.”

 Caspar, Leonie and Sylvain discussed with each other in regard to the mock battle game Byleth made them do this week. Even though it was a few days ago, it felt like it just happened yesterday to all of them.  

 “It was a real close call between professor and Edelgard! I wish we have more matches like that with other students too. I’m certain they would have fun.”

 “I like how it emphasizes the fact we all contribute equally, neither one of us is superior to another. I believe that’s the concept that the professor wants to teach us.”

 Lysithea and Ferdinand stepped in to join the conversation as well. They all reminisce and discussed the matches in detail among themselves. Before the professor could leave the training ground, she had a peek at her students that were getting along well with each other. 

 ‘ I guess it’s the same for their future selves. ’

 It made her think about how Sylvain, Lysithea, and Leonie left their house leaders to join Edelgard’s cause in the nightmare realm. How coincidental. It matched with how the three recently joined their classes. Byleth felt her stomach slightly church before she left. 

 The correlation between the two versions was disturbing. 

 -///-

 Byleth decided to make things a little fun for her students by dividing the class into two groups and have a friendly mock battle with each other. However, what’s different is that both sides will have to organize their own team order and they would respectively compete with the opposition that shared the same position as them. The team with the most win points would be the victor of the match. To even out the numbers and shake things up, the professor joined too.

 Through the past week, it was recent news that Sylvain from Blue Lions and both Lysithea and Leonie from Golden Deers joined Byleth’s class. They’ve started to take an interest in her unique ways of teaching in class, especially after they could see significant and solid improvement among the members of the Black Eagles. Regardless of the different houses, they wouldn’t want to waste this golden opportunity because of their stubbornness. 

 Byleth prepared the ballots for the draw. Once everyone knew what team would they be on, the professor outlined each position and their objectives to victory. It was an interesting mix of members across the class, Byleth included. 

 “A total of five matches, the team that wins 3 out of 5 will be the victor.”

 With each respective planned out their strategic game. It was about time they started their training. Each team submitted their order as they placed their players in each designated position they couldn’t edit. Once that was done, Byleth revealed the team orders that and their opponents. Everyone was certainly surprised and excited about the arrangement. 

Position 1: First Attacker

[Team 1] Caspar

[Team 2] Sylvain

Position 2: Wing Guard

[Team 1] Leonie & Linhardt

[Team 2] Hubert & Petra

Position 3: Center Guard

[Team 1] Bernadetta

[Team 2] Lysithea

Position 4: Vice-Captain

[Team 1] Dorothea

[Team 2] Ferdinand

Position 5: Captain

[Team 1] Byleth

[Team 2] Edelgard

While everyone else was discussing, the only one that seemed to be the most shocked is Edelgard. Her opponent in the “captain” position is no one other than her professor, Byleth. The teal-haired lady walked up to her and gave Edelgard a soft hit on the shoulder. 

 “It will be fun to fight you one-on-one. I’m looking forward to it, Edelgard.”

 “...I won’t lose to you, professor.”

 “That’s the spirit.”

 Without further ado, they began their matches. The first match was Caspar against Sylvian. The winning conditions for all of the matches were quite simple: landing a fatal move on another opponent without harming them. All they have to do is demonstrate that they could land a killing blow on the body’s weak points. Byleth would be the judge to that and everyone trusted in her fair decisions. 

 “Very important, please do not injure each other. Demonstrate good sportsmanship and skills. Do you understand?”

 “Yes, ma’am!”

 “Very good. Let us begin the first match!”

 Caspar and Sylvain stepped forward before getting into their fighting stance before Byleth signaled for the start. It could be seen that both of them have some form of good friendship with each other ever since Sylvain joined their class. Thus, they knew each other’s tricks rather well. It is a matter who would slip up first. 

 Not much time has passed before the results were in. After the fatal strike was delivered, Byleth called an end to the first match. 

 “End match. The winner is Sylvian from Edelgard’s team.”

 One point added to Edelgard’s team. This pleased the princess, a nod directed at the returning student. 

 “First win to us, that’s a good start.”

 “That was a close call! I would’ve lost if Caspar didn’t slip back there.”

 Edelgard’s team continued to shower praises and welcomed Sylvian back to their side. He made their team the lead at the start of the game. Caspar, on the other hand, felt guilty for slipping at the last second and was caught off guard with Sylvian’s spear. He was disappointed in himself and apologized to the team. 

 “I’m sorry guys... I lost.”

 The next two students exchanged glances. Then, Leonie flexed her arm as Linhardt let out a faint exhale. 

 “We’ll bring it up! Leave it to us.”

 “Man… Let’s get it done quickly.”

 Leonie and Linhardt stepped into the battle ring from Byleth’s team, followed by Hubert & Petra from Edelgard’s team. 

 The vermillion noble narrowed her eyes. Edelgard could see that it was her professor’s strategy to aim for the win in the second match and sacrifice the fourth match. She was expecting the professor to have placed Leonie as the “vice-captain” player, but instead, she placed Dorothea there. There was a huge gap in strength between those two students. It would be an easy win for Edelgard’s team.

 However, she couldn’t let her guard down. The white-haired balled her hands into fists, her teeth gently biting her lip. Byleth was famous for changing the tide of the game to her favor without anyone aware of it… and it was as Edelgard predicted. Leonie stopped her wooden blade right on Hubert’s neck as he fell back onto the ground. Their second position is a ‘guaranteed win’ for Byleth’s team.

 “...I admit defeat.”

 “End match. The winner is Leonie & Linhardt from the professor’s team.”

 Caspar and others welcomed their teammates that brought them victory back, and certainly, Edelgard’s team planned to get back on that in their 3rd match. Edelgard turned to her next teammate and placed her trust in the shorter girl. 

 “Lysithea, do your best.”

 “Don’t worry, Edelgard. I’ll win.”

 The confident white-haired girl stepped out into the battle ring as Bernadetta came in from Byleth’s team. 

 It was an interesting battle for the two. Byleth signaled for the 3rd fight to begin and both were able to use magic and long-range weapons with the winning condition of falling outside the black-marked boundaries. Simple, yet difficult. 

 Both of them struggled at the start, but Bernadetta was able to quickly get the hang of it. She cornered her opponent using her arrows. As she thought she’s about to win, Lysithea brought out her hidden dagger and threw it right at her opponent. That forced the purple-haired to dodge that incoming weapon with a yelp.

 “Kyah!?”

 “Bernadetta, be careful!”

 That was more than enough time to come in close range before blasting her out from the ring with her magic. That itself made Byleth smile. That dagger… It was given to her by Edelgard to use during her fight with Bernadetta. The plan was to buy time in order to approach Bernadetta at close range. A successful result came from it after blasting her out of the boundaries. 

 “End match. The winner is Lysithea from Edelgard’s team.”

 “That’s a second win for us!”

 Edelgard’s team was motivated now that they got two wins and needed just one more. Certainly, they placed their hopes on Ferdinand to finish off the game before Edelgard could even fight in her match. Meanwhile, for Byleth’s team, they turned to Dorothea and nodded at each other. 

 “Let this big sister handle it for all of you. You can count on me, professor, everyone.”

 “We leave it to you, Dorothea.”

 As Edelgard watched the professor faintly grin, she wondered what she had up her sleeves. It was unnatural to be this calm this far into the tournament. One more lost and the game is set. Edelgard’s pondering played in the background as the two students met in the center. The fourth match was about to start with Dorothea from the professor's team and Ferdinand from Edelgard’s team. 

 “Let it be known that I, Ferdinand von Aegir, won’t go easy on you just because you’re a lady.”

 “What a smooth talker you are. You should worry about yourself first.”

 The match began the moment they got the signal. The winning condition reverted back to land a killing blow. That would be extremely hard for Dorothea in comparison to Ferdinand, but something didn’t sit well with Edelgard. In normal situations, Edelgard would have no doubt that her strategy would guarantee their win. However, it is Byleth that they’re talking about. Her four team members slowly moved over to the professor with some curiosity and doubts on Dorothea’s win. 

 “Professor, would Dorothea win?”

 “She will. Don’t worry.”

 “But she’s against Ferdinand! Close combat is not her forte.”

 “Trust her a little bit. The fact that they placed Ferdinand in this position gives us an upper hand, you know?”

 “How?”

 Caspar and others were confused before Byleth chuckled back. She threw back a little hint to her curious students. 

 “Remember how balance is very vital in a battle? It is a matter of who knows how to use better than another that will determine the victor.”

 They immediately turned to look at the battle and realized how Dorothea was holding it real well against Ferdinand despite lacking offense. Though Ferdinand said he wouldn’t hold back, he couldn’t fight her mercilessly without worrying that he would accidentally harm her. He has a kind heart that cares for his friends. What would happen if he were to strike her down? Oh, that would not sit well with Ferdinand von Aegir. Because of this, Dorothea was able to dodge and parry his attacks at ease. Unpredictably, it was him that was catching his breath. 

 “It’s over!”

 Dorothea did her first and only attack: a vertical cut. He could block that simple assault, but what surprised him was how heavy the assault was. Ferdinand’s jawlines were spotted as his blade clashed with hers. The impact was enough to make him flinch with surprise and fingers go numb for a few seconds. 

 “--!?”

 “Ferdinand!”

 It was too late for her teammates to call for his attention. The tip of Dorothea’s blade pointed right at his throat. That was the end of the match and Byleth declared the winner with that smile of confidence. 

 “End match. The winner is Dorothea from the professor’s team.”

 “Woohoo!!”

 “Told you, I will win for our team!”

 Her teammates cheered with delight. Caspar and Dorothea even exchanged a fist bump out of sheer glee.

 Now, both sides were in a draw and it would be the final match point between Byleth and Edelgard. The young emperor didn’t expect that kind of outcome and completely forgot about that skill they recently learned about body balance. She recalled Dorothea performed extraordinarily well in this aspect… and it wasn’t Ferdinand’s strongest forte. That was the reason why the professor picked Dorothea to be the vice-captain. Once again, the calculative side of Byleth came to light. It would be troublesome if Byleth were to be an enemy to any of them. 

 “It will be a match point now.”

 Byleth turned to Edelgard. Before she stepped into the ring, she had asked Hubert to be the fair judge for them. The captain from another team stepped right up after her professor. Edelgard tightened her grip on her sword. 

 “I look forward to your fight, Edelgard.”

 “I won’t lose!”

 “I won’t let you win too.”

 “Final match, begin!”

 Hubert signaled. 

 It was a complete blur to their comrades; one blink and they would nearly miss the action. The commoner and noble clashed their swords with each other and swiftly attack one another without hesitation. Every time another one attacks, another would never fail to block it before counterattacking backs at them. 

 Everyone stared with frustration and nervousness. Edelgard was holding her ground really well against Byleth and used the lessons that she taught them for the past couple of days. She struck down on her blade and Byleth was caught off guard with how she maximizes her attack using her body weight. That forced the professor to leap away from her and Edelgard followed up without further ado. 

 “Yaaah!!”

 Edelgard planned to disarm her once and for all, but that made Byleth crack a smirk before she swung her blade right back at her. At the instant their blade made contact, it sent back a massive amount of strain into Edelgard’s arm. It was as if the force she placed into her attack returned back to her! Byleth simply struck the same way she did to cancel out her strike completely.

 “Whoa… you really caught me off guard a bit, Edelgard.”

 “Ugh…!”

 “How about this?”

 As their wooden blades pressed into each other, she suddenly felt the overwhelming force that came through Byleth and pushed her arm back towards her body. She was able to resist that just before she could’ve been struck down. Edelgard had jumped away at a good distance as bewilderment scrawled her features. 

 “W-What was that…?”

 “An upgraded version of what we did just now. I suppose I won’t take it easy anymore.”

 Byleth dashed in and threw in multiple slashes without hesitation whilst Edelgard barely managed to parry all of them. She felt a chill down her spine as the professor started to become serious with fighting her. 

 “Yah!!”

 The young student swung her blade at her out of defense, but that was her mistake. Before she could realize her fault, Byleth predicted her movements already and smacked her sword out from her hand. A quick toss of her leg swept the young lady out of surprise. She landed onto the ground and, before she realized it, the wooden blade rested against Edelgard’s cheek.

 “End match. The winner is Professor Byleth from the professor’s team.”

 Hubert called out the winner as a fair judge before Byleth extended her hand to Edelgard to pull her up from the ground. Everyone applauded them and thanked their respective opponents for the match. 

 This tournament-like practice seems to be a favorite past time for the students in her class. Since then, it seemed to make everyone in the class developed good friendship with each other too. The concept of trading blows to increase one’s bond couldn’t have been any truer. As for the new additions to their group? Other students could see that the three non-Black Eagles would come to hang out with members of the Black Eagles outside of class from time to time in a casual manner. Dimitri and Claude were slightly confused about their comrades’ decisions but respected their choice. It wasn’t their place to dissuade them. Besides, if they had the option to do so, they wouldn’t hesitate to learn under Byleth too. 

 -///-

 “I have to admit that you caught me off guard during our match, Edelgard. I don’t think I can hold back against you in a sparring match again.”

 Byleth and her young rising-emperor were sitting down, having some tea and snacks in private at the professor’s quarter. Their conversations ranged in a variety of topics; the current one handling the recent tournament. They were discussing the outcomes of the match they’ve had with each other a few days ago. Until now, Edelgard wasn't satisfied with her performance. There was just so much she can improve upon, especially with the slip up that led to her demise. Byleth praised her, regardless. 

 “You flattered me. It is all thanks to your guidance.”

 “Take some credits. You did the hard work. Good job, Edelgard.”

 Byleth patted her head, complimenting her for her achievements today despite her loss. However, the fact that she forced Byleth to become serious with her was better than defeating her when she’s taking it easy on her. That was a reward in itself. It made her looked away to hide away her red cheeks. Without further ado, they headed out to spend some time alone for lunch as usual. 

 “I will one day defeat you. You shouldn’t hold back against me.”

 “I definitely won’t. I’m looking forward to that.”

 Byleth smiled, excited to see the princess become stronger and, one day, defeat her. Soon, the two got to spend extensive time together during the weekends compared to those lunch breaks. There was just one little thing… Hubert wasn’t that happy Edelgard spent a lot of time with Byleth. Not that it mattered to the royal; she insisted on doing it anyway. 

 “I hope you would keep this a secret from Hubert. He doesn’t like it when I spend too much time with you.”

 “That will be our little secret then.”

 They sat down next to each other under the shade of the huge tree in the garden. After they had spoken about trivial matters, they moved on to talking about something more on a serious note - about their hopes and goals.

 “Professor, have you ever thought about what to do after this?”

 “Are you referring to my life if I was not a professor here anymore?”

 “Yes, something like that.”

 “That’s quite hard to say. I think it is important to focus on the present since we’re living in it right now alongside everyone… even though thinking about the future is quite important too.”

 Byleth turned to the house leader. She teased by pinching her cheeks softly to catch a glimpse of Edelgard’s dumbfounded look. It was so innocent and it is to Byleth’s joy to mess with her when it was just the two of them. That way, she would get to see the Edelgard’s cute side as an ordinary girl, not as a future emperor of the Adrestian Empire.

 “So, if I don’t focus on the present, then I would be missing a lot of fun teasing you.”

 “P-Professor! You’re very sly, do you know that?”

 “Hehe, that’s the joy I’m referring to. You’re quite adorable in your own way, Edelgard.”

 She patted her head again and made Edelgard pouted a bit before she turned away. That made Byleth chuckled. 

 ‘ How adorable. ‘

 It wasn’t just Edelgard being herself with just Byleth alone…  The professor revealed more emotions when she’s just with the young white-haired too. There was something that made it easier to loosen her guard… No, that wasn’t right. Byleth always had difficulty expressing her real thoughts and expression. Whether she felt sad or happy, none of it stirred the nerves under her features. Jeralt and Sothis were the only two that could decipher her blank features. Yet when her eyes shone and twinkled, when her lips curled upward, and when she lightly laughed, it was all thanks to a particular someone. 

 She took another sip of her tea and stared up into the sky. Feeling the breeze hitting her face from the open window, she decided that it would be boring to end the day like this when the weather welcomes them outdoors. 

 “Edelgard, let’s go outside.”

 “Huh? You mean right now?”

 “It would be such a waste to stay inside on such a good weather like this. Are you coming with me? If you’re not then I’ll go by myself or I may ask Dorothea to come with me---”

 “I didn’t say anything about not going.”

 She gave her full attention to Byleth and that made the young professor flash a smile. The young girl got up and smoothed her skirt. Her cheeks were still rosy, albeit for a very different reason. The Hresvelg certainly wanted to spend time in-person with her professor and immediately got jealous the moment Byleth mentioned other student’s name. That was one mischievous way to grab Edelgard’s attention.

 “...Where are you planning to go?”

 “It will be a surprise. Let’s not waste time.”

 “W-Wait up, professor!”

 Without further ado, Edelgard and Byleth headed towards the gates and left the monastery. The professor asked the guards to keep it a secret as they would be out for a bit. The young girl walked right after her professor before they arrived at the empty grass field that stretches out to the horizon. Edelgard thought to herself that it would be a good space for outdoor training. 

 “My father often takes me outdoor like this for training when I was a little child. We did all sorts of things from fun activities to serious training. It gave me a habit to come out on good weather like this for some physical activity.”

 “No wonder none of us could find you during Sunday afternoons when we tried to search for you. Do you often come out here by yourself?”

 “I have to hone my skills too, Edelgard. If I slack off from my training, then all of you would catch up in no time. If I don’t become stronger, then I would lack the ability to teach all of you to become stronger. Teachers must be lifelong learners or else we will be left behind by the future generations.”

 After hearing that, Edelgard couldn’t help but admire the young professor for her commitment to her own training as well as instructing them with her heart out. She meant everything she said and gave it her all to each one of them in the Black Eagles classroom, including students from other houses too without bias. That’s a beautiful trait of a leader. It wouldn’t be surprising for Edelgard that, in fact, it made Byleth loved by so many students, including the princess herself. 

 “But… why did you bring me out here with you today?”

 “...Good question. I think it is a good change in pace. It can be boring and lonely to train by yourself all the time. Besides that, I think you’ll enjoy it too. Care to join?”

 After hearing how this is Byleth’s private time - her little private space from everyone else in the monastery… and the fact she invited Edelgard to join her touched her deeply. It began to make her heart race against her chest. Her cheeks flushed faintly before she glanced over to her professor and nodded firmly. The professor trust and welcomed her into her private space, and she is honored by it.

 “I would be more than delighted to join you. I hope I won't hinder you.”

 “You would never be.”

 They exchanged a smile with each other before Edelgard simply followed Byleth’s training regime. She couldn’t believe how strenuous these activities were and could barely catch up with her professor’s pace. She caught a glimpse of how strong Byleth was and she was far from being able to defeat her at her top form. 

 “Let’s play a game: a snatch game.”

 She asked Edelgard to catch and snatch the handkerchief she tucked right behind her back. She could physically grab onto her and restrain her if she needed to. There are no rules, as long as Edelgard was able to steal her handkerchief, that would be her victory. 

 “We can consider this a mini-game for our agility and flexibility training.”

 “You can really turn anything into training, professor.”

 “That’s what I got used to doing as a mercenary. Every part of our lives contributes to our growth.”

 “I wonder if that's the secret to your dexterity.”

 Without further ado, Edelgard simply tried to catch up with Byleth. Unfortunately, the instructor managed to dodge every incoming attack as if she knew which direction it was coming from. It made the young noble broke into a sweat before Byleth beamed back at her without fatigue.

 “Do you want to end it?”

 “No, I’m not done yet.”

 That made Byleth chuckle as they continued their little game. The professor didn’t make it any easier for her until Edelgard threw her red cape right into her face. 

 “!?”

 The professor wasn’t expecting it and it blocked her vision completely. She immediately smacked it out of her way with a flick of her wrist, but Edelgard had disappeared. She knew that it was all her plan and swiftly turned her head around to see the young white-haired princess reaching out to grab for her handkerchief. 

 “I got it!”

 The older teal-haired lady quickly turned her body. However, that caused some obstructions along the way. She had twisted her figure around too fast. As a result, the young student fell on top of her. Byleth gasped, and when she angled her head up, it dawned upon her with just how close their face was from each other. 

 “Heh, that was a close call!”

 Byleth smiled radiantly and the noble blushed horribly as she started to realize she was lying on top of the professor. She instantly pushed herself away and sat beside the professor. Hopefully, with the lack of contact, Byleth wouldn’t realize Edelgard’s throbbing heartbeat. The teal-haired lady sat up and giggled expressively with how bold Edelgard launched towards her without hesitation. She was impressed. It has been a while since she last had this much fun with someone too. 

 ‘ So, she could make a smile like that too… ’

 Edelgard was mesmerized by the professor’s rare giddy nature.

 “That was good fun. Maybe next time, you could beat me.”

 “Who said I didn’t win?”

 Edelgard revealed the handkerchief in her hand and surprise painted Byleth’s features. She turned around to check. It was gone. She was a millisecond too slow with her turn because that was the split second that Edelgard snatched the handkerchief from her back. That, in fact, amused by the teacher. This exact scene reminded her of her old days when she played such games like this with her father, Jeralt.

 “I beat you this time, my teacher.”

 Pride puffed from Edelgard. Another flash of memory reminded Byleth of herself when she had successfully snatched the handkerchief from Jeralt for the first time. Another pat on Edelgard’s head was given, which somewhat caught the student off-guard. 

 “...Father and I used to play games like this. It is his way to teach me how to fight.”

 “Hmm?”

 “He emphasized how one must be physically strong for the battle, not the battle to become fit. He always focused on the core basics rather than the techniques. Without a solid foundation in anything, you cannot progress far.”

 “Is that why your teaching style focuses on the foundation?”

 “Precisely. I’d rather teach all of the basics that you need to survive rather than the flashy techniques that wouldn’t guarantee your return. I want to ensure all of you will come back home with a smile; back to those that you love. That itself is more important than anything else.”

 “Professor...”

 Edelgard placed a hand on her own chest. She was touched by how much the professor cared about their well-being. She poured everything into each lesson to ensure that they would become stronger - not to win - but to return back safely to the monastery.... to their loved ones at home. Hearing her stories and upbringing brought her closer to the professor. As a bonus, Edelgard was able to catch a glimpse of what kind of person she is too. 

 “You’re admirable, my teacher. You have such a noble soul.”

 “That’s flattering me too much, Edelgard. It is just words from an ordinary mercenary.”

 “No, not at all. I’m merely speaking the truth!”  

 There was a pause. Then, the youngster frowned. 

 “U-Um… Something stings...”

 “Heh, it seemed someone scraped her knee.”

 Byleth pointed out the wound on her knee. She probably got it from one of the falls trying to catch the mouse-like professor. Edelgard didn’t realize when she got it thanks to the adrenaline from earlier. That was embarrassing to an extent. 

 The professor took the handkerchief from Edelgard’s hand and covered the wound before it could get infected. She also returned her red signature cape to the young emperor.

 “In addition, I have to praise you for using your cape to restrict my field of vision. I’m impressed.”

 “I think I was desperate. I wanted to win without using those tactics.”

 “A win is a win. A chivalrous win is an ideal, but never applicable in a real war. I did tell you to use all methods available to win, right?”

 “Right…” 

 Edelgard had no choice but to submit to the teachings. It still felt wrong to play dirty, yet the instructor had a point. She might fully understand the weight of Byleth’s words one day. For now, she would have to swallow her victory with a bitter aftertaste. 

 ‘ Speaking of that… The Professor is such a hard worker. ’ 

 When she thought about today, normally people would spend their free time relaxing, such as reading books, listening to music, or doing literally anything that would require less brainpower. But for Byleth, she had such a unique way of relaxing on a casual Sunday afternoon: by training outdoors in the fields. Some might call her crazy. Some might call her a workaholic. Some might even ridicule her. Not to Edelgard, though. Edelgard actually envisioned Byleth to be this way. Besides, she preferred spending her free time like this with her professor. Even though it was a full-on strenuous physical workout, she enjoyed every second. After all, they are spending more time together and she gets to see Byleth in a different light than no one else did. 

 “Okay, shall we get back?”

 “Yes--wha!? Professor!!”

 In one swoop, Byleth swiftly lifted her up from the ground in a bridal style. She had no issue carrying the young lady in her arms, but Edelgard was beet red with embarrassment. Edelgard wouldn’t want the professor to feel her heart beating loudly against her chest right now. Oh, how much she wanted to knock Byleth out and run back to her quarter. 

 “Please, you can let me down! I can walk!”

 “Don’t force yourself. Besides that, this is faster.”

 “But--”

 “No buts, Edelgard. Consider this as a reward for your victory. No arguments.”

 “...I-If you’re insisted, but please don’t let Hubert see me like this. He wouldn’t like it.”

 “Not a problem.”

 Edelgard gave up and felt her ears burn, her arms around Byleth’s shoulders so she wouldn’t fall. Her heart pounded against her ribs loudly, worried if Byleth would hear it or not. The noble had to resist the temptation to mumble incoherently. She can hardly contain her embarrassment! In hopes of concealing the reaction, she leaned onto her shoulder and snuggling close to her neck.  The subtle scent of fruity, plummy, grape-pop quality like jasmine tickled her nose. 

 “What perfume did you use? It’s rather pleasant.”

 “Ah, it is blue iris. It has quite a unique scent in a way I like.”

 “You like blue iris? Is that your favorite flower?”

 “Yes, since I was little. What about you?”

 “My favorite would be scarlet carnations.” 

 A few seconds of pause. The image of the flower flashed across her mind along with the gallant flame emperor. How surprising, but not at the same time. 

 “...Would you tell me more about it?” 

 “It is a special type of carnation. It is not a simple red, as it has a color closely resembling a ruby. Thus the name scarlet. This is a very unique flower that grows in a certain area in the Adestrain Empire.”

 “What a unique flower.” 

 “Indeed. It is extremely beautiful and it is extremely rare to find nowadays.”

 Byleth didn’t expect to hear it back in her world. They’re both Edelgards after all - same but different. The fact that it was so hard to grow in the monastery may be because it was specifically found in certain regions of the Adrestian Empire. She theorized that this reasoning may be the answer to the flower’s growth problem--

 “Professor, you seem to be in your thoughts...”

 “Ah, my bad. I was thinking of something… Scarlet carnation means devoted affection, am I correct?”

 To Edelgard’s surprise, the professor knew the language of the flowers like herself. Byleth admitted to Edelgard that she read all sorts of books Jeralt brought back from the market whenever he visited different places for his job. Thus, it made her became well knowledgeable in a wide range of things and this was one of them. 

 While they were heading back to the monastery, they were completely engulfed in their conversation with regard to their favorite flowers. 

 “Do you know the meaning of blue iris?”

 “If I recall… it must mean faith and hope, am I right?”

 “Correct. It has a good meaning to it.”

 “And it does suit you, my teacher.”

 Edelgard chuckled softly before they continued chatting trivial matters while returning back to the monastery. 

 To the young lady, Byleth is no different from a lighthouse that serves as a guide to take her out from the darkness. Ever since she met her, Edelgard’s world became brighter and filled with faith and hope. There was never a day she never enjoyed her time in the monastery. She woke up early every day, being the first student to arrive in the morning class to greet her professor every day until now. 

 She was able to be truthful to herself - by Byleth’s side.

 As soon as they passed through the gates, the professor still didn’t let her down and head straight to the infirmary to treat her wounds. Manuela was out of the office at the moment, so it was up to the instructor to handle this student. Edelgard was forced to behave until the very end when Byleth disinfected and clean the scratches before wrapping it up with a clean bandage. 

 “There you go. Everything should be well for tomorrow’s training. Please, rest well and take some of these medications to prevent any possible infection. Would you be able to handle yourself from here? After all, we do not want Hubert to spot me carrying you.”

 “Yes, that’s correct. Thank you so much, professor. I had a lot of fun today and… Would it be possible if I can tag along with you again?”

 Upon hearing that and seeing her genuine shyness for making such a personal request, Byleth couldn’t help but to go in to rub her head gently with a small smile. 

 “Of course. It would be my pleasure.”

 She enjoyed spending time with Edelgard, regardless of the situation, and it seemed she felt the same towards her professor. Without further ado, Byleth bid her leave first to go prepare her lecture plans for tomorrow. But right when she straightened her posture, the voice of her student rang out. 

 “Professor, allow me to clean that handkerchief for you before I return it back.”

 “I can clean it myself. Don’t worry.”

 “No, I insist. Let me wash it for you.”

 The young stubborn girl wouldn’t back down without a solid reason. If the young lady wanted to express her gratitude, Byleth wouldn’t want to stop her from that. She simply nodded and passed the bloodied handkerchief to Edelgard.

 “If you insist, Edelgard. Take care of yourself and I’ll see you tomorrow morning as usual.”

 “See you tomorrow and have a good rest, my teacher.”

 -

 As she was walking down the corridor back to her room, Byleth heard footsteps coming for her. She turned around to see that it was Hubert, Edelgard’s loyal servant and a student of the House of Black Eagles. He greeted her with a smile that was neither friendly nor sinister.

 “Hello professor, you seem to be in good health.”

 “I am, yes. And yourself?”

 “Of course…”

 He somewhat tried to make his tone sound intimidating along with his sinister stare, but it didn’t work out the way he wanted on the unfazed professor. However, when he realized that he sighed with slight disappointment before looking away from her.

 “Hm, doesn’t seem intimidated.”

 “Is there something wrong?”

 “No, not at all. It's just that I find myself a little concerned for your well-being. You see, Lady Edelgard has taken something of an interest in you.”

 He made some good points. As expected by her loyal servant, he would obviously know about how close Edelgard has become with her. They often spent lunchtimes together if the professor was in the mood to sit outside from the cafeteria. Also, they had a number of tea-time sessions together too. But, Byleth remembered Edelgard didn’t want Hubert to know that because it would make him angry.

 “...Perhaps so.”

 “Don't be flippant. There is something you need to understand the role I play here. One of many duties is to determine potential advantages and potential threats to Her Highness. If you prove yourself useful to Lady Edelgard, then all will be well. If you pose a threat… I shall have to dispose of you.”

 “Dispose of me?”

 That wasn’t something she was expecting to hear from him. However, she could tell from his tone that he was serious, Hubert is not the kind of man that would be joking around when it came to Lady Edelgard. He stared right back at her. From his piercing gaze, they were distrustful. The young male was also analyzing whether the professor is deemed beneficial to his lady. 

 “Yes. This is no joke. While I may be a student here, I am her servant first and foremost. Therefore, if untimely demise is not to your liking, you would do well to demonstrate your utility with all haste. I should warn you that I am far less compromising than Lady Edelgard. Do not be at ease merely because you stand in her good graces for the time being.”

 “I’m not worried about that.”

 Byleth couldn’t see a day that she would possibly betray her students, especially Edelgard. Thus, she didn’t hesitate to respond back to Hubert in a way that even surprised herself. He only curled the corner of his lips before bringing up his hand up for his chin to rest on his fingers.

 “Ha! Such confidence. I'm beginning to see why you caught her eye. My family, House Vestra, has been sworn to the House Hresvelg for generations. Since the dawn of the Empire, we have worked to protect the emperor by any means necessary - both in the open and in the shadows. If you incur our wrath, you will see just what I mean.”

 “I don’t mind that you watch me for all as much as you need to. I don’t have any intentions to betray Edelgard. Once I decided, I see it all the way through.”

 “...I hope you live up to your words, professor.”

 Hubert left without further ado before Byleth returned back to her room. She finally caught a glimpse of the loyal servant of Hresvelg. Though Hubert is her student (and one that always sat in the front row), she had never seen this side of him until now. Either way, she wasn’t even concern for her own safety by the hands of Hubert. Instead, she was grateful that the young lady has a loyal servant like him by her side. 

 ‘ Betrayal? That’s rather a senseless thought to have. ’ 

 She couldn’t even imagine that becoming a reality. No reason would be good enough to make her leave the young emperor’s side. She would never leave her side. 

 “I’m scared of being alone again…” 

 The words of the older Edelgard echoed in her ear. She vigorously shook her head and recited to herself that she would never leave her young Edelgard. This is her world, and she would never leave her side. Never.

 -

 After she took her shower, she sat on the bed to dry the wet clumps of her teal hair before she heard Sothis spoke directly to her. 

 ‘ Get ready. Time to head to the nightmare realm again. ’

 “Speaking like as if we are going on a journey… even after a week, it feels like being 24 hours awake. Ironically, I don’t feel exhausted.”

 ‘ Who knows how it works. But it seems you have enough rest despite the traveling. ’

 “True.”

 She knew that when she woke up again, she would be in the nightmare realm once again. As she was rolling around in her bed, staring at the ceiling, she thought about the scarlet carnation. The beautiful flower she saw in the nightmare realm… and how the student Edelgard mentioned it was her favorite flower. 

“It has grown strong since the day we have planted.”

“Was it weak before?” 

“You could say that. It was the slowest out of all the flowers we’ve grown, no matter how much we fertilize and water.” 

“A flower that blooms the latest blooms into the most beautiful flower of them all.” 

“I never expected to hear that from you, my teacher.” 

She wondered if she should give it a shot and try to grow here in the garden. There’s a small space where she can grow at least one more plant. She began to think about the hazy memory at the back of her head. Byleth felt some sort of attachment towards the scarlet carnation. She thought to herself that she would speak to Edelgard later about planting that flower some time. It’s worth looking into it and giving it a shot. 

 When Edelgard was talking about it, she seemed to be reminiscing about the old days she was able to see an entire field of it. Byleth wondered, what kind of smile would Edelgard has if she was able to see that scarlet carnation again…?