#and also about these two bonding during training and being terrible influences on each other and stressing deglan out just. so much

[lassieposting]

So uh. It's just occurred to me that the "bedrooms" bit of Kaer Morhen is still standing and probably wouldn't have been damaged too badly in the attack? Like. If you're a human all caught up in a xenophobic rage massacre, you've got bigger things to worry about than trashing someone's room? Like avoiding the monsters nobody told you would be there, or teaming up to take down the defending Witchers, because they're stronger and faster and better trained than you.

Anyway what I'm getting at is how long did it take Vesemir to realise that Luka's shit was all exactly as he left it the night they went out drinking

He barely recognises his own life at this point? He's the last surviving Wolf that he knows of, and he's managed to keep four whole children alive for however long without gutting any of them, and he doesn't remember the last time he had the coin or the time or the energy to get right properly drunk or fuck all the feelings away. He's facing the Sisyphean task of patching up the keep as best he can, by himself, and doing all the training that Luka and Sven would've been so much better at. Everyone he cared about all his life is dead.

And Luka's room still looks like he'll walk back into it any minute now, save for the stale air and the layer of dust settled on everything he won't be coming back for.

Bed unmade. Sleep shirt dropped on the floor. Book splayed open on his pillow - yep, a trashy monsterfucker shirt-ripper with a handsome Witcher on the front cover, typical. He misses the easy banter, misses being able to mock without wounding. He can hear the haughty "Maybe I'll lend it to you once I'm finished, Lord Vesemir. You might learn a thing or two," response like Luka's standing right behind him.

(He's not. They killed him. He died alone, and for nothing, all because Vesemir wanted to go drinking)

((He'll read the book. All the way to the end, even though the writing is appalling, the protagonist bland, and the Witcher love interest a cocky, arrogant arsehole. And when he's finished it, he'll go down to the memorial he put up when they first came home - Luka's not there, not really, but it's all he's got - and tell him what happens. And that it sucked. And that he's sorry.))

[theheirofthesharingan]

Random question, but let's say that Itachi lived right? Like all the way to Boruto, do you think Itachi would probably be that one, almost, father figure to Sarada in a way? Considering since Sasuke has always been away from the two of them (Sakura and Sarada) if Itachi decided to stay in Konoha instead of traveling with Sasuke? Also I wonder how Itachi would react to Sasuke being with Sakura as well, I wonder, what do you think?

Interesting question.

To answer this, we need to consider some major factors that were crucial in shaping their lives.

If itachi lived, he should have the development he did during the war i.e. realizing treating Sasuke like a baby was a bad choice he made all along.

Sasuke doesn't know Itachi is alive. Why would he leave the village in the first place if Itachi was alive?

Itachi doesn't know where Sasuke is. Why else would Itachi stay in the village if he could be with his brother?

Konoha has somehow cleared his name and acknowledged its own crimes against the clan.

Still, I'm going to answer this question with the ideas that are independent of each other and don't need each other to exist (if that makes sense?)

I think Itachi would be a terrible father figure to Sarada. He didn't grow up to lead a normal life full of love and comfort. He was a Shinobi who was trained to kill. That's what he did all his life and he never had the time to be anything other than that. He loved Sasuke a lot, but his expression was thoroughly violent, although under extreme duress, and in a slightly easier life he'd have served better. He doesn't know how to be a normal person. He doesn't understand how to be something that's not a Shinobi and a killer. He was conditioned since his childhood to live a certain way and the change in the lifestyle would not change anything for him. I personally don't see him being able to guide Sarada or be a positive/healthy influence in her life. He can't give anything to her, or anyone, for that matter.

He's way, way too damaged as a person. Even if you include therapy sessions those won't erase his past and what he feels about himself. He can't offer anything in a bonding that isn't with Sasuke. He'd still feel some affection towards Sarada. He has no reason to not like her, but he can't be a parent figure to her. I mean, isn't that the whole reason Sasuke, too, isn't a 'good father' to Sarada? He too is damaged beyond repair.

Some anti-SS content under the cut. No slander or bashing of the characters, but my opinion on why Itachi might not approve of Sakura as his brother's life partner. I'll tag the post accordingly. Please don't read if you're a fan of the pairing.

He will not be overly thrilled about Sakura being in Sasuke's life. Sasuke didn't love Sakura and Sakura never loved Sasuke. She was obsessed with an image of his she found alluring and his absence in her life fed that longing further, making her feel she loved him. He was a trophy for her she was to win in the contest of her rivalry against Ino.

In other words, she had no genuine feelings for Sasuke.

Sasuke, too, never felt any affiliation towards her. Yes, there were some moments he cared about her deeply, but he's genuinely kind and caring towards people. If he loved her he'd be more open about his feelings.

When Itachi met Team 7 in the Kazekage Rescue Arc, he paid no attention to Sakura. His attention was solely on Naruto and was happy to see Naruto had grown so much from the last time they met. There was a reason he entrusted Sasuke with Naruto. And he wouldn't be too pleased to know that Sakura once tried to kill his brother for whom he bore the worst pains and sins in his heart.

That alone would infuriate him. However, it wouldn't matter to him if Sasuke really loved Sakura, because I don't think the Itachi that bid farewell to Sasuke in the war would claim any stakes on him. If Sasuke loved Sakura he would be okay with it, but not trust her. Itachi's brain works in different ways. xD

Itachi would also understand there's a reason his brother doesn't want to be with his family. And his lack of affection towards them would tell him everything. He decided things for Sasuke when he saw him as a child in the past, but won't make the same mistakes again.

I think he'd like Sarada, but won't be extremely fond of Sakura. Though I don't see him being good with kids at all.

[sapphosvioletts]

Only Yours

Part 1

Natasha Romanoff x Autistic Daughter reader (+ Melina and Yelena)

Part 2

Summary:

Natasha met her daughter in the Red Room when they were paired together. They've been extremely close ever since. When Natasha comes back from her mission to find her sister, and taking down the Red Room in the process, her daughter has to try and be okay with the fact that there are now two new people she has to share her mom with, Melina and Yelena

Word count: 2,887

Note: Not every autistic person experiences autism the same. I'm autistic and I am writing from my perspective of how I personally experience autism, but not everyone feels the same as me or has the same perspective as I do.

.oOo.

I sit anxiously on the steps that lead into the hangar, waiting for Natasha. I always miss her when she leaves for missions, but this time it was full of anxiety as well. It started out as just a visit to Budapest, although she didn't tell me why, but I knew it was for a mission. She kept me updated while she was gone though, and all she told me was that she was going to take down the Red Room.

I know that she can't tell me too many details over the phone just incase someone gets a hold of the phone call somehow, but that wasn't enough for me. although it was vague, it also sounded dangerous.

Of course, I know about the Red Room, sometimes I know too much. I was filtered into the Red Room at a very young age, I don't even remember anything from my life before I was so young. Although Natasha was older than me, we formed a bond together.

My group of widows was tested on by a new form of chemical subjugation, an improvement of their last one. They wanted us to feel more, have more emotions and feelings, but only because of how useful it would be on missions when needing to talk and manipulate the targets.

Widows of different generations were paired together in hopes of seeing improvement in both widows from the influence of each other. I was paired with Natasha, because her generation didn't receive any chemical subjugation, it was all mental.

We grew close because of how often we were together, they thought the more the pairs were together, the more influence they would have on each other.

They also wanted us to be almost in sync with each other so that we could be send out as a duo on missions. This worked well, there were many ways to disguise ourselves that would make us so unassuming, because who would suspect that a "mother and her daughter" or "siblings" could ever do something so horrid.

So despite being trained not to love, both of us still did. She fell into the role of a mother for me, she's one of the only older influences I've ever had in my life. And she, much more quickly than she would like to admit, saw me as her daughter.

I honestly don't think I could have survived the Red Room without Natasha. I'm autistic, and the Red Room is horrible for anyone, but for an autistic person, it was terrible. But, when Natasha and I were alone, she was the most caring and accepting person. She let me stim, even encouraged it, listened to me so she was educated and knew how to help, she always was there for me during meltdowns or sensory overloads, and was able to cover for me on days that I was nonverbal without anyone becoming too suspicious of why I wasn't speaking, because I would have gotten in big trouble if they noticed.

Natasha and I escaped together. The both of us were on that mission to kill Clint, and Clint took the both of us in instead. I was only 12 at the time. And now my mom and I have been living at the compound ever since.

.oOo.

As soon as I see the bright red hair that I know so well, shining even in the dark night, I jump up from my spot on the stairs and run towards her. I don't question at the moment why she is walking into the hangar instead of landing in the jet, I'm too relieved to even think about it.

This mission worried me to no end. Knowing first hand about the Red Room, I was genuinely scared she maybe wouldn't come home. I had countless meltdowns and shutdowns, and even though they exhausted me I still had many sleepless nights, which were filled with worry about my mom instead. Seeing her in person now and knowing she's okay is so relieving.

When I finally get close enough I jump into her arms, my legs wrapping around her waist as she holds me with one arm under my legs and the other wrapped tightly around my back, holding me closer to her. She buried her face into my hair and I stuffed my face into her shoulder.

I could feel her tears falling down onto my head, while mine soaked her neck and shirt. Although she would never tell me, there were moments where she didn't think she would make it out alive either. She had never been scared of death before, but it wasn't until this mission that she realized how fearful she really had been. Because now she has more than just herself to fight for, she had to come home to me. And it scared her that she might not make it back to me.

She swayed us side to side while we just clung tightly to each other. "I thought you wouldn't come home." I sobbed into her shoulder. Her hand come up to hold the back of my head, almost protectively. "I'll always come back for you. I'm sorry I worried you so much, but I'm taking a break from missions for a while okay? You don't need to worry anymore."

Before I could respond or even let out all of my tears of relief at her words, we both hear voices that interrupt us. "Natasha, where is the medical area you spoke of?" It's a woman with a russian accent, one so similar to my moms that comes out when she's tired or stressed.

I bring my head up and find two women, one with blonde hair and one with dark brown. The taller woman was leaning into the blonde, obviously injured. It seems that she was the one who spoke as well. I could hear Natasha sigh quietly as we pulled away and she set me down.

I wrapped my arms around hers and leaned into her. The women seem to have forgotten about their previous question as they saw me, shock clear on their faces. "Is this the girl you told us about?" The woman with blonde hair asks my mom.

Natasha nods. "Yeah. Melina, Yelena, this is my daughter. I told you about her earlier, she was from the Red Room as well." Natasha pointed to each woman as she said their names. I look up curiously at Natasha, those names sounds so familiar but I can't tell where from. "Remember how I told you about my time in Ohio?" Natasha asks me at seeing my questioning look.

I nod. "Yelena is my sister, and Melina is my mother." It all fits together now. I honestly don't know how to react, I didn't expect any of this right now. I don't even know how to act, did she tell them I'm autistic? I wasn't even prepared to mask tonight, I don't have the energy to honestly.

I give them a shy smile and a nod. The other two seem very excited to meet me, although they are obviously exhausted as well. "Here let's get you guys down to the medbay." Natasha says to them. It's only then do I take notice of the blood and scratches on her face, as I didn't really get a chance to take note of them earlier.

Before I can express my concern to Natasha she starts walking, taking me along with her. I frown at the action, usually she never ignores those small signs of communication that I give, since she's so good at reading me without me having to say anything. But I don't take it to heart, she's obviously tired and injured.

.oOo.

Thankfully Natasha was cleared by medical, her injuries weren't too bad, granted she fixed most of them herself. She would just be pretty sore and bruised, and also needs to be careful about her shoulder, but got prescribed some pain meds to help out, so she's doing okay.

After she comes out of her exam and tells me the good news, I expect to spend some more time with her like she promised. After all of her missions, every time we have the same routine together. Once she's cleared by medical, she showers and gets into comfy clothes while I pick out some food to order. By the time she's done the food is ordered and we pick something to watch on her tv. The whole rest of the night, or sometimes day, is spent cuddled together on her bed while watching a movie, often talking about other things as well. We never skipped that. We both love it, and she also knows how important routines are for me.

So her next words definitely hurt a bit. "Hey honey, I'm going to have to stay in here with Melina and Yelena for the night, I'm really sorry." I try not to let my disappointment show on my face, it's not her fault after all. I give her a small smile and hope it doesn't come out too sad or forced. "It's okay." I say, although I think she can see through my lie.

She gives me a sympathetic look and tucks a stray piece of hair behind my ear. I wrap my arms around her waist and pull her in for one last hug, before quickly leaving the med bay, not wanting her to see my tears. She watches me run away sadly, feeling terrible. But she knows I'll be okay, and she needs to be with her other family right now.

.oOo.

The first thing I do after waking up the next morning is go down to the med bay to look for my mom. It's Wednesday, and every Wednesday we always go out to breakfast at our favorite little cafe. I know that it probably won't happen today given what has happened, but I am still slightly hopeful.

After looking through the whole place twice I don't find her, and start to panic. While I was distracted I accidentally run into someone, getting knocked back onto the ground. I look up and see Steve, who smiles down at my apologetically.

"I'm sorry! I didn't see you there munchkin." I smiles the nickname and grab his hands as he helps me up from the ground. "It's okay." I shake my head with my laugh. This happens quite often, you would think I would learn to stop walking around while distracted. "Have you seen mama?"

"Yeah, she's in one of the patient rooms with her sister." Most of the rooms are glass, but some aren't for privacy reasons, like the patient rooms, so I didn't see her. He told me which room and I thanked him before running off.

I stopped in front of the door and peeked through the small window. I saw my mom and Yelena awake, but they seemed to be in deep conversation. I didn't want to interrupt them, but I wanted to be with my mom. I bit my lip anxiously and decided to just wait for her. I sat on the ground by the wall, hugging my knees to my chest and resting my head in my knees.

I closed my eyes and just let myself get lost in my thoughts, hoping that maybe my mom would come out eventually to go get breakfast with me, or maybe just at least let me come in and sit with her to be near her. So, I sat there against the wall, listening carefully for the sound of talking and laughter coming from my mom from the other side of the wall.

.oOo.

I didn't realize but I had fallen asleep, my legs still held tightly to my chest, curled up next to the wall. I'm woken up by a soft voice, "Hey, are you alright love?" I jump, startled after being woke up out of my sleep, but once I notice the familiar face I relax slightly.

Melina is crouched in front of me, a soft look on her face. She looks much less intimidating without her suit and her hair flowing down onto her shoulders. Her features are kind and soft, they remind me of Natasha's. Although they aren't biologically related, they have the same caring and protective nature, almost motherly like.

"I- I.. Yeah I'm fine." I stutter. Being verbal is difficult, especially when I'm exhausted and overwhelmed, which I definitely have been this past little while. "I was just looking for... Uhm, sorry." I ramble, getting up anxiously and trying to get away. It was just too much, and I felt slightly embarrassed for being caught like that. "Natasha? Here I'll get her." Melina says kindly.

"Oh, no, it's okay-" I rush out as she opens the door to the room. I back up and bite my lip anxiously, tears already starting to fill in my eyes.

I honestly don't even know what I'm feeling at the moment. All of my emotions are just so overwhelming, and I already have a hard enough time trying to identify and figure out what I'm feeling on a normal day. I'm not sure why I'm even crying, maybe it's because I feel guilty, but I don't even know at this point.

Natasha walks out of the room and gives me a soft smile when she sees me, before her face morphs into concern at seeing my tears. She rushes over to me, closing the door behind us so Melina and Yelena can't hear or see us.

"I- I'm sorry, I-" She cuts me off gently. "It's okay, you have nothing to apologize for. Have you been out here all morning?" She pulls me into her arms and I nod into her chest, appreciating her comforting embrace. "It.. It's Wednesday and I just thought.. I'm sorry, I should go." I try to pull away, but she doesn't let me, but not in a trapping way, I could get out if I really wanted to.

"Oh honey, you have nothing to be sorry for, okay? I'm sorry honey but I don't think I can go this week. Yelena took a pretty hard fall, and I haven't seen her or Melina in years, so just for a little bit I need to stick with them, alright?" I nod in understanding. I do understand, I really do, and I am happy for her that she finally found her family. But for some reason there's still a little part of me that feels sad at having my mama be taken away from me like this, but I push that down for her sake.

"You can always come in when you're ready to talk to them, they would love to see you. But you don't have to, only if you want to, okay?" I bite my lip in thought. "Don't wanna talk." I mumble, but she understands. "That's okay honey, you don't need to to speak to them. Even if you just want to come in to hang out with me, that's perfectly okay." I nod, feeling slightly relieved.

Her caring nature makes me feel even more guilty, because even though she has so much going on she's still taking such good care of me. "Here, how about you and Steve go get breakfast together, yeah? I'm sure he would love to go." I don't really feel like going with anyone other than my mom, even though I do love Steve. I nod to make her happy though.

She kisses the top of my head and rubs my back. "Love you" I mumble before pulling away. She smiles, "Love you too honey, I'll be just in here. Don't hesitate to come get me, okay?" I nod and give her the best smile I can before walking away.

I don't go to Steve though, I instead go to my moms room. Her bed is comfy and has a very fluffy comforter with many pillows and blankets. When I'm upset I love to just cocoon myself in all of the fluff, I like the pressure and security.

I arrange the pillows and blankets how I like, until I feels like I'm completely entrapped in my own little cocoon, and I turn the tv on. I flip to my comfort show, one that I've seen so many times I always know every line.

.oOo.

Natasha gets up when she hears a knock at the door, pausing her conversation with Yelena and Melina. She smiles when she sees Steve, who has brought all of them lunch. She hands it over to Melina who helps her unpack all of it. "How was breakfast?" Natasha asks Steve.

Steve quirks his head in confusion. "What do you mean?" He asks confused. Natasha freezes. "With my daughter?" She jokes, hoping it was just a misunderstanding, but when she sees the look on Steve's face she realizes it wasn't just a misunderstanding.

"She was supposed to ask you to go out to breakfast with her, since we do every Wednesday but I couldn't go this time." She sighs and frowns. "She never asked me, I saw her earlier because she was trying to find you, but I haven't seen her since." Steve replies.

"Oh... Thanks for lunch." Natasha tried to put on a fake smile, dropping the subject.

[dboliklover]

Tainting the Angel so That She Falls - Subaru 

Existence had always been unkind to you, as a Nephilim.

A child of both worlds.

An abomination.

You never really ‘belonged’ anywhere, born too sinful to join the angelic ranks, too holy and powerful to live amongst the human children.

Your mother had tried her best to raise you and keep your parentage a secret from the other village folks - she tried to ensure you had a safe upbringing, but it was not meant to be. You were too strange to fit in with the other children, and it showed.

Eventually, your mother even gave her life to protect you from the villagers’ harmful intent, believing you to be a demonic child, not an angelic one. Then again, to them, there would be little difference. You were dangerous in their eyes because you were a mystical being unknown to them.

And they feared that which they did not know.

So you ran. You ran far and tried to find your place in the world, though it was tremendously difficult and the road was ever-weary.

It was a tremendously painful life, full of challenges to just stay alive - never belonging anywhere. Through the centuries you adapted from one place to another, from era to era, keeping mostly to yourself because you knew no matter how hard you tried, that you’d never be accepted by the humans.

And that was when you met him.

He was a vampire. You didn’t sense that at first - only the vague sense of solidarity between yourselves. From the very first moment you met him, you felt connected to him.

You were both still children. You’d been older by a century or two - but by immortal standards, this was nothing; and though your innocence was gone due to era after era of horrible treatment and observing the sins of humanity, your body had yet to mature.  Immortals aged far slower.

His own innocence was almost gone, when you met him.

He was a sweet boy. Your meeting had been an accident - you were in a forest when you saw him - he was picking wild roses and flowers, when you stepped on a branch and accidentally made yourself known. He hissed, thinking you an enemy, only to raise his eyebrow in surprise when he saw a weak-looking, starved girl show herself to him.

Feebly, you introduced yourself as simply “(Y/N)”.  Nothing more, nothing less.

Subaru allowed you to pick the flowers with him and explained they were for his mother; he wished to do something nice for her that would make her smile - “she’s been unhappy a lot, lately.” He told you, that day.

Once the sun began to go down, you stood, wishing him and his mother well, turning to walk back into the woods. You had the sweetest little hut you had found in the woods back about a decade or so, it was small and quaint and well-hidden, and thus ideal for you. Perhaps, it was cold, and winters were harsh, but you loved your small hut for one.

From the moment of your fateful meeting onwards, you and Subaru spent more time together. He’d come to visit you, especially when he had terrible days, and you let him see your hut.

For a little while, everything was good. Your life, always so chaotic, was...good, and you were truly happy for the first time in forever.  

Seasons changed just as they did each year, but for the first time, you noticed the beauty in everything. The rusty autumn leaves, the frosty spiderwebs, the spring daises, the sun-encased trees.

And, as time passed, you and Subaru only became closer. Childhood sweethearts; not-quite-lovers. Simply two young souls who adored each other, who understood each other, who felt a bond. The type of relationship that is filled with “almost”.

Almost kisses, almost lovers, almost romance, almost eternal;

Until, one day, he stopped visiting you.

You had no idea why - you tried to find out, to go to him, but you did not know where his house was. For all you knew, someone or something might’ve killed your best friend in cold hands.

You stayed up all day and night for weeks on end hoping he would come, searching your forest high and low, but there was no sign of him.

Dejected, you had to accept the outcome that either he was now dead, or, the dreadful outcome; he was tired and bored of you.

It also turned out that one of the nearby villagers had seen you, and they gathered to expel you from your hut. Unfortunately for you, the village nearest to the forest had been overflowing with superstitious fools who, as all humans did, chased you out with flames and curses.

Years and decades blended together undistinguishedly, and now you were sitting on a church rooftop, petite but glorious wings on your back, loosely relaxed. You’d been accepted, at long last, by the angelic order.

You still had no idea why they allowed you into their order - you, who they viewed as a disgusting being for so long - but you were glad because at long last you finally ‘belonged’.

Except you didn’t really feel as if you did. Being one of them was great - what you’d dreamt of since you were a child, but now you found it so...devoid of joy.

Subaru still crossed your mind, more often than he ought to. You wished you had more time with him, but Fate was a cruel mistress. Whatever happened to him in the end, you could only hope it brought him peace, even if it was death.

The card that Fate threw at you, however, mere months later was as unexpected as could be.

Walking down the streets, wearing a charm that concealed you from human eyes, you tried to locate your new human charge - they were going to let you observe humans and assist some guardian angels to train yourself to someday become one, too.

It was there where you saw him, but you could not believe your eyes - it was a hallucination, it must be.

You stood across from one another in the street, baffled, until Subaru was approached by what you could only assume were his brothers and a sweet-looking blonde girl, pulling him away from staring at the girl across the street.

He looked...good. Shaking yourself out of that state, you turned and continued walking to your destination, trying to focus on the task at hand. Subaru was your past.

Being an angel...this was your future.

It was your future...but you felt drawn towards him, you always were.

The next time you saw him, it was months later. You spent those months working and sucking up to make yourself seem worthy of your lowly angelic ranking - they had a change of heart and allowed you to join them in the first place, you weren’t about to be lazy and make them think they made a regrettable choice.

As one who never fit anywhere, this was going to be as good as it got for you. Humanity was overrated, so at least you had that in common with quite a large portion of some more...spiteful angels.

This time, you had a different kind of task. Your tasks as a pupil for being a future guardian was going well, but they wanted to test your abilities to protect your charges from evil beings, and thus you were given the responsibility to ‘take care’ of some small negative influences - nothing extreme, you were always going to be a Nephilim, and thus weaker than a full-on angel when it came to powers. You had to get rid of some slightly-negative spirits, helping them pass over to the other side. Not the easiest job, but not dangerous, either.

It was during this time that Subaru approached you, breathless, just as you watched a spirit fade into the light, feeling you with warmth. Subaru had watched you in the shadows as you gently explained to the ghost that they were dead and that their confusion was valid, but they needed to let go. It was beautiful.

“(Y/N).”

You gasped, turning around and staring at him, fighting against your immediate instinct to run into his arms and hug him as you cried. He was your past, now, not your future.

“Subaru…”

The awkward tension was endless. What could he possibly say to you? What could you possibly say to him?

“I…” he paused, gulping, ashamed. He had never gone back to visit you, never said goodbye, and the shame from that was hitting him - hard. He’d abandoned you like he feared to be abandoned.

He did to you, what he feared would be done to him. There was no amount of apologies that could ever atone for that.

When he did go back, months later, your small cottage had been burnt to the ground, as with the woodland closest to it. He recalled how much he wept, thinking you dead.

And now here you were and with wings this time around.

“You’re an angel now,”

“-Yes.” your responses were curt and simple - you couldn’t be mixed up with him anymore. If someone saw you...well, you would risk falling and that would be worse than if you remained half-way between two worlds.

Subaru cursed himself into infinity, throat and chest feeling too tight - he couldn’t breathe.

“I must go,” You stated, taking him off-guard, and left.

And just like the first time he lost you, you took his heart with you.

He couldn’t sleep for weeks on end, dreams of you haunting him, regret overcoming him. He needed to find you - to explain himself - to, perhaps, make things right if at all possible.

Subaru knew he didn’t deserve your forgiveness. You’d always been too soft, too sweet, too loving for him. But he had to try.

A monster he may be, but he’d be damned if he didn’t even try to atone.

Finding you was harder than he thought, however, since you were evading him - when he got sight of you, you would see him and hurry away.

It frustrated him to no end.

You tried your hardest to be strong, to stay away from him. Your heart longed for him for so long, but you couldn’t allow yourself to be seen with him, to fraternize with him.

Except you were weak, and after the nth time of seeing him and his dejected face, you sighed and went down to him, allowing him to talk.

He then, badly, attempted to redeem himself - explain himself - in front of you, stuttering over every other word as his emotions overwhelmed him and made him want to punch the nearest wall, and he did. His sudden affinity for violence shocked you and made you flinch, caused pain to strike through his unbeating heart.

You were scared of him, now, because he couldn’t control his forsaken temper!

But you, foolishly, agreed to forgive him - and from then on, though you didn’t particularly go out of your way to see him, if you happened to then you were just as kind and sweet as ever.

He missed you so badly, he hadn’t even realised how much until now.

And he wanted you to be with him - like you always should’ve been - but you were on the angels’ side now, and he knew better than to try and ruin something so beautiful for you.

So, when you had a fallout with some upper angels, and realised how miserable you were, you went to find him just to lament your fate - he was the only person  you could go to in this situation, and you just hoped he wouldn’t mind your ranting.

He understood, then, that you still felt like you did not belong even with the angels.

But he dared not suggest anything else -  anything about you stepping away from that Holy Order.

And, when you were discovered, he knew he had to do something right by you, for once, and tried to place all the blame on himself; he tempted you - and all those bullshit ‘unholy’ acts - to frame himself as the sinner, which he was, in this case. You, however, were having none of it.

Even if you hadn’t announced that you were fine with falling, you would’ve fallen regardless; an angel was meant to be incorruptible, which you clearly weren’t in their eyes.

But the fact he still tried warmed your heart, and you appreciated it oh-so-deeply.

Gods, you loved him - oh God. You loved him. Though you supposed it had always been that way.

And...if falling was what it took to be with him - to be allowed to be with him - then so be it. Because by his side, and only by his side, did you feel like you belonged.

- Mod Rozalia 

[derangedhyena-zoids]

so, I was thinking, and I'm gonna go on a small side-quest of a rant about Ambient for a sec.

cut for length and garbage art, as usual.

Ambient's absolutely an asshole and his ability to be meaningfully redeemed... is honestly questionable. It really depends on how the story goes (JUST BECAUSE I HAVE PLANS DOES NOT MEAN I AM DRIVING. HAHA WHAT IS WRITING? FUCK)

I like Ambient a great deal though as a character, and he (just like any of the other 'noids) IS a character with his own set of traits, personality, etc.

Just, the entire concept of a bondmate is that you're paired with someone immensely compatible with you. And if you're immensely compatible with Hiltz, well...

Organoids are naturally creatures that live in a huge nest, a huge colony, they're INSANELY social. Zoidians hijacked this setup long ago, and tied the social lives of Organoids up in their own. The social structures of the colonies never completely went away though (many Organoids weren't paired with Zoidians), and Organoids never LEFT their colonies. They lived with their partners, yes - but would occasionally pop back in to their colony when they felt like it (any number of reasons, but almost all of them social of some stripe.)

The point here is that Organoids do not like, and do not want, to be alone. It's an intensely abnormal state of being for them.

When fairly young, Zoidians were taken to pair up with hatchling or very young Organoids. From that point on, the pair is 110% involved in each other’s EVERYTHING. There’s no concept of privacy, nor is there even the notion of it. (you can see how this would be intensely weird for say, Bit, initially.) Two distinct entities remain, but they’re crazily invested in each other’s well-being.  So. Not to play full on devil’s-advocate here, but you have to remember that bad guys don’t go around thinking they’re bad.

Tiny bab Ambient was certainly not bad.

Honestly, Vega’s worse now than they were, then.

They grew up in a setting where they were told in no uncertain terms they were superior to the other. And they were given every reason to believe so. 

This was a period of huge social strife on Zi, and Hiltz became very interested in the political power-plays going on. Education was common and widely available in certain parts of Zi; Hiltz availed himself of it, and slowly became aware of the teachings and practices of an extremist sect that had been growing in power and influence, in his corner of the world. It jived with Hiltz. He became part of it. He and Ambient trained up into literal soldiers. 

Strife became war, and war became genocide. Things got nasty.   Hiltz had bigger and better ideas for himself than simply being a soldier, but he’d more or less become locked into that role. Even then he was trying to find ways to manipulate the goings-on around him, pushing his boundaries and learning how to not get caught.

Ambient was just as much a part of that all, and has those same skills.

Hiltz was in no way bad to Ambient during these times. He did get frustrated and blame his own shortcomings on Ambient, but that’s ultimately what sculpted Ambient into an intensifier of willpower/desire. 

After all, the entire bondmate thing is that there’s mutual bolstering and benefit. Hiltz brought direction and drive to the table. before anyone feels charitable towards Hiltz in any way, HI PLEASE REMEMBER that his main job for this while was being part of a group that combed through smaller settlements that’d just been torn up by their allies’ Zoid attacks... looking for and then slaughtering any survivors.  (probably a bit crazy-making to know you destroyed so much of your own race while facing literal extinction later...) So... it’s pretty easy to see where you start heading towards The Mess That Is Guardian Force. 

The nuance comes in with the details in all those bullshit comics I keep drawing, but the tl;dr is Ambient’s bond with Hiltz was never right again. Neither of them could really tell or articulate the issue, but it definitely caused and compounded problems. They lost touch in very serious ways, but it happened very gradually - slowly boiling the frog, and all that. Hiltz was not right after Worthless.  Misaligned is, quite literally, about how there’s a “misalignment.” Everyone KNOWS something is wrong, but no one can (or will) do anything about it. Pantheon (which, I know, isn’t done yet) shows Ambient dealing with the cognitive dissonance of Hiltz even eyeing One, which is:

and ofc Fractured is the beginning of the end. 

So.

Ambient’s entire worldview simply runs counter to humanity. He thinks Hiltz was right, and that plans just went terribly sideways.  He’s not wrong... but he’s not right, either.

For some reason* he didn’t die off after GF, despite being grievously wounded. It took him a while but he eventually found Specula and Ryss (...and Raven and Shadow). Ryss tried to talk sense into him, baffled that he was even alive. But when he tried to threaten the two, Raven and Shadow had none of it and uh. showed him the door.  

Ambient knows he can’t do anything anymore, especially not alone. Managing to barely but reliably survive for so many years shaped him into a bitter, sarcastic asshole, who largely scavenged for food but would gleefully kill and eat anyone sufficiently defenseless.

yes, that absolutely includes children, and he was actually quite a terrifying problem for a while for some of the outlying colonies. though not entirely the reason (supply line issues and bandits were the main ones), the threat he consistently posed was part of why smaller colonies were forcibly evacuated in favor of pushing people into larger - safer - settlements.

To Ambient, everything now is basically a massive failure state in which pests have overrun the dying planet. He misses Hiltz but also doesn’t understand why (and barely can stand to acknowledge) his own fucking bondmate betrayed him. He blames One.  Again, he’s not wrong, but.....

He knows Brad’s not Hiltz, an entertains no delusions that he can be anything close. But “some” is better than “none.” And he’s truly tired of being alone. (He also really did need the help after Alteil shot him.)  *some reason = fucked around with the gods, found out

[chicagocityofclans]

Winifred (Winnie) Zhao → Michaela Conlin  → Witch

→ Basic Information

Age: 510

Gender: Female

Sexuality: Pansexual 

Powers: Dream Manipulation 

Birthday: June 1st

Zodiac Sign: Gemini

Religion: Taoism 

Mark: Lee/Ee

Generation: 2nd generation 

→ Her Personality

Winnie never tries to be anything other than who she is and she has a deep respect for people who do the same. She’s the kind of person that will give you advice you didn’t ask for but more often than not you’ll be glad she did. You could say she is a truly open book when it comes to herself but when it comes to other people's secrets she’s more like a bank vault. Her candour can surprise people sometimes, which secretly she kind of likes, as she will tell you most anything about herself if asked. 

She doesn’t like stress or pressure, going out of her way to build a life for herself that will contain as little of either as she can manage. Any amount of stress brings out the insomnia she is prone to, and she won’t thank you if you’re the cause of it. She’s very much a people person though, enjoying chatting with people about their lives and their dreams for the future. With her power though she is very respectful of boundaries, not wishing to use it on people without their permission. 

→ Her Personal Facts

Occupation: Overnight Caregiver (Taker of Nightmares) and Maker of a holistic sleep products line available at Wondering Worlds of Magic

Scars: None

Tattoos: Delicate tattoo of the moon phases on her left side rib cage

Two Likes: Stargazing and Fruit Tea 

Two Dislikes: Television and Pineapple 

Two Fears: Being trapped in a dream and Prolonged, Extreme Insomnia 

Two Hobbies: Tarot and Painting 

Three Positive Traits: Honest, Insightful and Liberal 

Three Negative Traits: Changeable, Opinionated and Shameless 

→ Her Connections

Parent Names:

Caihong Zhao (Mother): She was not a cruel woman but she was never a close to Winnie as she was with her other children. Winnie could never understand this until she learnt the truth about her father. Since then their relationship has improved but they’re still not close.

Luca Tovani (Father/deceased): She only met her father in what were to be the later years of his life as he’d had no idea she existed till she tracked him down. They had a few years together before he was tragically killed and Winnie enjoyed getting to know him.

Guozhi Zhao (Step-father/deceased): Through her early years she believed that he was her actual father. He was a kind man and funny man. He adored Winnie and she adored him in return.

Sibling Names:

Jianyu Zhao (Brother): Out of all her family, he is the one she is closest to now. Jianyu takes after his father in his kindness and humour, and even after the truth was ousted about Winnie’s real father he still treated her the same. To this day he is the most understanding of her.

Kang Zhao (Brother): Kang was always a bit of a bully and Winnie always detested him for that. He’s mellowed as he’s gotten older but he treats her as below him now he knows about her father.

Li Na Zhao (Sister): When they were little Winnie and Li Na were inseparable, Winnie often protecting her from Kang. However the two have barely spoken in the centuries since Winnie’s true parentage came to light. It still breaks Winnie’s heart that her sister reacted like she did.

Children Names:

None

Romantic Connections:

Kady Gaines (Ex-girlfriend): The combination of Kady and Winnie’s personalities lead to a very passionate relationship but in the end neither of them were ready or willing to settle down. Both ran from the idea of anything serious to the point they avoided each other when then broke up. That was a long time ago though and they have found enough time has passed for them to start to be friends again. 

Farrokh Alvi (Old Friend): Farrokh and Winnie have been friends for a very long time. There’s always been the hint of something between them but neither has ever taken it further than the odd bit of flirting or a kiss under the mistletoe. 

Platonic Connections:

Catherine Barr (Friendly): The two women met at a women's rights protest. Winnie had just been passing by and stopped to see what was going on. Cat was the person she asked. Since then they’ve shared the occasional cup of coffee when they’ve bumped into each other. 

Ronan Cleirigh (Former Mentor): Winnie enjoyed her time mentoring with Ronan. He was a great mentor in her eyes, who helped her hugely with her powers. She only left so she could study under a mentor who would help her learn more about the craft of potions. 

Minsky Edison (Former Mentor): With his specialty for mentoring mental powers Minsky was the perfect fit for Winnie’s final years of training. He helped her reach the master levels of her abilities. Whilst he was a strict teacher she swears she wouldn’t be the witch she was today without him.

Kenneth ‘Ken’ McStevens (New Acquaintance): Winnie found out pretty soon after meeting him that he is Benevorous but she doesn’t care. She thinks he’s got a fun soul and enjoys being round him. 

Chiara Ricci (Friend): They met at a spiritual shop when Chiara was shopping for a Tarot deck. Winnie offered to pick and buy one for her as it’s always better when they’re gifted to you. They’ve been friends ever since. 

Lyra Cleirigh (Friend): Winnie met Lyra whilst she was mentoring with Ronan. They bonded right away over their shared interest in art and their friendship grew from there. 

Talia Cleirigh (Good Friend): Winnie was introduced to Talia by Ronan as they share the same ability. It was the first time Winnie had met anyone like her and it felt so good to be able have someone who fully understood what it was like. 

Kaylor Genesis (Friend): Kaylor is another friend that Winnie made thanks to having Ronan as a mentor. They’d see each other often during those days and their friendship formed naturally and easily.

Harry Reeves (Client): Harry has recently started to come to Winnie for help with his insomnia. 

Briar Larson(Friendly): Winnie has sold a few of her art pieces through Briar in the past. She enjoys talking to her about art and thinks they could become friends. 

Jia Hu Cleirigh (Friend): At first Winnie and Jia bonded over their native language but a friendship quickly grew from it and has continued to flourish since. 

Hostile Connections:

Roman Cleirigh (Distrusts): One of the ghosts attached to Roman, Justin, possessed her. It wasn’t a pleasant experience and Winnie is still upset that Roman didn’t warn her it could happen. 

Pets:

Gabriel: a black void of a cat that loves cuddles and will sit on the empty chair at the dinner table when Winnie eats. 

→ History Winifred was born with the name Genji in Zhujiajiao, a water town near Shanghai. It was the perfect home for a family of elemental witches, which is what she was expected to be given she was a second generation member of the Ee mark. Both her parents were, as was her older brother, and from a young age both her younger siblings started to display the tell tale signs of their elemental magic. This wasn’t the case for Winnie. Growing up she always presumed this was the cause of her mother's distance from her. She always paid a lot more attention and gave a lot more time to her other three children and the mentees she took on that she did her eldest daughter. It made Winnie feel she had failed somehow but her father always sought to show her she was wrong. Guozhi always adored her and made sure he made up for the lack of attention her mother gave her. 

Whilst she didn’t display any signs of being able to control any elements it was clear there was something special about her. Her parents would often find her in the beds of her siblings in the mornings, even Kang who she never got along with. When asked what she was doing she would shrug and say they needed her. It was one of her mother's mentees who finally figured it out after they themselves woke up with Winnie curled up next to them. They suffered from terrible nightmares and that night was the first time in a long time they hadn’t woken from them. In fact they couldn’t remember having them at all. She was one of the first witches to show signs of a mental power in the family which confused everyone greatly and resulted in her mother becoming even more distant. After that it wasn’t long before they realised Winnie was a dream manipulator. 

It is a tradition of the Ee family that members are trained within the family for the first 300 years and despite Winnie’s unusual power the head of the family declared she would be no different. When she was of age she was sent to train with her uncle, which only meant going to the house on the opposite side of the small river their home sat on. Her uncle was fascinated by her, often treating her more like some curiosity than his student. He was not an unkind man though and Winnie grew to rather love how he made her feel like she was something remarkable. It was also his influence that gave her the freedom to speak her mind as she was always getting told off for doing at home. 

Life passed rather quietly for the first few hundred years and whilst Winnie started to crave more she never would have imagined what was to come. Guozhi, the man who had raised her, died suddenly. The whole family was thrown into turmoil by what would follow it. Naturally Winnie was heart broken. The nights were the worst though. Her insomnia got worse and when she did finally fall asleep she couldn’t stop herself from slipping into her family's dreams. There were nights where she felt like she was drowning under the weight of those grief driven dreams of the people around her and she frequently woke up with her bedroom full of water. One morning when she broke down in tears after slipping into the daydream of her mother whilst making tea her mother finally snapped. She accused Winnie of having no right to her grief and finally letting slip that he wasn’t her father at all.

Her mother practically ignored her for a week after that. In that time her younger sister also stopped talking to her and her younger brother started speaking to her like she was the staff. It was only her older brother, so much like his father, that stuck by her side. Eventually Winnie was able to get her mother to tell her the full truth. Guozhi had been away in Shanghai for some months on family business when a stranger entered her life. His name was Luca and he was a merchant from Italy who was travelling the Silk Road. He was handsome and charming and swept a lonely Caihong off her feet. Before she realised what she was doing she’d spent the night with him. In the morning he continued on his travels and she got back to her daily life. She tried to bury the shame of what she’d done but when she found out she was pregnant she knew it was his. It was her belief it was the god's punishment for straying from her marriage. 

Winnie was furious, having spent her life thinking she’d done something to disappoint her mother but all along it was the woman's own shame that had caused her to treat Winnie as she did. With the name of her biological father and the city he was from she left that spring, travelling along the Silk Road to Italy. It took her a year to track down Luca Tovani but when she did he welcomed her with open arms. She found he was from a family known for their mental powers and he offered to take on the responsibility of her mentoring. It was here that she started going by Winifred. Luca had no other children but confessed to her that if he had he’d always liked the name Winifred. Wanting to show that she wasn’t just a Ee, that she was his daughter too she decided to take on the name. 

They only had a few short years together before he too was killed. Once again she was heartbroken but she was also so thankful that she’d gotten to spend any time with him at all. She stayed on in Italy, being mentored by one of her father's oldest friends and exploring the country he’d called home. 

Eventually she travelled back to her own home to reconnect with her family. Her two youngest siblings still treated her with disdain but her older brother was overjoyed to see her. Even her mother showed more warmth towards her than she ever had before. But she felt in her heart that she couldn’t stay there permanently. So she travelled to America where she could continue her training. 

→ The Present Winnie only finished her training ten years ago, at which time she decided she wanted to stay in Chicago. One day she’d like to become a mentor herself but right now she’s enjoying the freedom completing her own training has given her. She likes having more time to indulge in the things she enjoys and to develop her own business. She’s been slowly building a client list of people who she helps with sleep and nightmare issues. Alongside this Winnie is enjoying developing a line of teas, candles and bath products to aid sleep and good dreams. She’s been selling these concoctions and potions through Wondering Worlds of Magic.

[cutiepasta-thewriter]

DnD: Why we don't play with Peter

Tony knows how much Peter loves his nerdy tabletop RPGs. Every other week he'd sits down with his group to play a campaign but not recently.

His group was disbanded and while Peter was a little bummed he decided to find a new group.

Seeing this as an opportunity for some father son bonding he gets the other avengers to play a few games with him.

It was actually effective team building since the game requires the players to have patience and work together.

To everyone's surprise the GM was Dr.Strange who actually had experience with DnD when he was young and nerdy.

They decided on playing a Star Wars game with everyone split into Jedi and Sith teams.

Jedi: Steve, Clint, Peter, Thor, Bruce, Wanda and Bucky

Sith: Tony, Natasha, Loki, and Carol

The Jedis' job was to track down and defeat the Sith players.

The Siths' job was to gain political power, military power, influence, information and moral power.

The works was split up among the dark side agents which caused the Jedi to plan for each take down of the lords. Fortunately, they were all endgame battles.

Most of the Jedi were in training with Steve getting one of the master roles with Wanda.

During a training exercise Clint hit Peter in the back causing a random effect of dark energy lashing out and blasting the other character clear across the room.

Steve immediately took Peter aside to talk about power and using the right kind of power. Afterwards the other Jedi kept a close eye on Peter and rarely left him alone and never let him off the ship if they could help it.

Peter didn't object in the beginning but it was a headache in late game.

All the while the Sith players started spending their time gaining power. Carol had her own private army, Loki was rubbing shoulders with dignitaries that owe him a lot of favors, Tony gained control of his own citadel with control of his own trading port, Natasha kept her role quiet. To be honest the Jedi players were worried when they heard this because their most strategic allies were the enemy. Even Peter said he couldn't face his father.

As the game went on a few of the Jedi became that guy. You know the one, once he gets to high renown and is high leveled they begin changing alignment and becoming a dick. Those players can often ruin the game for others. Clint even told the Stephen to shut up, a cardinal sin in this game.

For Steve, his character began to believe his word should be law and micromanaged everyone. Peter who s task was to manage cargo and maintenance often got annoyed with him. Clint on the other had had the spirit of a murder hobo with the standard dubious morality. His reckless behavior got the team into many unwanted battles. This is how Thor ended up dead when Bruce wasn't there to heal him.

Bruce's character never forgave Clint since they were in a relationship with Thor's.

Later it was Wanda who died in a stupid battle and Steve got worse without the other master to stop him.

Each time the Jedi faced down the Sith the battle ended in a stalemate and the Sith getting away.

However during the invasion of the Citadel they managed to capture Tony. When Steve tried to kill Tony it was Peter who stepped in, in story Tony was the father of Peter's character and if Steve killed him it would end Peter's storyline since he wanted to turn his father back to the light.

Steve still did it since this was their only chance. He stabbed Tony through the chest as Peter screamed. The rest of the group OOC began yelling at Steve because that wasn't cool. Stephen said it was fine since the death was fair.

Peter immediately demanded he be given the body to deal with and later had it delivered to his homeworld. He wasn't the same after for a while but later said he accepted that this was because of his father's life choices and that he made made his own.

During the final showdown the two groups faced down. Steve delivered his self righteous monologue and in the middle of it he felt a saber at his back.

It was Peter holding it and smiling.

"Finally, do you know how old those speeches get after awhile. Dear god, you never shut up about the Jedi way! Do you know what it's like listening to you people with your self righteous bull. You think your so noble but your just as bad, you guys are constantly killing innocents and claim it to be the price of helping the greater good" Peter's character screamed as if he was in agony.

Steve turned his back to see not just Peter but Bruce and Bucky had also turned on him.

"I told you already. I can't go against my father." He said softly.

"Bucky? You too?" Steve asked.

"Sorry, but he has a point. We've done some fucked up stuff in the name of the light and I'd rather just not participate in any of this at all. I'm leaving." Bucky turned his back and left being spared from the onslaught by not choosing a side in what he sees as a pointless battle.

This was a pretty big deal since a player not participating in the last battle is unheard of.

Sure enough Bucky IRL was sitting back to enjoy the show.

That be said from behind the other Sith players came Tony who was very much alive. Where Steve had stabbed him in the heart was this universes equivalent of the the arch reactor.

Hearing Stephen describe this made the entire table break out in laughter and shock.

Apparently Peter had Bruce help revive Tony and had the sith shipped of to a private hospital he owned.

After Peter stabbed Steve in the back and Bruce made short work of Clint who was furiously trying to fight his way out, the game was announced over.

Stephen cleared up the confusion and stated at there were actually five Sith in the game one of which had the role of information (natasha) gathering the other moral influence. Natasha didn't say hers so the Jedi wouldn't be tipped off. Peter was there to gather what he could on the light and send it to Nat secretly and to turn their allies against them. They had failed to notice him the entire time. Every battle against one of the lords were sabotaged since Peter had already told them the plan.

In fact after Tony's "death" Peter made a shadow government to take over the citadel to make it look like the jedi had won.

All went according to plan and the Sith remained victorious.

You see when Steve and Clint got too out of hand Peter pulled Stephen aside. Since they were new to the game and hadn't yet curbed their impulses yet they had to be taught a lesson. The other party members agreed and allowed Peter his due.

One thing no one told the entire group was the reason Peter lost his previous group was because of his role. You see some groups may get out of hand with terrible party members who ruin the fun for everyone so instead of just kicking them put the DM will call in Peter who is well known for what he does by the DM community. Peter was known as a hobo killer. He won't just kill them though he would destroy them in an ironic twist he'd pull right before the end. He'd rob them of a satisfactory story line just so they couldn't reroll a character.

He had done this with the permission of his DM and caused all the toxic players to leave the group in anger. The DM was thankful knowing the players wouldn't be back after Peter released a terask apon the mortal realm and revealed that his character was a god and the end times were here.

That being said no one played DnD with Peter without being on his side and not being a dickish player.

[posthumanwanderings]

while I was on the train to Nakano Broadway to collect more Heisei era Godzilla toys, I thought I’d make a personal list of the best to worst Godzilla films (up until Godzilla 2000 cause that’s around the time I stopped caring, I’ll try again tho) since the new Godzilla film is around the corner and maybe some of you are interested in giving the Big G’s archive a shot (you can delete this caption too if you just like the pic! and yes Morrigan counts as a kaiju, a beautiful one at that)

1. Terror of Mechagodzilla - last of the Showa era, ending with one of Godzilla’s most deadly foes. and I love how fucking big Titanosaurus is, god damn. the cyborg girl was cool too, loved her arc and how she controls both monsters.

2. Godzilla Vs. Mothra (90′s) - Mothra’s Heisei debut, and looking more dazzling than ever and also alongside her evil twin Battra. the fight in Yokohama (after its real life modern expansion when Japan’s economy was at its best) was a nice fresh setting for the climax. this one perfectly balances campyness and just a good kaiju film altogether. 3. Ghidorah: The Three Headed Monster - Ghidorah, besides Mothra and Mechagodzilla is probably the next most recognizable kaiju even to nonfans. One of the best moments in Godzilla history is when Mothra desparately tries to convince Godzilla and Rodan to team up against an even bigger menace, then they can get back to their typical kaiju businesses. 4. Godzilla Vs. Destroyah - like how T.O.M. ended the Showa era with a bang, this is the one that ended the 85-95 era with a monster that really beats the shit out of zilla who is already on the cusp of exploding like a nuclear reactor... it ties together the very first Godzilla movie too for plus points. for those looking for a more serious, borderline horror movie kaiju experience.  5. Godzilla Vs. Mothra (60′s) - yup two Mothra movies in the top 5. Mothra fights with Godzilla are always so tense, since Mothra being a giant graceful butterfly appears so delicate against big boi Godzilla, plus her kids are under his threat as well. and on top of that Godzilla moves and fights like a drunkard the whole time. 6. Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (70′s) - Godzilla faces his robot clone for the first time who has one of the largest movesets of any other kaiju, a true force to be reckoned with. instead of Mothra being summoned by an ancient race, we have King Caesar, a stone guardian puppy dog lion to team up with zilla against the bigger baddie. fun fact: this was filmed right after Japan gained back Okinawa from America since WWII, and makes once again another fresh setting.

7. Godzilla 1985 - I’ll be honest, the lone Godzilla movies with no other kaiju weren’t the top of my interest especially being an ADHD kid, but from a film perspective this is shot really well, the miniature city set had a nice upgrade since T.O.M. from a decade before, and I love the laser beam special effects from the upgraded Japanese Defense Force in this.

8. Godzilla Vs. King Ghidorah (90′s) - Not to be confused with the other 5ish Ghidorah encounters, this was the Heisei debut of the 3 headed monster mixed into a time travel plot since movies like Terminator were all the rage in the early 90′s. The tie in plot about WWII had more to be desired and felt very nationalist, but as a kaiju film the special effects were top notch especially with Mecha Ghidorah.

9. Destroy All Monsters - the ULTIMATE Showa era kaiju crossover fest has just about every giant monster Toho made up until the point because why not? It’s another typical story about mysterious aliens mind controlling kaiju to destroy Earth, but this time when they say Earth (and not just Tokyo) they mean it. Plenty of things get destroyed, nice big battle at the end, only thing lacking is they gave Baragon and Varan 3 seconds of screen time and they both are some of the coolest looking kaiju there are out there. big shame

10. Godzilla Vs. Mechagodzilla (90′s) - in this Heisei take on MechaG, his role goes from super deadly alien robot menace to kinda still deadly robot guardian built by the EDF. he looks cool but just seems more weak compared to the more sinister alien engineered one. Rodan makes a long awaited return and basically has a custody battle with Godzilla over a mysterious kaiju egg. no spoilers

11. Godzilla Vs. Hedorah - probably the scariest Godzilla movie with Destroyah placed next. he fights an alien pollution monster who has been taking big rips from factory smoke stacks only making him bigger every time. Japan’s take on an environmental awareness film and I see nothing wrong with it one bit.

12. Godzilla Vs. Biolante - zilla sees another type of counterpart to himself, this time essentially a ‘PlantZilla’ after a scientist thought it might be a good idea to merge Godzilla cells with a plant for some reason. the story is a bit odd, but this remains in middle ground territory because it debuts Miki Saegusa, the super adorable psychic girl who appears in every 90′s film afterwards and the special effects of Biolante in final form are sick.it also has a disco version of the zilla theme for some reason.

13. Godzilla: King of The Monsters - someone would bash me big time for having this any lower on the list, but this is the one that started it all, grimly filmed in black & white a decade after the end of WWII. fans know this already but it’s the atomic bombs themselves which devastated Japan that influenced the idea for Godzilla, a force of mutated nature that lashes back on humanity for making really bad decisions. I like this and all but it lacks zero charm or kaiju style ‘fun’ but for good reason, since it was meant to be more of a horror flick. 

14. Godzilla Vs. Gigan - for those that do want the campiness, this is one of the best the series has to offer along with a couple more below. Godzilla’s ol pal Anguirus returns for his last Showa effort as they team up against space monsters Gigan (who is edgy af) and once again Ghidorah (who sadly has been fighting on his own the whole time while other monsters always team up to bash him). being in the 70′s, it’s got shades of James Bond / spy films in it and the fashion is on point. we get to hear Godzilla talk for the only time ever too.

15. Godzilla Vs. Megalon - probably out camps #14 for several reasons: this entire time there have been an ancient race of humans living below the Earth who feel enough is enough between pollution and expansion of society and finally unleash their protector, a giant cockroach monster with drills for arms to destroy just Japan all modern civilization (where was he during Hedorah’s visit tho?). 2nd reason is there’s copycat Ultraman who also looks like Jack Nicholson, then there’s the edgy middle-school bully like relationship between Megalon and Gigan and then lastly the infamous Godzilla dropkick you might’ve seen in GIF form, if not well here you go:

16. Godzilla Vs. Monster Zero - probably the 1st 90% campy zilla flick because of the Godzilla victory dance alone, but this was also because as time went by more kids cared about the movies and not the original target audience of war torn adults. the aliens (at least in the dub version) speak super monotone even when they are being huge bad asses, and we get to see G and his on-and-off lover buddy team up again but this time IN #&$%#% SPACE. the setting on Planet X was real cool to see as a kid, but sadly we haven’t seen any kaiju fighting back in space ever since. the NES Godzilla game fixes that itch.

17. Son of Godzilla - well I’ve only ever seen this movie twice, which means it maybe just isn’t that good, even for G fans. it debuts, of course, the son of Godzilla who looks like a cross between the Cookie Monster and Michelin Man. I’ll give this movie credit for distancing zilla away from the city setting in replace with his tropical home territory in Monster Island which only gets glimpses in the other films. the ending shot is real sweet too.

18. Godzilla Vs. SpaceGodzilla - back to spaciness, we do see one last alien monster come to Japan in the 2nd to last 90′s Godzilla movie, appropriately called SpaceGodzilla. while he lacks agility (when not flying on his giant meth crystal) he makes up for it with telekinesis and other long range attacks. the story / acting / mostly everything is pretty so-so and we all know deep inside the only reasons to watch it still are the scenes with baby Godzilla stepping on land mines and more Miki Saegusa wardrobe changes, but the final battle in a crystal filled Fukuoka is really awesome. 

19. Godzilla’s Revenge - wow well I just noticed I put 3 baby zilla focused movies all in a row near the very bottom of the list, my bad. this one takes the cake tho for pure cringe. but it’s better than the last 3 so it can’t be super terrible, right? once again no spoilers but the only thing that bumps this stock footage filled movie more up then from being the worst of all time are the super silly fight scenes against baby Godzilla’s bully Gabara. you know Godzilla has to do it to em.

20. Godzilla Vs. The Sea Monster - even tho the former movie just reviewed uses stock footage of almost all the fight scenes of this one, it is somehow worst than #19 because it focuses way too much on a 60′s party cruise, and Godzilla gets a lil King Kong-ish during a scene with the love interest of the movie, and the giant lobster monster with no lasers / projectile claws just doesn’t seem as threatening as all the previous monsters zilla has fought since.

21. Godzilla Vs. King Kong - I’ll admit, I never liked King Kong and probably never will, and because he moves faster than Godzilla they had to use non-slowed down footage to make the monsters fight like kids on a playground slapping each other, and just looks weird. real talk, Godzilla would beat the shit out of Kong with a single radioactive blast and the movie would end right there. but that’s not the ending we got.. let’s start a patreon to rewrite the movie we all wanted.

22. Godzilla Raids Again - alright we finally made it, thee very worst Godzilla movie of all time according to the loser typing this. why? because it went against everything the first Godzilla movie represented, but like... suddenly, since it’s the sequel to the movie and the big G was never meant to return after, which luckily wasn’t the case. it’s superrrr campy but on the acting side, and the fights with newcomer Anguirus are super sped up even more than the Kong fights, and just seems tacky overall in a non-funny way. the suit for Anguirus is honestly one of the coolest kaijus ever tho, and they made little changes to him every time he came back cause it was just that good. 

anyways, thanks for coming to my TED Talk. if I were to recommend just 3 Godzilla movies to someone who has never seen them before to represent each side of the series, I’d pick Terror of MechaGodzilla for the serious pick, Ghidorah The Three Headed Monster for the balance / kaiju fest pick, and Godzilla Vs. Megalon for the most campy and fun one overall. hope this big list can help those who are curious! next up: Godzilla game reviews :)

[fyrapartnersearch]

Send Help: Addicted to Roleplay and Chipotle

Greetings from Earth! First time poster to this blog and stoked to meet some new partners. My name is Chris and I'm a male nurse (Yo, you're going to get some medically accurate roleplay) in his late twenties. I have a lovely wife and two stupidly handsome animals (Pictures of the animals available on request) but manage to maintain a pretty active roleplay life due to the fact that I work nights. The Basics: I tell everyone that I'm a professional. I try to reply 1-3 times a week and the length of posts depends on amount of characters in play. If I'm going to take longer, I always try to let you know. I'm willing to write male and female characters and focus on M/F as the male and F/F. M/M just isn't my thing, sorry y'all. My limits include pedophilia, rape, and animal abuse. Anything else can be discussed. I prefer e-mail for writing (Chrisx104@gmail.com) but have Discord for plotting (NurseBatman#3674). If we get along really well, you can convince me into discord roleplay. The text limit just drives me nuts. I do use faceclaims pretty aggressively. Is there anything else? Central time zone?

Onto the roleplay stuff. I'll start with originals and then dive into fandoms. I put extra *s by the lines that I will literally lose my mind if you approach me about. Searching hard! -The Social Media Age****** A m/f line that I've given a little thought to, looking for someone to write a young woman that is pretty much making her living being an instagram model/fitness person, etc. I think the proper term is *Influencer*. Meets and starts dating a successful guy with no presence online, the two falling for each other but at odds over their differing attitudes towards the world. -This American Life Something set in the 1970s, focusing on a roadtrip. A group of teenagers leave their small town behind to head out west. I love this time period. Can be supernatural, supernatural lite (think Twin Peaks weirdness) or totally natural. -Stranger Things inspired A group of four to six friends enjoy their last summer together in a remote town as strangeness begins to unfurl. I'd be willing to set this in the present but think it would be way more fun in the 70s or 80s. I have an idea for one of the kids having lost a sibling in a strange way when they were young and possibly some sort of cult in town.

Fandoms!

-Star Wars**

I know Reylo is all the rage these days, as is Qi'Ra/Han. But, man ALIVE, I really want something focusing on the core four: Luke, Leia, Han, and, ya boy, Chewie. Something taking place in that three year gap between New Hope and Empire as they work among the rebellion. Strange new worlds, getting into scrapes, sharply running from the empire, avoiding Vader, bounty hunters, and all sorts of things. This time period is far from explored and we can really thrive in the galaxy. Primarily I want to focus on the budding relationship between Han and Leia and Luke's training, pre-Yoda. In a perfect world, I'd want to write Han and Chewie (If anyone thinks Chewie is just a NPC, get out my face) while my partner takes on Leia and Luke. I'd be willing to switch out Chewie for Luke if need be, I guess? We could also split up C3PO and R2. I also would enjoy writing a young Amilyn Holdo and a few other soldiers. Let's real build out the resistance and delve into the 'WARS' part of those big yellow letters that never get enough attention. On top of all of that, I also have an original love interest in mind for Luke if someone else plays him! She's a spitfire. Alternatively, I'd be down for writing something set in the clone wars. Perhaps two jedi that broke the order's relationship laws and then survived Order 66 together? -Preacher Seriously. Love this show, love this comic. Would happily write Jesse or Cassidy against Tulip. Just definitely looking for a Tulip -The Boys Would love to write Hughie against Starlight! Currently working my way through the season that just dropped. -Marvel -I will love you forever if you write an Elektra against my Daredevil. They are toxic and in love and I love it. Whether it be the comics or the Netflix series, I don't care. Someone please write me an Elektra. Netflix did a good job of portraying this one -Alternatively, I'd also be happy to write against a Black Widow, either with Daredevil. They were a mainstay OTP in the comics in the 90s and I'd love to write against Scarlet's Black Widow. -Has anyone seen the trailer for the neverendingly delayed New Mutants movie? I would love to write something based on that horror aspect of the mutant universe.* -I'd love to write an older MCU Peter Parker (like college) running across a MCU version of Black Cat. Or just a Spiderman roleplay in general. I've always wanted to write Peter but have never gotten the chance! I have a ton of ideas for this, plus faceclaims for a few of the villains. Would also be willing to play him against Zendaya's MJ, Spidergwen, or Silk (Deepcut)**************************** (I so badly want to write Peter) -One of the pairings that was done for a time in the comics was Star Lord against Kitty Pryde and it was actually a lot of fun. If anyone would want to do a MCU version of this, I would so *DOWN* to play Quill, Xmen hijinks a plenty in space -If you write Jessica Jones, I'd be willing to write almost anyone against her (NOT KILGRAVE). Just let me know. I'd be super down to write Luke Cage or maybe Matt Murdock. I do a mean John Constantine, which, let's face it, is a cross company illustration of the two most terrible people together -Hawkguys! I would love to either write Clint against Kate Bishop (This would be a slightly skewed MCU vibe) or Kate against America Chavez. I would really love to do either of these lines. Or a poly version if someone is willing! -I'd love to write Logan as an active member of the MCU Avengers, possibly as a partner in crime/wetworks/murder with Black Widow. Those two could cause some mayhem. -Honestly, any X-men relationship could be sold to me. Just try it. I would love to find a Kitty for Piotr, a Rogue for Remy, or almost anyone for Kurt.

-DC I'd love to write Batman against Catwoman, please. Or John Constantine against literally almost anyone -Hannibal I've been dying to do a sort of season 4 for a while now, focused on Clarice Starlings interaction with Will Graham and later Hannibal Lecter. Just need to find someone willing to create an original style Clarice. -Resident Evil I'd like to write Leon against Claire Redfield or Jill Valentine in an original outbreak or a new one. I know this is an old school fandom but I'm a diehard fan. -Star Trek Okay, so first up, I am not the most well versed Trekkie in the world. Never watched any of the TV shows but am a massive fan of the trio of rebooted films and would love to give Kirk or Bones a try against Uhura, Dr. Eve, or maybe a female Vulcan OC? Hit me with ideas! -The Matrix Another obscure fandom. Maybe just an original crew, set during the movies, after, or an AU where they're the only survivors of Zion? Im not sure but I could plot something out!

-Uncharted I'd love to write Chloe Frazier against Nadine Ross, continuing their adventures. I'm pretty wide open on what we can do with this one. RANDOM CRACK SHIPS! Caught in a Web: I would love to write an iteration (Daniel Craig or an original) of James Bond/007 against a non superhero version of Natasha Romanoff/Black Widow. Spy vs spy shenanigans as two people working for different governments. Totally impossibly but putting it just in case: Did anyone see all that Wonder Woman/Lara Croft art that was floating around the internet earlier this year? I would love to dive into that. I'd prefer to write Lara but I'm definitely not picky. If you made it this far, you're a hero and I owe you a beer. Hope to hear from some great writers! Let's create something *EPIC*

[ilcaeryx]

Tenacity: Chapter 5 - Derive [Midoriya Izuku/Reader]

SUMMARY: Past and future, Izuku has always been surrounded by good people.

TAGS: Reader-insert Collection, Fluff, Meeting the Parents, Weddings

Link to Chapter 5 of Tenacity on AO3

or continue reading below.

Chapter 5: Derive

Midoriya Inko should be used to frequent surprises by now; her son was somehow the focal point for the eye of the storm, a cyclone with a build-up of over a decade and the efforts and tears of dozens, if not hundreds, of humans. You weren't an eye-witness to it, though you could perceive the nurture and devotion his friends and family had permeated his soul with. Frankly, it sometimes felt you had accidentally sweeped into his life only to reap the benefits of a healthy, stable Izuku without contributing to his well-being. Inside your heart, you could only wish you'd offer a quarter of support everyone else had.

You didn't dare antipating or assuming you would - the competition for most time and energy invested in Midoriya Izuku was insane, with the odds stacked heavily against you. That line-up was frankly intimidating.

Imagine devoting yourself to someone like that, you mused and swiped the photo of a younger Izuku and Mrs Midoriya with a nail, trailing an invisible bond between them. It was obvious that Izuku had been a momma's boy back then, standing closer to his mother in the picture than most teenage boys would've wanted while smiling brightly. Adorable. This photo must have been taken during high school, judging by uniform.

You compared young Izuku with adult Izuku, holding the frame an arms-width away towards the real deal. Said real deal was sitting on his mother's couch, legs apart and his elbows propped up on them. He was ruminating, as he often did, with his hands covering his mouth. Much like his older counterpart, young Izuku seemed somewhat burdened with something. There was this slight slouch in his shoulders, a hesitant inclination of centimeters that made you go 'hmmm'. Following the contour of his shoulders, down his arms you saw that his clasped hands already had the web-like net of scars back then.

Today, those scars had faded but it alarmed you how out of place they seemed in this pretty family picture. Izuku always told you that his body was a monument to his tenacity whenever your touch lingered too long over his scars. However, you could easily tell that those weren't his words. No, those words were hand-me-downs from someone else.

With care, you put down the frame next to the growing collection and joined your boyfriend on the couch.

You couldn't help but compare again. His digits and arms were marred, even if it wasn't as bad as in the photo. He didn't seem to mind, as he wore a short sleeved shirt today, and his hands were preoccupied switching between preening his hair and nervously rubbing together.

"Izuku, you're looking distraught," you said and took one of his hands in your own, a film of sweat coating his palms. You squeezed slightly, bringing him out of his thoughts. "I can leave if you want to. You don't have to introduce me to your mom right now. We haven't been together for that long, anyway…"

"What? No!" He visibly shrunk away and shook his head furiously. "I'm just nervous, is all! It's just that she won't be expecting you here. I didn't tell her about you- I mean I did tell her about you but not that you'd stay for dinner. She'll be home any minute now and she'll see you sitting here…"

The sound of someone scribbing with the lock echoed through the apartment, both of you scrambling towards each other. You weren't easy to emotionally influence, but Izuku's shaky nerves were starting to infect you.

"It's do or die now," you stated, clenching your teeth into a beaming smile, determined to make this as least awkward as possible.

"Mom! We're in the living room!" Izuku turned towards you and gave your knuckles a brief kiss. "I wouldn't have brought you here unless I could handle it. I love you and my mom will, too."

Whatever the reason may be, you knew he'd have your back.

He stood up and pulled you up, gingerly. The two of you lingered in each others' warmth, hands to hands and chest to chest. You braced yourself figuratively as Izuku braced his arm around your back, resting his hand on your elbow.

Inko Midoriya took off her ballet pumps and ordered all the pairs by the entrance into a neat file. Her simple ones, her son's boots (that were almost falling apart, goodness!) and a pair clearly targeted towards younger women. Those weren't her's.

Her son told her that they were in the living room.

We're in the living room?

A few months had passed since Izuku had brought home a friend and although it made her preen her skirt and tunic with great intensity it made her happy. Inko remembered that last time had been last winter, when the sweet girl that is Ochako had joined them for dinner. They had had a wonderful time and Inko had been delighted that Izuku had stayed friends with her, even long after they had graduated from UA. Inko couldn't prevent him from diving head-strong into danger, but a few good friends by his side would make him think twice.

"We are?" Inko quoted and stepped out of the dark hallway into her living room, where her son and a young woman she did not recognize were waiting. For a second, she was taken aback: her son's gentle disposition was evident whenever he interacted with anyone and anything, yet the way he very deliberately held her against his chest made her almost cover her mouth in surprise, before restraining herself. If she managed to make Izuku's girlfriend (?) break into hives because Inko couldn't control her reactions she would feel downright terrible about it!

It was fortunate both of them were tall though, because she couldn't cry when she was looking up.

The young woman introduced herself politely and bowed very curtly, her hair falling around her in neat strands. Beside her, Izuku rested his hand on the back of her spine.

"Mom," Izuku refocused her attention from his hand to his face, "Y/N is the girl I told you about a few days ago. Actually," his eyed shifted, "she's my girlfriend."

I see…

"I'm Midoriya Inko," she said, her bow unusually fluid and lithe. "Very pleased to meet you, Y/N."

Years later, the memories of Izuku introducing you to his mother still made you laugh hard. Such fuss and worry over something that naturally developed into an unusually strong bond between a mother and her daughter-in-law. Indeed, after your own parents passed, Inko didn't hesitate to nourish you under her wing until you had accepted reality for what it was. While the realization wasn't easier per se, her unyielding support and Izuku's patience called you back from the deep abyss into the light again.

Really, it was silly to think that you and Inko wouldn't have ended up close, much less gotten along.

"I'm surprised you didn't end up crying," you said, popping a praline into your mouth. You had eaten about two hours ago, yet you still felt starved so you had to eat whatever left over chocolate you could find in your suite. As such, you didn't stop at one praline.

"I wasn't about to mortify you," Inko said, straightening creases out of the train, allowing it to gently cascade down onto the floor. "Although I was close to. I remember thinking that you would never return if that was the first impression you got of me."

"A few tears wouldn't have kept me away from Izuku. I would probably have been more self-conscious and confused, had you cried. It would've be very strange for you to act rude when Izuku had been praising you ever since I got to know him."

Inko stood up and put her hands together, a surprised expression on her face.

"He has?"

"He still brings it up quite often, but don't tell him I said that." Your legs were itching beneath the thick layers of the wedding dress. There was some relief from grazing the fabric against your skin, but you hoped that it would pass soon. The time had almost come for you to leave. It couldn't come fast enough, though you also felt like it couldn't go slow enough for you to feel ready. "I think you've done so much for him, Inko, that he'll never forget it. Izuku's just that type of person."

You nodded at your own conclusion, satisfied.

"Izuku's a genuinely good person," Inko said, looking up to the mirror at your reflection. "He's surrounded with so many people that love him, it would be hard for him to go astray. As a mother, this is the best gift I could receive. I know that whatever happens, he'll do the right thing. It may sound presumptious, but I think that him marrying you is the right thing to do, too."

Woah. That last comment made you raise your eyebrows. Not too much though, lest you wanted to disrupt your hair or make-up.

"You really think so?" you asked, warm all over.

Mama Midoriya smiled and hummed. "I do. I thought Izuku couldn't possibly be happier, having met his heroes and entered his dream career, and then you came along. You're sharp and rigorous and I think he learns a terrible lot from you. He's always had people who've prompted him to excel but not everyone can keep up with him. I think you're doing a great job at that. That said, I think we should head down. We shouldn't leave them waiting!"

Mother and wife-to-be, past and future, gave Midoriya Izuku another reason to fight.

If you liked this, consider throwing me a like/reblog/follow!

My Masterlist can be found here.

[brendanfritz]

*Burke: Dramatistic Rhetoric *

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvcE9D3mn0Q&t=960s

In this entry I will examine the critical question; How are symbols at use in this artifact in the way Burke describes the symbol-using animal? How is this particular use productive/unproductive, ethical/unethical?

To help answer these questions I will look at the United States propaganda film Know Your Enemy: Japan! as my artifact. Know Your Enemy: Japan! uses symbols to depict the Japanese in a negative frame which fulfills Burke’s fear of the misuses of the symbol using animal because the film uses symbols, both verbal and nonverbal, to create hate for the Japanese and is ultimately both unproductive and unethical. 

Know Your Enemy: Japan! is a propaganda film released by the United States and directed by Frank Capra during World War II  as a part of a seven film series that was meant as training videos for soldiers headed off to the front lines. However, the films were so popular among the soldiers that they were released to the public. Know Your Enemy: Japan! was released three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima and was redacted only two weeks later. The film was re-released in the mid 1970’s on PBS for public viewing. The film is an extremely racist characterization of Japanese people that was typical in the United States at the time of its original release. This framing of the Japanese attempted to dehumanize them and turn them into an enemy. The film used entirely original Japanese film from newsreels and fictional movies with a narration over the film and occasional political cartoons spliced in to help reinforce the framing that the U.S. government wanted. As a majority of the United States public already opposed the Japanese due to the Pearl Harbor bombing, the purpose of the film was to raise morale among both soldiers and their families, as well as to encourage the audience to buy war bonds and in general raise funds for the war effort. While it is impossible to gauge the effect that this film had due to its short time being released, it is an accurate representation of the type of depictions that the U.S. government released. 

In his article On Symbols and Society Kenneth Burke attempts to define man and distinguish mankind from other animals. Burke comes to the conclusion that the definition of man is “The Symbol Using Animal”. He argues that man’s use of rhetoric is what separates man from other kinds of animals, specifically man’s ability to share and record information and the consciousness that symbols give man. However, these abilities also leave man susceptible to how Burke puts it “Our many susceptibilities to the way of demagogic spellbinders” (58). In other words, while symbols give man the consciousness to separate ourselves from animals, it also leaves man in danger of being manipulated by those very symbols. To help solidify this definition Burke gives us 5 clauses, man is, the symbol using animal, the inventor of the negative, separated from his natural condition by instruments of his own making, goaded by the spirit of hierarchy, and rotten with perfection. Each of these clauses help to explain Burke’s view on how man uses symbols and the importance of rhetoric. Burke believes that rhetoric (symbols) have helped to create man but there are dangers to how man uses rhetoric. 

The symbols in Know Your Enemy: Japan are most evident through the use of narration over the Japanese film that is used. This narration is used to interpret the images of the film and create more hate for the Japanese. The film shows various images that are confusing and hard to interpret, such as one scene where a classroom full of kids is shown and these kids are waving their hands up and down in unison. It is a confusing scene and the original film is in Japanese so there is no way to comprehend what is happening. However, the narrator is gracious enough to explain it, he states “97% of the Japs are illiterate but the Japanese school is not an institution for the development of the mind. The government controlled institution designed to teach only officially selected facts” (37:47-38:47). The narrator explains the footage that was just shown and uses explanation to create a sense of disgust towards the Japanese. How could they possibly have schools as government controlled institutions? The narrator uses this film to state things that seem un-American. To the audience, the 1940’s American public, the conditions of education are horrific. The American public knew very little about the Japanese and found it very easy to believe what they were being told by the narrator. This susceptibility is exactly what Burke discusses in the example of the wren, where he states “They cannot be filled with fantastic hatreds for alien populations they know about mainly by mere hearsay” (Burke, 58). In the example, the audience could not possibly discern what is actually going on in the visuals of the film, but by mere hearsay they are filled with hatred of the Japanese when in reality they know little about them, fulfilling Burke’s fears of the misuses of rhetoric. 

The nonverbal symbols in this film are also important to how the frame of the Japanese is constructed. Throughout the film there are several examples of political cartoons spliced into the film one example comes at about the 46:47 mark. In this cartoon the audience is shown a graphic of the world and Japan is shown as a dragon. Slowly the dragon begins to spread out and covers all of California, Mexico, South America, and most of the Pacific. This visual played on the fear that the audience had about Japanese world domination. These symbols within this visual help to create this false reality for the audience. As Burke explains “But can we bring ourselves to realize just what this formula implies, just how overwhelming much of what we mean by reality has been built up for us by symbols” (58). Know Your Enemy: Japan! attempts to build up this reality about the Japanese through the use of nonverbal symbols such as the dragon to construct this reality that is overwhelmingly built by symbols as Burke describes. The film misuses Burke’s theory about meeting Burke’s definition of how man is ultimately the symbol using animal. 

This film's use of symbols makes it unproductive and an unethical use of how Burke describes symbols. The film’s attempt to influence the audience’s reality of the Japanese is propaganda in the most negative connotation that propaganda can have. These symbols used to describe the Japanese reinforced an ignorant American public's view about the Japanese and allowed for atrocities such as the internment of Japanese-Americans. Pieces of propaganda like this have entrenched racism and stereotypes that are still present today. Symbols such as this have been detrimental to moving forward as a society and have even shown up recently in society in the form of Asian hate. The United States was well aware of the symbols that they were perpetuating and the film feels as an attempt to justify what the United States government did to Japanese-Americans. There is not a way for this artifact to be considered productive. The film wasn’t even productive for the U.S. government as the war ended quickly and this film exposed what lengths the United States would go in characterizing the Japanese. Instead the film is a stain on the U.S. government’s already terrible history. 

In Stefanie Hennig’s journal titled A German Version of Kenneth Burke she helps to explain Burke’s idea about reality and the symbol using animal. Hennig states “Symbolizing clears a matter and/or integrates the competing principles of the dramatic situation. “To act” in terms of disputing dialectic antitheses, in terms of reflecting and gauging them in a structured and/or dramatically complex world, relies on such prescinding and synthesizing “vessels” or “mergers” (106), which symbols are. They rescue persons from the ever-impending division they fear and ensure the ever-promised identification they yearn for” (Hennig, Section 2.2). While Hennig’s definition of the way that Burke’s idea of symbols act is a bit complicated, it fits well with how Know Your Enemy: Japan! uses symbols. Painting out Japanese as evil and using them as the scapegoat saves the American public from “this ever impending division they fear” while it may have not been that dramatic, the American public was struggling due to the rationing and fathers, husbands, sons, and brothers being off to war. However, this film does just as Hennig describes and gives this identification that they were desperate for at the expense of the Japanese. 

The United State’s use of symbols in their propaganda film Know Your Enemy: Japan! was extremely unproductive and reinforced stereotypes for decades. The misuse of symbols how Burke defines them is how this film was successful in framing the Japanese and creating this new reality for the audience. This misuse of symbols ultimately fulfills Burke’s fear about the susceptibilities of man as the symbol using animal and in doing so is ultimately unproductive. 

“‘A German Version of Kenneth Burke;” A German Version of Kenneth Burke, kbjournal.org/Stefanie_Hennig. 

Burke, Kenneth. “On Symbols and Society.” Moodle, moodle.augustana.edu/pluginfile.php/190338/mod_resource/content/2/Burke%20-%20On%20Symbols%20and%20Society%20-%2056-74.pdf. 

[doneses]

Final Fantasy Influences in RWBY

So it’s no secret that Monty Oum was a huge fan of the Final Fantasy series. As someone who’s also a huge fan of the series I thought it’d be fun to explore a lot of the things I think RWBY drew inspiration from. There’s not really much of an order to this, just various things I’ve noticed. This is also just my opinion on things so don’t take it too seriously. (I won’t be including stuff from FF15 since that was not out yet at the time RWBY was started and the stuff similar to it are most likely coincidence.I’m also only counting the stuff from the core series as those are the ones I am the most familiar with.)

Gardens/Seed- Academy/Huntsmen & Huntresses

In both FF8, and in RWBY, the main characters start their journeys at an academy that specializes in the training of powerful mercenaries: SeeD and Hunters. They have a similar age range (15-19 in FF8. 17-21 in RWBY), and both schools have rigorous and dangerous exams that the main characters have to survive and pass in the beginning of the story. They both also have a dance in the relatively beginning of the story. They also both have a uniform that the characters wear on occasion.

Shinra Electric Power Company- Schnee Dust Company

Now I actually noticed something neat that I never noticed with Shinra, that they can be abbreviated to SEC, similar to how the Schnee Dust Company is commonly abbreviated to SDC.

In both RWBY and FF7, these two companies are powerful and villainous and have made their fortunes by mining a natural resource that is used for fuel, and to give people magical abilities. Both the SDC and SEC engage in military action (Turks and SOLDIER with the SEC and providing/developing mechs for the Atlesian military for the SDC), and experimenting on monsters (the Armored Gigas in the White trailer being a Geist Grimm experiment according to the manga).

Materia- Dust

It’s a naturally occurring resource in the world that is used to give the characters magical abilities and is crystalline in design. Materia is name dropped by Monty when explaining what Dust is.

AVALANCHE- White Fang

A terrorist group with a white and red banner that has a history of warfare with the evil megacompany of their worlds. Main characters from both series are members (or former) members of the group, and both had/have a large burly man as their leader. Only major difference is AVALANCHE is an eco-terrorist group and presented as heroes while the White Fang are a racial terrorist group and presented as villains.

Crystals- Relics

Four powerful macguffins that the protagonists and antagonists are both after that can give them a ton of power and can change the world.

Al Bhed/Viera- Faunus

Al Bhed are a minority group who face persecution and have a unique genetic trait. In FF10 and in RWBY one of the main characters is secretly of this ethnic group and has to deal with racist behavior from one of their team mates.

Viera are literally bunny girls. While the al bhed have more in common with the faunus in story, the viera are closer in appearance.

Summoning- Schnee Semblence

Now there are a lot of Summoners in FF but Monty was known for his love of FF10 and of Yuna and I think that’s who’s summoning ability Weiss’ abilities are based off of. Yuna is capable of summoning dead spirits that take the form of Aeons and uses them in battle. Weiss, and other Schnees, can summon enemies that they have killed and have them aid in combat. Yuna’s summoning and Weiss’ also seem a lot more of a closer bond then say, Rydia or Eiko’s  were or the ones were summoning is just a job class.

Aerith’s Death- Pyrrha’s Death

An extremely shocking and brutal death scene of a beloved female character that is used to spur the protagonists to action and kick start the larger segments of the story.

Sin-  Ancient Grimm

Not a lot of similarities, other then they ‘shed‘ smaller enemies and are huge and capable of decimating cities if they want to.

Uncomfortable Laughing Scene

Yeeeeeaaaah, those scenes are cringey. I took from it that Ruby was struggling to keep her composure at seeing something that reminded her of Pyrrha after watching her die and started to laugh obnoxiously to cover up her issues, similar to how Tidus had his uncomfortable laughing scene to cope with his own issues. Or maybe that Ruby scene was meant to be funny and bunny jackets are hilarious, who knows.

Auron- Qrow

Red and gray color scheme, drunks, and a father figure to the main character, alongside using a similar weapon as the character they watch over.

Tifa- Yang

A bare knuckle brawler who’s a childhood friend of the main protagonist, is the team mom, and objectively considered the ‘prettiest‘ character of the main cast. Both are also fans of butt capes, given Yang’s timeskip outfit and Tifa’s Advent Children outfit.

Kefka- Tyrian

Now this one’s a bit of stretch and I really hope they don’t pull a Kefka with Tyrian late on in the story but here we go.

They’re both the insane right hand of the (apparent) big bad of the story, both have a flair for the dramatics (Tyrian’s theatrical behavior during his fight scene and well, just look at Kefka). Both also have an insane laugh and boy do they like to laugh.

Quistis- Glynda

A blonde, glasses wearing combat instructor at a school for specialized mercenaries. Both wield a bdsm style weapon (whip/riding crop) and are proficient mages.

Zidane- Sun

A blonde monkey man who breaks the law a lot, has a sunny personality, and fights alongside a dark haired princess.

Ruby- Iris

Now I said I wasn’t going to bring up FF15 but this is a unique case. I think this is an instance of RWBY serving as inspiration for FF.

FF15 was in production between 2006-2016. Red Trailer came out in 2012, with Vol1 coming out in 2013. RWBY is very popular in Japan, and I don’t know if there is a way to learn when Iris was added to the game’s production.

Iris is the younger sister of the stronk fanservice character of the game, wears black and red, has a red hood, short black hair, is 15 years old, and grows up to be a famous Hunter; a daemon slayer after the time skip. She’s cheery and happy, and has an interest in mechanical things (her fascination with Lestallum and how it’s maintained). Iris is a hopeless romantic and fights with her fists.

Ruby is the younger sister of the stronk fanservice character of the show, wears black and red, has a red hood, short black hair, is 15 years old, and dreams of being a Huntress; a Grimm slayer. She’s happy and bubbly, and is mechanically inclined, alongside loving weaponry. Ruby doesn’t have an interest in romance and can’t fight without a weapon.

Weaponry

Weiss literally uses a gunblade, and Raven has an odachi. But other then that, most of the weapons in RWBY line up more with Lightning’s style of weaponry in FF13; a melee weapon that transforms and can take a gun form and also collapse for easier storage.

Costumes

Both FF and RWBY thrive on amazing looking costumes that are hella impractical and use way too many belts for a rl person to wear. But damn do they not look amazing.

Setting

Both RWBY and (most) FF have a science fantasy setting, with continents that look really silly.

Soundtrack

Both RWBY and FF love their hard rock and piano’s, and have amazing scores and soundtracks.

Fight Choreography

Saying Advent Children was a big influence on Monty would be an understatement. RWBY’s fight scenes are fast paced, hectic, and make gravity and the laws of physics its bitch. This is hard to explain in written format, so I’d recommend watching a fight scene from Advent Children and then compare it to one from RWBY to see what I mean.

Light v Dark Themes

Recurring theme in a lot of the older FF games, the forces of Light against the forces of Darkness. RWBY has the Light and Darkness Brother Gods myth, and they will most likely play a larger role in the future.

Party of Four

FF games traditionally have 4 (or 3) party members and oh hey would you look at that, RWBY has 4 members. Iirc Monty also said he based the team’s fighting styles off of his preferred rpg team line up. (If anyone has figured out what class Ruby is, let me know ^^)

Strong female characters

I think it’d be easier to name FF female characters who aren’t strong in their own ways. And the entire premise of RWBY is four strong women living their lives and stopping evil, alongside the slew of other notable female characters in the show.

Moon

The moon plays an important role in the stories of FF4 and FF8, and although the moon hasn’t done anything of plot importance, the fact it’s shown so frequently in scenes and is a prominent image in RWBY (alongside how its brought up space travel is still being developed in Remnant) I’m pretty sure it will play an important role in the future.

Parent Issues

A lot of the characters in FF have really bad parents, parent issues, or are orphans. A lot of the important characters in RWBY have really terrible parents, and their issues with their parents playing a role in each member of Team RWBY’s personal storylines. Jecht and Tidus’ relationship being the most famous example from FF of a strained child-parent relationship, and given Yang’s obsession and hatred of Raven, it seems the most likely place of inspiration (alongside Raven and Jecht being antagonists and being involved in the Deeper Lore of their respective universes, and of being members of a team with the parents of one of the other main characters).

So yeah, those are my thoughts about all the stuff I‘ve noticed in RWBY that could have been inspired by Final Fantasy. Hope you enjoyed reading this ^^.

RWBY FF style poster done by digitaleva- https://digitaleva.deviantart.com/

[carpe-lumxn]

♣ 15 QUESTIONS ABOUT THE MUSE.

Now, usually Lucifer would lie through this test, so for the sake of authenticity, she is under a truth serum, I suppose. Without further ado, let’s start!

① ARE YOU NAMED AFTER ANYONE ?

“No. And that’s probably a good thing because I might take this name from someone else if needed. That, and I can’t imagine another name for myself. Lucifer— the light bringer. Has a nice ring to it, when considering my plans of confronting the Almighty. Shedding light to whatever is hidden.

“I do have a planet named after me-- Venus. Thought it was a star for a long time. But no. It was just a planet. Yahweh has a funny sense of humour.” 

② WHEN WAS THE LAST TIME YOU CRIED ?

“Sweetheart, you didn’t even blink.”

“Rather touchy question, is it not? Tell anyone, and I’ll order for you to be burnt alive.”

“The last time I really cried... 1928. Chicago, 1928. I used someone I thought I loved. I thought I could handle it, because she’s done the same thing to me, over and over. I did not.

“Then there was the 50s. Some barons kidnapped a few lower demons to wrangle information out of them. They used something called Holy water torture. Works similarly like Chinese water torture. Except. They added one drop of the stuff to a whole gallon of water. The demons died. Slowly. Painfully. All of them. Holy water is painful, yes, but when delivered in such a low concentration the death is drawn out to several hours, days, even. The worst thing was, I could’ve done more. I could have done more to stop it from happening.”

She coughs. “Next question.”

③ DO YOU HAVE KIDS ?

“Oh, sure, do I have kids? ‘S not like Armageddon was botched by someone else, is it?

“In theory, somewhat. Even so, Adam Young only shares about what, 200mLs of my blood? You see, his true parent is Satan. Except that Satan was an alter ego I created back during the War in Heaven meant to represent as an antithesis. This name is now used by all the members of the Dark Council. And I may be the demon of pride but I understand that evil is a spectrum that I myself cannot personify.

“And Adam Young wasn’t gestated in the traditional manner, but made in this cauldron where we mixed the blood of all the members of the Dark Council. I tweaked his genetic makeup— removed the appendix and wisdom teeth altogether, because those are the aspects of human anatomy that had always bothered me, but my involvement only extends up to that moment. 

“Adam abdicated, because he came to like humanity. Probably planned by Yahweh this entire time. He would not consider me as a parent, but that should be fine by me.”

“I don’t think I’d ever want to have a child entirely of my own. I don’t want to bring something so good and vulnerable into a world that wants to destroy it and twist it up. Especially when considering my status. Knowing Yahweh, She’ll just use that as an opportunity to use them like a tool and say that I’m just like Her. Somehow. In a way I’ll never forget.

“So no. I can’t ever do that to someone.”

④ DO YOU USE SARCASM A LOT ?

“No no, of course not. What an unorthodox distortion of language. Really now, expecting people to get the dramatic irony embedded within everyday speech? Too intimidating, no? Gives too much power to the speaker while proving as an effective armour. Lots of muddled up meaning. Double entendres. Loopholes. Well. Good thing I would never do such a thing, innit.”

“Sweetheart, I’m the devil.”

“It’s fun to listen to and decipher. And it’s fun to break the rules of conversations, say more things inconspicuously. Let the person decide for themselves. It’s a way I use to get to know someone. Yes, I like using sarcasm in conversations.”

⑤ WHAT’S THE FIRST THING YOU NOTICE ABOUT PEOPLE ?

“I hear about other people based on reputation alone. And if they’re mentioned by two different people, I keep in mind how these representations differ from each other. That way, I can draw patterns and hypothesise myself what the person of interest is actually like. For example, if one human boasts about all the ‘Heavenly’ deeds someone such as a king did, yet another human claim that all that king’s conquests are bloody and merciless, I can deduce that that king likes to use the excuse of performing a Heavenly favour in order to commit mass manslaughter.

“I never forget a face, either. And a lot of the Fallen in Hell were my co-workers. It’s not an effective way to recognise someone, especially when considering discorporations that happen then and there. But no, I never forget the attitude of someone and the face that goes along with it. It’s something familiar that I can grasp upon.”

⑥ WHAT’S YOUR EYE COLOR ?

“Blue. Sulphur blue. My eyes had always been that colour, sure, but my colleagues always swore that they had been a brighter, more saturated shade ever since the Fall. Think that has something to do with my Hellfire. 

“And course, that’s not considering the pupils. Yes, I have diamond pupils now. I can’t erase them entirely, but I can constrict my irises to be like that of a human’s when I need to blend in. Don’t worry— it’s only cat eye syndrome.” She winks. 

⑦ SCARY MOVIE OR HAPPY ENDING ?

“Happy endings are morphine for me. I'm afraid of happy endings because I hate how numb and content they make me feel. It’s why I always stop any of the lighthearted musicals I’m watching halfway through-- I’d rather not be influenced to feel so happy for fictional characters. Because I’m afraid that once I hit that point, I’ll never want something better for myself again. I’m not so pathetic that I cannot find happiness in my real life."

“Horror films are a little more familiar for me. Sure, they sometimes do have a lot of gore. Slow gore, where the character dies very slowly. Very disturbing. And psychological horror. Also very disturbing. Cosmic horror, too, I-I-I-I-I can’t even fathom who was beaten as a child to create those sort of stories. But I have routines to combat that, because I experience something similar in Hell often, anyway. When considering the big picture, horror is ironically better for me.

“So yes. Scary movies.”

⑧ ANY SPECIAL TALENTS ?

“I believe myself to be incredibly driven, resourceful, and determined. And that I can do whatever to get what I need.”

“Arguably, I’d say that these ‘talents’ are only useful thanks to how I use them. To work hard. And to work hard is not exactly a talent on itself, it’s more like training routine discipline into yourself.

“Speaking of hard work, I am quite skilled in conversation, influencing them so that I get what I need. Or seek out a compromise between the speaker and I, while also under the impression that I hold all of the cards, as the humans say. 

“Oh-! And how could we forget about my Hellfire? My Hellfire is unique in that it’s a higher temperature than other Hellfire. Ever seen the bottom of a flame? That blue colour? That is the hottest part of the flame, and where the colour of my Hellfire comes from. Arguably my Hellfire’s colour also comes from its sulphur contents which, by the way, is because  that’s the colour of brimstone fire.

“I also sew up spare corporations quickly, which works in a pinch whenever I accidentally discorporate a demon, or when I’m running low on corporations I could use.”

⑨ WHERE WERE YOU BORN ?

“Like every other angel and demon, Heaven. Not sure whether the specific location still exists since it had been so long. New angels are still born, but I suspect that it’s in a new location. Not many angels are created anymore, after all. Rather, they’re often the reincarnated souls of demons killed by Holy water.”

⑩ WHAT ARE YOUR HOBBIES ?

“You could argue that me interviewing other demons to get to know them is a hobby of mine. I like it. I get to be close, but not too close, and it lets me understand the demons under my wing a little more. And I could help them as much as I want. At least, as much until someone notices what I’m doing,

“I also like to take Coco, ahem, Sirocco out for gallops and some fresh air. She loves them a lot, and I like it, too. I like the feeling of us being so connected. Sometimes when we go fast enough, it almost seems like I’m finally flying. 

“Otherwise? I don’t let myself have leisurely hobbies, they distract me. At least, routine ones.”

“But I suppose there are some times when I just can’t hold it off. Sometimes. I listen to some of my records. Watch old Fred and Ginger flicks. I used to sing a lot more when I was an angel. I haven’t tried it for a while, however."

“There are some hobbies I would like to learn... in another life, that is. I’d love to learn how to play the piano. Guitar, too. And lute. So you could argue that I would like to have a lot of music-oriented hobbies.”

⑪ DO YOU HAVE ANY PETS ?

“I have a steed. Sirocco. She was a Camargue horse from the 1100s I picked up. Very beautiful, wonderful horse. Course, Sirocco can be a little rebellious at times. But I like that in any companion of mine. It proves that they’re truly acting to their own accord and see me honestly.

“If I was a human, I’d also get a chihuahua. Poor dogs get very mistreated very much just because they’re small. People put them into handbags. Don outfits for them when they don’t need them, when they just want to be dogs and roam and sniff around. I would very much like to finally treat one well for once.

"I would also have a dragon if I could. But that can’t happen, can it?"

⑫ WHAT SPORTS DO YOU PLAY/HAVE YOU PLAYED ?

“Horse riding. Once again, it’s as close as flying for me that I will ever get, and it’s a nice activity for Coco and I to bond. 

“Otherwise? I think sports is a little high risk thanks to a scar Mickey Mouse gave me. Was stabbed between the ribs with a sword doused in Holy fire, and it had never completely healed since. If something hits me hard enough in the chest, like, say, a ball, I’ll just end up hacking up blood.”

⑬ HOW TALL ARE YOU ?

“160cm. 155 in my male corporation. By the way, Imperial is a terrible measuring system so I refuse to use it. Yes, I know, I know, embarrassing height for demons of my type. But here’s the catch— no matter what, a long string of coincidences always makes sure that my corporation never extends past the 160cm height limit. And yes, I refuse to clarify why. 

“As for my true form... well. My true form is a ball of light, so the light rays reach a surface area of a small moon. But otherwise? The physical nucleus itself is... is only as big as a rock melon. Probably why I can’t get much taller. Erhm, next-!”

⑭ DREAM JOB ?

“Take Yahweh's job. Not my fault if She made me a better, more responsible leader than She is. 

“And if I was a human... I’ve teased the idea to open up a jazz club. Learn to play the piano. Learn to play guitar. Play music. Sing, even. But no violins-! Of course. I’m still a demon. That can never happen for me.

“I’m happy that I have my current job. Especially because I don’t trust the other demon Lords to not exploit the denizens of Hell for their own personal benefit. And it’s similar to my old one-- guiding everyone to a bigger goal.

⑮ FAVORITE SUBJECT AT SCHOOL ?

“I see that you’ve studied a lot for this interview.”

“I’ve never went to what humans would consider a school, per se, which, fun fact, is based upon a system designed to turn children into obedient factory workers. No, all angels were born with all the knowledge we will ever need... by what Yahweh intended them to be, that is.

“If we relate the concept of Heaven to me as what a human school is to you, I suppose I miss singing our celestial harmonies. Very nice representation of what orchestrated group effort can do. It’s been a long time since I’ve sung, nevermind played a harp, but... I’ve always looked forward to them. Even when they ate up the time we needed to build Earth.”

Tagged by: @hellsrhapsody //thank you scotty!!

[rhiannonfrater]

Sansa and Arya - Season 7

So...(insert Spoiler Warning here) one of the most discussed and vilified storylines in Game of Thrones Season 7 is the relationship between Arya and Sansa Stark. People completely lost their minds over this storyline, claimed it was out of character, etc.

I disagree.

Let me explain.

First off, we have two sisters who never really got along.

Sansa was destined to be queen of the Seven Kingdoms due to the arrangement her father made with King Robert. Her future was set in stone and she spent her entire life up to the age of 13/14 preparing for that role. Arya even makes fun of her for always knitting in her room while the other children were playing. It’s no surprise that Sansa dreamed of a fairytale like future with her handsome king in the Southern Kingdom when this was her sole purpose in life from a young age.

Sansa discovered that darkness behind that dream while traveling with Joffery and his family to the Southern Kingdom. She learned quickly she wasn't very well equipped to deal with the cruel games of the court when her dire wolf was put to death. Sansa was an innocent among vultures. Though portrayed as very naïve and a little dumb, she learned to keep her mouth shut and endure. This became very important to her survival, especially after the death of her father.

Sansa holding her tongue and observing the game is what kept her alive while dealing with the very deadly Lannisters. Yes, she was afraid, but she was also wise enough to see where others had gone wrong (like her father) and lost their lives. Observing her, Tyrion realized this truth about her and respected her for it. Cersei even recognized it and started to fear Sansa.

Sansa's ability to learn, adapt, and wait out her enemies for the right time to move is what kept her alive until she escaped the Boltons. This also helped her when dealing with a brother (Jon) who couldn't see past the girl she’d once been and understand her worth as his adviser. She won the Battle of the Bastards and Jon won the throne because of it.

That anyone ever questioned Sansa’s loyalty is surprising to me. Sansa had demonstrated her great love for her family, Winterfell and her people. She'd learned in the Southern Kingdom what was truly important to her. That's why she props up Jon even though she knows she's the better ruler. That is why she questions him when he makes foolish choices that might put him and the Northern Kingdom at risk. She believes in Jon, but she knows he needs her to rule wisely.

Arya, as the second daughter of Ned and Caitlyn Stark, wasn't betrothed to royalty. Political marriage didn't influence her childhood, or shape her life. Her father was indulgent with her, allowing her to pursue (on the sly) her tomboyish interests such as secret sword lessons. Of course, he was probably hoping she'd get it out of her system before she was older, but Ned definitely empowered Arya in a way he never empowered Sansa.

From the moment her father died, Arya was basically on her own. Her wits and her fighting abilities got her through difficult times. Though she did bide her time in trying to kill Tywin Lannister, she wasn't very good at court intrigue and failed in that endeavor. The Hound taught her to fight and be truly ruthless. She learned how it felt to kill. Her time with the Faceless Men taught her how to wield their magic and assassin skills, but also revealed just how strong she really is. She survived against all odds.

Arya's “to kill” list falls by the wayside when she hears her favorite brother is back in Winterfell. She returns home to be reunited with Jon, but instead discovers two other siblings have survived, too. Arya recognizes that Winterfell is not exactly a safe place. The guards definitely need to be disciplined and, more worrisome; Littlefinger is looming in her sister’s shadow.

The conflict between the two sisters that follows made total sense to me. They don't KNOW each other. The last time they interacted, Sansa was besotted with Joffery and her future role as queen while Arya was a strange little sister who wanted to be a knight. Though sisters, they were raised completely different and often saw each other as adversaries. This is evident in Arya’s mocking of Sansa’s handwriting and clothing.  Current circumstances surrounding them only seem to reinforce they're the same people they were as children. Sansa is the Lady of Winterfell, a role she likes, and is advising the King of the North. Arya, the weird little sister who wants to be a knight, has a list of people she plans to kill and a bag full of faces. They're both still on totally different paths.

Littlefinger immediately sees the potential of the situation. If he can set the sisters against each other, he can force Sansa to make a move that will destroy her relationship with Jon and end up installing her as Queen of the North with Littlefinger at her side. He immediately puts his plan into motion. Aware that Arya is watching him, he has her find an incriminating letter Sansa sent under duress. This only seems to reinforce to Arya that Sansa has always thought of herself first before the family, and might be doing the same where it concerns Jon.

Arya confronts her sister, demanding to know the truth. Some people argued this is out of character. I don't. Arya is not one to mince words. Sansa married two enemies of the Starks and was in the Southern Kingdom for a very long time. She's learned to play the Game of Thrones better than anyone else in her family. Arya wants to make sure that Sansa is on Jon's side because she disagrees with Sansa's way of ruling in the aftermath of Jon's departure. Her sister is more willing to let opposing forces speak out and then deal with them instead of ruling with an iron hand. Arya wants for Sansa to crack down on everyone, and sees her reluctance. Does this mean Sansa is undermining Jon so she can be Queen?

Of course, Sansa IS on Jon's side, but she's frustrated that he doesn't value her advice. Sansa saw her father and brother die because they made the same mistakes Jon is making. Jon acknowledges she's probably right, but still leaves his Kingdom. Of course, Arya doesn't understand any of this and misreads this internal conflict.

Their argument on the balcony is all about their past. It's all about how they were both powerless to save their father. It's about their terrible lives after his death and how they have played very different roles. Sansa is right when she tells Arya she wouldn't have survived what Sansa endured. Arya's anger and outbursts would have gotten her killed very quickly. Of course, the opposite is true, too. Sansa would not have survived being a street urchin or ended up a trained assassin. Arya is angry at her sister for not acting as she would have. Sansa is angry at Arya for not understanding what she endured. This all makes sense. This is their OLD childhood arguments rehashed.

Littlefinger swoops in afterward to try to make Sansa even more afraid of her sister, and I think it worked to some degree until one pivotal moment.

With the door to her bedroom open behind her, Arya confronts a horrified Sansa who just discovered the bag full of faces. She proposes they play a game.

"I ask you a question, and you try to make lies sound like the truth," Arya says (this is IMPORTANT). "If you fool me, you win. If I catch you in a lie, you lose."

Instead of answering Arya's question, a frightened Sansa asks Arya a question. This is VERY IMPORTANT. Now Arya must LIE to Sansa and make it sound like the truth. So Arya LIES. She basically threatens her sister's life and threatens to take her face and wear her pretty dresses. (Arya has made it clear in the past how much she hates Sansa's clothing).  This is her way of saying to her sister "I AM NOT YOUR ENEMY."

During the telling of this lie, Arya takes the dagger that Littlefinger gave Bran. We're supposed to see this as her threatening Sansa, but she's not. She's telling Sansa a LIE, with the door open behind her, and holding Littlefinger's dagger. She ends her LIE by handing her sister the dagger, handle first, then walks out leaving Sansa looking relieved.

Arya leaves the door open because LIttlefinger has spies everywhere. Their confrontation will be reported to him. But she LIES to Sansa and hands her the dagger as a sign she is lying. She hands it to Sansa with the blade pointed at herself. Littlefinger is aiming his dagger (manipulations) at Arya.

Remember what Sansa said to Bran when she saw the dagger Littlefinger had given him? The dagger that started the war of the Five Kings?

"He's not a generous man. He wouldn't give you something unless he expected something back."

This is Sansa's wake up call. Littlefinger is taking the normal conflict between two sister's getting to know each other again and making it something more. Arya realizes that Littlefinger is playing them off each other and gives Sansa the clues. Sansa then begins piecing it all together. Sansa has had Littlefinger's number since last season. She’s been giving him the evil eye since before Jon became King. She has known Littlefinger is trying to manipulate her all along and held him at arm's length. In fact, before he started trying to play Arya and Sansa off each other, Sansa had been downright rude and contemptuous to Littlefinger.

After the Lie Game with Arya, everything Littlefinger says to Sansa confirms her suspicions. She says as much during the trial, repeating his words back to him. "Sometimes when I'm trying to understand a person's motives, I play a little game. I assume the worst."

Littlefinger instantly realizes that Sansa saw right through him. Especially when she finishes, by saying, "What is the worst reason you have for turning me against my sister?"

By the end of the season, it’s clear the sisters have put their past behind them and created a new sisterly bond. They get each other now. Arya acknowledges she would have never survived like Sansa. Sansa has played the Game of Thrones and has won over some worthy adversaries.

Which brings me to people consistently underestimating Sansa throughout the show. She was a child when the show started and now she's a young woman. She has had years of learning from the best players of the Game of Thrones.

And as she said herself, "I'm a slow learner,it's true. But I learn."

[spitfirerose]

RWBY OC: Una Racuna

Introducing member #2 of SUGR

Una Racuna: Around thirteen years old, Una is a raccoon faunus girl with both adorable ears and bushy tail. Both her legs are prosthetics from an...incident, and are often adorned with colorful stickers because the metallic gray is boring. She has vitiligo, a skin condition that gives her her unique look. Her semblance allows her to alter her center of gravity, enabling her to be quite acrobatic and a nuisance to hit or catch. Basically says ‘screw you’ to physics and balancing, shifting her weight however, whenever. Una is bright, cheery, and quick to make light of a situation, often not taking matters as seriously. When serious, you won’t hear a word from her as she gives all she has. Una holds an air of naivety, but catches more than she lets on. While her legs do function as weapons, she also has retractable claw gauntlets on each wrist. The girl is 90% weapon, given how small she is. To be fair for later plot points, her real name isn't Una, but that's what the wild six year old tells Sven. So. Una it is. She made up her last name, too, as she needed one for filling out Beacon’s registration. It rhymes with her first name, is like ‘Raccoon’, and it's fun to say.

Una’s father, Usagi Luna, worked at the family bakery dubbed “Bun In The Oven”, running it by himself as he is all that is left. One day, a wandering traveler by the name of Aeris Flannel comes in, and the rest is history. The rabbit and the ram fall in love, and a raccoon is conceived because that’s apparently how faunus genetics work according to canon.

They’re also helped out by a human mother, Sylvie, and her two fox faunus children, Sylvette and Renargent, having been seeking a better life from where they had once been. They all live together in the bakery’s upper loft, and things are pretty nice.

But then everything changed when the humans attacked, wanting to take all faunus and relocate them to Menagerie. Una is barely three, and is sobbing while Usagi and Aeris try to keep calm. Renari, however, is not calm. He comes out of hiding, Sylvie having begged for him and Sylvette to keep away until the officers had left. Usagi replies that the boy is theirs when demanded whose he is in order to protect them all. The four are taken.

Aeris knows they’re passing Mountain Glenn, and has Renari sneak out with Una. She has human family there, they can look after her daughter and he can get back home to his mother because plot says so. So he does what he’s told, and Una is safely taken to her aunt’s. However, Mountain Glenn falls to shit not long after, and Renari isn’t strong enough to find out where she’s gone with Grimm everywhere. He makes it back to the bakery, where Sylvie is so grateful to have him safe and sound. The news of Mountain Glenn’s demise and reports of no survivors reaches Menagerie, breaking Aeris and Usagi’s hearts.

Meanwhile, Una is just barely making it with other survivors. Her semblance and faunus instincts kick in, and she’s all that’s left at six years old. She hides in trees, afraid to be on the ground for long since that’s where most the Grimm are. Nevermores terrify her. The White Fang move in, and little Una swipes their shit. Sven finds her, and she follows him like a close shadow. She’s cleaned up, and learns all sorts of things, mainly how not to act like a feral child. She’s pretty shy and quiet, though that quickly fades as she gets comfortable. Soon she's all giggles and chattering with whoever.

Where you find Sven, Una is right there. She knows every member by name, and finds them all to be like a family to her. As years go by, she notices how humans have gone from treating her with disgust, to backing away in fear. Adam’s behavior frightens her. She knows something isn’t right, and Sven is often away on missions, and is always hurt. Una becomes determined to help Sven is any way that she can, and so she goes to Adam, wishing for him to train her to become strong. She’s small, a child, and has no real combat experience. He claims he’ll only train her if she can evade getting hit by his guards, and she succeeds by her semblance. Others will see her as but a helpless faunus child, and he intends to use that to their advantage as she obtains her claws. She’s used to deceive humans, and small size used to infiltrate bases. Una fights only when she has too, as she’s still just a kid. It’s a quick lesson that she must if she wants to survive. Schnees don’t give a shit that she’s smol.

Una keeps it a secret from Sven, not wanting him to worry about her, as she’s worried about him. They’re assigned to the same mission, and it’s too late to do anything. She tells him not to be mad, that this was all her choice though he knows that Adam is behind this.

The mission goes to hell, and she almost dies, calling for Sven with choked cries. He tries to keep her awake, as she’s just barely hanging on with what little aura she has left. She passes out, and his semblance has him go berserk, all that Deus ex Machina.

Una is silent. Reserved. All the life she'd always been thriving with is gone as she's confined to a bed. Her legs are gone, and things are pretty dark. She’s very sensitive to loud noises, and immediately looks for Sven in a panic. Once she gets her prosthetics and is able to leave the bed, there’s no stopping her. Una’s world becomes brighter again. She’s moving forward.

Adam visits and mentions that the two can get back to fighting once they’ve recovered. Una is terrified. They almost died, and Adam isn’t one to deny an order from.

She’s awoken in the middle of the night by Sven, bags packed and ready to get them both the fuck out. And so the fuck out they go.

They’ve done terrible things in the White Fang. They see becoming Hunters as a way to atone for that, and Beacon seems like the best place to go. Being free from WF influence, Una is allowed to live a lot more, like they have actual meals?? There’s no masks?? Showers?? It’s all pretty mind blowing. No wonder she’s all happy and smiley and having a great time. Everything is so amazing!! Everyone thinks she has to be someone’s lil sister because there’s no way this thirteen year-old is here to be a student.

But lowkey Una worries she won’t get paired with Sven. At all.

She has a blast when blasted off the launch pad. Renari makes eye-contact with her when he feels something trying to touch the back of his fox ears. It was a weird impulse, she doesn’t know why she wanted to. Like, yeah, she’s disappointed he’s not Sven, and he’s irritated to be paired with her (he just ditched the last person), but they need to make the best of it!! They take out some Grimm and Renari concedes just a bit. She’ll do, he supposes, and hopes the rest the team won’t be shit. Una is so excited to learn who their teammates are going to be!!

She’s so relieved to be with Sven--he’s leader, yay!--, and she welcomes Gwenna to the group, totally oblivious to how Renari glares at the new girl.

Gwenna thinks of her as a little sister, so incredibly bubbly and dragging Gwenna to go do fun stuff. All that good female teammate bonding stuff. Una’s so good and strong, and they have such great moments. They spend some nights just relaxing on the roof, watching the stars and talking. During the Festival, Gwenna starts acting weird. Distant.

Gwenna asks what Una would do if she had amazing power, to which she replies that she’d use it to protect her friends. It’s reminiscent to when Hana had asked her the same thing. Una becomes pretty attached to her, thinking of her like a big sister. Given that Una hasn't really bonded with anyone except Sven, she truly does believe her team to be like her family. She refuses to leave them behind when things get tough.

The same goes for Blake, giving the cat faunus a heart attack at throwing herself at her, ecstatic to see her again as she had never returned from her last mission with Adam. She has to smother Una’s mouth with a hand before accidentally revealing her secret beneath the bow. She’s the one that goes in search of Blake when it’s discovered that the White Fang have invaded Beacon as well, and has difficulty fighting its members. After all this time, she still knows their names and everything about them--she can’t.

Neither can some of them.

Renari makes the connection of who she really is, and her parents watch the Tournament from Menagerie, instantly recognizing their daughter. He asks Una if there’s anything she remembers about them, and he surprises her with the opportunity to meet them--well, via the CCT. He pulled a lot of strings for this, and it’s really thanks to Blake. Una only gets to see them for a minute, before Cinder’s keikaku severs the connection, and everything goes dark. Beacon is falling, and her parents fear that they’re losing her again. Stuff happens, and the team, minus Gwenna the fuck did she go?!, plus Ardilla, make it to “Bun In The Oven”. Sylvie fills her in on the place and all their history, proud yet saddened to see how the girl has grown, even more so at the shit that just happened. Una takes over as leader, and while she’d love to go to Menagerie and meet her parents, she knows that if she does, she won’t want to leave them. Their journey is far from over, but maybe someday...

Misc. Facts: She doesn’t sleep in her bed, having instead made a hammock in a corner ceiling of the room. Nice and cozy like a tree. Cardin tried to pick on her once and mocked that she had a ‘nice’ tail, to which she cheerfully replied that she thought it was cute, too! His cronies are wise enough to not try anything--have you seen Sven and Renari?! Una’s probably kicked his ass in sparring, unintentionally humiliating him as he couldn’t even land a hit as she served him. That being said, she’s a glass cannon. The smol can only bounce back up so many times from heavy attacks. She’s enthusiastic in just about everything she does, but gets antsy at sitting still during lectures. Often chills up on Sven’s shoulders, and falls asleep wherever. Drags her teammates on adventures. Cheers on her opponents, encouraging them to do their best, which either pisses them off or wishes her the same. Unless they’re bad guys, then no nice things. 

[thanatasia]

Your the only mutual who’s seen demon slayer so I apologize if my ranting and raving is a little overwelming 🥺👉🏻👈🏻

So I’m finally getting around to Demon Slayer —mostly in part because I was waiting for the hype to die down but also because I was waiting for a streaming service that I had to grab it — and after binging 13 episodes, I can safely say that my favorite characters are The Demon Doctor Lady, The cute dude madly in love with her, Tarzan Pig Head who’s a little confused but he’s got the spirit, and Nezuko, because she gets all of the UwU’s

Crybaby Tanjiro is a decent main character but his inner monologue sometimes gets a little grading to listen to but he’s big of heart, dumb of ass sometimes so I’ll let it slide. Also he’s a big brother who absolutely adores his baby sister, so he gets brownie points for good, non problematic familial sibling love.

However, Zenitsu can literally walk off a cliff for all that I care. He’s like Sanji from One Peice but instead of being so annoying that he’s funny, Zenitsu is just annoying (also I’m very sorry if Zenitsu is your favorite but like, the screaming... the screaming...) and like, I get that being a wuss and screaming all the time is his character flaw and his arc is to become more brave as he gets confident in his demon slayer abilities, but like... can he not be so annoying about it please...?

Also Demon daddy Michael Jackson is pretty cool.

Another thing that kinda grinds my gears about this anime is the pacing. I feel like a lot of these demon fights and training montages can absolutely be cut down form three episodes each to like one and a half... maybe two at the most. I don’t know if you had the same problem, but to me it defiantly feels dragged out for the sake of getting the story to the 26 episode mark.

Hopefully the pacing gets better during the rest of the anime, but I’m not holding out hope. Time will tell I guess. And hopefully Zenitsu will learn that the power of silence can be a blessing.

But overall I am getting a positive feeling out of Demon Slayer. It’s not terrible by no means (trust me I’ve far worse) but it’s defiantly not the show-stopper that most people back during Demon Slayers time in the sun were screaming about. I personally, as of episode 13, give it a solid B-

or

a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ out of 5.

Also I’m sorry if this was too long to read 🥺

@simplysparrow14 don't feel bad about this long message. Reading other people's opinion on something I enjoy is nice!

I can definitely understand not wanting to get into a series that has a lot of hype, I kinda felt like that with BNHA in the beginning (I still need to catch up but I literally just look forward to Dabi lol)

Ahhh all those characters are so good! Lady Tamayo and Yushiro (I hope I'm right) I love them too. I love the scene where he calls Nezuko unattractive, literally his energy was funny.

Inosuke is fun! I enjoy him too. At first I thought I'd be annoyed with him but he proved me wrong. And Nezuko!!! I don't think there is anyone who truly hates her, I just want to hug her!

As for Tanjiro, I totally get being a bit iffy with him. I still enjoy his character but main characters are almost never my favorite characters in anime/manga because of how predictable they are (My faves are all side characters where anything is possible. And I really like the Hashira those character designs!!!). However, as you said, his big brother love for Nezuko is wonderful (I really like that this series has two siblings as the MC's and we see how far each would go to protect the other. We rarely see loving sibling bonds unless they'rerivals or they have grudges against each other) I also like that he's a sensitive MC. I've seen a lot of shounen anime and I like that Tanjiro isn't a Goku or Naruto (loud, obnoxious, the whole shebang). I feel like BnHA was my first experience of a sensitive MC in shounen.

No offense here about Zenitsu. It's funny I said I don't really like the loud characters but Zenitsu is the loudest one of Demon Slayer lol. I feel like comic-relief characters walk on the slippery slope of annoying af or well received. I noticed a lot of people want to see more of him fighting (because they can't stand awake Zenitsu lol) and I definitely want to see more badass, confident Zenitsu too!

OMG "Demon daddy Michael Jackson" I'm dying!!! We need to see more of him, especially being threatening.

As for the pacing (Right now I'm going by memory) I'm pretty sure the training sequences are dragged out. Usually I skip around if I'm bored, which I think I did or get distracted while it's happening. I wanna say the only training that I could see being dragged out, while making sense is the training Tanjiro did with Sabito and Makomo. One of these characters gets brought up again later (maybe the important detail was said but if you look carefully two characters have a similar haori). I'd also say it helps us to be attached to them since we later find out what happened to them. The old man (I forgot his name) meh if it went more than 1.5 eps I totally forgot because I can lose interest in training arcs lol.

I will say in future seasons (because I read the manga) some fights feel dragged out and there might be an arc that drags out but I honestly see it being at most 2 eps (the first being quick and comedic the second being more serious)

I feel like this 2nd season will be paced better because they (what I assume from the trailer) are animating one arc, "Red Light District" and I cannot wait because

1) The music I picture going alongside the calm, action and scenic moments. The trailer had a banger!

2) The fights. Something super cool happens

3) The comedy

4) ...Uzui with his hair down/messed up.... I always find a husbando in a series and it became him. (there's a joke I wanna make but after it's released)

Honestly, same. When you break it down "Demon Slayer" is your typical shounen anime that follows a lot of the tropes necessary for a series featured in big magazines like "Shounen Jump." But where it does separate itself from protagonists and characters such as "Naruto", "Bleach", "Dragon Ball", "Bkack Clover" etc, it does really well.

I wanna say this series has by far the most eyecatching character designs which is great because I can remember them a lot faster.

And I love their "breath technique" effects. Besides the first episode reeling me in, the effects kept me in (as well as characters). It's a visually appealing anime and the animation team did a wonderful job bringing these characters and this story alive.

I also like that the series takes place during an evolving/modernizing Japan, some places are modern for that time period/influenced time period (1900-20's fashion, trains!?!? I legit face-palmed at the end of season 1 because I forgot that this series wasn't taking place in medieval-ish era) Sometimes I forget that Demon daddy and Tanjiro live in the same time period because of how different their worlds are. (I'm very use to shounen being either just european medieval fantasy world, just medieval/edo fantasy Japan or in the rare case modern fantasy Japan. A mix of both if it's like Bleach but the difference was extreme and literally different worlds) In Demon Slayer, it was a work in progress, a set up perhaps. But I mean, countrysides still exists in more developed countries today but in most anime it was either or. Pre-modern or Present day modern.

And the character backstories are pretty intense. I wanna reread the series again to give a better review. But yeah, prepare to cry some things did catch me off guard and oh geez, I will be crying when certain chapters get animated.

I 100% agree with you on the rating a B- or ⭐⭐⭐⭐ is fair for "Demon Slayer"

For me to give an A+ or 5 stars, the series would have to really surprise me, main character wise (I've read so much that I can predict what will happen, kinda like my mom and horror movies)

Berserk is the closest to a 5 star but that's a Seinen series that goes by different rules and has a lot of dark and really messed up things (big big trigger warning) happen but when that big surprise came it literally took me by surprise the 2016-17 anime was a disgrace and don't get me started on that lol) and of course even then I would still critique it lol

Thank you so much for your ask! I don’t mind reading a bit more and as you can see I love writing...a bit too much. And I hope my rambles aren't too repetitive or boring.

I really do want to draw some Demon Slayer stuff, I really do love the characters in this series.