#and how one faction got way more care than the other to make a clear cut villain

[randomnameless]

Genuine question, not trying to start a fight, why do you get so upset about gods and churches being presented in a negative light in fictional works?

No pbs!

I guess it's a mix of being too common, too forced and having, in general, the cast use common tropish arguments to fight /defeat them.

I rant a lot about this game, but take TS where we have three sort of factions opposing each other, and each are supposed to suck. Who is the faction who never receives any "positive traits" or "pet the dog" moment?

The game force fed us a scene where an Aesfroti soldier - when Aesfrost is depicted as a highly militarised nation with a cult of personality towards their current ruler, that invaded the protag's home and slaughtered several civilians and NPCs in the process - say goodbye to his wife and kids before going to "war" to defend his land against, well, the protags who are invading it to kill their warmongering leader.

As force-fed as this scene was, it, I believe at least, tried to tell us that even the Aesfrosti who pillaged villages and killed their inhabitants are humans, and care about their loved ones, sure it's corny, but it's all about not deshumanising any party.

When we attack Hyzante? Niet, zilch, nothing. No similar scene where random soldiers, or NPCs, worry about what is going on and if they're going to die when their wall has been breached. They just, don't exist in this context.

I think the cherry on the cake is the Golden Route scene, where, apparently, nationalists Aesfrosti decide to turn back against their ultra charismatic leader because, uh, he "lied" when he declared the war and used a false pretense, so the soldiers and people who were butchering babies and invading a city where people were preparing a marriage apparently now have morals and rebel.

There's no similar scene for Hyzante when the cast reveals that the teachings of their Goddess were made up and salt wasn't exclusively given to them by divine intervention, because rock salt exists everywhere. Sure it would be a bit weird and forced that people thinking they're chosen ones and looking down on everyone else suddenly, hm, don't break down when their entire system of belief is shattered, but hey, if the Aesfrostian Gregor can have morals after washing his hands of all this Glenbrookian blood, why shouldn't religious npc #55 not make the same heel face turn?

And then, we have the slavery/human experimentation plot - in general, when TS tries to give nuance, they more or less explain/justify why something that "sucks" is done, it's basically Silvio's character.

Aesfrost' Gustadolph manages to push his "freedom" mentality because his land is a harsh place where people are desperate to survive, salt smuggling is reprehensible, but it's the only way to give some to the ones who cannot afford it. Of course is everyone is free, no one is because, as Gustadolph puts it, they're basically free to die for his ambitions.

Hyzante? Follows a racist creed where Rozellians have to pay for some great sin, and are slaved away in a lake to recover salt until they die. It's, later, justified by Hyzante wanting to keep its salt monopoly else they don't have anything, and wanting to curb down the Rozelle people because they know about the exitence of rock salt (and I guess getting free workers to harvest salt from the lake + having state enemies make his own population docile/not willing to rebel ?).

And then, we have the human experimentations, that are just done for, uhh, Idore's lol. When Hyzante is known for its "advanced medicine" and we could have had the usual dilemna of, idk, having those humans experimentations used to develop this medicine that is reknown in the world (idk, sacrificing a Rozellian to save someone else's life?) - it's not the angle the devs picked. Rozellians are sacrificed to power up an idol, Idore wants to control the world through his idol and soft power (compared to Gustadolph's hard power) and manipulates his people (just like Gustadolph) to do so.

The two are very similar, but who is the final boss? Complete with a transformation in an eldritch monster? The war-mongering imperialist or the jaded old man who is leading de facto a religion?

Hopefully there's the entire "human experimentations for no other purpose than the lols" to settle them apart.

---

I recently watched Dune, and even if I have some issues with the adaptation, the Bene Gesserit isn't portrayed as "comically" evil-er than the Harkonen Empire, I reckon the comparison isn't adequate, because Dune is multi book series when I'm mostly talking about video games.

Symphonia's church of Martel is a font for the Big Bad (tm) to put in motion his nefarious plans, and yet, through the game, we see how random clergymen use their, uh, religious buildings to help people around. Ultimately Martel herself is reincarnated through plot device and tells the big bad to stop being an ass and the story is less about "church and gods evil" but "big bad distorts Martel/church's teachings and role for his plans because he has a tragic backstory"

(but then Symphonia ends with the biggest whitewashing from every Tales I've played for its big bad so I'll stop talking about it because otherwise I'm going to be salty).

Abyss' church is more or less the same thing - the Church is supposed to help people deal with the fact their verse has "predestination stones" where the future is already written, and in the course of the game, we see how it has several factions and one opposes the group (who has the pope as a NPC!) - but it's not a story about "gods bad church BaD".

I remember playing Suikoden Tierkreis a long time ago, and while the game seemed to go through familiar "church bad gods bad" route and we end with defeating a god-like entity... I pretty much loved the twist that, in a game that relied on alternate dimensions/universe, the god-like entity was actually the protag if he made different choices!

In those games, if you fight a religious body and someone pretending to be a God or what not - it's not because people fight against an eldritch creature who wants world domination and to erase puny insects, or is the reason why everything goes wrong, but because, at the end, the conflict/fight is ultimately caused by someone, generally a human or at least a non "god like" entity, wanting to destroy the world.

I don't remember if FE was my first JRPG series or not, but I always liked the idea that if the world is doomed in those games and the heroes must prevent said doom, it's not because a god-like being wants to destroy the world, but because people, humans/randoms are the most shitty ones out there.

---

As for the "tropes" often used to deride fictional churchs and religious people, well, I will again point to TS - which did a splendid job in the Benedict Route where you smash Hyzante after allying with Aesfrost.

There's one battle where out protags diss Hyzantese because they worship a goddess and have no free will, listening to Her teachings and Her says (the traditional "religious people have no free will and listen to their churches who tell them how to think!") - which is immediately countered by one of those Hyzantese characters asking Serenor if he's not the same, but instead of blindly listening to a Goddess, blindly follows Benedict. And it ends with the final chapter title referencing automatons/puppets : who is that title talking about ? The fake "idol" Idore created, or the fake "king" Benedict created?

Anyways, the usual "religions people have no free will because their church/religion tells them how to think" trope reeks of r/atheism and the double standard - bar in this route of TS, but I guess, in TS itself in the Roland route! - is never called out, blindly following a charismatic leader is okay, as long as charismatic leader isn't religious?

Regardless of my IRL thoughts about religion, usually those tropes are presented as a "gotcha!" when they are... not at all, but the games/books leave it at that and we're supposed to roll with it.

I'd say it's lazy writing or, as we saw in Naruto, a quick way to end a story without having to dwelve in characters and their motivations : "you're a god/alien/other being and you're bad, so let us do what we want!" - end of the story.

Hopefully some fillers and to an extent, Boruto gave her more meat bar being the 11 hour villain we had to defeat quick and who manipulated the previous sad'n'lonely antagonists - but it still felt rich from Naruto, known for his famous "talk no jutsu" and trying to understand people he's fighting against, to drop the ball with Kaguya, calling her pure malice and ending with some "let us live the way we want" to wrap up the plot so he can wrestle with his boyfriend later on.

In the end, we often end up with "religion bad bcs the big bad manipulates people through it", as if those mangas/animes/vg never have other examples of charismatic people not using religion to manipulate their randoms/people or "gods bad they should let humans do what they want" when we've read/seen/played through various, uh, really fucked-up shit humans did - but on their own! and ultimately, but it's more in fandom spaces, with have Projection 101.

TLDR : church/religion/gods are too often used in those works as the ultimate scapegoat to either wrap up a story in a rushed ending or to pretend to have "nuance" but still have a common enemy where all the "nuanced" characters can grow/be whitewashed and side together against that "common enemy".

Just like in all things I guess, I prefer when something isn't painted as purely negative and all of the positive traits are erased because there is a need for a perfect scapegoat - sure, bring out too much "nuance" and writing/designing a game/manga/anime becomes harder because there's no "clear cut" antagonist, and yet, the one who always gets fucked in this scenario is the religious/church side.

Want a generic stock villain who will destroy the world so the heroes have to fight against them? Just create a "religion" in your setting, and have the big bad either hell bent on resurrecting Chtullu to destroy the world because Chtullu BaD, or have them be the most corrupt piece of shit who manipulate everything in the shadows, so the rest of the world, even the ones who slaughter others bcs they feel like they must start a war, can be whitewashed at the end.

I mean, there's a saying about diverting attention from a fire by starting a bigger one near, or a trope of "aliens made them do it" : who cares if Madara started a continental war and targeted a village full of random civilians he swore to protect because he lost the elections? Did y'know he was manipulated by a woman, I mean, an eldritch thing created by a woman, regarded as a God, who ultimately wanted to get out of her fridge to kill everyone?

Roland must get over his hatred for Aesfrost for barging in his kindgom and killing hundred of his people while they were preparing for a wedding, because hey, Idore is evil and plans on ruling the world through his sham religion!

I'll forever be salty at TS for not giving Kamsell the occasion to rise against Idore, or not even have minor NPCs get the same treatment as Sycras suddenly going all "u lied to me gustadolph so i won't listen to u anymore + sad goodbyes to my wife'n'kids".

Extremism of all kinds can lead to wars/tragedy/fucked up shit - Sure I don't want to get my History lessons in video game medium when I play lol, but what I really don't like is how it feels like depicting "they're extremists because they're religious" feels like the default/easy answer : want a bunch of brainwashed people the heroes must fight against and can't talk no justu their way out of this fight/will fight without looking too BaD? Depict those people as "misguided" members of a corrupt church/believers of a religion, no one will givea fig. If they are instead supporters of a charismatic leader who throws them through the meatgrinder to further their goals? Well, there's no automatic loyalty so either you have to show/depict it on screen, else it can be challenged at key points to demonstrate how those people - who follow the charismatic leader - aren't completely "mindlessly listening to their leader" or how their leader "isn't that bad after all".

[explodingchantry]

Anders isn't my problematic fave because he isn't problematic. I think the wider concept of anders being 'wrong' the fandom has is a clear example of how biased the writing has been in the games. It's the same reason why people hate Jowan, or why they think the kinloch hold mages were stupid. There's a clear bias in the writing and framing of it all that guides the player towards feeling negatively.

The majority of answers you can give Jowan in Dao are negative, mocking, or downright insulting. The ones who aren't are just... Neutral. You can be a bit sympathetic to him in the circle origin but by the time you meed him in redcliff most of your dialogue choices are so fucking mean. In my replay I was trying desperately to be nice and sympathetic to him but the best you can do is be neutral and let him go but for every rude dialogue option there is no "you've been through something horrible, I'm sorry" or "you were manipulated, loghain took advantage of your vulnerability, I'm sorry" it's soooooo.

Likewise, I always make sure to speak to every single npc in the mage origins and the One mention of uldred before the broken circle quest is from the one mage who tells you about the different political faction enchanters are in, and it's with absolute disdain. That mage thinks uldred is annoying and it's implied that the other enchanters think so, too. Uldred who was an activist for mage liberation is treated as annoying for being an activist.

Then he turns out to be a blood mage and to have killed the majority of the circle, turning them into abominations. The message is clear: those who seek liberation are wicked. In the first game of the series, thus in the game which introduced the concept of circles at all, their existence is justified by the text. It overtly says: look at all those foolish mages, how dangerous they can be when One of them is wicked. Can you imagine if they were free? Can you imagine those abominations' destruction if they were out in the open?

Something similar happens in the mage origin, with Jowan. Through the whole origin, whilst Jowan is painted as annoying, he's definitely seen as a victim. Up until he uses blood magic, that is. Suddenly, the player is likely supposed to think "oh, so they were right to want to make him tranquil after all". Instead of being a way to show that the circle will often turn innocent mages tranquil, it shows you that greagoir was right to distrust Jowan, because he was indeed a blood mage. Instead of showing you how paranoid those in power are about mages, the writing justifies their fear and hatred.

Bear in mind this is the first game and likely the very first thing that happens to a lot of new players. The game does not expect you to know the intricacies of its lore yet, doesn't expect you to understand that blood magic is actually fucking neutral unless you sacrifice people for it. You might be tempted to argue that it's setting up for that realisation later and for you to feel bad about Jowan later, realizing he was led to blood magic because it was his only solution, because he and all other mages are caged like dogs (except this is ferelden, so the dogs are better treated than them). But then you've got the redcliff fiasco where it's obvious the writers expect you to fucking hate his guts

And while dragon age 2 is more overt in its depiction of mage suffering, it also tries to pass on the idea that kirkwall is a special case, that it's only the gallows that are this bad. That it's just Meredith whose craaazeyyy 🤪 and not just Meredith being a product of a corrupt system. The writers expect you to think of Anders as an unstable extremist, or as his writer puts it, a "bipolar terrorist" (note that ofc there's nothing fucking wrong with being bipolar, but I don't think his writer cares!)

With different writers and the exact same set of events, Anders blowing up the chantry would be easily recognized as a positive, as an act of justice, of rightful rebellion. Instead it's seen as a tragedy, a mistake. Instead Anders is categorized as a villain, morally grey even though Hawke themselves has a higher death toll than he ever will.

It's a lesson, I think. In narrative bias.

[mobiused]

is it too late to ask for said actual nuanced statement about your feelings on the way loona has split up and how you feel about supporting each of the factions as a fan

No :0 Okay well this posted early accidentally come back when I've edited it with the answer you seek; edit here it is

As anybody who follows me and actually listens to what I post knows, yes, I was disappointed with the choice that the 5 members in modhaus made.

The reason is of course Jaden Jeong's involvement in the conditioned that caused the members' suffering. I honestly do not care to "respect" the members' choice when, firstly, they're public figures, which means they're in a position where they open themselves to judgement, having surpassed what it means to be a regular person into an overman; hence, idol (no this isn't lore) (yes it is) and it is parasocial to think we as fans owe them the kind of blind devout respect that is reserved for people you know and are close to. We, of course, need to respect them as people even if they are idols which leads to my next point. Secondly, they're adult women who are capable of making their own choices. It is only patronizing, infantilising and self delusionary to cheer them on for every choice they make void of criticism. If I respect them as a person, that means I care about the decisions they make enough to be able to disagree with them. The only decisions you respect unconditionally are from your God (if you have faith) or someone who has got you fucked up.

of course all of this is only my opinion to be clear ^^;

So to continue, I don't respect their decision to join modhaus. However I do accept their decision and think of them no less as people - that's very important to me for people to be aware of! That may have sounded harsh but I only have strong feelings because I care.

When it comes to modhaus vs ctd, to ME it feels like a faction of people who are willing to ignore a history of mistreatment to blindly follow their idols because that's what idolatry is versus a faction who are distrusting and reluctant to give a second chance to a man (and his company) who have done them wrong. And of course bias vs bias.

Regarding why I don't hold ctd to the same standard as modhaus; one is an established company with another group under their belt and the other is a company that formed because Hyunjin asked really niceys. The "mistakes" that modhaus are making, like having Jaden and doing NFTs and having loss of the members' autonomy to give fans control as a business model (to be frank, I don't care about missing english subtitles or those small things, its whatever) are much more severe to me than CTD fumbling the bag in ways that only affect them financially. Sorry I don't care about them picking venues that are too big for them on a concert, I don't think it's that big a deal.

In this way, I think cloo vs ourii, ctd vs modhaus, is much more than the preference people have for the idols actually in the companies but rather an ideological thing. Can you put the past (that isn't yours to begin with) behind you to stan a group with no guarantee of being completely safe and in control, or are you going to be wary of a company that has done little to demonstrate how it's protecting the girls' best interests. At least that's how it looks to me.

And it's weird how we dont see Chuu & Yves akgaes right? And I think that's because the companies are such unknown elements that it's nowhere near as polarising to support them, like there's no reason not to.

And I do think there is a lot of us vs them going on. (some) People who are artms member stans who have become full-blooded ouriis have made it their mission to find any excuse to bring CTD down - maybe out of a guilty conscience vengeance for the criticism that modhaus has been getting. And the same can definitely be said about cloos who just want more reasons to shit on modhaus even though the problems are inconsequential (see? I'm not wholly biased)

In summary I just think it's sad that it's had to have been this divisive. If the loona members weren't in the position that they were - that no company was willing to accept them bar modhaus, and the members who got out first didn't feel obligated to go to modhaus, since CTD - and other places - weren't an option, things maybe would've turned out differently. Or maybe they wouldn't have, and there will always be fanwars regardless.

[auspicioustidings]

Lost Boys Part 4

Summary: Preacher does the day shift and meets the supposed monster.

Words: 2.1k

CWs: Nothing major, but as with this whole series it skews darker than what I usually write

Christ, she had been unaware you could get DOMs from a threesome but here it was. She had been sore yesterday sure, but maybe the food and beer had been masking it because today she was in pain. No more pleasant aches and hazey horniness, something that was being sorely missed. Still, it wasn’t like bills would wait and she really wanted to actually do this place up, that would require funds and funds would require working.

Definitely the day shift, another night with those two maniacs and she’d be on bed rest for a bloody month. So she dragged herself up, showered and threw on jeans and a flannel that she could take off and tie around her waist if it got too hot. 

The way Alex had reacted to seeing her was odd, very odd. She knew plenty of people would drift through, pick up a shift and then move on, but his surprise that she was back was genuinely like he had been 100% positive he would never see her again. Had she come off as that flakey? She had told him that first day that she had moved here hadn’t she? Odd, very odd.

“If you don’t need me I can ask around.”

“No! No no, you can take the day shift. Opening is in 45 minutes.”

He was eyeing her neck, the bruising not really hideable. Ah, maybe he was weary about having someone working a ride that, for lack of a better term, was a ride. Understandable, people often underestimated how important the operator was on these things. There wasn’t really enough regulation and if whoever was managing the staff didn’t make sure they were decent it became wildly unsafe. One bad accident was awful for business. She’d need to make sure she was shit hot at her job today.

Alex felt like he was seeing a spectre. The girl in front of him shouldn’t be alive. He wouldn’t say he was disappointed as such, instead his initial disbelief was rapidly converting into mounting excitement. Were they keeping her? Some sort of pet? He thought they might have their hands full if that was the plan, this one was tough. There had only ever been one person before now that hadn’t been vanished and that was because Alex had practically begged for her not to be when Gaz had taken a passing interest in her. Not that she had appreciated it, was a hunter now, determined to ‘save him from himself’. He didn’t need saving, being a thrall to the 141 was a good gig, way better than falling in with the Shadows or the side show or God forbid the surfers.

“Ok, thanks. Are the people from the side show about? I was going to go by and say hi but it’s still kind of early huh?”

“I’d steer clear, not the kind of friends you want to have.”

That was weird. Alex was being so serious about it, genuinely like he cared who she was friends with. This place must be way more political than Coney Island and that was saying something. 

“Uh huh. Look Alex, can you just tell me what the deal is here? I am telling you now I am a good worker, but I need to understand how this place works so I don’t screw up.”

Oh yeah, they would definitely have their hands full with this one. 

“The only people worth talking to are the 141. You met a few of them the other day, the bike you left on was with them. The freaks butt heads with them pretty often. They can’t control that big monster of theirs, so stay clear. Graves and his Shadows run all the games, tight knit group, don’t really entertain outsiders.”

“Surfers?”

“Don’t get into the water with them unless you enjoy drowning.”

She laughed, and then laughed harder when she saw that Alex was deadass serious about all this. He acted as if she was working on a Boardwalk with a bunch of warring factions made up of fantastical creatures rather than a bunch of petty gossips who would get into petty fights.

“Sure thing boss man. I’ll be back in time for my shift.”

Yeah she would not be making friends with those 3 from the 141. Fantastic sex only did so much to make up for them being the kind of unsettling that meant she was flirting with danger in the unfun way, in the going to become part of the statistic in this city way. It was really her duty as an upstanding citizen to knock their egos down a bit anyway. Next time they tried it on she’d turn them down hard and fast, make sure they knew that she had as little respect for them as they had for her.

–

“It’s König right? Am I saying that right?”

If it was true that the side show workers and the 141 did not get along, then she would be making friends with the side show workers. Horangi had been decent to her and honestly she thought it was pretty shitty of Alex to comment about the big guy and call him a monster to be controlled. Not his fault he was huge. He was still sat where he had been before, the only one around this early in the day. 

“Perfectly maus. Come closer.”

He had a manic note to his voice that was admittedly a little unsettling, but she supposed that was part of the job. She chuckled a little at how he had purred to come closer, probably worked wonders with tourists. She knew the moment she got within distance he would lunge at her, try to make her jump out of the range of his chains and so she crept forward anyway and controlled her instinct to flinch. Instead she just grinned at him when he lunged, an offt of breath leaving her when he barrelled into her and crushed her tight against his chest. 

“Careful big man, you catch one of the hassled housewives like this and she’s going to fall in love with you.”

König drank her defiance of the fear she should feel like a fine wine. He knew it from when he had first seen her, that she wasn’t scared of him. Even when she had jumped that first time she had smiled at him after, as if in approval. And now that he held her she only trembled from laughter. How delicious a thing for him, soft little princess to make worship at his altar. He’d keep her in his cage with him, bully his cock into her until she took every inch, until she was screaming from the stretch of taking his knot. He’d take care of her, envelop her in him after and let her cosy up in their little den. Keep her warm and satiated and full of his pups. Maybe he’d allow for some tiger cubs once or twice. 

He wasn’t really letting go. And she could feel that he was hard, difficult not to with the size of it pressing against her stomach. Didn’t really think much of it to be honest, he couldn’t have just gotten hard from touching her as much as that would do wonders for her ego, probably just morning wood. Poor guy, there was no way he had ever found anyone to fit around that. She could feel herself getting wet on instinct, her body panicking and trying to prepare for an absolute railing that her logical brain knew wasn’t actually happening. As much as it would be a fantastic blow to the pride of the 141 to get under this man, her body was still sore and she reckoned it might be an idea to stick to pleasing herself for now rather than getting her back completely blown out. 

“Ooook. Going to need you to ease off now.”

König growled. It wouldn’t do for her to be such a bratty thing so early on. She should enjoy being held close to him shouldn’t she? Ah but she was only human. He forgot sometimes how fragile and delicate they were, how they liked to have independence. No matter, he could be patient. He could act like a human man, court her according to their customs until she realised how much she loved him. Then she wouldn’t ever want to get away. Better to wait until the marks on her had faded anyway, if he took her now he wouldn’t be able to control himself when he tried to cover them with his own.

“Sorry maus, many people flinch away from me. It is pleasant to hold you” he said, forcing his tone into something soft and appealing as he loosened his hold and let her take a step back.

“That sucks man, sorry. Make sure you get to just be you without the mask and the chains on your days off, I know it’s rough to be the monster in one of these shows,” she said with a sympathetic smile. 

She had worked a sideshow for a while. They had been desperate and she could do some basic contortion, nothing that impressive but they would take a decent back bend if it meant at least having something to fill out their little space. She remembered feeling dreadful with the way the more unusual looking performers were treated. It wasn’t so much that she had gotten fired for getting into a fight with someone over how they were talking to the bearded lady, but they had not asked for her to perform with them again.

So yes, she could appreciate that for someone like him it was a given he’d be a little messed up. But he had let her go and apologised plus Horangi seemed to like him so all in all, he seemed like a decent guy.

“Is Horangi about? I was going to say hi to him before work.”

“He will be happy you thought of it, but he is asleep. He is most of the time, very lazy cat.”

She grinned, thinking that she had found him similar to a cat yesterday as well with how he had nuzzled her. 

“Well it was nice to officially meet you König, I’d better be off but I’m sure we’ll see each other around!”

Of course they would, he would make sure of that. 

–

She wanted to pop into the video store before her shift but found it closed. Opening hours were only for the evening which seemed sort of odd, but maybe there wasn’t really enough foot traffic during the day. So instead she just floated back to the carousel and lingered until it opened, finding that the change of pace from the night shift was welcome today. It was hot and too bright but there was less of that dark mania about it in the light.

Rudy appeared at the carousel a few hours in, hair damp and salty and skin smelling of sunshine and seawater. He was delighted to see her in more or less one piece. Interesting though, that she had definitely been fed on but was still breathing. He didn’t sense the aura of a thrall about her either, so they weren’t in complete control of her yet. Johnny and him did like to play games sometimes, maybe this was one. He waited for her to step off for a moment to get the next group on, grinning at her. 

“Looking for a ride?”

“Not on a horse, but if you are offering one…”

She rolled her eyes with a groan, had walked right into that one. 

“Unfortunately I’m working, what a shame.”

She turned to go back on and he banded an arm around her waist to stop her, her back pinned to his chest. The people around here sure were handsy, but she was generally a touchy feely person so it wasn’t entirely unwelcome.

“I would treat you much better than they did cariño, make love to you in the ocean until the stars came out.”

With that whispered little promise he let her go and just left. Just fucking left. Preacher was usually more suave than this. She swore she was good at flirting. But Jesus fucking Christ what was she supposed to do with that? 

Next time she saw Keegan the jury was out on whether she was going to kiss him or punch him for sending her here.

[beautifulpersonpeach]

Hi BPP, lemme pick your beautiful brain abit if you don’t mind. So i think it is really beautiful that jikook decided to enlist together using the buddy program. But no matter how much i think about it, i can’t seem to figure out why they decided to do that if they are not more than friends. Don’t get me wrong, i am not saying that people who are just friends cannot do the buddy program, no, they definitely can and they have in the past but my thing is, with the way almost everyone was kinda convinced that jikook had grown distant and were not as close anymore in chapter two, how do u explain them choosing to go together, being joined at the hip for 18 months? Plus they have to have talked about this at some point way before they applied. So while many of us sat here thinking they were not as close anymore, they were making plans to enlist together as buddies? Why would they even consider this if they weren’t really close to each other and if they were still so close to each other enough to consider using this option, why did they both sometimes act like they were a little distant?

I can understand not wanting things to be so obvious but u could really tell that Jimin especially seemed very…, i dunno, different about Jk in chapter two. I don’t know of i’m making alot of sense rn or if u even understand where i’m coming from (i hope u do) but i’d love to hear what u think.

***

Oh god. I wish you sent me this ask an hour ago when I was still sober because I really want to answer this right this moment but there's at least 6 fingers of Lagavulin in me. Sorry in advance for whatever you read below - I've been told I ramble and I'm more of a cunt when I'm intoxicated.

I want to say I told you so. It was clear that whatever distance jikook showed in Chapter 2 was self-imposed. It looked like a caricature of what an actual breakup would look like, in my opinion. And mind you, I've never been certain that jikook are dating. They might not be and it wouldn't make a real difference to what we've all observed them to be: something more to each other than whatever is normal.

Any distance that showed in Chapter 2 was simply spatial. The way I saw it, Chapter 2 was a period for each member to present themselves to the world as individuals. It's something I believe every member took extremely seriously. It's possibly one reason Jungkook agonized over his album to the point Bang PD intervened and we thankfully got Golden. Chapter 2 was a big deal for them. Necessary. At the same time, all the boys know the narratives they have in the fandom. They know there's a faction of fans who believe either Jimin or Jungkook uses the other to remain popular in the fandom, they likely know most of the least flattering ones floating around. They know external critics are also likely to conflate their individual efforts and motives, whether positively or negatively.

I think it was important for every member to present themselves as a singular artist in Chapter 2, and this was even moreso for jikook because of their reputation of being stuck at the hip and/or overly dependent on each other. So on one hand I think they were more careful about showing their intimacy because of external critics and perceptions, but I also think they did it for themselves. They've always had lives outside each other and they had things they needed to pay attention to in any case, with enlistment looming over the horizon.

But now that it's happened, it feels very obvious that if they had the chance to do the Buddy program, they'd do it. I think part of what you're asking Anon, is which came first - did they decide to 'appear distant' in Chapter 2 before they decided to enlist together? Or was it afterwards?

Personally, I don't think it matters much which came first. They have always and always were going to choose each other. Jikook excite me because they are literally always jikooking. I'm not sure if people think I'm joking whenever I say it, but I mean it when I say I don't worry one second about those lads because they are always jikooking.

Even while they were apparently not so close in Chapter 2, some of those times they looked tormented. What was Jungkook thinking going live, just to stare at Jimin's tattooed chest in SMF Pt 2?

What was that bit with JK naked in bed and Jimin saying he could handle him? Jikook were messy as hell during their supposed 'distance' in Chapter 2 lool. Whether or not they were fucking a girl on the side makes no difference to how I think about what's gone down in the last 18 months, and it likely won't influence what I think of them during the next 18 months.

[horizon-verizon]

I get now why Alicent is standing by a lake or frolicing in the grass:

https://t.co/v9ooj39C9t

Based on the trailer, it looks like she’s still trying to be the voice of moderation on the Green Council, the name given to the faction which supports Aegon’s claim to the throne. “Who can she trust? There’s no one around her,” said actor Olivia Cooke. “Everyone, it seems, has been spying on her. It’s this sense of peak paranoia within her own home. That had to really permeate throughout my performance. All of a sudden she’s of no use to anyone. She’s done what she was supposed to do — put her son on the throne — and now she’s discarded. Who is she if she can’t be the person to implement wisdom?”

However, in a way, her new role is freeing: “Oh, I could do whatever the f--- I want and no one cares. All of a sudden I’m not important. I’m not a player,” Cooke said. In a very giddy way, that’s really novel and exciting.”

REMEMBER WHEN HER DELUSIONAL STANS SAID THAT ALICENT WILL CONTROL AEGON, THAT HE’S JUST A PUPPET AND FIGUREHEAD, AND ALICENT WILL BE THE REAL RULER AND THE POWER BEHIND THE THRONE 😂😭

I’ver NEVER EVER hated a character as much as I hate her, oh my god, she crowned a man while knowing he’s incompetent, sadistic and unfit to rule, she started a massive and devastating civil war that will result in hundreds of thousands of deaths, her daughter fell into madness after her child was beheaded in front of her, but she happily choose the “Après moi, le déluge” approach, she choose to let everyone down and force them to clearing up the mess SHE created.

"Après moi, le déluge" -- "After me, the deluge". An expression meant to convey a nihilistic view or dismissal of what will happen after and/or in consequence of your actions after your death. Or removal from a situation.

I agree, she's still trying to moderate everyone as if she hasn't been the one to participate in their coming to power out of her own jealousy, and I hate that the show has tried to make us feel sorry for her or think her relationship with Rhaenyra is in anyway real, since it also seeks to validate Alicent's bigoted jealousy against Rhaenyra for not being compliant with "the rules" enough.

Some might say "that's the point"; I'm saying that the way it's written--thus the thing itself as there is no other version of this relationship--we are encouraged to commiserate with Alicent or feel more amenable to her feelings and her role as "peacekeeper" while being as unobservant as her about the state of affairs surrounding and determining Rhaenyra's conditions. I have never seen more people so sexist towards the girl and woman who tries to find her own happiness in this violently patriarchal world than in this fandom, and yes there is illiteracy and bigotry regardless but it is also because:

The show has both made Alicent much younger when she married Viserys AND much less intelligent/scheming--this more vulnerable & genuinely trying to make peace and "girlfail" for sympathy points. We don't witness a pattern (basically not enough scenes of how she regards and treats people around her during the time between the wedding feats and Joffrey's birth) of the jealousy the show claims she has for Rhaenyra.

We've had to had this show explained to us by the actors afterhand AND/OR/BECAUSE some of us have had to really sit and go over the plot holes, inconsistencies, quick character switch arounds, etc. -> to trace how exactly Alicent got to a point where she thinks Rhaenyra "tramples" duty and sacrifice "under her pretty foot" and her resentment for Rhaenyra not being as unhappy as her/not acquiescing to her queenly authority that she hangs onto to justify her own suffering

As for Olivia's words:

However, in a way, her new role is freeing: “Oh, I could do whatever the f--- I want and no one cares. All of a sudden I’m not important. I’m not a player,” Cooke said. In a very giddy way, that’s really novel and exciting.”

....Yes, I know we've only gotten trailers...but nothing we've so far seen from those trailers AND how they have already characterized Alicent as wanting her Queenship to mean something because of her suffering and thus her resentment towards Rhaenyra for not also complying in season 1...this is, let's say, very odd and contradictory.

Yeah, this is good to show TG stans that Alicent is not the power they think she is. It also portents--in my eyes--of more logical inconsistencies in the writing for season 2.

[autumnmobile12]

This is an interesting and really vague line, and it’s unfortunate Zamfir’s arc is probably the most rushed subplot in the series.  (I mean, I didn’t really care for what Sumi and Taka had going on, but at least they got a brief flashback explaining their motives.)

So let’s dive into the historical context here:

Since it’s founding in 1310, Wallachia was ruled by the House of Basarab, a family that some historians believe may have migrated from Asia.  Wallachia’s first ruler on record was Basarab the Great.

After the death of Mircea the Old in 1418, a direct descendant of Basarab the Great, the ruling family split into two factions:  Mircea’s descendants through his sons known as the Drăculești and the descendants of his brother, Dan I, known as the Dănești.  This split would become the defining feature of Wallachian politics for this time period.  During the last years of Mircea’s reign, he named his only legitimate son Mihail as co-ruler to ease the transition of power after his death.  Within three years of ruling on his own though, Mihail was overpowered by the Ottoman Empire and the boyar lords under him defected to his cousin Dan II and Wallachia broke into a civil war.  Mihail was killed in the spring of 1420, after which several of his illegitimate half-brothers took up the Drăculești line’s bid for power, fighting the each other as much as Dănești faction.  It’s like Game of Thrones but even more chaos and the bastards are 100% valid players in the eyes of the law and society.

Castlevania takes place in 1476, so in between this year and the year of Mihail I’s death, rule of Wallachia (the Voivodate) would change hands 24 times and see a total of 10 separate rulers, only one of whom would die of natural causes.  (In comparison, England’s throne saw three different occupants in the same amount of time.  Although, one of those three was a usurper and one died under mysterious circumstances of the ‘probably murder’ variety.) So Sypha coming out and guessing that Zamfir is the last of the nobles is thought-provoking in that the royal court was already a hostile place even without Dracula bearing down on the capital.

Zamfir’s psychosis may have deeper roots than what happened when Dracula attacked, and I really want to explore that further.  ‘Last person of noble birth’ can have a few meanings.  The Wallachian nobility were the boyar lords, whose power and influence was dependent on wealth and/or land.  At court, there was the princely council who advised (or schemed against) the ruling prince, and there were also a few court positions that weren’t part of the council.  More to the point, Wallachia’s society behaved the same way as most European nations did at the time: ‘You have no power for you are but a woman.’

As for the mummified corpses in the Underground Court, in the interest of loose historical accuracy, the dead prince could only be Vlad III Dracula of House Drăculești.  In November of 1476, Vlad III usurped the throne from Basarab III, who had held it since 1474 after killing his predecessor Radu III (Vlad III’s younger brother, actually.)  In December of that year, Basarab III returned to Wallachia and took back the throne, killing Vlad III in the process.  Basarab III would live another four years.  In addition, the capital of Wallachia was moved from Târgovişte to Bucharest this same year.  So intentional or not on the creators’ part, the show roughly matches up with the historical timeline.  There’s also the fact that it’s not entirely clear exactly how Vlad III died and there is some speculation by historians that Bram Stoker’s Dracula and the historical Dracula only share the same name and the latter was not the actual inspiration for the former.

It’s a bit of a stretch to say Vlad III Dracula and the vampire Vlad Dracula Ţepeş were intended to be two separate people in the series, so I won’t go out there and make that claim.  The mummified royals are probably just nameless artifacts for the plot and we are definitely in speculation, headcanon, string and thumbtacks territory now.

Still, the ‘last person of noble birth’ line does have me wondering what Zamfir’s connection to the court is aside from ‘leader of the Târgovişte resistance.’  Daughter of a courtier, daughter of a council lord, or daughter of the ruling prince himself?

[a-la-campanella]

Since the 1.6 update is approaching us, here are my thoughts from the latest livestream!

Huge fan of the recent livestreams featuring the characters (rather than the voice actors) bringing us the news. It makes everything feel so much more immersive and highlights the whole "This program is brought to you by the Interastral Peace Corporation" thing.

As for the upcoming update... Critter Pick looks like it'll be a fun event! It'll be a good way to explore the new areas of Herta Space Station, too. I wish we could keep them as permanent pets; if the Trailblazer unlocks their own room on the Astral Express one day, we could keep the critters as an event memento.

Looking forward to new additions to the Simulated Universe as well. I haven't finished everything about the Swarm yet (mostly because of how time-consuming it is to grind through SU), but having more things to do in-game will make sure I'm never out of options for things to do, I suppose.

I don't particularly care about the new optimizations to Forgotten Hall. My RNG on artifacts is trash, so it's not like the optimizations really help me out. They're more so for players who play by the meta and actually clear all the stages.

The most exciting part of the special program would probably be Sunday as our final special guest. I'm hyped for Penacony! For a number of reasons, but mainly because of the various factions we'll get to see interact with each other. Stories (whether they're events or permanent content) that feature characters from different regions and/or factions crossing roads are always fun! I hope it's like the Genshin events where characters from all kinds of different nations got together in the same scenes, like Hues of the Violet Garden (the Inazuma poetry event from 2.6), the Perilous Trail Archon Quest (ft. the Chasm), Summertime Odyssey (on the islands in 2.8), Windblume's Breath (revisiting Mondstadt's Windblume, 3.5)... you get the idea.

Conceptually, Penacony and The Family sound pretty noteworthy. It's giving cult-like vibes, and something about Sunday feels inherently suspicious, especially in the way he speaks and presents himself.

Penacony/The Reverie as a place "where one may travel freely between reality and Dreamscape"... well, Penacony is the Land of Dreams. It's a place that only exists as a dream, "where time forever stands still" (Data Bank -> Relics; Penacony, Land of Dreams). There's an underlying cruelty to being such a place where everything is in a sense stagnant like that, and I hope the game embraces that wholeheartedly. I'm curious to see how they'll try to approach the themes of "dreams" and "time".

Key players from Penacony are the are five great families and The Reviere - it's possible we won't get to see representatives from all of the families, similar to how we stuck to the Xianzhou Luofu while visiting the Xianzhou Alliance. The representatives we'll definitely see are, according to the livestream:

Sunday (?)

Robin (possibly from the same family as Sunday; hard to say, as she could be referred to as "sister" to keep up the notion of being a Family or as a sign of affection/a close relationship, though she also has wings like Sunday so who knows)

Misha (from The Reviere)

Firefly (from the Iris Family)

Gallagher (from the Bloodhound Family)

From the guestlist, some speculations:

Duke Inferno is going to be someone to pay attention to. The Annihilation Gang isn't the Antimatter Legion, but it does follow Nanook, and anything involving Nanook is going to demand our attention. Besides, he's probably going to be involved in the source of our upcoming conflict what with planning on wrecking chaos in Penacony - so he thinks, "Penacony will just be another pitstop along the way [on the pilgrimage to Destruction]" (Data Bank -> Relics; The Ashblazing Grand Duke). Probably not playable.

Likewise, Stellaron Hunter Sam has to be important... I wonder how much his IPC bounty is. Elio probably told him to go to Penacony, but I wonder why Sam instead of anyone else.

Adventurine? My. IPC representation is always fun. I hope he interacts with the Trailblazers, and that we get more information about Qilpoth from him (though that's rather unlikely). During the cutscene where we fought Cocolia, we obtained Alisa Rand's lance while Qilpoth drew their hammer and seemed to draw their gaze at us. It's possible the Trailblazer is an emanator, but you could argue otherwise too. I'm looking forward to seeing what the IPC thinks about that, if the Trailblazer really is an emanator of Preservation, or Destruction, or anything at all.

Not much to say on Dr. Ratio. He'll be there.

Garden of Recollection memokeeper Black Swan... hey, I wonder if we'll get a reference to the Messenger on the Astral Express, since she's from the same organization.

Sparkle, representing the Masked Fools... I love the Masked Fools, they're so goofy. She's probably here to have a good time, shake up chaos, and be on her way.

Acheron from the Galaxy Rangers? We'll get to see more from another side of Lan's followers.

A bunch of the upcoming characters look interesting. I'm not invested in most of the characters, mainly because their fits look... super uncomfortable. That's a me thing, I don't care about most characters unless their lore piques my interest or I vibe with their outfits. Characters I am interested in, however, and expect to be playable:

I'm partial to Ruan Mei, she seems promising! I do wish that she wore a lab coat, she would absolutely pull it off and it would bring out the scientist part of her character more. (Nobody in this universe seems to care about lab safety with how much skin some of these characters show.)

Sunday for sure. His personality is serving... something. I don't know, I like his voice though. And the wings!

Aventurine looks cute... that's about it. His interaction with Topaz strike me as kinda funny. I want to see more from IPC coworkers, especially when Diamond gets introduced in more depth.

Sam, because mechas go hard, and I want to collect all the Stellaron Hunters.

For the same reason, I'm going to grab Elio (and Kafka on her rerun; skipped for Blade and I already had Jing Yuan to fill the same meta-niche).

Screwllum is a maybe. He's a mecha, but his personality is kinda ehhh for me.

Dr. Ratio! I'm glad he's going to be free. I'm not a fan of the right side of his outfit or his animations and wouldn't feel very happy pulling for him even though I want him. They picked an odd place to show skin and it doesn't really mesh well with the rest of his design. His attack animations are funny but rather boring and there's not much going on. As a character, I genuinely love how obnoxious he sounds. Judging by the 1.6 livestream he and Herta have Beef(TM) for sure... or that might be a Genius Society vs Intelligentsia Guild thing. Either way, it's bound to be interesting.

Misha's cute. His hair looks cute. I hope his personality will be cute, too.

Maybe Robin, if her dress doesn't look too plain. She's a superstar and she'll be singing for us at the festival! Perhaps we'll get a dedicated cut scene, music video, and song sung by her.

They're mostly guys. That's within my expectations. I don't have much investment in a lot of the female characters so far, to be honest. I like March (it's hard not to care about her), the Stellaron Hunter girls, Sushang and Bailu, and everyone else is fine. They're there, they help flesh out the world, but I'm not particularly attached to any of them. I guess you could say the same thing about a substantial portion of the cast in general...

Anyways, these are my thoughts. Looking forward to version 1.6 and hope everyone wins their 50/50s!

[daughter-of-fire-and-dreams]

He’s not worth it

He’s not worth it. Not anymore. 

There are times when Rhua is brash, a loudmouth, a person who isn’t scared to wear her heart on her fists. But even then, Rhua is not a gullible person. She tread life in a perpetual state of distrust.

Even if living in comfort, even if busy with schedules.

Even in the apocalypse, even in a war torn land. 

Fire. Embers. A flickering light. This is the wrong order. It’s always the other way around. But something in Arym just takes away any reason she may have had to care. There are several people suffering from the aftermath of Garlemald’s state. Several people who were conscripted and now found commiseration and a place with each other. Several who are struggling to keep their head above water in Alvarium. 

So what if he’s the one that’s lived war the longest?

He’s got several hundreds of years under his belt on top of that. 

Everyone else doesn’t have that luxury. 

People struggle, a war machina is approaching, there’s women, children, and several factions that are barely learning how to live again, side by side instead of master and slave. And he chooses to be the one to throw a temper tantrum, leave, and add to the burden of everyone else. 

Does he know how many have had sleepless nights? Does he know that fuel is a finite resource that was spent in engines to go and look for him? Does he know how many people he left behind that he practically forced to care about him only for him to ditch them at the worst time? 

What if the Overseer turned out to not be who it claimed to be? Life is full of betrayal. Rhua knows this best. 

Rhua had been taught best. 

And even though it hurts. It burns. She’s still here, living. And struggling with herself as well. 

But she isn’t her mother in any physical, emotional or- Hells… Even aetherial field. She won’t sacrifice more than she has just for a man that will throw a temper tantrum when found, ignore the fact that he’s gonna die if he keeps insisting on helping others, and will certainly throw a temper tantrum about rest if he’s even wrestled back and saved. 

She knows a man with a death wish. And she’s not the hand that will extend itself to save him. Because if he slaps said hand, and continues to do a temper tantrum, he’s no different than the soldiers holed up in that mountain. 

Rhua may have been one of the most outspoken over beating people over that were being clear idiots and making everything more difficult for others. But. Despite her outbursts, she’s always been able to think logically even then. And she can see that giving Arym more attention than he’s already gained for himself is just going to mean her collapsing again in an outburst. 

She ain’t going to fucking die for this bastard. 

There’s things she has to do. Matters to settle… Once this damn apocalypse is over. If a decision to settle despite the doubt gnawing at her had been in her head, there is only one definite reason why she would leave town of her own volition, no matter how extreme it may be of a decision. 

Which means time is of essence. Heh… It all goes back to the same shite as back home. Work. Make sure everyone is fine. Give maintenance. Be the person that blends in the background while making sure everything works perfectly. 

In the hours that followed after relinquishing the drone she’d been using back to Twelves, the first thing Rhua does is find all the available paper as soon as possible. If a possibility ends that she’ll leave after this, then the town must have every single field covered with instructions for someone else to pick up after her. When starting action, the backup plan must be the first one to be covered right away. 

Bells upon bells, writing, writing, writing. All the years she’d spent in the Crystalline Means were bearing fruit. She’d been an engineer yes. But no one ever got to see the side of Rhua where she’d just be too busy to turn down any request for assistance. Hold this, bring this here, help me thread this. All the factions had worked closely with her always when she wasn’t busy. Her apartment had looked more like a workshop than an actual living space. Her board was almost always filled with at least 15 overdue projects. 

Thinking back on it, Rhua could guess that there was a part of her that was homesick for that feeling. But. At the same time, something gnawed at her. She paused her writing, opting to instead bite at the tip of her glove to free her hand and stare down at her wrist. 

There was nothing on it. But she could have sworn she’d seen a tally of lines adding up to 14 in total. Just her imagination. Or… Part of the horrible nightmare she’d written down on some old notes that she’d made sure to lock down somewhere at the bottom of whatever was left of her belongings. This wasn’t the time to dwell on it. 

But just because now isn’t the time to dwell on things doesn’t mean that they haven’t affected her. She’s just slightly better to prioritize efficiency over herself. 

The brief pause she gave herself to think on ambiguity though, are almost the nail in the coffin she needed. There’s grief. Grief so deep that there’s a well large enough to be a pond of tears inside her. And one that she can’t let out. 

Whoever thought that giving up one’s tears is an easy exchange for nothing short of a miracle is a damn bloody fool. 

Rhua can feel the weight that not showing this particular emotion does to her. Which only causes her to pause and idly lean her head against the back of her hand. 

This is all a mess. A mess beyond stupidity. She’d jumped out of a ragtag group that had shunned her mother after all was said and done, only to jump into an even bigger group drenched in idiocy. Or at least. That’s how it had started. 

She knew she could respect a few. She’d worked with them for better after learning a few ways around. Which is why it is all the more baffling to see the one person who had protested for progress and justice for A.I. to be the one to make things worse. Wasn’t Sergius supposed to go and find him? Did Arym just also find a way to avoid him altogether and send him too in a wild goose chase? 

The thought only made her burn more. 

Which was the last thing she needed in this moment. Arym is no longer worth it. He won’t get any leniency from her nor any more callouts to stop being an idiot and care for himself. The attempts at hacking the drone she’d been using to remove it’s speech was the straw that had broken the camel’s back. 

As far as Rhua is concerned. He left town and got turned into a blasphemy. 

She’ll account for all the resources that might be spent on him if he makes it back. There’s little else to do other than that after all. No one would ask her to visit him. Or check on him. And. Given how much of a shit he was. She knows that he would never approach her of his own free will. 

He’s never had the balls to do it. And this won’t be a different case. 

But. There’s work to do. This backup plan is just that. A backup. Upon finishing the headers and the first 3 pages of every field that covers the basics of how to keep a town running, Rhua finally walks out of Alvarium. 

It’s time to do rounds. An entire search party with many of those that had helped with the new effort was out. Which meant she had a lot of ground to cover now. Patrols. Rigging. Fixing. Maintenance. Gardening. Weaving even if all she could do was stab a few needles on fabric with one hand. She doesn’t feel tired. She’s done worse than this. Or perhaps it was just her finally growing used to the climate and several other variables? Removing the arm had certainly helped as well, no matter how inconvenient it had also become for her freedom of action. 

But. There’s more to do. Opening Arym’s bunker proves to be far more difficult with her only arm. Or is it the bite of the frost? In her rush to get everything ready, she’d not realized that her hand was now freezing after removing her thick glove and doing all sorts of work around town. But, finally, she managed to pry the door open. 

It was still the same. Nothing had changed, not even dust had settled. Save for a few icicles on the corners maybe. If there was one thing different, was the fact that she didn’t see the letter she’d received from her mother crumpled on the ground. A list of medicine alternatives for immunosuppressants as well as the contact information for certain alchemists from Thavnair. Her mother had done the work. But Rhua had been the one to request it in the end despite their shared agreement to give him space. 

All of that was worth shit now. But who’d picked up the letter?

It didn’t matter. She was here for one thing and one thing only. Moving away to push at a hatch in a far off corner, she found the hidden attic that she’d been allowed to use. And immediately started vacating it of her belongings. Several boxes fell. Hells, even some spoons as well. Honestly it was a struggle to do this alone. But she wasn’t going to wait for others to see this helpless state of hers, she’d showed enough of it already. 

One by one, trip after trip. She could feel her hand going numb. But it was fine. Until. Finally. All that was left was the garlean violin. With a low groan, she set it down for a moment, sentimentality getting the best of her as she looked back at this damn space. 

She’d visited many times, bickered with him many times. And almost all of them had been to listen, understand, maybe help, and then call him out on his bullshit just as much as he’d called her out. But maybe she should have seen this coming. 

Yes. She should have seen this coming since the first time he’d made her cry. 

Or rather. Made her feel the burning sensation of her face in the absence of tears that she was unable to shed. Rhua should have known better. No one has ever made her cry that doesn’t turn out to be a piece of shit that could get her killed out of their own whims and selfishness. 

No. There had been a single exception. But this wasn’t the time to dwell on that. A faint glimmer catches her eye, and Rhua sees for the first time the golden butterfly that should by all means be inside the greenhouse flutter towards her. 

“How did you even get here?...” she mumbled, knowing the bug wouldn’t answer her anyways. 

As she set her instrument down and idly raised a hand towards it, the butterfly fluttered and perched itself on her index finger. Rhua had never seen one like it. But then again. That wasn’t out of the ordinary for her here. She watched it walk all over her hand for a time, until another faint glimmer also caught her eye. A blue one was also resting on a nearby open box. 

Ah, so they’d been resting here? Or at least, that’s Rhua’s conclusion upon seeing the weird different items inside the box. 

Withered greenhouse clippings, definitely more than a moon old. Pills of different sizes half covered in dust and rust. A fork?... And… the crumpled letter. 

That enough told her all she needed to know. Someone had also been here and thought her trash to be precious. Which meant she should really leave. Now. The clippings though. Make her pause one last time. He’d probably been feeding them. They must be starving. But. No. She won’t be the one to feed them in his fucking absence. 

“I’m sorry..” she mumbled to the little critters. She wasn’t going to take her anger out on innocent ones. But she was done caring for people who didn’t deserve it. 

“If you can find your way here. Then you clearly know how to get back to the greenhouse. Go back there. You won’t be fed here.”

And with that, she was gone. All her things with her, probably stacking and making for a cramped personal space, but it would have to do. She was used to a workshop rather than living quarters anyway. And there was work to be done. Twofold now. 

[serenephenix]

So, I think enough time has passed to maybe tentatively look at Trigun Stampede in relation to the manga and some issues with the pacing that I did notice over the course of the past weeks, especially considering the story elements that have been shuffled around for the most recent episode.

For anyone here to have a good time and cry in tears of agony about this show: Power to you and have fun! Anything you don't wanna read is under the cut!

Also, massive spoilers ahead for the Trigun manga if you haven't finished it yet!

First of all, Trigun Stampede brings a lot of good things to the table, like the score that really sets the mood and breathes life into the scenes, to the almost looney-tooney animation elements that really give it some of the charm the manga has, the gorgeous flashback sequence we got today, the incredible effect of twisting the music/visuals just as Wolfwood's body and mind get twisted in the experiment, as well some worldbuilding that had only been hinted at in the manga.

I really like Trigun Stampede but it is, unfortunately, produced at a time where the market has deluded itself into thinking that less than 20 episodes is the best option for marketability and that it will cut them losses if they need to cancel any show for any inane reason.

The parts that I want to focus on here, is the decision to have Livio introduced this early into the series and the... let's call it "lack of understandable motivations" behind his attack on Vash on the Sand Steamer.

I was curious to see why exactly Livio would appear here in the first place.

In the manga, Livio only appeared after it became clear that Wolfwood had defected and deceived Knives, the Gung-Ho Guns and the Eye of Michael. He was sent to eliminate Wolfwood and lessen the risk of him interfering with Knives' plans in any remarkable manner.

And what had made the encounter between Wolfwood and Livio heart-breaking in the first place, was that Wolfwood for his part had believed him to be safe back at the orphanage, away from all the bloodshed and monstrosity.

To Nick, it had almost been a sort of cruel, twisted punishment for his perceived sins - one of the reasons why he then tried to confront Livio all by himself in his last battle.

And in that context, Livio's appearance in the story and his impact makes a lot of sense.

Him being on the Sand Steamer now and attacking Vash, makes little to no sense on the other hand, unless the Eye of Michael itself has been torn up into two factions - one that follows Knives every command and one that thinks that Vash is too great of a risk to the heralded promised day and want him eliminated.

I hope they do explain it a bit more in the future because right now, it doesn't add up.

I also have to admit that, what Stampede has not yet been able to really establish and drive home to the audience, is how much of a vindictive and downright sadistic pleasure some of the Gung-Ho Guns take in making others suffer for the heck of it. How little they care about humanity and are willing and even excited at causing as much collateral damage as possible.

While the church sub-plot puts a lot of actions into perspective for Stampede and makes it easier to explain why characters like Rollo come into being and can ease new viewers into understanding Legato's mindset - at this point - they will not have any perspective on how much the Gung-Ho Guns just love to mess with people because they can. Because Knives has put them in a position to do so.

Because, as someone who knows the manga, I know that Legato has no qualms in extending Vash's journey even against Knives' wishes, because nothing brought Legato more pleasure than seeing the man in Knives way suffer over and over. That became apparent from the very first moment they both had their first exchange in the manga.

An insight into Legato's motivations that we did not get from the short dialogue between him and Wolfwood (although I must say that I really enjoyed the twist of Wolfwood having this kind of very personal beef with the man).

As a newbie, I'd have no idea what even is going on anymore except for the part with Wolfwood and Livio (on a surface level).

Heck, when Legato and Zazie showed up, I was sure they were there to collect Livio because he had acted upon Razlo's wishes to find a worthy opponent. The episode could have, very honestly, done well without them. It was already packed full.

I'm also somewhat saddened by the fact that they cut away the whole plot about the Sand Steamer and Kaite. For me, at least, it was an important part of establishing that, despite what we saw in the manga so far, the people on this planet are complex characters driven by all sorts of motivations and that they can have a change of heart. It made them all more human to be honest.

And it would have been fun to actually have Wolfwood and Vash interact with him. If it had played out in a similar manner, with Vash ending up drugged, it would have been a rather interesting thing to see him and Wolfwood arguing about how he is taking way too many needless risks.... but I digress.

So, I'm still excited for the next episode but I hope, deep in my bones, that they not just... not address any of this.

[alilmusebundle]

Ria wants to go to the peace talks. She’s worked her ass off for this outcome to finally present itself. Hasn’t she earned the right to at least observe in the background or something? To make sure none of the idiots going fuck something up and make everything worse? That would be the safest and smartest move, in her opinion.

Everyone else thinks otherwise.

---

“W-wait, you’re wanting ta...”

A hand runs nervously over the back of Mole’s neck. Ria has seen this tell numerous times from the cowardly lizard. It wasn’t one she liked.

“That’s... kid, m-maybe you should, uh, compromise on this one. I know you’re the best at talkin’ idiots in the ranks down with your weird... knowing business, but this is uh, this is the Tower freaks. You remember our talk about defacto gods and all, yeah? Overpowered hunks with way to much firepower and apathy for human suffering? Ringing any bells?”

Ria’s nails dig into her palms as she glares. Mole does not meet her eyes.

“Yeah, Threads’ should take point with this... sorry kid. Listen to your mama.”

---

“No. Absolutely not.” Crash- no, ugh, Noah- looks her dead in the eye, green eyes burning with an intensity she meets head on. “You don’t have to do anything else, Ria. Hell, you’ve done enough- more than any kid ever should have, and you’re lucky nothing seriously bad has happened to you- but I’ve already lectured you enough.”

Noah reaches to grab her shoulder, giving her a strained smile. His eyes stay firm, and she feels like screaming.

“The fact that you managed to get this going with Havoc is amazing... but that is were we draw the line. No more worrying about this. Kimi and the other leaders will handle the rest of negotiations. They got this.”

---

“Keep your snot-nose out of this, brat.”

Kimiko glares, one metallic finger jabbing at her so violently that Ria dodges back on instinct. The other pair of arms finishes lacing up her boot, then gestures at her in a clear, dismissive shooing motion.

“No kids allowed in my meeting. Make yourself useful by keeping HIM busy instead. That way there’s plausible deniability and shit. Now, get outta my face, I’ve got shit to do.”

Eloquent as always, the bitch.

---

Everything turns out fine, and she has no idea what happened. It’s infuriating. It’s terrifying.

She’s had to be so careful. Not knowing something, or just misremembering, has led to so many unfortunate outcomes, (and pointless pain), that the NOT KNOWING makes her feel sick. What if something happens, and she has to rewind past the meeting to fix it, and that leads to the rebellion leaders completely changing how they talk to SOL- or the other way around- and messes EVERYTHING up?

She wasn’t just some normal kid. Normal kids didn’t know what dying felt like. What their arm felt like blown up and then reassembled within their own rewind hell. How bullshit the butterfly affect could be.

Maybe this wouldn’t be driving her insane if it hadn’t been her actual life for like, the past several repeating years. Over, and over, and fucking OVER.

This had just been so easy. Nothing had ever been this easy before. There was time to just... go to school and hang out with friends or just, play a fucking video game! And here she was, waiting for the other shoe to drop!

Abraxas of the neon lights, of towering skyscrapers and darkened alleys. There was always a storm gathering inside it’s hazardous-weather barrier, because it’s inhabitants had a habit of trying to kill each other for stupid reasons.

She wasn’t in the loop anymore. Now that multiple rebellion representatives were known, the different factions were even more on guard, and not willing to inform some high-profile kid anymore. Whatever was going on in the background, it was going to catch her off guard and piss on everyone she loved, all because she didn’t know where to look to stop it.

If someone died to something she could’ve prevented... it was on her to fix it. She had this curse of a power, and this was the purpose she put it to. Even if she went crazy doing it.

[talenlee]

USP-09: September's Custom Cards

New Post has been published on PRESS.exe: USP-09: September's Custom Cards

Do you remember?

Do you remember those ancient stirrings, things in the vast, the great shadows cast along us?

Do you remember what it was like to look at the rolling ocean, and recognise your own smallness? The way that the strongest person you knew was probably still nothing compared to the ferocious power of storms and nature and the horrors of our own fears?

Warning: Wizards employees, this post contains unsolicited designs of custom magic cards.

The theme of September was twenty one.

Eh, see, now that’s a little more odd than the other months, isn’t it?

Every card in this month’s collection in some way references or creates the number 21. There are a lot of ways to do that; 2/1 creatures do it, things that grant +2/+1, those are obvious. And if you know that hint, then it’s easy to look at cards that straight up just mention 21; making a creature a 21/21, milling twenty one cards, that kinda thing. But also, if you want to get to 21, you can get there with multiplying 7 by 3 (hence 7/3 creatures, or dealing 7 damage to three targets).

There’s this idea in Man Play & Games of reasons people play, and it gets expanded later by Astrid Ensslin to include the idea of rhythmos: That sometimes, people play games because the intricate, smooth interaction of rules themselves is inherently interesting. I really like that and I think it forms a big part of how these cards got designed; like there’s my Thalia style card designs, where a ‘fair’ 2-mana artifact or land can be a 2/1 legendary creature in a ‘fair’ world (and there are three of those in this month!). But there are other cards as well, which are about me considering specific wording options, like the way we have the tech ‘whenever a player attacks you,’ and how that leaves a hole open for ‘planeswalkers you control.’ These are all things that I find interesting and that means this particular month of designs is just stuff I find intriguing.

And now, this far through the year, a bunch of things that have been introduced are paying off, or you’re seeing names in the flavour text that you’ve already seen before now, right? Like hey, get a load of that – remember Altansarnai? She had a Command!

And well, let’s talk about Altansarnai! Because of all the factional groupings in the setting, there’s no clear ‘green white’ grouping; green white is just people who have some memories of the forests, some connection to the land, but some other connection holding them together. While the Barren Crawlers crept the Scourged lands and tried to find people who were enraged at the Palace boats, on every level, they could find people who wanted restoration more than they wanted justice.

And those are the people who Altansarnai is caring for.

There’s a belief, especially amongst the refugees, in the memory of what they had. There’s a vision that the forests can be restored, that maybe the vast, spilling hydras bursting up out of the ground are a sign that something is wrong, not that nature heals through destruction. And they’re not entirely wrong. Altansarnai is a Satyr, who seeing the devotion that the Barrens people had to this idea, was struck by the story shaped around a knight. And so, the easiest way to tell a story was to live it. A reckless, joyful satyr took up a sword, and told those around her that she had learned a lesson from the moon – because that’s a good story.

It is entirely made up, but that doesn’t matter. It doesn’t have to be true to be real.

Ganbaatar is the hatred of the Palace itself, given a frame, as it seeks to find some way, any way to rid itself of Gansukh. There’s something wrong, a burr in the eye of the nature of death in this world, and with the Usurper in place, that irritation has formed a pearl. Is Ganbaatar there to become the new attendant when Gansukh is destroyed? Perhaps. But maybe they’re a side effect, something created out of that drive, and without Gansukh, it might just… dissolve.

Finally, there’s Eloi. Eloi is a researcher who went to the Ice Palace – you know, that city sized building carved in an iceberg that sprung up out of the water – who wants to delve into why the ice is so magically strange, and also why all the wizards and artists who come to the iceberg wind up turning all a little weird in the head. You can’t go live in the Ice Palace just by being interested, though, so you have to have some art you contribute; Eloi’s contribution is attenuated lenses, which they do with bright, shining crystals that they just happen to also be able to use to look closely at things.

This was a month where a lot of cards wound up landing because they represented effects I decided in the set skeleton I wanted, like utility effects, ‘draftable’ commons and niche effects that you should try to fit in a set to make sure you can represent mechanics you don’t necessarily think of off the top of your head. Like, you know, recurrent rare-level life gain:

There’s always a concern when you design game items that you’re designing them for entirely cute reasons. This is definitely a game item I think of as cute because its primary job is to express the number 21 in a way that is a reasonable amount of life to gain on a one-mana spell. This card, if you cast it naturally every time you draw it, gains you 1+2+3+4+5+6 life, and if you’re the kind of dork who knows stories about how Gauss annoyed his teachers, you’ll realise that’s 3*7 again, or 21.

In a 20 life, 60-card 4-ofs deck, Yet Hope Endures does present a weird thing, though, where every card after the first is just one mana for 6 life with no recursion (and the recursion is one of the reasons to want it). Compare to Chaplain's Blessing.

And if you know that the sum of all numbers up to 6 is 21, you’ll probably notice that 21 can also be made out of a 6, a 7 and an 8. That means this card, which is absolutely big dumb splashy effects, a secret 21 card.

Oh and it’s also one of those ‘hey, look, the Vast is a terrifying place‘ cards!

The Usurper’s Palace (USP) is a collection of Custom Magic cards made with the general structure of a commander draft set. The cards are posted, one per day with different themes every month, to the Custom Magic subreddit, on my Mastodon and Cohost. Follow along for more!

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

#2023CustomMagicCards #CustomMagicCards #UsurperSPalace

[fallinfl0wers]

hellooo! this is the first time i request something from a blog :D could i request headcanons of diluc, scara, kazuha and xiao when their s/o tells them they're pregnant and possibly how they'd get used to having a kid? tyy! dont forget to take breaks and relax!

Literally baby-sized trouble.

summary: you're pregnant! how does he react to the news and how do the get used to your child? includes: diluc (26 bullet points), scaramouche (24 bullet points), kazuha (17 bullet points) and xiao (35 bullet points) warnings: fem!reader, pregnancy, children, non-explicit/non described giving birth, mostly fluff with a little bit of hurt/comfort and angst. format: headcanons thank you for your request!! this was so fun to write! >< imagining the characters being soft with children is just so cute :") i specially like these four a lot >< when i wrote this i was in a xiao mood if it wasn't obvious that his turned out longer than everyone else's lol, and it's also the first time i write for kazuha so it was shorter than the others, but i think his is the sweetest ><! i hope you enjoy it! ps. the names and meanings- i got them from google, feel free to correct me if there's anything wrong with them ><

Diluc

He's going to stop functioning the moment he hears the news from you.

Literally, he's still as a rock and completely taken by surprise.

He... can't say he'd never wanted children. He's pretty traditional and, since he has this beautiful relationship with you, he assumed it might happen sometime in the future.

But oops guess it will have to happen in the close future, since you're already pregnant.

After staring at you with widened eyes for a while, he speaks up: "...is... is it true?" You hold his hands on yours with a smile on your face, nodding. "Yes, Diluc. We're going to be parents." Hearing your words, he starts to tear up as he hugs you, his touch almost hesitant, as if you were so fragile he could break you if he wasn't careful. "...thank you." He'd whisper between silent tears, hiding his face from your sight.

Very supportive and very protective!

You will have the most comfortable of pregnancies. He will make sure you don't need to move a single muscle to get anything you want.

If the two of you aren't married or engaged yet, he's going to propose to you very soon, keep that in mind ><

He starts reading every book he can find on pregnancies and babies so that he knows what to do to help you when you give birth and how to take care of his child once they're born ><

You have to convince him that yes, you can go and eat in the dining room and you don't need to eat everything in your room or stay in bed all day and yes, you can still do most things and no, he doesn't have to worry so much.

But yeah, in later stages of your pregnancy he gets more overprotective because he doesn't want anything to hurt you or your baby :(

He couldn't be calm enough while you gave birth and had to wait outside of the room, which only made him more nervous </3

But when he finally held your little baby on his arms for the first time, he broke down crying.

You two had a boy! He looked a lot like him, too... with the red hair and eyes... so cute...

He's not sure of what to name him, he'd thought of some names before, but they all disappeared when he saw the little bundle of joy in his arms;;

So you two will have to think about a name again!

In the end, you settle for Felix; name meaning "happy" or "lucky"!

Diluc is a very busy man, but he still does his best to be there for you and his son as much as possible!

He's also not very sure as to how he should interact with him...

But he does know he LOVES playing with him as soon as he starts to understand how to play with his toys.

But... there are not so cute parts about having a kid, after all.

At times, he worries whether or not he'll be able to be there enough for him.

He wonders if he can be a good father, given how awkward he is with his emotions.

What if when Felix grows up he starts hating him for being absent? He wouldn't be able to stand it.

You always reassure him as you both put the baby to sleep on his crib.

All Diluc wants is for his son to have a happy childhood and a loving family, but worries he won't be good enough of a father.

However, when Felix's first word is "'iluc!" as he stretches out his tiny arms towards him, he thinks that maybe, just maybe, he can do this right.

Scaramouche

He thought you were joking, so he laughed.

When you didn't laugh along with him and was met with your blank face, he understood you were serious.

He never even thought he'd be with anyone in a relationship before you came along, let alone have a child with anyone... So he's obviously very shocked and confused as to how to proceed.

After an awkward moment of staring at each other, he cleared his throat and crossed his arms, looking at you with an equally blank face. "So? What do you want me to do about it?" "H-huh?" "In the sense of- what do you want to do? Keep it or not." You huffed, and when he heard your determinated answer, he sighed and gave your head some soft pats. "Alright, alright, whatever you want, I guess."

Okay listen here- it's not like doesn't care but it isn't like he cares so much either...

This man would do anything for you, really, and that's what happens.

He does anything and everything for you, because he's worried about you and not necessarily about the baby you're carrying.

It's not like he hates children- because you can't hate anything you don't perceive as equal or superior to you and a baby ceirtainly isn't either for him-

It's more like he doesn't know what to do with them because he's never been around children enough to understand them.

He's overall very indifferent towards the child ngl.

Then he sees you cradling your baby -a girl- in your arms and his mind just... goes blank. Huh, so that's what a human looks like right after being born.

Your little daughter looks more like him than she looks like you, sorry. But he can clearly see on her face some factions that will look like yours as she grows up.

But...

"Now what?"

He'll help you look after her however he can, since he doesn't want you to be too tired because he never knows when he'll have to leave for weeks or even months without notice.

He's not entirely cold or indifferent towards her, even if sometimes he might resent her a bit for taking away some of your attention.

But like when you were choosing a name for her, he gave a few suggestions and in the end you choose one of the names he thought of!

Her name is Hikari, name meaning "light"!

Due to the nature of his job, he doesn't want to be seen around either of you at the moment in public. It would only put a target on your backs.

And it takes a long, long while for him to warm up to her.

It disheartens you a little, but when you see him looking down at Hikari's sleeping form on the crib, softly poking her cheek with a strangely child-like curiosity on his eyes, you feel at ease.

And he thinks that he can probably handle this parenting thing better than he ever expected. Maybe it's not that bad, after all.

Ceirtainly, he thinks, as he holds her in his arms one day after she spoke her first word to him, this parenting thing is not really that bad.

(Her first word was "papa!")

Be ready, because once he gets attached to your daughter he won't stop spoiling her!

Kazuha

"Are you sure, love?" "Yes, I'm sure. We're having a child!" A smile painted itself on his face as he leaned in to kiss your forehead. "I hope I can be a good father for them."

So the Kaedehara family is getting a new member, huh!

Not that there's much left to his name, especially now that he's a fugitive... but he's excited nonetheless!

Although he's not one to settle down for long, he will make an effort for both you and the child, since it's not good for someone who's pregnant to wander around.

He's very protective, but not in an overbearing way! He simply wants you to take it easy and relax, he can take care of everything else on his own!

That being said, he's not rich like Diluc or Scaramouche, so he's also going to work harder than ever to get everything you or the baby need in advance so that neither of you have to stress out!

He's the one who takes it better out of everyone here, he's not extremely worried or outright indifferent, he's simply worried enough, excited and happy!

He already knew you were the one he wanted to spend the rest of his life with, so the idea of having a child with you didn't scare him or intimidate him in the slightest!

He's still a bit worried, though.

He is a wanted fugitive in his homeland, after all...

He can only do so much and wish for the situation in Inazuma to change soon, so that he can take both you and his child to see the places he loved to spend his time at when he was a child.

But for now, he's happy enough simply holding his child on his arms, sitting next to you in your small shared home.

You have a girl too! She has Kazuha's hair color and your eye color, she's super adorable ><

He wants you to name her, and you both agree on naming her Izumi, meaning fountain or spring!

"Kaedehara Izumi... it has a nice ring to it." He'd say, smiling down at her.

While Kazuha enjoys travelling more than anything in this world, he's reticent to leave you and your daughter alone or even bring you along with him. So he stays around for as long as you need it.

He will talk a lot to her all the time, so don't be surprised when she picks up very complicated, flowery words from a young age!

He wants her to grow up to be free as the wind and be able to do whatever she wants without fear, so he wants to do his best to be a good father for her!

Xiao

You can practically see the panic on his face when you tell him the news.

It's the most scared you've ever seen him be, and you've been there to help him through his karmic debt.

So yeah, he takes it the worst out of everyone.

"I'm not mad." He manages to tell you before disappearing to somewhere else in a panicked haze, he needs to sort out his emotions quickly before he can properly talk to you about it. The last thing he saw before he disappeared was your eyes, glinting with sadness. And that only made him feel worse if that was even possible.

It takes him the whole day to come to terms with his feelings on your pregnancy and finally face you again.

He's really, really afraid of hurting you and your child. Not to mention he fears he might've passed some kind of curse from his karma to either of you through the pregnancy :(

Like he said, he isn't mad. He's just scared.

He... he literally never, never thought he would get to be a father.

Family was a foreign concept to him, as were a lot of other things you've slowly helped him understand throughout your time together, so knowing he can have one of his own now... makes him happy, and scared, at the same ime.

He's worse than Diluc when it comes to protecting you and worrying about you.

He won't let you do anything alone, even if he doesn't want to be near you because he doesn't want the karma to harm you or your child in such a vulnerable moment of your lives.

Okay so that aside-

How do people care for babies?

What is he exactly supposed to do?

And- do half-adepti babies need any sort of special treatment in comparison to human babies?

He has no idea on what to do if it doesn't involve a physical fight with a tangible foe, so he goes asking for advice to everyone he knows that could have knowledge on that field.

Verr Goldet and Ganyu are a great help for him. Xiao listens with attention to everything they have to say and asks everything he doesn't understand.

Ganyu tells him about her own experience growing up as half-human so that he can understand what raising a half-human, half-illuminated beast baby might entail.

He also goes to Zhongli for advice and he gets more of the same advice he's already heard, along with many, many reassurances that sound like everything you already tell him every day.

He's very worried, but as the months go by and your child's birth comes closer, he can't help but feel a little excited about it.

Everyone who knows him is happy to see him openly happy for a change on those small moments when he gets excited about his new family with you.

When your child is born, Xiao doesn't want to hold him. It took too much willpower to stay as close as he was right now, standing next to your bed as you held your baby in your arms.

He was so adorable, so small, so fragile, so pure- Xiao was afraid of touching him and breaking or tainting him--

He was already crying, he'd started crying the moment he saw you holding your son for the first time.

He feels so... strange. He's crying, but this isn't a painful, or sad feeling. He feels... happy, but scared, but...

The feeling starts to make some sense to him when he finally convinces himself that it's okay for him to hold the little boy in his arms, when he stares with awe at his face.

The baby looks a lot like the both of you. Arguably, more like him, since he has the same hair and the same bright eyes, but in his face all he can see is you.

And he cries more.

You both named him Liàng, name meaning brilliant!

Xiao does his best to try and get used to parenting, and it gets hard at times.

But he tries, and that's all that matters. He tries to be a good father, and is always there to protect both you and your son from anything trying to harm you.

Even though he was so scared at first, you know he loves the new family you've formed together.

Especially when you catch him trying to hold a conversation with your son, sitting down on the bed next to him as he toys with a soft teddy bear, the two of them surrounded by pillows.

The soft look and smile he wears while he does so tells you that everything is going to be alright.

The three of you are going to be alright, and Xiao wants to make sure of it.

His son will never have to live what he lived or see what he saw. He will make sure of that, no matter what.

[hopip99]

I've Got You

Masterlist

A/N: Hey guys. I've decided to reinvest myself in the Divergent fandom. This is a Peter Hayes x Reader fic based on the scene where Tris is ambushed and nearly thrown into the chasm. I don't really know how to feel about this one. I couldn't get my thoughts in order for this one and might redo it later under a different name, but for now, this is how it turned out. I'd really appreciate some feedback on this one.

Summary: After barely scraping by in stage one of Dauntless initiation, Y/N climbs the ranks quickly in stage two. Rather than being intimidated by her sudden success, Peter is impressed that the meek girl from his old faction is finally proving that she belongs in Dauntless. She's one of his only friends and he'd protect her at any cost, especially against the other initiates.

WC: 1838

Warnings: Some swearing, mentions of being buried alive, attempted murder, general violence.

Dauntless initiation was, in the simplest terms, hell. The first day was easy. Well, it was easy compared to the nineteen days that would follow. Day one was the day the dependents chose their factions. The Dauntless initiates climbed up to the tracks and boarded a moving train, and if they didn’t make it on the train, they became factionless. They jumped from that same train over a gap between the tracks and the top of part of the Dauntless compound. If they didn’t jump, they were factionless; if they jumped but didn’t clear the gap, they were dead. Then Dauntless leadership made them jump through a hole that dropped them several stories; they were factionless if they didn’t jump. Y/N is a transfer initiate from Candor with Christina, Peter, Al, Molly, Drew, and Sean. However, she wasn’t friends with them back in their old faction. She always kept to herself, so when she decided to jump right after Tris, the other former members of Candor were impressed. 

Days two through eight were filled with grueling physical training. The initiates learned to shoot guns, throw knives, fight, and build strength and endurance. Y/N had barely scraped through the first part of the initiation, ranking as number nineteen of twenty-one. The only initiates that ranked below her were Tris and Al. She likely would’ve ranked higher if she hadn’t been paired with people much higher on the board for the fights. The only things that pushed her above the red line were her alarmingly accurate knife-throwing skills and her near-immaculate aim during firearms training. She enjoys what essentially becomes two days off after stage one of training. The ninth day was meant to be visiting day, where all the transfers could see their parents again, but Y/N had no one to come and see her.

As soon as stage two begins, Y/N begins to climb through the ranks, and her average time getting through each of her fears is only four minutes. She’s second only to Tris in her fear simulations. Unfortunately, the fiercely competitive nature of all of the initiates, her rapid climb through the ranks has painted a target on her back the same way it had for Tris. Unlike the others, though, she was one of the few who had become friends with Peter, and he’d helped patch her up more than once after intense training sessions. He was no less sarcastic with her, but there was much less hostility in his tone when they spoke, and he tried to pick fights with anyone who would harass her when he was within eyeshot. Y/N would roll her eyes each time and remind him that she could care for herself even if she wasn’t as strong as most other initiates. She had no idea that she’d live to regret turning down Peter’s invitation to join him for dinner after they decided to get tattoos to celebrate getting through stage one of initiation.

After the fourth day of their fear simulations, Y/N made her way up to the ninth position in the ranks. She had been proud of herself, but she’d been left reeling and sick to her stomach as she’d been forced to live through being buried alive in the simulation. Not only was she afraid of being stuck in a confined space, she’d seen all of her friends watching her be buried alive and do nothing. The only person who had seen her fear had been Four, but she couldn’t look any of her friends in the eye after that particular fear simulation. She forced herself to go with Peter to get tattoos after that because she had already promised him she would. 

“Come grab dinner with me, Y/N. I haven’t seen you eat anything today,” Peter encouraged, watching Y/N admire the new Dauntless emblem on her left forearm. He wouldn’t say it out loud, but he was very concerned for her and he was wary about letting her go off on her own after seeing several initiates glare daggers at her whenever she wasn’t paying attention.

“Didn’t realize you were so concerned about my eating habits, Hayes,” she joked, glancing up at her friend. “I’m not hungry, so I think I’ll head to the training room and get a bit of a workout in. I know that stage one is over, but I want to get better at fighting.” Peter simply nodded, knowing that arguing would not do any good even though everything in his body told him that letting her go off by herself was a bad idea.

“Alright, fine. Just don’t wake me up when you’re hungry in the middle of the night,” he snarked, though his tone was playful before he turned and walked to the cafeteria despite his better judgment. He could barely eat his dinner with the pit that settled in his stomach, so he decided to go find Y/N to try and get rid of the uneasy feeling that plagued him.

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Y/N had gone to the training room to get some extra training. She only left when fatigue finally started seeping into her joints, and her hands were raw from the rough leather of the punching bag. She’d been no stranger to late-night walks, nor was she any stranger to taking the long way around to the transfers’ dormitory. As usual, she decided to take the long way around to the dormitory and followed the winding path that overlooked the chasm. She didn’t expect two sets of hands to grab her just as she’d turned down the hall to the dormitory.

“What the hell?” she’d cried out, the startled exclamation escaping her lips much louder than she’d intended as she started to struggle against her assailants’ grips. “Damn it, let go of me!” she screamed, scrunching her body and kicking her legs out to full extension. It had thrown one of the masked initiates off balance for a brief moment, but they’d quickly recovered and continued to drag her, kicking and screaming, towards the chasm. “Get the fuck off!” she shouted again, managing to throw her head back into the other attacker’s nose. She couldn’t help the ghost of a satisfied smile appearing on her lips as she heard the familiar sickening crack of a nose breaking and the person dropping her.

She cried out in pain, however, when her head hit against the solid path after being dropped. The impact left her dizzy, her kicks against the other person dragging her suddenly a lot less powerful. They were talking, but it sounded like they were underwater. She only managed to make out a very muffled “Hurry up and get her over before someone finds us!” followed by a very loud “Hey! Get the fuck away from her!” and footsteps pounding towards her. She forced her eyes to stay open and made out Peter’s blurry figure throwing punches and kicks. He used almost every fighting trick they’d learned against the two initiates, not letting up until he was satisfied they were down for the rest of the night. Both assailants were left with broken noses, black eyes, probably several broken ribs, and concussions and several cuts all over their faces from being thrown against the wall.

“I’ve got you, Y/N. Let’s get you cleaned up, and I’ll get you to the infirmary,” Peter’s muffled voice sounded as she felt his arms slide under her knees and upper back to lift her into his arms. Dazed as she was, she managed to wrap her arms around his neck for a bit of extra support as he carried her back to the dormitory. To say that everyone was shocked at the sight of Peter carrying a battered Y/N would’ve been an understatement, but neither Peter nor Y/N cared what the others thought. He set her down to sit upright against the wall on his bed. “Don’t go getting yourself beat up again while I get a rag to clean you up,” he mocked, though Y/N didn’t miss the genuine concern in his tone.

True to his word, Peter returned only a few moments later and took a wet rag to her face. He wiped away the blood and dirt that stained her face, neck, hands, and arms with a tenderness no one in the room realized that Peter was capable of. The second he was done, he tossed the rag at Tris, scooped Y/N into his arms, and stood up. “Take care of that for me, stiff,” he taunted as Tris caught the rag and he made his way out of the dorm and down to the infirmary. He tried to recount what had happened to the medical staff as calmly as he could, but even thinking about what had happened made him see red, and he had to fight against the urge to go back and finish those two off. Even though he wanted to return, he stayed by her side all night.

“What are you doing here?” Y/N mumbled the second she caught sight of Peter the next morning. “What am I doing here?” she added as she took in her surroundings and the pounding ache in her head.

“Are you serious? Two assholes almost threw you into the chasm last night, and you’re asking why I’m here?” he scoffed, looking at her incredulously. “I brought you to the infirmary last night because you hit your head pretty damn hard. I wasn’t going to let you just lay there where anyone could come along and throw you over.” He missed the slight smile on her lips, still fuming over the fact that she’d been attacked.

“Thanks for saving my ass last night, but I’ll have you know that I broke one of their noses before you came to my rescue,” she declares, grinning a bit at the eye roll he gave her in return. “Seriously, though, Peter. Thanks for saving my life.”

“Whatever. You know I’ve got your back, no matter how annoying you are,” he said with another eye roll as he stood up. “You’ve been given the day off of fear simulations. I’ve got to go. I’ll be back to check on you later,” he murmured and squeezed her hand gently, looking as though he was having an internal battle before leaning down to press a kiss to her forehead. “I’ve got you, but I really don’t want you doing something stupid and getting yourself killed before I come back today. You understand?” he chastised.

“Yes, Peter, I understand,” Y/N whispered, squeezing his hand back. “I’ll be right here when you come back.” With a satisfied nod, he turned around and left for his fear simulation. He may have been one of the most infuriating people Y/N had ever met, but she was glad he was her friend and had her back. After all, she would’ve been dead had he not trusted his gut and come to find her.

Taglist: @milestellersimp

[redorich]

May I request the aftermath of Cleo learning about the magic restrictions please and thank you.

The unfortunate thing about the Dream SMP is that there is no such thing as neutral ground. Everyone's in a faction, and everyone's got beef with everyone else. The only "neutral ground" is the unsettled wilds. When Philza reports this back to Cleo, who reports it back to Xisuma, Cleo wears a put-upon look and says that her and Joe's castle will do just fine, thank you, so stop worrying about it.

The day of the meeting comes, and though Philza is hesitant to return to the castle that scared Techno half to death and activated Ranboo's main character energy, he didn't spend all that time with Cleo handing out the invitations for nothing. Cleo herself won't be present, but her partner in crime Joe will be.

Inside the castle, past the courtyard teeming with armor stand faux-life, there is a meeting room with a table. There are exits on each of the four walls, so no one feels trapped, and the table is circular so that no one feels less important than anyone else. It's all a very Socratic setup.

At the far end of the room, where the head of the table would be were it rectangular, Xisuma sits calm as can be despite the powder keg of important people with grudges he's invited into his presence. On his right is Joe, whose eyes are lit up bright white, though he's still wearing his glasses. To Xisuma's left is Grian, and to Grian's left is Doc. Continuing around the table, next sits Eret representing the Pride Palace and, to a lesser extent, the Dream SMP as a whole. After them, the next person is Philza representing the Syndicate, then Bad representing the Eggpire.

Given the antagonistic nature of the Eggpire, Bad's neighbors have been chosen very carefully; on his other side sits Ghostbur representing L'Manberg. (Philza had awkwardly told Cleo that inviting a L'Manberg representative wasn't necessary, since the place was gone, but she insisted that it was "the principle of the matter". Ghostbur seems happy enough to be invited, anyway.)

On Ghostbur's left, Sam attends on Dream's behalf. Obviously, no one is going to invite Dream, and as Dream's would-be warden, Sam was nominated to attend in his stead. Next to Sam there's an empty chair for George; Philza and Puffy both warned the Hermits that George was allergic to "lore", whatever that meant, but his place at the table was set nevertheless.

The last person to fill in the table is Tubbo, representing Snowchester. He quietly expresses to Sam that he's wary about how few Hermits there are in proportion to the number of Dream SMP citizens. Sam shrugs, and murmurs back to Tubbo that there's probably more Hermits hiding somewhere nearby. After all, isn't that what the Hermits do?

Xisuma claps his hands together once in a polite bid for everyone's attention. They settle down slowly, and once they do, he stands.

"Right, everyone-- thank you all for coming. Let's get right into it, shall we?" He smiles, though it's hard to see beneath the helmet. "With some help from Puffy and Philza, my friends and I were able to figure out why we were trapped in your server."

Sam crosses his arms. He doesn't give much of a shit about the Hermits, he tells himself, unless they have something to do with Dream-- Sam's greatest failure. (It's a lie. He looks at Doc, the only other creeper-person he's ever met-- the first creeper-person, who fought a god and won the right to live for all mob hybrids who came after him. Doc, whose eyes are fixed solely on Xisuma.)

Clearing his throat to cover up the moment of weakness, Sam speaks up. "That's great and all, but why do we care? No one was living in L'Manberg anyway; it was practically free real estate."

The callous words net Sam a glare from Tubbo and a hurt look from Ghostbur. Before either can protest, Xisuma cuts in smoothly.

"It's an issue with your server," he says, "one that Dream should have fixed. It's the reason for this meeting, actually; if there was a responsible admin in the server, I would have just told them. First, a history lesson-- Doc, if you please?"

Doc nods somberly, savoring the opportunity to ham it up a bit. "For those of you who don't know, there are three Eras. The first is the beginning of time, when Mojang created the world as we know it. Players had infinite respawns, the world was less advanced, and redstone had just been created."

"Don't you think you're going a little too far back in history?" Bad asks skeptically.

"He's getting there," Eret defends.

Doc picks up where he left off. "In the Mojang pantheon, there was a god named Notch who wanted to expand the world's horizons, to give them new biomes and mechanics and blocks they'd never seen before... but you can't make something out of nothing. He needed magic to make his big updates a reality, and he stole it from the players behind the other gods' backs."

Ghostbur gasps, horrified. "He stole magic?"

"And so the gods killed him and gave the magic back, end of story," Sam snaps, then instantly regrets it. He's too on edge.

Thankfully, Doc either doesn't mind it or doesn't notice. "Not quite," he says. "When Notch took the magic from players, they lost the ability to respawn at all, marking the beginning of Era Two-- the Hardcore Era. When the gods found out, they were angry at Notch, so they exiled him to the Void. They tried to give players back their magic, but Notch had already taken too much, and servers and updates kept needing more and more... That's how Era Three started. It's the one you live in now, with the three life system."

"So... why does this matter?" Tubbo asks. "I mean, what does this have to do with why you're stuck in our server?"

"There's a parasite on your server, eating up all the magic," Xisuma says carefully. "Your server needed extra magic to keep up, so when we went through the infinity portal it grabbed us. As a group comprised mostly of Era One players, we have the magic that the server needs to compensate for the parasite."

Most of the Dream SMP citizens look either nauseous or extremely worried at the thought of a parasite. With a furrowed brow and a chewed lip, Eret breaks the silence.

"Do you know who it is?"

They all look around the table with wary gimlet eyes, attempting to suss out the imposter among them.

"A parasite..." Sam snorts derisively. "Sounds like that damn egg."

"Language," Bad snaps, but doesn't resort to violence.

"No no, he's got a point," Grian speaks for the first time. He'd been told to stay silent, but he's not a man who will ever pass up an opportunity to meme.

Bad's face falls, and he takes on a placating tone in an attempt to persuade the Hermits to his side. "Hey, don't be like that, the Egg's never done anything wrong!"

Sam's eyebrows raise practically to the ceiling. He looks at Bad in disbelief. "Never done anything wrong?" he says. "Remember when you--"

"That was me, not the Egg," Bad cuts in with a nervous laugh.

"You tried to kill Puffy over it, then killed Foolish instead," Philza says solely because he wants the Hermits to be mad about the Egg.

"Hm," Joe hums to himself. Up until this point the man everyone knows as Herobrine has been quiet, fading into the background, but now that he's made his presence known they can't help but be wary.

He drums his fingers on the table. "Yeah, I think we need some backup. False, Iskall?"

"On it," Doc grumbles, and reaches under the table to flip a couple trapdoors.

Out of nowhere, as though they'd ender pearled in, a blonde woman and a cyborg man appear behind the Hermits' end of the table. Bad stands up suddenly, knocking his chair backward, but Doc presses another button and all four entrances to the room are shut by pistons.

The woman, False, vaults herself over the table with nothing but upper body strength and tackles Bad to the floor. While the demon is still stunned, Iskall dashes around the circumference of the table to flank him. Doc once again presses a button and the floor opens up to reveal a secret staircase, which False and Iskall drag Bad down kicking and screaming. Once they disappear into the depths of the basement, the floor closes back up and the doors reopen like nothing ever happened.

"Well," Xisuma says with a small smile, lacing his fingers together as he addresses the group.

They stare back at him in horror.

He clears his throat awkwardly. "So, with the removal of the Egg, your server will stabilize and we Hermits will be able to leave you in peace..."

"I'm sensing a but," Eret says tentatively. They take off their sunglasses with a minute sigh, reminding themself that it's because of these Hermits that their curse was removed, that they can take off their sunglasses and have gray eyes again.

Taking a deep breath, Xisuma speaks. "We think we have a way to fix the three-life system."

[danses-with-dogmeat]

On the yandere new vegas bit, you forgot to add Vulpes and if you don't mind could you add Anthony the houndmaster? I really love him

XD you don't have to its just a suggestion

Yandere Headcannons for Vulpes and Antony (FONV)

My, my, you're so right, darling! I did forget, how awful of me!

It's funny though, I also really like Antony for some reason? Like, he just seemed like he was (as far as guys in the Legion go) pretty okay, I guess? And the way he talked about his love for his dogs, and actually seemed sad about the Legion destroying his tribe all got me thinking he was at least a half-decent dude. Or maybe I just have a thing for people who like/are nice to dogs... idk. 😅

Also, I'll add these guys both to the original Yandere FNV post as well, but for now, here they are :)

Here is a link to Yandere ABCs with FO3 Companions

And here is the link to FONV Companions

TW for typical yandere behavior, plus some (kind of) NSFW stuffs: unhealthy/abusive relationships, violence, slavery, mentions of sex, and noncon elements.

Antony:

A) Affection. How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

For a man of Caesar’s Legion, Antony can actually be very affectionate. It’s something that came from his time with the Hangdogs, and something that he practices even now, when his dogs have been particularly good, or he’s trying to build trust with them.

He likes to sleep with his partner, and not necessarily just for sex, he simply likes to have them close to him when they are at their most vulnerable. Holding them in his embrace, always trying to have at least a part of them in his grasp all throughout the night is a necessity for Antony to be able to sleep properly. More than that, he likes to simply have his hands on his partner while they are in public, making it clear to any onlookers that Six really is his.

N) Naughty. How would they punish their darling?

They want to behave like an ungrateful animal? They can be treated like one. He punishes his partner the way he punishes his dogs, and the way he was punished as a child for misbehaving. He’ll force them to sleep outside, or keep them tied in the blistering sun for hours and hours on a hot day, he’ll take away their right to food and water for a time, and if they try and retaliate, he won’t put up with it. He’s not opposed to beating his partner if he feels they deserve it; though, the act tends not to bring him pleasure in the way it would with most legionaries. It's just something he feels in needs to do in certain situations, but if it can be avoided, he would rather punish his partner in other ways.

T) Tears: How do they feel about seeing their darling scream/cry/or isolate themselves?

It actually stirs his own feelings. Antony is a passionate man, and tends to be more emotional than the majority of his peers. So, when the one he cares about and admires cries and expresses in a shaky voice how much they are suffering with him, he tries to be comforting. He doesn't stand for excessive blubbering, but he does feel sympathy for them if they're genuinely despondent in a subdued sort of way.

He wouldn’t change his more ruthless ways completely, it’s not in Antony’s nature to do so, but he would still stroke his hand over Six's hair, or their shoulders, pulling them close to him as they shudder and sniffle, shushing them and telling them not to be so emotional, that they should know that the only place for them is here, in the Legion, at his side. This is what’s best for them, he says; and Antony truly believes it.

O) Oppression. How many rights would they take away from their darling?

For the most part, he goes by the Legion’s own practices; whatever the faction would prevent his partner from doing, he will abide by. Besides that, Antony expects his partner to be utterly loyal to him, to be his mate, and to remain at his side without him needing to say a word.

However, they will stay with him; no more gallivanting out in the Mojave, unless he’s at their side, where he can keep an eye on them. Additionally, Six will now move themself and their belongings to Antony's tent, and spend their days doing tasks that the Legion requires, or otherwise help him train and care for his hounds.

N) -- Patience. How patient are they with their darling?

Patience isn’t a trait often practiced amongst legionaries. If Antony’s partner is causing him issues, he believes in nipping them in the bud straightaway. He’s quick to punish them, but also quick to forgive. Lingering on Six’s bad behavior does no one any good, after they’ve been properly reprimanded, it’s just a waste of time.

Y) Yearn. How long do they pine for their darling before they snap?

It takes Antony a little while to find that he is drawn to the courier, but when they express their interest in what he does, in his past, in his dogs; he finds that it’s becoming more difficult not to think of them fondly. When Six comes to him a few weeks after the pair first met, a cyber dog in need of a brain in tow, and gives him the opportunity to immortalize his beloved Lupa within this new dog’s mind, he finds that he suddenly can’t keep the courier out of his head. Now that he knows they care, that he’s seen their strength against one of his best dogs, admired their bravery, their tenacity; he knows that soon, he’ll have to make them his.

Vulpes:

V) Vice. What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

The leader of the Legion Frumentarii has few weaknesses, almost none of which the courier could use to escape him. He has the Legion on his side, they’re on an island, and Six is unarmed. As far as sweet talking and trying to gain emotional traction on him go, Six’s efforts will be in vain.

One small weakness of his though, would be using his own pride against him. If Six mentioned that the only reason he was able to keep ahold of them was because they were unarmed and alone on the island, while he was surrounded by hundreds of his allies, all skilled in hand-to-hand combat, well, Vulpes might be so outraged that they assumed they could escape him under any other kind of circumstances, that he would offer a sort of challenge. If Six is quick enough, and clever enough, perhaps they can escape him. But if not? They just wasted their only chance to do so, Vulpes won't give them this opportunity again.

U) Unique. Would they do anything different from classic yandere?

He’s not as emotional as traditional yandere characters tend to be. Six is simply someone he feels is worthy of him, and so, he makes them his. Vulpes doesn’t like to get himself wrapped up in words like “love,” and “devotion,” not when he is busy with his duties in the Legion. Six’s loyalty isn’t something he feels he needs to fight for, it’s something that he expects, that he deserves from them in exchange for his valuable attention. Vulpes does not exist for the courier, but they undoubtedly exist for him.

L) Love Letters. How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

Vulpes isn’t subtle. Once he finds that he is developing an interest in the courier, he tells them just as much. First, simply to test the waters, to see how they react to him, then, based on their reaction, he’ll come out to say more, expressing his desires to have them all for himself. Should they refuse, well, Vulpes won’t be so bold as to claim them out in the open, but rest assured, they will not be able to rid themself of him so easily. He’ll be back.

P) Patience. How patient are they with their darling?

Vulpes’s patience levels vary. For the most part, he seems calm and collected, and deals with his partner with a cool word and a cruel look, if he must. He doesn’t like to taint his image by being over-emotional in front of his peers, even when he is outraged. Behind closed doors though, he will make it known to the courier that he is, by nature, not a patient man. His calm demeanor will remain, but his touch will be cruel, his eyes piercing, his punishments for their misbehavior, severe. They’re not likely to try his patience more than once.

E) Exposed. How much of their heart do they bear to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

It may change a bit over time, but in the beginning, next to none. Vulpes guards his heart, his feelings, even many of his thoughts from his partner, and everyone else. He expresses his own fondness for them in the time and attention that he gives them, in that he’s willing to share his tent with them, that he wants them by his side when he sets out into the wastes. These are all privileges that almost no one else would be deserving of. Any more than what he’s giving them already would be foolish. Vulpes doesn’t wear his heart on his sleeve by any means at all, and even expressing his base emotions is reserved for certain specific situations that occur rarely, if ever.

However, after a long while of being together (over a year, at least), Vulpes may start voicing to his partner, only while they are in private, and under his breath, some of his true thoughts on the Legion and how it's run, some of the stories of his past and his childhood, and even the truth of the feelings he has for Six; feelings he had been so reluctant to express, that he repressed them for all of the time before the moment he finally reveals them. That he finally tells them that, for him, maybe their relationship really is more than just… what he simply expected of Six. Being devoted to something other than the Legion, and Caesar himself… It’s not something Vulpes would have ever expected of himself, and this new devotion frightens him.

S) Stigma. What brought about this side of them (childhood, curiosity, etc.)?

The Legion has a way of entitling it’s men; especially those in the higher positions of power. So, it’s not uncommon for them to feel entitled enough to believe other people should be utterly devoted to them, should belong to them (they do condone slavery, after all). Given this, Vulpes is practicing what he has been preaching all along; thinking of himself as superior, as someone worth belonging to, as someone that another person should be lucky, and thankful to be able to belong to. It would be no different with Six.