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bufomancer · 4 years ago

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The Ethics of Betta Sororities

Betta sororities, made up of several female domestic bettas living in the same aquarium, are popular amongst those who want lots of bettas, but have limited space. The safety and ethics of these setups are hotly debated. There are quite a few studies out there on social behavior in domestic bettas, but they largely have not been applied to current discussions about betta sororities. Here, I intend to do exactly that with five papers that I believe are relevant.

The History of the Betta

Domestic bettas have been popular pets for hundreds of years. They’ve been linebred in captivity since at least the 19th century. Initially, they were selected for increased aggression and used for betta fights. It was soon discovered that they could be bred into a wide variety of colors, patterns, and fin types. Nowadays, they’re primarily kept for their beautiful appearance.

There are several species of Betta in the splendens complex. Domestics are considered to be B. splendens, but they were also hybridized with other members of the complex. In particular, hybridization led to the rise of ‘dragonscale’ bettas, noted for their thick iridescence. In the wild, they inhabit shallow, sluggish streams. After mating, males guard the eggs until the fry hatch, but the female may not be actively involved. The male stops looking after the fry after hatching.

Splendens complex bettas that are relatively unchanged from their wild forms are typically kept communally, it’s common to see one male with one or several females. Multiple males are rarely if ever kept together past sexual maturity. Aggression in these setups can happen, but they are also frequently successful. Betta species that are not in the splendens complex are rarely kept singularly.

There’s not much out there on social behavior in wild B. splendens, but we know that males will perform aggressive displays when they come across other males. Typically, these altercations last only a few seconds, with the loser swimming off mostly unharmed. Domestic betta fights in captivity can last for an hour, with the loser injured or dead.

While wild-type bettas can often be kept communally, that does not necessarily translate to domestic strains being safe with conspecifics. After all, they were extensively linebred for increased aggression. So we can’t use that alone to justify betta sororities- if they can be justified at all.

Next, we’ll go through some papers individually, discussing methods and findings. These will be pretty long, since several papers are behind paywalls and I want everyone reading to have a pretty good grasp on what the papers said without necessarily needing to shell out money. That said, I highly recommend reading the papers individually since my summaries are still just summaries.

Ichihashi, Ichikawa, and Matsushima (2004)

[paper found here]

In this paper, domestic bettas were reared in four different conditions and then their agonistic behaviors were compared. All fry studied were from the same spawn. At 6 weeks, 110 unsexed juveniles were separated into 4 different housing conditions. In Group 1, 50 fish were put into 12.5x20 cm tanks, with a water depth of 6-9cm. There were 5 fish per tank, for a total of 10 tanks. Group 2 fish were housed individually but could see the group 1 fish through their aquarium walls. Group 3 fish were housed individually but could see other group 2 fish through the aquarium walls, but not Group 1 or 2 fish. Group 4 fish were housed individually and could not see other fish. There were 20 fish each in groups 2-4. Once the fish were sexable, there were 18 males in group 1, 13 in group 2, 8 in group 3, and 9 in group 4. The females were not used for the study.

Some questions I have so far about the study and its ability to be applied to home aquaria: Were the tanks barren, or did they contain any decor/substrate? The tanks for the communally raised fish were under a gallon each. Plus, because only the males were studied, how applicable is this information to female bettas? In a betta sorority, the tanks are typically around 10-20 gallons, and with at least some decor. In an aquarium with more room to avoid tankmates, and decor for hiding, might fish act differently?

Next, males were matched and tested for agonistic behaviors. They were placed in a 20x30x15cm aquarium separated into two sections. The water was changed after each session. A male was placed in each section and allowed to acclimate for 30 minutes, then the partition was removed and video was recorded. Three behaviors were identified and recorded: butt-or-bite (strongly butting or biting the other fish with its mouth), chase, and gill cover erect (colloquially known as flaring). 16 males from group one, and 8 males each from the other groups, were tested. A male from groups 2-4 was randomly matched with a male from group 1 for testing.

All of the males in group 4, who were kept totally isolated, won their fights, and additionally would continue to attack even after the loser submitted. The other groups won roughly half the time.

Later, some of the group 2 males were placed in group 4 conditions, and vice versa, to compare the effects of late isolation and late socialization. Later isolation tended to increase win rate without significant effects on agonistic behaviors. Later socialization did not decrease the win rate.

Now, this is all focused on male bettas, and therefore may not directly translate to behavior in female bettas. However, this paper suggests there may be a socialization period for young bettas, seeing as the communally raised individuals seemed to be less aggressive, and late socialization did not produce more docile bettas. This means a betta sorority made up of females raised isolated and later put together likely has a lower chance of success than those raised socially.

Goldstein (1985)

[paper found here]

This paper is all about creating stable communal populations of the domestic betta. An L shaped aquarium, with each arm 229x38x51cm, was created. A 31x76cm plexiglass window was placed in the center of each arm. Day one, one male was introduced to each arm of the tank. If the loser of the initial fight was not completely intimidated within 2 days, a third male was introduced. If it was, it was removed and replaced. After the male population was at three for 2 days, a female was introduced, with the same removal criteria. A second study was performed with 10 contests of 20 males in a 6.5 liter aquarium to obtain baseline data.

Of the sixteen males involved, six died and three were removed. The maximum stocking was 10 males and 10 females, which within three weeks had to be reduced to 7 males.

As this chart shows, most aggressive encounters were between two males. Transient displays, but not true fights, were recorded among two females, and among males and females. Combat lasted much longer for the males in the small tank than in the L shaped tank. Mouth locking behavior was much less common in the L shaped tank than in the small tank. Aggression was usually initiated by newly added males, not the current residents.

Here are the questions I have: Why were there no tests with solely females, or one male and multiple females? How might these results change if performed in a similarly sized, but rectangular aquarium, as opposed to the L shape? The paper mentions that all the fish were roughly the same age and from the same supplier, but were they from the same spawn, or different ones? Did the supplier raise the fry communally or isolated?

One interesting observation was that the males did not appear to occupy distinct territories within the tank, instead, they traversed the whole aquarium. It seems aquarium size most likely affects aggression, since fights were shorter and less intense in the larger tank versus the smaller tank. Also, one pair of bettas spawned in the L shaped tank, and both the male and female guarded the territory of their bubble nest until the fry hatched. Typically, female bettas are not said to be actively involved with guarding the nest, so that was certainly interesting! A stable social hierarchy was said to be created, but the author cautions against broadly applying the results of laboratory conditions to all bettas.

Elwood and Rainey (1983)

[paper found here]

Finally, a study all about female bettas, specifically. This paper aims to determine if female bettas can form stable dominance hierarchies. Groups of 4 fish each were placed into five aquariums, 28x20x18cm each with a water depth of 12cm. The groups were visually isolated. Groups 1 and 2 were bred in the lab, 3-5 were from a breeder. The tanks were empty except for a gravel substrate. Groups 1 and 2 were observed for 15 minutes per day, on nine days over a two week period. Groups 3-5 were observed for 15 minutes per day on five days over a two week period. Three activities- attack, display, and eating- were recorded.

Questions so far! These tanks are less than 2 gallons each, so can this be effectively extrapolated to large aquaria? They are also empty, so how would results change in a heavily planted aquarium? Why were groups 1 and 2 from a different source than 3-5? Why were they observed for different amounts of time? Are the fish from the same spawn as the other fish in their tank? Were they raised isolated or communally?

Based on the observations made, a rank order was assigned to each fish in each group for each observation day.

I really recommend reading this whole paper to really get how they were calculating the hierarchy and day-to-day concordance.

So, conclusions. A noticeable and relatively stable social hierarchy seemed to be created. The most aggressive fish was not necessarily the most dominant, which fits with similar observations in male splendens. The top ranked fish engaged in the most mutual displays with the second ranked fish, and the least with the bottom ranked fish. The bottom ranked fish was more likely to flee than to return displays. A social hierarchy may have been created, but aggressive displays were still present. The study lasted only two weeks, in small and barren tanks, among fish who may have been related. If you change any of those factors- longer term study, larger and heavily decorated tank, unrelated fish, etc- the results could differ.

Snekser, McRobert, and Clotfelter (2006)

[paper found here]

In this study, male and female bettas were presented with a single male, a single female, or a group of three females. All fish were roughly the same age and obtained from the same supplier. The testing tank was separated into three sections. The focal fish were placed in the middle section, where they could choose to view either of the end sections, but not both at once.

Immediate questions: Were all the fish related? Were they raised socially or communally? Why were they never presented with multiple males, only multiple females? The focal fish and the test fish could not directly interact, only view each other. So this has little bearing on interactions between multiple fish in the same, undivided aquarium.

As we can see in these charts, females preferred viewing a single female or three females over an empty chamber. They preferred the empty chamber to the single male, and the three females over both the single male and the single female. Males preferred viewing one female, three females, and one male to the empty chamber. They preferred three females to a single female, and a single male to three females. However, we can also see that there were documented aggressive displays for all of these testings. The females performed fewer aggressive displays, but they were still there.

So… the fish regularly preferred viewing other fish to the empty chamber, and larger groups to a single fish, but they performed aggressive behaviors and they could not physically interact with the other fish. This paper is interesting, but does it actually mean anything when it comes to a sorority setup where the fish can freely physically interact with each other?

Blakeslee, McRobert, Brown, and Clotfelter (2008)

[paper found here]

This study is similar to the one above, but this time focused on female bettas only. It seeks to determine if group size and body color have an effect on social partner preferences. Of the 160 fish used, 130 had wild type coloration, and 30 were white with pink fins. They were obtained from a local fish shop. The same type of three chambered aquarium used in the previous study was used for this one. For 30 days prior to the preference testing, individuals were separated by color into either 75 liter aquariums with 15-20 individuals, or 1000mL plastic cups held in a larger aquarium.

The fish consistently preferred the other fish to the empty chamber, and large groups of similar fish to small groups of similar or dissimilar fish. The brown striped fish did not show a marked preference when presented with the choice between one similar fish or several dissimilar fish.

Some questions- Were all of the brown fish from the same spawn? Were all of the white fish from the same spawn? Were the brown and white fish both from the same spawn? What if they were presented with related similar fish versus related dissimilar fish? Or related dissimilar fish versus unrelated similar fish? Why were the white fish not tested after individual housing, or against empty chambers? Were aggressive behaviors noted? How would these results change if the fish were allowed to physically interact rather than only see each other?

There’s a lot of questions with this one. Unlike the previous study, there’s no chart detailing any aggressive behavior. Just because a fish would rather see the other fish than be alone, doesn’t necessarily mean they’re playing nice!

Conclusions

None of these papers provide sufficient evidence in support of communal betta tanks, especially under more typical home aquaria conditions. Lack of injury is not the same as lack of stress. Stress and appeasement related behaviors such as fin clamping, pale colors, stress stripes, etc were minimally mentioned in these papers if at all. Betta sororities in the aquarium hobby tend to be in 10 or 20 gallon tanks, and with at least /some/ decor and hides. These papers tend towards keeping them communally in much smaller tanks, with no decor whatsoever. Would bettas in a larger and better decorated tank feel emboldened knowing they can more easily avoid threats? Are these fish truly in a stable social hierarchy, or is it closer to learned helplessness? When there are physical items in the tank and not just an empty water column, are they more likely to defend a specific territory?

In particular, I would be interested in data on related versus unrelated fish. In all of these papers, fish used were obtained from the same supplier and were likely all from the same spawn. Are they more likely to tolerate conspecifics who are related to them? Many people have reported more success with communal betta tanks when they are fry from the same spawn that were never separated. This leads to more questions- what about unrelated fry raised together, or related fry raised isolated and then reintroduced?

More research is certainly necessary to truly understand the sociability of domestic bettas. In the meantime, if you love bettas and want more than one in the same tank, a pair of a nondomesticated species such as imbellis, smaragdina, and so on would be a much better decision.

#fishblr #bettablr #aquablr #my guides

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incorrect-ikevamp-quotes · 5 years ago

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NEVER WAS THERE A TALE OF MORE WOE, THAN THAT OF OUR JEANNE AND FANGDADDIO 😭😭😭

But alas, I will relay what I read back in the day to the best of my abilities! Spoilers for the end of Jeanne’s route under the cut, rated E (for everyone) for maximum uwus (and M for angst bc F U C K):

Okay so basically Jeanne’s route goes a lot like most of the routes, and when MC gets attacked (by the rival vampire turned by Vlad) our eyepatched wonder is not happy about it. He storms over to Comte’s room and demands to have his questions answered. Comte notes how deathly serious he is and breezes past the enmity, telling him to go ahead and ask whatever he needs to. Jeanne threatens to kill Comte if it turns out that he’s lying about anything from this point forward. To which Comte (being a little shit), replies that he literally can’t die so like ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. Jeanne tells him he doesn’t care what it takes; he’ll rend him apart to the tiniest shred over and over and over again--even if it takes them both to the other side to accomplish it. Comte concedes and says “very well; if I lie, you’re welcome to try.” Jeanne finally asks if Comte has made a revival pact with anyone new. Comte is genuinely confused and confesses that he hasn’t--that he has no idea who Jeanne is talking about. “What ‘comrade in arms’???” Jeanne seems to sense that Comte is responding in earnest (but is also confused bc like, then who the fuck else turned the guy??? WHO IS THE THREAT I MUST STAB)

Jeanne admits that MC was attacked and you can feel the change in gravity in milliseconds. Comte starts asking where she is and if she’s okay, and Jeanne explains that she’s still in the mansion and she’s fine. Jeanne then asks if Shakespeare has the ability to turn people like he does, and Comte is bewildered to put it mildly. He’s like ??????? Where is this coming from, of course he doesn’t???? I turned him myself, he’s a lesser vampire--he doesn’t have that ability???? In a moment of sheer livid impatience, Jeanne grabs Comte by the lapels and screams “Then who can!?!?!?!” Comte stares at him and admits that there are only two people that he is aware of who can accomplish such a thing, himself and someone else. They hear a loud crash and they run to the dining room, only to find a window smashed, Mozart wounded, and MC gone. Comte’s furious sprite appears, and he asks Jeanne to look after MC, he has something to take care of. Isaac asks him where on earth he’s going, and he reveals that he’s going to Will’s house before storming out.

Poor Shakespeare faces the brunt of Comte’s rage--though I get the feeling, knowing now that Shakespeare is Vlad’s puppet--that the threat was meant more for Vlad than for Shakey boy. Comte goes to Shakey’s place and Shakespeare offers to put on tea or wine, says it’s strange for him to appear so late. Comte tells him not to bother, since he isn’t here to exchange pleasantries. Shakespeare seems p shocked given Comte isn’t usually one to be so direct or terse, and when Comte walks in he backs Shakespeare into the wall step. By step. By step. He asks him if he was involved in the harm done to MC, and Shakespeare’s like “Yeah lol what’s it to you.” And when their shoes are nearly touching, Comte grabs him by the throat and lifts him off the ground. He tells Shakespeare that if this goes on, he won’t show any mercy: "To those that would harm a single member of my house, I will hunt them to the ends of the earth. To the very depths of hell." The narration notes that he lets go of whatever dampens his pureblood aura and nearly suffocates Shakespeare with his raw intensity and power, before putting him down again and saying “That’s all I have to say. I have no more questions for you.” Comte walks right back out, slamming the door while Shakespeare is on the floor coughing.

So, needless to say, things are hella rocky between Comte and Jeanne throughout the better part of the route. But given the odd dichotomy of Comte’s reactions (his complete acceptance of Jeanne’s fury versus his own anger being directed at Vlad), it definitely felt like there was more there. Everything finally comes full circle at the end when Comte gathers everyone inside the dining room to explain precisely what happened (Vlad, etc. I’m assuming) and asks everyone to take proper precautions moving forward: "I'll take steps to make sure this never happens again. But if we are faced with a similar situation, know that I am prepared to protect you all with every fiber of my being." He deems secrecy a moot point given this incident, and just wants everyone to be safe and ask for help should they need it in the future.

MC notes that he doesn’t have his usual placid demeanor; he’s incredibly serious and grave. She’s like “Oh boy some serious shit went down huh...but if anything, I feel like it’s only made us have more faith in his ability to protect us c:” AND HERE IS WHERE THE BIG HURT HAPPENS KIDS GET YOUR TISSUES AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA

Jeanne: "...Alright. I will trust in your words. But can I ask just one thing?” Comte: “Yes, Jeanne?” Jeanne: "You know I always hated you, I truly believed you revived me against my will for a long time." Comte just sorta deflates, but he doesn’t say anything (MY POOR BABIE) Jeanne: "But, is that really the case? Did I want to live on, away from that pyre...?" [There was a long silence.] Comte: “...That day, when I appeared, you screamed desperately 'Why must I die here. Whether it be God or the devil, someone make use of me!'” Important note: Jeanne tells MC that he is able to recall thinking that, but he has no acute recollection of saying it; this is the moment at which he lost consciousness. MC: [;-; No matter how hard he tried to stifle it, it (his deep wish to live) came out all the same...] I wasn’t able to transcribe it, but Comte essentially tells him that he tried to ask Jeanne, but he was already barely hanging on--there was no way he could get a proper answer. (This is highly plausible given we know that Jeanne was incarcerated by the Inquisition, tortured, and starved before he was tied to that pyre--it was a miracle he lasted that long. He didn’t even have the strength to move/struggle from where he was tied). Comte goes on to say that Jeanne was pissed to shit when he woke up and there was little he could do to alleviate that (I mean given he was waiting for the sweet release of death it makes sense but also N O ;-;). For a while Jeanne just stares at him before asking: Jeanne: “...Why? Why didn’t you tell me after all this time?” Comte: "Because I thought it was okay if you berated me a little." Jeanne (vine voice: AMERICA EXPLAIN): ?????????? Comte: "Despite being alive...you looked dead to the world ever since the day we met. No matter how hard I tried or whatever I did, I couldn't seem to change that. But...the only emotion I seemed to be able to draw out of you was hate. If hatred was the only thing that could move you, I figured I'd take on that role. Better to see you express something than to see you lifeless beyond any glimmer of hope or change." Jeanne: "Why....why would you go that far?? Why did you bother? I don't...understand" BECAUSE HE HAS SO MUCH LOVE TO GIVE AND HE LOVES YOU I’M SOBBING ALL OVER AGAIN OKAY DEEP BREATHS THE SHOW MUST GO ON MINNIE Comte: "Because I'm the one that revived you...because to me, you're all my precious family." Jeanne: "...............................................................I...I'm sorry" AND JEANNE HANGS HIS HEAD WAAAAAAAAAAAH Comte’s brows rise: “...Jeanne?” Jeanne: "I know an apology doesn't forgive everything I did/said. But I don't know how else to make amends"

It goes on to show them all making amends, and while Jeanne can sometimes be like “ughghhghgh d a d stop nagging I’m fINE” he secretly really loves the guy. In Jeanne’s third bday story he’s literally like [Comte’s a weirdo but I see now that that's just how he cares abt me. He's not just worldly, he's a good guy. c: I just don’t care abt whatever he’s going on abt rn]

So like full disclosure before Jeanne’s route I still loved Comte but I really didn’t know much about him beyond the “eccentric nobleman persona.” Granted we definitely get glimpses into who he really is, but this was a sizeable breakthrough. (And probably a strong allusion to the release of Comte’s MS soon after.) That being said, there were so many things said here that just absolutely shattered my heart.

Because here’s the thing. I have no qualms with Comte’s wish to be a dad--or even to revive the men, for that matter. If it makes him happy and he intends to take care of them reasonably well, then who am I to criticize him? (Fun fact: Leonardo essentially says the same exact thing; he’s more against it than I am because of the whole turning humans, but he doesn’t necessarily vilify Comte because he knows his intentions are good. And if everyone’s happy with it, what can he say?) But the fact that Comte handles their issues with so much patience and maturity...I’m in love???? There is sincerely nothing sexier than this for me. He’s fully aware that Jeanne was treated like absolute shit by the people he tried to protect, that he never really got to live for himself a single day in his life--never knew a moment’s peace, joy, or appreciation. He tries everything he can think of to get Jeanne to maybe not hate being alive as much, but fails at every turn. He still refuses to give up on the guy despite the less than ideal state of things, and decides that if Jeanne needs an enemy to survive--he will be that enemy. He doesn’t care that the guy he’s trying to help would skewer him the second he had his back turned (Jeanne pls this was a new suit couldn’t this wait). He takes full responsibility for deciding to turn him; knows that since he erred on the side of caution, it’s up to him to offer a life that’s worth keeping/staying alive for. He doesn’t belittle Jeanne’s plight for a moment, never deems him stupid or shortsighted. He’s able to understand that in the wake of so much pain and loss, of course Jeanne might not notice the finer points of Comte’s attempts to cheer him up. Even if it pains him to be on negative terms (HE LOVES HIS BOY HE DOESN’T WANT TO FIGHT) he will fully accept it if it brings Jeanne peace, if it helps Jeanne get to a place where he can begin to accept the affection he wants to offer.

And THAT’S what kills me, kids. Four hundred years, and Comte fucking LEARNED something. He is perceptive to uncanny degrees, and never fails to read a room in milliseconds; not only does he pick up on how people feel, he responds with appropriate, gentle measures. What I love so much about Comte is that he knows full well that genius does not come without its price. You could be the smartest person on earth, the most talented, whatever you choose to call it, but it will invite no shortage of hatred from other people, no shortage of misunderstanding and disdain and violence. If people don’t go mad with power, they are destroyed by the very places that birthed them. As such, the last thing he wants to do is put them under more pressure, or force them to do things against their will; he just wants to give them a chance to live beyond such fickle and hostile circumstances. And he takes this seriously, this isn’t remotely a whim for him despite all evidence to the contrary. He gets that healing takes time, and as much as he wants everyone to be happy he’s more than willing to give them space/resources to figure it out. Like. He is the father everybody DREAMS they had (if they didn’t already have a good one) and the fact that I can’t tell him what a wonderful job he’s doing is killing me on all levels INCLUDING physical.

And I just?????? Jeanne’s palpable remorse when he finds out????? And Comte’s surprise???????? Like Comte wasn’t necessarily expecting that level of apology, he knew he was taking a gamble and he was ready to do whatever he had to, he wasn’t intending to hold it against his boy. But Jeanne just has such a tender and well-meaning heart (no matter how much he struggles to express it) that regret was inevitable. There’s just so much love in that moment, in Comte’s capacity to forgive and take on so much of poor Jeanne’s unhappiness, and Jeanne’s fully ability to admit he was misguided, lower his head, and apologize. THEY JUST GET ME BLUBBERING LIKE A THREE YEAR OLD OKAY THEY ARE BOTH SO IMPORTANT TO ME AND I HURT

Tl;dr: JEANNE’S ROUTE SHOT ME FORTY-SEVEN TIMES IN THE CHEST AND LEFT ME PINING FOR COMTE MORE THAN EVER BEFORE OTL

Also a bonus, because it only just occurred to me (spoilers from the end of Comte’s route):

THEY HAVE A LEGIT REVERSAL AT THE END OF COMTE’S ROUTE???? Comte once again gathers everyone to reveal Vlad’s identity and intentions, and he apologizes for keeping it from everyone, lowering his head. He’s more than ready to face everyone’s ire for keeping secrets, but everyone’s just like “dad pls lift your head it’s okay, we’re just glad we can help you now--you don’t have to carry it all on your own.” AND IT IS IN FACT, JEANNE, THAT ALSO SAYS “No need to bow like that Comte, aren't you the one always saying we're family?" AND WHEN I TELL YOU I WAS IN A PUDDLE OF TEARS?????? I WILL NEVER BE OKAY. POOR COMTE WAS SO MOVED AND MY HEART CAN’T TAKE HAVING THIS KNOWLEDGE WHERE’S MY HANKIE. JEANNE. BEING THE ONE. TO SAY. “Aren’t we family?” WHEN HEARING HOW HARD COMTE WAS WORKING TO PROTECT THEM, BC HE 100% IDENTIFIES WITH THE STRUGGLE OF LOOKING AFTER PEOPLE THAT DON’T KNOW/CARE THAT SOMEBODY ELSE IS THE SACRIFICE FOR THEIR PEACE OF MIND. I--

WHAT IS IT THAT JEANNE AND COMTE SHARE TO THE CORE, SO MUCH THAT JEANNE WOULD NEED NO OTHER EXPLANATION TO CHANGE HIS MIND AFTER YEARS OF BITTER DISDAIN???????? THEIR CAPACITY FOR DEVOTION, THEIR EASY WILLINGNESS TO SACRIFICE ANYTHING TO PROTECT A LIFE. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA THIS EPIPHANY IS GOING TO BE THE DEATH OF ME

I’m crying rn I just: Comte: !!!!!!! Somebody who gets it!!! :DDD Jeanne: die. Comte: Comte: ;-; understandable have a nice day

#ikevamp #ikemen vampire #ikevamp spoilers #ikevamp jeanne #ikevamp comte #ikevamp saint germain #comte propaganda #ikevamp fangdad #fangdad propaganda #god who would have thought that the one thing jeanne and comte have in common is TAKING RESPONSIBILITY #deadass i was just writing and i was like hold up #but if jeanne doesnt know what he said in this route then why would he do a 180 like that????#and then i remembered that the focal point of comte's rt is learning that EVERYTHING that we knew from the getgo was a charade #he wasnt just turning ppl for funsies this was all a deliberate attempt to protect them from vlad #he was just using the dumbass noble persona to keep everyone from digging too deep (bc vlad would be waiting in the wings)#i still dont know what went wrong with shakespeare but im willing to bet that part of his whole keeping the truth surface level #might have been a direct consequence of that situation being mishandled #and as such everyone's living in a kind of ignorant bliss #the price of their peace is comte's carrying the knowledge of vlad's intentions and protecting them from an unwavering threat #and if there is ANYTHING jeanne can understand #it's wanting to bear the burden of violence or danger for the sake of protecting precious life #how could jeanne possibly remain angry with him? their hearts are undeniably aligned #GOD THIS JUST MAKES ME SO EMOTIONAL ITS A GOOD THING I HAVE SOME ROSÉ LEFT #ikevamp really goes above and fuckin beyond huh #how DARE they make me have feelings #**grumble**#i hope this answered your curiosity!!#if you need me ill be swimming in my feels good lordt im not okay

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fullmetalscullyy · 4 years ago

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happy birthday @dvltgr-rizaran 🎉 i wrote a little something for you as a gift 💓 i hope you like it

thank you for always being so awesome, so understanding, and for being there when i needed it most. you’re an amazing friend 💕 i love you!! have the best day today 💖

slow dance

rated: g | words: 1373

“Lieutenant?”

Riza turned her head, seeing the Colonel’s approach. His sharply cut tuxedo almost shined in the moonlight above them, matching his inky black hair. The light cast a strip of silver across his head, captivating her for a second.

After a mental shake, Riza remembered herself and straightened to attention. A breeze caressed her bare arms and it made her shiver in her dress. The high neck protected her throat but left her arms free to the elements. It was floor length, just brushing the ground thanks to her heels. The deep blue looked almost black when she was outside, but just enough of the colour managed to show through in the moon’s glow.

Of course he’d try and find her shortly after she’d escaped for a quiet moment to herself. Even though she’d originally planned for some peace she truly didn’t mind his presence.

“Sir,” she greeted.

“Relax, Lieutenant,” he commanded gently, “I came here to escape too.”

Her shoulders softened and she watched as he approached. Mimicking the way she’d been standing a few seconds ago, Roy leaned against the balcony wall on his elbows and looked out over the gardens at the back of one of the poshest hotels in Central.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

“Yes, Sir,” she agreed. Riza turned back to face the gardens.

“Not the only beautiful thing here tonight though,” he sighed.

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Riza turned her body to face him. “Is there anything you need, Sir?”

“No… Nothing.”

“Okay.”

She was perplexed as to why he was here. He sounded too vague for there to be nothing on his mind. He’d said he’d needed to escape, but why would he seek someone out if he needed some time alone?

“So, why did you come to escape?”

She cringed at his question. She hadn’t intended for it to seem that way. “It was quite warm in the hall. I just needed some fresh air.” It wasn’t a lie. It was partly the truth.

“It was quiet loud too, huh?”

Riza didn’t comment.

“The Generals never know when to stop talking. I’m sure they simply enjoy the sound of their own voice. I needed to get away from their constant questioning too.”

Their “questions” included “I have a wonderful daughter, Colonel, what would you say to dinner with her?” and while Riza was a strict professional, it was still bothersome to listen to. Both in a general and a personal sense. It was shallow and irritating, for one thing. It reminded her of her own past and her own choices. She couldn’t love Roy like she wanted to. She’d accepted this years ago, however there was only so many times she could listen to that topic of discussion and watch those women fawn over the young Colonel.

“Hm… Actually, there is one request.” He pondered his thought, tapping a finger against his chin as his head cocked in thought.

“What do you need, Sir?”

“Dance with me?” The hand that had been by his face extended outwards, his palm facing up to the sky, inviting her to take it. A soft smile spread across his face and it caused her to relax slightly, to let her guard down.

Realising she’d done so, Riza snapped back to attention. “Sir, I really don’t think–”

“Breda’s guarding the door.” He glanced to his right, towards the windows. “The curtains are closed. What’s one little dance?”

Riza raised an eyebrow at him. She knew what “one little dance” was. It would ignite the longing inside of her that would love more moments like this. It would create desire for him to hold her in his arms every night, and for her to hear his breath by her ear as they did so. It was reckless and dangerous.

“I can order it, if it makes you feel any better?” He grinned at her.

Rolling her eyes, Riza stepped closer. “Fine. One dance.”

Roy’s grin never wavered as he grasped her hand in his. The distance between them was respectful as they moved in time to the strings. It was a tune that tugged at Riza’s heart, sounding so full of sorrow and yearning. It began to amplify her own. Still, ever the professional, she buried it deep down inside of her and schooled her expression. She’d indulge him in his little dance then be on her way, back to the festivities.

Except that song finished and another picked up right away. Riza looked up at Roy expectantly, waiting for him to let go of her hand and waist, but he didn’t. He began to sway again, leading the dance as he continued to keep a tight hold on her.

“Sir –” She began to warn him but was halted by the look in his eyes. It caused that desire inside of her to flare up, compromising her professionalism. Her lips parted in anticipation. Subconsciously, she’d managed to move a fraction closer to him. Whether that was her own doing or Roy’s, Riza wasn’t sure.

They were both guilty of moving closer.

“I never specified just one dance,” he murmured. “Nor did I agree to your terms.”

They swayed together as the slow music continued, and Riza was unable to tear her gaze away from his. The depth of his eyes were pulling her in, so eventually all that mattered was them. All that existed in her mind as she gazed at him was the two of them.

Ever so slowly, Roy brought them closer together. His cheek was resting against hers. His breath tickled her hair and the outer shell of her ear, making her shiver. Riza succumbed to it, lost to the yearning inside of her. It was delightful to be held this way by him, to move like this with him. It was so much better than she’d ever thought it would be.

The song finished, and a next started. Riza didn’t even protest. They continued to move in silence.

By the time the third song finished, Riza’s head was resting upon Roy’s shoulder, looking outwards towards the glass windows hiding them from the scrutiny of their peers. Their bodies were pressed closely together, relishing in the proximity to one another. His warmth was shielding her from the cool night breeze, spreading through her like the fire she always associated with him. Although fire was destructive and unforgiving, it was also warm and inviting. It was protection and survival. Just like they were to one other.

Roy’s cheek was now resting on the back of her head. His fingers had threaded through her own, gripping on tightly. His other hand was a comforting weight against her lower back, keeping her held in place against him. There was no need because Riza never wanted to leave his embrace, but she appreciated his touch all the same. Every time the pressure increased, Riza’s fingers dug into the shirt on his back, pressing into the hard muscle underneath.

“There’s only ever been you on my mind, Riza,” Roy reassured her, his voice low and rumbling through his chest. Her eyes fluttered closed, finally giving in to him completely. “You know that, don’t you?”

Riza nodded.

“I know tonight must have been hard for you to listen to. I wanted to apologise.”

“You don’t have to.” Her eyes popped open when she unexpectedly realised she had to clear her throat in order to speak properly.

“I want to. I’ve loved you for years and it’s never changed, Riza,” he professed. His grip on her tightened, squeezing her body gently against his. “It never will,” he whispered. His head moved and Riza’s breath caught in her throat as he pressed a kiss into her hair. His lips lingered for longer than was normal before he pulled away, placing his cheek back against her head.

Riza stirred, turning her head so now she was facing his throat. “I know. I love you too, Roy.”

The music reached a crescendo before slowly dissipating into nothing.

“Do you want to go back in?” His voice was low and husky.

Riza shook her head. “One more song,” she whispered. She didn’t want to leave, especially after their conversation.

There were three more dances.

#royai #royai fic #royai fanfic #dvltgr-rizaran #gift fic #emma writes

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patricia-von-arundel · 4 years ago

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Danse Macabre: Teaser - Anselma

Summary: A setting of stage: a series of teasers to introduce an upcoming dark AU by @lysissisyl and @patricia-von-arundel. Coming perhaps too soon...

Rating: G (teaser only)

AO3 || Additional Teasers (coming soon)

Danse Macabre Story Blog

There had been storms the night before.

Summer squalls were not uncommon in Enbarr, but they were usually brief and thunderous, leaving damp earth steaming and the air feeling as thick and sticky as melted sugar. Last night’s storms had been unusually long, unusually intense: heat lightning and throbs like the distant boots of some approaching giant, deep and ominous and growing closer and closer under a sky turned a curdled, heaving mass of green-yellow clouds. Then rain, and rain, and rain.

Anselma had felt the oppressive thrum of it, some monstrous manifestation of the same turmoil within her gut. Perhaps Edelgard had felt it as well; she had been excitable all afternoon, full of even more impossible store of energy than she always seemed to contain, a whirlwind of activities quickly abandoned, toys and books left scattered across every room and corridor, and endless, incessant chatter-chatter-chatter. By evening, when the heavy clouds finally burst into deafening torrents, she had become querulous and irritable, and dinner pushed with an aggravated whine to splatter across the floor was the last straw Anselma could take. She shouted, and Edelgard, with the righteous fury reserved for the most faithful of the church but also four-year-old children, shouted right back before descending into a tantrum that faded only with her consciousness.

She slept afterward as peacefully as if nothing at all had happened, never stirring as the wind took up howling and the rain drummed like mallets against the roof and the windows, each thunderclap reverberating through the floorboards. Anselma wished desperately that she could do the same - but instead, she remained restless, and watched the raindrops glisten golden as the sun finally made desperate attempt to rise and shine against a world of dark and tumultuous surprises.

Unavoidable surprises…

She took Edelgard outside, into that fresh sun, nursing her third cup of tea since dawn and wondering - not for the first time - how much more often such times would be allowed: Edelgard in an old dress, too short, and old boots, almost worn through at the soles from having once been a most beloved pair, both perfect for stomping gleefully in puddles or leaving hopelessly smeared with a canvas of mud. The stomping. The mud. The center of Enbarr - a world of palaces and of prisons - could be reached in less than an hour on foot, less than half that on a horse, but for all Anselma truly knew of it, it might as well have been Almyra. But there were children there - of course there were. In a cottage beyond the walls of the city, or a palace, or in Almyra or Faerghus or Dagda or anywhere else: a child was a child. They played, and chattered, and refused dinner with angry vehemence. Would that, for Edelgard, truly be any different?

Or so Anselma tried, for a time of which she had long since lost count, to convince herself. She tried as well to drink her tea - but it had no taste, and her throat seemed to spasm for a moment as she forced it down, leaving her chest burning and her eyes watering and some primitive corner of her mind convinced that she was drowning: ridiculous, all of it, and all of it she fought. Whatever the cause, tears solved nothing.

“Look!” Edelgard’s voice, eager and excited; she had finally learned where to click her tongue into place for an “L” sound, rather than settling for a “Y.” “Look, look what I found!” The tempests of the night before - internal and external - seemed completely forgotten, and again Anselma wished there was some way for her to do the same. She might live the impossibly-long life of a child of the Goddess, and still she would remember every moment, every detail, of the night of such summer storms.

She put her teacup on the windowsill - carefully; the stone was lumpy and uneven - and went to see what had this time caught Edelgard’s curious attention.

Edelgard was crouched on the broken stone pathway, almost to where the tall row of hedges separated their tiny piece of earth from the endless, rolling farmland beyond: the closest Anselma had been allowed to get to running free of Enbarr entirely. They would not let her take Edelgard from the city. She would not leave the city without Edelgard. As far as truces went, it was not a happy one. She had dreamed a thousand thousand times - both awake and asleep - of taking Edelgard regardless of what they ordered, of escaping to another land entirely, where no one would care who they were or of the fate of any chosen children of the Saints-cursed Hresvelg family. What were the true odds that anyone might care to find them, with so many other Hresvelg children who could be burdened with family mantle?

But it was the lack of absolute certainty - strong odds, but not absolute ones - that kept her from doing it, and kept her in Enbarr. She wondered frequently if she would ever know for sure if this was a good decision, or a very, very poor one.

None of these possibilities and speculations mattered a trifle to Edelgard, of course. Edelgard was four years old, and what mattered to her at that moment was a worm.

The worm had found its way from the depths of the earth to the warm, damp, crooked paving stones that made equally-crooked way from the door down the center of the overgrown garden. (Anselma had made a single season’s attempt at taming it, then was wise enough to return to purchasing her vegetables from the market square just inside the old city walls.) The worm was clearly now ready to return home, the cooler night sky having left it to the merciless beat of the summer sun. She could feel the same thing - the blessed break from oppressive summer dissipating almost as quickly as it had arrived, leaving the rays of sun sharp and glistening as fangs; the heat was not done sinking deep into Enbarr. Living within the mud must feel quite good…

“Gross,” Edelgard said - but her eyes were fixated and intent, and there was pure fascination in them, and in her little smile as well. The ribbons holding her hair away from her face - away from dirt; there would not be time to wash it again - were already coming loose; she’d been too squirmy to tie them properly, eager to get outdoors after a single day of rain had trapped her inside. Edelgard had never liked feeling anything was forbidden to her, and grew quickly stubborn if it was, no matter how practical the reason. Anselma knew exactly from where she had inherited such inclination… and also now somewhat better could appreciate the frustration she had once caused in others.

“Don’t touch it,” Edelgard added - a curt, firm mimicry of adult authority held carefully in her voice. “We don’t know where it’s been.”

It always took some effort not to laugh, when Edelgard unexpectedly took on tones that seemed impossibly incongruous from a frame so small. It was perhaps something all children did, but what did Anselma know of children besides this one? “And we don’t want to hurt it, do we?” she asked - a more practical reason for Edelgard to leave alone the poor creature, already struggling mightily to wriggle its way back into the earth.

“We could hurt it?” Edelgard looked up briefly - concerned. “I didn’t touch it!” She pursed her lips and shook her head, as if vehemence might erase any doubt of the truth in her words.

“Of course not. He’s just fine. He just wants to go home.”

“To the dirt.” The disgusted glee was back in her voice. “Are worms related to snakes?”

“Snakes?”

“Snakes are slithery.” Edelgard put her fingers on the stone - carefully apart from the worm - and dragged them in little curls. “Sssss!”

“Maybe they’re cousins.” Anselma knew as much about worms and snakes as she did about children, but it seemed a harmless-enough little fiction to satiate Edelgard’s curiosity.

“Slithery,” Edelgard said again. “Sss. Ssssss.”

“How about this?” Ribbons already loose, and frayed at the ends besides - they were as old as the dress and the boots. And unlikely to be needed again soon…

Anselma tugged one away with more force than necessary - more force than intended - as if she might too loosen and pull from her own head thoughts she desperately did not wish to think. She was lucky the knot was already coming undone; Edelgard seemed hardly to notice her hair falling to her shoulder, much less the force of the pull - she was still dragging her fingers and hissing. The worm, equally unconcerned, continued its fight away from the growing suffocation of Enbarr summer heat.

Lucky things…

Envy of a four-year-old and a worm - utterly ridiculous, and yet there it was. And quickly dashed with guilt: here was a four-year-old, excited to be outside, in fraying ribbons and old clothes, fascinated by a worm. A child. A curious, tempestuous secure child.

How much longer? How much longer?

Anselma dragged the ribbon along the stone, mimicking Edelgard’s little fingers. “Another worm! Can you help it get home?”

“Yes!” Eager, excited - content. Content with an old red ribbon.

For a time, the ribbon occupied her. She wriggled it from the stone, shuffling along without even rising from her crouch, into the grass, then back again - this worm needed several trips, or perhaps was attempting to show the other how this should be done. Then another idea occurred - “It’s time for lunch, worms!” - and Edelgard ran off for the hedges, gathering spiky little leaves and then tufts of grass. She mixed them and made careful, uneven piles, several more than she had worms, real or ribbon - perhaps the snake cousins had been invited to share in the meal.

Anselma watched. Watched, and tried hard not to think: a truly laughable waste of energy. She could still run. Take Edelgard, bring more old clothes; who would look twice at a young woman and a child in worn, ill-fitting things, just two more wretched beings spit upon by powerlessness and circumstances? The poor of Enbarr swarmed like rats in parts of the old city - she had seen them herself, more times than she could count - and very few of the more privileged ever paid them any mind, so long as they were not causing trouble. They could go further, see the world. How long had it been since even the thought of Enbarr had excited her? She could feel like that again, and share it with Edelgard, until they found together a place that felt like home. A safe place. A place where…

“Uncle!” Edelgard’s sudden cry once more breaking through wandering thoughts - Anselma had failed to hear the door, or the footsteps on the path behind her. “Uncle, I made lunch for worms! I found one! It’s here, look!”

“In a moment, Edelgard.” He wasn’t even looking at her - when Anselma turned, her brother’s eyes were quickly fixed hard upon her own. “Good morning, Anselma.”

“Is it?” She made no effort at all to hide the disdain in her voice, only her surprise at his arrival. Why should she hide it? She knew as well as he did the role he had played - had insisted upon - in securing Edelgard’s fate. And he also knew exactly how Anselma felt about that fate.

He ignored her question - as well as the disdain. “Worms? You think it wise to let a child of her birth play with worms?”

“What harm is there in worms? I don’t care a Saints-damned bit about her birth. And neither do you.”

“Anselma…”

“Volkhard.” Petty, puerile - but she also felt, sparking like a flame thought long since snuffed, a defiance growing once more inside her. She lifted her chin, staring up at him with challenge writ quite deliberately across her expression.

He saw it - he knew it well. He sighed. “It would be far wiser, and safer for Edelgard, if you might offer simply a facade of caring. Especially now.”

“I don’t see that it matters. Everyone had made it quite clear that my feelings, facade or no, matter somewhat less than horse droppings do to the horse.”

“You believe they will simply leave you be, no matter how your rash behavior might come to affect them, simply because Edelgard has taken what has always been her rightful place?”

“Her rightful place? There are ten more before her!”

“Not with the Crest of Seiros. The Vestra line -”

She wanted to slap him. Instead, she cut him off: “You’ve said that. A hundred upon a hundred times, you have said that. Say it a hundred upon a hundred times more, and it will still do nothing at all to change my mind.”

Again, he sighed - exasperation, now. “And your opinion on this will change the minds of no others. But that is irrelevant - Anselma, I am trying to keep Edelgard safe. Can you truly continue to refuse to see that, even now?”

“I can keep her safe.”

“You don’t -” But he stopped himself - shook his head. It was not the first time he had almost said more than intended… and just as every other time, the reminder of his secrets, his self-appointed superiority even where her own daughter was concerned, fanned the flames of her defiance and anger from spark to inferno. “There is no safer place for her here than amongst the protections afforded to the royal family.”

“The true danger is within that family. Or were you too busy in prayer to the Goddess to pay attention in your history lessons? You’re asking me to entrust Edelgard to a nest swarming with vipers.”

“She’s being honored by a sacred tradition as old as the empire. No one will harm her. Certainly not her own family - she will be with her father, her brothers and sisters. And the Vestra boy? Anselma, he is six years old!”

She snorted. “A baby viper is still a viper.”

She could hear it, an echo; Edelgard’s voice: Sss. Sssssss. She glanced back, over her shoulder. Edelgard was playing with the twigs she had gathered, arranging them upright in the muddy ground, but if she was listening, it would not be the first time she had appeared to be completely absorbed in something else while taking in every word. Would she say anything later, as in the past she had done to Anselma?

What will happen now if she does?

“Vipers or not, she will be safe,” Volkhard said. He, too, glanced at Edelgard, but his expression was unusually cold and closed - difficult to read. “This is nothing offered to her lightly. If anyone seems to take it lightly, it is you - why is Edelgard not yet dressed and prepared properly to leave?”

The inferno was a sheet of flame across her vision - but had not yet fully engulfed all rational thought. She fought the rage at his words: take it lightly. As if he had not picked such phrasing quite deliberately, knowing her months of refusals, arguments, and blunt anger. She fought it - fought it, and said, “You told me yourself you would likely not arrive much before dusk. Unless the definition of such has changed, you seem to be several hours early. You expected to find Edelgard demurely waiting in satin and braids by the front door, no matter the time of day?”

“I would love to see Edelgard that way, at any time.”

She bristled at that - and certainly, he noticed, but she still attempted to cover it, turning away from him to call Edelgard in. What he would not see were the tears she fought.

None of them would ever see that.

This will not be the end of it.

Words she repeated to herself in silent, determined mantra as she led Edelgard back inside, far earlier than her fevered brain could possibly have prepared for. Repeated as she tugged Edelgard out of her old clothes, wiped the mud from her face and hands, dressed her in a skirt and jacket in Imperial colors - a gift from the Vestra family she had until now tucked into the furthest, darkest corner of Edelgard’s wardrobe. Whatever happened, no harm would be done in making a positive impression on this day of all days.

Edelgard pulled at the pleats in the skirt and twisted the tiny gold buttons with her fingers. “Fancy,” she said. “Don’t get dirty…” She was already dirty - dark crescents under her nails, a stark contrast to the polish and gleam of the buttons. But there was no time for bathing. Not now.

“Be very careful,” Anselma said, and Edelgard nodded in solemn agreement. She was unusually reticent as Anselma brushed and tied back her hair - or maybe the unusual factor was Anselma herself, taking almost-unconscious care in what might be the last time she ever did this.

No… Tying fresh ribbons, new ones, and more tightly this time. A deep breath. For a moment, she held it.

This will not be the end of it.

The little trunk Ionius had sent - it was already filled with Edelgard’s nicest things, all those satins apparently so precious and so rare. On top of them, Anselma put the brush she had been using. It was the only one that didn’t make Edelgard scream and fight any time her hair was touched.

Closing and latching the lid seemed as difficult as lifting the house from its very foundation. She let Edelgard help her carry it to sit by the door, though it wasn’t heavy. The weight was not the point. Edelgard took the task as seriously as lunch for worms: watching very carefully each step she took, her tongue sticking out from the corner of her mouth. She looked more like her father when she was concentrating: the same thinned lips and drawn brows.

Volkhard did not let Edelgard help. He took the trunk and secured it to the back of the carriage - but Edelgard, distracted by the horse at the front, paid this no mind. “Does he have a name, Uncle?” she asked.

Innocent curiosity in her voice - no fear or uncertainty at all. But she had also not feared last night’s storms - very few things frightened Edelgard. A boon… except Anselma might once have said the same of herself. Standing now in the doorway of yet another home not truly her own, watching Edelgard stare up at a black beast towering above her - she felt not just fear, not just the anger she had nursed for so long, but something more like terror.

She could grab Edelgard, still, and attempt to flee. Perhaps they would simply be cut down by Imperial soldiers - could whatever skulked and screamed in an afterlife truly be worse than the most powerful men in life? Or they would escape, as she had imagined so often. Or -

“I don’t know,” Volkhard said to Edelgard - blunt. Still cold. “Into the carriage, now. Your father is waiting for you.”

“I don’t remember him,” Edelgard said - but quite matter-of-factly, and she did not hesitate to climb up the high steps. She required no help.

“You will soon enough.”

No goodbyes, just the slamming of the carriage door and a brief wave from Edelgard. It was likely for the best. Perhaps it was to be expected, considering how little Edelgard knew. Her stoicism in this might prove a necessary armor.

Anselma took a deep breath, and hoped only her own false stoicism showed. There was no one to see it - but that was not the point. She would wear this mask for herself. Wear it until…

Another breath, deep and slow and carefully even. This will not be the end of it.

Small, concrete things to do: clear away and clean the breakfast dishes. Tidy the toys scattered the evening before. Perhaps later scrub the floors. Things. Things to do. Things to distract.

She returned first, though, to the garden; she had left her cup on the windowsill, interrupted from finishing her tea by Volkhard’s early, unexpected arrival. For a moment, she ignored it still - distracted by a flash of red further down the broken path.

Edelgard’s ribbon.

It was a coil upon the stone, bright against drab. Small and fraying, but like some helpless, pulsing creature, clinging stubbornly to life.

The worm had not been so fortunate. It lay next to the ribbon, prone and cracked and drying. Dead. Struggling for refuge, it had not escaped the sun.

#danse macabre three houses #FE3h: Danse Macabre #three houses fanfiction #fire emblem fanfiction #fire emblem three houses fanfiction #anselma von arundel #edelgard von hresvelg #danse macabre treaser #edeleth #(not here #but it's coming later...)

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tsthrace · 5 years ago

Text

My one shots are often portraits of slow, sad moments, and I know they’re not for everyone. But I’m grateful for the people who take time to read them. I thought I’d post my most recent one in full here.

Photo by JR Korpa on Unsplash

Rating: T Angst, Goodbyes 4,073 words

Can’t Stop Loving You

“To Clarke’s big adventure!”

“To Clarke saving the world just like we always knew she would!”

Clarke smiles and lifts her glass. “Prost!”

Mittened hands mute the gathering’s clanking of glasses. The six of them tip their heads back to drink.

Clarke had insisted on a roof party. Despite the December fog rolling in, erasing the usually breathtaking view over the Bay. Despite the wet cold seeping in through the seams, making everyone shiver. Even the white lights strung up over their heads seem too cold to shine.

“So where are you going again?” Cecilia asks. She is Lexa’s ex from years ago, but in the grand old tradition of queer women, everyone is friendly and mostly authentically so. Now Cecilia is with Kai whose arm is wrapped around her shoulders.

“Indonesia,” Clarke says. She looks towards the cooler on the edge of their gathering. “Is there more beer?”

“I know you’re going to Indonesia, Clarke, but it’s a giant place.” Cecilia looks up at Kai. “Will you please get Clarke another beer, my love?”

Clarke flashes a smile at Kai and nods at them as they make their way to the cooler. “It’s this island called Halmahera. It’s five or six hours from Jakarta by plane.”

Cecilia turns her head towards Lexa. “And how are you with all of this?”

Lexa jerks her head as if shaken out of sleep. “I mean, it’s an amazing opportunity.” She straightens her back. “They only accepted three researchers, so…” She trails off and lets herself be distracted by Kai coming back with Clarke’s beer.

“Is it developed? Like, is there running water?” Kai asks as they hand Clarke the bottle.

One corner of Clarke’s lips ticks up in a smile. “Yeah, of course. It’s a full lab. Probably even more advanced than the ones at Cal.” Clarke has her own general practice in Berkeley, but she stayed on at Cal researching rare diseases, particularly Mucopolysaccharidosis type II, or MPS. The disease occurs in one out of every 100,000 people, so when a full third of the children in a remote village in Halmahera were found with the disease, researchers took notice.

“But what about where you’ll live?” Kai’s face is open with curiosity. They’re bundled in a wool hat and winter coat and seem unaffected by the wet chill in the air.

“I mean, it’ll be pretty, uh, monastic.” Clarke shrugs. “But I’ll have what I need.”

“What about internet?” Monty asks. He’s a friend of Clarke’s from Cal and has done his fair share of research in remote places.

“Yeah, that’s the hard part,” Clarke says. She can feel the tension emanating from Lexa who is standing beside her. “It’s pretty remote, so it’s all by satellite and pretty restricted. The lab connects to Boston once a day to exchange data, but we’re not supposed to use it for personal stuff.” Clarke swallows and refuses to even turn her head in Lexa’s direction. “There’s a village about a two-hour drive away where there’s some connection. A van will take us on the weekends.”

Cecilia wraps her arms around Kai and pulls them in. “I don’t think I could do it.” She kisses their cheek. “I’d lose my mind if you were out in some remote jungle and could only talk to me once a week.”

“It’s more rainforest than jungle.” Clarke pounces on her chance to change the subject.

“Aren’t they the same thing?” Kai asks.

“Is she always this inquisitive?” Harper, Monty’s wife, asks Cecilia, smiling playfully and nodding at Kai.

“They.” Lexa’s voice is sharp and too loud.

“What?” Harper’s head spins around to look at Lexa.

“Kai goes by ‘they.’” Lexa’s voice is softer this time. She looks down.

“Oh, right.” Harper scrunches her face in Kai’s direction. “Sorry.”

“No big deal,” Kai smiles and shrugs. “It takes some getting used to.” They turned to Lexa. “But thank you.” Their voice is sincere.

“Monty, didn’t you work in some jungle in South America for awhile?” Cecilia’s voice is full of cheer, but her eyes throw a sideways glance at Lexa.

“It was a rainforest, really.”

A light chuckle fills the foggy air. Lexa forces a smile onto her lips, but her eyes are icy.

Clarke waits until the conversation moves on to look at Lexa with wide eyes. What is going on with you? Lexa looks away and plants her icy eyes on Kai who is joyfully grilling Monty about his time in Brazil.

An hour later, Harper is bouncing from foot to foot in a little jig. “I can’t feel my feet, y’all.” She looks at Clarke. “I’m sorry, but I need to get home under my warm blankets.”

Clarke smiles and hugs Harper first, then Monty. “Thanks for coming.”

“I can’t believe you leave tomorrow.” Monty’s eyes reflect joy and worry. “Be safe, Dr. Griffin.”

“You know me,” Clarke replies lightly then looks down. Her voice gets quiet. “I’ll take care of myself.”

Lexa is standing off the group a few feet, so Monty and Harper throw an awkward wave in her direction as they walk to the door. Cecilia has no time for Lexa’s coolness. After she and Kai hug Clarke, showering her with both worries and well-wishes, she takes the extra steps towards Lexa and wraps her arms around her like a mother comforting a child.

“I know what’s going on,” she whispers. “It’s okay to be upset.”

Lexa feels angry at the tears that prick at the corner of her eyes. She won’t let Cecilia see them, and she certainly won’t let Clarke see them.

“Thanks,” she says briskly then pulls away.

Lexa drives Clarke’s car down Shattuck Ave. towards Oakland. It’s late and traffic is light, for once. Lexa looks straight ahead, her eyes only deviating to check the mirrors. The silence hangs between them like the fog over the Bay.

Clarke is buzzed, not quite drunk. She thinks about turning some music on, but stops herself. There isn’t enough room in the car for sound. Lexa’s face is already tight at the jaw and around the eyes. The smallest of stimuli and she might shatter.

Clarke sighs despite the risk. She rubs her eyes and shakes her head. She’s not made of porcelain. “Do you just want to drop me off?” Her voice is louder than she intends. “You can just drop the car off in the garage tomorrow or whenever.”

Lexa squints, still looking straight ahead. “Clarke…” She shakes her head and takes in a deep breath. Finally, the lines around her eyes soften. She sucks in her lips then lets out the breath. “No.”

Clarke reaches over, brushing Lexa’s hair away from her neck. Lexa flinches away from the touch. Clarke drops her hand into her lap and looks down.

Silence. They pull into Clarke’s building’s underground garage, take the elevator to the ninth floor, brush their teeth and wash their faces, take their clothes off, and crawl into bed without saying a word to each other. Lexa turns her back to Clarke and pulls the blankets tight around her. Clarke doesn’t close her eyes until she hears Lexa’s breath fall into a slow rhythm.

Clarke wakes in the darkness to Lexa’s arm snaking around her belly and up the middle of her chest, pulling her in tight. She feels lips at the base of her neck, working their way down vertebrae by vertebrae. She sucks in a sharp breath and tries not to move—she doesn’t want to fracture the moment. She wants Lexa to know she’s awake and open, but not too eager. She feels her skin rise in little bumps on every part of her. A shiver ripples through her. The very center of her starts to glow. Her body is eager.

There’s something different about Lexa this time. Her hands grip like she’s falling. Her lips linger longer on each inch of skin they find—a desperation that is slow and methodical. This isn’t about fun or release, it’s about memorizing every moment, every curve, every scent.

Lexa pulls on Clarke’s hip, turning her so that they’re face to face. The glow inside Clarke turns into something else, something deep like the middle of the ocean. Dark and undulating.

Lexa goes still, the silence filling with ambient city sounds—tires on pavement, a distant siren. The darkness is tinged with the orange of street lights seeping in through cracks in the curtain. Clarke can make out the dip of Lexa’s waist, the round of her shoulder. There is shadow where her face is, but a quick flash tells Clarke that Lexa’s eyes are open, looking at her.

They don’t move. Their breathing fills the space. In, out in unison. Clarke feels fingertips on her face, light like a draft from an old window. They brush over her temple, down her jawline, over her lips. Clarke can feel the path they leave across the skin—the glow, the depth. She feels the tears at the back of her throat before they make their way to her eyes. She bites her lip, holding them back.

She hears a quick intake of breath before Lexa’s lips on hers, hard and hungry. Lexa’s body is suddenly on top of Clarke’s, and Clarke pulls her against her, the weight of her an anchor. She tastes salt as their lips come together again. Then Lexa’s mouth is on her cheek, her collarbone, her neck. Clarke’s breath catches as Lexa pauses.

“Don’t go.” The whisper lingers in Clarke’s ear as their bodies start to move against each other in a rhythm—their rhythm.

It’s still dark when Clarke’s alarm goes off on her phone. As she reaches to turn it off, she can tell Lexa is gone. Her eyes are heavy with too few hours of sleep. It doesn’t matter. She has two days on planes ahead of her.

She hears rustling from the kitchen. A soft light spills in through the not-quite-closed door. Clarke pushes her head into her pillow and closes her eyes again. When they had finally fallen asleep, Lexa had been wrapped around her, her head cradled in the nook of her neck and shoulder. Clarke can still feel her on her skin. She closes her eyes and lies very still, memorizing the feeling, but when the door cracks open, it melts away.

“Clarke?” Lexa is on the other side of the door, but Clarke can hear in her voice that she’s biting her lip. When they first got together, she’d always bite her lip when she wanted to kiss her but didn’t want to seem too eager. When she was trying to stay in control.

“I’m awake,” Clarke says, her voice scratchy.

“If you want me to drive you to the airport, we should leave soon.” Lexa’s voice is stronger, more even. More distant.

Clarke turns and looks at the clock. 6:30. She shakes her head. “Don’t worry about it, Lex.”

“Are you sure?”

“The traffic on the bridge will be horrible. I’ll just take the train. It’ll be easier.”

Clarke hears Lexa exhale. She still doesn’t come into the room. “Do you want some coffee?” she asks.

“Yes, please.”

The soft light of dawn is starting to trickle in through the blinds, mixing with the light from the hallway. Clarke rubs her eyes before she opens them. The room slowly comes into focus. She lets her eyes take everything in. In the corner, The backpack and two bright yellow suitcases she packed yesterday—her life for the next six months inside. A photo of her and her mom at the peak of Mt. Tamalpais, the Pacific glistening behind them. The dresser where Clarke emptied two drawers so Lexa could store some of her things there. They had talked about moving in for months in the same way they talked about getting married or having kids: someday in some unspecified future.

The last time had been different, though. They were drinking their morning coffee on Clarke’s balcony looking out over Lake Merritt. It had been a week since Clarke had told Lexa she accepted the fellowship in Indonesia, and Lexa had been sleeping over almost every night.

“You should live here while I’m away. Just move in,” Clarke said. “You could keep the place cozy while I’m gone. I’ll pay the rent.”

“You won’t even be here,” was all Lexa said. The way she clipped her words indicated that the conversation was over.

Lexa looks down at the cup of coffee on the counter. Something inside her wants to take it to Clarke black even though she knows she likes it with a half spoon of sugar and a splash of cream. Lexa has made it that way for her hundreds of times. She instead considers yelling down the hall that the coffee is ready—make Clarke get up and prepare it herself. One is passive aggressive, the other simply inconsiderate, especially on their last morning together.

Lexa’s chest glows with a warm frustration. She knows she should feel sad, that she should make the most of this last hour together, but she just wants to skip this part. Her head drops over the coffee and she takes a deep breath. Then she walks over to the fridge to grab the cream.

When she brings the coffee into the bedroom, Clarke is toweling off after what must have been a very quick shower.

“I just needed to rinse off the…” Clarke glances down at the bed, which is a swirl of untidy blankets. The corner of her mouth lifts in a smile that is somehow sad, sincere, and playful at the same time.

Lexa forces a smile back but she can feel how shallow it is. She holds the mug out to Clarke who tosses her towel on the bed to take a sip. The site of Clarke’s bare body stings her. She wants to push Clarke’s wet hair out of her face, run her hand over the curve of her shoulder, but the desire burns off like newspaper in a fire.

Clarke suddenly feels exposed without any clothes on. She sets the coffee down and grabs the towel, wrapping it around her body. She squints at Lexa. “Are you okay?” She always picks up on whatever is going on under Lexa’s silence. Sometimes Lexa hates it.

“Are you all packed?” Lexa replies, glancing down at the luggage in the corner, aware that she didn’t answer Clarke’s question.

Clarke sucks in her lips and closes her eyes. She doesn’t want a fight right now. She nods. “Yeah, it should be everything. They don’t let us bring much.”

Lexa feels a laugh rise up in her. She can’t help it. When it mixes with everything else inside her, it comes out as scoff, but the smile that spreads across her lips is real and she can’t do anything to hide it. The suitcases are huge.

“What?” Clarke smiles. “That’s not much stuff for six months!”

Lexa feels her smile turn sad. “Do you have your headphones? The nice ones, not the ear buds.” She looks down at her hands.

Clarke nods, only a shadow of a smile left. Lexa bought her fancy headphones for Christmas last year. She uses them all the time.

Neither of them say anything for a few moments. Lexa looks down at the palms of her hands. Clarke sips her coffee.

“I need to take a shower,” Lexa finally says and pushes past Clarke into the bathroom.

Lexa’s takes a long shower. After, as she opens one of her designated drawers in Clarke’s dresser to grab fresh underwear, she realizes she may not be here again for a long time. She looks around the room. Her iPad on the bedside table. A stack of books from Half Price on the shelf underneath, only half of them read. Her running shoes by the closet. She sighs.

She doesn’t want to come back here after Clarke is gone.

“Clarke?” she calls, not moving.

“Yeah, Lex?” Clarke’s voice drifts in from the balcony.

Lexa opens her mouth to answer, but the words catch in her throat. This had been her other home for nearly two years. She woke up in Clarke’s bed more often than she woke up in her own.

Clarke materializes in the doorway. “What’s up?”

“I...I need a bag.” Lexa looks down at the drawers open in front of her.

Clarke bites her lip and swallows. Of course Lexa would take her things. Why wouldn’t she? But the realization pricks at the corner of her eyes. “Uh, yeah.” She swallows again and takes a deep breath. “Like a grocery bag or a duffel bag or…?”

Lexa lets out a long breath. “A duffel bag, I guess.”

Clarke nods and disappears. She comes back with a small gym bag. “This is all I could find.”

“That’s fine,” Lexa says quietly as she grabs the bag. She looks at Clarke for a moment, but even a moment is too much. Her eyes shift to the contents of the drawer with a strange intensity. She starts pulling socks out carefully, like she’s handling dried flowers.

“I’ll just…” Clarke can’t find more words, so she slips away. She walks through her apartment. She runs her finger across a layer of dust on a bookshelf and straightens a frame on the wall. She folds a blanket and drapes it over the couch. She rubs a leaf from her monstera between her fingers and pulls a wilting blossom off her Christmas cactus. They’ll be fine. Her mom had agreed to come by once a week to water them and to check on the apartment.

She knew she couldn’t ask Lexa.

She makes her way back out to the balcony and watches the new day reflect on the lake. Early morning joggers make their way around the three-mile track while ducks disappear momentarily beneath the surface of the water. The rising sun catches on the walls of windows curving down the Cathedral of Christ the Light. Clarke narrows her eyes against the sharp reflection.

There’s nothing else for her to do but wait.

Her coffee is gone, the mug cold in her hands, when she hears Lexa’s voice.

“Are you almost ready?”

“Yeah.” Clarke doesn’t look away from the glare of the cathedral. “Just need to put on my shoes.”

Lexa nods but Clarke doesn’t see it. Clarke stands and leans against the rail, memorizing the curve of the lake shore, the morning light breaking on the water.

I’ll miss you.

When she turns around, Lexa is gone. She goes inside and hears water running in the kitchen. She goes to grab her shoes and sees the bloated duffel bag by the front door. She takes a deep breath. She can’t take her eyes off it, the sight of it burning over the lake scene in her mind.

Lexa had taken Clarke’s mug from the balcony. She is washing it and the few other dirty dishes in the sink. She has already walked through each room to make sure there was nothing that could pose a danger from neglect—unplugging appliances and opening blinds. She’s made the bed and wiped down the bathroom sink. As she places the last dish in the drying rack, she knows there’s nothing left to do but leave.

The breath catches inside her as she feels Clarke’s arms wrap around her from behind. She lets herself lean back and wraps her wet hands around Clarke’s, holding them tight. They rest against each other for a few moments, Lexa’s eyes closed, Clarke digging her nose into Lexa’s hair.

Lexa lets out a long breath and lets go of Clarke’s hands. “Can we take a Lyft?” she asks without turning around. “I’ll just take the train home.”

The ride to West Oakland station is silent except for what sounds like preaching in Spanish over the speakers. Miguel, their driver, nods every so often when the preacher gets especially passionate. Clarke looks out the window, taking in the graffiti on abandoned houses, the brightly painted cranes on the port, the fuzzy outline of San Francisco on the horizon. Everything seems brighter against the slate gray sky. Lexa scrolls mindlessly through Instagram. They don’t say a word.

When they arrive, the station is swarming with morning commuters. The train into San Francisco will be packed. Lexa’s jaw goes rigid. I should have driven her. But there’s no guilt. There’s not even sadness. There’s nothing—except a steady, heavy pounding in her chest.

Miguel pulls the suitcases out of the trunk and sets them on the curb..

“Have a good trip.” He smiles at Clarke as she grabs them. The smile is sweet. It’s genuine.

Something boils up in Lexa. How does it come so easy for him? She slings the duffel bag over her shoulder as Clarke looks down at her suitcases, sorting out the calculus of moving them both at the same time.

“How will you get those onto the train by yourself?” Lexa asks, her voice hollow.

“I’m a scientist,” Clarke replies. “I’ll figure it out.” It’s supposed to be a joke, but neither of them laugh.

“I should have driven you to the airport.”

“It’s fine.” Clarke has sorted her suitcase situation and starts to move them towards the elevator to the platform, pushing one ahead of her and pulling one behind her.

“Let me help.” Lexa rushes over.

“Lexa.” Clarke sighs and stops. “I’m fine. Besides, you’re going in the other direction.” She hits the elevator button.

It all hits Lexa at once, like a bright light turned on in a dark room. Her chest is burning, and heat pricks at the corner of her eyes. She feels every breath move through every part of her. In and out. She forces herself to look up at Clarke.

Clarke just shakes her head and looks down. She doesn’t know what to say.

In less than a heartbeat, Lexa’s arms are around her, their bodies pressed against each other, warmth and sadness. The doors of the elevator open then close. A sea of people flows around them in an endless current.

“Be safe,” Lexa whispers. “Come back.”

Clarke just nods and presses her face into Lexa’s neck, the smell of her skin slowing everything down. “I love you.”

Lexa just nods, sucking in her lips, holding back the water threatening to break through the dam.

Clarke swallows and starts to pull away. “I need to go.”

Lexa steps away and nods again. She looks into Clarke’s eyes, blue like an endless storm on the ocean, but she can’t hold the gaze. It’s too much. She presses the elevator button for Clarke. The doors open immediately. Without a word, Clarke steers her luggage in. The doors close before she can turn around.

Lexa takes a deep breath before she turns to the stairs that lead up to the eastbound platform. The duffel bag is heavy and awkward in her hand, but she still skips every other step on her way up. The sky feels even grayer when she reaches the top.

Only a few people mill about on her side, but across the tracks hundreds of people wait to head into San Francisco. Lexa scans the crowd, looking for Clarke, but there are so many faces. Something frantic rises up in her. She rushes down the platform, her eyes darting from face to face. Where is she?

“Lexa!” Clarke’s voice calls over the static noise of the station.

Finally, Lexa spots the bright yellow suitcases and draws her eyes up to Clarke standing next to them. Clarke holds up her hand in a tiny, sad wave. Lexa lets a tiny laugh escape and returns the wave. Clarke’s mouth is drawn in a slight smile, but her eyes betray everything going on inside her. This time Lexa holds the gaze, intent on keeping Clarke with her as long as she can.

They’re still looking at each other when the train to SFO rolls in, cutting the connection. Lexa stares at its grimy windows as it sits for a few moments, dirty silhouettes of people looking at their phones filling each frame. It lingers, swaying slightly as a wave of passengers swarm inside.

The train pushes off. Car after car goes by in a blur. When it finally reveals the platform on the other side, everyone has disappeared. Clarke is gone.

You can find this and all my fic on ao3.

#clexa #CLEXA AU #clarke x lexa #clexa angst #angst

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commandermanifesto · 5 years ago

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The Six-to-Eight Problem and the Zero-to-Eleven Scale

The Rules Committee has long maintained that Commander players should have a pre-game conversation during which those players come to an agreement about a number of facets of the game. (1) One of these facets is how “powerful” the decks each player will be piloting ought to be. Many prolific commentators have espoused utilizing a One-to-Ten Scale by which to measure a deck’s power level, with some commentators opining that a deck will have enough power to compete with decks ranked about two ranks above it, while not being so powerful as to obliterate a deck two stages below it. (2) Applied, a “seven” might be competitive at a table of “nines”, but not so powerful as to be unable to play with a table of “fives”. An “eight”, on the other hand, could contend with the most powerful decks in the format, “tens”, but would leave a table of “fives” with almost no window to victory. (2)

Problematically, the advocates of the One-to-Ten Scale typically cannot provide more than heuristic guidelines on how to evaluate a deck’s numerical rank. There are simply too many decks in the format to place them all in an ordered row, too much nuance through Magic’s long history which can become lost in any foray into specific archetypes, and too many opinions on where the line between one number and the next ought to be drawn in the first place. Many players who would use those ranking systems that do exists are not familiar with the underlying theory of what makes for a powerful deck in Commander, are unfamiliar with a particular scale, or are familiar with an alternative numerical metric. Because of the ample opportunity for ignorance or confusion, many are equipped only to rank their deck according to their own played experience.

This reliance on the played experience in evaluating one’s deck’s strength creates what I call “The Six-to-Eight Scale”. Essentially, because no deck exists in a vacuum, there is one easy way to determine if a deck is powerful. It can perform as well as its peers, it can underperform, or it can overperform. If our scale is relying on heuristics anyway, this particular heuristic capitalizes on the core strength of heuristics generally—ease of application—and seemingly achieves results on par with many of the other heuristics proposed for categorizing a deck the One-to-Ten Scale.

Now let us see how we lose seven tenths of our scale. If we suppose, as many players familiar with the letter grading system might, that a “C”, or 70 percent, is passing, any deck which sits at a comfortable power level, performing on par with its peers, should be a “seven”. A deck which fails utterly would get an “F”, fifty percent. Since nobody would choose to live with a failure of a deck, any deck which underperforms but does not get culled is, at minimum, a “six”. Since most players play opposite opponents of a similar level of skill or dedication, their decks are unlikely to significantly overperform. That is, they will see their decks as leaving some opportunity for the underperforming decks in their metagame to win, but also capable of withstanding a “ten”—the most powerful decks in the format—or at least the most powerful decks against which they have played. If they could not, they would not be “overperformers”.

Because no Commander player is equipped to envision their deck’s power level along the absolute continuum of legal combinations of cards which make up the format, our most convenient heuristic reduces the One-to-Ten Scale to just three points. Six, seven, and eight. When you sit down for a game with unfamiliar players at a Magicfest or your local game store, they each appeal to their played experience in whatever metagame they hail from, and they offer you a value ranging from six to eight. Because you have brought conceptions based on your own played experience, you offer a number in the same range. The difference is not in excess of two, and the One-to-Ten Scale is satisfied.

Except, of course, it is not. The metagame consisting of five new players who are building only from cards they drafted over the past six months is going to have a very different “seven” than the “seven” of longtime veterans who consider dual lands and Mana Crypt standard-issue.

This is why I propose a new system. This new “Zero-to-Eleven Scale” will be based, as much as possible, on concrete metrics. It will be grounded in indicators of success into which cards can be broadly categorized. It is intended as a diagnostic tool to aid a deck’s owner in pre-game conversations but will rely very little on the played experience of the deck’s pilot. Some will require a measure of familiarity with the game, but where that is the case, I will attempt to highlight that need. Others are aided by data generated by simulated play (goldfishing), although an experience player may not need that data. This, too, will be explicitly noted. Several terms of art will appear below and will be defined as necessary. Each point will feature demonstrations of the metrics application using my own decks, but the examples I give are not exhaustive. Less mechanical use of the scale will produce more accurate results.

To use the guide below and place your deck on the Zero-to-Eleven Scale, simply go from one criterion to the next and determine, for each, whether the deck meets that criterion. Then, when you have read all eleven, count the number of criteria you have satisfied. That number is your deck’s power level on the Zero-to-Eleven scale, although it behooves you to bear in mind which points your deck has earned.

Before I begin, I will highlight some assumptions upon which this system rests.

First, the appearance of power can often substitute for power. Players who perceive you as doing something powerful will treat you as powerful regardless of the truth behind that appearance.

Second, this scale does not weigh particular powerful features over others, which means that two decks which meet five of them could have done so using completely disjoint sets of criteria. It is my belief that two such decks would nevertheless seem comparable, but I recognize that this point is the greatest weakness of my method. Nevertheless, I believe the need for an easily applicable scale which creates a greater variety in outputs outweighs this deficiency. If you are worried that these criteria are unequal, know that it is also my belief that this list is more useful when employed as a checklist of descriptions by which decks can be compared, anyway. In-depth pre-game conversations can be had about any or all of the topics which follow, and all of them will be more useful than fielding a subjective rating on the six-to-eight scale.

Third, this scale uses turn counts for certain metrics. These are meant to reflect fairly optimized play, and I believe they would be indicators of powerful activity in nearly any format in which they appeared.

Finally, this scale assumes that even if a deck is built to lose, it is piloted to win. If you are not interested in winning when you sit down to play, that pre-game conversation is more important to have than a conversation about deck power level for a variety of reasons, a point which may be explored in the future.

Without further ado, here is the Zero-to-Eleven Scale Checklist, which I urge you, gentle reader, to adopt:

1. Is your Commander considered “powerful”?

Most players know who to fear as soon as the contents of each command zone are revealed. Certain commanders simply lend themselves to more powerful decks. Nowadays, it seems like it’s hard to sit down at a pod where nobody’s commander worries me. This is not to say there aren’t very powerful decks which feature underwhelming commanders. There certainly are. But the plain fact is, nearly any Xira Arien deck would be made better by swapping her out for Prossh, Skyraider of Kher. For that reason, your deck will earn this point if the Commander has a reputation for being powerful.

This criterion lacks a concrete measure, resting fairly cleanly on the expertise of the player. It relies on perception and reputation, but there is ample opinion available online which can guide one to a conclusion, and most players you meet will not begrudge you asking their opinion, as well. If you just aren’t sure, leave this a maybe and decide based on what the players you are sharing this calculation with believe. My Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck, whose reputation, deserved or not, precedes it, earns this point. My partner’s Surrak Dragonclaw deck does not.

2. Is your deck built around a supported strategy?

Most decks will earn this point. Essentially, your deck will earn this point if there are enough cards printed in the history of Magic to accomplish your mechanical route to victory. Rather than enumerate the many supported strategies in Magic’s history, I will instead offer a few examples of under-supported strategies.

Building around a unique non-legendary card is an example of failing to meet this criterion. Warp World is the only card in Magic’s history with an effect of its kind. For that reason, a Commander deck designed to cast Warp World to create a game-winning board state would fail to get this point. A Commander deck cannot include a second copy of the card, so any further consistency will need to be in the form of tutoring. Should the card be countered or exiled, any opportunity to recast it will require dedicated deck infrastructure. By virtue of your deck’s dependence on a card you will not see every game, the power level of your deck is naturally capped at a certain point. Distinguish this example, however, from a deck that uses Warp World not as its main win condition, but merely as a tool in some token-based strategy. In that event, the deck is built around tokens, not around Warp World. Because tokens are a well-supported strategy, that use of the card would not mean the deck fails to gain this point.

Another example can be found in art-themed decks. For most Magic artists, the cards they have illustrated do not share a cohesive plan, in a mechanical sense. The cards might be individually powerful, but without a cohesive plan, they are unlikely to be the equal of a deck with a mechanically-minded through-line. Even among artists whose style lends itself to certain kinds of cards, the artificial restriction placed on your selections will depower your deck enough to rob it of at least some potential. An enchantment-matters deck featuring only art by Rebecca Guay will be playable, but will be second-best to the enchantment-matters deck featuring any artist.

Of my decks, Patron of the Moon comes the closest to failing to earn this point. The limited number of Moonfolk and related effects left early drafts of the deck without a supported route to victory. However, opening the list up to an X spell theme and including mass mana production effects put the game-plan in firmly supported territory. By the same token, my partner’s Eight-and-a-Half-Tails deck uses nearly every card which interacts with the color White. It is almost insufficient to create a meaningful amount of interaction—but it is nevertheless sufficient due to the inherent synergy between the Sword of X and Y cycle (e.g. Sword of War and Peace) and a low CMC Voltron strategy. By avoiding “shell” decks and decks where winning is a secondary concern, all eleven of our decks earn this point.

3. Does your deck decline to abide by the “social contract”?

Most Commander players are familiar with the concept of the “social contract”. There are a number of formulations, but when discussing individual card choices, the crux of the idea is that the Commander community has implicitly agreed to avoid certain “antisocial” in-game actions. (3) Commonly cited examples include the use of mass mana denial, infinite and/or time-consuming combos, targeted blowouts, and STAX effects. (4) For the most part, the commonality shared by these kinds of cards is that they deny your opponent the ability to engage with the game in the way a player typically expects to be able to—by producing mana to resolve effects. If your deck features one or more breaches of the “social contract”, it will earn this point.

It should come as no surprise that many of these effects, when applied strategically, can be very potent. Timely mana denial can turn an early lead into an inevitable victory. Infinite combos can end a game regardless of the state of affairs leading up to the game-ending sequence. An untimely Mindslaver can foreclose any possibility of recovery. STAX effects have been known to hand the only player prepared for the quagmire onboard—the STAX player himself—a soft lock on his opponents, who he can then defeat at his leisure.

Swearing off these kinds of effects comes at a cost to your decks’ power level. Properly utilized, each is an avenue to overwhelming advantages. If your deck features cards like Armageddon, Sunder, or Mindslaver, is built to win using an infinite combo, or is geared to play as a STAX deck, your deck will earn this point. My Muldrotha, the Gravetide deck earns this point by using infinite combos, Mindslaver locks, and Parallax Tide shenanigans. My Feather, the Redeemed deck, like many of its peers, relies on interactive removal and a combat-based win, and avoids this point.

4. Can your deck pull off an early kill?

Perception can often influence reality. In Commander, this is no less the case. If you can explain a reasonably straightforward line of play which leads to another player losing before they’ve taken their fifth turn, your deck earns this point. It can be through combat damage, an infinite combo, Commander damage, an alternate win-condition, or any other conceivable avenue. Note that there is no requirement that this line of play be consistent, only that it be straightforward. That is, you might play no tutors for your Commander-plus-other-card-infinite-combo, but if the combo can be pulled off by turn five, it will still create a dangerous possibility in the perceptions of your opponents’—danger worthy of a one-point increase to the deck on this scale. Note also that this is one of the points that often reflects opponents’ perceptions of a deck’s power, and is, at least in some cases, somewhat peripheral to the deck’s power level on an absolute scale.

This point is an indicator of power for various reasons at different levels of Commander play. In casual circles, a kill of this speed will be blisteringly fast. You might not win that game, but you will certainly create a strong impression in both the victim and any witnesses to the event. In more competitive circles, this point reflects the capacity to remain a danger to competitive decks. Even if your deck is lacking many other indicators of a powerful deck, the fact that your deck, with the right hand, could kill them before they kill you means that your opponents’ must remain wary.

This point can, on occasion, be earned by decks which can create “soft locks”—board states from which opponents are unlikely to win due to incapacity. Evaluating whether a deck can create locks which a majority of decks are unable to escape can be an exercise in heuristics, but an illustrative example might be the well-known combo of Lavinia, Azorius Renegade and Knowledge Pool.

My partner’s Ezuri, Claw of Progress deck earns this point with the following line of play: ramp on turn one or two, Ezuri on turn three, Deranged Hermit on turn four, Sage of Hours on turn five. On the one hand, the combo can be interacted with; on the other, it must be interacted with. By contrast, my Kruphix, God of Horizons deck is geared toward a longer game of casting Eldrazi titans and other haymakers. It can apply overwhelming force by turn five, but that force will never be lethal without outside aid.

5. Does your deck have “perfect” mana?

Color screw is second only to mana screw when it comes to taking the wind out of the sails of an otherwise exciting hand. Being unable to cast your spells all but guarantees defeat. (5) And while there are plenty of ways to fight color screw using cards of all rarities, clunky means like searching lands to hand and multi-colored lands which enter tapped can rob you of crucial tempo on the turns that matter most—and deny you full range of motion should you need three of one color one turn, and three of another color the next. Recognizing the power of reliable, on-demand access to all of your deck’s colors, this point is awarded to any deck which essentially never has problems with the colors of its mana while remaining on-curve.

Decks earning this point will next-to-never be delayed a turn by a land that enters tapped, will be able to produce three of one color one turn and four of a different color the next, and will generally take as a given that they will be able to cast their spells on-curve. At its most advanced level, a deckbuilder will likely have calculated their mana needs on a turn-by-turn basis and will have selected their mana base to meet those specific demands. (6) In decks with many colors, this will often be accomplished using fetch-, shock- and dual-lands. In mono-colored decks, simply ensuring that your utility lands are not so numerous as to impede your curve will suffice. It can often be difficult to evaluate this point without a lot of experience with your deck, or even more experience with Magic generally, so evaluating this point will typically rely on the played or goldfished experience of your deck.

My partner’s Eight-and-a-Half-Tails deck earns this point by being mono-White and using few mana sources incapable of producing White mana. Her Jodah, Archmage Eternal deck, which relies on karoos and tri-lands, will often meet its color needs at the cost of falling behind the curve because of lands which enter the battlefield tapped, and fails to earn this point.

6. Does your deck aggressively ramp?

It is supposed that the victor of a game of Commander can be predicted by identifying who spent the most mana in that game. (7) Thus, any deck which is more likely than not to have a turn before their sixth where they produce effects worth more two or more mana than the than the turn count will earn this point.

I am aware that is a very dense sentence, so allow me to parse it by explaining why each clause is worded with such particularity. First, “is more likely than not…” means that the deck will aggressively ramp in the manner described below at least fifty percent of the time. Hypergeometric calculators can be useful in ascertaining whether a deck meets this criterion. For example, hypergeometric calculation informs us that a ninety-nine card deck featuring thirteen spells which ramp for a single mana will feature two or more such cards in a twelve card sample forty-nine percent of the time. Thus, a deck with twelve spells which ramp by one and a Sol Ring probably earns this point.

“…to have a turn before their sixth…” simply means that any of turns one through five might be the turn on which your deck is geared for action. Some decks are more concerned with an early Commander than sustained mana production; these will attempt to exploit fast mana to consistently land their commander two or more turns early. Others will attempt to build a lead in the development phase, which they can then exploit in turns six and beyond. The former strategy hopes to effectively close out the game early, while the latter will be poised to dominate the late-game. Successfully pursuing either avenue is likely to increase a deck’s win-rate.

Finally, the clause “…where they produce effects worth more two or more mana than the than the turn count …”, appears to issue the demand to produce four mana on turn two, or five mana on turn three, or six on turn four, and so on. That is nearly accurate. However, the requirement is somewhat more nuanced. Tapping a Swamp to cast Dark Ritual results in the addition of four mana, but only three mana worth of effect will be produced—the effect of whatever is cast using the three Black mana derived from Dark Ritual itself. Relatedly, some decks will opt not to produce more mana, but rather to produce effects at a discount. Sapphire Medallion et al. are a perfectly valid means of working toward this goal—given that the mana savings is more likely than not to put the controller two turns ahead. Cards which offer a means to reduce their own cost should be evaluated with that in mind, but will need to be evaluated heuristically on a card-by-card basis. Obviously, a card like Tasigur, the Golden Fang should not cost a single Black mana—you are probably getting an actual savings of two or more mana if you cast him at that price. By contrast, Emry, Lurker of the Loch costing a single Blue might only be an actual savings of one or so from the retail price of her effects, when you get down to brass tacks. You are encouraged to use your best judgment on this point.

Hypergeometric calculators are also useful for assessing this point. (8) For quick reference, a deck with thirteen spells which put a player ahead single mana (e.g. most mana rocks) has a forty-nine-point-one percent chance to draw five of those cards in the first twelve draws from their deck—the number of cards a player will typically have drawn by the end of their fifth turn.

Because this point begs for unconventional solutions, I will present multiple examples. My partner’s Jodah, Archamage Eternal deck earns this point in an unconventional way—it is more likely than not to cast Jodah on turn four, then cast a spell with CMC seven or greater on turn five. This potentially thirteen mana worth of effect comes before turn twelve, and the test is satisfied. Similarly, my Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck features many, many permanents that tap for two or more mana. By untapping any one of these the turn Derevi enters the battlefield, the mana source can be used to cast another spell that same turn—the deck, more often than not, jumps two turns ahead the turn Derevi enters the battlefield. Finally, Muldrotha, the Gravetide features fast mana, conventional ramp, and a number of tutors for Sol Ring, all of which contribute to the deck, more often than not, playing two turns ahead by turn five. Each of these three decks earns this point.

By contrast, my Ghave, Guru of Spores deck runs very few ramp cards, preferring instead to spend the development phase installing synergy pieces which will begin working once Ghave begins creating and sacrificing Saprolings. These cards, theoretically, all factor their effects into their own costs, so while the resulting machine quickly produces value in the mid- to late-game, rarely does any piece enter the battlefield two or more turns early. The deck fails to earn this point.

7. Does your deck produce reliable card advantage?

It is a simple observational matter that in the standard four-player game of Commander, you draw only one card for every three cards drawn by an opponent. This means that, relative to all potential aggressors, you are disadvantaged by a margin of two cards per turn.

In any other format, this would spell doom for your chances for victory. Because of the social dynamics of the typical game of Commander, it is unlikely that you will need to deal with your opponent’s cards on a three-for-one basis to come out on top. Nevertheless, it never hurts to prepare for the worst and begin to level the playing field. For that reason, a powerful deck will need reliable sources of card advantage. While it is difficult to prescribe a precise metric which captures such a monolithic concept, this point will be awarded if your deck is more likely than not to generate three cards worth of card advantage by the end of its sixth turn.

As many have recognized throughout the years, card advantage comes in many forms. (9) It can be internal card advantage, where one or more of your cards is used to gain access to a greater number of cards (e.g. Divination). Alternatively, it can come in the form of external card advantage, where one or more of your cards is used to answer a greater number of your opponents’ cards (e.g. Decimate). Either is fine for earning this point, so long as the external card advantage proves itself reliably available. Playing ten pieces of mass-removal for artifacts, for example, will mean you can reliably destroy four artifacts by turn five—but if you aren’t consistently able to find enough targets, the card advantage cannot be relied upon for the purposes of this point.

This point uses activity in the first five turns as a prediction for the entire game. Recognizing that this is not necessarily accurate, it is my belief that it will hold true in an extremely large majority of cases. It is hard to envision a deck that is fifty percent likely to create three cards worth of card advantage in the first five turns, but which will then be unable to continue that trend in the next five turns. By playing enough cards that present the opportunity for card advantage that it becomes more likely than not that you will see them in the first five turns, it is difficult to see how the cards you draw over the rest of the game would be unlikely to present that same opportunity. With that said, there are a lot of variables inherent to any attempt to quantify card advantage, and this relatively modest benchmark will nevertheless bear the appearance of high card advantage at most tables.

My Feather, the Redeemed deck earns this point by running over a dozen removal spells and half a dozen cantrips, none of which are lost while Feather is on the battlefield. In an average game, the deck can draw cards and remove threats with no loss of cards from hand. My Derevi deck, by contrast, fails to earn this point. While it does contain cards which I can tap repeatedly to multiple cards in a single turn, they require attacking creatures to reuse, they are not numerous enough to be drawn reliably, and they are not a high enough priority for me to consistently cast them on or before my sixth turn.

8. Does your deck significantly interact with opponents’ play patterns?

A deck that can win quickly is all well and good, but it won’t have much recourse against a deck that can win quicker—at least not without disruption. A deck’s winrate will be greatly increased by the inclusion of spot removal, board wipes, counterspells, hand disruption, and any and all other means of ensuring that your opponents’ plans are foiled. (10) A deck with little besides an excess of answers can fend off far more powerful decks for many turns, and that extra time might be enough to set off a winning combo or grind out a Voltron win. With that in mind, this point is earned by any deck which runs thirteen or more relevant pieces of selective or mass removal.

There are some terms in the forgoing sentence which beg definition. Selective removal takes the form of targeted “destroy” or “exile” effects, counterspells, discard effects which offer a choice to the caster, cards which neutralize a particular card (e.g. Pithing Needle) or any other effect which could conceivably make a specific problem card into a non-problem for a significant period of the game. Mass removal takes the form of “destroy all” or “exile all” effects, effects that force a player to discard all or most of their hand, exiling all cards from a graveyard, stax pieces which neutralize all cards of some description (e.g. Collector Ouphe) or any other effect which takes all or most cards of some description from one zone and neutralizes them.

Based on this description, you likely have unanswered questions. Are “bounce” spells (e.g. Cyclonic Rift) removal? Narrow counterspells? Cards that exile only one or two cards from a graveyard? That depends. The cards which count for this point must be relevant removal—that is, they must remove things that you are likely to need removed, and they must remove them for the amount of time you need them gone. If the tempo loss to your opponent from your bounce spell is sufficient to create your opening to victory, it is relevant. If exiling a single card from a graveyard forestalls a game-ending combo, it is relevant. And so on. Naturally, this means that it is difficult to be entirely certain that your deck actually runs thirteen relevant pieces of removal, and it guarantees that the same thirteen cards could satisfy the point at one table and not at another. For that reason, this point does require some generalized player experience. Fortunately, the average Commander game has enough in common with even the most extreme outlier that most players have some sense for what will be relevant at a completely unknown table.

My Ghave, Guru of Spores deck is built as a control deck, can disrupt multiple opponents simultaneously, and earns this point with exactly thirteen cards. While the deck does not feature any instants or sorceries, the Saprolings and +1/+1 counters produced by Ghave can fuel repeatable removal for all permanent types, as well as discard effects to suppress spellslinging decks. While the deck has a standard setup which I use for most games, I also carry a ten-card sideboard with the deck, which contains card which challenge particular strategies. Given that my opponents are up to the challenge, this sideboard ensures the slots devoted to interaction are not just relevant to Commander games at large, but relevant to the particular game we are playing.

My Patron of the Moon deck is on its own plan full-time. While some Moonfolk have disruptive payouts, the deck is mostly interested in protecting its mana-doubling pieces, drawing cards, tutoring, and threatening a solitaire win at the earliest possible opening. It fails to earn this point.

9. Is your deck capable of withstanding interaction by your opponents?

Perhaps the most ethereal criterion on this list, this point springs from the premise that threatening a win is good, but protecting that win with a Counterspell or a Teferi’s Protection is better. There are lots of ways to make a deck resilient: leveraging mechanics like Hexproof and Indestructible to make your threats harder to remove, having counterspells available to stop your opponents’ removal, or having recursion for when your pieces get removed. If your deck is commonly the aggressor, disruptions to your opponent’s plan (especially their mana development) might be disruptive enough to preclude them disrupting your plans. If your deck relies on your commander to execute its plan, single-body protection for it can constitute protection sufficient for this purpose as well.

It is sometimes difficult (and other times not) to say with specificity what cards count toward this tally, especially where those cards can serve a dual function of removal or protection. The bottom line is that your deck will earn this point if six or more slots are devoted to any combination of proactive protection of your plan and defensive counter-play. Alternatively, commanders who are inherently protective will earn you this point, given that you are running the kinds of cards your commander inherently protects.

My partner’s Ezuri deck earns this point by having a small suite of counterspells and effects that grant Shroud or Hexproof. The deck can usually sandbag answers to shake off a piece of removal or two on the turns where it really matters, and can seize the opportunity to close out the game through disruption on these key turns.

My partner’s Eight-and-a-Half-Tails deck earns this point by caveat. The commander itself is such that the deck will never want for a response to removal that gets pointed at its permanents.

My Derevi, Empyrial Tactician deck fails to get this point. The deck relies on late-game card draw, avoiding the command tax, and efficient interactions between Derevi and token producers to rebuild after board wipes, but when an opponent presents that board wipe, the deck takes the hit right on the chin. Since the deck offers no agile counter-play to the humble Wrath of God, it fails to earn this point.

10. Does your deck have a critical mass of tutors?

Some players have all the luck. It’s tough to compete with the player who always seems to draw what he needs on the right turn, game after game after game. We can’t change our luck, but there’s something we can do to alleviate the problem: run tutors—cards that search for cards. (11) Playing a handful of tutors means that, in the average game, we will draw a card or two that will play as a modal spell with five, ten, twenty, or more modes. Put another way, by incorporating, say, six tutors in your deck, you have effectively made it so you are running seven copies of each card in your deck. A sufficient suite of tutors lets us draw exactly what we need, on the turn we need it. The more tutors the merrier, but if your deck has six tutors which are not mana development, your deck has earned this point.

The exception for tutors which only develop your mana is merely to point out that running Farseek and Prismatic Vista—cards which do technically search for other cards—does not get you any closer to this point. Those do contribute to a stronger deck, but they do so by facilitating earlier plays and more perfect color production. That is not to say, however, that cards that search for lands cannot count toward the six-card threshold. My Multrotha deck, for example, can sacrifice Expedition Map to search for color fixing and ramp, but can also search for card selection, combo pieces, removal, protection for the commander, and pillow fort pieces, as well.

This example is just one case which illustrates a broader principle for this point: general tutors like Demonic Tutor always count toward this point, but you will need to use some judgment to determine which of your narrow tutors have enough cards falling under their search conditions to count toward your six-card count. In general, a tutor which can search for mana development, a way to prevent you from losing, and a way to contribute to your deck’s win-plan is sufficiently diverse to count as one of your six tutors. If your tutor needs to find a second tutor to get to what you need, that is probably fine to count, too. If those lines are common, the mana inefficiency of such plays is accounted for in other locations on this list.

Under these criteria, tutors like Green Sun’s Zenith and Fabricate will count in most decks that are running them. Open the Armory and Trinket Mage, on the other hand, will require you to build your deck in such a way that there are searchable cards for a variety of situations. Ultimately, whether a card is a tutor will require you to appeal to your played experience.

Finally, Commanders which are tutors themselves will earn this point automatically, as long as your search targets make a diverse toolbox, as discussed above. The chance of “drawing” your commander is one hundred percent, which puts you in an even better position than six slots in the ninety-nine.

My partner’s Oona, Queen of the Fae deck is packed with conventional tutors, cards with Transmute, and narrow tutors with manicured toolboxes. It’s stuffed to the gills with cards that find other cards, and uses those other cards to ramp, control the board, and combo off. It earns this point to excess. In a less extreme example, my Kruphix, God of Horizons deck utilizes a number of tutors for colorless spells, creatures, Eldrazi, and so on. These tutor targets are the win conditions, interaction, and combo pieces of the list. The tutors make sure I always have the right haymaker for the job. It earns this point.

My Ghave, Guru of Spores deck is in a color identity which could run many, many tutors. It runs none. Because so many cards I enjoy playing with work so well with Ghave, I built the deck to force me to fit the square peg of any given hand into the round hole of the game I happen to be in. For that reason, the deck does not earn this point.

11. Is your deck a cEDH deck?

It’s no secret that there are folks attempting to “solve” Commander—and they’re doing a pretty good job of it. Anyone with an interest in doing so can find threads, primers, decklists, and videos highlighting the most efficient, effective strategies for taking down pods. (12) This subculture has considered every angle on every commander, has agonized over every card in the ninety-nine, and has honed the most lethal options to a razor’s edge. The most aggressive of these decks will consistently end the game before most decks finish ramping, and the control decks will unload streams of the game’s most efficient removal and Stax pieces as they march inexorably toward their combo finish. This approach to Commander is known as cEDH.

Any of these titans of the format will earn each of the first ten points, or will have a very, very compelling reason for not doing so. Since these scale-busting decks are exceptional, so too is this point. If your deck is, in significant portion, a known cEDH deck, your deck is an eleven-point deck, regardless of how many points it has earned up to now. Since playing a cEDH deck at a typical, non-competitive pod is considered bad form (unless everyone involved knowingly consents to a game of Archenemy), you must have a conversation about your deck’s power level with the table, even if you have made a few personal tweaks to the list or are saving up for one or two of the hundred dollar singles.

If you are at a table of similarly high-powered decks, the previous ten metrics will not help you distinguish between them. If you don’t already know how powerful your cEDH deck is when compared to its peers, you will need to consult a cEDH tier list as opined by one of the gurus of that well-defined metagame. I can be of little help, as none of my decks are even remotely in this stratum.

Having gone through all eleven points, I urge you to bear in mind that this scale’s intended use is diagnostic. It is not intended to convey any value judgments about a deck. It is merely to facilitate meaningful pre-game conversation.

For those curious, my decks rank as follows using this scale:

Ghave, Guru of Spores: 7

Patron of the Moon: 6

Kruphix, God of Horizons: 7

Muldrotha, the Gravetide: 8

Feather, the Redeemed: 6

Derevi, Empyrial Tactician: 6

My partner’s decks rank as follows:

Ezuri, Claw of Progress: 5

Surrak Dragonclaw: 4

Oona, Queen of the Fae: 7

Eight-and-a-Half-Tails: 4

Jodah, Archmage Eternal: 7.

It is noteworthy that many of the decks still fall into the six to eight range. This is because many of them have lost points in the tutor, ramp, and mana categories either by design or because of budget constraints—comparable decks without these factors could approach a nine or ten. More importantly, the scale offers concrete guidance into why the deck is only a six or only an eight. Because this scale has prompted me, I am aware of the fact that my Ghave deck is weaker for not having ramp or tutors. It can get early combo wins, but it requires its draw engines to find them, and it won’t stop you from stopping it. This qualitative description can temper opponents’ expectations before a game begins and provide some context when my deck that’s a “7” goes infinite on turn four.

(1) See https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/the-philosophy-of-commander/; see https://www.mtgsalvation.com/forums/the-game/commander-edh/809264-april-2019-banlist-rules-updates, but compare https://mtgcommander.net/index.php/rules/

(2) https://open.spotify.com/episode/6KmCuH6mvYpdF24dKxbqU0

(3) See https://edhrec.com/top/salt

(4) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=au2FR_q6fh8

(5) https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/magic-academy/managing-mana-screw-2007-04-28

(6) See https://www.channelfireball.com/all-strategy/articles/how-many-colored-mana-sources-do-you-need-to-consistently-cast-your-spells-a-guilds-of-ravnica-update/

(7) https://open.spotify.com/episode/4fTdxRRLTpzqVnXDBr26rU

(8) E.g. https://aetherhub.com/Apps/HyperGeometric

(9) https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/lo/basics-card-advantage-2014-08-25

(10) See generally https://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/making-magic/shaman-you-2008-03-24

(11) See https://commandertheory.com/post/188329252907/quantifying-color-power-rankings

(12) E.g. https://cedh-decklist-database.xyz/primary.html

Originally Posted April 12, 2020

#Commander Manifesto #Magic: the Gathering #Magic #MtG #MtGCommunity #MtGCommander #Commander #EDH #Conclusion #Call to Action

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ericvick · 4 years ago

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Wall Street forecasts just keep going up: Morning Brief

TipRanks

3 U.S. Cannabis Stocks Gearing up for Growth; Cantor Says ‘Buy’

At the end of 2018, Canada fully legalized cannabis, nationwide, for both medical and recreational use. With the incoming Biden Administration, the US is expected to follow suit with Federal-level legalization, or at least formal decriminalization, sometime in the next four years. An exact timetable is impossible to predict; much will depend on the partisan makeup of Congress after the Georgia Senate runoff vote in early January.For now, cannabis legalization in the US is something of a checkerboard. Most states have at least partial legalization, with only Idaho and Nebraska holding out. Eleven states have made cannabis fully legal for all adults; the remaining 37 states have some form of partial medical use, and even Nebraska has decriminalized the substance. Under Federal law, cannabis remains an illegal controlled substance.Cantor analyst Pablo Zuanic recently met with several cannabis industry execs and came back with a few takeaways.”[The] speakers believe that under a Biden WH and Republican-controlled Senate, banking reform would pass in early 2021 and would be included in a COVID relief package […] In general, both speakers believe measured progression in legislation is the best path at the federal level, and expect a version of the STATES act (making cannabis federally permissible) to pass the Senate post the next midterms (this could take place sooner in the event of a 50-50 Senate split and a Biden WH). Other changes (descheduling, federal legalization) may take longer,” Zuanic noted.Prepping for the possible changes, Zuanic has also been reviewing several cannabis stocks operating in the American market. Using the TipRanks database, we’ve pulled up the stats on three such stocks, which show the classic ‘growth stock’ profile: plenty of upside potential, recent strong share appreciation, and a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus. Curaleaf (CURLF)We’ll start with Curaleaf which, with a $7.7 billion market cap, is one of the largest cannabis companies around. By revenue, Curaleaf is the world’s largest cannabis producer, a position it cemented with the acquisition, earlier this year, of private competitor Grassroots. Curaleaf has operations in 23 states, including 30 processing facilities, 88 dispensaries, and 134 dispensary licenses. Curaleaf grows its product in 22 cultivation sites, with a combined 1.6 million square feet of cultivation capacity.Curaleaf’s performance this year, both in financial results and share appreciation, show the potential of the cannabis market in the US. The company reported $193.2 million in Q3 revenue, for a 59% sequential gain and even more impressive 164% year-over-year growth. The gains were powered by retail revenue, which grew 3x year-over-year to 135.3 million and wholesale revenue, which saw a massive 7x yoy gain to $45 million. While Curaleaf reported a net loss for Q3, that loss was only 1 cent per share, where analysts had expected twice that amount.Curaleaf shares are up 85% year-to-date. While trading in the company has been volatile, it has regained all of its COVID related losses from last winter.Covering this stock for Cantor, Zuanic writes, “We believe the company’s scale advantage, ability to raise funds ($1Bn shelf), and continued store and cultivation expansion, all warrant a valuation premium to peers… [Curaleaf] did not provide guidance for 2021, but the assumption is that it would post growth over the $1Bn annualized figure with which it will likely exit 2020.”Backing this bullish stance, Zuanic gives the stock an Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, and his $20 price target suggests it has room for 71% growth in 2021. (To watch Zuanic’s track record, click here)Overall, CURLF shares get a Strong Buy rating from the analyst consensus, based on an 8 to 1 mix of Buy versus Hold reviews. The shares are trading at $11.69, and their $14.87 average price target implies a one-year upside potential of 27%. (See Curaleaf stock analysis on TipRanks)Green Thumb (GTBIF)Green Thumb is a Canadian company that has been expanding its foothold in the US market. While Canada’s nationwide legalization regime gives it an advantage over the fragmented, the US is a far larger market, with nearly 10x Canada’s population. Green Thumb’s products include edibles, pre-rolled joints, and vapes, along with a range of CBD-infused wellness items aimed at the home healthcare market. In the past two months, the company’s market cap has expanded from $3.3 billion to $4.6 billion.That market cap growth has been fueled by a massive share appreciation. GTBIF bottomed out in March, at the height of the coronavirus crisis, and is up 426% since then. Year-to-date, the stock is up 120%.That share growth, in turn, has been powered by strong revenues through 2020. In fact, Green Thumb’s Q1 top line showed a 35% sequential gain, at a time when many companies were registering quarter-over-quarter losses. GTBIF has continued to growth revenues since then, with Q3’s top line coming in at $157.1 million, up 131% year-over-year and 31% from Q2. These strong revenues yielded a Q3 EPS of 4 cents per share, derived from total net income of $9.6 million.In his note on Green Thumb, Zuanic reiterates his Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating, and sets a price target of $35 to indicate a 62% upside in the coming year.Backing his outlook, Zuanic writes, “We estimate that there is at least 20% upside to 2021 consensus sales estimates […] Given the profitability trackrecord, growth potential, and franchise strength, we think valuation multiples well above CPG stocks would be deserved (CPG multiples are ~20x EBITDA on average). Also, with federal permissibility still 2-4 years out, the larger MSOs have a window before CPG or the larger Canadian companies (the well-funded ones) can get involved in the US market in a major way. All this should be factored into the stock’s valuation.”Overall, Green Thumb has a unanimous analyst consensus rating, showing that Wall Street agrees with Zuanic’s views. The stock has no fewer than 8 Buy reviews in recent weeks. The average price target is $30.81, which suggests a 43% upside potential. (See Green Thumb’s stock analysis on TipRanks)Cresco Labs (CRLBF)Last but not least is Cresco Labs, a Chicago-based cannabis company with operations in the medical marijuana sector. The company markets its products in retail stores under the Sunnyside* brand, with licenses in 6 states: Arizona, Illinois, Massachusetts, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Cresco full product line-up includes eight other brand names, offering everything from buds, joints, and edibles to vapes and gummies. Counting all production facilities, retail licenses, and operational dispensaries, Cresco has a presence in 9 states.Cresco has shown strong growth in 2020. The stock is up 48% year-to-date, and there are still another three weeks of trading before year’s end. The gains have fully erased losses taken early in the COVID pandemic.Cresco has posted Q3 revenues of $153.3 million, a company quarterly record. The top line result was $59 million higher than the previous quarter, for a 63% sequential gain. The revenues rested on a foundation of strong retail sales, which totaled $90.5 million in the quarter. Cresco’s quarterly earnings are up from $66.4 million in Q1, a 130% gain year-to-date.Pablo Zuanic notes the company’s retail success in his note on the stock. He says, “Cresco beat our above consensus sales estimate by 23% on market share gains in wholesale in states like IL, PA, and CA, and continued IL retail outperformance… The branded wholesale model (near 60% of sales vs. 25% at peers) and depth (leadership in key states, with wholesale share above 20% in IL/PA) over time could lead to a premium over peers, in our view… As we project into 4Q, we model at least the same share levels per state in 3Q plus underlying market growth. In CA the company is gaining share per store (existing customers) as well as adding new retail customers.”These comments back up Zuanic’s Overweight (i.e. Buy) rating. His price target, of $18, indicates confidence in 77% growth potential for next year. With 5 Buy reviews overbalancing a single Hold, Cresco is our third Strong Buy cannabis stock. At a current trading price of $10.12, the $14.61 average price target gives a one-year upside of 44%. (See Cresco’s stock analysis on TipRanks)To find good ideas for cannabis stocks trading at attractive valuations, visit TipRanks’ Best Stocks to Buy, a newly launched tool that unites all of TipRanks’ equity insights.Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are solely those of the featured analysts. The content is intended to be used for informational purposes only. It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment.

#Forecasts #Morning #Street #Wall

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uas-fics · 6 years ago

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Title: Nine Forty-Five in the Morning

Rating: T

Summary: On your or your soulmate’s sixteenth birthday, you get a clue to finding each other. Stan is 100% sure Wendy is his soulmate, so why does the universe think it should be Butters?

Ships: Stutters

Other: Soulmate AU.

Technically set in the same universe as ‘Three Hours After Midnight’, since I could not get the line about Cartman making fun of Butters out of my head. Enjoy~<3

~~~

From time to time around the lunch tables at South Park elementary, soulmates became the topic of discussion for a day or two. Usually, the topic was brought up in relation to some big event such as a celebrity finding theirs or when someone's older sibling turn sixteen.

Unfortunately, at Stan's table, the topic was most often brought up by Cartman while he was taunting Butters.

"I bet your soulmate decks you in the face, Butters," Cartman said around a ketchup-covered chicken nugget, "for leaving them with your bad eye."

Butters pressed his lips into a line as he reached up and absentmindedly touched under his eyebrow. His fingers traced along the scar that ran through his eye and ended at the top of his cheek.

Butters didn't defend himself, instead turning his face down to his own tray. Something about this always bothered Stan. The very notion of hating one's soulmate was an impossible thought to even entertain!

The bedtime stories say once people's souls were much bigger than they are now, but people were too happy and never left their own company, so the universe split the soul into different bodies, usually in two, but sometimes in three, four, or even more.

The stories also say that the universe saw how desperately people were searching for their other halves and promised them all a clue: on their sixteenth birthday, they and their soulmate would switch one eye. That way, each person always had a little bit of their soulmate.

His mom always ended the story by telling him that when Stan found his soulmate, he'd be the happiest boy around.

If the story was true, then you couldn't hate your soulmate. They were meant to fill up the holes in your self.

Kenny punched Cartman in the arm. "No one would hit their soulmate on purpose, dumbass."

When this topic came up, Kenny always jumped to Butters' defense. Maybe he did it because he was just a good person, or maybe he felt bad for scarring Butter's eye in the first place.

Cartman snorted. "If you woke up one day blind in one eye, you wouldn't be upset? What if you lost your job because of it? You'd have to learn to live life completely different than you do. You can't say that wouldn't be a pain in the ass."

Kenny opened his mouth, then shut it. Butters slumped farther down in his seat.

Cartman smirked. "My point exactly! Butters," he dropped his hand on Butters' shoulder, "You probably shouldn't even look for your soulmate. They'll hate you. It's better you just die al--"

Stan ripped open his ketchup packet and squirted the contents right in Cartman's face.

"Can't you just shut up?" Stan threw the empty packet at him. His voice came out harsher and more defensive than he'd intended. This did not go unnoticed by the rest of the table. Even Kyle, who usually kept his head down during Cartman's ragging, raised an eyebrow.

Stan's face went red. He coughed into his hand.

"It's getting so old now, dude," Stan said in a cooler tone. "Besides, at least he'll be able to find his soulmate easily. Unlike you."

Cartman glared over the top of the napkin he used to clean his face.

Now that the topic turned against Cartman, Kyle happily jumped in.

"He's right, you know," Kyle sneered. "It'll be super easy for Butters to find his eye. The scar makes it distinct. Not like your eyes."

"Hey!" Cartman gripped his hand into fists.

Kyle went on as if he hadn't spoken, "You and Kenny have eyes that are, like, exactly the same. What if you both have soulmates with brown eyes and you end up switching soulmates and your life would be miserable?"

Kenny gasped, a look of worry on his face. "Don't even joke about that, Kyle! I wouldn't want Cartman's soulmate. Fuck no!"

Before Cartman could reply, the bell rang. With eyes narrowed venomously, he stood and stormed off, leaving his tray behind. Kyle smiled triumphantly as he left to dump his tray. Kenny's face remained concerned a moment. He ran after Kyle, probably to confirm that he and Cartman couldn't mix up their soulmates.

Stan stretched. He grabbed his tray and turned to dump it when a warm hand fell on his forearm.

Butters looked at him in awe.

"Thank you," he whispered. "That was real swell of you to defend me like that."

Something in Stan's chest squeezed, but he didn't know why.

He shrugged. "Cartman's just annoying and jealous. You shouldn't let him get to you."

"Oh, I don't, usually," Butters admitted. He opened his mouth to continue, but Stan saw Wendy leaving her friends.

"Butters, I gotta go," Stan told him. Butters clamped his mouth shut and slowly withdrew his hand from Stan. For a beat, he looked disappointed, but his cheerful disposition returned before Stan could really take it in.

He did notice, though, that where Butters' hands rested, a strange warm feeling began to grow a moment before it faded. Stan almost wanted the feeling back, but he shook the feeling off.

He needed to meet Wendy by the door before they were dismissed to class; they were going to hold hands the whole walk to their lockers.

~~~~

A few years later, Stan woke with a foggy recollection of that day in the elementary lunchroom, but it faded seconds after. He laid in his bed, covers pulled over his head. He knew he needed to get up. Today was a busy day, after all.

That night he and Wendy were going on the most romantic date Stan could afford: an evening at the Italian restaurant in town. There would be tall candles and they would drink sparkling fruit juice out of stemmed glasses.

Stan couldn't wait until Wendy complimented on what a good job he'd done and how much she'd enjoyed it.

Ever since they both turned fifteen, Stan had gone above and beyond to show her how much he cared, because he knew they would be soulmates. He'd known since third grade. When his birthday in October came and he woke up with her dark eye instead of his blue, it would be confirmed.

They'd live happily ever after.

Something tickled in the back of Stan's brain. He was forgetting something...

He groped around his bedside table for his phone. He clicked it on and a calendar reminder stared back at him.

Oh, right, today was Butters' sixteenth birthday. It was nine forty-three, and Butters said he was born at nine forty-five, so in two more minutes Butters could truly pass into adulthood and have his soulmates eye.

Stan almost felt jealous of the time he would have to wait. He brushed the feeling aside. What did it matter if he had to wait another month? He already had his life plan ready, unlike Butters.

Wendy would earn her degree in women’s and environmental studies while Stan earned his in veterinary sciences. They would live happily in a little house outside Denver with their pets — and maybe a few kids. They hadn't decided if they wanted any yet.

Their perfect life together was a little more than a month away.

Stan stretched up in bed, wincing at the light from the window, then finally stood. He still had a few hours before the party, but he might as well get up and shower now. Also, he had to remind his mom to iron his church pants for his date.

He shouldered open the door with a yawn.

Just after he took a step, everything around him changed. He stumbled back, gripping the wall, trying to remember how to breathe, and more importantly, how to see.

The world seemed flatter as if someone used a transform tool on a photograph. His head spun, trying to process the world around him. He blinked a few times, stumbling forward. His trek to the bathroom resulted in him bumping against a table he was sure hadn't ever jetted that far out into the hallway before.

He missed the doorknob twice. He used both his hands to successfully find it on the third try.

Rubbing his eye, Stan muttered, "The hell? Am I getting sick? No, I can’t get sick today. There is just something in my eye is all...”

Slamming the door behind him, Stan made his way to the toilet. He sat to do his business, phone in hand, still rubbing his eye.

Kyle was already up and texting him, as usual. He didn’t even have anything important to prepare for but Butters party at noon, unlike Stan. That was just how Kyle was. He didn't seem to understand they were teenagers. Sleeping until noon on Saturdays was a luxury they would soon lose.

His best friend asked if he was up and if he wanted to go play some basketball in an hour or two before heading to Butters' party.

Stan considered this before replying, "Maybe. Feeling weird this morning."

Kyle texted back almost instantly. "You think you'll be ok for your date?"

Kyle only asked because Stan hadn't shut up about the date all week long, and if something went wrong, Stan would whine about it for a week afterward. Stan knew that, but found himself thankful Kyle didn't say it aloud.

"I'm sure it's nothing." He paused then tacked on, "Do you know you can become a fourth depth blind?"

He didn't think he'd accurately described how the world looked to him at that moment, but hopefully, Kyle would be able to understand regardless. They were best friends, after all.

Stan set his phone near the sink as he finished. He'd flushed and began to tighten the drawstring on his pants when his phone rang.

He rolled his eyes before pressing to accept the call.

"Hey — "

"You're going blind?" Kyle cut him off. Of course, always the mom friend, Kyle began to fret at the slightest indication of illness.

Stan turned on the sink to wash his hands.

"No, it's nothing. A joke," He looked up towards the mirror as he washed, "nothing to wor...Oh my God."

"Stan? Stan! What's wrong?" Kyle's voice had a frown in it.

Shaking Stan pressed his stomach against the counter, looking closer at his face.

"No, oh God, no, no!" He whispered. "This can't...no, no, no— !"

"STAN!" Kyle shouted into his phone, leaving him thankful he left it on the sink and not against his ear.

Stan scrambled to pick up the phone. He missed hitting it with his hand, nearly sending it into the toilet, but snatched it before it took the plunge. He stared above Kyle’s call icon to the clock in the corner.

Nine forty-six AM.

Holding it to his ear, Stan whimpered, "Kyle, I need you to come over now. Don't ask questions, just come over and come to my room. Oh no. Oh shit. Hurry, please."

Before Kyle could ask any more questions, Stan hung up.

He crouched down, hugging his knees to his chest.

This couldn't be happening...

~~~~

Kyle showed up in less than ten minutes. When he rushed into Stan's room, he was sweaty from running and had a worried expression plastered to his features.

Stan sat on the old trunk at the foot of his bed, curled in on himself. It once held toys and games, now it held books and old clothes and a shoebox full of love letters Wendy had sent him over the years.

The thought of Wendy made his chest ache. He squeezed himself into a tighter ball, heaving sobs.

Kyle made sure to shut the door before walking over. He set a hand on his back.

"Stan?" He ventured. "What's wrong? Are you ok? What can I do to help?"

"Nothing!" Stan choked out. "Nothing can be done! I'm fucked!"

Kyle sat beside him on the trunk. The fact it still supported both their weight after all these years was a sign of its craftsmen's ship. He rubbed circles between his shoulder blades until Stan cried himself out. Years of dealing with them had taunt Kyle a lot of how to handle Stan's emotional outbursts without making the matter worse.

"I'm sure it's not that bad," Kyle reassured him. "Come on, dude, what's wrong."

Shaking, Stan slowly raised his head and met Kyle's eyes.

Kyle's face blanched.

Inside Stan's head were two different colored eyes, both ringed with red. one was the same sapphire color that had always been there, but the other was a milky blue with a scar tearing through it. The scar in the eye did not extend through to the flesh, as Kyle knew it should.

"Oh my..." Kyle's mouth gaped. He raised his hand, grasping Stan's face to pull him closer. "Holy shit."

"This can't be fixed," Stan whimpered, a fresh batch of tears spring up.

"No, but, um," Kyle wracked his brain a moment, "maybe it's not his. Maybe it's someone else's?"

It was a feeble lie, and they both knew it.

"It's Butters birthday today and it's Butters' eye!" Stan wailed. "We're...we're..." He couldn't bring himself to say ‘soulmates.’

He and Butters couldn't be soulmates, because he and Wendy were! Wendy completed him. Wendy was supposed to be with him forever. Not Butters!

Kyle chewed his lip. He wrapped his friend in a comforting hug.

"What are you going to do?"

"I dunno." Stan sniffled. "Die, maybe? Drink?"

Actually, that second one didn't seem like a bad idea. In the back of his mind, he remembered his dad hiding some of his expensive wine in the attic. If he could get Kyle to leave...

"You're not doing either of those. Kenny, Cartman, and I will do another booze sweep of your room. Don’t test me," Kyle told him sternly. His friend took a breath before pulling back. He stroked his chin in thought.

"Do you want to talk to Butters about this? It's still early, so no one else should be there for the party. Or do you want to talk to Wendy first?" Kyle prioritized.

His stomach turned. Stan nearly vomited on his shoes.

He didn't want to talk to either of them. Wendy would be so disappointed. All those years building their relationship, only to have it snatched from them by some cruel trick of the universe?

Anger began to boil in his stomach to replace the unease. He wanted to be mad at Butters, but he knew it wasn't his fault. The universe chose this fate for them well in advance. So he pointed his rage towards fate and the universe and swore when he died, he and God would have a long talk about this.

Rubbing his eyes with the heels of his hands, Stan sniffled.

"Butters lives closer, but I want to talk to Wendy," He muttered, grabbing Kyle's wrist. He looked up at him. "I can't walk worth a shit because of this. My depth perception is gone. Could you help me out and drive me there?"

Kyle nodded. "Yeah. I'll drive. Let me run home and get my wallet. You get dressed."

~~~~

Stan slumped down in the front seat of the old minivan. The seatbelt pressed against his lower lip. Now the Thanks to the sunglasses he wore, the world bathed in a dark blue tint.

Kyle slammed down on the brakes. The seat belt slipped from his chin against his neck, choking him as he lurched forward.

"Sorry!" Kyle blurted out. Kyle only passed his permit test recently, and gradual stops still gave him trouble. Technically, he wasn't even supposed to be driving without an adult in the vehicle, but both of them agreed this counted as an emergency and borrowed the minivan without asking.

Stan rubbed his neck, sitting up correctly. Kyle flipped on the blinker as they pulled into Wendy's driveway. Her house loomed over Stan like a hangman’s noose. He rubbed his neck as he prepared to be punished for a sin he didn’t chose to commit.

"Do you want me to come in with you?" Kyle asked, already unbuckling his seatbelt.

"No," Stan shook his head. "I'll do it on my own."

Stealing himself, Stan unbuckled and pushed open the door. He marched up. His heart threatened to escape his chest as he knocked.

Mrs. Testaburger opened the door after a moment’s wait. She looked at him with an eyebrow raised. He'd never noticed that her eyes were two different shades of grey before.

"Why, good morning, Stan." She tilted her head. "What are you doing here? It's a little early for your date, isn't it?"

"Emergency," He said. At her concerned expression, he amended, "School emergency. I left my homework sheet at school and wanted to copy Wendy's."

Mrs. Testaburger let him inside, though she didn’t look like she totally believed his lie. With the reminder to leave the door open in his ears, he carefully dragged himself up the steps towards Wendy's room.

The door was open. He walked in and purposefully shut it. Wendy jumped from her laptop at the noise, spinning around. She was fully dressed and ready to take on the day. Guilt gnawed his stomach as he realized he was about to ruin her Saturday before it began.

"Stan?" She frowned. "What are you — ?"

Before she finished, the tears came up again. Stan found himself on his knees with his face buried in her stomach.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!" He sobbed. "It's not my fault, but I'm sorry!"

"What's not your fault?" Wendy pushed him back. She reached to remove his sunglasses. The moment her eyes landed on his, she gasped. The sunglasses hit the floor.

The look of shock, hurt, and betrayal on her face made him want to die even more. She took a breath, soothingly stroking his head.

A few more whimpers escaped his throat, but no words. What could he say to that face?

"Oh, oh boy," she muttered. "Is that..?"

"Yeah.." Stan nodded as he rested his cheek on her lap. "Who else's could it be? It happened this morning."

He wanted her to hug him, hug him so hard that the universe would see it made a stupid mistake and fix this situation. In a feebly attempted, he shut one eye. Out of Butters' eye, the world was nothing but darkness. No, the universe didn't fix its mix up.

Because the universe is an idiot, Stan decided.

"Have you told him?" She asked, voice tight. “What did he think?”

Stan shook her head. "No, I...I can't, Wendy. He...I can't."

In all honesty, Stan didn't know what Butters would think. In fact, he'd been purposely dismissing any thoughts of Butters since he found out.

If he never let Butters' into his mind, then he couldn't start to think about how he felt about him. For the last few years, he tried his best to only think about his feelings for Wendy.

When he was thirteen and he realized that his attractions extended beyond just girls — and beyond just Wendy — he’d forced himself to ignore any line of thought that might mess with his and Wendy’s life plan together. He already taught himself to ignore other girls like that, it wasn’t too difficult to extend that to other genders as well.

Now he focused all that learned ignorance towards his feelings to Butters.

Wendy hugged him to her chest. "It's ok, Stan. I'm not mad at you. I understand." She kissed the top of his head. She tried to hide it in the soothing tones, but Stan still heard the hurt in her voice.

"I don't want this," he muttered. "I don't know what to do."

"You'll have to tell him, sooner rather than later. You don't want someone else realizing it's your eye before he has."

Stan wanted to vomit again.

“I can't. I...I don't want to,” he whispered, shaking. “Wendy, don't you see? It's Butters. Butters is...you know!”

She set her mouth in a line and shook her head.

“No. I don't know,” she replied.

Stan fumbled to find the words to describe what he meant. Only as he thought about it, he couldn't explain it to himself. It was tempting to say Butters was social suicide, but he dashed that idea. Butters had made himself a nice little niche in the social ladder. Not really super popular, but not hated or mocked like he used to be, either.

Even then, Stan knew most people would jump to the defense of soul mates if someone tried to mock them.

Finally, Stan told her quietly, “He's not you. I want you to be with me forever. You’re supposed to be the one to complete me. Not him. If I don't see him, then maybe I can still pretend its a mix-up and it's you and...I love you.”

Wendy continued to pet his head but didn't speak. He saw pity on her face now. His lips trembled. He wanted to scream. Go outside to yell and shout until everything was as it should be. He and Wendy were together forever and Butters was happy with someone else.

Instead, he clenched her tighter to him, trying not to bawl like a child again.

“I love you too, but,” her voice cracked, and so did Stan's heart, “you're not supposed to be with me.”

“Yes, I am!” Stan countered, “I've loved you since second grade. I don't love Butters!”

“How do you know?”

Stan's voice fell silent in his throat. Truthfully, he couldn't answer. For a moment, something pushed up in him. The feeling was familiar, but Stan couldn’t put a name to it.

He shoved the feeling down as hard as he could.

“But...I want you,” he tried one last time. Wendy opened her mouth, but a knocking cut her off.

Kyle stood in the doorway with a frown.

“Sorry,” He apologized. “My mom called. She isn't happy I took the car without asking — and drove illegally.” He added the last part under his breath.

Stan nodded stiffly. There was nothing else he needed to say to Wendy that wasn’t more pleading and begging.

He slowly stood. Wendy grabbed his wrist. She pulled him down to kiss him, but not on the lips, on the cheek.

“Talk to him Stan, ok? Call me if you need me.” She whispered.

“Ok, I will,” he promised before heading to meet with Kyle.

When Stan shut the door behind him, he heard her start to sob.

~~~~~

Mrs. Broflovski stood in the Marsh's driveway with Stan's parents to her left. A strangled whimper came from Kyle's throat when his mom's eyes fixed through the windshield at him. He took a breath, steeling himself before he opened his door.

“Young man! What is the meaning of this?” His mother gestured to the car. “You don't have a full license. You can't drive without me or your father in the car with—”

“It's my fault, Mrs. Broflovski,” Stan cut in as he left the passenger side.

Stan noticed the mismatch eyes their parents had. Brown and hazel on his dad. Blue and green on his mom. Pale grey and black on Mrs. Broflovski.

Mrs. Broflovski covered her mouth with her hands. “Oh my...”

“Wow.” His dad whistled. “Huh. Will, uh, will you look at that.”

At that moment, Stan realized he'd left his sunglasses on Wendy's floor. He winced. There was no way they didn't know whose eye he had. Knowing his parents and Mrs. Broflovski, all the other parents would know by church tomorrow, and probably Bu—

He cut off that thought.

“It's my fault,” he repeated. He noticed how raw his voice sounded and swallowed his spit a few times. It didn't help.

“I wanted to talk to W-Wendy.” A shuddering breath and he went on, “I can't really walk well right now, half blind and all, so Kyle drove me. Sorry, Mrs. Broflovski.”

“N-no, it's ok, honey,” Mrs. Broflovski told him an overly sweet, but understand voice. “We'll let it slide this once.”

Stan nodded and walked past them up the walk. As he passed her, his mom grabbed his arm. He met her eyes before he sighed and shook his head at the unasked question on her face.

Have you talked to Butters?

“I'm going to go lie down,” he said after escaping her grasp.

From the car, Kyle called, “I'll text you later, dude. Um...stay strong?”

He sounded like he didn't know what to say. Luckily, Stan didn't know what he wanted to hear.

~~~

Stan laid face down on his bed for either weeks or hours. At this point, he wasn't sure and didn’t care. He went downstairs only once to grab a glass of orange juice and untoasted Pop-Tart. He didn’t talk to either of his parents as he grabbed his snack, though he felt them keep worried eyes on him the whole time. Even Shelley didn’t tease him when he passed her in the hall.

Stan tried to keep his mind blank. He didn't want to think about the situation. He didn’t want to think at all. It was a foolish idea to think if he ignored it, it would go away, but for the time being, he was willing to be a fool.

A ping from his phone foiled his attempts at keeping his mind empty.

Holding it above his face, he unlocked his phone and opened the Instagram notification. Kenny tagged him in a post.

Cheerful selfie of Kenny and Butters stared back at him. Kenny flashed a peace sign while Butters winked his eye at the camera.

No, my eye, Stan thought bitterly.

The post itself was a generic birthday post, wishing Butters well and ending with “this party is gonna be lit! Can't wait to see everyone there.” followed by all the username mentions.

Stan glared at the Butters in the selfie. If they were soulmates, then how can he be so happy? If Stan was miserable, then Butters should be, too. It was only fair.

In a fit of anger, Stan went to Butters’ profile and blocked him. Then he went onto every other social media site they shared and blocked him, from Twitter to Youtube to the Facebook account he never used, he blocked Butters on every single one.

As he finished blocking him on Steam, Stan let the phone fall to his stomach. He hoped blocking Butters would make him feel better, and it did, for all of a minute.

Then the guilt set in for being childish and petty.

Like before, he reminded himself this wasn't Butters’ fault. He didn't get a choice in the matter any more than Stan did.

After some time, Stan rolled to his side as a change of scenery. His gaze lingered on some of the trophies and medals displayed along his shelf.

With such poor sight in one eye, how was he supposed to play football? Or run track? Or basketball? He had to hold tight to the stair railing just to make sure he didn't trip over his feet. There was no way he could catch a ball or jump a hurdle.

Hadn't Butters played football after he lost his sight? Stan remembered suddenly. Back in fourth grade, when the game was changed to sarcastaball or whatever?

He recalled Butters being ok at football, but exceptional at sarcastaball. What caused them to end that sport again? Some scandal about...

He flushed all the way up to his ears then pulled his pillow over his face.

Why, why did his soulmate have to be Butters?

Stan lowered to his pillow under his chin. He tried to shoot a text to Kyle but kept pressing the wrong letters. It took him nearly a half a minute to finally fix all his mistakes and make the text readable.

“Are you at the party?” He sent.

Five minutes later, Kyle replied, “Yeah. Are you ok?”

“Sure,” Stan responded. “Did you see Butters? Did he have my eye?”

He winced at his question, but sent the whole text. It was stupid, but he needed confirmation.

“Yes. It's yours.” came the simple answer.

Stan looked at the cursor bar, debating what to say.

He typed out “did he say anything about me?” then deleted it. Next, he typed, “does he know I'm his soulmate?” He deleted that too. Before he could finish his third attempt, Kyle texted him.

“I told him you were sick and couldn't make it. He looked disappointed.”

Stan frowned. Was Butters feeling that way because they were soulmates and the universe was forcing him to? No, Stan shook his head at the thought, that’s just how Butters was. He was a nice guy and Stan’s friend. Of course, he’d be sad he didn’t show on his big day.

Would I be disappointed if it was the other way around? He thought on that a moment.

Would he? He and Butters weren’t best friends, not like he and Kyle, but somehow Stan felt that if Butters didn’t show up to something Stan invited him too, even a big party like his sixteenth birthday, he would be disappointed, at least, a little bit.

“Thanks for covering for me.”

A couple of minutes, then “NP. Call me if you need anything.” came in reply. Stan was about to shut his phone down and continue staring at the ceiling when another text came.

He lifted his phone to check, assuming it was from Kyle, but was instead greeted with Butters’ smiling seventh-grade face looking back at him from the message icon.

“Hey! I heard you were sick. :^( I hope you feel better soon. If you’d like, I’ll save you a piece of cake. :^)” Butters said.

For a moment, he felt scared. In his mind, he knew his knee jerk reaction should have been to throw the phone across the room to avoid talking to Butters, but it wasn’t. Instead, he felt that same warm feeling again. His thumb moved of its own accord, pressing Butters’ icon to bring up the full picture.

The start of puberty was weird for everyone in his class: pimples, voices cracking, growths spurts, hair showing up all over, limbs not growing in tune with everything else.

Stan had been aware of that from the day Kenny’s voice suddenly dropped in the middle of a conversation at the bus stop.

Butters was no exception to the curse of hormones.

In seventh grade, he looked like a brick on stilts: long, thin legs, but a compact, almost rectangular, torso. Even on a good day, he had pimples on his cheeks and forehead and, not unlike Stan himself, it took a little while for the concept of personal hygiene to really kick in as an everyday task.

Stan stared at the picture, unsure of the feeling in his chest, then he opened Instagram and went to Butters’ profile. He unblocked him after a second’s consideration, then started scrolling.

He didn’t stop until he hit the very bottom, then slowly made his way up. Through years of photos, Stan watched Butters grow up before him.

He smiled to himself a few times when he saw photos of any of the phases Butters went through: Paladin Butters, Professor Chaos, little league and the other sports, all the way up to his current extracurriculars, choir and cheer squad.

For some reason, Stan felt happy seeing all these pictures — the proof of Butters growing up alongside him.

When he finally got back to the top, his heart skipped a beat.

The newest photo was of Butters and Clyde, toasting pizza slices to the camera. Stan’s sapphire colored eye looked back at him from Butters’ face.

This time, the knee jerk reaction to throw the phone took hold. It hit the carpet and slid until the phone half-disappeared under a pile of clothes. He almost hoped he broke it, but he didn’t get up to check. Instead, he let out a cry of frustration.

Someone knocked on the door.

“Stan? Are you alright?” his mom asked.

“No. No, I’m fucking not, Stan groaned, burying his face in the sheets.

The door opened and two sets of feet gently padded in. The bed sunk down before his mom put a hand on his shoulder. He turned towards them, only to realized that he couldn’t see them on that side, so he sat up.

His dad set a hand on his mom’s back. They both wore the same, sympathetic smile.

“Your mother and I were talking,” his dad started, “and we want you to know we’re here for you if you need us.”

Stan shrugged in reply. “I don’t want this,” he muttered. “I want to stay with Wendy. I don’t love — ” his voice cracked, “I do not love Butters.”

His dad chewed his lip then asked, “And how do you know you don’t?”

Stan glared. “I’ve been in love. I love Wendy, and I don’t feel that way about him.”

Neither of them looked convinced, but Stan wasn’t surprised. They never took his feelings seriously.

He focused his gaze on the Nike logo on his socks.

“Well, Stan,” his mom put his hand on his knee and squeezed, “you haven’t talked to him since he turned sixteen, have you? Soulmates are complicated. Maybe your feelings will change.”

“Or,” his dad cut in, “maybe you’re not in love love with him. You know your Uncle Jimbo and Ned are soulmates, and their just good friends.”

Stan’s head snapped up. He stared at his dad with wide eyes.

“Oh my...that’s it. Friend soulmates! That has to be it.” A smile spread across his face. “How could I be so stupid?” He hit his forehead with the heel of his palms. “Butters is straight. He couldn’t be interested in me like that anyway! Everything makes sense now. Thank you, thank you!” Stan threw his arms around his mom’s shoulders, then his dad’s.

With that, he scrambled to his feet and started towards the door. “I need to go take a shower. I love you, Mom and Dad. Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

Finally, his life plan was back on track.

~~~~

Chapter 2

#south park #sp stutters #stan marsh #butters stotch #fanfiction #daul shot #multi chapter #sp stan #sp butters #soulmate au

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dreamofcentipedes · 6 years ago

Text

Red Lotus Blooms: 5 - A Rude Wind

Summary: A monster is forged in flame. As light burns out, red leaves unfurl. Tatara’s destiny is entwined with another: this is his story.

Characters: Kousuke Houji

Rating: Teen Words: 9,902 Link to AO3

Link to Table of Contents.

A/N: Sorry for the wait, but seeing as this chapter is almost as long as all the rest combined, I hope it’s worth it!

Small mistake last chapter: I referred to the “1st Ward Headquarters” when it should be the “1st District Headquarters” as Beijing is divided into districts, not wards.

Something was carried in the wind. Something sharp and altogether unpleasant. That was Houji’s impression when he first left the aeroplane to feel the Chinese air blow rebelliously at his face, as if the nation was rejecting him from the start. But he did not come here for leisure time. He was here to make war, or rather, to end it. He was being dropped into the middle of an ongoing battle which the Chinese CCG as an entity entire felt unequipped to face. So they had requested the aid of the Japanese CCG. And the Japanese CCG had requested him.

“Special Class, if you don’t mind me asking – why me? Beyond my familiarity with the language, I don’t see why…”

Yoshitoki Washuu gave one of his traditionally gentle and reassuring smiles. “You are overly modest, First Class Houji. First Class Mado has recommended you in the strongest possible terms, and his intuition has proven time and time again to be nothing to scoff at. As for your achievements, well, they speak for themselves. I don’t think the Clowns will dare raise their heads again after the punishment you put them through.”

Houji could not help but give a small smile at the praise. “Thank you for your kind words. But if the scale of the threat is truly what the reports have indicated, might it not be best to send in someone more experienced? I’m still only a First Class Investigator.”

“Houji, you are only still a First Class Investigator because the promotion ceremony would delay this expedition. You are well worthy of the Associate Special Class rank already. And after this, who knows?”

Houji put his hand thoughtfully to his chin. To be promoted so rapidly, even beyond his mentor, First Class Mado…it felt wrong, somehow, as though he did not deserve it. He opened his mouth to offer another polite objection, when –

“Or do you not think you can do it?” Yoshitoki asked him, his eyes piercing and the corner of his mouth smirking gently upright in challenge.

Houji closed his mouth, and his brow furrowed. Yes, this was a mission he was being entrusted with, after all. He would not fail. “That is not so, Special Class Washuu. If this is truly your wish, then I mean to carry it out to my utmost ability. I will not fail you.”

“Then it is decided.” Yoshitoki chuckled.

And so, when all the paperwork was processed, Houji found himself on a jet plane to Beijing. His journey was suffused with doubt. How could any single person possibly turn the tide for them? The enormity of Chi She Lian’s forces made the Clowns live up to their name – a practical joke next to an organisation of this apparent discipline and efficiency. Conservative estimates calculated that they must be ruling over two thirds of the ghouls in their capital. As he watched the barren mountains loom up underneath him like a grasping hand from the underworld, he considered what his future might hold, or whether he would even have one. How long would he be here, exactly? One wrong move, and it could be forever.

He was met at the airport by a tall, wiry fellow with thick-rimmed glasses and a solemn countenance. He introduced himself as Jiang in a voice that mumbled from the depths of the earth.

“Are you the investigator in charge of this mission?” Houji asked after introducing himself, hoping his doubt wouldn’t show in his voice.

“Ah, no, perish the thought.” Jiang responded in a completely even tone. “That would be Special Class Wu. I’m something of a personal assistant to her, in an unofficial capacity.”

Her? Houji’s ears pricked up. He reminded himself that he ought not be surprised after witnessing First Class Aura’s excellence in the field. Times were changing, and for the better. Still, to have reached Special Class already – China must either be a very modern nation, or this Wu must have broken the glass ceiling with an overwhelming force of talent.

“I see. Where is Special Class Wu now?”

Jiang gave an American-style shrug. Houji silently bristled at the brazen informality, but evidently Jiang must have noticed regardless.

“Ah, forgive me. You are a young man. The youths around the office tell me I need to “loosen up”. Their words. I try to imitate them occasionally. I see you are a man of class, and will not perform such indiscretions again.”

His voice did not sound apologetic, though, it was the same flatline he said everything else in. Neither could Houji see how their ages were especially far apart. In the first place, none of this was even remotely important to the topic at hand. It had only been an hour or so after landing, and already Houji had a bad taste in his mouth.

“Special Class Wu is…well, Special Class Wu is Special Class Wu. She is, how would you put it, erratic. Likes to do things on her own terms. I don’t think you’ll like her.”

Houji put a mental hand to his forehead. He was starting to see why their investigation wasn’t getting anywhere. Breathing out an internal sigh, he told himself to reserve his judgement. For all he knew these people were the same kind of eccentric geniuses as Kureo Mado, and he had worked alongside him splendidly. For now, he reminded himself that he was the outsider here. First and foremost, he had to learn from them.

“Special Class Wu…” Jiang mused, looking off somewhere into the distance. “Hm. Haven’t said that in a while.”

Houji was now seriously worried. “You haven’t seen her in that long?”

“Oh no, she could hardly do without her pet monkey.”

…Was he referring to himself that way?

“It’s just that, no-one really calls her by that name.”

“What do they call her by?”

Jiang gave the dullest snicker Houji had ever heard. “Well, it’s…I think it’s best you met her first. Then you’ll understand it. Well, without further ado, I’ll take you to our First Ward HQ.”

With that, Jiang walked off to the escalator that would take him to the car park. Houji followed him with a sceptical eye.

It was Houji’s first time in Beijing. He had been to China before on school trips offered by the Academy Junior School for those taking the Chinese language elective, but never to the capital. As he watched the city roll by outside the car window in the evening light, it very much reminded him of Tokyo. The same great illuminated monuments to business and commerce and prosperity stood tall and proud in the skyline, while the more modest but nonetheless decent housing units rushed by in front of them. The same sense of cramp, the same thorough urbanity. Yet there was still a great scent of ‘difference’ in the air: not so palpable as the hostile wind that had greeted him at the landing zone, but the slight sense of unease any unfamiliar territory might give you, digging up the instincts of the ancient hunter-gatherer unsure whether predators might be lurking round the corner. Only Houji was sure. He was here to fight them.

The 1st District Headquarters was, as Houji well expected from Tokyo’s precedent, a gargantuan building with the same slick futuristic sheen common to the CCG style in every country. Even here, however, the sense of difference pervaded. He only had to enter the building to see a brief array of the faces of overtime workers finally heading home – but none of them he knew, and though he understood their chatter, it did not come naturally to him.

The layout was also different, and somewhat counterintuitive, but Jiang was there to lead him to the Information Desk where he recorded his arrival and was filled in on the bare bones of organisational detail, as well as the location of the flat they have procured for him. As a ‘guest of honour’, so to speak, Houji was flattered he would be given his own private accommodation rather than a crowded barracks that a larger, lower-ranking force might have to deal with. A fat file was slapped on the counter in front of him at the end of their debriefing with his name written in kanji on a large post-it-note. The case files for Chi She Lian, he presumed.

That was it for today, Jiang told him, and he expected to see him the next day at 9AM sharp. Houji asked if Special Class Wu would be joining them. Jiang made as if to shrug, stopped himself, and settled for an enigmatic and unhelpful “We’ll see”. Sighing when he was out of sight, Houji used the keys he was given to unlock his temporary vehicle and drive to his temporary home, which was comprehensively decent for all intents and purposes.

The next day, he arrived at 9AM sharp, not so much because of Jiang’s warning but because of his inherent punctuality. Jiang himself arrived fifteen minutes late. Houji, pursing his lips, spent the beginning of this apparent break trying to see if he could find a female investigator among his fellow punctual investigators, but it was as male as his Junior Academy locker room. Where exactly was he supposed to look to for leadership? As he let out another covered sigh, he noticed something.

All the eyes in the room were on him. Not subtly, or flickeringly, as any stranger to a workplace might expect, but earnestly and expectantly.

Could it be that they were looking to him for leadership?

It would make sense. He had been assigned this mission on a condition of parity with the leaders of the Beijing team. And it seemed that neither the squad leader nor her self-proclaimed monkey intended to offer any leadership of their own, so that only left him.

Houji stood up from his allocated office desk and bowed.

“I’m First Class Kousuke Houji, an investigator from Tokyo. I’m here to assist with the Chi She Lian case. I look forward to working with you.”

The frost of tension slowly but surely began to melt, as they began to approach him and make conversation with him. They seemed to be truly grateful to have him – even relieved, somewhat. They began asking him a whole host of questions about the case which Houji, having only read the case files the night before, felt woefully ill-equipped to answer; yet they seemed to appreciate what suppositions he could offer anyway and nodded enthusiastically.

It was around this time that Jiang showed up. As soon as he entered the room the chatter died down and the investigators buried their heads back into their cubicles. Houji wondered at this man who could simultaneously break the rules and display the utmost impertinence and yet send his own subordinates into such a pitiful display of submission. He looked behind Jiang’s shoulder, but there was no female investigator behind him.

It seemed Jiang had glimpsed the commotion before his entry into the room, as he gave Houji a side-eye and sardonically congratulated his popularity. From that point onwards, the real work began – or so Houji thought. They laid out the essentials of the case, zoned in on recent potential evidence and suspicious happenings, went through reports of alleged sightings of the man in the red iron mask, and sorted the believable from the spurious with more or less unanimity according to Jiang’s line. If lacking a certain creativity, it was typical, solid investigation work, and Houji was briefly uplifted at the genuine competence of the division.

However, there was one thing that unnerved him throughout the process and that was confirmed to him at the day’s end, after Jiang dashed off and the team extended an invitation for Houji to join them for a meal and some drinks. Flattered by their ready acceptance of him, Houji accepted in turn, and, at the Dim Sum restaurant around the corner, he got to know some of their real thoughts about the leadership and the case as a whole.

It transpired that the work day he had experienced, which would have been a perfectly respectable starting point, was the same work day that they endured week in and week out. They went over the same evidence and same arguments on a daily basis, with a new dead-end lead cropping up maybe once in a few months. The lack of enthusiasm Houji had noticed from everyone at the meeting apart from himself was beginning to make much more sense: the investigation into the biggest ghoul threat Beijing had faced in recent history was proceeding at the pace of a sea slug. Houji had expected complications – they wouldn’t have called him in, otherwise – but the situation was far worse than the reports had dared to say, presumably to preserve the reputation of the Chinese CCG. No wonder they had been so pleased to see him.

Apparently, it had not always been this way. There was a time – two years before – when they were almost certain that they had Chi She Lian in their sights. One more slip-up and they could nail them to the wall. But the final, damning piece of evidence never showed up. Their leads tailed off into oblivion, and to that day no-one was quite sure what happened. The best they could come up with in the end was: “Guess they realised they were getting sloppy.”

Since then, their material had been frustratingly sparse. Even while large-scale turf wars had undoubtedly been breaking out, the only information they’d managed to collect from the battle scenes concerned the ghoul groups decimated by what they assumed had to be Lian: and nothing about Lian themselves. All of a sudden this enormous organisation had become completely invisible, with what seemed to be an uncanny dedication to erasing all traces of their presence, save the corpses of their enemies. The passion of two years ago was extinguished: now even Jiang, who had been the soul of passion back in the day, could not summon the will to show up to work on time.

Houji struggled to picture this image of Jiang, but they had enough mysteries on their hands already. There was one mystery that was bothering Houji the most.

“Was it the same way for Special Class Wu?”

His team blinked at him for a moment.

“Special Class – ah, you mean – well – can we call her that here?”

“We call her that to her face, in the office.” Another responded. “Everyone does. She’s taken it on as a badge of pride.”

“Well yes, but with First Class Houji…”

“It’s alright.” Houji interjected. “I won’t make a fuss, whatever it is.”

One swallowed before taking a sip of his drink, and then swallowed again.

“We call her – ah – we call her the Whale.”

Houji instinctively frowned, and his companions looked bashful.

“The Whale? Why?”

“Well, um, it’s really best you see her yourself. She likes it, though. The whale swallows everything in its path, she says. Ah, but she’s not like Jiang. She’s the only one who’s still keen on the case. Obsessively so, if it’s off the record.”

The more answers he got about this Wu, the more questions he had. It was an entire month of the same tiresome and unproductive schedule before he had some of those questions answered. On that day, finally, Wu came to the office.

No-one in their group had any idea she was coming. So when Jiang arrived even later than usual with the famous investigator in tow, chaotically the room scrambled into order. When he saw her, as was promised, Houji understood that peculiar nickname.

Special Class Wu was a large woman. Excessively so. Although Houji would never say such a thing out loud, to classify her as ‘morbidly obese’ would not be an exaggeration. She was also an excessively old woman, far older than anyone he had seen still in active duty in the CCG. She seemed well past even retirement age, pushing or even beyond seventy. And Houji could not help but think: how could this person possibly be a ghoul investigator?

He could understand if she was in the upper brass participating by command alone, like their elderly Chairman Tsuneyoshi Washuu. But being an investigator required an enormous degree of physical activity that someone of her age and fitness could not possibly possess. How on earth could she have reached the rank that she did – and as a woman, as well, starting out in as patriarchal a time as what must have been the 1950s or 60s? It was truly remarkable. The only answer Houji could think of was nepotism.

As Houji pondered all this he abruptly remembered his manners, and stood up and bowed.

“Do I have the honour of speaking with Special Class Wu? My name is Kousuke Houji, a First Class Investi-“

“Yes, yes, yes,” she drawled in a raspy but imposing voice, “You’re that Japanese greenhorn we asked for, aren’t you? Can’t imagine anyone else in this office taking on the case. Well, more fool them.”

Greenhorn? Not even Jiang had prepared Houji for this. She walked right on past him with slow and heavy steps before easing herself into her chair by the largest desk at the end of the room, which had been gathering dust since before Houji had arrived. She swung her briefcase onto the table and rummaged through its contents while the rest of the room looked on in awkward silence. Eventually she produced a plastic evidence bag containing what looked like photographs. Pulling at the seal with her wide fingers, she tipped over the bag and let them flutter onto the desk’s surface.

“Yahtzee.” She celebrated with an offputting grin stretching the corners of her wide wrinkled face, black eyes glinting beneath miniature spectacles and framed by choppy and tangled silver hair.

The room was still, before Wu impatiently called out: “Well, what are you waiting for, come see, come see!” Jiang seemed to already know and hung back with just a hint of satisfaction, but everyone else gradually inched closer to the photographs in question.

“This is…” Houji began.

The photographs displayed the scowling jowls of a large man in a white robe tinged with red flames. With all the photos together, his face was fully in view.

“This is,” Wu finished, “Yun Tao. A janitor at the Changping State Primary School, or so my knowledgeable friends at the registry tell me.”

A janitor at a primary school…is a Chi She Lian ghoul? Houji’s stomach felt queasy.

“Oh, don’t be so squeamish, Kousuke, if he was dumb enough to eat the children we’d have caught him years ago. Anyway, I suggest we pay our new friend a little visit and get some real information. What do you say?”

It was certainly the breakthrough they direly needed. But why was this person he only met a few minutes ago calling him by his given name, exactly? Mado’s “Houji-kun” took some getting used to, but this was something else.

Houji interrupted the excited hum of his colleagues to pose a question to the Special Class:

“Special Class, may I ask why you did not delegate any aspect of this investigation to your team? Either in taking the photos, or in matching the face to the name?”

“You’d slow me down.”

She didn’t hesitate for a second.

“Like you’re doing now. Well, are we going to catch this rat or not?”

The whole team left in immediate haste to stake out the school grounds, lying in wait for when Tao might leave for his lunch break. At around one o’clock they cut him off at a deserted street corner, and told him they’d like to talk. Tao was not willing.

Before they could draw their quinques, a bikaku was already swinging at them and making a mad dash back down the street. His speed could not match Houji’s, however, and he descended on him from above with his Iitsu, matching him blow for blow before quickly overpowering him and levelling his blade at the ghoul’s throat. His colleagues erupted into a cheer, to which Houji let himself feel a little pride, before asking the ghoul if he was willing to talk now.

The ghoul spat in his face.

Houji gritted his teeth in frustration. It would feel an atrocious waste to have to kill his first lead in a month without getting anything out of him. He hesitated before hearing the thunderous footsteps behind him, and the monstrous slap on his back.

“Don’t worry Kousuke, I’ll take it from here.” The Whale told him with a grisly smirk, and stomped on the ghoul right on a certain vulnerable point that made Houji have to look away.

After Houji left the screaming ghoul and returned to his co-workers, he watched her take out a bikaku knife from her briefcase, and proceed to do something to the ghoul that he couldn’t quite make out from behind her gigantic back. From the ghoul’s screams, however, he could take a good guess. It was distasteful - but it was a ghoul, he supposed. His colleagues had similarly awkward expressions, save for Jiang, who was cool as a wintry breeze.

After at least twelve minutes of this, there was one final yelp from the ghoul before it fell completely silent. As Wu walked away, heaving a satisfied sigh, Houji could see a multitude of bloody sores in the ghoul’s body and finally in its forehead.

“It’s gonna be a long day, boys. He didn’t know anything about the identities of the leadership, but he did know that there’ll be a general meeting at an abandoned warehouse in Huangdichuan Wharf at midnight tonight, and it would be a most terrible shame if it were interrupted. Rest up while you can.”

There was no time to organise a full-scale operation, so rather than taking on the entire mass of ghouls who appeared, it was decided that the mission would be focused on reconnaissance and, if possible, capture or assassination of the leadership. It was a mission their group of twenty-odd people would be handling alone. To prepare for whatsoever may come, they changed into their battle gear, black and inconspicuous with grey pads protecting their chests, knees and shins.

Houji was unsure how to feel about the mission. After hearing the perspectives of the men themselves, they were not incompetent like they first seemed to be. He was sure they were all capable investigators and fighters too, Jiang included: it was just the unyielding difficulty of the case they had been assigned to which had been weighing them down and making them act up. He had come to understand the feeling all too well in his month working on the intractable thing. But as for Wu…

She had proven her investigative abilities even if Houji was sceptical of her M. O. He still did not understand what use she could possibly be in a fight, yet she insisted on being one of the investigators stationed directly at the warehouse, positioning younger and fitter agents like Jiang on the outskirts to guard against threats and prevent pre-emptive escape. She would be in the heat of the battle if it broke out. Yet although they shared parity on this mission, she was still of superior rank to him, so in respect of that he withheld his judgement until he saw her in action himself.

Wu, apparently, saw all of this on his face when they were crouched upon the roof of the house just over, hiding behind the chimney. When the ghouls arrived and the session began, they would move onto the roof of the dilapidated warehouse itself and peek through the cracks. While they waited, Wu decided to badger him in her usual gleeful, grating manner.

“Why the long face, Kousuke? Don’t think we can do it? Be honest.”

“…I am unsure of the wisdom of coming here in such few numbers, I must admit.”

“Such measured words. A polite man. Cautious. Frightened, perhaps?”

“That’s not so. I only intend to show my respect.”

“You only intend to conform to your role, you mean. What possible reason could you have to respect me? I haven’t given you any.”

The stress of the mission compounded with Wu’s incisive and intruding questions began to ground on Houji’s nerves at a rate even his patience could not handle. He had only met this woman a few hours ago, but she was already treating her professional equal with such blatant disrespect. It was unthinkable, and yet here it was.

He wanted to say No, you haven’t, and then teach her a thing or two about manners and proper conduct. To abandon her investigation team for an entire month and completely neglect the arrival of a foreign asset was an unprofessionalism he wouldn’t have expected from the greenest rookie. For someone of her age it was downright despicable. But he did not say these things, and kept his mouth clamped tightly shut. Because unlike her, he was a professional.

Then Wu burst into a boisterous, noisy cackle.

Something snapped. Fury boiled over onto Houji’s face as he spun around and clammed a hand over the Whale’s mouth. What was she thinking? The ghouls were due to arrive any minute - she could have just revealed their presence! Laughing, at a time like this? And although he said nothing, his face showed it all. Wu pulled his hand away from her mouth with a look of cool calculation that had something intimidating within it. Houji’s anger was tempered with the creepings of a primal fear, a perspective that must have been like that of a krill before a whale’s maw.

“As I thought. You really are an angry person, Kousuke. Why do you hide your feelings?”

Houji said nothing, but turned around and sat with his back to her.

“No good? Then let me ask you something else. Why did you become a Ghoul Investigator?”

Houji heaved a tremulous sigh. He had no desire to answer her, but he felt like the schoolboy before the schoolmaster, too awestruck by authority to tell a lie or hold a silence.

“My parents were killed by ghouls.”

“You say it so dispassionately.”

“Why should I say it differently? It’s not an uncommon story. It was the story of almost every child at the Academy’s Junior School.” Houji stopped there, but Wu said nothing, so he continued. “Once, perhaps, I thought I was special. That my tragedy had brought me some destiny l must fulfil. But that was before I looked around me and realised just how commonplace it all was. How commonplace I was.”

He could not see Wu behind him, but he was sure she was analysing him with those eyes like fish-hooks.

“So why are you still in the CCG?” He heard her throaty voice ask.

“…I refuse to believe anyone would stay in the CCG only for selfish reasons of the kind I began with. Like I said, I looked around me and saw that this was the lot of everyone. That we were all fighting together and relying on each other to create a better future. I am a cog in a greater machine, and I mean to fulfil those duties to the best of my ability.”

“But,” Wu interjected. “You’re not normal, Kousuke. If you were normal, we would never have requested just you alone.”

Houji was silent at that. It had been the thing that had bothered him from the start.

“Let me ask you a question now, Specia-“ He stopped himself. “-Whale. Why did you join the CCG?”

“Oh,” she chuckled, “for nothing so noble as you, Kousuke. As you may have guessed, I have something of an appetite. Maybe I’m greedy, but I think most humans are this way. My family was quite poor, you see, so I wanted more to consume.”

Houji was puzzled. “Money, then? Surely there were jobs with better pay.”

“Oh, money was only part of it. Like I said, I wanted more to consume. I wanted to grow bigger than the small pond I found myself in, and I didn’t want to be eaten by any bigger fish. I could think of no hungrier organisation than the CCG. How ravenous a person must be to eat the people-eaters! And now, well, you’ll never find a bigger fish than me. That’s why I’m happy for people to call me Whale.”

The lady had a talent for confusion, not to mention provocation. Houji only felt more wary about her than before. To think of the CCG as nothing more than a ghoul-eating ghoul…it was an irreverent mockery of the pride he had dedicated to his work; that his colleagues had dedicated to theirs. What exactly was she was implying they were ‘hungry’ for? He almost thought to ask, but then the ghouls arrived.

As midnight approached, one by one and then as a horde they began shuffling to the meeting place, dressed in white robes with an array of grotesque masks obscuring their identities. Watching these ghostlike monsters congregate in the darkness was like a scene from hell. The sparse streetlamps only served to illuminate their horror and to make their gruesome shadows dance behind them like witch’s familiars. A month after his arrival, Houji was reminded that he was in a strange new land, full of secrets and enemies he had yet to fully understand. Gradually, they poured into the warehouse until the trickle came to an apparent halt. The two spies stole to the warehouse rooftop and peered through the gaps between the sheets of corrugated iron.

The ghouls were all staring up at an indoor balcony which overlooked the main warehouse floor. There, a tall figure with white hair and a red iron mask overlooked his congregation, flanked by some other ghouls that must have been of similarly high rank.

Houji shot an inquisitive glance at Wu. They were too close to risk speaking, but his message clearly got across, as Wu shook her head. So, despite the hair and the mask, this man wasn’t Svarog, who the case files had reported as being Chi She Lian’s leader. Wu had seen him in person once, so she could tell; from her uncouth gestures, Houji guessed that this man was too slender to be him. He furrowed his brow. Perhaps this was just a cell meeting? They had thought that the red iron mask was Svarog’s alone, but it could just be a generic status symbol for those of higher rank.

They watched the proceedings unfold and listened carefully. After some general formalities, the man in the mask outlined their recent progress, clarifying and challenging much of what the CCG had estimated about their current position. One thing in accordance with what they had predicted was that it was indeed Chi She Lian that had been leading these turf wars against smaller bands of ghouls, with one name, Longxia, being frequently repeated. It was not an unknown name to the CCG database. Then, when he was about to move onto outlining their future plans, the leader suddenly fell silent. After some pause, he whispered to his attendants.

Houji gritted his teeth. This looked bad. He glanced over at Wu, but although she was weighty, she had barely shifted at all from her prone position since setting up: there was no creaking from her. Then, could he have been careless? Revealed his presence, somehow? As the ghoul’s attendants began leaving, Houji gingerly reached out to tug at Wu’s sleeve. They needed to go, now. But Wu stubbornly shook her head. Houji yelled inwardly at her obstinacy, and tugged with more force. They would be coming any minute. Lying prone like this they would be fish in a barrel – they couldn’t get any more information and they were no use to anyone dead. But Wu refused to budge.

In an adrenaline-fuelled frustration Houji violently let go of her sleeve and began clambering up off the metal rafters. And with every move, clang, clang, clang. Taking one final glance through the peek holes, Houji saw the white-haired man staring right back at him, and he realised his mistake.

Wu gave an almighty groan and shifted herself up from her position at last, condemning Houji with a disgusted look of pity that filled him with shame. She swung over her attaché case and clicked the release.

From the gush of steam she extracted something that looked like volcanic rock, pulsating red like lava flow. The stocky quinque began to wrap itself around Wu’s arm. Then, she knelt. Before Houji could even process his confusion, through the cracks of the rafters, she opened fire onto the crowd below.

Houji could hear the rumble of explosions and the shrieks of ghouls beneath as Wu shot out barb after barb from her quinque. Daring a glance below, he could see the whole warehouse erupt in fire like a divine punishment, ghouls pouring for the exits, out into the streets.

“Get ready, this is Chi She Lian.” She growled. “They won’t just leave with their heads bowed between their legs.”

Houji nodded vigorously, jolting himself out of his shock. He released his own quinque, the dual spears called Iitsu, and took up a defensive position, feet dancing uncertainly on the rapidly warming rafters. He kept his eyes on the lookout for any attack against Wu as she took aim again, this time towards the street itself.

“Wait!” Houji spluttered. “You’ll…”

“Relax, it’s just an industrial area. There’ll only be ghoul casualties here.” Wu muttered calmly before launching another missile into the hosts of ghouls below, just as they were regaining some semblance of order. The ones not instantly incinerated in the blaze frantically rolled on the ground to quench the flames or else ran for cover behind imposing granite buildings. In the distance, he heard shouts and the noise of combat – some of the ghouls must have crossed paths with one of the surrounding teams. The scene was so hellish that Houji was almost distracted; but before it was too late, he heard the quiet rumble of careful feet gliding across metal, and he turned around.

A ghoul hurtled towards him wearing the mask of a crazed devil, hands outstretched, bikaku raised. On sight, Houji skewered it through the throat and flung it aside, only to find two, three, four more charging towards him. Swinging his swords in the air, he fended off one blow after the next.

When it came to combat, Houji felt fully at ease. It was like a trance where he could let his instincts take over entirely; and they served him well. He drove one lance through the heart of his nearest opponent and caught the one beside him with a roundhouse kick to the jaw, sending him hurtling off the rooftop. A kagune from behind him tripped him up for a moment, leaving room for another to dash towards his head, but it only succeeded in grazing him. He lopped that kagune off with one sword and in the same movement swung around and, to the background song of explosions, decapitated its wielder with the other. The final enemy flung her rinkaku around herself in defence, but Houji knocked her back with the sheer force of his body and hammered at her with the blunt edge of his quinque until she fell to the ground and her kagune unfurled. For a split-second, she was wide open. It was enough. Iitsu flashed down, and its target never got back up.

Houji took a moment to breathe. He noticed the charred remains of several other ghouls with ukaku kagune lying further away on the roof, and saw Wu blowing lightly on her quinque. All quiet. Except…

He swung up Iitsu just in time before the kagune sliced him in two. The sword caught the tip, but the force drove him back across the rooftop as the kagune pursued its prey. He lowered his centre of gravity as much as he could and only just managed to avoid tumbling off the edge. The two forces of kagune and quinque had come to a standstill – but if Houji hadn’t heard its telltale whistle as it cut through the air, he would’ve been dead in an instant. Eventually, seeing that it was fruitless, the blood worm of kagune retracted, returning to its wielder – the ghoul in the red iron mask.

“Impressive.” Came the muffled voice of the ghoul, all the more fearsome in its distortion. His crimson eyes burned like a steady fire. “You must be new.”

Those eyes suddenly darted to the side and leapt several feet away as one of Wu’s barbs landed exactly where he was standing. It exploded and rattled the rafters all around, some falling into the scorching pit below. The metal was becoming unbearably hot to stand on.

“Don’t waste time on the greenhorn.” Wu cackled and gave a toothless grin. “I’ve been waiting for you long enough.”

Barb after barb rattled off from Wu’s quinque, narrowly avoided each time by the masked ghoul as he leapt from side to side of the rooftop. Sheets of metal were sent tumbling down with every explosion, and Houji himself often had to barrel out of range as Wu let nothing stand in her way. He heard the ghoul curse “Whale!” to which Wu burst out into raucous laughter.

“Tell me, masked man, where is Svarog these days?” She chanted as explosions erupted around her.

There was no response from the ghoul as he dived in and out of the hellfire, until, all of a sudden, he rushed towards Wu. His arm began to mutate.

There wasn’t enough time for Wu to redirect her weapon before the gigantic pillar of a kakuja came hurtling in her direction.

“Svarog’s dead.” His fiery voice crackled.

There was only enough time for Houji to jump in the way, Iitsu raised, and take the blow. With a tremendous crash, they both tumbled between the gaps in the rooftop rafters into the inferno below.

It was the chance of momentum that saved Houji. The ghoul fell too, and fully activated its kakuja to survive the flames below. As the man turned into hulking beast in mid-air, all Houji had to do was cling onto its leg, and the monster took the fall into the furnace instead. Nevertheless, the shock of the impact made Houji’s whole body ache in pain, but he recovered more quickly than the beast and flung his bruised form into an area yet untouched by the devouring lights. His hands were burnt just by touching the kakuja, which was scolding hot, but he forced himself to grip his quinque regardless.

Behind him, he heard the echoing thuds of the kakuja’s great column-like appendages lifting the colossal body up. It was like a knight, or else a lizard. Its body was silver-grey and layered like armour, with a skeletal collarbone and a concave chest. The remnants of the ghoul’s white cloak covered its lower half like a samurai’s hakama. A beak, or helmet-like structure encapsulated his head, and from it blew gales of blue flame. If this gathering of ghouls was Pandaemonium, then surely this was Satan.

Houji readied his quinque, and rushed towards the devil.

There was no way Wu could spot their location behind the fire and smoke, and any more hits from her quinque would collapse the whole warehouse. In this battle, he could only rely on himself – so he used the element of surprise. The ghoul was clearly not expecting Houji to make the first move, and was left completely unprepared for the flurry of strokes that followed.

Every strike was a hit, but none of them seemed to do any damage to the kakuja beyond pushing it backwards. The creature roared in annoyance and swung out one of its great poles, catching Houji in the chest and sending him flying towards the fire. Just in time, he pushed forth his quinque so that it crushed through the flooring and stopped his momentum. He collapsed to the floor, clinging onto his weapon.

He was badly wounded. Two sudden jolts to the chest and burnt hands did not leave him in good fighting condition. But how was the ghoul? In that kakuja, could he feel any pain at all? Houji gritted his teeth, and stoop up for another bout. He might not be able to kill the ghoul, but that was never a mission priority. They had their information, although half of it would be useless now that Chi She Lian knew that they know it. For now, all he needed to do was get out of there alive.

As the titan began lumbering towards him, he noticed the hole he had made in the floor. Perhaps, then, if one does not slash, but stab, with the right force…

He didn’t have much time to think before fire gushed towards him again. He rolled out of the way and leapt and jumped between all the jets of flame that came his way, some much too close for comfort. When the pillar swung his way again, he knew he could not manage a jump, so this time he slid under it. And in that moment of surprise, with all his strength, Houji mustered a great thrust towards the creature’s sunken chest.

Iitsu cracked through the armour. Houji pushed onwards. The great beast roared in pain and toppled onto the ground once more with a calamitous crash.

As soon as the small victory was won, Houji scanned for a way through the fires and made out a winding pathway. There was a part of him that wanted to continue – to see if he could take out this dangerous ghoul once and for all – but he had given into his emotions once that night before: now, he had to be objective. He turned and began to ran, but that moment’s hesitation was too much as he felt the back of his jacket catch on fire.

Eyes widening in horror, he dashed with all the speed he could summon through the roaming red monsters, batting at the fire on his back with his quinque, grimacing through the pain, coughing through the smoke. Eventually, somehow, he saw the outside. Uncharacteristically screaming, Houji landed his back on the concrete and rolled furiously to quench the flames. Eventually, the last wicked blue tongues died down into embers that died down into ash. Staring up at the black, smoke-suffused sky, Houji was ready to pass out.

But out the corner of his eye, he could see white-cloaked ghouls approaching.

He heaved his heaviest breaths and struggled desperately to right himself, but they were running, ravenous, vengeful. Their mania was so intense he could not distinguish the ones with masks from the ones without – both wore faces from nightmares. One ran right past him into the warehouse, screaming “Loong!”, but the others were heading straight towards him. He managed to get an arm in front of him, but they were coming too quickly; and then, all of a sudden, they burst into flames.

The boom came after the flash of light, intermingled with cries of agony. Houji’s arm dropped out from under him as his energy failed him. The fire filled him with panic as he wondered if the kakuja ghoul had managed to catch up with him, but it was useless – he could not move. The tails of a white coat fluttered in front of his vision, and a wrinkled hand picked up his quinque. Houji breathed out an inaudible objection, then watched as the wide figure used his quinque to nonchalantly dispatch of those screaming ghouls that survived the blast. When that was done, the figure returned to Houji.

“Sleeping on the job? You really are an amateur, Kousuke.”

Wu. Of course. Houji gave a groan that came out more as a whisper. He could not help but chuckle what little he could as well. She crouched down, perhaps to pack up his quinque, before lifting him up and leaning him against her weight, cooing “Upsy”.

As she dragged him out of there, away from the smell of burning and the sound of crackling cinders, he gave one final glance back into the warehouse. There, he could still see amidst the red fire a solitary blue flame raging, like it was glaring at him. Loong, he had screamed…

Houji had not managed to stay conscious long after that. What he discovered from Wu in the hospital on his awakening was that most of the ghouls had escaped, as had been expected, but there were two major skirmishes with the surrounding teams. Each of those battles had claimed a CCG life.

With the news, Houji balled up his fists. His voice wasn’t strong enough to talk, let alone scream, but he had known the men whose lives were taken. He had talked with them, worked with them, drunk with them. He had seen how they respected him, and he had respected their tenacity and will to fulfil their duties as best they could.

They were gone now.

He remembered that solitary blue light, and the gauntlet of pain he had run through that night. Those men had felt the same thing, and never made it out the other side.

He had failed them. He could not forgive himself for that.

But more than anything, he could not forgive Chi She Lian for that.

When Houji left the hospital, he left it with a renewed vigour, and a burning passion behind his typically cool façade. The investigation made more progress than it had in years.

During this time, Houji began to appreciate why Wu held the status that she did. She had saved his life, and he would not forget that. He reflected on how, during the battle, Wu easily got the upper hand over a far greater number of ghouls, by herself, without moving an inch. He began to understand how somebody as old and unhealthy as her could hold such a high position: very simply, movement was not necessary for her. Her skill with her quinque, Hollow, was so prodigious that she could wipe out her opponents without so much as a step forward. When he inquired about her history, Houji discovered that Wu had been in the CCG since she was twenty years old. Her age was merely proof of her incredible skill – a less adept Investigator would have died long ago.

It remained the case, however, that Houji had also saved her life when he defended her from the ghoul’s attack, who they had now codenamed ‘Loong’. Despite her skill and solitary behaviour, no-one can win a battle on their own, it seemed. Or perhaps she had merely trusted in Houji enough that she did not feel the need to act herself. It was Jiang who suggested that aspect of her behaviour, after years of dealing with it himself. Given the way she talked to him, Houji found it hard to believe at first, but then he reflected on how, at the hospital – a visit that certainly surprised him – she had told him that she knew he could handle Loong when he fell into the warehouse, and if she had not, she would have razed the place down.

It was this hidden appreciation of his talents, together with his gratitude and respect for her skill, that made Houji begin to view Wu in a new light. Most importantly, he had learnt to trust her judgement. Houji had thought of himself as cool-headed, but he saw himself how prone he could still sometimes be to moments of panic on the one hand and overconfidence on the other. He wanted to be more like her in that regard – to have such a level of calm calculation that one could even laugh while under fire – and so he observed her carefully.

This was not always easy, as Wu continued her habit of disappearing for days at a time, although her returns to the office were much more frequent than before. This was another habit Houji learned to live with: she was only acting true to her epithet, as a whale only comes to the surface of the water every once in a while. When she did come, however, the team felt much more like a genuine team. Enthusiasm was restored. They had names to work off, information. They were all eager to avenge their fallen comrades and end Chi She Lian for good. Even Jiang started coming to work on time, and Houji began to see the aforementioned passion that he had thought impossible for the man.

The investigation, propelled forward by the life Houji’s investigatory and combative skills injected into it, successfully allowed them to cross paths with Chi She Lian many times since, and often with Loong himself. No matter how many times Houji met him in battle, a victor was never clearly decided, and both always left to fight another day. The same could not be said for all of their comrades: painfully for Houji, his initial team of twenty was cut down to thirteen.

In some ways, the relationship with Lian was still a stalemate, but it was no longer static: both sides had to put in their utmost effort to keep it that way to avoid being swallowed up by the other. It was tough work, but fulfilling. Houji came to truly appreciate his time there, with all the loss and hardship that came with it, as well as the people he worked with.

Time passed this way for two and a half years.

And it all led up to this moment.

After the car that took Houji from the battle site arrived at the 1st District Headquarters, Wu told Houji that she had just had a phone call.

“An anonymous tip.” She beamed in her usual menacing manner.

Houji was taken aback. This was highly unusual. He stuffed the lotus into his pocket – it was not likely to garner much attention compared to this.

“It was precise, too.” Wu continued, “Eerily so. 5th District, she even gave us the postcodes.”

“So, we’ll be investigating it?”

“What,” Jiang scoffed, “You wouldn’t? If this isn’t a breakthrough, I don’t know what is.”

“Anonymous tips are exceedingly uncommon for the CCG. Why would a human want to remain anonymous when dealing with ghouls? How could they have such precise details on Chi She Lian? I think we should proceed cautiously: this might be a trap.”

Wu played with the telephone cord. “Still, a trap is still worth looking into, don’t you think? This would be the first time they’ve tried anything like this.”

“So we should just take the bait?”

“Prepared, of course. Or do you have any other leads?”

Nothing substantial, Houji had to admit. Uneasy as it made him, this seemed like too rare an opportunity to just pass up.

“No. When do we move out?”

Midnight, again. Thankfully, the postcodes in question were away from the civilian population, since the ghouls would only gather away from prying eyes. Their team of fourteen, preparing for a trap, moved as a single group instead of splitting up, pacing quietly through the silent night as they approached the old junkyard where these ghouls were supposed to be squatting. Their hands were on their quinques, ready for the worst.

In the distance, Houji could make out rugs between the rusty mountains of battered cans, computers, and washing machines where these ghouls appeared to be sleeping. An encouraging sign, though Houji did not know how he felt about dispatching them lying down. In the end, he did not have to make the decision. A watchman in a toucan mask gave a high pitched yell, and soon enough the ghouls were scrambling up to fight.

Perhaps it was because they were tired, or perhaps they were simply weak: either way, the twenty or so ghouls that lived here were taken out in less than a minute, half of them by Houji alone, until only one was left alive for questioning – a frizzy-haired female who was quivering like a bowstring. Wu didn’t even need to lift Hollow. Houji noticed that none of them had been wearing the robes of Chi She Lian, but there was no reason they should when they were not on official business. He turned around, and –

No, not all of them.

One more ghoul remained, emerging from the junkpile. Another female, this one in the ceremonial garb of Chi She Lian. Her face was covered by a mask styled like butterfly wings. And her red bikaku kagune had its coil around Jiang’s throat. He kicked, wheezing, hacking, but the girl only tightened her grip.

“Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.” She whispered, almost gently, to him. With a much harder tone of voice, she turned her attention to the remainders of the squad.

“Which of you is in charge?”

Both Wu and Houji began to speak at the same time. She waved a hand and let him proceed.

“I and Special Class Wu share parity in charge of this investigation. Please,” a fierce edge crept into Houji’s voice, undermining his formal words, “would you release our agent?”

“Not until we’ve come to an agreement.” If the girl was afraid, she did not let it deter her.

“Is that why you invited us?” Wu piped up. The ghoul looked surprised. “Oh, come, I remember your voice. I’ll wager these good-for-nothings weren’t even Chi She Lian. So it was a trap, you just needed a bargaining chip. But damn and blast, I didn’t expect you to hide in the garbage – really not very ladylike! Then, neither is eating people.”

Wu seemed to have lost none of her good cheer despite seeing her assistant struggling to breathe. Was it just an act? Houji couldn’t mimic it. His eyes were darting nervously back and forth between Jiang and the ghoul. He just wanted to get him to safety as quickly as possible.

“Just tell us what you want.” Houji insisted.

The girl paused, as if summoning her courage.

“Immunity.”

“…Immunity?” Houji repeated, dumbfounded. Wu burst out into contemptuous laughter.

“Immunity.” She reasserted, angrily. “For me and my brother.”

“Or you’ll snap my little monkey’s neck, is that it, hmm?” Wu probed, after recovering from her laughing fit.

“This is just insurance.” The ghoul clarified. “I don’t trust the CCG to honour a deal with a ghoul. But it’s in your best interest. I have information you desperately need, and I’ll give it to you if you just promise to let me and my brother go.”

Houji swallowed. He didn’t like making deals with a ghoul, but if it would spare Jiang’s life…

“What is it?”

“The identity of the leader of Chi She Lian.”

The tension was electrified by quiet. Only a gust of wind and the clattering of stray cans disturbed it.

“Deal.” Wu spoke at last.

Houji spun around towards her. “You can’t make that decision by yourse…”

“Do you disagree?” She interrupted.

He took a deep breath. “No.”

“Then it’s a deal.” Wu confirmed with an unsettling smile.

The ghoul breathed in as well, like she was also steeling herself.

“Yan Huo.”

Houji didn’t know the name, but some of the investigators gasped and Wu was wearing an expression of flabbergasted glee.

“Yan Huo of Huo Industries? There’s a ghoul that far up the ladder of power?” She inquired eagerly.

“Yes, that Yan Huo.” The ghoul replied. “You can do what you like with him. Raze Chi She Lian to the ground. I hope you do. I only have one request – leave one week before attacking Xuhangli, so my brother and I can escape. We’ll skip the country and be out of your hair forever. We just want our lives.”

There was a pause as Houji and Wu considered it. The ghoul looked panicked.

“If you don’t-” she threatened, with her kagune tightening around Jiang’s throat. His face had grown pale and his eyes were practically bulging in their sockets as he hung there limply, conscious but defeated.

Wu spoke up. “How are we to know that it’s you who’s escaping? If we don’t know your identity, we don’t know who’s leaving the premises - and we can’t let anyone else go.”

The ghoul hesitated for a moment. Then, she pulled up her mask to reveal a young face and a shock of white hair. She’s just a kid, Houji thought, even while knowing she was a ghoul.

“I am Fei Huo. My brother is Tatara Huo. He’s two years older than me - you can’t miss him, his hair is like mine.”

Houji was taken aback by the name. Huo…then that means…

“So you’re saving one brother at the cost of the other?” Wu sneered. “That’s one nasty family feud. What did Yan do, dock your pocket money?”

Fei’s lips trembled, but her eyes glowed like fire. Jiang gave a gasp as the coil began constricting again.

“Stop, stop!” Houji yelled. “We understand your conditions. And Jiang…”

“This dove is coming with me,” the girl replied coldly, “I’ll release him when we get to the airport, tied-up so he can’t hurt anyone. If you intervene and get the flight cancelled, I will kill him before you can get there. As to which airport you’ll find him at, well, you’re investigators, aren’t you? I’m sure you’ll figure it out.”

Houji began to object. “We can’t agree to that-”

“You already have.” Fei responded, pulling her mask back on. “Thank me, I just solved your investigation for you. Just keep up your end of the deal.” She hoisted Jiang further into the air. “I’ll be leaving now.”

The ghoul started walking away, and Jiang looked back, frightened and pleading. He looks so vulnerable, Houji thought. There was nothing of his usual brash demeanour and the contrast deeply saddened Houji. They now had the power to crush Chi She Lian, but he still felt powerless. He lowered his head in shame.

“No, you won’t.” A raspy voice countered.

Fei spun around in shock. An expression of relief flooded Jiang’s face. Houji looked to his side in surprise as Wu stood her ground confidently.

“Jiang dear, you’ve been a good monkey. But we aren’t monkeys to ghouls.” She raised Hollow.

There was no time to stop her. He raised a hand. He cried out. But the barb shot out all the same, and Houji only had time to see the light die in Jiang’s eyes, to see how the young girl contorted in horror, before the missile made impact and ignited.

Their bodies were burst asunder in the blaze.

The investigators stared in a misery like fear. First Class Kousuke Houji clung onto the lotus flower in his pocket for security, but the tighter he grasped it, the more the fragile thing fell apart. And Special Class Huiyin Wu, ‘The Whale’, blew on Hollow as if nothing had happened, before sparing a glance to the captive ghoul behind her.

“Oh, and kill that one too.”

By the time they left, twenty-three bodies strewed the junkyard. But much more, much more had died there.

Something was carried in the wind. Something sharp and altogether unpleasant.

#tokyo ghoul #tg fanfic #tatara #kousuke houji #tg fanfiction #red lotus blooms #rlb

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twfilms · 6 years ago

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Review: Mid90s

Mid90s | 2018 | Rated R

Nostalgia is a risky business, because it has the ability to distort memories and alter the past. Too often, films that are about a certain time, place or age come off as ingenuine and idealistic because the writer views the subject through rose-colored glasses that won’t necessarily be shared with the viewer. With Mid90s, his directorial debut, Jonah Hill doesn’t craft a perfect film, but he does succeed in viewing a time that clearly means a lot to him with a mostly objective and unbiased lens, giving the film a frank authenticity that many similar films have tried -- and failed -- to achieve.

Stevie (Sunny Suljic) is a middle-schooler who is desperate for an escape from his dysfunctional family life. He finds it when he falls in with a group of older skateboarders, who take him under their wing. They show him not only about skating, but also about a slew of other extracurricular activities, many of which the earnest boy is far too young to be exposed to. Eventually, Stevie must reevaluate exactly what lengths he’s willing to go to in order to fit in, as well as what it means to be a rebellious skateboarder in the first place.

As mentioned, Hill gives his audience a remarkably clear window into what it was like to grow up in the titular time period, and a big reason for that authenticity is that the film looks like it was shot and made in the “mid 90s”. Shooting in a 4:3 aspect ratio has become an increasingly common choice for independent filmmakers in the past few years, but here the technique is executed to its full effectiveness: Mid90s feels like something that would have been watched on a 25-inch Zenith television that sat on the entertainment center in an average living room in 1997. Doubling-down on pre-digital image quality, the film is also shot entirely (except for a few skate scenes) on 16mm film, giving the image a graininess that is reminiscent of some of the films from the time period that clearly influenced Hill, like Slacker or Gummo (the director of which, Harmony Korine, has a cameo role in the film). These stylistic choices, along with a tastefully curated selection of hip-hop and punk rock songs from the era, give Mid90s a fly-on-the-wall aesthetic that at times feels almost like a documentary.

It helps, of course, that Hill has filled his film with a cast of virtually unknown actors who exude SoCal skater boy swagger. Suljic, himself (who also appeared in last year’s The Killing of a Sacred Deer), is perfect as the thirteen-year-old kid who has to somehow strike a balance between pleasing his family and pleasing his friends, but it’s the motley crew that adopts him that really gives the film its authentic tone. The group of actors has not one recognizable name among them (Na-Kel Smith, Olan Prenatt, Ryder McLaughlin, and Gio Galicia), and it shows: their conversations are natural, their profanity unforced, their laughs genuine. There’s clunky delivery of lines scattered here and there, of course, but somehow even that lends to the overall tone of the film. In a word, it’s real.

That such a raw film should come from indie film powerhouse A24 is no surprise (in fact, it’s difficult to think of any other studio that would release a film like Mid90s), but it’s a bit of a shock that’s it’s the product of a Hollywood A-lister like Jonah Hill, what with all of its rebellious, violent, profanity-laden, drug and alcohol-fueled, sexually-charged content -- all of which involving a middle-school-aged child. It’s a bold statement -- a Kids for a new generation -- that one would normally expect from underground, independent filmmakers shooting on micro budgets. Perhaps having a recognizable face behind the film will push Mid90s into the mainstream consciousness enough to give other daring and original films the spotlight they deserve. At any rate, there’s little doubt that Mid90s will be seen by more people than your normal A24 fare, which at the very least should be of financial benefit to the company and will help them continue to fund high-quality independent film.

For all its rawness and rebellion and boldness, though, Mid90s is not without its significant flaws. At just 84 minutes, the film whizzes by at breakneck speed, careening toward a rushed ending that crams as much plot as possible into the final scenes and leaves the film feeling unfinished and cobbled together. Most of the colorful cast of characters are woefully undeveloped: Lucas Hedges, one of cinema’s truly great rising talents, is tragically given a role he can do almost nothing with as Stevie’s violent, angry and possibly sociopathic older brother. We learn of the entire skater crew’s tragic backstories in one exposition-packed monologue third-quarters of the way through the film. And even many of Stevie’s actions are left without sufficient explanation of their motivation, making the character far more erratic than it seems Hill intended him to be.

Themes are also blotted throughout the film like colors in a sunset, but none of them are fully realized into coherent ideas. Hill seems to have something to say about mental illness, for example, but it’s very unclear what that message is supposed to be. There’s a conflict between two of the skaters as to whether skater culture is about getting wasted and getting laid or working hard and making a name for themselves, but the conflict is left without resolution and Hill seemingly refuses to take sides. Stevie’s family dynamic, despite being an important part of exploring the character and his behavior, is never explored at any real depth. Ultimately, the film feels incomplete, as if the events shown are snapshots placed in a scrapbook rather than arranged into any sort of cohesive narrative. It suffers from its short runtime, and 30 to 45 more minutes could have added an emotional depth that could have made it one of the great coming-of-age films of its time.

As it stands, however, Mid90s is still an effective and engaging period piece that perfectly captures the time and setting in which it takes place. It certainly has untapped potential, but first-time director Jonah Hill has ultimately succeeded in his endeavor to make a bold, rebellious coming-of-age film that doesn’t smack of nostalgia and isn’t raunchy just for the sake of raunchiness. It will be interesting to see how Hill develops his skills as a filmmaker going forward, and if he continues to use his already established star power to give himself the opportunity to tell smaller, more unique stories.

Mid90s is now playing in theaters everywhere.

#mid90s #jonah hill #sunny suljic #lucas hedges #katherine waterston #movies #cinema #film #reviews #film reviews #movie review

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tkmedia · 3 years ago

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Film Room: Terrell Edmunds’ Versatility

Although Edmunds lack of turnover creation, with just three interceptions and zero forced fumbles to his credit in 47 career games, it’s been impossible to ignore his improvement from year to year, as he has undeniably become an increasingly versatile and valuable piece to one of the league’s top defenses. In fact, last season, Terrell Edmunds posted his best campaign to date, tallying 68 tackles, a tackle for a loss, and a sack to go along with a pair of interceptions and eight pass defenses, both figures which doubled his previous career high. That being said, raw stats don’t even begin to tell the story of Edmunds impact on the 2020 Pittsburgh defense, as his increased ability to play within the box effectively, serve as the team’s primary “cap defender” in the Keith Butler’s frequently schemed Nickel blitzes, and expand his zone coverage versatility to open the door for Minkah Fitzpatrick’s role to further expand provided immeasurable value to a top tier defensive unit. Thus, today, we’ll be taking an extended look into Edmunds ability to perform in three distinct roles, as a box defender, in various zone coverage assignments, and in man coverage assignments. Moreover, although most fans seem to be searching to replace Hilton’s contributions with whoever rises to assume the Nickel cornerback role, I’ll explain how Edmunds can potentially help replace Hilton’s contributions if the team is able to find a capable third safety either from this years draft class in Tre Norwood, or more likely in a camp free agent add such as the often rumored Malik Hooker. Terrell Edmunds as a Box Defender Although he has traditionally served as the teams starting strong safety ever since assuming the role immediately exiting camp as a rookie, the 2020 season saw Edmunds playing in the box with far greater frequency. Particularly, Edmunds served in two distinct box roles, most frequently playing off ball at linebacker depth, while also being deployed at a healthy rate as a traditional edge defender, where he was deployed as a blitzer with more frequency. While his ability to rush the passer has yet to progress much from his rookie campaign, he displayed an increased ability to fill gaps, flatten down the line off the edge, and shed blocks from interior lineman to stay clean and impact the battle at the line of scrimmage, using his 6’1” 215 pound frame to his advantage. In what would be categorized as his most impactful play of the 2020 season, a game clinching fourth down sack to halt a Broncos comeback effort late in a Week 2, 26-21 victory, Edmunds aligns as an edge defender in a five man front alongside T.J. Watt. After a bluffed A-gap blitz from Mike Hilton slid the Broncos protection away from Edmunds, the third year safety capitalized on the diversion of attention, flying off the edge unblocked, closing to the upfield shoulder, and securing the turnover on downs with an efficient form tackle. While the sack is certainly more the product of Butler and Tomlin’s defensive schematics, the attention to detail taken by Edmunds, to attack the top field shoulder, closing off the quarterbacks escape lanes, and executing a form tackle, ensure that this rep doesn’t turn into a broken play, scramble drill situation. While Edmunds pass rush abilities off the edge could certainly stand to improve, his run defense off the edge produced nothing short of exceptional contributions from the safety position. Below, once again aligned to the edge alongside T.J. Watt in a five man front, Edmunds out leverages Corey Davis’s down block, quickly knifing inside at the snap, absorbing the contact and tripping up the All-Pro Derek Henry from the ground in Polamalu-esque fashion, halting the league’s leading rusher for a minimal gain. Note Edmunds reading his keys, identifying the line down blocking away from him, and tracking the run down from the backside, a play we have witnessed T.J. Watt and Bud Dupree make plays with frequency, but an extremely high level play from a safety nonetheless. Unlike many of his peers at the safety position league wide, Edmunds was able to prove repeatedly that he is simply too functionally strong and physical at the point of contact to be effectively blocked by wide receivers. This time, playing as an off ball outside linebacker, playing alongside Robert Spillane and Vince Williams behind a five man front, Edmunds walks towards the line of scrimmage pre snap, following Mike Thomas in motion, before once again proving that assigning a wide receiver to block him in the box is a futile attempt. At the snap, Edmunds once again reads his keys, following the left tackles down block into the C-gap, beating Mike Thomas across his face with an aggressive rip move, disengaging, flattening down the line, and stuffing Giovanni Bernard after a minor gain with an impressive form tackle. Note that unlike many safeties league wide, Edmunds comes downhill efficiently and aggressively when playing from within the box, allowing the Steelers to keep speed on the field while not compromising their ability to defend from within the box, similar to their former Nickel cornerback and current Cincinnati Bengal, Mike Hilton. While Hilton possessed an uncanny knack for timing his blitzes that Edmunds likely will never come close to replicating, his ability to defend bring speed and physicality within the box, while simultaneously serving as an adequate man coverage defender leads me to believe that he could play more within the box if the team can identify an adequate option to serve as the team’s third safety in sub packages. Once again aligning along the line of scrimmage, this time inside of Edge defender T.J. Watt, shading inside of the right tackle in the five man front, Edmunds produces a solid, if not flashy rep, although I believe it was his most impressive box rep of the season. At the snap, Edmunds attempts to beat the tackle, Terrance Steele across his face, but gets engaged on as the line flows left in their zone blocking assignment. Edmunds continues to flow down the line, holding his ground against the powerful Steele despite giving up nearly 100 pounds, before disengaging and dropping Zeke Elliot with an efficient form tackle after a short gain. While maybe less visually impressive than watching him knife into the backfield and disrupt plays immediately, Edmunds showcasing the ability to hold his ground against an NFL caliber right tackle truly shows the versatility and importance that he brings to the Steelers defense. Thus, as I stated earlier, the Steelers have the replacement for Mike Hilton’s vacated Nickel spot in house, whether it is ultimately Cam Sutton, Shakur Brown, Arthur Maulet, or somebody else will be determined in camp. That being said, the harder contributions to replace are Hilton’s ability to allow the Steelers to play Nickel against heavy run personnel due to his ability to penetrate the line of scrimmage and produce tackles for losses. In that space, I strongly believe if the team is able to ultimately sign a Malik Hooker, than their best option in replacing Hilton’s contributions could be deploying a Big Nickel package on early downs, with Minkah and the third safety playing deep, while Edmunds plays as a box defender, providing necessary speed to the front seven. Terrell Edmunds in Zone Coverage While Edmunds is never going to be the most natural fit in the post safety role, his ability to swap roles with Minkah Fitzpatrick on an increased basis allowed Minkah to flourish as a robber defender in the Steelers favorite Cover 1 sets. After aligning in a two high shell below, the Steelers roll into Cover 1 robber, with Minkah rolling down to occupy the intermediate middle of the field and Edmunds rotating to the post as the single high safety. As Lock evades pressure, escaping the pocket to his right and producing a scramble drill situation, Edmunds showcases his improved range, flowing all the way from the opposite hash to break up a pass along the sideline, nearly securing an impressive interception in the process. As I previously noted, Edmunds eight passes defended this season were more than the seven he had recorded in his first two seasons combined, a testament to his improving ability to effectively contest passes at the catch point, a skill which has often been categorized as his biggest pitfall as a young player. Although his increased usage as the teams post safety produced some positive results, Edmunds growth as an underneath zone defender, primarily in his work as the hook/curl defender in the teams Cover 3 schemes, truly showcased his growth in the football IQ department. Below, serving as the hook/curl defender in a Cover 3 scheme on third and long, stays patient eying the quarterback at the sticks before undercutting Tannehill’s pass for a near interception. While Edmunds once again misses a chance to create a turnover, his maturity as a player is evident on this rep with his ability to stay patient at the sticks, allow routes to distribute in front of him, and allow the quarterback’s eyes to lead him into the throwing window where he can make a play on the football without vision on the intended target. Fast forward four weeks ahead in a blowout victory against the Jake Luton led Jacksonville Jaguars, Terrell Edmunds learned from his Week 7 drop to secure an impressive interception while operating in an identical situation, serving as the hook/curl defender in a Cover 3 scheme on third and long. This time, the Steelers run an inverted Cover 3, aligning pre snap in a two high shell before buzzing both safeties down to the sticks in hook/curl zones with Mike Hilton traveling from linebacker depth to occupy the post safety role. At the snap, Edmunds once again shows beautiful patience, staying planted at the sticks and reading the eyes of Jake Luton before triggering on the throw, high pointing the football and tipping it to himself to secure his second interception of the game. Plays like this show Edmunds ability to learn from previous reps and continue to grow as a player, not just each off season, but on a game to game basis as well. Perhaps Edmunds best contribution to the defense as a zone coverage defender is his status as the most physical and consistent open field tackler in the secondary. Below, once again serving as a hook/curl defender in a Cover 3 scheme with the Ravens attempting to convert a third and medium, Edmunds rolls down patiently, occupying intermediate throwing windows and attempting to force a checkdown. Almost immediately, after seeing RG3 hit his checkdown shy of the sticks, Edmunds rallies to the underneath throw, arriving at the catch point with physicality to drive the pass catcher to the ground well short of the sticks, forcing a Ravens punt. Plays like this show Edmunds physicality, and ability to get ball carriers to the ground efficiently both in the box and in the open field, making it unsurprising that he led the starting secondary with a missed tackle rate of just 9.2% this past season, per our own Josh Carney’s tracking data. Terrell Edmunds in Man Coverage It’s no secret to NFL fans that Butler, Tomlin, and company have blitzed their Nickel cornerbacks, primarily Mike Hilton, at a higher frequency than almost any other defense league wide. Given that the Steelers are now a predominantly man coverage centric unit, particularly in their tendency to deploy Cover 1 sets behind their five man pressure schemes, the scheme itself is heavily dependent on having an effective man coverage defender on the backend to “cap” their nickel blitzes. Thus, while Edmunds improved in nearly all facets of his game during his 2020 campaign, few aspects of his game were more impressive than his ability to provide effective man coverage from “catch technique” as a cap defender, disguising his assignments well by varying his pre snap alignments. Below, capping the blitzing Vince Williams to assume a man coverage assignment on the running back, Edmunds slowly rolls down toward the line of scrimmage pre snap before triggering immediately to the flat, closing space rapidly to the upfield shoulder, and arriving with physicality at the catch point to force the incompletion. Where many safeties would hesitate or break down at the point of contact, Edmunds ability to trust his eyes and accelerate through the point of contact helped secure the impressive pass breakup on this rep. As a current player who constantly begs my coaches to blitz more, one of their main responses is that until they fully trust us as tacklers, they can’t be comfortable in blitzing. Echoing that sentiment, similar to his zone coverage work, Edmunds most valuable contribution in his work as a cap blitzer stems from his ability to tackle effectively after the catch. Below, serving as a cap defender to the blitzing Mike Hilton in a man coverage assignment on Greg Ward, Edmunds stays patient and square at the snap, waiting for the receiver to declare his outward break before attacking the upfield shoulder with outside leverage to force Ward to stop his feet and shooting low to secure the fundamentally sound tackle. While it may appear to be a routine tackle, we frequently see safeties across the league fail to maintain proper leverage and close ground when breaking toward the sideline in similar situations, often allowing the pass catcher enough room to work along the sideline for extra yards after the catch. If you asked Keith Butler and Mike Tomlin what they expect their Nickel blitzes to look like when properly executed, they would show you the Week 5 example below against Cleveland’s play action bootleg concept. At the snap, Edmunds rolls down to cap the blitzing Mike Hilton, picking up David Njoku as he exits to the flat, closing to the tight ends upfield shoulder, and finishing with physicality to dislodge the ball, finishing to play the pocket at the catch point and force the pass breakup. As Hilton’s pressure forced Baker to hit his checkdown option in order to avoid the sack, forcing the ball into Edmunds tight coverage on the targeted David Njoku, leading to a timely pass breakup, this perfectly executed Nickel pressure is a perfect example of rush and cover working in tandem. The final rep we’ll be taking a look at today, a goal line rep against the Titans talented tight end Jonnu Smith, might be my favorite rep by Terrell Edmunds all season, as it shows that the game is seeming to slow down for him, and he is allowing his instincts to take over. At the snap, Edmunds briefly bites on the play fake, stepping downhill before flipping his head and hips almost instantaneously, closing to the catch point on a direct and efficient angle, and finishing through the tight ends hands with physicality at the catch point to secure the touchdown saving pass breakup. In the past, Edmunds has seemingly had trouble trusting his instincts and processing information efficiently, so reps like this show how far he has truly come in the football IQ and read and react ability facets of his growing game. Thus, while Terrell Edmunds may never live up to the first round billing which he received on draft night, he has quietly developed into one of the most versatile and valuable pieces to a defense that has been nothing short of elite over the past two seasons. While I was slightly surprised that the team declined his fifth year option, his lack of turnover creation directly contradicts Teryl Austin’s takeaway centric philosophy, which makes the decision easier to understand. Nonetheless, even if 2021 is ultimately Edmunds final season in Pittsburgh, don’t be surprised if it’s his best season to date. Moreover, while the turnover creation may never be there, Edmunds physicality and relentless motor in pursuit of the football leads me to believe that he can carve out a long and successful career, potentially making the full time transition to linebacker at some point in his career, similar to former Steelers fan favorite(incoming joke), Mark Barron! Let me know your thoughts on Terrell Edmunds ahead of the 2021 season below in the comments and I will try to answer any possible questions.

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