#anyway have i mentioned that i have a fuckton of feelings about WAR and all its implications

[turner-strait]

this accidentally turned into a mini-fic so there's a readmore lol

Alright, peppinises I have something for consideration

Peppino enters the WAR level, fully knowing that it's going to fuck with him. like it's CLEARLY a last resort kind of deal. But he goes in, ready to take things on-- and oh god he has to speed through the whole thing. Okay, face doesn't falter, can't let your enemy show that you're weak; so he hurdles on, saving toppins and busting through walls and shooting through obstacles

He entered it relatively fine. Upon seeing the door, he knew it was supposed to fuck with him. So he decided that it wouldn't fuck with him.

Except it did. As soon as he makes it out of there, toppins and Gerome in hand, he completely breaks down. Not immediately, but gradually. Once it's all over, and everyone is saved (including the treasure), it all crashes down on him. How fucked up this was. How his experience was used against him. Weaponized against him, even. To make him weaker.

He leans against the wall next to the entrance, staring off into space, barely noticing the tears that keep falling. He blinks them away but other than that, doesn't care about it. The toppins huddle up to him like the critters they are, but are surprised that he doesn't react. Even Gerome, who's technically done this with him dozens of times by now, can't seem to get through to him. So he just sits by him, hoping that his presence (as well as the toppins') is at least some sort of distant relief

Later, some bouncy noises are heard, and for a moment Gerome fears for the worst. But it's just Brick, and Gustavo in tow. The two seem unsure for a moment, but then spot Peppino, still in a complete breakdown; Gustavo is quick to go over and plant himself in front of the man.

Gustavo, recognizing what is happening, gently takes one of Peppino's hands in his own. He doesn't pry it away from where Peppino is cowering, but takes it in any case, giving it a gentle squeeze.

At the motion, Peppino jerks and gasps, momentarily terrified of the touch. But even through his traumatized, muddled mind, he recognizes Gustavo. He gasps again for a moment, and then looks around. His mind is spinning; he was just back in the war, why is he in a corridor with his friends??

Gustavo brushes his thumb over his hand, and Peppino jerks and gasps again, shocked by the gesture. But what he sees is just Gustavo, smiling at him, gently squeezing and rubbing his hand.

Peppino is suddenly aware of something by his side, and almost jumps in terror, but recognizes Gerome's (literal) frame next to him. The janitor is looking up at him with concern, which melts away as Peppino pats his head.

Suddenly, bugs are crawling all over him, and he's terrified again. He's about to scream, but a little squeeze from Gustavo has him looking at the shorter man. "It's okay, Pino. It's the toppins. You saved them. You did a fantastic job."

At that, Peppino darts his eyes around, and sure enough, the bugs were in fact the toppins he had so desperately wanted to save. They're all resting on his legs or have climbed on his chest or shoulders, and he sees now that they all look just as concerned as Gerome did. And Gustavo. And Brick, for that matter.

With a choked sob, Peppino practically crushes Gustavo against himself. He holds onto the other man with dear life, fully allowing his formally restrained feelings to burst. Gustavo, shocked at first, accepts the embrace, and returns it with all his heart. Even going so far as to nuzzle Peppino, if it makes him feel better.

Seeing this, Gerome can't help but join in, and sits down by Peppino's side, placing a firm hand on his leg to let him know he's there and that things are alright.

As Peppino cries, the toppins merge again, now brave enough to realize that he knows who they are. So they plant themselves wherever they want to be; it doesn't matter, as long as Peppino is comforted.

And for now, he is.

[yellowocaballero]

Anyway.

How many works do you have on AO3? 54. Hm. I don't remember writing 54 fics. That's weird. But I've been posting since 2017 so when you THINK about it 54 fics over 7 years isn't weird at all.

What’s your total AO3 word count? 2.4 million. What's your point.

What fandoms do you write for? A fuckton. I write both things I'm hyperfixated on and for random shit that comes in my head. I was into TMA for like two years so I have the most TMA fic (16), but most of my fandoms are 3-5 fics maximum. There's also a lot of random-ass fics for random-ass fandoms that just jumped in my head. Artemis Fowl, Beetlejuice, Animorphs...demons that overtook me for two weeks or so and never bothered me again.

What are your top 5 fics by kudos? The Great Gender Heist (Artemis Fowl, no surprise there.), stay out of trouble (Detroit: Become Human, I reliably forget that one exists and I'm still mystefied as to why so many people read it), meek shall inherit (I'm constantly attempting to forget the Be More Chill phase ever happened), someone will remember us (Batman, fic's not great, am still very fond of that au) and dead or alive (DBH, mediocre). Why the hell are the two Detroit: Become Human fics so popular? I hate DBH so much. I was so angry while writing those.

Do you respond to comments? I am absolutely terrible about responding to comments. I am sorry. I do read and appreciate all of them. It's because I always need to give a dialectical so comments take ages to write. If you do want to hear my thoughts on something, my inbox is your best bet for a way too lengthy response.

What is the fic you wrote with the angstiest ending? Hope, Etc for certain. I try really hard to write bittersweet at worst endings, and even the sad endings in my fics have hope in them. Hope, Etc definitely ends in a better place than where it began. But it's still very sad. I was thinking about a lot of lost loved ones while writing it. Fishhooks and reel to reel also have downer endings but that is because they are LITERALLY Star Wars.

What’s the fic you wrote with the happiest ending? Uhhhh. The ending of Solitaire (and the MLM/WLW hostility series in general) is very sweet. It's meaningful because it demonstrates so much growth from everybody with very little cost. I almost said Go Straight At The Cul De Sac, because it showcases a happier world where horrible historical events were averted, but the ending will always be a little bittersweet because we understand how much Protag sacrificed to create that better world.

Do you get hate on fics? Sometimes people are kind of weird. The worst of it is usually just useless comments, though. I had somebody get pedantic about how briefly mentioning an SUV would be historically inaccurate, and how I should have mentioned a minivan instead - like, did you read that fic and think I was from the suburbs? Do I look like I know what a minivan is? Lol? If I've received any actual more severe stuff I have no idea, since I delete the comment and delete it from my memory. I've never gotten anything too bad. I've been called ablest like three times, which is objectively hilarious.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind? If I could write smut I'd be making bank on Kindle Unlimited right now.

Do you write crossovers? What’s the craziest one you’ve written? Probably the FE3H/BNHA one I'm writing right now that will never see the light of day. Just kidding. I don't actually think I've posted any real crossovers - I DO write them, I just kind of feel like they're cringe so I never post them. I write a lot of cringe shit that never sees the light of day.

Have you ever had a fic stolen? Not nearly popular enough for that.

Have you ever had a fic translated? Several people have mentioned wanting to do that, but nope.

Have you ever co-written a fic before? Not technically. But I do want to give due honors to all of the friends who are SO instrumental in the building of the AUs, stories, characters, etc, that they've had a huge impact on the story itself. I try to recognize them by name in the fics themselves but my stories would look completely different if it wasn't for my friends. Definitely much worse.

What’s your all time favorite ship? I'll differentiate favorite ships and favorite fictional romances. For ships, it's much less about the ship and more about the role in the story. I tend not to pay a lot of attention to that while writing, but sometimes I get lost in my own sauce and I drive myself a bit nuts. I am very fond of Hanyookim, especially in my own ORV story. For romances? My top ten list of fictional romances is as follows: number one: naturally, Sasunaru -

What’s a WIP you want to finish but doubt you ever will? If it's up on AO3, it's done (with one or two very small exceptions - The Ending of Han Sooyoung epilogue I'll get to you I PROMISE). There's plenty of unfinished docs on my drive that I'll never finish, but that's because I decided that they weren't worth finishing.

What are your writing strengths? Dialogue and characterization. That's always been the case. I'm also pretty funny.

What are your writing weaknesses? Plotting. Action. Having stories that are not entirely dialogue. Where things happen and it's more than just people walking around talking. You know. Real stories -

Thoughts on writing dialogue in another language in fic? Always valid. I remember reading one Hispanic author talking about how he doesn't like italicizing the Spanish in his stories because it's otherizing, and I agreed enough with him that I don't tend to italicize other languages either. Sometimes I do. I try to do it purposefully, and to convey something that can only be conveyed through the extra language. I'll also only do it if I can have a friend who speaks that language write it out for me, since gtranslate sucks and I want to ask the friend how such a thing would actually be said and colloquialize it. I like using ASL in fics, and I am just in general begging people to a) write it like any other language, and b) understand that it's different from other languages and can't be written exactly the same. If your Star Wars fanfiction has so much gratuitous Mando'a that I can't understand anything the clones or Mandos are saying I hate you.

First fandom you wrote for? Batman Beyond. Yes, I have a FFN account somewhere. Yes, I was eleven. Yes, it was Batman Beyond.

Favorite fic you’ve written? The best thing I've written is Twilight on Owl Creek Bridge. Favorite is New Wave. That sucker took two years to write (INSANELY long for me) and it is exactly the story I wanted to write. Stephanie's a character I've been writing since I was 15, and the feeling of writing Stephanie and NAILING her for the very first time was so satisfying.

Tagging @usaigi and uh any other writer mutuals you all know who you are.

[willel]

About Ships

So, before the season drops, I want to say something about shipping in this fandom. Most people who have seen me around or know me already kinda know how I feel but it's been weighing heavily on my lately so I feel the need to say something more.

First thing's first, I don't have any deep deep ships. Like, I like Jancy and Jopper? I liked Joyce and Bob? I do like them, but I'm not exactly creating or consuming a lot of content for them you know. (I definitely do more than other ST ships though)

I have friends on "both sides of the aisle", as they say, when it comes to the younger teen ships (they really aren't kids anymore eh?) and I'll like a fanart/headcanon there and stuff cause people are creative and it's cute.

At the end of the day, I don't care that much. It's because of a past experience you see (and I just don't feel as much for them as I do the older ships cause they were so young. Maybe s4 will change my mind? From the sounds of it, Lumax is already starting to)

Again, I won't specify which fandom, but I was in a fandom once. As the main plot kept getting worse and worse and people were dropping off, the only people left in the fandom were shippers. Those shippers fought. They fought a lot (including myself sometimes, but I usually just wrote essays. Like I'm doing now)

Unfortunately in that series, my favorite ship didn't end up being canon. Man. It sucked a lot. I was one of the people who dropped in and out because of how bad the plot was getting but I stuck it out for my ship that ended up not being canon. Pffft. It was a disaster for me and my friends, but we kinda wiped our hands clean of "canon" and continued on with "fanon" activities. We still do to this day.

It's been a decade since that series ended, AND THE SHIP WARS ARE STILL HAPPENING. Right now, as I type, there are people fighting over those ancient long decided ships. I'm a grown woman now so I'm not, nor are my friends. But every day there are canon shippers hounding non-canon shippers.

"How dare you do this, they aren't canon."

"Why can't you accept canon."

"You should be arrested, this is not what happened in canon." (yes, someone said this once about fanart. Not kidding)

"You guys are so butthurt, why are you still shipping -insert ship- even though it's not canon?"

"How dare you attack our ship by not accepting canon."

Here, this is a recent anon message I got on one of my shipping blogs. REMINDER, this ship was declared not-canon like 10 years ago.

It's the most annoying childish shit you've ever seen. It's so fucking annoying you just don't understand. Legitimately this shit has deeply affected me so much that it takes a fuckton to make me ship anything at all. Like "Oops, I like a ship that isn't canon and now I'll have to live the rest of my life being followed around by children who get butthurt over literal fanfiction! Yay!" Why would I even bother to care when show writers obviously do no freakin' care. I haven't gained a real true new ship for 10ish years because I'm so done with mainstream writers.

... Phew.

So anyway, I say all this to say, I have and will continue to keep myself emotionally distanced from the ships in the Stranger Things fandom (and all fandoms really). I fear it is heading down the wrong path. I fear that people can't just like what they like regardless of their canon status. Why can't people just enjoy their ships. Why are you fighting? Why do you care what other people ship? Why are you attacking characters over your ship? Why are you attacking other ships for your ship? It doesn't work like that.

Like I mentioned, I have friends on both sides of the aisles. I have friends who ship everything! It distresses me more than anything that someday soon, a portion of my friends will be hounded forever for liking a non-canon ship or some shit.

I've already experienced it personally, and now I'm watching it happen again to an entirely different fandom from the window.

I'm just some rando on the internet but please please PLEASE, if you find yourself being too serious about ship? If you find yourself too emotionally invested in its canon status? If you find you'll be emotionally devastated because of the outcome of Season 4? If you realize you could turn into a gloating annoying monster because your ship is canon and the other isn't?

I just want to tell you to please please please take a step back. Take another step back. Take a breath. At the end of the day, this is a fictional show. With fictional characters. With sometimes questionable writing choices. It's OK if your ship isn't in the final winning. You can still enjoy your ship and not get too sour about it. If your ship is canon, you don't have to be an asshole, you can also just enjoy your ship and not be a dick about it.

Trust me. You'll look back on these days in the future and be embarrassed of yourself if you're too much into this. I know I was, sorta.

Even though I am looking forward to season 4, a part of me is not looking forward to how the fandom is going to act so I just hope if at least a few people read this, maybe this place will still be a tolerable place to be.

I wanted to write this because the other day, I saw some really inspiring tweets about the current situation with two ships (you already know which two). But specifically about one of them.

You see, there's a trope I don't mind, but I also don't like that much because writers don't usually write it well. It's the unrequited love. Even in the series that shant be named that ended 10 years ago, the main character did not end up with their main love interest and you know, on its face, THAT'S OK.

But writers never seem to understand this and fuck it all up with excuses for why it's unrequited or a reasonable way for the character to move on.

They either go "Lol, they never loved them anyway! It was all a misunderstanding! A joke! Haha! Anyway, they married their TRUE love just now and it's someone else entirely. Isn't that great?"

or "Oopsie, this character will never be able to move on and be miserable forever and ever! Boo hoo 😢. TRAGEDY, THEY END THEIR LIFE, THEY'RE DEVASTATED AND HATE EVERYONE"

or "Oh they THOUGHT they were in love but they got over it in literally 2 seconds after they blinked once and GASP! A brand new interest and this time it's for REAL!"

I've been so so so worried that the show writers and advertisers have been hyping up THAT kind of story. The stereotypical "in love with best friend will never have best friend how silly of him" kind of thing and I dreaded it. Mostly because of the fandom reaction. Some justified anger from people cause I felt like it'd be written like shit. Some anger from people because the other site of the fandom would be gloating and celebrating.

Over and over these scenarios ran through my head and I became annoyed with events that haven't even happened yet. It truly bothered me that much just thinking about the fandom war.

But, on twitter I saw some shippers discussing how the unrequited love COULD be written well. How the shippers don't/shouldn't have to dread it. How it could be good for his character and not a complete shit show and you know? That gave me a little hope.

If that future comes to pass, it would be a relief if the fandom doesn't explode and have a full out war.

But for me, this is all dependent on if the writers can actually write it well. Can they write an interesting and satisfying conclusion? Can they bring the fandoms together and have everyone holding hand and skipping through the fields?

Can they not make some characters look bad in order to make all this work cause they tend to do that a lot. :/

Gosh I'm so hoping so. I just want my friends to be happy. I want to be able to enjoy fandom and fanart and fanfiction without having to scroll past dozens and dozens of ship posts arguing about the outcome.

I just really hope whatever the writers decide to do, it's not a shitshow

[365days365movies]

Western August V: Broken Arrow (1950) - Recap (Part Two) and Review

Where’s Jay SIlverheels, by the way?

This is, like, one of his most acclaimed roles, and he hasn’t shown up anywhere yet. Well, before he does, I should elaborate on why I care so goddamn much.

As I said last time, Silverheels was cast as Tonto in 1949, and became the most recognizable Native American or First Nations face in the United States. At the same time as him, another actor was working. His name was Iron Eyes Cody, and he actually also appears in Broken Arrow...somewhere. Cody made his career as a makeup artist...who specialized in redface. Yeah, that’s a weird-ass thing for a Native American actor to take part in, right?

Silverheels and Cody worked together on Broken Arrow, but Jay thought something was off. Still, the two went on in their respective careers. But they would go in two completely different directions.

During the time of Jay’s rise to fame, the Native American Civil RIghts Movement also began. This culminated in 1969 when Richard Oakes, LaNada Means, John Trudell (pictured above) and the Indians of All Tribes protest group occupied Alcatraz for 18 months. Yeah, the prison in the San Francisco Bay. It was originally native lands, so they took it back...until the government stepped in and ended the protest. But that’s a WHOLE other story. The point is, shit was changing. And suddenly, Jay Silverheels was enemy number one.

Like I said before, Hollywood and Native Americans never had the best relationship. Or even a good one. Hell, there’s a 1915 article written by a film executives that said they stole from film sets, but were trustworthy if provided tobacco and firewater, which is NOT AN EXAGGERATION AT ALL OF WHAT THAT DUDE SAID. And extending to Jay’s role of Tonto, Native American depictions in film were quite stereotypical. Broken and simplified English, savage behaviors and a misunderstanding of Western technology, headfeathers and hollering...you know, real racist shit. And since Jay was kind of the face of that to America...his career didn’t go well. And it REALLY didn’t help that he leaned into it.

Look, Jay was a massive advocate for the Native American Civil Rights movement, and he made that well-known on every possible occasion. However, he also treated Tonto as more of a parody of himself, performing the role for talk shows and commercials, like this above commercial for pizza rolls. And yeah, people were NOT FUCKING HAPPY about that. Native Americans labeled him an “Uncle Tomahawk”, and he was shunned in the community. Meanwhile, Jay’s career was absolutely tanking, barely getting any rolls after 1970. To make things worse, he has a stroke that year. And to make things EVEN worse...let’s get back to Iron Eyes fucking Cody.

In 1971, Iron Eyes Cody was cast by the Keep America Beautiful organization as the “Crying Indian” in their Earth Day commercial. This is the most successful commercial in the history of television, and it launched Iron Eyes Cody into fame as the most recognizable Native American face in the country, if not in the world. He met three Presidents, the Pope, got a stamp, was nominated for statehood...just, ludicrous amounts of acclaim and fame. When asked what his tribal lineage was, he would claim that he was of Cherokee and Cree descent. Just like Johnny Depp did! Which is fitting, because just like Johnny Depp... 

IRON EYES CODY WASN’T NATIVE AMERICAN AT ALL

Born Espera Oscar de Corti, he was an Italian kid from Louisiana. Yeah. This guy, this motherfucking guy, made his career playing pretend as a Native American. Remember when I said he was a makeup artist for films, making people look more authentically redface? Yeah, he did that as his job AND AS HIS LIFE. He would also always wear his Native American costume in public, which even Native Americans thought was fucking weird.

And Jay Silverheels KNEW this, by the way. He found out while the two were working together...on Broken Arrow. Which, of course, is why I brought this up. So this must’ve been a goddamn gutpunch for the poor guy. He’s labeled Uncle Tomahawk, while Cody’s being lauded as the best Native American actor ever, AND HE ISN’T EVEN NATIVE AMERICAN. Jesus Christ, this sucks.

Jay Silverheels died of a second stroke in 1980, at the age of 67. Iron Eyes went on to be on Mister Rogers, got even more film roles, and died a successful man in 1999, at the age of 94. There was an attempt to expose him in 1996, but that attempt got backlash from a fuckton of people, including within the Native American community. Only after his death was he finally revealed as the son of Sicilian immigrants who played a fake Native American for the cameras. And to be fair, he did give to Native American charities and causes, he was an advocate for Native American rights, and he at least raised the awareness of Native Americans to people who may not have known or cared about them otherwise. And yet, despite that...

Fuck Iron Eyes Cody. He’s still a dick.

Time to get back to Broken Arrow, huh? Here’s Part One if you missed it!

Recap: Part 2

After the gross-ass flirtation between the two the next day, Cochise arrives to tell Jeffords that he’ll allow the mail through, but nobody else. Jeffords takes the news back to Tucson, and nobody believes him. He’s given resistance specifically from John Lowrie (Robert Griffin), who bets Jeffords money that five mail riders won’t make it through. Jeffords takes the bet, and Milt Duffield is the first to volunteer to ride.

Duffield and four other riders make it through. But in the process, a military wagon train is ambushed by Chochise and his men and slaughtered. This seeming dichotomy leads the men of Tucson to believe that Jeffords is a traitor and siding with the Apache. In response, after a tence-ass altercation in a bar, the men mob together and IMMEDIATELY TRY TO LYNCH HIM JESUS CHRIST

He’s saved at the last minute by General Oliver Howard (Basil Ruysdael), who asks Jeffords to ask for a meeting with Cochise. He agrees to arrange it, if the peace-seeking General agrees to come alone. He does, as the General is actually a decent-ass dude. He’s not racist, and he believes that the Apache should be allowed their territory as well. Sick.

Also sick is the fact that the romance between Jeffords and Sonseeahray is going ahead towards marriage! Gross! Fucking gross. Cochise approves of this, and arranges it with the parents, despite warning them of the troubles ahead. However, that night, Jeffords is almost killed in his sleep by one of the tribesmen. Jeffords stops it, and Cochise intervenes, ashamed by the actions of one of his people. This is Nahilzay (John War Eagle), a rival suitor of Sonseeahray, and a traitor to Cochise’s word. So, to act upon his honor, Cochise kills him. Whoof.

The General comes for the treaty, while Sonseeahray prepares for their wedduuuuuuchh. Sorry, threw up in my mouth a little just then. Anyway, four days pass, and the men of the Apache Tribes have gathered to attempt a peace negotiation with the General. After a round of questions by the generals, the two Americans leave. And at this point, a dissenting voice rises. This voice does not believe the Americans. He says that the Apache don’t need this treaty, but need a new chief who is not softened to war.

But Cochise rightly notes that the Americans are growing in strength, and the Apache are shrinking. He puts it to a vote, and while some men leave, the majority of the Apache agree to peace. The leader of these men takes a new name: Geronimo (Jay SIlverheels). Sick. Geronimo and his new allies leave, ready to continue the war in the stead of the other Apache. But still, overall, there is a tentative peace that’s been struck.

But, of course, Geronimo doesn’t care about peace. He and his men ambush a stagecoach party, accompanied by Jeffords. But Jeffords is able to put out smoke signals that bring Cochise’s Apache to their aid, chasing off these renegades. Looks like the treaty’s working after all! I’m sure that it’s not gonna backfire even a little bit.

Anyway, the wedduuuuching between Jeffouuuughrds and Sonseeeewahray takes place and I stop myself from vomiting all over my computer.  There, a wedding prayer is said, and that prayer has been mistaken for being an authentic Apache Prayer for 71 years. It comes from THIS FUCKING MOVIE.

Sixteen days pass, and the peace treaty is still intact. Jeffords and Sonseeahray wax poetic about their love, and I feel like burying my head in the couch pillows to GET AWAY FROM THIS. But that’s interrupted by the arrival of Bob Slade (Mickey Kuhn), the son of racist farmer Ben Slade. He claims that the Apache have stolen their horses, which Cochise doubts. Still, on Jeffords’ suggestion, they go to investigate. And of course...it’s an ambush by Ben Slade, John Lowrie, and their compatriots.

The men fire away, aiming for Cochise. They miss him, and instead hit Jeffords and Sonseeahray, who tagged along for some reason. Slade is killed by Cochise, who escapes with his life. The men realize how severely they’ve fucked up, and they take off for Mexico. Fuck you guys. Jeffords lives, only to see that Sonseeahray is dead. When Cochise returns to find Jeffords and the survivors, they also notice a still-living settler. Jeffords wants to kill him, but Cochise stops him, now fully believing in peace.

Although he grieves, he also recognizes that Sonseearray was a Girl in the Refrigerator all along, and her death has inspired TRUE peace between the settlers and the Apache. And...that’s it.

That’s it?

That’s...one of the most sudden and anticlimactic endings I’ve seen in a while. I’m a little disappointed, to be honest. But OK, before I get on a tangent, let’s do a full review, huh?

Review

Short preamble! I did like this movie...mostly. It’s kind of haunted by the whole underage love interest and the redface. Hard for me to see past that, BUT IF I TRY...I can acknowledge that this is a good movie. I didn’t even mention that it’s loosely based off of a true story! Yeah! Tom Jeffords and Cochise actually did have a relationship. It’s a VERY different story, but their friendship really did exist.

If I was gonna guess my rating ahead of time...I’ll go with a 76%-80%. But let’s see how that holds up in the breakdown.

Cast and Acting - 7/10: Despite the position he’s in, Jimmy Stewart still turns out a great performance in this movie. Sure, watching him kiss Debra Paget make me cry on the inside and outside, but he was good in the role of Jeffords, especially when up against the racist settlers. Jeff Chandler also manages to be good, despite the fucking redface. And Jay Silverheels...Jay was great, even though I thought his role would be more than a single scene. As for the rest...Paget was bad. She was not good in this movie, sorry. And everybody else was basically just OK. Nothing to write home about.

Plot and Writing - 9/10: This was a solid-ass story, and I liked almost every part of it...save the underage romance. Which, no, I AM NOT FORGETTING ABOUT. Dude, Jeffords didn’t do that in real life. So, for the love of GOD, why make his fictional bride fucking 15? Guys...gross. Really fucking gross, Albert Maltz. Other than that, you did a great job, I just wish that wasn’t a part of it. Ugh.

Directing and Cinematography - 10/10: Yeah, Delmer Daves is a legend. I thought of writing the into to these recaps on him, but I really wanted to talk about Jay Silverheels and Iron Eyes Cody. But I’ll get my chance; Delmer Daves also directed 3:10 to Yuma, so I’ll bring him up one of these days. Anyway, Delmer Daves does a great job with this movie, and it’s gorgeously shot. Ernest Palmer is cinematographer, and he also does an excellent job.

Production and Art Design - 9/10: Sure, the settlers look generic, but the Native Americans? Excellent costume design, with a lot of authenticity packed in there. Credit where credit’s due, here.

Music and Editing - 7/10: Well, the music is great here, if not extraordinarily memorable. Hugo Friedhofer does the composition, and he does a great job. But is it iconic? Eh. Not really. I don’t remember it having a massive impact on me, unfortunately. And the editing...is also OK. That ending is weirdly paced for me, and very abrupt. But J. Watson Webb Jr. does a decent enough job, I think.

That’s an 84%. Huh. Genuinely thought it’d be lower.

This is a good movie, don’t get me wrong. But it’s...complicated. I would recommend it with warnings, I’ll put it that way. Good, great even...but complicated. Outside of that, I have to admire the stance to put Native American tribes on a equal stance, respect-wise. For the time, and for the genre, that’s a rarity. So, as always, credit where credit’s due.

Next up, we continue our foray into the classic Western...but stick with Jimmy Stewart. I wanna give him a second chance. And hopefully, this one doesn’t include a romance with a fifteen year-old. Hopefully.

Next: The Naked Spur (1953); dir. Anthony Mann

[gatecoeur]

WANDAVISION SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT 

CUZ I WANNA WRITE OUT ALL MY THOUGHTS AND MAYBE GET A PLOT OR TWO GOING BASED ON MY IDEAS IDK???

okay so first thing’s first, idgaf what anyone else says, the show confirmed for me the MCU Wanda and Pietro ARE mutants. this is because it is a personal headcanon of mine that any and all persons within the Marvel Universe who has magical capabilities IS a mutant (hence why JP’s considered a mutant even tho his only “mutation” is his magical capabilities). Agatha mentioned during their nice lil trip down memory lane that Wanda’s ALWAYS had magical capabilities. Furthermore, Wanda’s potential didn’t get unlocked until she was exposed to the Mind Stone, and most of us know that the X-gene usually only gets unlocked in one of two ways - either naturally through puberty or through experiencing some kind of traumatic event. 

THEREFORE, MCU WANDA AND PIETRO HAVE ALWAYS HAD THE X-GENE, BUT THEIR MUTATIONS SIMPLY DIDN’T SHOW UP UNTIL THEY GOT EXPOSED TO THE MIND STONE. THIS IS WHAT I’M CONSIDERING CANON FOR ME AND ON MY BLOG FROM NOW ON.

SECONDLY, the molecular changes Monica experienced from going through the Hex multiple times. I was just thinking about it, and this would likely have to vary from Wanda to Wanda, depending if anyone wants to play with this idea, but what if, after discovering that going through the Hex forces these molecular changes, a shapeshifter, like yours truly Arrie, was recruited to go through the Hex? Because fundamentally, shapeshifters are able to change themselves on a molecular level at will.  

Theoretically, in Arrie’s case, this could mean one of two things. Either -

A: going through the Hex would be SO easy for her. Because her body is already adapted to molecular change, she wouldn’t struggle nearly as much as Monica did, or

B: when we see Monica going through the Hex, we see her split. What if that was much more literal for a shapeshifter? Because if that was the case, Arrie would struggle SO much more to get through. A transformation that rapid and dramatic would easily cause serious injury, if not bring Arrie close to Death’s doorstep. Or even worse, it could literally rip Arrie apart.

Theory A brings up so much more questions though, because if it’s true, how much of Wanda’s magic would actually affect Arrie? Shapeshifting itself in its nature is pretty chaotic - it’s why we often portray shapeshifters as being mischief makers. Does that mean shapeshifting could be a juvenile use of chaos magic? And if I were to make that the case ( which I probably won’t, but it’s fun to think about anyways ), does that mean Wanda could easily force Arrie to shapeshift into whatever she wants, or could it mean that Arrie has a resistance to chaos magic* due to the years of training she put into understanding how her shapeshifting works? 

( *The resistance possibility is why I likely won’t make Arrie’s shapeshifting some kind of use of chaos magic - it seems hella op for a shapeshifter with a fuckton of drawbacks to begin with to suddenly resist the powers of someone who’s now confirmed to be more powerful than the Sorcerer Supreme )

Theory B though would also be fun, because what if, not only does Arrie struggle to get through the Hex, but she also suffers while being in the confines of it? Because if Wanda’s powers are trying to rewrite Arrie’s reality, and Arrie’s body fights against that because Arrie’s body has so many realities already, that would mean that Arrie’s body would be CONSTANTLY at war with Wanda’s superior magic, and probably cause her a pain that’s akin, if not worse to her chronic pain. 

And what if her body loses? What then? Would Arrie be forced to stay in her true form? Would she become someone or something else different entirely? And what if Wanda’s powers tries to rewrite Arrie’s body in a way that originally wasn’t possible for her? What then? 

Now this is just all fun thinking, cuz as we clearly see, no human person was harmed during any of Wanda’s rewrites. She didn’t change them, just everything else around them. But it’s just fun to think about because as human as Arrie is, down to a genetic level, the possibilities of how such an influence could affect a shapeshifter who believes her abilities are purely biological is just something interesting to think about. 

And any of this piques anyone’s interest, please, feel free to hmu and we can talk more!

[letmetellyouaboutmyfeels]

So there’s this New York Times article that I saw and holy fuck guys it’s time to get on my soapbox.

First of all, it’s a horror from start to finish, clearly influenced by the idea that we’re all trying to lose weight and that your health goal shouldn’t be, I don’t know, to have energy or be healthy or feel happy in your skin, but rather to lose as much weight as humanly fucking possible.

It’s got fantastic quotes like this:

*screams in horror*

You know who doesn’t eat for 16 hours a day? Me. I do. When I’m having a depressive episode. I don’t eat. I can’t sleep. I pick a handful of songs and I lie on the floor and I listen to them on repeat while I strive to feel any kind of hunger but the very idea of food makes me sick and it takes everything in me to force myself to consume something. Even my favorite chocolate cake isn’t appealing during those times.

And yeah, sure, I lose a fuck ton of weight during those times. In fact, I lost so much weight last year, my mom had an intervention. I don’t have an eating disorder in the sense that I have body dysphoria or I’m trying to lose weight or that I’m not happy with my body. I’m not bulimic or even anorexic. I just lose the will to live. I can’t sleep. I can’t eat. I can’t think. I have to listen to music otherwise the silence in my head is so loud it feels like I’m trapped in a fucking coffin and the coffin is my own body so there’s no escape.

It’s fun.

So yes, I lose a lot of weight. But I also have no energy. I’m irritable. I’m listless. I’m impatient. I get sick really easily because my body has no strength to fight off a cold. I look like shit. I’m talking big purple hollows under my eyes and sallow skin and counting my ribs. I look like I’m going to play an extra on The Walking Dead.

Fasting 16 hours a day might make you lose weight, but my God, at what price!? Not to mention the binge-eating you do afterwards because you’re so fucking hungry you can’t control yourself. When you don’t eat for a while, your body starts craving food like chips, and ice cream, and burgers. It wants high sugar high salt high fat goodies. It wants a fuckton of calories, stat. So now you’re in a cycle of binging and purging that is... oh wait... what do we call that?

AN EATING DISORDER!!!

Second of all, it once again uses the idea of our oh-so-holy ancestors to promote the idea that we are currently failing as a species:

“Our human ancestors did not consume three regularly spaced large meals, plus snacks, every day, nor did they live a sedentary life,” the researchers wrote.

Well y’know what our human ancestors also did, researchers? Ate woolly mammoths, used bronze tools, and thought the gods literally lived on top of a mountain (if you’re Greek). We’ve moved on. I also don’t know of anyone who eats three large meals a day and snacks, but so what if you do? Life is to be enjoyed, and if you enjoy food, fucking bully for you! Far be it from me to stop you.

Sure, there is a point to be made about our sedentary lifestyles. But that, to be frank, is more to do with the fact that most of us are stuck working long hours in jobs that require us to sit or stand in one place all day, and we can’t afford to not work those jobs because otherwise we will not be able to pay our bills and we will die. And then you’re so exhausted from work that you come home and you don’t want to do anything. You just want to sit and relax. So you do.

Maybe, just maybe, instead of casually shaming us for our “sedentary life” as if it’s a choice we all made - papers and health professionals should be blaming the corporations that made it so that we don’t really have a choice?

“Many people will experience hunger, irritability and a reduced ability to concentrate during periods of food restrictions,” the researchers wrote. They added, however, that these side effects usually disappear within a month.

Yeah, because after a month you start to go into shut down mode. Do you realize what you’re doing when you do this to your body? You’re modifying your DNA. You have kids later in life, those kids are going to naturally be heavier, and hold onto weight more, because their DNA that they got from you says “we won’t get a lot of food, so we have to hold onto the fat that we do get, to prepare for times of hardship.” Now, I don’t care what weight any kids I have might be (not that I want kids, but anyway) but that’s a little extreme, wouldn’t you say? To modify your fucking DNA???

The article does admit that this sort of intermittent fasting can be a trigger for those with eating disorders and that you have to be careful not to binge on too much food or unhealthy food once you’re allowed to eat again. But the fact that it’s promoting this as an option and is so based in the idea that we all have to lose weight and that being heavy is wrong is fucking disgusting.

I have known far too many people with eating disorders who tried fasting to let this kind of bullshit slide. Please, please, please, for the love of whatever you consider holy, do not fast for 16 hours a day. You need food! You need it! Eat what you want when you want and enjoy it!

Not eating like this? That’s what they put prisoners of war through. It’s actual torture. My brain puts me through this kind of torture. Please, please, please do not do this to yourselves voluntarily.

And FUCK the New York Times for promoting this kind of thinking. Fuck them with a cactus.

[moontwyrine]

recs anon: yes please! i'm looking to get into it and aside from the MXTX's novels, i'm a bit overwhelmed lol

OH BOI I do feel you. There is so much around and without knowing your preferences or tastes it’s really hard to do some recs...

so i’ll go with some of what I read/I am reading, but tell me what you like and I probably have something for you? I checked a lot of stuff and I have even more in like 5 different reading lists based on my tastes (which are, unfortunately, very weird and not tumblr friendly. I like my angst and my villains.)

GUARDIAN  Modern era supernatural. I think a lot of people do the jump MDZS-Guardian due to the drama? Anyway, Guardian is a fantastic story, fantastic characters, Zhao Yunlan and Shen Wei are an interesting pairing. 5000 years of yearning, longing and pining. (You thought Lan Wangji or Hua Cheng knew about longing? Shen Wei is the master of it) Personally I agree with people that said that it’s REALLY good up to chapter 60something. That’s because then Priest puts in a lot of chinese mythology and it gets confusing (it wouldn’t be confusing if it was only the mythology, it’s that we get like 3 versions of that mythology, each slightly different from the others and it’s really hard to keep track of what really happened or not.) The Drama, too, is a very nice watch despite being a whole different concept. (Generally, from what I heard, Priest’s work are a safe bet. I’m still waiting for Qin Ye to be translated because that book sounds like my jam. I will start Faraway Wanderes soon since there is a drama coming next year)

THE FOURTEENTH YEAR OF CHENGHUA  -This is still being translated. It’s ancient china detectives! What’s cooler than that ?!? Nothing. The translation is not great, there are clearly a lot of pronoun mixup and repetitions that i am not sure were in the original? But it’s worth it because Tang Fan and Sui Zhou are really made for each other, two smart detectives solving cases together and falling in love meanwhile. Found family trope present as well. Imperial intrigue. It’s very very good. This also has a drama, but Tang Fan, the main character, is VERY different, still I’m at ep 20something and it’s a DELIGHT. Also Food. So much food porn....

THE EARTH IS ONLINE -Modern era supernatural/sci-fi/horror. Basically there are a bunch of black towers all around the world and suddenly they come online, a fuckton of people die and those who survived have to play deadly games (most of them based on known fairytales/games). It’s GOOD. I’m at chapter 62 only but HOLY FUCK. Tang Mo, the protagonist, is not afraid of living in a post-apocalyptic world and do what it takes, which is refreshing tbh, the other male lead, Fu Wenduo is even better than Tang Mo??? Together they are scary and sexy as fuck. Super Mario commits War Crimes in this one (not kidding.) The survival horror is REAL. Just...it’s good. Read it. Pinocchio is a little bastard.

THE HUSKY AND HIS WHITE CAT SHIZUN I am not even at chapter 10, but this is a honorable mention. Xianxia with transmigration. Anyway, not even 10 chapters in and I’m hooked so there is that. From what I heard, there is a lot of angst and good plot. Drama coming next year. 

I put these in a Novel Update List for you to check. For the other 100 books I’m keeping an eye on I’ll need to know your tastes a little bit better. Do you prefer Xianxia/Wuxia/Fantasy, modern, supernatural, horror? Do you like master/disciple relationships? Do you like Main Character/Villain stories?  I’m not going to be able to rec much about transmigration novels (except a couple) and nothing about sport/e-sport because i don’t like that at all.

[thechocoboos]

last one I promise: ffxv but in space?... OK I'll admit I'm starting to run out of ideas. have a nice day and good luck with school!

holy fuck i went way more crazy with this than I planned. so have fun. Keep in mind, y’all, this is a space au–things are defo different than the actual plot. also: happy ending

FFXV IN SPACE HC

The Regalia is a small prototype ship made for small trips to and from space stations and moons

Noctis’ father is the leader of a massive space colony circling a dimming blue star

Their space colony is running out of resources and energy as a result of a longstanding war with The Empire, a corporation that grew too powerful back when space travel became big and now aims to take control of every colony, resource, and inhabitable planet in the galaxy

so Regis sends Noctis and Co out on an expedition to build alliances and find potential resources that the Empire had overlooked

Noctis is a drifter who doesn’t want to take over his dad’s colony

Gladio is a soldier, a bodyguard in training for the leaders of the space colony. His family has always worked closely with the colony’s founders, so he was raised to follow in the footsteps of his ancestors and to protect Noct

Prompto is a lower level settler of their space colony

He ran into Noctis during their school days and latched himself to Noct like a leach (Noct never minded and even grew to like Prom)

Ignis is still an advisor, albeit a SPACE ADVISOR

He is well versed in most, if not all, of the known alien languages and settlements (he spent so much of his schooling learning languages that he dreams about learning them–granted they’ve become more of nightmares by this point)

He guides Noctis on their mission to find resources and build alliances, giving advice such as “Do not try to navigate that asteroid belt” and “stay far from the Black Hole of Ostenbar–many civilizations were lost there”

Granted that advice is always ignored, but hey, it’s the thought that counts!

One day on their expedition, he mentions rumors of a ship called The Oracle–a ship that opposes the Empire

Supposedly, it started out as a simple rescue ship that grew bigger and bigger and soon became a massive self sustaining ship that travels around the galaxy helping those in need

Noct and Co. realize that it may be their first step towards building alliances and aim to find The Oracle–it’s their first tangible mission

The Oracle, if you hadn’t already guessed, is run by Luna

She and her brother, Ravus, inherited it from their family

The Oracle had many run ins with the Empire as a result of its good deeds, and Ravus grew tired of the pain inflicted on both his people and his inheritance due to those assholes

He knew he could never deal with the Empire directly, especially while handling The Oracle, so he left the ship in the hands of Luna and ran off

He fell in with a group of good-natured space pirates and now raids the Empire’s smaller ships with his small, growing fleet and gives the resources he obtains from them to those who need it–kind of like a robinhood of sorts

(I’m expecting some SpacePirate!Ravus spin offs in the future–i’ll even take the transcript of pirates of the caribbean except with ravus and in space)

anyways

Ardyn is a strange deity who was once worshiped on a more primitive, jungle based planet

His planet is hot, humid, and full of bright, colorful creatures. Some of them are poisonous and deadly, and others are docile and harmless

His people made beautiful buildings of stone with carved designs and everything they made was otherworldly and beautiful, there wasn’t a single item of theirs that wasn’t art in one way or another

They made the most beautiful songs and their language was magnificent and elegant; it was as though their voices were woven from the stars

Keywords? Made. Was.

The Empire found him one day and found his immense power very beneficial

They captured him and his worshippers, turning the worshippers into slaves and science experiments while they used torture and abuse to control Ardyn before turning him into the High Commander or the Empire

They brainwashed him into thinking it was Regis’ colony that had done him wrong, and he has it out for Insomnia Space Colony ever since

It takes a metric fuckton of cycles for Noct and co to finally find The Oracle, who is very willing to join the Insomnia Space Colony cause (my god is that a mouthful or what)

Sidenote: Cor is pretty high up on commanders from Noct’s colony, so he was out conducting business with other settlers at the far end of the galaxy

After the destruction of Insomnia Space Colony, he managed to get hold of Noct on The Oracle and relay the news

It leaves Noctis and the others crushed

They end up lost for a little bit, uncertain what their goal should be from then on

One day, however, The Oracle receives an SOS call from that same dimming star that Noct’s colony had orbited

The Oracle takes them there, and they find many, many survivors

The Oracle takes those survivors on board without a single word, and as Noctis sees the remnants of his people’s suffering at the hands of The Empire, he swears to bring an end to those fuckers as long as he lives (cue his new reason for living)

ANyways

Noct and co.’s favorite pit stop is a small colony on an asteroid called Crash Comet

It’s run by Cid, an old alien friend of Regis’ and his granddaughter

It’s the nicest gas station, diner, and mechanic outside of their solar system

They visit it regularly, especially after Noct learns how to fly the Regalia (he can’t avoid those asteroid belts even when he tries)

Gladio once asked why Prompto was with them on their expedition bc he genuinely had no idea why the kid was there

Gladdy was there for protection, Ignis was their walking, talking adviceman, and Prom? He had no idea

Prom lowkey didn’t know either, but he just held up his old lil camera and said some BS about being their historian

In reality, Noct really just brought him bc he didn’t want to be stuck in a tiny spaceship with Ignis and Gladdy alone, besides, he knew that Prompto always wanted to see the galaxy outside of their colony

They have many run-ins with Ardyn and The Empire–it always ends in a massive chase scene through the stars, a disappearance in a hectic asteroid belt, and another trip to Crash Comet

Noct, Iggs, Gladdy, and Prom have a blast on their space adventures

At least, up until their colony is destroyed

Still, they meet aliens from all walks of life and eat strange alien food at strange alien gas stations on the edge of the galaxy and make friends everywhere

They make alliances as they go, building up their own army of settlers, colonists, space pirates, and aliens alike to rise up against the Empire, with The Oracle heading their fleet

Prompto takes so many pictures that he ends up with a massive database of things ranging from aliens, planets, stars, flora, fauna, selfies, weird poisonous glowing bacteria–you name it, he’s got it (after their adventures he actually finds scientists and alienologists asking him for his pictures for research and references; our boi makes bank on his pics!)

Ignis tries every single different cultured cuisine he can get his grubby lil gloved paws on and he will eat ALL OF IT. he has been poisoned by the clashing chemical makeup on more than one occasion (but he still won’t stop)

Noctis hates trying new culture foods, like he goes for some of it but if Ignis tries to feed him one more Glockinshnid’esiria throat casserole, he’s going to vomit

Gladio towers over a lot of alien species they meet, but he also looks like a penny next to some of them (he lowkey feels insecure about it)

Gladdy likes to trade work out regimens with some aliens

He once tried working out with the very gruff, muscled Kleeverprongs, a species known to eat the muscles of their dead to become stronger and who begin weightlifting at 3 months old (he threw his back out and couldn’t walk for a week)

Prompto tries to steal small alien pets but Ignis threatens to throw him out the back of their cruiser if he so much as looks at one more Puffelzingor.

He once hid a small mouse like rodent in his shirt for three weeks, but it escaped and ate through one of Ignis’ prized pots (it’s one of the more expensive ones that can handle stardust and the harshest of acids)

Ignis hasn’t forgiven him yet. And he probably never will.

Sometimes Noct and Co. cross paths with Ravus

Ravus usually screams about them being the ones who got his sister tied in even further with the bloody empire and being the biggest thorn in his ass

There was one time where Ravus was thought to be dead in the middle of space, and none other than Noct and Co. rescued him (he had lost an arm and been abandoned by accident. Space pirates aren’t very bright sometimes)

He was less aggressive towards them afterwards, especially because he was stuck with them for about 2 and a half cycles (roughly 3.67 months) because the nearest welcoming outpost was at least a good hundred stars away

ANyways plot stuff:

So, throughout their journeys and travels, Noct and Co. slowly learn about some of the Empires more hidden histories and ties with differing colonies

They learn more about Ardyn, how he was essentially a tool used by the empire

THey actually travel back to the planet that Ardyn had been worshiped on and end up learning even more

At first, they thought he had just been a leader of some strange planet, but when discovering he was essentially a god? Oh boi, they were faced with a big moral dilemma

Noctis still wants to bring down the Empire, but now, he also wants to help Ardyn and Ardyn’s people

Gladdy is against it, of course, saying that Ardyn had still done terrible things and was still a terrible person who should pay for his actions

Noct mostly disagrees. He thinks Ardyn needs to pay to a certain degree, but to him, it was more important that they at least try to free his people and attempt to get the truth out there

He argues that it really wasn’t all Ardyn’s fault, that he was nothing more than a pawn who had been manipulated and lied to for nothing but selfish reasons

He doesn’t want to help Ardyn, necessarily, but he does want to make things right

It was truly at this point that his friends began seeing the leader that Noct truly is

Noctis and Co. were never really able to convince Ardyn as much as they tried; he was past the point of simply believing things

Still, he made a deal. A snarky deal with a smirk and teasing tone to his voice, but the look in his eye had been enough to give them hope

He told them, that if they were able to find his people and set them free, he just might be willing to strike up some sort of deal that would work out for both of them

Cue montage

The space bros go through hell and back trying to find out what happened to most of the worshippers

They break through and destroy so many Empire outposts and institutes that they probably single handedly cripple part of the Empire

Even so, with how hard they work to find out where the worshippers were, they had to ask for help

They asked both Ravus and Luna for help, as well as some of the more trusted allies they had made through their journey

In the end, they find that most of the worshippers had been killed. They manage to rescue those who had survived, and bring them to Luna’s ship for safety

They’re beaten and bruised with fearful eyes and they spend most of their time praying–it’s all they can do at this point

It’s heartbreaking, and it truly reminds Noctis and his friends that they weren’t the only ones who had lost their home

Luna and Noct both promise the worshippers that they would be brought back home when it was finally safe, but no one knows when that will be

The next time Noctis crosses paths with Ardyn, there is no snark in Ardyn’s voice–only the serious tone of a man who had lost everything

He demands that Noct bring him to his people, his voice harsh and sharp as he snaps. His eyes are furious and his stance is dangerous but Noct remains calm and tall, his eyes cool as he talks Ardyn down

Ardyn agrees to go with Noctis alone, he agrees to relinquish his weapons and trickery–all he wants is to see that his people are safe

The others aren’t happy, the air is tense in their cruiser as they return to The Oracle. Gladio silently fumes and Ignis is ready to pounce any second.

But Ardyn makes no moves. He waits, his heart still, his eyes sharp–he could be walking into a trap, and he knows it, but he doesn’t care, not if his people are there

Luna is respectful when Ardyn boards her ship. She doesn’t show any ill will despite what he has done–she knows he had been tricked, and she knows that all that really matters to him are his people. She respects that.

She leads him to the worshippers, and the second his eyes fall on them, he smiles–truly smiles

He feels relief, hope–glee

They look just as stunned as he is, their eyes wide and sparkling as they drop to the floor and bow

He only tells them to stand, speaking in an old, dead language that even Ignis doesn’t know

He asks them questions, touches their cheeks, their shoulders, their hands… He’s so gentle and careful, no one else can believe it

As they finish answering, he thanks them with a warm, soft voice, promising he’ll get them home safe–that they will all go home safely and that he’ll join them, that they will rebuild their beautiful civilization once again and no one will ever hurt them again

He turns and looks at Noctis, his eyes full of cold murder as his fury burns. He asks when they’ll launch their full attack–because he wants in. He quietly vows that he will bring down the empire–every last ship, even if it kills him.

It only takes a few more cycles for everything to be ready.

There are at least a thousand ships that come forward to help fight. Their alliances hold true to their words and promises and join The Oracle, bringing their own smaller allied ships and friends with them

Ravus brings at least 200 ships full of space pirates with a new, shiny arm at his shoulder

Noctis contacts older allies that his dad had made, as well as the hundreds of new ones he’s made through his travels–and those allies bring their own, as well

Luna has age old promises that are being fulfilled, her oldest contacts coming forward from the deep recesses of space to help fight the Empire

Even Ardyn pulls some strings, pulling a few of the Empire’s allies over to their side–after all, many of them had been loyal to Ardyn alone, in the end

With the Empire spread over so much of space, it isn’t a clean, straightforward war (then again, most aren’t)

The war lasts 81.7 cycles–nearly ten years. Strategies are stretched, lives are lost, people were worn down, but Noctis never wavers

In the end, the Empire crumbles–losing far too many of its ships and colonies, especially as the civilizations it took over rebel and fight back.

Eventually, there is only the head colony left–and Noctis’ side easily corners it.

Noctis isn’t alone when he approached the leader of the Empire. Ardyn goes with him, his losses just as valid as Noctis’

The leader begs. He cries, yells in desperation, falls to his knees and simply weeps–asking for Noctis to have mercy.

Noctis is cold as he responds, simply staring down the old man. He’s gotten what he wants–the Empire’s downfall. Yes, the leader needs to pay for his crimes, but he doesn’t care much for the logistics of that–so deciding punishment falls to Ardyn.

The details don’t matter too much–the Empire fell, Noctis was able to rebuild his colony around a new star, The Oracle was free to help the civilizations that had been under the Empire’s control, Ravus and his space pirates became the police of sorts–protecting people from unsavory sorts in space, and Ardyn was able to return to his home with the remainder of his people

Space was free again, its planets and civilizations free to return to run their lives as they pleased

Edit: Things I forgot to mention™

Arenaea is space’s local lesbian space pirate whose fleet was actually hired by Ardyn somewhere down the line

She was actually notorious and was a big rival of Ravus (they crossed paths on more than one occasion)

She’s lost a couple digits and a foot, as well as an eye in her pursuits but replaced them all with cybernetic implants (her eye can actually see in infrared, very handy in space)

Her cyborg foot has a built in high heel

She’s one of the most dangerous enemies and one of the best allies to have

No one crosses her and lives to tell the tale (unless she wants them to)

Insanely good strategist and is one of the best allies Noct has in the war

You can hear her loudly walking down the metal bridges of ships when hunting down mercenaries and criminals, her cybernetic foot and high heels clanging loudly (she likes to scare them--she could move quietly with no effort at all)

Anyways so weapons right

LASERS LASERS LASERS LASERSSSS

Ignis’ weapons are duel blades ofc, however, they’re HEAT DUEL BLADESSSS

With a click of his thumbs he's got some lasers shooting down the edge of his daggers and ready to burn the guts of his enemies as he stabs them (it’s pretty good at cauterizing wounds so his slices and jabs are well placed for instant death)

Gladio??? Yes, he still uses those massive as two handed swords. No one can rip that away from him

However

They, too, have laser capabilities

He keeps two laser pistols on either side of his belt for when they’re fighting in smaller quarters  

Y’all haven’t lived until you’ve gotten a mental image of sweaty gladio with burn wounds from laser rifles and holes in his tanktop shootin a couple of laser pistols with his beautiful manbun-ponytail thing and 10-year gap hair chillin out there, mouth turned down into a scowl as his sharp eyes aim

He also has a couple of electric cybernetic gloves that stun enemies with a single punch

Now. Noctis? Listen. He doesn’t use lasers--too much of a hassle

Our boi has a few cybernetic implants, kay?

Y’all ever played mass effect? His magic is basically like the biotics of mass effect

In other words, he still has magic, it’s just sci-fi magic!

His swords are made out of the sharpest metals one can find, and they glow because 1) I say so, and 2) they were forged from radioactive materials and stardust from the heat of a dying star because that’s how we do things in S P A C E

NOW PROMPTO

HOOO BOI MY LORD SO MANY LASERS

S O  M A N Y  L A S E R S

He’s got a laser rifle, he’s got a laser sniper, he’s got bullets that electrocute, bullets that explode, bullets that burn, grenades that stun, grenades that blow up, grenades that disintegrate only organic forms (helpful in space ships tbh)

He has a good trusty ole missile launcher type of weapon that launches concentrated laser ball missiles at shit

Also he’s far sighted.

Anyways; prom is always making modifications to his weapons (and gladio’s pistols) and is always the one to repair or alter the spacebro’s weaponry

He once smacked Noct for trying to fix a sword and somehow damaging its mechanics

Prom actually makes some serious cash fixing weapons at outposts and such, he also buys cheap weapons and bulks them up before selling them for like three times his buying price

He’s actually the most well-off out of them further down the line and he’s the one who brings in the credits throughout their journey because he’s the only one with some sort of income

Also i forgot to mention

Noct loses a leg in the war and gets a cheap prosthetic to tide him over until the end; then he gets a hella cool cyborg leg like Arenaea

Ignis does NOT go blind, however, he loses an eye in a fight with some space pirates who try to raid The Oracle and ends up with an eyepatch for a while

Later on, he gets his own cybernetic implant eye--it’s a lot like Arenaea’s actually

It glows red and the metal covers the area around his eye completely, reaching around towards the side of his head and disappearing beneath part of his hair

Ravus’ right hand pirate is an android

Gentiana is also an android

Cor punches Ardyn in the face the first time they meet during the war--yes, he does know that Ardyn is on their side, now

Cor was the one who found many of Ardyn’s worshippers and brought them to The Oracle

Also Cor is a cyborg

[cavaliant]

On Fred and being “ordinary”

//Aka, a ~1000 word character analysis on Fred that I started back in August and recently got motivated to finally finish thanks to Allison and Xav waking up Fred’s muse ;3c

~

Like many characters in Thracia, Fred doesn't get a lot of lines/screen time, so there's not really a lot to go on to establish his character. In fact, the most notable thing about him that his ending deems to mention (other than him helping to rebuild Friege) is the marriage of his younger commander. This commander is heavily implied to be Olwen, whose ending states that her husband was "surprisingly ordinary".

(It also states that this is somehow related to her hatred of Reinhardt, which is like...??? Her older brother made her disillusioned her with "remarkable" guys in general forever, so she settled for marrying an average one? What.)

Anyway, FE5 itself is a game that focuses on the struggle of the common people, the average, "nobody-special" individuals in the war. It's hard! You struggle a lot! Leif has minor holy blood, but it doesn't make him overpowered or infallible. He fucks up! He sucks! And this has real, deadly consequences! But he learns and grows over the course of the story, and despite his feelings of inferiority, you see for yourself all the people he does help throughout the game.

Fred and Olwen themselves start on the enemy side. But they realize that what their country is doing is wrong, and make the choice to leave. And that's tough! They leave behind their ranks, their stability, and their home because they couldn't stand for the betrayal of their morals and ideals anymore. Unlike Reinhardt, someone who is highly praised and lauded as the second coming of a Crusader, they join Leif and explicitly fight against their own country and the Empire's oppressive regime because they believe it's the right thing to do. They are "nobody special", but they're the ones who are confirmed to take action and actually do something onscreen about all the injustices that the Empire is committing.

This kind of connects to a point I wanted to make--Fred serves someone (Olwen), but he isn't completely deferent to her without any agency of his own. In the chapter where Olwen is imprisoned, if Fred reaches her before Leif she expresses her uncertainty about the cause and Empire they've been fighting for all this time. Fred responds with "...What I can say is that your place is no longer in the Empire. Lady Olwen, let's join Prince Leif's army." When Olwen expresses hesitation at joining those who had once been the enemy, Fred says, "I know Prince Leif personally. Our ideals are much closer to his than the Empire's. Let's go, Lady Olwen. We can find what you have lost sight of in his army!"

If Leif reaches her first, she will tell Fred she has joined Leif and that he is free to go, and he will deliver a (still touching but more generic) "I will always be your loyal servant no matter what" kind of line ("Nonsense, Lady Olwen! I am your lieutenant. I will always respect and follow your judgment.").

I prefer the first scenario, because in it, Fred proves himself to be more than just a blindly loyal follower. He responds to Olwen's crisis with a decisive statement and immediately gives a solution to her dilemma. He doesn't wait for Olwen (or anyone) to tell him what to do, nor is he afraid of challenging the status quo or leaving everything they've ever known behind. He is quite sure of himself when he speaks of Olwen's place and ideals ("our ideals"), suggesting that he knows her well, and that they spoke of what they valued to each other at least once before (or that he inferred her values through her past actions). Either way, she trusts him, trusts his judgment enough to desert her country and join the army of someone who'd been their enemy up until now.

Now, when Fred says he "knows Prince Leif personally", what he really means is that they kind of...met outside for like 5 minutes, complained about Kempf's dirty tactics, and then agreed that they have bigger priorities than fighting each other. While this is probably just a case of his Main Character charisma pulling all the allies in, I like to take this as evidence that Fred is a bit reckless and trusts too easily, taking a chance on someone he just met like this. Imo his recklessness is also shown in him storming into the heavily guarded fortress (guarded by his former allies) armed with a sword, a vulnerary, a key, and a metric fuckton of determination to free his Lady or die trying. (He becomes part of Leif's army in this chapter, yes, but from his POV he does still enter alone without any assurance that they would directly help him out.)

As for the trusting too easily part...this time it was fine, because Leif actually IS a decent guy, but I have no doubt that if either Olwen or Fred himself started to feel enough discontent with his morals and his actions, then Fred wouldn't hesitate to suggest they leave again. After all...he's already done it once before. It's not a decision he'd make lightly, but he's also not the type of person to tolerate or support immoral conduct, no matter if it's by his superiors (ex. Kempf) or not.

Ultimately, Fred's role in the story is unimportant. You can let him die, and the plot will progress almost the same. But part of the fun of writing side characters is getting to let them have a life beyond what little screentime they received, and getting to extrapolate and build up a dynamic, believable person based on what little source material you have. You take something interesting from canon that drew you to them, expand upon it, and introduce other people to them and hopefully get others to see why you were so taken with that “unimportant” character to begin with. It's why I ended up becoming a multimuse, and I hope that my blog has managed to get people to notice characters that they might not have considered before ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ

So, thanks for reading this, especially if you didn't know much about Fred! He and I appreciate it a lot ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

[moczothe1st]

Let’s Play Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War, Part 9:  ChaGALLING Behavior

Part 8

Welcome back to Fire Emblem IV: Genealogy of the Holy War. As you may recall from our last update, we had just kicked Agustria in the face so hard that their army chose to throw themselves at Lewyn The Living Hurricane, taking the new capital and forcing Chagall to flee to Eldigan’s protection. They will be starring in a sitcom any day now.  On a less happy note, however, Deirdre chose to wander off randomly into the middle of a warzone and got kidnapped by Manfroy. 

Not ideal, but on the other hand, it does prove she’s almost exactly as intelligent as her husband. So that does explain why they get on so well. 

Well. To start with Silvail is about to open up a can of whoopass on us, so to start I have Aideen warp Sigurd as close to there as we can manage. She reminds us she’s the only healer we can fucking rely on.  

My girl.  With that, there’s not much else to be done, so I end my turn.  

I kind of like that Chagall had to walk all the way to Silvail, but on the other hand my army is between his old castle and here, so I’m a bit annoyed that Quan didn’t stop him.

Chagall: Ah, but that’s your plan, isn’t it?! You’re part of their plot to destroy Agustria, traitor!

Eldigan: Your Majesty… how could you say that?

(He’s insane and he hates you. That was easy!)

Chagall: What’s this? Do you dare to be displeased? To think, you’ve forgotten my father’s favor, all to idly stall for time… you’re a disgrace to the knighthood!

Eldigan: There’s nothing more I can do to convince you… very well, Your Majesty. My men and I will move out post-haste. I am proud to be a paladin of Agustria. If I must die, it shall be with sword in hand! By your leave, Your Majesty.

Eldigan: I count myself the luckiest commander there is for your years of loyalty to me.

(“Now if only I was the smartest commander.”)

Eldigan: The fatherland’s fate hinges on this final battle. Do not let Agustria down. Cross Knights! MOVE OUT!

(Pot to Kettle: You are black.)

Chagall: The rest of you, fortify the defenses! I’m in command now!

Fuck Agustria.  

Anyway, the front line of the Cross Knights is already close enough to reach our units; a nasty surprise for me, because I thought they started off further from where I left the team. Luckily, only Quan can be reached, it seems.

Quan laughs at your pitiful javelins. But the issue here isn’t the Cross Knights; they’re reasonably tough for mooks, but they are manageable.  No, the issue here is this motherfucker.

Eldigan is colossally powerful, considerably stronger than than he was when he helped us out back in Verdane. He doesn’t have a distance weapon, but it hardly matters; with Mystletainn in hand, he has a staggering 30 resistance, so he’ll soak up magic like a sponge and spend the next turn making the mage in question his bitch. And with 24 defense, he isn’t exactly vulnerable to your physical attackers either.  Nor is he slow, by any means, and 38 goddamn Skill means he’s unreasonably accurate on top of it all. And Mystletainn hits like a truck even without being  backed by his quite impressive strength.

Basically, anyone who gets caught in Eldigan’s combat range is dead. Only Quan, Sigurd, and Arden might have a shot at surviving a round with this guy, and that’s if he doesn’t proc the Critical effect built into his weapon. To kill him, your only real option is to have basically the whole army soften him up with distance attacks, and then send Quan in with a horseslayer and a prayer.

To kill him. That, fortunately enough, is not your only option.

When my turn starts, I have Quan gank one of the Cross Knights, and he levels up.

Well, technically.  Now, everyone pulls back. The key here is to make sure that Eldigan can’t reach anyone.  The whole army is bunched up; once the Cross Knights take their shot at us, we should be able to kill a lot of them.  But there is one risk: Lachesis has to be on or near the front lines, because Eldigan will not attack her, and if she talks to him he’ll leave the field.

The problem being, of course, that while Eldigan won’t attack her, the rest of his knights will. Because… I don’t know, they’re assholes I guess.  End turn. This is going to demand some serious luck.

… Thanks for helping, Beowulf. I’ll say it right now, while I knew this had a solid chance of going terribly wrong, I did not think this would be the reason for it.  Reset!

Much better. And Quan got a better level because I didn’t have him gank that first dude, so his leveling up had a different RNG determining it.  Score. At the end of the turn, Eldigan gets close enough to the group to talk to Sigurd…

Sigurd: I still have every intention of returning Agusty to Chagall! All I need is a little more time, I swear!

Eldigan: … Sigurd. I’m sorry, but I grow weary of these excuses.  We stand now as two knights on the battlefield, sworn to an honorable duel.  Draw, Sigurd!  So long as I wield the demon blade, Mystletainn, I won’t be the one to fall this day!

Yeah, that ain’t happening. I think with some luck, this might be the turn to get him away. First step, clear the path:

This was twitchier than it looked, because Eldigan has five leadership stars and gives the Cross Knights a ginormous boost while he’s near them. The one guarding him personally are very tricky to hit; it took Sigurd and Quan together to get through. That never happens. But then Lachesis moves south, and Sylvia moves up to dance her. Aaaand…

LACHESIS: Your actions are utterly baffling! Would you really betray Sigurd, your friend? Is this what you call a knight’s pride?! Please, brother! Believe in Sigurd. Give him even the tiniest amount more time to finish his duty. We don’t need to fight.

Eldigan: Lachesis… don’t cry. Fighting is my only choice. Please don’t make this harder than it already is. His Majesty’s death will spell the death of Agustria. I cannot allow that.  

(… But he sucks!)

Lachesis: That isn’t true! Everything hinges on Chagall laying down arms.  Sigurd never had any interest in fighting, and has even less interest in continuing if you stop. Brother… please! You lead the Cross Knights! Chagall cannot simply ignore your counsel!

(… But he can! Because he sucks!)

Eldigan: … You’re right. I’ll try and persuade His Majesty, one more time.

(No!  Don’t persuade him, do stab him!)

Eldigan: If I must risk my life, I’d rather risk it to stop this pointless war than to fight my friend. Any knight would do the same. Lachesis… here. This sword is for you.

Lachesis: Isn’t this an Earth Sword?! Brother, you can’t be…

Eldigan: This is a last memento, in case… I’m sorry, Lachesis. You must survive!

Lachesis: W-wait! Stop!  Don’t go, Eldie!

(Eldigan rides back to Silvail, and…)

Eldigan: Agusty shall be returned to Your Majesty someday, but it must happen peacefully.

Chagall: Eldigan! How dare you abandon the battle to spout such nonsense! You couldn’t hide your true colors forever, traitor! Men! Seize this… this worm! Off with his head! Humiliate him! Parade his shame before the world!

Eldigan: I… this was all in vain. This spells Agustria’s doom…

(SO PULL OUT YOUR DEMON SWORD AND CHOP HIS OLD MAN FACE OFF!)

Chagall: Tch, enough! Accept your death quietly, traitor! Finish him! Do it, right here, right NOW!

Eldigan: Lachesis…

And thus passes Eldigan, heir of Crusader Hezul and knight of Agustria. He died as he lived: without a brain.  Now, we’re still kind of surrounded by Cross Knights, but without Eldigan they aren’t nearly as dangerous. Still very dangerous, mind you, but… well, let’s hope. End turn. And of course more story immediately hits…

(Meet King Travant of Thracia. He’s a dick!)

Chagall: Hmph. I suppose even common sellswords ought to do a better job for me than my worthless servants…don’t you dare let me down!

Dracodude: Our targets are the knights of Grannvale. Take your fill of battle! Sear the name of Thracia into the memories of this land!

You may remember Thracia being very briefly mentioned by Quan as the reason he couldn’t bring an army with him when he came to help us waaaaaay back in  the prologue.  They’re essentially the medieval equivalent of a PMC; their country is very arid and mountainous and doesn’t have a lot of farmland, but it does have a fuckton of wyverns.  Rather than, say, move, the Thracians decided to just kind of roll with it and became a nation of wyvern-riding mercenary warriors who fight other people’s wars for tons of money.  In case you couldn’t tell from his unique portrait there, King Travant is going to be important later.

… Where is Chagall even getting the money to pay for all these mercenaries, seriously? Well, whatever. The Thracians start off at the north edge of the map and start moving down, and the map now becomes a race to kill off most of Chagall’s forces before they arrive. The Cross Knights start off the enemy phase strong…  

…ly failing.  The majority of the Cross Knights take shots at Erin and they all miss, which is great because two go after Lachesis and they both hit her. If they’d all gone for her, she’d have definitely died.  

Thanks, guys!  I’mma kill you all.

… We kill all but one enemy, but I still feel like I lost. You guys, what is up with those levels? Seriously? Well. At least the last one lets me demonstrate Lachesis’s new Earth Sword.

It is mind-bendingly awesome. It’s a magic sword that can hit from a distance like Ethlyn’s Light Brand, but it has the added effect of draining the enemy’s health to restore Lachesis’s.  It only has ten charges to use before it needs repaired, so you can’t rely on it, but it’s a great tool for emergencies. Certainly much better to get a free sword than to fight fucking Eldigan, for sure.

The enemy doesn’t move on their turn, save for the Thracians continuing their run down. On our move, we take shots at the three Armor Knights blocking us from the rest of the Silvail army.  

They are not, to put it mildly, as dangerous as our last enemy.   I have Ethlyn zap Sylvia home to make fucking sure she doesn’t get married to anyone, and move the rest of the army into the range of Silvail’s defenders to draw them out.

Oh, and Ethlyn can promote now, after firmly and proudly refusing to get a single fucking point in magic for 19 straight levels.  At least she’s fast.  Bitch. Now, before ending my turn, I have Dew liberate a village to get…

Info Master, Lord of Weapons: They call it the wingslayer. It’s enchanted to be lethal to sky-riders. If it flies, this sword’ll bring it down. ‘Couse, if ya can’t use it, sell it!

Thank you, great old man. You have given me many blades, and I love you. End turn, let’s rock the house in Silvail!

…. What.

Okay, better. Beowulf procced Continue and caused the battle to go an extra round. One in which he got hit twice, and nearly died. Fortunately, the rest of the enemy chooses to all go after Quan this round, and he kills a spearman and then matrix-dodges or shrugs off three archers in a row.  PRAISE HIM!

Up to the north, the Thracians move again, and…

Huh. Are they going for Midano? I’ve never seen them do that before, but I don’t mind. I left half the army up there to get ready to rush at Orgahil when it opens, and since that half includes Jamke, Lewyn, and Ayra, I think I can handle some Thracian goons. I think I could handle their entire country.

My turn, and with it my rampant slaughter as usual.

I assume that Finn, as a loyal servant, has given his demonic powers to Quan for this round to ensure his lord got a Finn-class level.  The key thing, really, is that we reduced Silvail’s defenders from an army to two dudes in a single turn. I really love being powerful.  As a result, of course, the enemy phase is incredibly dull…

Yeah, that’s the only actual combat. Midir got attacked, but he dodged. It was sad.  

Would you get down here already, ya dragon-riding bitches?!

*cough*

Meanwhile, back at the real fight, Midir takes revenge for being attacked, for he is cruel and wrathful…

Then Lex softens up the last one, leaving the kill to Lachesis.

… Which I regret immediately.

*sigh*

Well, now for Chagall. He remembered to bring a weapon to fight from range this time; he has a Bolganone, the A-ranked Fire tome, and still uses his Silver Blade at close range. The only person here who can use it is Sigurd, but he also doesn’t really need it… I’ll probably sell it and give it Holyn, so whoever needs the money most should try for the kill. That is to say, if it’s possible. Chagall isn’t a joke this time.

… as a unit. He’s not a joke as a unit. He’s still pretty much a joke as a person.  

… Chagall, I was trying to pay you a compliment for once, and here you go with a truly pathetic opening turn.  Try to put some effort in, buddy. End turn. Azel is probably gonna kill him next turn, but if he doesn’t he’ll be close enough to dead for Lachesis to get the kill with her Earth Sword. That’s karma.  So I have Chagall, and up to the north I have the team ready to smack some dragons in the face. End turn!

Azel, for fuck’s sake.  

*sigh* Ah well. Thus passes Chagall, king of Agustria. He died as he lived; with his face contorted into a horrifying grimace.

Meanwhile, to the north, most of Thracia attacks Jamke and only one hits him. But this guy might be an issue…

… You know, actually bro, if you could kill Jamke I kind of want to reset after Azel screwed me up there.

… … …

Actually, you know what, screw it. I’m terribly unhappy with that whole Chagall thing, and I’ve only reset once this chapter. Let’s try this again, back in a bit.

Sigurd: … You’re as foul as they come!

Chagall: Silence, you fool! You understand nothing of me! You die, Sigurd, here and now!

(God, you guys, this is kindergarten level banter.)

Much better. I got to show his convo with Sigurd, and next turn his one with Lachesis. Also Midir survived. And another fun thing; notice in Quan’s attack on Chagall, that blue light? That’s Pavise, a skill unique to Barons and promoted Armor Knights that gives them a chance to randomly negate all damage for that round. It’s annoying beyond all reason.  

Now, let’s try this again.

… Arden takes so beautifully little damage. And on my turn, I remind the enemy that flying units don’t handle arrows well.

Freakin’ beautiful. Jamke gets the commander’s Renewal Band, an item which will cause him to gain back a few HP every turn. Now then… slaughter?

Nice! Okay, time to Chagall.  First, let’s wear him down a lil’.

And theeeen…

Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm revenge.

… Well, better than the last one she got.

Now, time to start working on minor stuff before taking the castle. North of it is a village; I have Erin take it.

This gives her a permanent +1 to defense, which she needs. She’s not performing to her usual standards. And the rest of the team starts moving off, while Sigurd gets ready to take the castle next turn.

Travant: Heh, farewell, King Chagall… you fool.

Travant may be a prick, but he’s smarter than half the other characters in the game, gotta admit. He doesn’t tell his dragons to actually leave, though; Up to the north, the Thracians are all kind enough to take shots at people who can’t counter them, and they all miss…

Well, except one who was apparently tired of this world. Well. The army continues running toward Madino to team up with the infantry again; they probably won’t make it in time, but it’s worth a shot. On the way, I liberate another village I skipped over before.

Late to the Party: Don’t think there’s been a war lately where someone or other didn’t hire ‘em. They’re like a pack of hyenes descendin’ on fresh prey: brutal and indiscriminate. Nothin’ survives in their wake…

Including them! Because I killed them all this turn. Nobody even gained a level so I didn’t even bother to screencap it. It was pretty sad.  

Well, we’re out of enemies, and we’re out of stuff to do, and everyone’s moved. Let’s seize Silvail and call it a week.

Oifey: By the way, Shanan has just arrived from Agusty. He’d like a word with you, sire.

(… Awkwaaaaaaaaard…)

Sigurd: Shanan?

Shanan: Sigurd! I’m sorry… I’m so, so sorry!

Sigurd: What’s happening? Shanan, why are you crying?

Shanan: Deirdre’s gone! She left the castle and was looking to talk to you, but she never returned!

(“And some of your soldiers totally saw it happen, but didn’t help! I think they’re idiots!”)

Shanan: I’m sorry! I failed to protect her…

Sigurd: What?!  This can’t be happening!  And Seliph… Shanan, what about my son?!

Shanan: I’ve got Seliph with me. See, here he is.

(“… Shanan, where were you holding the baby that I couldn’t see him…?”)

Shanan: But Deirdre…

Sigurd: I see… Shanan, this isn’t your fault. Don’t worry. We’ll find her. No matter what it takes, I’ll find her.

Shanan: B-but… I… I should’ve tried harder to stop her! I’m so sorry, Sigurd…!

Sigurd: Deirdre… where could you be…

Welp. More proof that the top mind in our army is the small child. Meanwhile, to the north, another brilliant meeting of intellects is taking place.

Duvall: S’only a matter of time before them Grannvale guys’re bangin’ down our doors too, eh? What d’ya say?

Bridget: Damn it, Duvall!  The only reason they’re coming is because you lot all went pillaging, against my orders! You’ve got nobody but yourself to blame!

Duvall: Keh, enough! I can’t take yer arrogance anymore! Shut it an’ open yer ears! Ya actually ain’t the daughter of the old cap’n. Yer just some lil’ girl what the boss found, cryin’ alone in this ship we raided. The boss just picked ya up an’ raised ya. ‘Fore we knew it, ya’d all grown up an’ were bossin’ us all round, all nonsense-like!

Bridget: W-what?! I… that’s…

Duvall: But yer lil’ act’s worn its welcome out. No point keepin’ ya alive, eh?

Bridget: Damn it all… you really think you clowns can take me that easy?!

(They cannot. Bridget is an unstoppable nightmare monster.)

Try not to think too hard about why this band of random doofus pirates has an army of comparable size to the entire nation of Agustria. Just think of me stopping here, and turn back in next week to really get to meet Bridget, aka Death’s Little Helper.

Total Resets: Up to 16. Not bad!  Northern Agustria is way less cruel to me than the rest of the country was.

[jujyfru1t]

hello my name is *yells about Furuba*

I dunno what I’m doing but I have Feelings so let me rant about them, by me.

Some of y'all may not know that Fruits Basket is my favorite series on the planet– well you do now. That comes with a caveat of favorite manga, not favorite anime (that honor goes to either Noragami or Chihayafuru, with Madoka Magica as an honorable mention). I do also love the anime dearly! But comparing them is like apples and oranges, horses of different colors, etc etc, not least because the anime was made before the manga was barely halfway through. futile hope springs eternal for a full remake. So most of my feels rant will be manga-centric although the general feels apply to the anime, and uh there may be spoilers idk it’s been out for a long time???

The first volume came out in the US five days after my *deep breath* 15th birthday. I got it for the next year’s bday present from my big sis, aaaand that was when the gates of otaku/manga hell swallowed me up (I was somehow unaware that Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh were also Japanese pop culture, go figure.) I have no memory of how I found the anime– my anime-bittorrent-whateverthefuck knowledge was nonexistent but I don’t think it was airing live. I got the box set for some Christmas but that would’ve been after I was a massive fan so *shrug*

Anyway I watched the dub first and holy hell if I wasn’t planning to marry Yuki Sohma before then I definitely was after that, thanks Eric Vale. (I still have huge love for the dub cast fight me). Yun-chan was my first 2D crush and tbqh I’m still in love with him. Also I stg he’s the whole reason why pretty boys are a Big Thing of mine. And wait omg Shigure’s first appearance?! Like, that’s probably why dudes with glasses are also My Thing wow I just blew my own mind but moving on

Fun fact I couldn’t choose between Kyoru or Yukiru bc they were both cute (present me@young me: u will realize eventually grasshopper) but I was 100% cool with Kyoru happening because of course then I could be with Yuki. Cue me dabbling in a few paragraphs of self-insert fic.

uh lemme cut this it’s becoming a novel

Random things (this whole thing is random wtf):

I was blessed enough to get my hands on the entire Tokyopop run, plus the fanbooks!!! before they shut down. I’ve been warring with myself for ages over whether to start collecting the Yen Press specials but. my resolve is weakening. I also have all of Takaya-sensei’s other stuff yeet (Phantom Dreams, Those with Wings, Songs to Make You Smile) except for Twinkle Stars which I’m def gonna get and OBVIOUSLY THE INSTANT FURUBA ANOTHER COMES OUT IM GRAB meanwhile if I remember to check out the scans

been a while since I reread it(it’ll be my third one~) but off the top of my head some favorite arcs etc are: obviously the major one at the end of vol 6. The Red Cap. Hatori and Kana (RIP ME) The Summerhouse (Jason the bear jfc). Akito’s reveal. Kyoko and Katsuya’s entire thing obviously (EXTRA RIP ME I’m crying just thinking about it). “The plum on your back” scenes. Kyo and Kyoko. THAT FIRST NEW YEAR’S WHEN YUKI AND KYO RACE BACK TO THE MAIN HOUSE BECAUSEtheir girlfriend MY DAUGHTER IS SAD AND LONELY AND THEY MAKE WISHES ON THE ROOF heck me upppp– also literally all roof scenes (karate kid Tohrutm) BUT THAT ONE HHGBNCCSV!!! Also my fav episode along with the AU-ish final 2.

Furuba fandom is my biggest fleet of ships by far which is hilarious bc I have a lot of fandoms and a lot of ships and you can see them bc i’m a derp but since nobody looks at that and nobody will read this (?) I’ma talk about them here. I DO WANT I WANT YO

but seriously I support

literally all the canon ships except HanaxShishou, pardon me Takaya-sensei but why. Wtaf.

a metric fuckton of non-canon ships bc of COURSE I DO

my low-key ships include

MomijixKagura. pairing the spares if you will XD

KaguraxTohru

RinxTohru. yes I have bi Tohru headcanons mmkay

Future!Kisa/Tohru (blame this fic)

KyoxUo.

YukixHana. all symmetrical-like (but wow i forgot i highkey shipped it for a while until…)

GurexAaya. like, come on. Also poly Mabudachi Trio

MomijixTohru. they’re super hecking cute ok, edging into high-key

my high-key ships include

HanaxUo. ok this??? is a big OTP, and 99% why I’m hella salty over HanaxShishou (at least KurenoxUo had an actual subplot!!). They are Tohru’s adoptive moms and I will forever protec (and yet. HanaxTohru and girls OT3 are also Good Ships but tbh super low-key) also I MADE SOMEONE SHIP IT

YukixTohru. see the start of this post way up there somewhere

KyoxYuki. my first rivalshiptm

HaruxYuki. “He was my first love” one cannot simply– have a character say this and not expect fans to ship. Also bi Haru is canon. lotta bi folks up in here imo

KakeruxYuki. CUTE GODDAMN DORKS WOW

But my flagship, my OTP to end all OTPs and my polyship to end all polyships in any fandom is the SS Yukyoru. KyoxTohruxYuki.

I’ve had polyship predilections for 6-7 years now, though it’s more recent I’ve started polyshipping every love triangle i encounter bc I‘m so done with them… there wasn’t really any lightning-bolt moment when I realized I shipped them much more together rather than apart. but like, I ship all three permutations so at some point my brain went HERE’S AN IDEA which tbh is how a lot of my polyships happen, i mainly have OT3s (if I ship 2 outta 3 there’s a good chance ima poly it)

but anyway! there’s absolutely no way to convey how much I adore this ship and IT’S A HUGE EMPTY YACHT I NEED CREW MEMBERS PLZ

I am building it up one fic at a time and if you’ve made it this far and have any interest at all plz read my shit and general Furuba screaming is appreciated as well of course!!! (also look at the most beautiful piece of fanart ever)

More fic! have my mixed bag of bookmarks (Sure For The Axis is my absolute fav, 2nd is Little Prayer) u can also find my Yukyoru stuff on AO3 ehehe~ and oh look HanaxUo!

and holy whoa i’m done. TLDR FURUBA IS THE BEST MANGA EVER AND YUKYORU IS THE PUREST RARESHIP EVER

THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT

[carmen-sandyaygo-blog]

V. difficult day in therapy on Wednesday that I’m still digesting.

It’s been hard to see people until finally I realized how drastically my life has shifted away from introversion.

I’m not dumb enough to define myself as an introvert or an extrovert but I will say that I need to spend a lot of time alone.

Here’s the kicker: If you spend time alone feeling guilty about it, it doesn’t count. And that’s what I’ve been doing a lot of.

I got in a tense fight with the BF. Cold war status. But the thing is, I’m not in a fight with him, we’re both fighting against all the shit going on in his life, but it’s hard because each of us sometimes gets caught in friendly fire.

My therapist tries really hard not to tell me what to do, because she and I both know I struggle a lot with dependency and I don’t want to be dependent on her (more than I already am). But it’s not hard to figure out what she wants me to do and she thinks I need to stop trying to “fix” him. Which, shocker.

But if I don’t “fix” him (and I know that I can’t, not really) then I have to watch him and this is torture.

I finally told him that he’s been miserable since August, and I told him in September he needed to get some help because I couldn’t do this again, and then in December he admitted he hadn’t gotten help and I said something had to change because I can’t do this again, and now he’s looking at going into an EXTREMELY SIMILAR JOB and, well, fuck it! I can’t do this again!

And I don’t think that’s QUITE to the point of saying that “I will leave if you don’t change” but frankly, I will. Because isn’t that everyone’s ultimatum? Things aren’t ok, and if they continue being not okay, I either accept or leave. And I’m not the type to accept. So you damn well better make things change.

BUT. Back to therapy. My therapist was like “Well, you say you want to ‘fix’ the BF’s stuff. Can you think of some examples when people in your life have tried to ‘fix’ things for you? How did you like that?” And I asked her for an example and she told me about when my parents tried to fix stuff for me.

Lol. Good joke. My parents HAVE fixed stuff for me on rare occasion. My Dad called and got my dry-cleaning delivered for me from my university way after I had dropped out. He just made the situation go away and it meant a lot. That’s fixing. What my parents do, the vast majority of the time, isn’t fixing, it’s pushing. They push and push and push and push and push me to fix my own stuff, or even better, not to have it. And how can I even resent them for it, when I know I shouldn’t bring any of this home anyway? They’re trying really hard to say “this isn’t our problem” without saying that because I don’t think they could live with themselves if they admitted to themselves that they’re not ready to take care of their kids for better or for worse.

Actually, they’ve admitted to me that they don’t think they can handle my brother. Which, okay, parents aren’t Gods. But it still hurts, and I’m sure it hurts him too. Poor fucker.

Back to me. Basically I fucking broke down at that, because I am so fucking tired and nobody is wililng to try to fix things for me or take care of me and I can’t even deal with my own life at all. I’m so. Damn. Tired. And scared.

Anyway. I am trying my damnedest not to push the BF. Because I don’t want to be my parents. He is 26 and he has 2.5 parents and he doesn’t need another one. And frankly I don’t want to fix things for him either, I will reiterate: I am too tired for this shit. Yes, we’re in this together and we’re a team but I don’t want to fix, I don’t want to push, I just want things to be easy and it’s killing me that they can’t be.

He lets all this suffering pour onto me like somehow he thinks I can take it and he doesn’t do a damn thing to try and improve his life. And I finally fucking told him. Amusingly, he was like “well, what, you have all the answers? To how to make life fit together?”

And I was like YEAH! I DO! And I told him that a lot of his habits are anxiety. He overgeneralizes about “society” and “everyone feels this way” and “every job is like this” and it’s so frustrating! I could go on about shit he does that’s tripping him up and I did, to him! And I pointed out that he somehow thought that a raise and a swanky job would make his problems go away but I’ve seen him with 3 different employers, as well as 0 employers, and a fuckton of paper, and he’s still been unhappy, so why does he think a job is going to fix everything?

And, I’m very impressed with him, he admitted that he wants to protect his pride. There’s a reason that pride is the deadliest of the deadly sins: basically it fucks up all your shit. So I asked him, how many things are you willing to give away to save your pride? and maybe he’ll get somewhere with that. IDK.

My deadly sin is sloth. Sigh.

The thing is, as I’ve mentioned, the BF fucked himself over in his last job. He makes mistakes, and then he can’t take rejection and he shuts down. He keeps getting sullenly angry that he can’t get positive feedback which is frankly very middle school of him. Nobody is going to hit you with the gold star. And I get craving it, that’s all I want from my parents a lot of the time, but I’m not stupid enough to think I’m ever going to get it. The fucker has 0 social skills in a workplace setting. And I don’t want to push him, because I remember when even brushing my teeth was too much. Fuck, I lost my inertia on flossing. I remember when for some reason I could handle going to class and going to a fuck ton of tutoring but I couldn’t handle getting a parking permit until I got a really expensive ticket. It took 10 fucking minutes to get the parking permit but I just could. Not. Do it. So I get that when you’re in a bad place, you can’t hear stuff, and I keep telling him that, and that’s why I’m not mad (lol) that he can’t hear me.

IDK.

I expect to say things once and have people jump in line. Which I realize makes me exactly like my parents. But you know what? When someone says something once, I jump in line. I don’t just ignore things that I don’t want to hear. Or worse, forget.

On that note, I went to go see the BF on Wednesday, after I was exhausted from therapy and I told him “if you’re tired and we would both be better off staying home and re-charging, by all means we should do that” which means “I want to stay home but I will go if you need me” and he was like “I want to see you!” and I got there and basically we had a quick roll in the hay and then he just went off about more stupid marketing stuff and I was just feeling so fucking unappreciated and so as he’s going through his phone reading the New York Times I say “Pay attention to me” and he’s like “can you not say that? Why can’t you just ask a question?”

Cue the bitch switch. Like, it took a lot out of me to go over there and I did it to be helpful and nurturing and he took me for granted (to the point of getting ticked when I wanted some gratitude and affirmation) and/or thought he was doing me a favor by socializing with me even though he was tired from work and I just...

Well, I told him all of that, and he was like “Actually, seeing you was the only thing I was looking forward to, today” which was nice.

But like...

it’s very hard not to scream at him whenever I’m around him. I am silent with anger. And I know I’ve been there, when I was miserable and everyone around me was like “WHY AREN’T YOU TRYING TO CHANGE THINGS!?! IF YOU’RE SO MISERABLE?! HOW HARD IS IT TO WALK 400M TO GET SOME FUCKING THERAPY AT THE STUDENT CENTER?” and it was still too hard. But to fix that I ended up dropping out and living with my parents to really actually fix stuff. And it did cost me some relationships.

I don’t want him to suffer like I do but at the same time I am so much more of a grown-up than he is in some ways.

Yeah, basically, if there’s anything I’ve learned in these past 2 years it’s that you need to exterminate your pride, not just swallow it, and how to really empathize. Not just “I feel your pain” but also “this person is probably feeling this this and this because I know they’re busy.” You can never get it entirely right but I’m better than I used to be.

Somehow the BF thinks that if he can just earn enough money, he’ll feel safe. And I asked him how much money that is, and he said €100k. And I was like lol my dude no you won’t, I know you and I know finances and you’re gonna want €3 million. So are you okay with feeling this way until you have that kind of money?

He’s not going to hear me on that. Of course, it’s a lot to take in.

And I know I don’t know him that well. I don’t really understand his motivations, and he’s very good at keeping stuff from people. I know my parents very well, and my two best friends, but I don’t know my siblings or the BF all that well. I mean, sure, I can name their favorite colors and books and foods (all of them) and I know what their chief motivations are but I can’t get inside their heads. I can read my parents’ minds as easily as if they were me, but talking to my siblings and my boyfriend it feels more like trying to know myself at 16 when everything was a jumble.

Fuckkkkkk.

[arabellaflynn]

I quit Facebook a few weeks ago. Shortly after the lockdown protests began in Michigan, I posted an explanation of what their mindset was, why the protests were inevitable, and how bad an idea it was to pretend we could keep them from happening. I was dog piled by a load of people trying to explain to me in tiny words why the best way to keep the novel coronavirus from spreading was to keep people inside and away from each other. The only reply I could give them was yes, I know what science says, I'm telling you what people are actually going to do. This exact thing has happened during every pandemic in recorded human history, up to and including the fictional Corrupted Blood debuff in World of Warcraft. 

It is a horrible idea to predicate your public health plans on the assumptions that 1) people will behave rationally all of the time if you just shout at them loudly enough, or 2) people looking at the same data set will always draw the same conclusions.

All things in life include an element of risk. I don't know about other places, but I don't personally remember a time when Americans were not bombarded with dire warnings about everything in their quotidian existence. Eat eggs, don't eat eggs, living in a city raises your risk of cancer, living in the country raises your risk of tick-borne diseases, coffee will make you live longer, coffee will kill you, salt is dangerous, fat is dangerous, carbs are dangerous, the sun is dangerous, breathing is dangerous.... and all of it is fed to us as if we have a moral imperative to do everything in our power to bring our risk of dying as close to zero as possible. It is acknowledged that the results of a lot of these studies are in conflict, and that it's difficult to sift through all the information to decide which one is more 'correct' about how to keep yourself safe. But never is there room for anyone to conclude that maybe they would rather have that thing in their life, than gamble on statistically raising the odds of living a few more years without it.

In the early days of the AIDS pandemic -- before PrEP, before HAART, after we had acknowledged that HIV was a thing and was killing people -- the only messaging was dire. Sex could kill you! Think twice before you get laid! The underlying assumption was that if you could get people to pause and remember the risk, of course they would decide not to go through with it. We do the same thing today with teenagers, in the secular version of abstinence-only sex education. It does not seem to have crossed anybody's mind at any point that anyone might go over the numbers and decide, yeah, that level of danger is acceptable to me. I want the possible positive outcomes of that action enough to risk the negative ones.

When people start doing just that -- and they always start doing that -- the reaction of the moral authorities is to start bolstering their side of the "rational" argument with fear. They may genuinely believe that their side holds more weight, but surely that will be more obvious if they help it along with a thumb on the scale. It is a known phenomenon that the scarier and more profound the consequences seem, the more probable they look, even if the odds have not changed. It is also a known phenomenon that people will weigh personal experience more heavily than abstract arguments featuring strangers. As anyone who has gone through the DARE program will attest, the more you (and your friends) do something "bad" and come out of it unscathed, the more you view anyone who claims to be an authority as being completely full of shit. Whether they are or not.

All of this is to say, riots were inevitable under the "abstinence-only" model of self-isolation and social distancing. They were as inevitable as the Summer of '69, and the failure of the War on Drugs. They made it a moral imperative to fight a basic human motivation (stay away from your loved ones, abstain from sex, don't seek out pleasurable drugs), "for the good of society". People can only deny basic drives and force themselves to suffer for so long. People still die from complications of AIDS, and they fuck anyway. People still ruin their lives over addictions, and they still take drugs. It was only a question of when it would happen, and what would tip it off.

In this case, the propaganda urging people to accept suffering "for the greater good" has blown up in their faces. All of the people in the streets have done the calculus and decided that overturning the system "for the greater good" is more important than avoiding the personal risk of catching COVID. Which, to be honest, a lot of them were becoming inured to anyway. 

We are tired of being told to be afraid, and that the correct way of dealing with this fear is to wall yourself off from the scary thing. I was horrified when I first saw advertisements for "Safr", a ride-sharing service whose selling point was that it was women-only. I mentioned this to a friend, and his reaction was oh of course, it's horrifying that rape culture is so entrenched that the only way to escape it is to establish your own alternate economy. And I said no, that's not it. The part I find upsetting is that we as a culture are normalizing the idea that the correct way of dealing with your personal anxieties is to just refuse to engage with anything in the outside world that makes you uncomfortable. I have seen this accusation lobbed (rightfully) at hyper-conservatives who complain about the push for diversity, but it is just as often true, in other contexts, of hard-line liberals. Men make you nervous? Don't interact with men. Afraid immigrants will take your job? Bar them from entry. Racist words in old books offend your moral sensibility? Demand to be excused from the class. Resent bisexuals for being able to "pass" as heteronormative? Form a group exclusive to gold-star gays and lesbians. 

You cannot pad, pillow, and gatekeep your world until nothing in your bubble makes you nervous. That's not how this works. I have not been more than half a mile from my house since March 13th. I have only once been farther than the garbage bins, and it freaked me out so badly I came back in after fifteen minutes. To be clear: I have a diagnosed anxiety disorder. This is very bad. The point where I normally yeet myself to the nearest emergency room came and went at least a month ago, and the only reason I didn't go was rampant plague. I am coherent enough to operate a keyboard right now because I had the foresight to order a metric fuckton of gray-market diazepines at the beginning of this whole shitshow. People with fewer resources and less internet savvy are drinking themselves blind, or just melting the fuck down.

And yet, this is the mindset the power structure has been sowing since at at least 2001. Stay in, stay insular. Cocoon yourself. Outside is a threat. The miasma will seep in and destroy your way of life. The authorities are special, they are allowed to roam freely -- but be afraid of other people, be afraid of their proximity, their difference, of the very air that they breathe. Be afraid of Black people, they break laws. Be afraid of strange people, they break quarantine. It is a matter of life and death, so it's okay to emotionally-blackmail your loved ones into doing the same. Be afraid of the police, if they scare you that means they're scaring your enemies away too!

We can't do this anymore. We're tired. If everything is deadly, then nothing is particularly deadly, and it doesn't matter. If all roads lead to ruin, then we're free to just pick which mess we want to be in. A life in unremitting isolation is not a life. It doesn't matter whether we're told it's because of a virus or because "other people" are dangerous animals. No one can do that. No one is going to do that. Have you not, like, met other humans? I don't know why anyone thought that was going to work.

I really don't know where all this is going, other than I fucking told you so, and maybe a warning that if you try to talk to me and I seem a little incoherent, it's only because I refuse to be sober right now for what I feel are completely valid mental health reasons. For the record, I am 8-10 miles outside of the parts of Boston that are intermittently on fire, on the north side of the river, in a very calm suburb where absolutely nothing is happening. The local police force consists of like three bored cops, who spend most of their time attending traffic accidents and telling drunk teenagers to go home. The most violence I have seen in the past few weeks are the squirrels outside my window squabbling over ownership of the pine tree.

The rat is handling this much better. He was chittering his fool head off, loudly, for almost an hour after I turned the lights out last night. I finally went over there to make sure his unbridled joy wasn't because somehow gotten hold of an entire chocolate bar. No; Durnik was just settled down in a HAMMOCK, and it was COMFY, and this made him so HAPPY he had to announce it. I fed him half of a pitted medjool date, making him even happier, and went back to bed.

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