#as an aside: their real names are mentioned but not used because they cannot properly translate these names into catspeak.

[those-weird-twolegs]

Religion in Swiftpaw's wish

Inspired by @theoriginalkittypet's lion god au

There were once three gods, Lion [Andromedous], Tigress [Neutraliss], and Leopard [Saggitaro]. Bored of their loneliness in the darkness of the void, they created four domains: The domain of Good, the domain of Mediocrity, the domain of Bad, and the domain of the Living.

Lion took the domain of Good as his main haven, Tigress the domain of Mediocrity, and Leopard the domain of Bad. They all agreed to rule over the fourth domain equally, as the living's recollection of them was what would keep them alive from now on. Things went well for a while; They created twolegs and cats first, and then dogs. After, came the animals of prey, and later the animals intended to keep Cat populations from soaring.

As many many centuries passed, cats began to idolize Lion, fear Leopard, and ignore Tigress. This lead to animosity between the three friends, as Lion's ego grew, Tigress's confidence shrank, and Leopard's concern began to plague their interactions with their friends. Leopard did their best to support Tigress, but she was too downtrodden by the mortal's lackluster opinions of her. Meanwhile, they tried to reason with Lion, but he became increasingly more frustrated with the mortals, as they each had their individual ways of respecting and worshiping him, many of which did not line up with his word.

Many years of this all went by, and eventually, Leopard was sent a cowering, terrified molly - Frecklewish - from Lion's domain. Angry, Leopard started reforming the domain of Bad, shaping it to have levels catered to your level of bad. Many cats who weren't entirely good, but were not one to acknowledge Tigress in life, wound up in their domain, so they made it so that those cats had a safe place to live in their domain. They took a liking to Frecklewish in particular, and decided to make the poor terrified molly their messenger (much to the much worse mapleshade's anger).

Impressed by this new idea, Tigress began looking for her own messenger, as Leopard's relationship with the other two began clearing up due to their use of their beloved messenger. Tigress chose a member of the Sisters who wound up in the domain of Mediocrity, despite having been decently good in life, and her new messenger began teaching her to be confident again. Unfortunately, around this time, Tigress found signs and prophetic warnings that she was fading. It would take a millennia or two, but because of Lion's polarized views, she was being forgotten, and slowly dying. So, she conceived a plan with Frecklewish and Leopard: Convince Lion to send an aspect of each deity to the domain of Living in order to renew belief in their true selves, rather than the selves that Lion and his followers had been spreading.

Lion remained adamant for a long time that he would not do this. He, in all his darkened glory, had grown embellished in his beliefs and saw himself as the one true god over his old friends. It wasn't until the forest clans borne a cat with a striking resemblance to a lion that he began to consider their proposition. This cat, Lionkit (later Lionheart), became his favorite, a living reminder of his old glory. He strove to become like this cat as the cat grew and became an intelligent and wise adult, and was proud to witness him become a deputy in his clan. Unfortunately, he was killed defending his clan in a traitorous rally, and upon joining the domain of Good, Lionheart was given a choice: Become Lion's messenger, or remain on the lower levels of Good, bordering Mediocrity for the rest of his afterlife.

Lionheart, shocked but happy to receive the blessing of being Lion's messenger, accepted the less-than-optimal ultimatum, and joined Lion. Slowly but surely, he worked with Frecklewish and Starlight (Tigress's messenger) to get Lion to agree, and by the time the legendary Firestar had kits with Sandstorm, they convinced him to send a prophecy - The prophecy of the Three - to the domain of the living. The three - Hollyleaf (Tigress), Lionblaze (Lion), and Jayfeather (Leopard) - would be their aspects in the domain of the Living until death, in which they would become advisors to the gods.

It was the three's job to restore faith and content in the gods, and they would have to start by fixing the structure of the clans. The plan was for the main one of the trio to be Holly(Snow)leaf - An albino tom (later molly) with spiky fur and red eyes - to be Tigress's mortal self, and to spread the word that things must be changed if everyone is to survive in sanctity and peace. (Hollow)Lionblaze, a near-melonistic molly (later tom) with red undertones, would show that Lion is not the perfect deity everyone assumed him to be. And finally, Jay(Amber)feather, a golden tabby tom (later molly) with unusual spots, would be there to represent the anger Leopard felt for the mistreatment of cats by Lion and Tigress.

Upon their maturing, and the discovery of their heritage, things went horribly against the plan. Hollyleaf killed Ashfur, and then revealed Leafpool's secret to the whole of the clans. (S)He was unable to be contacted anymore, as the last cat (s)he was seen with was Sol, and Tigress began to grow ill. She soon resurfaced, now going by Snowleaf and using she/her pronouns, and everyone was so relieved that they sent down their messengers to follow her for a little bit. During this time, Snowleaf and Ivypaw became friends, and they began talking about how to change the code and the clans...

... And so, the deities recalled their beloved messengers, and the world breathed a sigh of relief. The prophecy would be fulfilled.

[jjheejz]

About Internet Water Army in the case

This is an ongoing update about the case from start to development. List of all related posts can be found on this blog's pinned post (link provided at bottom of each post as well).

19 August 2021 update: Added the scale of his success for reference, before bonus below

18 August 2021 update: Added timeline of events, orange title in post, found out the official English term for Immoral Media = Internet Water Army)

Major updates since first draft: Added bonus, added disclaimer, certain info details

Originally posted on 16 August 2021

[The purpose of this post is to provide a perspective as to why the Media is raised/blamed regarding the issue. Especially for international fans, as all the encounters happened on Weibo. Also, those who were on weibo, do read through if you will. So although it's lengthy, do try to read all, at least if not the last two parts].

The Media referred by most, is not the common perception of the Entertainment Industry (celebrities, directors, shows, channels, staff etc), but the dark side of the Entertainment industry: Antis, toxic fans, toxic marketing accounts. They are called Internet Water Army💧.

Toxic Marketing Accounts is one of the things they do, these accounts on Weibo has millions of followers, each of their post likes are in the hundred thousands (buyable) to give credibility to passer-bys. Some use similar names to Official accounts, some use similar logos. Their posts are usually subjective or aims to steer view points of a certain celebrity/movie/show. Before the latest update of this post (18.08.21), I just group them all together and term them as Immoral Media*.

*Below is my original post using my original term because at point of first draft, I did not know the official term (so have changed/added the term from Immoral Media to Internet Water Army in content below but retain the content based off first draft).

If you have chased before celebrities, or just simply passed by an article about certain celebrities, recall how some title that caught your attentions were like. Clickbaits is one of the many things they do. If GZ is your first and you do not have Weibo, then this read(link) is good enough.

Just as the term Immoral Media (Internet Water Army), it’s immoral and unethical, but they exists because they are paid to do so. Who pays them? Entertainment Companies, and maybe other Organisations

Normal Media/Marketing vs Immoral Media/Toxic Marketing/Internet Water Army

When a show or movie comes out, the normal Marketing department will generate outreach and buzz so that people know a show is airing soon/know the show exists etc. Official announcements are not enough, because there isn’t much context (limited content to put up as well) so having some other Marketing accounts do the buzz in a planned period to gain awareness through posts, some articles about the casts, the plot summary, the production details etc is normal. This is Marketing, bigger companies will probably have stronger Marketing departments (aka influence) and can hire more Marketing accounts to generate buzz. Celebrities (aka casts) themselves, are also Marketing point.

Then we have the Internet Water Army/Immoral Media, these are what they mainly do:

Create Fanfiction-rumors: Creating rumors about celebrities to shift audience perception of them. [eg. XX was seen with XX leaving a hotel, XX was drunk on Event Y and did ZZZ to AA, XX is dating BB and has been in a relationship for N years etc]

Honing their brain degrading skills: Come up with titled clickbait headings/ trending topics with negative written contents. For articles, exceptionally out of heading content related to the celebrity. [Refer to Baidu, it’s a winner of these, feel free to Google Translate]

Regressing their common sense and understanding skills: Take everything a celebrity does completely out of context in a negative way and create a topic out of it [eg. XX said AA is a ---, “XX raised his finger, a sign of ---?”, XX pushed BB aggressively on Variety Show Y - A competition variety show, XX is in beef with CC because XX was caught giving CC the eye]

Using their fingers to stir shit and bathe each other in it: Escalate all smallest form of possible tension created by fans/themselves into a huge thing by acting as the fandom's fans/lurk in fandom chat groups, and voicing their disguised opinion to spread tension/exaggerate severity of the issue [eg. XX fans mocked AA - in groupchats: tbh I've never liked AA before, AA just gives off a vibe that I dont like and now this? It just disgusts me even more > Yea, i feel this way too. AA has problems / XX Lurkers expressing views on XX about NN, slowly to NNMHFXW - XX did NNMHGT - I cannot accept NNmHfHw, I'm leaving = multiply by 1000++]

Epitome of a self-deteriorate: Creating something out of nothing and react to that something negatively to gain massive attention/reaction [eg. “XX raised his hand on show Y” - dk what XX fans are thinking, are they literally blind? XX fans are tasteless just like XX hahaha / “XX did community service” - they are acting / “XX breathed” - From the start, i thought XX was NN, but I am so ZZZ that XX breathed. Goodbye fandom, i’m leaving. Those who still want to stay I urge you to rethink your life choices] - if I may add, Xiao Zhan’s fanfiction case as well. 

Metaphor - Ability to use bare hands to collect paychecks from the urinal/toilet bowl where their boss/client peed in: Doing all of the above.

Apologies for any term offense, but not apologetic of the term context. This is what they do for a living. Any normal human being who do not like anything, will generally not be interested at anything about it in the first place, so to have some antis/toxic fans knowing certain things and inside jokes/references in their posts questions their goal.

On involved in Internet Water Army/Immoral Media 💧

Fans on weibo during these few months witnessed many of the above on GZ. From rumored girlfriend (spammed with articles) to mean and nasty comments on trending topics, to bouts of insults and fake emotional cryouts by certain fan accounts that GZ's office has to release a number of Lawyer’s letter to them. 

Aside from WOH there were also a few other BL adaptation films that were actually released this year but they did not reach exponential success like WOH. BL adaptations are so highly followed by because this is the key to wealth. Literally. Successful BLs like The Untamed and  Dao Mu Bi Ji saw the amount of wealth fans are willing to spend on the celebrity as compared to say BG or idols (younger fan groups). This is why when WOH shot up exponentially, Immoral Media start to sweat.

Major anticipated adaptations were supposed to air this year eg. Hao Yi Xing(HYX), Sha Po Lang(SPL) etc but was severely held back due to the stricter change in BL adaptations submitting their scripts for approval regulations (WOH manage to submit earlier before the change). Because of this, most final films were rejected and they have to keep re-editing, by then WOH was already months into reaping tonnes of major brand endorsements, shows/movie casting, variety show appearances etc, something that is seen as too successful in the Immoral Media’s eyes, because they have to create buzz for other celebrities, some are specific celebrity oriented and thus circulate rumors about having endorsement opportunities shifted from celebrity X to GZ (think fanfiction-rumors and shit stirrer) causes tension in celebrity fandoms. - A real event just in July:

The Untamed’s cp fandom is called BJYX which had always been in the Top 1 of Cps for 2 years dropped for awhile to Top 2, over taken by LLD. Both of them had a war and hated each fandom, one fandom is somehow not allowed to like the other fandom even casually after everything broke out because it started out with some BJYX toxics photoshopped GZ on of portraits .

Also another case of which he wore the same costume as WYB did in a previous photoshoot and it became a useless comparison of who wore better, who looks better, degrading the other. (Finger stirring shit).

Now apply all of the above things the Internet Water Army do and we have them earning money, while both fandom reacts and hate each other.

In LLD, our own fans started suspecting each other on who is a spy from BJYX and what not.

The first few months of Internet Water Army saw LLDs mostly mocking them because the average age is 30-40s, they know and see through all of their intentions so nothing was big. They were trumpeting and LLDs didn’t even care, what with all the doing tedious stats was not even important to them.

Over time, as the issues they create became more and more serious LLDs did start to care, reporting Toxic Marketing accounts/toxic fans became a daily task, go vote for GZ at certain polls etc, solo fans, and LLD fans also split apart. Solo fans think cp fans use GZ to furnish their fantasies, and cp fans thinks they are the ones furnishing their dreaming-girls fantasy with (aka my boyfriend).

There was also a period where LLD had a habit of continuously mentioning “we are in the 30-40s so we can see through everything about the media, we are all fans for the first time, we are good at spending money (because of purchase power compared to other fandoms)” it was prevalent for so long it felt odd, ‘chasing celebrities the first time’ in particular sounds more vulnerable as a weakness than a strength / sth to be proud of.

Gradually, more secretive/insider confirmed ‘sweets��� were flying around. Fans advised each other to not circulate, and the mindset of “if you know, you know, dont tell.” (This is a problematic mentality, of which fans will still be curious to know and search for it themselves, but this secretive hook is unhealthy. Over the long term, it becomes hard for existing fans to know a lot of things properly to judge for themselves, especially those who knew and publicly reacted, but blasting those who ask and telling those who know to keep quiet, this did not help some to understand why on certain things, even so for international fans, dont know and dont understand, causing misunderstandings. Yes, certain information should not be shared, so why should you react about it publicly in the first place? - Internet Water Army effect)

The last few months (for example the July fan war) created a tonne of seriousness and anger. A period even broke out with a tonne of ‘insider confirmed sweets’ (which is LLD’s daily dose of happiness), it was hard to tell what was real and what was fake. Trending topics became negative and everyone warned each other not to enter because it will give the trends ‘views’ and trend statistics, in reality entering there is to enter an exhibition by the self-deteriorates, collecting the fandom's traffic data (it's a sure lose for fans each time they enter the topic). Everyone even starts thinking that the trend’s popularity was caused by each other (it's true but it can be bought daily and not caused by fans). There was a raise in the number of fans who were getting emotional because they want to protect but Internet Water Army kept coming and got worse, because fans, tbh, not just GZ fans, every other celebrity’s fans are always fighting with an Army, getting played and plotted in that Army's calendar.

Even so, despite all of these, LLD is actually a fandom Internet Water Army may find the hardest to break because they understand GZ so much, they could tell what are fake news regarding GZ, because among everything above, there are still plenty of logical fans to stop many fans from drifting too far and debunking them. Why? 30-40s are grown up adults.

Why 13.8.21 and the Japan issue is plotted?

First of all, in the political climate of China, there are many political dates in a month that is NO-Entertainment news. Because it’s the honoring of certain important political events. It’s like Remembrance Day, thus the sensitivity is higher. On these days, there are usually no news and even the Internet Water Army zip their pants. This year also marks the 100th year of the Chinese Communist Party(link)

Secondly, he had no work schedule on 13 August 2021. A great full day to focus on any other news (because if he had schedules, everyone will turn their attention to his events, what trumpeting outside is just bird chirps). 

Thirdly, when the news broke out, especially about the shrine, the reception was actually quite serious within the fandom so the scale of this might be big but to what extent in reality?

Lastly, 15.8.21 marks the 76th anniversary of the announcement of surrender of Japanese in World War 2(link). Also a day of NO-Entertainment news. 

Timeline of events:

13.8.21 - [His rest day, Eve of Chinese Valentine's Day, Japan News broke out] His rest day, no schedules = increased attention about him online. Lowered guard among fans because they are getting ready for tomorrow's Chinese Valentine's sweets = Caught off guard = Huge break out of fans' reactions

14.8.21 - [Chinese Valentine's Day, Eve of the 75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender] Keep a wishful and happy demenaor to not destroy the mood, suppressed thoughts about ZZH's Japan news

15.8.21 - [75th Anniversary of the announcement of Japanese surrender, Official announcement of ZZH's boycott and all China social media account ban] NO-Entertainment news day, Solemn day, not allowed to voice anything so the fandom can only wait for tomorrow to start voicing out/debunking but before they can wait out, the boycott and social media ban happened, every official accounts about him was gone overnight, fans had no time to react

17.8.21 - [All official fandom accounts related to ZZH and JunZhe were locked/removed]

Forced to be silent since the day his matter broke out, over the course of official news release with everything taken down in a day because of the Japan correspondence, his accounts banned overnight across the Chinese media and the overnight cancellation, fans could not speak anything about it. Overnight cancellation like this scale happened for the first time in China, leaving no time to react by the fandom, by the time they can, they are silenced.

When the period of events occured within a set of special dates, it’s not coincidence.

Conclusion

Because he was too successful and had many actually honorable past things, and a hard to influence fandom, Internet Water Army view him as a huge threat enough to want to destroy him, because it’s hard to defeat. With a chance they have, they will hold it till the end, bringing up this issue to the Government during this period also shows a sign of how scared they were of him and perhaps his fandom to plot something like this.

Updated on 19 August: Here's a screenshot of assumed calculation on the scale of GZ success for reference while chatting with a fellow fan, assuming GJ also has 27 brands, and there are 1000 brands. Rationale of numbers used: Only big brands can hire big celebrities.

Bonus

Mentioned in the first post, will mention again in case. After the news broke out within 2 days, there was a drop on his weibo followers from 18.9mil to 18.7mil. 200k+ drops, if the politics was such a big national issue, there should at least be a huge drop, even at least a million right? Because weibo is a China-Chinese majority right? Nope, we get a puny 200k drop.

What's funny? The self-deteroriates:

Translation: "Are his fans bought? Why didnt he drop fans? Those people got brainwashed to this point?" / "I've never entered his weibo and today i feel like having a look yet it showed I've followed him. All his fans were bought right? It disgusts me, i immediately unfollowed. This kind of process is worse than WYF..." / "i dropped fans because of him...no...I just reposted 2 posts and I've dropped 4 fans?"

Isn't the tone and regressing brain cells, all too familiar and same?

//

Added above, will remind again to read this link. It has an even more in-depth knowledge on who are paying them.

So what should we do? Link here

Related posts 🛏️:

[cherryblossomriot]

i had a dream the other day that was basically a dinluke cowboy au and it has been HAUNTING me, so just allow me to deposit it upon you like my subconscious drop kicked it onto me:

Luke is a disabled veteran who has returned from war one hand lighter and several scars heavier. When he returns, his family, who are heavily involved in the politics/military of this fictional land, don’t understand his now jaded and melancholic view of both the world, but also the ideologies that they so strongly believe in, leading him to constantly feel like an outcast even among the people that he so dearly loves. They’re all passionate and strong-willed, but they still don’t understand, not his struggles with mental health or his new perspective, and it just makes things worse and worse and worse. Anakin is a general, and though he’s seen the gruesomeness of war firsthand, he’s also become desensitized to it and has anger-management issues, so he often almost finds a sort of refuge within the chaos of battle, so he clearly cannot even fathom the emotions and trauma that Luke is trying to sort through, much less know how to deal with them properly. Padme is a senator and cares deeply about the crimes and seemingly senseless violence occurring during the war, but she’s also a politician and knows how to play the long game, so when Luke comes to her, he leaves feeling misunderstood and pushed aside. Leia is the only one who seemingly understands, as the pair of them have a deep, intrinsic bond, but she doesn’t fully grasp Luke’s moods and doesn’t handle his breakdowns and flashbacks well. So everyone feels a little upset, a little unsettled, and a lot like they don’t understand why and how Luke has changed, which leads to Luke feeling more and more out of place within his own family. The war ends relatively soon after Luke’s return, which leads to parades which leads to awards which leads to balls and banquets, all of which Luke is forced to attend, his heart dragging but his head held high, because he’s an Amidala-Skywalker goddammit, and we have a certain responsibility and image to maintain to the public and everyone who endured so much. So Luke has to sit there through awards and boasts of glory and mentions of battle scars and it goes on and on and on, and he has to smile and bear it and accept the medal that they’re giving him because he did such a great service to his country and-he has a panic attack. A nasty one that leads to him having to flee from a ballroom, and outside to the gardens. Once he’s there, he realizes that he doesn’t want to go back in. At all. So he runs away. He just picks a direction and goes, stealing a car on the way (this is a modern au but also fictional countries because I don’t want to get into real politics, hooo boy no siree). In the middle of nowhere, he gets caught in a storm and basically crashes his car and passes out. 

But when he wakes up! That’s when the fun begins. 

He’s in this cozy sort of bedroom, and this hot guy is fast asleep in the chair beside his bed, and is that a little kid in his lap? Anyway, the hot guy wakes up, introduces himself as Din Djarin in the softest, most attractive voice Luke has ever heard with his own two ears, and doesn’t ask him where he’s from or what he was doing driving in the middle of bumfuck nowhere at 3 in the morning, so Luke is obligated to have a lil crush on him, even though he’s not sure about the kid. So he asks, and Din introduces him to his son Grogu, who waves at him and signs hello, because, as Din explains, he doesn’t speak much, and the foster system wasn’t too kind to him, so he’s got a little bit of trauma to work through. And Luke just, instantly falls in love with this soft dad and his cute little son who can shift his features from the biggest, most pleading puppy eyes ever to the face of a demented gremlin who will try to eat the frog he caught in the backyard, no matter how slimy it is, or how hard it tries to wriggle out of his hands. Din tells Luke that he can stay for however long he needs, because Luke’s kinda injured from his accident, and anyway, once he’s healed up, they always could use another hand on the farm. So Luke stays, and he meets all of Din’s other farm hands (and shitty friends). There’s Boba, who doesn’t talk much, but when he does it’s always something slightly ominous and menacing, and Luke thinks that his name sounds familiar...hey wasn’t he on the news for robbing a couple banks a few years back?...no, surely not..., Fennec, who speaks even less than Boba, and manages to be far, far more intimidating, but also helps Luke with his prosthetic and gives him fun little tips that always sound more like she’s cut off a lot more limbs than she’s lost. Cara Dune (who is not gina carano but i digress) is also there, and she’s just constantly a harbinger of chaos, but will babysit Grogu whenever Din wants to brood and stare longingly into the distance (or at Luke who’s also brooding as the sun sets but shhh). Bo-Katan and the gang are there, and while Bo-Katan grumbles about how the old ranch boss had different/better methods on how to run things, she still follows Din’s lead and helps him with the finances and taxes. They all take to Luke like a wildfire, because Luke is a sunshine boy who can make friends with literally anyone and somehow manages to make Din not only smile but laugh, but also because they can tell he’s got a lot of trauma and pain bubbling just under the surface, and they all silently but collectively agreed a long time ago that they are the patron saints of troubled and lost souls. 

When Luke gets better and starts to help out, he’s constantly upset with himself because he used to help out at his aunt and uncle’s farm in the summers when he was a kid, and he knows how to do this stuff, but his prosthetic is really throwing him off and his body has sustained a lot of other injuries that make doing manual labor a much more different experience than it used to be, but everyone is really patient with him and helps him out, especially Din. At one point, Din is so nice that Luke just loses it, because he doesn’t understand how Din can be so kind and so patient, and care about him so much, and kind of calls himself broken and useless in front of Din, and Din gets super protective and grabs his hands (real and prosthetic) and tells him that he’s not broken or useless, and you’re so sweet and wonderful, and can’t you see? Ever since you’ve been here, everyone’s been so much happier, so much lighter. You’ve brought something precious to us, but most of all to me. And they’re standing really close and for a second Luke thinks Din is going to kiss him, but instead, Luke realizes that he’s crying, and Din just wraps his arms around him and holds him.

After that, time sort of blurs, marked by things like Grogu climbing into Luke’s bed because he sensed that he was having a nightmare, and Din waking up to find the pair of them coloring in a serene silence, Luke getting the hang of ranch life and his prosthetic and dealing with his panic attacks and flashbacks as they come, and Din enduring relentless badgering from his friends because hey, if you don’t marry Luke, I will and Fennec, you’re a lesbian and that doesn’t matter, it’ll be a marriage of twink and butch solidarity. And all the while, Din and Luke are spinning closer and closer towards each other, two suns hurtling in their orbit to the other with an inescapable certainty. 

When it finally happens, they’ve just gotten back from one of those cowboy dances (idk what they’re called...hoedowns? yeah okay) (and yes, I wanted to hit all of the cliches in the book, thank you very much), and Grogu’s fallen fast asleep on Luke’s shoulder. After they tuck him up all snug in his bed, they head out to the porch, because it’s raining outside, and the steady thrum of water droplets splattering on the roof and on the grass is the most soothing sound Luke has ever heard (aside from Din’s voice), and he’s a little too afraid to go to sleep and ruin his perfect night with a nightmare. They stand there for a while, silence binding them together, shoulders brushing every now and then, hesitant and questioning. Luke thinks about how Din had asked him to dance earlier, his lips tilted in a teasing, but achingly soft smile, and how his heart had pounded a tattoo to the shape of his ribs when they’d pushed up so close together, the fast, rowdy dances of the beginning of the night having faded to something lasting, something meaningful. Luke remembers the ball he’d run away from, how the dancing had been cold, almost jeering in a way, and Luke realizes how far he’s come, how different it is here. And suddenly, there isn’t a question in his mind anymore. He turns toward Din, who turns toward him, and when he leans forward, Din breathes an uncertain “Luke-”, but he doesn’t get to finish the thought. Luke kisses him, and he kisses back, and it’s just them. There are hands in hair and noses nudged together, and at some point, they move, without either of them releasing the other, into the house and into Din’s bedroom. Buttons are unbuttoned, and whole stretches of skin are kissed, and when it’s over, they curl up together, Din tucking his head into the crook of Luke’s neck and falling asleep there. 

When they wake up, Luke explains why he came here, why he ran away, all the while Din looks at him with his beautiful dark eyes and runs his hands through Luke’s hair, which is catching the sunlight filtering in through the window and making him look like he has a halo, all the while never once condemning him for keeping it a secret this whole time. After he’s finished, he expects some sort of shocked reaction-after all, his family’s pretty famous, but all Din does is kiss him and ask, “Wait, so you have a twin?” 

It’s so unexpected that Luke throws his head back and bursts into uncontrollable, and very contagious peals of laughter, and when he’s finally able to breathe again, he kisses Din’s forehead and murmurs, “I love you.” 

Din, who has been touch starved and lonely for years (no time for relationships when you’ve got a business to run and a toddler to raise), tears up and kisses him, too overwhelmed for words. But Luke understands.  

And then Grogu pushes his way into the room holding up a box of Frosted Flakes above his head and shaking it, as if to say, I’d like to eat now, please. 

Din and Luke stifle their smiles into the other’s shoulder, and when they get up, Luke can’t help but think that he’s finally where he belongs.

----

It takes approximately .5 seconds for all the others to figure out they’re together now, and Cara and Bo-Katan (of all people) start cheering immediately, to Din and Luke’s shock. Boba and Fennec grumble and begrudgingly hand over a huge wad of cash each to Cara and Bo-Katan because they thought it would take them at least another two weeks to get together. Din’s very done with his friends at this point, but he takes one look at Luke’s flustered but smiling face and decides he won’t kill them all this time. 

And if everyone thought Luke was a lot of excitement for a humble ranch in the middle of nowhere, then they are in no way, shape, or form, prepared for when his very angry twin sister shows up with a himbo with a shit-eating grin and his 7 foot tall best friend she hired to track her brother down. 

(needless to say, Boba punches Han within two minutes of interaction).

[hotchley]

the date

Surprise! I’m on holiday now so I’m using the time to try and get some of my WIPs finished. This and yesterdays were the most done, so don’t expect too much from the next two weeks because I also do need to start doing my work.

The temptation to post a spoiler was almost overwhelming, but I refrained so now you get to read the whole mess in one go! Also, funny story, this had been sitting in my drafts since last year and I only just got around to finish it.

There is a happy, alternate ending. Let me know if you want to see it!

Trigger Warnings: references to child abuse and domestic violence, both characters have low self-esteem and negative perceptions of themselves

read on ao3!

It's too early for anyone else to be there. The entire BAU is on leave- and given how often that was interrupted, it makes sense for everyone to be enjoying it whilst it lasts, but it still shocks her to see the entire sixth floor empty.

Apart from one person.

Hotch is sitting behind his desk, dressed casually. It's strange to see him there, frowning over paperwork, wearing a pair of worn jeans and a fuzzy jumper. It makes him look younger. more like Jack’s dad than Supervisory Special Agent Hotchner and it tugs at something in Emily's heart.

She pushes the feeling away. That isn’t why she's here. It doesn’t matter that she is the only one- aside from Dave- that knows the way he rubs his thumb against his other fingers is a way to soothe himself, not an indication that he's lying. It doesn't matter that she knows what his tell is, or that the smile that had spread across his face when she told him it was a date made her heart flutter. It's irrelevant that he’d pulled her closer when they were dancing as though he was trying to convince himself she was real.

She's leaving. And he's with Beth. Beth, who she had only spoken to for a few minutes but had immediately loved. She is everything Hotch needs after the darkness of the past two years. And Emily can't resent her. Not for falling in love with Hotch and certainly not because he loves her back.

He isn't hers. Maybe he would've been. In a different life where his torso isn't a mess of scars left by the same serial killer that had put his wife in the ground, and her darkness was something that didn't stop her from loving others or cause fear, they would've been beautiful. A peaceful garden that made people smile and realise that there was still hope and a reason to carry on.

But it isn't a different life. They live in a world where you can't keep a photo of your loved one in your wallet in case it fell into the wrong hands, and where the phone ringing did not provoke an eye roll at the latest scam, but a cold dread that someone else they loved is dead or gone. They live in a world where she taints everything she touches- apart from him because he has always been darkness and what she doesn't understand was that her touch made flowers blossom where only weeds had ever lived in his ribcage- and a world where he cannot handle his own humanity.

She hasn't knocked before walking into his office since that case in Milwaukee, all those years ago. She thinks of the woman she had been then, but for once, it doesn't hurt. She is still that headstrong and fiesty agent, but she is also more open and trusting. Aaron had changed too. He'd gotten older and more tired. But he trusts her.

Enough that she doesn't need to knock before entering. It feels wrong though, to walk in unannounced. He would know immediately if she knocks that something is up, and she wants to cling to the feeling of home for a few more moments. She clears her throat instead. The smile that crosses her face when he looks up, slightly startled by her sudden appearance, was completely involuntary.

"Why are you doing paperwork?" she asks.

He sets it to the side, looking like a child that had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. "It's only going to pile up, so I thought I would get a head start."

"You deserve to take a break too," she chastises.

He looks down. "I know. Would you like to sit?"

She nods, taking the seat in front of his desk. When she looks at him, it is almost painful. Five years ago, he had called her into his office to snap at her. And she had hated him for it. She knew he was only pretending to not know where she'd gone for college. So she took the knife in her back and plunged it into his heart when she said he didn't trust women as much as men, despite knowing that wasn't true.

He doesn't trust anyone. How could he, when the very people that were meant to love him and keep him safe from the dark were the same monsters that emerged as the sun went down?

But he had looked younger then. Less tired by life and living. And she had been more hopeful. Not naive. She had never been naive. None of them had been. They'd never been given the chance to experience that feeling. But she'd had hope that they could save everyone.

And he hadn't been able to take that from her, but he watched as she slowly lost it. And she watched as he told the team he loved them in a thousand different ways. And she wondered how anyone could ever call him cold. He wasn't cold. Hotch did what it took to protect the honour of the BAU, but Aaron did what it took to keep his family together.

At some point, they had stopped fighting each other and started to blur the lines between friendship and more.

"Did you enjoy yourself last night?" he asks.

She nods. "JJ deserves it. So does Will. Especially after everything that's happened."

Neither of them know what, but something happened when she was at the State Department. 

"We all deserve that," he says, almost too quietly for her to hear. One set of words that she cannot say threaten to fall from her mouth.

"Beth is lovely," she says instead. "What does Jack think of her?"

He smiles at the mention of his son. "She's one of his favourite people."

"That's lovely," she says, wondering why it was so difficult to speak to him. There were only two times their conversations had been this stilted: once when he started working for her mother, and once when she first joined the unit.

There's a sudden silence, and she stares past him and at the books lining his shelves. All the ones that could be seen were law-related. What few people knew was that at the very bottom of the shelf, where his desk and chair would cover it, he has books for Jack.

It had thrown her, the first time she'd seen them. She couldn't reconcile the image of Hotch and the image of Aaron. Now the two were interchangeable. Not that she ever actually called him Aaron. He would call her Emily like her name meant everything, but she was a coward. Aaron was too personal. 

She'd used his first name twice. Once after Haley's death, when she thought he would retire even though he would never be happy. Once after her own death, when she told him to burn in hell. She regretted that, even now, after forgiveness had been given.

"She deserves better than me. I know that. I think deep down, she knows that too but I just can't let her walk away from me, and I don't know why," he blurts out. Almost like he needed to say something, but everything else was either too personal or too neutral.

But she understands what he means. She always does.

"You need to convince yourself you can love someone without destroying them. You need a reason to look through case file after case file. You need to know that someone will be waiting when you come home, that this is not for nothing."

Aaron stares, and she swallows. It had been so long since she had been this vulnerable with him. Her bad day, when she had let herself feel after so long of not, felt like decades ago. And in some ways, it had been. She had bought and sold a house. He had crumbled and found love again.

"Emily, there is a reason for all of this. You just need to remember it. And some day, you will have someone waiting at home for you, I promise. Just give it time," he says. 

She smiles as he says her name. Ian had tainted it. But Aaron says it like it was something precious and beautiful. What she didn't understand was that, to him, it was. It always had been. It always would be, no matter what.

But then the rest of his words register and her smile fades. He already knows she's leaving, had known since she returned that it was only a matter of time. Foolishly he had hoped it would be far, far into the future, when his own health issues forced him to retire. That would be kind though. And the world had never been kind to either of them.

She would walk away now, even though she didn't want to, because she could not stand the memory of the last time she had been in that office. And he would stay, even though he couldn't, because he would not let the team lose yet another person.

"You know why I'm here, don't you?" she asks, thinking about their conversation the previous night. How it had been perfect, but a cloud shaped like goodbye had been hanging over them throughout the night. She supposed that was what life was though.

It didn't make it hurt any less when Dave forced her into Aaron's arms. He had smiled, that soft and gentle one that transformed him from Unit Chief into the man that knew far too much for his age. That still longed for a childhood.

She hadn't wanted to talk about work, or her departure or even Beth. Instead, she whispered to him about the time he had spent working for her mother, and how even then, his suits didn't fit properly. He responded by talking about the evenings they had spent together watching old reruns of the comedies from her childhood.

And it was nice.

And again, she wonders if she was doing the right thing.

"I have my suspicion," he says, trying to keep his tone light. He doesn't want Emily to regret anything. He doesn't want to influence her decision. But in the back of his mind, she's just another person leaving him. And he wonders if he would ever be good enough for anyone, and then he hates himself for thinking that because this wasn't about him.

It is about Emily. And her need for a fresh start.

"You want me to say it, don't you?" she isn't accusing him. She just needs to be sure.

"Need," he corrects. "I need you to say it."

But it isn't out of spite. Or anger. He just needs to know it was her choice. That he has nothing to do with it. That she doesn't blame him anymore. That the thing that had been building between them before- before Doyle, before Foyet made him too afraid to feel anything- has not been destroyed.

"I'm resigning from the BAU and moving to London," she says. Saying it out loud, for the first time, to him of all the people, made the situation so much real.

She hadn't fully processed that she had accepted Clyde's offer. She knew for a while that she would be leaving, but now, the full impact of it hit her. There would be no more crushing hugs from Derek in private after the cases that destroyed them both. No more little toys from Penelope stuffed into her top drawer to make her smile. 

No more Aaron seeking her out to ask her silly questions about foreign languages because Jack had expressed an interest in them. No more Aaron making sure she was fine by simply glancing in her direction. No more coffee on her desk after a difficult meeting that he would never confess to making, but which everyone knew was his doing. 

No more phone calls too early in the morning begging for a story, a joke, anything, to distract from the memory he had of her in the hospital after Doyle. 

No more them, messy and broken and damaged as they were.

He nods. The smile on his face is forced, and she can see him fighting back tears. He doesn’t want her to go. But he also knows that she needs to. She is doing what he had never been able to do: leave, before it all became too much and whatever life they still had left was permanently ruined.

 “You’ll take them by storm. Just like you did here,” he says.

She smiles slightly, thinking back once more to her earliest days. “Only there won’t be someone accusing me of being a spy for their boss, which really did define those first few months.”

She meant it as a joke. She really should have known better. He always took these things too literally, so afraid of the teasing disguising a genuine anger that would only come out hours later when he had forgotten the transgression.

“Emily, I never apologised for my actions, but I need you to know-”

“You have apologised. I don’t need to hear the words to know how sorry you are. Also, it wasn’t really misplaced distrust was it?”

“Still. I am sorry. For everything.”

He isn’t just talking about those early days, she suddenly realises. He was talking about everything, from Milwaukee to Benjamin Cyrus to Ian Doyle. She longs to reach across and take his hand, rubbing her own fingers over the skin that he was always worrying, but that isn’t her job anymore.

It never had been. Even if she had wanted it to be.

“So am I,” she says. “I miss the man you were when I first joined,” she adds without thinking.

He frowns, the furrow so much like the look Jack had given her when she told him the previous night that one day, he would also be old like his dad and her. It hurt, to see how similar they were. Maybe it was because, where Hotch had always hated looking like his father, Jack would love it.

“Why?” he asks, voice slightly hoarse. He's afraid of her answer.

“You had more faith in people and their goodness. More hope for the future. I don’t blame you for changing. Still, it was a beautiful belief to witness and be a part of.”

“Haley always gave me a reason to believe in goodness,” he confesses, fiddling with the pen he had set down the moment she walked in.  

“Perhaps Beth can give you some more,” she says, without a single hint of jealousy or anger. She has no right to either of those emotions. Women like her, women that only hurt the people they loved and who were harsh and cruel and rough around the edges did not get men like him. 

Men like Aaron got soft and gentle women who saw nothing but the best in everyone. It was the only way that they could carry on doing their jobs. The only way any of them could carry on looking into the abyss without flinching was by having something that would be their solace. Something or someone untouched by the horrors of the day and evil of the night.

He has found his solace. She is still searching. Because he cannot be her solace anymore. It isn’t fair to either of them. She's not going to make him choose between loving her and loving Beth. She knows that people could love more than one person, but he already felt guilty for still loving Haley. After everything else she had put him through, she couldn't put him through the pain of knowing that she had always loved him, had always known just what his lingering stares meant, but had just never found the right time to say it all.

"When I said she deserves better than me, I didn't just mean because I'm broken."

"Aaron, you aren't-"

"Stop, let me- let me finish. I am. I have been for a while now. Maybe I was never whole to begin with. I meant that I'm in love with someone else. I thought I was over it, but I wasn't, and it was only when we started dating that I realised."

"Nobody can fault you for still loving Haley. She was torn from you in the most horrific way possible, and if you still love her, that's okay. Your heart has always been too big for just one person."

"I'm not talking about Haley," he whispers. "I'm talking about you."

"Aaron." 

"I love you," he chokes out.

He can't. He can't love her. If he loves her, he will end up in a coffin, buried in the ground because she always kills the people that love her. If he loves her, the flowers in his heart that were finally blooming after Haley's death caused them all to wilt would be permanently destroyed.

He stares at her. She looks away. The look on his face is too real. Too much. If she looks at him, she would end up tearing up the resignation and phoning Clyde to say she couldn't do it. She believes that there was a universe in which she was strong enough to stay. A universe in which she was still beautiful.

But in the universe she lives in, she isn't. She is hardened by life and terrified of love. In the universe where Aaron only knows how to say I love you when everything else failes, who had only ever heard the words used out of fear, shouted by a desperate mother as her husband refused to have mercy, she has gone too long without speaking.

"Say something. Even if it's that you hate me and that I'm a terrible person. Or that I'm being cruel and unfair because I am. You're ready to leave and I shouldn't be ruining your fresh start like this but I just-"

"I love you too," she says.

His jaw drops. "Emily," he breathes.

"I- I love you. I don't know when it started or when I realised, but I love you. I have for a while. I just- I couldn't say anything."

"Why?"

The question catches her off-guard. "What?"

"Why do you love me?" 

He's not searching for a compliment. He genuinely wants to know why she- with her beauty and strength and power and loyalty and kindness- could ever love him. 

"For the same reason you hate yourself."

He laughs. "That's funny. In some twisted way, that's funny. I love you for the same reasons you hate yourself too."

She looks at him. Him, with his tired eyes and gentle smiles. With his twisted definition of love because nobody ever taught him what it really was. Who believed he had to be perfect, or else people would leave. Who led the team with such passion and loyalty because Haley's love terrified him, and it was easy to push her away. Him, who still does not know the difference between safety and happiness and who does not understand where kindness and love differ.

And she knows that she cannot do it. She is not strong enough to love him the way he needs. Maybe a few years ago. Maybe if this was a few years later. But time was a funny thing. It was always working against them.

"I love you," she repeats.

"You won't stay though, will you?" there is no anger in his voice. Just an acceptance she hates. He always accepts things far too easily. 

"I can't."

"I know. It's okay. I don't want you to have any regrets. About anything."

He stands, and she follows almost immediately, her body still attuned to his movements. When he walks around to stand in front of her, she wonders if this is the climax of their story. If this is the final moment, where the tension peaks, and everything ends happily.

When he was a child, he pretended his life was like the films he never got to watch in order to escape the reality of it. He eventually accepted that life did not always come with closure and sometimes loose ends could not be tied up.

He holds out his hand for her. "Agent Prentiss. I wish you all the best in the future."

She refuses to take his hand. "You don't want me to have regrets?"

He drops his hand back down by his side. "Of course not Em. Of course not."

Without giving herself time to think, she closes the gap between them and stands on her tip-toes. He doesn't pull away, but his breathing goes uneven as it catches in his throat. He looks down at the ground, unable to meet her eyes.

There is so much about him she wants to learn. So much she wants to memorise but she doesn't have time. So she presses one soft and gentle kiss to his forehead, smiling through the sadness as he relaxes into the touch with a shaky exhale.

He doesn't move. He can't. And so she steps away, clearing her throat, wiping away the tear that threatens to fall. 

"Goodbye Aaron," she says, his first name slipping out without her even realising she was saying it.

"You only ever call me Aaron when you're saying goodbye. I'm not sure whether it makes me hate or love my name more," he says.

"For what it's worth, I am sorry," she says instead. She doesn't want to think about the reasons he hates his name. Or the irony of it meaning exalted, when every single person that was meant to protect him failed.

"I don't want you to be sorry. I want you to look back and smile. And be proud of the lives you saved, the family you found. I want you to remember that you made me a better man. That you were right. I wasn't alone."

"None of us were. Will you come and visit me? Maybe help me get settled?"

It is selfish to ask, but she never claimed to be good. Aaron believes she is, but she knows she isn't. 

"Of course I will," he promises. How can he not, when he blames himself for every single bad thing that had happened since she joined?

She gave him one final smile before closing the door behind her, ready to start a new life but still feeling like her heart had been torn from her chest. He watches her go, only falling to the ground to sob when the elevator doors close behind her one last time.

In the end, he does not visit. He gets as far as picking his seat, when he realises he cannot do it. He cannot see her. When he phones Derek, pleading for him to go instead, and to take Penelope so Emily cannot be angry, he doesn't even pretend to hide the fact that he has been crying.

Derek doesn't even hesitate. He just says he'll do it.

Emily hates Aaron for being too much of a coward to come and see her, even after he told her to not have any regrets. She hates herself more for not being able to see him when she hears about the emergency surgery. Saving JJ becomes her apology.

Still, it's not enough for her. Which is exactly why it's too much for him. Because even when they're stood across from each other, drinks in hand as they celebrate JJ's survival, they cannot be honest.

And then she leaves him again. He can't blame her.

He blames time. They never had enough. Or the right one. 

[thefreelanceangel]

Shadowbringers Is Finally Ended

With Patch 5.55 and the official end of the Shadowbringers story, setting up now for Endwalker in November, there are now a few months ahead to grind gear, finish content and reflect on the most recent expansion.

And, without any hyperbole, I can say definitively that I have never in my life been as impressed with a game's writing as I have that of Shadowbringers, both the original expansion and a lot of the patch content. I have... thoughts.

I'm a bit of an outlier; I skipped Stormblood (oops) and went straight from completing Heavensward (which greatly impressed me at the time and still does) into Shadowbringers because I wanted to get a max level character already.

Within the first few cutscenes of Shadowbringers, I was absolutely hooked.

First, let me just say that "monstrous angels" is 100% My Thing. I ADORE the reinterpretation of the standard "Renaissance art angelic figures" into something closer to incomprehensible beings taking on twisted, terrifying appearances. The human mind is a finite thing and comprehending an angel would be as difficult as comprehending infinity; these are things so alien to our experience that assuming they'd be easy to grasp and familiar feels disingenuous to me.

So the sin-eaters and the Lightwardens? SLAP.

Also, the intent behind the usage of "Light" in Shadowbringers was deliberate and purposeful. Our Lord and Savior, Yoshi-P, stated this clearly in his Forbes interview.

"The inception of this idea was very simple: in recent fantasy works, the perception that light equates to good and dark equates to evil is very set in stone, we wanted to shake this up a bit.

"Until this point in Final Fantasy XIV, our players have been Warriors of Light: the hero. However, with Shadowbringers, we leave the Source and embark on a journey to the First, and through this I want our players to discover the truth of the world, as well as think about the real nature of light and dark. That is the theme of Shadowbringers.

"In any case, a light too strong could potentially become evil. Darkness and night are also necessary for the world to maintain its balance; that's the kind of theme we will be shedding light on."

And the themes in Shadowbringers had such an amazing resonance that they were both painfully clear and masterfully executed. Not only was the theme of "balance" clearly executed in the "returning Darkness to a world flooded by Light" goal, but the desire for players to "think about the real nature of light and dark" showed in a multitude of ways.

The Warriors of Light (who we met as the Warriors of Darkness in Heavensward) are, in their home world, reviled. They directly caused the Flood which nearly destroyed their home and although they were able to save it with personal sacrifice, the populace at large is unaware of that sacrifice. The motives behind what the Warriors did is essentially lost to history; all that remains is the perception of their actions and the results thereof.

Motives, however, which you (player and WoL) are privy to.

"At long last, you see. To save our world, we gave our lives. We were just adventurers trying to make our way. An odd job here, a favor there—we never aspired to be Warriors of Light. But word of our deeds spread, and soon people were calling us heroes. They placed their hopes and dreams on our shoulders and bid us fight for all that was good and right. We fought and we fought and we fought...until there was no one left to fight. We won...and now our world is being erased from existence. We did everything right, everything that was asked of us, and still—still it came to this! You of all people should understand! We cannot—we will not falter. We brought our world to the brink of destruction, and now we must save it."

You had that fight with the Warriors of Darkness. You heard Ardbert explain exactly what happened, how they came to the point where they faced off against you, and you saw what happened when they were given the choice to hold back the Flood. And you were there when the one favor Ardbert asked was for the Warriors of Darkness to be taken home.

You see how the First remembers them and it's stark contrast to the heroes you met who were fighting desperately to save people who now spit on their names. History quite clearly has two sides and which you believe is dependent entirely on what information you have.

This becomes even more of a clear theme when you meet Emet-Selch and learn more about the Calamity which led to the entire Zodiark/Hydaelyn duality. Here, your previous experiences with Ascians has painted them solely as "villains." They are established enemies, manipulating events and people in order to attain goals which, to you, are nothing but Calamities.

And yet, as you learn more about the original Source and the Amaurotines that once lived on it, these goals are painted in an entirely new light. Instead of merely seeking to wipe out "the world" for no apparent reason or, at best guess, greater power for their deity Zodiark, the Ascians were striving to repair the damage done by the original Sundering. They, in a manner of speaking, were doing what the Warriors of Darkness were. What you, the Warrior of Light, have been doing. They were trying to restore what was lost.

Which leads into another of Shadowbringers' major themes: grief and loss.

The earliest touches of this are in Alisaie's questlines where you learn about what happens to people tainted by the Light. Families are destroyed, people are transmuted into sin-eaters and those who avoid that fate must stand by and watch as their loved ones fall to something far worse than death. "A Purchase of Fruit" shows you exactly what the end result is while also highlighting something very specific: with no hope of removing the Light's taint, knowing that all that awaits the tainted is a painful transmutation and existence as a sin-eater, those untainted make the best they can of those last days and end the tainted individual's pain before it begins.

Grief, yes. Loss? Absolutely. And yet, this is a loving, compassionate thing that those in Amh Araeng are doing. They face their own grief and loss. Rather than refusing to accept the actuality of their circumstances or refuse to weigh themselves down with taking a decisive action, they make the choice to face their grief and loss directly, even willingly taking on the guilt of their actions rather than leaving the tainted to suffer.

Magnus in Twine lost his wife and son, which immobilizes him. He can't find solance in anything save alcohol and brooding over their graves. It takes outside interference to pull him directly from his grief, to help him see past the loss of his family and look towards the future where life might once again be worth living. His struggle with grief is painfully familiar and so very, very close to many real life struggles that it's extremely poignant.

This struggle with grief is the fight the Ascians are, without question, losing. Let's set aside the "tempering" argument when it comes to Emet-Selch and Elidibus for the moment, largely because it's actually quite true that grief can spur people into committing horrific acts either as a desperate attempt to assuage their own pain (revenge) or make 'things right' in some way (vengeance).

Emet-Selch does not, in fact, properly grieve for Amaurot and the Ancients he knew. He clings to them, as Hythlodaeus tells us, weighed down by an aching sense of loss.

"And though he may carry himself with a certain glib ease, Emet-Selch is not a man to bear his burdens lightly. In fact, I imagine they have only grown heavier with every passing century. ...T'is truly a terrible weight he has chosen to carry."

Quite significantly is the word "chosen" in that. Grief is a process that involves, eventually, letting go of the pain and living with the memories of what was loved and what no longer is. Emet-Selch chooses not to do that. He does not grieve for Amaurot and his lost loved ones; he refuses, no matter how often he mentions his loss, to admit that what is gone is gone.

Elidibus, rather similarly, refuses to accept that the duty he took on when called upon to become Zodiark's heart is finally at an end. That the world he and Emet-Selch originated from is gone. Although he admits that he can barely remember why he's set on this path, he refuses to turn away from him.

One won't forget, one can barely remember--neither will grieve and let go.

Even the Ascians' characteristic arrogance and disdain for what they consider "lesser beings" is easy to read as their long-lasting struggle with grief. Considering the Sundering, all the beings that the Ascians are so disdainful of are, in fact, echoes of that which they once knew. If they acknowledged that, accepted those beings as what they are and perhaps even admitted they had worth... well... Rather like realizing abruptly that you've spent a whole day without thinking of someone recently departed, it feels like a betrayal.

To find value in the worlds as they currently are, to turn away from the duty they were asked to uphold, to choose to lay down the memories of the past are all, in essence, choices the Ascians will not make because to do so would be to let go of what's lost, to move into the acceptance of grief and that can feel like betraying those whose memories are slowly fading.

Emet-Selch's end--"Remember us."--is directly tied to his refusal to forget. To let himself have even one day without hoping for an eventuality that's highly unlikely regardless of effort, without remembering the Sundering and the Final Days. He remembered, forcefully and tenaciously, and wishes that legacy to live beyond him.

While Elidibus, in remembering, unable to deny failure any longer, finally expresses grief and loss. "My people. My brothers. ...My friends. Stay strong. Keep the faith. At duty's end, we will meet again. We will. We will. The rains have ceased, and we have been graced with another beautiful day. But you are not here to see it."

And coming from villains, quite specifically from villains that have been largely indistinct "puppet master" figures throughout the previous expansions, these story arcs were a punch to the gut. (Yes, I had to pause writing this to cry helplessly over Elidibus again because my gods, that last line just...) Villains are at their best in fiction when they're relatable. When it's so very easy to see that thin line between villain and hero.

Faced with the loss of everything you'd ever loved, with the faintest possibility of getting it back, what would you do? What wouldn't you do? Yes, the Ascians did terrible things and that's undeniable. Stopping them was necessary to save hundreds of thousands of lives. And doing so, being victorious, didn't feel like a victory and that is such a rare, rare thing in media. The Warrior of Light does the right thing, but in doing so, must face the fact that those they've been fighting have hopes and dreams and feelings and pain as real and as motivating as theirs.

And Shadowbringers does such an impressive job of turning those standard tropes around. Heroes are a dime a dozen because if you just awaken them, as Elidibus did with the starshower, well, there can be dozens of Warriors running around. Villains have heart-wrenching motivations and relatable reasons for their goals. History is multi-faceted and no one person knows what the "truth" truly is. Grief can spur people to helping others (i.e. the tank Role Quest ending) or it can fester and go unhealed and create nothing but more destruction.

There is so much that Shadowbringers did beautifully, I don't have the time to touch on all of it. The lack of "breaking the flawed system fixes everything" trope following Eulmore's liberation from Vauthry and the struggles that Eulmore faces in trying to build a functional, working social order for themselves. Embracing the value of childish dreams and tending to the smallest, most overlooked victims of trauma with the Pixie Tribal Quests. Dealing with a commander whose soldiers died and seeing Lyna's survivor's guilt. Seeing how having a single, unified goal can inspire and rally people into putting differences aside and helping each other.

Shadowbringers has finally ended with Patch 5.55. The story on the First ended with Patch 5.3. And all I can say is that this is a game that I will never forget.

[ronnytherandom]

I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

 Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

[adarlingsnightmare]

Chuuya Nakahara Yandere Alphabet

Anonymous said:

Sounds good! How about the alphabet for chuuya? :3c 

accidentally posted this to my main blog after writing a huge apology for my lack of posting :/ i keep doing that unfortunately. anyways, ive had a full week exams which is why i havent been posting. im extremely tired and stressed but i will try to get more requests done this week, though i have another week of exams. i do apologise, but itll be over soon. i hope you enjoy anon, this short bastard is one of my favs. <3

Affection: How do they show their love and affection? How intense would it get?

Chuuya would gladly smother you in endless kisses and cuddles, but if you tell him to back off, he'll stick to just having an arm around you (because god forbid he isn't touching you in one way or another). You'll often hear him whispering how much he absolutely adores you when he thinks you're asleep, and when you're visibly awake he'll be showering you in compliments.

Blood: How messy are they willing to get when it comes to their darling?

Oh, Chuuya will undoubtedly do whatever it takes to keep you safe, even if that results in bloody murder. He's in the mafia after all, what's a little blood on his hands, especially in the name of love?

Cruelty: How would they treat their darling once abducted? Would they mock them?

Chuuya would only mock you if you consistently failed to escape or were getting punished by him. Otherwise, he is generally loving and as romantic as possible. He will always make sure you're eating and sleeping properly, snapping at you if you refuse to eat as he gets awfully worried about you sometimes.

Darling: Aside from abduction, would they do anything against their darling's will?

No, not really. The only instances where something's against his darlings will is when he's punishing them. Other than that, it's mainly abduction and the lack of freedom to talk to people.

Exposed: How much of their heart do they bare to their darling? How vulnerable are they when it comes to their darling?

Chuuya confides in his darling, and will show a side of himself that no one else ever sees. He'll ask for advice on work matters and will constantly seek love and reassurance from his darling. While outwardly he may still appear tough and cocky, he's really soft for you.

Fight: How would they feel if their darling fought back?

He would be pretty irritated and though he'd never admit it, quite hurt. Why can't you just love him, goddamnit?! He'll try not to hurt you too much, but if you're not backing down he will use force to get you to stop.

Game: Is this a game to them? How much would they enjoy watching their darling try to escape?

Chuuya doesn't enjoy it in the slightest. His love for you isn't some 'game' and seeing you try to escape both infuriates and saddens him. All he truly wants is to be a happy, normal couple so your refusal to love him is not something he enjoys.

Hell: What would be their darling's worst experience with them?

Chuuya isn't always fully aware of how strong he actually is, especially when he uses Corruption and becomes out of control. This can lead to a terrifying situation where you're worried for your life as a monster in your boyfriend's body goes on a rampage and destroys everything around him. It rarely happens, as Chuuya really doesn't want to hurt you, but when it does it's a living nightmare.

Ideals: What kind of future do they have in mind for/with their darling?

Honestly, Chuuya doesn't really know what kind of future he wants for him and his darling, but ideally you two would move to some beautiful island — somewhere in the Caribbean, maybe? — get married, possibly start a family and live out the rest of your days in bliss.

Jealousy: Do they get jealous? Do they lash out or find a way to cope?

Luckily, Chuuya isn't insanely possessive and doesn't lash out just because you looked at someone else, but he is paranoid. He has to keep you away from other people because, what if they attempt to hurt you? The only instance where he would genuinely become jealous is if Dazai was involved. This is when you'll see his full yandere side come out and it will be extreme: locking you up in highly secure room, restraining you, putting tracking devices in everything you own, anything to ensure your safety. If you were to show an interest in Dazai, whether platonic or even worse, romantic, his paranoia and jealousy would spike up tenfold — essentially guaranteeing you'll never see the light of day again.

Kisses: How do they act around or with their darling?

Chuuya is generally really loving and calm towards his darling, still messing with them and lovingly calling them an idiot, but always so soft when speaking. However, if you were to be a brat, his rougher, more 'mafia' side would make an appearance— any soft words of reassurance thrown out the window.

Love letters: How would they go about courting or approaching their darling?

The 'traditional' way: flirting with you, taking you out on fancy dates and gifting you jewellery and flowers. He may seem smooth but he usually has to ask people (Kouyou) or the internet for advice on how to win someone's affections. He's also very observant to what you're interested in, so if you mention preferring movies to fancy dinners, that's where your next date will be.

Mask: Are their true colors drastically different from the way they act around everyone else?

Yes, but in a good way. Instead of being his 'tough executive' persona, when he's around you, he'll reveal a much sweeter and softer side of himself. He's also surprisingly affectionate, taking every opportunity to be as close to you as possible.

Naughty: How would they punish their darling?

Chuuya doesn't generally plan out punishment, he tends to go into a fit of rage and attack you with whatever is nearest. Usually it results in you being choked, slammed repeatedly against the floor or him almost breaking your ribs with his foot. Once he's calmed down is when he will decide on a proper punishment, such as keeping you restrained to the bed, taking away certain privileges or maybe if you've really done something bad... a more permanent solution will be used.

Oppression: How many rights would they take away from their darling?

As long as his darling was relatively compliant, Chuuya's only real restriction would be the ability to go outside alone without the safety of his watchful eye. Of course, if you betrayed his trust, any hint of freedom you had previously would be stripped away.

Patience: How patient are they with their darling?

Chuuya tries to be patient, he really does, but he's just so hotheaded that he often ends up snapping at his darling whenever they act up in the slightest.

Quit: If their darling dies, leaves, or successfully escapes, would they ever be able to move on?

To put it simply: no. No one else can make Chuuya feel this way, and without his wonderful darling, he feels distanced from the world. It is likely he would continue working for the Port Mafia (unless they were involved in your escape/death), a mere shell of his former self only existing to serve the mafia rather than actually living.

Regret: Would they ever feel guilty about abducting their darling? Would they ever let their darling go?

Chuuya would feel a small amount of guilt if he had to kidnap you, but his belief that it's necessary for your protection would overrule the guilt. He would absolutely never let you go, you're like the anchor that keeps him human; he cannot lose you.

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

Like Dazai, Chuuya feels almost inhuman, like he is a foreigner in someone else's body, yet when he brushed hands with you, he felt something real. This is what drives him to get to know you: the desperation to be human. The more he spends time with you, the more this feeling increases — leading him to be unable to just allow you to leave him. Ironically, he becomes less human the more time he devotes to you.

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

Chuuya really doesn't like seeing you upset, and it hurts his heart having to punish you when you're so upset, but some things are just a necessary evil. If you've done something he considers to be really bad, he will be apathetic to your tears, believing you deserve whatever you're suffering.

Unique: Would they do anything different from the classic yandere?

Unlike a lot of yanderes, Chuuya does respect your boundaries to a degree, and won't force you to do anything you really protest against (aside from letting you go, of course).

Vice: What weakness can their darling exploit in order to escape?

Chuuya has to leave for work nearly everyday, so if you're smart and able to break locks, you have a fairly good chance of escaping. However, even if you do escape, Chuuya will find you again, and he won't take the betrayal lightly.

Wit's end: Would they ever hurt their darling?

Chuuya has a pretty short temper, especially when it comes to the safety of his darling, so if you persistently tried to escape or "put yourself in danger" (interacting with Dazai, refusing food), he may snap. As stated previously, he doesn't enjoy your pain, but sometimes it's necessary to get you to listen.

Xoanon: How much would they revere or worship their darling? To what length would they go to win their darling over?

Despite his sometimes arrogant nature, Chuuya sees his darling as on an entirely separate level to himself. He practically worships you, though he doesn't always like to show it (he's got to keep up his tough guy persona after all) and would gladly do anything you asked. His loyalty to you is even able to override his loyalty to the Port Mafia.

Yearn: How long do they pine after their darling before they snap?

Chuuya would make an effort to woo you, buying you flowers and taking you out on fancy dinners, hoping that you'll end up wanting to be in a relationship with him. He'll vehemently deny being so desperate to be with you, but it's pretty obvious he's hopelessly in love. If you were to continuously reject his advances, he may eventually end up kidnapping you, but only if he thought you were in danger (or that another person was making a move on you).

Zenith: Would they ever break their darling?

If he did end up breaking you, it wouldn't be intentional. All Chuuya wants is your unconditional love and affection, but he can get desperate if you're not showing it and will make you say how much you love him, even if you have to be put through hell to achieve it.

[calliecat93]

ST: TNG S4 Watchthrough Episodes 22-25

Half a Life: Okay Lwaxana, let's see if the fourth time is the charm. So… gonna be honest, this episode just made me uncomfortable with the subject matter. Essentially Lwaxana becomes friendly with a man named Timicin… who is going to commit suicide as part of his culture due to his age. needless to say, I thoroughly am not okay with this. The episode does delve into it like Lwaxana reacts as you would expect and there are points made about how she has no right to interfere in others cultures/personal beliefs and how we treat middle-aged individuals nearing their elder years. But… y’know… a society that dictates that you kill yourself at 60 is… I’m sorry, I just cannot discuss this topic fairly. While I am opinionated, I do try my best to be fair… but I’m just not comfortable enough to discuss this topic in this way because I thoroughly disagree with suicide as acceptable on any level. At least not with how it was done here. That being said, being fair, I can give some praise. First, David Ogden Stiers! Heck yes~! I love his work in various Disney films, and he was excellent here! And on Lwaxana… I liked her here. Not only is her man-chasing ways with a man who is receptive to it so it feels less dumb/annoying/kinda creepy and more charming and legitimately entertaining than when she’s forcing it on Picard, but frankly I was on her side throughout the episode. When suicide is involved, someone should intervene and Timicin shouldn’t have to die just because he’s hit 60 and they don’t want to burden their children with caring for the elderly. My dad died at 54, and I never hesitated in trying to care for him. No one in my family did. But you could see Lwaxana’s pain and grief and when she broke down in the Transporter Room to Troi… God. I may not be the biggest fan of her character, but the poor woman just needs a big hug. In the end, it's really hard for me to tell which side the episode is standing with. it chooses to shoot down the middle with Timicin choosing to go through with it and Lwaxana finally allowing it… but it doens’t feel like we’re supposed to be okay with it. I get it, it’s their planet’s beliefs and whether one should interfere in one's culture or not is a legit question… but when it comes to matters like this I just… IDK. Like I said IDK if I can give this a fair opinion because again, I just don’t agree with the subject matter whatsoever and it just feels utterly wrong. Maybe it’s supposed to, but… yeah. I’m gonna be fair here and shoot down the middle for the rating because I can’t say it’s a poorly done episode and the personal bias may be affecting my judgment… but it is certainly one I am unlikely to revisit. 3/5.

The Host: Crusher’s got a boyfriend, aww~! Too bad that he ends up dead, aww… but it’s okay! Turns out they’re actually a symbiote known as a Trill in a host body and they stick him into Riker in the meantime! Uhh… sure? Is this how it works for Jadzia in DS9? So the symbiote, Odon, is also an Ambassador and still needed, so Riker volunteers to be that host… despite no human ever carrying a Trill before. Needless to say, this not only causes issues for Riker but… well, muddies up Crusher and Odon’s relationship quite a bit. This makes sense, Odon not only mentioning this detail but being a symbiote that goes from body to body can be hard to settle. Crusher does eventually decide to try and make it work despite the awkwardness because she genuinely loves Odon, who is suffering due to Riker’s body just not being suitable. It’s fine, it’s certainly an interesting concept… until we get to the ending. What causes Crusher to break it off with Odon? His new host body suited for them… is a woman’s body. Now she says it’s because she just can’t handle the body hopping and I’m gonna take that as the truth… but the way the episode portrays it, it’s more like she can’t handle the body hopping into a female body despite her saying that’s not it. I know, I know it was the 90’s and again I’m just gonna act like seeing the new body was when the reality was hitting Crusher and she realized that it was just too much too fast. I can buy that. But again, the execution makes it feel… well, there’s no other way to say it, homophobic/biphobic/transphobic. Again 90’s, but still. At least the Trill’s aren’t picky about their gender at least physically, I can respect that. But yeah… needless to say this has quite a few unfortunate implications under a modern lens. Still, it was alright. Considering Jadzia in DS9, I’m looking forward to seeing more about the Trills then. The episode was alright, I just wish that the ending was more open-minded because it really put a damper on my final opinion. It shows that for all its progressiveness, ST still has plenty of prejudices from the real-life eras that they were made in. I’m just glad that we’re at least beginning to improve now. 2/5.

The Mind’s Eye: Geordi has been kidnapped by the Romulans. That sucks… and it gets worst when they conduct a painful mind-control experiment on him. Why? Well, the Enterprise is en route to deal with a Klingon insurrection and have a Klingon ambassador on board. They want Geordi to kill said the ambassador and thus crumble apart from the Federation/Klingon alliance. So yeah, bad. Geordi is a good boy, in romantically hopeless, he didn’t deserve this! Poor guy isn’t even aware of what he’s doing and can’t even sleep properly. It especially got tense there in the end as Data started piecing everything together… just as Geordi is readying to execute the assassination. Thank God that they managed to stop him, but again, poor Geordi. Oh and the fact that there was a Klingon turncoat on board triggering the order… yeah. Looks like Duras wasn’t the only Klingon in ona. Romulan conspiracy. Geordi’s left with implanted memories and the trauma of undergoing a brainwashing that he can’t even remember happening. Another solid episode that continues the threat of the Romulans and this whole RomulanKlingon conspiracy. We’re beuilding up to something, and it’s likely to be explosive. 4/5.

In Theory: A girl named Jenna has a crush on Data, oh my! Data, despite believing that as an android he can’t feel romantic attraction, decides that he’d like to pursue this, even making a romantic program for himself. In other words, it’s The Dauphin 2.0. So first, again with this whole thing about Data being an unfeeling android. Why can’t Data feel romantic attraction? He’s been shown to feel plenty of feelings including some level of affection for Tasa, just because it’s not in the ‘’normal’ way doesn’t make it any less true. Maybe Data is aromantic, but that’s not gonna come up in a 90’s show, which 90’s standards are why this feels so wrong. Data’s curiosity on the subject and deciding to pursue it is fine. He’s new to it and sure studying/emulating what media and books say about romance isn’t always best as the episode does demonstrate. That’s certainly a fine message to express and plenty of people have done/gone through that. There were some fun moments like Data seeking out advice from the others and Worf pretty much threatening Data to treat Jenna, who is part of Security, well or else was also amusing XD But yeah this episode was cute in a few ways, but I just can’t get over that whole ‘Data is emotionless’ thing. The show has shown far more evidence for Data having emotions than lacking them? Maybe Data thinks that he doesn’t, I can believe that, but still. Had they portrayed it simply as Data, being new to love and curious about it, didn’t fully get it/wasn’t ready but was trying to force it anyways and Jenna broke it off because of that instead of using the ‘he was a rebound’ excuse? I’d have been more accepting of that instead of wondering why they even bothered with this plot to begin with. To say that Data can’t feel love and anyone who tries is doomed to failure instead of Data learning to be better over time? Yeah… sorry, not buying it. The Dauphin, despite me not liking how Welsey acted at the end, was standard but still cute. This one though? Sorry, didn’t care for it. But hey, we got Spot again, so that made it worth it! 2/5.

So… aside from the third one, not the best episodes. But hey, everything else this season has still been good. Very least I’ll have plenty to make a Top 5 Best/Worst list for S4 now. Next time is the S4 finale/S5 premiere! Yay~! S4 has been such a fun ride so far! Will the ending end things on a high note and guarantee a strong beginning for S5? We shall see~!

[ibijau]

Worst engagement AU // on AO3

Parts of this had been posted before, but it has now been updated to better fit with the rest of the timeline

After another weekly discussion with Lan Xichen, Nie Huaisang figures out a way to get back at his fiancé.

It goes the same as always. Lan Xichen serves insipid tea for both of them, and offers some of those bland biscuits he seems to adore, as if it’s a great honour he’s doing to Nie Huaisang to give him anything to snack on.

Nie Huaisang who just wants this stupid meeting to be over already so he can go have some fun. Wei Wuxian said he’d sneak out to get them something to drink, and Nie Huaisang still has a stash of snacks from his last expedition out of the Cloud Recesses. They’ve decided to have a little party tonight, to celebrate the end of Wei Wuxian’s punishment. It will start as soon as Nie Huaisang is freed from this boring tea party.

First though, Nie Huaisang half expects to be scolded for what happened at the river yesterday. He was too annoyed by having their fun interrupted, but Jiang Cheng swears that Lan Xichen seemed very upset by his state of undress. Not without reason, since it goes against the rules of stupid Gusu Lan to be immodest and indecent. And sure, it’s all Wei Wuxian’s fault, but that’s not really going to help his case.

But the scolding never comes. Lan Xichen chooses to be annoyingly dignified instead, as if it’d be beneath him to even mention that incident. Nie Huaisang would have preferred anger. He would have preferred any emotion at all, instead of that blank politeness.

"Shall we play Go again?" Lan Xichen asks as he hands him his cup of tea. 

He sounds hopeful, eager even, and last week he looked like he was really having fun as they played. So did Nie Huaisang. He's still new to the game, but he finds that he loves it and it was thrilling to win against someone as skilled as Lan Xichen. 

"I'm not in the mood to play," Nie Huaisang announces.

Lan Xichen's smile falls, letting show real disappointment. Good. Nie Huaisang likes Go, but he refuses to let his fiancé get any enjoyment out of their weekly talks. Last time was an accident that he won't repeat. 

"I'll be more careful about the time that passes," Lan Xichen offers. He's not wrong that it was part of the problem, but seeing him insist like this just makes Nie Huaisang promise himself to never play together again, since Lan Xichen wants it so much.

"I'm just too tired," he mumbles, just a touch whiny. "Lan gongzi, I'd do so badly and then you'd be cross at me for not doing well enough."

Without surprise, Lan Xichen pinches his lips and glares at him, but it would be rude to push more so he gives up. It's rather obvious that he was planning on playing for the entire time they have to be together, and that he didn't prepare anything else to pass the time. Meanwhile Nie Huaisang has decided he wants to try his hand at poetry, so sitting in silence for a while doesn't bother him in the least. 

For now, he's looking for something to rhyme with nightingale, which is harder than expected. But aside from his beloved birds, Nie Huaisang can't think of anything worth writing about. Love is a lie for common people, and he's more interested in painting nature than writing about it. 

"I don't think I had the chance to say, but thank you for preventing that fight the other day," Lan Xichen says, apparently abhorring silence.

Nie Huaisang shoots him a puzzled look. It takes him a moment to find what that's about, but there can be only one incident his fiancé his referring to. Three days ago, Lan Xichen had to supervise the guest disciples because Lan Qiren was called away for a bit, and of course that gave some people a chance to start causing problems. 

Well, some people. Jin Zixuan. 

He's a weird kid, that Jin Zixuan, Nie Huaisang has decided. For someone from such a great sect, who is this pretty and good at cultivation, and in spite of being there with a number of relatives, it's odd that he's not particularly popular. Of course, that might be because he can't say two words without insulting someone. 

A bit like Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian, but at least they always have each other to step up if they cross a line. On the other hand nobody dares tell Jin Zixuan when he's a little shit, so he comes off as mean rather than funny like the Jiang boys. 

In truth, Nie Huaisang is starting to suspect Jin Zixuan is just painfully awkward and bad with people, and of course he too knows about being awkward. He wouldn’t tell anyone, least of all Jin Zixuan himself, but he pities him a little.

"It really was nothing," Nie Huaisang says with a dismissive handwave. "There wasn't going to be any real trouble. Wei-xiong knows better than to start a fight with his shijie's fiancé." 

Lan Xichen cannot contain a slight grimace, unconvinced. In truth, Nie Huaisang isn't so sure either, but he's not about to snitch on his friend. 

“It was still good of you to intervene,” Lan Xichen insists, smiling blankly.

Nie Huaisang rolls his eyes. If he had known it would please Lan Xichen so much, he’d have let Wei Wuxian punch Jin Zixuan in the face. Maybe he will next time.

“Lan gongzi is too kind. Really, I just wanted to tease Wei-xiong, it’s just an accident if that prevented anything. Lan gongzi knows I’m not bright enough to do anything good, ever.”

“That’s not true,” Lan Xichen protests, startling Nie Huaisang with how earnest he sounds all of a sudden. “Certainly you are not much of a scholar, but you have other talents. Although, even for this you have improved, haven’t you? I’m told you have done better than last year with the class on talismans.”

“Wei-xiong helped me,” Nie Huaisang announces, proud of himself for the fact that it’s not quite a lie. Wei Wuxian did help, by giving him all the answers in exchange for permanent ownership of a certain artful print from Nie Huaisang’s collection. And this time, they’ve been smart enough to not get caught. They're getting good at cheating, Nie Huaisang thinks.

Lan Xichen appears to consider that explanation for a moment as he sips some of his tea, looking as if he actually enjoys the stuff when it tastes like nothing but diluted washing water.

“You really spend a lot of time with Wei gongzi and Jiang gongzi, don’t you?” Lan Xichen remarks at last.

“I like them a lot. And I remember you encouraging me to do it. After all, a sect leader’s husband must have good relations with other sect leaders as well, right?”

A frown appears on Lan Xichen’s too perfect face, as always when Nie Huaisang says something to remind him of what awaits them in a few years. More surprisingly, there’s also the faintest trace of a blush on his cheeks. It’s not a bad look on him. It makes him seem more human. Not that Nie Huaisang cares, of course.

“You are right. Still, I would advise you not to take too much after Wei gongzi,” Lan Xichen says in a voice as dispassionate as ever. “He is not unkind, but very wild. A sect leader’s husband should respect the rules, and I fear Wei gongzi...”

“Are you gossiping, Lan gongzi?” Nie Huaisang interrupts with a smirk.

The other boy’s frown deepens, as does his blush. Lan Xichen hates being caught at fault, and Nie Huaisang is starting to figure out how to push him to it. It’s thrilling to see how imperfect his jade fiancé is after all. If he weren’t worried about Nie Mingjue’s reaction, Nie Huaisang would push even harder, just to see if it’s possible for Lan Xichen to actually get angry. His face his always so smooth and perfect, but he must look ugly when he's properly furious, that'd be fun.

Actually, since Nie Mingjue’s always grumpy about something, Nie Huaisang might try anyway. He wants Lan Xichen to be angry, just as Nie Huaisang himself still is when he allows his thoughts to linger on their situation.

He wants Lan Xichen to hurt, just as he’s ached all those years during which he tried so hard to be good enough, always in vain.

He’ll make him pay.

“If you knew for sure that Wei Ying and I were doing anything wrong, you’d have had us punished already,” Nie Huaisang claims, enjoying the ways Lan Xichen’s eyes narrow when he uses the other boy’s personal name. “Besides, I’m sure Jiang Cheng would not let us do anything that might tarnish his sect’s reputation either. He is very aware of these things.”

“I was not aware you were so close to Jiang gongzi,” Lan Xichen remarks coldly.

They both know that Nie Huaisang has never even called Lan Xichen by his courtesy name, let alone his personal name. He never will, not if he can help it. They might have to marry, but nobody can force Nie Huaisang to pretend he cares, not anymore. Lan Xichen is Lan gongzi, and someday he’ll be sect leader Lan, and that’s it. If absolutely forced, Nie Huaisang will perhaps deign call him husband, but only as a last resort, if they have to show unity in front of enemies. He'll never be Lan Xichen, and even less Lan Huan.

“Jiang Cheng is a lot of fun, in his own manner,” Nie Huaisang chirps. “It was his idea to go to the river yesterday, you know? He doesn’t look it, but he is really fun. And it’s nice that you always know where you stand with him… I just like people who are honest about what they think and how they feel. Jiang Cheng and Wei Wuxian are great friends to have for that, even if it can get them in trouble at times.”

Lan Xichen pinches his lips, and his fingers tighten around his cooling cup of tea, his cheeks flushed red in what might very well be actual anger. It’s not as good as if it were pain, but Nie Huaisang still delights in any reaction he can get. He’s convinced now that he could push harder quite easily, but…

But the incense is already finished burning, and Nie Huaisang is free.

He jumps to his feet, and bows to Lan Xichen, already thinking of nothing but the little party that awaits him.

“Well, I’ll see you next week, Lan gongzi,” he says, not even trying to hide his joy at being done with this. He didn’t even have to drink that disgusting tea this time, which counts as another little victory.

Without waiting for an answer, Nie Huaisang turns toward the door, thinking of Emperor’s Smile, peanuts, and real, sugary biscuits. It will be wonderful, and they will have fun, perhaps check some of the books in his private collection if they get drunk enough, and…

“Nie Huaisang.”

He stops on his tracks and glances behind in shock. 

Just like him, Lan Xichen had never called him by anything but his title before.

“Lan gongzi?”

There’s an unusual intensity to Lan Xichen’s expression, his face so red it looks to be burning. It’s not quite anger alone anymore, but it’s… something else, something Nie Huaisang can't quite name. It nearly makes him shiver to have those dark, golden eyes on him like this. It almost feels as if, for the very first time in their years of acquaintance, Lan Xichen is truly looking at him.

“I am glad if you make friends, Nie Huaisang, especially close ones. But you would do well to remember that you are engaged, and that your friendships should not be taken too far.”

Nie Huaisang laughs, too surprised to think of any other way to react. 

He laughs, and laughs, and leaves without gratifying Lan Xichen with an answer. He’s still laughing when he joins Wei Wuxian and Jiang Cheng, although after some hesitation he decides not to share with them the cause of his hilarity. Wei Wuxian would laugh along without doubt, but Jiang Cheng is too aware of politics to find it funny. He would demand that Nie Huaisang return to see Lan Xichen and make it clear there’s nothing improper between them, which sounds boring.

If this is the way he can shatter Lan Xichen’s pride, Nie Huaisang has half a mind to get a lot more flirty in the future.

[bluebeirry]

Humanity in Heroes, Humanity in Villains- everyone’s flawed AF even if Hero Society can go F*** itself

Edit: I had to rename this because I realized my original name was misleading

I’ve seen a lot of thoughtful, well-written posts making very good points about why hero society is broken and is doing the wrong thing by vilifying their ‘villains,’ locking them up and forgetting  about them. I’ve seen a lot about how Tomura Shigaraki and the LoV in particular are natural responses to a broken system. @linkspooky and @waxwingedhawks and @thyandrawrites have a lotta good meta on this.

But… I also wanted to make something about the other side, that accepts that the heroes are flawed, human, and often in the wrong. Maybe a lot of people who already stan the heroes won’t get this, or will misunderstand what I’m going for, but I wanted to put it out anyways for fun and to see if I’m just talking out of my ass.

Here’s the thing. BNHA society as a whole being a villain-making machine that creates new villains, demonizes them, destroys lives, and then benefits from the hero system that only functions because of this destruction? Yes, spill that tea. Heroes doing harm by perpetuating the system? Totally agree.

But Heroes individually being responsible for the monsters created and being justifiable targets of hated? Well, I think it’s more complicated than that.

See, if we look at the hero system as a mirror of real-world capitalism, then the Heroes aren’t the CEOs and the politicians who make up the 1% and keep the world in tatters. They are symptoms of a broken system as much as the villains. They have more agency than the villains, yes, but I don’t think they’re all monsters for failing to see the shortcomings of a society that encourages them not to look too deeply.

First of all there’s the pure fact of what heroes do- they save people.

I don’t have a problem with heroes fighting villains who use their powers in destructive and violent ways. I have a problem with the system then taking those villains and locking them away, instead of trying to help them. But when a man made of slime is holding a 13/14 year old kid hostage, blowing up buildings, and shouting how he’s gonna kill All Might? He needs to be stopped.

In short, I agree with the hero system ONLY so far as the idea of having people who are trained professionals use their skills to protect people and save lives. If people are threatening/taking the lives of other people, I do not have a problem with those people being stopped by violent means- so long as those means do prevent further death.

What I have a problem with is the demonization of human beings, harsh and unforgiving societal reactions, and refusal to acknowledge or examine the circumstances that push human beings into committing crimes.

We see heroes treat villains as the irredeemable scum- and in cases like Overhaul, this is pretty true. But their society also doesn’t encourage heroes to follow-up on anyone they arrest after all is said and done- not once is it even mentioned that a hero plays a role in a villain’s trial, something that real-world cops often are called to do IRL  for the people they’ve arrested. And let’s be honest- it's easier for heroes to beat people senseless and not feel bad about it if they think the villains all deserve it. Acknowledging that doing physical harm to another person may be necessary in order to prevent further physical harm (or even death) from falling on more people is complicated and difficult to accept. I’m sure some heroes are being cowardly when they embrace the idea that villain=evil, while others- like All Might (see below)- don’t seem to have the social and societal awareness outside of their own experiences to realize that they should be following up and helping people. What’s more the idea that anyone should be looking at the cause of villainy is one that’s hard to pick up because it’s so rarely found. Nobody in the media, in the government, in the HPSC, wants people to think about the ethics of Tartarus. Even the Liberation Army doesn’t seem to give two fucks about the ways their society makes and profits off villains. It’s said several times that the world of hero society is a world of ‘repression’- I strongly suspect that anyone who tries to explain to others the flaws in their society gets repressed  and shut up, one way or another, with the only people in power who are aware being the ones that benefit from the system the most and don’t care about the lives destroyed in the process.

Deku says that this is the story of how he became the worlds greatest hero. I can this be the case without dismissing the villains completely- if the world changes how it treats them. If Deku brings about or enters a society where cases like Toga and Twice can be saved without needing to turn to the darkness- where the people Deku defeats and arrests aren’t just locked up for life, but are given brighter futures.

Now some specific cases, just for fun:

All Might:

So I said above that All Might is a good-intentioned person who backs the hero system due to ignorance of how it harms people. Now here is where I break down the psychology of this statement for you. First of all, we know that All Might’s original mission statement as a teenager was to make the world safer so that people would have the courage to do the right thing and make the world a better place- a viewpoint he probably gained from being part of the population that was too terrified to act. It reflects his life experiences. What’s more, we know that the world before All Might was very different from the world after him. It's very possible that his limited viewpoint comes from having an understanding of the world and what it needs that hasn’t changed over the course of his career- even as his career changed what the world needs. It’s not malice or arrogance that leads All Might to support a broken system- it’s lack of societal awareness beyond his own class bracket and lack of awareness of how the world has changed.

All Might may very well have been what society needed at the time when he was a teen. We don’t know what the world was like  back then- we don’t know if he truly was doing the right thing But he failed to make sure that the culture that sprung up in his wake would properly protect everyone as best as it can, and failed to recognize that society had to keepchanging beyond his original vision. It’s like stairs- you need to take each step one at a time, but after you take one step you then have to continue on to the next one. And All Might poured so much of his life into getting past one particular step, he never even realized that there was more steps to be climbed before society could reach the top.

The League of Villains:

See, I agree that the league are all people pushed to their roles by societal rejections, and their actions are a direct repercussion of society’s failures and crimes against them. I can even agree that attacking kids is morally iffy and not 100% morally wrong when those kids are also willingly  learning to become the next generation of soldiers (and later used as child soldiers) enforcing the broken society. I still think child murder is wrong because you cannot reasonably expect 15-year olds who grew up in a society that idolizes heroes to not buy into the propaganda. Plus often they’re being attacked just for being convenient, or for pissing Tomura off- which IMO is not a good reason to try to kill someone.

But all that aside, there are two things the LoV does that I truly believe are reprehensible. While the execution of the PLF raid had severe moral issues involved all over the place, the concept of  taking the PLF and the League down is just because of  two factors:

1. The use of human experimentation to make Nomu as weapons

2. The plan to massacre entire cities- killing millions of people-  as part of the PLF’s grand plan

The second one in particular is to me unambiguously evil. The first one is evil too- but if I put on my villain stan hat I’ve noticed in cannon that we  don’t actually know if the LoV is aware that the Nomu are made from human experiments. They’re called ‘artificial humans’ and apart from Tomura (who was a willing test subject) the LoV don’t seem to play any major role in the creation of Nomu (Shigaraki is said to have ‘designed’ some of the Nomu, but  it’s not clear if that means he actually worked with dead people or just planned the quirk combinations to go into the Nomu or something in between). Point is, Doctor Ujiko is pure evil but I can forgive the LoV if it turns out they didn’t actually know how the Nomu came to be.

But there is no possible way I can see the plan to kill millions as anything less than evil. There are a million better ways to change society- don’t jump into wholesale genocide. Atomic weapons are a last-ditch resort for a reason, and their plan would basically have had the same effect as dropping several atomic bombs on several cities without warning. I don’t think it was right when America bombed Nagasaki after destroying Hiroshima, I don’t think it was right when America made a half-assed attempt at explaining the bomb threat before dropping Little Boy, and the ethics of using nuclear weapons are complicated AF but I honestly don’t believe that the LoV’s plan is right.

Tomura Shigaraki:

In relation to Tomura, we see the heroes demonizing him and calling him an ‘it’ and seeing him as a manchild. All totally wrong. But for the last point… how are they supposed to think anything else? As readers we know Tomura is a traumatized kid, but the heroes don’t know anything about his backstory. Even All Might doesn’t know how Tomura got picked up by All for One, he doesn’t know about the death of the Shimura family.

What they do know is that Tomura is willing to kill children and bystanders to get his way. And to put this on the table- that is not a good thing. I am not pro-murder. If you think killing innocent people for simply being in a mall when a villain and a hero-trainee happen to also be there is acceptable, this post isn’t for you. By now you’ve probably figured that out, and I don’t know why you’re still reading unless you saw Tomura’s name and skipped ahead to this section.

Getting back on track, I don’t think doing such horrific things like attempted cold-blooded murder makes Tomura irredeemable. I agree that he’s traumatized and confused and lashing out. That does not mean he’s innocent, but he’s also not ‘pure evil’ or ‘evil incarnate’ as the heroes believe.

Here, the heroes themselves are definitely doing the wrong thing. Not because they’re trying to stop Tomura, but because they’re treating him- and the Nomu- as non-human. Honestly I preferred when they called him a man-child; at least then they were acknowledging the symptoms of his trauma. They didn’t have enough information to know that these were trauma symptoms as opposed to, say, symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder- with the information the heroes have, either could be possible guesses. But the world is broken when they assume it’s the latter- when they assume the case that casts Tomura in the worst possible light. And then removing his humanity entirely and treating him as a thing- there I have actual beef with the heroes.

Hawks/Takami Keigo:

Now Hawks is suuuper interesting to me, because so far he is the ONLY hero to show any awareness of the broken system. Namely in Twice. But even then, there’s problems- and arguably Hawks is either even worse of a person because of it.

There’s the fact that Hawks only recognizes the humanity and the very valid backstory of the one guy who’s his personal friend- which is blatant favoritism and shows willing blindness towards the trials and suffering anyone who he didn’t try to ‘save.’

Hawks has no desire to re-make or even change the system that he clearly knows hurt and broke a good man down into doing very wrong things. He sees that the system did these things, but he doesn’t think to try to make a lasting change that might not only protect Twice, but protect future victims from following Twice’s path. This is… interesting.

Then there’s the way in which Hawks approached Twice. Now, here I think Hawks was trying to both do a hero’s duty of preventing further future violence, but failed to balance this with his personal attempts to reach Twice as a person and save him as a victim of a broken system. Hawks tried to do both at the same time, and condescended Twice while offering him a way out.

I do not think in any way shape or form that letting Twice go free, or even not apprehending him, was the right thing for Hawks to do. Again, the LoV had two crimes that Hawks knew of that could not be allowed to go through/go on. Stopping Twice was the right thing.

Stopping Twice by throwing him around, taunting him, offering him a choice between betraying his friends and dying, and threatening his life, and ultimately killing him- that is NOT the right thing. I don’t get what Hawks was trying to do, and honestly his behavior really, really confuses me. I don’t know what would’ve been the right thing for him to do- it's a rock and a hard place- but what Hawks did definitely wasn’t the best option he had. It also wasn’t the worst. But killing Twice is still pretty damn close to the worst.

Edit: I also realize in retrospect that I didn’t even cover issues of corruption in the hero ranks, such as Endeavor, and how the popularity/fame aspects helps enforce the failings and corruption of the heroes and their society, or the issues with Quirks being repressed and regulated in anyone not a hero (which ironically contributes to the idolization of heroes)

[immoral-tales]

Character Analysis: Osamu Dazai

002

Before we begin our journey and dive into discussing the characteristics of a man named Dazai, I would like to apologize. Please do forgive my absence and inability to be active on the blog. And I have to admit, my initial reaction was “holy shit!” You definitely took your sweet, sweet time writing this, and I had a strong desire to give you the response you deserved. Writing half-assed headcanons and responses are not my thing, therefore, I decided to take my sweet time. And of course, I might or might not be a lazy bastard as I was procrastinating to open Photoshop to crop the messages to put them into this post. All things considered, let us begin, shall we?

First of all, this character limit is a pain in the ass and I’m going to start a petition for this hellsite to remove the limit because people need to vent and share their amazing ideas with the world. Secondly, thank you so much for agreeing with me, I greatly appreciate it. There is so much more we do not see and I’m going to delve deeper into his persona, dig deeper to find the real Dazai that has been buried in his own layered personality and mind. His mind is an incredible place, but unfortunately, not everyone can understand him. However, I cannot blame them, due to the fact that Dazai as a person is already a puzzle.

I will use the term “journey.” Dazai’s journey to understand humanity is an incorrect approach, he will always have difficulty understanding what human nature is. Every person has their own definition of what it means to be a human, therefore, this subject is quite debatable. I have to agree with you, this man is drawn to people with a positive aura. And of course, having a significant other with a similar mindset would be a major drawback for him. Instead of progress, he would have a regress. His ability is called “No Longer Human,” yet he is desperately attempting his best to find what it means to be a human. He does not need a companion who will hold him back, he needs someone that will make his path towards discovering his own humanity unforgettable.

You took the words right out of my mouth: “As someone said, understanding + empathy works best for him than relatable. I believe he wants to be understood, at least to a point. Someone who can understand him while also support and help him understand his own emotions what I think he needs. Of course, not therapy him, but be that supportive figure.”

As I said previously, Oda and Dazai used to share a special bond, their friendship was one of a kind. Odasaku managed to show him how the real world functions and how there is an entire world, outside of the Port Mafia, filled with endless possibilities. Their companionship was unique, but he would have a different type of relationship with his significant other. I strongly believe Dazai would be delighted to have an older woman as his lover. An understanding, non-judgemental woman. I believe years of experience would make her the right person to be by his side no matter the circumstances.

Let us talk about how Dazai has a praise kink. I mean, you are not wrong. And I agree with you. Some might not agree with me, but I think he has never been praised properly. More or less, Mori raised him to be a perfect killing machine without any remorse and I strongly believe he rarely praised him? Therefore, once his lover started to praise him, he started to enjoy it, and then, love it. Of course, he would never admit it out loud, but we both are well aware he has a praise kink. Considering his significant other would be more experienced in bed than him, would be quick to discover his weaknesses—I mean, his kinks.

This man adores challenges and someone who questions his mindset is ought to get his attention. A person that does not agree with his viewpoint and challenges his very own existence. Two Dazais is a bit too much and his relationship with Dostoyevsky is a story for another day—I will not delve deeper into this matter right now.

I have got carried away, as well. To conclude our discussion, I have to say, this man truly deserves happiness and he needs to learn how to take care of himself. Dazai deserves a second chance to redeem himself and learn how to live his life, despite the mistakes he made in the past. He is a human like the rest of us—even though he is a fictional character—and he does not deserve to die, he has to live.

First of all, I would like to thank you for being patient with me. Only God knows when was the last time I posted some quality content. This blog is dying because of me, and there is nothing I can do about it. Once more, this proves how much of a horrible admin I am. To put my rambling and venting aside, feel free to spam me when your heart desires. It is not like I have anything else to do here. Let us move on to our discussion, shall we?

Before I forget to mention, I have made a separate tag for us—Dazai with an older lover—I’m tagging our every conservation with it and you can find our discussions under it.

I have to say, that is standard, shallow praise. Allow me to demonstrate it with one simple scenario: imagine you are working for an international organization—the field of this organization is not important currently—and you have been promoted to a senior management team to be one of the vice presidents, reporting directly to the CEO. Of course, all of your colleagues would congratulate you on your achievements, but none of their congratulations will be genuine. There might be some exceptions, but let us not dwell on it. Your colleagues are not interested in your well-being, or the path you have walked upon to achieve the impossible. They merely wish to be in your place, and some of them are even envious of your position. Their words will be long forgotten as their facades slip. This might be an odd comparison, but Dazai was in a similar situation. His subordinates' behavior around him was carefully coordinated and his attitude towards them was indifferent. Like a mutual agreement. Everything was superficial, the only thing that kept him moving forward, as you mentioned above, was his friendship with Sakaguchi and Oda.

Yes, I have to agree with you. He has never received genuine praise before. Hear me out, ability users avoided him like the plague because of his ability to nullify their abilities. Therefore, he has been touch-deprived his whole life. I believe, at first, he would be quite hesitant to allow anyone to touch him, his lover included. It might take some time for his lover to make him open up to her, his layered personality to slip, and be himself. The real Dazai.

Dazai has a strong degradation kink, but his praise kink is there, as well, to neutralize it. He would never hesitate to shower his lover with all his affection and praise; however, he prefers to receive it. And of course, he would never admit it out loud. We are talking about Dazai here. Yes, complimenting him during the sex is great, but praising him on a regular basis would make him fall head over heels in love. Undoubtedly, he would deny all the claims of having a fondness for being commended, but his lover knows him better than that. His daily motivation becomes earning those praises from his lover, and Kunikida has never been more thankful for Dazai bringing his lover with him at the agency.

Nah, there is no need to apologize. We are all insomniacs here. Even though I do not post cursed content here, but I can . . .

[fiercestpurpose]

hi u talked about how jean often gets overlooked as a mother, would u be willing to talk more about it? its really curious to me how scott is often associated with the role of 'father' and his relationships with nathan and rachel, how he 'failed them etc, gets talked about to death but people dont talk about jeans as much. anyways would love to hear what u have to say!

Hi! I really have three main categories of thoughts about this: Jean’s relationship with Rachel, Jean’s relationship with Cable, and Jean’s relationship with the idea of family/her own motherhood.

Jean’s relationship with Rachel is… complicated. First of all, Jean is incredibly important in Rachel’s life, but it’s not always our (616) Jean. Rachel is obviously the biological daughter of another woman, 811 Jean, and that woman raised her and was her mother until she died when Rachel was about 8 (well before the rest of Rachel’s X-Men did). Losing a parent that young is frequently very traumatic and defining, and it certainly was for Rachel, so she develops this relationship that is not so much with Jean as it is with Jean’s death. She comes to the 616 and she learns that Jean is already dead, and she vows to reclaim the name Phoenix and honour her mother’s memory (even though 616 Jean is not really her mother). And then, at least twice during the Cross-Time Caper, Rachel has to watch different universe’s versions of Jean die, trying and failing to save her. So Rachel has this whole relationship with Jean as a concept, with Jean dying and leaving her, before she and 616 Jean ever develop a real relationship with each other.

And sometimes, people (fans and writers both) use Rachel’s preexisting relationship with Jean As A Conceptual Mother as evidence that 616 Jean doesn’t really count as Rachel’s mother. However, 616 Jean and Rachel do have a relationship. It starts with Jean rejecting Rachel, denouncing her because she doesn’t accept the future that Rachel represents and doesn’t want to consider her as her daughter. She later apologizes for this, saying that she shouldn’t have pushed her problems onto Rachel because they weren’t Rachel’s problems to deal with. And we see them hug and make up and it’s clear that they consider each other family.

That relationship, the daughter viewing her mother as a concept more than a person, the mother pushing her problems onto the daughter and trying not to accept the future that she thinks the daughter represents, reads to me as a very believable mother-daughter relationship. The circumstances are a little strange, but the emotions are familiar. Many children have a hard time adjusting to seeing their parents as their own people. Many parents have a hard time recognizing their grown children as being their own people and also their children. It’s a very complex relationship that’s certainly worth exploring, and referencing it only when they want to make a joke of it (as X-Men Gold and All-New X-Men both did) is a sign of writers who are not really invested in the emotional lives of those characters.

Onto Cable! In some ways, Jean’s relationship with him is a lot simpler because he is actually and inarguably her child. To be clear, she’s not his biological mother, and we’re going to put her blood relationship to his biological mother aside because it’s not actually that important. Jean is his mother because she raised him. In X-Factor vol 1, she becomes one of his primary caregivers once his mother is out of the picture, largely because she is dating his father at the time. (I’m not going to get into the whole Sinister-creating-Maddy-to-breed-with-Scott thing or the Maddy-living-in-Jean’s-head thing. It’s messy and it complicates things, but it doesn’t change the basic facts of Jean’s situation.) Jean in X-Factor is a co-parent with a day job, a woman who’s responsible for feeding the baby and changing his diapers and helping teach him how to walk and talk and keeping him safe from harm (that time she takes him into a fight excluded, of course). The first manifestation of baby Christopher’s psychic powers is that he and Jean share a special telepathic bond. It’s hard to tell how long this goes on for (comic timelines are, as always, vague and difficult to pin down), but it’s at least several months.

After Simonson’s run on X-Factor, baby Christopher is removed from the picture by being sent off to the far-future — only to be raised by Slym and Redd, who are, of course, Scott and Jean. As a Scott fan, a Jean fan, and a Scott/Jean fan, I’m always surprised and frustrated by how little The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix gets referenced. This is years of their lives that they spend raising their son. Specifically, twelve years, which is quite a long time, and means that Cable is probably 13 by the time Slym and Redd have to leave. Redd is the mother that Cable remembers when he grows up. She’s the one who rocks him to sleep, who negotiates with his father about how to properly raise their son, who does everything in her power to protect him while continuing to participate in a secret rebel organization. And the telepathic connection he had to her resurfaces, so that they are able to fight together on the astral plane.

(If you ever want to cry about Scott/Jean or Cable’s childhood or the Summers family in general, I highly recommend The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix. I will forgive Lobdell any number of crimes because he gave us such an excellent miniseries.)

But she isn’t just there during his childhood. Jean has a relationship with her adult son as well. They work together as X-Men many times, before and after she realizes that he is her son. Of course, there are those incredibly cute panels you may have seen of Scott and Jean and Cable all getting together to celebrate Christmas. And after the defeat of Apocalypse, when Scott is believed to be dead, Jean and Cable become especially close. It is Jean that Cable confides in, sharing with her his feelings, his loss of purpose now that his war is over, how hard it is for him to be vulnerable again. And when Jean thinks Scott is still alive but no one else believes her, Cable is the one who comes with her and helps her bring him back. Unfortunately, post-Search for Cyclops, Morrison comes in, and Morrison has no interest in love or families and does have an interest in killing Jean off to further his ship.

Prime Cable is dead now, of course, so I cannot hope that writers will explore that relationship any further. (EDIT: Oh, yeah, he maybe sort of came back again in a comic last month. Clearly that shocking turn of events made a big impression on me.) I did enjoy getting to see Jean and Hope bond after his death over the love they shared for him, and I can wish that the writers will carry that relationship forward. As for Bable (baby Cable), he’s an angry teenager who experienced the events of The Adventures of Cyclops and Phoenix #4 about three or four years ago. He’s angry, he’s upset, he’s lashing out by killing his future self. There could be something really interesting there, in Jean’s relationship with Bable, if they chose to remember that he’s still the kid she raised. Her place as the mother of a rebellious teenager is complicated because he’s both the boy who brought her husband back to life and the boy who killed the adult son that she loved. If writers looked past the soap opera of it all to actually acknowledge the emotions involved, they’d see there was an interesting story there, one that is not just about the Scott/Cable relationship but necessarily involves Jean as well.

I’m sure there are things to be said about Stryfe and Nate Grey, but I honestly do not know or care enough about alternate versions of Cable to really have a coherent picture of Jean’s relationship with them, so I’m gonna skip that.

Next, I want to talk about Jean’s relationship with the concept of family. I would like to mention (as I always do), that Jean’s entire family — her parents, her siblings, and her siblings’ children — were murdered by aliens. How she feels about this is a mystery, as the comics have not addressed it at all, but she might feel guilty, because though it’s not her fault, they were killed because of her. She might also feel guilty because while family in the abstract is very important to her, her relationship with them was strained and she wasn’t as close to them as she’d like to be. She might also feel angry as hell that somebody decided to murder her family despite them doing absolutely nothing to provoke it. Any of those emotional responses would influence how she relates to her children and her granddaughter. Maybe she becomes a little more attached and attentive because she has no other family left. Maybe she distances herself from them out of grief. Maybe she rounds up her incredibly angry son and takes him into the stars to attack aliens so they can be angry together. I think any of those, done properly, could be interesting and in-character for her, and I just want some writer to acknowledge Jean as a character with her own history and her own relationships that shape her actions.

Finally, Jean’s relationship with the concept of her own motherhood. Jean is someone who wanted and expected to be a mother. I usually tend to read Jean as coming from a more traditional and conservative family, but I don’t think that’s an adequate explanation. I think Jean genuinely wants children. In X-Factor, she says, “I always thought we’d have a girl,” when talking to Scott, showing that she had thought about children being part of their future. When she talks to Rachel about her upcoming marriage to Scott, she mentions that she thinks it likely that another Rachel will be born. She wants kids, she’s seen them as part of her future for a long time, and then she got them! She got to be a mother, to Nathan Christopher and to Rachel, as explained above. I think a woman who wanted to be a mother and now is a mother should be allowed to have real relationships with her children. This isn’t like Emma, whose distance from the Cuckoos can be read as her viewing herself more as their teacher than their mother, since Emma always understands herself as a teacher. When Jean holds a baby in X-Men Red and winks at the mother and tells her that she’s implanted a psychic suggestion he not cry so much, that’s because Jean has been responsible for a baby before. Being a mother is part of who Jean is, just like it’s part of who Jubilee is or who Sue is, and I wish that writers and fans understood that.

[mamep]

The Forging of the Legend: A Prologue to The Legend of Zelda

I wrote an almost-8,000 word fanfic to try and give the original Legend of Zelda game some context and backstory. Also, it’s my first real fanfic. While I did add a handful of things that were not mentioned at all in the original two games and their accompanying material, this story diverges from the source material in a couple of small ways.

It can also be read on AO3, linked here! Otherwise, it’s below the cutoff.

(CW: graphic violence, mild gore, warfare)

”The Forging of the Legend”

by mamep

--

“One, two!” a man said, his voice matched with the strikes of his wooden sword. “Link, keep your eyes up!” He laughed alongside the forest’s summer breeze. Eventually, the man raised his weapon up high, and the boy froze at the sight. It was too heavy, too quick, and the boy was disarmed with the blow landing on his shoulder.

Link was only ten years old and could barely keep up with his father’s sweeping attacks, who stood over him with the end of his wooden sword put in the ground, offering his hand. Link took hold of it, and was pulled up faster than he expected, almost losing his breath just as quickly as when he was blown back.

“That was too fast,” Link said, still grimacing and holding his left shoulder. “Can we take a break?”

“Of course,” said his father, “but not for too long. Here, have a swig of this.” Reaching behind his back, he gave his son a waterskin, unlatching the top. Link noticed it wasn’t the waterskin at front of his belt that he usually drank from. “Come on now, we haven’t got all day.”

Link gingerly took a sip from it, reeling from the aftertaste.

“Haha! It’ll do that to you,” his father said. “Alright, show it to me.”

The boy pulled back the sleeve of his olive roughspun tunic, revealing the fresh bruise on his shoulder, just starting to redden.

“It tingles,” Link said. “But it doesn’t hurt anymore.”

The boy’s father smirked. “It’s special water, from a spring deep in the woods. They say it’s got fairy dust mixed in, and it’s handy for pain and wounds.”

“It tastes funny,” Link mumbled, paying little attention, but he drank again.

“Alright, alright! Not too much!” the boy’s father said, taking the waterskin back. “I went through a lot of trouble getting to that spring. Come on, let’s continue.”

“Father, why do we have to do this?” Link groaned. The water healed his shoulder, but the young boy was still tired, and there was yet target practice after this.

Link’s father lost his smile in the wind, and he knelt down to match his son’s height. “Because I fear for you, my boy. You must be able to protect yourself, to not fall in the face of danger. Courage when it matters most.”

Link could only stare back into his father’s eyes, wondering at what he meant.

__

High in a tower of the decrepit Hyrule Castle stood Princess Zelda, looking over her realm from a small balcony. The sun shone brightly, revealing all from the crags of the Death Mountain Range to the glimmering coasts of the Great Hyrulean Sea and beyond. However, a frown made itself apparent on the princess, and she sighed deeply.

“My princess, what bothers you?” said an old woman, whose voice carried some whimsy. She tended to the hearth in the princess’s chamber, one she had taken up use of recently over the comfort of her former bedroom. The choice baffled the nursemaid, as the coming autumn would keep this place cold, even with the nearby fire. The princess had found her nursemaid’s jovial tone could easily lower her guard, however reluctant she was to yield.

Zelda let loose her tense shoulders. “This sight saddens me, Impa,” she said. “This realm they call a lesser Hyrule was once a grand country, much larger than... this.”

Impa approached the princess. “I know, child.”

“My people have dwindled, either by the division of this country, or that there is little wealth remaining in these lands. The few that have lingered can barely make a living in this petty kingdom.”

The princess looked down below at castle bailey, watching the handful of knights and workers going about their daily duties. She could barely afford to pay them, and some were even volunteers, whose help Zelda graciously accepted despite her shame.

“Your Highness, you shouldn’t speak so little of your country,” Impa said warmly. “Petty kingdom or not, the name of Hyrule remains proud, for it still keeps the greatest treasures of all. No amount of wealth can surpass them.”

“Not ‘them,’ but ‘it’... Were it that I could wield the full ensemble of the Triforce... With but a single wish from my heart’s depths, I could rule Hyrule properly and lead my people to prosperity, like the monarchs of old.”

Impa looked at her princess more closely, seeking to understand.

“I only want to do right by my people, Impa. That means making the right decision, even when it is difficult.” Zelda turned to her nursemaid, with unease weighing heavily in her brow. Impa noticed a glint of light from the back of Zelda’s right hand, which the young princess quickly hid with the other.

“Princess, what have you seen?” Impa asked.

Zelda breathed deeply, looking away for a moment. “An evil will strike this country soon, Impa, I am sure of it. Surely you have heard the rumors? The monsters stalking the wilds are amassing in greater numbers, even stealing weapons and tools from the outer villages in the night. Never before have they acted like this. There are even whispers of certain people consorting with them.”

“It’s certainly odd...” Impa said, maintaining a willful skepticism. “Perhaps Your Highness can arrange for more guards patrolling the roads? To protect the people from monsters, to dissuade dealing with them. But it may require some further thrift here...”

“No mere soldier can protect this land from what is to come, from what I have foreseen. You know of what I mean, Impa.”

“Your Highness, I am not so sure...” Impa said, reluctant to believe she would witness the fabled calamity return in her lifetime.

Zelda again looked back over the remains of her kingdom, lamenting its decline. “The fate of Hyrule will be decided in the very near future, Impa, at a point in time I cannot yet discern past. All else before then, however...” Zelda breathed deeply, trying to stand up straighter, more strongly. “The decision is still difficult.”

Impa’s voice became grave. “What must be done, my princess?”

“Please prepare for an escape from the castle, Impa,” Zelda said. “Not even this place will be safe from the storm.”

__

Link had begun to get the hang of his father’s training. His eyes could keep up with the wooden sword’s dance now, and his footwork had gotten better, too. This time, they practiced outside their home atop a small hill in the outskirts of their woodland village, with the sun setting behind the western mountains. Link’s mother was preparing thin wooden panels as targets, resisting the itch to practice on them herself before her son would complete his sword training for the day.

“Three, four!” his father said, and Link deftly parried his strikes aside, his green cap bouncing slightly with his movements.

“Five!” he shouted, to Link’s surprise, but the young boy quickly jumped back, evading the blow. Having put too much force behind his swing only to hit air, Link’s father stumbled forward, trying to regain balance. With a smirk, Link then leaped forward, lunging with his wooden sword, and the tip landed squarely on his father’s chest.

“Alright, alright, I yield,” he said, and Link withdrew, cheering a little.

“Link!” his mother called out. “Rest for a moment, and then get your slingshot!” Yet the boy was filled with energy despite the autumn chill, and grabbed the small tool lying aside the log Link’s father sat on.

“Let’s start now, Mother!” he said, pulling on the sling loaded with an acorn.

She sighed in wonder as she attached the target to the clothesline. “Ready?” she said, and then turned the crank on the contraption, attaching more targets as she went. From one end, the wood panels swayed in the air as they were pulled along. Link quickly landed the acorns on three out of four targets, though not very accurately, before they reached the other end of the clothesline.

“What about the fourth, Link?” his father said, taking a drink from his waterskin.

“It’ll do, dear!” his mother replied, watching Link as he looked for acorns that remained intact. “Don’t worry, Link. You’ve gotten good at this very quickly. You’ll be perfect in no time.”

“Can I try again?” Link asked, restless.

His mother laughed. “Of course, of course.”

But as she turned the crank the other way to bring the targets back, a scream was heard from the far side of the village. The three of them turned in its direction immediately, and Link’s father jumped from his seat to get a closer look.

There was a clang of metal, and another scream. Embers caught on another villager’s thatch roof, quickly lighting it ablaze. The piggish roars of moblins were enough to turn Link’s knees to jelly.

“Something’s wrong,” Link’s father said, urgently walking back to the door of their home. “Link! Quickly, now!” he said, and the boy obeyed, following him inside. Moving aside their supper table and the fur pelt beneath it, he revealed a trapdoor blended in with the planks of the floor, and he easily stuffed Link in the tiny space beneath their home.

“But Father!”

“No buts. Stay here and don’t make a sound until you hear me or your mother call for you. Do you understand?”

“It’s for your own safety, Link,” his mother said. “We’ll be back soon, okay?”

Link hesitantly nodded.

His mother took down a short bow from the wall, with simple wooden arrows in a large quiver, while his father pulled a thick club out from behind their bed, larger than the wooden swords they used for training. They wasted no time in shutting the trapdoor and putting the pelt and table back above it before heading out toward the rest of the village.

Link sat in the darkness of the hidden space, trying not to make a sound against the old wood, loose soil, and pebbles he sat against. Soon, the door to their home opened again.

“Mother? Father?” Link whispered, fear forcing still his throat.

He heard a dog-like snarl, and the moblin stomped on the planks of the floor, sniffing around for life. It took all Link had to not yelp in fright as he hugged his knees.

“No one here!” the moblin growled, and Link heard the heavy stamps of its feet leaving the house, and the door slammed shut. Link sighed in relief, but his face shot up when he heard crackling sounds above him. Through the little cracks between the floorboards, he could see an orange light, and Link pounded at the trapdoor above, screaming for his parents. But they weren’t there, and the door would barely budge against the weight of the table.

For a moment, Link despaired at his weakness, wailing in pain from throwing his forearms against the dirt wall. None of the training he endured had prepared him for this, nor made him stronger than his ten-year-old body. He cried at his powerlessness, at not knowing what to do.

In a moment between his deep breaths, he remembered his father’s words, muffling the sound of everything else, just for an instant.

Courage when it matters most.

Link found strength in his legs, and again he pushed up against the trapdoor, managing to open it just a little. A flicker of fell light and smoke threatened his focus. With the full weight of the table above him, Link could barely move it any further than a foot, but then he heard a thud behind him. Something on the table fell off, and then another, and Link pushed harder than before, every fiber of his muscles screaming. With a final push and his foot now against the edge of the floor above, he threw the trapdoor back and leapt out from the darkness.

With the support beams of his house’s roof collapsing, Link slammed his weight against the burning door, dashing right through, sustaining a few burns on his hand and legs, while the loose threads of his shirt and tunic singed away. By now, much of the rest of the village was on fire, homes and trees alike, covering the red sky in a thick smoke. Sparing no time to think or catch his breath, Link grabbed his slingshot and his wooden sword, and ran toward the village.

“Mother! Father! Where are you?” he called out as he neared the center of the village, its houses all ablaze, its people running, fighting, and dying.

A young girl screamed as she scampered past Link, holding her stuffed doll tightly in her arms, both of them bearing little burns. Removing its weapon from the body of a village defender, a moblin gave chase, prepared to throw its spear at her.

“No!” Link yelled, and swung his wooden sword hard and low, catching the fiend on its ankle. It tripped, landing face-first into the dirt. The girl kept running, unaware she was safe for the moment, while the moblin growled as it got up and picked up its spear, now focused on Link.

The young swordsman jumped back, grasping his wooden sword in both hands. He raised it up for a high strike, and he felt it pulsate in his arms. The moblin charged at him, its spear aimed straight for the boy. Link only planted his feet and grit his teeth, and at the last second he jumped to the right and swung his sword down and forward to meet the fiend, landing the tip right on its unarmored head. The wooden sword erupted with a burst of rainbow light, and the moblin was thrown back, limp and lifeless.

Some distance away, another moblin roared “Blood for the king!”

“Blood for the king!” others yelled in unison.

Link was thoroughly winded from the blast, and as he confusedly regained his breath, he noticed his wooden sword was cracked and split in parts.

“There are more on the other side of the building!” he heard ahead. It was his mother’s voice.

“Mother!” he yelled, but got no response. Link quickly picked up the shield from the fallen defender, strapping it to his right arm as he ran forward.

Ahead, Link’s parents were engaged with a duo of moblins; his father quickly evaded the strikes of their spears, while his mother drew another arrow, aiming for their heads.

“Keep them still!” she said, narrowly evading the thrown spear of a moblin.

“I’m trying!” Link’s father yelled, bashing the now-unarmed moblin in the head. In close quarters, he attacked the other, and the moblin had no choice but to defend.

“Father! Mother!” Link called out.

“Link?” his father said, and the moment of distraction was enough for the moblin to overpower the man, its hooved foot kicking him back, undoubtedly breaking his ribs.

“No!” his wife screamed. On the ground, Link’s father then brandished a knife from his belt and plunged it deep into the upper leg of the moblin, ripping through flesh as he wrenched it back out. Link’s mother loosed an arrow through the moblin’s eye, and it fell back, frozen in its stunned pose. With great difficulty, Link’s father got up, barely able to breathe and unable to hold the large club he had wielded.

“Link, I told you to stay home...”

“I want to help!” he yelled loudly in defiance.

“Link,” his mother said, running to him, “it’s not safe here.”

“It wasn’t safe at home! They burned it down!”

As Link’s father tried to approach them, holding his chest in pain, they heard roars on the other side of the buildings, through the crackling flame.

“More, more!”

“Blood for the king!”

Gasping, Link’s mother’s eyes darted around for assailants.

“Look at you,” Link’s father said, still some distance away, pushing against his forward leg for support. “My boy, my brave fighter—”

A spear slashed through his back, and a dog-faced moblin roared in victory, now pointing its weapon at the young boy straight ahead. 

“No!” Link’s mother screamed, pulling him along by the arm, and running off as quickly as her legs could take her, as much as Link tried standing his ground.

“Blood for the king!” yelled the moblin as its spear sped through the air, and Link’s mother stumbled, falling with him tight in her arms.

Wresting himself out of her grasp, Link then threw the wooden sword with all of his might at the head of the charging moblin, its splintered and broken shaft knocking the creature out cold.

“Mother, come on,” he said, turning back to her, but his eyes were caught on the spear that had torn through her back.

“Link... You must run...” she forced out with the last of her breath, and the life faded away from her eyes, like wind through flowers.

Link, speechless with tears burning his eyes, screamed at the open sky. But the moblins were not yet finished. A handful of them remained, all gathering near the body of Link’s father, pointing their spears at him. One spiraled through the air right past him, landing and getting stuck in the ground. Something spurred Link’s legs to run, dashing away from the rain of the moblins’ spears and their stomping charge, running back home without a second thought.

His home was now entirely aflame, and part of the structure had collapsed. Frozen for a moment with wide eyes and the roars of moblins behind him, he grabbed the second wooden sword, once his father’s, and kept running. Over the hill and through the thick forest, Link ignored the burning in his legs and lungs, and kept running.

__

There was a banging at the castle’s gates, and the young Princess Zelda watched from above as scores of moblins kept throwing themselves into it with battering rams. An accident involving their crude bombs had dented the moblins’ numbers, but with the sheer amount of their recently arrived reinforcements, Hyrule Castle’s garrison had little hope beyond maintaining its defense of the wall. Hidden in the upper parapets, the wall’s few archers could properly hold their positions and pick their enemies off one by one, and the knights and fighters skillfully ambushed the ladder-climbing moblins, knocking them back and letting gravity handle destroying their poorly made tools. But the garrison’s supply of arrows would eventually run out, and the swordsmen just couldn’t keep up with all of the moblins coming for them.

“Blood for the king!” the beasts chanted. Together they would all stamp on the hopes of Hyrule’s last guardians.

“Set up the barricades!” the knight captain yelled, and others brought out what few they had to defend entrances to the keep both above the ramparts and down in the bailey. There was an explosion behind them on the other side of the keep, however, along with the screams of the handful of soldiers defending that position.

“No!” the knight captain yelled, his hand grasping his sword too tightly. “You all must hold this place at all cost, I must go—”

“You must stay where you are, Captain,” he heard in the far back of his mind. “That dark fiend is beyond you and all your soldiers. I will deal with it in time.”

He looked up to the keep’s tower, and though he could not see his princess, he knew she watched.

“I will stay here,” the knight captain said, raising his sword to his face, his eyes looking past its edges. “On my honor as a knight of Hyrule, I will smite the enemy of this land and protect my charge with my very life.”

With renewed strength, the captain led a forward push against the invading moblins, and together with his remaining soldiers, he cut through them with great speed and accuracy. His lovingly polished steel armor shone with a red gleam, and the weaker assailants were thrown back, awestruck when their spears would do little to harm him. While others went to deal with the ladder moblins at the ramparts, the captain faced those just now breaking through the front gate of the outer wall. He knew that the princess and the Triforce of Wisdom she wielded would see things right, and if he were to die on this battlefield, it would not be in vain so long as she lived.

Zelda above watched as her knights fought in spite of their dwindling numbers. “The stage is almost set. Impa, have you finished the preparations?”

“Your Highness,” Impa said, “I have readied our flight from the castle.” Her heart raced a bit too much for her old age. “But what was that sound?”

“It was an explosion, Impa. Their king has gained entry to our deepest vaults.”

“Princess... No! That is where...” Impa stopped herself upon noticing Zelda’s unchanging expression, as if it was something she expected to happen.

“Yes, Impa. Whether it is fate-designed, or pure happenstance that allowed this, I cannot say that it was a surprise. Or perhaps it was my weakness in not bearing the full Triforce as my ancestors did that allowed for this to come to pass.”

Impa would have scolded her were it not for the situation surrounding them.

“It matters not. He will be here soon. I have one more task to fulfill, but before that, you must escape the castle before he arrives.”

Impa’s eyes widened. “My princess! No, I cannot leave without you!”

“Impa, you must. The escape was never meant for me.”

“I will not leave you here to be left to the Demon King’s whims! The fate of Hyrule rests on your shoulders, Your Highness. So long as you live, Hyrule will survive, it can be wrought anew! Princess Zelda, you are Hyrule!”

“Nay, Impa. The fate of Hyrule is a shared burden. In this light, I require of you a mission, my faithful nursemaid.”

Unease forced Impa’s back to tighten, but she bowed all she could nonetheless. “What shall I do, Your Highness?”

“Seek someone of great skill and bravery, Impa. One whose shoulders can bear this weight. One with the will to save Hyrule.”

Impa breathed deeply, contemplating her mission. “I understand, my princess.”

“Now go, my dear Impa. We are running out of time.”

Impa’s feet were reluctant to move, but she bit her tongue and steeled her heart, and soon made for the lower hidden corridors of the castle. The castle’s few servants had gathered near the concealed exit, waiting for Zelda and Impa to flee together from the evil king’s wrath, but they would not see their princess this one last time.

Zelda returned to the balcony to observe the battle. Of the castle’s garrison, only the knight captain still remained. Though his breaths and sword were heavy, he stood against the advancing enemy, ignoring all notions of tire and pain. The horde of moblins assembled around him, readying their spears to skewer the armored man to the door. He gathered his breath once again, raised his shield, and dug his feet into the ground.

“As I still draw breath, you will not enter this castle.”

“Choke him!”

“Trample on his throat!”

One moblin thrust its spear at the captain, but he easily deflected it with his shield and ran his sword through the moblin’s neck in one swift motion.

Then he heard thundering footsteps, coming from the other side of the wall. Even the moblins trembled at first, but soon a laughter erupted amongst them. There was a pounding on the other side of the still-shut front gate, undoubtedly the moblins trying once again to break through with a battering ram. But they were hushed with a single swipe, which the captain felt rend the air.

In an instant, the stout gate of Hyrule Castle was smashed to a thousand pieces, the fist of the demon standing at its threshold burning with a fell flame. It looked to be a pig-faced moblin, with its flat snout, fangs too big to keep in its mouth, and bearing dried skulls and spoils of war, but the similarities stopped there. Its hide was shaded in a skin-crawling blue, it had thick horns sprouting from its head though they were now broken, and even hunched it was much larger than its footsoldiers. Stowing its broad trident over its back, it cracked its knuckles, and behind the deeply dark flame wreathed around its hand, the knight captain could make out a faint light, its shape all too familiar to any servant of the Royal Family of Hyrule.

“Princess!” the knight captain cried out.

“Worry not, Captain,” he heard in his mind. “I remain unharmed.”

“But the ancient relic! The treasure of your family! No, why are you still here?” he said back to her.

“I could not find the will to wield it myself, for fear of what I would become with its power. You may rue me if you want, Captain.”

The captain’s shoulders dropped, watching the demon ahead stare him down. “No, my princess, I will not,” he said, “for I was too foolhardy to heed your warnings.”

In his weariness and the heat of the battlefield, he remembered the words the princess gave him before the siege, as he and his soldiers kept to their vigil.

“I ask that you flee as well, Captain, for I fear the might of this invading army and the one who leads it,” Princess Zelda had said. “Please, Captain, your defense here will be sure death.”

“Your Highness, my soldiers and I will defend the keep to make sure you and the others can escape to seek someplace safe.”

“And if I call upon your oaths to serve me, your ruling princess, without question nor defiance?”

“Then I would beg your forgiveness, for I am set on this path. I ask that you allow me this honor of protecting you. Once I know you have successfully escaped with your treasures, my princess, I will retreat with whomever I can. My soldiers are aware of this plan, and will act on it should you approve.” Though the captain’s eyes were elsewhere.

Zelda lamented this thread of fate, for she knew what the captain did not. “Captain, with great reluctance do I give you my approval, for I know that I cannot defeat fate... But I ask that you use this for your protection.” She presented to him a little ring made of a silver-red band bearing a dull garnet stone; a trinket to most people’s eyes. But he knew this was a preserved magic treasure of Hyrule Castle, to be kept for the assistance of the hero of legend.

The captain smiled, accepting it. “I only do this to protect you, Your Highness. I know that you will be a good queen one day.”

The hazy memory faded away, and Zelda shed a tear remembering it herself. Now, the captain stood alone against the dark fiend, this purported ‘Demon King,’ and its army of beasts.

“So this is how it ends,” the captain said, tightly gripping his sword and shield.

“I will stay with you to the end, my dear captain,” he heard, and it was warm.

The dark fiend’s hand flared again with its wicked flame, and the golden light that appeared under it radiated enough for him to see clearly. The fiend grabbed the knight, its hulking hand wrenching through his steel breastplate, right past the protective red light. Soon it collapsed, and the knight’s ribcage shattered entirely. Still holding him, the snarling fiend placed its forefinger over the knight’s head, and clenched its fist one last time.

With unreal strength, the fiend broke right through the gate to the castle’s keep, leading the moblin army with heavy footsteps that shook the building’s foundations. Though the princess had foreseen this outcome, with each time she felt the shock in her knees and spine, she couldn’t help but be frightened.

But the princess knew she had to perform her duty, even at her own expense. Her mind called out to Impa’s, and gave the nursemaid her final orders.

Zelda fortified her heart, raising her right hand forward, and the light Impa once saw on the back of the princess’s hand shone again. The intense light dimmed for a moment to reveal a marking – three perfect triangles joined in unison at their points to make one greater triangle. The triangle of the bottom-left gleamed more strongly than the other two, before the full marking dimmed completely. Zelda turned her hand, raising the palm high, and produced a single triangle, one that appeared immaculately carved from shimmering, unblemished gold.

Grasping the triangle in her hand, she clenched tight her fingers around it, yelping in pain. With great difficulty and searing pain in her very core, Zelda broke the golden triangle, light pouring from its cracks. It shattered into eight pieces, and Zelda struggled to walk back out to the balcony. The moblin army still stationed outside could not see her, nor would their shoddy bows and arrows reach her. Mustering what she could of her magic, the princess let loose the triangle fragments into the sky, each wreathed with a blinding blue light as they flew like missiles to different spots around her kingdom.

Traveling through a hidden clearing in the woods, Impa and the other servants watched as they soared through the dusk sky, and the elderly nursemaid’s heart sank as she came to understand the princess’s plan. Soon, a wandering detachment of moblins spotted them under the starlight. Against the sways of her heart, Impa split off to fulfill her duty. Despite that, most of the moblins roared and chased the servants, and a few followed Impa. With heavy breaths and weary bones, she ran for the hills.

At the tallest tower of Hyrule Castle, the dark fiend effortlessly broke through the door of Zelda’s chamber, and with a raised hand, a glowing barrier formed over the smashed doorway. The moblins looked on, touching the barrier in wonder, as the Demon King and Princess Zelda stood opposite each other.

“Say my name,” said the king.

“Ganon,” replied Princess Zelda.

“You know who I am. Then you know why I am here.”

“Yes, I know. You’re here to claim the Triforce.”

“What times Hyrule has fallen into, that the Triforce is unwhole.”

Zelda betrayed a hint of annoyance, and Ganon’s fanged mouth smirked.

“How do you feel, Princess, having watched me utterly decimate your forces? Knowing you never had a chance to stand against my army? My own power?”

“Your power is scarcely your own, Ganon. You have stolen a piece of the Triforce from me. Along with that arrow and many more things, I see.”

“What, this tiny needle?” He removed the arrow from his satchel, holding it by the shaft, carefully avoiding the silver arrowhead. “I know not what it is. It was kept in your vault, so it must have some value. Perhaps I’ll pick my teeth with it.”

“Despite bearing golden might, the blight they called Ganon was also known for his cunning and trickery.” She knew Ganon could tell the silver arrow was crafted as a weapon against him, blessed with moonlight in the hopes it would repel evil. He placed it back into the satchel, along with the little gold and rupees pilfered from the vault, and the red ring taken from the body of the knight captain. “Though perhaps little of your scheming mind remains, having revived as many times as you have. Maybe once this happens again, you will end up a slimy thing, struggling to even stand.”

Ganon growled. “Do not think I will leave these foul tools here for your hero to claim. Oh yes, Princess, I know. Each and every time I have risen, in turn you raised the hero against me. I expect to meet him soon. It is only a matter of time. May I kill him in the cradle.”

Zelda showed an inkling of sorrow. “How could I have raised a hero, with my kingdom as weak as it is now? Perhaps this will be the time you win and break our cycle, Ganon.”

He roared in laughter. “Tell me, Princess, why did you not wield the Triforce of Power yourself? You knew I was coming for you, for it. You could have taken it in your hand to rule over this lesser Hyrule and beyond. You could have used it to destroy me on the battlefield, and none of your soldiers would be dead. Your knight would still live.”

“Do you think I would bandy such words with a foul creature like you?”

“Entertain me, Princess. You have done so up until now. Why stop?”

Every minute she could scrounge for Impa’s flight was precious, but in truth Zelda wanted not to speak of this, least of all with Ganon.

“I would not wield the Triforce of Power in fear of what it would make me. I arm myself with wisdom, so that I can discern what is right and what is wrong... and what will come to pass. With the Triforces of Wisdom and Power, I would see my country restored to its classical splendor, but I may also become a wrathful queen... And when I see your wretched and vile existence, Ganon, I fear it all the more.”

“You fear power would outweigh your ruler’s wisdom... You are scared witless to act as any ruler must. And without the third to complete it, you cannot make your wish upon the Triforce,” Ganon said, his toothy grin curving hideously. “Then give it to me, my Zelda.” He outstretched his massive clawed hand.

“You? The one called ‘Demon King’? I would sooner fling myself from this tower than give it to you, foul beast.”

“Then do so. I would claim the Triforce of Wisdom from your lifeless corpse. Princess, me having left you alive the moment I entered this room was mere courtesy, from ruler to ruler. As much of a dung heap this country has now become, I have come to respect you in some little way for defying me so many times. Give to me your share of the Triforce, and I will give you your life, to live the rest of your pitiful days in Hyrule’s carcass.”

With her head down and eyes closed, Zelda began to smile, seemingly resigned to her fate.

“You know this is the only way you get to live. Your Wisdom will show you.”

Zelda raised her head and met Ganon’s stare, and her smile became wry.

He growled. “Princess... Where is the Triforce of Wisdom?”

“It is gone. I no longer bear its light.”

“WHERE IS THE TRIFORCE?!”

“Not even I know, Ganon.”

“YOU LIE!”

“I have broken my piece into many pieces and scattered them around my country. It may take you a long time to find them, even if you knew where to start. But wisdom you do not have.”

He roared again, and the floor beneath him cracked. “Foul, despicable girl! I will kill you! I swear it! I will kill you worse than your puny knight!” Ganon’s hand glowed with the mark of the Triforce, its upper triangle of the three shining most brightly.

Zelda’s knees almost buckled.

“Stay your hand, demon. You will not kill me.”

“Do you mean to test me?!”

“I am the only one who can divine where the pieces of the Triforce of Wisdom have become hidden. Kill me, and you lose your fastest way to acquiring it.”

“I can wait,” he snarled. “I have become very patient.”

“Do you expect to gather them all before the hero comes for you?”

“You admit it, then? You have raised a hero to defy me?”

“Nay, I admit that I have not. But I doubt you want to wait long enough to see one rise on their own, Ganon.”

“Vile, wretched princess. Your own existence disgusts me. Long have the people of Hyrule enjoyed the bounty of their land. You can imagine how happy I was to see how you all now suffer in this waste of a land, like mine. Fine then, Princess. You can play your little game of rebellion against me. Divine for me these cursed places where you have hidden the Triforce of Wisdom. When it rests complete and whole in my hand, I will claim your skull as the price for your childish defiance.”

Ganon clenched his glowing fist and a crystal prism formed around Zelda, trapping her in the fiend’s clutches. With the princess and her family’s treasures in tow, Ganon and his army left Hyrule Castle and marched for his base at Death Mountain. 

__

Impa had been running almost nonstop for hours, and by the time the sun began to rise, she was all but exhausted. She found herself in a clearing outside the forest, near a low plateau by the kingdom’s southern borders. The nursemaid’s old body hurt beyond belief and capacity, but with the moblins having not given up on the chase, she could not spare much time for rest.

  As she sat against a tree to catch her breath, only a few minutes passed before she heard rustling from within the trees. Impa groaned in pain and worry, with beads of sweat falling from her brow as the stomps and growls of moblins approached.

“Oh, Princess, I don’t know if I can do the mission you gave me... Forgive me for my weakness, sweet child...”

The very moment one of the moblins stepped out from the thicket into the clearing, something zoomed through the air, hitting one in the eye. In throes of pain, the moblin unwittingly slashed at the other three. More projectiles zoomed through the air as a boy holding a slingshot jumped out from a tree, continually readying new shots.

“There! Kill the runt!”

Two moblins flung their spears at the boy, who dodged one and deflected the other with his small shield. Loosing another acorn at the eyes of a moblin, the boy’s already-worn slingshot broke, and he threw it away before drawing his wooden sword, also battered and cracked. Swift as the wind, he dove into the thrashing pile of moblins, throwing them all back with a spin of his sword. Impa gasped in awe as she watched the boy fight. One would think a child would scream, hold their head, and run when faced with a moblin, a devilish and ever meat-hungry forest beast often mentioned in stories meant to make the children behave. Yet this boy fought unwaveringly with four moblins armed and trained for feral warfare. Impa thought the boy moved like a green flash, watching him whittle each of them down with the strikes of his sword.

The last of the four moblins, a larger blue-skinned kind, got in a lucky strike with its spear, cutting past the boy’s sleeve and skin. Still, he held his shield and his sword, almost snapped in half at this point, to face the fiend. It roared, putting all its force behind a quick thrust. But the boy deflected it to the side and jumped forward before using his shield to bash in the side of the moblin’s knee, and it fell. The boy then tightly grasped the hilt of what remained of his wooden sword, and smashed it into the moblin’s head. Any life that remained in the moblin was now gone, and the wooden sword was now broken, little of it remaining past the guard. After a moment of contemplation, the boy cast it aside.

“Young boy,” Impa called out weakly, coughing.

He turned, staring at the small old lady sitting against the tree.

“Come here... Quickly, please.” Impa slowly tried to stand, and when she almost fell, the boy ran to support her, and he gave her his waterskin to drink from. There wasn’t much, and Impa had not expected she would drink it all. Still, it rejuvenated her, and pain slowly left her body, though she was still weary. “What a good lad you are...”

 The boy kept silent, focusing on carrying the small woman forward where she wanted to go. He squeezed out the last drops of the fairy water over the wound on his arm, and it stung and steamed as it closed shut.

“I am Impa, servant of Princess Zelda. She needs your help.”

The boy inhaled sharply when he heard the name. Though his home was a few miles from the Kingdom of Hyrule’s official borders, he had seen the few soldiers the castle had when they were on their regular patrols around the region, and he knew of the attack on Hyrule Castle. Though he had never seen the princess, his parents had sometimes talked about the state of the kingdom and the overall Hyrule region.

My parents...

Though Impa remained quiet waiting for a response, some semblance of acknowledgement, the boy’s thoughts trailed off in remembering his mother and father. Yes, he had to escape his house to live, but if he hadn’t called out to them, distracted them in battle, revealed their position to the moblins, perhaps they...

“Young boy? Surely you aren’t deaf.”

His mouth frowning tightly, the boy turned to face Impa and shook his head.

“Dear me,” she sighed in some mixture of worry and relief. “I must ask your forgiveness, boy, but Princess Zelda and this land of Hyrule need your help. I fear I must believe you are its best hope. Please, will you at least tell me your name?”

The boy felt as if his throat was bound in fetters. He managed to utter something with some difficulty, as if he was remembering himself.

“Link.”

“Oh my, a strong name. I will not have to call you the boy who hides in trees,” Impa said, laughing to herself.

Link carried her to the edge of the plateau, and she sat again, breathing deeply. Together they faced the remains of the kingdom, from the Death Mountain Range in the northwest and the Great Hyrulean Sea in the far east. Though the plateau wasn’t very high, they could see much of it clearly. The Lost Woods, Lake Hylia, Spectacle Rock upon Death Mountain itself... Some thought these grandiose names were all Hyrule had to remember its former glory.

“The princess is... in Ganon’s clutches, the one called ‘Demon King,’” Impa said, but her words were unsure and very pained. “To keep it out of his possession, she has broken a treasure most vital to Hyrule’s peace, its heart. It is the Triforce of Wisdom, a triangle of gold, now split apart in eight pieces.”

Link nodded, remembering the lights he saw the night before.

“I am not entirely sure of pieces’ locations, but there are many strongholds throughout the kingdom. They are older than even me, but they were well built... some even hidden by magic, to be used in the defense of this country. I am sure the princess has hidden the pieces of the Triforce within their depths. But the strongholds themselves have been in disuse for ages... There is talk of monsters and other evils having taken up residence.”

Impa was surprised, yet joyed nonetheless to see Link’s glare remain steady.

“You must recover the Triforce of Wisdom, both to keep it out of Ganon’s hands, and to save Zelda from him. For Ganon has taken its counterpart, the Triforce of Power. Without Zelda’s treasure, you cannot hope to battle with the Demon King. Link... I know not if I can trust you with the princess’s mission, but please, you must help.”

With his brow heavy, Link only nodded.

A smile formed on Impa’s face, but strength began to leave the old woman’s eyes.

“I leave it to you... Please, save Zelda... Save Hyrule...”

Impa lightly fell to the side, and Link gasped, but when he heard her snore, he knew it was alright. Just below them at the foot of the plateau, Link saw a person, an old man, who had seemingly been watching them. The old man turned back, hobbling into a cave of which the entrance Link could barely see. Doing what he could to lift Impa over his back, he carried the old woman down a pathway leading below, and took her into the cave.

With the cave illuminated by fires in two pots, the old man sat against the rear wall, with some scavenged provisions and a walking stick at his side. He looked upon Link warily as the boy laid Impa down against the cave wall.

“I saw enough of what happened, young boy,” the old man said. “You’re quite skilled, I have to admit. I can watch over the lady until she wakes. But I don’t have much in the way of provision here myself, and I don’t know if I’ll last so long anyway.” Link noticed some spots of red in the cave floor, and a bloodied rag wrapped around his leg.

Link nodded and turned to leave.

“Wait!” the old man yelled. “It’s dangerous out there. There are those pigs lurking about, but more creatures have come out from the trees, down from the mountains. You’re one boy, all alone. I don’t know what you’re going to do, but there’s a weapon, right over there, if you need it...”

Link turned to see a moblin’s spear off to the side, its head carved from animal bone. Link’s lip curled in unhidden disgust, and he shook his head.

“I see... Then, the only other thing I have left is this. Take it.”

The old man pulled from behind him a sheathed sword, holding it out as Link approached and took the weapon from his hands. Keeping an eye on the old man, he unsheathed the sword carefully; it was an old thing, rusted in parts, but still serviceable. Link swung it lightly a few times to get a feel for its weight before putting it back in its scabbard and strapping it to his tunic’s belt. 

The old man smiled. “I’m sorry, that’s all I’ve got. And someone so young shouldn’t wield a sword so easily... It is less a boon than it is a burden.”

Link’s heavy stare met the old man again.

“But I suppose you already knew. I’ll keep you in my prayers, boy. Should I live, perhaps I’ll hope to see you again.”

Link took another look at Impa before leaving the cave. Back outside, he turned to face the cave, and took another look around him. In the far distances, he saw a cluster of tektites to the west, and more octoroks to the east and north.

He knew not why he had accepted Impa’s request so readily. He knew little of Princess Zelda, had no deep love for Hyrule. He could leave this place if he wanted to, and anyone in their right mind would. But even though the hate he bore for Ganon and his minions still burned strong, part of him felt compelled to do this task out of some duty.

“O brave hero,” Link heard. It was faint, far-off yet still close. “O brave hero, venture north. The great lake, you will find the first piece you seek. Save Hyrule.”

No longer alone, Link grasped his sword tightly, and took his first steps into the wild.

[aph-honk-kong]

Draw A Circle That’s The Earth, I’m In Hetalia - Review (Chapter 2)

Eight months ago, @hetafic-hell published a review of chapter one of “Draw A Circle That’s The Earth, I’m In Hetalia!”. I decided to write a review of the second chapter, since they’ve been on hiatus for so long. But before I begin, I must offer a warning: this chapter is five thousand five hundred words long, and is not divided into any paragraphs. It’s also awful. Proceed at your own risk.

3 months later.

It is not possible to show the passing of time through the story instead of putting it down explicitly?

I'm at a different meeting hall my nation had all its citizen's return to Serenia only recently and now every one of my people except my army have been turned into pictonians 

What army? I thought the only reason Serenia was bombed in chapter one was because it didn’t have one. 

Australia brought me in a helicopter and now me America, England, Italy, Germany, China, Japan, Russia, France, not that anyone noticed except me Canada 

And there’s the “nobody notices Canada” trope.

and thanks to my knowledge of the 'paint it white' Hetalia movie Scotland and Australia are now in meeting about the pictonians I gave Canada a note saying 'go to Cuba, combine forces temporarily and take care of the injured 'he ran out of the room without anyone noticing.

You’d think that someone being told to leave an important meeting to leave the country, meet with someone who hasn’t been mentioned up until now and form an alliance to save their nation’s people would at least announce their departure.

"Dudes, this is an emergency! As the paper thingys in front of you with those crazy drawings that are supposed to be word says, the race of humanity has been taken over by nopras thingsmabobs by that crazy beam of light that comes out of the light bulby thingy that comes out of their head."

...what?

Alfred said while everyone was doing their own thing Francis blowing a kiss to the maid, Yao yawning, Arthur, Kiku, Ivan and Ludwig listening, Allistor smoking, jack playing with his koala, bub and Feli drawing faces on the pictonians pictures. "Nice one, Feli" I giggled "thank you, Kaitlyn! How are-a the puppies and-a cubbies?" he asked "they're fine they grew 60 cm!" 

What an intriguing conversation. Why is this happening again?

then I turn my attention to the meeting and open the folder "Tony my righteous alien friend dude told me they are pictonians from the planet Picto. Like for real dudes. Picto is in like way far out in space." He continued "your brains in way far outer space" Arthur exclaimed "hello! Listen up! We can't let these nopras dudes make earth all freaky and boringly white! This is whack! We gotta stop these dudes! Also what's a nopras?" Alfred asked after a good little speech "it's a Japanese monster without eyes, nose or a mouth; its proper name is inotraple." I spoke up everyone looks at me then Arthur says "wait a tick does that mean this is all your fault japan?"

Why would any of the nations believe Serenia? Even if she explained that she figured it out from the “Paint It White” movie, she’d have to tell them how she came across the movie, either proving that she’s not from this universe or making the nations think she’s gone insane.

"Hey I only said what I learnt from japans old stories and he hasn't said a single word so it's not his fault." I defended while standing up "why the hell do I have to be turned into nopra, because of stupid japan and his scary story" Yao snapped I sighed and sat down and looked at the pictonians pictures I giggled and whispered something to Feli then we both giggled 

So she went from defending to sighing to giggling in a span of what, a minute? If Kaitlyn is so protective of Japan, why doesn’t she defend him when China speaks up? Why does she just sit down and start having another inane exchange with Italy?

"what is so funny, kaitren-chan?" 

Please no, not the Wapanese.

Kiku asked I smiled and said "is it just me or do these guys look like telitubies? Come on I can't be the only one thinking this" "Hahaha! Good one Kaitlyn!" 

This chapter is supposed to take place three months after the former one, and the last chapter ended in the middle of WWII. There is no way any of the nations would know about Teletubbies, which is a show that launched in 1997.

Alfred laughed then said "anyway, focus countries! Japan may have screwed things up but we still have time to fix it! Your ideas will all suck, so listen to me! We will combine all of our military strengths! I'll be in command so you'll have to wear the colour of my flag! All heroes wear red white and blue! And Kaitlyn?" I look up at him "yeah?" "I'll make sure you're safe by you and me sticking together! I'll be your hero!" he said as he winked at me I blushed furiously

The awful dialogue aside, I thought Kaitlyn was shipping herself with Holy Rome last chapter, to the point where she kept him from dying. Does she have a new fictional husband now?

"wait who in god's name put you in charge and why the bloody hell should Kaitlyn go with you?" Arthur yelled "duh, because I'm the hero everybody knows that and Kaitlyn needs a hero" Alfred replied "ohnohnohnohn! But I think Kaitlyn should come with me and not you" Francis said in all his creepiness 

France literally hasn’t done anything creepy, he just suggested Kaitlyn stick with him! Oh wait, I forgot the writer just wants to shoehorn in every trope imaginable into this fic for no reason at all.

"you keep your filthy perverted hands of Kaitlyn, cheesy monkey!" 

He wasn’t being perverted at all! #ProtectFrance2020

Arthur yelled "shut up, black sheep of Europe" "I told you not to call me that" then Arthur and Francis started fighting, Feli tried to hand out his white flags, Yao was arguing with Alfred about which country made the most popular movies, Ivan was releasing a purple aura, Ludwig was trying to stay calm and me I stood up and sat with my pups and cubs petting them as they slept

You’re telling me these baby animals are casually sleeping through a group of adults having multiple loud arguments?

'what am I going to do? Everything's just so crazy. Everyone is a lot more extreme than I thought, they act the same and yet they act different. 

How on earth does one “act the same yet act different”?

When I was in my world, everything seemed so easy. [Sigh] I guess not' "kaitren-chan." 

Spare me.

A voice brought me back noticing Kiku was in front of me "what's wrong, Kiku-san?" "I wanted to thank you for defending me earrier, arrigato" 

There’s no reason why Japan would thank Kaitlyn in Japanese when the rest of his sentence is in English, and that’s not even how you spell it.

he bowed I smiled then boom! I jump and my pups and cubs start barking and roaring 

I can guarantee you that baby tigers cannot roar.

I calm them down by speaking Serenian. I wait for Germany to stop yelling before heading to the doors "Kaitlyn? Vhere are you going?" Ludwig asked "I'm going to protect my country. I suggest you all do the same." Then I walked out of the room. 2 hours later. 

Where are they? Assuming they’re not in Serenia, it would take Kaitlyn quite a while to get home, especially since they’re in a time of war. She definitely wouldn’t be able to reach Serenia in two hours.

I'm standing with my army of 1,000 women and men armed with guns and arrows, 

How are they going to shoot the arrows without bows? 

I'm wearing a long flowing white skirt with a long slit that reaches 10cm from the waist, my black cloak, 

A flowing skirt and a cloak are not at all practical for war, especially not a skirt with a slit. She’s going to get strangled with her cloak or trip over herself, mark my words.

a gold staff with a gold crescent at the top the staff was an inch above my head my height is 1, 80, 

A few things to address here. First, isn’t Kaitlyn fifteen? How can a fifteen-year-old be that tall? Second, there’s no way that staff would do any damage, especially in a twentieth-century war when so much technology was developed. Gold is expensive as hell, too, so how could she make an entire staff from it?

I had a black camisole on and had gold two gold bracelets on my left ankle, one each on my wrists, a necklace with a silver water lily pendent and a gold necklace that fit on my head so that the crescent moon pendent was positioned on the centre of my forehead and I wore no shoes just bare feet. 

No way someone can run or fight properly while wearing heavy gold bracelets, a silver pendant, a gold headdress and no shoes. You’re fighting in a war, for goodness’ sake, your feet are going to be severely hurt if you don’t wear anything on them.

"When the enemy comes show no fear and if the enemy shoots dodge then strike!" I commanded my cubs and pups were beside me growling. 

You took your defenceless baby pets, the only Serenian native animals left, to a battlefield?

The earth started to shake a little "get ready!" I yelled the pictonians ships were in sight "FIRE!" I yelled my army fire their guns and arrows but they just turn all wiggly and white "crap!" I curse then the pictonians shoot the flower blossom beam me, my pups and cubs run and dodge the beam

Without being trampled to death by the rest of the fleeing soldiers, and fast enough to dodge the beam despite being, again, babies? Fat chance.

my army wasn't so lucky they got hit with the beam, then they started to stalk towards us "Kilala! Sesa! Nomura! Herona! Zecremea nomraxia qoxirizakri merase"(Translation: come we must run, my children!)" 

Please, no more nonsensical Serenian.

We start running and an explosion happened bits of the arrows and metal from the guns flew at my cubs and pups I block them and got cut every were it hurt so much, then I hear something "Kaitlyn! Dude come on!" I look and see Alfred on a helicopter when I reach the helicopter 

Shouldn’t he be back in America, defending his own people?

I look back and call out to my pups and cubs "come on almost there!" then disaster. Another flower beam was shot and it hit them, my pups and cubs, my babies 

THIS IS WHY YOU SHOULDN’T HAVE BROUGHT THEM ALONG!

"no! No!" I try and run to them but, Alfred pulled me into the helicopter and restrained me the helicopter took off when I stopped struggling Alfred let me go. I cried, I let everything go. I dropped to my knees and cried Alfred sat on his knees and embraced me I cried into his jacket "Katie, everything's going to be okay. We'll get them back I don't know how but we will, I promise." 

Oh wow, this is so touching.

He said 'that doesn't really sound like him this must really be bad' I stopped crying and hugged Alfred "al, thanks for saving me I assume they got you?" ' assume I know they got him' "yeah, my missiles did nothing then they turned the statue of liberty all white and wiggly" "they did that as well to the valley of blue roses" (for all those who don't know in Serenia their national land mark is a valley of blue roses since blue roses are unnatural and were originally white it is said that on the night of a blue moon the glow of the full moon turned them blue.) 

Couldn’t the story behind the rose valley be included in the story instead of being dumped to us between brackets? 

"We're heading to a temporary headquarters, okay?" I nodded I started humming 'safe and sound by Taylor swift' then Alfred asked "hey Katie what song is that?" 'Crap! I forgot Taylor swift hasn't even been born yet and... Wait a minute the songs I know are from the year 2013 and it's what like 1980, I'll keep it to myself.' "It's called safe and sound a little thing I made up to keep me sane when Switzerland attacked" 

Finally, a rational decision. Also, if this chapter took place three months after the last, wouldn’t it be, like 1945 at most? How did the author forget something they wrote themself?

"Kaitlyn, when the war hit were you afraid that your country would be destroyed and you would ya know die?" "No, I feared for my countries people and animal life besides no one would really miss me." "That's not true! Iggy would miss you, Italy would miss you, jack and Allistor would miss you and I would defiantly miss you we all care about you Kaitlyn no matter what!" "Alfred." I smiled and hugged Alfred even tighter "Kaitlyn, I'm glad you're my best friend ""I'm glade too"

You’re what now?

then I fell asleep. 20 minutes later. We had almost reached the temporary hide out Alfred had to carry me on his back because I couldn't walk anymore I was partially covered in cuts and bruises and my head hurt badly. 

Didn’t you just say you were cut “every were?”

"Al, remind me to kick the pictonians ass later please." "No prob" when we were close enough we could see everyone was there. Feli lifted his head and saw Alfred and smiled but, then he saw me he squealed and ran to Alfred and I. "Kaitlyn! What-a happened!?" he asked frantically "Feli, calm down I'm fine." I reassure him then I was lifted off of Alfred's back and carried to the temporary 

The temporary what?

I look up to see Germany "thanks." I said he smiled and place me on crate then china tended to my wounds. 

Is the medical centre just a crate? If not, what on earth is the author trying to describe here?

"Thanks china I owe you one" I said "no problem Kaitlyn!" he replied I noticed Feli walking around looking for something. "Hey Feli what are you looking for?" he turned to me and smiled "I-a think the puppies and cubbies are playing hide and-a seek with me so I'm-a trying to find them." I looked down and said "they're not playing hide and seek Feli." "Oh, then where are-a they?" I started to tear up I look at him as I raise my head and say "ask the pictonians" he paled

“Kaitlyn, you fucking idiot, why did you bring them along with you to fight?”

"becoming a pictonian appears to be our fate" I say "I refuse to become as ugly as the rest of you" France says "look on the bright side at least you won't smell like drunk cheese" England commented "chill out, we're not gonna let this get us down. Dudes, we're gonna stand together whether we like it or not. I don't!" Alfred said then Russia said "I agree, I don't like it!" then china said "that's right we should work together even if we hate it. I hate it!" "I hate it more" Arthur added "Qui j'detetes" France sighed "no rikey, but we should listen to each other's ideas" japan stated 

The next person to use “no rikey” unironically will be executed at dawn.

"right, all zhose in favour for us to vork togezher raise your hand now" Germany said everyone but me and Feli raised their then Italy looked around and raised his hand and said "pasta~" I raise my hand and Alfred said sounding confident "check this out a douse of originality we get a super hero with a deflector shield to beat the crap out of those guys" 

Haha comedy, am I right?

then Italy said "I think japan should do it I-a mean he's-a got eave**** and let's not forget about gun**" but those are just anime" japan said 

Both Evangelion or Gundam were developed in the late twentieth century, decades after this story takes place. Plus, Italy isn’t so stupid as to believe that the mechas from those show exist in real life, is he?

"if you are looking for anime I can totally do that" china interrupted then a blurred picture appeared "you know I think I heard about that somewhere but better" Arthur says "yeah" everyone agrees "it original chines idea!" china fumed "excuse me" Germany said to grab our attention "maybe ve should oh I don't know zhink of ideas zhat are realistic" he said looking ready to blow 

Thank you, Germany. 

"I was thinking the exact same thing my idea is perfectly realistic" Arthur said looking confident "alright what do you have in mind, Arthur" I ask then he shows us a dark magic circle 

How the hell did he make that so quickly?

"yeah we need something realistic" everyone said "you wankers don't ignore me!" Arthur yelled "my turn, how about we find their leader and hold them for ransom" I suggest "still need a realistic idea" they said then we hear a sound "Fucking" over and over we look at a screen to see a little grey alien "ah, what a charming alien" France said sarcastically "he's no alien! Tony is my best friend!" Alfred said sounding offended "that doesn't mean he's not a bloody alien!" Arthur said but, was ignored by Alfred "Tony what's the scoop bra?" "fu-"he tried to say but I interrupted saying "hey Tony? Think you could I don't know not pull any crap on us. Remember how you owe me from 30 years ago. I need you to show us the pictonians website and put on the translator software, please?" 

What does Tony owe Kaitlyn and why was this never mentioned?? Also, the internet didn’t exist in WWII, what is going on -

he nodded and put up a website and then the translator thing made all the alien language translate in to English. Then a video played explaining the pictonians intentions. "It appears our planet is doomed." " ?" "What did he say now?" japan asked and Alfred replied "the more evolved the species the more their faces look nopra like" "oh, I have collection of evolving I'd like to show them" Russia said as he released a purple aura 

The fuck does this mean?

"Vhere are zhey veak? Zhey must have a veakness' Germany said "they do" Tony replied then everyone but me flipped out "why haven't you been speaking English this whole time!?" France asked while freaking out "because I don't do dubs" Tony replied as he searched for something on his iPhone "okay their weaknesses are…" 

WHY DOES HE HAVE AN IPHONE IN WWI!?

he continued. Then I had a dizzy spell. I felt pulse "sunflower, you're alright, da?" Russia asked

Haha he used “da” haha so very Russia of him.

"I-I'm fine, Russia" I replied holding my head "call me Ivan" he said then Alfred yelled "TONY!" that set me off I collapsed to the floor a bright white light covered my vision, as I fell I heard someone call out "Kaitlyn!". Then, I heard the giddy British voice again "well poppet, looks like you've been telling people you get visions, huh? Well, we don't want you to be a liar now do we? So every time a something big is going to happen, you will suffer a dizzy spell and have a vision. Well I better be off ta-ta poppet" then it all went black. 

Oh, it’s the magic fellow from the first chapter. Will it ever be explained who they are or why they’re doing this to Kaitlyn? My money’s on “no”.

Suddenly, I saw everyone being turned into pictonians Alfred, Arthur, Francis, Ivan, Yao, jack, Allistor, Ludwig and Kiku then I turn and see Feli get turned into a pictonian 'no' 

Why is Italy’s transformation the last straw?

I ran at the pictonians tears blurring my vision. I felt myself lift off the ground then gone I lost the vision. "Kaitlyn! Kaitlyn wake up!" I heard I slowly open my eyes to see Alfred above me with worry in his eyes and me I was on the floor with everyone surrounding me "I'm fine I just had a vision" I said as I hopped up everyone look at me and didn't looked convinced "trust me guys I'm fine this happens only at certain times." I said then a green light flashed we ran to the light and stopped when we saw a huge pictonian ship. As it was landing a powerful wind blew everywhere it almost knocked down everyone but, it blew me backwards until someone caught me I look and see Allistor holding me by my waist "wouldn't want ye ta blow away now would we?" he said smiling "thank you, Allistor" I said holding onto him. 

And there goes another character into Kaitlyn’s harem.

When the wind stopped we all saw the ship in font "I think this is the mother ship" japan said "Hahaha those stupid aliens are so predictable" Alfred mocked "Allistor you can let go now." I said as I barely held my blush he blushed furiously and let me go "look!" Germany said as we see the pictonians marching onto the mother ship not noticing us "I think that's where they keep the humans that haven't been turned into pictonians probably human enslavement" I said "unacceptable ve must act now!" Germany yell as he marched towards the ship then japan stopped him "Germany I'm sorry I touched you but we must act reasonabry." "Must kill!" he replies 

Why is Germany suddenly talking like a caveman? Goodness, if I had a dollar for every question I asked while reading this mess of a fic I’d be the richest person alive.

"hey, dudes!" Alfred said to get everyone's attention "I have an idea how about we infiltrate the ship and find their weakness!" he suggested "yes, I like the way you are thinking" china said enthusiastically "you can leave the spying to me" Arthur said confidently "and leave the animal rescuein ta me" jack said "nothing ventured nothing gained is what they arways say" japan said "exactly 'ow are zhey?" France asked "I know a way we can get inside!" we all looked and see Feli in a pictonian costume "tada!" "VHAT ZA HELL!? VHAT IS ZAT!?" Germany asked/yelled

You could just use “yelled”.

"it's my-a pictonian costume I made-a it with all the white flag material I have! Woohoo! I made-a one for everybody!" he laughed pointing to a box with pictonian costumes. Everyone just stared at it for a while. Then I walked to the box and grabbed one my size I put it on over my clothes.

One your size? You’re telling me Italy managed to make a number of fake-outfits with multiple sizes while the rest of the nations were running out to see the ship?

When I was done everyone was wearing theirs then they all ran to the ship yelling their battle cries "ATTACK!" "Hahaha! Hail the conquering hero" "double O ninja!" "I'm ready" "what a relief I still look fabulous!" "Hold on tight panda!" "I reap into battre!" "Aussie!" "Whiskey power!" only me and Feli didn't move "we'll wait for you guys here!" he cheered as he waved his white flag "Italy! Serenia! You both are coming vith us!" Germany yelled as he stood in front of Feli!" "But, running onto-a the aliens ship seams reckless-a to me. Besides I don't want to get my costume dirty. What do you think bella?" then he looked at me "Feli, I'm scared." I said as I looked up at him with tears in my eyes 'it's true I am scared, I'm scared that I screwed everything up and what if everyone gets turned into a pictonian' then I felt a hand on mine I look to see Feli with his eyes open looking at me "let's-a go Kaitlyn. We'll-a do this together!" he beamed I smiled and ran with Feli who yelled his battle cry "PASTA~!" in turn I yelled mine "the angel has arrived!" 

Why would Kaitlyn be described as an angel? She’s done nothing remotely angelic in the story so far.

20 minutes later. We're all on the ship we hide behind a corner "ok, here's the plan Russia back me up, japan you back me up too and Iggy..." Alfred said when we were all in a circle with Germany holding eleven sticks "pick one each vhatever colour you get is zhe group you're in." he said "don't ignore me!" Alfred whined every one picked a stick France went with Arthur, Alfred went with Ivan and china, Germany went with japan and Feli. Me I went with Allistor and jack. We're walking down a hall way. 

Nice tense change there.

'I'm not scared' "ya know we need 'a find the captured humans, righ'?" "No, I thought we're er ta play golf, we're not stupid lad we know what we're ta do." The continued arguing then I heard a noise and saw round the corner pictonians "shh!" I pulled them into a room but part of my pictonian costume ripped at my lower half reviling my lower half and the warrior skirt. "Great just great" I said sarcastically "Kaitlyn? Love is that you?" I turn around and see Arthur and France standing in front of a blue ball "what happened?" Arthur asked "these two dumbbells attracted unwanted attention so I acted fast and pulled us into the nearest room" I said a little peeved. 

“Dumbbells” is a weak-ass insult.

Arthur scolded them while me and France looked at the globe I touched my country like Arthur was supposed to do with his country. Then a little page popped at the side of it but it was in the alien's language "damn, hey Arthur little help?" I ask he stops and chucks me his phone 

Again with the cell phones! Isn’t it supposed to be the mid-twentieth century?

I look through it and put up the alien translator app then the screen scanned the page and processed the data then it binged and it all translated into English I read it aloud once the guys stopped fighting "Serenia, a peaceful country with both beautiful fauna and flora and also a former pirate now a polite lady. Serenia is a former pacifist but, during world war two and seeing some of her people and most of the fauna life massacred she became a fighter. She often gets stuck in the middle of love, because all the male countries are in love with her and she can't decide" 

Woah. I couldn’t have come up with a more Mary Sue-ish description if I tried.

I blushed furiously and silently handed Arthur back his phone "love? Are you alright?" he said with a red face "p-p-please j-just go c-check your country" 

I can tick “badly-written stuttering” off my bad fanfic bingo now.

I stuttered not being able to keep my cool. Arthur looked at his country and started fighting with France I ran up to them and tried to break them up "guys! You have to stop" then France accidently back handed me I hit the floor but no one helps me up. Allistor and jack tried separating Arthur and Francis then the door opened and the pictonians appeared "what do we do now?" Francis asked 

I don’t know, maybe run instead of twiddling your thumbs?

"don't worry I'm sure there is a trap door here somewhere" Arthur said then a rope appeared next to him "see what did I tell you" he pulled the rope and the four of them fell through the trap door leaving me on the floor the pictonians looked at me 'I'm screwed' they didn't move "huh?" I looked down and saw that I look like someone turning into a pictonian. ' alright, let's play pictonian' so I found my other half of my costume and slowly pulled it on and pretended it hurt then to seal the deal I was next to the trap door and screamed at the top of my lungs "aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" then I slowly stood up slouching like them then they left. 

I understood like ten words out of this section. 

I shed the pictonian costume and fluffed out my black cloak and skirt I checked to see if my necklace on my head was still there and if my foldable gold staff was in the side of my skirt, luckily they were but unluckily, the staff put a little cut in my side making blood drops appear. 

And this, kids, is why you don’t fight with fucking staffs. Also, how on earth is a tall, heavy staff made out of gold able to fold in on itself?

I ran out of the room and followed the pictonians without them noticing me. Then I see everyone in a corner. Found the alarm system, pulled and jumped in the vent the pictonians turned their attention to the alarm I slowly crawled in the air vent but, then I made a wrong move and fell. I waited for the impact but it never came I opened my eyes to see that china caught me "china, thank you!" I said as I hugged him "it is alright and please call me Yao" he smiled as he blushed lightly then set me on the ground 

Dammit, there goes another one.

"Kaitlyn, you're alright" Feli cried as he hugged me. Then a green light grew bright we all looked to see the pictonians about to turn us into one of them. "We. Are. Screwed." I stated "wait, ret me try something" Kiku said "go ahead, Kiku-san" I said. "Pictonians we have come to show you our hospitarity." He said "WHAT!?" everyone but me yelled I ran next to Kiku and backed him up saying "Kiku is right we should show them what earth has to offer. If we show them how fun and fantastic earth is maybe they won't invade earth, change everything back to normal and leave."

Nice idea, but they’ve kind of already invaded earth. You’re too late, honey.

Then Yao said "leave it to me!" then a china town appeared and all the pictonians were sitting at tables with food in front of them "please eat as much as you want" Yao offered "don't-a mind if I-a do!" Feli said with a plate of food in his hand "zhat is not for you!" Germany yelled "but why does-a Kaitlyn get-a to eat?" he complained "because it's just a mango and I haven't eaten since yesterday" I said the pictonians started to eat 

What does China serving mangoes have to do with why she gets to eat?

"so you like it am I right?" Yao asked confidently "we don't know" they answered Yao "I'm so glad you like it. Wait you don't know?" he asked "we don't know" they replied then France tried to get them to eat his countries cuisine but got the same reply "I would like to be going now don't be letting me down" Ivan said to the Baltics "yes sir" they replied then done a ballet to swan lake in female ballerina outfits' 

Poor Baltics. What did they do to deserve being put in this fic?

that's just cruel' then they spun off stage "we don't know" the pictonians said I thought of what hospitality I could provide 'belly dancing and flowers' I played belly dancing music and hopped on the stage and danced. Every time I could I threw a bunch of flowers to the pictonians. 

Where did she get - I’m not going to question things any more.

I heard my friends shouting out "go, sheila!" "Shake it, Kaitlyn" "go, bella!" when I finished I posed with my hands above my head and one leg at the front the pictonians gave me an unexpected answer "it was good" I jumped off the stage and Alfred picked me up and spun me in the air "dude that was awesome where did you learn to do that?" he asked as he set me on the ground "I went to India a little while back and learned belly dancing" I replied then Germany tried to give a pictonian some beer but struggled a bit "dude, let me help you out" Alfred said then a casino popped out of nowhere. All the pictonians were at slot machines and one hit the jackpot, another got kissed by two girls in bunny costumes. "Men" I said as I walked away from Alfred. 

Haha guise get it? She’s totally a strong independent woman who laughs when men are being stupid even though she has ten of them chasing after her!

I noticed Feli with the pictonians having fun then everything went wrong. The pictonians had eaten one of Arthur's scones and turned blue in the face. "Come on, what-a happened? Let's-a eat another scone" Feli said happily and the pictonians replied "no way" "guys I think this is our cue to leave" jack said and with that we ran. "Well, what now genius?" I ask then Alfred stops at a door and presses a button then the door opens to show us a long drop out of the ship into the ocean "Geronimo!" Alfred yells as he jumps then everyone but me and Feli are left "Feli come on it's better than being turned into a pictonian" I say then we jump. During the fall Feli had his eyes closed, me mine were open and it's a good thing too, because up ahead was a huge pointy rock. We were falling fast so I pushed Feli out of the way and he missed the rock by an inch. I, on the other hand got the full blow of the rock it my stomach leaving a huge gash then my back. 

Wouldn’t she also break some bones and presumably die on impact? Falling from a high place onto a sharp rock would definitely leave more than two gashes.

I fell in the ocean hard and hit my head on a rock I slowly lost consciousness as I rose to the surface. 20 minutes later. I woke up on a sandy surface and I immediately started coughing up water and feeling the sting of salt water in my wounds. "Hello? Is someone there?" I heard a familiar British voice call "Arthur?" I call out but no reply I stand up and limp to where the sound came from. I keep walking until I hear crying I stumble to the noise and soon am hiding behind a tree looking at a camp fire with everyone around it. "b-but, where-a I-I-is Kaitlyn? Feli cried "we need to find her now I-I just couldn't bear to think what I would do without her" Alfred admitted everyone nodded their heads in agreement "it's so nice to see how much you guys care for me" I said as I came out from behind the tree with my cloak covering my body. They all lifted their heads and Feli tackled me to the ground "bella, I-"but before he could finish his sentence I howled out in pain "aaahhhh!" 

You should’ve collapsed a long time ago.

Feli got up and looked at his hands and his eyes opened and widened showing terror "b-bella, w-w-why are-a you bleeding?" he shakily asked I stood up to see everyone staring at me with pale faces "I had a little accident." I said they still didn't look convinced. I felt a pulsing pain in my stomach as I fell to my knees 

Yeah, there it is.

"Kaitlyn!" they all ran to me I undid the lock on me cloak "Kaitlyn what's wrong!?" Alfred asked as he looked like he was about to cry. I removed my cloak and reviling my injuries everyone gasped in horror. "Well are you going t-"I lost consciousness in the middle of my sentence. In my dream world.

It’s magic teleportation man, isn’t it.

"Hello?" I call no answer "hello, poppet." I turn around to see a man with strawberry blond hair and bushie eye brows he had neon blue eyes, he wore a pink vest over a white dress shirt and army green slacks and a purple bow tie. Then it hit me I know who he is "O-Oliver Kirkland!?" 

YOU’VE GOT TO BE FUCKING -

I ask he clapped his hands while jumping up and down "oh, you figured it out poppet well done! But please call me Ollie" he giggled 'only because I read fan fiction' 

How does Kaitlyn reading fanfiction relate to her being allowed to call Oliver “Ollie”? So many sentences in this fic are just strung together with no relation whatsoever.

"you sent me here didn't you?" I asked he stopped bouncing and smiled "yes, we brought you here because you have such a vast knowledge on us and wanted Hetalia to be real so badly that we decide to bring you here and make you a country. Isn't wonderful? We picked you out of all the girls and boys in the world" he said "yes I am grateful but, what do you mean by 'we'?" 

Oh, so her teleportation into the Hetalia world is explained. Still makes no sense why she was picked, though.

I asked he smiled but made it even more cheerful looking "I mean-""the cupcake freak means us, doll" I looked behind me to see 2P America Allen Johnson or as he prefers to called Al, he had red/brown hair, red eyes, a bomber jacket with a fifty on the back, black gloves, sunglasses and, like the fan fiction says, a baseball bat with nails at the top. 

OH MY GOODNESS, NOT THE ANOTHER COLOURS.

And another thing: why is Allen’s appearance described as being “like the fanfiction says”? Since the Another Colour Main Six aren’t canon (only their Nyotalia forms are), everyone has a different interpretation of what they look like. What fanfiction is Kaitlyn referring to?

I need to stop asking questions when it’s clear I won’t get answers.

I started blushing because when I found out about the 2P's I developed a crush on them. "Well hello, doll face" he said as he walked up to me "Al" was all I could say he smiled and put a finger under my chin and moved his face closer about 2 inches from mine "heh, she's pretty cute. No 2P Serenia but hey she's just as cute" 

ANOTHER ONE IN THE HAREM.

he said I backed away a little "you mean I have a 2P?" I asked then Oliver came from behind and hugged me I yelped and winced Oliver looked down and said "oh dear you got injured. We'll bring you to Yung" then another figure appeared with a medical kit. He looked like Yao except he had black hair and red eyes 

Doesn’t regular China also have black hair? Also, what the fuck kind of name is “Yung?” That syllable doesn’t exist in Chinese.

"hello, Mrs. Water lily" he said as he tended to my wounds as I sat on the floor "it's nice to meet you, and you don't have to be so formal with me please call me anything you like" I beamed he had a light blush across his cheeks "fine, I will call you… nightingale because you have the beautiful voice of one" he said I turned bright red. 

You’ve met her for at most five minutes.

When he finished I had a bandage around my whole torso and stomach and head. 

A bandage around her torso, stomach and head? She must look like a mummy from the waist up.

"Thanks, I owe you one." I said "oh, don't worry about it, poppet. We wouldn't want you to be hurt now would we?" Oliver said "now, see that door?" he said as a blue door appeared "uh huh" I said "go straight through it and you'll wake up to the 1P's and have theses bandages on still" he said. 

So the Another Colour characters were only brought up to keep Kaitlyn from dying and providing exposition. Well, I shouldn’t have expected anything more.

I walk to the but I stop when I put my hand on the handle I turn to the 2P's "but will I see any of you guys again" I ask. Al smiles and says "of course. Why wouldn't we want to see your cute face again, doll face" Al replied I nodded and walked through the door. When I wake up. I open my eyes and see Feli asleep and everyone else talking about things 'no sign of Sealand' I sit up and groan "ow, my head" everyone looks at me their eyes widen as I stand up. "Will you stop looking at me like that? I'm fine" I said smiling "cheerio everyone!" we turn our heads to see Sealand on his 'country' 'I haven't met Sealand yet' "I brought my whole country here to help you all!" he shouted "you don't have a whole country to begin with go home you little pipsqueak!" Arthur yelled.

“Sealand and England arguing over whether or not he’s a country” trope, check.

5 minutes later. Everyone just finished eating food from Yoa's resort that was conveniently on the island. 

Who is Yoa?

"I am so full at moment" Yao said rubbing his belly. "Who knew you had a resort on this island" Arthur said I sat on the shore of the ocean, letting the water touch my feet. 'My babies, I raised them from pups and cubs and now their pictonians.'

What an out-of-place line to wrap up this chapter. The conversation has just started, nobody has responded to it and nobody knows what will happen. It feels very abrupt.

...

Well, that was it. I am in immense pain and I feel like I’ve lost a few brain cells. This was maybe the most illogical, unenjoyable thing I’ve read in quite a while, but am I going to also review the other chapters? Yes. For now, I’m going to rethink my life choices and try to forget what I read here.

[syncopatedid]

Kazetsuyo Novel Translation: Excerpt from Chapter 4: Track Meet

(Pages 170-173):

As the Tokyo Sports U track meet drew close, Kakeru’s mood was steadily rising in anticipation.

It’s been a while since he had competed in a real race. But even though Kakeru was confident he had covered his training very thoroughly, his mind would start to wander every night before falling asleep: Would running into a former acquaintance unsettle him and affect his concentration during the race? Had his race instincts gotten dull that he’d miscalculate his strategies? Could his time record which had gained him much attention back on his high school track team even pass for a college-level standard?

As soon as he closed his eyes, negative thoughts would surface one after another. Restless, Kakeru threw his blanket aside and sat up on his futon. 

Suppressing his urge to immediately get out of bed to go jogging, he adjusted his breathing in the darkness of his room.

“Be patient… be patient…”  Kakeru told himself.

Don’t think about anything else. Just picture yourself running. Feel the movement of your muscles throughout your body. Keep moving forward… 

Rekindling that fire, his doubts evaporated into thin air. Like Nira waiting to be taken for its walks, Kakeru was feeling eager again.

Aside from practice, Kakeru was also properly attending his lectures at the university. Kiyose had rationalised that “one cannot possibly produce results in running if they can’t even fulfil their credits”, but because Kakeru was fully committed to his training, he had been repeatedly turning down invites to mixers and gatherings. As for Chikusei-so’s other occupants, they were making a concerted effort to hit the qualifying time as well; as soon as school was done for the day, they would all head back to the apartment without delay to work on their runs.

So it didn’t take long before word of their activity started to spread—not only was the shopping street abuzz with chatter, even the students at the university got to talking: “It seems that those guys from that run-down apartment are training very hard for a race.”

The day before the Tokyo Sports U track meet, Kakeru had asked a favour of a friend who was in the same foreign language studies class to answer roll call on his behalf. 

“What, you’re taking a break tomorrow, Kurahara?”

"I’ll be running in the track meet, so…”

“Ah… speaking of that, I hear you’re aiming for the marathon, right?”

“It’s not a marathon…”

The ekiden is what I’m aiming for, and tomorrow’s track meet is the 5000-metre run, Kakeru thought to himself, but did not bother to clarify. 

Kakeru had come to realise a fact when he started university, that those who have no ties to track and field wouldn’t know the difference between a marathon and an ekiden. And when it came to the track meet, some would even look surprised and laugh it off as a joke. “5000 metres? Isn’t that just running in circles around the track?” they’d tease, as if it were some sort of bizarre ritual.

To Kakeru, track is life. To most others, however, a track meet is just another boring race.

The truth was a harsh reality, but at the same time, he couldn’t help but feel a little complacent.

I guess not everyone can understand how big a deal it is and why we’ve been training so hard every day…

Hence with the present conversation, Kakeru was able to smile and casually gloss over the details. 

“Well… think of it as a condensed version of a marathon. Anyway, I’m counting on you, thanks.” 

“Just leave it to me!  Go get ‘em, champ!”

His friend had the sincerest expression on his face. Even though he might not understand Kakeru’s ambitions, Kakeru could tell he was cheering him on from the bottom of his heart.

That night, Kakeru could barely fall asleep. His rest was shallow, and his mind, sharp and alert. This is fine, Kakeru thought as he drifted in and out of sleep, sensing the last of his lingering doubts dissipating. After tonight, his transformation will be complete, and his body and mind will be in a state that is ready to run. 

He was feeling it—that feeling he had pretended he’d forgotten all this time—his fighting spirit before a race. 

————————————————–

Footnotes:

- And Kakeru’s uni friend makes his cameo! I’ve mentioned in this post before, I was really quite heartened to read that Kakeru seems to have other friends aside from the Aotake squad (he does get invited along to mixers and parties after all), so I do read novel Kakeru as someone who’s less emo than anime! Kakeru, and radiates a kind of “sports jock” vibe that draws people to him even if he’s not exactly proactive at making friends. Besides, he was asking this friend to help him tell a white lie, so I guess that takes a certain level of established trust?

The exact word they used in the original was “Yuujin” (友情), which is a formal word for “friend”, but even though this friend isn’t written as a “Nakama” (仲間) or even has a name to his credit, I do feel the choice of words over “classmate”( クラスメイト ) or “acquaintance”（知り合い… which, btw, was the word used in this excerpt in reference to Sakaki), hints that this guy could still be a good friend despite them not being on a first-name basis. I am reminded of the “Yuujin” in Natsume Yuujinchou and I draw the impression from Takashi’s close friendships with his normie friends, despite all of them still addressing one another by their family names. So let me just have this nice little headcanon that Kakeru sees this friend the same way as well, okay? :*)  

-  I’m also pretty delighted to learn that Kakeru takes a class in foreign language studies! Since he’s in the Sociology department, I would assume the guy could be taking (cross-faculty?) modules from the linguistics department that are relevant to his area of study, maybe Language & Culture? The question is, are we talking foreign languages in general, or is his module more focused on a particular language? If it’s the latter, my headcanon would default to the English language, since that seems like the most “useful” language for a Japanese to study, and Kakeru feels like the type who would opt for practical subjects that would be more applicable to the working world, compared to say, maybe Haiji or Akane, who might have deeper appreciation for languages as lit majors (or maybe Kakeru does appreciate them to a small extent, but they are secondary compared to his overwhelming love for track, idk.) But anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here cuz the modules you take as a first-year are mostly introduction modules and are pretty rudimentary, lol. Freshman year is still the honeymoon period, you know.

- p.s: Haiji says to attend your lectures properly so you can win all the races, m’kay? #ThisHasBeenAPSA 

[orderofthedyingstar]

RECAP: Session 7

SESSION SEVEN

(Hi Danny!)

Rhododendron and Jun continue to eat their breakfast, while Jun hedges around the fact that he’s curious about the angel’s strange request. The two go outside, where Rhododendron (annoyed) yells at the angel to tell them who they’re looking for.

Rhododendron: “Who did you want us to kill?” 

Angel: “There’s an aasimar I’d really, really like dead.” 

Rhododendron: “Why? Are they ugly?” 

Angel: “Rather not say. Look, just kill any aasimar you see around these parts, there aren’t many of them.”

The angel, in lieu of a description, offers 100 platinum to the crowd to hunt any aasimar they see. They make a few platinum coins and disperse them into the crowd for incentive. After the angel leaves, Jun immediately catches onto the fact that Rhododendron wants to help this random aasimar, despite not knowing who they are or anything about them. Rhododendron asks Velanna and Leo if they’re going to participate in the aasimar hunt, but they respond that they’re not going to get involved because it seems dangerous. Rhododendron thinks there’s something off about the whole circumstance.

Rhododendron pulls Jun aside and tells him that she knows an aasimar, a friend she met a while ago and hasn’t seen in a few months. She decides to look around the area on the off chance the angel is looking for him. (She uses her hands several times to count to numbers less than ten.)

OF NOTE: “rhododendron doesn’t know anything about  magic, because all of her magic comes from the earth. That’s why it’s bullshit”

Verrix has just arrived at the Snaketail Crevice Trading Post, concerned about the strange aggressiveness the people here seem to be exhibiting - they’re searching around the whole area, and several people are fighting over a platinum coin. He heads to the local tavern and hides in a dark corner, watching as Rhododendron walks through the tavern door and immediately spots him staring at her. She asks Verrix what he’s doing here but he fudges around an answer. 

Rhododendron: “Are you lying to me? You’ve already done that like eight million times.” 

Verrix: “You definitely can’t count that high.”

Rhododendron tells Verrix that he needs to leave the outpost, catching Verrix up to the situation at hand with the angel and the enormous bounty. 

Rhododendron (to Verrix): “You could really use a shower.” 

Jun: “Rhododendron, when was the last time you showered?”

Rhododendron (as Verrix is audibly snickering): “Listen, some people look beautiful with leaves in their hair. Verrix is not one of them.”

The trio tries to sneak out of the outpost but fail miserably (another nat1 from Rhododendron), but Verrix manages to salvage their mess by convincing the crowd that some random citizen is the aasimar they’re looking for - Rhododendron is also convinced that Verrix really did point out another aasimar. They decide to try to meet Donny (and possibly Raz) on the road between Dynafell and the outpost rather than chance staying in the frenzied crowd of people. They decide to cut through the grasslands to save time. 

Rhododendron: “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you read a book.” 

Verrix: “A what?”

While they’re traveling, Rhdodoendron tries to make Verrix tell Jun the story of how they met (Verrix: “do I even remember?”) but then gives up and tells the story herself: while she was walking home after dance rehearsal, some stranger grabbed her hand (while trying to pickpocket the guy next to her). When he started running away, Rhododendron chased him down (they argue about whether Verrix was crying or not) and shot his cape into the ground.

Rhododendron: “I didn’t confront him the crowd, psh. I waited until he was cornered and alone.” 

Verrix: “Like an animal.” 

Rhododendron: “Yeah! Like an animal! (…) I have a perfect memory, I can recount any tale.” 

Verrix: “I bet you do that on your hands too.” 

Rhododendron: “ANYWAYS, he can’t pull the arrow out because he’s weak as hell, so I felt bad and tried to help him pull the arrow out of the ground.”

Verrix: “No you didn’t. You were laughing.” 

Rhododendron: “I was laughing a little bit. So eventually I felt bad and sat down and helped him pull the arrow out of the ground, but he tried to run, so I shot him for real this time. (At Jun and Verrix’s scandalized looks) In the leg!”

While Verrix recovered from the arrow wound (and ran away, with Rhododendron saving his life) he lived with Rhododendron for a few months. Before she can fully catch Verrix up on the situation at hand, Rhododendron hears voices from a nearby grove of trees. She makes Verrix and Jun wait while she investigates the source of the noises, finding that there are a few bandits arguing about what to do with a captive aasimar that they have tied to a tree. Among the bandits is a fire genasi (Umbra, c’mon) that seems to be the leader of the group. Rhododendron tries to cut the aasimar free of the ropes, but ends up loudly scratching the bark and alerting the bandits to her presence.

Umbra: “Who are you?” 

Rhododendron: “Uh, Romeo.” 

Umbra: “What are you doing here?” 

Rhododendron: “It’s, uh, hard-eth not to.” 

Umbra: “Right, well, I’m going to kill you now. Nothing personal.”

Rhododendron: “It seemeth personal!”

When they hear the bandits go quiet, Verrix and Jun realize that Rhododendron might be in trouble. They head over to where the bandits are to help her.

Verrix: “I don’t think her plan worked.” 

Jun: “She had a plan?” 

Verrix: “Good point.”

As Rhododendron shoots Umbra, it seems like they instantly heal the wound, yanking the arrow out without flinching. During the fight Umbra singles out Rhododendron and hits her using their own blood, causing her to go into a blood rage. Rhododendron is fully taken into her Romeo schtick in her frenzy, tearing at the bandits with her swords. One of the dwarven bandits (rolling a poorly timed critical miss) accidentally kills himself with his own war hammer. Umbra sends out a blast of necrotic energy with a scream that hits everyone on the battlefield, blood flying out from them and blinding Rhododendron and Jun. Right after Rhododendron sustains heavy damage from another one of the bandits, the other aasimar wakes up, punching one of the dwarven bandits straight in the face. 

Umbra causes Verrix to go into the blood rage. Meanwhile, Rhododendron’s blood rage ends, giving her a point of exhaustion. The strange aasimar heals Rhododendron a little, asking if she’s okay. Verrix manages to work through his blood rage to finish off most of the bandits. The other aasimar, while Rhododendron and Jun are still blinded, unfurls a pair of skeletal wings, Frightening the remaining bandits. Rhododendron finally manages to wipe the blood out of her eyes in time to see a tree that Jun accidentally set on fire, a stranger with creepy wings, and Verrix practically frothing at the mouth with bloodlust. 

The party manages to finish off the last of the bandits and realizes that the fire genasi disappeared sometime in the middle of the fight. (Rhododendron is at two hp, they short rest.) The strange aasimar keeps his distance from the group, eyeing the ashen remains of the majority of the bandit group. Verrix and Rhododendron have both taken one point of exhaustion. 

Rhododendron: “Hey! New guy! Why’d you get tied to a tree?” 

Inigo: “Uh, someone knocked me out.” 

Rhododendron: “What did you do? Very few people get knocked out without deserving it.”

Rhododendron properly introduces the group to the other aasimar, and asks if he knows any angels - he says he wishes he didn’t. He then dances around answering any questions that Rhododendron asks other than providing his name. After finding out he doesn’t have any memories - and after Inigo inadvertently name-drops ‘Umbra’ (followed by a lot of “um, bruh” jokes) - the party convinces Inigo to come with them, with Rhododendron telling him that she knows him (and that she’s his mentor). Rhododendron recruits Inigo to go join their party, keeping the details of her goals in the mountains vague.

While continuing their trek towards Dynafell, Verrix tells Rhododendron that it’s a little hard being on the run since he “can’t run very fast”, to which Rhododendron casts Longstrider on him. When Verrix starts walking too far ahead of the group, Rhododendron warns her that Umbra is probably still running around somewhere nearby. As they get closer to Dynafell, Rhododendron fills Verrix in on the reason she cannot go back into the city. Donny pops out of the grass, threatening Verrix with her great sword before realizing that he’s with Rhododendron. She reveals that she got Raz to come along with her, and that angels also appeared in Dynafell to offer a huge reward for killing any aasimar in the area. 

Rhododendron: “Huh, weird. Anyways, I don’t know any aasimar.”

Rhododendron persuades Donny to stop harassing the rest of the party after she finds out that 1) two of them are aasimar and 2) Rhododendron was in a fight where she was pretty badly hurt. Donny is still disappointed by the additions to the party (and that Jun is still there). Donny is convinced that Inigo is lying to the group about not having any memories.

Rhododendron: “Do you see that big bump on the back of his head??”

Donny: “I can make it bigger.”

After realizing that Inigo and Verrix aren’t safe anywhere nearby, the group decides to head towards the closest other city: Tszar, a coastal city a few days away. Along the way, people in the small farming villages they pass through also mention the appearance of the angels and their enormous bounty. Verrix disguises himself, Rhododendron helps Inigo put a disguise on to avoid suspicion as they move through these villages and telling the rest of the group to ‘lie low’. 

Rhododendron (in a bad fake accent): “Ah, Donyah, silly girl.” 

Donny: “My name is Donny! DONNY! Did you forget already?” 

Verrix: “It’s okay, it took her two weeks to stop calling me Ferret.”

As they pass through a few more villages, Rhododendron realizes that it might not be safe anywhere for the aasimar she’s with, further confirmed after Jun falls asleep and says that the angels are looking for two aasimar. He also mentions that their best chance of avoiding one of the aasimar getting killed is to pass back through the Snaketail Crevice. 

Donny: “It seems like you’re doing this to avoid addressing the personal problems in your life. That’s why you’re fixating on helping strangers and killing dragons.” 

Rhododendron: “……I’m not killing any dragons.”

After Donny continues to annoy Rhododendron and make vague threats at the rest of the party, Jun casts Silence on her, happening to trap Raz in the sphere of magic as well. (Rhododendron, to Verrix: “Is this what love is?”) The party heads back towards the crevice in relatively more peace, but Rhododendron and Donny get trapped by a bush that they have a lot of difficult setting on fire - and Raz refuses to help with. Rhododendron manages to cut herself free (Jun slows her fall with Featherfall) while Donny takes a little while longer to wrestle out of the bush’s vines (Jun just watches her fall, Inigo reluctantly catches her). The party eventually manages to defeat the bush after sustaining a surprising amount of damage.  The party decides to trek a little further before taking a long rest, getting rid of Verrix and Rhododendron’s exhaustion.

The next morning, Donny scavenges a few birds from the nearby trees for ‘breakfast’, throwing one at Verrix when Rhododendron tells her to share. Verrix takes a bite out of the raw bird, (rolling a nat20 CON check) and keeps eating it to the collective horror of the party minus Donny, who offers him another bloody bird.  As they pass through more villages on their way back to the Crevice, Rhododendron and Jun notice that the people are still frenzied in their search for the aasimar, with Jun pointing out that it’s an unnatural frenzy, similar to the blood rage Umbra had inflicted on the party the day before - and that, if allowed to continue, people might die from the unnatural frenzy. Jun wonders if the angels are trying to kill all aasimar rather than anyone in specific. Verrix tries to get answers from the voice in his head but there is no response; Rhododendron asks Inigo if he’s heard any voices in his head since waking up, but he denies hearing anything. Rhododendron offers everyone in the party (except Verrix and Inigo) an out from the party if they want it, but no one takes her up on the offer. Donny wonders if killing the person/entities responsible for cursing people with their blood-frenzy will end the spell, but Jun says it isn’t guaranteed. Rhododendron decides to split the party up to search for answers, or a cure. 

Rhododendron: “Me, Inigo, and Verrix are gonna go - well, no. We all have the intelligence of a paper bag.” 

Verrix: “Has that stopped us before?” 

Rhododendron, Jun, and Inigo: “Yes.”

Verrix, Raz, and Donny are one group; Rhododendron, Jun, and Inigo are the other - Donny is horribly jealous. Before the groups split up, Jun Sees that the cause of the aasimar hunt is personal, but can’t identify the individual behind it. The groups enter the canyon, the first group taking the top level while the other one walking along the bottom path - Rhododendron, Inigo, and Jun can hear everything that the group above them says. Donny (unsurprisingly) makes a lot of noise in the canyon, causing a bright streak of radiant light to come down from the sky and hit her. An angel much like the one from earlier lands in front of Donny, engaging the party in combat. Rhododendron, hearing the angel land and threaten half of her party, climbs up to a higher level to join the fight (still below Verrix, Raz, and Donny), while Jun is tasked with babysitting Inigo on the lower level and keeping him out of the fight (although he still throws a few Firebolts up at the angels). After a few rounds of combat where the party (minus Verrix) has trouble hitting the angel, the party manages to finish it off, with Donny beheading the angel. The angel’s body turns into dust as Verrix pushes it off of a ledge, with Verrix remembering just enough about celestials to know that ‘real’ angel’s bodies don’t turn into dust when they die. 

Rhododendron: “Hey, do tieflings have wings?” 

Jun: “Some. Not me, I don’t even have a tail, ha.” 

Rhododendron: “I’m…sorry?” 

Jun: “Don’t be. It’s a personal choice.”

As the group travels further into the canyon, Jun and Rhododendron try to speculate about the angels’ purpose and what the cure might be, while Donny grills Verrix about Rhododendron - mistaking his responses to mean that they were involved while he was living with her.

Verrix: “So how do you and Rhododendron know each other?” 

Donny: “Oh, we’re like BFFS, and someday - RAZ, COVER YOUR EARS! - we’re gonna *vulgar hand gestures*” 

Verrix: “Uh, you guys are gonna walk a dog?” Donny, winking: “Yeah, we’re gonna walk a dog.”

Rhododendron yells up at Donny that she can hear everything she’s saying, and that she still won’t forgive Donny if she hurts Jun (or Verrix). Inigo starts to regain a little bit of his memory, and Jun offers to charm him into forgetting again ‘in case he turns on them’. The ground starts rumbling further down the canyon, and a giant crack appears in the canyon floor as a giant purple-centipede-thing crawls out of the hole. Donny falls from the overhead bridge she’s on all the way to the canyon floor, taking a large amount (27 points) of bludgeoning damage. During the fight the monster casts an illusory meadow over the battlefield, making it difficult for the party to tell the different height levels in the canyon and where the giant hole in the ground is. Rhododendron, Verrix, and Donny manage to land solid hits on the creature; Jun freezes a part of the battlefield, outlining part of the terrain through the illusion. During the fight the creature spits out what looks like another of the green angels at the party. 

When Inigo engages the angel in combat they get annoyed, calling him by his name to the surprise of Inigo and Rhododendron. They try to interrogate the strange angel, who says that she was ‘looking for her son’ and confirms that it is Inigo, who looks completely baffled. She also says that she’s going to kill him. After some more hesitation, Inigo finally starts to attack the angel.

Rhododendron: “Why are you attacking him?! He’s never done anything to you!” 

Angel: “He’s done plenty. Don’t get involved in this, he’s my responsibility.”

Donny gets swallowed by the worm during the fight. Rhododendron is horrified, but keeps fighting the angel; Verrix gets close to finishing off the monster. Inigo is distracted from the fight, clutching his head as a few memories start to fall back into place, his mother still trying to kill him.

Angel: “Listen, you were a mistake. I’m just trying to fix that. You’re not mad, are you?” 

Rhododendron: “YES, YES YOU ARE.” 

Inigo: “I…I…? OF COURSE I’M FUCKING MAD.”

Inigo rages (finally becoming competent in combat like he was meant to), although he’s still having trouble with his returning memories. Donny manages to get spit out of the worm, only for it to swallow Jun soon after. Inigo’s rage ends, and he sits out the rest of the battle, too confused and exhausted to continue fighting. As the creature’s health gets whittled down by Verrix and Donny, it spits up Jun - straight into Raz, damaging them both. Donny takes Jun’s dagger and uses it to finish the worm off, partially (and sloppily) decapitating it. Rhododendron finishes the angel off, shooting an arrow straight through her mouth and dissolving her in a shower of gold. Donny cuts off quite a few of the worm’s legs to keep as trophies, while Jun confirms that the worm and its illusions were the cause of the widespread frenzy due to it having swallowed an angel. Donny tries to eat one of the legs and pukes blood. 

Inigo: “We don’t know each other, do we?”

Rhododendron: “Does it matter that we don’t know each other?”

Inigo: “Ugh….”

Donny tries to shove legs into other people’s bags, and the party heads back to the trading post. They’re relieved to find that the people at the outpost aren’t in a frenzied rage anymore, with most people assuming that the aasimar that the angels were after is dead. When they return to the tavern, Donny tries to barter some of her worm legs for food/drink, nearly getting kicked out of the place in the process. 

Rhododendron: “So…dragon tomorrow?” 

Everyone: *groans* 

Donny: I wanna nap! I wish I knew what sleep was!”

Donny (followed after a little while by Raz) ditches the table the party gets to sit at the bar and continue to try to barter off her worm legs, while Jun and Inigo fall asleep at the table. Rhododendron asks Verrix if he wants to stick with her and the rest of the party for the foreseeable future, to which he responds that he ‘might as well’. Verrix hears the chime of bells and laughter in the back of his mind. Rhododendron rents two rooms for the party to rest in, then looks over her strange group of acquaintances + Verrix and sneaks out of the tavern, overwhelmed. Verrix catches her leaving but doesn’t say anything. After a few minutes spent brooding and staring at the mountain range, Rhododendron drags Verrix outside to talk. During the talk Rhododendron does that YA-novel/anime protagonist thing where she convinces herself that she’s responsible for bringing danger into the lives of the people around her, much to Verrix’s concern.

Rhododendron: “Are you sure you want to do this? You almost died today.”

Verrix: “You could die so many ways at this point.” 

Rhododendron: “Exactly, you almost died today. Like a lot. And you could be safer if you were not chasing dragons.” 

Verrix: “So could you, but is that gonna stop you?” 

Rhododendron: ”You were never really involved in this until I dragged you into it…” 

Verrix: “Wouldn’t be the first time.” 

Rhododendron: “Hey! Technically, you dragged me into the other stuff. The stuff with your -” 

Verrix: “Shut up!” 

Rhododendron: “You tried to rob me!”

Verrix: “Nuh-uh, the guy next to you. Your hand was in the way, flailing all over the place.”

Rhododendron asks Verrix if he wants to go with her, without the rest of the party, into the mountains to find the dragon. She also asks Verrix to tell Donny and Jun not to go after her if he stays. Verrix repeatedly tries to convince Rhododendron to stay with the group, to little success, even though Rhododendron admits that she would miss him, Donny, and Jun.

Rhododendron: “Jun is…weirdly feels like my other half, I guess? That’s way more romantic that I meant to put it. He gets what I’m saying even if I don’t make any sense. And Donny...”

Donny, Raz, and Jun are playing cards when Rhododendron heads back inside, Inigo still fake-sleeping at the table. Rhododendron kisses Donny on the cheek before she goes to bed.