#but whats even more stupid is how rife this fucking fandom is with the most bland ass milquetoast female characters

[newvegascowboy]

Trying to convince myself not to write a dumb fic because I know I could write it better than everybody else and failing

[olderthannetfic]

Fanlore: You Must Be This Academic To Ride This Ride

I’ve always loved the idea of Fanlore. I used to edit Wikipedia, and an active wiki with a healthy body of editors is so much fun to work on. But from the first, Fanlore was plagued by administration who clearly knew not one single thing about wikis. (Witness the title case policy that makes it harder to do internal wiki links. That would never happen on a normal wiki run by people familiar with wiki architecture. It has always been an instant red flag to wiki types, but it’s just the most obvious symbol of a problem that pervades Fanlore and its policies.)

Fanworks fandom seems to be pretty scared of wikis in general anyway, but this lack of clueful leadership didn’t help, and Fanlore failed to attract enough editors to have an actual healthy community. To this day, a tiny handful of people toil away, trying to at least sort out their few topics, but it’s demoralizing to do it all alone. It’s even more demoralizing if you care about Asian fandoms or any of the other areas Fanlore barely covers.

More recently, I have been horrified to find that Fanlore has descended into that same problem that plagues Wikipedia: people snapping at new editors. This is a common growth pattern of wikis in general, and you have to work hard to keep them from falling into this old guard vs. new editors thing. You have to nurture new members if you want to have any, and Fanlore’s culture has clearly headed in the other direction with pages becoming people’s personal fiefdoms.

Now, I hear there’s even more rank stupidity on the horizon. This whole policy discussion post and other conversations I’m not linking to are rife with “But if we just held Fanlore to academic standards” garbage and calling editors names.

Newsflash: Fanlore sucks because you guys are elitist pricks!

You will never get enough editors to actually work on all those pages with their work in progress ‘needs expansion’ notices because you have never once actually bothered to foster community.

What “plural point of view” actually looks like is letting members of the community decide what matters and whose embarrassing social media foibles of years past are worthy of documentation. I get that a few of your old friends got their panties in a bunch about how their ill-conceived LJ posts “are not history”, but that is not the nature of history. The readers decide. I don’t harass people about what they put on Fanlore that’s about me, and neither should you.

Fanlore is trying to be like Worldcon and its ilk: always whining about how The Youth never want to join up yet shitting on new people when they do turn up.

For anyone who has been in a real wiki community, we know that they’re made up principally of lurker types who fix a typo here and there and do a lot of the gruntwork. Then, there are the people who make a few top-level pages on big subjects they know. Each editor only has a few of those they’re really competent to do. And every once in a while, you get a rockstar who does a ton of research to fill out whole missing categories. Fanlore only has a couple of those, and I can see the desire to harass specifically them dripping off of every syllable of the disingenuous gripefests about Fanlore.

“One of Fanlore's intended purposes is to serve as an archive for future fans doing social science research about the past and present of fandom subculture(s).”

Don’t make me laugh. If that is what Fanlore is for, then what is being asked for here is for a bunch of non-academics to do an unconscionable amount of legwork while being yelled at for being fans instead of academics.

Fuck all of you.

I will help any academic who comes to me. But it’s not cute to see elitism and a desire for ass-covering masquerading as a fear of doxxing.

Yes, fix your real people image policy by consulting with your legal department.

But don’t think any actual wiki editor can’t see at a glance how much you hate and despise the entire concept of a community wiki. All of the tertiary whining about other content policies on Fanlore should never have come up in the first place, and it certainly should not be piggybacking off of the very specific and important issue of photos of real people.

OTW, this is pathetic.

Admit you hate Fanlore and delete it, or shape up and learn how wikis work. Put some actual wiki fans with experience in charge. Crack down on harassment of editors. Tell whiners going “I’m not history” to shut the fuck up.

We are all history, including when we fuck up or people dislike us.

Learn to deal.

[dramatispcrsonae]

I’ve seen posts going around the rpc with people giving tips about their cities as a resource to folks who write characters from those places. Here is my small contribution for Washington, DC. This is particularly relevant for people who write political characters or fic in fandoms such as The West Wing, Scandal, Bones, The Blacklist, House of Cards, etc. It’s too long and in no particular order but HERE GOES:

The Mall/Monuments. No one goes here unless your parents are visiting. End of story. There are some exceptions to this, of course: the occasional free concert or protest or an inauguration, etc. but generally it’s avoided. It’s rife with tourists, capitol police, and there’s not a lot to do if you’ve already seen it. TV shows so often have their characters hanging out together on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial or sitting on benches along the Mall…. No. Maybe your character will go jogging there but that’s about it.

Here’s a big one. If your character works in DC, odds are they don’t live in DC. They live somewhere in the DMV (District of Columbia/Maryland/Virgina). There are DC suburbs in VA and MD that are accessible on the metro that are often more affordable than living in the District. Montgomery and Prince George’s counties in MD and Arlington and Fairfax counties in VA are heavily populated by people who work in DC. If you live in the District, you’re probably a) a college student, b) a twenty-something living with about 3 other people, or c) extremely wealthy. As always, there are exceptions to this, particularly in regards to certain neighborhoods, but more on that later. Also, if your character lives in, say, Rosslyn and works in DC, they will tell people not from around here that they live in DC. It’s not technically true, but it’s kinda true...

DC is a reputation-conscious city. The first things you find out when you meet someone are where they went to school, where they work, and what they do. You sort develop a sense of what the Important Person Hierarchy is very quickly. It’s squicky but it’s real.

It’s a company town and that company is the government. It’s not a capital city like London or Paris or Berlin that grew organically and has a larger identity. It’s a tiny place that was designed specifically to be the capital (see “The Room Where it Happens” from Hamilton). Certainly not everyone works for the government, but most people’s lives are touched by it in some way. This could be anything from when a non-profit’s office closes (many follow the federal government’s schedule), to dealing with traffic from protests or motorcades. There’s so much more to the city, but it would be silly to pretend that’s not The Biggest Thing here. 

People are ferociously career-oriented, there is an absurdly high concentration of people with law degrees, and other graduate degrees. Most people are thinking about what their next thing is or how X or Y will look on their resume. Basically it’s a city of Type A over-achievers. And yes that can be as unbearable as it sounds.  

It’s a small c conservative city. People dress conservatively, behave conservatively. Especially if your character does anything related to the government. Do not have your OC show up to their first day as Chief of Staff to Congressman Whoever with pink hair or a nose ring. Not gonna happen. Like I knew an intern who was once sent home for wearing khakis to the office….

If you work in politics or the non-profit world, it’s genuinely surprising to meet someone who is a DC native. Most people are transplants from elsewhere in the country who came for school or a specific career-related reason. 

Sports teams! The Redskins are (well were) beloved but suck. The Nationals are the new kids on the block who everyone now pays attention to (for obvious reasons). Like, if your character is a Hill staffer they probably love going to Nats games. And then there are the Capitals. I think everyone likes the Caps???

Quadrants. The city is broken up into four quadrants with the Capitol Building as the center point. These are NW, SW, NE, SE. These are a part of every address in DC and they all have reputations. NW is the biggest quadrant and probably where your character will work/spend a lot of time. SW is the Waterfront area and has recently become more of a hotspot. It used to be very sketchy. SE is still a pretty iffy place -- i.e. people don’t walk home alone after dark, etc. I have a co-worker who lives there and once came home to find a bullet hole in her living room. It’s that kind of place. BUT it is a big residential area and a lot more affordable than other places in the District. Your character totally might live there. NE is recently becoming quite gentrified.

Related to this are the streets. Downtown DC has a numbered grid-system like NYC, but… then you have the avenues (all named after states) that cut across the grid diagonally. It’s confusing and stupid but at least semi-reliable. Outside of Downtown though? Lol good luck. 

DC is a diverse city. It’s nearly half African-American, and something like 60% of the population is under 35. That said, though there is diversity, it’s not evenly distributed. You will definitely see a difference based on neighborhood. Ex: If your character lives in Georgetown, they’re surrounded by rich white people. If they live in Anacostia, it’s likely the opposite. 

Public transit! Driving in DC sucks! Most people avoid it! There is the metro (the subway but don’t call it that) and then there are buses. Metro lines are coded by color and the final stop in whichever direction you’re going. Metro… sucks. It’s not as frustrating as other cities, but it’s over-priced, and constantly on fire/broken. Complaining about metro is basically hobby here.

Know your neighborhoods. Downtown (where you’ve got the federal buildings and monuments) is nothing like, say, Adams Morgan or Anacostia. You could easily think it’s a different city. That’s actually one of my favorite things about this place...

There are so many fucking police forces: Capitol police, DC Metro police, park police, secret service, uniformed secret service, uniformed FBI, and that’s not even half it. Basically it’s small area FILLED with cops. 

It is an EXPENSIVE city. Sure, every major metropolitan area is like this, but it’s worth noting that if your character is a 20 something Hill staffer, they will 100% have roommates (or live in a roach-filled matchbox of an apartment), and they will totally know every good cheap happy hour menu within walking distance. Food trucks are also a big thing here -- like they line up downtown and sell anything from pizza and burgers, to Greek and Ethiopian. Food trucks are a CULTURE. 

Hill staff culture. This could be its own post honestly Most people are crazy young (like a 28 year old chief of staff is not even a little bit unusual) and are there to get to their next thing. Often people on the hill end up in lobbying or consulting before too long. The money is garbage, the hours are garbage and the turnover is high. A Hill internship sounds fancy to people outside of DC, but you’re basically the lowest of the low and you should know that everyone hates you lol. There’s a hierarchy here too, of course: House isn’t as cool as Senate, committees are more prestigious than members offices, unless your member is famous and on TV a lot, etc, etc. On the other hand, there are also Hill staffers who are ‘Hill Rats.’ In other words, they stay forever and never move to the private sector. These people are weird, and of the decidedly Josh Lyman type personality...

People who work in federal agencies tend to stay much longer in their jobs -- the money is better, the hours are better, and the benefits are better. But these are much harder jobs to get and it takes much longer to rise the ranks. 

The colleges. Georgetown is the fanciest and most prestigious. Also the most expensive. It’s the one that has the most caché. After that would probably be George Washington University and to a lesser degree American University. There’s also Catholic University, Howard University (an HBCU with a great law school), and Gallaudet University which is a school for the deaf and hard of hearing. But if your character is here to be a politics person, they probably went to Georgetown or GW. 

Going out. The hotspot areas are Adams Morgan, U Street, H Street, and to a lesser extent Dupont. The Waterfront area is becoming more popular too. The Kennedy Center is where fancy touring companies and operas perform (i.e. your rich socialite might have season tickets there). But there are other theaters in town and lots and lots of concert venues. The most iconic rock venue is the 9:30 Club, but Black Cat and U Street Music Hall are pretty good too.

Anyway, this is already way too long and by no means everything, but it’s a place to start! Also,I really need to add that this is from the perspective of a comfortable straight white girl who works in a government-adjacent job. This is by no means representative of what it’s like for everyone in DC or the surrounding area, particularly lower income folks or people of color. It’s a city with very wide and noticeable divisions on those fronts and I don’t want to presume to know things that I don’t. So if others want to add to this post, please do!!!!

[musingmycelium]

da 20 questions

i was tagged by @goblin-deity thanks dear <3 and i’ll tag @lyrium-lovesong @raymurata @pegaeae @veridium-bye and @crystal-grace <3 no obligations of course <3

01) Favourite game of the series?

ooooghghghghghgh Origins is my Favorite, the Story........

02) How did you discover Dragon Age?

i recieved a copy of inquisition as a gift, became immediately immursed but i didn’t dig more into the series for a good half a year or so? at which point i discovered the other two games and went Oh Fuck

03) How many times you’ve played the games? 

oh, uHHHHHHH, Far Too Many. i’ve sunk over 1k hours into dai alone, origins and da2 probably have about 1k combined?

04) Favourite race to play as?

i’m always a slut for elves 

05) Favourite class?

me, a staff wielding bisexual: i’m Mage, all the way. though i don’t mind rogue if i mix things up [which is like, i think i have three or four rogue play throughs out of all of them?] i NEVER play warrior bc i’m a bottom i’m not about that life

06) Do you play through the games differently or do you make the same decisions each time?

i play in character! so i’ve got some Wildly different world states depending on which playthrough/oc i’m on

07) Go-to adventuring group?

for my Canon world states i’ve got origins gang: sten, zevran, morrigan. da2 gang: fenris/aveline, anders/merrill, varric. dai gang: dorian, bull, solas/sera  i sense a theme...... 

08) Which of your characters did you put the most thought into?

oh god, ellanis and noure are my most fleshed out origins kids, wren and galahad are less fleshed out, sorta, but i Love them, idrilla and da’ean are pretty fleshed out as well -though linayel and mithra are also fairly fleshed out i just never write about them 

09) Favourite romance?

ZEVRAN -god i love him so much hhhhhHHHHHHHH he’s got Everything, everytime i play ellanis and he goes ‘the grey wardens die here’ i’m Fucking Lost Already man. hhhhhoooohhghghghghghgh i’d go on but i’m running on cough syrup and midol so it would be even less coherent than ususal

10) Have you read any of the comics/books?

lmao i own all the books but i haven’t been able to finish them because My God are they poorly written. LIKE good Characters, good characters, shit prose.

11) If you read them, which was your favourite book?

the one i’m furthest along in rn is stolen throne so i’ll go with that one

12) Favourite DLCs?

jaws of hakon -holy shit as an archaeologist grad student i cannot tell you how much i Fucking Loved the lore dump in site form that was jaws of hakon JUST OH MY GOD it was AMAZING the first time you talk to professor what’shisface with the hot accent and he starts talking about chronologies via buckles i was fucking lost in nerd heaven

13) Things that annoy you.

homophobia and transphobia and racism. the games are Rife with bad correlations between real people and grey morality and poor handling of sensitive contents, though i don’t know if it was all done for ‘woke’ points or if some came from legitimate good intentions, most of my problems lie in those areas. fandom also hits a lot of my annoyances but that’s what block is for

14) Orlais or Ferelden?

antiva bitch

15) Templars or mages?

mages

16) If you have multiple characters, are they in different/parallel universes or in the same one?

same one! ellanis is my canon hof but noure is a part of his backstory and they meet during the blight [ellanis frees noure from a sentence of tranquility and conscripts them, uh, temporarily] noure leaves the group after like a week?ish and goes to nevarra. wren and galahad are twins, wren being the older one and the main rabble-rouser hawke. da’ean is the only quizzy but idrilla, linayel, mithra and a handful of other lavellan ocs all exist within the clan -idrilla and linayel and a few others come to skyhold after clan lavellan handles the unrest in wycome with da’ean’s help [my canon there is a bit wonky as of yet as i’m still working out the kinks]  

17) What did you name your pets? (mabari, summoned animals, mounts, etc)

this is the part i suck at, i think ellanis named the mabari something after the flower that saved him? but i don’t remember tbh, and that’s the only one i cna think of rn too lkjlkjlkjklj

18) Have you installed any mods?

oh yes. ohhh yes i have an extense amount of mods on all three games, mostly cosmetic ones but a few gameplay ones

19) Did your Warden want to become a Grey Warden?

ellanis didn’t no, he thought warden’s were a bit of reality mixed with myth. when duncan shows up he’s more skeptical and curious than anything else, and his joining is less than enthusiastic but he makes the most of it for a good five years, before he fucks off to do his own research in antiva in seclusion -he just leaves, with an encripted note for nate making him warden-commander of ferelden while he’s gone and tells him not to tell anyone where he’s gone. only nate and velanna know where he is in the wardens

20) Hawke’s personality?

wren is a purple hawke! she knows what she wants and she is not afraid to go after it, although she does care deeply and shows her affections loudly. she’s a fucking chaotic stupid mess and i love her.

galahad is blue throughout. a natural big brother, super loving and patient and caring. he’s always looking to help, though when things go wrong he tends to blame himself only, he’s more together than wren though. 

21) Did you make matching armor for your companions in Inquisition?

....yes.......  my inquisition is a fashion disaster, everyone has a palatte but i do complimentary colors for my parties and lis Of Course

22) If your character(s) could go back in time to change one thing, what would they change?

yes, ellanis would go back and kill the shems before they could crash the wedding -to prevent shianni from ever having to live through what she did. he would still have probably been conscripted by duncan soooo not too big a change for him but, for shianni it would be huge. 

ellanis has another but it’s tied up with noure’s: noure would go back and ambush the templars before being captured and then run for their life. without ever having lived in the circle i don’t, know exactly how noure would come out -probably happier, less jagged, less terrified and paranoid. but probably not by much if they had to live their life constantly looking over their shoulder. they may have ended up in nevarra this way too, but they wouldn’t have ever made it to kirkwall and they never would have met anders or karl, they may have never fallen out of love with ellanis via distance/assumed death, it would be far different than what happened.

wren and galahad both would go back and save bethany. doesn’t matter how, or what the cost to themselves would have been that’s their little sister and they would do anything to save her if they could.

da’ean’s is much the same. his biggest regret, the thing which haunts him the most is ashalle’s [not dao ashalle lmao] death. he was supposed to protect her and after what happens in that field and that month, da’ean blames himself for how his sister died. though he isn’t the one to blame, and later [far, far later] he is able to come to terms with what happened. though he never Truly shakes the guilt.

linayel would probably try to save his mother’s sight. he would tell her to stay with him by the fire, or would try and find a cure faster for her. the illness wasn’t his fault and he knows it wasn’t but given the chance he would save her sight if he could.  

23) Do you have any headcanons about your character(s) that go against canon?

lmao canon? never heard of her, a shitton of what i write is either me taking canon and making it Good/Useable or me shitting on it and saying this is My Castle Now

24) Who did you leave in the Fade?

this choiice always pissed me off, or it did after i knew who they were. when i first played i had no idea who hawke was or who the grey warden contact was [stroud for my first couple of play throughs] at all. so i would flip flop between them without care really. 

now, in my canon alistair stays behind while hawke physically drags da’ean out because he was going to stay and fight or find a different way out. i still think its shit and a naratively piss-poor meta punch though

25) Favourite mount?

i’m a dirty gatherer so i don’t actually use any mount. the only time i Have used a mount was the royal 16 for screenshot purposes, which i lost when my harddrive crashed a couple months ago D:

[sol1056]

Do u think the bad writing in VLD has been rife since the 1st episode? Or is this a new devt in S3? I've always thought the writing has always been oversimple since the start. I fucking hated that finger counting bit just about as things were getting serious and that was the pilot. And things always got resolved in like 1 episode. Like hello? They were able to bond and form Voltron in 1 episode? (1/2)

I dont get ppls expectations abt the show which for me has always been unsophisticated and juvenile albeit still entertaining. Maybe its just a case of BNFs headcanons being mistaken for canon by fandom bc of the long periods bw seasons. (2/2)

I feel like this is actually two questions, so I’m going to answer the shorter one (ahaha yes this is a short answer!) here, and get into the measure of writing quality in a separate post. 

When it comes to BNFs, I’ve gotten reasonably good at identifying their personal agendas masquerading as analysis. That said, yes, the long gap definitely gives time for head canons to percolate, and I’m not entirely convinced that this works for this kind of story. (Or alternately, that this crew of EPs/writers realize the extent to which one-season drops radically alter the viewing experience, and how storytelling methods need to adjust.) 

Truth is, I had zero expectations for VLD. I remember the original and let’s just say, I’ve moved on. On the other hand, my exposure to AtLA’s tonal shifts (from serious to ham-fisted comedic in nothing flat) meant I was used to gritting my teeth through tin-eared comedy-attempts like meat thermometers or finger-counting. 

And then there’s issue of unsophisticated or juvenile storytelling.  

I am probably not the only person here who’s been spoiled by Japanese storytelling, since most anime from a decent-enough production house will integrate levity and gravity pretty seamlessly. I think American productions’ humor isn’t an issue of skill, but symptomatic of deeper problems. 

The first, and biggest, is that American animation struggles to be seen (and by extension, seeing itself) as a valid form of storytelling. Animation is treated as a soap bubble (no lasting impact on the popular culture landscape) and cotton candy (inconsequential, mindless consumption). I can almost guarantee you that any writer or VA involved with VLD is probably asked semi-regularly, “when are you going to write/act/work on a real story?’ 

With that dismissal in mind, those radical tonal shifts (from serious to juvenile) can sometimes be a sign that creators are too-aware of this mindset, and too-afraid of being mocked for treating this like it’s a ‘real’ story. So humor is used as a wink at the audience: don’t worry, we’re not getting carried away and thinking we’re doing shakespeare, we totally get this isn’t worth taking seriously. 

[I hate that, by the way. Respect your goddamn story or find another job.] 

When humor is used organically, it works. Lance trying to create a cheer and Keith not getting the point is both awkward and kind of adorable, as a way to characterize how out-of-sync they are. But humor like meat thermometers signal not-taking-this-seriously, and you can tell, and that’s what makes it so jarring. 

And the reason you can tell is because the writers’ contortion is right there in the script. Hell, you can even see it in the way the VAs handle it, too. 

Allura: And it’s a good thing it wasn’t because it took you… Coran? Coran: Seventy-five degrees. Oh, sorry. No, this is a meat thermometer.Allura: However long it was, it was too long.

You could simply remove Coran’s entire line without changing the scene. It’s an aside, with no integration. And if you listen to the VA delivery, there’s a half-beat and the next line carries on as if Coran never said anything. There’s no reaction. It’s literally wasted breath, wasted animation.

To me, that’s a sign the writers were trying to juggle that tension between ‘this is for kids, it means nothing’ and ‘this is a crucial scene to establish stakes’. So they throw in silliness to satisfy the first, but integrating that humor would elevate it out of that wink-to-audience mode. Done right, comedy is as much serious business as drama, and both require seeing the story as more than insubstantial, forgettable cotton candy. 

The most important thing to remember is probably this: even if these writers believe in their story and want to do right by it, they’re still up against a powerful corporate structure that sees cartoons as nothing more than an elaborate way to sell merchandise. To that corporate overlord, a writer’s measure of success – people showing up at writer panels at cons, a vibrant community of fanfic and fanart and fanlore, fan questions on podcasts, basically so many people embracing the story, the characters, the world – means absolutely nothing to the corporate overlords if no one buys the merchandise. 

Let me reiterate that, in bold, so the bottom line is clear:

A stupid story with flat characters and cheap animation that sells a bajillion lunchboxes or gunpla or whatever will always be judged ‘more successful’ by the corporate overlords than any story that doesn’t move merchandise, no matter how well-told or beloved by the fans. 

To a good writer, the story is an end in itself. To the corporate overlords, the story is wrapping paper around the check they get every month: watched once, torn away to get the good stuff, and quickly forgotten. When you combine American popular perception of cartoons with corporate overlord agendas, it’s damn near a miracle we’ve gotten even scraps of any good from VLD, and that’s an entirely separate issue from whether the EPs/writers can create a good story in the first place.

(Meanwhile fandom collects every bit of the wrapping paper, saves it, cuts it up, tapes it back together in a completely new shape, and then gets into flamewars over whose reconstruction was the best.) 

One last note: I am, at the very least, pleased that the VLD casting director chose seasoned VAs with substantial chops. AtLA gave itself extra trouble by choosing VAs for their age rather than skill (oh god that was painful until they leveled up). VLD hasn’t made that mistake; even when the script stays serious, a bad VA can still ruin it with a wink at the audience and undermine a scene’s emotional heft. The VLD VAs have done a fairly good job of not dropping to that level, and in a few places I do think that’s what’s kept me watching even when other elements are substantially under-par. 

[wolfieonatypewriter]

Bayojeanne Week 2 - Argument

Fandom: Bayonetta

Ship: Bayonetta/Jeanne

Summary: Cat charms for good luck, she had once said but where was her good luck now?

A/N: *arrives late with starbucks* I am sorry but this got waaaayyy away from me!

The loud, methodical clack of the gun heels sounded like thunder in the empty grand amphitheatre of Ithavol tower.

“Oh Jeanne, I am always in awe of your obedience”

She stopped dead in front of him, staring with mindless passivity at the tall Lumen. A part of her wondered why she did so, wasn't that quite odd for her?

Balder chuckled and turned his back on her to inspect the oppressive model of the Trinity of Realities that dominated the room. A thought buzzed insistently in the back of her head that he should not be so arrogant as to turn his back on her.

But why?

She looked down at her beloved set of guns as he kept pacing about, heels clacking almost as loud as hers had a minute ago.

“My little pets tell me you're a terrible team player, Jeanne. Why is that? Could it be your Umbra side shining through, your kind has always been incapable of working together after all.”

He circled her, face still amiable and smile firmly in place despite the ill concealed venom of his words.

“Or is it a personal quirk, like your many many others? Your memories are rife with anger, anxiety and a dazzling spectacle of other less than savory things.”

Her eyes followed his motions around her and she glanced down at the dangling cat charms of her guns. Those were special, for reasons that she could not recall but the last time an angel had gotten into their heads to toy with the small charms, they were swiftly beheaded.

“I find it quite amusing how this works, that you're so wily while away from me but not even a peep here. Where is the ferocious hunter, the legendary Jeanne d'Arc that so valiantly defended her clan, hmm?”

Without hesitation or any fear, he yanked out one of her guns and chucked it in the air like a juggler's ball, just to catch it back again and repeat the motion.

“Tell me you can feel it too!” He kept tossing her gun as if it was worth no more than a cheap human trinket and the grating feeling intensified like a sea at the onset of a storm.“We are on the cusp of the Festival of Resurrection and I could not be happier!”

“Well…” Balder halted his careless tossing, catching the priceless weapon with expert dexterity and leveled it at her forehead. “ Except for one little detail, isn't that right?”

The cool metal touched her forehead with the barest of pressure. She took no heed of his posturing and threats (were they really that empty?), instead focusing on the still swinging charm hanging from the hold.

Balder regarded her with insufferable haughtiness over the barrel of her beloved weapon still resting in the square center of her forehead.

“No matter,” the shot would open a gaping hole in her forehead that would land her in eternal damnation faster than she could blink but the imminent danger of it all failed to register. “My dear, sweet child will show up when we need her I’m sure. And when that happens, I want you to welcome my darling Cereza back.”

Cereza

The plume of the kitty hat was barely in her line of sight but it's blue and bright colours seemed to attract her full attention. The charms the charms the charms

Cereza?

She blinked hard as the gun finally drew away, the droning of the sage a subtle backdrop to the building inferno in her head.

Cereza

“Oh?” Something was happening around her, with the sage, with the room but she missed it completely. What had he said? What did that mean. “Did I say the magic words, Ali Baba? Iftaḥ yā simsim?”

Cereza!

“Hello, Jeanne!” Cereza said, while skipping closer to her friend. The halls were blissfully deserted at that time and no one seemed to be inclined to give them any grief on their way to the more secluded sections of the Grand Library. “Aww, you kept the kitty charm I gave you!”

“Good morning, Cereza. Of course I did, you gave it to me” She replied, giving her companion a small smile and touching the little figure at her belt. It hadn’t been the easiest day with her mother, the all powerful, mighty and revered Elder, breathing down her neck to master advanced forms of defensive magic well before her other peers but she always managed to make her day brighter.

She wanted nothing more than to be around her friend  (...*friend*) and maybe get to teach her some new, nice things about the Umbra and magic. The joy in Cereza’s eyes when she had access to books and learning made the brightest of full moons seem paltry in comparison.

Jeanne had taken all of those things for granted for many years, had taken her position and luxuries as absolute but in truth, they could very well evaporate without warning and then she’d be just as on the bottom rung as the outcasts and their more ill fitting members.

Being a princess was a privilege and one that, the more she spent around Cereza, the more she felt she had not earned. Had she been given the same opportunities, Jeanne had the humility of knowing Cereza would far outstrip the coddled, nurtured, honed princess.

All in all, she was best realizing her fortune and making sure her head always managed to fit indoors.

“What did you manage to sneak in?” She was basically hopping on the tips of her toes, dancing around her like a fleeting butterfly that could not decide which colourful flower she was going to visit next.

“I think you’ll like this one” Jeanne said, grabbing a chair from their usual desk deep in the recesses of the library. Theirs was the only section that looked to be regularly used and around them the dusty furniture and books encased in thick layers of spider silk and gross dirt multiplied as far as the eye could see.

“It’s actually a really good compendium on edible fungi of the Iberian Peninsula and I th-”

“Why does it say ‘Common law proceedings’ then?”  She interrupted, pointing at the smooth leather tome and Jeanne stared down at her book.

Fuck.

It was the wrong book and now they had a stupid, boring law book instead of the interesting natural philosophy book she had found in the more popular sections of the library. Worst of all, their section was unused, to the best of their knowledge, but it was most likely because the only thing it housed were real estate records and medical reports of their many births.

Jeanne frowned harshly at the offending volume and Cereza giggle, which earned her a heated look her way. Realizing her friend had goofed, she plucked the book from her hands and set it down on the polished table with a grand gesture as if it was the most interesting of manuscripts.

“It's ok! I don't know what's this book about but it sounds interesting.” At her serious nod, Jeanne chortled and sat down as Cereza waved her over enthusiastically.

“It's a book about laws, all the stupid things you can and can't do and their corresponding punishment.” She said with a dismissive hand. Sheba, was it the most boring book she had the misfortune of being forced to study.

Cereza cracked it open and settled her hand against the page to aid her reading. “It says here you can't wear hmm red or purple gems to weddings?” She turned to her and Jeanne shrugged. She wasn't the best law student and Matriarch Zia’s relentless monotone did not make her want to be any better.

Not to be be daunted by the bone dry page, she kept leafing the book in search of something interesting to read.

Jeanne leaned back on her chair and half looked at where her friend was landing. After some moments of quiet contemplation and low humming, Cereza lifted her head from the pages and pursed her lips.

“What's the worse punishment an Umbra can suffer?”

Jeanne, who up until that moment had been unconsciously studying how lovely Cereza's long hair was, was caught by complete surprise but the intense look on her face told her it was a really serious question.

“Well…” She started, scratching at her short platinum hair. “I guess you could say death is the worst cause well, you die.”

Cereza nodded, that indeed made sense. “But mother says that the worst thing that can happen to an Umbra is for her to lose her freedom and that's why…”

She trailed off, realizing belatedly that her mother had been making a point about Rosa more than about crime and punishment. To her credit, Cereza took it in stride and nodded again, as she often did in thanks for an explanation.

“I can see that, to be fair. Imagine spending all day, every day without being in control of your fate.”

And at that, Jeanne nodded right back.

The roaring in her head hit an explosive point and as the unseen but ever present shackles seared deep in her bones, her fists moved on their own accord.

Balder had been too close and too cocky to realize a thunderous punch was about to hit him and for the first time in a long while, Jeanne felt pure, unbridled satisfaction at the loud crunch her fist made on his face.

He skid across the floor, taking half the tiles with him. Balder hadn't yet stopped careening and Jeanne was upon him with all 900 lbs of feline fury.

Her claws tore through easily hurt human flesh but her teeth clamped into hard muscle and fur. Balder quickly shook her off and went on a brutal offensive.

Once upon a time, Jeanne had prided herself on having honed her natural disposition for anger into a sharp, well calculated blade. But now, only the raw primal roar of her deep seated ire flowed from her and she was bent on burning the world with it.

If she had to turn herself into ashes, so be it.

Even Balder, a man whose temper was as stable as the rocks on the mountain, was meeting her brute force with just as much finesse.

He bit into her lower back and hurled her into the hard stone, leaving a large crater in her awake.

Despite her wounds, she tried to get from under the rubble as fast as she could and she managed to rise to her knees.

Jeanne could feel the shackles suffocating, searing, choking her. She should be reacting, grabbing her guns, charging him…

Something!

Blood dropped from her shoulder onto shattered rock and tile and she mustered the will to attempt motion once again.

The glimmering spear sliced through the air with a near soundless displacement and impaled her clean through the back, pinning her to the ground.

Her panic rose sharply for a moment and she pawed at the spear with feeble hands. Why resist? No matter how hard she looked, she could find no satisfactory answer and her fight or flight instinct tamed back into a complacent passivity.

“Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne… so that's where you hide your terrible temper.” The pain was nearly unbearable and breathing was a chore nearly too insurmountable as fat droplets of blood ran down the blade buried into the ground. His heels sounded vaguely near her head but the world was dangerously muted.

“I should have expected no less from the pride of the Umbra.”

He was finally back in her field of vision, his gaudy boots not two feet from her face and she wondered in a breezy passing if he was going to stoop so low as to kick her when she was this helpless.

“But if you think you're so clever that I don't know full well that you have the location of your precious Umbran treasure squirreled away in that dysfunctional little head of yours.”

All of her muscles tensed like rocks and the shimmer from the glowing ropes on her skin nearly blinded her as she was forced to stare right into the stern oh so very familiar blue eyes of the last Lumen.

“I was surprised to encounter such pure devotion for her! I didn’t think you could produce emotions so positive, Jeanne.” He enthused, smiling around the deep gashes on his face but that did nothing to hide the steel in his eyes. “But that is exactly what betrays you. I need you alive and coherent more than I need the precise location of my darling Cereza or else I’d invade the little dark space that you hold so dear in your memories and extract it.”

His arm shot out and he grabbed the spear unceremoniously, making pain radiate all over her body. “With or without you still there at the end, do you understand?”

The extraction was slow and deliberate, the metal sliding through her ribs and organs with excruciating agony. If he wanted a reply from her, he didn’t show it as he glided out the room in a wave of light and brilliant feathers, leaving her behind to crawl somewhere she could heal before heaven's ugly helpers flocked the room.

What he wasn’t counting on was that in the little dark space, lived the only memory that offered a handhold of sanity in the luminous flood of his influence.

The golden seal glowed bright in front of her iris for a second before fading into the darkness of the room but there was still life to be found on the grey eyes behind it.