#context is that since getting out of the military like four years ago i’ve wanted to start an etsy shop for my polymer clay crafts

[darthsuki]

Me: midnight is not a good time to ponder about starting an etsy shop

Also me: but let me look at some cute stationary at Michaels

[butwhatifidothis]

3H and Bleach: Where the Fuck am I

So, I’m finally hunkering down and trying to write out this post lmao. I’ve mentioned here and there how my personal experience with the 3H’s fandom is similar to my experience with the Bleach fandom’s in more than one way, and - look. Like, I get there’s definitely a semi-universal thing that goes on across all fandoms. I don’t mean for this to say that this only happens within these two fandoms, because duh, of course they don’t. But!! This post is partly me wanting to air years long annoyance towards the Bleach fandom that just so happens to coincide with my feelings towards the 3H fandom, sooo... yeah lmao

I’ll probably be skimming over some bits about 3H, since most people who come across this will already be familiar with what I’d be talking about in that regard vs Bleach, so just a heads up

Note: This is gonna talk about Bleach which will spoiler territory (writing this off the cuff so not sure where this is goin’ yet lmao but I know that much), so if you don’t wanna see that then don’t read this post lol, I know for sure I’ll be spoiling something ahhhh... noticeable, lol

Ableism against the mentally ill

Now, most people reading this post will be familiar with the blog and how this very, very much applies to 3H, but for the sake of this post I’ll lay it out anyway with a brief summary

Dimitri and Rhea are both characters within 3H that suffer from severe trauma that heavily impacts their mental state. Both are the sole survivors of a horrific slaughter, with that slaughter redefining who they are and leaving a permanent marker within their minds in some way (Dimitri with having auditory and visual hallucinations, Rhea with having obsessive tendencies towards bringing her mother back from the dead). Specifically in CF, both characters are set up in the plot as antagonists, with both characters having to relive their trauma in some way due to the actions Byleth and Edelgard take against them (for Dimitri, having his home be razed to the ground and everyone he cares for dying around him, for Rhea having someone use her mother’s mutilated remains be used to end her and her race) and express extreme anger towards Byleth and Edelgard before they are killed to progress/end the story

Now, uh, sad shit right? Not exactly fuckin’ happy sunshine rainbows. These two characters are put through the wringer and are then murdered. They are rightfully not the fuckin’ happiest because of what happened to them before and what happens to them within the present story. But we’ve heard it all before: “They were crazy!” “They couldn’t be reasoned with!” “They had to be put down out of mercy because they were too ~far gone~ to live happily!” “They needed to be killed for the good of everyone!” It’s an extremely ableist rhetoric that gets passed around the fandom as though it’s totally fine to directly state that mentally ill people should be put down if they’re deemed a “lost cause.” Especially worrying because. You know. If they are a “”””lost cause”””” then it’s directly and specifically because of actions Byleth and Edelgard take against them. 

But how does this remind me of Bleach? What kind of similar extreme, worrying ableism exists there? Well, let me introduce to best girl a certain character with... a reputation, to say the least:

Meet Momo Hinamori.

Holy shit it’s so weird writing this out because I’ve been wanting to for years but have never worked up the nerve to do it lol

It should be noted, in the Bleach verse there’s two worlds out of three - Soul Society and Hueco Mundo, though I’ll only be talking of the former - that deal with “souls” (the essence within a living human). Souls age far more slowly than human bodies do in terms of body, not necessarily the mind (so a teenage soul will likely behave as such for a long while) so keep in mind that I’m going to be using numbers that may seem weird to someone who hasn’t seen Bleach lol.  With that out of the way, here’s a similar, if longer for context to those who haven’t seen Bleach, summary for Momo’s character as it relevant to this post:

Momo is a character in Bleach that grows a deep admiration towards Sosuke Aizen, a respected captain of the military force called the Gotei 13. She comes to views him as the most important person in her world due to him both noticing and paying direct attention to her as well as saving her and her friends’ lives during a training mission gone wrong while she was younger. Note that “younger” here means 40 years ago from the start of the story. Aizen would praise her all the time, allow her to sleep over in his quarters, would drape his cloaks over her when she looked cold, and would overall treat Momo as though he was his daughter for most of the time we see them interact in the beginning portions of the show. Note that none of this is sexual in nature, nor is it ever implied to be seen as such. That’ll be important later in this post

To make a long story short, Aizen comes to betray her. He stabs her through the chest and shows and tells her that she never meant anything to him, throughout the 40 years they’ve known each other (which, mind, for a soul Momo’s approximate age 40 years is still a noticeable amount of time), and he was only using her to help bolster his image as a loveable captain so that he can hide his plan from everybody that much easier. He did horrible things to Momo - from setting her alarm clock back to a later time so that she would more likely come across his pinned, bloody fake corpse. to framing her childhood friend for the apparent murder and tricking her into fighting that friend, to far later in the series tricking that friend into stabbing her (hypnosis shit, to sum that up) for literally no stated reason - that ended up mentally breaking her. She couldn’t believe that the last four decades were all nothing but lies and she fell into a deep denial about Aizen’s true nature - someone else made him do everything he did, she must have missed something that would have warned her about Captain Aizen’s unfortunate situation that forced Captain Aizen to hurt her and everyone else. This denial would take the majority of Bleach’s entire runtime for her to get over completely, with her having hiccups in her recovery even as she works up the nerve to fight him.

Now, uh, also not the fuckin’ funnest of times to be had here. The deep, long-running mental and psychological manipulation of what approximates as a teenage girl from a trusted older figure is something that is very clearly horrific and bad of the older figure, right? Like, we’re on the same page here on that?

This wouldn’t be in this post if that was the case. No, Momo was the one constantly on fire for what happened to her. She was one of the most hated characters in the western audience, and there were endless jokes about “lol look at Momo, the pincushion!” “Crazy bitch Momo, better watch out!” making fun of her and her trauma relentlessly. If you managed to find a Momo fan in the early 2000′s you should have also bought a lotto ticket because holy fuck, everyone hated her. She acted in a startlingly real if deeply uncomfortable way in regards to years long manipulation and she was lambasted for it. She didn’t immediately get over decades long psychological abuse and she was called useless, weak, a horrible representation of female characters, stupid - you name it, she was likely called it. To this day I still tense up when I hear that someone likes Bleach and they mention Momo at all because I’m always thinking “does this person think this abuse victim is dumb for being abused?”

Dimitri, Rhea, and Momo are all victim-blamed to a disgusting degree in the 3H and Bleach fandoms. Dimitri and Rhea are always hit with “well if Dimitri hadn’t have fought back against Edelgard/Rhea caused the “”tyranical systems” in the first place, nothing would have happened to them!” and Momo was constantly hit with” well, it’s not Aizen’s fault Momo was so clingy to him, what could he have done!” and I get so fuckin’ mad dude.

But for Dimitri and Momo specifically, there’s one thing in particular that caught my attention:

The “Rejection Theories”

This had my head spinnin’ a bit when I first heard it, cuz I had managed to avoid the theory for a while in the 3H’s fandom, but apparently a sizeable amount of people seem to believe that Dimitri wasn’t just mad at Edelgard in the Holy Tomb because of... you know *waves hand* fuckin’ everything, but that the primary reason for his anger was that Edelgard... rejected his advances to her? And that the dagger he gave to her when they were 13 was a phallic symbol of baby Mitri’s want to have sex with Edelgard? And. Like. What in the fuck are you talking about. 

But like?? Bleach did this shit too with Momo?? It was also a sizeable amount of people - not everyone, but a noticeable amount - that believed that Momo was just mad that Aizen wouldn’t sleep with her? You’d see it pop up in fics so often, that Momo would want Aizen to fuck her and she’d “go crazy” when he denied her and Momo was actually just this shallow bitch who wanted a good fuck like... what.

Like, when I first heard the Phallic Dagger take the first thing that came to mind is “wait Momo was also accused of just wanting to have sex with the person who traumatized her wtf” 

“Actually it was the perpetrators that should be forgiven because lonely and also some shit about ruling better”

Those in the 3H fandom know how often the “Edelgard was lonely!” line gets thrown by just about every one of her stans. Edelgard was lonely and couldn’t trust anyone, so of course she did what she did! If she had someone near her she could trust she wouldn’t have acted like she does in the rest of the game! Nevermind that she “gets” this in CF in the form of Byleth and still acts just as shittily as she does in the other routes, or how being a little lonely doesn’t fuckin’ mean you get to start war. But anyway, we also hear that Edelgard was justified in doing what she did because her ruling Fodlan would have lead to more peace in the end, once she got rid of the power structures in place now (except that doesn’t happen but whatev I guess lmao)

Aizen? He was lonely too! He was far too strong for anyone to truly be able to understand him, and so he tragically fell down a dark path. If he had known someone who could be considered an equal to him he would have never done all the horrible things he did. And the Soul Society is unjust! It needs to be reformed! So him slaughtering hundreds of thousands of souls at the minimum to harvest all of their power to use as his own is justified because it’ll be used to create a more just society under his rule!

Like. Y’all. Lowkey? I’m so fuckin’ glad Edelgard proved herself to be just as fuckin’ awful with Byleth as without because this shit drove me up the fuckin’ wall back in the day. There was 0 ways to prove that Aizen would damn sure be just as fuckin’ bad if he had an “”equal”” to stand by him than if he didn’t, and I get to kinda be right because without fundamentally changing these characters’ backstories they would not give two flying shits about whether or not they had someone “equal to them” (which is still kinda degrading to think about anyway).

Now, this is where I move away to a different topic lol

A split in the narrative cause divides in the fandom

With 3H houses this is really fuckin’ easy to point at: there’s 4 routes, three consistent stories and one radically different story, and that difference in story causes heavy contention within the fandom. It’s very obvious so I won’t go over it much.

But how in the fuck is there a divide in Bleach? It’s not a fuckin’ Choose Your Own Adventure manga, it’s an anime and manga showing off the characters of Bleach’s stories and interactions (with, you know, plot and shit thrown in).

Well. It’s more accurate to say the anime told a story about the characters, and the manga told... the story about the characters.

In terms of plot, the anime didn’t change much from the manga, but hoo fuckin’ boy, did they change shit about some of the characters. Specifically, they changed a shit ton about three characters: the two main protagonists, Ichigo and Rukia, and another main character, Orihime.

Orihime. Got. Fucked.

The anime would make her far more ditzy and clumsy, her crush (turned growing love later on in the story) for Ichigo during more deeper moments that showcases her feelings for him were downplayed if not removed entirely in exchange for talking or thinking about food, key moments she has with Ichigo early in the manga were cut or deadass changed to something else in the anime, some key moments with her relationship with Rukia were cut, her backstory was watered down - so much of Orihime was fucked with in the anime (her fuckin’ introduction was changed drastically). Meanwhile Ichigo and Rukia were given moments that didn’t exist in the manga, they have filler arcs (remember those lmao) that would be stuffed with shit ton of moments for them that have no basis in the manga, other characters would change their behavior from the manga to reflect a sort of “thing” going on between Ichigo and Rukia.

Look, guys, the anime fucked up so bad the fucking mangaka, Tite Kubo, has said he gets stomach aches watching the early anime because it was that awful. And this divide between the anime and manga’s portrayal of these three character helped spawn the ship war of Bleach: Ichiruki vs Ichihime (oh but more on that in a bit). It tanked Orihime’s popularity because people thought she was the stupid dumbass that would stumble ass first into situations when that wasn’t her character at all. And because the majority of anime watchers only watch the anime... yeah, you can see where this went. So just like in 3H in Bleach you have these radically different tellings of the same characters that drove a big-ass wedge in the fandom

Marketing

Imma be transparent, like I’ve said before I managed to avoid nearly every marketing tactic for 3H so it’s a tad hard for me to speak personally, but from what I’ve been told Edelgard was heavily marketed towards the player base pre-release. She was the poster child of 3H, she got the figma, she was in the spotlight - unless you cleansed your board of 3H content you knew exactly who she was. On top of that, it doesn’t stop in-game - loading screen messages would assume you picked BE, Adrestia is the first option to pick when you want to impress one of the lords in the prologue, the BE class is the first option to pick in choosing which route to play, every character has some moment in the game post ts where they express sympathy with the woman who waged war on them for five years (even characters with no business doing so, like Seteth entertaining the idea that maybe Edelgard isn’t that bad during Myrddin). With all of that good PR for Edelgard in and out of the game it heavily impacted how people saw her, and much of it is used by stans to justify her being a good guy (mostly in the game marketing) despite everything else in the game clearly showing that Edelgard is the bad guy

With Bleach in that regard... you have Ichiruki

holy shit it’s so weird talking about Ichiruki i’m still lowkey nervous about talking about them lmao

With Ichiruki stans, they would cling onto outside material that promoted Ichigo and Rukia together as proof that their ship was going to be canon. Spreadsheets, calendars, poems (some of which didn’t even apply to Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship but they insisted they did anyway), novels - outside material that either wasn’t canon or didn’t pertain to Ichigo and Rukia’s relationship. They would shove it in the face of Ichihime shippers that “see, we have all this stuff for us! We ain’t starving tonight!” when the canon (note: in the manga particularly) would clearly show Ichigo and Orihime’s relationship being the one that leans romantic in multiple significant ways. They would latch onto irrelevant shit that ain’t had nothin’ to do with anything and wave around as a paragon of romance when it literally wasn’t even canon

Just fuckin’ ignoring the creators deadass

Creators and developers of 3H: Edelgard is the typical Red Emperor the only difference is Girl

Stans: that’s just a headcanon

Kubo: Ichigo and Rukia have a platonic relationship and I’ve publicly said this since 2008

Stans, now, to this day: Ichigo and Rukia were robbed

Making people reject what they’re stanning for

I’ve seen a few people express that the more they interact with the fandom and see what her stans are doing, the more they grow to dislike Edelgard despite (some) initially liking or even loving her. To put it simply, the same thing happened with Ichiruki - hell, this happened with me with Ichiruki. I can’t fuckin’ stand the ship anymore because every time I think about it I’m reminded of the absolutely rancid, disgusting things Ichiruki stans have to done to others in the fandom, and even after nearly five years after Bleach has ended I still tense up when someone says they like Ichiruki over Ichihime precisely because of the behavior of the stans, just like I side-eye people who say Edelgard is the best lord. Do they like them because they simply prefer them over the other(s) and they’re not totally fuckin’ bonkers, or are they totally fuckin’ bonkers. 

And, like, that’s not fair! I know that! But I can’t help but think that when such a loud amount of people act in such deplorable ways just because someone didn’t like a bunch of lines on paper/pixels on a screen.

To all the nice Ichiruki and Edelgard fans, hope y’all are havin’ a nice day.

Long, crazy ass explanations as to why X =/= X (and if anything actually means Y)

Teacher theory for 3H. How Edelgard totally didn’t hire Kostas to kill Dimitri and Claude and was only thwarted because Claude booked it, but how she definitely actually meant to simply scare away the teacher that was with them so that Jeritza could be pulled from his already existing position in Garreg Mach to teach one class so that Edelgard can kinda keep a sorta closer eye on exactly one of the other classes (and just do shit all about the other one I guess), because Jertiza’d be able to gleam so much from teaching a class for a few hours a day I promise 

But for Bleach, you also have one particularly infamous theory positing shit that don’t real, with enough renown to be known by a specific name, and that’s the Lust Arc = Fail essay

To explain what the essay is about, I have to set the scene up a bit. Imagine, you, with your tiny little monkey brain, are watching Bleach, and you get to the part where Main Boyo is fighting against Villain to save Girly. Other Guy is there too - this is important. Main Boyo tries his hardest to fight Villain, but is ultimately shot through the fucking chest with a laser from Villain and dies. Like, for bit actually dies. Girly breaks down, has a straight up mental breakdown because she always “knew” that Main Boyo could do anything, and now he’s been killed and is dead in front of her. She screams out Main Boyo’s name, hysterically begging him to save her and protect her because holy shit the love of her life has been brutally murdered in front of her what the fuck. But Main Boyo, from literally beyond the line of death, hears her pleas and snaps back to life as a monster, with the sentence “I MUST PROTECT” repeatedly running through his head and being the only sentence he ever says while in this form, with him fucking destroying Villain and even going so far as to directly hurt Other Guy when Other Guy tries to stop Main Boyo from utterly stomping on Villain. Girly is the only person Main Boyo does not directly hurt, and when Villain is damn sure gonna fuckin’ kick the bucket that is when Main Boyo reverts back human. Everyone is more than a little shocked at what happened, but it’s clear from how relieved Girly is when Main Boyo comes back safe and sound that while this event fundamentally will change their relationship (and it does), it is still one that is extremely strong and they won’t let it get between them (and they don’t).

Now, when looking at the summary, you, with your absolutely miniscule peanut of a brain, might come away thinking, “Hm, Main Boyo might kinda care for Girly given that he literally rose from the dead to protect her and only her and went back to normal once she was safe” and you poor fool would be oh so wrong, because actually, this is all proof that Mian Boyo doesn’t care for Girly and that Villain actually cared more for Girly than Main Boyo ever could.

Without diving too deeply into the absolute lunacy of the Lust Arc = Fail essay, that was its main premise. That Ichigo, after rising from the literal dead directly after Orihime begged and pleaded that he protect and save her and then going on to protect and save specifically her (as Uryu - Other Guy - is also a friend of Ichigo’s and got his fucking arm cut off by Monster!Ichigo), is proof against Ichihime being romantic in any way and was not, in fact, a fuckin’ giant neon flashing sign that read THESE TWO ARE GONNA GET TOGETHER. It was the dumbest shit ever, but Ichiruki stans, much like Edelstans with Teacher Theory, clung to it like white on rice. It didn’t matter how much it was utterly debunked, it didn’t matter how the base premise was stupid as fuck, they point to it as the pinnacle of meta for their respective fandoms in their respective spaces.

And all of this leads me to um... the one I’m kinda the most worried about?

Stan Behavior

Edelstans are their own unique brand of awful in that that the shit they spew is particularly... worrying (”genocide isn’t bad if they aren’t human and also they kinda deserved it” “imperialism isn’t that bad really” the mentally ill should be put down if they’re deemed ~too far gone~” among other... wonderful takes...), and their behavior is also quite shitty, harassing content creators that go against the Approved Opinions (Ghast) or forcing people to take down fanart and in general infecting nearly every Rhea space with all kinds of disparaging comments no one asked for. They actively make the fandom a worse space, and when they flare up it’s almost always noticeable (again, Ghast)

Bleach?

Oh boy.

Guys. If you weren’t there for the Canonization of Ichihime (2016). You dodged a fucking bullet.

The outrage was out-fuckin’-rageous. Their behavior was some of the worst reactions anyone has ever seen come from the canonization of a ship in a shounen. This includes, but is not limited to:

Someone tearing apart all 70+ volumes of Bleach and burning it in their bathroom

In fact, multiple people tearing up Bleach and burning it, while keeping the Ichiruki moments and taping it to their walls

A Rukia cosplayer, in Rukia cosplay, printing out the final color spread of the end-game couples and their friends lounging about - with colored ink and all - and burning it, while filming herself doing so

Ichiruki porn being sent to Tite Kubo

Tite Kubo being accused of grooming a 15 Orihime cosplayer with no proof

Tite Kubo being accused of lying about his various health issues

Ichigo and Rukia being drawn cheating on their spouses with each other - and some of that also being sent to Tite Kubo

Tite Kubo being chased off Twitter by Ichiruki stans... again

Ichihime shippers getting sent death threats

Ichihime shippers getting called delusional for thinking their ship had a chance before the endgame couples were revealed, and then being called delusional for thinking their ship had any real basis and wasn’t pulled “out of nowhere”

Tite Kubo being accused of hating women because of Orihime being shown in an apron in the last chapter and Ichiruki stans jumping to the conclusion she became a housewife, and then Tite Kubo being accused of hating women because when it was revealed that Orihime has a job in a bakery to pay for college later they insisted what Kubo should have done was have Uryu, who’s a doctor at that point, pay for Orihime’s college instead of having Orihime pay for it with her own money 

And mind you, this is only the stuff I’ve personally seen and experienced

I am hoping and praying that Edelstans never get as bad as Ichiruki stans did in 2016, but with how otherwise similar they are my hopes are dwindling more and more. I guess I can take solace in the fact that they aren’t quite... that bad yet? In terms of actions, at least? Their sentiments though are infinitely worse, so like... cool

[tcookies777]

Here is a sneak peek at a side story I've written for The Anatomy of Love (a KakaSaku modern college au - AO3 hyperlink included)! You don't need to have read the fic to read this side story since this is a flashback to Kakashi's past when he was a teen, but it does help to understand since it's in the context of the fic itself!

The Anatomy of Love: Side Story - The Angel from Hell

About 14 years ago….

Summer in Sound country was utter shit.

Fire country had its droughts for sure during this season, and more often than not the trees would catch fire just from the mere glare of the sun on a dried leaf. But at least the trees also offered plenty of protection from the heat so long as the Firewatch was making sure those trees weren’t burning first.

Sound country, on the other hand, had nothing but empty golden plains that seemed to stretch on for eternity. If it didn’t look like a sort of heaven, Kakashi would’ve thought he was in hell what with the sun burning through his clothes and the scorched patches of earth peppered throughout the fields—a telltale sign of the bombs that had rained down on the area not too long ago.

A summer thunderstorm last week had given them a brief reprieve from the intense heat wave, but it had still left them uncomfortably soaked in their own clothes. A week later, the sun was back with a fiery vengeance, and they were back to soaking through their tactical gear in their own stink and sweat again, but this time with the muck of the marshlands clinging to their boots.

It had taken almost the whole day to sludge through the marshes and find shelter at a farmhouse that seemed to have been completely abandoned days ago. They’d cleared the house and finished in disappointment upon finding that all of the livestock were either gone or already getting feasted on by the maggots. Most of the food in the pantry had also long been raided save for a single jar of strawberry jam and a cracked egg left to spoil on a shelf. It wasn’t that everyone was starving—although they were certainly hungry after a day out trudging through a war zone—but a jar of sweet strawberry jelly was practically bliss compared to their MRE rations. Even Kakashi himself was getting wearier and wearier over every pound of rice he had to eat with the bland curry packed in his ration meal.

So the moment Anzu had spotted the bright red jar, there had immediately been a scuffle over who got to eat it. Being the fifth in command (and with the first four already dead), Kakashi had asserted the order that each person would get their fair share of strawberry jelly: one scoop and only after they’d finished their MREs for tonight. Everyone except Obito had glanced warily at each other, reluctant to follow the command of a 17-year-old boy despite him outranking them all. But, not wanting to throw a tantrum over strawberry fucking jelly of all things, they’d each grunted in answer.

And now that last bit of the jelly was getting scraped out of its jar by Obito after Kakashi had passed his share over to him. Sweets weren’t his thing anyway even if he would kill for something homemade rather than a meal full of preservatives.

The leftover spicy powder clung to the base of Kakashi’s back teeth no matter how many times he swigged down some water from his canteen. It was like chewing on sediment, and judging by the faces of everyone else, he was willing to bet none of them were intent on eating curry anytime soon after the end of this tour. He didn’t blame them.

“Piece of shit!” Tsutomu suddenly snarled, unsheathing his kukri to swipe at the fly that had been assaulting his face for the last half hour. The fat insect buzzed around him before disappearing into the man’s beard that was still coated with the blood from when a Sound soldier had tried to bash his face in back at the marshes. With a growl, Tsutomu swatted at his beard, prompting two flies to crawl out and give him double the work.

Sitting closest to him, Yori ducked when his blade nearly chopped her ear off. “Watch it!” she barked at him, flicking her chocolate brown braid aside to pick up some of the cards she’d dropped. She was the only woman among the twelve of them here, and she was also the only one besides Kakashi who had the guts to speak up against Tsutomu whenever his bitching got too loud or too obnoxious. Usually both.

The rest of the unit was in the middle of a very intense game of Spoons, using a beat up pair of playing cards someone had the smarts to bring. Considering it was his first tour though, Kakashi initially could not fathom who would want to play a card game in the middle of a war zone, and especially deep in the trenches of enemy territory. But he’d soon discovered that a card game was the best way to pass the time when there wasn’t much else to do but scout, kill, and sit on their asses to do it all over again. As it was now, they were on their thirty-fourth round of Spoons, and he just needed an Ace of Hearts to complete the set in his hand.

Passing another card to Obito, Kakashi wiped away a bead of sweat from his brow. Tucked beneath his shirt, the hot metal of his dog tags rubbed uncomfortably against his slick chest. Summer nights in Sound country were almost as bad as during the day. The good thing about it was that the humidity dropped, leaving the air so dry that his tongue felt like paper every time he opened his mouth. The bad thing was that, with the place so arid, they couldn’t risk lighting a fire lest they burn down their only shelter for the night (or attract the wrong kind of attention). So they’d turned on their flashlights, thankful that the equipment had somehow survived the trip through the marshes but not so happy that they couldn’t even light a cigarette.

Even without a fire, the summer heat had become far more unbearable than the mosquitoes that assaulted them every hour of the day. By midnight, everyone had resorted to stripping their tops off and leaving only their tactical vests on, filling the small space with their stinky sweat. It went against protocol, but nobody—not even Obito—listened to him when he offhandedly commented that they were sooner to die from a mosquito bite than a bullet wound if they dawdled around half-naked like that. Even Yori had given up, leaving Kakashi as the only one fully clothed in his combat fatigues.

“Bet you we could cook an egg on the ground with this heat,” Obito rasped out, pressing the cool, flat edge of his kukri against his cheek. Not the smartest move unless he wanted to risk stabbing his eye out, but he was far too desperate to care at this point. “Fuck, man, what I wouldn’t give for a sunnyside egg.”

“There’s one on the pantry shelf downstairs if the flies haven’t got to it yet,” Kakashi replied dismissively, passing a Queen of Hearts card to him and then picking up—ah-ha!

Holding his fourth and final Ace, Kakashi surreptitiously slid a hand out to grab one of the eight bullets that sat on the stool they were all sitting around. It took twenty seconds for anyone to notice that there were now only seven bullets remaining, and then chaos ensued as the rest of the unit members wrestled for the last bullets.

Once the dust had cleared and the knocked-over flashlights were propped back up, they each opened their hands to show who had a bullet and who didn’t. Tsutomu didn’t, and he did not look pleased about it.

“All right, who won it this time?” Midori sighed even as everyone looked expectantly to Kakashi who’d already flipped his deck around to show them his complete set of Aces.

“Fuck this!” Tsutomu threw his cards down and jabbed his kukri in Kakashi’s direction. “He’s always winning!”

“And you’re always too slow,” Yori said with a roll of her eyes. “You don’t hear me bitchin’ about it.”

“Maybe because I would’ve made you shut the fuck up!”

Before the two could begin snapping at each other's throats again, Midori was already nudging his glasses up as he said aloud, “He’s a Hatake. They don’t call him the prodigal White Fang for nothing, so of course he'd win. He's one of those freakin' geniuses who excel at everything.”

One of the Aces in Kakashi’s hand folded slightly under his grip, but he said nothing as Obito glanced his way.

“Sounds like a freak to me,” someone mumbled.

With Anzu collecting all the playing cards to reshuffle, everyone had time to listen in on the conversation now.

“Ah, yeah, your old man was one of the hotshots in the military, right?” Genki sneered at him. His face looked like a weasel’s what with his long, sharp nose, narrow jaw, and beady eyes that twinkled as if he was constantly thinking of an insulting joke for anyone who caught his attention. But he was also the kind of weasel that shrunk back when a predator stared him down, and he did just that when Kakashi calmly turned his sights onto him. “B-Bet he has plenty of medals to show for it.”

Kakashi quickly looked away in disinterest. Fuck if he cared about his father’s medals. They were probably collecting dust and cobwebs somewhere in the back of a closet.

“Heard his Pops always carried a lil’ sword around in battle,” Tsutomu nodded to the hilt jutting out from behind Kakashi’s lower back. “Just like that one.”

“Who the fuck brings a sword to a gunfight?” Genki sniggered but just as soon stopped when he saw nobody else was laughing.

“It’s a tantō, you nitwit,” Obito said, slamming down the empty jar of jam with more force than necessary. Genki jolted in his seat from the harsh sound. “And it’s really no different from the standard-issued kukris we all carry.”

Tsutomu frowned at the knife in his hand that was almost double the length of Kakashi’s shortsword. He met Kakashi’s gaze over the curved blade, tawny eyes squinting at him for a second as if they were having a dick-measuring contest. Pleased with the extra inches he had over the younger man, Tsutomu lowered the knife to give Kakashi a smug grin. His shit-eating grin instantly flipped into a scowl, however, when the two flies from earlier suddenly appeared to attack his lips.

His breath must be that rancid, Kakashi thought with faint bemusement. While he could stand the pompous ass and his snide remarks, he couldn’t stand to watch Yori have to consistently dodge Tsutomu’s knife as he returned to stabbing at the flies with a vengeance.

Kakashi nodded towards the staircase that led to the bedrooms upstairs. “Tsutomu, Genki, switch off with Haya and Jun. It’s your turn to be on lookout.”

They clicked their tongues in unison but obeyed without question, grabbing their flashlights to head upstairs and keep watch for the next hour. As soon as they left the cramped room, the stink seemed to follow after them (although that wasn’t much of a surprise). Haya and Jun came in, propping their sniper rifles against a cabinet that held nothing but smashed plates within. As they searched for a decent seat where they could put their feet up and relax as well as they could in a warzone, Kakashi pulled out a map from his pack and spread it out on the floor. With the beckon of his hand, he urged everyone to pay attention.

“Amegakure is fifty miles from here,” he explained, tapping a finger on the northeast quadrant of the map. “The package is reported to be held within an underground bunker disguised on the topside as a water tower. At 0600, we’ll be leaving to cut through the Dead Marshes to reach Ame by 1800.”

“Why is it called the Dead Marshes again?” Anzu asked before slapping a fly off his sweaty face.

“Because a hundred of our men died there just last month. Cut down in an ambush after the enemy got ahold of our intel. Everyone’s been calling it the Dead Marshes since then.”

“So why the fuck are we going there?” Yori demanded. “I'm betting those corpses are still floating around for all the fishies to nibble on.”

“Then that just means we have even more cover,” Kakashi said.

Jun snorted and leaned over to snatch the map off the ground. Like most of the other survivors here, Jun liked to question Kakashi’s leadership at every chance. In fact, he was the kind of guy whom teachers would rip their hair out over had he chosen to stay in high school rather than head straight into the military academy. Running a hand through his greasy blonde hair, he snorted at the map before tossing it back to Kakashi. “There’s a river that we can follow for a few miles. It’ll lead us straight to Amegakure much faster than the marshes.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Because it's too tiresome to explain to a numbskull like you. “Because I said so.”

“A fucking kid said so.”

“At least I have a high school diploma.”

“And a Bachelor's and a Master’s,” Midori coughed out. When Jun glared at him, he took off his glasses and pretended to get busy cleaning them.

With a sneer, Jun pointed his flashlight directly into Kakashi's face. “I don’t care if you're a Hatake. I don't care if you're some genius with a dozen degrees. And I definitely don’t give a flying fuck if our superiors kiss your ass and call you the White Flash—”

‘Fang’, Kakashi almost corrected him, but even he found the nickname distasteful.

“—I'm not going to put my life in the hands of some kid who cares more about the mission than his own comrades,” Jun spat out.

“Look,” Obito sat forward, prying the map from Kakashi’s grip and smoothing it back down on the floor. “The obvious choice is the river, right?”

Jun nodded and then stepped on the foot of Haya who’d been too busy staring at Yori’s cleavage. “Y-Yeah, duh!” Haya nodded vigorously until the heel digging onto his toes relented.

Obito spread open his palms in gesture. “Then you would think they’d have an ambush set up for us there too since it’s the ‘obvious choice’. The river will be guarded, but Sound won’t expect more Fire soldiers to try the marshes after the first group failed.”

“Ah, so reverse psychology?” Yori still didn’t look so convinced, but she was already eyeing the marshes on the map again with renewed interest. She frowned and then looked to Kakashi. “You said you want to use the dead bodies for cover?”

“The marshes are our best bet if we want to get to the package on time. And without getting butchered,” Kakashi added firmly. “We’re the only ones left of our unit, so we need to play it safe but right. But I also wouldn’t expect Sound to turn a blind eye, so we need to move with stealth.”

Yori rolled her eyes. “Tsutomu is the opposite of stealth, but I guess we could always use his bitch ass for cover if needed. I just fucking hate the marshes,” she said with a sigh, sagging in her rickety chair, still exhausted from slugging through the marshes all day. “But Hatake’s idea makes more sense.”

“The fuck it does not!” Jun snapped at her. “I say we take the river—”

“And I say we’re taking the marshes,” Kakashi said, his voice low but harsh enough to make the fresh graduate stiffen. When Jun fell silent, Kakashi swept his gaze around all the others sitting and staring at him. He took turns challenging each and every one of them silently for a moment, daring them to question his orders anymore. “I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t care if you don’t like swimming with the fishes and corpses. I don’t care if any of you live or die. I care about completing the mission—and that is securing the package. That is our duty as a soldier and if you disagree then you are free to take off your vests and dog tags, put down your guns, and walk out that door and all the way back home.”

Everyone shut up at that, and for the first time in six months, Kakashi was finally afforded the peace of silence without someone bitching about the insects, the commercial taste of their rations, or a stone that had found its way inside their boot. Satisfied with the room’s consensus, Kakashi leaned back in his chair, unsheathing his tantō to wipe off today’s coat of blood and mud that stained the edges.

It was Yori who broke the begrudging silence first when she suddenly withdrew her pistol from its holster. “You keep staring at my tits, Haya, and I'll blow you a new eye. Right in the center of your fucking forehead.”

“Chill, darlin'!” Haya raised his hands placatingly. “I was just checking out your tags.” As if to prove his point, he leaned closer to her, training his eyes on the cleavage that could be seen just above the collar of her vest. Still under the pretense of reading her tags, he hummed and stroked his chin. “Impressive.”

Yori cocked her gun in warning.

“Hey, I got a place where you can blow me,” Jun snickered at her, prompting Haya to do the same.

“That’s it—”

“Enough,” Kakashi leaned across to grab Yori’s hand that was reaching for the kukri at her hip. Something then slipped out of his front pocket, fluttering down until it landed atop of the map to reveal little Rin shyly hugging onto a scrawny boy with silver hair and a dead gaze.

Jun swooped down in the blink of an eye, snatching up the photo with his blood-stained fingers. He whistled low, angling the photo for Haya to see. “Damn, Hatake! You like your girls really young, huh? But I didn't take you as a guy who likes four-year-old pussy! Or is she three?”

Over the men’s cackles, Kakashi resisted the urge to skewer the Private 1st Class with the tip of his tantō. Especially not when he had just finished wiping the blade clean of today’s muck. “The only pussy here is the one in front of me,” he replied coolly.

Midori choked on the water he’d been sipping from his canteen, letting it splash all over the glasses he’d just finished cleaning.

While Jun was still sputtering from the retort, Obito stole the photo away from him. He peeked at it for just a split second before handing the picture back to Kakashi who immediately tucked it back into the safety of his pocket. He wiped his sword down one last time and then sheathed it loudly enough for both Jun and Haya to flinch.

A grim silence fell over the group as everyone else seemed to recall all the beloved people they themselves carried in their pockets. Mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, friends, and lovers. They were all waiting for their soldiers to return home—even if it meant in body bags or as dog tags.

“Is she your girlfriend?” Obito quietly asked as Anzu started to deal cards for the others to play a round of Thirteen with.

It was a sincere question, but it was still a personal one that had Kakashi scrubbing a hand over his jaw. His hand came away tinged with the thin film of blood that had yet to finish congealing on his mask. He could smell the sharp notes of copper with every intake of breath, so he made a mental note to retreat to the bathroom later and wash off the grime. It was pointless, he knew that. By tomorrow noon, his mask would be dyed in splotches of red again, but tonight he wanted to sleep without inhaling the stench of a dead man.

Sensing Obito still waiting for an answer, Kakashi wiped his hand on his trousers and then sighed.

“She's a girl. And she's my friend….” And he had kissed Rin before, but that was more out of curiosity than desire. Besides, he didn't count it as an actual kiss since he'd just been seven years old at the time. “She's… special to me,” was all Kakashi gave in answer. “What about you? You got anyone back home?”

This time, it was Obito’s turn to shift in discomfort. He rubbed the back of his neck and shrugged. “Nah, I was... disowned by my family. I was always the black sheep, but one day, I fucked up and...” He paused to scratch his cheek for a moment. “And it cost my twin brother’s life. I mean, he’s not dead,” he added quickly. “But he got fucked up pretty badly from the accident to the point that... he’s like a shadow of himself. So I got kicked out of the family after that, got put in a group home, then joined the academy as soon as I could. I haven’t talked to my family or my twin brother ever since, so if I die... guess that’s it for me.”

“I wouldn’t say it’s the end for you. I mean, you’re free to haunt me if you’d like.”

Obito's mouth quirked into a grin. “You don’t mind me pulling all that poltergeist shit on you?”

Kakashi snorted. “With your butterfingers, you’d be dropping shit rather than throwing it.”

“Oh, fuck you!” Obito shoved at his shoulder with a laugh.

His laughter was cut short, however, when the heavy tread of boots stampeding down the staircase followed by the most unholy screeching interrupted everyone. Genki and Tsutomu appeared at the threshold, faces flushed with angry scratched lines marking their cheeks as if a cat had gotten the jump on them. But it wasn’t a cat that was making that screeching noise; it was a girl. Slung between them with her wrists bound in ripped sheets, she thrashed around wildly in search of an opportunity to—not escape but to bite at the men holding her captive.

White teeth flashed between long tresses of ebony hair as she tried to snap her jaws at Tsutomu’s thick neck. The man responded with a harsh slap that sent her face whipping towards Genki who was forced to reel back to avoid her bites.

“Lookie what I caught!” Tsutomu announced, grinning proudly as he grabbed the girl by the base of her head and yanked it back. She winced but made no sound that she was in pain. Even though her whole face was streaked with filth, it was obvious that she couldn’t be any older than fifteen years old. Only two years younger than Kakashi himself, but already looking as if she’d lived through an entire war. “Caught this lil’ bitch skulking around in one of the bedrooms. Probably was finding a spot to hide in so that she could slit our throats while we slept.”

There was no way she could’ve taken on twelve armed soldiers even with the element of surprise, but Kakashi didn’t doubt that she would’ve tried it anyway.

“I would’ve shat on your corpses too afterward!” she sneered at Tsutomu, earning a second slap to the cheek and making Genki flinch when specks of blood from her mouth landed all over his face.

“How the hell did we miss her?” Jun asked, stopping Tsutomu from slapping the girl again. “I thought we cleared this house from top to bottom.”

Apparently, you guys were sloppy about it, Kakashi was half-tempted to say. Instead, he stood up and yanked the girl out of Genki and Tsutomu's clutches by her bound hands. She struggled against him but just as soon froze when she felt the sharp tip of his tantō dig into the small of her back. Don’t move, Kakashi told her with a mere prod of his sword.

“Hey! Finders keepers,” Tsutomu growled, displeased that his catch was being taken away from him. His grubby hands reached for the girl, but Kakashi pulled her away from him and towards the staircase.

“We’re guests of this house,” Kakashi said aloud despite knowing that there wasn’t much of this house or its occupants left anymore. “This girl will be locked up in the master bedroom where no one is to touch her. Is that understood?”

Tsutomu took a heavy step forward to protest but stopped when the young Hatake turned his steely gaze onto him.

“Is that understood?” Kakashi spoke low, the lethal edge in his voice cutting through the tension like the blade in his hand. When Tsutomu bowed his head in answer, Kakashi glanced over at Obito who was looking at him strangely. “Relay to Tsutomu and Genki the plan for tomorrow.”

With a sharp nudge of the sword against the girl’s back, Kakashi prompted her to continue up the stairs. She remained silent on the way to the bedroom, but she didn’t stop trying to squirm out of the sheets roped tightly around her wrists. Kakashi took the moment to observe her calloused hands, deducing that she was a surviving member of this household. Probably the daughter of the farmer who’d lived here.

He didn’t ask where her parents were or why she was still here. Even though there hadn’t been any bloodstains found while clearing the house, he guessed that the rest of the girl’s family was already dead in a ditch somewhere.

“If you’re going to kill me then just do it already,” she finally said the moment she stumbled into the bedroom.

Kakashi closed the door first, watching her flinch at the sound of the latch clicking in place. “Turn around.”

She hesitated for a moment before obeying with a slow, reluctant pivot. Under the sharp beam of his flashlight, Kakashi could see the tear tracks that left a clean streak through the cake of dirt and dried blood on her cheeks. He raised his sword and she bunched her shoulders up despite the defiant tilt of her chin. The tantō flashed under the moonlight for a split second as he swung it down upon the girl.

She squeezed her eyes shut but then opened them when she found herself still alive... and with her hands free now.

Kakashi jut his chin towards the bed. Its sheets were still made as if nobody had ever slept in them at all. “Lay down there.”

She stiffened at this order, her body locking up more notably than the last time she’d hesitated. She took one step forward, and Kakashi caught the way her whole frame seemed to tremble before she hurriedly crossed the room and laid down on the bed, stiff as a board. The springs of the mattress creaked harshly, and her eyes widened as if the sound was a threat itself.

Grabbing a chair by the vanity mirror, Kakashi dragged it to the side of the bed before plopping down. His sudden close proximity to her had her sitting up rigidly, slim hands squeezing into fists on her lap. He would've preferred for her to remain lying down, but it seemed she was more comfortable sitting up, so he let her.

Leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, he took the moment to study the girl. She had a split lip, a small cut above her brow, the red mark of a building bruise on her cheek (no doubt courtesy of Tsutomu and Genki), and dark bags of exhaustion weighed heavy beneath her eyes—eyes so black that they seemed to pierce right into Kakashi’s soul the longer he held her sharp gaze.

He looked away to reach for something in his pocket, pausing only when he sensed the girl stiffen again. Slowly, he withdrew the white handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to the girl. “Wipe your face.”

She scowled at the implication but snatched the cloth from him. Glimpsing the little sunflower design Rin had sewn into the corner of the cloth, the girl stared at it first before remembering to wipe the dirt off her face.

“My name is Hatake Kakashi,” he said as she cleaned herself. “What’s yours?”

When she refused to answer, he reached into another pocket, slowly again like last time. He watched as her wary eyes flicked down from his to the orange thing in his hand.

“Are you hungry?” he asked, peeling the fruit for her. “It’s a mandarin orange.”

A rare delicacy among their rations, but he was never one for sweets anyway.

The girl watched him peel the skin of the orange off like a hawk would with its prey. As soon as he offered her a slice, she seized the small piece from his fingers and stuffed it into her mouth. Her lashes fluttered slightly as she took that first bite of tangy sweetness.

“Good?”

She froze at the question as if she was a thief who’d been caught stealing the mandarin he’d offered her. Without warning, she spat the mashed bits of orange to his face, her frown deepening when she saw Kakashi didn’t even flinch from the attack.

“You’re a bastard!” she said as he casually brushed off the pieces of orange clinging to his mask. In an effort to add insult to the non-existent injury, she flung the now dirty handkerchief back at him. Kakashi merely plucked it off his chest, folded it two times into a small square, and then tucked it into one of his pockets before placing the rest of the orange in front of her.

He stood up and she shrunk back from him after clutching the orange to her chest.

“We’ll be gone in the morning,” Kakashi said as he scanned the room for any dangerous objects she might try to use in retaliation. “You can rest easy tonight. I’ll make sure no one touches you.”

Although he was kind of late for that.

“But if you try anything, we will have to use force.”

The warning was vague, but it left her shivering and glaring at him with enough spite to make any man give pause. He gave her one final look of caution before leaving the room to make his way to the bathroom. The farmhouse was old, and every floorboard creaked under his boots, but he preferred it that way. It kept him on edge—kept him alert for any signs of danger that may be lurking around the corner.

Even upon entering the bathroom, he swept aside the shower curtain just to make sure no other stray kid was waiting in the tub to ambush him with a butterknife or whatever these civilians resorted to.

Seeing the coast was clear, he stripped off his tactical vest and then the black sleeveless shirt underneath. The water ran lukewarm as he turned the knob of the faucet, and he splashed a handful down his chest for a brief respite from the blistering heat. Taking his shirt, he detached his mask and held it beneath the stream. Black, brown, and red tainted the pool of water along with loose sediment of dried mud. He grabbed the soap bar from the corner and scrubbed his mask inside and out, letting the bubbles froth.

After rinsing his mask, he wrung out the excess water before hanging the cloth on the edge of the sink to let it finish dripping.

A shout could be heard from downstairs—either Tsutomu or Jun since those two loved to butt heads with everyone—but Kakashi didn’t care so long as heads weren’t rolling. Scrubbing a hand down his face, he shrugged on his shirt and vest but paused upon hearing a sharp creak just outside his door.

Creak...

There it was again, but further this time.

Kakashi heaved a sigh and then yanked his mask back on, unsurprised to find it already dry. Tugging the door open, he stepped out of the hallway and was met with the hulking figure of Tsutomu. His burly back was hunched over as if the guy was in the middle of sneaking... towards the girl’s room.

The rest of this side story chapter will be published soon on AO3 and Fanfiction.Net! Thank you for reading!

[newstfionline]

Monday, August 16, 2021

U.S. Air Force veteran comforts children plagued by gun violence (Reuters) Like many cities across the United States, Washington has seen a spike in shooting-related deaths during the pandemic. Homicides were up 19% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to the Washington Metropolitan Police Department. This month’s data shows that the city has already clocked more cases than at the same time last year. “It’s like a war zone. It’s like being in the military,” Jawanna Hardy said. Frustrated by the senseless loss of life, Hardy, an Air Force veteran and now a 34-year-old high school English teacher, launched ‘Guns Down Friday,’ an outreach program to support neighborhoods plagued by gun violence—including the one she has lived in since childhood. She has raised money for shooting victims’ gravestones, advocated for more streetlights, and trained people how to treat bullet wounds themselves. She drives her van—adorned with photos of young gun violence victims—through the streets to greet youngsters. On a recent Friday, she arrived with water balloons. “Put your guns down and pick your water balloons up!” Hardy cried through a megaphone as children outside an apartment complex in southeast Washington laughed and scrambled to drench one another. She knows her Friday night street parties will not stop gun violence but hopes they can at least provide children a brief respite from the constant fear in which many live.

Haitians scramble to rescue survivors from ruins of major quake (Reuters) Haitians labored overnight to pick through shattered buildings in search of friends and relatives trapped in the rubble after a devastating earthquake struck the Caribbean country on Saturday, killing 1,297 people and injuring at least 5,700 more. The 7.2 magnitude quake flattened hundreds of homes in the impoverished country, which is still clawing its way back from another major temblor here 11 years ago, and has been without a head of state since the assassination of its president last month. Churches, hotels, hospitals and schools were badly damaged or destroyed, while the walls of a prison were rent open by the violent shudders that convulsed Haiti. Access to the worst-hit areas was complicated by a deterioration in law and order that has left key access roads in parts of Haiti in the hands of gangs, although unconfirmed reports on social media suggested they would let aid pass.

Want to stay long term in France? First come the classes on how to be French. (Washington Post) In France, la vie en rose comes wrapped in red tape. Foreigners hoping to stay here long term must sign an “integration contract” and agree to uphold French values. The contract requires four days of civic education, yet what’s taught is more akin to a government crash course in how to be French. There are discussions about Marianne—the symbolic embodiment of the French Republic—and about classical culinary dishes, such as duck confit and escargot. France 101 covers both the cultural (how to visit museums) as well as the practical (how to navigate the national health-care system). The classes, plus language lessons for anyone whose fluency doesn’t measure up, help determine whether an applicant gets a multiyear visa. Every year, an average of 100,000 people take the courses, in cities across the country. The contemporary agreement explicitly states that receiving an extended residency visa is conditional on abiding by its terms, a key one being deference to French values. After an applicant signs the document, the language test is administered and 24 hours of classes scheduled.

Taliban sweep into Afghan capital after government collapses (AP) The Taliban swept into Afghanistan’s capital Sunday after the government collapsed and the embattled president joined an exodus of his fellow citizens and foreigners, signaling the end of a costly two-decade U.S. campaign to remake the country. Heavily armed Taliban fighters fanned out across the capital, and several entered Kabul’s abandoned presidential palace. Suhail Shaheen, a Taliban spokesman and negotiator, told The Associated Press that the militants would hold talks in the coming days aimed at forming an “open, inclusive Islamic government.” Kabul was gripped by panic. Helicopters raced overhead throughout the day to evacuate personnel from the U.S. Embassy. Smoke rose near the compound as staff destroyed important documents, and the American flag was lowered. Several other Western missions also prepared to pull their people out. Fearful that the Taliban could reimpose the kind of brutal rule that all but eliminated women’s rights, Afghans rushed to leave the country, lining up at cash machines to withdraw their life savings. The desperately poor—who had left homes in the countryside for the presumed safety of the capital—remained in parks and open spaces throughout the city. Many people watched in disbelief as helicopters landed in the U.S. Embassy compound to take diplomats to a new outpost at the airport. U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken rejected comparisons to the U.S. pullout from Vietnam.

From hubris to humiliation: America’s warrior class contends with the abject failure of its Afghanistan project (Washington Post) Twenty years ago, when the twin towers and the Pentagon were still smoldering, there was a sense among America’s warrior and diplomatic class that history was starting anew for the people of Afghanistan and much of the Muslim world. “For you and us, history starts today,” then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage told his Pakistani counterparts. Earlier this month, as the Taliban raced across Afghanistan, retired Lt. Col. Jason Dempsey, a two-time veteran of the war, stumbled across Armitage’s words. To Dempsey, the sentiment was “the most American thing I’ve ever heard” and emblematic of the hubris and ignorance that he and so many others brought to the losing war. “We assumed the rest of the world saw us as we saw ourselves,” he said. “And we believed that we could shape the world in our image using our guns and our money.” Both assumptions ignored Afghan culture, politics and history. Both, he said, were tragically wrong. Michèle Flournoy, one of the architects of President Barack Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan in 2010, said, “In retrospect, the United States and its allies got it really wrong from the very beginning. The bar was set based on our democratic ideals, not on what was sustainable or workable in an Afghan context.” Flournoy acknowledged in hindsight that the mistake was compounded across Republican and Democratic administrations, which continued with almost equal fervor to pursue goals that ran counter to decades—if not centuries—of the Afghan experience.

Afghanistan’s collapse leaves allies questioning U.S. resolve on other fronts (Washington Post) The Taliban's stunningly swift advances across Afghanistan have sparked global alarm, reviving doubts about the credibility of U.S. foreign policy promises and drawing harsh criticisms even from some of the United States' closest allies. And many around the world are wondering whether they could rely on the United States to fulfill long-standing security commitments stretching from Europe to East Asia. "Whatever happened to 'America is back'?" said Tobias Ellwood, who chairs the Defense Committee in the British Parliament. "People are bewildered that after two decades of this big, high-tech power intervening, they are withdrawing and effectively handing the country back to the people we went in to defeat," Ellwood said. "This is the irony. How can you say America is back when we're being defeated by an insurgency armed with no more than [rocket-propelled grenades], land mines and AK-47s?" As much as its military capabilities, the United States' decades-old role as a defender of democracies and freedoms is again in jeopardy, said Rory Stewart, who was Britain's minister for international development in the Conservative government of Theresa May. "The Western democracy that seemed to be the inspiration for the world, the beacon for the world, is turning its back," Stewart said. Rivals of the United States also have expressed dismay. Among them is China, which fears that the ascent of an extremist Islamist government on its western border will foster unrest in the adjoining province of Xinjiang, where Beijing has waged sweeping crackdowns on the Uyghur population that have been denounced by the West. The United States' Arab allies, which have long counted on the U.S. military to come to their aid in the event of an attack by Iran, also have faced questions over whether they will be able to rely on the United States.

Torrential rains lash wide areas of Japan, three feared dead after landslide (Reuters) Torrential rain lashed much of Japan on Sunday, flooding roads and buildings in the western part of the country, while three people were feared dead after a landslide in central Nagano prefecture. Large parts of Japan, particularly the southernmost main island of Kyushu, have seen record levels of rainfall, causing rivers to overflow and triggering landslides. While the rain had stopped in much of Kyushu as of Sunday morning, Tokyo and other parts of the country were pounded by the downpour. Japan “will continue to face conditions in which a large-scale disaster could occur at anytime, anywhere,” Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga said at a ministerial meeting on Sunday. He called on local municipalities and relevant organisations to cooperate and act with speed on rescue missions and aid.

More military personnel deployed to enforce Sydney Covid restrictions as entire state locks down (CNN) Additional Australian military personnel will be deployed to enforce tighter Covid-19 restrictions in the greater Sydney area next week, authorities announced Saturday, as the entire state of New South Wales (NSW) prepares to go under lockdown. Stay at home orders will be applied across the country’s most populous state, with people only permitted to leave home to shop for essentials, receive medical care, outdoor exercise with one other person, and work if residents cannot work from home. Schooling will also be moved back online. Sydney, the capital of NSW, has been under lockdown measures for more than seven weeks now, and they will likely be extended further; they were set to end on August 28 but the state government has indicated restrictions will remain through September.

Fuel explosion in Lebanon kills 28, wounding dozens (AP) A warehouse where fuel was illegally stored exploded in northern Lebanon early Sunday, killing at least 28 people and injuring 79 more in the latest tragedy to hit the Mediterranean country in the throes of a devastating economic and political crisis. It was not immediately clear what caused the explosion near the border with Syria. Fuel smuggling operations have been ongoing for months. The Lebanese Red Cross said a fuel tanker exploded and its teams recovered 28 bodies from the site in the border village of Tleil. In a statement, it said it evacuated 79 people who were injured or suffered burns in the blast. Hours after the blast, Lebanese Red Cross members were still searching the area for more victims as Lebanese soldiers cordoned the area.

'Once the best in the Middle East,' Beirut hospital pleads for fuel as it faces shutdown (The Week) A once-famed Beirut hospital is now pleading for international aid to avoid running out of essential resources. The American University of Beirut Medical Center in Beirut, Lebanon, is making an urgent appeal to the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the World Health Organization and the U.N. Children's Fund, to supply the hospital with fuel before it's forced to shut down by Monday. Lebanon is mired in an economic and political crisis, and the nationwide fuel shortage is currently the most dire consequence. That's perhaps most clearly reflected in the plight of AUBMC, which said 40 adults and 15 children living on respirators would die immediately and many other patients will be at great risk if the shutdown is not avoided. The medical center said it's been rationing fuel and electricity for weeks, but is running out of both. Liz Sly, The Washington Post's Beirut bureau chief, notes that the American University hospital "was once the best" in the entire Middle East region; the announcement shows that the country is "truly heading to disaster," she writes.

[mamthew]

Been playing the Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles remaster some since it dropped, and I have some thoughts on it. It’s been a…really long time since I last played the original, and I never was able to get too far in, since I was so new to video games that I was unable to intuit most of its mechanics. Despite this, I fell in love with the game. For quite some time, it was the only game with “Final Fantasy” in the title that I had played. I played, enjoyed, and beat its three sequels: Echoes of Time, Ring of Fates, and The Crystal Bearers (neither of the My Life As spinoffs, but eh).

This remaster is not a good remaster, but mostly not for the reasons I’ve seen put forth online. The developers didn’t do much to improve the visuals, sure, but honestly the art direction of the game was pretty enough anyway that it skates by on that alone. The load screens are not nearly as long as I’d been led to believe. The gameplay is unchanged from the original, and like…I like the gameplay of the original? That’s why I played the remaster? I want to play the game?

My biggest issue with the remaster is how the online is handled, but reviewers have straight up lied about problems with the online? Like…you have a permanent friend code you can give people. The temporary online codes you can generate are different from the permanent one. Why are reviewers saying your online code changes every 30 minutes and you can’t save permanent friends when that’s demonstrably false? Seems like a thing you maybe shouldn’t be writing in your official review.

I’m going to put my own issues with the online aside for a moment, though. I promise we’ll come back to it, but my issues with the remaster are only understood in the larger context of what the game did as a piece of art and what it no longer does now as a result of the changes. First, then, we’ve got to lay down what Crystal Chronicles did as a piece of art. Crystal Chronicles, I’ve come to realize during this playthrough, is a game about storytelling as collective memory, and much of the game’s mechanics work in service to this theme.

In the world of the game, something happened long ago that released poisonous miasma into the air and made much of the world uninhabitable to the four major races. The game follows the players’ customized characters as they take annual pilgrimages to collect enough “myrrh” from magical trees, which is used to maintain the barrier that keeps their town safe from the miasma. The game is broken up into years; it takes four drops of myrrh to maintain the barrier for a year, each dungeon’s tree only provides one drop of myrrh, and it takes several years for a tree to replenish that drop, pushing the characters’ caravan further and further out each year in search of trees that are not yet spent.

I’ve compared this setting to Death Stranding a few times in the past, and I think the comparison holds up. The game’s story has only gained something from the current moment, too. I go out and risk myself to get groceries, which I then bring back home so I can continue to hole up safe in quarantine until I run low again, and I think the game fairly accurately simulates the rise and fall of that pattern, the balance of risk and safety, and the way the dangerous unknown eventually becomes the mundane with time. Most of the locations in the game are old products of civilization that have been lost to nature, and walking through former farmland, abandoned roads, and empty towns in the game do remind me of walking down empty city streets back when coronavirus was still keeping people off city streets.

The game has several stories running in tandem, but the most central one is the ongoing story of the characters’ caravan, chronicled in a journal. After every new encounter, new area, or completed dungeon, a new entry is added to the journal, and at the end of the year, all the entries are incorporated into a cutscene, so the player can read them and relive the year’s events. The entries are very short and written in a simple style, but they still give the player an idea of how their character viewed the events. These end-of-year cutscenes are actually really enjoyable little rituals, and I’ve been avoiding reading the journal entries specifically so I can experience them for the first time in these retrospectives.

As the years progress, the character’s entries show that their memories of earlier years are fading. “Whenever I close my eyes, I vividly remember all my adventures,” says the entry at the end of the first year. By the end of the fourth year, however, “so many memories from my earlier adventures have dimmed, from the joys of chance encounters to the suspense of my first battles.” The entries also show the ways the annual pilgrimages have changed the player character. “It was an easy fight, so I spent a peaceful interlude over a light meal,” says an entry after revisiting an older dungeon. “I was a little surprised. I never considered myself a fighter.”

The written and oral records of the past permeate this game in so many ways. Before each dungeon, a narrator who is presumably another caravanner who went to the same places in the past introduces the location with either a history of the place or an anecdote about the place. The Mushroom Forest, to her, evokes a childhood memory of her mother. She introduces the Veo Lu Sluice by explaining the history of who built the sluice, what conditions allowed for its construction, and what its irrigation has done for the people since. After each dungeon, the player character receives a letter from a family member, telling them what has been happening in the town while they were away. At the beginning of each new year, the town’s patriarch tells your character a story about the previous caravanner, who mysteriously disappeared after announcing he had found a way to remove the miasma entirely.

It feels like history, generally, has been put on hold. The Lilty military once dominated most of the world, but had to shrink back into their capital city due to the miasma, and the city eventually diminished to a small trading post. The Yukes once were at war with the Lilties, but they’ve allowed trade between their towns again, so caravans can have safe havens to stay in while collecting the precious myrrh. The once-nomadic Selkies were unable to find a new homeland before the miasma spread, and now most are stuck on an island that was supposed to be a temporary stop. We hear much of this history throughout the game, but we don’t see any of it. It’s recorded and known but has little bearing on the culture or lived experiences of the inhabitants of a world where no one can leave their homes.

The moogle adventurer Stiltzkin asks the player character where memories go once they’ve been forgotten, and it’s a fair question in a world where everyone is as alienated from the past as they are from each other 

The problem is, this isn’t supposed to be a game about alienation, exactly. It’s supposed to be a game about shared experiences and the ways we experience and remember the same events differently, as different individuals. It’s supposed to be a game about combatting alienation through shared experience. This is supposed to be a game in which I share a screen with three other players even as we each also have our own personal screens providing us with different objectives and showing us different letters from our different families. In the original game, the multiplayer was devilishly difficult to actually set up, as each player had to have their own Gameboy Advance, attached to the Gamecube and used as a controller, to control their own character. The players’ characters lived in the same town and were on the same caravan together but competed over who unlocked which powerups and picked up which recipes, meaning everyone’s stat spread and armor was different. Players had slightly different experiences within the larger shared story, and the use of the Gameboy Advances were meant to highlight those differences.

Which leads to my issue with this remaster. In the original, characters were saved to the same file, and every player’s character lived together in the same town. Their families each had different houses in the towns and would eventually provide the party with different supplies, depending on their jobs and the responses they received to their letters. At the end of each dungeon, the player characters would sit together in a circle and each receive a letter from their families. At the end of each year, the retrospective cutscene showed the characters and their families celebrating their return together. Your characters explored towns together, and your fellow players watched the random encounter cutscenes with you.

In this game, you can’t play local multiplayer at all. You can only play online multiplayer in dungeons, and clearing a dungeon with other players only counts towards the host’s file. At the end of each dungeon, the characters sit in a circle as the mail moogle tells all but the host that there is no mail for them. At the end of each year, the retrospective cutscene shows an almost entirely empty town; the character and his immediate family dance alone. Certain secrets have now been relegated to the single-player experience only, and the minigames you could unlock and play with friends were removed entirely. Towns are also exclusively single-player. The game is no longer a shared multiplayer experience so much as a dungeon-crawler where friends and strangers can jump into dungeons to offer brief help.

This creates a strange two-minded state of play, where I see and remember the vestiges of the game that once was while playing a game that’s in thematic opposition to it. As my character explores Tida Village and sees signs of the population that once lived there, I play this remaster and see leftovers from now-removed game mechanics. It’s a deeply unsettling and alienating experience.

The online isn’t inherently bad, then. It reminds me of FFXIV, where dungeons and bosses are their own separate experiences, removed from the rest of the game. But this online is inherently unsuited to the game it is in. Crystal Chronicles is not FFXIV; the developers put together a system of online play for a different game than the one they were remastering.

It would have been possible to change the game to suit this online system, too! The journal entries for dungeons could have also included the names of players who joined them for those dungeons. The online players could have still received letters, but from the host character’s family, thanking them for keeping their loved one safe. New random encounters could have been added between different online caravans, allowing them to trade items or play minigames with one another. The party at the end of the year could have included the families of randomly selected online companions These changes could have could have given us a synthesis of the old and new, and helped to center the chronicles over the crystals.

Instead, though, we have this incredibly flawed remaster, after almost a year of delays, that serves more as an empty reminder of what the game once was instead of actually allowing us to experience that game, or instead of, god forbid, actually building on that game’s premises and promises. I’m still enjoying the game a lot, but the experience is hella soured by my knowledge of how the game used to play. I’m not sure how enjoyable this remaster would even be to someone unfamiliar with the original.

This remaster feels like a purposeful nail in the coffin of Crystal Chronicles; an excuse to show that the franchise is no longer a potential seller. Whether that’s its actual intent doesn’t really matter, though, since I fear that will be its ultimate effect either way.

[mobius-prime]

206. Sonic the Hedgehog #138

Return to Angel Island (Part 1): The Message

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Jon Gray Colors: Jason Jensen

We're in for a big one, guys! This is another four-parter, and it's time to finally find out what's going on on Angel Island! But first, Sally and Sonic have to deal with the blowback from the king about their little Tommy mission. King Max chews them out for a while, with Sally tersely accepting the scolding, but Sonic actually attempts to cover for Sally by lying (badly) that she only came along because he kidnapped her. Of course, the king doesn't believe him, and after coldly calling into question Sally's ability to rule in his stead when they leave on their tour, he sends them off.

Yikes. Seems things are going to stay frosty between these two for a while. That afternoon, the king and queen, along with Uncle Chuck as their advisor and Antoine as their bodyguard, depart for their world tour. Shortly thereafter, everyone is hanging out in Chuck's diner, which is currently being manned by Jules and Bernie, while Sonic confides in Knuckles and Julie-Su about his troubles with Sally. Julie-Su points out that Sally's feelings are understandable to a degree, as she herself struggled for a long time after Knuckles' return from the grave with feeling comfortable about him going back into battle. The conversation is interrupted by a sudden crash at the door, and everyone is shocked to see a badly injured Charmy and Saffron enter the establishment and immediately collapse. They're immediately taken to receive medical attention, and after that Sally questions the two on what exactly happened. Charmy and Saffron relate, stricken by grief, how Eggman attacked their home at the Goldenhive Colony, and try as they might, they failed to save anyone - and they mean literally anyone. Their parents, all their friends, every single other member of the colony is dead now. I have to say, while this is certainly an… effective way of kicking to the curb Kenders' weird plans to shunt Charmy away from the spotlight, it's also an incredibly brutal way. I mean, how many others here have lost literally everyone they care about? Oh, wait, Knuckles is getting there! Fittingly, at that exact moment a transmission comes through on the Technolo-Tree, but the only thing that can be made out through the static is that Locke is apparently being held prisoner on Angel Island. And at that moment, Knuckles' patience, so carefully maintained just a couple issues ago, finally snaps.

Sally, you have to remember that it's been almost an entire year that he's been off his island, and he knows he still has friends and family stuck there, with Eggman doing who knows what to them. Can you blame him for wanting to rescue literally the only home he's ever known from Eggman's brutal occupation? Sonic sheepishly leaves with Knuckles, and together they, Julie-Su, the Chaotix (back together again! Also this time including Ray, who's been severely sidelined for quite some time now, and Saffron), and Bunnie all pile into the FFS and fly to Angel Island. Bunnie remains behind at Sonic's request, since he wants to make sure Sally still has a heavy hitter watching over Knothole while they're gone, and everyone else airdrops in, landing in the Marble Garden Zone. Sonic races away to do some split-second recon, and comes back with some pretty horrendous news - there's an honest-to-god prison camp not far from there location, sponsored by Eggman, run by dingoes, and filled with enslaved echidnas being worked half to death by their captors. So, naturally, the intrepid infiltrators race directly in and start causing some havoc.

Okay, this is something I've danced around for quite a while now, but… I really don’t like the portrayal of the dingoes as this weird military hive mind. Penders very obviously based them off of Nazi Germany in many ways (like… as we saw before in KtE#22, his hints toward this weren't subtle at all), and I believe he's even said that he deliberately only ever showed male dingoes, avoiding portraying women and children among their ranks, so they didn’t appear too sympathetic. Quite aside from the fact that that's a kind of ridiculous and sexist position to take especially given that one of the comic's current most threatening villains is in fact female, this just turns the dingoes into cardboard cutouts of villains instead of an interesting opposing faction in this world's political landscape. I mean, how much more interesting would they be if the story bothered to humanize them, make them relatable? But of course, that would mean that Penders would have to portray his precious echidna society as less than honorable for discriminating against them, and we can't have that, so instead they're all just military hardasses who love xenophobia and hate democracy. Hell, even the actual Nazis had more depth to their evil actions than the dingoes. And, to be fair, I know that this arc is written by Karl, not Penders, but he's just building on everything that Penders has established here, so I'm still putting the blame on Penders.

Anyway, the heroes make quick work of the dingoes stationed in the camp, though Knuckles takes a bad blow that Sonic has to save him from due to his lack of powers. Knuckles begins to protest at being helped, but he's suddenly drowned out by chanting… from the echidna slaves they've just freed. They're all bowing down to him and calling him the Avatar, hailing his return. A flabbergasted Knuckles spots Remington among the crowd and asks him what the hell is going on, and Remington explains that there's been a bit of a, eh, religious revival shall we say, among the echidnas on the island ever since he returned from the dead. Apparently, there's an old prophecy from the Ancient Walkers stating that someone will come back from the dead and deliver everyone on the island from their suffering, and, well, Knuckles fits the first part of that criteria. However, he'd barely come back from the dead before Eggman made his move on the island a year ago, preventing Knuckles from returning until now.

So things have kind of deteriorated to a severe degree in Knuckles' absence. Echidnaopolis is now Dingo City, and the dingoes are led not by General Stryker, who is conspicuously absent, but instead General Kage, a cyborg underling of Eggman's in charge of finding the Master Emerald somewhere on the island. Of course that's what Eggman is really after here, and they've captured Locke with the intention of getting the location from him one way or the other. He's been chained upside down in some dark room, and Kage has been torturing him nonstop for the past few days trying to get him to crack, to no avail. Eggman merely encourages Kage over video call to keep it up, while we transition to the Lava Reef Zone, which is where Knuckles has led all the rescued echidnas to, away from the prison camp. He's here because this is approximately where the message informing him of his father's capture originated from, but suddenly the group finds themselves surrounded by smoke, and out of the smoke steps an army of Dark Legion soldiers, surrounding them with weapons drawn…

Mobius 25 Years Later: My Dinner with Sonic

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jason Jensen

…but who cares about all that interesting plot stuff when we can watch some forty-something moms chat next to a pool where their annoying kids and husbands are playing? Apparently, despite their husbands' rivalry, Julie-Su and Sally have actually become pretty good friends over the years, and lament that they barely get together anymore because of Knuckles and Sonic's hatred of one another. Sally is upset because of how distant Sonic has been acting lately - according to her, he barely talks to anyone he doesn't have to anymore, including Tails, whom he hasn’t spoken to in three whole years now! Excuse me, what?! Okay, Sonic and Knuckles at least have some precedent for their rivalry, however weak that precedent is, but I cannot even begin to imagine a world where Sonic just straight up ghosts his best friend for apparently no reason. Literally, no reason is given! He just doesn't like Tails anymore now! Also, in this timeline, Tails is married to Mina and he's moved to Downunda, because why the hell not? Who needs to make sense or give reasons for anything in their plot? Oh, but that's not all! If you thought that was the extent of Sonic's incredibly out-of-character writing, you thought wrong!

That's right - Sonic the forty-one-year-old father, war hero, and king of an entire nation is apparently so petty about not being able to hit a volleyball in the pool that he thinks it's acceptable to shove his own young son under the water so he can get to the ball instead. And this isn't just some case of me taking these panels out of context - on the very next page Manik rightfully calls him out on this, only for Sonic to irritably say that Manik has been "getting in his face all afternoon" and that this was the only way he could get to play with the ball. And then, just as if to rub this in our horrified faces, Knuckles also comes over and points out how terrible of an action this is, and when Manik speaks up SONIC FORCES HIM UNDER THE WATER AGAIN TO GET HIM TO STOP TALKING. I just… I cannot even begin to express how bad this is. This is literally the opposite of Sonic the Hedgehog. You cannot get further off the mark than Penders just has right here. Everything about Sonic's characterization in this arc is bad and inaccurate to who he really is, but this interaction right here is the cake topper, the prime example of just how much Penders does not understand the characters he is trying to write. I can pinpoint this as the exact moment I lost all remaining respect for Penders as a writer. I've defended him before, and I stand by my opinions that I do enjoy many of his earlier stories for the comic, but this is a goddamn travesty. Penders. Needs. To. Stop.

*sigh* We have to finish today's issue, so let's… let's just get to the end. Everyone goes inside for dinner, with Sonia and Manik heading out to play with Lara-Su while the adults have dinner together, because apparently they're so stuffy they don't even let their own kids eat with them. Knuckles and Sonic start arguing at the table, big shocker there, while Abby desperately tries to serve them dessert and their boring wives try to rein them in.

Are we gonna hear anything about what the "drone problem" or the "Overlander uprising" entailed? Those sound too interesting, so NOPE! Instead, the kids walk by and overhear the argument and promise each other they'll never fight like their parents do, while Manik tries to put the moves on Lara-Su, who is not having it. The argument ends when both Knuckles and Sonic belch simultaneously while their wives scold them disapprovingly - I think Penders is trying to go for a comedy movie sketch type thing here where classical music ramps up in hilarious intensity behind the bickering over the family dinner before everything ends on a few sharp notes from the string section, but it just comes off as utterly cringeworthy. Knuckles finally - finally! - manages to get to the point of this entire arc, which is to tell Sonic about how the world is ending. Yes, it took this long for him to tell the main character of this goddamn comic about the main conflict of this goddamn arc. Kill me. Someone please kill me.

…are you kidding me?! You mean all this time we could have been exploring the ramifications of a planetwide environmental disaster caused by dimensional travel, and the possibility of having to evacuate the planet's population into space, and instead we got to watch two boring husbands belch at each other over goddamn dinner?! I'm done. I'm so done. Everything about this sucks and I hate it. Ken Penders, if I ever see you in person, I will be throwing these hands.

[camillemontespan]

queer eye: the cordonian edition [episode 1: drake walker] [part one]

@jovialyouthmusic @fromthedeskofpaisleybleakmore @sirbeepsalot@moonlightgem7 @katedrakeohd @emceesynonymroll @notoriouscs @dcbbw@drakesensworld @carabeth  @be-still-my-aching-heart @andy-loves-corgis@mariahschoices @thequeenofcronuts @drakewalkerisreal @nikkis1983@simsvetements  @alesana45 @iplaydrake @drakewalkerwhipped@drakxwalker @drakewalkerrosenberg @drakeswalkers @drakelover78@silviasutton1989 @furiousherringoperatortoad @hollygirl1269 @ladyangel70  @i-bloody-love-drake-walker @burnsoslow

So, this is the beginning of @pug-bitch and I’s collaboration!  We’ll be taking turns to pick a character from the TRR core group and getting them made over by the Fab Five. 

I posted a teaser a month ago of this chapter but I’ve since written more. This will be split into 2/3 parts because it’s already so long.

We’ll be posting these whenever we have the time to, so don’t expect a weekly update as we have other series to work on. This is just a bit of fun and fluff, the idea came from @notoriouscs 

If you don’t watch Queer Eye, you may not get this? Or you could just sit and watch one episode, get the gist of it then come back to read? Or you can just read this blind with no context. Up to you!

Now kweens, Queer Eye is taking Cordonia! 

***************************************************************************************

Jonathan: GROOMING. Owner of luscious locks, self care advocate, is a Kelly Clarkson song. 

Tan: FASHION. A style icon, inventor of the French tuck, lover of printed shirts.

Bobby: DESIGN. Unsung hero, man of few words and week-long renovation projects, lover of gray and blue hues.

Karamo: CULTURE. Beautifully manicured beard, inspirational angel, loves to get people to scream about their dreams as a self-confidence exercise.

Antoni: FOOD. Can only make grilled cheese or dips. Pretty to look at, cooking skills questionable. Owner of a million slogan tees and bandanas.

‘Oh my God, look at how blue the water is! I wanna go swimming!’ Jonathan shrieked, pointing out the window at the passing landscape. Bobby chuckled. ‘We can go swimming after we’ve sorted out our first case!’

Karamo, who was driving, cleared his throat. ‘Okay, so who are we dealing with?’

Antoni opened up his iPad and began to read from the screen. ‘So, his name is Drake Walker-’

‘Oh my God, I bet he’s a beefcake,’ Tan whispered.

‘Honey, let me be the judge of that!’ Jonathan joined in.

Antoni giggled then continued to read. ‘Yes, Drake Walker. 28 years old, from Austin, Texas, but has lived in Cordonia since he was five, 6 foot four-’

‘Definite beefcake,’ Tan and Karamo interrupted at the same time.

‘Guys, let me read!’ Antoni hollered. The group went quiet, clamping their lips together to stop them from laughing. The car continued to go past the blue ocean of Cordonia, the hot sun beating down on them. 

‘Okay, so he is the King’s best friend. Drake’s favourite things are whiskey-’

Jonathan wrinkled his nose. ‘Eww.’

‘Smores and being outdoors,’ Antoni finished.

Jonathan broke into a grin. ‘Smores and being outdoors! Smores and being outdoors! Oh, it’s like a cute song for a commercial!’

Karamo got serious. ‘Who nominated him?’

Antoni’s eyes scanned the screen. ‘The King.'

‘THE KING?! 'the group screamed.

‘King Liam says Drake has gotten himself into a rut. Drake is not the most social guy, he hates etiquette and isn’t comfortable at palace balls.’

‘Riiiight, and you say he is best friends with the king?’ Bobby asked, frowning. ‘That doesn’t make any sense.’

Jonathan sighed. ‘We’ll unpack that later.’

‘Liam says Drake always wears the same thing so Tan, you might have your work cut out for you,’ Antoni continued, ‘and he doesn’t really get along with the nobles. But, there’s a big ball coming up in which the king is meeting potential suitors and Drake has to be there. It’s a big deal, this will make international news because it’s such an archaic way of finding a wife. As his best friend, Liam wants Drake to feel confident, self assured and actually rock a suit. Oh my God, he hates suits.’

‘This guy is definitely in the wrong environment..’ Bobby said quietly. 

Tan cleared his throat. ‘Um, what does he wear usually?’

Antoni turned to stare at him. ‘Denim shirts.’

Tan turned pale. 

               **************************************************************

The car pulled up outside the palace where Drake stayed. 

‘Oh my GOD!’ the Fab Five screamed, staring up at the building. 

They bolted out of the car, the cameras following them and they ran up the stairs. 

‘Wait!’ Tan shouted. ‘I need a picture by the fountain!’

He ran down the stairs towards the fountain situated in the centre of the courtyard and stood in front of it. Bobby took out his phone and snapped a photo; Jonathan ran down the stairs and joined Tan, cocking his hip and posing. 

‘I feel so regal right now,’ Jonathan drawled, flicking his long hair. Tan cackled. 

‘Guys, come on, we need to meet Drake!’ Karamo shouted. 

The Fab Five entered the palace and collective screaming continued. Courtiers turned to stare, looking very confused. ‘Look at all of the marble!’ Antoni  cried, running a hand down a column. 

The cameras scanned the foyer until they stopped to film a tall man dressed in military regalia striding towards them. ‘Oh my God, that’s the King,’ Tan whispered. The Fab Five went silent. 

King Liam grinned and held out a hand to each of them. ‘Welcome to Cordonia!’

The Fab Five nodded mutely, their eyes wide.

‘Have I rendered you speechless?’ Liam joked, raising an eyebrow. Jonathan’s mouth dropped open before he finally spoke. ‘Oh, you can render me speechless any day..’

Liam burst out laughing. ‘Jonathan, I knew you were my favourite.’

‘What?!’ the others shrieked. ‘How?!’

Jonathan giggled and confidently hooked his arm around the King’s. ‘Your Majesty, please take us to our new project!’

He began to skip while still holding onto Liam’s arm.  Jonathan tried his best royal wave to the courtiers as they went.

          ************************************************************************

Liam stopped outside a room and knocked on the door. ‘Hmm, it’s 12pm, he might not be up yet..’ he said. They waited until the Fab Five got impatient and began to bang their fists on the door. ‘Drakeyyyyy!’ they trilled. 

The door was flung open and the camera zoomed in to show a tall, broad shouldered man with a pissed off expression on his face. He was dressed in a white t-shirt and blue pyjama bottoms. His dark hair was dishevelled and he was bleary eyed. ‘Wha?’

‘Oh my God, you are a beefcake!’ Tan cried, clapping his hands.  Drake blinked, rubbing his eyes. ‘Uh.. Liam?’

Liam sniggered. ‘I nominated you.’

‘Nominated me? What do you mean nominated - oh no. Oh god no. The show you watch in your downtime. Oh no..’

‘Yup, that’s us!’ Bobby grinned. ‘Now let us in!’

The group pushed past Drake. Drake shot a look of contempt to Liam, who shrugged, clearly enjoying this. Liam followed Drake into the room where the Fab Five were running around. 

‘This room is massive! Look at the balcony!’ Tan said. ‘Bobby, you’re going to love doing this up.’

Bobby looked like a child on Christmas Day. His eyes scanned the room, which was huge and sparsely decorated, with hardly any pictures or trinkets, until he stopped, focusing on the bottles of whiskey dotting the bedside table. ‘Oh. Lots of whiskey..’ he muttered. 

Karamo looked at the whiskey bottles and bit his lip. 

Tan opened up the wardrobe. Drake darted towards him, alarmed. ‘What the hell? Dude, who gave you permission to go through my clothes?’

Tan stared at him. ‘Have you ever watched the show?’

‘No..’ Drake mumbled. ‘Is that what you do?’

Tan placed his hands on Drake’s shoulders. ‘Drake, your life is going to be examined for the next five days. Your wardrobe, your eating habits, your room, everything. I’m going through your wardrobe and sorting out what needs binned, what needs kept and just making you look... more presentable.’

Drake swallowed and watched as Tan rifled through the wardrobe. ‘You have so much denim..’ Tan observed.

‘I like denim,’ Drake said defensively. 

Tan raised his hands up. ‘Sure. So did Britney and Justin at the AMAs. Ugh, matching. Tell me, do you want to be like Britney and Justin?’

Drake stared at him. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’ 

       ******************************************************************************

Jonathan went into Drake’s en-suite and looked through the products, which was very minimal. ‘He only has a razor. There’s no moisturiser, no facial wash, nada,’ Jonathan told the camera. ‘What does he wash his face with?’

He rooted through the cupboard. ‘Ah, found them. Face wipes. Oh honey, no.’

Drake came in, clearly uncomfortable with strangers in his space looking through his things. ‘Um, why are you in my bathroom?’

Jonathan grinned at him. ‘I am in charge of grooming, I’m responsible for everything you see here,’ he explained, pointing to his own face. ‘Now, I see you use face wipes.’

‘Yeah, I like to take care of my skin.’

Jonathan blinked. There was a long awkward silence. The special effect of crickets would have to be added later. 

‘Drake,’ Jonathan said seriously, ‘face wipes are evil. They pretend to be good for skin but honestly, they don’t help anything! These are banned.’

‘Then what do I wash my face with?!’

‘A cleanser and toner!’

‘Toner?’

‘Yeah, toner.’

There was another silence. Drake cleared his throat. ‘What’s toner?’

Jonathan dropped the packet of face wipes into the bin. ‘I’m going to pretend you didn’t just ask me that.’

    *************************************************************************************

Tan sat in front of the camera and ran a hand through his salt and pepper quiff. He shot a winning smile at the camera. ‘So, my goal for this week is to just introduce Drake to new things. Less denim, more prints, more colour. Denim is only meant for jeans and after taking everything out of his closet, he only owns denim. The guy has no sense of fashion and that’s absolutely okay, I just want him to start making an effort. I want him to enjoy getting dressed in the morning and to feel confident in what he’s wearing.’

Jonathan was interviewed next. ‘He is so handsome, he doesn’t really need a makeover as such..’ he mused. ‘But he doesn’t know about how to look after his skin. He doesn’t have a routine, he doesn’t know what toner is, he uses face wipes. I’m going to teach him how to look after his skin and also introduce him to the concept of self care. He’s going to be such a marshmallow by the time I’m finished with him!’

He jumped off the seat and banged his hip against Antoni’s. Antoni sat down on the chair and faced the camera. ‘We’re yet to see what Drake likes to eat considering meals at court are prepared by servants.. so my role might be quite useless...’ He trailed off, looking into the distance with a lost expression on his face. ‘Maybe I can teach him how to make grilled cheese..’

Bobby replaced a dejected Antoni. ‘The bare bones of his room is amazing. SO big with a balcony overlooking Cordonia. It’s basically a real babe magnet but he hasn’t done anything to do it. No pictures, no books, nothing. It’s not the kind of room you would expect to be in a palace, so I kinda want to find out what Drake likes and make his room his own space to recharge from courtly life.’

Karamo sat down. ‘He had so many whiskey bottles littered around the room, it was actually quite alarming. I want to just get to know the guy, work out why he is the king’s best friend but hates court. It doesn’t make sense to me. I want to open up Drake Walker!’

*******************************************************************************************

Day 1: Denim Disaster

Tan lead Drake over to the wardrobe and opened the doors. 'Okay! Tell me. Why the weird obsession with denim?'

Drake shuffled on his feet awkwardly. 'I dunno.. I like blue.'

Tan smiled. 'Blue is a nice colour and we can certainly incorporate more blue into your closet, but we need to ditch a lot of the denim.'

'But why? Denim is a nice material,' Drake said quietly.

Tan studied him for a moment then took out his phone. His slim fingers tapped the screen before showing a picture. He held the phone out to Drake, who frowned. 

'This denim disaster you see there, although an iconic pop culture moment from 2001, is something that cannot be repeated. This is Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. Have you heard of them?'

Drake glared at him. 'I'm not a total recluse. I had a Britney poster in my room growing up.'

Tan laughed. 'Really?!'

Drake blushed. 'She was a babe back in the day..'

Tan giggled then cleared his throat seriously. 'Drake, I'm showing you this because double denim is not a good look. This denim look you see on Britney and Justin got attention for all the wrong reasons. Do you think this is a good look?'

'Hell no!'

'Then Drake, why are you yourself wearing double denim?!' Tan cried. Drake's eyes widened. 'Oh god. Do I look like that?!'

*******************************************************************************************

Drake and Tan entered a men's clothing store with the cameras following. Rails of clothing, from leather jackets to beautiful printed shirts, greeted them. Tan looked at Drake and knew instantly that Drake felt out his depth. 'So, you like blue,' Tan started. 'I suggest we use that as our base colour and go from there.'

Drake nodded and Tan guided him over to a rail of shirts. 'Now, everyone knows I adore a printed shirt,' Tan admitted, picking up a blue shirt with printed zebras. 

Drake jumped back. ‘What the actual FUCK is that?’ 

Tan stared at him, the offending shirt in his hand. He whistled. ‘Wow, no crazy prints for you then..’ 

Drake shuddered. ‘It looks like something Maxwell would wear.’ 

‘Okay, so no crazy prints. Noted.’

Tan began to sort through clothes. 'I actually want to guide you away from these prints at the moment and just look at this Henley shirt.'

He held up a dark blue Henley shirt. 'This is casual, so easy to wear and hey, isn't denim. And, bonus - it’s blue.'

Drake took it and watched as Tan fluttered around the store. He picked up a battered brown leather jacket. Drake wandered over. 'Can I see that?'

'Yes!' Tan squealed. 'Oh my god, you're getting into this!'

Drake reddened. Tan quickly began to pick up various shirts, jeans and boots. His arms were laden down - Drake reached out to take half of the pile, ever the gent. 

'Now, you're a courtier which means you need a suit,' Tan said. Drake's face turned to stone.

'I'm not wearing a suit.'

Tan stopped. 'I know suits can be intimidating -'

'Forget it, Tan,' Drake told him sharply. 'I'm not turning into one of them.'

Tan moved closer to Drake. 'Turning into who?' he asked softly. Drake looked away, his jaw set. 'Drake?' Tan tried again.

Drake sighed. 'I don't want to be like the nobles at court. All they wear are suits and crow about their status and wealth. If I wear a suit then I'm joining them. I'm no better.'

His voice sounded so bitter. Tan bit his lip. 'Why do you dislike them so much? Is it because they brag?'

Drake smirked. 'That amongst other things.'

Tan wanted to ask more but from the look on Drake’s face, he knew not to pursue it. Instead, he fixed a bright smile on his face. ‘Right, let’s get you trying on clothes!’ he led Drake to the dressing room. He handed him the blue henley shirt, jeans, jacket and boots.

Drake came out a few minutes later, a reluctant model. He looked a little embarrassed. Tan clapped his hand to his mouth. ‘Well, you look like you just stepped off a men’s lifestyle magazine cover! Look at you!’

Drake blushed and looked at himself in the mirror. The shirt fitted him perfectly; the way it fit on his body showed off his broad chest. The jeans were a faded dark blue and on his feet were brown suede boots. The leather jacket was slung on top, completing the look. Drake looked like a rockstar. Tan resisted the urge to jump on him.

‘How do you feel?’ he asked.

Drake chuckled. ‘Pretty good, actually.’

‘Give me a twirl!’

Drake shot Tan a withering look but twirled around slowly. Tan jumped up and down with glee. ‘You are serving me off duty model in New York, on his way to a secret underground gig and has a model girlfriend called Ianthe.’

‘Ianthe?’ Drake wrinkled his nose. Tan nodded. ‘She’s blonde,’ he said, hit by inspiration. ‘Sweet girl, dirty sense of humour.’

Drake laughed. ‘I can be down with that.’

Drake studied himself in the mirror and drew himself up, puffing out his chest. ‘I actually really like this. It’s... different but not too drastic.’

‘See, I can be nice!’ Tan joked. He watched as Drake smiled shyly in the mirror.

*******************************************************************************************

The cameras filmed the Fab Five as they settled down on the sofa with cups of coffee to discuss their project. ‘How did shopping go?’ Karamo asked Tan. Tan grinned. ‘Good, for the most part! He loved the outfit I put together for him but he didn’t want to try on suits.’

Karamo shrugged. ‘Many of our projects before haven’t wanted to.’

‘Yeah, like they freak out!’ Bobby said. ‘Like they seem to have this, ‘I’m a rough around the edges guy, I don’t need a suit,’ kind of mentality.’

Tan shook his head. ‘This was different.. like he seemed so adamant, like the suit was poison. He said he didn’t want to turn into the nobles at court.’

‘I wonder why?’ Karamo said quietly, thinking. His mind was working overtime. It didn’t make sense to him that the king’s best friend lived in the palace but was so against the people he saw everyday.

‘I’ll talk to him,’ Karamo decided.

*******************************************************************************************

Day 2: Self Care is not Girly

Drake watched as Jonathan began to place beauty products on the table in front of him. ‘What’s all this?’ he asked. Jonathan turned to him and gave a him a wink. ‘We are having a self care session!’

Drake groaned. ‘Oh god, self care. It’s all I hear about from Liam after he started watching your show.’

‘Liam is right to talk about self care, he’s a clever cookie,’ Jonathan said briskly. ‘Now sit down.’

Drake settled down on the chair, rigid. He eyed the lotions and potions with dread in his eyes. ‘Um.. isn’t this stuff kinda.. girly?’

Jonathan sat down opposite Drake and looked him dead in the eyes. ‘No. This is one reason why men need to start just owning this sort of thing. It’s okay to take time out for yourself. It’s not gay to own beauty products. It’s not gay to take fifteen minutes out of your day to just sit with cucumbers on your eyes. This is toxic masculinity at its peak and everyday I want to challenge that. Now, we’re going to put on face masks.’

Drake stood up quickly. ‘No, it’s okay.’

‘Drake,’ Jonathan said, ‘please. It’s a nice way to relax.’

‘But it’s girly.’

‘What have I just told you? It’s not a bad thing! Now, do you want to feel relaxed and content?’

‘Yeah but-’

‘Then sit your fine ass down and put an oat face mask on.’

Drake groaned but sat down. Jonathan grinned. ‘So, you can make these at home, which I do regularly, but today, I’ve just picked this up. This will exfoliate your skin and banish all the dead skin cells. You will feel like a god once we’re done here. Not that you’re not a god already, I mean, look at you.. but that’s BESIDES THE POINT.’

Drake blushed and watched as Jonathan picked up the tub that held the face mask. ‘Now, squeeze a tiny blob onto your hand and just apply to your face. Smooth it on, no rubbing.’

Drake winced but applied the face mask. ‘Oh, it feels weird..’ he murmured.

His face was now covered. ‘Uhh.. what now?’ he asked.

‘Now, we lie back and let the face mask work its magic.’

Drake settled back into the chair and closed his eyes. Jonathan closed his eyes too.

‘So, tell me about this ball the King is holding,’ Jonathan said casually.

‘Ugh, it’s just to find him a wife,’ Drake muttered. ‘It’s ridiculous.’

‘And it’s a competition?’

‘Yeah. He’s got all these duchesses coming round to try and win his heart. There’s events they have to compete it, it’s hard work. I wouldn’t want to be them.’

‘Why hasn’t Liam found anyone the normal way? You know, Tinder,’ Jonathan asked. Drake chuckled. ‘The king isn’t allowed to use tinder.’

‘That sucks. Do you use tinder?’

Drake smirked. ‘Not telling.’

‘Oh my God, you do!’ Jonathan squealed, his eyes shooting open. Drake kept his eyes shut but he was trying not to laugh.

‘Have you matched with anyone?!’ Jonathan shrieked. Drake mimed zipping his mouth closed. 

‘At least tell me who your ideal girl is.’

Drake laughed nervously. ‘Um.. someone laidback? Who isn’t taken in by the trappings of court. Someone who likes a drink and is just fun to be around. Nothing too demanding.’

‘Who’s your celebrity crush?’ Jonathan asked.

‘Selma Hayek,’ he said immediately. Jonathan’s mouth dropped open. ‘She is a babe!’

They were quiet again until Jonathan, who hated silence, broke it. 

‘Have you ever had a girlfriend?’

‘Nah, man,’ Drake told him. ‘I’ve had girls yeah.. but not girlfriends.’

‘You can’t be tamed!’ Jonathan joked. ‘Oh honey, I just want to tame you right now.’

Drake’s body shook as he laughed. ‘Calm down, Jonathan.’ 

They sat in silence for a few more minutes. ‘Right, time to wash off the face mask!’ Jonathan announced.

They went into the bathroom and Drake washed his face. When he looked up in the mirror, his eyes widened. ‘I look.. fresh.’

‘Yes you do, honey!’ Jonathan said. ‘You look fresh as a daisy. Now,  you are only to do that once a week. Any more and your skin was start to get aggravated as this is a scrub. Now, cleansing. You’ll notice I threw out your face wipes.’

‘I did, yes. Didn’t appreciate that,’ Drake said dryly.

‘Don’t give me backchat,’ Jonathan scolded him. ‘Here you have your new cleanser. It’s free from animal testing, it’s good for even sensitive skin and it will just keep your skin looking and feeling good. Next, toner.’

‘This is a long routine,’ Drake observed.

‘Beauty takes a village!’ Jonathan replied. ‘After your toner, you then apply your moisturiser. This will lock in moisture, obviously, and keep skin hydrated. No more dry patches. Plus, it smells gorge!’

Drake sniffed the moisturiser. ‘Ooh, it does!’

‘Right?! So, face wash, toner, moisturiser twice a day, every day. Face mask, once a week. Got it?’

‘Got it.’

‘Amazing. Oh honey, you’ve done so good today!’ Jonathan pulled him into a hug. Drake stiffened at first but then relaxed, patting him on the back.

*******************************************************************************************

Day 3: Babe Magnet

Bobby and Drake were in a home store. ‘So, tell me what kind of decor you like. As in, do you like wallpaper? Cushions? Tell me your thing,’ Bobby started. 

Drake shrugged. ‘I don’t really know..’

‘Okay, what colours do you like?’

‘Hmm. Blue. Green. Sort of nature colours, I guess.’

Bobby grinned. ‘That’s great! Okay, so we can use those. For rooms, it’s always good to have three colours. One is your main base, the second is the compliment colour, and the third is for accents. How about we use blue as the base? So, blue walls?’

‘I like blue walls,’ Drake said simply.

‘Cool. Green as a secondary colour, I think too. Like, a dark green duvet?’

Drake nodded. ‘Sure, sounds good.’

‘Now, accent colours. I’ll show you this mood board here of different colours and fabrics. Show me what you are drawn to as an accent.’

Drake studied the mood board Bobby held out. He touched the silk, the satin, the cotton and looked through the colour spectrum, his eyes narrowed in concentration.

‘I quite like the rusty orange..’ he said. ‘Is that weird?’

‘Not at all!’ Bobby said. ‘Nice choice, you have a good eye.’

‘What are accent colours?’ Drake asked quietly, as if it was a stupid question. Bobby did not think it was a stupid question at all. 

Bobby guided him over to an aisle full of cushions. ‘Cushions, blankets, lampshades. These can all be accents, they are the little pieces in your space that add some personality and fun. You can play around with a pop of colour.’

They began to look at cushions and rugs. Drake’s eye roamed the store and fell upon a copper drinks cart. ‘Ooh.’

Bobby followed his eye line. The bottles of whiskey in Drake’s room instantly sprang to mind and he felt a flash of panic. He hadn’t been advised on how to deal with this. Clearly, the guy had a drink problem. Buying a drinks cart would only be encouraging it. Where was Karamo for advice when he needed him?

‘Oooh, shelves! Drake, let’s look at shelves!’ he cried, distracting him. Drake followed him to the shelving section. 

‘I like the driftwood,’ Drake volunteered. 

‘You’re so outdoorsy, aren’t you?’ Bobby asked. Drake blushed. 

‘Honestly, I am too,’ Bobby continued. ‘I love being outside, working with my hands. Driftwood is a nice touch, it adds some interest to the room and is a nice feature. You sure you haven’t looked at interior design before?’

Drake blushed. ‘Pretty sure.’

Bobby raised an eyebrow. ‘Okay, cool. Now, the balcony. Let me talk about the balcony. How often do you use it?’

'Whenever it gets a bit much in court, I use it.’

Bobby smiled softly. ‘Cool. I noticed it’s quite sparse so would you mind if I put in some plants, maybe some fairy lights and candles? It’s a babe magnet of a balcony, some girls like fairy lights and candles...’

‘Bit girly..’ Drake muttered.

‘We have got to erase the word from your vocab!’ Bobby scolded.  ‘Jonathan was telling me you thought face masks were girly, which they’re not. Neither are fairy lights and candles. Drake, it’s okay to have feminine things in a masculine space; to be honest, it’s refreshing.’ 

‘Fine, okay, I’ll have fairy lights,’ Drake sighed. 

Bobby stared at him, his gaze steady. ‘Sit on that sofa,’ he said, gesturing to a leather sofa behind him. Drake sat down, his face red from embarrassment.  Bobby settled down beside him and faced him. 

‘Okay. Usually, this is Karamo’s area but right now, we are in the middle of trying to kit out your bedroom to be a nice, relaxing space and I’m sorry but toxic masculinity is not the vibe I want in that room, okay?’

Drake nodded mutely. He looked like a child being told off.  Bobby continued with the tough love nonetheless.

‘I imagine you’re quite socially awkward?’

‘What gives you that impression?’ Drake muttered, picking at his fingernails.

‘Everything about you,’ Bobby said bluntly. ‘You’re at court and you’re the king’s best friend but from what I’ve heard, you hate that environment. So, I guess your room is your escape. But, the room you have is bare and there is not one hint of Drake Walker in it. I want to make that room yours. I want it to be your own space where you feel relaxed and can just be yourself, no airs or graces, just you. I’m not trying to change you, I promise. I just want you to be open to more ideas, challenge yourself. You might find some stuff that you like.’

Drake was silent for a moment and studied the floor. He looked up at Bobby with decision in his eyes. ‘Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. I don’t mean to shoot down your ideas, you are the expert and clearly, I need some professional help. I’ll smell all the candles you want and stock up on tons of cushions, whatever. You’re here for a reason, I’ve got to just accept that.’

Bobby smiled wobbily, his eyes threatening to fill with tears. ‘Thank you, Drake.’

Drake shrugged but offer a small smile. The tension was released. 

‘By the way, not all candles smell ‘girly’, to quote your favourite word,’ Bobby explained. ‘You can get some that smell of leather, sandalwood.. want to try?’

Drake gave him an enthusiastic nod. ‘Sure, why not? Take me to the candles!’

[officialjessicajewett]

Short story (although I beg you to read the entire blog): I’m selling a drawing of the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain house and donating the profits to preservation and restoration efforts.

BUY THE CHAMBERLAIN HOUSE ORIGINAL ART HERE. BUY THE CHAMBERLAIN HOUSE ART PRINTS HERE.

Now, let’s have the whole story. The links will be at the end of the blog again too. I don’t know if my efforts will be successful but my hope is you’ll feel my passion by the end of this blog.

We’re here to talk about something very near and dear to my heart – the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain house in Brunswick, Maine. The porches that Chamberlain himself built on his home of over fifty years are in structural danger. Together, you and I are going to help. Buildings like this one belong to all of us.

Briefly, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain was a Union general in the American Civil War who rose to that rank without formal military training (he was a professor before the war). He volunteered for service, and then later became a four-term governor of Maine, followed by president of Bowdoin College.

His wife, Fanny, was a rare example of an independent woman, having a career of her own as a music teacher and an artist before she decided to get married. The two of them were quite liberal in a lot of ways; believing women should be admitted to college wherever they chose, believing in the right to contraception and family planning, believing in racial equality, and so forth.

For a bit of context into the time and place the Chamberlain family lived, they knew Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, and attended church with her for years. Stowe sometimes held gatherings of Bowdoin College students in her home where she read chapters of Uncle Tom’s Cabin aloud. Chamberlain took Fanny to some of these readings while they were “dating” (dating wasn’t the term in those days).

National history largely forgot Chamberlain until Ken Burns heavily featured him throughout his documentary series, The Civil War. Then in the early 90s, Jeff Daniels actually played Chamberlain (seen in character on the left) in the film, Gettysburg, followed ten years later by playing him again in Gods and Generals.

His impact reaches far beyond Maine. Even I live in Atlanta and I’m just three miles from both Chamberlain Street and Oakland Cemetery where one of his best friends, General John B. Gordon, is buried.

You’re beginning to see why this family and this house matter to American history. We could sit here discussing Chamberlain’s fascinating life and undeniable affect on Maine history until we write a book. In fact, there are a lot of books about him, his military commands, and his family.

Not only did the family live in this house for over fifty years, but Henry Wadsworth Longfellow rented rooms in the same house before they bought it. Longfellow’s presence in the house is still felt today in the upstairs parlor where a portion of the wallpaper he put up is still there.

This is the house today. Originally, it was only one-and-a-half floors. Chamberlain had the entire structure moved to the corner of Potter and Maine, and then lifted about eleven feet off the ground to build an entirely new first floor addition. He designed most of the first floor himself, including a beautiful curved staircase that greeted guests upon walking through the ruby red foyer. It’s is one of the most architecturally important houses in the state of Maine due to the odd mixture of building and decorating styles blended together from different popular aesthetics in the nineteenth century – Cape Cod, Gothic Revival, and some Art Nouveau influences. Chamberlain wasn’t even a trained architect or interior designer.

The Pejepscot History Center (PHC) rescued the house from demolition in 1983 after decades of being rented out to Bowdoin College students. It had been chopped up into seven apartments and the interior was painted psychedelic colors when they acquired it. Almost 37 years under the careful stewardship of historians and volunteers has seen great strides toward preserving and restoring the home to the way it stood when Chamberlain lived there, but only partially so.

As of my last visit, renters still live in the upper portions of the house in, I believe, three apartments because renting brings in money for upkeep. Many of the unoccupied rooms upstairs haven’t yet been restored either, including all of the Chamberlain family bedrooms. The downstairs bathroom with original fittings and the master bedroom upstairs were being used for storage instead of teaching and tourism. It takes a lot of money to preserve and restore historical buildings. Brunswick is a small town and Maine is a small town state.

Why does the decay of an old house matter to me?

My family name is Jewett. That was, once upon a time, an influential name up in Maine, so much so that if you take a drive over to South Berwick, you can tour my ancestors’ home. I’m related to Sarah Orne Jewett and she left her home to Historic New England when she died. If you click on her name, it’ll take you to the website for that house. There, you’ll see the potential when important places have the resources for full, meticulous restoration and preservation. I have a vision for the Chamberlain home being just as preserved, studied, and restored as the Jewett house.

I’ve had the privilege of visiting the Chamberlain house twice. Tour guides were wonderful and well-informed, the gift shop was better than most battlefield gift shops, and there was a beautiful wheelchair ramp built onto the back porch – a rarity for historical landmarks. In the above photo, you’re looking at my first trip to the house twelve years ago when I was quite sick and underweight compared to now. Sick or not, historical preservation is my passion. So I went to Maine.

I’d like to show you more photos from my trips to the Chamberlain house. I quickly grabbed some from my collection so you can see how special this place is to many of us in the American history, women’s history, and Civil War fields.

In 2018 and 2019, the PHC raised $48,000 for serious restoration work on the exterior of the house. They even got the wheelchair ramp rebuilt on the back porch as a bonus. It was a really spectacular job and it all looks like it belonged on the house from the beginning, although General Chamberlain never had a ramp back there.

The old ramp and porch.

The new ramp and porch.

I’m showing you this because I want you to see what’s possible through the help of donations, foundations, and grants to not only restore historical landmarks but also to make them accessible to more people in the future. Places like this really depend on tourism for cash flow in addition to the few grants that are available. Tourism matters economically to small towns. It pays to have interesting landmarks, speaking in practical terms. We’re American. We understand that money talks.

Take a look at this photo of the house from the 1870s. Do you see the glass porch on the first floor, and then the open air porch above it? Pay attention to those.

I’m letting the Pejepscot History Center explain what happened. This is from their fundraiser page. I’m not sure if the fundraiser page is still open, but if it is, I’ll update this blog with a link.

Thanks to $48,000 raised from foundations and individuals over 2018-2019, we were able to undertake extensive exterior restoration work on the Joshua L. Chamberlain Museum starting in the spring of 2019.

Four faces of the building have now been lovingly restored, but in the process, considerable rot due to deferred maintenance in the past was found and corrected.

This led to fewer funds available for addressing the final part of this Phase I restoration effort: the two historic porches on the southeast corner of the building, which have some of the most interesting architecture on the building, and provide considerable structural support.

Unfortunately, they too have more deterioration than originally anticipated, necessitating additional funds to repair and rebuild the porches correctly.

Chamberlain raised the house 11 feet in the air in 1871 to add the lower story, thereby adding the first floor porch himself. He especially loved these porches. Over the years, he and the family enjoyed sitting on them and raising plants in the ample southern sunshine.

So I decided to make donations interesting. Individually, none of us can afford the $20,000 the PHC needs to raise to save Chamberlain’s porches from decaying and deteriorating. I know I can’t.

But what I can do is use my skills as an artist to draw attention to the house and make it worth your effort to help rescue the house. I’m a portrait artist most of the time, selling commissions of ordinary people as well as portraits set in highly researched historical scenes. To me, the Chamberlain house like all other historical houses are like living things with souls and sets of memories all their own.

The idea occurred to me that if people were willing to buy my portraits of people, perhaps they would be willing to buy a “portrait” of a house. I had already done a Christmas-themed piece of art showcasing the Chamberlain family’s church, First Parish, and I was interested in doing another piece anyway. If I could use my artistic drive to raise awareness for historical preservation, all the better.

So I got to work. Watch the video below to see me in action.

Yes, the manner in which I do my art is a bit different. We’ll go ahead and address the elephant in the room since many of you might be new to my website and my art. If you didn’t guess from my other photos, I’m physically disabled. I was born with a condition called Arthrogryposis and the nature of it means I need to do everything with the tools in my mouth, whether it’s writing, typing, chopping vegetables, sewing, or creating art. I’ve had about nineteen surgeries to date with a high probability of two more surgeries in 2020. Selling art is how I make extra money.

This time, however, I’m not making money from the art. I’ve decided to sell both the original and various sized prints made from the Chamberlain house piece for the benefit of the restoration project. When I sell this piece, I will make a donation from 80% of the profits (I need 20% for shipping, materials, etc.) to the Pejepscot History Center and I will make public all of the pertinent documents. That way everything is crystal clear and there are no questions.

This is the completed piece of art.

It took me about three weeks to complete it. I used a combination of Pentel mechanical pencils with .5 mm lead and Prismacolor Ebony pencils on 11×14-inch mixed media paper. Each detail of the house was researched and replicated to the best of my ability down to the placement of the trees, the curtains from the 1870s photographs, the wrought iron fence design, and the woodwork. If you look up top, you’ll see the famous chimney Chamberlain added after the war with the Maltese cross. He was a Fifth Corps officer and the Maltese cross was their insignia, a symbol found throughout the house.

You’ll be able to purchase this piece of art in my shop.

BUY THE CHAMBERLAIN HOUSE ORIGINAL ART HERE. BUY THE CHAMBERLAIN HOUSE ART PRINTS HERE.

The original, as in the actual piece of art I worked on, is 11×14 inches and costs $385.00 USD. Prints (5×7, 8×10, or 11×17) range in price from $12.00 USD to $24.00 USD and are made on high quality cardstock with a glossy finish.

Orders larger than 8×10 inches are shipped in a tube with the art rolled inside to protect it from rough postal workers. Orders 8×10 and smaller are shipped in flat bubble mailers reinforced with cardboard. All customers are given a tracking number so they can keep an eye on their packages with the postal service as well. Every order within the United States includes free shipping. Shipping for international orders will be calculated at the time of purchase.

Please consider purchasing this piece. It’s such a worthy cause. I realize there is a lot happening in the world, and I’m doing my part for those causes too, but we should care about American history too.  We need to be thinking about what kind of tangible legacy we’re going to leave our children and grandchildren. Wouldn’t you want to teach your descendants to celebrate and honor a man who believed in the qualities of a better world that we’re still fighting to create? What better way to honor him and his family than to help preserve the place they loved and called home for over half a century?

If you’re not interested in buying my art, that’s quite all right. There are choices.

One option is to let me collect the donations at PayPal.me/ArtByJessicaJewett and I’ll get it to the Pejepscot History Center for you. Please specify that you are donating to the Chamberlain house in the notes. I’ll send donations on the 15th of every month (when there are any) and I will give you copies of the receipts.

Or you can make a donation directly to the Pejepscot History Center, but please make sure you specify that your donation is for the Chamberlain house. They don’t have digital donations aside from the annual membership drives. The new 2020 membership drive hasn’t been created yet since they are closed until February 4.

To donate by mail:

Pejepscot History Center 159 Park Row Brunswick, ME 04011

By phone: Call (207) 729-6606 to provide a credit card number. They take all major cards.

In person: Drop by their offices at 159 Park Row during open hours.

The Pejepscot History Center is a non-profit, tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organization. Your gift is tax deductible to the full extent allowed by law.

I’m not affiliated with the Pejepscot History Center in any way, nor do I work for them. My fundraising efforts are as a private citizen.

Donation

Please consider making a donation to help me keep up with the cost of art supplies, living expenses, equipment related to my disability, and so forth. The minimum is set at $10.00. Thank you for your generosity.

$10.00

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Buy a piece of art to help with restoration projects on the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain house. Find out why it's important. Short story (although I beg you to read the entire blog): I'm selling a drawing of the Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain house and donating the profits to preservation and restoration efforts.

[kenbunshokus]

#ZOSAN

zoro/sanji, nami/vivi | 3.5k words | 1 of 7 chapters

“Who are they even… 'shipping' me with? They know Usopp is with Kaya, and didn’t you just make your whole thing with Vivi public a few weeks ago—“ Zoro trails off as realization hits him, all at once, and he feels his stomach drop in the same way it would whenever he faces a particularly strong opponent in a kendo match.

“No,” he breathes.

“Obviously,” Nami says, shoves her phone into his face and points at a comment that says, OMG PLZ blonde and green are sitting side by side again. OTP! as Zoro sees his life flash before his eyes. “They’re shipping you with Sanji.”

(Or, the one where the Strawhats are Youtube personalities and people, naturally, start shipping Zoro and Sanji.)

(ao3)

catburglar 572 posts | 2.1M followers | 47 following Nami Bellemere stealing your hearts, one picture at a time http://youtube.com/user/thestrawhatshub

❤ 8,277 Likes catburglar lunch with the fam @sogeking @pirateking @strawhats #food #nofilter #cafe

View all 5,405 comments

ivolatan OMG THOSE TWO GUYS ARE IN THE PICTURE AGAIN

bananapigeon ok seriously, who are those two untagged guys in these pics. esp the blond one with the eyebrow. i keep seeing them in the vlogs too.

mikphail @catburglar Can you tell us the name of the green-haired guy sitting on the right? Beside the blonde? Asking for a friend.

+

“People are asking for you,” is the first thing Nami says as Zoro walks into the apartment she shares with Usopp and heads straight towards the fridge.

“Which people?” Zoro asks, suspicious. The comment seems innocent out of context, but Zoro narrows his eyes at her anyways because it’s Nami. “Actual people? Or,” he pauses, sifting through his mental vocabulary before giving up and settling with, “your people.”

He can hear her laugh from the living room. “Zoro, people from the internet are still real people.”

“They aren’t just people,” Usopp pokes his head out of his room to join in the conversation, “they are the subscribers, nay, followers— nay — fans of the Great Usopp—“

“They’re strangers,” Zoro points out, matter-of-factly. He doesn’t really get this whole…internet thing Usopp and Nami seem to have made a decent amount of money from no matter how many Technology 101 Lectures from Franky he’s sat through. They work for Luffy’s YouTube Channel—the Strawhats Hub—and post a bunch of videos online about how they have burger for lunch or some other mundane shit, and somehow people pay for that. Well, the sponsors pay for that, technically, but they get money all the same. Zoro doesn’t really get it.

He does understand one thing for sure, though. “I don’t give out my details to strangers.”

“Zoro, you’re like, a decade too old for Stranger Danger,” Nami says, disapproving, “and you know you can’t avoid being famous if you want to be the strongest swordsman in the world.”

Zoro sighs at the familiar argument between them, and makes sure he groans loud enough for her to hear. He’s usually up for any kind of sparring, verbal or otherwise, but not today—not after four back-to-back, two-hour lectures at the university and kendo club training afterwards with no breaks in between. He snatches the nearest canned beer with a little too much force, and it hits the fridge door with a loud bang.

Nami seems to catch on the sour mood and switches the subject. “You know, I think they’re shipping you.”

Zoro blinks. He waits for a second, two, three...yeah, the words still don't make sense. He gives her a confused stare. “What does that even mean?”

“it means they want you to be together with someone,” Usopp, their designated Technology-to-Zoro translator, explains. “Like, together together.”

Zoro scoffs. “What is this, high school?” He waves a dismissive hand at Nami, deciding to focus more on the free beer in his hand instead, eyeing it appreciatively. Nami’s an unpredictable storm with a flexible moral compass reminiscent of a witch, but she provides an endless supply of booze and is the only person who can hold her own against him, so Zoro figures it all balances out in the end.

The cold liquid hits the back of his throat with a familiar biting sensation, and it calms him down enough to finally process Usopp’s words. “Who are they even… shipping me with?” The foreign word stumbles clumsily out of his mouth, and he pauses, trying to wrap his mind around the concept. “They know Usopp is with Kaya, and didn’t you just make your whole thing with Vivi public a few weeks ago—“

Zoro trails off as realization hits him, all at once, and he feels his stomach drop in the same way it would whenever he faces a particularly strong opponent in a kendo match.

“No,” he breathes.

“Obviously,” Nami says, shoves her phone into his face and points at a YouTube comment that says, OMG PLZ blonde and green are sitting side by side again. OTP! as Zoro sees his life flash before his eyes. “They’re shipping you with Sanji.”

+

nami @catburglar

We’re kind of bored, so @sogeking and I are answering everyone’s questions in the next hour! Don’t forget to use the hashtag #AskUsoNa <3

 nami @catburglar

so a million dollar AND a free trip around the world? I’d take it! 

\m/ @queenmelissa

Would you get a million dollar but every time you sneeze you’re being teleported to a random place in the world #Askusona

 nami @catburglar

I’ve known Usopp since high school. I’ve known Luffy the longest, though. We’ve been friends since we were cute little ten-year-olds.

Jenna Rowen @jrowen

#AskUsoNa How did you get to know each other? Love your vids!

 nami @catburglar

Zoro and Sanji are roommates, not dating. Or are they? ;)

bad luck kate @gingerchic

are the two guys in some of your vids dating (U KNOW WHICH TWO) #askusona @sogeking @catburglar

 bad luck kate @gingerchic replying to @catburglar

HOLY SHIT DID U JUST

 bad luck kate @gingerchic replying to @gingerchic @catburglar

WE JUST GOT A FUCKING NAMES REVEAL. @ STRAWHAT RPF FANDOM THIS IS NOT A DRILL

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The smell of well-cooked seafood, mixed with a tinge of booze, touches every nook and cranny of his apartment as people eat, drink, or laugh with each other (or, in Luffy’s case, all three of them at once). Zoro sprawls comfortably across his favorite sofa in the middle of the cacophony, and he closes his eyes, soaking in the familiar atmosphere, a half-empty can of beer dangling by his right hand.

Today isn’t their usual weekly Friday Night Hang Out; today, Ace is on leave from the military for the first time in ages. Luffy promised his big brother a huge, awesome feast, and their ragtag group of broke college students deliver the way they know how—His and Sanji’s apartment, Brook’s music, Sanji’s food.

Zoro doesn’t care much about parties, but he does like Ace and his stories about Whitebeard's platoon. Free booze is also a plus.

“Tired already?” A voice asks over his head, and Zoro has spent enough time with Luffy’s family ever since he was ten to know it’s Ace without having to look up.

“As if,” he says, skipping the greeting. “Just making sure I don’t appear in Usopp’s videos.” He thinks of the photo Nami showed him a few days ago, the one on the… instant… gram… thing… and adds, “or photos.”

“Oh, I’ve heard about that!” Ace plops onto the other sofa across the table, entering Zoro’s field of vision. “I heard somebody’s famous now.”

“Tch,” Zoro grunts, but refuses to elaborate. He doesn’t like where the conversation is going.

“And I heard,” Ace continues anyways, his grin all-too-innocent and therefore completely terrifying, “someone’s famous with someone else.”

Zoro jolts upright from his position, for once ignoring the beer he spilled on the carpet—Sanji will kill him for that later, but whatever—and turns to search for Usopp among the crowd. He glares at Usopp in a way that says, I’m going to deliver you a drawn-out, painful death, and Usopp pointedly looks anywhere but back at him.

Ace chuckles, impervious to Zoro’s death glares. “Actually, Luffy was the one who told me.”

“The shipping thing sounds so cool,” Luffy, that traitor, chimes in around a mouthful of meatballs. “I wonder who they’d ship me with.”

“Meat, probably,” Sanji says before Zoro could, and bodily pushes Luffy aside with his leg to place a plateful of fried prawns on the table. Both brothers’ eyes widen comically at the sight and the two of them dive into the plate as Sanji narrows his eyes at Zoro, “that is, if people can even be trusted these days. I still can’t believe they, what’s the word— ship me with marimo head over here when Nami is also in the picture.”

That—well.

Stings a little.

Zoro mentally maneuvers around the flare of jealousy and opts for anger, because it’s easier. Familiar. “Not like I’m enjoying the idea of being a boyfriend of someone with those eyebrows,” he fires back.

Sanji’s left eye twitches at that. “Didn’t know you have enough intelligence to even form an idea, seaweed brain.”

“Pervert cook.”

“Brainless moss.”

“Please keep the lover’s spat within the privacy of your bedroom,” Nami teases as she somehow manages to gracefully pluck a prawn out of the mess Ace and Luffy are making on the table.

“Right, Mellorine!” Sanji sing-songs in record speed.

Zoro sighs and puts his face in his hand. “Do you even listen to yourself, idiot,” he says, and narrowly dodges a kick to the head.

“Says the person who got lost so often the train station officers from the neighboring city start recognizing him!” Sanji yells back, and avoids the pillow thrown at him with practiced ease clearly born through repeated fights.

“How are you two even friends,” Ace observes in between chews, amused.

Zoro and Sanji instantly whip their heads towards Ace in unison, and say, in eerie synchronicity, “we’re not friends.”

Nami shakes her head, but it’s fond. “That’s how.”

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❤ 2,103 Likes catburglar exclusive photo of Zoro enjoying Sanji’s food #nofilter #candid

View all 7,151 comments

martiknee I assume Sanji is a chef, then?

thefantasyren I still can’t believe we’ve been blessed with their names. Strawhat Fandom, rejoice!

ostenmah @martiknee ur an idiot, he could just be someone whos really good at cooking

martiknee Wow, thanks for the unprompted hostility, I was just asking. Either way, do you fucking have eyes, look at those prawns. Look me in the eyes and tell me he cooks THOSE and doesn’t cook for a living. @ostenmah

  brie @strawhatnami

so I heard Zoro is in his college’s kendo club

 a gay @bisexualusopp replying to @strahwatnami

he’s the CAPTAIN

 brie @strawhatnami replying to @bisexualusopp

source pls?

 Kal @THEKALZONE replying to @strawhatnami @bisexualusopp

can confirm, my brother goes to the same college as him, wasn’t exactly difficult to find a dude w green hair named zoro

 a gay @bisexualusopp replying to @THEKALZONE @strawhatnami

apparently he used to appear on a bunch of tv shows about modern swordsmen or sth with his sister back then?

 brie @strawhatnami replying to @bisexualusopp @THEKALZONE

HOLY SHIT I REMEMBER WATCHING IT WHEN I WAS LIKE. FIVE. kuina was my fave. I wonder if she goes to the same college too?

+

The thing is—the crux of the problem of this whole mess of a situation is that—Zoro has code. Some sort of personal, unsaid rules he has dedicated his life to following. And now this whole fiasco is slowly breaking these codes—two, particularly:

Zoro, as a general rule, dislikes attention. He used to be some sort of a child star way back when, before Usopp and Nami and even Luffy, before—the thing with Kuina. It was hardly bearable when Kuina was with him, holding his hand whenever it started to tremble during tapings, and now with her gone he’s not touching that industry with a ten-feet pole. That means no stupid interviews with awkward pauses and one-word answers, no troublesome photo shoots that leave him with cramps at places he didn’t know could get cramps, and most importantly, no getting recognized on the street by random strangers. He looks like shit on photos. He doesn’t even have an autograph.

Zoro has the largest, most pathetic crush on Sanji, and nobody can find out.

The second rule is more important than the first, of course. So far the breaking of the first code only results in minor inconveniences, but the fact that there’s a whole group of people dedicated to telling the world that Zoro wants to get into Sanji’s pants is not something he can live with. Not something Sanji can live with, that’s for sure. Sanji has been brushing them off as a joke, thankfully, but Zoro figures there’s only so much the Straightest Man on Earth could take before he would start avoiding Zoro in disgust and pretty much stomping on Zoro’s heart in the process.

Which is why, as soon as he spots Usopp coming out of the college’s workshop, Zoro stops him in his track and growls, “this is all your fault.”

Usopp covers his head out of instinct and stammers, “whatever it is, I didn’t do it and I’m sorry.”

Zoro crosses his arms in front of his chest and huffs. “Stop it—I’d never hit you just because I feel like it.”

“This bump on the right side of my head disagrees,” Usopp says as he peeks through his fingers, “I think it’s developing into a tumor .”

“You can’t get a tumor from getting knocked in the head,” Zoro says.

“I don’t think you’re qualified to make that judgment,” Usopp insists, but visibly relaxes anyways when he doesn’t see Zoro’s hands anywhere near his head. “What is it?”

“It’s just,” Zoro says, almost ominously. “People.”

“You’re not a fan of them. Yeah, I got that, like, five years ago when I first met you.”

“Shut up, I’m not done. People, they—“ Zoro drops his voice as low as possible to adequately convey the severity of his predicament, “—they started recognizing me. From your pictures.”

Usopp visibly perks up at that. “I know , right? People say, Usopp, being famous on the internet is nothing, no one’s going to know who you are in real life, but hater’s gonna hate, you know? One time a princess from a European country asked for my autograph—“

“It’s not a good thing,” Zoro cuts in, ignoring Usopp’s make-believe story. “Three different people asked for my photograph on the way here. A girl tried taking a picture while I was eating and I accidentally spat in her face.”

Usopp at least has the audacity to grimace at that. “I guess—I guess I can see where you’re coming from, but come on, Zoro, live a little!” He emphasizes with a  friendly pat on Zoro’s shoulder. “There are, literally, thousands of people lining up to be in your shoes.”

Zoro can’t help bristling at the touch. “I didn’t sign up for this. Not like you and Nami did, with Luffy and the whole YouTube thing,” he says and adds, more urgently, “especially not for the whole thing with the Cook.”

Usopp should know. Usopp does know, because Zoro told him once under the influence of one too many drinks. They never really talked about it afterwards because Zoro has the emotional constipation of a sixteen-year-old emo teen who still listens to My Chemical Romance, and Usopp has enough self-preservation instinct not to bring it up, but there’s always this silent agreement that Usopp knows.

Usopp raises his hands in the universal sign of defeat. “Look, I admit things did go out of hands a little bit, but it’s nothing big. It’s the internet. People will ship any two people who so much breathe the same air.”

Zoro narrows his eyes critically at Usopp, and while Usopp gulps under the scrutiny, he also looks—honest. Trustworthy. Damn it, Zoro does have a soft spot for his tattletale of a friend, and one day it’s going to be his downfall.

“All right, fine, I’ll take your word for it,” he says, and Usopp releases a relieved sigh, which immediately gets sucked back in as soon as Zoro growls, “but if Nami even says something remotely different—“

“If I say something what?”

Zoro is a skillful and trained martial art practitioner. Rumor has it that he has no openings; opponents who go into a fight expecting one would get a reality check in the form of a kendo sword to the head. He’s like a wild predator, they all say, and you are his natural prey.

They are all wrong. Sitting comfortably on the apex of the food pyramid is Nami, and she knows all of Zoro’s weaknesses like the back of her hand.

Zoro jumps and thinks his heart stops for a moment as Nami appears out of nowhere and joins in the conversation, and she laughs when she notices his surprise.

“Shut up,” he growls, and she just grins even wider.

“I was just telling him about the shippers,” Usopp fills her in, oblivious to Zoro’s mini-heart attack, “that they’re. You know. Harmless?”

Zoro doesn’t like the unspoken question mark tacked at the end of Usopp’s sentence, and he likes it even less when Nami says, “well, I wouldn’t exactly call them harmless.”

Zoro glowers at that. “Explain.”

“I mean, you’ve been way too closed up about yourself, you’re practically an urban legend,” Nami says, “and people love knowing things, Zoro. It makes them feel like they’re part of something special. When the internet wants something, there’s no stopping the internet.”

“Like legalizing weed,” Usopp adds, “give them information and you can control what’s coming out. Give them nothing and you’re unleashing a hungry beast.”

“I’m not going to start using The Instant Gram for them,” Zoro says, frustrated, and bits his lips in a way that almost resembles a pout. Not that he pouts, of course.

“I told you it’s not called the Instant—you know what, I tried,” Usopp says under his breath, and Zoro ignores him.

“We’ve been at this before, you know,” Nami continues, shaking her head, “they want to know things about you, and they’re going to find out. Age. Height. Blood type. The brand of shampoo you use. Which side of the bed you’re sleeping in. The fact that you have a crush on Sanji—“

Zoro stops in his track. He blinks. “No one—no one knows that,” he says, and curses himself for stuttering. He catches Usopp’s eyes, and reluctantly adds, “unless I told them.”

“You never told me,” Nami points out.

“You don’t count,” Zoro insists, “you can read me like a book.”

“I want to be flattered,” Nami pats him on the head, like humoring a small child, “but it frankly doesn’t feel like much of an accomplishment when your book only says I HAVE A CRUSH ON SANJI in eighty point bold font.”

He definitely doesn’t blush at that. Desperate, he turns to Usopp. “This isn’t what you told me.”

Nami looks at him, and is that—damn it. Is that pity in her eyes? “Zoro, I don’t know what lies Usopp has been telling you this time, but everyone knows you have a Big Gay Crush on Sanji.”

“One, it’s not a—a Big Gay Crush,” he sputters, “and two, both of you hardly counts as ‘everyone.’”

“No, really,” Nami says as she pulls up safari on her iPhone to open the fuckyeahzosan tumblr page, “I mean everyone.”

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FuckYeahZosan

The very first Zosan Blog. Zoro and Sanji flirt with each other and ignore everyone else in group pictures because they’re assholes in love.

mods: zorosanjis and queerbellemere

our edits

fanart | fanfics | fanmixes

 fuckyeahzosan

Nami just posted a new picture and it’s everything we’ve ever hoped for.

#sanji is cooking for zoro #what is air #zosan #official

452 notes

 fuckyeahzosan reblogged zoro-sanji-for-the-win 

I can’t believe we only got their names a month ago and today we’ve got two dozens new pictures where they surreptitiously look into each other’s eyes, found out they’ve been roommates for years, gone on yearly road trips with just the two of them, and are practically canon.

I feel like this has all been a collective fever dream we just haven’t woken up from.

It’s all real and you better believe it.

#reblogged #text

2,252 notes

 anonymous asked

Ugh, people like you are the reason why I hate the Strawhat Fandom so much. Zoro and Sanji aren’t even SIGNED to the Strawhats Agency. They’re just FRIENDS of Nami and Usopp. And now they’re the most popular pairing in this fandom? Bullshit.

Sorry, we can’t hear you over how often Zoro and Sanji appear in the Strawhats' videos they may as well be Strawhats, and how even Shanks treat them like they’re part of the fandom.

#asks and answers #mod a

564 notes

 fuckyeahzosan reblogged queennami

zoro + looking at sanji with a love-struck look on his face when he thinks no one’s looking

#THE THING THAT REALLY GOT ME ABOUT THEIR RELATIONSHIP #or friendship or whatever #is that it’s so loud and flashy you can’t help but notice #but with glimpses of quiet moments like this #like you KNOW they have the typical alpha male friendship #roughhousing and name calling; the whole package #from the way nami and usopp talk about them in interviews and stuff #and how they glare at each other in pictures with insults teetering on the tips of their tongues #but sometimes we get glimpses of this when they think no one’s looking #zoro staring at sanji – startsruck – like there are constellations clinging on sanji’s back #and there’s always that small smile zoro probably reserves just for sanji #and I Die #stab me in the chest and it would’ve hurt less #zoro #sanji #zosan #strawhatedit #rpf for ts (via queennami)

#reblogged #photoset #tags #lord have mercy on me

4,425 notes

+

Usopp is so going home with a new bump on his head.

[duhragonball]

Dragon Ball Movie 3: Mystical Adventure

Mystical Adventure premiered on July 9, 1988 at that year’s Toei Cartoon Festival.   This is the third of the original Dragon Ball movies, and the last one before the movies were released under the Dragon Ball Z brand.  

Just to clear this up, there was a fourth movie, Path to Power, but it was produced in 1996 in honor of the tenth anniversary of the TV series.  Since I’m trying to do these in chronological order, it’ll be a while before I get to that one.

The title “Mystical Adventure” isn’t very descriptive, especially since it’s just the name of the opening theme song.    Personally, I think of this one as “The Emperor Chiaotzu Movie”, since that’s what I consider to be the most distinctive plot element.

I’ve always found this movie fascinating, because it follows a very different formula from the others.   Blood Rubies and Sleeping Princess basically took different parts of the original story and changed the antagonists and pacing, but never the main characters.   Launch does different things in Sleeping Princess than she does in the TV series, but she’s basically the same person, and she ends up living with Master Roshi in either version.   The DBZ movies abandon all pretense of retelling the original story, and ended up doing short, intense conflicts with little regard for continuity.   But this movie takes a number of major characters, mainly villains, and casts them in entirely new roles. 

I’m thinking that the reason for this was that Toei really didn’t have a lot of other choices.   The first film sought to retell the original Dragon Ball hunt, showing how Goku met Bulma and Roshi and the others and became a hero.   The second movie picked up where the first left off, adapting the story of how Goku and Krilin were accepted as students of Master Roshi.   So the plan was probably for this third movie to continue on that path and show the boys competing in their first World Tournament, only I’m not sure how you could retell that story and insert a new villain into that scenario.   Also, a lot of new characters had been introduced since the 21st Budokai arc, and I think Toei wanted to feature some of them, but how do you fit all of that into one movie?

The solution, it seems, was to set the Tournament in a whole new country, the Mifan Empire, and establish a bunch of palace intrigue involving the Dragon Balls.    With that, Toei had the means to make a movie that borrows ideas from the 21st Budokai, the Red Ribbon Army sagas, and even the 22nd Budokai while we’re at it.  

The plus side of this is that we’re treated to a much more original story than what we got in the first two movies.   What bugged me about those features was that the bad guys, King Gurumes and Lucifer, were the most notable aspects of their respective movies, but they barely did anything except stand back and let the Dragon Ball cast run through all their signature quips and moves.   Movie 3 makes a lot of callbacks to the TV series, but it has to do it differently because so many of these ideas have been smooshed together in one place.   Also, this movie moves really fast.   There’s never a dull moment, because there’s so many things it has to cover in a very short run time.   It’s probably the fastest 45-and-a-half minutes you’ll ever see.

The downside of all this is that it’s a little too fast and too complicated for its own good.   There’s a scene where Goku meets Bulma, and he asks if Yamcha came with her, and before he can wave hello to the guy, she goes “Never mind that, look at this!”   That��s kind of the movie in a nutshell.  

Goku and Yamcha don’t even get to talk to each other in this movie because there’s so much stuff going on all at once.   I’m tempted to say that they crammed too many things into the movie, but it’s probably more accurate to say that the movie should have been longer.   I’m pleased with all these moving parts, but it would have been nice to give it all a chance to breathe. 

The story begins with Emperor Pilaf and his crew putting the finishing touches on a big-screen Dragon Radar for the Crane Hermit, Mercenary Tao, and Tien Shinhan.    They’re pleased with the work, and Tao steps forward to give them their reward.

We don’t actually get to see what Tao does to them, because the whole scene fades to white and gets sucked into the Phantom Zone, but it’s strongly implied that he killed them, or at least didn’t pay them for their work.    So there’s even some elements from the King Piccolo Saga in this movie along with the rest.

As the opening theme song plays, we see a montage of Goku and Krillin training under the Turtle Hermit.   This is the first time I’ve watched all three of these movies in order, and I never fully appreciated how they fit together to make a nice little trilogy.  

No pain, no gain, boys.

Hooray, the opening credits!  It’s fun!

Roshi does the whole bit where he explains that he doesn’t have anything else to teach the boys, since their training regimen included all the fundamentals of the Turtle School.   As a reward for their progress, he plans to take them to a big martial arts Tournament, but it’s not the Tenkaichi Budokai in Papaya Island.   No, instead he’s taking them to the imperial tournament hosted by the Mifan Empire.

Meanwhile, things are not well in the Mifan Empire, as the Emperor has lost his bride, Ran Ran, and the military has been searching high and low for her.

They stop a truck and search it, and when the driver gets upset about it, the leader of the soldiers, Blue, paralyzes him with his psychic powers and kicks his ass.   I’m not sure if Blue is a General in this story, but he’s part of the Mifan Army, not the Red Ribbon.  

Likewise, the Mifan Empire is run by characters from the Crane Hermit School.    Chiaotzu is the Emperor, and apparently a child in this story.   Tien is... well, I’m not sure exactly.   I want to say he’s a high-ranking security guard or something, but it’s never spelled out.

The Crane Hermit is called “Minister”, and since he seems to be the most important one, I assume he’s the Prime Minister.   I’ll be calling him “Minister Shen” from here on, since I don’t think they ever gave him a name in this movie, and he’s definitely not a Hermit.  “Shen” is a dub-ism, I’m pretty sure, but I’ll run with it.

Shen reveals the Dragon Radar to the Emperor, which looks a whole lot fancier since Pilaf last worked on it.    Also, how did he install that monstrosity in the ceiling without the Emperor knowing about it?    Anyway, he explains that if they collect the seven Dragon Balls, Chiaotzu can ask Shenron to find Ran Ran, and that’ll solve everything.   All Shen needs is the Emperor’s permission to devote imperial resources to the task.

But then Blue walks in, and suggests that Shen may have other plans for the Dragon Balls.   His men have searched the whole city for Ran Ran, except Minister Shen’s room, which seems awful fishy to him.  

At this point, Tao enters the scene and says that any accusation against Shen must be an accusation against him as well.Then they fight, and Tao kills Blue with his tongue, just like he did in the Commander Red Saga.

Okay, so this is a good time to talk about the double-edged sword of this movie’s concept.   This whole scene in the throne room, from the Dragon Radar to Blue’s death, is like two and a half minutes, tops.   Tao killing Blue with his tongue is awesome, sure, but in this movie it doesn’t really hold up as well because:

We’ve seen it before.

We barely got to know Blue before this happened.   Is he a good guy in this story?   I’m not sure.

Why is Tao only using his tongue?  In the TV series he did it to prove a point.   Here, there’s no context.   He just does it because he did it in the TV series and it was cool there.

Why is Chiaotzu just letting these guys fight in the middle of his court?  A minute ago Shen seemed to think it was important to get the Emperor’s permission to carry out his plan, but now they’re just doing whatever they want right in front of him.

I don’t want to complain too much, because this is a really cool scene, but I feel like it would have been helped if it had been expanded a little, or  maybe if Blue hadn’t been involved.   I think it would have been sufficient to have Tao and Shen share a sinister chuckle when Chiaotzu approved their plan.   We didn’t need Blue to run in and blurt out “HEY I THINK THESE GUYS ARE EVIL OH CRAP I’M DEAD!”    It’s like they really wanted Blue in the movie, but only so he could die to Tao.  

Meanwhile, Bulma’s out hunting Dragon Balls with Oolong, Puar, and Yamcha.  She told them that it was to find Goku, and I’m not really sure why that would work, since he doesn’t have any of the Dragon Balls at this time.   Turns out, she just wants to make a wish.   Unfortunately, some Mifan aircraft shoot at her when she gets too close to the Dragon Ball, and she has to shoot back.

Bulma takes out like four of these Mifanese planes.   I seem to remember she shot at some Gurumesian soldiers in Curse of the Blood Rubies, but I’m not sure that she hit any of them.   At any rate, this is probably the most kills by Bulma in any Dragon Ball media. 

She converts her aircraft into a submarine and goes after the Dragon Ball, but the Mifan Empire has a submarine of their own, and Bulma finds herself outgunned, so she has to withdraw.

Meanwhile, Roshi’s group is on their way to the Mifan for the tournament.   Launch wants to hijack the plane.   Okay, but what would she do if she did hijack it?   “Take this plane to Mifan, if ya know what’s good for ya!”  “Um, ma’am, that’s where we were already going.”   “Yeah, but take us there while I got a gun on ya.   It helps me relax!”

In the Land of Korin, the Mifan Empire has forced a bunch of locals to dig up the countryside in search of the Dragon Ball they detected in the region.   Turns out that Bora and Upa have it with them, but they don’t dare turn it over becaue they’ve heard that the Mifan soldiers will kill all the workers once they find it.   So this is all kind of a callback to Android 8 hiding the Dragon Ball from General White to save Jingle Village.  

Instead, Bora decides to travel to Mifan in the hopes of straightening things out there.   That’s surprisingly proactive of Bora.    I wouldn’t say it’s out of character for him, but I’m used to seeing him as a defender of this particular land.   It’s weird that the Mifan army has invaded and the first thing he’s gonna do is leave and take the fight to their backyard.

As it turns out, the Mifan Empire has already gathered six of the Dragon Balls, so the one in Korin is the only one they need.   For some reason, Shen keeps them all in this statue-looking thing.

As he and Tao discuss their plans, they get word that the 7th Dragon Ball is moving towards Mifan as they speak.   That doesn’t make sense, though, because their men in Korin haven’t found it yet.   Uh-oh.

What they’re actually detecting, of course, is Bora trying to sneak into Mifan with the Dragon Ball, but he didn’t know about their radar, so by taking the Dragon Ball along, he’s basically announcing his presence.

As they consider this, they notice a robot drone spying on them from the window.   Maybe I’m just getting old, but its weird how robot drones are a real thing you can buy at the store.   The only thing science-fictiony about Bulma spying on them like this is that she built a Dragon Radar into the drone to find them, and she doesn’t have to worry about pesky FAA regulations.   So yeah, even Droney makes a cameo in this movie.  They really went nuts stacking this film with stuff from the anime.

So now Bulma wants to go to Mifan and steal the Dragon Balls from Shen and Tao to get back at them for attacking her earlier.  Yamcha’s up for it because there’s a cool tournament there.  Oolong’s out, until Bulma tells him there’s pretty girls in Mifan.    Okay, yeah, but aren’t there pretty girls in West City, where they currently are?   Hell, there’s a pretty girl in the same room as Oolong, and he’s just playing cards like she isn’t even there.   But Oolong’s all excited to see hotttt Mifan babes anyway.

Roshi’s group arrives in Mifan and has dinner in a restaurant, when Bora moonwalks into the same place.  Okay, so first of all, he looks awesome in that poncho and hat.   Second, why is he sneaking around?    As far as he knows, no one would suspect him of anything.   Well, it’s a cool screencap, however we got there.    I’m just enjoying it, like that guy in the green shirt on the right.  

He pays for his and Upa’s meal with a nugget of gold he has with him.   I’m not used to seeing Bora spending money either.    This is a very different side of the character.   I don’t know that they’re really taking liberties with the guy, it’s just that he’s doing things that he never got the chance to do in the original story.

Suddenly there’s a bunch of sirens.   Launch panics until she remembers that she hasn’t done any crimes here...............................yet.  

Turns out they’re here for Bora, although I’m not quite sure how they knew to look for him in particular.   Mifan’s Dragon Radar wouldn’t be precise enough to pinpoint his location, or they would have found Bora’s Dragon Ball back in Korin a long time ago.   Maybe they knew to look for someone dressed like a resident of Korin, but I don’t know if Bora really stands out in that regard.    Anyway, there’s a struggle, and one of the soldiers bumps into Goku, so he gets rowdy.

So Sergeant Metallic shows up to straighten things out.   They fight for a while, and then Tao shows up.

Things look pretty dicey here, since this looks exactly like the moment when Tao killed Bora in the TV show, but...

Roshi intervenes by explaining that they’re all special guests of the Mifan Emperor, a status bestowed upon anyone who enters the tournament.   I’m pretty sure Bora had no intention of entering the tourney, but he does now, since it gives him diplomatic immunity, at least for a little while longer.   Too bad Blue didn’t enter this year...

Here’s a cool shot of Launch.

They all compare notes, and Roshi explains that if you win the tournament, you get to ask a favor from the Emperor.   So the plan is for one of the guys in this room to win, and ask Chiaotzu to put a stop to whatever Shen is up to.   I’m not sure that would work, and if it would work, I’m not sure they need to go to that much trouble to get an audience, but okay.

That night, Emperor Chiatozu has a nightmare, and his best pal Tien comforts him.   Note that Tien was in the opening scene of the movie, so he’s definitely in cahoots with Shen and Tao.   I feel like that sort of got lost in the shuffle with everything else that’s been happening.

Tien even taught him how to do telepathy, so that just proves that he has a soft spot for the Emperor.

The next day, Bulma’s group runs into Roshi’s group.   She’s learned that all seven Dragon Balls are together in Mifan, and she plans to steal the six that are held in the palace.   This is awful brave of Bulma, considerng how she didn’t want any part of the Red Ribbon Army, but all right.

What does she even plan to wish for?   Anyway, she recruits Launch to help her in the caper.

Also Yamcha’s here.

When the tournament finally starts, Yamcha is the first contestant, and his first opponent is Anton the Great, one of the jobbers from the preliminary matches in the 22nd Budokai arc.  

Yamcha clearly busts out the Wolf Fang Fist to beat him...

Except he ends up kicking the guy instead.   I feel like someone doesn’t understand what the Wolf Fang Fist is supposed to be.    It might be be, I’ll admit it, but it sure seems like there’s no rule to the move.   Yamcha just shouts “Roga fu-fu-ken!” and there’s some wolf images and then he just does whatever he was doing before, only it’s supposed to work better.   In the video games, it’s always rapid-fire strikes.

We don’t get a lot of time to learn how this Mifan Tournament works, but it seems to be a gauntlet-style match.   As soon as Anton is eliminated, Bora jumps in the ring and Yamcha has to fight him next.

Yamcha seems to do okay...

Until Master Roshi distracts him, costing Yamcha the match.   This is so Bora can win and receive his favor from the emperor.  

Apparently, the other fighters are so impressed with Bora’s performance that they run away rather than face him.   This just leaves Goku and Krillin, which works out great, since they all want the same thing from Chiaotzu.   But then...

Tao decides to enter himself, and when Bora refuses to tell where he’s hidden the Dragon Ball, he kills him.

Ouch.   I’m not sure why they would build a statue so big and sharp, but there it is.   

Now, while all of this is going on, Bulma is making her move to get the other six Dragon Balls.   First, she has Puar shape-shift into Emperor CHiaotzu.   Ha ha, that’s adorable!  

Then she has Oolong tun into Minister Shen.   Pretty close, but needs improvement.

The idea is to just stroll right into the palace, since know one would dare stop the Emperor, but then a couple of nobles ask a few too many innocent questions, so Launch mugs them.

Was this one of the pretty girls Oolong came to see?   I think this is the only woman we’ve seen in town since they got here. 

Goku tries to avenge Bora, but he gets clobbered.   Even the Kamehameha is useless against Tao, who responds with a Dodon Ray.  Unlike the TV version of this fight, Goku gets carried away by the blast, which sends him out of the city.

And into... Korin Tower?   Hell of a coincidence.

Back at the arena, Shen decides that there’s no longer any need to conceal his motives, and explains to Chiaotzu that he’s taking over the Empire and using the Dragon Balls to conquer the rest of the world too.  

Unfortunately, they still can’t find the seventh ball, because Goku was carryng it when Tao shot him with the Dodon Ray.  

Also, Bulma’s trying to steal the other six...

At Korin Tower, Korin doesn’t have time to teach Goku all the stuff that helped him beat Tao in the TV show, so we get a condensed lesson instead.   He drops Goku’s Dragon Ball in a pot of water, and Goku can’t see it at first because the water is moving.    When it settles, he can see the bottom clearly.   Similarly, Goku failed against Tao because he was blinded by his own anger at Bora’s death.    The key to beating his enemy is to calm his heart, which will allow him to see his enemy clearly.    

Turns out that Tao is already on his way to find Goku, so he’d better calm his heart quickly if he wants to stand a chance.

So Goku hops on Kinto Un to face him.   This is the first time we’ve seen Kinto Un in this movie, so I feel kind of bad for anyone who started watching Dragon Ball with this movie.   It’s just not a good introduction at all.   Launch never sneezes, and there’s just way too much stuff happening all at once.   You’ll get to see a lot of characters, but you don’t get to fully experience all of them, or learn about why they do what they do.  

Back in Mifan, Shen thwarts Bulma’s Dragon Ball heist, and Launch actually manages to shoot some bad guys and actually kill them for once.   Unfortunately, her bullets still don’t work on Shen.

And they end up losing the Dragon Balls in a fissue at the bottom of the ocean.   Whoops.

Roshi and Krillin try to fight, but Tien knocks out Roshi with that knee strike he used on Jackie Chun at the 22nd Budokai.  

So that about wraps things up.    The Dragon Balls may be lost, but Shen can stil take over Mifan, so he orders Tien to kill Emperor Chiaotzu so he can cement his power.

Meanwhile, in Penguin Village, Arale intercepts Tao and messes with him until Goku shows up.

Tao shoots a Dodon Ray at Arale,but it doesn’t hurt her at all, much to Goku’s amazement.

Also the Ga-chan’s zap him, but I don’t know enough about Dr. Slump to know what that would do to him.

This whole part of the movie is nuuuuuuuuuuts.   I don’t mind seeing Arale pop in, but pitting Tao against her and the Ga-chans and Goku is a bit much.   I think it’s safe to call Tao the main villain of the movie, but he can’t even get any traction in this final battle.   At one point, the Ga-chans tie his hair to a tree as a prank.   They just make him look like a total chump, which is humorous, but I’m not sure it was the best thing to do with this movie.

So Tao tries the ol’ fake apology trick, except he can’t quite do what he did in the TV show because he needs to get the Dragon Ball and escape to Mifan.   So instead of a grenade, he whips out a little hovercraft, grabs the Dragon Ball, and shoots missiles when he’s far enough away.   But the result is the same.

Back at Mifan, Tien tries to explain to Chiaotzu that he’s betraying him, but Chiaotzu just can’t accept that.

He starts crying, and Tien just can’t resist those beady eyes.

Shen is livid, so he tries to kill the Emperor himself.    Also around here, Master Roshi wakes up from Tien’s kick and gives him that line about how his abilities are crying out for Tien to do the right thing.   Okay, but that line worked better in the original story because we had seen Tien’s abilities.    In this movie, all he’s done so far is kick Roshi in the back of the head, and Roshi got up from it almost immediately. 

Likewise, it’s not really clear what Tien’s obligation to Shen is supposed to be.   In the original version, Shen taught him how to fight.   Here, I don’t even known what Tien’s position is.     

Really, all we need is what we’ve gotten from the movie itself.    Tien was shown to be in league with Shen and Tao’s plot, but he’s also very close to Emperor Chiaotzu, and when push comes to shove his friendship with Chiaotzu is more important than his political ambitions.    We don’t need callbacks to his dilemma from the 22nd Budokai, because this is a completely different dilemma.  

So Shen tries to use a Dodon Ray on Chiaotzu, but Tien whips out the Ki Ko Ho first and blows Shen away.

In the movie, the Ki Ko Ho is blue for some reason.  

So that fixes everything except for Sergeant Metallic, who had been trying to hold Upa hostage, except everyone kept ignoring him.   Now that he has no other cards to play, he tries to kill Upa, but then Goku returns and dives right through his body, which shuts him down once and for all. 

The guards who were helping Shen immediately bow before Chiaotzu, and he forgives them.   That’s nice and all, but I can’t help but wonder if this lax attitude is how the first coup got rolling.

Then Tien hands Chiaotzu a doll, which is apparently Ran Ran.   Tien admits that he had been hiding it this whole time, in order to get Chiaotzu to agree to the Dragon Ball search.   So Chiaotzu’s “bride” was a doll the whole time?   How old is Chiaotzu supposed to be in this movie?  Five?  Anyway, he forgives Tien too, so that takes care of that.

Oh, hey, Bulma and Yamcha survived falling into the ocean.   Good for them.

The only loose end now is Bora’s death.   Goku plans to revive him with the Dragon Balls, except six of them are now out of reach. 

So Goku tosses the seventh ball in with the rest of them, and summons Shenron that way.   Okay, but we’re kind of running short on time, aren’t we?

And, yeah, this movie was so jam packed with content that they had to wish Bora back to life during the end credits.   I can’t really complain, since making wishes on the Dragon Balls has gotten pretty routine by now, so all we really need is a shot of Shenron and a shot of Bora waking up.   Still, it just goes to show that they really loaded this movie up for bear, and sometimes that works against it.  

I’d say this is definitely the best of the original Dragon Ball movies.   They’re all well animated, but Mystical Adventure is an even bigger visual feast, what with all the ancient Chinese architecture and the costumes and so on.   It’s got more action, with a number of fights besides the main battle, and it’s the first movie where Goku actually gets to throw down with the lead villain instead of just having a brief skirmish.   It gets a little convoluted in places, but it’s never dull, and that’s always a positive.

[idiosyncrasy-at-its-finest]

get over it

Nov. 18, 2020.  spent my study hall writing this– my new thing: not proofreading!  enjoy.  it’s long.  five pages long in google docs.  good luck!

I have a tendency to overthink, to force, to meddle.  Can one meddle in their own life?  Apparently.

Get over it, I tell myself constantly.  It happened so long ago.  Don’t get hung up over this; it’s been four years.  Get over it.

No.  Not that it was traumatic or anything, but it was a fairly big deal to me.  Not a life “event” per se, as it was a collection of experiences that fused into one regret, but it’s left its impact on me.  A big one, if the numerous pieces of writing inspired by it might show.

I had a best friend.  We met in fourth grade, when his best friend bet me and my closest friend at the time five dollars we couldn’t tag him.  He wasn’t the fastest runner, she was a lacrosse player, and I was still full of energy and excitement.  And then another class was coming out to recess and he tapped in his friend, said we’d have to tag this kid.  He was short, with a cute smile, and a small scar beside… I forget which eyebrow… left or right.  I forget.

He was a fast runner, the kid who ran the pacer without breaking a sweat, his carefree smile growing sharper as each competitor dropped out.  The PE teacher would always have to stop the recording when it was just him running back and forth.  He’d keep running.  We’d clap.  He’d realize it was over.  He’d run to us, not even grabbing a drink of water from the water fountain.  His hair would be raised and pushed back, the wind styling it.

That day in recess, I didn’t tag him.  Neither did my other friend.  When we got called to go back in class, I tapped his shoulder.  He said it didn’t count, which it didn’t, but what did count was that I’d made a new friend.

Fifth grade, we shared the same advanced math class.  When I waited in the halls, he’d pass by.  And then he’d stand near me.  When I stood outside a classroom for a course we didn’t share, he’d smile.  At some point, he began stopping slightly when he saw me.  And then he was bringing lollipops to school and giving one to me when our eyes met, smiles exchanged, and hands brushed– an exchange sweeter than candy.

One time, during recess, the others went to the kickball field.  I decided to hang around on the playground.  He came to me, was a little less happy than he normally was– didn’t want to play sports with his friends.  He was wearing a gray dri fit shirt, I remember, and a dark pair of basketball shorts.  We laughed the whole recess, and when I stepped in line to go back in, my friends teased me about us.  I’d brushed them off, grinning because we’d created an inside joke.  One about baseball and how my athletically-challenged self would one day be the best player the world ever saw.

We started signing each other’s things.  Autographing– so that when the other got famous we could sell it, of course.  Preparing each other for financial pitfalls.  How kind.

Sixth grade.  Open house.  We were in the same class.  I was excited.  He didn’t even spare me a glance.  I didn’t call out to him; I didn’t want my mom to see me reach out to a boy.

We became best friends, though.  Our class had a ship name for us.  I hated it– outwardly.  Actually, in the beginning it didn’t bother me.  But then my friends would point out how he teased me, how he stared when I ran my fingers through my hair (I finger-brushed my hair rather than properly take care of it– still don’t properly brush it).  They suspected he liked me.  I proposed to him, one day.  After a photo for spirit day, when I’d stayed kneeling since I was taller than him, I pulled his arm.  I stared into his eyes.  Will you marry me?  He said yes.  And then he gave me his cheese stick at lunch to seal the deal.

And then I grew uncomfortable, because after flaunting our “relationship”, the whole grade knew.  They congratulated us, and asked us when the wedding would be.  So I broke it off, told him in an over dramatic fashion, hand thrown over my forehead that it’s not you.  It’s me.  And then he didn’t talk to me for three days.  Maybe he did like me.  Up until then, whenever a boy liked me, I was suddenly disgusted.  But this realization, that my best friend– short, sporty, caring, funny, amazingly sweet, smart– might like me… made me giddy.  And then in March of 2016, I began to like him.

Uh oh.

You see, I was a pretty strange kid.  I made funny faces, I told gross jokes, I was physically aggressive.  And then… and then I liked someone.  I didn’t want him to see how “weird” I could be.  I started acting differently.  Even though we were best friends and there was no way he hadn’t already realized what a lunatic I was.

Sixth grade was also when I began to read wattpad.  I wanted a guy best friend.  I wanted my parents to like him, for him to crawl into my bed during cold and scary nights without it being weird, for us to be elementary school best friends turning into something more… I forced him into a mold.  For what?

Our relationship turned strained.  Before I left, I made him promise to always be my best friend.  A desperate attempt to keep him.  He agreed.

I don’t have a best friend right now.  I don’t like the term, I don’t use it.  Because he’s my best friend.  It’s like a dying wish, but a leaving wish.  Equally as important.  I made a leaving wish.

I’ve since come to realize– or since manipulated the situation into one to make myself feel better– that he’s the one who broke the promise.  He changed.  After I moved, replies got short.  Conversations turned dry.  He eventually unadded me on snapchat.

So… why dwell on these unfortunate elementary school events?

My mom started watching Dawson’s Creek recently and I’ve been tuning in.  It hurts.  To see on screen what I’ve longed for for so long.  What I longed for that ruined a friendship.

Dawson and Joey, best friends.  Grew up together, sleep in the same bed.  I was a military brat; I never lived anywhere longer than three years consecutively.  Now, I’ve been in the country I’m in for four years, this being my fifth.  I’ll be here until I graduate, making the grand total six years.  Too late to make an elementary school best friend, but a highschool best friend… a guy I can talk to about anything, even sexual things (though my experiences in this field have been slim to none… they’ve actually just been none).  And I almost had it.  And then I got too attached again.  We haven’t talked in three weeks or so.  I hope it doesn’t turn into three years like it did with…

It’s too late.  I was watching the show, thinking about a guy who lives in my neighborhood.  The guy that both my parents like, that my mom really likes because he walks me home at night after traditional biweekly movie nights, after long walks.  It’s a comfortable group of three, me, him, and another girl.  For a bit, she’d insist on how cute a couple we’d be.  But I didn’t like him like that.  I certainly could– it wouldn’t be hard.  But he deserved better than to be someone’s second choice.  Or third, I suppose, if the context is me trying to find a guy best friend to intertwine my life with.

I’m too easily manipulated.  Teen writings made me yearn for a specific type of friendship; my friend could easily convince me to like the sweet boy next door (but not really next door, more like a few streets up).  The boy a few streets up.

Watching Dawson’s Creek has made me realize it’s most definitely too late for me to develop a relationship where we can tease each other, where when I’m changing, he takes too long to turn around because “what?  Not like I haven’t seen you naked before” because we’d bathed together as babies.  Too late to begin to sleep in the same bed with a member of the opposite sex, a member of the sex I’m attracted to.

I can’t have that.  I won’t ever have that.  Even if, when I go to college, I make a great guy friend.  It won’t be the same as the highschool relationship I’ve romanticized for years now.

I sat on the floor, bum resting on a soft blue cushion, tub of Magnum ice cream cradled in hands, spoon dangling from between parted lips.  I’m not going to get that.  Ever.  So I need to stop pining for it.  Because it’s not going to happen.

But I have a neighborhood gang.  A group of friends who watches a movie every other Friday, who gets together at least once a week to sit in a field and talk about life.  A friend to walk to school with and a guy who breezes past us on his bike, sending an easy smile.  I already have a wonderful, beautiful trio.  Outside of that, I have other friends.  A friend who doesn’t live in the neighborhood but that I can call without hesitation, knowing she’ll pick up even if she’s in the shower, at dinner, with other people.  I have good, reliable people in my life.  I don’t need a boy next door, a boy a creek down best friend.  I have a boy a few streets up.  I have a girl a brisk walk close.  I have a girl a call away.

I have my parents, not lax enough to let me walk out the house without providing a heads up, not chill enough to let a boy in my room, not absent enough for me to do whatever I want.  True, I wish I had a few more freedoms, but… I should be content with my life.  I have so much.

And it hurts– to have to let go of my fantasy.  Of this dream I’ve clung onto for so long my knuckles have turned white, my nails have dug into the flesh of my palms, crusted over blood surrounding fresh pools.  Of this idea I’ve fallen in love with, head over heels, straight into a beautiful, soft lie.  An unattainable, unrealistic, unhealthy fantasy.  It’s not something I can get.  Wanting it will only continue to upset me.

And why should I be upset?  When I’m a few strides away from a field, from a small playground, from a bubble tea store, from school, from my friends.  I don’t have a creek, I don’t have a boy who can run the pacer without panting after, who only has a light smile I pretend is just for me on his face.  I have something real, somethings.  I have life.  My life.

I’ve come to this realization recently, that I can’t get what I’ve always wanted.  Maybe that’s why I keep clinging onto my youth, because I’m hoping to fulfill some pipedream.  There’s a lot of things in my life that have been affected by this unhealthy obsession.

It still hurts, like a breakup, a fresh wound.  Maybe the latter would be the better comparison– I’ve never been through a proper breakup.  Things that have felt like it, maybe.  But not a romantic one.

Oh wait.  Too late now, but before the boy a few streets up (or at the same time I became friends with him), there was another one.  The guy who texted, shared memes, called to study, manipulated, rejected on Valentine’s Day.  A story for another day, I suppose.  But you can bet that he was also ruined because of my dream.

It still hurts.  But I’m happier now– or at least on the path to get there.  Because I’ve pinned down a very big problem and am trying to put it behind.

[hegagergerk]

My reactions to The Last Jedi

I have mixed feelings about The Last Jedi. There are some aspects of it that I loved, but there was a lot that I really didn’t like. I’ve seen it twice, and each time I left the theater thinking, “Well. Huh. I don’t know what I feel.” I felt this uncertain about The Force Awakens, for comparison, but I left Rogue One knowing I liked it.

I also want it known that I am a fan of Rian Johnson and his work. I LOVE Brick, and Looper was pretty great. So I was pretty excited going into this film.

Perhaps, if this had been the first in a trilogy, I might be able to overlook the parts that I don’t like, as I did in The Force Awakens. But this is the second part - the meat of the story. And honestly, the whole thing felt gamey.

SPOILERS (and unpopular opinions) under the cut.

Pros:

It’s a beautifully shot, visually striking film. 

Adam Driver shirtless

Adam Driver, period. Love that boy

I love what they’ve done with Luke (the grumpy old hermit schtick), and I loved what little time we spent on Ach-To. The location was beautiful, I loved the Caretakers and the Porgs, and I loved Luke’s take on the Force and the Jedi.

Rey Random is the best answer to her backstory and the explanation I was hoping for. I loved the mirror cave sequence. It’s an even better touch that not only were they random people, but they were awful and neglectful. Ouch. Didn’t think they’d go that far.

I love that Rey and Kylo want to fuck each other. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)

I’m okay with Luke trying to murder Ben and then regretting it, even though I understand why many people are not. I actually really like the exploration of Luke’s character, and the digging into his personality flaws and weaknesses - namely, that he was prideful of his own legacy, which gave him several blind spots with regards to his nephew, and led to his biggest failure as a Jedi. It’s true - it is, initially, out of character, but I think this lapse in judgment was more horrifying to Luke himself for that very reason, and resolves for me, at least, why he would isolate himself like he does. 

I liked Luke’s death. I liked that it’s hinted that he was ready to go, anyway, and he got to go out heroically in the end.

I LOVED Luke and Leia’s reunion. Oh my god. The tears. I just. Can’t get over it. Especially knowing that Carrie Fisher wrote that scene? Fuck me

Cons:

It feels like 3 different films crammed together into 2 ½ hours. One of these films, I very much wanted to watch, but was never given enough of (Rey’s story). Another of these films, I wanted to want to watch, but found myself losing interest as time wore on (Finn’s story). The remaining one - I could have done without entirely, and I ended up resenting completely by the film’s finish (Poe’s story). 

Some of the humor worked, but a lot of it really didn’t - especially the gag about zapping dudes into walls at dramatic/semi-dramatic moments (Hux, Poe, and Finn). Granted, humor is pretty subjective, but for comparison, I either loved or had no issue with the humor in both The Force Awakens and Rogue One.

The preachy bits were REALLY. FUCKING. PREACHY. Like, dude, I agree with the points you’re making, but wow, I’d appreciate if you didn’t insult my intelligence by being so god damned ON THE NOSE about it. I thought this movie was about ~ambiguity~ And yes, I’m talking about the “don’t abuse animals”, “it’s a WAR MACHINE”, and “men don’t respect feminine women” thing. I felt like these moments were 4th-wall-breaking and did nothing to serve the story or the characters, not to mention being out of place in a Star Wars film (Star Wars is cheesy, but not THAT kind of cheesy).

Rey’s part of the story ends about 2/3 of the way in. After her battle with Kylo, she pretty much disappears from the narrative, only making a quick cameo at the end of the film. Seriously. The movie pretty much belongs to the male characters after she confronts Snoke. 

Rey never truly suffers any lasting consequences for her choices, whether emotionally or physically. Compare this to Luke’s defeat by Vader in Empire, which leaves him physically maimed and emotionally broken and betrayed. Rey is sad when she admits the truth of her parentage, yeah, and she’s not happy when Kylo usurps the First Order command, but even if this betrayal devastates her, we don’t get to see her break down under these revelations. It might be hard for Rey to acknowledge her shitty parents, but does verbalizing this hinder Rey in any way? Does it introduce an obstacle that seems impossible to overcome? Is it truly her lowest point? Ask the same questions of Kylo becoming the Supreme Leader, with regard to Rey’s feelings. Is this betrayal on the level of Anakin to Padme? Hell, even on the level of Obi Wan to Luke? Rey wrestles with Kylo over the lightsaber, nopes the fuck out, and then magically appears on the Falcon, hollering jovially about how swashbuckling and fun it is to be gunning down the First Order. In other words, she feels like she’s had an easy time of it. We really needed a scene where she shows some emotional wounds - whether when Kylo is passed out and she’s about to leave him, perhaps looking down at him with longing and sorrow, deliberating on why she should, but can’t, kill him - or whether at the end, sharing pain with Leia. But it’s like her failures don’t touch her or her story.

I’m a huge Reylo stan, but I’ve got to be honest - Kylo and Rey’s dynamic, while easily the most intriguing thing about the movie, ended up being severely underwhelming. Four conversations, and then she’s ready to go-to-bat for him? When they were touching hands in the hut, I literally was like, “Wait. Is that it? Did I blink and miss something?” They chopped Reylo down to the barest minimum of relationship progression, leaving out a lot of story-telling beats that would have bridged the gap between their antagonism and their intimacy. I felt cheated out of their story, and I really wanted to be on board with them, considering their shared loneliness and character comparison/contrast was something I was extremely excited about going into this film. I’ve read one-shot fanfics with more elegant development than this film.

I’m NOT a Snoke stan, nor was I terribly interested in his backstory or in coming up with random ass theories involving his backstory, but damn. Snoke’s abrupt dismissal from the narrative, despite being an awesome scene in isolation, feels cheap retroactively, and I can empathize with the fans who feel let down about his meaningless identity (especially when they were taunted by LF for giving enough of a shit to come up with theories about said character). The truth is that, since the sequel trilogy takes place within an established universe - and Star Wars, at that - we, the audience ARE owed a bare minimum amount of explanation for Snoke’s existence, his power, and his goals. Where was he 30 years ago, when Palpatine was in power? If you can’t at least give me something, my suspension of disbelief is shattered. And no, it’s not my fucking job, as a member of the audience, to fill in the blanks with regards to basic storytelling. At this point, why the hell couldn’t Snoke have been Darth Plageius? Or Palpatine reborn? Or whoever the fuck. If any further context had been given to him, it could only have added some meat to the story - its not like this information would have detracted from Kylo’s killing of him (if anything, it would have made that moment even more awesome). I mean, you had to hold my hand about “evil arms dealers” and “animal rights” and “she wasn’t interested in LOOKING like a hero”, but you can’t give me some damn context for Snoke? And no, I don’t give a fuck that Palpatine had no backstory in the original movies - right, we knew everything we needed to know about him, which was that he was a super powerful Force-wielder who took control of the galaxy. I wasn’t wondering, “Hmm, I wonder where that other super evil bad guy was 30 years ago while he was coming to power!” about Palpatine, because there was no frame of reference for that - and now, with the prequel trilogy, there’s definitely no need. But hey, for Snoke? Yes. Yes, that sort of information is relevant here. Even your most basic bitch casual fan left The Force Awakens wondering, “I wonder what that Snoke guy, who is most certainly older than 30 years of age, was doing three decades ago?”

Finn’s whole story was underwhelming, as much as I liked both he and Rose together. Nothing of consequence came of their story, whether by plot movement or emotional revelations - save that he decided, somewhat sloppily, to die for the Resistance (because he didn’t want to be an apathetic asshole like DJ, or whatever), only to have his choice undermined at the last minute. Nothing about his arc resonated with me. Perhaps because there just wasn’t enough time devoted to him? As much as I hate the whole “Finn is always sidelined uwuwuwu” discourse, I have to agree with them here. Furthermore, I feel like his prior-stormtrooper-ness is totally irrelevant to the portrayal of his character? It was bad enough in The Force Awakens that he didn’t seem affected by having to kill his fellow stormtroopers, and it has continued to be irrelevant in The Last Jedi. I was really hoping for some sort of moment where he and Rose connected over the deaths of Paige and his stormtrooper brethren, people killed while fighting in militaries, whether by choice or by force. This personal soul searching would have been much more poignant than the preachy babble (none with which I disagree, let it be noted) we got. I mean, the revelation that the Resistance and the First Order both get supplied from the same people who vacation on Canto Bight doesn’t really add anything - stakes, revelation, dimension - to the actual story. Like, do I suddenly not care about the Resistance getting blown out of the sky? Should I actually root for the First Order to wipe them out, so that the war will stop? Does this information seriously tempt Finn away from the whole stupid conflict? Does it change ANYTHING for ANYONE? (Hint: It doesn’t). 

I absolutely hate that Poe is being groomed to be Leia’s “good” son. Like, if I could kill something with fire in this movie, it would be this. I absolutely hate that Leia didn’t even spare her son and her brother a backwards glance at the end of the film, when they set off to flee through the caves. Perhaps this wouldn’t sting so much if Carrie were still alive and there was a chance of filming a reunion and reconciliation between mother and son, but that is not to be. 

I hate that Poe, who is NOT a main character, who was a perfectly killable side character in the previous movie, actually has the most dynamic arc in the whole film. Somehow, in a film that is supposed to be about a young woman, and in the midst of several intriguing female characters both old and new, it’s the most boring male character who gets the most agency and screentime. (I love that people were worried that Kylo would usurp Rey, but honesty…it was Poe).

Poe also has a higher kill count than Kylo Ren in terms of people who died because he was a Stupid Male, and yet Kylo Ren is the villain whose redemption is merely teased, as opposed to set into action? I mean, Poe was better at wiping out the whole resistance than the actual Supreme Leader, but nobody thinks he needs a redemption arc? oh, I guess he Learned From His Failures, so its all good.

Anytime someone said “spark”, I died a little inside.

“Hope is like the sun” - kill me now please

Leia spacewalking is an idea that I like on paper, but thought it was awkward in how it played out on screen.

Wow, so, Finn and Rey - two characters I was dying to have reunite - have NO actual dialogue exchanges. But we have enough time for Poe to say Hi to Rey but like Poe is the main character now don’t you know Like, what the fuck.

Okay, venting done.

[claraxbarton]

WIP Wednesday: Hungry Eyes

This is what I’ve written so far for @gw-ficrecfriday and her Accidental Sex request. It’s still not finished, but I wanted to share where it’s headed.

It’s long, so it’s all below the cut.

A/N: For gw-ficrecfriday, who asked for “I bet I can dance/move/act like that and I don’t even have to be a dancer/stripper/actor/whatever wait are you turned on?” With 3x11

A/N2: Always thanks to Ro, who is an amazing friend, writer and editor. Thank you for everything.

A/N3: Comments make the world go round. Please, if you read it, let me know.

Pairings: 3x11, 2x5

Warnings: angst, language, sexy times

Hungry Eyes

The hospital waiting room smelled like disinfectant, burnt coffee and sweat.

Or maybe it was Trowa who smelled like burnt coffee and sweat.

He could certainly taste the burnt coffee, lingering on his tongue hours after he had finished his last cup and promised himself he wouldn’t have another.

And the sweat… well. It had been hours since that, too, since he had gotten the call and rushed down to the hospital, had felt the prickle of fear and the roiling nausea in his gut threaten to overwhelm him.

This, he thought bitterly, is what happens when we don’t get assigned to missions together.

They had a pact, the four former Gundam pilots who had joined Preventers after the war, straggling to Une’s side in their own time, for their own reasons. They worked together, or they worked alone. They had trust issues, as Sally liked to say with an eyeroll.

Maybe they did. Of course they did. And who could blame them?

Not Sally, as much as she sighed and huffed and rolled her eyes about it. And not Une, who just wanted results, and had known them long enough, in enough capacities, to let whatever ‘eccentricities’ they had developed go without mention.

Until, of course, this mission.

The mission that Duo and Wufei hadn’t been available to go on because they were off on their honeymoon, of all things. The mission that Trowa couldn’t go on because his cover had been burned last time he was in Canada, and there hadn’t been time, and-

And Heero had partnered with the rookie, Allison. Or, well, she had been a rookie. Three years ago. The rookie that Trowa himself had trained, reluctantly, when Une and Sally had decided that the four former pilots needed to be properly socialized and took it upon themselves to experiment by giving each of them rookies to train. Wufei’s rookie had quit Preventers less than one week after starting his training. Heero’s had transferred to the financial crimes unit. Duo’s… They didn’t talk about Duo’s rookie; the one who had, if rumors were to be believed, turned to the life of a pirate in the Belt mining colonies. Only Trowa’s rookie had made it, and he had been so smug about that. So full of shit-eating smirks and pointed quips about eye patches and peg legs whenever Duo was within hearing distance.

But then there had been this mission. And it had gone to hell. To absolute, complete shit right from the start.

And Trowa should have been there. Duo or Wufei should have been there. Someone they trusted should have been there.

Instead, it had been Allison. Allison, who Trowa had trained as best he could. Allison, who had called in the extraction, her voice tense and ragged and full of pain. Allison, who had managed to drag Heero Yuy’s unconscious body to the LZ despite having a broken arm herself, despite being shot in the side, despite or because she was nearly in shock and so pale she looked like a colonial and-

And it shouldn’t have been her.

Trowa hadn’t trained her to go out and almost die. Trowa hadn’t trained Allison to be the kind of agent who had to do heroic shit like pull Heero Yuy from the flaming wreckage of a bombed safe house.

He didn’t want to be sitting here, in a hospital waiting room, wondering if she was going to die. Wondering if Heero was going to die.

It was bullshit.

She should have joined Duo’s rookie and become a Belt pirate.

He should have joined Duo’s rookie and become a Belt pirate. He had the background for it, the flexible moral fiber to shrug off legalities and ethics.

But he hadn’t, and she hadn’t, and now she was in surgery and Heero was in surgery, and Trowa was in the waiting room.

Her family hadn’t been called yet - wouldn’t until she was conscious and gave the okay, or until she was dead and it didn’t matter if her family learned that their daughter was an undercover Preventers agent who had died in the line of duty.

So it was just Trowa.

And Une.

He knew she wasn’t there for Allison so much as she was there because of Heero. Heero Yuy, after all, wasn’t a death you wanted on your record, not when you were the Director of an intelligence gathering paramilitary organization that the ESUN government tried to eliminate each year when they got around to fighting over annual budgets.

She had been allowed back, had glared her way into being allowed to speak with the surgeons operating on both of her agents, and she had been given regular updates and coffee that wasn’t poured from the burnt dregs of the overused pot in the waiting room.

Of course, she had sent an assistant to fetch her the coffee from a cafe across the street from the hospital. It wasn’t as if the hospital had provided it as a reward for browbeating their staff.

Still, Trowa could add it to the list of minor resentments he felt for her, for the entire damn situation, as he sat beside Une in the nearly empty waiting room and wondered how many deaths he was going to add to his conscience that day.

Une hadn’t spoken to him, had mercifully left him to stew in silence for the last three hours.

Silence that was occasionally interrupted by the wheezing cough of an elderly man across the room, a man who Trowa sincerely hoped was a visitor, because if he was a patient then Trowa was concerned over the singular lack of attention the man had received in all of the time Trowa had been there.

And by the television, which seemed to be playing a marathon of pre-colony Terran movies that Trowa had never seen and, at the moment, had even less interest in discovering.

Whatever film was currently playing involved a young woman struggling with her ideals and growing up. She reminded Trowa of Relena, the few times he found himself absently watching it. Of course, when he started to think of the girl as Relena, he couldn’t help but think of the boy - some rebel who worked at a summer resort teaching dancing lessons - as Heero, and it put him into an even deeper spiral of misery.

Heero couldn’t even dance.

“Dirty Dancing.”

They were the first words Une had said to him, and Trowa turned to her with a confused frown.

Une was looking at the television, however, as she took another sip from her coffee.

“What?”

“The movie. It’s called Dirty Dancing.”

Trowa had no idea how Une knew that - he doubted it had been popular with the military cadets at the schools she had gone to. Then again, he really had no idea what had been popular among that crowd.

The mercenary group that had more or less - definitely less - raised him had never invested much time in films that involved people wearing clothing. The title, however, didn’t sound too far off from some of the things they had watched.

“Oh.”

It was an entirely useless response, and out of character enough that Une quirked an eyebrow at him, but she didn’t comment further, and neither did he.

Not until the end, when the boy - who wasn’t anything like Heero, except that he was exactly like Heero with his stupid grand gestures and determination - pulled the girl - who was so close to Relena it was laughable - up onstage to perform in front of everyone else.

“Nobody puts Baby in a corner,” Une repeated the line with a smirk, and shook her head.

Trowa glanced at her again.

“Treize loved this movie,” Une said, her voice low, as if she was telling Trowa a secret. Maybe she was.

Trowa wondered at the context.

“You never let anyone put you in a corner.”

She snorted, and spared him a sharp glance.

“Didn’t I? I spent most of my life letting people shove me into corners.”

He frowned at her words and her tone, but before he could say anything else, she nudged him.

“Watch.”

He did, half his attention on the screen and the other half on her. The girl ran and leapt into the arms of the boy, who lifted her over his head in a move that was clearly supposed to be impressive.

“I can do that,” Trowa scoffed.

Une arched an eyebrow at him.

“I can. That’s not difficult.” He had done far more complicated work with Catherine, during his time with the circus. This was just a simple lift.

Une still looked disbelieving.

[garudabluffs]

American Exceptionalism Is Making Earth Uninhabitable       “Ever since 2007, when I first started writing for TomDispatch, I’ve been arguing against America’s forever wars, whether in Afghanistan, Iraq, or elsewhere. Unfortunately, it’s no surprise that, despite my more than 60 articles, American blood is still being spilled in war after war across the Greater Middle East and Africa, even as foreign peoples pay a far higher price in lives lost and cities ruined. And I keep asking myself: Why, in this century, is the distinctive feature of America’s wars that they never end? Why do our leaders persist in such repetitive folly and the seemingly eternal disasters that go with it?

“Sadly, there isn’t just one obvious reason for this generational debacle. If there were, we could focus on it, tackle it, and perhaps even fix it. But no such luck.”

“In waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

So why do America’s disastrous wars persist? I can think of many reasons, some obvious and easy to understand, like the endless pursuit of profit through weapons sales for those very wars, and some more subtle but no less significant, like a deep-seated conviction in Washington that a willingness to wage war is a sign of national toughness and seriousness. Before I go on, though, here’s another distinctive aspect of our forever-war moment: Have you noticed that peace is no longer even a topic in America today? The very word, once at least part of the rhetoric of Washington politicians, has essentially dropped out of use entirely. Consider the current crop of Democratic candidates for president. One, Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, wants to end regime-change wars, but is otherwise a self-professed hawk on the subject of the war on terror. Another, Senator Bernie Sanders, vows to end “endless wars” but is careful to express strong support for Israel and the ultra-expensive F-35 fighter jet. The other dozen or so tend to make vague sounds about cutting defense spending or gradually withdrawing U.S. troops from various wars, but none of them even consider openly speaking of peace. And the Republicans? While President Trump may talk of ending wars, since his inauguration he’s sent more troops to Afghanistan and into the Middle East, while greatly expanding drone and other air strikes, something about which he openly boasts.

War, in other words, is our new normal, America’s default position on global affairs, and peace, some ancient, long-faded dream. And when your default position is war, whether against the Taliban, ISIS, “terror” more generally, or possibly even Iran or Russia or China, is it any surprise that war is what you get? When you garrison the world with an unprecedented 800 or so military bases, when you configure your armed forces for what’s called power projection, when you divide the globe — the total planet — into areas of dominance (with acronyms like CENTCOM, AFRICOM, and SOUTHCOM) commanded by four-star generals and admirals, when you spend more on your military than the next seven countries combined, when you insist on modernizing a nuclear arsenal (to the tune of perhaps $1.7 trillion) already quite capable of ending all life on this and several other planets, what can you expect but a reality of endless war?

Think of this as the new American exceptionalism. In Washington, war is now the predictable (and even desirable) way of life, while peace is the unpredictable (and unwise) path to follow. In this context, the U.S. must continue to be the most powerful nation in the world by a country mile in all death-dealing realms and its wars must be fought, generation after generation, even when victory is never in sight. And if that isn’t an “exceptional” belief system, what is?

If we’re ever to put an end to our country’s endless twenty-first-century wars, that mindset will have to be changed. But to do that, we would first have to recognize and confront war’s many uses in American life and culture.

War, Its Uses (and Abuses)

A partial list of war’s many uses might go something like this: war is profitable, most notably for America’s vast military-industrial complex; war is sold as being necessary for America’s safety, especially to prevent terrorist attacks; and for many Americans, war is seen as a measure of national fitness and worthiness, a reminder that “freedom isn’t free.” In our politics today, it’s far better to be seen as strong and wrong than meek and right.

As the title of a book by former war reporter Chris Hedges so aptly put it, war is a force that gives us meaning. And let’s face it, a significant part of America’s meaning in this century has involved pride in having the toughest military on the planet, even as trillions of tax dollars went into a misguided attempt to maintain bragging rights to being the world’s sole superpower.

And keep in mind as well that, among other things, never-ending war weakens democracy while strengthening authoritarian tendencies in politics and society. In an age of gaping inequality, using up the country’s resources in such profligate and destructive ways offers a striking exercise in consumption that profits the few at the expense of the many.

In other words, for a select few, war pays dividends in ways that peace doesn’t. In a nutshell, or perhaps an artillery shell, war is anti-democratic, anti-progressive, anti-intellectual, and anti-human. Yet, as we know, history makes heroes out of its participants and celebrates mass murderers like Napoleon as “great captains.”

What the United States needs today is a new strategy of containment — not against communist expansion, as in the Cold War, but against war itself. What’s stopping us from containing war? You might say that, in some sense, we’ve grown addicted to it, which is true enough, but here are five additional reasons for war’s enduring presence in American life:

The delusional idea that Americans are, by nature, winners and that our wars are therefore winnable: No American leader wants to be labeled a “loser.” Meanwhile, such dubious conflicts — see: the Afghan War, now in its 18th year, with several more years, or even generations, to go — continue to be treated by the military as if they were indeed winnable, even though they visibly aren’t. No president, Republican or Democrat, not even Donald J. Trump, despite his promises that American soldiers will be coming home from such fiascos, has successfully resisted the Pentagon’s siren call for patience (and for yet more trillions of dollars) in the cause of ultimate victory, however poorly defined, farfetched, or far-off.

American society’s almost complete isolation from war’s deadly effects: We’re not being droned (yet). Our cities are not yet lying in ruins (though they’re certainly suffering from a lack of funding, as is our most essential infrastructure, thanks in part to the cost of those overseas wars). It’s nonetheless remarkable how little attention, either in the media or elsewhere, this country’s never-ending war-making gets here.

Unnecessary and sweeping secrecy: How can you resist what you essentially don’t know about? Learning its lesson from the Vietnam War, the Pentagon now classifies (in plain speak: covers up) the worst aspects of its disastrous wars. This isn’t because the enemy could exploit such details — the enemy already knows! — but because the American people might be roused to something like anger and action by it. Principled whistleblowers like Chelsea Manning have been imprisoned or otherwise dismissed or, in the case of Edward Snowden, pursued and indicted for sharing honest details about the calamitous Iraq War and America’s invasive and intrusive surveillance state. In the process, a clear message of intimidation has been sent to other would-be truth-tellers.

An unrepresentative government: Long ago, of course, Congress ceded to the presidency most of its constitutional powers when it comes to making war. Still, despite recent attempts to end America’s arms-dealing role in the genocidal Saudi war in Yemen (overridden by Donald Trump’s veto power), America’s duly elected representatives generally don’t represent the people when it comes to this country’s disastrous wars. They are, to put it bluntly, largely captives of (and sometimes on leaving politics quite literally go to work for) the military-industrial complex. As long as money is speech (thank you, Supreme Court!), the weapons makers are always likely to be able to shout louder in Congress than you and I ever will.

America’s persistent empathy gap. Despite our size, we are a remarkably insular nation and suffer from a serious empathy gap when it comes to understanding foreign cultures and peoples or what we’re actually doing to them. Even our globetrotting troops, when not fighting and killing foreigners in battle, often stay on vast bases, referred to in the military as “Little Americas,” complete with familiar stores, fast food, you name it. Wherever we go, there we are, eating our big burgers, driving our big trucks, wielding our big guns, and dropping our very big bombs. But what those bombs do, whom they hurt or kill, whom they displace from their homes and lives, these are things that Americans turn out to care remarkably little about.

All this puts me sadly in mind of a song popular in my youth, a time when Cat Stevens sang of a “peace train” that was “soundin’ louder” in America. Today, that peace train’s been derailed and replaced by an armed and armored one eternally prepared for perpetual war — and that train is indeed soundin’ louder to the great peril of us all.

War on Spaceship Earth

Here’s the rub, though: even the Pentagon knows that our most serious enemy is climate change, not China or Russia or terror, though in the age of Donald Trump and his administration of arsonists its officials can’t express themselves on the subject as openly as they otherwise might. Assuming we don’t annihilate ourselves with nuclear weapons first, that means our real enemy is the endless war we’re waging against Planet Earth.

“Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.”

The U.S. military is also a major consumer of fossil fuels and therefore a significant driver of climate change. Meanwhile, the Pentagon, like any enormously powerful system, only wants to grow more so, but what’s welfare for the military brass isn’t wellness for the planet.

There is, unfortunately, only one Planet Earth, or Spaceship Earth, if you prefer, since we’re all traveling through our galaxy on it. Thought about a certain way, we’re its crewmembers, yet instead of cooperating effectively as its stewards, we seem determined to fight one another. If a house divided against itself cannot stand, as Abraham Lincoln pointed out so long ago, surely a spaceship with a disputatious and self-destructive crew is not likely to survive, no less thrive.

In other words, in waging endless war, Americans are also, in effect, mutinying against the planet. In the process, we are spoiling the last, best hope of earth: a concerted and pacific effort to meet the shared challenges of a rapidly warming and changing planet.

Spaceship Earth should not be allowed to remain Warship Earth as well, not when the existence of significant parts of humanity is already becoming ever more precarious. Think of us as suffering from a coolant leak, causing cabin temperatures to rise even as food and other resources dwindle. Under the circumstances, what’s the best strategy for survival: killing each other while ignoring the leak or banding together to fix an increasingly compromised ship?

Unfortunately, for America’s leaders, the real “fixes” remain global military and resource domination, even as those resources continue to shrink on an ever-more fragile globe. And as we’ve seen recently, the resource part of that fix breeds its own madness, as in President Trump’s recently stated desire to keep U.S. troops in Syria to steal that country’s oil resources, though its wells are largely wrecked (thanks in significant part to American bombing) and even when repaired would produce only a miniscule percentage of the world’s petroleum.

If America’s wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, and Yemen prove anything, it’s that every war scars our planet — and hardens our hearts. Every war makes us less human as well as less humane. Every war wastes resources when these are increasingly at a premium. Every war is a distraction from higher needs and a better life.

Despite all of war’s uses and abuses, its allures and temptations, it’s time that we Americans showed some self-mastery (as well as decency) by putting a stop to the mayhem. Few enough of us experience “our” wars firsthand and that’s precisely why some idealize their purpose and idolize their practitioners. But war is a bloody, murderous mess and those practitioners, when not killed or wounded, are marred for life because war functionally makes everyone involved into a murderer.

We need to stop idealizing war and idolizing its so-called warriors. At stake is nothing less than the future of humanity and the viability of life, as we know it, on Spaceship Earth.

28 comments

[dadonarrival1-blog]

The Theft of Fatherhood

I’m a dad. That should be pretty obvious from the name of this blog, the cover photo, and the first note I ever posted on here, but you never know. Some folks aren’t s’good at the context clues. I have four children that do not live with me currently, and to be perfectly honest, it’s the single most stressful and upsetting thing I’ve ever had to deal with.

I went through a divorce in ‘08 and she left with them and went almost exactly 1000 miles to the right (if you’re looking toward Canada). I followed and spent roughly 5 years there attempting to rebuild my life so I could stay in their lives on a day-to-day basis. Which I did. It wasn’t easy, it wasn’t fun, and I probably sat around in coffeshops and in my car (which was my home at the beginning for longer than I care to share) 500 times wishing that it had never happened. It was, however, eye-opening. As a person, I matured in a staggeringly short amount of time, primarily because I didn’t have a choice. I didn’t give myself one. Since the day each one of them took their first breathes, they’ve been the very center of my universe. I wouldn’t cut myself a break inwardly. Not emotionally, not mentally, not physically.

After about 5 years of sweat and struggle to build a new life there for my children and myself together, she had remarried to a guy that’s in the military, and he was re-stationed about 2 hours north of our hometown. Soooo....almost exactly 1000 miles to the left (and about 100 miles south) they went. And with them, myself. I followed again. I was a bit more prepared for this move, so it wasn’t quite as rough financially. However, I was still uprooting again, starting over again, going somewhere I wasn’t familiar with again, knew no one again, and rebuilding. Again. Mentally, emotionally, it was lonely. The first year of the second move was probably the worst of them all because my job had a 1 hour commute (in good traffic), I knew no one, the children’s schedules now included basketball, soccer, etc., so I had precious little time to change any of that. I was perpetually “on the go”.

I had refused to allow my fatherhood to be stolen, which was something that the ex had been extremely forthcoming in saying she was going to do. That had been the intention and goal since day one, she had minced no words about it, and had made many, many efforts to do so. She and the new guy, on the day they got married, explained to my children that he had changed his name. Guess what he “changed his name” to. Go on. Guess.

“Dad”.

By this point, I had managed to carve out some semblance of a working relationship with the ex (it was an ugly divorce) and had the children roughly every other day. We’d been living on this schedule for the last several years, and I loved it. Though it wasn’t “on paper”/officially part of the court-ordered parenting plan, through a great deal of arguing, persistence, and just plain ceaseless aggravation on my part, I had worked out what was essentially an equal parenting plan. Slowly over the next 5 years, life improved. Very slowly. VERY slowly. But it did. I made a new life, new friends, started to advance in my career again, and the children were happy and settled.

She would keep them from me for months at a time the first 1st to 3rd years after the divorce. If her parents, or even HIS parents came into town, I was not even an afterthought. I wasn’t getting them. Everyone came before me. Never mind that I had traveled 1000 miles with everything I owned (which were my clothes, a laptop, and the car. That’s. It.) across the country to be with them. That I had slept in my car when I got there during winter, spent thanksgiving in that car trying not to freeze, and started from scratch with my life again just to make sure they had Daddy, meant nothing to her. I was a convenience for her.

But I simply wouldn’t go away, and as I said, I persisted, and eventually just carved out a schedule with them where I had them right at equal time.

Does this story sound fun so far? I’m only asking because if it does I’m not telling it correctly.

Then came the Sunday in early 16 when I’m dropping them off at her house and she hands me a piece of paper stating that he was being re-stationed again. I was told in the preceding months by her that he was not re-enlisting and would be finding a civilian job in the area because they were buying their house and didn’t want to leave. I was fine with this because I had started to actually, y’know, have a LIFE again, and if she had said “hey, we’re moving across the country to California”, it meant I had to come up with money to take her back to court, something I did NOT relish.

So she hands me the paper that she intends for me to actually sign, and I read it.

Japan.

I won’t actually tell you my exact response to that word that day, but I can summarize by saying it involved SEVERAL expletives which are often colloquially stated to end with the word “bomb”, me wadding the paper up and throwing it back at her, and storming off to my friend Mike’s home, where he and his wife made me coffee (the quickest way to my heart) and sat at their dining room table and talked with me and prayed with me, as their own children played. 

So then I get a call from her. “We’re going to Niagra Falls for a brief vacation before Japan, and I need you to sign the paperwork for them to get passports so we can enter Canada”. Oh-oh, I forgot to mention, my ex thinks I’m a MORON. If you ever meet her, she’ll think you are too. Just...trust me. I refuse, and I mount my offense. I hire a lawyer and get ready to go back to the most lopsided, biased, and sexist piece of hell that exists within the universe.

“Family” court.

In the 2 months leading up to the court date, my oldest daughter, after waking up at my house one morning, comes out of her bedroom with a droopy eyelid. Just...randomly. So I call the ex at her work (She’s able to work and answer her cell. She can stir a cauldron with one hand like you wouldn’t believe.) and we get her to the hospital. They admit her for tests and she spends the night. The ex and I both stay the night in the room with her while all manner of tests are done to her to determine where this droopy eyelid came from.

Me and the woman attempting to steal my children (again) away to another HEMISPHERE. In the same room. All night.

Thaaaat was fun.

It turned out to be a simple case of pinkeye which they didn’t diagnose because no one thought to look UNDER the eyelid, but for a child that has had to share the spotlight with 3 year younger siblings since she was about 1 year old, she sure got a kick out of scaring the living CRAP out of us for a 24 hour period.

*we get the results of the cat scan and mri back. They’re totally fine. Everyone in the room starts to tear up, including me, which my daughter wasn’t accustomed to seeing*

Her -Daddy, what’s wrong? Is something wrong with me???

Me - No, angel. Not a thing. That’s why we’re all crying. We’re so relieved. We’re so happy.

Her - So I’m ok?

Me - Yep. They did the tests and there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with you.

Her - So...what you’re saying is, according to medical science, I’m absolutely...positively...totally...PERFECT.

Me - ...we’re never gonna’ live this one down are we...?

Her - NEVER, old man.

So we go to court. All that I’ve told you was presented. Passionately presented at that. My lawyer orated her backside off, as did I.

I lost.

My children have been in Japan for the last 3 years. I was given “every other day Skype calls” which I might get 2 a month, every summer with them (gotten NONE), and every Christmas (gotten NONE).

My children, when they’re actually allowed to answer my Skype calls at 5 am my time, 7pm theirs, are more distant now. They still laugh and tell me about their days, but slowly the relationship has deteriorated because they haven’t been with me in so long, which of course isn’t their fault in the slightest. I call every other morning without fail, and they get to answer maybe 1-2 times a month. I sent care packages with things I bought them. I bought two X Boxes so that we could play together and do something TOGETHER. She hooked it up 3 years ago when it got there and they’ve gotten to play it with me roughly 5-6 times. Ever.

I was 34 when this started. I’ll be 45 in less than a month. And here I am and there they are. She stole them from me, yes. She stole me from them, yes. But more than anything else, she is stealing fatherhood from me. I have four children. I have done nothing to void that fact, and by that I mean, I’m not a danger to them in anyway. I’m the single most doting, nauseatingly nurturing and sweet dad you’ve ever seen. (Seriously. It’s sickening. Even I hear myself and am all like, “Duuuuuude...have SOME dignity.”). But I have four children and they have ONE dad, and my right to fatherhood and their right to have their father is being stolen daily.

And THAT is the only sad part of my story.

[fancyfade]

misc kotfe chapter 3 and 4 screencaps

[image: codex entry for knights of zakuul reading “Before Zakuulans served the Immortal Emperor, they lived in nomadic tribes, each led by three Force sensitives: Matriarch, Champion, and High Shaman. Officially considered protectors of the people, Knights hunt down corruption in the Eternal Empire. IN actuality, they are enforcers of the Emperor’s will and fanatical in their adoration for Valkorion and his family. Zakuul Knights don’t limit themselves to studying one side of the Force, instead teaching balance and exploration. Knights have their own relationships with the Force, but are encouraged to share their findings with the rest of the order. No area is deemed “wewak” or “a dangerous path” - they are all parts of a larger, limitless power. Ultimately, every actio a KNight takes is to honor the Immortal Emperor. Sacrifices, whether material or a life, are essential to show one’s commitment to the Emperor.” end image]

Knights of Zakuul codex entry for my own future reference. First playthrough, I didn’t read most codex entries cuz I forgot about them honestly.

I think I’ve mentioned before I found the Knights are stronger cuz balanced force thing unconvincing earlier, but was unable to articulate exactly why. Also I’m having a hard time finding how fanatical devotion is compatible with balance

either way, the sacrifices thing reminded me of how the Imperial Guard training works (link). Only the life aspect tho. material sacrifices wouldn’t really work there.

[image: dialogue between Tank and Lana. Tank says “we’re going to be fighting against their new emperor. He’ll tell them we’re monsters. I want to show them something different.” Lana says “we can worry about public relations after you’re safely away from here.” end image]

Tank not wanting lana to kill whatshisface actually had nothing to do with public relations (she just doesn’t usually kill people who can’t fight back), but she figured Lana would appreciate a practical explanation. She did not.

Now, onto chapter 4

[image: dialogue from Koth and other characters in swamp. Koth says “Haha! Do you have any idea what this is?” Tank says “Thick hull.. I see a few good spots for weapons... some kind of combat frigate,  I’d guess.” Koth says “This is the Gravestone! this was the only ship that ever went up against the Eternal Fleet and won. Do you have any idea how long people have been looking for this thing? We get your outlander, find exactly the weapon we need.. we’re going to win this thing, Lana. it’s destiny” end image]

it’s not destiny, Koth, its bad writing.

Seriously, when I complain about kotfe being like, objectively badly written, this is what I’m thinking about

you don’t make a magic empire that can curb stomp everyone to build them up to be a giant threat just to immediately hand your characters a deus ex machina (that can blow up 20 of the bad guys ships the first time it is fired up in hundreds of years) that the POV character stumbled on by accident and never even heard of before! it completely deflates any dramatic tension we had. Like........ IMO we should’ve heard of the gravestone at least before seeing it. Or if we found it randomly in the swamp, we should’ve had to earn the ability to blow up 20 ships in 1 go or whatever. Otherwise its like the eternal fleet can’t touch us so why are we afraid?

like i don’t argue this for many things, but this is just like... objectively bad pacing and writing.

[image: dialogue from Lana Beniko reading “these creatures are hardly cunning. Their usual prey clearly doesn’t offer much challenge.” end image]

^ for context talking about animals

lana i’m p sure most animals don’t eat sith lords no wonder they are not a challenge

[image: the codex entry for the Eternal Fleet in SWTOR. It reads “The Eternal Fleet is an ancient and unstoppable armada operated by sentient droids and controlled by the Eternal Throne. Centuries ago, the fleet nearly wiped out all of Wild Space. It took a colossal alien warship, the Gravestone, to deactivate the Eternal Fleet, and even it was subsequently lost in the final battle. Valkorion had heard rumors of the fleet before his arrival on Zakuul; it was teh main reason he chose the planet to house his new empire. Once he gained control over Zakuul, he began his search for the fleet in earnest, using the Scions’ Force visions to eventually find the dormant ships. He built the Eternal Throne to reactivate and command the lost fleet. While primarily used in military operations, the fleet is also key in collecting tributes and resources fro mconquered planet sand protecting trade routes in wild space. end image]

just for my own future reference

[image: Dialogue from Lana Beniko reading “Everyone who had felt the Sith Emperor’s presence in the past... on Ziost, on Yavin Four.. we all sensed what had happened. Arcann invaded soon after, claiming that an “outlander” had assassinated hsi father, the “Immortal Emperor”. It disn’t take long for us to unravel the truth. ... Both. Ships from the Eternal Fleet struck at shipyards and rallying points for both sides simultaneously. With naval superiority, Arcann’s forces could begin choking off supply lines, trade.. any ship travel at all. The Eternal Fleet seemed to be everywhere at once.” end image]

I’m gonna make my own post on how little I like the “eternal empire magically curbstomps everyone” plotpoin sometime but do not want this post to be too long so skipping it

[image: Dialogue from Lana Beniko reading “Both sides are forced to pay a heavy tribute to Zakuul, mainly raw materials and resources. They also are held under an arms limitation statute. Zakuul’s empire spans a sizeable portion of Wild Space, but not enough to consume the resources they’re acquiring. I’ve been working to learn the answer myself.” end image]

just for my own future reference

[image: Dialogue from Lana Beniko reading “Kot hwas on the run, pursued by the deadliest of the Zakuul Knights. I... resolved.. the situation, and we’ve worked together ever since.” end image]

I wanna know how she resolved the situation tho!!!! Now taht we know he was pursued by senya, who is most definitely not dead so thats not how she resolved it

anyway stopping this before it gets even longer, but more to come