#equals in being insufferable human beings and just having this battle of wills

[orchidbreezefc]

thats not even the worst part of spto. it has fuckin. gideon/julie.

lmao what on earth. if you'd asked me to guess what the other half of this notification said, this is not what i would have come up with

i don't actually hate it on principle though?? that actually sounds potentially REALLY funny to me. your indication is that it sucks though so maybe i'll dislike the execution. either way like. who thought this was necessary. lmaoooooo

[shortpeople-probs]

SessKag fic

Title: The In-between

Summary: The brevity of mortality insists that there is no lasting impact from one mortal life. That was what Sesshoumaru had always believed. When regarding humans, they were always one of two things. They were either alive or they were dead. He had never considered what happened in-between. 

**Mostly short drabbles containing fluff. Will not be in linear order, there will likely be no plot aside from one stubborn miko unknowingly tearing down one Western Lord's walls**

Tags: Major character death, Sesskag

Additional tags: First chapter is angst, proceedings chapters are fluff

Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30432342/chapters/75034917

Chapter 1: Bleeding Sunset

Sesshoumaru descended upon the bloodied and ruined earth with a sense of growing urgency. Maintaining the appearance of dignified impassivity, his boots lightly fell upon the soaked soil, heels sinking in slightly as his golden eyes roved over the scenery.

Kagome's reiki signature had been absent for some time now. It hadn't alarmed him at first when her presence dipped below his senses. In the years since she had begun to accompany him, she had come to enjoy such concealment tactics, developing a preference for the element of surprise and dismaying only when such trickery was used against her.

When her signature had vanished, he was not filled with the annoying sense of urgency that plagued him now. He had trusted her to be safe and well. He had more confidence in her than he had in himself lately. Her abilities proved that she was more than capable of holding her own.

She was his equal, after all.

When he had first lost sense of her, he had also been appeased by the fact that he had prepared armor for her to wear beneath the miko garb she insisted on wearing. He hadn't been worried, and so she had escaped his thoughts as he focused on the enduring battle. But that was then and this was now. The battle had ended long after her signature was submerged beneath the flurry of warring youki and not even a trace of it had emerged even after the enemy youkai had been cut down.

Idle chatter and distant sounds of recovery went relatively unnoticed as he glided through the wet grass and overtop the odd debris. Sesshoumaru had no intentions of staying behind or helping with clean up, but he wouldn't put it past his intended to want to do so.

Sesshoumaru narrowed his eyes at the thought after it had crossed his mind. Keeping an ear out for the sounds of her harmonic voice or vibrant laughter, he took a moment to assess what he had just thought.

To take his mind off the pressing absence of that woman's voice. Of her presence.

Scowling, he reviewed it yet again. His intended? The woman was more formidable than she realized. Her hold on him was secure and unwavering, much to his discontent.

A wolf youkai bowed at him as he passed. Sesshoumaru did not spare him a glance and fought the urge to wrinkle his nose at the offending scent of wolf. He could not scent Kagome on this youkai and so the male was not worthy of his attentions.

Turning his thoughts away from that nagging absence yet again, Sesshoumaru returned his thoughts to the years that had passed since Kagome had seemingly abandoned her former companions in favor of his company. She had been so willful in asserting that she shared his wanderlust, that she was capable of traveling alongside him. That willful nature of hers pressed against him, causing agitation that prickled at his skin and burrowed in his heart.

The woman did not know it, but she had captivated the inudaiyoukai. His days, which he had been content to spend listlessly, were devoted to her. It riled him, the way this mere woman had melted him down and sculpted him into something new. Something compassionate and attentive. How every moment spent away from her was spent wishing she was at his side.

It irritated him that she did not know her lasting impact on him, but that was his fault. He would rather kill the woman than admit to her that he had intended to have her and her only. Regardless of the fact that she hadn't the faintest clue, she was his intended of the fact. No other would do. He had never truly thought of taking a mate before, but now that he had met Kagome, truly met her, he couldn't imagine not taking a mate. More specifically, he couldn't imagine not taking her as a mate.

This annoyed him to no end. He had thought of his father more times in the last two years since realizing his emotions for the miko than he had in centuries. His disdain for her father grew at the same rate that his disdain for himself did. The likeness between father and son was highlighted more and more with every time that insufferable woman smiled up at him.

His ears twitched and his footsteps faltered as he heard the sound of his half-brother scoffing at some other being. Sesshoumaru didn't focus on the words of his foolish brother, honing in instead on the lackadaisical manner in which the half-breed spoke.

He had always thought of InuYasha to be foolish. Despite the benefit that had been gifted to the inudaiyoukai since , Sesshoumaru had to admit that InuYasha was more of a fool than Sesshoumaru could have ever realized to have let a woman such as Kagome ever fall out of love with him.

Satisfied, or, rather, dissatisfied with knowing that Kagome was not near the inuhanyou, Sesshoumaru continued on. Before he could get lost in his thoughts yet again, he caught the barest hint of her scent.

A panic that he would never admit to feeling surged through him as he recognized the coppery odor that lined her scent.

Sesshoumaru took to the skies, plumes of youki flowing around him as he raced passed fallen debris and worn down soldiers. Within seconds, he was descending again on ruined greenery. He heard his retainer before he saw Kagome.

Stepping over the destroyed cliffs edge, Sesshoumaru felt his jaw tighten at the sheer amount of red that decorated the grass. At the stench of blood that washed out the scent of Kagome. His eyes were locked on the slumped figure resting atop a particularly red patch of grass.

"Milord!" The imp shrieked again after not having been acknowledged the first time, never once taking a step towards Sesshoumaru after turning to look at him. He remained his seemingly protective vigil over the huddled form behind him.

Kagome truly was more formidable than she realized herself to be, if the imp's desire to protect her was any indication.

Jakken let down a barrier that Sesshoumaru hadn't realized was put up. A barrier he hadn't realized Jakken was capable of putting up.

A barrier that kept me from finding her.

Sesshoumaru scowled as he approached. His footsteps felt both sluggish and rushed. A jarring juxtaposition to mirror the contrasting war of emotions that erupted from his weak heart as he took in the glaring red gash lining the front of Kagome's hakui.

Clawed fingertips dug into the hilt of his Tensaiga has he realized that there was no motion stirring the crimson-stained fabric. Jakken let out a small squeak of surprise but still stayed by Kagome's ever-still side. As if sensing Sesshoumaru's next question as his eyes stared into the hole where metal should have peeked out, not bare and bloodied flesh, the imp sputtered nonsense about how the armor Sesshoumaru had gifted to Kagome was passed onto a lesser warrior who had begun the battle without so much as a chest plate.

Of course she gave it to someone else.

Not for the first time, Sesshoumaru cursed her kind nature.

Unsheathing his sword, the inudaiyoukai was interrupted only by the screeching sound of his half-breed brother and the taijiya he often travelled with. The duo shrieked her name, the despair in their voices more grating than Jakken's voice could ever hope to be. The aforementioned imp leapt out of the way as Sesshoumaru lifted his blade above his head, bringing it down desperately, the blade slicing through the air above his intended.

The sound of InuYasha's thrumming footsteps irritated him as he watched the blade have no effect. Sesshoumaru tried again. And when that swing yielded no results, he tried again.

He was unaware that his emotionless mask had slipped until his brother caught his wrist before he could swing it again, the sudden jerking motion causing a single tear to escape his eyes. Another rolled down his marked cheek as he wrenched his wrist free, head bowing as he growled, "How long has it been since she has passed?"

The taijiya finally caught up to InuYasha. She stepped passed him, passed both Sesshoumaru and Jakken, and fell to her knees beside Kagome's motionless body. The grip Sesshoumaru had on the Tensaiga tightened as he watched the woman gather up Kagome into her arms. Keeping his eyes trained on that gash, Sesshoumaru asked again, "How long?"

The threatening rumble in his voice left no room for the imp to mistake the question as rhetorical. "I-I am unsure, milord."

"She's still warm," The taijiya looked up, hopeful eyes trained on InuYasha as she spoke. "Maybe that's why the Tensaiga won't work."

Despite knowing that her words were based on false and desperate hope, Sesshoumaru sheathed his blade and knelt beside Kagome. Her eyes were just barely open, the azure irises glossy and devoid of the life that had been in them just hours before. Clawed fingertips ran up delicate skin. Just as the taijiya had said, Kagome's skin was still warm, though he knew the warmth of her body was a result of the burning sun above and not that of surviving life. The pad of his thumb passed gently over her pulse point. He could not detect any trace of her heartbeat. He could not hear or feel even the shallowest of breaths.

Though he hoped for nothing, he was still disappointed. Angry. Despairing. "Is her assailant dead?"

"Yes, mi-milord." The shudder in Jakken's voice irritated Sesshoumaru. His retainer, the only being who hated humans nearly as much as Sesshoumaru, was stricken with grief.

Sesshoumaru had an urge to have the imp point out who had slain his beloved, just so he could revive them and kill them by his own claws. Instead, he asked, "Was she the cause of their passing?"

Again, Jakken nodded, "Yes, milord."

As his retainer began to regale how she had bested her assailant, a small smile crested on Sesshoumaru's lips. Smoothing her hair out of her face, Sesshoumaru moved to steal her body from the taijiya and gather Kagome in his own arms instead. Quietly, speaking more to himself than anyone, he muttered, "A warrior even after being wounded. I expected nothing less. And you do not oft disappoint this Sesshoumaru."

His smile quickly faded as the taijiya tightened her hold on Kagome's upper half. "We should take her back to Edo." The woman's voice was laden with sorrow. Her eyes peered up at him and her words came out in a whisper. "We should take her back to her home." The proud woman sounded as though she were begging him to relinquish his hold on Kagome.

InuYasha moved behind his comrade, stooping down so that he could stare into Sesshoumaru's eyes. His voice was no less pleading as he spoke. "She should be with those that she loved."

Wise words coming from him. Unfortunately, the inuhanyou was incorrect in assuming that his group was the only one she had loved. Was the only group that had loved her.

Careful to mind the body that rested in his hands, Sesshoumaru adjusted his hold. "She will be with those that she loved." He assured none-too gently. Before either former companion of hers could voice their opinions, Sesshoumaru stood, pressing Kagome against him. He turned his back towards his half-brother and the taijiya, the two either too stunned to move or wise enough to know better than to stop the Western Lord. Sesshoumaru figured it was more likely that the taijiya was the second option and InuYasha was the first.

The first thing Sesshoumaru noticed was the green irises of a kitsune. The second was the set of deep purple robes that the kitsune used to shield his tears. Sesshoumaru continued by them, ignoring InuYasha's screams of anguished protests aimed at him for taking Kagome and at his companions for stopping him from retrieving her.

He would appeal to the gods later. If necessary, he would rip them from heavenly palaces above and force them to restore his Kagome to him. For now, he would clutch the woman he loved to his chest and settle. He would sit beneath the red sky and reminisce on memories he didn't think to cherish.

Wandering far from where she had drawn her last breath, Sesshoumaru walked beyond the swarms of allied youkai and human soldiers. Beyond the ailing beings who learned of Kagome's passing either from the mouthes of others or from the sight of him passing by. He walked until Jakken's skittering footsteps stopped and the grass below his boots was no longer tinted red. All the while, his gaze remained forward. He feared that if he looked down, he would be unable to stop himself from prying the heavens open.

An eerie peacefulness settled over the earth as he decided upon his resting spot. He was miles from the wailing cries of the injured and the mourning. The tranquility that may have coursed through him at the silence was absent, instead filling him with a sense of longing. Longing for her near endless chatter. Longing for the crashing sound of her clumsy footsteps. Longing for her.

Sesshoumaru finally glanced down at her as he settled into a meditative pose with her resting in his lap. The warmth that had been forcefully pressed into her skin by the burning sun had faded as the yellow star descended below the horizon. Despite the harrowing emptiness her expression projected, Kagome remained ethereal. It almost looked as though she was simply sleeping rather than laying in what Sesshoumaru would ensure is only temporary death.

Instinctively, his youki reached out to coddle her reiki. The act was unconscious but had a sharp effect on his heart.

Not for the first time, he was reminded about the looming mortality of humans. It was foolish to spare even a passing glance at a human knowing their lifespan was little more than a blink to most youkai. It was even more foolish to mourn the death of such short lasting beings.

And yet, the inudaiyoukai mourned.

Set now in his determination to reclaim her soul and bond it to his immortal one despite his pressing pride, Sesshoumaru ran his hand down her cheek, sweeping the few stubborn strands of hair that had clung to her face away. When he could stand no longer to look at her lifeless beauty, to look into the eyes of the woman who had ensnared and ruined him, he looked away.

Shifting to press his forehead against the top of her head, Sesshoumaru noticed the dried blood that stained his clothing. Idly, Sesshoumaru wondered if he should ever wash his clothing again, as it now contained her life's essence. He lowered his marked eyelids, nuzzling against the girl in an uncharacteristically affectionate fashion as he moved to cover her with his tail. Though not even the harshest of colds could bother him, he could feel the faint prickle of shifting temperatures and it appeased him to ensure her warmth and comfort as he always had.

His heart ebbed with unfamiliar and unpleasant emotions as tears slipped down his cheeks and fell upon her head. As he rested below the bleeding sunset, after thoroughly cursing the useless blade that had failed him, Sesshoumaru took a deep breath and began to think of the time he had shared with her, of the happiness she had given him only to take it away once she had passed.

Today, he would mourn and meditate. Tomorrow, he would reassess and reclaim.

[monkey-network]

The Glory of No More Heroes

Who would’ve thought a Wii game by Suda 51 would be the best slap in the face. Let’s not beat around the bush, No More Heroes throws you right in. When Travis says, “It’s Game Time”, he means it. The swinging of the light saber, the splatters of blood, the essence of this badass looking weeb fills me with joy every time I play. NMH is a game I cherish and I wanted to express why.

The Touchdown

Honestly when I think of a realistic take on an anime anti-hero, I immediately think Travis Touchdown. He’s basically Saitama from One Punch Man except not invincible, considerate, bald. He doesn’t have a luxurious status compared to everyone he meets and he’s fine with that. Then again, they both have this subconscious pride in either looking for a challenge or, for Travis, becoming #1. Then again, where Saitama’s story is about understanding the humility of being a hero, Travis’s story is more macabre with how far you’re willing to go with your aspirations.

Travis isn’t facing any bad guys that are out to take over something like the city or whatever. They’re cantankerous mercenaries where the job of assassin has driven them to the deep end. Travis goes down the same path, the garden of madness, but in a different light; he at first gets a kick out of facing his enemies like its a movie where he’ll get the girl at the end, but soon enough empathizes with the idea that not everyone feel the same way and everyone has their own goals in this gig. 

Beyond the finale, he doesn’t really possess a chip on his shoulder in the first game and that clashes with everyone that’s been through a lot. The game does a great job veiling the haunting spiral Travis goes through by making his attitude towards it all eclipse the harsh reality of his journey. He’s becoming a remorseless killer, but that never gets in the way of the thrill you and Travis gets when slashing down some dudes or talking shit. 

At the same time, he’s not a complete asshole in spite of how sees this game. This is generally where we have to talk about...

The Ranked Fights

Every assassin in NMH is memorably unique, some more than others but they nonetheless capture the point of the game, without ���em this would’ve been a standard beat ‘em up all things considered. With the exclusion of one, the assassins aren’t as enthused with their job as Travis is and even that excluded one, Destroyman, takes it to a level far beyond Travis’s likeness. That is the thing, all of them are Travis yet taken to differing yet equally extreme turns as assassins. For Letz Shake and Dr. Peace, it’s a euphoric calling. For Shinobu, it’s about the honor of the fight. For Bad Girl and Holly Summers, it’s all they think they have for a life. Each believing that being an assassin was their exit to something better but, aside Shinobu who was spared, had their fate sealed until Travis showed up. It’s kinda how Batman internalizes his “No Kill Rule”, you kill one and you’re potentially going to continue until someone stops you. And really, you probably appreciate every one of them. A couple fall by the wayside personality wise, but most the assassins has their moment before and/or after that makes fighting them feel gratifying. It’s almost impossible to hate them and they each subconsciously welcome you to give it your all.

This helps makes Travis a great protagonist. Moments like when he holds the mic for the defeated Dr. Peace, when he spares Shinobu, especially when he feels remorse for not killing Holly himself are what shows the true man in him, the growing protagonist. He tends to be cocksure, but isn’t a full on scumbag to everyone and is never rewarded for his shitty moments. Travis has an ego, literally rising in the ranks, but he doesn’t consider himself so above the people he fights. He’s kinda the hero in a way of giving each assassin a humble end, a sense of satisfaction that comes with the 1v1 challenge. Travis doesn’t cheats his way to the top and the assassins aren’t stripped of their humanity regardless of the downward spiral that came with the job. 

He is no hero and the people you fight aren’t either hence the title, but at the end of the day, as badass as everyone is, everyone is human wanting that paradise. But, with that want comes...

The Work

I often think of No More Heroes as a balanced Male Power Fantasy. DMC5 and Bayonetta are ones where while the action is earnest and the cutscenes are spectacle gold, the joy lacks in everything else. NMH fixes that by making exploration genuinely fun to do. The jobs, the challenges, the training, the clothing you’re able to get, all pay just as well in investment as getting to the main event. I seriously get in the zone when I finally maxed out my combos, got the final beam katana, and get to the timed challenges where I’m slaying as fast as possible. The previous two I mentioned are already badass in their own right and it’s mostly up to you, the player, to make them dance with your gameplay. But I say NMH takes that extra step, while having simpler controls, to where it’s not just your gameplay that makes you feel epic, but taking your time to gradually make that epicness come to fruition not just with earning money but doing the odd jobs and exploring the city.

Santa Destroy feels like more of a character and you feel better integrated in that world than you admittedly do in most hack and slash games. It also helps that getting to the next ranked fight isn’t as frustrating in the grind. There are a couple stinker jobs and assassin gigs but they all pay well that beyond getting to the first event with Dr. Peace, earning money never felt like an insufferable chore. Once again, this plays well into Travis as a character. He’s not immediately given immense power locked away inside him; he earns it all. You train him, you collect those balls for the special moves, you earn money for those beam katanas, he’s strong enough to suplex and pile drive people effortlessly, but you know he’s capable of becoming better. The only thing you generally got no charge is the motorbike which honestly is the sweetest damn thing in the game. It adds up to a character that, in a typical modern environment, you make happen.

The Beauty

I say the genius of No More Heroes is its portrayal of everything. You’re not the chosen one destined for greatness, you’re an average anime lover that got his fighting skills from VHS tapes and won a weapon from eBay. You’re not fighting in grandiose locations but everyday buildings like a school, parking lot, the beach, train station, warehouse, etc. And again, you’re not fighting chaotic supernatural enemies but people with lives that just happen to love killing people. NMH makes a playground out of the mundane without making it cynical or boring; honestly reminiscent of home movies where you’d have epic battles take place in the backyard or mall lot but given that legit bloody action flare of video games. With the humor and music being the jimmies and cherry on top. 

This is why 1 works far better than the sequel but that’s for another time. 

Suda overall sets you in an believable environment to go nuts in but doesn’t sucker punch you when shit gets real. He gives you exactly what you crave but doesn’t make you out to be an emotionless killing machine. The synergy between the player and Travis is what makes NMH great, potentially underrated, and it never shames you for enjoying it. Even when there are no more heroes on every front, 

You still feel like one in the end

The Conclusion

So yeah, I love this game. It’s one where I’m just into playing it in one sitting and as I grew up, came to appreciate more than before. It isn’t the most complex unless you really dive into Suda51′s “Kill the Past” lore but doesn’t need to be. Like I said before, compared to most big titles nowadays, this one jumps right in and whether you find it deep it or not, it’s all compelling. It’s up there as a favorite with Great Teacher Onizuka where it’s an underrated celebration of the no shits given badass counter part of pop culture while having some meaningfulness in what it actually says. I’m glad I got into this game series.

[elencelebrindal]

Honest Opinion - Athena

General Overall score: 5/10

Part 1 - Saori Kido

Called Lady Isabel di Thule in the Italian dub, a name that I quite like. It’s cool. It’s in Pegasus Fantasy too, click here if you want to listen!

Overall score (character, not looks): 3/10

She’s definitely not my favorite character of the whole series. As a matter of fact, Saori is one of the female characters I dislike the most. 

As a child, she was insufferable, spoiled, with no sense of respect for other people. If little Saori wanted something, she didn’t care about how people would feel about it. The fact she had to be reprimanded by Mitsumasa, when Jabu ended up injured because of her antics, told everything about her. 

And then, she grew up to be... that. Initially, I genuinely hated her. I don’t like Seiya, but when he faced her about his sister, and about the promise she clearly didn’t intend to keep, I was totally with him.  Saori only cared about Mitsumasa’s ambition, back at the beginning, she wanted every Saint to fight in the Galaxian Wars to realize his dream. Without knowing the real reason behind it yet, not until she was told about being Athena. 

But even then, things didn’t change so much.  I appreciate how keen she is for business, and how straightforward they depicted her in dealing with the whole mess of problems following Ikki’s appearance and the theft of the Sagittarius Cloth.  That’s it.  I don’t like her personality, because it’s completely up to what the plot needs and not consistent.

Also, how stupid do you have to be to send you enemy a letter informing him you’re coming?!  I get the symbolic gesture, but that was so dumb. No wonder she almost got killed in the process, that’s what she literally asked for. 

There are moments where Saori comes up as forgiving and smart, don’t get me wrong. But there’s also the fact she’s in love with Seiya, and most of the time she doesn’t care about everyone else because he’s important and they’re not, in her eyes.  This is just worse when she finally takes on Athena’s role, and almost nothing changes about this behavior. 

And to end it, why is Saori even still around? It only made sense during the Poseidon Arc, when she attended an event as head of the Foundation, but in any other circumstance? She’s Athena, she’s supposed to stay in Greece, at her Sanctuary. Not strolling around as Saori, in her mansion, while her Saints struggle in the aftermath of a devastating battle.  Her constantly keeping up the whole “I’m Saori, and Athena when I want to” it’s honestly infuriating. It doesn’t make sense, and I’m so happy in Hades she finally got some sense knocked into her brain. 

Part 2 - Athena

Just the translation. Atena. We’ve been amazing with her name. 

Overall score (character, not looks): 2/10

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is not how to be a goddess.  I know some of you might think I’m being too harsh with her, I know there are people who love her. But I said I was going to be honest, and honest I will be.  Because this Athena is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.  (She does get better in the Hades Chapter, I like her there, but bear with me here).

Listen, I’m not saying a goddess shouldn’t care for one Saint over every other, refuse to be where she needs to be because her human side is too appealing, and be so useless she doesn’t do anything for 90% of the series... who am I kidding, I’m totally saying it. 

I will be fair. She did useful things. She healed the Bronze Saints and aided them (if only just a little bit) during the Twelve Temples Arc. She tried to be of help during the Asgard Arc. She was willing to sacrifice herself during the Poseidon Arc.  Those happened. She took on her role as a goddess, and fulfilled it. Even if kind on unsuccessfully. 

But, and this is a huge but, she doesn’t care for all her Saints equally. You can tell she cares more about Seiya, she constantly helps him more than anyone else, she legit ignored other Saints in favor of him.  She also didn’t care for the Gold Saints, after the battle against evil Saga (listen, I’m still not sure about the whole Arles thing being international, don’t @ me); Athena, being Athena, should have stayed in Greece. With the Gold Saints who die every damn generation for her. She didn’t. Everything ended, and back to Saori she went, in her million dollar mansion, with five Bronze Saints who were not as shocked and devastated by what happened at the Sanctuary as the Golds. 

Also, what about the Silver Saints? The one time she showed any kind of interest towards them was with Babel. It’s like she doesn’t give a damn about all the ones who died, the majority of which under evil Saga’s spell.  What gives, Athena? 

And don’t get me started on how many times she gets kidnapped, it’s so ridiculous. Though, she did get a (sort of) fair treatment in Legend of Crimson Youth, where she actually tried to conjure up a plan against Abel (she failed, because of course an Olympian gets defeated by someone who isn’t even a real god, but fine, te effort counted), and Warriors of the Final Holy Battle. This, actually, is the movie that actually gave her the best justice. Athena acted like a real goddess here, willing to do whatever it takes to be of help, trying to save her Saints before letting them intervene.  Sure, she lost herself at the end, but this is what really gave her the only points she has. 

Part 3 - Comparison with the mythological Athena

This is mostly because I love Greek Mythology, and I wanted to give my opinion on how Athena has been represented in general, without taking into consideration Saint Seiya’s plot.  I only have one word: BAD.  Athena is not a perfect goddess, with a pure heart, obsessed with world peace and safety.  She’s the goddess of strategic war, not of peace and justice. She did her fair share of awful things, alongside the good deeds.  Kurumada representing her as this flawless, spotless deity never met my full approval.  If anything, she should be a warrior just as much as her Saints. It’s not like she cannot fight (her Kamui, anyone?), but it’s more like she is not supposed to fight.  Also, I want to point out how stupid is that Kurumada’s Athena is literally everywhere, included Lucifer’s story. What a bunch of bullshit. 

Part 4 - Legend of Sanctuary

Lady Isabel and Atena again. Consistency is the key.

Overall score (character, not looks): 8/10

A little bit better, compared to the classic version of her, especially considering her backstory. She’s been represented as a kind person, as a child, and I appreciated that. I don’t like how different that was from the main show, but it was definitely better. More fitting for a character like her.  Even though, I still think it’s ridiculous she was able to use her cosmo like that as a child, whilst not knowing about the whole Athena thing. 

Now, she did have those classic moments of “it’s time to be awkward with Seiya, even though now I know I am a goddess and should not be doing this”, but honestly?  She was better.  This movie had a whole deal of hilarious scenes with her, and a lot of sad and difficult ones, but they all made sense. Her not knowing how to react at suddenly being told “hey, you’re Athena!”, her laughing and being amazed, everything was fitting for a human character trying to understand something bigger.  This didn’t happen in the classic series, Saori just switched back and fort without a care in the world in there. 

Saori, in this movie, doesn’t become Athena until the very end, but while being Saori, she also had a deeper understanding of her being a goddess and having the power to help her Saints. 

I loved the scene with Aiolia, where her human side didn’t know why her godly cosmo kept her from fleeing, and instead wanted to protect the Bronze Saints and save Leo from his ignorance.  And I loved how Saori scolded the Gold Saints, went out of her way to save who almost died for her, despite being weakened by Saga’s doing. She cared for all of them, without choosing a favorite, and made it until the end with a reason for her Saints to still follow and defend her. 

And even though Seiya stole everyone’s spotlight, she didn’t side with him and with him only, like what happens time and time again in the classic series.  But she didn’t stay with the Gold Saints, and that’s the worst thing Athena could do; the Bronzes don’t need her. the Golds? Yeah, they do. They lost companions and friends, and their houses received a beating.  Athena being merciful towards Saga doesn’t save her from all the critiques I’m going to throw in her direction for going back on Earth. 

[mst3kproject]

The Strange World of Planet X

The Strange World of Planet X, also known as Cosmic Monsters, was released on a double bill with The Crawling Eye and stars Forrest Tucker of the same.  It’s got a giant spider and a deep-voiced 50’s narrator droning about the terrors of the atomic age, in a film so dry all my plants shriveled up and my contact lenses adhered to my eyeballs.

Mad Dr. Laird, with the help of his assistants Gil and Michele, is baking things in intense magnetic fields in order to rearrange the molecules and turn metal into putty – the general idea is that someday this will allow them to melt enemy planes right out from under their pilots. Would that melt the pilots, too? Gross.  At the same time and perhaps related, flying saucers are being sighted over Britain and a mysterious man named Mr. Smith is wandering around in the woods and getting worryingly chummy with local children.  After a lot of standing around and talking, Smith reveals that he is from outer space and has come to warn us that Laird’s magnetic fields are tearing apart the Earth’s ionosphere, letting in cosmic rays that will mutate humans into murderers and insects into giants!

Since my last ETNW was fairly well-paced and entertaining, the law of averages tells us that this one’s gonna be a real turd, and sure enough… remember all my griping about how Radar Secret Service was literally unwatchable, as in I could not force myself to keep looking at it?  The Strange World of Planet X is like that but with a British accent.  Most of it is just ugly gray people in ugly gray rooms, droning on about whatever at far greater length than necessary.  Everybody sounds like they’re reading their lines off cue cards, the photography was awful to begin with and the degraded print makes it really hard to tell what the hell is going on. Fuck this movie.

The film’s general insufferability is made all the worse because normally giant bug movies are among my favourite types of crappy old sci fi.  What could possibly be more fun than giant grasshoppers crawling all over postcards of Chicago?  If the bug bits were fun, that would go a long way towards saving this one, but of course, they’re terrible.  It’s mostly too dark to even see the giant insects, and when we do see them, they’re nothing but close-ups of live (and sometimes dead) roaches and grasshoppers.  Only a couple of shots even attempt to composite them in with live actors and those are so dark and blurry that it frankly wasn’t worth the effort.

The other main ‘effect’ in the movie is a couple of flying saucers.  These are unidentifiable white blobs when far away, and ridiculous tinfoil models dangling from strings up close.  The pie pans in Plan 9 from Outer Space are worse… but not by much.

What should be the most exciting part of the film is the battle in the woods between the soldiers and the giant bugs, but it’s mishandled in the same sort of way as the supposedly climactic fight in Invasion of the Neptune Men.  There’s no narrative or any characters we care about – just soldiers running around shooting at things.  Where are they?  How close are they to the town?  Are there civilians in peril?  We don’t know.  To be effective on screen, a battle needs a story.  The battle in Army of Darkness is about the need to protect the Necronomicon.  We can see the Deadites getting closer to the tower, as Ash pulls out more and more ridiculous secret weapons to keep them back.  The Strange World of Planet X is just random people and bugs, not even in the same shot.

There is some half-decent magnetosphere science in the movie, I guess.  The Earth’s magnetic field does protect us from the harsh radiation of outer space, although all the most harmful components of that come from the sun rather than from further afield, and such radiation can damage DNA.  This is why the ozone layer was such a big deal in the 80’s. This space radiation is much more likely to give bugs cancer than to make them grow huge, but in a movie I can handle that.  The really weird thing here is that, because they say it screens out the heaviest of the cosmic rays, they call the ionosphere the ‘heavyside layer’.  I would not have thought it possible that Cats could make less sense and yet here we are.

If you want some proper Crap Movie Science, there’s their explanation of how the monsters grew so big – mutations for size were able to pile up quickly because insects breed fast and therefore evolve fast.  I guess this makes more sense than individuals growing out of control as a result of whatever… but they appear to have applied it to a whole range of creatures regardless of their actual life cycles. Some insects do breed quickly, but quite a few of them have specific seasons and conditions for it.  This feels like a nitpick, though… I mean, by watching a giant bug movie I’ve already accepted that they can become huge so I should probably just shut up.

As an interesting note, Smith mentions that on his home planet there are giant dragonflies.  He doesn’t say how giant, though he implies they’re big enough to ride on. Firstly, man, I wanna ride a giant dragonfly!  Second, this tells us that Smith’s home planet has more oxygen in its atmosphere than Earth, because the reason insects can’t get bigger than they do is because they don’t actively breathe, but have to let oxygen diffuse into their tissues on its own (this is why there were six foot millipedes during the Carboniferous era — more oxygen in the air). The writers, sadly, do not seem to have known or cared about this, since Smith himself shows no signs of having to adjust to our atmosphere.  Missed opportunity there.

Since this is me, of course I’m gonna talk about how the movie treats women. Click the back button now. There are several female characters in The Strange World of Planet X, and while they're pretty bland they do manage to have conversations with each other about things besides men, and the honest impression I get is that the writers are trying really hard not to be assholes.  The first woman we meet is Michele, who has been assigned as Dr. Laird’s new computer operator after the previous one was electrocuted in a lab accident.  When he learns that the replacement is a woman, Laird complains about it loudly, protesting that ‘this is skilled work!’, and Gil gripes that female scientists are dour and unattractive.  Michele, of course, proves them both wrong – she is both brilliant and pretty, the latter mostly so that she can be Gil’s love interest but also at least in part to shatter the stereotype. It's thanks to movies like this setting the precedent that modern films are up to their eyeballs in hot but useless science women… but like I said, they tried.

The script is actually at great pains to emphasize that Michele is intelligent, educated, and the equal of any of the men, at least where science is concerned. Unfortunately, its way of going about it is to have them praise her for every little thing she says and does, to the point where it starts to sound awfully patronizing.  They call her ‘clever girl’ like she’s six years old and it frequently comes across as their complimenting her intelligence in order to deflect when she asks awkward questions.

Naturally there’s a love triangle in this movie.  It appears only to be immediately and peacefully resolved, and Gil’s rival for Michele’s affections is dead shortly thereafter. Why fucking bother?

A tad better-treated is Jane, the little girl fascinated by arthropods (she describes them as ‘bugs’, saying all insects are bugs, but not all bugs are insects.  While entomologically incorrect, this same definition of bug was used by David Attenborough in Micro Monsters, so I’m okay with it).  One of the reasons I think the writers were earnestly trying to be feminist is because they place a girl in this role rather than a boy.  Susan Redway isn’t any better than any of the other actors, but the character was definitely written by somebody who knew what appeals to children.  I love the bit where Jane promises to show her new teacher her favourite type of beetle, delightedly informing her, “they’re horrid-looking!”

The teacher, Miss Forsyth, is another attempt to buck a stereotype. Jane complains that she hated her previous teacher, who was appalled by her interest in crawly things.  Miss Forsythe makes a good first impression by encouraging her instead.  Again, this feels like the writers really were trying.  They want to say that the right thing to do here is to support Jane’s interests and ambitions, and someday perhaps she’ll be a talented entomologist, just as Michele is a computer whiz.

From a twenty-first century point of view, this makes for an odd contrast with one of the other notable features of how women are portrayed in this movie – they don’t come alone.  Adult women in The Strange World of Planet X must have a male partner, and if they don’t start out with one they will be assigned one! Michele pairs up with Gil, and Miss Forsythe accepts a date with the man who saved her from one of the mutants.  This second budding relationship has no effect on the story and indeed is never referenced again, it’s just there.  All the other women we meet are either dating or married… although now that I think of it this may be less sexist than it is a way to make a point of Dr. Laird’s single-minded obsession with his work. Everybody else, even scientists, has time to be a human being – but not him.

I should also discuss one more interesting tidbit offered by Smith. He says his people have been watching humanity and studying us basically since we invented ourselves, and they have never interfered before now.  Why now? Out of ‘enlightened self-interest’, he says – this is the closest humans have yet come to destroying ourselves, but it’s also the closest we’ve come to being a threat to our extraterrestrial observers.  One of Dr. Laird’s experiments, intended to destroy enemy planes, brought down a flying saucer instead!  The fact that Smith is willing to admit this suggests that he is extremely confident about the aliens’ ability to strike back if humanity should decided to start shooting down saucers on purpose.  The finale then bears this out… although it also left me thinking that the film could have ended very differently if only hacking had been a thing in the fifties!

So yet another instance of good ideas, unexplored and badly executed.  Also yet another black and white movie… what is that, six in a row?  Yikes.  See you in ten days, when I promise I will have something for you in colour.  It’ll be like slogging through the beginning of Season Eight and then finally arriving at The Giant Spider Invasion!

[bthump]

What is your favorite, most dark/twisted griffguts scenario/hc/au or whatever?

dark and twisted eh? lol this is a question and a half. advance warning for a mention of consent issues.

This is a fic idea I’ve considered writing but gave up on pretty quickly bc I didn’t think I could do it justice lol. And also I never finish anything and this is a novel’s worth of material.

AU where the behelit is an ordinary apostle behelit, and also Guts’ instead of Griffith’s. It opens at pretty much the exact same time, after the rescue, when Guts sees Griffith attempt suicide and it hits him that it’s all his fault. He destroyed Griffith and there’s no way to fix this, no one to kill to make it better, he threw away the only thing he’s ever wanted.

So the Raiders followed him down to the lake, Casca and the rest of the Hawks stayed behind, and the behelit opens. Guts ends up sacrificing the Raiders for ~the power to fix his mistake~ and becomes a monster with magic healing abilities. Because I figure that if you’re not sacrificing the person you actually love most, then you need to compensate with quantity lol, and after all the Raiders were the example, alongside Griffith, of “the place [Guts] belonged,” which should count for something.

So the result of this is you got Beast of Darkness Guts who is basically fixated on Griffith. You got a Griffith who spent a year of torture thinking about Guts and realizing he’s desperately in love with him and is thus fixated on Guts. He’s also fully healed and has a super powerful monster under his command so he’s obligated to go back to pursuing his dream in some form or another.

The situation is Griffith as an unstoppable warlord leading an army that grows and grows as dissatisfied peasants join him and others see the way the wind is blowing and join him to back the right horse, and strikes fear into the hearts of nobility until he eventually takes Midland by force (which is doable bc it’s weakened by a century long war and also an insane king). He’s embracing his “cruelty” and doing whatever it takes to attain his dream which means stuff like executing nobles and whatever to send a message and strike first with fear and intimidation. He’s more distanced from the Hawks than he was pre-torture. His image is scary and ruthless and powerful.

On the flipside he’s super traumatized and emotionally vulnerable, like lbr he’s got complex ptsd and he’s devastatingly emotionally reliant on an apostle boyfriend which in no way helps, not to mention the issues he already had pre-torture like guit and self-loathing. And the whole point is that contrast. Like Griffith ordering fortresses to be burnt and razed to the ground vs Griffith being unable to sit too close to a campfire because sometimes the radiating heat gives him panic attacks. Griffith fighting effectively at the head of an army vs Griffith losing his grasp on the present in the dark and forgetting he’s not in a torture chamber. Part of why Griffith is more removed from the Hawks now is to keep these vulnerabilities hidden.

And wrt Guts and ~dark and twisted~ griffguts content, Griffith commanding a literal monster in battle vs Griffith, eg, never once saying “no” to him in bed bc he’s low key afraid Guts wouldn’t stop, both due to his own trauma and Guts being monstery, and he’d rather just never let that situation come up. Like, loving and needing Guts but being afraid of him after the apostle transformation, and denying that fear to himself. And it could vary. Sometimes being with Guts would be perfect, everything he wants, emotional and physical fulfillment, and sometimes it would pretty much be a form of self-harm. Sometimes he would crave sex and sometimes it would trigger him. Sometimes everything at once. That kind of thing.

And like lbr we’ve seen his inner darkness, Guts as an apostle would be a nightmare. He wouldn’t care about anyone except Griffith, possibly to the point of low key being a threat to the rest of the Hawks, and he’d be extremely possessive and needy. I don’t think he’d be like, completely out of control like the armour makes him, but I feel like his judgement would be shot, his impulse control would be shot, he’d have way more casual asshole tendencies a la Black Swordsman Guts (or even his imo insufferable cockiness post-vacation). He’d still have that eagerness to please wrt Griffith tho, so he wouldn’t be completely beyond Griffith’s control. He’d obey orders, at least to the same extent he did as an ordinary human lol, and he wouldn’t do anything to threaten Griffith’s image, his control and leadership over the rest of the Hawks, like insubordination or w/e. He likes the idea of Griffith being feared, and of being the only one (give or take Casca, probably) to see the vulnerable side of him. And he likes the idea of Griffith needing him to achieve his dream as well as needing him emotionally.

Like, in chapter 71 Guts basically realized that his desire to become Griffith’s equal by finding a dream of his own was stupid and doomed from the start, so I don’t think Griffith pursuing his dream again while he has no goals himself would bother him because now he knows how important he is to Griffith. And also I imagine post-torture Griffith would be willing and able to tell him that he values him over the dream. Even shares that it feels like an obligation to him. Like after that torture chamber monologue it’s easy to see him being more emotionally forthcoming with Guts, more revealing, more self-aware, at least in some ways.

They would both relish the sheer intensity of the others’ feelings for him, but Griffith would be afraid of his own feelings, how vulnerable they make him, and he’d be afraid of Guts’ literal monstrosity, both rationally because he’s a big undefeatable obsessive monster, and irrationally because apostles instill instinctive fear in humans. (That instinctive fear as symbolic of Griffith’s intense life-ruining feelings esp post-torture might be interesting tbh.) Guts would be afraid of Griffith hating him or growing indifferent, but as an apostle that would manifest in clinginess and possessiveness and a constant craving for proof of Griffith’s feelings. And for Griffith’s part he could take advantage of that in manipulative ways. Like I love the idea of an intense toxic relationship where the life-ruining feelings between them are occasionally weaponized by both.

Oh and you also got Griffith’s self loathing and guilt, and the knowledge that Guts became a monster entirely because of him, to help him, plus he rescued and healed him, and so he’d also be torn between feeling like he doesn’t deserve Guts, and feeling like he deserves Guts but in a penitent way, esp if he feels responsible for his monsterism, which he would whether that’s rational or not. Plus also feeling like Guts, as a monster who sacrificed a bunch of his friends to become one and now wreaks havoc in battle, is the only person who can understand him. “Do you think I’m cruel?” “What kind of question is that for the guy who killed a hundred men?” writ large. All the emotional dysfunctionality implied in that exchange taken to 100.

Griffith getting more ruthless and fucked up and taking comfort in a fucked up relationship with a literal monster as he pursues his dream. “You’re rough enough to share this with to the end.” Griffith in part relishing Guts’ monstrosity because it means they’re in this together. They’ll be together because who else would want them? Like a dark contrast to a happy Golden Age AU where Guts tells Griffith how he really sees him and it’s a step towards emotional healing and self love and whatever, this would be Griffith hating himself and being comforted by the thought that Guts is down in the dark with him. Dragging each other down instead of lifting each other up, yk.

(Guts tells Griffith he doesn’t regret it. This applies to both becoming a monster for Griffith’s sake, and leaving in the first place and all the destruction that caused, since it eventually led to both of them getting everything they’ve ever wanted. A kingdom, the Hawks, each other, everything worked out perfectly. Right?)

Also you have Casca and the rest of the Hawks for that excellent outsider/disturbed onlooker pov. Casca’s got her close relationship with both as well as her protectiveness of Griffith. Judeau’s got his detached perceptive observation. Corkus has his outrage and resentment. All good potential perspectives on this imo. Like eg imagine Corkus sowing discord by pointing out that they have no reason to trust Guts esp now that he’s a literal monster since he’s not even a Hawk after abandoning them, and they can’t even trust Griffith to keep him in line because lbr Griffith already fucked them all over once because of Guts.

Idk how it would end though. Something fucked up. Like say Griffith achieves the dream, settles into ruling, the realization that he only hates himself more than ever eventually creeps up on him, and he ends up goading Guts into killing him, like an impulsive and somewhat subconscious act of suicide. Guts becomes Zodd 2.0, wandering battlefields, looking for someone strong enough to take him out. Or maybe just living miserably ever after as Griff sets his sights on an empire (bc he can’t stop, bc as soon as he stops that’s akin to declaring that this end is worth all the deaths and pain and etc on the road to it, and nothing’s actually worth that, so he’s trapped and it sucks) would be a nice anticlimactic ending. Yk, something depressing.

Like overall it would be a giant trainwreck with extreme contrasts wrt power dynamics and emotions, which is basically my favourite kind of thing. Like there are definitely way more straightfoward ways to get dark and edgy griffguts lmao, like about a million post-Eclipse scenarios, but still it’s probably my favourite of the darker ideas I’ve had.

I just love the idea of post-torture Griffith + apostle Guts lol they’d be like the epitome of dysfunctional yet inseparable, and it’s a great starting point for compounding all of Griffith’s canon issues and exploring them.

[lumi-klovstad-games]

I have entirely too many OCs and I won’t ever stop

So, I will list all my OCs here, active or not. I couldn’t just keep reblogging my earlier masterlist with updates because, well, wall of text much?

I try to make sure I have at least 1 character representing each race. Not all of them are canonically Dragonborn, but I’ve marked those who are with (DK) after their name, short for Dovahkiin.

And yes, this is just my Skyrim OCs. Mostly because I play it the most (hi, endless supply of easily installed mods!), and because if I added my ESO, Oblivion, Morrowind, Daggerfall, and Arena OCs, this list would almost literally never stop.

Feel free, nay, ENCOURAGED, to drop asks about these characters because I live to blab about them to anyone in earshot (why else do you run a TES blog?).

First, the actives.

Dunmer: Radene Valos. Great-granddaughter of Queen Barenziah. Nords call her “The Red Wolf” because of how ferociously she fights, usually out of a fearful and begrudging respect. Staunch revolutionary; real Magneto/Lenin red-ragger type. She’s out to improve the lot of the Dunmer in Skyrim by any means necessary and woe betide any who stands in her way or fails to help. Member of the Morag Tong and champion of Azura, Mephala, and Boethiah. Worming her way through the Stormcloaks so she can engineer a situation where all the rotten eggs of the Stormcloaks are in one basket and then blow up the basket. Also steadily poisoning most of the Black-Briar family in slow motion.

Altmer: Tarwen Verenandes (DK), a former Thalmor battlemage during the Great War. Disgusted by the violence on full display during the conflict, she resigned after the war and became a priestess of Auri-El. Her devout piety led to her being chosen by Auri-El/Akatosh to be the Last Dragonborn, and she was also gifted with being able to use Auri-El’s divine light as the basis of her spells.

Khajit: Sonn-Ja Sableclaw, an expert martial artist and assassin. Works for the Dark Brotherhood and is utterly loyal to Astrid. Prefers fisticlaws to weapons, and is absolutely lethal with them. Keeps a massive collection of knives and daggers anyway. Chose to be best friends with Arnbjorn purely for the irony. Worships Rajhin and Baan Dar.

Argonian: Murders-For-Cash, who is exactly what it says on the tin. Also Dark Brotherhood, and a Shadowscale like Veezara, who he treats like a brother. Willing to supervise children and surprisingly good at it but charges exorbitant rates for it. Worships Sithis.

Nord: Lady Gwendolyn Triggs (DK), a knight and thane in the service of Elisif the Fair and also her companion and lover. Noted for her bravery, loyalty, strength, skill in battle, and being steadfastly impossible to kill. Not part of the Imperial Legion any longer, but assists them in their operations during the Civil War anyway to both safeguard Elisif’s claim as High Queen and further her own political standing so that marriage can be an option for them. Worships the 8 post-Concordat Divines, but gives special devotion to Stendarr.

Redguard: Akivasha, an ancient Yokudan vampire Witch Queen who has awakened in the modern era. Practically a physical God. Hangs with the Dark Brotherhood because it’s the only group that has Gabriella in it. Far and away my most overpowered OC and in no way does it make her less fun. Worships Mephala and Boethiah, and begrudgingly acknowledges Molag Bal as the forefather of all vampires.

Imperial: Yezka of Vabonne, an OC who began as just a Rule 63 Geralt of Rivia. She’s a Witcher*. Like Gwendolyn, she’s easily picked out of a crowd due to her pronounced Warrior’s physique and tapestry of battle scars (I have a type). She dislikes political games, roundabout language, beating around the bush, social injustice, marginalization of the vulnerable, and has come to have a steady slow-burning hatred for humans as a general category because of the way she’s been treated over her six decades of monster hunting (she’s 93, but Witchers age super gracefully no matter the timeline). She fits in far better among Orcs, Elves, and the Beast Races who have also been so often mistrusted and ill-treated and has a lot of contacts in those communities. Oddly enough, she has a friends-with-benefits thing going with the vampires Hern and Hert at Half-Moon Mill in Falkreath because they only prey on humans and she’s never been hired to kill them. Worships Reyman Ebonarm, The Divine Black Knight.

?????: The Marked Cinder (DK), a mysterious figure completely shrouded from head to toe in rusty mail and plate that totally obscures his appearance, hiding the fact that he is essentially a charred and withered husk given new life by The Nine Divines. Doesn’t know it, but is no stranger to saving the world as the previous life of that body came to be known as The Eternal Champion during the events of Elder Scrolls Arena. Doesn’t really like or dislike anything, essentially serving as a walking meat grinder with a hunger for the forces of evil. Is closest to Arkay and Akatosh, but tends to regard the gods with equal authority and reverence.

* In my headcanon, Witchers were a kind of Spartan-II-esque initiative by the Vigilants of Stendarr to create “Super Vigilants” that could basically handle anything and everything. Thanks to the systematic alterations done to their physiology, the Witchers proved too difficult to control and due to the body count that arose whenever one went rogue it was a short-lived initiative. Yezka is among those that stayed loyal to the mission, if not to the Vigilants themselves. She’s easily my tallest character, towering over most fellow humans and slightly edging out a fully grown female Altmer due to the mutations she underwent.

Rest in Pepperonis: Inactive Characters I ran out of story for

Bosmer: Vynna the Magpie, a highly talented thief and general renegade with a fiercely vengeful streak towards the Thalmor, and Elenwyn in particular, thanks to their purge of Vynna’s family and village. Married to vengeance, will sleep with everyone else. Best archer of her era. Despite her gruff and macabre bearing and demeanor, plays the organized crime game well enough to be called the Queen-In-Shadows. Worships Y'ffre and Hircine.

Dunmer: Ineria Resvalyn, a Telvanni-descended blood mage and necromancer (her magic is big on total recycling) hailing from House Sadras. Scholar and surgeon first, adventurer second. Eccentric and catastrophically bad at dealing with normal people but makes up for it by having an indispensable skillset. Probably Asperger’s. Can Dunmer even have that? Big on Azura worship.

Breton: Fynnic Ironverse, privateer and bard by trade, full-time Casanova and pain the the ass insufferable know it all by nature. As quick with a blade as he is with his wit. Known far and wide for being the Troubadour who brought the Chicken Dance to Skyrim, for better or worse. His major at the Bard’s College was probably leaning against lampposts at night while taking long drags from his cigarette. Atheist, but his lifestyle aligns neatly with Sanguine’s domain.

Imperial: Alessia Laguardia (DK), former centurion in the Imperial Legion. now a top-tier monster Hunter. Big muscles, bigger scars, even bigger prey. Lives a largely solitary existence except for her dog, Flavia. Fond of impossibly gigantic swords and bows. Largely averse to what most would call decent clothing. Worships Kynareth.

Orc: Khauma Relaadri (DK), winner of Skyrim’s Unluckiest Parentage Award. Half Orc, Half Dunmer. Spat upon by both. Found acceptance in the Imperial Legion, and fights for the unified Empire she feels it represents. Her greatest goal is to be a hero, as it would both please Malacath and serve as a positive role model and example to other put-upon people throughout Tamriel that they can rise, no matter their circumstances. Worships Malacath.

There’s a ton of other characters that I’ve played as over the last 8 years, but above you’ll find the characters I was attached to enough to actually care to remember or keep playing.

[demytasse]

[FanFic: Shizaya] Avoidance of Consequence

Summary: When everything remains the same, what is there to gain? If everything changes, what will I feel? If we part ways, will I miss you...will I miss us? A.k.a. You can't make me your god, Shizu-chan, and expect me not to teach you a lesson! Pairing: Shizaya Word Count: 3,703 AO3 Link: http://archiveofourown.org/works/11606613 A/N: Sllllliiiight divergence from canon: as if their final brawl didn't happen. Set ten-ish years after their first meeting. The idea came to me when I started monologuing in my head, as I do, and it slowly developed into Izaya speaking to Shizuo, so I went with it.  

The late afternoon sun had drawn into a setting that matched the neon lights and LED screens that made up the streets of the city. Izaya had perched himself atop a building ledge on the outskirts of town, admiring a particularly picturesque view after finishing up his business. His chin rested on his arm which lay across a propped leg while the other dangled below him. As he gazed upon the bustle of people below, he was reminded of how much Ikebukuro had become a hollowed out shell of what it used to be for him. The people no longer sparkled with wonder, the colour gangs no longer held his interest: it all had remained the same, but it now was viewed through a melancholic lens. His thoughts were diverted when his attention was drawn away by blond hair that stood out in contrast to purples and reds. But of course, yet another thing he was conflicted with: the Fortissimo himself.

He let out a sigh waiting for the inevitable howl of his name into the twilit cityscape summoning him to do battle yet again. Why did he continue to bother lingering in this particular prefect longer than his business called for; was he really just a sucker for engaging in acts that would make a masochist beg for mercy? Maybe he would eventually bore of this repetitive game, or perhaps he would find himself forced to quit by beastly hands wringing him free of life. He laughed darkly to himself as blue shaded eyes snapped up onto his skulking frame; a clenching fist ruining the end of an unsuspecting beverage. Well, it’s not as though he didn’t predict this.

A guttural voice bellowed from down below. “Izaya…” it warned, unusually lacking in drawn out syllables.

The aforementioned stretched before he rose from his seated position. He took a moment to obviously dust himself off as he was not really rushed to meet with his rival. It was an exhausted ritual that had become more of a chore to act out over time as the novelty had worn off, but here they were, stumbling through it like tired actors upon a stage. He forced an appropriate smirk on his lips before reciting a line from his practiced script.

“Thank you for sniffing me out on this perfectly pleasant night, Shizu-chan. I was really hoping my evening would be spoiled by the likes of you.”

Shizuo clicked his teeth in passive aggression, eyes attached to Izaya as he made his way down the side of the three storied building by hopping between levels of the fire escape. They now met on level ground, tens of feet between them while the inky black of night bled into what was left of the sunset which coloured their surroundings. The setting was painted with serene mysticism, rife with underlying tones of muted passion. The hues splashed across their faces and were absorbed by their shadow dominated wardrobes. Light reflected off sharp teeth and sleek glasses.

“Your night wouldn’t have to be ruined if you just stayed the hell out of ‘Bukuro like I have countlessly asked—” “Demanded,” Izaya interrupted; “‘Asked’ would suggest I had a choice, but you demand as if it’s an absolute.” his normal coy expression was strained.

“If I’m demanding, Izaayyaaa, then why do you keep coming back?” he said through ground teeth.

“Sigh~, because how could I stay away from such a charming face as yours~? I’m drawn to it like a flea to a dog,” he chuckled at his own clever idiom involving the other’s demeaning nickname for him.

Shizuo was obviously being overtaken by emotion, but was doing his best to keep it under control. That seemed to happen more often as of late. His hands would flex in and out of fists at his sides as a way of distracting him from his rage. Izaya wasn’t sure if he could describe the difference between Shizuo’s new form of placating himself as opposed to the past. If he had to describe it, he would say it was something akin to learning to keep it together for a prospective love interest which was amusing in and of itself.

He tipped his head forward to peer over his silver frames as the brunette shifted his weight idly. “Have you ever thought passed your own ego to realize that you constantly ruin my nights, f—flea!”

It was curious the way that Shizuo stumbled upon his nickname. It was as though he had caught himself calling Izaya by the thing he just made a joke about and perhaps a connection had sparked in his miniscule brain. It’d be humorous to find out that he believed Izaya’s reasons for sticking around Ikebukuro were because he desired to see him.

“Are you suggesting that I’m the decider of whether or not you have a good night? Because the way you seek me out instead of leaving me to my own devices proves the contrary,” Izaya raised an accusatory brow.

“Yes, Izaya, that’s exactly what I’m saying. You constantly ruin any chance of me being able to control my violence! You are actively keeping me from my chance to live a life free of all…this,” he motioned between the two of them with a heavy and accentuated gesture.

Despite the volume his voice suggested was his temperament, his expression seemed to tell a story of him fighting an internal battle completely separate of what was going on. His eyes were harsh and unblinking while his eyebrows were quirked with confusion; his stance read like he was ready to react to swift attacks, but he himself seemed less willing to do so than in times prior, as if weary from too many repetitions of their pre-determined chess match.

The two seemed wordlessly in sync with one another as Izaya had been previously introspective similar to Shizuo. Being rudely drawn away from his meditative state had soured his mood and it especially made him ornery over a potential physical squabble. Tonight seemed more appropriate to enlighten the bartender with a lesson he deemed necessary in the moment. Frankly, he was tired of the same infuriating accusation from the other and it had him question his relation to the blond and what he had to offer in his life: was it actually a beneficial addition, or was he simply just something the brute can force his blame onto?

“Free?” he blurted, “You want to talk about freedom, Shizu-chan, because I can inform you of the intricacies of the human concept for you,” he sounded mildly hysterical.

Crimson tones had dominated over fuchsia in the sky and brought out the manic expression of the brunette as his eyes glowed. Directly opposite him the blond let out an agitated huff as he tried to yet again bring himself down from diving into his aggression.

“This ideal you speak of: freedom. It’s really funny that you would call it out. The idea that one can live their life without any restrictions is a plague to mankind's mental fortitude. To believe that they can be entirely free is ignorant and will lead to a life unfulfilled and stricken with unhappiness as they'll spend their entire lifetime seeking a state of being that never existed to begin with. And yet, the world is populated with so many individuals who are enamored by the idea that they aren’t free while longing to be,” he paused to shoot a glance at Shizuo to make sure he was listening, finding the blond staring back at him shaking his head with his teeth barred in response to his insufferable tendencies.

“Let's say that they were able to obtain what is perceived as ultimate freedom: riches that allow one to buy and do whatever they want with limitless possibilities. But it’s only seemingly limitless. Society will still have control of how they act, the government will still keep them paying into it, and the law will prevent them from committing certain acts lest they be imprisoned. As you can see, freedom isn’t without its own chains, not to mention the strain of making true connections with others that aren’t forced or conditioned. Not as if that’s feasible for you, short of your brother taking pity and throwing you half his wealth. Haha.”

Shizuo’s frown deepened. The mention of Kasuka had struck a chord in him. His brother had done nothing but help him throughout his adult life, not excluding acting as a personal coach for managing his anger, but more specifically controlling anger related to the broker in front of him. He had explained the exhaustion their fights brought, but when asked of why he sought the other out continuously he was met with no answer. He decided to rely on his junior yet again by channeling him now as he struggled to control his mostly even temper.

He sent a warning to the other, “Izaya, I’m not up for this right now…”

Izaya tilted his head back and threw Shizuo a smirk in response before continuing onward, loosening up his speech after the other’s plea fueled him further. Tufts of fur on his coat started ruffling as he picked up a casual pace back and forth, using his hands to gesticulate points.

“I know what you’re thinking now. How is freedom actually obtainable? It’s intrinsically connected to one’s fate and their ability to control it. But that would require somehow controlling a supernatural force that determines their entire life. It just doesn’t seem possible, so instead people bend to its will,” he shook his head in dismay.

Shizuo sighed. His waning patience called upon the help of his addiction. Without having to look, he reached into his vest pocket to snag a solo cigarette; he lit the end before taking a drawn out drag that seemed to equal the length of the flea’s monologue. “You know if you get to your point quicker, maybe I’ll actually let you finish.”

“Oh? I’m touched that you’re actually willing to listen to the sweet dulcet tones of my voice for once.” He used a mocking tone, but it was still laced with annoyance as he kept getting derailed.

“Now where was I again? ...Fate takes form in the actions of others and people are quick to blame that for their shortcomings. Some person has wronged them thus forth made it impossible to move forward. Another is always more talented or skilled than them so they'll never be good enough. A bully is cutting them down and is actively keeping them from their ability to excel past it. Basically it boils down to their past experiences haunting them and ruining their chance to move onward; they have allowed their fate to be set with that perspective. They romanticize the idea of being locked away from their potential and disregard trying to gain control over it. But therein lies the problem,” he extended his index finger as a precursor to his proceeding point. His dark brows jolted up and his smirk turned to a brief mirror of an amused youth, proud of his intelligence.

“No one locked them in a prison cell of predetermined fate, and certainly no one kept the key from them. It was indeed them in control the whole time with the mere illusion that they were a prisoner of someone else. It wasn’t a rival or bully that locked them away; they just didn’t want the responsibility of their own demise and unhappiness so they thrust the key to their freedom upon another unbeknownst to them, in an act of freeing themselves of the mental burden of living with their own circumstances.” He sauntered closer to Shizuo and started to direct his speech more towards him.

“And people will continue to be under that impression until they come to realize that in their life they are completely responsible for everything that happens. The only way that others have control over them specifically is through sway over how they want them to perceive things or ways they wish for them react.”

With a fluid motion he reached over and plucked the cigarette that hung loosely in the bartender’s mouth. Izaya delicately placed it between his lips and took a deep inhale of smoke into his mouth. He held an extended breath before he slowly exhaled a cloud to engulf Shizuo. Slender fingers wrapped around a silken lapel in order to pull him downward to speak directly in his ear in a hushed tone, “I digress; this is about you in fact.”

A shudder coursed up his spine in reaction to the tickled breath that sent a conflicting signal of pleasure while his annoyance was still on high. In a second the moment was over as Izaya pulled back extending his hand to offer the stick back.

Shizuo reluctantly grabbed it back snapping himself out of the mood with another drag, “Oh? It’s about me. I couldn’t make the connection.” The blond snorted and smoke puffed out of his nostrils like a humoured dragon.

“Hmm, but of course it is, Shizu-chan,” his voice took on a darker tone as he continued. “You have formed this preposterous reality for yourself, a ridiculous creed that violence controls you and it’s the sole reason that you cannot live free and peacefully. Violence is just a made up concept that was created by humans to define a particular action. Another way for us to pit us against one another: what's an acceptable amount, what is unlawful, what is unjust?"

Izaya picked up pace around Shizuo like a lion on the prowl while the prey in question locked his gaze on him only turning his head when necessary.

“If it's a human concept that you are forcing the blame onto then you are claiming that all of human kind is at fault for your life not being how you desire. You truly believe your desired peaceful life is unobtainable, because humans have imprisoned you for your own lack of control over your monstrous strength. That is laughable; not only is that selfish, but it’s also cowardly!

“You can't accept the truth that you are the only one to blame so you give the control away readily. Every day you run amok through this city displaying your lack of control, and others harness you and your negligence in order to benefit from it, but rename it as employment to make you feel better.” Anger started to peel away into partial desperation when he spoke, “Any time I step within a foot of that insane radius that is your radar, excuses are made in order for you to show off your abandon of normal restriction of everyday human strength. And then you proceed to rant on and on and on about how I’m to blame for feeding into your violence’s control of you. Does that make me your god since I’m in control of the thing that rules you!?"

Izaya took a moment to laugh and it spilled into his speech. “You know it’s the fact that you play by human rules like selfishness that blinds your perspective that even remotely connects you to being human."

The clicking of his heeled boots stalled when Izaya came to face Shizuo straight on with a slight lean forward and hands shoved in his coat pockets. Shizuo stood with his back straightened accentuating their difference in height. The shortened stub of a cigarette rested between his fingers. His arms crossed over one another and pressed firmly against his chest. The standoff between them seemed in mock of countless times before as they examined one another for the obvious weakness.

“So let us make a temporary truce: I’ll let you live with the falsehood that you are human, and you humour me with an answer to my query. Knowing what I have kindly described free of charge to you: who is it that really holds the key to your freedom, Shizu-chan?"

An unspoken ‘check mate’ was communicated in Izaya’s posture and wide grin. His rant was long winded and perhaps the message would go over his decade-long sparring partner’s head with the subtleties, but he felt the need to really drive the point home that Shizuo was at fault for everything wrong in his life. Call him petty, but he could really use a cheap victory over his rival for once. It was necessary for him to end this sick relationship between them and move onto...?

The end of his cigarette was snubbed out while Shizuo reflected on the message that was unleashed at him like he was an uneducated grade schooler. Izaya’s exaggerated presentation would have driven an older self to the brink of rage and sent him after the scumbag. But being able to listen to the brunette’s message with patience made the fog start to dissipate into a clearer understanding. Standing so close to him didn’t have him keyed up and it was difficult to grasp why it was that he found no reason to be, especially after having his enemy throw a back-handed insult at him. Maybe he appreciated someone who was truthful with him.

“My life would definitely be more peaceful without you opening your goddamn mouth. It would be more peaceful if I didn't have you riling me up constantly…” Shizuo’s words were devoid of malice as it was more an externalized thought than an accusation.

Contrary, Izaya was hit with annoyance that his speech didn’t seem to dig into the other as he pouted in a brattish way, "Were you not listening to a single word I said? The whole point was to prove that I’m not what rules your fate you dim-witted protozoan! Or do you actually see me as your god?" he spat back.

He rolled his eyes. There goes his patience, "Fuck, Izaya, were you not listening? Maybe subtlety is something you can only spew at others, but aren’t able to pick up on yourself,” his tone had heightened to be a bit more aggressive. “And of course you would draw a conclusion back to you being a god.”

“Oh that’s fresh. Am I going to get a lesson from the neanderthal now? Oh Shizuo-senpai, please enlighten me of how to be subtle, I know nothing of this concept and need to be shown.” Izaya mocked in a sing-songy tone fading back to agitation. “Perhaps try your normally effective method of being unbelievably blunt! That always worked for you.” Shizuo threw his head back. “HA! You want me to be blunt, do you? As always, let me play into your strategically planned hand of your ridiculous game. How are you still expecting the same of me a decade later? Aren’t you tired of this, Izaya?”

The two foes had been inching closer to each other as they built their conversation into a heated argument. Shizuo may have pulled the reigns on his animalistic rage, but it didn’t keep a snarl off his face. Izaya, feeling the rise in tension, instinctually flicked his blade out from his pocket and let it hang at his side. He was unsure of why he did this: it could have been second nature from repeat brawls or he was actually afraid of where their conversation was taking them.

“What I am tired of, brute, is you not answering my simple question!”

“Fine! You want me to be blunt then?”

“I thought I made that clear earlier, you dim-wit!”

Shizuo jabbed his thumb at his chest exaggeratedly as he took a breath in preparation, “I'm saying that I am in control, you self-important flea! You create hell and chaos for me. You’re a fuckin’ walking catalyst. But in the end I found I don't want my life to be peaceful anymore. Not if it means you not being in it,” he drew within inches of the other. Izaya’s face fell neutral, but he was lacking the ability to comprehend the message fully. Shizuo lowered into a deeper register, “I hold the key and I'm taking control of what I want."

He took advantage of their convenient shallow distance and pulled the other up by hooking fingers full of black material into fists. Shizuo removed any chance of Izaya being able to make a snarky rebuttal by sealing his lips with his own. Izaya let out a shocked breath of air while his knife fell from his grip with a ceremonious clatter. He quickly tried to process what had happened and how to respond, but he found the surprise swiftly left him in abandon for raw emotion that was shared between the two. His fingers snaked their way up Shizuo’s chest, tracing the outlines of his form-fitted vest in order to wrap his arms across muscled shoulders in order to support himself, freeing up the other’s hands to tangle in his hair.

It wasn’t well synchronized, but the two were used to things being messy and chaotic between them. Their lips were slick from fervent kisses, but it was lost as to from what while both were battling between thirst-driven sucks and hungry bites. Their bodies being pressed up against each other felt more natural than previous violence inspired connections. Eager hands examined the details of one another in intimate fashion; an action that begged to override old readings of who they were in each other’s eyes. A trace against a crooked bowtie and a tickle of tousled fur brought awareness of whose company they were sharing; they parted their lips while sharing hitched breath. With their foreheads connected they gazed at one another in a foreign way, as the moonlight rested on their shoulders illuminating their figures and drowning everything else in darkness.

A single ‘oh’ was emitted from Izaya in a whispered response to what had initiated their kiss, but it also seemed in response to the unspoken quandary of why their incessant squabbles had become less exciting and more taxing. The reason the two sought one another out was in order to stay in each other’s lives, both begging the other to not forget them. That maybe sometimes the most complicated of questions, like the multi-faceted relationship between the two rivals, had the most succinct answers.

[theironweasel]

Code Geass: With Characters Quantity does not equal Quality.

Spoilers for both this and Avatar: The Last Airbender!

I don’t think I’ve ever been quite as conflicted about a piece of fiction than I have after finishing Code Geass. First, before I get into all my issues with the show I want to share an experience I had watching it. Midway through the first episode I almost stopped watching it because I was getting sick of the racism in-show. Don’t get me wrong I’m totally willing to have racism as an issue discussed in a show, however, it didn’t come across as realistic. It just came across as undeserved smug superiority in the villains which is something I can’t stand and there was a lot of it in the first episode, I’ll also address this attitude of the Villains. It was toned down after the first episode, but part of me wishes I had given up because Code Geass is a very flawed show and I’m not sure the time investment was worth it.

The Humor: This is probably the worst aspect of the show, as the humor is really silly and lame and usually results from situations no sane person would create or be involved in, mostly involving idiotic stuff at the school. And for a show this serious, it could have benefited from some quality dark humor which would have fit the tone better.

The Music: There were a number of great tracks in this show lending to the emotional and epic moments, though I wish the editing was a bit better so the tracks could really take over the scenes.

Recap: I never thought that you could make a recap pretentious but Code Geass manages to do it. Some of what the narration says applies to what's going on but it feels less like it’s trying to say something interesting and more like it's just trying to SOUND deep.

The Fights: While there was some cool factor in the fights I found the different mechs to be rather generic. While there were different designs and powers, I never felt they were distinct enough or had enough personality to make most of the fight scenes very engaging.

The Pacing: This is probably the strongest aspect of the series as it is pretty good about building up tension and having events lead into each other pretty well. I will say the season 2 reset kinda hurt things but it did manage to get things back on track pretty fast.

The Plot: This is a bit of a mixed bag as many aspects of the plot are pretty strong but some really don’t work. The weakest of these was probably the Princess Massacre. I get the thematic implication of power corrupting a person, however, it was an accident and not a bad calculated decision, so it just feels contrived, especially since it was so close to being an ending. I feel this was done a lot better with the first F.L.E.I.J.A explosion because it was caused by the command Lelouch gave to Suzaku as he didn’t fully think through the consequences of this command into the future and his murder of Euphemia. There was also the season 1 cliffhanger which I would imagine annoyed the shit out of people at the time. This is something Avatar never did so the best comparison I can make is to the famous Star Trek TNG Best of Both Worlds cliffhanger, which I felt worked better for two reasons. One, it was a conclusion in some sense as it answered one of the big questions of the first episode of whether Riker could handle the responsibilities of Captain. Two, when the next season came out the story immediately continued instead of leading into a soft reset of the status quo. Also, there was the whole Ragnarok Connection (Which by the way, whenever someone said it made me think of the Rainbow Connection, so that took some of the drama out of things.) I’ll just say it right here, it made no goddamn sense. So God is the unconscious mind of humanity and killing it will somehow stagnate humanity, bring back the dead, and end lying maybe? Seriously even the wiki doesn’t really seem to understand it, the best I could get is that it would combine humanity into a single will, but I still don’t get how any of these things have to do with each other. In the end, the whole thing comes off as rather confusing and pretentious with all the metaphysical crap and the moralizing. This is unfortunate because it was a major plot point that the whole show was leading up to and leads into the final arc of the series.

The Villains: Ok I’m just going to come out and say it, the villains suck! One of the problems is CG’s rather fluid nature regarding its villains as a good number of the characters have done something awful and a number of villains don’t really seem to be villains anymore by the end. I appreciate the ability to turn villainous characters into gray or even good characters, but given the lack of character development for even some of the more central characters, it doesn’t work out well as often the villains are no longer villains because plot. Then there is Schneizel who at first seems like a charismatic and even somewhat reasonable villain who is willing to work with his enemies if it serves his interests. I even would have been fine if it had just been a part of a larger chess game to gain power, but then it went that extra step to make him a genocidal maniac who wants to kill billions of people to achieve world peace? Seriously, this makes Koko from Jormungand look sane by comparison. The best comparison I can make is between Princess Cornelia and Princess Azula from Avatar: The Last Airbender. Both are skilled, arrogant, self-assured soldiers who believe not only in their own superiority but in the superiority of their nation. While there are some significant differences such as Cornelia having a soft spot for her sister whereas Azula is almost a sociopath and cares nothing for her brother and whose only weakness is her absolute belief in the power of fear. (Yeah the 14-year-old from the kid’s show is the far more hardcore villain, while Cornelia is willing to kill people in battle, Azula is willing to straight up murder people.) Cornelia only wins against Lelouch when the men under his command refused to listen to him, and the battle is rather minor in the grand scheme of the story. Azula is able to conquer Ba Sing Se, the world's greatest city, kill the Avatar and defeat his friends all by manipulating the city’s own secret police into following her. But I think one of the best examples I can make is between their introduction scenes. While each of these characters has a brief scene or two where we see them before we get a proper introduction to them, the real intro scenes are where they show how serious they are about their jobs and how they deal with what they view as incompetence. Cornelia greets her sister but reminds her to refer to her by her title, which shows that she is serious about her job but is otherwise unremarkable. Then she points her rather stupid looking gun at some bureaucrat and scolds him for being corrupt and incompetent then screams at him to capture Zero. Azula enters by telling her royal guard that they are going to capture Zuko and Iroh and that she understands if they have mixed feelings about it but if they hesitate she will kill them. This establishes how serious she is about the job and it’s unnerving given how young she is. Then when she is told by the captain that the tides would not allow their ship to land when they want she responds with a couple of questions. “I'm sorry, Captain, but I do not know much about the tides. Can you explain something to me? Do the tides command this ship? You said the tides would not allow us to bring the ship in. Do the tides command this ship? And if I were to have you thrown overboard, would the tides think twice about smashing you against the rocky shore? Well, then, maybe you should worry less about the tides who've already made up their mind about killing you and worry more about me, who's still mulling it over.” Throughout the whole scene she never raises her voice or takes aggressive action and for most of her talk with the captain she is not even facing him and even plays with her hair a bit. Hell up to this point the only indication of how dangerous she is was a line about her being a firebending prodigy at the end of the last season. But one thing tells us how dangerous she truly is when she turns to face the captain and when she glares at him beating a hasty retreat it's with what Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood referred to as “The Eyes of a Killer.” She doesn’t need to shout or take violent action in order to intimidate those around her. In fact, it’s scarier because she doesn’t need to do it, she is so confident in herself that all she needs to do is put a thought in someone's head and they will do it because they know the cost of defying her. I think this is something anime generally tends to struggle with: Subtlety. From humor to characters to dialogue it's something the genre doesn’t always handle well. Not always obviously, The Devil Works Part Time had humor that was rather subtle compared to other anime, Cowboy Bebop had great subtle atmospheric touches, and Trigun was capable of having characters with subtle nuances and emotions. Code Geass was not that great at subtlety in really any capacity outside of some character aspects for Lelouch and a few others. Though I will give Cornelia the credit for throwing a knife into V.V.’s head mid-sentence which was both smart and funny.

Characters: Ok this is the weakest aspect of the show, the vast majority of characters in this show range from boring and shallow to insufferably stupid and annoying and there are WAY TOO MANY! I’ve stated how the anime I’ve seen often has a problem with too many characters such as both Fullmetal Alchemist series, Drifters and a few others. But Code Geass is by far the worst in this regard both in quantity and quality. To be honest I can’t remember at least half of their names which is not something that should happen after a 50 episode series. We range from completely forgettable characters like Ohgi whose connection to Kallen was barely looked into and whose love arc makes all the impact of a wet towel. Then you have annoying people like that whiny loudmouth rebel whose name I can’t even bother to look up. Rival and the council president are almost completely forgettable other than the president's habit of doing ridiculous shit that no one in their right mind would do or put up with. Then there’s Nina, the perverted, psychotic, genius, moron. Yeah, talk about someone whose characterization is all over the place. Compare: Robert Oppenheimer, after witnessing the result of the Atomic Bomb he had helped create thought of the line from the Hindu text The Bhagavad-Gita “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” Not only as a reflection on the awesome horror that he had unleashed onto the world but also questioning the meaning of that text as an argument for doing one’s duty and detaching oneself from the consequences which he found he could no longer do, that even if he believed it was ultimately the right thing to do he would have to live with the consequences of what he had done. Nina: “I didn’t realize how many people would die!” I get that she is supposed to be seriously unhinged, the creepy table masturbation scene made that abundantly clear, but that's not insane, it's just stupid. Then there are characters with aborted arcs like the Chinese pilot who is supposed to be dying but never does. Even some of the better characters are mostly better just because of the VAs like Lloyd who is mostly amusing because the Voice Actor is great at sounding condescending and aloof in an amazingly camp way. Or Tohdoh simply because he’s voiced by Steve Blum, who also seems to have a barely there arc with Suzaku that goes nowhere. Kallen is probably the best of the characters aside from Lelouch and Suzaku as they at least have an episode where they look into her character, and while it isn’t done that amazingly I’ll give them props for trying on that one. There’s also a trend of weird moments where characters have a reaction or do something that doesn’t make a lot of sense. Such as Kallen’s reaction to discovering Zero’s identity, I could understand a large amount of shock, but she collapses and then runs away, which I never really understood. Or Charles who insists that he really cared for his son despite treating him like dirt which totally wound up biting him in the ass in the end. There is also the problem with Shirley, who for a while just comes off as the boring love interest until her dad dies and suddenly she becomes much more interesting because she has an important connection to Lelouch that affects both their characters, though it would have been nice if they had established her relationship with her father beforehand. Then her memory gets erased returning her to boring status and would have been picked up on immediately if the school characters weren’t rock stupid. But they are so I can actually buy it. And then when she gets her memory back, making her interesting she almost immediately gets killed. It’s like Rollo killed her because she was threatening to become more interesting than him. When I was discussing the problem of too many characters with my dad he offered an explanation I had surprisingly not considered: Filler. While I was used to pointless scenes or plot points being used to kill time. I had never considered a character let alone many characters being used simply to fill up time and that's exactly what many of these characters feel like, just ways to generate plots that can fill a few minutes per episode and this sadly rings true to me given how little impact many of these characters had on the main plot or the main characters yet are present for so much of the story. Hell, there was one character in season 2 who was the son of another character who Zero killed in the first season who we only see twice and the second time is for like 5 seconds as he dies proclaiming he failed to avenge his father. WTF was that? At least Hahn from Avatar: The Last Airbender was an important plot device as Princess Yue’s fiancee and the show comically acknowledged how useless a character he was by making the weakest villain of the show only have to do half a second of tai chi to dispose of him before continuing with his monologue like nothing happened.

Suzaku: While I often got annoyed at how dense he seemed to be about how the system was never really going to change from the inside, he did work well off of Lelouch and his ultimate fate was very well done. I just wish he had more tolerance for Zero as the necessary evil to pressure the system to change from the outside.

Lelouch: This is probably the strongest element of the show as he was a pretty interesting character to start with and by the end of the show he had made a believable descent into basically being a villain. It hit me how well the show had done this when Schneizel reveals everything Lelouch had done to the black knights and at first I was with Diethard in that his actions were more important, but looking at all the people he had manipulated and killed some of whom were even close to different people it hit me how screwed up Lelouch had become.

So I said I was conflicted about the show but I’ve been for the most part pointing out negatives so where does the real positivity come in?

The Ending: This may be one of the most interesting and brilliant endings I have ever seen. I’ll start by saying when I got to the end of episode 21 of season 2 I almost wanted the show to just end with Lelouch and Suzaku seizing the throne because the whole mood was great with the crowd chanting “All Hail Lelouch!” and the implication that both have just straight up become villains, while I’m glad it didn’t and I’m sure it would have pissed off people more invested in the series, I still think it would have been a decent ending. However, that was overshadowed by the real ending of the show which was amazing! It perfectly wraps up the arcs of both Lelouch and Suzaku, condemning them both to the fates they and the world deserve. Lelouch the ultimate rebel must die as the ultimate dictator and Suzaku the Paladin must forever be his own worst enemy. It absolutely fits the themes of the show and gives us Lelouch’s ultimate scheme. While there may be logical problems with all this, from an emotional, thematic and character perspective it all works wonderfully! I wish they had given us fewer hints so that we truly thought that Lelouch and Suzaku had become evil and believed taking over the world was the right thing to do, as it would have made the end even more effective, but there were way too many hints that made it clear they had some sort of plan. I thought they were somehow going to use the Sword of Akasha to make it so Geass never existed but this worked way better. I just wish this ending was for a better show because Code Geass has too many faults to make this one of the greatest endings of all time, which it could have been in my opinion. We often see stories where it is great up until it bungles the ending. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a story with a fantastic ending undercut by the rest of it. However, despite everything, nothing could take away that ending from Code Geass… EXCEPT ANOTHER SEASON!!!!!! WHY!!!?? Ok, I get that the show is popular but why would you ruin that ending by making another season almost a decade later? For people who like the show a lot more than me that ending has to be the best of all time so it would be even worse for them. Unless they have a damn good story to tell with Lelouch of the Resurrection and they somehow make all the characters super interesting I don’t see a point to this asides from filling a demand from fans. Seriously how could it get any more epic or poignant than what we got at the end of season 2? I will probably watch the last season unless I hear it’s total crap but if I was a fan I would imagine I would refuse to watch it unless I heard it somehow gave us a better ending than season 2 did because that ending was near perfect. And please don’t tell me that there was always a plan for this, it’s almost a decade later and any lingering plot threads by the end of season 2 were pretty damn minor, hell Avatar: The Last Airbender’s penultimate scene was massive sequel bait and that just got resolved in the follow-up comic series.

In my opinion Code Geass is a flawed anime with a few very strong elements but it ultimately wasted a lot of its potential by giving us mountains of filler characters, unremarkable villains, awful attempts at comedy and fumbling a few important plot points. If there were an anime that could be totally remade from the ground up I think Code Geass would be an excellent candidate because the basic story and main characters are excellent but redoing the other aspects right could make one of the best Animes and stories of all time.

[hereticaloracles]

Asteroid Files: Agamemnon

Helios on Agamemnon– Have you had one of those days where everything goes wrong and none of it is your fault? And then you burn down an entire city just because your brother’s father’s uncle’s cousin’s former roomate was mad about it too? Well, you might have a friend in this asshat of an asteroid hero…

The Astronomy– 911 Agamemnon is a large Jupiter trojan and a suspected binary asteroid from the Greek camp, approximately 168 kilometers (100 miles) in diameter. It was discovered on 19 March 1919, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany. The dark D-type asteroid is one of the largest Jupiter trojans and has a rotation period of 6.6 hours. It is named after the Greek King Agamemnon, a main character of the Iliad. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 4.9–5.6 AU once every 12 years and 1 month (4,427 days; semi-major axis of 5.28 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.07 and an inclination of 22° with respect to the ecliptic.

The Myth– Agamemnon was a king of Mycenae- the son of King Atreus and Queen Aerope of Mycenae, the brother of Menelaus, the husband of Clytemnestra and the father of Iphigenia, Electra or Laodike, Orestes and Chrysothemis. Agamemnon’s family history had been tarnished by murder, incest, and treachery, consequences of the heinous crime perpetrated by his ancestor, Tantalus, and then of a curse placed upon Pelops, son of Tantalus, by Myrtilus, whom he had murdered. Thus misfortune hounded successive generations of the House of Atreus, until atoned by Orestes in a court of justice held jointly by humans and gods.

When Helen, the wife of Menelaus, was taken to Troy by Paris, Agamemnon commanded the united Greek armed forces in the ensuing Trojan War. Preparing to depart for Troy, Agamemnon’s army incurred the wrath of the goddess Artemis. Misfortunes, including a plague and a lack of wind, prevented the army from sailing. Finally, the prophet Calchas announced that the wrath of the goddess could only be propitiated by the sacrifice of Agamemnon’s daughter Iphigenia. Classical dramatizations differ on how willing either father or daughter was to this fate; some include such trickery as claiming she was to be married to Achilles, but Agamemnon did eventually sacrifice Iphigenia. Her death appeased Artemis, and the Greek army set out for Troy. Several alternatives to the human sacrifice have been presented in Greek mythology. Other sources, such as Iphigenia at Aulis, say that Agamemnon was prepared to kill his daughter, but that Artemis accepted a deer in her place, and whisked her away. Hesiod said she became the goddess Hecate.

Agamemnon was the commander-in-chief of the Greeks during the Trojan War. During the fighting, Agamemnon killed Antiphus and fifteen other Trojan soldiers, according to one source. But in the “Iliad” itself, he’s shown to slaughter hundreds more in Book 11 during his “aristea” loosely translated to “day of glory” which is the most similar to Achilles‘ “aristea” in Book 21 (they both are compared to lions and destructive fires in battle, their hands are described as “splattered with gore” and “invincible,” the Trojans flee to the walls, they both are appealed to by one of their victims, they are both avoided by Hector, they both get wounded in the arm or hand, and they both kill the one who wounded them). Even before his “aristea,” Agamemnon was considered to be one of the three best warriors on the Greek side as proven when Hector challenges any champion of the Greek side to fight him in Book 7, and Agamemnon (along with Diomedes and Big Aias) is one of the three most wished for to face him out of the nine strongest Greek warriors who volunteered. And after they reconciled, even Achilles admits in Book 23 that Agamemnon is “the best in strength and in throwing the spear.” That claim is further proven by the fact that Agamemnon was the only major warrior on either side to never need the gods’ direct intervention to increase his strength or give him any unfair advantages in battle and yet he still caused incredible destruction almost on the scale of Achilles.

The Iliad tells the story about the quarrel between Agamemnon and Achilles in the final year of the war. Following one of the Achaean Army’s raids, Chryseis, daughter of Chryses, one of Apollo’s priests, was taken as a war prize by Agamemnon. Chryses pleaded with Agamemnon to free his daughter but was met with little success. Chryses then prayed to Apollo for the safe return of his daughter, which Apollo responded to by unleashing a plague over the Greek Army. After learning from the Prophet Calchas that the plague could be dispelled by returning Chryseis to her father, Agamemnon reluctantly agreed, (but first berated Calchas for previously forcing Agamemnon to sacrifice his daughter (Iphigenia) and released his prize. However, as compensation for his lost prize, Agamemnon demanded a new prize. As a result, Agamemnon stole an attractive slave called Briseis, one of the spoils of war, from Achilles. Achilles, the greatest warrior of the age, withdrew from battle in response to Agamemnon’s action and put the Greek armies at risk of losing the war. Agamemnon, having realized Achilles’s importance in winning the war against the Trojan Army, sent ambassadors begging for Achilles to return, offering him riches and the hand of his daughter in marriage, but Achilles refused, only being spurred back into action when his husband closest friend, Patroclus, was killed in battle.

Although not the equal of Achilles in bravery, Agamemnon was a representative of ��kingly authority”. As commander-in-chief, he summoned the princes to the council and led the army in battle. His chief fault was his overwhelming haughtiness; an over-exalted opinion of his position that led him to insult Chryses and Achilles, thereby bringing great disaster upon the Greeks. After the capture of Troy, Cassandra, the doomed prophetess and daughter of Priam, fell to Agamemnon’s lot in the distribution of the prizes of war. After a stormy voyage, Agamemnon and Cassandra either landed in Argolis, or were blown off course and landed in Aegisthus’ country. Clytemnestra, Agamemnon’s wife, had taken Aegisthus, son of Thyestes, as a lover. When Agamemnon came home he was slain by either Aegisthus (in the oldest versions of the story) or Clytemnestra. According to the accounts given by Pindar and the tragedians, Agamemnon was slain in a bath by his wife alone, a blanket of cloth or a net having first been thrown over him to prevent resistance. Clytemnestra also killed Cassandra. Her jealousy of Cassandra, and her wrath at the sacrifice of Iphigenia and at Agamemnon’s having gone to war over Helen of Troy, are said to have been the motives for her crime.

Why He Matters– Where do I even begin with this one… Okay, so before I get too deep into this, let me just preface this by telling you all that the Iliad and the Odyssey were my damn bedtime stories growing up (along with all the other Greek tales of myth and godly buffoonery). As a child I always FUCKING HATED AGAMEMNON. Thought he was a whiny, brash, spolied child. As an adult I still do. So there’s some bias here.

Now. what do we do with this hero of heroes? What role does he play in the chart? For starters, lets just call a spade a spade and give him anger issues, rage, the like. More than that, I kind of feel bad for the guy, he was cursed way before he was born (fucking Tantalus….)  so there’s an element of the whole “Sins of the father” trope- but his actions with Iphigenia and at Troy are his own, not his fate. In fact, I would go so far as to say that Agamemnon is a point in which you can defy fate, and overcome anything through sheer force of will alone (that whole bit about not needing divine intervention and still outperforming Achilles, my second favorite Hero…. Very impressive). So there’s something good, I guess. Trouble is, he’s also indicative of where you lose EVERYTHING you care about, and your “overcoming” becomes a Pyrrhic victory at best. Agamemnon is where you have to sacrifice what you are fighting for to win the battle. The question of “You can win, but at what cost?”. He’s a straight up savage, and not in a good way (at least not anymore). Another thing, this asteroid is a point in your chart where you are ALWAYS going to be fighting an uphill battle to be noticed and for recognition for your accomplishments. Beyond that, he’s just an insufferable, cocky asshole (“and petty!”, Achilles shouts from a distance in my subconscious). Wherever you have Agamemnon you will NOT have a happy ending, and its going to be your own damn fault at the end of the day.

To find out where he shows up in your chart, go to astro.com, put in your birth details and in the extended options, all the way at the bottom of the next page, there will be a menu of additional objects. Under that is a blank space where you can enter the number 911, for Agamemnon. Once you have it entered, generate the chart! Where does Agamemnon affect your life? Let us know in the comments below!

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Asteroid Files: Agamemnon was originally published on Heretical Oracles