#got a little carried away on explaining and portraying the image that appeared in my head

[twoastricts]

Wow, love the vibes, the aura, the poetry, the themes, the subtext, the atmosphere, the imagery. It's dark and depressing and uncanny. Something is off. It's perfect.

It's the vibe of a long drive through the plains of U.S. all alone at night while slightly tired and slowly drinking a fully caffeinated soda that isn't quite having the kick you want. Everyone else in the car is sleeping, the radio isn't on because you don't want to wake them up. There are clouds on the horizon and the distinct smell of oncoming rain. The road is straight, there are no signs. Their are stretches where no cars pass lasting for over 15 minutes.

You aren't quite sure where the next town is, or how far until your destination. The dark is all consuming, you can here unseen animals by the side of the road. The sound of the wind is your only companion.

As you drive, a light appears on the side of the road.

You drive up to it, a gas station. More specifically, a shell. Slightly run down out here in the middle of nowhere, the lights on the inside of the convenience store glowed in an eerie hue. One of the gas pumps is broken.

The 'S' on the sign is flickering. Sometimes it says shell.

Sometimes it says hell.

stills

[betawooper]

rating every demon fight in kny bc i can

non-biased, completely objective rating (more or less) of every significant demon fight in kny based on a number of factors, including:

cleverness of fighting tactics

placement in the story’s timeline

integration of character backstories

cohesive themes between characters

etc

by non-biased and objective i mean i’m not skewing the rating if a death felt fair or whatever

everything past where the anime ended will be under a read more so anime onlys who havent watched mugen train, youre safe lol

oh and i reread the manga like 20+ times (reread the latter arcs at least 40 times, haha hyperfixations am i right?) so be rest assured im not pulling these ratings out of my ass

also ill randomly be bolding certain phrases just to improve readability

anyways let’s gooooo

VS NEZUKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Nezuko. Tanjirou is fending her off by putting the axe handle in her mouth, keeping her from eating him. End Image Description.]

10/10

i like how realistic it is, because yeah tanjirou would react the way to he did with zero fighting skills against a demon

very clear why tanjirou is fighting nezuko and shows a bit of worldbuilding on how normal people react to their family becoming demons

always nice to see worldbuilding

giyuu is the perfect example of a seasoned demon slayer who’s good at his job, and he juxtaposes tanjirou very well in that aspect

my only complaint is not directly in this fight itself but how nezuko is handled throughout the story as a whole

like bro, it is literally never explained why nezuko is different from demons

could have been easily explained if maybe her family’s ghosts like slapped her hand every time she wanted to eat a person but nope

she’s just built different lol

so yeah youll see future ratings get points docked off bc nezuko unlocks some secret power with no prior explanation other than she angy >:3

VS TEMPLE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a demon. The demon has a sharp-nailed hand over his neck and there are four text bubbles around him saying “But a wound like this... will heal in no time! See? The bleeding already stopped!” End Image Description.]

10/10

may be more forgettable compared to like rui but still good

tanjirou did exceptionally well in this fight and his ability to think on his feet is once again beautifully illustrated here (trapping this dude’s head against the tree trunk with the axe)

very clever

again, establishes more demon worldbuilding regarding regeneration and still being able to move without their head

and the demons burning in the sunlight thing since nezuko wasn’t able to show that

the ending where tanjirou hesitates to kill the demon also serves to show his sympathetic nature towards demons that will last throughout the entirety of the first 60-ish chapters

:)

we’ll talk about what the hell happens to tanjirou after that

or not, it could honestly be its own post

VS HAND DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a many-handed demon. He has six hands around him, three of them covering his mouth while he chuckles, two of them grabbing his cheeks, and one holding on to the top of his head. There are two text bubbles saying “That’s how many of Urokodaki’s students I have eaten! I’ve decided to kill all of his students!” End Image Description.]

10/10

ooooh probably the first big fight against a demon in the series

oh yeah not doing the two random demons tanjirou one shot in a single blow bc eh

anyways hand demon’s pretty goddamn scary, considering the fact that this is the 5th demon or whatever tanjirou has had to face so far

very nice way to show us how much tanjirou’s innate intuition and all his other random abilities (sense of smell, hard forehead) can come together and help him decapitate this guy

i liked the mini history with urokodaki this dude had and why he had beef with our favorite mentor figure, it establishes that urokodaki was in fact a super good demon slayer and its cool to see that actually shown

i also liked that small moment of compassion tanjirou gave this demon, staying consistent with tanjirou’s established kindness

the demon’s sad tale with killing his own brother very much humanizes him when all the reader has seen up to this point is that this guy is a monster who eats people

sets up the theme of demons just being humans but being victims of circumstance that unfortunately doesn’t hold up as well in arcs past mugen train

VS SWAMP DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou fighting off three horned demons as they appear from below. There is a spiky text bubble saying “Three of them!!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not my most favorite fight but it still portrays everything alright and im not allowed to let my personal opinions mess with the rating so

i like how tanjirou mentioned the fact that he trained in conditions similar to the bog and explains how he pulled off the whirlpool form

using past experiences to aid him in the present, nice nice

tanjirou and nezuko dont quite work together very well but its yknow the first mission so ill chalk it up to simple inexperience

also the way the muzan curse thingie was hinted at here? fantastic way of showing that little bit of demon worldbuilding

...

oh god, it mentions nezuko being stronger than normal demons

ok its not a problem here per say since i can still suspend my disbelief, but later on it just becomes a glaring problem that gets worse over time

VS SUSAMARU AND YAHABA

[Image Description: Manga panels of Susamaru and Yahaba. The first one is a joyful Susamaru about to throw a temari ball. There is floating text saying “Is she one of Kibutsuji’s minions?!” The second image is an annoyed Yahaba, holding one of his eye-hands to cover himself. There are two text bubbles around him saying “My kimono got all dusty. Tch!” End Image Description.]

9/10

why dont these bitches have a good looking panel together dammit

anyways amazing entrance, the way yahaba used his hand eyes to track down tanjirou is really neat

the synergy yahaba and susamaru have is incredible, its awesome dude, they work extremely well together and it shows

tanjirou actually mixing his water breathing forms together is a god tier move and i absolutely love how he can show off his ability to think on his feet once again

establishing how yushiro’s bda works early on is really well done

establishing tamayo as a fugitive this early on is also super well done

not to get into spoiler territory but both these things pay off

how tamayo ended up defeating susamaru is literally awesome in so many ways

shows off both how smart she is by exploiting the muzan curse

and speaking of the muzan curse, we actually get to see what happens to demons who even say his name, back when it was hinted with the swamp demon

tamayo is amazing dude, and we get some real evidence of the horrible suffering demons go through if they even accidentally attempt to betray muzan :D

...

now heres what keeps this fight from being perfect

nezuko somehow grew stronger against susamaru’s temari

with no explanation

which could have been easily explained if tamayo was like “oh yeah the drug also boosts a demon’s strength temporarily”

but nope

god, i just dont like how gotouge handles nezuko’s power boosts throughout the series bc like i said before

no explanation is given anywhere

this is a huge issue, this isnt a pokemon game, you cant just kill demons and get exp at the end of every battle, level up, get some sweet stat bonuses and move on

(actually if gotouge established that this is how nezuko grew in power, than all my complaints about this would be gone, im not even joking)

anyways i get that nezuko is supposed to be “special” but thats too vague of a descriptor

how the hell is she special? ya gotta be more specific and stick with that explanation or that suspension of disbelief is going to disappear

VS TONGUE DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a four-eyed demon with horns and a long tongue. He is crawling in an awkward position, one foot in front of his tilted head. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Heh, heh! I’ll slurpy slurp your brains out through you ear!” End Image Description.]

10/10

not much to say, showcases zenitsu’s true abilities really well

nicely done

VS HORNED DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of a big, single-horned demon. There are three text bubbles saying “You dodged! You’re awfully lively for a human! It’ll be a treat to carve away your flesh!” End Image Description.]

10/10

would have ignored this fight if not for the fact we havent seen inosuke fight before

it definitely shows how very fast-paced and wild inosuke is

no complaints here lol

VS KYOGAI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kyogai, a demon with tsuzumi drums attached to his shoulders. There are four text bubbles around him saying “Why?! Why does everyone keep sneaking through my house? It’s so aggravating. It’s my prey! It’s my prey! Found in my territory!” End Image Description.]

10/10

establishes marechi blood pretty early on, once again expanding the worldbuilding of kny which is always cool

interesting terrain where it’s always shifting, tanjirou once again proves his ability to adapt really quickly by altering one of his forms to work with the turning room

(man, i wish the form mixing/form modification thing carried on throughout the rest of the story, but it really didnt which is just a shame)

the injuries tanjirou had prior to this mission actually affecting him was a nice touch

oh yeah, kyogai gives us more worldbuilding (which is always nice) regarding the 12 kizuki, and the aspect of him being cast out due to being weak shows a lot about muzan’s indifference towards his own demons if they arent strong

his backstory being a failed writer once again humanizes kyogai as a former human being and not just a monster

tanjirou shows his sympathy and compassion again by not stepping on his written work and complimenting his bda

well, tbh tanjirou’s actions kinda came out of nowhere but its a very minor thing and not enough to dock a point off, like it didnt affect the outcome of the fight that much if at all

(so if you see future battles where points are docked off for things not logically making sense, its bc whatever nonsensical concepts were integrated into the fight actually turned the tide of the battle and thats a big no-no)

very good fight and if you remember how kinda bad tanjirou was at accurately slicing the swamp demon, you can see that he’s already improved leaps and bounds

im so proud of him

VS MOTHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and the Mother Spider Demon. There is a light shining down from the top right on to the demon as Tanjirou slices her head off, rain following in his wake. There is floating text saying “Water Breathing: Fifth Form - Blessed Rain After the Drought!” around them. End Image Description.]

10/10

i mean does anyone disagree?

all the demon slayers getting their necks snapped by her threads was pretty horrific, probably more horrifying than anything else we have seen in the entire series if im gonna be honest

the death scene is probably the most beautiful one in the series

it reveals a water breathing form that we havent seen before thats the 5th form

as far as i know, no other breathing style has this merciful sword stroke so it shows a lot about the original water breather and what they might have been like

but enough about them, really the focus is on tanjirou bc this is like the best example by far of how kind and sympathetic he is to demons

dunno what else to say, its perfect

VS SON SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Agatsuma Zenitsu performing Thunder Breathing 1st Form: Sixfold on a spider-like demon. Zenitsu is crashing through the roof of a shed, and a zig-zag path is left behind. There are sound effects all over the panel, saying “Bam!” in large font. End Image Description.]

10/10

chose a picture without a huge spider on it bc i would like to not scare myself half to death

anyways extremely amazing fight, showcases zenitsu’s immense talent and skill, adapting the 1st form of thunder breathing to be a more versatile move

theres a moment where his backstory with kuwajima and kaigaku were revealed and his hidden insecurities are out in the open which is super nice and further develops a character weve only considered as comedic relief until now

the anime made the backstory scenes and the killing scene so much cooler

while there is no thematic connection between zenitsu and the demon, it really isnt necessary to keep this fight interesting

anyways another pretty much perfect fight

VS FATHER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kamado Tanjirou and Inosuke slashing at the Father Spider Demon. The demon has blocked Tanjirou’s sword with his arm, and Inosuke is slamming both his blades down on the demon’s other hand. End Image Description.]

10/10

again, not my most favorite fight but it does everything right

i do have to say it was excellent how gotouge hyped up the father spider demon to be the big bad, only just so the plot twist later takes the readers by surprise

nicely done

VS DAUGHTER SPIDER DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kochou Shinobu and the Daughter Spider Demon. Shinobu’s back is seen and her haori looks like a butterfly’s wings keeping her afloat as she holds her stinger blade out to the side. The demon looks surprised as blood gushes from her side, arm, shoulder, chest, neck, and forehead. There is floating text on the panel, saying “Insect Breathing - Butterfly Dance - Caprice!” End Image Description.]

10/10

first time weve seen shinobu and her fighting style

what i love most about this is how much it shows her true character, appearing as a carefree and naive individual so she seems underwhelming

then bam, reveals exactly how dangerous and uncaring she is of demons, listing out the specific ways she would torture the daughter spider demon in grotesque detail

her using poison to take demons by surprise is also super clever and brings back the worldbuilding established way earlier about wisteria being poisonous to demons

amazing integration of that concept

anyways this fight really encapsulates who shinobu is as a character and thats why it gets a perfect score

VS RUI

[Image Description: Manga panel of Rui holding his hand out directly towards the viewer. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Give me your sister. If you hand her over quietly, I’ll spare your life.” End Image Description.]

8/10

not only is it a super scary fight but there is a deeper conflict between rui and tanjirou, what it means to be family

they are opposites in the sense that while tanjirou believes love is what makes a family, rui’s subconscious desperation for an unbreakable bond drives him to use fear to keep his “family” together

excellent juxtaposition of their values, and this is only further emphasized when rui expresses out loud what he was going to do to nezuko

i also like the symbolism regarding rui’s bda, how he uses threads or the “familial” bonds to cut up his fake family with it if they act out of turn or annoy him

super neat detail

alright what i dont like about this fight is nezuko (again)

mostly her unlocking her bda to turn the tide of the battle bc her mom was like “yo, wake up, your brother is going to be killed”

feels... forced ig

her bda in general is confusing and not consistent

man, i wish i could make a stronger argument for this but i do believe the problem stems from the fact that we dont ever know what nezuko is thinking, and what she thinks of tanjirou specifically

if she even cares for him as a sibling or if shes only going along with what her family is saying to her, things like that which would have been fixed if gotouge actually gave her thoughts some screen time

so the action feels pretty shallow

im also conflicted over tanjirou somehow remembering how dance of the fire god works

on one hand, hes using past information and applying it in the current setting so he doesnt die, which is understandable

but on the other hand, this was a teeny bit random?

i think what could have fixed this is if there was a scene in the beginning of the series where tanjirou was performing it himself, like practicing before he actually had to do it for new years

so that when the rui fight rolls around, it would have felt less like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

but yeah

overall super good fight, giyuu ending up having to kill rui instead of tanjirou was super good in that tanjirou didnt become a pillar this early in the series and to show how strong giyuu is

there are some odd bits regarding the ultimate “beheading” of rui using nezuko and tanjirous supposed bonds but it doesnt kill the fight entirely so it deserves its pretty high score

***under read more is manga-only fights so beware***

VS ENMU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Enmu holding his hand out directly at the viewer, with a mouth on the back of it. There is floating text to the top right of Enmu that says “Whispers of Forced Unconscious Hypnosis!” End Image Description.]

9/10

id say this fight is definitely overshadowed by the dream stuff prior to this but its pretty good in its own right

enmu fusing with the train was kinda confusing, like when was it established that demons could fuse with objects?

this worldbuilding element doesnt even appear again so yeah thats why it loses a point

how the kmbk gang end up defeating enmu is pretty sweet though, tanjirou using dance of the fire god to sever the neck bone was really nice and shows that him using the breathing style in the rui fight wasnt a one time thing

while kyojuro’s role was smaller in this part, the next part makes up for it so i cant complain

anyways ye, almost perfect score but its pretty good

VS AKAZA (MUGEN TRAIN)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza holding his hand out to the viewer’s left. There is a text bubble saying “Why don’t you become a demon?” End Image Description.]

10/10

this encounter is literally amazing okay?

after the crew kills the big bad, it seems like everything is fine

but plot twist, upper moon 3 appears out of nowhere

this is the first time the reader has seen an upper moon, let alone the 3rd/4th strongest demon in existence and the way gotouge handled this twist is fucking amazing

kyojuro’s death scene really shows just how human even the strongest pillars are against demons with incredible power

its just

amazing

VS OBI DEMON

[Image Description: Manga panels of the obi-like demon. The first image shows the obi hung in the air and strung over each other like decorations, with women-shaped patterns in its folds. The second image is Hashibira Inosuke fighting the Obi demon which now has lips and eyes. There is floating text in that panel saying “Breath of the Beast: Sixth Fang - Jagged Gnaw!!” End Image Description.]

10/10

on to red light district

this fight is admittedly super forgettable and not very interesting at least compared to the main fight with daki and gyutaro

but it wraps up the sub plot of the women and uzui’s wives going missing so it gets a perfect score for not messing that up

oh and it establishes the stretchy neck thing daki has going on which is very good

VS DAKI AND GYUTARO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Daki and Gyutaro. Daki is sitting on Gyutaro’s shoulders. There is a text bubble on the top right that says “The two of us are one, after all.” as well as floating text that reads “The power of the irregular siblings...!? Next issue lead color and the fight reaches its climax!!” End Image Description.]

8/10

love how this battle challenges tanjirou’s sympathy and kindness towards demons, just simply bc daki and gyutaro are horrible people

(too bad nothing came of this, which ill explain in the hantengu portion)

daki and gyutaro are very good villains and kept this fight super interesting from start to finish

uzui acting as a foil to gyutaro is nicely integrated and properly shown with how jealous gyutaro gets over seeing uzui’s perfect form and stature

tanjirou not only mixes forms but mixes breathing styles as well, which is so fucking awesome

(too bad it was only used like once throughout the entire series, its quite unfortunate)

the super high tension right after inosuke gets stabbed and tanjirou wakes up was expertly portrayed and handled, it felt like the kmbk gang and uzui were actually going to lose

super awesome

the tanjirou and gyutaro parallels are expertly portrayed, with how gyutaro taunts tanjirou over failing to protect his little sister, and the more visual thing where tanjirou imagined his own neck underneath his blade, that was super duper nice

the ending is extremely tense and emotionally gripping, gotouge did a really good job with that artistically too

the demon mark acquisition scene was surprisingly not frustrating, considering that it wasnt really explained prior to the battle

i do think it has to do with how it was explained later just exactly how they worked so its not just some random thing gotouge pulled out of their ass

so pretty good

/

what i dont like is nezuko and her full power demon form

first of all where the fuck did that come from? she just got angry and suddenly shes as powerful as an upper moon

like

how?

that doesnt make sense???

her extremely quick regeneration makes no sense

her ability to manipulate her blood’s properties makes no sense

and it doesnt even appear again so what was the point of that existing

none of this is even explained later which annoys me

that one part where tanjirou sings a lullaby to her to calm her down was alright ig but nezuko in this fight makes me extremely irritated and frustrated

just ugh

VS HANTENGU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Hantengu opening a shoji door. He is crawling inside, his hand in a gnarled, unnatural position. There is a text bubble saying “Eeeeeeek.” End Image Description.]

1/10

swordsmith village

this fight can go fuck itself /j

no but seriously it has so many problems that it would be shorter to name its redeeming qualities (which ill do later)

first off, the nezuko full power form thing again

i hate it so much with a passion

again, where did her ability to regenerate instantly even come from???? this is never explained, ever

and why did she cut herself on tanjirou’s sword anyway

did she somehow know that it was going to turn red if she burned it?

gotouge what the fuck, there is literally no reason why nezuko would do that and we cant even read her mind to see her thought process

gotouge hates nezuko, i swear

/

remember when i said uzui is meant to be a foil to gyutaro in the rld fight? its pretty obvious that those two are opposites, it was nicely done

... what the hell does mitsuri’s insecurities about strength have to do with whatever the fuck hantengu has going on (which is basically nothing)?

so no meaningful connection between mitsuri and hantengu

theres no meaningful connection between tanjirou and hantengu other than tanjirou getting pissed off for like the second time

also tanjirou’s thing with being kind and sympathetic to demons was entirely dropped at this point

but instead of it leading up to a corruption arc of some sorts, it just doesnt

like honestly if something actually came of that anger he exhibited in this arc and from red light district from this point forward story-wise, i would have counted this as an amazing writing decision

but it literally doesnt so who cares

(god, i really start to hate what happened to his character after this )

and genya’s revealed motivation also doesnt fit at all with hantengu’s thing, he’s not a foil, not a parallel, nothing, there is nothing

/

tanjirou being the catharsis for development for mitsuri and muichirou, who he has only talked to like twice

theres definitely a better way to handle those two’s developments without his help

like gotouge, you have a big cast of characters, use them lol

/

i want to kick hantengu in the face for being boring as fuck (at least his clones have cool looking weapons)

doesnt even have a proper backstory, just a single spread of him being blamed for shit as a human

like... thats it? this is upper moon 4 what the hell

/

theres no clever form mixing here at all (regarding tanjirou) which probably would have helped with foreshadowing the 13th form for dance of the fire god/sun breathing better

also gotouge established that as tanjirou’s thing and now he doesnt do that stuff anymore which sucks

/

oh hey remember when tanjirou actually learned how to do zenitsu’s speed boost thing?

if you didnt, i dont blame you bc it literally doesnt appear again, ever

you could argue that he adapted it into his “waltz flash” technique or whatever the fuck that is but the way it was integrated into this fight was like throwing dry spaghetti at a wall

which is just a shame bc its meant to be representative of how tanjirou and zenitsu are good pals but the way it was utilized is forgettable as hell

/

i absolutely loathe the crimson blade concept as a whole and im mentioning this now bc its going to come into play why future instances where this goddamn thing comes up again causes points to be lost

its inconsistent as fuck ill tell you that

/

at least some yoriichi stuff appeared here and not shoved into the final battle with everything else

so the yoriichi stuff later didnt come out of absolute nowhere

genya and mitsuri’s unique fighting styles expand the kny worldbuilding just a little more which is always nice

tanjirou got a cool sword out of this which would have been cooler if him and yoriichi had a deeper connection that was actually explored

but we didnt get shit so whatever

other people getting demon marks being revealed here is also okay so that again, the final battle isnt filled with absolutely everyone getting their marks at once

demon marks have their own slew of problems but its not as bad as the fucking crimson sword shit

god i hate the crimson sword shit

...

dude this section needs a tldr, even i cant sit and read through my shit

TL;DR - this fight sucks and crimson swords are bullshit (more on this later)

VS GYOKKO

[Image Description: Manga panel of Tokitou Muichirou and Gyokko. Muichirou is looking to the left while Gyokko is looking to the right, both with their backs to each other. There are mist clouds billowing in the foreground and background, as well as a slash mark going across Gyokko’s neck. End Image Description.]

7/10

this fight suffers from the same lack of cohesive themes through characters like the hantengu battle bc the antagonist is given nothing

but its better

we havent actually seen mui fight before so theres no consistencies that the reader has to keep track of for now

and there arent like 10 characters in the fight so this fight gets a lot of points just for being a lot more coherent

i do like that this fight shows just how good mui is that he can defeat an upper moon by himself

mui’s backstory is neat

gyokko’s bda is very interesting too

... thats pretty much it lol

ye, anyways not the best fight but not the worst fight either

VS KAIGAKU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kaigaku holding the hilt of his blade with one hand. There is two text bubbles around him, saying “...As usual, you’re still shabby. It’s been a while, Zenitsu.” End Image Description.]

9/10

alright on to final battle arc

theres some good fights and then some really sucky ones, but this one was pretty incredible and very emotionally charged

theres a clear reason why zenitsu and kaigaku are battling each other (kai betrayed the corps and inadvertantly caused the only parental figure in zenitsu’s life to die, and zenitsu is rightfully pissed off about that)

the visual yin-yang symbolism is awesome too

zenitsu winning due to using the 7th form he created himself (which i have reason to believe was inspired by tanjirou) was the perfect ending to the fight, really couldnt ask for anything better and is a perfect example of how much of an effect tanjirou has had on zenitsu

the 7th form is what tanjirou’s waltz flash should have been lol

/

what keeps this fight from being absolutely perfect is lack of development prior to this conflict

(since the final battle arc is basically a culmination of all the hinted developments through the series, im going to actually factor in how much and how well these conflicts were foreshadowed)

anyways if we had actually seen zenitsu, kaigaku, and kuwajima actually interacting with each other and showing how they were essentially a family (not just through flashbacks), it would have made zenitsu placing the responsibility of killing kai onto himself a lot more tragic

but like, apart from brief flashbacks where zenitsu actually met kaigaku off screen and that one thing all the way back in natagumo where both kuwajima and kai were introduced, thats pretty much it in terms of thunder family development

so yeah its underdeveloped for sure

also one random thought, i personally think zenitsu should have gotten his demon mark in this fight, it would have been cool to see

VS AKAZA (INFINITY FORTRESS)

[Image Description: Manga panel of Akaza’s face. There are two text bubbles around him, saying “Okay, let’s get started. It’s time for the feast.” There is also floating text saying “The inspection of the strong has begun...” as well as a simple box on the lower left, denoting its the end of chapter 147. End Image Description.]

6/10

oh god please dont hate me for this

ill list the good things first how about that

this conflict was foreshadowed perfectly in mugen train, you bet the readers were expecting a tanjirou vs akaza battle after the death of kyojuro and gotouge delivered

akaza’s power is shown extremely well with how many close calls tanjirou and giyuu had while fighting him

akaza eventually giving up on his own volition was really nice and fit into the context of the battle very very well, like sure tanjirou and giyuu wouldnt understand why he gave up but us readers do know

akaza is a really good character and a good villain

/

now notice how im only mentioning akaza and not giyuu or tanjirou in the good aspects

bc those two are eh

no form mixing at all from either tanjirou and giyuu

i know i said form mixing was kind of tanjirou’s thing but you’d think giyuu would have gotten more creative with his moves once akaza said that he was getting predictable

(well he said he “ran out of water breathing forms” but same thing)

so its kinda bland lol

speaking of giyuu, his whole thing with his insecurities of being weak wasnt handled well (it was sort of immediately brushed off in pillar training, and its unclear what part of his character arc he was in)

like sure him announcing that he’s going to protect tanjirou is cool but it feels like he was haphazardly dropped into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

isnt he supposed to be both their foils? that wasnt really explored that well in this fight and theres no deep meaning behind him even being here just analyzing what he did in it

he could have been handled better or even given more focus is what im saying

the anatta state came out of nowhere, im sorry okay? just bc inosuke like barely hinted at not being able to sense grandma hisa bc she had no fighting spirit and tanjurou magically taught his son how to achieve this state doesnt mean it was properly integrated into the fight

if the anatta state was actually explored prior to this battle, i would have given it a pass but it just feels like a cheap and poorly developed trick to get around akaza’s technique development (which is overpowered as fuck might i add)

gotouge should have just given akaza a plausible weakness to his technique development instead, especially since they dont use or even mention the anatta state after this

the transparent world shit makes no sense but ill elaborate on that in the koku battle analysis

oh and this thing doesnt affect the score but why wasnt there a “yoriichi visage overlapping” moment when tanjirou was fighting akaza? hes an upper moon, he should have gotten those visions but he didnt

for some reason

anyways this battle was alright and has good set up but the middle and end parts didnt hold up as well bc random concepts were thrown at us without prior explanation or development

VS DOUMA

[Image Description: Manga panel of Douma licking Shinobu’s butterfly pin. There are two text bubbles around him saying “Anyway, tonight is a good night. Such fine feasts keep showing up one after another.” End Image Description.]

9/10

damn, such an amazing fight

the build up to this was properly foreshadowed

shinobu finally showing her true anger after hiding it for so long is amazing

douma is a super interesting character and fantastic villain

shinobu showing off her true power and determination against douma was sooooo nice

shinobu’s poisonous body plan is so clever and so interesting

if i was to rate the shinobu part of the fight alone, it would have gotten a 10/10 no question

the reason why its knocked down a point is because of the kanao and inosuke part

dont get me wrong, the way kanao is able to hold her own against douma by herself is pretty cool, how shes meant to parallel douma with their similar struggles surrounding human emotions and demonstrate how she has grown as a person, how she regains the ability to cry

that shit is cool, inosuke also getting in touch with his emotions after learning what happened to his mom was super neat as well

however

bc this battle takes place in the final arc with everything else, there wasnt proper build up regarding many things, the kotoha reveal especially

so inosuke feels kinda forced into the kanao shinobu and douma conflict, similar to how giyuu felt forced into the tanjirou and akaza conflict

its quite unfortunate bc if the kotoha stuff was actually explored prior to the confrontation, this “forced” feeling would have disappeared

i know some people have suggested that the douma fight should have just been its own arc, and i very much agree, it would have certainly helped fix this problem regarding inosuke and kotoha

last random thought, i wish shinobu, kanao, and inosuke got their demon marks

VS KOKUSHIBOU

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kokushibou looking directly at the viewer, holding the hilt of his blade as if he’s going to pull it out. There are text boxes around him saying “This... is Upper Moon One... He’s so different compared to the other Upper Moons. He looks so dignified and majestic.” The text boxes are narrated by Tokitou Muichirou. End Image Description.]

5/10

this fight is... mediocre

at least theres a more tangible connection between muichirou and kokushibou

even though that was handled kinda poorly

tbh there really was no point to revealing that mui is koku’s descendant like at all, it just had no significant bearing to the plot of the fight

sanemi’s backstory being here is... okay ig?

idk the whole shinazugawa conflict has fundamental problems that i just cant think of any other place to put it without changing the entirety of canon

the marechi blood concept coming back was nice though

genya is there

him getting his bda was cool and helped turn the tide of the battle in a satisfying way (before kicking the bucket but thats not the focus here)

gyomei is a hollow husk of a character who barely got anything at all

but his fighting style is extremely cool and conveys his immense power very well

oh and him and sanemi are amazing at working together, like better than giyuu and tanjirou, and better than kanao and inosuke

theyre that good yet pretty much nobody acknowledges it which is sad

koku himself is pretty interesting and pretty tragic, very nice villain

but everyone together?

gonna be honest but this is such a random collection of characters, there was basically no foreshadowing that these four were going to go up again kokushibou, they are not that connected very well

i know there was this one post that focused on the theme of family that was common in all 5 characters in the fight but its just not enough

it would have been more cohesive if gotouge emphasized gyomei, mui, sanemi, and genya being like different aspects of yoriichi coming together to kill kokushibou hundreds of years after yoriichi failed to kill him

lmao its not like the 4 of them defeated koku with the power of family or friendship, they just smacked him over and over with a flail, shot him with magical bullets, and stabbed a crimson sword into his abdomen

wouldnt have been too hard to switch over to koku’s pov and go “damn these bitches are like my stupid brother”

...

speaking of crimson swords

i fucking hate the crimson sword concept oh my god can i complain about it now? im gonna complain about it now

unlike demon marks, the crimson blades werent even given any proper conditions, you just hold the stupid thing hard enough and it somehow imbues it with magical properties with no logic behind those properties

what part of crimson swords completely destroys a demon’s body in an instant? even muzan didnt go through that process when he was almost killed by yoriichi so where in the goddamn fuck did it come from

it could be explained bc the sword was left in the same spot for a long time but this tactic doesnt even appear again in a meaningful way (didnt kill muzan when tanjirou and giyuu held the sword together) so what the fuck was the point of having this even exist

its so underdeveloped and confusing and i hate it

the transparent world stuff is also confusing as shit and its pretty much never explained how they work aside from the vague “close your mind” advice, like why did it exist, it did nothing to help the present day demon slayers

its just so... poorly integrated

yeah anyways this is around the same rating as the akaza fight but a little worse bc there wasnt that strong set up beforehand

VS KOKUSHIBOU (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panel of a bag getting ripped open, pieces of a wooden flute tumbling out. End Image Description.]

10/10

easily 10/10

this fight shows the tragedy of kokushibou giving in to his envy and hatred, when yoriichi cries over seeing his own family commit terrible attrocities against the people he wanted to protect

and yoriichi dies, now carrying the fact that he couldnt even save his own brother from the influence of muzan on his conscious forever

what a sad ending for yoriichi

and after koku angrily slashes apart yoriichi’s corpse, having him find and keep the flute he gave to him when they were kids to the present day gives him a small shred of humanity in the midst of his monstrous anger

VS NAKIME

[Image Description: Manga panels of Nakime. The first one shows a low quality version of her playing her biwa. The second one is a close up of her eye. There are spiky text bubbles saying “It’s Upper Rank... 4!” End Image Description.]

0/10

no nakime backstory

not even a goddamn fight

forgettable

useless

VS MUZAN

[Image Description: Manga panel of Kibutsuji Muzan in his white-haired, mouth-covered form. There are text bubbles around him saying “Not a single one was of use to me. I will crush the demon hunters tonight. I’ll massacre them all right now.” End Image Description.]

1/10

._.

i have many complaints but ill try my best to not make this another hantengu rant section lol

first off, obanai deserved better

im serious, this poor dude was forgotten until pretty much the end when we finally get a backstory out of him

and then he died

what a waste of a potentially amazing character

mitsuri getting taken out early was ehhh

pretty sure someone else made a post about her supposedly being extremely strong but she was nerfed in this battle which i agree with

literally none of the pillars work together very well, like remember how i praised sanemi and gyomei for being super coordinated? lmao that doesnt exist anymore

you could say this is caused by desperation though and you wouldnt be wrong, its just boring to sit through

that causes issues bc this now basically requires the crimson sword and transparent world concepts to be there to spice things up

but in this fight, they do nothing in the long run (except for tanjirou using the crimson sword at the very very end)

youve already heard me talk about why those two things are super shittily integrated and i cant be bothered repeating myself so moving on

kanao, inosuke, and zenitsu

they... exist? they didnt do much tbh, which i guess is the point but like, now its boring again

nezuko could have been used as a potential way to raise the stakes and make things interesting again (like “ah shit, muzan might actually be unkillable if he gets nezuko but its okay bc shes not here- oh fuck shes here this is not good”)

but nothing came of her running off except confirmation that she became human again so whatever

uzui and shinjuro are useless, why werent they at the fight?

like they could have followed nezuko and contributed to the battle even a little but they just didnt and now theres literally no point to them appearing in this arc at all

wasted potential

tanjirou

i wish him going absolutely apeshit had actual substance behind it, like it being a part of his character arc or something

i remember having this one theory that he had a corruption arc (due to dropping his kindness thing towards demons) and i wanted this to be true so badly

but it doesnt exist

not with how the series ended

god

the only thing that saves this fight from being complete trash is tamayo’s poison thing being amazingly executed

and the part where everyone got blasted away, losing limbs and shit, that made things a little more interesting again

but thats it

VS MUZAN (SENGOKU ERA)

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kibutsuji Muzan, Tamayo, and Tsugikuni Yoriichi. The first one has Muzan and Tamayo, while the second one has Yoriichi pulling out his sword. There are text boxes saying “And the moment I met him, I understood that I was born into this world to defeat this man.” End Image Description.]

9/10

finally something good again

while short, that’s just the nature of all of yoriichi’s battles with demons

anyways pretty nice, theres a clear reason why this battle exists (shows the scenario that made the original breather get super close to defeating muzan in detail)

adding tamayo here was a nice touch

my only complaint is that it seemed extremely coincidental that yoriichi somehow developed a breathing style specifically countering muzan’s multiple organs without even knowing prior that he had all those brains and hearts floating around freely in his body

like thats kind of ridiculous, even for yoriichi whos supposed to be “blessed by the gods”

could just be me though

VS TANJIROU

[Image Description: Manga panels of Kamado Tanjirou in his demon form. The first image has his eyes closed. The second image has his eyes opened and the tumor on his face almost completely faded. There are text boxes around him saying “You will destroy the demon hunters in my stead.” End Image Description.]

1/10

hoo boy

ok first off, demon tanjirou lasted for 2 chapters

thats it

2 chapters

so thats already a problem

i am aware its meant to parallel the beginning of the series but also its ridiculous how completely vague and rushed this entire thing was

nezuko doesnt do shit through not just this battle but this entire arc which i already explained so not gonna go into it further

kanao magically having a demon cure on her made very little sense

the scene where tanjirou leaves muzan in purgatory is pretty but if you look at it in the context of everything else, its ambiguous and confusing

(if someone could explain it and see how it connects to the original theme of “demons just being victims of circumstance,” i would love to hear it)

/

actually you know what makes me so mad about this “fight” as a whole? there was so much potential to do more with this concept

and im not talking about him escaping and nezuko becoming a demon slayer roleswap au (even though its a pretty cool concept)

him becoming a demon could have been a metaphor for his lost kindness and sympathy towards demons halfway through the series

it could have been a punishment for letting his anger towards muzan cloud his judgement

it could have symbolized literally anything about him losing his humanity as he got stronger

but those three things are just scenarios from my head, they dont exist in this series just based off of what weve seen from these two chapters

its disappointing

the only thing keeping this from getting a 0 is the one part where inosuke couldnt chop off tanjirou’s head bc he cared about him too much

that at least shows inosuke had grown as a character

everything else is just meaningless and convoluted garbage and “convoluted” is not what you should be aiming for if this is supposed to be the ending of your series

IN SUMMARY

early kny is very good, later kny is questionable and the ending is just a mess of wasted potential and disappointment

i get why gotouge had to have the transparent world ability, crimson blade ability, and the demon marks appear before they all appeared on yoriichi but theyre all just so underdeveloped and terribly handled in the battles they are used, it makes me want to kick a wall

like lmao, i could literally think of so many ways they could have been properly integrated, hell, im even writing a whole goddamn rewrite using my ideas for these three things (link to that is in my pinned)

just, god

if you want to debate over these ratings, my ask box is open ig? idk

[bookfreaky]

LOVE DOING - The Analysis

Intro:

I try to never analyse my work while still working on it, because I believe that the painting must be born from an image in your head, or a feeling, and not from a concrete idea. That is the foundation of abstractionism. Then when you’re finished and you are kind of star-gazing your own work, you try to find what made you create all that, what made you use that colour or this shape. I did that and I saw that all the dots were connected in the same theme: Love.  

Love as a broad concept and my experience with that. I think love is a very liquid sentiment, like water, it takes the shape of its every container you put it, but pretty much it’s still love. That same impulse is there. It can be like water also in the way it reflects the sun light, how it changes colours and distorts shapes. Love can be illusory; it can be lysergic but it can also be the answer to many simple questions in life. In its gas form it can be contagious and performative as it inhabits imagination, but it can also become solid when under pressure, just like water becomes ice under high pressures. In difficult situations, the love you feel for that person may be the only thing that keeps you going. I experienced that, and I think many people did too with so many people getting ill and dying during the Covid pandemic.

Like water it nurtures, like water it drowns. Love can be represented as a substance, like it just did, but also it persists as an action, an abstract action at so, an actual verb. In abstractionism, it’s to be said that colour is verb while shape is noun (I won’t remember to said that), for that reason I focused in this collection mainly in two colours in their variations, red and blue. Without the political branding aesthetic, red is seen in psychoanalysis as a active colour, the colour of human blood. Blue could be described as a “calmer” colour, but not so lacking in action. As Rebecca Solnit said, I quote:

“Water is colourless, shallow water appears to be the colour of whatever lies underneath it, but deep water is full of this scattered light, the purer the water the deeper the blue. The sky is blue for the same reason, but the blue at the horizon, the blue of land that seems to be dissolving into the sky, is a deeper, dreamier, melancholy blue, the blue at the farthest reaches of the places where you see for miles, the blue of distance.”

So I dedicate this four paintings to the people I love and whomever loves things, but also to all the feelings that come about with love. Some of these paintings are capable of calming me and I could keep looking at them for hours, forgetting about myself. Others make me feel angsty, uncomfortable and looking at them oblige me to think about my own existence and fear my future.

I really hope you look at the paintings before you read the whole thing, and suffer through the same. Thank you.  

Love Escaping Into the Blue:

This one was the first painting I made, before I imagined it to be a collection, and it was born from the experience of decompressing love from a place of deep passion; where you are taken by this sudden and enormous sadness but also relief. I felt free, really. I read this biology paper from the Monterey Bay Aquarium, called “Light in the Deep Sea”, and it explains that there’s some uniformity of colour in the ocean animals according to how deep in the water they inhabit. Animals living in the great depths of the sea, between 6,000 and 11,000 meters deep, have commonly a very vivid red colour, but closer to the surface of the water, between 200 and 1,000 meters deep, most animals are silver and grey. That’s because in this depth the brightness of sunlight is fragmented into a blue colour, and grey reflects the blue light creating the illusion that the animal is, in fact, blue. A Blue Whale is actually grey, not blue.

[Seadevil Fish (Cryptosaras couesii), left. Blue Whale (Balaenoptera musculus), right.]

The painting shows a leak of red coming into blue and bluer space, which is this feeling of infatuation and selfish desire, possession, fear and jealousy that is very red in colour and has connotations of violence and anger, moving into a place that is not so deep in the water but clearer and wider as the open sea, illuminated by this navy-blue light. It’s like you can finally breathe and see that your love is still there, but it has changed. In hope by being closer to the atmosphere it is also somehow closer to the divine. I imagine some people might feel lost when love escapes into the blue, and I get this sensation too, but it’s about loving freely, learning how not to feel love so deeply into ourselves, but widely like the ocean.

Love Growing in the Pit of the Stomach: 

When I looked at this painting in particular after it was done, I had this sensation of angst that was difficult for me to name. It’s about desire, it’s about this feeling growing inside of you that you know it will be something more than what you want, but what you need. I’ve become obsessed with the image of holes, looking like they are piercing the canvas; I think they show this emptiness I feel, like a window showing how hollow I am inside, but also, they give me this satisfying feeling by looking at them, like opening a wound and poking a bubble. I think this emptiness comes from the idea most trans women cannot take away from the back of their heads, which is if you do or do not have a “female genitalia”. Gender in our culture is very centred around genitals and biological sex, for centuries being a woman has been defined by the person who’s able to carry a man’s child. There is this little fantasy of mine where women have this little hole in them that can swallow the world. The idea of it, for me, has grown into a very real desire very much like the desire for sex. Actually, very close to sex too. But the roots growing out of the hole, in green and blue, represent pain and fear, because I’m not sure if I’m okay with the idea of having to undergo a surgical procedure to fulfil this fantasy, neither I am sure if it is a fantasy or a need.

Most of my work resembles yonic shapes (resembling the form of a vulva), either in this work or in former ones, and it’s never intentional, it sort of just slips from my subconscious. I believe that the vulva, as well as the womb, are under-shadowed symbols of power. Phallic shapes are very common in art and what-not, they are usually associated with offense and aggression. Like when school boys draw a dick on the toilet stalls as if marking their territory. The vulva, however, is never quite portrayed like that.

I read about this Japanese visual artist, Megumi Igarashi, who made several pieces of art shaped after her own vagina, including a yellow vagina-boat (which I absolutely loved) and she got arrested and fined for “obscenity”. I think that for her subversive art-form she should be considered a national hero. Many man-made constructions are phallic images, look at the Washington Obelisk, or the Eiffel Tower, but in nature we most commonly find yonic shapes, like the Grand Canyon.

There is a profound violence in desiring this, feeling as if a part of your own anatomy is lacking, but you can’t grow it naturally, you can’t do it in a god-intended way. The bright red colour represents violence and sex, and in this case both. It’s way more complicated than the concept of having kids and being a mom, it’s a lot more than to be seen as sexual beings, and sexuality, and to feel loved; it’s about symbols of power and somehow getting that denied. It’s about learning how to love this new body, a body that is foreign, infertile, obscene and unconventional. That love is hard to achieve and it is violent because women, and especially trans women, have been taught to hate their bodies.  

Love Falls In The Bathroom:

This one took the longest to finish and left me with the most unsure brush-strokes, much perhaps because it isn’t based off on an idea but on a memory, on dream. In three more years I’ll be the same age my mother had and she had me, 29 years old. Somehow it feels like a looming date. Having kids and getting pregnant, specifically, have been sporadic subjects of therapy sessions – the antithesis is always the same: you are not lesser of a woman for not being able to get pregnant, you can still be a mom through other means, you are not even sure if you want kids or marriage, you can always adopt – Those answers feel reasonable, but none of them ever could appease the deep feeling of something missing in me, like something is perpetually wrong with me. Then I understood that in this painting, I was trying to evoke these feelings. Love and grief.

[My mother, pregnant with me, in the 90s.] 

My friends tell me I seem to be older than I actually am, and sometimes I wonder if that’s not because I had never been a happy child. I feel like I had my childhood robbed from me. I mean, I had an okay, comfortable childhood, and a problematic teenage-hood, but I never had a girlhood. I am still grieving it. I had been assigned male at birth, I’m still grieving that too.

In July of this year, I experienced a very vivid dream, in which although short all the images and the sensations were, felt very real. I was taking a shower in my bathroom, I close off the water, wrap myself around a towel, my usual pink one, and when I’m stepping out of the shower stall I fell. I hit my right elbow against the toilet lid as I fell with my legs open in opposite directions, a sharp pain struck me under my thighs, close to my groin, and a light string of blood followed right after that. It wasn’t menstruation blood, thin and clear red, but thick and dark. It was all very quick but I knew, right then, right there, exactly everything that was happening. I was pregnant, 13 weeks, alone in the bathroom floor, surrounded by blood. I wonder how many days of my recent life, how many hours a day, I am really just sitting down alone on my bathroom’s floor surrounded by blood. I woke up and it still felt very real. I had spent the next two days very quiet, not wanting to speak to anyone. I wanted to tell someone as soon as I was back from the dream, but I couldn’t do it. I wanted to call someone, a friend, anyone, and say “I lost it. I lost my baby”. I realised then, in that post-dreamy state, that I have been silently grieving for a lot of things, things I haven’t yet allowed myself to grieve for. Things I still did not have a chance.

Love Lost In Imagination:

This one is the only one what doesn’t forecast red and blue colours, but instead in red and blue paint mixed together in a royal purple colour. It was the last one I made, and it’s the one that differs the most in shape. I like to imagine it was love in it’s gas form, vaping inside your brain like Nitrous-oxide, with white-coloured cloud shapes and yellow peacock eye-feathers. It’s about how sometimes love can only exist in imagination, how we often elaborate better scenarios in our heads, and we think “what if things were different?”. I believe to be okay to fantasize, anyway the utopia is what moves us towards a reality, but sometimes we can get lost in imagination, and in questioning the same questions over and over. “What if I hadn’t done this and done that?”; “What if I hadn’t said no?”; “What if I had stayed longer to watch that movie?”; “What if had come out as trans earlier?”; “What if I had become a professional writer?”; “What if I had born a woman?”. Is love real if it perpetrates only in thought?

I would be more than happy to quote some of Saint Augustine here, and his theological virtues, love being one of them, but I wouldn’t like to make this essay even longer and complicated.

I think to myself sometimes, when was it that I started to prefer having peace then pleasure. My head has always been very noisy, very noisy, and I wanted it to stop. Now it feels like I’m constantly too quiet about everything. That somehow, like the Little Mermaid by Hans Christensen Andersen, when transitioning into a woman I exchanged my legs (my body) for my voice, and now I can’t voice or even pinpoint what I want. I’m just so tired. So, so tired. My mental health hasn’t been great for more than one year, and the pandemic didn’t help. I’m constantly anxious around people, even the closest ones to me (especially the closest ones to me), I’ve been eating like a bird and sleeping like a cat. Still, sometimes I imagine what future I would like, and I imagine myself living somewhere with open space, trees, breeding horses just like my grandfather did, space for dogs, musical instruments and the kids. Space for being big.

The painting makes me think that sometimes I can only love myself in this imaginary place. Otherwise, it just looks slightly like a chicken’s head. You decide.    

- Original work, G.L. Alódio.

[another-snape-story]

Always On My Mind

Chapter XII

Snape thought about you more than he should, more than he considered to be appropriate, but there was nothing he could do to resist that uncontrollable attraction he's grown to feel towards you. Being a loner his whole life, probably for the first time in many years, he found comfort in someone's company – your company. Afraid to admit the fact, Snape gave absurd excuses to explain the feeling that expanded his chest every time he saw you, realizing perfectly well, however, how pointless it was to deny the obvious. His typical mistrust in people, which escalated now, on the eve of return of Him-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, and initial desire to find out if there was any kind of threat for school or its students in your intentions when you applied for the position of Hogwarts Professor a few months ago, played a cruel trick on the man, drawing his interest – and later his heart – to a woman, who started meaning for him more than a colleague should. It wasn't right, Snape thought, and this thought made him sad. His obligations in current circumstances – that's what he had to focus on. Moreover, who on earth would want to have him close? Nobody would accept him, he knew it; and his skeletons would always drag him back into the dusty cupboard, where no room was left for joy or even hope – only darkness and emptiness. Pulled himself together, he carried on, still remaining kind to you but trying to keep a certain distance. 

Nothing has changed in his appearance – he's always looked brooding actually. Neither did you notice any change in his attitude. You shared smiles seeing each other in school corridors, had long conversations in the staff room, which led you deep into the night and brought slight headache in the morning due to the lack of sleep. Sometimes you invited him to your office for a cup of tea, but that black armchair in cold Potions classroom seemed more appealing anyway, and Snape, being aware of this, prepared wool plaid blanket for you every time he expected you to pay him a visit, pretending it's always been there.  Although it didn't surprise you any longer, your heart grew a size – you knew he cared for you, and were eminently grateful for his attention. Nevertheless, you still were afraid to say or do something, that Snape might dislike or – what frightened you even more – something, that might push him away – his serious look always kept you alert. He never seemed fully relaxed, therefore you couldn't do it either. Sometimes though, you could notice his features soften in response to your random phrase or look, reflecting his true attitude towards your personality, which – despite all his feigned indifference – seemed like a promising sign of inevitable warming in your relationship.

“Professor Sprout's been too busy with pumpkins for Halloween recently, so today it's me delivering this,” you slumped a box of an impressive size on Snape's desk. You carried it through the whole castle and were happy to finally get rid of this heavy load.

“I thought it was Hagrid who took care of pumpkins,” Snape opened the lid, examining the box content. “It's always been his exclusive privilege.”

“He’s been struggling with gourd aphids for two weeks now,” you explained without showing much concern. “I added some extra item,” your eye excitedly dived in the depth of the box as your finger pointed into it.

“Snargaluff,” Snape spotted surplus jar with green pulsating pod enchanted to always stay fresh. It took him no effort to identify it at once. Perfect, almost twice bigger than prevalent, it glistened in the daylight.

“I just thought you wouldn’t mind having it in your storages,” you looked up at him to make sure he was pleased.

“Merlin, I hope its thorned vines didn’t hurt you,” he frowned worriedly, trying to get a better view of your hands – he wasn’t going to grab you, no matter how bad he itched to.

You pursed your lips to suppress a smile which threatened to give out your embarrassment which suddenly took over you, and drove your eyes away for a second. Not the kind of reaction you’ve expected, but seeing this fleeting transformation on his stone face, usually stingy for expressing any kind of emotion, felt so surprisingly flattering.

“Who do you think I am?” you grouched with discontent in a joky manner.

“If you only saw his pleading eyes – Hagrid’s – when he begged for help, poor thing!” you giggled kindheartedly, changing the topic. “It’s so weird seeing a man of his size almost crying over damaged pumpkins!”

“Never got why they can’t just conjure them,” Snape shook his head disapprovingly. “Minerva could’ve given those little dunderheads some additional practice in Transfiguration.”

“Let them do what they want,” you sighed, “unless you’re not involved, of course.”

“Instead of avoiding unwanted job, better create favorable circumstances that increase the chances of not doing it. Otherwise it’d be too late to keep away.”

“You’re a clever guy, Professor Snape,” you teased him, walking around his desk. “And how often do you make people think what is advantageous to you?”

“Some-times,” he responded stretching the word, as slowly as his glance followed you. “For instance, I let you think for a while I didn’t notice that bandage under your sleeve.” His eyes narrowed, while he stared at you with reproach. “As you’ve just mentioned,” his tone gained cold notes, “I’m a clever guy, indeed.”

“Not that clever to presume I would lie about a scratch from Snargaluff,” you approached him, smiling softly.

“What is it then?” ashamed of making quick – and therefore false – conclusion, Snape blinked confusedly.

“It has to do with the seed you’ve given me,” you clarified proudly, “but it’s a surprise!”

“How did you… What?”

“The seed defends itself, when… Well. I can’t tell you now. Will you be patient, until…”

“Until it kills you?” Snape grunted and you laughed.

“I hope it won’t go that far!”

“Let me have a look,” he stretched out his hand, expecting you’d give him yours. But you just squeezed his palm as a token of gratitude and let go.

“It’s fine, Poppy was so nice to provide me with everything I needed. It’s no more a matter of concern.”

Snape hated surprises. Never had he ever had one to his liking – all surprises he’s encountered happened to be of an unpleasant kind. Neither did this one promise to be enjoyable. What on Earth you had on your mind? And why you found it so exciting putting yourself in danger?

“I got to go now,” you announced not without regret. “Just dropped in for a minute…”

“…and stayed for half an hour,” Snape smiled warmly.

“As usual,” you chuckled. “Sorry for taking your time again.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you’d take some more,” he thought, and said in a more formal tone, “thank you for Snargaluff. It’s exceptionally good.”

“Just good?” you portrayed disappointment.

“I said exceptionally good! Okay, it’s outstanding,” he smirked.

“Outstanding,” you declaimed, savoring the word. “Outstanding sounds much better!”

You swiftly disappeared behind the door, leaving your fellow Professor smile pensively, unwilling to let lighthearted image of yours out of his mind.

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[indestinatus]

The Reunion

(Cairo - chapter 2/4)

chapter 1

The streets were long and broad, carrying illustrious names. They’re macadamed and crowded dwellings were located on both sides, with terraces and decorated gates beside long colorful windows with shutters and intricate tapestries swaying in the wind.

The smell of burning fuel and perfume filled the air, as well as strong spices, coriander, cardamom, cumin, and chili, coming from hidden stalls. Vendors shouted various prices and foreign names, and people were busy buying jewelry, clothes and other goods to pay too much attention to anything.

Faint exotic music could be heard from the distance if you trespassed the main market limits and went deeper into the old streets of the city. Sand covered the cobblestones and the heat hugged your body, worse due to the crowd and limited space.

A woman crossed the market plaza swiftly, a blueish cloth protecting her face from the heat and sand. Her dark brown eyes were the only thing visible, and if you looked closer, they were sharp as a knife. She kept her head down as she walked, but her pace was confident and fast.

She'd just took down three men sent by the woman who wanted her dead.

Her name was Sahar.

Loud bells rang from the main chapel, marking three in the afternoon.

It was the 21st of November 2016. Cairo, Egypt.

Ziva David was afraid.

All she could think about was if Tony had seen the message she left on the back of the photo of them in Paris along with Tali's things six months ago.

If he did, he would've already been here. He would've already contacted her. And they would've have one last chance. A chance for her to explain everything, or at least try to.

If he didn't, it was already too late. Since she faked her death in Tel Aviv back in June, everywhere she went, she'd sense she was being watched. Just this week in Cairo, she'd tracked down almost fifteen killers sent by Sahar.

Tonight was her last chance of seeing Tali.

She spent the whole day wiping out the remaining men so that if her family came tonight, they'd had a small hope of safety. Time was running out.

Ziva crossed the street which led to the hotel she was staying. She'd only chosen it because the rooftop was the highest one nearby. Easier for her to take watch, worse for snippers to do their job.

She entered the main hall in a hurry, eager to get to her room. She'd already disposed of the knife but wanted to watch from above if there was any commotion on the streets.

If there was any sign of them.

"Ms. Rainier!" a voice stopped her just in front of the elevator. Oh lech tiz-day-en, what now?

She turned around slowly, the cloth still covering half her face, but the concierge sure saw the deadly haze her eyes carried.

"I-I'm so-sorry, miss, I know you've asked for the utmost disc-cretion," said the short man, sweat covering his forehead, "but there's a gentleman demanding to see you. His name is Jean-Paul. He says he's your husb-band."

Jean-Paul. Jean-Paul Rainier.

"Of course, thank you."

Jean-Paul and Sophie Rainier were the married assassins they portrayed in the undercover operation, a lifetime ago. Ziva always joked with him that if they had another life, perhaps they'd have a chance together. She never knew if he'd remember that.

Apparently, she was wrong.

"Where is he?"

"He's right there, miss. With the stroller."

Ziva turned around. Their eyes met.

It's strange. When someone's very important and you haven't seen them for a long time, as soon as you do it's easier to breathe.

Tony swayed Tali's stroller slowly, a duffel bag hanging from his shoulder. He looked older, more mature. For a moment, they only stared blankly at each other, the world slowing down.

Then Tony looked upwards and sighed heavily, shoulders going down. He looked back at her again, and his eyes were different.

There were tears.

"You sure are difficult to find, sweetcheeks."

Ziva let out a harsh laugh, but her feet couldn't step closer.

Why is that the more you have to say, the harder it is to speak?

"You look tan," she said.

"You look tired," he answered, "almost as if you just came back from the dead."

His eyes looked hurt for a second, "sorry, I had to-"

"Is she-"

"She's sleeping."

Ziva nodded, she didn't know where to start. Even after rehearsing again and again what to say to him, her mind was now blank.

Tony motioned with his head to the elevator, pushing Tali's stroller that way.

Ziva's breath caught in her throat when she saw her daughter sleeping in it. She was sucking her little thumb and holding Kelev tightly.

She was safe. She was cared for. She was loved.

"Yeah, I know," said Tony, "she snores so peacefully, doesn't she? Just like her mother."

Ziva's eyes shot up at that. He was smiling, that boyish DiNozzo smile. Her heart plummeted with the sight.

"You said I snored like a drunken sailor with emphysema."

"Oh, she remembers. Also, you got worse, you used to understand sarcasm in the English language."

They shared a brief laugh when the elevator doors closed, but it didn't last long.

"Sophie Rainier, really?"

"I did not think you would remember."

"I remember everything," his eyes were watching her as if he wouldn't let her leave again. Ziva was looking at Tali.

"I know."

They arrived at her floor and she tried to open the door, but her hands were trembling. Too many meds today.

"Here, let me help," said Tony, grabbing the keys from her hand. His fingers touched hers lightly and her breath caught again. Ziva had dreamed for too long about this moment. Seeing, touching him again. Both of them.

He noticed.

Tony opened her door and let Tali's stroller inside the room. It wasn't big, there was a closet, a bathroom, a double-sized bed and a small suitcase in the corner. The windows, however, were huge, with a beautiful view of the market streets of Cairo below and the pyramids in the distance.

The atmosphere was heavy. Tony gently took Tali out of the stroller and laid her in the bed, putting the duvet over her. She didn't even move, it was like he'd done that many times.

Ziva also wasn't moving. She was as still as a statue, paralyzed with the image of Tony taking care of their daughter. Yes, she'd seen photos of them quite frequently, but she didn't want to think so much about how he would manage to do that.

Now she knew.

It is my job to protect you, Ziva.

Handle with care, contents priceless.

I know you want to change. I can change with you.

He loved Tali just as he loved her all these years.

Ziva kneeled on the floor, hot tears spilling down her cheeks, hands trembling along with her whole body rocking back and forth. Everything was darkness, and she suddenly felt very cold. Her chest hurt as if her heart was ripped from it and shoved back in right after.

Panic attack. Panic attack. Her mind roared.

"I'm sorry, Tony, I'm so sorry," she said again and again.

"Shhhh, it's okay. Hey, it's okay," he answered, whispering softly in her ear as his strong arms held her close to his chest, "we're okay, Ziva. Me and Tali, we're okay, just like you said. Breathe."

Her breathing slowed down after a couple of minutes, his arms still holding her against him, his hand caressing her hair. They were still at the ground.

"Hey," he said, grabbing her chin and lifting her eyes to look at him, "I know you, Ziva. I know you better than you know yourself."

Brown eyes blinked when green ones didn't look away.

"I just need to understand," he said, kissing her temple and still cradling her gently against his chest.

Ziva took a deep breath and let her body relax in his arms. She looked at Tali, sleeping in the bed. She couldn't face him while telling this.

"One day... One day I was ambushed in Israel, Tali was home, and I was in the streets to get her a new crib. Two men attacked me. I managed to bring them down, and learn from one of them they were sent by a woman to kill me. Her name was Sahar. That same day I packed all Tali's things and contacted Adam..."

"Adam? That Adam, the same Adam?"

"Yes, he's helping me. He's the only one who knows about Tali and Sahar."

"He knew about Tali?"

And Tony didn't. Ziva didn't let her own father know.

"He knew once I needed help. He helped me to get Tali to Ori so she could give her to you. You're the only one I trust to keep her safe, Tony."

Ziva could feel his chest go up and down, sense him processing all her mistakes.

"Okay. Go on," was all he said.

"I left a message in the back of a photo of us in Paris. It was all I could do without anyone suspecting that I was still alive."

Tony let out a sharp laugh, "I almost didn't read it in time."

"But you did."

"But I almost-"

"Tony," she said, looking up to him again. His eyes were troubled as if losing her was worse than betrayal, "they still follow me, wherever I go. She wants me dead. She's watching me like an eagle."

"Hawk."

"What?"

"Nothing," he appeared amused.

"Tali... Tali can't stay with me. She needs you. And before you ask, you cannot. You cannot help me, she needs at least one of her parents..."

"Alive."

"Yes."

Tony sighed heavily, his eyes never leaving hers.

"Why didn't you come to me? Why didn't you come to me when you found out about her? Why didn't..."

"I didn't deserve you, Tony. And you deserved more than a broken woman with a horrible past and a difficult future. I was terrified you were going to be furious and time passed and everything turned more complicated and...

"Ziva...," he said, one hand moving to hold her face and his eyes closing, chest heaving several times, "Ziva, if I knew you were pregnant, I would've been there in a second."

She let her forehead rest on his, eyes closing as well. Silent tears ran down her cheeks again, as she started to think about all that didn't come to pass.

"Tony, I-"

"Abba...?"

Ziva's body tensed again.

"It's okay, sweetcheeks, come here. Someone wants to see you."

Sweetcheeks. The term of endearment he used with her was the same he used with his daughter. Their daughter. It was like a hard slap in the face.

Tali hopped to the ground, still holding Kelev. Ziva gaped at her silently, not daring to breathe. She didn't know if she'd recognize her.

Tali drew closer, her little fingers going up to Ziva's face. She traced her nose, cheeks and mouth, going down to her hair and her bare neck. The necklace she used to grasp as a baby was not there.

Tali pulled something from inside her shirt and squeezed, then framed Ziva's face again. The Star of David. Tony gave it to her, Ziva's necklace. Tears continued to stream down her face.

"Ima...?"

Ziva let out the breath she was holding and wiped her tears swiftly.

"Yes, Tali, it's me. It's Ima."

"Ima!" she said, arms gripping Ziva's neck, demanding to be pulled to her chest.

"Oh, mon Coeur," her mother answered, kissing her hair, nose, cheeks, everywhere she could. She missed her so much, too much.

Strong arms embraced both of them, and Tony kissed Ziva's hair.

"Zee?"

"Hum?"

"How much time do we have?"

Ziva sighed, brought back to reality, "Tonight. And maybe tomorrow morning."

To be a family. A few hours to finally be a family, was all they had.

"Are you going to the opera?"

"Yes."

"Can we come with you?"

Ziva kissed Tali once more as she giggled sweetly in her arms.

"Yes."

Tony smiled as a weight lifted off his shoulders. She'd let him in. She'd finally let him in. He had both of them for the first time. He had the love of his life and the proof of their love in his arms, if only for a moment. He had a family.

"Then it's a date."

chapter 3

[sleptsin]

A Quick Analysis On Belphegor

     Alright time to go over my many screenshots and analyze what they gave us of Belphie’s character in the last two chapters. Not beating around any bushes. Shit is long. Like. “ I threw this into docs to check and it came out to 4 pages ” long.

His Attention

          First of all———  !! I’d just like to point out how  RIGHT  I was in saying that he’s super attentive of those he chooses to care about. Whenever they’re talking about his bros nothing seems like a surprise to him unless it’s a  TOTAL  change of who they were before as with Satan’s relationship with Lucifer. But when it comes to Levi he basically says, “ Knowing him, he was thinking this wasn’t he? That’s just how he is. ” Or when choosing an outfit with Asmo he says exactly, “ As if Asmo would ever be satisfied with an outfit like that. It’s not nearly bombastic enough for him. ” And shortly after, even  ASMO  says that he pays a lot of attention to the MC if you choose ‘ I owe it all to Belphie ’. ( I didn’t try the other option so idk if he says this regardless ). He pays attention and  OTHERS  pick up on it.

     While it can be excused because they’ve lived so long together, I’d like to say that there are still plenty of things you can  NEVER  catch onto even if you know someone for a lifetime. There’s also people like me who, while I love my friends so much, don’t always pick up on things. Some are just better than others and I feel like that  MORE  accurately applies to the brothers. They notice things sure, but not  EVERYTHING  like Belphie probably does. And there’s a plethora of things they can be familiar with only because it’s been a constant or a habit.

          It’s also worth pointing out that even despite being locked up in the attic for who knows how long, Bel still knew his brothers incredibly well and that attention to detail didn’t falter.

His Imprisonment

     I also want to take a moment and mention how the way Belphegor talks about being kept in the attic seems to imply that he’s been kept there for  QUITE  a while. The exchange program is supposed to last a year and we’re given no real timeline to keep track of things. Even if we sum it up to roughly a couple months, he speaks as if it’s been much longer— and when you take a moment you realize it actually  HAS  been. When he got into his fight with Lucifer, that was before the program even began. It might not have even been in the planning stages ! The proposal could’ve simply been thrown out there and then after gaining support it underwent all the preparations. How long could  THAT  itself have taken ??

          Even when you first meet him in the attic and have the option of asking how long he’s been there, he  ANGRILY  responds with, “ That’s a good question. How long has it been now, I wonder ? Well, one thing I can say for sure: I’ve been in here for a very, very long time. ” So yeah. Seems reasonable to say it’s been at the very least a year already.

     Belphie doesn’t seem like the dramatic type or one to necessarily over-exaggerate. He refers to himself as having been a  PRISONER  and I don’t count that as exaggeration either because he really  WAS  a prisoner in his own home and the effects of it are quite evident. He addresses it a couple times and one of his lines on the home screen refers to Levi. And it actually seems to counter a home screen line of Levi’s that says they’re more  ALIKE  when you think about it. ( Which they kind of are and I’ll get into a little of that later ). But it basically says that they’re different because Levi  CHOOSES  to be a recluse while he had no choice in being imprisoned and he legitimately says that in the regard, “ Levi has nothing on me. ”

          While the game has them make up in these chapters, I don’t believe Lucifer’s simple apology is really enough to make up for the damage. As I said, it  REALLY  affected Bel and extended for quite a while. Bel missed out on a  LOT  and is deeply saddened by it. He regrets not being involved even if he couldn’t help it. This is the same brother who already struggled with loneliness and is now a stranger to everything that happened for the last 1+ year. I think it’s more accurate to say that he accepted the apology but hasn’t  TRULY  forgiven him yet. And for the moment could be swept under the rug while he personally works on getting over it.

His Effort

     I have enjoyed the game immensely in showing us what Belphegor is capable of. When they work part-time in Hell’s Kitchen that  SINGULAR  time, it’s emphasized that the restaurant works its employees tirelessly. Despite this, he still held his own and was the only one not actually tired in the end. He’s even the one who made sure everything was flowing smoothly, properly, and implied to have  HOUNDED  Mammon and MC in doing so. This seems to suggest that Belphie actually has an incredible reserve of energy to tap into when he so chooses. A reserve that’s built up from all of the sleeping he does.

          In other words, although he’s the sin of Sloth and is  INDEED  a sleepy boy, there’s plenty of opportunity for him to apply himself. It’s just a matter of wanting to— and he usually doesn’t want to. Hence he chooses to  SLEEP  instead and immerse himself in his very attribute.

     However, the game also shows us that he’s pretty well-rounded and can also be deeply involved or helpful when it comes to his brothers and  THEIR  own interests.

i.e. he and Satan bond over their dislike of Lucifer and orchestrate pranks against him, he enjoys video games and manga alongside Levi  DESPITE  not wanting to let him know, and he has a great sense of fashion to the point he knows what would better / best suit Asmo

     And I really  ADORE  this about him because it continues to build him up as more than just the ‘ cat-napping seventh born ’ and actually gives him a place among his brothers as the one that can easily and probably best navigate among them  ALL.

His Personality

     Sadly, despite being able to fit in with any one of his brothers, it seems like apart from Beelzebub, the street doesn’t run  BOTH  ways. Yes, everyone makes up. But this doesn’t exactly change how things will actually be from that point on and it definitely doesn’t change the past. Levi himself remarks how Belphie has  ALWAYS  been difficult to approach even at the best of times. It’s noted that they’re both the socially awkward brothers and Bel doesn’t enjoy large gathering atmospheres and prefers to be alone than attend them. Compared to Levi who can at least  FORCE  himself to bear with it, he takes the first opportunity to find a space for himself away from it all. From this we know he’s good in small to medium sized groups but beyond that is overwhelming for him.  WAY  past his comfort zone.

          Additionally, we also now know just how disconnected from everyone he is if they always had difficulty going to him. This make you wonder if the strangeness and distance they treated him with in these chapters hasn’t actually happened a  NUMBER  of times thereby explaining why he was so unfazed by it all when it shouldn’t have been okay. I don’t believe he’s completely unaffected so much as he’s just  USED TO  the occasional cold shoulder.

     These brothers are the Avatars of Sin and clearly not immune to the very things they cause. In fact, I would almost go to say that they feel it to an  EXTREME  and merely have varying degrees of a handle on it. That is to say that Belphie potentially has a seriously hard time given the vastness of Sloth and just covers it decently well. ( See here or his bio for some insight. ) And the greatest sadness to this is how the brothers are all fully  AWARE  of things that aren’t typically okay. They’re aware of their own familial issues and just  CHOOSE  to not aid or ignore it. Excuse it if you will with ‘ they’re demons, they lack morals ’. This is their family that they claim to care deeply about and have to live with for several millennia and you’re gonna just not make it better ? Shame on them. And for added note——  this isn’t just how I feel about in regards to Belphie but  OTHERS  as well such as Mammon.

          Continuing on though, because this isn’t about that. It’s relieving that Belphegor still has so much personality beyond his hang ups. He looks at everyone for who  THEY  are as seen by how he is the first and only one so far to tell the MC he’s there for them and  NOT  because of their connection to Lilith. At the same time he’s an incredibly bratty boy in his texts. It’s almost like in story he behaves one way and in text it’s another. Like he’s carrying out a specific appearance in public and DMs are him  NO  holds barred. ( Which we know he’s aware and likely capable of picking out images to portray through outfit deciding with Asmo ). He can have an attitude and has no fear saying what he  REALLY  thinks / feels and especially doesn’t like anything that even remotely gives the assumption that someone views him as a child.

     He gets bored easily and can’t stand it, is most likely an insomniac due to feeling more awake the later it gets, and is  ALWAYS  looking out for Beel via combination of being so close to him and having a special twin connection. Nonetheless, it’s enough to assume that he’s highly considerate of the others as well and that Beel is just priority.

          THIS IS PROBABLY ENOUGH FOR NOW ;;;      Thanks to anyone who actually reads any of this !! I might have more to say in the future but I wanna hits the brakes on this before it drags out any longer.

[emaleesky]

On another site Star Wars Trivia:

Chewie stood on a small landing and pounded his mighty clenched fists against the unmoving hatch. He didn’t want to stand in the putrid pool of liquid filling the room beneath all the trash.

Luckily he, Luke, and Leia had avoided being hit by a deadly bolt from Luke’s blaster which had bounced from wall to wall before slamming into a pile of floating metallic trash, destroying it.

The room was magnetically sealed. Their weapons wouldn’t help them.

At that moment, Han fell from the darkened chute above, landing in the trash piles as they had just moment before.

He stood up, finding his footing as best he could on top of the garbage, silently assessing the situation before turning to Leia. “The garbage chute was a really wonderful idea!”

He continued condescendingly, “What an incredible smell you’ve discovered.”

Chewie was still trying to open the hatch of trash compactor 3263827. Han caught sight of him and drew his blaster. “Let’s get out of here. Get away from there.”

Luke tried his best to stop him. “No, wait!”

Han fired, and again, the blast ricocheted around the room, narrowly missing each of them before blasting the trash.

“Will you forget it, I already tried it, it’s magnetically sealed”, gesturing to the hatch.

Leia lit into him, “Put that thing away, you’re going to get us all killed!”

Han glared at her. “Absolutely your worship. Look I had everything under control until you led us down here. You know it’s not going to take them very long to figure out what happened to us.”

Leia fired back, “It could be worse.”

Suddenly a deep, inhuman moaning boiled up from beneath the trash and water, echoing off the disgusting walls.

“It’s worse” said Han, looking around for the source of the noise, blaster drawn.

The trash compactor footage was shot June 21st and 22nd 1976 on stage 4 at Elstree Studios. On June 24th, two days after this scene was completed, Harrison Ford wrapped his last day working on ‘Star Wars’ by filming his scenes in the 'Falcon's gun turret, for the getaway from the Death Star.

The detention block escape scene, followed by the Trash Compactor scene, is the first time the hero band of Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca merges on screen. Luke is trying to keep the peace while Han and Leia are sniping at each other, and the undeniable chemistry tells you this is something special. It’s the perfect mix of alarm and humor that makes Star Wars work at its’ core.

As protection against the slimy water, the actors had the option of wearing a wetsuit under their costumes. Carrie thought it was mandatory, and wore hers for both days of shooting (Likely a tan skin color based on the images seen and with it being under her white costume dress).

Carrie: “I liked jumping through the garbage chute, but didn’t like wearing the wet suit. It was under my white gown, for protection, or I was going to look like Walter Brennan from the waist down from being in the water so long.”

British cameraman Ronnie Taylor, who passed away in 2018, also wore fishing waders, as did Focus puller Peter Taylor.

Roger Christian, set decorator said “The garbage compactor set was also pretty hard, because I knew I had actors in there and the walls had to come in, and they had to be in dirty water and I had to get stuff that would be light enough so it wouldn't hurt them but also not bobbing around." The set was dressed by Brian Lofthouse and the rest of the prop crew.

Even before the terror of the converging walls began, Luke and the others were visited by a live resident of the compact, the Dianoga. A lone eye stalk appeared out of the water to spy on its prey, and the something that moved past Luke’s leg was a large tentacle.

That same tentacle wound up and around Luke’s leg, body, and throat, strangling him and ultimately pulling him under the putrid water. Only after hearing the clanging indications that the compactor was about to come to life did it release him.

In order to portray the realism of the scene, Mark strenuously made himself appear as if he were being strangled.

Mark Hamill:

“I purposely made myself red-faced for a strangulated look, causing a blood vessel in my eye to burst. Afterwards-they had to shoot carefully to hide it until I healed. George told me I should've asked him first because with the lighting and red-filters it made no difference.”

It was Mark’s left eye that was affected. He was examined by the studio’s Dr. Collins, and then he was sent to be seen by eye specialist Dr. Watson.

Originally, the Dianoga was to have been a much larger creature, and be responsible for far more of the sequence than it ended up being.

Lucas described the Dianoga creature he envisioned in his mind this way: “It’s a cross between a jellyfish and as octopus, a transparent muck-monster which can take any shape. It presses itself against the floor or in nooks and crannies of the trash masher, or even in the trash itself to survive.”

Ultimately he had to scale back on the size of the part the Dianoga would play. It was yet another compromise. He had tried a trash compactor escape scene in THX 1138 and he had to cut it out because “it failed miserably”.

John Stears, Special production and mechanical effects supervisor, said they created a much larger monster, which was ultimately cut down from a full body to a tentacle when Lucas decided to combine the original, larger Dianoga encounter with the trash compactor scene. “There was an awful lot of work that went into that monster, and it really was superb. Unfortunately we couldn’t use it in its entirety. You never see the full body, just the tentacles.”

During pre-production there had been a plan to inflate the monster, so it would seem to emerge from the water. Budget cuts forced Lucas to combine scenes, so that idea was scrapped. A smaller tank had to be used, and the full scale monster became physically impossible on the resulting set.

As a result of the scaled down scene, the iconic head/eye that pops up out of the water and looks around was added at the last minute. Phil Tippett and Jon Berg sculpted it and filmed it on a stage at ILM. It was made from latex over foam, and featured hand-punched hair and a mechanism that allowed it to blink. A puppeteering rod allowed it to be turned from side to side so it could look around the trash compactor. The trash and debris in the garbage for their shoot included pieces from exploded pyrotechnic X-wings, and wreckage from the exploded Death Star.

George initially intended for music to play a part in the Trash Compactor/Dianoga scene, but ultimately decided to remove it to allow the creature’s noises, and its movement in the water to be heard, giving the scene a more ominous feel and tone.

Because the compactor room was a hollow metal chamber, Sound designer Ben Burtt ring modulated vocals, and added echo. He took inspiration from the technique used for the devil in ‘The Exorcist’ and used them for the sounds of the Dianoga. A ring modulator takes two signals and multiples them to create two new frequencies.

When the Dianoga retreats, and impending danger becomes immediate danger with the walls closing in, music returns to ramp up the tension.

From the original LP liner notes by John Williams for Side 3: Track 4, ‘The Walls Converge’:

“The walls begin to close together and the group helplessly fights to stop them. Finally C-3PO and R2-D2 come to the rescue and, at the last minute, stop the walls from crushing the group. This music has no thematic connection with anything else. I wanted to create a dark threatening sound which would represent the jeopardy of the group. I intentionally used low end music so it would co-exist with the grinding sound effects of the big steel walls.”

George was not happy with having to cut down the scene, and on one of the days Mark noticed he was a little down. He was waiting for another take to be set up - a scuba diver playing the part of the Dianoga to pull him under the water.

From Mark: “I hadn’t planned this, it was just out of desperation that this idea came into my head what with the monster being called a dianoga and everything. I picked up one of the little bits of green pieces of styrofoam floating on the water and, to the tune of ‘Chattanooga Choo Choo,’ I started to sing, ‘Pardon me, George, could this be dianoga poo-poo?'”

Lucas responded by putting his foot on Mark’s chest and pushing him into the water.

As a result of standing in the disgusting, murky water over the two days, Peter Mayhew’s yak-hair Chewbacca suit reeked for the rest of production.

The scene immediately after the heroes exit the compactor was shot in continuity, in what was called the ‘disused hallway’, explaining why it wasn’t filled with Stormtroopers or others noticing their exit from the compactor.

Before filming the scene, Mark had taken a look at the continuity of the film up to that shot, and was concerned.

“I remember saying things like, ‘Well, wait a minute. I just got out of the trash compactor. How come my hair’s all perfect?’ And Harrison replied, ‘Hey kid, it ain’t that kind of movie.’ And I thought, he’s so right.” – Mark Hamill.

[eryiss]

Fraxus Week Day 5: Hope/ Despair/Complicated/Easy

Summary: Sitting in his bed, Laxus beside him, Freed's mind starts to wonder. He thinks back to the first time he met the man he would fall in love with, and the hope that came with that meeting. A complicated type of hope, but hope none the less.

This is my fifth admission for Fraxus Week event for twenty-nineteen hosted by the tumbler user @fuckyeahfraxus. This one is a little bit angsty, and an exploration of a character's backstory. It's based off the prompt 'Hope/Despair/Complicated/Easy.'

You can read it on Fanfiction, Archive of our Own, or under the cut. I hope you all enjoy it!

Day 5: A Complicated Type of Hope

Freed slowly, carefully placed the novel he had finished reading down on his bedside table. He reached for the lamp beside him, flicking it off and slowly letting his eyes adjust to the sudden darkness of the room. He removed the small band that was keeping his hair tied up, yawning slightly as he looked towards the man who was sleeping soundly next to him.

Laxus had been asleep for about an hour, his back facing the ceiling and a large pillow wrapped up in his arms. The bed covers were only halfway up his torso, something Freed carefully remedied so his husband wouldn't wake up cold in the middle of the night. The sensation of the fabric running against his skin must have been recognised by the sleeping man, as he shuffled slightly, let out a small sound with no distinguishable meaning to it, and nuzzled his face further into the pillow before settling again.

It was a cute sight, to say the least.

As he looked over his sleeping husband through the darkness, Freed thought back to the book he had been reading. It was called 'Hope' and told the fictional story of someone living a hellish life and their slow accent to happiness. It somewhat made Freed think back to his life before Fairy Tail, and how Laxus had become something of a beacon of hope to him.

The memories made him smile as he slowly readjusted himself so that he could lie beside his husband, yawning again.

-~~~-

The first time Freed had seen Fairy Tail, he had been fifteen years old.

It was in the second month of him being enrolled in the Rune Army's cadet scheme. The program was advertised as a way to teach young men responsibility as well as setting them up for a successful career in the Rune Army, allowing them to begin active duty the day they turned eighteen. Even in the short time Freed had been involved, he realised that the program was a thinly veiled way that the army could get their grunt-work done for free while pretending that they were teaching their recruits discipline.

Freed hadn't had any say in joining the program. It seemed that the moment his parents realised he had magic that would be appealing to the army, he was being told to pack his bags so that he could be shipped to the army base where he would live. He had no doubts as to why his parents wanted him there; he was an inconvenience to them, and this allowed them to be rid of him in a way that was socially acceptable

He wasn't angry at them. He'd long since been aware of his parents' feelings about him.

Even after spending only two months as a cadet, Freed had decided that he would leave the moment he could. Until then, he knew he had to go along with whatever the power-mad generals wanted without much objection. Despite their ages, if the cadets were seen to be disobedient, they were punished in the same way real troops were. Physical labour that, for their age, was dangerously strenuous.

"In line, now!" Was yelled to the cadets, who all straightened themselves and stood to attention.

The general who had addressed them was known only as Takin. Though Freed didn't know for sure, he had assumed that their leader was resentful of being in charge of cadets rather than official troops and thought it useful to take out his anger on the teenagers who he was in charge of. He was relentless, thoughtless, and saw respect and fear as interchangeable.

Looking impassive, Takin walked through the four rows of young cadets. There was twenty of them altogether, all standing to attention in uniform, wearing buzzcut hair styles and stoic expressions. None of them wanted to stand out, as getting attention from their general was not a good thing.

They weren't in their barracks as they normally would be. In an attempt to make the cadet scheme look more legitimate to the public, they would often be involved public celebrations or parades. Takin had stated that they would take twenty of the most respectable – which meant most obedient – cadets to the Magnolia harvest festival. They were to be part of the carnival procession, simply marching in line as they did every day, and as a reward of some kind they would be given a short amount of time to roam free throughout the city before they returned.

The whole thing was a publicity stunt, but Freed was craving any sense of freedom so wouldn't complain.

"You will walk in time," Takin demanded. "You will not speak. If you see your families, you will not address or look at them. You represent me and if I end up looking bad because of you, you will be reprimanded the minute we return to the barracks. Do you understand?"

"Yes sir!" A chorus of well rehearsed yells followed his questions.

Takin continued his pep talk, as he called them, for a few more minutes. As Freed's eyes were set straight forward on his commander, he couldn't see if anyone had taken issue with the way the young men were being treated. Although Freed considered himself old enough and mature enough to take the verbal onslaught, he knew that some of the assembled teenagers couldn't deal with the constant abuse from their leader.

It wasn't long after the supposed pep talk that the carnival had begun. Freed hadn't gotten a good gage as to where in the possession they were, but he had figured out that the float in front of their designated space had someone dressed up as a turkey that danced. The juxtaposition of the that compared to the regimented group of teenagers was almost funny.

Freed didn't laugh, though.

Doing so would make him stand out which would lead to reprimanding.

When they made their way to the main part of Magnolia, walking in complete unison with their boot slamming against the cobbles simultaneously, they were presented with people cheering and laughing and applauding. The sun was warm and almost comforting, and if he were allowed to then Freed may have smiled.

They continued to walk, and that was when he saw the guildhall. Illuminated by the rising morning sun, a large and grand looking building appeared ahead of them. The insignia of the Fairy Tail guild was presented at the forefront of the building, so it didn't take the rune mage long to realise what exactly it was.

From what he'd been told about guilds, both from his parents and from the generals in charge of him, guilds were something of a necessary evil. His parents had shown them as vigilantes who were getting in the way of 'real' law officials who should be stopped, and the army had portrayed them as lower rungs on the ladder of authority. The image these stories had led him to believe they were full of miscreates and undesirable people; nothing more than troublemakers who needed to stop interfering with things that didn't concern them.

But as he glanced towards the group assembled before the guild – only for a second as not to be seen – he saw a group of happy people. Children and adults alike smiling, a heavy mixture of all people. Not anything like he had been told.

As he continued, he saw people were carrying small flags that contained the Fairy Tail logo. They weren't seen as troublemakers by the people living here, they were almost celebrated. It seemed as though Freed had been mislead about what place in society Wizard Guild's held; it wasn't surprising, given who he had got this information from.

He couldn't dwell on it for too long, however, as the further away he got from the guildhall the less traces of their influence could be seen. He put his focus back onto marching and walked the rest of the way through the carnival route; all the while ignoring the pain, he felt in his feet because of the ill-fitting boots.

"Right," Takin began as they assembled at the end of the route. "You have two hours. Be here on time, and remember you still represent me. Behave, and if I hear you disrespect me then you'll be on latrine duty."

It said something about Takin that, when hearing this threat, Freed wondered why he was being lenient.

After being dismissed, most members of the troop began to walk towards their families who had come to watch them. Obviously not having anyone to talk to, Freed had decided to look around the unfamiliar town. He had accrued a small amount of money from doing extra work around the barracks, so could perhaps afford something. Shining Takin's shoes for a week was particularly humiliating, but hopefully worth it.

He walked past all the meaningless things without a word; why waste money on candy-apples and shoddily made stalls when he could do something more permanent. He didn't know when the next time he would be let out like this would be, so he was intending to make the most of his money while he had the chance.

It was when he saw a bookshop that he realised the best use of his money. It was small and perhaps a little dingy, but it was open and that was all Freed required. He walked in without thinking.

Browsing through the unorganised selection of books in silence, only vaguely aware of the old man who owned the shop watching him, Freed tried to find something that interested him. When he had lived in his parent's manor, he had always preferred reading something factual. But now, presented with a reality that he had little control over, he found himself craving some escapism. He ended up finding this in a dusty corner, with a leather-bound book containing a blurb that explained the fantasy elements of the story. When he took it to the shopkeeper, he was forced to spend basically all the money he had gotten; not as much as he thought, apparently.

As he took the book from the man, he felt a small fizzing on the back of his hand. He winced slightly as a thought was pushed into his head, something which should have become familiar now but hadn't. This was how the army gave instructions, with a rune on the back of his hand that took the words of his commander and imprinted them in his mind.

Their time alone had been shortened to an hour. He would have to leave soon to get back in time.

Fantastic.

He thanked the shopkeeper and left immediately, turning towards the dark and wet alleyway he had walked through to get to the bookstore. He held the book as he walked, glancing up to see another person enter the alleyway from the other side. He shifted slightly to the side to not fully take the confined space and continued walking.

It was the cadet's expectation that, just like he had, the man on the other side of the alley would shift slightly so they could walk past each other without issue. This turned out to be untrue, as the older man shoved their shoulders against each other roughly as he passed.

"Fuckin' watch where you're going," He even had the arrogance to say.

Freed felt his chest tighten slightly in perhaps anger. He admitted it was a small thing, but it felt as though he was reaching the final straw. He already had to deal with dismissive parents, a borderline abusive general who was in control of him, and a lack of any freedom. And now he was expected to deal with an asshole blaming him for something that wasn't his fault.

No. No way in hell.

He spun on his heel to see the retreating figure of the man. He was taller than Freed, with unkept blonde hair and a body that was relatively muscular. When he had been approaching him, Freed had seen the other man had a scar covering his eye and was probably older than the rune mage by a few years.

"Hey," He shouted slightly, knowing his voice was carried loud enough for the other man to hear.

The blonde ignored him completely, and Freed snapped. It was all too much, and being ignored while still feeling that stupid, invasive fuzzing from the rune on his hand had driven him to a point where it felt all his senses were overloading. It was all too much.

"I am talking to you!" He yelled, but something was different.

His voice was different, mutated into an otherworldly snarl. It hadn't been his intention to sound like that, and he felt as though it could have only happened with some kind of magical interference. He chose to ignore this, stalking forward towards the other man, who seemed to have definitely heard him this time, as he turned.

"The hell do you want?" The blonde almost spat as he spoke, voice gravely and seemingly annoyed. "Thought you little army pricks were kept on a leash."

Freed didn't think through his actions. He dropped the book to the floor and slammed his fist into the taller mans jawline, sadistically loving the small crack he felt reverberate through his bones. Part of his mind imagined doing that to the people who had pushed him to this point of anger; to his parents and to his generals. To punch Takin, bring him to the floor and hurt him, was something Freed was craving.

The power fantasy went as fast as it came, and Freed saw that his punch had been more powerful than he had expected. The blonde's head had been slammed against the wall by the force of the punch and was rubbing his head in pain. Freed hadn't punched someone that hard before and looked down at his hands for any kind of explanation.

He was met with one. His right hand was not his own, but a monster's.

"Shit," He whispered, looking down at his hand with wide eyes. "No. Fuck, why are you doing this now."

This wasn't the first time this had happened. Freed had always known that he had some kind of connection to a demon of some kind, something he had tried to rid himself of many times. It had been nearly a year since he had undergone any kind of transformation, which he had accredited to the runes that he had written on himself. The demon was the reason he had learnt rune magic before, and it had been worthwhile to keep the creature hidden. But now it seemed that the emotional state he had been in had overthrown his writings and the demon was coming back again.

He was quick to act, knowing how to deal with it for a short time at least. He pulled out the dagger that was part of his uniform, placed the demonic hand on the wall and slammed the weapon down, impaling himself with it though not feeling a thing. He knew that the demo would retreat if put through enough pain.

As he did this, he was unaware of the blonde looking at him with wide eyes.

The rune mage watched as the demonic claw slowly reverted back into his normal hand, melting the blade as it did and ruining the sleeve of his uniform. He couldn't explain to Takin what had happened, so would have to lie about what had happened. He would be reprimanded without a doubt the moment he returned, and the rune mage felt a sickness grow in his stomach as he came to terms with this fact.

"The fuck was that?" The blonde demanded, and Freed snapped his head towards him.

"Nothing," He said with rigidity, and went to walk away. A hand landed on his shoulder and turned him around.

"Nothing?" The blonde quoted with an incredulous tone. "You just fucking stabbed yourself and you called it nothing?"

"That wasn't part of me," Freed insisted, voice harsh as he shook the stranger's hand off him. "I have to go."

Again, he went to walk down the alley again, but heard footsteps jogging to keep up with him. When he was turned around for the second time, he saw that the blonde had picked up the book that he had dropped when dealing with the claw he had grown. He snatched the book from the blonde's hands immediately and went to walk away, but the blonde was grabbing his arm and not allowing him to leave. He tried to shrug the man off but the grip simply got tighter and his chances of leaving on his own terms lessened slightly.

"What did you mean by it wasn't part of you?" The blonde demanded. "It looks like take-over magic or something? Pretty fucking powerful too," He rubbed his jaw to highlight his claim.

"It isn't magic. It's a curse," Freed spoke adamantly.

"Who the fuck told you that?" The blonde laughed a little at the idea, and Freed bristled. "Because whoever it was, they were bullshitting you. You weren't being taken over by some random monster or anything. You swung that punch, you wanted to do it. Not some demon. Just a spell or something"

Freed didn't say anything immediately. This wasn't an opinion he had heard before. Everyone who had seen this demonic side of him had called it a curse. This included his parents and the doctors that had been taken to the household when Freed had been there.

"That isn't my magic," Freed denied. "I am well versed in enchantments and runes. Not demons."

The blonde seemed to ignore him. "Why the hell are you part of the fucking army with a takeover spell like that? You can't wanna be some faceless foot soldier, right?"

"I wasn't exactly involved in the decision," Freed muttered harshly, mainly speaking to himself.

"Then fucking leave," The blonde spoke as if it were obvious. "If you don't wanna be there and they're not gonna let you use any of your actual magic, what's the point in being there. The guild's always taking in runaways and fuckups, half the people there are orphans or whatever. That ain't gonna stop anytime soon, but if you joined at least you'll be a runaway with a bit of power inside of you."

Not knowing what to say to the invitation – if it could even be called that – Freed made a final effort to shrug himself free of the mans grasp. He succeeded this time and started to walk away for the final time; he knew that the time he had to get back to Takin was slipping away from him. This time, the blonde didn't follow him.

"Hey," The blonde shouted again. "If you join the guild, I want you on my team. Name's Laxus."

Freed paused for a moment. Laxus. What he was offering was something that Freed had never had. He thought back to the faces of the guildmembers he had marched past and almost yearned for it. They were all individual, happy, and seemed to be acting as a family despite having no relation. And a stranger was offering him that based on a power that he hated.

After a moment, he looked over and spoke. "Freed."

That was all he said before he continued walking.

-~~~-

The memory of his first meeting with the man who was to be his husband made Freed laugh. Some people had a story that was grand and romantic that would make anyone who listened to cry; the two of them had a confrontation with each other in an alleyway wherein Freed had punched Laxus with a magic he refused to admit was his own.

Although it had been a chance meeting, Freed felt it to be one of the most important moments in his life. Not only had he met his husband that day, but he had also been given the first taste of independence in his life. It had been a turning point, and the offer of joining a guild had been something that hadn't left his mind since the moment it entered. It had given him hope that he wasn't destined to follow the demands of other people; be it a general of his cadets troop or his parents.

In many ways, he owed that to Laxus. He owed his hope to Laxus.

The decision to leave the cadets when he was sixteen had been hard. It wasn't as if he could leave without difficulty. His previous obedience meant the generals had been careful not to give him any hope of another life, and he knew that his parents would rather have him there than at home, so returning to the manor wasn't an option. He would have never seriously considered leaving if it hadn't been for Laxus, most likely, as the blonde had offered him some kind of security.

And although his time in Fairy Tail hadn't gone exactly as he had planned – Laxus having become more involved in his own plans by the time had managed to escape from the cadets – Freed did find something of a real family in the guildhall. This was only possible because of his husband, he had concluded.

He had asked some point later in their relationship why Laxus had offered him a place in the guild. Apparently, it had bene over a year since Laxus had been hit in any capacity, and he was impressed by the ease in which Freed had managed it.

It was funny to think that the man who had calculated people's worth by their usefulness had become the same man drooling into his pillow beside him.

Freed's life had never been particularly logical. His formative years had been governed by guardians who were equally dismissive of him as well as being overbearing. And then Laxus had entered his life, acting as a figurehead for individuality and being himself. No more controlling figures dominating his life, simply being in control of his own destiny. Laxus offered him a sense of hope that his life had lacked up until that point; a complicated kind of hope that made Freed become the man who would eventually run the Raijinshuu and marry Laxus Dreyar.

"Night Laxus," He whispered, pressing his lips against Laxus' head.

The blonde let out a small groan. "Night Freed."

[voltron-s7-8-rewrite]

“A Little Adventure” & “The Ruins”

Here are the first two stories of my Voltron Season 7 and 8 re-write. For more information you can see here: My Voltron season re-wright

A Little Adventure

This story is pretty much fine as is. Getting the full background of Keith and Shiro’s story, Griffin’s appearance, and the other Paladin’s hijinks is all good.

The only thing about the story that I would change is the reasoning for Shiro being in the pod. Rather than another ‘Will Shiro survive!?” plot to deal with, he’s in the pod to heal the wounds from his and Keith’s battle, and for some observation that everything with the transference went well.

Because Shiro is not barely hanging onto life again, the setting is more relaxed for Keith, Krolia, and Allura. Keith and Krolia talk a bit about Keith and Shiro’s youth, which piques Allura’s curiosity, as she had never heard how they knew each other before Voltron. So, Keith shares with Allura how he and Shiro met and became friends, which is what the flashbacks are.

I know these are little details, but they have huge meanings for my version. First, from this point on Shiro will no longer be a character for the story to abuse. He’s been through the harshest of fires and has come out tempered and refined. He is now rid of the illness that plagued him for years, he’s completely free of any control Haggar had over him, and the Galra arm that was a reminder of all the pain he endured as the Champion is gone. Shiro has overcome all that life has thrown at him and is no longer a victim for the story, but instead has become a victor of the story.

As for Keith, willingly opening up and sharing some of his past with Allura shows that he has grown during his time away from the Paladins and is opening up to people. I’m not going to really go into detail about this yet, since it will come up more later, but this is the first sign of the growth he’s gone through.

   The Ruins

After Shiro comes out of the pod fully healed and in good health, they all decide to head to earth to get the plans Sam has to build a new Castle Ship. With their Lions’ powers depleted the trip is going to take over a year. Pidge tries to contact the Voltron Coalition but is unable to get any response from their friends. As they discuss things, the subject of Shiro’s Clone is brought up. Shiro begins to apologize for the Clone’s actions, but the others try to stop him, saying it wasn’t him. Shiro, however, disagrees.

Shiro explains he and the Clone are the same person, as they merged into one being. He explains that from the moment he had woken up on the Galra cruiser he had known that there was something wrong. Though he tried to act normal and continue on with things before his death, he was in a constant state of fear, anxiety, and had an ever present sense of wrongness. No matter what he tried he couldn’t get past it, and rather than opening up to the Paladins and allowing them to help, he felt he had to keep up the image of the strong leader, which led to him lashing out at them.

Shiro apologizes and thanks them for being there for him, and especially notes Lance’s help. Lance says he wasn’t able to do much, but Shiro says that him just listening and being willing to help meant the world to him. The Paladins accept Shiro’s apology and, calling for a group hug, they now see Shiro in a new light. No longer is he the untouchable leader, he’s just like them, a person who struggles and needs help at times, and from now on they will make sure to never let him struggle alone again.

As the Paladins get ready to leave, Keith stands in front of the Black Lion looking up at it. Shiro joins him and tells him that they are all waiting for his lead. Nothing needs to be said to the implication of Shiro’s words. They both know, Keith IS the leader now.

Keith asks how he feels, and Shiro says he’s excited. Keith asks what he means, and Shiro tells him that while inside the Black Lion he came to understand how the Lions see the Paladins. The lives of the Paladins are finite compared to the Lions. One day they will all pass, while the Lions will continue on, bonding with new generations of defenders.

Shiro says while his time as a Paladin of Voltron has ended, his story isn’t over. In fact, ever since he woke up, he’s felt a pulling, something telling him that he has a new purpose out there that he has yet to fulfill. Keith tells Shiro that he and the others will be there for him no matter what, and Shiro says he knows.

The two share a smile and he pats Keith’s shoulder as Lance and Pidge get into an argument over which Lion each of the animals will travel in. Shiro pushes Keith towards the squabbling Paladins, telling him that he gets to deal with the kids now. Keith glares back before going to break them up.

After the Lions head out we see a Galra cruiser’s scanners pick up on them. A crew member asks if they should engage, but they are told to follow at a distance, not allowing the Paladins to know they are there.

After having traveled for some time, Pidge picks up on some signals. When Krolia hears them she recognizes a Blade distress signal, likely made by a senior member. Pidge pins down where the signal’s origin is and they head to that location.

Landing on a desolate planet, and exploring the place for some time, the Paladins find a survivor, Macidus. They all head to his home, where Krolia discovers he has the swords of fallen Blade members.

Macidus explains that after the lions and Lotor disappeared, the Druids began hunting down the Blades. The remaining Blades came to Macidus’ world where they had their final stand. In the end, Macidus was the sole survivor.

Krolia finds Kolivan’s blade and when it flashes she realizes he’s still alive. Macidus reveals himself to be the Druid Keith once fought, and drops a device. Kosmo, sensing danger, teleports Keith out of there as the device goes off and freezes everyone else in place.

As the Paladins are stuck, a handful of living Druids appear and surround them. Macidus orders the Druids to kill them while he goes after Keith. Macidus vanishes and the Druids charge their dark magic to end the Paladins…

.::+::.

Alright, here’s my little commentary corner.

First off, we needed was the whole Kuron-Shiro merger addressed in canon, and not just by the creators in an interview. So, how I’m portraying it is, Kuron was basically Shiro. When Allura put Shiro’s spirit into Kuron the two souls merged. Shiro-Kuron (Henceforth just called “Shiro”) views everything from both sides as being him. He sees his time with the Paladins during season 3-6 as his past, as well as his time being with the Black Lion as his past.

This isn’t really how I would want the Clone story line to end, but since I’m sticking to the canon amount of episodes the show had, this is how I have to go in order to fit everything.

As I was writing this, I thought one of the things that might add some depth, and give us insight into Shiro’s character during this time, as well as give him some character flaws, was by having some of Kuron’s un-Shiro like behaviors be actual flaws of Shiro’s, and not just Haggar’s influence.

We’ve seen Shiro be pushed and struggle many times. His illness, time as a prisoner, PTSD, etc… He’s an exceptionally strong character, and has always been able to push aside his issues and carry on. Giving him this “ever present sense of wrongness” during his time as Kuron, something that he can’t push away, causes him to lash out in ways we never saw before. Sure, there was Haggar’s influence in there, but some of it was just his own struggles at dealing with what was happening in his head. It shows just how much he was effected and hurting during that time.

It also shows the flaws in the relationship Pidge, Hunk, Allura, and Coran had with Shiro. None of them approached him about his behavior in the show; they just accepted it as is, while occasionally discussing it behind his back. That’s so wrong.

So, how I view that is that, sense Shiro’s always been the strong leader, they just took his personal struggles for granted. He’s always pulled through his issues, so he’ll do it again. It’s not that they don’t care about him; just they fell into the trap of seeing him as “The Leader” as much as he fell into the trap of being “The Leader”. This is now something they will never allow happen again, he will never be taken for granted again.

This also helps show development in Lance, as he tried to step up as second-in-command, and actually tried to talk with Shiro. While it didn’t solve the issues, he was there, taking responsibility, and looking out for the health of his leader.

Now, I know a lot of people wanted Shiro back as the Black Paladin and Keith back in red, but it’s pretty clear that the creators always intended for Keith to become the Black Paladin. When they weren’t able to write the story the way they wanted, they cobbled together what we got with Keith leaving for the BoM and the Clone Saga. Some of it was good, a lot of it was a mess, and most of it was a disservice to both Shiro and Keith’s stories.

While I know there are people who won’t be happy, I am keeping Keith as Black Paladin, Lance as Red, and Allura as Blue. All I see from returning them to their original positions is regressing where their arcs should have gone. As you will see later on, it’s vital for them to be in these positions.

I will talk about what Keith’s story should have been in S7E5, and Shiro’s role and story in S7E11.

As a small note, there would be no scene where Lance arranges to have Romelle ride with him. If he’s truly interested in Allura like he said he was in S6E2, then he’s not going to manipulate things so he can flirt with a pretty girl. Not saying she can’t ride with him, just it wasn’t Lance with a motive that made it happen.

Thanks for reading, have a great day!

NEXT

[why-this-kolaveri-machi]

Grand Titans Rewatch: 1.01

so! i only really got into the show around the 6th episode, which means that while i was intrigued by the first five, i didn’t really pay a lot of close attention the first time ‘round. so i’m going to try and rewatch the entire series over the next several weeks and bring you Thoughts, because um. well. I Will Have Them.

SPOILERS for pretty much the entire series, though i will be covering only the pilot episode in this post. let’s see how this goes.

1. i’m just such a sucker for eerie dreamscapes, so i’m definitely biased when i say that this is a promising start. what’s really intriguing, though, is rachel dreaming of dick’s past well before she’d met the guy. after eleven episodes, the extent and even the very nature of rachel’s powers is still nebulous; this ability to dream about people she hasn’t even met only comes up this once, as far as i remember. (again, my initial viewing was superficial, so i might’ve missed it coming up/referenced again.)

1.5. a doylist explanation for this? hint at a special relationship between rachel and dick right off the bat, set the tone for the rest of the series, establish a character-development-by-dreamscape precedent, give us a gander at the origin story of the most iconic character in the ensemble, and set the broader arc of the season—an acceptance of and an ascent out of inner darkness—in motion with these two characters.

an in-universe search for an answer is potentially more interesting, however: why should these two be connected? i like to think that trigon’s influence started here, pushing rachel further and further down the path that would lead her to free him. i mean, handwaving aside the comic-booky implausibility of trigon foreseeing the exact pattern of random events that would lead to the moment rachel pulling him out of the mirror in 1.10 (he’s an interdimensional being! i don’t know! *flails hands*), i like the symbolism of it: both batman and trigon as phantom fathers that rachel and dick run away from, only to be pushed together. this is not to imply any broader equivalency between trigon and bruce wayne, of course; but it goes some way in explaining why this dick is especially traumatised and brutal, and why it would’ve had to be an especially traumatised and brutal bruce wayne that taught him everything he knows.

1.6. HAH at the ‘flying’ in the ‘flying graysons’ sign fizzling out just before the rope snaps, tho! so corny but also so upsetting.

(‘so corny but so upsetting’ – a valid tagline for titans)

1.8. oh but the set-up around rachel is so intriguing, tho! this is both the greatest strength and the greatest pitfall of the show: each of its characters can occupy a genre show of their own; because the first three episodes focus so heavily on rachel, it seems like the tone of the show changes when the titans finally get together, and like a lot of interesting, painstakingly slow set-up for rachel is just dropped and wasted.

2. the first glimpse we get of dick grayson is in the rearview mirror of his car. FUCK. i’m going to start a count.

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 1

Ok. things i love about this little two minute introduction to dick grayson:

a) look at this broody asshole. i love him so much.

b) right away we have this push-pull re: his robin identity. he hates it, resents it, but can’t quite let it go. his officer grayson persona isn’t enough for all the evil in the world, even if it means losing control and falling farther and farther down a spiral of self-loathing.

c) he’s so damn mired in crime and tragedy, tho: officer grayson by day, vigilante robin by night. MAKE A FRIEND, DICK. GET A BEER, DICK.

(so true to character, tho: a suffering dick grayson is usually a determinedly self-isolated dick grayson.)

d) AMY ROHRBACH! i refuse to believe they’d just unceremoniously kill off such an iconic character. i fully expect to see her in s2.

e) “you do your thing. i’ll do mine.”  a poorly functioning dick grayson picking up unhealthy coping cues from his mentor.

f) i love how implicit it is that gotham is a carnival of unending horror among the officers in the precinct, and probably every other city in america.

3. the clawmarks on rachel’s mother, tho! fuck, i wish they’d carried over more of this eeriness in the second half of the season. oh, and also:

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 2

i realise why we had to get a move on with the plot, but i can’t help but wonder if we could’ve gotten an even slower build-up to rachel’s powers, because honestly? i know you’re lying, i always know when you’re lying, and the vicious slut! in the school bus window? actually more unsettling than watching rachel liquefy some baddie from the inside.

(tho. um. don’t get me wrong. that’s plenty disturbing, too.)

4. conflicted!brooding!vigilante!dick, here to chase away the images of dead women splayed over living room floors with bullet holes in their heads.

4.5. the fight scene was brutal, sure—but to be fair, most of batman/robin’s fights teeter on the fine line between causing enough damage to keep the bad guys down for a bit and outright brutality. it’s difficult to bring that to life on screen (in a series that touts to inject grittiness/realism into proceedings, no less) and portray a robin who’s definitely crossing some lines without going into some real brutal territory.

4.6. so far i’m loving how economical the storytelling is when it comes to dick—how quickly it’s established, then underscored, how being robin is so important to him and the last thing he wants. his curdling resentment at the thugs immediately looking for batman the moment they see him, and his inability to move on from being the other half of batman-and-robin. he feels compelled to play both parts at once when he’s fighting, and he hates it. all of these things are playing out right underneath stretched-too-thin skin, jagged and awful and ugly.

4.65. and the editing and sound choices keep emphasising how this is not dick in his natural state—how, in a lot of ways, robin is not his natural state anymore.

4.8. dick, brooding in his open-plan apartment, broodily listening to vinyl records and cleaning his armour of blood, while brooding. did i mention that i love this asshole?

(i don’t know where the bruises came from, considering that it seemed like the thugs couldn’t get a single hit in during the fight.)

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 3

4.9. a dick timeline: the zucco thing happened, what, two years ago? robin hasn’t been seen in over a year. and dick moved to detroit a month ago. hmmmm.

5. rachel’s alter-ego-self as a manifestation of her powers continues to be fascinating. as is the fact that that alternate self appears less and less as she grows more accepting of what’s inside her and learns to control her abilities.

5.25. so, what, was sally a part of the cult that wants to kidnap rachel specifically, or just a Bad Person in general?

5.5. “you got that thing for helping kids” – i love that dick has this reputation barely a month into his time in this department. like. this guy is broody and closed-off and clearly traumatised, but hey, he’s good with kids!

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 4

5.8. “you’re the boy from the circus” is super-dramatic and all, but how did rachel recognise adult!dick when she’s only seen kid!dick in her dreams? and also, why did she dream of dick at all?

5.99. side note: officer!dick’s hair is the best. it never gets better than this for the rest of the season at least until he becomes trigon’s demon acolyte.

6. KORY!

6.5. so… did the car accident cause the amnesia? do we ever find out why exactly she couldn’t remember anything about who she is? she doesn’t look injured; just dazed.

6.6. her passport was issued in 2014—so she’s been here a while, searching, researching. or not, because it’s probably a fake-ass document. stop reading so much into this, emmram!

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 5

6.8. her super-convenient amnesia means she’s forgotten her identity but not human language, mores or customs. i like this extra layer of… alien-ness? that this brings to her: so now she’s not only a stranger to the rest of the world, but to herself. again, so many interesting things are set-up here that the show never really follows through with for the rest of the season—imagine re-discovering kory’s identity along with her, piecemeal, rather than an impersonal infodump near the end of the season!

6.9. also given that portrayals of starfire (at least those that i’ve seen/read) make liberal use of the ‘born sexy yesterday’ trope, i rather like this take—she’s already learned everything she needs to know about assimilating into human society, and it’s a question of rediscovering that knowledge instead of having some dude patronisingly mansplain the world to her.

6.95. why did she snap that russian dude’s neck, tho. that’s just brutal. i’d forgotten about this.

7. i like to think here that when dick says i’ll find someone who can help you, he’s not just thinking of law enforcement, but also of people in the super-community—psychics, or telepaths, or somebody who has experience with both. there’s still so much about dick that’s kept in the dark for most of the season, but given the length of time he’s been with batman and the easy familiarity with which he talks about other heroes in the finale’s dreamscape, i’m going to assume that he’s more than well-connected.

7.5. but he’s shuttered himself away for so long, and robin’s return has been far from well-received. i like this little moment where he steps outside and just… lets himself be overwhelmed. just for a bit.

7.7. i like that amy says “sidekick” first instead of “partner”. on-the-nose, but i like it!

7.8. the glibness of he and i had different ideas of how to do the job is making me laugh. oh, dick.

i guess the idea of batman sours quite a lot when you’ve spent most of your life as his partner. i get that he’s projecting losing his own sense of self to a role he just isn’t cut out for onto bruce, but it’s sad anyway.

7.9. gosh i just want these two to bond. i don’t care how you do it Show but bring back amy next season, yeah?

MIRRORS, MIRRORS EVERYWHERE: 6

8. is there any particular significance to the repeated security-cam footage shots we’re getting in this episode?

(gosh, i love the cinematography so much in this scene.)

8.4. so… kory had to use some sort of russian mob and come all the way to vienna to find rachel?? why??? are we ever going to find out?

8.5. on a happier note, i love love this version of starfire’s ‘innocence’. like. she’s baffled, almost apologetic about it, but she isn’t going to take any shit about it, either. also, the music when she uses her powers for the first time, man. FUCK.

9. aaaaand there’s the liquefying-a-guy’s-insides bit. i both love and hate this show’s self-indulgence.

9.5. i gotta say, this episode makes a lot more sense on rewatch than it did the first time ‘round. i remember being so confused by evil!cult!guy, but then again, i was pretty distracted at the time. i only really picked up the show because i was so amused by the over-the-top reactions fans had to the trailer. now look at me, writing 2k+ word reviews dissecting its every moment. *shakes head*

10. *rachel stares at dick’s porsche*

“this is yours?”

“family heirloom.”

“… from the circus?”

“not the one you’re thinking.”

I LOVE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS EXCHANGE.

10.5. i love these two Dramatic Kids.

11. beast boy cameo! just to assure us all that yes, he is in this show, and that, yes, he is the Best of them all.

12. you guys, this episode is so much more fun that i remember it being. you’ve got an amnesiac interstellar super-spy in kory, a straight-up supernatural horror story in rachel, and a psychological case study whatever genre batman’s supposed to be in dick. each of them could easily fill their own show, but i love that titans wants to connect them with something more than just a team falling together just because.

[capriswritingnartshenanigans]

I Remember You, Prologue

Cullen Rutherford/Female Amell Inquisitor. CANON DIVERGENT (somewhat but not as much as you’d think). Slow burn, will probably be very long. Catch it on Ao3!: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14145420/chapters/32600628

Carrie Amell is a special mage. She’s been clairvoyant all of her life and that’s one of the reasons she’s not locked in a Tower somewhere. She has many secrets, many stories to tell, and really is beginning to hate how many traps she gets caught in. Her past will come back to haunt her as she tries to survive as THE INQUISITOR. 

           There was total darkness. She wanted to wake, but she was stuck in this… land of black. Though… there was something coming to her. Images of an explosion… The Conclave and the Temple going up in fire and ash… Someone calling her name, but she can’t place the voice… Feeling hard ground underneath her and a ringing in her ears as soldiers turned her over…

           Her eyes groggily opened. Colors were blurry, and even as she woke up more, she couldn’t make out wherever she was due to the darkness. She felt cold, hard floor under her body. She went to move her hands out from under her, only to find them in a metal brace, locked into place. She struggled to push herself up. As she moved, she felt herself gasp out in pain as a green flare of light erupted from her hand. She realized she barely heard anything; there was a ringing in her ears that dulled most of the noise-though not all. Looking around, the little light there was in the room glinted off of metallic armor… Guards. She felt a bubble of panic rising in her chest, but before she could speak the door to the room was knocked open. The sound of it hitting the wall reached her ears, which were beginning to be able to filter sound better as her magic healed their internal wounds. Two women entered, the first in higher level soldier garb and the second cloaked, her lack of footfalls betraying her more rogue nature. She eyed them warily, especially as the soldier circled her. She suddenly ripped down the prisoner’s hood. The cloaked woman’s face portrayed nothing, but her eyes were ever so slightly widened in shock.

           “Tell me why we should not kill you now. The Conclave is destroyed. Everyone who attended is dead… Except for you.” The soldier’s voice held a thick accent, almost like that of the Free Marches, but different. Her voice was deepened from emotion, as though something were stuck in her throat. The prisoner felt the same; though it was horror she felt most of all.

           “Wh-what? No… Th-that’s not possible…” She felt tears coming to her eyes. The thought of so many lives lost… But wait. Surely, they didn’t think… “You think I did this… don’t you?” The soldier’s face contorted, and she took a tight hold of one of her forearms, the one that had a green flare come from it a moment ago.

           “Explain this.” She angrily raised it, and another green flare painfully shot from it. She threw the arm down and continued her circle around the prisoner.

           “I… can’t.” Her mind was blank on how it came to be there, only that it was painful and upon inspection, looked like a deep laceration that faintly glowed green.

           “What do you mean you can’t?!” Her voice was full of anger, and her gait told that her patience was running thin.

           “I mean I can’t explain how it got there, because I don’t know how or why it’s there!” The prisoner’s voice was distressed, both because of her predicament and the fact that truly, she hadn’t any idea where the mark came from. The angered woman grasped her by the shoulders, her grip painfully tight.

           “You’re lying!” The rogue quickly grabbed one of her arms and drug her back, her face stiff and emotionless.

           “We need her, Cassandra…” She pulled the Cassandra woman to the door, then both turned around to gaze down at the imprisoned. The woman bowed her head, shaking it softly.

           “All those people… are dead?” The rogue was suddenly in front of her, her familiar blue eyes burning into hers.

           “Do you remember what happened? How this began?” Realization dawned on the prisoner: she knew who this was. Leliana, lay sister of the Chantry, Sister Nightingale, Left Hand of the Divine… and an old friend. She did not act like she knew her, though; no doubt to put less suspicion on herself… especially in the company of this ‘Cassandra’… but that is neither here nor now.

           “I remember… running. Fire and ash. Horrors chasing me, clawing at my legs… And… a woman. Bathed in green.” It was fuzzy, blurring in her mind. The images threatened to completely dissipate soon.

           “A woman?” Leliana’s voice sounded doubtful, but also… intrigued.

           “She reached out to me, but then…” She shook her head. She heard heavy footsteps, then the grasping of cloth.

           “Go to the forward camp, Leliana. I will take her to the Rift.” Looking up, she saw Leliana backing out of the doorway, her eyes lingering dead on her. Cassandra closed the door mostly, and walked back to her, then kneeled. She began undoing the metal brace’s chains, working through the mini locks, then replacing it with a strongly tied knot. “What is your name? I do not want to have to continuously call you ‘Prisoner’. It would get old very quickly.”

           “I-I’m Carrie. Carrie Amell. What… What exactly happened?” She gripped Carrie’s arm and helped her to her feet. Her face was sorrowful, her eyes casted downward.

           “It would be… easier to show you.” She turned away and began leading the way out of the prison area’s door. Carrie reached up and tugged her hood back into place, concealing most of her face. She preferred it that way. She followed behind Cassandra, thoroughly examining the building with her eyes. It appeared to be the under area to a chantry, and as they exited to the upper floor, her thoughts were confirmed. Though it was a smaller one, it was most definitely a chantry. Soldiers and scouts were scattered among the others in the hall, and as the two approached the doors, they were swung open for them. The bright sunlight burned her eyes, and its reflection from the snow nearly blinded her. As she looked up, into the sky where others were staring, she saw a pit of swirling green and rock dipping upward, heaven bound. Green light jaggedly glowed from it, lighting the dark clouds around it eerily. Carrie felt a cold shudder go down her spine as she stared into the green void, a unique kind of terror filling her. Cassandra had taken a few steps forward, into the yard in front of the chantry, before she spoke:

           “We call it ‘The Breach’. It’s a massive rift into the world of demons that grows larger with each passing hour. It’s not the only such rift; just the largest. All were caused by the explosion at the Conclave.” She turned on her heel to look at Carrie, her mouth set into a slight frown. Her eyes burned into Carrie’s, their light brown color glittering in the light.

           “An explosion can cause… that?” She felt a need to disbelieve this, a need to not believe a word this woman said. That would make this all too real; this would mean she should be dead with the rest of them. Not alive, not standing here, prisoner. More than just terror was filling her at this point. Cassandra’s voice brought her back from her thoughts.

           “This one did. Unless we act, the Breach may grow until it swallows the world.” Suddenly, the green void flared brightly, and pain shot through Carrie’s marked hand. She gasped out loudly as her hand flexed open towards the tear in the sky, light pouring from it as well. It was blindly painful, and when her eyes finally opened again, she was on her knees in the snow, her hand curled into a tight fist with green pulsing from it. Cassandra kneeled in front of her, her eyes earnest. “Each time it expands, your mark spreads… and it is killing you. It may be the key to stopping this, to closing all of these rifts, including that one, but there isn’t much time, for the world or for you at this rate.” The pain in her hand and the fear Carrie felt send adrenaline rushing through her. While, on principle, she’d normally be plotting ways to get out, she knew this woman was right. In the course of less than half an hour, the damned mark had already become bigger, and if there were demons falling from the sky…

           “I understand, Cassandra. I… I will help you.” Her eyes widened in disbelief for a moment before her face seemed to lighten. She was quickly back on her feet, then pulling Carrie up, though her grip was not as aggressive as it had been before. Cassandra kept her grip on her back, half pulling her along. As they walked through the town, locally and militia dressed folk looked at them… watched them. Their eyes showed a deep hatred to the hooded one, some of them yelling profanities or slurs at her, others spitting at her or her feet; yet her head was high as they walked, completely concealed.

           “They have decided your guilt. They need it. The people of Haven mourn our Most Holy, Divine Justinia, Head of the Chantry. The Conclave was hers.” As she talked, they came closer to a worn road leading to a tall gate door, and further out into the snowy area surrounding the small village. “It was a chance for peace between mages and templars. She brought their leaders together… And now… Now they are all dead.”

Her voice was filled with grief, and for a moment it looked as though she were crying. Upon a second look, the tears were gone and in their place was a look of defiance… and sadness. “We lash out, like the sky. But we must think beyond ourselves, as she did. Until the Breach is sealed.” They exited the gate door and were now out on a cobble bridge. Cassandra took a knife from her belt as she turned, then gripped Carrie’s arm. “There will be a trial. I can promise no more.” She cut the leather tie holding her wrists. “Come. It is not far.” Carrie rubbed her sore wrists, wincing.

“Where are you taking me?”

“Your mark must be tested on something smaller than the Breach first. We are… going to meet up with a few ‘friends’.” Carrie lifted a brow at the rather venomous tone on the word but didn’t voice her curiosity. Sighing, she surveyed the bridge as she fell in line behind the woman. She noticed the eye marking on her breastplate also appeared on her shield, and the sheath of her sword. She saw the other scouts and soldiers also bore this symbol, as did the gate doors they used to exit the bridge. While she was in her thoughts she had apparently missed Cassandra calling for them to be opened, or the guards already knew to open them. She was gestured forward by her captor, down a worn path to another set of gates. There were spiked barricades pointed to this next set, and as they went further, soldiers came running past them yelling about being damned and the heaven’s falling. As they were closing the distance, another shot of pain went through her hand, and she found herself on her knees, clutching her hand, Cassandra’s own hand on her shoulder.

“The pulses are coming faster now... The larger the Breach grows, the more rifts appear, the more demons we face.” She helped her back up, to which Carrie nodded in thanks. They continued down the path, moving at a jog now.

           “How did I survive the blast?” Cassandra’s breath seemed to catch for a moment before she answered:

“They say you… stepped out of a rift, then fell unconscious. They said a woman was in the rift behind you… no one knows who she was. Everything farther in the valley was laid waste, including the Temple of Sacred Ashes. I-I suppose you’ll see soon enough.” They were crossing another cobble bridge when a glowing green rock came shooting down, hitting it dead center. The bridge collapsed under them and everyone else there, sending them spiraling to the ground underneath. Carrie let out a garbled yell as she tumbled, crying out as she hit her ribs and right leg against fallen rubble. The sound of the collapse had mostly drowned Cassandra’s roar of surprise, though it hadn’t silenced the screams and cracks as people were buried under the broken cobble.

Carrie had blacked out for a moment, maybe two, before she was awoken by Cassandra shaking her shoulder roughly. Her ears were ringing again, and an awful pounding had begun in the back of her head. She could barely see, her vision was so blurry…

“Carrie! Carrie, can you hear me? Damned it all, are you alright?” Carrie gripped her arm unsteadily as her eyesight unblurred, trying to get a hold on the world…

When she saw a… thing coming towards them. It looked like it was cloaked in red and black robes, with long, bony arms and claws reaching from under its sleeves. Carrie gestured towards it, half yelling Cassandra’s name. Another throb of pain went through her skull, making her eyes water. She heard Cassandra scramble up and grab her dropped weapon and shield, each making a metallic shhhhik as she picked them up. Her blurry blob went running to fight the fiend, but in front of Carrie came a bubbling green-black mass… from which another creature emerged. Gasping, she hauled herself to her feet, trying to force the world to stop tilting as the thing glided towards her, screeching loudly. Roaring, she felt a whirling ball of flames come to her hands, both unbearably hot and icily cold. She blasted the creature with it, setting it ablaze. It swiveled around, beating at itself in hopes of putting out the flames.

Scrambling, Carrie searched for anything to use to defend herself… and found a bow, similar to the ones some of the soldiers on the bridge had been tending to… before they died. Shaking that thought away, she grabbed it and the matching quiver. Strapping the quiver to her back, she took out an arrow and enchanted it with flames right before she sent it flying through the creature’s skull. It let out a garbled noise, before disintegrating into a mass of black sludge. She saw and heard the same happen with the other as Cassandra pierced it through the torso with her sword. She pulled it out and shook it off before turning around, although stopping dead in her tracks when she saw Carrie had both killed another and was armed.

“It’s over. Could have been-”

           “Drop. Your. Weapon. Now.” Cassandra’s blade was now pointed at the mage archer, distrust written on her face. Carrie felt both a prickle of unease and defiance roll over her neck but thought better of disobeying. She was able to feel something was… off about this woman, as though something powerful was threaded through her veins.

           “Fine. Alright. I’ll disarm.” Carrie had nearly placed her bow on the ground when Cassandra spoke up.

           “Wait.” She hesitated for a moment, then sheathed her sword. “You have magic, and though you don’t need that bow… You should have it. To protect yourself. I… should remember you agreed to come. Willingly. Oddly enough, I’ve not met many mages who were able to string a bow, but it seems you’re very… accurate.” She gestured up a mountain side nearby, murmuring that we need to go that way. She also offered some potions and salves, and after rustling up a bag from near the bridge, deposited them into it and strung it over Carrie’s shoulder. The two headed onward, towards wherever Cassandra thought they needed to be.

           Along the way, they found bodies, and more creatures. Some were like spirits, and you couldn’t get close to them without them drifting off quickly, looking for high ground over you. After some time, there was a large set of steps, inlaid into the mountain side, leading steeply up to a collapsed bridge and an area of broken down fort wall. A glowing, crystalline spiked sphere hovered in the air, spinning slowly over a large fight taking place. The demon-shrouded creatures were in battle against a few scouts, a thin elven man, and a crossbow-wielding dwarf.

           Cassandra launched into battle with a war cry, and Carrie helped pick the ones off of the less-capable scouts and one that had managed to slip behind the angry warrior woman. As the last creature became a puddle, the elven man grabbed Carrie’s marked wrist and held it up to the green sphere.

           “Quick! Before more come through!” Beams of bright green light connected the sphere and her hand, pulsating, before the sphere burst into light and then disintegrated similarly to the demons. Her hand ached a bit, but not nearly as much as it had before.

           “What exactly did you just do to me?” The elven man chuckled softly, gesturing to her.

           “I did nothing. The credit is yours.” His head was cocked to the side, and he had an overall friendly demeanor. Carrie frowned for a moment before answering.

           “So, I can help. Or, well, this mark can.” The elf was silent for a second, but quickly explained.

           “Whatever magicks were used to open the Breach also have a connection the mark on your hand. I theorized the mark might be able to seal, or rather, close rifts that have opened in the Breach’s wake-and it seems I was correct.”

           “Meaning it could also close the Breach itself…” Cassandra had a nervous but hopeful look on her face.

           “Possibly… It seems you hold the key to our salvation.” His voice had an oddly cold note to it, though his face portrayed otherwise. Carrie felt another uneasy shiver go down her back.

           “Good to know! Here I thought we’d be ass-deep in demons forever.” The dwarf turns around, still talking about himself using many hand motions. “Varric Tethras: Rogue, Story… teller…” The dwarf’s voice trailed off as his golden-brown eyes slowly widened in disbelief. “Magpie? Is that you? I mean you look different, but…”

           “Varric, you haven’t changed a bit! Still seem to think showing off chest hair is fashionable.” She ran forward and hugged him, received a loud laugh and a tight hug back. “I’ve missed you. There’s such a void in my heart without you.” He snorted as they parted, shaking his head.

           “You two know each other?” Cassandra’s face was slowly turning red and she had a rather murderous look leveled at Varric. He gave her a rather sheepish smile in return. “You said you had never met her before, VARRIC!” She was slowly walking over to him, face growing redder by the second. He carefully backed away, hands in front of him.

           “C’mon, Seeker. She wears a hood, how was I supposed to know who she was?” Before Cassandra could say anything else, the elven man spoke up.

           “While I’d hate to interrupt you two, we should get going. You know, before the glowing green hole in the sky gets even bigger.” He turned towards Carrie, nodding to her. “By the way, I am Solas. I am pleased to see you still live.” Varric turned towards the two as Cassandra made a disgusted noise.

           “He means ‘I kept that mark from killing you while you slept’.” She nodded towards Solas, smiling.

           “Well, thank you. It’s, uh, well it’s nice to still be up and kicking, as they say.” He snorted softly, a slight grin coming to his pale features. Taking a closer look at him, she did want to ask how someone could have a head that bald but decided against it. “Should we get going?” Cassandra casted one last glare at Varric before, nodding.

           “We should hurry to the forwarding camp. Come, let’s go.” She set off in front of them, Solas behind her, and the last two trailing a bit.

           “Yeaaaaah. C’mon, birdie, we can catch up later. I’ve bet you’ve got stories to tell me and boy, do I have some for you…”

           They set off together in the cold landscape. While they were a rather ragtag group, they moved quickly through the area. They searched homes for any survivors, though there seemed to be none to be found. As they fought their way through demons and houses, there was a rather comfortable silence. Well, for a bit anyway.

           “So… You and Varric know each other?” Cassandra’s voice was light, but tense. Carrie laughed softly, her lips curling into a warm smile under her hood.

           “Yeah, you could say that. I traveled around a lot for a long time. I met up with Hawke quite a bit. One thing led to another, and I met most of her friends, including Varric. I traveled off and on with her for quite some time.” Cassandra mumbled to herself as they continued on. After realizing there were truly no people waiting for rescue, they turned their attentions fully to getting to the forward camp. As they closed the gap, Cassandra spoke up again.

           “I… I hope Leliana made it through all of this.” Her voice held concern, and upon looking at her, it was written in her features as well.

           “She’s resourceful, Seeker. I bet she’s waiting to tell us how damn slow we are.” Varric nudged her a bit, and just the slightest, reassured smile came to her lips, though it quickly disappeared and her faced flushed a slight bit.

           “We will see for ourselves at the forward camp. We are almost there.” While his voice was cheery, Carrie felt it was surely drained as new sights greeted them the closer they came. Carriages lay burning and crumbled, the bodies of their passengers ejected nearby. It was bloody, gory, and she honestly felt she may vomit at any moment. She had seen carnage before, but it always made her sick. Always.

           As they reached the top of the hill path they took, her mark flared painfully. As they came over the hill top, they saw why: the guards at the forward camp were being swarmed by demons falling out of a rift. “Another rift!” Cassandra cried as she raced to pick a demon off of a fallen guard. Solas let out a blast of frost, freezing one of the cretins. Varric quickly exploded it.

           “Seal it! Quickly!” Carrie stealthed herself, enfolding herself with magic, and raced to the sphere. She raised her hand, and again, beams of light attached to her hand and the sphere. With a flick of her wrist, it exploded, and left her hand aching once more. As it disappeared, Cassandra called for the gates to be opened. Clutching her hand, she followed the warrior into the camp, past guards who glared uneasily at her. Not too far into to camp was Leliana. She seemed to be arguing with a chancellor.

           “You, Cassandra, The Most Holy- Haven’t you all done enough already?” He turned to look at us, his nose scrunched unpleasantly. “Ah, here they come.”

“Ah, you’ve made it. Chancellor Roderick, this is-”

           “I know who she is. As Grand Chancellor of the Chantry, I hereby order you to take this criminal to Val Royeaux to face execution!” Cassandra’s face quickly contorted into a sort of snarl.

           “‘Order me’?! You are a glorified clerk! A bureaucrat!” She scoffed and looked him up and down with an unimpressed look.

           “And you are a thug, but a thug who supposedly serves the Chantry!” They two glared at each other, their eyes shooting daggers in either direction.

           “We serve the Most Holy, Chancellor, as you well know.” He snorted, shaking his head in disdain.

           “Justinia is dead! We must elect a replacement and obey Her orders on the matter.” He crossed his arms with an ugly, smug look on his face.

           “Sooo… None of you are actually in charge here.” The chancellor’s face flamed angrily as he shoved a finger in her direction.

           “You killed everyone in charge here!” He looked to Cassandra, his lip curled. “Call a retreat, Seeker. Our position here is hopeless.” She shook her head vehemently, crossing her arms over her breastplate.

           “We can stop this before it is too late.” He scoffed disbelievingly.

           “How? You won’t survive long enough to reach the Temple, even with all your soldiers.”

           “We must get to the Temple. It’s the quickest route.” Leliana stepped in, her lips pressed into a tight line.

           “But not the safest. Our forces can charge as a distraction while we go through the mountains.” Cassandra frowned, her eyes turning towards the mountains as Leliana pointed to them.

           “We lost contact with an entire squad on that path. It is too risky.” The chancellor interrupted them, his lips pursed and his face paler than it had been.

           “Listen to me. Abandon this now before more lives are lost!” Right as he spoke, the Breach flared once more, causing the mark to envelop Carrie’s hand in a green glow. Cassandra looked thoughtful for a moment, before asking:

           “How do you think we should proceed?” Carrie’s jaw dropped for a second, before she snapped it back up, biting her tongue accidentally. Not wanting to look stupid, she did carefully think about her choices. While she didn’t want to lose the scouts… It was likely they were already gone, but the soldiers were alive, and she could definitely keep them safe.

           “Well, since you’re asking… I think we should charge with the soldiers. We can still keep them alive, and not to be morbid, but the scouts may already be dead.” Cassandra nodded, then turned to Leliana.

           “Leliana, bring everyone left in the valley. Everyone.” Leliana dashed out, and away, through the gates behind them. As the group walked towards where the soldiers were, the chancellor left them with a parting message.        

           “On your head be it, Seeker.” Cassandra seemed to have ignored him, or was putting up a good show of it.

           The way to the soldiers was not an easy one. It was a long trek up a sharply inclined mountainside, and by the time they reached the top where the camp was, Carrie’s lungs, legs, and sides burned and ached. While she was a fit person, that was just too much. There were soldiers and bits of slime from demons everywhere, and as they made their way through, more and more wounded came into sight. She felt so nauseous and afraid she wished she could run and hide. Get away from all of this. She had to fight this feeling all the way up to the area that exited to the Temple. A place with yet another rift. The soldiers were knee deep in demons, including someone with finer armor than the rest; likely their commander. Cassandra rushed to him, helping him pair off with a set of long-legged, tall, horned demons. Solas and Varric picked the other demons off of the soldiers, giving them more room to fight. Carrie, again, cloaked herself and ran forward, her only intentions being the rift.    

           However, on her way there, she was suddenly flung in the air by a demon-it had come up from under her, then knocked her off her feet. Though in more pain than she had been, she got up. She felt her magic soar through her veins, singing of power and chaos. She struck the demon with ice, freezing it, then smashed a hardened fist into it. The thing shattered into darkly colored bits, and she continued quickly to her original destination. Her hand thrummed as she closed this one, the same as the last, and that same ache set into her bones. She heard footsteps behind her, which stopped next to her. Solas nodded his head to her, smiling slightly.

           “Sealed, as before. You’re becoming quite proficient in this.” Varric came up near the two, gesturing with his shoulder to the Breach.

           “Let’s hope it works on the big one.” As she was about to answer, she heard a startlingly familiar voice. A voice that, by all accounts, shouldn’t be here.

           “Lady Cassandra, you managed to close the rift? Well done.” She slowly turned her head to the man the voice belonged to and saw… Cullen. His skin was far paler than the last she had seen of him, and the bags under his amber eyes had somehow become even worse. She kept her face down, using her hood to obscure her face. He didn’t need to know she was here. He didn’t need to know she was alive at all. She was brought back by Cassandra’s voice. She let out a heavy sigh, leaning on a support to a post nearby.

           “Do not congratulate me, Commander. This is the prisoner’s doing.” Cassandra waved her arm towards Carrie, who only slightly turned to the Commander, as they called him.

           “Is it? I hope they’re right about you. We’ve lost a lot of people getting you here.” His eyes were piercing, searching. Trying to find anything out about her that they could. She couldn’t allow that, though. She wouldn’t. She won’t.

           “I-I will do my best, ser. It’s all I or anyone else can do, in this situation.” He sighed, scrunching his nose slightly.

           “I suppose we’ll see soon enough. The way to the Temple should be clear, Seeker. Leliana will try to meet you there.” Cassandra nodded, the motioned for us to follow her.

           “Then we must move quickly! Give us time, Commander.” Hers eyes implored him, and he nodded, his lips pursing slightly.

           “Maker watch over you-for all our sakes.” He looked between the four of them, then followed his soldiers back to the camp, helping a rather injured man stay on his feet. Together, they jumped down the ledge from the camp to the body-littered ground below, no doubt victims of the explosion. They ran to the Temple entrance, which was still flaming, even now. They descended, rubble and bodies everywhere. There were small red, glowing crystals she remembered all too well on the floors, and as they came into the now dilapidated main area, they were greeted by a horrid sight. Red lyrium crystals of all sizes were everywhere, their light ominously lighting the darker corners of the room. Yet, the worst part was an enormous rift in the dead center, almost serenely glowing.

Carrie heard footsteps, many of them, behind her, and then Leliana and Cassandra speaking, though she doesn’t remember what they said, nor much after that. Just Divine Justinia, screaming for her to run, screaming for mercy as a cruel voice calls out for his guards to kill her. Though it’s only a flashback she remembers, from the rift, and then the demon. The twisted creature that emerged, its gargantuan size dwarfing everything nearby. Then… Darkness. A twisting darkness that wove itself through her, lapping at her mind, intoxicating her body. And that is all.

I hope you enjoyed! This is going to be a looooong story, so I hope you stay tuned. Cheers!

[auramaydaydreaming]

Favorite MM Romance Books: Caught Running

Caught Running by Madeleine Urban and Abigail Roux was my first foray into proper published MM that did not read completely like bad fanfiction, and I have to say, I could not have made a better pick.

Spoiler free review:

The book follows Jake and Brandon - former schoolmates, who years later ended up teaching at their old school. In youth, Jake was the popular jock, while Brandon was a typical nerd, but beneath their cliche exteriors both men had more to them than the stereotypes they appeared to embody. Nonetheless, the strict social dynamics of highschool life kept them from discovering each other. Until now.

The characters of Jake and Brandon were an absolute joy to read. They were definitely based on tropes, and even the way they weren’t really as one sided as they seemed was a bit on the cliche side. However, their little personal quirks and *gasp* actual personality traits really did make them extraordinarily compelling characters. At least for the genre. And they seemed to adapt to their situations in realistic patterns, which definitely added to the raw feel of the book.

Jake especially surprised me. That man felt alive. The way he portrayed himself, as well as his rather dark struggles, it all seemed like a real person’s life, a real person’s story. This may have been because his motivations did not merely make logical sense, but psychological sense as well. You could tell why he acted the way he did, why he made the choices he did, even if some of them weren’t exactly optimal, and that definitely added to the realism of his character.

Brandon had a similar charm as well, even if I didn’t feel the same connection to him. He was also a person in his own right. Just maybe not quite as interesting as Jake, in my opinion. Either way, both MCs were extremely likable.

The side characters, though, could have used a bit more work. Don’t get me wrong, the story was by no means set in a vacuum, and I was actually rather impressed by how the teacher’s jobs didn’t take a complete back seat as their romance came to the forefront. But there was definitely a lack of important side cast. Though Jake’s friends were cool and the limited characterization they got was enough to make me feel at least a smidgen of connection with them (nice job to the authors on that one), one character in particular stood out as not only a complete cliche, but an unnecessary headache as well. She was only there to build cheap tension the book really didn’t need and I would have honestly preferred the book without her. It’s quite ironic, actually. She seemed to be written in as the biggest nuisance in the story and ended up the biggest nuisance to my enjoyment of the book.

Another qualm I have with the writing, especially prominent and rather distracting in the beginning, were the POV shifts. They were constant and had no warning whatsoever. This made some parts rather confusing and required me to reread paragraphs just to understand who was talking more than once. I wish the author had done a better job signaling these, as that would have made the book flow 100x smoother. That being said, beyond the first couple chapters, where you still don’t know the characters or their situation, and that one absolutely incomprehensible scene where the MCs are each talking to a different set of extras across the room from each other (why, authors, why did you do this), the book flows fine later on. It’s just a matter of getting used to it, and though it can be hard to slog through the first fifth because of it, trust me, it’s worth it.

Before we move on to talking about the romance and the smutty smutty times in the second part of the book, I want to quickly address something else that could turn away some readers, and that is the baseball talk. A lot of this book is centered on highschool baseball. Now, I have never played baseball and know nothing about the game, so if I enjoyed this book, anyone can. That being said, if you’re a newbie like myself, you’ll either have to do a lot of googling, or just accept that you won’t be able to understand some parts in full. The story does still make sense and you can understand a lot from context cues, but do be aware of this.

Okay, now we can move on to something more exciting: the ROMANCE.

Brandon and Jake were super freaking sweet. You could really feel their connection build organically from the very first page and the way it shifted from colleagues to friends and finally to something more was just an absolute dream to read. One of my favorite things about their relationship was how clear it was why they liked each other. This wasn’t a case of Twilight-esque instalove. No, these men were both amazing in their own right, and only when they saw each other for just how amazing they were did they start having feelings. And that was simply perfection. I cannot tell you how wonderful it is to have the reason people fall in love be because they see something great in one another that others cannot. I love that. It’s almost like an acknowledgement, a validation of their character, and it creates an extremely deep bond. You can really feel that they were special and different to each other because the reason they fell in love was due to understanding, knowing, and appreciating the other more than anyone else could. It’s honestly beautiful.

Furthermore, the way they approached each other felt more real than I had ever experienced in a book (or fanfic) before. It was so real. So, so real. I cannot explain to you just how raw and realistic the romance in this book appeared, so I will just leave you with this: they didn’t act like toddlers and they didn’t act like robots. They acted like real people with real worries, jobs, responsibilities, and absolutely irresistible feelings they just had to act on, even if cautiously, even if they had to feel each other out beforehand, and oh man it was a fantastic read.

And there was definitely some sexual tension there as well, which turned electric in the later chapters, and that brings me to a part we’ve all been waiting for: the SMUT

OH BOY THE SMUT

OH MAN

OH JESUS

The smut was glorious.

There wasn’t a lot of kink or anything like that, and for my taste it was all pretty vanilla, but the sheer amount of tension and emotion built up slowly throughout the whole first half of the book (yes, this baby’s a slow one) definitely paid off in spades. It was shiver-inducing. And there was a lot of it. Like, a lot. If you feel like the book isn’t sexy enough in the first half, do not fret. The second half is smut after smut after smut, and oh boy do we love to see it. Those men are smexy and lovely and Jake was so seductive and passionate and fiery and ajksdhgkjshdka and Brandon was also cute and took initiative and imma stop talking but just know it’s really good.

So yeah *clears throat* final thoughts.

Go read this book.

Fan of MM? Go read this book.

Fan of sweeter than life romance? Go read this book.

Fan of compelling characters? Go read this book

Fan of fun and passionate smut? Go  read  this  book.

And if you have read this book, or perhaps want it spoiled for you for some God-forsaken reason, here are my thoughts including spoilers.

Spoiler-filled thoughts:

Jake’s pill problem was resolved a bit cheaply. I do think it was handled well in the beginning of its resolution, but they kind of dropped the ball later on, or should I say they dropped the storyline. I did find the way Brandon helped him handle it quite sweet and not too far-fetched. But the fact that it was never really addressed again shows either a lack of importance that is inappropriate for something so serious, or implies the issue was solved just like that, which is plain unrealistic.

Furthermore, the resolution with Misty was just kind of sad. No, scratch that, Misty’s whole storyline was sad. I thought she was going to be a genuine problem at the start. I thought she would find out and expose them at a terrible time or something, and I was waiting for her to actually become an effective villain, but she just... never did. I have no idea why they put her in the story.

Finally, the ending was too smol. I wanted more. I really, truly wanted so much more than one friend of Jack’s finding out about them. I mean, homophobia was a bit of a theme in this book, so to have the whole resolution be that was just unsatisfying. Paired with the supremely easy and kinda stupid plot with Misty that went nowhere, as well as the weak resolution with the pills, the story almost feels like it was cut off abruptly in the middle. Nothing really got resolved outside the romantic and sexual tension. And don’t get me wrong, it could have been much worse, but it’s just a little annoying is all.

Personal thoughts (ft spoilers):

I am a HUGE sucker for the “we knew each other in childhood, didn’t meet for years, and then rediscovered one another and fell in love” trope. And while this story wasn’t exactly that, considering Brandon and Jake weren’t that familiar with each other back then, it still brought some delicious reminiscence and slight, almost rueful angst into the mix. Loved it.

Loved the descriptions of how Jake saw Brandon from his POV and the way Jake moved in Brandon’s POV (eg. stalked, prowled...). Made him seem super ultra passionate and instantly brought a vibrant image to my mind. Brandon calling him “Thundercat” was also great. It was freaking cute and worked for the characters.

Liked that there wasn’t a too obvious fem/masc dynamic. Made the boys feel real and unique.

Loved Jake far too much and Brandon was adorable. This whole book was just fantastic and they carried it on their broad shoulders with ease.

Do I recommend: YES

Score: 8.5/10

Verdict: Great book with fantastic characters, a sweet and realistic romance, smexy smut, and some not insignificant, but not insurmountable issues specifically to do with side characters and certain plots. Worthy of a READ IT ASAP

[thetygre]

Dark Souls Lore Ramblings #6

Well dang. That went off better than expected. Glad to see so many people still interested in my Dark Souls theories! So, @invokingbees got me thinking on this one, and I’ve kind of been itching to do it. Because if there’s any subject that needs more lore theory it’s:

The Dead

Out of all the Lords, Nito and the Death Soul are the most mysterious. I can’t even compare them to anything in Demon’s Souls. There were skeletons and undead in DeS, but they were clearly explained as being resurrected by demon magic. (Well, most of the undead on the Isle of Storms were ancestral guardians, but the ghosts were roused up by necromancers.) Nito was famously the first boss developed for the game, and occupied the end of the Painted World of Ariamis. His whole aesthetic seems to embody not just Dark Souls but modern dark fantasy in general. But all that’s just supplementary.

Most of what we have on Nito is just open to debate. Even his name in the opening cinematic can be interpreted differently - “Nito, the First of the Dead”. Get ready kids; we’re about to make lore out of grammar. Generally, it’s assumed that in the Age of the Ancients, nothing died; the Everlasting Dragons were not subject to the laws of life and death. The First Flame brought that disparity, and Nito represents the ‘death’ side of the equation. The most basic reading of ‘First of the Dead’ is that Nito was the first person (?) to die after the First Flame came into being, instating him as the Lord of the Dead by default. This isn’t entirely without precedent; in Hindu mythology, the god of the dead, Yama, was the first man to die and descend to Naraka. In Japanese mythology, Izanami became goddess of the underworld after she died giving birth to fire.

But there’s another interpretation that I’m more fond of. You’re all probably familiar with if you’ve watched DaveControl’s series of lore videos. ‘The dead’ is definitely plural, but ‘the first’ is by no means exclusively singular. In other words, Nito might not have been the first person to die, but the first people to die. Imagine how long the Everlasting Dragons ruled. Long enough to get a name like ‘Everlasting’, that’s for sure. And all the while, there were those little pygmies/Hollows living underneath them. Some of them must have been worn out; carried on well past they’re expiration date, run ragged, mortally wounded, etc.

When the First Flame brought the disparity of life and death, those Hollows that were supposed to die long ago were finally able to give up the ghost. That mass of death was the First of the Dead; the first generation of beings to die. And that generation formed into a collective that would become Nito. Maybe the First Flame pulled them together, maybe they volunteered in thankfulness for finally being able to die; I dunno’. But Nito’s design is like a whole mass grave stuffed into a single being, and that design choice is what makes me think of Nito as a plural being.

And of course there is the final interpretation, which is just that Nito is the most eminent of all the dead. No other skeleton is bigger and badder than he is, and therefore he is numero uno, so to speak. I’m not really on board with this idea, mostly because the Dead don’t really seem to be a force outside of Nito. There’s no signs of skeleton or necromancer faction existing as its own power. There are creatures like ghosts and zombie dragons, but it looks like they arise spontaneously. So Nito being named ‘First of the Dead’ and inheriting his Lord Soul solely because he is powerful doesn’t really add up. But if the origin myth from the beginning of Dark Souls is just that, a myth, and death did exist before the First Flame, then that would probably be the most likely origin for Nito.

I do have one more theory of my own, but it’s only something of a pet theory, and it doesn’t even really explain anything about Nito. When Nito dies, he goes basically t-pose and falls backwards, exactly the same as the giant sentinels in Anor Londo. Now, it’s more likely that the giants are based off of Nito considering Nito came first, but it does illustrate that Nito and the giants are roughly the same size. Also, the location that Nito lives in is the Tomb of the Giants, filled with giant skeletons and the huge sarcophagi. That alone is interesting to me, because it seems to indicate that Nito has some connection to the giants. What if, when the First Flame was divvying out Lord Souls, it chose a member to be representative of each of the major races? Gwyn represented the Lords, the Witch of Izalith was, well, the witches, and Nito was the representative of the giants. (And humans got squat because we’re all weird little Lord mutants anyway.) It doesn’t really add anything, but it might be some explanation as to why Nito chose the Tomb of the Giants to make his domain in. Or maybe it’s nothing.

So what is it that Nito does exactly? What’s his function and goals in the Dark Souls cosmology? From a rough glance, Nito appears to be the custodian of the closest thing Lordran has to an afterlife. It’s been noted elsewhere, bute an interesting detail about the Way of White is that it lacks any aspect of a life after death. The closest thing it has is the secret doctrine of ascension through the rite of kindling (which, incidentally, Nito also controls). Working from that, my guess is that the Way of White either has no afterlife at all, preaches that death is a reward, or has a very bleak, purgatory-like afterlife like the Jewish Sheol or Greek Hades. Outside of Lordran proper, this might take the shape of an spiritual afterlife, but it stems from the actual catacombs and Tomb of the Giants. People in Lordran would bring their dead to the catacombs and commend them to Nito’s care. With no real afterlife, physical remains might have been more important as they were all that was left of a person. Nito’s job was to watch the dead and make sure their corpses weren’t defiled, or at least that they didn’t leave the designated ‘land of the dead’.

Nito is also portrayed as death itself. If nothing else, his weapon is a big ol’ scythe like the Grim Reaper’s got. I think this is more of a mythical image built around Nito than his actual role. As the keeper of the Land of the Dead, he eventually became associated with death itself, becoming Lordran’s own version of the Grim Reaper. And if we’re assigning roles to the Lord Souls, then Nito is the keeper of the Death Soul. But what does that mean exactly? Is Nito directly responsible for death in the Dark Souls universe? Nito’s Lord Soul states that he ‘administers the death of all manner of being’, while the Gravelord Sword Dance states that Nito ‘quietly oversees all death’. So Nito himself does not do any actual psychopompery like the traditional Grim Reaper; he’s just the manager. He watches death from his tomb, able to see all across the world, and through the Eyes of Death, even across worlds.

But there’s a part of me that can’t help but wonder if maybe Nito really is Death itself, and he’s just... quit. Look at the state of Lordran; everything that dies normally has already died. The graveyards are overflowing. Corpses are everywhere. The last humans are Undead or some kind of mutant. Even the animals are more like zombies than living things. What would Death have to do in this world? There’s nothing it would be able to do. Death has failed. Nothing in this world dies properly anymore. So Death would just give up; retire, go dormant, call it quits. The universe of Dark Souls is so out of balance that even the Grim Reaper has run out and faded away. To quote the great man, “And with strange aeons, even death may die.” It’s more a romantic, poetic notion than an actual explanation as to what Nito does, but maybe that’s why I like it. Think of it as a mood-piece to describe why Nito is moping around in that giant coffin.

So I guess I’d be kind of skipping some important details if I talked about Nito being the general manager of death and I didn’t talk about how he actually administers death and watches over it i.e. the Gravelord Servants. Nito’s covenant trades in the Eye of Death. When I first read the description of the Eye of Death, I thought it was some massive apocalyptic event in Nito covenant, like an event horizon of death where everything would die and the cosmic cycle would be reset like the coming of the Dark. But then I realized; no, it really is just squishy eyeballs you pluck off black phantoms (and basilisks; we’ll get to the basilisks).

Mechanically, when a Gravelord Servant pops an eye, it causes black phantoms to appear on a neighboring world, with a black soul-sign leading back to the Gravelord Servant’s world. How I interpret this from a lore point of view is that the Gravelord Servant uses some kind of necromancy inherent to the Eye of Death as a component to essentially punch a hole through the Dark. Like I’ve talked about before, the Dark isn’t just a part of the cosmic cycle, but also an ominipresent force that separates worlds from one another. This hole gives black phantoms that inhabit the Dark, or maybe just wandering Darkwraithes, the opportunity to invade a world and dispense death indiscriminately. The resident of the disrupted the world can follow the ‘hole’ back to its origin through the black soul sign. If the Gravelord Servant can be killed, the effect of the Eye of Death wears off. If the Gravelord Servant wins, they claim the other Undead’s eye as an Eye of Death.

So why does Nito want the Eyes of Death? My theory is that Nito is an overseer of death, just like he’s described in his Lord Soul. But he wants to see more death, not just the death in his version of Lordran. Nito, beyond the other Lords, is aware that there are alternate worlds all around Lordran. The Eyes of Death show Nito the life, and subsequent death, of whoever they were pulled from. Undead in particular, who have died countless times, would be an endless source of fascination to Nito.

One last detail I want to talk about with Nito; miasma. In the Age of Ancients, Nito’s contribution in the war against the Everlasting Dragons was ‘a miasma of death and disease’. This is even reflected in the Gravelord Sword, which inflicts toxic damage. It’s hard to know just exactly how much damage this miasma actually did to the Everlasting Dragons, but the broader implication was that Nito, as Death, was necessary to finally bring death to entities that were neither alive or dead. Miasma is another name for ‘bad air’, stemming from the bad air theory of disease which predated our current germ theory. Bad air was carried on night winds, around corpses, in swamps, etc. and if breathed in, would cause sickness. It was kind of a step between germ theory and the idea that disease was caused by curses and evil spirits. Bad air is why plague doctors wore their famous masks, which contained perfume and herbs to create ‘good air’ to counteract the disease.

Asian countries had a very distinct relationship with miasma theory; namely, it was believe that southern Asian countries were rife with miasma, to such an extent that the Chinese Imperial court used to banish disgraced nobles to southern territories as a kind of death sentence. This belief probably stemmed from diseases like malaria and dysentery being more present in southern China. This idea would migrate from China to Japan, where miasma would be perceived of as a kind of poisonous gas in mysticism and medicine.

What’s that all got to do with Nito? Nothin’. Just a nifty fact. Interestingly, though, it’s not the first time the Souls series has used an outdated model of disease as a character point. Maiden Astraea in Demon’s Souls was called foul and unclean because she used disease and lived with the disease. In the Medieval European world view, disease was a curse from God or evil spirits, brought on by defying the will of Heaven. So Demon’s Souls had the spiritual theory of disease, and Dark Souls had the miasma theory. Who knows. Maybe if the Souls team keeps going in this direction they might make some other game that features medicine and sickness. Maybe something about blood borne diseases?

Nito, though, is not the only lord of the dead. He has competition; weak, weak competition. Lurking in a giant sarcophagus, Pinwheel jealously hordes the Rite of Kindling he stole from Nito. The proximity of Occult items and the presence of skeleton wheels in the Painted World of Ariamis implicate Pinwheel in the Occult Rebellion, possibly even as its instigator. I’ve considered the possibility that Nito stays in his coffin so much because he was weakened by Pinwheel in the Occult Rebellion, but there’s nothing to really back that up. Pinwheel did steal the Rite of Kindling, however, which itself raises all sorts of interesting questions.

I remember when I first encountered Pinwheel. I began forming all sorts of crazy theories about him and his place in the Dark Souls story. I thought that the statues all around The Catacombs were the leftovers of a lost civilization, the keepers of the dead under Nito. And that would make all the mini-Pinwheels in front of Nito’s barricaded tomb his priests! And Pinwheel was the renegade necromancer, who turned on his brothers!

But, nope. Tragic backstory. Lone man trying to bring back his wife and child. Wound up fusing with them to keep them alive. Those things in front of Nito’s tomb? Holograms. It’s always holograms. And the statues are just some Dungeons and Dragons-esque traps Pinwheel set up to keep people from disturbing his research. Which is still kind of cool. I guess. But it really seems counter-intuitive as, judging from all the skeletons hanging around his lab/sarcophagus, torture and experimentation are core to Pinwheel’s research. You’d think he’d want a bunch of Undead guinea pigs wandering into his clutches.

It actually took me a while to parse out why exactly Pinwheel wanted the Rite of Kindling. You have to kind of break it down into its core components to make any sense of it. In Dark Souls, Kindling refers to sacrificing Humanity to a Bonfire in order to make the Bonfire grow larger and, consequently, give an Undead more Estus. Now, let’s assume for a minute that Estus is an extension of the Bonfire; literally drinkable First Flame. (Which always conjured up images of mixed drink with Capri Sun and whiskey for me.) The First Flame, and therefore the Bonfire, are living things. When they are given Humanity, they are fed and able to grow. So, in essence, the Rite of Kindling is the ritual for transforming Humanity into life energy. I think what Pinwheel wanted out of the Rite of Kindling was that secret; how to turn Humanity into life. With that knowledge, he could use Humanity to resurrect himself and his family. When Undead, or really ANY given passerby came in (like, oh say, clerics from the Way of White), Pinwheel would capture them, torture them, dissect them, and try to surgically remove their Humanity for his experiments. That is what all the skeletons hanging around Pinwheel’s sarcophagus are; the poor bastards who wound up being fodder for his mad magic experiments.

Pinwheel’s not the only necromancer, of course. Around him in the Catacombs are these Undead necromancers animating skeletons willy nilly. It’s kind of hard to say where these guys came from or who they are. They only appear in the Catacombs before Pinwheel, so I like to think they’re connected to him somehow. Maybe they were his accomplices from the Occult Rebellion, and they’re still hiding out with their ringleader? Or maybe they’re Pinwheel’s students, who learned how to steal power from Nito with him, and now they make a ‘living’ underground. Or, maybe they’re just random Undead who went Hollow and raising skeletons is how they deal with it. Also they’re holding heads, which are also necromancer heads? But not Undead necromancer heads? It’s confusing.

But the rank and file of the dead are still good old fashioned skeletons. It’s kind of a shame that you can’t summon a skeleton for yourself, because they’re apparently pretty simple in construction as near as I can tell. Skeletons are not Undead; they might not even be entirely undead given their nature. They’re closer to constructs like golems as near as I can tell. The remains of dead humans (and giants) are infused with the animating energy of Soul, and act on the infuser’s will. It’s certainly also possible that they arise spontaneously whenever the world’s flow of Soul is out of balance. So, y’know, like in every Dark Souls game. The fact that we don’t see any ‘zombies’ i.e. undead constructs with fleshy bits on them, other than the undead dragons, is kind of interesting to me. It could indicate that the recently dead aren’t used for necromancy for some reason. Or maybe it indicates that there are no recently dead; again, everything in the world that can actually die did so long ago, and now all that’s left are Undead.

There’s a couple of notable skeletons I want to talk about. (Gonna’ savor that sentence for a minute. That sentence about talking about skeletons with people on the internet... Ok, ready to go.) First and foremost, everybody’s favorite rock and rollers, the Skeleton Wheels, or Bonewheel Skeletons depending on who you ask. How can you not love these guys? They’re so full of vive, so full of vigor, so full of such a lust for life. I mean they drift on their own wheels. You could make an AKIRA send-up poster of them. Anyway; my working theory is that these guys are creation of Pinwheel. First and foremost, they have the obvious ‘wheel’ connection to one another. Second, they’re only found in Lordran proper outside of Pinwheel’s lair. And third, their only other location is in the Painted World of Ariamis, along with other Occult artifacts, building off the idea that Pinwheel was a ringleader in the Occult Rebellion.

What I think is that Pinwheel got himself a surplus of skeletons, dead adventurers and such, and he started using the remains for experiments, just to see what he could do with them. It even shows you how he killed them; the breaking wheel was a medieval torture device used to break people’s limb, or to display them on after they’d already been killed. You might remember the giant baby man from Berserk using it, which hey! Also happens to have a bunch of resurrected corpses rolling around on torture wheels! So what if Pinwheel decided to put up some wheeled Undead or clerics as a warning? And then, for whatever reason, he decided to take it a step farther and his warning a little more lethal? And that blueprint for a kind of monster would stay embedded in Lordran’s necromantic lore long after Lordran stop being Lordran, which explains why Bonewheels appear in later games. (Well, aside from being series mascots, of course.)

The skeletal beasts are where that construct nature of the skeletons I was talking about earlier really makes itself apparent. They’re clearly the same creatures as the giant skeletons, but built wrong somehow, like they’re missing some bones and had to make do with what was left. Or like their arms and legs were mixed up and they’re just dealing with it as best they can. Doesn’t seemed to have dampened their mood at all. This guy’s still smiling about everything.

Finally, we’ve got these walking dead baby jokes. I’m gonna’ level with you, I have no idea what is up with the fetus skeletons. Why are they so deep in the Tomb of the Giants? You only encounter them in the one area right before Nito’s Tomb. The closest thing that comes to mind is how there were literal undead abortions in front of the Maiden Astraea in Demon’s Souls. Like the other residents of the Valley of Defilement, the aborted fetuses were thrown downriver with the shit and the garbage. Astraea cared for them as she cared for the other diseased residents in the Valley, and kept them close to her. Maybe it’s the same with Nito? A sentimental part of me likes to think that Nito had a soft spot for dead infants. They had so little life, and now an eternity of death. So he takes them under his care and watches over them in particular, always close to him. He really is Papa Nito after all.

So, sorry this lore rambling is coming at you so late. I started it right after my last one and then... kind of got a job there for a while. Which was exhausting. But, I’m back to my unemployed ways and hey! Spooky scary skeletons just in time for Halloween! Also, do yourself a favor and if you liked my lore rambling here, checking out my pal @invokingbees lore theories about Bloodborne!

[mybumpbirthandbeyond]

The Mental Game

With Maternal Mental Health week having just passed, I thought it was appropriate to discuss something people are sometimes uncomfortable talking about. With everything going on, the progress I’ve made, you would be forgiven for thinking I’m positive all the time. Not your fault for thinking that – that’s the image I portray because people are watching. I promised I would try and make people laugh, but it would be wrong of me not to be completely honest about all aspects of this. After all, I owe it to everyone, including myself, to be transparent throughout this journey.

There are low points in everyone’s journey to parenthood, especially mums’, and that’s without a physical battle. The reality is my body is broken, and every day I wish it would be fixed and yesterday.

The appearance of ‘putting a brave face on it’ is nothing new to me. When my dad died, that’s all I did. In school, at home, in public. My mum always spoke about that as we all did it, and no one more so than her - for our sake more than anything. However, as anyone who has done this knows, it’s exhausting. Trying to be positive, is exhausting and sometimes, just not always possible. I’ve joked about myself and had banter about my DRA, but the truth is, it’s not really funny, and sometimes it’s hard to find the positives. People can sympathise, but they can’t empathise. Do you know how many people I personally know with a DRA? None. Not a single person. Do you know how many people I’ve spoken to with one as bad as me? None. I follow people on Instagram who have had it worse, but I don’t know them.

It’s in a way ironic that I always thought I would ‘spring back.’ I’m sure for people who know me, I wasn’t the only one who thought that. That picture in my bikini that I posted is a stark reminder. I used to never put on weight. I would lose tone, but then a few gym sessions would sort that out. I was ‘lucky.’ It was my genetics – my sister is exactly the same. Isn’t it then some form of cruelty that those same genetics are probably to blame for what has happened? There’s no definitive research on this because no one can absolutely prove what causes it. There are some factors that can contribute, but other than genetics, I don’t tick any of those boxes.

This really is a rollercoaster ride which is probably obvious, but I’ll revisit that and explain what I mean. The highs and the lows are below.

The first thing I felt when I knew something was wrong was fear. The bath had been a place to relax when I was heavily pregnant; a sanctuary when I was in labour; and a place to heal when I was recovering. Despite that, when I realised my stomach had a mind of its own, and that when I touched it, my hand didn’t stop sinking, I was terrified. I didn’t even get to the point when I couldn’t go any further. It was a ‘bury my head in the sand,’ moment. I just stopped touching it and tried not to look at it. It surely would get better as the weeks went by.

The only time I have cried about it was that fateful day in November (although I may have teared up writing this...). I had been anxious before that physio appointment and I was right to be. Everything I feared played out in that appointment. Poor Lyndsey ended up being a psychologist that day, not the physio. The whole appointment was more or less talking and me swearing under my breath as I mentioned. I didn’t cry in front of anyone. I’m pretty sure no one would say if they saw me, I looked happy or positive, but I didn’t cry until I got to my car. I broke my heart until I could compose myself enough to drive home.

Since I’ve started making progress, it’s been a feeling of determination – to do all that I can and make the most of the opportunity  that I know I am so lucky to have, to work with an amazing team of physios who are doing all they can to help (including informal counselling).

Then it was feeling of being demotivated, with an indefinite timeline and no markers for progress other than my own gains in my ability to progress my exercises. Small wins. That’s not just physical either. I made jokes recently about being in pain and I’m not lying. No pain, no gain, right? My body is being pushed in ways I haven’t been able to for two years. The last session where I pushed myself to the limit was when I was in Dublin in 2018. It was the last week in July and I had been away every single week of July, with a wedding every weekend, including my sister’s. I had been to Belfast one week, Peterborough the next for a two-day work conference (6 hours of travel each way) and then Dublin. My body and mind were exhausted from constantly being on the go. I thought it was that, that made me feel crap that week. I went to the small gym in the hotel (the beautiful Mespil Hotel – highly recommend it) and hit it hard. I was doing sit ups on the slant bench as low as it would go (highest gradient) I was on a treadmill, push-ups the lot. Everything that I do now, that feels like an achievement, in one session. Two days after I returned from Dublin, we were at the Doctors and they told me I was pregnant.

But what if I told you, when I push myself the pain is not just physical? It’s mental. It’s getting over the ‘can I do this?’ ‘I can’t be bothered,’ ‘I’m sore all over.’ I’ve shared with my physios that I have now progressed to side planks and Russian twists. Wasn’t a big fan of any planks before now, but I did them. Russian twists, however, were always a go to with weights. They’re not even in my programme, but this is what I mean about the autonomy I’ve been given. I said to my husband I was thinking of doing it. He said, ‘I’m not sure,’ but I told him I wouldn’t use the weight. I did two sets – one with feet locked but I didn’t need them locked so then had them hovering. I filmed both and uploaded them to Dropbox for my physios. I looked back and there was very little doming. I did this at the end of my 10 press-ups (x2), planks, sit-ups. I had pushed myself hard as I do every time and it was perhaps a mistake to then do a high-level exercise (1 of 2 new ones I tried that night) at the end. I was cramping massively after it – to the point I was almost bent over double. When I laughed at something my husband said, I felt I could cry with the pain. This was an exercise I could do without thinking before. The reality that I find it that hard was sobering. The high of achieving it, marred by the recognition that I find this hard work.

The elation of the visible results that are materialising after all this hard work. Finally seeing what other people see and the overwhelming responses to it. This is a result of blood, sweat and not many tears.

A rare spark of hope that my tummy doesn’t seem to have the same mind of its own in the bath. Last night I had a night off. I’ve ended up being one of those people who has one day a week off the gym. Without meaning to, I’m pushing myself almost every night because the next part isn’t that far away. I want to be as strong as possible, remember? Then the crushing realisation when I touch it, nothing has changed. I’m not a physio (sometimes I feel like I talk like one given how often I hear what’s going on) and I rarely touch it because I don’t want to. I do when Antony asks me to check for doming – not much choice he can’t do it from Australia! But the hand keeps sinking, and the skin doesn’t move back into the place the way it should when you pinch it. The heavy lines across my abdomen remind me of the skin of an elephant. The sharp reality that this is the long game. This really will take years – I will spend years of my life like this until it can be fixed. I am living in a body that I don’t recognise, and that I don’t like. Doesn’t matter how much I have progressed, that’s just the reality of this situation. No amount of weights can give you the mental strength needed to deal with this on a daily basis for years. I could be doing all of this, and nothing will change from the point of view of the gap, tension etc. Not only that, but I will have to do this all over again, and again, until that day when I can truly say that this is fixed.

I’ve described this as a rollercoaster. I think what I’ve said has explained why - I don’t know how else to describe something that some days has tremendous highs, followed by plummeting lows. I’ve spoken publicly that this is how I consider this journey to be. The truth? I’m sometimes sick of the ride, and just really, really want to get off. As Carrie Underwood said – sometimes I just need a smoke break (look up the song ‘Smoke Break’ and you’ll see what I mean).

[jubesy]

Fated II - The Portrait

Sequel to Fated - also available on AO3. For everyone in the AkaFuri fandom. But especially for @m-and-a-artist ♥ Sorry I’ve been MIA XD

In the two years since Furihata had been moved into his lover’s mansion, he’d spent most of his time in the common areas. He liked to frequent the library and he’d eaten in both the guest and private dining rooms on several occasions, but other than his bedroom - more of a place to keep his tools, really - and the room he shared with Akashi, he hadn’t really taken a chance to explore the old house.

Because Akashi was a vampire - the leader of the Tokyo area vampires, to be precise - one might think that he would sleep during the day. However, because of his age and, what Furihata could only determine was ‘seniority,’ he hardly ever needed to take a rest.

But even century-old members of vampire royalty needed a nap from time to time and, on this very afternoon, Furihata found himself alone for the first time in months.

He thought about walking down to the library. He’d barely made a dent into the massive collection of literature and reference books. But, as he made his way toward the east wing, a strange sensation seemed to tug at his chest. 

Furihata paused, turning around and staring down the long, heavily furnished hallway. Something was calling him, beckoning. And, as if on their own, his feet carried him in the opposite direction.

He’d never been to the west wing. It wasn’t like he’d been forbidden. There were no enchanted household items telling him to stay away. But it had just never interested him before. Perhaps it was because he’d been adjusting to life in his new home. Or maybe it had been his nightly rounds keeping him too busy and leaving him tired during the day. But, whatever the reason, it didn’t matter now.

Now, all Furihata could think of was walking forward, toward whatever it was that was calling out to him.

(for mobile, continue reading here)

The west wing was a mirror image of the east. Sure, there were different pieces of furniture and trinkets atop them, but it more or less looked the same. Save for a door at the end of the hall.

Their master suite took up most of the east wing, so Furihata couldn’t imagine what type of room was there, so much farther from the staircase than their own double doors.

But he didn’t think about it long, for there it was again...the pull. He placed a hand over the silver locket he wore. It was silly to think that the necklace was floating, but that was certainly what it had felt like.

Furihata shook his head and walked toward the door, pausing when he finally reached it. It was open a crack. He lifted a hand, hesitating for a moment, before he pushed it open the rest of the way, the heavy door creaking on its hinges.

Inside, the room was dark. The east wing had been retrofitted with electricity decades before Furihata was born - well, his current incarnation, anyway - but this half of the mansion seemed to lack that modernization.

As luck would have it, Furihata found a large candlestick on a table just inside. And next to it, a box of matches. He knew how fate worked. How it controlled what seemed like every aspect of his life. So, he wasn’t surprised. Nothing surprised him anymore.

He lit the wick and blew out the match, letting the dim candlelight illuminate the room. It was rather narrow, almost more like another hallway than a room. He lifted the candle up higher, to get a better look. The walls were lined with portraits, though none of the subjects looked familiar to him.

However, when he reached the end of the long room, he recognized one. It was the largest of all the paintings, easily as tall as Furihata. And the woman portrayed there was the very same as the one hand-painted in his silver locket.

Just then, the door shut behind him, causing Furihata to nearly drop his candle.

He breathed deep and, not getting any of the usual signs that a vampire was nearby, he relaxed. He took one last look at the portrait before he made his way out of the room, extinguishing the candle at the exit and putting it back in its rightful place.

Furihata spent the rest of the afternoon in the library, but he couldn’t get the image of the woman out of his mind. Who was she? And why did both he and Akashi have paintings of her?

Curious, he decided that night at dinner, he’d ask.

As it turned out, Furihata needn’t have spent the hour before dinner thinking of ways to broach the subject. Because, the moment he sat down at the table, Akashi appeared in his own seat, his fingers steepled.

“You went into the west wing,” he said, no hint of anger or surprise in his tone.

“I did,” Furihata answered, sitting back as a member of the staff set a plate in front of him. “Was I not meant to?”

“This is your home. Our home,” he corrected. “You are free to go wherever you like.” He paused as the waiter filled his glass with a thick, dark liquid before bowing and giving them privacy. “You found my gallery.”

“Yes.” Furihata swallowed. “I wanted to speak to you about that.”

“Perhaps I should explain first.” Akashi toyed with the stem of his glass, his fangs protruding just past his lips. “It is customary that every Akashi have their portrait painted on their twenty-first birthday.”

Furihata furrowed his brow. He’d seen the images. There wasn’t a redhead among them.

“Including those married in,” Akashi added and suddenly, it clicked. Furihata knew who all of those people were.

“My...past lives?” he asked and Akashi nodded. 

Well, it made sense, he supposed. Akashi loved him, his soul. And he’d loved every one of his incarnations. Even if his focus was on Furihata now. But the one thing that was gnawing at the back of his mind was the largest portrait.

“And...” Furihata began, wetting his lips nervously. “The girl at the end of the hall?”

Akashi stiffened for a moment, his crimson eyes becoming clouded with a sadness Furihata had never seen him express before. “She’s...special.”

Furihata was taken aback. From the moment Akashi had found him in this lifetime, he’d professed his unyielding love. He’d never mentioned still harboring any feelings for Furihata’s past lives, because he was them and they were him. 

So, why was she different?

Was she his first? Is that why she was inside his locket? Or was she Akashi’s favorite? Would he have preferred--

“You’re thinking too much,” Akashi said, sounding a little amused.

“It’s hard not to think about it,” Furihata replied. “When I look nothing like her.” He swallowed. “She was beautiful. How can I compete?”

“Kouki.” Akashi was suddenly beside him. Damn his inhuman speed. “You’ve got it wrong,” he explained. “She is the most precious to me, yes. But I do not love her the way I love you.”

Love. Present tense. He still loved her, even now.

“Kouki, come with me.” Akashi offered his hand and Furihata took it, letting the vampire lead him out of the dining room, through the kitchen, and toward the back door.

The evening air was cool and crisp. Akashi led Furihata through the grass, his hand never releasing his. They crested a hill and paused. Down below was the Akashi Family Cemetery.

“Sei-”

“Please, Kouki,” he breathed. “I think it’s time you met her.”

Furihata took a shaky breath and then nodded, allowing himself to be led down the hill toward the gravestones. A few of the names looked familiar. Well, not familiar, but...it was hard to explain. Perhaps those names had once belonged to him.

But they’d passed those by, stopping instead in front of an angel statue.

“Here she is,” Akashi said, his hand trembling in Furihata’s hold. “My angel.”

Hesitantly, Furihata let go, kneeling down before the stone. And there, engraved in clean lettering, was a name: Akashi Angelique. And below that, it read: Beloved Daughter.

“She was so much like you,” Akashi said, voice wavering. “Beautiful, smart, stubborn.” He gave a watery laugh. “And when I lost you in that lifetime...she remained by my side,” he paused. “Until the illness took her from me, as well.”

Furihata didn’t know when he’d started crying, but he now found it impossible to stop. He was unable to remember any of his past lives, but this one in particular had caused Akashi so much pain.

“How?” Furihata croaked, throat raw. 

“Kouki?”

“How do you do it?” he asked. “How do you continue to live on, knowing the one you love will inevitably leave you?”

Akashi knelt down beside him, brushing away his tears with the pads of his thumbs. “Because I know that we will find each other again,” he said. “If I die, I won’t get to meet you.”

“It’s not fair,” Furihata sniffled. “I’ve hurt you so much.”

“No.” Akashi shook his head. “You could never hurt me. You nor our daughter.” He smiled, his crimson eyes wet. “Loving someone can be painful, but it is so worth it.”

“I’m sorry I can’t remember,” Furihata sobbed. “I’m sorry you’re alone.”

“I told you.” Akashi leaned close, pressing their foreheads together. “I’m not alone. Not when I have you.”

Furihata continued to cry, but he found new resolve. He vowed from that moment on to love Akashi like he deserved to be loved. He would give him his everything for as long as he could, until fate decided his time with him was over.

:’D

[suzanneshannon]

Cross-Cultural Design

When I first traveled to Japan as an exchange student in 2001, I lived in northern Kyoto, a block from the Kitayama subway station.

My first time using the train to get to my university was almost a disaster, even though it was only two subway stops away. I thought I had everything I needed to successfully make the trip. I double- and triple-checked that I had the correct change in one pocket and a computer printout of where I was supposed to go in the other. I was able to make it down into the station, but then I just stood at a ticket machine, dumbfounded, looking at all the flashing lights, buttons, and maps above my head (Fig 5.1). Everything was so impenetrable. I was overwhelmed by the architecture, the sounds, the signs, and the language.

Fig 5.1: Kyoto subway ticket machines—with many line maps and bilingual station names—can seem complicated, especially to newcomers.

My eyes craved something familiar—and there it was. The ticket machine had a small button that said English! I pushed it but became even more lost: the instructions were poorly translated, and anyway, they explained a system that I couldn’t use in the first place.

Guess what saved me? Two little old Japanese ladies. As they bought tickets, I casually looked over their shoulders to see how they were using the machines. First, they looked up at the map to find their desired destination. Then, they noted the fare written next to the station. Finally, they put some money into the machine, pushed the button that lit up with their correct fare, and out popped the tickets! Wow! I tried it myself after they left. And after a few tense moments, I got my ticket and headed through the gates to the train platform.

I pride myself on being a third-culture kid, meaning I was raised in a culture other than the country named on my passport. But even with a cultural upbringing in both Nigeria and the US, it was one of the first times I ever had to guess my way through a task with no previous reference points. And I did it!

Unfortunately, the same guesswork happens online a million times a day. People visit sites that offer them no cultural mental models or visual framework to fall back on, and they end up stumbling through links and pages. Effective visual systems can help eliminate that guesswork and uncertainty by creating layered sets of cues in the design and interface. Let’s look at a few core parts of these design systems and tease out how we can make them more culturally responsive and multifaceted.

Typography

If you work on the web, you deal with typography all the time. This isn’t a book about typography—others have written far more eloquently and technically on the subject. What I would like to do, however, is examine some of the ways culture and identity influence our perception of type and what typographic choices designers can make to help create rich cross-cultural experiences.

Stereotypography

I came across the word stereotypography a few years ago. Being African, I’m well aware of the way my continent is portrayed in Western media—a dirt-poor, rural monoculture with little in the way of technology, education, or urbanization. In the West, one of the most recognizable graphic markers for things African, tribal, or uncivilized (and no, they are not the same thing) is the typeface Neuland. Rob Giampietro calls it “the New Black Face,” a clever play on words. In an essay, he asks an important question:

How did [Neuland and Lithos] come to signify Africans and African-Americans, regardless of how a designer uses them, and regardless of the purpose for which their creators originally intended them? (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-01/)

From its release in 1923 and continued use through the 1940s in African-American-focused advertising, Neuland has carried heavy connotations and stereotypes of cheapness, ugliness, tribalism, and roughness. You see this even today. Neuland is used in posters for movies like Tarzan, Jurassic Park, and Jumanji—movies that are about jungles, wildness, and scary beasts lurking in the bush, all Western symbolism for the continent of Africa. Even MyFonts’ download page for Neuland (Fig 5.2) includes tags for “Africa,” “jungle fever,” and “primitive”—tags unconnected to anything else in the product besides that racist history.

Fig 5.2: On MyFonts, the Neuland typeface is tagged with “Africa”, “jungle fever”, and “primitive”, perpetuating an old and irrelevant typographic stereotype (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-02/).

Don’t make, use, or sell fonts this way. Here are some tips on how to avoid stereotypography when defining your digital experiences:

Be immediately suspicious of any typeface that “looks like” a culture or country. For example, so-called “wonton” or “chop-suey” fonts, whose visual style is thought to express “Asianness” or to suggest Chinese calligraphy, have long appeared on food cartons, signs, campaign websites, and even Abercrombie & Fitch T-shirts with racist caricatures of Asians (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-03/). Monotype’s website, where you can buy a version called Mandarin Regular (US$35), cringingly describes the typeface’s story as “an interpretation of artistically drawn Asian brush calligraphy” (Fig 5.3). Whether or not you immediately know its history, run away from any typeface that purports to represent an entire culture.

Fig 5.3: Fonts.com sells a typeface called Mandarin Regular with the following description: “The stylized Asian atmosphere is not created only by the forms of the figures but also by the very name of the typeface. A mandarin was a high official of the ancient Chinese empire” (https://ift.tt/2T4LppO).

Support type designers who are from the culture you are designing for. This might seem like it’s a difficult task, but the internet is a big place. I have found that, for clients who are sensitive to cultural issues, the inclusion of type designers’ names and backgrounds can be a powerful differentiator, even making its way into their branding packages as a point of pride.

The world wide webfont

Another common design tool you should consider is webfonts—fonts specifically designed for use on websites and apps. One of the main selling points of webfonts is that instead of putting text in images, clients can use live text on their sites, which is better for SEO and accessibility. They are simple to implement these days, a matter of adding a line of code or checking a box on a templating engine. The easiest way to get them on your site is by using a service like Google Fonts, Fontstand, or Adobe Fonts.

Or is it? That assumes those services are actually available to your users.

Google Fonts (and every other service using Google’s Developer API) is blocked in mainland China, which means that any of those nice free fonts you chose would simply not load (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-05/). You can work around this, but it also helps to have a fallback font—that’s what they’re for.

When you’re building your design system, why not take a few extra steps to define some webfonts that are visible in places with content blocks? Justfont is one of the first services focused on offering a wide range of Chinese webfonts (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-06/). They have both free and paid tiers of service, similar to Western font services. After setting up an account, you can grab whatever CSS and font-family information you need.

Multiple script systems

When your design work requires more than one script—for instance, a Korean typeface and a Latin typeface—your choices get much more difficult. Designs that incorporate more than one are called multiple script systems (multiscript systems for short). Combining them is an interesting design challenge, one that requires extra typographic sensitivity. Luckily, your multiscript choices will rarely appear on the same page together; you will usually be choosing fonts that work across the brand, not that work well next to one another visually.

Let’s take a look at an example of effective multiscript use. SurveyMonkey, an online survey and questionnaire tool, has their site localized into a variety of different languages (Fig 5.4). Take note of the headers, the structure of the text in the menu and buttons, and how both fonts feel like part of the same brand.

Fig 5.4: Compare the typographic choices in the Korean (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-07/) and US English (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-08/) versions of SurveyMonkey’s Take a Tour page. Do the header type and spacing retain the spirit of the brand while still accounting for typographic needs?

Some tips as you attempt to choose multiscript fonts for your project:

Inspect the overall weight and contrast level of the scripts. Take the time to examine how weight and contrast are used in the scripts you’re using. Find weights and sizes that give you a similar feel and give the page the right balance, regardless of the script.

Keep an eye on awkward script features. Character x-heights, descenders, ascenders, and spacing can throw off the overall brand effect. For instance, Japanese characters are always positioned within a grid with all characters designed to fit in squares of equal height and width. Standard Japanese typefaces also contain Latin characters, called romaji. Those Latin characters will, by default, be kerned according to that same grid pattern, often leaving their spacing awkward and ill-formed. Take the extra time to find a typeface that doesn’t have features that are awkward to work with.

Don’t automatically choose scripts based on superficial similarity. Initial impressions don’t always mean a typeface is the right one for your project. In an interview in the book Bi-Scriptual, Jeongmin Kwon, a typeface designer based in France, offers an example (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-09/). Nanum Myeongjo, a contemporary Hangul typeface, might at first glance look really similar to a seventeenth-century Latin old-style typeface—for instance, they both have angled serifs. However, Nanum Myeongjo was designed in 2008 with refined, modern strokes, whereas old-style typefaces were originally created centuries ago and echo handwritten letterforms (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-10/). Looking at the Google Fonts page for Nanum Myeongjo, though, none of that is clear (Fig 5.5). The page automatically generates a Latin Nn glyph in the top left of the page, instead of a more representative Hangul character sample. If I based my multiscript font choices on my initial reactions to that page, my pairings wouldn’t accurately capture the history and design of each typeface.

Fig 5.5: The Google Fonts page for Nanum Myeongjo shows a Latin character sample in the top left, rather than a more representative character sample.

Visual density

CSS can help you control visual density—how much text, image, and other content there is relative to the negative space on your page. As you read on, keep cultural variables in mind: different cultures value different levels of visual density.

Let’s compare what are commonly called CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) alphabets and Latin (English, French, Italian, etc.) alphabets. CJK alphabets have more complex characters, with shapes that are generally squarer than Latin letterforms. The glyphs also tend to be more detailed than Latin ones, resulting in a higher visual density.

Your instinct might be to create custom type sizes and line heights for each of your localized pages. That is a perfectly acceptable option, and if you are a typophile, it may drive you crazy not to do it. But I’m here to tell you that­ when adding CJK languages to a design system, you can update it to account for their visual density without ripping out a lot of your original CSS:

Choose a font size that is slightly larger for CJK characters, because of their density.

Choose a line height that gives you ample vertical space between each line of text (referred to as line-height in CSS).

Look at your Latin text in the same sizes and see if it still works.

Tweak them together to find a size that works well with both scripts.

The 2017 site for Typojanchi, the Korean Typography Biennale, follows this methodology (Fig 5.6). Both the English and Korean texts have a font-size of 1.25em, and a line-height of 1.5. The result? The English text takes up more space vertically, and the block of Korean text is visually denser, but both are readable and sit comfortably within the overall page design. It is useful to compare translated websites like this to see how CSS styling can be standardized across Latin and CJK pages.

Fig 5.6: The 2017 site for Typojanchi, the Korean Typography Biennale, shows differing visual density in action. It is useful to compare translated websites like this to see how CSS styling can be standardized across Latin and CJK pages (https://ift.tt/2T2Emhi).

Text expansion factors

Expansion factors calculate how long strings of text will be in different languages. They use either a decimal (1.8) or a percentage (180%) to calculate the length of a text string in English versus a different language. Of course, letter-spacing depends on the actual word or phrase, but think of them as a very rough way to anticipate space for text when it gets translated.

Using expansion factors is best when planning for microcopy, calls to action, and menus, rather than long-form content like articles or blog posts that can freely expand down the page. The Salesforce Lightning Design System offers a detailed expansion-factor table to help designers roughly calculate space requirements for other languages in a UI (Fig 5.7).

Fig 5.7: This expansion-factor table from Salesforce lets designers and developers estimate the amount of text that will exist in different languages. Though dependent on the actual words, such calculations can give you a benchmark to design with content in mind (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-12/).

But wait! Like everything in cross-cultural design, nothing is ever that simple. Japanese, for example, has three scripts: Kanji, for characters of Chinese origin, hiragana, for words and sounds that are not represented in kanji, and katakana, for words borrowed from other languages.

The follow button is a core part of the Twitter experience. It has six characters in English (“Follow”) and four in Japanese (フォロー), but the Japanese version is twenty percent longer because it is in katakana, and those characters take up more space than kanji (Fig 5.8). Expansion tables can struggle to accommodate the complex diversity of human scripts and languages, so don’t look to them as a one-stop or infallible solution.

Fig 5.8: On Twitter, expansion is clearly visible: the English “Follow” button text comes in at about 47 pixels wide, while the Japanese text comes in at 60 pixels wide.

Here are a few things you can do keep expansion factors in mind as you design:

Generate dummy text in different languages for your design comps. Of course, you should make sure your text doesn’t contain any unintentional swearwords or improper language, but tools like Foreign Ipsum are a good place to start getting your head around expansion factors (http://bkaprt.com/ccd/05-13/).

Leave extra space around buttons, menu items, and other microcopy. As well as being general good practice in responsive design, this allows you to account for how text in your target languages expands.

Make sure your components are expandable. Stay away from assigning a fixed width to your UI elements unless it’s unavoidable.

Let longer text strings wrap to a second line. Just ensure that text is aligned correctly and is easy to scan.

Cross-Cultural Design published first on https://deskbysnafu.tumblr.com/