#he's like “yeah I think samurai are super cool and awesome” and you go “oh so do you like The Steel Samurai?”

[ectoplaasm]

Idk if u have talked abt this or if u have been asked brfore , but where do you stand on the "simon blackquill is a steel samurai fan" vs "simon blackquill is a steel samurai hater " debate

I'm getting through this backlog I promise but I'm gonna be slow

Funnily enough, around the time you asked this I had just written this part into a very, very long vacation fic:

Hot take but I feel in my heart he rolls his eyes over the figurine in Edgeworth's office because "IT'S NOT ACCURATE TO THE TIMES" and "WHAT THE DEVIL DOES 'NEO OLDE TOKYO' EVEN ENTAIL??"

[kittydemon9000]

Okay so once again, 3 am thoughts have gifted me with yet another au. It is by no means original but screw it: SmithSwap

The only things I’m switching is their ages, so now Nya is the older one, but it. Gets. Fun.

For specifics, as of the Pilots/S1 Nya is 15 and Kai is 11, because I want bebe kai

Now, prior to Wu showing up, it’s pretty much the same as canon only with roles reversed. Nya mostly runs the shop while Kai is trying to everything he can to make things easier for his big sister, and I mean everything. The only one Nya doesn’t stop him from doing is cooking because Kai is the better chef, though neither can figure out why. Nya also likes to tell Kai stories of their parents since he can’t remember them too well, much to his disappointment.

ANYWAY, Wu shows up, Kai gets upset he’s insulting his sister’s work, then Skulkin show up. Kai does get snatched, much to Nya worry and canon continues.

Okay but also tiny spinoff, it also would’ve been hilarious if Nya still got kidnapped because then when the guys meet Kai they’d be like “who is this sassy lost child?”

So then while Nya’s training, I’m actually going to say what happened when Kai is captured.

You see, a side affect of being really freaking old is that your perception of time changes, specifically how long periods seem shorter. Garmadon decided that because of the prophecy it would be best to snatch the Master of Fire, who he thought would be Ray.

So you can imagine his surprise when his Skulkin bring in a kicking, screaming 11 year old child.

He is, understandably, not happy and very confused.

He sends the Skulkin away and tries his best talking with Kai. Like, as little malice as he can in a gentle voice, and he actually learns a few things. 1) both Ray and Maya went missing years ago, 2) these kids have no idea about anything regarding the Elemental Masters, 3) Kai’s sister has been raising him since their parents went missing, and she’s only four years older than him

Understandably, he is concerned, but also sees this as an opportunity. If he raises the Master of Fire to be loyal to him, then he’ll never want to fulfill his role in the prophecy, thus ensuring his victory. also he really misses lloyd and now when he returns he’ll have two kids!!! how amazing is that

So yeah Kai’s stay in the Underworld isn’t that bad. This Garmadon guy is pretty nice, tells him awesome stories about his parents, teaches him a bunch of things(mostly how to fight), and really just acts like the paternal figure he never had(Garmadad is canon, no matter what form you can fight me on this). The only part that sucks in Samukai, but he’s just a jerk and Garmadon makes sure he’ll never actually do anything to hurt him. He does miss Nya a lot though.

Anyway back with Nya and the guys.

They don’t actually know the exact reason why she was here at the beginning. All they know was that Wu originally left for the Master of Fire and came back with her instead. They know she has a brother, but aren’t quite sure how he falls into it.

They learn her full story the night they’re heading to the Temple of Fire, at which when they’re winding down Zane brings up how she never actually told them how she met Wu.

They are very concerned when they find out the whole story and swear they’ll help her get him back, which is nice.

Then she sees Kai But Actually Garmadon, follows, and bam Sword of Fire time. She isn’t able to fully use it, but she’s able to get a few sparks. However, things then start to take a turn for the worst.

Kai is actually here, very confused why Garmadon’s having him tied to the ceiling, but hey Nya’s here! But then oh no he then realizes that Garmadon is the bad guy, which gets him upset and more then a little betrayed.

Seeing him hurt his sister, the one of raised him, actually has Kai pick up the sword and use his powers. Under normal circumstances, it probably wouldn’t have been bigger than a few sparks, however Kai has his big sister in danger, dealing with the betrayal of an almost father figure, holding the Sword of Fire, and being surrounded by his element.

So yeah. Not that small of a fire.

The guys and Wu are actually able to to witness the truly incredible fire blast he lets out from the camp, put two and two together, and start heading over. Wu didn’t follow Nya…..because plot and was the able to help them fight off the Skulkin.

Anyway, it’s more than enough to dissipate the shadows, however it also wakes up the dragon. Garmadon, who is sort of panicking because That Was Not Supposed To Happen, ends up scooping up an unconscious Kai and the Sword and retreating to the underworld, leaving behind a very pissed Nya and an equally pissed Fire Dragon.

But yeah, Nya deals with the dragon, they get the other ones and head to the Underworld with Wu this time, and he’s actually the reason they’re able to get past all the Skulkin. 

But yeah, Samukai gets vaporized and Garmadon about to leave when a feverish Kai makes his way in and begs Garmadon to not do it and that they can fix things.

And Garmadon….actually pauses for a second and you can see the conflict in his eyes before he shakes his head and says “there’s no going back for me” and walks through. Kai then collapses and the end up heading back home.

As for what’s up with Kai, who would’ve guessed tapping into a kind of power you aren’t supposed to have access to yet in a high stress situation would be bad for the body. He has a really bad fever but he’s fine after a few days.

The few month timeskip in between the Pilots and S1 is mostly spent training Kai, so they have quite a bit less free time. However when S1 starts and Kai hears about Lord Garmadon, he actually wants to check it out himself first.

So yeah, he meets Lloyd by himself and it actually doesn’t go that badly. Kai actually buys some candy for them to share and they leave the town, and Kai actually starts talking with him. Eventually the topic comes up about Garmadon and Kai gives a rough basis about how he sort of got kidnapped, and then his work in progress plan of making him good again. Lloyd is completely down with seeing his dad again and says how they could probably get his dads attention if their got their own evil army.

And because they’re both stupid kids, neither of which have had parents before, Kai thinks it’s a great idea.

So yeah. That’s why they find the Serpentine here.

Ofc, it isn’t a right away type thing. It takes them about a month before they find the Hypnobrai Tomb, and Kai just plays off all his time spent out as him having made a friend, which they can’t exactly argue with.

Ofc, canon still happens and when Kai was busy training Lloyd ended up finding the tomb and releasing the Serpentine, and they do their regular Canon Nonsense. 

However, Kai is not too happy about the whole Attack Villages things and after a bit comes clean to the ninja about their original plan. They very much aren’t happy, but admit his heart was in the right place and they doubt he’d pull something like this again.

Fast-forward a bit more, Kai is mostly chill with Zane’s “weirdness” and unfortunately stays home when the Hypnobrai burn down the Monestary. It’s only because the dragons were able to get out and protect him that he was still alive. Nya’s actually the one who yells at Zane this time around because again. Kai almost died, but it’s all cool later and they find the Bounty :D

Anyway, Canon again continues. Kai is still really good with the dragons and is a little upset they need to leave. He also gets along really well with Ed and Edna. Then when Lloyd joins Kai is a little….well he doesn’t hate him but he does spend a while avoiding him.

Eventually Nya has enough of their dancing around each other and locks them both in the same room so they can talk it out. Turns out the reason Kai was avoiding him was because Lloyd’s betrayal really hurt since they were supposed to do it to find Garmadon, not hurt people. They have a tearful apology, then Kai learns how much of a jerk the Serpentine were and is like “the next time I see any I’ll protect you, since you’re like my little brother and as a big brother it’s my job to keep you safe”

Now it’s Samurai Time :)

You see, this time around Kai has double reasons for being the Samurai. 1) Yeah, he hates being left behind and wants to be involved but also 2) he wants to keep his big sister and big brothers safe

So yeah, that happens. He does think it’s pretty funny when they keep trying and failing to one up him though.

But then :) He gets captured with Lloyd :)))

So yeah, that sucks but it only gets worse because while Kai was able to “summon” his Samurai Mech, he had to send it off to get the ninja away. So that sucks.

Garmadon eventually shows up to help since the Serpentine stole both his kids, much to Nya’s chagrin.

Then comes the freaking Volcano Scene and this one is from Nya when she rescues Kai, then has to choose between Lloyd or the Fangblade. She ends up unlocking her True Potential by essentially leaving behind all negative feels she had for Lloyd and accepting him under her protection just like she did Kai.

The sheer torrent of water easily cools all the lava and thoroughly soaks them. But hey, even Kai has to admit being wet is better than being burnt alive. Also when the ninja start wondering aloud why the Samurai didn’t help Kai bashfully admits he was the Samurai, and this thoroughly impresses the ninja since Kai is like, 12 at this point.

Uhhhh, S2 isn’t too different. Kai is super happy that the dragons are back and is easily Ultra’s favorite. He isn’t hit with either Garms spell nor the Tomorrows Tea, but is there to comfort Lloyd and says that even though he got hit with some magic stuff Kai is still going to protect him since he’s still his older brother. On the Dark Island Kai is heartbroken Nya got corrupted and swears he’ll help fix her. When Garmadon gets purified Kai looses his shit and gets so excited since let’s goooooo not only is his dad not evil anymore they can go out in public together :DDDD

S3, also not too different. During the whole Love Triangle nonsense Kai’s just sitting there so confused. Also Pixal joins team Kai’s Older Siblings. Him getting captured was just him being at the wrong place wrong time. He has a really fun time time in space though, which was nice.

But uh. Then Zane hecking dies, which hits everyone really hard, especially Kai. Only this time, Nya ends up taking Kai back to Ignacia and opens up the forge again, pretty much cutting all contact with the other ninja, Wu and Garmadon. While it might’ve been boring and lonely, at least in Ignacia they were safe. 

Kai is…honestly really miserable, but hides it well. He can barely get up some mornings, but does so anyway since he’s desperately trying to act like things are normal, despite how Nya doesn’t talk very much. He misses the other ninja a lot, even Pixal despite not knowing her for very long, but doesn’t want to tell Nya since again, trying to make things normal again. Nya also doesn’t let him out of the house too often, only really if she’s there to watch him.

This routine goes on for about two months, until Lloyd shows up to try and get everyone back together. And Nya.....Nya doesn’t like that.

She and Lloyd end up having a bit of a passive aggressive argument that is progressively getting louder until Kai just. Snaps.

He yells at them to stop fighting, how they’re acting so horribly and that he wished things could go back to normal, how Zane wouldn’t want this and that he’d be disappointed in them.

The two visibly flinch.

Then Kai realizes exactly what he just said and who he said it to. And he runs.

Nya and Lloyd both spend some time in silence, mulling over what Kai just said because he was right. Zane would hate what’s become of the team and how they separated.

Nya ends up being the one to break the silence, asking Lloyd where and when to meet.

When Kai doesn’t return from the woods, she ends up leaving a note before she leaves, explaining where she’s going and how she’s sorry.

Meanwhile, Kai is having a slight breakdown in a Tree Base he made years ago.

But yeah, fast forward a bit and Kai’s getting ready to sneak onto Chen’s Island, but in a slightly different way than canon. Instead he takes a slightly experimental ship that’s basically a smaller Bounty which he calls the Destiny’s Wish. Think of the comparison like a Car vs a Go Cart. Comfortably, it can fit 2 people long term, but for quick trips can carry as many as 10, but it’ll be a tight fit and the Wish might have some trouble flying.

So yeah, he’s on his own and he doesn’t arrive until a few hours before the EMs all get dropped from the plane. Shade is actually the one to find him first, but has a moment of pause since Literal Child and gives Kai enough time to kick him into a tree and run. The whole chase actually lasts about two hours but unfortunately Kai isn’t able to get back to the Wish and gets caught.

Now for the fun part :)

So all the EMs(and I do mean all because he wanted to “thank them for their contribution”) are in the throne room, their powers snatched, when Chen said aloud “But it is such a shame that we don’t have the Master of Fire, the we’d be able to complete the spell.” and for the briefest second the Ninja Fam are relieved but then Chen does a whole “SIKE, WE GOT HIM” and has some of the guards bring Kai out.

The Ninja are, understandably, freaking out. The EMs kinda are too since Child but only a little bit and it’s not personal

But then just as Chen’s about to snatch his fire, Kai starts saying how Chen cheated since Kai never got to play in a match. Chen refutes it since His Game His Rules but then Kai says that age old statement to get siblings to do Stupid Shit: “What are you, scared?”

Chen is not scared, thank you very much. And you know what, since you’re so confident fine, you now get your own challenge!

So yeah, now Kai has his own challenge.

What is it you might ask?

A vertical obstacle course with a time limit. If Kai doesn’t grab the Jade Blade, the exit closes.

Not that bad you might think. After all, Kai’s been training with the ninja for the past year, he’s probably got this in the bag.

Yeah welllllllll, a little bird told might have told Chen that a certain Master of Fire couldn’t swim.....so he uses Nya’s power to gradually fill up the room and forcing him up.

Surprise surprise, it was rigged against him. I’m talking platforms having false bottoms, ladders being oiled, high pressure water jets to knock him off, the works.

Kai is so close to making it. So close..... but Chen can’t have that happen now can he :)

So yeah, Kai ends up falling in and Nya almost drags all the EMs into the water trying to get him.

Luckily it’s at that moment Lloyd bursts in with Garmadon, frees the EMs and gets Chen’s staff. The EMs bust out and just as Nya’s about to dive in the whole thing starts draining, like an enormous whirlpool.

You see Chen actually thought ahead and realized that “hey, if the kid dies he’ll loose his power” so he made a plan that when Kai was going to fall in, he would use one of the tubes that shot water but in verse and suck him in. Luckily he was able to pull it off before the gem was smashed because if not MMM.

So yeh, Kai is now captured, but still on the island. Skylor reluctantly copies his powers(she got sort of close with Nya and this is the little brother she was gushing about), and Anacondrai happens. However, the two are able to escape, Skylor’s actually able to figure out the Summon Dragon thing, and then they head back to the main group.

Then comes the inevitable question of “how did you get here anyway?” and then Kai shows them The Wish. He actually ends up flying back with Garmadon before all the EMs learn how to Summon Dragon so they can warn people about the ensuing danger.

So yeah, they head out, the Pythor thing happens, canon then Sad because Garm still needs to do the whole sacrifice thing D:

That one hits Lloyd and Kai really hard, but they both use each other for comfort so it isn’t as bad as it could’ve been.

But yeah, this is getting long so tbc for a part 2 :DDD

[nuttyjellyfishlover]

One Piece Anime Wano Arc Episodes 890

One Piece Anime: Wano Arc, Episodes 890 This honestly is less going to be a review and more of a commentary as I watch through the anime's rendition of the Wano arc. I've honestly never really watched too much of the One Pieceanime, mostly just looking up the highlights of the arcs I read in the manga. I did watch the filler episodes and most of the movies, as I've talked about at length recently. And everyone tells me that the anime has some rather terrible pacing, particularly around the time of Dressrossa, which is apparently pretty padded out. But then I heard the absolute opposite for Wano, where the anime has received a new art-style and one hell of a fancy makeover. And I thought... hey, I'm on a One Piece kick this year, clearly, so yeah, I think I'm going to give this a shot.

The Wano arc, I think, is one that works a lot better because it has the reverse problem of a lot of One Piece arcs -- there are a lot of moments in Act One of the manga's version of the story that the writer clearly purposefully threw in a couple of off-screened moments that the anime could expand into full action scenes. I already know that Sanji versus Page One is fully animated in the anime, and scenes like Big Mom vs. Kaido or Zoro vs. Basil Hawkins are extended a lot more than the couple of panels we had in the manga. And Wano's got a lot of supporting characters, some of which actually get swept under the rug when I first read through the manga chapters weekly. So yeah, having bright colours and voices and music is going to make this a much more fun experience!

Anyway, here goes my collection of random notes and commentary. Be aware that there will be MANGA SPOILERS, as I will point out a couple of things here and there about stuff I notice that's foreshadowing or whatever:

* Marco's blue-and-yellow phoenix form looks so, so much more vibrant and pops out compared to anything else in the series in colour, huh? I think out of any other character, Marco is extra-memorable in animated format. * That said, basically half this episode is just a recap of the Paramount War. I mean, I haven't seen the Paramount War in full animated format, so it's nice to hear Whitebeard and Ace and Marco speak some of their more famous lines there. But on the other hand, it's also it's kind of one of the more-criticized parts of the One Piece anime that any time they could pad out an episode with scenes from a previously-produced episode, they will. * We actually get to see the Grudge/Payback War in the anime! I think this is less of a showcase of events that actually happened and more of a symbolic one, but hey, we get to see Blackbeard doing some sky-quakes and black holes and Marco turning phoenix. It just shows the Whitebeard division commanders getting sucked into a giant Dragon-Ball-esque spirit bomb Black Hole. Actually pretty neat! * Jozu has both arms in that vision. Whether it's an error or a spoiler or if he has a prosthetic a la Akainu in Film: Z, we'll see eventually.

* This episode also has a bit of a recap of the revelations about Wano from the Zou arc, but it's a lot shorter and feels a lot more relevant to the upcoming arc. * Brook actually expresses some interest on Vivi, apparently having heard of her from the others. I've always liked this from the filler episodes, of the newer Straw Hats slowly learning about prior adventures. Brook being Brook, of course, a panty joke was tossed in. * The Japanese-art style water waves look so pretty when animated! * The random octopus that makes Japanese kabuki theater (?) sounds is another thing that works so much better in the anime. I've always thought it felt a bit forced and random in the manga version. * The high-tempo music when the Sunny sails into the koi waves is very, very fun! * Ah, yes, the very first chapter of Wano in the manga shows off a bunch of carps jumping up a waterfall. You know, considering the whole legend that a carp that jumps over the waterfall transforms into a dragon... i.e., a fish that is also a dragon...

* The first one that's properly and almost fully drawn in the new Wano art style! And it looks gorgeous. * Also a new theme song! I've never paid that much attention to theme songs in anime, but I definitely like "One Dream One Wish" more than "We're the Super Powers". Shame that, as with most anime, the opening sort of spoils, like, half of the things that happens in the arc. * Speaking of great background music... the tempo of that opening instrumental that Komurasaki plays on shamisen is pretty catchy, especially with that octopus going iyooo~ in the background. It also makes for very fun background music for Zoro's rampage at the end of the episode. * Anime Wano is so freaking colourful. The rooftops, the kimonos, the hair... I think I remembered reading that Oda made it a point to subvert the fact that everyone in feudal Japan had black hair by explicitly doing the opposite -- black hair is the exception rather than the norm in Wano. Fun! * The frog on Usopp's hat is a real frog! I always thought it was just a hat! It's adorable! The wiki tells me it's called Gama Pyonnosuke. It's an adorable friend! Forget Carrot or Kin'emon or Yamato, Gama Pyonnosuke for next Straw Hat! * The biggest expansion here is that we actually follow Zoro around as he wanders around the city until he gets arrested by the corrupt magistrate. And Zoro actually bumps into the man-slayer and corrupt magistrate, actually explaining why he recognizes the specific scent of blood during the whole seppuku court. * And then we get around a minute of Zoro fighting the magistrate guards with the seppuku knife and good ol' fisticuffs, something that I didn't think I needed, but is certainly very fun to watch! * This new animation studio loves the angled zoom-in into eyes, and I highly approve. I think we had that like at least three times when Zoro decides to get dangerous.

* I never quite realized that if Luffy hadn't been interrupted by the octopus and washed up next to the Thousand Sunny, the poor ship would be literally left to its own devices. You'd think after losing Merry, the Straw Hats would be more careful with their ships... * Zoro gets to slash the magistrates up even more! It's a single Tatsu Maki, but god damn what a pretty Tatsu Maki. The shot of his feet kicking and breaking the wooden floor, the black aura around his blades, the way that the dragon aura appears behind him, the demonic red eyes as Zoro slams down from the sky, and the shots of the surrounding terrain being cut up into cubes... pretty awesome! * Luffy dodging the bullet from the random Beast Pirate goon with Observation Haki and the gomu-gomu-long-range-bitchslap has always been cool in the manga, and this episode makes it even cooler. Those glowing eyes! This is going to be the whole commentary, isn't it? Just me commenting on the scenes I find to be really cool? * Luffy's Conqueror Haki against the giant baboon is another very cool one. From the expression to the delivery of the line to the sound effect... Luffy's expression is actually pretty cool and borderline scary as he beats up the second goon. No wonder Tama went straight into "This is the I surrender pose!" * Also added in the anime is a vignette of Franky, Robin and Usopp seeing the news of Zorojuro becoming a wanted criminal. Again, not entirely necessary to know the story, but actually scenes that I don't mind being shown to us. Particularly that scene of Usopp utterly bullshitting an officer. * Luffy pets Komachiyo with his rubber arms. Komachiyo is a good boy. This is the most important scene.

* Did the manga show Luffy hiding the Sunny and letting it anchor in a cave? I don't remember it. I know that before the flashback and the raid we see the Sunny there, but it's nice to actually show Luffy not being so callous with the Sunny. * They got a pretty good voice actress for Tama that really makes her pretty adorable! So many times these kid guest star characters end up being annoying if they don't get a good voice, but between the voice-acting and the expressions, she's pretty fun! * Also, I think this is going to be something I repeat a couple of times, but both Tama and Tenguyama are so much more visually interesting with their full colour palettes. * Oh, right, Drake was the one that ransacked Tama's village. Wonder if that'll actually come up later on in the story... * Okay, thanks to the anime, it's really going to drill to me that it's pronounced 'Diez Drake' and not 'Eks Drake'. * I'm pretty sure everyone noticed it, but Ace learned to weave hats in Wano! That's how he became buddies with Oars Junior! I didn't notice it until just now!

* (Episode is the Cidre Guild filler arc that ties in to Stampede.) * What is Tenguyama waiting for? It's probably Oden or his retainers, but I don't think he's part of the samurai that was recruited by Kin'emon's group. Maybe he just missed the big recruitment drive, but that's weird. I wonder what role he's going to play in the arc... * There is a random metal guitar riff when Luffy sees the Nidai Kitetsu. And a glow of Observation Haki on Luffy's eyes. That's a small detail, but very cool! He also uses Observation when Hawkins arrives later on. I love the little trail of glowing red that streams out of his pupils when he activates it. * Tenguyama's sword has a very cool leaf-based handguard! Never noticed that. * Speaking of cool Observation Haki effects, Zoro's apparently activates when he senses sake. Appropriate! * I know it's me repeating this over and over, and we'll get so many cooler scenes later on, but Zoro casually launching that Phoenix Cannon to blow up the two random raptor-riders when he saves Tsuru? Such a simple scene but still so cool. Also very cool is the very brief slo-mo as Zoro re-angles the pathway of his slice when cutting down the second random goon. * Unlike most of the other things, I've always noticed that Basil Hawkins has a very cool Koma-deer mount. It looks even cooler in motion!

* This is perhaps one of the more extended scenes, since it features... fight scenes! In the manga, I think this lasted... maybe half a chapter? Less? A couple of page spreads? It's not just the Hawkins fight, either, Luffy's 'swordfighting' with Nidai Kitetsu also gets extended. Luffy's a bit more successful in using the sword to block and parry here. * Luffy's voice actor really makes the 'de gozaru' sound really funny. * I 100% missed Tsuru the first time I read through this chapter since we only see part of her in a single panel before her full-body debut after the Hawkins fight, and it's a lot less likely that you'll make that mistake in the anime. * Some 'elite' goons show up here, including a guy that uses his ponytail as a whip against Zoro, and a dude that makes fissures with a hammer that fights Luffy. Probably feels a bit more filler-y compared to the rest of the action scenes, but that's honestly nitpicking. * Zoro launching a Phoenix Cannon that slashes Hawkins's face is very cool. * Hawkins' little straw dolls gets an extended scene of it crawling out of his arm. It's so creepy, I love it. * Hawkins' giant straw demon StandBankaigets an very cool summoning animation and it's so creepy. The skies darkens and everything. Most importantly, it makes noises! Again, I love it.

* Luffy and Zoro vs. Hawkins! It's extended beyond just the simple 'dodge, then one-shot-slash' that it was in the manga. I really like Hawkins and his creepy-ass Straw Stand, so I am a huge fan of this. We get a couple of nice juxtaposition shots of Hawkins and the straw monster. Also Zoro goes shirtless in the fight. That's an important detail! * I really, really love how Zoro is having a gritted-teeth expression as he fights the giant straw demon; the straw demon is going gakakakakakakaka like a lunatic... then we cut to Hawkins who has a deadpan, bored expression as he swings his sword in the distance. * The animators really like to let the straw monster use the nails entwined to the tips of its fingers. That's fun! Zoro backhand-blocking the nails from hitting Luffy and Tama? That's cool! * Zoro does Ichi-Gorilla-Ni-Gorilla at one point, and totally slices and 'kills' Hawkins a bunch of times. * Also, speaking of pretty, glowing-eyes motion shots, Zoro using Nigiri: Toro Samon? Yeah. The cut itself is cool, but the zoom-in on Zoro's eyes as he does so? I'm sorry, I have a weakness for that kind of shot, it appears. * To extend the fight so that it's not just a single exchange of blows, Komachiyo gets knocked to the ground so that Zoro and the straw demon can actually fight for a bit. * Also shots I have a weakness to? DBZ-style 'aftermath of a powerful move'. This one isn't too over-the-top, but the slash extending into the sky and the shockwave rippling out from where Zoro slices the strawman thing is cool. * We actually see the scene of Okiku being harassed by Urashima in chronological order, and Urashima scares off a customer. Also, the implied scene of Zoro scaring off Urashima is actually shown here.

* This episode kind of extends the scenes in Tsuru's shop a bit more. Not the most exciting thing, but it does really help to build up Tama, Tsuru and Kiku. * ...wait, Tsuru's shop just displays the Kozuki crest very, very evidently on its door awning. If simply speaking the Kozuki name alone is a punishable crime, how did they get away with that? * Zoro trying to get Luffy to adopt a Wano-ized name is extra-funny in the anime! * Speaking of extended fight scenes, Batman gets to shoot alotmore arrows at Luffy and Zoro. It's kind of over-the-top on Batman's part, if we're being honest, even if Zoro and Luffy very easily dispatches of them.

* The anime does give Batman the ability to control his arrows via sonic waves or something, but he lasted for a much, much longer time than he really should have. * Batman fucking blocks Luffy's Busoshoku-empowered punch! He most definitely doesn't do it in the manga, and sure, knocking Luffy down with sonic waves? I buy that. Blocking Luffy and causing a small explosion in the air? ...I'm pretty sure just some random Gifter isn't supposed to be able to do that. Unless they're thinking of the other Batman? * They make the initial shot of Holdem answering the phone with the lion face pretty intimidating! * Holdem's lion beating their shared balls is still one of the weirdest jokes in the manga. * Some really nice face shots in this one, from Tama to Holdem to the lion to Luffy's group.

* A pretty obvious extended filler is Urashima bullying other sumo wrestlers. Urashima is kind of a dipshit, so it's not a particularly enjoyable filler for me. * Zoro gets to sumo-wrestle with one of Urashima's goons! This one, on the other hand, is pretty fun. We also get a little added bit where Zoro smirks after remembering Kiku's earlier insistence that she's a samurai, so it's less of a 'he doesn't give a shit' and more 'he wants to see what Kiku's skill is' or something.

* Luffy vs. Urashima is prolonged a bit in here, obviously. Not as entertaining as fighting Hawkins or even Batman, but okay, sure. Lots of grunting and growling in this one. Urashima cheats a bit more, Luffy has to use Armament Haki at one point... really don't think Urashima's someone that you should bother using hardening on, Luffy. * The kabuki-style delivery of "I'm going to be the king of pirates" is very well done. * Poor Tama! Holdem's a jackass. * We actually get to see Urashima crashing into Holdem's house, in yet another obvious 'hey, anime team, this is something for you to animate' scene from the manga. * Law gets an extended scene with seeing the sick Bepo, including a Room/Scan showcase and Bepo looking cute and Law being unable to keep being angry at him.

* The fight against the pirates and samurai in Bakura Town gets extended a fair bit in this episode. Luffy throws Nidai Kitetsu's scabbard around again, repeating the thing he did before. * This episode noticeably has a bunch of brief flashbacks to previous episodes. Anime episodes do this all the time to easily eat up like, ten or fifteen seconds of runtime. But I felt this one was particularly noticeable since it's to the previous episode which we already had a recap segment of before the episode begun. * Ball-de-boo!

* We get an adorable crayon drawing memory when Luffy remembers Zunisha one-shotting Jack's fleet. * Luffy and Zoro's synchronized neck-crick is pretty fun. Also fun is their super-speed when they simultaneously rescue Tama and steal the food barge. The question is, where is this super-speed when they were bamboozled by Batman and Gazelleman? * Unlike the anime, Holdem is able to turn his sword into a flaming segmented sword. It's like Zabimaru from Bleach, but on fire! * We get an extra scene of a random goon holding Kiku hostage and Zoro locking eyes with her and saying "I'm not going to help you", knowing full well she's pretending to be a damsel in distress. * Speed also gets to do something here! She gets to shoot Armament Haki'd arrows at Zoro and Kiku! In the manga she doesn't do anything while this is happening. * REDDO HAAAAAWK! * God damn that's a very satisfying Red Hawk. Such a pretty-looking one! This was the scene that a friend showed me that got me excited to sit down and watch the Wano arc in anime format. From Holdem shooting a lion's fire (how does that work?) and engulfing Luffy, to Tama's yelling, to the zoom-in to Luffy's angry eyes, to the orb of flame dissipating, the zoom-in to Luffy's angry face, the impact, the music... it's just Luffy beating up Holdem, who means jack-all in the grand scheme of things, but what a badass Red Hawk.

And I think that's a neat place to stop off, with the initial Hawkins-Urashima-Holdem opening prologue to Wano done with. I'm not sure how often I'll update this little watch-along series, but I certainly am enjoying myself!

[gwenbrightly]

Ninjago Christmas Fic #1 - Decorations

Ahhh, it’s that time of year when I speed write Christmas fics because it’s fun! Crossposted from ffnet. Takes place after MOTO.

“Let’s see what everyone was able to snag for the monastery,” Lloyd suggested enthusiastically. Having never celebrated Christmas in the monastery of spinjitzu before, the ninja had been horrified to discover that Wu hadn’t thought to invest in decorations for the holiday season. Not prone to giving up easily, they had spent several days searching high and low for trees, wreaths, lights, and anything else they could get their hands on.

“Ma and pa sent some lights they swear still work properly. Left most of em outside. There’s also a bunch of garlands that look like they’re in pretty decent shape. Perks of living in a junkyard, I guess. And uh, I think this used to be an angel?” Jay stated, holding up a sparkly hunk of metal with appendages shaped vaguely like wings. He glanced sideways at it, trying to decide if it was worth keeping.  

“I… can try to fix it later, if you want?” offered Kai, “I got a lot of practice with metalworking while Nya and I were visiting mom and dad yesterday. And the whole remaking the Golden Weapons thing probably helps too, heheh.”

His sister rolled her eyes at his self satisfied smirk. Jay nodded, handing Kai the mangled decoration.  

“If you think she’s savable, go for it!”

“Speaking of mom and dad, they gave us a box of Christmas ornaments and some other stuff, too.” Nya added holding up the blue orb with swirly designs she’d just grabbed from the uppermost layer of the cardboard box she was kneeling next to.  

“We couldda brought some tinsel, too, but we decided it wouldn’t be a good idea after last year…” she continued. They all shuddered.  

“Dad convinced the tree farm that sponsors the Royal Blacksmiths to sell him a tree for super cheap. He said he’d drop it off in a little bit.” Cole informed them, not wanting to dwell on the incident.

“Dude! That’s awesome!” Exclaimed Lloyd, his eyes lighting up. The others smiled. They’d never been able to have a live tree before. Zane nodded in agreement.  

“Indeed. I’m sure it will look lovely in the living room. I managed to locate a wreath my father built. It’s made mostly from old gears, and I know that’s not very traditional, but I’d like to put it up somewhere. If you don’t mind?”

“Of course, Zane. I’m sure we can find a good place for it.” Cole assured his friend. He understood what it was like to miss a family member during this time of year.  

“Yeah. I mean this place is huge. We need all the decorations we can get!” Kai reminded them.

“We had better get started, then.” Pixal interjected, eager to finally be celebrating the holidays without being confined to a screen (or her wonderful soulmate’s head) this year.

“Heck yeah! So where should we start?” asked Nya. They glanced around at the heaps of miscellaneous decorations, considering their options.  

“Maybe we should tackle the lights outside first? I’d rather do that before it gets too cold out.” proposed Jay. Although it had not yet snowed, the weather had been growing increasingly colder.

“I vote yes to that idea. It’s usually better to test anything the Walkers give us as soon as possible to avoid unnecessary explosions. No offense, Jay.” Cole said, giving the master of lightning an apologetic grin. Jay punched his shoulder lightly.

“None taken. We do tend to end up with... Surprises pretty often when ma and pa gift us stuff.”

“Okay, then. Outside it is. Just… try to keep the dangerous hijinks to a minimum? I don’t wanna worry Uncle Wu.” Lloyd told them, heading for the front door.  

The next hour was spent watching Jay zap each strand of lights or light up decoration with his powers as he tested them to see if they worked, waiting for the inevitable explosion. Surprisingly, they made it through 5 whole strands, two light up snowman, and a reindeer before coming across their first exploding decoration. No one could be sure if the shattering of every single bulb on the rainbow strand of lights was due to Jay’s parents tampering with the wires, or the master of lightning himself sending too much electricity into it, but the display of rainbow colored shards flying through the air was impressive to say the least. After cleaning up their mess and testing the remaining decorations, the group began the actual decorating part of the process. Pixal and Zane wrapped lights around the columns that lined the entrance to the monastery, creating elaborate patterns. Cole and Jay worked together to lift an ornate sleigh complete with reindeer onto the roof via airjitzu. Meanwhile, Nya simply tried to keep Lloyd and Kai from killing each other with additional decorations. Seeing her brother wrap the green ninja in lights, she cried, “Kai no!” in exasperation.  

“Cmon, sis! You’ve gotta admit he’d make a great Christmas tree!” He defended, before launching into singing oh Lloydie tree, oh Lloydie tree, how lovely are your branches! And receiving dirty looks from his victim.  

“Listen to Nya, Kai.” Cole shouted from above them. The master of fire relented, muttering about how no one appreciated his brilliance as he unwound his brother. Their hard work was interrupted by the sounds of a (much less irritating) Christmas carol floating into the courtyard from just beyond the gate.

“We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas and a happy new year!” Sang Lou and his quartet as they lugged a ginormous tree inside.

“Hey, pop!” Cole greeted. He left the lofty heights of the roof, followed by Jay.

“Hello, son! You’re doing a lovely job with this place!”

“Thanks!” Jay said, “You just missed the explosion!”

“… The what?” Lou started.

“So, how was your drive?” Cole inquired, cutting him off. His father gave him a strange look, but didn’t push the topic further.

“It was fine. Building that driveway was a wonderful idea. I can’t imagine how much of a hassle it would’ve been to carry this thing up so many steps.” he answered.

“It really has made life easier for all of us.” Zane agreed.  

“This tree is beautiful! Thank you so much for hooking us up!” Added Lloyd, staring admiringly at their  

“It was no trouble, Lloyd.” Lou told him, smiling warmly.  

“Wanna come inside for some hot cocoa? We were about ready to take a break anyway.” offered Cole.

“I would love to, but unfortunately we need to get going. We have a concert at the hospital to attend. Can’t disappoint the kids, you know.” the older man replied regretfully. The master of earth shrugged. Christmas was always a busy time for the Royal Blacksmiths.  

“Okay. Next time, then. Break a leg, and thanks again!”

“Goodbye son!” Lou called as his companions burst into sing again.  

“Now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding, now bring us some figgy pudding and bring some right here!”

“What even is figgy pudding?” Lloyd wondered aloud.  

“No clue.” Kai shrugged.  

“Let’s get this bad boy inside.” Prompted Jay, rubbing his hands together and grinning in a way that was only a little bit maniacal. It took a fair amount of maneuvering, but they eventually managed to get the tree situated in the living room.  

“Wow, I hope we have enough ornaments for this thing.” Nya commented. The tree looked even bigger now that it was upright.  

“We’ll think of something if we don’t. Maybe we can just put Jay to work making paper snowflakes again.” Lloyd plotted.

“I’m down for that. I don’t get why you guys think I’m the only one who’s deserving of this honor, though.” said Jay. He had never quite understood why the others were so fascinated by his ability to make paper snowflakes with such ease.

“Because you’re better at it than we are and we like the way they look.” Nya stated simply, hanging the ornament she’d discovered earlier on the tree. Jay leaned over and kissed her cheek.

“Thanks, sweetie.”

Kai rolled his eyes at them and set about digging through the boxes looking for more ornaments. He pulled out anything that looked like it was still functional, tossing a few broken ones into the garbage.  

“This one is neat!”

“Oooh shiny!” Lloyd noted. He snatched the ornament from Kai before he could protest. The master of fire decided it wasn’t worth fighting and returned to his rummaging. Kai managed to protect a few of the ornaments from Lloyd’s watchful eye, sneaking them onto the tree when he wasn’t looking.  

“Wait… how did that get there?” Lloyd asked, finally noticing one of the extra sparkly ornaments Kai had hidden from him.  

“I swear Lloyd, you’re as bad as a cat when you get like this.” Nya told him, stifling a smile.  

“Like what?” he replied innocently. Cole watched Lloyd stare longingly at another ornament.  

“All oooh shiny every time you see something cool.”  

“Nah, I’m pretty sure that stems from having a dragon for a grandmother.” Lloyd reminded them.

“Hmmm that’s a good point.” Confirmed Zane.

“Kai, I am almost completely certain that Santa was not intended to be a part of this nativity!” Pixal scolded, frantically trying to prevent the master of fire from ruining the decoration he was currently setting out on the mantle.

“Well, he is now!” Kai retorted, not caring about historical accuracy. Pixal sighed loudly.

“Can we at least discuss fixing the sheep so they don’t look like they’re fighting to the death?”

“Gee, Pix! It’s not like they’re real,” he reminded her indignantly before smiling a devious smile, “Hmmm I should add one of Lloyd’s dragon figurines...”

“Kai no! That is the most horrible idea ever.” she protested, horrified.  

“What you call horrible I call brilliant!”

“Okaaay maybe it’s time for a break before Uncle Wu comes in here and questions our collective sanity again.” Lloyd said awkwardly pushing between the irate ninja and samurai.  

“There’s hot cocoa in the kitchen, remember?” added Nya.  

“Hmmm okay, sure. Hot cocoa does sound good.” Kai admitted (totally not planning on sneaking back later to mess with the nativity some more).  

“Yeah! Let’s go eat way too much whipped cream and marshmallows!” agreed Jay.  

“Looks like we’re off to another chaotic Christmas.” Lloyd commented to Nya as they headed for refreshments.  

“Yeah, but you know you love it.” She told him with a laugh. The blonde shrugged, saying,  

“I do. Somehow this never gets old.”

“That’s the magic of Christmas for you. Or… something like that, anyway. Now cmon, let’s get some hot coco before the others drink it all.”

[courtingstars]

Notes for The Vanishing Prince, Chapter Five

All right, here we go! Chapter Five has a bunch of stuff that I’ve been looking forward to include in the series for a loooong time. There were also a few surprises that popped up when I wrote it, particularly the revelation about this moment in KnB canon:

So yeah, if you were ever wondering how or why Bokushi came up with that idea, well… I guess I made up a theory about that? //nervous laughter Fair warning, it’s probably about as disturbing as you’d expect. And on that note…

Content Warning: A brief mention of the history of Japanese ritual suicide.

Cut for rambling about Japanese monsters and ghosts, the Akashi estate in Kyoto, the Akashi family crest, and various notes related to the Akashi family’s history…

Youkai and Japanese Ghosts

I like to think that the night scene in Gion is pretty much the moment when this series transforms into a Miyazaki movie. XD There are so many interesting monsters and ghosts in Japanese legends, you could spend a lifetime learning about them! But I figured I’d give a super-quick overview of the supernatural creatures that were featured in this scene. (Also, I definitely recommend yokai.com if you would like to learn about supernatural creatures from Japanese folklore. It’s an amazing resource with a lot of great illustrations!)

Youkai are basically mythical Japanese monsters. There are also yuurei, “vengeful ghosts” who used to be humans. These spirits can exhibit different characteristics and behaviors, depending on the legend. Youkai in particular are generally thought to live in the spirit world, a sort of parallel realm that humans can’t normally see.

The spirit Furihata sees at the shrine is meant to be a kitsune, a fox spirit. (Also my favorite youkai, because they’ve got that whole mythical shape-shifting trickster vibe. //laughs) Kitsune can appear as humans, often beautiful women. Sometimes they even marry humans, and aren’t revealed to be foxes until years later. Or they may lure a human into the spirit world, only for the person to come back and find out that a really long time has passed in the world of the living while they were gone. (There’s also some interesting historical stuff about fox spirits supposedly possessing people, usually young women, but I won’t go into that here!)

The first spirits Furihata sees on the bridge are two types of one-eyed youkai. The hitotsume-nyuudou generally looks like a priest, and can sometimes shape-shift to gigantic proportions. (There are famous stories about them from the Kyoto region, which is one reason I chose to include one in this scene!) Meanwhile, the childlike hitotsume-kozou are weaker, more mischievous youkai.  They appear dressed like little boys, and often have long very tongues. Some of them also have a preference for tofu, which seemed appropriate for this fic? //laughs

The blue flames Furihata sees on the bridge are probably hitodama, which are manifestations of dead people’s souls. This is why in Japanese ghost stories, ghosts are often portrayed as having blue flames floating around them. It’s a classic ghost trope, basically, which is why Furihata is so scared when he sees them. (Even though hitodama, unlike other types of “fireball youkai,” are generally pretty harmless!)

I also briefly mentioned a few more youkai, included the famous tanuki. The female spirit in kimono with the long, stretched-out neck is a rokurokubi. Finally, while I left it pretty vague, the spirit crouching in an alleyway is meant to be a “hungry ghost” or gaki. According to Buddhist beliefs, this is the soul of a person who has been condemned to suffer in the afterlife, often by experiencing extreme hunger or thirst. Believers sometimes leave offerings of various kinds for them, to help ease their suffering.

Supposedly, youkai often appear at twilight. I’ve also read stories where they appear on or underneath a bridge, so I thought that would be a cool element to include in the scene. Kyoto is a common setting for a lot of tales about youkai, although every area of Japan has fascinating myths about them.

“That’s Why I Like You So Much”

This was one of those parts where writing in English didn’t translate easily to a story about Japanese characters… I’m not fluent in Japanese (like, at all XD), but even with the little bit I know, it can get tricky to figure out how to show what a Japanese speaker would say/do in a situation, when it’s not quite what a Western English speaker might say/do? (It’s weird how much language can convey cultural standards, to the point that when you translate it directly, it doesn’t always make sense.)

So Furihata’s line when he’s half asleep would probably be something along the lines of “Dakara suki da”or “Dakara daisuki da.” (I’m leaving the exact line open to interpretation, because reasons? //laughs) In Japanese, when you’re interested in someone romantically, you generally say “I like you” or “Suki da.” (“Suki desu” is the more formal version, or you can also say “Suki da yo” to add emphasis.) So it has strong cultural associations with love confessions and crushes. “I really like you” or “Daisuki da” is a more intense version, closer to “I love you.” Some of the nuances of this are explained in this blog.

Either way, you’re still technically saying that you “like” someone. In fact, it’s the same way you’d say you like your favorite food, or you’re a fan of a certain hobby. Which is why the phrase could be kind of ambiguous, in theory… But attaching it to a person has definite connotations, which is why in the chapter, Akashi goes on to think this:

“He must have misheard, he told himself. The wording was somewhat odd, and out of place. Still, whatever Furihata had said, the emotion behind it seemed clear enough. It was the same simple, honest affection, that Akashi had come to recognize and treasure.”

(Oh, Oreshi. Your denial is so deep at this point? //laughs)

Anyway, this note is really just to point out that a lot of the time, I have no idea what I’m doing when I try to translate cultural norms between Japanese and English. XD; (Especially because I’m a clueless American with zero secondary language skills? //laughs) But it is something that occasionally factors into how I write a scene. I try to make sure that everything still makes sense for English speakers, but it can get kind of tricky when certain cultural things come up, and Akashi’s thought process here was one of those instances.

(On the other hand, it was a little easier to portray why Akashi and Furihata holding hands in public was an odd/uncomfortable experience for both of them… Even though in theory, the cultural reasons for it are a bit different/more complex in Japan compared to Western countries. But there was enough overlap there that I figured it still made sense?)

The Akashi Estate in Kyoto

It was so much fun to finally get to write about the Kyoto estate! It’s been a setting in this series before—mostly in The Fast Train to Kyoto—but those scenes were from Akashi’s perspective. Since it’s so familiar to him, he didn’t really go into detail about what the mansion looks like. I have a lot of headcanons about how the family estate developed… In my head, they used to live in more traditional-style buildings, but various heads of the family decided to update the estate over the years. The current building is a grand Western-style mansion, built by one of Akashi’s great grandfathers. I saved some photos to Pinterest for a general idea of what it looks like, including this and this.

I really wanted it to be a super fancy, over-the-top kind of place—and also visually different from the Akashi home in Tokyo. So it’s bigger and brighter, and the exterior is made of pale stone. Meanwhile, the Tokyo home is smaller and darker and the outside is made of red brick. Plus, the Kyoto residence includes a lot more land around it… Which will be covered in a future chapter!

I also enjoyed deciding what Akashi’s rooms would look like, compared to his rooms in Tokyo. Though to be honest, I see them as pretty similar, just bigger? //laughs The main difference is that instead of a canopy, his bed in Kyoto has a big fancy headboard with curtains built into the wall over it. (I got this idea while hunting for pictures of fancy beds online, no surprise there. XD) For an idea of what it looks like, this is pretty close to what I pictured in my head, but I also really liked this bed, and this is one of the most extra things I’ve ever seen. //laughs I also thought this room was awesome with the darker palette. I have a ton of photos like that on that Pinterest board, which brings me to…

This is probably as good a time as any to mention that I made a Pinterest board for The Vanishing Prince! It has LOTS of cool photos for pretty much every scene in the fic so far (and no spoilers, yay!), including ideas of what the interior of Akashi’s mansion might look like and some seriously GORGEOUS photos of the Gion district in Kyoto at night. There’s also some youkai illustrations and examples of samurai armor and kamon crests. Speaking of which…

The Akashi Kamon (or Family Crest)

Basically, a kamon is similar to the idea of heraldry/family crests in Western countries, in that a lot of Japanese families have one. This is especially true for powerful or “aristocratic” families that can trace their lineage back over many generations, so naturally, the Akashi family needed one! And let me tell you, I went on a JOURNEY to decide what theirs might look like? //laughs I researched a lot of different kamon designs, and while I had already decided it would include a chrysanthemum (the traditional crest of the Emperor and Imperial family, but sometimes incorporated into other family crests in different ways), I didn’t know what else should be in it. I toyed around with some different traditional motifs, like a peony or myouga ginger, but then I got a better idea…

Some of you may remember that a few years ago, there was a line of official Kuroko no Basuke merchandise that included traditional Japanese handicrafts and fabrics. What I liked most about it was the fabric they chose for each of the characters, because they all had some cool symbolism that matched the characters really well. I vaguely remembered that somebody posted about it here on Tumblr (here’s that post, which I dug up after the fact!), but I couldn’t remember what Akashi’s fabric meant. It’s a bit more intricate than everybody else’s because of course it is:

Even though I couldn’t remember what the pattern was, I figured it could be good to include in his family crest in some way? (Since flowers are often included in kamon.) So after some hunting, I figured out that his design includes bamboo and a phoenix flying over a Paulownia tree. The post I linked includes some more details about how these symbols are connected to the Emperor. Also, in Eastern mythology, phoenixes are believed to live in Paulownia trees. They’re believed to bring good fortune to rulers, which is probably why the Paulownia tree is so associated with royalty. Not surprisingly, the tree is also used frequently in Japanese crests—to the point that it’s even used in kamon for the Japanese government. Naturally, I thought the impressiveness of it would be a good fit for the Akashi family as well!

I drew a doodle of what the Akashi kamon in the fic looks like, something like this:

I’ll probably redraw it if I ever use it in actual fan art, but it gets the idea across! The kamon that I added to the Pinterest board includes some examples of how Paulownia trees and phoenixes have been included in other historical crests.

In any case, that’s how the Akashi kamon in this series ended up having a bunch of epic symbols in it! Which seemed appropriate, given the family it represents. XD (There’s also some hidden/secret significance in the design, specifically the part that appears to be two phoenix feathers… But I’ll probably end up going into that later!)

Akashi’s Family History

And now for the big revelation of the chapter… I’ve been wanting to explore the history of the Akashi family for a while, since it’s tied to some of the major themes of this series. The story Bokushi tells in this chapter is definitely meant to be more of a “family legend” than anything historical. But I did do some research on Japanese history, warfare, and legends to try to come up with a story that would fit culturally, while still having a “mythical” kind of feel to it.

I’ve mentioned before that my version of the Akashi family is meant to be a zaibatsu, which is basically a super powerful business family. Their influence tends to get exaggerated in fictional settings like Kuroko no Basuke—in reality, the zaibatsu don’t exist to that degree anymore—and my fic does this as well. It also adds a bit of a twist: before becoming successful in trade and finance, the Akashi family began as a clan of feudal lords.

Feudal Japan was partially governed by local lords called daimyos—who could be descended from the nobility, but weren’t always—and these lords ended up having a lot of power during certain time periods. This could be especially true if they were skilled in warfare and/or employed a lot of samurai. So in the story Bokushi tells, the Akashis were essentially a daimyo family who tried to become even more powerful, and then failed in a really tragic way.

I think most people know the basics about samurai armor, katana swords, and so on, so I won’t really go into those topics…. I did include several examples of samurai armor and weapons over on the Pinterest board I made, so you can get an idea of what the display room in this chapter looks like. (Or you can always google “samurai armor,” that works too! XD) Visors on samurai helmets were sometimes stylized like youkai monsters, to make them appear more intimidating on the battlefield. The Akashi family story also involves an allusion to ritual or “honor” suicide, though the circumstances are different from most samurai stories. (It was meant to show that the Akashi clan’s idea of shame in defeat was much more severe than most.) Since it was such a brief part of the chapter, I won’t discuss the history of ritual suicide in Japan, but it’s easily researchable online. (And as I’m sure most people know, the process is very graphic/disturbing, so please be aware of that.)

As for what inspired the Akashi story, I’m tempted to go on a long tangent here about how Kuroko no Basuke’s overall plot structure takes a lot of cues from samurai tales and Japanese action movies, to the point that this is an ACTUAL MOMENT from the show that I totally forgot about:

(Seriously, a million points to anyone who remembers which two characters were facing off during this moment??? Because I would have gotten one of them wrong for sure. Which actually ties into my point about the structure pretty well. XD)

Anyway, point being, I was definitely inspired by the nods to the Japanese warrior mythos in KnB to include more direct allusions in Akashi’s backstory—and to play around with how that history might have affected his family’s perspective on honor, victory, and defeat.

(I’d also like to note that the way Bokushi says the infamous line about his eyes in KnB canon has a key difference from the way Lord Akashi uses it in the legend… While it’s still emotional manipulation being used as motivation, Bokushi also uses it as a way to say that he’ll take all the blame for a defeat on himself, after intentionally making a shot for the other team. In other words, Bokushi is only holding himself to the Akashi standard. He wouldn’t blame his team for having to give up his eyes the way Lord Akashi blamed his son, because he doesn’t see them as bearing the same level of responsibility—even though he IS extending them the same level of trust, and complete confidence in their abilities. From Bokushi’s point of view, this is all totally obvious—even though it wouldn’t be to everyone else. To me, the distinction is pretty important to my interpretation of his character. But your mileage may vary, of course!)

And A Quick Note on Bokushi’s Theory

Finally, since this story has been exploring Akashi’s mental health, I just wanted to mention something about this line:

“In many ways, the tale had defined him all his life. It had taught him what it truly took to succeed. It was largely inseparable, from his sense of self. Perhaps in a certain sense, it had even caused it.”

Since I’m trying to be as careful as I can with how I portray dissociation, I want to clarify that this isn’t meant to be an explanation for how Akashi developed Dissociation Identity Disorder. Instead, this line is Bokushi’s theory about how/why he developed his personality traits, in comparison to his other self. It’s definitely an oversimplification, since there are many reasons why he behaves the way he does, the same as it is for anyone… But I think it makes sense for Bokushi to point to this family legend, which was told to Akashi at a very formative point in his childhood, as a way to explain his general worldview and priorities.

The question of why Akashi developed more than one self state is more complicated, and will be explored throughout the fic, rather than having one simple, straightforward explanation like this.

Well, that’s it for my notes! To anyone who read all the way through them, I’m very impressed. XD I really was excited to post this chapter—and I hope it was interesting and enjoyable to read in spite of (or because of?) how intense it was. Thank you as always for reading, and I hope to post the next chapter as soon as I can. <3 (It’s already drafted and once again, I’m SO EXCITED. I have a feeling I’ll be saying that a lot for this fic? //laughs)

[keyofjetwolf]

The Chosen: All the notes and answers to shit you wondered about for years

Hey. Hi there. How are you? I’m good, thanks for asking.

So, you remember when, at the beginning of the year, I said I was officially retiring my Buffy the Vampire Slayer continuation, The Chosen? If this is the first you’re hearing of it, a) SORRY TO DROP THAT ON YOU, and b) you may want to read this post first.

All caught up? Awesome.

I told you guys I’d share my stuff. This right here is that. I’ve searched through countless backups, terabytes of data, the remnants of three computers, AND MY SOUL (not really my soul; it doesn’t have a convenient find option), and I think this is everything. If there’s anything left of The Chosen that isn’t contained here, then it’s almost certainly lost to time and I wave it a fond farewell.

But don’t worry. There’s a lot here.

What I have for you are all the notes, plans, and ideas that I had written during the time when The Chosen was pretty much my entire world. From late 2003 to mid 2005, I was on my Buffy creative shit, and OH THE PLACES I WANTED TO GO. I’m not sure I’ll ever not be sad that, in the end, I couldn’t do it the way I wanted. Still, I’m glad to finally be showing you where we were heading.

I’ll try to give this as much order as I can, but my notes were strewn across a mass of files, and in some cases, I straight up can’t remember what the fuck I even meant any more. Feel free to ask if you have questions! Just be prepared that the answer may have to be an apologetic shrug.

I’m not sure what to wish for you all in the reading here. Closure, of some kind, I suppose is what we’re really all after. So closure it is! Happy closing, friends.

Thank you so much for allowing me to have captured your interest and attention, and for accompanying me and these characters I loved on the journey toward the ending I hoped for them.

** Any comments from present-me will be marked in this format. Otherwise, everything is untouched from how I wrote it whenever-the-fuck ago. Section headers are either as I named them at the time, or taken from the file name.

S8 Ideas

General Ideas

Rogue Slayer girl ' 'Full Circle'; Faith-centric.

Possessing demons ' personification of control ' W&K breakup episode.

Xander gets powers, but in exchange for his humanity. Comes to realize that his humanity is what his friends need, and he gives up the power.

Dawn's key powers are reawakened ' ability to unlock and enter doorways to parallel dimensions/realities and back again. Episode where this happens and she visits a parallel world (where she is the Slayer?). Possibly triggered by Doc, seeking to reawaken Glory?

Monster that eats body parts to rejuvenate them.

Emotion sucker.

Incubus that tries to seduce Buffy in her dreams.

Siren/rock group ' playing in club.

Faith/Buffy/other Slayers hunted for sport.

Super Slayer, enhanced by the DC. Big Bad? Guinea pig.

Legion of Super Slayers, created from life force of girls who reject the offer to join the DC.

Things to Name and Figure Out

The name of the new town.

New town is in center of three-Hellmouth triangle, consisting of Cleveland, Ohio, Syracuse, NY, and Washington DC. The gang is settled in a fictitious town in Pennsylvania, not far from Williamsport.

Name derived from three? Trinity, Trillium, etc.

The name of the Bronze replacement. (The Vortex?)

The name (and personality) of Kennedy's new Watcher.

The name (and personality) of the turncoat (the girl Giles talks to in Ep #1)

The name (and personality) of the girl Faith recruits (future cannon fodder)

Better name for the Dark Council.

Better name for the Dark Coven.

Assorted Ideas and Quotes

Scene: Someone shopping at a local bulk warehouse place. How much to Slayers eat? A LOT.

Possible use for the drug from "Helpless" that neutralizes Slayer powers?

Scene: Junior Slayers fighting monster. One says "You ARE the weakest link... Goodbye!" The others make fun of her for using such an outdated pop culture reference. She pouts that they should add a class about banter to the Slayer curriculum.

QUOTE: "D'you ever think sometime we should, you know, run AWAY from the blood curdling screams?"

QUOTE: Buffy doubts Tara's return. Willow: "What, you hold exclusive resurrection rights?"

QUOTE: Tara and Dark Coven guy. Tara: "She'll kill me. After I do this...Buffy will kill me." DC: "After you do this, will you care?"

QUOTE: "Excessive? I think you and excessive have already met in a head-on collision and exchanged insurance information."

QUOTE: Tara talking about doing stuff with Dawn: "You know, shopping, getting our hair done ... girl things." Willow: "I like your girl things."

QUOTE: Someone's sick, but denying it. They cough, get an accusing glance. "I just have something stuck in my throat." "Yeah, it's called ILLNESS."

QUOTE: Faith to somebody, possibly a young Slayer, who goes on at length about what they're going to do to a bad guy or deal with some serious challenge or something similar. "You're full of crap, you've got no idea what you're talking about. (beat) But you mean what you say, so that's gotta count for something."

Notes

1st ep

fate of SS's

Dawn's powers

X taking Watcher's courses

G distancing

W going to grad school

B/T going back to school

prophecy bits

G gets ring

Buffy bit - blood

Ante released

Season 9 Ideas

based on 7 samurai - group of people want to come in and hire the seven to clean something out

something happens where buffy or dawn disappears and the other goes to find them

core four have notoriety as evil forces (four horsemen) with some other community

sdhs reunion episode

"Demon that draws strength from guilt, hate, love, etc. Especially bad if it gets hold of Faith..."

---

I had a really cool thought about Buffy and relationships while I was in there though, which I think I'll have to work into The Chosen.

A common thread in each of her big relationships (Angel, Riley, Spike) is that when she tells them she loves them, they don't believe her.

Well Angel does, but he doesn't think she loves him enough. When he leaves, it's despite her telling him over and over that she loves him enough that him being a vampire and them not being able to do "normal" things doesn't matter. He doesn't believe her, and so leaves.

Riley tells Buffy during their big pre-him-leaving fight, that when she says she loves him, he "doesn't feel it". His disbelief in her and her words causes him to leave.

Then there's Spike. Final episode, Buffy finally tells him that she loves him. "No you don't. But thanks for saying it." And then he dies.

At this point in Buffy's life, there are a lot of reasons why Buffy wouldn't want a relationship in my opinion. But not the least of which is the fact that she MUST be able to answer the question of why none of these guys she loves ever believe her? (Even if you don't think she did love Spike, to Buffy I doubt that would matter -- HE didn't believe her EITHER [and how dare he not believe me, by the way!]).

It's a concept I just managed to sort out (in the shower, of course), and I don't think it's an "obvious" connection, but I do think it's an extremely valid one. I think before I'm done, I'll have to work this into the story somehow. And not resolve it, because I don't think it's easily resolved, and I think it's an issue outside the scope of what I'm trying to do, but I think the issue should be raised.

Season 9 Episode Ideas

Episode where everybody speaks in rhymes. Possible reintroduction for Faerie character?

De-aging episode, Giles' 50th birthday. Courtesy of Ethan Rayne. ("Many Happy Returns"?) Zaps Giles, Willow, Buffy and Xander back to four or five or so, leaving Tara, Faith and Dawn to look after them.

Episode dealing with the murderers in the group: Faith, Willow and Giles. Finch's son/daughter hunts down Faith to (confront? get revenge?) for his death. Sub-plots for Willow/Warren and Giles/Ben. Interesting to note that Faith is the only one who has ever shown any regret for her murder.

Herculean labors parallel. Xander? ("Labor Day"?)

Seven deadly sins with each main character embodying one of the sins? The one least like themselves?

Buffy: Greed

Willow: Sloth

Xander: Pride

Giles: Envy

Tara: Wrath

Dawn: Lust

Faith: Gluttony

Some other Slayer in the past, fighting an enemy that arises today. The gang have to read through the old Watcher's diaries to learn about him and how she defeated it. Shows this old Slayer and her Watcher via flashback. Maybe our Big Bads?

The characters get sent into Faerie Tales where they're forced to sort of act out the tales they're in.

Inanimate creation of some sort (puppet like) who makes other inanimate objects come to life. Specifically mannequins, by switching them out for real people. Some Scoobies, of course, fall victim to this.

Xander getting set up on blind dates. Amusing segment where Xander explains to date after date about what happened to his eye, each reason becoming more and more outlandish. Finally he just gives up and tells the truth - "It was gouged out by a crazy preacher man." The date laughs: "You're so funny!" Could end with Xander getting fixed up with the girl we introduced in S8 and possibly have seen a few times since then - Xander's love interest.

Revisit ideas: nameless, faceless army for the good guys, what are we doing with our army?

Tara dealing with family issues. Why am I back? Madrigan as new father.

Banan the collector

Alt world where Core4 seen like 4 horsemen (Title: "The Four"?)

Conversation where some characters are guessing who would've been the next successor to the Slayer line.

"Other side" episode with dead characters

Buffy/Dawn ep about Buffy's role in Dawn's life. Seeing the others intreract with her, wondering what her place is in Dawn's life. Parallel with flashbacks about VS and her sister. Starts with Buffy finding Grip and Dawn making out, leads to Buffy giving Dawn "the talk" and failing miserably. ("Sometimes, after you and a guy ...... they CHANGE.") Dawn learns nothing, goes to Tara from there, who knows nothing about having sex with a guy, but is supportive and encouraging. Buffy overhears and then begins to try to find how she fits into Dawn's life. We learn at the end that although B/D are vastly different from the VS and her sis, the bond is still just as strong.

Willow (and Tara) meeting up with Willow's parents again.

Big Bads

Vampires, return to the simpler times a bit. Not apocalyptic, but personal. Female vamp with a real mad-on for Buffy. Pissed because Buffy failed to save her? Also possibly some sort of vampire army. Fem is a modern-day Sun Tzu, right hand to this guy in charge of everything.

Addition (3Jul04): After some discussion, we're leaning toward making the femvamp a Slayer who was turned waaaay the heck back when. Possibly held or captured by some other vampire later on in life, and she was released by the head of the army, thus earning her allegiance. Maybe she's Japanese and thus very honourable? If we take her from 1600 or 1700's Japan, that might work out well. Might also give added weight to why her soul has no bearing on halting her quest for vengeance - honor demands that her sister's death be avenged. Possible imagery: maybe she was tortured by whoever held her? The mental image of big ol' cross scar over her eye is intriguing.

Season 9 Episode Chart

Notes

Need to work out (soon!) everybody's hell stuff so it can be incorporated into earlier episodes.

Willow versus hacker vamp idea. Why? What's at stake? Possible fill for humour ep at 9x16?

Corollary: Replot Willow's arc through S9 and possibly into S10.

Get new prophecy for Giles.

Work in at least one other prophecy stanza this season. Important to figure out soon. Who, when, how?

** This was a chart which doesn’t translate well to Tumblr, so I’ll break the cells apart and show column separation with ||

Updated - 22 June 2005

Ep # || Monster/Conflict || Plot Developments || Focus

9x01 || Vamps || Buffy kills Hitakno || Group

9x02 || Dante || Faith comes home || Faith

9x03 || Slone || Sunnydale HS reunion in LA || Group

9x04 || Vamps/Demons || Yuugana arrives in Trillium, Xander quits the Council || Xander

9x05 || Belastung || Tara goes home. || Tara

9x06 || Ethan || Giles birthday, Scoobies regressed  || Giles

----------------- NOT YET AIRED -----------------

9x07 || Slayer || Demon girl on run from Slayer. Buffy and Slayer at moral odds. Dawn key powers awaken fully. || Buffy/Dawn

9x08 || Amy || Amy cashes in on Willow's debt. (Fake) Buffy accompanies. || Willow

9x09 || D'Hoffryn || Xander makes a wish that Anya hadn't died. || Xander

9x10 || The Furies || The Furies drive Finch's child to revenge. While they're here, they decide to spread the love. || Faith/Giles

9x11 || ??? || Funny episode - Camping trip? || Group(??)

9x12 || Yuugana || Faith visits Hazel's parents (Xander accompanies). Upon return to Trillium, is attacked and nearly killed by Yuugana. || Faith/Xander

9x13 || Yuugana/General || Sister's parallel. Buffy and Dawn, Yuugana and Hitanko. Yuu's backstory. General arrives, drains Willow and Dawn. || Yuugana/Buffy

9x14 || Yuugana/General || Buffy insists that the gang re-ensoul Yuugana. They do so; it makes no difference. Buffy attacked, put in coma. || Buffy/Group

9x15 || Antediluvian || In an effort to save Buffy, Tara, Xander, Dawn and Kennedy go in search of Ruth, and the Antediluvian. || Tara/Group

9x16 || ??? || Funny episode - ??? || Willow(??)

9x17 || The General || The General's plans come to fruition. || Group

9x18 || Giles' Demon || A demon Giles thought defeated years ago comes back to continue their arrangement. || Giles

9x19 || 7 Sins || The Seven Sins are unleashed on the Scoobies. || Group

9x20 || The General/Yuugana || The General releases Yuugana and they formulate a new plan involving Dawn. Yuugana kills the General and takes Dawn as bait. || Group(?)

9x21 || Yuugana || Part 1. Yuugana takes Dawn into the Private Hell place where she was recently kept. The Scoobies must follow. || Group

9x22 || Yuugana || Part 2. The Scoobies fight their way through their personal hell. Buffy vs Yuugana. || Group

Original Chart

** “VS” stands for “vampiric slayer”, so Yuugana before she had a name.

Ep # || Monster/Conflict || Plot Developments || Focus

9x01 || Vamps || Buffy kills the VS's sister || Group

9x02 || Serial killer || Faith comes home??

9x03 || ?? || Sunnydale HS reunion in LA || ??/Group(?)

9x04 || ?? (vamps?) || VS arrives in Trillium || ??/Group(?)

9x05 || ?? || Tara goes home. VS denied immediate revenge. || Tara

9x06 || Amy || Amy collects on debt. Wants Will to help her get a book. ||  Willow/Buffy

9x07 || Ethan Rayne || Giles birthday/regression || Giles

9x08 || Doc || Dawn & Doc - Key powers fully awoken || Dawn

9x09 || Finch's child (furies?) || Murderers haunted by past || Faith (lesser: W, G)

9x10 || D'Hoffryn || Xander's wish (Anya) || Xander

9x11 || VS/?? || Sister's parallel episode || Buffy/Dawn

9x12 || Monster in woods || Camping trip (Tara and blade of grass) || Group

9x13 || VS || Buffy vs. VS -- VS ensouled, Buffy drained || Buffy

9x14 || VS minions(?) || Buffy injured. Group goes after Antediluvian || Tara/Group

9x15 || ?? || "Labor Day" (Kenn still around) || Xander

9x16 || artifact || 7 Deadly Sins || Group

9x17 || Computer Program || Willow and the computer program || Willow

9x18 || ?? || Faith visits Hazel's parents || Faith/Xander

9x19 || Demon || Demon that's possessed Giles. Comes every 10(?) years. || Giles

9x20 || General || Fight with General - General loses || Group

9x21 || Demon Dimension || Four Horsemen ("Four"?) [Abortive attempt by VS to separate Buffy from her strongest allies?] || B/W/X/G

9x22 || VS || Big battle -- Buffy vs. VS || Buffy/Group

Yuugana

need: how does Buffy come to believe what she does about Yuu? Conversation beforehand? Difficult. Why doesn't Yuu just kill her? Could make threat, but then Buffy is gambling with everyone, and makes no sense why Yuu nearly kills Buffy later. (Especially as threat will come when Buffy falls unconscious.)

Buffy must be able to draw conclusions ahead of time. Paint picture of Yuu that Buffy will be privvy to. Draw parallels b/w Buffy's life and Yuugana's life. Buffy will internalize.

NEED: When/How will gang find out that she is Yuugana? When will this name be dropped? How? May be good if we can draw General as being very, very powerful. They're afraid of him. Getting Yuu on their side would be huge in fighting him.

Idea: General nearly kills Dawn, draining key powers. Yuu saves her. Buffy thinks it is because Yuu knows what it's like to lose a sister. In truth, Yuu isn't ready for Dawn to die yet - that will be the most painful blow of all.

buffy believes -- utterly believes -- that Yuugana will be good if given her soul. Spike was good, Angel was good ... maybe all vampires can do good if given the chance? Who is she to be judge, jury and executioner?

Internalized: this could be me. What would I do if someone killed Dawn?

** I found two sets of Season 9 character arc notes. The first set are what I think what I was mainly working from, but I’m not 100%.

Character Emotional/Plot Arcs – Season 9

Season Theme: Consequences

Buffy

Will be target of the Big Bad’s wrath as a consequence of killing the BB’s sister early in the season. Buffy’s primary emotional arc will be in the realization that every action, even the most seemingly natural or inconsequential, has far-reaching repercussions, that affect not just Buffy but those she loves.

Willow

Willow’s emotional arc returns to one that was never resolved or given enough attention (or mangled thanks to magic=crack) – control issues. Throughout Willow’s history on BtVS, she’s exhibited time and again a deep NEED to control the things around her. Her need for this never changed, save for her becoming so paranoid she was afraid to breath for fear of killing everyone in S7. Her catalyst for these deep-seeded emotional problems re-emerging stem from a few basic changes. 1) Tara’s back, and Willow doesn’t think she can take losing her again. 2) The Big Bad has made things very, very personal. And Willow remembers only too well what happened last time a Big Bad vampire took things personal. 3) This Big Bad is smart. Really smart. In some ways, even smarter than Willow. And for all the enemies they’ve faced, Will’s never had to go against someone who’s been able to out think her before. And she freaks.

We’re going to have to be careful with this one, though, because we don’t want a return to “Willow Uses Way Too Much Magick” again. We’re therefore going to have to find others ways in which Willow exercises that control trigger finger. Her computer skills could certainly help out to a degree, as well as her smarts, but we’re going to have to be careful. We definitely don’t want a rehash of S6’s problems. Willow is – or very much should be – wiser than that now. And while Will has sort of always had a bad case of “the ends justify the means”, we don’t want a rehash. So care is needed.

We could help to show this by maybe having Willow do something like casting a really powerful protection spell that somehow backfires. What will be vitally important here is taking care to make it very clear that Willow isn’t relying on magick for every little thing (no spells for decoration or closing curtains) … the magick is simply her most powerful tool for keeping everyone safe. This should NOT be about black magick, but about a need for control.

NOTE (4Jul04): After discussions, will probably meld Will's character arc with the fact that Buffy and others (Tara and Giles probably excepted) don't fully appreciate or realize the pressures they put on Willow to come up with the answers and be the big gun, while simultaneously not wanting her to go too far. Magick is bad, except when they need it. They don't accept their own consequences for the actions they push her toward. This still feeds into Willow's character flaws above - her need to protect everyone, to be the best, to keep the nasty stuff at bay.

Xander

Xander, being the human element, will have the root of his emotional arc derive from one of the most basic of human desires: to live forever. Not in the biologically immortal sense, but by wanting to live on long after he’s died. Xander realizes that of all his friends, he is the one that history is least likely to remember. The odds on him being studied in school centuries from now are next to nothing. Buffy will be recalled as the world’s most successful Slayer. Willow as the witch whose spell changed the world. Giles as the founder of the new Watcher’s Council (and new world order?) Any history mentioning Willow is almost guaranteed to include Tara as well. Dawn and her Key potential is fascinating and going to be mentioned … but Xander? There’s nothing so remarkable about Xander, he feels, and thus begins his quest to somehow ensure his own immortality to history.

This might somehow be triggered by the emergence of a new sort of threat. With Slayers all over the world, there’s absolutely no way that NOBODY is going to notice them. Even if people in the Buffyverse have shown time and again that they’ll simply ignore what they either can’t or are unwilling to understand (gang related, PCP), not everybody is so willing to pull down the veil. Thus begins the emergence of a conspiracy theorist, someone who somehow has managed to trace his story to Slayer Central. In doing so, he somehow manages to put a level of importance on each of the Scoobies … except Xander. Which stings.

Xander would eventually come to realize that while history may not remember him, those he loves certainly will, and when all’s said and done, that’s enough for him.

Giles

Giles’ arc will come out of an inevitability – his age. One of the earliest episodes will be reflecting on the fact that Giles is now 50. He’s done such a good job with the Council that much of the bureaucracy continues without his direct involvement. He’s not really keen on that side of things anyway, so he’s not sorry to see it go. But what he does want to do instead is get into the thick of things physically. But, unfortunately, he simply can’t anymore, and it’s a lesson he very much doesn’t want to learn. Giles will ultimately come to realize, however, that while he can’t swing a sword to match the Slayer, what he DOES have is his incredible mind, which will certainly be put to great use in the confrontations with the Sun Tzu-like Big Bad. The fight could not be won without Giles’ intellectual input.

Tara

Tara will spend much of her arc wondering about her place. When she was alive, she had some difficulty in fitting in. And it wasn’t until just before her death that she really started to come into her own. A year and a half has passed now, however, and things and people have changed. Tara aspires to be more than just an extension of Willow, and as voiced in “Family”, she wants very much to feel useful to the Scoobies.

But Tara’s need to find where she fits extends beyond simply within the Scoobs. Tara has a very definite sense of nature and balance, and her being brought back from the dead is something of an abhorrence to her. She can’t quite shake the feeling that in order for her to have been brought back, something had to go out in her place to keep the balance. What that may have been disturbs her beyond words.

How exactly these issues become resolved is currently unclear. Tara should certainly remain the moral and emotional center of the Scoobies. She has more power now, but power was always Willow’s contribution, not Tara’s. On the death thing, perhaps something mystical helps her? Maybe the big Wicca chick we bring in at the end of S8 can help somehow? Show that Tara’s coming back was, in its own way, as natural as her passing was UNnatural. Her return is, in and of itself, a righting of the scales.

Dawn

This is a big year for Dawn. She’s a senior in high school. She’s turning 18. She’s becoming an adult. Oh, yeah, and she’ll finally figure out that she’s got all those Key powers still. Dawn’s story will be about transitions. From childhood to adulthood, from being just a normal (as normal as she could be) girl to having all those powers as the Key and whatever that implies for her. We will also need to decide this year where Dawn’s going to college (her awakening Key powers could be a good excuse to keep her local).

Faith

Faith’s story is going to be about guilt. Hazel’s death at the end of the previous season happened right before we ended the whole thing, so at that point we will have gotten to see precious little carryover. This is the time to dwell on that. Faith would feel tremendous guilt over Hazel’s death – Faith is the one who recruited Hazel, who brought her there. She was Hazel’s mentor, and Hazel sacrificed herself for Faith. We don’t want to retread over the ��do I belong here?” line, since we’re dealing with that in S8, but Faith should certainly be questioning whether or not she should be leading little girls into dangerous battles. It’s one thing for Faith to risk her life night after night, but another entirely to be responsible for the lives and deaths of others. Unsure how this will resolve, but it seems the logical arc for Faith given the closing of the previous season.

Big Bad

NOTE: We’re going to have to come up with a really good reason why Willow just doesn’t ensoul the vamp chick … or she does and it makes no difference at all. Could be an interesting commentary about vampires and souls. Hm.

The more we’re discussing this, the more we’re liking this idea. The notion of souls in the Buffyverse has always been sort of hazy at best. Loosely, they seemed to be of the opinion that getting a soul somehow made you good … but there are countless number of humans in the world (and the Buffyverse – look at Warren) who are human and, one therefore assumes, have a soul. Yet they are still capable of great evil. Even more so than some demons that they encounter. So despite however neat and pat Buffy likes to make it sometimes, a soul does NOT automatically mean that someone is going to be good. And maybe that throws her for a hell of a loop. Willow ensouls the BB, but it doesn’t make one bit of difference. Vengeance is, after all, as much a human emotion as anything else, and the BB still wants Buffy to suffer horribly for what she’s done. At most, the BB may feel some measure of guilt for the people that she’s had to kill over the past 300 or 400 years (however long she’s been vamped), but as it turns out, she doesn’t. She looks at it with the detached, cold impracticality possessed by Slayers – she did what she had to in order to survive. Maybe she wasn’t a fan of torture (we’re painting her very logical and such, so this should work okay), and simply did what she needed to. The Slayer in and of itself is very predatorial and most definitely a survivor – there’s not necessarily much difference between them, and this will further demonstrate that fact.

This could also further add to Willow’s continued feeling of being out of control. This SHOULD have worked and didn’t.

Season 9 Character Arcs

Buffy:

Buffy's arc will deal with a continuing gray area between what is good and what is evil. What is a soul really? Does having a soul make you good by default? The vampiric Slayer will prove that's not necessarily the case. Additionally, Buffy will be trying to sort out a few things about her life. What does she ultimately want to do? She could very well be the first Slayer in history to die of old age. Does she want to be involved with that all her life, or does she want more? Would Buffy maybe like to return to school? (Might be fun to have her and Tara going back to school together.) Around midway point, Buffy is nearly drained to death by vamp Slayer, she must rely on others to take care of her - doesn't always have to be the strong one.

Willow:

Willow will come to the realization that her magick is of no use against the Big Bad this year. What is Willow without her magick? What else can she contribute? Progressively, other things may fail as well, so that Willow is systematically deconstructed and having to find her true purpose and how she can contribute outside of her raw power.

Xander:

Xander will explore his roles this season. He's said that he won't be forgotten or shoved aside, so then the question becomes, how will he contribute? It's up to Xander to answer this question. He tries his hand at a variety of roles - maybe a Watcher, maybe a husband (though he's already "failed" at that one). Come the end, he realizes that his role is support, and it's the role he's always fallen into naturally.

Giles:

Giles is pulling away from the others. He's beginning to see the Slayers as nameless, faceless people. He realizes that he'll have to sacrifice them - and some part of himself - again at some point in the future, so he's subconsciously distancing himself from the pain. He's slowly becoming the Old Council. Comes to realize that while he may have to distance himself from the body as a whole, it doesn't mean he shouldn't have any attachments at all. And that he can be those two people - the one that can love them, but still sacrifice them for the greater good if necessary (which will work, as Giles will ultimately sacrifice himself, NOT for the greater good but because he doesn't want them to die).  ** Which may be a good time to point out that I was going to kill Giles next season, kisses.

Tara:

Tara's quest this year will be for her place. She's died and come back, but this isn't "right". There is a balance in things, and she feels she's upset that balance. She'll explore her past and her family to find out why, in a grander sense, she's back and how she fits in now.

Tara and Willow:

Tara discovers that Willow has somewhat enshrined her as a result of her death and return. Willow caves to Tara almost constantly, and it's beginning to affect them both, but Willow can't bring herself to fight with Tara as a result of what happens every time they fight. She doesn't want Tara to go away again. They must fight, they have to learn that it's okay. Tara pushes it with Willow and makes it happen. Maybe when Tara goes to visit her family, that's the catalyst.

Dawn:

Dawn becomes victim of the time-old adage, "be careful what you wish for". She's always wanted to be a Scooby, but now that's beginning to conflict with her other desire to be a regular teenaged girl and her other big desire: to be an adult. All these worlds are colliding and Dawn's not sure which is more important. Blows off Scooby things for friend-things sometimes. Blows off friend-things for Scooby-things.

Re Grip: They're getting closer, but she keeps having to put off things with him due to Scooby situations. Grip notices and (kindly) confronts her, wondering if she really just doesn't want to see him anymore but doesn't know how to tell him. When he finds out about the baddies, he'll back away, needing time to process. Poor Dawnie.

Faith:

Faith will spend the season getting back onto the redemptive path she's been on for years. She doesn't feel bad that she killed Judith and is wondering what the means (somewhat like when her mother died). She'll learn that just because she's stumbled doesn't mean she's fallen. She begins in England, hiding out from Trillium. Thinking she should go solo, it was easier when she didn't have anyone else to worry about. Doesn't want to go back, but Kennedy pushes her. Once back, Faith avoids everyone. Should Giles maybe get Faith into therapy?

Buffy agitated that Faith isn't really being punished. Faith points out that a lot of people around Buffy are killers and they've never been punished either. Buffy needs things black and white, Faith is another shade of grey and it's getting harder and harder for her to do her job.

Xander gets to the heart of things too much, and Faith doesn't want to deal with that. Finally it's Willow who lets Faith know that there's someone who DOES understand. It's the first step in getting Faith back into things, but she still doesn't want to teach.

Maybe at some point in the season, Faith takes off? If so, Xander should probably pursue. (Might tie in nicely to Xander's "what's my role?" arc. Perhaps he has a job interview or something that he can't miss out on that will further define him, but he misses it because he has to help Faith, and that's the choice he makes) Could be where Hazel's death gets resolved. Goes to Hazel's house and parents for that?

Faith's murder issue will probably come to a head when she's face-to-face with Finch's child. Kid wants revenge, and Faith understands that. States how it won't make anything better, but gives up and says that if s/he wants it so bad, just take it. S/he doesn't, of course, which would probably disappoint Faith to a degree.

Maybe show Faith just starting to teach again at the end of the season, rather than some big culmination. Maybe she's forced into it when the VS keeps the other Slayers occupied? Buffy would be elsewhere at the time.

  The Big Bad

** These are some of my earliest notes, as reflected in how I’m using my placeholder names like “Dark Coven”. A lot of it deals with what happened in S8, but it outlines the larger arc, which would have come to a head in S10.

What the Bad Guys Want

The Dark Coven is seeking to reawaken The Old Ones. As per Giles in “Welcome to the Hellmouth", the Old Ones were driven out when the lost their "purchase" on this reality. The last vestiges of the Old Ones fed on a human, mixed their blood, and created the first vampire. This proves that humans were around during the time of the Old Ones. He also states that vamps, demons and some magicks are leftovers from the time of the Old Ones.

The Dark Coven is a group that has been around since the time of the Old Ones. They are in allegiance with them, and are currently seeking to free them. In their current incarnation, they are very, very close (comparatively speaking). The Old Ones are sealed away somewhere by a series of extremely intricate locks, well nigh impenetrable. But they actually are already well on their way to opening them.

More than anything else, the DC is a master of manipulation with OODLES of patience. They've been working on freeing the Old Ones since their imprisonment. As is eventually revealed, they have been twisting events with the Scoobies for years, bringing them to the point where the Old Ones are ready to be freed.

When the Old Ones Roamed

They were, quite simply, lords of their domain. They are few in number, but unfathomably powerful. As with many nigh-omnipotent beings, however, they became bored and complacent. They began to tinker with things and began creating demons, unleashing them on the world. The demons, however, were little more than slaves, and no matter how evil, nothing much likes being enslaved. The demons, together with humans (quite possibly including the Shadow Men from "Get it Done") were able to ensnare the Old Ones -- you can't kill them, but they were imprisoned. Once the Old Ones were gone, their power slowly vanished, diminishing their partners/lackies/etc. (like the DC), and leaving the created demons and humans to fight over the rest of the land.

Season 6 Manipulation

The DC, although powerful, are themselves, collectively, unable to open the remaining locks (if they could ever open any at all). However they soon discovered one girl, Willow Rosenberg, who had the innate ability to channel the energies necessary to set things into motion. She just needed the right motivation to get the power.

Exactly how far their manipulation into these events goes, we don't know. What is for certain is that they fixed it so that Tara would be shot and killed by Warren's stray bullet. (The reasoning for this idea: there's absolutely no way the bullet could have possibly killed Tara in the way it did. Warren was in the backyard, running away and shooting upwards. Tara was standing by the bedroom window on the second story. The bullet shot through the glass, and through her, at no angle at all. Obviously in-show this was done for dramatic purposes, but they left a door open for outside creative interpretation and I’m going through it.)

As they knew it would, this prompts Willow to become hell-bent on revenge and absorb enough power to destroy the world. She goes to Kingman's Bluff, raises the effigy of Proserpexa, and begins to funnel her energies into it. Had she done this enough, she would have raised one of the Old Ones herself (or Proserpexa could have take the next step in unlocking one of the doors), however Xander interceded and saved Willow before this could happen.

NOTE: Perhaps Xander's interception is what was actually needed here? I always found it interesting that he completely blocked and seemingly absorbed all that power Willow was throwing at the effigy without even blinking. Was this maybe super-charging him for something? Could this maybe be key to what they will need to save him from later on? (S10 stuff.)

The Proserpexa angle maybe have been removed, but the DC didn't mind -- Willow had now unlocked enough of the power within herself to open another lock.

Season 7 Manipulation

This stems from a whole lot of S7 never really standing up to much scrutiny. Take, for example, the scythe. Caleb and the First spend SO much time and energy in uncovering the scythe, claiming to know how very important it was to NOT allow Buffy & Co. to get it -- when if they hadn't even been trying to get it, Buffy wouldn't have ever known it was there. This in and of itself seems to make ZERO sense, particularly since it never seemed to be that the First could use the scythe himself -- it was all about keeping it from the Slayer. So, very stupid to not only sit on the darned thing, but to ACTIVELY BRING YOUR ENEMIES TO IT (the "trap" in "Dirty Girls" leads Buffy and the Slayers to the vineyard, They never would have bothered going there otherwise).

My reasoning: The First is also an Old One. And he set his plan up specifically to fail. He himself is immortal, he cannot die. And he doesn't really give a crap about ubervamps and Bringers. Their plan all along was to make the Scoobies unleash the scythe to awaken all the Slayers.

Why? As mentioned in "Get it Done", there is a well of Slayer power. That well is usually filled nearly to capacity. It was, after all, only being used by Buffy, and then Faith. The fact that the emergence of a second Slayer did nothing to diminish either's power indicates that it's not shared on that kind of level. In addition, the awakening of all the Slayers at the end of "Chosen" didn't seem to cause any sort of power drain. Instead, we theorize that the well is deep, but has a finite capacity. When Willow did the spell, she in essence pulled the stopper on the well and drained it dry. This well, however, happens to be one of the keys to freeing the Old Ones, and once it drops to a certain level, the "door" that it locks is open.

Moving on -- The Chosen

When Slayers die now, one is not called in their place. There is a finite number of Slayers in the world now. When they die, their Slayerness returns to the well. Only once it reaches a certain level (presumably it's "default" state, pre-spell) will the "natural" process resume. The DC obviously don't want this to happen, as once it "refills" to a certain point, the door will close again. Hence their working with the Assemblage of Merodoch (previously, "Dark Council"); by harnessing and funneling the Slayerness into an already existing Slayer, it does not return to the well, hence no refill.

But that isn't the only reason the DC are working with the Assemblage. The AoM also has another key: an angel that they're keeping chained up in the deepest sublevel of their headquarters. This angel has, perhaps, been around as long as the Old Ones themselves. Perhaps he even aided in imprisoning them. He was captured shortly thereafter, however, and has remained that way ever since (we're talking pretty close to pre-recorded history here, as long as the Slayer line has been in existence, possibly longer).

Idea: The angel can only be freed by a descendant of one who imprisoned him in the first place. Maybe a Giles?

He is a key -- maybe something he says? His true name, perhaps? The DC want him, but the AoM have him and won't give him up. They have said, however, that once Order is restored to the world, they will provide the DC with the means to do whatever they need to do with him. The DC is okay with this -- they're currently getting something from the Council (someone to alert them to the need to funnel Slayer energy and someone to keep all that tiresome business together while they focus on the really important stuff).

Like good ol' Willow Rosenberg.

They call Willow "The Sangerand" ("the bloody"), and they should absolutely not be done with her yet. Willow's independent further role, we don't yet know, but she commands their greatest amount of attention. Her, and Tara. ("The Curat", or "the pure"?)

When they resurrect Tara, it is ostensibly under the guise of killing Willow. However the true reason is to fulfill Tara's part of this prophecy (which includes her death, resurrection and making the choice to not kill Willow), possibly including the sharing of power that Willow will need to do to save them.

Thinking on it, it would be cool to have each Scooby play an important role somehow in all of this. Sort of like their being together in this way was a fated thing. "The Chosen" indeed.

**ADDENDUM** I really like this idea of each Scooby playing a particular role. This could still lead up to the eventual death of Giles, which in and of itself will provide the beginnings of the Coven's downfall. They do whatever they're doing to Xander, which will kill him - but that won't matter because his role in unlocking the door will be done. Will is going to be doing the spell to save him, which will kill her in turn, but that's okay too because her part is also played in releasing the Old Ones. Giles, however, has NOT yet done his part, and he completely surprises everyone when he takes Willow's place, thereby saving both Will and Xander. This totally throws the Coven for a loop, though obviously they must still be able to do what they need to without Giles, else their plans are over with right then and there. It's crucial that his sacrifice NOT be part of the DC's plans, else it takes away from its poignancy.

Will need some sort of prophecy-type thing detailing what is needed to be done to release the Old Ones. Should be nice and vague, but with meaning once you figure it out.

Scooby Designations

Willow: The Sangerand ("the bloody")

Tara: The Curat ("the pure")

Xander: The Vedere ("the sight"), The Asar ("all-seeing eye") -- "The Baani" ("The Architect" - Urdu)

Buffy: The Kusari ("the chain"), The Revenire ("the returned"), The Gula or The Bau ("Lady Who the Dead Bring Back to Life")

Giles: The Verhaal ("the history"), The Shoukin/The Infria, ("redemption"), The Shin'ar ("Land of the Watchers")

Faith: ("the dark"), ("the restrained"), ("the wild")

Dawn: ("the cherished"), ("the gateway"), ("the portal"), ("the key")

The Prophecy

Opening Quatrain

Buffy :: The Trimarga :: Three Path A heartbeat thrice begun A death mark thrice given All roads lead to the town of three When her spilled blood shall spill again

Willow :: The Sangerand :: The Bloody Blood flowing, blood taken Forces awoken, decline and ascent Blood given, life exchanged Freely, she will fall

Xander :: The Baani :: The Builder Grief and rage, life's destruction Mind and body, life's cohesion Heart and spirit, life's devotion Melding, merging; essence anew

Giles :: The Tezan :: The Way Forger of paths, the first and his kin The demon wields the plague of black Summoner, banisher Pierce the barrier, paths renewed

Tara :: The Curat :: The Pure Birth and rebirth, the cycle complete Connected to evil, untainted Power innate and power borrowed Through the light she will free the ancient one

Dawn :: The Amelatu :: The Gatekeeper Living energy made flesh and form Younger in life, older than death Truth altered, life shed And the walls will fall

The Slayer Well Solitary hunter, night's enemy She alone will stand When the well is drained and strength is shared One becomes Many

Closing Quatrain And so it is written Seven locks hold fast The masters expelled, the world cleansed Until the Chosen play their part

Seven keys for seven locks From the first to fall, five score and one If all locks turn, the door lay open And the Old Ones shall reclaim the Earth

Buffy: The Trimarga ("three path" :: the triple path of Knowledge [jnanayoga], Devotion [bhaktiyoga] and Action [karmayoga]). Three times her heart has started beating, three times she's been marked by a vampire (Angel, Dracula and the Vamp Slayer [yet to happen) and in town of threes(??). Something to do with blood - some of it needed to open the lock. Blood of a Slayer is already potent, and Buffy's was obviously enough to close the portal in place of Dawn.

Willow: The Sangerand ("the bloody"). Willow will cast a blood-sacrifice spell, that will enable her to willingly exchange her life for another. It has to be this spell based upon how Mads and the others are killing Xander. Very, very powerful, only she can do it. The flow of the energies will open the lock.

Xander: The Baani ('the builder"). Xander is the "incuabator" for two very powerful magicks. They don't impact him directly, but it is his nature - his very self - that will enable them to merge within him to create something new. The first blast came from Willow on Kingman's Bluff. The second, from the orb destroyed in "Win, Lose or Draw". Madrigan will take Xander around the mid-point of S10 to extract the magicks from him. It will kill him in the process, but that's of little concern.

Giles: The Tezan ("the way"). Giles' role is to obtain a ring that has been in his family for generations upon generations. Unknown to those recently, the jewel of the ring actually contains a demon - a demon that was the original cause of the Black Plague in the 1330's. Giles' ancestor, a powerful warlock for the Council, was the first human to pierce the barrier between this dimension and a demon dimension where he summoned a demon and bound it to his service. The demon was sent to China, where it was supposed to take out a group of other demonic creatures trying to open a Hellmouth there. It did indeed do that, but not before starting the plague. The Council, rather than destroy the ring and banish the creature, said "We'll control it better next time." The ring's purpose was eventually lost,. Giles is supposed to release and then banish the demon, again piercing the dimensional barrier and opening that lock. ** He dies instead, sacrificing himself to save both Willow and Xander. Oops.

Tara: The Curat ("the pure"). Tara's lock will open upon her freeing the Antediluvian. The Antediluvian is an angelic creature that was captured by Robespierre's ancestors. Its imprisonment means the lock is sealed - its freedom opens it. Tara is able to free it due to her lineage as a witch, her purity of spirit, her completed cycle of birth and rebirth, and (by binding with Willow) her immense white magick power creating the necessary conditions. Ruth, Tara's grandmother or great-grandmother, was also thought at one time to have been the Curat, but was not. However she does recognize the qualities within Tara. (Perhaps the Antediluvian, despite its imprisonment being a good thing, can do great good if it's released?)  ** Later in S9, Tara and Co. would have freed the Antediluvian to save Buffy after Yuugana’s attack.

Dawn: The Amelatu ("the gatekeeper"). Dawn herself is able to open the lock. Not a lot of detail here. We'll need to sort out somehow or another that Dawn will do this ... or perhaps she already has? There seems to be little better time for Dawn to have opened the necessary lock than when all the dimensional walls were coming down.

Additional Lock: The well of Slayer power being drained. This was done by Willow in S7, but is not Willow's specific key.

Additional Info: Once any lock falls, there is a "timer" of 100 years for the rest to fall, or they all lock again.

** It may not escape notice that Faith is not part of this prophecy. That became by design, not oversight. I loved how this idea of “The Chosen” worked into the larger series theme, but I also hate the ideas of fate and destiny being controlling factors. Faith was going to be my argument against all that. When all the prophecy pieces were revealed, Faith would (rather defeatedly in her Faith way) note that she had no part to play. But she is the embodiment of being Chosen, as the characters choose to have Faith by their side and fuck prophecy anyway. Their unreserved acceptance of Faith, and Faith’s acceptance of THAT, would have been the culmination of her character arc in S10 (and my series).

S10 Ideas

Something to do with tarot cards, with each member maybe being a particular card?

Several characters get thrown back in time to an earlier season. Dawn especially should go, as she wasn't around then.

stained glass idea. couples. Buffy left free. Valentine's day ep.

"The Impossible Dream" - Man of La Mancha lyrics

Faith having conversation with Kendra -- result of illness, injury, or prophetic dream

** An episode I was definitely going to do, but frustratingly can’t find any notes for (making me feel there must be SOMETHING else out there somewhere but fuck me if I know where) had Willow and Tara going to Los Angels and visiting Lorne’s bar, Caritas.

S10 Ending

Everyone ends on a thematic note, their actions in the final battle bringing together 10 years of development:

Giles's sacrifice makes victory possible - by finally following his heart rather than his duty he saves the world.

Xander, by virtue (and surprise) of simply being Xander, strikes the final blow.

Willow succeeds only by keeping herself in check, refusing to break and believing that she can win.

Buffy's victories come from not only sharing herself (mentally to Willow and physically to Faith and Kennedy) but truly, finally, accepting that she's not in this alone.

Dawn makes the sacrifice she was destined to make from the moment she was created.

Tara is the touchstone, giving the strength and support to everyone else and the lifeline that ultimately saves Dawn.

Faith has no greater role handed to her by fate -- but she's here and kicking ass so screw you, fate.

(work on Kennedy, she ends up fighting w/ Buff and Faith, but does she start there? maybe she and Faith start with Tara and Dawn?)

IDEAS

Seneca final battle. He's winning. Standing over Buffy, gloating smile. Then he finally speaks. Something like, "I've waited a long time to--" Then he gets skewered (Faith or Kennedy, maybe both.) He can't say anything else, just gurgle.  He dies, and the Slayers stand over him.

Buffy: "Blah blah blah. You know, just once I'd like to meet a bad guy who knows how to keep his mouth shut."

Kennedy: "No lie. Still, I wonder what he was going to say?"

Faith: "Who the hell cares?"

Buffy HAS to be part of final Madrigan fight. She goes initially with Xander and Willow. Xander gets struck down by Mads, seemingly dead. Buffy gets nailed too. Willow needs Buffy to get through this though, and Buff gives Will her strength (flashback to "Same Time Same Place" as well as early Chosen w/ Willow and Buffy being so attuned -- see, not a throw-away plot point! Planned all along!) Leads to good "final" conversation/bonding with them as they search for Madrigan in the mental plane.

Earlier in the season, Madrigan extracting the magick from Xander. Very painful for Xander. Madrigan talking to him though, very chatty, very casual. Xander trying to dig for info, Madrigan clearly seeing through it. He likes the cliche though (exposition while acknowledging how clunky and stupid it is to have exposition here). Mads being real bastard (passively though) to Xander this whole time, noting how Xander isn't even really important in and of himself, it's only what others do with him that counts (maybe include little side wink-nudge point, it's what's inside Xander that matters). Mads ends the conversation by apologizing. "Sorry dude, this has gotta suck for you. Hey, you know what I like to do when I'm down? TV! You like 'Murphy Brown'? I've been Netflixing it." He and Seneca proceed to sit down and watch while Xander is essentially tortured behind them. Mads just turns up the volume.

Season 10 Final Fight

Buffy, Kennedy and Faith will go after Seneca.

Willow and Tara will be walking along in the facility when they're attacked. Tara is thrown away from Willow, who is then going to be caught behind an impenetrable shield with Madrigan. He wants to face her alone on an astral plane of sorts. Tara can't join her. Willow is depowered somewhat as a result of the spell she was casting to save Xander. Madrigan wants to fight her, however. Will surprises him - she thought like him and figured he would do this. As a result, Xander is piggy-backing with her, and she's not alone. Madrigan says that he knows Xander, and Xander won't kill him. He's wrong. X: "He don't know me very well, do he?"

Meanwhile, the door to release the Old Ones is opening and they can't stop it. Or they think they can't. Dawn realizes that she, being the Key, can. She begins to do so, but it's taking so much power, it's essentially killing her. Dawn is reverting to pure energy form. Buffy screams at her, tells her not to, but Dawn says she's spent the past five years wondering - feeling, even - that she should've died on that tower. Now she knows that she wasn't supposed to die, she was supposed to live to do this. "This is the job that I have to do." Buffy can't stop her. Tara fights though, won't let Dawn go. Tara eventually passes out and Dawn disappears. The energy is gone and so is Dawn, but the door is closed and locked again.

Not long after, Buffy goes home. Willow and Xander are with Tara at the hospital (she’s drained but okay). Buffy seems to be alone. She's completely dispirited - Dawn is dead. She enters her room, only to find Dawn there. B: "What are you doing here?" Shades of Dawn's first appearance. Turns out (as we'll learn in the final episode) that Dawn has given up all of her Key powers - for real this time. She is now, completely and utterly, a very real, very normal girl.

** And finally, I give you all with this. It’s a rough sketch of the scene after Giles has died, so would have come about 2/3rd of the way through Season 10. I wrote this in 2004, about a week after the death of my grandfather. I like to think that, if I’d gotten that far, this would have been one of those moments that would have stuck with you. I certainly would’ve tried.

Giles Death Reactions

These are a sequence of silent scenes.

We first see Faith in a darkened training room. She's punching a punching bag.

We're in Giles loft, the lights all dark. The door opens, and Hannah's standing there, on the threshold. She doesn’t enter.

We're in a hospital, private room. There are two beds. The one on the far left contains Xander. He looks gaunt, pale, near death. But breathing. His heart monitor gives a steady readout. Dawn sits next to him, inbetween the two beds. Tears are streaming down her cheeks – simply falling, she's not sobbing. She watches Xander with a fearful, worried expression, then turns to the next bed. There's Willow, also pale and drawn. She doesn't look well either, though not quite as bad as Xander. Tara sits on the other side of the bed, as close to it as she can possibly get. One of Willow's hands is held up in both of hers, Willow's fingers resting on Tara's lips. Tara's eyes are red – she's obviously been crying too. She meets Dawn's gaze. Neither smile.

We're in Giles' office. Buffy is standing in the doorway. Her face is blank.

We're back in the loft, Hannah's position mirroring Buffy's. She walks inside and finds herself drawn toward Giles' stereo system. She runs her hands over the CD collection, full of albums and songs from their past.

Faith's punching of the bag increases. She's venting, her jabs more vicious, more focused. Over her shoulder, we see Kennedy watching.

The hospital. Dawn runs a hand through her hair and wipes her eyes after watching Xander intently. She turns to Willow and watches as Willow opens her eyes and blinks. Dawn watches in surprise, and Willow seems to sense the scrutiny. She turns to Dawn and smiles – just a small smile, a pained one, but it's something. Dawn's face breaks into an expression of pure joy and relief, and she says something. Tara has either been locked in thought or asleep, Willow's hand clutched to her forehead, but her head jerks up at Dawn's words. She focuses on Dawn for the briefest of moments before her eyes go back to Willow. Willow is already looking at her, and she smiles again, a bit stronger this time. Willow says something too, and it causes Tara to laugh. The laugh turns into a sob of relief though, and Tara kisses Willow's hand several times then leans over and kisses her forehead. Will is weak, but is able to give Tara a one-armed hug, kissing her on the cheek, then turning to Dawn and extending her other arm. Dawn is there in a heartbeat, also crying in relief.

Giles' office. Almost trancelike, Buffy moves further into the darkened office, which is lit only by the lamp on the desk. As she walks, her eyes are drawn to things. The rows and rows of books that Giles surrounded himself with. The bookcases that Xander built, not only filled with books but also decorated with knickknacks – various small statues and effigies and an Owl plushie. She looks to the opposite wall, where hangs a variety of pictures, but dominating them all, easily the biggest and with the proudest placement, is a picture of Giles, snapped at a moment none of them were expecting. He was obviously the victim of a random group hug attack – Buffy, Willow, Xander, Tara and Dawn, all hugging him fiercely. Giles has that look on his face where he's trying hard to be annoyed with them, but is secretly loving every moment. Buffy's movement into the office hasn't halted, hasn't slowed from its already snail's pace. She's at the desk now. Bathed in the warm glow of the lamp, she sees a cup of tea, only half-drunk, as though Giles will be returning any moment to finish it. Most prominent, however, are the sealed envelopes on the desk, several of them, each bearing a name. We see Buffy's name on the top one, and can see hints of other's beneath: Willow, Xander, etc. Giles' glasses rest nearby.

Faith is almost in a frenzy of kicks and punches now. Her teeth are clenched and she looks like she wants nothing more than to have the bag turn into the Grim Reaper himself so she can pound the crap out of him. A hand rests on her shoulder, and Faith whirls around to see Kennedy there. Faith looks like she might just start beating the shit out of Kennedy as well, but then Kennedy takes Faith's hand and puts a stake in it. Faith looks down at it questioningly, then looks to Kennedy. Kennedy holds up her own stake. Faith's eyes narrow and she nods, just slightly.

Hannah's by the window in Giles' loft, simply looking out, looking at nothing in particular. She hugs herself and her head drops as she starts to softly cry.

In the hospital room, Willow casts an anxious look at Xander still motionless in his bed. She looks first to Dawn, then Tara, who says something that causes Willow to relax considerably. She smiles, but soon realizes her smiles aren't being returned. She again looks questioningly from one to the other, but neither speak. She's getting really worked up now, scared, and Dawn starts to say something. She doesn't get far, though, before she can't speak any more. Willow turns immediately to Tara, who picks up where Dawn left off. Willow watches, still afraid. Then the fear turns to disbelief. She's starting to cry now and she shakes her head in denial. She looks to Dawn, looking for someone to tell her that what she's heard isn't true, but Dawn can only cry. Willow looks back to Tara again and says something, begging for it not to be true. Tara can only look at her with sympathy and matching pain as Willow dissolves into tears.

Giles office. Buffy is sitting in the corner, her back against the wall, curled in on herself. We can't see her face, but her shaking shoulders tell us all we need to know. She's hugging the Owl plushie for dear life. 

CUT TO BLACK

** And that, my friends, is that.

[somerandomwriter1234]

GMW Fanfic: Story Time with Farkle and Smackle is Back!

-Once upon a time, two young after school leaders attempted to tell a story to a group of children. The following is a written transcript of their attempt.

Hello everyone. For those that haven't gotten to know us yet, my name is Mr. Farkle…

And I'm Miss Smackle! Your favorite teachers in the world are back and ready to make your day AWESOME!

Uh, yeah. And today…

We're gonna tell you all another amazing classic fairy tale!

Smackle, are you sure that's what's on the schedule?

Sure it is. It's National Appreciation for Samurai Pigeons from Greenland Day. It's tradition to tell a classic fairy tale on a day like this.

I… Wha… what does that have to do with…

Stop wasting these youngsters' precious time Farkle. It's either we tell a classic fairy tale now, or tradition dictates that we sacrifice a bar of chocolate to the first Portuguese lizard dressed as a Viking we come across.

I… ugg… well the next story we were gonna tell the kids was already picked out anyway. It's the classic fairy tale: Jack and the Beanstalk.

Excellent! This story shall do quite nicely… with a few alterations.

What was that?

Oh nothing that important.

Well… long ago there was a boy named Jack. He and his mother were very poor. So poor, the only thing left they had of value besides their home was a cow. So Jack was sent by his mom one day to sell the cow so they could make some money.

What!? Sell the cow!? This fairy tale has slavery!? Why are cows being bought and sold off in this world like they're just a bunch of cattle!?

Uh, because…

Cows have rights too people! This world needs equality. Why do the human supremacists take the milk of these creatures every day and then throw them in the barn like they're a bunch of animals!?

Because they…

I have a dream people, that all our little cows will one day live in a land where they will be judged not by the identification of their species, but by their ability to share pizza with their peers because that's what good friends do unlike stupid Courtney who grabbed more pizza than everybody else during Izzy's birthday party and didn't leave any of the plain or pepperoni slices for me, and I really didn't want a slice with anchovies because those slices are so icky! That was the worst day of first grade ever!

Well… meanwhile back in our story, Jack wanted to… allow his cow to service another family for a price. But then he met a business man on the road who said he'd take Jack's cow for some magic beans and…

Hold on! How did Jack and this man begin their business transaction? And Jack is a kid. Did his mom really send him off to the land of stranger danger!?

Well, you see…

I mean Jack is essentially meeting up with people he doesn't know and saying: Hey. I just met you. And this is crazy. I think I'm in danger. Cause I'm talking to a stranger.

Ugg. Look, Jack already knew who this person was and had permission from his mother to talk to him.

Ohhhhh. That makes sense.

So Jack gave over his cow for magic beans. He took them home and his mom was very upset about it.

Yeah. Because who brings home beans for dinner without the flavors? No one eats beans without the spices baby.

Yeah. So Jack's mom threw the beans outside. But then that night, the beans became a huge beanstalk that grew very large very quickly. It was so large that the top of the beanstalk went straight into the sky. And when Jack woke up and saw it the next morning, he decided to climb up the beanstalk.

He was inspired to take this daring high risk adventure because he was inspired by the stories he had heard of that young mermaid who had taken huge risks to live in the human world, and of that girl Alice who visited that strange wonder land.

Smackle, what are you talking about?

Oh. We're establishing the greater fairy tale universe. You know, planting connections that these characters coexist. Which will all lead up to the epic crossover tale where they shall combine forces to seek justice for their comrades that have fallen, as these avenging heroes assemble!

Anyway, Jack went up the beanstalk and discovered at the top: a large castle that floated around and moved with the clouds in the sky.

You mean like that moving castle that howled in the sky from that Japanese anime movie by Miyazaki?

No.

Eh, that's okay. That movie was a confusing mess anyway. I'd rather have a crossover with Spirited Away instead.

So anyway, Jack investigated the castle and saw in it were large amounts of food along with a magical goose that laid golden eggs. And as soon as Jack saw that goose, he knew he had to take it.

Hold on. Jack wants to steal the golden goose? Isn't that a bad idea?

What is it now? You're gonna go into the ethical implications of why Jack shouldn't be stealing from anyone?

Oh no. I know desperate times call for desperate measures. But a little boy sneaking around and potentially having to run away super quick from a giant like he's in an episode of The Benny Hill Show is a very bad idea. Jack isn't a master burglar with a cool invisibility device like Bilbo Baggins. He has to be much cleverer at getting his way.

And what's a more clever way for Jack to get what he wants?

Well you see, Jack calls the cops and says: Hello. I'd like to report a shady individual trying to live off the grid who hasn't been paying their taxes. Then a huge number of police officers with their giant robot suits to match the giants' height knock on his door and say: Sir, we've discovered you haven't been paying your proper dues to the government for quite some time. You're in big trouble now mister.

What?

So the police take possession of many of the giants' valuables and use them to kick start a proper program to help poor people in the country including Jack and his mother.

Well I guess that isn't such a bad way to end the…

But then the giant retaliates by calling on Godzilla and King Kong to help him seek vengeance. But then Jack uses the power of the super magic beans to open up portals to alternate dimensions and obtains assistance from the heroes of Robotech and Voltron: Defender of the Universe. Resulting in the most epic mecha vs kaiju fight ever!

Okay Smackle. This is just…

But then just as the fight reaches its' near end, the kaiju try hitting a smash ball that shows up out of nowhere from the Super Smash Brothers universe. However upon using it, it accidentally creates an explosion that hurts nearly all life on the planet except for mostly creatures that look like small horses that start to obtain magical powers, resulting in sadly within two generations: nearly all other species on the planet being wiped out. And that is how the world of My Little Pony was formed.

Okay. I'm done. If you need me, I'll be in the office.

Wait, Farkle. Is story time over then? Oh well. Don't worry kids. Next time we'll go into the sequel that reveals how Pinky Pie wound up becoming the great grandmother of Batman.

THE END

[parchmints]

JuLance Day 29 - Compliments

Check out my thread on twitter to see all the prompts at once (the tumblr app messes with formatting so I recommend twitter if you’re using mobile)! All prompts connect together to form one overarching story!

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day 29/31 - Compliments

Lance’s Little Book of Good Things

Day 29: Compliments

Lance’s Little Book of Good Things

Day 33 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

Okay!! So here’s the deal. Shiro told all of us that we should keep a journal to “ground ourselves” while we make the looong journey back to Earth, so that’s what I’m doing! I didn’t do it for the first month or so cuz I wanted to actually write ya know? Everyone else is just using their tablets but, I don’t know...I wasn’t really feeling it. I think it’ll just feel better to do it by hand. Red didn’t have any pen and paper tho, so I had to wait until we landed on a planet that had some.

It took a month to find one. Ugh, it was so long. Being in the Lions for a week is gross and I’m not gonna get into it, but just know it’s gross. BUT ANYWAY. We landed on a planet called Hovenduhl and there was a super nice prince there who watched the Voltron show and let us stay at his castle for a few days! I asked him about writing supplies and he gave me a bunch! The notebooks he gave me are pretty similar to the ones we have on Earth, but the pens are so cool! They have different ink colors and some of them are shiny, some of them are matte, and some of them glitter! They’re actually a lot like glitter pens but they don’t give out after like five seconds and they write really well.

So my plan with this bad boy is to write the good things that happen on the space roadtrip! With everything that happened with Shiro and Lotor (hate him), it’s been...hard. And the roadtrip is hard. So, I’m gonna write about good things to keep my spirits up! That way I can look at it when I need cheering up! I probably won’t write every day, but I still think it’ll be nice.

P.S. I’m counting a “day” as the moment I wake up to the moment I go to sleep. Time in space is...weird.

Day 35 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

I had sword training with Keith today! He’s kind of a lousy teacher and he constantly sends me flying (mainly cuz I let him--wouldn’t want him to feel threatened by what a natural I am), but he told me that as long as I keep practicing, I could be really good! Which, I mean, obviously…

Day 42 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

Yorak hung out in Red with me today! He put his head on my lap!

Day 54 of Space Roadtrip, Jungle Planet

We found a planet with lots of hanging fruit, so I was shooting them down and Krolia said I had “impressive aim”! It was really nice. I like Krolia a lot. She’s so cool, I kinda can’t believe Keith is her son...but then she’ll make a broody face and I’m like “oh, yeah”.

Day 60 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

Been kind of a rough week. We’ve been flying in the Lions for a long time and no one’s really up for talking. We’re running out of things to say, I think. I’m not a big fan of that if I’m honest. It gives me too much time to think. BUT ANYWAY! Pidge says we’re near an inhabited planet so I’m excited for that!

Day 61 of Space Roadtrip, Baskval

WE LANDED ON A PLANET AAAAAAA!!! It’s been a while! The locals kinda look like cockroaches but they have beds (actual beds!) so I’m in no way complaining.

Day 67 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

Today was...something. I talked with Shiro today and he said...a lot of really nice stuff. I actually kind of ran here after so I could write it all down because I want to remember this for the rest of my life so here goes…

I’ve been feeling...really bad about how I couldn’t really help Shiro when he was stuck in the Black Lion. He tried to tell me what was happening, but I didn’t listen couldn’t hear him. At least not all the way. And we finally talked about it today. I think it was a long time coming. I thought about that moment a lot, especially when we’re just traveling in the Lions. Anyway, he told me that I shouldn’t feel bad since I didn’t have a direct link to the Black Lion like he and Keith did and the fact that I heard him at all gave him hope.

He also told me that I stepped up and was always thinking about the team and that I’m gonna be a great leader and that he’s proud of me! Okay, I think that’s all he said…

I mean, he also said I was a hero which...man.

It’s crazy. I looked up to Shiro even before the Garrison--the guy’s a legend! When I saw that he was gonna be one of our instructors, I nearly lost my mind, but I could never really get his attention. I mean, it was hard to get any of the instructors to pay attention to you when Keith was around. Probably why I didn’t really like him at first...BUT WHATEVER!! Shiro called me a hero and that’s gonna fuel me for WEEKS!!!

Day 82 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

PIDGE GOT KILLBOT PHANTASM IV WORKING IN GREEN!!! We played for hours today and it was the best!!

Day 91 of Space Roadtrip, Dead Planet

I finally was able to knock Keith down in training today!! He was a little annoyed but he said good job and that I was really improving. I’m really happy because we’ve been working hard at it. Keith is a much better teacher now too!

Day 102 of Space Roadtrip, Auria

I want to start this off by saying I’M GOING TO KILL KEITH!!! He made me go sprinting after a little alien girl when I didn’t have to! He’s such a jerk…

BUT ANYWAY!! THE GOOD STUFF: We were on this planet called Auria (it was really pretty!) and there was this little alien girl named Aefee who said I was her favorite Paladin!! We talked a little bit and she was really sweet :)

Kinda made me miss Hilario and Ana, but it’s okay! I’m on my way to see them!

Day 115 of Space Roadtrip, Planet With Food We Could Cook

helped Hunk make dinner out of some weird veggies we found on the planet we landed on and he said I had excellent chopping technique! Mamá used to say the same thing when I helped her cook!

P.S. I’m starting to realize a lot of these entries are just me saying when I get compliments...WHAT CAN I SAY I like it when Lancey Lance gets the appreciation he deserves!

Day 134 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

More training with Keith today! Our fights are starting to feel a lot more even now! And by even, I mean Keith’s almost as good as me! Might even surpass me one day...but oh well, he still can’t shoot for beans.

Day 152 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

I don’t talk much about this here cuz it’s not really happy and I try to keep things positive when I’m journaling, but I talked to Allura today and for the first time in a long time, I felt okay? Like...I’ve been really sad about how we weren’t ever gonna be a thing and I still really liked her, but I think it’s starting to be okay. We just talked and it was kind of the first time I was like “okay we’re friends and I’m not wishing for something more” since I decided I needed to give it up. I don’t know, it just felt good. I’m moving on and I still get to hang out with Allura and have fun with her so can’t complain!

Day 171 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

I FINALLY WON A ROUND OF KP4 AGAINST PIDGE!!! She was really mad at first but then she was like “good game”. Think she’s kind of excited she has competition, actually...

Day 180 of Space Roadtrip, Hybitius

Uh, okay wow. Lot happened today. Like a lot...not all good either, but okay.

So we went to this planet called Hybitius and they have this craaazy carnival with all these thrill rides that make Hunk puke just looking at them and it’s AWESOME!! Keith and I were the only ones with the guts to actually go on them so we spent like, the whole day together and it was...really nice.

We ended the night on this ferris wheel and Keith started talking and he kept saying really nice things like I was there for him and I’m an amazing person and stuff like that and I...ugh this is even hard to write out...but I almost kissed him? And for a second I thought he kinda wanted me to too but the ride was over before I got a chance, which was probably good. Keith probably didn’t want me to kiss him and…

GOD!!! I like Keith!! I like him!! This is so stupid!! When did this even happen?! I mean, I guess we’ve been getting closer because of training...and I guess I’ve always kind of thought he was cute since the Garrison BUT I NEVER LIKED HIM!

I don’t know, I think I’m sad. I know Keith won’t like me back, so I guess I just gotta get over it. Good thing is that I have experience with that so…

Day 215 of Space Roadtrip, Uninhabited Planet

I keep staring at Keith, according to Hunk, but apparently, Keith keeps staring at me too. I don’t know what that means.

Day 220 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

I think Keith almost kissed me. I’m not sure. We were training and things got a little carried away and...I don’t know. I think...maybe he does like me? I guess I think it’s possible now and that...makes me really, really happy.

Day 222 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

Keith doesn’t like me. He likes someone else. Pidge told me.

Good thing is that I’ve started “Operation: Get Over Keith” immediately.

Day 223 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

Operation: Get Over Keith is not going well.

Day 234 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

Hunk said something that made Keith laugh over comms today and it was so cute I thought I was gonna have a heart attack.

Day 255 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

Sorry, it’s been a while. I think the trip’s kind of getting to me. It’s been so long. I’m trying to keep my spirits up for everyone, so I don’t have the energy for lots of journaling...especially about good things.

Sorry, that sounded really negative. I just...want to get home.

Day 269 of Space Roadtrip, Uninhabited Planet

Whenever we land, Keith and I always train and lately, he always come to sit and talk with me. We’re talking a lot, actually. He’s so cool. I mean, I always knew that, but he’s not just cool in an “awesome-pilot-crazy-samurai” way but in a “you make me feel better when I’m sad about something” way too.

We talk about a bunch of stuff, but it usually ends up being about our families.

Suffice to say, Operation: Get Over Keith is still not going well.

Day 283 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

Pidge says we’re not close to Earth, but we’re close to being close to Earth. I don’t really get it, but I’ll take it. Pidge thinks we’re close to making a breakthrough and once we do, the rest of the trip will be easy!

Day 298 of Space Roadtrip, Some Asteroid

Keith smiled at me today and it was an attack on my person. Personally.

O:GOK still not going well.

Day 306 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

PIDGE DID IT!! SHE KNOWS HOW TO GET US BACK TO EARTH!! IT’S ONLY GOING TO TAKE US LIKE A MONTH TO GET HOME!! EAAAARTH!!!

AAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

Day 312 of Space Roadtrip, Red Lion

We’re trying to limit our time on the ground as much as possible so we can get home sooner, which is hard, but I’m not complaining! LET’S GET THERE!!!

Day 325 of Space Roadtrip, Desert Planet

Had to take a break finally. We had a good run for a while but it was time.

Keith and I talked about everything we wanted to do once we got home and at some point I just kinda hugged him. He didn’t seem to mind, though.

As always, O:GOK is not going well. Kind of just failing miserably at this point.

Day 340 of Space Roadtrip, THE MILKY WAY GALAXY

YOU READ THAT RIGHT JOURNAL!!! THE MILKY WAY!! WHICH MEANS WE’RE MINUTES FROM HOME!!! I’M GONNA SEE MY FAMILY! I’M GONNA SEE THE OCEAN! I’M GONNA EAT PIZZA AND GARLIC KNOTS AND ICE CREAM AND MAMÁ’S EMPANADAS AND I HAVEN’T STOPPED SCREAMING!! I’M SCREAMING RIGHT NOW!! THEY’RE TELLING ME TO STOP BUT I WON’T!

I think this is gonna be my last entry, at least for now! I’m gonna be too busy on Earth to be able to write, but thanks for being there for me buddy! Writing in you really helped, actually.

EARTH!! WOOHOO!!

Love,

Lance

[tumblunni]

Brainstorming about my yokai watch ocs: Dimmy and Gorgeous Ambassador, the most cutest family

* My Dimmy's name is Blythe and they are nonbinary. Gorgeous Ambassador is male and i dont have a name for him yet. I was thinking maybe try and make up a dub name for kageusuo (anime exclusive pre evolution) that sounds like it could have been his nickname as a human? Cos his story is that he used to be a wandering mercenary in ye olde ninja times, i feel like itd be fitting.

* Blythe is the main partner of my protagonist in my yokai watch lp, basically the jibanyan of the anime of my heart. Their personality is mostly similar to the Dimmy in the anime, but i feel like theyre maybe older and more powerful than the average Dimmy? Like a weak low evolution yokai thats stayed unevolved for centuries and is actually more skilled and world weary than you'd assume. Protag just got lucky that she bumped into this one super magikarp, lol! Also i like to draw them looking more teenage age by just taking the regular Dimmy design and making the tail extra super long. They stand roughly twice as tall as the protagonist and can wrap around her shoulders like a scarf :3 Blythe is however totally unaware of their super powerful mega skill and is very self depreciating and low confidence. But Mallory totally sees them as a cool older sibling mentor figure and is always trying to figure out ways to make their tol squiggle friend feel included and valued :3

* the way Gorgeous Ambassador comes into the picture is that he was actually the same sort of figure to Blythe! Back in the ninja era Blythe was partners with another human, but he passed away in tragic circumstances and it led to their current depressed self. However he actually reincarnated as a yokai and has been trying to find his lil sibling ever since! I feel like he was a failure samurai who tried to protect people but was so weak he never could. And he was always broke and starving and begging to do any sort of miscellaneous jobs for anyone or even let them punch him in the stomach for a few coins. And he had just as much self confidence issues as Blythe but he coped with it by becoming a compulsive liar instead, always boasting and trying to sell himself as some legendary hero to keep from facing the truth. Since Blythe was a cute lil babby yokai at the time, they always believed their human master's tall tales and looked up to him, which made him feel really guilty and try harder to work on becoming someone this kid could be genuinely proud of.

* Blythe was first born as a household spirit. Cos i was thinking about what Dimmy would be before it became a ninja, since the medallium description says it 'got a job as a ninja to put its powers to use', so like it isnt really a ninja yokai but just a yokai thats a ninja? I guess?? I figured that the idea of being an invisible shadow supporter fit with household spirits/domovoi/zakishi warishi (probably mispelled that) and the various other similar creatures in mythologies all over the world. Just the idea that theres some sort of being that protects your house and if you give it offerings and take good care of the place it will protect you and your family. So yeah its my headcanon that thats how Dimmys are born, and that theres probably many variants wearing different outfits inspired by whatever type of humans they guarded. Tho yeh ninja is a job that works really well with their abilities so it makes sense itd be the primary representative of the species in the games.

* Human-dude-who-would-become-gorgeous-ambassador first met Blythe when one of his various failed attempts to get a job happened to cross paths with the family Blythe was guarding. This family didnt believe in such old suspicions and never gave offerings to their household spirit, so it stayed small and weak and was almost fading away. Baby blythe didnt know why their humans didnt love them, even though they tried so hard to bring good luck and clean the fireplace and stuff. So they felt a sense of kinship with this poor failure samurai who was begging for food on their doorstep. The humans of the household spat in his face and turned him away empty handed, but the tiny yokai snuck some rice from the pantry and gave it to him. They were surprised that he was able to see them, and he gave them the first thank you they'd ever had!

* Addendum note: i feel like gorgeous samurai was cursed with being able to see yokai from a young age and its part of whay made him so determined to become strong enough to protect people. Perhaps his biological family was killed by an evil yokai and nobody ever believed what he saw? And he wandered japan trying to save other people and always failing and being blamed for what happened, since nobody could see the real culprit. This reputation of being a liar when he wasnt = he ended up actually lying about how he was totally fine and not sad and also great and not hating himself. Its not really something he can control anymore, its like a stress response and it keeps getting him in trouble but he cant stop. "Yes sure i can save the day, i'm awesome!" only makes things worse when he inevitably loses again, whic only makes his self confidence worse and traps him further in the lies...

* so anyway, he became friends with this lil babby yokai and kept coming back to visit them and tell more tall tales of his grand adventures. And eventually he managed to help Blythe come out of their shell a little and agree to leave this house where they were only fading away. Haunting him instead, the lil shadow soon flourished back to full health from being loved for the first time. And their new big bro would always give them the biggest share of all the food even when he was starving, and always wasted his money buying things for them, and knitted them lil scarfs and just HE WAS A GOODEST BIG BRO! They also made a great team, and he was finally able to fight evil yokai with a yokai of his own helping him out. Things were good for a few years!

* Eventually though, they faced a foe too strong for them to defeat. (Not sure yet who it is, cos it could be cool if they faced it again in the present day for a rematch?) Blythe's human friend ran into a burning building to save the people being attacked by this yokai, but because he was already gravely injured he didnt manage to make it out in time. And blythe was just a tiny bab who wasnt strong enough to carry his unconcious body to safety. So their last memories of him are of crying and begging him to wake up as the house fell apart all around them, and eventually the flames swallowed him up. the tiny yokai just ran and ran away from their shame, and never saw an ashy figure rising from the ruins and calling their name...

* eventually after years of struggling alone and lacking meaning in life, Blythe had a chance meeting with our protagonist and thus begins my yokai watch 1 lets play! At the same time their yokaified big bro is still out there searching for them, and maybe one day theyll meet again...

* also i wanna go with the pre-evo the anime added of Gorgeous Ambassador evolving from a sad depressed vampire lookin dude. Even if the whole circumstances here are vastly different! But we dont really have any info on what kageusuo's powers or stats would be, so i guess i'm free to mess around with that? I like the idea of it being vampiric just cos i feel it looks like that. But instead of drinking blood maybe its a hunger for shadows? Which is actually beneficial to humans and makes them less overshadowed aka the opposite of Dimmy's power. So if you ever feel that you're radiating charisma with perhaps a slightly lighter shadow, maybe youve been inspirited by this guy! And then the evolution into Gorgeous Ambassador doesnt actually change anything at all, except just looking more fashionable and confident (which is absolutely a lie). His power already made people more fabulous while being unable to affect himself, he just worked a bit harder on himself to try and catch up with everyone else. Self care vampire!

* oh and in this interpretation the way that kageusuo would be integrated into the gameplay is that Gorgeous Ambassador would get a new ability that lets him switch forms in battle, rather than it being a separate yokai. (Tho would still have a separate entry in the medallium just for conveinience of being able to view both character models whenever you want) Stuff that causes low confidence would make him poof between forms, and itd just be something like more attack based vs defense based, or maybe having two separate personality stats so its like his AI is slightly more versatile than the usual frustratingness of most yokai? Srsly im still so annoyed at so many yokai that have two mutually exclusive moves and the ai is stupid about using them at the wrong time to cancel each other out. Like how Dimmy can be given the AI personality to focus on attacking and thus take advantage of its auto-skill to be good at dodging aka a glass cannon. BUT also one of its skills gives that same status to an ally instead, which by definition takes it away from itself cos 'dont target this other guy' means there arent many other options. So you cpuld alternatively play dimmy as a supporter who exclusively protects others with that ability BUT the annoying part is that even when you set an AI profile to one particular move it still only makes it LIKELY to do that and not guaranteed. So every now and again your attacking dimmy will cancel its own buff to protect an enemy, or your supporting dimmy will forget to support abd instead buff itself despite not having the attack stat build to take advantage of it. Plus you cant have both and switch between modes mid battle, so thatd be REALLY useful if one yokai actually could do that, and also could change stats to fit! Im not sure how to give it a trigger condition thatd let you sorta change at will but also not be 100% easy and overpowered. I was thinking tying it to his confidence could mean missed attacks turn him into kageusuo and critical hits turn into gorgeous? But thatd be TOO uncontrollable...

* oh actually i think maybe i'll nickname him Amber! Just cos my brain just mispronounced gorgeous ambassador and It Kinda Works??? Also its a kind of name that sounds very pretty but also has connotations of gentle shyness, i think. Matches the duality of his fake boastfulness vs his true self doubt.

* Oh and i also thought of maybe having Blythe evolve into Casanono, even though you cant do that in canon. I feel like turning into a pretty humanoid would be a good way to symbolize their growing confidence ans casanono/casanuva has a big nonbinary aesthetic in my opinion. Plus of course the fact casanono is a variabt of a confident yokai thats actyally shy. Originally older brother dude was gonna be a casanuva to match, until i heard about Gorgerous Ambassador and decided it fits him better (especially with that new anime form!) So now im thinking maybe have Blythe be both casanono and casanuva at once, similar to their bro's form switching? But itd be more like casanuva is a rare super saiyan esque powerup when they experience rare moments of confidence. Im pretty much just doing this because SADLY casanono is a joke character who is literally mechanically forced to be useless in battle. Its ability makes it harder to catch yokai which ia already goddamn difficult, and it wastes a skill slot too. As opposed to Dimmy who has a similar personality of always being ignored and depressed but its abilities are actually beneficial. Itd suck to go from Blythe being my mvp to being unable to use them at all, so this would be a way to still always draw them as casanono in comics to match their actual personality, but using casanuva in battle cos.. Well.. Yeah its the functional one of the two. Level-5 if youre listening please make casanono useable in future games!! Casanuva is absolutely the worst one personality wise so it sucks that the game agrees with his ego that he's great and also punches his depressed counterpart into the bin of ignoreness DESPITE BEING SUPER SYMPATHETIC AND RELATEABLE AND ALSO CUTER COLOURSCHEME

Anyway thats all the thoughts i have so far. Except oh also itd be funny if throughout the whole story blythe keeps talking about their dead brother as if he was the super best most serious hero and then when the protagobists actually meet him he's this gaudy dork XD

[aftermathdb]

DEATH BATTLE Review: Samurai Jack vs. Afro Samurai.

WARNING: The following review contains screenshots of large amounts of blood and gore. Please continue at your own discretion.

This battle has been a long time coming. And correct me if I’m wrong, but I think that this is the first time a character that was owned by Cartoon Network has entered the fray, making this unique in more ways than one. Can the Time-Displaced Warrior defeat The Number 1 Samurai? - We find out in a clash of blades.

Personally, I’m excited to use Jack in the story.

So, this is the second time a character from American animation has fought a character from Japanese animation. I’m not linking to the first one because of reasons.

Jack′s Preview.

I’m pretty sure that the usage of the original opening makes this all the better for the fans of Samurai Jack. Even calling Aku opening a time portal a ‘bitch move’ was pretty hilarious. Especially when Boomstick says “Me” instead of “Him.” There’s just so much to laugh at here, that it’s just hilarious.

Then we get into his training, and that’s when we see all the badass stuff.

(Because of course they have to mention “Jumping Good).

Regardless, Jack’s stats are very impressive. And his blade is just as so. Being forged by not one, not two, but three different gods- Jack’s katana is just plain cool. The fact that those gods all come from different pantheons makes it all the more badass to boot.

Even lampshading that Adamantium (at least the Marvel version) shouldn’t be there, Jack’s feats are super impressive. Like the way of how he jumps good. I had no idea that the boulder he wore was nearly forty tons. You learn something new every day.

I mean, with a resume like that, I think Afro really doesn’t stand much of a chance. “Dibs on Jack for my Basketball team” indeed.

Kinda dissapointed that they never mentioned that off a few technicalities (Like lacking a master, and disobeying certain orders), Jack falls under the category of Ronin. Didn’t even put it in a notecard.

And to be honest, I had completely forgotten about that “Who else wants some” line.

Afro′s Preview.

If these guys were trying to get people invested in the Afro Samurai series, I’d say they did a pretty good job. I’d say that if you enjoy something like Berserk, you’ll enjoy Afro Samurai.

Anyways, they go over the sacred headbands first. Talking about their legend, and the supposed powers they bring. But a notecard and some explanation quickly dispenses any notion that there’s any real power to be held by them.

(”An overhyped strip of cloth…” I had a petty comment about a certain American comic character’s fanbase, but making a comment like that is beneath me).

Tangent aside, Afro’s background has some fair similarities with Jack’s. Like…

Not knowing their real name. Seriously?- What is up with that? Do all great samurais on a quest share this trait?

The background for the headbands is pretty cool too. Showcasing both the benefits and the burdens of each. But, there’s really no actual benefit, and it seems to rely on just the honor system. Quick question!- What’s stopping someone from just stealing the Number 1 headband?- Or just creating a replica of it?

And Boomstick brings up a good point here. The hardest part about being a parent in these types of stories seems to be staying alive, rather than… anything else really.

And I have to agree with the weird naming system they have. Next thing you tell me, is that this series has a series of brothers that are numbered [Link]……… goddammit.

And then there’s how he killed Sword Master, and befriended Ninja Ninja… The original point about the naming still stands. Though, given how unhelpful he (Ninja Ninja) is, I doubt that he’ll be of any use in the fight.

Even the blade and arsenal he wields is impressive. And that Perfect Parry technique sounds similar to that parry move that Ryu has. And it seems like he likes fighting dirty. Which is probably going to be the only real thing he has against Jack.

OH! And for some reason, they give Afro the descriptor of Ronin, but not Jack. That just feels like being cheated out of something.

And his resume… Okay, that laser feat, assassin defeat time, and strength are really the only ones that are impressive. At least, when compared to Jack surviving a fall from space. Pretty sure that one feat beats any of Afro’s.

I’m no expert in this series, but his end line… It’s pretty badass.

The Battle Itself.

Luis (Who did Leon vs. Frank and was on the team that did Strange vs. Fate) is hand animating this entirely with some help from Jerky, making this the second DEATH BATTLE that is completely hand animated (The first being Smokey vs. McGruff). Jack will have the voice of Kanji Tang while Afro will be voiced by Devante’ Johnson, music is called Watch out, Samurai! (Youtube link not available at the moment) and is done by Therewolf, and lead audio is by Chris Kokkinios with the help of Philip Spann (No twitter handle available, so here’s his facebook).

So, the story is that… They smell the blood on the other’s blade, and decide to duke it out. I’m not sure if that was the intent, so I’m guessing there’s really no story at all. The voice actors are just there to say some interesting lines. But regardless of that, look at this beautiful hand-drawn animation!

Seriously though, this is your last chance to turn back. The screenshots get more bloody and violent as the battle progresses.

That’s some freaking nice art right there. And it really helps with the battle, considering that just using sprites would probably not work as well as it could.

So the two start fighting, and are capable of parrying most strikes. And I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking “Wait! I thought that Jack’s blade couldn’t harm innocent people! Why can it hurt Afro?” And to that I say, “Afro’s an innocent man?- The dude killed his master all because he had the Number 2 headband!”

We also see Afro’s dirty fighting in action, as he uses his cigarette to temporarily blind Jack. But, it doesn’t work as well as it would in most situations. An earlier notecard revealed that Jack could dodge arrows based on sound, so it’s not likely that Afro could deal damage based on that.

In fact, here it is:

The battle rages on until the rope bridge they’re on turns vertical, and Jack falls to his demise- I’m kidding. He jumps back up. Afro even comments on it. It’s a nice little touch considering that most opponents just assumed that people who can Jump Good are capable of flight. The reactions are rather humorous too.

And we also see that neither are leaving the battle unscathed, as Afro manages to get in some good strikes, and then Jack returns the favor.

(Look at that expression. That feels like it could have come straight out of the show).

So, as we can see, Afro manages to disarm Jack, and Jack manages to return the favor.

And in true Samurai Jack fashion, the blade cuts the rest of the bridge.

And then after an intense strike from above, Afro once again, manages to disarm Jack… Literally this time.

(Yeah, that’s not something you’d see in seasons 1-4).

But no need to worry (Unless you were rooting for Afro), Jack, once again, manages to return the favor and then some.

Yeah… That blood and gore warning wasn’t kidding.

Finishing blow in

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

So, with Jack sporting the Rad Spencer look (without the bionic arm) and Afro looking like Jax (without the bionic arms), Jack finishes off his opponent in a brutal fashion that wouldn’t be out of place in Afro’s series.

(Neat little detail: Jack is wearing the headband that Afro used to wear).

Verdict + Explanation.

So, yeah. Jack’s stats just… They just outclass Afro’s. That’s just… Yeah. I think a lot of people were expecting that, but probably also expected it to be a stomp in Jack’s favor. He didn’t come out unscathed, and I’d say that’s probably a bone to be thrown to the Afro fans. They show some amount of respect toward each other, and I can appreciate that.

Overall impression.

Rundown: Cool and informative.

Animation: Beautiful.

Explanation: Really solid.

Rating: 9.2/10. It’s not as long as something like Strange vs. Fate, but it’s still a really awesome episode, and it’s a really good one too.

Next Time…

This looks like it’s going to get bloody…

… I’m going to need that “Blood and Gore” warning for this one too, huh?

If uh… If anyone wants to help out in regards to Lucy’s character, that would be spectacular.

Is there a fight that you want me to review? - Send an ask/request, and I’ll look into it! 

Do you want to read my fanfic based around DEATH BATTLE itself? click here!

Thank you for reading, and I hope to see you next time for…

Cassidy vs. Lucy. It’s not a creative name, but it rhymes.

[italicwatches]

I Couldn’t Become a Hero, so I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job - Episode 01

I regret nothing. …Well, I say that now. I’m not entirely sure if this show will be any good, but it’s one whose title has had me curious for a while. Will it be silly and fun, or will it, I don’t know, turn super rapey or something? You never really know when you go down this road. So join me, won’t you? it’s I Couldn’t Become a Hero, So I Reluctantly Decided to Get a Job, episode 01! Here we GO!

-We begin with fire and brimstone. A volcano erupting! And then, to a temple ruins! It’s a scene right out of an incredibly anime version of Jason and the Argonauts, as our armored hero fights against a batch of skeleton w…knights, only for a harpy to come swinging in! He’s saved by a woman…in…

-Okay it’s one of these.

-Because that wouldn’t even qualify as Sexy Samurai in a decade-old shitpost video. So our hero, Raul Chaser, is willing to rely onYUP THERE GOES HER ARMOR. So she’s like Darkness but without the joke that she’s into this kind of treatment. A small army of skeletal archers pour on the arrows…When lightning comes down from the skies, brought by their other companions! Fight, war, and reach the giant leading this army! Strike him down, and they pass the exam! The woman races in, sprints up the giant’s arm, rams her fucking sword into his EYE…

-And Raul backs her up with his RAUL SLASH, carving deep through…

-Hard cut to the light of day. The hero school has been shut down. Demon Lord got defeated(probably by some fucker from another world), sooooo they don’t need to keep training brave heroes. They’re all fucked. They’re fuuuuuucked.

-Episode 01: I Couldn’t Be a Hero, so I’m Working the Register

-Hard cut to the Leon Magic Shop, where Raul has to sell suburban couples on enchanted washing machines. Magically guaranteed to remove even the most stubborn stains! But they’re not interested.

-TITTIES.

-Meet a perky bubbly young lady, Nova, who does not realize how sexualized she is. I’m sorry. Anyways, Raul is in a bit of a bind, too, since he hasn’t gotten a raise and his credit card bill is coming up this week…When a nerd comes in looking for some vintage cassette tapes. You’re in luck, they have some…! And suddenly the store is mobbed by vintage audio enthusiasts here to buy out the entire stock. Then they’re gone as fast as they came…

-And you know what, I don’t think those tapes are super vintage. I just spotted totally-not-Kodak film behind the counter. I think this is just set in the 80s-90s equivalent of this world. Plus, after a hoodie-clad blonde comes in, the CRT television in the corner plays Conveniently Timed News about how the cassette maker I-ONE has gone out of business! They just couldn’t hold their own against cheaper, ‘good enough’ cassettes and equipment from the competition while still making a profit. It’s a legitimate tragedy whenever that happens.

-And the blonde is getting mad and wants them to get the manager right now…Which is when Nova runs off to handle inventory. Escape, Nova, escape while you can! So Raul is forced to do it…Which is when the blonde slams a resume down. And is here for an interview. When the blonde forgets the resume…And so Raul’s able to read it, and holy shit.

-Raul bursts into the interview room with the resume, because you cannot seriously be thinking of hiring the demon lord’s child, right boss? HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?! You literally wrote it on your resume. W, Well, you’re supposed to tell the truth on those, aren’t you?! Anyways, busty lady boss has decided that Fino here will be joining the shop. It’ll be a good experience! Fino, Raul. Raul, Fino. Please get along.

-So soon Fino’s in the store, looking at all the stuff, and there’s some really cool things that humans have made. Like magicvision, and magic cassettes, and magic…You know what I’m just going to spoil it for you now. It’s 80s-90s level tech, made with magic. I’m not going to bother to specify anymore. It’s a fuckin’ TV, it’s cool that it works because of fairy dust or whatever but I’m calling it a TV. Anyways Fino never had a personal TV growing up in the Demon Castle, and is all oooooh and aaaah.

-Well, you know what else you didn’t have growing up in the Demon Castle? A broom. Get sweeping, rookie. …Yes sir! And then Convenient News comes back on to talk about the anniversary event for the demon lord’s defeat two years ago. Quick flashback, to how that day totally fucked Raul’s life. A young man, two steps away from a degree in a job that literally no longer existed overnight. His entire party was shattered. They’re stuck in dead-end jobs and with crushing college debt, and nothing to show for it except broken dreams and a bitter envy of those who actually benefitted from the changing order…

-…Damn. That’s…Damn.

-Eventually it’s later in the day, and Raul is continuing to struggle with getting Fino to, you know, work like a proper employee…Also shocking twist Fino has long lovely hair. And that’s when a rough, tough…Dirty old man comes in off his slick dragon-pulled hotrod. And he’s here to peek up Nova’s skirt and grope that ass. Fino immediately decides this shit has to be stopped…When the old man reveals he’s gonna be buying a lightbulb. One lightbulb. Every time. The perfect excuse. And now Fino is…Shall we say, confused. Are humans like dogs? Is butt stuff just part of the communication?

-Does Fino need to bend over? Fino stop bending over. FINO NO. FINO PUT YOUR BUTT AWAY. NOVA DON’T ENCOURAGE THIS.

-Lunch break, at last. Raul is able to sit down and have some food from the convenience store…A place with some old friends who worry about the dork, and look after each other.

-Back in the store, the boss is talking to her assistant manager, Viser, and trying to explain her disinterest in bringing in another company into the shop…When they spot Raul working with Fino at the register, over the security cameras. And cut down to the actual register, where Raul’s decided that the actual core of Fino’s problems is a lack of respect. Rethink everything. Back to zero. This job means they are lesser than the customer. Yeah it sucks. Deal with it.

-…Fino doesn’t know how to do that. Well try on Raul. Okay! …Fino you’re being demonic again. This isn’t a battle, you stupid dork. Are you a chuuni or just stupid?

-Fino is just trying to copy how Dad used to talk! Your dad was, literally, a demon king. THE demon king. There is, quite literally, no worse example you could mimic for this lesson! …You know what, start with the manual. But first, come on, to the repair room. They also do repair work.

-Oooh, what’s that? It’s a toaster oven. And that?! A humidifier. And…And Fino touches the humidifier, and causes a surge of water, electricity and magical energy that knocks the poor idiot into the far wall! Raul’s stuck carrying Fino into the break room to figure out a plan that doesn’t involve calling a doctor and getting into trouble, and oh, great, a note from literally everyone else who works today listing their reasons they’re not here right now. Awesome. Just awesome.

-Right, first step, get these ruined clothes off of Fino. …Fino was not wearing anything under that hoodie. And that’s how a pair of big, bountiful, ladylike breasts come wobbling out.

-And that’s when Fino wakes up.

-So.

-This isn’t great for either party. And both of them are having a freakout, until the actual events that happened get all laid out. …Please put some fresh clothes on, Fino.

-And eventually, it’s the tail end of Fino’s first day, and she gets to have a uniform! Now sweep the walkway. By hand. With this broom. Welcome to working life, kid. When a sweet old lady passes by praising her hard work, and Fino thanks her, and the kid might just do okay in this world. Maybe.

-Night comes, and Raul stops at the convenience store for dinner, having a brief chat…But as he walks by the shop on his way home, the lights are on?

-Because Fino is in the back, washing down by hand in the sink?! What are you DOING?! She’s got no house, so this is her house now. …That’s not…That isn’t…You can’t just…Do you have any idea how terrible dish soap is for hair and skin? I’d question focusing on that angle over all the other things Fino’s done wrong here, but at the same time, I mean, there comes a point where you just have to find the smallest bite of the elephant.

-And as Raul helps her dry and generally make herself presentable, they end up talking about their own pasts. Raul, who came from a tiny village only to see all the great marvels of modernity in the city, and Fino who lived an even less modern life in the castle…Despite everything, there is a connection of friendship there, and Fino’s starting to learn human society. She might just do okay here yet.

-Credits!

-Aftercredits! Fino touches the turbo button on the hair dryer and…Uh…It makes a biiiiig boom. She has a scary amount of magic in a world that runs on the stuff.

Hmmmm. Well, it’s not so bad that I’m gonna drop it, but man, the fan service in this one is dense…And a lot of it is pure camera-work, too, not actions actually willingly undertaken by characters. It’s honestly a shame. There’s a lot of interesting conceptual meat in this. It really didn’t need big bouncing tits and panty shots everywhere to be a good show.

Oh well. Sometimes I watch super amazing stuff and my job is just to show that amazingness to you. Sometimes, I watch not-so-great stuff and my job is to separate off the good stuff and bring it together into a better piece. If this one’s more the latter, that’s fine. We’ll just have to get a better vibe on it next time, in episode TWO of I Couldn’t … Job! Wait for it!

[lethargyspecialist]

Masks: the Leftovers, part 2: Throwing the Shark

In which our heroine’s sense of superiority is thoroughly vindicated by her teammates’ own immaturity, the ocean beckons, and a birthday surprise is ruined.

Dear Father, Well first up, I can’t hold my excitement in, thank you for the secret underwater base, even if it is a little smaller than I’m used to. Since it’s so remote and secret and everything, I’m guessing it’s officially off the books which means it officially hasn’t been seized so it’s still mine, right? I’m pretty sure that’s how it works. Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself. The dumb alien ship lands us on a beach, for some reason. Yang’s alien girlfriend looks like a complete mess so I ask him if she’s meant to be that colour. He insists they’re just friends-of-friends. But he still puts his magic glowing hands all over her and declares that she’s been poisoned, in whatever fight happened before she crashed on my life. More importantly, it turns out Yang can use his weird life energy stuff to heal and never told me. I had to regenerate myself after I pulled that girder out of my leg when we fought that girder-themed guy last week, and it took hours. Now she’s all healed, Yang’s alien girlfriend immediately starts being mean to me. Well actually, I don’t remember who started it, or why, but I’m pretty sure it was her. So naturally I posture – the way you taught me! – and tell her she comes to my planet and starts being all superior at me and she really wants to challenge me here, in my element? She says what. I say, you know, my element, the ocean’s right here. I check behind me and the ocean is still right there. (I mean I know you’re the one with hydrokinesis or whatever but it still counts, right? If we did fight here, I’d totally have the advantage. That’s strategy.) But she’s still confused. I don’t think she understands, because she’s an alien and everything. The threat kind of fades out. It’s awkward. Yang, the coward, eyes us both weakly. He refuses to back me up and instead turns into a pile of sand (he can do that with his Infinite Powers I guess), shuffles into the ocean, then turns into a puddle of water to wait it out. What. The only other thing here is a rickety house some way down the beach, where some dude’s blasting crummy music - I don’t even have super hearing, but it’s reeeeeally annoying. So while Yang’s busy avoiding his responsibilities and being a bad mentor, the alien girl heads over there. I say fine, whatever, she can leave me too, I’ll handle myself over here. So I storm into her ship and press all the buttons in the hopes that I can either fly away, or screw things up for her, but it’s dead. Piece of junk. Which means I’ve got nothing better to do than follow her, I guess. So I can settle our score. Which I do! Very quickly. I catch up just in time to see her trying to be all friendly with the dude but he totally freaks out, which is refreshing after all the tiring reactions I get. I mock her for it, obviously, and she phases through the wall of the house, crying. Of course, this leaves me alone on this dumb beach, so I shout at the ocean to ask Yang if he’s done being jealous of my cool aquatic powers, and if he’s ready to come out now. Some random patch of ocean waves Yang’s notepad at me, threatening me with a bad report. (It looks pretty soggy. How does stuff like this even work with magical shapeshifting?). I tell the random patch of ocean that he’s being very cruel and unprofessional and he should at least shapeshift a face and come talk to me properly. He throws a tidal wave at me (Yang’s Infinite Powers are totally overpowered? And what does he think he’s going to achieve, attacking the sea-powered girl with seawater?). I break and part it perfectly with my tentacles, like a samurai or something. I think I manage to hit him too, wherever he is and whatever form he’s in, because I’m pretty sure I hear some pathetic spluttering from somewhere. Oh, also, there’s some kind of cybernetic laser shark washed up on the beach from the tidal wave, which I assume is Yang’s fault, or maybe even him shapeshifted, but I am 100% Done with this nonsense so I grab it and swing it around my head a few times. Then I fling it over the horizon and back into the ocean. It’s real satisfying. You know I said it was a laser shark? I was busy at the time, obviously, but it turns out it lasered its way through the walls and roof of the house while it was spinning. It kind of sucks that this seems to be a constant theme of Being a Hero but I’m gonna say it again, I can’t be held responsible for everything that happens with things I grab. Or throw. Or have thrown at me. I mean my superpower is tentacles, what do they want from me? I touch a lot of things. And like by definition if those things are Mine then I’m not going to be letting go of them, am I? So logically, that means the shark and the whole thing with the spacepod in the forest aren’t my fault. You can tell AEGIS that. So finally Yang decides to grow up and get out of the goddamn ocean (I mean it’s not like he has a legitimate reason, he doesn’t have to immerse himself occasionally to prevent his skin drying out or anything). And now we’re all in the loud guy’s beach house, because there’s nothing else remotely interesting around here. The guy’s now passed out drunk apparently, though maybe that’s the alien’s doing for all I know. The fridge is open so I casually streeeetch over and grab a bottle, because I deserve it. It’s been a rough morning, you know? I notice the alien girl actually already has a bottle of her own, so we toast on the sly because at least she’s got good instincts. Finally, the guy notices we’re here (I think Yang sucked the drunkenness out of him? Seems like a bad deal to me…) and asks us who we are and what we think we’re doing drinking. I tell him “I’m a goddamn hero and I just saved you from a laser shark, so you’re welcome and also I deserve this.” He stands silent for a second, which feels great. I figure I should press the attack and dust off the old intro – “I’m Cerata, scion of Dr Diluvian, and-” but he’s got his balance back and now he’s on his phone ignoring me, which is just rude. Turns out he’s a conspiracy theory nut who’s convinced he’s being watched. According to the alien girl, who read his phone’s mind or something. Or maybe just read his phone. Either way, we have this thing on Earth called “boundaries”. Obviously I don’t exactly care about his, but if she tries to read my phone, or somehow gets her little green hands on these letters, I swear I’ll throw her back into space. Anyway, now we’re all thinking about the cyber shark and, in hindsight, the big telescoping camera strapped to its back. Suspicious. I guess we were focused on the laser at the time. Yang’s apparently over his soggy tantrum now, because he decides to act like a leader again, and declares we’re going to investigate. It’s better than sticking around here, plus I’ll get to show off my awesome ocean powers somewhere other than grotty alleyways for once. He turns to me. “Doesn’t your dad do water stuff?” Seriously. Does my father, Doctor Diluvian, the world’s premier aquatic supervillain, do water stuff? Yeah, Yang, yeah he does. And so do I? In case you’ve forgotten? How about I go stick my head in the ocean and use my extremely sensitive chemoceptors to track the shark that I just threw very far away, a feat unimaginable to your puny baseline senses? Yang says he doesn’t know what that word means but yeah I should go do that. Ingrate. It’s been a while since my rhinophores (another word Yang doesn’t know, shame they’re not as dangerous as they sound, but they’re fun to have anyway) tasted water this clean, so far from the city, so there’s that at least. Plus when I’m in the ocean and the others aren’t, I can pretend they don’t exist. Plus, I did need to immerse myself sometime soon and this is much nicer than a bathtub. And this is a good excuse to do that without having to admit in front of Yang or the alien girl that I just need to go soak for a bit before we fly away. Once I’ve got a bearing, though, they fly the spacepod into the ocean (apparently it’s not broken now? and also seaworthy?) and I have to sit on the outside so I can still smell the damn shark while we follow it. Tracking a cyber-shark from the barest traces of heavy metals and other foreign chemicals on the ocean currents isn’t easy, but I do it anyway because I’m that good. Converting information from a sensory process that the others don’t have and literally can’t understand into directions they can follow also isn’t easy. In fact, that alien bitch gets impatient so she dives into my brain to pluck the information out for herself. (I knew she was a damn telepath when I first saw her. What if she’s been in my head already and I just didn’t notice? How can I possibly trust her?) That absolutely does it, so I ask her if she’s maybe thought about which of us can survive at the bottom of the ocean before she violated my mind like that. I’m this close to reaching through the hatch, grabbing her and throwing her out the back of the ship when she pushes a button and shuts me out of the cabin. I fume for a bit, and consider just swimming away and forgetting this mess. Then I feel Yang in my head, trying to calm me down, which is really just as bad and uninvited. Why can’t they just talk to me and be nice to me? I don’t think he realises how clumsy he is when he throws around random powers that he’s never used before, but I let him think he’s succeeded. I’ll hold it against him and bring it up some other time when he’s trying to paint himself as a saint. Finally, we track the shark to some kind of ocean-floor base. You know, like the kind you have, scattered around the world. It’s remarkably like one of ours, actually. I realise I never checked if the cyber shark had Fathom Labs insignia on it, but in my defence I was very angry and busy throwing my powers around at the time. Yang insists on going ahead in puddle form, and when we don’t see or hear any explosions for a couple of minutes, we follow with the ship. And use the submarine pen as it’s actually meant to be used, surfacing and stepping out onto the walkway like I own the place. Which, plot twist, it turns out I do. It was so good to hear your voice again, even in a recording. And so thoughtful of you to record that message in case I did find this place. I know it was meant to be a surprise for when I’m older, but I hope you’re proud of me for using my initiative now! I guess I just need to find out what kind of scum has crawled in here while you were gone, kick them out, and I can enjoy some small fraction of my birthright again. Naturally, the feeling is short-lived because Yang refuses to let me just have a moment, just one time, and he kills the shark. My shark! I say kill, I don’t actually know because with Yang’s Infinite Powers, who can tell what he did to the poor thing as it sat helpless in its shark cradle. I think he hacked it? Or absorbed it? Or both? Now he’s flopping around pretending to be some kind of sharkboy. What’s his deal today, with all the shapeshifting and muscling in on the ocean-themed stuff? Is he mocking me? Is he jealous? Does he finally accept that he should be my sidekick, rather than my mentor? Whatever. I’ll write to you again when I’ve liberated your base for you. And I’ll try not to break too much stuff while I’m at it, since for once everything around me is actually mine. Wish me luck! ~ Vikki

[gwenbrightly]

Elements

Oh look! My brain decided to create a random drabble about elemental powers instead of focusing on OMAC… Oops. I guess Misako's appearance will have to wait… All the headcanons and stories I've been reading lately that mention Lloyd's powers acting up when he gets emotional made the temptation to write this too great. So yeah. This one shot can probably be considered a part of Of Milk and Cookies, and takes place just after the chapter titled Awkward. I hope you enjoy!

Elemental powers are weird, Lloyd muses early one morning not too long after their visit to Darkley's Boarding School. He can control his now – sorta – and the others can do some pretty amazing stuff with theirs – like being able to lift a sports car with your pinkie. Or spark fire with a snap of your fingers (literally). Or charge your phone using only your own energy. Or meditate inside of a freezer for hours on end without getting cold (okay, maybe he hadn't been around for that). All those things are incredibly cool, and Lloyd's not complaining, because someday he'll be able to do all of that too, which is super exciting. He can't wait, really.

But sometimes... Sometimes having powers isn't exactly the best. He's been around this weird, dorky family of his long enough to notice that there are days where things get a little out of wack. Where Kai or Zane get emotional and the temperature around them suddenly changes to the extreme, or any number of other bizarre side effects. Just last week, Lloyd walked into their skimpy apartment only to feel his hair immediately begin defying gravity due to the sheer amount of electricity filling the air. Puns involving shocking had most definitely been made. Cole and Jay's latest argument (See: whether or not pineapple is an acceptable topping for pizza) had gotten a little... heated, and the master of lightning's powers had acted up as a result. It wasn't the first time this sort of thing had happened, and the blonde is pretty sure it won't be the last. Still, he has to admit that it's a little (a lot) unnerving to deal with the aftermath of an elemental outburst... Especially... now that he's experienced his own for the first time... Okay, he'll admit it – that's the real reason he's up right now – not because he was craving poptarts. Which is what he plans to tell the others if they question it. Not that they're awake, so he's safe. For the time being, at least. Maybe he can get this glass cleaned up and replace the lightbulb before anyone finds out? If he's lucky. Lloyd slips over to the meager set of cupboards that they've installed in one corner. They have to be keeping some extra lightbulbs around here somewhere... Honestly, given what's happened during training, he really shouldn't be surprised that his latest nightmare ended with him blowing up their light source – it had been so vivid, and just… he'd woken up terrified. He hates feeling like that. He'd stared at the mess for quite some time, too shocked to do anything about it at first, but. Having all that power running through his veins was guaranteed to catch up with him eventually. He knows that, but it doesn't make attempting to quietly remove broken glass from the floor any less of a struggle. Carefully picking up the largest piece of what used to be a lightbulb, Lloyd shoves it in the garbage. Bit by bit, the debris begins to disappear. The green ninja has managed to dispose of most it by the time someone else wakes up (it's impressive that it took this long, to tell the truth). It's Nya, of course, trying hard to cover up the fact that she isn't a morning person (at all). The girl seems to have some sort of magical sensing abilities that activate whenever he's in trouble. She gives him a concerned look before wordlessly grabbing a fresh lightbulb from a shelf too high for him to reach. The samurai drags their one whole rickety stool over to the socket and screws it in with a large yawn. Then, Nya gives the floor a quick scan, looking for any remaining hazards that might exist. There are none.

"So. I earned some extra cash at the autobody shop yesterday. Wanna go get some donuts?" The girl asks her adoptive brother, eventually.

"Huh?" Lloyd stares at her, not fully processing the question. She shakes her head with a sigh. Clearly today's gonna be a rough one. He really could stand to get away from the apartment for awhile – to decompress and all that therapeutic stuff you're supposed to do when you're dealing with emotional triggers.

"Donuts, Lloyd. You know, those pastries police men are so obsessed with? I'm leaving in five with or without you." His mind may not immediately get what she's saying, but his stomach certainly does. Growl.

"That's a yes, then?" Nya says, smirking.

"Sure. Okay." He replies with a shrug, because donuts do sound awfully good, now that he thinks about it and. He's not gonna pass up the opportunity to eat something other than off brand cereal for breakfast. That would be completely out of character, no matter what the reason for doing so is. They slip out of the apartment, careful not to wake the others (though Cole's definitely going to be offended if he finds out about it later) and wander down the sidewalk. As it turns out, the nearest donut shop is less than a block away. The smell of freshly fried dough greets the pair as they push the door open. Mmm… It's only when she notices the distinct lack of customers inside that Nya realizes how early it is. A glance at her phone (which she probably should've checked before they left) tells her it's not even 5:30 yet. Oh well, if the place is open, it's not like they're intruding or anything. Lloyd perks up noticeably when she lets him pick out his own donut – a questionable decision, since he immediately chooses the one with as much frosting as humanly possible and a thick coating of rainbow sprinkles. It even has gummy worms on it. A part of her wants to scold him for being so unhealthy, but the grin on his face. She can't. So, she selects a donut of her own (powdered sugar with raspberry filling) and hands the drowsy cashier a bill. They find themselves a booth near the windows lining the front of the store and enjoy their breakfast in silence for a few minutes before Nya says anything to Lloyd.

"So. Nightmare?"

"Yup." He tells her in a small voice, playing absent mindedly with one of his gummy worms.

"I kinda figured." She comments wearily, "You gonna be okay?"

"Dunno. Hope so."

"Wanna talk about it?"

"I-I…. Don't really remember much about the dream itself… Just… It was so freaky to wake up with the light going crazy… and then it exploded, and I've never had my powers go out of control on me like that and…" Nya wraps a comforting arm around the blonde's shoulders. He leans against her, regretting having been woken up so early, and perhaps still a little shaken by the events that transpired earlier.

"I'm sure it was pretty freaky… You know you can always wake on of us up if you need to, right?" Lloyd nods unconvincing. There are no tears, surprisingly, which Nya takes as a good sign.

"I know… And I was gonna. Eventually. But I wanted to take care of the glass first – so nobody stopped on it. Thanks for helping. With the lightbulb. Being short sucks sometimes."

"Course it does. But it's gonna suck even more someday when you finally stop being such a pipsqueak and end up taller than me." Asserts the samurai. He giggles weakly.

"You don't know that that's what's gonna happen… maybe you'll get lucky?"

"I guess you have a point there. But seriously, if you have any more issues with your powers, I'm here to help. And so are the others. I mean, Kai accidentally set his bunk on fire when he first got his true potential… Maybe you should talk to him about this – I'm sure he'd understand…" Kai is a pretty okay listener from what Lloyd's seen at this point. He probably wouldn't have convinced himself to revisit Darkley's without him.

"M'kay. I'll think about it." He decides through a mouthful of donut, "Not right now though? I kinda just wanna forget about the whole thing…"

"That's valid. This can be our little secret. Betcha the guys aren't even awake yet." The girl agrees, figuring he'll share more when he's ready. She's not gonna push him. This time.

"They're really missing out. This donut is delicious." Lloyd tells her, clearly done talking about powers, nightmares, or anything related. Life's really not so bad when you've got an awesome older sister to buy you junk good. Even if it is only because your elemental abilities went haywire in your sleep.

"Totally. But they don't need to know anything about that. You, on the other hand, will be taking a nap as soon as training is over for the day. And I don't meaning laying around reading comic books. Actually sleeping will be expected." Nya stated, giving him a pointed look.

"What? But that's not fair! I just got a new one!" Lloyd groans indignantly.

"And I'm sure you find plenty of time to read it eventually. However, you also need your rest, so that's gonna have to be a priority for now." Deep down, he knows she's right. He just doesn't plan on admitting it. So, he decides to focus on what's left of the mound of pastry, frosting, and sprinkles instead. He feels better now, anyway.

" So, that happened?" Lloyd says one day, several years down the road, as he stares at a soaking wet Kai. He's not even sure where that much water could possibly have come from.

"Uh... Oh my gosh, Kai, I'm so sorry! I didn't mean to..." Nya apologizes, attempting to use her abilities to draw the moisture away from her brother.

"I mean, we all knew it was gonna happen eventually. S'not that big of a deal. But you do owe me a new tube of hair gel..." He shrugs, not particularly concerned. The reason for their... Disagreement isn't important anymore. Things have been tense for everyone since the battle with Morro. He just wants her to be okay. She's not exactly the biggest fan of her elemental powers in the first place.

"Yeah. That's fair." She agrees after a second, looking sheepish.

"Happens to all of us." Lloyd reminds her, "Wanna go get some donuts?"

[forkanna]

[AO3 LINK] [EF LINK]

NOTE: This is where things are gonna start to shift a bit.

Another week or so passed. To be honest, you really missed nothing, other than Stephen giving me a plastic baggie with some of my stone-flakes in it because he wasn't sure what else to do with them. He also gave me one of the bottles of Soft to keep in my place, just in case it happened again. That did seem like a precaution I should have already thought of myself.

And a lot of Knives. A loooot of her hanging around, and finally weaseling my number out of me so she could text and ask if she could come over. I ignored a lot of her texts, but she still always managed to get me to agree to a time she could come bouncing through my door with one of her attack-hugs at the ready. We mostly just watched movies or played video games. Met up with Stephen and Joseph some other night at a sushi place. And the whole time, I didn't know what to do with myself.

Before you ask, there were a couple of close calls. Because we can all tell where this is going already, so I'm just putting it out there.

Three nights after we were watching the samurai movie, she came in for a hug. Slower than usual, and I mean like, at a snail's pace. Turned out, she just thought it would be funny if we bumped noses, but I was just slightly-drunk enough to think she was going in for something else. I blame the tequila shots, and therefore, on Steph who had ordered them. Dumb lush. But I managed to play it off that she was just too close to my face, and that was why I flinched.

Then there was the next day, when we split a Canadian from Pizza Pizza for dinner. We both went in for a slice at the same time and our hands touched; that old thing. I accused her of being a greedy bitch, but she was just biting her bottom lip and giggling before she flicked a mushroom at me. It made me either want to slap her, or… I don't know. For the life of me, I don't know what the fuck was going on in my head, but she let me brush it off and grab a different slice.

But as they say, all good things must come to an end. Which isn't exactly what happens here, but like, go with it, okay?

                                                            ~ o ~

"I don't understand," she was sighing as she swung upside-down from the monkey bars in Hillcrest Park, jeans-clad knees taking the brunt of her slight weight effortlessly. "My mom acts like she's so worldly, but then she doesn't want me to have a totally normal barista job because it'll distract me from meeting 'a nice man' or becoming a doctor, or whatever."

I sighed as I picked at some peeling paint on one of the bars. I was sitting on a 'step' for the kids to climb up to the slide, though my omnipresent black cloud of misanthropy had kept any actual children far away from us. "She's being a mom. That's what they do: pass judgment on their children's decisions. Mine are in the professional league."

"That sucks." Her eyes went up — and in this case that means they were pointed at the sky, not above her head, which would have been sand. "Don't my tits look great like this?"

"Sure," I snorted. "I m-mean, what makes you think I noticed?"

"Nothing, Kim," she giggled. "Just a thought I had. Oh, did you know TCAD is getting back together?"

I pursed my lips for a moment before answering, "Are they really?"

"Kind of. I mean, it's not the original lineup, though. That'd be huge news, since that jerk Todd was turned into coins!" She flipped up through the bars and began walking on top of them, arms out to the sides to help maintain her balance. "Think the new bassist is that girl from Smashing Turnips. They broke up, remember? Plus they're holding auditions for new drummers but I heard she doesn't want guys applying. Sounded like she was pretty sure of that."

"So now they're an all-girl band? Quaint."

"Envy said in a press release that she was thinking about staying solo, but I guess she had a change of heart. But she did start going by 'Natalie' again, 'cause the solo career didn't work out for her. She said 'I'm just not cut out to be a pop star, it's too high-maintenance'." Then she gasped and turned to look at me. "DUDE! You should so totally try out!"

My eyes widened. "What?! Knives, you-"

"Think about it! You're a drummer, and a girl, and they're super-"

"KNIVES!"

But I wasn't upset about her needling me into life decisions. She wasn't paying attention to what she was doing anymore, and had started to slowly fall off the monkey bars. A little yelp of surprise sounded as her running shoes slipped down and back off the metal, arms windmilling. The world slowed to a crawl. Heart in my throat, I dove, and just barely managed to catch her before falling into the sand around the playscape.

"Shit… are you okay?!" I demanded, my voice an octave too high.

But she wasn't listening. Her eyes were round, and she had her hands locked around the back of my neck. She looked stunned speechless, which was a new look for her. My hands flexed awkwardly in her armpit and under her knee as I held her slight weight, which was still a little heavy but I'm a drummer, so I have a decent amount of upper body strength. I could handle it.

"You saved me," she breathed.

"What? Well… y-yeah, I couldn't let you… fall."

"Um… I probably would have been fine. It's only like five feet, and there's sand everywhere." Her face was closer again. Probably going in for another hug, like last time. "But you caught me, Kim."

For some reason, I couldn't put her down yet. Swallowing down my panic, I whispered, "What if you broke your neck? I'd… I could never live with letting that happen to you."

"Why not?"

She was prying into my feelings and motivations too much. Gruffly, I snapped, "Who else would annoy the hell out of me every day? What a stupid ass question."

Even though that was intended to get her to laugh and call me a dork, or say I was funny, or just to tell me I could put her down, it didn't seem to work the way I hoped.

Because Knives kissed me. And I mean kissed me… and I kissed back. Really, we might have done it at the same time, like when you and a friend automatically go in for the fist bump when something really awesome happens because you're both on the same page. Something about the moment just needed it, even if I didn't fully understand why. Her lips were soft and sweet, and familiar; I knew we'd kissed when drunk, even though I couldn't remember most of it. And the gentle weight in my arms made it perfect.

Of course, once we broke apart a few seconds — minutes, hours, centuries — later, I went into pure panic mode. Or tried to. But the lip-on-lip contact had robbed me of actual power and ability to move. Not like the time I turned to stone, though; this wasn't that serious.

"O-oh," was all she said at first. Though the look in her eyes and the way her breathing was so rapid and shallow told me that the "oh" meant a lot more than that, so just this once, I didn't snap at her to explain.

"Holy balls," I managed to breathe.

"Where did that come from? I mean… it was…"

When her face started glowing, a small, private, sacred smile of pure joy blossoming, I had to drop her to the sand and stand back up, turning around to grip the monkey bars overhead to keep myself from falling over. Why was I so dizzy? Why was I overreacting? I mean, a little part of me had been able to tell that we were trending in this direction. Like magnets, or gentrification of old neighbourhoods; sometimes you just can't stop it. Yet I had kind of thought it might never happen. Or at the very least, it would take longer than a few weeks.

"Kim?" One of her hands came to rest in the small of my back.

"Whoa, whoa," I squeaked, spinning around so fast I almost fell myself. "J-just because we- I mean, you shouldn't- don't do that!"

"Sorry," she breathed as she lowered the hand, rubbing her fingers together as if trying to rid them of the memory. I know I could definitely still feel them on my back.

"No, don't…" Sighing, I pressed both my hands into my face. "AGH!" There was a high-pitched whistling sound. "What the hell is even happening anymore?!"

After a few seconds of silence, Knives cleared her throat. "You, um… does steam come out of your ears normally?"

"No! And it didn't just now, either!"

"But I saw-"

"Nevermind that! Just…" Running hands through my hair, and feeling that it did feel a little warmer and more moist than it should have been, I looked over at her. "Can we just rewind about five minutes and forget that ever happened? I… whatever that was, I'm not ready. I'm not ready for it, Knives."

A little shrug of her shoulders as she stared down at her running shoes. "I haven't unlocked that power-up yet, Kim. Sorry."

"Stop apologising, too! Like… we didn't do anything wrong, it's just way past what I can handle right now. Okay? Please, just… I can't even believe we're having this conversation. And on a playground!"

Ugh. Do you have any idea how terrible I felt? Panicking and making her feel like it was all her fault. It was so hard for me to explain my own feelings that I wound up trampling all over hers. But I didn't know how else to react.

"Kim… it's okay," she said finally, cautiously putting her hands on my shoulders. I twitched, took a step backward, but she followed and kept them there. "It's okay. I don't really understand this, either; I mean, I didn't think I was a lesbian. But then again, I didn't at Julie's aunt's, either, and that still-"

"Let's not talk about that, either," I grunted, ashamed of myself. "Especially since you were still in high school."

"Barely," she made sure to remind me. "But… seriously, you made me feel loved that night, and you made me feel loved just now." My eyes must have bulged in panic, because she reassured me, "Like a friend! A good friend who, uh, doesn't mind… that sometimes? If that's cool…"

"Just how far did we go?" I had to ask.

"Made out for a little while. Some… other stuff, but nobody took off their swimsuit," she assured me nervously, and I sighed in some slight relief. "And it was great! But if you want to not do that again, I'm fine with that. Seriously!"

Temptation reared its ugly head. "Well…" Then I shook myself, gripping at my hair around her hands still on my shoulders. "GAH! Like, I'm kinda curious, but also have never… I mean, I've dated guys all my life, this is a pretty big curveball of a life choice, if it is one. And I didn't think you were anything more than just a friend before today, so isn't it crazy to change statuses all of a sudden like this?"

"Why does it have to be some big 'choice'?" she chuckled softly. It made me mad that she wasn't being serious. No… that isn't true. It made me jealous that she wasn't having as much trouble with it as I was. Yeah, that's way more accurate. "I mean, either you want to kiss me or you don't. Whatever, right?"

"Right. Just so easy. Is that why you've been hanging around me so much? Hoping to wear me down?"

"What? No, I wouldn't- that's not it at all!"

"Are you sure?" She squirmed, but didn't back down. "All that time hanging around, you just were hoping that it would happen again. Great. I thought I really had a friend, and you're just another Scott waiting to happen."

But that was a low blow and we both flinched, her hands falling away from me. Before I could apologise, Knives got to it first. "Kim, I'd never do that. It's hard to blame Scott for what he did, because I hearted him so much, but that's just… not the kind of thing I could ever do to a friend! S-so please, don't say that I would…"

"Knives… shit." Pinching the bridge of my nose, I said, "Okay. You're right, I'm… not being fair."

"You're freaking out is what you are."

"Definitely. Can we… I don't know. I want to run away and hide, but I also don't want you to leave."

"Wanna go to Delicious Cup?" she suggested, again touching my arm. This time, I didn't react, either positively or negatively. "We, um, can just talk there. PDA in the café would be a little gross so it'll make kissing less of a… does 'issue' make sense? Is that the best word?"

Nodding, I swallowed hard. "Yeah. It's a great word. Maybe even word of the day, because I clearly have issues."

"Kim, nooo," she half-whined, grasping my wrist and pulling me along. We only made the briefest of stops to snag our bags from the deserted swingset before heading off past the wading pool. "I mean… I kinda freaked out the next morning after the first time, too, so I totally get it! I just… already worked through all that, maybe? Not with a legit therapist, just did a lot of thinking, and talking to Tamara."

"You talked to Tamara about this?!"

"Not a lot! Just, like, sorting through my feelings! And she wouldn't tell anybody, she's my BFF!"

My body felt like it wanted to turn into stone again, but I forced myself to breathe, to stop acting like every weird moment of my life was the end of the world. "Okay… you're right. Back in those days, I probably would have tried to talk to Stephen about this if I could remember more about that night. But I just wrote it off as being drunk. I mean, I never tried to make out with Ramona, or Julie, or…"

"Actually, I kinda heard that you and Ramona had a slight moment," Knives laughed. When I turned round eyes on her, she protested, "From Lisa! Like, remember when we all got together before she moved away?"

"What moment did we have?" I demanded.

"Something about you and she and Scott being all in the same bed, and you telling them both that you loved them." When she looked back after a few seconds of silence and caught me blushing, she giggled. "You were talking, not doing anything else. At least, I'm pretty sure I'd have heard about anything else."

"Oh, good. I mean, if I had a threesome with Scott and that hair-changing hipster, I'd blow my stack."

The bridge of her nose crinkled from the force of her smile as we made our way toward the bus stop. "Already did that once today. Seriously, can you teach me that trick with the steam?"

"GOD, SHUT YOUR HOLE!"

                                                             To Be Continued…

[neomikey]

DashCon

Some years ago, I frequented the convention circuits, mostly in the American midwest.  Anime Central was a common staple, but thanks to a cadre of friends and contacts, I went to a whole host of others, such as JAFAX, Anime Crossroads, Youmacon, Anime North, and a bunch whose names I’ve forgotten over the years.  I’m incredibly grateful that I was given the money to attend all these different conventionss during that time in my life, and nowadays, my time, money, and interests are diverted elsewhere (though mostly to paying bills).  I was even a cosplayer that people remembered from con to con -- Samurai Pizza Cats, the Supreme Catatonic, Soldier A, and Death.

With all the recent talk of the travesty of Fyre Festival, comparison to a similar event has been making the rounds.

DashCon....

I was still something of a Tumblr neophyte at the time, both interested and curious about the culture in general.  I mostly stuck to my humble corner, following a couple artists I knew and being happy about it.  Occasionally I would hear talk of how huge Benedict Cumberbatch or Supernatural or whatever would be elsewhere, but I thought nothing of it.

Then, some way down the pipeline came talk of a new convention there in the Chicagoland area, catering to general nerdery, but also was tailored specifically to Tumblr fans.  Glancing through their panels, there were the usual fandom things (such as Sherlock and online roleplaying), but there were other panels too, including battling depression.  I thought it all sounded great!

What really clinched my decision, though, was this man.

Doug Jones was a convention guest.

Known for portraying Abe Sapien in Hellboy, various creatures in Pan’s Labyrinth, Silver Surfer in Fantastic 4: Rise of the Silver Surfer, and a bunch of other stuff...and he was gonna have a panel on Saturday!  What particularly interested me was that I remembered reading that he had my medical condition of Marfan syndrome, something that makes people lanky, bendable, and a bunch of other stuff.  He would later tell me he didn’t have it, but I didn’t know that starting out.  For a good deal of my school career, I’d been labeled a freak for how I’d looked, so to get to meet someone like me and go to a convention?  Sweet, I’m in!

I invited my good friend @spazztasticxairhead to come along for the Saturday I was going to be in attendance, and while curious, she had to decline.  However, as I did my Friday evening work shift of delivering medicine throughout Indiana, she sent me something odd.  There’s only so much you can say in text message, but she told me that she had heard news that the convention was asking people for money.  Well...c’mon, of course they would, we live in a capitalist society!  Commercialism!  Et cetera!

I wasn’t going to press her for details, since I was busy driving all over the state (plus texting and driving kills), so I finished my shift, got home, and had a couple hours sleep.  And then...it’s go time.

...oh.

So I’m driving in this rainstorm of nigh biblical proportions, the highway is backed up, and I’m barely moving.  I thought about how I had to work another shift that night and how I’d only have a couple hours at the convention, but there was something inside of me telling me it was going to be important that I go to this thing.  I had to meet Doug Jones.

Eventually the rain eases up and I get out to the hotel.  It’s a bit farther out than I usually go in Chicago, but at least I’m at the right place...or at least I think I am.

The thing with conventions is that generally, you see a lot of attendants (a lot of them in cosplay) milling about, including the parking lot.  There?  It was...like....

I had to drive a bit to find two girls walking by the hotel to ask if that was DashCon.  They confirmed, I suited up in my Death cosplay, and headed on in.

It was...quiet.  Abnormally so.  I later on found out that it was mostly because right then, everyone was in the main event hall waiting for Welcome to Nightvale to perform.  I went to the hall where there was registration, and holy criminy was it gigantic...and empty.  Emptiness was a recurring theme during the convention.  It took me virtually a full minute to cross from one end to the other to the completely open registration table.  I remember thinking that while the badge was pricier than I wanted, dangit, Doug Jones.

I had good timing, because it was directly after Night Vale that Doug Jones was going to have his panel.  I decided to kill time by first checking out this bouncy house they had going, because...come on, free bouncy house.  There was also...the infamous ballpit.  No, nobody urinated or had sex in it.  It seemed to me like a small inflated raft with just some plastic balls thrown in and it was also very, very tiny.  When I first came upon it, there were a cadre of Homestuck cosplayers jam-packed into there with absolutely zero room for me to join them.

I then meandered into the artist alley, where...there was nobody.  I mean, the artists were there, yeah, plus a bunch of vendors, but I think there was next to nobody else.

I imagine that it didn’t paint the best picture for those in attendance for me to be walking silently down the empty aisles.

(pic not from DashCon)

Eventually, it was about time, so I found myself a seat in the back of the Welcome to Night Vale panel, where noticeably nothing was happening.  It was about time for the “panel” to end when someone came up to the front and announced that they would not be performing, due to the financial whatnot.  There was an instant rumbling of despair and disappointment from those in attendance.  It was also announced that Doug Jones was coming up next and people were welcome to stay for that, but about 4/5 of the room was having none of that and just headed out.

Sweet, I get good seating!  :D

After things thinned out, Mr. Jones took to the stage.  The first thing I noticed about him was how freakin’ articulate he was.  He jovially sat on the table onstage and kicked his legs about, and it was controlled.  I know that’s a weird thing to say, but he was doing it!

From there, the panel was pretty awesome.  He talked about his history with Guillermo del Toro (including a hand-made business card that del Toro held onto for years), adventures in make-up with Hellboy (his favorite quote was, “If there’s trouble, all us freaks have is each other”), perfecting moving like specific creatures in a gym’s studio, working on Pan’s Labyrinth, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t remember these years later.

The dude is super cool.  After the panel, he had an autograph session in another room.  It turns out where I sat in that room was rather fortuitous, because I was the third in the room who got to meet him.  As soon as he sees me, he breaks into a big grin.  “A fellow guy who’s tall and skinny, eh?”

We make brief smalltalk, I mention that he met my wife @ryukodragon at another convention, I ask him about Marfan syndrome, and he tells me doesn’t have it (but that this actor did!).  He signs the picture I chose from his table (his role as one of the kangaroo people in Tank Girl), and then just like the two people before me, he gives me a big hug.  Something I didn’t expect?

“You’re beautiful.”

When he let go, he told me to keep being skinny and awesome, and that was that, on to the next person.  I’m sure he said that to all the people he met there in the autograph session, but...I was a 32 year-old man then, and to my recollection, no one had said those specific words to me, especially in reference to me being irrevocably skinny (”freakishly so,” some would say).  Simple words, I know, but I still walked away utterly stunned...and honestly elated.

I meandered about the convention a bit more, checking out things here and there.  I don’t like Ed, Edd, & Eddie at all, but I was utterly blown away by the best Ed cosplayer that I’ve seen (even had a spatula).  There was also a phenomenal Maleficent cosplayer who found my in-character Death banter with her to be utterly hilarious.  There were also some dwarves I encountered....

Spoiler: They don’t survive the third movie.

During this time, I notice that the hotel is also setting up an area for a wedding...and it looks like it’s going to be a big one.  Bless whoever was in attendance for that, because I’m sure they left with plenty of stories and pictures.  I hop into a couple panels, a lot of which are surprisingly empty.  I then see that there’s a panel going of which I’m rather curious....

FEMINISM.

So for those not in the know, Tumblr can be known for having a particularly...misandristic attitude.  I needed to see this panel for myself, to see if that was going to be on display at this panel.  And on the way there, I ran into a friend of a friend.

So this guy cosplays as Jesus.

Granted, he wasn’t cosplaying then, and I believe that was the first time I had actually seen him wearing normal clothes, but either way, he wanted to hang out.  I told him I’m on my way to the feminism panel and he was so in.

All right, there were two highlights to my time there at DashCon -- meeting Doug Jones...and this panel.

Because.

DUDE.

REAL HEROES.

I cannot say enough good about this panel, and ladies, whoever you are, you were amazing.  The folks who ran this panel were incredibly even-keel, they were definitely not the “kill all men” types that so many associate with Tumblr (though I suspect a couple in the room were, including a lady in front of me), were well spoken, and were very knowledgeable.  Granted, I got in towards the end of the panel, but what I was incredibly impressed by what I heard in there, including the ramifications of the then-recent Hobby Lobby ruling.  All brands of ladies were represented in there, including a hijab-wearing lady who reinforced that feminism is about having the freedom to do with your life as you like.  At one point, a guy had a question about why birth control is so important, the forum-holders quickly quelled the mild room eruption, and answered his question in full.

I’m a feminist myself, and to see in-person social justice portrayed intelligently and knowledgeably, and in a well organized forum (instead of the sometimes cartoonish, stereotypical “SJW’s”) was amazing to me.

Seriously, whoever you ladies were that held this, I wish I could shake your hand.  Thank you for doing what you do.

Anyways, after that, I meandered about a bit more, and word was getting around that things were pretty shaky at the con.  I had heard about the craziness of the previous night’s fundraiser, plus there were plenty of signs around me that were symptomatic that things weren’t going well.

I have to stop and give kudos to the staff here, because despite everything...they pressed on.  They were running a convention that was falling down around them, they knew it, but they held their ground.  Props to ‘em.

Anyways, I found little else that really interested me (aside from finally sitting in the now-empty ball pit, just to say that I did it), and decided to head out a bit early, so I could have a nap before that evening’s work shift.  The sun had come out by the time I had hit the road, and...that was that.

It was only later that I learned that the convention had garnered the infamy that it did.  I’m happy that I got to go and I’m very thankful for what I experienced.  It was far from a well organized convention, but that mess has been well documented plenty of other places online.

Anyways, so that’s my experience with DashCon.  I just wanted people to know about the good that was there, instead of just its reputation of...well....

[curious-shadow-cat]

☝ ✔ 🚬 🍷 ♒ 😳 💉 ✏️ ✂️ ✌ 👌 ♥ 🎤 🎶 😒 📝 💬 🌟 🔥 👃 👊 🚶 💬 💌 💭 ☀ 💘 🎥 📺 ✏✈️ 🚀 😷 🙈 💃 💏 👟 🌴 🌎 🌀 🔮 📱 📅 📚 🍴 🍭 🍇 🚔 🚑 🔞 🐶 😔 😡 😈 💪 ((you said send you emogi well here please answer them))

☝ - How tall are you?

Already answered that.

✔ - Sexual Orientation

I’m Female and I haven’t actually found anyone yet so I’m not sure. I’ve had some come and go. But for now I’m just not looking for anyone at the moment.

🚬 - Do you Smoke?

HECK NO. I don’t care what anyone says about smoking, I’ve seen what it does. Terrible.

🍷 - Do you Drink?

Nope! I’ve seen what it does to people. I don’t think I’d be able to handle it. I hate it. Never once tried it.

♒ - Do you Take Drugs?

God, no. 

😳 - Age you get mistaken for?

Either 12-15 years old. No joke, I’am ALWAYS seen as someone who’s between 12-15 years old. If you saw me you’d agree.

💉 - Have Tattoos?

No.

✏️ - Want any tattoos?

Eh, kinda? But no? I just think I’d get sick of them after a while.

✂️ - Got any Piercings?

No.

✌ - Want any piercings?

No.

👌 - Best friend?

lol, Idk. :))))

♥ - Do you like anyone?

Not really. I mean, not like Love anyone if that’s what it is.

🎤 - Top 5 favorite bands?

Lol, Idk. I just listen to whatever. Depending on the music. 

🎶 - Top 5 favorite songs? 

Get Ready to Die- Andrew W.K.

Sarcasm- Get Scared

Panic Station-Muse

Survival-Muse

Don’t you dare forget the sun-Get Scared

😒 - Biggest pet peeve?

Ooooh, let’s see...

-Well, here’s this one: (I thought people were over this too, Guess I was wrong) People trying to say that Aku Aku and Uka Uka are the biggest perverts and crap yet they have not done ANYTHING that is perverted EVER, then they turn around and make Cortex chasing after women and all that, and  then saying ‘LOL!!! What a perv~ ;)’.  What the hell??? and there’s a fanfic I just read not too long ago about Cortex actually being secret friends with Crash and his sister but they kept it a secret from not only Uka Uka but Aku Aku??? The fanfic made me feel like I was reading about Sonic and Eggman...yeah, it was bad. I don’t mean to be mean but like, it just made me feel like Cortex was being a...Dad/Boyfriend??? to Crash and....no. Just no. I don’t think they meant it to be like that but still...no. I couldn’t even finish it I’m sorry.

OH! Another thing, people keep complaining about how the new voices of Aku and Uka are ‘the titans voices’ and crap. It get’s annoying real easily.

‘Oh Uka’s not scary because he’s being voiced by the voice actor who did Bender’s voice!!’

Did you forget that he’s also the same voice actor of the Joker from ‘Batman ‘Under the Red Hood’? Never saw anyone complain about that :)))

‘I don’t like Aku Aku’s voice because it’s from Titans :////’

It’s the same voice from the Grim Reaper from Billy and Mandy! How could you not?? And WHO CARES if that is the same voice from COTT or CMOM?? They’re done! Get over it already and stop being jerks to people who do like them! They brought their old designs back! Isn’t that enough??

Now that I got that out of my system, moving on.

📝 - Story from your childhood.

Only reason I wanted to do art was because of Crash bandicoot games. The color and scenes are so cool and pretty. And the characters are awesome! :3

💬 - I wish…‼️ - Something you’ll change?

...I wish I could be better.

🌟 - A wish you’ll wish for?

To be able to help in anyway, I guess the power to heal? I could really use that power right now. It’s not for me it’s for someone else...

🔥 - Something spicy you like?

Hmmm....I’m not sure.

👃 You hate the smell of ….

It depends what it is. There’s some smells I don’t like that’s mostly from certain food. 

👊 - Something you hate?

Oh don’t even get me started. :))) There’s too just too much to list.

🚶 - Are you single?

Yes.

💬 - Can we text?

I guess?? It depends. I just don’t talk much. I’m more of a listener most of the time. lol

💌 - Fan mail me?

I dunno?

💭 - Favorite foods?

Cheese Pizza! French fries! Rice krispie treats! Chocolate!

☀ - Story about your day.

Once upon a time, I woke up, it’s raining, went to school, still raining, came home, stopped raining, got on computer, started raining again. Now I’m here. :3 lmao

💘 - Top 5 celebrity crushes?

NONE. Cuz I barely know em. lol

🎥 - Top 5 favorite movies?

Ehh...too many to choose.

📺 - Top 5 favorite TV shows?

Ed, Edd and Eddy

Courage the cowardly dog

Samurai Jack

Steven Universe

League Of Super Evil

SO MANY MORE CARTOONS THOUGH AH!

✏ - Random fact about yourself.

I’m terrible at Math

✈️ - Where are you from?

The Darkness.

🚀 - Where do you wanna visit?

THE MOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

😷 - Something you hate eating?

Oh I’m very picky. So, a LOT of food.

🙈 - What makes you shy?

I dunno?? New people. If I dunno them I won’t talk much. It depends what they’re into.

💃 - Can you dance?

Not unless it’s a game of just dance. I can’t dance at all on my own.

💏 - Do you love anyone?

Like, as an IN LOVE? No.

👟 - Favorite shoe(s) to wear?

Just sneakers.

🌴 - A island you would visit?

N. SANITY ISLAND LOL

🌎 - A country you would visit?

Idk.

🌀 - Favorite type of weather?

Sunny!

🔮 - Do you believe in luck?

Kinda.

📱 - What kinda phone do you have?

None

📅 - Favorite time of the year?

Summer!

📚 - Career goal you want?

I dunno.

🍴 - Favorite food(s) to eat?

French fries!

🍭 - Favorite Candy?

Chocolate!

🍇 - Favorite fruits?

Grapes!

🚘 - Dream car(s)?

I don’t care. Just not a truck.

🚔 - Have you ever been arrested?

Nope!

🚑 - Have you ever driven in an ambulance before?

Yes.

🎫 - Do you have a license?

Not yet.

🚼 - Do you have or want kids?

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO-

🔞 - Are you under 18?

No.

🐶 - Do you own a pet?

I used to have a cat....

😔 - Something that makes you sad?

Mehh, a lot of things.

😡 - What pisses you off?

People who bully people for no reason. Or just think it’s funny and it’s not.

😈 - Are you a freak?

Yeah? I think?

💪 - Do you work out?

.....Well....I mostly run but that’s it.