#her page has a couple extra tidbits and who knows

[togepies]

Elith Everwood - Character Page

It begins with a violin. One black violin, intricately carved with golden flowers, vines, and leaves. On the back, a simple note is engraved at the bottom:

“To Elith, with love. Mum & Pop.”

A gift for a seven-year-old music prodigy. A gift she will carry with her as she plays her first concert. A gift she will carry with her as she plays at their funeral. A gift she will carry with her to the orphanage. A gift she will carry to her new home; a lavish thing set in the center of Neverwinter. The home of Delmont and Hettie, a noble couple who could have no children of their own.

Elith catches their eye not because of her charming personality (she is quite sullen for a child), nor her beauty (that nose is rather large for a child’s face), but for her talent. The talent that will lead her to fame before the age of 16.

And what a talent it is! Donned with brand new instruments and extravagant costumes, Delmont and Hettie now present the fantastic Florette Summerbloom of Neverwinter, wowing crowds with performances that will make you laugh, cry, and ache.

Florette wakes, practices, performs. Wakes, practices, performs.

Too large, too thin, too much makeup, not enough, costume too bright, costume too busy, costume not busy enough.

Perform for her parents, pretend she’s happy. Perform for the crowds, pretend she’s having fun. Perform for the strangers she beds, pretend she’s satisfied.

She does it all for coin, all to simply exist. After all, she is a burden to house and clothe and feed. She must pull her own weight. Or so they say. Her parents. Though, she does not call them that. She has parents, kept close always in the black violin.

The grief of losing her youth, her innocence, her entire life…it’s too much to bear.

“Mother of Night, darken my step as I walk among the light. Hear my prayer.”

Like a beacon of light in a dark forest, the teachings of Shar become a comfort. In secret, she prays. And now, guided by her newfound ideals, she knows what needs to be done. Two quick slices to the throat, one for each parent while they sleep. She washes her dagger, keeps it close, holds it to her chest. She traces the floral pattern on the pommel with her thumb, and the repetition allows her to drift into a deep, comfortable sleep. It is the first night she sleeps soundly since she’s arrived.

Wild theories and accusations spread through Neverwinter. Some think Florette killed her parents. Some think it was a man named Garlen, a fan of Florette, who perhaps wanted her all to himself. Nothing will ever be proven. After all, Florette has been pretending for years, why stop now?

Perform for Neverwinter, pretend she’s heartbroken.

She plays at their funeral, and leaves with her aunt for Waterdeep. It is there she will fade from the spotlight, music is now forbidden. She keeps her black violin close, anyway.

She plays it in the garden out back, lit only by moonlight and surrounded by bushes of roses of every color. There is a cat who sits on the fence, watching with his great, big, yellow eyes. Sometimes, he meows as if he’s singing along. She calls him Boris. If she closes her own eyes as she plays, she almost feels at peace. Almost.

And she continues. Night after night, as quietly as she can. Until she lets herself play too long, reminiscing, humming to her own song. A lullaby, she thinks. It’s been so long since she has heard her mother sing for her. Her prized violin is stolen from her hands in mid song, smashed to the ground.

Florette’s aunt looms over her in the dark, her face twisted in anger, taking deep, furious breaths. In. Out. In. Out.

Florette has kept the dagger. The dagger she used to free herself before, the dagger she will use to free herself again. Once more, a swift slice to the neck. This time, she does not sleep. She leaves. And that is all it takes for Elith to come back to life.

[endlesscacophony]

@svnsworn​​ said: Sylvain's birthday is one that Marianne has had written in the back of her journal alongside other important birthdays and dates she needs or wants to remember. When the time was close - near enough that the messenger would arrive within a couple of days - she put together the gift she has been preparing for a while now. The package is wrapped and tied securely with twine multiple times over before it is sent on its way to him.

In the box is a smaller journal than her typical one, filled with pressed flowers and leaves from her home, from around Garreg Mach, from the roads in-between. Written in neat handwriting beside each blossom and plant were descriptions of each: Its name, where it was growing, the weather when she found it, any extra tidbits of information that she found interesting or that he might. She isn't sure if it's something he would like, but when he commented on the occasional flower she'd sent before, she thought that perhaps it might be something interesting.

Tucked within the leather tie that binds the journal closed is a small, folded piece of parchment with a simple note within:

Sylvain,

Happy birthday! I know it is not the time for celebrations, but I do wish I could have visited to do just that. Have a wonderful birthday!

Love, Marianne

The gift is rather useless, she knows, but she hopes that he might get some enjoyment out of it, perhaps even smile as he reads her notes. The thought makes her blush a bit, but she doesn't include that in the note.

Truth be told, Sylvain had forgotten what day it was, these days, they all seemed to blur together to the point that weeks had gone by before he seemed to catch up with himself. Days on end just trying to keep their own territory stable against the revolt of the Empire, didn’t leave much room for rest and relaxation as Sylvain would’ve liked. But, he had to take what he could, he supposed.

It wasn’t until he awoke the morning of his birthday, one of his troops whispering a soft ‘happy birthday’ to him as they handed him the letter and gift, that it actually dawned on him. Huh. Guess that was today, wasn’t it? Usually it was by the shift in the weather, the hotter temperatures blowing in from the south that lead him to acknowledge that his birthday was close. 

Suppose now he was just happy to need less furs to sleep with at night.

Even still, Sylvain looked down at the package that had been handed it to him, taking this small bit of reprieve in the cool morning air to duck back into his tent to read it. He knew who it was from, though he hadn’t expected it’s contents. When had he told her his birthday? He couldn’t actively remember, though he wouldn’t deny he might’ve brought it up at some point over the years, over all this time they’d been sending these letters back and forth. Just as he knew hers.

Settling down on the furs, Sylvain pulled open the meticulously tied strip of leather and opened the journal, a small note falling out. He picked it up, reading it over as a small smile pulled at his lips, an indescribable warmth filling his chest. He flipped through the pages, running his fingers along the pages, along the indents in her writing, where the hardened petals had dried against the page. This was beautiful, he’d definitely have to look into this deeper, at least it would give him something new to read during the long, dark hours of the evening.

Gently, he set the journal down, he’d figure out where to pack that later on, and set out to write a response. Pulling out his own small notebook from underneath the pile of clothes beside him, he wrote back:

      ‘Dearest Marianne,

             I can’t thank you enough for this gift! Once I get the opportunity to read it in depth, I’ll be sure to give you my thoughts. For now, I’ll just leave it at ‘thank you’ and hope you can imagine my smile as I’ve imagined yours. You’ve made today so much brighter.

             I hope one day I can see you again soon.

                                                       Sylvain’

[sailorspazz]

10 Dance Vol. 6 Special Edition overview

Volume 6 of the 10 Dance manga was released in Japan on March 18th, 2021. As with volumes 4 and 5, there are both regular and special editions available. In this post, I will provide an overview of the release, including observations on changes that were made to the chapters compared to how they were printed in the magazine, plus summaries and select scans of content from the special edition booklet.

It is often the case that when chapters come out in the manga magazines, they aren't always fully polished, and since I became highly familiar with this run of chapters from the summaries I made, several things immediately jumped out at me as I went through the book. First of all, though chapter 29 was split into two parts and released in subsequent months in the magazine, these two halves were combined into one chapter, with no indication they had ever been separate. I assume that they were always intended to be one chapter, but since the full chapter was not completed before the deadline (and it was a month when 10 Dance was being given the cover image, so not possible to delay its release), it was simply split over two months instead.

For visual changes, the most common alteration was scenes that originally had little or no screentone having it added in:

There were also some instances of either slight panel redraws, or complete replacements with new panels. None of these were from particularly important scenes, so it could just be Inouesatoh or someone on her team didn't like the look of the original panels and wanted to change them. The following example has a bit of both, with Suzuki in the upper left corner being replaced, and his eyes being redrawn in the lower panel:

Personally, the most amusing addition I noticed was when Max was thinking about throwing a party. Originally, we didn't see what he was envisioning, but in the volume, an addition has been made in the background: the New Year's piece Inouesatoh drew with sexy men dressed as cows, except now they're bunnies!

As for dialogue, it appeared to be almost the same in both versions throughout. Some minor exceptions include a spot I found where the dialogue was put in a different order, swapping Sugiki’s lines between this panel and his first line on the following page (in addition to another altered panel example):

As well as in this shot of Suzuki describing how they tug at the thread that connects them through their dance. Whereas before it put the word “dance” next to the part about tugging on the thread to specify what was meant by that, it was deleted in the volume. And while it was originally described as “affirming that we’re connected”, this was also tweaked a bit to be, “affirming our connection”.

There were a couple instances of character names being different from when they appeared earlier in the story. In this volume, two characters who were last mentioned back in volume 2 (Lucas Calvo, one of the champions at the table in Blackpool, and Deeks, who Ernie said hated Sugiki because he "stole" his girlfriend), either from typos or intentional changes, weren't the same as before. Lucas' last name was written with a 'g' sound (ガルボ) instead of a 'c' (カルボ), and this change carried over to the volume. On the other hand, Deeks' (ディクス) name got transposed as Disc (ディスク) in the magazine, but was fixed in the volume.

There was a typo that unfortunately made it through to the volume (but could perhaps be fixed in future printings). In chapter 34, when Norman is testing Suzuki's skills, he flashes back to Sugiki taking the national title from him several years earlier. The text in this scene, written in English, incorrectly states that Suzuki won the championship, rather than Sugiki.

The volume also includes the usual additions that are not present in the magazine, such as the under the cover flap comic, and Inouesatoh’s notes about each chapter.

The cover flap comic (which looks very much like a sketch, compared to previous ones that have had more complete art), features the Shinyas during a practice session earlier on in the series in December, where Suzuki complains that Sugiki’s Latin just isn’t sexy. Sugiki suggests that he can practice being sexy by wiggling his butt around to write a message in the air. Suzuki worries that if he starts writing out “love” or something, he’ll have to run away and escape. Sugiki gets started, and Suzuki calls out each letter that he can make out from his elegant butt bouncing. After figuring out he’s written “M-E-R-R-Y”, Suzuki guesses that he’s writing “Merry Christmas”. Sugiki gets mad that he said it aloud before he finished writing his message, and says he’s going to leave. Suzuki says, “Wait, I love you,” as narrative text says that this somehow turned into a love story in one panel.

And here are some tidbits I found interesting/amusing from the chapter notes:

She thinks readers who are fans of pecs will like Saichi.

She’s not sure if readers will love Max or hate him, but she personally likes him (sorry Sensei, I kinda hate him lol)

As of chapter 32, a portion of the art is now done digitally.

The epic “last dance” scene from 33 was something that she had planned since the beginning of the series, and it ended up being 8 times the cost for a typical chapter.

Special edition booklet:

The special edition comes with a 48 page hardcover booklet that includes a variety of different extras, divided into 8 sections called “heats”.

Heat 1 is a newly drawn, 12 page parody manga. Back in September 2020, Inouesatoh put out a request on Twitter for fans to send in their suggestions for an erotic side story. Putting the characters in a high school setting was the most requested scenario, so she chose this idea as the basis for the story. The title is “And All That Jazz” (the premise makes this somewhat confusing to summarize, so keep in mind that I’ll mostly be describing their actions based on the soul rather than the body, but will use quotation marks if it’s about other characters and who they think they’re addressing. It’ll all make sense, I promise...I think :P)

(The title page actually depicts the ending of the story, so I’ll come back to it later). It starts with Suzuki narrating his introduction, saying that he’s a transfer student to the Standard Academy. He really doesn’t get along with a guy named Sugiki, but for some reason, the two have now switched bodies with each other. Sugiki opens his shirt and inspects his new physique in front of other students, as Suzuki yells out asking what the hell he’s doing to his body. They look at themselves wearing each other’s expressions, Sugiki seeming surprised his mouth can gape open like that, and Suzuki wondering what happened to his body’s facial expression muscles. The bell rings and Sugiki heads off to class, as Suzuki is baffled that he can act so calm about this.

Sugiki perfectly reads a passage aloud in English class, something everyone (including the teacher, who looks like Norman) find unusual coming from “Suzuki”, as they wonder where his usual hearts are. Suzuki makes the decision to enjoy living as Sugiki for a bit, and is shown getting flirty with several girls. He notes that the more serious personality in his regular body is also strangely popular, though with a very different crowd.

A student named Alberko (Alberto in a girl’s uniform) shows up and says that “Sugiki” was supposed to have lunch with her(?) today. Suzuki says that he thought Alberko was going out with Dorou (a masculine alteration to Dolores’ name). Ernie and Suzuki watch as his harem falls apart with Alberko running amok. Ernie comments that both “Sugiki” and that transfer student have been acting weird all week, and he asks if something happened. Suzuki internally reflects back to one week earlier, when he was relaxing in bed in the infirmary. Sugiki comes in and accuses him of skipping class, and Suzuki tells him to mind his own business. He thought this would turn into one of their usual fights, but he can’t believe that actually happened instead...

After school, Sugiki asks Suzuki if they can go home together today. As they’re walking, Suzuki asks if Sugiki realizes what it was that made them switch places, and Sugiki says he does. Suzuki says that in that case, they know how they need to fix it, and they should go over to his house. Sugiki asks for clarification of whose house exactly he means by that.

As they start to get undressed, Suzuki says that he always thought his mom and sisters were annoying, but after a week apart he really misses them. Sugiki promises that he’ll make sure he can see them soon. Suzuki claims that he’ll be the one making Sugiki come, and Sugiki asks how he can talk like that when he was the one who looked like he was about to cry when Sugiki first touched him in the infirmary.

Sugiki peeks into Suzuki’s pants and wonders if he won’t get hard unless he touches him. Suzuki thinks it’d be weirder if he could get hard while looking at his own face, and wonders if Sugiki has AI in his crotch or something (Sugiki contends that it’s not his body). They fool around with each other until they finish, and Suzuki wonders why they didn’t change back yet. Sugiki suggests that maybe it needs to be just like the last time to count as a complete set, when they went at it until they fell off the bed, so both agree that they need to go for one more round. This then ties back to the title page, where they’ve finally managed to get back into their old bodies, but have now sprouted cat ears and tails.

Heat 2 of the booklet is 8 pages long, and contains short comics and illustrations that were not previously included in the volume releases. The comics include “How to 10 Dance”, a one-page comic with the Shinyas demonstrating the tango. Their privates end up touching, and Sugiki seems highly amused, gleefully asking Suzuki how it feels. Suzuki says that he was the one who got all bent out of shape over that back in volume 1, and tells him to lay off the sadist mode since they’re not dancing Latin right now. The second comic is “2nd Step”, and shows a glimpse of how the Shinyas were with each other after Suzuki gave the go-ahead for kissing. In fact, Sugiki ends up kissing him so much that Suzuki’s lips get sore and swollen. Sugiki then tries to kiss his neck as an alternative, but Suzuki’s not having it. The third comic depicts Suzuki’s first time in a public bath, where he realizes that Japanese people aren’t fully shaved everywhere like he is. Some of the old guys talk to him and slap their balls with their towels, and Suzuki, seeming a bit confused, gives his own balls a slap, too. After the comics are a selection of illustrations that were never used in the volumes, including this one from a Real 10 Dance event in 2018:

Heat 3 is 18 pages, and contains a variety of colored versions of both chapter covers and scenes from the manga, a couple of which I’ll share below:

Heat 4 includes 3 pages of insight from the professional dancers who consult for the manga, in which they explain the moves shown in specific panels.

Heat 5 is a single page look at Inouesatoh’s work space.

Heat 6 is 3 pages worth of advertisements that have been used to promote the series, including things like ads that were posted in subway stations:

Heat 7 is a single page look at the storyboard for chapter 1 of the manga.

Heat 8 is a single page showing the covers for foreign editions of the manga (Taiwanese, Korean, North American, and French).

Finally, there’s one last page with a thank you message from Inouesatoh, including an absolutely precious illustration of the Shinyas in happier times.

And that’s that! This really is an incredible release, and I’d definitely recommend picking up the special edition if you can. CD Japan offers direct international shipping, and I’ve also seen that Kinokuniya lists it as “available to order” currently (though they don’t appear to have stock on hand, so might take longer).

[lexpressobean]

Parent/Teacher Night: Ch 2, Remember When

In which Shino recalls some thens and compares them to the nows, and gets inspired to change some things with Kiba's encouragement.

*Modern AU, Swearing

**You can find this on AO3 now too, along with the first chapter. Let's gooooooooo!!!

•••

"He asked to trade numbers?" Kiba repeated, pausing all motion, chopsticks mid snatch for a gyoza.

"Yes. Is that... Weird?"

"Well, no."

Kiba reached over and chose his specimen, a plump piece just asking to be dipped. Shino continued eat his steamed rice. It was okay if Kiba wanted the last of the gyoza. Shino thought he might enjoy a serving of the restaurant's ice-cream after he finished his meat instead.

"But even I don't have Shikamaru's number. Least not his current one."

"You don't?"

"Nah," Kiba took in the gyoza whole and spoke as he chewed, "but ah neber bothered doo update it, I hab 'im on my socials anyway."

"Oh."

He swallowed, "But you didn't even have any kind of social media until later in college. You were late to the game!"

"I didn't see the point then..."

"And that's fine. He probably doesn't even know you have them now. But you know he's been pretty absent from social media too. Figures."

"According to Ino, he's been back in town since April."

"Well of course Ino would know, she's always been in everyone else's business. Especially Shikamaru's, and Choji's too!"

Shino silently made a face, distorting the corner of his mouth as if reluctant to agree, but Kiba barked out a laugh when he caught him.

"It's true though, isn't it!? You would know, Shino!"

Shino didn't plan to be seen, but oh well, "I think it's just her way of showing she cares. Those three are practically family, aren't they?"

Kiba sighed and rolled his eyes, "Listen, dude, just cause you 'dated' her for a couple of years back in college doesn't mean you have to be nice after the fact. It's okay! She has her manipulative bitchy side too. How else could she make it as a therapist."

"Psychiatrist."

"That."

Kiba emphasized the word "dated" in such a way that caused Shino to scowl. Geez, if Ino didn't insist on sharing pictures online...

"Don't invalidate my opinions just because you think they're biased, Kiba. Also, people grow from high school, don't be stuck in the past either."

"I'm not saying it's invalid, geez, but ever since you've always been soft on her..."

"Jealous?"

Kiba immediately threw a dirtied, crumpled up napkin at Shino's head as he blew raspberries in disbelief. Of course Shino dodged it.

"And that!" Kiba almost yelled, though he had a huge smile on his face, "You're sass meter has been off the charts since then!"

"I thought I was just asking a question," Shino simply replied, though he smiled too.

"Fucking jerk," he crossed his arms and closed his eyes, sighing dreamily, "Why would I be jealous when I'm with Tamaki now?"

Shino suppressed the urge to crinkle up his nose, "I remember back in high schoo-"

"THAT WAS HIGH SCHOOL!!" Kiba interrupted, not upset but voice almost breaking in both embarrassment and amusement simultaneously, "Now who's the one stuck in the past!"

"Well anyway, I was just curious if you had heard from him recently, because this was the first time I had seen him since he was an undergrad. That was a while ago."

"Same here, bud. But then here's a thought, if he's just working these days, and he's giving out his number to old friends, maybe we should all get together sometime! So why don't you also friend him on socials while you're at it?"

Shino paused and considered the suggestion.

Shino could do that. Actually, Shino could have done so a long time ago if he had wanted to. But for all the times he had seen Shikamaru's obvious username and cloud icon, he never sent friend request himself. He created his socials for the sole purpose of studygroup based messaging and had planned to delete his social media after school ended for good. But two months in and Kiba somehow found him, and then shortly after Hinata did too. Then Naruto also found Shino and from there he actually aquired a few more friend requests, including from Lee and Sai. Even Ino sent him a friend request, though Ino and Shino had actually attended the same University in the beginning. And then she called him out on it the next time she saw him in person, because how could Shino friend nearly all their mutuals and NOT Ino? He even friended Sakura before Ino! Though, Shino had a suspicion Sakura's request may had been a result of clumsy typing. Shino definately hadn't meant anything by it, but that started a series of... interesting talks between the two. But all and all, Shino suspected that's why he saw Shikamaru's icon so often, among others he didn't quite recognize himself.

Of course Shino knew he didn't have to accept the requests at all. He could've delete them even. But... it didn't seem right to ignore them either. And maybe it felt... kinda nice being reached out to...

"I mean, shit, maybe I should shoot him a message too..." Kiba mused.

"... I was under the impression it was for Mirai's sake."

Kiba perked up, "Huh?"

"That's because a cellphone number is a personal and direct line. If Mirai is currently under my care as a student, wouldn't it make sense to have multiple contacts in case of an emergency?"

Kiba sighed. Typical Shino, "Did Shikamaru say it was strictly for emergencies only?"

"... No."

"So, Dude, maybe... just maybe, Shikamaru simply isn't aware that you have socials? I know I know... social media is meant to be for socializing, but so are direct lines! Why does a direct line have to be so off limits? You're not a stranger to Shikamaru either, Shino. I mean, if anything, he probably trusts you a lot, knowing the kind of person you've ways been. It's a personal line after all, right?"

Not a stranger, but definitely not the person closest the Shikamaru either... It didn't quite make sense beyond Mirai's safety... but, maybe that was Shino's own opinion...

"... I'm over thinking it again."

"Yup."

"... Maybe I will. I'm already friends with Ino and Choji..."

"Yeah! Just complete the trio! Here let's see..." Kiba took out his phone and started to review something, "... I think the only people you're not friends with besides Shikamaru are... Sasuke, who simply deleted everything at one point, Neji, but he really only followed me because of Hinata," Kiba added wearily, "aaand a lot of... other people... but, like, you're better off that way. I have a lot of those assholes blocked or didn't bother. Even Sasuke had been more better of an option than them!"

"Like who?"

"Like I had to block Shikamaru's psycho ex-girlfriend Tayuya. Fucking nightmare that girl was..."

"Ah... the flute player," Shino wasn't all that to date back in the day either, but even he knew about Tayuya...

"Sure that was YEARS ago, and maybe she's different now? But she was... not okay then. To be fair, Shikamaru wasn't blameless, but cripes... After the break-up she was constantly stalking him online... I've just kept her blocked for good measure, I don't know if she's still even there."

Another reason Shino didn't want social media at the time... It made it too easy to let people in. In all honesty the idea had felt overwhelming, and sometimes still does...

"So you're good there."

"Sasuke, Shikamaru, Neji..."

"... Anyone else?"

"... I think those are the last few people from back then I'd actually tolerate. Shikamaru had been your friend, and Sasuke... wasn't always so aloof before he disappeared... And then Neji is Hinata's cousin..."

"Ha! Perfect! So then why not friend Neji too, just for the hell of it? You two had some kind of bro pact, I do remember that."

"He just worried about Hinata, Kiba. Between you and Naruto, I could see why."

"Sue me Shino, it's not my fault the school was full of cute girls!" Kiba nearly whined, but with a ridiculously dopey smile on his face.

It made Shino think. Shikamaru was one of the only people he more regularly saw who didn't reach out to him. But of course Shikamaru had a problem with a stalker at one point. That would make anyone weary of social media. Kiba had even stated he wasn't on much. Shino couldn't fault him for that.

Sasuke apparently deleted his, but it wasn't like they were the closet to begin with, despite humble beginnings. Shino had his fair share of complaints when it came to Sasuke, but when he transferred to a different school before senior year started, even Shino felt his absence.

And recalling high school, Neji did once ask for Shino's socials before. But it was obviously for the same reason of wanting to keep extra tabs on his little cousin and her "new friends" in Environmental Club. Shino had already explained he didn't have any, and he wasn't sure Neji believed him, but had agreed to be very careful with Hinata, who had started to hang out with he and Kiba more after they returned her book she had left in the club classroom. Shino kept it as Kiba was terribly tempted to take a peek, but once it had been returned, and Kiba expressed his curiosity, Hinata shyly presented them with page after page of pressed flowers, all marked with name, date, and little tidbits of info. She became even more bashful at Kiba's amazement and Shino's praise. It was just very well organized and aesthetically pleasing, something she and Ino would bond over later into their friendships.

So then, it was very surprising to know that such a timid girl had an incredible amount of skill in Martial Arts, but had opted to join Environment Club instead of Martial Arts Club. It was less of a shock to find out she and the school's Number One MAC member were related, first cousins even. They had a strong resemblance to each other.

As for Shino and Neji, their mutual fondness for Hinata became a source of camaraderie at some point. Despite expectations and Neji's sterness, all he really wanted was for Hinata to simply have fun during school, and he very much appreciated Shino looking out for her. So Kiba wasn't wrong. And in current time, Hinata had ultimately decided she was gonna live out of town due to... many reasons, but mainly because of her job as a pastry chef in a very successful and family owned cafe and bakery. Of course cinnamon rolls were her specialty, but Shino's feed always had some of the most delightful pictures of various decorated confections, most made by her too. He wasn't the biggest fan of sweets in general, but he was very fond of her handy work. You could tell she loved her job with every detail.

"Crap! Hey Shino, did you wanna order anything to go?"

"Uh, no. I think that was enough."

"Alright cause it's about time I go meet Tamaki," Kiba grinned, "Here's my part!"

Kiba slammed a twenty dollar bill down onto the table and hurriedly put his jacket back on. When Shino looked at the time it was nearly half past six. Oh, the reservation was made for seven. Maybe he talked too much.

"We might've pushed it, Kiba."

"No way, it's fine! I mean I don't mind going if that's where she wants to go, but you know how fancy places are! I need food Shino, actual food!"

Shino was glad that his friend was putting in so much effort for this girl. It seemed like he really liked her, and she was pretty cute, and also... nice. But when it came to things like this, Shino wasn't sure how long this was really gonna last. But it probably wasn't his place to comment.

"Make sure Akamaru takes his medicine, he'll definitely down it if you give him the peanut butter too."

"Sure, no problem."

"Also, Shino."

"Yes?"

"Seriously, don't be so shy! Just friend them!"

"Stop dawdling, you're gonna be late."

Kiba laughed as he waved and nearly jogged out of the restaurant. After paying and boxing the rest of Kibas plate for later (Shino was sure his idiot friend was gonna be hungry again) Shino headed out to Kiba's apartment. He already had a key, ever since he had come back to town. They had always been close like that, though with these new developments Shino always made it a point to give Kiba space and a heads up.

Akamaru was getting old. This medicine was supposed to help him in his old age, and just as Kiba said, Akamaru took the medication with no problem. Shino also made sure that the bowls were full of water and food. Because there was now also Akemaru, a younger dog of the same breed that Kiba had come across one day at the shelter. After only a few weeks and no adoptions, Kiba couldn't resist and ended up adopting him, and he and Akamaru became very close. As a favor to their otherwise absent owner, Shino got the younger and more energetic dog ready for a walk. When Shino offered to take Akamaru, the old boy wagged his tail and came to lick Shino's hand, but then retreated back to his bed and laid down. Looks like that was gonna be a pass, but he was thankful for the offer.

...

Shit.

Okay. Okay, that was it. Actually, this was perfect. Before Shino really started the walk, he pulled out his phone. He scrolled through he recommended friends list of his most commonly used social and easily found the cloud icon that belonged to Shikamaru. It was the same app he even had people like Kurenai and his father on. Just being able to keep anyone of relevance to his social circles on the same app was fine. It kept them close, but not too close either. Available, but at a distance. The only other people who had Shino's personal line were Kiba, Hinata, Kurenai, his father Shibi, Torune and Neji.

Shino hadn't mentioned that to Kiba, but in reality, they hadn't kept much contact anyway. So Shino hoped Kiba didn't snoop his friends list later, but he decidedly sent Shikamaru a friend request and put his phone away into a pocket. Then after switching out his glasses, as to see better in the evening, he left the apartment and began his walk with Akemaru. This would definitely keep him from getting too anxious about it. Shino didn't really know why he was like this, but it was done and now it was up the Shikamaru if he really wanted to catch up. Not that there was a whole lot to catch up on. He was more Kiba's friend after all, always had been, but Shino was sure Kiba didn't really think about that kind if thing too deeply.

Thankfully there was a park a couple blocks down, which even in the evening looked easy to navigate. The air was fresh and chilly, but tolerable with his coat on. Akemaru was good on a leash, and so Shino was able to keep a steady but not rushed pace. He followed a predetermined path, one Shino was actually familiar with too and so he was able to relax as his body went into coast mode.

...

It was nice. Just focusing on the walk. But Shino couldn't help thinking back to his high school days too. Seeing Shikamaru hadn't really been a shock so much as a surprise. He definitely... grew. His voice was deeper. His hair seemed more or less the same length, but maybe looked longer as now he styled it differently. Instead of the low and rather disheveled ponytail he used to wear, he now kept it only half up it looked like. Shino didn't think it looked bad at all, but with some loose strands in his face and the more casual clothes he had been wearing, Shino really wondered if Shikamaru wasn't more or less dragged last minute to PTN. But maybe he was thinking of the Shikamaru from before. Because this Shikamaru was actually... really approachable. And very kind with his words. Maybe that's what growing up some did to people.

Because the one from before was always annoyed, and grumpy, and quiet unless spoken to, yet Naruto and his shenanigans always put a mischievous smirk on his face. Shino had found him a little intimidating. But it wasn't until Kiba and Naruto decided to drag Shino AND Hinata out to a lunchtime hangout and pretty much threw them into the mix of different friends they shared that Shino met Shikamaru, as well as most everyone else. Shino had recognized Ino, and Ino did too after he mentioned Torune, seeing as Torune and Foo both graduated the year before.

"Torune? Like, short black hair, really thick glasses?"

"He has green eyes too."

"Hey, yeah! You're my cousin's boyfriend's cousin! What a small world!"

It was pretty lame introduction.

"And... you're Ino, right?"

"Wow, Ino, he remembered you!" a pink haired girl chastised.

"Oh, shut up, Forehead, it's not like we ever really hung out before. I think we met, like, once at one of Foo's birthdays?"

"That's true," Shino agreed, "I just went for the drive to drop off his present since that day he couldn't stay. You're mom insisted on giving us goodie bags anyway before we left."

"Ugh, good, our parents always go over the top with the decorations and stuff, believe me!"

"Ino, you are over the top."

"Shikamaru, no one was talking to you!"

"Wait, wait wait, your cousin Foo has a boyfriend?"

"Yeah, what of it," Ino immediately scowled at Kiba.

It made Kiba shut up immediately, but then he turned to Shino and whispered, "Hey, is your cousin gay?"

Shino shrugged, "I didn't ask, but it's none of my business." He was. Shino had known but Torune never outright told him they were officially dating. So as far as he was concerned it was a mystery.

"What about you, Hinata, I don't think we've met before. I'm Sakura."

"Um, hello-"

"Actually! We're in Home Ec together!" another boy munching on chips said, "She made the best cinnamon rolls in class the other day!"

Hinata blushed, "Ah, thank-you, Choji..."

"Cinnoman rolls!? I saw that that roll! Hinata, that was yours!?" Naruto asked, super impressed.

She only blushed even harder, "It might've been...!?"

"It was!" Choji confirmed.

"Naruto stop crowding already!" Sakura scolded, poking him against the side of his forehead, "You can be so loud!"

"Augh, alright, Sakura stop!"

It had actually been a relatively friction free integration. Hinata and the girls got along faster than he would've guessed, and later Shino and Sasuke would meet again, with Naruto giving Shino a suspicious stink-eye.

"We've been in the same classes since elementary school," Shino commented, "You have to really go out of your way to ignore someone for that long..."

"Hn..." As friendly as always...

...

From then on, Kiba always insisted on Shino and Hinata joining them at lunch, which Shino did. But Shino couldn't quite fathom the idea of sacrificing his after school time to go to out and do... well, who even knew? Back then, he had a routine, he had things to tend to back home. His terrariums that his father put him in charge of, his guitar practice because he wasn't about to let those lessons go to waste, his study time, and planning for EC activities as he was a more involved member, he was already a busy guy. At least that's what he used to think. But he would be a sad ass liar if he didn't appreciate the invitations. Towards the end he broke a few time at his father's insistence. He was mentally drained each time, but he did have fun, and Kiba always seemed excited to recall the events with Shino after.

Once he had attended collage, Shino really wished he would have taken more time to simply enjoy a more decent social life with the people he called friends at school outside of school. Was he too shy? Was he too selective? Was he socially inept? It didn't matter now. It wasn't until Shino's very first job that he felt like he got to a level he wished he could've reached sooner. Being a cashier at a fast food chain really taught you how to handle and tolerate people, and definitely brought Shino out if his shell more than he would've ever thought. College in general did a lot for him in that respect.

... Kiba was right. If old friends were reaching out, why couldn't Shino do the same?

Well, apparently the universe was glad he agreed, because the second he did, he felt his phone vibrate in his pocket.

Shino stopped in place and Akemaru whined. When he checked his phone, he saw not only a "Request Accepted" message but also a simple text message as well, also from Shikamaru.

-----

Hey, can you talk? Call me if you can.

-----

Oh what the fuck.

Shino felt his nerves stand at attention with the prospect of a sudden conversation. What... What did Shikamaru even want right now? Did he really want to talk now?

... No. No, dammit, no! Not this time. Shino took a deep breath and continued to walk, much to Akemaru's delight. And as he got a steady rhythm, Shino highlighted Shikamaru's number and pressed "Call".

It was settled. If he was gonna start making up for lost time, it was now or never, awkward interactions be damned!

[shinebrite97]

Part 7

read part 6 here

       Yuri placed her pencil down when the first note landed on her desk, folded into a firm triangle, she carefully unfolded it, untucking corners to see Mammon's sharp handwriting.         What did Lord Diavolo want from u yesterday? Did ya get in trouble???        Yuri scoffed, quickly writing back and following his folds to return it to the original shape. Flicking it off her desk and letting it slide across the space between then until it skittered to a stop at his shoe.        He picked it up, and she stared ahead, paying half of her attention to the lecture and the other half to the discreet sound of paper unfolding.        Wouldn't you like to know, money boy?         She even went as far as to draw a winking smile. Mammon growled, baring one canine as he did so. She smiled, turning her attention back to her summoning notes.        This ain't over, human. The voice was in her head now. One of the perks of a pact, she'd found, being able to communicate telepathically.          It was great, at least, until they caught on.

         She wondered how long she'd be able to keep this secret. Did Diavolo even want it a secret? 

          There would have to be some level of PDA, she accepted that. The small amount so far had been reasonable. 

          But what about when things progress?  

          Would there be an official announcement to the house of Lamentation, would Lucifer catch them hugging at the door? Would they need to stage a kiss for someone to catch them in the act? Would it become a scandal? The demon prince dating the human exchange student a couple thousand years his junior?

          She remembered the things Diavolo said the day she agreed. He'd already had Barbatos lay the groundwork for rumors, so it wouldn't be long before some inquiries would be made and they'd be interviewed.

          "Hey, Yuri!" She perked up, suddenly snapped from her thoughts to see Beelzebub standing at her desk.

         "We're presenting." He said. She nodded, standing up and walking with him to where Mammon stood, tapping his toes and checking an imaginary watch.

         "You doin' okay, space cadet?" He asked.

          "Yeah." She replied.

          "You first, Yuri."' Beelzebub whispered.

          "Right!"

          By the end of class, Yuri exhaled a sigh of relief as she gathered her notebook and pen, starting when a gentle finger tapped her shoulder. 

          "Beel?" She asked, turning around.

          "Let's eat outside today," he said. 

          "Okay!" 

          They weren't long in the cafeteria, at least it wasn't long for Yuri to pick up a tray with boarback, rice, and soup and she waited only a few extra minutes for Beelzebub to perfect his grasp on four lunch trays each piled high with a bit of every offering.

          He walked closely behind her, guiding her out the doors and to a grassy patch in the courtyard where Diavolo's favorite mirage flower blooms caught the light of the moon in the sky. Beel didn't say a word until two of the trays were empty and pushed to the side. By the third he managed to slow down enough to start up a conversation.

          "So Yuri," he said, leaning back and crunching on a blackened apple. "Where were you last night?" 

          "I was with Lord Diavolo." She replied. 

          "Why?" 

          "He's...tutoring me." She cringed at the rise of the end of her sentence, sounding more like a question than a statement. Shaking her head, she quickly stabbed a piece of her boarback and chewed silently.

          "Okay…" he replied wearily. 

          "It's Thursday, right?" She asked after a moment. Beel nodded into a bowl of noodles now, lips curled to slurp them up.

           "I'm on dinner duty tonight," She said. "Any ideas on what I should make?"

           "So you're actually going to be home tonight?" Beel sassed back. "No tutoring tonight?"

          "Leave me be!" She squeaked. Beelzebub smiled, poking her side. 

          "How about we go shopping after class," he said. "I'll even help you in the kitchen tonight." 

          Ending the day with Devildom History, knowing she was going shopping with Beelzebub afterwards, was a new kind of hell for Yuri and her lack of attention span. 

          But as she opened her notebook to a clean page, she noticed the last page of writing from the night before. Filled from top to bottom with her handwriting, small print to fit more information per line, names of the last ten generations of Lord Diavolo's family tree. His handwriting mixed with hers, adding tidbits or spellings when she'd messed up, and helpful pronunciations for when she met these relatives. 

          It put a new sense of purpose in her concentration. Even this boring history class could boost her royalty training.

         She opened to a clean page, taking out a few pens in case one ran out midway through, and wrote down every word she could process.

Devildom politics, origins of street names, the original bartering system, myths about the previous crowned kings. 

           She'd take it all to Diavolo the next time she saw him, hoping to get more explanations over dinner or tea. 

When do I see him again, anyway?

            Yuri shook herself out of thoughts, continuing to write until her fingers cramped, shaking them out just enough to loosen it.

           The lecture had given way to discussion, as it normally did toward the end of the lesson, and some of the older demons tossed out reminiscence about Devildom in its heyday.

"Have you heard the rumors surrounding his Majesty?" Someone asked.

            "He's going to be crowned soon!" Another voice piped up. Yuri looked back, recognizing the horns on one dark eyed demon. Satan's friend, though he wouldn't admit it. Mephistopheles. A bit of a class clown, but has information on the comings and goings of everyone in the devildom. 

          "You hear that he's got a piece of ass on the side?" Someone else asked.

          "Lucky them!" 

          "Probably some succubus who's only with him for his money." 

          Or a friend who wants to see him succeed…

           She bit her tongue behind her closed lips, trying to maintain her poker face as her classmates unknowingly called her a floozie. 

            "Now now, that's enough." The instructor said. "We have more to cover…"

          That class couldn't have ended any sooner. Yuri sighed as she packed up her books, shoulder the black messenger bag Satan had bought her back when she returned, she looked up when Beelzebub entered her line of vision.

          "C'mon, before Mammon spots us." He winked, extending an arm for her to hold onto, leading her out the door and down the hall to the main entry.

          They snacked on crepes while they shopped, Beelzebub dropped things into the basket, taking it from Yuri when it became too heavy for her to hold, and took her hand once he'd finished his snack.

          "Beel!" She squeaked. "Why are you tapping my palm? It tickles!" She squirmed to break free of his hold, but he tapped her once more and then lifted her up by the waist, carrying her like a sack of flour and listened to that bright giggle as he swung her around. 

          "Okay, put me down!" She huffed. "I know your strong." 

          "You're cute Yuri," he smiled. "Like a stuffed animal."

          "A stuffed animal with bones that are digging into my skin!" 

          Beel laughed as he entered the checkout line, easing her onto her feet.

         On solid ground, Yuri took a moment to check her DDD, seeing some new devilgram posts, a part time job application for Hell's Kitchen, and a new text.

          "It's...Lord Diavolo," she said.

          "Missing a tutoring session?" Beel asked. 

          "We didn't have anything planned today." She mumbled.

          Please come to the student council office first thing tomorrow morning. 

          Yuri's heart sank. His words felt so formal and distant, worlds different from the Diavolo the night before. 

          Yes sir.

          She clicked the device off and stood silently beside Beelzebub who moved up as the line shortened, taking a moment to glance down at her.

          "Hey," he said softly. "What's going on?"

          "I don't know." He replied. "He just said to go to the student council office tomorrow morning."

          "Do you want one of us to go with you?" He asked.

          "I should be fine," she said. "It might be about tutoring."

          "Sure." 

                                           - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

          There wasn't much else said as they returned to the House of Lamentation, and Yuri knew it was mainly because he was more focused on getting dinner prepared and eating again instead of how awkward things became in line when she clammed up talking about Diavolo.

          They worked side by side, her holding up spoonfuls of simmering sauce or chopsticks with dark venison to give Beel a taste and letting him add seasonings as he liked. 

          What followed was a typically rowdy meal where everyone noticed how quiet she was, and as the meal wound down, and Leviathan took to the kitchen for cleanup, Yuri noticed that Lucifer stayed behind. Nursing a cup of black coffee and reading a ledger. 

          "Yuri," he said. "I wanted to ask you about your day." 

          "It was fine," she said. "How about yours?" 

          "Busy," he replied. "But I couldn't help but notice that you've barely said a word since you've returned. Not even Mammon and his obnoxious behavior got a reaction from you. So what's wrong?"

          "I don't know…" 

          "I am assuming this has to do with Lord Diavolo," he said. "I'm a smart being, Yuri, you have plenty of tells when something is bothering you, and the other night was out of character for both of you."

           "With all due respect, Lucifer. I'm not really sure how much I'm allowed to say right now."

          "And that response only worries me more."

          "I know you are only trying to keep me alive," she said. "So I can tell you this much. I'm fine. I'm safe. Lord Diavolo wouldn't hurt me, and that's not what's happening."

          "I don't like being left out of things," he said. "Especially when it comes to Lord Diavolo or a member of my household. And as you fall into one of those categories, this is very disconcerting."

          "I'm sorry, Lucifer," She said. "I will explain everything once I have permission to."

          "Humans are so strange." He mused. "Such a code of honor to them, and a will that is unbelievably fragile. I wonder if I could use my power on you faster than you could use yours on me." 

          "Or you could just trust me." 

          One thin black brow rose over those ruby eyes, ND after a moment the mood shifted, the tension dissolved, and Yuri smiled. His face softened and the corner of his lip lifted into a smirk.

          Their dynamic had become way more of a power balance since she returned. She chose to believe it was his love language. 

          "Well, I see you are not the lost little lamb you once were," He said. "You never fail to amuse me, Yuri. But I suppose I can grant you this. You have the rest of this week to settle things and then I expect an answer for this strange behavior." 

          "Thanks, Lucifer."

          Diavolo stood facing the open window in his bedroom in his robe, gazing more at his DDD than the glistening moon outside. 

          Yes sir. 

          The text seemed so cold. So unlike Yuri. No emojis or cute stickers. 

          And since when does she call me sir? 

          He wanted to see her again, but didn't want to seem overbearing. He'd gotten a call that day about an interview for his upcoming celebrations, and to introduce this special someone who'd stolen his heart. 

          It was the first of many interviews, steps to take in order to advance seamlessly.

          This was where their acting mattered. The make or break for this plan. 

          But now it seemed she was angry. What had happened during the day to garner such a response?

[alette-stars]

The giant goes to rest. More than two years, 130 000 words and many screams and tears since its start, Lavender Jade is complete.

Let me start off by thanking you all for supporting this fic! When I started I had no idea it was going to receive the love it has. Before Lavender Jade I was known for more overall lighthearted works (Mint and Poppy in the Monsta X fandom, Stray Romance for ASTRO). All your constant love and support has been a huge help. Thank you so much! Words cannot describe the joy your comments and messages gave me ♡

I’ve made so many amazing friends and spoken to so many beautiful people because of this work, but this fic is dedicated to Monsta X ♡

Okay, enough sappiness! Time to move on to the trivia and extras. This is my 4th trivia post (you can find Mint and Poppy here; Stray Romance here; Wrong (Right) Number here) and longest yet, so it’s in 3 parts:

basic tidbits/extra info

regarding the vei, the card divination system

some personal rambling regarding my character motives (entirely skippable)

If it’s not obvious, there are going to be major spoilers, so if you haven’t read the fic yet but plan to do so, I advise not reading this ^^

If you need, you can always reference the character list here

Okay, so let’s get started! Rest of the post is under the cut

1. Basic Trivia

Most of the extras in the fic were original characters this time, with a few exceptions. Even these exceptions are not exactly based on the idols they’re named after, but I imagined them while writing. These are:

Sojung, Jooheon’s bodyguard - WJSN’s Exy

Sewoon, Kihyun’s manservant - soloist Jeong Sewoon

Seungwoo, another of Kihyun’s servants - soloist Yoo Seungwoo

Dawon, Hyunjung, Jiyeon, Luda, Soobin, Juyeon, the girls mentioned as being part of Jooheon’s people in Eigak - WJSN’s Dawon, Seola, Bona, Luda, Soobin, Eunseo 

Along with the ones living, there were those who lived in the past. Mentioned in-text:

Hoseok II, a previous king of Yishin - BTS’ J-Hope

Seokjin, a consort to Hoseok II - BTS’ Jin

Kim Namjoon, prime minister of Hoseok II - BTS’ RM

Hakyeon, the first king of Yishin - VIXX’s N

And those referenced only in the snippets in the chapter summaries:

Jungsoo, a previous king of Yishin - Super Junior’s Leeteuk

Kyuhyun, a historian - Super Junior’s Kyuhyun

Yoongi, a consort to Hoseok II - BTS’ Suga

Taekwoon, high prince to Hakyeon - VIXX’s Leo

For some reason which I still cannot fathom, I’ve been praised for the worldbuilding in this fic. The capital city of Yishin doesn’t even have a name. 

The basic geography of the peninsula is Yishin, Eigak to her east, a number of tiny states to her west, the sea to her south. The western side of Yishin is more fertile. The stretch of border between Yishin and Eigak is a rocky wasteland.

Yishin was named as a mix of Wonho’s two surnames: Lee and Shin

The concept of snippets from literature and media from the universe as chapter summaries was inspired by Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen saga. The vei deck (more on it later) was also very heavily inspired by his Deck of Dragons in the same books. 

A lot of fics focus on Hyungwon’s looks (something I’m guilty of as well) so I wanted to write a world where he wasn’t considered handsome. I understand why all the shows set in alternate worlds have the same beauty standards as us—it makes for prettier TV—but I decided to set a different one for the world of Lavender Jade. Somewhat arbitrarily, we have:

considered very handsome -  Hoseok, Minhyuk, Changkyun

considered somewhat handsome - Kihyun

considered plain/regular - Hyunwoo, Hyungwon, Jooheon

Han Jehan, obviously, also falls in category 1.

Han Jehan was my first time writing a proper villain in my fics, and I don’t know how well I succeeded but I enjoyed it immensely. I went out of my way to add all the traits I like so that I wouldn’t end up hating him, even going so far as to give him the surname of one of my favourite idols (sorry Hyuk). 

There are two main things I’d change in the fic if I could turn back time:

tighten up the front end. I’d combine the first couple of chapters 

Yeon Hu would be a woman. By the time I realized the awesome power of a badass lady general, it was too late

All court members—Jo Senmi, Yeon Hu, etc—are original characters. They’re both basic archetypes you’ll find in sageuk dramas. I think it’s worth mentioning both of them really do love Yishin, they just had very different, more conservative ideas of what would be best for the country.

I’d thought of using all the proper Korean names for the clothes especially, but decided that would make things difficult to read and binned the idea.

The opening note says the world is inspired by the Joseon dynasty. Regarding the initiatives to improve people’s lives, yes, but the hall/court system is more inspired by (what I know of) the Goryeo dynasty system.

I’ve been asked this before, but I’ll answer it here again: I’d never finished a sageuk drama before Flower Crew (very recently, and only because I was watching it with my sisters), and definitely not while I was planning this fic. Don’t judge me. The one I would recommend is Six Flying Dragons, most like Lavender Jade in tone. The others I’ve made headway into are Moonlight Drawn by the Clouds, Ruler: Master of the Mask, and The King and the Clown. 

I’m surprised no one brought up the foreshadowing I did near the end of chapter 16. Seven stars, two possible fates. The final fate of the two lovers (Kihyun and Changkyun) turned out to be a mix of the two stories: there was a fire, and the heavenly king was pulled from heaven (Kihyun from his position) to live the rest of his life with his lover.

Unlike my other secret couple (myungjin in Stray Romance) there are no hints of Hyunwoo and Minhyuk. They never did anything that would show. Minhyuk attempts to fluster Hyunwoo, but he does that with everyone.

Changkyun’s final card from the reading in chapter 8 is the two of Knives. It means a sacrifice. 

My favorite parts of the fic to write were Kihyun’s various descriptions of Changkyun’s beauty :)

This is, undoubtedly, the fic that has required the most work from me. I will say the most difficult scenes to write were Minhyuk’s fight with the assassin and Hyunwoo’s with Kim Sungil. Action scenes are not my forte. 

If you don’t know, I have written a romantic one-shot set in the same universe, titled Only One

2. The Vei

I don’t know how obvious this was, but the entire vei deck concept was inspired by and based on VIXX. The idea itself came from the Deck of Dragons in Steven Erikson’s Malazan Book of the Fallen saga. 

There are 84 cards in the deck: 72 cards in six suits, and 12 Unaligned. The Unaligned can be paired off, where each card is the opposite of its pair (with the exception of the last pair). The Unaligned cards are:

Fountain and Grave - a beginning and an ending

The Open Hand and The Closed Hand - generosity and miserliness

The Lord and The Lady - bad luck and good luck

The Centaur and The Fox - someone proud and someone crafty

Magnolia and Crown of Thorns - misery in success and happiness in failure

Pyramid and Mirror - stability/instability and karmic justice/unfairness 

The six suits, along with the member they represent, are:

Stars - N

Rings - Leo

Shells - Ken

Scrolls - Ravi

Flowers - Hongbin

Knives - Hyuk

Each suit, like our playing cards, has a king, queen, and knight (jack). The king of each suit is based on a VIXX member, and has some particular qualities along with being very rare. All visual cues for the kings come from VIXX’s masterpiece MV, Shangri-La. 

Stars - King: the Emperor, Queen: Sloth, Knight: the Page. The Emperor is the rarest card in the deck, and is represented by a crowned man with no features, only darkness in place of a face. The Page is the icon of diligence (and was in Minhyuk’s hand in chapter X). The theme of the suit is mystic fates, technically the uncategorized cards. In the natural half of the deck.

Rings - King: Death, Queen: Envy, Knight: the Messenger. Death is a card of finality (like Grave). The theme of the suit is secrets. In the manmade half of the deck.

Shells - King: Life, Queen: Gluttony, Knight: the Fool. Life is a card of possibilities. The Fool denotes absolute luck--essentially the card of negation. The theme of the suit is environment. In the natural half of the deck.

Scrolls - King: the Mage, Queen: Greed, Knight: the Apprentice. The Mage is a figure of knowledge and learning. The theme of the suit is motivations. In the manmade half of the deck.

Flowers - King: the Elf, Queen: Lust, Knight: the Handmaid. The Elf is an elusive, hidden figure with hidden motives. The theme of the suit is happiness. In the natural half of the deck.

Knives - King: War, Queen: Wrath, Knight: the General. War is a decisive figure, one who brings final consequences. The them of the suit is decisions. In the manmade half of the deck. 

I’ve been asked about the game played with the vei deck as well. It is a game of my own invention, yes. It’s based on trick-taking games like Hearts, where the object is to win the least cards as possible. It’s played in alternating rounds, one where the Unaligned are not used, the next where they are. I didn’t hash out the details beyond some basic motifs, but it is technically playable. Only if you have a vei deck though. The whole gameplay hinges on the fact that some cards are less likely to appear when picked from the stacked deck. 

I’ve heard from more than one person that I got them into tarot as a hobby. That’s great! But the truth is I know next to nothing about tarot haha

3. Rambling

I might suggest skipping this. This adds 0 value to the post and fic aside from giving me a space to ramble and whoa it turned out long

First: King Hoseok. He’s copped a fair share of criticism in this fic regarding his passiveness and his acceptance of the unfair consort system. I will defend my handling of this character to the ends of the Earth. I’m not saying he’s perfect (obviously! the only character that comes close to that is Hyunwoo) but I think he did right by what he had.

A neat indication would be to flip back to chapter 14, the Hyungwon POV chapter. When Hoseok says that the two of them are alone even though the room is filled with servants, Hyungwon forgives it as a result of his upbringing. He’s undoubtedly biased, but he has a point. Hoseok was raised as king. Certain things that are so obvious to others don’t even register to him. The consort system, where they have to swear loyalty to him but he doesn’t to them? He was raised as seeing this as normal. They all were. He never even fathoms a consort would want to leave their position. When Kihyun tells him the truth about the affair, Hoseok is stunned. He doesn’t understand Hyungwon calling his old life of poverty a life of freedom.

Basically, Hoseok is just trying his best after being raised (and still living) in a life of absolute privilege. He expects loyalty, love, because he hasn’t been exposed to anything different. His situation is completely different from Jooheon’s, who’s grown up in a much more volatile situation. Jooheon had to learn early on to really open his eyes, to listen, and he’s much more observant and understanding. By the end of the fic Hoseok’s had a wakeup call, and he’s going to get better. 

Second: the consort system. Yes, it’s cruel. It wasn’t what Hakyeon had envisioned when he had his companions instated formally. But in Yishin this is the norm. No one thinks it cruel. It’s a position of huge honor (Kihyun thinks of it a few times).

Even though there’s no homophobia, misogyny etc, Yishin is a conservative society. They haven’t had a change of regime in 23 generations. They’re used to the norm, and consortship is the norm. Also, if you look at most conservative societies, you’ll see romantic love isn’t considered a prerequisite for marriage (which is kind of what consortship is). In many societies (including my own) many people would jump at a chance for consortship, no matter their relationship with the monarch. 

Third: the fic had a lot of subversion of typical historical expectations and standards. I still consider myself primarily a fantasy writer. Typical fantasy and historical works have a strong focus on honor, dignity, truth and justice and all those values.

Lavender Jade does not. Kihyun and Changkyun are oathbreakers, they are traitors (by Yishini law). Every insult flung at them is true. The king breaks his country’s laws to help them escape their deserved punishment. Even Hyunwoo, the honorable and admirable commandant, defeats Kim Sungil using an underhanded move, and gets his happy ending with another consort breaking his oath.

At times I seriously considered ending this as a tragedy. It felt fair. Kihyun and Changkyun had broken laws, broken promises. All that happened did as a result of their own actions (even Han Jehan’s targeting of Kihyun was, from what we see, brought about by Kihyun digging into his affairs). A sad ending would be deserved. But then I thought, hmm, why? Why should it be fair? Why should they be miserable because it is deserved? 

So we got the ending we got, and I hope you’re all happy. I know I am. 

Thank you for reading to the end of this (unnecessarily) long post! It’s almost as long as the fic itself haha If you have any questions or messages you can shoot me an ask or pm here, or on my Twitter or on CuriousCat ^^ 

So what’s next? I’m writing Wrong (Right) ID, an epistolary fic for ASTRO in the same style as Wrong (Right) Number, and A Match Made in Heaven, my VIXX karma officer fic (it’s an unusual concept! you should try it). Both fics will end soon, maybe even before the end of the year, so you won’t have to bear much waiting ^^;;

I’m also writing Blood, Water, a vampire fic with a strong emphasis on family for ATEEZ, so you can check that out too! This one’s going to be long and angsty and quite self indulgent ^^

I’ve been asked if I’m going to continue writing in this universe. The answer is, yes. I will be writing White Carnation, the book referenced in multiple chapters of this fic, as a novella. I might write a short story on how Hoseok and Hyungwon met, but that’s undecided. I’ve hashed out ideas for side stories involving VIXX (and the founding of Yishin) and ATEEZ (and the change of regimes in Eigak) in this CuriousCat ask and this Twitter thread, but those will probably only remain as threads ^^;; 

And in the future? I have Monsta X one shots planned, and perhaps another long fic too. All possibilities are open! I hope you’ll stay with me for them ♡

Again, and as always, thank you. I hope you enjoyed Lavender Jade ♡

[cdyssey]

Hadestown (7/14/19), Act I

Act II

This is largely just me rambling about how much I love Hadestown and how beautiful it was to see live, but I’m going to be heavy on spoilers, so please don’t read this if you want to go in blind!!!

*An overlay pic I did in, like, three seconds on my phone, lol.

Hadestown, a sweeping thesis statement: It was the most beautiful musical I’ve seen in my life, and it touched me profoundly.

Hadestown, a hieroglyphic summary of me during the entire show: 😭😭😭😭😭😭 (I’m srs. I was in tears every three minutes. I cried during the standing ovation.)

Hadestown, Act One:

“Road to Hell” —

What an opening number. My gods—so vivacious and vital and joyfully, deliriously alive.

The first noises you hear in the moments before “Road to Hell” are the sharp clacks of André’s shoes as he makes his way across the stage. Even in a handful of silent seconds, he makes his presence known. Right before he starts the song, he unbuttons his coat and shows his sparkly vest off. I love him???????

Like, I adore how he so perfectly inhabits the role of an omniscient, omnipresent narrator. He’s literally a god walking among men, and that’s such a beautiful take on Hermes.

The stage for “Road to Hell” is set up to be a kind of bar where Orpheus works as a busboy! Orpheus sweeps around cleaning off tables, and Eurydice (Jessie Shelton!!) comes in seeking shelter from the cold. When Hermes announces that it’s the beginning of Orpheus and Eurydice’s tale, they come face to face for the first time and simply stare at each other.

Also, you know how Hermes takes extra care to mention that Orpheus’s mother was a Muse and a friend of his?? I think that tidbit helps set up the friendly, mentor-like relationship Hermes and Orpheus have throughout the musical!!

“Any Way the Wind Blows” —

Okay, this is where I desperately wish that the entire OBC was out because I only remember a couple of things from this song, and that makes me sad. ;-;

But what I can tell y’all is that Jessie Shelton is a brilliant, nuanced Eurydice. Her youth and her scrappiness shine through; her hunger—for sustenance, for hope, for a better life—evidences itself in every note she sings!!

AND THE FATES. MY GODS, THE FATES. I LOVE THEM. Kay, Jewelle, and Yvette imbue them with such chaotic evil energy™. They’re quite sinister throughout the musical, tempting and teasing whomever they’re stalking in turns. I’d literally die for all of them!!

But anyway, in this song, Eurydice lights a candle to protect herself from the cold, and the Fates constantly lurk over her shoulder, pretty much dogging her. It’s here you begin to realize what weight Eurydice has on her shoulders. She knows what’s behind her back. She knows who’s trying to steal her light.

OH, OH, and up to around “Epic I,” keep an eye on Hades and Persephone in the balcony!! They’re playing dominoes together.

“Come Home With Me” —

ASFVDS. The intro to this one is so funny. Hermes tries to play wingman for Orpheus and advises him to be chill and not come on too strong. Immediately afterwards, Orpheus is, like, COME HOME WITH ME. MARRY ME.

(Reeve Carney is a national treasure and should b protected.)

But basically, this song is Orpheus’s proposal song!! Eurydice is skeptical, but she increasingly and incrementally warms up to him.

“Wedding Song” —

OOH, this one’s a jam!! It sounds like something str8 off of a country album.

A lot of it is Eurydice warming up to the idea of marrying Orpheus. She’s obviously at war with what she knows and what she wants—the world she dreams about and the world she lives in.

Sometime during the song, Orpheus sings the “la, la, la” melody to her and inexplicably procures a flower for her. So awed by it and him and the magic they create together with their love, Eurydice melts.

Also, holy heck!!! The staging is really amazing for this one. At some point, Orpheus walks on a bridge of tables to Eurydice. He finishes one table, and one of the company members moves another so that it’s right in front of him.

“Epic I” —

Just so y’all know, every time an “Epic” is sung, I just full on start crying. 😭

“Epic I” starts with Orpheus trying to figure out where the “la, la, la” melody came from, and Hermes tells him it used to be sung by Persephone and Hades. He urges our boy to recall their love story through song.

As he sings, attention is drawn to the balcony for the first time since “Road to Hell” as the gods react to their story being sung. Hades is largely uninterested, but Persephone leans over the balcony to listen to Orpheus, obviously moved.

“Livin’ It Up On Top” —

Is this a good time 2 declare my undying love for Amber Gray and everything she stands for?????????

BECAUSE GODS, SHE’S AMAZING. I saw her in Great Comet as Hélène, and even then, I was impressed by the nuance she brought to what could have been a one-note character in the wrong hands, but her Persephone?????????? Brilliant. Flawless. The love of my life. I’m forever a stan. With her loose (but graceful) limbs and brightly lit eyes, she makes sure you know that Persephone is one hell of a character without even singing so much as a word, but when she does sing?? The power and liveliness in her voice echoes all over Walter Kerr.

Amber 👏 Gray 👏 is 👏 a 👏 powerhouse.

OKAY, back to the song!! This might be a little before it starts or right as it begins, but before she leaves the balcony to usher in spring, she kisses Hades on the cheek. He doesn’t really react, and that broke my heart.

(ALSO, BASELESS CONJECTURE, but you know how Hermes mentions that Persephone is always late?? I’ve always wondered if that’s her parallel to Hades being early. Even though their relationship has stagnated, she doesn’t want to leave him. 😭😭😭😭)

Like “Road to Hell,” this song’s just full of life and fun. Persephone plays around with Eurydice and Orpheus a lot, and it’s honestly the first time we see Eurydice loosen up and let herself be happy.

“All I’ve Ever Known” —

Eurydice and Orpheus make me emo. ;-;

At some point, when she’s singing that all she’s ever known is how to hold her own, Orpheus reaches out for her. She flinches at first, but a couple of verses later, reaches out to him.

When Orpheus sings “I’m gonna hold you forever,” he hugs her from behind and crushes her tightly to his chest, and the relief on her face was just palpable. Oh, my godssssss.

All the while, Persephone is watching them, obviously in love with their love, and Hades is reading a newspaper on the balcony!

“Way Down Hadestown” —

LEGIT ONE OF MY FAVES. GOD, THE LYRICS, THE ENERGY, AND THE ACTING WAS AMAZING.

“Better go get your suitcase packed! Guess it’s time to go!” The Fates sing this mockingly at Persephone, and shortly after this, she slowly bends over in despair, her face hidden, her arms limp.

BUT THEN, and this almost made me SCREAM, she begins to tap her feet to the music EVEN AS SHE’S STILL BENT OVER. ASFCDSS. I love Amber Gray. It’s almost like, depressed though she may be, she can’t help but dance to the rhythm. She does this right up until her next verse.

Throughout the first half of the song, Orpheus and Eurydice are just, like, hella enjoying the music together. They’re snuggling and cuddling, and at one point, they’re lying down at the front of the stage spooning as they watch Hermes, Persephone, and co. dance.

In the second half of the song, though, when Hermes starts warning them about the dangers of Hadestown, there’s a subtle shift. Even though the music is still jaunty, he and Persephone and the company are clearly trying to drill it into the lovebirds’ brains that all that glitters isn’t gold. I used to dislike tht those lines were taken from Orpheus, but now I really appreciate the meaning the change conveys.

Hades shows up in his jacket and glasses and gets a big laugh with his “I missed ya” line. (SPOILER ALERT: PATRICK PAGE IS ALSO THE LOML.)

“Seems like he owns everything.” / “Kinda makes you wonder how it feels...” When Eurydice longingly sings this line, Hades lowers his glasses to appraise her, his interest caught. Orpheus, seeing the way he looks at her, jumps in front of Eurydice as though to shield her.

GOD, this song was good.

(OH, and question? Is the accordion a big part of Hades’s musical motif? I noticed that there’s a lot more of it being played whenever he shows up or is being talked about.)

“A Gathering Storm” —

I’ll talk about this more later, but the lighting work is incredible in Hadestown. Like, in this song, for instance, the blues and grays are sharp departures from how brightly lit the stage was when Persephone was down for spring.

This song is where the ideological divide between Eurydice and Orpheus really becomes apparent as Orpheus grapples with the tragedy that spring is gone, while Eurydice just accepts it. It’s just how it is. He runs to finish his song, while Eurydice runs to find them food and shelter. You can see the fear and and hunger and desperation begin to creep upon Eurydice’s face again. Gone now is the girl who laughed and dance during “Livin’ It Up On Top.”

“Epic II / “Chant” —

“Epic II” is Orpheus trying to finish his song as he continues to piece together why winter came so early! I think Eurydice is offstage for this one, presumably scavenging for food while he writes like he’s running out of time.

I don’t remember WHY it’s so awesome, but the transition from “Epic II” to “Chant” is incredible. (@WHOEVER IS RESPONSIBLE - RELEASE THE REST OF THE OBC, PLS.)

ALSO, “CHANT.” GOD. This has always been up there in my top five for its lyrics alone, but the staging is insane. If there’s a song in Hadestown that works like a well-oiled machine made up of so many moving parts, then it’s “Chant.”

When Persephone starts singing about how bright and hot it is, she calls attention to the fact that the lighting upon her is exceptionally, painfully bright. Throughout this entire song, her face is shattered with fear and horror as she looks around and takes in what Hades did to their kingdom. It’s heartwrenching, and I CRIED.

The company is absolutely incredible in every song, but I was especially struck by their movements here. Toiling away, they circled the raised pedestal that Hades and Persephone stood on. At one point, their movements were such that they resembled a gear moving.

And also, these acting choices makes me so damn emo: For “Chant” up to “Epic III,” Hades can’t hardly keep his eyes off of Persephone, both when she’s singing to him or he’s singing to her. However, after she’s done singing to him, she nigh refuses to look at him while he sings to her. Patrick and Amber r the best.

When Orpheus sings his first “la, las” in “Chant,” he’s still trying to write his song. In her conversation with Hermes, Eurydice grows increasingly frustrated, as in, How the hell is a song going to save us? She still has a little hope at this point, but it’s quickly waning. The red carnation in her hair, put there by Persephone in “Livin’ It Up On Top” is the brightest item on the stage. (It especially contrasts well with Eurydice’s monochromatic costume.)

ALSO, Jessie went HARD on Eurydice’s high notes. SHE’S SO GOOD, Y’ALL.

In the middle of “Chant” when Orpheus is still trying to figure out Hades and Persephone’s story, Hermes is trying to warn him about the storm ahead, about Eurydice, but he’s so caught up in what he’s doing, that he can’t hear or see anything beyond his lyre and the lyrics.

Towards the tail end of “Chant,” the Fates steal Eurydice’s backpack and coat, really sealing in the apparent hopelessness of her situation. The way Eurydice hugs her arms against the wind made me want to CRY.

“Hey, Little Songbird” / “When the Chips Are Down” / “Gone, I’m Gone” —

It’s either at the tail end of “Chant” or the beginning of “Songbird,” but Persephone is lowered into the ground through the in-stage elevator (that usually symbolizes the ascent and descent to Hadestown), while Hades remains above ground to croon at Eurydice. The entire time she’s lowered down, she stares angrily at Hades until she’s pulled from sight.

TIME TO TALK ABOUT PATRICK PAGE NOW!!! His voice is so unreal—it’s like a sinkhole, so deep and consuming and churning with gravel. I literally can’t imagine any other person doing what he does in the role of Hades.

“Songbird” largely consists of Eurydice trying her best to resist Hades’s temptation, but faltering as he starts to echo her own thoughts. I think he hits the biggest nerve when he guesses that Orpheus is a penniless poet.

“SONGBIRD VS. RATTLESNAKE.” OMG, I didn’t realize that the Fates are the rattlesnake until seeing this song live and watching them sashay across the stage like one. ASDFVDS, I’m so dumb. Anyway, again, and I cannot stress this enough, but the Fates are incredible. If Hades opened the wound, then the Fates drove in the nail, reemphasizing what Eurydice already half-believes.

“THE FIRST SHALL BE FIRST, AND THE LAST SHALL BE LAST. CAST YOUR EYES TO HEAVEN—YOU GET A KNIFE IN THE BACK.” Omg, first of all, these lines go hard, and secondly, with the knife line, Eurydice acts like she’s been stabbed, and her entire face just contorts with pain.

“Gone, I’m Gone” is incredibly affecting. I don’t know if Eva does this live, but Jessie sounded like she was sobbing as she sung this.

When Eurydice decides to descend to Hadestown, the elevator goes down with her and returns with only her flower. I straight up lost it.

“Wait for Me” / “Why We Build the Wall”—

HELLO, AMERICAN THEATRE WING?? WHERE IS REEVE CARNEY’S TONY AND APOLOGY LETTER???? THANK YOU.

At the beginning of “Wait for Me,” Hermes picks up the carnation and twiddles it in his hand until the line “With all your heart?” Then, he places it on Orpheus’s, well, heart.

God, the lamps swinging through Walter Kerr made me weep. That’s such a beautiful staging choice. Rachel Chavkin, wherever you are, I love you.

“Wait For Me” received an extended applause. It most certainly went on for at least two minutes.

God, I love “Why We Build the Wall.” I could drown Patrick Page’s voice and be happy with that life decision. (On a side note, does the intro of this one remind anyone of Johnny Cash’s “Hurt”????)

This is the first song in which Persephone comes down in her Hadestown garb, a black dress, her hair restrained in a net(?). The difference between the bright green and the black is harrowing. All of the energy just seems to be vacuumed out of her. She, Hermes, and the company sycophantically sing when Hades asks them to.

After the instrumental portion of the song, Eurydice ascends on the elevator, arriving in Hadestown. She almost immediately makes eye contact with Persephone, quite obviously feeling the same shock that I did upon seeing the lively goddess clothed in black. Shock turns to horror as she realizes that this isn’t the rest she’d been hoping for. Persephone looks at her sadly as Hades calls her into the office to sign papers.

And oh, God, this musical absolutely ruined me in the best of possible ways. I’ll type up my thoughts on Act II tomorrow!!!

[zealusts-blog]

❛ ⋆ ․˙✰ nora grace nguyen is graduating in a month with plans to attend harvard in the fall to study law and political science. four years complete and she’s leaving the hamptons being remembered as the zealous, which makes perfect sense considering how articulate, venturesome, pugnacious, and unpredictable she is. that title landed them the senior class superlative of most likely to be arrested for organizing a sit- in protest at the local kill shelter. you’ll know they’re around when you hear hierarchy - cailin russo coming from a car this summer. speaking of summer, i hear their plans are to spend it doing a part-time internship at a law firm. morning coffee and afternoon boba, shiba cuddles, sitting in during public court cases, and plaid skirts with oversized knit sweaters.

hello it me ellie (she/her/hers pronouns) and this is nora! i havent done an intro or been in a rp in 10 years so please excuse this post if its awkward n stuff im cringing just writing this bc i forgot how awkward an intro post is like wow... ANYWAYS! i’m vv excited to b here and rp with u guys, love u guys, b here w u guys, all that nice cute stuff w u guys!!! 

u can read nora’s stats here and learn more about her here but like that page is  really long n lengthy so i’m gonna some her up for u guys as best as i can but if its gets long n lengthy too pls forgive me thank u im trying 

her family is wealthy bc of their role in pharmacy work. their family owns  a couple pharmacies (mainly in new york, new jersey, n rhode island) and has some investments in other companies as extra money

theyre wealthy and could stop working for like maybe 10 years if they pleased, but the nguyens dont rest and thats y nora’s parents are absent alot 

bc her parents r absent since theyre always working, nora had to grow up faster to b independent and also raise her younger sister, daisy jane

shes mature but only bc asian parents love handing off parenting duties to their eldest daughter and that happens to b nora! it’s only two of them but still she gave up part of her childhood to p much raise daisy jane on her own despite her parents being alive n healthy

shes a big time activist and feminist and is very upfront about how she feels about certain things and about policies and regulations she thinks should b changed/fixed/removed/etc. 

her dream is harvard and thats been her only dream and plan since she was born. her parents gave it to her and she’s never changed it bc (1) her parents r strict n (2) she craves their acceptance and wants to make them proud and if it means listening to what they want from her then she’ll do it 

shes v open about what she believes in and will talk about it and will also fight for it. 

shes always willing to fight someone and have a debate over anything like it’s more fun for her if its something surrounded politics or stuff going on around the world but also if u wanna argue about how people who aren’t lactose intolerant are abnormal then she’ll b a square bc its literally not normal for ur body to still b able to breakdown lactose enzymes 

shes somewhere in the top 10/15 of the entire class, but shes worked hard to get where she is. studying doesnt come easy to her and she doesnt have photographic memory. she feels really dumb bc of that and hates how she has like... work to get the grade bc she wishes she was smart n could read the textbook once and get it but shes not wired like that n so  a bitch struggles w that n feeling like shes not as smart as her parents want her to b n it doesnt help that her parents let her know that

shes v sarcastic n argumentative and funny and sometimes sexual but she’d never act on those sexual things she says shes an innocent n too shy to b upfront like that u feel 

like she never deters from an argument n hates losing but if u say something too sexual for her n make an initiative to do it then she’ll back down n shy away like thats the only way u can win an argument w her otherwise she’ll keep pulling shit out of her ass until she wins or u call some truce (but in nora’s mind she won bc who backs away from a fight? hm not her!)

nora struggles talking about her feelings and will literally not talk about deep shit about herself like  ya she’ll voice her opinions n fight for it n shit but if u wanna talk about her parent’s incoming divorce, her academic struggles, her need for her parents acceptance, n shit like that then good luck trying to make her talk n shit  bc she wont unless ur close to her and have her 100% complete trust 

this is already long and im blanking on what to include bc idk whats important important about nora that i need to include here but! feel free to read the tidbits page for her u’ll get to know nora better n  know lil like... things about her like hades, veganisms, protests, driving, etc. 

i’m also a slut for plots so if u wanna plot with me for ur chara and nora then please reply to this with a word or something so i know and i’ll come to u!! id tell u guys to like this post n then i’ll come to u but sometimes im not sure if people  r liking the post so its like.. an acknowledgment or bc they actually wanna plot idk if that makes sense pls help me?? ANYWAYS below r some connection ideas that i thot would b cool for nora aha x 

neighbors! 

(1) theyre friendly and hung out a lot bc u kno neighbors n its easy to go to each others houses. the person would also b friends w nora’s little sister daisy jane bc when theyre home and nora is on parent duty she n daisy jane r a duo 

(2) theyre not friendly n they cant stand each other we love a good notp! we can expand more  on this if ur interested but rn my mind is blanking

childhood besties:

(1) maybe things went sour and now theyre enemies like maybe its a betrayal or something but like! besties for the resties to besties for never r always so beautiful im a slut for those type of connections

(2) things didnt go sour but they just drifted and now theyre kinda awkward but try really hard for it to not b awkward??  they knew each other like the back of their hands and now theyre kinda like?? r u still the same or did u change?? whats up whats happening??? 

one sided crush: nora could have a crush on them thats ongoing or is new, but its just a crush and nora actually acting on it is so so rare like she’ll punch someone for saying some racist shit to her but will cry if someone forces her to shoot her shot

(1) maybe the person knows and teases her for it n nora hates them for it but is also like :) but also :( u feel like does that even make sense? 

(2) the person doesnt kno n is kinda just like what the fuck y is nora so timid n shy around me when she just decked a guy for blatantly littering at the beach and saying the beach should b more trash cans if they didnt want people littering 

enemies! 

friends!

tutor: maybe a tutor?? like nora isnt dumb and shes not failing like she’s in the top 10 of  the class but that doesnt mean she’s the smartest person and not struggling trying to keep her grades up. having someone she can study with n can like. help her would b really good for her 

(1) twist is that it could b secretive bc maybe nora doesnt want people knowing that she has a tutor or that the person tutoring her is her tutor for whatever reason. again i can expand on this if ur interested!!!!

bad influence: someone to get her to wild n out n like tell her to forget her parents n responsibilites n shit. maybe make her hoe it out so she can stop getting cold u feel what im saying?? idk if u do im literally just rambling at this point im so sorry

i’m out of connection ideas rn but! if none of these r interesting enough for u then we can do something else like if u have a connection u want filled or like??? we can just think of something else that’ll b more fitting im down for anything n everything 

[dclly]

     hello friends !! it’s ya gal moose (she/her, 21, cst) & i’m finally home from work bless!!! i’m just ur local…..run of the mill bug-loving canadian. this intro is gna be messa af but…it be like that sometimes. i am so very thirsty so pls if u wanna plot just hmu or like this and i’ll come to u! u can also catch me on d*scord @ bug lady 🦗#8530 if u prefer that!

     pls be advised that there are mentions of: trauma, sexual assault, ed, drug use & addiction below!

     #KRISTINE FROSETH | CISFEMALE | SHE/HER | BISEXUAL - DOROTHY LINDVIG is a TWENTY-ONE year old ICE SKATING INSTRUCTOR that moved into apartment A2 a good TWO YEARS ago. the AQUARIUS has been in town for TWENTY-ONE YEARS overall and is well known around seattle ridge for being +VIVACIOUS +CLEVER, but has a reputation of being -ALOOF and -FACETIOUS. guess that’s why they call them the AMARANTH around these parts! (moose, 21, she/her, cst.)

ok so !!!! first thing’s first, she usually goes by the nickname dolly. but she doesn’t care too much abt what u call her u can call her fuckass and she’d just be like what’s up

she’s a town native !!! grew up in a shitty area w a kind of shitty family. parents were never around, always off on benders or just….generally bein shitty parents. dolly & her older brother had to learn how to take care of themselves when they were pretty young and they’ve always done just fine. they didn’t have a lot of money so dolly got pretty good at playing up the cute lil girl role and getting free stuff out of ppl

as much as she claims she relies only on herself, she also relies heavily on the kindness of strangers bc without them she definitely would have gone hungry for real

in order to stay away from her house as much as possible she would hang out at the skating rink as a kid & eventually after stealing a pair of skates from the lost & found she taught herself how to skate & eventually figure skate as well. she’s always wanted to go pro but…..obviously couldn’t afford the training or put in any of the effort required to go all the way.

her brother used to throw pretty big ragers in their place when their parents were gone so……she started drinking & doing drugs at a pretty young age & just generally hanging out with ppl who were much older than her & v bad influences.

trauma tw & sexual assault tw !! it was at one of these parties that she had a traumatic assault experience w one of her brother’s friends when she was a teenager. to this day, she still hasn’t told anyone about what happened. it happened on more than one occasion and her brother is still friends w this boy so she just…..does her best to avoid him & pretend that nothing ever happened bc she refuses to acknowledge her trauma

she was pretty popular in school but never rly felt like she had any true friends ??? none of her relationships were all that deep and she mostly just hung out with people to get free stuff LMAO and like rides places i guess

but she does have her lil group of friends that she truly cares abt and when she actually cares abt u…….she’s around for LIFE u cant get rid of her sorry

she got emancipated when she was 16 and has been living on her own ever since. at first she’d would just stay at friend’s houses and sleep on their couches, but that stopped when she finally got a job at the skating rink teaching kids how to skate & got a new place to live. she’s been chillin working there and living in the apartment building for a couple of years now

definitely has had……many sugar daddy-type relationships in the past bc she would much rather have money handed to her u know

that is…..a v brief outline of her life up until this point but imma talk a bit abt her personality now

she is…..very magnetic tbH. knows how to draw in a group and keep them interested

knows how to bat her eyelashes and flirt if it means she’ll get something out of it

she’s kind of mean, kind of not ??? she is v moody a lot of the time tbh like it’s either hit or miss with her. sometimes she’ll be in the mood to have a big long chat and in a split second she’ll be telling u to fuck off

likes to know everyone else’s drama but doesn’t like having drama of her own

kind of does her own thing ???? marches to the beat of her own drum. doesn’t rly follow any rules. she’s just out here

does most things out of spite. even if she doesn’t want to do something, if someone tells her she cant do something she’s gna do it no matter what

very animated and lively. the type to dance in the middle of the grocery store if a song she likes is playing

also the type to dance on tables at the club

doesn’t rly care what ppl think about her but…..does at the same time ??? if ur important to her she cares deeply abt ur opinion but if not……..she doesn’t give a FUCK

she always has to keep herself busy or else she’ll lose her mind :))))

will do…….literally anything to get something for free ??? doesn’t matter what it is or who u are. she can HATE u but…..she will still give u head behind the 7/11 for a free slurpee u know :/

i wouldn’t say she’s hypersexual but she is highly sexual thx to her trauma !!!

she is friendly yet distant at the same time so like……while she will happily talk to u and hang out with u and whatever she avoids deep conversation topics ig ??? she always finds a way to leave or change the subject when it gets serious or make a joke out of things bc she can’t………talk abt stuff ajsdfjkgdjgk

a very witty & clever girl. she’s v smart and would have done well in school had she had a slightly better life & didn’t have to worry abt whether or not she would starve

some extra tidbits abt her !!!

a good portion of her clothing is vintage/thrifted. she would describe her aesthetic as a 70s teenage boy’s wet dream. shoes are her fave & she’s always wearing some funky type of boot or platform shoe

just a real fashion bitch !!!!

catch her online shopping at almost any given moment

mental breakdown haircuts at 2am are her Mood

she loves going to cute lil vintage diners & drinkin a cherry coke 4 the aesthetic u know

can’t keep a relationship to save her life. will date someone and put herself FULLY into the relationship but…….will either get bored or cheat on them or put them up on a pedestal so it’s destined to fail after one lil mistake or do something to fuck it up 

she is a self-sabotager like that bc she doesn’t believe she’s deserving of love or any good things really :///

smokes too many cigarettes

drug use & addiction tw !! smokes a lot of weed as well. catch ya girl doing fat bong rips all day long. also does a lot of cocaine. has a coke addiction, in fact. also catch her running away to the bathroom for a bump 12 times a day. she rly just…..doesn’t like being sober, she tryna run away from shit

her fave colour is red

she has a cat named freddie who she adores more than anything else on the planet

likes to play poker & gamble

will literally try anything once

hates herself & is rotting inside!!!!!!!!!!!!

eating disorder tw !! another symptom from her trauma is the eating disorder she developed as a teen. food is…..one of her few things in life she can fully control so she controls it a Lot. 

just wants to have fun and forget abt how disgusting she feels on a daily basis & how much she hates herself :))))))))))

generally just………….a messy bitch

this is……a LOT. i don’t have a full wc page or anything atm but here are some lil connection ideas for her!!

friends !! ppl that don’t actually know her all that well but she pretends they do anyway

perhaps………………a best friend……….

exes !! ya girl puts her whole entire being into relationships even tho she runs away from them right after bc self sabotage ???? so she prob isn’t on good terms with any of her exes but……she’s my bi queen so this is open to anybody!!!! would prob b really angsty which is grand

a drug dealer perhaps??

party buddies, drinking buddies, w/e. bad influences. let them influence each other to be Worse

previous fwbs & hookups, that kinda thing, she prob has a lot

maybe someone she cheated on a partner with ??? for Drama

or like….someone who’s relationship she fucked up idk

maybe someone who has a crush on her or something & she’s like…….pls don’t what r u doing……..gotta Jet

a good influence??? someone please help her.

idK i want angst & cute fluffy stuff so just everything is good rly

tbh i will prob do an actual wc page at some point but here is what i have for now

this was a lot i am sorry. bless u for reading this far thank u. 

[phantomarchive]

A couple years ago, I wrote a starter for a friend who RPed as Nate, and now I’m posting it here. It also functions as just a piece of (hella long) writing, but ultimately takes place during UC4 under the assumption that Elena doesn’t go back for Nate, but is still concerned about him, so Sully gets in touch with Chloe to see if she’ll go find him and make sure his dumbass is safe. We’d had a whole plot planned, but alas.

Anyway, writing under the cut!

Victor is damn lucky he catches Chloe when he does.

His call comes late in the afternoon, after she’s been passed out for hours after a too-long flight home. The job in Kagoshima was quick, nothing to get too excited over, in and out within four days and hardly even a scrape to her knuckles. Easy. She loves the job, though, regardless of how short it is, of how little danger there is, of minimal risk and moderate reward, but still it feels good to be back in a warm bed, in a temperature controlled apartment, with locks on the door and eight floors of residents below her to act as a buffer between her flat and anyone potentially trying to reach her. The thrill of the adventure can still, at times, be outweighed by the comforts of home. Of familiarity. Of the quiet hum of the air conditioner soothing her ears after days of near perpetual gunfire when things go bad (and so often do they go bad; it’s almost not enjoyable if they don’t, to a degree).

She can’t sleep on flights, though, never could, and when she finally landed back in Key West after three layovers and too many in-flight movies, her eyes too heavy to even read her notes anymore, she managed to wrangle a taxi ride home, barely making it out of her jeans and onto her bed before sleep won and she slipped into a series of meaningless dreams for a solid eleven hours. It isn’t unusual for her to crash so hard after a job, but it’s the flight that really took it out of her this time. For the amount of trans-oceanic flights she takes, she thinks she should be used to all of this by now, might know how to relax and shut down on a flight - and yet here she is, pushing her mid-thirties, more than half her life spent in the business, and still unable to to do more on a plane than close her eyes and slow her breathing and try to imagine the thrum of the engine is her air conditioner at home, but to no avail. Frustrating, but it’s why she plans a few extra hours on either side of her trips for the red-eyes and long flights.

She hadn’t planned anything after this job. Maybe a couple weeks off to let her aches recover, to start working on selling some relics from recent jobs, maybe start poking around for her next one. So when she’s woken up by her cell phone vibrating near violently beside her pillow, Victor’s name illuminated through the spiderweb of cracks in the screen, she knows it’s one of two things: an invite to drinks, or something with Nate. Both of which end up being time consuming, and he’s lucky he caught her now.

Her mouth is thick with sleep, and she has to clear her throat a few times before she can clear the hoarseness from her voice, but even then she still sounds tired.

“Victor?” She tries to sound alert, or at least more so than she actually is, pushes herself onto her elbows to clear her head, blinking sleep from her eyes. But it isn’t anything she does that has her mind snapping to attention and her heart pounding so hard it might break through her ribcage. It’s what he tells her. It’s Nate, because of course it is. It’s been a long time since this brand of call has come through to her, but she can’t say she hasn’t been expecting something like it eventually.

She can still remember the last time she’d visited the Drake household, the look on his face when she mentioned where she was headed next - Uruguay, at the time, to look into the credibility of La Luz Mala. The way his eyes widened slightly, brightened, and she could damn near see the wheels turning in his head as he already tried to figure it all out, where he’d start, what clues would fit, historical facts and tidbits they had once spent countless days and nights poring over together - and how those wheels slid to a sharp stop when he forced himself to change the subject. He can’t follow that train of thought. He has a wife and a house and a relatively normal job. He’s left the life of fortune hunting behind in favor of the normalcy he didn’t get growing up. It broke her heart to see the light dim when he moved on to other topics and pushed a smile into place. He’s happy, but he’s also not, and the lure of adventure is a tempting mistress they’ve both spent their lives giving in to the siren song of.

He resisted, but she knows how goddamn easy it is to go back.

“You mean…even more stupid than usual?” A pause as she listens, and she forces herself into a sitting position, dragging her hand over her eyes, down her face, back through her hair. She tries to play it off like a minor annoyance, but the truth is, she knows the recklessness that can come with spending time away, and she’s terrified for him. Keeping herself under control is easy, even in the vulnerability of the aftermath of sleep, but she feels the rising panic make her chest ache. Her only audible sign of it is the sigh she gives, heavier than she’d intended and carrying more worry than she could put words to.

“Of course, Victor,” she says, pulling a pen and whatever scrap of paper she has towards her to take down the notes. Coordinates, last known location, where he’s headed, the destination itself - Avery’s treasure? She damn near scoffs into the phone. Son of a bitch went looking for it without her. Another sigh. “Yeah, I’ll go drag both Drake asses home.” The phone balances between her cheek and shoulder, tongue pressing against the flats of her teeth as she scribbles notes to herself. She falls silent for long seconds, rereading everything, ensuring she has it all before speaking again.

“I’ll leave as soon as I can catch a flight out.” Another short pause. “Love you, too, Victor.” She pauses, then lets the phone drop to the bed, hearing the audible beep of the call disconnecting.

And then she lets herself feel everything she tried not to on the call.

Fingers tremble only slightly as she books the flight, paying extra to land in a small, out of the way airport that’s closer to the island Nate’s headed to, and good god, what has he gotten himself into? She knows Sam’s at fault here, no one else it could be, but that’s a strange recent history of prison visits and delivering rare books on pirating to him behind the corrupt backs of bribed guards (and learning about him was something else entirely, a series of six-degrees-of-separation connections that led her to him, and fucking hell, Nate, a brother?). She’d thought Sam was just bored, but apparently he’d been serious about the lost treasure. She should’ve been more suspicious of the calls he made to her in the middle of the night, his attempt at casual still sounding panicked, but she’s had a little too much on her own plate to worry much about his.

And now it involves Nate. (And Avery’s lost treasure, christ. She’ll find time to be more annoyed about that later.)

It takes less than hour for her to pack a spare change of clothes and basic toiletries into a travel bag and get to the airport. Waiting for the flight only adds to the stress itching her skin, and it’s sheer willpower that keeps her from pacing in the terminal until it’s time to board. She sits instead in a chair at the end of a row of chairs, fingers pulling at a loose thread in the hem of her shirt while she holds a compilation of what notes she has about Avery in her other hand. Brushing up on her knowledge of the man barely holds her attention, her eyes steadfastly focused on the pages though her mind is far from rapt, focused instead on Nate and what the hell he’s doing. It’s been a good while since she’s seen him, and she’ll be damned if the next time she sees him is dead, not unless it’s both of them dead together. (A stupid promise made five beers deep in the middle of the night when humidity wasn’t the only thing keeping them warm. A stupid promise, but a promise anyway, right?)

At this point, it’s become routine to suppress her feelings, move on and not acknowledge them anymore. Years of pretend and fake smiles until it was too much to bear and avoidance became her best ally, and even that gave way to caving in and seeing the entire crew again. They’re her friends, dammit, and she can’t lay claim to many of those. So she pushes it aside. A semblance of ‘moving on’ she’s never quite reached. And it’s things like this that bring it all back to the surface. Chloe doesn’t get these calls when it’s a simple fix, or when Nate is in just a spot of trouble. She gets these calls when it’s gotten bad, and even if getting bad is fun, there’s a line that even she doesn’t want crossed, and she can’t help but feel that this is one of those lines Nate’s leapt across with both feet.

Her hand abandons the loose thread and instead her thumbnail fits between her teeth, brows pulled in, eyes not even comprehending the words on the page, and fucking hell, is the plane leaving yet?

It takes too long, too long, before the flight starts boarding, and she should’ve taken Victor up on his offer to fly her there, but she’s here now and waiting in line is frustrating, and she has to remind herself not to clench her teeth and to take deep breaths to stay calm. She has a several-hour-long flight ahead of her, and she’s really only thankful that she slept as much as she did beforehand. Not that she’d take any rest after she lands, not with everything that’s waiting at the other end of this all, but at least she won’t be dealing with tired eyes and the irritation that sets in when she’s awake for too long. Small mercies.

She finds some sort of solace in steady breathing and the knowledge that she’s on her way, she’ll be there to help him soon. He’ll be with her, where she can know he’s safe. It’s a small comfort, but it allows her mind to settle as she finally gets to her seat and waits for the plane to take off.

———-

If nothing else, on landing, she’s learned more about Henry Avery and his connections than she knew going into all of this. Her resources were limited on the plane, but she’d packed her phone with anything she could download on the taxi ride to the airport, and even the unreliable sources had some entertainment value, even if they were incredibly inaccurate. Part of her would eventually find it suitable to be annoyed that he’d figured so much out already, that the connections were made without her, but that can wait. A storm is brewing and the little plane she switches to is barely fighting against the growing winds. He gets her as close as possible, but the landing isn’t as soft as she’d like, and somehow she thinks it’s drier in the ocean she landed in than in the rain insisting these islands join Atlantis.

“Dammit, Nate,” she sputters as she pulls herself ashore, barely, the water pulling at her boots and jackets as if reluctant to let go of her. The travel bag secured around her is waterproof, but she’s sure everything inside will be drenched when she checks. Of all places, of all times, the storm hits now.

“You better be alive.” He has to be. He’s survived a hell of a lot of shit until now, there’s no chance a mountain and a storm could take him from her. (From them, she corrects herself.) It’s a promise she repeats to herself as she starts the trek through wet grass and mud until she has to start climbing. The rocks are slick, and he’s definitely alive. Her hand slips a few times and she has to take it slowly, carefully, and he has to be alive.

The path isn’t easy to see, but she knows his style well enough to feel confident in the path she’s taking. They make sense, even when the ledges are small. Nathan Drake may not always take the easiest routes, but he takes the ones that make sense, and she can see the handholds he would take as if he were pointing them out to her himself. It’s a slow process and the storm refuses to let up. In fact, she’s positive it’s gotten worse, though how to tell through sheets of rain so thick she can barely see her outstretched hand, she isn’t sure. It doesn’t show signs of letting up, though, and it drives her to move just a touch faster. Careful. But faster.

How long has he been here? Has he been wandering through the storm at the same time as she has? How much of a head start has he had? Is Sam impatiently trying to make him go faster, or are they taking it slow together? Concern buries itself in her mind, and she presses on. Mud and rain and battered knuckles and bruised knees, and it’d be like old times if Nate was here with her and they eventually took refuge from the storm in one of these small caves, bandaging up wounds as best they could while resting weary limbs.

He’d better be alive, dammit.

She loses sense of time as she moves determinedly forward, one hand in front of the other, boots securely in place before shifting weight. Her arms and stomach ache, legs are exhausted, and it’s been a while since she’s gone long enough to wear her down like this. Nothing could have prepared her for this, and for long moments, she clings to her handholds, fingers numb and bruised, legs shaking, and she clenches her teeth to keep herself strong. She’s so tired, though. Surely Nate would’ve called things to a halt soon, right? Had she missed him? The wall ahead looks broken, and she’s eyeing for a path across - and she sees him. Below. Unconscious and on his back, and that’s a hell of a ways to fall. The panic she’d manage to suppress earlier rises in her chest again, heart hammering and hands trembling, and she lowers herself as carefully as she can to where he is.

“I swear to god, Nate, if you’re dead…” She leaves the threat open-ended, fights back the stinging in her eyes, and has to drop the last six feet down to get to him, the bend in her knees making the fall easier, but there’s no waste of time in rushing to his side. One hand above his mouth, the other pressing two fingers against his neck and pausing, waiting, feeling for any sign of life-

And there, a slow heartbeat, strong beneath her fingertips. He’s alive, he’s alright, and she lets out a laugh, leaning her forehead against his chest as relief sweeps through her. “Bloody hell, you asshole,” she breathes, taking only a few moments to gather herself. He’s alive, but he’s also freezing and in direct path of the rain. He isn’t a light man, years of muscle compounded on that frame of his, but she hooks her arms beneath his, lifts, and drags him into a dry section of the cave, beneath an overhang. No way to make a fire, but that’s why she wore the bigger jacket over her own. It’s wet, but he’ll warm it up. She drapes it over him and sits close, pulling her arms into her own jacket and tucking the sleeves into the pockets to keep cold air from getting in, and she settles in for however long it takes for him to wake up.

“Remember that time in Colombia?” she asks softly, her voice barely carrying over the rain. Not that he can hear her anyway, but that isn’t the point. Maybe the point is to keep herself calm while he rests, to keep the concern from working its way deeper in case he doesn’t wake up. “It didn’t rain this much, but it sure could give this place a run for its money.” A pause and a sigh, and she tucks her mouth and nose into the neck of the jacket.

They’d taken refuge in a cave there, too. Ground level, entry hidden by plants, rain so thick they probably wouldn’t have needed the plants to keep them out of sight of the small group of mercs hunting them. It’d been dark tucked in the back corner of the little cave, the sky almost as dark outside. They’d sat side by side, legs and arms touching, heads leaned against each other. The sound of her breathing a steady rhythm to the quiet story he told her. The warm press of his lips to her temple, to the the curve of her cheekbone, to the smile that so easily crossed her face when she was with him. It’d been different then, the feel of his hand in the curve of her waist familiar and comfortable, and did it still feel the same now?

Stupid, Chloe, she thinks with a deep sigh. She tucks her face a little deeper into her jacket, but keeps her eyes on him. “Don’t die on me,” she demands of him, determines she’ll be pissed if he does.

———-

The rain eventually stops its attempt at flooding the entire island, and she puts her arms back through her sleeves and stands, stretching the stiffness from her legs and walking around a bit. The sky is starting to clear up, still not visible, but also not deep grey, either, and she squints slightly as she looks up at the sky through the hole Nate fell into. Where the hell is Sam? In her worry for Nate, she forgot that Sam was supposed to be with him. Had he left him behind? Chloe barely knows the man, isn’t sure what kind of person he is. Would he abandon his brother in the middle of a storm in search of Avery’s gold? Chloe could have her moments of abrasiveness, but to be that cruel? If that’s the case, Sam had better hope Chloe doesn’t catch up with him, or there’ll be a different sort of hell to pay.

She’s starting to muse over how serious she is on that threat, when she hears movement behind her. Turning, she watches as Nate slowly pushes himself up, grunting through the aches from the fall, waiting for his eyes to land on her. Gives him a friendly smirk when they finally do. “Morning, love,” she says as she moves the six steps it takes to get to him, and now that she knows he’s alive, that he wasn’t injured so badly he wouldn’t make it out of this cave, she can’t help but to let her mild bit of annoyance at what he was even doing here in the first place seep in.

“You know, if you wanted to get yourself killed while looking for Henry Avery’s lost treasure, you could have at least called me beforehand.”

[mooncaps]

Okay, so shout-outs to the anon (or maybe multiple anons) who told me to read Marcy’s Super Secret Scrapbook. I freaking loved it! I’m also glad I read it at this point and didn’t wait until after the whole series. It makes such a good companion piece to the Stakes mini-series.

The Enchiridion was...not quite as exciting, but still had a couple of neat tidbits. Simon’s notes are nice. The Wizard section was fairly interesting. Some nice lore and world-building. I kind of wish the Bestiarum Vocabulum section had a bit more to it. And I must admit I was slightly disappointed that the Enchiridion did not, in fact, explicitly state that you should not strike a foe who’s raised their bottom to the sky. The Scrapbook is so in line with the mini-series; it would’ve been nice if the Enchiridion could’ve incorporated that as a little nod. They cover their bases with the explanation that there are multiple editions and even strongly imply that Finn’s was an earlier edition, but it still would’ve been neat.

A far more glaring omission is the Empress. Hierophant and the Vampire King are both mentioned in the Scrapbook, but the Empress isn’t. She knew both Marceline and Simon. Marcy had her power of invisibility so she must have staked and absorbed her at some point. My best guess is that the Empress enthralled Simon at a point when Simon was still writing the notes and it was on one of the pages he pulled out before he left. Or maybe Marceline just didn’t write it down for some reason. Or the writers just dropped the ball and didn’t catch this little continuity hiccup.

Those are my general thoughts. I’m also doing the whole images of my some of my favorite stuff interspersed with my reactions and commentary thing, but since this is gonna be an extra-extra long post, I’ve decided to actually use a read more cut this time.

Marcy and Bonnie talking about Simon in the margins. Give me some of that in the show.

This is the kind of lore development I like to learn about.

Does that mean the writers have thoughts about more Shoko development in future episodes and didn’t want to burn up their ideas in the side material?

International crisis. I mean that was more-or-less implied by the irradiated world, but I like learning more info. Also, he’s already talking about going North. It fits that they paired this with the Scrapbook. The notes follow through for tracking Simon’s progression into madness.

Sure. Again, kind of vaguely implied already by the series, but nice to know.

Now all I can think of is “long ago the four nations lived together in harmony...” Thanks to whoever sent that ask.

I may wanna get these on buttons or patches for my coat to go with the Avatar symbols.

Not sure what to make of this. I feel like it’s some kind of lore for the show. Maybe something to do with Prismo?

Hoo boy. Here we go. The feels train is pulling into the station.

This relationship is just so moving. I’m a sucker for found families.

More world building. Bring it on.

Even if Simon’s story hadn’t been tied to Marcy’s, it would still be one of the most interesting parts of the show. And that first paragraph feels like something that should’ve come up in the show by now. They really haven’t explained quite enough about Betty for my liking. Learning that she has a history of studying these kinds of things helps clarify why she’s so willing and able to take the approach she’s been taking.

After Bonnie and Neddy, I can only assume that this is the Mother Gum in its early days.

Mmhm. Sure. Matter’s more pliable. I can dig it.

The vibrational talk reminded of that bag of miniature people that Magic Man planted on Finn that one time. And he had to shake them to speak to them on their vibrational plane or whatever. I wonder if that’s ever gonna come back with some kind of added significance.

Reminds me of when Life kissed Death.

Wonder if that was a deliberate nod or not.

This. Relationship.

Again, I’m glad I read this now. The thing I couldn’t quite puzzle out after Stakes was where Hunson Abadeer fit into things. This is filling in some of the blanks quite nicely.

You know, after seven seasons of Grob Gob Glob Grod, it was a little jarring to actually see the word “God” here. I’ve got a pretty good recall for character voices, so I could basically hear Tom Kenny saying it as I read it. Of course it makes sense that Simon would have God in his vernacular. Somehow, after the phrase being conspicuously absent for so long, it seems to punch up the impact.

She celebrates her birthday around the time Simon found her! This precious child!

Oh, I can hear it in her voice. My heart!

“I don’t think I’ll ever see him again. Ever.”

There’s no mention of her encountering him again in the scrapbook. I’ve already mentioned the Empress, conspicuous in her absence. And she alludes to other meet-ups in the episode “I Remember You.” I can only assume those meetings take place after the last page of the scrapbook.

I’d love to know more though. I’d love to see her first discovering that Simon’s still alive, but completely insane now. And I’d love to know how we get from this:

To this:

There’s so much of the story that’s still untold.

That moment in Bad Little Boy where Ice King was like “Gob, I’m sorry I doubted your power” kind of takes on a new dimension when you think about how Simon’s from a different time.

“I hope these bring you comfort now that I’m gone, and remind you that you are loved.”

Just fuck me up, why don’t you?

“I want to feel her holding me in her arms and hugging me again like that.”

JUST FUCK ME UP, WHY DON’T YOU?

Again, this ties in so well with the Stakes mini-series. This was exactly the right time to read this for maximum emotional resonance.

Oh, Marcy, you poor, sweet, confused, little angel.

Well, I wanted to know where Hunson fit into things. Should’ve known it would be bad times.

Yeah, I can kind of relate to not having a great father but still wondering how much of who you are is from him.

Deep. Especially at her age. Simon did say she was smart. And of course she had to grow up fast, given that world was a wreck.

“He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

I concur.

I can also kind of relate to giving your not-so-great dad another chance and getting burned again. I suppose it’s not really a shock that I gravitate toward characters who have poor relationships with their fathers.

I never really gave any thought to how difficult it would’ve been to even find fries at that time. And the fact that it was the first time he stole something specifically from her also gives it a little more weight. Like I’ve said before, it’s hard to tell when something’s just a throwaway gag and when something’s gonna come back later with added perspective and significance. I have to wonder how much they thought about in advance and how much is just them looking back and saying “we can expand on that.”

There must be at least some of it that they knew they wanted to develop even from the very early stages.

It’s interesting to figure out where Hunson comes into the picture, but I still don’t fully understand all of it. Primarily: How could a human woman see enough merit in Hunson Abadeer that she would want to sleep with him? What stopped him from immediately sucking out her soul? Why was he even on Earth shortly before or during the Great Mushroom War? There’s still a lot of room to grow on here.

Oh, honey, you’re the most interesting person in this universe.

“I still hope for a living friend.”

I was kind of hoping I might get the story of how she met Bonnibel, but I guess they’re saving that for the show. Must be after the events in the scrapbook.

Gimme all the lore. And Marcy wandering through an abandoned sunken mall full of skeletons shouting for Simon is an absolutely heartbreaking thought.

This angel child deserves nothing but happiness.

THIS. RELATIONSHIP.

She found a puppy! Ahhh! They’re so precious!

Yas, Queen!

This poor girl can just never catch a break.

This backstory is fantastic.

RIP, my dude.

Rise, Marcy the Vampire Slayer.

Let’s go!

Oh no, what’s wrong with Schwabl?

Marcy defending the last of the life on Earth against the scourge of the vampires. I’d seriously watch a whole series of this.

“Staking vampires, protecting the last remaining humans. It felt like I was protecting you. It was the only thing that brought me happiness during those years.”

Fascinating.

It’s rough watching a character who’s so good go through so much pain.

No, not the puppy!

Save the puppy!

Also, that time she almost went feral on Jake was probably really terrible for her because it would have stirred up these memories.

Another good reason to pair the Enchiridion - and particularly Simon’s notes - with this. Who would’ve thought that Marcy owned it for a time?

Thank goodness something turned out okay in all of this.

Wild. So is this Simon and the Crown, or some other force causing it? Does it affect the whole planet, or just the continent Marcy’s on? What about all the humans who were leaving on the boat? Can they survive an ice age? Is it a full “400 really boring years” like in Finn’s wish world? Longer? Shorter? This side material raises at least as many questions as it answers.

So Simon found the Enchiridion and took notes on it for a while before finally sending it to a museum in Scandinavia just was the international crisis that would become known as the Great Mushroom War was ramping up. Then some wizards found it. Then Marcy found the wizards and took it from them. Now the Enchiridion is with Marcy in hibernation. Then somehow it ends up with a minotaur later and Bubblegum is the one who tells Finn where to get it. There’s another chapter in between there and I feel like it involves both Marceline and Bubblegum. Marcy’s life after the ice age could probably fill another book or two.

Precious angel child.

Oh snap, it’s actually written by the people who play Marceline and Hunson.

That was a trip and a half to read. I love the backstory and world building so much. Even in the early episodes I suspected that there must be some kind of substance to this universe for the show to go on for as long as it did. Based on the early stuff though I had lowered my expectations and never imagined that this universe would gain so much depth, complexity, and (above all else) tragedy.

Marceline seems so carefree, but she’s been through SO. MUCH. Most of it while she was still a small child. The people of Ooo are absolutely blessed to have someone like Marceline in their world. And they’re also quite fortunate that her trauma didn’t push her to the full-on dark side. Even after a thousand years of so much confusion and loss, however chaotic she may get, she still has such a good heart.

And wow does reading this ever reinforce my desire for them to figure out a way to save Simon. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him” is so right. Although if it hadn’t happened to him, he never would’ve been able to protect Marcy. He probably would’ve died in the Great Mushroom War like almost everyone else, and Betty would’ve died too. Maybe you could chalk it up to Marcy’s mother’s last prayer being answered or the universe working in mysterious ways or possibly even retrocausality that Simon was able to survive and care for Marcy. Even so, I’m about four seasons beyond ready for the heroes and protagonists to help this poor old man get back the sanity that was stolen from him.

I feel like Finn’s the key somehow. The Crown seems to be possessed by a ghost or spirit. Gunther’s unfinished ghostly business was Evergreen and Evergreen’s unfinished ghostly business was the Catalyst Comet and Finn’s the reincarnation of the Catalyst Comet and all of that’s tied up with the Ice Crown. It seems like there’s some kind of puzzle taking shape there. Betty’s studying psychometric energy, magic, and Glob’s freaking helmet...Glob who was last seen facing off against, once again, the Catalyst Comet.

And just from the Doylist perspective, the writers have been spinning out this tragic tale of Simon Petrikov for a long time and it would be emotionally unsatisfying if they never save this poor man’s mind. I’m worried they might make me wait until the end of the show to fully resolve it though. I was worried for a while that getting his mind back would kill him, but after the events of the episode “Betty” I don’t expect them to take that route.

Simon and Marcy are such tragic characters and I feel for them both. I love learning more about them, even when most of what I learn breaks my heart. The two of them embody so much of what gives this universe its heart and brings it to life.

[dcrothy]

hello friends !! it’s ya hoe moose (she/her) & i’m 21 and chillin over in the cst. i’m jazzed af to join this lovely group and rp with u all !! my gal dorothy here is a semi-new muse & i’m still working some stuff out with her but.....hopefully u like her anyway lmaooo. i would love love love to plot with u all so feel free to HMU or just LIKE THIS and i’ll come to you !! if you prefer to chat on discord just hmu on there instead, that’s chill with me. also bc i am such a.....pinterest hoe u can catch her board HERE !! more info abt her under the cut of course~

[ kristine froseth, cisfemale, she/her, 20 ] GINGER by THE FRONT BOTTOMS? whenever i hear that song, it reminds me of DOROTHY LINDVIG. maybe because they’re VIVACIOUS but also ALOOF. they’ve been living at mulberry apartments since AUGUST of 2016 in 410 and have 1 ROOMMATE. 

tw: trauma, eating disorder, drug use !!

ok so !!!! first thing’s first, she usually does by the nickname dolly. but she doesn’t care too much abt what u call her u can call her fuckass and she’d just be like what’s up

she’s a town native !!! grew up in a shitty area w a kind of shitty family. parents were never around, always off on benders or just....generally bein shitty parents. dolly & her older brother had to learn how to take care of themselves when they were pretty young and they’ve always done just fine. they didn’t have a lot of money so dolly got pretty good at playing up the cute lil girl role and getting free stuff out of ppl

as much as she claims she relies only on herself, she also relies heavily on the kindness of strangers bc without them she definitely would have gone hungry for real

in order to stay away from her house as much as possible she would hang out at the skating rink as a kid & eventually after stealing a pair of skates from the lost & found she taught herself how to skate & eventually figure skate as well. she’s always wanted to go pro but.....obviously couldn’t afford the training

her brother used to throw pretty big ragers in their place when their parents were gone so......she started drinking & doing drugs at a pretty young age & just generally hanging out with ppl who were much older than her & v bad influences.

trauma tw !! it was at one of these parties that she had a traumatic experience w one of her brother’s friends. she was 13 and she still hasn’t told anyone about what happened. it happened on more than one occasion and her brother is still friends w this boy so she just.....does her best to avoid him & pretend that nothing ever happened bc she refuses to acknowledge her trauma

she was pretty popular in school but never rly felt like she had any true friends ??? none of her relationships were all that deep and she mostly just hung out with people to get free stuff LMAO and like rides places i guess

but she does have her lil group of friends that she truly cares abt and when she actually cares abt u.......she’s around for LIFE u cant get rid of her sorry

she got emancipated when she was 16 and has been living on her own ever since. at first she’d would just stay at friend’s houses and sleep on their couches, but that stopped when she finally got a job at the skating rink teaching kids how to skate & got a new place to live. she’s been chillin working there and living in the apartment building for a couple of years now

despite the fact she has a job, a good portion of her income doesn’t even rly come from that ??? she has......a sugar daddy who finances most of her spending

that is.....a v brief outline of her life up until this point but imma talk a bit abt her personality now

she is.....very magnetic tbH. knows how to draw in a group and keep them interested

knows how to bat her eyelashes and flirt if it means she’ll get something out of it

she’s kind of mean, kind of not ??? she is v moody a lot of the time tbh like it’s either hit or miss with her. sometimes she’ll be in the mood to have a big long chat and in a split second she’ll be telling u to fuck off

likes to know everyone else’s drama but doesn’t like having drama of her own

kind of does her own thing ???? marches to the beat of her own drum. doesn’t rly follow any rules. she’s just out here

does most things out of spite. even if she doesn’t want to do something, if someone tells her she cant do something she’s gna do it no matter what

very animated and lively. the type to dance in the middle of the grocery store if a song she likes is playing

also the type to dance on tables at the club

doesn’t rly care what ppl think about her but.....does at the same time ??? if ur important to her she cares deeply abt ur opinion but if not........she doesn’t give a FUCK

makes homes out of people far too easily & it’s fucked her up!!!!!

she always has to keep herself busy or else she’ll lose her mind :))))

will do.......literally anything to get something for free ??? doesn’t matter what it is or who u are. she can HATE u but.....she will still blow u behind the 7/11 for a free slurpee u know

i wouldn’t say she’s hypersexual but she is highly sexual thx to her trauma !!!

she is friendly yet distant at the same time so like......while she will happily talk to u and hang out with u and whatever she avoids deep conversation topics ig ??? she always finds a way to leave or change the subject when it gets serious or make a joke out of things bc she can’t.........talk abt stuff ajsdfjkgdjgk

a very witty & clever girl. she’s v smart and would have done well in school had she had a slightly better life & didn’t have to worry abt whether or not she would starve

some extra tidbits abt her !!!

p much all of her clothing is vintage/thrifted. she likes to re-purpose old clothes and make them her own. but her aesthetic is v vintage. shoes are her fave & she’s always wearing some funky type of boot or platform shoe

just a real fashion bitch !!!!

catch her online shopping at almost any given moment

mental breakdown haircuts at 2am are her Mood

she loves going to cute lil vintage diners & drinkin a cherry coke. she....actually is lowkey addicted to pop 

can’t keep a relationship to save her life. will date someone and put herself FULLY into the relationship but.......will either get bored or cheat on them or put them up on a pedestal so it’s destined to fail after one lil mistake.

she is a self-sabotager like that bc she doesn’t believe she’s deserving of love or any good things really

smokes cigarettes

drug use tw !! smokes a lot of weed probably. also does a lot of cocaine. has a coke addiction, in fact

her fave colour is red

she has a cat named freddie who she adores more than anything else on the planet

likes to play poker & gamble

will literally try anything once

hates herself & is rotting inside!!!!!!!!!!!!

eating disorder tw !! another symptom from her trauma is the eating disorder she developed as a teen. food is.....one of her few things in life she can fully control so she controls it a Lot. she’ll go days without eating just to feel more in control & then often times after restricting a certain food for a v long time she’ll go on a massive binging and purging and it’s awful :////// 

just wants to have fun and forget abt how disgusting she feels on a daily basis & how much she hates herself :))))))))))

generally just.............a messy bitch

this is......a LOT. i don’t have a full wc page or anything yet but here r some ideas ig ???

friends !! ppl that don’t actually know her all that well but she pretends they do anyway

exes !! ya girl puts her whole entire being into relationships even tho she runs away from them right after bc self sabotage ???? so she prob isn’t on good terms with any of her exes but......she’s my bi queen so this is open to anybody!!!!

a drug dealer

party buddies

fwbs & hookups, that kinda thing

maybe someone she cheated on a partner with ??? for Drama

or like....someone who’s relationship she fucked up idk

maybe someone who has a crush on her or something & she’s like.......pls don’t what r u doing

someone she has a crush on & avoids them like the plague bc feelings are gross

a good influence

idK i want angst & cute fluffy stuff so just.........everything pls thank uuuu

and ofc.............the song connections i’ve sent to the main~

that was a LOT im sorry y’all but..........come plot w me pleaseeee :’)

[marjaystuff]

Elise Cooper Interviews Serena B Miller

Bertha’s Resolve by Serena B. Miller is the fourth installment of the Love’s Journey in the Sugarcreek series.  This novel, as well as the other three, have engrossing characters, a riveting plot, and information about the Amish of Ohio.  The stories involve policewoman Rachel Troyer, her three elderly Amish aunts who run a Bed and Breakfast, Joe Matthews, Rachel’s eventual husband, and his son Bobby, along with other Amish town members.  These books should be read in order to get a feel for the characters, but after the first chapter of the first book readers will not want to put down any of the stories.

Going from the first book to the latest:

Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio also known as The Sugar Haus Inn brings to life the Troyer family.  Three elderly aunts who happen to be Amish have raised their niece, Rachel Troyer ever since her father died. The aunts understand her desire to respect the Amish culture, while not following in the Amish footsteps. Rachel has since joined the Sugarcreek police force and views her job as protecting her aunts and the town.  

Bertha is the oldest of the three aunts and she is the leader who is strong, responsible, and dominant.  Lydia, the middle sister, is gentle, kind, and finds solace in baking.  The youngest is Anna, a sweet, Down Syndrome person who gives unquestioning love and befriends younger children.

The plot has Rachel suspicious of a bearded stranger who land on her aunts' doorstep, begging shelter for himself and his young son. Joe Matthews and his son Bobby decided to escape the Los Angeles lifestyle after his wife was brutally killed.  They are looking for anonymity and a quiet life. Although the aunts warmed to Joe and Bobby immediately, it took Rachel much longer to realize she had feelings for the father and son. In addition, all the books, have a suspenseful mystery.  In this one Rachel must protect herself, her aunts, Joe, and Bobby as she tries to find who murdered the wife.

Book 2, Rachel’s Rescue, delves into the backstory of how Rachel’s father was killed.  On her tenth birthday she and her dad, a policeman, had gone to the bank.  There, her father was murdered in front of Rachel’s eyes after he tried to stop the bank robber. Knowing how to use a gun, Rachel grabs her father’s gun and points it at the killer, Carl Bateman.  This book explores forgiveness and second chances as Rachel must come to grips with her anger and bitterness over losing her father. Twenty years later, she becomes obsessed with wanting revenge when Bateman was released from prison for serving his time. The suspenseful mystery also involves Bobby being kidnapped.  This story takes readers on a journey with Rachel as she tries to overcome her feelings of revenge.

Book 3, Love Rekindled focuses on two new “English” characters.  Dr. Michael Reynolds gets an opportunity to take over a country veterinarian practice in Sugarcreek, Ohio, and jumps at it, because this is his childhood town, and he feels close to the Amish community. His wife, Cassie, a Columbus attorney, is climbing the corporate ladder with lightning speed and refuses to go with him. Neither will compromise.  A second plot finds Keturah Hochstetler, a midwife saving a baby after the mother has a horrific car accident.  This story compares the English couple with the elderly Amish couple who show that sometimes career goals need to take second place to love and devotion, that career sacrifices are needed.  The mystery involves Rachel trying to find family members of the rescued baby.

Book 4, Bertha’s Resolve explores the oldest aunts’ backstory. In 1959, after reading a heartbreaking plea for medical personnel, Bertha Troyer, a young, beautiful Amish woman from Sugarcreek, rebels against church rules and enters nursing school determined to pour out her life on behalf of the desperate children of Haiti. As a young nurse, she dealt with a nightmare of poverty, political unrest, and the fury of nature, as Bertha is forced to make the most agonizing decision of her life to protect these people.  This book is very relevant today regarding the Americans and Afghan people who need to be rescued.  

There is also a romance, and the choices Bertha must make so that a marriage is not destroyed, sacrificing her own love. Fast-forward to current time and Bertha again meets up with her forever love.  Also, in this book Joe’s brother, Darren, is highlighted.  He and Joe have opened a restaurant/bar that is becoming very successful until someone tries to steal their money.  Childhood bullying and abuse are also issues in this story.

In all the books, the way of life of these simple, hardworking people is explored.  People become engrossed in reading about Joe and Rachel, the aunts, Bobby, and Darren.  Readers will take a journey with each character and have a vested interest in how the plot plays out. The stories combine a smidgen of romance, a suspenseful mystery, Amish life, and the importance of family.

EC:  The last book has Bertha part of a rescue effort.  Rumor has it that your son is also part of a rescue effort for those in Afghanistan?

Serena B. Miller:  My son had been in Afghanistan for five years as a contractor.  He is currently working day and night to get people out, Afghan translators. One was tragically killed by the Taliban a few days ago.  They warned his wife that she and her four children were next to be executed.  Thankfully, he got them out, but I am worried about others who are trapped.

Elise Cooper:  How did you get the idea for the series?

Serena B. Miller:  An editor suggested I write an Amish story.  I decided to choose the Sugarcreek area in Ohio because of its pretty name and it being compared as “the Little Switzerland of Ohio.” I lucked out because the owner of the Bed and Breakfast where I was staying had a lot of Amish friends.  I had dinner with an Amish family that had seven children and the grandmother/grandfather was also there.  The matriarch of the family told me I could ask anything, nothing was forbidden.  His one stipulation was that I write the truth about the Amish.  They loved the finished book. I even have an Amish family vet every Amish book I write.  

EC:  You write other series/books?

SBM:  I have written three historical books, another Amish series, a non-fiction book about Amish parenting, and a series about Manitoulin Island in Canada, which was optioned for the Hallmark channel. Also, the first of these Amish books was made into a TV movie which can be found on many of the streaming channels.

EC:  How would you compare the three Amish sisters?

SBM: Bertha is the oldest who has integrity and a tender heart. She is not domesticated but is the wise leader of the family with a bossy will of iron. Lydia is the baker who lives for cooking and is very quiet.  Anna has Down Syndrome and is very sweet.  Her personality is based on a church friend of mine.  Since I have three sisters, I have become fascinated with the sisterly dynamics.

EC:  How would you describe Rachel?

SBM:  Very protective of those she loves.  The killing of her father in front of her has defined her personality.  She is determined to protect her family no matter what.   She is analytical with common sense except where her father’s killer is concerned. Although very compassionate and direct, at times she is vulnerable. She also is very loyal and tenacious.

EC:  What about the relationship between Joe and Rachel?

SBM:  Both are very strong personalities. They can be stubborn at times.  They have their disagreements, but always respect each other.  They are on equal footing.

EC:  In the second book you redeem the killer?

SBM:  I felt I had to.  He served his time in prison for twenty years. Now he has turned his life around by healing abused dogs and training them for search and rescue.  His early life, when he was abused by his mother, is based on a true story.  Carl, the killer, has an affinity for animals because they saved him as a child.  He is now caring, remorseful, and deserves a second chance.

EC:  How would you describe your books?

SBM:  They are mysteries, suspense with a crime, and has an emphasis on the importance of family.  For me, the mystery has the reader turning the pages to see what happens next.  I put this quote in, “Whenever she (Rachel) needed the world to feel like a safer, saner place, she went to visit her Amish aunts.” I like writing about the big family, the agrarian culture, and the Amish community.  Each book has a goal, a mystery, and a spiritual theme, with of course, a happy ending.

EC:  What are the themes of each book?

SBM: Love Finds You in Sugarcreek, Ohio is about acceptance and not to judge a book by its cover. Rachel’s Rescue has a theme of forgiveness. Love Rekindled is about the healing of a marriage.  I wrote this one in the months after my husband passed away.  We had been married for many years.  It is about family relationship, but at that core is the marriage relationship. Bertha’s Resolve shows that it is possible to do the right thing and to walk away from the possibility of an extra marital affair.  

EC:  You always have tidbits about the Amish lifestyle.  In Bertha’s Resolve you compare the Amish with the Mennonites?

SBM:  The Mennonites can get on a plane, go to college, and have an extensive mission program of helping. The story of this book has Bertha worshipping a co-worker from afar. Now fifty years later they still have that depth of friendship. I want to show that with both groups they have a very strong work ethic and are problem solvers.

EC:  What about your next books?

SBM:  I am currently writing book 5 in this Sugarcreek series.  I am debating if Rachel will continue her profession as a police officer, maybe part time.  It will feature Joe’s brother Darren who will get a love story.  Since Joe is a former Major League baseball player, I will bring baseball into this story.  I am thinking of having an Amish boy who has a phenomenal talent for the game. Both Amish girls and boys love baseball.  Hopefully it will come out in the Spring of 2022.

I am also working on an Amish children’s novel that is for children.  It will also be set in Sugarcreek with some familiar characters. There will be twelve books in the series.  The first should come out around Christmas time.

THANK YOU!!

[antivanbrandy]

i love you saints row content so much! i was wondering about your thoughts on the matt/asha relationship... what do you think about 'em?

First up, thank you nonny!

Secondly, oh god I’m a little bit heartbroken right nowbecause I just spent like an hour writing you this big long response full ofheadcanons and tidbits, and then firefox freaked out on me and decided to startspontaneously doing that ‘backspace means I’m taking you to the previous pageeven when your cursor is flashing, fuck you and what you’re writing’ thing and Ilost it all TnT  I’ll try to remember what I can (and I’m writing this in ms word as insurance this time, though thatdoes have the added drawback of auto-capitalisation, dangit) but I’m ascatterbrained dork, so I’m sorry if this is at all incomplete or confusing.

While I don’t actively ship Matt/Asha, I’m not against iteither. It’s not a notp or anything like that, and I’m not someone who feels anykind of jealous urge to hoard Matt away from other ships xD I’m especially not aboutany Asha-hate. I think she’s a great character who got short-changed prettybadly by being introduced in a game where the focus was on nostalgia and thereturn of old faces.

In regards to canon, I always got the feeling v/olition wasplaying it as a punchline, a ‘haha can you believe she sleeps with that, betshe regrets it’ deal, not to mention the ‘stop touching me pls’ bit they havein the background of Johnny’s return scene. Which is not at all to say it’sproof people can’t ship it, but just that it’s because of that, and because I thinkit comes across as one-sided on Matt’s part, that I don’t feel like I’m stepping on toes byshipping Matt/Lux.

Which is also not to say Matt and Asha haven’t slept together inLux’s canon. They absolutely have. Matt wasn’t a virgin by the time he and Luxgot together the first time, not by a long shot (he only lets the comment slidebecause, come on, he’s about to get some, he can correct her after xD).

(some extensive, but not as succinct as last time, Lux-canonwaffling under the cut)

As far as Lux’s canon is concerned, Matt and Asha have slepttogether a couple times at some point in the two or so years leading up the Zininvasion, and Matt developed a lot of feelings on the matter that Asha didn’treciprocate. He continued to hold out hope that one day the physical stuffcould morph into something emotional on her end, and romanticised the idea of a relationship between them a lot.

But Matt is a man of many crushes, and he’s begrudgingly hada thing for Lux since Steelport because women in positions of power are hnnng. Sowhen Lux propositions him he kinda goes WELP, time to strike that off thebucket list at least.

But the whole thing goes a lot better than either of themexpected, and they tentatively agree afterwards to make it a regular thing, because stress is high and stress relief is hard to find on a ship of like three people. So bythe time they rescue Asha, Matt n Lux have been sleeping together for a while. Feelingsare starting to get muddled there and lines are starting to blur, and that’s scary enough as it is, but Mattwould never be able to forgive himself if he didn’t make one last ditch attemptat striking up something real with Asha.

Because to Matt, Asha is the smart choice, yknow? The romanticchoice. The movie choice. They’vebeen partners together in MI6 for years. He’s her handler, she’s his mentor.She’s strong and smart and reliable and stable. Lux on the other hand is awildcard. She could hurt him, and hurt him bad. She’s unpredictable andunrestrained, and it’s scary. As far as he figures it, the likelihood of ending up in a stable healthy relationship with the Boss is non-existent compared with Asha.

And by this point, the point where they rescue Johnny, thepunch has happened, and that adds a whole extra layer of ‘see I knew this wouldend badly’ to the mix. Lux n Matt have been tiptoeing around each other duringwhat little time they’d been around each other since, and he figures bugger it,it’s now or never, and during the get together they have when Johnny rejoinsthe crew he makes his last attempt.

And Asha shoots him down. He’s a little dejected and mopeyeven though he knew it was a long shot, but Lux pulls him aside as the nightdraws to a close and they have a long talk, including a very awkward butsincere apology for the punch and a promise to never lay a hand on him likethat again, and it comes up in conversation. Matt tries to wave it off as anostalgia thing, but Lux tells him to cut the crap, that he’s allowed to havefeelings and he’s allowed to acknowledge when they’re hurt, but that torturing himselfover something he already knows won’t happen is only hurting him. Matt hadexpected to be mocked, not consoled, and it takes him by surprise. It’s afterthis that he makes the decision to accept it, and his focus shifts.

Asha and Matt remain really good friends and continue towork closely together, though Asha does like to rib him about his relationshipwith the Boss (because cmon, that shit really is funny (and also she’s quietly relieved Matt has somewhere else to focus his obsession lmao)).

Man I hope that wasn’t too waffley. D: I mean I know it was, but you know what I mean. Thank you for the question nonny!

[nightblink]

Blink Reads Oathbringer - Chapters 22-30

Chapter Twenty-Two – The Darkness Within

MRAIZE IT'S FUCKING MRAIZE SHIT SHIT ABORT MISSION AB O R T

She's definitely referring to Adolin as the whitespine here, hinting entirely unsubtly that she believes he (or at least a Kholin or one of their army) killed her husband. But does she have information we don't know about? Also, mark 2 for Adolin being associated with whitespines.

Go Adolin, that is exactly what needed to be said. And! Ialai's actually listening! She's treating Shallan like little more than a servant, though, and that is a very deliberate slight to her honor/authority.

!!! So. Ialai has no idea of Mraize's Ghostblood affiliations? Okay, okay, I'm now less on edge regarding this interview.

Oh shit, Shallan, he knows. Did you honestly think he wouldn't have that tidbit of information?

“You killed Jasnah.” Shallan. You just said yourself last chapter that you (a Radiant) could survive a sword through the chest. I'm amazed that you haven't put two and two together yet.

Ooooo. The “wrongness”? Was there some Ancient Evil in a Can that was unleashed when the Alethi came through the Oathgate? Well, no matter that or something else, “securing Urithiru” is a goal you can both get behind.

The little snub with the tea is perfect petty revenge (coupled with a bit of power maneuvering).

AMARAM. Goddamn it, I thought you were discredited! Only among the Kholins, it seems, Damn it. And Shallan still thinks you were the one that Killed Helaran. This is going to be a shitshow.

And Adolin's first thought is 'Kaladin isn't going to like this.' Ahhhhh, bless.

Adolin, you did well, even if you did almost punch her. You may not be good at politics, but you manage.

STORMS ARE BACK.

Chapter Twenty-Three – Storming Strange

Deceiving an honest person, Kaladin? [gasps] But hey, you and the Parshmen will be safe. With any luck, staying out of the storms will also mean they won't be exposed to Odiumspren of any kind.

Everstorm Count: 2 passes

Heh, he's a stubborn old man, Kal – you might not be able to slip this one past him. ...or not, that works too

The spren “have a destination in mind”. That does not bode well. Odium will need an army, not just a Champion, and turning them all in one place might be his plan rather than leaving them in smaller numbers with a better chance of getting overwhelmed by Rosharan forces.

Speaking of things the Parshmen stole from you, have you been checking back with the spanreed to- Ahhh, no, they took that too.

The spren! Stone/earth associations at the moment; perhaps flame, but that's colour alone. Still not entirely sure what kind of spren she is.

...I think she suspects, Kal.

Chapter Twenty-Four – Men of Blood and Sorrow

“Dalinar remembered.” That alone is enough to make me screech and bounce around the room, he remembers, he remembers-!

“not true golden, like the hair of the Iriali” okay Sanderson I will give you this but I'm still set on very subtle metallics, which is quite reasonable given the shared heritage between the Iriali and Rirans

Okay, so not a whole lot of memories returned, but still. INFO ON EVI. AAAAAHHHHHH-

“He didn't remember love” I have the feeling that that's going to change. You don't do something as drastic as going to the Nightwatcher to forget her loss if wasn't a pain that pierced deep.

What was your bargain with the Nightwatcher, We still don'y actually know. Sanderson, this better get explained later. Currently I'm of the opinion that the Nahel bond is interfering with it somehow.

Oh no oh noooooo, it's Taravangian. What are you planning…

“this man had been a friend to Gavilar” - and Gavilar was likely part of the Diagram as well, in that case and considering the political and military power he wielded

Or. Or not. Five years ago must have been when it started, and Gavilar was two years cold by then.

NEW RADIANT NEW RADIANT. Malata. No indication of what Order she is, but to work the Oathgate she has to have a living Shardblade, so there's no question there that she is one.

And here I thought assassinations weren't very Alethi, Dalinar.

What a way to drop the chapter title, ooof. That's something for Dalinar to think on.

Navani with the power dress, awwww yeah.

[winces] And they're underestimating Taravangian immensely, as he probably planned.

DUSTBRINGER. DUSTBRINGER DUSTBRINGER DUSTBRINGER TELL ME WHAT THE OATHS ARE, TELL ME-

I… had not considered that she might have one of the other Honorblades rather than being a Radiant.

“Lore about people dealing with their curses, and seeking any cure for them, is practically its own genre.” And now I want a peek at in-world novels covering this.

Oop, and the Stormfather confirms that it's not the Nahel bond causing the memory resurgence. There goes my theory.

Well. That Tukari “god-king” seems… unhinged. He's not going to roll over anytime soon, and I worry that Dalinar might end up fighting a war on two or more fronts here. Negotiation isn't going to do anything.

No one believes that you won't attack. No one believes that you, in particular, have changed, and what reason would they have to do so? No more than they do to believe that the warring Alethi will do anything else either.

How much of a tyrant will you be, Dalinar Kholin?

Chapter 25 – The Girl Who Looked Up

The sketch-picture page preceding this chapter is really unsettling. Seriously, Shallan, you need a therapist.

The note before the chapter isn't particularly reassuring either.

Perhaps there is information here, and you just haven't delved deep enough to find it.

A theatre! Oh man, yeah, Pattern would love the theatre. THE BEST KIND OF LIES.

Acting out the play with stormlight figures! Excellent practice for moving illusions that are separate from the Radiant.

Bit of an Attack on Titan vibe going on from that wall and the lack of wondering about its origins.

Eyeless crowd? Creepy, Shallan. You'd better save some of that spherelight for your walk back too.

“All but one” WAIT. WHAT. A shadowy figure? Spren or human? Considering Shallan, could be either.

Aaaaaand she's slipping into Radiant's personality again. Again the name changes.

Why the different light-versions of yourself? To confuse the shadow? To light the room? What…? I'm confused.

Oh, shit- Yeah, spren. With extra body horror.

She's changing personalities even easier than before. It seems she's still consciously doing it, but she doesn't have to spend any time getting into the mindset of another personality anymore. It simply flows.

Rock? It attacked Rock? Like Shallan stabbed the Horneater called Ur at the bar. And after Sadeas, that mirror-murder was a soldier. The spren – it has to be this shadow-spren - it's looking for at least some physical commonalities in its choice of victim. It's not just murder it's reenacting either – just. Violence. Maybe there needs to be blood involved? Or an emotion like fear?

“I don't want to be blind anymore.” Oooo, another seeking secrets. This definitely won't be the last we see of you, Ishnah.

Chapter Twenty-Six – Blackthorn Unleashed

MORE EVI MORE EVI-

So the Heralds are still 'worshipped' in Iri, even if the names are changed, and they have a similar practice of burning prayers. The largest difference is the 'god' at the top of the chain – possibly split between Honor and Cultivation, or perhaps the origin of the Iriali's 'One' stretches all the way back to Adonalsium.

Oh, you'll know in a few decades what it takes to earn the ardent's displeasure, and by then you'll care more about it as well.

I love Evi already.

Dalinar “what are hugs” Kholin

AYYYY SEBARIAL~~~ not showing up. [snickers] Trying to play both sides to the end while not fighting himself.

Oh interesting. The Plate belongs to Evi and not her brother? Considering the accusation that they 'stole' it, it's not a question of which one has a more legitimate claim to the Plate, so it was decided that the Plate would go to Evi. Huh.

Ryshadium! And you tell that by that fact that they're followed by musicspren. That's… unexpected. Some connection to the Listeners and their Rhythms, or perhaps the Dawnsingers?

Oooo, Dalinar is not feeling charitable right about now – probably still mulling the possibility of fratricide over in his brain. “Stay out of my way” indeed.

[winces] He revels in the death and destruction and men fall by the dozens with burned-out eyes, so different from the Dalinar we know. This is deadly momentum – something had to change even before the night of Gavilar's death, a decision of some kind, or Dalinar would probably have looked to Herdaz or Jah Keved next and steamrolled onwards until he dropped dead.

…..that redness does not seem normal , even for the Thrill. I'm sensing something else going on.

Kadash? I though you said in the future that you left after the battle at the Rift? ...huh. There must be a second time they fight there, because you're still here.

“He felt sad to have to engage a Shardbearer, instead of continuing his fight against the ordinary men.” That's…. You're not addicted to the fight. You're addicted to the kill.

Slate-grey plate even way back then. Even before the Codes, you were never one for ornamentation.

Oh! That's Elhokar's Shardblade, Sunraiser!

'Bloodstance – a stance for someone who didn't care if he got hit.' No details on what that stance looks like? Come ooooon. Still, if it was an unarmed man against a Shardbearer, that's be one thing. Shards against Shards? This could get ugly.

This fight would be so brutally good animated.

Loving the change in setting when they get to the peak, and then the change in style that the terrain necessitates. The surge of bloodthirst in the Thrill, however...

[winces] That thirst for killing isn't abating, this is not good… and there's Gavilar. Within running distance, in possession of a heart that beats and things that Dalinar wants. This is it, this is when he considers, but it he actually going to go for it, shit shit shit, he is, shit-

And stops at the last second. Stormfather.

You do deserve shamespren.

There's it, that's the decision. 'I must never be king.'

Picture at the end of the chapter: Did we really need to see the oozing horror of that spren? Did we really? [shudders]

Chapter Twenty-Seven – Playing Pretend

Shallan curled up all comfortably is a good sign. The fact that the strange shadow-figure is definitely some kind of Odium-spren, not at all. Also not encouraging is that Shallan refers to “Radiant” as if she were separate.

Something is cutting off their lines of communication. Deliberately. Fuuuuuuuuuck.

I support Aladar in the use of some judicious ass-kicking.

YES GIVE US MORE ON THE NEW MAYBE-RADIANT. 'Spark' is a good name for a spren,  but that bit about destroying things… We need to know what kind of spren the Dustbringers bond to. Now.

Oooo, so she's not on board with uniting the Radiants despite the fact that she is one? That's new – we haven't seen Lift or Szeth since Edgedancer, but this is the first new 'Radiant' to appear that's come and announced her dissatisfaction, even if it's to Shallan and not Dalinar the Bondsmith.

Ialai and Amaram. How are you two going to throw a wrench into proceedings this time…?

Oh shit. Oh shit.

“Everything I've done is for the greater good, Dalinar. Everything.” [Obi-Wan voice echoing in the distance] 'From a certain point of view…' Ugh, Amaram, you slime. Somehow you keep rising in power and authority and you do it all in “““acceptable””” ways. Can we punt your sorry ass to Braize to burn yet.

“Highprince.” “Highprince.” “Bastard.” THANK YOU ADOLIN

It's a good thing Dalinar “suggested” he leave and take a moment or he'd probably punch Amaram right there in front of everyone, then at least once more since Kaladin's not there.

Oh shit, you're telling him you suspect Amaram killed Helaran? Whoa. On one hand, I love that you're opening up and trusting someone, on the other, this could complicate things when it comes up that Kaladin is the actual one who won-

Adolin knows. And he's telling her in return. Ffffffffftttttttt-

And there she goes trying to repress the knowledge. Doesn't seem to be working this time.

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck she doesn't remember drawing those pictures. Slipping one personality into the dominant state of mind is one thing, but this is even more worrying.

Ooo, going to bring your men sort-of into the plan? Whatever the plan is? ….please don't intentionally get any of them killed.

Chapter Twenty-Eight – Another Option

Wait, wait, wait. No. Bad idea. Don't destroy (or try to destroy) your Oathgate. That is a terrible idea and have you run this past Gawx and Lift yet? Have you done the right paperwork for this?

At least he has Shallan's report on the murderspren now. It's not comforting that it has peepholes everywhere. Watching. Waiting.

Surge practice! You need it Dal, you're the most unfamiliar of the lot with your abilities.

Adding 'mink' to the list of Rosharan critters. But do we assume for now that it's furry like an Earth mink, or some sort of carapaced version?

“garnet-lit tongue” - probably an equivalent of what we know as silver-tongued

Yeah, everyone still thinks that you're going to use your new Fast Travel to conquer them. Considering your history as well as your country's, I can't blame them for the reluctance.

Bridge Four needs him, but not for a murder- oh. They found the sword. Oh. Stormfather is not happy about you even touching that, much less carrying it around

Oh shit is he taking it back to Ialai?! Yes, yes he is. Makes sense, but handing another Shardblade over to Amaram gives me bad shivers.

Speaking of which, FUCK OFF, AMARAM

[winces] He's not wrong on the point about hypocrisy, I have to give him that much (even if it pains me) and Dalinar needed to hear it. However, it's tying back to Dalinar's realization after his vision of Nohadon, when he found out that he must have written the in-book The Way of Kings once he'd already solidified power. I wonder if he'll realize that…?

Oh goddamn it, not Taravangian

They're talking… religion? And The Way of Kings. Taravangian is going to interpret some of those stories or morals in a vastly different way than Dalinar, I suspect. Either that or he'll confirm Dalinar's, and we the readers will be left screaming in frustration

Dalinar, Dalinar, he's advocating that the ends justify the means, do not follow down this path…

“But sometimes a hypocrite is nothing more than a person who is in the process of changing.” And you have changed so much from the man you once were, Dalinar. You don't deny that.

Wait, what.

The Stormfather confused is hilarious.

I am cackling over the thought of Dalinar storm-projecting to the other monarchs. Not accepting my invitations? Fine, I'll just barge into your head during a Highstorm! CAN'T KEEP ME OUT NOW~

Chapter Twenty-Nine – No Backing Down

Back to Veil again, and worrying about Shallan's mental state.

Her description of the thing she saw, that she knows is watching – the sound of a tunnel extending into darkness, the feel of breath on the back of your neck in a dark room – I'm definitely creeped out. Consider me creeped.

Do your soldiers know you as Veil, or do they only know Shallan? Ahh, just Shallan. So it remains that only the Ghostbloods know about your dual (at least) nature.

A fingering joke, are you kidding me. Well, at least he's taking her rejection with nothing more than an ah well.

Her personalities are delineating themselves, becoming more distinct and real unto themselves. But was it any of these main three – Shallan, Veil, and Radiant – that drew the disturbing pictures? She remembers what she does as those three, so what if there's another personality lurking, submerged, that she doesn't know about….? I am concern.

Yeah, I thought it might be the hanging rather than the bashing. Given the choice, it'll probably go for the more violent of two acts.

Well if that isn't a mouth to the void… [shudders] Shallan, I don't like the thought of you staying here alone, especially since this Hellmouth is somehow in your sketchbook and you don't know how it got there.

I am very concern about your personality shifts, Shallan.

Well, Pattern may have worded it in such a way that he overstated the danger, but still, good to see that Adolin is taking all the precautions he can, even if that means two men in Plate, a second Radiant for backup, and the entirety of Bridge Four.

Renarin is definitely sensing something too – this wrongness that permeates the city. But! B4 accepting him! Needling fun at him and treating him like any other part of Bridge Four! Ahhhh, Renarin, I'm so glad to see people other than your family appreciating you.

I'm with Drehy on this one. Fuckin' nope.

Down into the abyss, which… has colour down below? Mosaics of Honor and Cultivation? Was this once the true center of Urithiru?

Renarin's carrying a Shardblade which must be (is most likely???) Glys, but we get no visual description? Come on, Sanderson!

Truthwatchers and Lightweavers share the Illumination Surge. Perhaps their ability to sense the wrongness - “illuminating” the hiding shadow, if you will – is tied to that.

[winces] Jasnah is not going to be happy at finding the library she sought ruined.

…..oh no.

oh fuck

“One of the Unmade. Re-Shephir… the Midnight Mother.”

Okay, one: ten rubies says that this thing is the origin of the Midnight Essence that Dalinar saw in his vision of the past, back in the first book. Two: Renarin how the fuck do you know what it's called? Are the Unmade part of general Voidbringer lore in Vorinism? Three: time to beat a hasty retreat

Of course Adolin's going to dash right in to cover the retreat, Shallan, what did you expect?

And now we finally get a bit of description of the Glysblade(?) - “long and thin, with a waving pattern to the metal” - still no indication if curved or straight, but my current guesstimate is katana-like

BATTLE CLERIC RENARIN, FUCKYEAH

Shallan. Shallan what are you doing.

Fighting shadow with light. Yessssssss.

Well then. To fight or back down? You noted only moments ago that she could have swept you away with little effort. With light in the hands of a Lightweaver, will that be enough to do… whatever it is you're planning?

(Side note, what else am I a sucker for? Oh yeah, battle couples. Goddamn it.)

“The pain of an Ideal sworn, but not yet overcome.” I'm going to sound like a broken record with the way I keep repeating therapist. You need to face this and talk it out, Shallan, and with another, not-Pattern person.

“She was those women, those girls, every one of them. And none of them were her. They were things she used, manipulated. Illusions.” And Veil is among them as well. I'm. Not sure what to think of this, if she's thinking it in a literal manner or on a deeper level. It could be a sign of self-realization, or it might not.

Whatever it is, everyone is screwed if you don't manage to at least make it retreat.

[yells loudly about safehands as a sign of intimacy and trust and that's the method through which she's letting the thing in – and pressing back in return]

Chapter Thirty – Mother of Lies

That title alone is unsettling.

“not completely aware, not completely cognizant.” So, like pretty much all the other non-bonded spren in the Physical Realm, except this is definitely a Thing Of Odium. And it immediately tries to tear the Nahel bond apart.

!!! She's a true Splinter then?

It's gone all dark and Pattern's physically there in his larger form – I'd lay spheres that they're somehow halfway into (or at least dipping a toe into) the Cognitive Realm.

They bound her. One of the Unmade, and a Lightweaver of the past actially managed to bind her. But with all these shadows coming up into Urithiru… I doubt that's the case right now. She was freed, or broke free. And now she remains close, though deeper in the bowels of the mountain.

….you could hold a lot of stormlight in those gems.

[no-the-other-thaddeus]

Hollow Knight: Thoughts So Far

Hello. My name is Thaddeus. I have a habit of rambling about games on occasion, and at the request of some friends, I’ll be organizing some of that rambling into something that vaguely resembles a review/first impressions article about a game I’ve played. You can read this one below the cut.

So, now that’s out of the way, let’s talk turkey: Hollow Knight. I’m sure more than a few of you have seen it in your recommendations feed, or just on the front page of the Steam store since the Summer Sale began. For those of you that haven’ t bothered to glance at the game’s page, a quick summary:

Hollow Knight is a Metroid-vania game drawn in a traditional 2D style. Not quite Skullgirls levels of animation, but still quite good for the game’s scale, and the art itself is quite good. Other points of note are it’s soundtrack, boasting several atmospheric, ambient tracks that lend a certain haunting quality to many of the games’ environs, it’s self proclaimed ‘tight controls’, and similarly stated non-linearity. 

It’s plain to see that it’s somewhat inspired by the games of FROM Software, but I wouldn’t say it takes solely (No pun intended) from Dark Souls. The game’s somewhat bleak, misty hub reminds me more of something from Bloodborne than any of the Souls games. Although do keep in mind that this is coming from someone who’s never actually played any of the aforementioned titles, so your mileage may vary. 

The more obvious aspect it borrows from the Souls games specifically is it’s style of story-telling. You are told basically nothing, but you are presented with various cryptic snippets of information as you go. The more you talk to NPCs and explore, the more tidbits you’ll find. The game has done this fairly well thus far; the NPCs you can find to speak with are generally interesting and well-written enough that the more curious among you will likely be intrigued enough to speak to most of them multiple times. 

Now that I’ve painted a general picture, let’s start getting into specifics, shall we?

You begin Hollow Knight with 5 ‘Masks.’ The games equivalent to hearts. Along with this, you have one ‘Soul Orb.’ The Soul Orb is a bit more unique: as you defeat enemies, you collect ‘soul energy’ from them, filling up the orb. With enough soul energy, you can hold down a button to heal off damage. You can only heal 3 health at your maximum capacity starting out however, and you’re left vulnerable while you do it. It also takes a fair few seconds, making it a less than viable option in particularly tense fights with more agile opponents. 

Speaking of, the game’s enemy design definitely leans more toward the Metroid side of Metroid-vania. One or two of the game’s earlier enemies are functionally identical to ones found in Super Metroid, and this is where the first problem arises: in Metroid, your primary attack is a ranged projectile weapon with unlimited ammo, therefore, with a bit of care, it’s not too difficult to take out enemies that fly. In Hollow Knight, your primary attack is a short-range melee strike, but there are still several flying enemies right out of the gate.This means that, from the get-go, you have enemies that can be tricky to reach with your only means of attack. While most of the earliest enemies aren’t terribly fast, their numbers can make them a bit tricky to simply avoid at times as well

This isn’t helped by the fact that every enemy in the game does contact damage, which also inflicts considerable knockback. This is particularly annoying in more vertically oriented rooms, where one unfortunate brush can send you tumbling several platforms back down.

Now, let’s talk about the map system. One of the things the trailers for Hollow Knight bring to attention is how customizable it is. With all the little pins and such to mark things out...but that’s not quite the truth. You don’t place these pins yourself, they’re a one-time buy to automatically mark every instance of the given landmark they’re for pointing out. They all have to be bought using the game’s in-game currency ‘Geo’, which is dropped by enemies and found in rock deposits. 

That would be nothing more than a nitpick, if not for a few factors: Having to buy the maps themselves as well isn’t so unreasonable, but said maps are incomplete when you receive them, and to fill the rest in, you have to buy a ‘Quill.’ Granted, you only have to buy it the once and then you’re set for the game, but it still seems a bit asinine to lock behind money. Then there’s that fact that your own position on the map being visible, also has to be bought, and is the most expensive unlock of all, and not just in money.

The ‘compass’ as it’s called, counts as a ‘charm.’ A little badge you can equip to a limited number of slots on your character for certain benefits. Sort of like the badges in older Paper Mario games. You start with 3 slots. The compass takes up one. I’m sure you can get more later, but it still makes me scratch my head that something as basic as knowing where you are on the map would be put into that system. 

Now, as I said, pretty much all these features only require one purchase, which doesn’t seem so bad, and it isn’t really terrible either; after all, you can decide what you want to prioritize being able to see on the map. However, getting enough money to buy everything you want can be a bit of a problem thanks to the game’s death system.

When you die, you leave behind a shadowy echo of yourself, which is functionally similar to the money bags you drop in Shovel Knight. Unlike in Shovel Knight, however, this isn’t losing some of your money, but all of it. No exceptions, at least thus far. As you might expect, to retrieve your money, you have to reach your shadow...and then kill it, because it’s an enemy. A relatively harmless one, but an enemy nonetheless. One that’s easy to run into for contact damage if you’re angry about dying again. Oh, and before I forget, your soul orb loses a third of it’s capacity until you re-collect your soul.

If you die on the way to collecting it, you lose all of the money you had been carrying permanently. Now, again, that wouldn’t be much of a problem, frustrating, yes, but not a hugely bad design decision or anything. But, you remember those rock deposits that also drop money I mentioned? They don’t respawn. You can permanently lose money you can’t re-collect. Those deposits also generally drop more than the enemies do, and some of the items you’re going to need to explore certain areas of the game are kind of pricey. 

It all adds up to a general sense of dread and frustration as you’re traversing any given area of the game, especially when re-treading old ground just trying to get to the next new place. It’s hurt my enjoyment of the game thus far. Maybe some of you with more experience in the genre, or sharper reflexes, won’t find it so stymieing, but it’s a problem I definitely would be remiss to ignore. 

All of the above certainly irks me, but I’ve dealt with worse over the years. I was still enjoying the game enough, especially with the thought that I would be getting more abilities to better fight enemies and traverse the world going forward. 

And then I got to the second major boss of the game, Hornet.

I was a few hours into the game at this point, 2-3 maybe, 4 tops. Before we get into Hornet, allow me to describe the last big boss: The False Knight. The False Knight, is a good fight. He’s got discernible patterns, and moves slowly enough for you to avoid without too much trouble with a bit of care, even with only your base moveset. I still died a couple times, but thanks to having well telegraphed attacks with distinct audio cues meant that I figured him out in relatively few attempts. His animations were charming (especially the way he died), and I overall left the feeling accomplished. 

Now, let’s talk about Hornet, and believe me, there’s a lot to talk about. As I said, the first boss was fairly slow. Hornet by contrast, is quick and almost constantly moving. It’s not impossible to hit her or anything, but how high and in what direction you need to jump to avoid her attacks changes depending on where she starts the attack from, and because she’s almost always moving around, that means it’s hard to reliably dodge her attacks without bashing your head against the fight a lot. 

On top of that, though I’d yet to mention it here, your invincibility frames are a little on the short side, which becomes a problem here; Hornet’s attacks come out fast, and often in quick succession. Quick enough at least that you can often get hit 2-3 times in as many seconds. Because of this, if you happen to bump into her and her attacks on accident just a few times, an attempt can be over in less than half a minute, maybe less. 

And then you have to walk back to her boss room. You see, much like Metroid, the only checkpoints in the game are fixed points on the maps. Although rather than entire rooms, in Hollow Knight, they’re benches that you can rest on. There are usually only one or two, maybe three if there’s an interior area, benches in a given area of the game’s world. This means that, often, walking back to a boss after dying to them is a tedious affair. 

Hornet’s location is actually closer to a bench than most other boss fights have been thus far, but getting back to her still wastes a good half-minute each time. Plus, of course, you have to kill your shadow before you fight her too, and that takes a bit of time as well. It breaks up the flow immensely, and makes the prospect of giving the fight another try after losing that much more un-appealing thanks to the extra effort you have to put forth to reach her again. 

All of this could be fixed by simply having bosses be an exception to the bench system’s rule: just put a checkpoint right inside the room. It’s not like it’ll make your soul any easier to recover than it already is in these situations. That change alone would be enough that I probably would’ve soldiered through and beat hear already. But it’s not there, and so the little irritations I’ve had with the game’s various systems all converge on this one fight, and I find myself reluctant to keep playing.

I’ll admit, there have been times when I’ve had better runs of the fight that there’s been a certain thrill to it; maybe I get off 4 or 5 hits on her and manage to avoid all the attacks she throws out in that time or something like that. But then all that dies away as I screw up dodging her once, then take contact damage the next moment, and then before you know it, I’m dead again, and I remember why I dislike this fight so much. 

It’s a shame, because I do like the game’s atmosphere, I do like the art style. I want to see the rest of it, but this fight is just such a slog, not to mention how jarring a step up in difficulty it is compared to what’s come before it. All in all, I don’t know if I could recommend Hollow Knight to someone new to the Metroid-vania genre of games as I am. Perhaps someone more seasoned in these types of games wouldn’t blink at these things, and hey, if so, you’ll probably like the game. More power to you I guess, but I’m a little unsure on it myself. 

Hollow Knight is currently $9.89 on the Steam Store.