#i guess the beast is also like this? he was more passively manipulative

[colourstreakgryffin]

I have a request to make. Could I get a yandere Aoi Kanzaki with our darling reader who Carries an anaconda with her just like Obanai. (By the way I’m making this because no one uses Aoi)

Okay. I guess we are Jesus for being able to carry this gigantic snake on our body with no problem.

But anyway! Have never written Aoi before so can’t wait to see how it goes!

Yandere! Kanzaki Aoi

Aoi is tough-hearted, stubborn to her core, she does what must be done as much as she possibly can because she feels required to, but she never truthfully thought about herself. Only about others

That changes for good when you come into the frame. The Tsuguko of the Serpent Hashira, you flaunter a huge anaconda friend around your collarbone/shoulders so easily, it seems as if the beast of a serpent doesn’t weigh anything

You’re so kind and considerate, you help her with the chores, even whilst injured and you talk to her when you see fit. This kindness is injected into Aoi and directly manipulates her into thinking you love her as her crush grows and grows every single day she sees you

Her crush shifts into a obsession as she is obsessed with you and the way you treat her so kindly. You don’t want anything from her, you just want to be mutual friends with her and Aoi takes that reality as love. That you love her too

Aoi is the type of Yandere to pull a number of dirty deeds to ensure you’ll like her and her only. She’ll spread lies about your friends, she’ll trick you into spending more time with her and she’ll threaten your friends with murder if they don’t stay away

Aoi is like Shinobu in the sense; she will poison every medicine she gives you to help with your wounds to make you unwell, so you’ll stay longer and she can take care of you

Her brain is rotted with fantasies that distract her so much from her duties. She just wants to imagine about you everyday. She doesn’t care about her mediocre chores anymore, she just wants to be around you but you’re a talented slayer and she… isn’t

Aoi is openly possessive over you. She knows you better than anybody else and she does get hissy over people wanting to befriend you. Aoi is especially hissy over your master, Iguro as you treat him with such high respect and you get flustered around him

Aoi, now, has more than one rival. Both your pet anaconda and the Serpent Hashira(even tho, your crush on him is one-sided). She would try poison Iguro to get him out of the way but such a attempt won’t go well as Iguro can tell exactly when something is fishy with food or medicine as opposed to a snake

Aoi prioritises you over everything else in her entire list of duties she has. The tiniest cut she finds on you is taken care of to a extreme as she couldn’t picture a world without you in it so she makes extra sure that no wound can take you away

She can’t protect you in the way she wish she could but she can defend you in arguments, in which she does vigorously. She has a feisty tongue as sharp as a katana and she will happily talk down whoever tries to hurt your feeling

Aoi is beyond jealous over your anaconda friend. Why does a dumb big snake get your love but not her, somebody who does a lot for you behind you back. She gets enraged everytime she sees you play with your anaconda friend or kiss his forehead

She wouldn’t dare try kill him since you care too much for him and you’d be heartbroken. So, instead, Aoi poisons the food she brings for him so he’ll be sick and sleeping for long enough for her to swoop in and comfort you

Aoi will happily take your anaconda friend if you offer him to her but she’ll be glaring hate holes into his emerald-coloured coating behind your back as she wishes she could throw the snake out the window. Damn, disgusting brainless reptile taking the attention of the love of her life’s for himself

This hatred also extends onto Iguro. Aoi is very passive-aggressive towards him and mentions you a lot, trying to get him to admit that he likes you back but it never works as Iguro scares her off with his colder demeanour

She gets revenge by subtly messing up his stitches so the wound reopens again and he feels pain, but the way you run up to your master and check his now bleeding wound, then call out to the Butterfly Assistants for help has her fuming

Aoi wants you now. She is sick and tired of doing everything else for everybody else, she wants something to be hers for once and you’re the person of choice. She will have you, no matter what

“Dokusha-san. Don’t push yourself, if putting away the sheets is too much, just tell me. I can go get you some refreshments with painkillers and you can sit down and— n-no? Well… okay. Just be careful, please”

[bthump]

How do you think that a Berserk AU where Griffith is the protagonist/struggler and Guts is the antagonist/God Hand Member would work?

I think it's a fun idea, though I've gotta be honest, I've been asked a few times what could drive Guts to sacrifice Griffith and I've never had an answer lol, not because I think Guts is better than that or anything, but because Guts doesn't have a goal he values more than Griffith. So that part's a mystery.

But if he did sacrifice the Hawks and Griffith for some reason, I think he'd be more fun as a godhand than Femto. Where Griffith's evil dark side is detached and aloof, I think Guts' would be much more emotional, based on the Beast of Darkness. And if he built an empire to unite humanity he'd do it just for the sake of being a conqueror and his empire would probably not be anything near utopian lol. Like, I'd assume a "NeoGuts" would be disinterested in ruling and would be constantly at war just to fight, and he'd probably rule his empire with an iron fist, killing anyone who risks opposing him. I'm basing this on Guts' love of fighting being rooted in fear/trauma and the need to prove he's the strongest.

For Griffith's part, it's hard for me to imagine him continuing on after an Eclipse that destroys his dream and turns Guts into an evil demon, frankly I think Griffith would probably kill himself under those circumstances or do something risky and die very soon. But if he does find a new goal to pursue that keeps him going, then I think he'd be fun with a Beast of Darkness-esque Femto in his subconscious telling him not to care about anyone and that all that matters is his goal yadda yadda yadda.

(Maybe Griffith could have a goal of taking over Guts' empire somehow? Magic, Elfhelm allies and power ups, armour, Skull Knight's manipulations, whatever might give him the idea that it's possible? Could be a way to regain his dream in theory, and it'd give him something to strive for lol.)

In the armour I think he'd be less feral and more destructive in a cold, precise way - like I can imagine him walking through a crowd of apostles and slicing/stabbing each one exactly where it'll kill them quickest methodically, even while his limbs break and bend backwards to do it efficiently. Kinda creepily robotic.

And I can't actually imagine Guts and Griffith ignoring each other under these circumstances. Griffith might try to ignore Guts, but I think a Godhand Guts would actively want to kill Griffith, or like, lbr, kidnap him and go full darkfic considering how Guts thinks about him in canon lol.

Also I could see Griffith detachedly gathering followers the same way Guts did, though since this is a headcanon and I can imagine whatever I want, I'm gonna say Farnese and Serpico join him, but not the kids. Idk about Puck either, I think Griffith would hate him lol, considering how guarded he is with his emotions. But Puck is tenacious and idt Griffith would be as needlessly dickish to randos as Black Swordsman Guts, so Puck might like him and follow him anyway.

And tbh I'd actually like one of the Hawks to survive without going insane and accompany Griff - Casca or Judeau or Pippin or even Corkus. I guess there's Rickert but idk. I just like the idea of someone who knew Griffith before sticking loyally with him but also being freaked out by the fucked up post-Eclipse passively-suicidal-til-he-decides-on-a-goal version of him.

Ok that's all I got for this I think, thanks for asking!

[halt-kun]

Hunter x Hunter 404 - Speculation

So today, we might meet Kurapika's new students

or Zhang Lei discovers his ability

or Melody and Kacho kill Luzurus

or Halkenburg dies

or Benjamin dies

or Fugetsu dies

I'm afraid of what has been prepared for the last few chapters

or maybe it's just going to be more set up

I AM AFRAID EITHEY WAY

OOOOH ZHANG LEI

and Kurapika accurately guessing what lord narrator told us a while ago

I guess Zhang is still wary of Pika and believes his coin could be a form of harming his whole entourage at once.

OH YEAH

manipulation, I didn't think of that

well interesting that the design changes

I'm interested in what Kurapika thinks about it

he seems to have guessed the same thing as Zhang, that it would be truly useful only after he becomes king

Kurapika is soooooo smart

I love him

okay so awakening nen is a nice counterpart but I do think waiting isn't the way to change value

I thought it would be earning more coins but I'll go with Kurapika's speculations for now

Good idea but then what do you suppose would happen to someone who already uses nen ?

Awaken another ability ?

A doucle edged sword

or a poisoned gift

I doubt Zhang thinks this could lead to manipulation of coin owners so it should be fine

Maybe his beast can use Zhang's coins to defend him

Zhang Lei is really inquisitive at times, Shimano guessed right. He's being so passive agressive there (as a prince should)

I hope we see more of her soon

Zhang lei has ties to the mafia after all so I doubt he could do much on the first floor but it's best not to antagonize them. Especially has the boss of the Nostrade clan

TRUE

I didn't think about that

thanks Togashi

Oh no Anxiety Kurapika is back on track

BUT TRANSITIONING TO HALKENBURG I GUESS

Look at our boy Leorio, working hard

Well I doubt any doctor can heal a new pathogen on its first description, especially one as agressive as the one used on Halkenburg but Cheadle is a three star hunter specialized in medicine.

Can Halkenburg ability transfer memories ? Like does he know all the details about the pathogen he used ? Cool

Well, but why does he want to let his og body die if Balsamico will regain control after one day ?

Will Halkenburg die for real then ? Does he want to transfer his soul again ? Just for a shot at Benjamin ?

Oh so you will stay in Balsamico

but aren't you done then ? If you go to sleep he'll most likely kill himself

OH I FORGOT,

this is Halkenburg's own ability used as an extension of his spirit beast enhancement ability

So Maybe he can actually try to assassinate a prince like that

but most likely not

What happens then Halkenburg ?

So they die ?

shit, poor guys

Well

Halkenburg, you are scary indeed

and your guards too

OH, so your body ahs to stay alive in order to maintain the control

Well smart to take sleeping pills Halkenburg but you're also going to be taking a lot of risks

WHAT DO YOU MEAN

LET CHEADLE DO HER WORK

Well rip Halkenburg body then

Will we see all princes just to hype the next chapter then ?

RIP MY GUY

you have two weeks left to live

More hype

I didn't tear up but this clearly slightly destroyed me

Can I hug them ?

OMG, BABY MARAYAM IS BUILDING SHIT

his death will be so sad

in the meantime Biscuit is being the cool aunt, older sister she wanted. Poor Marayam, he lost his big sis and now must project so much on Biscuit.

Oh yeeeeees, more Kuramaina our Babypika shipping ongoing

I mean awkward talk stage for now

they so want to kiss

(this is clearly a crazy ship)

Oh yes the crazy butch that wants to kill herself in front of Wobble

Well Babymaina isn't looking forward to it

and Ben seems to have some intel on these curses.

But good thing Kurapika is onto her

Gooooood ideaaaaaaaaaa KURAPIKA (the theme of the chapter)

he's going to be so anxious, poor boy

SHIMAAAANO, please Togashi, let her do more cool stuff, she can learn nen too

It seems we'll stop on Halkenburg's death then

RIP

What an ass doctor, they let him die too

WELL

Ben is a nice guy

somewhat

because he would kill a bunch of people to be king

and doesn't really care a lot of the time

what a prick

But Halkenburg is grateful

is it because it will further his plan or just for the nice gesture ?

So we'll switch to the troupe next chapter ?

I WANTED TO SEE PIKA'S CLASS

I love the Heil-yi though

so it's fine

I can watch them be massacred

it'll be fun

[amazingphilza]

DSMP!OC HEADCANNONS

i dunno if ppl on here make dsmp!ocs for themselves outside art but here’s my long list of headcannons?? idk what to call this, but assume all names have c! before it ofc :]

,, this is kinda messy & probably has a lot of plot holes but i just needed a space to write out all my thoughts LOL

also cw / ment of manipulation & ib: dsmp wiki <3

character origin :

previous life was the l’mantree :D

allegedly planted by schlatt, we will never know who’s my canonical parent(s)

reborn as a dryad after niki burns the l’mantree

i think being a dryad would fit especially since they’re typically nymphs of oak trees :]

appearance :

my character’s mc skin has long light brown hair & is seen wearing a flower crown with petals that are around the color of a pale violet and navy blue

clothing would consist of black shoes & a long light grey sweater that falls down to the legs and covers most of the hands which adorned with 2 black stripes on the upper arms

lore / history :

since my past life was the l’mantree, i would’ve known the ins and outs of the history when l’manburg was still standing, up until niki burned the tree

after witnessing everything, i’d hold a grudge on niki (+ allies?) and loyal to wilbur since he’s the whole person that made a meaning of the land of l’manburg

however i’d still be on edge w any side because i could sympathize with everyone to some extent after seeing some sort of distress from everyone at some point

i think seeing both sides of the spectrum when l’manburg/manburg still stood could change my perspective of some other characters

but at the same time, not everything was completely centered in l’manburg so i wouldn’t know the whole story of everyone’s character

i’m currently writing this just after tommy has left the prison & mostly everyone is treating him differently, so i’d try to befriend him by not showing that i dont care about his past & trauma but also not being fully faithful about our friendship ahaha,,,

he seems like the type that needs someone to see through his past history but tommy would definitely disapprove of my character visiting dream at the prison (i would do it anyway :))

vowing my current life to wilbur, i would help dream escape to revive wilbur & follow along with their plans of chaos

i don’t fully support dream but he is the only way to wilbur, making me comply with dream’s decisions

“growing up” in my past life and witnessing endless conflict, it is the only thing i know and understand; chaos

but i think during the process of helping dream & wilbur i’d keep my connection with them secret, being the person to obtain all the inside information they need

i could see myself as a type of equilibrium like ranboo but in a bad way, i don’t know how to explain it

but i would try befriending ranboo since he seems like he is involved in many things and would know a lot, despite his short term memory

unfortunately i’m not sure how much his character actually knows since i haven’t been able to watch his pov that much but i’m sure there’s a lot in his memory book...

to blend in as a normal person within the rest of the characters, i’d surround myself with connor a lot

not only because he needs more lore, connor is one of the “normal” citizens of the smp so i believe being with him doesn’t bring as much attention to myself, unlike people that’s related to the egg and their noticeable features after associating themselves with the egg

he is currently only on bad terms with techno which is rly good when comparing that to other characters and their relationships with other people

connor could probably sense my real intentions eventually & tell everyone else that i’m not who i say i am but if that’s my flaw & my downfall is caused by connor, so be it! sorry dream & wilbur

i feel like for being a young dryad, i’d still fool around with dream/wilbur & help give tommy an small “advantage” to defeating the two ?

like yes i’m supposed to be on your side but where’s the fun if tommy can’t do anything to begin with?

i honestly don’t know if wilbur was revived he’d actually be his vassal but let’s assume that happens, but either way i’m with wilbur on his decisions

but ya dream seems like the type to punish me for helping tommy and send me to the afterlife to learn & become smarter like wilbur had done or smth

in the end, i just want to give tommy bits and pieces that tease him from ending all the wars and problems he has been faced with

like here’s some info about dream and wilbur but it won’t be no where close to enough

but who knows, ghostbur said ‘villains are just heroes that aren’t convinced yet’ & maybe tommy could eventually grow on me & change my ways,,

maybe me fooling around & teasing tommy with answers he’s been searching for is a way to mask that i want to be a good person

ok but imagine after knowing so much about dream/wilbur, the revive book, & the afterlife & then i switch sides,,,

surely if tommy can’t put and end to them, dream would make sure i’m gone for good instead

but also if me & connor are in good terms & he’s canonically a necromancer & can bring ppl back to life,,,,

personality :

to all besides dream & wilbur, i’d try to act passive and friendly on the outside to get on everyone’s good side

however under the mask i am more mischievous & strive to cause more problems for everyone on the server from the inside out

in a way, i’ve taken up some of dream’s manipulative personality but still very understanding

i’d like to think of my character as a good listener,, trying to do less talking than others so i do not open up about my true self and intentions

i’ve seen rumors about schlatt & mexican dream also being revived along with wilbur & i feel like i’d have some soft spot for schlatt & pick up a few things from his own character, not sure what though

schlatt planted l’mantree theory, dad!schlatt au part 2 !! /j

because of my character’s closed off and quiet personality, i feel like i’d be pretty analytical

i would know how to slip between the cracks with some characters & notice the smallest things to make them question themselves

maybe my character is good at holding their composure, and not that susceptible to being “emotional” in a way so it’s easier to face people

like i understand when a situation is sad, etc but i can’t show emotion towards how i feel about it (i don’t know if that makes sense but ya!)

i wanna try to elaborate more,, like imagine my character before tommy visits the prison, i would be unfazed from when i found out he died to the point he’s released and we find out he’s been revived

everything is a constant blur hehe

i just can’t fully process everything i guess? i dunno if that’s helpful but yeah!

in the end though, my moral compass has been very tainted; despite wanting to show my loyalty, it can be slightly easy to sway me, making me internally feel guilty to other people

but me trying to get on everyone’s good side to impress wilbur/dream to seem useful to them would ruin me before i would even realize that i’m another “pawn”

we know damn well dream is faking it till he “makes it” but yk,,

but i’d be stuck in this kind of dilemma of not knowing what thoughts are my own or just something trickled down from wilbur or dream

there’s like maybe something that clicks in my head like “maybe i wanna think for myself for once” or smth

like who am i really?

powers , bonuses , etc :

since dryads can technically manipulate plants in some ways, theoretically i could control the blood vines to some extent ???

i’m pretty sure dryads can communicate with plants so i could understand what the blood vines are saying as well

maybe i could get a good sense of what the egg is all about and stuff

assuming that i understood anything that was happening with the egg in the first place but anyway—

i guess similar to ranboo like how he can’t really be around water without some type of amour or something, it would make sense for me to primarily reside in a type a forest or be near one ?? who knows

seems a bit morbid in a way because of the whole history but if i can somehow easily get rid of the blood vines without it affecting me (if there is still some there) i think it would be kinda pretty to build a tree base in the middle of the l’manburg crator (iskall tease)

like it can show a sign of some rebirth, not the same government repeated once again but a new era in general

you know how you see like destruction years after it the disaster or smth happened and it gets all overgrown with plants and stuff? ya that’s what i’m going for in my head (mumbo jumbo s7 tease)

i know it’s covered in glass already but i dunno, some broken glass and a giant tree emerging from the whole thing and all the rubble seems cool

i’m not a good builder but i have the vision LMAO

omg puffy is like a sheep human hybrid im pretty sure & like there’s a specific type of dryad that are a protector of sheep & other animals?? i’m not exactly sure but that seems like an interesting element to incorporate somehow

also glatt randomly planting a oak sapling in quackity’s lore stream yes pls feed my nonexistent dsmp character lore /j

i honestly dunno how to incorporate the fact dryads can turn shapeshift into trees when trying to escape something but i read something that if a dryad stays in a tree form for too long they’ll forget who they are and stay stuck as a tree?? which like woah that’s cool & some material but at the same time what—

since everyone’s backstory is kinda a mess, mr beast parent tease bc he planted a bunch of trees /hj

i have realized wilbur saying like “the whole reason i built this nation is gone” & blowing up everything or whatever is kinda a plot hole in like ‘why would i follow wilbur if/when he’s revived when he said this?’ but i’d like to think he was the one that made some meaning of the area lmanburg was on, which includes the lmantree

like he was the one that started everything and created that sentiment of that land, and however he views it now is how i would see it now

he gave meaning to my past life and now in my current life, i feel this obligation to repay him for it

not really lore bc i think it was cc!tommy talking to cc!ranboo about his height & age when he first joined but yk it would funny to make my dsmp character than his just to slightly spite him anyway

canonically 6’4 dryad yes . /hj

also i have no idea anything about hannah and her lore but we do be flower buddies :D

also omg like this isn’t at all important but the way ranboo can pick up grass blocks will just have me at awe, i dunno seems in theme with the forest/plant stuff

and i remember reading like there was something about dryads and apples but i can’t remember but i’d give tommy a bunch of apples /hj

apples am i right chat,,,,,

i’ll just have infinite apples in my inventory, like kill me in game, not like losing lives kinda deal but just in general and boom stacks of apples

“bee i get you’re half tree but do you just poop apples out like they’re nothing??” “girls don’t poop” /j

ok but like no matter how many streams i watch i cant grasp where everything is but omg but no if i was new to the server & stuff, canonically & not, i would feel my character to be the curious kind to explore everywhere

like besides a mini tour from some other person in the server, since my character only knows things in the bounds of lmanburg, i’d go off exploring different places like pogtopia, the sewers, showchester, etc

i feel like my character would be really into history, like they would have questions about what happened to lmanburg after the last war? what was life like before wilbur? what was the whole history about the antarctic empire? i dunno but reading a bunch of books from a library seems really interesting

oh but in theory, me and tubbo are loosely related if you wanna count schlatt as my “dad” because he supposedly planted the lmantree ???

i mean could make sense but it seems like a stretch

also if my character ever got close to schlatt, i’m not sure if this is canon, but i swear one time he mentioned how the whole dsmp sever is just a game/server in a game & he’s the only one that knows that ??? but like imagine if i found that out canonically,,,,,

big existential crisis pls

and i’m not 100% sure how dryad shifting works with like going from female to tree form and stuff but if i’m able to morph into different girls on the server & act as them,,,, the about of problems that can cause in the lore omg

lemme frame niki real quick and get inside information /j

oh ya and like hey bee do you support the government then? yes but no. whatever my “fav” person is canonically (assuming this is based in the beginning of this whole hc) whatever wilbur thinks, i think. head empty. but subject to change as the dsmp storyline progresses and stuff :]

ngl i wanna throw in some like random lore that doesn’t make sense to throw people off but i can’t think of anything

not actually really lore related but my choice of stream music like how ranboo has his undertale stuff that makes everyone cry, i will have in love with a ghost

yup i like in love with a ghost sm & i’m pretty sure their music is like not dmca too which yay but yk theoretically never gonna stream on the dsmp but still a fun aspect to think of bc i love listening to music & it’s very impactful to a story & associating something to it makes it more meaningful :D

like i could imagine the chill pop lofi piano stuff fits witha few lore streams of like exploring the whole smp before my character would really go out with being this lost villain in a way?

tubbo’s gangnam style who?

like i feel like i made my character bad/evil so they could have potential to get better in the future

on one hand, i’ll end up w dream and/or wilbur for the rest of my life, which is okay but i could also switch to be with tommy or even disregard all of them and be with techno/phil or quackity & potentially schlatt even who knows

also i cant wait for more connor lore tho, like as much as i tried to make my character give him more content i wanna see how everything goes with him having connections to schlatt & stuff

anyway i would’ve made concept art for my character but i honestly don’t rly like my art currently but who knows LMAO

and lastly if u read all of this ily /p

i might update this later when there’s more lore but ya

[adler-obsessed]

Heyo, I’ve noticed in some of your posts about China that you seem to always hint about there being some kind of darkness within her? Like most other sp fans depict her as kinda a selfish bitch, but like you always paint her as very serene and yet there’s something just below the surface that isn’t so pretty and I think it’s a really interesting take on her. I was wondering whether you’d mind doing one of your awesome analysis posts on what gave you that impression, if it’s not too much to ask??

woo boy, this is gonna be a long one and sorry for the wait anon but exams were killing me and this one took a while to put together, but I hope you enjoy!

So, yeah I’ve always pictured China as a person who’s very much keeping her vicious nature under control and yet, sometimes there are moments we see a part of it come out and yeah, here’s me trying to explain that!

Alright, so there’s three main things that give me this impression - China’s inner monologues, descriptions of her by those who she previously worked with e.g. Eliza Scorn, and her combat style - I’ll go through each of these sections in depth.

China’s inner monologues:

One thing I find immensely interesting when it comes to China’s inner voice and/or dialogue is that it generally seems to be in conflict, mostly in the ways she wants to accomplish her goal - often when China was forced into action in phase one, one of the first things that always is mentioned is her doing something that she wouldn’t have done before/wasn’t her first thought when it came to handling the situation - often, her initial reaction is something much more violent, cruel and brutal. Often, she has to remind herself of her supposed facade, of her grace and serenity, before she acts in a slightly less violent manner than she was considering.

EXAMPLES:

Her finger hovered by her elbow. One twitch would be all it took, and the pain would rise so suddenly their hearts would burst. Instead, she flattened her hand...

She smashed his head into the wall. It was so satisfying, making them hurt.... she felt the power snap through him and his whole body jerked wildly and he collapsed. She looked down. So, so satisfying... she closed her eyes, relaxing.

“He will not condemn me for my past actions, so long as I don’t revert to the person I once was. The war with Mevolent changed everyone who fought in it. We each saw things in ourselves that we would rather not admit to.”

“You beat me last time because I had grown complacent,” she said softly. “I had lost my edge. But I’ve had a year to get my edge back. Feel how sharp I am, Eliza?”

“You do not want to upset me,” China said, pushing her cup to one side. “You wouldn’t like me when I’m upset.”

Indeed, we even see this conflict mentioned in her dialogue when she talks to Prave:

“You know,” China said, “there was a time when nobody dared threaten me. I just wouldn’t stand for it. The amount of people I killed, of bodies I twisted and bones I snapped, all because they had allowed their anger to momentarily overwhelm their good sense. I regret it all now, of course. I was out of control. I was indulging the darkness inside me far too often. I was not, Mr Prave, a very nice person. But I have changed. I have allowed the years to mellow me....

But every once in a while, I get the urge....The urge for destruction. The urge to hurt, maim, kill. It’s quite a thing, to experience that urge, to let it wash over you, to give in to it. It’s addictive. It’s all-consuming. You lose yourself to it. It’s quite, quite wonderful. I can feel it, even as I speak, tapping around the edges of my mind, trying to prise me open, slip its fingers in. And it would be so easy to let it happen. But we’re all like that, aren’t we? We’re all barbarians at our core. We’re all savage, murderous beasts. I know I am....I know I roar very loudly indeed. How about you? Do you think you can match me?”

Simply put, China’s true nature is one a lot more impulsive and a lot more brutal than the facade she puts up.

Descriptions by others:

Secondly, one of the key things that crops up when people from her past describe her is her inclination towards violence and action - China’s neutrality is a far more foreign concept to them than it is to us as the readers, and this really does show:

EXAMPLES OF HER NATURE:

“China, because she enjoyed that kind of thing, went after your wife. By all accounts, it was a knock-down, drag-out fight.”

“Look at her face, Prave. Isn’t it a beautiful face? Isn’t it the most beautiful face you ever did see? But beauty is so deceptive. Looking at her now, you’d never guess that she was calculating the most efficient way of killing us, would you? There’s not a hint of that in those startlingly pale blue eyes. If we didn’t know better, we’d still be gazing at her, falling in love all over again, and she could walk right up and stab us through the heart, and we’d never see it coming. All because of that beautiful face.”

“What’s in the past is in the past,” China said. “I’m going to end up killing every one of you for all this, and one more name added to the list won’t make much difference.” Gallow looked at her, then at Scorn. “I thought you said she was under control.”

EXAMPLES TO DO WITH NEUTRALITY:

“It’s time to take off this mask you wear, to end this charade. You need to take your place.”

“My place is right here.”

“We both know that’s not true. You could no more turn your back on the Faceless Ones than I could. I have seen your devotion.”

“My devotion, as you call it, has waned.”

Vengeous shook his head. “You have sworn your allegiance to the dark gods. You cannot simply change your mind.”

“I expected more from you, China. When you left us, I thought you’d be back. No one could do the things you’d done and then walk away. I didn’t think it was possible.”

Practically all of them can’t believe her passivity, because to them, that isn’t the China they know and fought beside for however long. Instead, the China they describe reveals a much more darker nature than the one we see - a China who wasn’t valued because of the information she had or her manipulation of others - a China who was valued for her effective and brutal action against the cause’s enemies.

Indeed, when considering China’s role during the war it becomes much clearer that she was ultimately valued for her devotion and ferociousness, her brutality and her effectiveness

Her fighting style:

Lastly, that leads us to the final thing - China in combat.

Now, one of the criticisms I saw after Bedlam that surprised me is that people felt that when China was fighting in some chapters, it felt too ‘Tanith’ or wasn’t elegant enough.

But the thing is, China’s fighting style has always been extremely rough.

EXAMPLES:

Strength flooded her body and, when Mist reached for her, China grabbed her wrist and twisted, locking Mist’s arm straight and forcing her to her knees... China struck the back of her elbow. Mist shrieked and the elbow shattered and shards of bone ruptured the skin.

China parried the blow and chopped at Tanith’s bicep. Tanith back-pedalled, her right arm hanging uselessly, and China stepped in quickly and caught her with a solid haymaker to the jaw.... China turned her attention back to Tanith. She activated the symbols on both of her palms, then stepped up to clamp her hands on either side of Tanith’s head. Tanith arched her back and screamed.

She hurled daggers of red light and dived a rider who came at her with a sword. She slammed her forehead into his face.... “Skulduggery?” China demanded, breaking a rider’s wrist and jabbing her fingers into his eyes.

China hit him from the side... In an instant, China was leaning over him, her hand pressing against his forehead. He screamed, then went silent, but China kept her hand on his forehand, making his body jerk.

The sigils on China’s knuckles flashed into his line of sight right before she broke his nose... her fist crunched into his side, smashing ribs.

There seems to be an assumption that because China is seemingly filled with grace that her fighting style would also be this simple, effortless thing.

And in a way, it is, when one considers her discipline, with her sigils meaning she can easily defend herself in a moments notice. But China’s fighting style has never been about grace - it’s always been about effectiveness, taking down her opponent in the quickest way. Indeed, Eliza Scorn even mentions this:

“Looking at her now, you’d never guess that she was calculating the most efficient way of killing us.”

And, very often, the first thing we see China lose when she enters a fight is that grace as she practically springs into action.

EXAMPLES:

China, meanwhile, was getting down and dirty with the remaining mage. They rolled across the ground, China’s hair in her face. Finally, China simply grabbed the sorcerer’s head and slammed it down into the concrete, once, twice. Satisfied that her opponent was no longer a threat, she got up, breathing hard and looking angry.

All of these examples clearly indicate just how brutal her fighting technique is and indeed how brutal her natural response to things is.

Overall:

One of things I notice most when people simplify China’s characterisation is that they turn her into a weak, vain bitch who isn’t able to defend herself or a princess who views violence or at least being involved in combat as beneath her - the truth is, China has always been a paradox: The beautiful woman with the ugly nature, the self serving who was once devoted, the graceful creature who easily becomes the brutal killer.

Another thing people seem to forget that the China we meet in Book One is very different to the China the people who she spent the majority of her youth and adult life with expect- her neutrality, her commitment to her library and indeed her self serving nature are all very foreign to them - perhaps we should all consider why and also what she was like before she decided to leave the conflict.

Part of the reason why I love China is that there are so many hidden and unexplored parts of her personality and nature that are only hinted at - she’s not a black and white character, and often people’s perception of her changes when they try to simplify her character into something black and white.

And yeah, that’s the basics behind this headcanon!! Hope it all makes sense and if not, feel free to drop another ask or dm!!

[duckduck-buck]

Puppy meets Jealousy

Aka the second instalment of my fluff series: Puppy meets world. As always, I advise to read it on AO3, but just in case, here you go tumblr, that one’s for you.

——————

Of course things couldn’t stop at Princeton. Of course it had to go further than that. Of course there had to be another thing stealing Buck from him. Of course.

Now, Eddie and Princeton aren’t arch nemesis anymore. You can even say they are friends. But Leopold? No way. Leopold is a vicious, manipulative fucker who knows exactly what she’s doing. Eddie is starting to wonder if animals have a thing against him. 

Leopold is a cat. A gracious ragdoll with baby blue eyes that rivaled Buck’s—except it didn’t because Buck’s eyes are the prettiest, that’s a fact, Eddie does not make the rules—. 

Leopold’s name doesn’t suit her—who the fuck names a ragdoll Leopold anyway? Buck, that’s who—but she makes it work by skipping around, head held high and her beautiful collar with her name on it on full display. She loves it, or maybe it’s the attention she gets that she loves. Attention seeker.

Leopold is a cat, Buck’s cat, and she’s only been there for two weeks. Two weeks is too much in Eddie’s book because Leopold is a little shit who has all the Buck privileges and she knows it. She definitely knows because she taunts him all the time.

This time though, Eddie is not the only one who’s jealous, no! This time, Princeton, golden retriever extraordinaire, the greatest boy in Buck’s book—after Christopher but Princeton doesn’t need to know that—, is also incredibly jealous. And while Eddie is a broody jealous, Princeton is the whiney type. The two want Buck’s attention and they will have it.

If it’s a war Leopold wants, a war she will get.

.

Puppy meets jealousy

.

Buck got Leopold as a gift. It was his birthday and everyone was gathered at Eddie’s house because the loft was way too small to have everyone over. 

Maddie, the traitor, had brought with her a medium sized box and when her dear brother had opened it, a beautiful cat had emerged. Alright, more like, a cat had jumped out and almost clawed Buck’s pretty eyes out. Anyone would have been completely scarred and would have demanded for the cat to be brought back from where it had came from. Anyone but Evan fucking Buckley. No, the blond had decided right there and right then, that the cat was his baby and he would love her forever. 

He had also announced her name out loud in the span of five minutes of heavy staring.

Leopold.

Leo-fucking-pold.

Who names their cat Leopold? Who does that?

“You can’t name her Leopold, Buck.”

“Why not?”

“Because...that’s not a name for a cat.”

“You take that back!”, Buck had gasped, completely offended by what Bobby—his father figure, Leopold’s grandfather—had said, “She loves it!”`

The man had simply huffed a laugh and patted Buck’s shoulder with an apologetic smile, used to his antics.

And guess what, Buck named the fucking cat Leopold. 

.

Now at the beginning Leopold hadn’t been a problem. She was welcomed in the family despite being quite passive-aggressive with everyone. They had all thought it was simply because she wasn’t used to them but the thing is, she did warm up. To Buck and only Buck. The rest of them? Enemy. Particularly one Eddie Diaz and one Princeton the golden retriever. 

And she makes sure they know it. Every single day.

.

Princeton is a dog. Leopold is a cat. Naturally their relationship isn’t the best. Princeton is also a golden retriever, one of the nicest and softest dog to exist, happy-go-lucky, energetic, gentle and easy to be around. He is the station mascot and most of the time stays there, but he also leaves with Buck quite often. It’s not a surprise to see him at his apartment, curled up at the foot of Buck’s bed, or lounging on the sofa, his head in his best friend’s lap—yes, Eddie has accepted the fact that he has to share that title with Princeton, reluctantly—.  He wouldn’t hurt a fly, except if you count that one time he ate a butterfly, but he knows better now. He swears.

So can someone please explain to Princeton why is the newcomer, a CAT, looking at him as if he was an intruder in his own home? Buck is Princeton’s human. Who is this squatter and how dare they look down on him as if he was a simple visitor. And also, what are they doing in his best friend’s lap—Princeton’s place, not cat’s place.—The audacity of the feline species never failed to surprise him.

“Prince, stop growling, you’re going to scare Leo.”, Buck looks at him sternly, the kind of gazes that makes Princeton feel guilty. Ouch. That hurt. But it’s alright, because Prince’s human, Bucky-great-cuddles, doesn’t know how mean cat is. Princeton will show him.

.

Princeton’s plan to show Bucky-great-cuddles how mean cat is, failed. Terribly. It backfired on him so badly, he was put on time out. Bucky-great-cuddles is looking at him in disappointment and cat is looking all smug in the background.

Cat is evil, but damn, cat is good at this war thing.

.

Eddie is sitting on Buck’s sofa, waiting for his boyfriend to come back from his errant at the grocery store. His abuela had Christopher for the night. She’d told him that she would take care of Chris and that he should go and have a fun night with Evan. She had also closed the door with a wink and a wide grin. 

Eddie never wants to see that expression on her face ever again. It speaks volume and at that moment? The volume was astronomical.

So here he is, alone in Buck’s apartment waiting for him to come back. Or maybe not so alone if Leopold counts. The cat is laying on a small bed—made just for her—and she’s glaring daggers at him with her piercing blue eyes. He glares right back. It might seem ridiculous, but he knows the little devil. He will never forget the day she broke the glass that was beside him while Buck had his back turned and left with her head high. She’s up to something and it shows.

The room is eerily silent, saved for the faint sound of the TV playing. Eddie and Leopold end up in a staring contest and none of them ever waver.

It’s not until the front door opens and Evan’s pretty smile appears that they stop glaring at each other. Both of their heads snaps and Leopold struts to her master, rubbing her head on his leg. He laughs, and put the bags in his hand on the table before bending down to gather her in his arm. 

“Did you two have fun?”, he walks to Eddie and gently presses a kiss on the corner of his mouth—much to Leopold’s irritation if her sudden mewl was anything to go by. 

“Absolutely.”, Eddie’s smile is strained and he’s glaring dagger at the cat in Buck’s hand. It’s not even in jealousy anymore, just exasperation at her presence. Okay, there’s a little bit of jealousy there still. Just a tiny bit.

No, Eddie does not kiss Buck fervently just so he could drop Leopold. That would be mean and childish. No, he does not put his hands on his boyfriend’s hips and makes him fall on the sofa before following suit. No he does not start a full blown make out session, with Buck under him, Eddie does not let his hands wander, he does not pepper kisses on his cheek, jaw and neck, he does not bite. He does not.

Except he does and it’s great! It’s fantastic, perfect. Things are heating up, the desire for more is building up, their moves are more passionate, frantic and bolder. 

It’s perfect. 

But they can’t go on.

Of course, fucking Leopold would ruin the mood, of course she would stare at them so hard they both feel it. Of course she would take a very, very nice and hot and sexy—emphasis on the sex part—night from Eddie’s hands. Of course.

They could go upstairs and continue their little make out session, but knowing the beast, she would follow them. She oh-so would. And knowing Buck, he would never let Eddie lock her in her cage—useless cage—or in the bathroom or anywhere.

Leopold cockblocked Eddie. 

Fuck. She really is winning the war.

.

“She is the worst.”, Eddie has a deep frown on his face. His hot coffee is sitting in front of him, still untouched., “Even Princeton thinks so and he likes everyone.”

They are at the station. Bobby and Buck are downstairs, possibly with Princeton, checking the ladder truck. Hen and Chimney are both sitting in front of Eddie, listening to his complains, as always. Hen is holding one of those magazine she always have when she pretends she’s not interested in gossip; so he’s sure she’s attentively listening and is already making three plans to help him—or make his life more difficult. Chimney is not hiding his thoughts of how ridiculous Eddie is being, he’s smirking and rolling his eyes and Eddie is pretty sure he’s live texting Maddie at the same time.

“She’s a cat.”, Hen deadpans, looking at him from behind her magazine.

“An evil cat.”

“Still just a cat.”

“You don’t understand Hen, it’s like she just hates me for some reason.”

“The same way you hates her for no reasons?”, Chimney chimes in from his place, still typing furiously on his phone—he was definitely live texting Maddie.

“Am I the only one who remembers all the things she’s done to me? The broken glass? That one time she crapped in my shoe? When her litter box was right where it usually is? Or that time she scratched me because I touched my boyfriend? My own boyfriend?”

“Okay, so maybe she does have some kind of grudge against you—”

“—Exactly—”

“Or maybe she still needs some time to warm up to you, and to the rest of us...”

“But that’s the thing Chim, the rest of you don’t see Buck as much as I do. I mean, we’re dating! And I see her way too often, she should be used to my presence by now! She’s used to Christopher, hell, she loves him!”

“Who doesn’t?”, Hen mutters with a fond smile.

“True but not the point. All I’m saying is I need to find a way to get her back.”

“The cat? You want to get back to...the cat?”, Hen looks at him in disbelief, even putting down her magazine, “And I thought you were one of the sane ones.”

“It’s only us in this case Hen.”, Chim laughs.

“Keep telling yourself that Howie, there are only two sane people in this team and that’s Bobby and me, the rest of you are morons.”

“Hey! Can we go back to the topic at hand? Yes. Thank you. Give me ideas to, I don’t know, get her to tone it down or something.”

“I don’t know what to tell you Eddie, talk to your boyfriend about it?”

“Yeah, no, not doing that.”

“Forgot you were emotionally stunted.”

“What does that have to do with anything? And I’m not emotionally stunted, thank you very much.”

“Obviously.”

.

Modern problems requires modern solutions. That’s what Eddie will say when they will ask him why he did what he did. 

Edmundo Diaz likes to think he’s a very responsible person. Between him and Buck, there’s no doubt about who is the most responsible and level-headed of the two—even though, after the thing with the well, there would be an argument about impulsiveness. But he stands by his point. He’s a responsible adult with a child.

But right now, standing in the middle of Buck’s apartment with a cat in his arms, a cat that is not Leopold, he’s starting to think that maybe, just maybe, his boyfriend’s impulsiveness and tendency of having crazy ideas are starting to rub on him.

Modern problems requires modern solutions. For Eddie, modern solutions means going to the shelter, get a kitten, and coming back to Buck’s with a little companion. The kitten is adorable, grey with big and curious green eyes. Eddie already loves him. Hopefully, Leopold will as well because he got him for her. Or well, to keep her busy at least while he finally gets some alone time with his boyfriend.—Honestly, why did they let Buck rent such an open space apartment? Like? Why?

Eddie sets the kitten on the floor and let it walk around, under Leopold’s wide eyes, and looks around for his boyfriend, only to find him upstairs, rummaging through his closet.

“Hey.”

“Finally you’re here, I need your help with—”

“I have something for you...but don’t get mad.”

Buck raises an eyebrow, thrown off by what Eddie had said. What could he have done to make him mad? He follows Eddie down the stairs only to see a small cat walking around his living room.

“Eddie...why is there another cat here?”

“Modern problems requires modern solutions.”

Edmundo Diaz should really start thinking before talking. That’s usually Evan’s scene. 

Neither of them notice the kitten making his way to them until he rubs his head on Buck’s leg. The young man looks surprise but still takes him in his hands, petting his small head. At this moment, Eddie knows, Buck is completely sold. 

They keep the kitten.

.

In the end, the kitten is a good thing. Buck ends up naming him Charles X. When Eddie asks him if it’s because of X-Men, the young man just looks at him in confusion. Eddie is not surprised. Leopold adores him too, she never let him out of her sight and cuddles with Charles X, like, all the time, and that means that Eddie has Buck way more than he used to when the evil cat that Leopold is, was stealing his attention. She even seems to have mellowed down if the way she doesn’t stare or hiss at him anymore is any way to go by.

So, yes, maybe Eddie suffers Hen’s and Chimney’s endless teasing at any chance they get, and maybe Maddie dies of laughter every time she sees Charles X, and maybe Christopher now wants a pet as well, and maybe Abuela tells him that if he’s going to act like that, he should just marry ‘lovely Evan’, and maybe Bobby shakes his head in desperation every time the kitten comes up in a conversation, and maybe Athena and Karen both call him a drama queen whenever they see him; but Eddie would like you all to know, that he once again won the war for Evan Buckley’s love. Fair and square.

Buck does mock him too when he learns the reason behind the presence of Charles X, and he does tell him that there was no war and that he loves him the most—after Christopher and Maddie thought, which, wow, rude but fair—. 

Ah, and, yes. Princeton and Leopold are still enemies...but that’s a story for another time.

[thebibliomancer]

Dark Crystal Age of Resistance Tactics liveblog pt 9

Even though I already befriended the Drenchen forever last time, I keep hanging around a swamp because I heard there was a SkekSil hanging around and I wanted to see him in his natural habitat.

Zing.

Now that the Drenchen are my best friends forever (high five, Gurjin!), I have to save them from the Chamberlain doing Chamberlain things.

Mission: Bogged Down - Putrid Banks

"The heroes set out to aid a Drenchen encampment. Rumor has it that the Chamberlain has been causing trouble."

I hope he doesn't have any threaders. Thats too much mind control in one place.

Aw dammit a bunch of hostile Drenchen. I'm always fighting Gelfling! There's not going to be any left to unify after everything at this rate! Short-coming of the narrative, I guess. If it was set later in the timeline, we could fight Garthim and Crystal Bats.

Maybe the sequel should get on that, hint hint?

And there's poisonous swamp water everywhere!

My swamp dream team is Gurjin, Naia, Rek'yr, Hup, and Kylan.

Because they're my lowest levelled but also because Gurjin and Naia are Drenchen and are immune to poison swamp water.

Dammit, the Chamberlain told the Drenchen that my group were fugitives.

Gurjin, you're a prince or something, can't you do something about this?

Apparently not.

But things are going okay. Sure, I can't cross the swamp very effectively except with the pet Nurloc, Naia, and Gurjin but do you know what is very effectively?

Kylan and Naia as a combo. Mark plus Double Strike? Very good. Beating up all the fools/members of her own clan.

AND GURJIN!

I've never used Defeaning Roar before even though its been on his movelist for a while but I love the graphic for it! It creates a blue energy shell around the unit which they bang ineffectually on with their fist! Its like noise proofing, for annoying mages!

Rek'yr, as you might expect from a desert guy, doesn't take well to the swamp. Most of the enemies that have attacked so far have ganged up on him. But he's still holding his own.

I'm very proud of my resistance group.

And then I gang up on the last guy, stack him with conditions, and kick the crap out of him.

Then Gurjin delivers a speech about freeing everyone from the Skeksis' tyranny which everyone is too unconscious to hear.

Its a feel good victory.

EVERYONE LEVELED UP!

Rek'yr learned Evasive (passive +15 evasion), Gurjin learned Tempered Stone (attack up for three turns if critical hit), Hup learned Friendship (he had this all along (ok fine, buffs accuracy and critical chance to adjacent allied beasts)), Naia learned Flurry of Steel (attack and take your next turn sooner), and Kylan learned Aimed Shot (attack a marked enemy for massive damage).

Oops, Kylan got to level 5, so I have to start training him on Mender so he can be a Song Teller, like the prophecy says.

Gurjin and Naia will stay Stone Warden and Paladin respectively. Feels like good symmetry for them.

I'm just going around the wheel with Hup so he needs five more levels in Tamer so he can become a Potion Master.

Rek'yr I'm going to try to make a Grave Dancer because it sounds rad and because he flirts over funerary arrangements. But he's a level 5 thief now so I need to get him to Paladin, which means Soldier. Since I'm making him a fighty guy, I'm giving him the Dousan Axe.

---

Encounter - Putrid Banks - Fight a challenge to test your mettle

Always with the testing my mettle, geez.

Dang the swamp is full of darkened nurlocs and windsifters. This game is doing a slightly better job at making me remember the Darkening is an ongoing concern than the show.

Since encounters help you get more xp, I'm bringing my lowest levelled people Breg, Alyadon, Rian, Brea, and... Rek'yr? You just levelled!

New guy has to play catch-up a lot.

Well. That went well enough. Breg died. Poor Breg.

Rian leveled up so now I can start him on Stone Wardening so I can eventually make him the big-brained strategist of the resistance. And Alyadon levelled up so I can make her a tracker or thief. I forgot what the plan was for her. I don't have a dedicated Mender and she was one of those so maybe time to lean into that?

But if she's going to be in a basic job, I'm giving her nice things. A Dusty Tome so she can attack from afar, an Apprentice's Cloak because I was out of clothes, and a Pouch of Hollerbat Fur.

Decked to the nines.

---

Geez, you never get much money in this game. I feel like a really long time goes by between being able to buy next tier equipment for my party but other than grinding on Encounters (which don't give much) I don't see what I can do.

---

Mission: Creepy-Crawlies - Muddy Shallows

"Hot on the Chamberlain's trail, the heroes are stopped when they encounter an army of Arathim."

Dangit SkekSil!

My party is Breg and Rek'yr, doomed to always be the lowest levelled guys from some reason (its because Rek'yr just joined and Breg keeps dying), Brea and Boggi because a girl and her shouty dog is just classic, and Hup because Hup already knows Friendship.

The spiders talk, which I know they can do from the show but I don't think they've done in the game yet.

Gurjin: "Now he's convinced the Arathim to help him? We have to stop the Chamberlain and his manipulative ways."

Just keep Rian away from him. He's a good kid but way too easily swayed.

"Well this is not going great, what with all the spit but at least nobody as died so f- HUP NOOOOOO"

But despite spending much of the mission with most of my party hovering in low health, Hup is the only one who did die by the end. I'm surprised. Usually my team starts dropping like flies.

It occurs to me that this was a filler mission padding out a filler story arc padding out the show plot by having Chamberlain Up To Something.

Good news is that everyone level up!

Breg learned Evasive, Boggi learned Concentrate (Magic Up and Shell for one turn, take next turn sooner), Brea learned Landslide (Stun all adjacent units, nice), Hup learns NOTHING, Rek'yr learned to Shove people.

---

Mission: The Chamberlain's Deception - Drenchen Encampment

"The heroes reach the Drenchen encampment and confront the manipulative Chamberlain"

Well, I won't say no to kicking his butt a second and a half time and stealing his clothes again.

I do wonder if we'll get to fight more Skeksis besides the Chamberlain, the Hunter, and presumably the General.

Geez, this map is huge.

I'm bringing Deet, Gurjin and Naia (home turf), Kylan (because he's Naia's bestie), and Breg. Because I'm always bringing Breg. Poor guy needs more experience constantly.

Gurjin: "Begone Chamberlain! Your kind is no longer welcome, drainer!"

The Chamberlain: "Please... Skeksis come only to help Gelfling living so far away. We bring them back to the castle. GIve them much-needed food and supplies."

He has a trustworthy face, I say we trust him.

Rian: "Don't listen to him! He plans to drain you all for your essence!"

Then again, Rian is a protagonist. He might be right.

Chamberlain: "Wicked Gelfling spread lies! Capture the fugitives and skekSil will reward you all at the Castle!"

-me hits a Drenchen after they hit me-

Chamberlain: "You see! Gelfling here to hurt you"

I MEAN. It doesn't look good for us! 90% of what we do is roll into town and beat up other Gelfling!

Soo. I lost.

Its a bad setup. There's a lot of swamp water in the middle that Chamberlain can just sit on the other side of and lob his ridiculous 4 and 5 ranged apparently perfect accuracy confuse Please, Please and stun Spithead abilities across.

All the Gelfling enemies are Drenchen so they can cross the swamp water no problem or darkened armaligs which have ridiculous defense.

Chamberlain himself has 1000 HP. You only have to beat him but he plays keep away on the other side of the swamp. And if you try to keep out of his range, then he'll cross over but run away if you attack him too much. And he's seemingly immune to status effects.

Trying again with Rian, Gurjin, Naia, Brea, and Hup. The all-star squad.

And I lost again. Chamberlain is just too able to lock down the party with confuse and stun and not to mention converting your people onto his team. I even got his MP down to nothing and he still used an ability to I can't win via attrition either. And when you take out half the enemy units, he automatically goes hopped up on essence and can use Skeksis Friend to convert a confused team member.

I had Hup, who could clear confusion but he died.

Eesh, what a disaster.

Going to try Hup, Alyadon, Brea, Rian and Naia. Alyadon and Hup can both clear statuses, Brea and Alyadon can heal. Rian can hit things. And Naia can hit things but look cooler when she does.

Oh, shit I actually won. I lost everyone but Naia. Heck, I lost everyone but Brea, Alyadon, and Naia just getting across the swamp to where Chamberlain was. Hup and Rian both got cornered and slowly beaten to death =(

I had Alyadon mark the Chamberlain, then he executed her =(

I had Brea dreamfast to give Naia more MP, then two armaligs bumped her to death at the cost of their own lives =(

And then Naia did double strike AND IT WAS THE DRAMATIC LAST BLOW! GOOD STUFF!

I didn't denude the Chamberlain again but I did steal his Signet Ring and got a book of Drenchen legends.

The ring lets the equipped hero start battle with ten turns of Guardian's Blessing! Which means an auto-revive! I'd have to suck a lot to die in the first ten turns but STILL NEAT

Giving it to Naia, she more than earned it!

Drenchen Legends is a spellbook, grants a ranged magic attack with 30% chance to inflict poison. GIVING IT TO BREA, SHE EARNED IT! Plus, she loves to read.

And Brea and Naia levelled up, as befits THE LAST TWO PEOPLE STANDING.

PHEW

Brea learned Channel (grant adjacent allies MP regen? YES THANK YOU) and Naia learned Retribution WHICH IS VERY APPROPRIATE FOR HOW I GOT IT (50% chance to counter attack melee attacks). I kept wishing Naia could counter the whole mission when she was confused and being slowly beaten to death by a mender.

I spent some of my battle spoils giving some teeth to Gurjin and Rek'yr and buying Brea some bat fur.

And thats where I leave off because that is just enough for right now. I really thought I'd just be stuck at this point and have to grind on bar fights!

[thelawyerthatwaspromised]

Analyzing Jon’s Speech Patterns around Dany and Sansa (cont.)

*Spoiler, this is very long.

Awhile back, I did a statistical analysis of how frequently Jon spoke when he was around Dany as compared to Sansa (and Jon with Dany versus Jon not with Dany) (x) and discovered the following:

Daenerys dominated the “speaking volume” in their shared scenes in Season 7.

Jon’s was on screen with Daenerys almost as often as he wasn’t...yet he spoke about 3x more frequently when Daenerys wasn’t in the scene.

While sharing far less screen time with Sansa in S7, Jon still spoke nearly as much dialogue in their shared scenes as he did with Daenerys in S7.

Now, I’m sure some might be wondering why this matters. Maybe the scripts just didn’t lend themselves to Jon going on long winded monologues. Maybe shouldn’t be “how much Jon spoke”, but ��with what quality did Jon speak?”

This is focusing on the content of Jon’s dialogue in S7 to try to quantify what people who feel that Jon-Dany romance fell flat: it wasn’t bad acting, it was the deliberate withholding of pertinent personal information that defined the lack of depth in the build up to the Jon-Dany perceived romance.

First, I’ll describe my methods, then I’ll show some results!

1) I love statistics;

2) I am careful about how I use them;

3) If you’re reading this and think my methodology is unfair, go ahead and tell me why because I don’t like putting out predetermined outcomes

So here’s what I did...

I loaded Jon’s dialogue into textinspector.com

It’s a really useful tool that allows you to analyze text and speeches and gives scores for readability, textual diversity, and MTLD (measure of lexical diversity). MTLD essentially scores how measured language is used in a text. The higher the MTLD score, the more impersonal the text is and a lower scores means the text is more personal and casual. 

Basically you’d expect a scientific article to have a high MTLD score and a casual dialogue between normal people would score significantly lower. 

So from here on, remember that the higher the MTLD score, the more “formal” and less personal text is. It’s more thick with narrative. It’s deliberate and careful. It’s generally more disconnected with emotion.

I’m going to be showing the lines of text I included along with the scores. This isn’t perfect as the engine for some reason didn’t recognize certain points as whole sentences but it doesn’t matter for this exercise because I only focused on the words themselves, not the number of sentences spoken. Also, I did this manually so it’s entirely possible some words or lines were missed but I’m pretty sure I got it all.

Ok enough setup, here we go:

1) Jon’s interactions with Dany were very imbalanced quantitatively 

Dany spoke significantly more than Jon. I already knew this from the previous stats post I put up, but it was confirmed again. Here’s a word count summary:

First meeting word count: Jon 270 / Dany 505 Granting Dragonglass word count: Jon 22 / Dany 112 Cave Scene: Jon 83 / Dany 83 (!!! first even scene!) Drogon Petting: Jon 26 / Dany 122 (back to normal) My Queen scene: Jon 43 / Dany 97 We’re fucked scene: Jon 55 / Dany 150

Right away you can see the imbalance. The cave scene is the only one that wasn’t drastically imbalanced, but it ended with Dany demanding that Jon bend the knee, mirroring the demands Stannis set for Mance in order not to burn and for his people to survive. Eesh.

That speaks to the quantity of their interactions only. What about the quality?

[much more under the cut]

2) Dany started impersonal; ended with wearing her heart on her sleeve

Probably not too surprising whether you buy into a Jon-Dany relationship or whether you think Jon is manipulating Dany...but it’s nice to see empirical data backing this up anyway.

Here’s the rundown from Dany speaking to Jon:

A) First meeting: I split the first meeting into two parts; the beginning where Dany was just meeting Jon and it didn’t become completely antagonistic and the second half where Dany lectures Jon about what she’s gone through and tells him her personal story. It gets more personal...so I would have to guess that the MTLD score is higher for the first half and lower for the second half...the first half being more impersonal and the second half becoming more personal as she grows angrier with Jon.

Here is the written text.

Remember, if I’m correct, then narrative and formal text should score higher on the MTLD scale. The higher the number, the more impersonal the lines.

This is the MTLD score for the first half of the scene where Jon and Dany met.

A score of 94 indicates that this is very formal. Information dumping, asking rhetorical questions, etc.

This is the written text of the second half of the scene.

Passionate. Angry. Contentious. Much more personal. 

And the MTLD score? (should be lower)

About 75 now. Well, that makes sense. Let’s go on...

B) Granting the Dragonglass

This is Dany seemingly trying to stay impersonal with Jon after he reacts more or less silently to her inquiry about his brothers. The MTLD score should be higher. There’s nothing else very personal here.

94. The pattern holds. She made an initial inquiry but it went nowhere so the formality continued.

But Dany looks back. And that’s key.

We’re given a visual clue that she’s softening to him.

C. Dragonglass Cave / Drogon Petting

I put these two scenes together because I see them as Jon’s two biggest attempts at swaying Dany before the wight hunt. The Dragonglass cave is where Jon appeals to Dany’s reasoning. He uses some personal touches (like, literal physical touches) and gazing looks, but ultimately he approaches Dany with more words and information.

The Drogon petting scene is different because it’s almost entirely based on a gesture meant to impress Dany. Think of Quentyn Martell in the books trying to tame the dragons (and burning to a crisp). There’s no other reason for Jon to just waltz up to a dragon and pet it, especially when Dany had Drogon land and use the same stalking movements that have always been meant to intimidate people. Jon tries a gesture to influence Dany but I think it’s similar to the Dragonglass scene insofar as it’s a display of Jon being proactive in trying to sway Dany directly.

By this point, Dany is starting to become very attracted to Jon. This is perhaps the scene in which the ACTUAL equal coming together of Jon and Dany was the most possible. He approached her with the big picture. He tried to stress working together. He used what he could to show her that the enemy is real. As already pointed out, the dialogue word count is even for this scene. Dany appears genuinely interested as he’s showing her the cave. An alliance hangs in the balance.

The MTLD score should be dropping at this point if I’m right.

54. She’s speaking “to” Jon, not just “at” Jon. She’s trying to figure him out. She’s taking more time to explain herself. She’s asking meaningful questions. This is what happens to an MTLD score in this kind of text, it drops. It’s less academic, more personal.

“I’ve seen you staring at her good heart.”

“Ser Davos gets carried away.”

D) Jon leaves Dragonstone / “My Queen” scene

Jon’s got Dany really invested in him. There’s really not much more to say. Here’s the written text, and the MTLD score.

39 MTLD. You get it now, right? The more she gets wrapped up in Jon Snow, the more personal she’s getting, the more she’s giving him a glimpse into her soul and it’s reflected in this MTLD score that I’m using as an impartial empirical measure. I am quantifying for you what we see on screen; Dany is getting more personal with Jon as the season goes on.

6) Dragonpit and We Sail Together

I’ll save you the suspense, the pattern holds for the Dragonpit scene and the We Sail Together scene.

Dany conclusions: Starts out trying to talk tough...softens...falls in love...reveals everything to Jon.

3) Jon started informally and then completely shut it down

Yes, it’s completely true. Jon and Dany had sex. But that’s about all they shared mutually. Seriously. Just wait until you see this.

The first time Jon meets Dany, he is speaking passionately, from the heart, and with honesty. His MTLD score should be low then, right?

MTLD score of 47 for the first scene. Keep this in mind. 

Wanna see something funny? This is all the dialogue Jon Snow spoke 1 on 1 to Dany for the ENTIRETY of the rest of the season.

This is as personal as Jon gets with Dany the rest of the way. I see tons of narration. I see passive participation in the conversation. So, again, if this holds then the MTLD score should be pretty high, right? Remember, my theory is Jon spoke passionately and personally and then learned that he can’t do that and that he has to be a passenger. So his score of 47 from the initial meeting should be at least somewhat exceeded here.

*edit note* the screen cap above doesn’t have about 3 sentences but the MTLD score below includes those*

Almost 90. There it is. Jon spoke one on one with less personally than he did when they first spoke as complete strangers. He was simply observational and/or narrating the things around him. “You weren’t gone long” - “you’re still here” -etc. 

This is also where I have to point out that Jon spoke just 40 sentences  (give or take...remember, some of the punctuation messed up the sentence counter) to Dany one on one after his initial meeting with her.

And let’s dive deeper in WHAT Jon actually ever says to her.

This is where I ask you to play a game. Forget that you might know what Dany says in response in these scenes. Try and figure out what Jon is talking about just by reading Jon’s dialogue.

Something’s amazing, Tyrion likes to talk, Jon didn’t expect something from her, but thanked her. Hey! We know something about the Children and the First Men and working together and that Jon’s people won’t accept Dany. We know there are some gorgeous beasts. She went somewhere, and Davos exaggerates. 

Uhhh ok...this is going well.

Jon’s really sorry about something and regrets going. He thanks Dany, then not Dany. And.....WHAT THE FUCK SHE’S HIS QUEEN NOW? People are going to see what she is - that she isn’t like everyone else - and someone unreliable told her something. And that Tyrion said they were fucked and Jon agrees.

Epic love story.

Do you see what I mean when I say that Jon didn’t reveal anything to Dany? He held back any meaningful feedback except in 4 instances. 

His most passionate dialogues were: 1) Their first meeting when he says why he won’t bend the knee, 

2) explaining the need to fight together in the dragonglass cave, 

3) on the dragonstone beach where he asks her not to use her dragons to melt castles and burn cities, 

and 

4) pleading with Dany to allow him to leave because it’s the best chance for the world to survive extinction. 

And true to form, Jon’s  passionate pleas get a lower MTLD score of 68. This is real!Jon and it matches up with his MTLD scores in other settings.

Conclusion: Jon tried to engage with Dany as equals and as potential partners. He was discouraged by her conduct and then shut down everything. His dialogue became colder and more impersonal as their supposed love story was meant to be “heating up”. Their perceived connection is based entirely on visual cues.

4) Jon’s behavior with Sansa is significantly more balanced and personal

Just another Jonsa lyin’ about Jonsa again! But seriously, it’s empirically true.

Here’s the word count overview:

Jon-Sansa reunion word count: Jon 176 / Sansa 170 Tent scene before BotB: Jon 133 / Sansa 237 Battlements: Jon 86 / Sansa 47

The word count pattern holds in S7. Jon and Sansa speak about equally following the pardons of Ned Umber and Alys Karstark, Sansa speaks more words when Jon seeks her counsel about the scroll from Tyrion, Jon speaks more words when he’s telling Sansa that he’s leaving for  Dragonstone.

It’s an interesting side observation that the word counts are pretty even but I’m more interested in the MTLD scores for Jon and Sansa.

Remember, the lower the score, the more personal the dialogue has been as a pattern. 

Jon and Sansa should be scoring very low in S6 - Jon should be scoring higher in S7 because (as I’ve written) I think he’s intentionally trying to distance himself from Sansa due to uncomfortable feelings about her role in his life. 

First, the reunion. 

Jon’s score first, then Sansa’s.

54. Very personal. Intimate.

47 from Sansa. Very personal. Intimate. Their MTLD scores are also close to one another indicating a mirroring.

Now how about the tent scene? 

It’s contentious. Sansa is begging Jon to listen to her. Jon becomes agitated at Sansa’s protests. Sansa’s MTLD score should be lower than Jon’s but they both should be lower. First, Jon.

69 (nice) or 70. A little elevated, as expected. But still lower than the 90 Jon displays with Dany. What about Sansa?

55. Again, slightly elevated but lower than Jon’s. And, AGAIN, even though they’re disagreeing, the numbers are far closer between Jon and Sansa indicating that they are about as equally emotionally engaged in the conversation.

How about the scene on the battlements?

The pattern holds again! In case you’re wondering, Jon speaks with an isolated MTLD score of 52 and Sansa a score of 55. Incredibly personal. Emotional mirroring. Equal emotional engagement.

*EDIT FORGOT TO ORIGINALLY INCLUDE JON’S MTLD SCORE FOR THE S7 E1 SCENE WHERE I BELIEVE HE’S TRYING TO EMOTIONALLY DISTANCE HIMSELF FROM SANSA*

AND YES THE PATTERN HOLDS AGAIN!

It’s no accident either.

Jon and Sansa are consistently in the 50′s with each other and that number elevates with everyone else. Jon is usually in the upper 60′s- 70′s for scenes excluding Sansa and Dany while Sansa averages in the 70′sand goes up to even the 90′s in scenes without Jon.

Let’s play the “can you understand what’s going on in the scene just by Jon’s dialogue” game again. This time with Sansa.

They used to eat some particular vegetables. They shouldn’t have left. They couldn’t have known something probably because they were children. Sansa was occasionally awful, but Jon was no fun as a kid either. He insists he has nothing to forgive but then forgives her. They have bad ale with the Night’s Watch. He must watch over her or a ghost will murder him. They can’t stay there, though, because something really bad happened. The Boltons seem to be where they want to go. He doesn’t have an army either. I guess there’s someone available but they’re not there to serve him. He’s tired of fighting. Damn. He’s fought a lot. He’s killed brothers? Wildlings? Men that he admires? A young boy? He lost, too? This guy’s been through some shit.

Someone has a new dress...oooooooo. He’s stuttering over his words. Then he’s thanking Sansa for something. Davos saved Jon and has a reputation because Davos served Stannis. But there’s no time.  For what? Well apparently to get more men. Someone’s overconfident. Jon has been probably doing more than playing with broomsticks. Ok this is an argument. Oh, it’s about Ramsay Bolton. A bad character, but Jon believes he’s fought worse. Jon doesn’t want to give up on Rickon. Is Rickon a drug addict? Anyway... 

He’s apparently getting obvious advice now. He still is being told he needs to get a larger force but he doesn’t think it’s  possible. Black sea creatures are not coming to help. He won’t let this bad man touch Sansa again. He’ll protect her, he promises. And now he’s decorating her room and making her bed. He’s not a Stark and Sansa is in charge of WF. She deserves it and they’re there because of her. Jon lost the battle until Sansa brought the Vale - and they came because of Sansa. Now apparently a Baelish guy had previously sold Sansa to the bad people. Jon insists that Sansa and he trust each other. And Father promised...something? Hmmm.

But do you see what I mean by the quality of Jon’s dialogue completely blowing away the quality of his dialogue with Daenerys? Either it was an accident and they didn’t realize they had Dany speaking over Jon repeatedly and that Jon had completely passive and DIFFERENT speech patterns than he’s displayed anywhere else (speech patterns completely devoid of meaning or exposition) - or- this was done on purpose. I’m, again, betting on this being intentional.

Overall conclusions:

A lot of people have called the J/D romance weak...and I think it’s intentionally written weak.

Jon is demonstrably different after the first scene with Dany.

Specifically this moment.

This is when, in my estimation, Jon made his judgment of Dany. He never ever spoke like this to her again...and really he hardly said anything at all from this point. Especially in moments when he was isolated with Dany.

He let her talk. He let her and her followers tell him what she wanted to hear. He even copied her own lines. 

"People thought dragons were gone forever but here they are. Perhaps we should all be examining what we think we know." ~Dany, ep 3

"I never thought that dragons would exist again. No one did. The people who follow you know that you made something impossible happen. Maybe that helps them believe that you can make other impossible things happen." ~ Jon, ep 4

And he completely allowed himself to become a passenger in their conversations judging by both the word counts and the quality of his conversation.

I’ll leave you with this. These are the lines spoken by Jon alone with Daenerys the rest of the season.

The skepticism of the Jon-Dany romance isn’t just plausible, it’s quantifiable. 

It’s one-sided and it’s setting up a pretty dramatic final season.

[mister-maiden]

Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. A love letter to metroidvanias

Betcha thought I was gone.

Guess again, Cultists.

From the faint sound of a piano in the background to the delicious plates of meat and apples hidden in the walls, Bloodstained just screamed Castlevania at me and I simply couldn't be more overjoyed. Just..UGHHNN man, this game scratched a certain itch that was lingering on the tailbone of a mildly neglected butt that is my Castlevania pants. And man this just DID it for me.

For starters. The graphics are absolutely stunning in most areas. From your roaring ships on the seas to your books flying from the walls. Nothing ever seemed out of place for its unique animation style. The only game I could really say it reminded me of was Castlevania: Symphony of the night.

It has this gorgeous atmosphere to it of Victorian style that played throughout the game, throwing a twist to every trope it could find. Water areas, fire areas, gearpunk are- you get the shebang. It's a wonderful adventure...however, this could be seen as a bad thing.

Several rooms made me feel like I was just...*going through* them you know? As in there was simply absolutely no substance to it besides having it be a room for a mid-weak level enemy. This made it worse having to go back and farm enemies for certain items and drops...Looking at you Dragon Eggs and Beast Milk...though honestly, this gripe may just be due to my personal tastes. Though this can be easily avoided if you use Johannes the alchemist to destroy certain items for their components...but this is hella expensive.

Speaking of ememies!...um...Well yeah.

Bosses were cool! Well. Some bosses. Half of the bosses made me feel like I was just smashing the attack button and standing in one place while the better bossfights forced me to change my playstyle, spells, hell even my equipment. They did a great job with the bosses that interacted with my own placement, but did a poor job with bosses that could be beaten without even moving.

There are many enemies as well. Several I recognized. The walking grunts that walk at you viciously. The giant that does tons of damage but is easy to read and dodge, the smalll....ANNOYING ENEMIES THAT DO DAMAGE AND ARE IS NIGH EKEHRJ-

The enemies were nicely done. All with their own weaknesses and strengths according to the abilities and weapons you used. A small enemy could be dispatched quickly through a broad stroke of a great sword or a bigger enemy with armor pierced with a spear, ect. I don't have anything good or bad to say about the enemies because they just feel...*alright*. I mean there's just really nothing special to these enemies compared to enemies in other games. They were just there to be there..nothing wrong with that though. The only gripe I had was the lack of diversity in demons. They were just three different stages of the same demons I face in the beginning: Weak, mildly strong/strong, Giant. That tactic of making the player feel like they are progressing felt sort of cheap. A darker enemy of the same model isn't different enemy

What was far more important and interesting was the ABILITIES each monster gave you.

See, through the game, every monster you face has the chance of dropping a shard which bonds to your character's body, giving her several abilities. Ranging from fireballs, bats, and burning acid to shadows, increasing your strength, and more.

You may equip up to four regular spells called conjure shards

A passive shard which passively increases a stat or provides some benefit

A directional shard which allows you to point the spell with your hand via the joystick.

A manipulative shard that manipulates objects and spaces around you.

Skill shards, which gives you passive skills you can turn on and off. These are probably some of the most important shards in the game which are generally found after a boss fight.

My FAVORITE shard: Familiar shard! Allows you to have a familiar along the screen! My favorite being this cool little silver Knight that blocks projectiles c:

Each shard has their own circumstances to be used and best creatures to be used against which is great. Just the rediculous wide range of spells allows the player any range of choice and playstyle. My favorite is flooding the screen with bats. You may upgrade.

Weapons and armor are always in supply. Some found in secret areas while others are only unlocked via finding recipes for the alchemist to make. All have their own merits with some holding special skills you can use on monsters (example: a specific spear or set of spears allows you to sprint forward at rediculous speed). Sometimes I felt like I wasn't doing any damage before realizing I had to move on to the next weapon tier. Sometimes this can workout poorly for games since the progression relies on how well you do damage instead of how skillful you are with how you use your weapon, but I didn't seem to mind at all of Bloodstained's usage of the tiered weapon system.

Now, with over 100 of spell choices and weapons to use against a wide variety of enemies, it can be a hassle to constantly switch between spells and weapons in the menu...which is why the game introduces the quick select wheel!..later...in the game...which was a huge issue for me personally.

The quick select wheel came a bit later in the game which was strange since I had quite the number of spells and weapons I had. A problem I saw immediately with it was that I had to actually unlock more quick select slots by finding them, hidden and scattered through the game. I think this was a poor choice due to how the game encourages the player to play with their setup yet constricts them by locking these slots that didn't need to be locked in the first place. Maybe it was to give more incentive to the player to experiment with their mobility, but I still don't enjoy it. They should have had all options unlocked.

So now that we have combat and art out of the way, I'll talk about the TOWN features.

As in other metroidvanias, we have a homebase like area which holds several quests and people of interest to talk to. A farmer which can be given seeds to grow crops, a nun which gives you fetch quests to find items in the field to say goodbye to the fallen, an older woman whos hunger knows no bounds. Another nun who is a merchant for you and will also buy your leftover shards, and a fellow alchemist who will transmute items into weapons, armor, and whip up a nice plate of food for permanent stat boosts.

The merchant Nun, or Dominique, will sell you potions, alchemy items, and ingredients. Generally these items are...fairly overpriced, but rightfully so so the player doesn't progress too easily. The prices never change too which makes her interactions pretty concrete. It was nice not having to farm for basic items for potions c: so thank you, Dominique.

Then we have Johannes, our resident alchemist which is where a lot of our time is going to be spent.

Johannes takes the items we find from monsters, and puts them to good use my transmutation. He's the man who helps us make our ultima keyblade!..well, stronger weapon. This can be a tad annoying as some enemies take quite some time to farm, but it wasn't a hassle as I could teleport to the room and kill them until I got the item.. honestly this felt...a tad tedious? Then again, not a huge farming fan of repeat killing a monster, but it was needed to get some items.

Johannes also has an option to make you food from the ingredients you find from monsters! (Great idea to cook meat from demons) these meals give you permanent stat boosts after your first bite, but subsequent meals of the same food won't give you anymore bonus stats.

A special interaction is the ability to upgrade your shards! Using items from the monsters you kill (generally the same demon that gave you the shard), you can upgrade your shards to give them a new effect and make them stronger! The shards can be leveled to level 9 and are maxed out from there. This is one of my favorite parts of the game because how ridiculously numerous these spells are in effects. Hell, I can summon a dragon so he can just SMACK the screen like a fly swatter. Nothing makes you feel as powerful as watching a dragon head you summon just spew fire on a defenseless boss.

Now quests. These are...pretty underwhelming and are accomplished simply as you walk along to be honest. You'll finish these without even realize it because of how simple they were. These felt pretty weak in comparison to the rest of the game, but I mean hey, gave me some cool items. These could have been more fleshed out or maybe given the player some better quests that weren't just *fetch this*. Quests were the weakest part of the game.

Story was..uh...well. I'll be honest. My girlfriend even witnessed as I called the plottwists one by one and it was sort of sad. Don't play this game for the story. Truly don't. There isn't a good story here. The story is only here to drive the action and gameplay which is what the developers focused on. The game comes with multiple endings, the true ending being a tad cryptic to get to without knowing a certain secret of what to do with a weapon, but regardless, the story atleast made sense...has just been done before.

Now. Should you buy it?

If you're a fan of metroidvanias...I'd say the price is worth it. About 20-30 hours of gameplay for the avid metroidvania fan..I think (I'll start recording how long it takes me to really finish something hah)

If not a fan: wait for a sale. It's something great to have and pickup. With some gripes about quests and enemies while also having praises for the enhance system and spells, I enjoyed myself. I really did. It was fun. I put it down a couple of times because it was just too much with how large the map felt sometimes, but after getting the hang of mobility and the teleport system, it really felt like a castle to run around in.

-------------------METRIC-------------------

Pros:

• Spell system is EXCELLENT. I wish games had this many spells.

• Combat was nice with weaknesses and different strengths to each setup and creature.

• Map is widely varied.

• Artstyle felt like a callback to Castlevania as well as the music

• Long and worth the pricetag.

• Repayable

•Freakin familiars, man

• Decent amount of weapon choice (even if all do the same weapon attack as a weapon in their same category, each weapon felt like an upgrade.

CONS:

• Reskinned monsters are not good replacements for different monsters. Please don't do that...it feels cheap.

• Story was uninteresting

• The quickslot should be available from the very beginning so I can customize my character. It shouldn't have been a skill.

So that was my review on Bloodstained c: I really enjoyed it after getting used to the controls...also fun tip...USE the backdash. It helps so much in certain boss encounters where every action counts.

Have a nice Sunday, Cultists c:

[laurasauras]

so, i think the main thing that bothers me about crimes of grindelwald is that it reinforces this idea that’s been bothering me for a while and that’s my growing disillusionment with jk rowling. this is a loooong post, so i’m chucking it under a cut. tl;dr, i've fallen out of love with the series and much like falling out of love with a person makes you realise that they were always kind of annoying, that’s what’s happening to me with her.

everyone and their dog (with the exception of jk herself) has realised that her inability to leave the books she wrote alone has stifled a fandom space that was one of the first wide spread communities that was outright encouraged to create and this is objectively a bad thing. the fact that her fans are being told the “correct” and “canon” answers to their big questions in the series is objectively a bad thing. fandom as a concept is a collection of people dedicated to consuming media in a deeper way; we reject the notion of passive viewing and search for meaning in the way that our high school teachers would be delighted in. i think enough people have talked about that that i don’t particularly need to.

here’s the thing that’s just hit me though: the saying “don’t meet your heroes” used to feel like a far off concept, because i wasn’t doing anything special enough to justify ever meeting my favourite author, and for over a decade if you asked me the “who would you have dinner with if it could be anyone in the world?” my answer was probably her. except now that has happened.

to clarify, i haven’t had dinner with jk rowling. but thanks to twitter, it kind of feels like i have. and the story goes the same way the cautionary “don’t meet your heroes” story always goes in sit coms. for the first half hour of dinner i was delighted to hear more about her thoughts when writing the harry potter series and learn tid bits that she never included. she mentioned the charity work she does, said she supported me no matter what and highlighted enough issues that gave me the impression that not only was my favourite author just as engaging in “real life”, she was also a good person. for the next little bit she showed me what else she was working on and i have always loved her writing style, so i enjoyed that too. i looked forward to seeing where she was going from there, to what new stories i could enjoy as i grew older.

and then she started talking about harry potter again. i was glad, at first. i thought i could never hear enough about it. but cursed child was bad. i like reading plays, i knew that wasn’t the issue. i decided that she had put her name on it but she had delegated the story to other people because i couldn’t quite connect the baby’s first fanfiction storyline with the woman i had grown to know over the rest of the dinner. and fantastic beasts was ... good? but so wholly unnecessary. i decided that she just wanted to keep giving to charity and this was how she was doing it. 

and then, just when i was starting to hint that the dinner party was over and she could leave now, five minutes ago (really i just wanted to go to bed and pretend like the only things i’d ever heard for her were the words written in her books), it all clicked into place.

they’re all the same story.

harry potter was so successful because children connected deeply with the idea that one day a giant would knock on the door and take them away from the bullies and the boredom and into a world of magic. harry was an average boy who made mistakes and yet did remarkable things. and harry potter is, really, a very long, very detailed fairy tale. once upon a time there was a boy who lived with his wicked aunt and uncle. this is how he saved the world.

(i could easily make this argument for the casual vacancy and the cormoran strike books as well, but i’m going to stick with the newly franchised “wizarding world” for clarity.)

spoilers below for cursed child, fantastic beasts and crimes of grindelwald.

in cursed child, there were a lot of minor problems that niggled at me that are very similar to the things that niggle me about the twitter feed of jk rowling, she seemed intent on retconning her novels to have more meaning, in name dropping this, that and the other as if providing her fans with the ability to go “oh! it’s the trolley lady! i remember her! how cool that she’s significant and also a horrifying monster!” but my major grievance was with the “twist” that voldemort had had a daughter with bellatrix lestrange (in what time, seriously, when did she have the 9 months to spare) and she was going to bring her daddy back to wreak havoc. and this to me seemed like yet another “the ordinary person is more significant than you thought!” story, which seemed lazy. why did delphini have to be related to the two biggest villains in order to want to bring voldemort back? could she think of no other reason for someone to want that? (no, she couldn’t, she couldn’t think of any reason to siding with him in the first place other than “they’re the bad guys, the slytherins”.)

(another grievance i have is that jk rowling has no idea how to write a realistic villain. or rather, when she does succeed in empathising with why someone would hurt another person, she refuses to see them as a villain. snape and dumbledore would make very interesting antagonists, but she’d much rather have “he was conceived under a love potion and therefore is incapable of love” be a reason for doing great harm than “people have been telling him he was a fantastic person since he got top of his class in transfiguration and he is sure that he could make the world better if only people would do as he says without questioning him ever”. side note: jude law absolutely nailed the manipulative dumbledore vibe in crimes of grindelwald, that was literally the only good part of the film, that and the jangly cat toy thing.)

and okay, that was fine, i was just going to pretend that cursed child never existed. i think i am not alone in that camp. and the first fantastic beasts story was pretty good, nothing to write home about or like, remember after you’ve watched it, but a fine way to spend a couple of hours. and then she pulled the same move with crimes of grindelwald!

oh, guess what, this boy who was the main character in the first movie and now has no personality in the second movie, yeah, him, the one who was abused and who tried to hide his magic but it came out in explosive ways, yeah, he was dumbledore’s little brother the whole time.

because he couldn’t just be any abused kid. because again, the fact that it doesn’t make sense and the timeline does not fit is irrelevant. it’s punchy, it’s another name drop, it’s gonna make the audience gasp. i mean, it made me and the friend i saw the movie with laugh out loud, but the intention was there.

how could the perfect dumbledore family abandon a child like that? hey, this is starting to sound exactly like the tragic and complicated backstory we already got in deathly hallows! and hey, wasn’t that already kind of a reference to the way harry himself was treated?

i’m just tired. i’m tired of this new laziness making me re-examine the original series and realise just how shallow that was too. i’m tired of liking fanfiction more than any of the things she’s written. i’m tired of well meaning family and friends buying me harry potter mugs and slippers and whatever else for christmas because i was in love with this franchise from the age of 7 and i don’t have the heart to explain that the increasing consumerism of it is one of the many reasons that my love is firmly in the past tense now.

so, i don’t think i’ll be touching my harry potter fanfics for a while. it sucks to officially abandon projects i spent so many hours on but i went to try and reread so i could continue one and i’m tired of that world. i hope it isn’t forever. the books were such a huge part of my childhood and have absolutely influenced me as a writer. but for now, we’re on a break.

[redrosecrown]

Character analysis: Sebastian Michaelis

-This character is fantastic and methodical in so many ways. In a sense, Sebastian Michaelis (The name given by his master!) is more or less like a computer or a robot at the first glace; he can recreate the Big Ben Tower into the most detailed way; can execute the orders of the master in very precise manner; can remember a huge amount of information; can even murder without a second thought when ordered or when convenient, but I believe that there is much more to him. Despite that we don’t even know about his origin or even his real name, I analyze what we know and hopefully help you understand him better. As always I’m happy to receive your thoughts on this.

-There aren’t many things we know about his past. What we know of him is little to what we wish we knew. He and Smile didn’t discuss that much about Sebastian’s past, and it seems that for some reasons Smile doesn’t want to talk to Sebastian about this topic. It seems that in the past, Sebastian didn’t use contracts with humans to get the souls, that he ‘sampled every dish.’ We don’t know much about contracts, or when they were started to get used, but it seems that (At least according to my opinion!) that Sebastian stopped ‘sampling every dish’ for the reason that he found this immature or at least very animalistic. He finds it distasteful that humans are controlled by their unconsciousness or ‘primitive’ instincts, and therefore he tries hard to be in control of himself. That’s why he chose using contracts in order to feed himself; he doesn’t act like a ‘beast,’ and can win over his hunger and demonic instincts, making him feel that those instincts don’t control him, but he is the one controlling them. I think that Sebastian is quite strict on himself, and a perfectionist. I mean just look at his expression caused by the words ‘Despite being so hungry, you cannot help yourself.’ This guy definitely hates being helplessly demonic.

-There is also one thing about Sebastian’s past I don’t see mentioned at all. It seems that Sebastian ‘caused quite a commotion’ in the ‘Schönbrunn Palace’  in the capital of Austria. I wonder if Sebastian ate the soul of a Prince or Princess or something like this. I imagine Sebastian with a mask on a ball, mesmerizing ladies and princesses(Or even princes and lords!) with his charm and dancing skills.

-We all know about Sebastian’s obsession with cats. Not to mention that his personality is quite catlike: pedantic, predatory and playful. Sebastian seems to be quite fond of cuteness, and he is someone who doesn’t truly enjoys being mean to the innocent. He actually seems to be nice to the ones he finds cute or innocent. 

-Also, he finds cats and sleeping Smile the best things about serving Earl Phantomhive.

-Sebastian is a true perfectionist and quite a narcissist. He gets hurt when others don’t like him, but from what we know demons are incapable of feeling strong advanced emotions. But, what are strong advanced emotions? Basic emotions are fear, anger, hunger and lust. What I’m talking about are emotions like love, faith, hurt enough to cry, etc. I think that he got hurt when Smile rejected his help, after Madam Red was murdered, and that especially when he thought that Smile cared about him getting hurt, when in fact he didn’t. 

-He also was angry at Smile for putting himself in danger by not shooting Madam Red,  or by preventing Sebastian from killing Madam Red. Just look at his expressions during Aunt Red’s funeral. 

-I think that Sebastian and Smile were passive-aggressively fighting during chapters 12,13s, until Sebastian confronted him. Smile didn’t like what Sebastian said to William about humans, and maybe he found those words offensive, and Sebastian didn’t like how Smile behaved during the confrontation with Grell and Madam Red. As an indicator for this is that Smile didn’t tell Sebastian that he paid for the prostitute’s grave, as we can see from Sebastian’s surprised expression. 

-I’d like to say a few words about the friendship of Sebastian with Agni. He probably was the only human that truly impressed Sebastian. Agni is the ‘epitome of a butler,’ and by saying those words Sebastian puts Agni on a higher place as a butler than himself. That says a lot about how much Sebastian admired Agni, especially since Sebastian is quite a narcissist. Sebastian has high standard on himself as a butler, and it’s not surprising that Sebastian is surprised by Agni’s devotion. No human was ever as devoted as Agni. But, also Sebastian was highly impressed by Agni’s numerous skills. I personally wished I met someone like Agni.

-Sometimes, I think that Sebastian sees Smile as an extension of himself. Not in the sense that he thinks that Smile is part of himself, but in the sense he wants to be looked serving a master looking as perfect as him. Sebastian always makes sure that Smile looks nice, and has a decent reputation as an Earl. Sebastian can quite fit in the human society.

-Sebastian has a set view on how a human butler should be, and he pays a great deal to appearances. I noticed that when Sebastian was teaching Smile in the beginning of the contract, he behaved in the same way as tutors acted during the Victorian time; he wore glasses to look more teacher-like; he made himself look in his early 30s so he would be more trusting as an Earl’s butler without looking too old as well. We know he doesn’t like being called old.

-In one of her blogs, Yana Sensei has stated that Sebastian ‘prefers a specific outward appearance, no matter if it’s a man or a woman.’ That makes Sebastian a bisexual, doesn’t it? But, if it’s an order or convenient, he doesn’t have any complains.

-Sebastian doesn’t lie as we know. But, I’ve seen comments about something that he said to Agni.From how I see it, Sebastian was just muttering to himself. He wasn’t saying anything to Agni. Sebastian wasn’t lying when he said that he didn’t say anything. It was just thinking out loud.

-There are a few things I’d like to know, or I imagine, about Sebastian. I wonder how he would be while serving a decent master. Would decent people make a contract with a demon? My guess is yes, but if that happened he probably would be a lot different. He acts according to their master’s wishes, so he definitely would be quite different. Another thing, I’d like to know about Sebastian is why did he choose to look like Vincent? If Sebastian was asked something truly impossible by Smile, like bringing his parents back to life, what would he do?

-Regarding demons’ true nature, we all know that they are evil, manipulative and ruthless, but I always wonder if it’s necessary for them to eat souls. No one can decide what one needs, so if they can’t survive without eating souls, are demons truly evil? It seems that Sebastian is a special case for preferring contracts over sampling, as Yana sensei stated in her blog, so I guess demons in the Kuroshitsuji world really have the nature we always presumed they have.

~ By Red Rose Crown ♕

-This is my first post in this blog. I hope you like my analysis. The next one I think will be Madam Red. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to ask. 

[heckstetter]

Hi~ I just found your blog and really enjoyed your gang/reader post! It's got me wondering though, you know how in many posts like this the gang is portrayed to be the toughest shit ever? Like no ones dares mess with them? Well what if at some point that wouldn't be the case? Like if Derry got quite a few new kids & young adults who could very well hold their own against the gang? Like the teens from the Outsiders if your familiar with the book/movie? ((Ah will continue in another ask!))

((Continued)) The thought of the Bowers gang suddenly no longer being the top dogs is a very interesting one to me, maybe even with them being the target of billing themselves? Patrick for example who would be a 'creative' bully could end up dragged into a bathroom and have his mouth washed out by some other teen he'd have insulted or so. It would also be super interesting if Patrick's passive parents would go visit family and leave him with a college-age babysitter who could deal with him.

Oh man!!! Oh boy, I love this ask!!! Thank you so much for reading my post, I hope you continue to read and enjoy my stuff as I get around to posting more!

To really get into the meat of this ask, I think pretty much everyone in Derry would flip their shit if the Bowers boys weren’t on top of the food chain anymore. I’m not familiar with the Outsiders book/movie, but I do have a lot of OCs, a lot of fandoms, and highly active imagination and I’ve really thought about how it would play out.

During the initial introduction to the new residents in town, Henry would try to put the newbies in their place. Let them know just who was running the show in Derry, y’know? So maybe he got his ass fucking beat the first time he tried to show them what’s what, he was just tired from school. Then it happens again. And again. And Henry is about to lose his god damned mind. His whole thing about bullying, at least to me, is a way for him to feel in control of an aspect of his life because he certainly isn’t in control or even safe in his own home. A newcomer in town who not only has the fucking guts to stand up to him but also the skill and muscle to kick his ass would completely flip his fucking world upside down and he’d shatter. He’d stop torturing kids smaller than him, he’d stop riding around town like a dick, he’d stop doing... pretty much everything really. I think he’d stay over at Vic and/or Belch’s places a lot more than usual because they’re probably the only places he doesn’t have to feel scared but probably ends up being terrified and paranoid 90% of the time regardless. I think he’d fall deep into a depression because while his bullying is fucking disgusting and not a healthy coping mechanism, it was the only one he had.

On the other hand, I think Vic and Belch would more or less stay the same. They’re not big on initiating fights and torturing kids the way Patrick and Henry are, they’re just more or less along for the ride with their friends because who cares if bullying is wrong, I’m just here to have a good time with my friends! Like, after maybe the second time they lost a fight to the newcomer(s), they’d most likely realize that a big change in the pecking order of Derry would be coming around but the thing about Belch and Vic is that they’re both incredibly loyal to Henry. They’d quit making asses of themselves and spend a lot of their time picking up the pieces of their broken friend and try to maybe have some sense of normality to the rest of their high school years.

Patrick, however, is a whoooole ‘nother beast. I think that Patrick’s primary interest in Henry was the power he held over their peers and the influence he’d have by being associated with him. He’s a solipsist (I’m not sure if I spelled that right?), he believes that he’s the only one who is actually real and I think that besides Avery (y’know, the little brother he murdered) that Henry is the only one who comes across as almost real to Patrick and a lot of that comes from his place in Derry’s society. As soon as the power shifts from Henry to someone else, I don’t think Patrick would be really interested in staying Henry’s friend anymore unless whoever was putting Henry in their place was just insufferably good. And even then, I think his role in the Bowers gang would go from one of the iconic Boys(tm) to their acquaintance who they used to bully people with I guess? Patrick is difficult to handle even when he’s manipulating his way onto your good side, so I think that scenario with the soap could probably happen especially around the time the power imbalance begins, but ultimately I think he’d rather be around whoever can grant him the “authority” he likes having and he’d probably feel like whoever is on top of the food chain now is the closest anyone else will ever get to being as real as he is. Regardless of how the newcomer(s) feel about Patrick when they first arrive in town, he’ll adjust aspects of his behavior accordingly to manipulate his way to staying on top. 

But that’s just my thoughts on it! Thank you for the interesting ask, I really like playing around with this idea c:

[heir-to-the-diamond-throne]

Rover Red 02

The Ricketts episode!!

She just says hello? Just..just like that. Omfg she’s going to be taken advantage of so much I can already feel the rage coming on

“That’s silty” I love this slang omg

SHE RANG THE DOORBELL AGAIN

“Are you a Rover?” THE MAN ASKS THE SMALL CHILD DRESSED UP IN A ROVER SUIT WITH A ROVER BLADE AND ROVER GEAR

What the hell happens at the ceremony? Is Leah missing something vital? And why does the man relax once he finds out she’s a Rover? Are they expecting someone else to visit?

SHE DOESN’T EVEN KNOW WHAT THE PLACE IS CALLED. WHICH EDGELORD NAMED IT APOCALYPSE? 

EVEN HE ASKED ABOUT THE MAP. I WAS SO RIGHT.

Holy shit E.V.i.E. comes through! Leah this time listen to the suspect monitoring device screwed into your head and maybe NOT trust everyone you meet with delicate internal information on how the Rover Compounds work? Especially as you know of at least two now that have been destroyed?

Also Leah bby we have to work on your subtlety and lying. You are not good at it at all.

“Who’s your brother?” / “Jonah.” / “Never heard of him.” ffs why would the guy know him as Jonah? He doesn’t speak! Even if he had once gone to the skyscraper how would he tell them his name??

Oh shit. He knows the mute boy..

Uh oh..

RICKETTS!! I LOVE HER!

“Its quite embarrassing how Leah tells people she’s a Rover and then doesn’t know the proper way to interact. I’ll help her. I guess.” - E.V.i.E. who are you talking to?? The Rover Council or the creepy voice? Also you could have stepped in a lot sooner!

A beast from the upper levels? Fed, comfortable, and entertained? Knowing what I do about Famine that is actually horrifying. Ricketts what do you do..?

The beasts “volunteer” a member to experience the life of a Famine Noble? Why would they need to volunteer? Surely they would be vying for a place? Something isn’t right here. Why do they not want to be a noble?

E.V.i.E keeps making snide asides and I am LIVING but also going to kick E.V.i.E’s ass for not helping my baby. WHY DON’T YOU TELL HER RICKETTS IS LYING?? WHY ARE YOU LETTING HER WALK INTO THIS BLIND? IF LEAH DIES SHE WON’T BE ABLE TO GET HERSELF AND JONAH TO YOUR CREEPY VOICED FRIEND

“Tell me all you can of this mute boy, Jonah.” - UUUH WEREN’T YOU SUPPOSED TO KNOW INFORMATION ABOUT HIM? WHY DID LEAH ENTER THE CREEPY DEATH TOWER IF YOU DON’T?

Oooh E.V.i.E can tell when OTHER people’s heart rates pick up? Interesting.. And it seems everyone is obsessed with Leah and Jonah’s blood.

“A shame, really, she might have been of value to her if she’d been related to the boy by blood.” - E.V.i.E how do you know Ricketts is thinking this? Unless E.V.i.E knows because all the high power players want Jonah for the same reasons.. If that’s the case then WHY WHY WHY is she letting Leah go in blind! Do you know how much trouble she’s going to get into? She’s like a cat! This is going to rapidly spiral out of E.V.i.E’s control lmao Leah is so innocent and reactionary that she’s going to mess up any and all plans they have for her.

She needs something in exchange? Baby this is shady as fuck just get out of there already :( 

Wooooow Ricketts REALLY doesn’t like Jolene (jolene, jooleeee~ene!) Also why the fuck would Leah know her? She’s obviously green, even your beast picked up on that. Also you’re trying to manipulate the fuck out of her and it’s WORKING gdi everyone fucking with my child today! She’s had a rough week LEAVE HER ALONE (Also Ricketts/Jolene would be an amazing hate OTP lol)

oH finally! Leah gets a map!

omg my baby has no idea how to negotiate! She’s going to be taken advantage oooo-oH MY GOD RICKETTS THOUGHT LEAH WAS SAYING NO TO HER! BABY SUBTLETY! SUBTLETY! PLEASE! YOU’RE GOING TO DIE! WHO LET THIS CHILD OUT INTO THE WORLD?! SOMEONE WRITE ME INTO THIS STORY SO I CAN GIVE HER A BLANKET AND HIDE HER AWAY FROM THE HORRIBLE PEOPLE FOR GODS SAKE

This is so stressful D:

Oooh ok maybe Leah might live after all.. Also Ricketts don’t pretend like you wouldn’t give your left arm for the necklace. I’m sure you can spare two minutes so Leah can think. You’re going to get around everything with loopholes anyway.

“My hearing is superior to yours” - sassy E.V.i.E strikes again

Leah needs to be more specific? E.V.i.E you love making her jump through hoops don’t you? I’m pretty sure you would have been able to answer that without wasting time.

“I want every bit of information you have on Jonah so I can find him myself.” Leah. Leah baby. How will you know she’s telling you everything? Matter of fact how wil you know she’s telling you the truth? She could lie through her teeth and you won’t know the difference! 

You know, E.V.i.E, you could just be helpful and tell Leah these things before she has to ask stupid question, instead of...oh I don’t know...making snarky asides about my child’s incompetence?? Just a thought??

HE HAS A BRAND ON HIS BACK! LEAH STOP TALKING OUT LOUD WHEN YOU’RE IN ENEMY TERRITORY

Hoooly shit my baby is brilliant with a sword! You go baby! Make Ricketts backtrack! That’s right don’t turn your back on them!

“I suppose that could have gone...worse.” - yeah no shit sherlock! You sure didn’t help her much!

Yes Leah! Get E.V.i.E to read you the book as you travel! That would save time and then you would know when people (and AIs) are trying to take advantage of your ignorance! 

A hand with a straight razor cutting through the devils tail?! I guess the same edgelord who named it Apocalypse also designed the sigils jfc

So the Famine necklace was found IN the compound when her brother went missing. My guess is someone is trying to either frame Famine, or frame Jolene. Also it looks like my guess about someone using the tunnel for nefarious reasons is true. Poor Jonah :(

Who is the message for? Ha, my baby is finally calling E.V.i.E out! The message is for Jonah? Why would the bloody smiley face be for him? wasn’t it for whoever went back to the table? AFTER Jonah was kidnapped? I think there might be two messages and they’re being confused into one.

“Have you ever once opened the book of Rover?” ok that should be pretty obvious E.V.i.E

OOOOH THE THING IN THE PREQUEL IS ROBOTIC! FROM CONQUEST! Why does Conquest want him so bad? Also how did they suddenly get so much cool technology? Was someone feeding them stolen goods from the Rover Compounds? Or were they the ones who attacked and destroyed the facility that made the E.V.i.E’s?

omg E.V.i.E is being sassy because she’s been mimicking Leah lmao!

Oooh! Another message from the Rover Council! YES LEAH GET THE MAP KEYS. 

WHAT? LEAH NO. WHAT USE WILL THE MAP BEING AFTER YOU’VE FOUND JONAH? WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO THEN? YOU’LL HAVE ALREADY TRAVELLED HALF OF APOCALYPSE! OOH MY GOD MY BABY IS NOT GOOD AT FORWARD PLANNING

Ok so she’s in an abandoned building. How many of these are there? I guess she’s in the city proper right? Aren’t there scavengers and other people of Famine/Conquest to worry about? SHE’S ALL ALONE :(

Leah, how do you not know what sports are?? Surely they must have had some competitions when you were practising swordsmanship or working on your fitness?? Or did the Elders not include that in their training like they didn’t include a lot of other things?

“You could just ask someone.” - E.V.i.E you KNEW that wasn’t going to work! Also how long did you REALLY think it was going to take until Leah snapped? She’s been putting up with your passive aggressive stuff for days! 

Leah, bby, you go kick their asses! Hahaha Silt-Eaters!

Oh

Oh shit

Ok well that’s one way to quickly get into see Jolene..

Leah seems to be pretty touch adverse.. I wonder if she’s suffered from some past trauma.. was she old enough to be there for the Silt attack that took Jonah’s parents? Did it come from there? I hope she’s ok

[killingdoll]

Warnings: spoilers, careless language, messing up the order of events

I began watching the episode with an uneasy feelings, mostly due to the spoilery bit that Kol was going to betray his family. Even when I finished watching and known that said betrayal was neither too serious nor having lasting effect, the feeling didn’t go away. I’ve learned well that betrayal and shifting alliances were fundamental to this show and I was also aware that everything Kol did he did for Davina, who isn’t only his love but also his savior, who risked many things to bring him back to life, and Kol wasn’t wrong in trying to save her life. Still, that nagging feeling seriously got in the way of my enjoyment.

  In fact, let’s say this is the episode that I’ve least enjoyed so far.

“You can’t betray your family.” Davina has me surprised when she says this. Perhaps it’s just me but I find this line quite jarring because it’s a bit out of character to her.

Is she afraid that Kol’s siblings will punish his betrayal?

“It’s kinda my specialty.” Here starts my uneasy feeling.

  I struggle to understand Kol’s logic in not telling his siblings about the Hollow’s manipulation of him and Davina. Not only that would save a lot of shouting, furniture breaking, beating and an almost daggering in the later part of the episode, it also helps with the general plan to save Davina and kill the Hollow. Kol honestly thinks he can protect the Hollow’s totem against all his family, especially Klaus, who later proves in no way he can? Why can’t Kol just go like “I have the bitch’s totem, you guys can help me unlink Davina and then we’ll put all hands on deck to waste that bitch”? It’s not like the Hollow puts a surveillance on him or Davina, occupied with her little mind game that she is. Kol’s free to go and do stuff and Davina’s free to go and do stuff…

Besides Kol’s incomprehensible logic, there’s a couple of things in this episode that has me baffled (and contributes to this episode being my least favorite). Let’s go over them.

The overly simplified solution to unlink Davina from the Hollow. When it was presented in the last episode, I believed that this link would create a major conflict between our heroes’ desire to destroy their greatest enemy yet and protect their family and their morality – like when Freya and Elijah made a hard choice to sacrifice Davina last season. But no, all it needs to break the link is a spell from the first season and one power but inexperienced little witch. Isn’t the Hollow’s magic supposed to be ancient, much more complex and thus harder to undo than one Sophie Deveraux’s?!

Rebekah and Marcel’s passiveness in this episode. Despite Rebekah’s claim of urgency, she and Marcel practically spends the better part of the day sitting in the magic circle and poking at each other like five-years-olds. Seriously. Why doesn’t Bex just torch the house like she originally intends and go back and MAYBE lend Freya and Hayley a hand? You know, the two of them against an ancient, wicked witch with many tricks up her sleeve.

The Hollow’s motif remains as hazy as it’s been for the last episodes. Although Vincent was thoroughly and utterly terrified that once she began to walk the earth again she’d burn New Orleans to the ground, massacre everyone, et cetera, et cetera – typical mass-murdering villain stuff. So far she hasn’t done anything befitting his prediction yet, aside from slaughtering several witches but it’s New Orleans and people die every day, nothing out of the ordinary. And now she implies that she wants to die?! Seriously. Which villain in the right mind would spend so much time and effort just so s/he could die, well, except TVD’s Silas but Silas had had that intention from the beginning while it seems to have come out of nowhere for the Hollow.

Who were the bodies killed by the Hollow? Were they her followers as Marcel indicated last week? Her reason to kill her own minions is beyond me. I get it she’s a heartless, sadistic bitch but doesn’t she, like, still need them to do the dirty works for her?

Why does the Hollow just leave Freya with a little mind trick instead of killing her? Let me make myself clear: I don’t want any harm coming to Freya but it’s nothing but strange that the Hollow allows her to just lie there, with the weapon still in her hand, while she plays with Hayley. Hello, Freya has come to kill her. Shouldn’t she take more caution with her enemy?

Why doesn’t Davina ask the Harvest Girls to help her unlink herself from the Hollow?! Four of them should be enough for this spell, right? (Davina unlinked Sophie and Hayley in season 1 just by herself). They may have some beef with the Mikaelsons but not with Davina; why shouldn’t they help her?

Julie Plec & co. ‘s opinions regarding the relationship between Hayley and Elijah. Yeah, I’m talking about Plec’s decision to break a central romance in one of her shows which is very likely Haylijah, given Hayley’s absence at Elijah’s resurrection and her monologue. I have to roll my eyes at her [Plec’s] logic though: Elijah, who has never raised his voice at Hayley, who has always been nice and loving to Hayley, who has always respected her boundaries and decisions, suddenly becomes the abusive one because his Beast, the manifestation of his darkest self that Elijah has tried to restrained, attacked her in his subconsciousness. Hello, “everybody has those days” and “nobody’s perfect”, to quote Hannah Montana. I just don’t get their need to paint Elijah as the bad one and make him take the blame in the show where everyone, save Hope, has their fair share of equally terrible things. Oh, wait, they did the same to Stefan too. I’m dreaded to see where the train is going from here.

Just exactly how falling for someone who makes you feel safe (not to mention loved and respected) is “messed up”? And, supposed Hayley was dazzled by the suit and the gallantry, she had, like, seven years to see who Elijah was, how he treated her and made her own judgment. At the beginning of the season she hadn’t given up on him despite the time gap, why suddenly now?

Oh, while we’re at it, let’s keep in mind Plec is the woman who has been relentlessly baiting crazy shippers with the ultimate abusive ship Klaroline.

Ah, Jackson. How I not miss thee in the slightest. Here I thought Jackson topped my list of most annoying character (no offence to his actor though) but it appears Hollow-Jackson just beats real Jackson and takes his place.

The Hollow sure loves her mind games. You know who else also loved mind games? Silas, who happened to share lots of similarities with the Hollow. Let’s see: ancient witches, extremely powerful, kinda immortal (but can be killed using mortal methods), feared by witches young and old, prophesied to be destroyer of the world once freed/resurrected while in reality they just kill a bunch and wanna have fun, love getting into people’s heads, are blood-related to our heroes and at one time would masquerade as them. Is the Hollow’s story used to be Silas’s story which was scraped away in lieu of the Travelers’ boring one?

Silas and Idahu should be a match made in heaven (or hell for that matters).

Seeing Kol’s little moment with Hope reminds me of the sore lack of interaction between Elijah and Hope as well as between Rebekah and Hope.

I guess Marcel and Rebekah’s banter and later kiss are supposed to be serious and emotional but I just find them comical. Don’t know why.

Ah, Kol’s bringing up Cami to get Klaus’s “charitable moment”.

Well, at least one couple gets their happy ending right.

And no one bothers to at least text Marcel that Davina is resurrected, not even Josh. Rude.

So, in the end, it’s just Klaus and Freya who stay by Elijah’s side. Why isn’t Rebekah there? Doesn’t she want to see her brother right after he came back from the death?

Really, Elijah could write a long poem about having his mind shattered and his heart broken. Has he reached his quota for bad luck this year yet?

Side trivia: all three of Mikael’s sons died and were resurrected.

Two more episodes before saying goodbye.

[Rant] A Spirit Here That Won’t Be Broken – The Originals 4×11 Warnings: spoilers, careless language, messing up the order of events I began watching the episode with an uneasy feelings, mostly due to the spoilery bit that Kol was going to betray his family.

[pastelpunkpizzapower]

The Bride of the Red Leader Finale (I mean it) TW: Realistic Violence/Grimdark, Head Trauma and Possible Animal Cruelty are involved.

Well... this is the end, beautiful friends; after less than a year, this is my fanfic’s final chapter.

It’s been a lot of fun~ I’d like to thank each and every one of you who made this journey with me....this fanfic wouldn’t have been anything with out you.

Hopefully, it left you with some good memories so until we meet again (as in, when I make another EW fanfic), stay gold.

Bang.

(Raise your hand if you know what I was referencing there, now let’s get this Birthday party started because April 15th is the day I officially turn 18 and it’s also @dorksandoodles‘ birthday as well so wish 'em a happy birthday 2!)

Fanfiction.net Link: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11976509/13/The-Bride-of-the-Red-Leader

“Help me.”

Edd’s POV

I awakened by a scent that perked my nose.....a scent that faintly reminded me of a campfire but with a sour, toxic hint....I open my eyes to find myself in a little house, lying on a bed in a hospital gown with a somewhat familiar face cradling me; even though I don’t remember or even know his name, I couldn’t help but try to wake them up but all I was treated to was discovering the bullet holes that where stuck in his head.

“Ready for the honeymoon, soul mate?”

I gasp at the sight of a menacing-looking man with a psychotic look on his face, carrying a gun on one hand and clutching an unknown object in the other; since I presume he was the one who shot the other man who may have been trying to protect me, I decided to run as fast as I can from him but then he starts running after me, looking even less like a human and more like a beast who was ready to snatch me away from safety and gobble me up whole~ I keep running through the labyrinth of the house until I finally begin to notice a broken window; it looks pretty dangerous and I might get hurt, considering how jagged it looked, then again would I really choose the risk of getting shot (or worse) by the crazed lunatic over just a few little scrapes? the answer is obviously no so I decide cowboy up, jump out of the house and into the brutal cold outside where I start looking for a safe, warm place for me to hide away through the blinding blizzard I was stuck in.

As the blizzard begins winding down, I finally see something in the distance that resembles a sweater; not really the exact "safe" thing I was looking for but it did look "warm" but my relief turned into heartbreak when I found out what it really was; It's really a little critter that was caught in a bear trap, the poor little soul....I feel so bad for it that......I begin crying......and I decided to hold the remains of the little angel and pet it as if it where alive, after all, it was probably looking for something too...perhaps someone to give it some love and attention.....I'm such a sap.....

Todd's POV

I've been waiting and waiting and waaaaiting for a single response from none other than my insane boss, the Red Leader or as some know as “Tord”, I wonder if he caught those three yet? I knew it was a terrible idea to split up....boy, I'm hungry, maybe I'll call up and order a pizza...wait, darn it all, then out cover will be blown! man, this rots...suddenly the phone rings, it's finally a response from Tord.

"Hey there, R.L. Stine, did you catch Edd?" I asked.

"Close but no cigar, although I did manage to kill Tom and Matt so they won't go rescuing my guinea pig again~ do you see Edd anywhere?"

"No sign of him yet, boss."

"I'm counting on you, man, you better find that little munchkin alive."

"Yes, sir."

After he hung up, I was searching through the vast winter forest; nothing so far....oh hello, what's this? a figure from not-so-afar hunched over, holding something? Time to take him in and get my promotion! I quickly get up from my seat, jump out of the tank and sneak up against the figure...although it's a little hard to tell because of the storm going on, I can safely say that-hey what the?

"We caught him, m'am! we caught the red leader! over." The figure shouts into a walkie-talkie/phone of her right after she handcuffs me.

"Good work kid, we'll be right over in a bit! over, out."

They must have mistaken me for Tord, which kinda makes sense really, but I didn't wanna get blamed for all his dirty work so I had to do what I had to do once the helicopter dropped in a dozen soldiers with guns aiming at me.

“You’re under arrest, any last words?”

“I’m not the Red Leader!”

“Ha! and I’m the Queen of Atlantis~ take him in before he does anything risky.”

“I’m serious, you got the wrong guy!”

“Prove it.”

“See that wallet in my pocket? fish it out.”

“Alright, you better not be joking.”

She fishes the wallet out of my pocket, finding some photos of me and my dearest brother, Tord that points out the differences between us and thank God she believes me....or does she? judging by the look on her face, she’s probably gonna ask me some more info and with a suspicious glare, she does so.

“Spill us some more home truths and then we’ll un-cuff you.”

“Okay, okay...I know his whereabouts, see that little house east of here? he’s inside there with the bodies of two men he killed and he’s been wanting me to find this person he kidnapped to take over the world by making him a giant robot.”

“And how do you know all this stuff, are you psychic or something?”

“....I work for him.”

“Hmmm makes sense, all we needed to know; free him, ladies.”

They finally get the handcuffs off of me, but as I walk home I hear a loud blast and something small yet very painful hit the back of my head three times; all I can do is fall on the ground, covering my wound and curse out my killers as my last visions on this very earth are apparently snow, blood and my very last breath.

“Hey, we didn’t say we weren’t gonna shoot a commie like you~ now my soldiers, let’s go because we have bigger fish to fry.”

“Yes, m’am!”

.....

Tord’s POV

I looked everywhere for Edd, he must have escaped from under my nose yet again, it’s as if the odds are against me winning; on second thought, he probably took the same route I did: sneaking through that broken window~ that must have been classic stupid Tom’s doing, oh well! I might as well search for the chubby little chipmunk yet again and this time, I’ll definitely have him right where I want him! I walk up to the door to continue my never ending journey, but instead of getting hit by a snowstorm, it’s a group of other soldiers from another army ambushing me with bludgeoning weapons; I tried to use my gun but along with the ring, it was knocked out of my hand.

“HOW DID YOU GET HERE!?” I roar through the harsh beatings.

“A little birdie told us.” One of them giggled sweetly, if not passive-aggressively before hand-cuffing me.

“Tord Lars, you’re under arrest for your crimes against Europe, take this sicko away from my sight immediately.”

“What do you plan on doing to me? the big house for a little time out?” I tried to laugh in an aloof tone.

“We’re gonna bring back the guillotine back in the mother country for what you’ve been doing all these years.” the leader replied.

“Wait, are you gonna confine me first?”

“Nope! straight-up, first-thing’s-first, guillotine for you.”

“I’m just gonna escape again!”

“If you do, we’re just gonna shoot you in the head just like we did with the little birdie.”

Well, I guess this is where my story ends, plan after plan of trying to concur the world, all those soldiers that where killed, all my manipulations, contraptions and what not where apparently all for nothing and only one question remains: who was this “little birdie” anyway!? no matter if I’m in heaven or the other place I am seriously giving them an earful!!

The Chief’s POV

As the soldiers left the room, I spotted some sort of doo-hickey on the floor, must have been a wedding ring or something; I take a closer look to realize it was no ordinary ring, but one of Public Enemy Number One’s typical devices~ I don’t know how it works but I’ll probably find a way to destroy it later so I tucked it safely in one of my pockets.

On our way back to the helicopter just as the storm finally died off, one of my most trusty soldiers noticed a figure wandering around in the distance.

“Hey, you all see that over there?” I asked all of them.

“Nope.” One of them replied before the others guided them with their fingers pointing at the stranger.

“Let’s go offer ‘em a hand.” I replied, leading them to the person’s path.

As I got a closer look, I saw what the stranger looked like: a short, fragile-looking male in a hospital gown, silently crying while holding a cat in a bear trap; finally the poor boy looked up at us uttering one word before collapsing on the ground: “......Help me.” which in truth made all the soldiers began to go “Awwww” with sympathy in their eyes until you-know-who-by-know breaks silence with: “That’s my bride!”.

“Bride, huh?” One of them asks with a disapproving look.

“Tell us more about this “bride” of yours and why did he end up like this.” said yours truly.

“Long-story short..” he trails off as all of us, including the stranger and the dad cat who where in my arms, hustled into the helicopter.

....

That night, before the day Tord is officially executed, he promised a little earlier to permanently bring back Edd’s memories in a little room within our database and just so he doesn’t pull a Houdini on us, all of us keep more than a close eye on him, watching his every movement with weapons in our hands; I swear for one moment I see him shaking in his boots~ serves him right.

“What’s the point of bring back his memory if I’m not free to go afterwords?” He whines.

“Because you’re a dangerous, dangerous man and you need to at least fix one crime before paying for all the others now put that ring on that little pinky finger, then take it off and destroy it so it won’t be used to harm anyone again!” I bark at him.

“Alright, fine, hold on.”

We patiently wait a few minutes before Edd’s memories return to their rightful place and watching Tord tinker around with the settings on the ring for a little bit; finally, Tord clicks a little switch from underneath and slips the ring onto Edd’s finger, but little did we know that so-called “justice” may have been the biggest mistake any one of us ever done~ within moments, the boy went from an emotionless, fail thing to a blubbering mess, crying out the names of who I presume where loved ones of his; it was already to late since Tord throw the ring on the ground and stomped on it to smithereens.

Honestly, it made me wonder who was the real monster in this scenario....

“TOOOOOOM!!! MAAAAAAAAATT!!!! RIIIIINGOOOOOOOO!!!!!!”

And now, for a sneak peek of my next fanfic! *confetti*

“Woah, what’s this little guy doing in my room?”

“Awww, it’s a little me!”

“GET OUT OF MY SMIRNOFF YOU BRAT!”

Edd and his friends Matt and Tom are just your three regular guys, but what happens when their own, much smaller counterparts give them the power of technology and song?

Stay tunedd and thanks for reading!- Juli

[ghoultyrant]

FoZ Notes 1

In part as an attempt to force myself to finish Familiar of Zero and move on to Twig, I’m going to be posting my notes to Tumblr, one volume worth of notes per day. I can read an entire volume in a day if I don’t put it off, it’s just so stomach-churning I struggle to make myself.

We’ll see if it works.

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

Familiar DETERMINES affinity. Interesting implications for crossovers. Though really it's probably more like "this is how we discover your affinity". Familiar runes take a minute to apply, uncomfortably hot. (Inconsistent whether it's "just a moment" or more on the order of a full minute) Occurs post-kiss. No explanation or justification is given for why Louise kissed Saito on the lips, rather than the forehead -I find it difficult to believe the ritual actually demands lip-to-lip contact, given some of the creatures being summoned. Louise is treated badly, openly, with authorities (Colbert, in this case) not interfering unless she pushes back. People essentially ignore Saito. Unclear if it's because he's a Familiar or because he's being interpreted as a commoner. Unclear why everyone assumes he's a commoner -how would they know he's not a mage? Louise finds it plausible Saito has never seen a few magical beasts, including griffons, by virtue of interpreting him as a commoner. Saito passed through a "sparkling mirror-like object", which was elliptical, floated above the ground, and had no thickness at all. He felt electrocuted passing through, though only mildly. Two giant moons. Louise is quick with the groinshot when Saito seems to be attempting to rape her. (Because Saito is a fucking moron) Claim that familiar contract is unbreakable. Skeptical. No commentary on whether the summoning step is too late on a physics level or just on a social level. On the social, unclear whether Louise was entrapped in general or only specifically by the fact that she'd failed repeatedly prior to summoning Saito. Louise is near-instantly convinced by a laptop. Never mind that it wouldn't be anything other than a glowy metal thingy to her, and never mind that she doesn't know all there is in the world to know... "I've never seen anything like this" she says about the glowy metal thingy. So? Proves nothing. Louise refuses to actually try re-doing the Summon Familiar spell. Cites reasons, ignores how the situation is extraordinary. Saito, being a moron, gives up instead of pointing out that if this is unprecedented they might as well try. Familiars' senses can be tapped. But not Saito's, because that would be too consistent. Inexplicably, Louise assumes that if Saito were to go home, she could summon a new Familiar, having previously insisted only death ends the contract. Possibly she's being dismissive or treating "going home" as a euphemism? Louise is disturbingly at ease with slotting Saito into the Familiar/property/object mental slot. I assumed the 'comfortable being naked around Saito' thing was some commoner/noble thing she was doing, but no, she's treating it like getting naked around a pet. Louise is quick to punish disrespect by withholding meals. Kirche has a Charmander. Flaming tail (which apparently proves it's from the Fire Dragon Mountains) and the size of a tiger. Constantly heating the area up, passively. [Note from the future: the story seems to essentially forget about her Charmander past the first couple of volumes] Oddly, dialogue implies Kirche knew her affinity was fire before she summoned her Familiar? Or just bad writing/translation. Brown/black/purple cloaks for first/second/third years. Louise and her peers are second years? Seems... odd, given the primacy of affinities. Why didn’t they summon as first years? [Note from the future: even though we only hear about three years, Louise is still in the Academy more than three years later into canon. Consistency, what’s that?] Familiars are barred from the main hall, at least during breakfast. Louise somehow requested Saito be exempted without him knowing, which seems wildly implausible. "Oh, Great Founder Brimir, and our lady, the Queen, we thank you for this humble meal that you have graciously provided us this morning," is said by all students, simultaneously, before breakfast. Somehow Kirche's Salamander can sleep underneath her chair, curled up. I thought it was as big as a tiger, minimum? Floating eyeball creature=bugbear. (??) Teacher Chevreuse is an enabler of people being horrible to Louise. As per the first teacher (Colbert), she only intervenes when Louise fights back. She at least does punish people for giggling when a student insists that Louise really is a "Zero"... The "basics" of Earth is transmutation. Not manipulation of the dirt or whatever, alchemy. Chevreuse has never worked with Louise before, and strangely is unaware of her explosive results. Just heard of her being a "hard worker". Inconsistent as to whether chanting is necessary or just "concentration" for running spells. [Note from the future: it gets worse. So much worse] Headmaster Osmond is irreverent. He's basically Perverted Straight Dumbledore. Saito is a dumbass asshole and now I know why he sees nothing wrong with how Louise is treated. Oh god. The author wants us to think Saito being an asshole is somehow noble, too. "Nobody" has been "kind" to Siesta the maid since she showed up at the castle. Saito being grateful for eating at all is some giant shock that causes her to burst into tears, because this is such a pleasant world you see. Saito hopes Guiche would just die, because he views the boy as a horrible narcissist. Glares of death, etc, leading all the way up to getting into a fight with the guy and refusing to back down. This is particularly horrible because Saito isn't exactly holding himself to monogamy on any level, so his loathing of Guiche is basically either hypocrisy or an obnoxious form of self-loathing. Guiche is also a moron, boasting openly about how he's a playboy and then immediately expecting one girl in earshot to believe she's the only one for him. Even if it weren't for Montmorency's perfume falling out of his pocket... really, Guiche? Guiche gets pissy with Saito, frames things as "two girls' reputations have suffered". What? Because you're a two-timing asshole, their reputations suffer? What kind of insane troll logic is this? Guiche's own toadies are quick to recognize that if Guiche hadn't been two-timing them, this wouldn't have happened, though, so he's maybe half-effective at spinning things, if that. So many cases of chantless casting. Saito is implied to have been made into the Gandalfr by Louise contracting him, having been genuinely ordinary before then. Suggests that whoever Louise summons and makes into her familiar becomes the Gandalfr, rather than Saito having an internal quality that makes him such. Longueville has the subtlety of a freight train. ("I'm very interested in this vault and how to break into it for entirely innocent reasons and every time the conversation moves away from that I promptly drag it back to that”) Colbert is a moron and somehow fails to figure out what's up with her. Kirche sleeps with a LOT of people. And is too stupid to avoid having three separate dates (one of which was three boys at once!) show up the same night within minutes of each other. She also frames her actions in such a way as to absolve herself of responsibility for her decisions at every step, that being a Zerbst means she's 'destined' to fall in love with people on sight and blah blah blah. I don't think the author understands how agonizing being whipped is.

Gandalfr weapon competency goes past "master-tier" and into "overtly laughing at physics" -acknowledged by the story, itself.

Kirche is very deliberate in plotting to steal Saito for the express purpose of fucking with Louise. Everyone in this story is horrible. [Note from the future: the author apparently forgets that Kirche is a horrible person and switches over to her being Louise’s best friend after Henrietta, and acts as if this was always true]

Also, Kirche bullies her "best friend", Tabitha, by using her height to keep her book away. Which isn't really anything that should work, but Kirche is still an asshole.

Yes, Tabitha has to specify to her dragon that the people they are following are not to be eaten, as a casual assertion she apparently makes on a routine basis. Yikes. [Note from the future: this never crops up again and doesn’t fit with later characterization. Consistency!]

The academy is apparently only a few hours-by-horse away from Tristain's palace.

Mages/nobles wear capes in Tristain to signify their status. Saito is stupid enough to assume that no cape=no mage.

Bizarrely, an arms dealer is quick to guess Saito is Louise's familiar on the basis of her clarifying she's buying a sword for her familiar??

Fouquet (ie Longueville) has been stealing stuff, unclear whether it's Tristain-the-city or Tristain-the-country, stated to specifically be from nobles. People know it's a mage. Later implied to be Tristain-the-country.

I like how the shopkeep is obviously long-suffering about Derflinger.

Derflinger asks if Saito is a "user" hinting that he knows or suspects Saito's nature. We're also given the impression Derflinger can't speak when sheathed. [Note from the future: Astoundingly, they actually stick to this consistently. Yes, I know, I’m amazed too]

Kirche's idea of haggling is to basically strip as the other party goes lower with their offers. She is, quite frankly, creepy.

"The royal mage guards" -implying the royal family has nobles as full-time guards?

Fouquet steals, taunts, lets everyone know it was her. Either transmutes walls into dirt/sand or summons a giant goddamn golem to smash her way in.

Somehow, Louise knows nothing about Tabitha, didn't even know she's friends with Kirche.

Fouquet can walk on walls. Probably an earth spell. [Note from the future: nobody ever do this ever again and the implications are entirely ignored]

Fouquet instantly feels Louise's explosion is unprecedented, because of course she does, can't not drop nonsensical hints that she's more than the Zero, can we?

Saito is a moron who can't imagine he can roll while tied up. Louise is a moron who can't come up with a better answer than "untie Saito" when he's tied up and about to be crushed.

Louise, in a moment of frankness, admits "no respectable" master would abandon their familiar. Interesting. Honor and duty, Louise?

Fouquet is perfectly comfortable incidentally murdering people with her golems. Wow, lady. Also, she can apparently alter the golem's composition and give it orders? Are the fans SURE characters can only run one spell "actively" at a time? [Note from the future: Yes, no, maybe, depends on the author’s mood, the position of the moon, etc. In a word? Whatever suits the story this very second]

Chevreuse was sleeping instead of on watch like she was supposed to be. Wow. Maybe Longueville did something?... [Note from the future: no, because why rite gud?]

Longueville reports herself. Guessing trap.

Osmond calls for volunteers to go after Fouquet. No teachers volunteer. Louise volunteers, because no one else did. Kirche volunteers, refusing to be shown up by a Valliere. Tabitha volunteers, because "she's worried", presumably for Kirche.

Tabitha is already a 'Chevalier', a title conferred by imperial authority and earned by merit. In short: she did something fucking AMAZING already. Osmond knew this, pretty much no one else did, Kirche included. It's the lowest such title, but whatever.

People don't count Saito as a person, seriously.

Longueville comes with... definitely a trap.

Kirche assumes that Longueville, as a mage, must be a disgraced noble, after Longueville says she's not a noble. Louise blocks Kirche attempting to dredge up whatever disgrace might have happened, because Louise is considerate and conscientious when it comes to honor.

Kirche continues to dodge responsibility for her own decisions. Indicates she only volunteered because Saito would be in danger.

The group is astonishingly professional about coming up with and implementing a plan. What are they, Naruto ninja?

Bafflingly, Kirche hitting a golem with a fireball... lights the thing on fire? What kind of clay is it made of, exactly?

Louise continuing to prove she is about Honor And Duty, also pointing out Saito's hypocrisy.

"Staff of Destruction" is a rocket launcher... and is somehow already/still loaded?? Close-range explosion fails to spray our heroes with lethal shrapnel because shut up.

The trap was so Longueville could find out how to use the rocket launcher. She monologues because shut up.

Chevaliers for everyone! Except Saito, because he's not a noble, and Tabitha because she has the rank already. [Note from the future: the author apparently completely forgets about this in later volumes, as we get a scene where Louise not getting a Chevalier title is treated as if she’s actually missing out in like Volume 15. Or maybe it was 14?]

Rocket launcher came with an unfortunate soldier who saved Osmond from a dragon.

Oh jeez. Derflinger going "clothes really do make the man!" in reference to Louise.

Louise admits she didn't REALLY believe him prior to the rocket launcher thing.

End volume 1.

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

Overall plot arc: Fouquet/Longueville steals rocket launcher, is stopped.

There's also dropping hints of why the protagonists (Louise and her familiar) are the protagonists, but not much payoff as yet.