#i had this 'what if' idea when i first read goa

[arty-chase]

"Well, that's... that is unexpected." Chiron said.

I looked around. The campers had broken out into whispers of confusion. I turned to my cousin, who also looked baffled by the sign.

"Hey, Annabeth, is my father some minor god that no one ever heard of?" I asked, then pleaded. "Please tell me that's the case."

"Well... he's not any Greek god I heard of." She answered with a thoughtful frown.

"Oh..."

Then, I realised what she said.

"Oh."

I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her for answers. Because what does she mean that my father is not a Greek god that people here never heard of?!

That's exactly what I did.

"She's right. Your father is not of our patheon." Chiron said in that solemn wise wizardly way. Then, he turned to address to the campers:

"All Hail, Magnus Chase. Son of Frey of Vanir, god of Summer."

-

So my dad is a Norse god.

Apparently, Annabeth, my cousin whose mother is the Greek goddess: Athena, says that she had faced the cross-patheon thing before.

Twice.

There was a Roman camp in California which sounds a year-long military boot camp and apparently Brooklyn has Egyptian magicians?

Chiron said he has some friends he can call who could connect me to Norse demigod children.

Unfortunately, he says, that he doesn't know if the Norse demigods have their own camp or not.

And that's totally unfair.

The Greeks get a summer camp.

The Romans got a military base.

The Egytians got a magic mansion.

And the Norse? It's Ha Ha get wrecked, you're on your own kid.

What is even my life?

When you were brought to Camp Half-Blood, you were told that one of your parents is a Greek god or goddess. You were supposed to be claimed as soon as you got to Camp, but you weren’t. When you’re finally claimed at the bonfire, your godly parent is not what people expect.

[l-in-the-light]

"I'm sure he's got nothing to do with me!" says Luffy and I was waiting for him to say it. For him to hear all of this Nika lore and declare that, nope, I don't care, I'm not Nika, I'm not a liberator. It's just such a Luffy thing to do. But I know many fans actually will be shocked with Luffy's answer here or will just dismiss it. I have seen many opinions before that Luffy was always a liberator by choice, so becoming Nika is just natural course of events for him and he will have no problem embracing his role in the bigger scheme of things. Some even complained they hate that Luffy is Nika because they don't want Luffy to be the "fated hero" but instead a "from nobody to the king of the world" trope. But nope! Luffy just noped all of this himself.

Luffy is not a liberator and he's not an altruistic hero, he doesn't go from island to island aiming to save people, and if you think he wanted to, then please remember Fishmen Island and how unhappy he was with the idea of being a hero:

And now if you think Luffy changed since then because Dressrosa happened, then please remember what he asked of Momonosuke in Wano:

Yep, that's right. Luffy still *doesn't have any interest* in becoming a hero. If you think he's alright with that and changed his mind, then you're just not paying attention to him, sorry to say that. Luffy has been pretty consistent about this too and now he declared it yet again in Elbaf. It's the third time already.

You just think it's not a big deal because he so easily changed his mind in Fishmen Island, but it happened only because he had an actual reason to do that. Jimbei promised Luffy all the meat he wants. He gave him a *personal reason* to act like a hero, which is why Luffy agreed. And he did the same in Dressrosa. He wouldn't liberate that country if he didn't get attached first to Law and Rebecca (yes, in this order), and his crew to tontattas. They always do it for someone particular, for their friends. It's the same in Wano too, Luffy's constant motivation is Tama, Momo and Kinemon. He wants them to be happy, most of all, and he even says as much when he defeats Kaido: "I want a world where all of my friends can eat as much as they like".

There, he doesn't do it altruistically because he hates oppresion and villains who thrive on pain of common people and he can't stand seeing it. Yes, he probably thinks it's unfair, but he also grew up in Goa Kingdom, the very definition of unfair regime. He saves oppressed people only when they are his friends or has some other personal interest involved. He defeats the Marine base in Shells Town for Koby (and Zoro, later). He defeats Don Krieg so he can repay his food debt to Baratie. He defeats Arlong for Nami. He fights Wapol for Chopper (who saved Nami) and who he already considers his friend because of that. He fights for the Giants (Little Garden) and Vivi (Alabasta), Conis (Skypiea), Robin (Water 7 and Enies Lobby), Brook (Thriller Bark), Hachi (Sabaody) etc. Though, he does make friends rather easily, so usually it's not that big of a deal. But he isn't going out of his way to places he reads about in the newspapers that need to be liberated, he instead cares more for his own dream. He doesn't enter a certain island with the idea in mind that goes like "if I see some injustice here, I'm gonna bring this shit down". It's the other way around. He makes friends and realizes they're unhappy.

He wants them to be happy again and to live without regrets, and that's why he brings the shit down, whatever it is that makes people he cares about feel so unhappy. Because he thinks this is at least something he can do for his friends. Luffy doesn't think he can do a lot of things, he can't do much at all, but he can do one thing: beat up a guy when needed.

He knows how regret feels like ever since he believed Sabo died, he's not gonna sit there and do nothing next time something like this happens. That's why it's so important for him, to make sure his friends are happy. And that's why he beats up people and liberates countries. It's not for justice, he simply wants his friends to be happy.

But wait a moment, Luffy also wants freedom. Yes, he does. He wants to be the King of the Pirates, because for him it means to be free. And that's how he actually speaks about Nika as well:

He wants the freedom for himself. Isn't it funny that he thinks he already achieved it though?

And before you're disgusted by how selfish Luffy actually is, hear me out: Luffy is simply not a martyr. He won't die or sacrfice himself for the world to liberate it. He will instead die for the world if he thinks that will make his friends happy. Preferably though, he would want to survive and eat that meat with them, and be happy together.

Still, if you want him to be a liberator of a whole world it is actually possible, you just need to make it personal for Luffy, like I suggested. For example, put a person or multpile people who want to save/destroy the world (whichever option you fancy) on Luffy's crew. Luffy always cares for dreams of his crewmates and will always support them (because fullfilling their dreams will make them happy), so he would become a liberator if that helps them. But he would do it for them, not for the world.

Luffy is not a hero because he has a golden heart and a strong sense of justice. He's a hero when his friends are in danger instead, because instead of a golden heart, he simply has a big heart and makes friends wherever he goes. A martyr-like hero who sacrfices himself for people without caring for his own wellbeing is noble, but it's also not a healthy mentality, believe it or not. For starters, if you never care enough for yourself and are ready to throw your life away for a concept, what will happen with people who love you and care for you? Is it fair towards them to throw your life away without caring who you're leaving behind and how they will feel about it? Do you even care then for their feelings if your pursuit of greater good is more important to you? You can save the world and make people you love sad and unhappy, and like they don't even care anymore to live, because you were the one who made them happy and now you're gone. Did you save the world for them or destroyed it for them instead, as the result?

Luffy has his own interest in saving his friends too: so he's not alone again. Humans aren't selfless beings, but it doesn't automatically make us bad people either. And sometimes, while pursuing selfish things, we do something that appear to be extremely selfless. But at the bottom of it: we also do it for themselves, even if it kills us.

Tokyo Babylon taught me that every act is selfish, even if it appears like we do it for someone else: we simply want to feel better about ourselves then. There's nothing wrong with that, as long as we don't lose the sight of other people's feelings on our way. We can always share, after all, and that sharing is the bridge between the lone islands that people are.

Luffy, if he dies, will also say, just like Seishiro: "I didn't do it for you. I did everything by my own choice". For myself. Despite the fact it is also true he does it to make his friends happy. Being selfish and being selfless is like two sides of the same coin and both choices can end up actually hurting people. In the first case, because you care too much about yourself and too little about feelings of others, and in second case because you care too little about yourself and still too little about feelings of people that love and care for you. Can you spot the thing in common here?

[worldscollidinginone]

Chapter 10 - A Bump For One, A Sinking For Another

Book master list

Everything was moving and yet still. Piya was still in disbelief that she saw him last night, albeit only for a few seconds but… he was there, and her mind would not let it go. 

However, she had to move on, to be able to complete the script, so she would leave Goa, again. She would be able to come back to her life. Her exciting life, her lonely life. Staying in Goa would only cause more harm than good, even though her life started from here.  

She had to run from this place, as soon as possible, so she ducked and waited until he left. She heard a bicycle’s chime and assumed that he left so that when she got up, she didn’t realise she would be in front of two random boys. 

“Yes?” She said as casually as possible. 

“Why are you hiding in your home?” 

What could she possibly say to make the kids understand and then make them leave, then an idea came to her mind. 

“There are some ghosts that live here. A friend of mine let me stay here, because she doesn’t like anything paranormal, and I love scary stuff.” 

“What is paranormal?” 

“Things that we cannot understand with our human logic. Something beyond us, like magic, or ghosts, demons. You know… the usual.” 

“Like Dracula?” 

“Even worse.” 

“Imagine your worst nightmare, times a thousand. Demons like that.” 

As soon as she said demons from their own worst nightmares, they both started running away from her, while crying. 

She couldn’t believe that it worked, so as a response she started chuckling, and then a full-on laugh erupted as she kept remembering about the kids. 

Once the kids left and her laughter died down to a chuckle, the silence greeted her again. The moon was shining, like a silver pearl in the black starry night. 

The place she was staying at was pretty. It was a cute house, facing the sea. 

Her assistant knew her well. Sometimes too well. The house was placed next another one which houses another writer, and on the other side of the street there was another house, which looks so beautiful. 

The sea brought her calm, but also some deep seeded memories which flowing within her, like the waves. 

After the eventful evening, she decided to start taking some stuff from her suitcase for starting her nighttime routine, which consisted of her skincare products, dental products, her trusted speaker, and her latest read, which either meant a new books or a reread. Finally, her pyjamas. Once she got everything she started shutting from the outside world and enter her own. The rehearsed motions before going to bed went smoothly but her heart longed for a place to call home. 

Her childhood was…messy. So, she found her solace in books and everything that entailed with them. 

This time was going to be a reread. “White Nights” by Fjodor Dostoyevsky. Love and life described in its stages. It’s heartbreak every time she would read, but this pain would welcome it. It was better than to think about anything else or giving herself hope that… he… No. Reading it is and after reading the first chapter, she fell asleep holding the book close to her heart. 

The morning after reading had been emotionally exhausting, so today she would take it easy and the first thing is sorting her stuff for her makeshift office, which consisted of a decent office table, her trusty laptop, her notebook and her vital cup of tea. She definitely did not forget to get her earbuds, her headphones while she was packing, but she made it check from her secretary twice, and she still took about 20 minutes to find her earbuds and headphones. And an office lamp, you know, so she could actually work. 

Her mind actually worked better at night, where the world would be quiet, and ideas would start flowing. 

During the day, however she would plan what the story would be. 

Themes, colours, characters, music and so forth, and while she was doing that, she got a call from her secretary. 

“Yes, my dear assistant, how can I help you?” 

“Ma’am, I have booked you an appointment with someone.” 

“Okay, can you send me all the details regarding this?” 

“Already did, ma’am.” 

“Great, thank you dear. I’ll let you know if you need to confirm it.” 

She pulled out her laptop and started looking for the email, that she got call from one of her acquaintances. So, the email remained unopened. 

Once everything was finally ready, she took everything to her desk, and before setting herself down, she made sure to put everything in the proper place, where it belonged. 

The email was in the back of her mind, so she decided to tackle that first. And when she found it, she was enraged. 

Her face was flushed with anger. Eyes were blazing and her breathing was getting ragged, her nostrils were flaring, and her mind could only see anger, rage and denial. 

The first thing she did was call her assistant. 

“How dare you schedule a therapy appointment for me without my permission?” she shouts, her voice trembling with fury. “I don’t need therapy! I am perfectly fine!” 

The assistant tries to explain, but she cuts her off, the frustration boiling over. “This is a complete invasion of privacy and a huge overstep of your responsibilities. I rely on you to manage my schedule and my company, not to make decisions about my personal life!” 

Her anger is intense, but beneath it, there is a layer of denial. Piya’s left hand is shaking slightly. Despite the clear signs that everyone in her life mentioned it to her, the only response, she could come up was this. Her mental health was deteriorating, but she refused to accept or even acknowledge. So, to deal with the onslaught of emotions, she’d rather focus on her frustration with her assistant, rather than accept the reality of her situation. 

On the other side of the phone, the assistant takes a deep breath, trying to remain calm on the phone call. She hopes that her soft but firm voice guides her through her frustration. 

“Piya, I understand that you are upset, and I apologize if I have overstepped,” she begins, keeping her head straight, even though Piya wouldn’t be able to see her.” But I have noticed in the last few years how much stress you’ve been under lately. You’ve been working long hours, and it’s clear that you are exhausted. I scheduled the appointment in hopes that you can see how much I care about you.” 

She pauses, giving her a moment to process her words. “I have known you for a long time and I can’t see you suffering like this. I am also not questioning your ability to handle things. I just want to make sure that you have the support you need. It’s about making sure you have someone that can help you. Everyone needs help sometimes, and there is no shame in that. You, of all people should know that.” 

The assistant’s voice stays steady and compassionate. 

“Please, just consider going to this one appointment. If you don’t find it helpful, we can cancel any future sessions. But I really believe it could make a difference for you.” 

Her words are filled with concern and genuine worry about Piya’s mental wellbeing, hoping to break her denial and to help her understand that asking for help is not a sign of weakness, but of strength. 

After a while, Piya answered softly. 

“Okay.” 

Her assistant questioned. “Okay?” 

“Okay.” 

And just like that, the call was cut. 

And after all that, she was finally ready to start, except now her mind was wondering about Kaira and in that moment, she saw Kaira for a second, and then she was gone. 

The therapy felt like a bump in her mind. A big, ugly bump in her road. What could she do? 

Her mind was not able to process the fact that Raghuvendra had gotten engaged. He left for America to get the project going, but instead… The sadness, heartbreak, betrayal and anger were creating a powerful and destructive cocktail in her mind and how she was responding was causing rifts in all of her relationships. 

At night, when the world tends to rest from the day, Kaira’s mind was going in overdrive.  

“I can’t believe he’s engaged… How could he do this to me? We had something special, didn’t we? Or was it all just in my head?” 

“I trusted him. I thought we had a connection. How could he betray me like this? Was I not good enough?” 

“Why didn’t he tell me? Did he think I wouldn’t find out? For God’s sake, we work together! Or did he just not care about my feelings at all?” 

“I can’t sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I see them together, happy. It’s tearing me apart.” 

These thoughts would prevail in the night, making her numb from everything. Tears would be flowing from her eyes, but her mind… 

After the restless night, she would be waking up, going through the motions, and the mind would replay thoughts, like a broken record. 

“I can’t focus on anything. My mind keeps drifting back to him. To them. It’s like a nightmare I can’t wake up from.” 

“My friends are worried about me. I can see it in their eyes. But how can I explain this pain to them? They wouldn’t understand.” 

“I feel so alone. I don’t want to burden anyone with my problems, but I don’t know how to handle this on my own.” 

“Every time my phone buzzes, I hope it’s him. But then I remember… he’s with her now. And it’s all over again.” 

I need to able to live without him. But why is it so hard? 

I feel like I am sinking.

[fionnaskyborn]

Alright, I feel like an update of sorts is due. I do not use any social media in order to "be a presence" there - I'm just here to have fun and reblog things that make me happy. Even so, I feel like an explanation for my recent absence is justified. I'm putting it under a readmore so as to not clot anybody's dashboard, but if you want to hear the ramblings of a troubled young adult, well, by all means, be my guest.

As previously stated, I mostly go on here to reblog and save things that bring me joy. I believe to have privated at least one of my own posts talking about some more recent events, but I'm pretty sure some of them remain up. And I can't be arsed to go private them, to be quite honest. To make the long story short - I lost a significant portion of my writing, as well as a lot of other data that was important to me. Most would have stopped at that, but I couldn't accept the possibility of nearly two years of work and three years of accumulating various things that made me smile were gone, just like that. And, well, they aren't. But they are unreachable, for the time being. This prompted me to take a beeline in my lifepath, towards a discipline not too far away from what I originally planned on doing when my "true adult" years rolled around, but still decently enough separated from it to mark this as a pretty significant change of plans. I certainly never considered getting into quantum physics full-on - it was interesting to read about, sure, but I've always been interested in the macro scale of things far more. However, when the time comes to overthrow the technological systems currently in place, I want to be there, in the front rows, among the people who will have access to that kind of technology right away. The only other path to this, other than by being a mathematician, is to be unimaginably rich, and I am a pretty normal person as far as money goes. Just another average Joe on this planet Earth - not particularly wealthy, to afford three vacations per year, but with more than enough money to consider myself financially secure. Just a regular ol' person, trying to get by. That means that I need to start working towards that future right now. And it's all so painfully slow. I've spent most of my life waiting for one thing or another. The idea of waiting another several years for a slim shot at getting my beloved writing back is not an easy one to come to terms with for me. But it's the only chance I have, and I could even be considered lucky - imagine if all of this happened, and I weren't a physicist in the making! I'd have to wait decades instead of an undefined amount of time that could be as early as a single year or as late as ten years to get my words back - words I could never repeat, words I could never write in that same order. The first days after it happened were incredibly painful, and I am still uncertain, but, little by little, I'm getting it back. And I'm getting new things out of this - I never saw painful events as anything but just that. But perhaps it is because this is something I am not helpless against that changed things so much. I am now more than ever motivated to actually learn and excel. Earlier on, I was just rolling with the punches. Life wore me out so much I had pretty much just given up on putting any effort into anything because I was just... too exhausted to do it. My plan was to just do whatever until things either ended up going so spectacularly bad I'd earn myself some kind of intervention, or somehow miraculously worked out. But all of this was a wake-up call. (TO WHAT I REALLY BELIEVE. Sorry. Saw an opportunity, couldn't miss it. On the other hand - see? Unfortunately for everyone involved, I am still the same old dork I ever was.) I now have something - something more tangible than anything I've had before - to strive for. This is the first time in at least seven years, perhaps more, I've felt this confident in any plan of mine, that I've had this concrete of a set of goals. This was also the first time in my few decades and spare change on this Earth that I've managed to turn a large terrible event into a pushing force THIS strong. There's doing things out of spite, and then there's THIS. I do realize that I may very well be insane for this, but I'm not willing to let something that got me through some very difficult times in my life and that helped me grow as a person as much as it did slip away like it was nothing. I saw a shot, and, brother, I'm gonna take it.

I've also watched Gurren Lagann because I've heard it gives people the will to live, and that was something I desperately needed. At first, I watched it numb - or, rather, any positive feelings I had harbored about it were stored in the same place my overwhelming grief over my currently lost work was, and, well, one was more powerful than the other, obviously. But, as I got better over time, I found myself not just logically and objectively understanding why people see it as the greatest thing ever made, but taking the messages and words said in the show to heart. It, and the gradually increasing amount of support I got from the people around me, are the reason why I am where I am today. I truly cannot even start to express my gratitude for the people I found by my side (some after some time, some more immediately), let alone the support they started giving me once I had my revelation and change of trajectory and the way I live my life. It's just about as fortunate of a combination of things you could hope to end up with. The misery from those first days still lingers in some measure, but every day I get a bit stronger and a bit more capable of rejecting it in its entirety.

In the meantime, I will keep working on my project. But not at the cost of hurting myself to get as much on paper as I can - I plan to take things in stride. I'm not sure when I'll be capable of looking for art online like I did before the calamity, but the same strategy applies - if it brings joy, do it, if not, well, don't force yourself to do anything that would make you miserable. Simple as that. I am slowly, gradually, healing from everything that happened, all while having a thing I want to achieve, a thing that will grant me true and ultimate and lasting happiness.

I thought I would never be able to touch videogames as a whole. That mostly turned into "I'll never be able to touch the game series that changed me as a person and it sucks ASS". But even that is proving to be less and less true by the day. Who knows what the future holds? Not me. But as I walk towards a distant goal along a long and winding path, there are plenty of things to do in the meantime. I've got a cassette collection to grow. Playlists to organize. Designs to finalize. Vinyls to listen to. I still want to purchase that hugeass limited edition Trocadero foil print. There is so much music I want to listen to. I still want to enjoy things in life. It may not mean much to the average onlooker, but it means a lot to me because it's such a huge leap from the mental state I was in a week ago when it happened, and the days that followed.

In short, I'm doing fine. Still a bit empty in some places, but only sometimes, and I'm filling those empty spaces with either the motivation I need in order to keep going to reach that future I want so much, or reminding myself that I haven't lost just about everything. I'm patching myself up bit by bit, and I think I'm doing great at it so far.

My final message: I don't care what your stances on anime in general are, watch Gurren Lagann. Suspend your disbelief and just... trust me on this one. If you're having a grand old time in life, it'll only make it better. If you're having a spectacularly shitty time in life, it'll give you the strength to keep going. I'm on episode 15 right now (or... 16? Whatever, I finished the first half of it is what I'm saying.)

Almost at the bus stop now - I'll see you all later.

[stray-tickles]

Gift

Read on AO3

There was a wrapped gift in their living room, and it was driving Jon mad.

Normally he would be able to see what it was, to know what was in the box, large enough to hold an encyclopedia, a cat, a puppy, an… an anything.

But no, Martin had learned by now, after their first few months in this new world and he had seen how excited Jon got about gifts and how quickly he Knew what was inside. This one was wrapped in a large roll of custom paper that Martin had purchased. Covered in eyes, all of them crossed out.

Jon was adorable like this. Martin had filed away the memory of him as they had approached Salesa’s bubble, all those months ago. How when faced with a genuine mystery, the all-powerful archivist had turned into an excited kid. It took until the Christmas after they… arrived, for Martin to realise he could replicate that.

Neither of them had celebrated Christmas much before, and it wasn’t even a popular holiday in this world. Maybe that was why they felt motivated to do it. To find a Christmas tree on some obscure European website and get it shipped to them, to make their own ornaments and buy presents.

Martin was mostly excited to see whether Jon liked the gifts he’d gotten him. He was utterly unprepared for how cute he became when faced with a wrapped box.

Jon had sunk to his knees in front of the tree, light filling his eyes and the widest grin Martin had ever seen on his face.

And because Martin was so entranced with that face, he noticed when the grin slipped for a moment into disappointment. Only for a moment, but enough for Martin to notice.

“What?” He’d asked, sitting beside Jon and nudging him.

Jon had looked up at him as if shaken from a revere, his smile returning. “Ah- nothing.” He muttered, seemingly embarrassed. “Just… a little excited, I suppose.”

“Yeah, and then you weren’t.” Martin supplied, raising an eyebrow.

Jon pulled the box closer, fiddling with the wrapping paper. “I- hm- I saw this- the gift here, and it was this… mystery in our own living room, full of- of possibilities and I was- excited to know what was inside, and then all of a sudden I- ah- I did.”

Martin had stared at him for a long moment. “You… Knew what I got you for Christmas?”

Jon had groaned and buried his face in his hands. “I didn’t mean to!”

From there, Martin had decided to plan. For someone so entangled with Knowledge, Jon always seemed delighted when there was something he didn’t know. His powers were muted in their world, the fears barely able to manifest, but his powers remained, to an extent.

So, Martin had found somewhere to order custom wrapping paper, and the rest was history.

“Hey, no touching!” He laughed, swatting Jon’s hand away. “Not until tomorrow.”

Jon was practically vibrating just from looking at it. There was eye blocking paper on all sides and he had no idea what was in there, he could look and look and look and still not know. “Is it a cat?”

Martin laughed. “Yes love, it’s a cat, now leave it alone to sleep, okay?”

Jon collapsed onto the couch against him with a petulant look in his eyes. “You should really have put some air holes in there so that it can breathe.”

“And risk you peeking?”

“I would never!”

“You actually would.” Martin tried with all his might to hide how endearing he found Jon’s behaviour, but going by the crinkle of his eyes, he wasn’t doing a very good job.

Jon widened his eyes pleadingly. “I don’t even know the occasion!” He protested. “I- I haven’t missed something, have I?”

Martin gave up his attempt to hide how besotted he was feeling. “I don’t need an occasion.” He said warmly, squeezing Jon tightly and kissing his cheek. “I love you.”

Jon felt himself melt. It was a nice feeling. “I love you too.” He murmured, his head fitting neatly into the crook of Martin’s neck. “You don’t have to keep spoiling me.”

The smile on Martin’s face widened, and he caught Jon’s hand in his. “I want to, though. I like seeing you like this.”

“Ah, I see, so really I’m the one giving to you.”

“Goad me all you like,” Martin chuckled, pressing a finger to the tip of Jon’s nose. “I get to see that face and I’m happy.”

Jon scoffed. “Romantic.”

“Like you’re any better.” He teased with a gentle poke to the side.

Jon squirmed a little, but didn’t move away. “Can you give me a hint, at least?”

“Nope!” Martin popped cheerfully. “Your only hint is that I love you.”

A pout claimed Jon’s lips. Martin tried to ignore how cute it was. “I could ask, you know.” He grumbled. “Then you’d tell me.”

“Hmm, I don’t know about that.” Martin hummed thoughtfully. “I think I have a pretty effective counter in mind.”

Jon narrowed his eyes. “A counter for Beholding?” Did Martin go and pledge himself to the Spiral while he was out?

Quite possibly. That smug grin was very Spiral. “Oh, not for Beholding so much as a counter for you.”

It was hard to resist Knowing when Martin was being so coy, but Jon didn’t look. That would spoil things. “What do you-” He broke off when soft lips were pressed against his own, letting his eyes flicker shut and his body lean closer to the man he loved.

When they parted, Jon’s eyes were slightly unfocused, his glasses lopsided, and a dopey grin on his face. “Effective.” He managed after a moment.

Martin was equally dazed, “More where that came from.”

Jon huffed a laugh. “Not much of a deterrent, though. How long can you-” Martin kissed him again, and he chuckled against him. He was hardly going to complain.

Then the hands which had been resting comfortable against his waist skimmed up, and Jon squealed, and jolted backwards, staring at Martin with wide eyes. Oh no, this was going to be bad. “What are you- no!”

Jon realised too late that he’d started to ask a question, which was quickly drowned out against frantic giggling that had him collapsing backwards onto the sofa, Martin bearing down on him and wiggling his fingertips against his sides and stomach. “This works too, wouldn’t you say?” Martin teased, grinning down at him.

Jon flushed and batted weakly at his hands, but found himself utterly trapped under the weight of Martin’s mischievous grin. Even with his eyes squeezed shut he could feel it, so close and as warm as the sun. He wasn’t even that ticklish on his stomach, but couldn’t hold back the giggles. There was a mysterious present on the dining table, some documentary on the television, and Martin was right there teasing him, touching him, knowing him.

It was impossible to resist.

Jon’s feet pounded lightly on the arm of the sofa. “M-Martin!” He exclaimed between squeaky giggles.

“Oh dear,” Martin said smugly, “Can still get words out? I mustn’t be doing a very good job of countering your spooky eye powers.”

“Naha- please!”

Martin’s fingers slowed. “Please what?” He asked teasingly, his fingers still tracing over the fabric of Jon’s T-shirt, drawing out giddy squeaks and yips.

Jon fought to catch his breath. He had a grasp of this game now. Try to ask a question, get tickled. All he had to do to get Martin to stop was to speak in assertions.

Well then. “What’s in the- AH!”

Predictably, fingers dug into his ribs, making Jon jolt as if electrified and let out a shriek before dissolving into cackling laughter.

“Not a very fast learner, are you?” Martin chuckled, loving the massive, crinkled smile that lit up Jon’s face, how he thrashed from side to side but barely batted at Martin’s attacking hands. “Or maybe you are.”

Jon snorted and twisted around, unable to keep still while those fingers were poking and wiggling against his ribcage. He wanted to hold still, wanted to let Martin do every dreadful ticklish thing that came to his mind, but he couldn’t, couldn’t control his body’s reactions any more than he could control how much he enjoyed it when they would play like this. He never felt quite so loved as when Martin drove him to delirium, any self-consciousness promptly washed away under the force of it all.

Martin had always loved Jon’s laugh, even though he’d be the first to admit that he’d known him quite a while before he’d heard it. Jon tried for a deep chuckle when he was vaguely amused by something, but when he was surprised, when he couldn’t help it? His laughter was bouncy and musical, punctuated with little snorts and squeaks that it was impossible not to be endeared by.

He wanted to listen to that laugh every day.

Jon’s bones were turning to goo, he was sure of it. His entire body was melting into the sofa, where he was more than happy to be. Somehow, he’d rolled onto his side, one of Martin’s hands had migrated to tease his neck and make him hiccup happily.

“Give up?” Martin asked affectionately, giving him space to breathe.

He watched as Jon caught his breath, still flushed and giggling and sporting a smile so wide it didn’t seem to fit on his face. They both knew what he really meant. Do you want me to do more?

Air heaved into Jon’s lungs, though it did little to rid him of the fluttery, giddy feeling. He loved that feeling. “You win.” He surrendered, hugging himself in a belated attempt at defence.

Another pair of arms wrapped around him quickly, dragging him back up into a sitting position against Martin’s chest. He felt that chest shake with a chuckle. “I bested the Archivist.” Martin joked.

Jon smiled up at him and kissed his cheek. “You’re the only one who could.” He promised. “I’m yours.”

Martin’s smile softened. “I love you too.” He felt it every day, the warmth of that love. Today felt like more. This moment felt… perfect. He leaned down to kiss Jon properly. “You can open it now.” He whispered. “If you want.”

Jon quirked an eyebrow. “You sure? Wouldn’t want to encourage bad behaviour.”

“I think we’re a little past that.”

They both snorted. “I don’t mind waiting.” Jon promised.

Martin wove their fingers together. “I know.” After all his time with Lukas, Jon had proved that. “But it… it feels right.”

Jon cocked his head. “Martin?”

“Please?” His eyes pleaded. Don’t question it.

“I- alright.” Jon glanced over at the dining table and let out an exaggerated groan. “But that means one of us will need to get uP!” He leapt to his feet with a yelp when fingers unceremoniously dug in under his arm.

He glared.

Martin smiled innocently back.

If Jon sat back down with slightly more force than necessary, knocking the air out of Martin’s lungs in the process, well. He could blame the large box in his arms. “You sure?”

Martin nodded with a hum. His heart was stuttering in his chest, but he didn’t feel nervous. “All yours.”

“I love you.”

“Love you too.”

When Jon unwrapped the paper and opened the first box, he started laughing hard enough to turn his face red. “Oh, I see.” He snickered, pulling the second box wrapped in eye paper out of the first. “How many layers are there, then?”

“Can’t remember.” Martin chuckled. “But you know, the true gift is the journey.”

“Ass.” Jon teased, picking the paper off the second box. He would get to the bottom of this if they sat there all night.

With each successive layer, Jon felt himself getting more and more agitated. The paper continued, masking every layer beneath and extending the mystery, the game, the challenge, even as he felt himself closing in because surely it couldn’t be many more layers, surely.

Martin felt himself getting more worked up as Jon unwrapped layer after layer, not losing his wide-eyed smile the whole time. He wasn’t afraid, and yet…

Jon snorted a laugh when he found yet another layer of blocking paper, now a box no bigger than a small cup. “Really?”

Martin smiled and kissed his cheek. “Almost there. Promise.” He hoped Jon didn’t notice the emotion in his voice.

“So you say.” Jon teased, kissing him back before going back to the box. This was exciting. He must almost be there now, he just had to take this layer of paper off and…

Oh.

The box underneath looked, for all intents and purposes, identical to the previous but for one detail.

It was wrapped in plain, brown paper.

The information of what was inside entered Jon’s mind before he was consciously aware of it. It felt like time had stopped. He knew he’d gone very still.

He looked up. Martin was looking back at him, nerves clear in his eyes. Jon swallowed back the emotion in his throat. “A-are you sure?” He managed. “After- after everything…”

A tear broke free from Martin’s eye. “After everything, this- you, are all I’m sure of.” He promised, cupping Jon’s hand in his. “S-so, if- if you’ll have me…”

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in Jon’s chest. “If I’ll have you, Christ.”

Martin leaned down until their foreheads were pressed together. “I want you to stay with me.” He whispered. “For- for as long as you want, I want us together.”

Jon felt himself tear up. “What if I never want to be away from you?” He asked quietly, staring deeply into those familiar eyes.

Soft lips captured Jon’s, slow and careful and loving. Neither was sure how long it was by the time they parted, wrapped up completely in each other’s arms. Their breaths mingled, and in tandem they both whispered.

“Marry me.”

[missmungoe]

What’s your idea about Makino’s little ring in the cover of chapter 806?

So I’m not sure if you’re asking me what I think the ring means (in which case, see: https://archiveofourown.org/series/581281), or if this is a prompt, but I don’t think the ring is an accidental detail, and as she had a child during the timeskip, it’s not unreasonable to assume it’s a wedding ring. I have >1.6 million words written about who I hope wears the matching one, but until “that man’s” identity is confirmed, it’s just a tantalising possibility, alas!

But even if the ring doesn’t mean what I hope it does, it doesn’t need to for my imagination to make it so, and just in case this was a writing prompt, here’s a little something I’ve been tinkering with, originally in answer to a completely different prompt, but since they went well together, I combined them:

The thing with feathers, that perches in the soul // Shanks x Makino; rated M (part 1/?)

“Take it off?”

Surprise lifted her voice, her laugh small and startled, but then she’d been caught off guard by the request, made out of the blue one morning.

The sun was taking its time, rising from its slumber with a lazy stretch across her floors, a slight chill still touching the salt air where she’d thrown the windows open. A thick cover of sea mist draped heavily over the water, soft as chiffon where it crept up the shoreline to the foundations of her bar; a protective shroud veiling her little corner of the world, half-forgotten by the rest.

Shanks had been reading the paper while she got ready to open, a routine they’d created, bit by bit over the months he’d stayed, communicated in touches and gestures―the chairs taken down from the tables while she had her back turned; a cup of coffee placed by his elbow before he could request it―no words needed between them in this first, tender hour, and so she’d been startled when he’d spoken.

She considered him across the counter, the glass she’d been polishing cupped idly between her hands. The look on his face was unusually serious, which told her what he had in mind wasn’t roleplay. Not the kind she would have expected him to suggest, anyway.

Unease crept with a shiver up her back, and she had an inkling already before Shanks said, evenly, “If anyone shows up, I want you to take your ring off. And I’m not talking about Garp, although this is probably the only time he’d agree with me.”

“But I don’t want to take it off,” Makino said, tucking her fingers around the hand that wore it, as though that could somehow keep it there.

She saw his eyes going to it, before they lifted to hers, the barest furrow between his brows betraying a rare tension. “It would be safer.”

“But who’s going to make the connection? It’s not like it has ‘property of Red-Haired Shanks’ inscribed on it.”

His lips didn’t even quirk, which was so jarring her own smile fell. She knew him so well, it was only rarely that he ever responded in a way she didn’t expect, but it was becoming clear to her now that whatever was on his mind, it couldn’t be smoothed over with jokes.

She took in his face, his handsome features arranged in a look she wasn’t used to seeing, a hardness about him that didn’t belong here, on her gentle shores―that belonged to a different sea, one that asked different things of him, things she couldn’t ask, and she hated it now for finding him here, and for infringing on her peace as she’d made it.

Her eyes darted to the paper, open on the counter, wondering if something in it had inspired this change, but seeing the way he looked at her, behind the counter that was the only protection she’d ever needed, Makino knew it wasn’t anything in the news, but something they’d both known had been coming for a while. Ever since he’d come back, it had waited in the wings, a silent patron she could ignore most days, too happy to pay it any mind, but there was no ignoring it now that he’d brought it up.

They’d been holding off discussing his departure, even as she’d known it was bound to catch up with them eventually. But while she’d made her peace with him leaving, knowing he’d come back, the thought of giving up the tangible reminder she had of that promise met resistance now.

She’d spent ten years hinging her hopes on nothing but her memories, trying to convince herself she hadn’t imagined the promise he’d made her. Now they were married, and there was more than words binding them, and even the sea had to respect these vows, spoken on the deck of his ship, no church or mortal court to give their blessing, only that bottomless cathedral, and the ancient authority that had witnessed their union.

She felt the metal of her wedding band, warmed by her fingers. Their rings had been wrought from the chain of the anchor that had first dropped in her port twelve years ago, but it wasn’t sentimental value that made her react so fiercely now, at the thought of parting with it.

She didn’t want to take it off―to pretend she hadn’t made that vow, or that the last two years hadn’t happened. The ring was a declaration of what she was, the only way she could declare it, when the world couldn’t know she existed. She refused to give that up, and to pretend she was anything less than she was, even just for show.

“It’s not like there’s any evidence tracing back to you,” Makino said, when he hadn’t spoken. “We don’t have a marriage certificate in the records that they can dig up.” Ben had been the one to marry them; an old sailor’s tradition, shamelessly borrowed with a pirate’s cheerful contempt of the law; the flowers in her hair new as snow, and the sea their something blue. Unconventional by most standards, but she couldn’t have imagined it any other way.

Shanks wasn’t budging. “It’s just safer if people believe you’re unmarried.”

“The whole village was at our wedding, Shanks. Half of them got blackout drunk, but I think they remember.” Her own memories were blurry at best, flowers crumbling under her bare feet, and laughing as he spun her, a wedding shanty that put their vows to shame, and laughter she could still feel in the bottom of her stomach.

The following hangover, though; that she remembered.

Still no smile, but then she heard how her attempted humour faltered, buckling under his seriousness. She didn’t like what it made of his face; the one she only knew as smiling.

“Not the village,” Shanks said, with a look and a pitch that said he knew she was being obstinate, and that left her breath feeling a little faint. He didn’t use that tone with her often, at least outside of more intimate settings, and she didn’t like it being invoked here, and in this way.

Shifting her weight, she squared her shoulders, all of her five feet brandished against his six and more, although even seated, it didn’t give her an advantage, but she saw the way his brow furrowed, as she said, gently firm, “I’m not taking it off.”

She didn’t know if the look on his face was affection or exasperation. “Can’t you just agree with me on this?”

“No.”

“Makino―”

“If anyone asks, I’ll just say my husband is out working the fields,” she said. “What are they going to do, go out and check? Because I can ask one of the farmers to put up a scarecrow by one of the ploughs.”

Her stubborn levity made no headway, his hardened features untouched, but she didn’t give in, her chin lifted as she stared him down across the countertop.

Then with a sigh, “You’d at least have to pick a believable lie,” Shanks relented, after enduring a full thirty seconds of her eyes. His look softened a bit. “And make it a good-looking scarecrow.”

“It could be asleep at the plough,” Makino suggested. “If we’re going for accuracy.” Her smile trembled, before it fell when he didn’t return it.

It was hard to swallow past the knot in her throat, and she heard it in her voice when she said, “I’ll tell them you’re out fishing.”

“And if they stick around and I never come in?”

“I’ll tell them I hope the sea king didn’t get you?”

This time she couldn’t even attempt a smile, and when his expression still didn’t change, she said, without teasing, “Then I’ll tell them you’re in Goa Port picking up a shipment of spirits. You’re a barkeep, but it’s hard getting orders delivered here. It’s a long way to Goa, too. You’ll be gone until tomorrow, at the earliest.”

“And if they come back and I’m still not around?”

She might have made another suggestion, but recognised from the stubborn set of his jaw that he wasn’t backing down.

His face changed then, something like regret chasing across it, there before it was gone, and she didn’t understand why before Shanks said, with a heaviness that held an almost portentous note, “Say that you’re a widow.”

She was surprised by the forcefulness of her own reaction.

“No.”

He sighed. “Makino―”

“No,” she repeated, fiercely. “I won’t.”

She saw that she wasn’t the only one surprised by her reaction. And she didn’t even know why it hit her so hard. She couldn’t claim to be particularly superstitious. Her mother had been too practical for superstition, but she’d also respected the sea; they all did here, who lived their lives beside it. It was a more pragmatic relationship than a sailor might devote himself to, which often had an air of fancy about it, but even if they didn’t read omens from the sky or pray to any gods, there was an implicit understanding among them that you didn’t challenge those forces lightly. They were thankful for fair weather and a good catch, but they didn’t invoke the Fates here, or seek to challenge them.

But the man seated across the counter from her had the authority to do that; the one who’d carved a place for himself on a sea most never lived to sail, one of few who could claim the kind of power it took to challenge that old authority.

She wasn’t like him. She knew what was owed; a debt she’d been paying for twelve years, for wanting him. She didn’t want to invoke that word, the fate that was all too common for those who gave their hearts to sailors, in case she invoked prophecy along with it.

Putting away the glass, Makino pressed her palms over the polished countertop. She saw how they shook, and the still-new gleam of her wedding ring where it circled her finger, but then she hadn’t been wearing it long enough for it to get scratches.

She didn’t want that to be their marriage, taken off when the going got tough, forever keeping its shiny new exterior. She wanted it to show signs of wear, of work, and love―of actually being a marriage, and not just when it was convenient, or safe.

“I’m your wife,” she said gently, although the fervour behind it refused to bend against her own fears. “I want to be your wife, even if I’m here and you’re not―”

The words faltered on her tongue, but then there was a reason she’d been avoiding thinking about him leaving.

Shanks’ look softened, some of the tension in his brow yielding as he said, understanding, “The ring isn’t what makes you my wife.”

“I know that,” Makino said softly. Turning her hand, she gripped his fingers. He wore his ring now, but she knew he wouldn’t take the risk when he left. But she understood that, even if part of her rebelled against doing the same. “It’s not like I don’t understand where you’re coming from. I know it’s a risk. What I’m saying is that I’m willing to take it.” To be what she was, she’d accept the danger that came with it. That was her marriage vows. Not empty platitudes about sickness and health, only the simple, unembellished truth.

Shanks said nothing, his gaze on their hands, but the look in his eyes like he wasn’t seeing a ring but a shackle, and a different kind of prophecy than the one she feared.

She decided to try a different tactic.

“If pretending is what you want me to do, I could always get someone from Dadan’s family to stand in as my husband,” Makino said, and saw him look up, the slightest tightening at the corners of his eyes betraying his otherwise unreadable expression.

Turning his hand over between her own, she traced the sword-callouses in his palm, the softer pads of her fingers catching against the rougher skin. “Magra, maybe,” she continued, and watched the barest flex of his fingers. “I’ve heard he’s quite handy. We could tell people we met when he helped me carry a keg from the storeroom.” Lifting her eyes found him watching her, but she only met his gaze calmly, as she asked him, “What do you think? Would he make me a good stand-in husband?”

His eyes held hers, her gentle challenge noted, the look in them somewhere between knowing and warning, and this time it sent an entirely different kind of shiver racing up her spine.

Undeterred, she lowered her eyes to their hands, smoothing her thumb over his knuckles, pale under his sun-darkened skin. “Maybe he could help me out around the bar. To keep up appearances.”

Flicking her eyes up to his, she went in for the kill. “He could even stay in the guest room. Just to be safe.”

His whole look darkened, and her stomach did a thrilling little flip.

“Don’t like that idea, hmm?” she asked, and tried to pretend her voice didn’t shiver, but it was hard when he was looking at her like that. “Me with someone else.” She trailed her fingertips across the back of his hand, her own so small she couldn’t even cover half of it with all her fingers splayed. “A different man in my house.” A fleeting caress to his wrist felt the tendons in his forearm, pulled taut with a strain that left her feeling suddenly short of breath, even as she said, demure, “And my pantry.”

“You’re playing a very dangerous game, wife.”

The pitch of his voice had goosebumps pebbling her flesh, his naturally deep timbre touched with a note of warning that stirred something deep within her, although she couldn’t tell which was the fiercer feeling, desire or relief, finding her cheek finally parried with something other than that hard expression that couldn’t be coaxed into yielding, no matter how gentle her touches.

“Well,” Makino said, and even teasing, the sincerity was real when she told him softly, her small hand gripping his, mapped with the evidence of his life, their marriage included, “I don’t mind a little danger.”

Then, this time without teasing, “I married you,” she said, and didn’t care that her voice trembled now. She wasn’t hiding her feelings. “And I’ll be careful, but I won’t hide what I am, or pretend that I’m something else. Or someone else’s.”

Bearing the weight of his eyes, she didn’t shy away from them, or from the truth as she spoke it.

“I’m yours,” she told him, fiercely, and felt the way his hand tightened under hers. “And if they come here and they already know about me, nothing I say or do will change their minds. The ring won’t matter. And there are things I can’t hide that easily.”

She glanced towards the crib behind the counter; the one they’d fashioned out of an old barrel of their captain’s favourite whiskey. She’d found the gesture both characteristically inappropriate and undeniably perfect, but then she’d spent her first years sleeping in a liquor crate while her mother worked. And their child wasn’t just the son of a pirate; he was the son of a barmaid, too.

She saw Shanks’ gaze going to it, and the baby sleeping within. And it was more than her lack of protection that weighed on him, she knew, but as long as he was who he was, there would be a risk in being associated with him. Even retiring wouldn’t change what he’d been. Not in the eyes of the current Fleet Admiral, anyway.

And since it wasn’t something either of them could change, she was determined to make the best of the situation, but then she was good at that.

She thought it was time to remind him just how good.

It was still a little while before they were due to open, and smiling, “You could always help me practice my ruse,” Makino suggested, and saw his brows lifting, bemusement at what she had planned easing some of the tension from his features.

Leaning across the counter, she trailed her fingers along his wrist, following the contours of his arm, and the distracting tautness of corded muscle under her fingertips, “My husband isn’t here, officer,” she said, looking up at him through her lashes. “It’s just me: a very lonely barmaid with a very spacious pantry.”

Her face fell when he pinched his lips, before his grin shattered his whole composure, and, “Wait,” she said, drawing back to stutter, “That sounded better in my head. What I meant was that―”

A broad hand reached around the back of her neck, pulling her in for a kiss that stole what she’d been about to say, and muffling her startled laugh, although his own was quick to follow, deep and rough where it rose from his chest, the kiss breaking when he couldn’t contain his grin.

Drawing back enough to look at her, he sighed, rough fingers slipping from her neck to tuck her hair behind her ear. “God, you’re terrible at this,” Shanks said, with such a fierce affection, her heart constricted. “Completely unconvincing.”

Balancing on her toes, the edge of the counter dug into her ribs, but the discomfort was fleeting and unimportant. Her smile trembled on her mouth, inches from his, his beard brushing her jaw as she murmured, “I know.”

Closing her eyes, she kissed him softly, her hands cupping his face, no pretence this time, only the honest truth, offered with all of herself, the only way she knew how.

He’d moved before she could react, the kiss breaking only for a second, and she’d barely had time to catch her breath when his mouth claimed hers again, his arm wrapping around her as he pushed her back towards the storeroom, and the door where it sat ajar.

They stumbled over the doorstep, fumbling between sloppy kisses, like they were in that moment younger people with less to lose, her little laughing shriek muffled against his lips when he hoisted her up onto the shelf where her ledger lay open, and she couldn’t contain her giggles even as he shushed her through grinning kisses, knowing from experience how little it took to rouse a three-month old baby but unable to help herself, something wild and reckless pushing like wings against her ribcage, refusing to stay hidden, wanting out, fearless in its desire, and its will to claim it.

They hadn’t brought a lantern, and the light hadn’t reached this far into her bar, the storeroom cool and dark and the heavy shelves keeping her spirits and secrets, the crates digging into her back as he pinned her to them.

“This is very rakish behaviour for a married woman,” Shanks rumbled, releasing her from the kiss, her breath hitching when his hand wrapped around her thigh, pushing her skirt out of the way. “Someone might mistake you for a pirate.”

Makino hummed, finding her balance on the shelf, her arms wrapped loosely around his neck as she swung her legs, her boots and stockings impishly bared, and saw how it drew his eyes, before she eased them apart, her smile small and demure, and utterly unconvincing. “Imagine that.”

His eyes held her, his features darkened by the shadows of her pantry, making his scars look more pronounced, but the look beneath was gentle as Shanks touched his brow to hers. His thumb traced the hem of her stocking, and the glimpse of bare skin beneath her skirt where he’d pushed it up.

The feeling from before seized her, that fearless thing, like wings waiting under her skin. And maybe it was easy to be brave here, within the walls of her pantry where it felt like nothing could touch them, but even knowing differently didn’t change what she felt, as Makino told him, soft, “Ask me again.”

His look changed, a sudden intensity in it that made her glad she was sitting, but she didn’t look away, accepting the full weight of the truth behind it, unfearing of what it meant to be loved like that, and by someone like him.

Bending his head, his mouth covered hers firmly, stuttering her breath with a gasp, a command behind it that left her hands shaking where she’d curled them around his neck, and if she’d had any more clever remarks prepared about stand-in husbands or navy officers, they fled her mind now as she melted.

The big hand around her thigh tightened its grip, his wedding ring digging into her skin, as though he could imprint something that couldn’t be taken off or hidden, that was written on her skin, on her soul, and if she could have formed the words, she might have told him he already had, but they were lost when his hand slid up her thigh to part her legs, finding her with a shuddering breath that she felt in the way it left him.

And this was another unspoken language they’d made, communicated in touches―her legs parting to him in welcome, and his hand pausing, his fingers already half inside her, asking; her breath hitching as she lifted herself up to kiss him deeper, her hands threading through his hair as she gave herself, a silent affirmation that told him to take―no words needed as he entered her, carefully even if it had been months since their son, but she appreciated the restraint he showed, even with all of him unravelling under her hands, that iron-clad control included.

Her legs wrapping around his waist pulled him deeper, her gasp stuttering with a faint little plea as he filled her to her limit. And if she hoped he’d leave something in her it was a private thought, begged with her breaths as she took him inside her, each thrust a little harder, the bottles stirring in their crates as the shelf creaked, a steady rhythm growing in tandem with her gasps.

Her hands left his jaw, fumbling with the front of her stays as she slipped loose the little hooks until it popped open, and he was already reaching for her, his fingers a shock of warmth where they slipped past the low cut of her blouse to cup one of her breasts, tiny in his hand, his sword-calluses rough where he caressed it, and her shivering moan was well received, from the deeper groan that left him, as Shanks slowed his pace, touching her as he took her, until the shelves were rattling.

Bending down, he kissed her chest, his lips seeking the wide valley between her breasts, her flushed skin pearling with sweat. His beard scuffed her breast as he pulled it free, and she gasped, arching against the shelf as he curled his tongue around a painfully sensitive nipple, her lips parting over his name where it left her in a whimper.

He came like that, her skirt shoved up her hips and her silk stockings slipping down her legs, spread to him where she sat, the pages of her ledger crumpled and damp beneath her; the stereotype of the lascivious tavern wench, but she embraced it now, shockingly indulgent in her own lewdness, watching him as he finished with deep, pulsing shudders, a groan leaving him that had her toes curling in her boots.

His eyes slitted open, the grey steel muted, but even then his full attention was arresting; a single look enough to dismiss everything else in the world, as though she was the only thing in it.

She watched as they swept across her, her breasts bared to the air and her thighs spread, his cock still inside her, but she didn’t squirm or try to hide, only allowed him to see.

Bending forward, Shanks kissed the parting of her hair, his breath winded as he leaned some of his weight on her. His knuckles brushed her cheek, catching the tears that had spilled over without her notice. His ring was cool against her skin; wrapping around the back of her neck, she felt how they shook.

Carding her fingers through his hair, she felt him exhale, but he didn’t let her go, just held her like that, the protective frame of his body between her and the door, hiding her from view, and nothing could have touched her there, in that moment.

His fingers trailed down the dip between her shoulder blades. Her blouse clung to her skin, the air within the storeroom damp and smelling of them, but she couldn’t even worry that someone would stumble across them, although had enough presence of mind to think that she should probably fix herself up before their first customers arrived, but was distracted by the deep chuckle that left him, and his voice where it rumbled into her skin,

“Where’s your husband now, barmaid?”

Her laugh trembled, and her arms tightened around his neck, pulling him closer and pressing her nose into the hollow of his throat. She loved him like this, freed of worry, if only for a little while. And that was her power; the only one she could claim, but it wasn’t a small thing in this age, to command peace.

And she knew how he expected her to react, because he knew her better than anyone, and never let an opportunity to make her flustered pass him by.

But she knew him, too, and like him, she knew exactly how to nudge him off balance. Which was why she said, demure as anything, “He’s ploughing his wife.”

She felt the hand on her neck pausing, the slight stiffening in him betraying his surprise, before his shoulders convulsed, as Shanks bent forward with a laugh.

The sound filled her, loud and lovely, but a softness about it that was hers, that tender, half-winded thing. She thought the whole village had to hear it, and that it would wake the baby, but she didn’t care, her own laughter helpless, hearing his, and feeling the way his arm tightened around her, which said more than any other gesture or word, even as Shanks murmured roughly, “I love you.”

Cupping his face with her hands, she pressed her forehead against his. “It will be okay,” Makino said, and didn’t care that she couldn’t make that promise; that there were other forces that wanted their say. But she wouldn’t hide from her choices, and him least of all. “You’ll see.”

Shanks said nothing, only held her, but he didn’t disagree this time, which she counted as a small victory, and it was what gave her the courage to quip, “And if anyone asks, I’ll tell them my husband can’t be held down. His heart belongs to the sea. It’s just the way things are, in this day and age.”

His eyes found hers. In the dim light, they looked darker, but she knew the look in them, and like the laugh, that was hers, too. “I thought we agreed that we were going for accuracy,” Shanks said. A tender smile curved his mouth, as he told her roughly, “And that you’re a terrible liar.”

Her grin couldn’t be contained, splitting her face, wide and without shame, and his.

The sound of the bat-wing doors swinging open reached them, followed by their first customers arriving, and her grin fell as horror widened her eyes, before she scrambled to pull her stays closed.

A voice from the bar drifted through the door―“Huh? Where’s Makino-chan?”

“That’s odd,” said another, as her mortification deepened, recognising one of her mother’s oldest patrons; a man who’d seen her toddle around in diapers. “Red-Hair’s not here, either. They’re usually open by now.”

Shanks’ grin grew, and she saw the punishment for her disobedience in the gleam in his eyes, and hissed, “Shanks, no―”

But she wasn’t quick enough, as he turned his head towards to call out, “She’s coming! Or she will be.” And before her horror could fully sink in, added brightly, “Just give me a few minutes to finish; I want to make sure she does.”

Her hands clapping over his mouth didn’t succeed in muffling his laughter, but then even her embarrassment couldn’t hold out against the grin that split his face now, which held no trace of his earlier seriousness, as he nipped and kissed her fingers until her mortification dissolved with her laughter.

When they emerged a few minutes later, after she’d blankly refused to let him get her off first (although had agreed to revisiting it after closing), it was to find their regulars waiting, knowing looks exchanged above poorly-stifled grins as she with every ounce of prim dignity she possessed asked them if they wanted their usual, all the while ignoring Shanks’ eyes following her as she made her way between the tables. Although having taken their orders, she caught the fond murmur as she made for the bar―

“Married life suits her, doesn’t it?”

“Aye, it does. Shame Em ain’t here to see it.”

Her smile ruined her prim composure, but she claimed it for herself, and kept her chin high as she walked to the bar where Shanks was waiting, leaning back against the kegs.

“What?” he asked, when she reached him, lifting up on her toes to steal a kiss; not something she usually did, shy about public displays, unlike him, and relished in his surprise at her brazenness, shaping his grin, a gentler thing than in the storeroom earlier.

Her own smile was small, as she lowered back on her heels, her head tipped back to look up at him, noting the dish-towel slung over his shoulder, a different kind of captain, with no sea underfoot, but a captain still.

“Nothing,” Makino said, before reciting, “One egg over easy, and―”

“―one sunny-side up, hash browns on the side of both, and a single serving of bacon, because old man Nakamura is watching his cholesterol.”

At her look of surprise, he only smiled, and bent his head to kiss her once, before he made for the kitchen, a grin thrown over his shoulder, leaving her staring after him, and wondering how he could have ever expected her to pretend to be the person she’d been before him.

The doors swinging open drew her gaze to his crew, and her smile blossomed as they greeted her, loudly and cheerfully. And there was no doubt in their minds what she was, catching their cheeky bows and tipped hats, but she didn’t shy from their reverence where it named her, and more clearly than any ring or vow.

“Hey, where’s that husband of yours?” Yasopp asked her, when she appeared at their table to take their orders. Someone had given him the baby, awake and peering up at all the faces around him. Yasopp made a face at him, and when he got a gummy little smile, asked him in a sing-song voice, “What’s his name again?”

“Keeps slipping my mind,” Ben agreed, grinning around his toothpick.

“Wait, who are we talking about?”

“Makino’s husband.”

“Oh, right! That guy.”

The others joined in, feigning forgetfulness, their laughter growing in volume, until there was nothing left of the quiet morning, dissolving like the sea mist as the sun claimed its seat in the sky.

Her playful look warned them, although her smile indulged their cheeky insubordination, knowing well just how far it was from the truth. Because she could imagine their reactions to the suggestion, however teasingly made, about a stand-in husband in their captain’s absence, endearingly protective, and not just of her. She would spare poor Magra that.

“He’s here,” Makino said, and heard in the words the fleeting truth, but didn’t care if she wouldn’t be able to say the same a month from now, or two. He’d be home again soon, with the tide. They all would.

Emerging from the kitchen, Shanks took one look at the room and stopped, a different kind of concern furrowing his brow now as every grin within turned towards him. “What did I miss?”

Coming over to where she was standing, he put the tray he was carrying on the table. The look he gave her said he had his suspicions, and that her innocent smile was fooling no one.

Then a gleam entered his eyes, and Makino knew she was in trouble even before he chirped, “Did you tell them about your plan to get a stand-in husband in my absence?”

Their grins fell, and Makino closed her eyes.

Poor Magra.

“A what?!”

.

.

.

She didn’t get a stand-in, but she didn’t take the ring off, either―a small act of rebellion, but it was the only thing she could do in opposition to the system that governed their world, and the laws that would punish her for her choices. And maybe there was a little pride there, too, but then loving him was her greatest crime, and she’d accept all charges against her, pleading guilty to whatever court would see her put on trial, mortal or otherwise. Those were her wedding vows, too; the ones she hadn’t spoken aloud to him.

Her bar saw the occasional new visitor, on their way to Goa or further still, who’d seen the lights from afar and decided to have a look, but there was only one who asked about the ring, and who didn’t bat an eye when she told him her husband was currently across the island signing off on a shipment. He’d only remarked positively on their bar, and said that no tavern in Goa Port he’d been to had been as hospitable.

(She hadn’t questioned his manners, unfailingly good, almost military-like; hadn’t looked closely enough at the set of his shoulders, that proud bearing she’d known since childhood, from the grizzled marine who’d ruffle her hair until her kerchief sat askew and who’d sneak her gifts behind her mother’s back.)

Garp would have seen through him, she would realise later, but she’d been so busy trying to keep up appearances, she’d forgotten to question if her visitor was doing the same.

She was getting ready to open―had just finished lifting the chairs off the tables and had gone into the kitchen to put on a pot of coffee when she remembered it wasn’t necessary, and had instead gone to wring out the rag to wipe down the counter when she heard the bat-wing doors swinging inwards.

Ace was asleep in his crib, safe under the counter behind the curtain she’d pulled closed, and she didn’t pause at her early visitor, as emerging from the kitchen, she called out, forgetting for a moment that she was alone, the we invoked so easily, even weeks after he’d left, “I’m sorry, but we’re not open yet―”

The words cut off, as she came to a halt.

She could smell the cigar smoke from across the room, the butt smouldering like the embers in her hearth, an almost unnatural glow in its burning eye where it fastened on her like a brand.

The white coat was the first thing she noticed, but she would have recognised him even out of uniform, the straight shoulders and the flower tattoo peeking out from under his shirt, the garishly patterned kind that reminded her of Garp, but that was where their similarities ended.

He was flanked by two officers, their caps pulled low over their brows, but she recognised the one on the left, dark-haired and dimpled and refusing to meet her eyes, his hands white-knuckled around the rifle he was holding. He’d loved her cooking so much he’d asked for a fourth helping; had said it reminded him of his sister’s, who he hadn’t seen in years.

The Fleet Admiral took her in, a single sweep of his eyes across her announcing his feelings, something far more personal than simple contempt in the furrow of his brow. Judge, jury, and executioner; he’d already decided her charges, and what her punishment would be, for the choices she’d made. The only crime she’d committed, but for a man like him, it was enough.

And she’d been right. In the end, the ring hadn’t mattered.

“Arrest her.”

[chalkrevelations]

So, Word of Honor, Episode 36 (and “Episode” 37) again, because I want to do a little bit more unpacking of this, particularly with some of the extra material and information that people have been able to point me to.

Spoilers, obvs. For right now, I mainly want to pull out this bit of my initial reaction to 36 & 37, because I think it remains a key point for me:

It would be nice, though, if the connective tissue from 36 to 37 made any sense. Or existed whatsoever. Just, like, throw me a bone, show, some kind of explicit hand-waviness that actually gets mentioned for why Ye Baiyi apparently was not as smart as he thought he was and didn’t really know what he was talking about when he was doomsaying about how one of the pair will surely, oh surely perish. None of this “Sooooo, they managed to figure out the technique and master it?” from some random shidi who never actually gets an answer. I mean, the door was left open for fanwankery on this one, with what looks to be a very last-minute conceit of all this being a story told by grown-up Chengling to his disciples, which begs the question of how much of what he’s telling them is totally accurate, given any number of issues …

I do feel like there’s an interesting meta thing going on here, in that the entire show has been about – let’s be honest, it was never really about the plot – queer-coding this couple in ways that supposedly fly enough under the radar that people can handwave them as Just Good Friends and Brothers (I mean, I guess) with a Bury Your Gays tragic ending (ugh) for good measure. And Chengling is telling a story in-universe that seems to conform to some of this same formula. And yet, we all know well and good that these guys were husbands … So are we supposed to carry the same assurance out of the show, on a meta level, that what appears to be happening in the story at the end of Ep 36 – what we discover we’re learning through Chengling’s story-telling, isn’t really the truth? Just, look: While we’re getting the Good Friends and Brothers push, there’s stuff like obvious voice-over work that doesn’t match the much more queer version of what the actors actually said, which is apparently blazingly clear to any viewers who know Mandarin and can manage to lip-read. The show has literally put de-queered words into these characters’ mouths. You can’t trust what you hear. But apparently the show has also made this obvious enough that, if you’re a good enough speaker of the language the show is being told in, and you have a good enough eye, you can see what is actually going on. Are we being taught to trust our eyes more than our ears, are we being told that what we’re being told – by the end of Ep 36 on a meta level, by Ye Baiyi-through-Chengling’s-story on an in-universe level, and by what we learn about what happened from Chengling’s story, itself, also on an in-universe level – is inherently untrustworthy, but that if we “speak the language” of this show well enough, and have a good enough eye, we can decode it and see what “actually” happened and is later made explicit in Ep 37? 

So, that’s a lot, but the reason I wanted to pull it back out is because I feel like this no-homo, surface-level, smoke-and-mirrors effect that gets layered over a queer bedrock of “reality” is precisely what the show did with its ending, and I want to approach that on a couple of different levels. Particularly since I’ve seen several reactions from other people who didn’t seem to have seen/didn’t have access to the extra of “Ep” 37, or who also found it difficult and vaguely unsatisfying to make the leap from Ep 36 to full belief in, and commitment to, “Ep” 37.

When I first posted this, I was really leaning on the idea of a classic Rashomon effect, given that we see – imho – a final Zhou Zishu/Wen Kexing scene in Ep 36 that’s filmed to lead us to believe that Wen Kexing died, with a subsequent cut to Zhang Chengling wrapping up a telling of the “story” of ZZS and WKX to his disciples. The easiest fanwank on this is that all of what we’ve seen so far has been Chengling telling the story of ZZS and WKX to his disciples, making him an unreliable narrator who in fact doesn’t know the truth of what really happened. I was actually reminded of the contrast in The Untamed (god, I don’t need to warn for spoilers for The Untamed, do I, we’ve all seen Chen Qing Ling at this point, right? Anyway, SPOILERS FOR THE UNTAMED) between the cliff scene in Episode 1 when they make it look like Jiang Cheng stabbed Wei Wuxian, leading to his fall off the cliff, and you go back later and realize this is the version that the storyteller was telling to the people in the teahouse vs. Episode, god, what is it, 33? When we see the cliff scene in “real” time, and discover that’s not what actually happened, that what happened is that Jiang Cheng stabbed a rock and Wei Wuxian shook himself free of Lan Wangji’s grip to fall to his death. You can’t trust what you hear. Also … well, we’ll get back to Chengling in a minute.

The second level of uncertainty to unwind is Gao Xiaolian calling bs on Chengling’s story. So, I felt like the kid who’s practicing his forms in the snow and being coached by ZZS in “Ep” 37 might actually be someone, not just a random kid, and that might be important, but I could not for the life of me figure out who he might be. I wasn’t aware until I watched some of AvenueX’s wrap-up of the show (I think that’s the first place I heard this info pointed out) that this kid is supposed to be the son of Gao Xiaolian and Deng Kuan, and the dad who comes to take him home is Deng Kuan (formerly Da-shixiong of Yueyang Sect, who – let’s face it – Gao Xiaolian really wanted to marry). Seriously, I spent so much time making fun of ZZS’s stupid facial hair tricks in this show, and then they actually do just put a dumbass mustache on a guy, and I completely don’t recognize him. I have to admit, the mustache threw me enough that I had no idea that was Deng Kuan (well, and maybe only seeing him for three episodes also helped). But if that’s Deng Kuan, and if the kid is his and Gao Xiaolian’s son, then she would have some reasonable standing to know a story detailing WKX’s death was bs.

 Finally, and most crucially – thanks to everyone who directed me to resources (including AvenueX and other fans who were able to do some translation) who were able to talk about the voiceover work in this final ep, because when I talk about how you can’t trust what you hear, but if you speak the language well enough and have a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on? When I talk about de-queered words being put into these character’s mouths? Apparently, this is what happens to Chengling in the final scene. That last scene - and the story he tells his disciples - apparently DOES provide the connective tissue from Ep 36 to Ep 37, but you can’t trust what you hear. Apparently, this is one of the places where you can see something different from what you hear if you’re able to lip-read, with Chengling telling the disciples something much closer to the idea that two people who love each other equally can equally support each other through this cultivation technique and both come out alive.

In the AvenueX discussion of this (Livestream #21, starting around 1:22:30), there’s an additional tidbit about the use of the word “cauldron” – I believe by Ye Baiyi - to describe one person in the pair, a word with a specific and widely-understood meaning within the genre that’s not necessarily known outside of the genre with, yes, sexual connotations. (Come on, slash fans, don’t tell me you don’t giggle every time you pass a perfectly innocent Jiffy Lube auto shop, at something that the mundanes don’t think twice about.) Apparently, “cauldron” is in the script, I believe it’s in the English subs, and it apparently was in the original Chinese subs, until too many people started talking about it and how it had been slipped past censorship, because it’s a perfectly common Jiffy Lube auto shop, right? and then it appears Youku went back and changed the character in the Chinese subs to something that doesn’t even make any sense. So again, we get an example of a case where if you’re a good enough speaker of the language this show is being told in – in this case the vernacular of wuxia – with a good enough eye, you can catch what’s really going on. Something that then gets no-homo’d. And has some nonsensical de-queered meaning laid over top of it. How many times do we have to do this until we learn the lesson that you can’t trust what you hear?

 ANYWAY, I’m wondering if the visuals are important, too: Something we see in the last scene with ZZS and WKX in Ep 36, when WKX is either unconscious or dead (CLEARLY UNCONSCIOUS), is that ZZS – twice – doesn’t let WKX’s hands fall. He catches him by the wrists and then catches him again by the hands as WKX’s hands start to slip away from ZZS’s hands – aaaannnnd end scene. I have to wonder if that’s not a subtle but important detail, that we see ZZS refusing to let WKX physically slip away, and maybe, by implication, refusing to let WKX slip away from him into death.

Also, again with Ye Baiyi – in the flashback when WKX is yelling at ZZS, Ye Baiyi says “No one dies!” as he comes bursting into WKX’s sickroom. And then even reiterates it – “No one dies before me!” But then the voiceover during the qi transfer, he’s supposedly going on about here’s how WKX is going to have to kill himself to save his husband? I think the script has dropped the ball in a few places, but that would really be a tremendous flub. That also deserves some unpacking, but I’m running out of free time right now.

So, just some additional thoughts. I will probably have more, but next up, I think, will be a re-watch from the beginning.

One last thought, tho’: What’s the likelihood that Nian Xiang is Actual A-Xiang and Goa Xiaolian’s/Deng Kuan’s kid is Cao Weining, reincarnated?

[mithrilhearts]

for the wip ask game: 4, 9 and 17 -signed a struggling writer

HELLO FELLOW struggling WRITER. These are insanely good questions and I'm VERY happy to answer them. They make me *think* which is nice for a change lololol.

4. what’s a wip that’s fairly easy for you to get back into writing? why?

I don't think any of my WIPs are necessarily "difficult" to get back into writing, but I do have to be in the proper mood to tackle certain scenes or moods within a story.

If I had to pick one though for the moment right NOW (and forever?), it would probably be May Your Forge Burn Bright. That's my original brain baby, the first big Razzy fic, AND I have just finished solidifying the ending. While I still have a small ways to go to get there, this is the one fic where I can instantly get motivated with a simple sentence, song, or picture.

9. what are you struggling with the most in finishing your current wip(s)?

Currently, I'm working on my vampire AU Where The Shadows Lie, and I actually just had this kind of discussion with SunnyRose, I was struggling pretty hard with a scene between Dis and Bilbo, ensuring that the dialogue and the scene itself was flowing and not disjointed. I think I have that hurdle down, but now I'm moving on to the next one.

The tone of this chapter shifts like whiplash, and sometimes that's hard for my head to grasp. If I've written this somewhat somber or moody piece and have to flip right back to something lighthearted and cracky, I usually struggle with transitioning my mindset to start. It's like I have to do a hard reset on my brain and look at it is as a completely separate piece.

Wish me luck on this next section of comedic relief!

17. what do you do to motivate yourself to write?

THIS QUESTION!!! I have a slew of things I do to help motivate myself, but also just things to keep in mind as well.

Get yourself an enabler (or enablers). Someone to hype you up. I have a few of these that I am very grateful for, so whenever I'm in a slump or not feeling it, just talking a little fic/plot with them can send my motivation to the moon.

Find the right mood for what you're wanting to write. I generally try not to write anything (even angsty) when I'm pissed off or generally feeling TERRIBLE. Some days I'm feeling more angsty than others, which I can use to my advantage, and other days I just wanna write the fluffiest fluff you've ever seen. I let my mood tell me what I want to write.

Music is often my best friend. There is a reason I make specific playlists for specific fics, they help get me in the mood and get me thinking about the plots. Doing that makes me motivated to continue the story so I can get to X scene or flesh out X idea.

Other forms of media - movies, artwork, games, also help bolster my desire to write. Not necessarily MOTIVATE me, but it does help when I'm feeling particularly BLAH about wanting to type anything.

I think of all of the nice comments I've received from each fic. To see how excited or eager people are to see what happens next, that's a huge motivator. Sometimes I'll read through the fic comments/tags just for a little dose of serotonin and it's off to the wordy races I go.

BE KIND TO YOURSELF. This is one I struggle with a lot because I'm often in the headspace of "is this good enough?" and I'm a huge stat watcher (bad Razzy!) trust me, the works are good enough. Though that mindset is easier said than done. Celebrate your accomplishments, writing is not an easy thing regardless of how experienced one might be. Just remember that you have your own style, your own fans, and what you're doing is for fun. If something isn't fun, don't force yourself which leads to my next bullet.

I try to remember that I write for myself. Don't force it if you're not motivated or in the mood. Sometimes I try to hurdle myself past the "unmotivated" stage, and the pieces don't turn out well - they get scrapped and I just put it on the back burner until later.

I want to finish a big fic. That is my big goal for 2022 and is a huge motivator. I want to be able to pat myself on the back for a job well done. To bring a story full circle and finally call it complete.

The struggle is always going to be there in some fashion, but I'm telling you, the first bullet is probably the best thing that's ever happened to me. I wouldn't be writing without those enablers. Someone to share your excitement with, it just gives me that instant mood of "I want to write this and then show them!!"

If ever you need an ear (or rather, eyes), my ask box or DMs are always open, we writers gotta support one another, just as the readers are happy to support us as well!

-> WIP ask game

[retphienix]

I Have A Lot To Say So I'll Read More This.

The short of it?

I'm glad I played Joker- I played it because I wanted to know how DQM evolved when it reached the DS and I got my answer.

It's mediocre. Not bad exactly, I enjoyed playing it, it adds some REALLY appreciated features to the DQM series and if you were playing it at release it had online play which plays well with the post game content which I haven't touched by the time I wrote this:

-but there are some engine/console specific things that made it a drag and there are some parts of the game that are just weaker than the previous games which is amusing since the previous games were simple GBC titles.

And finally, I don't really recommend playing through Joker 1. Can't speak on the sequels, but Joker 1 was a pretty middling experience for me so I'm the wrong person to get a positive recommendation from.

And since the opportunity presents itself: If you like monster RPGs and haven't tried it- go emulate Dragon Warrior Monsters 2 for the GBC, it's really good and also if you emulate you can fast forward the GBC era grind if that's your taste- really a win all around.

On to my rambling:

I debated on writing, rewriting, rewriting, and better presenting my thoughts on this game and the series as a whole but nah, Joker ain't getting that, I'm ramblin'- lol

I will split it slightly between "The ending" and "The game as a whole" though.

Ending:

1:07 - This is slightly a 'game a a whole' thing but honestly it's funny to me that you unlock a permanent repel in this game by doing the main quest. I entered this dungeon feeling strong enough to beat the game, so I just avoided 90% of encounters entirely.

5:00 - I genuinely got a laugh out of Sparkpug's whole deal in this finale. Not story wise, that's fine, no complaints- I mean that Sparkpug is clearly built to be a monster that can carry an ineffective team. He's clearly meant to be bred a few times and a god tier member of a potentially inexperienced player's team- but I literally never used him after the intro.

So during this scene it's supposed to be like "I'm a demi-god monster, you can't possibly beat me" and I'm thinking "Dude, you're like level 10 and shit tier, you can't win, this is hilarious."

Obviously it's a real boss fight and not 'face the monster you once had' but I was having fun roasting him behind the scenes of this recording.

45:00 - What an entirely unexpected change of pace.

Like, I had it spoiled for me by a screenshot that Dr. Snap becomes a monster or something- but I thought maybe he was always a monster or something, and also I got a bad look at him.

HE TURNS INTO A BODY HORROR BEAST, THAT'S NUTS.

Genuinely a highlight of the game.

52:00 - I fucking laughed what a meaningless exchange where the payoff is saying "He was stupid!", it's honestly just silly and dumb but not necessarily bad just dumb lol

55:00 - Not a great 'you won' victory lap. Like at all. Kinda feels like they should have just made this all a cutscene where I appear back at town and see that Solitaire is the leader now etc etc.

I kinda don't understand why it's a victory lap at all? Because all anyone says is "They picked a weird successor to Snap >:(" or "Snap went to the island? I bet he was stopping the calamity :)"

If you have 2 lines of dialogue prepared, maybe don't make a victory lap???

1:00:00 - What a fucking stupid payoff lol

Like sincerely, Solitaire does NOTHING the entire game! She's meaningless from start to finish! And the 'surprise' is that she's the new commish??? And she got the position because she's a rich spoiled brat??? Like LITERALLY that's why????????

What a stupid fucking ending lol

Now her proposed evolution of the contest is fair enough, I mean it's childish as hell, but to be fair- more contests is a fine idea especially since prior games and this game demonstrated the public's interest in watching monster fights. And the goal being to fight her as the final fight is fucking egotistical and stupid- BUT- it does play into the fact that the player didn't get to fight her the whole game so it's whatever?

1:03:00 - This is both the best and worst lol.

This game has no story, like at all, it's fucking empty front to back, and only explodes with like- 1 event at the very end.

This moment is a montage of memorable moments with your 'best friend' Sparkpug. It's cinematically very nice to be honest! Even includes a moment I don't remember at the arena which probably didn't happen lol.

So visually it's cool- I dig seeing the camera zoom out as we run across the beach, and the flashback moments intersplice over us making our way to the scout memorial- that's very well done.

The content is empty lol

As I said there's no story, these moments are nothing lol

And that's that.

All said the ending was a very nice challenge to face with my team- I had to abuse items like mad but I MADE IT! It was a GOOD fight.

The rest I've already said.

On to the game as a whole:

I have issues with this game, but there's good too. It's really like 4 steps forward 6-7 steps back it's weird, it's really weird.

Positives are neat!

> First and foremost- TRAITS!

Monsters in Dragon Quest Monsters have always had a problem with keeping their identity for long. The way I'd explain it to an outsider to the series is that Monsters DO have special stat variance and intended movesets and all that jazz- but the breeding system completely and entirely destroys that relatively early into the game.

While a monster might normally have really high defense and low other stats while knowing buffing magic- breeding, EVEN UNINTENTIONALLY, will have that same monster come out with 9 billion attack and all ice magic.

Monsters in DQM have a habit of becoming canvases for the breeding effects rather than their own mons- and this is undeniably a downside. It makes the game feel unique, it doesn't 'hurt' it, but when by mid-game monsters are more easily identified as sprites rather than strengths and weaknesses or even types (family) it's a slight downer on the series.

Traits fix this a lot by making every specific monster have unchangeable traits which offer things like "immunity to x type of damage" or "higher crit chance"- it's small, but it gives each monster more identity.

> Second and secondmost- SKILLS!

The older games didn't use trees, it used each individual spell as a potential pass on during breeding.

Each monster could have 8 spells, and when you breed two monsters you pass on all 16 spells to the offspring (they don't learn them all at once, they learn them as they level up) as well as the natural spells the monster would learn by level up.

So in the older games it is really easy to end up with a refined and overpowered list of 8 spells on each of your monsters.

Now spells are tied to Skill trees and your monsters can have 3 skill trees total (which are passed on as OPTIONS when breeding).

All to say skills do a lot for removing the "Master of all, weakness of none" spell lists that the older games made trivial to make, now you have to limit your builds and be more specialized- also they added skills like "Attack up" to add more variance to a build- instead of having spells you might just have high stat buffs as skill trees.

Overall I think Skills are an improvement because coupled with Traits it makes each monster feel much more specialized and unique and less like a sprite with no identity.

> Breeding is improved.

This is very much because of skills and traits- again- but also the system is just improved in general. Instead of being told "That's a monster you haven't had before!" and judging your decisions based on the name of the offspring breed, now you get to see a small sprite of the resulting monster to help you decide- ALSO instead of getting 1 result for every combo (to the point where you have to back out and choose Monster A + Monster B and Monster B + Monster A as separate options), you now get up to 3 results to pick between for every breeding opportunity.

It's just better.

> The engine is impressive.

At least to me. This is a DS title using (from what I read) a rework of the DQ8 PS2 game's engine- it certainly looks like it.

Combat models are nice, using moves looks nice, overworld exploration looks nice- it looks nice.

Now for some negative and general nonsense- all of which is more often than not 'weird'.

> I gotta be unfair and say "The Story" first and foremost.

DQM 1 and 2 are not intense story games. They aren't.

But they both knew how to handle their story well for what they wanted to tell, I can and will praise both for their narratives because they know what they are and do it well.

DQM:J does not. It's fucking bad.

Basically: The overall story doesn't exist- you're told to be a spy, but that comes up 1 time towards the end of the game and LITERALLY doesn't matter at any other moment INCLUDING the one time it comes up.

You have NO meaningful objective from the start up until near the end of the game. You show up and have no goal- so you get told to get some crystals with no meaning behind it (not even a lie because they are clearly evil- not even a lie to motivate you! NO MEANING IS PRESENTED! JUST DO IT! TO DO THE CONTEST I GUESS! WHY? SHUT UP!)

So 90% of the game time you're not doing anything meaningful. So what about the islands? Any small narratives to keep things moving?

NO!

NOT AT ALL!

So you go 90% of the game having no real objective, just kinda wandering forward mindlessly- and then the game suddenly goes "Oh! Guy who seemed sus! He's evil! He's gonna unleash the calamity that you were 'kinda but not directly' working towards with your dog! You know, that plot point that's kept vague and paid 0% attention to the entire game? Yeah it's happening! Aaaaand you're done! GG!"

Basically there's just nothing going on in this game, it's all background noise until the last 10% of the game. And that's lame.

DQM1 had a light story- but from the very intro cutscene you have a clear objective which makes every action you do seem relevant as you are working towards that goal.

From the start of the game you know "My sister is gone! The king says a magic wish can get her back! I'll go do that!" and then you do!

DQM2 has a much better story!

You have a goal from the start (The kingdom is physically dying and you have to save it by getting a new plug!) AND it has stories for each world you visit!

THAT'S MILES BETTER! THIS GAME COULD HAVE DONE THAT FOR THE ISLANDS!

Anywho. Story is lacking and empty and lame especially when DQM2 has a similar format but does every part better- you have a clear objective you're working towards AND side stories to keep the light narrative moving!

WTH!

The spy plotline doesn't matter! It could have been used to build suspicion on who's the good guy!

The islands are so empty of story!

DQM2 has a fun mix on how a rival character works which makes every world interesting to see how they get involved!

This game has a rival that does NOTHING!!!!!!!!!

It's just such a step back from the previous games, it's weird to see DQM 1 land a solid simple story and DQM 2 build a great format to expand the story going forward- and then DQM:J just slams its head into the dirt and wipes out.

> Game's slow.

The engine switch is a good thing overall, but it makes combat slower (a lot), adds loading screens to combat (primarily), and they didn't bother speeding up the grind from previous games.

Because of the grind still existing which isn't a problem in and of itself- the game becomes SLOW AS HELL because the engine makes that grind take longer.

Also world exploration is slow which is to be expected when moving from 2d to 3d, but this is countered by adding things to the world to find or do- and Joker tries but it's still noticeable. The world exploration isn't a problem, it just stands out alongside the combat being slow as hell.

The engine change was a great thing- but it feels like they should have put more work into speeding up combat to counter the slowdown of load times and flashy animations.

A GOOD WAY TO FIX THAT MIGHT BE XP!

> Music ain't great in my opinion.

DQ has amazing music. This game has some weak renditions in my opinion. The CELL HQ theme song is a pretty good poster child for the worst there is, but just in general even the better music is lacking compared to the chiptunes of the GBC or the better mixes of the main series.

Maybe it's unfair, it's a DS game, I don't know, I just know I ended up just muting most of the game because it didn't sound great. I played the GBC games OSTs instead for a large portion of my playthrough. I listened to videos instead for the bulk of the game.

It's just not pleasant to me, sorry to say.

> XP!!!!!!!

I'm being a spoiled ass on this but yeah!

XP SUCKS IN THIS!

There aren't good placed to grind until you beat the game! (apparently)

The first level blatantly has too low xp which makes you grind before you can tackle the boss of the island- and the late game has you mindlessly grinding low xp rewards in order to be ready to face the final boss.

It's WEIRD!

Why is it so low!

> Tech is weird!

I could ramble on this alone but here's the short version:

DQ has a unique fantasy world aesthetic that each game has explored in its own way. It's basically "swords, magic, monsters, and charm- things feel light but aren't afraid to get scary sometimes :)"

This game... doesn't.

This game has fuckin' tech watches, jet skis, TOWER PCS????

This ISN'T dragon quest on a world building level.

It's like, contemporary modern world but with slimes.

And that could be good I guess, but it feels so fucking weird to see PCs right alongside swords and axes and a dracky.

Like... why?

It's a poor aesthetic according to my tastes. Maybe I'm an ass for that. The tech is weird.

All to say, in a poor rambling "I gotta get this out of me" kinda way, is Joker was fine.

I enjoyed breeding. I enjoyed seeing the engine. I enjoyed the unique additions like a 'hero monster'.

But I also had to grind mindlessly on a slower game.

I had to endure a story that forgot to show up until the very end.

I sat there thinking about replaying the older ones the whole time.

It was fine.

It's mediocre.

I'm glad I played it.

I'm done now :)

[geo-winchester]

DEAR BROTHER (13)

A/N: Hi! I know I said I’ll post it last week but I couldn’t and I’m so sorry for that! but here it is, the 14th part of this story and I hope you like it! I had a few ideas and I hope I can write them!enjoy the reading and if you want to be tag in this story or in any other let me know!

DEAR BROTHER MASTERLIST

MASTERLIST

Tag list: @chloe-skywalker @thescarletknight2014 @reading--mermaid

—————————————

Poe and Finn were looking at Chewie as he was thinking on his next move of Dejarik. They keep playing as they were on their way to Sinta Glaciar colony, but neither Poe or Finn knew how does he manage to beat them all the time, they start to ask him if he was going to move but chewie didn’t listen to them, he keep concentrate on the game.

-He can’t beat us every time- Finn said to Poe.

-Apparently he does- Poe said but he didn’t look at him, he keep his eyes on Chewie.

-How does he do it?- Finn ask.

-This guy right here- Poe start to say -it cause he cheats- Chewie roar to him in defense -I’m kidding.

But the protest of Finn and Poe were silence when an alarm suddenly start to sound, Chewie was the first one to stand up and go to the cockpit and he was follow by Poe while Finn went to the scape door with R2 to found their informant, Boolio.

-Boolio, good to see you, you got something for us?

-From a new ally, a spy from the first order.

-A spy?- Finn ask -Who?

-I don’t know- Boolio say -Transfer the message, give it to Leia.

Finn took the cables and connect them to R2, a few moments later Poe saw a few Ties from the first order coming to them, Poe try to hurry Finn for the file and after R2 beep when the transmission of the message end, he quickly take the cables and give it to Boolio. Finn head to the gunner cockpit as Poe fly as fast as he can, Chewie roar after Poe accidentally crash with a wall.

-Sorry, I’m sorry, I know -but he roar again -She won’t be mad at me for a little scratch... -he said- at least that’s what I hope... Finn, how are you doing with those Ties?

-I got one- he said.

-Great, how many they left?

-Too many- he scream as he keep shooting at them, Chewie roar at Poe and when he saw what he was saying

-Good thinking Chewie- Poe said -Finn there’s a chance we can crush does Ties.

-I was just thinking that.

Poe change the angle of the Falcon so Finn can had the change to shoot at the bar, when he did it, the bar fell over the Ties and crush them but when they thought they could finally went back to the base a wall of Ties appear in front of them and suddenly Poe had an idea.

-How thick do you think that ice wall is?- Poe ask before he fly through the wall and make a jump in to the hyperspace.

When they stop, Finn asked him about how he knew to do that, but he didn’t answer, he saw a few Ties follow them, Poe keep flying through the planet as he try to lose them, when he could he take another jump in to the hyperspace. Poe keep doing the jumps in to the hyperspace when chewie start to complain but Poe didn’t listen, he knew this was the best way to lose them. They get in to a planet where a big monster appear from the nowhere, he wait to the exact moment to take another jump, they were getting close to the monster when Poe took the jump. After Poe was sure that there weren’t any Ties following them, he stop for a moment so Chewie had a change to look at the damage on the ship, he took the opportunity to goa and check R2-D2, he knew didn’t want to Yn to get worried if he saw a scratch on him, but before she could kneel in front of him the droid beep.

-What do you mean she’s heading to the base?- he ask, the droid beep in response -She was in a mission?- he kick one of the boxes, Finn go to look what happen -We need to go now- he said as he go to the cockpit.

-Great, now he’s on a bad mood- Finn said.

When Yn landed on Ajan Kloss her mother was waiting for her at the hangar, she sigh at the moment she take off her helmet, she step out of her X-wing, she didn’t mention the fact that her brother was on Mustafar as they walk to the control room, she didn’t want to worried her mother. She was explaining her what she saw when she landed on Mustafar when one of the soldiers told them that the falcon was about to land, she look at her mother who give her a nod and she made her way to the hangar. In the middle of the way BB-8 bump in her leg.

-Hey buddy, you got a good time with Rey?- she ask, the Droid beeps and she saw the little bump on the droid -Hey, What happen to you?- she ask but before the droid can answer her they hear Rey and Poe arguing, BB-8 start to beep quickly -He know? How does he know- BB-8 beep -Of course my mother tell him- she sigh and made her way to her friends, but her smile disappear when she saw the back of the falcon was on fire she run -What the hell happen?!

-where were you?- he ask.

-I ask first, what’d you do to my ship?- she ask and chewie Roar -You try to run away with lightspeed skipeed? You know you can’t do that with the falcon...

-That’s What I told him- Rey said.

-Yeah this could went a lot better if you two where out there with us and no here playing with the force or lying to your boyfriend and went to another mission... what did you do to my droid?- he said as he kneel in front of BB-8, who beeps in response -You drop a tree on him?- he ask to Rey.

-It was an accident- she said,

-Great, this day can’t get any better- he said as he walk away to talk to Leia.

-So he’s on a bad mood, Uh?- Yn ask Finn who nod.

-You should talk to him.

-First I had a fire to turn off.

-And probably a droid to fix...- he said.

-What?- she said and she hear R2-D2 behind her and saw a few scratches and bumps on him, she sigh -Let’s go R2, let’s help uncle chewie and then we can go and fix you...

After she help chewie with the falcon, she stay with him as she try to fix R2 and Chewie told her what happen on Sinta Glaciar colony, a few couple of hours later C3-PO told them that there was an emergency meeting on the control room, when they get there she stand beside her mother as Poe start to talk about what they found.

-we decoded the intel from the first order spy- he said, everyone get quiet waiting for Poe to keep talking -And it confirms the worst... somehow Palpatine returned- everyone start to murmuring.

-Wait, do we believe this?- rose ask.

-It Can not be, the emperor is dead.

-Dark science, cloning- one of the generals said -secrets only the Siths knew

-he’s been planing his revenge- Poe said -his followers has been building something for years, the largest fleet the galaxy ever known, he calls it the final order, in sixteen hours, attacks in all free worlds begin, the emperor and his fleet are hiding in the unknown regions on a world call Exegol- Yn notice Rey’s reaction at the mention of the world’s name, C3-PO start to talk about the planet.

-Excuse me- a new recruit start to say -What if all this is a trap for us, what if Kylo Ren is planning all this to make us go to this world and kill us all, I mean he tried it before, and sorry commander but I heard you when you said that maybe they got a spy on the resistance- he said and then he look at Yn -Don’t you think is a little weird that commander Solo, who betrayed us before, got a mission on a planet where everyone die and she come back with just a scratch...

-What?- Yn said.

-She could be the spy, she try to end with the resistance before- everyone around her start to yell, she could hear that most of the members of the resistance were protecting her.

-Enough!- Poe yell -soldier you couldn’t been more wrong, commander solo is one of our best pilots and commanders, she’ll fight with us not against us and if you talk about her again that way and you’re going to regret it- all of the members of the resistances agreed with Poe.

-I bet she was the one who shot him- the soldier said.

-Hey- Yn said -You’re maybe brave when you talk but I never saw you on the feel, I mean how long have you been here? A year maybe? And yet every time we got problems, you’re the first one to run, you can’t fly and I bet you don’t even known how to use a blaster and if you had a problem with me I don’t had a problem to kick your ass in front of everyone...

-Yn- her mother said, but she step in front of him, even if he was bigger than her, she could see the fear in his eyes.

-Next time you had a problem with me, you should had the balls to say it to me in my face- she said before she walk away from the meeting.

She start to fix the falcon with the help of chewie, they work in silence, the only sound they make was the sounds of the tools, after a few hours they decide to rest for a while and they sat on a couple of rocks and start to talk, in that moment they saw Poe coming to them, chewie roar before he get inside of the falcon, she stand up and face Poe.

-Are you ready to talk or you going to scream again?- she said.

-I’m sorry for freak out early... I don’t know what happen...

-I know what happened, you don’t trust me- she said.

-what? That’s not what’s going on...

-Of course it is! You’re afraid I’ll go dark again, even kylo felt it remember? That’s why you didn’t want me to get my memory back and that’s why you freak out when you realize I went on a mission alone... you know that deep down you had the same fear of that asshole- she said but he stay quiet for a moment before he start to walk to the Falcon -Where are you going?- but he didn’t answer it took him a few minutes to get back with the first aid.

-Sit down- he said, she was about to replay but the way he was looking she sit on the rock, he kneel in front of her and pour a little alcohol on a cotton, she groan when the cotton touch the wound on her hand, she hasn’t realize that she was bleeding, he apologize before he keep cleaning the wound -you’re wrong- he said as he start to bandage the wound -I do trust you... I’m not scare that you’ll go dark again because I know you...

-You said that before and yet I...

-Yeah and I know why you did it- he said -I know how much you miss your brother and you almost lost your mother that day, you only want to be with the last part of your family and that was your brother- he look at her eyes -but you were never alone, you had me- he said making her smile -I know you think I’m afraid that you fall to the dark again but that’s not what I’m afraid to, I’m afraid to lose you or that something happen to you and I wasn’t there to help you...

-You think I don’t feel the same way? How do you think I feel if one they someone told me that my brother kill the guy I love and I wasn’t there to protect him?

-You love me?

-Don’t be an ass Poe you know I love you- she said.

-Yeah I know but I like when you said it- he said with a smile -I got an idea, what if, from now on every time we had a mission we do it together?

-so we’re going to be that kind of couple?

-Well it work to our parents- she smile.

-You’re right- she said before she kiss him.

-Great, and by the way I think we got a new mission- he said.

-Wait... you didn’t come here to talk to me, right?

-I want to know if the falcon was ready- he said as he turn to the ship, she punch him in the arm -Ok I was kidding, I come to see you.

-That’s better- she said, he hug her and she rest her head on his shoulder.

-We should go, apparently Rey found a way to find Exegol.

[uncloseted]

What do you think these characters would study at university and where (if they go to uni of course!) Effy Tony Cool Freddy ( :( ) Sid Cassie Michelle Chris ( :( ) The twins Pandora Mini Frankie

Some of these have in-show answers, so I’ll point out when there’s an actual answer and when I’m speculating.

Effy: We never hear about Effy’s post-college plans in the show, but Kaya has mentioned that Effy studied Maths at university.  I think she probably went to a relatively good university in London since she has three (fake) A grades.  If she wanted to really take advantage of those grades, she would have gone somewhere like Imperial, UCL, or King’s; if not, maybe Queen Mary University.

Tony: In-series, it’s mentioned that Tony goes to Cardiff. In episode 407, Effy says that he “got the highest mark for first year essay in Cardiff history.”  We’re never told what course he takes, but I imagine it’s something academic. Maybe Philosophy and Economics or Politics and Philosophy.

Cook: Cook doesn’t go to university because he’s on the run from the law, but even if he wasn’t, I couldn’t see university being for him.

Freddy: Freddie is dead, which does sort of prevent him from going to uni, but I don’t know if he would have gone anyway.  In 405, he’s told that all of his work is “late or inadequate”, so even if he had lived he may have failed his exams.

Sid: In 209, Sid saids he didn’t apply to university.

Cassie: Also in 209, Cassie says that she did.  Initially, they intended for her to go to Cambridge (like Hannah Murray) and study philosophy.

Michelle: In the show, Michelle says she’s going to York.  In an Unseen Skins, we’re told it’s to study languages.  Her course is probably French and Spanish language, since she’s been shown in the show to speak both (although she does also seem to understand Italian).

Chris: In Chris’ series 2 episode, he becomes “no longer permanently affiliated” (read: expelled) from Roundview on the grounds that “we've no coursework from you and the exams are about to start. You're a shit student. Your inevitably shit results will affect my averages, and then I'll be swimming in a river of shit and I didn't pack a snorkel.”  We’re also told he achieved fail grades on some of his GCSEs.  So no university for Chris.

Katie: We know Katie did take her A-levels and achieved two C´s and a B.  It’s not clear if she intends to go to university with those grades or not, but I think regardless, her goal is to get married and start a family.  Two of her A-levels seem to be English and French, so I could see her taking French at the University of Bristol (which her grades do qualify her for).  It would let her stay close to her family, which I think she would want, while giving her something to do while she finds a husband.

Emily: Emily got two Bs and a C for her A-levels, but in episode 402, she states that she and Naomi decided to take a year to go traveling instead of going to university.  While Naomi initially had interest in going to Goldsmiths, they do go traveling to Goa, India instead.  By the events of Skins Fire, Emily is a photographer (like her actress, Kat Prescott), so maybe she went to University of the Arts London for a BA in Photography to be close to Naomi while she’s at Goldsmiths? That said, Goldsmiths always seemed like a strange choice for Naomi, who got all As on her A-levels, so... basically I think Emily would just be where Naomi is.

Pandora: Pandora did some exams in secret and it turns out she’s really smart (apparently), and so she goes to Harvard to study history. There are a lot of things wrong with that, namely that there’s zero buildup to it. However, given that Pandora has always thought of herself as useless and that in the Unseen Skins “Professor Larbalestier”, we learn her father is a history professor in the US, it’s kind of sweet.

Mini: Mini’s obviously got her hands full with the whole, “she has a baby now” thing, but I think she’d make a great creative director for a fashion brand or magazine, so I like the idea that maybe she would sit her A-levels at a later date and go to university for fashion.

Franky: Honestly, I don’t know what I think Franky would do with her life after the events of series 6, but I don’t think she’d go to university.

Edit: Also, for what it’s worth, Rich gets into “Bradbury College” at Cambridge University to study English and Philosophy. This has a number of problems; Bradbury is not one of the colleges at Cambridge, Rich missed half of his final year of school, and we never get any indication he’s a good student at all.  Not even Naomi goes to Cambridge or Oxford.  Not as bad as “Thomas gets expelled from Roundview, doesn’t sit his A-levels at all, gets into Harvard”, but still pretty bad.

[hi-im-just-a-fan-here]

Hello my fellow humans.

This post is about Stelly (and Sabo) just cuz I have nothing else to do (beside learning for my tests but who would do that??). I am not reading one piece manga so this post is based of what I saw in the anime.

So we all know Stelly was Sabo’s adopted brother, but as far as I know we do not know what family he was from and  why did they leave him orrr why was he taken away from them.

When we first met him he was 8 years old and acting like a little dipshit. But honestly I think he just wanted his parents approval and love. I mean, taking how he acted, especially the scene where he comes to tell his step-father that he can count on him and stuff like that, you can see all he wants is his parents attention. Also the fact that his adoptive parents talked how bad of a son Sabo was and then took time to look for him, probably made Stelly feel like he had to be wayyy better than him to be loved (which in case of that family was probs true). And that is why he is acting how he is now and still looking for power and attention. (I feel like all that I just said was obvious and I’m making an idiot of myself but fuck that). This kid just wants to be loved….

But what if….

He secretly looked up to Sabo.

Like he really liked that Sabo always wanted to be free and do what he wanted. He never even thought of that so maybe upon seeing his step brother he felt, at least for a second, that he wanted that too? Myabe after Sabo jumped out of the window and ran away after they talked about the gray terminal, Stelly had a thought ,oh shit that was cool’, and then the thought was gone.

I also really liked the one manga pannel I saw where Stelly, when he saw a newspaper about Sabo, still, after all those years, called him a brother.

I just really would like to see them interact more and I kinda wanna see Stelly change at least a little for a good dude that he could be. Then he could change the Goa kingdom at least a little.

Now to my weird idea

I really like to imagine that when they were younger and before Sabo disappeared for good, he would sometimes act towards Stelly like he acted towards Luffy. Like a good older brother he is.

Just think about it. Luffy sometimes was irritating to him and Ace for sure, but they loved him. So when Luffy came to show them that he …. idk caught a different fish than they did...and be really proud about it and will say sth like ,,See!! I caught a different fish than you, must mean that I’m stronger!!!’’ Sabo’s reaction would probs be like ,,oh wow good job!!!’’ (while Ace would be like ,,that’s a smaller fish than mine no way you are stronger’’ but we’ll leave that for now). So later I imagined that Stelly would sometimes come to Sabo and try to mock him for not learning as good as him and try to show him that he is better at it and all (like in the scene where Stelly came to Sabo’s room to tell him about the Gray Terminal fire) and that would slightly remind him of when Luffy tried to be stronger than him and Ace, so without thinking he would stroke Stelly’s hair and say sth like ,,yeah, great job’’ and go back to whatever he was doing.

And then Stelly’s reaction…..

Now there are two ways of that happening

a)

(the more possible one) He would act irritated, yell at him to not touch him, and get angry cuz his spoiled ass wanted to irritate him.

b)

(the one that I like)

Stelly would still act irritated, but now he would be also a little shocked. Like, he didn’t do anything that amazing and he even came here to mock Sabo, but ended up with this. That was a ,, good job’’.

Maybe that would change him juuust a little, and make him feel loved for once in his life?

I know the idea is pretty dumb but I still like it so here it is.

[citylightsbooks]

5 Questions with Megan Fernandes, Author of Good Boys

Megan Fernandes is a writer and academic living in New York City. She is the author of The Kingdom and After (Tightrope Books 2015) and the new book of poems, Good Boys (published by Tin House). Her work has been published or is forthcoming in the New Yorker, Tin House, Ploughshares, Denver Quarterly, Chicago Review, Boston Review, Rattle, Pank, the Common, Guernica, the Academy of American Poets, and McSweeney's Internet Tendency, among others. She is a poetry reader for The Rumpus and an Assistant Professor of English at Lafayette College. She holds a PhD in English from the University of California, Santa Barbara and an MFA in poetry from Boston University. She reads from her new book Good Boys with special guests at City Lights Bookstore on Tuesday, February 25th.

***

City Lights: If you’ve been to City Lights before, what’s your memory of the visit? If you haven’t been here before, what are you expecting?

Megan Fernandes: Of all the places I’m reading this Spring (and it’s probably not politic to say this), I am most excited to read at City Lights. I’ve never been, but I understood at a very young age that the bookstore symbolized possibility, spontaneity, digression, lostness, community, etc. As a teenager, I read a lot of Beat literature, my favorites being Dharma Bums, In the Night Café, and everything Ginsberg. I was compelled by their portraits of America’s expansiveness. And I also just think as an immigrant kid not born in the USA, the Beats gave me some sense of American geography. I went to Colorado for the first time last year and I had this memory of my first impression of Colorado as a place described in On the Road. When traveling across the country, I often have Ferlinghetti’s feverish, twitchy, carnivalesque poetics in my head. I also think in this indirect way, Beat literature shaped some of my thoughts around feminist thinking as I was conscious of my orientation as outside certain privileges of the “male, womanizing adventurer” often romanticized in Beat lit. I had to interrogate what it meant to feel intimacies with Ginsberg and Duncan who were destabilizing masculinities and cultural logics of hate. 

And so what I learned from City Lights and Beat lit is really something about the relationship between myth-making and counter-culture communities. I’m understanding the truly expansive network of the movement in so much more detail right now while reading an advanced copy of a fabulous new book called The Beats: A Literary History by Steven Belletto. 

What are you reading right now?

I’m reading a book called Dapper Dan: Made in Harlem, co-written by Dapper Dan himself and my good friend, Mikael Awake. It’s a history of Dapper Dan’s iconic work in fashion, of course, while being really intimate. And it’s just as much a history of his family’s internal dynamics and, through his family, New York City at large. In particular, 1970’s NYC is so vividly, brilliantly wrought in this book.

There’s this one section where Dap is at Iona College at a lecture on protohistory and the professor, a Czech immigrant, tells the class that “In order for man to have survived during those ancient times… he must have had powers that he doesn’t have now. The only people that could possibly still have these powers today are the black and brown people on the planet” and when Dap hears this, he is transfixed. He says: “This is one of the most esteemed scholars at Iona College telling a packed lecture hall that black and brown people were the only ones on the planet who still had spiritual powers. How come this was my first time hearing about that? I looked around. I was the only black student in the class. I wasn’t tired anymore. He had my full attention… I said to myself, This is what I need to know. This is how I need to formulate myself.” I’m loving how the book captures these intense moments of transformation. I love that word choice: formulate. What poetic agency is modeled in that word? I needed that word the moment I read it. 

Recently, I’ve also read Samiya Bashir’s Field Theories and Edgar Kunz’s Tap Out. Samiya wrote this legitimately weird and imaginative book that feels like it’s made out of the time-space continuum. Some cosmic materiality is really showing up in that book. I remember this line: “A body. A zoo. A lovely savannah. Walls of clear, clean glass” and I’m just on a ride with the musicality of her shifting assonance. Plus, I know that writers like June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara are operating influences/specters of the book and you can feel that energy. Edgar’s book is more narrative and quieter, but so devastating. I sort of get what makes his speakers tenderize if that makes sense. I think it’s the same phenomena that tenderizes me, too.

Some of my favorite novels of recent years includes A Questionable Shape by Bennett Sims, The Small Backs of Children by Lidia Yuknavitch, Sonora by Hannah Lillith Assadi, and very recently, The Nickel Boys by Colson Whitehead.

What book or writer do you always find yourself recommending?

I think Jean Toomer’s Cane is the most beautiful book of the 20th century. I remember just being blown away by its call and response, the repeating imagery of sun and smoke and pines. That book is so stunning. Other astounding work that I always recommend includes Mebvh McGuckian’s Captain Lavender, Anne Carson’s The Autobiography of Red, Evie Shockley’s The New Black, Franz Wright’s Walking to Martha’s Vineyard, Eleni Sikelianos’ Body Clock, Jorie Graham’s The Errancy, Bhanu Kapil’s The Vertical Interrogation of Strangers, The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats, and Galway Kinnell and Hannah Liebmann’s translations of Rilke. Those are my hard-hitters. Those books are why I became a poet. 

What writers/artists/people do you find the most influential to the writing of this book and/or your writing in general?

You know, I collected poems while I was writing and editing this book. And I think those specific poems created a kind of constellation around me, almost protective, that kept me writing. Some of those poems include “The Long Recovery” by Ellen Bass, “A Matter of Balance,” by Evie Shockley, “What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, “I am Not Seaworthy” by Toni Morrison, “Becoming Regardless” by Jack Spicer, “A New Bride Almost Visible in Latin” by Jack Gilbert, “To the Young Who Want to Die” by Gwendolyn Brooks and many, many others. Definitely O’Hara as well. He never leaves me. The most important poem of that little self-curated archive is Frank Bidart’s “Visions at 74” where he writes: “To love existence / is to love what is indifferent to you.” I remember reading that line and just losing it. I have been guided by so much of Bidart. And maybe my book is a little bit about how to sustain rage in the face of that which is indifferent to you, what cannot love you (both personally and abstractly). How do you sustain rage so as to not fall into despair?

I also listened to a variety of music while writing and editing. A mix between contemporary sad kid hip-hop, old school jazz and blues, gospel, 80’s bands, pop culture queens, 1970’s hypnotic modal vamp, classical Spanish guitar, electronic pop, really pretty varied. A few names that come to mind: KOTA the Friend, NoName, Vince Staples, Travis Scott, Miles Davis Quintet, Bessie Smith, Sam Cooke, The Knocks, Solange, Archie Shepp, Pharoah Sanders, Alice Coltrane, Big Mama Thornton, Miriam Makeba, Kamasi Washington, Thompson Twins, Misfits, Bowie, Talking Heads, Tears for Fears, Cher, Whitney Houston, Portishead, Goldfrapp, Memphis Slim, Dinah Washington, Alberto Iglesias, Gustavo Santaolalla, Holychild, Blood Orange, etc.

If you opened a bookstore, where would it be located, what would it be called, and what would your bestseller be?

My grandpa played violin on a ship that sailed between Tanga, Tanzania and Goa, India. I never had the chance to meet him. He died when my dad was sixteen, but I always thought about what that journey might have looked and felt like, its many hardships, but also the wonder of gazing out at the sea playing strings. For that reason, I’d love to open a bookstore that focused specifically on Indian Ocean diaspora and sold books exclusively by authors working, uncovering, or investigating the literature of that oceanic rim. I think there is something rich in thinking about books not necessarily focused on nation-statehood but thinking more about a kind of social-imaginary with a literature that is messy in its conceptualization and crosses, migrates, misses, and mythologizes across many cultures over generations. You could have sections on food, underwater exploration, piracy, long-distance intimacy, trade routes, empire, transnational feminism. I like the idea of a bookstore that is anti-genre and instead, organized by associative thinking and imagination. It would be a logistical nightmare. You would never find what you were looking for, but you might find something you didn’t know existed.

So yes, I’d vote for a little homegrown network of bookstores in India, East Africa, and actually, maybe one of them in Lisbon which is a city that has a long (and problematic) history with the Indian Ocean. I’ve spent a lot of time in Lisbon the past eight years of my life, spending time visiting family and researching the history of the Portuguese empire especially as it relates to my family history (my folks are third generation East African Portuguese colonized Indians). I have a lot of conflicting homelands which is a way of saying that there are times when I feel like I have nothing but a rootless present. That’s something I investigate in my work, that weird (a)temporality. And I’m drawn to the particular light of Lisbon which is quite unusual. I’d call the bookstore “Malaika” which means “Angel” in Swahili and is the favorite folk song of my parents who grew up in Tanzania. I like the idea of a bookstore in Lisbon with the name in Swahili run by a Goan-Canadian-American woman. That’s the world I grew up in… one of multiplicities. 

[memecucker]

uneducated follower here; could you elaborate on "leaving indigenous religion alone mostly so as to prop up the colonial state"? how did that work? i thought colonizers mostly just spread their own religions to colonies. how did leaving indigenous religions intact prop up colonizers? sorry aha

(Anon is in response to this and this post)

First off something to get out of the way is that colonialism is a historical phenomenon which means that it is not uniform thing. Colonialism in the sense of imperialism is about controlling a population and the means by which a colonial power exerts this control can range from expulsion or genocide of the native populace to be replaced by settlers or it could take the form of granting nominal sovereignty to a neo-colonial state where all the official offices are occupied by local people but the true masters of remain the same old ones.

So what Spain and Portugual did in the 16th and 17th centuries isnt necessarily gonna match the patterns of the British and French in the 19th and 20th centuries. So whereas the Portuguese in India exported their style of religious persecution to Goa in the form of the Goa Inquisition, the British East India Company actually had refused British missionaries access to territories they controlled up until 1813 on the grounds that missionaries might spoil relations with local rulers or merchants friendly with the EIC.

Despite propaganda that might seem to the contrary the purpose of prosthelyization in Spanish or Portuguese colonies was not purely out of a desire to turn the whole world Catholic. Just because Catholicism might see it as an ideal that the whole world be turned Catholic doesnt on its own necessitate that Catholic states would pursue such a policy because there is also an ideal of peace between fellow Christians that obviously Catholic states could care less about. There needs to be a pragmatic reason why to go through all that trouble. The most obvious reason for this is that converting the indigenous to the colonial religion you better pacify them by turning something they turn to in hours of suffering and grief into a thing that legitimizes and props up the colonial state. An additional way this helps control a population is that churches end up filling the role of an official registry of the names of people in various areas via baptismal certificates or other means. And of course in many cases the colonial state was itself the Church or at least controlled by it.

Anyway I just spent a paragraph seeming to argue the opposite point so whats up with colonial powers granting sanction to local religions out of self-interest? Well the answer is that there was growing realization that in many cases the local religions could actually fulfill the above roles just as well and frankly with much less struggle. If you could get local religious leaders to sanction and bless your rule and preach submission to it well all the better then. In the case of India, the British highly valued winning over the loyalty of local religious leaders of whatever was the dominant local faith because these religious leaders would then legitimize British rule and in turn the British would reward them for their loyalty. French colonialism in Indochina (ironically enough given that it primarily occurred during the Third Republic) often took the form of trying to preserve indiginous cultural practices that otherwise appeared moribund such as the Emperorship or the mandarinate because they believed this would be the superior way to legitimize their rule if they used the already-in-place forms of legitimizing state authority (not to mention the Third Republic had a.. contentious relationship with the Roman Catholic Church which is why there wasnt that much Catholic missionary work done in “New Imperialism” colonies as you might expect and French colonial authorities would sometimes trust indigenous or even non-French Protestant religious figures moreso than Catholic ones because of how hostile relations between the Catholic Church and the Third Republic could get). 

Conversion can still occur of course but it tends to take the form of allowing independent churches to do what they will do. The flipside is that these native clerics can be harder to control and the sighs of the oppressed could more easily turn subversive than when compared with colonial religions but those are problems that have solutions from the perspective of a colonial administrator. The Javanese communist Tan Malaka is noteworthy for being a Marxist who disagreed with the political goal of eventual abolition of religion and had believed that religious clerics could be allies in the struggle against imperialism because in the Dutch East Indies he had cooperated with clerics for such reasons. But when he returned after a trip to Russia, Malaka was shocked to see how many of his former friends had turned around after Dutch colonial authorities had given them (”them” being the clerics, not the common people) some concessions such as control over schooling of native youths. This caused Malaka to shift his thinking such that while he remained a Muslim, he became convinced that present-day clergy will need to be abolished in order for religion to itself be revolutionized. 

The late 19th century pan-Islamic intellectual Jalal al-Din al-Afghani was as far from a “colonial collaborator” as you could get being the zealous and implacable enemy of British imperialism that he was but there was one interesting incident wherein he attempted to make a “deal with the devil” so to speak. In 1885 al-Afghani traveled to London on invitation of the poet Wilfrid Blunt who was also his friend to meet with Randolph Churchill, Secretary of State for India. Al-Afghani made a rather blunt proposal to Churchill, namely that if the British were to grant independence to Egypt so that it may be a prominent Muslim country free of European (which includes Ottoman) domination then al-Afghani would use his immense prestige and and sway over anti-colonial movements in the Muslim world to preach alliance with the British and jihad against the Russians, their main rival in Central Asia and potentially South Asia as well (al-Afghani would also make similar overtures to Russia). Now dont let this influence your idea of al-Afghani the man because that was a life that was incredibly nuanced and fascinating to read about but these dynamics he proposed are what I want to point out. 

Now a nuance that needs to be mentioned of course is that this is dependent on the societal role of religion and religious hierarchies prior to colonialism. Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya has an idiosyncratic definition of the word “theism” that I think might be useful here. For Chattopadhyahya “theism” refers not to the abstract belief in a divinity or even a personal divinity but rather the form this takes within societies marked by economic classes. This is relevant because if youre talking about tribes with more egalitarian social arrangements then its less likely that there will be a priestly class that can be won over in the same way. This both made conversion through missionaries not only easier because they werent competing with pre-existing organized religions but also greatly increased the usefulness in the colonial state sponsoring such endeavors. So again to bring up Indonesia but if you look at a map of religious affiliation in the country you’d see the widest concentration of Christian majorities is in the Indonesian-controlled part of New Guinea and if you look at the pre-colonial history of New Guinea there was much much less of a presence of class-determined religion in Chattopadhyahya’s sense of “theism”.

Anyway that was a ramble but the point is that don’t get too hung up on the idea of colonialism having a specific paradigm. When you think of the perspective of a colonial administrator who is trying to protect a regime of brutality, exploitation and bloodshed they have to act in what is the immediately pragmatic self-interest for the regime. Thus depending on the social circumstances (and frankly increasingly so overtime) there may be a move away from conversion of locals towards collaboration with local clerics. Force alone is not enough to maintain a state 

[cheswirls]

it’s your extension (let me extend) 5/6

ace runs.

he runs as fast as he can. overhead, the comet soars, moving a million miles faster than he is.

he meets kidd at the factory. the powerplant. the entire village’s electrical grid. comes to a stop, slamming into the chainlink, still panting, when he rolls up on his motorbike.

“he says sorry about your bike,” ace calls. kidd cuts the engine.

“who says?”

“i do!” ace corrects.

kidd throws his duffel to the ground, takes out a pair of heavy-duty pliers. “you’re sure about this, ace?” he questions, one last time, a hard glint in his eyes. “that thing’s really coming down?” he points to the comet with the tool.

ace nods fervently. “saw it myself,” he swears.

kidd cackles. “you did, huh? alright, fine.” he steps forward, positions the pliers around the chain lock. “get ready!” he clips it and it falls to the ground, slack. “this means we’re criminals now!”

“you still have to convince your dad!” kidd calls back, loud over the bike’s engine. ace tightens his grip, nodding.

“yeah, i know!” he cocks his head back. “think that thing’s really gonna blow?”

“i sure hope so!” kidd yells. right as he finishes, an explosion echoes from behind them. ace screams, lunges forward, and kidd laughs, steadying his trembling hands on the handles of the motorbike. “whaddya know! dad taught me well, huh!”

“you’re crazy!” ace screams.

“says the guy who came up with this scheme!” kidd screams back.

he skids to a stop when they reach stairs, not risking going down them. ace jumps off, but kidd waits an extra second, caught with the bike’s momentum. ace stumbles on the stairs, glances back. “kidd!” he calls in panic, but kidd’s rolling to a stand too, the bike upturned behind him. 

“good, good!” he gasps, grabbing ace’s arm to pull him forward. “c’mon! let’s go, let’s go!”

the power cuts out. all the bombs he and kidd had set at the plant had blown, shot the circuits to bits. ace takes a deep breath as they round the corner into the festival square, booths no longer lit. no comet. not yet. they wouldn’t go for it. he had to settle for something more realistic.

“forest fire!” kidd calls, just as the emergency sirens begin ringing out. “there’s a fire, we have to evacuate! hurry!”

“this is fuusha city council. due to the explosive at the power plant, there’s been a warning of forest fires and other explosions. if you live in the following districts, please evacuate immediately to fuusha high school.”

“fire!” ace calls, sprinting after kidd. “please evacuate! there’s a fire coming!”

he can see it’s not working. the people look confused, and the sirens have them on edge, but they’re not moving. lami’s voice rings out, perfect calm even though she must be terrified. she reminds him so much of-

ace stops dead in his tracks.

kidd whips around. “this isn’t working. we really do need city council to-” his face screws up. “ace, what’s wrong?”

ace doesn’t cry. he doesn’t cry unless things are very emotional, like when dragon left, or when he met sabo for the first time, tonight. he’s not the crier. he doesn’t cry.

he’s crying.

“his name!” he blabs, frantic. “i can’t remember his name!”

kidd’s expression darkens. “are you fucking kidding me!” he yells. his hands wrap around ace’s shoulders. “ace! forget about that! we have bigger problems here, right?!”

ace’s body shakes with effort as he works to keep his sobs contained. “but-! but-” he shakes his head. then he pushes kidd’s hands off, roughly. he slaps his own face hard, twice, thrice. “sorry!” he shouts. “i’ll go, i’m going!” he starts running. kidd takes off in the opposite direction. “i’ll make it!” he promises. “i promise!”

“you better!” kidd calls.

-

“hey! what do you think you’re doing in the broadcast room?”

lami cuts off with a scream, panicking. “i- uh- i-” three teachers storm in. one councilman grabs her wrist. another turns the broadcast off.

“seriously, trafalgar,” one of the teachers huffs, marching her down the hall. “what were you thinking? do you have any idea of the consequences-”

lami walks between them, tears streaming down her face, audibly crying. “s-sorry,” she says, but it’s not to them. “sorry, ace,” she chokes. “i’m sorry!”

-

kidd glances up and his heart stops. “it’s really splitting,” he mutters. and not just in half. there were dozens of little comets, meteorites, lighting up the sky now. 

“kidd!”

he comes to a full stop, wincing. he cocks his head over, and his dad is coming to meet him down a set of stairs. a couple of his workers are behind him.

“sorry, ace,” he mutters. “this is it for me.”

-

the broadcast cuts out and ace curses. “no! shit! lami!” he cries. please be okay!

he tears down the street, taking the higher ground, knowing the path to the council building by heart, whether he wanted to or not. he passes by a railing, where the ground jutts, and glances up. the comet! how much ti-

no!

he looks up to a meteor shower. they were almost out of time.

he speeds up, but his foot catches on the uneven ground, and he trips, tumbles. he lands on the ground hard, air knocked from him, and then rolls downhill, until he hits another jutt, flips, crashes to the ground.

he lies there, trying to remember to breathe again. his head spins. his hands are in front of him.

he curls into himself. he was too late anyway, right? it wouldn’t work, right? he couldn’t outspeed a bunch of falling rocks. the plan didn’t work none of it worked-

“so we don’t forget our names when we wake up.”

ace breathes out, slow. he uncups his hand. that was right. his name was right-

he stares.

his name isn’t written on ace’s hand.

his lips tremble. “idiot!” he gasps. 

i love you is written in marker.

ace fists his hand, sobs into the gravel. “how am i supposed to remember your name with this!” he cries out, impossibly loud. he lies there for another moment, another, another.

then he pushes himself to his knees, lips stretched into a smile. he wails, laughs, comes to a stand. 

“okay!” he calls out, starting to run again.

“fine!”

“i’ll do it!”

“i’m going to LIVE!”

-

“dad!” ace calls, slamming dragon’s door open. luffy perks up from the couch, clambering to his feet. garp looks over as well.

from behind his desk, dragon stands. “ace!” he growls. “listen, i don’t have time for-”

ace sets his face, stalks closer, and dragon shuts up.

“no. you are going to listen to me,” ace shouts. “for once in your goddamn life! because i’m not dying again!”

-

the meteor still crashes.

the nucleus of the comet hits right behind ace’s house, near the torii gate that leads further into the side of the mountain. 

the ground breaks. wood from whole tree trunks flies everywhere. the lake water evaporates into steam, and then crumbles under the weight of multiple little meteors that had broken off of the nucleus.

sabo wakes up.

sabo wakes up on top of a mountain.

he sits up. the sun is shining behind him. the water from the twin lakes down far, far below glitters.

he looks down at his palm, where a streak of ink was left. he squints.

“where am i?” he mumbles.

-

five years later

“what’s with the suit? party’s not til tonight.”

sabo pauses right inside the doorway, hand still holding it half closed. he deadpans, resists the reply he wants to say. “i’m not wearing this to the party,” he says instead, finally shutting the front door. shanks’ expression still doesn’t change, seeking an answer, and after shuffling off his shoes sabo sighs and supplies him with one. “i had a job interview today.”

“oh?” shanks steps aside to allow sabo access to the rest of the apartment, but then immediately follows at his heels. “how’d that go?”

sabo stops, resisting the urge to fidget, and shanks barely avoids crashing into him. they stand still in the middle of the hall for a couple moments.

“newspaper market is more competitive than i thought,” he finally mutters. 

shanks hunkers down, shoulders shaking in an attempt to contain his laughter. “and-” he pauses as he catches sabo’s eye, the blond turning his head to gaze down at his former guardian. “koala has-”

“two offers,” sabo grunts. he rolls his eyes. “just say she’s better than me. i know you want to.” he pauses again at the entrance to the kitchen, gaze falling to the empty table. “makino’s not here?”

“ah, no. she’s meeting us there.” shanks passes him by, finally, patting him on the shoulder as he went. “i actually have a couple things to do before tonight, so i’m heading out. i’ll call you on my way back, grab lunch. be ready by six, okay? party’s at seven.”

“right.” sabo’s only half listening at this point, tugging his bedroom door open.

well. his former-

it’s been a while. since he graduated high school and moved out. since he’s been back here.

sabo lets the door slide shut behind him. the curtains are open; his bed is made -makino, probably. 

he moves over to the bookshelf and his fingers run over the spines of twenty marked notebooks, holding all his daily logs from his time spent with makino and shanks.

they pause at number three, and he pulls it out before he can think much of it, flipping through to the back, where he finds the pages more crumpled, like he’d been looking for something and grew frustrated when he couldn’t find it.

sabo reads a page out of interest and pauses when he gets to a familiar name.

he’s never remembered why he woke up on the side of that mountain, the sight of fuusha, still in ruins, far below. it still puzzles him sometimes, when he takes a moment to recall. he’d been with koala and robin, but they had gone back to goa before him. he doesn’t know the reason. did they fight? did they have to be back earlier than he did?

he’d been on notebook nine at that point, but he hadn’t had it with him, so nothing of his little country travel got logged. 

he does remember being obsessed with fuusha, at one point.

he puts the notebook back and slides open a desk drawer, frown forming on his face as he catches sight of all the articles still stashed there.

eight years ago. when the comet crashed. he can remember, faintly, watching it from the roof of the apartment building. seeing it split. watching in fascination as hundreds of little meteors grew closer and closer to the surface.

and then. crashed.

it was on the news for days. fuusha, left decimated. he remembers watching everything, saving every scrap of information, evident by all the papers in the desk drawer. something about it had him fascinated.

he couldn’t, for the life of him, recall what.

the comet crashed on the south side of the lake fuusha had formed around. the shockwaves carried the destruction all the way across, rumbling the ground even at the evacuation point.

thankfully, the town had been performing an emergency drill at the time. everyone had been moved out to the high school, out of reach of the comet’s impact. 

they’d had to relocate, their home left in ruins, but at least they were all alive.

that had been it. miran comet had come, left as half its size, and formed a newer, smaller crater in the ruins of an old mountain village. 

sabo, for the life of him, couldn’t figure why he was so interested.

he shuts the desk drawer.

-

shanks brings home yakisoba. sabo picks the mushrooms out, using the brief silence to address the topic from earlier.

“so, remind me. who’s the party for?”

“ah, an old friend of makino’s,” shanks mumbles around his food. thankfully, he washes it down with water before speaking again. “don’t ask me his name.” he waves off sabo’s look. “some old guy. his grandson’s graduating today. that’s what this all’s for.”

“lots of people?”

shanks quirks a brow, stabbing more noodles. “matter much? not like you have anywhere to be, mister unemployed.”

sabo huffs, picking out the last of the mushrooms. “i said i’d come, didn’t i?”

several hours later, he might be regretting those words.

the house of makino’s friend was huge. certainly bigger than he was expecting. the family had some wealth, that was for sure. 

the head of the house was an older man with a loud laugh. could hit hard, too, his friendly slap on the back still leaving sabo in shivers if he thought about it too long. he hadn’t seen the man of the hour, but he’d heard of him in passing several times, oh he’s gone to do this or got caught before that could happen or just saw him doing something he shouldn’t.

reckless, was his first impression.

as the night wore on, he’d grown too weary to care anymore. now he was camped out on a small balcony, shielded somewhat from the chatter and attention inside. makino had found him and shanks not long after they’d arrived, and gone around introducing them to more people than sabo could ever hope to remember.

he shivers, moving his shoulders more inward. he’d dressed more down for the night than he had that morning, but his sweater wasn’t quite thick enough to keep out the breeze that had picked up. he shifts, leaning more on the low railing, and gazes out at the cityscape. inside, voices raise as a small commotion picks up. he doesn’t pay it mind.

“twilight,” he mutters, gaze caught on the setting sun sliding just beneath the horizon line, bathing the sky in a dim glow.

“half-light,” a voice behind him corrects.

sabo blinks, turns his head back.

there’s someone standing in the doorway, hand on one of the banisters. the backglow from inside the house makes their features hard to place, but the last of the sun’s light puts it into focus. he seemed familiar, but sabo can’t put his finger on it. then it clicks -he looks like makino’s friend.

“you’re not luffy,” he states. if anything, he looked closer to sabo’s age. 

the guy blinks back, a flicker of surprise coating his expression. “i sure hope not,” he answers back, rolling his eyes as an audible shout from back inside reached them.

sabo frowns. “hm.”

he steps forward just as sabo encounters another roaming thought, leaning against the railing a couple feet away, and sabo lets his gaze fall back to the city as he asks. “what’s half-light?”

the guy chuckles, a short, breathy thing that has sabo’s hairs raising. “local dialect,” he answers. “something i picked up back home. it means the same thing.”

sabo blinks, lips closing as his unasked question gets answered. not local to here, he meant to say, but he changes the words now. “what are you here for?”

the color of the sky fades from bright to a deeper blue, and the moon’s glow begins to set in. it catches on his companion’s face as he turns to sabo again, bathes his silver eyes in wan light, bright enough for sabo to catch the confusion before it slips away, like he’s missed something, like he’s asked the wrong question. in another moment it’s gone, and he casually leans against the railing, a smile playing on his lips.

“school, at first,” he hums. “that’s over with now. it’s strange, though. i’ve always dreamed of coming to goa, of getting away from that life.” he shrugs. “i didn’t think i’d be bringing my entire family along, though.”

it’s an offhand gesture, next, that catches sabo’s attention. a wave of a hand, back to the house, and his mind feels open. it could mean different. he could be referring to more of the guests. somehow sabo doubts this, and he latches on to the suspicion. his eyes narrow. “are you sure you’re not luffy?” he asks again, because shanks had only ever mentioned one grandson, and he didn’t appreciate being strung along-

laughing snaps him out of that thought before he can finish it. it’s certainly a different reaction than before, and sabo prepares himself, ready to have the rug ripped from under him, yeah, i was messing with you, i am.

instead, his expectations are ripped to shreds. again.

“no,” the guy insists, laugh petering off. “i’m his older brother.”

before sabo can think much on that, he tips his head, eyes glinting. “and you? never seen you around before. who’d you come with?” he pauses for a moment, eyes going wide, and stifles another laugh with a hand over his mouth. “more like, who drug you here?”

sabo huffs before he can help it. “i came willingly,” he insists. when the guy doesn’t budge, he deigns him an answer. “makino. and shanks.”

the guy’s expression brightens. “oh, makino!” he says, and his tone is entirely different now. brighter. happier. “right, i saw her awhile ago. i didn’t know shanks was here, though, haven’t seen him yet-” he cuts himself off, blinking, as if he had just realized something. “wait. they brought you? no offense, but that seems kinda odd, if you didn’t even know . .” he trails off. “how do you know them?”

sabo hesitates. he hadn’t realized shanks was formally familiar with the family as well, leaving him the outsider in the mix. he’d assumed it was just makino, and that they were both there with her. guess he was wrong. guess- “i lived with them for a bit,” sabo admits.

he purses his lips, relenting as he sees the statement was getting nowhere, his companion still trying to piece it together. “for . . a long time, actually. since i was a kid.” he raises his hands at the alarmed expression across from him. “it wasn’t anything like what you’re thinking,” he says. “it was . . well, they looked after me, and i appreciate them, but they weren’t like my parents or anything.” he shrugs. “they kinda have their own kid now, right? it was similar, but it wasn’t the same.”

“oh. okay.” the guy blinks again, then turns around. he stares at the city for a while, at all the flashing lights, like he had expected different. like he was surprised that the moon was out. he turns back to sabo again. “you don’t know much about us, do you?”

it’s sabo’s turn to look away. kinda obvious at this point, considering he didn’t know there was a second grandson. and yet, instead of defending himself, he felt like admitting. “i didn’t even know your family existed until earlier today. this party was kinda . . sprung on me.”

he blinks, and then turns back to the even gaze of silver eyes. “you said ‘back home’, earlier. where is that?” 

“ah.” he rubs at his head. “well, don’ go around saying that,” he mumbles. “not something i like to admit, that i still consider it . .” his lips screw up; sabo squints as he catches it. they even out as his gaze lifts again, looking back into sabo’s eyes. “you’ve heard of fuusha, right?”

sabo’s lips part, but he stumbles on his reply. he shivers through his sweater. his gaze whites out for a moment, and he blinks it away, desperate to hold on yet feeling like he was missing something, like it was finally right there, on the edge of his consciousness. there’s a roaring in his head, blocking everything out, and when garp’s grandson steps forward, says something out of concern, sabo can’t hear a word over the noise.

he doesn’t hear, frozen stiff, until hands lay on his arms, near his shoulders, and he’s being shaken, just a little. “hey, you’re kinda scaring me here,” sabo hears, and then he blinks, and he’s snapped back to the present, silver eyes right in front of him, cast with concern. he lets his mouth finally fall shut. his gaze shifts away.

“sorry,” he mutters. 

the hands fall. the warmth where they once were lingers, just for a moment. “you good? you sure?”

“fuusha,” sabo says instead of answering, still feeling weird, off, and wanting to draw the topic away from himself. “so you’ve been here five years.”

the guy blinks. “give or take. about.” he moves his hands from hovering in the air, as if sabo would have another fit and pitch forward, to down by his side. sabo’s gaze catches on his wrist, where a red band was looped around. he recalls one of the articles he glanced at earlier in the day, and then nods to it. 

“that’s a braided cord, right?”

a hand wraps around the cord, shielding it from view, before slowly moving away. he lifts it up for sabo to see more clearly, the ends fading from red to yellow to blue, slightly frayed at the edges. “yeah. my mom made it for me.”

-

right as he says that, ace has a startling realization. one that casts him away from the conversation for a moment, that puts perspective into a different light.

the blond reminded him of his mother.

maybe that’s why the interest was there. 

rouge had light hair. it was stringy, most of the time, like she barely bothered taking care of it, instead of meticulously doing so only for the wind that day to blow it out of proportion. though every picture they had left of her had her smiling, he remembered her sunny smiles as rare; she had an array of expressions, and she liked to cast things into doubt, questioning at every turn, much to his grandfather’s annoyance. 

she smiled when ace did, though. just like the blond was now, lips quirking up almost in response to ace’s smile, born there from reminiscing about her.

the moonlight was heavy, now, and ace can see his face clear. his fair skin, something he hadn’t picked up from rouge, and was thankful for, whenever she would come home red and blotchy, a sunburn welling up easily from being out for too long. he remembers her crying to dragon until he offered to rub lotion onto her shoulders, and screaming as luffy came up after and climbed into her arms, rough handprints harming the sensitive skin.

she was stubborn as all hell, and was always willing to get into it with anyone that rubbed her the wrong way. the scourge of fuusha, they called her. and they weren’t wrong, no matter how well she had charmed gramps and dragon into believing otherwise. ace remembers, starkly, her coming in late one night, cupping a bruise on her face, and wincing when she saw ace had caught sight of it.

he blinks, and then she fades into the blond, looking disgruntled, and the bump above his eyebrow put into full view as his bangs are swiped out of the way, evidence of the scuffle he’d gotten into put on display.

ace tugs on the knot tying the cord to his wrist, loosening it. he unravels it and holds it out, between the two of them. “you can look at it, if you want,” he offers, eyes flicking from the cord to the blond.

slowly, he reaches out to take it from ace, fascination shown on his face. “it’s well-made,” he notes, loosely taking it up and holding it closer.

rouge was cunning and smart. she could talk her way out of any situation, from what ace had seen. when she couldn’t, well, she knew how to get away if she couldn’t win in a fight, sporting bruises but still holding a victory overall.

she taught ace how to scrap, but he never really used it. that was more luffy’s thing, when he grew older.

but she taught ace more than how to use his fists. ace hadn’t entered primary school until she’d passed, stubbornly insisting that he was too good for an institution, that she could school him just fine, at home. she’d been good at it, too, despite the deceptive intentions she had, her reasoning more on the lines of having ace all to herself, instead of believing whatever she had spouted about fuusha schools being corrupt.

she taught him how to weave and braid thread. she taught him how to write, how to spell. she taught him the laws of fuusha no one talked about aloud, the silent expectations everyone held. she taught him how to charm gramps into doing whatever he wanted. she taught him how to get away with messing up.

she taught him what love was.

and. he remembers.

as his hand slips back down to his side, wrist bare.

sabo, studious. always complaining at ace for leaving him without homework to turn in, or slacking on class notes and making him stumble on a test. to waking up with his arms covered in ink, angry rant sprawled onto his skin. 

sabo, eyes rimmed red from staying up late to study, leaving ace to drag him from the bed far too early, refreshed mind doing nothing when the body he was controlling was bone tired. 

he remembers angrily taking a marker to sabo’s skin on days like those, scribbling notes in almost illegible handwriting for him to take care of yourself and go to sleep at reasonable times and, his favorite, get your shit together!

he’d write that one over and over, big and bold, across his arms and down his legs, all over his face, so he’d be forced to see it and reevaluate how he treated his body.

sabo, who was quick-witted and scrappy, but too late to throw a punch. ace couldn’t count the number of times he’d woken up in the blond’s body with a split lip or nasty cut or yellowing bruise. then he’d drag himself to school and get yelled at by koala for being reckless again and making everyone worry again. he’d go home and cover it and ignore makino’s worried eyes the best he could.

that was right. makino and shanks. he lets sabo’s earlier words play back and can’t help but think differently, from what he’d experienced. so they had a baby, a real child, now. it didn’t change the fact that they cared about sabo.

sabo, meticulous. writing notes to ace with a careful script, detailing each event that had transpired while he was in ace’s body. excelling at classwork with knowledge three years ahead of ace’s own. pissing off old man crocus with smarty replies, the exact answer he didn’t expect to each of his tough questions to things ace shouldn’t have learned yet. managing to do all this, yet never getting ace’s hairstyle right, and tangling his cord, and messing his speech, and attempting to flirt with people he definitely shouldn’t be attempting to flirt with.

sabo, teasing kidd and lami, living ace’s life for him, all those months splitting a body with a guy he had never met. scribbling in thick, crisp font reminders for ace before he went to sleep and woke up in his own body. making sure ace took care of himself. fretting when he didn’t. writing off his own worries and trying to figure why ace was unhappy with life, even as the people around him, ace included, insist he care for himself for a change.

sabo, who wrote and wrote and wrote, detailing his life so that he’d never forget again, like he’d forgotten most of his life before makino and shanks. 

sabo, who reminded him so much of his mother, not just in appearance, but in everything ace had learned and cherished and forgotten, all those years ago.

sabo, who taught him so many things. who taught him, just like his mother, how to love, how to hold dear, how to forgive, how to remember.

“it’s nice,” sabo mutters, then holds the cord back out for ace to take.

his breath catches. but. bu-

so he really didn’t remember?

ace shuts his eyes for a moment. works on breathing again. he opens them and reaches for the cord, trying not to let his frustration show. before he can grab hold, though, a voice startles the pair of them.

“sabo, there you are! we’re ready to leave now. coming?” shanks is smiling, eyes only for the blond, who flinches back at the noise, and ace’s hand catches onto air as the cord is moved away. he furrows his brow, but doesn’t reach out again.

that’s when shanks seems to notice him. “oh! hey, kid, haven’t seen you in a while!” shanks steps forward to wrap ace in a hug that quickly turns into a mock chokehold, and ace forgoes the cord entirely in favor of latching to shanks’ arm, trying to pry it off.

“yeah, it’s been real nice,” he rasps. “not having to see your ugly mug-”

“ah come on now!” shanks whines. “you don’t really mean that!”

a call of his name has him settling down, and he releases ace when he remembers he was on a time crunch. “right, well, good to see you again. gotta head out now, i’ll stick around longer next time.” he winks and ace does his best exasperated expression, the luffy you are being ridiculous to extreme lengths and i am on my last straw look, but it breaks when shanks turns away, and he has to smile with his back turned, a little glad he’d gotten to see the redhead again after all this time.

“ready, sabo?” shanks asks. sabo only has time to nod before shanks flashes him a thumbs-up. “great! meet you at the car.” he’s gone after that, skipping back inside, leaving sabo to furrow his brows in confusion.

“car?” he mutters.

“makino drove,” ace tells him, and his attention snaps back up.

“oh.” he nods. his hands tighten into fists. then he realizes. “oh! here’s -this, back.”

he reaches out again, but ace waves him off, turning slightly away. “keep it.”

sabo’s brows raise. “isn’t it important?”

this meeting is important, he thinks. “give it back the next time you see me,” he says instead, because he’s not willing to give up.

sabo blinks, unsure of how to respond, but another call of his name reaches them before he can decide. so, instead of a proper answer, he holds out the band again to ace, and his bare wrist with the other. “tie it for me, then,” he says, and ace feels a grin forming as he steps forward, because it’d been a long time since he’d heard words so daring coming from the blond.

[redscharms]

Hi again! Sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner, love! But yes, you’re correct - #3! Thank you so much 💕

Hello, dear! ♥️ So here’s your personal reading. 

The overall energy is very positive but there are some things to be aware of

The two cards that appeared at the bottom of the decks are the Ace of Swords and the Knight of Pentacles

A lot of steady but somewhat slow progress towards something that has the potential to bring you a lot of joy

So, the first card that came out was the Ace of Wands

It’s like the cards are encouraging you to follow your heart’s desires and to live your passion

Pursue that goal that you know will bring you a lot of joy and fulfillment

If there’s a project you had in mind for a long time, this is a sign that it’s time to put your energy into it, to focus on what has the potential to bring you both emotional satisfaction and financial stability

It’s always good to start small and treat your new project and idea as an experiment because with the King of Swords and the Six of Wands next to the Ace, the cards warn you that it’s necessary to map out any potential threats and risk before jumping into it

That way by taking small and careful steps you’ll gain the necessary courage to move on and even though the progress might be slow at first (there is the Four and Seven of Swords too which might indicate that but I’ll return to them later) that will built a necessary courage and determination that will allow you to move forward despite any challenges

The Six of Wands also might indicate that the more you succeed in what you do, the more ‘haters’ you might encounter but this card strongly encourages you to not give them your attention or time and focus on your progress

It’s amazing how the cards all share the similar vibe and message

The Magician is here to show you that you have all the necessary tools to start but with the High Priest and the Four of Swords the cards encourage you to take your time when you approach a certain milestone

Once you started, it’s important to make sure you don’t push too hard

Once you reached that milestone, the Four of Wands here ask you to slow down just a little to celebrate your success and express the gratitude for it

It’s a beautiful card that indicates the approach of something finally coming to fruition but it also encourages you to take a moment to fully appreciate that

With these cards it also seems that it’s important to set clear boundaries with others to protect yourself and not let them mess with you or bring your spirits down

This is just an example but if you’re going to be spending a lot of your time with your family or sibling who don’t believe in your dreams and don’t feel like you can accomplish something because it sounds too unrealistic, don’t let them get to you

It’s important to hold your ground and defend your position, but the cards advice you to be gentle and focus more on enjoying any small celebration coming your way

Put yourself first

It’s not selfish nor uncaring to prioritize your wellbeing first

You don’t necessarily have to completely detach yourself from others but just make sure you take care of your needs first

Also don’t let them get into your head with negativity

Don’t forget that everyone who tries to shut down any idea you have has their own perspective on life and it’s influenced by their own misfortunes or failures

People who achieved something rarely would discourage you

They’ll warn you (not scare you but warn you) about potential risk and the importance to use your logic and intellect to navigate your path ahead but would never tell you that your dream is stupid

You want to be a wedding planner? Make sure you know all the nuances of this job. You aspire to be a landscape designer? Be prepared to work in a competitive field.

Those are just examples of course

Like every job has it’s positive and negative sides but it’s a natural process

Don’t let the negatives outweigh the positives

Be realistic but not pessimistic about your goals

It’s definitely very important that you approach your project with firm and well-researched decision and a clear understanding of what you need to do and how to face any potential challenge

You have new ideas and vision but you’re too scared it might not be received well by the general public? Start small, be playful and enjoy the process of creating something new

Do your research, the cards are saying that you have a lot of potential

If you need help or advice, the High Priest encourages you to talk to someone who has some experience

If you have some skills but they need improvement, perhaps now it’s the time to focus on that

In case you’ve been working on something already, the Four of Wands are indicating that something really pleasant will happen soon

However just like I said before, don’t forget to celebrate that and express gratitude

It generally looks like you’ll have a lot of inspiration and creativity during the next three months

New ideas that motivate and inspire you

It’s important to start with few fundamentals to get things rolling and then go with the flow

Just start with small and as the time goes, you’ll be able to accomplish more through more complex activities

It’s important to do at least something, act now, start with something safe

Don’t postpone and spend all your time planning

The Ace promises and opportunity, shows a great promise

It’s a spark that has a potential to become a massive fire but it’s up to you to keep the flames burning

With the Hanged Man next to the Magician it’s important to release the old negative mental models and behavioral patterns

Get rid of the old habits to embrace the new opportunities

The general message here is to start small but takes those small steps with determination

And another very important theme is being grateful for all the good things you receive

What I find interesting here is that the first part of the reading is all about taking action but the second is about hitting the breaks when necessary and not to push too hard when things come to an abrupt halt

When you see that you hit a certain milestone after you started and you feel like the progress is really slowing down, it seems that’s the time to step back and reassess and re-evaluate the situation

This is when the High Priest appeared so perhaps that will be the time you’ll need to reach for external help and learn new things

The Seven of Swords here say that this might be the time when you have to take a pause due to an unexpected offer that sounds too good to be true

Something that promises more money, more fame, more power etc

Something that sounds appealing but also smells a little fishy

It’s important to keep your ideas grounded during this time

It’s the time to focus on one thing that will help you move closer to your goal and will be beneficial for you

Resist the temptation to do everything at once because it’s very possible you might overestimate your abilities

Don’t get side-tracked

Note the new ideas, write them down, think about them before you go to sleep but keep your focus on what is the most important for you at that moment

The Magician also talks about being able to manifest things into your life but for that to happen you need to have a clear vision of what you need and want

Don’t let the ego overrule your principles and your judgment

Commitment to that ONE thing, let it be small but essential, is the essential

Be methodical in your planning and stay on track

Cards also advise you to explore and learn

You might already have your own belief system regarding your plan of actions but it’s always a good thing to do your research to broaden your vision

The more knowledge you acquire the easier it’ll be for you to navigate this path

If necessary, work with a teacher, a mentor, anyone you can trust and you know they’re reliable

Cover your bases

And again, once you achieved something after of period of dedicated work, take your time to relax, take a breath and only then proceed to the next challenge

The cards say it’s very important not to push yourself when you feel like you need some rest

But be careful not to misunderstand procrastination for an actual need to take a break

Also since the Seven of Swords came up twice I want to warn you to stay truthful to yourself and others or it might end not so pleasantly

Be sure to be strategic in what you do and evaluate your abilities before taking up any other project

If you know for sure you can take up another small task, do it but if you have doubts it’s safer to say no

This card also suggests that you might need to accept that what makes you happy won’t necessarily leave the others content with how you put yourself first

However, you can’t live according to others expectations

Re-evaluate your thoughts and belief system, get rid of what isn’t serving you and keeps you from progressing

I know this all kinda sounds like a motivational speech but that’s the general theme here

Throughout the whole reading the pattern repeats itself

Take action, plan out your steps carefully, be sure to express gratitude and take rest when needed, learn new skills, take time to heal and evaluate where you’re currently at to understand how to move forward…

It’s a steady progress towards something big

The Ace of Swords is an indication that this is the time to start

The project will require your intellect, your communication skills and mental power

If you feel inspired then act

It’s important to trust your gut feeling when it comes to new offers

If you feel like something is wrong, perhaps that person isn’t being honest with you

I want to pull some more cards to see if the cards will say anything about your love life

Oh wow… You got the Four of Swords again and two times the Seven of Cups…

And the Knight of Swords again

Alright

I’m really sorry that I have to say it but I’d rather say the truth

So the Four of Swords indicates that you’re either have been in a relationship were the things went stale or that you’ve been along for some time now

But honestly I get the feeling that you’ve been waiting for something to happen

For someone perhaps to take some action

As if there’s some sort of infatuation with someone because I look at the Page of Wands and the Seven of Cups here and it’s almost as if that person is someone you have romantic feeling for but you romanticize them

There’s that sense of “wearing the pink glasses”

You might see that there’s more to what it actually is

There’s also an element of sexual attraction when it comes to Seven of Cups so perhaps that’s the driving force

And I see the Five of Cups next to it so it’s as if you’re not looking at the bigger picture

Not seeing the other options you have

That could also be a post breakup situation with the Six of Swords

There’s the Queen of Pentacles reversed so it’s either an attraction driven by desires or a relationship you’ve invested too much into and it feels like it was all for nothing

And the Moon’s here too

The theme of illusions is very permanent here

Especially with the Seven of Cups appearing twice

With the Knight of Swords, I feel like the general message here is that it’s important to approach any situation with a clear head and the Six of Pentacles accentuates that you must establish clear boundaries for yourself

A relationship is all about giving and receiving

One shouldn’t ask for the other person’s attention or affection

The last cards are the Strength and the Two of Wands

The latter depicts an eagle soaring above the mountains

It’s like you need to realize your full potential, the power that you hold

Take a step back and look at the situation from a different perspective

The Strength cards tell me that it might require some courage and mental strength but it’s very worth it as the cards are followed by the Ace of Pentacles and Six of Wands

Just in case it’s a toxic relationship that’s keeping you from pursuing your dreams, it’s time to put yourself first and not let anyone take advantage of you

It’s good to see if you’re receiving back as much as you’re willing to give

Don’t be afraid to love yourself

I hope this resonated because doing an anonymous reading is a little harder. So, I hope you found some helpful information and enjoyed it. I’m sorry if some of the messages weren’t so positive but I feel it’s best to be honest.