#i mean its either the instruments or death threats so maybe we need to just let him play his tunes | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

komahinasecretexchange · 5 years ago

Text

Title: hiraeth

Author: @slickandsolangelic

For: @usernamefieldhere

Rating/Warnings: T (warning for existentialism and disassociation)

Prompt: Hinata dealing with the consequences of having Kamukura as a past self, au or canon

Author’s notes: I hope this is to your liking, and I hope it’s okay that the au I picked is dnd-esque fantasy! I had lots of fun with this, and I can only hope that you do, too ^^

The Isles of Jabberwock are oft a pleasant place to be in, their sand a fine gold that lets itself be swept away by the lapping currents from the crystalline blue ocean that surrounds them. Better yet is the sun there, bearing down on them with its golden rays, easing flowerings into bloom and saplings into growth. Hinata is very, very glad that they managed to rescue it from being leveled down by those ambitious bandits from the east.

An adventuring life was unpredictable at its core, but unusually gratifying after a job well done.

Which is to say, it feels really fucking good to beat up some bad guys and get money for it, but such a thought is embarrassingly self indulgent and thus will remain at the very back of Hinata’s mind, where it belongs.

Nanami looks up from the weapon she’s examining. It’s a medium sized spear with a silver tip. She seems to weigh it in her hands for a bit, before letting out a satisfied hum.

“Komaeda-kun, would this be good to use if you ever wear yourself out using your magic?”

“Oh, Nanami-san, that’s really kind of you to think of me,” Komaeda starts to say, looking up from the item he was examining, a small flute embroidered with bronze trimmings. “But I’ve never really been good with sharp things. And as I’m already worn out, I’m afraid I might just point it the wrong way and, as per chance’s design. Being impaled sounds like it’d be inconvenient for our party!”

“Yeah,” Hinata says solemnly, because he’s traveled with Komaeda long enough to know that this is entirely possible.

“Yeah,” Nanami says, and she puts the spear back.

“I like this,” Hinata says. He raises both his hands to show them them silk pouch nestled in his palms. “It’s magical, so you can put up to three hundred pounds of stuff in there.”

Komaeda is at his side then, gliding past the tables laden with strings and wooden instruments. His arm brushes Hinata’s when he reaches from the small card attached to the golden thread around the pouch’s hem.

“It’s also worth five hundred gold pieces,” Komaeda says.

“Oh,” Hinata says.

“Oh,” Nanami agrees.

“If Hinata-kun really wants it, I can-” but Hinata is already putting it back.

They wind up circling the aisles of items for a few more hours, the other two interjecting with commentary when one makes a suggestion. It’s more comfortable than anything, Hinata muses, surfing through their options with one another together like this. Battles where their competence and trust in one another made the difference between loss and success, between life and death; that’s something that’s undeniably special. Something that matters, in a way, and Hinata knows that, and he is grateful- but he much prefers the quieter moments like these, when all that matters in the moment is their group effort at bargaining with the shopkeepers, the sunset’s rays framing their silhouettes as they journeyed through the winding paths of towns they’d saved or served.

There’s something he’s come to appreciate about their regular time spent together as friends rather than adventuring companions. It’s more bothersome than jarring (in a way that makes Hinata feel equal measures irritated and fond) when Komaeda answers a yes or no question with a tangent which existentially questions the universe and when Nanami turns out to have been asleep with her eyes open for the past hour they were going over plans.

It’s nice, Hinata thinks. It’s just… nice, to have moments of quiet in between. Away from threats to their life during the day, and away from his night terrors when it grows darker.

The Isles don’t really have much to offer aside from scenery and impressive craftsmanship when it comes down to it. They have a good time crossing the bridges that lead up to the separate islands, though (it doesn’t take them that long to haul Komaeda out from the water when he falls off one), and the locals aren’t unpleasant folk to converse with.

The third island has a slightly less relaxing ambiance than the others. Of the six, it’s certainly the loudest and most vibrant of the bunch– Komaeda almost immediately identifies it as the art venue when they pass by a Bard-run tavern by the name of “Titty Typhoon”. It sounds like hell in there, but hell in fifty different types of musical instruments and also wildly out of tune.

“Well,” Komaeda says, looking cheerful. “They’re having fun.” His hands are clasped together, and his eyes are widened in something that’s either wonder or contemplation. Hinata’s learnt to recognize when Komaeda begins to form overly complex thoughts over things that really aren’t that deep, but he chooses not to intervene.

“Very loudly,” Hinata says.

“And out of tune,” Nanami adds, but she’s smiling.

“Everyone’s Bardic inspiration manifests in different forms.”

“Yeah, well, it also helps when it manages to inspire without being a Bardic pain in the ass.”

“Hinata-kun speaks very boldly! Well, I guess I can’t really blame you for not finding that kind of music to your fancy, not when your own bardic prowess is unique in a way that’s unrecognizable to most regular people such as myself.”

“That was months ago, holy shit-”

“The sweet melody still haunts my dreams.”

“You’re horrible.”

“You’re the most inspiring artist a commoner like me has ever had the pleasure of hearing.”

Hinata’s shoving him now, trying to stifle a smile behind the sleeves of his leather armour plating, and failing quite spectacularly.

“Asshole,” Hinata says, but there’s no bite to it. Komaeda gives him a smile that’s a different kind of unsettling, only because it makes his insides turn funny. It’s wide, but soft around the edges, and it makes his eyes crease ever so slightly. Then he looks away, and that’s that.

Hinata hasn’t slept in what feels like three fucking days.

In reality, it’s only been about two and a half- the other half he spent goofing around with Komaeda and Nanami in the Isles of Jabberwock, hooking up their party with new shit for the next challenge.

This is bad. With the map of the nearby continent spread out before him on the scratched and damaged inn table, he should be getting in the mood to mark their next exploit. It’s a pretty good map, even if the dim yellow glow emanating from their lamps doesn’t do its details much justice.The sharp strokes that form the peaks of mountains are unmistakable nearby the expertly woven lines of rivers and streams, cutting through grassy landscapes and flat wastelands. There are circles and lines which mark territories and label them, categorizing them as either off limits or safe to explore.

But with how tired he is, Hinata’s beginning to circle around the same thought over and over. In fact, is that a fucking city, or a firefly? Is that a firefly on his map? Hinata isn’t sure if what’s on his map is a firefly or a city. That circular dot of yellow– is it a firefly, or is it a city?

“You don’t look well,” says a familiar voice. The dot of yellow buzzes and leaps into the air and onto Hinata’s nose. He swings back suddenly in an effort to swat it with both his arms. The momentum drives his chair backwards.

The quiet tavern folk don’t care to stop their chatter when Hinata crashes to the ground with a sound thud, and so the warlock is left to stare at the ceiling with unblinking eyes and his palms cupped around his nose as the minuscule sphere rises and floats away. Nanami’s concerned face hovers above him.

Ah, so it was a firefly.

Their next quest is for a blond wizard hailing from an important family. Hinata thinks he’s kind of an asshole, but Hinata also thinks that five thousand gold is maybe a sufficient price to get a job done for an asshole. He wants them to retrieve this artifact called the “Eye of Fate”, something that apparently reflects a person’s psyche and innermost desires. This is worrisome considering the Asshole Status of the person they’re retrieving it for, but according to the client, the Eye of Fate is trapped within the body of a topaz crystal gollum, a probably slightly more dickish creature to bestow such a relic upon.

Nanami helps pick him up off the ground, but he needs to take a handful of moments to gather his bearings.

“You need to take care of yourself. We won’t be able to get anything done if you neglect your health.”

Hinata thinks this is rich coming from Nanami, who never seems to sleep and yet spends half of the time she’s awake in a state of trance that’s impossible to break her out of. He means to tell her this, but instead the words that come out are “Lord Togami is an asshole.”

“He’s not easy to work with,” Nanami agrees.

“He’s a big fucking asshole.”

“Okay,” Nanami says patiently, sitting him down on the chair.

“I hate rich people who offer lots of money for ridiculous quests.”

“Mhm.”

“Nanami, there was a firefly on my map.”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes, there was.”

“It flew.”

“I think fireflies tend to do that.”

Hinata presses his face against the scratchy surface of the map. He traces a finger along the Mountain Range of the Dead, across the Red River, and straight through the continental tunnel into the cavernous entrance of the Cave of Wonders.

“Yeah,” Hinata mutters. “’S cause of their wings.”

“Sure is.” Nanami puts a hand on his shoulder.

“Yeah,”

“Yeah,” she says, and pets his hair gently. “Go to sleep.”

The journey is harsh, but not unbearable.

Through the rocky mountain range they pass, tearing down groups of chimaeras, hopping between camping sights near the valleys. Komaeda picks flowers by one of the crevices, and Hinata feels bad when they wither under his bare hands.

They stop just a clearing away from the bank of Red River for the night. The sun kisses the horizon and turns it a warm shade of purple that lulls Hinata to slumber.

He dreams.

Hinata’s by the Red River.

His pants are rolled up to his knees, and the sky above him is as dark as the waters he’s lowered his feet into.They lap at his skin, icy and unforgiving. He pushes closer to the river side, sinks his legs further in until his calves feel numb.

Below the surface of the water, something is stirring. Moving like a shadow through the already dark film that covers the waters, closer than he wants it to be.

A voice says, “Haven’t they told you that this river is red with the blood of the fallen?”

Hinata doesn’t respond. He watches the figure grow closer and closer, a monster baited to the surface. His legs form ripples in the water when he moves them to and fro. He watches the spray of droplets disrupt the dark surface, and tries to hum away the panic in his chest.

“…You’re not listening anymore.”

The darkness is coming. Hinata is not afraid. He’s not afraid. He’s not.

(He’s terrified. He can’t move anymore, can barely breathe. He is helpless in a way that makes him angry at himself, useless in a way that makes him regret its existence.)

“You’re going to have to. It’s irrational to think you can run away forever.” The voice is calm as it says this.

It is nowhere. It is everywhere. It’s the full moon that lights up the stars above his head, the ripples his legs have stopped making in the river, the all encompassing darkness that wants to eat him whole, devour him until nothing is left of his existence.

Hinata wakes up with a start. His hands aren’t quite steady. That is to say, he’s shaking bad.

Hinata steps outside for a moment. It’s dark out still, so he snaps his fingers and watches a small flame flicker to life in his lantern. Their tent’s still steady against the breezes coming from the north. (Nanami had done a good job hammering it in right, after all. She’s always been good with practical skills like these, even if her proficiency was healing). The leaves sway high above his head on their host of towering trees, though, and the wind’s whistle is unmistakable and sharp, cutting through the night.

Hinata shudders.The bite of the air is akin to the sting of frost at his knees in the dream.

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he nearly jumps a foot into the air.

“Hinata-kun?”

Oh. It’s Komaeda. Hinata tries to be subtle about the breath of relief that leaves him, but he’s sure he failed. Whatever. God, whatever.

Komaeda retracts his hand. “I’m sorry,” he says with the kind of sincerity only he seems to be capable of. “I called for you before, but you seemed preoccupied.”

“…Ah, yeah.” Hinata tries to go for a smile, but it slips off his face at astronomical velocity. He’s exhausted, tired in a way that makes his bones ache and his heart stutter at every step. “It’s just that…” For a few long moments, he contemplates his next words, painfully aware of the tentative silence between them. Komaeda doesn’t break it, and even though Hinata’s looking away, he can feel the weight of Komaeda’s gaze pressing into the back of his head, sharper than the wind that pierces through the thicket of trees surrounding their campgrounds.

Hinata says, “You’re a bard, right?” Of course Komaeda is, that’s out of the question. When Hinata whips around, he sees the look of tempered confusion Komaeda is giving him. His head is tipped sideways, and his gray eyes blink at Hinata questioningly.

“By the standard definition, I am,” Komaeda says. “Perhaps not entirely deserving of the title, but that is the most conventional term to reference what I do.”

“…Right,” Hinata says. He tries to swallow back the lump that forms in his throat, and finds he can’t do it, just as he can’t quite bring himself to dispel the anxiety eating away at the pit of his stomach. “Yeah, I know. You’re a good bard, Komaeda, we’ve had this talk.”

“And you’re changing the subject, Hinata-kun,” Komaeda responds quietly. He’s still looking at him with those intent eyes. Fuck. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Silence. And then a howl from the wind hollow and loud all at the same time.

“Have you heard of the Ender of The World?”

More silence. And then, a laugh.

“Kamukura Izuru… who hasn’t?”

“So he has a name?”

Komaeda sets his own lantern on the ground, then lowers himself and takes a cross-legged position. Hesitant, Hinata follows suit.

“You didn’t know? They named him after the original Wizard, the one whose discoveries helped incorporate the plane of magic with our own.”

“Ah,” Hinata says. His throat is dry. “I, uh, never looked into it too much. I tried to, well- avoid. That sort of stuff.”

“…I see,” Komaeda says, and there’s an obvious question in his tone. To his credit, he doesn’t ask it.

“Well, Kamukura Izuru… Well, to start, he’s beautiful. I saw him, once.”

Hinata’s heart stops. “You did?”

“I did,” Komaeda says, and smiles. There are no creases under his eyes this time, no softness to the edge of his mouth. Only a wide curve that increases Hinata’s unease. Komaeda’s eyes watch the purple flame in his lantern flicker and sway.

“When I was still travelling alone, I took shelter in a sea-side town. I was still young then, maybe in my mid teen years, and so I was still learning how to get around alone, and still learning how to cope with my abilities. Naturally, no one wanted someone whose magical energy was as unstable and harmful as mine.” Komaeda makes animated hand gestures as he speaks, his voice remaining light and unbothered.

“So I tried not to use any, even when it got cold and I needed a fire, even if I had to defend myself. As soon as they realised their flowers wither around me and the grass their cattle eat from is poisoned by my magic, they’d throw me out. I couldn’t afford to let that happen yet, not when I was in such desperate need of a sustainable place to stay.”

“Komaeda…” Hinata starts to say, a crease forming in his brow. But Komaeda just continues.

“This is why I ended up staying by the port, where there was less organic matter for me to visibly hurt. And then he was there, and the stories? They were true,” Komaeda says. “He was- ah, I’m afraid I’m not nearly eloquent enough, but he was something else. He didn’t hurt anyone then, didn’t turn any cities to dust or erase landscapes with the swipe of his hand, but his existence was like…” He holds up a hand over the lantern, and his eyes are wide enough to hold the entire sky within then. Komaeda clenches his fist over the lantern’s glow.

He whispers, “Like fire. It was burning with the demand to be attended to. It was like being charmed, but worse, but better. And where he floated, Hinata-kun? It was over the sea, which had begun to turn inky below him. It was like void. Like nothingness was just overcoming the blue, erasing it.” Komaeda’s still smiling. How is he still smiling?

Hinata tries to regulate his breathing, but he feels sick. His head spins with a thousand visions, of tarlike darkness invading crystal blue, of lonely teenagers by ports, of magical essences strong enough to burn themselves into the hearts of spectators.

Hinata’s voice sounds hoarse to his ears when he speaks. “…And? Was he- was he evil?”

Komaeda laughs again. “Evil… Well, I suppose it depends on the standards of one’s morality. I just think he was hideous.”

“Huh?! Didn’t you just say-”

“I meant what I said.” Komaeda says. “He was the wrongest thing in the world, in that moment. Something that wasn’t destined to be. He was beautiful, too, and it had made me feel something. Now, I can identify that feeling as what it is.”

“And what is it?”

Komaeda turns to look at him then, eyes wide still. He closes them for a moment, but the smile doesn’t fade. Komaeda says, “Disgust,” and Hinata feels like he’s been kicked in the ribs.

“Oh. Um, I suppose that makes se-”

“I think he was just empty. I don’t understand how someone can have such power over destiny and be such a shell.” His smile takes a dip, then twitches back into place. It looks wrong, not that it ever really looked right to begin with. It looks… sour.

“People will call Kamukura Izuru beautiful, or they will call him horrible,” Komaeda says. “I just think that he’s like me.”

“Like you?” Hinata’s heart is pounding.

“I don’t mean to sound egoistical,” Komaeda says quickly, holding his hands up, His smile returns to its default vacancy again, “Of course, I could never hope to be as powerful. But Izuru-san and I have something in common.”

There is quiet now, and even the well timed howling of the wind fails to shake Hinata out of his semi-trance state of contemplation. He recognises that Komaeda’s given him an opening to ask. The tension in his gut notwithstanding, he does.

“What is it, then?”

Komaeda hums. His gloved fingers close around the handle of the lantern and pull it up to his face. Illuminated so closely by the glow, Komaeda looks like a flame himself. It’s a haunting kind of beauty that Hinata can’t fully wrap his head around. (His heart aches). He blows his flame out, and just like that, the world grows dimmer. Komaeda stands up, and Hinata wants to reach out and grab at his sleeve, but he’s too tired, and Komaeda’s too swift, and it’s too cold out here, so cold and dark and god, Hinata’s so tired.

“Well, when I looked in his eyes, I could tell. I could tell that he had nowhere to go either.” Through the mist of darkness, Hinata can’t see his features, he can sense it when Komaeda’s gaze leaves him.

He whispers, “Good night, Hinata-kun.”

Then he returns to their tent, and Hinata’s left alone.

There is a flash of light.

Pillars of light come together to form a gollum, at least 12 feet tall, its arms made of diamond shards which reflect the yellow light pouring out of the empty holes in its head that make its sockets. The gollum is a beautiful, monstrous thing, its voice caught somewhere between roar and song. It’s a compound of light shards taking the form of rocky limbs and sharp shoulders. Like tears, the light that runs down its head burns into the cavern’s ground, acidic.

They get in order. Hinata raises his wand, and Nanami prepares her wooden staff. The amethysts that stick out of the ground by Komaeda’s feet begin to lose their vibrancy as he puts his flute to his lips.

Hinata casts.

Nanami points.

Komaeda plays.

And the gollum unclasps a dark mouth trapped between jaws of silvery-gold crystals, and showers their attacking silhouettes in stunning light.

You are born.

You are a creature! And how alive you are, how real- your hands are small and pale, your hair back length and a light shade of a pretty colour. And you are not clothed, not yet, but you are so alive.

Besides you a person with shaking arms and a trembling form. They say, “O-oh, it worked, it worked,” and they sound like they’re going to cry.

You reach out to them, and you feel concerned.

Disorientation. Fear. Hinata’s head is spinning, and he can’t tell his head from his feet, not anymore. The world is nothing but a dull blur of colour, and all he hears is a the quiet hum of the gollum’s voice, a guttural, chilling sound.

And then the next flash of light comes.

II.

You are alone. Ash falls between the spaces of your fingers, the remnants of the home you once had. The sky cries for you, but you do not cry. You cannot cry anymore, not when you know they were right all along. Right to abandon you, right to throw a creature of destruction and havoc.

You are disgusted with yourself, with the pulse of energy that crackles like lightning beneath your skin.

Your hands dig into the ashes that were once meadows and gardens and homes, homes you grew up in, homes you weren’t hated for existing in.

You let out a scream that tears your throat in two, and you are heartbroken.

He can’t tell if he’s breathing.

He can’t tell if he’s seeing. He can only hear the roar approaching.

But he feels it, too, the third flash of light slamming into him.

III.

Magic is difficult.

Magic is unnatural- it’s strange, because for your family, it seems to come as easy as breathing. Generations of wizards have thrived from their line, after all, each with magical energy in the very air they breathe, clear in the way they carry themselves, evident in the gleam in their eyes.

Except for you, that is. You have grown up looking at your hands and hating them. You have grown up with the words of the divination mistress inscribed in your head from when you were but a youth, her raspy voice calm and factual as she tells your parents, This one’s a branch that’s been severed. He’s dry, he is.

And you are. You attempt to cast spells. Nothing happens. You try your hand at passive magic, tries to see if you can work out divination, or magical forgery, or bardic inspiration.

Nothing happens within. Your hands remain plain, pitiable things, empty of even the telltale scorch marks and scar of a beginner magician. There is disappointment in the looks they give you. There’s judgement. There’s torment in their stares, a searing fire that burns away at you in the expectations you know you’ll never be able to fulfill. A tiresome, constant hum of unease.

So plain.

What a shame, that one- think of the potential!

Maybe he’s just a late bloomer?

But you aren’t.

You press your palms to your face and try to feel for a hum of something more that isn’t there, was never there, will never be there.

Until one day, not many days from now, at the hands of a circle of wizards who promise your family prowess, progress, and most importantly magic- it is.

And you feel… nothing.

You don’t feel at all.

A flash of light.

Your hair is trimmed to your shoulders. You are dressed in a cloak of silver with a green hood, given a staff crafted of rosewood and embroidered with your initials. You are given a name. You are given a purpose.

The person who made you is loving. They are kind. They don’t make you feel like the tool that you are, but you know, and you think it’s okay.

And another.

II.

You learn that the leaves of plants wither first when you play. And then gradually, so do the stems. The petals are last to go, turning a sorry shade of gray that disintegrates to ashen black the more you continue.

You feel sorry.

And yet another.

III.

There is more magic in the air than has even been. More horror in your heart than you ever thought possible. They are chanting incantations, murmuring things in languages you can’t recognise, humming in tones you don’t understand, and you are scared, but your want to stop disappointing overwhelms this fear. Your want to be something that surpasses ordinary, something that beats worthless.

So you stay still.

And you drift, further and further away, into a space where you can’t feel your heart and can’t contain your soul.

And for a while, you don’t return. Not really.

Another.

You learn that you are a cleric. You learn that your name is Nanami Chiaki, and that you can wield light and speak seven languages and be very, very useful.

You find your place among an adventuring party, and you set off to do your job as a cleanser of despair.

When will it stop?

II.

You feel smaller than you should, a quiet mass of stark white hair and shaky hands that suck the life out of every unsuspecting thing. But you learn- you learn to sleep in the hollows of large trees.You learn to survive days without fire and food. You learn what you have to do to live, what you have to do to continue, but often you wonder if there’s a purpose at all.

And then you see Kamukura Izuru turn the ocean’s blue into void, and immediately realise what you have to do.

Hinata hears what sounds like a thump, but maybe it’s just the dull beat of his heart. Does he still have a heart?

III.

It is

Dark.

It is so dark , and so quiet, and you are not there, but you are, but the world isn’t, but you are, but you’re dead, but you’re not, but you’re in pain, but he’s not.

And he’s you.

Or you’re him.

Maybe you’re both and he’s neither. She finds you somewhere between existence and death, surrounded by the skeletal remains of the seven wizards that made you what you are.

She examines the circle of black glass and scorch marks that used to be their mountain, and the grin on her face can cut through the fabric of the universe and weave it into something new. She holds out her hand, and says, “Confused, aren’tcha? I think I have something that’ll work for you.”

And before you know it, the world is ending at your hands.

There is the sound of something falling multiple times all at once.

You love them so much.

You love them so, so much. But you do not, because you weren’t made for this. You don’t know what love is.

Do you?

It’s getting closer.

II.

You are a being of misdeeds, a creature of filth and ugliness.You are a pawn in the hands of luck and a facilitator of fate. And it’s fine.

It’s fine. You don’t deserve to feel this companionship. You don’t deserve the moments when his eyes meet yours and you feel something akin to hope. It’s selfish. It’s foolish.

It’s fine.

(It’s not.)

They are footsteps, Hinata realises distantly at the back of his head, and they fall like hail.

III.

You wake up in another circle of black glass. Your head is full of memories that aren’t your own, your back breaking under the weight of sins you earnt. You hands are pale and unscarred and yours, yours, yours, but you don’t know what’s yours anymore, so you dig them into the hard ground until your nails chip and bleed and you’re screaming because the pain is the only thing that makes you feel real.

You don’t know how long you lay there, but when you come to, you can cast flame, you can create light.

And it takes you so, so long, to pick yourself up, to tear away your memories and the bards’ songs of Him, of You.

You are sick of your own existence, but most of all, you’re not sure when you’ll be him again. You’re not sure how long you have as you.

(You’re not sure when you started to think of this in terms of you and him.)

When you find yourself a party, you worry.

When you sleep at night, you worry.

When your companion’s piercing gray greens look at you and tell you, “Good night, Hinata-kun,” you worry.

What’s a sense of self for someone without one at all?

Crash!

Splinters of diamond scatter across the cave’s floor, yellow and white and shades of off-orange, shattered, sharp and everywhere.

Komaeda is panting by the now screaming, headless gollum, its guttural screeches now reduced to weak yelps that sound more like windchimes. The splinters that caught him in the face send blood streaking down it, and he’s breathing heavy.

In his right hand Komaeda holds Nanami’s abandoned spear of light, semi-tangible and fading in his grasp. Nanami rises to her feet besides Hinata, only a distance away. Cuts and scrapes line her arms and legs where the crystals caught her, but she is healing faster than any of them can process, and she points her staff at the gollum, lips drawn in a thin line.

When Hinata gets into position besides his companions, his heart thrums with something that’s maybe determination, and that’s definitely the desire to beat this fucking thing to the ground.

Their eyes meet. When Hinata catches Komaeda’s, Komaeda gives him a tired, bloodied smile which he tries to return.

They attack.

LEGEND.

There is a legend in the land about a sorcerer. Or at least that’s what they think he is. He’s certainly not human- it’s not clear if he’s much of anything the people of this world can recognize.

He’s like something out of a night terror, spectral and haunting, ethereally beautiful in ways that are hard to encapture. Bards fail to find music befitting of him, and the storytellers, their hands bleed of their efforts to weave tales and tapestries worthy enough. An artist’s maddening, he is, a being of darkness, or maybe light, or maybe divinity.

He razes lands in his wake.

It only takes a flick of his wrist for the grandeur of towering spires, raised peaks and settlements, so many settlements built with caring craftsmanship and loving ambition, to become ash.

There are no scorch marks to tell of despairing fires, no bloodstained marble and cobblestone to tell the tragedy of battles lost. Only the memory of what used to be and the dust that remains of its existence.

Some call him the Destructor. Some call him a God. Most merely call him The Ender of The World.

And he is as beautiful as he is terrifying, the story tellers swear. He doesn’t function on malice, they say. It’s impossible to tell what his motives really are, but he doesn’t thrive off of evil nor off of death. He does not need to thrive, really, not when his very existence is that of raw energy and power, not when he can make himself a living deity on command of his presence.

Others have different stories to tell of him, all with the staples; the beauty, the divinity, the grace. But they speak of different powers- armies of the dead animated for seemingly no reason. Stormy clouds of gray that encircle him, a crown of booming thunder and imminent destruction.

Eyes the colour of rubies, painfully empty despite the ocean’s worth of magical energy they surely have.

The World is ending.

And then it isn’t.

The cities of ash remain as they are, as do the hearts of endless storms continue to beat with the booms of thunder. Every tapestry and abandoned sheet of song remain, but the Ender of the World does not.

At the gollum’s husk, Hinata brings down a spectral axe he summons; once her spear of light is back in her hands, Nanami maneuvers close enough to leave a gaping gash of oozing yellow where its abdomen was; Komaeda’s flute plays notes that manifest into spectral hammers which descend upon it, blown after blow. The amethysts around them are now a darkened gray.

With each hit that lands, crystals shatter across the floor.

Soon, all that remains is a gradient of gold in pieces at their feet.

And their prize reward, the gollum’s heart: an ornate circle of the very same gold, its surface clear and reflective like a mirror. The Eye of Fate.

Komaeda collapses on his knees.

He’s making a noise that sounds like giggling, red faced and dizzy, and then he collapses to the side, spent. Hinata isn’t fast enough to catch him, but he tries anyway. Chest still heaving from the effort of battle, he takes the time to brush away the red that bleeds from the wound on Komaeda’s forehead. The amethysts are more like coal now, a tell-tale sign of the energy he’s expended.

Nanami kneels beside him, and she’s not out of breath at all. But she looks just as tired as he feels. All her wounds have closed up. Hinata almost finds it funny- he always thought the reason her wounds were so quick to heal was because she was an extraordinarily healer. While that was true, he now more or less knows that there’s more to it. And she… they both…

Well, they both know now, don’t they? But the panic hasn’t really settled in just yet.

“I’ll get him,” Nanami says, and she nods towards Komaeda. Already her hand is on his chest. “You have to go retrieve the mirror. Hinata-kun, you know what to do with it.”

Hinata nods. Rises to his feet.

He heads towards the Eye of Fate, back turned to Nanami. It feels smooth and light in his hands. The surface reflects his face, bloodied and plain, and it all feels deceptively simple.

Nanami says, “Hinata-kun? I know you’ll make the right decision. I know you’re a good person, and you can make your own path.”

He feels the smile in her voice as strongly as he feels the sting in his eyes.

“Right,” Hinata says softly, and examines the glassy surface.

He throws it to the ground experimentally. It lands quietly without a sound.

And then he crushes it under his fucking feet. Over and over until it breaks apart for good.

Nanami laughs softly from behind him.

Hinata says, “All right, then. Now that that’s over with, let’s go home.”

Home isn’t anywhere but the three of them.

The journey back isn’t as tiring as Hinata thought it would be, but it’s every bit as emotionally taxing. He wallows in his anxiety on their trip back, just as he wallows in his thoughts.

He and Nanami don’t speak of it.

And he understand that she needs time, and she understands that he needs courage, or perhaps strength of will. But she smiles at him like he means something still, like he’s more than lost identities and failure and magic that isn’t really his, and he’s grateful. He smiles at her too, a bit less patient, a bit more jaded, but he hopes it lets her know that she means something to him like he does to her.

And then there’s Komaeda.

They’re back at their camp grounds when he finally wakes. The sun’s beginning to rise above the horizon, painting its line a faint white and streaking the blank sky with shades of pale blue and orange.

Nanami’s gone to bring them firewood for later on since they’re all too tired for conjuration. Hinata’s fingers clench and unclench into a fist. He counts the fading stars that are eaten by the sunrise, and wonders if he can still see the faint outline of the moon provided he tries hard enough.

Komaeda sits opposite from him. Neither of them says a word.

The silence is quiet and tangible, and when Hinata looks at Komaeda, really looks at him, he pauses. Komaeda’s fully healed and unscarred but for a nick that the gash on his forehead left, and even that is hardly notable. His hair is even messier than usual, dirtied and gray with dust and dirt from their encounter. His pallor is still prominent, but thankfully, it doesn’t look like he’s about to fall seriously ill.

"Hey,” Hinata says.

Komaeda raises his head to look at him. He’s giving him that look again, a look of uncomfortable intensity that Hinata feels in his bones.

Komaeda say, “Hinata-kun,” by way of greeting, and they fall quiet again.

Hinata looks at his thumbs.They’re shredded from the shrapnel of crystal, scarred in little crisscrosses.

He says to Komaeda, “Well. I mean, god. Let’s- let’s cut right to it. Talk to me.”

And so they start to, the rising sun a backdrop to their conversation.

“You know now,” Hinata says.

“I do.”

“You wanted to find me. Or him. Whatever.”

“I do.”

“You still do?”

He tips his head sideways, and light curls frame his curious expression. Very sincerely, he says, “I do.”

Hinata feels a tightness in his chest.

“You’re weird.”

“You’re a god.”

Hinata gives him an annoyed, incredulous look. Now he knows Komaeda’s messing with him.

He says, “You know I’m not,” and can’t help the edge in his voice.

“Of course I do,” Komaeda says, voice hushed in a way Hinata’s never heard it before. “I felt your thoughts, Hinata-kun. We both did.”

He knows this. And it’s frustrating, infuriating even, to have something like that taken away from you and broadcasted so intimately. Looking at the mess he made of his own fingers, Hinata wishes he hit harder, attacked harsher.

And then he looks at Komaeda, and oh. He sees it now, the tightness around his shoulders, the tension in his frame. The sharpness of his present smile, guarded and ingenuine.

He’s hurting, too.

And god, Hinata’s so selfish. This entire time, his own anxieties have been overwhelming him, and he wasn’t able to realise sooner that his companions have their own plates full to the brim.

Of course. Of course he’d hurt. He’s felt it vividly, Komaeda’s loneliness, his pain, just as he had Nanami’s doubt in her existence, just as tangibly as they felt his own aches.

Hinata reaches towards Komaeda, who tenses like he’s about to flinch away, but… doesn’t. He places a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” he says.

And Komaeda says, “I was wrong.”

“Wrong?”

His gaze bores into Hinata. “Wrong to call you beautiful and hideous.”

Hinata puts away his hand. He says, “Then what would you call me?” and feels bold for it. The way Komaeda says ‘you’ instead of 'Kamukura Izuru’ or 'The Ender of the World’ or some other superficial title makes him shiver.

“I would call you hopeful,”

“Uh, what?”

Komaeda puts a hand over his heart. And there it is again, that terrifying earnestness in his eyes.

“Hopeful. You’re not like me, Hinata-kun. Despite everything, you’re still here. You’re still doing good after what she made you do.”

What she made you do. The illusion of guilt, the vision of the perfect monster, it’s gone. It’s all gone.

Hinata is shaking just the slightest bit. His hands aren’t as steady as he thought they’d be in his lap. This is hard.

“But– so are you.”

“So am I what, Hinata-kun?”

“You’re here too, aren’t you?”

Komaeda falls silent.

Hinata can’t quite read his expression right, was never quite able to, but the stunned look of bewilderment that twists his features isn’t hard to note.

“But I- that’s not… That isn’t how it works.” Komaeda argues, a confused frown twisting his mouth.

“Isn’t it?” Hinata is smiling, and as he does, he feels the tremors start to calm.

“It isn’t! Hinata-kun, if you’re as good at drawing conclusions as you are at playing instruments-”

“Stop trying to backhand compliment me, I probably can play if I really try.”

“Backhanded compliments? How rash of Hinata-kun to jump to such a conclusion, I was only trying to speak my mind.”

He flicks Komaeda’s forehead. Komaeda doesn’t make a move to flinch this time.

Hinata dares to push back the hair that falls in front of his eyes, heart beat mingling with the songbirds’ melody. He waits for Komaeda to stop him, but he does not. He rubs his thumb over the small scar on his forehead.

“…You were good out there with Nanami’s spear,” Hinata murmurs. “Maybe you should actually consider buying one.”

“Oh,” Komaeda breathes in response.

Sunlight makes him look even prettier.

It’s quiet here in these woods, and it’s not “home” forever. Nothing will be for a while. But the permanence of home and the worries of tomorrow mean nothing when Hinata sees that smile again. A smile soft around the edges that make his eyes crease, a smile that makes Hinata not want to let go.

“Is this okay?” Komaeda says, and his voice is quiet. His eyes begin to flutter. His gloved hands reach tentative towards the back of Hinata’s neck as he moves to lean into Hinata’s touch. Komaeda’s hands are light, their pressure barely there, like he’s afraid to hurt him.

Hinata says, “It’s okay.”

And when he kisses Komaeda, it feels like the relief of something long awaited. It feels like comfort. It feels like something right. Hinata’s hands reach to cup his face, and oh.

He kisses him again, and again, and again, and everytime Hinata pulls away, he sees that smile and just can’t stop.

They’re going to be okay.

#komahina #komahina secret exchange #fanfiction

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skyhooks-notebook · 6 years ago

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My John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made

(Bourne, of course, is a brutally disillusioned idealist. He had no idea he was signing away his soul. Wick likely sold his soul with his eyes wide open, though he probably only understood the ultimate cost later on - a naive pragmatist.)

I don’t post much at all, but here is a thing that happened on my computer. I was thinking about how John Wick and Jason Bourne could be brought together. My thoughts became long, and I started writing it down. This isn’t a story, just a sketch of how I think such a movie could be made. It’s not really edited either, this is all off-the-cuff.

[I only know what’s in the movies. I don’t know other canon from either ‘verse.]

So, if I were making a movie…

The universes of John Wick and Jason Bourne have very different styles, creating a problem.

Problem: - Bourne lives in a Universe where government is large, powerful, knowledgeable and nearly competent. - Wick lives in a Universe where a vast and elaborate criminal underworld exists, where we’ve never seen those major criminal figures worry about law enforcement or government.

The discrepancy must be resolved.

Simple.

Jason Bourne has never dealt with crime. Everything has been political and confined to the intelligence community.

Wick has never dealt with politics or the intelligence community.

So.

We must assume that the intelligence community is perfectly happy to leave common crime in the hands of law enforcement.

- Law enforcement has an unwritten and fatalistic attitude that there will always be some level of crime no matter what you do because it’s innate to human nature. And if you’re going to have crime, it might as well be organized. Let the strongest and most dangerous criminals accumulate power and influence, because they will go a long way to controlling the stupid, the excessive and the disruptive crooks. Better to have one major weapons trafficker controlling the traffic than have a thousand slightly smaller and more disruptive dealers completely out of control. (You can strongly hint that there’s an uneasy, unwritten and largely unspoken agreement between crime and law enforcement, and that it’s often a two-way street.) And if the big crime gets too big, it’s easier to knock it back down to “acceptable” levels because you’ve got bigger targets, which are easier to hit and which make a large and impressive splash across the front page when you throw RICO charges at them.

Plus it would also illustrate that Wickian Law Enforcement at its highest levels is just as dirty, amoral and underhanded as the Bournite Intelligence community.

- So, with a little work and willing suspension of disbelief (which wouldn’t be hard, because who wouldn’t want to see Wick and Bourne on the same screen provided it’s done with at least half an ass), it’s possible to bring the two Universes together.

- We start with Bourne. Someone else, like an hard ass, experienced reporter, is snooping into the government’s history of creating conditioned assassins. Maybe because a public face, like a former intelligence director, has left the shade to become a politician. And many strongly suspect that he’s dirty as fuck, but our snoopy reporter is just figuring out how deep the rabbit hole goes. Our politician was, of course, instrumental in developing programs like Treadstone, Blackbriar, et al.

- The Snoop finds out, one way or another, that one of the earliest failures of these programs was an “asset” who experienced a psychological break, went “off the res”, starting killing people and still turns up now and then to kill more people. To our Snoop, it appears that the government has created an uncontrollable monster who is still on the loose and possibly lurking right outside the White House, dear reader, are you scared now?

- The story, scanty, incorrect and harshly spun, gets printed as above. A few names are named, but mostly dead people (and maybe someone who has already been publicly discredited.) Our politician is not named because our Snoop doesn’t yet have absolute proof linking Mr. Politician to the Treadstone/Blackbriar/etc. machine.

- The evidence still exists. Witnesses still live, in numbers too great to be cleanly eliminated.

- Mr. Politician is sweating bullets.

- The Snoop isn’t done. He wants to find Bourne so he can say, “Here’s your monster, where’s my Pulitzer?” As investigation continues, the story becomes clearer to the Snoop, and the monster starts to look like little less monstrous and little more victimized. Which is an even better story.

- Now Mr. Politician is not only worried that he will be named, he’s worried that if Snoop makes contact with Bourne, or simply as a consequence of Snoop stirring the shit, Bourne will find out who our Politician is and how complicit he was in the program that destroyed David Webb. Mr. Pol knows this is likely to be a death sentence.

- It has become obvious to everyone who isn’t deeply deluded that Jason Bourne is practically indestructible and that sending more valuable and increasingly scarce ‘assets’ against him is just going to result in the loss of those assets. Agents available may be trained and conditioned to within an inch of their lives, but Bourne’s psychological break caused him to exceed his limits, training and conditioning in a way Black Ops programs haven’t been able to replicate. Those with a pragmatic attitude believe that they have no agent who can measure up to Bourne. Politician believes this as well.

- But Mr. Politician knows some things that the intelligence community has never concerned itself with. In his many years of government service, Mr. Pol was also involved with Law Enforcement at various times. Maybe he did a stint with the effa-bee-eye. Whatever. He knows about the Criminal Underworld, he knows that to maintain the ugly equilibrium, the Underworld may be influenced to comply with certain requests. And he knows a name. John Wick.

- Mr. Politician is also savvy about recent developments in the Underworld. He’s got a friend who’s still in the business of monitoring organized crime and keeping tabs on what’s going on down there. Mr. Pol has listened to recent stories with fascination because of certain similarities to a well known government failure who has haunted his dreams for decades. It has become a fact in Mr. Pol’s mind that the CIA will never be able to take down Bourne, but maybe there’s another way.

- Mr. Politician approaches a major Crime Lord and tells him point blank to activate John Wick by any means necessary and set him on the trail of one Jason Bourne. If Wick can’t be activated, Crime Lord will receive his own personal set of extensive criminal and RICO charges, delivered to his doorstep by the entire FBI

- Crime Lord knows if he gets charged, he probably won’t survive because other crime lords are going to want to make sure he doesn’t talk - about them. Also, his family will be endangered no matter which way the sword swings; either the FBI will be targeting them or his fellow criminals will be.

- Crime Lord knows John Wick. They’re old friends. Crime Lord feels a bit conflicted about it, but his first loyalties are to his family and his own hide. So he swallows his fondness for John Wick and commits falsehood, deception, a calling in of favors, maybe a little blackmail and the old Rock-And-A-Hard-Fuck-You-Up-Place on Wick. An elaborate, manipulative lie, that sets a misinformed John Wick on the trail of a man potentially as dangerous as himself.

- Now, we’ve got Jason Bourne being hunted by the Snoop, which has him on alert. We have John Wick hunting Bourne because he believes, once again, that he has no choice.

- We also have a Jason Bourne who is somewhat confounded. We need the scene where Bourne finds out, before contact ever takes place, that someone has taken out a contract on him with an Underworld assassin. Bourne doesn’t know much more about the Criminal Underworld than Joe Schmoe from Kokomo, just what he’s seen in the news and largely ignored, because it never had anything to do with him. Even in all that training years and years ago, there was this gap, because organized crime wasn’t the CIA’s beat. Maybe at first, Bourne even assumes that this Wick character isn’t a threat because he’s just a murderer, a thug, and not a highly trained government operative like himself.

- So in a riveting scene where Bourne and Wick first come into contact, we see Bourne - under the influence of his ignorant assumption - nearly getting killed by Wick and making an extremely narrow escape by use of desperate measures. We also have Mr. Wick limping away, suitably impressed with the skills of his opponent.

- Now we have that stretch of the story where Wick is on the hunt, Bourne is on the run and Bourne is trying to uncover any information he can find about this assassin. Wick doesn’t research much, though, because that’s not how he works. Bourne is a machine; the gears must grind. Wick is a force of nature, like a tornado; most of the info he gets he just picks up along the way, either paying for it or having it given to him by friends.

- Bourne discovers that Wick had a military past, Special Forces, maybe he was fucked over by the military/government in his own way. Or Bourne sees it that way. Bourne finds out about Helen and her death, and maybe not the whole story, but quite a bit about how John cut through a small army of Russian mob mooks for vengeance. He identifies with Wick’s grief and anger. He sees something of himself in John Wick. He sympathizes with the devil.

- John hasn’t done the heavy research. He understands that Bourne is dangerous, perhaps more dangerous than anyone he’s ever met. He consolidates his resources and finds someone else to do his research. He is awaiting a report on Jason Bourne when…

- Bourne stops running, goes to confront Wick and ends up trying to explain, while fighting of course, what he knows about the Dirty Politician and the Crime Lord who has called John out of his troubled retirement yet again, and how Wick has been used and betrayed (this time) until he says something that causes Wick to call truce long enough to hear it all.

- Bourne can see the beginning of a way to solve the whole mess. After some persuasion, Wick is on board and has some ideas of his own.

- Now we’ve got our boys on the same side and it’s only left to decide whether the war will be conventional or nuclear.

- There are two victories we need to see. We must see the destruction of Mr. Politician and Mr. Crime Lord.

- You might-could send Bourne, who doesn’t really give a shit about the covenants and conventions of the criminal world, to the Continental - probably breaking in, instead of checking in. Luring the Crime Lord out into the open, perhaps on the intimation that Mr. Politician is about to take up backstabbing. Draw the Crime Lord out to confront the Politician. Bourne’s plan, reluctantly agreed to by Wick, is to draw the Politician and the Crime Lord together, get evidence and even a full recording of the meeting and expose them both to the world.

Or course, this backfires. Bourne finds himself in a position where he has to kill either Crime Lord or Mr. Politician in self-defense. Probably the Crime Lord.

- It would also be immensely satisfying to see Wick take out the dirty politician with a head shot. Bourne would, of course, be stoically pissed about it all, but it also illustrates the difference. Bourne is willing to let even unrepentant bastards live because he’s tired of having blood on his hands. Wick doesn’t let anybody live who’s fucked him over. Bourne is still conflicted about who and what he is. Wick has come to terms with himself. Bourne believes in atonement. Wick believes in damnation. Bourne still cares. Wick doesn’t give a fuck. Bourne still dreams of inner peace. Wick would settle for a little peace and quiet, would you motherfuckers just leave me the fuck alone already. Get off my lawn. And stop teasing my dog, you bastards.

- You must also show Wick taking an active role in planning, because if Bourne does all of it and says here’s what we’re going to do, then 1) he’s just using Wick as a tool or weapon, instead of treating him like a person and an equal and 2) Wick once again is being controlled by someone else instead of doing what he does best, which is take matters into his own hands (shooting Santino may have looked like a misstep, but who in the audience didn’t love it?)

- I’ve forgotten our Snoop reporter.

We could let Bourne track him down, in which case he will almost certainly die, because going by canon everybody who sympathizes with Jason Bourne must die.

We could let Wick find him, in which case he probably has a much better chance of surviving to publish his Pulitzer Prize winning story provided he’s not armed when he meets Mr. Wick. Hell, Wick could give him a coin, which could buy him entrance and protection at the Continental (even the government doesn’t want to mess with that bunch - like stirring a hornet’s nest with a stick; you might survive, but it will be excruciatingly painful and you’ll look like an idiot the whole time with all the screaming and flailing and jumping around in a panic.)

John Wick’s name will not appear in the story. Only a vaguely defined “other sources”.

- And after all is said and done, Bourne and Wick part company, with mutual respect and recognition. Though they really don’t like each other very much.

So that’s my John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made. But I had fun.

P.S. Please excuse crappy photoshop, I just wanted something there.

#john wick #jason bourne #matt damon #keanu reeves #movies that will never be made

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stormblessedcastiel · 6 years ago

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The MCU Generation

So I’ve been thinking about Marvel a lot lately. Specifically Infinity War. And I have some Feelings™, so I just thought I’d share. This is probably going to be long and super inaccurate and cringe-y, I don’t mean to offend anyone, but I just wanted to get it out of my system. BTW there will be lots of spoilers.

Iron Man was released in 2008, and many people including me consider it the true beginning of the cultural phenomenon that is the Marvel Cinematic Universe. I was eight years old when it came out, man that makes me feel old. I didn’t really know much about/pay attention to/care about superheroes much at that point, but my dad liked those kinds of movies so I had watched things like the Tobey Maguire spider man movies and Christopher Nolan’s batman movies (the first two were out at that time). They didn’t really hold much interest for me at the time. Iron man rolled around and dad seemed excited about it, but it still just seemed like another comic movie that the family would maybe re-watch if it were on TV or something. No big deal, right? Well, time went on and I started to hear talk about a bigger story. Iron man 2 came out when I was 10, and introduced nick fury and Natasha Romanoff. Still, I paid little mind to the film besides casually enjoying it like any other decent action film. Then came Thor. One year later, we got the first taste of the universe outside of Tony Stark, and that universe was much larger than I had anticipated. Looking back, the first Thor movie was definitely not the best superhero film ever made, but it did a lot of things right. Most importantly, it set the stage for more heroes who quickly joined ranks. It’s at this point that I feel the MCU really started to gain traction, at least from what I was hearing. My eleven-year-old self was beginning to view this collection of movies as something with potential, something to get excited about. In that same year, Captain America: The First Avenger hit the big screen. This is where I became truly and totally hooked. I don’t know what did it, but something about the story, the characters, or the message seemed to grab my full attention. This was the movie that had me craving the next installment. It probably helped that at about twelve years old I was starting to enter the social media world, if only in small doses. I discovered Pinterest and quickly realized that other people around my age (maybe a few years older) were talking about these movies, interacting with each other, making jokes and edits and headcanons. If I wasn’t invested in the MCU characters before then, that changed rapidly. Seeing other people’s takes on what the heroes thought or did off camera, speculation about subtext relationships, comparisons and continuations of themes from the comics, all mushed together to bring me closer to this Story than I had ever been before. So I was ready for Avengers. The Big One. The superhero movie that did what no superhero movie had done before. It brought together a cast from multiple movies into one glorious world-saving group. By this point, everyone could see that this franchise would make an impact. It truly was an entire universe, and we had just touched on the surface of this super team potential. Fans were everywhere; people at school, on the street, in commercials had their favorite heroes’ logo somewhere on their clothing or bag. There had never been (or I maybe just never noticed) such a widely spread media infatuation.

Then came phase two. Iron man 3, Thor dark world, captain America winter soldier, guardians of the galaxy, age of Ultron, and ant man. These came out between my 13 and 16th birthdays. In my opinion (back then and now), none of these movies were quite up to par with those of phase one, but nostalgia may have already been clouding my judgement, even after just a few years. However, they did give us more characters to love, and also let us enjoy learning more about our old faves. I think this phase was Marvel kind of trying to find their footing in this huge undertaking they just opened up, trying to figure out how to write their stories now that they had to feel like they were in such a large universe?? I don’t know, it just feels like Phase One took place in a box the size of a fridge, and Phase Two now had to try (or at least start) to fill out an entire swimming pool. I was still excited with every new movie announcement and was happy to watch them, but after age of Ultron I feel like I lost a bit of steam. So much that I didn’t see Antman at all when it came out. It just didn’t seem worth it.

Phase Three. Civil War. I think this movie is the turning point for the MCU, into a much darker and somber tone. Inner conflicts among the avengers that have literally been boiling for years come to a head, we see so many characters in the same place, see their stories starting to turn in different directions from each other and we, as fans, are starting to get torn apart. Team Iron Man, Team Cap, and social media is stronger than ever, and more prevalent in my life. We don’t even get a solution at the end of the movie. It ends with both sides hurt, betrayed, and with no clue where to go from here, just like us viewers. It’s fair to say that I was re-invested in this universe once more. Though it hurt, I think Marvel needed to introduce some real, lasting damage to its characters. I feel like this movie took itself more seriously as well. That was 2016. After that, we got Dr. Strange, GotG volume two, Spiderman homecoming, Thor: Ragnarok, and Black panther. While these movies were not perfect either, I think they got a lot closer to what marvel wanted to make their universe feel like. They know what they’re doing now, and we fans got some great new characters out of it, along with a fun new take on some old ones (I’m looking at you, Mr. Waititi). I do want to mention a couple little things about some of these. Spiderman was worrisome for me, because the character had had two separate franchises in the last decade or so. That’s a pretty quick turnover. Let it be known that my fears have been quelled, and Tom Holland is my true Spiderman. (Tobey will hold a special place in my heart though. Sorry Andrew, better luck next time). AND THEN. The sensation that was Black Panther. This was when I was really getting into social media; tumblr, youtube, deviantart, all that jazz. It is also when I started college, so imagine that absolute upheaval of perspective. This movie was so important for minorities, and it caused such a stir just as my life was turned 180 degrees on its head. I didn’t know what to think. But I loved it.

Everything was going good. Marvel was hitting its stride again, life was changing, and my mind was expanding and finding out things that I had never considered before. I was 18 years old.

Then it happened. The one everyone had been waiting for for several years. “The endgame.”

Infinity War.

Let me tell you what it was like when I sat down in the theater that cold spring day. I had heard whispered rumors. About loss, about death. I brushed them off as speculation, trying not to latch onto any spoilers. I wanted to be totally oblivious as to what was about to happen, so I could experience it as mine and only mine the first time. I sat down in that dark theater with my parents, brother, snacks, tissues, and blanket. Mind you, the tissues were for allergies that had been acting up the past few days. I never cried at movies. Never. The trailers played, my family and I whispered to each other about needing to keep an eye out for this or that film when it came out. Then the lights dropped to almost nothing. We settled in for the long haul as the Marvel logo began to play. You know the one, where it shows clips of the past movies, coming together to form the name of the company? Except this one said “MARVEL STUD10S.” Did you get that? There was a number 10 in the name. I was confused for a minute or so, until it dawned on me that the Marvel Cinematic Universe had been making movies for ten. years. More than half my life. I was still in elementary school when the first Iron Man came out. And now here I was, a year into college, about to watch characters that I had grown up with and come to love, in the movie that people were saying destroyed their souls. At that moment, I knew I was in trouble. I was right. Straight off the bat, we lost my favorite villain who really just needs a hug, one who really was instrumental in bringing the Avengers together in the first place. Loki Odinson, in his own words. Right up till the end, he was a trickster, but he loved his family. He and Heimdall were the first hard losses, though seeing all of Asgard torn to shreds was a wake-up call that no one was prepared for the utter destruction that had been avoided until this film. No more clean Disney kid-friendly-ness anymore. Throughout the movie, we got to see reunions, long-awaited meetings, even more characterization and growth (geez marvel, how did you even fit that in? This is the endgame movie? How are you still teaching us new things about these people?) torture, fighting. The tension to the final battle was mounting, and at some point it became clear to me that the Avengers would not be together when this threat arrived. And as anyone who has ever seen a horror movie can tell you, splitting up only leads to death. Now, here’s where my memory gets a little fuzzy. Things were happening so fast, switching from group to group of heroes trying desperately to stave off the destruction of everything we’ve ever known. Things are going wrong all over the place, no one knows where anyone else is or what they’re doing, people we love are fighting each other because they’ve never met before now. What I do remember is when we get to the fight on Titan. Half of the Guardians, Tony, Peter, Strange. Tensions are running high. When Thanos arrives, I have no Idea what’s about to happen. They start fighting, and we finally get a demonstration of some of the more amazing feats the Infinity Gauntlet can pull off. The upper hand swings back and forth so many times, but finally the heroes get their plan to work, they’ve got Thanos on the ground, the Gauntlet is almost off. And Quill… ruins it. What else can he do? He just found out that his love is dead. So he messes everything up. Thanos gets free, pummels everyone into the ground, and then… gets the stone. Strange gives up the stone, even though he swore he would let a child die before he would ever give up such a dangerous object. What the hell Strange???? Was my immediate reaction. I knew it had to be more than just some newfound compassion for these people he met a day ago (was it actually a day?? Has all of this only happened in one short day?) Obviously the doctor has a plan, but this still seems like the worst possible idea. Now to earth. We get some truly awesome moments here; Bucky and cap’s reunion, Shuri showing off her mad science skillz, epic fight moves against hordes of zombie lizards, Thor’s entrance, his little banter with Steve, “I am Groot” “I am Steve Rogers,” Scarlet Witch dropping in at the last second with that massive power move. Everything seems like it’s going ok, and then suddenly, its not. Everything drops so suddenly into Not OK Town that I can still feel the whiplash. People are scrambling to get to each other, calling for backup, getting knocked down and thrown around, and then Thanos makes his entrance. He practically wipes the floor with our remaining heroes. The only thing standing between the universe and total ruin is Wanda. I’ve been preparing for a scene like this the whole movie, but it didn’t hurt any less to finally see it. Vision begs Wanda to destroy the stone, to destroy him, we all know that she has to give in. That’s what heroes do. So she says goodbye to the man she loves and uses her power on him. Now I don’t know about you, but I feel like I’ve seen this scenario play out before. I’m expecting someone to get there at the last minute and just fricken’ knock Thanos out cold, or maybe discover that Shuri had enough time to basically detach the stone from Vision, even if it didn’t look like it. But no. Wanda destroys the mind stone and Vision actually dies at her hands. Even after all the death that’s already happened in this movie, I was still surprised and devastated.

But they couldn’t just end it like that, could they? Marvel Studios needs to drink every last drop of pain from their fans.

Thanos moves back the clock. He takes the stone. Vision’s sacrifice was in vain, Wanda had to watch her love die for nothing. Nothing that anyone did made a difference. Since Avengers came out in 2012, these characters have been fighting to keep this evil at bay, to protect the stones, even before they knew it. And now none of it matters. Because Thanos the Mad Titan has all the infinity stones. It’s all over in my mind, I wait for the quintessential Villain Laugh™, the gloating, and then whatever evil thing Thanos has planned. But wait! Thor to the rescue with his brand-new hammer-axe! My heart leaps as he skewers the big purple raisin. He gets his revenge for Loki, for Heimdall, for all of Asgard, for us. Except. except. “You should have gone for the head.”

Wait,

snap. .

. My body is rigid and I can only stare unblinking in confusion at the screen. What’s going on? What did you do? WHAT DID YOU DO? Thanos disappears. Everything is quiet. “Where did he go?” Steve asks in confusion, mirroring all of our thoughts exactly.

“Steve?”

We see Bucky walking towards us, and then he just…. Dissolves. Into dust. what’s going on what was that My mind is sluggish. I don’t understand.

Wakandan warriors disappear in the wake of the battle. T’challa tries to help Okoye up but then he’s gone. Groot. Wanda. Sam. Mantis, Drax, Quill, Strange.

And oh god.

“Mr. Stark? I don’t feel so good.” Oh god no. “I don’t know what’s happening, I don’t want to go, I don’t want to go, sir, please, I don’t want to go… I’m sorry.”

Gone.

Through this whole thing, it is silent. No music. Just emptiness, confusion, fear.

And that’s where we’re left. The audience is motionless. I do not cry at movies, but my throat is tight like a noose and my sleeves are soaked from wiping away tears.

Like all good Marvel fans, we remain still in our seats. I try to comprehend what just happened to me as the white credits scroll over a void and dramatic music accompanies them. We wait for our first end-credit scene. Instead, what we get is a fading of the music. Avengers: Infinity War shows from the center of the black screen, and a familiar melody plays. A few slow, simple notes on a piano. The triumphant theme of our heroes, earth’s mightiest protectors. It sounds lonely now. The last note plays, and the title dusts. And I almost scream.

If you’ve read this far, wow! Thank you for reading my absolute monstrosity of a garbage post! It’s been a few months now since Infinity War, and I’ve had time to think. What I figured out was this; when I’m older-old enough to be a parent myself-and looking back on my childhood, these are going to be the movies I remember like my dad remembers Star Wars. I was so lucky to be just the right age when this all started to enjoy every single one, and to remember experiencing them all for the first time. I was just the right age to forge a bond with the characters and their world. I think it was a special kind of bond that only occurs when you’re young but not too young, one that weaves webs of innocence and nostalgia through your most transformative years, and grows with you as you become a new person, and stays with you like a friend even as you see things so differently than when you first started out. What I’m trying to say is that I feel like I grew from child to adult just as the MCU did. We grew together. I don’t know if anyone my age feels the same, but these movies feel like the first big mainstream thing that really belongs to my generation. Like they came at the perfect time to shape me. It feels like they were made for me.

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hogsteeth-archive · 6 years ago

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alright then i answered one of them oc questions things for both versions of ira bc like. why wouldnt i. first answer is 1976 58y/o rhodesian ira, second answer is 201x 16y/o houstonian ira. i just wanted to figure out how different they really are. questions from here. if readmores still dont work on mobile im sorry lmao

what are some things they have strong opinions about?

he has sort of a cioranian attitude to the value of life, like, hes one of them “theres always reason to kill a man, theres no way to justify his living” types. he doesnt believe in nationalism per se but he does believe in war, hes literally a mercenary, and hed probably get along just fine with someone like mike hoare, but hes not one for unnecessary cruelty. hes kind to who he considers innocent. if he was alive today i can see him getting grouped w/ like, anti-natalists, right-wing “primitivists,” people who browse /fo/, people who think theyll thrive in the post-apocalypse even though they cant even spin yarn, people who dont understand fallout, you know, those types, but i like to think his attitude wrt civ is closer to perlmans or, well, mine. its a good thing he doesnt live in internet times. he thinks technology makes people complacent and weak and hes fallen into the trap of the “noble savage” myth; sign of the times. he could just as easily live off the grid in like, alberta, but he chose to stay in southern africa bc of his colonial attitudes & fetishization of the “less developed.” (sidenote, if youre like, new here n reading this for some reason, yea i write like really really bad characters were talking irredeemably evil here, just like, know that im aware of that.) also he detests hippies for both bad and good reasons ⸻ not much, really, hes an opportunist, a hedonist, hes selfish, goes w/ the flow. he thinks denying yourself pleasure for no reason is microfascism — not in those words — and while he doesnt think that selfishness leads to a bettering of overall society, hes no randian, he feels justified in what he does. hes uh, a mercenary in spirit and ive always intended to have him join the marines n later work for a pmc but were nowhere near there yet

what traits do they like in other people? what traits do they not like?

he likes people (men, that is) that are exactly like him. he likes Narrator bc hes just as quiet, as patient, as stubborn, as antisocial (using that the right way here, i like, know about psychology), as violent, as old-timey-ly masculine as he is. he can tolerate clade (his former accountant) bc she keeps to herself and shes loyal to a fault, but he doesnt go out of his way to like, actually talk to her. he likes will bc he reminds him of what he was like as a child living with his matabele mother. ⸻ he hates everything he perceives as weakness, but hes not all that open about that, i think hes not even 100% aware thats what it is. he needs to be talked back to. he lacks compassion, doesnt know how to deal w/ anyone whos less resilient and abrasive than himself.

do they have a significant other? if so, who?

i mean, theres Narrator — thats kinda what this whole thing is about. but theyll never think of each other that way. its complicated. theyre uh… closer to being marlow and kurtz than to being boyfriends. idk how to explain it. its bad. ⸻ hes fake-dating millah for appearances and secretly seeing jack, im not sure about the details either so im not getting into that, but hes eventually gonna meet will; ive written their first encounter like ten different ways and i still dont really know what i wanna do w/ them........ also Complicated

whats their friend group like? what role do they play (leader, mom friend, etc.)?

he lives in a hut he built w/ his bare hands on the edge of the kalahari. his friends are one horse and one vaalboskat. ⸻ he uses his friends but they use him too. hes reasonably popular bc hes athletic n wealthy, but i think the only one of his friends who really truly sees thru his act is millah, and bc he doesnt take her seriously as a threat, she has more control over him than he realizes.

do they care about their physical appearance? whats their routine like?

nah ⸻ not really. he showers too often and his hairs kinda dry but other than that hes like. Normal. idk i dont care about these things

do they have any physical or mental disabilities?

i dont think so ⸻ he has adhd

what would they die for? kill for?

oh hes not picky. he joined the military at 17, hes made peace w/ the prospect of dying. hes been more uncomfortable w/ the thought of growing old, actually. and again, hes literally a mercenary. not a big deal to him. ⸻ i dont think hes selfless enough to die for anyone. hed kill to protect the people he cares about, but thats more just bc hes possessive. im sure thats gonna come up eventually. i cant really write shit w/o weaving murder in somewhere.

do they have any magical powers or abilities? if its a realistic world, what religion do they follow?

absolutely the fuck not i hate magic. hes not religious, actually feels a little intimidated by religion. in one version of his story he spends his 50s on east nusa tenggara where he doesnt live far from a church, and he makes peace w/ the concept of god thanks to the influence of catholic-raised Narrator, but i doubt hell ever actually step foot into a church, or temple, or mosque, or what-have-you. hes internalized some things during his upbringing though that he doesnt classify as religious. little superstitions. he likes to keep objects that may be used for divination around his house, but he never touches them. ⸻ not religious, but if he had to pick, like to pretend, hed say baptist.

do they celebrate any holidays? how do they celebrate?

nah ⸻ like, the regular american ones. hell welcome any excuse to drink and to socialize, and id say his favorite holiday is the 4th of july, really just bc he likes warm weather and theres not a lot else you can celebrate in the middle of summer. hes not attached to the significance of any holidays. hes not crazy about christmas but he likes his family well enough and hell go along w/ it all, just to have sth to do. hes not good w/ time off.

if they were the protagonist in any book series, what series would they choose? alternatively: what would be their favorite book?

he doesnt really read but hed feel right at home inside heart of darkness or maybe the thin red line. or maybe sth by mccarthy ⸻ hes 16 he hasnt read jack shit. i wanna say deleuze would probably resonate w/ him bc hes a total self-insert but i really dont know. i try to keep the intertextuality way low bc i hate that shit in most fiction, so like, i try not to think too much about other books here

do they have any vices?

uh he drinks and he occasionally smokes opium but compared to most of my characters hes pretty okay wrt that ⸻ yea like… all of them. already said hes a hedonist make of that what u will

do they play any instruments?

nope ⸻ violin but he hasnt been practicing a lot lately

what would their favorite ride at an amusement park be?

hes never been to one ⸻ i feel like hed be into sth really lame… like you know that video by jenny nicholson, top ten lame things to do at disney world? sth like that. like hed go just to get a specific food item or to admire the infrastructure

what animal would they say best represents them?

hyena 100%. the spotted kind. id say tortoise also but hed find that insulting ⸻ id say hyena but hed be reluctant to answer that bc hes a Youth and he knows what a furry is

how do they act when theyre drunk?

vulnerable. little more talkative. he talks to himself (or the cat, rather) sometimes ⸻ more abrasive/tactless/impulsive. he talks w/ his whole body and feels like moving/running bc, again, self-insert

which era of history would they most like to live in?

the old west, like early to mid-19th century, maybe late 18th. that or like the really olden days, like mid-paleolithic ⸻ idk maybe like ten or twenty years earlier. i think he fits the 21st century pretty well. hes a curious person though and if he had a time machine hed go Everywhere at least once

whats their favorite food?

ah thats. complicated actually i have a whole list of foods that remind me of Narrator but ive never gotten around to making one for ira. hm. he likes poultry, like ostrich. white fish. dry/salty foods. sour fruit. breadfruit. fatty dark meats, blood sausage. hes not picky though, hell live on pap and water if he has to. ⸻ i genuinely dont know. im not used to the contemporary western setting yet like… pop tarts exist in the same world as he does and im not comfortable w/ that yet. like, branded food articles wrapped in plastic. thats so weird to me. i guess he likes (american) pizza w/ greens on it, like spinach? and seafood. sour candies, maybe, i dont think he has much of a sweet tooth. he puts salt n butter on potatoes and cottage cheese on pancakes.

what songs remind you of them?

conveniently theres a whole playlist rite here

whats their favorite season and why?

dry season. he doesnt like cloudy/foggy weather bc it makes him feel trapped when he cant see as far. ⸻ summer. i honest to god think people liking cold weather is a conspiracy like im not sure thats even biologically possible. like summer is the obvious answer here

which d&d class would they play as?

nah we dont do nerd shit round these parts

whats their favorite expletive?

he like, barely talks ⸻ nothin weird thats for sure, we campaign for simple straight-forward language in this house. having a Favorite is inherently at odds w/ that. bad question

whats their favorite candle scent?

no scented candles in the desert ⸻ sth fruity but not sweet, like mixed berries, sth red or purple

how do they feel about death?

he doesnt ⸻ hed feel cheated by life if he died young. he has a lot to see and do and itd like, bum him out not to get to do that but hes not afraid of death

do they collect anything? whats their most prized possession?

he lives pretty austerely but he does keep little rocks and gems and bones and pieces of wood n such. also coins from all the countries hes been to bc hes a simple old man. i wanna say his most prized possession is his hogs tooth bc he does value the marines a lot still. its where he first met Narrator :-) ⸻ he really appreciates gifts people give him, things that remind him of people. jack carved him an eagle once

do they play any sports?

no ⸻ nothing too organized. i dont think hes on any school teams bc idk if he has the time but that might change. he does run/hunt/fish/shoot

what one place do they really want to visit and why?

he likes deserts, wide open spaces. hes been to the kalahari n namib but not the gobi/sahara/simpson etc, so, those. no ice deserts though those scare him ⸻ polynesia/southeast asia, just tropical places in general. bc theyre nice what do you want me to tell you. tropics good

what languages do they speak?

northern ndebele, afrikaans, english (w/ various influences), some vietnamese ⸻ english, some cajun french, some spanish

what are some items they always carry? what weapon do they favor using if they exist in a world where weapons are necessary?

hes got his fal obviously and he does always carry a knife, just to be safe. more out of habit than actual necessity (not to imply rural areas were safe in the late 70s, but he lives in the literal wilderness, hes not much of a target. stays away from roads and all that.) ⸻ man hes really not as classy as i want him to be :/ he probably has like, a glock 17 w/ ten thousand pointless modifications n some uglyass stipling pattern. hes a little bit paranoid + irresponsible n carries all kinds of shit he doesnt need, mostly way too much cash

which emoji would they use the most?

no ⸻ he doesnt have a phone, hell maybe use a burner if he has to. this is an anti-phone household

what fantasy race would they be? if they already are one, pick a different one.

absolutely not

do they want to start a family? if they already have one, describe it.

no ⸻ no

what stereotypical high school clique would they fit into?

hed swing between the jrotc kids n the stoners honestly, but still mostly keep to himself ⸻ hes like, too much of a jock for the Delinquents, too much of a Delinquent for the jocks. hes really only popular bc hes rich-ish n blessed w/ good looks, and by association w/ millah

whats one thing that they dont need do they waste the most money on?

he doesnt ⸻ everything. hes really wasteful. he buys more food than he can eat, clothes he never wears, etc etc, hes terrible

what kind of shoes do they wear?

combat boots or just traditional sandals. the terrain around his house is mostly grass and flat boulders so he goes barefoot a lot ⸻ regular tennis shoes, nothin too fashionable bc he cant be bothered to keep up w/ trends, but usually clean n new. hiking boots when hes not w/ his regular friend group

do they believe in ghosts, aliens, and the occult in general?

really dont like how aliens are always grouped in w/ esoteric shit bc like, thats like asking if you believe in atoms honestly. no shit “aliens” exist thats like not up for debate. both iræ would agree w/ me here. 70s ira doesnt believe in like, Ghosts per se, but he has some vague concept of spirits that he got from his mother. he sees/feels them when hes half asleep. ⸻ 2010s ira doesnt believe in jack shit

which deadly sin do they most correspond to? which heavenly virtue?

nooo cardinal sins dont work that way theyre not hogwarts houses. its so much more complicated than that thats impossible

if you had to choose one tarot card to represent them, what would it be?

hmmm four of swords? knight of coins? eight of cups? this is hard ⸻ seven of swords? nine of cups? the devil? i dont know

what do they consider to be their best quality? what actually is their best quality?

his strength, which is really just his callousness and lack of convictions. and uh. i guess his independence ⸻ same here for the first part. and. maybe his loyalty? i dont consider loyalty a good thing personally idk

what do they consider to be their worst quality? what actually is their worst quality?

his lack of social skills maybe? he doesnt need them too often of course but like, the first time Narrator showed up at his doorstep he was genuinely nervous and that did fill him w/ some semblance of shame and in his eyes he should be good at everything, so like. that. really its his lack of conviction and his timidness/avoidance of the world ⸻ his dependence on others/lack of discipline. really its his lack of compassion, like, obviously

#ira #ricky pwease come online

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skyhook-sly · 6 years ago

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My John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made

[I only know what’s in the movies. I don’t know other canon from either ‘verse.]

So, if I were making a movie…

The universes of John Wick and Jason Bourne have very different styles, creating a problem.

The discrepancy must be resolved.

Simple.

Jason Bourne has never dealt with crime. Everything has been political and confined to the intelligence community.

Wick has never dealt with politics or the intelligence community.

So.

We must assume that the intelligence community is perfectly happy to leave common crime in the hands of law enforcement.

Plus it would also illustrate that Wickian Law Enforcement at its highest levels is just as dirty, amoral and underhanded as the Bournite Intelligence community.

- The evidence still exists. Witnesses still live, in numbers too great to be cleanly eliminated.

- Mr. Politician is sweating bullets.

- It has become obvious to everyone who isn’t deeply deluded that Jason Bourne is practically indestructible and that sending more valuable and increasingly scarce 'assets’ against him is just going to result in the loss of those assets. Agents available may be trained and conditioned to within an inch of their lives, but Bourne’s psychological break caused him to exceed his limits, training and conditioning in a way Black Ops programs haven’t been able to replicate. Those with a pragmatic attitude believe that they have no agent who can measure up to Bourne. Politician believes this as well.

- Now, we’ve got Jason Bourne being hunted by the Snoop, which has him on alert. We have John Wick hunting Bourne because he believes, once again, that he has no choice.

- Bourne can see the beginning of a way to solve the whole mess. After some persuasion, Wick is on board and has some ideas of his own.

- Now we’ve got our boys on the same side and it’s only left to decide whether the war will be conventional or nuclear.

- There are two victories we need to see. We must see the destruction of Mr. Politician and Mr. Crime Lord.

Or course, this backfires. Bourne finds himself in a position where he has to kill either Crime Lord or Mr. Politician in self-defense. Probably the Crime Lord.

- I’ve forgotten our Snoop reporter.

We could let Bourne track him down, in which case he will almost certainly die, because going by canon everybody who sympathizes with Jason Bourne must die.

John Wick’s name will not appear in the story. Only a vaguely defined “other sources”.

- And after all is said and done, Bourne and Wick part company, with mutual respect and recognition. Though they really don’t like each other very much.

So that’s my John Wick/Jason Bourne movie which will never be made. But I had fun.

P.S. Please excuse crappy photoshop, I just wanted something there.

#John Wick #Jason Bourne

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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pick any or all? undertale, yugioh, mystic messenger and if you feel like It's Time.txt, voltron?

I’ll do all of them because I love you.

Let’s do it. (Under a cut, though, since it’s a lot.)

Undertale:

This is a minor thing, but I’d change the story so that it doesn’t take place over the course of one day. It just . . . doesn’t make very much sense to me that Frisk can traverse the entirety of the underground in one day, particularly on genocide runs where they’re taking the time to meticulously slaughter everyone in a given area before moving on. So I’d probably take out references to the fact that it takes place over the course of one day, simply because it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, even if you consider the idea that there are far fewer monsters than you’d expect.

I’d really, really like to know more about W.D. Gaster. It’s clear that Toby has a clear idea of who Gaster was, but there is not nearly enough in the game itself to tell us what that idea actually is. There’s enough to give us a taste, what with the Gaster followers, True Lab Entry #17, and the Mystery Man, but there’s not enough to actually put the pieces together. So I’d really like to know what was going on with Gaster. I’d like that to be accessible information even if it’s not directly relevant to the main plot.

On that note, I’d like to know more about the history of Sans and Papyrus. Where did they originally come from? What’s that strange machine in Sans’ lab? What are the blueprints for? And so on and so forth. There’s enough to get us interested, but not enough for us to figure it out, and I’m frustrated.

LET! US! SAVE! ASRIEL!!! It’s really frustrating, because one of the primary motivators for going after the True Pacifist ending is that, supposedly, the player is chasing the happiest ending, the best ending. This is a specific motivation as given to us by Flowey when he suggests, on certain Neutral runs, that the player can still get a better ending if they fulfill certain criteria. But the thing is, as happy as the True Pacifist ending is, it’s not the happiest ending since Asriel is still going to be damned to life as Flowey sometime after the game ends. And that’s so sad, it’s so unfair, because he was only ever turned into Flowey in the first place because Chara emotionally abused him to push him into the buttercup suicide plot, and then Alphys unwittingly carried out those experiments. It’s not right, man. I know he has been long dead, but it still kills me that there’s not a way to really save him. I want to save him. Let us save Asriel.

And I . . . actually can’t think of a final thing, haha, so I’ll leave Undertale there for now.

Yu-Gi-Oh!:

First of all, and before anything else, let’s just take out all the sexual harassment / assault “jokes” that are especially prevalent in the early manga. They’re not funny. They’re not even a little funny. They’re wholly unnecessary and gross, and while it’s not a bad thing for our heroes to have flaws, when those flaws are sexually harassing others, yeah, that’s not acceptable, it’s not good, and it has no business being there. So rip that out, please. Gut it altogether. Chuck that nonsense in the trash where it belongs. (This especially applies to Jouji, because he was the one bad part of Death-T. First of all, why can Jouji talk? Second, why is he such a gross little pervert? He’s LITERALLY A BABY, it’s so unnecessary and just . . . gross and nasty. Make him an ordinary baby, cut out the perversion, it’s not funny, thanks, Takahashi.)

My god the entire Kisara subplot was just atrocious. I’m sorry, but I find it really insulting that the woman who carries the spirit of the Blue-Eyes motherfuckin’ White Dragon was nothing more than just a timid, passive vessel waiting to be fridged so Priest Seto could lose his shit and Modern Seto could have an obsession. That’s ridiculous. It would be hard to fix this in a way that would be satisfactory given that Kisara was created just to be a plot device for Seto, but I think that a good start would be just giving her more agency, and more control over her own life. Instead of having her there to be rescued, experimented upon, obsessed over, have her actively be trying to cause insurrection. Hell, that’s exactly it: The Blue-Eyes White Dragon is known in the modern day as one of the most destructive of all Duel Monsters. It’s true that we already had Thief King Bakura (and Zorc) as antagonists / villains in the Ancient Egypt arc, but there’s no reason why Kisara couldn’t have been another antagonist. Instead of having people wanting to kill her because of her strange appearance, have them drawn to her instead. She’s alluring; she can get people to listen to her rather easily, and what she wants them to listen to is her calls for destruction against the elite (but also against any other who would seek to use them, such as the Thief King Zorc, and hell, maybe anyone else as well). She appears calm and beautiful on the surface, but that destructive dragon is still within her---that is her soul---and so she acts on it. Priest Seto’s storyline converges with hers both because he, like others, is drawn to her, but also because he’s specifically ordered to stop her from rousing up insurrection and wreaking havoc and destruction. Unfortunately, burst streams of destruction are her specialty, so . . .Basically, just let Kisara have agency and be something other than a fridged love interest. Of all the mistreated ladies in this series, Kisara is perhaps the most mistreated of them all.

Speaking of dragons, I would want Jounouchi’s connection to the Red-Eyes Black Dragon to actually have follow through. I’m not saying that he needs an Ancient Egypt equivalent, because I actually quite like that he doesn’t, but I am saying that it was made pretty clear that Red-Eyes was Jounouchi’s soul card just as much as Blue-Eyes was Seto’s and Dark Magician was Atem’s . . . and yet this is never followed up on, it’s never explained. Never mind that Red-Eyes was shown to obey Jounouchi’s command during the pier duel even though the duel was over and Red-Eyes was not his monster; never mind that it was Red-Eyes being summoned that was seemingly the final link to Jounouchi willing himself back to life after he literally died in the Battle City finals. These things seem to indicate that there is something more going with Jounouchi than meets the eye, particularly since he resists dark magic despite not having a Millennium Item of his own, and yet we’re never given any explanation for it. Explain, Takahashi, explain!!

This is really petty af, but I’m sorry, I hate that yo-yos were used in Hirutani’s last appearance. I mean, it’s funny . . . but Hirutani and his gang were set up as serious threats in their first appearance (200,000 volt stun guns used as instruments of torture and execution), and while the yo-yos were treated seriously, they . . . we all know that yo-yos can’t actually cause harm. I’m sure it was some form of executive meddling that forced Takahashi to censor his own story like that, but good lord, it . . . bums me out a lot that Hirutani’s last appearance has fucking yo-yos as the weapon of choice. (Also, just, in general, we’ve seen what I’ve done with Hirutani. I’d do more of that.)

And lastly . . . I’d bring the romance subplot to its logical conclusion. So much was already done to set up the fact that Anzu is in love with Atem, and that she’s not in love with Yuugi, even and especially at the end of the series, where it’s clear that Atem is the one she is rooting for, and the one that she wants to stick around during the Ceremonial Duel. (Not that Yuugi would go anywhere either way, but it’s clear that she’s choosing Atem. It was never even really a choice for her; he was always the one she wanted.) Moreover, it honestly seems as though Yuugi is moving on from his crush on her as the series progresses; he doesn’t feel any jealousy or any dilemma over sending Atem on a date with her, nor does he pursue her at any point throughout Battle City or even the small bit leading up to the Ceremonial Duel. We did get that little bit in Duelist Kingdom where he showed that he was hurt by the fact that she prefers Atem over him, as well as where he said that he wanted to get stronger so that he could help her as well, but Anzu’s assurance that he and Atem are the same to her---while it was intended to comfort him---might have been the little push he needed to realize that, yeah, this isn’t going anywhere, and wanting to help her the same way she helps him doesn’t have to be romantic. Thus, I’d want to make all of this very clear. The pieces are already there if you’re paying attention, but since it’s not explicit, it can still get lost in translation. (And I mean, as a side note, being more clear about the fact that Atem is starting to return her feelings by the end of the series---which he may or may not have been, but he does confide in her even before he confides in Yuugi, which is a really big deal imo---would be helpful as well.)Additionally, well . . . as I’ve talked about at length before, there is plenty of set-up for Yuugi to not only be moving on from Anzu, but to develop feelings for Jounouchi as well, and that “I love you” at the pier can easily be read as romantic (especially since he wanted that to be his last words, before he sacrificed himself to save Jounouchi’s life, ffs). In carrying the romance arc to its logical conclusion, having Yuugi and Jounouchi starting to realize their feelings for each other by the end fo the series (or at least Yuugi realizing and admitting his own at the pier, even if Jounouchi remains oblivious, god bless his fucking heart) would be something I would do as well. Again, the pieces are right there. It would take very, very little to connect them.

Mystic Messenger:

Get rid of the homophobia that some of the characters (namely Zen and Yoosung) spout at various times. It’s wholly unnecessary. We don’t need Zen grossed out at the mere suggestion that he or the others could be involved in a relationship with a man, especially since Saeyoung is canonically bisexual, which just makes the entire thing weird. It’s really unnecessary and has no reason to be there. (Additionally, there’s a part in Deep Story where you have to comment on a poster of Zen’s. Your choices are to either gush like an embarrassing nitwit (it’s like, “OMG OMG ZEN OMG!!1!11″), or to use the word “gay” as an insult when describing it. This happens twice, and those are your only options, and it’s really gross, uncomfortable, and unnecessary. So yeah, that would need a change, big time.)

Get rid of Another Story altogether. Seriously, just the whole thing. At first I was going to be like, “Get rid of the DID aspect of Saeran’s Another Story characterization,” but then I realized that his route would be a good thing to lose as well, and then I remembered all the awful things in V’s Route as well, and you know what? The whole thing is just trash. Get rid of it. Throw it in the dumpster where it belongs, and then set it on fire. Good riddance, Another Story. Goodbye and good riddance.

Have MC be a less clingy, needy, selfish bint during Saeyoung’s Route. Have her good answer choices be ones that respect his boundaries, but also want to offer him support. Instead of having her whine about him not spending time with her, have her instead asking him to please eat or get enough rest. Instead of having her go through his stuff, have her instead bringing him food so that she can encourage him to eat with even more vehemence. Have it be made clear that MC actually cares about Saeyoung rather than only caring about having a romance with Saeyoung. And more to the point, give her an active role in the Secret Endings. Have her floor it when she’s the driver and they need to escape. Let her worry about and take care of his injury. Let her fight Rika when the time comes. This isn’t asking for a lot, these shouldn’t be hard changes to make.

It’s ridiculous that it took all the way until Saeran’s Route in Another Story for the Choi twins’ father to be a prominent threat when that was set up in Saeyoung’s Route. Put the prime minister in Original Story---in the Secret Endings, even. Saeran being taken to the hospital for treatment could have been leaked despite Jumin’s best efforts. The prime minister comes to the hospital to try to retrieve his sons so he can kill them. That, more than Saeran being threatened with more permanent hospitalization, is what prompts Saeyoung to cut and run, kidnapping Saeran from the hospital to take him back to the bunker. Things spiral out from there. Again, it’s not hard, this could have easily been done, and the fact that it wasn’t is frustrating.

MAKE. THE TIMELINE. GODDAMN. COHERENT. It is ridiculous how awful Cheritz is at keeping a coherent timeline. Flashbacks vary wildly; you have ones that say they took place two years in the past, but then a flashback later on that takes place in the same season will say that it was eight years ago. Just ??? Cheritz should have drawn up a timeline from the get-go in order to avoid this mess, because honestly, it’s ridiculous. I would definitely fix this nonsense if given half the chance.

Voltron:

Oh boy . . . the biggest one of them all. For anyone who reads this: if discussion about how alteans are people who shouldn’t be deified beings who could never do wrong and never did do wrong, and if similar discussion about how galra are people who shouldn’t be treated as soulless monsters even though THE EMPIRE, as an institution, is evil, is something that makes you very, very angry, then you might not want to read what I have to say here. I talk a lot about how treating the alteans (as a race) as the Big Good and galra (as a race) as the Big Bad is an issue for a lot of reasons (e.g. declaring an entire race of people as all-this or all-that is never a good thing, it removes complexity from the war narrative, et cetera), and if you can’t handle that, if you can’t handle discussion of nuance between the alteans and the galra (as I know many in this fandom cannot), then you should turn back now, because fighting with me over it won’t help anyone at all.

All of that said, let’s see if I can stick to just five things. In no particular order besides the order which they come to me:

The pacing on this show is a huge issue. Sometimes it feels like the writers are honestly unable to tell what is or isn’t important / relevant to their story, or when they should introduce certain concepts, or how to handle certain concepts when they are introduced. A good example of this is the first two episodes of season two. Due to the events at the end of season one, Team Voltron was split up and thrown across the universe to different planets (or, in the case of Allura and Coran, trapped in a time stream). This resulted in several different little stories:- Keith rescuing Shiro and being accepted by the Black Lion for the first time;- Pidge making trash statues of her friends and befriending little aliens;- Allura and Coran being trapped in the time stream while Coran de-aged a bunch;- Lance and Hunk meeting and befriending mermaidsNow, even acknowledging my own personal bias for Keith, from an objective standpoint, the importance of each of these story segments to the overall narrative (and to the characters involved) is, in order from most important to least important:- Keith rescuing Shiro and being accepted by the Black Lion for the first time;- Allura and Coran being trapped in the time stream while Coran de-aged a bunch;- Pidge + trash / Lance and Hunk + mermaidsKeep in mind that while I listed Allura and Coran as being the second most important, they’re still quite a bit less important than the Keith and Shiro story segment in this particular instance, because the only real thing of value that we gained from that segment was Allura admitting that she sees Coran as a secondary father-figure. That’s it, and it’s something that we honestly could have pieced together ourselves given other interactions they’ve had / will have later on. Overall, the repeated trips back to Allura and Coran didn’t advance the narrative or their characters in a meaningful way. It didn’t tell us anything new. The same thing goes for Pidge, Lance, and Hunk.On the other hand, not only did we see the Black Lion accept Keith as a worthy Paladin / pilot, but we also got tendrils of backstory from Keith and Shiro. We learned that Shiro changed Keith’s life, and we also know that Shiro trusts Keith to pilot the Black Lion in his absence. But because that episode kept moving away from Shiro and Keith to instead focus on Pidge’s adventures in trash land and the same de-aging jokes with Coran and Allura time and again, we didn’t get any more than that. To make matters worse, Lance and Hunk’s mermaid adventures got an entire bloody episode to themselves, when neither of their characters gained anything meaningful from that experience (Hunk was brainwashed or whatever for most of it!), and the mermaids have had absolutely no relevance since then.So with all of that said, it would have made far more sense to have episode one to be split into the following three parts:- Allura and Coran- Pidge and the trash- Lance, Hunk, and the mermaidsEpisode two then could have been solely about Shiro and Keith, and since they would have had the entire episode to themselves, their backstory could have been given right then and there. We could have had actual flashbacks, rather than just hints, pokes, and prods. For those who don’t understand why Shiro believes in Keith, we could have seen how he mentored Keith at the Garrison, could have seen exactly what kind of background he’s coming from. Likewise, we could have seen exactly why Shiro is so important to Keith---we could have seen, rather than being told later, how Shiro was the only one who never gave up on him. Having that context given in 2x01 would have done a lot to shut down the people who cry favoritism, and it also, I feel, would have done a lot to eliminate the perpetual Discourse™ surrounding this subject, too.But no, instead the VLD showrunners felt it more appropriate to dedicate an entire episode to goddamn fucking mermaid adventures that have no relevance to literally anything. Again, I’m not saying the mermaid thing had to be cut altogether, but put it in the same episode with the other two silly subplots, rather than sacrificing something that would have given characters meaningful development, context, and helped further the narrative later on down the line. It should be a no-brainer for anyone who has even a shred of writing background, and yet . . .And this isn’t the only time that the VLD showrunners have done this. This is merely one example. Keith has been insinuated since 1x01 to have a quintessence sensitivity, yet literally nothing has been done with this, it hasn’t had any follow-through whatsoever. The Sincline ships and trans-reality comet were made to be a big deal in S3 and S4, yet they were dropped entirely in S5 for whatever godforsaken reason. The Blade of Marmora were introduced as allies who have been leading a resistance movement for thousands of years, and yet we still know hardly anything about them, despite the fact that Keith has been with them since season four. Subplots and instances of worldbuilding are introduced and then quickly dropped, and part of the reason seems to be that the writers don’t seem to have any grasp on what is or isn’t important for their audience to see or know. It’s extremely frustrating.So yes, I would definitely fix the pacing, which includes not having new elements, characters, or subplots introduced before dropping them entirely for whatever goddamn reason the writers have. That would be the first thing.(Oh, and it also includes not showing the Voltron transformation sequence so many goddamn times ffs. It’s stock footage! We know what it looks like! You’re wasting valuable screentime!! The only time we need to see it is in instances like the first two episodes where the team is struggling to form it for the first couple of times, and in 3x03 when Keith’s team forms it for the first time. That’s it. Otherwise? It’s not necessary, and it’s not cool. Knock that shit off istfg.)

The second thing would be actually allowing emotionally deep moments to happen, since the writers seem to be allergic to this. I talked about this in another recent post, but there are so many instances in which an audience would logically expect to see something play out, only for it to not be delivered at all. As a few examples:- Keith learns that he is part-galra, something he has been hardcore stressing about for several episodes. The rest of the team finds this out off-screen. We don’t see their immediate reactions, and in fact, we never get to see how Lance, Pidge, or Coran feel about it. - Related, but Keith spent two straight days having the living hell beat out of him, to the point where he nearly died. Yet after the Trials, we see him standing there, somehow perfectly fine. No healing pod for Keith? No panic from the rest of the team because Shiro brings him back half dead? No demands from them as to what the hell was going on that caused the Red Lion to freak out like that? Okay.- Shiro was missing and presumed dead for months. They find him (well, “him,” but since they think this is the real Shiro that’s the name I’ll use) nearly dead in space. We don’t actually get to see the team’s reactions to this, though, because apparently, despite caring about Shiro, their emotional reactions to discovering that he’s not dead and is instead alive isn’t important in the eyes of the VLD writers. (They also never express any conflict over who they should follow---over whether they should stick with Keith, who has been leading them just fine, or instead just listen to Shiro. They immediately take Shiro’s side instead, but that’s another issue.)- Lotor approaches the coalition seeking an alliance. He has been seen as an enemy prior to this point, yet he just saved all of their lives (and most immediately Keith’s life), and now he wants a truce, or at least a conversation. Do we get to see this conversation? Nope. Instead we jump straight to him being a prisoner of war in confinement. Lovely.- Likewise, Keith spent seasons three and four adamant about tracking down Lotor to see what he was planning. Yet despite this, the two aren’t allowed to exchange words even when they’re right next to each other. There was literally no emotional follow-through. (And this isn’t even getting into how Lotor was stated to have empathy and special interest in part-Galra like himself. We were made to expect that these two would have an important relationship and then we were denied.) And so on and so forth, it happens all the damn time. The Holts are yet another example: Sam Holt was a prisoner for at least over one year, if not two, and yet he showed hardly any emotions at all whatsoever once he was rescued. He embraced his children so calmly that it almost looked as though he was just getting home from a day of work. (And hell, he didn’t even look at Matt when he hugged him; it was like Matt was an afterthought.) This was supposed to be emotional, but it wasn’t, even if you separate it from all the nonsense with how badly Team Voltron treated Lotor in that episode. The VLD staff creates these scenarios in which you would expect some meaningful emotional follow-through, and then they completely fail to capitalize on it and . . . well, follow through. And it’s honestly detrimental to them, because it makes moments that should be emotional feel really ineffectual as a result. (The fact that they allow people to routinely spoil things doesn’t help, either. There was no reason for us to feel even a shred of sadness over Pidge at Matt’s grave because we all knew, thanks to that screencap of Shiro and Matt fighting side-by-side that was leaked, that Matt was alive.) So yeah, if I was in charge, I would change so much of this. Let the characters actually have these emotional moments. Let them have deep conversations. Let them have introspection. Because so far, that’s not a thing that really happens on this show, and it really lessens the impact of scenes to the point where you can tell that the writers want you to be sad, but you can’t really muster up the sadness because they haven’t given you enough reason to care.

There needs to be more depth and complexity given to this war as well. The fact that the galra are painted as the Big Bad while the alteans are painted as the Big Good is a huge issue, because both the galra and the alteans are races of people and, as such, neither should be vilified or deified. Before anyone gets it twisted, obviously the EMPIRE is evil and needs to be defeated, but there is a big difference between the Empire, as an institution, being evil and needing to be taken down, and an entire race of people being treated as evil, violent killing machines. We know that the galra aren’t evil as a race. The Blade of Marmora are good, and even setting aside active resistance like them, characters like Varkon are neutral parties just trying to live their lives. Vilifying an entire race of people and treating them as demons is wrong. It’s the exact sort of mentality that gives rise to fascist empires in the first place. When an entire race of people is dehumanized and branded as “the enemy,” it makes it easier for others to slaughter and kill them, because they don’t see it as murder, they don’t see it as something bad, they see it as something good and just. Yes, the Empire is evil. The Empire needs to be defeated. But galra, as a race, are not evil and do not need to be killed, and it’s important that that distinction be made.And you may argue, but they have made that distinction! The Blade of Marmora, Keith, and Varkon are that distinction! But the problem is that they haven’t made it clear enough, because the characters in the show still routinely say that the galra are their enemies. Allura, in season five, says that she doesn’t feel happy about a possible alliance with the galra, despite the fact that she has been working with the Blade of Marmora since season two. And we know, too, that she’s not just talking about the Empire here, because Lotor himself points it out by indicating that her problem stems from “preconceptions of [his] race,” and Lance and Pidge see absolutely nothing wrong with sending him off to be executed by Zarkon despite all of the help he’s given them. (And this is another issue in the “complexities of war” segment, but more on that in a second.) You could argue that Lance and Pidge had no qualms about doing this given that he was once their enemy, but given that they’re constantly labeling the galra as their enemy, how can we really say that his race doesn’t play a part in it? How can we say that when we know that Hunk, at the very least, does carry active prejudice against galra, as we saw in his treatment of Keith (which he never apologized for and was treated as a joke) in 2x09? (He complained about being sent on a solo mission with “the only galra team member,” and leveled racist microaggressions such as “what, do you all know each other or something?” for the duration of the episode. He also wanted to leave Acxa for dead purely because she is galra, which Keith had to remind him was not okay. So yeah, Hunk carries active prejudice against galra, despite standing up for Keith for all of one line in 2x11, so it’s safe to say that Lance and Pidge, his closest friends, probably do as well.)So no, the distinction is not being made clear enough. The protagonists of the show still very clearly view “the galra” as “the enemy” despite the fact that vilifying an entire race and civilization of people is problematic af, which means that this is the narrative that the show is pushing as well. In addition, as mentioned, the alteans are pretty much deified; the main perspective we get on the alteans comes from Allura and Coran, the former of whom conveniently has hazy memories of the war, and the latter of whom has shown prejudice toward other races before (e.g. calling human brains “primitive” in 1x01). Even if they aren’t intentionally painting the alteans as a race of perfect beings who can do no wrong, it doesn’t mean that they aren’t doing just that. History differs depending on who tells it, after all. Moreover, the only time alteans are painted in a light that is anything less than holy is in 3x04, and that’s in an alternate reality. While logic should follow that the lesson here is that empires are bad no matter who runs them, the fact remains that it can be dismissed with, “Oh, well, but those aren’t REAL alteans,” as Allura herself does once she learns of Hira’s true plans. Season five only made this worse; Lotor has taken to deifying the alteans in his mind as a way to cope with the trauma and abuse his father has put him through, Allura is only going to encourage this because she sees her people in a similarly idealized light, and Oriande was made up to be some kind of heavenly, mystical place, where only pure and worthy alteans can tread. Compare and contrast the location of the Kral Zera to Oriande, and you have one painted as clearly Dark and Evil while the other is Light and Good, and when you’re talking about races of people, this is really just . . . bad. (To say nothing of the fact that Lotor uses his idealizing of the alteans as a way to cope with the trauma the galra half of his heritage has inflicted on him, which is really going to fuck him up when he is finally forced to admit that, yes, Haggar is Honerva. It’d be nice for him to get a more nuanced picture of the alteans before it’s too late, but alas.)And setting aside all those bad stereotypes and how it hardly lets these two races of people be treated as races of people with respect in the narrative, it also really waters down and removes a lot of complexity from the history of the war---complexity that is right there, but once again, isn’t capitalized upon. Namely, while the Empire is clearly a terrifying force of evil that must be stopped now, the picture (heavily biased though it is) that we’re given of the past suggests (however briefly, and however tiny those suggestions are) this wasn’t always the case, that Alfor also made some really bad choices and did some shady things, and that the galra might have actually been at a disadvantage prior to the uprising which allowed them to rise into the formidable Empire we see today. Namely:- Lotor tells us that it was thanks to Honerva’s research that allowed galra civilization to prosper. He flat out tells us that the alteans were far more technologically advanced than the galra. This tells us that, had the galra and alteans gone to war before Honerva’s experiments on the rift, the galra would have probably gotten their asses kicked, because the alteans were not only also a race of warriors (Allura says that altean children passed the training simulations in 1x02, meaning that they trained their children to fight), but they woul dhave had more advanced weaponry and technology to work with. It was thanks to an altean that the galra reached a level where they could stand evenly. While it’s not spelled out, I feel that this is confirmation that the alteans were a more prosperous civilization than the galra were.- Honerva was experimenting on the rift because she wanted to learn more about harvesting and using quintessence. Alfor went to Oriande and gained the secrets of the White Lion. So then why, oh why did he not share this with his royal alchemist / the galra empress, hm? Particularly when he was oh so scared of further experiments on the rift? Alfor knew what Honerva was doing, and he knew why she was doing it. Had he shared what he learned at Oriande, perhaps she would have stopped. Hell, maybe she would have even been worthy enough to go there herself! But he kept this to himself because . . . because. Because he was selfish? Because maybe some part of him wanted Daibazaal to fall? I mean, that latter part seems inconsistent with his character, but remember that the only perspective on Alfor that we’ve been given comes from Allura and Coran, both of whom would be heavily biased in his favor, so who the fuck knows.- Alfor destroyed Daibazaal after Zarkon and Honerva died. Now, think about this. Imagine that you are a galra civilian. You’re living your life, having a nice time, when all of a sudden the news reaches you that your emperor and his wife (along with their unborn child, if the pregnancy had been announced) have died. Moreover, the altean king is telling you that you must evacuate, because Daibazaal is going to be destroyed because of the rift, something you might not even be that familiar with, given that you are a civilian. You don’t want to be blown up with your planet, so you take your family and you move off-planet. Your home, and your ancestors’ home, is then destroyed. You, and the rest of your people, are now refugees. You have no home, you have nowhere to go except for where the alteans tell you to go, and you have to take King Alfor’s word for it that this was for the best, that this needed to happen, because your leader is now dead, and so is his wife, and you might not even fully understand why. Keep in mind that this was also after tensions had begun to rise between the galra and alteans again; for all the galra know, considering the fact that Zarkon and Honerva’s deaths were announced after Voltron got together again, maybe Alfor planned this. Maybe this wasn’t an accidental death, maybe this was on purpose. You, as a galra civilian, have no reason to know otherwise except for Alfor’s word, and of course he’s not going to admit to doing anything nefarious. And then Zarkon comes back to life. It feels like a miracle, he literally rose from the dead. And he tells you, and the rest of the galran refugees, that he was murdered. And he tells you that Alfor was at fault. And he points out that Alfor destroyed your home, that Alfor left you as refugees with nothing, and that it is the right of all galra to get vengeance. And maybe you, as a civilian, don’t want to go off and fight, but there are plenty who do, because they have lost everything and their emperor, who miraculously came back from the dead (and who will also execute any who disagree with him) is saying to.Now, doesn’t that put the history from 10,000 years ago in a different light? And doesn’t that show the galra as being, you know . . . people rather than cold, soulless villains that are expendable and easy to kill? Keep in mind that I’m not saying that the alteans should be vilified, because that would also be bad. Like I said before, no race should ever be vilified OR deified. I’m saying that wars are complex. I’m saying that even when it’s clear that there is one side that is definitely wrong (the Empire, in this case), wars are not something that should be celebrated. There is no such thing as a good war, and while of course all of the innocent altean civilians who were swept up in this were victims, there were plenty of innocent galra victims as well. It’s pretty goddamn obvious that even today, in the modern era, galra aren’t sitting pretty. If they were, the Blade of Marmora would have no reason to exist. Part-galra, such as Lotor, Ezor, Acxa, Zethrid, Narti, and Keith, wouldn’t face the discrimination that they do. Showing that this war is an ugly, complex mess, and that things aren’t nearly as black-and-white or simple as they appeared at first, would do a lot to adding depth and complexity to this story, as well as showing the truth of war (that it is ugly and awful, always). It could be that deep, and yet it refuses.AND SPEAKING OF . . .

The protagonists are allowed to make morally grey (or even morally dark) choices with impunity. They’re never made to face consequences, nor are they made to even acknowledge that what they’re doing is wrong, which again, waters down the entire narrative and strips it of complexity, as well as prevents the characters from truly growing or being affected by this war in a way that soldiers fighting a war should grow and be affected.Take, for example, 5x02. In 5x02, Zarkon approaches Team Voltron with a deal: He will give them Sam Holt if they hand over Lotor so that Zarkon can kill him. They know, without a doubt, that Zarkon will execute Lotor. And we know that they know this, because:- In 4x03, they saw Lotor’s ships being attacked by Empire’s ships, and they overheard a broadcast given by Zarkon declaring Lotor as an enemy of the state who was to be killed on sight.- Lotor approached them at the end of 4x06, seeking both an alliance and asylum.- Pidge points out, before anyone else, that Lotor didn’t want to be handed over to Zarkon because he would be put to death. (“He’s just trying to save his own skin,” she says, as if that’s a bad, shameful thing?)- Lotor agrees with her that, yes, Zarkon will kill him.At this point, the issue at hand for Team Voltron is that they’re being asked to hand over a peacefully surrendered prisoner of war who has been actively providing them with assistance in the war effort. Lotor may have been their enemy at one time (but he never did lasting damage to them, even in situations where he could have, and stopped initiating interactions with them at all after 3x04), but he isn’t now. He poses literally no threat to them. Even if he wanted to hurt them, he has been stripped of his weapons and is in a confinement cell. He literally cannot harm them in any way, shape, or form, and is completely at their mercy. Moreover, again, he came to them seeking asylum, which they gave him (even if it’s the bare minimum). He came to them for aid, and when he wouldn’t be given that aid freely, surrendered himself as their prisoner. He’s done nothing to warrant being put to death; actually, he has done the opposite. So Team Voltron holds a man’s life in their hands. He is at their mercy. And do they discuss this? Do they discuss whether it would be acceptable, morally, for them to send him to his death---for them to play judge and jury to Zarkon’s executioner---in order to get what they want?No. They don’t.Pidge immediately calls for Lotor to be handed over, and uses every justification she can think of to argue her case. She argues that they have Voltron, so they can just beat down Zarkon if he’s lying (because that worked so well before). She argues that they have Voltron, so they don’t need an alliance with the Empire. She argues that Lotor is lying. She argues that Allura should think of Sam Holt’s life before she thinks of the lives of millions in the universe, and so on and so forth. But for all her tantrum throwing, Pidge is never once forced to acknowledge the fact that she is arguing in favor of someone at her mercy to be put to death for her own personal gain. No one points out that trading a man’s life for personal gain is something that an Empire soldier would do. Many in the fandom have pointed out that what Pidge was arguing for was dark, yes, but no one in the show itself pointed out to her that she was arguing for someone to die for her own benefit, or for the benefit of her father. That Pidge did this morally questionable (or morally wrong, depending on your view) thing has no bearing on her as a character, and does nothing for her growth, because she was never forced to confront it. (Nor was she forced to admit whether she was arguing for this because it was Lotor, or if she would have similarly been gung-ho about the trade had Zarkon demanded someone else, such as Kolivan, Rolo, or even Keith. We don’t know how far Pidge would have gone, because Pidge was never confronted with that.)Likewise, Lance, too, argues for Lotor’s death, and he does so out of jealousy. But does anyone call him on this? Does anyone point out to him that he is apparently okay with sending a man to his death because he sees said man as a romantic rival? No. Lance is not forced to confront this part of himself. He’s not forced to realize that he very suddenly wants a man to die, and wants to be the reason why that man is being sent to die, because of jealousy. Jealousy is a really ugly thing. It’s a flaw. And when it gets so bad that you’re willing to send someone to their death, that you’re willing to have their blood on your hands, that’s something you should have to confront and think about. That’s a part of yourself you need to examine. But Lance isn’t made to examine it, because none of the rest of the team confronts him over it. No one points out how fucked up it is that he’s willing to send Lotor to die over petty jealousy.And it’s not as if the rest of the team is much better. Again, no one questions whether they’ll be able to live with themselves knowing that they sent a man who was at their mercy off to die at the hands of his abusive, genocidal tyrant of a father for personal gain. Instead, what they actually discuss is:- Whether Zarkon is lying;- Whether Lotor will be more useful aliveIn that scene, they’re viewing Lotor as an object, pretty much. He’s either something they can trade to get what they want, or he’s something they can use later for their own benefit. Whether he, as a person, has a right to life (even if it’s life as a prisoner) never once crosses their minds. They’re fine with him dying. The only conflict they have is whether they’ll actually get what they want, or whether he’d be more useful to them alive. And that makes them look horrible, it makes them look like terrible people. It’d be one thing if they had this discussion and said, okay, we’re not really comfortable with this, we don’t like this, but we have no other choice, this is the best option available to us. They’re still doing something morally questionable / wrong then, but they’ve acknowledged it, they can learn and grow from it, they’re accepting that what they’re doing isn’t pretty, but it’s a reality of war. But to not discuss it at all means that they’re barely even considering Lotor as a person. His life doesn’t factor into it. All they’re concerned with is their own personal gain. They’re supposed to be the heroes, but a person’s life means nothing to them, apparently. That’s extremely messed up, and again, it strips complexity from the narrative and prevents the characters from growing and changing. They don’t have to deal with the fact that they did a really horrible thing because they never acknowledged that it was horrible to begin with. And we don’t know how far any of them, Pidge especially, would have gone, because they’re never asked.War does horrible things to people. As I said above, there’s no such thing as a good war. War is a horrible, terrible, awful thing, even when it’s necessary (and this war is a necessary one). But VLD is not acknowledging this by not letting its characters own up to when they do awful things. The fact that this is a kid’s show is no excuse. Animorphs was a kid’s book series, and yet it routinely made its characters have conversations about the moral dilemmas they found themselves in, and the moral sacrifices and morally dark choices they increasingly made as the series continued. If Animorphs showed its protagonists, who were thirteen when the series started, severely affected by war---and if it made them, when they were no older than sixteen when the series ended, acknowledge when they were doing things that were wrong (and acknowledge when they were toeing the line between being good and becoming their enemy)---then there is no reason why VLD can’t or shouldn’t do the same. Once again, it could be that deep. It just refuses. And the fact that it refuses is incredibly, unbelievably disappointing. Having your protagonists make morally grey decisions is all well and good, but it means nothing if they’re not forced to confront the fact that they have, learn, and grow from it.

And lastly . . . goddamn, justice for Keith. Justice for Keith for being sidelined for the entirety of the first season, with various subplots he could have had (e.g. his quintessence sensitivity) being dropped altogether. Justice for Keith for no one, not even Shiro, doing anything to stand up for him when he was being mistreated by the rest of the team for being part-galra. Yes, Shiro hugged him, but Shiro didn’t speak a word when anyone (and particularly Allura) was treating him coldly because of his race. Justice for Keith for having a plot leading up to him becoming the Black Paladin, only to have that ripped away from him three episodes later. Justice for Keith for being treated as selfish when he leaves on approved missions for the Blade of Marmora that actively help the war effort, yet Pidge is allowed to go off to find her brother with no repercussions whatsoever. Justice for Keith for being out of focus while he’s with the Blade of Marmora---And actually, on that note, let’s start getting some justice for the Blade of Marmora, too. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for most of them being unable to ever show their faces, because the animators apparently can’t be fussed to come up with unique designs for them. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for being killed off at a rapid pace, because they’re viewed as expendable (probably because they’re galra) by the showrunners, and because Allura railed off against Kolivan and Antok and accused them of being the reason why Zarkon was still in power, because they were cautious with their agents’ lives. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for the fandom treating them as if they’re reckless automatons who don’t care about survival (Kolivan in particular being demonized and painted as heartless) when, again, it was Princess Allura of Altea who demanded that they proceed with compromised suicide missions because she’s impatient to deal blows against the Empire. Justice for the Blade of Marmora for being introduced in season two as important allies, yet still not having their history fleshed out, yet still not being given meaningful development as individuals or a team.Justice for Keith, and justice for the Blade. I definitely wish I could change that. And because I talked about important things all this time, one small, self-indulgent change I would make?

HAVE LOTOR JOIN THE BLADE OF MARMORA IN SEASON FIVE INSTEAD OF BEING A PRISONER OF WAR FOR TEAM VOLTRON WHEN ALL THEY WANTED TO DO WAS SEND HIM TO HIS DEATH ANYWAY, FFS, WE COULD HAVE HAD MEANINGFUL BONDING BETWEEN LOTOR AND KEITH, AS WELL AS LOTOR AND KOLIVAN, BUT NO, WE WERE DENIED THAT SO TEAM VOLTRON COULD BE AWFUL PEOPLE WITH IMPUNITY INSTEAD, GODDAMN IT.

Okay. Now I’m done.

#five things i would change meme #severalbakuras

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tundrainafrica · 7 years ago

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Somewhere Between Life and Death (Chapter 4)

Summary: Dia de los Muertos isn’t the only day the dead can visit the living. Miguel is reunited with Hector, Imelda and his other relatives from the other side but in one of the worst ways possible and he finds himself caught in a struggle between life and death.

Note: Reposted from ao3 and fanfic, same name, same author

I just needed to post some coco content I made on my own on Tumblr because I will definitely not be able to contribute in the arts side.

Post canon, sickfic, expect hurt comfort, loads of angst, kidnappings. Miguel has a very long and very fatal near death experience basically.

You can follow this fic on tumblr under the tag TundrainAfrica

Link to: Chapter 1- Chapter 2- Chapter 3

Chapter 4: Admissions

“Four hours?!”

Miguel opened his eyes, as the shoulder he was leaning on suddenly jolted and his ears rang with the sound of his mother's voice.

“Shhh… Lower your voice."

“No. Miguel should have been inside long before the child with the nosebleed or the kid with the broken arm. What did the nurse say? Why did they let them go first?”

“It's ER rules we can't complain.”

“But we still have a right to know why they're not calling him yet… Excuse me!”

“Luisa! What are you---”

Miguel heard heels clacking on the floor and it was getting louder and faster. He quickly closed his eyes again hoping nobody noticed that he was awake for a moment. If his mother was going to start a fight with a nurse, he didn't want to be part of it.

“Hello, may I help you?”

“Why hasn't anyone called my son yet. We’ve been waiting for over an hour.”

“What's your son's name? We’ll ask a the front---”

“No need, my husband already asked. They said four hours but it shouldn't take this long.”

“Sorry it's been very busy. That means there are people much sicker…”

“My son is sick too.”

“I’m sorry, I wasn’t the one who assessed your son. Let me just call the nurse who assessed him she might be able to help. What's your son's name?”

“Miguel Rivera”

There was a clacking of heels that slowly faded into the other noises of the emergency room.

“Luisa what are you thinking?”

“It is our right to know why they’re making us wait this long.”

“They will call us eventually."

“Four hours is a lot of time Enrique. A lot of time for Miguel to get sicker.”

At the word sicker, Miguel felt a heave creeping up his throat as if it was reacting to the word. He held his breath forcing the heave back down. This was no time to worry his mother anymore. Soon another clacking of heels was audible and like the ones of a while ago, it was getting louder as its owner came nearer.

“Hello, Miguel Rivera right? I talked to the nurse in charge. No fever. No apparent symptoms. Blood pressure is within normal range. She classified him as non- urgent.”

“Non urgent?!”

Miguel felt his mother's chest rise. He slowly pulled away, feigning sleepiness. As far as they know, he was just shifting sleeping position from his mother to his father. He was in no way waking up and capable of participating in whatever scuffle his mother starts.

His father put his arms around him. He kept his eyes half open and watched his mother make her way to the nurses desk in the front as the nurse who had informed of the long wait, watched helplessly from behind her.

“Hayy, Luisa…” His father muttered.

Miguel watched the scene in front of him with half opened eyes, letting himself relax as his father caressed his shoulder with one hand. He cringed internally as he watched his mother slam her hands on the table and waved her hands at the nurse. Her back was to him so he couldn't even guess what she was saying.

He thought if he tried he could possibly make out part of what she was saying. He heard her voice but it was hard to make out the words when many people were talking at the same time and the words were easily swallowed by the other voices and the horrible acoustics of the ER.

After his mother gesticulated what looked like intimidations and threats for less than a minute, the nurse eventually sighed in defeat and pressed a button on the desk and talked into some sort of intercom. A nurse guided them through the big doors only to another room which looked to Miguel like an extension of the waiting room outside except much quieter.

His mother had helped him walk the stretch of the rooms. He wasn't surprised though when he started to feel a tightness in his chest as they walked. He was exhausted after all.

The nurse led them to a stretcher on the hallway before saying something to his mother in soft whispers. Soon after she left, Luisa helped Miguel on the stretcher.

“It's not much, but at least you're more comfortable.” His mother said as she sat in front of him, brushing his bangs from his eyes.

Miguel had lain back on the stretcher at first but as he noticed that gravity was only adding to the heaviness on his chest, he opted to turn to the side facing his mother. He made eye contact with her even with his heavy lidded eyes. It was at that moment of eye contact that he wheezed and the fact that his breathing had been heavy and slowly getting faster since a while ago became apparent. And his mother noticed.

This time she didn't bother asking her son how he felt. She ran to the nurses desk. Miguel followed her with his eyes. The nurse had her head down and Miguel couldn't tell if she was talking to his mother or ignoring her altogether.

“How are you feeling?”

Miguel could see his father's face from his peripherals. He shook his head without taking his eyes of his mother. He didn't want to worry them anymore but he didn't want to lie either. Instead he picked the safest option and kept quiet. Besides, he didn't know if he could actually say anything else without it coming out like a wheeze.

He closed his eyes, trying to fall asleep so he could forget the ominous tightening of his chest. It was scary. It had started off as a dull ache but it had grown to be its own monster. He closed his eyes tighter, willing himself to fall asleep. He held one hand to his chest and grabbed tightly at the skin on top, as if it was possible to rip off his skin and give himself space to breath. The dull pain in his stomach was also starting to make itself known once again

He tried to imagine other things.

He wasn't sick in the ER. He was back in the Dia de los Muertos only a month ago. He was playing music for his abuelita, his cousins, his parents and his baby sister Coco. He couldn't help but feel he had taken for granted when he ever felt that good.

He imagined the feeling of his fingers on the guitar. His right hand would caress the nylon strings before he starts playing. His left hand was always a little more uncomfortable having to press the fret the whole song. It was painful when he first tried it out but the years of playing made the tip of his left fingers harder and these days, he wouldn't notice the pain at all.

Does it work with this type of pain too? He thought to himself. It was a stupid question and he didn't bother answering it.

He moved on to his favorite part of playing the guitar. The touch was magical on its own, just imagining it was a good distraction from the tightness building up in his chest, and for a while, he felt like it alleviated the pain. Like for all musicians though, touching the instrument was only the rising action to the climax of actually creating the music. The happiness that made itself known through silent shivers and a gradual quickening of one's heartbeat the music was not from touching the instrument itself but from the excitement of knowing that in a few seconds, they will be creating something beautiful.

Just listening to music alone is something else. It had the power to manipulate feelings and memories, it soothed, it healed, it amplified, it alleviated, it aggravated. It could do almost anything to someone with the write melody, lyrics and harmony.

What Miguel soon learned after he started learning to play his own music was that touch also amplified his wonder. Similar to adding a left hand to music, it added an extension to his senses, something else for them to indulge on and he couldn't help but marvel at his own capability to play the melodies, coordinate them, create harmonies and finally, create music.

Because of his simple and strictly musicless upbringing, he couldn't pick up the theory of it. Words like tonic, supertonic, submediant and subdominant, although vital to music theory flew over his head. To be a musician though, science and theory were only secondary.

Although Miguel did not know the names of the notes, he made up for it with his spot-on ears. He knew by heart the sound that each string made when pressed on a certain fret, knowledge he picked up through endless nights experimenting with his guitar. His ability to point out the notes after playing came up after listening to Ernesto de la Cruz songs and trying to hit the right note on the guitar again and again and again until he was able to mimic the melody and harmony on his guitar down to a T. Good ears make a good and very useful skill when songwriting and at his age. After many years doing the same thing and maybe through some inborn talent, he had developed ears good enough to create his song and plan the guitar accompaniment within minutes without even touching the guitar.

That was what Miguel decided to do the next few minutes to distract himself.

At first, it was difficult to imagine the soft cloth of the bed cover of stretcher was in any way similar to the hard wood and nylon strings that dug into his skin. When he was closing his eyes and starting to doze off, it started to become easier. It was no feat at all for his mind to imagine something it had been doing everyday for years.

Say that I'm crazy or call me a fool.

The tabs that he had created long ago played along in his mind as he started to sing.

But last night it seemed that I dreamed about you.

When I opened my mouth, what came out was a song.

And you knew every word and we all sang along.

He knew the melody created by his tabs by heart and he found himself adding along to it as his fingers played an extra melody in time with the instrumental in his head. He had created one for his cousins Abel and Rosa almost a year ago when the music ban was uplifted and they hesitantly mentioned that they wanted to learn to play music and started learning to play the accordion and violin.

The twins had been starting to show interest in music only recently. Their mother had been talking about investing in a piano. If they learned soon, they could definitely join in their Dia de los Muertos performance. As he thought about it, he found himself pressing the frets on his imaginary guitar, creating a new melody to teach his cousins when they learn to play the piano.

To a melody--- He felt a pain on his chest and ended up hacking and wheezing. It was only then did he realize that he had started singing aloud.

His chest had been filling with something and it was climbing up his chest and his throat. He had mistaken it for excitement and joy at first. His cough had brought him back to reality. It felt like he was drowning. How could he be drowning when his throat was so dry? He did not have much time to ponder that because, what had been filling his chest was trying to make its presence more known. It was pushing itself up his chest and throat.

“Hey. Hey. You okay?”

He felt his father's hand lightly tapping on his cheek.

His own eyes were wet. He had been crying.

“It hurts. Make it stop.” He finally said. Or at least that's what he tried to say. What came out was a wheeze or a gurgle.

Luisa!

He opened his mouth and tried to inhale some oxygen and get air into his system but as if he really was underwater, his mouth had filled with liquid instead. If he were a little more aware of his surroundings, he would have tasted the blood but as he tried to sit up, his only thought was to spit it out.

Miguel! Spit it out here. We need some help!

After vomiting, he lay back limp on the stretcher. He didn't bother opening his eyes anymore. He was exhausted. He wasn't asleep yet, he knew he was still in the emergency room. He continued to hear the hushed voices and feel the stretcher under him but it was as if his brain was having difficulty associating creating contrasts between what he felt and heard. Was it his mother? Was it his father? Or was it the nurse talking?

He heard distant and urgent voices, footsteps coming closer. He heard someone, screaming and crying.

He felt someone putting something on his face, he felt the cold air around his mouth, he inhaled the air almost hesitantly. He could have said that the air he was trying to inhale was more welcoming than that of a while ago and the tightness in his chest dissipated only lightly. At that point, it felt like an indulgence to him. Someone took his hand and and slip it inside a board. Soon after, he felt a prick on his left hand. He would have wanted to pull away but it felt as if his body didn't have the energy for that anymore. Staying limp felt like the most comfortable decision at that point.

Start him on a simple solution, we need to first treat the dehydration. What's his blood type?

More urgent footsteps. He felt another poke on his other hand.

Have them send the blood results as soon as possible. We might have to run some other tests.

We administered some sedatives through an IV . It’s best that he's asleep during the tests…

We will need you to sign here to authorize the tests…

Some procedures may be invasive but we will make sure to take good care of your son.

The last thing Miguel had pondered before finally falling asleep and losing all awareness of his surroundings was who they had been talking about when they said 'your son.’

Somewhere Between Life and Death

Dengue fever

That's what the doctor in the clinic said yesterday. He didn't have to undergo that many tests did he?

His complete blood count points to dengue but the disease had progressed far too quickly than most patients. We had to make sure it couldn't be any other virus. If we give him the wrong treatment in this condition, we could kill him.

The first thing Miguel took note of was that the tightness in his chest was gone, his head didn't hurt. He didn't need to vomit. He was breathing. His mouth was wet. It didn't feel like he was cured though. It felt like a trade off. The pains of a while ago were replaced once again with a new set of discomforts.

His body felt sore. It wasn't like the searing pain his joints and bones of yesterday. He just felt bruised and tired. The sensation was the dull type reminiscent of unhealed wounds that only made themselves known when pushed and prodded but on any regular day were quiet and behaved. In some way though, it was different but Miguel could not put a ring on why he felt the way he did.

He tried swallowing some of the moisture from his mouth only to choke on it half way through. He couldn't stifle the cough that followed.

He's awake.

Miguel opened his eyes at the sound of his mother's voice coming from just a few inches away.

Before opening his eyes, his soreness felt was spread out, a conglomeration of discomforts that he could not comprehend. As he took in his surroundings and the numerous wires that seemed to be connected to many parts of his body, the discomfort he was feeling started to take a more distinct shape.

The first thing he noticed was the mask on his face. As he tried to put up his hand to feel it, he felt something pulling on his hand then someone's gentle hand pushing his hand back down.

“Mijo, you scared us back there.”

Miguel looked to the other side to see his father and a man in a lab coat. His father was sitting on a chair by the bed while the other man stood along the foot of the bed.

“It’s an oxygen mask.“ He explained as he pointed at his own mouth.”You were having a hard time breathing.”

Miguel looked expectantly at his mother and father. Am I getting better? He wanted to ask. He was getting impatient. He wanted to go home, sleep on his own bed, spend Christmas vacation in the plaza or playing with his cousins. He wanted to play his guitar again. Heck, he was even excited to go back to the workshop and make shoes.

The doctor cleared his throat. “We gave you something to help you sleep back in the ER and you slept through all the tests. We were able to confirm the dengue virus. It’s a little more aggressive than the normal one.”

“What's the cure?” His father asked.

“Like all viruses, there's no cure. All we can do is keep him alive until the virus passes. Watch out for complications…”

Miguel had wanted to ask questions, he wanted to listen and comprehend what the doctors were explaining to his parents. It felt like such a feat though to say anything loud enough that it won't get drowned out by the whirring and beeping of the machines next to him.

Also, when the doctor started mentioning words like sedation and endotracheal intubation, he found himself dozing off. It was too much of an effort to make sense of the medical jargon the doctor was spouting out every few words.

Distracting himself with the tubes and wires surrounding his body was much less an effort. He understood the big one that started at the mask on his face connected to a machine on the side. He followed the tubes that were connected to his hand. One was connected to a colorless solution, the other to a bag which looked like it contained blood. He quickly looked away in disgust and closed his eyes. He didn't know how long he was going to be there and how many more tubes or wires he had connected to his body but he knew it would be gone much faster if he was asleep the whole time.

He relaxed on the bed and let the steady beeping of the machines put him to sleep. It was much easier to sleep on the bed than in the ER and in his condition, it felt like his body was actually begging for the rest.

He didn't know how much time had past but every now and then, he would wake up to a nurse taking some more of his blood through what looked like another tube or changing the bags that fed into his hands. Most times he woke up, it was his mother by his bedside, brushing his bangs off of his forehead, telling him to go back to sleep so he could recover faster.

He wasn't keeping track of the time though and it may have been a few hours or a few days later when he woke up to his parents arguing in soft whispers in the corner of the room.

Enrique, I don't think those are allowed in the ICU.

This is a single room anyway. As long as we play softly, we shouldn't be a bother to the other patients.

What about Miguel? He might not be able to sleep properly if we make too much noise.

Luisa, do you remember when Miguel played a song for Mama Coco?

Oh? When she recovered enough to tell us about her father?

Yes, I found the song. It’s a stupid idea but… what if music can actually help Miguel recover faster?

Most times Miguel was lucid enough to hear the conversations between his parents and the doctor or between themselves, he would let it pass and go back to sleep. What had caught his attention with that conversation was that his father had possibly brought his guitar to the hospital.

He opened his eyes a bit to see its familiar white shape in his peripherals. His father was at his bedside fiddling with it. His mother was nowhere to be seen, probably in the toilet or something. No one had noticed that he had opened his eyes for a while and he quickly closed it to keep the peace. His chest was starting to hurt and he didn't think he was up to responding to the fussing of his parents. Besides, he wanted to listen to his father play the guitar.

After a few minutes of just lying there half asleep, he heard his father take a deep breath.

Remember me. Though I have to say goodbye.

His father was strumming at all the right syllables but Miguel couldn't help but notice that the chords were all wrong. At some parts, his father was pressing too many frets that the chord came out completely different from intended or he wasn't pressing them hard enough to hear the actual change in the pitch of the strings. In some parts, he would hear the vibration of the strings but not the melody. In some parts, his father was actually playing the wrong notes.

If his chest wasn't starting to hurt and he wasn't falling deep into his exhaustion, he may have given his father pointers or pointed out the errors in his playing.

Instead, he had allowed himself to give in to the most recent dose of sedatives, attributing the chest pain to just another feature of the dull pain and discomforts of the whole hospital ordeal.

A fatal mistake.

The next thing he remembered was erratic beating and urgent voices. He couldn't make sense of what was happening but he had recognized his mothers cries. He saw some nurses at the sides of his bed that short moment he was lucid.

They pulled out wires and tubes. He remembered being carried by one of them then the feeling of the bed moving under him, the creaking of the stretcher as it moved, footsteps following the stretcher and his parents urgent voices.

As his eyes started to narrow from the bright white lights, his ears strained to hear the urgent questions of his parents. The words were mostly inaudible but as a nurse started to fuss with the IV line and he started to lose consciousness, he was able to make out a few of what the doctors saying.

Mr. Rivera, Your son's body is a mess. His heart is working overtime…

You may not like this but it may be the only way to keep him alive…

Is there any other option? It sounded like his mother's voice. She sounded like she was close to sobbing.

We understand that this is a difficult decision to make...

Do what you need to do.

Hope you enjoyed! Like always, do tell me what you think :D

#pixar coco #coco fandom #coco fanfiction #dia de los muertos coco #coco fanfic #hector rivera #imelda rivera #miguel rivera #rivera family #tundrainafrica #fanfic

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a-panda-reads-act-omega · 7 years ago

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ACT OMEGA PART 25

THE 04/07/17 UPDATE

THE DREAM IS NOT DEAD YOUR HOPE IS NOT LOST

IM A FUCKING LAZY PIECE OF SHIT

Hey wow, betcha didn’t think you’d ever see another one of these now didja? You can always count on me to disappear for like 9 days, come back one day and realize i got 10 followers, and fail to deliver promised effort. But hEY look who’s here now for another UPDATE. Lets just hope I remember at all how to work tumblr.

And also gdi i forgot where we left off im gonna need to reread the last few pages

~one glance at a panel later~

oh y e a h its Aranea. Im gonna try to remain MATURE. PROFESSIONAL. And most of all, CALM. Because I really do like Aranea as a character. I just. Hate the stuffs she does a lotta the time.

Alright, time to hear about whatever Aranea knows. Looks like we’re starting off with a flashback of her getting destructified by the bish fish herself.

ARANEA: As a few of you may know, some time ago I attempted to 8reak free from the shackles of death and o8scurity 8y endeavoring to mold the alpha timeline to my will. The outcome notwithstanding, the crux of the scheme was that I would ensure the universe Lord English was 8orn into was never cre8ed in the first place, and thus completely avert his disastrous influence on all of reality. Of course, my actions would merely have resulted in a doomed timeline, 8ut I was confident in my a8ility to heal my “doomed” 8ranch to the point where it could functionally supercede the alpha timeline.

Y e a h yeah we all know about your fuckup. But actually that is kinda a helpful reminder of how it went down. God, it was so long since I’ve read normal Homestuck.

MEENAH: man this sounds just as nuts as it did last time you were glubbin aboat it MEENAH: smh ARANEA: Meenah! I thought you said there would 8e no interruptions?? ARANEA: I’m HARDLY proud of my conceited maneuver either, 8ut this is important context!

Aranea needs to hit the chill switch j e e z she snapped

MEENAH: yeah yeah sorry ARANEA: Thank you. ARANEA: That 8eing said, I am still fairly confident that the essence of the plan was well-founded. It just so happened my scope of understanding was far too narrow. My priorities were all askew. MEENAH: (no shit)

No shit indeed. A little life lesson; if you are conjuring up a plan that risks destroying the lives of everybody

[Alright so everything past this lil note here was written on a different day thant the stuffs before it]

ARANEA: Her Imperious Condescension proved far more ten8cious an o8stacle than I had anticip8ed. Despite her many efforts to 8reak free from Lord English’s servitude, her determin8tion to see that universe made has always 8een in line with the preserv8tion of his eventual arrival. And so long as she continues to oper8 in his 8est interests, she will continue to draw considera8le power from her connection with him. A connection only he can sever.

So I dunno if they’re talking about physical majyyk power or just position power, but if its the former that could explain how she was still alive. So basically my theory now is: The condesce will not die until Lord English is dead, or wants her to die. And depending on which actually happens, she might be a more direct threat than Lord English himself. We’ll see though.

VRISKA: (........) VRISKA: (Shit.)

wait huH WHat. Did Vriska realize she fucked something up, or is that just her reaction to the condesce’s advantages.

ARANEA: With the current st8 of things, it is far more efficient to simply address the pro8lem at its source. Which of course was the purpose of our original plan. Nonetheless, I grew determined to scour the Furthest Ring for more inform8tion on Lord English’s weaknesses. I had a hunch that there was likely much more to the story than I had initially realized. There were a number of differing theories linked to Lord English’s f8. Though each spun a unique tale, there was one central element common to all of them: a weapon. Presuma8ly, the same weapon that the Lord of Time is currently preoccupied with.

Alright, so IF Aranea’s stories are correct, then the house is going to be responsible Lord English’s death. And about all these stories, I have a feeling all of them are gonna be true one way or another.

LE I think you gotta give it up buddy. I mean what are you even doing.

As a quick aside, in case any of you were wondering: For the moment, English poses very little threat to us. His attention has shifted to matters far more urgent than terrorizing our small gathering. That is to say, he is entirely focused on the weapon.

Yeah no shit. I just think. He should maybe kill you and then get back to that. LIke. Is he an idiot.

The utilities and nature of this weapon are still shrouded in mystery. That alone should have 8een something of a red flag, 8ut I digress. It was said that the Lord of Time once trapped inside it a 8and of heroes who had challenged him, and that they were destined to 8e released from their prison and finish what they started. It was also suggested the weapon was a juju that had 8een in Lord English’s possession, which upon outlasting its use, thereafter functioned purely as the instrument of his demise. Others assumed that was merely a tool meant to unleash some sort of coup de grâce. At another point all signs seemed to indic8 the weapon was in fact a person--the ghost of the Lord’s long dead female counterpart, whom he had killed to assume control of their shared 8ody. The counterpart he would stop at nothing to eradic8 all traces of from existence.

Jesus fucking Christ that’s a lot of possibilities. Alright, so if all of them are correct, that means: The juju is dead!tier calliope. It’s Lord English’s weapon and weakness. There are four heroes inside. And it will also kill him with the final blow. I have no clue how any of that is possible but whatever I’ll take it.

After my thorough investig8tion, I can tell you with confidence that all of these things are true in one way or another. However... we put the pieces of the puzzle together all wrong. We entirely dismissed the tale of the Lost Cheru8 and assumed that the weapon must be the very juju we discovered in the void. We expected it to wipe out Lord English in one fell swoop through some am8iguous onslaught.

OK so what the fuck. The juju ISNT the weapon. well, in that case I’m gonna assume that the weapon is the god tier clock. That’d make sense, I guess. That’s how he killed godtiers, and it will serve to kill him as well. Yeah, that works out. I just don’t know who the four heroes are and how it’s Calliope. Or I’m entirely wrong but come on the god tier clock would just make SO much sense.

LORD ENGLISH FUCKIN’ CHILL. The house ain’t killing you now is it? Just. WALK AROUND AND MURDER THEM. Or don’t cause that’d piss me off.

As you can see, these preconceptions were entirely unsu8stanti8ed. Lord English has 8een weakened, 8ut remains undefeated. However, that does not mean the weapon failed to perform its proper function. The truth of the weapon is as such: It is a juju that once 8elonged to Lord English as a powerful tool that once used, thereafter could only 8e used against him. When English was challenged by a party of valiant and worthy warriors, he resorted to the juju to entrap them and cast them aside. Then he 8anished it to the void in an attempt to prevent it from 8eing found. This was a fools' errand, as we cleverly managed to loc8 the weapon regardless. It unleashed SOMETHING upon him, and now... 8oth remain. It’s likely many of you were aware of this inform8tion already. The rest, while far more enlightening, will 8egin to delve more into the realm of conjecture. 8ut I am confident in my deductions.

Nothing much to say here, that’s basically exactly what I predicted. I guess all I’m still not sure about is what the weapon actually is.

Aw it got all cleaned up and mosied of to the void.

As far as I can discern, the juju draws its power from a source completely 8eyond our current comprehension. 8eyond Lord English, 8eyond Skaia, and perhaps even 8eyond this plane of existence altogether! Perhaps it even plays an invisi8le role in shaping reality as we know it. Whatever its true n8ture, it seems that Lord English himself also draws some measure of power from that same source. It may very well 8e the origin of his unconditional immortality and of how causality itself appears to 8end to his will. So. What did the juju do? I 8elieve that it severed his connection to that higher plane. And along with the destruction of one of his other power sources--the Green Sun--he has 8een left vulnera8le, unsta8le, and perhaps even finally mortal.

oly shit, does that mean they can just CHARGE on in and whack ‘em up? AND HOLY SHit. IF VRISKA HAD JUST GOTTEN A gOOD ROLL HE’D BE DEAD

AAAAA

RIP. Paradox Space. Forever-Wherever.

Now, I understand that some of you may 8e wholly unaware of the destruction of the Green Sun. It happened only recently, so don't worry. I will be sure to fill you in. I think that the more o8servant of you may have already managed to take a moment to look up at the infinitely-fracturing void that surrounds this 8u88le. If you haven’t, I suggest that you do so now. That “g8ping hole” in the Furthest Ring is what is known as The Pocket. It is the work of the final piece of the puzzle: the Lost Cheru8.

Yeah, Calliope wrecked that green sun. The only disappointing part of this is the possibility of an affect on Jade.

Ohhh that’s cool art. But yeah, what’s deadiope doing now anyways? Is she more dead?

part of me is actually not sure if she was dead to begin with or not. I forget. OOPs.

We were far too quick to dismiss her role in this story, though our h8ste is ultimately inconsequential. She was always 8eyond our grasp, and she would have done her duty just as readily, no matter our thoughts or feelings of her.

Spellcheck thinks h8ste is a word but not 8eyond. ok. And yeah, in retrospect the whole hunt for calliope was pretty pointless.

The Lost Cheru8 turned out to 8e another manner of weapon in her own right. She was also far more than that. Her mere existence is something of a miracle. The Muse of Space should have never emerged victorious in the 8attle against her more determined male counterpart. And yet, she defied the odds stacked against her just as deftly as Lord English had. In some lonely offshoot timeline, she asserted her iron will and managed to predomin8 over her 8rother. She played the game that was 8uilt for her to lose, and she made The Choice that her 8rother would never have possi8ly made.

Man MOS Calliope is fuckin badass.

She’s so smol

The Lord of Time, upon meeting with his Denizen, took the path of the Conqueror. The Muse of Space, given a similar opportunity, took the path of the Martyr. And in doing so, she dedic8ed her life, and her su8sequent death, to the Conqueror's destruction.

Man that’s just a pretty sad existence. I mean, YAY you get to be the hero and all. But FUCK you’re gonna die for it? Then what’s the PO I N T

I 8elieve that, on some level, Lord English knew this. His relentless quest to find and destroy her was as much a la8or of self-preserv8tion as it was of h8tred. 8ut this too would lead to his undoing. The Muse used herself as 88, goading him into his misguided ramp8ge across the Furthest Ring while simultaneously forging a path for us to cl8im his long-forgotten juju.

Oh wow. So She kinda knew about the ghost army all along, and was super dedicated to helping them find the juju. She was pulling ALL the fuckin strings here.

And so the Lost Cheru8 w8ed patiently until all the other pieces were in place for her final gam8it. She travelled to the Green Sun to fulfill her destiny as Lord English’s foil.

SHE’S FOILED ALL HIS PLANS. H A H.

Okay yeah, so she died when destroying the sun i guess.

lil green SWORL.

There, she performed her final act as the Martyr. She cre8ed a singularity which a8sor8ed the incredi8le mass and energy of the Green Sun. The singularity 8ecame so dense and so powerful that it tore a cataclysmic rift into the very fa8ric of paradox space. The Pocket will continue to rip apart and consume reality until nothing is left. And Lord English is no exception.

What does this mean for the kids then? And the new universe. Are they all temporary due to this fuCKIN HOLE

godDAMMIT

Hey don’t you fucking look cool. You’re not allowed to look cool.

So you see now, don’t you? Our failure was not in defeating Lord English. It was in stopping the rest of reality as we know it from 8ecoming collateral in his destruction.

I’m a little confused by that, but I’m guessing it means they were supposed to find a way to protect everything from being destroyed. Huh.

ALRIght. Whatever. this was fun. Im SUPER sorry for the delay on this, but hey it was a pretty long update so maybe that makes up for it.

Se E Y A L A T E R A L L I G A T O R

#homestuck #homestuck liveblog #hs act omega #hs act omega liveblog #Act Omega #act omega liveblog

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