#its like. very clearly not the optimal move.. but it makes so much sense for bev to be so angry abt it

[sideblogdotjpeg]

naddpod episode fifty is soooo good you KNOW an episode hits when everyone is mad at murph for ending the session. it really has it all - the boobs getting hammered , gnome redemption arc, one big space bed SLEEPOVER TALK EDITION, balnor pisses in front of his unrequited crush, sloppy bisexual kisses, steampunk boat, hardwon teaching beverly to drive (<3!), bev having soo many EPIC dad moments AND a cliffhanger. AN EP FOR SURE. naddpod episode fifty my beloved!

[put-them-thangs-away]

while i figure that out, not sure if anyone has done it yet, but i want to do a little dive into the basics of the tarot cards used in this jack & joker episode, now that i actually have a moment and can do more than just the basic off the top of my head readings. i’ll be using the golden thread tarot deck mostly because i like how concise it is and also its more accessible to me right now underneath my sleeping dog than my shelf of decks in my room lmao. this is gonna be,,,, real long probably so all the details will be under the cut, if you wanna join me for my rambling:

fun little sidenote before i get started: when i went to begin discussing why i love the use of tarot and nang’s characterization specifically, my card of the day that i drew was the Queen of Swords which is like 100000% The Nang Card™️ lol [complexity, perceptive, clear mindedness etc.]

“a woman of immense complexity, sometimes considered cold-hearted, but also sharp of mind and wit, independent and possessing great powers of organization and analysis.” i won’t go down the rabbit hole of sword suits as a whole bc that’s not the point of this post and so far the show hasn’t gone into minor arcana, so i’m just gonna say HMMMMM very inch resting timing,,,,, anyways,,,

now, of course i have to start with joke’s card and its myriad of double meanings. in just about any piece of media, if you see The Fool card it should automatically be flagged as a red herring. it’s meant for you to look at it and take it at face value based on the words and image…. much like our four little idiots did when first shown their cards. like JOKE YOU GOT THE FOOL BECAUSE YOU’RE A DUMBASS LOL! and he’s the joker so of course he would also be the fool, yes? unfortunately for our little baby clown, the actual symbolism of the card is childlike innocence and naivety, often to their own detriment. it speaks of blank slates, new beginnings, and the start of a journey. “he does not know the dangers that can beset him during his travels, and thus he stumbles forward with complete optimism, never suspecting that he may be walking in a thin tight rope.” oof yikes. sound familiar? nang rly read that boy for filth huh,,,, aside from the obvious heavy handed post-prison clean slate, we’ve also got the metaphor connected to jack’s forgiveness and starting their relationship over. there’s a lot more to be said here as well about how naive joke can be when thinking he’s doing the right thing and that his choices are for the sake of someone else, without clearly seeing the consequences their may be for that person as a result of his actions. at the risk of Never Shutting Up About It, i will have to make myself move on.

i’ll get into tattoo’s card next because it’s really interesting to me that he was assigned The World, which I kind of would have thought would be a card assigned to jack instead. i see what they were going for in this episode with it, i think, but it felt a bit shallow in comparison, so there may be more in relation to this that we have yet to see. as The Fool is the first card (0) in the major arcana, The World is the final card (21). this card symbolizes an ending of a cycle of life, specifically before the beginning of a new cycle of life. it’s an indicator of major and inescapable change. throughout this episode, we see the shift in tattoo’s heart and priorities being held up in comparison to their past heist through some pretty straightforward parallels, so from that angle, The World makes perfect sense. (especially since one reading of The World when in reverse is inertia & stagnation) tattoo wanting to run in and save joke when he thinks he’ll be caught in the heist is our window in to see The World changing. that being said i find it interesting that this card would be chosen for him since it sort of,,,, kickstarts the journey for The Fool and is generally somewhat,,,, final. so i’m just reeeaaaalllllyyyy hoping that this does not mean tattoo has to actually end his cycle in any way other than metaphorical for the other to continue. the man has grown on me, what can i say? 😭 we’re just gonna ignore all those warning bells in my head and choose to go with the “accomplishment and fulfillment from both inner and outer sources” reading. yup.

then we’ve got arun, whose card is The Moon, which is double fun because arun’s name means dawn/sunrise. there’s a lot of meaning that could be extrapolated here, but based on tattoo’s card seeming on surface level to be about the state of his heart and his involvement in this little found family, i’m going to guess that arun’s is the same. The Moon card symbolizes intuition, the unconscious, illusion, and deception. it can be read as a signal of something being not as it appears, a truth you cannot admit to yourself, instincts that we have buried in our unconscious, among other things. this card being chosen for arun actually actively makes me more nervous than tattoo getting The World lol. if we choose to read it at surface value, could just be that in this heist he had to follow intuition, and got himself turned around in the process (eagle statue etc), or just generally that he did not previously appear capable, but here he is helping this mission be pulled off. with the opening scene of arun crying about missing his dad and that,,,, not really getting resolved actually,,,,,, that makes me wonder about some alternate reading options, but like,,,,,, i don’t want to. so. Simply going to close my eyes on that one! no thanks!

then of course there’s everyone favourite head empty good boy, hoy, who was assigned The Star card. out of all the card readings, this boy got the most straightforward one and i’m trying not to read too much into that since they were all assigned by nang and my brain hasn’t quite caught up to [handwaves] whatever she and hoy have got going on over there. this card is symbolic of faith, optimism, and hope. so….. yeah hoy in a nutshell. not a whole lot more to add in there.

skipping The Heirophant card and The Tower card to come back to later because i have Some Theories there and they may make more sense after i go back and rewatch a few things

ANYWAYS if you read to the end of this thank you and i’m sorry please feel free to yell at me about it

[thefakeking]

I'm actually so sick of everyone hating on Chapter 430 for the wrong reasons because there is some parts that actually fit PERFECTLY and were very clearly planned from the start. Let's start off with some minor details.

Everyone being mad at Izuku being a teacher, however it honestly fits his character perfectly, with his interactions with others and kids like Kota and Eri throughout the series you see him inspire others so well. Combine that with him loving to analyze quirks and how to optimize them, it makes perfect sense for him to be a teacher at UA it would utilize his talents perfectly. And teachers at UA usually tend to be pro heroes anyway in the series, which he does become at the end anyways, so I don't know why people hate the idea so much. He can do both and he is doing both. It fits really well with his character

Everyone miscontruing him saying that they don't interact as much after they yknow don't live in dorms and have jobs into they abandoned izuku is SO FUCKING ANNOYING.

And the most important point that isn't just with 430, is izuku losing his quirk. I get it it was devastating to me as well, but people who say it was a bad writing choice DONT UNDERSTAND THE MESSAGE OF MHA AT ALL.

Think back to the very beginning when all izuku wanted was to be told that even when he was quirkless he could still be a hero, and he got that recognition by All Might of all people. He said that Izukus actions are what makes him a hero basically, his body moving on its own is a sign of a hero. Its very touching but then they kind of completely go back on this by then giving Izuku a quirk, making it seem like well he couldnt be a hero without a quirk then.

THAT'S WHY THIS ENDING FOR HIM IS PERFECT. He lost his quirk and was back to square one, and yet at the end the message held true. He too could be a hero even with no powers. It's the perfect ending for him, becoming a pro hero with his friends with no quirk, because it was who he was that made him a hero, not the quirk gifted to him.

I think the ending was insanely rushed and completely disregarded a good resolution in many aspects, but stuff like this was done perfectly in my opinion. It's clear he planned this in the ending from the start because it fits so well with the beginning.

[lucidwindz]

Httyd 3 ramblings

Recently rewatched the 3 movies as is my tradition apparently and will probably be rewatching the entirety of the tv series as well (for like the 4th time as of now), and I'd wondered why I didn't much engage with the fandom on tumblr before till I browsed through the httyd 3 tags lmao. People really don't like that movie, and though I can understand and agree with some criticisms (the woobification of toothless, the design of the light fury, some questionnable side characters decisions), I feel a lot of the ire comes from a reluctance to part with the story rather than engaging with it...

Perhaps I'm just nihilistic, but to me, httyd has always been about nature and animal rights as well, and the ending acknowledging that humans don't always do good things just...made sense I guess.

Confined to a small island like Berk, Hiccup's philosophy of coexistence is applicable and realizable, that almost fantastical and hopeful angle works very well. The initial curiosity, the care, the wonder of connecting with nature, it fits the story perfectly despite its other darker undertones.

Then, all the tv series and httyd2 take us into a wider world, where there are people hunting dragons for profit, and others dominating them for wars, it is not longer a story about that initial discovery and love, it is clearly taking a more different path, which is why to me it is confusing when so many people say httyd 3 is a betrayal of the message of the franchise.

Across the entire series, Hiccup deals with the reluctance of people on Berk itself, then deals with outside forces who are ignorant of what Berk has learned, then deals with outside forces who know what they're doing but still do bad things (which you could also make a case aren't fully bad; a dragon hunter would be a hero to any small village that doesn't know how to deal with them). We get seasons upon seasons of escalation, of a big bad that becomes harder and harder to convert to his side. All of it leads to httyd 2, Hiccup still has the overwhelming optimism and belief that he can change minds, hell even Viggo did in the end, this makes sense. Hiccup is so utterly kind and accepting, but that's just not viable with some people.

He has to challenge his own belief of the malleability of the world.

In httyd2, the lesson Hiccup learns is to be a good chief, to care for his people, and the same for Toothless. But Toothless' role doesn't yet get addressed in that movie; it gets addressed in the third. What does his being the alpha mean? He has to take care of the other dragons too; they both have duties and responsibilities, to their people and each other. So in httyd3, Hiccup knows Grimmel is of the type to be unchangeable, and beyond just Grimmel, there are war lords eyeing Berk's dragons for entirely different reasons, for conquering, for destruction. Berk itself has been put on the map as a prime target, and Hiccup owes to his people a safe space to live. Their moving off the map makes sense, and with the end of the movie practically wiping any opponent who knows of their new location, it is safe. But it won't stay that way. And after entire seasons and movies where bad people just endlessly spawn and take the place of the last, he makes the decision to let go, just like Toothless does. Not because he forsook his ideals, not because he doesn't care about Toothless, but because real love means being able to let go. They both love each other enough to know where the other belongs; guiding their people. A lot of people say 'then all of this was for nothing' and I can only say if the value of something hinges on its eternity nothing is going to be worth anything. Hiccup and Toothless are who they are because of each other, and Berk will forever be a bastion of love for dragons. That *is* something.

Human greed doesn't end. The ending of httyd feels appropriate because to this day, I cannot say we deserve to have dragons. Realistically, how could they continue fighting? I can't imagine it because I know anything in that vein will feel more like an empty dream. What httyd3 offers is the hope that one day we'll be worthy, not an empty platitude that things will work out just because we love, but if we are willing to work for it, then it'll mean something. I don't think httyd 3 betrays the message of the franchise at all, I think it's just willing to assume the full breadth of the responsibility that comes with protecting and loving nature.

---

All that being said, I have my own gripes with the ending still LMAO, for exemple I'd really have loved a more consistent continuity with the shows, and romance plots are just not my thing so the whole light fury business is so eh to me. Astrid and Hiccup earned their ending but I've got a lil beef with the light fury smh

Fun fact too, I once got insane enough to think I'd make a comic or write a sequel to the httyd franchise, where a reincarnation of hiccup would come to Berk after an accident, losing his leg. He'd move from the city to this very isolated and rustic island from where his parents are from, and he'd encounter tales and myths of dragons that even the locals don't all fully believe in, but still worship and adore. Then, dragons would start appearing again due to the ocean pollution destroying the Hidden World's ecosystem and forcing them out. I did not have much of a plan but I envisioned a rather dark tone due to our modern world. I'd imagine a mass hunting using modern weaponry, people opening up dragon trades or sticking them in zoos idk. It wasn't a positive idea but it is the most realistic way it'd go down. I don't have a good opinion on humanity tbh. I did research man it was crazy, I rewatched everything and I do mean everything, while actively taking notes for the worldbuilding, so any fact about dragons or cultures went straight into a google doc. Maybe I should work on it again, I miss httyd man

[streets-in-paradise]

Anonymous Hero - Hector of Troy x (Fem)Warrior!Reader (requested)

Troy (2004) Oneshot 

Requested by @g-m-kaye​ 

“ (...) If you’re still taking fic requests for TROY (?) I’d be super duper excited if you’d write an AU fic for Hector x reader character where Hector, instead of being married to Andromache, falls for a slender Trojan warrior who has his back in the first melee… but unexpectedly turns out to be a woman when Hector demands the warrior remove his helmet & reveal “his” identity 👀 (I’ve always loved the “girl masquerading as boy” trope - ever since Shakespeare!) … and pls do make it as steamy as you like!! Lol (...)” 

Hope you will like this, darling! I loved writing it. 

Word Count 2.5 K 

Warnings: Hector going through a Li Shang bi panic, Single Hector AU ( sorry, Andromache. You are great, but we love your man). Very few proofreading ( it’s almost 3 AM and i’m tired, but wanted to get it posted)

Summary: In the heat of battle during the arrival of the greeks Hector ends up  greatly impressed by the courageous response of a singular soldier, but this stranger refuses to claim ríghts on the feat. Feeling even more intrigued about him afterwards, the prince is determined to find him in full unawareness of how the peculiar fighter has quite a few more surprises to give.  

Tags: @mysticaldeanvoidhorse @helie-brain @rfkfan​

The sound of the bell brought the expected news nobody wanted to hear. Greek veils in the horizon, a thousand ships about to reach trojan shore, giving the impression that Agamemnon had emptied the continent to avenge the insulted honor of his brother. As the city observed the spectacle with horror, heralds were calling all the available men to fight in what would be the first defense in a crushing war. The disastrous numerical difference forced desperate measures and the army commanded by Prince Hector needed to engross its lines somehow. For so, many soldiers who weren’t in optimal conditions were needed: young lads stepping into combat too soon and old men following the example of Glaucus. 

Fillment additions, men that were there for numbers but weren’t warriors in the heroic sense of the term. They had very little possibilities of success against the myrmidons, fearless and bloodthirst beasts that were presenting a hard challenge to the Apollonian Guard even before the landing of Ajax. If some of the best in Troy were suffering because of them, arming that sacrificial reserve sounded like pointless cruelty. Those men were doomed to be nothing more than fresh meat to engross the downs of Achilles and Ajax, easily removable obstacles slowing down their encounter with more qualified enemies. No one would have expected much of them, at least until one proved the assumptions of the strategists to be completely wrong. 

After Achilles performed miracles throwing a spear that killed Tecton from an impossible distance, doing so with a cocky bragger naturality, the elite warriors were completely discouraged. Even Hector experienced true horror for the first time in many years, sensibly affected by the death of the friend who had always got his back in the battlefield. Despite the myrmidons being implicitly warned to leave him for their leader, many tried to take that contextual advantage doing their shots in trying to take down the prince. Clearly, not everyone was willing to listen after being exhorted to fight through a hubris induced speech about reaching immortal glory. 

In that spirit-wrecking point of the battle, with a temple destroyed and priests slaughtered by an enemy that knew no limits, the disorganized crowd of elite warriors fleeing left a chance for the relegated men of Troy to shine. A small, slender soldier that could have made Ajax laugh if he would have faced him courageously assumed the role of Tecton protecting the prince in the chaos. Hector was equally moved and amazed by the man fighting beside him. He looked weaker than his brother, probably a young lad from that desperate aid reserve, yet he was fighting with the push of a man twice his size. He followed all the way through the carnage inside the temple and would have gone to the end of the line accompanying him to the encounter of Achilles, if Hector himself wouldn’t have commanded otherwise. The sacrificial devotion of that soldier felt personal beyond any measures, it left a mark on his memory that eclipsed the shocking first impression Achilles wanted to feel being causing him. 

Although relegated due to his fragile appearance, that nameless young man fought with the kind of honor the famous greek warlord lacked and Hector was finding a strange sense of hope in that. He also couldn’t help admiring some of his gracious movements at times, wondering if he could perhaps have been a disguise of the god defending his altar. That would have at least explained the most incredible aspect of the situation: his unexplainable attraction towards him. 

No details of the episode were referenced in the war council that night. Archeptolemus, his political rival in religious circles, would have used it against him and the prince was already very much irritated by his misuse of religion to discredit him. If the soft looking soldier was Apollo fighting beside him or just a regular mortal he had just fallen for, he would have to figure it out by himself. The hopeful reminder of him helped the prince tolerate the newest terrible choice of his brother. Although Paris promised an easy resolution meant to take place the next morning, he was walking to his death and he wasn’t ready to let him die. Unlike his mysterious new favorite, the youngest prince didn’t possess any dormant courage to be released in a critical situation. 

Paris needed to meet that man, either to exhort miraculous bravery in him or to make him desist from that purpose. It was the excuse that Hector invented to himself in his mildly desperate search for him. 

“ Troy is worth fighting for because even the simplest of our men can make a difference. “ He was saying to his men in formation during the motivational speech that morning.” Agamemnon brought to us a parade of famous heroes without any inside cohesion. He expects us to tremble upon him because his battalions are all commanded by one of those, but yesterday we learned a valuable lesson. Their army is weak where ours is stronger. They are glory seekers harangued by leaders who think like arrogant children, we are men fighting for our country. We don’t rely on the fame of our heroes, but in the strength of our hearts!”  

Ovations cutted him off for an instant, but he waited enough to continue and evaluated the reaction. 

“ Yesterday we lost a hero, a man I loved like a brother, but that loss didn’t paralyzed us.Someone else made his way reclaiming his spot beside me. Not a fighter in a chariot, not an apollonian, but a simple man. He performed heroic acts worthy of being sung, but disappeared without claiming any authorship for his feat. While greeks are too preoccupied with making history to care about each other, even the smallest trojan is already a hero.” 

Hector roamed the extension of the front lines on his horse,visually searching for the reaction revealing the man in question.  

“ We have humble anonymous heroes that double theirs in courage and worth, and I now command this man to show himself and reclaim the honors he deserves.” 

A tense silence followed the end of his speech, soldiers looking at their sides full with confusion searching for the one refusing such a high reward. 

“ It is an order.” Hector finally reminded them. “ In the name of the loyalty he displayed, I demand him to give one step ahead.” 

Suddenly, a slender figure emerged from the crowd and the prince got off his horse as he approached. His evident satisfaction made Paris hold a chuckle, especially because he noticed how his brother observed him. 

“ I want the army to be a witness of my gratitude. “ Hector explained to him once he was finally standing in front of him. Only a shorter distance separated them. “ In a battle won by men desperate for recognition, you saved my life asking nothing in return. You have won my admiration and sincere affection; Troy must remember your name.” 

The multitude started cheering until the honored fighter removed his helmet, surrendering himself to the pressure about knowing his identity. A sepulchral silence followed his movements, confusion spreading even further than before and the youngest prince was the only smiling face easy to spot. 

Hector discovered a beautiful woman staring back at him and never before he had found anyone so desirable.His lips slightly parted despite him trying to pretend he wasn’t observing her in complete awe. 

“ Do with me what you judge properly, my lord.” She fearlessly exclaimed. “ I surrender myself to you for disciplinary action.” 

He recognized her, a young maiden from a remarkable family of trojan aristocrats. Firstborn daughter and her only brother was fifteen years old. The boy was named Ilus, at least he remembered that, but he couldn’t remember much of her and it frustrated him. 

" I must assume you are here as a replacement for Ilus Peiroide. " He asked her in an affirmation. " A young boy, too young. His frame provided an easy hideout for you. " 

" He is my brother. " The lady replicated. " Is the king of Mycenae the only one who can fight for his brother? I would rather bring dishonor to my family than burying Ilus. " 

Her words resonated deeply with him. Not only his fondness of her kept increasing, Hector simply couldn't blame her. However, he had to act as a leader. 

" At least allow her to plead her case, i like her." Paris commented, doing his brother the favor of saying what he couldn't. " This is my war, one that is being fought over a woman I brought here. Wouldn't it be a blatant hypocrisy if we don't let  this girl speak?"

She smiled at him, only deviating her attention from Hector for a brief instant, to what Paris replied with a friendly wink. 

" You don't have much time, the greeks will arrive soon..." Hector pointed out. " Your brave acts are not being questioned, but you must make yourself accountable for your transgression. Not to me, but to our countrymen." 

The intense eye contact going on between them was loaded with a tension that didn't resemble a grudge of any kind.  

" Look at them and tell them why you did this. " 

" I listened to your speeches and felt the call deep inside, in my heart. " She provocatively replied, admitting reasons beyond the initial sympathetic motive palatable to their societal perceptions. " My prince, you harangue the men speaking about freedom, but the rules of war don't threaten theirs as heavily as they menace ours. Are we all going to pretend we don't know what happened to Princess Briseis just because the King can't stand the shame? A woman doesn't simply disappear or dies in war, she is taken by the winner. Women don't get the privilege of dying, we are the ones who will be reduced to slavery if the city falls. If Helen came here searching for her freedom to love... Why can't I defend my own freedom, and all my countrywomen? " 

Even the ones who had reason to present objections couldn't argue with that, the presence of Helen was a disruptive element for trojan society. Her existence there had proven to challenge the traditional conceptions for quite a few established institutions, marriage being the main in the list but not the only one.   

" If this ends in battle, you have one more chance to prove your value to the city. Only one, and i am granting it to you in honor of the great service you performed for me yesterday." Hector warned her. " Consider my debt paid with this indulgence. " 

She smiled and that time it was for him. Hector had to pretend coldness, but he would have done anything to see that again. 

" I will not disappoint you, my prince. If you pick me, I will follow you to the gates of Tartarus. " 

His pulse accelerated hearing that, making him feel the improper effect that the woman had on him.

The promise turned out to be true, since another opportunity for fighting presented itself and she did something impressive. Trojans weren't as surprised as the greeks were when Hector slaughtered Menelaus to save Paris from that hopeless combat, unleashing a new battle through the breaking of the pact. To them it was clear that the story of the shieldmaiden who defied the concept of honor replacing her younger brother to save him must had inspired the heir prince. Curiously but not casually, a great victory was obtained and both performed the highlights of it. Barely after Hector triumphed in his solitary combat against Ajax, the lady forced the definitive retreat of the greeks for the day by attacking the mycenaeans. 

Her spear throw killed the charioteer of Agamemnon. Not satisfied with that, she wounded him with the sword as he was attempting to control the horses. Nothing severe, the blade barely caressed his arm, but it reminded the power delirious king that he was a mortal and in that opportunity she did reclaimed the feat knowing it would increase his humiliation.  

The very same men who were judging her in silence that morning celebrated her alongside Hector in the afternoon. She was invited to the palace, where King Priam allowed her to be acknowledged through his son's choice of allowing her involvement. She promised him to help in the case of her niece, if she could be allowed after the immense offense she gave to the supreme greek king. Helen herself praised her bravery, granting hers and Paris' support altogether. 

It was like a dream, a very vivid dream where she was getting noticed being who she wanted to be. Even Hector, the man she had hopelessly loved in silence for many years, was looking at her in a different way. 

Among the ladies of trojan high society she never felt particularly special and nothing made her feel that way. Despite being daughter of one of the local nobles in his own city, Hector barely noticed her. She used to be one of the many silly girls looking at him with pointless adoration at some special social event while his eyes followed only the frame of Princess Andromache of Thebe. A woman who represented everything she wasn't, a perfectly adjusted lady any man would want for a wife.

The order of the world was turned upside down, Hector couldn't take his eyes of her. Even without the disguise he still seemed to admire her and she felt it hitting way deeper than what the moral undertones of his speech implied. 

" If I have been an inspiration for you, let me say I can finally repay you." He shamelessly admitted her as soon as they were left alone. " You inspired me today, sometimes you need strength to leave your honor behind for love." 

" Is that an invitation?" She teased him. " Don't keep me waiting, I'm not a child anymore."

Hector sipped some wine without breaking eye contact through the action, then left the cup to subtly lay a hand on her cheek.

" Then you must be aware of how you are making me feel." 

She lifted her head just a bit, showing how delighted with his touch she was. 

" How can I doubt it when you are looking at me like this?" She purred with want. " I fully meant what I told you this morning. Pick me, I could be yours if you want me. "

Infatuated as he was, he could have proposed ríght there after that suggestive comeback, but he límited himself to kissing her hoping that could help him slow down. 

[smallearthboundfindings]

"now ask about ness for an equally long essay" formally requesting the essay ^__^ unless other people got the same idea to ask about him and in which case go with any other main character you feel like doing (although the more obscure ones have been fun to read/think about)!

Woo, Ness the Bess, let's go!! (Nope, no other Ness requests yet!)

Unfortunately, now I am faced with a new problem: I have TOO much material to work with! (Ness's section alone on my headcanons doc is 5 pages, 12px Times New Roman, Double Spaced.)

But you know what? I’ll just pick the one I can elaborate on the most. It also goes into a larger theory of mine, so here goes: this one's about Ness's homesickness status effects, a few other things, and the implications this has on how PSI works as a whole.

Here's the original snippet from my doc:

"Explaining his homesickness status, [Ness] has a tendency to become overwhelmed under stress, which can either weaken, disable, or throw his powers completely out of his control to spark out randomly by his emotional state. Remembering home is just the most common manifestation of what his brain will try to calm him down with but, ironically, this tends to just make the problem worse due to his sentimentality."

I’ll elaborate upon this because I think it has more to be said.

PSI is clearly heavily linked to its user’s emotions. For one, the magic butterfly that restores it is stated to “make Ness and his friends relax”. This implies that a calm mind is required to use psychic moves. Not only that, but there is also the “Can’t Concentrate” status condition, which, guess what? Disables psychic moves. These combined with the fact that things like homesickness can cause missed attacks show that, yes, emotional state absolutely has an effect on the moves. If you are not stable enough, they simply will not work.

Look at Giygas (corrupted form), for example, who clearly is not controlling any of those moves you cannot comprehend the true form of. They seem almost random and for his clear chaotic state of disarray, it makes sense that the attacks become just as random.

So emotional disarray can either disable your powers, make you use them less efficiently, or throw them at random it seems.

Now, most of the time, Ness is a pretty jolly kid, but you know he is absolutely emotionally driven by his family (has to call both his mom and his dad to do well). And something interesting about the homesickness status, is that it’s only relevant in the middle of the game. See, I’m copy-pasting but the stats on that are as follows:

Level 1-15: 0/256

Level 16-30: 3/256

Level 31-75: 2/256

Level 76-99: 0/256

Here’s what I think is happening here…

At first, he’s very close to home, so no problem! He’s just like, “Yay! Adventure! :D :D”

But once he’s out of Onett, then he starts thinking, “Am I out of my mind? Is this too far? What if?” And it’s clear he thinks these things too if not evidently clear by Lumine Hall’s dialogue. He clearly puts a lot of pressure on himself to keep the others safe at a certain point where it is no longer just fun and games until he has actually and literally fought his inner doubts in Magicant and returns sure of himself and brave (aka. the Lv. 76-99 range).

So yeah, that’s what I think! Ness was not always the best with his powers because he channelled his sentimentality in the wrong way. It’s not that he couldn’t be sentimental, being sweet is part of his character! Look at his Magicant and he’s clearly still trying to justify Porky no matter all he’s done. He has so much optimism in the world, yet doubts in himself, ironically. He seems like the type to mask these doubts in his humor but if becomes too large, he simply cannot bottle it further. It’s just that he had to learn to believe in himself to be able to calm his nerves from the inside.

PSI users also accidentally using PSI under emotional distress is also great for angst. Just imagine one of them clearly trying to hide they feel scared or something but little flecks of colors are just sparking off of them, making it clear to their friends that something’s wrong but they don’t know what? Oh, that’s good for the angst. I could say something really heartbreaking about Claus now. But I won’t! Cause this ain’t about him!

But anyway, there’s your PSI/Ness’s homesickness essay! Hope that was essay-y enough for you! Thanks for asking!

[sapphire-weapon]

I need to know your thoughts on the Winters Family storyline in 7 and 8 because I’ve never seen a storyline come to an end so abrupt in my life. At least, in my opinion, that storyline ended too soon, and I’m convinced that storyline ended as abruptly as it did because there were many people that were like, “omg stop making games about the Winters, I don’t care about this family!,” and we only got like, two games about the Winters family.

as a disclaimer: i've never played 7 or 8. first person games make me motion sick. and while i know that 8 has a third person option now, the game was clearly not built around nor optimized for it, so i still don't really have much of an interest in playing it. i've only watched the cutscenes for each of them once and also read the files for them once.

but this is one of those things where we need to look at the games' development, because that, like RE4 OG's development, tells the story behind the story. to look at the story just on its own does it a disservice and excludes important context.

to my understanding (and again, my understanding could be flawed because this isn't my area of expertise), the winters storyline was only supposed to be RE7 to serve as a soft reboot of the series after RE6 nearly killed it. like, RE7 wasn't written with RE8 in mind. but then RE7 was really successful, and capcom wanted to do a test run of pacing and assets for RE4make (because RE4make was really going to be the deciding factor as to whether fans forgave capcom and trusted them moving forward; they absolutely COULD NOT fuck up RE4make), so they went "fuck it" and slapped village together.

because ethan was never meant to be the long-term direction for the franchise. RE7 literally only existed as a way to pull back away from the disaster shitshow of RE6 and see if capcom was still capable of making a survival horror game people liked. i think that's why chris ("chris") was put in at the very end -- because the story was always meant to go right back to the legacy characters.

so basically, like... i don't want to be a jerk and be like "be grateful you got what you did" re: RE8, but at the same time... RE7 was just a relief of a success story, and RE8 was a bunch of independent circumstances coming together in such a way for the game to take the shape that it did -- because capcom's focus during the development of 8 was primarily the remakes.

according to dusk golem, there was a period of time in which RE2make, RE3make, RE4make, RE8, and RE9 were all in development concurrently. we don't know anything about RE9 yet, but with it being "the most ambitious RE title ever attempted" i'm willing to bet it stars the legacy cast -- so RE8 sticks out as the "one of these things is not like the others."

so, in that sense, with all that taken into account...

i think the ending of RE8 was fine, because that storyline had to end, because that storyline was never the intended direction for RE in the first place. and i also think that the ending of RE8 was a better sendoff for it than the ending of RE7 was.

my honest, actual opinion is that these should've never been numbered titles to begin with. i get why they were -- i get that capcom needed as many RE fans' eyes on RE7 as possible in order to win back their good graces, and a spinoff title was never going to get them the results that they wanted, but like.

man RE6 just fucked everything up for everyone, dude.

[trickstercaptain]

@thecodekeeper sent: Random headcanon time B)): How does Jack feel when he sees Teague with his grandkids/wayward kids? What does he think about the fact that Teague is more mellow and patient around Henry? Does he blame himself for Teague's past abuse? Does he hold any resentment toward Henry? Is there any internal attempt to make sense of his fathers nonsense? Basically talk about how Jack feels watching his dad display a seemingly more mellow and protective demeanor toward others.

       alright this is a Big topic so buckle up everyone lmao. I guess we can sort of split this into two parts, because there are two key instances of where Teague displays this behaviour in terms of verses we both write in: one is, as you mentioned, in Jack's later adult life where he witnesses Teague being more mellow around the likes of Henry or his own children ( depending on verse ), and the other is adolescent Jack who sees Teague being less harsh and let's just call it what it is lmao not abusive around young people who are roughly the same age as him ( I will likely draw on the Hawkins AU if only because it's an optimal example of this ).

       even though the instinctual reaction on Jack's part is very similar in both scenarios, there's a key difference: watching Teague as an adolescent treat his peers in a more positive light than he treats him is arguably much tougher for Jack than watching Teague do it later in life, because as an adolescent that poor treatment of him is in the present tense, it is actively happening to him. in their Hawkins verse, for instance, Jack will watch Teague treat any of the kids that he teaches or mentors in a gruff, but ultimately fair and decent way but then be home alone with him later on that same day and be victim to the ugliness that defines their own dynamic. as an older adult, the poor treatment left its scars but Jack is several decades removed from it actively happening to him, and is in more of an independent position to distance himself from Teague too, which I think in many ways makes it easier for Jack to deal with ( Jack before he either leaves Shipwreck at the age of 20 in canon, or moves out in modern verse at the age of 18, is trapped within that abusive dynamic regardless of how much of a hands on parent Teague actually is ).

       it doesn't make Jack feel any less like shit though lmao. all it really does is reinforce the idea in Jack's head that he is the problem, because if Teague can actually be a decent, if slightly grumpy and scary, human being to other people, particularly young people who he may have a similar mentor-like relationship to that he should to him, then clearly the missing link here is himself. clearly there is something wrong with him that didn't or doesn't measure up to these other individuals who have an easier dynamic with Teague. it makes Jack intensely jealous ( which is an emotion that he doesn't really feel all that often ), and he hates this particularly later in life looking on at the likes of Henry or his own kids because he absolutely should not be jealous or resentful of his own children or anyone he views in a parental way. this then makes him internalise those feelings because he's ashamed of having those sorts of ugly thoughts, and it kinda lands with Jack just distancing himself from Teague and Henry/his kids whenever they are together. ultimately there is a part of him that is relieved, too, that they are not subject to the same abuse or treatment that he was ( and that he does not have to intervene to protect them ), but it's easier for him to just not be a position where he has to bear witness to it.

       a similar thing is the case for younger Jack too, he will actively try to avoid watching Teague with others he may have that kind of mentor/mentee bond with ( so in their Hawkins verse, this is why Jack does not take music as a subject at school or put himself in a position where he has to spend any time with Teague while at school ). but this version of Jack is definitely angrier about it too, mainly because it is all much more raw and affecting him in the present. he will internalise that anger too because that's what he does, but it definitely contributes to his unhappiness and volatility within his abusive situation. in both scenarios, it also makes Jack feel invalidated too — because it is that classic thing of abuse victims/survivors thinking that they will not be believed because their abuser is a decent person to everyone else they encounter. Jack finds it difficult to open up about this part of his life anyway, but this just makes it even less likely that he will be honest about it to others. as an older adult even more so, because he also does not necessarily want to cause tension between Teague and Henry or Teague and whoever and insert himself into their relationship as a point of contention.

       because it's such an emotional reaction, I'm not really sure if Jack has the capacity to rationalise or try to reason why Teague acts a particular way around Henry, or his kids, or whoever it is. I feel like the strong, difficult emotions it elicits in him makes it difficult for Jack to reflect in a way that isn't just jumping to the conclusion that he is the problem, so he probably just tries not to think about it because avoidance is one of his go-to coping mechanisms. it's something he needs therapy for, 100% lmao.

[padfootdaredmetoo]

(The Witcher) Could you make one where you find out your pregnant with Geralts baby and he is in disbelief because he cant have kids you know, but you obviously only have seggs with him. Then you get all sad because he is just silent and you start freaking out. ?? i know its long and you dont have to do it but it was a thought.

First ever Witcher request! This is so exciting!!!! hope you all enjoy it!!!!! I'm only 3/4th through the first book so please understand that I don't know too much yet. Other than the TV show - which I could rant about forever.

Rated PG: Family feels, pregnancy, mothering, panic & anxiety, happy ending!

He lay there looking down at her stomach while she slept. Disbelief washed over him as he grew sure that it was indeed a soft heart beat separate from your own. Ciri was asleep a small ways away, but her heart beat was clearly her own. 

A baby. But how? He thought closely over the past month or so. You were by his side the entire time, except for when you stayed at camp as he slaughtered monsters. Never were you left at a Tavern alone, certainly not out of sight long enough to conceive a baby…. Even then if his eyes weren’t on her Ciri was next to her. She never appeared to be assaulted or upset, surely Ciri would have said something. He closed his eyes for a moment chasing those thoughts far from his mind. He would only wake you up if he moved or tensed, you needed your rest more than ever. 

Looking over her peaceful face, it only became more obvious. She looked different, a tinge to her skin that seemed unmistakable now. He’d known she’d seemed different, but this was not on his list of possibilities. 

A sense of panic started to creep up the back of his neck. She can’t be sleeping on the ground like this, out in the open. He didn't want her to tag along initially. But he needed the help with Ciri, and she’d been too attached to you, leaving you behind would have only caused her further suffering. Everything had changed now. The both of you had someone else to think of, growing in her belly. He would do everything he could to get her to Kaer Morhen. If the baby was his or not, looking down at you sleeping, the anxiety to keep you out of trouble overpowered everything else. 

_________________________________________________________________________

Geralt was getty bossy again. Pushing you greater distances, somehow there was a sudden void of monsters to slay leaving him grumpier than ever. He was pensive, deep in thought, and very… bossy. 

It was mostly little things, insisting that you travel on Roach, except for the occasional meadow in which you could stretch your legs. He’d spend forty minutes trying to assess the land and area for an optimal sleeping spot. Instead of giving you some privacy with bathing, he wouldn't let you near water if he wasn't next to you. His gaze on your body was always welcome, but you couldn't understand the look in his eyes. A look that was becoming more and more worrisome. 

Ciri had spoken to him, wanting to test the new rules he was making up as she always did. Unexpectedly she seemed to agree with him, taking more time to help you out. She seemed burdened by something, and you watched as she felt the need to fuss over you. You felt tired enough to allow it, which made you worry. Did you look as unwell as you felt? 

In three days of travel you had covered a distance that normally would have taken a week. Leaving you with two more sleeps till Kaer Morhen. 

You felt nauseous, head woozy at times. There was a nervousness that was creeping up on you stemming from his weird behavior. Perhaps he’d changed his mind? Meeting his father figure and the rest of his brothers, maybe it was too big a step. Very few non-witchers had been there, maybe you weren't meant to be one of them. He had to think about what was best for Ciri, had you done something wrong? 

The day progressed and you were left to swim in your own thoughts, most of them about being rejected and left on the doorstep. Eventually you stumbled on to the way your body felt. Sore breasts, nausea, and no matter how much water you drank an awful metallic taste in your mouth. You knew what this would normally mean, you’d missed two periods but pushed it out of your mind as it was impossible for Geralt to… Oh. But what if it wasn't. 

Or what if it was impossible and you got pregnant without knowing? You’d not been drugged out at any point. No loss of memory. The only time Geralt's eyes weren't on the two of you was when he was killing stuff in the woods, even then Ciri would stay close to your side ready  - what about that sketchy bath water at that one traven - could that be it? 

What if it was his, but he wouldn't believe you - then he threw you out. What if he did believe you but then the rest of the Witchers didn't and then he threw you out leaving you to brave the cold winter road alone. What if he thought you were a bad mother to Ciri? What if everyone thought you were a bad mother? What if everyone was fine but Ciri resented you? 

Gods, you did not have enough money. Not to mention leaving Ciri would cause you tremendous pain, you doubted you’d survive the winter. Then you thought of what was to come, how you would most likely be at it alone, your stomach twisted painfully and your vision swayed.

“Ger-” You whispered before everything went black. Thankfully he has that ridiculous hearing, he caught you holding you tightly. Once he had you settled on a fallen tree, you watched as he scanned the forest. Ciri did the same hand on the hilt of her sword. 

 The thought of losing them caused your eyes to prickle, you closed your eyes tightly and he steadied you. You rested your forehead against his shoulder. You thought about the humiliation of being sent out of the fortress and decided you’d much rather skip doing the mountain path all together, rather than twice. 

“Ciri, give us a moment” She nodded at your words, and you immediately wanted to put on a better face to cure some of the worry weighing on her. She went to take Roach to a stream nearby. Geralt had his eyes on her, so you took a deep breath. 

“I’m pregnant.” The words flew out of your mouth on a breath of courage. You kept your eyes shut tightly. “It might be something else - I don't know how- I feel - but all I know for sure is something’s off.” You rambled quietly, still too afraid to move.

His grip tightened on you slightly and you both sat there listening to the forest sounds, the soft murmur of Ciri’s voice as she talked to Roach. 

He was quiet, very quiet. The nerves were becoming unbearable and tears started to roll down your cheeks. You huffed out a deep breath trying to calm down but it only gave away how broken up you were. 

He cradled your face, causing you to finally meet those amber eyes. 

“Just breathe, what hurts?” His concern wrapped around you like a warm blanket. His hand rested gently on your stomach. 

“I can’t -” You couldn't finish your words, your chest was heaving. 

“You can. Just breathe.” He responded calmly. Eventually you managed to calm down, his hands and gaze never leaving you. 

“I don't know what to do? I don't know how this -? But when I finally had the thought - I just know - that it’s - I know that it's true.” 

“It’s true.” He confirmed with an unreadable facial expression. “I could hear the heartbeat - hence the rush to get back to Kaer Morhen.” 

“You knew and didn't say anything!?” You swatted his shoulder without thinking. 

“I wanted to get you somewhere safe, so you wouldn't worry.” Finally some emotion in his tone. Empathy radiated off of him, and it made you want to cry again. “I think that glowing hot spring may have been a fertility pool. I can’t think of any other possibility.” 

That would explain it well enough. Panic surged through you again and you gripped the leather of his armor the best you could. 

“But it’s yours right?” An edge of panic was back in your voice. 

“Heart beat is slightly off, so I'd assume so.” He said with a faint smile on his face, that quickly disappeared. “If you're well enough I want to keep  moving.” 

“You're still taking me there?” 

“Of course. It’s not the most comfortable, however it is the safest place. Vesemir will know what to do.” He paused for a moment. “ I don’t have anywhere else to take you. I’ll send word for Triss and Yen when we arrive. If it's too unbearable they can help take you elsewhere if you prefer.” 

You thought about his words. He wanted you there. He wanted you. He thought his family would want you too. You burst into tears, shouting when he tried to pull away. 

“It’s not as bad as the legends make it out to be” He tried to comfort you.

“No- It’s - Gods.” You took a deep breath. “I thought you’d be embarrassed or ashamed. Wouldn’t want to take me.” 

“No.” He answered simply. 

“I don't care where I am as long as I’m next to you.” You hugged him as tightly as you could. “Plus the only bad thing I’ve heard about is the rats?” 

He let out a hum. 

______________________________

It was a fertility pool. Something Yen was beyond happy to learn about. Her and Triss came to help you with the pregnancy as it was very unusual. 

Kaer Mohen was worse than the legends, but also far far better at the same time. Lots of rats, two supernatural incidents, and it was very very cold. After the first few weeks, the girls arrived bringing a great deal of goods Geralt had requested.

They made a room for you that was beyond beautiful and warm. The first night you slept in it you realized the extent they went through to make it comfortable was due to the fact that this would be your room for much longer than a winter. 

Nine months flew by as you were surrounded by your new family. You insisted on cooking as you couldn’t train with Ciri and sitting around was unbearable. 

You still couldn’t believe how lucky you were. Everyone here had dropped everything to help you, Ciri was over the moon initially. Assuring you and Geralt that she’ll help and is good with babies. It didn't take a mind reader to know that she was trying to put on a brave face, scared that maybe she’d be replaced. 

She’d rest her head on your lap after supper telling the large bump all sorts of things. You were always amazed at how young she was and yet she knew so much more than you did about things. She’d go on about all the history and lesson’s she’d learnt as a child. You’d let her lay there, running her hands through her hair hoping it would reassure her, she’d never spoken this much in the time that you’d been with her. 

“If I tell her everything now, when she’s out in the world it will come easier to her. That’s what my grandma did for me when I was in my mum” She finally said one night when Eskel asked her why she was telling you all this stuff. 

“Ah, and it's a girl then, eh?” Vesamir asked.

“Of course! It’s going to be exhausting being the only girl witcher.” He let out a hearty laugh and she stuck her tongue out at him. 

You wanted to laugh but the thought of having your baby out there, both your babies out there fighting like he did - you looked to Geralt to find your feelings in his face. 

“She’ll be in great hands.” Eskel said and you were happy to hear her go back to talking about the different types of desert plants and how they impact a significant portion of some forgein economy. 

_____

You were prepping the stew for dinner when your water broke. Eight long hours later you had brought a baby into the world. 

She suckled on to your breast, looking like an old man covered in tomato sauce and yet she was the most beautiful thing you’d laid eyes on. White peach fuzz and golden amber eyes stared up at you confirming that she was indeed her fathers daughter. Geralt looked an interesting mix of exhausted, terrified, and adoration. 

Once the after birth was sorted Triss had a healing bath made for you. You offered the sleeping bundle to Geralt, but he shook his head. Causing your heart to stop.

“She’s too small.” He whispered. You opened his arm and placed the small bundle there showing him how to hold her. “I’ve never had to hold a baby before.” he said softly, tracing his finger across the top of her tiny forehead. 

“You need to get into the bath.” Triss helped you stand up. “And you need to let Cirilla in here before she chews her arm off.” 

“She’s not slept?!” you exclaimed.

“That's his problem.” She nodded to Geralt before helping you to the door. Ciri was there in the hallway ready to pounce on you.

“Are you alright! Where's the baby!” 

“I’m fine, love. Your baby sister’s in with your father. Go help him till I'm back.” You watched her face light up as she moved past you into the room. 

After the world's nicest bath you moved into the bedroom to see Geralt watching the baby in one arm with Ciri tucked under his other arm. Both asleep. 

“I see you all survived.” You said with a smile, you took the babe from him taking her place under his arm. He watched as you fed her again. 

You felt him press a kiss to the top of your head, you thought of how scared he looked during the whole process. Watched as you fought your own battle, unable to help in any way.

“Thank you.” You said softly as your eyes were getting heavy. He chuckled softly.

“Thank you doesn’t begin to cover the amount of gratitude I feel towards you.” He whispered. You tilted your head back and felt his lips move against yours, sometimes words aren't necessary. 

The love he felt for his family was always evident in everything he did.

Tags: @kpopgirlbtssvt

[ramblingaboutglee]

Do you have an opinion about Blaine’s character and how they changed him each season?

If this blog has proved anything, it’s that I can ramble, so here we go. 

Watching Glee independently of fandom was... weird. There are a lot of times I delved into fandom after and saw some plot point that I’d loved and found a perfect culmination, actually considered out-of-character or some such. From what I can tell, S2 was such a huge point in-fandom and with fanfic that the fan interpretations of a lot of characters ended up superceding the characters as they were on the show (take Will Schuester getting retconned to Journey superfan in one episode, when in S1 Journey was sung because of its association to Finn when Will wasn’t leading the group, so the show was clearly aware of what I assume are fandom jokes esp in regard to Will not listening to the kids and willing to play it up, and it did seem to happen at a few points). 

All that to say, with Klaine being as big as it was, I feel like Blaine got hit with that harder than most? How much was writers responding to some fandom-takes, how much was the televised version of the character departing from the fanon iteration, and how much was retconning is hard to say.

So, to go season by season. 

Whoops sorry, yeah this is going on for a while. 

Originally... Blaine didn’t really have much of a character? Season 2 was very bare-bones on the character front, they’d shifted the show’s focus to what was almost a sketch comedy at times so everyone was just one or two traits ramped up to insanity with little cohesion, Blaine existed solely in relation to Kurt, and he was ‘advice-giving gay kid, who’s less experienced than he lets on.’ (Like, he’s less sure of even his sexuality than Kurt). That was it. But I imagine this was also the time fanfic solidified him in a lot of people’s minds, when a lot of it wasn’t reflective of who Blaine was on the show? Especially with his minimal arc being presenting himself as more wise and knowing than Kurt, when at the end of the day this turned out to basically be an act/how he presents himself, and him being just as capable of misreading situations (Gap attack) as anyone. But if you read fic when you’d only seen him in his element with all the Warblers at his back and none of the layers being peeled back, I can see that messing with perception of him.

Season 3 defined him more clearly as a hopless romantic and a dreamer, both making more sense of his character, and fitting in with the themes of the show. The optimist who sometimes does questionable things in the name of that optimism, but trusts that things will work out well. Cliche views of sex, overcoming odds, romance... Which justifies his previous characterisation, though cracks start to show as he adjusts from being a big deal in the Warblers, to The New Kid. This carries on to season 4, where he faces he consequences of those aspirations, and acknowledges that switching schools for a guy is, well, a romantic idea in a storybook but kinda ends poorly in reality, following on from his alienation as well when the New Directions aren’t as in-sync with him as the Warblers were. Cue Blaine going from basically the head of a gay cult show choir in a private school with strict no bullying policies, in regular contact with his boyfriend, to alone in a homophobic less well-to-do school. He made the decision out of cheerful, unrealistic idealism, and it ended up the way it inevitably would. 

Which is when the meta element comes in again. Blaine is definitely acting different in season 4, but he’s also existing in a different context. For me, at least, it felt like natural development? He’s the hopeless romantic who feels like he can’t relate to his boyfriend, because Kurt’s graduated high school and moved to NY, Kurt has a completely different life and set of life experiences to Blaine. Heck, the fact Kurt ends up in an open relationship in S4, while the end of his dynamic with Blaine was down to him sleeping with someone else says a lot. Post high school, Kurt’s development is necessarily supercharged because that’s just how life goes once you’re out away from home for the first time, S4 was admittedly too overstretched to fully justify it all, but the fact that the NY cast had to adjust to a massively different context was one of the conflicts of the season. Blaine, meanwhile, is still in McKinley. Still in Lima. Unsurprisingly, he lags behind, and feels that pressure. 

Season 5 I guess is where we get weird? 5B, at least the New York stretch, follows on from the above well - post-graduation, Blaine is still the romantic, still tries for things with Kurt, and they definitely chafe a little to begin with when they try to completely jump into living together fresh after barely having gotten back together, and it clicks as a good follow-up to where they were. They have to get to know who one another are now, after massive transitional points in their lives. 

5A is, okay, tricky. The proposal fits who Blaine was - the same guy that swapped schools for Kurt, the impulsive romantic - but after, Blaine gets a gimmick every week, but then every episode of 5A was a different gimmick every week (then again, the same can be said for S2 where Blaine originated so hey) so it’s hard to say much about character. You have him befriending Tina and Sam, with all the crushes there, some stuff I am not touching, but it sticks out as well that Blaine does tend to stick with what’s familiar to him. But yeah, this is the bit where it feels like Glee dropping consistency for set pieces and jokes. 

S6 then sweeps in to conclude the arc. Obviously a big recurring element of Glee was characters finding themselves, deciding who they are and what they want to be, and Blaine gets matched with Rachel in this regard - he ostensibly gets a big success, but it doesn’t last, and he’s back doing nothing with no lodestone. So he does the same thing she does, and returns to his high school for the familiar atmosphere - and picks the school where he felt the most comfortable. One arc later, and his big song with Kurt for the finale includes the line “The daydream believer and the homecoming queen,” and I’m just assuming there are, like, a hundred klaine fics with that exact title.

Okay so, after all that. I don’t feel like Blaine necessarily changes at his core? At least for me, the arc’s easy to trace out - he’s a dreamer, a romantic, an optimist, who figures problems are easy to solve and that things will work out the way they do in daydreams. Reality challenges that at a few points, it hits him hard, and he loses both his Warbler-fame and Kurt and does start to spiral as Glee characters are wont to do. He definitely develops, but the core seems pretty consistent. 

Glee is really consistent with making characters question what it is they want, and whether it’ll make them happy. Like, basically every character has to go through that arc and come to their own answers. Rachel has her Broadway dreams and ends up struggling with the reality, Quinn has basically everything in regards to what she perceives as the ‘proper’ way to live her life, Kurt has his Broadway dreams especially with the limited roles for his range of voice... For Blaine, his dreams hit a similar beat, coming with the storybook idea as to how his relationship will go, solving someone’s problems with a few words (with Karofsky - a failure), being the wise mentor, grand romantic gestures that end up being bad ideas... 

Though I guess the oddities stick out more, with S2 and 5A as seasons with different focuses meaning you’re getting the same character in functionally a different genre which is always messy, and the vibe I get that fandom had a solid conception of who Blaine ought to be, before the end of S2? 

This was probably too long a reply, but hey. 

Overall, my opinion of Blaine is... relatively neutral? Which is no reflection on him - as much as I can make jokes about a lot of dynamics, I’m most attached to the characters after graduation just because, well, I watched the show as an adult. Unavoidably, they’re the ones I find more relatable. So barring characters with really solid inherent hooks (so, Quinn) I can enjoy the high school drama, but none of the characters immediately stand out to me - so Blaine works at a disadvantage with less than a full season’s length graduated. (Equally, to be honest, the seasons where Blaine felt like more of a presence, 2 and 5, were also my least favourite seasons, which definitely isn’t down to him but it does hurt his character, for me). I like his arc, Klaine is obviously fun, I like their dynamic as exes awkwardly navigating one another too sorry. He isn’t someone I hugely thought about because out-of-fandom he was a fairly secondary-to-tertiary character a lot of the time, but I like his development and he has some good arcs. I like how he goes full circle, from playing the part of a mentor in S2, to actually gaining the experience and confidence to fill that role by the end. 

Thanks for the ask! And, er, sorry

[mochacoffee]

I created a 3D model and floor plan of Aziraphale’s bookshop in Good Omens!

I really wanted one for reference and it seemed like many others did too, so I put together my best approximation of where everything is. Beneath the color version, you’ll see I’ve included two simplified, labeled versions of the plan. The verbal labels are so you know what the object is. The numerical labels are there to make it easy to find more information about the object. I’ve put a numbered index below the cut that features the relevant reference images I used for each object and some more information about why I put it where I did/why it’s relevant/etc. I want to be very clear that I did not add anything to this from my own imagination; every single item and feature represents something I actually saw in the shop.

If you have any questions or want more information about this, PLEASE do not hesitate to ask! I put so much time into figuring it out and I would be more than happy to be a resource for anyone who needs it. Also, if you notice any errors, let me know and I’ll update the post. I hope this is helpful!

Update: Here’s a link to an interactive view of the shop! It takes a moment to load. You can click the “3D” tab in the top right to view it in first person and walk around inside. Double click a spot on the floor to move there and pan around by clicking and dragging. The oval symbol next to the person walking gives you a birds-eye view.

Update 2: Here’s a higher quality rendering of the first person perspective! Update 3: I made an alternate first person render here complete with a ceiling, light fixtures, and ambient lighting from outside. This one is optimized for making it seem more like you’re actually there, whereas the previous one is for maximum visibility. This render also has some minor accuracy improvements, which are detailed under the cut in the relevant sections. (The first interactive link with the birds-eye view updates automatically.) Update 4: In case you’re interested in Aziraphale’s books specifically, I’ve made a catalogue of those here.

1. Unknown closet

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There is a door behind Gabriel when he talks to Aziraphale in the backroom. So where does it lead? Well. The wall we can see behind Aziraphale when he encounters Shadwell in the shop (see #17: boxes/storage) doesn’t have a door in it. It’s also facing the wrong direction and it’s in the middle of the southwest wall ⁠— we know this because Aziraphale can see Shadwell in the entrance from there. So the wall behind him at that moment is definitely not the wall of the backroom. We’re left with this door and unaccounted-for corner. The only thing that makes sense to me then is that there’s a closet there between the two spaces. My personal theory is that this closet is “the back” that Aziraphale refers to keeping the Châteauneuf-du-Pape in since I didn’t see any other obvious alcohol storage space in the shop. Update: @n0nb1narydemon has suggested this could be a bathroom for guests or because culturally it’s a room you can use to extricate yourself from situations, which is another possibility! They also asked where I think the doors behind object #20 lead, and I thought it would be good to add here that they might lead to the shop next door or to this unknown room. It’s possible the room actually extends further into the next shop and encompasses the part of the wall where the doors are, but I didn’t have concrete evidence to support that idea so I didn’t include it in the floor plan. Update: I was wrong about the Châteauneuf-du-Pape! In the DVD bookshop tour we learn that the cabinet in the top left corner of the backroom is where Aziraphale keeps his alcohol, including that particular wine. I added a reference photo of Neil pointing it out. Thanks to @fuckyeahgoodomens​ for bringing the existence of this tour to my attention — ya girl got the special edition blu-ray even though I don’t have a blu-ray player yet so I hadn’t actually seen it. Also, there is a chair right next to this cabinet against the wall which I missed in my initial rendering of the shop but have since added.

2. Part of shop next door (top right)

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This was very tricky to figure out because you can see from the exterior of the shop that there is no wall past the back door, but from the interior there is clearly more space there. BUT in a behind the scenes photo of David during the fire scene, you can see on this back wall that there’s actually a nook with two large entryways, similar to the one that makes up the backroom. From the exterior you can see that the area next to the back door is taken up by the window of the next shop, so I concluded that this little square of space was not part of the bookshop’s interior, but the nook did extend further back than where the shop appears to end from the outside. I had to make one bookshelf more nubby than the others to make this work, but after a LOT of trial and error I decided one nubby bookshelf was the only thing that could explain the apparent architecture of the space. Any floor design that accounted for a bookshelf of the same length as the others just did not make sense on a fundamental level.

3. Part of shop next door (bottom left)

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From the exterior of the shop you can see that this window belongs to the adjacent store, as the wall is a different color. Within the bookshop you can also see when Gabriel and Sandalphon enter the backroom, there’s no window behind them; there’s a sink. So it’s definitely not Aziraphale’s window. The wall of the backroom is also further into the shop’s interior than the wall Aziraphale’s desk sits against, so there’s a corner of space inside that’s unaccounted for. At first I assumed it was plumbing from the sink that had been sealed off or something, but when I realized that’s where the window was on the outside, I figured the space is probably part of the next shop over.

4. Aziraphale’s desk

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This is where Aziraphale sits in the shop like 90% of the time. It’s on the Eastern side of the shop because Aziraphale was the guardian of the Eastern gate in Eden and because production designer Michael Ralph is a goddamn genius (source). Shout out to @posted-omens for this fascinating post analyzing the chariot sculpture on his desk. Update: Fun fact, the ladder behind his desk is actually called a library chair, supposedly designed by Benjamin Franklin. It functions as a ladder but you can also fold it into a chair! Neil mentions this in the DVD extra bookshop tour. I added screen caps of it to the reference photos above since I don’t have a specific section for the ladders!

5. Phone Aziraphale calls Crowley from

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I will be honest with you: I think there’s something a little fucked up about this corner. It is my nemesis. I tried so many things to make it work and I just could not get it exactly right, but what you see in the floor plan is my best guess as to what’s going on. The conundrum is that the spot where Aziraphale stands when he’s on the phone with Crowley is definitely closer to the fence around the staircase than it is in my layout. But the table he’s in front of is also clearly against the outside wall of the backroom, and the stairs being where I’ve put them here is the only thing that made sense based on the reference photos. So there’s some weird spacing issue where there’s a little too much room between the fence around the stairs and this phone. If I were to move the walls to close that gap then there would be way too much space in the backroom and way too little space on the southwest side of the shop, so I think the walls are correct as they are. So  ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. What I can say for certain is that the phone is there and it’s on a table next to a lamp, and the table is definitely against the wall of the backroom and behind the staircase. The distance between these things doesn’t hold up perfectly, but their arrangement does. On another note, this is one of two phones in the shop. The other is on the table next to the cash register (see #9) which Aziraphale picks up when Crowley calls to say they need to talk about Armageddon. I believe this is the same one he uses to call Adam’s house in episode two, only he moves it from the table by the register to the top of a pile of books (which I’m pretty sure were stacked on the circular table between his desk and the sofa). Update: OKAY SO it turns out in the behind-the-scenes bookshop tour on the DVD we get two more teeny tiny glimpses of this corner! I added them to the reference photo album above. It appears I was right about the lamp, phone, and bookshelf being where they are, except that the bookshelf and table are touching. There’s also a ladder propped against the shelf. I’d say it’s possible there are actually two bookshelves here; based on the parallax in the DVD tour, the one next to the phone didn’t appear to be against the wall, but we know there is a bookshelf against that wall because we see it in the show. (P.S. There’s also another chair against that wall which I didn’t see because Aziraphale was standing in front of it, so I added that too.) This leads me to believe there’s one against the wall and another one further from it next to the table. But that’s just my speculation, so I won’t change the actual floor plan unless I find more evidence.

6. Where they’re drinking when Crowley realizes Adam has named the hellhound

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When Aziraphale sits down at this table, the background is of the same space he refers to as the “backroom” when Gabriel and Sandalphon show up. He’s across the table from Crowley, behind whom you can see a bookshelf, the staircase, and the coat rack. The table is half in the backroom half out, since the room has two large entryways in its wall. Update: I realized the wall behind this table actually dips back further! It is a weirdly-shaped wall! But in the DVD special tour of the bookshop Neil walks past it and there’s clearly an area that recesses even further, so I’ve modified that in the interactive floor plan :)

7. Bench of books that start the fire

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When Shadwell leaves the book shop and slams the door, one of the candles knocks over and rolls into a pile of books and other papers (including the Sound of Music lmao). You can see it’s the same bench the customer is standing in front of when he gives Gabriel a weird look after he yells about pornography. (I love this customer so much because they gave me a super HD shot of this particular area.) The poles of the fence around the bench, the staircase behind it, and the smaller shelves beside it holding Terry Pratchett’s books make it clear that the bench is in that spot in the shop and that it’s the place the fire starts.

8. Coat rack with Terry’s hat on it

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Aziraphale hangs his coat here right before Crowley calls him to say they need to talk about Armageddon. Out of focus in the frame you can see the lion sculpture that sits on the fence surrounding the stairs (see #11) and a bookshelf. The camera pans past the shelf and we see him walk past his desk to pick up the phone by the cash register, which puts that shelf right next to his sitting area. We can also see the coat rack in the background when Crowley realizes Adam has named the hellhound. The coat rack has Terry Pratchett’s hat and scarf on it in his honor (source).

9. Antique cash register

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You can see this register in the background when Crowley is on the couch and when Aziraphale invites Gabriel and Sandalphon into the backroom. I know it’s an antique cash register because it’s photographed and referenced directly on page 79 of the Good Omens TV Companion. It’s a typewriter in my floor plan because the website I used (floorplanner.com), who knows why, did not have a 3D model of a cash register from the early 1900s.

10. Back door

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Thank you so much to @fuckyeahgoodomens for this post where they figured all this out!! Wonderful work! You can see this door from the exterior of the shop and its existence is referenced in the Good Omens script book on page 94. It’s also in the background of a behind the scenes shot of Aziraphale pulling away the carpet so he can contact heaven. Behind him in that shot you can see the bust (which moves around a lot - see #19) and a grandfather clock, and in the show from one of the aerial shots you can see that the carpet is pulled west, further confirming the door’s location.

11. Fence around the stairs

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I have concluded that this is a fence to keep customers from going up to the second floor. It looks to be made of golden pillars with wooden shelving atop them. The fence crosses beneath the staircase on one side and the other side ends about where the stair’s railing does. You can see this fence behind Crowley when he realizes Adam has named the hellhound, behind Aziraphale when he calls Crowley to tell him he knows where the antichrist is, and next to the customer who gives Gabriel a look after he yells “PORNOGRAPHY!” It’s also visible in one of the aerial shots of the shop. Update: In the DVD extra bookshop tour I noticed the lion sculpture on this fence is not just a lion, but a lion with a woman holding its mane. I think it might also be a lamp? In one of the reference photos, the one that looks down from the second floor, it appears there’s a light in the woman’s other hand. I’d be interested to see if we can track down what this particular sculpture is and what it might mean. Update: @cantdewwrite has suggested here that the light/sculpture could be a replica of one of the bronze statues in the Victoria Memorial, which does look quite similar. I’m fairly certain Aziraphale’s sculpture is of a woman, which would make it the figure in the memorial representing peace.

12. Open book of illustrated story of Adam and Eve

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Shout out to @amuseoffyre for this post where she figured out what this was! Update: I’ve determined that this book is The Gospel in the Old Testament: A series of pictures by Harold Copping. The painting is, naturally, by Harold Copping. It’s called “Adam and Eve after the fall.” Unfortunately this book is out of print and I haven’t been able to track down an ebook or scan of it, so I can’t confirm the text just yet. But based on its premise, I think it’s safe to assume that it’s telling the story of Adam and Eve directly. Aziraphale has a second copy of this book visible on the shelf next to the sofa.

13. Antique computer

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This is the computer Aziraphale does his extremely scrupulous taxes with, as confirmed in this ask that @neil-gaiman answered from @prismatic-bell! It’s an Amstrad, according to the bookshop tour in the DVD extras.

14. Spiral staircase

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These stairs are in many shots of the shop so it was pretty obvious where they were.

15. Sink, teapots, etc.

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You can see this wall right before Gabriel walks into the backroom and behind Aziraphale when he’s drinking with Crowley at the end of episode one. It appears he has two hand towels, a ceramic angel soap dish (aw), some teapots, and a decorated box above it, among other things. On the floor beside the sink is what I believe to be a broom handle, though it could be a mop? Next to that is a bronze statue of an angel atop a small table piled with books. On the other side of the sink is an open book on a stand ⁠— it has a fabric bookmark in it with a crucifix at the end, so I’m assuming it’s a bible. Light reading while you make your tea I guess. Update: Thank you so much to @brightwanderer for pointing out in this post that he has four extra angel wing mugs above the sink as well! I couldn’t figure out what they were! Update: Neil said in this ask that you can see an oven by the sink when Gabriel and Sandalphon walk in. Which you can! It’s real small and there’s a little pot on top of it. I’ve added a screencap of it to the images album for this area. Update: I’m donating my heart and soul to @ack-emma for suggesting in the replies to this ask that the central object above the sink is a samovar!! I had never heard of this so I had absolutely no idea what it was, but I think they hit the nail on the head. Y’all Aziraphale really likes tea.

16. Sculpture

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Thank you @ineffable-endearments, @behold-my-squeees, @srebrnafh, @aethelflaedladyofmercia for contributing to this post about the statue and its potential symbolism! Update: @doctorscienceknowsfandom has added some analysis to the post above suggesting that this is a sculpture of Paris, the figure from Greek mythology. I’m inclined to agree! Update: BINGO! @tifaria​ has found Aziraphale’s exact statue (confirmed Paris!) in this post. Brilliant work!! This community continues to blow me away. Further discussion about the sculpture’s meaning in the context of the show here — be sure to check the notes for further commentary.

17. Boxes/storage

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These boxes and piles of books can be seen behind Aziraphale when he encounters Shadwell in the shop and behind Crowley while he’s rambling drunkenly about why they should stop Armageddon in episode one. They’re in a nook that goes further back than where the shop appears to end from its exterior (see #2 for more info on that!). 

18. Stacks of books

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You can see this stack in one of the aerial shots of Shadwell in the shop. I didn’t include most stacks of books in the floor plan because they’re literally everywhere and I had to manually set how high each book would be from the floor, so putting them in piles got tedious very quickly. But I did include a few notable ones, and this is one of those imo because there’s not much else in that area as far as I can tell.

19. Bust

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This little guy moves around quite a bit, unlike most things in the shop. In some photos/scenes it’s where I put it on the floor plan, but in others it’s closer to the northwestern wall and in this 360 video of the shop it’s right between two of the columns. I chose to put it where I did because it’s there in the scene where Crowley is drunkenly rambling about Armageddon, whereas the other locations I’ve seen it in were from behind the scenes shots and stuff. I’m not sure who the bust is of! It appears to have a little ribbon with a medal around its next though. Update: More speculation about the bust here, courtesy of @aethelflaedladyofmercia! Update: @fuckyeahgoodomens has confirmed in this post that the thing around the bust’s neck is the medal given to Aziraphale by Gabriel in this deleted scene!

20. Divider I think?

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Please for the love of god if you know what this thing is, tell me. My best guess is it’s a room divider because what else looks like that?? But I don’t know why you would put a room divider there. And it still doesn’t look exactly like a divider either. But the decorative element at the top and apparent gap between the metal frame and the red bit leads me to believe it’s not furniture or a box. This mystery object is my second nemesis after the weird corner (#5). Update: @brightwanderer has suggested that it might be an embroidered/tapestry draft screen, which I think makes more sense! Update: In the DVD extra bookshop tour I found a very brief image of this item over Neil’s shoulder which I added to the reference photos above. I think by some miracle I was right and it is a divider. It could be a draft screen but at the very least it is shaped like a divider with at least three sections. Wahoo!

21. Record player

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This is the phonograph that’s playing Franz Schubert’s String Quintet in C major (thank you again to @fuckyeahgoodomens for that info) when we first see Aziraphale in the shop. It also plays Queen’s You’re My Best Friend when Crowley runs into the fire.

22. Terry Pratchett’s books

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Another one of the many little Terry easter eggs in the show is this set of his books! @devoursjohnlock made a post highlighting some other specific books you can find in the shop.

23. Chess set

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I saw a post once pointing out this chess set and the implication that Aziraphale and Crowley must play together sometimes, which I thought was a really nice detail to put into the set. But I can’t find the post to credit it! I will update this with a link if I do. Update: Pretty sure this is the post I saw. Thank you to @losyanya for mentioning it :)

24. Circular entryway

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This is one of many circle motifs that production designer Michael Ralph incorporated into the shop. It’s gorgeous. I think there’s actually more room between the archway and the door than I’ve included in this floor plan; Shadwell takes a few steps through it when he runs out of the shop. But I think the fix is just the door being further out from the entryway rather than the entryway being further in. I didn’t want to fuck with the walls to improve this particular area because when I realized the spacing was wrong, I was almost done and would’ve had to manually move each object in the shop over a few inches over. Made more sense to leave the caveat in a footnote. Update: In the DVD extra bookshop tour you get a brief glimpse of something on the inside wall of the entryway. I think it’s a wall sconce or something along those lines. There’s one on either side. I added them to the reference album above! I also figured out how to extend the walls to accommodate some more space there without having to move everything else, so I did that. Update: Here’s a link to some meta discussion about the cupid sculpture in front of this entryway!

25. Sofa Crowley sits on when he suggests they could be godfathers

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You can see that the sofa is next to Aziraphale’s desk and the cash register, and also that there’s a bookshelf behind it. From the entrance to the shop you can see two bookshelves on either side of the central circle, so it was pretty clear that the couch was on the other side of one of those shelves.

26. Wall crucifix

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I find it very interesting that Aziraphale has this considering Jesus isn’t a big part of angelic lore or heaven’s general priorities in the show. It would make more sense to me that he has it because it’s another memento of his time with Crowley, sort of like the illustrated story of Adam and Eve by his desk (#12). Also, fun fact, the opposite side of this wall segment is where he put up all his maps and notes about the whereabouts of the Antichrist in episode three.

[shihalyfie]

Daisuke and Ken’s dynamic, and what Ken does for Daisuke in return

Everyone in the main 02 cast can be said to be a little surface-deceptive in some way, and so, even with Daisuke and Ken as the relationship at the forefront of 02′s story, there’s still more going on behind it than first glance would initially make you suspect. It’s all too easy to just take the surface reading and decide that Daisuke is some kind of saint whom Ken is singularly dependent on for his happiness (which would really be quite the unhealthy relationship), or, worse, shove them into the stereotypical BL tropes just because they’re the two at the front, even though the story practically went out of its way to depict them as unusual characters who don’t fit into those kinds of boxes as easily.

Even though it wasn’t stated outright in words, Ken did a lot for Daisuke in return, and there’s a lot of layers to their relationship to each other both in the series and in going forward after it.

What Daisuke does for Ken

That Daisuke and Ken have very “complementary” personalities goes without saying, but this applies to both their surface demeanors and what lies beneath them. Daisuke has an abrasive surface demeanor and a tendency to get defensive, but isn’t actually very assertive at all; on the other hand, Ken is more polite and ostensibly “soft”, but is significantly more assertive than Daisuke is. This also means that, while it would of course be foolhardy to pretend that Ken could easily shrug off all of his trauma, it’s also conversely reductive to shove the two of them into boxes where Ken is a constant crybaby angsting over everything bad that’s happened to him while Daisuke’s the only ray of sunshine who can get him out of it. A lot of Ken’s strength in the series is self-supplied; he of course does end up needing the others’ support at times, but extreme readings like this really don’t give the kid enough credit for how good he is at gritting his teeth and pushing on without anyone prompting him.

The initial problem, however, is that Ken is too assertive about the wrong things at first. Like, say, in 02 episode 26, when he assertively says that he’s going to...recklessly chuck himself into an exploding reactor! For the third quarter of the series, Ken deliberately tries to keep his distance from others, and is very clear and open about his reasons why: in his mind, it’s his responsibility, and the others shouldn’t have to be involved. He doesn’t want their friendship, he doesn’t even think he deserves their friendship, and here’s Daisuke going “okay, yeah, but that’s stupid, shut up and let us help you.”

Adventure and 02 have a strong thread of driving it home that “doing things on sheer principle eventually becomes pointless when it gets in the way of being practical” -- and Daisuke, being a simple-minded and “straightforward” person who doesn’t overthink things, is basically there to keep Ken’s focus back on the proper picture. Because yeah, Ken can attempt to do things like frame things in terms of whether he “deserves” all of this, or “whose responsibility” this all is -- but the fact of the matter is that Daisuke and his friends want to do something and help instead of being sitting ducks about it, Ken’s practically not going to be able to do this alone, and, well, that’s the base of their first Jogress in 02 episode 26! Ken says outright that his goal is to do something to help, but then decides that “helping” should involve suicidally chucking himself into an exploding reactor, and Daisuke, hearing out Ken’s troubles, reminds him that him dying there won’t actually help the way Ken wants to help, because it won’t leave him alive to do all of the other things he wants to do and will hurt his family even more just when he was starting to repair things with them -- and as much as this extremely suicidal plan might temporarily spare the others from dying in an explosion, Daisuke would have to live with the guilt of letting Ken go off to die like that, so it won’t make him happy either.

So in other words, while Ken’s trying to sort out his complicated feelings of guilt, shame, and sense of responsibility, Daisuke’s there to keep his head on straight and remind him when he’s about to run himself in mental circles. Ken would have easily spent the rest of the series trying to make up for what he did even without Daisuke’s help, because he’s such a strong believer in “the right thing to do”, but his way of going on about it would have involved him staying in isolation out of a perceived sense of responsibility, endangering himself out of a sense of self-sacrifice, drowning himself in self-blame and feelings of regret, and, eventually, not addressing the very gaping hole in his life that he very much needs emotional support from others right now.

One thing particularly interesting about the Japanese version of 02 is that, for nearly the entirety of the second half of the series, Ken only refers to Daisuke as “Motomiya”, which is surprising given the fact that he employs given-name basis with the others quite quickly. Ken eventually does commit to “Daisuke” after the series in almost all post-02 material, and this image fits the two so well that pretty much every doujinshi artist has caught onto it despite it not being there all that much in the actual series, but it really took him a while; what gives? (Daisuke himself committed to “Ken” from surname basis “Ichijouji” starting in 02 episode 39.) Well, the important distinction is that Ken dropped the honorific with him from very early on -- meaning that he did want to approach Daisuke with a little bit of casual bluntness in a way beyond the distant respect he treated the others with, but at the time, going straight to buddy-buddy on given name with no honorific at all would have been a bit too much for him, and it comes off as him almost deliberately giving off a sense of distance. Why?

Ken didn’t have too much of an opinion on each individual kid in the group until 02 episode 8, when he developed a particular hatred for Daisuke for “ruining his pride” and decided to emotionally torture him a bit. Then, come 02 episode 25, this same kid approached him with no sense of grudge whatsoever, and presents him with a completely different way of seeing things: “whatever you did in the past, you’re clearly trying to help now, which means we’re now on the same side, so we should work together.” It’s pragmatic; it’s extremely pragmatic, and it’s not like Daisuke was working off of blind optimism and trust as much as he observed, very practically, that Ken was clearly trying to do better now and that therefore they should work together and make use of it. This kind of thought pattern is completely alien to Ken’s “I deserve/don’t deserve this” mentality at this point of this series, and by all standards of his own logic Daisuke should be one of the people who hates him the most, and yet -- nope!

By the time of their Jogress, Ken of course understands that Daisuke’s trying very hard to communicate with him, and thus they develop a sort of rapport -- but they’re not quite friends yet at the level of truly being “comfortable” with each other, because most of the second half of the series involved circumstances where Daisuke was helping Ken through a very emotionally hard time. It’s only at the point of the Christmas party in 02 episode 38 when Ken can really think about having these kids as real friends in terms of socializing and not just people who are willing to work with him in his penance journey. It’s enough that Ken’s able to admit that he wants the help of Daisuke in 02 episode 44, when beforehand he’d been trying to keep everyone out of what he’d perceived as his business. And, as Ken’s slowly more exposed to Daisuke’s way of life and its influence on the rest of the group around him, he comes to understand that maybe having a “close friend who can support him” isn’t that bad after all, since it’s not like these friends are just being “open-minded” towards him; they really are there to support him and his actual feelings and welfare, not just “cutting him slack” because he’s helping.

And so, with that, once the crisis is resolved and all is said and done, Ken finally truly accepts Daisuke as his friend and moves him up to given-name basis (no honorific!). This is most prominently shown in Diablomon Strikes Back, where their interactions are now removed from the question of Ken’s former actions and his emotional problems, and it turns out, they’re still good friends in the sense that friends are. As in, people who laugh together, hang out together, converse with each other casually; even if they are working together on the same thing for the duration of the movie, it’s not such an emotionally tense situation that you could chalk their interactions up to sheer necessity. With Daisuke’s help, Ken was able to move on from all of his past hangups, and the two of them became able to enjoy the moment of “now” like normal children.

What Ken does for Daisuke

Daisuke may be simple-minded enough to not have deep-seated concerns that eat at him every day, but that doesn’t change the fact that he was a bit socially maladjusted during the early parts of the series. Namely, being really insecure and prone to getting defensive whenever he felt he was being made fun of. Those kinds of things were what was most likely to get Daisuke to “lash out” at others, because he slips into his worst bouts of these whenever he’s lacking in validation.

Daisuke was, undoubtedly, improving over the course of the series, with him slowly starting to become more assertive by the time of 02 episode 20. It’s incorrect to say that Ken was the only person who could truly help him with this; 02 is a series about a group dynamic after all (even if the Jogress pairs are the most instrumental in helping each other), and it would be a pretty unhealthy relationship if one person were so dependent on another to even remotely function. But starting in 02 episode 22, when the crisis is momentarily resolved and everyone’s not sure what to do, Daisuke’s feeling of being third wheeled by Takeru and Hikari shoots up right at the moment everyone’s feeling a bit lacking in purpose. Two episodes later, Miyako immediately stages an intervention to help keep his mind off of things, and she’s arguably even the most comfortable with him at this point in time.

It’s not that Daisuke isn’t improving, nor that his friends aren’t trying to help, but, well...emotionally sensitive as Miyako can be, she’s also a bit all over the place herself and sometimes needs restraining; Hikari may be assertive, but she’s pretty obviously apprehensive about shutting Daisuke down too bluntly, and Takeru being so hard to read and evasive about everything means that Daisuke can’t really tell what he’s thinking or understand his intentions; Iori is younger and is restraining himself, so he still won’t cross certain lines with Daisuke. So as you can see, they’re all doing their best, and they’re not doing a terrible job of it either; hell, the rest of the series involves them maturing into people who can better interact with and support each other, so their own relationships with Daisuke are likely to improve even well after the series ends. It’s just that, especially at this point in the series, there’s definitely room for an extra person to fill a certain niche that’s got a gaping void here, begging for someone who’s assertive and put-together enough to regularly keep Daisuke in check, yet also willing to be properly straightforward with him to the extent that he doesn’t have to feel insecure about their intentions. Hmm, who could that be?

Although “the priority of reaching out to Ken” eventually becomes enough of a distraction that it certainly takes Daisuke’s mind off potentially feeling insecure, as we start to see more “casual” interactions between Daisuke and Ken, we see that Ken actually fills in a lot of the gaps that had been so sorely missing in this group dynamic for a while. Forward-thinking as he is, Daisuke’s simple-minded way of going at things has its drawbacks in that he’s not very smart or good at thinking, but Ken is the opposite, being intellectually analytical and much more thoughtful overall, and since Daisuke is the kind of person who defers to others when they’re better than him at something, Ken being right next to him means that he can give him a hand in making important decisions he can’t by himself. This is especially so in Diablomon Strikes Back, when Ken’s role is largely keeping an eye on Daisuke and making sure he’s not a loose cannon -- something he’s very capable of doing -- but also simply being there as a springboard whom Daisuke can comfortably approach and talk to, since Ken is such a mild-mannered, straightforward person who won’t set off his overly defensive tendencies as easily.

That doesn’t mean that Ken is completely above teasing him, of course -- a lot of post-02 material in fact makes sure you understand that he’s not just some soft-hearted saint and can be quite the snarker when he wants, since his increased comfort level with Daisuke means he’s now able to poke at him here and there, even doing something as mean as dumping all of the Christmas shopping on him (the character songs and other related in-character material lie in questionably canonical territory, but that kind of punchline is not unreasonable to imagine given their respective personalities). But, overall, he sets the right tone for Daisuke to have a friend he’s able to be around regularly and receive support from, and to fill in that niche of his casual interactions so that Daisuke can have some more solid grounding in his life.

It’s also a testament to how much Ken himself had changed in terms of becoming the kind of person who could handle Daisuke like this. When the two of them first “met” in 02 episode 8, while Ken was still fully under the influence of the Dark Seed, even if we were to put the part about him being the Kaiser aside, this sort of person would never be able to become a good friend to Daisuke. This episode had Daisuke put him on a pedestal -- someone he’ll never be able to be as good as, whom he looks up to as an “idol”, much like the way Daisuke has a tendency to instinctively put himself down in uplifting others. Thus, it was a negative relationship for both of them; Ken being put on a pedestal that ultimately made him uncomfortable, and Daisuke contributing to putting him there in the first place, and taking it extra personally when that pedestal was shattered. But then, Daisuke himself (and, ultimately, the rest of the group) became able to treat Ken like the “normal person” he wanted to be, with no pedestals, simply considering him as a friend with his own feelings and needs; as a result, being this sort of “normal person” making friends through his true personality and desire to support others meant paved the way for him becoming the one person who was best equipped to deal with the very difficult-to-handle Daisuke.

Incidentally, in terms of Kizuna: considering how 02 was such a series about everyone becoming people who could fundamentally interact and communicate better with others, it stands to reason that everyone’s relationships with each other would uniformly improve even after the events of 02, and you can see better interactions between everyone that go beyond just the Jogress pairs. Ken’s clearly able to interact with more of the people in the group in a much more casual manner than he did in 02 itself, and it’s made an important point in the drama CD that Daisuke took everyone���s incidental advice to heart, not just Ken’s. However, advertising material still prominently features the two as a pair, and although part of this is of course due to marketing, Ken is also the one who gets the final words in extracting his “promise” from Daisuke in the drama CD; the official website also calls special attention to him being the one to accompany Daisuke on his ramen outings, even though the one depicted in the drama CD and movie was planned to involve everyone in the group. There are multiple indications that Daisuke himself has learned to become somewhat less defensive and prone to insecurity compared to himself in 02, and it seems that this was accomplished via Ken still actively putting himself in a role of checking on him and making sure he feels properly supported in all of this.

[incorrect-ikevamp-quotes]

Comte’s 4th Birthday Story Event: Before the Clock Strikes Midnight

REEEEEEEE Ik it was a long time ago but life has been a [redacted], so I figured better late than never HAHA

So without further ado, anybody who’s curious feel free to click for more--I’ll put it under a cut for spoilers as per usual~

So in this story it’s the usual, a few days before his birthday, and they’re discussing a bump in the road. Essentially, it appears a friend of Comte’s is going to be celebrating a wedding, and as such he’s going into the suburbs/affluent part of the region to be able to attend. It’s only a few hours away from the mansion, but he will be gone for a few days with the arrangements made for his stay. 

While this wouldn’t typically be an issue, MC has some things to take care of and opts out of attending with him (preparing for his bday probably LMAO) and Comte is immediately big sad. My favorite dramatic fool is already pouting, though he fully accepts and respects her decision. Besides which, he fully intends to be back in time to celebrate his birthday as well. He notes that he’s always admired how driven and independent she is, and has no intention of getting in the way of that. He’s just going to miss her, is all.

He says as much, figuring there’s no point in hiding it: “I really wanted to bring you with me to attend…but I suppose it simply can’t be helped” … “That’s not it…I guess I’m just wondering if you’ll miss me as much as I’ll miss you while I’m away.” 

And MC’s just like “Aw, it’s okay it’ll only be a few days.” While Comte’s response is a very mature, high-pitched whining sound at a frequency only King (Theo’s dog) and Theo himself can hear. When MC tries to reassure him once more, his Hamlet impression continues: “Even the prospect of a few days away from you feels unbearable.” 

Naturally, as any man do that loves his wife, he draws her close and proceeds to bang the living daylights out of her. I would offer details, but I have no deets to give beyond: [Well MC, it appears I won’t be letting you get much sleep tonight.] 

Brief intermission for the vague sounds of fangirl cardiac arrest. 

The scene opens again to him doing his walk of shame (the slut) down the walkway and into the carriage that will take him to his friend’s house. His thoughts carry the regret of burdening her with his desire, though MC is pretty much on cloud nine and unable to stop thinking about the heady night they shared in a good way. Bruh and the sly look when he figures out why she looks like that--I’m boutta call the police, he is going to make women and men alike act up. 

MC scrambles to cool his already returning desire by insisting he will be late if he indulges any further, and he laughs and agrees easily–albeit with the slightest hint of reluctance. My favorite part in this exchange is that he kisses her forehead, adding that it’s because she’s the most adorable person in the world to him (a moment of silence for our uwus). 

Fast forward to Comte trying to get home after the festivities are over. Problem is, it’s been raining like a mOTHERBLEEPER, and as such carriages have no safe way to traverse the roads at the moment. He waited out the first day as patiently as possible, but after the second–and no sign of stopping–his Leeroy Jenkins instincts kick in. He notes to the coachman that he’s aware he’s asking a lot, but they fully intend to take the long way which invites the least risk–and the rain is ebbing, even if the progress is slow. 

It’s interesting because there’s another echo of his main story in this moment. He essentially showcases a desperation to return before the day ends, though without context it’ll probably seem a little strange, so I’ll do my best to explain. Basically, in his main story, MC notes that she doesn’t really care how different they are. Different time, different species, different experiences, so on and so forth. She hammers home that what matters is that the present is something that they actively share. It’s theirs. And no amount of divisions he desperately tries to draw will change that fundamental reality. 

And it’s a little moving to see how deeply he takes it to heart? I think it’s one of those wonderful phenomena, personally–the way a person can influence how you think and act with their sentiments. Sometimes someone says precisely what it is we need to hear, and it changes us–while it can be for the worse, it can also be for the better. He notes that he spent so many birthdays; among the people serving his house when he was little, raising hell with his friends in his younger days, so on and so forth. Not unlike Leonardo, he says that after so many “special” days the faces become a blur, the festivities lose their luster. It’s just another day, at this point. 

Note, one interesting thing here that stands out to me is that I feel like this is a reflection of both of their larger struggles. Where Comte can’t stand the relentless flow of time rendering him the only constant (and something of a ghost, never fully present), Leonardo can’t bear birthdays because it means remembering people who still mean the world to him, but are long gone. People he can never see again, never laugh with again, never share his life with again. And I think that’s a very profound pain, an anguish that just keeps on settling its weight. (Oh, Sisyphus…)

Comte’s is similar, but different. He actively works to keep his distance-- unlike Leonardo, he approaches immortality in the pragmatic way. He knows getting close will hurt, so he opts out of that–keeps a step behind, an easy smile on his face. Betrays only fragments to anyone, always has his guard up. But the downside of being so guarded means you eventually feel hollowed out and alone; nobody truly knows or understands you. There is a distinct loneliness in that approach, where memories only become reminders of how nothing ever improves and how bereft you are of warmth. 

Leonardo, at least, gets to have the joy of being known from time to time. But loss and estrangement from those people means double the pain in the long run, because he loved them fully. Comte chooses to live in the cold to protect himself, but ends up in a kind of catch-22; the cost of forgoing loss means a constant deadening of his own feelings. It means living in a kind of fog, where there is a distinct discomfort in the silent obscurity of your own heart. 

There’s something I’ve come to believe in my short course of living, so I guess I still need time to determine how true it is. But…I feel like, when people live this way, where who they are is a lie or it’s at the very least carefully concealed, we in part start to become that lie. I think it’s fascinating because Comte seems to have so much personality to him. He’s dramatic, he’s thoughtful, he has a sense of mischief about him, he has strong ideals, and he has an even more ironclad moral grounding. And yet, when he talks about himself, he always uses descriptions that hinge on emptiness. Like he’s worth so little, worth nothing. And that’s what I mean–he’s been trying so hard to glide on the surface that he has come to believe he really is equivalent to something that ephemeral. Like there’s nothing more inside him, or if there is, that it will never be worthy of much. I think it really speaks to the ways behavior impacts the psyche, even though the opposite tends to be considered the only possible cause and effect relationship. 

He’s so determined to live for and in the future while he’s in the present, that he forgets to enjoy himself and really live. And while that approach is certainly understandable, I do think he loses parts of himself along the way. Only to be rediscovered and placed back into his hands by MC: [Today–this moment–our now, I don’t want to miss it for anything.] And that's not even touching on how quick she is to make them a we; she's not letting him keep that distance. It’s not “you have the ability to share this day with me” it’s “we’re here and in this together.”

I feel like what I love about this is that it’s not only about how sweet he is on MC, but also about how much he’s truly living again for the first time. His defenses are slowly inching their way down, he’s letting himself hope and want things and look forward to things again. The thing about being a responsible person is that–while responsibility is all well and good–sometimes you become so mired in doing the right thing and planning the most optimal outcomes that you just aren’t thinking of yourself anymore. That is, if you ever were to begin with. He went from the careful cultivation of a life as an aristocrat, to a life that spoke of more freedom and fun beyond those iron wrought gates, before he returned to the structure of what he knew. Freedom speaks to him I’m sure–we all need it in some measure to survive. But I do think a good portion of that was unfulfilling for him after a point. It was only feeding the void that was beginning to form inside him. He was instinctively retreating into himself to avoid pain, and in doing that the only result was feeling like a coward and a fake. He wasn’t happy, he wasn’t able to be himself, and nothing was fulfilling–every single day just another forward march. 

I think it comes as no surprise he took up Vlad’s initial invitation so willingly. 

But then I digress, back to the story. There’s another timeskip and it finds him racing down the hall of the mansion. He’s hoping to make it in time but knows he’s racing against the clock, and fully expects MC to be asleep by this point in the night. Midway along his path he thinks he spots MC and falters in his step, blinking. He decides to hang back, watching the figure enter his room with a great deal of curiosity and resists every urge to burst in after her. He hears MC speak into his pillow, her voice muffled but clearly despondent: “I miss you, Comte. I hope you get back home soon…” 

Comte pretty much dies right there. I literally have no better explanation for it. He freezes, his heart sputters and stops. He’s just completely taken aback. 

And then, naturally, he goes about feral with desire as is his modus operandi: “Oho, I heard something incredibly cute just now. Were you also having a hard time spending so long apart?”

MC: “…!”

[Startled, she turns around and her eyes widen and widen.]

MC: “Comte, how...”

Comte: “Took a detour in areas with less rain.”

MC: “?? Wouldn’t that still be hard in weather like this?”

Comte: “I told the coachman I wanted to see you as soon as possible. Even if it was only for a second, I wanted to spend today with you…”

[Everything I was thinking while in the carriage spills out of me long before I can help it. I am reminded again of just how utterly irreplaceable an existence MC is in my life.]

Comte: “Even so, it seems interesting that I would find you in my bed”

MC: “...! A--Ah, I’m so sorry for entering without permission!”

[I quickly grab hold of her before she can scramble out of my bed, coaxing her to sink back into the sheets.]

In between a lot of intense making out and [redacted], the larger overtone is that her reciprocated ardor just destroys him inside:

MC: “It was...because I couldn’t stop thinking about you, about wanting to see you…”

Comte: “!”

[You know just how to drive me mad with desire.]

Comte: “I’m the same...the first thing I did was look for you. Even though it was only a few days, your voice, your body, everything...I missed you”

[Because today, our ‘now’--I never want to lose a single moment with you as long as you’re by my side...]

Comte: “I’m so happy to be able to be with you, right here and right now.”

It gets funny too because Comte is trying to take it slow, but when she tells him “Happy birthday” and goes on to say she was so glad to greet the day he was brought into the world by his side, he just loses all control LMFAO. It ends with them getting more heated and [redacted], to the point where he doesn’t even hear the clock strike midnight. 

And if him being the cutest and sexiest romantic wasn’t obvious enough, he spends the next morning just sighing blissfully with her in his arms:

[The next morning, when I wake up, MC is still fast asleep. I mean, given she only fell asleep a few hours ago. I’m still reveling in the afterglow of a sweet night filled with her cries, the way she looked at me and held me. MC...]

[I relax to the sound of her breathing steady with sleep, stroking gently at her hair as I hug her from behind.]

Comte: “I’ve had countless birthdays. In an endless life, I was convinced it was just a day that would come and go every time.”

Comte: “It was only after meeting you that I could understand there was no such thing as an overlapping or identical moment. I don’t want to miss a single second by your side...that’s what I think now.”

[I admit the truth of my heart, brushing a kiss against her cheek. Over and over and over again, showering her in my affection--]

But dun dun dun!!! MC was awake the whole time, so when she fidgets a little at how ticklish his kisses are, he 👁

[Oh, I see. Well then, two can play at that game...]

Comte: “Your punishment is to stay in my arms just as we are...how’s that?”

He gets his mischievous (and hilarious) revenge for being revealed (HORNY TIME), though it’s so suffused with love it’s hard to call it revenge hahaha. She reminds him to go easy on her because they have his birthday party to attend later, and he agrees~

Honestly after such killer hurt/comfort spice fluff, I can only tremble at the thought of what his 5th year bday story will be

It’s either going to be Some Angst^TM or even more killer fluff, and either way that means my days are numbered

[where-theres-smoak-2]

I also find it ironic that Eric said in that podcast that Alina had a bigger group of people she cares about and is more optimistic when that’s actually the case with Aleksander? I mean the centuries of death and persecution have hardened him sure but if he still wasn’t in some ways idealistic he would have used the Fold to destroy their enemies and rule Ravka probably a long time ago. He’s sacrifises and flight over and over so other Grisha can have basic human rights. Alina on the other hand claims to know how cruel the world can be but it seems like she only cares about her and M*l’s suffering and is indifferent to others(hello other Grisha and Genya especially that scene where Alina guilt tripped her was disgusting)and I can’t believe the writers thought it was a good idea to put it there. Like she herself says how them having just each other was more than enough and accepting she’s Grisha would be a betrayal to herself and how M*l sees her yet we’re supposed to root for them and see Aleksander as a villain? What a seriously broken narrative the books and the show have.

Yeah I remember that podcast and I think what they were trying to say was that Aleks only cared about the grisha whilst Alina cares about the grisha and the ravkans as she grew up thinking she was otkazat'sya. Which I actually disagree with because I actually, particularly in the books, didn't feel like she cared that much about the grisha. I will say that I think she does have more care of them in the show but the way I saw it was they both care about everyone but Aleks prioritises the grisha over the otkazat'sya and Alina is the other way round and prioritises the otkazat'sya over the grisha. I don't agree at all with the claim that Aleks only cared about the grisha because what I saw on screen contradicted that. Multiple times we see him say that he wants to make things better for the grisha and for ravka, in his impassioned speech to Alina in the tent in ep 7 he says everything he's ever done has been to 'make grisha safer, to make ravka safer.' So he is including both groups in this. We also know that he has worked together with the First Army on supply runs and not only has his fabrikators made faster, safer skiffs for the First Army to cross the fold but he also provides his grisha soldiers as protection for them and to drive those skiffs, so its not like he has no care at all. Also at the end of the day Aleks is the Second Army General so his job is to protect and provide for the Second Army not the First. It's the First Army General's job to provide for the First Army soldiers so I'm not sure why the narrative seems to blame Aleks for the state the First Army is in and how the Second Army has better uniforms and food that isn't rationed. Of course Aleks is going to prioritise his soldiers over the First Army it's his job to.

I do think in the past Aleks had a lot more optimism than now as you said time and loss has hardened him and I think he is now more willingly to make harder and harsher decisions than he was in the past. Whereas Alina to me does have more optimism or at least more of an idealistic view, she's much more naive I think and hasn't had those harsh life lessons that Aleks has had that I think make him more of a realist. I mean Aleks is still holding on to that dream of a better safer world for Grisha and as you said if he wasn't at least partly idealistic he likely would have overthrown the crown and ruled Ravka himself a long time ago so it is telling that he hadn't done that. I do also think this shows that him overthrowing the monarchy wasn't a move made out of greed or hunger for power as some suggest. He did it as a last resort when he realised that whilst they were in power things for the Grisha would not improve.

I do think it often comes across like Alina only cares about M*l and her attitude of if I pretend I'm not grisha so I can stay with M*l just the fact that we are together will be enough is very problematic. I do think she does care about the fate of the grisha in the show and as the show goes on I do hope we'll see her become more involved in their issues and politics of the world but I also think she would put M*l above everyone else whereas Aleks would always put his people and their greater good above everyone else.

As for the scene with Genya I think its a complicated one. I actually liked the scene between them and I thought it was very heartbreaking and both ladies did an amazing job acting it out. Obviously I don't agree with what Alina said to Genya about having to fight to survive and how that wasn't an excuse. But I also think at the time Alina was in a really really bad place. I mean she had fallen for Aleks and then found out he was the black heretic, had the collar forced on her by him so she was already feeling very betrayed and violated by someone she cared deeply for and who she believed cared deeply for her. Then she learns about Genya's betrayal and so I think because it was one on top of the other she just wasn't thinking clearly and was obviously very upset and probably felt like her whole world was falling apart around her, one by one she was losing all those connections she made at the LP, I think she was struggling to know who to trust and how to recognise when someone was telling the truth and when they were lying, she's trying to makes sense of everything that is happening but isn't getting a satisfactory answer to any of it, so I do think it was a case of saying the wrong thing when you are upset and I do think Alina does recognise Genya's suffering which is why she then says that the king deserves Genya's vengeance but that Aleks doesn't deserve her loyalty. But she isn't as sympathetic as she could have been and I think that is largely because she feels like everyone she knows and cares about is betraying her and its an unfortunate side effect of being human that sometimes when you yourself are in pain it can made it harder to recognise and sympathise with another person's pain because you are so knocked out by your own, if that makes sense. However the beauty of that scene is I could also 100% see where Genya was coming from and why she did what she did, as she said she didn't have the luxury of being a loyal friend when she was trying so desperately to survive and you can see her heartbreak at the fact that her friend doesn't seem to understand that and I actually think its a very similar scene to the one between darklina later in the episode where you can see that Genya much like Aleks is desperately trying to make Alina understand. I think this is where Alina not growing up as grisha really causes that gap in understanding because whilst Alina knows what its like to face persecution for being half Shu and feeling like an outsider she doesn't really understand the level of persecution the grisha experience, she just hasn't been grisha long enough to fully understand how complicated it is and how their safety relies entirely on how useful they are to a monarchy that honestly couldn't give two hoots about them and just uses them for their own gain.

As for rooting for M*lina as oppose to the darkling all I'll say on that is I think its very telling that the majority of the fandom does seem to root more for the darkling so clearly something went wrong in the telling of the story if such a large number of people are rooting for your villain instead of your heroes.

[heuristicallyinclined]

Of Disks Lost and Cullings Interrupted

5.1k | Rating T for referenced gore and language

Summary: An unfortunate encounter somehow manages to not go quite as bad as it should have.

This is one of the self-indulgent drabbles I wrote last year for me and @theartisticapparition’s fantrolls meeting for the first time and how much of an absolute mess it would be. Enjoy.   

It has three fucking months since you ordered that hexagonal disk and you still don't have a shipping notification for it.

You stare at the screen of your palm husk. It’s a single point of brightness in the store room you slipped off to while some other ship was docking. For supplies or inspection, you don’t know and you don’t care. All you care about it the fact that no one is going to notice a single rusty slipping away for all of two minutes to fuck around on a personal device and see if maybe something went to spam. Which you are looking at now. And apparently set to delete messages after thirty nights, so if it did go to spam, it was long gone now.

“Sh!t,” you quietly exhale.

It’s objectively not even a good movie, just something dumb and cheesy that you can use to break up an evening. But it's no longer even about that. You just want the garbage that you ordered because you fucking ordered it and paid for it using some of your very limited funds. Grunt work means grunt pay and you have to at least be olive to even be allowed to complain in the first place, so your bronze ass just isn't going to cut it.

It doesn't make sense for you to not have gotten anything. Like at least a, "sorry king, your package is delayed," thing should have happened. You work in this shit, you receive and ship and log and deliver until your pan feels numb and it’s just your body moving through the motions. You have been mentally trying to work out how to even fuck up bad enough that this kind of delay would even happen because even for a rusty, who expects very little, this is still a bit much. You’re drawing a complete blank.

The movement of a shadow catches your eye, snapping you out of your thoughts. It slowly shortens from its exaggerated length to a more proportional one as the figure draws closer, straight towards you. You don’t recognize the silhouette’s lean frame, horns or hair which seemingly fanned out to symmetrical points. You definitely didn’t hear them enter or move through the storage bay.

Swallowing, you turn.

You see his color before you notice anything else about him. Your blood runs cold as you immediately straighten to attention.

Violet.

Seeing sea dwellers through screens and on posters did not prepare you for the real thing. You had never seen one in person before and definitely had never had one slowly making his way closer to you. Everything about him was sharp. His fins, his claws, his teeth, they all came to a clearly defined point. His grin was especially sharp. Almost sharp enough to distract you from whatever the hell his spear thingy that he casually held over his shoulder like it weighed nothing was.  

“S!r.” You address him, bowing your head slightly. “!s there anyth!ng ! can do for you?”

His smile widens when you acknowledge him. His golden bracelets jingle lightly against each other as he brings a hand to his chin, seeming to genuinely consider your question.

Oh goddamn it. This is going to take longer than two minutes.

“) is there anyfin you can do for me? (,” he repeats coolly. He pensively looks off to the side as he continues to move towards you. ") oh I don't know. i just wanted to sea what was back here ("

He walks just behind you and you stiffen. You can feel his eyes lingering on you.  

"!t's mostly crates here s!r. Noth!ng too !nterest!ng"

Faster than you can register it, the hand not gripping his weapon quickly grabs your shoulder, turning you to face him. The points of his manicured claws dig into you. You keep your balance as best you can, but stumble a bit.

”) now, now. you're here too (,” he smiles at you cloyingly.

And just like that, he corrects your stance, getting way too into your personal space in the process. His grin remains shallow and doesn’t meet his eyes. It just isn't warm enough to distract from how cold his touch leaves you and in that moment, you have a realization.

So, you’re probably fucked.

He holds you for longer than is comfortable in what you’re guessing is a touchy little power play, before continuing to move past you, looking up and down the racks that surrounded you two. They were nearly as high as the ceilings and he was doing a pretty decent job of acting like he actually gives a shit about what's on the shelves. He moves by each of them methodically, occasionally picking something up like he was shopping before putting each back neatly into its place.

At least the crew coming in after to replace you isn’t going to have to reorganize anything after washing you off of the walls.

He keeps going and you know he doesn’t genuinely care about whatever soaps and meal packets are back here. You don’t either, not really. He isn't even going through the whole store room, just the area around you. It is almost like he i-.

Oh.  

He’s circling you.

Is this a fish joke? You feel like this is a fish joke he’s making for himself. Or is he just adding another layer to his touchy murder dude bit?

His voice snaps you out of your thoughts before you can really try to work out what his angle on this is. You really hope he didn’t notice you starting to zone out there for a bit.

“) it all just seems rather dull (,” he draws listlessly.

“Wh!ch part?”

He glances back at you. His smile begins to falter.

“Wh!ch part s!r?” You correct quickly.

He chuckles and turns his body to face you.

“) the whole thing (” He gestures away from himself, at your general surroundings. “) i mean here you are, trapped on a run down ship, doing menial tasks for the rest of your unfortunate life. truly, i don’t know how you can stand to be here. i mean, I’d rather die than work in a place like this (,” he looks at you intensely, his pupils seemed much more narrow now that they were completely focused on you. “) what about you? (”

Ah. Yeah. You see what he did there, but he isn’t exactly providing you with any revelations about your life and you don’t exactly think boredom is what’s going to cull you.

“! see !t more l!ke a flavor d!sk.”

Your response stops him and he looks at you strangely.

“Even when !ts bad !ts good," you elaborate.

His gaze becomes harsher for a moment, and then it’s gone.

“) that is a rather crude way of looking at it, i seappose(.”

Alright. No mentally stable person seriously uses the word “suppose” out loud. You wonder how you’re inevitably going to beef it. The spear thing would be involved. It would be really fucking weird if he carried it here just to not use it, but he seems extra enough that you would not put him bringing a long a prop past him.

He notices you looking at it and smirks at you.

") so (,” he recovers and ambles towards you, focusing his full attention on you again. His weapon no longer was resting against his shoulder. He held it against the ground and casually leaned against it like it wasn’t one of the most threatening tools of questionable identity and mass murder you had ever seen. “) what are you doing back here with all of these very uninteresting crates? (”

“! just thought ! forgot someth!ng !n here and stopped by to check. S!r”

“) without telling anyone? (”

“Yes, s!r.”

He chuckles, all too pleased, “) whale, that was a poor decision on your part. there is just so much here that if anything happened to you (,” he lowers his voice, like he was graciously letting you in on a joke, “) who knows how long it would take anyone to find out (.”

A beat of silences passes. You swallow, You know he feels the tension. He looks too excited not to.

“!, uh, maybe should have told someone ! where ! was go!ng !n case someth!ng happened.”

“) i agree (.” He straightens and picks up his weapon, spinning it with ease before he points it at you and slowly starts to bring the to your neck. “) unfortunately for you (,” he starts, “) no one knows you're here (.”

Even as you move your arms, he makes no move to stop you. He grins wider, more manic, looking excited at the idea of you actually trying to fight back.

Ha.

Sucks to be him because there is no fucking way that the last thing you do before you get culled is putting in some more effort to make this more enjoyable for the extra dude culling you.

Because if this guy's going to cull you, you're at least going to be the one making a request and try to have some fun here while you can. Because what is he going to do about it? You’re getting culled anyways, might as well, right?

The ridiculousness of it all makes you grin as you shrug at him. "Well, sh!t. Alr!ght."

This acceptance gives him pause as he tilts his head slightly, considering you. A crease forms between his brows and he tightens his grip on his weapon. ") w-"

You cut him off. You’re going to die so you think you get to be rude. Him being mad about it won’t really be your problem for long anyways.

"Can ! d!e !n a cool way though?"

") i-" he starts to lower his weapon, which you now think is a harpoon. Maybe? You don't know man. You don’t know anything about fish shit and you’re understanding less by the second.

You continue looking at him with the same resigned optimism that carried you through most of the bullshit you did. It got you this far. Which, granted, is probably getting culled by a bored sea dweller, but there are probably worse ways to go.

") wait (,” he says.

"Yeah?"

It isn't exactly like you're going anywhere. You know what to do with fear, being a rusty, you learn that shit real quick. But the look he is giving you now just makes you uncomfortable.

"What's up my guy?"

") aren't you going to fight back or somefin? ("

"Uh." You glance around the room full of mostly crates and his eyes follow yours as you search before you focus back on him, confused. "L!ke w!th a weapon?"

") yes? (" His smile tightens, seeming incredulous that you even asked.  

"Why would anyone g!ve me a weapon? ! mean, there m!ght be a broom somewhere. Actually wa!t, ! th!nk that got broken last w!pe. !t wasn't even me th!s t!me," you add with a side smile.  

He doesn't seem to know how to respond. Neither do you, so you do what you normally do when you don't know how to react.

You keep talking.

"! did troll karate for a l!ttle b!t when ! was f!ve, but !t was k!nda lame so ! stopped going. Does that uh,” you hazard, “w!ll that work for th!s?"

") no (." He narrows his eyes at you. ") plus, I know fish judo(."

Your jaw drops.

"What the fuck. F!sh judo !s real?"

") of course fish judo is reel (." He quickly spits, looking offended by your ignorance. ") do land dwellers just think that you can fight the same way underwater? ("

"! mean !'ve l!terally never thought about !t."

") i'm not surfrised ( ."

"Okay, but ! feel l!ke !f a land dweller !s !n a pos!t!on where they need to know f!sh judo, !t means they're going to lose at f!sh judo."

") i mean, i guess? (," he replies, baffled before quickly refocusing on you again. His sharp thing is pointed back at your throat as he slips back into his previous cool demeanor.

“) you do reelize the danger you’re in right? (”

Your eyes dart down to his weapon and then at him, now being the one confused.

“Um, yeah?”

Was the whole mood he had going on not an intentional thing on his part?

He stares at you. So you go on, listing things on your fingers as you go, trying not to focus on his questionable object with definite pointiness.

“So you got the whole class!c stalk and lurk th!ng so you could follow me somewhere ! would be alone where no one can hear me scream. !t’s pretty standard,” you emphasize.

You can’t read his expression.

“There was the whole slow dramat!c enter, nefar!ous d!alogue, and, uh," you glance down, "harpoon?”

“) harpoon (,” he repeats.

“That’s what ! thought !t was, but ! felt !t would be we!rd to ask.”

His mouth opens slightly and his fins flare out more, now openly seething.

“) do you know what i could do to you? ("

A lull drags on.

"Et!vor."

") what (."

"My name !s Et!vor." You continue, "! thought you were draw!ng out the you th!ng because !t's l!ke. We are a good b!t into th!s whole th!ng and !t's kinda awkward to ask for names now, so ! am just, you know, putt!ng !t out there."

He blinks. "I don't give a fuck about your name Etivor."

He still used it though.

Taking a very deep breath, he resumes. “) i am going to take immense pleasure in cutting your tongue out and slowly flaying you alive (”

He moves closer to you, slowly, predatory, circling you again. One of his icy hands brushes by your arm in a mockery of comfort as he continues to muse more to himself than you.

“) maybe I’ll slice off each of your joints, starting at the ends and slowly work my way to eventually gutting you. perhaps I’ll simply behead you. although, i think you’ve said enough to have earned far worse, don’t you think? (”

His face being this close to you is definitely starting to put you on edge more than what he is saying. But what’s really bothering you most of all is that one of those sounds a bit too familiar.

“Wa!t. That second on-”

“) you don’t get to fucking choose which one,” he hisses at you as his claws start to dig in to you.

“! wasn’t done. Damn.”

You’re honestly surprised he hasn’t just stabbed you from sheer frustration. It’s kinda funny. It would be way more funny if he wasn't going to cull you though, but you’ll take what you can get.

“!sn’t that second one from that one comedy with troll Tob!hn Bhelle?”

“) you’ve sean that? (” He raises his brows. “) no. i added a little twist with the gutting at the end instead of letting them bleed out (.” Almost hesitantly he asks, “) did you like it? because i thought they were trying too hard where they ha-.”

He catches himself and raises his weapon at you again, “) STOP. This is NOT what is taking place right now (.”

You narrow your eyes. He's the one who kept talking.

“Then !t !s from that mov!e. You can’t just say, no !t’s not and then be l!ke,” you motion with your hands, “but w!th a tw!st! You l!fted !t.”

He bemusedly stares at you.

“) are you purposefully trying to infuriate me? was your egg dropped? do you not understand what happens when you piss off royalty? (” He snidely adds, “) i am going to get so much satisfaction out of flaying you (.”

He is literally the one holding the weapon, and holding you hostage, and also did physically hold you a few times. What the fuck does he think you’re trying to get out of this?

“! have never purposefully done anyth!ng !n my ent!re l!fe dude. ! am not about to start mak!ng an effort just when !’m about to get culled,” you respond, surprisingly defensively.

Wait, this has gotten off of the fucking rails and you don’t know where you guys actually stand.

“You are going to cull me r!ght?”

“) well, uh. yeah (.” He’s tense and glances around the room, taken off guard by your question.

"Cool." You nod at him. Worth a try you guess.

His harpoon is less looking like a weapon to be used against you and more like a barrier to keep you away from him. Silence again draws on and he stares at you expectantly. You glance around. His frown gets deeper and he looks more frustrated as time goes on. You have no idea what he is waiting for.

You never thought being culled would be this fucking awkward. Guess the torture’s already started.

") aren't you going to plead for your life? (" he demands, bringing his harpoon closer as he does so.

You’ve never been great on the spot. You try to muster something decent up.

“Uh, don’t cull me?” You said it as lamely as you felt.

He looks at you blankly. “) are you getting off on this? (”

“Dude. No. Gross.” Your face twists. “!t’s just like. !’ve never pleaded for my l!fe before. !t !sn’t sh!t you really get to pract!ce and ! feel l!ke !t won’t actually matter since !’m getting culled anyways. So. Yeah.” You slowly nod to yourself before looking up at him.

He is still waiting. Goddamn it. You sigh.

“No. Please don’t cull me. !’ll do anyth!ng.”

While that covers all your bases, it came out a lot drier than you thought but you’re too over this shit to feel any kind of way about it.

"!s there any chance plead!ng would even work?"

His disappointment was broken by a sharp laugh, ") of course not (."

“Then what do you even want from me?” you ask, getting kinda exasperated at his apparent high standards and prereqs for the randos he culls. Like it is one thing to play some kind of sadistic game with your prey, that’s normal, whatever, but it is a whole other thing to get weird about them not being good at it.

"Why ask unless y-. Oh." Your face falls as you get bitch slapped with the realization of what is really happening here. "Oh fuck."

You step back.

Your fear has apparently slam dunked him right back in his comfort zone because his grin is back full throttle and wider and sharper than ever like he was making up for lost time. ") you finally understand the weight of the seatuation you're in? ("

He slinks towards you and you feel the edge of the blade graze your neck.

"Yep," avoid his gaze and swallow.

You were going to get culled in the weirdest way possible.

“) and what is that? (,” he asks lowly, getting right the fuck back into your personal space. His smile almost splits his face and you want to crawl out of your skin.

"Th!s !s l!ke. A th!ng. W!th you."

He lowers his harpoon again, looking completely done. “) what the fuck is THAT supposed to mean? (” You half expect him to throw it across the room or through your torso.

You can’t stop yourself from speaking now that you're actually nervous and stressed and he is yelling and also way too close to your person and his harpoon isn’t doing either of you any favors.

“You had the whole k!nda fl!rty touchy th!ng going on and then you got really p!ssy when ! d!dn’t f!ght back. And you also got super d!sappo!nted w!th my sh!tty plead!ng l!ke you were really look!ng forward to !t or someth!ng.”

“) i’m disappointed because this is the least satisfying cull of my life! (,” he hisses.

You visibly cringe at the word “satisfying” and take another step back from him. There is some fear there but mostly you’re just really fucking uncomfortable. Troll Jesus Christ this dude is into some shit and you are not playing into it.

He also takes a step back too, now into a defensive stance. ") what? it doesn't look like that! ("

You suck in air in through your teeth and are looking anywhere but at him as you reply, "!t k!nda looks l!ke that."

") oh my cod ("

He just slumps down, his harpoon clattering in front of him. His mouth is in a straight line and his head rests between his hands. You stand there, unsure for a moment, before slowly lowering yourself a decent distance away from him. You honestly thought that getting culled would be less uncomfortable than it was being here while he has whatever the fuck it is he has going on going on or at least uncomfortable in a different way.  

You continue trying to avoid looking at him. It’s kinda expected that a highblood was going to cull you at some point. That was just how it tended to go for rusties, but you could not have guessed this, and now just kinda want to get this whole getting murdered thing over with.

You try to give him a moment, glancing around the room, mentally taking inventory of everything there twice. The awkward silence is weighty and the longer it stretches on, the worse you are feeling about this whole fucking ordeal.

“Would cull!ng me help you uh, not be l!ke th!s?”

He gives you a dirty look.

You sigh, "!t's not l!ke anyone gets to th!nk that for long, !f !t helps.”

“) if it helps? ( ” He spat each word, getting louder as he went on. He whipped his head at you, indignantly, “) this is your fault! ("

"What?"

") getting culled is so fucking basic. how did you fuck that up? ("

You stare at him, trying to figure out how the fuck to even respond.

Slowly, in what might be one of the last things you do in your existence, you serve this royal what you are assuming is the stalest tea of his life in the form of the lukewarm take, “you know, be!ng bad at dy!ng !s a good th!ng actually.”

These are real words. These are real words that you are saying to the guy who was leaning way too hard into the thirsty part of bloodthirsty.

You continue. "L!ke you don’t get to pract!ce th!s. ! mean, do ! look l!ke someone who has been culled before? Because ! haven’t. Have you?" You add.

He looks like he is about to have a conniption or the sea dweller equivalent. Can sea dwellers have conniptions? Because this guy is about to have a big one.

") you did not just seariously just ask me if i've ever been culled before. that is the dumbest question anyone has ever asked me! (," he practically shrieks.

"Well you're acting like ! should just know th!s sh!t. We have the exact same amount of exper!ence gett!ng culled!"

“) whale i’ve never encountered any TROLL who is so miserable that they just accept getting culled from the fucking get go (.”

“!’m not m!serable! !’m real!st!c! ! don’t have a weapon, ! can’t fight for sh!t, f!sh judo !s apparently fuck!ng real, and plead!ng does noth!ng. !’m gonna end up at the same place no matter what ! do so why drag !t out? L!ke, come on.”

You slump against the wall, exhausted from this whole interaction. “!t wasn’t great, but ! don’t see much of a po!nt !n gett!ng so worked up about sh!t ! can’t control. ! just wanted to go out !n a cool way s!nce noth!ng ever fuck!ng happens here. The reason ! was even back here !n the f!rst place was to see !f ! had an update on a stup!d hexagonal d!sk ! ordered three months ago. But that sh!t !s apparently !n the vo!d," you gripe.

You pull out your palm husk and check again. Jack shit. You groan.

You’re surprised to hear him chuckle.

“) sucks to be you (.”

“Yeah." You shake your head. "And then a few seconds after ! found out, some guy showed up to cull me.”

He actually laughs. This is so fucking ridiculous so maybe that’s why you are too.

“) it’s a lot more fun to be doing the culling (.” He eyes you again and you don’t want to crawl out of your flesh this time, and you feel like that’s a real development here. “) you seam like you’d lose a fight (.”

An accurate assessment.

“Yeah. Troll karate didn’t do sh!t for me.” A beat passes. “Drones actually burnt !t down l!ke two w!pes after ! qu!t.”

He snickers and a moment passes.

“) one month for a disk? that is fucking bullshit (.”

“Three.”

“) fuck (," he raises his brows. Moderate inconvenience seems to repulse him more than anything you've said tonight. ") that sucks, i get my shit next night with cullazon prime (.”

"N!ce. !'d probably try that if ! had more than twenty seven whole caegars."

Broke bitch disorder also seems to do it for him in the humor department and the two of you continue chilling in silence. Less uncomfortable this time. You almost feel bad for thinking he was a sadistic creep.

He breaks the silence. “) give me your palm husk (."

“What?”

“) i don’t repeat myself (," he replies tersely, holding his hand out to you.

What the hell.

You type your code in and pass it to him. He glances at the massive crack on the center of your screen with disgust. He looks at you and shakes his head before he starts typing.

He didn't ask, but still, you answer. “! cracked !t do!ng a k!ckfl!p on a doll!e.”

He doesn't look up. ") you can't do a kickflip on a dollie (."

"Not w!thout a cost."

He spares you a side glance. ") why the fuck would you even do that? ("

"Because !t !s bor!ng as sh!t out here and there !s much better to do !n the ma!lblock."

He hums noncommittally.

"Were you just spaced?"

") and what if I was?(," he asks, a touch defensive.

"Noth!ng. ! was just wonder!ng !f !t sucks th!s bad at your level too?"

") of course not (," he snaps. ") do you genuinely believe anyone could be doing worse than you? ("

"Well yeah." You tap your sign. "But not by much."

He huffs and rolls his eyes before he looks out for a moment.

") i'm abshellutely krilling it out here (,” he states resolutely before continuing, “) but taking orders is a reel pain (.”

He sullenly joins you in leaning back against the wall.

Damn, This might just be the first time he's ever had anyone above him. Well, above him and specifically giving him orders you mean, judging by the way he is basically pouting over it. Everyone loses agency when they ascend. Guess it just sucks more when you have more to lose, not that you’d really know.

"!t doesn’t get better, but you do get used to !t," you say, not looking at him.

He glances at you, frowning deeper before exhaling.

You keep not looking at him when you ask, "So. Are you go!ng to cull me?"

") no. there is no salvaging that. you completely ruined it (." He replies bitterly while returning your palm husk.

The cullazon app has been downloaded and opened to an account page. You raise an eyebrow at him.

He announces, “) okay etivor, i shared my cullazon prime with you. you’re still going to be a sorry excuse for a troll, but you might get enough out of it that culling you acshelly becomes entertaining (.”

This is a joke. This has to be a joke.

“Thanks, but there !s l!terally no way for me to pay you back for anyth!ng ! buy on th!s.”

“) do i look like i need your fucking charity? (” he sneers.

He is actually serious about this. He looks too pissed not to be.

“Nope, you’re way too bl!nged out for that,” you grin. This dude is wild. “What’s your number?”

He looks at you suspiciously.

“!s th!s really where you’re gonna draw the l!ne? You gave me access to your Cullazon, but won’t g!ve me your number? Ser!ously?”

He doesn’t ask this time. He just swipes it out of your hands.

“) i am ievahn mordax, probably the best thing that has and will ever grace your miserable fucking life and i will brutally cull you if you mention any of this ever happened to anyone (.”

He hands it back, but still holds onto it. “) i’ve made myself clear? (”

“Yeah,” you nod and he finally lets go. This is way better than a shipping notification. 

Oh. 

You check the time.

"Fuck!" You leap to your feet and he quickly grabs his harpoon.

") what? (" he shouts.

"! was supposed to be here for l!ke a m!nute to check on the d!sk." You look at your palm husk again. It has been way more than a minute and you have the feeling someone definitely noticed by now. You completely forgot about having some work work to do considering you thought you were going to die. "Sh!t." You look at him again. "Do you have anywhere to be?"

") what? (" He squints.

“! mean you just had some free t!me and you seem bored and apparently don’t believe ! can do a k!ckfl!p on a doll!e. ! have to defend my good name. You get !t.”

“) what good name? (” he snickers. “) and if i did, why the fuck would i want to spend anymore time with you? (”

“Because you can’t make fun of my Cullazon orders !f my boss culls me for tard!ness. You be!ng around means she can’t say sh!t.”

He seems to consider, “) a compelling argument. and i do get to watch you maim yourself in the dumbest way possible which is a definite bonus (.”

You grin as you start walking. “Or have your pan be blown when you see what trollk!nd can really do when there is l!terally noth!ng else to do. !’m push!ng l!m!ts here !evahn.”

“) you’re pushing your luck (.” He leans his harpoon against himself as he follows.

“Maybe.” Quickly, you face him and add. “But ser!ously, be cool. !f my boss f!nds out about any of th!s, she w!ll absolutely cull me.”

“) she can’t cull you (,” he huffs. “) i already called dibs on that (.”

You grin returns.

“Damn. !’ll let her know.”

[qqueenofhades]

i noticed that you like to write a lot of heartrender husbands from fedyor’s side of things (which makes sense cause fedyor is fun!) but i have to ask in the modern au, what was ivan thinking the whole first two months 😂??

like was he carrying the joke the whole time? did his brain short circuit around fedyor?? was he worried about what fedyor was thinking or did he just think he was shy? Did he think the first date went well ☠️?

This was supposed to be lighthearted, but then there came Feels. So here is Ivan's backstory in Phantomverse. Content warning for mentions of an abusive relationship, familial homophobia, implied sexual manipulation, and dark themes. Nothing graphic, but duly noted.

Also on AO3.

Brighton Beach, 2015

It’s safe to say that Ivan Ivanovich Sakharov Kaminsky did not ever, not in a thousand years, not in a million, imagine himself ending up here. At one point, even Moscow would have been a stretch, and that was obviously still Russia. The fact that he would be walking down a sidewalk in Brooklyn, under the elevated tracks of the Q train that rattles and bangs overhead, on a cool spring morning to do his shopping at the Brighton Bazaar – in, should this somehow not be clear, America – and then returning to his apartment and his husband is, quite frankly, something out of an alternate-Ivan timeline. One from the Twilight Zone, or whatever they are calling that kind of thing these days. Sometimes when he thinks about it too much, he gets afraid that it is in fact a dream. That no matter how long it has gone on and how good it has been, it will suddenly and inevitably end. After all, he is Russian. Sunny optimism has never been accused of forming a notable facet of the national character, and Ivan himself would never be described as the hopeful type. But God, for this, he does.

He reaches the bazaar – a bustling blue-awninged international supermarket with three-quarters of its signs written in Cyrillic – and steps inside, grabbing a basket and pulling a scrap of paper from his pocket to double-check his list. He knows what he needs, but he likes the tidiness of writing it down, and he proceeds into the crammed aisles, passing customers speaking English, Russian, Ukrainian, Uzbek, Yiddish, and several other languages he can’t identify by ear. Brighton Bazaar stocks all the Russian products necessary to satisfy even a homesick expat like Ivan, and he enjoys being able to navigate the store with ease and read all the labels at first glance. He can get by in English, if he’s pressed, but it’s easier to leave it to Fedyor, who is fluent, and in here, he can conjure the illusion that he will walk out on the street and be back where he truly belongs. He likes Brighton Beach a great deal more than he ever expected to, but it’s no replacement for the real thing.

Ivan collects his purchases, along with a few special extras, and takes them to the counter. He is greeted in Russian by the checkout clerk, who knows him well for always turning up at the same time every Saturday morning with military precision. As Semyon Pavlovich Kuznetsov (who is called Syoma by his friends, but he has not clearly stated that Ivan can use the diminutive and therefore Ivan does not) scans his items, Ivan consents to exchange a few gruff words of small talk on the weather (nice) how the Mets did last night (badly) and the old guy who apparently died of a heart attack two days ago in the Russian bathhouse on Neck Road (making Ivan glad he did not choose said day to attend). It’s this weird Russian-American hybrid of things, since Semyon is the teenage grandson of a Red Army veteran who fought at Stalingrad, but he was born and raised in Brooklyn, loves American video games, and is fully fluent in American pop culture. It startles Ivan to realize that while this kid speaks Russian perfectly, he has probably never done so in Russia outside of a few visits back to the old country when his family can afford it. That is a very personal question to ask one’s grocery clerk, however, and he does not.

And then there’s that other thing, which he would definitely never be asked in Russia, especially not these days. Semyon hits the button to tally up Ivan’s bill, informs him that he owes $56.77, and then says cheerily, “How is Fedyor?”

Ivan concentrates on digging the exact amount out of his wallet in cash, since he never had a credit card when he lived in Russia and is still somewhat leery of them. “Fedyor is fine,” he says curtly, in the tone that makes it clear that he understands this question is an expected part of an American social interaction, but that is all the information he is willing to venture. “Here is the money.”

Semyon accepts it, counts it into the till, and rings the transaction through, handing Ivan his bags and his receipt. “Have a nice day, Mr. Kaminsky!”

“Thank you, Semyon Pavlovich.” Ivan accepts his purchases and leaves the store, taking a deep breath of the salty, sunny air and the wind whipping off the seafront. It’s still a little too early in the year for there to be many bathers on the beach, though there are always people strolling on the boardwalk. It’s only a few minutes to the apartment, which is just off Brighton Beach Avenue and overlooks the Atlantic Ocean. Ivan buzzes into the old brownstone, takes the stairs to the third floor, and as he unlocks his front door and lets himself in, wonders, yet again, at the sheer impossibility that his life has led him here.

Ivan is the third of five boys, but he was the one who was named after his father. It was not, of course, because they had some special hope for him to be the great inheritor of paternal pride, but a simple matter of logistics. His oldest brother, Roman, was named after their paternal grandfather. His second-oldest brother, Oleg, was named after their maternal grandfather. When Ivan arrived, only then was it proper to name him after Ivan Romanovich, Ivan Sakharov senior, since rushing too fast to glorify yourself as an individual, rather than your community and your ancestors, could be seen as running contrary to the collectivist ideals of the great Soviet Union. By the time his two younger brothers arrived, his parents were hard pressed for ideas; Yuri (for Gagarin) and Vladimir (originally for Lenin, though that has obviously acquired a different connotation those days) were clearly obtained by putting the names of national heroes into a hat and picking.

Five children was quite a lot for a Soviet-generation family, and Ivan doesn’t know anyone else his age with that number of siblings. After all, more children meant more time standing in line at Municipal Grocery Store #5 for food that has to be shared among more mouths, more worries about how to clothe and educate and accommodate them, more chances for one of them to go terminally astray and betray the family honor. Ivan wonders sometimes if his parents only really wanted Roman and Oleg, but decided to keep going as a matter of gaming the system, so much as it was able to be gamed.

By the early 1980s, the aging, decrepit, dying USSR, run by aging, decrepit, dying men, was in the grip of a demographic crisis so extreme that it was a contest between worrying about which one would end them faster: crazy President Reagan with his finger on the nuclear button, or the whole country just keeling over of old age. The idea of what a family even meant had been under constant challenge since the heady days of the Bolsheviks, who denounced marriage as a construct of bourgeoisie oppression and preached for free love and sexual liberation. Then it went hard back in the other direction during Stalin and the Great Patriotic War, holding up the traditional nuclear family as the highest ideal and offering rewards to mothers who had multiple children. Then it lurched away again. Abortion and contraception had been legal and freely available since the days of the revolution and most Soviet women made good use of them. Plus, of course, the obvious difficulties of maintaining a sizeable family when it was increasingly impossible to obtain even basic supplies and foodstuffs. It just made no sense.

Desperately trying to counter this slide toward self-inflicted obsolescence, the late-stage USSR came up with a number of incentives to boost the birth rate by any means necessary. They allowed mothers to refuse to list fathers on the birth certificate, to avoid social shame if he was married, foreign, a drunkard, or otherwise unsuitable, and beefed up programs to support single women with children. They also went back to the old-school plan of granting extra stipends, housing privileges, and state recognition to families that had more than two children, and Ivan himself was the third of his. It doesn’t take a genius to deduce that he was almost surely conceived for the tax benefits.

Not, that is, that it didn’t work. When Ivan was born in 1984, the family lived in a tiny apartment on the tenth floor of a building with no elevator (or rather it did have an elevator, but it was always broken), crowded in with three single young men who were at the very bottom of the list for being assigned housing. By the time his youngest brother, Vladimir, was born in 1987, they had been moved to a small house of their own on the outskirts of Krasnoyarsk, not far from the bus that his father took two hours a day out to the mine. The cynical old joke in the USSR was that the people pretended to work and the government pretended to pay them, though in Ivan Romanovich’s case, the work was backbreakingly real, even if the money wasn’t. He would come home exhausted and filthy after a sixteen-hour shift and yell at Galina Sakharova to feed him, bark at his sons, and then fall asleep in front of the television, only to get up the next morning and shuffle off again.

Ivan Ivanovich has spent a lot of time after he left home trying to understand what that kind of life would do to a man, mostly because he didn’t do it while he was there. Of course he didn’t. He was a child, and it was simply what he was used to, the only way the world could possibly be. On the night of December 26, 1991, as Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev signed the United Soviet Socialist Republics out of existence with a single stroke of the pen, Ivan remembers his father crying and swearing and throwing things at the wall, the heavy yellow-glass ashtray that always seemed unbreakable, perched on the kitchen table to collect the detritus of his constant cigarettes, smashed to bits just like their country, their sense of self, their security. It wasn’t as if life in the USSR was so wonderful. It was just the only thing they knew. Beyond that, there was nothing but the terror of the utterly unknown.

At any rate, the world didn’t end. The oligarchs moved in and began snapping up Russia’s newly privatized economy. Ivan Ivanovich, of course, had no goddamn clue about this either, aside from overhearing his father curse about it some more. He trudged through secondary school and left at eighteen, without even trying to proceed onto university. Those weren’t for someone like him, he knew that. Instead he got a job at the ever-troubled Krasnoyarsk Aluminum Plant, and went straight to work on the factory floor.

It was around this time that the one disruption in his otherwise humdrum life, the one thing that stopped him from just settling into the same miserable existence as his father and going on like that forever, became too impossible to ignore. And that was the fact that no matter how much Ivan tried to squash it down, push it aside, or otherwise pretend it didn’t exist, he could no longer deny the fact that he was attracted to men, and only to men. He bought some of the cheap porn magazines from the tabak, tried to flip through them and get something out of the girls in heavy eyeliner and bleached-blonde hair, spilling out of their scanty lingerie, and just… didn’t. He wasn’t even interested enough to try a conversation with a real flesh-and-blood woman (not that Ivan had ever gotten through a conversation with another human being, especially a woman, without disaster) and see if it was different in the flesh. Nothing about the experience, even imagining it, appealed to him at all. But men…

He knew it wasn’t right, just because – well, you knew that sort of thing, you didn’t have to ask about it, you didn’t let on. But nonetheless, something, somehow, must have given him away, because one evening after the end of his shift, one of his coworkers cornered him in the back. His name was Konstantin and he was a few years older, big and bluff and constantly smelling like machine oil. He stood there, folded his arms, and said, “I will give you five hundred rubles if you suck my dick, Ivan Ivanovich.”

Ivan didn’t know how to answer. He had never spoken to Konstantin about anything aside from the job. He didn’t like him, he wasn’t attracted to him, and he didn’t want his filthy fucking rubles. He wanted to go home and take a shower.

And yet. He wanted to know. So when he went home, it was with five hundred rubles in his pocket, and a strange, indefinable feeling of something both excitement and shame. He looked it up later and found that it was barely seven American dollars, barely enough to buy a sandwich in this place he now lives. Then after that it became – not a relationship, not exactly. But he had done it once and Konstantin knew that he was at least theoretically willing, and there was no getting away from it now. Soon enough it became something of a regular thing, and then Konstantin wanted to try other stuff and not always pay, and if Ivan ever protested, Konstantin would threaten to get him fired from the factory or tell his family what they were doing. Ivan knew that he couldn’t let this happen, and besides, this was a relationship, or so he would tell himself. It was rough and it wasn’t very enjoyable and he didn’t like the way it made him feel, but it was probably the best he was going to get, here in this place, so he had no choice but to put up with it.

Until one night when his older brother came to pick him up from work, which he didn’t usually do. Something about it set off Ivan’s alarm bells, but he got into Roman’s battered old Zhiguli anyway. They didn’t head back toward the house. Instead they headed for the country, the narrow, crumbling road that led into the vast forests of Krasnoyarsk Krai. The city was often voted one of the most beautiful in Siberia, surviving even its long periods of grim industrialization with something of its soul intact. It wasn’t as cold as Yakutsk or Oymyakon, the places where it stayed at sixty below zero all winter long and boiling water froze when you tossed it out the window. Winters only got down to a few degrees below, and in Russia, that was par for the course. Ivan loved his hometown, and he was used to the outdoors. He was a sportsman, a natural athlete. He played hockey, bandy, football, rugby, and basketball (surprisingly popular in Russia). He swam and boxed. He was tall and tough and muscled and most people never bothered him. But when the car coasted to a halt in the middle of nowhere and Roman turned off the headlights, he was still terrified.

His brother said, “I hear you’re doing things, Vanya.”

Ivan didn’t answer.

“I hear you’re doing things with men.” Roman reached over and grabbed him violently by the shoulders, pinning him against the seat. “Disgusting things. I will not have one of those in the family, do you hear me? Do you hear me? If I find out that you have done it ever again, even once, I will make sure that you pay the price. Are you listening? Say that you understand.”

“Yes,” Ivan said. “I understand.”

What he really understood was that he was going to leave, when he had barely been out of Krasnoyarsk Krai in his life. Going as far as Novosibirsk for a shopping trip was unusual, and once, in school, he went to Georgia, which was the first time he had left the country (though of course, it used to be the country). But he knew that he could not stay here anymore, and in a moment of welcome serendipity, that was also when his conscription notice arrived. At the time, every Russian man over the age of eighteen had to serve two obligatory years in the armed forces (though it has since been lowered to one, of which Ivan does not necessarily approve), and his number had come up. So he quit his job, did not say goodbye to Konstantin or tell him where he was going, packed his few boxes of things, and moved four thousand kilometers and four time zones west to Moscow.

Ivan arrived in the capital trying not to present himself as a wet-behind-the-ears country boy, to act like he knew what he was doing, to show he was much tougher and meaner than any of these spoiled, pampered little children whining about how hard it was when they trudged into headquarters and presented their army notices. In that, he had a genuine advantage; he had worked hard for his whole life, he had already been through whatever could possibly endured with a father and four brothers, and he found the strict routines, harsh discipline, and predictable tasks of the army comforting. Everyone was scared of him, he didn’t need to try (though he did), and that was also gratifying. He worked hard and pleased his commanders, who tried to entice him to stay on as a full-time professional serviceman. There were many opportunities for a man of his talents, and more money than Ivan had ever dreamed of. As for his personal life, as long as he was scrupulously discreet and kept turning in good results, they would not trouble to enquire too closely. That was already better than from what he had expected with Konstantin. Once again, he thought it would be the best he got.

That was where, therefore, he met Aleksander Ilyich Morozov.

Morozov was his opposite in many ways – rich, well-spoken, well-educated, the son of a legendary KGB commander and the inheritor of comfort and privilege even in the lean last days of the USSR. He was about Ivan’s own age, but he had a self-possession and a gravitas that made him seem older. He had started training for a career in the Russian security services practically from childhood, and he had pegged Ivan as a particularly promising recruit. “You should come with me,” he said. “We would find an excellent career for you.”

Ivan was never sure how to respond when Morozov started talking like this. He admired the man and was admittedly attracted to him – not just the dark, elegant handsomeness, but the manifest air of being a person who mattered, who made the rest of the world sit up and take notice and play by his rules – and while he knew that Morozov was ruthless, he wasn’t bothered by that and was willing to do the same when it was called for. Ivan didn’t see the world as some nice candy fairy place where good deeds were always rewarded and violence was always wrong, not least since he knew full well that it didn’t work like that. He didn’t have time for these idiots who thought they would get out there and hold hands and change the world with the power of sunshine and kisses or whatever it was. He didn’t.

Then there was one night when Morozov was at Ivan’s apartment, and they had been drinking and making big plans for ruling the world behind the scenes, and Ivan forgot himself entirely and leaned over the table and kissed him. He tried to pull back almost at once, but Morozov didn’t resist. In fact, he leaned in and put a hand behind Ivan’s head and kept him there, and in that moment, Ivan knew that while this might not be personally objectionable for Sasha (his sexuality was undiscussed but evidently fluid), that wasn’t the reason he was going along with it. It was because he knew instinctively that it was a perfect way to control Ivan, to harness his attraction and his weakness and his willingness to go along with whatever Sasha wanted, and in that, despite all the big plans they had put together and the way Ivan had dreamed of his life changing, it was just Konstantin all over again, and Ivan was straight back at the factory on his knees, small and cornered and powerless. It was visceral and it was wrong and it wasn’t the best he would ever do and he wasn’t, he wasn’t taking that.

They pulled back and Sasha made an enquiring noise, like he wanted to know if Ivan was interested in sealing the deal, and instead Ivan ordered him to leave right now, get out. That was the end of their friendship; they never spoke to each other again, and when his third year in the army ran out, which he had already taken voluntarily, he left. He got a job at some Moscow industrial plant and it was there, through the friend of a friend, he met Nadia Zhabina. And it turned out that she was queer (the first time he had ever heard the word spoken in a good way, something he wanted to be, something he didn’t mind accepting, rather than as an attack), and it turned out after that that she had a friend she wanted him to meet, only it clearly meant that she thought they should go out. Like. On a date.

Ivan flatly shut her down. He did not date, he did not want to date, he did not think he would be good at dating, he did not want to meet some pansy city boy from Nizhny Novgorod who he would immediately dislike, and he was not going to do it, the end. Only Nadia really seemed disappointed, and maybe it was not the worst thing to try a little. This would backfire terribly, he would get over it, and move on with his life.

In Ivan’s opinion, the first date with Fedyor Mikhailovich Kaminsky was, at least on his own behalf, a modest success. He was unavoidably late, thanks to the bus running behind schedule, but he introduced himself, his hobbies, and made it clear what sort of person he was and what he was interested in. He even sent a polite follow-up text with an invitation to meet again. There. No questions, no confusion, everything very straightforward and clear. Nothing to complain about. That was how you did a date, yes?

It turned out, however, that Fedyor Mikhailovich was either very reticent, or perhaps confused, or maybe he did not even know that they had been on a date and Nadia had not clearly explained to him. Burned by his experiences at home, knowing how easily word could get out to the wrong people, Ivan did not want to bring up the subject explicitly, but he had to admit to a considerable confusion. Maybe Fedyor actually liked to just mince around Moscow city parks together, like something out of a Tolstoy novel, or to sit on his couch and watch bad American action movies together. (Later, Ivan learned that Die Hard is actually something of a cult classic, but it’s still slightly lost on him.) That wasn’t bad, because Ivan – to his great bafflement and wariness – liked spending time with him. Fedyor wasn’t like him at all, but they clicked nonetheless. He was the exact kind of idealistic activist that Ivan had long disdained, but it was different with him. When Fedya talked, he liked to listen, to dream about a world that really did work that way. It didn’t, but it felt closer.

Besides that, he was cute. He was well-put together. He was charming and vivacious and could talk to people that they met, while Ivan stood scowling with his hands in his pockets and wondered how long this was going to take. He really desperately wanted to kiss Fedya (and for that matter, do other things to him), and he found himself thinking about it a lot. But what if it was like with Sasha again, and it was either Ivan opportunistically taking it for himself, or Fedya selfishly trying to keep him there, to use him for his own purposes? Maybe Fedya was the idiot. He had to know they were together, right? Or were they together? Ivan suddenly wasn’t sure. Damn it! Why didn’t Fedyor subscribe to the school of just being clear about things? Ivan himself had nothing to do with the problem.

But then there came that night, and Fedya cooking dinner and stumbling through trying to ask him if they were maybe something, and in that moment, Ivan found it all so hilarious that the only thing he could do was sit there and let the whole thing play out. Then it turned out, of course, that they were together, and that Fedyor kissed him just as deliciously as Ivan had imagined, and maybe Nadia Zhabina was not so wrong after all.

Maybe she was not wrong in the least.

Ivan takes his supermarket bags to the sunny kitchen of the mostly-remodeled apartment and sets them down. Fedya has picked out all the colors and wallpapers and furniture and paint, and Ivan has done most of the work, since he is gainfully employed as a handyman and repair-person and he doesn’t want to pay some American to half-ass a job that he can do better. The apartment is really quite lovely now. The living room has been done in a pale, springy green, the white plaster moldings washed and repaired, all the junk of the previous owner finally cleared out except for one or two collectibles that they decided to keep. There’s a bookshelf and a desk filled with Fedya’s work things, a couch and a television and a coffee table and new curtains. The bedroom is big and airy, with a ceiling fan and new carpets. Framed pictures and art pieces hang on the wall. It looks like a place where real people live.

Ivan makes breakfast, cooking and stirring and brewing the coffee, and puts it all on a tray. It’s Saturday, so of course Fedya is still asleep, and Ivan pads through the apartment to the closed bedroom door, balancing the tray on his hip long enough to open it and cast a strip of light inside. It takes a moment, but Fedyor rolls over, groggy and tousled and very, very cute with his bed-headed dark hair and squinting eyes. “Vanya? What smells so good?”

“Happy birthday, my love.” Ivan sets the tray on the bedside table and leans down to kiss him, as Fedyor makes a happy humming sound and throws his arms around Ivan’s neck, cuddling against him like a barnacle. “I have made you breakfast.”

(His younger self was wrong, and he has never been so glad of it.)

(This was the best, this is the best, this was waiting for him, this kind of happiness could happen for him, and he is grateful beyond all words that he fought for it and believed it until it did.)