#me when he's relearning the basics of sword fighting

[bubbyisatitagain]

Ofmd season 2 anyone? :3

[obsidianbit]

I know I joked about how there was no reason for Izzy to be shirtless in that scene (and I stand by that) but I think it is really interesting how he is bare-chested. His leathers are a part of his image and reputation. They are part of what marked him as Blackbeard's. But more than that, they represent armor - in taking off his leather armor, he is bearing his vulnerabilities, and more precisely, his heart.

When Izzy is training, he isn't in his room. He is in a communal part of the ship, where, presumably, any one of the crew could enter. When Stede enters, he doesn't become defensive at being found in a vulnerable state. Instead he says "I'm having to relearn the basics with one leg." He openly admits to his weakness. He is the best sword fighter, that is his reputation, how he defines his worth (in his use as an incredibly fighter), but he didn't lie about the struggle of having to adapt to one leg. He didn't even try to down-play it by saying he was adjusting or refining his sword fighting with one leg. He outright says he is relearning.

Then (the showoff) Izzy demonstrates what he has been practicing. Now, he has just said he is relearning it - we can assume that he was better at this before he lost his leg. He shows Stede (who, to be fair, Izzy would know would probably be impressed regardless) something he is still working on. Not something he has perfected.

Then he turns his back to Stede. Without his armor on, having just admitted to a weakness.

Even when he asks 'but what did he say about me specifically,' he is showing vulnerability. His heart (and great tits) are in the middle of the shot when he shows Stede that he cares what Blackbeard has to say about him.

The lack of Izzy's leather armor/vest, and showing his bare chest (is much appreciated) is symbolic of his trust in the crew and in Stede. He shows his vulnerabilities and his shortcomings, when previously he never would, for fear of the crew losing respect for him.

The crew has seen him at his lowest, and came together to support him, showing him that he was a part of the crew and that they cared for him, not just what he was useful for, which is something that Izzy has ever experienced before.

This is not a man who expected kindness at his lowest point.

This, however, is a man who has found purpose because his crew cares about him.

Izzy took off the all-black leather armor which defined him as Blackbeard's, and in doing so, he showed his heart and his trust to the crew.

[arandomperson19]

The sword in her heart-The Genin corporation training and first mission

1

The first week in the Genin corporation camp was hard. They learned advanced techniques, jutsu, being discrete and how to quickly kill their opponents without wasting too much chakra.The teacher’s name was Daichi. He was the strictest teacher they ever had. He informed them about the different plants and animals they could find outside. They needed to know this if they wanted to be able to eat without being poisoned.

Many could not keep pace but Daichi-sensei didn’t seem to care. He said that they will be obliged to learn it by instinct on the battlefield if they want to survive. The camp was in the forest of Konoha. There was only one building , the one where they slept. They made their own food with what they found in that forest. There was enough space for 72 students.

They were divided into three groups.

The group who was the slowest to learn was called G1. They had to relearn their basics and control their chakra properly. Hikari was part of this group.

Pre-Genins who learn quickly without getting out of the crowd were in the group called G2.They learned what they were given and were quite good at combat. Jingū is part of this group with Yuki.

The strongest of the Genin corporation are in the group called G3. It is the students who learn the fastest and who could go to the next level. Takara was part of this group and did not fail to remind the others. Keiko was also one of them. Jingū knew that Keiko was strong, but not that strong.

Even if they were divided, all of them will sleep at the same place, eat the same thing and fight in the same division when they go to war. Jingū knew that Yuki hated being in the same group as her. Hikaru hated being considerate lower then her. They glared at her with so much hatred that she thought it was the instructor.Jingū knew that she could die during this war. Training was the only way to become stronger and since she had a sword, she needed to work hard on kenjutsu. She trained with a wooden katana like some of the other students. They sometimes spared and gave tips to others. One of them seemed to like spending time with Jingū. Her name was Himari. Himari was also part of the G2 group. The two of them wanted to be good at kenjutsu.

Keiko trained with them because she didn’t like training with Takara. He was the only person she knew from the G3 group. The three friends trained hard to survive on the battlefield where hesitation can be a fatal error.

At night…

Keiko, Himari and Jingū slept next to each other. They talked about ways to improve and what they will do when they come back from the war.

-“ I want to be part of the anbu. They are the best ninja after the hokage. Being one of them will be an honor for me.” Himari was really invested in her career. Her father was also part of the anbu. He died on a mission. She wants him to be proud of her “This is my dream”

-“Mine is to become a sensei, a jonin sensei. I want to have my own team and help them be the best ninja alive.” That was a surprise. Jingū really knew nothing about Keiko. Becoming a sensei? Having her own team ? This looks like too much work for Jingū. “And you Jingū-chan? What is your dream?” Lying or telling the truth? The dream of Jingū was now an illusion since she was forced to join the academy. What could she say?

-'' My dream… well my dream is hum… my dream is to be the best kenjutsu user?” That sounded more like a question than an affirmation. Jingū thought that that was the best thing she could say. Being an anbu or a jonin sensei was not the path she wanted to follow, and she couldn’t say that she wanted to quit being a kunoichi and open a shop.

-“This is a great dream Jingū-chan! What do you think about her dream Keiko-chan?”

-”I think this dream suits her well. Jingū-chan always had a fascination with sharp objects so I knew she would be good with kunai, shuriken, kenjustu and other things who involved sharp weapons .” Jingū didn’t know what to think about that. She said that without thinking. Kenjutsu was just the first word she could think about. Well it seems that now she has to be the best kenjustu user of her generation.

“ Can’t you guys shut up? People are trying to sleep here.” A voice next to them silenced them. They totally forget that they weren’t alone in this building. By looking at each other, they decided to sleep. They have a long day ahead of them in addition to the war outside Konoha. Sleeping will be their only rest time if you don’t include death. An eternal rest…

One week later…

The Genin corporation camp wasn’t that bad. They had good food and a place to sleep. The training was really hard but not impossible. The groups G1, G2 and G3 were progressing rapidly. Her past classmates still ignored her but Jingū didn’t care as always. She had two friends now and she never felt better. Having friends to talk to was nice. Jingū was happy and she didn't need more..The instructor had an announcement to give them in the afternoon. They were placed in rows and made no noise.

-“Today, the hokage sent me a message about the battlefield.” A letter from the battlefield? What could it say? They didn’t have any news from them for two weeks. Were they going to release them? Or…

-“They need even more soldiers than before, you will join the war in 4 days. On the last day, you will have 30 minutes of free time before leaving. Your division leader will be a Jonin named Haruto. You can go back to training.”

…

Jingū wanted to cry. Why? She knew that day would come but not that soon. She promised Sayana to not die but she didn’t know if she could keep her promise. She really didn’t know. She really didn’t want to die. If only she wasn’t born in this period…

• • •

The favorite part of the Genin corporation camp was the combat training. That was the easiest training since they just had to apply what they learned.

Hikari fought against Takara. It had to do about the group they are part of. Hikari surely didn’t like the idea of being part of the weakest group. He made the first move by throwing shuriken at Takara. Takara jumped out of the way and ran with a kunai in his hand in the direction of Hikari.

Hikari grabbed his kunai to clash it against Takara. Takara kicked his opponent in the face and put the kunai on Hikari's neck. The fight was already over with Takara winning. He took his kunai and got back to the group, he had a proud look on his face.Hikari got up with an angry look and also got back to the group.

The next fight was Keiko vs Himari. Himari used the camp sword and ran in the direction of Keiko. Keiko had one kunai in each hand. She was ready. Himari tried to hit Keiko but her opponent dogged. Keiko was using her kunai for offensive and defensive. She was fast and agile.

Himari followed her movements with utmost attention. Both were incredible. At a favorable moment, Keiko threw his kunai towards Himari's head. Himari dodged it and lost her balance. Keiko took the opportunity to bring her down.Keiko won. The two got up and walked back to the group.

Jingū wanted to congratulate them for their match but someone caught her from behind and threw her on the ground. It was Yuki.

-“You will fight me now.” Yuki seemed determined to win. Jingū didn’t understand Yuki's obsession with her.

-“ If this is what you want-” Jingū was still shocked about the announcement of the instructor. They've only been training for two weeks. They should had to stay a month.

-“ Shut up and let’s fight!” yelled Yuki.

Yuki made the first move and she launched four kunai towards Jingū. She also throws shuriken. Like Himari, Jingū used a wooden sword. She blocked all of the weapons thrown at her with it and ran to attack Yuki. Yuki tried to maintain the distance by throwing more kunai but Jingū just slashed them. When they were at a close distance, Jingū jumped and hit Yuki in the back. Yuki didn’t let it impress her and tried to cut Jingū with a kunai.

Jingū dogged by jumping back and took a kunai from her pocket to throw it at Yuki. In one arm, Jingū had a sword and in the other she had four kunai. She throws them at Yuki for a distraction. While Yuki was dogging the four kunai, she didn’t see Jingū behind her. Before she could see it, she was already on the ground with a sword on her neck. Yuki lost.

Himari and Keiko jumped on Jingū to give her a hug. Jingū didn’t understand why but she felt the same warmth in her heart when Sanaya hugged her when the two girls did. Yuki got up and gave a hard glare at Jingū and left to see her friends.

The next days would surely be harder for everyone since this will be their last 4 days before entering the battlefield. The ignorant were happy while the realists were fearful.

Four days later…

Today was the day they would enter the battlefield. Keiko and Himari didn’t understand Jingū’s worries. For them, it was an honor to fight for Konoha. Jingū didn’t know if she was the strange one or if the people around her were crazy.When she woke up, a ninja entered the room where the 72 genins slept to give them instruction. They needed to take their things and put them in a storage room. She didn’t understand why but she still took her things and followed what was ordered. They had to go into the secret passage in the hokages stone face to put their things.

After that, they were free for 30 minutes before leaving. Jingū decided to go on top of the hokages stone face. She sat on the head of Tobirama Senju, the second hokage. She could go spend her last 30 minutes with Sayana but she knew that the woman was occupied with all of the children in the orphanage. The view in front of her was beautiful, Konoha was beautiful. That was the last view of Konoha that she wanted to see.

After 15 minutes, she decided to go prepare herself. She made her way back to the genin corporation’s camp. There, she saw a woman with a bunch of boxes behind her. Jingū approached her.

“As part of the Genin corporation, you will need some equipment to complete your mission.” The woman gave Jingū a war uniform too big for her. “Your headband” She gave Jingū a headband. She took it and put it on directly. She didn’t feel any accomplishment by putting this on. “ On the left side of your Jacket, there are 20 scrolls. It’s for the ninja. The scrolls on the left are for you.” Jingū thanked her and left to change herself. She was right, the uniform was too big for her.

When she arrived at the front door with all of her things, she saw a bunch of people giving hugs to the new genin. She saw Sayana and the kids from the orphanage talking with Yuki, Hikari, Takara and Keiko. Sayana was giving her a sad look. Jingū approached her.

-“ Why are you so sad Sayana-san?”

-“ Please….come back alive.”

-“Don’t worry Sayana-san, I will do my best.”

-“I know Jingū, I know but…just be careful, alright?” Jingū was even more worried. What if she couldn’t keep her promise? What if she died during her first mission? she needed to stop thinking about things like this.

“Don't worry Sayana-san, I will be careful.” She will come back, she had to.

• • •

The Genin corporation was ready to leave. Their leader was named Haruto like the instructor Daichi told them. He made it clear that their only mission was to bring supplies to the shinobi. They needed to be discreet. After saying the last goodbyes to their families, they left for the battlefield. Jingū noticed the hokage never said a speech or an apology to the family who could lose a kid about all of this. Not even an announcement. She paid no mind about this. Maybe the old man was too preoccupied by the war.

The 72 kids of the Genin corporation were running behind their leader. That man had 7 other people with him. They were probably the replenishment team. After some time, they stopped for a break. The leader has something to tell them.

-“Okay. We will divide you guys in 8 groups to be more effective. We will stay together but with some distance between us. We don’t want the ennemi to see us. Moving by a little group would provide a great advantage.”Jingū was placed with the leader. Yuki, Takara, Hikari, Himari, Keiko and three random people were also with them.

After four days of running with breaks of course, they arrived on the battlefield. To not put them in danger, the eight adults made them take a detour to avoid fighting as much as possible. Actually, each of their 20 scrolls contained supplies like food and weapons for everyone. The leader had a different type of scrolls from what Jingū heard. He had exactly 12 scrolls with medical equipment to give to the 12 medic-nin teams on the battlefield. He made his little team run in the forest and they found ninja from their village. He took a scroll and gave it to a medic-nin who was hiding from the fight to heal the ninja. This team of medic-nin has nine people. The leader of this medic team thanks them.

The eight adults took separate ways to execute their mission. Haruto led the path for his little team. They ran on the battlefield where they could see people fighting. Some ennemis tried to attack them but Haruto killed them before they could. When they arrived at the base of their ninja village, each genin gave one of their scrolls. The ninja from this base thanks them. The little group left after this. One of their goals is completed. Nineteen are left…

[doc-coyote]

Mom taught me archery. She had a bow from when she was a kid and when I found it, as a teen, she realized it was best to give me the basics for safety purposes. A few years before the pandemic, we both took archery back up and had a blast relearning it. We hope to go back someday when she's feeling better.

Dad is and always will be a sword guy. When I moved into my apartment, he gifted me 3 swords. A replica of Sting and the katana and wazikashi he got from his trip to Japan in his youth. When I was a kid, we would fence and do bits of kendo. He also taught me the basics of staff fighting, he knew my love of Donatello needed an outlet.

Grandma knows how to use knives. For cooking, fighting, and entertainment. She taught me knife throwing and knife safety. Dad jokes she used to be a circus performer as a front for wetwork before she settled down to run a farm and raise some kids. Grandma also claims her farm raised blue whales among many cryptids. So, I have no idea where or how she learned her knife work. I mostly stay away from knives since I have the worst luck with them. The throwing skill is handy with other implements, thankfully.

My grandfather taught me brawling. The man knew how to fight dirty. He taught me before my growth spurt so I was being trained as a slightly smaller than average child. When you suddenly become the tallest kid in your class, your dirty fighting becomes downright filthy. I struggle to spar without using these "fight to survive" tactics, which really disrupts the flow of a spar.

I haven't really used a lot of these skills in ages but I am feeling the itch to get back into them. I'd basically be starting over. No wonder people wanted me to be their weapon when I was a teen. I had a host of skills perfect for it already. It is funny when some of the old skill comes back when I try again after so long. Whether it's getting a bullseye on a first try or disarming an opponent before we can even truly begin, it startles onlookers. Maybe I should also look into further diversifying my weapons portfolio.

[setoangel01]

Zerith Week - Day 1 - Heaven / Angel

.....I LIVE!!!! Sorry for basically posting nothing for almost a year. XD Between my last computer basically exploding, life, work and lack of motivation, I am back. Mostly because a month ago, Square Enix showed us the Crisis Core remastered trailer (and it's on the Switch!!! O___0) that I got some spark back and with Zerith week happening, I thought, what the hell? Let's get back into the fray, shall we? So, I'm on a new laptop and new tablet and almost half a year of drawing nothing, so here's to relearning everything. XD Day 1 prompt for Zerith Week was Heaven / Angel and I thought I would combine the two. Ya know when Cloud dropped Aerith in the lake, she woke up in Zack's arms. Fight me. Amidst the tears flooding her eyes, Aerith repays the favor of when Zack fell into her church and life all those years ago.

The view of white wings, spiky raven hair and the most beautiful blue eyes fills her once blackened vision. The beloved face of one she loved and lost so long ago, the one she never thought she'd ever get the pleasure to see again was right in front of her. ...Zack... But before she could even fully process what happened between kneeling at the platform and the pain of Sephiroth's sword in her stomach, she uttered the words that seemed all too fitting right now, "...Heaven? ...an angel?"

Zack smiles softly, "Yeah... in a way I guess...". His glorious white wings ("Those wings, I want them too...) flutter subconsciously before his smile falls as he stares at the smiling (now dead like himself) Cetra in his arms, "...I'm sorry I took so long."

Aerith let's the tears fall down her cheeks and shakes her head at his apology.

None of that matters now she has him again even if she wishes it was under much different circumstances. In an instant, it's as if those five lost years never happened and before Zack can say another word, she flings her arms around his neck, the broken words, "It doesn't matter, you're here now..." getting lost in the brilliant light around them as she finally gets to kiss him again. Zack's blue eyes flutter shut, the guilt and pain disappearing between presses of her lips to his face. One thing is for sure, nothing can ever separate them now.

[highfaelucien]

While on the topic of wishing sjm had done something different for her characters, I really wanted something more for cassian. For example, cassian’s wings going from being completely ruined in the end of acomaf to being 100% healed in acowar made no sense to me. I think it would’ve been an opportunity for the growth of cassian’s character to see him go through the loss of losing the ability to fly and instead retrain himself to be a warrior in other ways and find other things about himself that prove his own worth to himself. Given the fact that cassian’s confidence is aligned with his ability to protect and serve others, it just would have been sooo good to see him overcome his grief and become even stronger of a character. And how wings, in general, are a sense of male pride among illyrians. I think this would’ve been the perfect way to write cassian and have him break away from his own idea of masculinity. He could have redefined what it meant for him to be a Man ™. Ugh, it just could have been so GOOD, imagine the character we could have gotten from him.

Listen, after ACOMAF, when this happened, EVERYONE was buzzing about this. Most people thought he wouldn't outright lose his wings permanently, but there would be a LOT required.

And then ACOWAR came and approximately nothing happened whatsoever. Oh he had to be healed. the healer had to rebuild his wings. he had to do strength training every day. But fundamentally: not a sausage.

Personally? I think Maas chickend out. I think she was unable to commit to taking Cassian's wings, or figuring out how to write him as anything other than what she's established him as: fun jock man who likes to hit things real hard and make dick jokes sometimes.

Having to see Cassian vulnerable? Having to see him broken, and struggling, and having to reevaluate his entire life and self-esteem and sense of masculinity would have been an incredible option for a character arc.

Most of the theorising/Nessian fics involved Nesta helping him. The two of them being broken/fundamentally altered by their experiences in Hybern - she being killed and Made with a dark power, Cassian losing his wings.

There was expected bonding over that, peeling away the masks they both wear to discover the softness underneath. The two of them being able to reach one another, because of their bond, in a way the others could not. It produced some pretty epic stuff, honestly.

And how badly I wanted that I didn't FULLY realise until the disappointment of ACOSF, when it hit fully.

Because instead of stripping Cassian back and seeing the tactician, the strategist, forcing him to put his other skills to use, to develop those skills, rather than 'smash with sword and ask questions later'. This man is a General. All the combat training in the world doesn't let you be good at this job if you can't command, if you can't use tactics, if you can't strategise.

And THIS is where I wanted to see Nesta. Nesta, the woman who calculated how many ships would be needed to save the humans of Prythian. The woman who looked at Greysen's manor and assessed its capabilities and saw a prison. The woman who devours history novels, who has a tactical, cunning mind. Who has never been a warrior or a creature of brute strength or physical abilities.

THIS is how I wanted to see Nesta evolve. This was how I wanted to see her develop. I didn't want her taken out of lady's dresses. I didn't want her forced into fighting leathers, to basically become another copy of her sister, and follow down that path.

I wanted her to take her own. I wanted her to finally be in a place where she could learn, and strategise, and contribute. And I wanted her to work with Cassian on this - who was grounded because of his wings, who couldn't command on the frontlines anymore, or even fight. Who had to stay back, and see how he handled this. How he maintained his authority. How he maintained his sanity without his wings.

We could have had so fucking much. Such a powerful narrative about survival. I wanted her in the library, with the other survivors, (and with fucking MORRIGAN - not sidelined, not dismissed, not being bitchy and catty for the sake of it. But someone who visits the library frequently, who interacts with the women there, and sometimes just is a woman there herself, because there are still hard days.)

But no. No instead of something nuanced, and original, and actually tailored to Nesta's strengths as a character, we got Yet Another Weapon's Trainng Montage.

We got the narrative that the only way to heal from abuse is to be able to beat the shit out of your abusers. Because that's #GirlPower, right?

It makes me so furious I almost want to just. Just fucking rewrite the whole damn fucking thing myself the way it SHOULD have gone.

And I know you talked about Cassian and not Nesta, so I do apologise, but they were tied together. But I agree.

We all wanted Cassian to evolve from that 'Lord of Bloodshed' / "savage brute" because reading between the lines and forcing some nuance from these books, which is the only way to survive: Cassian has a lot of layers. There's a lot of trauma there. A lot of insecurity. A lot of angst. A lot of heart. A lot of fucking INTELLIGENCE. (I'll fight on that point, I really will. Cassian is not a dumb himbo who can barely add 1 and 1).

But sjm was too busy writing him having a hard on for Nesta to explore....anything about himself. Or his relationship with Azriel, and Rhys, and Mor, and everyone else.

The removal (even temporarily) of his wings would have allowed for a LOT of that exploration.

Firstly, the fact that he injured them by CHOICE, saving Azriel's life. That would have been such a deep connection and bond between them. The guilt that Az would feel - but the potential for Cassian to step in, even with his wings gone, and say that he'd do it again.

Because Azriel is his brother. He loves him. And it was worth it. It would be worth it a hundred times over to save him. Because he's worth saving. And he's worth sacrificing for. And what that would have done for Az as a character, too. Who always offers himself up first for dangerous missions, puts himself in peril to protect the others.

And having Cassian join Feyre and Az's flying lessons? Because Cass having to relearn how to fly once (if) his wings healed to that extent, means letting Azriel train him. Because those old instincts aren't enough. And he has to learn how to strengthen them, and train with them. And how this affects his perception of himself and his masculinity, as he said. But also deepening his understanding for Az, and the bond the two of them share, in having this experience together.

Bonding with Rhys, who FINALLY fucking opens up to someone and has some nuanced therapy-like conversations about what happened with Amarantha. The sacrifces they've made for their people. How they'd do it again but it still hurts, and changes them, and how they have to learn and grow and move on from that and heal together.

Rhys working with Cassian on his other talents, using him as the skilled strategist and tactician he MUST be. Helping him to develop that, keeping his brother from losing his mind while he can't fight or use his physicality to solve problems, as he usually does.

Mor personally healing and tending to Cassian. Mor being there at his bedside every day while he was bed bound. Mor becoming as possessive and overprotective of both him and Az as any mate ever has been.

Mor speaking to him about her own rehabilitation after what her family did to her, the physical toll that took on her. Mor's heart breaking because she nearly lost both him and Az and she couldn't handle that at all. Mor reiterating how much she fucking loves him, and how she needs him.

Mor helping him through the darker days of his depression because she's been there. And she knows what it is to put on a front. To always be laughing, and joking, without the seriousness of life -leave that to the others. But sometimes it's too much and he needs to break down. And be angry. And furious. And hopeless. And scared. And that's what she's there for. Because she understands.

Mor winnowing him to his favourite spots that he can't fly to anymore, just so he can be there. The two of them spending time, and bonding, and developing that relationship we got in ACOMAF beyond 'we bicker constantly and drink together and make sexual innuendos'.

Even Amren showing up and doing her part. Snapping at him to stop brooding so much. But also bringing him some of her puzzles. Some of her favourite military history books (which she has anotated and edited to highlight the bits that have been incorrectly reported). Spending time with him to stop him going mad. Exhausting herself those first few days personally attending to Cassian's wings, and snarling at anyone who tried to interfere.

IT COULD HAVE BEEN SO MUCH.

IT COULD HAVE DEVELOPED SO MUCH WITH THE INNER CIRCLE. AND CASSIAN. AND NESSIAN. AND JUST. EVERYTHING WOULD HAVE BEEN BETTER BUT NAW. IT WAS BASIC ASS AND BORING AND I'M GONNA DIE MAD ABOUT IT.

[peachyydesires]

The YTTD Cast Playing Minecraft

genre: crack / platonic relationships

warnings: n/a 

bloopers: 🌳 [tba]

a/n: my good friend, alyson, and i wrote this as a collab together! she has an ao3 account that she recently started for both danganronpa and your turn to die! if you like either fandom, i 110% suggest to go check out her work/subscribe to her! she’s an amazing person so go show her some love if you can!! i recruited her a bit last minute and we spent all day yesterday writing, but this was definitely one of the most enjoyable things to write so far! 

Keiji Shinogi (Aka The 1st Boomer):

❏ This man has BARELY any idea how to play Minecraft at first. Hell, he even had to get Gin to help him install it on his computer. He has to learn how to even use the basic controls, and he’s constantly asking the others what certain keys do (does he do this just to be annoying? The world may never know).

❏ Once he gets the hang of the game, things go a little bit smoother, but not completely. While he may have quickly learned all of the buttons, there’s still a lot more to Minecraft such as PVP, building, mining, the bosses, crafting, etc, and that takes him an eternity to learn (don’t even get me STARTED on the Nether and the End). Without his other friends, he’d probably be stuck in the middle of the night with zero protection or tools on him to fight the mobs that spawn.

❏ He’s mostly just there for the laughs; while he’ll try to stay out of the way from his friends, he’ll show up at the most erratic times. He’ll either immediately teleport himself to someone in the middle of fighting a group of mobs or invade someone’s house and steal their stuff just for fun. 

❏ While he’s not as much of a prankster as Shin, he’ll still do some of the most random actions ever, even if it’s not to annoy others. He’ll place down a random door in the middle of a room and just leave it there, or make several holes in the ground while trying to punch some grass to clear it out. When the group is on a voice call, 90% of the call is just the others yelling at Keiji to stop planting trees on their farms. 

❏ He’s not one to explore, but wherever his friends are, he is. He’ll tag along with them nearly anywhere, whether they’re doing a dangerous excursion to the End or traveling across the sea, he’ll always be tagging along. He honestly doesn’t know the point of the game, but again, he’s just there for the laughs. 

Joe Tazuna (Aka The Brave One):

❏ Joe has played Minecraft before, but he doesn’t care about building a pretty mansion or planting flowers. This man will live in a tiny dirt hut and beat the game. The one thing that Joe always plans on doing whenever he starts a new world is to get a dog and name them “Sven” after he watched one of his favorite YouTuber’s playthroughs one night instead of studying. He would do anything to save his dog, even if it means sacrificing his friends’ lives.

❏ When he plays on multiplayer servers, he always insists on getting the supplies and food for everyone. It’s pretty much all he does. He isn’t afraid of caves or mobs, and he won’t hesitate to run towards a creeper to stab it repeatedly. He is, however, terrified of skeletons and endermen since they always kill him. Once, he dropped down into a cave after spotting iron on the surface, only to be ambushed by a horde of skeletons. No one came to help him. 

❏ He tends to forget about his hunger level until he actually starts taking damage. The same thing goes with drowning. It doesn’t help that he’s constantly sprinting wherever he goes. Because of this, he’s constantly falling into caves, ravines, and even little holes filled with water, yet no one ever helps him get out. They usually leave him behind, or they think that he’s simply lost. 

❏ His girlfriend, Ryoko, hasn’t yet tried Minecraft, despite him begging for her to play with him 24/7. Although constructing a fancy house isn’t his cup of tea, he’ll do anything to play with Ryoko. He even once asked Sara to help him practice with his Minecraft dates. He needed help with his wording of asking Ryoko if he could put his bed next to hers, so Sara volunteered to assist him.

❏ Joe’s always falling into lava as well, and he gets very frustrated when it happens. Whenever he falls, he starts screaming into his mic while on voice calls (he doesn’t curse because he’s cool like that), yet still, no one comes to help him. Sara only says “teleport to me!” but it’s always too late. Keiji once offered to help him, but Joe declined, saying he didn’t trust or like him since he’s creepy towards Sara. 

Q-Taro Burgerberg (Aka A Minecraft Veteran):

❏ Besides Joe and Gin, Q-Taro surprisingly knows the most about Minecraft. He used to play it a lot when he was younger before he started getting into baseball, so he knows the basics such as crafting and mining. Despite not picking up a controller in years, he still knows all of the mechanics the game has to offer as not much has changed when it comes to the controls.

❏ What HAS changed, however, is literally everything else in the game. All of the major updates over the years have nearly changed the game completely, including the Nether, the End, the villages, even the ocean became useful. He doesn’t realize this at first until he goes into the Nether and sees that it’s completely changed (He’ll stand there for a moment, wondering why the caves haven't been updated but the Nether of all things has). 

❏ He’ll have to completely relearn the game, having Gin teach him all of the new mechanics such as elytras, banners, shields, etc, and all of the new structures including ruined portals, pillager towers, shipwrecks, etc. He’s always confused on call, constantly asking what a certain block is or yelling into his mic, “Uhh, I found something!!” 

❏ One thing about Q-Taro is that he loves to mine. It’s the one useful thing that hasn’t changed all too much, so he can still help out and gather ores for everyone else. Although, he has to have the best armor out of the rest of the group or he might just commit theft. When he learns about Netherite, however, he refuses to wear it; he doesn’t want to admit that diamond isn’t the best in the game anymore, although no matter how many enchantments he puts on it, his armor will never be as good as netherite.

❏ In all honesty, he forgets the majority of the information that Gin tells him. Even after all of the warnings that Gin gives him to ‘not punch everything he sees’, he still punches everything he sees. He’ll run up to something new and whisper vaguely into the mic, “I’m gonna punch it.” And before Gin can scream for him not to, he’ll give the new block or mob a nice good smack. Beehives, llamas, polar bears, and pandas are prime causes of Q-Taro’s many deaths in the game. Regarding the new mobs, he encounters hostile ones a lot. He’ll often forget to sleep (despite everyone else yelling at him to go to bed) when he’s down in the caves, and he’ll emerge from his hole at night only to see 5 different phantoms flying in the air trying to murder him. 

Alice Yabusame (Aka The Sailor):

❏ Alice is a rather frustrated player. Nothing ever goes his way when he plays, and he’s constantly cursing on voice calls. His sister, Reko, sometimes kicks him from the calls to keep Kanna and Gin as innocent as possible (although they don’t really care, and Gin sometimes picks up on Alice’s bad behavior himself when he gets mad). 

❏ Similar to Joe, he’s an explorer. He loves exploring the ocean (especially the water temples), but his cheerful vibe suddenly switches into a pure, satanic rage once he starts drowning. He gets too cocky sometimes, though. Once while he was looking for an End City in the End, he lost control of his Elytra and flew into the void, cursing and screaming in fury the entire way down. The same exact thing happens whenever he falls into lava and loses all of his belongings; if anyone were to make fun of him when he died, he would craft a sword and kill them without any hesitation out of pure spite. 

❏ He would try building a house next to Reko to get a bit closer with her, but once, he went out mining, and when he came back, his house was on fire. He then discovered that Shin was the one who set his house ablaze, so whenever Alice sees the troller, he grabs a stone sword and attempts to kill him (since he’s poor), but Shin is almost always in creative mode, which angers him more and only causes him to scream swear words into his microphone. He begs Sara, the one who created the server, to ban him, but Sara’s excuse is always, “he’s just having fun, which is the whole point of this server.”

❏ Since his house is always being destroyed, he usually makes small bases inside of caves or mountains to avoid Shin, but somehow, the troller always finds them and burns them down or blows them up, so he’s constantly on the run from him. He also does stuff alone since he doesn’t have any friends on the server (besides Nao who sometimes gives him food and supplies). 

❏ Due to having to relocate nearly every time he joins the server, he rarely keeps chests on him. He has nowhere to store the treasures that he often finds in shipwrecks, sea temples, etc so whenever he runs out of inventory space he gives his materials away as gifts to his other friends, especially to Reko. Despite always giving out free resources and ores, nearly everyone in the server finds him odd, especially when he’s quiet for one moment only to be throwing a tantrum the next on the voice calls.  

Shin Tsukimi (Aka The Troller): 

❏ It’s no big surprise that Shin is just as chaotic as he is in-game, if not more, than IRL. Despite being over 20, he often lurks around on the Minecraft forums, always learning new hacks and ways to troll the others in the shared server. For some reason, everyone has server operator on the server, so Shin’s able to switch between Creative and Survival as he pleases, although he rarely goes into Survival.

❏ His only goal in the server is to create mayhem and confusion rather than to actually be productive; he’s always quiet on voice calls (except when he giggles loudly while he’s blowing something up or creeping behind someone), listening in on the other conversations so he knows who he can terrorize next. 

❏ Since he’s in Creative, the minute he joined the game he automatically spawned himself netherite armor and tools while everyone else was running off to go trample the forests for wood. He builds a secret hut, making sure no one else could find it (in the side of a mountain, underwater in the sand using a conduit, really anywhere he can hide). He has chests full of TnT, flint and steel, potions, mob spawn eggs, and redstone in case someone forces him into survival. 

❏ He’s played a prank on nearly everyone in the server; his favorite target is Alice, as he rages the hardest and tries to murder him despite him always being in Creative. He constantly will throw down an invisibility potion and follow Alice into a cave whenever he goes on a mining trip, waiting until he’s right in front of a conveniently placed lava pool before pushing him in. He’s always heard giggling in the background during voice calls while Alice screams out strings of curses and vows of revenge, which are never followed through. 

❏ Sometimes if he’s really in the mood for some chaos he’ll switch into Survival and taunt Alice on the voice call, daring him to come and catch him and murder him now that he has a health bar. This immediately catches Alice’s attention and he literally drops everything he’s about to do just to partake in the wild goose chase that Shin ends up leading him on. He gets close a couple times, but Shin always stands still for a moment before teleporting away to someone like Kanna (“Thanks Kanna!” “SHIN GET YOUR ASS OVER HERE YOU COWARD-”) 

Gin Ibushi (Aka The Kid Leader): 

❏ As the youngest in the group, Gin obviously is the Minecraft pro compared to everyone else. It’s one of the many games that he constantly plays when he’s not playing with his toys, and it’s a good escape outlet for him. He’s been through nearly every Minecraft update, always mastering the new skills such as flying, potion-making, and new PvP tactics as soon as the game updates. 

❏ He was the original one that suggested that the rest of the group start a Minecraft server with him, although Sara was the one that managed to start it up. As soon as he spawns in, Gin’s already off doing who-knows-what to try and speedrun the game, but nearly every 10 minutes he has to stop what he’s doing and help the others out of their confusion. He doesn’t care too much about having a fancy house or not, so he usually just builds a sufficient starter house (which is actually like, 3 stories) in between his adventures.

❏ Somehow, after the first day or so, he already has the strongest armor and tools in the game: netherite. While Shin cheated and used Creative, Gin managed to find the rarest ore in the game (probably after pulling an all-nighter or two admittedly). He’s very insistent on fighting the Ender Dragon early, but everyone else is either off doing their own thing or still on iron armor and afraid of even going into the Nether despite Gin insisting he’ll ��carry’ everyone. 

❏ Gin is always the one to lead excursions off into the other dimensions. He’s very eager to finish the game (despite having done so dozens of times), and he’s always pressuring/convincing the others to go out and explore. He knows everything about the varying structures and bosses, from the Pillgar Towers to the Ocean Monuments and the Wither to the Ravager(s). 

❏ Surprisingly, he does die quite a lot. Despite having played for years on end, he still makes careless mistakes even when he isn’t being trolled by Shin; he’s fallen into lava pits countless times and died to the occasional skeleton even with his netherite armor (sometimes he forgets to put it on as he leaves it on an armor stand at home so it doesn’t break). One time he was looking for a Woodland Mansion using an Elytra, following a map while flying over several different biomes at once without a second glance as he was focused on the chords displayed on the screen. When he finally realized he was about to fly right into a mountain, it was too late as he smacked right into the wall and fell to his death even after trying to put down a water bucket to save himself. 

Kai Satou (Aka The Quiet Fighter):

❏ Kai hates to admit it, but he’s actually quite a fan of video games, especially Minecraft, considering he played it a bit as a kid. The moment he spawns into the map, he gets wood for a crafting table and supplies for himself, Sara, and sometimes Q-Taro. He’s usually pretty quiet on voice calls since he doesn’t really want to bother anyone, and he logs on sometimes on his own to build a fancy wood house or to get some extra supplies. Once, he logged on and saw that his house was on fire with Shin standing by it, saying taunting things in chat just to piss the loner off. Kai didn’t really care, though, since his houses don’t take him very long to build. Shin is annoyed by this, but still, he just goes after Alice instead. 

❏ Similar to Joe, he’s always out hunting for food or seeds. Every time he plays, Kai starts a farm by a river, pond, or even near the ocean. Whenever someone walks on their/his own crops, Kai silently rages inside his head, but he never tells them anything.

❏ He usually goes on mining trips by himself, and he isn’t afraid of mobs or hostile surroundings. Unless Gin is off helping the others, Kai is always the first one to build a Nether portal or travel to the End.

❏ Whenever he plays, he always gets a cat or two from either the jungle or a nearby village. He likes to give them fish, and he takes his precious pets on his less-dangerous adventures. Once when he logged onto Minecraft, he saw that one of his cats was gone. He looked around until he found Shin beating his helpless bundle of joy with a stick until it died. Kai didn’t say anything to him, but he was furious on the inside. He later blew up Shin’s house with TNT after finding his hidden shack, and being an expert with laptops/computers himself, he also got Shin temporarily banned from the server, making Alice exceptionally happy. 

❏ Sometimes, Kai invites Q-Taro to go on mining or exploring trips with him, and the athlete gladly accepts. Kai tells him about all the new updates that occurred over the years, even though Q-Taro never really pays attention. He’s pretty quiet whenever he talks on voice calls, so Q-Taro is always shouting for him to speak up.

Kazumi Mishima (Aka The 2nd Boomer): 

❏ Mishima had never even heard of Minecraft until Nao brought it up to him one day in class. When Sara made the server for all of them to play in, he jumps into the server wearing nothing but a Steve skin, but Nao quickly helps him change it by making him a skin of his own image. Surprisingly, he got used to the controls of the game rather quickly.

❏ He wouldn’t really know what to do, and he would find Nao doing everything for him, including building his houses and getting him food and ore. He would make a lot of silly mistakes, such as mining gold with a stone pickaxe, eating raw meat, digging straight down, and ignoring fall damage. Mishima isn’t really bothered whenever a hostile mob suddenly appears either and tries to attack him. 

❏ If Mishima ever stumbled upon a village, he would clap his hands in joy. He loves villagers and trading, and would even kidnap some of them via boats to experiment and test what they could do at home. Some of the others are a bit creeped out by his fascination, but Nao and Gin find it to be quite entertaining. 

❏ Despite being a polite, smart teacher in person, his online persona is the exact opposite. He’s always barging into people’s homes and examining their shelters, sometimes stealing a bit of their stuff while quietly giggling on the voice call. However, he once accidentally killed one of Kanna’s parrots, and he was extremely apologetic about his mistake. He even went out in the jungle just to get her a new one despite her constantly reassuring him that it was fine.

❏ Mishima’s favorite mob would definitely be a cow. He doesn’t really understand why, but he loves their patterns and design. He refuses to kill or eat them, but he’s always on board with the idea of capturing them and bringing them home. If he ever encounters a mineshaft, he’s scurrying around the place, trying to find a name tag for his precious cows.  

Kanna Kizuchi (Aka The One Who’s Scared of Everything):

❏ Even though she’s rather young, Kanna has strayed away from video games for a long time. Sure, she’s heard of Minecraft, but does that mean she’s ever played it? No. But she had watched several Minecraft playthroughs on YouTube before, so she was somewhat prepared when she spawned in with everyone else. She knew the basic controls and learned pretty quickly the other mechanics and new features the game had to offer. 

❏ She thought Minecraft was a rather tranquil game, and she loved all of the details and peaceful mobs that spawned around her. She loves the flowers and trees the most, constantly picking flowers and exploring the grassland excitedly on the first day. She seems to be pretty good on her own until night comes along. After spending all day flower-picking, she doesn’t realize until she starts getting attacked by the hostile mobs that its night. She’s heard frantically screaming and panicking on the voice call before her death notice appears on screen to everyone else. 

❏ After that night, Kanna is terrified of the night sequence(s). As soon as the sun starts to set over the horizon, she’s scurrying inside her house or spam-clicking her bed before she’s even allowed to sleep. Despite people like Gin always reassuring her that she has armor and a sword to defend herself with, she still refuses to go out at night no matter what. She’s also always pressuring everyone to go to bed to make sure she doesn’t have to sit through the night in her house and so that phantoms don’t spawn either (even though she’s never encountered them, she’s determined to keep it that way). She’ll be quiet one moment on the call before suddenly scolding everyone to get inside and go to bed so the server can time skip to day. 

❏ Kanna doesn’t exactly realize that not every mob is either peaceful or hostile. While she isn’t like Q-Taro who’s always punching the neutral mobs, she’s still unaware of certain hostile variants such as the Killer Bunny. One day while Kanna was out picking flowers for the outside of her house, Shin got the grand idea to spawn a bunch of rabbits inside of her house along with a Killer Bunny or two that he hid in her storage room. When she came home, she was rather confused and could be heard quietly murmuring on the call, “Where did all these bunnies come from..?”. Her usual soft and melancholic whispers quickly turned to shrill shrieks as she entered her storage room to put away the flowers and the Killer Bunnies, which looked like regular rabbits to her, began attacking her. Shin obviously began bursting out laughing when his invisibility potion ran out and he was standing in the corner of Kanna’s house watching her run away from the mob(s). Although, after she began sobbing quietly on the call everyone went silent, including Shin for once (although some of her sobs were overexaggerated just so she could guilt Shin for traumatizing her) as he silently noted to never troll her again. 

❏ It’s not very surprising that Kanna has at least a dozen pets. She has an entire pack of dogs (which she only managed to tame after stealing Gin’s collection of bones), several different colored cats, three parrots, two foxes, and even a panda bear she managed to kidnap using Mishima’s classic boat method. She has several rooms in her house that she built purely to keep her pets in, especially the untamable mobs like her foxes. She’s actually rather creative with her rooms, always adding in small details such as scratching posts for her cats and mini trees for her parrots. Her stable for her horses is also humongous and often mistaken for a second house when people run-up to her plot. She also somehow is an expert at coming up with names on the spot and she has a nametag on her 24/7 (admittedly, Shin always secretly restocks her name tag collection that she has in her chest since they’re rather rare and Kanna is too scared to go into dungeons herself).  

Nao Egokoro (Aka The Helper): 

❏ Nao has obviously played Minecraft before, and she was ecstatic when Sara announced that she would be making a server for all of them. She loves making Minecraft skins, and she made skins identical to how they really look for everyone on the server.

❏ She would totally use those Minecraft house building tutorials on YouTube and would help make houses for her friends if they were struggling. Nao would also get supplies for people (especially Alice since she pities him) out of the kindness of her heart. She really enjoys picking flowers with Kanna and getting cute pets/animals for everyone as well.

❏ However, Nao refuses to harm any animal/mob she finds. She sometimes goes on mining trips with her friends as well. Since she doesn’t want to lay a blood-thirsty finger on any of the animals, she begs Alice to go mining with her for materials since she knows he’s a good fighter, and he could fend off mobs for her as she mines. Alice obviously agrees since Nao has helped him out with Shin’s antics, and he would constantly jump up behind her to stab skeletons, zombies, creepers, and even endermen. They both left the cave even happier than before, and Alice didn’t curse once when he was mining with her.

❏ Nao invited Reko to live with her, and her friend happily agreed (Reko would do anything to move away from Alice). They would go on cute trips together, and Nao would build a stable for the horses that they found.

❏ She’s pretty nervous to play the game by herself, and she always waits until someone else is on the server with her (even Shin) before she does something a bit daring. Nao is always frightful when she has to travel to the Nether, and she has to beg people to go with her out of fear.

Sara Chidouin (Aka The “Mom” Friend):

❏ Although Gin was the one who suggested that they should make a server, Sara was the one who created it. She’s been playing Minecraft for a long time (especially with Joe) and was happy when Gin suggested the idea. 

❏ Sara is technically considered the “mom” friend on the server, yet she won’t give a crap about her friends’ issues. If they fell into a hole or were being attacked by mobs, she wouldn’t help them. She would let them die with zero regrets regarding her actions, as she doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal since players can respawn. 

❏ She likes to use Minecraft building tutorials, similar to Nao. She’s started to memorize building patterns, and she’s even gotten more comfortable with building in general. However, she doesn’t admit that she uses them, and she likes to flex her “skills” to the others (Shin always calls her out on this with a snicker or two, but he’s immediately silenced when Sara threatens to ban him from the server for terrorizing everyone else). 

❏ Even though this has already been said, she still doesn’t give a crap about the others’ issues. Alice would always come to her and beg for Shin to be banned from the server, yet Sara would shrug it off and say that he’s having fun. Deep down, she would enjoy watching Shin torment and tease Alice, even if she was annoyed when he bothered her.

❏ Sara spends most of her time on the server with Joe, Keiji, and Nao, trying her best to avoid Kai, Alice, and Shin. She isn’t scared of doing things alone, such as mining or going to the Nether, but there is one thing that she is terrified of: zombies. She hates how much damage they can do, especially when they’re crowded together in a large horde. She has to beg her friends to kill them for her since she always fails. Joe always kills them for her and taunts her, saying that she owes him back. Keiji would accidentally hit Sara, so the two of them would just run away from the zombie. Nao, of course, wouldn’t want to hurt the zombie, so the two of them would also try their best to escape the annoying mob.

Reko Yabusame (Aka The Raider):

❏ Reko is somewhere in the middle of everyone; she used to play every now and then with Alice when they were kids, but the game has updated so much that she forgot half of the mechanics at first. As soon as she spawns in, the nostalgia hits her like a truck and everything comes rushing back to her. So while the others are stumbling around, voicing their confusion into their mics, Reko’s off along with Gin to go punch some trees down. 

❏ Similar to her brother Alice, she gets easily pissed off at the game. While her rage isn’t on the same levels as him, it’s still quite strong. She’ll mutter curse words under her breath, barely audible so the kids in the call don’t hear her. The farthest she’s gone is thrown her controller across her room after falling into a lava pool in the Nether while bridging, and surprisingly it didn’t break. When it comes to her brother and his rage, she’ll often mutter, “Brb.” before leaving her room and storming into Alice’s, and often a loud slap is heard from Alice’s side with no further explanation to the others. 

❏ When it comes to her brother, Reko is one of the few people who can tolerate him. She helps him at the start of the game despite her reluctant groans into the mic but ditches him as soon as Shin starts harassing him. It’s not uncommon for her to have to rescue Alice when he’s running back from mining and is being chased by a horde of mobs. She’ll leave her house with only an iron chest plate on and still somehow manage to murder all of the hostiles while Alice runs inside with half a heart. Besides Gin, she’s probably Alice’s mentor the majority of the time, always teaching him new features that he forgot like potion-making and archery. Whenever he dies (which is very often, unfortunately) she can be heard mumbling during Alice’s screams, “I told you…” 

❏ Reko’s favorite part of the game is the Pillager raids. For some reason, she finds it an interesting challenge for her due to the different levels that raids can spawn in. She has several different strategies, some of which she made up at the last second. Some notable moments include dropping a block of TNT on a Ravager from her tower, spawning in a large group of Iron Golems at the start of the raid, and somehow shooting a Vex with a bow. She somehow hasn’t managed to die even once during the raids, and even Gin can’t believe her skill and sheer luck when it comes to fighting. She often tags along with him when he goes on adventures, especially when it involves the Pillagers (she finds them interesting, what can I say?). It’s no big surprise when she conquers a Wooden Mansion with ease one day while on a trip with Gin. 

❏ After moving in with Nao, she got to teach her pink-haired friend a lot more about the game (especially since she was away from Alice now). She often encourages Nao to step out of her comfort zone and explore, as there’s a lot more to the game than just her house. She accompanies Nao on every mining trip (except for the few times that she chooses to go with Alice when Reko isn’t on) and even takes her out to the other dimensions. She’s always watching after Nao, always standing close to her with a netherite sword in hand to murder any mob that dare come near her. Reko even ends up teaching Nao how to defeat a raid (although she was the one carrying the entire time) and it’s not too surprising when Nao joins the excursion to the End to defeat the Ender Dragon. 

[antiquecompass]

Since Ao3 looks like it’s having some issues today, also posting my Day One ZhuiYi week Ficlet here.

Ficlet: Bigmouth Strikes Again from the To Celebrate a Simple Life post-canon collection

Many things had changed since that pivotal year when what was supposed to be a simple night-hunt at Mo Manor upended the entire Cultivation World. There were the obvious things, like the upheaval of the Cultivation Clans hierarchy; the changing of sect leaders; Hanguang-Jun becoming Chief Cultivator; the fall of the Jins and their rise again under Jin Ling’s (and Sect Leader Jiang’s) guidance.

And then there were the smaller things: marriages among their friends and fellow disciples; becoming senior disciples and having their own students; Zizhen also becoming a sect leader; Sizhui taking on more responsibilities as he became the official heir to Gusu Lan.

Some things hadn’t changed. Lan Jingyi was still deeply in love with his best friend. He was still afraid of ghosts. He was still punished like a Junior whenever Lan Qiren felt like it. (Or to use him as an example. By sheer repetition and practice, no member of Gusu Lan had perfected the ‘keeping the ends of their forehead ribbon off the ground while doing handstands and writing out their sect rules’ quite like Jingyi and Lan Qiren used his stance and stamina as a measurement to which all Juniors now aimed to achieve.) Senior Wei was still responsible for getting more rules added to the Wall of Discipline. There were still rabbits in the back hills and the Cloud Recesses remained a mostly tranquil place best suited for learning, music, and meditation.

There was one change that Jingyi absolutely despised. Because of Sizhui’s responsibilities, and because of Jingyi’s place as a Senior, their time spent together night-hunting had been cut down to nearly nothing. Jingyi honestly couldn’t remember the last time it had just been the two of them, or even the two of them leading a hunt of other disciples. He missed Sizhui, missed curling up next to him, stealing his body heat, sleeping under the stars. He missed their dinners in random taverns in the most remote corners of their world. He missed their secret moments in dark corners, soft touches and deep kisses exchanged during what little time they could find alone. He missed having someone at his back he absolutely trusted, who he could fight beside and know their movements would be equally matched, who he could communicate with and not say a word. He missed Sizhui’s musical speaking voice and commanding tone while barking out orders and those laughs he only reserved for Jingyi. He just missed him. 

Being stuck with Lan Qiang, of all other cultivators in their sect, didn’t help matters. They’d never gotten along. Lan Qiang had always been jealous of the fact that despite Jingyi’s lower marks, he was favored by their teachers. He’d often questioned why and how Jingyi maintained his close relationships with the elders of their clans. And his even closer relationship with Sizhui. 

It wasn’t Jingyi’s fault that Lan Qiren had adopted him as a sort of grandson after his parents died during the burning of the Cloud Recesses. It wasn’t his fault that his teachers had encouraged his blunt manner of speaking, citing the Lan Sect’s own principles that silence and  false modesty would go against Jingyi’s true nature and character. And it certainly wasn’t Jingyi’s fault that Sizhui had picked him as his friend back when they were small children. So Jingyi truly meant it when he said Lan Qiang was the most insufferable Lan to appear in at least six generations.

Jingyi considered his opinion sound, since no one, not even Zewu-jun himself, had ever disputed that claim.

“Maybe the Elders wanted him gone so they could finally discuss Sizhui finding a cultivation partner?” Lan Qiang loudly asked.

“Gossiping is forbidden,” Jingyi said, not taking his eyes away from the tree line in front of them.

“It’s not gossiping, it’s speculation. Sizhui is more than old enough, and it is normal to be concerned over the future of our sect.”

Sizhui already had a cultivation partner, or rather one impatiently waiting for their official wedding date. He was right here. Stuck in a forest. With an idiot and a gaggle of children.

Jingyi knew they should’ve eloped. 

“Pay less attention to your mouth and more attention to your ears,” Jingyi said. “We need to find out what’s causing the deaths among the villagers.”

In Jingyi’s opinion it was most likely an animal and not a ghost based on the injuries The townsfolk--and Lan Qiang--had insisted differently and now Jingyi was stuck in this forest on this absolute waste of time. Of course Jingyi’s sound advice, years of experience, and basic grasp of the fact ghosts didn’t impale people like boar’s tusks, was overridden by the fool leading this hunt with him.

Jingyi had a real fear he was going to die before he even got the chance to embrace Sizhui as his husband. And it would all be because a certain vocal group of clan elders continued to drag their feet and punish Sizhui for being born a Wen and refusing to abandon his only living blood relative and Jingyi for being born Jingyi. 

A loud growl sounded from the west.

“I told you it was a demon,” Lan Qiang said.

“You said it was a ghost,” Jingyi said. He pulled out Senior Wei’s newest version of his compass. It revealed nothing. 

“Defective,” Lan Qiang said with a sniff. 

Sizhui made him promise not to start any fights in front of the Juniors. Not when they were so close to getting that certain group of elders to cave. Jingyi was to stay on his very best behavior.

Another growl. One that sounded distinctly like a boar and not a ghost or demon or fierce corpse.

“That way,” Lan Qiang said, sword already out, leading the group directly into what was probably the poor animal’s den.

Jingyi took a deep breath, resigned himself to the future injury he knew was coming, and followed them if only to save the fools from themselves.

**********

“Jingyi, you’re bleeding!”

Sizhui’s shocked voice was nearly as loud as the sound the doors had made when Jingyi shoved them open.

Yes, yes he was bleeding. He’d bled on the forest floor. And he’d bled flying on his sword back to the Cloud Recesses. And he’d bled on the mountain path and the entire walk to the conference chamber. He’d bled on every single night-hunt since he’d been separated from Sizhui, and while he’d gladly bleed for Sizhui until there was nothing left in him, he wouldn’t do the same for Lan Qiang and his merry band of Junior idiots.

Lan Jingyi was done.

“Yes, yes I am,” Jingyi said, not caring how shocked and outraged some of the elders looked. “Because, once again, even though I’ve requested not to be paired with disciples who have no practical working knowledge of the world, I was sent off with someone who should never leave the Library Pavilion. Because, once again, my orders were dismissed by an arrogant little fu--”

“Jingyi,” Sect Leader Lan warned.

“Apologies, Zewu-jun,” he said, bowing his head. “My experience was dismissed by a certain disciple who needs to relearn a few of our more valued lessons. Such as listening to those with more experience in a dangerous situation.” He cut his eyes to the small group of thrice-damned elders. “Still, none of this would happen if I was no longer separated from my cultivation partner.”

Sizhui pressed a hand to his side, using his energy to stop the bleeding.He nodded at Jingyi’s words. “We’ve been patient waiting for you to pick the date of the ceremony,” he said. He raised his head, voice and eyes gone cold. “We will follow the examples of our direct elders if one is not agreed upon soon.”

A rumble of disagreement came from the group of the elders responsible for holding up their public, official, marriage ceremony for so long. 

Sizhui and Jingyi had been respectful. They’d been patient. But at this rate, Jingyi really would be dead before he could even enjoy his marriage bed.

Lan Qiren held up his hands to silence the room. “We will not have an elopement again,” he said, eyes cutting to both of his nephews.

Zewu-jun gave his typical serene smile. “As stated before, I did not elope, just married in the manner of the Jiang sect.”

“Alone,” Lan Qiren said.

“Jin Ling was present,” Zewu-jun argued.

Lan Qiren turned to the grumbling elders. “Pick a date. The invitations will go out tomorrow.” His eyes turned to the open doors of the chamber. “Since our entire sect now knows.”

Jingyi turned around and found a group of slack-jawed Juniors staring at them.

He turned back to Sizhui. “I swear that was not my intention.”

“I already told my fathers that if they seperated us on one more night-hunt I was kidnapping you.”

“I offered to help,” Senior Wei said. 

“No more elopements,” Lan Qiren repeated. He nodded at Jingyi. “You are dismissed. Sizhui, tend to his wounds. And send in Lan Qiang.”

“Gladly,” Jingyi muttered. Despite it all he still gave his elders a respectful bow.

He leaned on Sizhui, ignored the shocked Juniors, smirked at a stammering Lan Qiang, and held his head high as they left the conference chamber.

“Is that a boar?” Sizhui asked.

“I offered to leave it with the villagers, but they insisted we take it as payment. I made the kids carry it back,” Jingyi said. “Damn thing almost ran me through.”

“It didn’t?” Sizhui asked. “Then why are you bleeding?”

“Because Lan Qiang doesn’t know how to use his sword.” He laughed. “In more ways than one, I’m certain.”

“Jingyi!” Sizhui chastised, but Jingyi knew his Sizhui well. He could hear the laughter in his voice. He brought Jingyi to their chambers; the two rooms had once been divided, but with Zewu-jun’s pointed helpful comments and official permission, they had long ago removed the wall between them.

“Sizhui,” he said as he watched him prepare their bath.

“Yes?”

“We’re finally getting married.”

Sizhui paused and then looked at him, his beautiful face overtaken by a blinding smile. “Yes, yes we are.”

“I love you,” Jingyi said.

Sizhui came to him, arms outstretched, and carefully pulled him into a kiss. “I would hope so. Now that everyone in the sect knows.”

“I didn’t mean to,” Jingyi said.

“You never do,” Sizhui said. He led him to the tub. “Now, come here. Let me properly see to that wound. You’re not dying on me now.”

[sesshatetsuko]

Rurouni Kenshin Fanfiction : See you in life Beyond -Chapter 4-

Summary : For as long as he remembers, life had never been easy for him. So when carefully-buried memories are brutally awakened, the worst can happen... * A canon post-Jinchuu story, depicting how Kenshin tries to survive his inner demons, and how he and Kaoru finally became a family...* (rated M)

To find previous chapters, just search for #fanfiction on this blog!

Sitting in seiza at the end of the training room so as not to disturb the endless flow of shinai, the wanderer was watching attentively the activity under his eyes. Kaoru was training students of Maekawa dojo in addition to her own. As a result Yahiko was redoubling of effort, proud of his master's teachings and eager to show his technical superiority against the opposing school. Sweat, quick gestures and kiai cries filled the air.

Giving lessons for another dojo allowed the young kendoka to support as much as possible the needs of the house, helped in this task by her only disciple, who although unable to pay for his lessons participated in living together by bringing a little money from his work at the Akabeko. Sanosuke, on his side, sometimes helped as a docker at Yokohama Port, his imposing physique allowing him to carry heavy loads. Thanks to this livelihood he was able to finance things like his nocturnal escapades. Above that, he had recently developed a strange fascination for ships coming back from abroad, and all the stories of unknown countries swimming with them...

Only Kenshin, unemployed, was out of step compared to his young companions.

Having always experienced poverty as a child and then wandered for more than 10 years as a penniless and homeless wanderer did not do anything to help things. He had lived so long without thinking about the next day, indifferent to the fact that his own death could happen from one moment to another, that changing his way of life now that he had settled at Kamiya dojo was very difficult. In fact, he had to relearn everything, having absolutely no personal reference of standard family life. Thus, if surviving had become one of his specialties, money remained a mysterious data for him, since absent during most of his existence. As a result, he had trouble caring for it, associating it personally neither with need nor with happiness.

Kaoru seemed to understand this, since she never pushed him in that direction, and for this he was secretly grateful to her. He had tried to look into it, but ... what could he do? His level of writing and reading was barely passable and he had only learned the art of the katana, developed more particularly that of murder, a perfectly useless competence in this new Meiji era he had sweated blood and tears to build. He did not want to transmit the Hiten Mitsurugi (his own youthful failure regarding the values that his teacher wanted to teach him was damaging enough), and the professions of policeman or bodyguard had proven to be a formidable stimulant for his innate assassin reflexes that he desperately tried to bury. Not to mention the fact that he did not like to go away of the dojo for a long time after the traumatic incident of Enishi, and that sometime, his body began to make him pay for all of his swordsmanship years...

Finally, this one might not be suitable for this new era ...

He focused his gaze again on the young students before him, and on the life that emerged from them. Basically it did not matter to him to be obsolete, if these people could know the happiness of a peaceful life. That was the reason he had fought for and would fight again.

Kaoru was in the center of the room, and she was performing a series of kata demonstrations for her students. She was lifting her shinai at full speed, hitting her arms and hips in different directions, her feet resting each time in very particular points on the ground. These were traditionally rigorously codified exercises where each gesture mattered.

Although he had initially come to see her out of sheer curiosity when he arrived at the dojo, Kenshin's eyes had become much less innocent since he had begun to develop feelings for her. Because if the young woman was just emerging from adolescence, his own adult life was already well under way, and his body was often painfully reminding him of that... which had earned him to this day many cold water buckets, meditation sessions and other nocturnal baths. Worse, since he had started courting her without allowing himself to touch her, training sessions had literally turned to torture. To see her waving fiercely in this low necked man's outfit, sometimes revealing her tightly bandaged chest, was enough to bring his blood on fire. Moreover, her incredible agility made him wonder what kind of acrobatic positions they could u... -Kenshin took a deep, long breath.

This one will definitely have to go back to the river ...

Chasing these ideas did put his self-control yet strong at severe test. Himura was also careful not to stare at the young kendoka too intensely, for fear of frightening her with the ardor of his thoughts. Concealment was after all a specialty among assassins. Kaoru was executing the movements with precision, causing her slim yet robust body to be covered with a thin layer of sweat, which slid down her neck and lower.

The river, the cold river ...

While Kenshin was struggling internally, all the students seemed captivated by the current demonstration. The master of Kamiya Kasshin performed kendo with a grace and tenacity inherited from her father. All except a boy who was standing aside, a pout on his face, apparently bored by all fo this.

She seemed to have noticed it since it was to him that she spoke first.

"Gyôsei, come to reproduce the exercise, I will mime your partner"

" Why me?" He replied, exaggerating his grimace.

He doesn't seem to want to work this morning, his master noted irritably.

"You're lucky she's the one taking care of you," Yahiko replied, waving his shinai. If you don't want to do any more katas, I'll be happy to be your opponent and kick your ass, idiot! "

If slackers were people of the worst kind for the brave first Kamiya Kasshin disciple, men who were not interested in martial arts were just downright aliens.

"Stop arguing, boys!" Kaoru continued without losing her concentration. "Come on Gyôsei, put yourself in position. "

The young man reluctantly complied. He began to realize his series of movement awkwardly, the assistant master reproducing them identically in front of him, then quickly lost patience. Kaoru countered every shot, but Gyôsei became more and more abrupt and rough in his gestures. After a while, clearly angry at having been put to work and ridiculing himself in front of his classmates, he aimed a shoot that was not intended in the choreography directly at his teacher's ribs. The young woman, although surprised, saw his attempt and narrowly dodged him, but the aggressive gesture did not go unnoticed by the redhead sitting in the back of the room, who had suddenly raised his head.

"Well," Kaoru noted, "you still lack coordination ..."

"Pfff ... what's the use of learning these choreographies? It's not even a real fight! "

"It's you who are the real moron! argued Yahiko who was regretting not having previously kicked the damn boy's ass "If you cannot even master that you'll never be able to fight! These are the basics, the ba-si-cs! "

The two boys stared at each other fiercely. Meanwhile, the wanderer had risen from the corner of the room, unbeknownst to everyone.

"Gyôsei, right?" He said with a smile. "You do not seem to have really grasped the concept of kata. "

" ...What do you mean? "

Why does it matter to him? If even the housekeeper of the dojo comes to annoy me now! Gyôsei already had no desire to come to class, only obeying the order of his parents, but if in addition everyone fell on him ...

"That stroke at the ribs was not in the demonstration. "

The boy clenched his teeth, displeased that his little hanky-panky was noticed.

"So what... ? "

"This one will be your partner. "

Without waiting for his answer, the samurai grabbed a training sword hanging from the wall. Gyôsei looked at him with a hint of apprehension. He had never noticed how callused his hands were, nor that his usually high-pitched, even feminine voice could become so low. Not to mention, did he not have a sword hung on his hip? The impulsive boy was suddenly intimidated by this scarred man with tawny hair, who had suddenly decided to take part in their training...He had been coming at the Kamiya dojo for some time now and from memory this guy was only satisfied to observe them without speaking, occasionally smiling in a honeyed or even silly way. If only he had been told that this man could do something other than cooking or washing laundry...

"Are you sure, Kenshin?" The young kendoka wondered. "It's really not worth it ..."

This is the first time he ever gets involved in one of my classes! He has never accepted to train with me, or even to give advice to Yahiko before...

"This one insists. "

He put himself in position immediately, to everyone's surprise. The students had spontaneously formed a small circular group around them, curious to see the abilities of the redhead who lived with their master. As for Kaoru, she was as shocked as her students.

"Hajime! "

His voice was definitely not honeyed, and Gyosei felt for a moment the dark authority of a powerful ki. He resumed his kata, this time reproducing it very carefully. The wanderer dodged all his blows without any difficulty, not bothering to lift his shinai or even change the position of his body. Then, half-way through the exercise, at the exact moment when he had previously tried to hit the kendoka at her ribs, the samurai vigorously pressed his foot between the boy's and mowed his leg with a dry gesture. Gyôsei crashed face down at full speed.

"Kenshin!" Kaoru immediately glared daggers at him.

The boy got up with difficulty, surprised at his sudden fall, having seen absolutely nothing. He would probably be rewarded later by a good bump on the head.

"Hey, that -that was not planned!" He groaned, rubbing his chin where a small hematoma was already forming.

"You deserved it!" Replied Yahiko, openly laughing. He, too, had not missed the gesture tempted against his master just now.

"A kenjutsuka must be ready for any eventuality. "The redhead calmly replied, hanging up the shinai on the wall. "That's why it is helpful to be focused on any exercise, as basic as it appears. "

The former Master of the Kamiya Kasshin gave him a complicit but accusing look.

He did it on purpose ...

She came near the samurai, partly amused by his possessive reaction and partly annoyed by his hint of authority and the punitive gesture that followed against her disciple.

"Kenshin," she murmured, "I'm able to correct my own students by myself. "

"This one knows, that he does. "

"Don't try to play the innocent with me..."

"Oro? Please forgive me, Kaoru-dono. This one will resume cleaning." He said, scratching his head, adopting a resilient posture. Challenging a kendo teacher in her own school was never a good idea.

"You'd better! "

The class then resumed to a normal rhythm, and the pupils of the Maekawa dojo as much as the one of the Kamiya dojo, redoubled their ardor in the execution of their katas. Definitively, Gyôsei would be wary of housekeepers.

Despite the recent building of a railroad between the two cities, the Tôkaidô road, more than 500 kilometers long, linking Kyoto to Tokyo in more than 50 relays - without forgetting Osaka and Kobe - was still very popular, mostly because modest people did not have enough money to buy a train ticket. It was dotted with thriving inns and abandoned checkpoints since the end of the Meiji era and the reunification of modern Japan. Its creation a long time ago had allowed the trade to prosper all along the coastal path, this axis having remained several centuries during the most traveled of Japan.

About two weeks of travel were needed to cross this road on foot without horse or palanquin, ridiculous and useless attributes in the eyes of the thirteenth master of the Hiten Mitsurugi, but by rushing only ten days would be necessary for the man to complete the journey. To have large legs and a developed musculature, fruits of a rigorous training for decades, had proved useful in many situations.

And the faster I will go, the faster I will get rid of this crowd ...

But while Hiko was only barely getting close to Kusatsu, second stop of the above-mentioned route, his sharp hearing suddenly detected the cry of a young boy, as if smothered by ...

...Leaves?

He moved instinctively towards a tree-lined massif at the entrance to the village. Above a Scots pine, half masked by thorny branches at almost 15 meters high, a small body was leaning dangerously towards the void.

"Help!"

"... what's your name, kid?" Hiko shouted from the bottom of the tree, very curious to know the name of the one who'd had the imbecility to climb higher than he knew how to get off.

"Toshiro, but ... HELP ME FINALLY! I'M GONNA FALL!"

The boy was desperately clinging at a medium-sized branch, which was already emitting dangerous crackling sounds. He was covered with green goads. Hiko found the scene in front of his eyes rather funny.

"Patience, kid, you don't have to be afraid when I'm right below you."

"Huh?"

With that, the master jumped several meters high, lifting the dust at his feet to land on a branch halfway from the child. He quickly made his way towards him, clutching the trunk with dexterity. Then came a moment when it was too thin to support his weight, and Hiko stopped his progress.

"Let yourself fall."

"No, I can't ..."

"Let yourself go, fool, I told you I was right below!"

"HUWAAAAAH"

The young boy did not have to execute the said move because the branch that supported him suddenly yielded, obliging the master to throw himself immediately in the emptiness to catch him. They landed on the ground with a crash but no damage, since Seijuro held the boy in his arms with a perfect squatting position. You don't become thirteenth master of Hiten Mitsurugi for nothing, see.

He laid the child on the ground and dusted his coat disdainfully.

"So, Toshiro... what kind of stupid reason did cross your mind to have you climbing on a tree ten times higher than you?"

Not that I really care about it...

Toshiro waited a few moments to regain his breath and his balance, then devoured with an indescribable intense gaze the imposing brown man in a white cape that had so spectacularly restrained his fall.

"It's my dog, Mochi... He ran away several weeks ago, and since then we've been staying at the hostel in order to find him ..."

The boy's face darkened sadly. From Hiko's point of view, he was only going to babycry.

They must have money to afford themselves to be stuck here for so long, just for an animal ... I guess these are the benefits of this carefree Meiji era.

"..You know, everyone loves him at home, he's part of our family. I thought climbing up this tree would give me a better view of the valley ..."

"It was a silly idea."

"He was scared by that damn raven!" continued the boy, as if to defend himself. "Mochi goes crazy every time he sees one ; you see, a bird attacked him when he was a puppy, and since then he has always been afraid of it!"

Stupid master, stupid dog ...

"I did not ask you for so much information ..." Hiko pointed out, his annoyance growing.

Toshiro suddenly looked up at his savior.

"Oh, I'm so rude ... You helped me, and I don't even know your name?"

"Niitsu Kakunoshin ... I'm a potter."

Even to a child, Seijuro Hiko did not reveal his true identity. Never. Precaution of thirteenth Hiten Mitsurugi's master, a school that had survived for several centuries with only one disciple and one name.

"Po ... potter?"

Toshiro could not believe his ears. This man was so muscular and agile ... Potters suddenly rose high in his esteem.

"Please come to the inn with me. My parents and my little sister are there and my father is an art dealer, he will surely give you money to thank you."

"That's nice, kid, but I'm in a hurry."

Hiko had no desire to hang out in this rotten shed, let alone meet other people.

"Just be careful next time."

"Yes sir!"

Toshiro greeted the great ceramist very low, who went on his way as quickly as possible, silently muttering against reckless kids climbing the trees and wasting his time. One stupid apprentice was enough.

Saito was fuming. They had a lot of trouble collecting data on this case, and he still had no tangible track. During these last weeks the agents deployed to the field had returned once again with shreds of information without concrete link to each other. Children were disappearing, mainly in remote villages and poor areas of Japan. In most cases they were orphans, making it hard to identify and even account for them. Nobody claimed their bodies, and few people cared about them.

The number of disappearances is probably wildly underestimated ...

He took a puff from his cigarette. A dirty habit inherited from Westerners.

They may simply have died of starvation and their corpses would have been left aside in the absence of a loved one to bury them.

Unfortunately, some disappearances were oddly localized. And Saito did not believe in coincidences.

What use would a group of kids without connection be?

This case did not make any sense. He was turning that same question again and again in his mind, spinning impatiently around his desk. Outside his window, afar in his visual field a little girl was holding a puppy on a leash. An Akita, probably, judging by its already imposing size despite its young age. It was then that he was wandering on this innocuous reflection that an unhealthy idea began to germinate in his mind...

...A human trafficking?

They were roaming into the streets of former Edo, still noisy despite the late hour. One of the pleasant changes of this new era, in comparison with the desperately empty alleys of Kyoto as soon as the day was off during Bakumatsu, noted the wanderer. Night had fallen and the red glow of Izakaya's lanterns alternated with the fleeting flashes of candles entrenched inside the intimate houses of wood and clay. Their path consisted of wide, animated passages as much as of narrow lanes, where the single shadow of the crescent moon gave the high stone walls an almost threatening look. The brawler had his hands in his pockets and was chatting about futile things on the way : this cuttie here had pretty eyes, the fish dealer there yet open rather looked like he was selling junk... He was smiling while walking, obviously relaxed, stretching his long legs covered with badly trimmed trousers to the front. The other man, smaller and older, remained silent most of the time, but was following him at a good pace. With his face somewhat lowered, only the slight wind that sometimes played among its red strands could discover his deep azure eyes.

It had become one of their rituals. Strange, how a friendship can be forged between two persons of a different generation, bound by a visceral fighting instinct and the trials that life had put in their path. Going out in such a regular basis was granting them with privileged moments between friends, far from the sometimes suffocating female agitation of the dojo where the samurai lived.

"... Hey, are ya even listenin' to me when I speak?"

He raised his head, suddenly thrown out of his thoughts.

"Gomenasai Sanosuke..."

The samurai let his words linger in the fresh air of spring. His eyes were still dark.

Kenshin doesn't seem like himself tonight... my job to cheer him up!

Sanosuke Sagara logically decided to take his mind off the brooding by using the best way he knew, a method that he believed had been proven in any age and any individual.

"Well, whaddya think about givin' a good hit into a woman tonight?"

"ORO?"

The wanderer gave him a meaningful, almost comical glare.

"This one does not value violence against women." he said seriously.

"Oh my, you're so straight, Kenshin! Relax a little!" He gave him a big pat on the back. "I only meant to have sex with a woman, if ya see what I'm talkin' about!"

"Oro? This one still does not see the interest, that he does." The samurai blushed discreetly, but seemed however to consider the proposition for brief a moment. "Besides, Kaoru-dono would be furious ..."

"Kami-sama, how can ya be so austere... Okay, let's have a drink instead!"

They were approaching a place with warmer vibes. Sanosuke went on with an exaggerated cheering tone :

"This spot will be perfect!"

He lowered his head and lifted the entrance's curtain of the small building which seemed almost out of time. The atmosphere was more hectic inside than outside - not to mention noisy. As soon as they had taken their seats near a window, the two buddies were knocking back fermented rice beverage shots together, one of the rare local alcohol on this isolated island of the Far East.

"Ya don't speak much tonight." He corrected himself. "I mean, ya're chattin' even less than usual."

The redhead sighed, annoyed by this display of hidden questions, before swallowing his saké.

"Sano... This one is just a bit tired, that's all."

With an absent gesture he handed the cup to his friend anew.

"I'm already used to do most of the talkin'," he continued, serving him, "but now that's a one-way dialogue."

Without paying more attention to his remarks, Kenshin emptied this new cup in one gulp, his cerulean gaze still lost on the outside agitation. Sanosuke stared at him, dumbfounded.

"And ya have a hellish thirst tonight, nothin' to compare with that fuckin' restrained behavior ya have with Jou-chan or the others."

"Ah, sorry..." He scratched the back of his head and forced a smile as he turned back to his friend.

"Give up the excuses, these drink're on me for once;" he smiled, elbowing the red-haired, "Want another?"

"Huh, I guess..."

He hesitated, then handed his glass again. It was like any other promptly emptied, but his attention never truly returned to the current conversation.

Sanosuke was peering at him silently. He knew that if the wanderer did not want to talk he would get absolutely nothing from him. This man could have a head harder than steel and was naturally not eager to confide. Although it was annoying him strongly (he was officially impatient), he had learned over years to get the best of it : it was better to spend a good time together and leave those problems until later on when he would feel ready to speak - if such a moment ever existed in this life. That's why he maintained the conversation on his own, Kenshin just nodding now and again.

The smell of saké was surrounding the small building enclosed between two other inns. Its wooden tables, worn but friendly, were covered with sticky and odorous traces resulting from the strong passage of individuals throughout the day. The evening continued until numerous bottles were emptied. Nothing unusual for the fighter accustomed to this kind of trip, but much more unnatural for his companion who appreciated so much self-control. He had swallowed the majority of the drinks served without really paying attention, under the half-amused eye of his friend.

Yep, definitely, somethin's wrong.

"... ya better stop here, don't ya think?"

It did not sound like the brawler at all to restrain others' consumption, but something didn't seem right in the samurai's behavior tonight, and he did not like it.

"Hmm." Kenshin put his glass down, awkwardly dropping his elbow on the table. "Let's go."

He got up with the help of his left arm and crossed the door, head bowed.

Sanosuke was following him closely. The samurai had a slightly feverish and unsteady walk. For an innocent eye his balance would seem perfectly normal, but for the trained eye of someone who knew the precise and agile moves of the fighter like the back of his hand, there was no doubt about it : he was dead drunk.

Sanosuke took place at his side while discreetly positioning himself in the background to be able to catch him in case of fall.

"I never saw ya drink this much..."

"Gomenasai" he mumbled

"Stop apologizing all the time, it's becomin' really annoyin' t-"

The wanderer suddenly lost his balance, stumbling on a misplaced pebble. Sanosuke narrowly caught him by placing his arm under his belly.

"Baka, I'll take you back to the dojo."

"... Arigato, S-Sano"

The fighter put his arms around his friend's shoulders, and while supporting most of his weight, walked on the pavement carefully. The wind that had gotten colder by now was playing melody against the surrounding silence, between the leaves of trees barely lit by the nocturnal star. They stopped several times on the way so that the redhead could empty the contents of his stomach, implicitly helped by his friend to stabilize him. As he watched the samurai folded in half, his hair stuck to his face, Sanosuke was thoughtful.

No more words were exchanged that night between the two men. Only the sound of occasional regurgitation and settas hitting the ground punctuated their march.

Next chapter : Enemy of my enemy

[derpywritestuff]

A Scavenger Hunt.

@oddly-tiny-scissors Hello, I am your secret giftee for the Valentine event! I hope you enjoy reading this as much as I had fun writing it. Thank you for giving such a fun prompt and I hope your Valentine’s day goes wonderfully! Yoosung yawned as he got out of bed, going over to his computer. It was his free day from school, and he was ready to use it for another day of LOLOL action. As he logged on, he saw he had a message from the number one ranking user of the Shooting Star Server. There was a time when the name Hacker God filled Yoosung with rage, as he seemed to always be cheating to keep the number one spot out of Superman Yoosung’s hands, but now, he could not keep the smile off his face when he read that same name. Quickly Yoosung started reading the pm he had got from the other user carefully, it seemed Hacker God had a scavenger hunt planned out for Yoosung and he was more than happy to play along.

“It is I, Hacker God! I have used my talents to find out that my 606 has a free day today, and this is something that I cannot pass up! There is a new legendary item that has just been added to this wonderful game, but alas it has broken into several parts! The only one who can save this item being lost forever is the one and only Superman Yoosung! Are you up to the task? If you accept this quest, head to the area that we all first see when we are born into this word -Hacker God Meow-ut!”

Yoosung Thought for a second as he read Seven’s first clue. His first thought being the main hub where characters spawn into the game, but after a second he realized that was not really the first place you see in the game. Opening up the options tab, Yoosung clicked a button he never thought he would click...the replay tutorial button.

As Yoosung relearned all the basic skills he already had nailed down, he saw something he could have sworn had not been there before...An NPC with a quest marker above it’s head. Walking up to this out of place NPC, he saw it looked like Zen. When he finally got close enough, Yoosung saw there was an interact button. Quickly he clicked on it, knowing full well this had to be what he was searching for.

“Hello, Superman Yoosung. I came here because one of my fans told me about a new item that got added to this game. Thankfully I was able to use my talent to charm this piece of it from an orc that had found it first. Before I can give it to you though, I must make sure you are the real Superman Yoosung with a question. What is Hacker God’s favorite dish that you cook?”

Yoosung watched as a text box appeared on screen, obviously waiting for him to type an answer in. Quickly he typed the word “omurice” into the blank space, smiling as he recalled all the times he had made it for Seven when he stayed over at his bunker. Soon the text box closed, and the Zen NPC had another maker above it’s head, telling Yoosung to talk to him again.

“It seems you are the true Superman Yoosung. I leave this part in your hands, take care of it Superman Yoosung. As for where you must go next, Hacker God has left me with your next clue… Your sack is heavy with all of your loot. From armor, staves, sheilds, and swords. Though what do you do with what you can’t use? Come to the place that has the answer for the next part of this legendary item! - Hacker God Seven Meow-ou...ACHOO.” Oh, I’m sorry Yoosung. It seems I can’t get away from this stupid cat allergy even if I’m in a game. Have fun with your quest though, I should get back to reading my lines for my next play.”

With that, the NPC became noninteractive, and Yoosung started to focus on his next clue. This one was harder than the last...you could after all throw any items that you didn’t want away after all. After a few moments though, Yoosung had figured it out. He was ready to head to one of the most populated areas in any server…the market.

As Yoosung got to the market, he saw the other payers trading their goods, buying upgraded gear and skins from NPC’s, and the occasional player begging for gold as he as new to the game… or just trying to scam some people. Soon enough he saw another quest icon in the flood of people, leading to an NPC who looked exactly like Jumin. Just like before, As Yoosung accepted the quest, this Jumin NPC started talking.

“Ah hello Superman Yoosung, it seems you have been able to figure out Hacker God’s second riddle. I have to say, he has led us to a very interesting place. There are so many economic systems going on in one place, from a free-market system all the way to a barter one. I should have Assistant. Kang write a report on how such a place could remain economically stable. First, however, there is something we must discuss. I was able to get this part of a legendary item for a reasonable price from a vendor at this market and I need to make sure to sell it again for a reasonable price. The thing I’m interested in though is information. Answer this one question I have and this piece is yours. With that being said, here is your question...What is the best way to spend a weekend?”

Again another text box appeared, and Yoosung was quick to type “playing LOLOL” into the text box before deleting it. Playing LOLOL was fun, sure, but that wasn’t the reason it was fun to him. Every weekend, he would always make sure to go over to Seven’s place and do some form of activity with him. These activities would consist of, playing LOLOL with each other, snuggling on the couch with junk food and a movie, a late night drive to watch the stars or trying to teach Seven how to cook...while Seven tried to find ways of sneaking HBC and PHD. Pepper into everything. After deleting his last message, Yoosung quickly replaced it with “Spending time with Hacker God” as that was the true answer to this question. After he hit enter, the quest icon above Jumin’s head reappeared and Yoosung interacted with him again.

“That seems like a reasonable answer and a good piece of information for our trade. I will keep my end of the deal just as you kept yours, take care of this second piece... Ah yes, before you head out, it seems I was also programmed to give you another clue before you head out ahem… “You are so close my 606, only one more piece to go! Listen to my last riddle, and you will finally claim your prize! When mobs are boring and bosses are beaten, there is only one enemy left while you wait for the next in game update. Go to the place that symbolizes this notion for the last piece will be waiting for you! -Hacker God Meow-ut!” ...Hmm, cute, it seems like hacker god even added a cat pun in his riddle. I must be going Yoosung as I have a very important meeting with an elf prince to start selling his kingdom’s bows in this very market. Good luck on your quest and I hope the outcome is favorable for you.”

Again, like with the Zen NPC, this Jumin NPC became non-interactive when he got this last riddle. He knew what this riddle was talking about right away as the second ranked user in the shooting star server. The only enemy left after completing everything this game had to offer could only be other players, as many had tried to challenge him in PVP to get higher up on the leaderboard. There was one place where PVP was known to happen more than any other place in LOLOL, and that was the arena. With that in mind, Yoosung headed out from the market to where he was sure the next part of this legendary item was waiting for him.

As Yoosung got to the area, he was suddenly spamed by PVP requests from those who wanted to take down the mighty Superman Yoosung, and even though he was tempted to take them down, he kept declining and looking for the one NPC he was sure would be here. Finally, after a few minutes of wading through players, Yoosung found the Jaehee NPC waiting for him with a request marker. Just as he did the last two times, he walked to her and initiated the quest.

“Ah hello Superman Yoosung, I’m glad you have made it. It was getting tiring watching all these people try and fight... their form is very wrong. That being said, we should wrap this up quickly...Mr. Han has just given me a new project to work on, and there's a lot of paperwork to fill out. I was hoping to maybe sit down and watch one of Zen’s plays after this...but it seems that will have to wait another time. sigh for now I guess I should focus on the task at hand and give you your last piece of this legendary item. I’m sure you know how this process works by now so, Superman Yoosung, here is your final question from Hacker God… Will you meet me at the space station?”

Unlike the past questions, there was no box to fill in this time. In its place was a simple multiple-choice question with “Yes” and “No” buttons clearly labeled. The question was an interesting one since Seven joked about a space station all the time in chatrooms, but if it meant he could spend time with Seven...he knew the answer. Clicking on the “Yes” button, Yoosung saw the quest marker he was expecting to see above Jaehee’s head and read what she had to say next.

“It seems you were able to understand Hacker God’s... interesting way of speaking more than I could, here is the last Piece of the legendary item Superman Yoosung. I hope you like whatever Hacker God has planned for you, however I’m sure you will if you have made it this far. I must be going now, as I said before I have a mountain of paperwork I must go through before Mr.Han asks me to watch over his cat again.”

With that the third piece of the legendary item. For a split second Yoosung wondered why he didn’t get another riddle to solve when another popup told him he had another new item in his inventory. It seemed that when all three legendary pieces were put into his inventory, they combined inside to a new key item...a teleporter. Most teleporters where a one time use item to fast travel to any destination or player on the map, but this one was different. When he clicked on it, there was only one destination this item could teleport him too, “The space station.”...a place that he had never heard of in LOLOL before. Remembering the last question the Jaehee NPC told him, Yoosung clicked the use button and the screen became dark as it was loading in the new area.

“My 606! You made it to the space station!” Yoosung heard as the map loaded in. “Seven? Where are we?” Yoosung asked back after turning on his voice chat, looking around this new area. Like he thought, this was not a normal in game area. The inside was metal and sleek, like this map came right out of a si-fi film. The walls were lined with windows that looked out into the vast space that was set up while little stars sparkled about. Planets and moons of varying color and size danced around each other and Yoosung could not help but stare at the sight for a few seconds. As Yoosung moved deeper into the map, he finally saw the avatar he was hoping to find by the end of this, Hacker God. “Seven! What is this place...I didn’t even know something like this was in the game!” Yoosung said, walking closer to Seven. “Well my Superman Yoosung, that would be because it technically doesn’t belong in the game. You and I are the only ones who know of this places existence.” The cheerful voice of Seven responded.”Wait, so you hacked into LOLOL’s code...to create an entirely new map?” Yoosung’s confused voice asked next.“That I did!” Seven exclaimed before letting his voice get softer. “I always told you we would meet at the space station, didn’t I? Even if we can’t do that in person, at least not yet, I can at least do that here. I know you are going to tell me I didn’t have to put the work into making this, and I know I didn’t, but I wanted to. This is our place, away from my work, your school, the RFA, and anything else we need to get away from for a bit. This is our place...our space station.” Seven finished. “I...I..” Yoosung started, tears filling his eyes as he was about to break down. Nobody had ever put this much thought into something for him...“ I... don’t what to say...what I can to repay you.” Yoosung finished, unable to find the right words to express the happiness he felt. “You don’t need to repay me, Yoosung.” Seven’s soft voice spoke up again. “Just promise to stay with me in the space station.” He finished. “I love you Seven.” “I love you too, my 606.”

[cannoli-reader]

Saerin was the real hero of that battle.  She actually provided leadership.  All Egwene did was change the body count. Not to mention committing war crimes, like burning alive sul’dam after she had removed the a’dam they were using. 

Honestly, I don’t think this is so much a character flaw or failing of Egwene (except the murders bit), so much as Sanderson completely missing everything Jordan had been saying about leadership since about “The Great Hunt”.  I don’t think he realized that Egwene blundered at the end of CoT.  That’s the book where Perrin is frustrated with his acceptance of his leadership role and the realization that he shouldn’t be doing the hands-on stuff.  Culminating in a hand-off moment, if you get my drift. It’s also the book where Elayne quotes Gareth Bryne as saying that “an army is a general’s sword and a general who uses another blade has mistaken his job.”  In the same chapter, Birgitte is scornful of the legends of Artur Hawkwing fighting duels to decide battles.  So at the end, when Egwene takes over the operation from the woman who has been training and preparing for it (including briefings by Leane and thus being less likely to forget the basic security measures Egwene neglected, which contributed to the ease of her capture), she has definitely mistaken the job.  If not for Elaida’s determination to start scoring own goals, Egwene lost the war right then and there. I think that was supposed to be a learning experience for her, and she was clearing the decks of the bad cause which had shanghaied her into a leadership role, so that she could relearn and regrow into a leader from the ground up, as it were. 

But Brandon Sanderson, out of nowhere, made Gareth Bryne a blademaster,  and had him leaving almost his entire army without leadership, while he conducted a company-sized raid, because his crush was going along.  Then he had Egwene “win” the contest for leadership of the Tower by feats of channeling and front-line combat, while showing Saerin actually doing leadership stuff. 

That Sanderson seems to be implying in the subsequent book that a bunch of reforms which concentrate power with the Amyrlin Seat (following an 8-book struggle against a tyrannical Amyrlin) and handicap the ability of the Hall to check the Amyrlin as well as functionally imprisoning Sitters in the Tower, are a morally positive development, is to me, a clear indication that he has a poor grasp of the politics of the setting or the meaning of leadership in the series.

[thelastpitchbender]

Memory | Chapter 6

Summary: Link must relearn how to be a Champion before he defeats Calamity Ganon – but first, he needs to stop setting fires and backflipping off of cliffs. It’s too bad that his attempts to be a responsible hero keep getting interrupted by dumb things like owing people money, remembering hardly anything about who he is, and Yiga Clan assassins trying to kill him.

Rating: T for language, violence, dark stuff, and dumb, bad humor.

Read on: FanFiction | AO3

Chapter index here.

Chapter 6

More Bananas?

Someone was cooking something delicious near him. Or rather, many people were cooking many different dishes. Strangers coming together to share ingredients, a cooking pot, and a meal was a time-honored Hyrulean tradition, and it was comforting to know that it survived in most of the old kingdom.

Link cast his gaze around the main market of Gerudo Town with only the slightest bit of interest. It looked similar to how it had yesterday, but more,somehow. The warm, sharp smell of spices was stronger, the laughter and shouts were louder, and the women of the town were wearing copious amounts of elaborate jewelry that gleamed in the desert sun. Isha was standing next to her jewelry store, looking very pleased with herself and all the new business she had doubtlessly gotten today.

Today was a festival day, Link knew that. A holiday for all of the Gerudo. He forgot what the name of it was in Gerudic, but the Hylian name was the Day of Spirit. There were seven festival days to honor the Seven Heroines, and this was the third Link had been present for. It was always a pleasant surprise when he happened to visit during a celebration. On the Day of Skill, he had won the sword fighting tourney, narrowly lost first place in the archery tournament to a ridiculously talented soldier, and gotten last place in the sand-seal race after falling off his shield about six times. The Day of Endurance involved a long procession out into the desert that ended with a ceremony at the statues of the Heroines to honor the fallen Gerudo soldiers.

The Day of Spirit seemed less serious than the other two so far. The point of the festival was apparently to ingest as much food and alcohol as possible while also wearing as much jewelry as possible. This did not interest Link, not today. He crossed his arms and leaned back against the wall in the corner of the marketplace. He had tried to get his share of the communal meal earlier, but when he had seen young girls running around, screaming and laughing, he had totally lost his appetite. Staring up at the cloudless blue of the sky, he wondered if Aryll’s absence would always cast a cold shadow on him.

He liked it better when he couldn’t properly mourn his family. Earlier in the morning, Link had remembered who had taught him how to cook and sew. It had been his mother, Anith. Brief, faded images flashed through his memory of his catastrophically failed attempts at brewing elixirs and mixing poultices. His mother planted her hands on her hips and shouted at him to clean up the mess. By all the spirits, Link, I am determined to teach you something more practical than how to swing a sword around! Anith had been the village healer, once upon a time. That was how she and Rossin had met.

Link clenched and unclenched his fist, thinking miserably, I finally learned how to make elixirs, Mama.

The memories of his mother had come back as if they had never left at all, soft and worn at the edges and tucked in the corner of his mind. He’d caught other flashes of insight like this, like he was simply finding something he had lost some time ago. It felt almost like a betrayal, an old grief and pain made suddenly fresh and raw again. It killed him that no one knew, that even his own mind treated it like it was no big deal.

It wasn’t like remembering Aryll. That had been like a lynel’s hammer right in the gut. All of the memories from the pictures in the Sheikah Slate were the same way. Even his memory of his childhood in Zora’s Domain was so abrupt and all-consuming that Daruk had had to step in just so he wouldn’t be killed.

It was strange, Link thought. Those flashbacks had been so much more vivid and intense than any of the other old, vague memories he had recovered. Almost like something was pulling them out of his own mind –

“Little vai!” The voice startled him out of his musings. Link glanced to the side to see a visibly intoxicated Ardin stumbling toward him. He grimaced.

“I drew a contract,” Ardin slurred, shoving a paper in the general direction of his face.

“Drew up a contract,” Link automatically corrected. Ardin liked to learn new Hylian phrases from him.

Ardin frowned. “Uh, why would I draw up? That doesn’t make sense.” She scoffed, then leaned even closer to Link. “Reeeeeeead it.”

There was so much alcohol on her breath that Link half suspected he could get drunk from it too. He twisted to the side in an attempt to avoid her bad breath and her bright red hair. She had a lotof hair, and it was somehow getting in his face. It was probably because Ardin was leaning against the wall like she was about to be sick. Link snatched the contract out of her hand before she could throw up all over him.

It almost did look like it had been literally drawn, Link thought with some amusement. The thick parchment was covered in charcoal smears and irregular, lopsided Hylian lettering. It read:

CONTRAC

-The vai gives all heer stuff to me

-Spera is a dum loser

SINGED

Ardin

____________ (vai)

Link could feel a laugh bubbling up inside him, and tamped it down out of principle. He was supposed to be upset, dammit. “Look, I’m no expert, but I’m pretty sure this contract isn’t legally binding if you can’t even remember my name,” he told Ardin, who was now laying on the dusty ground.

“Spera suuuuuuucks,” groaned Ardin.

“Not to mention you spelled basically every other word wrong,” Link continued.

Ardin’s arm flopped over her face, shielding her eyes from the sun. “She took my drink away,” she whined.

Link eyed her. “Probably a good thing. It’s still morning and you’re already sloshed.”

Ardin glared at him. “I do not have a problem.”

Link arched an eyebrow in response. “Never said you did.”

Ardin mumbled, “Issa festival day,” just as Spera popped out of her booth and sauntered over to them, a bottle of clear liquor in her hand.

“Looking for this?” Spera teased. Link peered at the label and how much of the liquid was already gone, then raised his eyebrows. It was Hebra wildberry gin. The mountaineers made that stuff strong to ward off the cold. And it looked like Ardin had definitely had more than she should have.

Link gave Spera the contract and said, “She called you a ‘dum loser,’ so I assume so.”

Spera smirked as she gave the paper a glance. “You know, this is technically a violation of AGM bylaws.”

Link blinked. “The what now?”

“The Association of Gerudo Merchants,” Spera said innocently. “Why, I could convene a special session right now and still have a quorum, even with half of the town drunk.”

“I have no idea what you just said.”

“If Ardin doesn’t take back this contract, we can take away her practicing merchant license and rent her stall to someone else.” Spera’s smile was positively devious. It frightened Link.

He must not have hidden his expression very well, because Spera rolled her eyes and told him, “It’s a joke. The AGM already has a written agreement about how imports from individual registered sellers are to be distributed among AGM members based on demand. Ardin can’t make her own contract violating those terms, but she clearly doesn’t know better right now.”

At Link’s blank look, she gave up trying to explain anything to him and kicked Ardin lightly in the side instead, drawling, “Hey, rehvaq, get up.” Link didn’t know what that word meant, but from Ardin’s grumble, he guessed it was an insult.

Then her words caught up to him, and he incredulously said, “Wait, you merchants cheating me out of all of my stuff has been organized the whole time?”

Spera shot him a glance. He couldn’t tell if it was actually condescending or if she just towered over him. “Well, when you first came here, you confused a blue rupee for a purple one, so we decided not to concern you with the finer details.” Definitely condescension, then.

Ah, yes. The good old days when Link had stumbled around Hyrule while perpetually confused. He had adapted fast when he had awakened in the Shrine of Resurrection. He had to in order to avoid getting murdered by the monsters. But for a long time, the finer points of commerce and social interaction had evaded him. They occasionally still did, he admitted to himself with some embarrassment.

How did anyone keep it all straight? How did you remember the proper Gerudo greeting for each time of the day, each denomination of rupee, the average market value of a lizalfos talon, or how to respond when someone complimented your hair? It was all a mystery to Link. He supposed that before, he’d had nineteen years under his belt to learn that stuff. Honestly, it was unfair to expect him to learn it all again in only one year.

“A purple rupee is fifty, I’m not stupid,” Link blurted out, crossing his arms. He almost cringed after the words left his mouth. Way to sound like an angry kid.

Spera ignored him, electing instead to push Ardin, who was still laying down but now grabbing her legs, away. “By the Heroines, Ardin, you are the most incompetent – “ Spera let out a sharp breath as Ardin groaned and reached her hand up for the bottle of wildberry gin Spera was still carrying. “I’ll strip you of your position of secretary!” she snarled.

Ardin loudly gasped and sat up, wobbling slightly. “You wouldn’t!”

“I would!” Spera shot back. “And so would Isha and Estan!”

The expression of complete and utter betrayal on Ardin’s face was so over-the-top that Link let out a snicker. Both merchants gave him twin irritated looks, and he threw his hands up in surrender. It did not take long for the two merchants to start bickering again, and Link decided to leave them be.

He strolled around the perimeter of the marketplace, mulling over the new information about the Association of Gerudo Merchants. To say his memory was spotty was an understatement, but he somehow knew that such an association didn’t exist a hundred years ago. He bet it had grown out of necessity with the collapse of Hyrule’s royal government. Yunobo had told him that Bludo, the boss of Goron City, was officially the head of the miners’ labor union, but when the Hyrulean ambassadors and administrators stopped coming to the city, Bludo had been given his authority as boss by the Gorons.

All of this would be valuable information for Princess Zelda, when he finally destroyed the Calamity. She would have to rebuild her kingdom, and as the one who had been wandering around it recently, Link would have to help her out in any way he could.

Of course, that was assuming the princess was even still alive. The thought that she might not be chilled him. Very few people still believed she wasn’t dead, but he knew. He had heard her voice call to him from the castle. He refused to believe that she was gone, that the power holding Calamity Ganon back was not just some faint echo from a century gone by. Both for her sake and for all of Hyrule’s sake.

He was so busy getting himself nervous about the Calamity again that he almost collided with a soldier. She shifted her stance and tightened her grip on her spear before she realized who it was. “Sav’otta, Zelda,” she greeted without enthusiasm. “May the blessings of the Heroines light – where is your jewelry?”

Link shrank a bit under the guard’s sudden scrutiny. “Uh, I wasn’t aware that was required.”

The soldier sniffed faintly, her armor clanking as she brought her spear back to her side. “Legend has it that soon after Gerudo Town was first established, a molduking threatened to destroy it. The Heroine of Spirit fought it for seven days and seven nights before she realized that she needed to be creative. Thus, the jewelry.” Her story had the flat, rehearsed feel of a script read off to ignorant tourists.

Link squinted into the crowd, which was now dancing to music from a quartet of Gerudo musicians. The reflections from all the metals and stones made him look away. “Huh? Did she blind it? How are you supposed to blind a giant subterranean sand worm?”

The soldier sighed. Her body language screamed what a stupid question. “No. Moldukings like shiny things. She convinced the Heroine of Skill to give her the stash of gold and jewels she had amassed so she could lay a trap for the molduking.”

“What was in the trap?” Link prodded.

“It depends on who tells you the story,” she told him with a sour look. When she didn’t elaborate, Link huffed and moved on. Hylia, he hadn’t expected her to tell a story like that bard Kass, but did she have to be so terse about it?

There was a large military presence in the town today, he noticed as he continued walking. Spears bristled from every entrance to the marketplace. Soldiers moved around the perimeter of the town like shadows. Had he ever seen guards posted on top of the walls before? They were facing the outside desert, while the guards on the ground cast watchful gazes on the festival-goers. This couldn’t just be security for the holiday, he realized. Festivals brought vulnerability. And where there was vulnerability, the Yiga Clan would be there to exploit it.

But would they really be so bold as to attack a major settlement? They had already attacked Woodland Stable, but the stable didn’t have an army.

Did Riju and Buliara know something he didn’t?

He was startled by the clearing of a throat behind him. He turned to see Captain Teake with an escort of two other soldiers. She was still favoring her injured leg, but she stood tall and proud in an especially ornate and bejeweled set of Gerudo armor. When she shifted, sunlight glinted off of her helmet and made Link squint.

She shifted again and the reflection lessened enough to where Link could see her expression. Her lips were pressed together into a thin line and the look in her eyes was steely. The restrained fury in the way she tightly gripped the pommel of her scimitar made foreboding creep into Link’s stomach.

Teake couldn’t be mad at him, could she? It was probably the Yiga Clan. They were a pain in everybody’s ass. Corralling a bunch of drunk people on a festival day couldn’t be fun either.

“The chief requests your presence immediately,” the captain said tersely. She didn’t stop to wait for Link before she turned and strode to the palace. The crowds parted around her like water, despite being in various states of intoxication. One woman even stumbled backwards into the water framing the central plaza, but Teake didn’t even cast a glance back.

By the time Link and the soldiers finished climbing the steps to the throne room, he was thoroughly nervous and discouraged. Away from all of the drunk and excited festival-goers, he could feel the tension in the air. The soldiers were never too far away from a battle-ready stance and their hands were never too far away from their weapons.

Riju was having a quiet argument with Buliara and a Gerudo covered with a long, sheer gold and purple veil by the throne when Link and Teake entered. They stopped talking as soon as they noticed the newcomers, and Link wanted to shrink under their attention.

“Chief Riju, I present Zelda,” Teake said, curt and almost grudging.

Riju’s gaze was guarded and her posture was stiff. Link felt a wave of guilt crash over him. It suddenly struck him that his reaction to remembering Aryll must have been mystifying for Riju. He’d just stormed out without a single word to the chief, hadn’t he?

Diplomatic. He had to be diplomatic about making amends. The thought of diplomacy made him tense up. Where was Mipha’s kind soul or Zelda’s sharp intelligence when he needed it? He was just a dorky screw-up of a knight, not royalty. Not even a knight anymore, not really. He was some random adventurer with a penchant for killing monsters and accidentally putting innocent people in danger. He was even less than he had been a hundred years ago.

Bolstered by that very comforting thought, he stammered, “Would it be possible to speak in private – “

Buliara interrupted him by slamming the tip of her claymore into the ground. He recognized the anger in her eyes as protectiveness, and his heart sank as he realized that Riju most likely would have told her about his actions the night before. “We do not have time for that!” she practically roared. Link shrank back. He got the message. He would keep his mouth shut. Nerves buzzed in his stomach as he waited for Riju to say something.

What would it be? Hurt? Confusion? Condemnation? Anger? He very nearly averted his eyes, then thought better of it. Goddess curse him, he may not have been the same stoic, capable knight he once was, but he was still better than quaking in front of a thirteen-year-old girl.

But Riju must have heard the pleading in his voice earlier, because she relaxed slightly and her voice was surprisingly gentle when she gestured to the woman in the veil by her side and said, “This is First Priestess Birida. When we are done with our business here, she and I will go down to the plaza and perform the blessings for the Day of Spirit.”

Link nodded hesitantly. He wasn’t sure what Riju was doing. Part of him wanted to think that she was trying to and be charitable after his strange behavior the night before and allow him to explain himself, but another, more irritating part of him thought that he shouldn’t expect anything like that. He was still kicking himself over failing to explain what had happened.

Then Riju placed her hands on the armrests of her throne and leaned forward, a peculiar glint in her eyes. “But first things first. We found your spy,” she said.

Link was surprised, despite himself. “I’m assuming this has something to do with how many soldiers are in town today.”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Riju replied. “We need you to confirm that this woman is in fact the Yiga spy you were talking about.”

Link nodded, and Riju gestured for him to follow her, Buliara and Teake to the barracks. A soldier standing guard in front of a plain wooden door saluted and stood aside for them to pass.

It took several seconds for Link’s eyes to adjust in the dimly lit room. It was barely more than a supply closet, but it had been cleared of all weapons and tools so that a chair could fit.

The Hylian woman who had been giving him funny looks at the Noble Canteen was tied to the chair. Her dark hair was hanging over her face and stuck to her forehead with sweat. She did not look up as they entered.

“Yeah, that’s her, alright,” Link confirmed.

“Excellent,” Riju said. “Now the interrogation can begin.” She sounded much more enthusiastic about that than she should have.

Link heard a low, raspy laugh, and it took him a second to realize it was coming from the Yiga spy. “There’s no need,” she said. She looked up, and Link was startled to find that, although a bruise had swollen one eye nearly shut, her fierce gaze was pinned squarely on him.

“Here’s what’s going to happen,” the spy declared. “The Yiga will attack your town while all your people are too drunk to defend themselves, and they will continue to do so until the Hylian Champion turns himself over to us.”

Link froze. Although she had been speaking to Riju, the spy’s gaze had not left him a single time since she had looked up. Cold fear settled into his limbs like lead. Was she bluffing? They couldn’t possibly be planning to attack such a large settlement…could they?

Out of the corner of his eyes, he could see Teake sizing him up. When he risked a quick glance at her, she was staring straight forward, jaw set and eyes full of repressed fury. She had connected the dots, he realized with a sinking feeling in his stomach. Great, now he was about to get permanently kicked out of Gerudo Town too.

He kept his lips pressed into a thin line as Riju and Buliara asked a few cursory questions about the Yiga Clan’s numbers and plans of attack, but the spy refused to answer any of them. Buliara eventually gave Riju a look, and the chief gestured for Link to leave with her, leaving the soldiers to their interrogation.

Once they reemerged into the bright sunlight, Link made a beeline for the north gate of the town. He couldn’t stay here. If worst came to worst, he could fight his way away from the Yiga – escape their hideout if necessary –

“Zelda!” Riju hissed.

Link reluctantly stopped just outside of the gates. The soldiers flanking them gave him an odd look, but upon seeing their chief, straightened up and turned their gazes forward.

Riju glared at him. “What do you think you’re doing? You can’t just leave! We need your help!”

“No, you don’t.” Link shook his head. He couldn’t quite look at her. “I’m putting you all in more danger by staying here.”

“Zelda, that’s not true! The Yiga Clan would have tried something like this at some point anyway!” Exasperation laced her words. Link had the sense that she was bluffing to make him feel better, but her irritation undermined the effect. “There’s something else going on, isn’t there? Is it something we can help with?”

“I don’t think you understand,” Link said, licking his lips. His throat was very dry.

“Then make me understand,” Riju retorted stiffly. “You can start with explaining why you acted so weird last night!” Her elaborate headdress was skewed, and she adjusted it.

Link spread his arms out, feeling helpless. “I…remembered my sister.”

Riju blinked. “Sister?”

He smiled humorlessly. “That was about my reaction too.”

Understanding dawned on Riju’s face, soon replaced by pity. He hated that look, but at least Riju was someone he could talk to.

It suddenly hit him, the enormity of it all. He had known that he had to have had parents, but he hadn’t remembered a single Goddess-cursed thing about them. And then he remembered them, he remembered how much they loved him and how much they taught him, but he realized that they’d been dead for literally a century and there was nothing he could do about it. But that wasn’t the only thing. He had a sister, and he had no idea. He forgot all about her. And she was dead.

The fury boiling in his blood startled Link. He forced himself to take in deep, ragged breaths. Riju was staring at him, stunned. “Li – Zelda, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. You were obviously upset about something, and Buliara said that you were still upset this morning, but I didn’t know…”

Link hesitated for a long moment. “I really appreciate your friendship, Riju,” he said honestly. “I’m going to Kara Kara Bazaar. Probably less drunk people to put in danger.”

“You will do no such thing,” Riju replied, the heat in her voice startling him. “Kara Kara is practically indefensible. Besides, all the voe go there to get drunk anyway.”

Link sighed. “Fair enough.” Besides, he had left all of his gear in the hotel that morning.

He followed the chief back into the town, and chaos immediately broke loose.

Link heard familiar cackling a second before he heard soldiers barking orders. A mere moment later, he saw the first Yiga footsoldiers appearing right in the middle of the marketplace.

The women in the crowd screamed and stumbled for the entrances to the town, only to find that footsoldiers had materialized there too, keeping them hemmed in.

“Behind me,” he ordered Riju. A footsoldier noticed him and stalked forward, demon carver held at the ready. Link reached back for the handle of his broadsword and met with only air.

Right. He was unarmed.

Fantastic.

Well, he always had the Sheikah Slate at his hip. He unhooked it from his belt and held it out in front of him with two hands like a very small shield.

The footsoldier crouched and tensed, ready to spring forward. Link panicked and did the only thing he could think to do in the heat of the moment. He stabbed his finger at the Stasis rune, pointed the Slate at the Yiga, and clicked the button.

The footsoldier was frozen mid-slash, held in place by glowing, golden chains. Link heard Riju gasp and exclaim behind him, and he couldn’t help the small grin that formed on his face. He hooked the Slate back on his belt, snatched up an empty box that had been sitting next to him, and threw it at the Yiga’s mask with both hands.

A second later, after the box had fallen to the ground, the footsoldier flew backward into a palm tree. The mask splintered and fell off, revealing the bewildered face of a young Hylian man.

“Aw, shit,” the footsoldier said, before scrambling up to his feet and running away. Actually, it was more like stumbling away, after the hit he’d taken to his head.

Link was frozen, just for a second. For all of his warrior instinct and knight training, he’d never been taught to defend the chief of the Gerudo from teleporting assassins. While unarmed.

Then his focus came back, all in a rush. It didn’t matter. He was plenty well-armed, compared to most people in the square. He unhooked the Sheikah Slate and held it at the ready.

Link risked a glance back at Riju. The young chief was clearly taken by surprise, but she’d gotten a scimitar from somewhere and was holding it before her, jaw set. She likely had some minimal self-defense training, knowing Buliara. But he would take no chances.

He took a quick inventory of the scene before him. Yiga footsoldiers were backing civilians into each corner of the town. Link didn’t know why, but he suspected they would be hostages before long. Soldiers were skillfully brandishing spears at them, but the Yiga were just teleporting out of range. The air was full of cackling, shouts, and the fluttering of paper. He noted that the archers on the walls were aiming, but letting loose very few arrows, with such a high chance of hitting their own people.

“To the palace,” he commanded Riju. She nodded and kept close to him as he started to skirt the walls of the town. He ducked into stalls, rather than go around and become a clearer target for the Yiga.

Link hastily scanned the area for things he could use in combat. Bombs were a terrible idea within the city walls, and while there was some water surrounding the raised central dais of the marketplace, Cryonis was rarely useful in combat.

Except – there was a footsoldier ready to lunge across the water, ready to strike at him and Riju. With a sure hand, he flicked to Cryonis and summoned a pillar of ice from the pool of water, just in time for the footsoldier’s demon carver to wedge in it uselessly.

Link took the opportunity to seize Riju’s hand and sprint for the palace. If the Yiga clansmen hadn’t realized he was within the city walls yet, they knew now, judging from the shouts and commotion behind him.

Metal scraped behind him, and he acted on instinct. Daruk’s red barrier formed around him and Riju, just in time for a demon carver to bounce off it, right where Riju’s back would have been.

“Whoa, what’s going on here?” Daruk’s voice boomed behind Link. He heard the Goron’s mighty grunt, a solid thwack of a stony fist against something, and a footsoldier’s shriek.

“Long story,” Link called back. “These guys really don’t like me!” He pivoted and froze a lunging footsoldier with Stasis.

“I’ll say!” Daruk laughed, watching the extremely confused footsoldier fall to the ground after a few seconds. “I don’t have much time left. Watch your back, little guy.”

Link nodded, already scanning the plaza for a suitable weapon. His gut twisted when he saw a Gerudo soldier sprawled out on the plaza, unmoving, but the glint of a spear caught his eye. He flicked to Magnesis and brought the spear to him with a twist of his wrists, snatching it out of the air in time to slice a blademaster in the arm.

Blood sprayed into the air, but the blademaster just cracked his neck, unfazed. Link set his jaw and shifted into a defensive stance, Sheikah Slate back on his hip. Daruk was gone now, but he hoped that he had granted Riju enough cover to get to the palace. Behind him, he heard Riju’s and Buliara’s shouts as they hopefully reunited, and that was enough reassurance for him to focus all of his attention on the battle.

Combat raged on all around them, but Link and the blademaster held their positions. They sized each other up. Stillness stretched taut like a bowstring between them.

Then, without warning, the blademaster lunged for him.

Link was ready to sidestep, but his foot caught in a groove between two slabs of stone and pain shot up his leg from his ankle. The wind released from the blade cut across his side, and he hissed. His hand came away from the wound crimson.

Link gritted his teeth against the pain. Dumb, rookie mistake. It wasn’t his fault that his vai clothes made absolutely terrible armor, but he kicked himself all the same. He straightened and hefted the spear again, ignoring the way the blademaster cockily rolled his shoulders.

The blademaster punched the ground. A blood-red rune burned in the air above him. Link felt wind fluttering his clothes and snapped out his paraglider. As he rose into the air, he tucked his legs up to his chest, just in time to avoid the pillar of stone that had erupted from the ground.

Link angled the paraglider forward and fell into an aerial strike. He thrust the spear home, and it pierced through the blademaster’s shoulder. Link fell to the ground gracelessly and stumbled backwards, suppressing his nausea born of pain and the knowledge that he’d just stabbed an actual person. The blademaster groaned and warped away in a burst of fluttering papers. The Gerudo spear he’d been stabbed with clattered to the ground.

Link chanced a glance behind him and saw that Buliara and some other guards had formed a protective circle around Riju. He exhaled. He tried to break into a run for the spear, but he nearly collapsed as his twisted ankle failed to support his weight. He ignored the throbbing pain lancing up his leg and managed to stumble to the spear, scooping it up.

He had to get to his weapons in Hotel Oasis. Most importantly, his shield. There was no way he would be able to defend himself without it in this condition.

It was only twenty feet to the hotel. Link had no idea how he managed to drag himself all the way there without being completely beset by footsoldiers. Arrows flew by him, but not a single one hit its target. Inside the relative safety of the hotel, he flopped down on his bed for the second it took to snatch up the rest of his gear.

Once he limped out of the hotel, he found out why he hadn’t already been killed on the way there.

A row of Yiga clansmen formed a rough semicircle around the entrance to Hotel Oasis. He was blocked in.

“Hylian Champion,” a blademaster in the center declared in a booming voice. “It gives us no pleasure to kill innocents.”

“But you certainly enjoy stealing from them!” came Spera’s angry shout from somewhere beyond the circle. Link paled. Was she alright? His vision was growing a bit fuzzy at the edges, and he couldn’t quite tell what was going on with the Gerudo. Had all of the soldiers already been subdued?

“What? No. No way. Shut up,” the blademaster blustered, irritated by her outburst. “That’s beside the point! The pointis, if you don’t come with us, we’ll be forced to resort to violence.”

Resort to violence.Link snorted. But he realized that the blademaster had a point. Link was in no shape to get out of this alive if he tried to continue the fight. The best thing he could do for the Gerudo would be to cooperate. For now.

“And I have your assurance that no one in the town will be harmed, not even the chief?” Link asked. He propped himself up with the spear in an effort to take some weight off his bad ankle.

“Ganon’s blood, we’re assassins, not savages!” the blademaster cried indignantly. “We don’t attack children!”

Link raised an eyebrow and stared at the blademaster until he amended, “Sure, fine, we won’t hurt anyone. Even that super annoying lady over there.”

He pointed, and Link craned his head to see Ardin sprawled out on the ground, grabbing onto a footsoldier’s ankles and sobbing. She was obviously still drunk. “Oh, no,” Link murmured. Spera was on the other side of the plaza, being restrained by another footsoldier. He hoped they would both be alright. They were his friends, even if they were also annoying, cutthroat merchants.

Link tried to take a deep breath and was stopped short by the cutting pain in his side. He felt the eyes of the Gerudo and Yiga on him. He was shaking, and the silk of his clothes was starting to stick to his body with blood and sweat. He was sure that some of the Gerudo had already figured out that the Hylian Champion was never a vai, but he couldn’t bring himself to care.

“Fine,” he bit out. Anger simmered in his belly. “But don’t expect me to walk around in the desert after I twisted my ankle, for Hylia’s sake.”

The blademaster turned to the footsoldier on his right and murmured something. The footsoldier jogged off to the front gate of the town.

An assassin came at Link from the side, and he smacked the footsoldier’s hand away before he realized that she was trying to lend a hand. Link immediately swung his spear behind him and held his hands up before he could get murdered.

He limped behind the blademaster, casting guilty, sidelong glances at all the Gerudo. They mainly looked too exhausted to be angry with him. They were probably happy that he was leaving, given that he was the reason they were at risk. The Gerudo outnumbered the Yiga Clan, but too many of them were drunk civilians for them to be an effective force. Footsoldiers were holding blades against the Gerudo soldiers’ throats. It seemed that fighting within the walls of the town had been a weakness; the Yiga had been able to back the normally very competent soldiers into a literal corner.

And now Link himself was backed into a corner. He caught the gaze of Captain Teake, who was paler than normal. The wound on her leg had reopened, soaking the bandage through, and she was sagging against a wall. Link thought she was chewing something at first, but as he got closer, he realized she was mouthing something. He blinked a few times until he could parse it.

Rito Village, she said. Go to Rito Village.

Link gave her the barest hint of a nod, and her mouth stopped moving.

A harnessed sand-seal was waiting outside the gates for him. The footsoldier who had tried to help him earlier took the lead rope and tied it to his belt. “Sit on your shield,” she ordered him, and so he did, feeling relief as he finally took his weight off his twisted ankle.

“Sorry about all this,” she added, quieter.

“Why in Farosh’s name do you care?” Link snapped. “Why haven’t you killed me yet?”

The footsoldier glanced at the blademaster, before hesitantly answering, “The Lady said – “

“Hey, don’t tell him that!” another footsolder shouted, before the blademaster raised his hand in a call for silence.

“The Golden Lady can explain her intent for the Champion herself,” the blademaster said, with the air of someone who had already fielded this question a million times.

“Huh? Golden Lady?” Link demanded with the little breath he could comfortably take into his lungs. “I thought you guys were into the smoke thing with the pig head. Are you talking about Kohga’s replacement?”

The blademaster groaned. “Enough questions for now. Let’s just get to the hideout.” He waved his group forward, and about half of the footsoldiers who were there warped away.

They’re underestimating me, Link thought with a grim smile.

As the blademaster took hold of the sand-seal’s reins and started them forward at a walking pace, Link pushed his ankle slightly against the rim of the shield to test how well it would hold up. Not very well, the pulsing pain told him. He winced.

Instead, he waited until they were a safe distance away from the town. He summoned the familiar fury, much easier than usual in the wake of the attack on Gerudo Town. It dulled his aches and pains and he almost saw double.

He reached his arm out in front of him, and one of the Yiga gave him a quizzical glance. Before anyone could react, Link snapped his fingers.

Urbosa appeared in a flare of light. Although her golden outline was barely visible against the yellow dunes, Link could almost see her furious expression as she quickly took in the situation.

“Seven sands,” she snarled as the Yiga Clan members shouted in alarm and pulled out their weapons. Urbosa let out a stream of what Link assumed were foul insults in Gerudic, then raised her arm to the sky.

Lighting rained down on the Yiga, more intense and blinding than Link had ever seen it. “Go!” Urbosa roared at him over the crashing of thunder.

He did not need to be told twice. The blademaster fell to the ground in agony and dropped the sand-seal’s reins. Link snapped the rope tied to his belt, and the sand-seal surged forward into the desert.

Link almost fell flat on his face before he gripped onto the sides of his shield. Shield surfing was much less fun when he was sitting down. Sand sprayed into his face, and for once, he was glad of the veil covering his mouth.

With some careful maneuvering, he wedged his feet into the handles of the shield and pulled himself into a crouch. It was slow and difficult. His body was not cooperating the way he wanted it to.

The sand-seal swam over a dune. Link’s stomach dropped out from under him as the shield came off the sand for a brief moment. The shield swung wildly to one side, and Link pulled on the rope hard enough to pull himself to his feet.

His ankle almost gave out on him, and he dropped into an awkward crouch. The wind tore at his clothes. He wobbled. He couldn’t keep going like this. He would eventually fall off.

A Yiga rune flared in his peripheral vision, and he immediately snapped the rope. The sand-seal dove under the sand and rushed forward, almost yanking Link off his shield. Twin arrows whistled through the air a mere foot away from his head and speared the sand.

The Yiga had found him.

The sand-seal was traveling in a small valley between two dunes. Several more archers were appearing just up ahead. Link braced himself for the inevitable pain, and leaned hard to one side. He carved up a dune and the sand-seal swung in the opposite direction. This time, an arrow grazed his calf, and he bit back a curse.

Now he was headed straight for a cluster of ruins. His heart sank as he saw archers perched on the crumbling arches. He didn’t have time to make a sharp turn. It was the end of the road for him.

Link yanked hard on the rope, and the sand-seal came to a halt. He stumbled forward and fell off his shield. Thankfully, no one was shooting at him. Yet.

“Would you stop that?” one of the archers yelled.

“Stop what?” Link retorted to buy time. Goddess, he really, reallyhated what he was about to do.

“Escaping us!” said the archer. Link unhooked the Sheikah Slate from his belt and scrolled to the map. “Hey, stop messing with the Slate!” the archer continued, aiming her bow at his face.

Link ignored that comment. “Well, it’s too bad you don’t like that, because I’m about to do it again.” He hit the button cued up on the Slate.

As the world around him dissolved into streaks of incandescent blue, he allowed himself to savor the indignant shouting of the Yiga archers that he could still hear. It was the most enjoyment he’d get for a while, he predicted.

Rito Village, here I come.

[janiedean]

on jaime lannister’s mental health and what it means to you

tldr: in between this season’s beginning where I’ve seen a fair amount of ‘has jaime lost his balls with his hand’ in the jaime tag (....) and the finale after which I’ve seen a fair amount of ‘oh finally jaime grew some balls it was time’, I would like to list you a few friendly reminders in bullet list form of why jaime lannister has always had some of the strongest metaphorical and not balls in these series and why he’s always had a spine and he didn’t need to grow anyfuckingthing never mind that he didn’t lose anyfuckingthing with the hand.

in order:

jaime grew up spending all of his time with cersei until tyrion was born and it’s not like he stopped after. without going into how it might have started or not, he’s honestly convinced he’s the same person as cersei (he even said it in canon, if I was a woman I’d be cersei). growing together with someone in such a close environment would lend itself to actually be like them if they have a dominating personality (which she has). he thinks he’s her.

except that while cersei abused tyrion from the moment he was born and it’s pretty much strongly implied that she killed that friend of hers she went to talk to maggy to because she dared ask maggy if she’d marry jaime (i.e., she had basically assumed she could have him when cersei thought he was hers or no one’s), he… was… the only person in the family who actually loved tyrion (I don’t mean didn’t abuse him, I mean actually loved him) and was having daydreams of going around westeros being a knight, which is not exactly what cersei has as a life target.

then he got into the kingsguard half because he wanted to be like arthur dayne and half because cersei was like ‘if you do we can be together always’ which basically merged the two things he wanted, at fifteen

then it turned out aerys was what he was and since he was fifteen until he was seventeen he got through so much trauma (witnessing aerys raping his wife and being unable to do nothing, getting all the vows he believed in materially questioned, watching two people get burned alive) that he actually started dissociating to cope with it. dissociation is a fairly common effect of ptsd. this guy developed ptsd before he turned seventeen, and even with that he went, did the smart thing and killed aerys to save everyone, basically doing everything knightly oaths tell you not to do and count that we’re talking about a seventeen year old who dreamed of being arthur dayne hmmmmmmmmmm

then he could have actually become king, which is something cersei would have done at once, and he didn’t, even if if I was a woman I’d be cersei, which suggests me that someone in here managed to develop a distinct and definite personality who’s not cersei’s… without even realizing that he did it, or at least rationally, which should say volumes about the level of fucked up this guy is when talking mental health

then everyone got pissed at him for aerys without even bothering to ask him why which makes him reject everything he loved when it comes to knighthood and turn into the cynical bastard he was at the beginning -

ah, but let’s add that not even that long later tywin aka his father basically forced him to lie about tysha to tyrion with all the baggage we know, so his father forced him to hurt his brother whom jaime actually loves very much, to the point that later when jaime freed him (in book canon at least) he told him also because he was being eaten by guilt and I’m sure that must have been totally healthy for someone who dissociated at seventeen

and should I mention that he fathered three children and cersei never let him be in their lives, which is probably not as bad for a man as it’d be for a woman but wow, that totally doesn’t add up to the trauma

and then we’re surprised that a guy who didn’t treat any of his mental trauma for at least fourteen years if not more and who from that point on only gave a fuck about his family/his relationship with cersei which as seen above is kind of really toxic in the best of cases arrives to the point of shoving a kid out of a window to save his and her hide (ps: I’m not justifying it and even jaime knows it was shitty - the things I do for love, he said with loathing - but if we’re surprised that this is how he reacts… lol)

anyway, after that he ends up prisoner for one year, gets freed, runs into a bunch of bandits and OH WAIT THEY CUT OFF HIS RIGHT HAND WHICH IS INCIDENTALLY NECESSARY IF YOU’RE RIGHT-HANDED AND THE BEST SWORDSMAN IN THE REALM which turns into another fairly horrid trauma because hey, try losing that important a limb, having to ride it out and only having a total stranger who hated your guts until three days before helping you out and giving you a modicum of dignity during that time! because it’s totally fun to not being able to change your clothes and being given horse piss to drink, riding with your hand around your neck and so on, because that’s totally not traumatic at all, and then he goes on out of a) spite, b) brienne giving him her a+ pep talks, c) wanting to see cersei again

now, given all that, he… went back for brienne when he could have just left for KL and jumped into a bear pit for her after coming out of the above situation, having just healed, missing a hand and without even a weapon, which is totally something that someone without balls or a spine would do, wouldn’t they, same as someone without balls would have let people kick him in a healing stump to save brienne from being raped (because, addendum, he advised her to *go away inside* i.e. dissociate and she told him they could forget it)

and that’s just the first, but okay, so that sends him thinking, makes him realize he either has to be more than his sword hand or what’s the point, and the fact that he ran into a true knight TM made him realize that maybe some existed and that he kind of wanted to be like that still -

ah, yeah, and when he gets back to KL - in the book - cersei calls him a useless cripple and throws plates/cutlery at him never mind gets fairly handsy the moment he disagrees with her/doesn’t agree with her anymore, and then she tells him to get riverrun even if he doesn’t want to since he swore cat to never raise arms against the tullys

now, never mind that he managed to actually take riverrun without fighting and so on, but other than the above, since jaime lannister went through even more extensive trauma, in the books he: gave brienne oathkeeper and sent her off to save sansa therefore going against cersei’s wishes, saved tyrion when cersei wanted jaime to actually kill him, saves a serving girl no one gave a fuck about and with a reputation for being a **whore** from being raped for the umpteenth time and takes her in his service (I totally can see cersei doing that or even caring hmmm /sarcasm), tries to be as decent as he can manage, he’s one of the few povs who’s fairly open about hating what he does and about how dumb he thinks the war is being, realizes he doesn’t even want to go back to king’s landing because it’s not what he wanted, obviously gives more than a fuck about his honor and he’s fairly open about it, he incidentally defended brienne’s honor because he’s gallant like that, wanted to vomit when he was told the dude who cut off his hand ended up cannibalized (totally a dude who cares for revenge…) and when cersei asked him for help he burned the letter, which should somehow suggest he realized he’s really not her -

ah, I should probably mention that he’s also trying to relearn to fight with his left all over again instead of just giving up like a lot of people might have done -

ah, among all of this he went around advising tommen that he should go away inside aka dissociating to stand having to stand vigil next to his grandfather’s dead body when cersei’s advice was basically stop being a weakling and handle it (because an eight-year old totally would enjoy that), and cersei of course stopped his fathering there because of course what a travesty, but given that after he left cersei forced tommen to whip a servant we can absolutely see how much they’re the same person or how jaime has not, like, a personality of his own

now, jaime has also done a fair amount of reprehensible things in that time and I’m not wanting to say he’s a saint or something, because he’s not and he knows he’s done reprehensible things - he tells that to himself and everyone all the time.

also, I know that’s book canon and people in this case were discussing show canon, but point in case, while I think that the show made his development a serious disservice and didn’t lead up to him dumping cersei, they did more or less show that he’s not the same person as she is, and now we go to the crux of it. as in, but I’m honestly tired of hearing that he ‘grew balls’ on one side for leaving cersei now in the show same as I was fairly horrified when I went into his tag after the premiere and saw people going like ‘omg he lost his balls with his hand’ which is what cersei told him in the book I mean seriously, because -

this dude comes from a lifetime of emotional manipulation at best and abuse at worst, and anyway when cersei was twelve she considered him her property enough that she threw someone down a well because the poor girl dared ask maggy if she might marry him so I don’t really think it could have been healthy even in the best of cases, which was then topped by years of trauma that gave him ptsd symptoms at an age in which in my country he couldn’t drink, vote or drive a car and which caused him to kill people including his king and destroy most of his dreams and eventually topped by his father forcing him to hurt his brother who is the one relative with whom he has an actual healthy-ish relationship. and that’s not counting the huge-ass amount of trauma that came later with losing a limb that was pretty much his life/the most important for his line of work and so on, and even with all of this this guy managed to grow a fucking personality wholly different from his sister’s out of I don’t know what kind of emotional strength honestly without even realizing he wasn’t like her at all, he found it in himself to turn his life around as much as he could, he realized he didn’t want the same things as everyone else thinks he did and he’s trying to be a more decent person even if no one thinks he can be and everyone has pre-judged him already, and he’s done plenty more than decent things pre and post traumas of whichever kind.

and in the middle of all this I’d like to remind everyone again that he fathered three kids that he was never let near. I mean, if it had been a woman having three children and then being forced to never interact with them would it be chill? nah.

back to the show: so it took him a hell of a long time to leave KL. I also think it wasn’t very well paced. but for fuck’s sake, taking it at face value, this guy spent his entire life being either manipulated or subtly/not so subtly emotionally amused or going through heavy trauma, and people are surprised that it took him a hell of a long time to say fuck it and leave? (especially when cersei was also using the ‘I’m pregnant’ card but never mind, which is totally not an abusive/manipulating tactic at all - I mean, she told him the moment she suspected he was being fed up with her nonsense/craziness post-sept burning and incidentally gave him everything he wanted i.e. their relationship in the open and told him she’d have let him father the kid. aha. when she didn’t let him father the three before. totally not emotional manipulation. hmmm.) fuck’s sake, this guy has guts of steel for having even been himself i.e. someone his sister is not all along, for bad or good.

I’m not even going to go over people assuming that the moment he didn’t want to go along with cersei’s crap in the premiere/he had doubts after then he didn’t have balls anymore - so now realizing that cersei was being bonkers and having an opinion and some development he already had in spades in the book is not having balls? - but this idea that he’s only growing a spine now that he left her or that he never had it before losing the hand is just… it takes a hell of a long time to get over that kind of trauma/abuse/manipulation. he has fifteen years’ worth of untreated ptsd/trauma going on, he’s had maybe three healthy relationships just talking about the show (in the book there might be more but honest it’s not like addam marbrand or ilyn payne are significant in the way tyrion and brienne are, and in the book he’s obviously not in a good place with tyrion right now so..), where on top of that they made him watch his daughter die in front of him for who knows what ill-informed artistic decision, just after she recognized him as her father, which absolutely wouldn’t add to the trauma, wouldn’t it?

and even with all of that he… is around, functioning, doing his thing, taking his decisions, trying to be a better person as uneven as it’s being (which is normal), wanting to be a better person and wanting to follow his old dreams and like, having a personality, again. and he’s always managed to be his own person all along.

if that is not having a spine or having balls or having enormous emotional strength whether he realizes it or not I don’t know what it’s called, but… like, he hasn’t grown any balls or anything, nor lost them. he’s always had them. and even if it’s not plainly obvious because for some reason if it’s guys being abuse victims most of the signs aren’t plain or aren’t seen as such, but it doesn’t make that any less true and it’d be really nice if more people noticed that this guy has mental health issues which did and do affect his behavior and his choices instead of assuming he’s an asshole/exactly like his sister and then got his eyes opened when he lost his hand.

like. one would think that we wouldn’t call getting out of abusive/toxic relationships *growing some balls*, but what do I know. I have a feeling no one would say the equivalent if jaime had been a woman and cersei had been a man (I mean, when any woman does away with their abusers in this show no one says that they finally grew some balls…) but even with that, can we just acknowledge that this guy never actually was some kind of doormat that everyone stepped on and at some point just decided to wake up and grow a personality out of nowhere into his adulthood? thank you very much.

/out

[phantoms-lair]

Wormhole AU -Alternate Selves Part 2

A note before the chapter begins, as it’s somewhat relevant. I’m going with beneath their armor the Paladins wear their regular clothes, with the exception of Lance and Keith’s jackets. I ended up going with this as a matter of saving time, as Hunk and Pidge’s armor shows how adaptable it is to size change. If there’s an emergency alert, it’s far more feasible to simply pull on the armor and helmet (shedding a jacket first is Lance and Keith’s case) then to get completely changed.

Part 1 Here

“Righty-O,” Coran began typing away at a control and the water spiraled down from the ceiling, making a pool. “Easy as a tarker hunting down a wasek.”

“Man, we didn’t even seen that control last time we were here.” Lance complained, then glanced  at Keith when there was no response. He frowned as he saw Keith had replaced his helmet and was hunched in on himself. His line of sight was broken though, as Shiro continued to carry him to the actual water. “This is messed up,” he muttered.

“No argument here,” Shiro agreed. He leaned down to put Lance in the water, then suddenly stiffened.

“Shiro? You okay?”

Shiro shook his head. “I just think I hit my surreal limit, that’s all. Aliens and space battles are one thing. Magical transformations are a bit much.”

“I think you’re going to have to raise your limit,” Lance said dryly as he slid out of Shiro’s grip and into the water. He had been worried about not being able to swim with his new body, but once he was in the water the tail moved almost without his input while fins he hadn’t realized were on his waist spread and began treading water. “Huh, okay?” He took off his helmet and  Allura let out a little squeak.

“You’ve got Altea ears,” Pidge pointed out, while Hunk made a wuffly grumble sound that probably meant the same.

“Seriously?” Lance ran his hand over the long ears. “Why would a fish even need ears?”

“Well, marine mammals like porpoises use echolocation as a navigational tool. There’s also been studies about how sound affects other sealife, like sharks.” Pidge pointed out.

Allura couldn’t tear her eyes away from the ears. It made him looks so close to an Altean it hurt. Even more so knowing he and the others were Alteans earlier today. And she knew that this was unfair to Lance, not to mention Keith or Hunk.

Coran was next to her, and she could practically feel him trying to comfort her, despite himself going through the same loss as she had. “Do we have any idea how to reverse this?”

“Not right now. And how fast I can depends on whether the Castle or the Lions were able to record data from the timeloop in the wormhole. If so, I can analyze what caused the transformations then and reverse it. If not...” Her hands automatically went to push up her glasses, forgetting she was wearing a helmet. “I have no idea how long it’s going to take. I’ll basically be inventing a new branch of science.”

“You need to make fixing this a priority. And yes that means above searching for your family.” Pidge’s eyes narrowed and Shiro cut her off before the anger he knew was about to come. “We can’t help them if we’re dead. We just attacked Zarkon at his central command. He’s going to come looking for us. If we can’t change back quickly, anyone with a new body is going to have to completely relearn how to pilot their Lion in response to new limbs or learning their own strength and reflexes.”

To emphasize the point Hunk sat on his haunches and waved his paws around.

“Zarkon’s going to do his best to not give us that chance. The only thing we have going for us is he doesn’t know about our current difficulties. And we need to keep him from learning until it’s not a problem anymore.”

Pidge still glared at him, but seemed to concede the point. “I’m going to head back to Green and see what I have. It’s shouldn’t take me too long to know if I have data or not.”

“I’ll do the same for the Castle,” Allura added quickly, hurrying out before even before Pidge could.

“Well, glad to see she’s committed to this.” Pidge turned her attention to Lance, Keith, and Hunk. “You guys need to get used to those bodies though, in case we need to fight before I’m ready.”

Hunk made a grumbly whine.

“She’s got a point,” Keith said. “We should head to the training deck.”

Hunk made another grumble noise, but this time pointed to Lance.

Shiro sighed “Hunk’s right,” at least if he interpreting the gesture correctly. “Lance needs to stay here, in the water.”

“Like I’d be able to run drills, without legs,” The Blue Paladin scoffed.  “Though Shiro, are you sure you don’t need to lay down? You’re still not looking too well.”

“I’ll be fine,” Shiro tried to wave it off. “Like I said, just a bit drained.”

“You should go lay down,” Keith insisted. “We all need to be at our best if something happens. If you’re that tired a nap would be the best thing you can do. Don’t worry, I’m sure Hunk and I can get our blood flowing just fine.”

“Well if you put it that way,” Shiro agreed, even as Hunk gulped at the thought of being Keith’s sparring partner. “I guess a quick nap wouldn’t hurt. You guys sure you’ll be okay?”

“A Galra fighting a bear, what could go wrong?” Lance snarked, earning him some looks.

“I’ll make sure the healing pods are in working order,” Coran volunteered.

Lance kept the smarmy grin up until everyone else had left, then let it fade. “All right tail, let’s see what you can actually do.”

~

Allura’s eyes flipped up when she noticed someone entering the bridge, but went back to what she was doing when she saw it was Coran. “I can find no records of anything since the time loop started. Could you check the Rift Exit Positioning Monitor to see if there’s anything there?”

He sighed, “Princess you have to stop this.”

“I can’t stop, Coran. Not when there might be something -”

“You need to stop blaming yourself. Wishing doesn’t make things happen, especially not crazy insane things like this. If anyone’s to blame, it’s the witch that blasted the wormhole.”

“Except she never would have had the chance if it wasn’t for me!  I was the one who insisted I help infiltrate the hidden Galra Hub. I was the one who pushed to further infiltrate the docked ship when the Paladins wanted to return to safety. Then I was the one to be captured when things went poorly, prompting a rescue mission that put the whole team at risk, brought the Black Lion back within Zarkon’s sight, and ended with this wormhole fiasco. I wanted to prove myself as a member of the team so badly that I put everyone else in this terrible position.”

“No one ever doubted you were a member of the team, and a valuable one at that. “

“Which makes what I did even more inexcusable. Oh, there has to be something here, Coran.” She ran her fingers over the console, eyes scanning the symbols that streamed down.

“I’ll check the Rift Exit Position Monitor,” Coran volunteered softly. He had to think of something to help Allura, but he had a feeling it wouldn’t be a simple fix.

~

Keith grabbed his bayard, it taking the familiar sword form. That was somewhat comforting at least. “What about you, is your bayard still working?”

Hunk tried to pick up his only to fumble it as his paws couldn’t wrap around the grip.

“Okay, um, that’s not working. Maybe we can try some hand to hand? You know, if Lance was here he’d say something about fighting bear handed.”

Hunk gave him a look, but he wasn’t sure if it was for the pun, or bringing up that Lance wasn’t there. Still the grizzly bear stood on his haunches and tried his best to take a fighting stance. Hunk made his best attempt to strike at Keith, but the Red Paladin grabbed the extended limb and smoothly flipped Hunk over his shoulder before he realized what he was doing.

Did I just flip a bear? Sure it was really Hunk, but physically he was still a bear, and a large one at that. There’s no way he should be strong enough to lift Hunk much less flip him.

“You fight like a Galra,” Zarkon’s words echoed in Keith’s mind. “Sorry, I guess I really don’t know what this body is capable of.”

Hunk shrugged on the ground, then his eyes brightened and he patted his stomach.

“You want food?” Keith asked incredulously. “We’re supposed to be figuring these bodies out.”

Hunk gestured to his mouth with one paw, open and closing it.

“Talking?” Keith guessed. Hunk gestured for him to keep going. “Speaking? Words? Communication?”

Hunk rapidly tapped his nose at the last one.

“I guess getting better at communication would be important.” Keith allowed. He picked up Hunk’s Bayard for him. “But we do need to get used to these bodies. I mean, best case scenario, we’re changed back before you’re done with food.  -And you’re already gone aren’t you?”

By the time Keith had caught up to Hunk in the kitchen, several food items and bits of equipment were set out. “Okay, but how are you going to cook? If you can’t hold your bayard how will you hold a knife?”

Hunk grinned and pointed to Keith.

“Me? You want me to cook?” Keith asked skeptically.

Hunk nodded, standing up again and patting the counter.

“Okay?” Keith walked over and picked up a knife and a vegetable. He began to cut when a loud Grolf stopped him.

Hunk was suddenly looming over him and delicately adjusted how he was holding the knife as well as his grip on the vegetable. Hunk then pantomimed a cutting motion.

Maybe this really was a communications exercise. “Like this then?” An approving grolf met his ears and Keith began to cook.

Before long the best food Keith had ever made was spread out in front of them. Sure it wasn’t Hunk’s usual quality, but it was light years above the quick meals he had made for himself in the desert.

Hunk had certainly enjoyed his share. Now though, he was digging through the cabinet and pulled a tray out. He then pointed at the leftover food, the tray, then began to pantomime swimming.

He wanted to go swimming with food? Oh- “You want to bring this to Lance?”

Hunk nodded emphatically.

Keith was a little hesitant, he and Lance typically got on like gas and an open flame. But it wasn’t realistic for Hunk to carry a tray of food that far. And it wasn’t like Lance could come and get food for himself.

That was a sobering thought. It really brought home Shiro’s point of how much trouble they were in if Zarkon caught them now.

~

It was kind of interesting how the tail and fins worked together. When he was trying to swim quickly, or over any length of distance the tail was the main powerhouse with the waist fins acting as rudders. It was kind of cool that he could use his knowledge of piloting to figure out how to adjust the waist fins to create sharp turning radiuses or other maneuvers.

If he was just using moving forward slightly or staying in one spot, the waist fins became the main point of propulsion or treading water while the tail didn’t do much. The first few times he went underwater he’d held his breath out of habit, only to realize the air never went stale in his lungs, though there was a cool feeling on each side of his throat.

Eventually he’d shrugged off the armor and used the face sheild of the helmet as a mirror. Three small lines were stretched across each side of his neck, which, when touched revealed themselves to be gill slits. He was expecting it, heck the whole point of looking was because he thought they were there, but it was still creepy.

The shirt he had been wearing under the armor was still there, albeit soaked through as soon as he removed the armor. The pants and underwear were gone though. Besides the translucent waist fins, which looked pretty fragile outside the armor, his legs had become a thick muscular tail covered in hard blue scales. They were almost like a layer of armor in and of themselves.

He was examining the tail fin itself when he heard the pool door open. “Knock first!” he yelped. “I’m not wearing any pants.”

“Your bottom half is a fish,” Keith pointed out.

“Well Hunk’s whole body is a bear and he’s still got clothes,” Lance pointed out.

Hunk shrugged. He tried to pull his helmet off, but couldn’t get a good grip with his paws.

“Here big guy, let me help.” Lance pulled himself out of the water and grabbed the yellow helmet. It took a little finagling so it didn't hit his muzzle and it easily came off. “Huh, I would have thought you’d still have your headband.”

“Why?” Keith asked. “He’s a bear?”

“Yeah, but I still had my shirt. It was just my pants that were missing. Most human clothes wouldn’t fit on a bear, but I thought the headband would be there.”

Hunk looked thoughtful, then started pawing at his armor.

“I don’t know, Bud. I don’t think you’d have anything if you don’t have your headband.” Lance pointed out, even as he helped Hunk with the armor.  It was as he was pulling off the arm that Keith gasped.

Coming out of the suit was a familiar human arm. Hunk twisted and flexed it easily, then looked confused, which looked downright odd on a bear’s face.

Keith and Lance shared a look, then practically ripped the rest of the armor off him. Underneath it was normal Hunk. Same clothes, same body, completely normal.

“Oh my gosh, oh my gosh I can talk! Guys, that was so weird, we were in a time loop and we like bonded to the Castle, then I was bear and Lance was a fish and Keith was a Galra.  And holy crap Keith you’re strong. I can’t believe you made that bear joke, even if it was a stand-in for Lance. Can I get my Bayard back? But seriously, you’re going to cut off your finger if you don’t work on your knife technique. And maybe go a bit heavier on the seasoning. Also, Lance, that tail looks so cool, and I’m human again! So maybe all we needed to do was take off our armor.”

“Armor’s already off.” Lance pointed out as Keith returned the bayard. “Still a fish.”

“True. What about Keith?”

“Me? Wha? But it didn’t work for Lance?”

“It’s still worth a shot.” Lance shrugged. “Besides, what are you hiding? We’ve all seen a Galra before.”

Keith only seemed to dig his heels in further, to which Lance gave him an annoyed look, his ears lying horizontal to his eyes. “Look, we’ve all seen Hunk as a bear, and you’re seeing me in all my finny glory. You’ve literally got nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“And maybe it’ll work, it’s worth a shot.” Hunk shrugged. “I mean, it did work for me.”

“Fine.” Hunk was right. If there was even a small chance this would work, he had to take it. His resolve was definitely tested when he took off the helmet and Hunk squeed.

“Oh my gosh, you’re the fluffy eared type of Galra.” Hunk gushed. “I mean, it’s hard to appreciate how adorable they are cause they always try to kill us and that, you know, puts the adorableness factor in negatives. But you’re totally not evil so it’s still adorable. Can I touch your ears?”

“No, you can not touch my ears.” Keith hissed. “Why are you so okay with this?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Hunk seemed baffled. “Because I’m a freaking Galra!”

“Yeah, but it’s not like you’re switching sides. It’s just a magical transformation, like when we were all girls. Or had tentacle hair.”

“Can we not talk about that?” Lance shuddered. “The fishtail is weird enough, I do not want to think about what happened in the wormhole.”

Keith rolled his eyes at Lance as he continued to remove the armor. Like with Lance, though, nothing changed. Keith just stared at the floor, studiously not looking at his friends or at any part of himself.

“Okay, that didn’t work, so why did it work for me?”

“Maybe it wasn’t you that got changed.” Lance suggested. “Maybe it was your armor, like Pidge?”

“Maybe, there does seem to be something in it.” Hunk pulled something furry out of it.

Lance perked up, “I think I’ve figured it out. Hunk, put the fur on.”

“But I’m not really cold.”

“Testing a theory. Just pull it on.”

“Okay, so like thi-grolf?”

“What the hell Lance, we just got him back!” Keith snapped as bear-Hunk patted himself down.

“Keep your fur on, I’ve got this.” Lance waved him off. “Hunk, just take the skin off.”

The bear shot him a ‘what are you, nuts?’ look.

“Think of it like a jacket or something. Trust me.”

Hunk looked skeptical, but tried what Lance suggested. He shuffled a bit, and then the fur fell off leaving normal Hunk again. “Okay, why did that work?”

“It’s a bearskin.” Lance said excitedly.

“I know I had bearskin,” Hunk rolled his eyes, “but that doesn’t explain the changing.”

“Actually, I think I’m following Lance.” Keith shook his head as though he was having trouble with what he said. “I came across a few stories growing up from Native Americans about people who had magical bearskins that let them turn into bears. I think that’s what’s happened to you.”

“Oh, okay magical bear skin is kinda cool. I can get behind that.” Hunk tied the arms of the bearskin around his neck like a cape. “We should probably let everyone know I can hold things again.”

“Pidge would probably be upset if we ‘withheld data’,” Lance agreed.

~

The corridor was full with fear as the prisoners of various race were herded towards the arena to fight Myzax. The Galran Sentry stood, offering the sword to a terrified Matt.

Shiro couldn’t let him go to his death into the arena. He rushed forward and grabbed the sword, slashinng it at Matt, hitting him in the knee.

“This is my fight!” Shiro shouted, jumping on Matt. “I want blood!”

The sentry tried to pull him away, but he pulled free, grabbing Matt and exposing his neck. Even hearing Matt’s screaming didn’t stop him as he plunged his fangs into his throat

“We’ve got some good news!”

Shiro started awake at the sound of Lance’s voice.

“This better be good,” Pidge grumbled over the communicator.

“I am no longer a bear!” Hunk announced proudly.

“You turned back?” Shiro and Pidge asked in unison.

“Not exactly. Turns out Hunk is basically a bear-selkie.” Lance explained.

“Of course you figured it out from seal mermaids and not the actual legends.” Keith muttered.

“At least I figured it out,” Lance countered.

“This is not the time to argue. This is good, since it means Hunk’s back to active duty. Any more good news guys?”

“Still a fish,” Lance answered nonchalantly.

“I’m a lot stronger,” Keith added. “I’d like to stick with working with drones and Gladiator bot until I have a handle on how much.”

“Good idea, the least thing we need is an accident. What about you, Pidge?”

“No such luck. As far as the hardware on the Lions is concerned, the time loop didn’t happen. I’ve been trying to go through our memories with Green and see things from her perspective, but so far it’s not giving me anything new.”

“I won’t interrupt your research then.” Bonding with a Lion took a lot on concentration.

“If you have any other hard data, please do. In fact, after this I’d like to try that looking into the head hole exercise so I can see all the different perspectives.”

“Maybe we should ask our Lions like you’re doing!” Hunk suggested.

“More data is always good.” Pidge agreed happily.

“We’ll catch up to you soon then,” Shiro promised, before cutting of the communication. He sighed, leaning back in his bed, running his tongue worriedly over his new fangs. They needed to fix this and soon. The hunger was only getting stronger.

[retphienix]

Now this game. This game.

What you're seeing is just a quick roundup of what I had for the final fight. No-one was properly equipped because this game is terrible and requires equipping garbage in order to learn skills and I didn't bother to equip my 'good' stuff for the final showdown. Partially because I forgot. Also, Montblanc was nearly completely useless the entire game.

After this terrible experience I can say I fully understand why little kid me hated this game near immediately, and I'm thankful he didn't attempt to push through because all of this pains me. I also understand why apparently the cart I have has a hacked main save, even the previous owner couldn't handle seriously playing this piece of crap.

Here is where I'll throw the readmore as I'm just going to let my frustrations out a bit. I may tackle some of the good things I can come up with but those impatient just know my takeaway from this title is: It's not the worst game on its own merits, but to me it might as well be. It's the sequel to FFT but every single change they made was for the worse to the point of it being downright insulting.

It's the worst because of what it did to FFT. It's "just a bad game" if you ignore what it did to FFT.

I only showcase the 6 people I actually used for one. Something amusing about the systems in place working against themselves is that learning abilities is painfully slow and poorly implemented, which means levels additional characters can add many many hours of grind onto the title. Or you can just "not" do that, so I didn't. The skill system is among the biggest problems with this title, and I say that with full knowledge of "invincible because we said so with no thematic reasoning" bosses and writing so poor it actually brings me pain.

You learn skills by equipping an item that teaches the skill, then participate in enough fights for the skill to finally be learned. Rinse and repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And repeat. And realize that you can usually only equip 1 item that teaches you a skill at a time per character since it's primarily taught through weapons. And repeat.

This is undoubtedly the most annoying and tedious part of the game. It undermined the job system by instead making it about what weapon you equipped to learn about, rather than what job you leveled as to become proficient at. Not to mention the skills are braindead as can be and for the most part attempt to make every class the same.

In FFT every class was unique. In FFTA every class carries nearly identical skills, with a couple small differences.

Want to be a melee job? Well you have an aimed attack, an inaccurate heavy attack, probably a ranged attack, and probably a self heal. Want to be a ranged job? Well you have an aimed attack and normal attacks that also proc status. Want to be a magic job? Well you have 3-5 spells that all do the same thing but with different elements.

Do you want to know what ACTUALLY makes these jobs special? Downwards of 3 skills per class.

FFT had Chemists being the only class using items. Knights being the only class that destroys equipment. Thiefs being the only class that steal equipment (or hearts!). White mage being the heal magic. Black for damage magic. Oracle for status magic. Monk for a balance between DPS (Knight) and healing (WM or Chemist). Archers had the unique charge system that abused the CT system (a system that doesn't matter at all in this game). Geomancers merging Knights and Black Mage in a UNIQUE way that demands you pay attention to what terrain you're on. Ninja's inately dual wield. A class dedicated to inviting enemies to join you which worked on any non-story enemy in the game, compared to FFTA being able to 'bank' monsters. I could go on for way too long here, especially when you consider the unique job classes of the special characters like Engineers or Holy Swordsman.

What's this game do? Every class does the same things except one can steal things (thief), two rip off geomancer by dumbing it down to painful levels (Ninja and Elementalist), we have somewhere around 4 classes that use bows (Archer/Sniper/Assassin/Hunter) and they use them the same way, hit them with an aimed shot or hit them with a status shot. Gunner exists and is literally just an archer with the same "status" shots. Fighter and Monk are the same class basically. Red Mage exists for no reason at all especially when you realize they have to RELEARN all the spells they already learned BUT THIS TIME AS A RED MAGE. ALREADY KNOW CURE? WELL SCREW YOU LEARN IT AGAIN. And Assassin can learn an instant KO or two to give them the illusion of flavor.

More or less every class has the same skills, just different visual effects. And sometimes they skimp on that with things like the aimed attacks. The lack of flavor to any class is painful and makes them all feel uselessly similar. The ninja doesn't even innately dual wield, what kind of decision was that? I saw one class that interested me and it turned out to be useless. The Illusionist, which is entirely improperly named due to what they do, is a raid wide spelluser. Except they learn very few spells. And they all do terrible damage. It's a bad math skill from FFT. Not to mention there is a severe lack of skills in comparison to FFT which means every class has fewer tools to work with than before, so they NEEDED those tools to be unique and instead they copy paste in order to maintain some weird and restrictive form of balance.

Skills actively make this game worse and demand you ignore your equipment because good equipment is useless to you (Oh, you got an ultimate sword? Useless. It doesn't teach any skills. Ignore it until end game when your stats will be so out of wack that you won't need it), and they push you to grind again and again and again in order to feel like any kind of progression has happened.

So let's talk about equipment for a second because this blows my mind. In this game you get ULTIMATE WEAPONS from other FF games, and SUPER END GAME MEGA GEAR from FFT at like the halfway point. And you get a lot of it.

Just about every dispatch mission or mission in general rewards you with things like Save the Queen and Excalibur or the Yoichi Bow. But all of these pieces of equipment have been nerfed significantly and made useless generally by the skill system demanding you keep changing equipment. Why make something as cool as legendary weapons feel like a drop in my inventory bucket? I often got legendary gear and just shrugged it off because they added +1 damage to my party member at the cost of teaching no skills.

Accuracy was also out of wack in this game but I'm not sure how I felt about it. There was the obvious computer bias where enemies would hit every 30% chance strike they went for while I could miss 5 70% strikes in a row, but I mainly mean everyone everywhere had really low chances to strike. Ambushing from behind might net you 80% which felt off.

Gameplay wise the accuracy didn't really effect anything, but it was strange to see everyone save for those with concentrate hitting 65% rolls regularly.

The story was painful. I've ranted enough about it but really it comes down to it's practically written for toddlers as it goes beyond childish and it dwells far too much on selfish unrealistic characters. For a normal game this is embarrassing, for the sequel to FFT it's downright insulting.

The bosses suck. Encounters in general are pretty terrible, but you'd think there would be more variety in what you are challenged with. Statuses almost never came up and I kept attempting to prepare for when they would but the worst I ever saw was a monster that spams a raid wide sleep spell and archers using Aim Arm to dont act my characters. That's not nearly enough diversity especially when they carried over all the different anti-status tools from FFT to this game. The bosses almost all resorted to "haha, don't I have a lot of minions? You should probably hit them instead of me~~~~" which in FFT I would happily hit them because the game's fun. Since this game is NOT fun, I just strike the bosses and find that they have no counter for this strategy.

You can DPS race every boss in this game. Every one. With poorly geared party members. And without grinding to be above the encounter in any way.

The scariest fight I had was Adrammelech because dragon enemies are powerful at that stage of the game and I still just ran straight ahead and hit him with all my party members for a quick kill. I was PAINFULLY weak at that stage too as I was leveling as random poor growth classes and it still worked.

Levels make for a funny subject as well. I mentioned that it's pointless to grind up your alts because skills make it too time consuming to do so meaningfully. They give you a LOT of alts, and the alts actually drag down the encounter levels.

I heard that encounters were based off of your highest level. I can confirm they are not. Perhaps the story missions are, but every encounter in the game is based off your average level, not highest.

This made the first quarter of my gameplay very confusing as every encounter was locked at level 6 while I was at level 15. I couldn't level up at all unless I spammed self-target moves that always give 10 xp because attacking the weak enemies gave 1 xp.

I was growing annoyed at every encounter being useless for me and just a pointless grind for skill points until I realized what was happening and dismissed all my non-leveled members.

Immediately the game became more playable and I'm left wondering why in the world they would do that. Why give me a new low level member every mission and expect me to level all of them equally?

Regardless, it was remedied, just poorly designed.

I wasn't fond of making the map as it prevented Ivalice from feeling like a real place at all. Yes, that's a little thematic what with it being a story book but even for a story book this "place your plot" map was uninteresting and tore me away from thinking this world made any sense at all.

Oh! The CT change in which every skill in the entire game is immediate and requires no timing or strategy at all for “charging” practically killed 90% of the strategy you could have! How hilarious! Gotta love spamming your biggest ultima blast immediately just like when you attack or use a simple fire spell!

I feel like I have nothing good to say and like I could go on for quite a while more. I wanted to say it's alright as a dumbed down 'kid' version of FFT, except it's not. If you enjoyed it, fantastic, but what I see is an unbalanced mess that's unfit for kids and unfun for me. Of course, that's what opinions are. I just really love FFT and hate this game. So that's that.

(Part 2)

[crimson-legend]

VERY LONG CHARACTER SURVEY.

RULES. repost; do not reblog! tag 10! good luck!

TAGGED BY: @summoners-path​

TAGGING: I was going to tag my other muse but it turned out the princeling was easier to finish that Auron (who can be such a recalcitrant bastard at times, I swear) - @oshimai, @fallal, and by this point I think most people have done this? If you have not and you’re seeing this, then I’m tagging you, yes, you, whoever you may be. Do the thing!

BASICS.

FULL NAME: Auron ( アーロン ) - no last name. I’m one of those with the opinion that Spirans don’t generally have ‘last’/family names.

NICKNAME/S: Rikku calls him big meanie, and probably sometimes red. Still others might call him Sir.

AGE: 25 (at time of death) - 35 (at time of Sending)

BIRTHDAY: Some point in the mid-Spring. The date wasn’t recorded.

ETHNIC GROUP: Human (Yevonite), Macalanian.

NATIONALITY: Yevonite

LANGUAGE/S: Spiran Common. He knows a few basic words and phrases of Al Bhed but nothing more.

SEXUAL ORIENTATION: Grey-ace, sex neutral.

ROMANTIC ORIENTATION: Biromantic, perhaps slightly inclined towards men(?). Intensely monogamous.

RELATIONSHIP STATUS: unattached (verse-dependent)

CLASS: Practical: Warrior - 2H Sword (ATK, DEF, tank, debuff) ; Social: variable, depending on the point in his life. He’s gone from low-working-class to mid- then high warrior class, then booted back out into near-poverty, then to Dream Zanarkand where he didn’t fit anywhere.

HOMETOWN / AREA: Bevelle - from age 8 (There was once a small village back in the mountains of Macalania that a young boy called ‘home’. It’s not there any more.)

CURRENT HOME: (verse-dependent) Wandering.

PROFESSION: Originally, a warrior monk in the Church of Yevon, dedicated to the protection of the people against Sin and fiends and heretics and upholding the law of the land. After that, a guardian, dedicated solely to the protection of his Summoner. (After and in-between, he had to find something to do in Dream Zanarkand that wasn’t just babysitting Tidus…)

PHYSICAL.

HAIR: Black, streaked with grey. Long when he was young, kept short when older save for a long queue at the back.

EYES: Amber, appearing mid-brown in low light but bright in full light. After his death, he only has one and developed a light sensitivity in the remaining one. It’s one of the reasons that he wears the sunglasses, along with the added bonus of obscuring his face - they protect his eye from brightness or sudden changes in light intensity. He also has impaired depth perception that he had to learn to work with, relearning even things as basic as how to navigate, much less fight.

NOSE: A fairly average-sized nose with a straight bridge, the tip pointed out slightly more from his face than you’d see in southern Yevonites or Al Bhed.

FACE: Oval face shape, with a gentle taper from cheekbones to jawline, firm jaw leading down to a strong chin. Slightly v-shaped hairline. When he was young he always kept clean-shaven, but as he got older, he has a sort of permastubble going on, as sometimes he bothers to shave and sometimes he doesn’t, but is apparently incapable of managing to grow an actual beard.

LIPS: Somewhat thin, often chapped (this man needs a chapstick, has Zanarkand invented those yet?). Prone to turning up into a smirk when he’s amused, but he doesn’t fully smile very often, much less grin.

COMPLEXION: Pale with yellow undertones, though he’s usually slightly tanned from being outside often. In places like Bikanel or the southern islands, he will burn (and be extremely irritable about it).

BLEMISHES: A massive scar that crosses his face from above his right eyebrow to his jawline, sealing the eye shut, and continues down from his shoulder to just above his right hip. He also has a fair amount of less drastic scarring incurred in battle, but aside from a few larger or more severe wounds, those are relatively minor due to the availability of healing magic and potions.

TATTOOS: None.

HEIGHT: 6’0”, probably 6’0.5”-6’1” in his boots - some people find this surprising, as his presence (most often!) gives him the impression of being an even larger man

WEIGHT: I’m terrible at judging/guessing this tbh - maybe somewhere around 200 lbs?

BUILD: BRICK WALL. Mesomorph, and very fit. He’s extremely solid, with a core like a steel beam from swinging that sword around like he does. Definitely looks like he could toss Braska to safety without a second thought. Nice legs, broad shoulders and hefty arms, a muscular but rather flat ass.

ALLERGIES: Incompetence. Mold and mildew, as well as mild lactose intolerance.

USUAL HAIRSTYLE: Mostly unstyled. Queue bound back with a tie or thin ribbon, the shorter majority he simply runs his fingers through and that’s good enough.

USUAL EXPRESSION: Resting murderface. Ah, stoic. He tends to show his emotions readily on his face but the changes of expression are always very minor, so one has to look close and know him well to see what he’s feeling. The signs are always there to be picked out, though. Everything is thrown out the window when it comes to very strong emotions, though, usually anger, which is obvious for all to see. When he was younger, his expressions were usually more obvious, but that changed over time.

USUAL CLOTHING: Dark, dark grey pants with a lighter grey vertical stripe on the front, back, and sides that tuck into tall black boots, which have a protective plate on top of the foot and a decorative medallion at the top of the boot that helps secure the strapping. A very basic undershirt between skin and a black hardened-leather cuirass with simple yellow-gold detailing. A tall grey cowl with leather strapping attaches to the cuirass itself, and with a pair of oval-lensed sunglasses does a good job of hiding his expression.

Over top, a long, ankle-length heavy red coat evocative of a haori, with a thick collar/front edging of blue edged with white. A pair of buckled straps at the end of each sleeve allows the wide sleeve to be pulled closed not unlike the standard yoroi hitatare worn under armor. His right forearm is bound from the wrist halfway up and covered over the back of his forearm with a bracer made of three plates, his right hand gloved with black leather. On his left shoulder is a pauldron of hardened brown leather, finely tooled and decorated.

The coat is held closed with a wide belt of scaled grey-green under double straps of brown leather, which is covered on the sides and back with a protective layer of steel detailing and blue lamellar plates. At his belt he carries a large jug, held with braided leather straps and a cord of decorative beading.

PSYCHOLOGY.

FEAR/S: failure, letting others down, enclosed spaces, losing himself to becoming a fiend

ASPIRATION/S: When he was younger, he was far more idealistic in some ways - he wanted to help people, to protect, and he did. The main ideal of that aspiration didn’t change as he got older, but the scope did. It became not so much an aspiration as a hope, a desperate goal to frantically grasp at even as it slipped through his fingers.

POSITIVE TRAITS: Determined, protective, intelligent, enduring, loyal, forthright (younger).

NEGATIVE TRAITS: Bossy. Prideful. Stubborn. Acerbic. Secretive. Can and will walk right over you if you stand between him and his goal.

MBTI: ISTJ - The Logistician

ENNEAGRAM: Type 8 - The Challenger

ZODIAC: Aries (sun) - Virgo (moon)

TAROT: Justice (young), Death (in-game)

TEMPERAMENT: Choleric

SOUL TYPE/S: Hunter (with Thinker/Helper/Leader all tied for second place)

ANIMAL: well the test was terribly wrong for him but the closest thing there was Rhino, though that one underestimates his mental capabilities (many thanks to B-chan for helping me scour the choices)

VICE/S: This man can hold grudges. Usually big ones, but sometimes he can get in a snit and be very petty (see: the stop at the Macalania Travel Agency where Tidus calls him ‘old’ and Auron stops talking, turns away with a hrmf and a snide remark and then won’t even look at Tidus for the remainder of the stay). After his death, self-loathing is a serious vice as well, one that wasn’t present before (or at least until the very end of his life).

FAITH: Once, he believed in Yevon. Now, that couldn’t be further from the case. What faith he once had was thoroughly crushed.

GHOSTS?: As an Unsent, he himself is one, after a fashion. Even if he wasn’t, fiends would fit the definition well enough. In Spira, ghosts are not so much a matter of superstition as they are a natural part of the world; it is why summoners are needed to Send souls to the farplane, and the existence of fiends and unsent are abject proof.

AFTERLIFE?: Yes. As with ghosts, this is not so much a matter of faith as it is natural and evident. While one can debate whether the images the living see of their loved ones on the Farplane are a projection or truly their souls, that does not deny the truth that one can visit the Farplane itself.

REINCARNATION?: Yes, though mostly in the less comforting knowledge that one can become a fiend after death. A truly new life… he’s less certain of the possibility, though he’d like to believe.

ALIENS?: He’s been to and lived in a world created from dreams and set foot on the alternate plane of the afterlife. He’s inclined to think that anything is possible. There are so many stars out there, of course some other worlds with people on them are out there too. It just doesn’t have any bearing on his world here and now.

POLITICAL ALIGNMENT: For much of his life, Lawful Neutral/Good and a supporter as well as part of the reigning religious oligarchy/theocracy. Later and near the end of his life, as well as his unlife, Neutral Good/True Neutral and in (at first) subtle opposition to the established Church and then actively attempting its complete overthrow.

ECONOMIC PREFERENCE: He never really had much of a need or want for material goods. He always had a few treasured possessions, but between his personality and his lifestyle he never accumulated many ‘things’. After he dies, he has even less to his name, but he’s content with remaining that way. He travels, feeling out of place, and so keeps his pack light rather than gathering and keeping objects. As he doesn’t spend much, he doesn’t particularly want for money.

SOCIOPOLITICAL POSITION: He’s… famous, being the (a) Legendary Guardian, but that doesn’t really afford him anything other than awe, and occasionally a free room. He stays out of politics once Yevon is brought low. It’s up to the people who will live for the future to determine it, after all.

EDUCATION LEVEL: Once he was dedicated to the Church of Yevon at 8 years old, he was granted good schooling along with all the other child-acolytes and training to enter the ranks of the warrior monks. Before that, he didn’t have anything in the way of formal schooling and was illiterate, though he’d been learning practical skills for some time. He was of an age that he was starting to try his hand at trades and would have chosen one to apprentice to had circumstances not changed his fate.

FAMILY.

FATHER: (deceased)

MOTHER: (deceased)

EXTENDED FAMILY: brother (Feron - deceased)

SIGNIFICANT OTHER(S): none (verse-dependent)

NAME MEANING/S: high mountain/mountain of strength (Hebrew); gold (aur) - a divine ending/death (on) (Old Celtic/Welsh); gold (aurum - Latin) gilded/gilt/noble (aureus - Latin); dawn (Áron - Quenya)

HISTORICAL CONNECTION: What familial history he may once have had is lost. The Church broke its ties with him, and he with it. What connection he has to history is his part in the story of Braska’s and Yuna’s Pilgrimages, until those stories are told no more.

FAVORITES.

BOOK: He likes histories and tales, whether fiction or not - a good story. The ending of it does not matter so much as what happens during the book.

MOVIE: He’s not much of a movie person, actually, but as with books, he’d prefer one with solid characters and a good story to it over anything else.

DEITY: He’s not fond of gods these days, self-proclaimed or otherwise.

MONTH: October

SEASON: Autumn

PLACE: Somewhere not the South. He prefers cooler climes and does terribly in hot weather, growing irritable the longer he has to deal with it.

WEATHER: Sun out but clouds in the sky, with a crisp breeze blowing.

SOUND: Gentle rainfall, the crunch of leaves and evergreen needles under boots, soft humming.

SCENT/S: Cedar wood, pine, stone in the forest slightly grown over with moss, the brightness of a mountain stream’s spray.

TASTE/S: Seasoned game meats, fish; will steal your berry tarts.

FEEL/S: Wood and tree bark, slightly textured paper, braided fabric, simple glazed pottery.

ANIMAL/S: Auron is most definitely a dog person. He’s also fond of flying creatures, and you’ll often see me associate him with the red-tailed hawk.

NUMBER: Three. It is a good, solid number, is it not?

COLOR: He likes red, favouring it enough to choose the colour for his coat, and in general likes autumn and winter tones.

EXTRA.

TALENTS: planning, combat, snarky commentary

BAD AT: Magic. White, Black, Blue, Time, it doesn’t matter. Absolute shit at it. I have a headcanon that he doesn’t even have the capability for it, backed by the fact that the abilities in his grid is essentially all physical - the debuff-abilities can be explained as ki-type physical energies rather than magic. He’d like to be able to cast even as little as a simple Cure, but it’s beyond him. Also bad at empathising.

TURN-ONS: Entirely dependent on the person, and pretty much null in general unless he’s romantically attracted to or involved with that person.

TURN-OFFS: Arrogance, superiority, degradation, arguments, pain, excessive testing of his patience (a little is fine but don’t push it too far-), et al.

HOBBIES: He doesn’t really have much in the way of hobbies. There’s almost always been something to keep him busy, and so he never had much time to develop fun down-time things. He does whittle, if there’s dead time and he’s feeling inclined. It’s an easy enough thing that keeps his hands busy, and he can just pick up wood wherever he’s settling down to camp and discard whatever he makes if he doesn’t care to keep it, so materials are never really an issue save for keeping his knife sharp.

TROPES: BFS; Dead All Along; Determinator; The Atoner; The Stoic/Not So Stoic; Taking the Bullet; Tall, Dark, and Snarky, I Gave My Word

AESTHETIC TAGS: I actually don’t have a dedicated aesthetic tag for him and I really should. Hmm. I’ll get on that…